Manifestation

The Biblical story-line traces God’s cultivation of the strength within us to regulate the primitive biological drives: survival and procreation. Brought into the world by a woman manifesting perfect feminine love, Jesus manifested perfect masculine love and conquered death on the cross. The two were existence proofs that the human form was capable of channeling the will that Moses was warned “No man may look upon and live.”

They were to be understood, however, as existence proofs. As Jesus encouraged, there is “nothing that I do that you cannot do as well.”

So, why, after two thousand years, do you still demand that he bear your sins? Do you not grasp the continuity between “I will die for the forgiveness of sin” and “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”?

Your hesitance might seem rational under the distinction drawn in Jesus’ incarnation. He is the Son of God. Of course, there is the seventh beatitude: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” Any and all should aspire to be Daughter or Son. But the drama surrounding Jesus’ manifestation was unique. The expectation, expressed by heavenly emissaries and earthly prophets, was that he would heal the divide between heaven and earth. Your way is not thus prepared, is it? No, and so you avert your gaze from God and place your burdens on Jesus.

How to overcome this block? One is found in Islam, in which Jesus’ role in redemption is deprecated. Rather than a shepherd, he is an advocate for you on the day of judgment. Christianity, however, is the endpoint of the journey, and the greatest resistance to grace is found in the teachings of those that profit from the desperation of their flock. How to penetrate this deep-set institutional conditioning?

This, then, is the path taken upon return: returning without knowledge of divinity. Living a life as a human, with human perceptions and expectations, humiliating himself to all of your excesses and self indulgence, and working his way to a proof that love is the answer.

This is the journey described in the posts that follow. It is broken into decades, each decade reflecting a theme in the progression of the Vedic chakras. While a teaching from India, recognize that the chakras are also a sacred seven, a progression of perfection in the service to love.

In this process, two coincidences are critical. Conceived in the New Mexican mountain range that the natives began calling “Sangre de Christo” in the second half of the twentieth century, I was born in 1960. This was the year that oral contraceptives first became publicly available, freeing us from the procreative consequences and moral obligations that historically have attached to sex. Secondly, the sixties saw political media invade our homes, nightly exposing us to visual evidence of human cruelty that built walls of fear into our lives.

This “teachable moment” was the context in which I cultivated the garden of my mind. Enter in.

• Survival – The “decade of love” was littered with the corpses of its exemplars. How to avoid their fate?
• Motivation – Besieged by fears of civil, economic, and environmental collapse, should we seek refuge in pleasure and wealth? If not, what is the compass that should guide us?
• Vocation – Given that first use of any technology is to wage war, how to reconcile science with the expression of love?
• Healing – Can you fix other people’s problems for them?
• Truth – Idealism confronts politics.
• Self-determination – How to set boundaries with people that believe that society has granted them the right to decide who you are?
• Liberation – If you want something done right, do it yourself.