CHRISTMAS: A SPIRITUAL OR A RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE?

Author: Patricia Sherwood

Christian mystics, such as the Rev. John Todd Ferrier, have long sought to convey the spiritual experience of the Christmas story. However, until the twentieth century, the mystics have been too often silenced by an eccelesiasticism which retained power and control over nations, through the propagation of a controlled experience of Christmas which I label the “religious experience”.

What then are the qualities of a spiritual experience of Christmas and how does this contrast with the ecclesiastical religious experience? Jesus Christ is within the Soul of every individual. This is the primary message of the Christian mystics. Look within, prepare your own Soul for the birth of Jesus Christ. This is your Divine heritage. The power to realize the state of Jesus Christ is yours. Christmas is the Soul's great spiritual experience. Writing in The Master: His Life and Teachings, the Rev. Ferrier had this to say:

The Annunciation was a beautiful Soul experience . . . It concerned the birth of Christhood within the Soul. For the Christlife is the holy thing begotten within Maria the Soul, from the Holy Breath. And it is that holy state which bringeth with it Light for all Souls.
. . . Mary and Joseph represented the experiences through which all Souls pass on their way to the realization of the perfect Divine Life, the feminine and masculine modes of the Soul. (pp 56-57)

The spiritual view of Christmas opens the door to every Soul to claim its own spiritual power, it is a cosmic call, the heritage of all peoples. In contrast, the religious view is exclusive. Believe in the all powerful external Christ and you join an exclusive club of believers. There is no need to change one’s inner life, to prepare for the birth of Christ because it has all been done by someone else for you. While this is a comfortable experience for some, it does in essence mean that the believers have forfeited their own spiritual power. They inherit a tradition of belief that rests like a dead weight upon the Soul, because it has not been renewed and revitalised by the individuals' active involvement in shaping their Soul growth. The spiritual experience of Christmas is a vital, daily-renewing experience, with the individuals working at the anvil of their own life experiences to shape them in a form that will prepare for the birth of a life energised by Divine Love and Light. There is no exclusiveness, it is all-inclusive, a workshop for every Soul seeking to realise Divine Love and Light whether called Christ, Krishna or Buddha. The spiritual experience is a compassionate one, the religious experience a judgmental one. In the compassionate experience God's heart is limitless. There is a space for everyone; it is a love that is unconditional and knows no boundaries. One's understanding becomes illumined with great compassion, a limitless vision of the unity of all life which generates an abandonment of judgement and condemnation. Such a person is in touch with his own shadow, and thus can accept other human beings and their Soul journeys. In contrast, the religious experience of Christmas has its roots in ecclesiastical control, and domination produces a God preoccupied with judgement and condemnation.

There is no room for the Christ-child in the Inn of Ecclesiasticism. The Christ-child is born in the manger of the compassionate heart. Of this, the Rev. Ferrier wrote:

He is not born where earthly ambitions prevail, but in the meek mind and gentle heart. He is not born where the proud oppressive spirit rules, nor where the life of of the helpless creatures is hurt and taken from them. He is born where mercy and truth meet each other, and righteousness imparts the kiss of Divine Peace. (The Master, p 135)

In the spiritual experience of Christmas there is always the realization of the oneness of life. The motion is to reach out and embrace life with a mind illumined by compassionate understanding, not to judge with the closed heart and narrow mind. The realization of the oneness of life in the spiritual experience of Christmas leads to a profoundly ecocentric world-view. The Christ-child is surrounded by the creatures at birth:

The life of that one in whom the Christ-child is born must be a friend of the creatures. It could not be otherwise. The ox in the stall, the ass in the stable, the sheep in the byre, the dove in its cote, and all creatures in their several degrees of unfoldment, are related to such a life by indissolvable ties, even that of the Oneness of all true life, and by the fact that the gentle creatures have been the venues through which the Soul has passed upwards in its true evolution before the Divine Love. And when the Christ-child is about to be born within the Soul, the life awakens to the consciousness of its relationship to all the creatures, its duty unto them, and the service it must perform in making manifest the Divine Love then awakening within the Soul.
(The Master pp 135-136)

The creatures then share the spiritual experience of Christmas. Their lives are honoured, their Soul-journeys recognised and their right to a peaceful space on the Planet validated. In contrast, the religious experience of Christmas as practised by ecclesiastical and civil powers legitimates a war of oppression against the creatures as they are slaughtered in even greater numbers to mark the birth of the Christchild - the Prince of Peace. This profoundly anthropocentric world view denies the creatures any soul or any rights. There is no refuge for the creatures, no peace, no escape from oppression and cruelty. In this anthropocentric religious experience, humans use creation at their own whim and pleasure without any sense of the indissolvable ties of all living things. In contrast, in the ecocentric world view which characterises the spiritual experience of Christmas, there is the realization that what happens to the least part of creation happens to us. Anna Bonus Kingsford, so poignantly captures this experience when she writes in Clothed With The Sun of the Soul realising the Christ Within:

There is no offence done and I suffer not; nor any wrong, and I am not hurt thereby; For my heart is in the breast of every creature, and my blood is in the veins of all flesh. I am wounded in my right hand for man, and in my left hand for woman, in my right foot for the creatures of the Earth and in my left foot for the creatures of the seas. And in my heart for all.

It becomes clear, that one cannot have a spiritual experience of Christmas without becoming committed to a profoundly transforming social justice ethic. For when one has glimpsed that the birth of Jesus Christ is the realisation of all our actions, thoughts and feelings of cosmic compassion, then social justice in the broadest sense must he a cornerstone of our lives. This view is powerfully expressed by the Rev. Ferrier in the foundation statement of the mystical Christian Fellowship, the Order of the Cross:

To teach the moral necessity for humaneness towards all people and all creatures. To protest against, and to work for the abolition of, all national and social customs which violate the teachings of the Christ, especially such as involve bloodshed, the oppression of the weak and defenceless, the perpetuation of the brutal mind, and the infliction of cruelty upon animals.

In contrast, the religious experience of Christmas as propounded by eccelesiasticism either perpetrates social inequalities and injustices, or complacently ignores them. Established civil, social and natural hierarchies based on either overt or tacit oppression continue their reign unquestioned and unchallenged. Christmas is a one-day event that celebrates a cultural supremacy and religious elitism that leaves the lives of the suffering and oppressed on this Planet largely unchanged. This beautiful Planet cries out for us to abandon the religious experience and choose the spiritual experience of Christmas. Then, we will open our minds, hearts and Souls to cosmic compassion as we labour to give birth to the Christ-child. And in the birth of our own Christ-child, all peoples, all creatures, all life shall celebrate.

Patricia Sherwood
Boyanup, West Australia

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