The Universal Non-"Religious" Message of Jesus of Galilee
1.
Jesus of Galilee (as he is reported in the "New Testament"
Gospels) was a Spirit-oriented, rather than merely a "religion" oriented,
figure. According to the reports about him, Jesus understood the Divine practice
of life in Spiritual, mystical, and personal terms rather than in conventionally
religious, dogmatic, and ritualistic terms.
Therefore, in the "New Testament" Gospels, Jesus is seen to be teaching the
practice of "sacrifice" in Spiritual, mystical, and personal terms. He taught
that there is no inherent separation or obstruction between living beings and
the Divine Spirit. He taught that the Divine Reality is the Living Spirit, in
Whom all exist, and in Whom all must live.
Jesus of Galilee did not teach that living beings need a mediator between
themselves and the Divine, nor did he teach that there should be or can be any
substitute for one's own sacrifice of separate self as the means of Communing
with the Spiritual Divine. He did not represent himself as a mediator or as a
substitute sacrifice, since he did not presume any inherent obstruction between
human beings (or any living beings at all) and the Spiritual Divine.
Jesus only taught a direct, non-ritualistic, Spiritual, mystical, and personal
Way of self-sacrifice (or of ego-renouncing Divine Spiritual Communion), which,
in his view, represented and epitomized all of the ultimate Wisdom of the
ancients.
Paul of Tarsus (as he is reported in the "New Testament") was a conventional
Jew, trained in the sectarian rabbinical system of his time. He was not taught
by Jesus or by the disciples of Jesus, nor does the characteristic "point of
view" of his letters represent the unique Spiritual teaching of Jesus. Paul
eventually expressed his view that human beings in general, including himself,
are inherently separated from the Divine. He could see no effective means for
restoring himself (or anyone) to the Divine, since there is (it seemed to him)—an
inherent obstruction in any and every individual, that cannot be undone by
one's own actions.
Then, as reported in his letters, Paul experienced a spontaneous mystical
phenomenon—which he, for whatever reason, "interpreted" to be associated with,
and even identical to, the cosmically "Ascended" Jesus. Apparently as a result
of that experience, Paul felt encouraged to believe that the inherent
obstruction and separation between "creatures" and the Divine had been removed,
for everyone, by means of the death (or ritual blood-sacrifice), and
"Resurrection", and subsequent "Ascension" of Jesus.
Thus "converted" and "saved", Paul spent the rest of his life proclaiming this
new religion he had, himself alone, "discovered" (or self-generated, or
invented)-which is the "Christian" religion of faith in, or systematic belief
in, the effective power of Jesus' self sacrifice for the purpose of bringing
everyone to eventual Union (or Re-Union) with the Divine. In all of this, Paul
of Tarsus was more of a Greek "gnostic" than a traditional Jew.
Jesus of Galilee taught. the practice of the sacrifice of self by means of
self-forgetting love of the Divine Spirit, and of constant inherence in the
Spiritual Divine, expressed in daily life via tolerance, compassion, and service
in relation to all human beings. Jesus heartily proclaimed that all human beings
are inherently intimate with the Spiritual Divine (Whom he described as the
"Father" of all). He did not,, at all subscribe to the view that living beings
are inherently evil or inherently separated from the Spiritual Divine. He
described every living being as a child of One "Father".
By referring to the Divine as "Father", Jesus did not mean that people should be
childish (and, so, act in such a loveless and self obsessed manner that they
effectively separate themselves from the Spiritual Divine). Rather, Jesus' idea
of the "Fatherhood" of the Divine was related to the conventions of Jewish laws
of inheritance.
Jesus conceived of every human child as the direct inheritor (even through every
human's birth in his or her mother's womb) of the blessings and status of all
that a child may rightly receive from his or her parents. According to Jesus,
that which is inherited, in the case of a "child of God", is Blessing from the
Spiritual Divine and Inherent Union (or Unity) with the Spiritual Divine.
As it is recorded in the "New Testament" Gospels, the teaching of Jesus of
Galilee is that people are tending to separate themselves from the Spiritual
Divine. He described the "Father" as always ready for, and even expecting,
intimate Re-Union with any and all who have separated themselves from the Divine
Person (Whom Jesus proclaimed to Be One and All-Including).
Jesus did not at all
subscribe to the view that people are inherently (rather than as a temporary
result of ignorant personal activity) separated from the Spiritual Divine—and,
thus, even as a result of Divine Will, inevitably destined to death and hell,
unless a voluntary mediator, or substitute self-sacrifice, can appear between
them and the Divine, and, by means of a unique action (or by conditional, or
cause-and-effect, means), create God-Union for all. Indeed, the idea of a
necessary mediator or ritual substitute is the most obvious and conventional
kind of priest-talk (or religion-speak)—a kind of inherently "sinful" (or "off
the mark") presumption, the kind relative to which Jesus was always shown to be
critical in the "New Testament" Gospels.
The teaching of Jesus that is documented in the "New Testament" Gospels is that
"sin"—or all that one may ignorantly (or as a result of failed understanding
and lack of Spiritual awareness) do or think or believe or presume that
experientially separates oneself from the Spiritual Divine, or obstructs one's
Inherent Spiritual Union with the Divine—is not inherent. Jesus of Galilee
taught that anyone and everyone can and should and must repent of (or renounce)
"sin"—or the ignorant tendency to actively separate oneself from, or presume
separation from, the Spiritual Divine.
Jesus taught that such repentance itself purifies the
individual—as long as it is practiced as a continuous and real exercise,
accompanied by changes of heart, and mind, and bodily action. And Jesus taught
that such self-purification—rather than any participation (or even any belief)
in ritual (or substitute) sacrifices—is the basic (or foundation) means for
participation in Inherent Union (or Perpetual Re-Union) with the Spiritual
Divine.
Now, repentance (or the renunciation of the tendency to separate from the
Spiritual Divine) is, basically, a process of transcending the individuated
self. Indeed, the separate self (or ego, or self-contraction away from the
Divine Reality) is "sin". Therefore, the practice taught by Jesus is that of the
transcending of egoity by means of self-surrender into the Spiritual Divine.
Jesus of Galilee taught that—once anyone has become aware of "sin" as the
ego-action of separation from the Divine Spirit, and once, on that basis, one
has become responsible for egoic activity by freely renouncing it—one must live
by practicing the continuous transcending of the tendency to separate from the
Spiritual Divine. Jesus summarized that ego-renouncing practice of life via the
ancient Jewish summary of the Divine Law, which is the admonition to love, the
Divine and all human others—or to sacrifice, or transcend, separate self, in
every moment, through the practice of self-surrender to the Divine, and,
subsequently, by ego-transcending action in relation to one's every human
association.
The teaching of Jesus of Galilee is a direct "method" (or an inner and
self-responsible esoteric means) of Union with the Divine Spirit by means of
self-sacrifice (or self-surrender into Divine Communion). Paul of Tarsus
proposed a religion (or an externalized, or "objectified", and, thus,
exoteric,
means, or "substitution-method") about Jesus as a
substitute sacrifice.
The teaching of Paul that is presented in the "New Testament" is that one should
accept, and (thus) believe in, the objective sacrifice of Jesus as a substitute
for one's own personal sacrifice. For Paul, the individual is incapable of
Divine Communion, and can participate in the Divine only from a distance-or
through belief. For Paul, Divine Communion is, for all "creatures", a
mediated
event. For Paul, only Jesus participates in Divine Union—whereas all others are
like those who observe a priest performing an objective ritual, done in the name
of, and quite apart from, the observers. For Paul, everyone—except for
Jesus—participates in the Divine only sympathetically, indirectly, merely
believingly, and, for now, only partially.
Paul taught a religion in which people remain as egos, made hopeful (and, it is
expected, more loving and benign) by what they believe about Jesus. Therefore,
in Paul's view, one's actual and full entrance into Divine Union must wait for
an always yet future event—either in the universal righteous final judgment and
aggressive transformation of humankind at the "second coming" of Jesus or else
in some other Divinely-destined time or place or circumstance after death.
2.
The Spiritual teaching of Jesus of Galilee stands
in direct contrast to the conventional (or "substitutionist") religious views of
Paul of Tarsus. Jesus would not at all have agreed that human beings are sinful
inherently—or, as it is said, "fallen", or inherently, rather than merely
ignorantly and actively, separated from the Divine-nor would Jesus have agreed
that human beings (therefore) need a mediator (rather than a Spiritual Master,
or Sat-Guru), or that human beings require (or could even use) a substitute for
their own necessary (and inherently salvatory) free action of repentance and
Divine Communion. Indeed, one of Jesus' primary efforts was to criticize such
conventional religious views. Jesus (as he is reported in the "New Testament"
Gospels) was committed to the view that every human being is inherently free to
repent of the acts of egoic (or "sinful", or separate and separative) self, and
to turn directly to the Ever-Living (or All-Breathing) Divine Spirit in Which
all exist.
Jesus of Galilee clearly felt that his role, as a Spiritual Master, was to
criticize and purify the minds and institutions of his time, and (by means of
Spiritual Baptism and right Spiritual instruction) to Awaken people to the
Spiritual practice of life. Thus, Jesus served his intimate (or "inner-circle")
devotees as a Spiritual Transmitter (or Spirit-Baptizer)—and, thus, as a
Spiritual Master with the unique Power to directly Awaken committed
practitioners to profound Awareness of the Spiritual Divine. However, Jesus was
not otherwise disposed to be regarded or proclaimed as a priestly (or
"objectified" cultic religious) substitute for the necessary personal practice
of others. Therefore, Jesus always shunned the attempts of people around him to
declare him to be the "Messiah", or, otherwise, to put him in a position of
worldly or institutional responsibility.
Therefore, it was only after Jesus' purported death that an institutional cult
(or emerging new religion) began to develop around the person of Jesus of
Galilee—and Paul of Tarsus made himself the leading literary (or doctrinal)
exponent of that new religion.
3.
Only by abandoning its exclusivist claims, and by
ceasing thus to confront and reject all religions other than "official"
Christianity and all Spiritual Adepts other than Jesus, will Christianity begin
to actively demonstrate the Wisdom, the love, the all-inclusive tolerance, and
the truly self-sacrificial "method" of the Spiritual Master Jesus. Therefore, if
Christianity is to be thus transformed, it must freely abandon the ego-based
beliefs and substitutionist cultic presumptions of Paul of Tarsus, and, on that
basis, embrace the free Spiritual Wisdom communicated by Jesus of Galilee.
The path proposed by Paul of Tarsus cannot achieve the "salvation" (or Divine
Re-Union) that it seeks and proclaims. The myth of the sacrifice of Jesus is not
a sufficient substitute for anyone's real sacrifice of conditional self. As long
as the conditional self (or ego-"I") is the basis of human living, no Re-Union
with the Spiritual Divine is possible. As Jesus himself is reported to have
taught, there is no substitute for the individually initiated and personally
practiced self-transcending love of the Spiritual Divine, and there is no "right
life" without self-transcending love, tolerance, and cooperation in relation to
all others.
The eventual (and early) "Christian" institutionalization of Jesus of Galilee
(as he is portrayed—and, otherwise, interpreted, and promoted—in the "New
Testament") was not developed on the basis of the esoteric teachings
communicated by Jesus himself. The "official" Christian Church merely
substituted a new form of priestly "objectification"-religion—which, as such,
is based on external (or non-personal, or substitute) "sacrifices"—as a
replacement. for an older religion that was, itself, already institutionalized
on essentially the same priestly basis. Therefore, Christians, to the present
day, are tied to the myth of Jesus as priest and substitute sacrifice.
4.
There is only one "guilty party" that is
constantly addressed by Jesus of Galilee in the "New Testament" Gospels—and that
"guilty one" is not (by Jesus himself) "objectified" and universalized in the
mythic (and "substitutionist") form of the "Devil" (or "Satan"). Rather, the
"guilty one" that Jesus always addresses is each and every human (apparent) self.
That "guilty one" is the ego, the actual doer of "sin"—or the doer of the
dissociative and Spiritually ignorant activity of the individual bodily (or
psycho-physical) self.
According to Jesus of Galilee, the one (and, really Divine, rather than merely
"religious") necessity is that the Wisdom quenching ego-self must be transcended
in every single case. And, according to Jesus of Galilee, until there is a
growth of right Wisdom and true Spirituality in the world, neither religion nor
secular society is a refuge from falsehood and suffering.
Spiritual Adepts are born to help humankind to Realize the Divine Spiritual
Truth—not to prevent themselves, as well as all others, from Realizing the
Divine Spiritual Truth. Therefore, says Jesus of Galilee (along with all other
Spiritual Adepts), it is time that all human beings surrender themselves, one by
one, to the Divine Spiritual Reality, and, thus, approach the Divine nakedly,
free of all self-armor, all presumptions of superiority, all moral
righteousness, and all of the will toward dissociation from other lovers of
Truth.
In every generation, the Spiritual Masters of the past are dead (and now gone on
to their destiny in the Divine). Therefore, in every generation, those who have
Realized what the Spiritual Masters taught in the past must come forward, alive,
to teach the people. Those who have not themselves Realized what the past
Spiritual Masters taught must remain silent, and submit to the process of
Realizing the Truth—but the Adept-Realizers and their Realized devotees must
give their Self-Radiant Witness and Demonstration. Only thus does the Truth
survive, uncorrupted and alive, generation after generation. And, if any
generation is without a living Spiritual tradition (able to be continued, from
generation to generation, by real and effective Spirit-Baptizing means), then
its children are, likewise, without the Liberating Light—even while the holy
books are piled up, one upon the other, like a fortress in the night.