BOOK CLUB: WEEK SEVEN

Delving into THE MYSTIC JESUS

Welcome back to the Book Club for THE MYSTIC JESUS: The Mind of Love...

Here are the pages for Week Seven pages 176-204 — our final week and the end of the book!

This week we extend and deepen our exploration into the spiritual dynamics of crucifixion, death, and resurrection. We come to see death and resurrection as paths to renewal, with Jesus as the activation of this new life within us. The opportunity for giving birth to new possibilities — in ourselves and in the world — is available in any moment when love and forgiveness overcome fear. From our resurrection, we emerge transformed. We become new people, co-creating with God and with each other a new world.

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Death

I have a friend who had a near-death experience due to anaphylactic shock, in which she was looking down on her body and heard the doctor say, “We lost her.” In the realm to which she was delivered during that experience, she saw clearly that her body was not her real Self. Others have reported similar instances of near-death experience, commonly reporting that they lost all fear of death because they know that they lived through it.

The life of the body is precious, and nothing in the teaching of the Course minimizes its magnificence. It is a beautiful lesson in communion. The message of the Course is not that the body is bad, but that in a way it is nothing. All our tribulations in life are due to an attachment and overidentification with the life of the body. In truth, we have the most powerful, meaningful, and joyful experience of the body when we know that it is not who we are.

As I write this I am nearing my seventieth birthday, as shocked as I’m sure everyone is when they find themselves facing that particular milestone. All of us carry around a secret hope that somehow age will not apply to us. I remember it wasn’t until I was about twenty-five that it seriously dawned on me that, yes, I too would one day die.

Carl Jung said that a failure to deal with the subject of death robs the second half of life of its meaning. I can see where that’s true. I’m surprised by people who are aging with what seems to be a prejudice against talking about death, as though if we ignore it, it will magically disappear. I don’t know how anyone is handling all the chaos in the world today without a spiritual connection. I certainly can’t understand how anyone faces death without one.

Given that the spirit is eternal, death is like taking off a suit of clothes. Knowing there is a truer truth than the one we perceive with our physical senses, the idea of no longer perceiving with those senses is not all that frightening a thought. The message of Jesus is that in reality there is no death. I’m at an age where a lot of people who have been closest to me have passed through the veil of death. They now seem to be standing on the other side of it gazing into my soul as I am gazing into theirs. And having been present at many deathbeds, both personally and professionally, I have seen the power of life overwhelm the fear of death, so great was the love that was present.

One day death will be seen not as the punishment, but as the reward for a life well lived. The light we see around each other will be so great that the body itself will appear as mere shadow, and the removal of the shadow will mean nothing more than the removal of a belief in limits. To say death shall be the last enemy is to say that one day we will see that it simply isn’t an enemy, for in truth it doesn’t exist.

The only real death is the death of love, and we triumph over that in any moment when we choose love instead of fear. Jesus has demonstrated that death does not exist, and in any moment when we rise as he rose we share in his resurrection and increase its blessing on all the world.

M E D I T A T I O N O N D E A T H

Dear God,
We surrender the soul of our beloved ________ to You.
May he (or she) be lifted gently into the regions of heaven.
May those of us still here be comforted in our grief.
We see a golden cord that ties the heart of one who has passed
to the heart of those still here who love them.
We see Jesus as he puts his hands upon this cord,
thus we see the eternal nature of life and love.
For whom God hath brought together,
nothing, not even death itself,
can put asunder.
And so it is.
So great is God.
Amen

The Crucified World

We are living in a crucified world, humanity hanging on a cross of our own making. With our attachment to the illusions of separation, our mental imprisonment by thoughts of fear, our constant attacks on ourselves and each other, our planet is teetering on the brink of destruction.