People sometimes ask me if I’m a Christian, and my answer is the same that Dr. Howard Thurman once gave a reporter when asked the same question and he replied, “I’m a follower of the teachings of a man named Jesus, not a religion made about a man named Jesus.”
When I was a child growing up in Venezuela – where over 90% of the population is Christian, on Christmas eve at exactly midnight we expected the Christ child to arrive with his gifts. Not Santa Claus. In fact, the very first thing my friends would ask me on Christmas day was, ‘What gifts did the Christ child bring you?’
Since I became a follower and a teacher of The Path of the Heart, the truth is that for me, Jesus has become my most important source of inspiration, guidance and wisdom on all areas of my life, both inwardly, and outwardly. Instead of seeing Christ as someone to worship and obey, I’ve come to see this Jesus, The Christ, as a powerful man who two thousand years ago showed us the way to a richer, more loving, joyful and fulfilling life. He called it, The Way, a journey of bringing Heaven to Earth, the Divine to the flesh, the qualities of God to our imperfect human selves.
To be Christed, in ancient Greece, was to be anointed. Anointing, in Latin ‘ungire’, means to smear with oil. Why oil? Because all oil carries the essence of its origin. Just like lavender oil carries the essence of lavender, The Christ carries the essence of its Divine self – that part of ourselves that is holy, perfect, indestructible, that has never been born, and it will never die.
This Divine aspect of ourselves is what is known as The Christ Consciousness, or the consciousness that lived fully in a man named Jesus, whose birth we celebrate on this Christmas day. And today I’d like to help you activate this consciousness within your heart, the place where Jesus himself taught it lived when he said, ‘” for where your treasure is, there you will also find your heart.”
The Christ Consciousness Activation is my invitation to you to set aside 17 minutes this holiday season and re-connect, re-awaken, and re-activate the connection with this Divine Center within you where your soul lives.