|
It is with gratitude today
that I again write from the
context of what I have been
calling the glorious concept of
Unity.
With the facts, the actual
words and meanings being clouded
by legend, myth, and word of
mouth accounts, our conjectures
as to what Jesus was teaching and
what He meant must depend on
context.
I love the contexctual
interpretation of the Unity
Movement and my own personal
feelings that the movement freed
me to seek of the Spirit and
freed all persons in the same
way!
The context Unity finds, and
which I find, is that God is
Love, that Jesus is not God's
only Son, but His only
begotten Son, that is, the
only one who has completely
accepted His Sonship, the only
one who has become completely one
with God, the Father. (I would
not disbelieve, however, that
others may have followed Him into
this oneness.)
Specifically what I am
asserting here is that a thorough
reading of Jesus' references to
heaven, kingdom, My Father and
The Father, framed against
familiarity with all of the
context of the New Testament, has
led Unity, and me, into an
interpretation that I think is
truly glorious because it places
everyone of us in the position of
feeling God's love, not His
condemnation, and sets us on a
life course of following in
Jesus' footsteps.
Unity's concept is glorious, I
believe, because it is a Movement
that believes "miracles are all
possible, even the Virgin Birth -
what is too difficult for God?."
A point that I have made again
and again in the many years of my
ministry is that Unity's
Christianity is all-inclusive,
inclusive of all persons and
their ethnicity and religions and
all other persuasions. This we
believe is the Christianity of
Jesus. Jesus often is quoted as
referring to My Father, but He is
also quoted as using The Father.
But perhaps the greatest accuracy
of all is in His model prayer
which uses Our Father!
When I speak of context, I am
meaning to square the words
attributed to Jesus with the
accounts of His ministry, His
actions, His manners - the kind
of man He was depicted to be. Was
He a hellfire and damnation
preacher, a brutal man seeking to
punish people, a man seeking to
set up a Jewish kingdom?
No, He is shown to be a
forgiving, loving, accepting man,
a man who takes children up in
His arms and loves them, a man
who includes the people of the
whole world in God's family. But
He was not a weak, sniveling
idealist cowering before people
exerting power. In fact, Pilate
could find no fault in Him, and
the Roman soldiers standing at
the foot of the Cross realized
the greatness of the man they had
helped to crucify.
For years and years I have had
the feeling that Jesus' "many
mansions" may have been His way
of speaking of what today even
scientists, astrophysicists,
postulate: that there may be
infinite dimensions involved in
our incredible universe. I would
understand how some people think
that Jesus came to Earth as an
advanced soul from a higher
dimension (which He may have been
referring to as Heaven and the
abode of The Father.) This would
seem to me to be a better
explanation than to speak of Him
as God's only Son. It would also
help to answer the accusation
from some persons that Jesus must
be dead, must not have
resurrected, because He isn't
here in a physical body. Charles
Fillmore constantly spoke of
regeneration as the process of
putting on the Christ
consciousness, the same Mind
"that was also in Christ Jesus."
Though he always expressed the
idea that a person need not go
through the experience of death
if he attained this
consciousness, I find myself
feeling strongly these days that
he was really thinking of being
regenerated into a higher
dimension rather than living in
the same physical body forever.
(My ladies in the Toronto class
of years ago would approve of
this because when I spoke to them
of living forever in their
present body, some of them said,
"You mean I have to be married to
the same man forever?") No
comment.
Now I want to make the point
that is behind my intention in
writing this piece: my personal
experience with religion has
included a lifelong struggle with
otherworldliness. Though I long
ago opted for reincarnation
instead of heaven, for years I
have realized that I have had a
sort of otherworldly problem,
namely thinking more about life
beyond this present incarnation
than fully embracing and enjoying
the now.
For several years I have been
breaking through this problem. I
still feel it is all-important to
live in the consciousness of our
eternal life as a soul, but I am
feeling more and more that a life
well lived in the present takes
care of what comes after so it is
not necessary to dwell very much
on the afterlife.
So today, when I speak of
Jesus as I have, I want to convey
the idea that He was not
otherworldly. Rather He was
involved in other values. "This
world" to Jesus did not mean this
physical or human incarnation,
but the misinterpretation of the
essential significance of this
life: materialism. He taught us
not to live our lives attempting
just to lay up material
treasures, but to build the
treasure of learning how to make
use of our spiritual qualities,
our God-given qualities and
talents, what Charles Fillmore
brilliantly conceived of as our
twelve powers (disciples). What
this means then is that, as we
keep focused on believing in our
spiritual capacities, potentials,
possibilities (harmonized with
the same developmental process in
all others) we are building a
consciousness that will carry us
into higher and higher dimensions
(levels of experience) as we
continue to live as God provides
us opportunities.
That's it.
Don
|
