 88. Jesus (His Truth) |
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An esoteric teaching of Spiritual Communion-or (to use the `New Testament" language) a teaching about the "secrets of the Kingdom of God" - is at the root of the Gospels of the Christian tradition. And that esoteric teaching comes directly from the even more ancient pre-Christian esoteric tradition about the "method" Succeeded It (or psycho-physical technique) of inner mystical (or Spiritual) Ascent. The esoteric root - teaching at the origin of the "New Testament" Gospels was about Spiritual Communion, and not about the physical "Ascension" of Jesus.
Through his esoteric Spiritual teaching-work, Jesus passed on a pre-Christian tradition of "method" (or of practice-"technique") and a process in which anyone else (if rightly prepared) could also participate. However, the original (and, apparently, actual) esoteric teaching-school of Jesus of Galilee was suppressed and lost in the process of the enforced exoteric institutionalization of Christianity. Towards the end of the fourth century of the Common Era (as a result of the earlier strategic initiatives of Constantine), Christianity became the "official" religion of the Roman State. At that point in time, Christianity - which had, from its first public beginnings, always been mostly of an exoteric nature, albeit with various "gnostic" and otherwise esoteric groups also claiming to be associated with Jesus and what they each claimed to be his "true" teachings became finally codified into an exclusively exoteric tradition. Nevertheless, there have (often in spite of "official" pressures against them) continued to be important fourth stage mystical figures and Spiritually - activated saintly figures within the institutionalized (and, especially, "Roman Catholic" and "Eastern Orthodox") modes of the Christian tradition.
In summary, the root-tradition from which (or upon which, or in spite of which) "official" Christianity emerged was very much more than an exoteric and outer, or merely public, tradition. That esoteric foundation is suggested by the so-called "Secret Gospel", which is a fragment of what is presumed to have been a more esoteric version of the "Gospel of Mark", and which was written for the "inner circle" of those Christians who were initiated into the practice of Spiritual Communion with their Spiritual Master, Jesus of Galilee. Although the practice itself is not described there, the "Secret Gospel" does suggest there was an esoteric practice available for those who were prepared for it. It suggests that there was, on the one hand, the public message of Jesus' teaching, and, on the other hand, when people demonstrated the evidence of maturity, they were given the esoteric (or "inner-circle") practice-the "secret" Spiritual practice.
Presumably, then, there were modes of direct Spiritual Transmission known within the earliest (or pre-institutional) Christian tradition (or within the sect associated with Jesus during his, it may be presumed, physical lifetime )- as is, for example, suggested in the story of the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist. That story is a "concretized" rendering of a Transmission of Spiritual Energy. It is similar to the "Shaktipat" tradition, which still exists, and can also be seen, for example, in Motovilov's account of his experience of Spiritual Transmission from the "Orthodox" Christian Saint, Seraphim of Sarov (in the nineteenth century). Something of that very kind appears to be associated with the esoteric "inner circle" that should be presumed to have existed in intimate association with the (presumedly, historical) Jesus.
The esoteric Spiritual teaching-school of Jesus of Galilee is the pre-institutional original tradition of the New Testament" Gospels. Apart from the institutionalization of the "official" Christian message of "salvation" by means of devotion to the "Resurrection-and-Ascension" Jesus, there is also (and senior to that mythological Jesus) a suggested historical Jesus who was a Spiritual teacher, and who did the "inner-circle" work of Spiritual Transmission, and who communicated not only a public (or exoteric and socially-based) teaching but also an esoteric (or Spiritual, and cosmically-oriented, and psycho-physically based) "inner-circle" teaching.
A suggestion of just such Spiritual matters appears in the story of the visit by Nicodemus in the night. The very fact that the story emphasizes that Nicodemus visited Jesus at night suggests an occasion of Spiritual initiation. Suggestively, it was an overnight event of purification and preparation, and of receiving Spiritual instruction having to do with focusing upwardly (on brain-mediated visions of inner light and the "Star within"), with the eventual user-physical sighting of the Morning Star (in the twilight, just before it would disappear in the daylight Sun) being the outer symbolic reference to the inner light and the inner star of mystical or fourth-to-fifth stage, and, thus, brain-mediated) esotericism. During the night, the ceremonially-bathed initiate would be prepared, by means of a vigil of instruction and Blessing, for the interior Spiritual Baptismal-vision given by Jesus.
