“If Jesus Were Alive Today” by Adyashanti — from 'Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic' (EXCERPT)
I often wonder what would it be like if Jesus were alive today. Imagine Jesus—who wasn’t a Christian, after all, but a Jew—entering a church today, going up to the pulpit and giving a sermon. Can you imagine how challenging that would be for the congregation? Can you imagine how uniquely different that sermon would be from what many of us received in church?
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“The Suppression of Yin, Patriarchy and the Person of Jesus” by Keith Basar
Throughout history, overemphasized attributes of Yang, at the expense of the balancing properties of Yin, have produced a highly toxic setting for a vast majority of humans. Patriarchy is a powerful example of such. A subdued Yin produces an overly aggressive, exploitative, domineering male-centic world.
“Jesus: His Religion” – (Pt. 2) by Alan Watts
So, let’s suppose then that Jesus had such an experience. But, you see, Jesus has a limitation, that he doesn’t know of any religion other than those of the immediate Near East. He might know something about Egyptian religion, and perhaps a little bit about Greek religion, but mostly about Hebrew. There is no evidence whatsoever that he knew anything about India or China. And people who think that Jesus was God assume that he must have known because he would have been omniscient. No, Saint Paul makes it perfectly clear in the Epistle to the Philippians that Jesus renounced his divine powers so as to be Man.
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“Jesus: His Religion” – (Pt. 1) by Alan Watts
Some years ago, I had just given a talk on television in Canada when one of the announcers came up to me and said, “You know, if one can believe that this universe is in the charge of an intelligent and beneficent God, don’t you think He would naturally have provided us with an infallible guide to behavior and to the truth about the universe?” Of course I knew he meant the Bible. I said, “No, I think nothing of the kind, because I think a loving God would not do something to His children that would rot their brains.” Because if we had an infallible guide we would never think for ourselves, and therefore our minds would become atrophied. It is as if my grandfather had left me a million dollars, and I am glad he didn’t. And we have therefore to begin any discussion of the meaning of the life and teachings of Jesus with a look at this thorny question of authority, and especially the authority of Holy Scripture.
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“Losing Jesus’ Cultural & Theological Baggage” by Adyashanti
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. ...
"I am the Way, the Truth and the Life" by Father Seán ÓLaoire
In early 1995, I was invited to give a series of seven lectures at the Presbyterian Church in Palo Alto. I titled the series, “Will the real Jesus please stand up?” During the preparation period for the series, while I was meditating one day, I had a very powerful vision of Jesus. Before the meditation began, I had been reading the famous passage in John’s Gospel where Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. Nobody comes to the father except through me.” So, now that I had him “in person”, I asked him, “Did you really say that?” He replied, “Yes, I did. Because the only way is love; the deepest truth is love; and the whole point of life is love. Anybody who wants to find the father needs to walk only in love.” And then, without any prompting from me, he went on to say, “And the Buddha is the way, the truth and the life. Nobody comes to the father except through the Buddha. Because the only way is compassion; the deepest truth is compassion; and the whole point of life is compassion. Anybody who wants to find the father needs to walk only in compassion.”
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