The Dogmas of Social Morality Versus the Esoteric Spiritual Teaching That Is At the Origin of Traditional Religions – Up? Beyond the Beginner’s Spiritual Way of Saint Jesus and the Traditions of Mystical Cosmic Ascent via Spirit-Breath

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 Command-

ments”, 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 mother’s 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.

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