“The highest purpose that we can achieve is to find ourselves, connected with the Source, and be of true service to humanity.”
~ Dr. Christine Page
A couple of weeks ago, I had a friend mention that he attended a Catholic College. And that as part of his coursework, he was required to take a comparative religion course. He said he found it very valuable, for as much as coming to appreciate the differences in philosophical thought, he was surprised to find the similarity which all of the great traditions share.
Certainly all faiths differ on their expression of the divine, and concepts of the afterlife. I recently read that the Bible contained understandings of reincarnation, which surprised me, as most strict Christians don’t believe in it, as it leaves one questioning where the soul really does go after death.
“The theory of reincarnation IS recorded in the Bible. But the proper interpretations were struck from it during an Ecumenical Council meeting of the Catholic Church in Constantinople sometime around 553 A.D, called the Council of Nicea. The Council members voted to strike those teachings from the Bible in order to solidify Church control.”
So what do we really know?
Year’s before Christ’s time, Buddha would advise: “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”
It would lead him further to even exclaim: “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.”
I believe that the Buddha’s enlightened state of Nibanna, the yogi in samadhi, and being of Christ Consciousness are all one in the same.
Yet, it has taken me many, many years now of reading, my own questioning, yoga work and meditation practice to arrive at this conclusion for myself. As I contemplate the higher realms of chakra theory, it was fun to watch other’s attempt to put into words, that which is unexplainable.
Dr. Christine Page writes: “Through the 6th chakra, the third eye, one moves between matter and spirit to find oneness with the Creator, through the ultimate sacrifice of self. Through the highest 7th crown chakra, a silver thread links us to our spiritual source along which energy travels, inspiring our human existence. During an out-of-body- experience, many will see themselves floating above their physical form with this fine thread maintaining their connection to the world of matter. If we lose this connection, we are said to have died.”
“This state of consciousness and bliss which we crave defies words or analysis since in the search for understanding or explanations, we limit the experience, just as an attempt to describe a state of ecstasy demands an observer who is immediately excluded from the place of bliss. The crown chakra exhibits a state of consciousness where the experience and the experiencer are one, where there is only now. The “I” has integrated into the “we”. Here, everything is beautiful, loving and there is no separation or fighting.”
I’ve had an out of body experience. It is not a state that one can think into being. It just occurred in a state of complete relaxation. People have questioned if I was dreaming. No. Just as Dr. Page explains, I know I was not dreaming, because even in a dream state, there is a person whom is doing (the ego) and a person who is watching (the soul). You know you are dreaming, even when your dream feels very real. This was something completely different. I was absorbed into myself, through a powerful light, where time and space do not exist. Only when I rejoined my body, did my soul and ego separate back out, and it came as a complete shock. I was likely white as a ghost, as I’ve seen others be when they’ve had this experience for the first time.
Dr. Page writes: “If we want to know love, we also have to accept the darker side of life where there is pain and suffering. I have seen those, who despite the bliss experience, become extremely depressed when they realize that spiritual consciousness contains all aspects of human existence.”
There’s a Zen koan or proverb which suggests: “Before Enlightenment chop wood carry water. After Enlightenment, chop wood carry water.”
As we practice friends, keep this always in mind, for each step in our spiritual journey still lands us on this earth, where pain and suffering are inescapable. Buddha states: “There has to be evil so that good can prove its purity above it.”
In his book “Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book”, Daniel Ingram claims to be an enlightened being walking this earth. And he provides 31 different schools by which one may attain enlightenment.
Yet, to summarize, Ingram writes: “There are days I wish the words for awakening didn’t exist, the models didn’t exist. The temptation when thinking about enlightenment is to come up with something defined that you can imagine, such as a state or quality of being, and then fixate on that ideal rather than doing the practices that lead to freedom. It is absolutely guaranteed that anything you can imagine or define as being enlightened is a limited and incorrect view. Thus, my advice when practicing is to assume that enlightenment is completely impractical and produces no definable changes.”
In other words, Kill the Buddha. Kill the Bible. As long as we continue to look outside ourselves for where the divine resides, where awakening resides, we will never find it. The teachings provided by the great masters are only tools and a roadmap. You and I, must do the work, just as they did.
Why do the work? Because as you experience your own deep connection with the divine, driven by THE truth, through your soul, your life will change. And you will find eternity.
In the words of Buddha: “No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.”
Or the Bible Phil. 2:12-13. : “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; For it is God that worketh in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”
Jesus died for our sins, and on this day, I give thanks. If we do our work, we won’t be reincarnated, and he can save us. The promise of eternity beckons. One way to enlightenment is to take Jesus fully into your heart, to reach Christ consciousness. Thus we have eternal life.
Or we may walk the path of the Buddha and the Yogi. It all leads to the same place. No fear and trembling needed 🙂
Happy Good Friday friends!
