What I am about to share can be labeled heresy, apostasy or blasphemy, depending on your perspective and belief system. What I say challenges the doctrine and dogma of not just Catholicism, but many of the worlds religions. At least we no longer burn “heretics” at the stake… talk about getting booted out of the tribe.
Our Crucifixion
Consider this: It is reported that Pope Benedict decided to resign last December after reading the Cardinal’s Vatileaks report that he commissioned. Perhaps what he recognized through this report was the blatant hypocrisy of the Church and his own personal hypocrisy by engaging in actions that directly contradicted the teachings and life of Jeshua (I prefer the Aramaic name to Jesus). At the risk of being irreverent, Benedict’s papacy was characterized by his ruby slippers and ruling a Land of Oz. Perhaps in the report he saw that the Papacy was not “infallible” after all. Perhaps he saw it was time to step down and for the Church to renounce maintaining a secular focus of worldly power and material wealth.
Jeshua really gave us only one commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” This is it. In loving ourselves and loving our neighbors we love God. There are no other rules. No judgments, no expectations. Any rules – dogma and doctrine – were and are man-made and focused on maintaining control, power and wealth. If we look around, we can see that old regimes and control programs are in breakdown.
In the Christian Gospels (Jeshua’s “direct” teachings) there is no condemnation for anything but hypocrisy. This includes homosexuality, contraception and abortion. Look for them. All scripture related to these “sins” are either in the Old Testament or in the Epistles and were written in the context of their time and are interpretations. Explicitly in the Gnostic Gospel of Mary Magdelene, we are told “Do not lay down any rules other than what I have given you and do not establish law, as the lawgiver did, or you will be bound by it.” With love, we need no other rules.
So what does this have to do with leadership?
Jeshua, a Universal Leader, came to show us who WE are. We are both human AND divine, spirit in matter. We are divine and our essence is love. Collectively we create life and our experiences. Collectively WE ARE GOD. This is our true nature. Christ is not a name it is our nature as “son of man.” Each of us is a Christ. Each of us is the creator. Leadership is creatorship. Entertain these possibilities even for just a moment. What choices will you make? How will you “show up”?
Many religions have obscured this message to keep us believing that we are separate from our true nature, powerless, so we give ourselves over to ”intermediaries” in the form of priests, imans, ministers, mullahs, rabbis, gurus, ayatollahs, bishops, rinpoches, cardinals, popes, dalai lamas. We are also given the message that giving these intermediaries power over us will buy us “redemption.” Nothing is further from the truth. Whether we call ourselves Christian or not, WE are the living Christ. This is the meaning of “resurrection.” This is not heresy or blasphemy. It is truth. To say this is heresy or blasphemy, to deny our complete nature, is arrogance beyond measure. We don’t need hierarchical intermediaries to manage the relationship with our own nature. When we do, we generate guilt and shame. No individual is holier (more whole) than any other. We can recognize that all others are our mirrors, serving us to acknowledge the divine within us all.
We only realize our potential and consciously rise above the egoic self in relationship to one another, as equals, as divine, as love. Self-realization comes when we choose love, when we act from the heart and inner trust. We are always connected to the divine; whole and complete within. All we “need” is to be love: To love ourselves and from there we love all others and life.
Rules teach us nothing more than to judge ourselves and one another. Once we do, we lose touch, we severe our connection with the sacredness of life, the sacredness of the love within. Rules are made up. Rules are not universal or eternal. Rules are not truth. They are the mind’s interpretations. Surrendering the perceptions of judgment and conditioned beliefs of the mind is the path of service. Care, understanding, respect, and responsiveness join us together as the oneness of humanity. We become a unifying force as we recognize ourselves as one.
Did Benedict create the Church’s hypocrisy? No. He actively participated. How many of us compromise ourselves and our integrity by actively participating in conditioned rules in the name of “success” or “happiness” that are externally driven without ever giving the “rules” any serious consideration for their trueness or meaning and impact in our lives?
Our “crucifixion” is putting our entire being in service to love. It may feel like a kind of death, putting all of our rules, beliefs and labels aside to fully engage with life.
Our Resurrection
We are spiritual beings having a human experience. To live absent spirit is to be out of integrity. Universal Leaders have complete integrity – integration – of all aspects of our nature: Body, mind, heart, and soul; actions, thoughts, emotions, and spirit. Only this complete integration results in authenticity. Anything less is hypocrisy. Integrity is what attracts other to follow. In being our whole and true selves, we invite others to do the same.
What does it mean to integrate spirit into one’s life? It means that we live life with the body, mind and heart, actions, thoughts and emotions, wide open to the movement and expression of love in each moment – care, understanding and respect. This is a life of wholeness, fulfillment, integrity, and authenticity. It is a life of surrender into the fullness of being, our true nature, by allowing love to flow and express through us. This is presence. Wholeness is holiness. It is our natural state when we choose to allow it.
We are human. We are divine. We are one. This is the meaning of the cross within the circle. This is integrity. This is authenticity.
Leadership is a ministry, a sacred trust to serve humanity to bring us home to our true nature. Jeshua said: “Love one another as I have loved you.” As leaders, this is the vocation that we are called to.
The election and humility of Francis shows us that we are in the throes of breakthrough if we recognize and accept the challenge to become Universal Leaders, to Lead as Love. Francis is breaking all the rules for “Pope.” I would thoroughly enjoy being his friend. We too can break the rules that have kept us in bondage.
We are challenged to stop living separate lives. Do we choose to live honoring religious institutions – dogma and doctrine? Or, do we choose to live fully as who we are as spirit in matter and honor the divine within? This is the Second Coming of Christ.
The leadership challenge of the Papacy and all religious institutions is to minister, to serve, the sovereignty of the Christ within each of us and bring this truth into full self-realization and actualization.
This is a quiet revolution from the center of our being as we allow ours heart to be our guide. The guru is within. Breaking free of the collective conditioning of what should/should not be done is not easy. Living love in each moment is not easy. Willingness to look at and own our hypocrisies with self-compassion is not easy. Allow love to be our guide.
We are all compadrés on the path of life; no one is greater or lesser than another no matter who we are or what we do. We are equals. No one is holier or worthier or better or more valuable than anyone else.
I hope this serves as a catalyst to disrupt beliefs we take for granted. I hope that I have caused us to deeply consider why we are really here and to choose to become more aware, caring, understanding, respectful, and responsive human beings, present to life as it unfolds. This is love. I hope that we look at everyone, including ourselves, just a bit differently: As God manifesting, expressing and creating life through us. All we ever ask is to be recognized and acknowledged for who we truly are.
Easter, Passover, Spring… all symbols of renewed life. I invite you to midwife the rebirth, the resurrection of the sovereignty of our souls, of spirit in human form. When you feel called to step into your authentic power as Universal Leader, I am here to serve.
Namasté
The divine in me honors the divine in you
Collectively we create our life experience. The purpose of leading is to bring people together in a common cause – to create unity in diversity. It should be clear by now that the use of force does not unite. Only the power of love can dissolve what separates us and move us forward – Leading as Love. The only way we can unite and make progress is through love. 
