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Messages from the Spirit on the Meaning of Jesus Christ

There are many ways of interpreting the Christian writings. Here are some perspectives that have been discovered by many spiritual explorers .... 

One Branch - a tribe of spiritual explorers - evolving away from a bad idea of God towards a better one ...

• The Old Testament narrates how the hebrew's idea of God evolved, and how spiritual senses and spiritual exploration begin to grow when compassion, forgiveness, generosity, kindness, patience and humility are given a chance to direct their lives.
• These stories show the hebrews struggling with fear, greed, hate, revenge - how these emotions are entangled with basic survival drives - and shows how these entanglements interfere with spiritual exploration by distorting interpretations of the whisperings of the Spirit (the words of God) 
• The stories show how someone engulfed in fear and greed can interpret all events (good, bad, destructive, peaceful) as acts of God - but they are really the consequences of their own actions or acts of nature - the "ignorant" project their own fears, hates, greed, etc onto their idea of God.
• The evolution of spiritual wisdom can only take place when we learn to overcome those destructive emotional entanglements that trap the mind and heart in clinging,  grasping, aversion, fear and greed and all the other destructive feelings and motivations that come from them.

Another Branch - metaphors hinting at ways of sensing spiritual energies ....

To discover spiritual wisdom in the Bible you should try interpreting it as mostly metaphor. It is also reasonable and wise to treat it as prone to error in recording, translation, accuracy. To treat it as the literal, infallible record of God's word is a dangerous mistake. There is infinitely more evidence that the Bible is prone to error than there is evidence that the Bible is the perfectly recorded word of God. 

• The web of spiritual energies behind all things - the Holy Spirit, the divine presence, the Shekinah
• The intelligence in the web of spiritual energies - The Virgin, Wisdom, Sophia 
• God - the idea of a god is that it's a being that transcends the human realm of experience, but has great power. Early tribal gods would have great power over something specific - thunder, water, earth, animals, crops, one's homeland, a place. They are often associated with archetypal forces within the human psyche. With evolution, the capacity for sophisticated beliefs increased. Eventually the idea of god is associated with the creator of all things. If you look at the history of the idea of God - it has evolved through all of these ideas. In modern Kabbalah, Buddhism, Taoism, Sufism - i.e., religions that place the most emphasis on spiritual exploration - there is less emphasis on the idea of God and more emphasis on the idea that something so huge can not be known.
• The Unity within the web of spiritual energies - Elohim - originally a tribal god - evolved into the All
• The Spirit - Yahweh - originally a combination of tribal gods - based on a god of war and evolved into a sacred spirit of compassion
• The Word - the Logos - an expression of structure and meaning in this web of spiritual energies
• The Light - sensing the web
• In the beginning - of consciousness
• Adam - the seed - conceiving new forms of consciousness
• Eve - the egg - nurturing new forms of consciousness
• The Garden - humankind as children of Nature
• The Tree of Knowledge - instincts take hold of higher mind - leading to new forms of grasping and aversion, fear and greed - and then feelings of right and wrong
• The Anointed One (Messiah) - one who is totally committed to spiritual exploration - the Spirit reaches out to those who explore - hence "anointed" - with healing powers, symbolized by healing oils
• Baptism - learning to let go, realizing that spiritual healing and exploration go hand in hand
• Faith - accepting that the Spirit is in all of us, that we can all be touched by Spirit
• Sin - being trapped in the entanglements - fear, greed, hate, violence - that take us away from the goal, spiritual exploration
• Salvation - learning to release from grasping and aversion
• Yeshuah - touched by Spirit, skilled at maneuvering the religious currents of his time, intense spiritual discoveries, put in motion the formation of new religions, planting the seeds of spiritual awakening for future human cultures, that would grow provided there were communities of compassion, forgiveness, generosity, gentleness and patience
• Yeshuah is someone who understood that life is a vibration within Spirit, that the body-emotions-mind are like a leaf blowing in the same wind of Spirit from which all things came
• It is possible that Yeshuah represents not one individual, but a collection of spiritual teachers :- many ancient stories were made by combining other stories from various sources - especially in the oral traditions.
• Born of the Virgin - a metaphor for awakening to the Spirit
• Kingdom of God - a web of relationships rooted in the vast network of energies that moves in the realm of the Spirit - these types of relationships are motivated by compassion, patience, resistance to the entanglements, love, generosity, forgiveness, caring for those less fortunate, caring for the planet - those who have chosen to live in this Kingdom (i.e., Web of the Spirit) live in love of peace, non-violence, compassion.
• Evil ones - those who use fear and greed to satisfy their desires (usually for power, control, wealth, domination)
• Evil - the process of shaping one's expectations and desires through manipulation by fear and greed
• Slaying - in some passages Yeshuah suggests slaying those who do not follow the teaching. Many fundamentalists take this literally - and go so far as to create militant Christian organizations. Some say these passages were added by militants, sometimes suggesting that they were angered at the Roman Empire for persecuting the Jews and/or Christian groups. Some suggest a metaphorical interpretation - someone is said to be "slain" when they are engaged in ways that isolate them from spiritual wisdom (in other words they are trapped by fear and greed).
• Resurrection - ending of the old - a transformation in the direction that we are taking in our lives that leads to letting go of fear, greed, grasping, aversion - discovering a new life of spiritual exploration
• Some passages say that to follow the Teaching requires you turn against parents and family. This is a metaphor for realizing that spiritual exploration can flourish when you are no longer dominated by your conditioned nature. Your conditioned nature is made not only by influences from family, but also from culture, politics, religion, friends, media influences, corporate influences, diet, DNA, health, illness, biological processes, nature, environment ..... and the way that your deep rooted fight/flight/grasping/aversion/fear/greed attach to all these things determines the shape of your conditioning - your ego.

Another Branch - messages, rediscovery, perspectives, small difference grow into big ones, politics of greed and fear always change a message ...

• Yeshuah the Messiah's message to all people was:-
• • you can discover your connection with the Spirit - this is an inner exploration - this was the gospel, good news
  • our relationships and communities must be ruled by compassion, generosity, forgiveness, charity to the poor and less able, gentleness, patience
  • we must learn to overcome grasping, aversion, fear, greed and all that comes from these things
  • we must learn to make sacrifices for the well-being of others
• The Apostles - different people interpret Spirit's Teachings in many ways - the apostles had many disagreements over Yeshuah's  teachings, even though they were close to him -
• • each of the apostles has their own visions and their own understandings of the teachings 
  • Yeshuah gave all the apostles some common teachings, but also gave each apostle different perspectives in private
  • with time, with each apostolic branch, the small differences become bigger differences in dogma, belief, ideologies 
  • as the religion grows in each apostolic branch, and as politics of fear and greed take control, divisions between religions intensify - this is an outcome foreseen by Yeshuah - knowing that it will lead to conflict, and that those who are grounded in compassion and forgiveness will eventually learn how to overcome conflict through the study of the history of these divisions
  • after many decades - religious leaders seek to eliminate the diversity in the Teachings - declare their view to be the only view - all other views to be heretical
  • eventually - with the assistance of the Roman Empire - one view becomes dominant
  • most Apostles had some misunderstanding of the teaching - these misunderstandings become key features of the one view
  • we can learn from the mistakes of those who have claimed to know the teachings - 
  • • any theory, concept or belief we have about the nature of Spirit is implicitly misleading - they are no better than a statue intended to show the appearance of the Spirit
    • when we cling to any idea about God - this type of clinging will play on political and tribal passions, leading to conflict and wars
    • even a small difference between belief systems will lead to conflict
  • over many hundreds of years, some people struggle to recover those lost views of the Teachings - but being tainted by political ambitions, their new teachings become fuel for more conflict
  • with time, evidence comes to light of the great diversity of the Teachings during the first 200 years after Yeshuah - inspiring many to seek alternatives to the dominant Christian organizations
• Even though the Christian leadership have been generally misled by their political ambitions - the Christian people still generally care about helping those who need help - a major theme of the original Teaching
• How can you know if someone is dedicated to spiritual exploration? A dedicated spiritual explorer will show these things in their actions:- 
• • gentleness, patience, forgiveness, compassion, generosity, kindness, caring
  • caring for the well-being and dignity even of those who hate us
  • caring for fairness in our systems of justice, government, culture and relationships
  • the message that Spirit lives within everyone and all things, and that Spirit yearns for us to sense it's presence
  • love of the Spirit is greater than dogma, more valuable than any idea of God - no matter how profound or divinely inspired that idea may be
  • love of the Spirit is the same as love of peace and fuels a longing for a compassionate caring world
• these are the lessons that the history of Christianity has provided

Another Branch - The Goals of Empire: Taming the Minds and Hearts of the People

• You can find a thread of sayings in the Bible that encourages followers of Yahweh and the Messiah to kill those who do not follow - this thread goes from the Old Testament to the New Testament
• These sayings contradict other threads of sayings that encourage forgiveness, charity, peace-making
• Evangelicists resolve this conflict by saying that the good things are given to Christians, the bad things are given to everyone else - and this kind of resolution fits their belief that the Bible is the absolute word of God - without error - so they make an extra "effort" to "resolve" these issues in a way that makes all statements in the Bible appear to be true.
• The fact is that the Bible was written by many different people with different agendas. The Bible is not without errors, it is the creation of many human writers - each with different agendas - some noble - some political - some destructive. Different writers could add their own "threads" of sayings to the Bible, to support their feelings, agendas, politics.
• The thread of violence could easily have been inserted by writers affected by the oppression of the Jews, or it could have been added by supporters of the Roman Empire, or it could have had some hidden meaning.
• The thread of peace is - we speculate - a clue to the real message
• However, those led by greed could easily have manipulated these messages to pacify the people into accepting domination
• Christianity in it's modern forms grew out of the Roman Empire - it was used as a means of resolving conflicts within the Empire, and gaining support from Christians for the Empire. By the time that the Roman Empire adopted Christianity, a single form of Christian dogma had been enforced - it's original diversity of perspectives had been destroyed.
• Modern organized forms of Christianity are full of devices for maneuvering the thoughts and hearts of it's followers to favor their political leaders.
• Modern Christianity is based on the idea that the Nicene Creed is the absolute basis for Christianity. The Creed was written during times of conflict between several dozen major branches of Christian Teachings. At one time, that branch of Christian teaching that exists today was adopted by between 10% and 50% of Christians. A few dozen years after it's creation, this Creed was enforced by Constantine to gain support for and unite the Roman Empire. The original message of the Messiah was one of peace, forgiveness, charity, generosity - and put spiritual exploration above all the concerns of Empires - yet there was no mention of this in the Creed. See -for example - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Creed
• It's fair game - as a spiritual explorer - to treat all references in the Bible to violence, killing, destruction, plague, war, etc, as expressions of human failings - and they have been used primarily as a vehicle of propaganda to encourage the majority of the people to conform to the wills of their leaders.
• In other words, the thread of violence in the Bible is simply a record of how spiritual exploration has been suppressed, lost or ignored.
• There have been many people who care about spiritual exploration - and have been persecuted for not accepting the "teachings" of those who seek to control them. This still goes on.

Another Branch - dogma

Modern dogma is rooted in the Nicene Creed. Here is one variation of the Nicene Creed. Notice that it is a declaration of dogma. It contains no reference to peace, love, compassion, forgiveness, kindness. It acts as a means of supporting the agendas of politically minded people ....

I believe in one God,
the Father Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
and of all things visible and invisible;

And in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the only begotten Son of God,
begotten of his Father before all worlds,
God of God, Light of Light,
very God of very God,
begotten, not made,
being of one substance with the Father;
by whom all things were made;
who for us men and for our salvation
came down from heaven,
and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost
of the Virgin Mary,
and was made man;
and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered and was buried;
and the third day he rose again
according to the Scriptures,
and ascended into heaven,
and sitteth on the right hand of the Father;
and he shall come again, with glory,
to judge both the quick and the dead;
whose kingdom shall have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Ghost the Lord, and Giver of Life,
who proceedeth from the Father [and the Son];
who with the Father and the Son together
is worshipped and glorified;
who spake by the Prophets.
And I believe one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church;
I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins;
and I look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come.

...  you hear the majority of modern day Christians say they are Christians because they believe in this Creed - or - some part of it.

How often do you hear someone say they are a Christian because they believe in:-

• making peace - for everyone, not just Christian organizations
• forgiveness - even of those who mistreat us
• charity and generosity - even to non-believers
• compassion and kindness - even to whose who threaten us
• humility - which includes accepting the possibility that our fundamental beliefs could be wrong!
• seeking ways to make the laws of the land fairer, especially to the poor and less fortunate