The Way of the Phoenix

Upon the death of the monarch in many European nations, this statement is often made:

The king is dead. Long live the king.

And if the monarchs involved are female, the statement is modified to this:

The queen is dead. Long live the queen.

These declarations address the physical death of a monarch who is head of state. But the same statement might be made related to all the little deaths that occur in the life of any individual—all the times in a person’s life when who they have known themselves to be dies in favor of the new person they are destined to become.

The king is dead. Long live the king.

The queen is dead. Long live the queen.

This is the Way of the Phoenix that rises from the ashes of what has been. This is the way offered by Emissaries of Divine Light. This program is offered by people that have gone past the death and the dying of the old in their lives. Together we are part of a cycle of experience that has gone past our own collective death to rise from those ashes and fly in the air of awake consciousness.

It is a rare person who has the experience of having their old world and their old identity challenged by life to the point that who they have been dies, and who is then not obsessed with the drama and the tragedy of what has passed away. It seems so easy for most to lament what is no more, to become nostalgic about it and to resent what seems to have been taken from them.

The life of the Phoenix is never about the ashes. This is the story of the risen Christ—not just Jesus, but the Cosmic Christ within all people. It is the story of the spiritual reality that carries on after the death of what has been. Yes, there is an old reality that disintegrates. But awareness can ascend and there is a state of consciousness past the veil that keeps most people earthbound, without the spiritual awareness that is natural to the Phoenix.

Under the veil, there are all the aspects of common human behavior and experience. There is human trying and, along with that, there is human spiritual practice and human goodness. A person ascends through that veil when that experience breaks. Who they were as a person who is trying to become something that, in their heart, they believe they are not, dies. Ascending through the veil, they are entering the joy of the reborn king or queen who embodies the reality of the Cosmic Christ in life. I understand that, to many, it is not obvious what is happening for Emissaries of Divine Light. They cannot see the Phoenix flying above the veil, high in the air of spirit. But that is exactly what is happening and it is miraculous.

I think of all the remnants of the spiritual teachings that went before us, whether you call it religion or spirituality, or even our own spiritual teachings from out of the past. Some of those teachings are useful as a point of reference for the Way of the Phoenix. But the excitement is being in the fresh teaching now. And when I say teaching, I do not just mean what someone might say in a classroom. I am speaking about participation in the evolving consciousness of Being, and then having the opportunity to bring that experience to other people and invite them into it. The thrill is to be in that and to let the creativity, the intelligence, the inspiration of Being flow through. That is the real teaching. There are remnants of that teaching left as we go along, and there are remnants left from enlightened teachers who went before us. Those remnants can be useful in various ways, depending upon the clarity of them and the relevance to the situation we are in. But we are here for the fresh teaching now.

I am filled with the wonder of what we have the opportunity to do and what we are bringing to the world. By its nature it uses form, but it is not a form, so it is not a religion. It is not even spirituality. It is just Being. It becomes a spiritual teaching, or it could become a religion, but in its essence it is not all the forms it becomes. Yet we create forms that give a context for people to be in, so that they can experience something deeper and higher themselves. But within the form, the magic is the inner thread of unfolding meaning that is within us and within all creation.

There is the wonder of Being that knows no end. And yet there is a veil in human consciousness. That veil includes limited religious beliefs and spiritual practices that are substitutes for the flight of the Phoenix. They may be from the East or the West. Some of those beliefs and practices are clearer windows for the truth of Being than others. Yet none of them are an adequate substitute for primal spirituality, which is the Way of the Phoenix.

Primal spirituality is when you die in your life and you keep going; when everything you thought your life was about dies and you keep moving and find that life did not die, and you are alive and love is alive. You are just moving into something else and it is not even about the death; it is about the continuance. It is about the eternality of life as you are knowing it and as you are living it, and the beauty and the wonder of that. And then the fact that all that you thought was so essential could die and you did not.

I am not a negative person by nature, so I am not advising anyone to go into negative experiences for the sake of doing it. I am just saying that in life there is spiritual teaching, but the ultimate teacher is life itself. Life is teaching us all the time and, in that teaching, life is breaking who we have thought ourselves to be, so that the greater reality of who we are can come forth and we can know that we are not that persona that broke. There is an inner eternal reality that is perpetually and eternally strong and beautiful and wondrous, that never breaks and that never dies, and that is who we are. We are the Phoenix.

The king is dead. Long live the king.

The queen is dead. Long live the queen.

David Karchere
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