Texas Gathering, Part Twenty-Three
Seeing the Christ Within, Part 2
Audience Question: If you are married to somebody who is the least of your brethren (laughter) is it better to stay there and overcome the irritation in order for growth or would it be the highest that you know?
JJ: Just because he’s the least of your brethren doesn’t mean you have to stay with him. You have to obtain contact your soul on that. It’d be hard and even wrong for me to advise you one way or another because that’s something you have to search internally. If you decide it would be best for your individual progression to leave, that’s not hurting his free will in any way.
Audience: How long should we-I mean in talking about being with someone that’s really irritating-in order to overcome that we need to work on it. If you come across someone who is irritating should we try to work on it or should we just go the other way?
JJ: Well, in a relationship, if you figure the relationship has nowhere to go then I personally would end it and find a better relationship. But that doesn’t mean that the next relationship or the next person you work with or the next kid that you have is going to be a piece of cake to work with. You’re always going to have someone in your life who’s difficult. So if you get rid of your spouse and get another spouse your troubles aren’t going to be over. Sometimes the next spouse may even be worse. Even if your spouse is the greatest person on the Earth there are other difficult people you’re going to meet.
Audience: What if you meet someone a friend or whatever who is just an irritating person. Should you run away from them or do you stand there and try to calm your feelings about that.
JJ: I try to avoid people who irritate me. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. But if there isn’t any way to avoid them I try to look upon the Christ within them and say, “This person has the Christ trying to manifest.” I’ll treat them nice and kind and like I would with somebody I really liked but I’m not going out of my way to spend time with them, only the time that’s necessary.
Audience: I had a husband who was the least of my brethren and I read the Course in Miracles where it said that you can love anybody regardless of how they treat you so I tried so hard to love him even though he was really mean. I said, “It’s okay, you can say those horrible things to me and I’ll love you anyway.” The Course in Miracles caused a dichotomy in me because it’s not really right to stay in a hostile environment. If you’re in a hostile environment and you’re constantly saying, “I love you. OUCH. I love you too. Ouch.” It’s not going to work. What I finally came to the conclusion of is I will love you from a distance. I still love him. He’s a good guy. I see the Christ in him from a distance. You stay there. I’ll stay here.
JJ: Even Hitler had buried within him a soul where the Christ dwells yet we certainly didn’t want him to win WWII so he could be over us, did we? The best thing to do was to get him out of the way where he was harmless. There is nothing wrong with avoiding people that irritate you or that are awkward to deal with. This is the principle behind the gathering. Those who have a high state of consciousness enjoy being with others of like minds. Like gathers to like as the scripture says. When like gathers to like there is greater joy and peace but there are times when light must go with darkness for a period of time. When this happens the light shines in the darkness and the darkness comprehendeth it not. So among your friends who are dark you may be a light that shines among them and they don’t see you for awhile for what you are but you see them for what they are. You see that they have a soul that is covered with darkness and it needs to be manifest.
Audience: It may not be your spouse. It may not be someone you can just walk away from. It could be one of your children.
JJ: That’s true. It could be anybody. It could be your boss. Again, the key is to see the Christ within them. Realize there is the Christ within them and focus on the Christ within them and let the negative energy that they send to just pass through you. Just visualize it passing through.
Audience: That and your children aren’t going to hurt you. When you’re getting away from somebody because they’re hurting you and you’re in a hurtful relationship, harm is one thing. Irritation is another.
JJ: Have you watched these talk shows lately? I saw one the other night where a little 12 year old kid was beating up his mother all the time.
Rick: It’s one thing to love your puppy dog but you don’t have to like it when he piddles on your carpet.
JJ: I saw a bumper sticker awhile back. It said, “The more people I meet the more I like my dog.” The great part about a dog is when you open the door he is happy to see you no matter what type of personality you have.
Audience: Inaudible.
JJ: Right. Hitler had dogs and his dogs probably thought he was the greatest guy in the universe. I bet the dogs were all over him when he got home. They probably even melted his heart. He probably patted them and thought his dogs were great and treated them good. The dog is kind of a symbol of looking on the soul. The dog sees nothing wrong with you. He only sees the good part of you. If we could take that to a higher level and just concentrate on seeing the good part in each individual it would be amazing how much better response we’d get out of them normally but not always. Sometimes when you look upon the soul of another person and this person is just determined to aggravate you, it’s like there is a handful of people who react negatively to love and acceptance. To this handful of individuals, the more you accept them and look upon the pure love of Christ and don’t respond negatively to them the more they will come at you and attack you. They will get more and more fierce until you have to get out of their presence. Have you ever met anybody like that?
So with some people giving love and acceptance is like throwing water on a vampire. It enflames them and gets them all bent out of shape. But to the average person who has had some contact with his soul it will completely change him around. I remember I was selling advertising one time – I used to sell advertising on the phone – this guy answered and he started chewing me out for calling and he was really rude. I was really pleasant and said ok. I hung up and five minutes later he actually called me back. He said, “You were so nice to me that it made me feel terrible that I treated you so rotten. I’ll buy an ad from you.” We don’t get calls like that very often. Sometimes it does affect the other person when you see the Christ within them and see the best within them. The funny thing about people is everybody thinks they are a decent person. Lorraine talks about her ex-husband and he’s the most irritating guy she can imagine yet how do you think he looks upon himself? He thinks he’s a nice person.
If you’ve ever read the book by Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People, it starts with an interesting story about a guy who was on the most wanted list, two-gun Willy or something like that. The police were chasing him and they had him cornered and he was perhaps the most wanted guy in all America and the most hated guy in the country. The papers portrayed him as the most evil character you could imagine. When they had him cornered and he just had a short period of time before he was captured he started writing a letter just in case he was gunned down. He wanted the world to know something. He wrote in this letter that he thought he was a good person, he never wanted to hurt anybody and he only wanted to do good all his life. The way he wrote it he portrayed himself like he couldn’t see anything wrong with himself. Yet he was the most hated man in America at the time.
Dale Carnegie pointed out that this may sound odd to us to hear this letter from this killer, this most wanted man that everyone hated but he said everybody feels that way about themselves. Almost everyone feels that they’re a good person. Sometimes we put ourselves down but inside we think we’re really pretty good. Most people feel that. He says everybody, no matter how bad they are, no matter what they’ve done, they think they’ve done the best with their life that they could’ve done. Therefore, he said, you must be very careful how you criticize or how you look upon the other person because they think they’re OK. He said if you want to win friends and influence people we must play upon that idea. Play upon the idea that they are a good person. Look upon them as a good person then they will start responding as they are a better person.
From my experience I agree with Lorraine. It may not work with everybody but it will work with a large percentage of people. There is a small percentage of people that make a science out of being aggravating and take joy in aggravating people. When I worked as a fireman for a couple of years one time a fellow worker kept doing these really aggravating things. I just kept ignoring him. We had a kitchen where we made our meals and he’d tip over my plate. I’d say, “What’s your problem?” I’d pick it up and be very patient with him. This went of for 3 or 4 days and I kept thinking, “What’s this guy’s problem? He’s doing such weird things around me.” Finally he came up to me and said, “I’ve been doing an experiment with you. I’ve never seen you get angry at anybody. I wanted to see if you could get angry so I’ve been doing everything I can to aggravate you. You ignore it. I don’t understand it.”
I said, “I didn’t realize you were trying to make me angry. I thought you were being a little weird.” That made him more irritated still. He was irritated that he didn’t make me angry but where he failed my first wife was able to succeed. (laughter)
So it’s interesting that there is always somebody who can irritate you. Every once in awhile somebody can say those certain right words that make you feel like strangling them. When you hear those words, that’s the time of the real test. That’s the time to really examine the person’s soul.
We have a great group here. I feel like I can look on the souls of anybody here. Everybody is a good decent person. Perhaps if we knew each other well enough it could be difficult for us. Perhaps I may be difficult for all of you if you knew me very well and knew all the quirks of my personality. That’s one thing about meeting in this way. We don’t have a lot of personality to overlook. One person I knew years back told me I had no personality so maybe I’m easy to overlook. Who knows.
Audience: What about the concept that the people who irritate you the most are the people you need to learn lessons about yourself from? People are mirrors of you. The aspects of people that are the most irritating to you, if you really look inwardly, it’s irritating to you because you see yourself in them. So they’re really a good lesson.
JJ: That’s a really good point. This is a reason we should be very cautious about being judgmental. Oftentimes when we’re judging another person we’re only seeing a reflection of ourselves. Lorraine, you’ve openly admitted that you’ve had a difficult marriage. Did you find quite often that when you were criticized it seemed that he was describing himself?
Lorraine: You know, I have a degree in Sociology, specializing in counseling, so I’m the last person who wants to admit that I have made this mistake. I have a degree in counseling so I analyzed this man upside down and every way I possibly could. I don’t think he fits into the regular mold because he was the one who would only be happy if I was irritated. His MO was to find whatever weakness I had and just keep hurting me until I was hurt. Then he could be happy. But I can say that it is true that we do hate in other people what we despise in ourselves. That is true but he was more than that.
JJ: There are some people like that. Misery loves company is a true statement. There are some people who are miserable and they’re not happy unless they make you miserable. Then when they make you miserable they seem to have a little gleam in their eye. It’s kind of sad. There aren’t a lot of people that way. Maybe 5 or 10 % of humanity will go that route. Most people are pretty decent people.
It is true about the reflection. This is why we must be careful. Oftentimes you as an observer dispassionately look at two different people, and they’re complaining about each other, oftentimes you’ll see that they’re complaining about something that’s inside them. That they’re really projecting. This happens again and again and again. I’ve known many people who criticized me for different things and I think, “I don’t think I’m that way but I think he’s that way.” We see this quite often. I would say 50% of humanity fall into this trap of taking that which is within them and criticizing it within others. This is an important thing to overcome. The question is how do we know whether or not we’re criticizing because of the reflection of because it’s really something in the other person.
The key to it is developing the power of discernment through the mind. Remember the emotions do not know how to control and regulate themselves. The lower has to be controlled by the higher. The emotions, when they are controlled by the mind, can then use the discernment to know whether or not he’s seeing a reflection of himself or something that is real. Then the mind reflects the soul energy. It takes the soul energy to regulate the mind so the mind can be accurate. Each lower sphere has to be regulated and controlled by the higher. Any more questions on this?
Audience: To me part of the intent of seeing the goodness in others or the Christ in others is so you yourself can see and love yourself and see the Christ within you. If you can see it in others it’s easier to see it in yourself. Self love is what lifts us up to be able to truly love God.
JJ: There’s a lot of truth in that. You can’t see it in yourself unless you can see it in others.
Audience: I have a comment to make. It’s true. I used to say I wasn’t able to love another human being until I was first able to love myself. I swore by that and gave many a seminar on it but I’ve changed my mind since then. I think now it’s only possible to love somebody else if I have truly been loved. If you think about it you don’t know how to love until you’ve experienced it. Once you’ve experienced being loved, then you know how to do it because you know what it feels like and you know what it looks like. So I don’t think it’s true anymore that you have to first love yourself because you won’t know how.
JJ: The answer is found again in the middle way. It depends on where you are on the balance. If you’re in the balance where you’re just giving all the time-there are some people who are always giving and they never take care of themselves. These individuals need to step back and say, “Wait. These other people are important but I’m important too. I’m one of the sons or daughters of God so I need to take care of myself too.” That person needs to step back and love himself also and realize that he needs his needs taken care of as well as taking care of the other person’s needs. We’ve all known people like that. They’re always running about helping everybody else and everything in their personal life is shambles. This is one extreme that needs corrected by self love.
On the other hand, the bigger and more common problem occurs as most people have too much self love and they’re not running around helping their neighbors. They’re only looking after themselves. If we balance more in this direction then we need somebody to come and love us. Eventually a person loves us that will stimulate us and make us think, “I need to look beyond the self and be loving and giving like this person.” It depends on which side of the spectrum we’re on. We’re all a little more one than the other. None of us are in perfect balance. If any person on the Earth reaches perfect balance with all his energies, do you know what will happen to him? He will disappear. He won’t even be here anymore. So if anyone tells you they’ve achieved the perfect balance of energy ask them why they’re still here.
THE SONG OF THE 144,000
Since we’ve said so many OMs we’ll just say one OM at the beginning and one OM at the end. Leave a space of silence in between as you visualize what’s been said.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
We thank you Father that you have revealed to us your protective universal light;
that within this light is complete protection from all destructive forces;
that the Holy Spirit of Your Presence permeates us in this light,
and wherever we will the light to descend.
JJ: Visualize the light manifesting. The light is universal and is everywhere but we don’t always perceive it so we visualize the light manifesting to us. Then you can visualize it descending to those you love and know who are in need of greater light and guidance. It may be your family, your children, your friends as you say wherever we will the light to descend. Finally you visualize it descending wherever there is a need for greater light, wherever there is a receptivity for it.
We thank you Father that you fill us with your protective fires of Love
that within this love is complete protection from all destructive thoughts and feelings;
that the consciousness of Christ is lifted up in us in this love,
and wherever we will the love to be enflamed.
JJ: Notice that when we say ‘the protective fires of love’ oftentimes in relationship you feel that you are distant to love. When a relationship becomes difficult and you say this stanza you will often feel the protective fires of love beginning to burn within you again. If you say it with the person you’re having difficulty with he or she will experience the same thing and you can be one in the soul again. You can visualize this love descending upon all those who are willing to receive it.
We thank you Father that you are in us and we are in you;
that through us Your Will is sent forth on wings of power;
that Your Purpose is accomplished on earth as it is in heaven;
that through us Your Light and Love and Power is manifest to all the Sons and Daughters of Mankind.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
It’s been great to be here, my friends. I remember when we first started talking about this Robin wrote me and said, “There’s only three people signed up. I’m really nervous.” I said, “I think they’ll show up.” We’re glad you all came. Robin is no longer nervous. She’s just tired now. (laughter) We’re going to go eat then when we get back anyone that wants books or cups can get them. We’ll just lounge around the rest of the night and enjoy each other’s company. I enjoy watching you guys associate with each other. It looks like you’re really enjoying each other. Little groups gather of 4 or 5 here and 4 or 5 there. Artie just pointed out that several are enjoying each other too much. (laughter) So we’ll go eat and meet back here to enjoy the rest of the day. Artie and I are taking off first thing in the morning so we’ll probably have to say our good byes this evening unless several of you are up very early.
Thank you very much.
Delivered by J.J. Dewey Sunday, May 26, 2002 Wimberly, Texas
Copyright By J J Dewey
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