 30. Christianity |
The Christianity of today does not teach the original teaching of Jesus. It teaches that God and Christ are on the outside and must come into us in order to be saved. It teaches that we can only go to heaven AFTER death it teaches that heaven is up in the sky above the clouds, somewhere.
Jesus said, The Kingdom of God is WITHIN you, Luke17:21 and is at hand,: that is, heaven can be attained NOW by anyone desiring to learn and practice meditation (the raising of the serpent). AND AS MOSES LIFTED UP THE SERPENT IN THE WILDERNESS, EVEN SO MUST THE SON OF MAN BE LIFTED UP. (John 3:14). The term SON OF MAN refers to the psychological personality, the ego-I condition. SON OF GOD refers to a person who has attained (returned to) God-self-realization. The words of Jesus in the Bible are correct, but the understanding of his message to all of humanity has been misunderstood.
It is not the fault of Jesus that His followers cannot truly understand His teachings.
ESOTERIC Christianity was, in contrast to EXOTERIC Christianity, based on (or, at least, largely influenced by) the Greek (and other Oriental) gnostic and mystery (and, otherwise, mystical) traditions, which (in the general manner of fifth stage psychic and mystical traditions) affirmed the existence of the eternal in Man, in the form of a "soul" (or a psyche that is separable from the body), and which conceived of Salvation (or the transcending of the deluding and binding power of cosmic Nature, of the human world, and of mortality) in terms of the separation of the "soul" from the body via mystical (and "Spirit-Breathing") ascent, and even via the process of "reincarnation-until-Perfection" (or a sequence of progressively, and even Spiritually, developing lifetimes, leading toward the eventual achievement of a degree of self-purification and mystical ascent that ends the process of descent and incarnation).
The EXOTERIC Christians were anti-gnostic (and anti-mystical), and their views were (compared to those of the esoteric Christians) more closely aligned to (or identified with) popular religion (and the social morality that is the necessary basis of any "official," or publicly "usable," State religion). Likewise, exoteric Christianity became "official" (and Roman) by identifying itself with a "universalized" and popular version of its own originally rather limited (and bodily based) sectarianism. This process also involved general acceptance of the legitimacy of the exoteric Christianity of Paul of Tarsus - who "universalized" Christianity, by extending it to non-Jews (or "gentiles"), and whose views allowed for the general popularization of Christianity, by founding it on the principle of faith alone (stripped of the traditional Jewish necessities of laws and works and observances).
Once this "universalized" popular and exoteric Christianity became "official," gnostic (or otherwise esoteric) Christianity was thereafter officially suppressed. However, the Jesus of the New Testament was (necessarily) not only a Jew but a Hellenistic Jew, influenced by the Greek and general Oriental culture that pervaded Israel in his day. And much of what he is reported to have understood and Taught and done was apparently an expression of the Greek and general Oriental orientation toward mystical religion that was the basis of the esoteric schools and traditions of his day. Likewise, the gnostic (or esoteric) schools of early Christianity were the bearers of much that was (apparently) also associated with Jesus' own Spiritual Teaching and Demonstration. Therefore, the gnostic Message about mystical ascent and Spiritual Freedom, rather than physical Resurrection and moral righteousness, is (it would seem) closer to Jesus' own Teaching then the "official" church and exoteric doctrine that was later developed (360-380 A.D.) in his name.
Now that the physical world itself has been made subject to the eyewitness test of science, the flat Earth, the crystal vault of stars, and "Heaven" spatially above them are proven myths. Likewise, the Ascension of Jesus is, for the same reasons, a proven myth, no longer able to justify belief (or religious affirmation) as an historically real even (although some have not yet received sufficient Spiritual Instruction, or Realized sufficient Spiritual Awakening, to relieve them of the felt need to believe or affirm it as such).
