• Practice Metta or loving kindness meditation each day
• Notice any areas of life that tend to fuel your mind with fear, paranoia, or hatred (thereby restricting the heart) such as social media, the news, or certain environments, and reduce or totally remove them
• Keep a gratitude journal or have a little gratitude practice each day where you contemplate all that you’re thankful for
• Be of service to others whether that is through holding space for a friend, helping out a family member, volunteering, or providing the support someone in need requires
• Choose a mantra or affirmation (such as the Heart Sutra or a statement such as “I open my heart to love) and use it during the day as an ongoing form of meditation and centering
• If you work with chakra energy centers, focus on your heart chakra

3. Incorporate inner work into your daily life

In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus is recorded to have said,

If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.

These words perfectly highlight the necessity of inner work which is the practice of shining the light of awareness onto your inner landscape for the purposes of self-exploration, self-understanding, healing, and spiritual transformation.

The three main inner work practices that I have extensively explored, practiced, and written about before are (1) self-love, (2) inner child work, and (3) shadow work.

I always recommend cultivating self-love and a compassionate relationship with yourself first as it sets the ground for the other two forms of inner work (inner child and shadow work), making them much easier.

There are many ways to incorporate inner work into your life. Some examples include journaling, dream analysis, pathworking, shamanic journeying, somatic therapies, mirror work, art therapy, and many other practices. Choose what resonates with you!

4. Contemplate the words of Jesus and the Christian Mystics

In his book ‘Resurrecting Jesus,’ Zen spiritual teacher Adyashanti recommends the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mark as two rich places to contemplate the words of Jesus.

The Gospel of Thomas, in particular, offers a more “koan” type of experience in which the entire book is composed of Jesus’ sayings.

There are also many Christian Mystics who can provide a unique doorway into the heart of Christ Consciousness such as St. John of the Cross, Meister Eckhart, Julian of Norwich, Hildegard of Bingen, St. Teresa of Ávila, and many, many others.

Take your pick!

Then, try and devote a little time each day to contemplate their words or Jesus’ words (or both).

Contemplation means to simply hold in your mind a word, sentence, or image and let it sink into you, without trying to analyze or dissect what it “might mean.” Contemplation is an action that takes you deeper into the heart than the mind.

Christ Consciousness Quotes

In honor of the previous point about contemplation, here are some illuminating quotes from both Jesus and other figures, that point toward Christ Consciousness.
You’re welcome to take these quotes as a point of meditation or contemplation or to simply enjoy them.

The light of Jesus, the light of the world, is the light of our own awareness.

– Adyashanti

Behold thine immortal Self resurrected with Christ in the illuminating Light of Christ Consciousness, present in every soul, every flower, every atom.

– Paramahansa Yogananda

Christ wasn’t a Christian and Buddha wasn’t a Buddhist and Muhammad wasn’t Muslim. These people were having the experience of unity consciousnesses and universal consciousness and they spoke of it in words.

— Deepak Chopra

When a person experiences ego transcendence or enlightenment, we often say she has merged with the Light or with God, the Self, Buddha-nature, Christ consciousness, Emptiness, or Being — the ultimate sacred Other.

– Bill Plotkin

The kingdom of God is within you.

– Jesus (Luke 17:21)

Let us meditate until we perceive the Infinite Christ reigning in our own hearts. Let us learn to love those who love us not; and to forgive those who do ill against us. Let us break all our mental boundaries of color, creed, and nationality, and receive all – even our inanimate and animal brothers – in the endless, all embracing arms of our Christ Consciousness. This will be a true and fitting celebration of the coming of Jesus Christ to this earth.

– Paramahansa Yogananda

Christ Speaks:

In your gentle hand
hold my love in your palm
Once my hands were thorny and bloody,
yet I still beam love to humanity
through my heart,
mine eyes, mine soul,
imbued by the most gentle hands of all
Our Holy Spiritual Oneness

? Ramon Ravenswood

Remember always that the goal of awakening, of self-awareness, of living in higher consciousness is always about the very same thing that Christ brought into the world which is unconditional, agape love.

? Theodore J. Nottingham

Love thy neighbor as thyself.

– Jesus (Matthew 22:39)

But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, · bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

– Jesus (Luke 6:27)

God is never out of the soul in which He dwelleth blissfully without end.

– Julian of Norwich

The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God’s eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.

– Meister Eckhart

Final Words

Christ Consciousness is a beautiful and multi-layered term that refers to Divine Love, spiritual integration, and the process of heart awakening; a form of Illumination and transformation that happens at deeper levels of spiritual awakening.

Wherever you are on this path and whatever relationship you have with more traditional forms of Christianity, there is a mystical core at the root of every tradition that points to the Oneness underlying all existence.

Christ Consciousness is that unifying force of the sacred Heart that we all have access to if only we are open – it is an expression of our True Nature.