Elohim: The Holy Spirit of God's Grace

Before we get into what Genesis actually reports happened "in the beginning," you need to know a few things. The first is that the original Old Testament was written in Biblical Hebrew. In the early to middle part of the Third Century BCE, the first five books (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) were translated into Koine Greek by Jews living in the Ptolemaic Kingdom. Working from these early Hebrew and Greek versions (as well as the Latin Vulgate), a man named William Tyndale first translated the Old Testament into English around 1530. Because his original-source interpretations disagreed with the Vatican's sacrosanct "spin" on the Scriptures, Tyndale was tried, convicted, and executed (through strangulation and burning) as a heretic in 1536.

Tyndale's tragic fate isn't really the point, but it's an interesting piece of history, so I worked it in. What is the point? That when Tyndale translated the Book of Genesis, he replaced the PLURAL Hebrew word ELOHIM with the singular English word GOD.

Thus, the opening lines of Genesis originally read:

In the beginning Elohim created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of Elohim moved upon the face of the waters.

Tyndale's mistake was understandable, given that many Biblical scholars today, even Jewish ones, still WRONGLY believe Elohim to be an ancient name for God the Father. What Elohim actually means is Divine Grace. That Spirit of Elohim is, therefore, the Creative Force of Divine Will acting as God commanded to repair the perceived separation, rather than to Create (as it does in Heaven). Elohim's function is, in a nutshell, to dissolve the dream of separation over time without stepping too hard on the Sonship's "toes" of free will.

Okay, so ... is Elohim the Holy Spirit Jesus speaks of in the Bible and the Course? Based on my current understanding, what we conceive of as the Holy Spirit encompasses many ASPECTS and ATTRIBUTES of Divine Grace, but is not the Spirit of Elohim in and of itself. As Jesus explains in the Course, the Holy Spirit is our own Higher Self, guiding us back the way we came into the dream (and already exited in the Holy Instant). He or she is, therefore, the individual Soul-consciousness in each of us -- the fragment of the Christ Mind that's moving through the body's serial adventures within the "me-self" we  perceive ourselves to be in each dream-life. 

Before we move on, let me say that the traditional Christian concept of the Holy Trinity (as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is limiting to those seeking to master the atonement curriculum. And, because the Course borrows that construct, it, too, confines our understanding of how things really work. This is one reason Jesus tells us (in the epilogue to the Workbook for Students) that the Course is "a beginning, not an end."

To go "the rest of the way" to Knowledge, we must let the Holy Spirit (our own Soul-Self) expand our understanding of Higher Truth beyond the parameters of traditional Christian teachings. We expand our understanding by shedding, layer by layer, the deceptive "skin" of beliefs that no longer serve the goal of spiritual healing. Stated another way, we expand our understanding of Higher Truth by opening our minds to the possibility that what we presume to be "true" might be working against, rather than for, our deliverance.

We must, in other words, question EVERY belief we hold in the Light of Truth provided by our indwelling Holy Self, Soul, or Spirit.

Having said all that, let me now say this: The patriarchal Holy Trinity, as depicted in Christianity, doesn't exist -- on earth OR in Heaven -- because the Christian model erroneously intermingles the Triune Powers of Perfect Creation and the Triune Powers of At-one-ment.

The Triune Powers of Perfect Creation (the Holy Trinity in Heaven) are these:

1. God, the Father = Causal Creative Mind or Originating Source of Agape-Thought
2. God, the Son = Effect and Co-Generator of Agape-Thought
3. God, the Creative Force = Shared Will that extends Agape-Thought/Creation

The Triune Powers of Atonement (the Holy Trinity in the dream-realm) are these:

1. The Shared Will: The Creative Force directed by Father and Son to heal the separation
2. The Shared Word: The Christ Presence, empowered by the Father to redeem the Separated Ones
3. The Shared Light: The Holy Spirit as the truth-revealing Light and Life of the Father in the Son

A more abbreviated way to describe the Atonement Trinity would be this: 

1. God the Son as Father/Mother, the restorer of Shared Creative Will and Divine Law
2. God the Son as Christ/Redeemer, the restorer of Wholeness/Unity
3. God the Son as Holy Spirit/Illuminator, the restorer of right-minded understanding of Self, Truth, and Purpose

As Jesus states in the Course, the Father aspect of God never entered our dreaming minds. As he also explains, God projected the Holy Spirit into the dream through the Christ Mind. He further states that the Christ Mind knows and shares the Father's Will for the salvation of His Separated and, therefore, "blocked" Sons or Agape-extensions. Somewhere in the Course, Jesus also says that the Christ (Mind) is the highest Divine Authority in the dream-realm. Presumably, this is why Christ, rather than God or the Holy Spirit, is in charge of the Atonement (which he undertook to begin through the persona of Jesus of Nazareth). 

Okay, so ... just as in Heaven, these three-in-one aspects of the Christ Mind work together in our dreaming minds as one healing force Jesus refers to generically as the Holy Spirit.

Or, as expressed in Chapter 5 of the Course's Text:

The Holy Spirit is the only part of the Holy Trinity which is symbolic. He is referred to in the Bible as the Healer, the Comforter, and the Guide. He is also described as something "separate," apart from the Father and from the Son. I myself said, "If I go I will send you another comforter, and He will abide with you."  

That the Holy Spirit is the only part of the Holy Trinity "which is symbolic" tells us that He/She is the only part of the REAL Trinity working in the dream-realm, as an aspect of the Creative Force of Agape. The REAL God and Christ Minds are still in Heaven, co-creating in blissful partnership. What we understand to be the Presence of God and Christ in the dream are only manifestations of the Holy Spirit, Spirit of Grace, or Elohim. That Spirit, Jesus tells us, is the progenitor of everything OF GOD in the dream-realm -- EXCEPT the Eternal Light and Life of God in all body-clad lifeforms.

In Divine Reality, that Light and Life are shared by the single entity, being, Divine Idea, or Logos that IS Creation/Christ. In the dream, that indwelling Light and Life helps restore our memory of the shared ONENESS or WHOLENESS that makes Perfect Creation possible.  

Does that make sense? If not, maybe this will help: In the dream, the Holy Spirit isn't merely the third amorphous aspect of the Holy Trinity. As the "Spirit" or "Mind" of the Atonement, She plays all three roles as the "healing" aspect of the Divine Will shared eternally by the Father and Son. And, since we share God's Will at the unconscious level of our Souls, we agreed in advance to everything the Holy Spirit will both "do" and "undo" in the illusion of ego enthrallment.    

It might help to think of Grace as Agape with training-wheels. With the support of Grace, we relearn how to ride the big two-wheeler of Perfect Creation we fell off when we entered the Ego Mind's (Rotten) Egg of Guilt and Fear.

Or, as Jesus exhorts in Chapter 11 of the Course's Text:

Do the Holy Spirit's work, for you SHARE in His function. As your function in Heaven is creation, so your function on earth is healing. God shares His function with you in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit shares His with you on earth.

Isn't that more or less what I just said?

Let's now turn to Grace. What Jesus says about this healing power at the start of Workbook Lesson 169 (By grace I live. By grace I am released) further affirms much of what I've just explained:

Grace is an aspect of the Love of God [Agape] which is most like the state prevailing in the unity of truth. It is the world's most lofty aspiration, for it leads beyond the world entirely. It is past learning yet the goal of learning, for grace cannot come until the mind prepares itself for true acceptance. Grace become inevitable instantly in those who have prepared a table where it can be gently laid and willingly received, an altar clean and holy for the gift.

Why did God use Grace instead of Agape to end the dream? Because, unlike the full force of Divine Will, Grace could end the dream without 1) revoking the free will of the Separated Ones, 2) scaring the bejesus out of the dreaming Souls, and 3) bringing a bunch of disruptive malcontents back into Heaven. Using Agape to end the dream would have had two other undesirable consequences. The first is that blasting Agape into our dreaming minds would have made perception/consciousness REAL and, therefore, ETERNAL. The second, which is related to the first, is that Agape's presence would have made Perfect Creation possible in partnership with the Ego Mind.

And God wasn't about to let ANY of those terrible things happen to His dearly beloved Creations.

Okay, so ... before I say more about the Spirit of Grace, let me clarify that before the Great Projection there was only one plane of mind. That plane was Superconsciousness, Omniscience, Knowledge, or “mind awake” -- the shared state of being experienced by everything inside the God-Mind Bubble. This is the only state of being/cognition that's REAL -- i.e., created and/or recognized by God.

When the Separated Ones projected the split-off part of their mind into the "dark void," they experienced "mind asleep," consciousness, or perception. Once this happened, it seemed as if there were two minds sharing thoughts with them, rather than just God's. Because their perception of reality was, in fact, upside-down, they also experienced the Ego's deceptive voice as their own inner-dialog. God's Voice, meanwhile, seemed to be an alien "other" or background noise threatening their safety and sanity.

This perception of God as "outside" or "other" is what philosophers and metaphysicians call "duality," "dualism," or "dualistic" perception. According to the two Ascended Masters who dictated Gary Renard's The Disappearance of the Universe, there are four degrees of dualism. Those degrees are, from most wrong-minded to most right-minded:

1) Dualism (we are separate from God -- if He exists -- and the material world, over which we have no control);

2) Semi-Non-Dualism (God is a concept, such as "love" or "mind," which we share at some level, but we are still separate from the material world, over which we have no control);

3) Non-Dualism (God is our Creator, and He gave us the world to reawaken us to our True Identity and Creative Will); 

4) Pure Non-Dualism (God created and encompasses All That Is, and we are part of that Great Inclusive and Expanding ALL).

Masters Pursah and Arten also told Renard (and us, through him) that these four stages of "dualism" comprise the rungs on the ladder back to Heaven. Personally, I find this confusing -- and I'm pretty smart -- so, for greater clarity and cohesion, I've linked these four stages of perceptual dualism to those mentioned in my earlier post about the life of Jesus. The correspondences are as follows:

Step 7: Pure Non-Dualism = God-Realization or "Resurrection (pre-Ascension)"
Step 6: Non-Dualism = Christ-Realization, True Perception, or "Transfiguration"
Step 5: Semi-Non-Dualism = Soul-Realization or "Baptism"
Steps 1 - 4: Dualism = Ego Identification or wandering in the desert, alone and Agape-starved

Congratulations. You now have a rough outline of the ladder or stairway back to Heaven.

Okay, so ... when the Separated Ones first bailed out of Heaven, they landed on Step 7, where their Souls remained in their natural States of Grace. As their perception of duality magnified, they "fell" to the Sixth Step, where they weren't altogether pure-minded, but they still correctly perceived themselves as fellow fragments of the Christ Mind. For a time, they also still created according to the Law of Love. When that semi-sane state of awareness further eroded, the Separated Souls dropped to the Fifth Step, where they (wrongly) perceived themselves as individual Souls or Selves, rather than (rightly) seeing they still belonged to the same Greater Soul or Self.

With each downward step, the thought vibrations emanating from the Separated Souls increasingly slowed. The slower their thoughts vibrated, the heavier/denser they became. Soon enough, they descended again -- this time into the "dark void” of miscreated nothingness. That void is (I'm relatively certain) what's known as the Cosmic or Auric Egg.

Just so we're clear, all seven steps or planes are housed within the little basket riding on the outer membrane of the God-Mind Bubble. God doesn't absorb us back into the Bubble until we reach the Seventh Plane -- the purified State of Grace we briefly experience after the Elohim powers complete the dualism-repairing at-one-ment process.

Compare what I've just explained to what Jesus says below (from Chapter 13):

When you have let all that obscured the truth in your most holy mind be undone for you and stand in grace before your Father, He will give Himself to you as He has always done. Giving Himself is all He knows, and so it is all knowledge. For what He knows not cannot be and therefore cannot be given. Ask not to be forgiven, for this has already been accomplished. Ask, rather, to learn how to FORGIVE and restore what always was to your unforgiving mind. Atonement becomes real and visible to them that USE it. On earth this is your only function, and you must learn that it is all you WANT to learn.

Okay, so ... correctly conceived, the seven planes of consciousness are ALL remedial or corrective steps on the return journey to Superconsciousness, Knowledge, Heaven, Spiritual Sanity, or Pure Non-Dualism. We descended into the lower sector or "Ego Egg" when our thought-vibrations slowed from fifth-level to fourth-level misperceiving or duality. When that happened, we could no longer hear God's Voice (the Agape vibration) or remember our reality as His Holy Creations.

Having forgotten our shared mind and origins, we began to insanely attack and kill our own thought-projections. Deciding at this point that something had to be done, God devised the Atonement Plan. Owing to the Alpha-to-Omega dynamic of God's Ideations, the dream actually ended right then -- in a gentle, grace-induced Holy Instant. Like Sleeping Beauty in the allegorical fairy tale, we all awoke in our Father's Heavenly Kingdom, where we'd always been, safe, sound, and healed of the mad desire to experience individuality or "specialness."

If this is NOT our current reality, it's because our Soul-Self exercised the free-will option of keeping part of our mind "asleep" in the dream-recording. That option isn't indefinite, however, because the dream already reached a happy conclusion in Timeless Eternity. Those who choose to remain in the dream are, therefore, simply living through the recorded memories of all that happened in the Holy Instant in which God healed the separation with our assent through the Divine Force of Grace.

Confusing, I know ... but bear with me, even if it seems like I'm over-explaining or repeating myself.

Okay, so ... to bring all this about, God projected Elohim into the dreaming part of the Christ Mind. As explained, that "spirit" is the Creative Force of Divine Will recalibrated to serve the functions of teaching, healing, or atonement/forgiveness (rather than Perfect Creation). To preserve the Sonship's free-will, the Spirit of Grace brought into the dream the Holy Will shared by Father and Son, rather than the Father's Absolute Will and Power. She then divided that shared will into two parts. The "active" part she "married" to the Christ aspect of her powers on the Sixth Plane. The passive part she "parked" in each Soul's lowest memory chamber, where it would "sleep" until awakened at the pre-selected moment in time. 

We rouse that sleeping "willingness" by requesting the intercession of the Holy Spirit or Christ powers (as we perceive them) in the mess we've made of our worldly lives. Rightly understood, both those powers are aspects of our own Higher Self in different stages of awakening.

Makes sense, right?

Actually, this all makes more sense in the Hindu model, if we can get around the hash of deific personifications the Ego Mind has made of that ancient and beautiful religion. For this very reason, we're going to explore Hinduism (and Yoga) in more depth in future posts. For now just know that Hinduism is not, in fact, a polytheistic religion. Like Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, there is only ONE Supreme Creator in Hinduism. And, as the Course accurately teaches, that Supreme Creator is absent or outside the universe of maya created by Brahma, the Hindu equivalent of the Ego Mind. Also, as the Course and Hinduism both correctly teach, the objective reality the Supreme Creator would have us see is present even here, but hidden beneath the illusion manifested by Brahma. 

Okay, so ... what does the "active" part of the Shared Will do while waiting for its sleeping counterpart to awaken? The short answer is: It sings into the Inner-Instrument or Temple from the Sixth Plane of the Spiritual Triad. What it "sings" is the Cosmic Vibration of Grace, which Jesus calls the Song of Heaven in the Course. That "song" is both a magnetic Call to Awaken and a healing frequency or "tuning fork" for healing the mind.

As I understand it, that "tone" changes frequency as it travels downward through the Temple or Spiritual Body. As we retune our minds to these frequencies, we move back up the ladder. To rise or return to our Soul's natural State of Grace, we must think/vibrate at the same frequency as the Creative Force of Grace -- the highest thought-vibration possible in the dream of perception. We vibrate at that frequency when we reach the Seventh Plane (or vice-versa). Because that frequency is close to the Agape vibration, God can easily reach across the little gap between the two tones and "lift" our mostly-purified minds back into the Creation Bubble.

Awake in Heaven, we hear the ever-present Agape tone of Divine Will calling us to join together to create as God intended. Asleep on earth, we hear the ever-present Grace vibration calling us to join in forgiving our wrong-minded use of free will -- but only after we've "set the table" to receive this "gift" (i.e., have corrected our perception of the world and its purpose enough to open the inner "eyes" and "ears" of our Souls). 

To end the dream, Jesus tells us, every Soul must join its "voice" to that Heavenly Chorus. We join that Cosmic Choir, he also explains, simply by listening to the tone or echo in our minds. Because our minds are joined in the Christ-Self, we "give" and "receive" God's Saving Grace as we focus on the tone in meditation. This is, in fact, how we communicate with God and our own Creations in Heaven. On earth, listening to that tone is how we exchange the impersonal "Miracles of Grace" that heal us and others at the same time. Once we are healed, redeemed, or "enlightened," we return to the world periodically to perform specific miracles, as assigned by the Christ aspect of Elohim.   

Pretty cool, right?

That song of which I speak isn't completely foreign to Christianity. It is, in fact, referenced in the very popular hymn "Amazing Grace." In case you don't know the relevant lyrics, they are:

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

These lyrics are right on the money, because, as I've said, Grace (like Agape) is a vibrational frequency we HEAR with the "inner-ears" of our Souls. 

Throughout the Course, Jesus encourages us to turn inward and listen to the ever-present echo of God's Voice in the deep silence of meditation. From my experience, we don't really "get" what he's talking about until we reach what he calls "the branch in the road." As I currently understand things, that "branch" is the fork in the path via which we exit the Cosmic Egg. Stated more plainly, it is the crossroads between the material world the Ego Mind projects and the light-filled world of spirit we perceive through Christ's Vision. Once we reach this "fork," Jesus tells us, we can't go back. We can only choose between going forward (into the "upper waters" of mind) or staying where we are, thereby delaying or deferring our inevitable reawakening.

To go forward, we must "give up" the material world entirely. We must, in other words, break every chain binding us to the illusion of separation by foreswearing ALL the egoic ideas, beliefs, attractions, judgments, and attachments that block our awareness of what's Real and True -- not through SACRIFICE, but through the willing SURRENDER of all the Ego Mind's worthless God-blocking deceptions. As I'm learning rather painfully at present, those deceptions include ALL our guilt-sustaining judgments, interests, and ego-body relationships.

As I'm learning more joyfully at present, there's an ancient mantra we can chant to "prostrate" or "surrender" ourselves to the two-part "deity" known in Hinduism as Vasudeva. Vasudeva comprises both Vishnu and Krishna. Rightly perceived, Vishnu personifies the Atman, Soul, or Holy Spirit aspect of the Hindu Trimurti, while Krishna is an "avatar" or "state of being" experienced by Vishnu (the Soul-Self). As I understand it (and I'm no expert), Krishna represents the Soul in its Christ-Realized state of being, whereas Shiva personifies the Christ-as-Redeemer aspect of the Trimurti.

Known as Dvadasakshari, this powerful twelve-syllable mantra is said to burn away the maya that blocks the Soul's memories of Divine Reality. I've spelled out the mantra below, and linked it to Deva Premal's beautiful rendition of the Dvadasakshari on YouTube.

Om Namo Bhagavate Vāsudevāya

Okay, so ... having said all that, let me now say this: The Elohim of Genesis comprise the Spirit of Grace and her various Atonement Powers. How many are there? Most spiritual teachings identify seven "rays" or "graces," while others say there are eight, ten, or even twelve. In the Course, Jesus mentions the Great Rays several times, but never specifies their number.

After considerable study, prayer, and contemplation, I have come to believe there are FIVE actual Elohim powers: the Trinity aspects described above, as well as TWO "Great Rays." These two "rays" were dormant until Jesus completed his part in the Atonement Plan. These two powers, which we'll discuss later in the series, are in the Holy Spirit's "tool-box." Once we ask for His/Her help, these Great Rays work in partnership with the "passive" aspect of the Shared Will to guide our Souls back to the Sixth Plane of Consciousness (where Krishna calls to Vishnu with the song of his flute).

In future installments of my "Who or What is Elohim?" series, I'll discuss all of these powers in more detail. Up next, we'll explore what the Book of Genesis says the Elohim powers did "in the beginning" to change the purpose of the dream.