Q15: I would like to hear Jeshua address the following issue brought to my attention by one who does not embrace our path or beliefs. This person quotes, “The message from Jeshua tends to privatize spirituality and right action. One could easily forget or rationalize away one’s responsibility to the poor and oppressed.”

A: Indeed, beloved friend, it is with great joy that we come forth in this hour to address this specific question. For indeed, it is a question that has been brought forth by many, many minds in many epochs. For, you see, there is a tendency for the human mind to separate spirituality into two camps.

There have always been those that sought to separate themselves from culture, from community, from daily life, and to run off to their caves and their monasteries, in order to seek a purely interior relationship with God. Now, there’s nothing wrong with creating a purely interior relationship with God, since that is the Truth of your fundamental Reality.

However, when the mind holds the perception that it must separate itself from what it perceives the world to be in order to discover God, that mind is already beginning its search on a futile premise. For this means that one is still a victim of the world, and that the world holds a power to separate you from awareness of Love’s presence.

Now, in the other camp, there are those who would wish to believe that genuine spirituality means constantly being engaged in finding someone to help or to fix. But this, itself, is also but an expression of egoic consciousness.

If only I can do for others, then I will validate my worthiness – not just to myself, not just to God, but my neighbors will see all the grand works that I do. So let me, indeed, rush about to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and house the cold. And, of course, whenever I gather with my friends at a cocktail party, I’ll let them know what I’ve been doing all week.

Each approach is founded in egoism. Now, in the latter camp, there are those who would seek to render service to others and perceive spirituality to require sacrifice of time, of energy, of money – it doesn’t matter as long as the idea of sacrifice is, shall we say, fulfilled. I want to share with you that none of these approaches is genuinely what could be called spirituality.

Anyone – anyone – who has ever come into contact with what I teach, not just through this, my beloved brother, but through any of the other numbers of channels or friends with whom I am communicating with your world … if anyone would but read A Course in Miracles … if anyone would but read the sentences printed in red in their Holy Bibles (some of those are actually genuinely what I taught), they would be hard pressed to overlook the most fundamental of teachings that I’ve offered.

First, the greatest of gifts, the highest form of service that you can give to anyone is to assume responsibility for your underlying sense of separation from God and to rectify that mistaken perception. That is where spirituality must start. For, until that is accomplished, all of your doing in the world will be clouded with egoism. Those who strive for peace would do well to first become established in true peace within themselves.

Those that seek to serve the hungry would do well to nourish themselves until they are filled, not with that which satisfies the body, but with that which satisfies the soul. For only when the soul is brought back into perfect alignment with its established unity with God can the wisdom of God inform that soul, that person, in which actions truly serve the highest good. Without it, one will merely use ideas learned from the world and will try to be the maker and the doer of its service.

This is based on the assumption that one knows what their brother and sister needs. Therefore, if you see one who is hungry and sitting on the side of the street, saying, “Here, give me a few shekels of coins so that I can go and eat”. If you perceived spirituality as being a duty to the oppressed, the poor, and the hungry, you would immediately look about to see what you can do for that person, based on their request. And, more importantly, based on what you perceive is amiss.

But how do you know that there is something amiss because a soul has chosen to create a situation in which they have no job, no home and no friends? Remember always that each mind literally creates its lived experience in this domain. There is no such thing as victimization. And oppression does not come from without. Oppression is a perception created within that mind. Anyone who looks upon the history of humanity can recognize many instances in so-called oppressive situations where individuals have simply chosen not to be oppressed, and have moved with freedom and with dignity, even into what appears to be death.

Therefore, beloved friend, understand this well: Relationship is the means to your salvation. But the fundamental relationship that must be rectified, must be nourished, must be healed, must be cultivated, is your direct and immediate union with, and communication with, your Creator. When this is established, the soul rests in perfect peace. It has far transcended the impulse to be the doer and the maker. It looks out upon a world completely forgiven; in your language, “let off the hook.”

One does not look out and see a world that must be saved. One no longer looks out and sees a world in travail. One merely becomes the servant of the extension of Love and makes no pretense that it knows beforehand what that should look like. But in every moment and with every breath, that mind merely asks within, Father, what would you have me do this day? How might I be of service as your plan for the Atonement is achieved in human consciousness?

One learns to listen to that Inner Voice that might very well say, I want you to establish hospices in every city in the world. Begin now.

That same Voice might say to you, Go and sit by the park this day and forget the world. Breathe deeply of the Angel of Air. Let the Angels of Sound of the Running Waters fill your soul and heal your bodies. Nourish yourself today. Go watch a movie, play with your friends, read a good book, have a cup of tea. Those that believe spirituality rests on how much service is given to the oppressed might never hear the Voice that says, include yourself in the circle of your Love.

Therefore, awakening requires that all vestiges of the world mind are cast aside and one rests in that Perfect Truth which can inform perfect action, right action, through you. Again, the fulcrum of what I am sharing rests on this: Without the interiorization process of cultivating the healing of your misperception that you’ve ever been separate from God, without cultivating deep Self-love – not love of ego, but love of Self – without that, the deep silence required wherein one hears the Voice of the Comforter is never achieved. And only that voice, the right- mindedness within you, can perfectly inform your actions in the world.

Therefore, he who follows me, indeed, journeys to the desert for forty days and forty nights, and leaves his friends and disciples and businesses and associates to go off and be alone for prayer, for cultivating daily the process of seeking first the Kingdom . . . that all things, including how you can be of service, might be added unto you. Think not for yourself, but love the Self enough to surrender the world into God’s hands. And see it not as a place that needs you to fix it. For, of yourself, you can do nothing. I am the vine and you are the branches. Remember always that, without the Christ Mind dwelling within you, that of yourself, you can do nothing. And your service, though laudable in the eyes of the world, means nothing.