Texas Gathering, Part Twenty-Two
Seeing the Christ Within, Part 1
(Comment by transcriber) This audio begins with the group singing together. The outpouring of love energy is something to be heard and felt. Typing out the songs can’t do justice to the beauty of the group.
Robin: You know I worked for a few months putting everything together for this. It was really a labor of love. I’m really glad that you all came and that it worked out really well. But I don’t really feel like I should keep this plaque (commemorative plaque made by Rick) because there is another person here who serves us continually, just about 20 hours a day, to keep the Keys list going. I think that that person needs this plaque because my labor was short. Hers is ongoing and will continue to go on so Diane would you do me the honor of keeping this for me? Please? (applause)
(Diane graciously accepted)
JJ: Thank you Robin. That was really sweet and fit in really well with what I’m going to talk about. Every gathering I talk a bit about soul contact-because it’s such an important subject-and try to give a little different dimension or twist on it each time because it’s possible that a little different play on words and a little different view on it will inspire a person to keep on moving forward until he achieves that contact. Isn’t that right, Rob?
The other night we talked about winding up a model air plane until the point of tension is reached. You have to reach a point of tension to achieve success in anything. One of the prime ingredients in achieving the tension of soul contact is a general love of humanity, a love that goes beyond the selfish love of self. A lot of average people, when they get married, they pick a mate because of what the mate does for them, not because of what they can do for the mate. They pick friends for the same reason. But when the person approaches discipleship he loves because it feels good to give out love to fellow men and women, it feels good to serve, it feels good to go beyond self. We’ve seen a lot of that today and Robin gave a great example. She was given this plaque to Diane. A lot of people would think, “That’s going to look nice in my living room, it’s a good conversation piece.” But instead she gives it to Diane as an act of love and Diane accepts it as an act of love so that was really great.
One of the most important things that we can do then is to develop what is called the pure love of Christ. The pure love of Christ is a higher octave of love than the normal sense. The fact is that love in the normal sense, as people define it, has degrees or ingredients of selfishness in it – in the fact that I love you for the fact of what you can do for me. But in the pure love of Christ there is no thought of self. There is only the thought of giving it out. When it is given out you actually do benefit a lot from it even though it’s not selfish. The person benefits a lot more by unselfish love than he does by selfish love because with selfish love you don’t really get that much back because the other party senses the selfishness and wants selfish love back. When the selfish love is interplayed it plays itself out and it only lasts for a period of time then everything begins to fall apart in the relationship. With the eternal love of Christ an eternal stream is created which flows back and forth and never ends. It continues to grow as our awareness and our consciousness grows until we attain a fullness of the consciousness of God.
The Book of Mormon gives an interesting parable about the love of God. It talks about a man named Lehi who had a vision along a path that’s end is at a tree whose fruit was white above the whiteness of any other fruit. The fruit was symbolic of the love of God. As Lehi was progressing along this path a cloud of darkness fell. As it fell upon him he had a hard time figuring out where the path was. He couldn’t even see the path because of the cloud of darkness. Many people who were with him wandered off onto strange paths and got lost because of the cloud of darkness. So Lehi wondered, “How can I proceed?” Then he saw a rod of iron and he grabbed a hold of that rod of iron and somehow he knew that the rod of iron led to the tree; that the rod of iron would take him through the darkness until he arrived at this tree of life whereon was the fruit most desirable than any other fruit because it represented the pure love of God.
So Lehi grabbed hold of this rod of iron and the rod of iron took him to the tree. The rod of iron, we’re told, is symbolic of the word of God. Some people say that just means the scriptures but it means much more than the scriptures. Remember where the name of God is? It’s on our forehead. (See Revelations 14:1) It’s within us. When we look within we find the true word of God. When we look within and feel the spirit of God we can then proceed along the path even though we’re in darkness because without the spirit of God within us it is dark. We don’t know our next step. We don’t know where to go. Remember when we talked about the idea that if we follow the highest we know we will always know what our next step is? If we don’t know what our next step is we must look within and see what it is we are supposed to do. When we do that one thing and we do it right our next step will be revealed to us. Sometimes it will be a big step. Sometimes it will be a small step.
Whether big or small it’s equally important that we take that step. We can take that step and arrive where the fruit is, even in darkness, even when we can’t see with our physical eyes where the tree of life is. We can get there by following the inner spirit. The inner spirit is stimulated by the love of our fellow men. When we share love with our fellow man it stimulates the word of God within us so that we have a sense of what the tree of life is like because the love of God is even greater than the love we share here among us.
When we are able to make it to that tree of life we make it by holding on to the iron rod which is revealed to us as we follow the highest that we know. As we do this we can make it to the tree and partake of the fruit. So Lehi did this. He followed this iron rod and he made it to the tree. As he and several others made it to the tree they partook of the fruit. When they partook of the fruit he noticed a river of filthy water. On the other side of this river was a large and spacious building. In this large and spacious building were people dressed in fine and beautiful clothing.
These were looking at the people who had partaken of the fruit and they were laughing and making fun of them and telling them that they were ridiculous. Then Lehi saw that several who had come and partaken of the fruit were ashamed because people were pointing their fingers at them and making fun and mocking. Even though they had partaken of the fruit of the love of God they were ashamed and they wandered off onto strange paths and were lost. But Lehi said that he ignored the people who were pointing their fingers in scorn and making fun of him and he continued to eat of the tree and he was satisfied.
This is an interesting parable because it illustrates so much truth. When a person does the highest that he knows he begins to move ahead and he begins to feast upon the love of his fellow man and upon the love of God, there are those who will point the fingers of scorn. There are those who will make fun. There are those who will accuse the person of being a new age quack or a Christian quack or some type of weirdo or freak or whatever they want to call them. The person will be ashamed and he will withdraw. Maybe it will be his family members pointing fingers at him and saying, “You’re not going to go do that weirdo stuff, are you?” Maybe the weirdo stuff is that which leads him to the tree of life where upon he can partake of the love of God. So the person who partakes of the fruit must be able to withstand scorn, pointing fingers, family, friends, and everyone that may think he’s a little strange. We know Rick’s the only one who’s really strange. (laughter) The rest of us don’t have to worry. Just joking Rick.
I know, for instance in my family, they all think I’m very strange. I was telling somebody earlier, that none of my family will read my book or even take my book. When I give the book to them and say, “Here take it. It’s free” then go visit them the book is nowhere in the bookcase to be seen. Many of my friends are active in orthodoxy so they’re very wary of me because I’m a strange character to them.
So this is one of the things we must withstand. We must withstand people pointing their fingers, pointing us out, pointing you out as being off the beaten path. The path toward the true love of God is not always easy. But you notice, if you ever watch a movie where you really feel love manifested, like Titanic. At the end of Titanic the guy goes through tremendous friction to be able to have the woman of his dreams then he gives his life at the end and you feel so bad and you feel taken in by it. Wherever there is a lot of love manifested, like you feel in a good story, there’s usually a lot of sacrifice and a lot of difficulty crossed. Then after the difficulty is crossed the love is manifested. Titanic is a good example. They went through a lot of difficulties. They even sank with the ship and the woman survived that. Jack gave his life to save his loved one at the end. You just start choking up when you see something like that even though it’s fiction and in a movie. A good story can remind us of the true reality and the true sacrifice it takes to manifest that which is eternal and important.
Paul told us that charity endureth forever. Charity, of course, is somewhat of a mistranslation. The original Greek is love, love endures forever. He says, “Though I speak with the tongue of men and of angels and have not love, I am nothing, though I give my body to be burned.” Though he does all things and sacrifices everything he has, if he doesn’t have love he is nothing.
If we don’t have love we can pretty much toss soul contact out the window because the Holy Spirit is love. The Holy Spirit vibrates with love. When the Holy Spirit comes to us-remember soul contact is the door or the window between spirit and matter-it opens the door to all the higher vibrations. So when the door is open and the Holy Spirit comes in you will feel the love of God and that will be a very joyous feeling. It will make you feel like weeping when you feel it because it is very powerful. It is what is written in the song, the fires of love. The Holy Spirit is truly a fire of love. God is a fire of light, a fire of love, and a fire of will. It is written that fire is the will of God. There’s fire involved in all the aspects of God. Love is also a consuming fire.
Before one can have a fullness of joy one must partake of the fruit of the love of God. It is impossible to arrive at that without the love of mankind. An interesting scripture was when Jesus was asked, “Who is going to be on your right hand and on your left hand when everything is said and done?” He said, “Those who are found on my right hand are those who when I was in prison, they came to me. When I was hungry they fed me. When I was thirsty they gave me drink. Those who will be on my left hand will be those who when I was in prison they did not come to me, those that when I was thirsty did not give me drink, and those who when I was hungry did not feed me.” People would say, “Lord, when were you in prison? When were you hungry? When were you thirsty?” He answered back, “Whatsoever thou doest unto the least of these my brethren you do unto me.”
In church they used to preach that part often. “Whatsoever you do to the least of my brethren you do to me.” The idea conjured up in the church about who the least of the brethren were fellow members of the church but I got to thinking who really are the least. The least of the brethren are those who you think least of. A Course in Miracles makes an interesting statement on this. It says, “Think in your life of the person who aggravates you more than any other person in the world.” It says you know who this person is. (laughter) When you read it you think, “Yea I know who that person is!” All of us have one person in our life that aggravates us more than any other person in the whole universe and we know who it is.
It says, “This person is your savior.” In other words he is the least of your brethren. This is the least of the brethren. Whatsoever you do unto the least of your brethren – the person who aggravates you and is the thorn in your side more than any other person that is what you do to Christ. He has Christ within him even though it’s very hard to find. We have to peal off layers. Even though it’s hard for us to see that person has Christ within him as much as we do. Maybe more than we do. You never know. He might look at us and think we have a lot bigger problem than he does. Some people might say things like, “This person is selfish and irritating and mean and how can I see Christ in such a person?”
You see Christ in a person by overlooking the personality.
Reflect now on married people. Did anybody see the show, “The War of the Roses?” At the end they both fell from this balcony and they were both dying. The last thought that Kathleen Turned had, was giving her husband one last stab. That’s how angry they both were at each other but when they first met they were in love. How could they go from being in love to being so hateful that in their last dying breath they wanted to injure each other even more? How could they go from that?
The thing is that when they first met they didn’t see the personality; they didn’t see all the ingredients in it. Because they didn’t see all the ingredients in the personality they were able to see the Christ within. Now they later became that aggravating person that was talked about that is their savior. But in the beginning there was nothing to overlook because when you first fall in love with another person the personality is completely invisible. You see no personality. You only see that you love that person and you want to be with them forever. They make you feel wonderful and you just love him to pieces. That’s because you’re looking on their soul. Then what happens is the two people begin to reveal their personalities, their faults, their imperfections and they start looking, not on the soul, but they take their eyes off the soul and look on the personality and they see all kinds of things to aggravate them.
No matter how good the person is, when you look on their personality they will aggravate you–even Jesus Himself irritated people. When the Jews looked upon the personality of Jesus rather than upon His soul, what did they do to Him? They crucified Him because they thought that He was the most irritating guy they’d ever seen. They couldn’t imagine anybody more irritating than Him because they were looking on his personality. The Apostles, like Peter, James and John, they looked at the same person but they saw something different. Why did they see something different? Lorraine?
Lorraine: They looked on the soul.
JJ: Right, they looked on the soul of Christ rather than on His personality. John the Baptist could have looked on His personality. He wanted somebody like him that was a strict vegetarian ad ate milk and honey, lived in rags and lived just about like a Buddhist monk. Christ was not that type of person and because John did not look upon the personality he wound up accepting his cousin for who He was and what His mission was.
So we can at any time, at any time in our relationship with any person, no matter how aggravating, if we tune out the personality, just like we tune out a radio station, if you tune out the personality and only tune into the soul you will feel the love of God in relation to that person. That doesn’t mean that you aren’t aware of the faults of this person but you tune them out.
So what do you do with the faults of the personality? You realize that the Spirit of Christ is struggling to come forward but it’s having difficulty because of the personality vehicle it has to work with. When we look at this idea we can take the most irritating person and he will be our savior, the moment we realize that he’s the least of the brethren and whatsoever we do to him we do to Christ. It’s a challenging statement but anyone who has been through some difficult marriages has a lot of practice at such a thing.
As a matter of fact, all of us have had difficult relationships whether it be family, whether it be lovers, whether it be marriages, whether it be business partners. There are a lot of difficult relationships that surface in all of our lives. It gives us a lot of opportunity to practice this principle. All of us have an irritating person in our lives that will give us really good practice in overlooking the personality and looking upon the soul.
Robin: When I think about that statement I think about the people we see on the street and the children who go without food. Is that them also?
JJ: Yes but they’re probably not the least in your opinion. We see the beggar on the street and it is good to help the person who is on the street without food and that’s one of the things that Christ mentioned. “For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat.” But he’s still not the least because when we see the beggar on the street we don’t know anything about his personality. We might think he’s a pretty nice guy who’s down on his luck. Then you go home to your spouse and he does something to irritate you and he’s a lot lower in your mind than the beggar on the street. (laughter)
Generally it will be somebody close to you who will be the least in your opinion of all the people of the Earth. A lot of people out there would trade their spouse for the beggar on the street. (laughter) Robin fortunately has a good spouse. I don’t think she’d trade him off for anything. Every once in awhile people get lucky. Because of the laughter here you can tell people have been through a lot. When we joke about marriage and how difficult it is for all of us at one time or another we always get a lot of laughter. People identify with that. It took me a couple of marriages to get it right. A lot of us have to go through several of them. A lot of us never get it right through our life. Maybe we’ll come back again and do it another life. For a lot of us marriage is just a big learning experience. Sometimes you learn more through a difficult relationship than you do through a good relationship. Quite possibly a good relationship is a reward for us than a learning experience. We deserve a break every once in awhile from tough learning, don’t we?
Sunday Evening Gathering May 26, 2002
Delivered by J.J. Dewey Sunday, May 26, 2002 Wimberly, Texas
Copyright By J J Dewey
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