Teachings of Christ Mind

January 3, 1988

January 22, 1988

Hello, Marc.

“Hello, Jeshua. I love you.”

February 15, 1988

He speaks. I write. Everything seems to disappear. Oblivious to my physical surroundings, the dimming light of a disappearing day holds no consequence as the pen flies along the lines of the paper. It ends. He fades gently away, and I return to what we call reality, sitting in a quiet apartment, hearing now the sound of a couple chatting as they walk by on the sidewalk below my window.

I must turn on a light to read the words, struggling to decipher my own hurried scribbles. I finish, and shiver involuntarily, though not because I am cold. This is radical. It is not what I have been taught. It is not the official dogma of my own human family. To follow where it leads requires a boldness which I am not sure I possess (and which I’m not sure I even want to possess). Yet there is an attraction, a feeling deep within that wants to cry out: “Yes, yes!”

Plato once wrote a now famous allegory, The Cave. In the cave, people lived their lives facing the walls, never turning to see what else the cave might hold. The whole of their experience revolved around their interaction with shadows that were always cast on the walls of the cave. Over the course of generations, they came to believe that the shadows comprised the whole of reality; there was no need to turn around.

But one day, for no apparent reason, a young boy did slightly turn his head. At first he was disoriented and did not comprehend what he saw. Gradually, though, it became apparent to him that the cave dwellers were chained in such a way that all they could see were the shadows. He saw that the cave was much more vast than he had been taught. He saw a huge fire some distance away, being maintained by a few individuals whose appearance was not unlike his own. With a start, he realized that the shadows on the wall were actually being cast by the dance of the firelight. They were not real at all!

He learned how to drop the chains that had unwittingly bound him, made his way quietly past the Guardians of the Fire, and noticed a trace of light seeping in from some point high above him. With great effort, he climbed up to where the light was coming through and lifted himself up out of the cave. The brilliance of the light was dazzling at first. Everything was crystal clear! Here there were no shadows at all!

Then he remembered his family and friends still living in the cave, still entranced by shadows. Climbing back inside, he returned to his spot along the cave wall, and excitedly began to tell of his experience. Some acted as though they could not hear him, their faces without a trace of expression. Others turned for a moment and then looked away. Still others warned the young boy that the light was an old myth, long since explained away by the high priests and governors of the cave dwellers, and that he would do well to forget it. A few, a very few, wanted to hear more.

Is that what this world is? Am I, are we, living in a cave occupied with mere shadows we cast ourselves?

Am I ready to give up my world? It is the only one I know, and even this one I know not well. Or do I simply fear what lies beyond the borders - the proscriptions of authority - of consensus “truth”?

February 20, 1988

Maybe it is only the feeling of intensity with which the communications from Jeshua have been coming, or maybe it is the challenge of his message to my own world-view built up over the past thirty-five years - but I sense, no, struggle with, pressure within myself.

I confess to wishing at times that I were more naive. Less questioning. Or maybe Kendra is right. Maybe it is, after all, a question of trust. Lately, I sometimes find myself lost in a whirlwind of thoughts about what is happening to me; questioning the source of this experience called “Jeshua”, looking for some hidden, ego-based motive that surely must be there, despairing at not being able to find it.

This is not comfortable. Sometimes I recognize the child in me wanting to find someone to make it all go away. But after many years of self-observation, spiritual practices, and self-improvement, I know that I am either blessed or cursed with an orientation to life best summarized by William James:

My willingness to leave my account open has been both a boon and a bane! But this is unlike anything I have ever encountered. My intellect does not seem able to explain either the experience or the meaning of Jeshua’s message. Perhaps because of that, I simply “shelve” it, as best I can, and continue to live my life - or try to - as I am accustomed, as I believe I ought to. Yet some part of me insists that I do whatever it takes to understand it, to integrate it.

Picking up the telephone, I punch in the code that will automatically dial Kendra’s number. Once again I have let too much time pass since contact with this gentle soul I love so dearly. I know it is because I want to “go lightly,” as if I could use her friendship up and there wouldn’t be any more!

“Hello, Kendra?”

“Marc, hello! It’s funny that you called. I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately.” She pauses for a moment, then continues. “Are you surviving?”

“Always, as usual. Now, it’s okay to say ‘Didn’t I suggest this a long time ago?’, so you might as well get it out of the way!”

There is a brief chuckle before she dutifully repeats the words, then asks: “Okay, what is it that I suggested?”

“That I might want to schedule a session with Jeremiah to see if he can shed some light on all this.”

Resting the receiver between my ear and shoulder, I grab a pencil and notepad. “You know, I think I would be really happy at this point if Jeremiah would tell me it’s all a projection of my subconscious, megalomaniacal desires. Maybe I can get a prescription for hearing voices! But give me the number, and I’ll see if I can schedule something.”

Kendra reminds me that Billie Ogden, the channel for Jeremiah, is sometimes booked far in advance.

“Look, let me call her now while I’m on a roll, and I’ll call you right back.”

In a few minutes, I am back on the phone with Kendra. “Guess what. She just had a cancellation, and I can see her tomorrow.”

Kendra, of course, cannot let this chance go by. “So that means I’ll see you tomorrow night, right?”

I smile, knowing that now I really have no choice but to go through with it. “Tomorrow night it is. Thanks for the number. Bye.”

After exchanging pleasantries with Billie, we ready the tape recorder and settle down on the sofa. Doing my best to relax, I patiently wait for the change to occur, for Billie to leave and Jeremiah to appear. Whatever this phenomena is, I am always fascinated by the noticeable physical changes that occur: Billie’s face subtly changes shape, her body begins to appear larger somehow.

Finally, her head raises, and a voice very different from Billie’s, with a far different style of language, begins to speak. “Dear heart, you have questions to ask?”

“Yes,” I reply. “Well, actually, I had thought of preparing a list of them, but decided to just trust the flow of our session.”

There is a faint smile. “Is wisdom there, dear heart.”

“One of the problems I have is that, while I am learning to listen to my heart, following it seems to be another thing.”

“Is because you get tangled up with the intellect. That which causes pain, dear heart, is the confusion between the intellect and the heart. At this time, what we say to you is that the best way to come from your heart is to have only the willingness to let go of what you know. To let go of the training you have had. The source of all life, you see, is what you can call God, or Love, the Oneness of all things. Dear heart, until you let go of who you think you are, you cannot receive wisdom from the Universe.”

Shifting my position so I can look directly at Jeremiah, I ask: “Can you shed any light on my experience with Jesus, if I had any at all?” Wanting to know if I might receive information similar to that received by Kendra so many months ago, I have deliberately not mentioned Kendra, nor Jeshua.

There is a very long pause, and Jeremiah’s reply abruptly stops me: “Is not so much that you are having an experience with Jeshua, but that you are. That is your lifetime.”

Jeremiah used the name “Jeshua,” but I know I had avoided doing that! There is no way for Billie to have known about him!

I stumble over my own words: “That, uh, that is, uh, my lifetime? Could you, uh, would you, uh, clarify that, please?”

“First, we will explain to you, so that there will be a better understanding for you, of what you call ‘lifetimes.’ Is not so much, dear heart, that you have many, many lifetimes, one here, one there, then another, in what you call time. You do not have what is called ‘past’ lifetimes. We talk about past lifetimes because it is that which the human mind understands but, in truth, it is not so. You only have lifetimes you are living now.”

I feel myself leaning closer, hanging on every word.

“You see, dear heart, you are like a book, and there are many pages in the book, and the pages are all transparent. Therefore, when you look at the book, you see the whole. But if you take just one page out, you see only that page. The further away you get from the book, the less of it you can see, so you call it ‘past lives.’ But indeed, it is not. It is still your lifetime. You are in many places at one time, living many lives, now. You are the being you ask of.”

I am stunned. “I, uh, I am this being I call ‘Jeshua’?”

“Is so. Do you understand?”

“Uh, yeah.” Right. I may understand the words I have just heard, but their meaning - well, that is another matter. Something tells me the Pope would not agree with this at all.

“Jeremiah, we grow up here in a culture with, well, with a rather different view of Jesus. And now you are saying that I am that life?”

“Is so.”

“So, would you say that, as lately, Jeshua is communicating with me more and more clearly, that I, uh, I am…”

Jeremiah finishes the sentence for me: “It is that you are willing to look at the pages that you are.”

I am reduced to silence as my mind tries to absorb what I am hearing, seeing the inevitable conclusions as pictures stealing briefly across an invisible screen, conclusions which turn the world upside down and inside out. This is radical, in the most fundamental sense of the word.

“Dear heart, is all right.” Jeremiah’s voice is softer now, soothing ruffled nerves, seeing my plight even though the physical eyes are closed. “Is that you have what is called ‘judgment’ going on. Is that you have created a mindset that says you are only this being called ‘Marc.’ Therefore, because this is all that you think you are, it does not have the value of this being you call ‘Jeshua’.

“It is the pattern we see in the framework of thy being, that you hold the idea that all are the only begotten sons of God, yet still you insist that Jeshua is the real begotten Son of God. Therefore you cannot see the equality. But, dear heart, there is only equality, because there is only one Mind. Until it is that you are ready to look at thy brother as thy self for, indeed, it is that you lead the lifetime of every being…”

Now, it is my turn to interrupt. “I…I live the life of every being?”

“Is so. Every lifetime ever lived is but one lifetime. There is no separation. It is to know, dear heart, that you are the holy, begotten Son of God, the only begotten Son of God. Do you understand?”

I sit very still, staring at nothing at all. I do not know how much time goes by, sitting there staring out into space. What would an onlooker see? A man and a woman, sitting on a sofa, silently. Not lost in the panacea called television, nor listening to music, apparently not interacting at all. Just two bodies, sitting on the sofa.

But inwardly nothing is still. Energies are pulsating through every cell of my body. Images race through my mind; flashes of brilliant, colored lights seem to fly by as though I were traveling at incredible speeds.

Finally I am able to speak, and as I do so, there is a return of more familiar surroundings, though I still do not move, nor do I even turn my head to look at Jeremiah. Somewhere inside me there is a knowing that we could carry on this conversation without being in the same room, or even on the same planet.

“So, the Son is doing all this? All of us, then, are the murderer, the rapist, the king, the poet?”

Jeremiah is smiling now, and speaks easily, confidently, as a teacher who is sure that his student is, at least, beginning to comprehend. “When one comes to the full awareness of that who he is, then all will move closer to that Oneness. The greatest gift you can offer to the world is to come into your own full awareness of who you are. When you love all that you are, you will have given to mankind that love, that acceptance, for to awaken to who you are, you will recognize that you are all things.”

Not skipping a beat, Jeremiah continues: “It is that you have these tiny borders, these little rules, that say what life is. And because what you receive does not fit within these rules, it is very difficult to deal with. It does not fit in the box. You must push out the borders of your mind. This is why we tell you to allow. Allow it to be, even if it does not fit into your current perceptions. This will push out the borders of your mind.”

Slowly nodding my head, I reach over and turn off the tape machine, silently saying “Thank you” to Jeremiah, then rest back on the sofa, waiting for Jeremiah to leave and Billie to return.

Billie offers me refreshments. “Often, people don’t seem ready to leave just yet. At first I was uncomfortable with it, because I didn’t know if I should say or do anything. So I just got used to hanging out with them.”

“Do you have any idea what goes on in these sessions?” I ask.

“No. But it was harder to come back this time. I think Jeremiah’s energy was pretty strong.” She doesn’t seem much interested in this line of questioning, so I let it drop.

“I think I’ll skip the tea, and head out.”

At the door, I pause and turn back to her. “Saying ‘thank you’ doesn’t seem like quite enough, but I’m glad you let this happen.”

Billie smiles broadly. “Oh, I guess I learned it’s okay. I mean, it seems to help a lot of people, and that is all I need to know about it.”

I nod my head, turn, and walk down the hallway to the elevator. Driving first toward, then through Seattle, the traffic is hardly noticed. The hour-and-a-half drive south to Kendra’s is over in what seems like an instant.

“Come in! How did it go? Do you have the tape?” Kendra is obviously excited, as well as curious.

‘Without saying anything, I give her a big, long hug, then hand her the tape and sit down on the floor. I watch her cross the room, where she opens the door of a beautiful, handcarved antique cupboard that serves as her stereo cabinet. She slips the tape in, then sits down on the floor beside me.

As we listen, I can see that Kendra is quite involved, listening intently to every word. As the tape reaches the part about Jeshua, I can feel my heart beating faster, waiting for her reaction:

Kendra turns her head toward me, eyes showing surprise, asking for an explanation.

“It doesn’t mean what you think. Well, not exactly.”

Finally, the tape is finished. After awhile, Kendra speaks softly. “Well, there isn’t much that can be said to that.” She starts chuckling.

“So what is so funny?”

She looks at me askance. “I don’t know. Nothing, I guess. Maybe I’m chuckling because I don’t know what to say!”

I sense an opportunity for a good jab here about her, of all people, being speechless, but I let it pass. “Do you remember the part about allowing?” I ask.

“Yes,” she replies. “Why?”

“Jeshua has been talking about that with me. He said that the stage of my own process of awakening could be called the stage of ‘allowing.’ Rather an odd coincidence, isn’t it?”

Smiling, eyes sparkling now, Kendra replies, without pausing to give it a thought. “‘Coincidence’ is a word for connections we do not understand, or don’t want to understand.” She turns to look at me, then continues. “And you know it, too!”

I smile back at her. “Yeah. Hey, maybe all these apparently nonphysical beings are collaborating. What do you think?”

“I think,” she pauses and takes a deep breath, “I think that if you listen at all to them, it is a lot more than collaboration.”

“What do you mean?” I ask the question, but already know her answer.

“There is only one Mind.”

For the longest time we look at each other, or at ourselves. Or the one Mind, the one Son, looks at itself.

Whatever the words used to describe the experience, there is a feeling, a momentary knowledge beyond any doubt that for both of us - melts all boundaries, all divisions, all doubts.

“Well,” I finally speak, almost at a whisper, “I should probably be going.”

I could swear that the sparkle in her eyes fades a bit, and I sense that the spell has been broken. Or is it, perhaps, that we are choosing to return to it?

On the way home, I feel as though I am six feet off the ground. The Tacoma city skyline is alive with vibrant energy. Yet even in this moment, after all this time with Jeshua, and the impact of the session with Jeremiah, I can already recognize a now familiar energy almost imperceptibly rising within me. Have you ever experienced knowing something beyond doubt, and also knowing just as clearly that you are refusing to accept it no matter how obvious it is? Perhaps it seems simpler that way.