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ACIM Weekly Reader | Christ in TrainingChrist in Training — First Excerpt The other day I had this fantasy. I entered a musty old book store. It had one of those glass and wooden doors with a little bell on top that jingled as I went in. There was an ancient-looking man sitting behind the counter, reading, of course. Along with piles of books, there was an assortment of other things on the shelves, sea shells, old tin toys, cigar boxes, all kinds of dusty relics. I began to browse, and came to a section on spiritual themes. A little book caught my attention; I pulled it down. It was called Christ in Training. I felt a rush of excitement. I had always been looking for the "magic book" that would change my life. Of course I knew there was no such book, but …  In spite of my doubts, I said to myself, "This is a treasure. Maybe this is IT." The first paragraph began: If you are reading this, which you obviously are, your schooling has already begun. You have started to realize you are Christ In Training. The next steps you take will lead you into a more conscious awareness of what being the Christ is all about. Of course we have a very obvious role model in the person of Jesus who became the Christ. He came to the full realization of who He is, a Son of God. He let us know that becoming the Christ was not restricted to Him alone, but he suggested that 'greater works than this shall you do.' The man called Jesus, with whom most of us are familiar, is often referred to as Jesus Christ. "Christ" is not His last name! Christ, or Christos, in Greek, means the Anointed One. There is the name, Jesus, and then there is the description, Christ, the Anointed One. Jesus became the Christ. He became so deeply involved in God, the Source, and the Father that He became One with It. He became as He said, "One with the Father." John 10:30 He entered into a realm of awareness we sometimes refer to as the "Christ Consciousness." This Consciousness is the state of mind and being in which you completely recognize your Oneness with God. There is no separation. Since there is no separation for you, there is no separation for anyone. Jesus not only taught that He is the Way to this awareness, but also dedicated His life to showing how we could also obtain that awareness. Jesus dedicated Himself to being a living example of the Christ Consciousness. He dedicated himself to teach us how we also could be One with the Father. H.G. Wells is credited with this statement about Jesus: "Either there was something insane about this man, or our hearts are still too small for his message." That thought forms the short definition of Christ Training. Christ Training is meant to open and widen our hearts, to make them big enough to contain the truth of who we really are. There were some fascinating chapters in the book about things like casting out demons, changing water into wine, healing sickness, and making one meal to feed over 5,000 people. I had no idea what I would do with that information if I had it, but I wanted it anyway. I went to those dramatic chapters immediately. The pages were blank; there was nothing on them! Annoyed, I went back to the introduction of the book. In bold script right below what I had already read, it stated: Only the parts of this book which you are ready for will be available to you. Many of you are still caught in drama and glamour; you are probably reading this now because some chapters appeared as empty pages. You most likely turned to sections of this book like "Walking on Water" or "Raising the Dead." When you are ready, you can read them, for now, know that as exciting as these thoughts might be, they are electives in this course of Christ Training. They are not necessary, and in some ways they are not even very important. Let go of your drama and your need to impress, move on to what is truly essential. You see, you think you know what you need to learn, but you do not even know who you are. The essence of being Christ In Training is to fully discover the truth of who you are, God's child. The teaching is to know that Truth so fully and so completely that you will always live out of that reality of being a Divine Child of God. Then you will be like Jesus on the mountain in what is sometimes referred to as the Transfiguration, where "his face shined as the sun." Mat 17:2 To perceive yourself as a Child of God is to go beyond all ego barriers; it is to go beyond the personal self. To truly love, you must be willing to let go of all that you think you are. You are encouraged to let go of all your little identities like banker, lawyer, teacher, and other professions. You are encouraged to even let go of the ones that are so precious to you like parent and grandparent, and even the ones that seem essential to your existence, like your identification with your body, and what kind of shape it is in, your senses, your intellect and how it works, your emotions and feelings, and all those stockpiles of memories good and bad. These emotions and feelings remain as important aspect of your life, but for Christ In Training, you must remember, none of these are who you are. "Why training is necessary at all?" you might ask. Well, the most uncomplicated answer to that question is, "You forgot who you are." Here is a simple view of how everyone "forgets" to some extent. The Christ In Training instructions that follow this explanation are how you can begin to "remember." The Necessity for Training We hear this all the time: "God is inside of you." As the New Testament puts it, "The kingdom of heaven is within you." An Eastern tradition states, "God is in you as you." Well, if that is the truth and you believe it, how does that truth affect you? How does that reality influence your life and your actions? It seems if we really believed "God is within me (and you)," and acted from this belief the world would be a tremendously different place. The "God-within" theme is reminiscent of an old Hindu story of creation. After the world was fashioned the gods looked upon it and saw that "it was good," and then sensed there was something more to do. They decided to conceive a creation like themselves, and they would place some of their divinity inside each new being. So humankind was formed, and divinity placed in each new life. For some time everyone recognized this divine and sacred nature within themselves and one another, but then people started to forget and began treating themselves and others badly. The gods were horrified at this desecration of divinity, and although they could not take this divine gift away from humans, they could hide it, so it would no longer be neglected and mistreated. After a long discussion one of the oldest and wisest of the gods exclaimed, "They will find this gift practically any place we hide it, so we will conceal this divinity within their hearts for that is the last place they will look." As we shall see later, many of us spend our lives looking for God in all the wrong places. God lives inside of you and me. How does that work? The first thing to keep in mind is that God is not a thing or even a person. God is the Infinite Loving Creative Energy of the Universe. Here is the way Emilie Caddie put it: "God is Spirit, or the creative energy that is the cause of all visible things… God is not a being or person having life, intelligence, love, power. God is that invisible, intangible, but very real something we call life. God is perfect love and infinite power. God is the total of these, the total of all good, whether manifested or unexpressed." We can be the expression of that energy. The German mystic Meister Eckhart suggested that God has planted Himself in our souls; that the seed of God is in us. Scott Peck in The Road Less Traveled resonated with Eckhart by saying, "If the bud of consciousness that grows from the root of the unconscious God can become God itself, then God will have assumed a new life form. This is the meaning of our individual existence. We are born that we might become, as a conscious individual, a new life form of God." What we sometimes call "the Soul," is our true Self, the Self that contains and reflects the Divine. Carl Jung along with many other spiritual teachers expressed the idea that, "You are much more than who or what you think you are. Your idea of self is usually limited to your narrow identity as an ego. You are much more than that. The Kingdom of heaven is within you." In a very real way whenever you are loving, compassionate, positively creative, you are experiencing and expressing 'Godness' in you and through you. The expression of these qualities of God is also an expression of God Itself. Now here is where the human experience becomes so interesting. We have a choice to act from the qualities of God within us, what we call the Christ Consciousness, or we can respond to life from our fretful, fearful little ego. Rather than trying to define the ego, right now, just get a sense of the choices you have every moment: you can be upset or you can be peaceful; you can be vengeful or you can be forgiving; you can be petty or you can be magnanimous; you can be critical or you can be empowering. There are choices like this every moment. It does not take a genius to look at the world to see the choices we are making and how most of us are responding to life. What is puzzling is why anyone would choose not to honor their 'Godness?' It seems like the most wonderful and powerful choice you can make. Why would you ever choose gossiping over saying nice things about somebody or self-criticism over self-love or being mean over being kind? Why would you choose anything over being One with God? It's a great question. To be continued . . . .
There is no paid advertising on the Weekly Reader. It's not for sale. If you see it here, it's only because I like it. Naturally, what I like also includes the stuff Carmen & I come up with. – Tom |
Friday, October 24, 2008
ACIM Weekly Reader vol. 1 no. 8
