Reflections
Kristina writes a weekly reflection which places the esoteric teachings into daily life. They are thought provoking and pertinent to 21st Century living. They focus on how we can express our I AM, our True Self, more fully in daily situations.
Introduction to The Seven Letters
“Towards the end of the Bible, between the Book of Hebrews and The Revelation, are Seven Letters. They are written by James, John, Peter and Jude. These letters are short and they are written to us, the people who are endeavoring to integrate a radically new consciousness, not just on the earth but in the whole Universe. Since the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ on the earth this Universe was so radically changed that not even the Gods were able to participate as they used to, and so they withdrew.
These were the Gods that guided the human race down the centuries until the time Jesus was born. Humanity depended on them for everything. Now, with the deed of Christ, humanity was left to their own resources. This is a great responsibility and it is up to each individual to discover their path. No longer led and guided by others, but, with an understanding of what lies ahead, stepping out with self-confidence.”
The Seven Letters 11
Listen, my beloved brethren. Has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you, is it not they who drag you into court? Is it not they who blaspheme that honorable name which was invoked over you? If you really fulfil the royal law, according to the scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well. But if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors. James 2:5-9
James now speaks intensely about love by saying, “Listen, my beloved”. Beloved is agapetos, the highest love human beings can experience. The Greeks had many words for love which accurately described the kind of love being expressed. Eros, physical love; philia, love of brothers, sisters, friends; storge, love of family, tribe or nation; and agapao, spiritual love beyond barriers. We experience agapao love when we are able to unite with the true purpose of the Mystery of Golgotha. Jesus could only have participated in this mystery by experiencing the fullness of agapao. Therefore the presence of Christ in this world depended on agapao.
This is the love expressed by those who experience the highest in themselves; they express it without fear or favor. It speaks of unification and intense compassion. It may not always be interpreted as love because in its expression it can cut like a sword.
Our task is to love with this highest love, completely free of any egotistical tendencies. When we are able to experience this love we have no thought of benefits for ourselves, directly or indirectly. This love is actually the substance of the I Am and when we are able to express it we show that our I Am is active in this world.
James continues with the metaphors of rich and poor because they give the best picture of earthly judgment. The rich or wealthy, plousios, abound in external possessions. We only see them externally; we don’t look into their souls.
Those who consider themselves rich dishonor, atimazo, deem unworthy, the poor. The poor may not actually be poor, but they do not place value on external possessions. They experience the highest love for others, as well as for themselves. When we experience the truth about Golgotha, when we see the deed carried out by Jesus and Christ, we immediately experience agapao, we become “those who love him.” The ‘him’ autos can be God and it can also be him, her, himself, herself. In fact the statement doesn’t need ‘him’, it could just say “those who love”. This love cannot be confined by anything. Once it is experienced it cannot be contained. It is felt by all those around us and everywhere in the cosmos.
Georg Kuhlewind in his book, “Becoming Aware of the Logos”, speaks about love as requiring continual effort because when we incarnate on this earth in a physical body we feel separated from others. “Human love has to bridge a separation. It has to arise continuously anew out of the transformation of self-love. Because it is living it has no past.” We meet these ideas in the words of James.
James is trying to explain that our love in wrongly motivated most of the time. We don’t transform our self-love. We love others when we can benefit from them and discard them when they are no longer useful. Whenever we are with people in our community we can apply this principal to reach an understanding of how it works. Whenever we recognize that we are drawn to someone for our benefit we awaken our soul a bit more. We only reach the highest love when we, through self-awareness, harmonize thinking, feeling, and willing in our soul. Then we can overcome our bias and love beyond earthly limits.
The rich are never happy when the ‘poor’ express the highest love. “Is it not they (the rich) who blaspheme that honorable name which was invoked over you?” The word ‘honorable’ is basilikos, meaning belonging to a king, royal. When agapao love is awakened in our souls we have regal qualities. We rule within our soul, we control our thinking, feeling and willing, harmonizing them. This is required if our I Am is to come to expression, which in turn awakens the presence of Christ. A close study of all the elements of the crucifixion and resurrection reveals all the stages of this process which every human being on the earth must experience.
This is the royal, basilikos, law, which we are called to fulfil. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” which does not start with the neighbor but with ourselves. Each day we should assess our love for ourselves. This love is not only for all that is good about us, it is also applies to our flaws. Can we love our flaws by recognizing that they are in the process of becoming perfected? The Greek word for sin speaks of this. Sin is hamartia and means to miss the mark. We can see the archer pulling on the bow string, aiming the arrow at the bullseye but not quite hitting the mark. Surely we can love the archer for his diligence. In this way we can also love ourselves. Out to this love for ourselves we can love others, including all those who miss the mark.
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The Seven Letters 12
For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” said also, “Do not kill.” If you do not commit adultery but do kill, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy; yet mercy triumphs over judgment. James 2:10-13
This text states the situation as it is. The law is now the royal law of love. If we love then we will naturally keep all the commandments mentioned in the Old Testament. Law, nomos, comes from a primary Greek word nemo which means to parcel out, especially food or grazing to animals. We get a sense of allocation and also a sense of survival if the right allocation is made. Laws are not an imposition they are guidelines for survival.
Since the resurrection of Christ we have moved from the Ten Commandments to the One Commandment. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” John 13:34 We should consider these words daily and apply them with every encounter throughout the day, as well as to our private thoughts about others.
Keeping the whole law, tereo, meaning to attend to it carefully, to take care of it, and this becomes our only task. We no longer need to go through all ten laws if we love. The examples James gives here about adultery and killing are worth considering. He will have chosen them purposefully. There is only one Greek word for adultery moicheuo and it means to be faithless or unfaithful. We slip into faithlessness when we lose sight of the reality of Christ which is so easy to do at this time when we are grappling to understand who this Mighty Being really is. We can stumble, fall to a lower place, into emotional and sentimental ideas about God, and turn our back on Christ with whom we vowed to create a relationship.
The word for kill here is phoneuo which means destroy. If we are guilty, enochos, meaning that we are entangled, of this destruction what are we doing? Essentially it means that we destroy the presence of Christ in others. We could ask ourselves if we judge Christ as we read about him in the New Testament. If we say no, then why do we judge others who have Christ within them? They may be ‘missing the mark’ but that doesn’t mean they do not have Christ within them. If we kill Christ within them through our attitude to them they will certainly have a greater struggle to find him. Then we become transgressors, parabates, meaning to go past or pass over without touching.
All the aspects of the Mystery of Golgotha should occupy our thoughts often. Not that we should continually grapple with an intellectual understanding of what took place. We certainly should not form judgments of what took place. This Deed will only reveal itself fully in the future. In the meantime we can hold the idea of the Deed in our minds as a meditation, however short. Then drop it and carry on with our day. The power of the Deed will grow within us over time, and over lifetimes.
Then James focuses on judgment. He says that we should now speak and act under the law of liberty, eleutheria, freedom, which means not to live as we please but to live as we should. This involves mercy, eleos, which means goodwill and compassion. This is the kind of will we must now use; our own will, not the will of some guiding power.
We can recognize many elements of the Mystery of Golgotha here. When the resurrected Christ is absorbed into the region of our soul called the Intellectual Soul, the ‘I’ manifests more. Then judgment looks to future possibilities not just present expressions and this leads to mercy, to goodwill, to kindness. The Intellectual Soul then becomes a soul of mercy.
Judgment is that higher ability not be swayed by our self-will, or the will of others. Judgment in Greek is krisis, a process of assessment and means separating (analyzing) before a decision is made. Yet how often do we separate out all the facts?
We have the ability for accurate assessment when our I-being emerges as an independent entity in our soul. Then we truly love because love is reborn in the ‘I’, it reaches a higher expression, agapao. This is the true meaning of liberty, of freedom.
Taking all these elements into consideration we can see how “mercy triumphs over judgment”. The word triumph, katakauchaomai, means towards glory, and when we experience glory the presence of Christ shines in our soul. Christ is crucified in our lower expressions and raises us, resurrects in us, so that we shine out his presence. We don’t need to explain this, people get it. They are touched because it resonates with the presence of Christ within them. When this resonance takes place the resurrection process is enlivened with them as well. This transforms their judging and their mercy and the highest love becomes more active within all of us.
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“Kristina Kaine has distilled from the profound wisdom of masters and of her own considerable experience a guidebook of immense value in pursuing the pearl of great price, the name that no one knows except the one who receives it, the “I Am.” Every human soul stands in need of this name, and our world cries out for the ennoblement of those who make this quest. —Ed Smith, Author : The Burning Bush, The Soul’s Long Journey, David’s Question “What is Man?” Bible and Anthroposophy “
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Reflections on the Seven I AM sayings in the Gospel of St John January – September 2003 – Always free
I AM the Good Shepherd 5 – 24 June 2003
For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again; this charge I have received from my Father.” John 10:17f
These words speak about the ultimate sacrifice. To sacrifice our life … and to be able to sacrifice requires that you actually have something to sacrifice. This sacrifice is not that of a soldier fighting for his country, or a quasi-martyr suicide bomber. This is the shepherd giving his life for his sheep. This is about the gentle and good shepherd and the pure and innocent sheep.
John 20, Food for the I AM 1 Now on the first day of the week Mary Mag’dalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. 2 So she ran, and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 3 Peter then came out with the other disciple, and they went toward the tomb. 4 They both ran, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first; 5 and stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb; he saw the linen cloths lying, 7 and the napkin, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9 for as yet they did not know the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples went back to their homes. John 20:1-10 RSV
We know that Christ had to die, but in many of the events surrounding his death choices were made. All through John 18 and 19 we see these choices, especially by Pilate and certainly by the Jews. When an event occurs without choice John writes “this was to fulfil the word”. With this in mind let’s have a look at the morning-after story when Mary and the two disciples visit the tomb. They make many choices.
Let’s say that Christ represents the I AM that must die. The Bible also tells us that a seed must die. A thoughtful person knows that a seed carries within it forces for the future. It is formed by a plant, it actually causes the plant’s death, then it rises again as a totally new plant (not cloned from the old one).
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Reflections of the Seven Christian Initiations in the Gospel of St John, September 2003 – May 2004
The Mystical Death 2 – 9 May 2004 – We die to live
Read John 19:23- 42 After this Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfil the scripture), “I thirst.” A bowl full of vinegar stood there; so they put a sponge full of the vinegar on hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, “It is finished”; and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. 19:28-30
When a person or a thing dies we are told that it no longer exists except as ashes or refuse. Close scrutiny reveals that the opposite is true.
Consider this text in John 12 And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. John 12:23-24
Reflections on the Eightfold Path of Buddha in the Gospel of St John, June 2004 – December 2004
Read John 5:22-30 The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes him who sent me, has eternal life; he does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. John 5:22-24
As the Father is about the will, the Son is about thinking. Judging is no longer cosmically impelled; our judging now arises through our personal thinking. This thinking must be rigorous. A reason for errors of judgement is that thinking is not carried through to the end. It is so easy to jump off the train of thought prematurely. Early conclusions are so tempting, not to mention the time that they save. Lucifer always encourages us to take the easy way out.
Reflections on the Twelve Disciples using the Gospel of St John, January – December 2005
Nathanael – Two – Imagining
Philip found Nathan’a-el, and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” Nathan’a-el said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” Jesus saw Nathan’a-el coming to him, and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!” Nathan’a-el said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” Nathan’a-el answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You shall see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.” John 1:45-51
Nathanael represents one of the most misunderstood human abilities, our Imagination. In reality, Imagination extends our consciousness into another dimension. It is a spiritual faculty which does not rely on our physical brain nor does it have a mystical element. Through it we penetrate the veil which separates the physical and spiritual worlds. At this point our abstract thinking dissolves and we see into outer forms to the spiritual truth that sustains them. This can begin simply by looking at a plant or tree that droops towards the ground in a sad way, or a flower that lifts its head to smile at the sun. This imagining connects us in new ways with the outer world.
Reflections on the Signs in the Gospel of St John, January – July 2006
Water to Wine – One – Changing Feeling into Thinking
On the third day there was a marriage at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there; Jesus also was invited to the marriage, with his disciples. When the wine failed, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now six stone jars were standing there, for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the steward of the feast.” So they took it. When the steward of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, “Every man serves the good wine first; and when men have drunk freely, then the poor wine; but you have kept the good wine until now.” This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory; and his disciples believed in him. John 2:1-11
This series of Reflections will explore the so called signs in the Gospel of St John. These signs are also associated with miracles performed by Jesus after he was baptised by John the Baptist. If we take the life of Jesus as a blue print for our own spiritual development, we can use events such as these signs and miracles as a barometer of our progress.
Reflections on the Nine Beatitudes using the Gospel of St John, August 2006 – March 2007
1.4 Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
We can look at each of the nine beatitudes in terms of the Christ-ening of the nine parts of our being; physical, etheric, astral and then the three soul and three spiritual regions. If we apply the first beatitude to our physical body we will find clues about how our I AM is enlivened in our body.
Our physical body is the most fully developed part of us. The physiology of the human being is a marvel. The way our skeleton, muscles and skin hold and protect our organs in a life giving way is truly wondrous.
Reflections on the Book of Revelation, April 2007 – April 2010
The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants what must soon take place; and he made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is he who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written therein; for the time is near. Rev 1:1-3
We can read and contemplate the bible in many ways. We should certainly take notice of the literal meaning of its stories. This becomes a most difficult task when we read the Revelation to John. The imagery is shocking, mystifying and bizarre, especially when we place it outside ourselves. It more closely resembles our dream life rather than our waking life.
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Reflections on Who is Jesus, What is Christ? May 2010 – October 2016
The Bible can only be fully understood when we have a detailed knowledge of the makeup of the human being. We can only have this understanding through our own personal experience of ourselves which we have applied and tested in our own lives throughout the day. When we are able to experience that we are beings of body, soul and spirit we then come to the point of experiencing ourselves as beings of soul and spirit which occupy our body much like we would occupy a car to transport us here and there.
If we can grasp this truth and actually have a personal experience of it, we can then approach the possibility of our soul and spirit entering repeatedly into different bodies at different times in history. This could be compared to upgrading the model of our car from time to time. There is a passage in the Bible that could support this idea of reincarnation. When the Jews heard that John the Baptist was baptising they sent their representatives to question him about who he was; Christ, Elijah, or the prophet?
And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” He confessed, he did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” And he answered, “No.” They said to him then, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” Jn 1:19-22
Why would they choose Elijah from all the possibilities? Furthermore, they knew that Elijah was long dead? It is possible that they recognised traits of Elijah’s in the Baptist or perhaps they had the spiritual vision to see who had been in the past. So if he was Elijah in a past life why didn’t he affirm this? To answer this question fully we need to consider in some detail how and why we enter into different bodies at different times throughout history.
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To Journey Back November 2016 ongoing
This is the story about a man who has just died. In the afterlife he is tracing the life he has just lived backwards. It is a life review, step by step, from the moment of the last breath back to the moment of the first breath, to re-experience every thought, feeling, and action and interaction he had through his life.
He remains connected with his close friends and, as he sees what they are doing in the days after his death, he understands more deeply the relationship he had with them. He also sees all the activity surrounding his death, which he was not aware of when he was alive.
More and more people who have had a near death experience are reporting that this is the experience we all have when we die. At some point in their after-life experience they decided to come back and continue living their current life. We have much to learn from them, not only for when we die, but for how we can live our lives on this earth more meaningfully.
If we can have a real experience of what happens when we die it will assist us to meet the end of our own life with more awareness. Our journey forward will then be a great contribution to human evolution. I hope you enjoy this journey.
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