Many people today are buzzing about the "Rapture" and the "Second Coming" of Christ. When will these events happen? 2012? Tomorrow? We need to get clear about what these symbols of the "End Time" really mean.
The "End Time" comes whenever we wake up.
"Rapture" is not an event in time and space. It is the expansion of individual mind into Christ-Mind: "For we have the mind of Christ" (1 Cor. 2:16). When this expansion of awareness happens collectively, to a sufficient threshold of the population, then a planetary transformation can occur in historical time.
"Second Coming" is not a physical re-appearance of Jesus. It is the awakening of Christ-Consciousness in humanity: "Christ in you, the hope of glory." (Col. 1:27)
If we are to solve conflicts on this planet, we must move from the literal interpretation of these mythic symbols, to an understanding of their spiritual meaning. As rational adults, are we really to suppose that a white-robed sandal-footed savior will float from the sky, while an elite corps of "saved" Christians levitate into his arms? Such infantile literalism is really an insult to the profound intent of the inspired scriptural authors, who used symbol, story, allegory to describe the expansion of consciousness.
The scriptural symbol of pure consciousness is the Air element. The great transformation of humanity will occur "in the Air." According to 1 Thessalonians 4:17, Christ will appear "in the clouds" and "we will be caught up to meet him in the air."
The term "second coming" does not appear at all in scripture. This phrase was invented by Justin Martyr two hundred years after Jesus' earthly life. The Greek word used in 1 Thessalonians is parousia, usually translated as "the coming of the Lord." In Greek, parousia literally means "fullness of being" (para - full, complete; ousia - being). Ousia is not the participle of the verb "to come" but "to be."
This "parousia" happens inside us as the flowering of our spaciousness. It can happen now, if we let it.
As for the so-called "rapture" - another term that does not appear in scripture - our bodies need not float up in the sky to meet God. The real rapture is the expansion of individual mind into "the mind of Christ": the boundless self-luminosity of pure consciousness.
Understanding the spiritual science behind these mythic symbols, we can put away childish religious disputes and participate in the flowering of Christ-Consciousness, which is precisely the same spacious compassion that Buddhists call Bodhichitta and Yogis call Chittakasha. Then we can use our religious practice to heal conflict rather than to cause it!
The decisive practice for healing conflict in the coming age will not be a political movement, an economic policy, or a physical task. Political, economic, and cultural reform will be effects, not causes, of our inward transformation. There is already abundant food on earth, if we knew how to cooperate in its supply, unfettered by greed and political corruption. Medical science already has the means to heal the world's diseases. The physical resources for planetary health and sustainability are not lacking. What is lacking is the consciousness to make the work flow. What is lacking is cooperative, non-competitive, compassionate, non-violent, creative intelligence. This creative intelligence is our true nature: it is abundant, it is the source of abundance, and it is already here, if we would but tap into it.
We simply need to practice Christ-Consciousness now, instead of waiting for a savior to fall from the sky. How then do we practice?
The decisive discovery of this age is that space is awake. The vacuum of pure space is consciousness itself, and its nature is compassion.
The decisive practice for our time is simply this: Allow attention to soften and expand, so that you embrace not only the local content of your experience, but the silent all-pervading stillness that contains it.
This practice is the exclusive property of no religion or guru, but the birthright of all humanity for this age. How can such a simple seemingly insignificant practice heal our planetary conflicts?
Every conflict arises and dissolves in space. There's a stillness around every battle. No matter how violent the conflict, the space around it is always silent, whole and undivided. That space is awake. It is full of compassion.
The solution to a conflict is never within the conflict, but in the spaciousness around it. Why identify with a conflict when you can simply be that space? No effort or esoteric knowledge is required: just a shift of attention from the conflict to the vast expanse in which conflict arises and dissolves.
To soften our attention into healing spaciousness is the rapture. The self-luminosity of that awakened space is the anointing power of Christ.
2 comments:
Amen--preach it, Brother!
Sorry if I sound preachy, brother. But I am just trying to say, very very clearly, what I would like to hear somebody say.
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