Was Jesus a complete ego-maniac?
A presentation by Kim Michaels
NOTE: This presentation was delivered on May 28, 2006 during the Shangra-la
Ascension Conference.
In our last discussion on Jesus' life,* we left off when he had just
started his mission at the wedding in Cana. He had decided to take that
final step beyond the point of no return, where he knew that his mission
had gone public and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Now we
are going to consider the cycle of Jesus' mission – his actual
mission in the three years where he walked around Palestine and encountered
opposition from the high and the mighty in the Jewish religion. And
yet he reached out to the people—those who were considered the
lowly by the Jews.
When you consider Jesus' mission, we have all been brought up with a
very limited, very idolatrous view of his mission and his life. As we
talked about in our first discussion about his birth, he has been set
up on a pedestal, where we don't see any connection between his mission
and our own mission in life. We think we can't possibly follow in his
footsteps. Yet Jesus said "He that believeth on me, the works that
I do shall he do also" and this is the one sentence that is the
essence of Jesus' mission.
The simple question we need to ask ourselves is: “Do we believe
that Jesus Christ was a total ego-maniac?” [Laughter]
It’s very simple. Ponder that question. Was he a total egotist?
Did he come to show off that he was so much better than others, so far
above us that we could never reach him?
Another version of that question is to say: “Why did God send
his ‘only begotten Son’ to this Earth?” You take traditional
Christian doctrine and it says "Jesus was the only Son of God,"
or "Jesus was God from the very beginning." As we talked about
in the first lecture, the Catholic church said he “was begotten
not made, coequal and coeternal with the Father." In other words,
he had no beginning. He was from the very beginning way above us. It
also says that the rest of us were born as sinners.
So ask yourself this: If God is a benevolent God, does it make sense
that he would create us as miserable sinners who are sinning by our
vary nature, which God created. And then he sends Jesus as his only
begotten Son to come down here to show us how perfect Jesus is, so we
can really feel bad about how miserable we are. [Laughter] Yet God created
Jesus and God created us. So if God created us as miserable sinners
and he sent Jesus to make us feel bad about how he created us, he cannot
be a benevolent God. There is no in-between.
Either God is some strange schizophrenic God [Laughter] or the Christian
doctrine is a strange schizophrenic doctrine. Take your pick, because
you can't have it both ways. Unless you make yourself what Jesus called
"the blind followers of the blind leaders," because you refuse
to think about what the blind leaders of Christianity have been telling
people for 1500 years or more.
So this is what we need to wake ourselves up from, and those of us who
are already awake need to be willing to be the open door to wake up
those who are already – at inner levels – aware that something
is missing from Christianity, something doesn't make sense. Yet, they
haven't consciously made that leap where they have really dared to look
at it, follow what they already know in their hearts and say, "The
Pope has got nothing on." [Laughter]
Do we really believe what Jesus said?
So the simple fact is that Jesus said "He that believeth on me,
the works that I do shall he do also." Either Jesus was a liar
or we need to understand what that statement means. And of course, the
fact of the matter is that we were not created by God as sinners, we
were created as sons and daughters of God. But we did not come here
with the full God consciousness, the full Christ consciousness of seeing
ourselves as one with God, with our own higher Beings, with our I
AM Presence.
We came here with a limited self awareness and we were meant to grow
in self awareness until we could fully accept our oneness with our own
higher Being. And therefore we could say with Jesus, "I and my
Father are One." And that is why the gospel of John says, "To
as many as believed on him, to them gave he the power to become the
Sons of God." Again, a statement that most Christian ministers
will quite frankly ignore. And if you confront them with it, they will
either refuse to talk about it or they will come up with some kind of
convoluted logic why it couldn't possibly mean what it actually says.
[Laughter]
So the fact of the matter is that Jesus left us many clues in his life.
And that's why the way he wants us to look at his life and his mission
is that he demonstrated the path that we can all follow, the path to
Christhood.
His mission was not – as we have been led to believe – an
example of a superior being who just appeared in perfect form. Even
the three years of his mission was a growth period where he went through
different stages and eventually reached the fullness of the Christ consciousness.
But as we talked about in the discussion about death, even to the very
end, he had certain things he needed to give up, certain expectations.
He had a certain ghost he needed to give up before he was totally free
of this world.
So we need to look at his mission that way and realize that we also
have a mission. And therefore, we need to look at how Jesus carried
out his mission and learn from that, so we can have clues on how we
can carry out our mission. It doesn't necessarily mean that we have
to do exactly what Jesus did. I strongly suspect that in this day and
age we do not have to be nailed to a physical cross in order to demonstrate
our Christhood to the world.
So there is always a deeper meaning behind the physical events in Jesus'
life. What Jesus did was that he acted out in the physical world the
path to Christhood so that it was visible for all who have eyes to see.
Yet there can be a deeper meaning behind everything. Turning water into
wine—it doesn't mean that we all have to physically turn water
into wine, but you turn the water of the human consciousness into the
wine of the Christ consciousness. Walking on water is a symbol for taking
command over the emotional body and walking on that water. As we discussed,
him stilling the storm—the air is the mental realm, so stilling
the thoughts that always disturb us and pull us away from inner peace.
Yet we have to be willing to see that Jesus in his mission was not adapting
to the world and the way people wanted him to be. He was – throughout
his mission – focused on what God wanted him to be, "I can
of my own self do nothing. It is the Father within me who is doing the
work."
So when you look at Jesus' mission, the most inspiring aspect of his
mission to me is that he gave us a magnificent example of a person who
never limited what God could do through him. And that is what we need
to learn, namely that what was being expressed through Jesus was not
Jesus' own power, as the human, physical, historical person he was.
It was God Power that was flowing through Jesus.
The inner truth about blasphemy?
Another question we need to ask ourselves about Christianity is, “What
is the meaning of blasphemy?” So many Christians will talk about
blasphemy. And I have had a number of emails to the website that said
"Your teachings are blasphemous, you're blaspheming and you will
surely go to hell." But what is blasphemy? Well, blasphemy is a
violation of the first two commandments: Thou shalt have no other God's
before me. Thou shalt not take unto yourself any graven image.
You create an image of God, and you worship that image instead of the
true God, the Living God. And therefore, you are denying God's Presence
where you are. And you are denying God the opportunity to let his power
flow through you and manifest his kingdom on Earth through you. And
that is blasphemy, because the worst form of blasphemy is to deny God
and deny God where you are, deny that God is within you and that God
can work through you.
And that is why Jesus said, "The Kingdom of God is within you."
So it is not us who have to do all these things. Jesus does not call
us to have a savior complex, but he calls us to realize that if we will
believe on him, if we will follow his example, then we can become the
open doors for God's power to flow into this world. And it is God's
power that will change the world, not our own power. That just becomes
another endless power play of the ego.
And if you look at religion today, you will see that many religions,
and certainly the Christian religion, have become completely enveloped
in this power play, where the ego says, "Our religion is better
than any other religion and therefore we have to convert everyone to
our religion.” It is not a matter of raising people up, bringing
God's kingdom to Earth. No, all we need to do is make everyone a member
of the Christian religion. And they justify that by another statement
by Jesus, where he says, "Go ye into all the world and turn all
people into my disciples." And he talked about baptizing them and
those who will be baptized will be saved and those who won't will not
be saved. And they have interpreted that to mean that Jesus wanted us,
who call ourselves Christians, to go out and turn everyone else into
Christians.
But that is not what Jesus said. And we can see that when we look at
Jesus' mission and his interaction with the hierarchy, the power elite,
of the Jewish religion—who never accepted him as the Messiah,
who condemned him from the very start, who tried all kinds of trickery
to get him to commit what they said was blasphemy so they had an excuse
for putting him to death, Because back then blasphemy was a capital
crime. They rejected him because they were attached to the outer religion
which is what Jesus called "The broad way that leads to destruction,"
which is what the Old Testament calls "The way that seemeth right
unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death."
And that is the outer approach to religion, where you think that by
being a member of an outer religion, your salvation is guaranteed as
long as you follow all the outer rules. And therefore, you can buy your
way into Heaven. You can force God to accept you by saying, "Look
God, I am so good according to this standard defined by this religion."
And of course, they all believed that God defined that standard. But
the reality is that the standard they were trying to live up to is a
graven image, created by their own consciousness—so they can do
what they feel they're comfortable with, so they can hide their egos,
so they don't have to give up the ego.
That is the outer path, the false path, and Jesus denounced it over
and over again. His most forceful denouncement was when he talked to
his disciples and said, "Unless your righteousness exceeds the
righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter
the Kingdom of Heaven." The scribes and the Pharisees were the
"good Christians" of their day in the sense that they were
the good Jews, they were doing everything right, they knew the outer
law; they were following to the letter.
And they thought for sure they were going to be saved because of all
these outer things they had done. And here comes Jesus, saying, "Not
so! You guys are not going to Heaven unless you change your ways."
And they were shocked and appalled, and of course they wanted to get
rid of him.
What is the key of knowledge?
He also talked about the lawyers and he said, "Woe unto ye lawyers!
Ye have taken away the key of knowledge. Ye would not enter in and those
that were entering in ye hindered."
What is the key of knowledge? Well, that is the inner path to God, where
we find the Kingdom of God within us. And we realize that there is a
higher state of consciousness than the human state of consciousness,
which Paul in the scriptures calls the carnal mind. And he says the
carnal mind is enmity against God, because it is not subject to the
laws of God and neither, indeed, can it be. And this is what we've talked
about with the ego. The ego cannot be saved, it cannot be made acceptable
in the eyes of God.
And that is why the only way to walk into the Kingdom of God is to let
the ego die on the cross as Jesus demonstrated. And thereby do what
Paul said, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus,"
so that we can then do the works that Jesus did.
Now think about this. If you had to do Jesus' works – walk on
water, raise the dead, heal the sick – could you do it? And most
people would say no. And the simple reason is that you cannot do it
with your present level of consciousness. But if you were able to let
that mind that was in Jesus be in you, then you couldn't do
the works that Jesus did, but God could do those same works
or even greater works through you that he did through Jesus. Because
Jesus knew he was not the doer.
You think you can't do these works because you think you're the doer.
Because as long as we're in the duality consciousness and affected by
the ego, we think we're separated from God and therefore we have to
be the doer on our own. But in reality, when we come into that state
of Oneness – "I and my Father are One" –
we realize that we are not the doer, it is the God Power flowing through
us that is the doer. And that is the most magnificent example that Jesus
set for us in his entire mission.
Wherever he went, he was willing to let God Be through him.
Even if it shocked people, or disturbed people, or went against their
beliefs and offended them and they accused him for it. He was willing
to go beyond the box and this is what we have to realize. The only thing
that is going to change this Earth is that people change their way of
thinking. And people are trapped in a mental box, where they either
think they're right or they think there is nothing beyond the belief
system they have been brought up with—be it science, be it the
Christian religion or any other religion.
So the role of the Living Christ, the Christ in embodiment, is to awaken
people from their sleep, like we talked about in our talk about death.
Death, the way Jesus used the term often, is a state of spiritual death
where you are not aware, you are not awake, you are not growing and
you are not letting God Be through you, because you think you're
separated from God.
Our role on the path of Christhood
So we have to realize that if we are walking the path to Christhood,
this is our role. Jesus said, "For this reason came I into the
world, to bear witness to the truth." And he sent his disciples
out to bear witness to that truth. And we are here to, “Let our
light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify
your Father which is in Heaven."
Because when we let our light shine, when we let God's light shine through
us, people can see that it is not us that are being the doers. And therefore,
they can see beyond and realize that it is God within us—and they
can eventually come to the recognition that God is within them as well.
And so what is the role of a Living Christ? As I said, "Was Jesus
a total ego-maniac?" No—because nothing Jesus did was for
his own glorification, for his own pleasure, for his own needs or wants.
No, it was all directed at raising up all life. Which is why he said,
"If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me." Because
he knew that if one person reaches that Christhood, then it creates
a magnetic pull that lifts up everyone else. So this is what he wants
us to know about his mission.
Building a community of Christed beings
But the other thing he wants us to know about his mission is that the
image we have been given of him is highly inaccurate. We have been given
the image that because he was so special and so perfect, he did it all
by himself. Yeah he had some disciples, but they were just following
him. He didn't need them; they needed him. He didn't need anybody because
he was so perfect, right? But the fact of the matter is that he had
a community around him of people who supported him in his mission.
You can see hints of this in the scriptures. Mary Magdalene—it
is clear in the scriptures that he would talk to her often. He loved
her more than the other disciples. Which means he relied on her for
emotional support. There was even one of the non-canonical gospels that
says he used to kiss her often on the mouth, so it showed that she played
a supporting role for Jesus.
We know that his mother supported him – we talked about the
wedding in Cana – we also know that she held the immaculate concept
for him. But we also find little hints that talk about the other 70.
In other words, there was the 12 disciples, but there was a group of
70 beyond that. And they were people who were supporting Jesus behind
the scenes.
And so that is why he wants us to realize that the Aquarian age is the
age of community. And therefore we are not necessarily called to all
walk alone in front of the whole world and declare our Christhood.
We have the option here to come together in unity and form a community
of Christed beings who are supporting each other on our path to Christhood
and in our expression of our Christhood. And therefore, we are not standing
alone against the world. We are standing together, and therefore we
are more powerful in our oneness. But in order for that community to
truly work, it has to be the community of the Holy Spirit, which you
see at Pentecost. The start of that community is where the scriptures
talk about Jesus' disciples that have come together—after they
had been going through this trauma of him being taken away from them.
One day they came together and the Bible says, "They were of one
accord, in one place."
One accord means they were in oneness of purpose. It didn't mean they
were totally in agreement about everything, that people had lost their
individuality, but it means they were united by the greater vision that
they were here to bear witness to what they had witnessed in Jesus'
life—the truth, the true teachings of Christ. And that is what
we are called to do in this age as well, because we have the true teachings
of Christ. And therefore, somebody needs to bear witness to those teachings
to the world, so that the many people out there– who are ready
at inner levels, who know there's something missing from Christianity
– can see it in the outer and therefore consciously connect to
what they know in their hearts, what they know is part of their divine
plan.
Jesus has said there are 10,000
people in embodiment who have the potential to manifest the full
Christ consciousness in this lifetime. There are millions more who can
reach a high degree of Christhood. And that is what will change the
Earth in this age—not that there is one Christ, but that there
are many! And that's where the community of the Holy Spirit comes in.
But in order for us to have that “being of one accord,”
we have to be willing to come into oneness, which we have done during
this conference. But we have done it because we have been willing to
look at the ego and realize that it's the ego that divides us and makes
us a house divided against ourselves and against each other.
You look at every spiritual movement on this Earth. Many of them did
very well in the beginning, but then gradually it started going downhill
and they became more and more divided because they could not maintain
that unity of purpose. And the reason they couldn't was that they were
not aware of the ego, they did not have the awareness or the teachings
about it. And therefore, very slowly and gradually, the ego came in
and played its many games that Jesus has talked about in his discourses
on the ego and that the other masters have talked about. And gradually
that organization started going downhill into that spiral of becoming
just another religion that thinks it has the only true teachings, and
therefore has to not only convert everybody to that religion but actively
fight other religions like in the crusades.
Was Jesus schizophrenic?
Can you imagine Jesus actually approving the crusades, where Christians
go out and kill other people in the name of Jesus Christ, when he said,
"Love your enemies. Do good to them that hate you. Turn the other
cheek. Forgive seventy times seven!"
Hello! Was Jesus schizophrenic? [Laughter] Or is Christian doctrine
and behavior schizophrenic? It's insane! You can take two approaches
to the Popes of the Catholic church – either they were always
supported by Christ and thus Christ approved the crusades, approved
the inquisition, or they were human beings who often made political
decisions.
And therefore, we have to look at Christianity's past and learn the
lesson and realize that Jesus did not come to start a religion that
became as rigid and dogmatic and close-minded as the Jewish religion
that rejected him as their Messiah. He did not come to start that kind
of a church. And therefore, he is not in approval whatsoever of orthodox,
sectarian, mainstream Christianity. And we have to learn from that and
then we have to ask ourselves, “What kind of a movement did he
come to start?”
Well, the fact is that the early followers of Jesus did not call themselves
Christians. They called themselves “Followers of the Way”
because Jesus said, "I AM the way, the truth and the life."
He came to show us a way to a higher state of consciousness, namely
the Christ mind that is freedom from the ego. And that is the essence
of Jesus' teachings and his example—that we all have the potential
to follow in his footsteps. And Jesus said, "If any man will come
after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me."
Deny yourself means deny the ego, the identity built by the ego. Take
up your cross means that you are willing to take up the task of undoing
the choices that separate you from God, the choices that spring from
the ego.
And the essence of the false path is where they say, "Oh, you don't
have to do that stuff. Just be a member of our church. Come to church
every Sunday. Follow all the outer rules. Don't do any of the bad things,
and then you'll one day wake up and you'll be in Heaven.” And
you don't have to do what Jesus said—look at the beam in your
own eye and pull it out. And therefore you start looking at the beam
in the eyes of those people who are not members of your religion and
say, "Oh they are bad, they are sure to go to hell."
So Jesus came to show us an inner way, the Way of Life. A way that does
not go through judgment but through Love. It does not go through fear
but through that all-consuming love for God and love for each other.
Loving ourselves and each other
One of the koans Jesus gives in the koan
book is, "Love your neighbour as yourself, so make sure you
love yourself." And this is what he said, "By this shall it
be known that ye are my disciples, that ye love one another as I have
loved you." And that is the essence of the community we need to
build in this age, a community of love, where we love each other with
that Christ love—that is beyond the human, selfish, self-centered,
possessive love. And again, it can only be the God Power flowing through
us that can establish that kind of a community.
Because we could not have come into this conference and decided that
we were going to force it to happen—what actually happened over
the last couple of days. It was something that had to happen because
we provided the chalice by being willing to go beyond the ego. But then
the unity really came from Above. It was not something we could have
forced. It's a gift, it's a grace. But we can make ourselves worthy,
we can make ourselves the open doors for it by dealing with the ego.
So again, we are not here to start another movement that will claim
that it has the only true teachings of Christ or the only true teachings
of the Ascended Masters and nobody is going to come after us. We are
here to be part of that universal movement of inspiring people to raise
their consciousness. This does not mean that they have to become members
of our organization. It does not even mean that we always have to present
them with the teachings in their highest form.
It means we give them whatever they need, at whatever level of consciousness
they are at, so they can be raised up a little higher. If they are not
religious, we can give them a universal teaching about changing their
consciousness. If they are Christians, we can attempt to give them a
greater understanding of Jesus' teachings. If they are Buddhist, we
can give them an understanding of some of the universal elements of
Jesus' path and how we can overcome the duality consciousness and the
consciousness of the ego and let it die.
So again, we don't want to fall into that trap of the ego—we want
to always focus on love, coming into oneness. But part of that love
is the God Power that quickens people, that shakes them out of their
blindness, just like Jesus so many times did this. When he raised Lazarus
from the dead he didn't say [softly] "Oh Lazarus please come forth."
[Laughter] He said [powerfully] "Lazarus, come forth!" And
it was his entire being that was involved in that call. And that is
why it penetrated.
And raising Lazarus from the dead can be a symbol for raising people
from their state of spiritual death by being willing to be an open door
for that God Power that quickens their beings, and they suddenly see
what they could not see before, that there is more, there is light,
there is reality beyond the conditions we see in this world that seem
to be so insurmountable and so permanent.
That is why we can then bear witness to what Jesus demonstrated, "With
men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."
And that is the motto we need to embody until we become it. And therefore
it happens—whatever is meant to happen, what God wants to happen
for us individually and for our community and movement!
[Applause]
* On the previous days of the conference the participants
had discussed Jesus’ birth and his growth toward being ready to
start his mission.
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Copyright
© 2006 by Kim Michaels |
