About: What Christ offers beyond religion

There are three main ways we can learn from Jesus Christ. The first is to learn from his teachings as recorded in the Bible. The Pathwork Guide offered many explanations of Jesus’ teachings, which are collected in Bible Me This, and under the topic The Bible, on The Guide Speaks. You can also read more in Keys, Chapter 6: The Bible.

The second is to look to his life as a teaching. For example, in working with the Stations of the Cross, we can experience how the steps on our personal journey mirror the final path of Jesus Christ¹. Each station reflects an inner movement we all experience as we awaken.

Jesus is betrayed | We all have experiences of being hurt by people and situations in life. We are disillusioned, realizing that the utopia we fantasized will never be. Life is impermanent, loss is inevitable, and others are fallible.

Jesus is condemned to die | Every childhood holds experiences that feel like life or death. Our egos also struggle to reign supreme; we must die into the limitations of our humanity, and to fully accept the state of our development at this point.

Jesus carries his cross | We begin the journey of purification by compassionately and honestly facing our Lower Self and accepting it. We challenge the truth of our images. We stumble along the way, but each failure and “beautiful problem” becomes a steppingstone for growing on the path.

We give up the idea that anyone else is going to do it for us, and we embrace a deeper sense of self-responsibility. As the deeper negative intention to stay separate is met and humility deepens, we see that others can help us to carry our burdens, if we let them.

Jesus is nailed to the cross | We strip ourselves of our defenses and we surrender to our vulnerability. We fully and finally experience the pain of our separation from God, from ourselves and from others. We become willing to wake up to the truth about our illusions—to see the untruth that imprisons us.

Jesus is resurrected | There is a period of waiting between death and rebirth. We patiently allow God’s will to guide us, remaining in not-knowing—without expectation—until we awaken and a new awareness is born in us.

¹From Resurrecting Jesus within the Pathwork: Footsteps on the Path to Waking Up, led by Jill Loree and Beth Hedquist at Pathwork Members’ Weekend & Jamboree, Sevenoaks Retreat Center, August 2014.

Healing the need to be special

Let’s look more closely at the step of betrayal. The Pathwork Guide teaches that betrayal is impacted by an image that affects everyone—called a mass image. This one is caused by a buried belief that if we could just get people’s approval, attention or admiration, our worth would be established in the world’s eyes, and therefore in our own eyes. If we can’t get this, then we really are inferior, after all.

This creates an unconscious demand to be special—self-important. Through our prideful behaviors—we present ourselves as better than the rest—we are unconsciously trying to save ourselves from a make-believe disaster.

One person might do this through material wealth, another through a talent or accomplishment. Yet another might use illness to gain sympathy as a substitute for attention.

We mistakenly think we rise or fall, based on what other’s think of us. In short, we have no firm ground under our feet. Further, our compulsive need for approval often makes us sell ourselves out to get it.

The truth is that we can’t please the whole world and be true to ourselves and our life plan.

Then along comes a betrayal. We are hurt and disappointed. Often, the one betraying us will claim that they were betrayed by us. They accuse us of doing the same thing that caused us pain. On top of all that, we were loyal in our actions.

We are most hurt by being accused of being disloyal or dishonest.

The truth is, our unconscious beliefs are always stronger than the conscious ones, so they drive what manifests. So our actions may have been correct. But the hidden piece is that we desire an elevated position, and this colors everything we do and say.

Our desire to feel special isn’t caused by malice, or to belittle someone else. And it’s not just pride for pride’s sake. Our hidden belief—in our immature, split-off parts—is that being special means surviving.  

The truth is that our emotional survival depends only on our own opinion of ourselves. The more we cater to the opinions of others, the less we think of ourselves.

The way out involves uncovering our hidden desire for specialness, and then being willing to “hang on our cross,” feeling the pain of letting this go.

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Learn more in Living Light, Chapter 17: The Mass Image of Self-importance: The folly of needing to feel special.

The source of our soul substance

The third way, which is by far the most important, is to learn the greater story about why Jesus came here to Earth. To begin with, it is important to recognize that our soul is made from the same substance as Jesus.

It is called the Christ, or Christ consciousness.

“The truth is, my friends, whether you want to believe it now or not, that Jesus, the man, was the incarnation of the Christ. And this spirit is the highest and most exalted of all created beings.

He is the first direct and inborn creation of God. His substance is the same as the substance of God. All of you possess some of this substance, which I call the Higher Self or the divine spark. It has to come out gradually through spiritual development.

But no other created being has this substance in quite the same degree as the Christ. And there is the difference.”

– Pathwork Lecture #19

As with the word “Jesus,” we often react strongly to the word “salvation.” In short, it just means that the door to heaven is open to us. We can make the choice to walk through.

“Salvation means, among other things, Christ’s endless forgiveness and acceptance. It means that you can always find your way to God, no matter what you have done, and no matter what your Lower Self still wishes to do. The door is always open, you are never, never locked out.

All you have to do is knock. Ask for the bread of God’s mercy, love, forgiveness and personal help in all ways, and you shall not receive a stone.”

– Pathwork Lecture #258

Saving ourselves

If we think of our sins as being the ways we have missed the mark, then perhaps we can see that it is going to be our job to right our wrongs. There are three paradoxical aspects to this:

1. Only we ourselves can create our salvation. It is our responsibility.
2. We cannot possibly do it alone. We need the help of others who share the journey with us, who may often see what we do not see.
3. Without God—without the personal assistance of the personal aspect of God—the undertaking is too vast for us to accomplish.

So this is our work, and we need help to do it. But no one, including Jesus Christ, can or should do this for us.

“My friends, if you study all the Scriptures from this point of view, you will get an entirely different understanding of them. I am quite sure that the reason for the life and death of Christ will now make sense to you.

There would not be any sense in Christ dying on the cross for sins others have committed. If you have committed a sin, you yourself have to straighten it out and no one else can or should do it for you.

If someone else were to do it for you, you would not gain purification. You would not receive the strength through the process of self-purification, which alone will protect you from committing sins again.

As long as the evil root is not torn out, it must again produce impure fruit. Only you can tear out the roots of your evil. Therefore, that was not the reason Christ suffered and died.”

– Pathwork Lecture #22

Using our free will

In the story of the Fall, the Guide explains how we, using our free will, made the choice to experience the negative aspect of divine qualities. During the ensuing Fall, our souls split.

This split is what we transfer onto our parents so that we can see it and thereby heal it. Our entire life, in fact, is an out-picturing of what lies within us, much of which is buried in our unconscious.

The work of healing means we repair our fractured souls. We do this by feeling our feelings, transforming our faults, and re-orienting our will to align with God’s will. Then our mature ego can surrender, and we can re-unite with our true divine nature.

This is what it means to save ourselves. This is what it means to do the work.

“This is the way Christ has opened the door. You may now understand why it is said that Christ saved you from your sins. This is accurate only in the sense that your great sin of falling, of not remaining faithful to God, and of becoming at one time part of the world of darkness does not have as a consequence eternal exclusion from the divine worlds.

From this Christ has indeed saved you, and for this you certainly have all the reason in the world to be grateful to Him. Through Him you now have the possibility by your own efforts and development to cross the threshold.

In that sense, it is correct to say that Christ died for your sins. However, the interpretation that Christ died for all your sins and all your faults is very wrong.”

– Pathwork Lecture #22

This story, as told more fully in Holy Moly, reveals how the journey of our souls has taken us into the realm of Lucifer, from which we now desire to leave. According to the Guide, until we consciously choose God’s way, we remain connected to spheres of separation, returning to them in sleep and after death.

Opening to the reality of Christ and this work of transformation is the key to opening the door that leads to heaven. We’ve all been through hell already. The question is, for how long are we willing to keep going back?

“The light I bring is always the light of Christ. He has said he is the truth and he is the way and he is life. In his light you find the way to truth in the smallest and largest issues, in personal and impersonal issues.

This way leads to the love of the Creator who has given eternal life. Eternal life can be found only in truth. The way to the truth leads through the mazes of the dark areas in your own soul; through encountering the temptation to remain in them and savor their passing gratification; through the deliberate overcoming of this temptation.

The great Christ light is the overpowering love of the Creator, of creation, of all that is. Be blessed. Choose this way.”

– Pathwork Lecture #248

In walking this path, there is nothing we must believe. But eventually, as we walk this path, we must come to know the truth.

It cannot be any other way than this.

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