JESUS DESCRIBES HIS CRUCIFIXION… AND HIS RESURRECTION… AND YOUR ASCENSION

JESUS DESCRIBES HIS CRUCIFIXION... AND HIS RESURRECTION... AND YOUR ASCENSION

 

JESUS DESCRIBES HIS CRUCIFIXION... AND HIS RESURRECTION... AND YOUR ASCENSION

 

QUESTION:  Could you say a few words on the meaning of the death of Christ?

 

ANSWER: To put it into perspective, it was for me an experience very much like what Paul is experiencing at this moment. It was a “suffer it to be so now” because it fulfills purpose, even though, for ME, it fulfilled no purpose. I mean that in the sense that it did not, shall I say, promote my growth or exalt me in any way. I was–and this is where the likeness is to Paul–I was allowing myself to be the place in which fulfillment of purpose was occurring. It was not meaningless for me, but the meaning came from the willingness to love enough to let that which fulfilled Divine purpose in penetrating human ignorance to occur.

 

I will be very frank with you. I was only on the cross for a very short time. Indeed, at the point that everyone else believed I went unconscious, I simply removed myself and stood on a nearby hill and watched, watched as everyone dealt with their perception of what was happening and grew.

 

I remained separate, shall I say, from the body until about two hours before the stone was removed from the door of the sepulcher. When I “returned” to the body, there was what I will call an upgrading of the body, molecularly. In other words, the density with which I had held it–allowed it to be seen by everyone–was released, so that the Body of Light was unhidden. And in that surge of radiance, the imprint that everyone has questioned for so long on the Shroud of Turin occurred on the fabric. It was not intentional. It is just what happens.

 

I remained there in this fully illuminated sepulcher–illuminated by the Light that I was–I remained there for approximately two hours before I left. I want you to understand that for me the whole procedure was experienced in perfect peace. I also want all of you to understand that I never ever said, “My Father, why hast Thou forsaken me?” I was not in the state of ignorance that would have conceived such a question. Just as Paul is experiencing perfect peace as he engages in movements and expressing the words that I am sharing, I was also in perfect peace. You must understand that if I really thought anyone could kill me, I would have died and there would have been no Resurrection and no Ascension.

 

It is very important for you all to understand this, because there is no one guilty of my death, because I did not die! There was not a moment in which I was unconscious, nor unconscious of myself. And even when I was apparently separate from the body which was on the cross, there was still present where I was that which identified me, although you would have said it was rather intangible and spooky.

 

Now, I did say something very important which to this day has not been grasped, and to this day I have not shared.  I said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” That was not a statement absolving them from guilt, because they couldn’t do anything to me that they could be guilty of.   When I said, “Forgive them for they know not what they do,” it meant, they don’t realize that they aren’t doing anything. And I said, “Forgive them,” so they could hear that they were innocent!

 

I will tell you a very sad thing. For two thousand years now, everyone has been feeling guilty for something that never happened. And everyone, in one way or another, whether it is in 1992 or whether it was in 1392, has been told that they carry, jointly, the burden for the death of the Son of God; another one of those things you can’t do anything about, except feel bad. And that is what is sad, because it is an imposition on your natural joy. It is an illegitimate imposition upon your natural joy. It is a burden of guilt that is absolutely false. And it is time for everyone to put down this imagined burden of guilt that they have been convinced of and dare to feel their joy.

 

Now, two thousand years ago it is a fact that the majority of the people were ignorant of God–more ignorant than in this day and age. Confusion prevailed. Gods many–gods of the trees, and the rivers, and the rocks, and anything. This ignorance needed to be penetrated with the more universal comprehension of God, and God’s Nature as Love. And so, that is why I was here at that time.

 

And then there was something that needed to be taught that could not be taught in words. What needed to be taught was that not only was everyone there, then, and everyone here, now, the Sons and Daughters of God, my Brothers and Sisters, my equals, but because we are the Sons and Daughters of God, we have only our inheritance from God, which is eternal life. But that cannot be taught.

 

So heavy was the belief of the physical nature of life, and the fact that there were only less than a handful of Individualities prior to my coming who had ascended, that a demonstration of the deathlessness of Life was essential to penetrate the conviction with which everyone incarcerated themselves in a sense of physicality, and of a short duration of life, with nothing before it and nothing after it. And so, the crucifixion that never killed me occurred.

 

It was essential for everyone to know that that body which they had looked at and seen as it was alive, was as dead as any other person’s body who has died. And then, the Resurrection needed to occur, so that they could see that there was an order of Intelligence and Life that went beyond their limited physical perception of it, and the tentativeness of life, the temporariness of it.

 

And then the Ascension served two purposes. It showed that it is quite possible to move from this place to another place without a vehicle, something that at the bottom line it is important for all of you to know because if you are going to WAKE UP before you pass on, how in the world are you going to leave this place? I am not really being facetious there. I mean what I am saying.

 

The other thing that it showed was that there was an Order of Being that was presently invisible to everyone, that there truly is that which is beyond everyone’s present perception of it. And this occurred as a teaching process to teach something that could not be conveyed at an intellectual level. And so, the penetration of the truer concept of God, if you will, occurred. And when the penetration of God, when the penetration of Reality breaks through the human condition and the human perception of things, it is a revelation and it is never forgotten. And so, it set the tone for everyone to wake up. But then this sort of sad twist occurred where everyone was made to feel guilty for this most marvelous illuminating penetration of Truth that had occurred in the human experience, except that it was defined as the crucifixion of the Son of God.

 

I am going to take this moment to stress another point. The words are not appropriately used when they say that, “I am the only begotten Son of the Father.” I am begotten only of the Father, just as you are begotten only of the Father. You have no other source, no other real source. There is nothing about you that characterizes anything other than the Father. But if, indeed, you believe that I am the only begotten Son of the Father, then indeed you cannot possibly be that. And then, if those of you who are not that, killed the only begotten Son of the Father, how more sinful could one be? This burdensome sense of guilt for what your forefathers did must be released, because they never did it! I never died. I almost laughed when you asked me to speak about the death of Jesus, not critically, but in an amused sense.

 

I will tell you that the deepest reason for relinquishing the sense of guilt is not so that you won’t hurt as much, but because in letting go of it, you begin to feel and express what is natural to you that brings you into alignment with me, because you are embodying and energizing what is natural to both of us. And you could imagine it as the equalizing of the pressure on the inside and outside of an air-lock, or an equalizing of the water on the two sides of locks that ships go through.

 

And so, as you begin to allow yourself to embody and embrace and feel the joy of your Being without the guilt, it is as though that which was artificially low is able to come up to its natural place, which is equal with me and equal with all of the rest of the Brotherhood and Sisterhood that is awake. And when that pressure or equilibrium has occurred, it is very easy for the last whisper of difference to dissolve, to be penetrated forever, so that you consciously join all of Us in our Brotherhood and Sisterhood.

 

But as long as any of you continue to carry a sense of guilt and as long as you feel that I am the only begotten Son of the Father, therefore special and unreachable–in terms of your being like me–you give a word to yourselves that serves as a law to you that absolutely inhibits you from coming into the full experience of who you Divinely Are and never stopped being.

 

You must have the means to conceive of yourself as the Sons and Daughters of God, just like me. It does not constitute arrogance at all. It constitutes Sanity. And it is an insane belief to believe that you are less and that you are by virtue of it unworthy.

 

Please understand that the experience of Awakening, of enlightenment, is truly going to mean change of the most marvelous nature. I’m not talking about egotistically excitingly satisfying, but rather, an experience of coming home into your right Mind, which you will recognize. And you will feel grounded, absolutely grounded. And when I use the word “grounded,” I do not mean brought down, but I mean anchored in an eternal innocence and invulnerability in which fear will forever be an irrational nonsensical idea, rather than a potential experience. Where Love will be the unavoidable experience, because when fear is absent, the Love that is the very substance of your Being is inescapably present and alive, and it’s You.

 

When Paul learned from me that I was the author of “A Course In Miracles”  and, therefore, the one known as Jesus, he was disappointed because he felt that that identification of me would somehow narrow down those who would find what I was saying of value.  Like now only Christians would want to talk to me, where before anyone would talk to me [as Raj].  But I told him that it was absolutely essential that this be known, because the present concept of me in the world is such that it absolutely inhibits the penetration of Truth that will transform each of you by virtue of uncovering your Christhood. The great sense of difference, coupled with the feeling of guilt that has been laid on you, makes it impossible for you to even hear the idea, much less embrace it as a fact that we are Brothers equal and Sisters equal. And until that is corrected, the reunion of the Brotherhood or the Family cannot occur. And so, I let him know that he had better be willing to let me do what needed to be done and not shrink from it for whatever reason.

 

Now, I cannot control Paul, and it is not appropriate for me to do it. And so, you may know that his sitting here relaying to you what I am saying is even harder than yesterday when all I asked him to do was say the word “prick.” It is more difficult for him because indeed he feels that what I am speaking about is of more value than the word that was used yesterday and more potentially transformational. He is not resisting it, as you can tell because of the gentleness and the smoothness of his voice. He does express it with love.

 

What I am saying is that it is time for all of us together to come into the fuller conscious experience of our equality. I told my disciples, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” And you can say to your fellowman, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” In other words, that statement applies to you too, not just to me. And you can say to yourself, “If I have seen you, I have seen the Father.”

 

If you will just begin to acknowledge that that might happen to be the truth, then instead of waiting for me to come in a cloud, you will begin to look for the Christ in the person sitting next to you. You will begin to be curious enough to look beyond surface appearances, and you will dare to look beneath conditioned responses. And that’s what I described as Love yesterday–the willingness to recognize that which is Real in each and every thing.

 

It is not necessary for the rest of you to go through crucifixion. Maybe your egos will have to be crucified, but only your ego will hurt. You, the Soul Presence that you Are, will rejoice at the uncovering that occurs. Resurrection, though, none of you will miss, and Ascension.

 

Ascension… you coming back into your Right Mind. You coming back into your Sanity–your guiltless, sinless Sanity–where you recognize the guiltless sinless One, who for untold time, have walked around in tiny asylum rooms saying, “I am a sinner. I am guilty. I am unworthy.” And you pace in an endless circle, rehearsing your credentials, “I am a sinner. I am guilty. I am worthless.” You see, it is almost a catechism. It is most sad. Why? Because it’s not the Truth! It is a belief! It is a simple misperception that is being believed!

 

And you know all of the rest of the Brotherhood, you might say, this is all sort of an allegory, all the rest of us are circled around the asylum, looking in through the windows as you do your [making the motions of endlessly circling and rehearsing one’s credentials], and we are saying, “Come out and play with us. Because until you do, we can’t experience the wholeness of the Presence of the Brotherhood or Sisterhood or Family.”

 

And allegorically speaking, the interior of the asylum has been so musty and dusty that even though you walked past windows in your endless repetition of your credentials, you didn’t see that we were there. And now, there are too few inmates in the asylum to keep the valuing of the credentials alive. And everyone is beginning to be able to at least recognize that there is something going on outside the windows. And that is why we can talk today. But until you were ready to hear what I said today, I could not say it, because there had to be enough curiosity to look out.

excerpt from a Gathering with Raj/Jesus, 1992