Book Excerpt

From Reflections of the Christ Mind by Paul Ferrini

Published by Doubleday.  Order from them or from Amazon.  We no longer have copies of this book.

Preface by Jesus

You need not accept the authority of the teachings in this book just because they are attributed to me. Listen to these words and be with them. You will know if they speak to your heart. Like a string being plucked on a guitar, truth always resonates in the heart of the listener.

If these words resonate in your heart, embrace them. Work with them in your life.

This is a living teaching. It lives through you if you accept it. Your acceptance is our covenant. It is our agreement to live and move and breathe together in the spirit of love and truth.

While reading this book may be a first step into communion with me, know that meeting me in your heart is an ever-present possibility. These words are one door that you walk through into that friendship.

Don't stop listening when you put this book down. Keep listening that I might speak to you directly. Then, you won't need this book to create a bridge between us. The bridge will already exist in your heart.

This book invites you into a living communion with one who loves you and accepts you without conditions. If you learn to receive my love, you will attune to it. Like one torch lighting another, my love will ignite yours and our love will become a single blazing fire. It will burn away every obstacle to peace in your consciousness.

As it burns, your brother and sister will approach you, drawn by the light of the fire that rages in your heart. If they let our love in, they too will catch fire and this fire of love and truth will continue to burn until it consumes every fearful thought. Only then will its job be done. Only then will my work here be complete.

Our fire of light and love will give you the strength to face your fears, as well as the fears of other people. It will let you know in every situation that you are loved. It will remind you to let others know that you love them without conditions. When you are scared, it will give you the courage to say "I'm scared." When you make mistakes, it will give you the courage to say "I am mistaken, please forgive me."

My teaching is not difficult to understand. I did not say "love only blacks or Jews or Muslims." I did not say "love only people who dress like you, speak like you and share your beliefs." I said, "Love everyone. No exceptions. Even your enemy deserves your love." This concept is easy to understand, is it not? Even a child can understand it. Yet, it will challenge you every day of your life. This teaching will require all of your insight, all of your understanding, all of your willingness to practice if it is to become embodied in your life.

And embodiment is what I ask for. I ask you to embody the truth, not just to speak it. I ask you to live it every day. And when you forget, I ask you to become aware that you have forgotten. When you are afraid, I ask you to recognize the fact that you have fear rising and that fear shuts down your heart. I ask you to take a deep breath and remember. Remember me. Remember your brother and sister. Remember who you really are. You are not the ogre created by your fear.

You are the one who is completely loved and accepted. That is the truth. Let it come into your heart. Take my hand and walk with me through your fear. It is a journey you must all take, again and again, moving from fear to love, from weakness to strength, from resistance to acceptance. That journey is your redemption. It waits for you in every moment.

Please do not wait for Sunday to take the journey into love's embrace. Please take it right now. For there is only this moment, my friend. There is no past or future. Now is the only time in which we can meet. Are you ready to hear me now? Are you ready to take my hand and walk through the door of your fear?

I await your invitation. Knock and I will answer the door. Open your heart and my love will enter you.

I am the one you know as Jesus. While I am not in a body, I live in the hearts of those who remember me. Remember me, and I will abide with you.

This is my promise.

Preface by Paul

There was a time when the very thought of Jesus turned me off. It took me a while to realize that it was not him that I needed to reject. It was the untruth attached to the Christian teaching. It was the untruth embodied in thousands of acts of brutality committed in his name.

It took me a while to realize that he was not responsible for the choices made by other people. He was not responsible for the lies or the acts of cruelty. He was responsible only for what he thought, what he said and what he did.

Some of what he taught and demonstrated has come down to us unobscured. That is our great blessing. Yet other parts of the teaching have become lost or twisted. The fear of other men and women has consistently stood between him and us. It is hard to see him through that fear.

Jesus never taught a single fearful principle. He taught only about the power of love and forgiveness. But even the purest words can be distorted.

I had to forgive that distortion to see him as he really is. I had to let him into my heart.

Over and over again, I heard a voice in my mind saying "I want you to acknowledge me" but I resisted. I didn't want to acknowledge Jesus. I heard his words deep in my soul, but I did not want to name him.

You see, naming him would change everything. Naming him would mean that I acknowledged him, not as some great teacher that lived the past, but as a presence living in my awareness. It would mean accepting his love as an active ingredient in my life and my awakening process. It would mean that I had a teacher.

Back then, I didn't want a teacher. I was comfortable with spirituality as an abstract concept, an impersonal energy. I was not comfortable with the idea of a personal relationship with a teacher and a teaching. I needed to keep my teachers at arm's length. That's what felt safe to me.

Naming him meant letting him in. It meant acknowledging him as a here and now teacher. It meant I had to give up my safe, intellectual distance. I had to let go of my need to be in control.

Naming him meant accepting my relationship with him personally and publicly. It wasn't an easy thing to do.

But I did it because I felt his love. Even before I knew who he was, I felt his energy. He was joining me in my emotional body long before he asked me to acknowledge him mentally.

I wasn't opening the door to a stranger. I was opening the door to the friend.

If you are like I was and want to keep your safe, intellectual distance, your hands-off skepticism, you better think twice about reading this book. Reading these words may open a door you want to keep closed. Better turn back before it's too late.

Words are not just words but containers of energy. Although some words and sentences in this book may fall short of capturing the precise meaning he intends, I know that taken as a whole this book carries the energy of his intention.

As you read this book, you will attune to Jesus and begin to feel his love in your heart. Then, you will know in the core of your being that you are not alone.

You will accept the Friend into your life. That is a blessing that cannot be taken away.

For those of you who want to know more about my encounter with Jesus before reading his teachings, I refer you to the Appendix. But for the rest of you, please start at the beginning and let him speak now for himself.

I send you my love and my blessings.

Paul Ferrini reading from The Gospel