I Am Christ Expressing

For the past several weeks during our Sunday morning services I have been presenting a series of talks entitled “Awaken with Jesus.”  With the help of the book, Resurrecting Jesus – Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic, by Adyashanti, I am exploring the Jesus story as presented by the gospel writers and Paul’s letters in the Bible as a template for our own process of awakening.  As Adyashanti elucidates, from a metaphorical and metaphysical perspective, Jesus’ life represents our individual and collective awakening.  We are awakening from the dream that we are our conditioned consciousness, the myths, messages and beliefs about who we are that we have taken on from our families, society and religion; sometimes referred to as “ego-identification.” We are awakening to our true nature which we call the Christ, also referred to as the ‘I Am’ by Unity co-founder Charles Fillmore.  I have enjoyed exploring the Jesus story from this perspective, and I believe it contains valuable insights for us; however, honestly at times I wonder, “Am I really ready to awaken with Jesus?”

Sure, it sounds good in theory.  We all want to wake up.  We all want to experience enlightenment. We all want to be “saved.”  We all want to experience the promised freedom and peace of awakening from the suffering that we endure as conditioned human beings.  We all want to realize our true nature and live as the empowered beings that we truly are.  Don’t we?  Do we?

I say that I want it, and actually I believe it is all that I truly want.  Ultimately, it is all that any of us wants: It is the soul’s longing for itself.  I want it, and yet I often find myself resisting.  I want it, yet can sometimes be afraid to let go.  I want it, even though I sometimes wonder what will be left of David.  I want it, but only if I can still hold on to a few little pieces of my ego-identified self.  All the while, I know at the core of my being, that if I am to truly awaken I must be willing to let go and allow the Christ, the ‘I Am,’ to be my only awareness.

I am now recognizing that it is not about me.  In fact, in a fully awakened state, we realize that there is not a separate ‘me’; there is only the ‘I Am’ and I am that ‘I Am.’  Awakening is not about awakening within the conditioned consciousness to yet another identification of self, but awakening from identification with or as anything other than our divinity, our Christ nature. 

This truth is portrayed dramatically in the Jesus story when he went with three of his disciples to the top of the mountain and there experienced his transfiguration.  “His face shone like the sun, and his clothes turned white like light.” (Matthew 17:2 Lamsa)  Jesus fully embodied his divinity at that point in his journey.  Unlike Moses in the Hebrew Scriptures who encountered ‘I Am’ in the burning bush, but remained separate from it; Jesus became the Light of Divinity.  In that moment, he realized Oneness.  There was no longer ‘I Am’ (God) and Jesus, but ‘I Am’ as Jesus.

As we choose to awaken we may find ourselves experiencing moments of Oneness, and then times of return to ego-identification.  This is a normal and natural part of our journey, and we have evidence that Jesus did not perpetually maintain that state of consciousness either.  We can take comfort in and be reassured by knowing that our way shower experienced the same paradox.  .  In the Garden of Gethsemane the night before his arrest, he prayed “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me;” (Matthew 26:39) a very human reaction to what he was about to face.  Again, however, he was able to surrender his attachment, and say, “but, let it be, not as I will, but as you will.”  Traditionally this is interpreted as Jesus surrendering to the will of an external God, from our perspective it is evidence of his surrender and his awakening, once again, to the awareness of the ‘I Am’ in which he knew his will and the “Father’s will” are one.  

Time and again, in the Jesus story, we are given glimpses of a man who knew his Oneness and was willing to surrender to it in order to do what he was called to do in the moment.  He was willing to let go of his human condition and respond to the world around him fearlessly from awakened consciousness.  And, in so doing, he revealed to the world the truth of Divine Presence expressing in and through all creation.  Jesus was very clear about his mission. He stated “I am here to bear witness to the Truth.” There is one Truth.  It was his Truth and it is our Truth.  We are the radiance of the ‘I Am’ expressing and we are here to reveal that Truth to the world with every word and every action.

Awakening to the realization of the ‘I Am’ as our true nature is not something we do for ourselves; it is an act of service to humanity and the world.  We have come into the world, just as Jesus did, so that the world through us might be saved from the delusion of separation and awaken to Oneness as the presence of ‘I Am’ expressing.

I am ready!  Are you?