If you look in the books about religion, the ones that describe Hell, you might notice that the description of Hell sounds an awful lot like how you feel when you are filled with anger or fear. The quest that the Toltec path leads us on is the journey out of Hell and into Heaven on Earth. If you read carefully about Heaven in books about religion, and you listen to what Jesus said about Heaven on Earth, you know that heaven is an experience we can have right here on earth-- when we live in peace and love. I have not read that Jesus ever said that when you die St. Peter is going to be at the pearly gates to tell you if you are going to Heaven or Hell. I don't remember my hero talking about that.

Before the time of Jesus, the people were using the Ten Commandments to guide them. Then Jesus came along and said he had a new covenant. They were expecting him. They knew there was a Messiah coming who was going to bring freedom to the people. It must have been confusing to the people when he came and said "No, I am not talking about being free from the Romans. I am talking about a covenant of love and of personal freedom." They probably said, "What good is that, we want to be free from our slavery!"

What I would like to share here is the idea that this life of Jesus that we all are tuned into at this time of the year is also the story of our individual healing journeys. Jesus was born as a Divine child and everyone celebrated that birth. The angels told the shepherds, the three wise men came. They were excited about the birth of this Divine child.

Shortly after Jesus was born, King Herod was jealous and fearful because it was said that Jesus was to be King. When the three wise men came to King Herod and said "We are looking for the baby Jesus, the new King," Herod said "Oh that is wonderful, he is the new king, right? Let me know where you find him." After the three wise men found the baby Jesus, an angel said "Go home and do not tell Herod where he is." Herod was so threatened by this new King he thought his only recourse was to kill all the babies in the kingdom. Jesus' parents fled to Egypt while Herod was killing every male child up to two years old.

The Toltecs say that everyone is dreaming a dream of how life is supposed to be. We call it the "Dream of the Planet," the consensus reality of society. When a baby is born into the Dream of the Planet, the baby does not know the dream. The people dreaming the dream do not know that it is a dream. They say, "We don’t do that in our family, that is enough crying, go to your room." They teach us how much to cry, what it means to be a boy or a girl, all the different things they know and believe. So what happens to that Divine Child that was born already knowing everything he needed to know about who he or she is and how he feels and what is real for her? He or she had to go into hiding, into exile. He had to go to the inner Egypt and hide so that "Herod," the false King of the outer Dream of the Planet could rule the Kingdom. Herod rules with fear and force. Herod learns the rules from the outside and then he takes over.

The Toltecs call that the process of "domestication." They domesticate us. It is just like what you do with a puppy. If the puppy piddles on the rug, it gets smacked and thrown outside. When it learns to run to the door to go outside, it gets a cookie and is told "good boy, good girl." As a child, you learn the rules in the book of law your inner Herod uses and you learn to be afraid of breaking the rules and being punished.

Before Jesus can be free and begin his ministry of Personal Freedom, he must go to the desert. He goes to the desert for 40 days and 40 nights to battle Satan, the devil. What is the devil offering him? He is offering power in the world. "You can be King of the world." He is challenging Jesus, and Jesus denies every lie the devil uses to seduce him away from his Divinity.

We can use this time of year to focus, to challenge everything our inner Herod says, to deny the false king that has taken over our lives. Our true Divine self went into exile, but each of us has an opportunity to challenge the false king, the Herod inside of us who rules our lives with fear.

We also have an assumption that everyone else is Herod, just like the Herod inside of us, the false king who knows all of the faults and shortcomings and all the reasons we aren’t as good as the other person ("You can't sing as well, dance as well and aren't as smart as others"). Herod compares you to other people constantly and makes you wrong. He judges and punishes you for the same little mistakes over and over.

In the old days the Toltec work was very harsh and based on fear and accumulating power. When Miguel Ruiz came to the United States and started teaching, he realized that fear was not an appropriate way to teach the love he wanted to share, so he dropped most of those old mythologies. The work we are doing now is teaching our minds not to believe our Herod, but to believe something else. It fits so beautifully into this time of the year, not just Christmas, but also the solstice, a time of the returning of the light. People were celebrating this time of year long before we had a story about Jesus. We can use this time to focus and concentrate on the return of the Divine Light inside of each of us, the one that went into exile, the true King to the throne of our Inner Kingdom. That Light is still shining in each and every one of us.

I would like to invite you to go on an inner journey with me. A journey that might help reclaim that light!

Imagine yourself going back in time to when you were an infant. If you don't exactly remember, imagine what it would be like to be an infant a few months old. It was a time when you looked out of your crib and saw colors and shapes without knowing what any of it was. Be that child now. You have no opinions or judgments about any of it. You just ARE. Be there right now and experience it as completely as you can, this feeling of just Being, with no opinions or judgments" simply accepting everything the way it is. To accept everything exactly the way it is could be called "love." Imagine that this experience you are having is the experience of being "Love." It is like something is passing through you, something coming out of you.

I imagine that if there is a Creator on the unseen side of the veil, that Creator must love this universe without any conditions or expectations, just as it is. If that Creator wanted to send that perfect love to our manifested world so that we could experience it here, what better channel than you, this little infant. Perhaps you can feel your infant self as a channel for the love of the Creator flowing through you into creation. As people look into your eyes, they see that love, and they know there are no judgments, no opinions, only Love pouring out of you. They want to experience that, so they pick you up, they get your attention, and if you smile when you see them that just fills their heart. You open their heart and their heart fills with that same love and they love you without conditions, without expectations and the love flows back and forth between you. Know yourself as this Love, this channel for the Divine. There is nothing you have to do to create this love, nothing you have to do to it get right, and there is no end to it. It just pours through you from the other side of creation. It is your nature as part of the Divine Creation.

"For unto you today is born a savior, a Divine child, a light, and that Divine child is you." Inside of you somewhere there is a part of you that recognizes that you are the true King of your inner kingdom -- no longer with the innocence of the child, but with the wisdom of your adult self. I invite you right now to invite this Light to the throne of your inner world and to deny the Herod that rules there. Throw out the false king, the one that lives on fear, lies, gossip, envy, jealousy, opinions and judgments!

I invite you right now as a gift to yourself for this season and for all of your life to bring the true King back to his rightful place in your Inner Kingdom. Be a channel once again for that Love passing through you from the Creator on the unseen side, into the world, into your world, your body, your mind, your spirit.

As you slowly ground yourself into this experience, I invite you to see through the eyes of your new King, of the Divine light that you are, see with new eyes and see what IS, as it is, as Creation itself, as Love. There is only this.

"Behold, for unto you today is born a new King."

Thank you for letting me share my love with you.