In Stage 3 (Declaration), a ”stand” of some kind is taken and the new, imperative way of being is declared openly to the world. The declaration is made knowing full well that there may be some backlash from those ever-present, resistant forces of the status quo.
Christianity
Jesus of Nazareth was born in Bethlehem to a virgin mother, announced by angels and honored by magi. Like the spiritual teachers preceding him, Jesus attained universal consciousness. He then began his ministry at 33 years of age. True to form, Jesus went on to show what was next in human spiritual development.
Buddha and Lao Tzu had shown that universal consciousness could be attained and peace found within. Jesus went on to become a Christ. He showed that no longer did humankind’s evolution stop at becoming one with God in mind through detachment or practice. Jesus was an incarnate Son of God: God made flesh. Jesus’s whole body was infused with the Holy Spirit. God performed miracles through him. Jesus rose from the dead.
In other words, it was not enough to realize abstractly the God within. Humankind’s mission was more: to become like God – in mind, heart and body. This is why the book of Genesis (1:26) took pains to differentiate between the Image and the Likeness of God.
The Image of God is perceived at realization. That’s what Buddha and Lao Tzu saw. But it’s only part of the way Home. When you’ve attained the Likeness of God, you embody – indeed merge with – the Divine in form. That’s the eventual, full human evolutionary goal that Jesus came to earth to demonstrate–to declare, at Stage 3.
How Jesus’s teachings changed spiritual understanding yet again
The understanding of God changed yet again after Jesus. God was still paternal (a holdover from Judaism’s view) but now in addition to the Father there was Christ (Jesus) and the Holy Spirit, a holy trinity. The Holy Spirit is that which infused Christ’s body and which, likewise, infused the disciples at Pentecost. Jesus had said, “You too will be like me” and that there would be others coming after him who would be even greater than him. Not only was he reinforcing the cyclical nature of human spiritual evolution; he was saying, and his disciples proved, that this is what we do here, to be infused with the Holy Spirit and become like God incarnate.
Jesus’ mission, then, was to declare (i.e., introduce to human consciousness and embody) the end goal of human spiritual evolution: that we would become whole, actualized expressions of the Divine in human form.
Embodied Declaration of the Final Stages to Come
In the cycle of his life, Jesus also declared for humankind how to become an actualized Christ: by undergoing the remaining stages to come (#4, 5 and 6): Repercussions, Purification and Peace. Below you’ll see (in blue) our definition of the stages as we’ve established them, followed by (in black) how Christ Jesus embodied them in his life:
In response to the declaration of the “I Am,” the Repercussions stage brings anticipated and unanticipated consequences which test the emotional commitment to the declared becoming.
Jesus’ declaration to humankind, “I Am the Son of God” created Repercussions that were harsh and swift. Almost overnight, he faced criminal charges and the threat of crucifixion. Certainly these threats challenged his emotional commitment, as told by the scriptures in the story of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane.
In the Purification stage, a Mightier Power grinds down everything that is ego-based or false, making room for eventual union with the Divine.
In suffering on the cross, Jesus embodied the Purification stage. All things human, temporal and mortal within him were purged.
In the Being/Peace stage, you are at one with, and a pure agent of, the Divine. In congruent union, you exist in everlasting peace…
After crucifixion, Jesus was buried and rose again from the dead, demonstrating the eternal union and peace that is possible for all humankind.
It is said repeatedly in the New Testament that Jesus died to save us humankind, to deliver us from sin. This is true. Sin is separation from God, the condition established at the Fall. Jesus Christ died to demonstrate very explicitly the next steps on the path home back to union with God.
The concept of the Holy Spirit raises some questions…
With Jesus’s teachings, the arc of human spiritual development now points to a culminating moment when the Holy Spirit descends and fills the physical body, infusing it with Divine presence.
But how does that happen, exactly? When does it happen?
The short answer is that the Holy Spirit fills the Holy Soul. Getting the human soul to the point where it is ready to receive the Holy Spirit is the subject of the next great world teaching–Islam. The prophet Mohammed received transmissions from the Divine through the Archangel Gabriel that spoke directly to the task of purification and readiness for union with God. These transmissions became the Qu’ran, the foundation of Islam.
But to understand Mohammed’s message and why he truly was – as he declared – the Last Prophet, we need to understand how radically different is one’s perspective on the world after Stage 3, which in human spiritual experience, comes after awakening. Once you’ve perceived your oneness to the Divine (i.e., you’ve beheld the Image of God), the world looks very, very different, and your relationship to the world changes forever. So we’ll look at that change, now, to put the important next step brought by Mohammed into context.
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