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[♪ music ♪] [Unity] >>[male voice-over] From Unity Church of Christianity in Houston, Texas,
this is The Awakened Life with Reverend Howard Caesar.
Unity is a nondenominational Christian church providing a positive,
practical, and progressive approach to Christianity.
Let's join the service in progress with the Reverend Howard Caesar.
[Unity of Houston - Reverend Howard Caesar, Senior Minister]
Here at Unity, one of the things that we emphasize is the idea of honoring all spiritual paths
and respecting wherever others may be on their spiritual path.
[Today's Message - The World of Awakening]
That's a very private and sacred thing that is an individual choice.
So we honor that.
Those of you who watch us on TV may not know,
but every Sunday in our opening prayer to open the worship service
we always include in the prayer a blessing of all churches, all religions, and all spiritual paths.
And that only makes sense in terms of what unity really means, obviously.
We're all united in the same God.
The same God, which is a loving God of all of us.
It doesn't matter what church we go to or if we go to no church.
God remains love.
There are no exceptions, regardless of the differences that there might be in theology,
in doctrine or dogma or emphasis that takes place in the respective places
from one religion to another or from one denomination to another.
One of the differences, not necessarily a big difference but kind of a small one,
is that although most of Christianity of the West really places a lot of emphasis on the idea of salvation,
we in Unity, at least speaking for myself and at least speaking for this Unity ministry,
we place our emphasis a great deal on the word awakening
and on the idea of spiritual awakening.
That's not making the idea of salvation wrong.
That's certainly helping a lot of people, has helped a lot of people.
It's just our emphasis.
And in fact, in our approach, the salvation that we believe in
is the idea that we're being saved—and we are—but basically our process is being saved from ourselves.
[For information about Unity - 713-782-4050 - www.UnityHouston.org]
I don't know if that's how more traditional Christianity would put it.
But we are being saved from the separate self that we have all created
and been conditioned into thinking that we are.
And so that's kind of the process for us.
And the separate self actually leads to an experience of life
where one is basically separate from others,
separate from themselves.
To a degree they are a stranger unto themselves,
and by that I mean a stranger to knowing who we really are
and a stranger to our true reality, to our true spiritual self,
a stranger to the image and likeness, that made in the image and after the likeness self that we are
or, sometimes as we refer to it as, the Christ self, the divine self.
And so the answer to that idea of separation is what we call awakening and spiritual awakening.
To awaken implies that we are asleep, and we are asleep to varying degrees.
We've been sleeping or been in a dream state or a state of illusion or disillusionment.
We are in varying degrees of sleep and wakefulness.
All of us are in varying degrees of that.
For me, I just want to convey that really nothing could be more important
in this life than awakening.
To me, that's what it's about. That's what we are here for is to really awaken.
Awaken into what? Awaken into the truth of who we are and then to be that.
And that in itself is helpful in healing our world and our planet,
healing all of our relationships, all of wherever we find ourselves showing up.
It's very, very powerful.
One aspect of the idea of salvation is that it leads to somehow the perspective
that there is this one life to live to get it right
and that at the end of that life you are judged by God
and you either make it to heaven or you go to hell
and that there's this final outcome and there's really no appeal process.
[laughter]
And it appears to have built into it the concept of duality or separation.
It seems to be saying that God is in heaven and that our good, therefore,
is with God in heaven and we need to somehow get ourselves to where God is,
there in heaven.
The emphasis of awakening is that God is here and our good is here right now,
and we simply are not awake to that.
God is everywhere and the allness of God is everywhere,
and that's what we're waking up to.
It's not a matter of going somewhere geographically;
it's a matter of waking up wherever you find yourself.
And you are here.
Therefore, you have a divine appointment with this moment and the next moment
to be as fully receptive to the movement of the divine in and through you
as potentially possible.
With awakening, the whole structure of separation begins to dissolve.
Jesus was about awakening.
He was about awakening humanity to what he knew and what he experienced as the truth.
He said and knew the truth about us being one and awakening to oneness.
He said, "I and the Father are one,"
and he wanted us to move into that.
He was an example of living and modeling this consciousness
of being one with the light of God.
We know that he said, "I am the light of the world."
And then he also said, "You are the light of the world."
And so he was trying to say, "As much as I am a light, you are a light."
"You're just not awake to it."
We're not being a light in the world. Why?
He said because it's covered over. What is it covered over with?
It's covered over with the darkness of sleep,
meaning the darkness of ignorance, the darkness of misunderstanding,
the darkness of disillusionment or illusions, misperceptions,
the darkness of false beliefs, the darkness of worldly conditioning that you have bought into
that is not accurate and true about you.
[Contribute to the Unity broadcast - 713-782-4050 - www.UnityHouston.org]
So we're living, I feel, in a very unique and special time in which awakening is happening,
like no other time, for many a person.
All around the world, all around the planet
I think those who are sensitive to these things are recognizing
that there is a new and powerful wave of awakening that is happening.
Some of you may not see it, may not be in touch with it or necessarily agree, but many, many.
And I totally agree.
The door of awakening, I believe, has seemingly swung open wider than at any other time.
It's a great time to be alive.
There would be those who would dispute this,
and that's because there is still lots of craziness going on in the world,
there's still conflict and war and nonsense that goes on.
And yeah, you can find that if you want to look at it.
However, just as there was a period in our history that was referred to as the Renaissance
where things went on that after you left that period of time, looking back
you called it a significant period of a shift, of a change, of creativity
and arts and all these kinds of things and you didn't know it until you looked back at it,
I think, based on that, that this could be a time that we're living in,
a kind of a renaissance that has to do with spiritual awakening.
So more and more people from all over the world
and from varied backgrounds and their history of religious experience can vary,
they're beginning to describe spiritual awakening as an unmistakable realization
that who we are is the oneness of life.
Who we are is about oneness. It's not separate.
And that's really how they speak of it.
Many who are spiritually sensitive to these changes in consciousness
have stated that there appears to have been a shift in the perception of many a people,
a shift in the perception as to what is possible,
that there's a whole new sense of what is possible to them.
As never before, there are things happening and going on all over the world
that seems to be evidence that spiritual awakening is really no longer
something that is happening only for the spiritually elite.
In other words, it's not only for the person who goes to a cave and meditates for 30 years
or has to have a guru and teacher that they sit by for years.
The age of the guru is over is what is being stated
and basically that this idea of awakening is now within the reach of all of us.
And it's a powerful thing.
So there's a new wave of interest actually going on in awakening and there are new signs.
There's new evidence of it becoming a real experience for people.
You had to have heard about the word the Golden Age, like the Golden Age has come
or we've entered into it, the Age of Aquarius.
They've talked about these things.
I know it sounds a little bit New Agey or hippieish and we can cynically brush it off.
But what if it's true? What if it's true?
Do you want to have your heads in the sand?
Do you want to miss this?
Do you want to stand in the consciousness that represents biblically Pontius Pilate,
who piloted his energies and steered his energies according to what the chief priests
and the elders of that day told him to do, which was to snuff out the physical Jesus Christ
that had come as a light?
That's really what Pontius Pilate was about.
And so we can be cynical, we can be skeptical,
we can say it doesn't fit our current theology, like they did in that time.
"This guy doesn't fit us in our time," is what they said about Jesus.
"Be gone with him! Forget it."
But there's a real shift happening in the world,
and more and more people are waking up and having real, authentic experiences
or glimpses of reality.
That's the word: reality.
So I want to talk a little bit about that this morning
and what awakening is, give you a better sense of it, put some light around it.
We've always said at Unity that we are positive, practical, and progressive,
and today's talk is fairly progressive.
So buckle in. [laughter]
What is it that we are awakening out of?
What are we awakening from?
We've said it is to awaken out of one's familiar sense of self, separate self,
out of one's familiar sense of experiencing the world that we see
and into a much greater reality, into a perception
that is beyond anything that we have previously known or knew existed.
It is a whole shift in our perception.
And these experiences of awakening differ from one person to another.
For some it is a sustained kind of an experience,
and for others it begins simply as a momentary glimpse.
The window opens and closes fairly quickly.
But there is a sense of an experience and a shift that takes place as a result of that.
In awakening, the sense of separate self fades away or disappears
and one awakens from this dream of separation
that has been created basically by the egoic mind.
E-G-O—edging God out.
That separate self has been formed out of the deluge of ideas and beliefs,
concepts and opinions and perceptions that we have had flood into our consciousness.
But it is not who we are, you see?
And we have identified with many of these things that are inaccurate
about us and about the world and we're living from it.
It is a shift in one's perception from this small self of who we thought we are
to seeing ourselves as something more universal.
It's bigger.
Spiritual awakening is also a remembering. It's a remembering.
More than becoming something we are not, it's also a remembering.
Not so much about changing ourselves as it is about remembering who we are
and remembering that part of us that we have always been,
that we have been held to be in the mind of God,
that we were created to be and it got covered over.
And in the process, at the same time, this sense of who we thought we are
begins to fall away, begins to dissolve.
It's kind of a process.
It's as if this universal spirit that we all draw upon,
that we all are, it wakes up to itself.
So it really isn't me that is waking up but the truth of what I am
or what we are that wakes up to itself.
Rather than ourselves waking up, what we are wakes up from our former selves.
Get that?
The opening can sustain itself or it can be just a glimpse of this kind of new field of life.
It can last for a moment, for an hour, for a day, for a week, it can last for months. It varies.
Just to share, I personally had an experience back in the late '80s.
I came here in 1983,
and somewhere around 1988 or '89 I had this shift into some level of awakening.
It gave me at least a glimpse, it gave me a glimmer, it gave me a taste
of what life can be like or what it's meant to be.
It lasted actually for about 8 weeks for me,
and I had amazing clarity through that period of time.
I felt deeply connected to everyone.
Everyone was my brother and sister. My heart was open.
I just felt the energies of love flowing through me incredibly,
like I had never known before.
Nothing seemed to disturb me. I was accepting, I was nonresistant.
I wasn't fighting what was coming at me or whatever the world or life threw in front of me.
I didn't fight it. It just is. I accepted what is.
Truth flowed from me from somewhere beyond,
and I felt like at times during that period of time
when I was speaking as a minister like I was channeling.
It was almost as if I was speaking and at the same time observing myself speaking,
like there was something that had hold of me that was moving through me,
that another part of me was like, "Wow, I'm in awe of this."
That's the only way I can speak of it.
I felt connected to everything and everyone,
and I felt also that there was nothing that was impossible.
It was like I knew that at such a deep level that nothing—nothing—was impossible.
I still have many of these things going on in me but not at the same intensity
to which that window that opened for that period of time in me.
It was a glimpse into reality,
and it was a sense of there being more even beyond it.
Actually, since then, in November of 2012 I had another glimpse
or shift into awakening while I was in India.
It was one of the most profound experiences that I have had in this life
walking the spiritual path.
I am humbly grateful for that experience.
Both instances, although somewhat different,
they were both very potent and they carried a degree of energy and force
that was life-altering.
There is something that opens in you that never completely closes again.
You don't ever forget it.
You don't ever forget that feeling and that window of time and that experience.
You have a sense of what reality really is,
and something within you is actually changed forever.
I haven't had a near-death experience,
but those individuals who have had a near-death experience,
you can't tell them that they didn't have the experience they had.
They know what they had.
They may not be able to communicate it, they may not be able to put the words to it,
but they are changed and they have never forgotten it.
And their sense of what the purpose of life is and their role
and who they really are has shifted as a result of that experience.
They're not the same. They remember.
They may not maintain the intensity of the clarity that they had within the experience,
but they have tasted the truth and they carry that with them and they're different.
Many of the images that we have found about ourselves and about the world
are simply a resistance to things as they are,
many of the images that we hold.
The ego, you have to understand, is the mechanism that our mind uses
to resist life as it is.
I read somewhere where an author clarified that the ego isn't a thing
as much as it is a verb.
The ego is always pushing and pulling, never content with what is,
always making what's there wrong, so to speak, or to be afraid of.
And so it is the resistance to what is.
You have to understand it is not the me, not the separate self or the ego that awakens.
The sense of me or the separate self driven by the ego becomes quieted,
becomes silenced.
It is more witnessed and it is no longer identified with the thoughts that come from that part.
In awakening what we are is that something that is watching what is going on in our consciousness.
So whether it's for an hour or a day or a week or longer,
the glimpse into awakening actually varies from person to person.
You may hear some person talk about their experience
and then you'll want it to be like that.
It doesn't necessarily happen like that.
It can be different for each individual a little bit.
There can be some similarities.
While in this experience of awakening, life becomes really a flow. It's a flow.
There's no resistance.
Things show up when they show up, and there is a sense of trust.
There is a sense of acceptance of what is.
The spirit within one is free and it's moving unhindered by former conditionings
of being in this world.
When a person has even a moment of waking up from the illusion of separation,
there is a sense of great relief.
The great relief can show itself by just giddiness, blissful laughter, uncontrollable.
I've seen it happen in people, in India in particular and some here.
It can be that when you get into that stage it's just a blissful laughter because it's such a relief.
Or it can be crying because one is so humbly moved
by what reality they now see and are experiencing, that window that opens.
A full awakening is sometimes referred to as God realized
and where one is walking and talking with God.
That's a big leap.
We're talking about really a process that is incrementally step by step
going towards a deepening into the perspective of spirit
and into a sense of oneness and being in that oneness.
So usually awakening is a process
and it continues as a result of wanting to continue to deepen,
wanting to remember and quiet oneself down to remembering
what is of the truth that is within you
and also to maintain the desire to connect with the divine,
to deepen that relationship ongoing and have that bond.
Very few, if any, in any period of time awaken in such a way
that there is no further process to undergo.
It's not like, boom, you hit the home run.
Before awakening we don't know who we are.
We think we are separate, in a body, walking around the world.
After awakening we are still walking around this world,
but we know we are not limited to a body
and we have a sense that we are not limited to our thoughts,
we are not limited by our fears of the past,
we are not limited by this world in any way or limited to our old personalities
that we once lived from that did not work or serve us well.
We have a more universal sense of our connection to all of life.
And the path continues as we let go of our old issues
and our charges that we have buried that come up every once in a while and blast—
our hangups, our issues.
There is an ongoing sense of clearing that takes place
where the unconscious is filtering things up to be dealt with and just released, dissolved.
It's the stuff that we have stuffed for so long that is finally being released,
and out of that there's a freedom and there's a quietness that takes place as we unhook.
Doesn't mean that we can't fall asleep again.
You would think that by being with Jesus the disciples would have awakened fully
and it would have been easy. They were in his presence and all of that. It's not like that.
There's still a process that goes on.
There's still a taking of personal responsibility as a soul in that process.
You will recall when Jesus was at Gethsemane, this was near the end of his ministry
and it was before going to the crucifixion and experiencing that.
He was heavyhearted, he was sorrowful, as the passage says,
and so he wanted to go apart a while and pray.
So he took along with him the 2 sons of Zebedee and Peter. He took along 3.
He said, "Okay, I'm going apart to pray. Would you please keep watch. Keep watch."
And so he went and prayed for a time and returned.
And when he returned from praying, he found that the disciples were asleep. Asleep.
He said to Peter, "What is this?"
"Could you not stay awake for even one hour?" he said.
"The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."
You have to understand that symbolically and metaphysically
Peter represents faith.
And our faith goes to sleep a lot.
Sometimes in a dire need, as Christ, "Watch, be watchful, have faith" still go to sleep.
It's indicative that this can happen.
We realize that these are new times for awakening.
But in ancient times people when they would have awakening experiences,
they could go to monasteries and places where individuals understood what was happening for them,
and it was accepted and it was seen as normal.
But today as people are awakening and entering into this experience, it's difficult
because they can have a glimpse of reality and have this experience one evening
and the next day they have to go show up at the office at work.
There is no sense of orientating, talking about it, being understood
where you're not freaking people out or having them think you're weird. [laughter]
All of that is to be contended with.
Awakening involves a new perspective.
And the things that oriented us to life as we know it are no longer there.
The beliefs that we latched onto and used to define ourselves no longer fit.
Much of what motivated us egoically just isn't there.
There is the realization that what previously motivated us in life
was basically self-centered and kind of selfish.
It was all about wanting and getting and achieving and finding happiness
and avoiding unhappiness and trying to find love and get love
as opposed to being love.
There's a whole different orientation that takes place as you begin to have the egoic side silenced
and who you really are begins to awaken.
Understand that we can awaken some and still have elements of the ego
remain undissolved because it's a process.
The ego is going to fight to stay alive.
As awakening happens, ego doesn't necessarily cooperate.
It will resist.
But part of the process is that you begin to recognize ego,
you begin to witness it and observe it and not identify with it.
You understand? And that's part of the process.
This is not about words, it's not about concepts, it's not about intellectualizing.
There is no substitute for the experience.
It's about coming to the place where we begin to realize that we're not a body,
we're not our mind, we're not our thoughts.
Yes, we have a body. Yes, we have thoughts.
We have a mind.
But you are not identified with that.
You don't identify yourself as that.
You are connected to the very source, the divine that is more than
and bigger than any of those things.
And as one grasps this more deeply and goes through the process,
all fear begins to leave.
You don't have fear anymore.
You don't get disturbed. You don't have internal conflicts going on.
Your mind chatter has quieted down.
And so it's good for each of us with deep sincerity
to ask the divine to take you into awakening.
Our talking about it today is going to awaken you some, believe me,
just having had that talked about.
But also listen and learn to surrender, to let go and to let God.
There is what I call a spiritual healthy helplessness
where we let God take over, we invite grace in,
we live in the moment where God is.
May you all awaken to the truth and the reality of who you are.
God bless. [applause]
[♪ music ♪] >>[voice-over] Thank you for joining us for today's message.
[Sunday Service Times - 9:00am, 11:00am] We invite you to be with us again next Sunday.
[(713) 782-4050 - 2929 Unity Drive @ Hillcroft - UnityHouston.org]
At Unity we believe that God's presence of love and goodness is everywhere
and that life is meant to be good.
You can find out more about Unity and our teachings at UnityHouston.org. [Copyright 2014]