Earlier
this week I recognized that I had spent the previous few days going through the
motions of my life as if sleep walking.
I was showing up and doing what I needed to do to take care of tasks,
but I was not really present. I realized
this only after a friend asked me about it, and pointed out that I seemed preoccupied and withdrawn. Once I was willing to admit to myself that I
had been unavailable and detached, I became aware that I had fallen back into
old patterns of thinking and behaviors that are based in fear. It amazes me how quickly and easily I can sometimes
revert from being connected to the powerful being I know I am, back to acting
as if I am the limited ego-identified human being that my family and society
conditioned me to be, and that I accepted in order to fit in and feel
safe. And, I feel dismayed at times that
I don’t yet immediately recognize when I am doing it. My greatest desire is to know the truth of me
and live from that truth every moment of every day. When I don’t fulfill that desire, I feel the
negative emotional impact.
We
are conditioned from birth to accept a limited concept of ourselves, and we
often suffer because we are in bondage to it, whether or not we are conscious
of it. Through realization of truth we
enjoy freedom from the limiting myths, messages and beliefs that our families,
society and churches often thrust upon us, and to which we can become enslaved. As Jesus said,
“You shall know the Truth, and
the Truth shall set you free.”
-- John 8:32
And, knowing the truth is not enough; as
Unity’s fifth principle tells us, we must also live the truth we know.
When
we do not live from our truth we withhold, not only from ourselves, but also from
the world; the unique aspect of the only begotten of God that each of us is. I am reminded of the words of Jesus,
"For
this I was born and for this I came into the world; to bear witness to the
truth.”
-- John 18:37
The truth is that each of us is the Christ in expression
and we bear witness to that truth as we realize it and commit to living it in
the world.
This
is yet another reminder of the reason I chose my current Sunday morning series,
“Wake up with Jesus” and why I believe it is so valuable to our understanding. The purpose of this series is to help us
connect with the transcendent reality of being.
Our freedom, both individual and collective, lies in the realization of
our true nature. As we review the Jesus
story as presented in the Canonical Gospels in the Bible, we can see a man who
realized his truth, stated his mission and lived it. His story, as a metaphor for our own awakening,
reveals how we can relate the events in Jesus’ life to our own similar
experiences, and we can choose to know our truth and set ourselves free as we bear
witness to the truth of our divine being.
This
past Sunday, we explored Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist as a metaphor for
our willingness to stand against the societal mores and religious dogma and lay
down the limiting concept of ourselves, to surrender it, and to welcome the
cleansing and clearing of Spirit represented by water. And, once cleansed, to allow ourselves to
accept and embrace the transcendent life of Spirit that is our truth. Jesus’ baptism was not simply a baptism by
water, but also a baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Just as Jesus was “anointed” with the Holy Spirit as he came up out of
waters of the Jordan River, we too are “anointed,” not by an external power or
force, but by the innate presence and power of the Holy Spirit within our own
consciousness. The Holy Spirit is
eternally present and awaiting our acceptance and recognition of it. It is the guiding principle for our lives in
Spirit. Charles Fillmore, co-founder of
Unity, said in describing the Holy Spirit,
“It is the movement of Spirit…it is
through the help of the Holy Spirit that humankind overcomes.”
As we accept that we are anointed with the
Holy Spirit, we can choose, moment by moment to surrender to it and to overcome
our limited beliefs about ourselves.
Receiving
our baptism and anointing does not mean that we will never again be faced with
life’s challenges. On the contrary, we
will continue to be in the world and we will be met every day with
opportunities to choose how we will respond. We bear witness to the truth when we are willing
to stand in the power and strength of who we are, and respond by speaking and
acting from that place.
Please
join us this Sunday as we continue to “Wake up with Jesus”. We will explore his forty days in the desert
facing the temptations of Satan, and we will see how Jesus’ experience mirrors
our own.
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