Book Excerpt

From The Living Christ by Paul Ferrini

Jesus: If you see Christ in me, you must also see it in yourself and in your brother or sister. If you don't, it is not Christ that you see, but some form of specialness valued by the world.  You cannot experience true equality with others until you acknowledge that the Christ lives in each one of you.

Paul: So my awakening is crucial not only for myself, but for the community in which I live?

Jesus: Christ is the light born in the darkness. It is the flame of self acceptance that extends to others. It is the tiny ray of light that begins in your heart and becomes a beacon that lights the way for all. The promise of Christ is not only that you may end your suffering by surrendering to God's Will, but that through your surrender, you may become an expression of that Will.

Suffering is self created

Paul: Many people have asked, and I among them, why me? Why did you come into my life and insist that we have a relationship.

Jesus: I’m sure that it appears that way to you. But I was already in your life. You just didn’t know it. I had to remind you of why you were here, so you wouldn’t go to sleep and forget your assignment.

Paul: What assignment do you mean?

Jesus: Well, everybody who embodies has a simple assignment: to open more deeply to the presence of love. That involves different things for different people. For you, it meant acknowledging that there was a spiritual presence available to you. You were on the edge for a while, you know.

Paul: I know. I didn’t really want to be here. There was so much suffering. I didn’t see the point to it.

Jesus: You aren’t the only one who doesn’t see the point. But you have come to learn over the years that a great deal of that suffering is self-created. It is not thrust upon you by some outside force or authority. You reach out and bring it in.

Paul: I know that when I am feeling unloved, I perceive the world in a very different way than when I am feeling loved!

Jesus: That’s right. It’s very much about perception. And perception is not just an intellectual affair. It includes what you think and how you feel about it.

Paul: So, would you say that we are here to alter our perception?

Jesus: You are here to perceive things as they are. You are here to learn that you create suffering by insisting on seeing the world in terms of what you want it to be or what you don’t want it to be.

Paul: Are we here to learn how to be neutral? Not opposed or against?

Jesus: Yes, but neutral isn’t the right word. You are here to understand thoroughly, intricately, how you create your own suffering by wanting something to be different than it is. And, as a byproduct of this learning, you stop having so many fixed ideas or opinions. You learn to let things be.

Paul: This seems to be a major component not only of your teaching, but of many spiritual teachings.

Jesus : Yes, it is one of the few central ideas on which enlightenment rests.

Paul: Can you elaborate?

Jesus : When you can let things be as they are, you stop wasting your time and your energy on external factors that you can do nothing about. Instead, you begin to wipe clean the glass that separates your self-concept from your true identity. In other words, you begin to see who you really are.

Thinking limits being

Paul: So I am not who I think I am?

Jesus: Absolutely not. If you will sit in silence for just one minute, you will see that you are much greater than any thought you have about yourself. Every single thought limits you or someone else. And you are not limited, nor is anyone else.

Paul: So all our thoughts do is limit us?

Jesus: All thinking is a form of Self-conscription. Thinking limits being. Being is always larger than thinking. Truth is always larger and more immediate than the concepts we have about it.

Paul: So why do we think?

Jesus: You might as well have asked “Why do we incarnate?”

Incarnation is also Self-conscription. It takes the vast, all encompassing Self and makes it particular. Now we don’t just have Self, we have Paul or Jesus.

Paul: So Self is larger than Paul or Jesus?

Jesus: Self is Paul and Jesus remembering their true nature, remembering that they cannot be described by name or form. The true Paul or Jesus are beyond all thinking, beyond all concepts.

Paul: That seems so baffling!

Jesus: Exactly. It is beyond the ability of your mind to grasp it. It is the mystery. It is the awe we experience when we approach the throne of the All-Inclusive Oneness we call God.

Paul: The part does not know itself separate from the whole?

Jesus: Yes. When you become whole, there is no more part. There is no more you that is separate from anyone else.

Paul: Is that what your experience is?

Jesus: Yes, I am not separate from you or anyone else. When you think of Jesus, he is there instantly, not because he is a separate being you call upon, but because he and you were never separated.

Paul: I don’t totally get it.

Jesus: Before embodiment there was no Jesus or Paul, but there was this mutual communion in the truth. Now, even though Jesus is not embodied, that communion in the truth continues.

Channeling

Paul: Well, this brings up the subject of channeling. I have been careful not to call what I do channeling. When Jesus and Paul have “communion in the truth,” and I hear your words coming through me, is that channeling?

Jesus: How do you know they are my words and not yours?

Paul: Well, I don’t really know. But I feel all this energy in my heart when I do this work and I sense your presence.

Jesus: How do you know it is my presence and not yours?

Paul: I don’t really know this. I do know that it is a heightened state of consciousness, both thought and feeling.

Jesus: Yes, but that state of consciousness could come simply through your remembrance of who you are.

Paul: Yes, I guess that it could.

Jesus: There is nothing special about it.

Paul: Yes, that’s why I don’t want to call it channeling.

Jesus: Other people could do what you do. They could remember their true nature and they would experience this heightened state of consciousness. Right?

Paul: Yes.

Jesus: And in that state of consciousness you are in communion with the universal truth as well as with any specific expression of it you resonate with. If you resonate with Buddhism, you would be in communion with Buddha or with other teachers within that tradition.

Paul: So I am in communion with you because I resonate to your teachings?

Jesus: Yes, although I had to remind you of that fact.

Jesus and Paul

Paul: So what about this notion of channeling?

Jesus: Anyone who is sincere and committed can connect with higher energies, but no one can speak for anyone else.

Paul: So I cannot speak for you?

Jesus: No, but you and I can be in communion as you speak. Leave it to others to judge whether the words and energy you bring through feel like the words and energy of Jesus.

Paul: What is the difference between Paul remembering who he is and speaking from that place and Jesus speaking through Paul?

Jesus: Well, it would be hard for Jesus to speak through Paul because there is no more Jesus.

Paul: No more Jesus?

Jesus: Remember the Jesus who was embodied once is no longer. You cannot hold this consciousness to where it was then.

Paul: But weren’t you already free of limitation, before you even left your body?

Jesus: No one is free of limitation, even after leaving the body. The physical body is only one of many bodies. Every thought or feeling is a form of limitation.

Paul: So you have not finished your spiritual evolution?

Jesus: I know this sounds absurd to you, my friend, but even God has not finished!

Paul: Sometimes I think you take a perverse pleasure in confusing me. Do you stay up late trying to come up with new ways to push my buttons?

Jesus: Actually, your buttons aren’t all that hard to push!

Paul: Oh, I see. Thanks a lot . . . .

Jesus: Seriously. This is not a timeline with a beginning or an end. It is a circular journey of awakening. We keep going around and around until we become completely conscious of who we are.

Paul: Is God completely conscious?

Jesus: God is completely loving, but not completely conscious.

Paul: How is this possible?

Jesus: If God were completely conscious there would be no expression of God: no you, no me, no world.

Paul: So when we all wake up the universe disappears?

Jesus: You could say that. But don’t start counting the days . . . .

Paul Ferrini reading from The Gospel