Living The Way of Mastery with Jason Amoroso
Each day I will read a passage from The Way of Mastery and share my commentary on it. The intention is to provide an opportunity to develop a consistent, simple spiritual study practice and grow together.
Living The Way of Mastery with Jason Amoroso
Lesson 15: Your Crown of Thorns
Lesson 15: Love or Fear - The Choice Is Yours
Section 4: Accepting The Resurrection For Yourself
Paragraphs: 5-8
What if the narratives we live by are simply illusions waiting to be shattered? Join me, as we navigate the transformative crossroads between love and fear, using the symbolism of Easter as our guide. We uncover the power in surrendering illusions and embracing our personal resurrection, empowering us to transcend victimhood and separation. Our conversation challenges the traditional biblical interpretations of Jesus’ crucifixion, offering a fresh perspective on transcending physical suffering and exploring the metaphor of a "crown of thorns" as our judgmental and fearful thoughts. By taking radical responsibility for our mental state, we can liberate ourselves from feelings of weakness and persecution, allowing us to view the world with love rather than fear.
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Hello and welcome back to Living the Way of Mastery. I'm Jason Amoroso, your guide and friend and fellow student. And today we continue with Lesson 15, love or Fear the Choice is Yours. And we continue with the final section called Accepting the Resurrection for Yourself. This is all about Easter, the messaging, the symbolism of Easter, so that you can apply it to your life. It's Jeshua saying Easter is not really about me. Stop celebrating like it's about me. Yes, I was crucified. Yes, I rose from the dead. Yes, all of this happened. But how does this apply to you? Let this change your life. Don't make it about me. So here we go.
Speaker 1:Today we're going to start really diving into paragraph five, but to have a little more context, I'm going to start reading three and four and it'll lead into five, otherwise it might not flow as much. So here we go. Paragraph three Jeshua says my question for you is would you be willing to surrender your illusions in order to remember the peace of God? The question is whether or not you will accept the atonement for yourself, the resurrection for yourself, and be determined to walk this earth as one who has arisen, because the peer pressure is incredibly strong for you to be like everyone else, to think like everyone else. All right, he continues. What does that mean? It means that you have chosen to awaken like everyone else. All right, he continues. What does that mean? It means that you have chosen to awaken from the uselessness of separation, the uselessness of victimhood, the uselessness of weakness, and you have chosen to accept the empowerment which is the opposite of all those things the empowerment of becoming responsible for this dimension of creation. The empowerment of becoming responsible for this dimension of creation, the empowerment of deciding to walk the earth as the arisen Christ. Not wait for me to come back in 2,000 years for you to do it, for you to be it A lot of people say that's the second coming is the collective consciousness, the awakening inside of each one of us as the Christ consciousness. So now we continue.
Speaker 1:Paragraph five he says you have chosen to take the message of an historical event that did occur in time, for if it did not, somebody has managed to fool me and to assimilate it as a symbol of your own life. For you have well been crucified by your own thoughts, and by your own thoughts, you have brought your persecutors to you, who have nailed you on the cross a million times, so that you could be confronted with the opportunity to look out upon a lovely world by seeing only through the eyes of love. That was Jeshua's experience when he was being crucified. He was looking and I haven't seen the Passion of the Christ, I haven't seen any of the movies about that, but this is what we know, this is what he's telling us that when he was being crucified it was an opportunity to look out upon a lovely world by seeing only through the eyes of love, by thinking only loving thoughts. So this paragraph is like yes, what does this mean? You're choosing the empowerment of walking the earth as an arisen Christ. This means you're choosing Again, I keep saying that word because it's important it's a choice to take the message of the crucifixion it has a message and a meaning for you and to assimilate it into your own life, for you have well been crucified by your own thoughts.
Speaker 1:He says this many times in the way of mastery yes, the crucifixion was something that happened, but you do that to yourself a thousand times a day. Here he says a million times you've been on the cross by your own hand, by your own choice, through your own thinking. As we'll get to judgment, fear, separation, lack, unworthiness. I'm not enough. All those thoughts, crucify yourself. I'm not enough. All those thoughts crucify yourself, you suffer horrendously. He's like I was crucified once. You keep doing that to yourself a thousand times a day.
Speaker 1:And he says and by your own thoughts you've brought your persecutors to you, who have nailed you on the cross a million times by your own thoughts of valuing separation, judgment, fear. By your own thoughts of valuing separation, judgment, fear. All these things, the greatest hits of the ego, by those thoughts, when you value them, when you repeat them over and over again, when they seem to be just in the fabric of your being, in your body, which they're not, they're unconscious to us that we're living in this state so much. But by those thoughts you brought your persecutors to you. You're playing the victim, like he says in the paragraph before, you're playing separate, you're playing the victim. You're playing that you're weak and so when you choose that that's what you get, what you value, what you, the story you tell, what you believe or repeat, becomes your experience.
Speaker 1:So if you think you're a victim, there's going to be persecutors all over the place persecuting you. Get persecuted by the barista at Starbucks. You can get persecuted by the mechanic who you know takes advantage of your lack of knowledge of cars and overcharges you. You can get persecuted by the IRS. Anything can persecute. You can be persecuted by the weather. You can be persecuted by your past. Every time you play the victim, giving someone else power over you, you are being persecuted and you suffer. I do it, by the way. That's the human experience. We all do it. So when I'm saying you, I'm including myself. It's the general you.
Speaker 1:But just notice, where you feel disempowered, where you feel you can be persecuted by the government, oh, it's the Biden administration and now it's the Trump administration. You can be persecuted by either side, either person, it doesn't matter. But by your own thinking you've brought your persecutors to you. You've welcomed them in, even though it doesn't seem like it. You've allowed them into your experience and they've nailed you on a cross a million times. That's in your own mind, that's in your own thinking.
Speaker 1:That's also probably you know it's more of, I think an emotional, psychological thing. You've been nailed on the cross a million times, know called the witch wound, where you've been burned at the stake for speaking truth, speaking truth to power in the world. You get stoned, you get killed, you get burned, you get crucified, you get assassinated, and a lot of people have had that experience and that energy is still stuck in the body and still stuck in the subconscious at a deeper level from previous lifetimes, and so it comes up in this lifetime as I'm afraid to speak my truth. If I speak my truth, I'll be killed in this world, although that still happens. Look at JFK, look at Gandhi, look at Martin Luther King Jr in our modern world speaking truth to power. But for most of us, it's probably more of a fear of being killed by being canceled or by losing the favor of our loved ones, or losing our followers or clients, or just people rejecting and abandoning us if we speak what's true. For us, that's another way of being crucified. And he says by your own thoughts, you've brought the persecutors to you who've nailed you on the cross a million times. And then this is where this is the opportunity, though, so that you could be confronted. You have to be confronted, otherwise you're not going to look.
Speaker 1:It's so extreme sometimes Life gets our attention and can be very extreme when we ignore the signs, when we're so busy, when we don't be still and listen to the still small voice inside of us. We can't hear God, we can't hear our higher self because we're so busy in our thinking and our fear and anxiety and our control. That life, our higher self, our true self, has to get our attention somehow. Boom, twisted ankle, boom, you get sick, you get the flu, you get COVID. Boom, you get cancer. Boom, you get into a car accident. Car accident boom, somebody steals a lot of money from you and you get hacked. It doesn't matter again the vehicle, it doesn't matter how it shows up, but it's life's way of like hitting you with a sledgehammer, being like hey, wake up, pay attention, you can't avoid me anymore.
Speaker 1:Really, it's our own higher self that's bringing this experience to us. We call it life, you call it the universe, but there's no force bringing this experience to us. We can call it life, we can call it the universe, but there's no force outside doing something to us. It is our greater, higher, more expansive self. That's kind of making, that's when gesture, saying you are creating your experience.
Speaker 1:He's speaking to that, the higher self, the more expansive, that's not limited to a body. He's speaking to the truth of who we are, while we are identifying as this very limited, fragile, weak, little ego, personality, self. So he says so that you could be confronted with the opportunity. It's an opportunity to look out upon a lovely world. How do you do that? To look out upon a lovely world? How do you do that? Not while you're being the victim, not while people are crucifying you, stoning you, spitting on you, telling you that you're worthless and you're a piece of shit, whatever it is, telling you that you're wrong, canceling you. No, you look out upon a lovely world by you it doesn't matter what they're doing by you seeing only through the eyes of love. That's radical in this world.
Speaker 1:Have you canceled somebody in your life because of their political beliefs? Have you been canceled by someone in your family, in your life, friends, clients, because of your political beliefs? Can we see only through the eyes of love? Shit's getting real for some people.
Speaker 1:Well, I can see through the eyes of love, but not if you voted for Donald Trump. I can see through the eyes of love, but not if you voted for Kamala Harris. I can see through the eyes of love, but not if you're this or you're that. No, you got to. You gotta think differently, you gotta behave differently for me to see through the eyes of love, to see you through the eyes of love. You I'm gonna make up an example you, dad, mom who did that awful thing to me when I was younger. You have to admit and apologize to me and then I'll forgive you and see you through the eyes of love. I'm waiting 30, 40 years for that apology before I can forgive you, before I can open my heart to you. Nope, you got to do something, you got to change for me to see you through the eyes of love. We all do that. I'm making up that example, but we all have some version of that.
Speaker 1:But how much do you want to suffer? How long do you want to suffer? How many times do we have to replay this dynamic over and over again until we see it never gets us anywhere. It doesn't work when we withhold love from someone, when we are in judgment of someone, even if we're so freaking convinced we're right and they're wrong and they're the reason the world's burning or falling apart or values have changed. When we're so righteous in that, who suffers? We are the one who suffers when our heart is closed and constricted and we're in judgment or we're closed off. We suffer when our heart is open and expansive, and it doesn't matter what anyone else is doing or saying or thinking, and I'm free regardless and I'm going to live my life regardless and I'm going to see, through the eyes of love, think loving thoughts. I may not want to support your business, but I can still love you. I may not want to spend time with you, but I can still love you.
Speaker 1:It doesn't mean you need to be a doorman. It doesn't mean you need to everything's like hunky-dory. No, you can decide to hang out with people over here and let those people be over there, but you can love them, not condemn them, not judge them. Will you bless them or will you curse them? Them not condemn them, not judge them. Will you bless them or will you curse them? All right, let's keep going. Love this stuff, jeshur says.
Speaker 1:Think then for a moment and imagine that you are nailed upon a cross. You are stuck between the vertical axis of eternity and the horizontal axis of time in the body. Imagine that you lift your head, upon which you, in italics you have placed a crown of thorns. What does that represent? It represents the field of the mind as it operates and expresses through the body, through the brain. Those thorns represent your fearful thoughts, your judgmental thoughts, your limited thoughts that press and poke upon your own energy field and give you quite a cosmic headache and draw blood. That is, it releases the life force from you, the power from you. As it drains down your auric field, you dissipate yourself, much like a balloon with a slow leak, dissipates the power that makes it a balloon.
Speaker 1:Here we're getting into the. What is it? The metaphor, the symbolism of the crown of thorns. You know, you see, all of these I'm not a huge fan of like. Maybe it's Roman Catholic, maybe it's Irish Catholic, maybe it's just Catholic, maybe it's other denominations of Christianity. I'm not a huge fan of like. The suffering Jesus, like, oh, the crown of thorns. He's bleeding, he looks like, he looks like a victim, he looks all sad and hopeless.
Speaker 1:You know the what I've heard and I don't know if any of this stuff is true, I'm just telling you what I've heard is growing up, the Bible. You know, when he's getting crucified he says hey, god, why have you forsaken me? And it's like God, where the F are you when I'm dying here? Where are you? And I think what I've heard somewhere along the line was that the original Aramaic quote from Jeshua was not. Why have you forsaken me? But for this was I born. Imagine that, and we know again. I'm not like a super scholar and stuff, but if you've done any kind of research, you've looked at any kind of alternative Christianity, you know that. You know the Bible has been written and rewritten and different groups of people in power have perverted it or changed things. So to imagine that it went from, why have you forsaken me, teaching a whole bunch of people that? Yet where was God when, when his own son was getting murdered? Why didn't he step in? It's no, for this, for this was I born. I just got goosebumps For this.
Speaker 1:To make a demonstration, as he says earlier, in the way of mastery, to make it. I wanted to make a demonstration so bold, so big, that anyone who turned their eyes on it could not ignore it, could not ignore it, that this demonstration that I, you, life, the child, the son of God, is not the body, and this was why I was born. This was why I incarnated as a man, to bring this message to the world, for those that have eyes to see, for those that have ears to hear, for those who are ready. This was why I was born, it culminated in the crucifixion. That gives a whole different meaning, holy shit. And of course it goes back to again and again. For these things and more you are and you shall do.
Speaker 1:Let's get rid of the specialness that's of the ego, and the whole Course in Miracles talks about specialness all the time. So Jeshua is inviting us. Then think for a moment. Imagine that you're nailed upon a cross. You, you're stuck between the vertical axis of eternity and the horizontal axis of time in the body. Imagine that you lift your head, upon which you have placed a crown of thorns. No one's put them on you. That's radical responsibility. No one has put the crown of thorns on you. You do it to yourself, you do it with your fearful thoughts, with your judgmental thinking. You do it.
Speaker 1:The crown of thorns represents the field of the mind as it expresses through the body, through the brain. It's the human mind, it's the brain, it's the ego mind, the crown of thorns. It's painful For those of us and I'm saying us because it's me, when I live in my head. It's painful, it's overthinking, it's constant worry, it's survival mode, looking for threats everywhere, feeling like the victim playing the blame game. It sucks. Feeling so disempowered, feeling like the world is this big, complex place and how the heck am I supposed to figure it out? I have no idea what I'm doing, but I gotta pretend that I know what I'm doing. I gotta pretend that I have my shit together and let everybody else think that I have my shit together. That sucks, man.
Speaker 1:The crown of thorns is our own judgmental, fearful thinking. And he says those thorns represent your fearful thoughts, your judgmental thoughts, your limited thoughts, your limited thoughts. Most of us go about in the world and we react to what we think our eyes are seeing. So we see something that happens in the world. Then we react, making the thing in the world real. Where Jeshua has been saying from the very beginning the world is not real. The world is neutral. Things that happen are neutral. You're only seeing what in your subconscious you've chosen to see. You are the cause, what you interpret in your perspective. That's the effect. Two people it could be raining. One person could say, oh, look, it's raining. See, nothing ever goes my way. And another person could say, oh, my God, it's raining. This is amazing. I love the rain.
Speaker 1:Life is neutral when you have fearful thoughts, when you value judgmental thoughts, when you value lack and limitation thoughts that press and poke, and that's how it feels. It press and poke, it hurts man upon your own energy field and it gives you quite a cosmic headache. Yes, and it draws blood. Jeshur saying this blood when he's saying it draws blood. It releases the life force from you. It releases the power from you. Judgmental, fearful, limited thoughts drains you. We all know how that feels. It drains down your auric field. In the physical dimension you have an auric field. It's the chakra system.
Speaker 1:Study Ayurvedic medicine. There's many traditions, the Chinese medicine there's many traditions that talk about you're not just a physical body. There's different layers, there's different dimensions to your being because you're an energetic being. Of course, most allopathic Western medicine doesn't acknowledge this and it's all about treating the symptoms, not the root cause. And when you actually look at root causes, it's not just the cancer cell or it's not just the virus or the thing, it's, when you get really down to it at the quantum level, it's vibration, it's thought, it's energy. It's vibration, it's thought, it's energy. Consciousness impacts energy.
Speaker 1:So, anyways, when we have, when we put the crown of thorns on ourself of course we don't want to take responsibility, we don't want to own that we want to blame it on someone else and then we want to judge ourselves if we acknowledge well, oh fine, I put the crown of thorns on myself again. I'm being so judgmental and fearful and limited. What well? Oh fine, I put the crown of thorns on myself again. I'm being so judgmental and fearful and limited. What's wrong with me? And we just dig. We're basically like we're feeling the crown of thorns on our head and imagine that you're wearing the crown of thorns and then you take your hand and you're pushing the crown of thorns into your head more when you self-judge. So not only are you shoving the thorns into your skull more and it hurts, but you're also probably shoving thorns into your hand. You're hurting yourself even more. That's self-judgment.
Speaker 1:And he says you dissipate yourself much like a balloon with a slow leak, dissipates the power that makes it a balloon. This is why freedom, forgiveness, is freedom. Let yourself off the hook, know who you are. Forgiveness is not forgiving another for the sin or the bad thing they've done. That's just judgment. That's just covering over judgment. You've done a bad thing, but I'm high and mighty and pious, I will forgive you. Forgiveness is forgiving yourself for seeing another person as not who they are, for seeing a situation, for not how it is, for recognizing that, oh, I'm seeing something incorrectly. For me to be in judgment of another person or a situation, that's what you're forgiving yourself for, then you're free.
Speaker 1:And Jeshua says quote a crown of thorns, end quote symbolizes the effect of the thoughts you insist upon when you rest in judgment, or anger, or hurt, or fear, that is, when you choose to deny love. That's a powerful word, he's saying. Not only are you doing it to yourself, he's saying you can take the crown of thorns off of yourself whenever you want, but you insist. You're insisting on keeping it on when you judge, when you value judgment over and over and over again, when you value fear and you live in fear, afraid of everything. When you value anger. Well, I have a right to be angry. If you're not angry, you're not offended. You hear that all the time. All right, well, you want to be right or you want to be at peace. You want to be in judgment or do you want to be at peace?
Speaker 1:And here's another one hurt, that's a big one, because so many people, when they're hurt, they're like well, you hurt me, you made me feel this way, no responsibility, or just I hurt. So what I'm not allowed to hurt, you can feel how you need to feel. Feeling is the gateway to the kingdom, as Jeshua says in Lessons 1 through 12, the Way of the Heart. Feeling is the way when you're not afraid to feel. The feeling is just an energy that wants to move through you. So, yes, you can hurt, but understand, when you're holding on to that hurt, when you're holding on to it, you're the one who's suffering. And how do you release? How do you release hurt? You give yourself permission to feel it fully. That's how you let things go. Great book by David Hawkins Letting Go.
Speaker 1:The letting go process is easy, it's simple. It may not be easy, but the way to let go is to feel fully. And most of us don't want to feel fully. It's too painful, it's uncomfortable, we don't want to acknowledge and feel those energies in our body. So we resist, we deny, we suppress, we don't express because it's very painful, we don't want to feel that that. So then we just keep it stuffed inside and it just grows and grows and grows. Should we get into the nails? We're 24 minutes in. Ah, we'll stop here. We can do the nails. We did the crown of thorns, we'll do the nails and the cross and everything in our next episode. Um, this is cool stuff like this.
Speaker 1:This is what I would want church to be growing up. I grew up yeah, and my background I grew up kind of in the Catholic church. I got baptized and confirmed but, like, we never really went to church a lot when I was little and then I joined in an Episcopalian choir of men and boys and we went to church every week because we would sing so, but I wouldn't say that we were like a religious house by any means, but music was my way of connecting to God and being in the church and singing these hymns. It was really beautiful, even if I didn't really understand a lot of the teachings. But like and it was so boring, I think as a little kid maybe that's all little kids like, church is boring. Like some guy goes up and you're like when are we getting out of here, man, I want to go play, and it's like it's an hour and a half this guy's been talking to this. You know this lady. For the most part it was men in the churches that I was at. This guy's been talking for like 30 minutes. Let's go already, so, but this kind of stuff. Maybe it's because I'm older and a different phase of life, but this is what church should be. Hey, how are you putting the crown of thorns on yourself? This is a metaphor for your life, that it may impact you, that you may choose differently Love or fear. The choice is yours. Love you guys.
Speaker 1:If you get value from the podcast, please give us a like or subscribe wherever you're listening, and if you can give us a review on Apple, that would be amazing, even if you don't listen on Apple. Just write a short review. Thank you so much, and I want to give a shout out to somebody who reached out and gave us a review. I want to read this because it was so awesome to receive. It's such a gift. So I want to thank you and I'll read the name of the person who shared this. Here's the review Woo, exclamation point. I could not find a direct link to write a review. I do hope this makes its way to Jason.
Speaker 1:Thank you so spot on in your deliveries, sharing or explaining the quote simple message of Christ Hallelujah for your breath to share his intended breath into our breath to breathe his word. I love you the ease of tone, humor, application or undoing of pre-application that may have fucked us up in the first place. Pre-application that may have fucked us up in the first place. Delivery. I thank God. Holy Spirit, source, divine Angels, the one voice that emanates through you, god bless and resurface into the human mind. Hurry all the love and energy to you, as Christ, through you, is resonating. Move over, please, kardashians and the other BS that clutters our minds for the real holy, wholly, holy celebrity to become this world's obsession.
Speaker 1:Xo Arch from La Porte, indiana. Thanks, arch. That is that. Reading that really made my day. I could feel your energy and your love coming through those words, my day. I can feel your energy and your love coming through those words. So I appreciate you and I appreciate everyone who takes the time to listen to this. I really encourage you to join the Facebook community and I'm going to encourage you because I'm just announcing the dates for the next Living the Way of Mastery course, which is a 12 month course where a group of people, a group of us, are gonna get together and a lesson a month for the first 12 months the book the Way of the Heart, which is one of the three books in the Way of Mastery. So for a year, a lesson a month we're gonna go through and we're gonna dive in more of the meaning of this teaching. But really it's about going from the theory to the practice in our daily life, being our ashram to developing mastery. And I'm still we're all I'm on the path of mastery. It's never ending, but it's about taking this theory, understanding it and then applying it in our daily life.
Speaker 1:If you want your next year of your life to be immersed in these teachings, your mind will change, you will feel differently, your energy will change, how you see and relate to what you're now calling stressful situations and just the ups and downs of daily life. You have a whole different, not just mindset and perspective, but relationship to these events that will change your life forever. Once you really understand and embody these teachings, there's no going back. It's like once you lift the veil, you can't go back and you have this set of understandings but also tools that you'll learn and the practices that Jeshua gives us. We dive into and we have accountability to actually do them, versus just reading the lesson, then going on to the next lesson, no, doing the exercises for 30 days, having discussions and diving in deep and sharing what's going on in your life with a community, a group of other people committed to a year of this work. It will absolutely change your life.
Speaker 1:If that speaks to you, if that intrigues you, if this prospect excites you, then please go to the website and check it out. Look in the show notes. It's revelationbreathworkcom, and then there'sa link at the top the Way of Mastery. It's starting February 9th. Let's go, let's do this. Make this next year the year that you commit fully to these practices, to this way of being. It's going to change everything in the most beautiful way. No-transcript.