9 Principles to Awaken Your Spiritual Consciousness

The Edgar Cayce readings state that there is some truth in all religions and further suggest spiritual practices that can be found in the East and in the West. The readings further state that a pattern for spiritual growth has been set and they refer to that pattern as Christ Consciousness.

One cannot develop Christ Consciousness in a single day, but we can go through the steps with theory and story and explanation to get a small yet powerful experience of thinking and feeling like the Christ.

We can begin with chanting, which balances the body, mind, and soul and especially brings a centered consciousness to the mind. I like to use the Roberto Assagiloli Disidentification Exercise that advises us to unburden our minds of false identities and focus on the “I am” consciousness. After that, I like to recite the “Helpfulness Prayer” from A Course in Miracles.

I am now in a state of receptivity for the first of nine principles of Christ Consciousness.

The first principle is: What you give or teach you build within yourself. If you teach love, you will build love within yourself. If, on the other hand, you teach criticism, then you will build doubt within yourself. We are always teaching either love or fear in what we do and how we speak and so we build forms of love or fear within our consciousness. The Christ Consciousness is all love so to form that consciousness in our minds we need to teach love since love is who and what we are.
The second principle goes like this: I am Holy. You are Holy. We are already Holy. The Holy is real. When we see the Holy in someone we are seeing the real in them. We are loving them. Transcendent love is the recognition of the Holy within the other. When we see the unholy in them, we are seeing them in parts. The whole person eludes us. We also build within ourselves a fragmented sense of self. This is why criticism, distain, and contempt are so corrosive to relationships of all kinds, including our relationship with ourselves.
The Light of the mind is the Holy Spirit is the third principle. We must ask for that light to see the Holy and also to have the courage to give rather than get. The Holy Spirit always lets us know that things will turn out when and only when we allow it. God’s time is immediately.
The fourth principle rounds out our morning with Attack thoughts build fear and helplessness in the thinker. Change attack thoughts either to thoughts of blessing or thoughts of curiosity, for curiosity is the friend of the open mind and perhaps the heart of love. If neither blessing nor curiosity work, then ask yourself what you are afraid of and what is it that you want deep down in life. In asking yourself what you are afraid of, ask too where it is that you feel helpless or hopeless and what old thoughts or beliefs are you clinging to which foster helplessness and/or hopelessness. Then ask the Holy Spirit to give you the power to see beyond circumstances and think thoughts of love and life.
The first of the five remaining principles of Christ Consciousness is The true self is holy. The recognition of the true self with joy is love. Love is always a remembrance of the essence of the other plus the soul’s notes of individuality. The secret of lasting love is a lasting recognition of the Holy in the other.
The sixth principle is The Christ consciousness only considers what is Holy as real. Thus attack, criticism, judgment, punishment, and hatred are unreal. Despite their effects in the ego’s world, the above are in reality unreal and so may be called illusions. They all support the grand illusion that we are separate from God and each other.
The seventh principle concerns forgiveness. It states that When there are grievances, forgiveness must be brought to the relationship. Forgiveness means that we will stop building a case against the holy one we hate. We ask the Holy Spirit to show us how that person is either showing us love or calling out for love.
The eighth principle is the most important: God is in everything I see. God is in my mind. We project God out into the world when we’re moved by the beauty and harmony of a sunset or an orchestra or a flower. God is always in our minds waiting to be recognized, waiting to be loved and, yes, waiting to be projected.
The final principle concerns our will. All situations can be seen with peace if that is all we want. Edgar Cayce states that the will is the strongest part of us. What we want dictates our line of focus. We will see what we want. When peace is the only thing we want we will see peace in everything we see.