Here in the world of men we live in a temporal dream. Our obsession with time acts as the framework or boundary for all we do and every decision we make. People are born and people die. Things begin and things end. And in between, the clock never stops ticking.
In this dream those who find success forthcoming are those who learn to govern and master time. They use time to chart their course, and their mastery and confidence enable them to rise above their fellowman. In turn, this then places them in positions of power and authority, from which they easily attract wealth and every other resource of the dream that is valued and envied.
Conversely, those who find life in the temporal dream to be hurtful and oppressive are generally those who feel uncomfortable living under the dictates of time. For these, time’s parameters promote fear and anxiety instead of confidence. These negative emotions belie their weakness and discomfiture, thereby causing them to gravitate towards a lower position in life—one that puts them at the mercy of the strong.
Most people living in this temporal dream have come to associate it with what we call reality. Logically, this belief affects the strong and the weak in markedly different ways. The strong thrive on this reality view, precisely because it facilitates their success. But the weak, while accepting the temporal dream as the only reality, curse the day they were born and long to be delivered from such a reality. They tend to view the temporal dream as an indomitable behemoth that is too entrenched to challenge or even question, but in the depths of their heart many of these cherish the hope of there being another reality somewhere out there beyond the temporal parameters of this world. This somewhat illogical impulse has most often been referred to as faith, while the reality yearned for has come to be known as heaven. These two words are extremely loaded with age-old religious associations, but the human yearnings they point to are not as fantastical as many a modern intellectual has come to believe.
To modern intellectuals one of the great mysteries of life in this world is why the poor and weak persist in indulging in such fantasies. As time marches on, the world of men shows little sign of changing or dissolving. Rather the strong get stronger and the poor and weak appear more and more pitiful and foolish. Why do they hold to their faith in a heaven, when it has been clearly shown by the passage of time that it does not exist?
The answer to this question is that the poor and meek of our world know or sense something that the modern intellectuals do not. They have come to be able to perceive and recognize input from the other side—that is, the eternal realm outside of time.
The fact is that our world is teeming with this input for those who have eyes to see. Men would like to believe that the earth was given to them as a sort of provisional mechanism and playground. But the Bible says, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” (Psalm 24:1). What does this mean? That the earth is filled with input from the other side. Men live their dream existence in time on the planet earth, but they do little to change the earth’s created chemistry. In truth, the earth and heaven are one in the same. Therefore the only reason the strong of our world are perplexed by the testimony of the faithful is because they are blind to the input from heaven all around us, while the poor and meek not only perceive it; they are strengthened by their perception.
Therefore receiving input from the other side is really just a matter of opening our eyes to the spiritual quality of every natural manifestation of our earthly environment. When we are able to do this we will find ourselves caught up to heaven, even though our bodies are rooted to the earth. That which we had previously viewed as mundane and relegated to the status of environmental quaintness becomes alive with spiritual power. And this spiritual power becomes the comforter of the poor. Though the temporal dream of man passes itself off as the only reality, we quietly receive strength from this input from the other side. Though the nations roar like the roaring of great waters—and they often do—we are filled with peace because of the realization that heaven and earth are one and eternal life is forever.
Behold a simple tree or any plant for that matter. Take note of the stark contrast between the noisome exploits of men and the silent presence of plant life. We tend to think that man is expressing some kind of high order of life, while plants are dumb and “just there” like a theatrical backdrop. But the fact is that plants are just as alive as humans are. Both humans and plants derive their life from the same source—the creative impulse of God. Therefore plants are not inferior to men, only different. And how are they different? One of the most defining ways is that plants are not caught in the web of the dream of time, like men are.
Plants therefore offer a powerful display of input from the other side. Since they are free from the dream of time, they are awake to eternal life. Their silence therefore is not dumbness; it is godliness. It is not inferior weakness; it is strength and majesty. When plants are exposed to the insanity of men, as they often are in this world, how do they respond? Do they fight with men? Do they try to tell men what to do or how they should live? Of course not. They silently endure the noisome violent harangue of men. They wait patiently until peace and harmony are restored. And if men should come with axes, chain saws, trimmers, and clippers to cut them down and destroy them (as often men do), the plants freely offer up their lives without any resistance. Why? Not because they see men as their masters, but rather because they know instinctively that the life they have is indestructible. How do they know this? Because they are not now and never have been participants in the finite dream of time.
Another ubiquitous display of input from the eternal realm can be found in the earth’s bird life. Again, we find men taking the attitude that birds, while pleasant and fun creatures, are dumb and “just there”—a lower life form that has little bearing upon our important lives. Their tiny brains cannot compete with our sophisticated intellectual prowess. Birds have no sense of civilization, science, culture, art, engineering, governing, etc. They just flit around, making noise and sometimes pooping on the heads of important people.
But like plants, birds share the same life source as mankind. And also like plants, they live outside the temporal dream of men. Therefore their lives also are holy and testify to the input of the eternal realm.
When we listen to a bird’s song, really listen, what do we hear? We hear the song of life from outside the temporal reality of men. We hear God. Birds have an irrepressible joy, and this joy is expressed in their song. Their movements—flitting, playfully darting about, and alighting —also speak of this profound joy. Is there any joy in the human sphere to compare with a bird’s joy? I know of none. Rather men tend to be joyless creatures, weighed down with all manner of problems and perceived seriousness. They are literally heavy—both in corporeal form and mental projection. Birds fly and sing. Men plod upon the earth and think anxious thoughts.
What do birds do when exposed to man’s noise, disturbing energy, and destructive impulses? They simply fly off to another tree and sing a new song. Thus their lives too provide input from the other side—input from which the poor and needy can derive comfort and strength. When men living in the temporal dream oppress us, we too can learn to fly away (in our spirit) to the next tree and there sing a new song.
This then brings us to the case of man. In truth, mankind is an earthly species filled with the created life of God, just like a tree or a bird. What this means is that we too would naturally display and be conduits for input from the eternal realm. But obviously this is not how we live. Why not? Because we are caught up in an illusory dream reality—one that we seem to be unable to break free of. But if we could, in theory, awake from this dream, how would human life then manifest? We would naturally embody the eternal life that is the created life of God when it is not imprisoned by time. We would be free creatures, attuned to God and universal created law. And our earthly environment would become reflective of heaven, even as it was created to be.
How do we know that this would happen? Because there have been a few who have lived among us that have broken free of the dream of time and realized their eternal essence. These have testified to the poignancy of the human condition by trying to show us the dream-like quality of time and the truth about what we are missing by sealing ourselves off from God’s eternal creation.
This was the crux of Jesus’ teaching—a teaching that extended beyond words to his deeds. With words he explained what life is like on the other side of time, often prefacing his discourses with this phrase: “The kingdom of heaven [the other side] is like. . . .” And with his ministerial deeds he testified to the wretched plight of mankind under the dictates of time. For, wherever and whenever he ministered, people came to him literally from out of the woodwork—broken, beaten down, suffering people. In his great compassion he healed them, but he knew that they would not stay healed until the day that the temporal dream of man was broken asunder and ceased to be a factor in the human experience. He also knew that that time had not yet come. And so, part of his teaching focused on a future day—a day when mankind would finally be ready to shatter the confines of time and live as a free and healthy manifestation of the eternal realm. He called this new day the second coming of the Christ.
Well my friends, believe it or not, this new day has now come upon us at last. Does this mean that the man Jesus is soon to reappear in human form? It is not likely; nor is it necessary. For, the Christ is not a man; it is a spiritual presence—a presence that can and does manifest in any receptive human being. That was who Jesus was—a spiritually receptive man that had raised up the Christ within himself and allowed it full expression. But in the same way that Jesus accomplished this, you and I also can do so. We too can become receptive clear vessels for the Christ. And as more and more of us have this spiritual experience, the Christ Spirit will literally fill the earth. And when that happens just as Jesus was able to powerfully expose the plight of man living under the dream of time, each and every person who shares this experience will do likewise, until eventually the dream is shattered. Thus will Jesus’ prophetic vision of a second coming of the Christ be fulfilled.
How do we raise up the Christ within us? We don’t. All we do is open our spiritual consciousness to the growth and development inherent in knowing God’s truth. As we experience this process and spiritual unfoldment, lo and behold at some point we become aware that the Christ of God has been raised up within us and is beginning to do the works that are in its nature to do. This, my friends, is the essence of the new consciousness of man—a consciousness that has sometimes been called Christ consciousness. It is coming and is, in fact, already here.