What is the essence of the Christmas story?
by Elena Bacash
What is the essence of the Christmas story from an esoteric yogic perspective? Well we know it’s the birth of Jesus, the Christ, we all know that, but what does it mean for us? The birth of Christ is always depicted as something outside of us, something that happened 2000 years ago to someone else whose ideals and purity we try to live up to but feel very distant from.
The actual life of the Christ portrays for us the 5 Initiations of human consciousness that we all undergo (whether we’re aware or not) through the long journey of the soul or Higher Self, the Atman. The 5 Initiations are the Birth; The Baptism; The Transfiguration; The Crucifixion; and the Resurrection. These initiations can be thought of as a culmination of participation in an expanded level of awareness.
The birth initiation is the first initiation that the human consciousness goes through and thousands of people in every country have already undergone this initiation. We can see this because they are the people who are working to consciously uplift humanity, to foster unity rather than division, who see all souls as equal. It is more than just being a ‘nice’ person, it is taking the next step of being less self-absorbed and egocentric. Sometimes they are the souls in each family unit who consider themselves to be the ‘odd balls’, who think a little differently.
The first initiation is called the birth of the Christ consciousness within the human consciousness. The Christ consciousness is group consciousness, it’s the ability to think and act in terms of the good of the whole group, not just in terms of our own individual needs. It’s the ability to think about our impact on the whole, to work together to find solutions.
Interestingly, humanity also undergoes this initiation as a collective as well, it follows the principle of ‘as above, so below.’ We go through these expansions of awareness individually and as whole unit. At each initiation we learn to work with matter - earth, air, fire and water or the physical body, the mental body, the spiritual body/ will, and the emotional body.For example in the second initiation we learn how to temper our emotional energy and wield our mental creative energy. We’re doing this all the time either consciously or unconsciously – the more conscious we become the more potent and directed the energy for good.
So how do we fast track this process of initiation? Well, we can do more hatha yoga or yoga that teaches us how to focus inwardly and be steady, in addition to the greatest way to fast track this process which is to practice harmlessness. As unglamourous as it is, harmlessness in thought, word and action offsets our karma, it expresses as poise, and it creates loving understanding. What a great way to spend the holiday period with a focus on harmlessness!
Lastly, it is interesting to note that in the story of the birth of Jesus, the infant was brought 3 gifts by the 3 wise men - gold; frankincense and myrrh. The gold symbolises the material body that needs to be purified to be fit for the work of the higher vibration of the Christ consciousness or Soul; the frankincense symbolises the emotional nature and is the purifying incense that rises up in aspiration to the Atman - it burns away the dross of the lower nature; and thirdly the myrrh is the bitterness that relates to the mind because through the mind through its desire and repulsion and its preferences we suffer, until we pass the third initiation and we are free from the ties our physical, emotional and mental bodies.
Happy birth into Group Consciousness everyone and please consider working with a yoga practice as a steady transformative process!
Reference:
Bailey, Alice. From Bethlehem to Calvary.
Watch this blog space for more articles on the initiations.