| CwG Weekly Bulletin #372 Who is this man called Jesus? | |||
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| December 18, 2009 | |||
| NOTE: The Weekly Bulletin is sent free of charge to anyone who asks for it. It is a publication of the ReCreation Foundation, a non-profit organization undertaking the work of sharing the message of Conversations with God with the world. That message is that the purpose of life is to recreate ourselves anew in the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever we held about Who We Are. In This Issue... Notes from Neale The CwG Reader Holiday Special The Calendar Notes from Neale... My dear friends... This is our last Weekly Bulletin before Christmas Day. So I'd like to look at a question this week that people all over the world, people of all faiths and traditions, have been asking for a very long time. For over 2,000 years, in fact... Who was this man called Jesus? Yesterday I was listening to a Christmas Carol sung by Bing Crosby and I found myself turning to my wife and saying, "Imagine the kind of person you must have been to have people still singing about you a couple of millennia later." "Yes," she agreed. "Pretty special." We all know, of course, that Jesus was the Son of God; that he was Divinity made into Humanity. Yet so, too, are we all. Every human being is Divine; we are all the Daughters and Sons of God. We are all God's Offspring; God's Issue. We have all proceeded from The Most High, we are all made up of the Same Stuff, and we are all Singularizations of The Singularity. What, then, made Jesus so incredibly different that he stands out among human beings, all of whom are Individuations of the Divine? Could it be that he knew Who He Was? Yes, I believe that's it, and more. He not only knew Who He Was, he acted like it. He embraced it. He reflected it. He demonstrated it. He, quite literally, embodied it. Jesus Christ brought into his body, mind, and soul the Divinity that is the natural inheritance of all of us. It wasn't this way with him all the days of his life. We know, for instance, that he spent 40 days and 40 nights in the desert, searching, looking, delving deeply into his inner yearning, his inner knowing. Some say it was much longer than 40 days. We have heard of "the lost years of Christ." We have heard that he spent much time with the Essenses, an esoteric sect seeking the experience of a Higher Way of Being. Whatever is true about his journey, it is clear that Jesus challenged himself to step into another version of Who He Was and Who He Intended to Be. He dared to explore the outer limits of what it means to be Human and what it means to be Divine --- at the same time. He dared to examine what was "real" and what was not about his day-to-day experience; he dared to drop his "story" --- all the stuff he was "making up" in his head --- about himself and about others, about why things happen and how things happen and whether things should have happened. Jesus dared to drop his Story and to adopt his True Identity. Why did Jesus do this? Well, I hypothesize that, like all of us, Jesus felt a natural impulse toward the Divine. Like all of us, Jesus experienced, at the heart of his being, an unexplained sense of Oneness, of Unity, with all things; an undefined but very real inner Awareness that he was more --- much more --- than he was allowing himself to be...and that there was more to life than he was experiencing --- having nothing to do with what was going on outside, and everything to do with what was going on inside, of his Being. The result of all this is that Jesus saw the events and occurrences of his life as serving him, rather than viewing himself as serving life. He saw every thought, word, and deed as an act of Self-Definition. He used life as an opportunity to experience himself in a particular way. He chose how he wanted to experience himself in every moment, ahead of time. Then he stepped into the moments of his life, seeing them all as perfectly coordinated outer opportunities to embrace the inner opportunity that awaited him. Yet the true miracle of Jesus, in the end, had as much, if not more, to do with his outer world than with his inner world. For when Jesus came from his deep inner sense of Self Within, he placed into his outer world such a demonstration of that, that the world never forgot what it saw. In short, Jesus modeled for us what it means to Be Who We Really Are. Now, let's look at how he did so. He began by loving without condition. First, himself. Then, everyone...and everything...else. He saw it all as Perfect. And therefore he saw that nothing needed forgiving, and everything merely yearned to be blessed. Blessing, Jesus came to understand, meant covering everyone and everything with the Energy of Pure Essence --- and, by overlaying it, submerging it, in this Energy (which, by the way, he understood emanated from him), transforming everything he encountered, and all those whose lives he touched. In this way, Jesus gave people back to themselves. Others, in his presence, had the experience of awakening from a deep sleep; even of being roused from the dead. Which brings me to "us." I experience that many, many human beings are among the Walking Dead. They are dead to Who They Are, dead to what Life is truly about, dead to the miracle that IS Life Itself. They are "dead to the world," having no idea who they are, where they are, why they are where they are, or what they intend to do about any of that. They are sleep-walking, imagining that life is happening TO them, not THROUGH them. Many, many human beings do not experience life as a series of decisions, but as a series of dilemmas; not as a series of choices, but as a series of chances. You take your chances, you don't make your choices. Yet I experience that all of the dilemmas I face today are the result of all of the choices I made yesterday. The question is not whether I made those choices, but whether I made them consciously or unconsciously. But how can I make my choices consciously if I have no idea who I am, where I am, why I am where I am, and what I am doing here? I can't. Therefore, I need someone to remind me. That's where you come in. And that's where Jesus came in. Jesus said to everyone, "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you." He said, "I and the Father are one, and ye are brothers." He said, "Why are you so amazed? These things, and more, shall you do also." He remembered his own Divinity --- and he spent his life seeking to help us remember ours. And that is why we remember him to this day with songs of celebration and words of praise. We remember him because he remembered us. He loved us as if we were Divine --- precisely because we are. He forgave quickly and easily, because he knew that there was really nothing TO forgive, save our forgetfulness. And he was aware that once WE became aware of how wonderful we all truly are, we would see how wonderful everyone else is, and on that day we would resolve never to do anything unforgiveable again. So let us celebrate today, in word and song, the life of this extraordinary being named Jesus. And --- as he, himself, would have us do --- let us celebrate, as well, the Christ that dwells within us. The part of us that is Buddha, understanding and thus ending suffering. The part of us that us Moses, leading those we love out of the wilderness. The part of us that is Muhammad, the prophet who shares great wisdom about life and how to live it fruitfully and with blessings. Let us celebrate the part of us that is Krishna, the part of us that is Baha'u'llah, the part of us that is and remains Forever One with all the saints and sages of all religions and of every belief. Let us, this day, be Jewish and Janist, Buddhist and Brahmin, Muslim and Mormon, Confucian and Christian. Let us, today, be all of it. For that is what it means to be HUMAN. And when we are fully human, we will become fully Divine...and THEN, at last, we will create peace of earth, and goodwill to all, everywhere. Merry Christmas, everyone. And blessèd be. Love and Hugs, Neale. | |||
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| | Ashland, OR Contact: 352-442-2244 - willemail@aol.com | Foundation |
| | Changing Ideas About God, Religion and Humanity: Creating Global Coherence UMC Lake Merritt, Oakland, CA Contact: 208-344-2682 - linda@schoolofthenewspirituality.com | University |
| | A Retreat with Neale Donald Walsch and Mary O'Malley Molokai, Hawaii Contact: 206-550-2524 - sumara1@verizon.net | O'Malley |
| | Kailua-Kona, Hawaii Contact: 808/447-9228 - willemail@aol.com | Being Expo |
| | Three days of intense study of the major points of CwG Ashland Oregon Contact: Will at 352-442-2244 - will@cwg.org | Foundation |
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Hace un par de meses tuve la fortuna de estrechar la mano de una sobreviviente del Holocausto, Ruth Glasberg Gold. Ella nació en Bukovina, Rumania (hoy Ucrania), y fue deportada, a los 11 años, a un campo de concentración en Transnistria, donde perecieron sus padres y su único hermano.Después de la guerra se unió a una comuna juvenil sionista y escapó de la Rumania comunista en un barco carguero, naufragando en una isla griega. Fue rescatada por los británicos, quienes la detuvieron en un campo en Chipre. Un año más tarde fue liberada y partió rumbo a Palestina. En 1958 se casó, dejando Israel para instalarse en Bogotá, Colombia, en donde nacieron sus hijos. En 1972, la familia emigró a Miami, Florida, donde enviudó en 1982.Ruth participó en el Estudio Internacional de la Persecución Organizada de Niños, fue cofundadora de la Organización Internacional de Mujeres en los Estados Unidos, fundadora del primer grupo de apoyo para niños sobrevivientes del Holocausto, en Florida, y es una oradora frecuente sobre temas del Holocausto.Su testimonio de vida habla del coraje para triunfar, contra la memoria de uno de los hechos más atroces de la historia humana. Da vida a aquellas palabras de Pablo Neruda, quien escribiera lo siguiente en su misiva “Tú eres el resultado de ti mismo:“No culpes a nadie, nunca te quejes de nada ni de nadie porque fundamentalmente tú has hecho tu vida. Acepta la responsabilidad de edificarte a ti mismo y el valor de acusarte en el fracaso para volver a empezar, corrigiéndote”.“El triunfo del verdadero hombre surge de las cenizas del error. Nunca te quejes del ambiente o de los que te rodean, hay quienes en tu mismo ambiente supieron vencer, las circunstancias son buenas o malas según la voluntad o fortaleza de tu corazón.“No te quejes de tu pobreza, de tu soledad o de tu suerte, enfrenta con valor y acepta que de una u otra manera son el resultado de tus actos y la prueba que has de ganar. No te amargues con tu propio fracaso ni se lo cargues a otro, acéptate ahora o seguirás justificándote como un niño, recuerda que cualquier momento es bueno para comenzar y que ninguno es tan terrible para claudicar.“No olvides que la causa de tu presente es tu pasado, como la causa de tu futuro es tu presente. Piensa menos en tus problemas y más en tu trabajo y tus problemas sin alimento morirán. Recuerda que dentro de ti hay una fuerza que todo puede hacerlo, reconociéndote a ti mismo, más libre y fuerte, y dejarás de ser un títere de las circunstancias, porque tú mismo eres el destino y nadie puede sustituirte en la construcción de tu destino.“Levántate y mira por las montañas y respira la luz del amanecer. Tú eres parte de la fuerza de la vida”.Y es que el semblante de Ruth Glasberg, su labor altruista, su amabilidad, el amor que manifiesta ejemplifican este exhorto de Neruda: tú eres el resultado de ti mismo; a cada momento nos re-creamos a voluntad propia.Cerrando este 2009 te invito a re-pensar las ideas que tienes sobre ti, sobre tu pasado, sobre este año que termina y que consideres: ¿Qué nuevas creencias sobre tu persona pueden crear una renovación interna? ¿Qué pensamientos pueden re-crearte e impulsarte a ser el mejor profesionista, el mejor amigo, el mejor miembro de tu familia y de tu comunidad?Y finalmente: ¿qué decides dejar atrás para avanzar con determinación?
