This is a tribute to Jesus' life and teachings. It is, at the same time, an attempt to clarify some of the concepts expounded in the Bible, and remove Jesus from the pedestal of idolatry that has been erected by a materialistic religious society. Jesus came into the world, and went through the hardships of human life to show a skeptic humanity that there was no death; that he, a man of flesh, born of a man and a woman through the immutable laws of creation and procreation, had claimed his birthright as a Son of God; that we, his brothers and sisters, have the same birthright as Sons and Daughters of the Creative Force of All Life.
Jesus has shown us the Way, thus becoming a Christ, the first begotten (born of the Spirit) Son of God.
Let me say in all truth, that to understand the Immaculate Conception is to realize that His spirit (Jesus) was immaculate on its entrance into a material body, yet the conception of that body needed to be brought about in obedience to all divine laws. The Conception was immaculate only in the sense that there was no karma involved, because He was an Immaculate Force.
Excerpt from TALKS WITH CHRIST, by Elwood Babbitt and Chs. H. Hapgood
So much has been said about the birth and the life of Jesus, that it seems preposterous, to add anything to an already long list of essays on the subject. Yet, we will try to clarify some aspects of his life, that have lead to controversy, quarrels and wars between churches. Orthodoxy and dogmas have divided mankind since the word 'religion' was first uttered, and it will be so until we all realize, that, living in the same Universe, we all have the same GOD.
The following will show that, seen in its proper perspective, the immaculate conception was the manifestation of pure spirit into a human form, and its progression, from a normal human birthing process and a life of love and compassion, to the higher spheres, or circles of life.
It will also show that Jesus was truly a man of God, and, although he lived in a period of political turmoil and revolution, he never interfered, or mingled, in the political intrigues of his contemporaries. It will raise the question of his crucifixion, and, in the light of his teachings and his ultimate mission in the world, we will try to discover if the role of Savior fits into Jesus' life and teachings, and whether such a sacrifice is in keeping with his mission of life.
The Gospels tell us that Jesus, the Son of Joseph and Mary, was immaculately conceived, that is to say, without the help of a human father. This belief, that has become a dogma of the Church, has been the subject of endless discussions in the past two thousand years. It has also been challenged by numerous thinkers and philosophers of this, and past, centuries. And here, it is not only a question of semantics, because the manner and the process through which the spirit of Jesus entered the world, once again, are intimately linked with the purpose of his mission in the world.
In order to shed a light on what could have appeared as a very strange occurrence, in the puritan society of Nazareth and Bethleem, let us try to reconcile the events that led to his birth, with the social and political atmosphere of that period. Not understanding the esoteric meaning of an Immaculate Conception, and because of its own preconceived ideas regarding sex, the Church has emphasized the physical Immaculate Conception of Jesus, and built an idolatrous system of beliefs around his birth.
Because of its spiritual impact, it is important to clarify the concept of an immaculate conception, but what is even more important is to emphasize the fact that Jesus was born through the normal process of life, and physical interaction between Joseph and Mary. This, is more in compliance with the purpose of his mission in the world, not as the only Son of God (for by birthright, we are all Sons and Daughters of God,) but as a Master and Teacher, who accepted this mission, to show humanity, that a son of man could transcend materiality and become a Son of God.
The belief that Jesus was born without the actual act of procreation between Joseph and Mary, stems from a materialistic concept of the word immaculate. The Gospel of Luke tells us, that Mary received the visit of an angel , when she was already betrothed to Joseph, himself descendant of King David. The angel said to her:
Do not be afraid,Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord-God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end...
Normally the message should have ended there, but in this Gospel of Luke, Mary replies to the angel:
...How can this be? I am still a virgin! [Luke 1: 29-34]
This answer of Mary is illogical because she was already promised to Joseph and about to be married. Why should she ask such a question, when the angel had not mentioned anything about the manner of conception, simply stating that she would become pregnant, which was quite normal. She was about to be married and certainly knew, or should have known a little about sex and marriage.
The Gospel of Matthew places the event in quite a different perspective. There, we learn that Mary, already betrothed to Joseph, finds out she is pregnant by the Holy Spirit, but the evangelist says nothing about the message of the angel to Mary. Being, by jewish standards, a just man, Joseph is about to repudiate her secretly, when a angel appears to him in a dream and tells him:
Do not be afraid to take Mary to be your wife, for it is by the Holy Spirit that she has conceived. She will have a son and you will name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. [Matt 1:20,21]
There again, we find that the story is not consistant with reality. It was a known fact that Mary was already betrothed to Joseph and about to be married. The jewish rites and customs of these times were very strict, and, in these circumstances, it would have been very difficult for Joseph to repudiate her even secretly without the whole community hearing about it. Furthermore, if Mary already knew she was pregnant (probably in her second or third month) before living with Joseph, we must assume that the birth of Jesus, five to six months after she moved in with him, would have raised many questions as to the legitimacy of her pregnancy. The rigidity of the Jewish law with regard to marriage, and the penalties incurred by those who digressed from it, would have created a very difficult situation or, at least, brought the public shame on Mary. One can even imagine an investigation from the Sanhedrin and a very severe punishment,which, in those days, took the form of lapidation.
And yet, nothing in the Bible points in that direction, and, besides the fact that it was heralded by the shepherds and the Wise Men, the birth of Jesus was no different from all other jewish births. Herode himself knew nothing about it. He heard about Jesus when the Wise Men inquired as to the whereabouts of the newlyborn child.
In the very beginning of the gospel of Luke, it is said that the angel Gabriel appeared to the old man Zechariah who was standing on the right of the altar:
Don't be afraid, Zechariah! the angel said, God has heard your prayer, and your wife Elisabeth will bear you a son. You are to name him John... Skeptic, Zechariah replies: ...How shall I know if this is so. I am an old man, and my wife is old also! [Luke 1:13-18]
Now, in the light of what is found in the various reports concerning the birth of Jesus, it is quite possible, that Mary was not the young girl that has been depicted in the Gospels. It has been found, in ancient sanskrits, that she was already a mother of five, and may be six, children, prior to her marriage to Joseph. And this is even confirmed in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark:
When Jesus finished telling these parables, he left that place and went back to his home town. He taught in the synagogue, and those who heard him were amazed. 'Where did he get such wisdom, they asked, and what about his miracles? Isn't he the carpenter's son? Isn't Mary his mother, and aren't James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas, his brothers? Aren't his sisters living here? Where did he get all this? And so, they rejected him. [Matt: 14: 53-56) (Mark 6: 1-3]
There is no indication as to whether these children were older or younger than Jesus, (in this excerpt we can count four brothers and at least two sisters) but they indicate that Joseph and Mary lived a normal family life, and that both of them were already well on in years when they married.
A logic scenario of their meeting one another, would be that Mary, already a mother of five and a widow, was about to be married to Joseph when the angel appeared with the news that she would become pregnant. Already an old man by the standards of that period, Joseph was not readily convinced that his wife-to-be would become pregnant. He kept wondering how this was possible, and he may even have had his doubts concerning Mary, for it took the visit of the angel, to convince him that he would be the father of the child. Mary herself was skeptic and this is why she may very well have said: 'How can this be possible? My future husband is too old to father a child!' Thus the reply of the angel:
The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the most High will overshadow you [Luke 1: 35]
Seen in that perspective, the visit of the angel Gabriel to Zecharias and Joseph makes sense, and the birth of both Jesus and John, becomes a natural event, made possible through the interaction of the Holy spirit with the mother as well as with the father.
This may seem like a sacrilegious attempt to distort the facts concerning the life of Jesus, but only because religiosity has placed him on a pedestal, where no one can touch him. And yet, leaving aside all religious considerations, one cannot but agree that all this is still more plausibe than a fatherless conception, because the laws of creativity, as well as those of the land, are thus respected and fulfilled. Another scenario, and probably the logical one, would be that Joseph and Mary met, and after a normal courtship, they were married according to jewish laws. From that mariage, a first child was born, Jesus, whose birth had been announced by the angel, and later on, many brothers and sisters came to complete the family circle.
In any case, even though there may have been divine intervention, Jesus and John were conceived through the normal sexual intercourse between a man and a woman, and according to the laws of procreation. As I said before, this is more in compliance with the customs and religious beliefs of the jewish people, who may have found believable that an impotent old man could father a child by divine intervention, but quite unbelievable that a woman could become pregnant without the help of a human father through the same process. Humanity has not changed that much since the times of Jesus, and if it would be very difficult to accept such a theory to day, just imagine what it would have been in the puritan society of Nazareth and Bethleem.
Thus, the belief in a (physical) Immaculate Conception or Virgin birth, ( which is not to be confused with the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary) has no historical foundation in the Bible and elsewhere. It would seem that the story of Nativity was cleverly embellished in a concile of the Church, to surround Jesus with a veil of mystery, and reinforce his status as a 'unique' son of God. It was, however, the spiritual conception of an avatar, performed with the help of unseen forces, and in a manner that would be difficult to explain at the present time. Suffice it to say that, already old and (perhaps) impotent, Joseph, by divine intervention, was able to inseminate Mary, who thus became pregnant with Jesus. Something similar may very well have happened to Zechariah, and, in this respect, we can say that both Jesus and John the Baptist were spiritually conceived. However, this does not dismiss the Immaculate Conception of Jesus as such. It just places it in its proper setting of spiritual birth, the birth of a Master who incarnated, not for karmic reasons, but for the sole purpose of enlightening mankind. Jesus was born immaculate, but only in the sense that he was pure, free of the karmic entanglements we all carry along, life after life.
Even though the Church emphasizes the physical aspect of the birthing process, the Immaculate Conception has more to do with semantics, or the true signification, the sense we give to a word, for, in the full scope of life and in all kingdoms, all is immaculate conception. It is man's own egotism and intolerance that defile the sanctity of a body created in the image and the likeness of the God it represents.
In today's religiosity, the Immaculate Conception only serves to emphasize the deification of the man Jesus. It places him above all other human beings, which, of course, is contrary to the Master's teachings when he said:
I tell .you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. [John 14:12]
Furthermore, the birth of a king-prophet at this period of history was likely to arouse controversy. The Jewish faith was already threatened by the Romans, and the priests and the Sanhedrin were even more cautious and conservative in matters of religion. The fact that Jesus would be born 'immaculate (without the help of a human father,) was not going to make things easier. When it came to morality, the Jewish law was very strict. The priesthood and their followers were always on the look-out for transgressors, (just as today's moralizers and pro-life crusaders,) and they were prone to punish, whoever did not comply with their rigid rules and dogmas. Fornication and adultery were punishable by death, as we have seen in the Gospel of John (8: 1) where a woman adulteress was about to be stoned, when she was saved in extremis by Jesus.
Even though her cousin Elisabeth was the wife of Zechariah, a priest who served in the Temple, Mary had no special status in her own community. Had she been found pregnant before knowing Joseph, her condition would have attracted the Sanhedrin's attention, and raised questions as to her own purity. Knowing from history the customs of those days, one can only guess what they would have done to her. It is certainly not the explanation of the apparition of the angel that would have made a difference, as it is a well known fact, that the priests and the Sanhedrin had more affinity with the merchants of the Temple, than with things spiritual. Only fifty years ago, such an unnatural birth would have created quite a havoc. The mother would have been forced to leave the community and find refuge somewhere else. Now just imagine what it would have been in those days when everything was scrutinized in the name of religion.
The dictionary defines the word 'immaculate' as "without spot or stain, pure, without sin". If we assume that being born 'immaculate' means without the actual act of procreation between a man and a woman, should we also assume that the natural process of procreation is an impure act? And if it is, then all humanity is impure, and we are all in a constant state of sin! Now, the point to be emphasized here, is that procreation is the most wonderful and powerful expression of energy in the Universe. It is akin to creation itself, and the nearest thing to it on our tridimensional plane. The union of two people, spirit, soul and body, that allows another spirit to experience materiality in the human form, is the greatest expression of Love and Compassion, that are two of the seven laws (Order, Balance, Harmony, Growth, God-Perception, Love and Compassion) of the Universe, and without which the others would have no meaning.
Love is giving. By giving life to another human being, in the spiritual perspective that it gives a spirit the opportunity to reincarnate once again, one comes to the true understanding of his, or her, experience and place in the evolutionary process of all life. Remember that we chose to be born, and our parents are but the channels through which this was made possible.
So, Mary and Joseph were the channels for Jesus' manifestation into the world, a normal channel in the normal process of life. There is no reason to believe that an 'unnatural' birth would have served a purpose other than create doubts and misunderstandings around Mary and Joseph's family, friends and acquaintances.
In brief, the fact that Jesus was born of a father and mother, is definitely more in compliance with the customs and social structures of the first century, than a birth that could have been mistaken for what is commonly called an 'illegitimate' birth. Yet, nothing, in the Gospels or elsewhere, indicates that Mary was ever questioned as to the legitimacy of her pregnancy. Assuming that the pregnancy was not as yet apparent before her marriage to Joseph, there still remains the fact that these people certainly knew how to count, and a premature birth would have raised many questions. Furthermore, even though the birth of a Messiah was expected by a minority of Jews, most specifically a sect called the Essenes, the common people viewed with a certain unconcern the pregnancy of Mary. Not that they did not care, but there were many pregnant women throughout Palestine, and, to most of her contemporaries, Mary was simply one of them. Had they been aware of her special status as the future mother of the Messiah, they, or at at least some of them, would have found a better place than a manger for the birth of Jesus.
The role of women was no more defined in those days than it is today, and the male community did not particularly relish Jesus' teachings about the equality of men and women in the world. For many of them, sex was impure, and whatever did not fit into the mold of their morality concept, was considered as sexual immorality. To give you an idea of how women were considered up to the times of Jesus, here an excerpt found in the Old Testament:
Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who owned the house, "Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him." The owner of the house went outside and said to them, "No, my friends, don't be so vile. Since this man is my guest, don't do this disgraceful thing. Look, here is my virgin daughter, and his concubine. I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish. But to this man, don't do such a disgraceful thing." But the men would not listen to him. So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go. [Judg. 19: 22-25]
This excerpt is given here to demonstrate that the male bias concerning women, marriage and sex is deep-rooted in the collective consciousness of all civilizations since the first times of humanity. The passage you have just read is an excerpt of the Bible, considered as the book of God. How can we believe that God would allow such erroneous conceptions of life if it were His book? And yet, the Jews lived their life according to precepts of the Old Testament that they believed to be the word of God. The concept of 'an eye for an eye' (Exodus 21: 23) was part of the Jewish law, the same law that required the death penalty for one who insulted his father or mother, and a monetary compensation for the father whose virgen daughter had been seduced by a man.
It is in such a context that Mary got pregnant of Jesus , and, even though the first Fathers of the Church were there to spread Jesus' teachings, they could not but be influenced by the rigid orthodoxy of the times and what they had been taught from their early childhood. The male community, including the Apostles, the disciple Paul, and many other disciples, found it very difficult to understand and accept the role of women, in a society where men had total supremacy over their possessions, of which women were a part. They did not understand the teachings of Jesus when he talked about the equality of spirit of man and woman and the brotherhood of mankind. Many of them considered sex as a necessary, but nevertheless, impure act, that was not to be enjoyed. So it is not surprising that, sometime in the 6th century, a council of the Church proclaimed the 'immaculate Conception' of Jesus, in order to raise him to the status of a 'unique' Son of God.
Of course, it is quite possible that such a dogma stems from the reasoning that, being the only Son of God, Jesus could have nothing else than a very special (physical)birth, which is true, but the belief itself was reinforced by the biases and the misconceptions of these times concerning the role of women in the world, and this is why it became an 'immaculate 'physical' conception, that is to say, without physical contact with a man. And there again, we find the materialistic approach to life that has pervaded all centuries since the birth of Jesus, and is the cause of all the falsifications and erroneous translations and interpretations we find in the Bible. Our own twentieth century has had its vogue of prudishness, and there are still men and women who believe that sex is impure, and sexual pleasure, a sin of lust. Is it any wonder, then, that many women are frigid and cannot experience orgasm?
A conception without the help of a human father is not an impossibility. Nothing is impossible, but the laws of creation must be fulfilled according to an established order, and all realms and all dimensions of life are subject to their rules. A fatherless birth would not have served Jesus' purpose, and he chose to be born as any other man, and live an ordinary life, to show mankind that a human being, born of a man and a woman of flesh and blood, could transcend material limitations, and, thus illuminated, manifest the Christ into the world as a true Son of God. This is why Jesus chose to be born through the normal channel, that is to say, a normal sexual relation between Joseph and Mary. This is the only reason for our trying to rectify the facts on this precise matter, and on the matter of the Sacraments that have been discussed in a previous chapter.
Far from lessening the import of his teachings, the fact that Jesus was fathered in the same manner as each of us, reinforces them and gives them an accrued credibility. Now it is possible to understand his words when he said: "I am the Way and the Life.", thus confirming that I AM , the God within the human form, is the Way and the Life, the key that opens the door to the many mansions of the Father.
Jesus grew up like any other child and, as we have seen earlier, even though it seems inconsistent with the current belief, he had brothers and sisters and lived a normal life. He was different in his perceptions of the world, but he was definitely human with all the normal desires of a human being. Prior to becoming a Christ, he stumbled many times along the road. He experienced the harshness of life and its limitations, and had his share of worries, doubts and uncertainties. He was definitely not the ascetic type. He surrounded himself with people, went out with girls, and enjoyed a good meal, a good wine, or a chat with friends.
There is nothing, in the Bible, or elsewhere, to indicate that Jesus had chosen to remain a celibate. He must have known women, or a woman intimately, as the sexual expression is a normalcy of nature, a curiosity that leads us to experience the far recesses and the deepest feelings of human consciousness. Sexuality, expressed in a spirit of love and selflessness, is certainly the greatest spiritual experience a human can encounter on this tridimensional plane. The Church has erred immensely, when it required that its priests remain celibate, and it has deprived them of a worthy spiritual experience. Sex is healthy and rejuvenating, and it is normal to assume, that, being a man of flesh and blood, Jesus definitely acted as one.
A man is no prophet in his own country and, in spite of the 'miracles' he performed in the surrounding towns and villages, Jesus suffered the rejection of his own family, friends and acquaintances, as we have seen in the excerpt from Matthew 14, . This is why he did not perform any 'miracle', when he visited them, shortly after he began his ministry. And yet, he was no different from those who surrounded him, and to them, he was but the son of the carpenter Joseph. And this is why it was so difficult for all those who had grown up with him, to accept him as the Messiah and the divine messenger he was. A Jew that had help build their house, and played with them when they were young could not be the Savior they were expecting. The poldest amongst them remembered something about the visit of the angel to Mary. They had heard about the Wise Men who had followed the Star, but all this was far in the past. Even if Mary kept all this in her heart, she sometimes had doubts concerning this son who was turning upside down the rites and customs to which she was accustomed, and confronted the priests she had learned to respect.
For a majority of Jews, Jesus was a spoilsport, who threatened, not the Roman power, but rather the existing religious order and the merchants who were selling the doves and the lambs in the Temple. In spite of all his power and wisdom, Jesus did not try to be different, or set himself aside from his contemporaries. He wore no special garments as some of our gurus or teachers, and, if he changed the water into wine, it was certainly not to preach temperance, for he knew it was the abuse of things that had to be refrained, not the things themselves. It is not without reason that Jesus did not enter the priesthood, or professional trades, for he knew that wisdom and spiritual enlightenment are not found in books, but rather in one's own book of life. Therefore, he chose to follow in his father's footsteps, and became a carpenter. This way, he could experience life more fully and, through manual work and meditation, awaken his own inner potential, receiving the wisdom from within, not from without.
When, at the age of eighteen, Jesus left family, friends and acquaintances, to visit far away countries, he was searching for truth beyond the conventional way he was accustomed to, as he was already endowed with a wisdom that baffled the priests, and powers he had difficulty to understand. To say that he travelled the world is an understatement because, after his enlightenment that occurred sometimes in his twenties, he could appear and disappear at will, visiting not only the countries of the world, but also other realms and other dimensions of life.
It is this power to materialize and dematerialize at will, and this wisdom they did not understand, that would, later on, scare the older generation and turn the priesthood against him. Just think about the witch huntings of the past and those of Salem, and you will understand that Jesus' miracles and disappearances greatly disturbed the Sanhedrin, and they were not about to be put off by an irreligious young visionary who did magic tricks. Jesus was not the pious man we have been led to believe, and the morality concepts of his days left him cold, as he would rather enjoy life, and live it to the fullest, than spend his days on useless and endless devotions.
Jesus was in his late twenties when he came back to a country that was in deep turmoil, and still under the domination of the Romans. Revolutionaries swarmed the countryside, and the priests and the Sanhedrin were caught between their allegiance to their people and their God, and the very rewarding and 'lucrative' friendship of the romans. No one was safe, and there were spies and informers everywhere. The Roman governor had his spies among the Jews, and Herod and the Sanhedrin had their own people in Pilate's entourage. Jesus was inevitably caught in this web of intrigue, and while, on the one hand, many romans thought he was the head of the revolutionaries against Rome, on the other hand, many Jews felt he was agaisnst them, and possibly a spy of the Romans. To many of his contemporaries, Jesus was a 'hippie', a wanderer endowed with strange gifts, and a man with great magnetism and power of attraction. All this placed him in a very precarious position, where he could not relate to either faction. He was a stranger in a very hostile land, and even though he had many followers, he knew that most of them did not even understand what he was talking about. His disciples were in awe of his 'miracles', and his teachings were considered as a means to drive the Jews away from the religion of their forefathers, and ascertain their allegiance to Rome. Consequently, he talked very often in parables, and they have become the cornerstone of all his teachings.
Well emphasized in the Gospels of Matthew, Marc, Luke and John, the crucifixion has been surrounded with such pomp and worship, that it has become the centre of Church's rites and religious manifestations. Remember that, up to the 6th century, Jesus was considered as a spiritual teacher and a Master. There were, of course, questions as to whether he was the only son of God, but these were raised, mostly because many people, among the faithful, did not understand the true meaning of his teachings. It is at the instigation of Emperor Justinian that the Church really began to question the fundamentals of the doctrine, and this, as we have seen in the chapter on reincarnation, culminated in the convening of the Fifth Ecumenical Council of A.D. 553, and the banning of teachings that were an integral part of Church's doctrine up to then. These teachings had been taught by the Church since the beginning of Christianity.
In its effort to deify the man Jesus, the Church has gone to great extent to make of the crucifixion the major event in the life of the Master , and the center of a very elaborate Salvation process. Not understanding the true purpose of his life's mission, it has given Jesus a status which is not in accordance with his own teachings, and a role of Savior that may have been borrowed from the pagan customs that were prevalent in those days. You can leaf through the Old Testament, and you will find no reference of a future Messiah as Savior of mankind. There are many verses that refer to a Savior, but they clearly state that the only Savior is God, the God that resides in the human form:
But I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt. You shall
acknowledge no God but me, no Savior except me. [Hosea 13:4]
I, even I, am the LORD, and apart from me there is no savior." [Isa. 43:11]
During his ministry, Jesus never referred to himself as being the Savior. It is much later, after he had left, that the word appeared briefly, once in the Gospel of Luke, and twice in the Gospel of John:
Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord." [Luke 2: 11]
They said to the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world. [John 4:42]
The first verse is a reference to Jesus as being the first Lord-God to manifest the Christ in the world, Christ (in each of us) being the Savior through which we can attain Illumination and Christ Consciousness. As for the second verse, it is merely a statement of believers who were in awe of all the miracles Jesus performed, and could not see beyond the limitations of their physical senses.
As an extension to these two verses we find:
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. [John 3:17]
When you read between the lines of this verse, you find that "God did not send His 'first begotten Son', the Christ, into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through this 'expression' of the Christ within the human form (that Jesus represented)"
All other references to a Savior can be found in The Acts of the Apostles, (the relation of how the teachings were spread in that first century), and in the'Letters' from Paul, Peter, and other disciples, letters that were sent to the various churches. None of these references are from Jesus. They are only the thoughts of these disciples, and it shows that they, themselves, did not understand the esoteric meaning of many of Jesus' teachings. They preferred the materialistic approach of a personal Savior, that, even in those days, was shared by Christians, Gentiles and Pagans alike.
The manner in which he died is irrelevant to Jesus' teachings, and even though the Acts of the Apostles talk of Jesus as the Savior of the world, Savior should be interpreted as Shower of the Way, but certainly not as the Sacrificial Lamb. Those who believe that Jesus was crucified to erase the sins of mankind, will find it sacrilegious to question the purpose of the crucifixion, because it destroys the very foundation of their beliefs. Those beliefs have been planted in their minds from life to life and generation to generation. It is certainly much more appealing to believe in a Savior that erases the sins of mankind, than try to understand a reincarnational concept where one has to face his karmic obligations and work out his own salvation. Jesus never thought of himself as a the Sacrificial Lamb, and the concept of a Savior only serves to perpetuate a dogma that has kept mankind captive for eons of time. Again, this tends to prove that what we find in our history books, including the Bible, The Dead Sea Scrolls, The Aquarian Gospel, The Nag Hammadi Library and all other books, including this one, is not necessarily the absolute truth. The age of a parchment is not a seal of approval, and one must read between and beyond the lines to find the truth.
But, let us assume, for a moment, that Jesus willingly accepted to be crucified to erase the sins of mankind, and we will try to see if such a sacrifice is in accord with his life and teachings. In his early childhood, when he had the opportunity to witness the slaughtering of animals on the altar, Jesus had always felt a repulsion for such a cruel custom. When he threw the merchants out of the temple, he was aiming not so much at the money-changers, as at those who were selling the doves and the lambs, that were then offered in sacrifice. The four Gospels make no mention of it, but, in Levi's 'AQUARIAN GOSPEL we read,
And Jesus watched the butchers kill the lambs and birds and burn them on the altar in the name of God. His tender heart was shocked at this display of cruelty; he asked the serving priests, What is the purpose of this slaughter of the beasts and birds? Why do you burn their flesh before the Lord? The priests replied, This is our sacrifice for sin. God has commanded us to do these things, and said that in these sacrifices all our sins are blotted out. And Jesus said, Will you be kind enough to tell when God proclaimed that sins are blotted out by sacrifice of any kind? Did not David say that it is sin itself to bring before his face burnt offerings, as offerings for sin? Did not Isaiah say the same?
As we have seen in this excerpt, Jesus was against any kind of sacrifice, animal, or otherwise, and did not believe that sacrifices of any kind could erase sins. How could such a man offer himself as a victim, and willingly accept to be sacrificed, when his whole philosophy of life was against it? To save humanity? None of his teachings ever mentioned a savior. He only said that his way and his life were the Way and the Life, and whoever follows in his footsteps will have eternal life. We are our own saviors, and, once again, no one can atone for the sins of others. It is the ignorance of spiritual laws that led the Church to look for a scapegoat, a sacrificial lamb who would take away the sins of the world. Thus came about the deification of the man Jesus, as the 'only Son of God,' and Savior of the world, and the perpetuation of myths that have lasted up to our days, myths that delay the spiritual unfoldment of the individual and his reunion with this universal energy we call God.
And this is how christianity soon began to build churches to honor Jesus, and this, to such an extent, that, for the last fifteen centuries, God has remained in the background as an unreachable, but nevertheless powerful Father, while Jesus became the idol and the ultimate mediator. Using the Crucifixion as the center of their doctrine, Christians came to rely, solely, on Jesus' Divine Intervention for their own Salvation. Thus, by deifying a man and placing him above all other human beings, the Church has built another Golden Calf. By giving Jesus the role of a Savior, it has defeated the purpose of his incarnation on the earth plane, thus reducing us all to an inferior rank, where we can no longer fulfil his own promise ,when he said, "anone who has faith in me, will do what I have been doing." (John 14: 12)
With the discovery of the Gnostic Gospels in 1945, the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, and many other findings in later decades, this century has seen a recrudescence of the controversy. The somber days of the Inquisition are things of the past, and nowadays, it is possible to question the validity of certain passages of the Old and New Testament, and other biblical books without incurring the Church's retaliation. The Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of expression, and, as churchmen must practice what they preach, they must abide by it.
Anyone has the right to express his, or her, own feelings and ideas regarding life, and by doing so, each of us adds to God's insatiable quest for expansion and expression. We live in an eternal present, and everything that has been, is, and will ever be written, is already inscribed on the ethereal substance of the universe, and is part of the evolutionary process of mankind. In a cosmic perspective of life, the Koran, (the Holy Scripture of Islam,) the Torah (the Jewish Scripture) and the Bhagavad-Gita (the Hindu Thought) are as important as the New Testament. All of them are agreeble to God, for they present four aspects, equally valid, of man's constant search for the Unknown God, the God within.
Prisoners they were of their own limitations, the Fathers of the Church found it necessary to surround this God with a veil of mystery, but, at the same time, and because of these same limitations, they felt compelled to give their flock a tangible evidence of that God, thus the rites, ceremonies and other forms of cult such as indulgences, medals, and offerings. All these elements of cult are, in fact, a remnant of rites and sacrifices of the past, that the Church copied, in good faith, to build a spiritual toll bridge between God and the faithful. They have been a form of contact between God and His creatures, a transitional tool that has led to the baptism of the Spirit of the Age of Aquarius that we are in now. This is also the Age of the King. The age that humanity has been waiting for for eons of time.
The seers of old had prophesied that a King would be born, who would free his people from slavery. Because they did not understand the symbolism of the message, the Jewish people interpreted the prophecy literally, and many of them believed that Jesus would lead his people to victory and deliver them from the oppressor. He was the Messiah, the King they were expecting, and the Liberator of his people from the bondage of Rome. Even if there were a great many people who could claim the lineage of David and Solomon, the fact that he was himself of that lineal descent only amplified their conviction that he was the King they had been waiting for, and their own scriptures were there to support that claim. And the subject is brought up, not to defend Jesus who has no need of it, but to bring home the fact that history is but the vision, sometimes accurate, and sometimes biased and distorted, of all those who wrote it. And this is why we say that truth is found, not in books of the world, but in our own Book of Life, the inexhaustible reservoir of the God within. The disciples themselves wavered in their faith. They were simple men, and, even though they listened to his teachings, and vaguely understood his true status as a Master, they did not grasp the full significance, for humanity, of his ultimate development as a Christ of God.
This is why the following centuries saw a wavering humanity revert to its golden calves, and proclaim in a council of the church that Jesus was 'the only son of God,' rejecting, at the same time, the theory of successive lives and many of Jesus' teachings. The forty days in the wilderness of his mind became the forty days in the wilderness of the desert, which inspired many ascetics to live a cloistered life instead of serving mankind. The so-called 'miracles' of the Master, and even those of his disciples, became extraordinary feats that only a few elect could do. And yet, Jesus taught mankind that the 'power' was available to each one of us, if we but opened our eyes, and our hearts, to that little voice within.
Jesus' thoughts were focused on his mission of life, and he never made claim to an earthly title. For sure, he was not running a popularity contest. He had his moments of anger, and throwing the merchants out of the temple, when their trade was part of the Jewish rites and customs, was certainly not his wisest gesture. He knew he ought to destroy, not their counters, but their materialistic thoughts. He believed, in all truthfulness, that such a gesture would open their eyes. When he said, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's," he certainly did not speak as a king of the Jews, and could even have been regarded as pro-Caesar. Asking the people 'to turn the other cheek', was definitely not the best advice a revolutionary could give his followers, and such an attitude would have rapidly ended a war before it began. Furthermore, a future king of the Jews must enforce the law, civil and religious, of the land, and yet, Jesus did exactly the contrary, when he healed on Sabbath Day, and prevented the Jews from stoning Mary of Magdala. The entry into Jerusalem on a donkey may have been a symbolic gesture, but it was certainly not that of a royal personage, and Jesus would have used another 'carriage' had he been the temporal king of the Jews. When asked if he was, indeed, the king of the Jews, he simply replied: "They say that I am", meaning by that, that their mind was set, and nothing he would say could change it. You can search through the gospels, page by page, and you will not find one single fact, or one single sentence, to indicate that Jesus acted as a temporal king, or claimed to be one.
So Jesus is hailed as king of the Jews, simply because, in their materialistic approach to life, his people expected a temporal King and a Savior. This was their expectation, and they interpreted, literally, blindly, and in the light of their own limitations and misunderstandings of life, the prophecies of the Old Testament, and everything the Master Jesus said regarding the King whose Kingdom was not of this world. The true significance of the 'King' is found, not in what it outwardly meant to Jesus' contemporaries, but rather in the esoteric meaning that, having transcended materiality and presented the Christ to the world, Jesus had finally become the King of the Divine Kingdom of the soul, ("My Kingdom is not of this world" John 18: 36) , a Kingdom he had conquered, through a life of love and service to others, a Kingdom that had nothing to do with the temporal kingdoms of the world. Thus, he became the Way and the Light, the conqueror of death, and the King of his own Kingdom, in the same manner that we are all eventually destined to become the King of our own Divine Kingdom, as we are all potential Christs, and legitimate heirs to the Kingdom of God.
Jesus' teachings were not meant solely for the Jewish people They were meant for all past, present and future 'fallen Sons and Daughters of God', all of them seen in a broader perspective of reincarnational process, where, life after life, each of us strives to regain his true status of Divine Being, and his rightful place in his Father's Kingdom. Far from diminishing his importance and place in the evolution of mankind, the fact that he was born in the same manner and through the same channel as all of us, gives credence to, and reinforces all his teachings. Now we can understand, that, when he said: "I am the Way and the Life", he meant that I AM, the Christ within the material form, is the WAY and the LIGHT, the door that opens into the many mansions of the Father and Life Everlasting. "In my Father's house are many mansions!"
So, in the full spectrum of life, the simple life of a carpenter has more value than that of a 'unique Son of God', as it becomes a path that anyone can follow. In the same manner, the physical immaculate conception does not seem to fit in the pattern of Jesus' teachings, and into God's plan for humanity. Each of us is a savior, a regenerator of life, a creator, and we come back, life after life, in order to awaken the savior within the self, the divine flame of the God within. This is more in accord with Jesus' teachings and, in this light, his life is seen in a new perspective, where he becomes the man, the teacher, the Master, the Christ, the first prodigal son to return to his Father's Home, thus showing the way to all humanity. It is time for christianity, and all other great religions of the world, to leave the kindergarten, and progress to the elementary school of life. Orthodoxy and dogmas are things of the past, and fairy tales for children. They were the kindergarten toys of the five physical senses. Now that the child has grown up, he must think for himself, and this is what we all must do, if we ever want to enter the Kingdom.
Jesus, the son of man, who became the first Christ of God, has shown us the Way.