Beyond the Concept: an interview with Christopher Love by Wind Hughes Upon meeting Christopher Love, I was immediately taken by the intense energy emanating from his deep brown eyes. I felt warmed, relaxed, like I had just met an old friend I hadn't seen in a long time, and it is just this quality of intimacy and warmth that flows throughout the pages of his new book, The Sacred Path of Awakening. Christopher's teachings draw from his many years of personal and professional experience as a therapist, healer, musician, composer, and spiritual teacher. His list of accomplishments — including over fifty audio titles, four musical CDs, and an audio mystical children's bedtime story — leaves me wondering when he manages to sit in the silence and bliss he so clearly refers to in his teachings. I approached my meeting with Christopher with an open heart and curiosity as to whether his physical presence would reflect the clarity and profound simplicity he expresses in his written teachings. Sitting with him, it became clear to me that he sees all meetings as an opportunity for satsang, a gathering of spiritual community, even if it's a gathering of only two. His expression in person was even more compelling than in his book, which says a lot since I found his book an incredible journey through the layers and veils of illusion to the essence of the truth that we are God, Spirit awakening to our true nature. Christopher's presentation, "Know Who You Are," says it all, and led me to my first question. Wind: Who are we? Christopher: There is a force in the universe. This force has an urge to awaken spiritually, to know itself as God. We are this force. It is an undeniable force that helps us create many ideas and concepts about who we are and are not, on a very intelligent and highly synchronistic journey of personality and spiritual self-discovery. Our absolute potential is a full experience and expression of self, or what some people call God. We can all awaken to this experience, as it is who we are and what we have ultimately been seeking all along. With some intention, will, and action, the force will creatively move through us to allow us to have this ultimate self-realization. The realization is that we are oneness itself, not separate from what is called God. This force is an attraction of oneness, an eternal energy moving toward itself in the ultimate self-inquiry, a self-evolutionary, self-expanding way of being, constantly expanding into itself, for deeper recognition of itself and expression of this "oneness" self that is of absolute spiritual nature. We have the opportunity to ultimately experience recognition of who we truly are as what is beyond concept, beyond the concept of God. We are then a mystery. We are Mystery. Ultimately, it can never be fully answered, as there is no end to spiritual realization. There is no end to the potential of spiritual expansion. It is a riddle; it is a puzzle that can't be solved. Wind: I found your book, The Sacred Path of Awakening, enlightening, to say the least. Do you consider yourself enlightened? Christopher: I have exposed to myself greater experiences of myself. I have seen some of the puzzle pieces as I continue to evolve and recognize myself as the riddle. I have also recognized, in my search of enlightenment, that ultimately enlightenment doesn't exist. In an experience of oneness, there is nothing to be enlightened or unenlightened. So the answer is no, I am not enlightened. Wind: You speak as though you have had direct experience of this truth. Christopher: I'm speaking from undeniable direct experience, as there is no doubt. The experience is so full that there is no room for doubt — and all doubt, of course, is self-doubt, as all there is is self. This is the ego, this belief of self-doubt. "Since absolute truth is a mystery and cannot be fully known, then everything that is known is not of absolute truth." For compensation of self-doubt, we will naturally seek happiness and love. That is the good news. You see, God is seeking our attention in experiences of self-doubt, or whatever suffering there is in our life, as these experiences push us toward happiness and love, which is eventually recognized as not of the realm of the physical. Everything in the physical comes and goes. Nothing is everlasting, as the physical realm is very limited in that way. What is possible to recognize is what is everlasting and eternal. Wind: Compensation? Christopher: Yes. We are always compensating for our imbalance in nature: physical imbalance, psychological imbalance. This is also good news. We can use this, too, as a vehicle of awakening; we can compensate ourselves all the way to God. For example, a young boy who has an issue of not feeling loved by his mother might later seek to compensate for his self-doubt, created from this experience, by someday becoming the most powerful man on the planet. We have a very public example of this in our president. The trick would be to not identify with any aspect of the personality and behavior, but to heal the old wound and seek an even higher identification; as you move through layers of personality and old wounds, you reject all of the limited identifications of the physical realm. Then there is an opportunity for identification with a mystery, which reveals the insight that everything known by the ego is absolutely false. Since absolute truth is a mystery and cannot be fully known, then everything that is known is not of absolute truth. Thus, everything known by the ego is actually false. It is the illusion. This means that the personality that we express is not real, but is absolutely necessary to interface, so to speak, in the physical realm. The personality is a vehicle, our navigator in a pattern of lessons and other learning, including, ultimately, what is known as self-realization. Wind: In your book, you mention that truth is found beyond concept. Christopher: Beyond our conception of reality is the truth of oneness. It is absolute peace, wholeness, and love, and safety from death. In an instant, you can see what will die and what will never die. When you truly see what dies and what never dies, dying or not dying doesn't matter. Nothing really matters in a non-matter realm. This means that everything that we have learned through the ego is just concept, not the absolute truth. Everything is a concept, including our idea of mystery. We have to enter into an experience of no concepts to temporarily disengage the computer/ego mind. This no-mind concept has to happen by not trying. This ultimately means not doing and not knowing. We need to even lose the concept of not knowing. Then it is our potential to experience a fullness of self, as there is no other to know or not know: no body, no angels, no other realms, no universe, no separate Christ mind, as in that moment there is only One Mind. When this is experienced, we can stop the seeking. At this point, all karma is released. It, too, has done its job, and we can now move freely into the future. This silence also stops time, as there is no egoic reference point to the past and there is no future; there is only not knowing. But once again, evolution never ends. Wind: In the book, you share that you had a lifetime with Christ, to whom you refer as Jeshua, and the apostles. You were John Mark, known as Saint Mark in the Bible. Have you come back to teach at this time of earth changes? Christopher: Yes. I have had and continue to have recall experiences of those times. Mark is an interesting experience for me. I also remember lifetimes as a monk; a priest; a lama; a battle-hardened, sword-carrying Scottish warrior; a seer of the future; a Native American; mystical shamans: spiritual warriors, all of them. I have also been a street sweeper; I have murdered and been murdered; I have raped and been raped. No lifetime ever seems more important than another, though. All past-life experiences, powerful dream visions, and other phenomena seem to be equally important in the evolution of this soul, this lifetime in this body, and this expression called Christopher. I am Christopher. I have an intention to continue to be present with an undeniable force that moves through me at this time to have this expression as a teacher. I feel in this moment that I am an expression of truth, but truly, there is no such thing as a teacher, student, or teaching. There is only oneness. There are only teachers and students in some sort of voluntary, agreed-upon association with, ultimately, yourself, as, once again, there is only One Mind. When you ask for a teacher, a teacher synchronistically appears, until one day you recognize that you, too, are the master — and at the same time, truly, no master exists. I agree to play this role for now. Who knows where it might lead me into the future of these changing times? I can only be present with the now for the moment. The now moment is full enough. Wind: How do we discover this fullness of God self? Christopher: What must be discovered is how we resist the experience of God oneness. What egoic attachment do we have to our past, including all the egoic conditioning from the past? What needs to be healed? This state of being, in the fullness, is nature. It is just being natural. It is God waiting to greet us as ourselves. This is the peace we are seeking from the suffering created by the ego. It is my experience that there is an opportunity to end the suffering in a lifetime, an opportunity to discover self as beyond the concept of God. We are the creators! We created this system of God evolution; now it appears that we must create healing, then transcend healing, awaken, and then deepen the awakening. Then nature lands you naturally in a place of service to humanity that fits your individual nature and a higher life-purpose role. We must all serve humanity to find a better way, a new and sustainable way of being, a new way in peace, love, and happiness. There is an urgency, as the planet is in danger; as you mentioned earlier, times are changing. The individual responsibility to this urgency must start with self-healing and awakening. What will evolve from this is peace. Christopher Love is a certified clinical hypnotherapist, certified Neuro-linguistic Programmer, registered counselor, certified hypnotherapy instructor, a Reiki Master, and certified Reiki Teaching Master of the Usui System of Nature Healing. He travels extensively, offering presentations, workshops, and satsang. Christopher can be contacted through the Omega Myth Foundation at (800) 545-1074. Wind Hughes has over twenty years' experience as a psychotherapist, bodyworker, and healer. She co-authored the book Daughters of the Moon, Sisters of the Sun and created, produced, and co-directed the documentary video An Island of Women. She travels widely, presenting workshops and facilitating personal and spiritual transformation, sacred ceremony, and ritual.