Archive for April, 2009
Christ Consciousness
April 10th, 2009
It’s Friday, April 10, 2009 which makes it the second day of the Jewish Passover and also the Christian Good Friday. In fact, as I write this its 12:00PM Eastern Standard Time so I am technically violating both religious prohibitions: working on the second day of Passover (I am a Jew) and during the holiest hours for Christians 12-3PM (believed to be the hours Jesus hung on the cross). But this isn’t about religion, its about spirituality. It isn’t about the historical man named Jesus either.
It’s about Christ Consciousness.
This week I received a very informative e-mail about an Executive Order signed by President Obama allocating three billion dollars in humanitarian aid to Palestinians living in the United States who left Gaza as a result of the conflict there. The e-mail was calling attention to the fact that there was no provision in the Order to distinguish Hamas members or sympathizers now in the U.S. from receiving such aid. To say the least, the Order seemed disturbing, lacking in safeguards and economically irresponsible given our country’s current economic crisis. There was a link in the e-mail directly to the government’s Federal Register website where the Executive Order could be clearly and succinctly read. I forwarded the e-mail on to many of my politically and socially aware friends.
Then belatedly and to my horror, I noticed what had been in the subject line of the original e-mail I had now forwarded on. While the subject line mentioned the Executive Order, it further said it allocated aid to “rag-heads.”
I was frozen in my seat as I read the line. Twice.
The first thing I did was send a follow-up e-mail to all those who had been forwarded the original that said this:
size=”2″ face=”Georgia”> I belatedly noticed the subject line language. It is disgusting. size=”2″ color=”#000080″ face=”Georgia”>We should all be offended by
against any people as a group, anytime, anywhere. size=”2″ face=”Georgia”>
such hatred, we should be particularly
careful about perpetrating that which so offends
us. color=”#000080″ face=”Georgia”> I am also sending the originator of that language
wishes and hope for their own awareness and enlightenment.
Then I thought about how we think about and treat each other.
What if every morning as you left your home an Angel walked before you everywhere you went proclaiming to everyone you encountered all day long, “Behold! The image and likeness of God.” Do you think you would feel differently about yourself if that actually happened?
Now, imagine that every person you encountered during the day also had an Angel that walked before them proclaiming “Behold! The image and likeness of God.” Do you think you would feel differently about them as well? I’m pretty certain the answer to both questions is a resounding “Yes.”
So now let’s return to that offensive e-mail, Passover and Good Friday. Let’s see where God leaves off and humankind begins.
I’m not certain whether God or man prohibited certain work on certain holidays. I’m not certain of the exact date and time the historical man called Jesus hung on the cross and whether or not those hours are “holy.” What I am certain of is that thinking, speaking and/or writing with hateful and hurtful language about other human beings is a violation of the Christ Consciousness that resides in every human being…an awareness and repository of love that was placed there by God.
Religions have many rules and they have a tendency to be man-made, periodically revised, selectively enforced and subject to interpretation.
To the contrary, Spirituality is an internal knowing based upon thought + emotion that align together in the highest good for all concerned. And while it is also subjective, the difference is that laws of religion are dictated by the few to the many while spiritual laws are born in the heart of every human being and when viewed from the vantage point of love, transcend religious affiliation and differences.
I doubt a Rabbi would be thrilled that I’ve written this, or anything else, on Passover. I further doubt that any religious Christian would be sitting at their keyboard on Good Friday at what is now 12:40PM. However, I believe that the Christ Consciousness within each of us, as well as the going out from Egyptian slave consciousness to a higher State of Being that is the essence of Passover, is in any way inconsistent with what I have done and said here.
When we bring our own personal biases and fears to the message, we can diminish and obscure even the most important of messages.
This is true not only for e-mails, but for Life.
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