Some Thoughts on the New Pope and Christianity in General
Some Thoughts on the New Pope
and Christianity in General
Leo XIV, formerly Robert Cardinal Prevost, made headlines in May as the first American to be elivated to the papacy. But a remark he made three months earlier
regarding Vice President J.D. Vance is perhaps even more newsworthy. The Cardinal critcized Vance by saying, J.D. Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn't ask us to rank our love for others.
Hidden in this rather simple statement is the essence of Christianity. It's what Christians should really be paying attention to, instead of all that convoluted 'mythology' that
constitutes the catechism of Christianity. The Immaculate Conception, the Virgin Birth, the various miracles performed by Jesus, his Crucifixion, Resurection and Assent into heaven, and especially the disquieting notion that Jesus will sit in judgement of mankind at the End of the World--these are all fantasies, let's face it, that are of no practical use to the average human. Believing in them will not make you more loving and compassionate, or enable to you lead a better life.
For some reason, the tiny nugget of truth in Christianity exposed by Pope Leo has been soft-pedaled by the Church for centuries. Yet it is the main message of Jesus, the topic that he apparently loved to preach above all others (vide the Sermon on the Mount). And he drove it home not just with his preaching, but how he behaved towards others.
If we are to believe that Jesus was crucified, then one of his last remarks on the Cross is telling. He said, Forgive them, for they know not what they do.
Here is the utterance of an individual who possessed unbounded, unconditional love, to the extent that he was willing to forgive his murderers, even love them. How many of us would be capable of this kind of forgiveness? And more to the point, what kind of individual says this?
Various writers such as Aldous Huxley, Krishnamurti, and Alan Watts, have suggested that Jesus was an avatar, the kind of human being who comes along all too infrequently in the course of history. Such individuals possess tremendous compassion, a high degree of self-awareness and clarity of thought, coupled with a charismatic nature that makes them 'people magnets'. Avatars are typically great spiritual teachers who give off a kind of aura, a feeling of supernatural power, which might account for why Jesus was credited with so many miracles. It is often said, somewhat metaphorically, that avatars are a 'manifestation' or embodiment of the divine, although here we must be careful to point out that this has nothing to do with a deity of any of the established religions.
Historical examples of avatars include the Chinese sage Lao-Tzu, Gautama Siddhartha the Buddha, and the Indian monk Bodhidharma. In the modern era, likely avatars were the medieval German monk Meister Eckhard, the Indian philosopher Krishnamurti, and Mahatma Gandhi. In our own time the Indian spritual teacher Mother Meera is widely regarded as an avatar.
Like all avatars or great teachers, Jesus of Nazareth exhibited a kind of all-embracing world-view, what people in the '60s used to call 'cosmic consciousness'. Of course, Jesus also talked an awful lot about 'obeying the laws of Moses', which is understandable considering that he was an Orthodox Jew living in First Century Judea. I'm no Biblical scholar, but I have a hunch that the millitant Jewishness of Jesus was a later addition grafted on to the first orally-transmitted acounts. Many of the fanatical followers of Jesus saw him as the long-awaited Messiah (annointed one
--not necessarily the Son of God), a mighty leader who could advance the Jewish cause by defeatng thie Romans. Later, as the early Church was formed and its doctrines were codified, Jesus' insistance on worshiping Jehova and obeying the Law took precedence over his favorite topic of 'loving thy neighbor'.
This new millitant stance of early Christianity was further strengthened by the appearance, sometime late in the First Century, of the Book of Revelation. It is clearly the work of a deranged individual plagued by phantasmagorical visions, so it is not surprising that Jesus' message of love is nowhere to be found. Instead, Jesus appears in the Book of Revelation as a mightly ruler who defeats the forces of evil. All of a sudden, Christianity had morphed into an apocalyptic religion obsessed with the eternal punishment that God will mete out to those who disobey him.
At this point in the discussion, devout Christians will likely object to my characterization of their religion as 'apocalyptic' and 'obsessed with punishment'. The argument one usually hears is that God is love.
God will welcome us into heaven with open arms if only we worship and obey him. Coupled with this is the assertion that the Bible is 'God's word', the infallible guide to getting into heaven, provided we accept it on faith (i.e., follow it blindly).
Suffice it to say that any person grounded in rational thought will reject both the preposterous idea of an all-powerful, vengeful being who sits somewhere up in the sky and controls every atom in the Universe, and that a 2500 year old book is the key to getting along with this ill-tempered autocrat. Even if the God of the Bible were to exist, would he be so incredibly nonchalant about the welfare of the human race as to hand over the 'truth', the ultimate low-down on the Universe, in the form of a anecdotal collection of stories and fables centering around a murderous race of Middle Eastern nomads?
What I am saying is that the orginal message of Jesus, that we are to 'love our neighbor as ourselves' (translated, you and your neighbor are one and the same) has been downplayed for centuries. If Jesus were alive today, he would be appalled at all the hate, oppression, and murder that has been perpetrated, and continues to be perpetrated, in his name. He would insist that so-called Christians pay better attention. He might even suggest that Christians take a cue from other religions like Buddhism and Vedanta Hinduism, instead of burying their heads in the Bible.
How do I know this? Because certain clues in the Gospels hint at a Jesus who was more familiar with Eastern thought than we might imagine. Chief among these is the Sermon on the Mount, which is filled with ideas that could easily have come from India or China. Consider his reference to the lillies of the field: They toil not, neither do they spin.
Or the Beatitudes: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Ideas that could have very easily been uttered by Lao-Tzu or Confucius.
But the clincher is Jesus' admonition to love God with all thy heart, and love thy neighbor as thyself.
Few people realize that Jesus is asking the impossible of us. It's a kind of koan, or double-bind for which there is no satisfactory solution. Damned if you do, and damned if you don't. Why? Because no one who is commanded to love will ever be able to do so sincerely and completely. (I'll always wonder if God knows that I'm not sincere, that I'm only doing this so that I'll get into Heaven). Love must come spontaneously and from within. Jesus has quietly and cleverly pointed out our hypocricy to us, although this escapes the notice of most Christian theologians.
True compassion and love can come only when the individual is able to free itself of the ego--a metanoia, or 'turning about in one's soul', as Meister Eckhard and other Christian mystics have said. It should be noted, however, that Christian metanoia is not the same as true, Eastern-style enlightenment as demonstrated by Gautama Buddha and others. That's because the ego still stands in the way for most Westerners.
Another utterance that points to the similarity between Jesus and Eastern sages is his phrase I and the Father are one.
From every aspect this is a horrendously unfortunate mis-translation (there are many in the King James Bible), one that the later fanatical followers of Jesus took to mean that Jesus was proclaiming his divine nature, i.e., that he was the only human ever born who could claim to be the Son of God.* In the orignal Aramaic, Jesus said something closer to I and the Father are unified.
I interpret that as another instance of 'cosmic consciousness', because the 'Father' that Jesus refers to is not the terrible god Jehova, but rather something greater, a kind of code word for the entire Universe.
If you need further proof of Jesus' proclivity for Eastern-style thought, consider this passage from the repressed Gospel According to St. Thomas: Jesus said: I am the light that is above them all. I am the all; the all came forth from me, and the all attained to me. Cleave a (piece of) wood; I am there. Raise up a stone, and you will find me there.
*When devout Hindus meet, they typically greet each other by placing their hands together, a gesture that signifies the ancient Sanskit saying Tat twam asi.
Translated this means That thou art,
which is a veiled acknowlegement of the divine in each one of us, that we are all God in disguise.
But of course this is not the god of Abraham.