A challenging Reflection

 The Great Amnesia

"Abide in me."     John 15:4

Here is simplicity. When considering the words of Christ, we hear this simple invitation. "Abide in me." This is the rest the weary self has sought in an external world of experiences. This external world is the product of a body encasing a mind on the great adventure known as a human life.

It is this self which goes forth into time, who buds from a seed and an egg, into physical being. It separates from divine Union into a discrete "human being." What is in truth a portion of the Spirit of God adopts a separate self by "being human." It does this through physical incarnation, born of humans like itself.

During its great adventure into matter, space and time it leaves behind its memory of where it came from, and what it was before, and what it forever is and will be. A type of amnesia descends upon it. This is what Yeshua the Christ said to the Pharisees and Sadducees: "My testimony is valid because I know where I came from and where I am going. But you do not know where I came from or where I am going. You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one." (John 8:14-15)

What did Yeshua mean? He remembered "where he came from." He came from Spirit, from the eternal, immutable. Where was he going? He was after a brief instant "in matter and time" going right back into Spirit. In this, he contrasted his awareness of who he was and is with that of the Jewish teachers, who believed they had begun in matter, with bodies existing in space and time. They had in actuality descended from Spirit, forgotten their Source of origin, and entered the amnesia of the flesh.

Christ said here, "I judge no one." What he meant was that he continued to see all, despite their seeming physical, mental and moral differences, as Spirit. Because he did not forget who he was and where he came from and was going, he remembered for them, too. He saw no difference in the sons of men who plotted to kill him and those who embraced him. All were Spirit, acting out the roles they had adopted in their amnesia play.

His appeal was to those who had become weary. The suffering sought him out. The ones burdened by the despair of their amnesia, who had accepted the accusations of moral failure, and the ones afflicted by physical pain and illness; these were the ones who sought him out in crowds that nearly overwhelmed him. These were the ones whose amnesia had overwhelmed them, and they sought release. The forms of their amnesia varied, from physical illness, birth defects, emotional torment, guilt, fear, and even physical death. It was these who called out his name.

Later, when he had himself transcended physical death to show that none were bound by the limitations imposed by their amnesia, he returned for a brief period of visitation. He showed some his wounds, that they might see the invulnerability of the Spirit, something all share. He teleported from place to place, defying the laws of physicality, all the while being seemingly physical. When he disappeared into the clouds, all the while still in bodily form, he again showed that the Spirit overcomes all amnesia of true Being.

His invitation to "Abide in Me" is simply achieved. He never forgot he was Spirit and asks us to allow our awareness to embrace our own eternal Spiritedness. "The Father and I are One," he said. When we abide in Christ, we are joining him in rolling back the stone in front of our tomb of physicality. Physicality is not only the body but the brain-based mind that has believed it is matter, separated off into space and time.