A mystical approach to Easter

by Hiran Perera

The resurrection of Christ is the corner stone of Christian mystical thought. As such, there are no neutral or idle thoughts for the spiritual seeker. In this way, all thought produces form at some level but they are either true or false. For the spiritual aspirant, the resurrection, correctly speaking, is the highest level of thought; for it acknowledges that there is no thought but God.

Christ’s thinking differs from mortal man’s insofar as the latter dissipates his creative energy by thinking of everything else other than God. Christ is one-mindedness and his creative energy is a constant in God and his mind is filled with no thought but God. Our ordinary senses depict a world of duality whereas all mystical experiences overcome this dichotomy.

The Bible uses a term such as to “Know” God which is similar to a direct experience of unspeakable love. A close parallel to understanding this concept was documented by Huxley after having ingested a hallucinogenic substance when he thereupon directly experienced becoming the flower he observed — breaching the dichotomy between the observer and the observed.

In some religious disciplines, meditation, which is replete in Buddhist scripture has the purpose of attaining one-mindedness or a state of stillness as a prelude to enlightenment. Thus, the body becomes neither a hinderance nor an aid to in this process.  Purpose is.

Spells and possession

In Christian thought, the resurrection is about transcendentalism of the body. To be body-conscious and to identify one’s self with the body is an unnatural state for those in quest for the kingdom of God. As thought produces form, lower vibrational thought is expressed as dense matter being physical in nature, whereas, in a higher state of consciousness, it engenders spiritual light and translucency of energy.

Spells cast on people or even demonic possessions occur to them resonating at lower frequencies, but, for them who are on a higher plane, those spells boomerang on the initiator. The black arts work only against people who have already condemned themselves and who operate at the lower level of the psychical field.

For this reason, it is important to understand that the original sin of man — or the decent from a sublime plane to a lower one — represents the mind’s decision to replace the Knowledge (Thought) of God with perception. In the latter realm, the body symbolises the expression of duality or a perceptual state of separation from God and every-body, which is experientially real. The “Word,” therefore, cannot in a real sense become flesh because the Word is God (higher plane) whereas the flesh (lower plane) is outside the domain of His kingdom and are in two different orders of reality.

The closest analogy to reconcile the irreconcilable is that “God is light (the word) and in Him there is no darkness” (the flesh). But in experience, the physical plane is very real with souls (light) appearing to be trapped in bodies (matter). No wonder, Einstein’s famous equation E= MC2 equates matter to being trapped light! On the other hand, when translucency is attained the resurrection restores this misperception by raising the thought vibration where the physical and material are completely undone. Thus, “Ye are the light of the world,” the Holy Bible proclaims with certainty and clarity.

Meditation

Most religions either exalt the body or condemn its purpose. Some exalt its beauty while others scorn its appetite. Worse still, in meditation, some focus on its impermanence, corruptibility and disintegration while others venerate its supposedly strange powers and abilities. This preoccupation with the body makes the error real and diverts the energy of the spiritual aspirant.

Such extreme distortions actually happen from a psychological standpoint of resistance or fear to mask the true nature of man — who is Spirit — and, therefore, this action perpetuates the sense of victimisation and vulnerability and, in some bizarre way, justifies this notion to be true. In contrast, the resurrection demonstrates invulnerability.

By unnecessarily focussing on the body, the mind continues to harbour lower frequency thought forms with self-aggrandisement of needs. The only way out of this dilemma is the middle path prescribed by Lord Buddha: we must neither exalt nor degrade the body but use it as an instrument to transcend its earthly trappings so that we re-align the purpose of mind to attune with its true nature of being while relinquishing the ego.

False construct of reality

Concepts such as Absolute Reality where nothing but God exists is difficult to grasp in post-separation world. In contrast, this post-separation world is based on perception, and perception is highly variable and always uncertain. This uncertainty always demands a need to fill the vacillating mind with illusory thoughts.  In a group study of behavioural perception, a renowned psychologist played a chanting of, “That is embarrassing!” several times.

Then he scripted a message on the screen while the same chant was played, “That isn’t my receipt.,” and the audience were bewildered to hear that this same chant fitted the words on the screen. The eyes take on an electrical signal based on expectations and reconstructed the chant to fit the message. He concluded that we see nothing that is real but that we construct our own false reality.

To correctly perceive the body, we should become aware that it exists outside the mind. Properly speaking, the mind of man is a function of the Mind of God. Here there is no dichotomy and thus cause and effect are therefore really one and the same thing. Since God has no body, man yet believes he exists as a body but he is free to believe infinitely even in a lie no matter how strong the impression is. Strictly speaking, this thought is an illusory one, at any rate. Therefore, from the mystical perspective, we cannot accord the body any reality because only God is Real. Either the body exists or God ceases or vice versa.

Focussing wrongly on the body in this sense is a barrier to knowing God. Yet God is not mocked according to St. Paul. This may run contradictory to formal beliefs, but there are compellingly reasons to see it in another light. As the body is a separation device, “The wages of sin (cause) is death (effect).” The resurrection is therefore the overcoming of death, which is simply the re-establishment of the separated mind with that of God’s. It is akin to a state of oneness-joined-as-one.

Reversing cause and effect

Birth and death have no special merit except that they both re-enact and perpetuate the separation notwithstanding the entry into or the exit of the world at a lower state of vibration. Life in the physical plane manifests as though thought has no power or causal effect. We are buffeted and bruised by everything external and the impact of them is experienced by the body where it “perceptually” witnesses to this schema.

Thus, from a state of mindfulness to a state of mindlessness, the descent which reflects the separation from God, the body becomes the hallmark of all who “have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” But the resurrection, on the other hand, is one of great importance since it restores the function of Causation to cause in the mind. Accordingly, the Bible says, “If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye, shall say unto this mount, remove hence to yonder place and it shall be removed and nothing shall be impossible.”

The practice of mindfulness is therefore essential to the path of redemption. Here a reversal of thought — cause and effect — is urgently required so that what was an external infliction is no longer perceived that way but is instead perceived as a projection of mind. All misperceptions have to be healed within the mind, for there is no external world “out there” to adjust and manipulate. This idea also resonates with modern scientific thought.

The awakening

In summary, it must be understood that the body is a projection of a misthought — an illusory thought, so to speak. Only thoughts, which are in accord with God’s are Real, whereas all others are outside His Realm.  Once a misthought is corrected — or the sleep of forgetfulness which weaves a dream-like world is undone — it inevitably gives rise to the “wakened” state of mind akin to the resurrection.

In this wakened state was Jesus crucified on the cross. Logically, if you take a cause and show it has no effect then the cause ceases to exist. The body symbolises the separation (effect), but when Christ demonstrated that the resurrection was possible, he reversed cause and effect that — sin had no effect — thus reestablishing the relationship between man and God. As a result, man is no longer under the spell of the separation or bondage but is set free from bondage if he now chooses so.

Our purpose in this world is to choose the resurrection where we join with Christ and seek his power of thought to restore our minds to their original glory.