Article by Doug Esse
The following is my reflection of Mark 1:14-15. I share it here in the spirit of living the law of one in a fuller way. For those who have a Christian background, you may find this of interest. As you read the verse below, what would be your interpretation?
“After John [the Baptist] had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God: “This is the time of fulfillment. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel.”
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The word, “repent,” in the bible is not weighed down with the moralism that we modern people have interpreted it. It comes from the Greek word, “metanoia,” which means something like”expand your mind,” “open your heart,” “see from a larger perspective.” To believe is to put one’s faith, trust, and hope into an idea. It is a full engagement of our energy centers poured into a kind of singularity of intention. To believe with our whole heart, mind, and body is to willingly participate in bringing that belief from the causal realms into manifestation here in the physical realms.
Some scholars that I really like translate “The Kingdom of God,” as meaning, “Companionship of Empowerment [2].” See how this interpretation resonates with you as you try that on for size. John the Baptist was arrested and only after he exited the scene, did Jesus really begin his ministry. This timing has archetypal significance. John represents a kind of spirituality that is present in most of the world’s religions and for good reason, too. Why? It works. It is the spirituality of asceticism, which is a shoring up of one’s energies in order to connect with the divine. It is an awakening of a kundalini experience where the energy centers are activated in ascending order. The ascete often practices certain kinds of postures, depravations, and rituals that create catalysts for the upward flow.
But as effective as asceticism is as a path, it may not quite be the gospel as the Jesus Event revealed. The gospel that creates this companionship of empowerment evolves the ascetic path into a new way of doing spirituality. The path that Jesus showed was not a shoring but a sharing. It is a path of kundalini activation that takes place as a kind of by-product which happens through going about giving energy away; of serving others in the service of empowering others; and creating communities of caregivers and stewards of empowerment. Though the One Spiritual Path is indeed a slow evolution of awakening into the bandwidths of consciousness of the energy centers, as many facets of the Perennial Tradition teach–including the Law of One material (Law of One: 51.7, 51.8, 41.16, 15.12)–the gospel way of life is grounded in the primacy of seeing other-selves (and creation, itself) as members of the One Body and serving that One Body by serving the members. In short, it is a pathway of giving away the abundance and generosity of God through service.
It is a pathway that leans into “giving,” as a way of gaining; of forgiving as a way to be forgiven; of self-offering as a way to find ourselves. Not only does this pathway activate the energy centers effectively, it may be less apt to leading to spiritual bypassing because the focus is on the Creator’s full presence in and as the immediacy of the physical world in front of us.
It is of note that when John the Baptist first saw Jesus begin his ministry, he said to his followers, “I must decrease and he must increase” (John 3:30). The gospel that Jesus came to give was a new kind of path (at least in the West) that revealed how union with the divine is not “up there” but “down here,” embedded as the physical world. The fullness of the Divine Creator is disguised as our life, and as Ra says in session 10.14, “The moment [here, now, in front of you] contains [the fullness of] love.”
Living out the gospel in the service of building companionship of empowerment is not characterized by shaming others or using guilt to create conformity. Rather, it is an honoring of unity–which is diversity maintained and protected by love. Its freedom comes from the ability to understand and tolerate complexity.
The gospel of God is a full revelation of the unity and interconnectedness of all things through rooted solidarity which shares in both the suffering and joy of others. It is not a forsaking of the physical, embodied life, but a movement more into it to show that what is true “above” is fully present and mediated through the immediacy of lives here “below.”
The gospel is precisely not individualistic but exquisitely interdependent in nature. It is not a flushing up but a flushing out. Energy is channeled into works of service of all kinds in the spirit of creating community and empowering others to empower others. The gospel is a celebration of embodiment that is centered in right relationship with embodiment so that embodiment’s full dignity as the expression of the Creator’s own Self is honored for the supreme sacrament that it is.
The body is a tone poem (Law of One 54.8) full of nuance, complexity, and profound meaning. Embodiment’s full enjoyment–a joy that is complete (ref John 15.11)–comes from within a balanced engagement with physicality. The great news is that we get to play this symphonic poem in order to create and express our own stories. To live a life of the gospel is to harmonize our tone poems with the great Tone and to invite others to play in the Grand Symphony.
The Creator hears the symphony and the Creator plays in the symphony and the Creator is the symphonic music, itself.
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[1] 54.8 Questioner: OK. Once a mind/body/spirit complex becomes aware of this process, it then decides that in order to have the abilities, the full abilities of the creation and the Creator (of which it is a small part yet at the same time, all of), in order to have the abilities that go with the entire creation, it is necessary to reunite its thinking or reharmonize its thinking with the Original Creative Thought in precise vibration, or frequency of vibration I will say. In order to do this it is necessary to discipline the personality so that it precisely conforms to the Original Thought, or Original Vibration, and this is broken into seven areas of discipline, each corresponding to one of the colors of the spectrum. Is this correct?
Ra: I am Ra. This statement, though correct, bears great potential for being misunderstood. The precision with which each energy center matches the Original Thought lies not in the systematic placement of each energy nexus, but rather in the fluid and plastic placement of the balanced blending of these energy centers in such a way that intelligent energy is able to channel itself with minimal distortion.
The mind/body/spirit complex is not a machine. It is rather what you might call a tone poem.
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[2] https://diarmuidomurchu.com/writing/essays/christian-life-essay-2
Building 4th Cosmic Christ 
So, Doug, John the Baptist, in preaching repentance, triggered the ascetic response instead of the mystical response (“Do this” as opposed to “contemplate this”), as is the tendency of almost all religion. Jesus, in turn, invited to look beyond the ascetic “do this” response and receive, embrace, cherish the “I AM” of all creation.
It does no good to regret, but I have come to perceive my personal “mistake” of criticizing, ridiculing, attempting to contradict the religion that I came from as ineffective, even service-to-self. I was projecting my feelings of betrayal that resulted from realizing that the value in religion was not the end, but only a beginning path. Sadly, I’m pretty sure I burned a few bridges in the process, most egregiously with my sister the relief society president.
Having received, embraced, and cherished my own oneness within creation, it is much easier to embrace and cherish the oneness of other selves; easier to brush aside perceptions of victimization, attack, scarcity, etc.
Of course, the catalyst that has promoted this learning (repentance?) has been mild – entirely in social / civil interactions. I simply do not put myself in situations where the catalyst is likely to be more extreme. But that may not always be possible.
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Thanks for your response. I think that John the Baptist can represent the “first half of life” kind of approach to spirituality that may be full of do’s and don’t’s. He surely represented the zeitgeist of his own time. I don’t throw him out in the same way that I don’t discard the lessons of the lower chakras. Example, if I learn to live from my sixth chakra (indigo center), this doesn’t mean that I only live from there but actually live from 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. The first half of life stuff gives us containers, and this is fine as far as it goes. But containers aren’t the contents, and many people seem to confuse the two. In my opinion, as distorted as it is, most Christians are into “Churchianity,” rather than Christianity. We are all still in the infancy state of Christianity. This is why I feel that things like the Law of One material can help highlight good Christian content that is mystical, perennial, and indeed, a great path. However, the missteps, as Ra says, are oh! so easy (ref 80.8). But in the end, for me, the trick is to hold both John the Baptist (and what he symbolizes) and Jesus (and what he symbolizes) together. The latter informs us how to see and appropriate the former.
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Doug, I see, within the verse you share, the revealing of a mystery of this time of “fulfillment” which occurs when John the Baptist the (Priest) ascending from the water/death up and into the descending Kingdom/Jesus/King.
“After John [the Baptist] had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God: “This is the time of fulfillment. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel.”
When the kundalini ascends, ascending (priest) meets the descending divine (King), there the mystery of the Kingdom is revealed. This impossible mountain is removed when the ascending Priest/Joshua and the descending King/zerubbabel meet to each pour the gold oil into the candlestick. These are the two anointed ones whose joined pouring reveals that when and where this mystery is revealed. In meditation the priest within us ascends and is joined by the descending King, there is where the coming of Jesus and the Kingdom of God on earth will be revealed and experienced.
I love your definition of repentance…and your thoughts on the return to the “Original Vibration”…I am enjoying reading this blog…thanks..
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You also have a brilliant vision, my kindred brother.
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