We wish all our dear friends a Christmas filled with joy and happiness. This post explains the symbolism of the manger at the birth of Jesus. We are reminded that Christ should also be born within us, not only in our souls and spirits, but in our physical bodies as well.

With luminous thoughts of light and love, wherever you are in the world, over this Christmas season,
From the Journey with Omraam Team, John, Valerie and Alvaro

‘Jesus made it very clear that it was possible for the physical body to be transformed into light; he showed us this in his transfiguration on Mount Thabor. The Gospels tell us that his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as white as light, and Moses and Elijah appeared and talked with him.

Why were Moses and Elijah there? Their presence at this moment in Jesus’ life was highly significant. It means that their spirit entered into him. Moses came to give him strength, for he was the master of strength; and Elijah came to give him his foremost quality, knowledge.

The teaching and prophecies of Elijah are so highly renowned and esteemed that, even today, it is said that he never died and that he will come again in the last days. At the moment of his transfiguration, therefore, Moses and Elijah took up their abode in Jesus. Jesus was not a single spirit; he was a collective being. All the great initiates before him had given him something of themselves, something that he needed in order to accomplish his mission.

At this point, you might begin to wonder whether it is possible for all human beings to be transfigured in this way, and the answer is yes. Such a transfiguration is possible for all those who succeed in purifying and sublimating their physical body.

For it is not only in our souls and spirits that Christ must be born, but in our physical bodies as well. This is the symbolism of the manger, which I explained to you on Christmas Day . When someone works consciously for a long time with faith, hope, and love, his body becomes so pure and so sublimated, and all their particles vibrate with such intensity, that transfiguration becomes possible for them, just as it was possible for Jesus.

And this is the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem is the perfection of an initiate, a master, in whom Christ is born; in whom Christ lives and breathes and manifests himself through those twelve gates, those twelve openings.

The New Jerusalem cannot come until there are enough human beings built on the same pattern, symbolically speaking, for the twelve gates of pearl and the foundations of precious stones symbolize virtues and qualities. You will perhaps ask why the city has twelve gates. Because it is an image of the universe and also of a human being, for a human being possesses twelve gates or doors.’

Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov

Sèvres, 4 January, 1959

Compete Works Volume 26, A New Dawn  Vol. 2
Chapter 6, The New Jerusalem