Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Nativity, Noël & Namaste

In my home I have a picture of Jesus Christ placed on a small alter on my wall.  His image is accompanied by a Vajra (bow) and Ghanta (bell), symbols from the Tantric Buddhist traditions, used by practitioners of “Sadhana”, the Sanskrit word for “Sacrament”.

As we near the Christmas Holidays, there are many in the world who celebrate the birth of the Christ-child.  For me this birth carries a deep and hidden wisdom in the union of these two symbols, that sit along side his image in my home. 

In Eastern traditions, one can see many different Deities holding the bow in the right hand and bell in the left.  The bow represents the lightening bolt that awakens the mind and the bell represents all that rings true in the body, honoring the union of both compassion (yang-masculine) and wisdom (yin-feminine).

An unlikely pairing, it was actually my study of yoga, that brought me to a more comprehensive awareness of who Christ is and what his birth means to me.

Much good and evil has been done in the world, in the name of Jesus Christ.

For me, He is a very real presence, who is aware of me personally.  I’ve felt ministered to in many ways by Divine energies, yet nothing compares to my sacred and very personal experiences, which have brought me to the witness I bear here. 

A beautiful, mostly unseen aspect of Christ’s birth on that newly starlit night, is that with His coming, through the material-mortal feminine (Virgin Mother Mary) and Holy Spirit (Masculine Father God), he married a great crevasse of many ages of Earth and Time in a very unique way, which wrought a deep change in both physical and spiritual realms.

Eastern thought espouses that all Spirit is Masculine, Eternal, immutable, yet incapable of full creation without activation from the Dynamic, Feminine, awakening power. These two are forever moving into and out of union, in an eternal dance of separate compliment and ecstatic embrace.  Even in the earliest of Bible stories, the dynamic Eve was described as manifesting out of Adam’s “sleep”.

With the birth of the Christ-child, witnessed in the heaven’s star, opening angelic realms to walk the earth, the great divide between union and reunion was bridged.  Divine Spirit manifested in physical mortality, the only One of His kind.  Come not to exclude, judge or condemn, but when asked, his mantra was always the same:  “I am about My Father’s business”.  He was about His Father's business of bringing to pass the immortality and Eternal life of humankind; to glorify God-Source in a mortal body, provided Him by mortal Mother Mary.

The business of marrying compassion and wisdom in a new way, no longer separate, His mortal ministry challenged the learned to get out of their head and into their heart.  He also saw into the heart of the “sinner” with a challenge to get into their head, by offering acceptance, encouragement and enlightenment of the mind, the capacity to discern between past misstep and resolve for better days. 

He came to teach that woman is equal with man and man equal with woman, this Christ of God the Father's Spirit and Mother Mary's Body.  He knew this equality in His own body, in a way that was wholly unique, as he healed the heavy hearted and body burdened.  To bring union into a reality beyond compare; to unite, to yoke, (coincidentally, the english word for “Yoga”).

The first (root chakra-feminine) and last (crown chakra-masculine) of the 7 miracles he performed, he accomplished at the beckoning of the two prominent women in his life.  First, at the bequest of Mary, his mother, to provide wine from water at a wedding and second, at the call of Mary, his partner, the sister of Lazarus, who he raised from the dead at her pleading.

To call upon God in His name, when in need of everyday help with the mundane details of life, or when healing sickness, grief and afflictions of death in mind or heart, is to invoke in-body the bridge between limitation and abundance He provided with His birth.  To evolve mortal understanding into compassion beyond comprehension and embrace an increased awareness of wisdom, helps to put life into perspective and eases the sufferings of mortality.

To be wedded partners in the name of Jesus Christ, is to partake of the unique energy (spirit-masculine) and power (physical-feminine) that his birth made manifest.  It is this union that makes it possible for me and my mate to mirror our inner Spirit for each other, with the union of our outer body.  

My mate and I experience God-Union more fully through a trinity between the love we feel for each other, which is in-turn an expression of Godly love moving through us. Through union, as the yin and yang within us and with each other merge in Christ's name, we learn to work more fully as One.  When counterparts work as one in this way, God happens.  Christ is the full embodiment of this expression in a way which transcends metaphor.

To pray to God in the name of Jesus Christ, is for me to acknowledge the bridge He offered; a God born into Body, marrying my Essential soul to my mortal body, held in time.  Yet paradoxically, in offering His Atoning sacrifice, he broke those same bonds of time that hold my mortality (this corridor beyond my mortal view of God’s presence) and through His sacrificial-union, He lives my afflictions with me, that I may live, without having to live my life alone, lacking connection.  I experience this Eternal support in moments when I have worn my ego out enough to be open to this insurmountable gift.

This sacred union, made possible with his birth, life and final sacrifice, sacrament, sadhana, is a vital portal, through which I know God more fully.  

The possibility for Godly Union, that shifted with Christ’s birth, is an offering, individually to each of us, that honors our agency.  I am free to accept, utilize and unitize, as well as to reject or exploit it, depending on the temperament of my spirit in my body, moment by moment; and yet, like abundance itself,  abundance exists, we take from it and discover that through making use of abundance, yet abundance remains.

I know the reality of Jesus Christ on a variety of levels, depending on the moment.  When I feel His reality in my life, it is sacred to me and like the Christmas Spirit itself, I do my best to hold it in my keeping all year.  

Words can’t describe the sacred nature of my own experience of Christ’s presence, yet what can say is that through Christ, I know God.  Through Christ I know love, acceptance and the dissolution of my own prejudices of self and others.  Conversely, the moment I feel an intolerance, un-accepting or judgmental consciousness, of myself or others, I am out of alignment and I become less able to discern it fully in my life.  

For me, I have to know Godly love both in my head and heart, spirit and body.  The more I am accepting, compassionate and discerning, the more I feel the reality of Christ witnessing in my life.   

“Where two or more are gathered in My name, there I am also”, and so it goes with the mind and body, with Father-time and Mother-Earth, wedded in their Essence through the tender babe born in the manger. 

"Neither is the man without the woman, or the woman without the man, in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 11:11 on page 1451--numbers that when added together equal 11, the symbol of twinning).

Union, marry, yoking, yoga.

It is the very Love I know, from a handful of deeply personal encounters with Christ, that keeps my bones from turning to dust in the power of his presence.  Love is the result of the union of thought and matter, yin and yang, wedding my body to my Essential Self, and recognizing that soul-same Essence embodied in my fellow woman and man.  

The greater my capacity to truly love another soul and through that experience, to love myself more fully (and vice-versa), the greater my ability to know Him and the greater peace in His presence, as well as the potential for peace on earth becomes.

It is the union of knowing God, while in my physical body, that draws me to the practice of yoga. It is though the yoking of flexibility and strength, Spirit and Body, Compassion and Wisdom and through His Nativity, that my soul is swaddled.

So tonight, I share my witness and hope, that we may find in our keeping all year long, this marriage of Heaven and Earth, Spirit and Body, Compassion and Wisdom; as well as an essential knowing of each and every Divine gift more fully acknowledged into physical blessing and lasting peace.

Noel & Namaste

Syl

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey there Dearest Syl! So proud of what you have created herein - I watched your video re: your morning meditation that brought you back to your TRUTH. You have come a long way baby! Sending you Love Light and warm fuzzy hugs from The Great White North (back in Calgary, Alberta Canada now) xoxoxox, Laurie Rezanoff, StarSeeker Connection and Astrology