JoyousChee of the Cosmic Lighthouse e-zine wrote me the other day with a question. “Is there a hierarchy in spirit of some sort or is everyone operating on an equal basis? For example, if I meet Jesus in spirit, would I feel that he is just another brother and not superior in any way or form?”
Jesus was part of my “magic kingdom” as a toddler. Along with the trees and animals that could communicate with me telepathically, Jesus awaited me when I would slip out of this reality by tilting my little spectacles on a Venetian blind slat during supposed nap-times and focusing on the point of light which the lens caught from the sunshine.
Jesus did not speak to me. He simply held my hand and gazed into my eyes. As I looked into his golden eyes, I was utterly aware of what love is. His eyes of love have been with me ever since. I felt strongly that he was superior; that he was the perfect Teacher for me. However He related to me as an equal.
In my magic kingdom, Jesus did not resemble the Sunday School pictures of Him which I later encountered. His skin was swarthy. His hair was a sun-streaked, matted brown and it lay tangled on His shoulders. He wore a long robe of some rough material and a pair of sandals. He was disheveled and covered with dust. If this man appeared at the doors of the church to which I go on the Sabbath, I think the congregation would welcome Him, but it would take every ounce of tolerance the ushers possessed to seat Him.
Of course my Beloved would seldom appear at a church, except to throw out the occasional money-lender. As His ministry matured, He hit the road. Jesus had a strong sense of community, but no instinct for organized “religion”. I believe he would be appalled at “The Church”, in whatever form we see it today, with its priestly hierarchies and extensive worldly possessions.
There were priestly hierarchies in Jesus’ day. Jesus shunned them. When Don Elkins questioned Ra concerning Jesus the Christ’s entry into Jerusalem on the Thursday before His crucifixion, Ra told Don, in Session 75 of The Law of One, that
“There were two factions present to greet Jehoshuah, firstly, a small group of those which hoped for an earthly king. However, Jehoshuah rode upon an ass stating by its very demeanor that it was no earthly king and wished no fight with Roman or Sadducee.”
Jesus did not play politics, either within the religious Jewish hierarchies or within the worldly Roman hierarchies, although he could have. He felt that His kingdom was not of this world. To Him, the idea that he was superior in some way to others would be laughable. He was the Son of God. And He taught that we are all Sons and Daughters of the one Creator. To Him, our equality was absolute. We were all heirs of godhood.
The church of my birth, the Christian religion, is hierarchical in its structure. My own Anglican church is built on a hierarchy of bishops, headed by an archbishop. The Catholic church is far more articulated in its hierarchy, with the Pope heading Cardinals and archbishops who govern the bishops. In both sects, parish priests are under the governance of bishops and deacons are assistants to priests. In the heavenly realms, medieval theology suggests a spiritual hierarchy of three hierarchies and nine orders of angels.
Staying carefully within the religion of my birth to avoid making errors of ignorance, I will observe only that within the Christian church hierarchies abound. The Christian church is thoroughly worldly and politicized, and hierarchies are a natural part of worldly communities, whether religious or laic.
Jesus was in the world, but not of it. He wanted no part of any hierarchy. If we saw Jesus, we were really seeing the Father Who sent Him. As we served “the least of these my brethren”, we were serving Him. His theology was radically egalitarian.
Everything in the world that we can observe is naturally hierarchical. Elements bond to other elements in hierarchical ways. As the human eye observes nature, it classifies what it sees hierarchically, in phyla, genera and species. We ourselves operate within physical bodies which work according to strict hierarchies of systems enclosed within the body as a whole.
According to the Confederation, the creation also operates hierarchically, with the infinite mystery of Deity distorted first by Free Will, and then by the Logos, or One Original Thought, of unconditional love, and then by light, which manifests in descending hierarchies of sub-Logoi – suns, then planets and then sentient souls such as you and I.
I cannot say whether this hierarchical nature is purely true or whether it is an artifact of human observation. I suspect that there is a natural order, from utter unity and mystery to the smallest iota of dust.
I also suspect that this natural hierarchy is innocent of polarity. It is neither positive nor negative. It is what it is.
I would suggest that insofar as we, as seekers, adopt the “as above, so below” type of hierarchy, we remain innocent of developing a negatively polarized way of thinking and responding to the world. However, insofar as we begin to adopt worldly hierarchies in our thinking, we will begin to develop a negatively polarized point of view.
One example is in the Confederation channeling which I have been doing since 1974. We were at that time familiar with the channeling of Walter Rogers and others affiliated with the Detroit-based group which channeled Hatonn. For many years I also channeled Hatonn. We found that a faction had splintered off of the Detroit group and had gone west. There it began to create its own brand of Confederation channeling. In that splinter group, Hatonn developed into Chief Grand Commander Lord Hatonn. The channeling message of Lord Hatonn altered from “all is one” to “some will ascend and some will not”.
Wherever hierarchies and grand titles creep into channeling, we can expect a mixed-polarity message that is exclusive rather than inclusive and a point of view that is worldly rather than innocent.
On April 15, 1987, a Confederation source named Quanta talked to our group about the innocent hierarchy this way,
“The connection between individual experience and the larger groupings of mind complexes which eventually blend themselves into that great store of experience that many have called the Akashic record is one which is one-to-one, shall we say. Each entity which gathers experience that is significant in the personal evolution records this experience in its own conscious and subconscious mind complex.
“Each mind complex has access to greater and greater stores of information as the roots of the individual mind complex contain all that which has been gathered by the entity in all conscious experience and continues to move in an harmonic fashion with those of, you would say, “like mind” or in many cases the racial mind, in other cases the cultural mind, and in still other cases the unique groupings of mind that blend various factors, be they social and culture, philosophical or spiritual and religious, or racial or geographical.
“Thus, there are many groupings of mind that serve as intermediary reservoirs of information and stand between the individual mind complex and the planetary mind or that which we have previously referred to as the Akashic Record. This record or planetary mind is that store of information which shall be opened to all the population of the fourth density that is to reside upon this planetary sphere.
“Each entity then will look upon this planetary mind as its ancient heritage and that which is available to inform further thought and action as the various individual portions of the to-be social memory complex begin to seek further means by which the service of others may be accomplished.”
I am a librarian by profession. I am trained to think hierarchically when I receive a book to be catalogued. There is something delicious about using the Dewey Decimal System to place a book in its rightful place on the library shelves. I think we humans will always gravitate to hierarchical thinking. And it has its place, certainly. What a chaos we would experience if we did not organize the world around us within our minds!
Yet, spiritually speaking, to focus on hierarchies is to enter the always questionable precincts of human opinion. Beyond all rational thought, the spiritual journey has to do with being, not doing; essence, not form.
I will look further at this question in my next column. For now, I would like to leave you with the thoughts of an entity who calls himself Yada. This is from a channeling recorded in the same session as the above quotation from Hatonn, on April 15, 1987.
“I Yada. I greet in love and light of infinite Creator. This instrument challenge, “Jesus Christ.” I say, “How about Lao Tzu? One Christ good as another,” So we come.
“We speak about skepticism. Hah! You want to know about skepticism. Open your eyes. What do you know? You know nothing. Look around. Look at tree. You see tree. What you know? You got root, bark, branches, bird’s nest and leaves! Hah! What you know about tree? Tell me how it grow there. Tell me how it began. Tell me anything about tree except name and wocation. Location.
We gonna say it right!
“Now, you look at any other thing, and tell me what you know. What is there not to be skeptical about? Nothing!
“Now, let us take what we do not know. Is everything! Everything! What you gonna do? How you gonna think? You have to name names and pretend that you know things. But inside—what you gonna think?
“Now, let me ask you another question. What you berieve—what you believe? We getting good with our l’s and our r’s. What you believe is far more important than what you know—because you don’t know anything. So, tell me what you believe in.
“What you say? How you declare yourself? We say one word—love! Hah! We said it right. This instrument think we crazy. This instrument not like to channel us because we mess up her face. Heh, heh, heh (giggling).
“Now you know you not know, but you do not know what you believe, do you? Huh-uh. No. Why you wasting time on knowing things when you cannot know anything?”
There you have it! What do we know from hierarchies? Indeed, what do we know, period? The Ra group pointed out that it is only when we are aware that we know nothing that we are ready to progress spiritually. Knowing that nothing can be known frees the seeker to enter into the essence of things, from the self to nature to the stars. Releasing all judgment concerned with intellectual knowledge brings us to be able to bear gnosis, the direct insight of truth too deep for words.
I open my arms and embrace your spirit. Welcome to the spiritual democracy of a universe of equal souls who are citizens of eternity and infinity! I love you, whoever you are! And I am one with you, and you with me – and as the Beatles sang, in love, “We are all together!” We are One.