Continuing with the Holy Spirit

. . . part two I guess

Relationship with Jesus is deconstructive because of the relationship with the Holy Spirit which relationship with Jesus always entails. Jesus is not about Jesus; Jesus is about the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is in your right mind, as He was in mine. The Bible says, “May the mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus,” and uses this as a blessing. It is the blessing of miracle-mindedness (T-5.I.3:3-5).

When we turn to Jesus we turn in the direction of the Holy Spirit, which we share with Jesus and everyone else.

The shared nature of the relationship is really important! There aren't many holy spirits - there is one Holy Spirit. Many years ago a friend said to me, "just how many consciousnesses do you think there are, Sean?"

The Holy Spirit is not consciousness; that's not the point. The point is that when we turn to the Holy Spirit we are not turning to something personal or private. It’s interior, yes, but it’s not ours. It’s not mine. The Holy Spirit's answers to our questions and solutions to our problems will always be personal - they will always fit our lives as we perceive them - but the Holy Spirit Itself is impersonal.

The impersonal nature of the Holy Spirit ensures its total equality. Relationship with the Holy Spirit is not a relationship that's earned or acquired. It's more like - without being precisely like - our relationship with breathing. Each breath you draw is your breath, but we share the experience of breathing, sometimes very intimately. It is the Holy Spirit who teaches us - by example - that there is no separation anywhere.

Remember the Kingdom always, and remember that you who are part of the Kingdom cannot be lost. The Mind that was in me is in you, for God creates with perfect fairness (T-5.VI.3:1-2).

The Holy Spirit is in our mind as the Voice endlessly nudging us to give attention to our brothers and sisters, all of them without exception, and on God's Will for our brothers and sisters. The Holy Spirit’s rationale that we are all created equally, and are thus entitled to equal shares in and of Creation. Before we live the reality of "no separation anywhere" we intentionally manifest it through our behavior. The Holy Spirit teaches us how to behave like Jesus.

I have enjoined you to behave as I behaved, but we must respond to the same Mind to do this. This Mind is the Holy Spirit, Whose Will is for God always. He teaches you how to keep me as the model for your thought, and to behave like me as a result (T-5.II.12:1-3).

It's easy to get confused here. What does it mean to behave like Jesus?

Jesus was apocalyptic in the sense that he believed in - and worked toward - a new world to replace the old world of hatred, injustice and imperial power. But his method, his means, were not violent or militaristic. He healed people; he fed people; he consoled people. And he taught people how to heal and feed and console others. That was his apocalypse; that was his happy dream.

He also challenged people, as good teachers do. He showed a way to live that made peace and happiness a lived reality, and for folks who resisted, he asked in a pointed way why they resisted. There is another way - would you like to share it with me?

That is where you and I are at. We are unhappy with the status quo - both our interior lives and the world outside. And the Holy Spirit says, I will teach you how to think so that you can behave like Jesus, and restore peace and happiness to the interior and create peace and happiness in the world.

And the "how" - the way, so to speak - is to practice holiness in all our relationships. A holy relationship is one in which the relationship's function is not to satisfy yourself, or meet your needs as you define them or validate your self as you define yourself, but rather to make peace and happiness manifest in ourselves and the world. The happy dream is an effect of relationships which give all their attention to holiness rather than fear.

Jesus says, this is how to behave - helpfully, nonviolently, carefully, kindly. And the Holy Spirit says, you don't know how to do that yet that because you're all about you but I can show you how to be all about the other and thus about the relationship that you share, which is all the relationship there is.

Your brother’s sinlessness is given you in shining light, to look on with the Holy Spirit’s vision and to rejoice in along with Him. For peace will come to all who ask for it with real desire and sincerity of purpose, shared with the Holy Spirit and at one with Him on what salvation is. Be willing, then, to see your brother sinless, that Christ may rise before your vision and give you joy (T-20.VIII.3:1-3).

It is miraculous - and I do not use that word lightly - the way that tending to one another is literally the way that makes us happy, joyous and free.

Jesus is the way made manifest, and the Holy Spirit is the "Christ Mind" (T-5.I.5:1) that teaches us how to meaningfully participate in that manifestation.