The Dogmas of Social Morality Versus the Esoteric Spiritual Teaching That Is At the Origin of Traditional Religions 3. If you are truly Spiritually Awakened, then you inherently transcend the apparently separate self and the apparently objective world in every moment. Even if the machine of the body-mind is active in one or another manner as it inevitably is, because it is born in the frame of space and time no action need bind you in any manner whatsoever, if you will rightly understand the nature of the body-mind and the world, and if you will practice life on the basis of that right understanding. This is the logic of the teaching of Jesus of Galilee, and (indeed) the logic of the teaching of all the great Spiritual Adepts. The great Spiritual Adepts do not come into the world merely to guarantee social order, nor can their teachings be reduced to a social gospel. The teachings of Jesus of Galilee are not reducible to the Ten Commandments and some sort of socially positive emotion that is called love. The conception of works or performing action for the sake of becoming holy, sinless, deserving of heaven after death, happiness, fullness, success while alive is discussed in the New Testament, just as it is discussed in the Bhagavad Gita and other traditional scriptures. If you understand the esotericism represented by such figures as Jesus and Krishna (or by the essential teaching communicated by the texts in which such figures are the principal characters), you will see that no traditional scripture recommends the way of the social-personality-for-its-own-sake. In other words, no true traditional scripture is a merely social gospel, or a gospel that (ultimately) is merely a justification for a positive social personality whose salvation lies in works, or the cultivation of positive behaviors. In fact, the traditional scriptures (such as the New Testament and the Bhagavad Gita) all teach the transcending of bondage to works, the transcending of the necessity (and the effects) of all ordinary action. The society of the Jews at the time of Jesus of Galilee was officially based on exoteric religious laws. The Mosaic law, or the Ten Commandments, was preeminent but there were also all kinds of other laws including laws of the temple, as well as many and various forms of conventional religious belief and social morality that were propagated by the various sects among the Jews. The Judaic laws were, first of all, forms of intentional action, or causes that produced culturally acceptable effects. You were instructed about actions that were appropriate for you in your station actions that would produce positive results. These became the laws, the conventions of social morality, the behavioral rules and the systems of behavior and action and idealism that were associated with each of the social classes (or states of life, birth, and social status). Jesus of Galilee was teaching Jewish people, in the context of a society founded on the observance of a sacred system of laws. In that social context, it was assumed that, in general, people were going to act according to the laws or conventions of behavior that were communicated in the sacred culture. However, the great Spiritual teachers have always called people to notice that the laws of sacred culture tend to be misused and misapplied becoming (thereby) the basis for bondage rather than Divine Realization, and the basis for unhappiness and seeking rather than Spiritual Happiness and Freedom. Thus, the New Testament does not merely teach the Mosaic laws, or even a new and summary principle of social morality that could be called love. In other words, the New Testament is not merely teaching social morality, via the idea of love as a general social concept. Nor is the New Testament teaching the Law of love-in-this-world for the sake of this world merely. Rather, the New Testament at least in its underlying original contents is primarily teaching the esoteric Spiritual Mystery of the Kingdom of God (or the Divine domain). The fundamental teaching of Jesus of Galilee is about how to enter, in every present moment, into the Spiritual Condition of the Divine Reality, Which Is the Source-Condition (or Matrix) of conditional self and conditional Nature and such that there is the inherent transcending of all sin (or all separation from the Divine Spiritual Condition of Reality, or all bondage to mere causes and effects). Thus, the esoteric method (or the Way of right life, rather than the corporate social and altogether exoteric religion) that is the underlying practice recommended in the New Testament Gospels and in all true scripture is the release of all clinging to separate self and world, and the relinquishment of all seeking for results of any kind, by means of a total bodily and lifetime submission to the Spirit (or Pneuma, or Breath) That Is the Divine Reality. Jesus taught that, on the basis of always present self-surrender into Spirit-Breathing Spiritual Communion with the Divine Itself (or the Spiritual Reality-Condition That Is Inherently Divine), you should live as if you have been completely forgiven, and as if there are no binding necessities or unhappy obligations, and as if no sin is effective in your life. Thus, the fundamental principle underlying the New Testament tradition is an esoteric principle. That principle is the always-present transcending of conditional self and conditional world via ego-surrendering Spiritual Communion with the Divine Condition of Reality. Most of the institutional overlay of communication in the New Testament is exoteric socially oriented toward the world of public laws, the world of ordinary purposive action, and the world of commonplace relations. Yet, if you examine the gospel stories, you will find evidence, here and there, of the underlying esotericism that is the root-teaching of Jesus of Galilee. Perhaps the primary example (or demonstration) of the esoteric activity of Jesus of Galilee is the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus (in chapter three of the Gospel of John). I will quote this passage to you, from the translation in The Jerusalem Bible: There was one of the Pharisees called Nicodemus, a leading Jew, who came to Jesus by night. In other words, Nicodemus came secretly. He did not want to be observed because the official religion, like the State, is interested in exoteric matters, which do not stimulate the populace, and which do not (by any distracting means) deter ordinary people from being merely socially positive personalities. Nicodemus could have gotten in trouble for coming to Jesus, who was associated with a message other than the established dogma, for coming to hear a mysterious message from a man who was doing mysterious things. So, Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, and he said:
Rabbi which is another word for teacher, or Guru, in that setting we know that you are a teacher who comes from God; for no one could perform the signs that you do unless God were with him. Jesus answered: I tell you most solemnly, unless a man is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said, How can a grown man be born? Can he go back into his mothers womb and be born again? Jesus replied, I tell you most solemnly, unless a man is born through water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God: what is born of the flesh is flesh; what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be surprised when I say: You must be born from above. The wind blows wherever it pleases; you hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. That is how it is with all who are born of the Spirit. This quotation is one of the principal summaries of Jesus fundamental point of view. Jesus of Galilee tells Nicodemus the secret teaching, the teaching one could hear from Jesus only in secret, the esoteric teaching not merely the public message that encourages everyone to be a more positive social character. Nicodemus is receiving the secret teaching from Jesus, the teaching for the inner circle. What is the secret teaching about? It is about the Mystery of the Kingdom of God (or the Divine domain) and the Kingdom of God is esoterically interpreted to mean a transformation of the individual from existence in the flesh (or as an ego possessed by the conventional purposes of this world) to existence in and as the Living, Eternal, and Free Divine Spirit. The idea of the Kingdom of God already existed in Israel before the reported time of Jesus of Galilee but it was commonly conceived in terms of a worldly destiny, and identified with a religious, social, and political State corporation, primarily made up of the righteous believers among the Jews. The Kingdom was to be created in this world by the God of the Jews through a messiah, a Divine messenger, who would come into the world and conquer all of the enemies of Israel and establish Israel in peace and fullness, wherein all of the laws again produce pleasurable and good results. Jesus of Galilee was reportedly teaching in a time when this ideal, this prophecy of the Kingdom of God, was already present. In the passage from the New Testament that I just quoted, Jesus is teaching a person from the temple, Nicodemus, who knows very well about the prophecies of the Kingdom of God. Jesus is saying that the Kingdom of God, or the Divine domain, is not of this world. It is not externally evident in this world, and it is not to come in this world except, perhaps, as a natural expression of the Spiritual Awakening of humankind as a whole. The Kingdom of God is a Mystery about being born or Awakened into a state of Oneness with the Divine Spirit-Breath. You can be born again in the Spirit, even though you have already been born in the flesh. And that which is born (or Awakened) in the Spirit is Spirit Itself. Thus, the esoteric teaching of Jesus of Galilee is that you must become the Divine Spirit-Breath. In other words, you must become That Which Is Divine. You must enter into the Domain, the Condition, the Kingdom, of the Divine in this present moment. That is the process, the Mystery, whereby a person can Realize the Truth that Jesus came to teach. He did not teach about a worldly kingdom that he would establish as a political messiah, either now or in the future. Jesus is not coming again in order to be the political messiah he did not come the first time in order to be a political messiah! The teaching of Jesus is specifically about the transcending of that expectation. Jesus taught about the Kingdom of God as an esoteric Spiritual Mystery, not as a convention of worldly seeking. Now, it is true that, if everyone did Spiritually enter into the Kingdom of God, then, as time went on, as history developed, the Divine Spirit would be more and more effective and, eventually, perhaps something like a non-utopian Divine Kingdom on Earth might appear. That possibility is, indeed, latent in such instruction. Nevertheless, Jesus point of view is definitely that such a Kingdom will not come about by any means other than a right life of Spiritual Communion with the Divine Condition of Reality. Jesus is not merely coming again to take over this failed world that refuses to be born in the Spirit. The Spirit cannot take over from outside. The Spirit is effective in this world only through the esoteric process of Spiritual Communion not through mere belief, but through worship of the Divine in Spirit, worship of the Divine in Truth, until the flesh (or the conditional ego-self and its world) is utterly transcended in Spiritual Fullness. Jesus of Galilee was saying that the Kingdom of God is Realizable but not through social laws of any kind, and not through any transformation or perfection of conventional behaviors. In any case (as Jesus taught), the purpose of the Kingdom of God does not relate to this world. Rather, the Kingdom of God is the Spiritual State of Utter Unity, or Eternally Prior Oneness, with the Divine. And, Jesus is saying, that Condition is Realizable now, even under the rotten conditions here in Israel or at any other time, and in any other place. Such Realization is a matter of Awakening in Spiritual terms. In other words, instead of clinging to behavioral laws, beliefs, rituals, expectations, and worldly inclinations, instead of depending on the effects that you can create or that any God-idea can create in terms of ordinary human possibility, cling to the Spiritual Divine always presently. Enter into the Spiritual Divine, and Realize the Spiritual Divine. In the passage that I just quoted, Jesus of Galilee is clearly communicating something about the Nature of the Divine. For Jesus, the Divine is not the abstract God of our fathers, the God of rote belief in the temple. For Jesus, the Divine Spiritual Condition of Reality is the Divine Source-Condition (or One True God) of the fathers (or the ancestors) not the God-idea particular to any particular historical time, but the Ever-Living Reality That Is Divine. The Living Divine Is the Spirit-Breath of Reality. The Living Divine Pervades the world and all beings As the Spirit-Breath. Therefore, Spirit-Breath Re-Union with the Living (or Inherently Spiritual) Divine Is the Kingdom of God. In another passage, Jesus of Galilee says that the Kingdom of God is not outside you but within you2 in other words, inherent in every moment of existence. Thus, the Kingdom of God is inherent in this moment of existence. The Kingdom of God is not to be sought by any strategic means, not to be sought outside yourself, not to be conceived as missing, or elsewhere in time and space. The Kingdom of God is a Principle. The Spiritual Divine Condition Is Itself the Kingdom of God. Thus, Jesus of Galilee is saying: Abandon all conventional principles and cling to the Spiritual Divine and, thus and thereby, transcend all separation from the Divine Condition of Reality.
Talk one, talk two, talk three, talk 4
|