At the end of our days on this earth, after all our successes and failures, the measure of worth for our life will be how much we have loved. Ammachi
It is the nature of man to seek happiness. The Mystic Christ is an exploration of this instinctive pursuit. This inquiry naturally leads directly to love because love and love alone makes life beautiful. Love is the wine of divine intoxication that fills the cup of our mortal lives with the happiness that we seek. It is the love we give to God and others that makes our lives full of meaning and pregnant with joy as each moment so lived gives birth to the splendor of the Infinite Reality.
Within the all-encompassing embrace of this Eternal Presence are other things we must consider in order for love to be fulfilled. These are the attitude of the mind toward God, man and our own self. So it must be said that The Mystic Christ is also an exploration of the mind. We will undertake an introspective examination to discover why love (and therefore happiness) has been lost and how it may be rediscovered. Our measuring stick will be the life and teachings of Jesus.
We will also embark on a quest for innocence because innocence is the fertile soil in which love sprouts, flourishes, blooms and yields the sweet fruit of immortal bliss. Without innocence, we are left with the hard barren rock of pompous arrogance and its twin - guilt and shame; the fruit of this is no-happiness or suffering.
To find love, it will be necessary to cut away the knotted jungle of our own self-centered existence. This task is not for the faint at heart. However, it is the only way for us to truly love God and to love one another. There is no other path to salvation. Cutting away this jungle of deluded narcissistic self-absorption is what Jesus had in mind when he said:
"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Matthew 10:34 , NIV
The “sword,”in this case, exists solely for the liberation of the soul that it may soar into the boundless sky of love. It is a sword of uncompromising compassion.
We will examine this essential question of faith: Are we all separate from each other and God, or are we connected? If we are separate, then it is every man for himself; get yours first before someone else gets it. If we are connected, then our attitude and treatment of others will be kind and compassionate. Regardless of our decision, it is absolutely certain we will reap what we sow.
If we are truly connected, then we must experience this truth inwardly as personal revelation in order for it to affect our lives in any lasting and meaningful way. Furthermore, if this deep personal change is not forthcoming for the practitioners of any faith then the laws, dogma and doctrine of that faith often become the unwitting apocalypse of suffering and despair which history reveals as religious bigotry, persecution and intolerance. During the period of the Inquisition tens of thousands were deprived of their property, banished or executed by burning at the stake because of their beliefs. This attitude still exists today smoldering in the dark depths of our collective unconscious, constantly calling for its consort, ignorance, to unlock the gates of hell and unleash its fury. Bigotry, prejudice, intolerance and ethnic cleansing are but a few of its names. It was this attitude that Jesus challenged at the cost of his own life.
We are trapped in mortal prison cells of flesh and blood cohabiting in the larger prison compound of the world. As a vehicle for liberation, religion reveals a very narrow and arduous path of rebirth and resurrection that ultimately frees the soul from the confines of the prison forever.
Throughout history and in all religions, very few of us have become aware of our own self-perpetuating bondage and still fewer have perceived the need to change as the result of having gripped and shaken the iron bars of our own self-centered prison. Most of us are content to remain, as we are, not realizing that the awful price is separation from God.
Personal spiritual change is painfully difficult. Spiritual change leaves us naked and empty. The thundering waves of radical non-duality revealed by the life and teachings of Jesus Christ will come crashing down on our illusory sand castle of “I” and “mine” which, up to the point of transformation, will have stood basking in the artificial light of endless unfulfilled desires. If this change, this rebirth, this resurrection, this enlightenment, this transformation has not utterly shattered our world and our conception of ourselves, then we are not ripe for the kingdom.
Unless we have realized the temporary nature of the alluring pleasures of the world and unless we have begun to understand that it is the illusory ego, the “I” and the “mine” and its desires, which are the source of our suffering and our separation from God, we will not be able to commit to the painful process of gripping the arrow of ignorance thus pulling it from the flesh of the mind.
Because of this, the profound and transforming teaching which Jesus brought to the world is rejected or ignored by most of us today just as it was by his contemporaries 2000 years ago. The hard sayings of the Master have been diluted by our egocentric self-view or they have simply been ignored.
This book is written for Christians who harbor a feeling of concern sensing that there is more to salvation than simply mouthing the words, “I believe in Jesus.” This book is written for anyone who is willing to embrace the possibility that salvation is a deep and fundamental change that must take place at the very root of the human psyche. This book is written for all seekers who see that Christ was a revolutionary and that a great civil war must be fought on the battlefield of our own mind. This book is written for anyone who has begun to understand that salvation must happen here and now as we labor to bring each moment into the fullness of God’s infinite love.
Available in a 280 page 6"x 9" paperback for $14.95 + Shipping.
