To find the Christ in Christmas we must go beneath the lights,
ornaments, Santa Claus and the seeming profound insanity of our present external
world and enter the sacred inner kingdom of the soul and rediscover a world of
Love and soul consciousness ~ the ultimate transmutation and stabilizing
agent for mankind: Allen L Roland
“Then
the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before! What if Christmas, he
thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas...perhaps...means a
little bit more!”
On December 13, 2013, Tristin A. Shaw wrote a
thought provoking column in Information Clearing house (ICH) entitled ~ The
great Unknown ~ Modernity's Great Unraveling.
Tristin's
main point was correctly identifying our ultimate tasks as human beings ~ "The time
has come for all you compassionate observers to honestly confront the darkness
of which so much is written. So, I say, waste no more intellect critiquing the
benighted ultra-rich who we hear so much about, those contemptible faces of
capitalism, and commit your efforts to the ultimate task at hand: your moral
responsibility in the age of profound insanity."
A great question and here's my
answer ~ How can we find our moral responsibility in this age of profound insanity
without surrendering to love, social cooperation and altruism.
Love is the ultimate transmutation and stabilizing agent for
mankind ~ whereas we all eventually evolve from
ego consciousness to soul consciousness through the proven
innate driving
evolutionary force of social cooperation and altruism, not survival of the
fittest or the strategies and devices of the ego.
I like Courtney Walsh's definition of love
where he correctly says ~ "Love doesn't require the condition of
perfection. It only asks that you show up and do your best. That you stay
present and feel fully. That you shine and fly and laugh and cry and hurt and
heal and fall and get back up and play and work and live and die as YOU. It's
enough ~ it's plenty " and is,
in itself, an act of love.
Love is all about authenticity and the
willingness to be vulnerable ~ it is the ultimate YES to yourself and is the
foundation of self love as well as self acceptance and worthiness.
Once that individual shift to our true self is accomplished,
through love and gratefulness, we begin to see through different eyes as well as experience a new state of
consciousness ~ a Unified
Field of soul consciousness that exists beyond time and space and
whose principle property is the universal urge to unite ~ and we are all a living part of it.
Tristan is absolutely correct
when he writes "The suffering born of darkness, through which the human
species is now propelled, will open up the grand doors of Justice, restoring a
resonant harmony that corrects the old and fortifies the new, that paves
alternative possibilities for social and spiritual liberty and that shatters
the amoral nature of systemic structures like capitalism. And once the smoke
is settled and fate unfolded, a new consciousness will have arisen. A
consciousness that sees the ALL as “I” and the “I” as ALL. A consciousness
that does not condemn the past (for condemnation is the enemy of
understanding), but understands it."
As such, the great unraveling of mankind becomes a far greater unveiling of a
new consciousness ~ a transformation of
awareness and a shift in priorities from selfishness to service.
In other words, by surrendering to
love, self-forgiveness and gratefulness we not only begin to see through
different eyes but we also humbly recognize and
play our part in
this slowly evolving all-encompassing loving plan. But we also finally understand our past ~ as I most certainly do as well as empower others to do.
In my healing work
with over 60 combat veterans with PTSD, I have essentially tapped into their
innate need to love, through gratefulness, which is far greater than their
military imposed will to hate ~ as well
as a key ingredient in their self-healing process.
As such, PTSD is a form of Post
Traumatic Heart Disorder and many people suffer the same symptoms of combat
veterans with PTSD when they have been rejected, abandoned, hurt or felt
guilt in a love relationship.
Here's a classic holiday example of this dramatic
shift in consciousness as well as seeing
through different eyes as written by Charles
Dickens and immortalized in the Christmas Carol ~ but it is also the same shift
in consciousness, as well as a shift from selfishness to service, that I have seen in countless
clients, especially combat veterans with PTSD, who have broken through their
guilt and unworthiness issues and embraced their far deeper feelings of love, gratefulness,
joy, delight and service.
In Stave One
of Charles Dickens A
Christmas Carol when Scrooge first encounters (his former deceased partner) Marley's Ghost, the Ghost asks: Man
of the worldly mind, do you believe in me or not?
I do,
I must, Scrooge
replies, but why do spirits walk the earth and why do they come to
me?
Marley's
Ghost answers him: It is required of every man that the spirit within him
should walk abroad among his fellow men, and travel far and wide; and if that
spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is
doomed to wander through the world and witness what it cannot share but might
have shared on earth and turned to happiness!
But
you were always a good man of business, falters Scrooge, trying to console
the Ghost.
Business! cries Marley's
Ghost, wringing its hands. " Mankind was my business. The common
welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all
my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop in the water of the great
ocean of my business."
Precisely, Mr Dickens and when we finally go
beyond the fear, pain and guilt of how we have lived our lives ~ we tap into a
well of gratefulness, joy and delight and experience exactly what Scrooge
profoundly exclaimed and felt on Christmas morning ~ "I'm not the man I was."
In the film version of Dickens' classic, A
Christmas Carol, starring Alistair Sims, Scrooge wakes up
transformed after being visited by the Ghost of Christmas Future ~ and I
maintain that mankind is already getting painful glimpses of Christmas future in the form of dramatic climate change and we're
also being asked to transform before it's too late. 7 minute classic video ~
Once
again, it's my guess that we have already
been visited by the ghost of Christmas future in the form of severe climate
change
and that we will be reluctantly forced to break down our social barriers and
cooperate with one another within the next ten years or face the potential of
extinction. Here's Dahr Jamail with the latest climate change scoreboard and
it's pretty terrifying. See article
In the spirit and delight of one, who is also not the
person I once was, but whose eyes have been opened
through love, gratefulness, celebration and service ~ Merry Christmas but please take
note ~ there may not be too many more
unless we begin to love one another in the evolutionary spirit of social
cooperation and altruism.
Thus,
finding the Christ in Christmas means finding the Christ within ourselves and
letting that light shine forth to all others throughout
the year.
“I
will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”
~ Charles Dickens
Allen
L Roland
Freelance Alternative
Press Online columnist and transformational counselor
Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and
private Skype consultations allen@allenroland.com
Allen
L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and
lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his web log and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show
TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net
