Episode 024 – Christ Consciousness: The Critical Role That Jesus Plays In Personal Growth

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Note: This blog post serves as an accompaniment to the corresponding podcast episode of A Changed Mind, where we’ll distill down the core ideas of this week’s theme, along with additional distinctions and insights. If you haven’t listened to the episode yet, you can go here to do so.  Enjoy.

Savior, Redeemer, Lord, Creator, King Of Kings, the Almighty, Lamb of God – today, we’re talking about Jesus.  More specifically, I’m going to do my best to answer the “Jesus Question” – drawing from my own personal introspection and beliefs and some distinctions that’ve been shared with me by more religiously knowledgeable, spiritually connected individuals than myself.   This isn’t about whether or not Jesus was a “real” person, was indeed the son of God, or if he turned water into wine.  Instead, it’s about how we should think about Jesus and the critical role the “idea” of Jesus plays in personal growth.

From Agnosticism to Spiritual Awakening

My upbringing was far from what you’d call a “Jesus family.”  My father was Jewish, and we celebrated Hanukkah and Passover, but I never read the Torah, nor did we attend the temple. My mother was Lutheran, and we celebrated Christmas and Easter, but I never set foot in a church or grasped the teachings of the Bible.

So, you could say I grew up in a non-religious family. In fact, during my late teens and twenties, I considered myself an atheist. It was in my college years when I started exploring certain spiritual texts and teachers that I transitioned into agnosticism. My belief shifted from “there’s no God” to “I’m not sure if I believe in God or not.”

It wasn’t until the age of 33 that “God” began impacting my life more. That’s when I began working a 12-step program for drug and alcohol recovery, which led me to recognize the presence of a higher power in my life, which at the time helped to free me from the general anxiety of life.  I called this higher power of my understanding “God”, although it wasn’t the God of any specific religion. It was more like the Universe and the intricate, geometric laws governing our reality.  This ethereal, esoteric idea of God remained until my early forties when it evolved into a more traditional understanding of God.

The Desire For A Deeper, More Personal Relationship

A few months ago, as a result of my ongoing personal evolution and journey with sobriety, I decided I wanted to create a deeper, more personal relationship with God – a relationship like that between King David and God in the Bible.  I realized that I want to hear God, speak to God, and know that I can stand before the “Goliaths” in my life, knowing that the battle is already won – because I have God on my side.

Naturally, I turned to some people who I deeply respect and admire with strong personal faith to shed their insights on the “Jesus Question”.  One such conversation recently took place with my wife and Dr. Anthony Balduzzi, the creator of Fit Father, Fit Mother, and Fit Family Projects. Dr. Anthony expressed the idea that Jesus came to earth to die for our sins, but I’ve always struggled to understand this concept fully.  However, Dr. Anthony shared an interesting diction with me: he firmly believes that Jesus is an important part of the self-realization formula and, thus, worthwhile of studying for those of us on a personal growth journey.  That’s what I want to attempt to unpack here today.

Over the past decade, my spiritual path has revolved around embodying qualities that I believe align with God’s intention for me. I’ve contemplated the idea that God resides within me, and the qualities of God are inherent in my being. Florence Scovel’s affirmations, like “God is undefeated; therefore, I am undefeated,” and “there is no anxiety in God; therefore, there is no anxiety in me” have resonated deeply with me.  At the same time, it’s challenging to relate to an omnipresent, omniscient, and invisible force that seems so much bigger than ourselves – aka God. 

But according to Dr. Anthony and other friends I’ve spoken to about this topic, this is where Jesus comes into play. Jesus represents God incarnate, the living, breathing embodiment of God.  Again, whether Jesus was “real” or not isn’t what I’m talking about here.  But even the idea of Jesus provides me with a model I can relate to more easily.  The principles he walked and talked about are things that I can wrap my head around and aspire to embody more in my life.  Being more “Christ-like” seems doable, whereas being more God-like feels like a stretch.

Accessing Christ Consciousness

In the past, I questioned the necessity of Jesus in my journey toward self-realization and spiritual connection. Remember, I connected with God through the 12 steps, which essentially permits you to connect with a higher power of your understanding.  Whether that’s God, Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Spirit, or Diving Intelligence doesn’t matter.  What’s important is that you believe there is a force in your life that can and wants to lovingly intervene to support you in doing the things you’re not meant to do or can’t do on your own.

One of my influential teachers, Paramahansa Yogananda, spoke about Christ pretty frequently and brought up this idea of “Christ Consciousness”.  Essentially, the idea is that the consciousness of Jesus resides within every one of us – regardless of religion, race, or creed.  As Yogananda describes it, this consciousness enables us to access qualities and attributes like those exemplified by Jesus.  

Based on this theory, it’s become my evolving belief that God’s presence on earth – in the form of Jesus – elevated human consciousness to a higher level of frequency.  Just as Thomas Edison brought the light bulb into reality, which was presumably already an idea that existed in the universal human consciousness, Jesus brought the frequency and consciousness of God to humanity.  Just as we talk about time and history in the eras “Before Christ” (BC) and “After Christ’s Death” (AD), the idea of Christ Consciousness suggests that humanity lived with one form of collective consciousness before Jesus’ arrival and an entirely different, arguably enhanced, version while he was here and after his departure.

That means there’s a part of my – and yours if you’re agreeing with me so far – consciousness that has all of the qualities that Christ represented and embodied as he walked the earth. So not only do I have a model for how to be,  as best as I can be, but I actually have the toolkit inside of me.  It’s not external and it’s not something I have to pray to that’s up in the sky.  It’s already innately within me.  I don’t need to go looking for a way to be more like Christ, because it’s already there.

Performing Miracles & Battling Personal Goliaths

One of the ways I look at it is that Jesus lived in absolute abundance, so that must mean that inside of me is the capacity to live in abundance and not experience the illusion of scarcity in my life.  While I may not be able to turn water into wine, the energy behind all of the miracles that Christ performed is within me.  This very energy can be utilized to perform similar types of miracles as I continue to learn to be more like the role model that Jesus represents.

Make no mistake that this energy I’m talking about is the energy of God itself.  Knowing this keeps me humble, because even though I may have the capacity to perform miracles in my own life and in the lives of others, I know that what’s actually performing the miracles is this Christ Consciousness – the God Energy that lives within us all.  The danger is in believing that it’s us – that we are the sole actors performing the miracles.  If we think it’s us, now all of a sudden our ego gets wrapped up in it and cuts us off from God. 

Again, these are simply beliefs that I’m sharing from my limited perspective.  But through this perspective, we have the toolkit to live more abundantly and mirror the many admirable qualities of life that the story of Jesus can offer us.  After all, there are a lot of “Goliaths” showing up in the world, and I believe that the way through – the way for us to create change in our own lives and in the world – is from a place of love, compassion, and faith.  

Let Go, Let God, Give Thanks 

Regardless of what or who you believe in, if you can at least acknowledge that there’s a God-given consciousness of goodness within us and that there’s always a power greater than you that always has your greatest growth, prosperity, and personal evolution in mind, you no longer need to look to anything external to connect with your higher power, as you understand it, and all of the blessings that come with it.

In personal development and in our work, we talk about how “awareness” is the first step to experiencing transformation.  As Dr. Anthony explained it to me, it’s critical to our very existence to be aware that in every given moment, 100% of the time, everything we have and experience in our lives is dependent on God and/or a higher power of your understanding.  From the breath you are breathing to the device you’re reading this on, we have God to thank.

If we can maintain this awareness that we’re dependent upon our higher power for the way we experience reality, we naturally shift into a state of gratitude and awe.  Once again, you don’t need to go searching for anything or “do” anything differently.  Just practice this awareness, and you’ve got a natural antidote for the habits of anxiety, fear, and overwhelm that separate us from having a deeper spiritual connection and a more certain, powerful, palpable relationship with a higher power – and that’s a beautiful thing.