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| The Birth of Jesus, Carl Bloch |
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| Issa, Nicolas Roerich |
1. Jesus of Nazareth existed.
2. Either in Alexandria, Egypt or Kashmir
during his seventeen missing years, between the age if 12 and 29, Jesus was
drawn to Eastern influences and tutored by masters.
3. Jesus was most certainly a Buddhist, if
not in name, in belief. (Even the Holy Trinity—mind, body, spirit or gut, heart
and brain) derives from Buddhism.
4. Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is about
awareness and nowness (a Buddhist precept), subversive and universalist; Jesus
did not espouse salvation i.e. reward versus punishment; on the contrary,
unlike the Temple, he promoted joyousness in the here-and-now, through
awareness.
5. Jesus returned to Galilee and Jerusalem
and preached the principles of living in the now; he taught that each person is
a son (or daughter) of God (the Universe) repeatedly pointing out that people
did not need clergy or temples to have a direct relationship with God. In fact,
Jesus eschewed clergy and temples in favor of prayer/contemplation/meditation
outdoors, in a natural setting, away from other people, in solitude.
6. As such, Jesus stood up to deeply entrenched
and very corrupt power structures, which retaliated by having him mocked and crucified.
7. Jesus was resurrected from a near-death
experience on the cross and secreted along the Silk or Spice Trail to Kashmir,
where he continued his studies and teachings for several decades until his
death.
8. The Greek Orthodox disciples created a new
religion, Christianity, bestowing upon Jesus the monocle Christ, and the
legends that followed were partly based on the Buddha-inspired pronouncements
of their savior along with self-serving tales of mythological proportion to
promote the growth of a burgeoning offshoot of Judaism.
I admire Jesus as an historical
figure all the more for having survived the crucifixion and for having
(unintentionally) pulled off the greatest ruse in history, leading inadvertently
to the creation of one of the world’s most popular religions.
From my own personal standpoint, I
stood up to a deeply entrenched and very corrupt power structure in Monaco, as
the Prince’s intelligence chief and, while not crucified, I got slaughtered by
a vicious Internet campaign (the new crucifixion?)
The concept of Resurrection is
personal to me because of how I resurrected myself after soaring too close to the sun and searing my wings, an egoistic path that transformed into a spiritual journey.
The cross itself is not only
symbolic of resurrection but, as an instrument of torture, represents
surrender; a surrender to suffering; a surrendering of the ego so that
consciousness is released in its purest form.
Because the real message from Jesus is this:
We are all sons (and
daughters) of God, and to discover our inner Godliness we must rise above our
egos; we must suffer as long as our ego continues to dominate our thinking, as
a chattering monkey, and resist awareness of the divine within us all.
The mindfulness craze, the power of
now… it all started with the Buddha. Those tuned into Buddhism in its purest
form have been practicing mindfulness for 2500 years.
Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David
Thoreau discovered, practiced and wrote about “The Eastern Influence” and their
teachings reflect the tents of Buddhism.
A century later, Alan Watts, a philosopher
and writer, and other Westerners, rediscovered Eastern influences and, starting
in the early 1960s, midwifed meditation and mindfulness (along with mind-expanding drugs) into mainstream Western
culture.
Buddhism is secular; it is a
philosophy, not a religion; it is a communion with nature, and, literally, about being
out of your mind. It is about noticing when your mind leans away from the
peace, silence and stillness everyone can find once they become aware of their inner chattering monkey.
Having read and studied this in
depth, I realize I am—should anyone ask if I believe in God—a theosophical
Omnist with a bent toward Christian mysticism and the unfiltered teaching of
the Buddha.
God is not localized or timed; it is
always and everywhere.
Simply by being aware, one becomes a
mystic.
In some mystical (non-traditional)
way, one might even say this is where I found Jesus.
