“Losing Jesus’ Cultural & Theological Baggage” by Adyashanti
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It wouldn’t matter if he grew up a Jew, or a Christian, or a Buddhist, or a Hindu, because he’s speaking about the structure of religion itself—its hierarchy, its tendency to become corrupted by human beings’ desires for power, for influence, for money. ...
As soon as we get too caught up with the rites and the rituals and the Thou shalts and Thou shalt nots of conventional religion, we begin to lose sight of the primary task of religion, which is to orient us toward the mystery of being and awaken us to what we really are. ...The social function of religion is to have a moderating influence on egoic impulses and desires, and this moral and ethical role has been very important throughout history.
When people move in the world of time and space from a healthy sense of ethics and morals, it’s a very positive thing, and religion has an important function in helping control the deeper and darker impulses of the ego. ...Jesus was so critical of the religion of his time because he saw that not only was it not connecting people to the mystery, but that it was actually an active participant in veiling the mystery of existence, in obscuring the Kingdom of Heaven. ... If Jesus existed here and now as a human being, what he’d have to say about these subjects would be as shocking now as it was two thousand years ago.
I’ve talked to many people over many years that have turned away from Christianity because it seems so often to focus on only the moral and ethical questions, on telling them how to live their lives, but hasn’t connected with them in a really deep way. Of course, there are those churches today that are inspired by the real living presence of Christ, but as a whole, Christianity needs new life breathed into it. …
There’s only one guarantee that Jesus gave: if you can receive and awaken and embody what he is speaking about, then your life will never be the same again. ...It’s important for us to realize that we must not only have the courage to recognize the divinity within ourselves, but also to embody it and manifest it in the way we live. ... Jesus was a revolutionary, but he wasn’t a revolutionary just for the sake of rebellion; he wanted to break down the lines of separation between people, between heaven and earth, between human and divine.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adyashanti began teaching in 1996 after a series of transformative spiritual awakenings.
Adapted from Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic by Adyashanti. Copyright © 2014 by Adyashanti. To be published by Sounds True in April 2014.
