Esoteric Christianity
Traditional Christianity, as it has existed for most of the past 2,000 years,
has been largely a socio-political, cultural phenomenon concerned mainly with
collective belief and thought. However, there has been, from the beginning, an
inner teaching that has been ignored and rejected by organized church
Christianity. It is this inner (or higher) message that carries the ageless,
universal truth of the teaching of Jesus Christ. It is contained in the Gospels
but is not in the literal words. The Teacher himself, though literate, chose
not to leave one written word by his own hand, saying that the letter kills. He
left to others the inevitable task of trying to record in words what cannot be
expressed directly, but can only be received indirectly by way of parable or
higher psychological thinking. The written account is a step down from the
actual living message, but if one has the key, it can be received.
Church Christianity was formed mainly through political influences, starting
with the heroic, inspiring efforts of Paul to create a system that would spread
throughout the Roman world, based on the transforming teachings of Jesus, but
to a certain degree accommodating the times, and various cultures. Paul's
efforts were directed more toward organizing and maintaining churches than to
teaching the original message of individual transformation (salvation). He worked
to create a collective authority with exclusive power to disseminate the
teaching and to control every aspect of belief and behavior of its members. The
teaching of Paul was a vast departure from the teaching of Jesus, not only in
principle, but in practice.
When the Roman emperor Constantine adopted the growing and powerful new
religion as a way of solidifying his political power, he established an
organization patterned on Roman government. He rejected all aspects of teaching
that did not suit his purposes, and banned all writings, views, individuals,
and groups, not conforming to his certified structure. He laid a rigid
groundwork for all subsequent Christian thought. Even at the Protestant
Reformation over 1000 years later, though the new sects changed the form of
church government and allowed for certain variations in interpretation, the
basic dogma remained as it was developed by the early church in Rome. This
continues in institutional churches of today, whether Orthodox or Protestant.
Esoteric Christianity is concerned with the personal transformation (re-birth),
possible for a person, which is taught by the life and message of Jesus
Christ. It is the teaching that humanity is in an incomplete, low, dark
state of being, and that an individual has the potential to become a whole,
real being who lives on a higher conscious level (called "the Kingdom of
Heaven.") In this state, one is no longer imprisoned by the body or
personality, or by time, but realizes a new life. This is a new human, - the
offspring (son) of man, and at the same time, the child (son) of God. The
transformation is not accomplished by following a social prescription, but only
by entering the narrow gate of personal, individual experience of the powerful
conversion exemplified by the life and teaching of Jesus Christ.
Church Christianity fosters a view of Jesus that is little different from cults
of personality. When Jesus said, "No man can come to the Father but
through me," it is misunderstood as an exclusive human statement. He was
speaking as the universal spiritual aspect of the eternal Christ. When he
said," I am the truth, the life, the way", he was claiming identity
with all truth, and real life, and the way to the Higher, not as a human
personality, but as the representative of God. When he said, "Before
Abraham was, I am," he was not speaking as the human Jesus, but as the
eternal spirit of Christ. Jesus saw himself as a new type of human (the Son of
Man), but also, he consciously accepted the identity of Christ (the Son of
God).
"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,"
is the essence of Christian moral teaching and has many levels of meaning. It
is important to start with "Thou", and to not take for granted that
one understands who is meant. Ordinary man is a multiple, changing being who
has acquired a personality that is not constant, reliable, or true. He has
False Personality who only loves itself. This is the state of "carnal
man," who is limited to self-love, self-importance, self-righteousness,
and other small self-emotions. In order to be able to change from this low
state, one must experience "metanoia," (a
Greek word used in the Gospels meaning change of mind. It is wrongly translated
as "repent "). This is not a change that happens automatically to
everyone. On the contrary, it starts with a personal glimpse of a higher
possibility that may or may not lead one to make conscious effort toward a
process of change to a "Thou" who is capable of love of true self, of
others, and of God. Ordinary people love their opinion of themselves, love
others who flatter or agree with their opinion, and love only their opinion of
a God they suppose they worship. What they love can turn to negativity,
dislike, suspicion, jealousy, violence, or hate in a moment. Real love is a
positive emotion which ordinary humanity lacks and never becomes negative.
Positive emotions have no opposite and are either present or absent. The word
"love" is used in the Gospels as conscious love (agape in Greek), not
mechanical or conditional love. Imagination, pretense, desire, possessiveness,
and sentimentality, or combinations of these things, make up what goes by the
name of love in ordinary life. One who lives in the false self-image that
serves small self-emotions cannot experience real love. Jesus was speaking to
those capable of love, - to those who have understanding, - to those in the
kingdom. A person of the world, a once-born person, cannot understand what love
of God, or others, is. Such a person looks down on others if they are different
in any way from what pleases their own False Personality.
Anyone who reads the Gospels with any degree of understanding recognizes
without doubt that they are about something completely different than ordinary
cultural ideas. However, people read the Gospels literally and mechanically and
do not understand what they read. They read how Jesus continually condemned the
Pharisees and other worldly falseness, but they do not see that it applies to
them, - to their own inner Pharisee, always pretending to be something it is
not. They also read through the film of inherited conditioning that has thickened
for two millennia of church interpretation and indoctrination.
What does "love of neighbor"
mean? Who is one's neighbor? In Jesus' answer to this, in the parable of the
Good Samaritan, he makes clear that it is not the priest or Levite who passed
the assaulted man on the road. They were not neighbors. But the foreigner who
showed mercy proved to be a neighbor. In esoteric language it has to do with
those near you in being, -- in understanding. Not everyone is a neighbor, but
followers of Christ are told to show mercy and prove to be a neighbor to
others. When two or more neighbors get together in the spirit of Love, they are
the body of Christ (the Church).
All parables in the Gospels contain layers of meaning, which are gradually
revealed as one changes in understanding and in being. Ordinarily, people read
only on a mechanical (literal) level and imagine that they understand all that
is there. This is the letter that kills, - not the spirit that gives life.
Jesus' message is not contained in the words he spoke or in the later words
written in the gospels. These only point to the meaning, the understanding,
which is above the literal, beyond language...that can only be received by
those who have ears and eyes.
Jesus taught that the
Esoteric Christianity is not exclusive of truth in other cultures and
religions. The Truth, (Christ) exists universally within all things. The Life,
(Christ) conquers death and dispels the darkness of ignorance, partiality,
vanity, and pride. The Way, (Christ) is transformation from a low state of
being to what one is in truth.
Largely ignored by church teaching is the sevenfold nature of all things,
spoken of many times in scripture, from the seven days of creation to the seven
seals of Revelation. This is the law of transformation, - of creation.
7. understanding (comprehension)
6. knowledge (science and
conscience)
{-- KINGDOM
5. receptivity (directed attention)
4. intellect (conditioned thought / metanoia) {
-- CHANGE
3. emotion (automatic feeling)
2. senses (physical
senses)
{ -- ORDINARY HUMANITY
1. superstition (imagination)
The Bible, or anything else, can be approached through any of the seven levels.
It is only with metanoia, - a change from automatic,
conditioned thinking, to conscious thought, that an entrance into the higher
levels (the Kingdom of Heaven) can be made. John the Baptist was at the pivotal
point, but had not entered. Jesus said John was the greatest of once-born men,
but
that the least in the kingdom was greater. So this state has levels. Levels 1,
2, and 3 are those of ordinary humans. Level 4 is the dividing line between
unconscious, conditioned thinking and the birth of a new process of thought
that is conscious. Levels 5, 6, and 7 are the levels of the kingdom, -- the
highest potential of humanity where there is peace, order, and unity. Lower
humanity falsely believes it has the higher qualities of real experience, real
knowledge, and real understanding, thus it sees no need for effort to change.
The Gospels teach, above all, that the purpose for human life is to enter this
higher state, rather than to try to reform the world. Jesus did not concern
himself with worldly government or institutions, other than to recognize them
for what they are, (Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is
God's). Neither did he try to reform the religion of his time. He fulfilled it
by showing what it was supposed to be. The kingdom is not of the world (levels
1, 2, and 3), but of a higher reality. The baptism
of Christ is one of fire (spirit). The entire message of Christ through Jesus
was about this higher potential that he called the kingdom of heaven.
Today, as in the time of Jesus, few people can accept this teaching, preferring
to follow the broad highway of group membership and religious social identity.
The inner teaching was not, and is not, a religion for the masses. It does not
teach faith in the human world and its institutions, but in the transcendence
of it for the few. It requires an internal severance from the "traditions
of men", while living in the world, but not belonging to it (believing in
its values). Esoteric Christianity can never become an organized, institutional
church. It can exist for individuals within institutional religion, churches,
but they must be able to see beyond the surface structure to the inner, higher
meaning. The real Teaching is about individual, personal change to a higher
state of being.