A Note 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 shouldhave 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 arewhere 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.