Jesus - the Son of God

        When the apostle John wrote of the "true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world" he was describing the Son, whom he believed dwelt bodily in Jesus Christ. The Light, the Son, is also known as the Word and the Universal Christ. The Universal Christ is individualized for each one of us as our Higher Self. You can think of your Higher Self as your Inner Christ. Your Higher Self represents your potential to realize God and to become one with him.

        As the apostle Paul wrote of Jesus, "in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." But there is not one incarnation of Christ. Incarnating the Christ is in reality the goal of the mystics of every religion, whether or not they express it in these terms; for all mystics seek the direct experience of and union with their Higher Self. Most of us cannot yet say that we are "the Son of God," with an uppercase S. But we can say we are sons and daughters of God, with a lowercase s and d, who are in the process of fully developing our divine potential.

       The term Son of God is therefore a title that all can earn by merit. None can lay claim to this title on the grounds that he is a born Jew or a reborn Christian. Sonship is not automatic, for it is written: "God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him."

Jesus - the Avatar of the Piscean Age
 

      While there are other Sons of God in heaven, we can all claim a special relationship to Jesus Christ because he was and is the archetypal Christ, or avatar, for the 2,150-year period known as the age of Pisces. Approximately every 2,150 years the earth passes through an age, corresponding to one of the twelve signs of the zodiac. The length of an age is determined by a phenomenon called the precession of the equinoxes, which is the result of the slow backward rotation of earth around its polar axis. This backward rotation moves the point of the spring equinox backwards through the twelve signs of the zodiac. A new age begins when the point of the spring equinox moves from one sign of the zodiac to another.

        During each age, a civilization or a continent or the entire planet is destined to assimilate a certain attribute of God. In about 2000 B.C., or 4,000 years ago, we entered the age of Aries. This was the age of the patriarchs and the prophets. The age of Aries brought the awareness of God as Father, as Lawgiver. About 2,150 years ago we entered the age of Pisces. The Piscean age brought the awareness of God as the Son and was marked by the coming of Jesus Christ as the representative of the Son.

        Today we are entering a new age. It is the age of Aquarius. This age will be marked by a universal awareness of the Holy Spirit and the Divine Mother. As we assimilate the initiations of the Holy Spirit and the teachings of the Divine Mother, we are preparing our mind, our soul and our heart to be the abode of both the Holy Spirit and the Divine Mother, just as we had the opportunity to embody the law of the Father and the Son in the preceding two ages.

        Out of all the Sons of heaven, God chose Jesus to incarnate on earth to be the avatar of the Piscean age. In this role, Jesus has borne the weight of the sins, or negative karma, of the world for the past 2,150 years, both prior to and after his birth. He has shielded us from the full consequences of our misdeeds. Nevertheless, we are still responsible to atone for that sin, that karma.

        By taking upon himself the burden of our sin, Jesus bore the sins of the world so that we could come of age spiritually and bear our own burdens. In effect, he "pardoned" our sin for the duration of the Piscean age. But his pardon did not cancel the debt: it only postponed our payment of it. We have had 2,150 years to pay it off. Now it has fallen due.

        Today the people of planet earth are making the transition from the Piscean to the Aquarian age, and Jesus is turning over to us, one by one, the responsibility of bearing our own burden in dignity and in honor. Thus Paul taught that ultimately "every man shall bear his own burden." He warned, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Paul also taught that each of us must work out our own salvation in fear of the LORD and with humility.

Jesus - the Exemplar of Christhood

        As the representative of the Son for the Piscean age, Jesus is the Exemplar, the Wayshower of the path of Christhood. He came to demonstrate how to achieve union with the Higher Self so that we too would know how to become one with the Christ and realize our own Christhood after his example.

       In the Book of John, Jesus promises at the Last Supper: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me [the Christ], the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto my Father." Here it is apparent that Jesus intends each of us to do the same works he did and to walk our own path of personal Christhood.

        Although this is not the portrait of Jesus that orthodox Christians have chosen to paint, there is plenty of evidence to support it. The Book of Matthew records that Jesus urged us to strive for perfection. "Be ye therefore perfect," Jesus said, "even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." Paul taught the Galatians, "I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you....I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." Likewise Paul wrote to the Corinthians, "We have the mind of Christ," and to the Philippians, "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus."

        Further evidence that Jesus taught that you, like him, are meant to realize your own Christhood is found in the Gnostic gospels and Christian texts unearthed in 1945 near Nag Hammadi, Egypt.

        Gnosticism is a term used to describe a diverse group of sects within Christianity that flourished in the second century, before the canon, doctrine and creeds of the Church were solidified.

        The Gnostics claimed to possess an advanced teaching that had been secretly handed down to them from Jesus and his close circle of disciples. Some Gnostics offered a radically different view of Jesus' role and mission than did the churchmen of their day. Because the teachings of the Gnostics threatened the unity of the growing orthodox Church, Church leaders banned, suppressed and almost totally destroyed Gnostic scriptures.

        The few Gnostic texts that have survived teach that a true disciple imitates his teacher in order to become equal to him or even surpass him. An early collection of wisdom sayings found at Nag Hammadi, called the Sentences of Sextus, instructs: "A good man is the good work of God....A man who is worthy of God, he is God among men, and he is the son of God."

        In the Apocryphon (Secret Book) of James, Jesus says, "Verily I say unto you, no one will ever enter the kingdom of heaven at my bidding, but only because you yourselves are full....Become better than I; make yourselves like the son of the Holy Spirit!" The Gnostic Gospel of Philip describes the follower of Jesus who becomes "no longer a Chris-tian but a Christ." It says: "You saw the spirit, you became spirit. You saw Christ, you became Christ. You saw the Father, you shall become Father."

        In the Gospel of Thomas, which claims to record the secret sayings of Jesus, the Master tells his disciples, "Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring which I have measured out....Whoever drinks from my mouth will become like me. I myself shall become he, and the things that are hidden will be revealed to him."

The Universal Christ

        The bubbling spring that Jesus speaks of is the fount of the Universal Christ. Jesus promises that when with love and gratitude you have drunk and assimilated those waters of everlasting life, "You will become like me, like the Christ. I myself, the incarnation of the Christ, shall become you."

       The mystical paths of the world's religions bear witness to the universal truth that whoever drinks from the fount of the One Source will become one with that Source, whether we hear "You can become one with Brahman," "You can become one with the Tao," "You can become a Buddha," "You can cleave to Ein Sof and the sefirot" or "You can become the Son of God."

        In the ancient Hindu epic the Mahabharata, the sage Sanat Kumara teaches that Brahman, the Absolute, "is awake in every creature. They that know Him know that Universal Father [who] dwelleth in the heart of every created thing!...The Brahman-knowing person...is equal unto Brahman." The Chinese philosopher-sage Chuhsi says, "If we would know the reality of Tao, we must seek it within our own nature. Each has within him the principle of right; this we call the Tao, the Way."

        One Buddhist text instructs, "The Germ of Buddhahood exists in every living being. Therefore, forever and anon, all that lives is endowed with the Essence of the Buddha." The Buddhist teacher Saicho says, "When I worship thee, O Buddha, this is a Buddha worshiping another Buddha. And it is thou who makest this fact known to me, O Buddha."

       We believe that the New Testament and Christian Gnostic texts portray Jesus as an elder brother who teaches what all the great teachers of the mystical paths of the world's religions teach: that you can attain your own intimate and transforming relationship with God and that you can realize your potential to become a Son of God, one with the Christ.