The Well-oiled Servant

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!

Jesus said. Jesus saves. Jesus is waiting for me in heaven. Yes, it is again time to say, Is it so? Forget about what I believe. Question what you believe. I believe a lot of people who are supposed to have had a skin suit are fictional characters in a great myth. But I’m here to twist religious people around to give them a different perspective on what they think is real. In fact, let’s first look at how real something is when it’s real. Really!

The main topic of this article is “who or what is Jesus, and who or what is the Christ?” Pilgrims commonly use the term “Jesus Christ” as if it was a man’s first and last name. A few understand that it means “Jesus the anointed.” What does that mean? I’ll get to those questions later. Now I need to calm down that guy who’s fuming because I said, “What is Jesus?”

In what manner does something have to exist to be considered real? Are you real? Stomp on your toes. Yes, you’re real. But is time real? Is trust real? Those are things that have no body but we consider them real. Do myths exist? The Greek stories of gods and goddesses are real. The belief in gods is real. So if it can be mentioned, it is real in some way. One story can be non-fictional and another story fictional, but the latter is still a real story.

Christians are one group that don’t like myths very much even though they believe hundreds of them unknowingly. Many pilgrims have argued with me that Noah actually built an ark and an unseen deity flooded the earth. They think in order to be true, the stories have to be real. Just the opposite is true. A non-fiction book about the American Civil War would carefully use only factual historical events in the story. The story of Achilles was made up, but it was made up with a purpose in mind. The scenes are designed to tell a specific story. The tale of what happened in the Civil War may not have a moral to the story even though one could draw their own conclusions. Not so with the tale of Achilles. The author intentionally fashioned it to teach what happens when someone disregards a minor vulnerability. So they charge arrogantly into battle and their small weakness becomes their downfall. So, a myth is in some senses more true than a documentary.

Stories become great myths when every man finds himself playing one of the characters. That’s truth on a higher level than if I were to read the history of Italians and try to apply it to my life. In modern day mythology, Disney creates one animated movie after another that treats human weaknesses that we all experience. They are universally popular because they speak to the pathos that is common to all.

If you haven’t read my retelling of the Garden of Eden story, you can request it. I’ll load it onto this blog eventually. What Christianity has done with stories like that is contend that it literally happened and that Adam is an ancient human ancestor. They thought, or think they must for the story to be true. That reasoning is disastrous. Instead of putting yourself in the story as Adam, you blamed Adam for rebelling and putting Eden off-limits to all of us. Thus, you completely miss the lesson.

Did a man named Jeshua Christ walk the earth and die on a wooden cross? This creates the same error as the previous story. If it is a myth showing you the way, the truth and the life, then you won’t find them if you are sitting around waiting for Jesus to come back and show you. Besides, it wasn’t Jesus who spoke that line — it was the Christ.

Jesus is held up by his followers as the cornerstone of Christianity. When you know the myth, you know that Jesus said very little, and by his own admission, did nothing. The man Jesus said: I am nothing. I have no will of my own, no thoughts of my own, no desires and no plan. Everything you see me do, I didn’t do it. My Father did it. What kind of foundation stone is that for a religion? Remember, the pilgrims are called Christians, not Jesusites.

The Christ had much to say and do in the gospel stories: I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me. Before Abraham was, I am. Jesus did not live before Abraham. Any time he spoke with authority, it was not the man speaking. When the transformed being comes out of the tomb and floats up into the sky, Jesus is no more. Only the eternal Christ lives on. Let me make this point a number of times so that you hear it in different words: It doesn’t matter if that story happened in time and space. It does matter if you don’t also understand it as a metaphor. For example, when I included the Father in this story, I didn’t mean heavenly Dad. In mythology, Father represents the source, the giver, the seed of life. If all you have in your awareness is a human ghost in robes standing in the clouds, you may as well not read the story.

Forget this forced humility that there’s a difference between Jesus and you, or anybody else. It is written that Christ said: What I have done, you will do, and more. Father make them one with me as I am one with you. So, let’s take the initiative to play our role in the myth. Let’s start following the mythical pattern, which is…..

The names Jesus, Joshua and Jeshua are all the same. They mean “The hand of Jaweh”. With the Hebrew letter, Yod, we know this must be a physical creature. More on this later.

Christ is the Greek word for anointing with oil. This is the heart of the myth.

The anointing of Hebrew high priests is another myth with significant spiritual principles implied. The word priest is also important. It means servant (think: humility, dedication). When a priest, like Aaron, Moishe’s brother, would anoint himself before going into the Holy of Holies, he would take a flask full of olive oil, myrrh, cinnamon and other fragrant goodies and hold it high over his head. He’d then pour the contents on his head and drench his whole body with oil. It is said the Israelites knew which footprints in the sand were Aaron’s because there were drops of oil on the ground. How he cleaned up before bed must have been interesting.

Oil was also used in the lamps, so it doubled as a fuel. This tells us that the anointing oil symbolizes power. In a menorah, it was power for light. As an anointing oil, it symbolized the power of enlightenment. When the priest/servant held the oil above him and it poured down and covered him completely, it represented receiving power from above. The act of covering himself reveals that the priest is nothing but the empty vessel dedicated to the will of that power. A vessel that is already full of personality, self-esteem, reputation, needs and desires, cannot receive the power. One who has become nothing, per Jesus’s illustration, can channel almighty power.

The power from above is not a higher power. There really only is one power ­ — all power, the one infinite power. It’s not a person, it’s consciousness. In our fertile imaginations we have created multiple sources of power as we have imagined many characters living in the spirit realm. But what evidence do we have of gods, devils, virgins, saints, etcetera? Many people rebuke me by claiming that their god answered their prayer. But some pray to Jehovah, others to Shiva, Allah, Bhagavan, Vishnu, the Virgin Mary. Saint Jude is a popular icon for healing requests. Others claim Satan grants their pleas. They can’t all be right.

I realized that these ritual petitions have one essential rule in common — if you don’t have faith that you will receive your request, you get nothing. You must make your desire known without doubting. Is it not possible then that it is your own faith that is manifesting the goods? The Christian instruction is that you believe it is already provided when you ask, even though you don’t see it yet. This is exactly the rule for metaphysical sects who don’t believe in any god. They appear to have eliminated the vendor/delivery boy and acquired the solution on their own purely by positive thinking.

We’ve been fortunate that the principles work even when we add unnecessary fictional people and appendages. I guess if you use the right ingredients and follow the recipe, it doesn’t matter if you mix it in a glass bowl or a clay pot. You will still end up with cake. But why not simplify by eliminating the fantasy and knowing the essentials?

We know there is a spiritual presence of unlimited potential. We exist in a universe that was made from nothing else. We know there is an anointing that puts the power of creation in our hands. We know those hands are limited flesh, but in absolute humility they can be the servants of that unlimited potential. In this, you will find the Creator, the Christ and Jesus, but you will also find yourself. It’s up to you which part you want to identify with. In my mind, Jesus and Vin are the same part ­ — the empty conduit. The Christ is the flow of the power of creation from the invisible potential into the visible manifestation. What many call god is the reality of that eternal, infinite, never changing, unlimited potential. I do not call it god. I call it the I am that I am.

You can call it that also. You can identify with the Creator. It is your innermost being. It doesn’t matter if your name is Jesus or if Harold be thy name. It’s just a pipe, a tube, a spillway through which we manifest creation. The hand of God. You can identify with the anointed one, the stream that flows from the ocean of consciousness. But if the ocean is one, then being the stream is also being the ocean. It takes some getting used to. You are told you cannot say I am the omni-being. That’s what the religious establishment accused Jesus of doing. Blasphemy they call it. But if it’s the omni-being who is speaking through the human vessel, then it is speaking truth. It’s foolish to believe in an omnipresent being and then somehow put yourself outside of that for the sake of forced humility. There is no place outside of omnipresence, no matter how insignificant the establishment wants you to feel.

I appear as a human. I can put the human identity aside and summon the invisible creative potential out of the realm of spirit into the physical world. I am that spirit.

What do you want to do with unlimited power? The one spirit is love, compassion, generosity… that is what you are free to manifest. Knowing all living things and the presence of the omni-being are one, there is nothing to do but seek to live in peace — with yourself! Here is a lovely poem to put a cap on this. Remember to reach as high as you can when pouring the oil.

How wonderful and pleasant it is when brothers live together in harmony! For harmony is as precious as the anointing oil that was poured over Aaron’s head, that ran down his beard and onto the border of his robe. Psalm 133.