Your Divine Self

The mystical heart of the world's religions is the identity of the true Self. The understanding of the Self is the most important insight that any individual can have in life.

The Self begins with the permanent atom of being, the cause out of which the effect proceeds. We call this cause the I AM THAT I AM, the Presence of the I AM, or the I AM Presence.

God by any name can be reduced to this eternal Presence. It defines being, and it is a sphere of intense light that marks the point of our origin. It is the permanent part of you and the point to which you will return at the conclusion of this life. This Real Self is seen in relationship to the evolving self on a chart that is called the Chart of Your Divine Self.

The Chart has three parts and, in a sense, could be called the trinity of our identity.

First, there is the upper figure, which is a sphere of light. Then there is the lower figure, which represents the soul evolving in Matter, or in time and space.

Between the sphere of light above and the soul evolving below is the consciousness of the Mediator. The mediator is that portion of the Self that can translate to the soul something of the I AM THAT I AM; it is that portion of one’s being that is real enough to yet stand in the Presence of God. We call this Mediator the Christ Self, or the Real Self. It is the Self that we are in a state of becoming through our evolution, through all of our experiences in time and space.

You might say, for example, that the lower figure in the Chart would be the man Jesus. The middle figure would be the Self, the Christ. And the upper figure would be the one whom he called Father. We now see a relationship of Father, the Son and the soul that is endowed with a flame of the Holy Spirit.

That flame is the spark of life. It is the threefold flame of life —a very real spiritual flame that is focused within the body at approximately the point of the heart. This threefold flame endows our being with consciousness, with self—awareness, with all of the faculties that we enjoy that are above the animal kingdom. It is the sacred fire that we are to become and that we are to implement and use as our resource for living and for evolving while we are on earth. The three figures in the Chart, which are now separate because of our limited consciousness, will one day become one.

We see this in the life of Jesus. As he matures from birth to manhood, he walks more and more in the stature of his Real Self, his Christ Self. We find him in the temple discoursing with the doctors at the age of twelve. This is a sign that the Christ Presence, or the Christ Self, is overshadowing him and he is speaking the word of that Christ. We find him at the age of thirty in the full presence of the Christ so that his disciples recognize him as their master. He calls them away from their nets to become fishers of men. He changes the water into wine, begins to heal, to cast out demons —all this because the man Jesus has merged with the Real Self, the Christ. He walks the earth for three years performing not miracles but the functions of cosmic law. And then walking up Bethany’s hill with his disciples after his resurrection, he disappears from their midst and the cloud receives him out of their sight. This cloud is the same cloud that appeared to the children of Israel. The pillar of fire and the cloud represent the I AM THAT I AM, the eternal Presence. Jesus accelerated to the level of the Christ; the Jesus, the Christ, accelerated to the level of the I AM THAT I AM.

In the same manner, Buddha, as Siddhartha, the child who was born a prince into wealth and the surroundings of opportunity, becomes the soul who must mature and discover the Real Self. Prince Siddhartha left home to find the cause of suffering but also discovered the Real Self, which he defined as the Buddha. This is because his meditation was upon God through the crown chakra or the sacred energy center in our body. We call one who has attained the realization of God through the crown chakra the Buddha, whereas we call one who has realized God through the heart chakra the Christ. In reality, the Christ Self, or the Real Self, contains all elements of consciousness. Gautama Buddha demonstrated the way of self-mastery that was the dispensation for the evolutions of the East. Jesus Christ showed it for the evolutions of the West. We’ve reached a period now where there’s an exchange between East and West, and we who live in the West must also pursue the type of mastery that Buddha demonstrated.

Copyright © 2008 Summit Publications