Do you have a relationship with Jesus? Even if, like me, you’re not a Christian, you have some relationship with Jesus. Maybe you hate what he represents. Maybe you worship him. Maybe you’re not sure what your relationship with him is. Whatever the case may be, because you live in a world drenched in stories, beliefs, and histories that are either about or reactions to what this or that person thought about Jesus, he represents a persona and a set of experiences that cannot be ignored. The following interview is an example of what you can do to clarify and improve your relationship with this potent personal, spiritual, and cultural reality.

Many people have near death experiences of Jesus. I grew up thinking of him as a loving elder brother. From my years studying the Edgar Cayce readings I generalized that to a sense of God and spirituality as “Christ Consciousness” or an “awareness of my oneness with God,” as Cayce defined it. Think of it as a universal or archetypal Jesus/God/self combination. It’s a concept that is used by Unity and various segments of the new age community.

That belief structure began to lose salience for me in 1969, when I was nineteen, and got exposed to multi-perspectival approaches to spirituality, particularly through the study of Chinese and Indian religions. I also slowly became less enamoured with the historical Jesus because of the many contradictions in and non-spiritual aspects of his character (demon fighting, whip using, bringing not peace but a sword, apocalypticism, exclusivity “No one comes to the Father but by me,” among other things), things about him that I did not recognize, minimized, or excused before. Still, I continue to believe that the most plausible explanation for the image on the Shroud of Turin is resurrection. I also do not discount the extraordinary reality and transformational love of people’s encounters with “Jesus” in near death experiences.

So why not an interview with my own archetypal Jesus to give it a chance to be heard? I do not expect it to express truths or realities for you – you have to do your own interview to do that – and I don’t expect it to be free of my own projections, biases, and prejudices. But how will I know if it will provide a helpful, broadened, useful perspective or not unless I allow it to speak to me?

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

Staying centered in luminosity, cosmic humor, and abundance.

Writing, editing, publishing.

Learning German.

Which issue brings up the strongest feelings for you?

The first. It’s my present conceptualization of the sacred and how to build my experience of it in my daily life.

What feelings does this issue bring up for you? 

Good ones! The six core qualities – confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, inner peace, and witnessing. A sense of being on the right track and doing what I need to be doing. So a sense of happiess and contentment.

If those feelings had a color (or colors), what would it be?

White.

 Imagine that color filling the space in front of you so that it has depth, height, width, and aliveness.  

Now watch that color swirl, congeal, and condense into a shape. Don’t make it take a shape, just watch it and say the first thing that you see or that comes to your mind: An animal? Object? Plant? What? 

Let’s go with a heavenly Jesus, complete with wings, sacred heart, and halo…The works. He’s smiling beatifically, full of love and peace…

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are the shape that took form from your color and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Christ Consciousness, look out at the world from your perspective and tell us what you see… 

I see a world of suffering, delusion, confusion, and fear. I see a lot of scared, alienated people, who don’t feel supported or loved.

Christ Consciousness, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I am universal love and wisdom. I am praying for humanity. I am welcoming all to me that are receptive to me.

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

I like that I am loving and wise. My strengths are that I am patient and never-failing. 

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

I do not get heard. My influence is limited. People are more receptive to me when they are in crisis, near death, or dying. I would like more people to experience my love and my wisdom.

Christ Consciousness, what aspect of Joseph do you represent or most closely personify?

His awareness of his oneness with God.

Christ Consciousness, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

The problem is, since he doesn’t have much use for the concept of God, awareness of his oneness with God doesn’t do much for him any more. He is not much interested in mystical experiences, because they don’t last and he’s not looking for transcendental awakenings. He wants to be more awake in mundane ways: when he listens to people, when he’s washing the dishes. So for me to reach him I need to be a personification of what he desires: my qualities awakened within him. Just white light.

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

White Light/Christ Consciousness, how would you score yourself 0-10, in each of the following six qualities: confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, inner peace, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 10 I can’t die so I have nothing to fear.

  Compassion: 10 I’m Jesus! Who could be more compassionate?

  Wisdom: 10 I know more than Santa Claus!

Acceptance: 10 I totally accept everyone and everything.

Inner Peace: 10 Nothing stresses me out, not even all the suffering I see.

Witnessing: 10 From up here, the view is great. I get to see everything and everybody.            

How would Joseph’s life be different if he naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?

He wouldn’t need me; he’d be me! But he’s not, so he needs me!

If you could live Joseph’s life for him, how would you live it differently?

Focus on what he has: my love and wisdom, not on what he doesn’t have.

If you could live Joseph’s waking life for him today, would you handle his three life issues differently?  If so, how?

Staying centered in luminosity, cosmic humor, and abundance.

He’s on track with that one. Keep it up!

Writing, editing, publishing.

Set a daily schedule, do a bit of self-discipline.

Learning German.

The same.

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of Joseph’s life?

Avoiding, ignoring distractions. 

Developing a laser focus. 

Enjoying each moment!

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for Joseph to imagine that he is you and act as you would? 

Whenever he loses focus or direction; whenever he needs a clearer sense of direction.

White Light/ Christ Consciousness, do you do drama?  If not, why not?

Nope. Too busy being me. 

What is your secret for staying out of drama?

Too focused on love and wisdom. 

Christ Consciousness, you are imaginary, to the extent that you are a projection of Joseph’s idea of you. Why should he pay attention to anything you say?

I am a reality for a good part of the human race. The more he internalizes me, the more he will relate to others. I’m a part of his larger self he’ll meet when he dies. I score higher than he does. I embody the love and wisdom he seeks. Those are pretty good reasons. 

Why do you think that you are in Joseph’s life? 

To reassert myself as an important, valuable emerging potential for him.

How is Joseph most likely to ignore what you are saying to him?

See me as just one more of many valuable and valid emerging potentials. 

What would you recommend that he do about that?

Nothing! That’s true!

If this experience were a wake-up call from your inner compass, what do you think it would be saying to you?

There is a role for Christ Consciousness in my life and in my growth.

Is there anything you want to take away from this interview to apply in your everyday life?

Become Christ Consciousness whenever I lose focus or need a clearer sense of direction.

Notice that  this portrayal of Jesus/Christ Consciousness/White Light did not have any sense of exclusivity. In response to the question, “How is Joseph most likely to ignore what you are saying to him?” the answer was, “See me as just one more of many valuable and valid emerging potentials.” “What would you recommend that he do about that?” “Nothing! That’s true!”Christ Consciousness is not assigning itself a higher value than any other interviewed emerging potential, which is interesting. It reflects a perspective that says that everything is a portal for the sacred. Your interview, however, may produce a Christ Consciousness that is exclusive. There is a place for that perspective as well.

You may also find yourself disappointed that an interview with such a transcendent immanence is not a mystical experience. Certainly, if it was a real contact it would be transformative, awe-inspiring, and life-changing, right?

The challenge of spirituality is the alchemy of turning the lead of this present moment into gold, and to keep doing that moment after moment. That can only happen when we become that gold, when webecome that Christ Consciousness. IDL interviewing is designed to help you do that, using whatever is your icon for the MOST HIGH: Jesus, Buddha, Christ Consciousness, money, fame, health, a government that is fair and just…I invite you to interview your own Christ Consciousness or your equivalent, and share with us what you learn!

This lovely lady came with us on a trip to swim with wild dolphins in Bimini, because she had experiences in which dolphins connected her to the divine, spoke to her, and through her.  This lady was not psychotic, delusional, or in any way appearing to be emotionally unbalanced. She is friendly, conscientious, helpful, empathetic, and generous.  Her intuitive connection to the divine is very important to her and dolphins have somehow become a central path or bridge.

This very interesting interview reveals the interface between out of control world events: a world perishing due to human greed and ignorance, and the worried, caring, individual conscience that holds itself somehow responsible.

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

1 Intuition: With all the life issues we have today we don’t have time for intuition.  I have some, but I want more!  If I did, my life would be totally different.  There were moments in my life when I was very intuitive.  Those were very happy moments.  Everything fits together harmonically. Harmony is missing now.

2 Harmony in my life.

3 Love!  Love for myself.  I miss that a lot.

Which issue brings up the strongest feelings for you?

Intuition

I would like to do an interview about an event I had when I was mixing a homeopathic medication five years ago with a group of people that was led by an instructor in homeopathy, I was doing a very special mystery grinding of the “the milk of a dolphin” in a mortar with a pestal.  There was a mother dolphin in a zoo in Switzerland.  Our teacher asked the zoo to give him a little of the dolphin milk because he was making a homeopathic medication with it.  In the homeopathic preparation, you take one little drop of the dolphin milk and put it into 100 drops of sugar and grind it.  When we did that, very strange things happened.  All our senses became very active while this was happening.  We heard voices and saw pictures – not all the same ones – different people heard different voices and saw different things.  All our senses became very intense.  This is like wishful thinking, but you still see reality also.

The first step of the process was a dilution of one drop dolphin’s milk to 100 grams of sugar.  Then you do the same again, diluting it a second time in another 100 grams of sugar.  You take that dilution and repeat two more times for a total of four times.   The grinding only takes twenty minutes for each dilution, however, every step produces different visions and different illusions for the people in the group.  There were forty-five people in our group and everyone got different pictures and stories, so it took altogether two and a half days to do the four dilutions.  When we started to do this grinding I was tasting fresh fish in my mouth.  Normally, I hate fish.  I saw myself coming up from the very dark to the light above.  It was the sea and I was a dolphin.  For those two days I was a dolphin.

There are special themes that we discuss when we do the grinding for each dilution.  The first theme is home country.  Where is your home, where do you feel at home? The second is communication.  It was a very strong theme for me.  I and two others in the group were dolphins, the rest were humans.  I tried to say something to the humans but they didn’t understand.  Other members of the group were telling me I looked like a dolphin, with the nose and eyes of a dolphin.

During this time as a dolphin I saw that human civilization was destroyed.  It was like the end of the world.  Big earthquakes destroyed human civilization.  Everything was destroyed. I knew that we humans were responsible for it.  During the fourth grinding I was standing near to God and I felt very guilty for the destruction of the planet. I wanted to come back down back to Earth and tell humans not to do it, to somehow prevent it.   I was begging to be sent down to Earth because there was still time to change things.  It didn’t matter what shape I came back in, as a dolphin or as a bird, for example, to give this message to humans.  I was standing with my head down and feeling very guilty.  The Divine said, “Humans can’t understand each other.  Why should they understand you as a dolphin or some other animal?”  I said, “I will find a way to tell them so that they will not lose their contact with the divine.”  Then I was a dolphin for several lives.

The back fin connects dolphins to the divine.  As a dolphin, I was feeling that connection.  In my vision, all the dolphins killed themselves because they couldn’t communicate with the humans about the disaster in a way that humans would hear.  So the dolphins turned themselves on their backs to break their contact with the divine and drove themselves onto the land because they couldn’t contact humans.  They are still trying to be heard by humans today.

The leader of the homeopathic grinding said that there should be a fifth dilution but not all the group could follow it.  They could all sleep on it and he would decide which members could do the fifth step.  Fifteen people were selected.  The others were dreaming different things and got signs that they shouldn’t do the fifth step.

I did the step.  I woke up knowing that I should do it.  While I was taking a shower that morning I had a feeling that someone was pushing a knife into my back.   I was feeling it and I was screaming.  My roommate got me out of the shower because I couldn’t move because I was still feeling the knife in my back.  It was a big pain.   There was also a shaman in the group.  He stopped the hurting a bit when he gave me a wooden dolphin.  He told me that he wasn’t a dolphin man and that I am more dolphin than he is.  I caressed the back fin of this wooden dolphin and the pain in my back went away!  With this fifth grinding I was losing the ability to listen to the dolphins. At the beginning of the fifth grinding I was both human and dolphin but after the fifth grinding of the dolphin milk the dolphin went away and I was only human.  Afterwards, when it was finished, I was so happy to see the people, the sun, the trees that it all was still there after seeing everything destroyed during those two days.    Five years later, I still have this pain in my back sometimes; it comes and goes.

Associations: I have been dreaming of this dolphin trip. I would like to ask this pain why I can’t hear the dolphins anymore.  When I was swimming with dolphins yesterday in the Caribbean near Bimini I heard the dolphins like a choir, but I couldn’t understand them.

Pain, why can’t Terri hear the dolphins any more? Why can’t humans hear them anymore?

The pain is there, but it doesn’t talk.

Pain, why don’t you talk?

She’s not listening.  It’s as if she was just whistling….

What would be different if she was listening to you, pain?

I am still Terri feeling the pain.

Pain, what does Terri need to do to become you right now?

Love!

Are you willing to feel love right now, Terri?

I am feeling love for everyone but not for myself.

Pain, why is Terri not feeling love for herself?

It’s the same feeling that she had when she was standing next to the divine and feeling so guilty for the loss of the world.

Pain, do you think Terri should feel guilty for the loss of the world?

No, she’s not responsible.  She just feels that she is.

Dolphins, I understand that you turned over on your backs and beached yourselves because you couldn’t communicate with humans, is that correct?

Yes, we did that because this back fin of power is like a connection to the divine or like a TV remote control.  You can’t do what you want to do; you’re like a robot.  You are helpless.  We couldn’t stand that any more.  We had to disconnect this connection.

I thought your connection was to the divine.  Why would you want to disconnect it?

It doesn’t make any sense, but it was an inner weakness because I couldn’t take it any more.   I came back many times as a dolphin.

Dolphins, are you aware that Terri feels guilty and responsible for not being able to wake the humans up who are destroying the planet?

No, that’s her problem.  She’s feeling that.  We know that she has wisdom like we do.  We don’t make her responsible; she makes herself responsible.

Dolphins, do you think it’s realistic or helpful for Terri to make herself responsible for humans destroying the planet?

No.

Why not, Dolphins?

She had this experience and she can understand it more than any other human, but every single person is responsible for that.  They do not all know what they are doing.

Dolphins, why do you think Terri has had this piercing pain in her back?

The lack of connection of the line to the divine makes this pain. When she can listen again the pain will stop.

Is she listening right now, dolphins?

No.

What would she need to be doing right now in order to listen, dolphins?

She has to find a quiet place, sit down, and listen.

If she does that, what will she hear? (Terri has a problem thinking the dolphins are talking to her in the interview; she has to listen to them outside of herself.)

Does Terri have to go to quiet places and be by physical dolphins to hear you or can she listen to you in anywhere, or in interviews like the one she is doing right now?

Terri: I can communicate with them here and now because I am back in contact with them.(Problems staying in role: “I don’t know which one wants to speak through me right now, the dolphin part of me or the external, real dolphins.”)

Dolphins, what does Terri have to do to no longer have physical pain?

The pain is so she won’t forget what she saw.  When she starts to listen then the pain will go away.

Dolphins, do you think that Terri is listening to you right now?

Yes.

What do you want to tell her, dolphins?

We don’t want to talk to her now because it is too loud.

Is she putting you off, dolphins, or is she going to talk to you tonight?

We will talk to her tonight if she will get quiet and listen to us.

Thank you dolphins.  We look forward to supporting Terri and you in any way we can in the future.

When I regain this connection to the divine through my back then I will have regained my intuition.

Dolphins, how would Terri’s life be different if she naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?

Connected with freedom and happiness all the time!  She shouldn’t ask, she should just live it!  If she wants the pain relief she will take time to listen to us.

You say, “listen to us.” So we stop and listen to you.  Then you say, “It’s not the time.”  Which way is it, dolphins?

They are bored.  They went off. They don’t want to talk…

Two days later:

They are talking all the time!  They say, no matter where she is she needs to take time to get in contact with us!

Dolphins, thank you for talking to Terri!  Has Terri had that pain in her back since she started talking to you again?

No!

How come?

She should take the contact to the divine.  The pain only returns when she is not in contact.

Can she do that through listening to you, dolphins?

We are helping.

This interview raises many interesting questions.

What is the relationship between dreams and mythology?

Can individuals dream cultural myths?

Can myths influence individual dreams?

How do cults and religions get formed?  How do world myths get created?

Notice that part of what creates cultural myths in when a person cannot easily differentiate between external voices and internal ones.  Terri assumed that the dolphins speaking to her were external.

Notice also that Terri felt personally responsible for the acts of all humanity and for the destruction of the entire world.  This is grandiose and narcissistic, although her intentions are based on genuine caring.

Notice that Terri felt not only responsible but guilty.  This added a third problem to the first two: 1) inability to distinguish internal from external guidance; 2) personalization of world responsibility; 3) guilt.

These problems were acute enough to create somatization in a way that paralleled her belief system: dolphins lost their contact with the divine through their backs; when Terri lost her intuitive contact to the divine through being a dolphin at the end of the homeopathic dilution, she developed intense and recurring back pain.

All of this was real for Terri

This interview also demonstrates how Integral Deep Listening, as a form of Dream Yoga, helps people wake up out of false awakenings, that is thinking they are awake when they are not.  Terri’s reality of pain in her back because of the guilt and responsibility she felt for the destructiveness of humanity is a type of “false awakening.”  It is a real and important insight for her, so real that it is externalized,  yet it is not true lucidity.  She is clearly asleep within the dream of her own belief system, which generates her own painful reality. This is an excellent description of and example of how karma works and how we create it out of our awareness continuously, because we think we are awake right now when we are actually in a delusional state, locked in the reality of our own delusions.

How would history be different if, instead of reflexively interpreting their experiences, key figures had interviewed them instead?  One can never know, but what we can know is that the world would indeed be a different place, because instead of creating a world based on our projections, we would have created a world based on the multiple perspectives of our self-aspects.  Would this make a huge difference?  You bet.

So what might Saul have heard from Jesus if Saul had thought to interview him? Due to a recent discovery of parchment in a pottery jug found in the caves at Qumran on the shore of the Dead Sea, we now have the answer!

Saul: My Lord! Was that truly you that knocked me off my horse and blinded me with your radiance?

Jesus: Not exactly. I didn’t knock you off your horse. He got scared and threw you off. But yes, you did get blinded by my radiance. In two thousand years they will call that a somatoform disorder of the conversion variety, but never mind.

•
Saul: Are you really you, the resurrected Lord Christ Jesus, appearing literally to me in this vision, or are you some aspect of my own consciousness. or both?

Jesus: Now Saul! We both know that there is no way you could be asking that question! Your Bronze Age world view never imagined that I could be anything other than either literal or a hallucination! But if you could ask such a question, I would answer it by saying: I AM BOTH REAL AND AN ASPECT OF YOURSELF! On the one hand, you really saw me and the reality of my presence gave you an overpowering reason to change your life for the better: you stopped killing people! On the other hand, how could you even recognize me if there was not something of my radiance, awe, sacredness, majesty, and life transformative potential already existing within you?
•

Saul: How can you say that! You are so much more than I could ever be, Lord!

Jesus: I know that it is difficult for your concrete and literal prepersonal and pre-rational consciousness to grasp, Saul, but all of what you perceive as me already exists within you! If you take me as your savior, are you going to doubt me now, Saul?
•

Saul: But if I believe you, Lord, that means that my message of salvation and redemption will be entirely different! It means that I can no longer tell people that they were saved by the you that was born, died and resurrected! It means that I must tell them that their savior exists as an ever-present potential within themselves that they can access at any time, without the mediation of priests or religions! What will that do to the Community of Saints? What will that do to sin? What will that do to guilt? What will that do to salvation? JESUS!

Jesus: Yes?
•

Saul: Er sorry. I was just sorta thinking out loud. There’s another problem, Jesus. People see themselves as stuck, miserable, and either unworthy of salvation or incapable of giving it to themselves. They NEED and WANT me to give them a message of somebody, something outside of themselves that has what they lack, someone to believe in. They don’t want to believe in themselves! They want kings and Gods and priests!

Jesus: Your lack of faith and confidence in humanity saddens me, Saul. The nature of Spirit is to awaken life to its presence. Some will awaken to their potential sooner than others. Others will choose to spend their lives disempowering themselves by giving their power away to gods or to others. But you, Saul, have to decide which message YOU are going to stand for in YOUR life. That’s all that matters!
•

Saul: All right. I hear you. So Jesus, if this vision were a wake-up call from Spirit, what would the message be?

Jesus: Saul, you’ve got it! It’s to WAKE UP! It’s to stay in dialogue with me, just like you are doing now! It’s to use me to help you with your mundane daily problem solving! It’s to so become me, through identifying with me, as you are doing now, that my presence transforms your consciousness! How do you think I score, zero to ten, in confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, inner peace, and wisdom, Saul???? When you become me you will identify with an aspect of yourself that is exactly so! Don’t take my word for it Saul! What do you feel when you become me? Is it not true?
•

Saul: You are right, Lord! I experience great confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, inner peace, and witnessing when I allow myself to fully identify with you!

Jesus: So what makes you think that all others cannot as well?
•

Saul: Yes, Lord! But one more question…you said that when I become you I will identify with “an aspect of myself” that is divine! What did you mean?

Jesus: Saul, you can’t believe that God is limited! You can’t believe that I am the only possible manifestation of his divinity, can you?
•

Saul: But lord! You are special!

Jesus: I tell you, Saul, that the destiny of man is to become any speck of dust, any rag of cloth, any dead animal, and find that it gives voice to divinity! If you must convert the heathen to exorcise your guilt for your past bigotry and cruelty, then convert them to THAT message!

•

Oh – and Saul – one more thing.  Will you please give up this “savior” business?  It’s embarrassing. You disempower not only yourself by putting the source of your salvation somewhere else, but you disempower me as a part of yourself.  That’s insulting.  But even more important, you don’t need salvation.  It keeps you in the role of victim to always be looking for something or someone like me to rescue you.  I’ve got better things to do than disempowering you by thinking I’m you’re everything.  If you require a rescuer you’ll not only make those who believe in me into victims of sin, the devil, unbelievers, and evildoers for the next two thousand years; you’ll turn them into persecutors who will kill and abuse in my name.  That may be religion, and it may be Christianity, but it doesn’t have anything to do with me.

•

Saul: Yes, my lord. But I don’t understand what you’re saying…???

•

Jesus:  Sigh.  It’s OK, Saul.  Go ahead and be Paul.  I love you anyway.

•

Note: As soon as Saul wrote this dialogue he decided that it must be the work of demons that were trying to dissuade him from his Mission. He changed his name to Paul to purge himself of any memory of these demonic thoughts. I found it torn to bits among his papers after his death. I carried it here to these caves in Qumran where this message might find the light of day in a time when people might be ready to accept it.

•

We can’t change the past, but we can learn from history and not repeat the same mistakes. We have the opportunity to create internal, familial, and a global culture based on consensual perspectives rather than on our own interpretations.  Are we mature and selfless enough to do so?

Those who confuse their mental representations with external events and think that the former are real or accurate may experience profound transpersonal states, but they are not stabilized on a transpersonal level of development, regardless of what they believe or tell you.  As we have seen, the classic example of this delusion involves Saul on the Road to Damascus.  Lacking the ability to distinguish his mental representations from external events, Saul assumed that the light that he saw was actually Jesus asking him why he was persecuting him.  In fact, Saul did more than assume; he was absolutely convinced that he was being visited by the risen Christ himself.  This conviction, not the teachings of Jesus or the person of Peter, was the rock upon which Christianity was then built.   Saul’s pivotal experience was a late prepersonal to early personal Bronze age revelation of a transpersonal state, rather than a manifestation of a transpersonal level of development by Saul, who up to that time had been busy creating meaning in his life by murdering people.

If Saul had been able to differentiate his mental representations from external events he would have ruled out the former before assuming the latter when he was convinced he saw and heard Jesus.  This he did not do because he lacked the distinctions necessary to do so.  He also lacked the conceptual tools to distinguish between his mental representations (his conception of Jesus) and external events (hearing Jesus’ voice and seeing a blinding light).

Like Saul’s, the meaning and purpose of your life is created and powered by your belief in your self-created delusions.  For example, if Saul had been able to make this core distinction between what he experienced as real and external and his mental representation of what he saw, it would have occurred to him that what he saw might have been a self-created mental representation, regardless of the depth of his conviction that it was an external reality.  He then could have imagined that he was that representation and simply asked it, “Jesus, are you externally real, or a self-created mental representation, or some combination of objective reality and my subjective experience?”  While the answer that he would have gotten to this question may not have been truthful, the ability to ask this question is more important than the accuracy of the answer that is received, because it implies the existence of possibilities that not only Saul but most human beings never consider before they make critical and fundamental life decisions.  Those decisions determine, to a great extent, success, happiness, and peace of mind.  Now, almost two thousand years after Saul became Paul, almost no “normal” people and very few spiritual adepts have learned to make the distinctions Saul  missed.  Far fewer use it to support their spiritual development.   What is the price the world has paid for our not doing so?  Are we willing and able to be more spiritually mature than was Saul?

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing fwith now in your life?

1. My relationship with Jesus

2. Maximizing my contributions to others

3. Waking up.

Which life issue brings up the strongest feelings for you?

Because of my dialogue with David, the first.  As I told him, I had a positive association with Jesus as a child being brought up in the Presbyterian church.  Then at twelve (1962), I had a very positive and sometimes personal association with Jesus through his portrayal in the Edgar Cayce readings (Cayce was an amazing trance medical clairvoyant) and through association with a number of remarkable people who bought into his portrayal of Jesus as someone who genuinely was loving, a miracle worker, but a soul who had incarnated again and again and came back because he had caused humanity as souls to become enmeshed in earthly incarnation and it was his responsibility to show a way out.  The Readings also claimed that the resurrection really did take place.  Following this, I read books on the Shroud of Turin and became convinced that it was not a fake and that the only way it could have been made is if the body underneath it dematerialized.  I was not convinced by the carbon datings that occurred in the 1990’s because they did not explain the existence on the Shroud of the pollen of uniquely Palestinian plants.  In about 1975 I lectured with an elder mentor, Hugh Lynn Cayce, the son of Edgar Cayce, who dedicated his life to serving Jesus through advancing public awareness of him in his father’s readings.  In addition to being told in a Reading at his birth that he had been Andrew, one of Jesus’ twelve disciples, Hugh Lynn had a number of powerful and personal encounters with Jesus throughout his life. Beginning in 1969 with a college course on comparative religion, I had to reconcile Edgar Cayce’s view of Jesus and God (which I decided was more Vedantic Hindu than anything else) with Hinduism, Buddhism, and Chinese religions.  The Buddhist world view in particular presented a world view that raised questions that were not adequately answered by either Vedanta or the Cayce readings, much less by the Western monotheisms.  Looking for a context that would hold it all, my work became informed by the Integral world view of Ken Wilber in the 1980’s.  My view of Jesus now was that people could have a powerful personal relationship with the group thought form of Jesus, created by worshippers over the centuries and perhaps even an experience with Jesus himself, say in a Near Death Experience, but that these experiences were culturally conditioned and Hindus, Moslems, etc. would have manifestations by their own avatars.  In other words, I came to view Jesus as an incarnation of subtle level I-Thou oneness with the divine through loving relationship, but hardly the only doorway (not exclusive) and not universal.  This, however, is conjecture, and the following interview is an attempt to move my understanding forward, to build on all this history and see if I cannot create a deeper, more meaningful personal relationship with Jesus through it.  My goal is to get in touch, through my own subjective mental associations with Jesus, with Jesus Himself and hear what he has to say to me.

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are the shape that took form from your color and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Jesus, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I am infinite, unconditional love of the sort people report in Near Death Experiences.  I am the sort of love that makes all hurt, all guilt, all shame go away and replaces it with an extraordinary sense of freedom in an awareness that you are loved, you are love, and you exist in a universe that is abundant and loving in ways that are far beyond your comprehension.  People can incarnate me in form.  As the Cayce readings said, the prayers and focused intentions of generations incubated my incarnation as Jesus in Palestine over two thousand years ago.

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

I am beyond liking or disliking, however I grow when people wake up to me and become me.  My infinite, unconditional love grows a little bit brighter and stronger through the consciousness of each individual that takes it up.  My strength is that when people act as me they are selfless and able to love regardless of what pains or injustices are done to them.  They dedicate themselves totally and selflessly to the advancement of their fellow man.

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

Nothing.  It is not that I am perfect; it’s just that my love so transcends what humans experience and comprehend that by comparison I seem to be.

Jesus, you are in this person’s life experience, correct?  They created you, right?_____  (Character), what aspect of this person do you represent or most closely personify?

I personify Joseph’s oneness with the divine, particularly in selfless, unconditional love.  This is a perfect love that casts out all fear and which carries any burden.

Jesus, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

I would be fully alive and present as a possessing spirit or muse within and through Joseph in particular and everyone and everything else.  That’s because I heal, balance, and transform lives by people’s experience of me.

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

Jesus, how would you score yourself 0-10, in each of the following six qualities:  confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, inner peace, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 10 I can’t die; I have no fear.  I am perfect love.

Compassion: 10 You are an aspect of me; by loving you, I love myself.

Wisdom: 10 I know the Buddha; I am so much more than the historical Jesus was, because he was limited and conditioned by his socio-cultural context.

Acceptance: 10

Inner Peace: 10

Witnessing: 10

How would Joseph’s life be different if he naturally scored high in all six of these qualities all the time?

He and the Father would be one, as I am.  That does not mean that he would be perfect; it would simply mean that for his present level of experience of those qualities, he would be complete and whole.  But he wouldn’t stay there.  As he grows his awareness of those qualities expands, requiring a further expansion of his consciousness. This never ends.

If you could live Joseph’s life for him, how would you live it differently?

I would be fearless in pursuit of and expression of those six core qualities, because they are at the heart of my message and what I personify – spirit.

If you could live this person’s waking life for him today, would you handle his three life issues differently?  If so, how?

1. Regarding his relationship with me, if he takes me with him wherever he goes and into whatever he does he will not only be loving but very, very strong due to the quality of his dedication.

2. Regarding his desire to maximize his contribution to others, I would say to continue along his present lines but with redoubled effort.

3. Regarding waking up, serve more, meditate more, do more interviews, and work harder at applying the recommendations that you get.  Give it all away…

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of his life?

The above three are good.  Living today as if he just had a Near Death Experience wouldn’t hurt.

Why do you think that you are in Joseph’s life?

To help him get out of his own way.

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for Joseph to imagine that he is you and act as you would?

Anytime, of course, but particularly when he feels fear or forgets that he is me.

Joseph, what have you heard yourself say?

Having more of an ongoing, personal relationship with Jesus than I have ever had before is a good thing and that I need to do it.

If this experience were a wake-up call from your soul, what do you think it would be saying to you?

Be one with universal love and act like it!

Temple Mount

I am on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.  The Israelis have just attacked it and very quickly and efficiently wiped out the Palestinian defenders.  There are concrete and metal gun supports on the pavement, but that is all that remains.  Maybe some places where the blood stains have been washed off but still leave some traces.

Associations: Dunno.  Haven’t been thinking about this topic recently.  I am a long-time opponent of Zionism and Israeli nationalism.  Nationalism is a disease; when you mix it with religion, you get psychopathological radicalism and intolerance, whether it’s Jewish, Islamic, or Christian.  I have been to the Temple Mount, long ago.

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

1.  Taking my practice of waking up to the next level.

2.  Doing a better job of following self-aspect recommendations.

3.  Remembering to frame the moment in terms of the Three Outcomes: prosperity, joy, and luminosity

If one character had something especially important to tell you, which would it be?

The Temple Mount

Temple Mount, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I have been here a long time.  Stupid people have built a lot of stupid structures on me.  They have done a lot of stupid things on me.  They have fought stupidly over me.  They have killed each other for stupid reasons on top of me.

Wooo, Temple Mount!  You seem just a little judgmental!

What do I care whether you think I’m judgmental or not?  Don’t ask my opinion if you don’t want to hear it.

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

I like that I signify man’s search for transcendent meaning in his life.  I like that I’ve survived all this stupidity all these millenia.

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

There’s nothing I dislike about myself.  I could say I don’t like what’s happening on me, but if it has to happen, if there has to be some place that people have to kill each other in the Name of the Sacred, I guess it might as well be me.

(Character), you are in this person’s life experience, correct?  They created you, right?_____  (Character), what aspect of this person do you represent or most closely personify?

The underlying ground of reality beneath drama: personal, political, social, cultural.

(Character,) if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

I don’t think so.  It is enough to be listened to, as I am now.  No one ever consults me to see what I think.  It’s all about them and what they do on me and what they don’t think should be done on me.  No one ever asks me MY opinion.  See, if I shook myself, for instance, to get their attention, they wouldn’t get the wake-up call, just like they misinterpret everything else in their lives, from their dreams to the intentions of each other.  So no.  I would keep my form, but people would come to me to interview me, not to fight over me or to tell me what I represent or to act stupid, which is mostly what they do.

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

(Character), how would you score yourself 0-10, in confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, peace of mind, and witnessing?  Why?

x

Confidence:          10 Nothing is going to change me, regardless of how much or how little blood they spill on me.  I don’t have anything to be afraid of.

Compassion:           9 Yeah.  I’m compassionate enough to be me and do my job.  I provide a context, a space in which man can mostly learn who he is not and what doesn’t work. There’s faster ways – man could interview me.  Someday he’ll wake up and start doing that.

Wisdom:                  9 I’m wise enough to not react to any of this.  I’m wise enough to know the difference between stupidity and ignorance.  What people do on me is mostly stupidity.  The information about what doesn’t work is out there.  They ignore it.  It’s not ignorance.  It’s stupidity.

Acceptance: 9 I probably sound judgmental to you.  Too bad.  I’m very accepting.

Inner Peace:              9 Tons of it.  But still able to send you a wake-up call in the form of this dream!

Witnessing: 10 What’s there not to witness?

(Character,) if you scored tens in all six of these qualities, would you be different?  If so, how?

No, not really.

How would the life of the person who created you be different if he/she naturally scored high in all six of these qualities all the time?

He wouldn’t do drama. He’d be way centered.  He would be a whole lot more powerful because he would know who he is and act like it.

If you could live the life of the person who created you for him, how would you live it differently?

I wouldn’t be concerned about the stupid things that he does or that go on in his life.  So what? They come, they go!  Focus instead on waking up, and the best way to do that is to listen to me.  I am the Foundation of the Sacred.

Yeah, but not for everyone.  Just the three Western monotheisms.

I personify the sacred that is obscured by the drama triangle.

If you could live this person’s waking life for him today, would you handle his three life issues differently?  If so, how?

Just work at listening more.  Just work at applying in your life what you hear and learn.  Leave the results to themselves.

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of his/her life?

The above.

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for this person to imagine that they are you and act as you would?

Whenever he finds himself in drama: fighting with himself or with life or with others.  Trying to rescue himself or someone else.  Being passive.

Why do you think that you are in this person’s life?

To wake him up, of course!

How is this person most likely to ignore what you are saying to them?

By not doing the above.

What would you recommend that they do about that?

More regular interviewing. Read them over.  Work at taking more recommendations to heart.

I think this person had this dream because

It shows him the stupidity of focusing on the conflicts in his life as if they were real or substantial.  Compared to me, they are neither.

I think this dream event happened or (some character) was in the dream because…

He is presently at a place where he does not identify with internal conflict much, and it’s over quickly and relatively painlessly, but it’s still there.  I’m about taking that to the next level.  I’m about disidentifying totally with the natural and inevitable conflicts of life.

What have you heard yourself say?

Hmmmm…that the sacred in me thinks the dramas that occupy my waking mind are stupid, because I know better.  That if I want to give them up, I need to become the Temple Mount part of myself.

If this experience were a wake-up call from your soul, what do you think it would be saying to you?

To make the dramas of life irrelevant in the context of the power and eternity of my actual beingness, which is life itself, without real identity.