Your Faith Is Your Fortune
| Chapter 11 |
CHRISTMAS
Behold, a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a Son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God with us. – Matthew 1:23
One of the most controversial statements in the New Testament concerns the virgin conception and subsequent birth of Jesus, a conception in which man had no part. It is recorded that a Virgin conceived a Son without the aid of man, then secretly and without effort gave birth to her conception.
This is the foundation upon which all Christendom rests.
The Christian world is asked to believe this story, for man must believe the unbelievable to fully express the greatness that he is.
Scientifically, man might be inclined to discard the whole Bible as untrue because his reason will not permit him to believe that the virgin birth is physiologically possible, but the Bible is a message of the soul and must be interpreted psychologically if man is to discover its true symbology.
Man must see this story as a psychological drama rather than a statement of physical fact. In so doing, he will discover the Bible to be based on a law which, if self-applied, will result in a manifested expression transcending his wildest dreams of accomplishment. To apply this law of self-expression, man must be schooled in the belief and disciplined to stand upon the platform that “all things are possible to God” [Matthew 19:26; Mark 9:23; 10:27; 14:36; Luke 18:27; Acts 8:37].
The outstanding dramatic dates of the New Testament, namely, the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus, were timed and dated to coincide with certain astronomical phenomena.
The mystics who recorded this story noticed that at certain seasons of the year beneficial changes on earth coincided with astronomical changes above.
In writing this psychological drama, they have personified the story of the soul as the biography of man.
Using these cosmic changes, they have marked the Birth and Resurrection of Jesus to convey that the same beneficial changes take place psychologically in the consciousness of man as he follows the law.
Even to those who fail to understand it, the story of Christmas is one of the most beautiful stories ever told.
When unfolded in the light of its mystic symbology, it is revealed as the true birth of every manifestation in the world.
This virgin birth is recorded as having taken place on December 25th or, as certain secret societies celebrate it, on Christmas Eve, at midnight of December 24th.
Mystics established this date to mark the birth of Jesus because it was in keeping with the great earthly benefits this astronomical change signifies.
The astronomical observations which prompted the authors of this drama to use these dates were all made in the northern hemisphere; so from an astronomical point of view, the reverse would be true if seen from the southern latitudes.
However, this story was recorded in the north and therefore was based on northern observation.
Man very early discovered that the sun played a most important part in his life, that without the sun, physical life as he knew it could not be.
So these most important dates in the story of the life of Jesus are based upon the position of the sun as seen from the earth in the northern latitudes.
After the sun reaches its highest point in the heavens in June, it gradually falls southward, taking with it the life of the plant world so that by December almost all of nature has been stilled.
Should the sun continue to fall southward, all nature would be stilled unto death.
However, on December 25th, the sun begins its great move northward, bringing with it the promise of salvation and life anew for the world. Each day, as the sun rises higher in the heavens, man gains confidence in being saved from death by cold and starvation, for he knows that as it moves northward and crosses the equator all nature will rise again, will be resurrected from its long winter sleep.
Our day is measured from midnight to midnight, and, since the visible day begins in the east and ends in the west, the ancients said the day was born of that constellation which occupied the eastern horizon at midnight. On Christmas Eve, or midnight of December 24th, the constellation Virgo is rising on the eastern horizon.
So it is recorded that this Son and Savior of the world was born of a virgin.
It is also recorded that this virgin mother was traveling through the night, that she stopped at an inn and was given the only available room among the animals and there in a manger, where the animals fed, the shepherds found the Holy Child.
The animals with whom the Holy Virgin was lodged are the holy animals of the zodiac. There in that constantly moving circle of astronomical animals stands the Holy Mother, Virgo, and there you will see her every midnight of December 24th, standing on the eastern horizon as the sun and savior of the world starts his journey northward.
Psychologically, this birth takes place in man on that day when man discovers his consciousness to be the sun and savior of his world. When man knows the significance of this mystical statement, “I am the light of the world” [Matthew 5:14; John 8:12], he will realize that his I AM, or consciousness, is the sun of his life, which sun radiates images upon the screen of space. These images are in the likeness of that which he, as man, is conscious of being. Thus qualities and attributes which appear to move upon the screen of his world are really projections of this light from within himself.
The numberless unrealized hopes and ambitions of man are the seeds which are buried within the consciousness or virgin womb of man. There they remain like the seeds of earth, held in the frozen waste of winter, waiting for the sun to move northward or for man to return to the knowledge of who he is. In returning he moves northward through recognition of his true self by claiming “I AM the light of the world”.
When man discovers his consciousness or I AM to be God, the savior of his world, he will be as the sun in its northern passage.
All hidden urges and ambitions will then be warmed and stimulated into birth by this knowledge of his true self.
He will claim that he is that which heretofore he hoped to be.
Without the aid of any man, he will define himself as that which he desires to express.
He will discover that his I AM is the virgin conceiving without the aid of man, that all conceptions of himself, when felt, and fixed in consciousness, will be embodied easily as living realities in his world.
Man will one day realize that this whole drama takes place in his consciousness, that his unconditioned consciousness or I AM is the Virgin Mary desiring to express, that through this law of self-expression he defines himself as that which he desires to express and that without the help or cooperation of anyone he will express that which he has consciously claimed and defined himself as being.
He will then understand: why Christmas is fixed on December 25th, while Easter is a movable date; why upon the virgin conception the whole of Christendom rests; that his consciousness is the virgin womb or bride of the Lord receiving impressions as self-impregnations and then without assistance embodying these impressions as the expressions of his life.
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