The Way of Grace
24-03-2016 00:00How to walk the road to Victory in these last days.
Many people write to me asking personal questions, for example: "How do I release my guilt?" or "How can I heal my anger" or "What is the way to be free of my sorrow" and they share with me various other wounded inner child issues.
Now, while there is a place for psychotherapy in this world of hurt and fear, what I always attempt to do for people is invite them to consider and understand the One Solution to all humanity's ills, which must necessarily be a divine solution.
The wonderful truth is that one moment of divine Grace can and does more good than all the psychotherapy and self-effort in the world!
May I suggest that you ponder deeply on this last sentence, come to understand that in it rests the Key to Liberation from all human woes and struggles, and so ensure that your focus is True before you continue your striving for release and healing. For only if we are looking in the right way and in the right direction can the Path of Redemption be revealed before us.
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A great number of people in the world today are having all kinds of psycho-emotional blocks and long-suppressed maladies revealed to them by the approaching Light of the New Day. And this is well because humanity must see and acknowledge where it presently stands in order that it may proceed along the path with objectivity and insight.
However, the vast majority of people who are beginning to be honest about their revealed condition are also of the opinion that they must work hard on themselves in order to become worthy to receive God's Love and Grace. They believe that by applying self-effort and all kinds of specially-designed healing modalities with the motive of fixing the self, they may one day be able to court the favour of Divinity, and so be fully healed by the Light of Christ.
But this is not how the spiritual Path is trodden.
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Let us briefly review the life-expression of Jesus the Piscean Christ, for in understanding the symbolic and very revealing life-demonstration of this man of God we may see clearly what he was showing us.
In chapter 142 of the Aquarian Gospel, which is a far more clear scripture than the disfigured Bible, it is written:
9 If you love father, mother, wife, or child, more than you love the Christ, you cannot follow me.
10 If you love wealth or honour more than you love the Christ, you cannot follow me.
11 The paths of carnal life do not run up the mountain side towards the top; they run around the mount of life, and if you go straight to the upper gate of consciousness you cross the paths of carnal life; tread in them not.
12 And this is how men bear the cross; no man can bear another’s cross.
13 Take up your cross and follow me through Christ into the path of true discipleship; this is the path that leads to life.
14 This way of life is called the pearl of greatest price, and he who finds it must put all he has beneath his feet.
Do note that here Jesus is teaching correct focus and the requirement for being very clear about one's spiritual priorities before one may enter the Path of true Discipleship, which means before one may begin to walk the genuine spiritual Path.
Jesus does not teach that before we may follow his example by taking up our cross and accepting ourselves just as we are, we must heal ourselves. Rather he very clearly states to the man who wants to go the Lighted Way that he "must put all he has beneath his feet."
So what does this practically mean?
Well, again if we carefully study the life of Jesus we may observe how he was a man of sorrows throughout his spiritual mission in service to the sons of men. Right up to the end Jesus was assailed from all sides with trials, challenge and both his own pain and that, too, of humanity. Jesus was an empath, of course.
Right up until the end Jesus carried his burden willingly while maintaining a correct focus on the Path and his true calling, which is the very same calling with which all mankind is charged. This was demonstrated symbolically in Jesus' life by the carrying of his own cross all the way to Golgotha, the Place of Skulls (ego death) where he consummated his death (of self) on the crucifix.
Therefore Jesus was not concerned for his own little self at all, as are so many people who are lost in such a contractive focus and so who in being full cups are also destitute of Grace in these times on Earth. Jesus accepted his own cross - meaning he carried his burden in life - giving it no value above the sole goal of all men, which is to attract the Grace of the Christ-Spirit by way of a correct and self-less focus and so to attain Liberation from the error of self.
We can see from Jesus' perfect example, therefore, that one does not have to first heal oneself by personal effort before divine Grace can begin to be received. Rather in Faith and Consecration to the purpose of our calling we may follow Jesus' footsteps along the path of willing acceptance of our load right up to the place of crucifixion of the self, the death of the ego, where in complete and unconditional surrender to God's Will we attain Deliverance or Ascension.
And this is the only way to overcome the futile plight of the self, with all its noble agendas, grand ideas, delusive plights and futile efforts.
Only Grace can redeem the soul of man. Only Grace can transmute and so heal all our ills, and only by seeking the Truth and in serving God's Plan, which is our calling, may we know Liberation by way of such Grace.
Since the true spiritual Path, then, is the Way of Grace, and since each and every soul has to go that road at some time in order to become free, the wise man immediately embarks upon the true Path, not by looking down at his own feet, not with any self-focus at all, but instead by lifting his gaze up towards the liberating Grace of the Divine Sun:Son of God which is the Light hidden in Christ.
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What we focus upon grows and energy follows our attention, our thought and is conditioned by our intention. Therefore if we are focusing in self-effort to fix the self or if we are concerned for any aspect of the self, then we are magnifying and fortifying that self to the degree of our attention which is placed there.
This is why psychotherapy does not produce saints or liberate the soul. Nor can it ever. In psychotherapy, because the motive is to fix the self, as one psycho-emotional problem may be seen or even remedied, another one takes its place due to our self-ish focus and so we remain on the hamster wheel of the delusion of self.
See how this approach to become free can never work. Understand deeply how any selfish self-focus only creates a larger self, frustrating all personal efforts towards perfect and complete healing, and so understand why the wise choose to place their feet firmly on the Path of Grace by looking in the right direction, away from self and towards the Sun of God.
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However, "man, know thyself!". This injunction over the door of the famous temple in Greece appears to contradict the foregoing, but such confusion may be dissipated in a moment if we come to understand the all-important element of motive.
Self-enquiry is a must before complete Faith (in its original sense meaning Knowing) may be restored, and as long as we do this with a universal motivation rather than a selfish one, we shall progress on the path of self-realisation.
Selfish seeking is the left-hand path and leads deeper into the darkness of self and separation. Therefore, it is vitally important that we be HONEST about our motivations and to thus vigilantly scrutinize them in each new moment.
This is why the Buddha prescribed dispassionate mindfulness.
If we are motivated even partially by a desire to liberate ourselves or to gain a greater happiness for self, then true results are going to come slowly if at all as we walk with a staggering gait.
Conversely, if we embark upon the path of self-enquiry for the greater good, that is to say if our motives are inclusive of the greater life and not exclusive - just for ourselves; if we do the work within for God and for humanity, then the greatest Power and Wisdom in the universe - which comes not from self - will assist us.
"Meditate not for self but for others." - Marpa, the great Tibetan yogi.
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So let us make God interested in our labours and so rest in faith under the Law that we are truly helping Christ to prune this human garden by starting right where we are, here and now. And then we shall make rapid progress as God sends His angels to watch over and aid us.
With regard to opening to and receiving Grace, then - the divine Grace that heals and redeems at the soul level and everything below it - we must fully understand the futility of all self-effort and personal striving to attain something better for ourselves. We must simply accept and carry our cross all the way to the Calvary, where in perfect surrender and faith, Christ will be able to redeem us from the fetters of self as the Final Liberation is attained and as the morning of Eternity dawns in our lives.
17 And all who put their trust in Christ, and follow Jesus as a pattern and a guide, have everlasting life.
18 But they who do not trust the Christ, and will not purify their hearts so that the Christ can dwell within, can never enter life.
19 And then he spoke unto the people who believed in him and said, If you abide in Christ, and Christ abide in you, and if you keep my words within your heart,
20 You are the way, you are disciples in the way, and you shall know what is the truth, and truth shall make you free.
Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ, chapters 79 & 135.
(TNC)
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