Shortly
after Jesus was born, King Herod was jealous and fearful
because it was said that Jesus was to be King. When the
three wise men came to King Herod and said "We are
looking for the baby Jesus, the new King," Herod said
"Oh that is wonderful, he is the new King, right? Let
me know where you find him." After the three wise men
found the baby Jesus, an angel said "Go home and do
not tell Herod where he is." Herod was so threatened
by this new King he thought his only recourse was to kill
all the babies in the kingdom. Jesus' parents fled to Egypt
while Herod was killing every male child up to two years
old.
The
Toltecs say that everyone is dreaming a dream of how life
is supposed to be. We call it the "Dream of the Planet,"
the consensus reality of society. When a baby is born into
the Dream of the Planet, the baby does not know the dream.
The people dreaming the dream do not know that it is a dream.
They say, "We don’t do that in our family, that
is enough crying, go to your room." They teach us how
much to cry, what it means to be a boy or a girl, all the
different things they know and believe. So what happens
to that Divine Child that was born already knowing everything
he needed to know about who he or she is and how he feels
and what is real for her? He or she had to go into hiding,
into exile. He had to go to the inner Egypt and hide so
that "Herod," the false King of the outer Dream
of the Planet could rule the Kingdom. Herod rules with fear
and force. Our inner Herod learns the rules from the outside
and then he takes over.
The
Toltecs call that the process of "domestication."
They domesticate us. It is just like what you do with a
puppy. If the puppy piddles on the rug, it gets smacked
and thrown outside. When it learns to run to the door to
go outside, it gets a cookie and is told "good boy,
good girl." As a child, you learn the rules in the
book of law your inner Herod uses and you learn to be afraid
of breaking the rules and being punished.
Before
Jesus can be free and begin his ministry of Personal Freedom,
he must go to the desert. He goes to the desert for 40 days
and 40 nights to battle Satan, the devil. What is the devil
offering him? He is offering power in the world. "You
can be King of the world." He is challenging Jesus,
and Jesus denies every lie the devil uses to seduce him
away from his Divinity.
We
can use this time of year to focus, to challenge everything
our inner Herod says, to deny the false king that has taken
over our lives. Our true Divine self went into exile, but
each of us has an opportunity to challenge the false king,
the Herod inside of us who rules our lives with fear.
We
also have an assumption that everyone else is Herod, just
like the Herod inside of us, the false king who knows all
of the faults and shortcomings and all the reasons we aren’t
as good as the other person ("You can't sing as well,
dance as well, and aren't as smart as others"). Herod
compares you to other people constantly and makes you wrong,
makes them better, and assumes they are judging you. He
judges and punishes you for the same little mistakes over
and over.
In
the old days the Toltec work was very harsh and based on
fear and accumulating power. When Miguel Ruiz came to the
United States and started teaching, he realized that fear
was not an appropriate way to teach the love he wanted to
share, so he dropped most of those old mythologies. The
work we are doing now is teaching our minds not to believe
our Herod, but to believe something else. It fits so beautifully
into this time of the year, not just Christmas, but also
the solstice, a time of the returning of the light. People
were celebrating this time of year long before we had a
story about Jesus. We can use this time to focus and concentrate
on the return of the Divine Light inside of each of us,
the one that went into exile, the true King to the throne
of our Inner Kingdom. That Light is still shining in each
and every one of us.
I
would like to invite you to go on an inner journey with
me. A journey that might help reclaim that light!
Imagine
yourself going back in time to when you were an infant.
If you don't exactly remember, imagine what it would be
like to be an infant a few months old. It was a time when
you looked out of your crib and saw colors and shapes without
knowing what any of it was. Be that child now. You have
no opinions or judgments about any of it. You just ARE.
Be there right now and experience it as completely as you
can, this feeling of just Being, with no opinions or judgments,
simply accepting everything the way it is. To accept everything
exactly the way it is could be called "love."
Imagine that this experience you are having is the experience
of being "Love." It is like something
is passing through you, something coming out of you to.
I
imagine that if there is a Creator on the unseen side of
the veil, that Creator must love this universe without any
conditions or expectations, just as it is. If that Creator
wanted to send that perfect love to our manifested world
so that we could experience it here, what better channel
than you, this little infant. Perhaps you can feel your
infant self as a channel for the love of the Creator flowing
through you into creation. As people look into your eyes,
they see that love, and they know there are no judgments,
no opinions, only Love pouring out of you. They want to
experience that, so they pick you up, they get your attention,
and if you smile when you see them that just fills their
heart. You open their heart and their heart fills with that
same love and they love you without conditions, without
expectations and the love flows back and forth between you.
Know yourself as this Love, this channel for the Divine.
There is nothing you have to do to create this love, nothing
you have to do to it get right, and there is no end to it.
It just pours through you from the other side of creation.
It is your nature as part of the Divine Creation.
"For
unto you today is born a savior, a Divine child, a light,
and that Divine child is you." Inside of you somewhere
there is a part of you that recognizes that you are the
true King of your inner kingdom -- no longer with the innocence
of the child, but with the wisdom of your adult self. I
invite you right now to invite this Light to the throne
of your inner world and to deny the Herod that rules there.
Throw out the false king, the one that lives on fear, lies,
gossip, envy, jealousy, opinions and judgments!
I
invite you right now as a gift to yourself for this season
and for all of your life to bring the true King back to
his rightful place in your Inner Kingdom. Be a channel once
again for that Love passing through you from the Creator
on the unseen side, into the world, into your world, your
body, your mind, your spirit.
As
you slowly ground yourself into this experience, I invite
you to see through the eyes of your new King, of the Divine
light that you are, see with new eyes and see what IS, as
it is, as Creation itself, as Love. There is only this.
"Behold,
for unto you today is born a new King."
Thank
you for letting me share my love with you.
