Tag Archives: Baptism of Holy Spirit

May 31 2016

Following Christ Without the Old Time Religion

Danaheadshot  by Dana Taylor

Despite my New Age outward appearances, I am a follower of Christ. I hesitate to use the word, “Christian” as that often carries a variety of images and messages that I do not endorse. To name a few:
  • Eternal damnation
  • Patriarchy
  • Homophobia
  • Sanctified racism
  • War in the name of religion
I wasn’t raised in a tight Christian community. Southern California is a cultural crossroads. While the seeds of my faith were planted by my Christian mother, we stopped attending any church by the time I was ten years old. My high school and college years were times of growth and exploration. One of the greatest gifts of my culture was the freedom to think for myself. I didn’t have a pastor, rabbi, mullah, guru, father or mother imposing spiritual beliefs on me. People are born with a wide array of talents and tendencies. I was always intuitive and spiritually curious.
Like attracts like, so I made a best friend also fascinated by esoteric matters. There was many a rowdy teenage party that found us in a small room talking about Edgar Cayce and reincarnation while others were getting wasted.
My senior year in college took me to a four month internship in Oklahoma, where I met a young attorney and we enjoyed a whirlwind romance. He asked me to marry him three weeks into our dating life. My biggest hesitation was the fact he was a strong Christian and I was not. The afternoon of his proposal, we discussed our spiritual divide. But love and lust conquers all. We married. During our newlywed months, he generally attended church without me while I cleaned house on Sunday mornings. Eventually, I stepped into the Oklahoma culture where attending church is the foundation of community and making friendships. But, attending church does not a Christian make.
My faith began as curiosity, listening to an excellent, intellectual minister every week, and meeting people of strong beliefs. But becoming a follower of Christ requires meeting the Christ Spirit. There are life-changing moments — experiences so profound, they alter the course of one’s existence. They might be quite grand, with lots of drama, or they might be quiet and personal.

Prince of Peace by Akiane Kramarik

I met the Christ Spirit quietly in my bedroom one otherwise uneventful day. I’d been reading the Bible daily and considering all the angles. I’d even started sensing a Presence. At some point I said, “Okay, if you want me, I’d like to be on your team.” Or something like that. No great confessions. No howling to heaven. But it was enough. A power from beyond poured over me. Agape love. God’s love. Christ’s love.  L-O-V-E. Something so wonderful, the earthly love I’d felt before paled in comparison. I couldn’t see it with my regular eyes, but in my mind’s eye, the room glowed with rivers of sparkling light flowing over me. It was my personal mountain top experience. While I couldn’t live at the pinnacle of that mountain forever, I’ve settled in at a lower altitude.
However, finding faith, did not make me lose my intelligence or spiritual curiosity. It seems to me the message of Christ is simple and beautiful. Love one another. Forgive one another. Take care of one another. The message of the crucifixion was the power over death. Christ rose from the dead and His Spirit lives on, touching millions of lives every day, every hour.

A QUESTIONABLE CHURCH HISTORY

mariaAt this point I have mixed feelings about the historical teachings of the institutional church. From the time Emperor Constantine quit the persecution of Christians and embraced the new religion, men began manipulating the masses for control. The church has attracted true saints and also those wolves in sheeps’ clothing Jesus warned about. Killing in the name of Christ brought us the Crusades, the Inquisition, pogroms, and assorted religious wars. Men’s cultural power over women was reinforced by church doctrine. Many sermons make me grind my teeth when I hear a “woman’s place” given as God’s edict. (As an Oklahoma friend of mine put it, I am sick and tired of some middle aged white man telling me how I should live.) The faithful have suffered grievously from priestly sexual abuse finally exposed in recent years. It hasn’t all been pretty, pious, or peaceful.
Yet, Christ lives. He brought the message of Forgiveness, Love, and Everlasting Life. It was as revolutionary a concept 2,500 years ago as it remains today. He’s still communicating and teaching through those with the spiritual antennas to hear Him. In fact, he’s coming in more clearly than ever before. Study A Course in Miracles, begin your days with Jesus Calling. Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
One of my personal missions is simply to encourage people to think for themselves. I hear from readers of Ever-Flowing Streams: Christ, Reiki, Reincarnation and Me, who have felt they are somehow betraying their Christian faith by exploring ideas outside their standard church doctrine. It’s scary to break the bonds of a fear-based theology. What if the Devil really is out there to grab you?
Followers of Christ enter a higher spiritual realm. We don’t need to live in fear of spiritual boogie men. We do need to exercise discernment. There are dark entities and dangerous paths. But weigh whether a warning is grounded in intuitive discernment or old thinking. Is your bias spiritual or cultural? 
My faith in an active, loving Christ spirit has expanded, even as I’ve embraced concepts of re-birth and quantum physics. Jesus himself was a master of quantum realities ~ he walked on water, controlled the weather, and energy healed. He shook up the status quo and challenged the old guard. I’m simply following his example.
At the end of the day, it comes back to Love and Forgiveness. Jesus represents a global shift from a revenged based culture (an eye for an eye) to a forgiveness culture (forgive seventy times seventy). It’s 2,500 years later and we’re still trying to make that shift. 
There’s a lot of talk today about Light Workers. Many people from across the globe, including myself, identify themselves as Light Workers, spreading love and higher energy frequency to raise the consciousness of modern humanity. That all sounds very New Age, very Eastern, but Jesus may have been the first Light Worker. That’s why I’m still on His team.

I am the Light of the World. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. John 8: 12

colorful sunset

Bright blessings ~
Dana Taylor

F Available in paperback and ebook at Amazon

Jul 9 2011

Supernal Living: Part One- Attunements

I love reading books about quantum physics—not that I fully understand them. The tome I’m currently ingesting in small bites is entitled The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot. I read these books in an attempt to understand the life I find myself living.

A couple weeks ago our dear friend, Helen, visited us in Southern California. If you’ve read Ever-Flowing Streams, or just the Prologue here, you’ll recognize Helen as the Reiki therapist I first encountered in 2005. Through her I received my first and second level Reiki attunements. This visit promised to open a new door of exploration to something called the Oneness Blessing, which is a growing movement that began in India about twenty years ago.

During the course of her visit, the Supernal Friends (Paula & Sue) and I received three “blessings” during our mediation times together. What exactly is that? This started me thinking about the phenomena of receiving frequency adjustments in various manners.

In my life journey, I’ve received a variety of these experiences in different guises. They’re given different names. In Christian Evangelical circles they’re called “receiving the Baptism of the Holy Spirit,” being “slain in the spirit”, being “anointed.” In Reiki they are called “attunements”. White time universal energy followers call them “openings.” Now the Oneness movement is calling them “deeksha” or “receiving blessings.” In my lifetime I’ve been “baptized”, “slain,” “anointed,” “attuned,” “opened,” and now “blessed.” I’ve even been “gazed upon” by the healer Braco. I realize that makes me look like some kind of energy-junkie, but most of these experiences just came my way—or I was dragged by my Supernal Friends.

In the case of my earliest Christian experiences, they were spontaneous moments alone in my home during prayer sessions. Unique energies appear to be transmitting from somewhere beyond our third dimension through humans to other humans. The Pentecostal movement that has now affected millions of people worldwide began in 1906 at a church on Azusa Street in Los Angeles. One of the hallmarks is receiving the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. Believers feel a palpable change in their bodies. It affects people in various ways—they might feel joy, love, laughter, tears, or forgiveness. Many are healed of diseases. Some fall down on the floor, totally overcome by the power of the vibration. They feel connected to God and Jesus.

On the other side of the Pacific Ocean in 1922 a Japanese physician, Dr. Mikao Usui, went on a spiritual retreat to Mt. Kurama. On the twenty first day of prayer and fasting he received a frequency vibration called Reiki (god’s light) and started a healing movement that now has thousands of practitioners.

More recently, a husband and wife in India known as Bhagavan and Amma founded a children’s school in the 1980’s that has evolved into the Oneness University. Students come from all over the world and multiple religions to be transformed by the Oneness Blessing. The “deeksha” or Oneness Blessing is quietly spreading across the globe. Awakening into Oneness by Arjuna Ardagh offers a reporter-like presentation of the Oneness movement.

These are only three examples of the vibrational frequencies that are changing our world by first altering our minds and bodies. I like the term “attunement” best, because it reminds me of tuning a piano. The wire strings are adjusted by a master tuner to change the pitches and bring the instrument into perfect harmony. I think that is what all these frequency adjustments are leading to. For myself, it’s been a multi-decade series of “attunements.” Each one requires adjustment. Perceptions change. Physical and emotional healings evolve. Talents sharpen. Priorities switch. Awareness of other dimensions increases.

Many of us are beginning to lead “multi-dimensional” lives. That’s why I read books on quantum physics. They offer a scientific viewpoint to experiences some call paranormal and others call just plain crazy. We call it “Supernal Living.”