The real Jesus Christ

(Enn á ný skrifa ég á ensku, kæru lesendur, og er ástæða þess einfaldlega sú að ég les svo mikið á ensku að ég er einnig farinn að hugsa að miklu leyti á þeirri tungu. Ég treysti því að lesendur séu nógu vel að sér í engilsaxnesku til að skilja það sem hér fer á eftir - og ég lofa að reyna eftir fremsta megni að rita sem mest á okkar fagra og auðuga móðurmáli í framtíðinni).

(Another preliminary note, this time in English: I refer to God by the male pronoun ´he´ throughout this essay, but that is only in order to avoid clumsy slashed expressions of ´he/she´ and the like. I am well aware of the fact that God is not only masculine but also feminine, and ultimately beyond both genders).

"Not in exclusive possession, but in universal acceptance, is found the hallmark of truth". (Annie Besant).

Many are the superstitions put forth by the Christian churches of old and new.

From the spurious doctrine that the Earth is only several thousands of years old, to the abhorrent concept of predestination, to the ghastly cannibalistic ritual of the Eucharist, to the ludicrous notion of the dead literally rising from their graves on Doomsday (to name just four examples) - seldom has Christendom been found lacking in dogmas and teachings which jar the reason of the intelligent and the moral sense of the ethically advanced.

And yet, at all times there have been thoughtful and sensitive people who´ve felt that there is a much deeper and truer and richer way to interpret and apply Christianity than anything contained in the often exceedingly crude official dogmas of the churches. They dream of, and try to practice, a Christendom which is nearer to the original teachings of its fountainhead, Jesus Christ, and his early followers.

But this deeper and truer and richer Christianity is no new or unprecedented or one-of-a-kind phenomenon. It is really only a restatement and reformulation of what mankind has always known since the dawn of history (and certainly ages upon ages before the advent of Jesus Christ twothousand years ago).

For Jesus Christ and his message must not, and indeed cannot, be seen in isolation, as being particularly novel or unique or revolutionary; rather, his teachings are an inseparable part of an universal wisdom tradition which has existed since time immemorial and belongs equally to all races and religions, exclusively to none.

The great British philosopher and novelist Aldous Huxley called this hoary and pervasive wisdom tradition ´The Perennial Philosophy,´ and I refer the interested reader to Huxley´s excellent book by that very name.

In my mind, Jesus was not the son of God in any singular or unparalleled or exclusive way, but only in the sense that we are all - without exception - the sons (or daughters) of God.

The only difference between us and Jesus is that he realized and brought forth his inherent divinity, while ours lies as yet latent. One might use the simile of the sun which shines forever in its glorious effulgence, but often it gets covered up by clouds.

That the inner sun shone without obstruction in (or rather through) Jesus, but is largely covered up in us by the clouds of our greed and hatred etc., is verily the sole and only thing which differentiates us from the great Nazarene sage.

And Jesus was by no means the only person in history whose internal sun blazed without hindrance. There were many before him and many after him - and there will be many, many yet to come.

Remove the aforementioned clouds of greed and fear and delusion etc., and the inner sun will radiate just as brightly in us as it did in Jesus.

Is Jesus diminished thereby? 

On the contrary: he is very much magnified when he is placed where he belongs, i.e. in the exalted company of other enlightened masters and great spiritual teachers such as Buddha and Lao-Tze (to name just two out of a vast number).

Most people think that ´Jesus´ and ´Christ´ are synonymous names, but in fact they are not at all the same thing. ´Jesus´ is the name of a flesh-and-blood man who lived and preached in Galilee two thousand years ago, while ´Christ´ is the name of a certain state of consciousness, one that is in perfect tune with the universal intelligence and love of God.

Jesus is called ´Christ´ in very much the same way that a certain individual is called ´President John Smith´- i.e. as ´president´ is the name of an office and not of an individual, so ´Christ´ is the name not of any individual but of the aforementioned state of divine consciousness, and Jesus was called ´Christ´ simply and solely to designate that he had attained that state.

And here comes the most wonderful part: we can all, every single one of us, reach the same state of consciousness that Jesus embodied two millennia ago, and thus earn the right to be called ´Christs´. And I think this is the true meaning of being Christian, i.e. not worshipping Jesus as being forever above us, but following in his footsteps and becoming his perfect equals in heart and mind, by realizing our everlasting Oneness with our divine Father/Mother - as Jesus did.

Yes, being the son/daughter of God is not the prerogative of Jesus or anyone else - it is a state which belongs to us all, utterly irrespective of race or nationality or colour or sex or religion.

Most orthodox Christians will agree with me on the point that we are all summoned to follow in the footsteps of Jesus.

But I ask: how can we, frail and weak and sinful mortal humans (as orthodox Christianity says we are), ever be expected to live up to the example of a Being who was purportedly no less than the sole incarnation of God on Earth?

It cannot be done, of course; the whole thing is a contradiction in terms. The only results which this line of thought can lead to are either hypocrisy or abandonment of the effort.

Only if we fully share Jesus´s divinity and celestial sonship can we expect to be able to emulate him. This is a truth so elementary that a small child can understand it - and yet many people of surpassing intellect do not seem to grasp it!

Christians have traditionally claimed that the gate to salvation was opened for the first time in human history with the coming of Jesus Christ to Earth. The truth is that there never was a time in the history of mankind (and who can say by how many untold millennia human existence predates the advent of Jesus?) when the gate to God-realization wasn´t open to anyone and everyone who cared to make the necessary effort to pass through it. The same applies today, utterly irrespective of which religion people adhere to, or even if they profess no religion.

Orthodox Christianity constantly makes the threat that everyone who does not believe in Jesus Christ as the only begotten son of God will be doomed to perdition (and even to everlasting torment in the fires of hell, as the more fanatical branches of Christendom will have it). This is tantamount to believing in a God who condemns the vast majority of the human race to be lost forever - for we should always remember that Christianity is the religion of only a minority of mankind.

And yet, if Christians were to be inquired what is in their mind the outstanding quality of their God, most of them would say ´love´. And I ask: how can an all-loving God sentence anyone at anytime to perdition, let alone to the infernal flames of the fanatics?

That is, of course, an utter impossibility. God´s patience, like his love, is infinite. He will wait for as long as it takes for each one of his children to return to him.  God says ever to us, his straying sons and daughters: ´In your own time, dear ones. In your own time´.

The abovementioned Christian contention, that salvation is only possible through Jesus Christ, is illogical and unjust in the extreme. Think of the countless generations that lived on the planet before the time of Jesus, or of the millions of people who live in regions of the world where no one has even heard of Jesus. Are all these hapless human beings to be barbecued eternally, for the sole crime of having been born in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Salvation, and its corollary: Grace, can never be tied down to any particular place or time or religion. It has ever been open to all and sundry. God has since the dawn of time (and certainly many, many aeons before the birth of Christendom) rejoicingly welcomed and embraced every child of his who returns to his fold - and he will continue to welcome and embrace them until the crack of doom, Christianity or no Christianity.

(Note that the phrase ´crack of doom´ is used here only in a figurative and rhetorical sense (i.e. as a more poetic and dramatic way of saying ´forever´), since I do not believe in any impending Judgment Day or end of the world - not in the literal and blunt and crass meanings of those concepts at any rate).

Orthodox Christians will no doubt be appalled and even enraged by the interpretation of their faith put forward in this short essay. But I have no quarrel with them: let every person believe what he or she likes. After all, our goal is the same whoever and wherever we may be - it is only the path to the goal that varies.

(A few words on the concept of the divine directly taking on human form, as the Christians claim in the case of Jesus: it might be apposite to mention in that context that the Hindus hold a similar theory, but theirs is a much broader and more logical stance on the issue. I´m here referring to the Hindu theory of the Avatars (= the periodic descent of the divine to Earth to establish virtue and destroy evil, whenever mankind needs and has made itself worthy of such a descent). The Hindus ask - very reasonably - that if God can take a human incarnation once (as the Christians insist on with Jesus), why can´t he do so more than once, or even multiple times? A line of reasoning very hard for the Christians to counter! But I´m afraid I digress).

When Jesus Christ is seen in his true light: not as the sole embodiment of God but as a link in the great chain of illumined masters both from the East and the West, then alone shall we understand - and hopefully realize in the marrow of our bones - what Jesus really intended his life and teachings to impart to mankind: to serve as an elevating and timeless example of how the human can become divine, while retaining its humanity. In short: of how we - you and I - can become Christs.

And Christs we shall all be in the end, for it is our inalienable birthright. It is not a question of if - only when.