Jesus, The First "Mr. Universe"

In The Last Word on Power, one of the foremost experts on transformational leadership Tracy Goss writes that one cannot do the “impossible” simply by changing the various activities that one does. Rather, to accomplish the impossible, Goss teaches, one must first actually allow oneself to be changed. Personal transformation, Goss says, is the only way to make the so-called “impossible” happen.

Goss calls her teachings “non-religious.” Yet her methodology on “executive re-invention” accords well with the spiritual laws we study at Unity.

Unity acknowledges Jesus as a leader of the highest order. Throughout his life, Jesus performed acts of healing which were considered by most to be “impossible.” And, in his resurrection, Jesus demonstrated the absolute power of Spirit over any apparent limitation of this world, even the seeming power of sickness or of death. (N.B., At Unity, we do not believe that sickness or death have any actual existence, much less power. Thus, rather than say that Jesus “defied” death, it would be more precise to say that Jesus perfectly affirmed the One Power that is Eternal Life.)

For those of us who believe in Jesus’ resurrection, the main questions that arise are: How did he do it and how might any of us?

In Unity, we turn to the Bible for guidance on these issues. We do not focus our energies, however, on determining the historical precision of the various Biblical accounts; rather, through prayer and meditation, we seek to discern the Truth principles contained within the Bible’s stories. From the Unity perspective, the Bible can thus be viewed less as a news report and more as an epic parable about how a human being can come into the optimal expression of his or her divinity.

According to Charles Fillmore, co-founder of the Unity movement, the “way” that Jesus took, which is available to everyone, was not that of doing any particular acts to somehow influence “God.” (Now, this might sound like a silly, antiquated idea, but we do this in the modern age when we compulsively seek out The latest spiritual teacher or technology in hopes that, with the perfect mantra, gesture, prayer, or ritual, we will obtain access to God.) Rather, Fillmore teaches that Jesus’ own spiritual path was about personal transformation—i.e, altering his way of being. Specifically, he surrendered his ego-identity (or personal con-sciousness) for his true spiritual identity, which is his oneness with ALL THAT IS. In doing so, Jesus might be said to have become the first ever “Mr. Universe”!
Charles Fillmore describes Jesus’ transformational process as follows:

When Jesus had attained a certain soul development, He called His twelve apostles to Him. This means that when man is developing out of mere personal consciousness into spiritual consciousness, he begins to train deeper and larger powers; he sends his thought down into the inner centers of his organism, and through his word quickens them to life. Where before his powers have worked in the personal, now they begin to expand and work in the universal. This is the first and the second coming of Christ, spoken of in the Scriptures. The first coming is the receiving of Truth into the conscious mind, and the Second Coming is the awakening and the regeneration of the subconscious mind through the superconscious or Christ Mind. -CHARLES FILLMORE,THE TWELVE POWERS

Can we, like Jesus, do the seemingly impossible and heal the world? Can we, in view of our current lives, careers, health, and relationships, perfectly affirm and demonstrate Divine Wisdom, Eternal Life, Perfect Peace and Unity?

In John 14:12, Jesus is quoted as telling us, We most certainly can:

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do . . . .”

But to actually accomplish what, by all outward appear-ances, looks impossible, we must first allow ourselves to be trans-formed in consciousness. Like Jesus, we must call forth our 12 apostles, from our own inner

Christ, so that we might be “transformed by the renewing of [our] minds.”

As review, Unity teaches that the 12 apostles symbolize the 12 spiritual powers of man. (Note that there are also characters in the Old Testament who represent the same 12 powers from a worldly, rather than spiritual, perspective and we will explore more of these differ-ences in a later lesson.)

To call forth an apostle (a spiritual power) is to consciously surrender to Spirit our God-given faculties such as love, strength, intelligence, and understanding, which we have used in service of appeasing or upholding our ego-identities. “Spiritualized,” those powers no longer work in the personal, but, in, through, and as us, they “begin to expand and work in the universal.” (C. Fillmore)

To call forth any apostle is, moreover, an exercise of Divine Will.

In William Warch’s How To Use Your Twelve Gifts From God, he refers to the divine faculty of Will the “CEO” of the mind. It must give Spirit permission to operate in your life: As Warch describes (emphasis added):

Your will is the great permission-giver of your consciousness. It moves to action all your other spiritual gifts. No matter how much you understand your God-given gifts, if you are not willing to use them, they remain as potential only.

To surrender your personal will to the will of the One is to lose nothing (of value) and gain everything.

Follow me, said Jesus. For what shall it profit a man If he shall gain the whole world, And lose his own soul? -Mark 8:34, 36:

And yet, as many of us have exper-ienced when we did surrender our wills and our lives over to God, miracles began to abound.

FAITH: Spiritual Faith is the ability to mold universal substance (Spirit)—to draw Good into expression. And, as many of us have experienced, when we’ve been willing to withdraw our reliance on people, activities, or things outside ourselves to make us happy, and instead placed our faith in our own Higher Power (or God-Nature), we began to experience more magnificent lives: some of us became sober; seemingly irreconcila-ble relationships began to heal; work or support in previously unimagina-ble forms began to materialize or stabilize.

LOVE: Spiritual Love is the power to know our Oneness. And, as many of us have experienced, when we have began to come from a perspective of universality and one--ness rather than self vs. other, we have found greater peace, settled conflicts, forgiven and been forgiven. From quickened spiritual love, many of us have also spontaneously developed a greater interest in serving our fellow human beings and all that co-exists along with us.

WISDOM: Wisdom is the power to discern what is in the greatest good for all. For many of us, before we surrendered to a wisdom greater than ourselves, even our best intentions often went awry. Too often, this was because our intentions came from our ego’s view of what was right (or essential!) for us or someone else. When we sought a more universal wisdom, however, we found ourselves making wiser decisions with greater ease. We started to trust the flashes of insights that began to arise with greater frequency.

Indeed, through the conscious surrendering of our personal will to a power greater than ourselves, many of us have already accomplished what previously seemed impossible.

As Unity teaches, Jesus is “the great example, not the great exception.” As we become increasingly willing to die daily to the person we thought we were or had to be, so that what God is—what GOOD there is—can be born through us, we should only
EXPECT MIRACLES.