31
May
2017

Pentecostal Fire

Pentecost Icon

At the end of this Talk with Agi Reijo said: I like it the way you start talking every time with freshness as if you had forgotten all the reactive ways of expression and can start anew from the beginning. Agi: I only prepare myself and through that I get a theme, but I do not work it out in any way. It is formulated in me out of the present moment; what I express comes to me when we start talking.

Agi: What is the meaning of the Pentecost? What is the picture and what does the traditional iconography say of the Pentecost in the New Testament when the Holy Spirit descends? This takes place at this time of the year, 40 days after Easter, death and resurrection of the Christ. 40 denotes a complete cycle in time, also used in the Old Testament, a completion of a period. At the Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descends on the community. The disciples were again twelve; in the inner world, it means that all the parts were together. When all are together the time is completed.

What do we understand about the Holy Spirit? It is said that it is the third person in the Holy Trinity besides the Father and the Son. It is said that at Pentecost He descended like fire upon every head. From then on, all the disciples could understand and speak the language of everyone else and even understand foreign languages, and speak them. Of course, this is not to be taken as a historical happening, but an inner event.

It is very difficult for us to understand the Holy Spirit and it was not easier before.

Reijo: It was also the Holy Spirit who came to the Mother of God at the Annunciation and had contact with her through Archangel Gabriel, an angelic messenger. Nine months later Jesus was born through the action of the Holy Spirit.

Agi: This third aspect of the Unity, called the Holy Spirit, acting on the pure soul, the Virgin soul of Mary, can become a reality in us all. What takes place at the Pentecost, what is given now, is the ability to be connected. Today we call it relationship. To know this, each other's language is necessary. We do not understand everything in the same way or we use different expressions for the same thing. If we remain only in our own concepts there are all the possibilities for misunderstandings to arise. The relationship is not only towards other human beings, but also towards creation, to our own inner world and finally towards Unity.

The Holy Spirit comes so to say in our heart at Pentecost and we can understand the language of others and speak their language. We can express ourselves so that others can understand it. This is the ability that is missing so much in our time. Earlier we called it simply Love. It is about relationship; we do not need to be what the other is, but we can be in a relationship, open for understanding and respect, knowing that the other person is not the same as I am, does not think or see things in the same way.

Reijo: Respect instead of comparison. Do you mean not to compare, but to find similarities and what is connecting us?

Agi: What is in between me and another person is often comparisons and imagination related to what I know about him or her. I do not see him right now; he is not today what he was yesterday or ten years ago. To see is to respect (Latin: respectare - to look again); I see this person right now as he or she is, not with my old eyes, but with a fresh look, with respect. I can get out of my egotistic world. Love can only take place in the present. This means that a relationship and an exchange becomes possible. This applies also to our inner life.

We understand love on the emotional level; we are conditioned to understand love manifested in emotional life and sentiments. This can be love, but at a lower level, a very natural level, but Love cannot be limited to this! The cat does not like the dog, but they can have a friendship when they come close to each other; I would rather call this like and dislike.

It is important to understand what Love is; it is not simply being lovely or being nice! This can also be fine, but Love can be so much more! However, when Love is expressed in some other way then we do not normally sense it as being Love.

Reijo: There are so many fine words that start with the prefix re! Respond, respect, remember, remind, repeat... It is important how we respond, what we remember, what we are reminded of, what we repeat and what we respect. These are about re-lationships and at any time this can go the wrong way. (By the way I love these words like re-birth, re-ijo...)

Agi: What prevents us from real Love? There are a few things that are like veils. Some of the strongest of these are the emotions. When I like somebody, it is an emotion and then I say I love this person. If this person says something that I do not like then I immediately do not like this person. Where has the love gone? Emotional love is very nice for some time; it can nourish us, it can give us something, it can heal. But it is not enough if it remains just emotional; through a small thing it can become even hate or rejection, or change to something else. Have you noticed that we ended up again with the emotions?

Reijo: Two questions:

  1. What is it in us that gives such importance to the emotions?
  2. How can we deal with our emotional life?

Agi: I discovered that the four human races are dealing in general with the four elements: earth, water, air and fire. Each of the races has a definite task, its own sphere. The black race has the strongest connection to element earth, that is importance of the body, working with it and alive in the body. They are home in the body; their way, life and development is through the body.

The red Indians have their point of gravity in the element fire; they are at home in this element, in magic and have power upon nature. They know how to control matter on every level. Their way is the way of the Shaman.

The yellow race is related to element air, that is to the intellectual life of the human being. They have a clarity of mind. Their task relates to philosophical understanding.

Of course, all the four races have the four elements in them, but the predominant one is what I am talking about. The way the elements are mixed in the different races is what makes the varieties.

The significance of the white race is the strong emotional life. No other race has the continuous changes in the facial expressions, which are mainly due to the changing emotions. We are ruled by the emotions and have the cosmic task to work with them; this can become our inner way!

About your question of how to deal with the emotions, there is a beautiful story in the New Testament. It is a theme that we do not often think about. The reason is that it is not so easy to understand. Here again I would like to emphasize how important it is to see through different traditions with their different pictures and to find out about the different aspects of a definite theme.

Here is the quote from the New International Version of John 5: Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda[a] and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie; the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.[b] One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, do you want to get well?

Sir, the invalid replied, I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.

Then Jesus said to him, Get up! Pick up your mat and walk. At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

What was the man really speaking about? You mentioned in our earlier talk that it is easier to be calm and not be effected with the emotions when we are doing our morning preparation (prayer, present moment practice or meditation), because mainly only thoughts come and go; there are no impulses from the outer world, which would move our emotions. In all the Holy Scriptures, water means emotions. It is interesting to read some of the stories in the New Testament about water, knowing that water is about emotions; to know it becomes a key. For example, Peter could not walk on the water because he had no faith.

What does it mean in us if some impulse comes and moves the water, emotional reactions, in such a way that we cannot get there first? When we get a strong feeling, it can happen that we are paralyzed and caught by the emotion. Others go to the water: our pride, fear, complexes or vanity get there first, but I am left behind. These others use the energies of the moving water and we cannot be healed. Therefore, it is so important to get through to the pure increasing emotional energy. If we reject our emotions then the water in us is not moved. When it happens then it is vital that I go to the moving water to be healed, to become whole, to become holy; not to be separated from the flow, the energy of the moving water.

Reijo: You were saying that the four races have their different ways of functioning; physical, intuitive, intellectual and emotional and that these are a result of the elements mixed in us human beings collectively in four different ways. This makes it difficult for people to understand each other; this is simply in their make-up, both at the race and the individual level. The Pentecost through the Holy Spirit takes away the walls of separation and makes communication possible. What is this action?

Agi: The Sufis say that the fire of Love burns everything that is not Love so that only Love remains. This is the fire of Love; there are no different fires, like the fire of hell and the fire of Love. We project the fire of Love down to the fire of Hell, the fire which we suffer from. There is only one fire and it is the fire of Love. This fire of Love can burn and hurt in a way we do not like. After all who likes it that the identifications and illusions are destroyed and our identity dies with them?

Reijo: This is the identity that we like so much.

Agi: Yes, we are totally identified with the parts in us. These parts should melt together. When we have come so far that we understand that what we are suffering from is the fire of Love then we are already in the Purgatory; then the suffering has the effect of purifying us, even if we do not understand the full meaning of it.

Reijo: In the Christian teachings, there are two Baptisms. The first is the Baptism by water and the second the Baptism by fire. So, the Baptism by fire is the Baptism by Love. Of this fire Jesus said that he baptizes by the Holy Spirit.

Agi: We do not want to be burned. Only this fire can cause the ultimate transformation in us to produce the substance of existence. In this process, the energy in us is released, like in the burning of a piece of wood. The fire of Love frees the energy from the matter, where it was caught up. The soul becomes free.

Author; Reijo Oksanen Kategorie: arssacra

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Reijo Oksanen

Reijo Oksanen

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