EASTER SACRED CELEBRATION

Holy City Initiation

BY

REV. DR. JUDITH LARKIN RENO

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Copyright© 2002 by Rev. Dr. Judith Larkin Reno

GATEWAY UNIVERSITY ®a school for the study of higher consciousness

l698 Crystal Ridge CourtVista, California 92081

760-727-6600

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................5

PREPARATION...........................................................................................6

EASTER HISTORY......................................................................................7

SPRINGTIME...............................................................................................9

SPIRITUAL INITIATION...............................................................................9

GRASSROOTS ENLIGHTENMENT..........................................................11

PLANETARY CYCLES .............................................................................12

THE NEW WISDOM AGE..........................................................................12

THE EASTER STORY...............................................................................13

ELEMENTS OF THE HOLY CITY INITIATION.........................................14

RESISTANCE............................................................................................18

THE JUDAS EXPERIENCE.......................................................................18

SELF FORGIVENESS...............................................................................20

FORGIVING GOD......................................................................................21

ANGEL CONNECTION..............................................................................22

SOUL INFUSION.......................................................................................22

JESUS ATTITUDE.....................................................................................22

TRUTH AND ILLUSIONS ABOUT ENLIGHTENMENT.............................22

CRUCIFIXION............................................................................................25

DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL....................................................................26

RESURRECTION......................................................................................26

EASTER GIFTS.........................................................................................26

EASTER MEDITATIONS...........................................................................26

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CHRIST IS RISEN!....................................................................................26

THE ROLLING STONE MEDITATION......................................................27

IMAGINE THAT YOU ARE IN YOUR GRAVE LIKE JESUS AWAITING REBIRTH. ASSESS THE WEIGHT OF THE STONE THAT BLOCKS YOUR GRAVE AND YOUR PASSAGE INTO NEW LIFE. .............................................27

WHEN YOU RECEIVE EACH ANSWER, SEE YOURSELF ROLLING AWAY EACH STONE BLOCKING YOUR RESURRECTION INTO NEW LIFE. CALL UPON AN ANGEL OF THE LORD TO HELP YOU ROLL AWAY THE STONE AND ASSIST YOU OUT OF YOUR OLD LIFE INTO YOUR REBIRTH.27

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INTRODUCTIONWith a Ph.D. in Psychology and forty years of experience as a mystic, Dr. Judith Larkin Reno offers a singular blend of insight and wisdom, both Eastern and Western, ancient and modern, psychological and spiritual. She presents rare information from a lifetime of global travel, having studied and taught a wide variety of spiritual traditions. Dr. Reno opens dimensional doorways, expanding your consciousness. She is a bridge between the worlds, earthly and divine, to empower advanced spirituality.

In the hurly burly of soul robbing secular society, restore the holy to your holidays. The unique SACRED CELEBRATION SERIES shares the esoteric side of calendar holidays through the year. Sacred celebrations are soul vitamins that strengthen your spiritual journey and fill your love tank each month. Reading the entire series gives you an excellent spiritual education and increased esoteric knowledge. Each SACRED CELEBRATION book has companion tapes to enrich your spiritual path work. These books offer rare, mystical information to help you consecrate your daily life.

Dr. Reno is President of Gateway University ®, a school for the study of higher consciousness, outside of San Diego, California, where she enjoys teaching, counseling and writing. She also enjoys her husband, children and grandchildren; playing the violin; and hiking in nature.

In EASTER SACRED CELEBRATION: Holy City Initiation, Dr. Reno’s unique translation of the Holy City as spiritual initiation, shows the crucifixion of the ego as transcention and rebirth, essential to spiritual questing. This contemporary American dharma talk reveals that in spiritual work you die and are reborn many times. Spiritual dying is a skill. By studying Jesus’ triumph in the Holy City, you learn how to become a spiritual athlete.

Jesus’ resurrection demonstrates that time and space don’t exist as absolutes. At some level we all know miracles are possible. In sleep we visit dead friends and our own past and future lives. Yet the mundane world ignores our capacity for miracles. Easter demonstrates the triumph of the divine human spirit over earthly limitations.

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PREPARATIONRecommended Tapes from the Gateway Audio Tape Collection:

Easter Sacred Celebration: Holy City Initiation Palm Sunday: Holy City as Spiritual Initiation Palm Sunday: Challenges of Spiritual Initiation Easter Death and Rebirth Resurrection Meditation Easter Hatching Handy Resurrection Tips

Easter music: Handel’s Messiah.Bach, B Minor Mass.Bach, Magnificat in D.Bach, Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.Mozart, Requiem.Russian Orthodox Requiem.La Schola des Peres du Saint-Esprit du Grand Scholasticat de Chevilly:

Easter Liturgy Gregorian Chant.Bruckner, Te Deum.Jars of Clay, Arms Nailed Down.Christian hymns: Christ the Lord Is Risen Today!Judy Collins, Joy to the World.Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Easter music.Robert Shaw Chorale, Easter music.Canadian Brass Quartet, Resurrection.Peter Gabriel, Passion (Sound Track from Last Temptatation of Christ). Here Comes Peter Cotton Tail.Easter Parade.Elvis Presley, He Touched Me.Bill Gaither, Easter Gospel: Good News; Atlanta Homecoming; “Saved by

the Blood.”

Movies:The RobeJesus Christ SuperstarThe Last Temptation of Christ, directed by Martin ScorceseThe Greatest Story Ever ToldGolden Boy, Eddie MurphyMerlinLord of the Rings: Fellowship of the RIngOdysseus, Armand AssanteCrouching Tiger, Hidden DragonCastaway, Tom Hanks

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Books:BarabbasThe Last Temptation of Christ, by Nikos KatzantzakisTalisman, Steven KingLord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, trilogy, J.R.R. Tolkien

EASTER HISTORYThe date of Easter was set by the Council of Nicea, now in Turkey, in 325 CE. Easter is named from an ancient Anglo Saxon goddess of spring renewal, Eostre. Missionaries found they could introduce Christian practices gradually through assuming local customs.

An Anglo Saxon symbol of male fertility, the egg was associated with the life-giving sun. The egg became an Easter symbol, with Easter egg hunts, egg rolling competitions on the White House lawn and chocolate Easter eggs. Colorfully decorated eggs symbolize the end of forty days of Lenten penance that precede Easter. Sometimes eggs are blessed in Christian church ceremonies. The most elaborate egg customs developed in imperial Russia, where nobility exchanged eggs exquisitely decorated with jewels and semi precious stones.

Early Christianity in Florence, Italy depicted the hare as the moon, symbolizing the fertility of a woman. Later the image of the hare became the Easter bunny, with its ability to produce many offspring in the renewal of life at springtime.

White is often worn at Easter symbolizing the purification of new life given by Christ’s resurrection. New clothes, Easter bonnets and Easter parades, especially on 5th Avenue, New York, celebrate new life. White Easter lilies symbolize the purification of sins that were cleansed by Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross. Purple and yellow are also associated with Easter resurrection.

Passion plays throughout the world re-enact the crucifixion story. The most famous passion play is in southern Germany, Oberammergau, dated from 1634, when the entire town was spared from plague due to prayer.

The lamb has special significance at Easter. For his gentleness, Jesus was called the lamb of God. In the Hebrew tradition, a lamb was sacrificed on the first Passover celebration. Passover refers to the Angel of Death passing over the Hebrew homes sparing them from oppression in Egypt and liberating them into the promised land. Christ was crucified during the Hebrew Passover celebration in Jerusalem. The Last Supper was a Passover feast. Easter is a Christian Passover or divine deliverance. Lamb is often served at the Easter feast, with lamb-shaped cakes for desert.

Forty days before Easter is the Christian Lenten Season of fasting to prepare for Holy Week. Jesus meditated, prayed and fasted 40 days in the desert, as a

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means of self-purification before he began his teaching ministry. The practice of Lent follows Jesus’ example. Lent is a time of repentance, prayer and study of the holy teachings through catechism.

Carnivals provide merrymaking before the solemn days of Lent. The word carnival derives from the Latin word meaning the removal of meat. The most famous carnival is Mardi Gras in New Orleans, celebrated on Shrove Tuesday, the day before Lent begins. Partygoers release all inhibitions before their forty day fast. The French term Mardi Gras means Fat Tuesday, referring to the ox that traditionally led the Shrove Tuesday procession in France.

Palm Sunday is celebrated by Christians a week before Easter, marking Jesus’ triumphal entrance to the Holy City of Jerusalem after raising Lazarus from the dead. Jesus and his disciples returned to Jerusalem to observe Passover. Crowds gathered to welcome them, covering the road with palm fronds to honor Jesus’ many miracles. On Palm Sunday, sanctuaries are filled with Easter lilies. Palm fronds are given to the congregation in memory of Holy Week.

Maundy Thursday is the Thursday before Easter, honoring the Last Supper. Jesus led the disciples in the Passover feast, memorialized by Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting. At the Last Supper, Jesus introduced the tradition of the eucharist or holy communion. Foretelling his death, he gave his disciples bread saying, “Take, eat. This is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” Giving the disciples wine, he said, “This cup is the new testament in my blood. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the sacrament of Holy Communion, the communicant experiences God union through Christ.

Christians symbolically eat bread and drink wine in a gesture of solidarity, uniting with Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross to save humanity from sin and resurrect into purified new life. Both personal and collective redemption are celebrated.

Eucharist is Greek, meaning “good grace”. Grace cannot be earned. It is a gift, requiring the surrender of acceptance. Grace is given from God’s infinite supply of love and forgiveness. Jesus’ conscious death on the cross created a state of grace for all humanity to be forgiven of sin, before death and after death. Christians give the deepest gratitude for this grace in the sacrament of Holy Communion.

Maundy Thursday also honors Jesus’ agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, fighting humanity’s demons, before his betrayal into the hands of the Roman militia for crucifixion.

On Good Friday, the day of Jesus’ crucifixion, Christians go to church to receive the black imprint of ash in the center of the forehead. It is a solemn day of fasting and abstinence to reflect on the sorrow of Jesus’ passion and death. Ash that once was a living tree symbolizes the endless transmutative cycle of life and

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death, turning all manifest form “from ashes to ashes, from dust to dust.” We rise up from the earth at birth and return into the earth at death.

The crucifixion of an enlightened, Christed being marks a day of humanity’s sin, ignorance and error that was forgiven by God through Jesus’ conscious dying. On the cross, Jesus transmutes human ignorance into wisdom through his consecrated suffering. He awakens humanity to the value of love, forgiveness and oneness. New life comes through Jesus’ ordained sacrifice, redeeming humanity’s sin and suffering. The tarnished human condition is made clean, pure and sacred through Jesus’ sacrifice.

Three days after crucifixion on Easter Sunday, Jesus is officially recognized as risen from the dead. In a history making, death defying, revolutionary resurrection, Jesus liberates humanity from both sin and death. The path to transcention is though love, forgiveness and sacrifice.

Easter is followed by a fifty day period of celebration called Eastertide or Paschaltide (referring to the Hebrew celebration of Passover) that lasted until Pentecost. Pentecost was a Hebrew tithing celebration where 1/50th of the year’s harvest was committed to the temple. Historically, the disciples gathered to celebrate Pentecost when the Holy Spirit descended on them. They each received a divine transmission to begin the Christian church. Christian Pentecost is celebrated on the seventh Sunday after Easter. It is also called Whitsunday.

Baptisms are often administered at Easter, symbolizing the renewal of consecrated life. Many Christians gather at sunrise services on Easter Sunday to celebrate the miracle of Christ’s resurrection.

SPRINGTIMEThere are great powers for renewal at springtime. Ancient alchemists gathered sacred ingredients for the transmutation of base metal into gold in spring because of the transformative, vital energies of the spring equinox. The same power that moves against gravity and raises the sap in trees, also raises the vital energies in your body meridians at spring. It is literally a time of resurrection and the rebirth of earth’s life force after winter’s sleep.

SPIRITUAL INITIATIONWhen introducing students to the rigors of spiritual life, masters often say, “Run now, before it is too late! Once your feet are on the path, you have no choice. There is no turning back. You have tried everything else. Nothing else works. There is nowhere to go but forward. And it’s not all sweethearts and roses!” True spiritual life is rigorous--not for the faint of heart. It requires the focused concentration of the world’s greatest athletes; the perseverance of the greatest scientists working alone, without external support, against all odds, pushing the

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frontier of human knowledge; and the love and wisdom of the Christ. Once you begin going through spiritual initiations, you are in championship spirituality.

However, don’t think advanced spirituality is only for the perfect, unreachable, mountain-top few. It is your destiny. It is the human design. It is the natural culmination of human evolution. It is where the mind goes after it has exhausted every other possibility. Just as there are clearly identifiable developmental tasks at every stage of life, advanced spirituality is the task of mature, senior status. Saging, wisdom gathering, is the true work of life. Wisdom and enlightenment go beyond mental knowledge to include the information of all seven chakra domains.

As you awaken spiritually, you experience radical shifts in awareness called initiations or gateways. There are many different types and qualities of spiritual initiation. In general they are testing times of great, almost unbearable intensity. You enter the furnace of God’s heart and are reshaped--emerging new.

You arrive at the threshold of spiritual initiation after many preliminary tests. Your old view of reality gradually begins to change. Strongly held, passionate ideas of truth melt. You sense a new way of living. As your identity dissolves, you don’t feel like yourself. You are not your old identity; but your new identity is not yet clear. For a while you are between the worlds.

After many of these identity melt-downs, you become fascinated with the question, “Who am I?” You know you are not skin encapsulated consciousness. You have direct experience of life outside the earthly time/space box. Through your initiations you develop clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, healing abilities, the ability to time trip through past, parallel and future lives. A new wisdom develops as your third eye, crown and heart chakras open. You begin to see personal, national and planetary karma. Your understanding of time and space expands to include eternity, infinity—and beyond.

Each initiation sets you free a tiny bit more than the last. You become interested in cosmic travel and planetary service. During sleep you study in the Halls of Wisdom, learning from the great spiritual masters of all time. There is a magical, joyous quality to your life, characterized by inner awareness, synchronicities, service and God union.

Every Easter the planet is witness to Jesus’ spiritual initiation in the Holy City two thousand years ago. His Holy City experience contains all the classic ingredients of spiritual initiation:

A triumphant burst of initial energy; psychic vision; miracles; conflict; values clarification; crisis of belief; spiritual battle of Light against ignorance; good against evil; antagonists, villains, enemies and dragons; dark night of the soul; fight against internal demons, shadow and illusions;

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psychic warfare; betrayal; aloneness; doubt; loss; grief; deep, inner, underlying constancy and alignment with the internal God voice and God vision; a love for God and goodness that goes far beyond the mind, emotions or body; forgiveness; surrender; detachment; faith; love; courage; selfless service; soul infusion; angel connection; God connection; unswerving, impenetrable commitment; heroic overcoming of insurmountable obstacles; ego death; identity dissolution; transcention; reconstruction and resurrection into new life.

Spiritual initiation puts action movies in the dust. Spiritual initiation opens multidimensional transcention of the earthly time/space trap. To complete the assignment of initiation, there is no way out but through. During the testing time, it’s like running a race. There is pain during the race, but you keep your eye on the finish line and victory.

The rewards feed your soul with ecstatic God union and burden relief from illusion. With each victory you throw off the weight of false beliefs. Your life grows more true. Your being is nourished.

Spiritual questing is not static. As with all human life, there are cycles: night/day, summer/winter, sleep/awake, plant/harvest, peaks/valleys. There is a continuous cycle of dark night of the soul crucifixion and top-of-the-mountain victorious breakthrough. Spiritual initiations don’t just happen once, but become a way of life. Spiritual community gives you strength to continue the quest as a spiritual athlete. By studying Jesus’ triumph in the Holy City, you gain skill for your own initiations.

In serious meditation, you die every time you meditate. Over time your ego dissolves, you cycle through false realities, false selves and limiting negative beliefs. You grow into holy dimensions. The American poet, Emily Dickinson says, “We rise up on stepping stones of our dead selves.”

GRASSROOTS ENLIGHTENMENTWe live in an age of grassroots enlightenment. In the near future massive numbers of the earth’s population will become spiritual initiates. If you are reading this, you are part of the team bringing the New Wisdom Age to Mother Gaia. As the earth and humanity move through heart chakra initiations, consciousness accelerates. The earth is shifting from a mundane to a sacred planet.

Spiritual initiations are becoming common. Modern crucifixion often involves divorce, loss of a loved one, IRS investigation, legal conflict, money problems, health difficulties or job loss. Enlightenment creates identity crisis, spiritual initiation and the loss of illusion. Every time you make a leap in growth, part of

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you dies and a new self is born. The skill is not identifying with loss, but finding its gift of wisdom and transcending your old life into radiant new life.

PLANETARY CYCLES Human consciousness evolves in a major leap every two thousand years. In the Age of Aries, 2000 BCE, the revolutionary contribution of Moses brought law, order, discipline and monotheism to humanity. Prior to Moses each tribe used might as right. Moses organized human consciousness into the first universal respect for law, lex talionis, an eye for an eye. Moses brought order out of chaos so civilization could develop.

Two thousand years later, Jesus anchored the Age of Pisces. Characteristics of Pisces are love, selfless service, compassion, sensitivity, sacrifice, crucifixion, forgiveness, transcention and resurrection. Jesus’ revolutionary contribution is to the emotional body, awakening humanity to the power of the heart, love and compassion. Prior to Jesus, love was not a cultural value in social consciousness. Jesus embodies the essence of the Piscean Age, bringing the laws of the heart, unity and love to humanity.

Each age transcends the previous age, building on its wisdom. The Aquarian Age, which we are just beginning, is an opportunity to transcend crucifixion and the old Piscean Age tyrant/martyr contracts. It is the age of learning through joy. Bob Toben in Space, Time and Beyond says, “In the New Age when people meet, instead of saying hello, they will say, ‘Rejoice!’ In the New Age, Light will pour out of their eyes. They will float when they walk. Rejoicing will abound.”

THE NEW WISDOM AGEWe are on the threshold of the Aquarian Age. In the old cycle it took lifetimes to find enlightenment. Today, with the acceleration of time and with focused intent, you can find enlightenment in a much shorter time. The New Wisdom Age is an internal revolution, empowering the individual with participatory divinity, the internalization of Godly goodness and enlightenment. The new messiah is inside the individual. Rather than an externalized hero, the Christ lives within each of us. As the Joan Osborne song says, “What if God is one of us?”

Sin can be defined as separation and ignorance. Human sin is separating from God. If you look at God as only outside of you, you are in illusion. Children draw pictures of God floating in the sky above. God is lonely, because humans have pedestalized him as separate, outside of us!

As you learn that you are God in human form, you become a caretaker of your earthly experience. Accepting your Godly side liberates you from the time/space box so you can enjoy both your earthly and divine identities. This kind of wholeness creates holiness on earth.

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“Planetary transformation begins with personal transformation,” is the Gateway motto. Personal transformation leads to spiritual initiation. By learning how to carry your personal, participatory divinity you contribute to the evolution of human consciousness. You become part of the solution rather than part of the problem. You accept the living Christ within you.

THE EASTER STORY Palm Sunday. Jesus triumphantly enters Jerusalem to

hosannahs from the throng. He is in great victory from having done miracles, including raising Lazarus from the dead.

Jesus teaches in the Temple. The Sanhedrin, Hebrew Temple elders, challenge his authority. Pharasees and Roman Herodians try to entangle Jesus in a charge of sedition, that Jesus is king. Jesus replies, “Pay unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.”

Jesus angrily throws the money changers out of the Temple.

Jesus psychically foretells the destruction of the Temple and the Jewish theocracy. He also foresees his betrayal and crucifixion.

Maundy Thursday or Holy Thursday. The Lord’s Supper and Holy Communion, the first eucharist. Jesus teaches love and humility by washing the disciples’ feet. He foretells Judas’s betrayal and the betrayal of all of the disciples.

Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus’ agony unfolds as he fights off the demons of the city psychically attacking him. Needing support to fight the dark force, he asks his disciples to stay awake and pray with him. They fall asleep. Judas betrays him with a kiss, turning Jesus over to the city militia.

Good Friday. Before Caiaphas Jesus avows his messiahship. He is condemned for blasphemy and mocked. Accused of sedition, Jesus is brought before the Roman governor Pilate who sends him to the Roman King Herod. Returned to Pilate who seeks to release Jesus, the crowd, particularly the Hebrew elders of the Sanhedrin, demand Jesus’ death. All the disciples disavow Jesus.

During the stations of the cross, Jesus is relieved by Simon the Cyrene.

Judas, realizing his mistake, commits suicide.

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The crucifixion. During Jesus’ crucifixion, three hours of darkness descend over the land. Jesus feels abandoned by his God, saying “My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Finally as Jesus dies, he says, “Father into thy hands I commend my spirit.” As Jesus dies, the veil in the Temple is torn.

Jesus is officially declared dead, placed in the tomb, a stone is rolled over the entrance and sealed.

Christ’s Resurrection. Women followers come to the tomb the next day, Saturday, finding it empty. Two angels declare Christ’s resurrection. Jesus reveals himself to Mary Magdalene. He then reveals himself to the other women who had returned to the city from the tomb. In his third appearance, Jesus reveals himself to Peter and later to two other disciples.

Easter Sunday. Christ’s resurrection is officially declared three days after his crucifixion. He is seen in physical form by his disciples. On Sunday evening, the disciple, doubting Thomas, reaches into Jesus’ wounds and touches them physically to remove his disbelief. Jesus speaks to the eleven disciples on a mountain, commanding them to teach all nations.

Ascension. Holy Thursday. Forty days after Easter and following ten physical appearances, Jesus makes his divine ascension into heavenly God union. From this consecrated plane of reality Jesus takes the office of the Christ, in service to humanity. The office of the Christ is a savior, redeemer, messiah station, with a commission to transform human sin, suffering and ignorance through love and wisdom.

Pentecost. The disciples gather fifty days after the crucifixion. They are immersed in divine white Light radiance, ecstasy and angelic presence. The veil is lifted for the disciples to see Christ’s divine status. The disciples receive a direct transmission of Holy Spirit. They are imbued with spiritual gifts of healing, miracles, psychic vision, lucid dreaming, prophecy and channeling. They are charged by divine spirit to create the church on earth.

ELEMENTS OF THE HOLY CITY INITIATIONThe Holy City is a metaphor representing spiritual initiation. You can interpret the symbols in the story as you would dream symbols. Decode each element of the Holy City journey. The list below identifies some of the major ingredients that characterize spiritual initiation.

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The city symbolizes a place in consciousness where you absorb Christ consciousness through crucifixion, death and resurrection. It symbolizes the death of the old self, ego, identity, false beliefs, values and realities so the new resurrected self can be born.

Jesus enters Jerusalem in victory, having just raised Lazarus from the dead. Miracles sometimes characterize spiritual initiation. Prior to initiation a burst of energy from a spiritual victory often helps you penetrate the veil of illusion and move to the next step of awakening.

Jesus rides into the Holy City on a donkey, symbol of his egoless humility in the midst of worldly victory.

Jesus foretells his betrayal, crucifixion and other events, demonstrating he is psychically empowered, often characteristic of spiritual initiation.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, in a dark night of the soul, Jesus faces his aloneness, fighting demons and psychic attack, also characteristic of initiation. Typically, the force of the worldly status quo creates enormous resistance to the advancement of human consciousness. This resistance must be faced and overcome in spiritual initiation. It is important to have your team of inner world allies ready to access at all times.

When Jesus is betrayed by Judas and all of his disciples, he again stands alone as the force of Light against the force of darkness in the world. Jesus is an enlightened teacher in the world. Typically the world resists enlightenment.

High intensity conflict and the resistance of worldly ignorance again appear as Jesus argues before the Roman Caiaphas, King Herod, Pontius Pilate and the Hebrew Sanhedrin.

Throughout the Holy City initiation, various levels of meaning and reality interweave. Distortions, illusion and miscommunication abound. Jesus talks about his divine kingship and he is accused of earthly sedition. The earthly and divine languages are different. The problems of translating enlightened states of consciousness to an unenlightened audience are insurmountable. Only the awakened perceive the Truth behind language.

The cross symbolizes the intersection of horizontal, earthly reality with the vertical, divine reality. The integration of earthly and divine realities is the work of enlightenment and self realization. It is

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only by recognizing, honoring and serving the earthly world that you transcend it. Your resurrected Christ consciousness is accessed by dying to the external world. Through ego death and crucifying false beliefs you access the eternal world of your divine nature. At this point in spiritual initiation, crucifixion, you are both alive and dead; not here and not there; both here and there. You live in both worlds, earthly and divine.

The ego is crucified on the cross of matter, earthly existence. The earth is a place where the divine and earthly worlds intersect. Heaven and earth marry in your body. Spiritual initiation teaches you the difference between the worlds, so you can negotiate and integrate each kingdom. Each reality has vastly different rules and operational laws.

The work of the third gateway, crucifixion, is forgiveness of earth and transcention into God union. With God consciousness and full information of the human condition, you live in both worlds, heaven and earth.

The crowd calls for Jesus’ crucifixion, setting the criminal Barrabas free instead. The crowd represents humanity and collective consciousness, killing Jesus because he speaks the Truth. The crowd mentality is dominated by the critical mind, sensing its loss of dominion in the face of Truth. The mind is known as the deceiver. Rather than die itself, the critical mind’s nature is to destroy Truth. As in Dostoyevsky’s Idiot, where a Truth teller also confronts societal reality constructs, the crowd destroys Jesus. Enlightenment is dangerous to the mind.

The projected ego resistance of the crowd/humanity destroys Jesus. Ego is fed by the critical mind. Be careful whenever there is an energy charge behind your rightness.

Jesus experiences dark night of the soul, characteristic of initiation, both in the demon battles of the Garden of Gethsemane and when he feels betrayed by God on the cross, saying, “My God, why hast thou forgotten me?” During dark night of the soul, you feel confused, alone and abandoned. Your years of spiritual training automatically engage to see you through. Your God connection is sustained beyond your rational mind. Your courage, will, focus, concentration, discipline, faith and spiritual commitment operate on automatic, as a result of your training and impeccability.

The crucifixion demonstrates the power of sacrifice to transmute ignorance and darkness into sacred Light. Through ego

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death to earthly limitation divine transcendence, miracles and resurrection are accessed. Ego sacrifice creates a sacred fire that purifies sin and forgives the world, humanity, God and life. Conscious sacrifice transmutes base metal to gold, darkness to Light, death to immortality, imprisonment to liberation. Christ’s sacrifice provides personal redemption for all humanity.

The tomb represents death of the old self. The stone blocking the entrance to the tomb is the internal resistance, false beliefs, emotions, doubts, fears, you must overcome to insure your freedom, resurrection and rebirth into divine new life.

Christ’s resurrection fulfills the promise of spiritual initiation. Through Christ consciousness you are liberated from earthly illusion. You access the divine part of your nature that delivers miracles. You are freed from lack-and-limit false beliefs into your divine inheritance and dominion. You receive radiant new life and God union.

Ascension. A forty day period of time from Easter resurrection to ascension allowed Jesus to prepare for planetary office of the Christ. The Christ office is filled by humans who have taken many, many initiations and triumphed. They have fought darkness and won. To attain full Christed consciousness requires enormous integrity, warriorship, strength, love, faith and wisdom. Usually the office of the Christ is replaced every two thousand years. Lord Maitreya preceded Jesus Lord Emmanuel. Lord Maitreya is now serving as a Solar Lord. As we begin the next two thousand year cycle, Master Kuthumi is being trained for the Christ office. He was a great teacher from 19th century Kashmir, India, though he lived mostly in Tibet near Shigatze. He was schooled at Oxford. In past lives he was Pythagoras and the great Buddhist master Nagarjuna. He channeled The Secret Doctrine to Madame Blavatsky. You can learn about Kuthumi in C.W. Leadbeater’s The Masters and the Path. It is important to open your thinking and realize that you too may aspire to serving in the Christ office one day.

Pentecost demonstrates the ecstatic reward of your divine nature. Through consecrated living, you become the living Christ, the church, the Christ presence on earth. At Pentecost you are asked to build your life as a living testimony to your faith.

RESISTANCESpiritual initiation is characterized by resistance. After a while in the Holy City of inner consciousness squabbling begins. The left brain critical mind begins

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analyzing and dissecting your holiness. False beliefs of the lower mind conflict with higher mind.

In Jerusalem disputes arise whether Jesus is king of the Jews. The Roman leaders Herod and Pontius Pilate fear Jesus is a political revolutionary who might overthrow Roman rule. The Hebrew Temple elders at the Sanhedrin think Jesus might grab their power in the community. Similarly, in spiritual growth after the initial joy of awakening, there is often internal conflict between old, false beliefs and your future enlightenment. Old beliefs don’t like to be deposed. They fight to the death to preserve their status.

At Easter identify your internal conflicting selves. What are old, false, limiting, negative beliefs? What are empowering, new beliefs that bring you to your birthright of enlightenment and miracles?

Tapas in the Hindu tradition is the fire that comes with spiritual disciplines of prayer, meditation, sacred eating, right thought, right speech, right action, exercise, etc. It is the fire of discipline that creates breakthroughs in consciousness, liberating you to the next level of awareness. Tapas melts the chains of illusion. You build tapas by daily altar work and consecrated living, overcoming internal resistance and negativity.

There is usually an event crisis that provides additional, external resistance needed for spiritual initiation. The quester must move through the resistance, as a test of her strength and commitment. Jesus created Pontius Pilate and Herod, the Roman rulers; and the Sanhedrin, the Hebrew elders, as his external resistance.

THE JUDAS EXPERIENCEThe Judas experience is a crisis of the left brain, critical mind.

The Hindus refer to the “monkey mind” as distinct from spirit. The lower mind is a master at deception. It is the “dweller on the threshold” that will prevent your access to higher mind and spirit. Witness the classic story of the monk on the path who is frightened because he is sure he saw a snake. The master shows him that what he perceived as a snake is a harmless rope. The mind specializes in illusion, the evanescent, the relative and the unreal. By contrast, the spirit specializes in Truth, eternity, the infinite, the unconditioned, the unchanging, the Real.

The mind operates inside the time/space box of earthly experience. The brain is a reductive agent, blocking cosmic information and allowing you to focus on mundane matters so you can function in the world. Once you outgrow the hypnotic trance of worldly fixation, your mind can actually block your progress and evolution into spiritual, divine levels of reality.

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Often the more education you have, the more the mind becomes entrenched. The veil of illusion created by the critical mind becomes more difficult to penetrate. Judas was the only educated disciple. He was a political revolutionary who mistook “Jesus’ kingdom” as an earthly domain.

Judas represents the betrayal of illusions and the false self. He is locked inside his earthly nature, not clearly discerning and integrating his divine nature. The work of enlightenment is to honor both worlds, the earthly and divine, samsara and nirvana, in mutual coexistence. Jesus said, “Pay Ceasar his due.”

However, Judas takes Jesus literally as king of the Jews. Judas’s tragic flaw is his left brain, critical mind, literalness. He is stuck inside the material world, blind to seeing that Christ’s kingdom is not of this world. Judas looks for political solutions to the crisis and upheaval in Jerusalem—not realizing the Holy City of Christ’s dominion is the inner worlds. Judas is betrayed by not understanding his earthly identity as distinct from his divine identity.

Judas is a pivotal instrument in God’s plan for Jesus’ spiritual initiation. There would be no Easter without Judas. There can be no hero without a villain. Judas’ soul contract is to serve humanity to out-picture the villain inside each individual. He served as a shadow target to focus humanity’s dark side.

Jesus and Judas are the front and the back of the Easter initiation. They both dwell inside each of us. Both the Judas and Jesus experience are needed for spiritual initiation. Just as Jesus forgave Judas, each questor must forgive his own ignorance. Ignorance is a quality of life inside the box. By forgiving Judas, Jesus forgives all earthly life, sin and ignorance.

The sacrificial nature of forgiveness is transformative. Through sacrifice life is consecrated, made sacred. Through forgiveness, sin is rectified in new life. Forgiveness is an irrational act, transcending the mind. Through forgiveness you are liberated from the time/space box.

Jesus needs Judas to push off of. Judas provides the resistance necessary for transformation. There would be no planetary Easter resurrection without Judas. Judas suffered enormously for many eons after his sin. He forgave himself much later than Jesus did. Judas committed suicide when he realized his sin.

When you look at the service, suffering and sacrifice of the villain, you begin to reframe your inner being. You begin to transcend your earthly nature into your divine identity.

It takes a certain amount of detachment to forgive: getting off your view point; getting off being right. In that shift, you become one with God. You transform

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your aloneness to all-one-ness. You realize each of us is God in human form—even Judas.

SELF FORGIVENESSWe all have a Judas inside--a place of self-betrayal, deception, ignorance and illusion. How do you forgive the Judas inside you? How do you love the unlovable? Forgive the unforgivable?

In learning self-forgiveness, imagine that you are Hitler’s mother. A mother naturally loves her child despite limitations. Imagine how Hitler’s mother forgave him for his atrocities. How did she love him beyond his unspeakable ignorance? Find the part of Hitler that remained untouched by his insanity. To find that place in Hitler, you must find it in yourself.

In self-forgiveness, you separate your bad earthly behavior from your divine identity. Though you are responsible for your life, you don’t confuse your identity or value with the events of your life. You find the part of you that is untouched by negativity. As you access your divine side, you find refuge to reclaim and recreate your earthly side.

When you retrieve lost earthly power, you feel appropriate guilt for bad behavior; correct it; seek reparation and make amends. You change your earthly self and your behavior because of your divine vision. Because you know the part of you that transcends your errors, you can fix them. Accessing your divine side gives you leverage to change your earthly experience.

To love and forgive Judas, find the part of him that transcends his behavior. Once you find his transcendence, you find your own. When you access your God Self, you see Judas through the eyes of God. With your God Glasses on, you see with unconditional love and wisdom. You understand the bigger picture of Judas’ service to humanity.

God loves both saint and sinner alike. Mother Theresa and Hitler are given the same amount of God’s love. God and angels don’t judge us in our human ignorance. They are like parents watching a baby learning to walk by falling down. They see the heroic struggle of the baby. They love and support the baby.

The Native American Indian view of enlightenment is seeing the drum in the center of the circle from every angle on the circle. Each incarnation is prescribed by God. You are sent by “central casting” into the assignment of your incarnation without judgment from God, but rather to learn the lessons of every angle on the circle. Your assignment on the wheel is impersonal. You are learning the curriculum of school house earth. You serve all humanity as you station through all the lessons. Every highly evolved soul has journeyed around the wheel.

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Walking in every man’s shoes, you can no longer judge others—though you do gain discernment.

FORGIVING GODJesus forgave God on the cross. At one point, he said, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” Despite his human side experiencing isolation from God, Jesus’ spirit stayed in command, aligning him with his divine side. His divine alignment allowed him to forgive all that is, including earthly atrocities.

Feeling alienated, even from God, is common in spiritual initiation. If you keep asking the question, “Who am I?” you return to knowing yourself as God. Through God union your logic shifts. Instead of oppositionalizing off of earthly events, you accept them as part of God’s plan. If I am God, I know all that is. My divine side by definition has greater vision than my human side. Perhaps there is wisdom my God Self has that my human mind can’t perceive. By knowing yourself as God, you reconcile your human mind to God’s plan for you.

Many people have trouble forgiving God for the way it is here on earth. Coming to terms with the limits inside the time/space box of earthly experience is not easy—especially when your divine side knows a better way. It is easy to set yourself up as a false god and judge God wrong. Afterall why are there wars, suffering and disease? Why do innocent people and children suffer?

The monkey mind says, “If God were really just, there would be no human suffering.” But then you remember, the monkey mind’s job is to set you up as a false god. The monkey mind traffics in illusion. It feeds on a diet of delusion, polarization and conflict.

As we mature spiritually, we forgive God for creating the limits of duality and human life inside the time/space box: up/down; left/right; male/female; hot/cold; summer/winter; good/bad. A part of us realizes we are in the Judas experience. God is in Judas. We realize the shadow dance is part of life. Through shadow we become aware of Light.

We remember the shadow dance between parent and child. A spiritual gift of parents to children is to serve as the child’s shadow target. The child pushes off the parent’s shadow to achieve individuation and his own life. As a love contract, the parent carries the child’s shadow in addition to his own.

As we become mature adults, functioning in the mundane world, we forgive our parents for their human limitations. As we become mature spiritual adults functioning in the entirety of our being, both human and divine, we forgive God for the way it is here on earth.

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P.S. In addition to parenting, marriage is shadow dance where you love your partner enough to serve as his shadow target. In love you carry and caretake two shadows—yours and your beloved’s. In marriage you also have an opportunity to become Hitler’s mother and transcend.

ANGEL CONNECTIONGospels Matthew, Mark, Luke and John describe Jesus’s living relationship with angels as sustaining him through his spiritual initiations. There are 295 angel references in the Bible testifying to the channeling abilities of the saints, seers, patriarchs and prophets.

Develop your alliance with angels. They are powerful allies who will help you through your spiritual tests.

SOUL INFUSIONJesus soul infused, conversing with his own higher self, to get through his spiritual challenges. Through soul infusion, he maintained his God connection. A lifetime of holy study, meditation, prayer and selfless service, taught him to hear “the still, small voice of the soul”. When you are in crisis or spiritual initiation, you operate automatically. You fall back on spiritual habits from the past. Your daily spiritual work is banked in the ethers and returns to you when you need it most.

Soul infusion is another powerful tool to help in your spiritual initiations.

JESUS ATTITUDENot events, but your attitude toward events creates your life. Three people were crucified one day. Two had terrible days. The third, Jesus, changed the course of human history!

Every time you make a leap in growth, you pass it along to all humanity. Your triumph moves into the collective consciousness through the Pool of Luminosity in the inner worlds. Your victory strengthens every person who will ever live.

Realize your power as Jesus did. Today, you are the living Christ. Develop your Christ consciousness. With a Jesus attitude you can transmute any darkness to Light.

TRUTH AND ILLUSIONS ABOUT ENLIGHTENMENTThe main religions of contemporary culture are science and money. The golden calf of Moses’ day still lives. In today’s world, spiritual life is a counter culture practice. To be a true mystic, you live outside the collective. There is not a lot of

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support from the media. You have to search to find maps, models, mentors and methods for modern enlightenment.

It’s an irrational, death-defying act to find your Holy City. You literally have to transcend your mind to find your spirit. You find enlightenment at the expense of your mind. Earthly reality and divine reality are opposites. Yet the opposites co-exist. It is a paradox that defies the mind. To live a holy life is continuous ego crucifixion. The path to enlightenment is treacherous.

Why do it? Turn back now! Stop! Who in their right mind would sign up for crucifixion?!

Hmm. Jesus did. All the planetary masters of wisdom did. If you are reading this, you already have discovered enough of your spiritual anatomy to know your Christhood. At a certain point, there is no turning back. You have tried every other direction. There is no way out but through. The rewards of enlightenment far outweigh a jailed life of illusion. Inside you is a symbolic template that must be completed before you die. You need to answer the questions assigned in your soul contract. Spiritual quest and enlightenment provide the information you need.

There are many false views of enlightenment. One popular false belief is, once you get enlightened, you will never again get angry. However, you may have noticed in the Holy City, Jesus used healthy anger as a spiritual instrument to fight ignorance when he threw the money changers out of the Temple. He didn’t ask nicely. He threw their tables over the portico railing. Being enlightened doesn’t mean you never get angry.

Two keys to enlightenment are: non-attachment; and the self knowledge that comes from repeatedly asking “Who am I?” The enlightened person doesn’t confuse her identity with her emotions--though she is responsible for her emotions, including anger.

Sai Babba is an Indian saint, famous for his miraculous physical manifestations. On his birthday every year he feeds millions of guests ice cream in the desert with no refrigeration. I brought a group of students to visit him in 1980. He invited us into the temple mandir of his ashram where he performed miracles within inches of us. From mid air he created vbutti, the healing sacred ash, and a coin with a student’s birth year on it. After doing miracles, the human side of the holy man emerged, as he got angry with a student and worried about event preparations for his birthday. The co-existence of nirvana and samsara, divine and earthly life, was apparent in the holy man.

The difference between enlightened and unenlightened anger in general is the enlightened person’s non-attachment. The enlightened person does not confuse his identity with his angry behavior. He is not attached to his anger, though he is

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present with it. He is an empty vessel through which the anger passes. There is no ego investment in the emotion. He is a servant of God expressing through anger. Sometimes your partner has a right to see his creation as reflected by your angry response.

Healthy anger signals a boundary infraction to the integrity of your being. Healthy anger holds your vitality, your very life force, and the survival instincts of your root chakra. Healthy anger is legitimately connected to present events and to the Truth of your God Self. Your human side expresses healthy anger in service to your God Self. Healthy anger is contained and controlled. As a rule, when you fall into name calling you have left the domain of healthy anger.

There is no license to indulge every angry response. Your human instrument must always be in service to your divine, Godly side. Run your human emotions through your Godly filter, before you express emotions on earth. Then witness the movie of your life without confusing it with your identity.

Another false belief is, “Enlightened people are perfect.” Perhaps you idealize enlightenment as a way of defending against receiving it. Maybe you falsely believe, you are not enough. Idealizing enlightenment can be avoidant behavior—a way of never having to risk or try. If enlightenment is only for the “beautiful people”, for sages in caves in the Himalayas, perfect people, messiahs or saints from the distant past, you can easily separate yourself from your enlightenment. Monitor false beliefs that may be keeping the stone on your tomb, preventing your resurrection into your birthright of enlightenment.

“Once I’m enlightened, I’ll have a perfect life.” That’s a popular false belief. Hmm. Jesus was enlightened and he was crucified. Enlightenment doesn’t mean your life is perfect, though it does mean you have impeccability.

Impeccability is honesty, self knowledge and connectedness with all the parts of your human experience: earthly and divine. You know how to be present—even in the face of contradiction. You transcend duality at the same time you are in duality. You serve both your earthly and your divine sides. When you filter your earthly responses through your God connection in God alignment, your delivery is egoless, clear, empty and unattached—though it may be impassioned.

With impeccable living, you understand that your earthly and divine natures co-exist. Each must be served according to its needs. Like a mother care-taking many children, the enlightened person self-interviews the many internal voices and levels of her being and integrates them. Using the healthy parenting of her God Self, conflicts get resolved.

Even enlightened ones sometimes feel earthly separation from God. To be enlightened, doesn’t mean you drop your human experience. On the cross, Jesus said, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus endured and went

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through the dark night of the soul. The key is to move through the initiation crisis without confusing it with your identity. Ultimately, crucifixion is an identity crisis.

Enlightenment teaches the difference between pain and suffering. Pain is an unavoidable part of being in the pleasure/pain duality of human incarnation. Suffering is attachment to pain. Suffering is when you confuse your identity with your pain.

Enlightenment teaches non-attachment to pain. You learn how to experience pain without confusing it with your identity. The question “Who am I?” becomes your enlightenment ally. You ask: Am I my body? Am I my emotions? Am I my beliefs? If Jesus had invested in his earthly pain, he never could have endured his crucifixion into transcention and eternal life.

The enlightened person lives in both worlds, earthly and divine. Samsara (earthly illusion; conditioned reality; relativity; duality) and nirvana (unconditioned divine perfection) coexist in the human experience. You can’t have one half of human existence without the other. By honoring both worlds as Jesus did on the cross, you find transcendence, freedom and liberation.

Don’t expect to be praised or recognized for your enlightenment. The secular world of the West is often prejudiced against spiritual enlightenment. Light brings up everything unlike itself. Jesus crucifixion demonstrates secular resistance to enlightenment.

Enlightenment is not the same as an easy life. But once you have seen the Light, there is no other way to live. Enlightenment is not for the faint of heart, but for spiritual athletes. Jesus was enlightened and he was crucified. At each spiritual initiation, new powers, rewards and challenges are given. Jesus accessed his Christhood to resurrection and eternal life. Enlightenment brings true joy, love, wisdom, liberation and God union.

We live in the age of grassroots enlightenment when it is possible for massive numbers of people to gain enlightenment. During Easter season, enter your Holy City through meditative practice, self knowledge and consecrated living. Tis the season to claim your enlightenment.

CRUCIFIXIONThe third gateway or spiritual initiation is crucifixion. Spiritual questers call it the “ego fry.”

Imagine Jesus having prescience of his crucifixion and still entering the Holy City, because of his spiritual commitment to love and following God guidance. Jesus faced many tests in the Holy City: the betrayal of all his disciples; rebuke from the citizenry; accusation of sedition from Herod, Pontius Pilate and the Hebrew

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Sanhedrin; and death. He maintained his commitment to the inner world in the face of external disaster. Jesus loved his higher self beyond the shadow world of external illusion. In his conscious crucifixion, by dying to illusion, Jesus ingested human sin and literally burned up human karma, opening the way for the next 2000 years of love awakening.

Why did Jesus go into the Holy City knowing all his beliefs would be rejected and all his friends would betray him?

During spiritual initiation ego crucifixion, you may feel abandoned by your God and betrayed by life and loved ones. You may experience a type of ego death similar to Jesus in the Holy City. Your job is to see beyond physical, earthly appearances and stay connected to your God source.

DARK NIGHT OF THE SOULThe dark night of the soul is when you forget why you are enduring crucifixion. To be well crucified, you must endure the dark night. For a superior crucifixion, you endure, even in the face of a loss of reason. You experience your faith as an irrational act. You are on automatic, relying on the deep, ingrained, unconscious habit of years of daily altar consecrations and sacred living.

RESURRECTIONThe living Christ consciousness inside you is reborn each Easter. With every spiritual battle you win, you bring triumph to humanity. You carry forward Christ’s example. He said, “These things shall you do also.” You are the living Christ! Claim your redemption!

EASTER GIFTSEaster connects us with eternal life and resurrection. What if humans didn’t believe in death, but realized whatever harm you create comes back to you in the future. Humans would quickly learn the value of conflict resolution skills. Love, harmony, unity, forgiveness and compassion would have new significance.

EASTER MEDITATIONS

Christ is Risen!Each person is a strand of God’s luminosity, directly manifesting God on earth. What strand of luminosity do you embody? List all of your good qualities. Realize that each of your good qualities is a part of your Christed being, serving all humanity. You are the living Christ consciousness. Just by living, you advance humanity and all of existence.

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Read your list of good qualities aloud. After each of your qualities say, “Christ is risen!”

If you have a group of sacred friends, it is very powerful to repeat “Christ is risen!” as you each read your list.

Another variation is to go around your circle of friends, so each one can list your good qualities. Your job is to open and receive the gift of their witnessing your Christ consciousness.

The Rolling Stone Meditation.1

Imagine that you are in your grave like Jesus awaiting rebirth. Assess the weight of the stone that blocks your grave and your passage into new life.

What will it take for you to roll away the stone from the tomb of your endarkenment? Make a list of false beliefs that keep you from claiming your enlightenment. How do you keep yourself weak and unempowered? What false beliefs and emotions block your growth into your true Christhood? What lack and limit thinking blocks your Christ consciousness?

Visualize each entry on the list as a stone blocking your tomb, keeping you from your birthright of resurrection into new life and God union.

Meditate on each stone asking, “What will it take to remove this stone that is blocking my life, my Light and my Christhood?”

When you receive each answer, see yourself rolling away each stone blocking your resurrection into new life. Call upon an Angel of the Lord to help you roll away the stone and assist you out of your old life into your rebirth.

Write down your answers. Make a commitment to your Christhood. Meditate on your answers and your commitment each day. Claim your divine nature.

1 Thanks to Gateway’s Reverend Kimberly Marooney and her Angel Blessings Cards.

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