Christians believe that the crucifixion of Jesus Christ is the key fundamental event surrounding their faith. By having died on the cross, Jesus, or that part of God which became flesh and blood to walk among us, broke the barrier between Earth and Heaven, thereby opening the gates by which those who abide by God’s truths can enter His kingdom at their time of passing from this world. Indeed this is quite a significant tenet, and it is why strong believers have crosses in their homes. For Catholics, they will often have crucifixes in their homes, or crosses that actually bear the image of Jesus hanging upon them.I grew up in a traditional Roman Catholic family. I abided by the basic tenet, learned my Catholic catechism, and spent many years as an altar boy during the 70s. All twelve years of my schooling were spent in Parochial school. My religion was very important to me during those early years. But as time went on, life events happened in which greater truths presented themselves to me, truths of a more spiritual nature.
Thanks to the teachings of a spiritual master I met in 1998, and the experiences I had while praying and meditating under her guidance, I came to see the whole universe as something completely different. As if it were something out of John Lennon’s song “Imagine,” I realized that that song really did depict the way things really are, but with one tiny exception: there is something called “ego” that makes us think otherwise.
The ego I am speaking of doesn’t refer to that part of us that is self-centered. It is that part of us that makes us believe we are anything OTHER than divine, that we are small, limited, and helpless, that we are anything DIFFERENT from God. The only way this ego can be broken and conquered is by following the path set forth by one who has accomplished such a feat.
Enter Jesus the Christ. Just like Siddhartha Gautama (the founder of Buddhism) 3,000 years earlier and many other spiritually enlightened people who have traveled the same journey, the tenet was different. When Jesus said, “I am the vine and you are the branches,” he described the true nature of how we are all one and the same in God. The “I” he was referring to is what one realizes and experiences when there is no ego present within us to cloud our vision, to give us illusions of separateness. There is only one “I”, and THAT is God.
How then does one go about conquering this ego? That definitely takes some doing, and it requires traveling a journey as I had mentioned in the previous paragraph. It is not my purpose to teach or explain this, and I unfortunately could not find an article online that did the job. Notice in the image of the Dancing Shiva that Lord Shiva is standing upon a figure. This figure represents the ego within each of us which can be conquered only by embracing and practicing true spiritual principles, represented by the various limbs of Shiva and objects around him.You may wonder what I experienced under the guidance of this spiritual master. I should say that it is not past-tense as the experiences are continuous, never-ending. Imagine being in the upper room when the risen Jesus Christ enters and brings the presence of the Holy Spirit in the form of tongues of fire upon his disciples. That is a good depiction of what it was like when I first received such a blessing from this modern-day spiritual master. To suddenly be in awareness that there is no separation between the energy that fills and enlivens your body and the energy present throughout the furthest reaches of the furthest galaxies was definitely not for the fainthearted. It took some getting used to. It took a lot of rigorous practice to hold onto. It took a lot of study and contemplation to appreciate. It also took a beyond-outstanding Reiki Master to learn how to use this energy for healing purposes.
The level of awareness I have now is why many consider me to be a gifted healer. The way the energy communicates with me and flows through me is where my intuition comes from. And the fact that all of the Universe is my teacher is how I know what the right thing to do is and when to do it. Please note that this energy I am referring to is not at all separate from God. It IS God.
During the past several months I have been embracing the weekly messages of the preacher Joel Osteen on TV. He has been around for many years now, and his inspiring messages have certainly come along at the right time for me. When I suffered a stroke on October 15, 2009, I took that as my wakeup call from the Universe to get myself out of a situation I felt stuck in. It took me two and a half years to do it, and the messages in Joel Osteen’s words gave me the extra push I needed. My professional circumstances, living where I was geographically, and my marriage were all dead-end situations that were bad for my health and stifling to my personal and spiritual growth. I am free of all of these things now. Just in the past two and a half months, my wife and I divorced, I moved out of Minnesota, and I am in Pennsylvania to spend some time with my ailing father. In just three days from now I will be headed to Arizona, to where several metaphysical indicators assure that I will be happiest, healthiest, and most successful with my practice as a Spiritual Healer.
One reason why it was good to spend this time with my parents again was to reconnect not only with my family roots but also my religious roots. As my parents have always been true to their Catholic religion, they have a crucifix on the wall in every room of their home. Now when I see the image of Jesus, bleeding and in pain, dying as he is nailed to those pieces of wood, I can’t help but to be reminded of one thing: what happens to each one of us when we leave the ego in charge. We crucify ourselves to our illusions that keep us feeling lost and insignificant, that make us think that we are separate from the divine energy, from God. There really is no separation. And that’s really the way it is.
