As yesterday was Christmas,
For today's class I thought I would talk about the meaning of Christmas.
I'll start with a quote from Jesus from the Gospel of John.
Again Jesus spoke to them saying,
I am the light of the world.
Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.
Before we unpack that a little more,
I'd like to start with a more broad look at the concept of holiday.
So etymologically,
Holiday comes directly from Holy Day,
And so the holidays that we celebrate are actually a time to recognize the holiness within life,
The divinity.
It's a time to consciously cultivate our connection to the divine,
To presence,
And as we do so it creates that opportunity for us to find more meaning in life,
To find purpose,
To find light,
To find love.
Holy has an etymological relationship to wholeness,
To non separateness,
And so when we take the time to pause from our mundane lives where being human it is so easy to get wrapped up in our material needs and wants,
Our jobs,
The things that we quote-unquote have to do or should do,
And to take a moment to take a day to celebrate why we do all of those things throughout life.
And it's for this sense of connection to the divine,
To others,
To family,
To friends,
To the world around us to recognize the preciousness of life,
How much beauty there is,
How much joy there is.
And so the idea of the holiday spirit is the spirit of these holy days,
The spirit that we cultivate of connection,
Of love,
Of presence,
To something that transcends our limited sense of self.
It's similar to what we sometimes talk about in meditation practice.
When we establish a consistent daily practice of sitting,
Of meditating,
Whether for five minutes or half an hour or an hour,
It is setting aside that time to let go of things in the outer world and to find that connection within.
It's the same idea with the holy days,
With the holidays.
It's taking a day or two or three to set aside that time to have a pause from the outer world and to connect more deeply with those things that are most important to us.
As many of you know,
The holiday of Christmas is celebrating the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.
We do not know exactly what day Jesus was born on.
As some of you may know,
The day of December 25th was chosen around 325 years after the birth of Jesus at the Council Nicaea.
Part of the reason for choosing December 25th was that it was already a holy day.
In the Roman Empire,
It was a day of celebrating the return,
The rebirth,
Of the unconquered sun.
As December 25th is generally three to five days after the winter solstice,
It is in that time when we first start to see the days beginning to get longer.
It's the return of the sun coming out of the darkest time of year and re-emerging into the light.
The sun in many traditions represents light,
Life,
Love,
Consciousness.
Life cannot exist in this form without the sun.
It's what allows food to grow.
It's what allows us to distinguish all of the myriad things in life.
Without the presence of light,
We couldn't perceive all of the different colors and shapes and forms.
Love is often depicted as light because love is something that is beyond the material realm.
It is something that underlies all of existence.
And just like love,
When we have the presence of light,
Of true light,
It allows us to see clearly,
To perceive reality as it is and ourselves as we are.
The light of consciousness allows us to perceive the underlying reality of unity that we are all always a part of.
In this sense,
The sun represents not only light and love,
But in many traditions it represented God.
Within the human body,
The heart is often associated with the sun.
It is the place where we develop the art of being human,
Of existing as individuated beings experiencing a sense of separateness between self and other,
While always being connected to the underlying unity that we are a part of.
In this sense,
In my experience and view,
This is so much of the message of Jesus.
And why Jesus often focused on the concept of light and love.
It's the light and love that cultivates that connection to the divine,
To God,
To the all,
And transforms our experiences as embodied beings from that of suffering to that of being in heaven on earth.
Ultimately,
It doesn't matter what day Christ was born,
What day he came into this world in human form.
What matters is what that birth and what his life represents and brings to us.
It's the message of love,
Of unity,
Of a connection to God that exists in our hearts and does not require outer institutionalized religions to find that connection.
Jesus was here to teach us that we all have this innate connection to the divine,
To God,
Within us,
Within our hearts.
It is always already right here and all we need to do is shift our consciousness and our perception in a way that we become aware of it on a more consistent basis.
To me,
This is a significant part of the reason for having holidays,
For holy days,
Because being human we all get caught up in life.
But the more we can take time to consciously set aside to practice cultivating this connection that we all have within us,
The more meaning we find in all the varied experiences of life,
In all of the suffering,
In all of the joy,
All the sorrow and pain,
All the beauty and pleasure.
And ultimately,
I would say that the role of any religious or spiritual teacher is to help guide us in ways that we become more and more aware of this presence of God within us.
To realize that heaven and hell are not necessarily places somewhere else,
That each experience of life is heaven and hell depending on how we relate to it,
How we perceive it.
In Buddhism,
They often talk about samsara and nirvana.
Samsara is the cyclical aspect of manifest life,
Of death and rebirth,
Of suffering.
And nirvana is the state of enlightenment.
And in certain Buddhist traditions they talk about how you can find nirvana within samsara,
That enlightenment isn't some other place that we're trying to get to.
It's already right here and we are immersed in it.
We simply need to cultivate the awareness to be aware of it.
And similarly,
Jesus would say that the kingdom of God is within you.
It is right here,
Right now,
If only we can shift our consciousness to perceive it.
This love that Jesus exemplified expresses itself in many forms.
So much of the beauty in life is an expression of love.
Love expresses as forgiveness,
As patience,
As kindness.
It expresses as gratitude and appreciation.
And the more we allow ourselves to express these qualities,
These virtues,
It opens the doors of the heart and allows that love to flow forth more freely.
True unconditional love allows us to transcend the egoic and selfish tendencies.
It allows us to self-sacrifice.
This was another quality of love that Jesus exemplified.
For he so loved the world that he died for our sins.
That represents this love that transcends the self so much that one is willing to let go of the physical life in expressing that love.
In speaking of sins,
I often like to quote Hazrat and I at Khan on virtue and sin.
There are many virtues,
But there is one principle virtue.
Every moment passed outside the presence of God is sin,
And every moment in his presence is virtue.
So ultimately the only sin is this separateness from the divine presence of God.
And as we've talked about in previous classes,
It's often the ego that creates that sense of separateness that hardens us,
That closes the heart,
And limits our ability to express and experience love.
And so following the teachings of Jesus will lead us into the light.
And what is he teaching?
He's teaching to let go of those egoic,
Selfish aspects of self,
To open our hearts to experience the love of God that is already present right here,
Right now.
And it's something that we have control over.
You know when we talk about sin,
A lot of people when they hear the word sin,
They often think that it's something that we're doing that's really quote-unquote bad in the sense of harmful towards others.
And some sins can cause physical or emotional harm towards others,
But ultimately all of the sins are harming ourselves because they're representative of that separation from God,
Which is the only thing that we truly desire is to have that connection to the love that is within us.
And so we must learn forgiveness,
To forgive ourselves for our sins,
To forgive ourselves for all of the moments throughout the day and throughout our lives when we get caught by the ego,
By the mind,
By a sense of separateness,
And lose our connection to that underlying unity that is always there.
Often when we sin,
We feel guilty.
But guilt does not help us to restore that connection.
In fact,
It tends to concretize separateness.
Instead,
We need to learn to tap into that heart of forgiveness that Jesus so often spoke of,
To forgive others,
To forgive ourselves,
To realize that it is part of being human,
To have moments of separation from God.
This is similar to in tantric philosophy where they'll talk about concealment and revelation.
It is part of the dance of life to have those moments of separateness so that then when we have that experience of the underlying unity,
It's a revelation,
It's a gift,
It is grace.
Jesus often described the kingdom of heaven as imminent and already present for those who heeded his words.
The very nature of God is that God is omnipresent.
There is no intermediary required.
God is not some being that is separate from us,
That is on another plane.
God is in us and we are in God.
The totality of all that is perceived and experienced is God.
It is the unity that connects all of existence across time and space.
And we are one little piece of the divine that is getting to experience the rest of the divine from this single point of consciousness.
In this sense,
There is no intermediary required and there is nothing that we have to do to cultivate this connection with God.
More what we need to shift is how we relate to ourselves and our experiences to soften,
To forgive ourselves,
To have self-compassion and compassion for others.
And in so doing,
As we soften that attachment to self-identity and otherness,
We find that we already have it,
That we always have,
That it's right here,
Right now,
In every moment of existence.
It's even possible when we look at existence from the perspective of the microcosm and the macrocosm to find relationships from the teachings of Jesus to the energetics within the physical body.
When asked what the greatest commandment is,
Jesus replied,
You shall love the Lord God with all your heart,
With all your soul,
And with all your mind.
And his second commandment was,
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
The first commandment,
To love God with all of your heart and all of your soul and all of your mind,
Designates three aspects of being,
Heart,
Soul,
And mind.
In many traditions,
They speak of various triads of trinities that are a metaphor for helping shift our consciousness in a way to perceive the underlying reality.
In Chinese medicine and Taoism,
There's yin,
Yang,
And the pivot between.
Within the energetics of the human body,
We have the lower dantian,
The middle dantian,
And the upper dantian.
And these three,
Dantian,
Are often said to correspond to Earth for the lower dantian,
Heaven for the upper dantian,
And the level of humanity at the middle dantian,
Or body,
Spirit,
And chi,
Which is the life force or energy that we experience.
And so these three aspects can be said to relate to heart,
Soul,
And mind.
What he's essentially saying is to love the divine presence of God with your entire being,
With all aspects,
To realize that you are the son or daughter of the divine.
You are an expression of God,
And you are made of love.
The heart at the middle dantian is seen as a meeting place of Heaven above and Earth below,
And thus it corresponds to the level of humanity,
And thus it is an expression of love.
It is how we express love.
These three energetic centers can also be said to correspond to compassion for the lower dantian,
Wisdom at the upper dantian,
And love at the middle dantian,
Because true unconditional love is a coming together and balance of compassion and wisdom.
We need to have compassion to understand that all beings are experiencing moments of suffering,
That everything that we witness and manifest reality is impermanent,
And we have to have wisdom to have clear insight into reality.
In Buddhism they would say the wisdom cognizing emptiness,
To realize that all that we witness in material forms,
Including ourselves,
Are empty of an inherent essence,
That everything in existence is interdependent,
And when we have both that compassion and wisdom we can express love more fully,
Because we realize that that interdependence is love,
That love is connection.
It's connection to the divine within ourselves,
And it's connection to the divine as it is expressed and manifest in everything and everyone around us.
If we try and direct our intention towards it,
We can turn every day,
Or at least some part of every day,
Into a holiday,
Into a holy day,
When we shift our consciousness to recognize the beauty that is already present,
The beauty that we are expressions of,
And the beauty that everything in this world is an expression of,
And it takes practice.
So we might start with five minutes or ten minutes or twenty minutes to set aside,
But as we practice we're cultivating a skill,
An ability,
Just like a muscle,
And the more we train that facility of perceiving the underlying unity of perceiving God in all that we witness,
The easier it becomes to carry that throughout our day,
Even when we might not be sitting on our meditation cushion,
To carry it into our interactions,
First with loved ones perhaps,
Then to strangers,
And even to people that we might consider enemies or have difficulties or struggles with.
We can learn to see everything as a manifestation of love,
Even when we might not understand it,
Even when it might be difficult.
So if you will,
Let us practice.
Please find a comfortable posture for meditation.
You can be seated or lying down.
The most important thing is that you are stable and supported in a way that allows you to completely let go of any unnecessary tension or guarding in the body,
A posture that allows you to soften the physical body,
The emotions,
The mind,
To soften into the presence of the divine.
Begin to bring awareness to the movement of the breath,
And notice how simply in observing the movement of the breath,
There begins to be a shift in awareness.
Notice how you become more present in this moment,
Aware of sensations in the body,
Aware of different thoughts that come and go.
Notice how the very breath itself is the breath of life,
Of love.
Notice how the breath connects you to the world around you,
Keeping you connected to and immersed in the divine.
Notice how simply following the breath brings a softness,
Allowing your awareness to soften more deeply into your body.
Bring your awareness to the lower dantian in the center of the lower abdomen.
Become aware of any sensations you might experience in this energetic center.
Notice the groundedness that arises when you bring your awareness to focus in the lower dantian.
This is the groundedness that gives rise to compassion,
To be able to be with suffering.
Now,
Bring the awareness to the upper dantian in the center of the brain,
Associated with the third eye in some traditions.
Notice any sensations that arise as you focus your awareness in the upper dantian.
As the mind becomes still,
The upper dantian allows wisdom to arise.
We begin to see things clearly from a place of underlying stillness and groundedness.
Now,
Allow the awareness to travel from the lower dantian up to the middle dantian and from the upper dantian down to the middle dantian,
Flowing from the upper and lower energetic centers to meet in the heart,
In the center of the chest.
Allow your awareness to relax in the heart center.
As they meet in the heart center,
It is the coming together of compassion and wisdom.
You can picture a miniature sun shining brightly in the middle dantian.
Soften into the light of the sun and allow it to shine its light throughout your entire being.
Recognize this light as divine light,
As the light of God that is omnipresent.
Recognize this light as love,
Shining brightly within your own heart and throughout your entire being.
Your essence is light and love.
Recognize this light as divine light,
As the light of God that is omnipresent.
Recognize this light as divine light,
As the light of God that is omnipresent.
Realize that this light permeates everything and everyone.
It is the unity that underlies and transcends all appearance of form and differentiation.
Bring awareness back to the breath.
Feel the breath as movement of light.
Bring awareness to the felt sense of the body as a whole.
Realize that the form is simply a light.
Become aware of the solidity beneath you and know that this appearance of solidity is also light.
Become aware of the air around you in which you are immersed and know that this too is light.
And when you are ready,
Try to maintain a connection to this knowing of the light underlying all that is perceived as you gently and slowly begin to open your eyes,
Allowing everything you perceive to pass through you,
Knowing it all as manifestations of the underlying light of the divine,
Of God,
Of unity,
Of love.
At this time of year,
We celebrate the rebirth of the light in the outer world,
And it allows us the opportunity to remind ourselves of the eternal light that is always already right here within us and around us.
Jesus embodied this light in human form and brought forth the message.
In following his teachings,
We can learn how to find that light within us and around us,
And in so doing,
To realize that we are already in the kingdom of heaven.
Thank you all for joining me today.
