First of all, let me just say that I have never been a proponent of the idea of a historical Jesus Christ. There, I said it! Is the Almighty about to strike me down with a lightning bolt for denying the existence of His only begotten son?
Why sensible, educated, intelligent people would decide to take myth as literal reality, it beats me, but needless to say that if we're willing to ascribe literal physical, historical beingness to the chief character in a Near Eastern "Mystery Play" then there also was literally a little blue deity called Krishna going about Ancient India 500 years before Christ made his appearance in Bethlehem. I don't think I need to give any further analogies, the concept is clear to those who have ears to hear!
Now, in trying to understand this pre-Christian Mystery Drama, where the central figure is given the name Jesus Christ, what do we learn? Well, we learn a great many things, of course, if we are able to decipher the "psychological" teaching which is encoded into its content; which, by the way, very few individuals can actually do, because they lack the empirical method for unlocking the hidden meanings placed there in plain sight.
"Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand." (Matthew 13:13)
This very saying straight from the mouth of the Messiah, of course, is an illustration of my point that only through an effort of understanding can anything of the deeper meaning placed into the mouth of this "messenger of God" be of any value. So how does one go about distilling meaning and culling truth from something like a "sacred writ?" What is they key to understanding anything?
The answer to these questions lies with us. Our inner psychological makeup is the reason why we cannot see or hear, let alone understand. To be able to see, hear and understand the Laws of the Higher Realities, one would need to transform one's way of seeing, hearing and thinking to be able to perceive another simultaneous reality which one could call "higher" or "finer" levels of order
(consciousness) hidden, so to speak, to the ordinary disposition of our attention.
"The disciples asked Jesus: Whence shall the Kingdom come? And Christ answered: Verily, verily I say unto you, it shall not come by expectation. No one shall say: 'See here!' or 'See there!' The Kingdom of Heaven is spread out upon the earth but Men do not see it." (Gospel of Thomas)
And why do Men not see this "higher" reality? Because they first of all do not seek to see it and secondly do not know how to seek or to see.
"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." Matthew 7:7
What is the message which has been expounded through the Christ story?
It is an esoteric teaching which is meant to awaken individuals to their "Higher Nature" and to guide them in their search for self-knowledge and truth. People have forgotten that finer understanding is possible and have lost their way. The world in which we live is topsy-turvy; Man lives in deceit and lies, worshiping the material and forgetting the spiritual. Man is weak and has wrought upon himself a destiny of devolution and decay, wandering ever further form the source of life and light, which is connected to his inmost sense of Self.
"My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their resting place."
Man has forgotten who He is. It is an irony of ironies that the most evolved form of life on earth, the human being, has lost the knowledge and understanding of that which makes Him human. And knowing not that He has lost his way, Man continues to err and to suffer and to make "Paradise" into a living "Hell." E-V-I-L is to L-I-V-E backwards. And so Man, without knowing it -- and precisely because He has no knowledge if it, because He does not question, because He is not cognizant of Himself or of His unconscious actions -- destroys life. Man is a fragmented being, a result of His fragmented consciousness. Thus, He cannot know that He harms Himself and others because He is asleep to His own Self-destructiveness. How could this trend be reversed? How could Man become upright in Himself again?
If Man were to question his motives and his actions and lead an examined life such that his egotism, vanity, pride, and self-love were seen and understood as E-V-I-L impulses, in the sense that they go against the unity of the evolutionary forces of self-conscious manifestation which tend toward the "good," He might perchance struggle against the "devol"-utionary tendencies and strive to become whole again.
"For this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with
their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see
with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and
turn, and I would heal them."
The word to "heal" comes etymologically from the word to "make whole." Therefore Christ heals the "sick," the "maimed," the "blind" and even "raises the dead." Is this to be "understood" literally? Those who would answer yes are precisely the "blind," "deaf" and "dead" that "Christ" is trying to make whole again.
Literal interpretations of psychological content (instead of figurative or allegorical understanding) leads to dumbness and blindness and eventually death! How to be in living thinking? How to actively question and work towards understanding -- which literally means that which "stands under" and supports meaning?
