Spiritual Solutions

If you haven’t done so already, soon you will be taking down the Christmas tree and putting away the lights and Christmas decorations for another year. The nativity scene has been put away. But will you also be putting away the Christ for another year?

So now what? At Christmas we affirmed the birth of the Christ within us. So what happens now? Where do we go from here?

We often go back to the same old routine, the same patterns and beliefs, the same mistakes we have made before. We forget that we have affirmed a truth of our being, of the presence of God born into our awareness in a whole new way.

I was reminded of this recently when talking to a man who was telling me about his dog. He said, “We have a wonderful little dog in our family, but he does some stupid things. He likes chocolate, and chocolate is poison to dogs. A few weeks ago somebody brought a chocolate cake over. They had put it on the table. We turned away from the table for a moment and when we turned back around he was eating the cake; almost all the cake was gone. So we phoned the vet and the vet said to bring him over, so we took him over and the vet pumped his stomach.

“Then just a week before Christmas my wife and family had gone shopping and I was the first one home. When I came into the house I saw some Christmas wrapping under the tree. There had only been one gift there as I recall; we hadn’t put the other gifts under the tree yet. Then I remembered it was a box of Russell Stover candy!

“I called the dog, but the dog was hiding somewhere. So I called the vet and told him the whole story, and that the dog being the only one there obviously must have eaten the candy.

“The vet asked me how much was in the box. I told him, ‘About eight ounces.’ The vet said, ‘Well, eight ounces, he should be all right. He’ll be very sick, but he’ll be OK. So don’t worry too much about it.’ Then he asked, ‘What about the box?’ I said, ‘Well, I think he must have eaten the box too.’”

The dog was drawn to the very stuff that made him sick, that could even take his life.

Sometimes we, too, are drawn or addicted to the very things that make us sick and can take life away from us – not only food, but attitudes of mind, relationships, and all kinds of things. So, at this time of year we want to change that around, don’t we?

You see, at the heart of Christianity, at the heart of spirituality, is transformation. Transformation means change, and we want to change, don’t we? We want to be the best person we can be. That’s why we join health clubs and make all kinds of New Year resolutions.

But I suggest that we don’t just make a New Year resolution and then break it two or three weeks down the road, feeling guilty because we haven’t lived up to our resolution. Rather, let’s resolve to focus on something we have already affirmed, on the Christ child born within us, on God’s presence made new in our awareness. How do we come to that new awareness?

Perhaps we can look at it this way: Not long ago I was watching a movie where a man was trying to explain his relationship with his wife. He said, “We are so different; I’m CNN and she’s Home Shopping Network.”

So let ask you, “If you were to quickly decide what channel you would align yourself with in your inner being, what would it be? Would it be one of the major channels, would it be a news channel, or an entertainment channel, or a sports channel, what would it be? There are many channels.

There are many inner channels within us too, many more than on the television. There are drama channels, there are crisis channels, there are happy channels, peace-giving channels, there are negative channels, and suffering channels. We often choose to tune in to the suffering channel, don’t we? We might say something like this: “This is my life, it’s one of suffering, and I’ve got all these problems.” And we recite a long litany of victimization, of things that have gone wrong in our lives. So we keep tuned in to that suffering channel and we don’t recognize the truth of our being.

How do we stop eating of the same stuff that makes us sick and takes away our lives? How do we stop tuning in to that suffering channel?

We have to switch channels. I’m suggesting that we switch, within ourselves, to the Discovery channel, in order to discover the truth and the impact of the birth of the Christ child within us. That we don’t just put the Christ child away for another year or another week or another day, but bring that presence fully into our life. How do we do that?

Jesus gives us a clue. In the gospel of John it is recorded that Jesus was talking to his disciples and said, “I am the bread of life.” He also said, “You must learn to eat of me.” He said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you have no life in you. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day, for my flesh is food indeed and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. As the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me.”

Now these were words that then as now were difficult to understand and a lot of his disciples and followers left him at that point.

Jesus is saying “I am the bread of life,” or “I am the substance of life.” What Jesus was saying is that “You need to assimilate me into your very being. Assimilate not me the person, but the Christ, the presence.” He is speaking from his Christ presence; he is speaking from the reality of the God presence within him.

Think over the Christmas period; perhaps you had turkey or ham or steak or tofu or whatever you had. When you ate that, your body absorbed it and assimilated it, the enzymes broke it down, and it became a part of your body. The energy of it changed and became a part of you. So you could truly say, “The turkey and I are one!” Isn’t that true?

Jesus is telling us to refocus our attention from saying, “The suffering and I are one,” “The illusion and I are one,” “The appearances and I are one,” to “The Father and I are one.”

He is telling us to eat of this truth that the presence of God abides in you right now, was born in you, and needs to grow in you “in wisdom and in stature” as it says in the scriptures. Eat of this bread, eat of this truth of the Christ born in you; assimilate it into every cell of your being and into every activity.

So that’s what we want to try to do, to eat of that truth. Jesus knew that whatever we focus upon expands. If we focus upon the suffering, if we focus upon the negativity, if we focus upon the limitation and the lack, that’s what expands in our consciousness.

We are directing a very powerful spiritual energy, a spiritual power, in the wrong way; we are misdirecting the power of faith. You see, our faith is directed toward what we believe, isn’t it? So we need to direct our faith in a different way.

So we put the faith in partnership with that presence of God within us. In this way we begin to “eat” of the bread of life. And we grow in wisdom and in stature.

As we focus on God, it expands and grows. It is not a “child” any more.

We talk about the Christ child and we often stay in that image of the presence of God within us being like a child, that we are a child of God. But we forget that it “grows in wisdom and stature.” We need to engage ourselves consciously with our own spirituality, with the growth of God’s presence within us so that it takes over in our lives.

St. Paul talked about that expansion. He said, “We become not only children of God, but heirs of God. We become sons of God, and if sons then heirs.” (Galatians 4)

We are heirs to all the good that God has in store for us. We have to know that. We are sons and daughters of God, not just children of God. That’s an important distinction, for we are growing in wisdom and stature as we align ourselves with God’s presence within us. And it doesn’t happen all at once.

Paul relates to that in the same book, in Galatians, a little farther on. He says, “Until Christ is formed in you . . .”

This is a process; it’s called spiritual formation, where that consciousness becomes formed, where that Christ within you, that God presence within you, becomes formed and becomes your very being. It begins to take over your being.

In this process we move from the beginning of faith, which is belief. We begin to believe in the presence of God within us, we begin to believe that the Christ is born within us. The Buddhists call that first step of faith “the attraction phase.” We are attracted to the idea and we see the possibility of it.

The next stage is trust. We begin to recognize and believe in that possibility, we begin to trust it and step out on the truth of God’s presence within us. And we begin to verify that trust, because as we step out on that trust then things begin to change for us.

Transformation takes place; it’s not just a resolution that three or four weeks down the road fades into the dust. It is a transformation that takes place, and our whole consciousness begins to shift. We begin to trust.

And that leads to the reality of faith, and faith is the movement of the divine presence which forms substance in our lives. It brings about that which we focus upon. So we focus our faith on the truth of God’s presence within us, and that truth begins to express through us in multiple ways.

Here are three action steps for you to take.

The first one is simply to recognize your need.

So often we try to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, we want to be strong, we make these resolutions and hold to them; and we do it with a death grip. But the subconscious is stronger than the will and so often we seem to fail and we beat ourselves over the head with it.

We need to realize that there is a greater power within us. If we recognize the need to turn to the greater power within us and to let that presence and power grow within our consciousness, then things begin to change automatically. We begin to live a life, not of suffering but of discovery, we begin to discover new things about ourselves, that there’s a great power within us. It’s a presence and power that is always active. So that’s the first thing, to recognize the need.

The second step is to reflect, to take time for reflection, to reflect upon our fears because our fears are what are often expressed in our lives as resentment and unforgiveness, anxiety and doubt. In back of all of those things is fear.

So we need to think about what those fears are. And as we begin to focus on the steps of faith, we begin to say, “I believe in God’s presence within me.” And that brings up a lot of stuff; write that stuff down. “If I believe this, what is it bringing up?” Write it down. What are those fears it brings up? And when you are ready to agree to that statement that “I believe in this,” then move to the next one. “I trust.” Move from belief to trust. “I trust in the presence of God within me.” The Buddhists call that level of faith “the level of confidence.” You have confidence in that presence.

Once you agree with that, then move to the presence of faith. And that is “irreversible” in the Buddhist tradition of the levels of faith. That is the irreversible part, where you are indeed one with that presence and you can say, “I am one with goodness and the fulfillment of God’s presence in my life.” You see, it’s not “I’m going to have this. I’m going to get this. This is coming to me.”

Rather, it’s “I am one with it.” “I’m living a life of fulfillment right now; I am the bread of life.” So we go through that, but each time writing down the fears that come up. Then a good meditation to do is to breathe in, to take those fears one at a time. Breathe in that fear, then breathe it out in meditation and place it in your hands and let it gather there like a ball. Do that with each one as you breathe it in and breathe it out, all the fears that are there.

Then toward the end of your meditation, visualize a great light or the presence of your guardian angel or God’s presence, however God’s presence reveals itself to you at that particular time. If it’s light, then simply take those fears that you’ve now placed in your hands and are weighing you down and begin to raise them up, raise them up to the light and release them to God’s presence. Let them go. Then focus again on the reality of the birth and the growth of the Christ within you.

The third and last step is to commit time to this process, this process of the growth in wisdom and stature of the Christ child within you. Take time to study, take time to pray, take time to listen to God. Take time for that. It doesn’t happen all at once. It takes a while to turn a ship around; you don’t do it on a dime. So it takes time.

This is the New Year, it’s 2009. The nativity set has been put away; the little baby Jesus has been put away. And it’s not about Jesus; it’s about the Christ being born in you. It’s about the birth and the growth of that presence of God in you.

God has promises to keep for you this year; something wonderful is going to happen for you and through you as you begin to let that Christ grow in wisdom and stature in your life.

God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-seven years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, “Spiritual Solutions,” at Spiritual Solutions. Feel free to share this article in its entirety with a friend.

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