24. What is Jesus Christ?

The name “Jesus Christ” is an expression of the experience of a dual nature, both human and “divine.”  To be clear, when I speak of “spirit” or of the “divine,” I am speaking metaphorically, and am not referring to the concept of “substance dualism,” or the idea there are two self-essential realities, “material,” and “spiritual,” as the notion of substance dualism would have us believe.  The belief in “substance dualism” is not true since all is One and inseparable, as stated several times before in this book.  Since essence is by definition one, it therefore cannot be many.  There is only one “substance,” one “essence,” and that is the Oneness of All.  Our experience of a kind of dual nature is therefore not the experience of “separate” and “independent” realities, but rather two sides of the same one coin, revealed in the awareness we live as mortal egos, while at the same time, aware we are the timeless, “eternal” if you will, the Oneness of All, not limited to our egos.

The human side is expressed in the name “Jesus,” with the Godly “divine” nature – our awareness of All’s oneness, named “Christ.”   The true meaning of the name of Jesus Christ is the manifestation of the “spirit” and “flesh” in one whole being.  Jesus Christ is not the person, the ego Jesus of Nazareth.  Jesus Christ is the full realization of the Oneness of All.  We must put to death, to “crucify” if you will, our identification and attachment with the ego, the flesh, and all of its limitations and beliefs in order to be open to seeing things anew.  This is what it means to be “born again,” to recognize our true family and identity with the Oneness of All, Truth, “God,” if you will, not with our limited flesh and ego.  Jesus Christ is Truth, but it is not and cannot be a person.  It is the condition of the fully realized human and divine One – the One who knows who they are as inseparable from All, not a limited ego.  This can be possible in all of us if we surrender our identity with the ego, to the truth of Oneness.  That which is of “God” is whole, not divided and constantly battling between one side or the other.  We have been put to sleep in the illusions of the dualistic world and its games through identification with the material world instead of seeing it for what it can be – a means to an end – a tool for consciousness to “see itself.”  Death to ego identification is the birth of true freedom, as all else is enslavement to the illusion of separation.

While each of the four Gospels contain much truth, there is clearly an underlying agenda within much of these writings to lay claim to the notion that the person Jesus of Nazareth in particular is the exclusive Christ, which requires belief in him to inherit eternal life. One such scripture passage I find particularly suspect is from Mark 8:29.

“But what about you? he asked.  “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Christ.”

This was not so much a question of Jesus as it was for those who wrote the Gospels and their audiences who asked the same question.  Jesus, as an Enlightened One, would have never asked such a question, as it is irrelevant to truth, which has nothing to do with the identity of an individual.  Personal identity is a concern of ego, not truth.  The Gospel writers and their audiences’ concern to even address this question in the first place, shows that from the beginning, some of the Gospel writers and their audiences were not as much concerned with speaking and learning the truth of the message Jesus was speaking, but more with defending beliefs and ideas about “who” Jesus supposedly “was” within the framework of their Jewish faith.  The two have absolutely nothing to do with each other.  Unfortunately within modern Christianity, this has become completely distorted. Instead of the message being seen as a reflection of truth, the theology and dogma of who Jesus supposedly “is” has become “the truth,” which is a complete misunderstanding of what truth actually is.  Truth is knowing what is, which is not an idea, belief, or point of view.

Traditional Christianity states only those who are “justified” by their belief that Christ died for their sins and rose from the dead will be counted Holy and enter Heaven, while the rest will enter Hell. This reduces salvation to nothing more than a simple transaction, as if God can be bought… a “purchase” resulting from the shedding of innocent blood on behalf of the guilty.  If that were the case, then this “just” God would be remarkably unjust. This theology simply makes no sense because it contradicts itself.   Isaiah 43:10-11 speaks to a very different view of salvation.

“You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “and my servant whom I have chosen… Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me.  I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from me there is no savior.” 

So, we see from this Isaiah passage, God confirms God Himself is the only salvation, and we are His witnesses, not just Jesus of Nazareth.  We are all called to be His witnesses, and salvation is not to be found through the intercession of anyone taking on God in human form, as God alone, truth alone, is our only Salvation.  Jesus himself had something to say about this in the non-Biblical Secret Book of James 7:2-3.

“Damn you who require an intercessor.  Damn you who stand in need of grace.  Congratulations to those who have spoken out fearlessly, and have obtained grace for themselves.”

Of course, all of this scripture was left out of the New Testament because it completely dismantles the foundation of traditional Christian theology. We all have the potential to be “Jesus Christ” if we can realize the illusions with ego identity and instead become aware of the divine Christ within us, as Jesus of Nazareth is said to have done, but to mistake Jesus of Nazareth the individual person, known as Jesus Christ to be God Himself is a misunderstanding; as God, the All, cannot by definition be contained within any limited form no matter what it is because All is ALL, and is therefore not relative, as stated previously in this book.  Even Jesus himself clarifies the fact he is not God, in Mark 10:18.

“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good – except God alone.” 

Jesus knew the truth of the illusoriness of his ego identity, and the fact of this limited identity being of God, a reflection of God, but not God Himself, as a drop of water is not itself the ocean, but of the ocean, as a grain of sand is not the desert itself, but of the desert.  Jesus Christ is the perfect manifestation of the human flesh serving truth, God, because he is not deluded into identifying with the ego, but knows who he truly is – the Truth of his identity as All, consciousness, God… the Christ.

Jesus Christ is, has been, and always will be ever pure and “without sin” if you will, as Jesus Christ is the perfect state of being in which the human being recognizes and acts in the knowledge of it’s true nature as the Oneness of All.  Jesus Christ is “conceived” by the “Holy Spirit”…otherwise known as the awareness of Oneness, not the human being Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus of Nazareth, whether a mythical character invented by scribes, or an actual historical person, is one who is said to have realized the truth of his identity as God, Love, Truth, the Christ within.  Like Jesus Christ, Gautama Buddha is also not limited to just the human being Gautama Siddhartha.  “Christ” means “the anointed One” while “Buddha” means “the Enlightened One.”  They are essentially two different cultures’ expression of the same thing through different names.  It is not the identity of the people – the names themselves which are important, but the truth of which they reflect.  We all can realize the “Christ,” the “Buddha” within us, but rare is the one who experiences and lives in this realization all of the time.  Some live within this more than others, and from what we have of the Gospels, Jesus of Nazareth appears to have spent almost all of his time within this knowledge.  There are times I feel like John Christ, while other times I feel like John Cross.  The last name “Christ” is our true identity as All, while our first name represents our limited ego identity.  This understanding can help to interpret what Jesus is quoted as saying in Luke 14:26.

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.”

Jesus did not mean for us to literally hate our families, but to recognize our true family, our true identity as the Oneness of All, and not the limited egos of our physical being. In order to see the truth, we must be willing to do as Jesus says – to lay down our very life to find our True Life, knowledge of our True identity, as Jesus says in Luke 9:24.

“For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.” 

We must remember when Jesus said “me,” he meant “God,” as Jesus, as a truly Enlightened One who identified with what he called “God,” or the Oneness of All within him, would have never referred to the necessity of following him, the actual person, as that would be egotistical.  That is why I question traditional Christianity’s interpretation of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.  It sees Jesus Christ as an ego, limited only to the one person Jesus of Nazareth – not the realization, the state of the perfect union of the human and the Divine in One Flesh available for All to realize.  When thinking on this interpretation, I am reminded of a wonderful passage from the Apostle Paul which beautifully describes the path of our spiritual journey, from 1 Corinthians 13:11.

“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.”