Don’t get attached to any one word. You can substitute “Christ” for
presence, if that is more meaningful to you. Christ is your God-
essence or the Self, as it is sometimes called in the East. The only
difference between Christ and presence is that Christ refers to your
indwelling divinity regardless of whether you are conscious of it or
not, whereas presence means your awakened divinity or God-essence.
Many misunderstandings and false beliefs about Christ will clear if you
realize that there is no past or future in Christ. To say that Christ was
or will be is a contradiction in terms. Jesus was. He was a man who
lived two thousand years ago and realized divine presence, his true
nature. And so he said: “Before Abraham was, I am.” He did not say:
“I already existed before Abraham was born.” That would have meant
that he was still within the dimension of time and form identity. The
words I am used in a sentence that starts in the past tense indicate a
radical shift, a discontinuity in the temporal dimension. It is a Zen-like
statement of great profundity. Jesus attempted to convey directly, not
through discursive thought, the meaning of presence, of self-
realization. He had gone beyond the consciousness dimension
governed by time, into the realm of the timeless. The dimension of
eternity had come into this world. Eternity, of course, does not mean
endless time, but no time. Thus, the man Jesus became Christ, a
vehicle for pure consciousness. And what is God’s self-definition in the
Bible? Did God say, “I have always been, and I always will be?” Of
course not. That would have given reality to past and future. God
said: “I AM THAT I AM.” No time here, just presence.
The “second coming” of Christ is a transformation of human
consciousness, a shift from time to presence, from thinking to pure
consciousness, not the arrival of some man or woman. If “Christ” were
to return tomorrow in some externalized form, what could he or she
possibly say to you other than this: “I am the Truth. I am divine
presence. I am eternal life. I am within you. I am here. I am Now.”
Never personalize Christ. Don’t make Christ into a form identity.
Avatars, divine mothers, enlightened masters, the very few that are
real, are not special as persons. Without a false self to uphold,
defend, and feed, they are more simple, more ordinary than the
ordinary man or woman. Anyone with a strong ego would regard them
as insignificant or, more likely, not see them at all.
If you are drawn to an enlightened teacher, it is because there is
already enough presence in you to recognize presence in another.
There were many people who did not recognize Jesus or the Buddha,
as there are and always have been many people who are drawn to
false teachers. Egos are drawn to bigger egos. Darkness cannot
recognize light. Only light can recognize light. So don’t believe that
the light is outside you or that it can only come through one particular
form. If only your master is an incarnation of God, then who are you?
Any kind of exclusivity is identification with form, and identification
with form means ego, no matter how well disguised.
Use the master’s presence to reflect your own identity beyond name
and form back to you and to become more intensely present yourself.
You will soon realize that there is no “mine” or “yours” in presence.
Presence is one.
Group work can also be helpful for intensifying the light of your
presence. A group of people coming together in a state of presence
generates a collective energy field of great intensity. It not only raises
the degree of presence of each member of the group but also helps to
free the collective human consciousness from its current state of mind
dominance. This will make the state of presence increasingly more
accessible to individuals. However, unless at least one member of the
group is already firmly established in it and thus can hold the energy
frequency of that state, the egoic mind can easily reassert itself and
sabotage the group’s endeavors. Although group work is invaluable, it
is not enough, and you must not come to depend on it. Nor must you
come to depend on a teacher or a master, except during the
transitional period, when you are learning the meaning and practice of
presence.
CHAPTER SIX
THE INNER BODY