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: Nails to Keep you Stuck to this World
Lesson 15: Love or Fear - The Choice Is Yours
Section 4: Accepting The Resurrection For Yourself
Paragraphs: 9-12
What if the true power of Easter's symbolism lies beyond the story of sacrifice? On this episode of Living the Way of Mastery, we promise an enlightening journey as we uncover how the crucifixion exemplifies the duality of love and fear. The nails tether us to the tangible world, yet the crown chakra invites divine love and freedom. We challenge the typical victim mindset associated with this narrative and offer a fresh perspective that invites spiritual liberation. Imagine a world where societal pressures, likened to crabs in a pot, no longer ground us but instead inspire us to embrace our roles as vessels of divine light.
We explore the transformative themes of worthiness and forgiveness, reminding you of your inherent spiritual royalty. Through conscious choices, we can break free from the self-imposed limitations that cloud our true nature. Reflecting on historical resilience, we examine how the symbolism of the crown of thorns can awaken us to our inherent power. By discarding limiting beliefs and embracing compassion, you can align with a more expansive consciousness and experience the freedom of accepting love without the need for external validation. Join us as we illuminate the path to spiritual empowerment and discover the profound impact of choosing love over fear.
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Hello and welcome back to Living the Way of Mastery. I'm Jason Amoroso, your guide, friend and fellow student. And today we continue with Lesson 15, love or Fear, the Choice is Yours. And the final section, section 4, accepting the Resurrection for Yourself, diving into the symbolism of Easter and the crucifixion. And yesterday, in the previous episode, we talked about the crown of thorns and how that symbolizes the effects 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. And now we get into the next part of the metaphor. In paragraph nine, jeshua continues the nails merely represent that which would hold you stuck in a dimension, the horizontal dimension of the body and of time, which would nail your feet to the world, quote, down to earth and quote they call it. Yet you, the crown of your head is open heavenward and you are free to receive the love of God, to choose only loving thoughts, to look gently upon everyone and every event, seeing only perfect innocence. And this is kind of a spoiler alert as we read this section, and it's more on, at least for me, the next page, where you realize that, yeshua again, what so much media would have you with so much. I don't know if it's like teachings or symbolism in the world. I mentioned this in my episode yesterday. I'm not really drawn to like the pictures of Jesus like bloody and suffering and looking all sad and like a victim like. This was a totally different experience for him. There is an attraction to his victimhood in the victim mindset. Yes, the victim belief system can use anything, especially jeshua's crucifixion, as evidence of victimhood. Oh, look, poor jesus getting crucified. He was the innocent man. He has every right to be upset. He was innocent and God's only son. And look what the world did to him. They killed him and he died for your sins. You're so lucky. His sharing of the crucifixion experience is a stark contrast of what so many of us have been either taught or, yeah, have been taught or is like worshipped in the world.
Speaker 1:So the nails in the hands or the wrists? Really, from what I've read, it's really more the wrists, where the nails were. They represent right? We're talking about the symbolism of this event and how it applies to you. Make sure you're applying this to your life.
Speaker 1:The nails represent that which would hold you stuck in a dimension, the horizontal dimension of the body. End of time where we believe that we are stuck here, we believe we are the physical body and we're so afraid to die because we think it means non-existence and we don't know. If I knew what would happen after I die, then I wouldn't be afraid. Duh, and I get it. I mean, I can relate to that. But it's like our brain thinks it needs to know everything, to feel safe, to not be afraid, and we're being asked to open up to a different layer of intelligence that's beyond the brain. These nails would nail your feet to the world to keep you down to earth. This doesn't mean humble.
Speaker 1:In this regard, when he says down to earth here, it means like this what is it? Is it the? I'm going to get this wrong, I know, but it's like when you boil crabs in a pot and you've got a bunch of crabs and one of the crabs tries to climb out, the other crabs will grab it and pull it back in. It's like this desire in our soul to be free, to be independent, and yet there's this strong suction, this strong draw from this safety of the herd to stay with the group Group. Think Don't step out of bounds, stay in the safety of the group, and this is what the world does. It tries to suck you in. We can keep you safe, stay with our thinking, and that's what the nails represent to keep you down to earth. And he says yet, above you, the crown of your head is open heavenwards.
Speaker 1:Talking about the crown chakra, that you are open to the heavens, that you can I. So the analogy is like, let's say, the light, god, energy is always one, it is your very essence. So when we talk about the light pouring in through your crown chakra, I understand that. I think we can all understand this. This filling up and a lot of the symbolism again, you know, is like the heavens is up there so we look up or it's coming down upon us. Right, this heavens is up there and the earth, we're kind of down here.
Speaker 1:And I understand that symbolism and the crown chakra as we imagine that spirit pours into us and fills us up. Imagine we're this channel, this vessel, just like an empty vase, and you pour water into it and it fills the vase up. Imagine light pouring into you, illuminating you, filling you up, so that if you poured light into something translucent, transparent, it would glow, it would shine. Now imagine you have a lid on the top of your crown chakra. It's closed and you can't. The light is pouring onto it, but just it can't go in. So it just hits the top and it you know it's like the soil is too. That's another analogy Yeshua uses in the way of mastery this hard, dry soil. It can't absorb the water. So our job is to till the soil, to make this like, to focus on the soil, so that we can receive the raindrops, we can receive the water and the life that it brings. Our job is to make choices, be committed, have a clear intention, right the five keys to the kingdom so that the light can, we can open our crown chakra because we are open for it, we are wanting it, we are doing the work to shed limiting beliefs, to see what's ego, to see what is out of alignment with truth, so that we can open and receive. That's why I love Revelation Breathwork. It's about opening and receiving and surrendering to this divine energy, this divine love that wants to pour in and then be expressed through you.
Speaker 1:I'm mixing lots of analogies and metaphors. It's kind of like I think of um, what is it? Uh, it's pink floyd, the cover of their famous album, where it's like the light hits the prism and the light hits it and then it blasts out and all the rainbow colors, it's like the light wants to come in us and then express through each of us, in its own in, in our unique way. We each have our own unique expression. Even we are an individuated aspect of the one. How amazing is that? It's like ice cream. Let's just assume you love ice cream. There's so many different flavors of ice cream, and vanilla is not better than mint chocolate chip, it's not better than rocky road you could debate that but it's not better than you know. Cherry or strawberry or butterscotch ripple it's all ice cream. It's all amazing, it's just different flavors.
Speaker 1:That's what we are and our work is to stay open to receive that light. Now, that's not to say that if you're not receiving, you're not of God. Yes, your very existence is divine. So one of the ways I actually like to do meditations is not to imagine necessarily that I'm breathing in love or God, or that I'm receiving it from outside of myself, from outside into my crown, into my body, myself, from outside into my crown, into my body. One of the ways that because that implies in some way, even if a little bit, even subtly separation, that I have to receive it, that it's out there and I got to let it come in. And what kind of inner work and healing work do I need to do to make sure that I'm letting it in? And if I don't feel whole, if I don't feel aligned, I must be doing something wrong, because why can't I let it in, why can't I receive it right? It creates that sense of separation.
Speaker 1:So one of the ways that I like to do a meditation is as I'm inhaling. Instead of imagining me inhaling air from outside into my body and then the light coming in that way, I imagine that in my heart center there is an infinite well, an infinite well of light, of love, of this energy, of source. That it's already, it's infinite in my heart. And as I'm inhaling, it's like a pump in a well. The pump comes up and it pulls the water up. And so as I inhale, instead of taking stuff into me and filling up as I inhale, I'm drawing that light, that love. That's already the essence within me. It's endless, it's infinite, it's coming into my body that way. And then as I exhale, right, the pump goes down in a well and the water comes out. And so as I inhale, I'm drawing this light from my heart chakra into my body and then as I exhale, it overflows from me. It radiates out of me like sunbeams from the sun. And experiment with that for yourself, because it is. I got something stuck in my throat so my voice is a little shaky right now. But it's a different way to relate to God energy to love, not that it's outside we got to bring it in, meaning we're separate, but that it's already within us and we're drawing it into us even more and then overflowing from it. It's such a cool idea different visual to have, a different feeling to have. And so back to the text.
Speaker 1:Jeshua says you are free to receive the love of God. Nothing prevents you from receiving the love of God. But if somebody gives you a gift and you don't think you deserve the gift, you're gonna be like, oh no, thank you, that's so generous, but no, thank you, I can't receive that. We've all been there right. Or somebody gives you a compliment and you don't feel like you're worthy of the compliment. You kind of deflect or deny it. You're like, oh yeah, and maybe you do something self-effacing to kind of bring yourself down so you don't see, you know, we all want to be humble, so we don't want to really receive the compliment and just say thank you. Yes, that's true. Imagine if we did that, as one of my early coaches and mentors taught me. You know, imagine if we did that, as one of my early coaches and mentors taught me. You know this idea of receiving and a simple way to practice receiving is receiving compliments. And so when somebody gives you a compliment, instead of deflecting it or making a joke at your own expense to kind of keep you down, you say thank you. Yes, that's true. Imagine if we could really receive it.
Speaker 1:So Jeshua says you are free to receive the love of God, but you've got to believe you're worthy of it. So Jeshua says you are free to receive the love of God, but you got to believe you're worthy of it. And you're not. Don't wait for someone else to anoint you worthy. Don't wait for your parents to anoint you worthy. Don't wait for the world. You know, when I make a certain amount of money or do certain thing, or if I get married, or if I have kids, or if the world sees me as successful or I have a certain number of followers, then I'm worthy, then I can receive. You'll be waiting forever, until one day. Don't wait for God to announce you worthy. You've already been announced worthy in the very fact that you exist. You're an emanation, you're a wave of the ocean of love. You are of God. You're worthy inherently.
Speaker 1:Again, another analogy that I've used in the past is like go back in medieval times let's just use that for ease of argument and let's say a son or a daughter is born of the king and queen. They're a prince. They are according to this. You know the royalty and this belief system. They are assigned by God in this position, in this role. You are assigned by God to be the king. You are assigned by God to be the princess. They are born into this awareness, into this paradigm.
Speaker 1:They don't question am I worthy to be the princess? Am I worthy to be the prince? Am I worthy to be the king? No, they are the prince, and it comes with responsibilities, but it comes with a certain amount of like, built in worthiness and respect that then everybody else gives them. But it's just all made up, right. It's totally made up, this idea of kings and queens and that God has ordained some and not others. It's all totally made up. So can we have that same belief system that we are worthy, that we are a prince, that we are the king that God has bestowed upon us. That level of just it is you are the king, you are the prince, you are the princess, you are the queen, you are royalty, you are spiritual royalty.
Speaker 1:Believe it, own it. Stop waiting for something to give it to you. Believe it, own it. Stop waiting for something to give it to you. Receive the love of God to choose only loving thoughts. You can do that. You can choose only loving thoughts, and when you have unloving thoughts pop into your head, you could see them and you can make a different choice. Do I want to hold on to this and really entertain and value this thought and stay in judgment and stay in contraction and all of the effects of that we all know aren't fun. It's suffering or do I want to make a different choice? Who can choose who? Who can choose for you? Right, it's it. This is the good news it's all on you. It's all on you. The victim part of us when it hears that it's like oh my god, I'm not worthy, I'm not gonna make the right decisions, uh, the good news is you, it's all on you. No, the victim part of us, when it hears that, is like oh my God, I'm not worthy, I'm not going to make the right decisions. The good news is you, it's all on you. No one can choose for you. Jeshua can't choose for you. God can't choose for you. You know your future self can't choose for you. You must make the choice. That is the good, most empowering news of all time. Doesn't mean you can't have help, but ultimately you got to choose.
Speaker 1:He says to look gently upon everyone in every event, seeing only perfect innocence. This makes me think of the line from the biblical story of Jesus being crucified where he says forgive them, lord. They know not what they do. They don't know who they are, they don't know who I am, they don't know what is. So they're acting as if if they're separate. They're acting like they're threatened. They're acting like their power, authority is being challenged. They're acting all these things. They don't know who they are, what they do. So he just has compassion. He doesn't have judgment, he does. He's not trying to save himself from this because he realized oh, myself is already safe. Forgive them, lord. They know not what they do and it's not a righteousness, like, oh, I'm right, but they're wrong. Clearly it's not that either.
Speaker 1:Can we bring that same innocence to what we see in the people in our own world that we've been judging? Forgive them, lord, they know not what they do. Now, that doesn't mean like, oh, forgive the conservatives Again. I'm just using these very stark, like this or that examples just for sake of to make the point. Like, forgive them, lord the conservatives, the Republicans, they know not what they do, but forgive them anyway. Or forgive them, lord the liberals, the Democrats, they know not what they do, forgive them anyway. That's the same version of like, oh, you're doing a bad thing, you're sinning, I'm judging you, but I'll be the higher person and forgive you because I know better. It's the same bullcrap.
Speaker 1:Can we look beyond all of that and look with innocence to a way, an understanding, a way of thinking this person does not know they are infinite and eternal, that they are at their essence, love, to a way, an understanding, a way of thinking this person does not know they are infinite and eternal, that they are at their essence, love. They're so, not distracted, but so wrapped up in the identity of the body, of the ego, of their personality, of their past, of their preferences, of separation, of lack. That's the nature of the ego thought. It's the tiny mad idea. Forgive them. They don't know right now that they're temporarily insane. And let's just say, in the consciousness of the Christ I can see that and we also know that if somebody is temporarily insane and we are that often so, let's be honest when, when someone is temporarily insane, when you tell them you're just being insane, they can't hear it, they're not open to the message.
Speaker 1:It's when we are humbled by life so often that we're like there's got to be a better way. My way is not working, the things I'm striving for that I thought were going to make me happy. Yeah, I'm happy for a minute when I get that job, or get the raise, or get the money or get married or have kids. There's happiness in those moments, but it's never lasting, ever. There's always the next problem. It's not lasting. So we are being invited into a broader, more expansive consciousness and awareness of life and as we can reside in that space, that's all we need to do. We don't need to convert or convince anyone. Jeshua continues.
Speaker 1:So imagine now that you lift your head and you realize quote the blood is dripping from my brow by my own hand. My own is in italics. The blood is dripping from my brow by my own hand. The crown of thorns was placed upon me by those who came to serve me to shock me into the remembrance that I have allowed myself at times to have thoughts of negativity, limitation and fear. No wonder I've had such a headache Powerful, we realize at some point I've been doing this to myself.
Speaker 1:In a way, I've been creating this experience of suffering through how I am seeing things, through the conditioning and the programming that I'm investing in and buying into, by playing the victim, by seeing myself as small and separate and weak and helpless, by believing the identities that my value comes from something outside of me. The blood is dripping. The blood in last episode, the blood is just an analogy for a symbolism of life force, the life force. The life force is dripping from my brow by my own hand. I'm the one weakening myself. And the crown of thorns was placed upon me by those who came to serve me to shock me into the remembrance.
Speaker 1:So it's like I've allowed or invited or, at a higher level, want, wanted to wake up. So I need someone to help wake me up and it's angels and people playing a role for me to do things. It seems like in my mind they're doing things to me. I'm the victim to them. They're yelling at me, they're angry with me. I'm the victim to them. They're yelling at me, they're angry with me, they're persecuting me, they're oppressing me and they are playing a role for me to wake up, to see through, to see through their actions, to see through their intent, even even if they are intending to harm me. To see through to the core of who they are and who I am, to see their inherent innocence, to see that their actions, while they may harm my physical body, do not harm me, because I am not my physical body. It doesn't mean I just allow anyone to come up and stab me, murder me, crucify me. That's not necessarily it, because your instincts are going to take over and you're going to want to resist that, of course, but it's just again. It's seeing through the victim that people are doing things to me. So they're serving me by shocking me into remembrance that I've allowed myself at times not always, I'm temporarily insane, jesus says to have thoughts of negativity, limitation and fear. When I invest in those thoughts, it becomes my experience when I choose only loving thoughts. That's my experience. It doesn't matter what somebody else is doing to me, I choose my experience, no matter what.
Speaker 1:Again, we know these from amazing, beautiful stories of the crucifixion of gandhi, of people who survived the nazi concentration camps and lived victor frankl. They chose compassion, they chose courage, they chose love, even amidst hell, hellific, horrific hell on earth circumstances. What was happening to them? They did not give their power to choose a way to their quote-unquote oppressors, to the Nazis. That's think about it. That's freedom. That's what the crucifixion is the greatest symbol of. That's freedom when somebody can do what they think is harming you and you're free.
Speaker 1:And you say, oh, I'm still gonna choose love You're murdering. You say, oh, I'm still going to choose love you're. You're murdering my body. I'm going to love you anyway. Oh, my god, that person is free, that spirit is free. But this paragraph is saying I do. I've been doing it to myself by believing, judgment, negativity, limitation and fear. No wonder I have such a. My life force is draining from me by my own hand.
Speaker 1:And he says you look to the left and to the right and you see your wrists bound to the horizontal plane by a nail, a hard piece of iron, cold and thoughtless. How many times have you bound yourself to the things of time through your own thoughtlessness, your own coldness? And it's very easy just to read this question. Oh, I kind of get what Jeshua means, you know, and then keep reading. But let's take a minute, think about it. How many times have you bound yourself to the things of time where you're so convinced you are of the world, you?
Speaker 1:Another way to say bound yourself to the things of time is look at where you're attached, look at what you're attached to. Well, I'm attached to this relationship looking a certain way. I'm attached to this business deal working out in the timing I want it to work out. I'm attached to my health issues resolving themselves physically so I'm physically healed and I live longer. I'm attached to my kids and their well-being or their health or their success. I'm attached to my bank account and my money. And look at the things that you attach to through your own thoughtlessness. That doesn't mean not caring, it means being unconscious. You're, you're running your life on a program. It's conditioning. It's not conscious. You're not aware of the choices that you're making.
Speaker 1:Some people spend their whole life building a career to prove their mom or dad wrong. My dad said I'd never amount to anything. Well, I'm going to show him. And they can be incredibly successful, making a lot of money, doing a lot of achievements, but it's fueled by anger, it's fueled by judgment and ultimately it's fueled by fear. Judgment and ultimately it's fueled by fear and at some point, at some point, that work, that that fuel, it runs out. It's not fulfilling anymore. And that's when, like a midlife crisis can come into play. We're like what the hell have I been doing with my whole life? I want to be motivated by love and creativity and service. Versus proving to a memory, proving to a memory that I'm good enough, that I deserve love, that I want to be seen and be validated, I'm going to spend my whole life operating out of fear and anger. That never lasts. That's just suffering, even as successful as you might be. So that's, that's unconscious behavior. You're not aware of it. That's what thoughtlessness I think in this context means.
Speaker 1:And your own coldness. We're cold when we don't have an open heart. Right when somebody with an open heart, you call them oh, they're so warm and loving. You just feel the warmth of them. In their presence, you feel a warmth. So someone who has a closed heart feels cold. There's no compassion, there's no empathy, there's no, they don't even want to, they don't even want to deal with feelings because it doesn't feel safe, it feels risky. So jesus was just bringing this to our attention.
Speaker 1:And last one for today. He says you turn to look down at your feet, they are crossed over, resting gently upon a small wooden slab with a nail through them, as though the world were saying quote don't you dare and that word dare is in italics don't you dare try to rise above our level of consciousness. How dare you mirror to us the truth of our being by always being so sickeningly loving? That's powerful. Keeping you down. The world wants to keep you down with it in the victim identity, in the powerless, weak identity, in the insane, tiny, mad idea, separate self that can be hurt, that can lack, that can lose something identity. Don't rise above. Don't rise above conditions and circumstance. Who do you think you are? That's the symbolism of the nail on the feet and the wooden block trying to keep you down. And just notice this is very, very common.
Speaker 1:When people start to have success, like authentic success from hard work and belief and showing up and moving through the hard parts of you know of adversity and failure and challenge, but they keep showing up and they succeed and it changes their whole mindset. It changes who they are. The people around them who are invested in a certain identity get threatened, get upset. Oh, now you think you're better than us because you're more successful, right? You hear that all the time and I see this in relationships too. One partner in a couple does this work? Does the inner work really, looks at their misunderstandings, looks at their traumas and brings loving to them Like does the hard inner work of feeling, does the hard, honest work of looking at what conditioning, what belief systems have been running their life unconsciously and they start to untangle them. They start to bring love to themselves, they start to treat themselves differently, they start to think differently. They start to affirm you, they start to bring love to themselves. They start to treat themselves differently. They start to think differently. They start to affirm you know, have new affirmations, a new belief system, look for new evidence.
Speaker 1:When one person in a relationship start to do that, very often another person in the relationship, it could be a partner, it could be a business partner, it could be somebody, a family member who's not yet ready to do that work feels very threatened Because it feels like the person who is doing the work is outgrowing them and they're going to lose them. And sometimes that happens. You lose relationships with family members. You lose relationships with your spouse if they're not willing to grow as well. More often than not this is a total generalization it's the, the woman, that's the feminine, that begins to wake up first and then, and in a traditional feminine, masculine, female, male relationship, it's the man who feels more threatened by the growth of his wife, by the inner work she's doing, because she's more open to feeling and he feelings maybe are more Alien to him or just feel more vulnerable and risky. It's a total generalization and it can be any dynamic in relationship where one person starts to outgrow the relationship. And the beautiful thing is when the, the person who's not doing the growth at first sees it and is like, ok, I'm willing to also grow and I'm going to do my own inner work, and then that's. I mean, that's my relationship with my wife, that's been our relationship. Sometimes she's growing and then I'm growing and I'm growing, and then she's growing and it's like this we, we, we are growing with each other. It's really beautiful.
Speaker 1:It's not always easy. Growth work is not always easy. It's hard to the ego, but in a partnership where both people take responsibility for their growth and for the things that upset them and trigger them, and they know it's not about the other person, it's about what's happening inside of me, that's when a relationship thrives and flourishes because it's not codependent. You don't need anything from the other person. It doesn't mean you don't want to share in the loving, you don't want to contribute to the love, you don't want to support the other person. It doesn't mean that Of course you want to, but you don't need them. You don't need their love to feel more complete. It's like Jerry Maguire was the ultimate kind of victim mindset of relationship, the ultimate codependency you complete me, I need you to feel complete. It's so romantically, it's so romantic in its ideal, but it's total codependency.
Speaker 1:Now, if you come to somebody who's like, you don't complete me, I don't need you, but I love you. I have so much love for you and I want to be on this adventure with you. I want to share my experiences with you, I want to grow with you. I want to have you around in my tough times and I want to be around in your tough times and support each other and do this game of life, this adventure, together. Let's go. That's a totally different relationship, but it takes work, it takes effort, it takes looking at these for and now bring it back to this the symbolism of the crucifixion. Looking where you're putting the thorns on your head, looking where you're keeping yourself down with the nails, looking to where you're investing in fear and lack and judgment and separation. All right, love you guys, hope you have an amazing day. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.