There’s been an exciting craze of spirituality sweeping the planet as we’ve turned the corner into the new millennium. During this same time period, people have been reacting more and more negatively to the fanatics and the many foibles of organized religion. So we’ve taken our business across town—to workshops and meditation retreats, coffee shops and the latest spiritual teacher’s bestseller. In doing so, we have thrown out the baby with the bath water. The Guide tells us that what’s behind all this activity is Christ consciousness, so it seems then that Jesus would be on board. It turns out that, more than that, he’s had a big hand in what’s been happening all along. He helped make it happen. But we’ve lost our way in having appreciation for his part in this story. It is my hope that with this retelling you’ll feel edified, inspired and even more grateful—both for Jesus and what he has done and continues to do for us, and for the Guide, who has offered a version of this whole story that makes so much sense. Listen and learn more. Read Holy Moly online. Read Original Pathwork® Lecture: #18 Free WillRead Original Pathwork® Lecture: #19 Jesus ChristRead Original Pathwork® Lecture: #20 God: The CreationRead Original Pathwork® Lecture: #21 The FallRead Original Pathwork® Lecture: #22 Salvation

Holy Moly

Introduction to Holy Moly

 Free will is a topic of great confusion for many. So which is it? Door Number One: people have no free will whatsoever—it’s all fate or destiny. Door Number Two: we only have free will, and it’s all free will. Or Door Number Three: maybe some things are determined by free will while others are not. Wouldn’t it be nice to know which is actually true? For someone who believes only in this present life and not in an existence before or after it, there would not seem to be any choice in determining where one is born, whether you’re a boy or a girl, or where, when and how you will die. There could also be no big plan for how certain phases of your life will unfold. That’s Door Number One. But for someone who feels, knows and has experienced the truth of the Law of Cause and Effect and of reincarnation, that point of view couldn’t possibly be correct. For this person, there is an awareness that there’s a Big Plan. And although people have free will, we may temporarily have our wings clipped due to factors determined by us in our previous lives. Such factors are the effects of causes that we ourselves have set in motion. This is the winner: Door Number Two. Here’s an example of what this might look like. Let’s say someone is a murderer. This person has committed a crime against God as well as against human law. So this person is apprehended and put in jail. But now let’s say the person has amnesia, and can’t remember what they did. Even if the murderer is told they did such-and-such, they have forgotten it. But that doesn’t altar the facts one iota that they committed the crime. To the prisoner, all this will seem very unjust indeed. The past actions may be hidden from their view, but they happened nonetheless. This imprisonment is a creation of free will that’s had to work its way through the time lag of cause and effect. Bottom line, wherever your free will seems to not be working in your best interest, it is due to causes you have brought about, even though you can’t remember them. The flip side of this is that wherever you can use your free will to your advantage, you have set those causes into motion too. Whether this all takes place in one lifetime doesn’t change this Law of Cause and Effect, which when it happens over lifetimes is also called karma. The upshot is, at one time, you have freely chosen to act and think in a way that brought about the results that are your current life situation. Every single action, thought and feeling produces a result. Some show up quickly, so it’s easier to connect the dots. Others take the long way. Regardless, nothing happens in a person’s life for which that person is not responsible. Fate is the word we use to describe what happens to us when we have completely blanked on how we’ve sown those seeds ourselves. And so that would be a No to Door Number Three and the question of whether free will, perhaps, only exists some of the time. And Door Number One then? Also a No. We so totally have free will. But that doesn’t mean we can do or think whatever we please without causing any effect. This world that God created runs on an infinite number of l

1 Free Will: The Good Lord Willing

 What is the time of year that is most associated with Christ? For most of us, that would be Christmas. It is at that time of year when the light of Christ returns with renewed force in remembrance of the greatest deed accomplished on this planet, ever. This light is so strong—so penetrating and so glorious—it creates rejoicing. There is such wisdom coming from this light. For wisdom and light are one. In human words, we call this “enlightenment.” So during this time of Christmas, the light of Christ penetrates into the lowest spheres of doom and gloom—and to some degree, into the world of darkness. Maybe it’s just a glimmer, but it’s not nothing. And when beings in the world of darkness encounter it, they don’t like it—unless they are ready to advance spiritually, in which case they will welcome it. And follow it. Those who are not that far along will find it very painful. As we grow and develop as spiritual beings and move into this human realm, and as we succeed in bringing out this light from within—and make no mistake, it is one and the same light—we will be protected against creatures who still reside in the world of darkness. So say again—who is this Christ? Some Christians claim that he is God. Not so. Jesus said so himself and you can read all about it in the Bible. He’s also not the Father, nor the Creator. Some say Jesus was just a wise man, a sage, a great teacher. Sure, he had great wisdom, but not so different from other great ones who have lived at other times, in other countries. Also not so. Here’s the truth of the matter. Jesus, the man, was the incarnation of the Christ. And this spirit is the greatest of all created beings. He is God’s first creation and his substance is the same substance as God’s. Each one of us, in fact, possess some of this same substance. It is what is referred to as the Higher Self, or divine spark. This is what we are liberating when we do the gradual work of spiritual development. But none of us—no other being who has walked the Earth, in fact—has this Christ to the same degree that Jesus did. And that’s the big difference. Listen and learn more. Read Holy Moly, Chapter 2: Ushering in Christ Read Original Pathwork® Lecture: #19 Jesus Christ www.phoenesse.com

2 Ushering In Christ

 Through the work of self-purification, we will raise our level of consciousness to such a degree that we will be open for truth, about anything—including the truth about who Jesus Christ was and the role he played in the history of Creation.” width=”300″ height=”300″ />Naturally, the question arises, “So can we only get back to God and re-attain perfection by way of Jesus Christ?” The answer is this: Yes and No. It’s a paradox, but indeed, both answers are correct. Believe it or not, you can get to Heaven through any of the world’s great religions—including the non-Christian ones in which you can find absolute truth. You don’t need to leave your church or temple or faith. If you are being spiritually fed in the faith you are accustomed, stay there. There is enough basic truth in any of them. You just need to find out what the truths are that you need for your own personal development, and then actually put them into practice. If we do the work of self-finding through our religion, it will satisfy our spirit. But being comfortable is not enough. We need to purify our Lower Self and crucify the ego. Those are the all-important things. Wherever and however we find the necessary help to accomplish this doesn’t much matter, even if Jesus Christ is not a part of the equation. Through the work of self-purification, we will raise our level of consciousness to such a degree that we will be open for truth, about anything—including the truth about who Christ was and the role he played in the history of Creation. So no, we don’t need to recognize Jesus Christ right now to reach God. Realize too, the perception of absolute truth in any respect isn’t going to come overnight. It takes many, many lifetimes. Unfortunately, few people are in this business of cleaning house. Listen and learn more. Read Holy Moly, Chapter 3: Must We? Read Original Pathwork® Lecture: #19 Jesus Christ www.phoenesse.com

3 Jesus Christ: Must We?

 Having parents who are strong and right gives children a sense of security in the world. So part of the reason Submitting Christians accept their parents’ religion is because it’s too frightening to think the parents were weak, or worse, wrong. Rebelling Christians, by contrast, find security in their rejection of their parents’ values. This makes them feel more superior, like their denial of Christ is more evolved. Well, in fact it is more evolved to deny the untruthful life-denying parts, but it is not more evolved to also deny the truths. There is also a fear that develops that says, What if, by chance, my parents were actually right? In a kid’s mind, everything is always black and white. This way of thinking creates some big problems for us down the road. Being right is good. Being wrong is bad. There is indeed cause for concern here. If this unconscious thinking remains buried, and a Rebelling Christian begins down the road of spiritual development where their total being—including sexual feelings and the urge for autonomy and self-expression—is waking up, and then this piece about Jesus Christ being in fact a good guy comes up, well Houston, we have a problem. In a black-and-white world, if my parents were right about the Jesus thing, they were right about this other sex-is-sinful thing too. But I can’t be all-nice like their Jesus demands. And yet I was wrong for turning against them. And if I’m wrong, I’m bad. But I just can’t bear the guilt of being wrong on so many levels. So I must continue to turn away from Jesus. And so negative reactions continue. Worse yet, both Submitting and Rebelling Christians fear that if they give in the towel, they’ll have to become like the other. Ew. The way out of this maze is, as always, to unearth mistaken beliefs that got buried on the way to being grown up. That is what it means to do the work. Listen and learn more. Read Holy Moly, Chapter 4: Submitting & Rebelling Christians Read Original Pathwork® Lecture: #247 The Mass Images of Judaism and Christianity www.phoenesse.com

4 Submitting & Rebelling Christians

 Everything about Jesus Christ, including the story of his life, the whole big reason for his incarnation—which we’ll get to—and his long-remembered teachings, is all about the fight for good. But if we’re going to talk about the good, we need to be willing to look at the bad. And suddenly we’re immersed in one of the biggest and perhaps the most badass battles of them all: duality. Duality is where the battle between opposites is waged. And this battle creates tremendous confusion in our lives. Let’s take a minute and track through how duality shows up in a person’s life. Here in duality-land, white comes with black, good comes with bad, and yes, pleasure comes with pain. But of course any spiritual guru will tell you that’s not the whole game: it’s all about love. That would be true, on the level of unity. As we’ll discuss a little later, we have all come from the oneness, we are part of the oneness, and we are heading back to the oneness. But for now, we are stuck here in the twoness. Conditions here on Earth are such that, no matter how spiritually evolved we may be, we are going to get to deal with death. And in fact, dealing with death is the way through the dogfight of duality. We have a clue we are trapped in a dualistic illusion—and as we’ll see, all duality is just that, an illusion—when we find ourselves stuck in a struggle from which there is seemingly no way out. Right there, in that moment, we need to know just one thing: we are not in truth. But at this point, the majority of our being seems to only know one thing: there are no good options. Here we are faced with some buried fixed idea about life, an image, that until now we were not even aware existed. We are so convinced of our wrong conclusions about life—which were formed very early in our childhood—that we don’t think to question them. And they are undoubtedly hard to dig up on our own. In this level of duality, which is the plane of the ego, we need to reach out for help. If we ask, help will be given. Working with someone, such as a therapist, spiritual healer or friend, we can begin to pry open our tightly held beliefs, searching for evidence of something that—just consider the possibility—may not be true. Listen and learn more. Read Holy Moly, Chapter 5: Grappling With Duality Read Original Pathwork® Lecture: #143 Unity and Duality www.phoenesse.com

5 Grappling with Duality

 The big enchilada we need to deal with—really get our arms around—is death. Even if our lives were no longer filled with our many little mini-dramas, in the end, physical death remains. And it’s a mystery. An unknown. No matter how much you think you know, it’s all conjecture. It’s our fear of death that creates the world of duality, this reality we live in. The one that says No to our longing for total fulfillment. Yep, death is a problem for us. So we need to deal with it directly to break its grip on us. What we sometimes do is take the calming words of a spiritual teacher—one who has gone before us and seems to know the way—and try to apply their ready-made answers to our lives. Why doesn’t this work? Because if these answers aren’t yet true for us—personally—they’re doomed to fail. We each have to arrive at them using the strength and courage that can come only by fearlessly facing our own issues. Trying to go the avoidant route happens due to our fears and weakness. People who are religious will sometimes cling to their faith because of this type of fear. We won’t even let ourselves imagine what it could be like to experience pleasure supreme on all levels of our being. In fact, we may even think of “divine bliss” as something that would be dull, sterile and uninteresting. Believe it or not, all of this is wrapped up in our confusions and fundamental fear of death. We may think that what we really long for is the state of serenity we were in, back in our mother’s womb. That things have really gone downhill ever since. But it actually goes back further than that. We each have imbedded in us a vague memory of life in another state of consciousness, when we knew nothing but bliss without anything opposing it. We can recapture that, by degrees, while we are here. But as we work through our issues that block us from our inner happy place, we are bound to encounter the world of duality. To go through this level, we come face to face with our fears, with everything “bad” that opposes the “good.” And that’s how we come right up against that big mother of them all: death. Listen and learn more. Read Holy Moly, Chapter 6: Facing Death & Finding Life Read Original Pathwork® Lecture: #81 Conflicts in the World of Duality Read Original Pathwork® Lecture: #82 The Conquest of Duality Symbolized in the Life and Death of Jesus www.phoenesse.com

6 Facing Death & Finding Life

 The order in which these important topics are presented matters. It will be this: God, the Creation, the Fall of the Angels, the Plan of Salvation, and the War of the Worlds. Starting with God, what is there to say? He is great. He is good. He is beyond words. For us humans, it is not possible to know what God is. That said, he is both person and principle. Both are true. In his male aspect, he is Creator. As such, in the West, we experience God as a “him.” In his masculine capacity, he takes action, he makes decisions and determinations. In this capacity, God created the universe, with all its laws and beings. We are created in his image, meaning all divine aspects occur, in a lesser degree, within us. And thus, creative ability exists in all of us too. It can’t not. The creation of beings, of course, was in conjunction with the divine female aspect. So while in the active aspect, God is personality—active, thinking and planning—and in the female aspect, God is in a state of being. This helps explain why Eastern philosophies experience God more through the peaceful state of sitting in meditation. They see a different face of God… This divine substance with which we have all been created can best be described as a fluid substance of the most radiant matter. It’s the life force. And when it is “in the flow,” in a divine stream, and the divine female aspect is prevalent, it merges with God in a state of being, in a state of slow growth and organic building. When the male aspect is prevalent, there will be help with creation, in accordance with God’s will and divine law. This is hard to grasp—the words here are so lacking. Even the highest spirits cannot fully grasp the love, wisdom and perfection of God and the infinite variety of his creation. So if this seems hard to understand, don’t sweat it. We can always just stand in awe and rejoice and praise God. Amen. Listen and learn more. Read Holy Moly, Chapter 7: God & Creation Read Original Pathwork® Lecture: #20 God: The Creation www.phoenesse.com

7 God & Creation

 So how did these foreign layers come into being? Through the Fall of the Angels—for another name for these pure Godlike beings, or Holy Ghosts, is angels. Note the phrase here: Godlike. We are not saying we are God. God is a being, and what we possess has many divine attributes, but not to the same extent as the substance of God himself. The only way we can reunite with God is if the part that is in us becomes purified and free. We can’t be one with God when we’re a fouled up mess… Another word used to describe the disharmonious worlds that came into existence after the Fall of the Angels would be Hell. Again, these worlds reflect the state of mind of the inhabitants, and came into being as a result of state of being of these angels, not the other way around. But Hell is not just one sphere. There are many, many spheres there, just as there are many spheres in the divine world, or so-called Heaven. When the Fall took place, not all beings fell to the same state of disharmony or evil. So different spheres came into being within the world of darkness, always corresponding to the individual’s state of mind. But on the whole, it is fair to say that every divine aspect was turned into, more or less, its opposite. Until we are completely purified, some characteristics of the Fall are still going on inside of us. It’s abundantly helpful to see how this pertains to each of us personally. This is not a distant or far-fetched theory. When you consider your faults, you can now, understanding this, search to discover their original divine aspect. For no fault could come into existence on its own. They are always just a distortion of something that at one time was divine. There’s no need to feel inferior in finding a fault. All is not lost. Nothing is hopeless. This is what we came here to do—to courageously uncover, face and unwind our twisted wiring. Listen and learn more. Read Holy Moly, Chapter 8: Fall of the Angels Read Original Pathwork® Lecture: #21 The Fall www.phoenesse.com

8 Fall of the Angels

 Now let’s take a closer look at what salvation by Jesus Christ really means. “Salvation,” of course, is another of those blinking words. Consider that salvation means essentially that we are never locked out. Christ offers endless forgiveness and acceptance, so no matter what a mess we may occasionally make of things, if we ask for help in finding solutions, we will not receive a stone. Ironically, although few people realize the full significance of this, organized religion has almost completely misunderstood what salvation is. Many believe Christ died on the cross for all of our sins, and therefore no one is accountable for their own sins any more—that Christ has atoned for all of them through his death. Of course, this cannot be so. As we look at the real story, it will become obvious how such a comfortable misunderstanding could have come about. But also why this would be senseless. Salvation is in fact something that has been accomplished on this earth sphere, and also in every sphere of existence. After the Fall, Christ, who of course has literally been around since time immemorial—way, way, way before he came to visit Earth—organized all the unfallen spirits to bring together their strength and area of perfection to help the Plan of Salvation. Recall, each created being was created perfectly in one way, representing a divine aspect: love, wisdom, courage, for example. This created worlds of beauty and a way for each being to eventually become Godlike. In order to pitch in on the Plan, they had to postpone their own goals. So millions and millions of years passed, waiting for enough fallen spirits to have enough longing to get back to God for Earth to come into existence. While all of this was going on, Christ was busy, preparing, working and planning ahead, and sending various pure spirits to live on Earth. He organized the teachings that the pure spirits would deliver, either through inspiration and guidance or through communication with God’s world. The painstaking minutia of this cannot be overstated. Everything had to be worked out so that it would mesh with divine laws of justice. Listen and learn more. Read Holy Moly, Chapter 9: Plan of Salvation Read Original Pathwork® Lecture: #22 Salvation www.phoenesse.com

9 Plan of Salvation

 After he died, Christ returned to the world of spirit. There he gathered up his army of a relatively small number of specialized spirits and went on to fight a spiritual war in the world of darkness. Once again, seriously? Does this not sound all too human? Well, where do we think wars come from? Wars on planet Earth are only an out-picturing of spiritual war. Of course, the mechanics of a spiritual war are not the same as here, but the essence is the same, nevertheless. A more detailed explanation of how it happened is not possible because we, as humans, lack the ability to understand, and the spirit entity sharing this information, the Guide, lacked the ability to put it into words so that we could. We’ll have to make do with a condensed version that may sound symbolic—and may in fact be symbolic to a certain extent. It’s the best we can do, given the situation. So a war took place between Christ and Lucifer. We can use our imagination to envision it being like a war with guns and spears, as would happen here. Of course, that’s not quite it, but somehow we can get that there was a spiritual war. Jesus and his team were so outnumbered that Lucifer had to admit it was a fair fight. So far, everyone was playing by the rules. This was a non-negotiable thing, this ability to make sure that in the end, even Lucifer would ultimately be able to get back to God. He will, of course, be that last one Home, since he was the very first to leave. In the end, in every sphere, Jesus Christ fulfilled the Plan of Salvation. His task was different in each of the numerous spheres he visited: in the world of God, where he was tasked with all the preparations, on Earth, and in the world of darkness. But once the battle was over, nothing was ever going to be the same again. New conditions were set up and they have reigned ever since. In our historical accounts, we say: on the third day, after he descended into Hell, Christ went up to Heaven. What got recorded in Scripture does a pretty good job of capturing and preserving the details, although the time element is not quite right. Time is a funny thing and it always requires a bit of a “translation,” because in spirit, time—if there is such a thing—is relative. It’s individual, psychological and just very different. But that is really neither here nor there. We’ve made a symbol of these three days, and that’s that. Listen and learn more. Read Holy Moly, Chapter 10: War of the Worlds Read Original Pathwork® Lecture: #22 Salvation www.phoenesse.com

10 War of the Worlds

 OK, so Jesus loves us. Now what do we do with that? We can start by fighting the good fight of removing the barriers that prevent us from feeling this truth. Many of us have already strengthened our realization that this world is infused with God, but not so many have made personal contact with him yet. God became human, so it is possible to know him in this personal and loving way… Nothing is more painful and frightening to us than not being able to make the connection between painful life events and their inner cause. Having such a deep connection with the personalized God will illuminate such connections we couldn’t see before. Its such a relief to discover there is a reason for what we experience. It happens that we tune our personal will toward total surrender—and even sincerely mean it—and then nothing happens. No sweet loving presence of Jesus shows up. We may have to wait. And that’s when we become impatient and begin to doubt, effectively yanking up the seedlings we’ve just started growing. It’s not that Jesus is keeping us waiting. It’s that our inner barriers have to give way. And that process may take its own sweet time. But chill—Christ is here. He hears you and he loves you. He protects you and cares deeply about you, even if you can’t yet feel it. At some point, you will be intensely aware of this fact. He will wrap his loving arms around you and give you peace. Not to mention the sustenance you’ll likely need for your life task. This is something worth fighting for. We’re used to fighting for our Lower Self aims, but we need to learn about fighting the good fight. We can’t afford to be apathetic about living the good life. Neither can we afford to sit back and be passive as we become enveloped in our own negativities. When we do this, we draw dark forces to us. This makes it easier to unleash our aggression in a destructive way, instead of using some of that zeal to dispel the evil and assert positive forces within and around us. Listen and learn more. Read Holy Moly, Chapter 11: The Good Fight Read Original Pathwork® Lecture: #258 Personal Contact with Jesus Christ – Positive Agression – The Real Meaning of Salvation www.phoenesse.com

11 Fighting the Good Fight

 If we ask to know ourselves, our lovability and the beauty of our true spirit, we shall have it. That is salvation. And Christ made that possible. As he said, he is the way, he is the truth, and he is life. This is a true trinity. After what he did, it was no longer futile to try. God understands what makes us tick, so he has already forgiven us for all the shameful stuff we do. He knows we have to go through our sins so we can recognize them and choose a different way. Part and parcel of this whole big drama is duality: the reality of opposites, where everything splits into either/or. As such, it’s hard for us to grasp the fact that the personal aspect of salvation—this notion that Jesus is here to help us—has three paradoxical aspects: 1) We are responsible for our own salvation. We are the only ones who can do this. 2) We can’t possibly do this alone. We need the help of others who share this journey with us and who can often see in us what we do not see. 3) Without God and the help of the personal aspect of God, which is Jesus Christ, this undertaking is just too vast for us to accomplish. So yes, our salvation is our own choice. Going through this requires our intent, our self-responsibility, our will and our effort. What’s more, it often seems like it requires a sacrifice. We have to give up our time and energy to work on ourselves. Add to this that it seems like a whopper of a sacrifice to shed a Lower-Self habit and give up some decadent Lower-Self gratification, at least for a while, so that higher pleasures can take root. No one, not even God, can make you do this if you don’t want to. Because that would go counter to all spiritual laws whose author is, after all, God. Listen and learn more. Read Holy Moly, Chapter 12: A True Trinity Read Original Pathwork® Lecture: #258 Personal Contact with Jesus Christ – Positive Agression – The Real Meaning of Salvation www.phoenesse.com

12 A True Trinity

In Holy Moly, we discover the story of how this dualistic world with its unpleasant darkness began, and how the one who came to save us gave us the precious gift of light. For while we may be on board with the reality that we live in a land of opposites—where everything splits into either/or of darkness or daylight, right or wrong, good or bad—many of us would like to know why it has to be this way. Better yet, is there any way around this? Turns out, there is, but it’s going to require we become willing to work our way through the rough terrain of duality. For the only way out is by going through the darkness and then emerging fully into the light of Oneness. To do this, it can help if we understand the nature of duality, including how it came into existence. Further, we’ll come to see how, by holding truth gently in our being, we can learn to illuminate the darkness that pervades our world. For all who seek the Oneness, this story is for you.

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Holy Moly

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