Testament
I had written up to here before reading “The Jesus Mysteries” by Freke and Gandy. My experience therefore gives independent confirmation of their detailed reconstruction of gnosticism. I think also that I have developed a language in which to express these truths today. Their carefully argued thesis, the more telling because it was not their original position but arrived at by a study of surviving referenced texts and artifacts, is that the ancient world was full of dying and rising godmen, and that the motif was the basis of all the mystery religions such as those of Eleusis. The cover shows the figure of a crucified godman, but it is Orpheus. The Mysteries always had a double aspect of inner and outer meaning. The inner meaning, illustrated by a crucified donkey-headed figure with a man looking on is that the lower ‘animal’ nature is put to death so that he may be spiritually resurrected. They point out the total lack of biographical information concerning Jesus in the letters of Paul, and show that only the death is significant for him. Their conclusion is that Jewish myth makers, wishing to introduce the mysteries into Judaism amalgamated the myth of the dying and rising godman and the myth of the Messiah, this being the only possible figure that could have been used for this purpose, and that Jesus is wholly mythical. Even the name Joshua, saviour, comes from the Old Testament.
Bishop Spong in his “Jesus for the Non-Religious” shows how completely the biography of Jesus was derived from the Old Testament. He demonstrates how Mark’s passion narrative is “organised in a twenty-four-hour cycle, neatly divided into eight three-hour segments. That makes the story of the crucifixion begin to look less and less like history and more and more like liturgy.” I had long ago suspected the Magnificat (1) to be a literary creation because of the parallel with the Song of Hannah.(2) I did not realise that the character was fictional as well as her words.
There are two accounts of the Exodus,(3) one where the east wind blew all night and the chariot wheels were bogged down on the shore of the Sea of Reeds, and the other where there were walls of water on either side. The second is obviously a heightened version of the first. Both are fictional, for the Exodus is a myth of emergence from the slavery of separation and entry into the promised land of the unity. And the demise of the walls of water includes the demise of many other miracles, but not all. I listen with interest to accounts of those that have been experienced, and are not literary devices. I suspect that the super-natural world, the magnificent multi-layered creation, contains many energies whose operation appears miraculous to a limited monoplanar view of nature.
So the death of Moses is not the petulant act of a spiteful separate God, but the end of the consciousness of the separate self which must precede awareness of the unity. Not that I propose to let Jehovah off the hook. There were far too many enemies for them all to symbolize evil entities, and the technique is wrong too. You only give them your energy if you attend to them and fight them. Concentrate on the Unity, not on dubious entities. As Paul says so appropriately: “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things”.(4)
Gerhard von Rad in his book on Genesis shows how two accounts of the flood were combined together phrase by phrase. He undoes the fine stitching and presents the accounts one after the other. Possibly the Word of God can be constructed in this manner, but I doubt it.
Back in Bangor days I saw an inscription in a modern stained glass window: “Unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time.” I thought that this was typical 50s or 60s unbelief, until I found that it was from Hebrews.(5) So here is an interpretation of the last day that makes of it a personal experience, rather than a single world event. So both are biblical, neither is absolute. With which do I have more affinity? The personal experience without a doubt. So what of the staged production with the throne and the sheep and the goats and the bonfire? Improbable fiction.
Where is the Word of the Lord in this? That different people have different opinions. You knew that already? Then thou shalt relish the diverse opinions of thy brethren, and shalt not impose thine own opinions supposing in ignorance that they are the Word of the Lord.
So I have another, and very simple addition to my list of possible meanings for the crucifixion in Chapter 5 above.
For George Fox, the meaning of the cross is precisely the dying to unreality and wakening to reality:
“To Friends concerning the Cross of Christ, the power of God
The Cross makes a separation from all other lovers, and brings to God, and the ground of evil thoughts comes to be opened, and the Cross overturns the world in the heart. Which Cross must be taken up by all who follow Jesus Christ, out of the world which hath an end into the world which is without end; and all the evil things of the world must be denied. For who loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him; where the world is standing, the Cross is not lived in. But dwelling in the Cross to the world, here the love of God is shed abroad in the heart, and the way is opened into the inheritance which fades not away. For God is not seen but in the eternal Light from whence all pure wisdom comes. This treasure is not seen but with the spiritual eye, nor received but with the pure in heart, and by those who dwell in the eternal Light…” (6)
Neither for Freke and Gandy nor for me is the motif of the dying and rising godman meaningful, though it is for millions of Christians. Wiccans tend to see the Divinity as a dying and rising God and an undying Goddess. I see its connection with the death of the corn to feed us, and its rising again to new life, and with the death of vegetation in Autumn and its renewal in Spring, and with the dying of one body and the re-appearance in another. The problem with it as a metaphor for the dying to the separate self and the rising again to the life of the Unity is that it dazzles with excess of pain. I do not say it is painful. There was pain in plenty earlier in life, in the maintaining of the separate self. This is well represented by Anderson in his story of the little mermaid, whose every step was agony. The question at this stage is “Do you want to live the life of a fragment or the life of the whole?” or “Since you know that your deepest identity is the Son, are you going to acknowledge it?” and the answering is simple and painless. It is not so terrible to give up the world in this sense. It is far more terrible not to, for then you are living in unreality.
So what do I have to alter? Jesus meaning humanity at the level of soul can stay, though Adam is just as good a term. Jesus the interesting literary character can stay. The historical Jesus disappears without a ripple. Christ, meaning the Eternal Son, Atman, remains for ever.
Nothing is lost. The stories of the unjust judge, the jealous labourers, the good Samaritan, the woman searching for her coin, the bullying borrower, supremely the prodigal son, are all there even if we do not know who wrote them, so are the teachings like the lilies of the field, and that man shall not live by bread alone. Other stories are their companions, such as the writing in the sand or caught in the act. And the unacceptable stories like the sheep and the goats can be discarded without embarrassment.
I begin to see how scripture can work in two ways at once. Do you remember the widow who gave her mites to the temple treasury? (7) Exoterically, it is a fine moral tale. Look, she of her poverty gave all she had, so you, who are not so poor, ought to give much more. Then Jesus will smile on you. Ye who now will bless the poor shall yourselves find blessing. There is a darker meaning too. The corrupt church “eats up my people as though they were bread”,(8) and will not spare the widow her last shred of self-determination. And Jesus, their Jesus, looks on, smiling cynically. And esoterically? The temple was not made with hands. We sing in the Pentecostals of “that place of Divine exchange”. The mites were the widow’s separate self. It is quite correct to call it a thing of very small value. Nevertheless “she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living”, that is, all that she was. And she received back all that God is. A fair bargain? I say so. She was old and tired and poor and lonely and full of illnesses, and now? “Quondam paupere”. Once a pauper.(9)
I should say again that the soul is a magnificent entity with powerful faculties operating on many levels. It is only in comparison with Spirit that it appears to be of small value.
And what of Barabbas? (10) It is a fine story, full of pathos and irony:
“A murderer they save,
The Prince of Life they slay”.(11)
But bar means Son of, and Abba is the very attractive biblical name for God the Father. Inwardly, you are Barabbas, though luckily you are not a murderer, only you do not know who you are. And Barabbas was released to them, that is, your deepest nature is known to you, and is shining in the world, living and active. What an incomparable word is “released”. And no death was required to bring it about, not the death of your lower nature, not even the death of your identification with your separate self as “I”, but the laying aside of this identification permanently in order to know yourself to be the Son of the Father.
Here is another bar story: “And Simon Peter answered and said, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God’. And Jesus answered and said unto him, ‘Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven’”. (12)
Externally this is the moment when a great apostle recognizes Jesus as the Christ, and we also get to know the name of his father. Internally, it won’t be someone else whom he recognizes, and barjona signifies that he follows the prophet Jonah in entering a mysterious dark place and emerging with a new consciousness that enables him to Speak the Word of God. The rest, "Blessed art thou, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven” is plain truth, perennial, simple, accurate.
Do you remember the guest who was advised to sit in a low place in case somebody else came who took precedence ? (13) It is nice when other people do not puff themselves up! Jesus does not shrink from using the shallow motive of fear of social embarrassment to make his point. He takes us as he finds us. Inwardly it is the separate self which goes down. Your real self is the table, the space it occupies and everybody sat at it. You are indeed a friend, of infinite value. Come up higher.
What of the command, no less, to love your neighbour as yourself? (14)
Outwardly it is religious hyperbole, pathetically inadequate. Inwardly, your neighbour is yourself.
Esau swapped his birthright of Divine Consciousness for the mess of pottage which is the consciousness of the separate self. (15)
And I have underrated St Paul if his words were designed to have an outer and inner meaning, though it is forever true that talk of a separate God is milk for babes. Here is a passage from Romans 6 as given in the prayer book of 1549 as the Epistle for the 6th Sunday after Trinity. I love the old language. May the unfamiliar setting be a metaphor for your finding new meaning in these familiar words.
“Knowe ye not, that all we whiche are baptised in Jesu Christe, are baptised to dye with hym? We are buryed then with hym by baptisme for to dye; that likewise as Christ was raised from death, by the glorye of the father, euen so we also should walke in a newe life. For if we be graft in death like unto him; euen so shall we be partakers of the resurreccion: Knowing this, that our olde man is crucified with hym also, that the body of synne myght utterly be destroyed, that hencefurth we should not be servauntes unto synne. For he that is dead is iustified from synne.
Wherfore, if we be dead with Christe, we beleue that we shall also lyue with hym, knowyng that Christe beyng raysed from death, dyeth no more. Death hath no more power ouer hym. For as touchyng that he dyed, he dyed concernyng synne once. And as touching that he lyueth, he lyueth unto God: Likewise consider ye also, that ye are dead as touchyng synne, but are alyue unto God, through Jesus Christe our Lorde.”
The inner meaning goes something like this:
“You who are initiated into the inner meaning of our faith understand the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection allegorically. Here you find the power of the myth as you see how it applies to you, which is the meaning of your being baptized into his death. Just as we said he was crucified and rose again, so also with you. As he rose, so will you, in very fact and truth. What dies of you is the separate self. Try sinning if you are dead! But really sin is anything other than God. As there is no more separate self, there is nothing other than God, so no sin. The resurrection life is the life of the Father, through Christ the Son, which you are to live, for in the resurrection, that is who you are.”
So I am one of “those who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already and overthrow the faith of some”.(16) So is Paul.
Galatians 2:20 is so inward that it hardly has an outward meaning, unless it is to view the indwelling Christ as separate from your greater self: “I live, I do not mean my separate self: Christ lives in me.”
Here I may digress concerning other souls. Anybody touching the soul of another bears a very great responsibility. "And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea”. (17) “He which converteth the sinner from the error of his ways shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins”. (18) Both these quotations use intemperate language, but each contains a large amount of truth. I should be very cautious about touching the soul of another. But I don’t see how I could overthrow the faith of anybody, even if I wanted to. Each one is responsible for his or her own faith. The counterfeit church would not agree with this. They do their best to keep souls in the condition of sheep, stunting their growth. Is this not a very great offence? Why should they remain little ones? Sheep may safely graze, no doubt, but if they want to grow into their humanity, and the stature of the fullness of Christ, they are on their own. And they need not expect it to be a walk by a placid lake.
“Let one who seeks not stop seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will be troubled. When he is troubled, he will be astonished and will rule over all”.(19) This relates to Gnosis, indeed it fits this treatise very well, but we have also seen that all souls are liable to experiences of desolation, when all comfort and certainty seem to have disappeared. They are expected to take this in their stride. So how can the words of those who know that the resurrection is an inward experience and wish to share what is to them precious and valuable knowledge to encourage and deepen the faith of their fellows whom they love as themselves be construed as overthrowing the faith of anybody? Such concern for ovine souls is rather a ploy of ecclesiastical shepherds to maintain their supposed power.
Returning to outward and inner meanings, Luke specifically says that “The Kingdom of God does not come in such a way as to be seen. No one will say, ‘look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ because the Kingdom of God is within you”.(20) Equally inward is the reference to the revealing of the Son of Man that follows: “Don’t go out looking for it. As the lightning flashes across the sky and lights it up from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day”.(21) This is a good description of level seven consciousness. It could well be called the last day because time stops here.
"Is there a God beside me? Yea, there is no God; I know not any". (22) Outwardly this is exactly how the ego behaves. The Lord Jehovah spends a good deal of his time fighting other gods. Inwardly it is superb. The Unity is all.
“And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them”.(23)
Of course they will not: for one to teach and one to be taught are two, and the Lord is one. So they shall all know me in my fullness, in the unity. The creation will not rest until this has been achieved.
He who goes forth weeping from his home into incarnation bearing precious seeds of Divinity will certainly return again laughing, with his harvest.
(25
And those great words of Paul, forever joined to Handel’s music:
“Since by Man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive”. (24)
You are well able to distinguish the outward and inward meanings of this for yourself.
Jesus said "No-one can come to me unless the Father makes it possible for him to do so." Because of this many of Jesus' followers turned back and would not go with him any more. So he asked the twelve disciples, "And you - would you also like to leave?" Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life." (25)
The outer meaning is milk for babes. Inwardly it is a most intimate picture of a soul in the awesome process of losing itself and finding the unity. "Fac eas, Domine, de morte transire ad vitam" is from the Requiem. "Cause them, Lord, to make the transition from death to life." But it is a soul matter, not the discarding of a body. So is this, after the Easter Vigil: "On this most holy night, when our Indwelling Christ passed from death to life ..." It has begun to lose itself, and is in a dark and trackless place. It might well be tempted to turn back, but it knows that there is a great light, even if it can't see it, To whom would we go? We know perfectly well that the separate self is a prison, and we cannot pretend, even to ourselves, that it will serve.
And when you know what the inner meanings are like, you can see pointers to them, not the inner meanings themselves, for they would have been communicated to the initiates orally: Jesus has just told the disciples that he is going to be killed and will rise again. Three broad hints to look below the surface follow in quick succession:
But the disciples did not understand any of these things; the meaning of the words was hidden from them, and they did not know what Jesus was talking about. (26)
What is here has the force of a covenant or testament. It is not like the old and new testaments, because they were between God and us, but there is no us. I call it a testament because it is a view of the basis of our existence. I shall call it the First Testament, because it preceded the Old Testament, also because it is pre-eminent. Here it is:
You are born of God. You are Eternal in both directions. You never fell, never could. Your sonship never started. God’s reproductive system is not like ours, for there is one God always, so God plus God equals God. Though you forget it very easily, or have not known it, your deepest identity is God the Son. So is that of everybody else, but that is all right. You are everybody else. God can never be separated from God, not in any circumstances, not for any consideration. So there is no saviour, no atonement, no sacrifice, no hell.
“In this world they call greatness the possession of cattle and horses, elephants and gold, servants and wives, lands and houses. But I do not call this greatness, for here one thing depends on another.
But the Infinite is above and below, North and South and East and West. The Infinite is the whole universe.
I am above and below, North and South and East and West. I am the whole universe.
Atman is above and below, North and South and East and West. Atman is the whole universe.” (27)
One could just as well say, using the term in precisely the same sense:
Christ is above and below, North and South and East and West. Christ is the whole universe.
Then Watts’ words lose their jingoistic overtones, and become the song of confidence and hope that they were doubtless meant to be, using an everyday translation for Christ:
Jesus shall reign where’er the sun
Doth his successive journeys run;
His kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
Till moons shall wax and wane no more.
How it was that you were persuaded that you were separate and limited is a great mystery. As all the substance of God is inviolate, I have a picture as of a crumple in a piece of cloth, so some parts of the surface are hidden from other parts but all the cloth is there. Another way of putting it is seemingly to disagree with Donne and say that every person is an island, ineluctably separate. Below the sea is the place where all are one. Or I could say that you have been fooled into thinking that you are separate and limited. Who has bamboozled you so greatly? God of course. There is no-one else. He had his reasons, very loving and powerful ones, to do with your eternal generation, and with seeing and experiencing himself in you. It was a very good deception. You were completely convinced, but then, what God does is well done. When you have seen through the trick, the game is over.
Come unto me all ye that labour in separateness and are heavy laden with lack and limitation, and I, Christ, will give you rest. Take my self upon you and be me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye will find rest in your Spirit.
1. Luke 1:46
2. 1Samuel 2:1-10
3. Exodus 14:21.
4. Philippians 4:8
5. Hebrews 9:28
6. Epistle 51 in No more but my love, letters of George Fox, Quaker, ed C W Sharman, Quaker Home service, London
7. Mark 12:42
8. Psalm 14:4
9. Fauré’s Requiem: In Paradisum
10. Mark 15:6
11. Hymn: My song is love unknown: Samuel Crossman
12. Matthew 16:16
13. Luke 14:7
14. Mark 12:31
15. Genesis 25:33
16. 2 Timothy 2:18. This letter is of course a forgery.
17. Mark 9:42
18. James 5:20
19. Gospel of Thomas 2
20. Luke 17:20 (Good News Bible)
21. Luke 17:24 (Good News Bible)
22. Isiah 44:8
23. Jeremiah 31:34
24. 1 Cor 15: 51-52
25. John 6:65ff (Good News Bible)
26. Luke 18:34 (Good News Bible).
27. Chandogya Upanishad 7, Trans Juan Mascaro
Bishop Spong in his “Jesus for the Non-Religious” shows how completely the biography of Jesus was derived from the Old Testament. He demonstrates how Mark’s passion narrative is “organised in a twenty-four-hour cycle, neatly divided into eight three-hour segments. That makes the story of the crucifixion begin to look less and less like history and more and more like liturgy.” I had long ago suspected the Magnificat (1) to be a literary creation because of the parallel with the Song of Hannah.(2) I did not realise that the character was fictional as well as her words.
There are two accounts of the Exodus,(3) one where the east wind blew all night and the chariot wheels were bogged down on the shore of the Sea of Reeds, and the other where there were walls of water on either side. The second is obviously a heightened version of the first. Both are fictional, for the Exodus is a myth of emergence from the slavery of separation and entry into the promised land of the unity. And the demise of the walls of water includes the demise of many other miracles, but not all. I listen with interest to accounts of those that have been experienced, and are not literary devices. I suspect that the super-natural world, the magnificent multi-layered creation, contains many energies whose operation appears miraculous to a limited monoplanar view of nature.
So the death of Moses is not the petulant act of a spiteful separate God, but the end of the consciousness of the separate self which must precede awareness of the unity. Not that I propose to let Jehovah off the hook. There were far too many enemies for them all to symbolize evil entities, and the technique is wrong too. You only give them your energy if you attend to them and fight them. Concentrate on the Unity, not on dubious entities. As Paul says so appropriately: “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things”.(4)
Gerhard von Rad in his book on Genesis shows how two accounts of the flood were combined together phrase by phrase. He undoes the fine stitching and presents the accounts one after the other. Possibly the Word of God can be constructed in this manner, but I doubt it.
Back in Bangor days I saw an inscription in a modern stained glass window: “Unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time.” I thought that this was typical 50s or 60s unbelief, until I found that it was from Hebrews.(5) So here is an interpretation of the last day that makes of it a personal experience, rather than a single world event. So both are biblical, neither is absolute. With which do I have more affinity? The personal experience without a doubt. So what of the staged production with the throne and the sheep and the goats and the bonfire? Improbable fiction.
Where is the Word of the Lord in this? That different people have different opinions. You knew that already? Then thou shalt relish the diverse opinions of thy brethren, and shalt not impose thine own opinions supposing in ignorance that they are the Word of the Lord.
So I have another, and very simple addition to my list of possible meanings for the crucifixion in Chapter 5 above.
For George Fox, the meaning of the cross is precisely the dying to unreality and wakening to reality:
“To Friends concerning the Cross of Christ, the power of God
The Cross makes a separation from all other lovers, and brings to God, and the ground of evil thoughts comes to be opened, and the Cross overturns the world in the heart. Which Cross must be taken up by all who follow Jesus Christ, out of the world which hath an end into the world which is without end; and all the evil things of the world must be denied. For who loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him; where the world is standing, the Cross is not lived in. But dwelling in the Cross to the world, here the love of God is shed abroad in the heart, and the way is opened into the inheritance which fades not away. For God is not seen but in the eternal Light from whence all pure wisdom comes. This treasure is not seen but with the spiritual eye, nor received but with the pure in heart, and by those who dwell in the eternal Light…” (6)
Neither for Freke and Gandy nor for me is the motif of the dying and rising godman meaningful, though it is for millions of Christians. Wiccans tend to see the Divinity as a dying and rising God and an undying Goddess. I see its connection with the death of the corn to feed us, and its rising again to new life, and with the death of vegetation in Autumn and its renewal in Spring, and with the dying of one body and the re-appearance in another. The problem with it as a metaphor for the dying to the separate self and the rising again to the life of the Unity is that it dazzles with excess of pain. I do not say it is painful. There was pain in plenty earlier in life, in the maintaining of the separate self. This is well represented by Anderson in his story of the little mermaid, whose every step was agony. The question at this stage is “Do you want to live the life of a fragment or the life of the whole?” or “Since you know that your deepest identity is the Son, are you going to acknowledge it?” and the answering is simple and painless. It is not so terrible to give up the world in this sense. It is far more terrible not to, for then you are living in unreality.
So what do I have to alter? Jesus meaning humanity at the level of soul can stay, though Adam is just as good a term. Jesus the interesting literary character can stay. The historical Jesus disappears without a ripple. Christ, meaning the Eternal Son, Atman, remains for ever.
Nothing is lost. The stories of the unjust judge, the jealous labourers, the good Samaritan, the woman searching for her coin, the bullying borrower, supremely the prodigal son, are all there even if we do not know who wrote them, so are the teachings like the lilies of the field, and that man shall not live by bread alone. Other stories are their companions, such as the writing in the sand or caught in the act. And the unacceptable stories like the sheep and the goats can be discarded without embarrassment.
I begin to see how scripture can work in two ways at once. Do you remember the widow who gave her mites to the temple treasury? (7) Exoterically, it is a fine moral tale. Look, she of her poverty gave all she had, so you, who are not so poor, ought to give much more. Then Jesus will smile on you. Ye who now will bless the poor shall yourselves find blessing. There is a darker meaning too. The corrupt church “eats up my people as though they were bread”,(8) and will not spare the widow her last shred of self-determination. And Jesus, their Jesus, looks on, smiling cynically. And esoterically? The temple was not made with hands. We sing in the Pentecostals of “that place of Divine exchange”. The mites were the widow’s separate self. It is quite correct to call it a thing of very small value. Nevertheless “she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living”, that is, all that she was. And she received back all that God is. A fair bargain? I say so. She was old and tired and poor and lonely and full of illnesses, and now? “Quondam paupere”. Once a pauper.(9)
I should say again that the soul is a magnificent entity with powerful faculties operating on many levels. It is only in comparison with Spirit that it appears to be of small value.
And what of Barabbas? (10) It is a fine story, full of pathos and irony:
“A murderer they save,
The Prince of Life they slay”.(11)
But bar means Son of, and Abba is the very attractive biblical name for God the Father. Inwardly, you are Barabbas, though luckily you are not a murderer, only you do not know who you are. And Barabbas was released to them, that is, your deepest nature is known to you, and is shining in the world, living and active. What an incomparable word is “released”. And no death was required to bring it about, not the death of your lower nature, not even the death of your identification with your separate self as “I”, but the laying aside of this identification permanently in order to know yourself to be the Son of the Father.
Here is another bar story: “And Simon Peter answered and said, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God’. And Jesus answered and said unto him, ‘Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven’”. (12)
Externally this is the moment when a great apostle recognizes Jesus as the Christ, and we also get to know the name of his father. Internally, it won’t be someone else whom he recognizes, and barjona signifies that he follows the prophet Jonah in entering a mysterious dark place and emerging with a new consciousness that enables him to Speak the Word of God. The rest, "Blessed art thou, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven” is plain truth, perennial, simple, accurate.
Do you remember the guest who was advised to sit in a low place in case somebody else came who took precedence ? (13) It is nice when other people do not puff themselves up! Jesus does not shrink from using the shallow motive of fear of social embarrassment to make his point. He takes us as he finds us. Inwardly it is the separate self which goes down. Your real self is the table, the space it occupies and everybody sat at it. You are indeed a friend, of infinite value. Come up higher.
What of the command, no less, to love your neighbour as yourself? (14)
Outwardly it is religious hyperbole, pathetically inadequate. Inwardly, your neighbour is yourself.
Esau swapped his birthright of Divine Consciousness for the mess of pottage which is the consciousness of the separate self. (15)
And I have underrated St Paul if his words were designed to have an outer and inner meaning, though it is forever true that talk of a separate God is milk for babes. Here is a passage from Romans 6 as given in the prayer book of 1549 as the Epistle for the 6th Sunday after Trinity. I love the old language. May the unfamiliar setting be a metaphor for your finding new meaning in these familiar words.
“Knowe ye not, that all we whiche are baptised in Jesu Christe, are baptised to dye with hym? We are buryed then with hym by baptisme for to dye; that likewise as Christ was raised from death, by the glorye of the father, euen so we also should walke in a newe life. For if we be graft in death like unto him; euen so shall we be partakers of the resurreccion: Knowing this, that our olde man is crucified with hym also, that the body of synne myght utterly be destroyed, that hencefurth we should not be servauntes unto synne. For he that is dead is iustified from synne.
Wherfore, if we be dead with Christe, we beleue that we shall also lyue with hym, knowyng that Christe beyng raysed from death, dyeth no more. Death hath no more power ouer hym. For as touchyng that he dyed, he dyed concernyng synne once. And as touching that he lyueth, he lyueth unto God: Likewise consider ye also, that ye are dead as touchyng synne, but are alyue unto God, through Jesus Christe our Lorde.”
The inner meaning goes something like this:
“You who are initiated into the inner meaning of our faith understand the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection allegorically. Here you find the power of the myth as you see how it applies to you, which is the meaning of your being baptized into his death. Just as we said he was crucified and rose again, so also with you. As he rose, so will you, in very fact and truth. What dies of you is the separate self. Try sinning if you are dead! But really sin is anything other than God. As there is no more separate self, there is nothing other than God, so no sin. The resurrection life is the life of the Father, through Christ the Son, which you are to live, for in the resurrection, that is who you are.”
So I am one of “those who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already and overthrow the faith of some”.(16) So is Paul.
Galatians 2:20 is so inward that it hardly has an outward meaning, unless it is to view the indwelling Christ as separate from your greater self: “I live, I do not mean my separate self: Christ lives in me.”
Here I may digress concerning other souls. Anybody touching the soul of another bears a very great responsibility. "And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea”. (17) “He which converteth the sinner from the error of his ways shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins”. (18) Both these quotations use intemperate language, but each contains a large amount of truth. I should be very cautious about touching the soul of another. But I don’t see how I could overthrow the faith of anybody, even if I wanted to. Each one is responsible for his or her own faith. The counterfeit church would not agree with this. They do their best to keep souls in the condition of sheep, stunting their growth. Is this not a very great offence? Why should they remain little ones? Sheep may safely graze, no doubt, but if they want to grow into their humanity, and the stature of the fullness of Christ, they are on their own. And they need not expect it to be a walk by a placid lake.
“Let one who seeks not stop seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will be troubled. When he is troubled, he will be astonished and will rule over all”.(19) This relates to Gnosis, indeed it fits this treatise very well, but we have also seen that all souls are liable to experiences of desolation, when all comfort and certainty seem to have disappeared. They are expected to take this in their stride. So how can the words of those who know that the resurrection is an inward experience and wish to share what is to them precious and valuable knowledge to encourage and deepen the faith of their fellows whom they love as themselves be construed as overthrowing the faith of anybody? Such concern for ovine souls is rather a ploy of ecclesiastical shepherds to maintain their supposed power.
Returning to outward and inner meanings, Luke specifically says that “The Kingdom of God does not come in such a way as to be seen. No one will say, ‘look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ because the Kingdom of God is within you”.(20) Equally inward is the reference to the revealing of the Son of Man that follows: “Don’t go out looking for it. As the lightning flashes across the sky and lights it up from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day”.(21) This is a good description of level seven consciousness. It could well be called the last day because time stops here.
"Is there a God beside me? Yea, there is no God; I know not any". (22) Outwardly this is exactly how the ego behaves. The Lord Jehovah spends a good deal of his time fighting other gods. Inwardly it is superb. The Unity is all.
“And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them”.(23)
Of course they will not: for one to teach and one to be taught are two, and the Lord is one. So they shall all know me in my fullness, in the unity. The creation will not rest until this has been achieved.
He who goes forth weeping from his home into incarnation bearing precious seeds of Divinity will certainly return again laughing, with his harvest.
(25
And those great words of Paul, forever joined to Handel’s music:
“Since by Man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive”. (24)
You are well able to distinguish the outward and inward meanings of this for yourself.
Jesus said "No-one can come to me unless the Father makes it possible for him to do so." Because of this many of Jesus' followers turned back and would not go with him any more. So he asked the twelve disciples, "And you - would you also like to leave?" Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life." (25)
The outer meaning is milk for babes. Inwardly it is a most intimate picture of a soul in the awesome process of losing itself and finding the unity. "Fac eas, Domine, de morte transire ad vitam" is from the Requiem. "Cause them, Lord, to make the transition from death to life." But it is a soul matter, not the discarding of a body. So is this, after the Easter Vigil: "On this most holy night, when our Indwelling Christ passed from death to life ..." It has begun to lose itself, and is in a dark and trackless place. It might well be tempted to turn back, but it knows that there is a great light, even if it can't see it, To whom would we go? We know perfectly well that the separate self is a prison, and we cannot pretend, even to ourselves, that it will serve.
And when you know what the inner meanings are like, you can see pointers to them, not the inner meanings themselves, for they would have been communicated to the initiates orally: Jesus has just told the disciples that he is going to be killed and will rise again. Three broad hints to look below the surface follow in quick succession:
But the disciples did not understand any of these things; the meaning of the words was hidden from them, and they did not know what Jesus was talking about. (26)
What is here has the force of a covenant or testament. It is not like the old and new testaments, because they were between God and us, but there is no us. I call it a testament because it is a view of the basis of our existence. I shall call it the First Testament, because it preceded the Old Testament, also because it is pre-eminent. Here it is:
You are born of God. You are Eternal in both directions. You never fell, never could. Your sonship never started. God’s reproductive system is not like ours, for there is one God always, so God plus God equals God. Though you forget it very easily, or have not known it, your deepest identity is God the Son. So is that of everybody else, but that is all right. You are everybody else. God can never be separated from God, not in any circumstances, not for any consideration. So there is no saviour, no atonement, no sacrifice, no hell.
“In this world they call greatness the possession of cattle and horses, elephants and gold, servants and wives, lands and houses. But I do not call this greatness, for here one thing depends on another.
But the Infinite is above and below, North and South and East and West. The Infinite is the whole universe.
I am above and below, North and South and East and West. I am the whole universe.
Atman is above and below, North and South and East and West. Atman is the whole universe.” (27)
One could just as well say, using the term in precisely the same sense:
Christ is above and below, North and South and East and West. Christ is the whole universe.
Then Watts’ words lose their jingoistic overtones, and become the song of confidence and hope that they were doubtless meant to be, using an everyday translation for Christ:
Jesus shall reign where’er the sun
Doth his successive journeys run;
His kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
Till moons shall wax and wane no more.
How it was that you were persuaded that you were separate and limited is a great mystery. As all the substance of God is inviolate, I have a picture as of a crumple in a piece of cloth, so some parts of the surface are hidden from other parts but all the cloth is there. Another way of putting it is seemingly to disagree with Donne and say that every person is an island, ineluctably separate. Below the sea is the place where all are one. Or I could say that you have been fooled into thinking that you are separate and limited. Who has bamboozled you so greatly? God of course. There is no-one else. He had his reasons, very loving and powerful ones, to do with your eternal generation, and with seeing and experiencing himself in you. It was a very good deception. You were completely convinced, but then, what God does is well done. When you have seen through the trick, the game is over.
Come unto me all ye that labour in separateness and are heavy laden with lack and limitation, and I, Christ, will give you rest. Take my self upon you and be me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye will find rest in your Spirit.
1. Luke 1:46
2. 1Samuel 2:1-10
3. Exodus 14:21.
4. Philippians 4:8
5. Hebrews 9:28
6. Epistle 51 in No more but my love, letters of George Fox, Quaker, ed C W Sharman, Quaker Home service, London
7. Mark 12:42
8. Psalm 14:4
9. Fauré’s Requiem: In Paradisum
10. Mark 15:6
11. Hymn: My song is love unknown: Samuel Crossman
12. Matthew 16:16
13. Luke 14:7
14. Mark 12:31
15. Genesis 25:33
16. 2 Timothy 2:18. This letter is of course a forgery.
17. Mark 9:42
18. James 5:20
19. Gospel of Thomas 2
20. Luke 17:20 (Good News Bible)
21. Luke 17:24 (Good News Bible)
22. Isiah 44:8
23. Jeremiah 31:34
24. 1 Cor 15: 51-52
25. John 6:65ff (Good News Bible)
26. Luke 18:34 (Good News Bible).
27. Chandogya Upanishad 7, Trans Juan Mascaro