Expressing Your Divinity in Everyday Life
Jim Young
Book One: My Spiritual Awareness Series
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Emptying the Old Wine
- Hidden Meaning
- The Simple Life as Image as Likeness of God
- Living the Miracles We Are
- Creating a New Spirituality
- The Key to Coming Alive
- What Now? First E-Mail from Christo Sahbays
- You Are God. Second E-mail from Christo Sahbays
- Spirit Noodles
- Endnotes
I. Emptying the Old Wine
I’d like to tell you a story about a widely renowned metaphysician in nowadays terms. It’s early in the 21st century, and Christo Sahbays, a local healer, shaman, and metaphysician and his immediate followers of men, women, and children are beginning to be known around northwest Arkansas, located in the midst of the Bible Belt. Christo is asked to speak to a small gathering in Fayetteville, Arkansas, anticipating a hundred participants or so. Because of his rapidly growing, rather controversial reputation as a metaphysical healer, the demand for seats gets out of hand quickly, so much so that the decision is made by the organizers to rent a huge auditorium. Soon the demand again outstrips the size of the facility and they lease the university’s arena that seats some 18,000 for basketball, overshadowing the sacred halls of academe nearby.
Some of Christo’ closest followers begin to get concerned, the major issue being where they will get so much food donated for the concession stands, for they had never had to service so many people before. The women in this band of believers snicker at this, knowing that this would not be something Christo will be at all concerned about. When confronted by the men’s concern, Christo shakes his head in utter disbelief and says to them: “You still don’t get it, do you? These folks are not primarily interested in eating; they just want to be fed spiritually, even though that’s not necessarily how they might speak about it. Can’t you remember how you feel when we get into our discussions about loving creation? Do you really feel hungry for physical food when you are being nourished at a much deeper level?” They murmur and shake their heads in response, feeling ashamed of themselves for forgetting Christo’s message yet again. “Now,” continues Christo, “when the time comes, you just go out into the crowd and begin to share some of the stories I’ve told you, and mediate them for those who have yet to open their hearts to the world. You have far more than you need to feed these people what they want for real life, life in the spirit. As I have told you time and again, this is not an intellectual exercise. It’s one of learning to understand symbolically, spiritually, the meaning of eternal life, not life simply in and of this material body,” Christo finishes in a breath of exasperation.
When the day comes, the Followers, we’ll call them, accompanied by other close spiritual companions who understood what Christo means by life, go out into the crowd that is amassing in the stadium and begin to disseminate the food for thought as Christo has admonished them to do. This, in effect, is to whet the appetites of the participants for inspirational messages from Christo. As the starting time approaches, you can feel the wonder build and hear the growing hum of loving energy uplifting their spirits in anticipation of what they might find.Finally the hour arrives for Christo to face the crowd. Gently he rises from his prayer stool beyond the curtains and gently parts them, heading deliberately toward the podium while scanning the assemblage. As he strides confidently across the stage, the crowd becomes remarkably hushed. Not a breath can be heard. Christo speaks “Namaste, ladies and gentlemen. I greatly appreciate your willingness to be with me at this moment in history. You are, after all, what makes history happen. Before we begin this journey together today, I want to take just a moment to do one thing I’ve always wanted to do in a setting like this.” He pauses, and then broadcasts a wailing: “Wooooooo pig soooooie!” The crowd lets out a communal gasp and then breaks into spontaneous hilarity. Christo has released the tension of anticipation he feels in the crowd and he can now begin with their attention unadorned by distraction. He senses that the hearts of all are nearly ready to receive the spiritual food to their fullest capacity, relatively unhampered by the tensions we all feel when impending intimacy strikes us.
He begins thus: “Before I begin in earnest, I want you to shut off all cell phones, computers, recorders, and put away all paper and writing instruments. They are forbidden today. Okay, you can groan if you wish, but part of this offering today comes from the overarching understanding and commitment that it is only through listening fully in the present moment that Truth can show itself. Just as in a conversation with a loved one, for example, or even with a guest in your home, it would be rude, as well as a detriment to the loving linkage established between you and them, to interrupt the flow of presence by answering a phone call or partly paying attention to a program playing quietly on the television in the background. Intended or not, such distractions do take away from the authenticity and the power of the loving connection.
“Applying the same sensibility here, this means removing as many distractions as possible from the context of our conversation today. When you do, just as when we go within with God, the heart connection is unmistakable. That is where I will be linking with each of you throughout the day. Let me say it another way: before we are finished today you will come to see that God is within each of us. That being so, is it all that hard to understand the necessity to stay connected with and respect the God in the one you are present with, instead of interrupting the connection in order to answer a call from someone else? ‘Hah,’ you say, ‘but what of the God in the one calling?’ Well, just know that the God in that one is patient indeed, even if she or he–or you–are not.
“Now, regarding the use of recording devices, as you will soon see, you don’t need to record anything that happens here today, for all of it, and I do mean all of it, is already available within you. I will be serving only as a reminder of the Truth that resides in each of you.” Christo senses that he has captured their attention, and he reinforces the capacity for doing so when he next opens his mouth.
“I want to begin our day with prayer. Although this may sound strange to you, I will say only that it is each of you who is the prayer that reaches the heart of God. Likewise, you are those who receive guidance directly from God. As you will soon see, this is what life is really about. I also want you to know that each of you here today has the same capacity for letting the expression of authentic love pass through you as I do. The only difference between you and me is that I know down deep within myself that this is true–and you cannot yet fully accept this about yourself. I also want each of you to know that God and I are One and, just like me, that you and God are One, and that it is God that speaks through each of us in our own unique way. Again, the only difference between you and me in this understanding is that down deep in my heart of hearts I know that this is True–and you do not yet accept this about yourself. This is the day when all this will be corrected. By the time we have finished our spiritual meal you will know without a doubt that because God in within each of us, this makes you identical to me, and to Jesus, for that matter. This establishes the Principle that God lovingly creates everything in Its image and likeness through each of us. Thus our self-perception is changed dramatically.
On Christo continues, through most of the day. During his presentations it feels like fine dining at an elegant French buffet: delectable and completely fulfilling, a meal worth savoring to the utmost. While he speaks, no one gets up to obtain other food or drink. No one exits to go to the restroom. Before long they are fully present to the Master, both the one at the podium and the one within each of them. Christo has hopes that all will come to the understanding within themselves that each of us wants and needs infilling, not from what is outside of us, but rather from the only location that makes infilling possible: within our very own hearts, seated at God’s table. This is the food of spiritual understanding, which, when ingested and digested and assimilated, fully nourishes us and gives us life everlasting. The choice, then, becomes one of going either inside or outside for one’s nourishment. One cannot serve both God and mammon.
Christo continues: “Today, together, we begin the process of reconstruction. What we will be doing together is tantamount to casting away old beliefs, the old wine, as said in Scripture. It will be replaced with the new, the long sweet draught of wine from the winepress of the sacred heart. However, in order to safeguard this new wine, our new understanding about what spiritual life is about, we must also replace the old wineskin, the mind, with the new, the heart, the container that will hold the new wine. The old wineskin is simply no longer appropriate. You need not be afraid of this process, for if you stick with me with all you are today, you will leave here with an entirely new perspective, a new consciousness with which to interpret and live your life anew. This new consciousness, a living, breathing consciousness of spirituality, purposefully brought to life from the heart, is that which helps fill the new wineskin. With practice, in no time at all you will find that all of life is an endless array of presents from God, as long as you stay present to life using your new frame of reference. The wisdom you will receive as continual gifts of grace is the new wine, from which you can drink draught after delicious draught.
“Right at the beginning I want to establish with you a clear understanding of what our purpose is today, and how that can lead to a much more wholesome life for all. Our purpose is essentially twofold: first, our purpose is to understand in the depths of our hearts that God and we are One, as spiritual beings created in the image and likeness of God. Second, our purpose is to understand that because this was also true of Jesus, that we are akin in our ability to heal others and ourselves as we collaborate in expressing life. These form the foundation for a spirituality of the Christ, the Loving spirit.
“St. Augustine told us that to know yourself is to know God. In the Gospel of John, 14, the Master Jesus said:
“If you know me you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him… Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ’show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? … Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do, and in fact, will do greater works than these…”
“Life is about getting to know thyself, and thus God, better than we now do. In the process we come to do the works Jesus told us we all can do; even greater than he did can we do. But this will not be possible until, and unless, we come to a more accurate–that is, True– understanding of what we are. And of what being created in the image and likeness of God means in the manifestation of our everyday lives. We’re ready now to begin the first leg of this journey.
