God’s Boatman
I am the Christ Consciousness which has been with you always. Before you were born, I was there. Before even the world was, I was. I am the spirit of God that dwells in the heart of every atom. I am ever aware of you though you see me not. To every part of your being I give my unconditional love.
I heard your soul-call
On the day of your birth, I, too, was born within you, destined from eternity to be the king and ruler of all your thought-citizens. My birth took place in a humble, silent part of your mind. Only your pure and simple thought children knew of my coming and even they had to be awakened from their slumber by the angels of your latent God Consciousness.
As you grew, you began to call me with all your heart. I heard your soul-call and came out of the clouds of your desires and distractions. I, the Christ within you, sought out those attitudes that were ready to become my disciples and called to them, “Follow me.”
Impatient with the slow path of love
Certain parts of you heeded my call. There was your devotion, born of lifetimes of meditation on me, which I called “John.” And deep, intuitive faith: This I named “Peter.”
But even among the spiritual parts of your mind, not every aspect was fully developed. There was your “Thomas,” yearning to believe, but haunted by lingering doubt. And there was the wish to use my spiritual power to rule your other thought children, be they willing or not. Some years later this “Judas,” impatient with the slow path of love, would betray me to the powers of ego and worldly desire that still ruled your mind.
What joy we shared!
At first, my newly awakened thought-disciples were filled with fresh enthusiasm. You felt intense devotion as you offered back to me the tiniest part of the love I ever gave to you. What freedom you felt as you left the confining walls of your home and the nets of your petty preoccupations. All you wanted was to walk with me, and serve with me. Ah! what joy we shared.
According to God’s will, I, the Christ Consciousness within you, began to reveal myself more fully and to change you through miracles. During a time of celebration, I transformed the water of common everyday thoughts into the wine of ecstasy.
Your thought children began to take notice
And your thought-children, who always love a good miracle, began to take notice and take the first tentative steps toward Spirit. Light, which is my very nature, began to heal those parts of your mind that were ill and undeveloped.
Latent talents, crippled by neglect, came to me and I helped them walk. I gave you sight where you were blind to the needs of others and to God’s beauty. And, where you had been deaf, I let you hear laughter and song. I taught you with the simplest of truths: “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.”
And I showed you that there was no need to overload your senses with groaning banquet tables and never-ending entertainment. A handful of loaves and fishes could satisfy multitudes of desires as long as you remained near the Christ Consciousness.
I yearned to give you my true treasure
Drawn by miracles, thousands of your thought-citizens began to come. Yet most begged for only the least of my gifts—for wealth, for health, for power. This I gave but yearned to give my true treasure—infinite love, unending joy.
I longed to make you one with me and my Father. Alas, only a small part of you was ready for Self-realization and so, from an ocean of bliss, I measured out the few drops your tiny cup could hold.
As I grew more prominent, your entrenched rulers of ego-consciousness became filled with fear. Old habit-bound desires for power and possessions hated me. They, having long ruled the dark corridors of your mind, now began to plot ways to rid themselves of my revealing light.
Your carping spirit challenged me when I fed my hungry disciples on the day of rest. I, who see all and love all, replied simply, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.”
The great conflict of the devotee
Self-destructive tendencies of judgment and self-righteousness were ever ready to condemn small parts of you, which fell, for a moment, into error. With love and compassion, I said to your fault-finding thought, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.” And to petty mistakes you cannot help but make, I said, “Neither do I condemn thee: go and sin no more.”
As I, your eternal light, continued to heal and teach there arose within you the great conflict of the devotee. Part of you loved me and yearned to become one with me. But another part of you was deathly afraid to let go of old familiar habits and desires. Most of your mind was simply uncommitted—happy to cheer and lay palm fronds in my path one day, ready to jeer and spit upon me barely a week later.
To my disciples, your spiritualized attitudes, I promised that I would never, could never, leave them. They had but to break bread and think of me with love in order to know I was ever with them. They had but to concentrate one-pointedly on my inner presence in order to drink the wine of ecstatic communion with me.
Lasting change comes only through love
The petty, contracted part of your mind bound and judged me according to the laws of egoic power. I could have called down an army of angels but I did not. I knew the secret that the ego has yet to learn—lasting change comes only through love, never by force. Even as they crucified me I prayed, “Forgive them Father for they know not what they do.”
As they rolled the rock in front of my tomb the dark parts of your mind thought, “Surely now, we are free of this fanatic. Surely now, we can forget this terrible challenge, to ‘Love the Lord with all our heart, with our entire mind, with all our soul and with all our strength. And to love our neighbor as our own self.’”
I came again in Spirit and in Truth
And you, my disciples, in spite of all you had seen and learned, doubted my promise to be always with you. Even you lost heart. For three days I left you to grieve and cry and cower in fear.
And then in the glory of Easter I came again in Spirit and in Truth. I revealed to you the deathless glory of my light.
May the light of Christ shine upon you forever and forever. Amen
Article was first published online in Clarity Magazine, Winter 2005