When you think about transformation, what do you think of? Is it a word that just means change, or something else entirely? Perhaps it isn’t a word for you, maybe it conjurs an image; one that is ubiquitous with transformation is, of course, the butterfly. The beautiful creature that emerges from the darkness of its cocoon, to find itself transformed completely. I think of a butterfly when I think of transformation, but something else – someone in fact – also comes to mind. Maybe you’ve heard of him…some guy who, was, is…kind of big deal. Jesus. Christ. The Lord. And saviour. Jesus Christ is the ultimate symbol of transformation. His story is our story. His story is the Hero’s Journey. He is eternal. Just like transformation.
Transformation is, after all, a natural and ongoing process. This is exactly what we talk about in the Trauma to Transformation workshop and the soon-to-be-released digital course. And let me just take a quick moment to acknowledge the beautiful souls who showed up in so many ways to the transformational workshops that I recently facilitated. You see, the transformational workshop process is a beautiful, life-changing thing, but then when you double it – like when you create a transformational workshop where the main goal is to help people transform, like you’re not there for any other purpose – the power is just multiplied by the number of people who attend, their energy, the time and effort spent in the planning and execution, and, just the collective love emanating from everyone’s heart centre and outwards and inwards, ad infinitum. There on the ritual table which was decorated with sacred objects brought by some of the participants to help aid the collective, transformative energy, was a candle. But not just any candle, an electronic prayer candle – safety first – with a picture of the man himself, Jesus. Someone looked at it strangely, like, what is that guy doing here? But trust me when I say that Jesus walks with all who are undergoing transformation, which is another way of saying that he’s walking with all of us. Not only is his message one of unconditional love, but he himself is a symbol of transformation and thus the perfect presence to call forth when we enter into the circle, the transformation space, and speak the invocation prayer. The call to transformation.
So let’s talk about Jesus, then, and transformation.
A baby born to a virgin, whose birth was foretold and who unleashed untold changes upon the land in consequence of his birth, life, and death. This is a man who brought about transformation to every person with whom he interacted, while also himself transforming. Easter and the resurrection represents the climactic final transformation, from life, to death, and life again, a tableau which mimics our own lives and life cycles within our lives. Life-death-life is a familiar process for us all, as we move through the cycles and phases of each season of life until we come to the end of our physical incarnation and transform, again: death. Death comes to us all before life comes again. Life anew. Imagine thinking that the cycles of transformation, of life, simply ended with our physical end. That consciousness dies with the meat in our heads. Consciousness is like air, everything. I have experienced what I call the ‘many roomed house of all-seeing,’ in which, during a particular experience, I was immaterial and yet everywhere at once. I could see every rooms, all spaces of this house, at all times throughout time, simultaneously. It wasn’t like the panopticon, rather, it was like I was the house. And this is truly what consciousness means, to be everything, everywhere, all at once. It’s a movie I think, but that’s what consciousness is. And when we drop our bodies as Ram Dass likes to say, we return to pure consciousness. I have felt this – where dreams and waking reality are one, where there is no separation between beings. A complete merging with Source energy. It is the place from whence we all have come, and truly, still are. Jesus was one who was born awake, born to purpose, a specific mission, which was to provide humanity with a blueprint to help them awaken.
That the Kingdom of God is not somewhere external, that it is within. And where God’s kingdom is, there God dwells, for why would God live anywhere but his Kingdom? And so if God dwells in his kingdom within us, what does that really say, but that we – each one of us – is a sacred vessel and thus an aspect of the Divine. “You are Gods, sons of the Most High.” Jesus’s message was and is one of unconditional love, to love your neighbour as yourself – unity – these are principles that are not Christian in origin, they share sentiments with Buddhism and Hinduism. That we are the children of God and beloved.
And yet in that same book, where these words live, the Bible, we are told to fear God. What an odd thing to make of this message. Told to fear that which dwells within us, God. But also to fear satan and to do good or go to hell for eternity. Does that sound like a loving God, who, in punishing his child, punishes himself (for he who dwells within cannot but share the punishment)? To use fear to inspire good behaviour…we don’t even tell parents to do that anymore. That style of parenting has fallen out of fashion and yet it is alive and well in religious texts that were selected specifically for the agenda they were trying to push. Control. Fear. What happens when you tell a population under Roman rule that they are powerful beings, unconditionally loved by their creator? That’s a terrifying message for those in control, and yet, the powers that were at that time, found a way to harness Jesus’ momentum and reframe much of it to their needs. Jesus impacted, he transformed, there was gonna be no denying his staying power in the zeitgeist of the time, so if you can’t beat ‘em, join em. Sprinkle the bits about God dwelling within, but also make it very clear that God should be feared and so should Satan and hell, so that no matter what you do, whether you’re good or bad, you’re afraid. And if you’re afraid of yourself, your true self, then you’re going to stay asleep. You’re not going to want to awaken to the truth, because if you’re awake and everyone is asleep, what then? How scary? Jesus’ message and who he was was a symbol of transformation, yes, but more than that, he was awakening itself. He was a symbol of enlightenment, an ascended master even before he ascended. Born knowing. Transformation is synonymous with awakening, because every time you transform, you awaken to a new perspective. And consciousness is all about perspective. It is the creator, Source, looking at itself from infinite angles and viewpoints, the hall of infinite mirrors. Jesus transformed, life-death-life, and re-awoke, somewhere else, his awakening deepened for his having lived. For his having died, if he did, in fact, die. An interesting part of the multiverse means that is equally likely that he lived in some other timeline; that his transformation was to sacrifice his “life” as a wandering teacher, to fade into obscurity but continue his sacred and sovereign bloodline. There is something called the “Swoon Hypothesis,” whereby proponents argue that Jesus fell unconscious on the cross, feigning his death, and so there was no physical death from which to be resurrected. Obviously this is vehemently argued against by biblical and religious scholars, but really, at the end of the day, does it really matter? What matters is the man and what and who he was, and is, because ultimately, this is the truth:
Jesus lives in each one of us. We all share his light. He could see that, and he could also see that we could not see it. That our eyes were…are closed. Whether he lived or died of the crucifixion is of no consequence, because what’s real, what’s tangible, is what he created. God so loved the world that he sent his only son…his son, a son of God, like you and me (and forget about the word son, because there is no gender in spirit, because we are everything, all at once). But God sent his son, an aspect of himself, to awaken his other children. To show them how to awaken. Jesus arrived with nothing but love, an embodiment of love, and it was of this love he created his ministry, his legacy, the transformation that was his gift to the world. Jesus is not only the lord and saviour, he is you and me and all of us. We are all made of light, fingers of light. Consciousness. Light shared amongst all, which is why so many people claim to have seen or spoken to Jesus. The sun shines on everyone, after all, more than one person basks in it at the same time, and so it is with Jesus and any other being in or outside of time and space. I think it was Ricky Gervais who did a stand-up bit about more than one person going as Napoleon to a past lives party, and it made me laugh because, of course more than one of us feels an affinity to some historical figure. We are made of light. Our souls are light. Eternal. Light is shared. An aspect of the light currently animating you has come from another finger of light too. You might feel an affinity for both Cleopatra and Jesus and Napoleon and Abe Lincoln, because you have aspects of their light within you, and others do too. It is all the same light, just focused like a beam in different places at different times and yet it is all the same time and place and of course, ultimately, there is no time or place at all and everything is all at once, forever.
And so you are both an aspect of God and of Jesus, because they too are the same. Jesus was/is an expansion of God consciousness, just as you are. And me. Jesus is you. You are a child of God. And God dwells within you. This understanding, this sacred knowledge, represents the quintessential transformation, the awakening, and is what Jesus came here to tell us.
Not that we should fear God, not that we need fear anything but fear itself. Even the concept of Satan sounds a little bit too close to home. Satan represents not some evil demon hell bent on punishing sinners (wouldn’t that make him the good guy anyway?), rather, satan and hell represent man’s own ego and hell, the place where the ego dwells. The body and mind. Hell is a place on Earth, just like Heaven. Which one you live in is determined by your own free will to decide which one you believe you deserve.
Jesus believed you deserved heaven, and died not to atone for our sins, but to represent the collective transformation from asleep to awakened. For truly as children of God, with eternal souls, we do not sin. And God being the Creator of us and eternally loving, who dwells within, knows us, each one of us, as our perfect, whole selves. He does not punish. There is nothing to be forgiven, because in truth it is our egos that sin, not our true selves, and it is from our egos we must be awakened. That was the real goal of the life and death of Jesus, his transformation, to shake us up, wake us up, and show us what a being connected to their higher self, not ego, looks like. That’s the blueprint. We are all non-sinners, all saints; our true selves are just hidden by our egos, which hold our traumas and limiting beliefs. The belief that we are not enough, not loved or lovable, when in reality, love is what made us and of which we are made. Jesus’s transformation is our transformation, his being, our awakening.
Happy Easter.
