Posted on 24 August 2017, 15:24

According to Stephen the Martyr, in thinking of the “Second Coming” of Christ we are not to expect some apparition of Jesus, looking like a man in the sky. We should rather look forward to a general awareness that we are truly participants in an In all, through all, above all God. Almost everything that Stephen said, can be seen as an elaboration of his prayer:

“Lord, let me forget that I am me,
Let me know that I am with thee,
Let me not separate myself from thee,
Because I am me.”

His teaching is entirely in line with that of the great mystics of all religions, and has much in common with St John’s Gospel.  Our spiritual goal is awareness of our union with God.  As most of us fall away from that awareness much of the time, Stephen addressed that lack of awareness time after time as he talked with us through the deeply entranced Tom Ashman, during those seven years in the 1970s.  We who were in conversation with him, continually dropped away from that awareness, so the problem was attacked from one point of view after another.

A hymn by Ainger comes to mind:
“God is working his purpose out,
as year succeeds to year,
God is working his purpose out,
and the time is drawing near;
nearer and nearer draws the time,
the time that shall surely be,
when the earth shall be filled with the glory of God
as the waters cover the sea.”

A Christian way of describing cosmic consciousness. Stephen would call it the Second Coming.

Olive questions Stephen: Might I ask about the Second Coming of our Lord?  If we are one with Him and He is one with us, in the way that you have described, how would His Second Coming be different?

Stephen: For this I have knowledge. For often we cannot recognise and we do not know - not all know - that Christ is their blood, as their blood is to their body.

[Stephen had said in my previous blog “How must I look for him that I may see Christ? But not with a physical eye to do the seeing but with the eye of my heart, and with the eye of my emotions. Feel great joy and you feel the Lord. Feel great love and you feel the Lord. Feel great happiness and you feel the Lord “]

Stephen continues:  So therefore the blood shall spurt forth and be seen. For none will be able to deny it. For they will feel the wetness, the warmth and they will understand the importance of this blood.

Michael:  Last time I spoke of my dream of the old lady, the church, saving us from the wetness of the water. You are not making any connection there are you?

Stephen: If we were to make this connection, we might say that your old lady being your church, and yourself: you interpret the dream, and feel the things from this dream, do not know, and do not feel that the blood runs even through her veins. So you might say to yourself “I will cut open the old lady, to see whether there is blood - or is she dry? For like all that is created the blood is equally as well in the old lady as with all things. For those who have little love for that old lady they will find others through whom the blood flows equally as well. Stay close to the body of that one that gives you warmth for it is the blood that flows through that warms the skin. Do not worry and say to another “You cannot be warm there, for I am warm here, and this is where the warmth is.” Neither can you say to yourself “I must depart from this warm old lady for over there another must surely be warmer.”

We have had much blood this night!

With the blood that is our Lord Jesus Christ may there be blessing for you all.

24. Jesus more than a great teacher.

Olive: Stephen, I would like to know more about our Lord Jesus. Something puzzles me in particular. Many sects say that He is a great teacher, just like many others. I feel He is much, much more significant than that.

Stephen: Your simple questions have a way of being very complicated when it comes to an answer. Let us speak of ‘Significance’. We can look at significance from two opposite directions.

To yourself, the Lord Jesus has a greater significance than being a great teacher.

To others, He is just a great teacher.

Perhaps it would be better then, if I [say what] the significance of our Lord [is] to myself.

Firstly, let us understand Jesus as a man. [His] body was as physical as the body here now that is being used, [that of Thomas the medium] the one difference being that instead of being like us where we have a continuum of experiences collected by the physical He had a physical brain and body that was created, that was directly influenced by the Source and without past experiences. This direct influence is The Christ.

…. But I have often spoken of memories fetched into each incarnation, chosen for the needs or possible needs of that incarnation. In the particular case of Jesus, the Divine need was that an example of complete cell [soul] influence, or direct influence from the Source, should be manifest in a physical body of man. You have been taught by Jesus on many occasions that the things that He did were done by the Father, not by the grace of the Father but by the Father. It was also said by Him that these things that were done by the Father, through the physical body of Jesus, we might do also.

The significance then of Jesus the man to myself is that there was the complete influence of the Source in the man with none of the past experiences which are collected in what you call your ‘Continuous Self’ influencing His physical mind, but only those of the Source.

What is often interpreted by a number of people as the doubts or sadness of Jesus was a manifestation of the physical mind that registered the pain and disappointment but did not act upon it under its own initiative but allowed the action to be that of the Father.

This then, is the significance. For if I, or all of us, were to obtain this state whilst we were in the physical body, we and all of those surrounding us would be blessed indeed as were those who surrounded Jesus at that time.

I am the Door. I am the thread. I reveal the tapestry

Stephen: “The Lord said, ‘I am the way and the light’. These are concepts given to help our understanding so let us be careful not to make them solid.

Here is another concept. Think of Our Lord as being the first thread that has passed through the tapestry [of All That Is.]

For the way of this thread is the way of all true threads of the [whole] tapestry.

That He is one with the Father is true. That the Father came to us as the thread is true also.

Likewise that the door be the way that one must pass, as did the thread that was of, and is, the Father.

We insert a separation each time with our concepts of us, space, and the Father. Therefore, if we put our Lord with the Father, then we have us, space and our Lord. This is not what our Lord taught us. He came with us and we are of Him so he is of us. The way that He shows is the way that brings us to know that we are of the Father. The doorway shows a space; a barrier is envisaged with perhaps a wall. The opening of that barrier in our minds is the separation that we feel. We should strive to pull down from our minds and our hearts the barrier that we have so carefully built. For we see that, as our Lord made a doorway through which we can pass, there is no barrier at this point. Think rather that He said ‘Do as I do, become as I, become the doorway’ so that the barrier is nothing but doorways. If in your mind you see a distance that you must travel know that it is non-existent for there is no journey to make.”

Michael on Skeptico.

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For more on Stephen go to www.thegroundoffaith.net/issues/2017-02