In a recent regression intensive, a student was reliving several devastating lifetimes in world history, such as the horrors during the Crusades and the Holocaust. She kept remarking, in a perplexed sort of way, that Mother Mary was there and just watching, witnessing.  The student remarked that she, too, had been called to witness, in many of her livetimes, including this one.  We were all moved by her experience, and in the post-session discussion, her experience raised several questions.

We were all struck by the idea of the witness. What is the role of the witness?  Since the discussion, I have pondered the roles of Jesus and His Mother in this context.  History is full of compassion for the suffering of Jesus on the cross, but what about the suffering of His Mother, that had to watch, to witness, the crucifixion, the agonizing death of her beloved son?  It sounds like one of those ethics class questions – Who suffered more, Jesus on the cross or His mother having to watch? A lively debate would surely ensue.

In the readings of Edgar Cayce, we are told that Jesus and His mother were twin souls.  So in some way, half of the twinship is on the cross while the other half is present and holding the space, in compassion.  We all come into this world as half of soul selves. The soul is androgynous. We come in with either the expressed male or expressed female, while the other half is relegated to the subconscious. The anima and animus.  It seems that the New Age is about expressing the truer soul consciousness through androgyny. But that’s another topic for another time.

As meditation develops, we begin to develop the consciousness of the witness. One part of our consciousness is in the world doing and another part is observing. In my trance experiences while entering the Oneness, I too, feel that sort of benign neutrality, that sense of pure being. The consciousness of the infinite self is the now. No past, no future – all now.

So is the watcher, the witness, part of our eternal soul consciousness, overseeing our suffering? The finite ego consciousness wonders if there could be a God that would allow such suffering. But somehow the witness, offers us compassion for our suffering. The witness knows we must go through this experience, that its temporary.  I wonder if that’s what Jesus meant by The Comforter? That somehow He and Mary were part of facilitating that process of internalizing the witness. He and Mary expressed it externally, and now we can do that internally, just as we are all to awaken our own Christ Consciousness.  I would surmise this is the New Age message of integration of all into One, of awakening to Oneness.

So is this guidance for us? The Piscean Age was, in a broad brush, an age of feeling while the Aquarian is one of detachment.  Are we to heed this counsel? To learn to both be in our experience and also have a part of us witness, in loving detachment? Are Jesus and Mary the model for us, not just in Jesus, but also in Mary. Are both needed for enlightened living? So a part of us, like Jesus, lives in the world and rides the waves of pain and joy, while the Mary part, bears witness, compassionately observes. What was modeled outside in Jesus and Mary, is now to be our experience. Jesus and Mary united -in our consciousness.  The Trinity – the actor/Son-Daughter, the observer/Holy Spirit and the consciousness of both/The Creator/Father-Mother God – the Three in One.