In this model we are the children in the family, where every child is equally cherished and loved, and each has a relationship with both father and mother. None are favoured or special.
The ‘Holy Spirit’ is interpreted as the Feminine/Mother which operates to inspire and guide us, especially whilst we are in the state of duality. While the father provides the structure of the house, the mother provides the love, care and warmth in furnishing the house with comfort and beauty, giving both physical and emotional sustenance for the family, and sharing loving counsel for the children. As is the case in human life, the children often turn to the mother first for encouragement and reassurance.
Another way of interpreting the Holy Spirit is to see it as the source of the continual flow of spiritual inspiration and intuition which enables the light of Truth to descend on our thought. Some might see this Divine assistance coming from Angels or Spirit Guides. What is important is not our human conceptions of the form our spiritual help comes in, but our knowing that spiritual help is ever available, forming the bridge between us and Source. The more we turn to the guidance of Spirit in our daily thoughts as well as our prayers and meditation, the more we open ourselves to the possibilities of revelation and its concomitant miracles.
In this model we are all equal beneficiaries of a common heritage. The only difference between us is that some do not claim this for themselves. Jesus understood this better than most. He was capable of miracles because he understood Who He Really Was and he understood the power this gave him over the material world. He was so in tune with the guidance of (the Holy) Spirit, or what Christians sometimes call the Christ Spirit, that he is the supreme example of what is really possible.
This is an important point that bears repeating. He came to show us the possibilities of infinite life. Physics, chemistry and biology are all quantum forces and as such, are subject to the thoughts we bring to them. Jesus came into this world knowing this and it was his life purpose not just to teach us this through his words, but to demonstrate and prove it through his healing mission. He intended for us to understand that we are all capable of doing what he did, hence his words ‘…the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do…(4)’ More than any time in the ages since Jesus’ era, humanity is ready to understand this.
Common usage has mistakenly used the two words, “Jesus” and “Christ”, interchangeably, but they are not the same. ‘Jesus’ is the name for the man who was one of humanity’s greatest embodiments of the Christ Spirit. He embodied It, but he was not It. In the same way as the wave is not synonymous with the ocean, Jesus the man was the manifestation and expression of the Christ Spirit, nothing more, and nothing less.
It is a fine distinction, but an important one in our understanding of Who We Are, and in our own inextricable relationship with the Christ. The Spirit that was ‘made flesh’ in Jesus exists in, and gives life to, us all. Jesus understood this supremely, and it was this wisdom that enabled him to turn the seeming facts of physics and matter on their heads in his healings and so-called miracles. Because we all comprise the ‘Sonship’ then all that Jesus was capable of is potentially achievable by us.
It is this understanding the enables those not of Christian faith or background to acknowledge the relevance of Jesus to all humanity. No one should be deterred by the use of the word ‘Christ’ as a substitute for ‘Holy Spirit.’ Other religions, including Buddhism and Hinduism, have the notion of a three-in-one Reality. Christ Jesus represents the Sonship for all mankind and for all faiths. The names and labels are changeable and unimportant. It is the principle that is crucial.
Our Oneness in the Holy Spirit means that we are all equal, in potential, with Jesus and all other avatars. The miracle of Jesus’ power over the physical world lies dormant as pure potential in all of us. But it is because Jesus lived his potential, and consciously manifested (the Holy or Christ) Spirit - the bridge to our Source- that he was able show the Way, diminishing the gap between us and our Source.
In our current state, in this dream world of illusion and limitation, we have no possibility of grasping Truth in its entirety. But we can move towards Truth, inspired moment by moment, with Spirit’s help, which is available, at all times and under all circumstances.
Further, whether we know it or not, and whether we call on it or not, (the Holy) Spirit works continuously on our behalf, ceaselessly communicating with us and sending us signs to help us understand true Life and Reality.
Oneness, or At-One-Ment
The process of opening one’s mind to the idea of Oneness could be described, using the traditional terminology, as the Atonement. A more helpful interpretation of the concept is At-one-ment. At-one-ment is a re-interpretation of the traditional religious doctrine that was originally based on the premise of our innate state of sinfulness and unworthiness, and is commonly associated with penance, punishment, and reparation.
At-one-ment rejects this premise completely. If we are made in the image of a perfect and Omnipotent Creative Source, then logically we must be both sinless and guiltless. Thus there can be nothing for which we should be punished or made to feel guilty.
The world where men and women are seen as sinful and attacking has only the substance of a dream. Each person creates his or her own ‘dream’ life with their thoughts. The vast majority of us are still on this plane of existence because we have the thoughts that make this life meaningful to us. We have these thoughts because we believe we are separated from our Source, and each other, and therefore we believe we are flawed, weak and inadequate, and that we need to struggle and fight for the things we believe we don’t have. But because, in Truth, we are the emanation and manifestation of All That Is, this perception of ourselves is completely false, and therefore has only the quality of a dream, or illusion.
Human life is like ‘lucid dreaming,’ which is the knowing, whilst in the dream state, that we are actually dreaming. In lucid dreams we have the power to direct the dream, to decide what happens and when to wake up. Life in the duality state is a form of lucid dreaming. We have control over what happens to us here, and we can decide when we will wake up.
There is a direct connection between the degree to which we drop the attacking and ‘sinful’ thoughts and the amount of peace and happiness in our lives. When we realize this we start to waken from that dream. Atonement, or at-one-ment, is no different from, and requires no more than that: waking from the dream.
At-one-ment is the process whereby we become so aware of our origin and connection with our Source that we feel at one with It. The Atonement in this sense is not a judgment or condemnation. Rather, it is the end goal of spiritual enlightenment, where all sense of separation dissolves and we transcend our duality, ultimately reverting to our true nature as the emanation of Source.
Love and forgiveness, the path to the realisation and practice of the Atonement, is our fundamental purpose in this life. Miracles demonstrate our spiritual potential, but they are not the end goal. They are merely the assistance we receive along the way to Oneness, and thus they will only ever be bestowed in circumstances that will further our enlightenment.
The True Meaning of Forgiveness
Forgiveness must be explained because the usual meaning attributed to the term is not intended here. Usually when we choose to forgive another, we deem the other person as having inflicted some injury – physical or emotional- which has caused us pain and suffering. Ultimately we must decide whether we will ‘forgive’ the other for his/her transgression, and once decided, we then endeavour to ‘overlook’ the injury and try to carry on as if it didn’t happen. It is common, however, that beneath
