Friday, April 22, 2016

2 Jesus boys + Jesus & Christ = I AM, Our True Self

The Bible remains locked to us if we gloss over the facts. Examining the difference between Jesus and Christ while exploring the purpose behind the birth of two Jesus children, as well as the baptism of Jesus, does not completely make sense unless we understand the reason why Jesus was born in the first place. He didn’t come to save us; he came to show us how to save ourselves!

To express it in the simplest way possible; a human being was required - Jesus - to take into himself a mighty cosmic being called Christ, so that every human being could personally experience the I AM.
What is this I AM? The first time we hear about the I AM is after Moses sees the burning bush which is not consumed, and then he has his famous conversation with God. Moses asks God what his name is, and the response is Ehyeh asher ehyeh I AM that I AM (Exodus 3:14). We also find this term I AM in the New Testament in the Greek words ego eimi.


Moses and the Burning Bush by Arnold Friberg

Before the time of Christ, human consciousness was not sufficiently developed to experience the I AM. To have this experience required high levels of initiation as was the case for the great initiate Zarathustra. The only way the general population could experience the I AM was in a secondhand way through Elijah in the Old Testament, and Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita.


Elijah's Chariots of Fire, Byzantine Museum, Athens, Greece

Only through the birth of two Jesus boys, as well as the baptism of the 30 year old Jesus when the Christ Spirit entered into him could we have this personal, firsthand experience of the I AM. Because of Zarathustra’s initiation into the I AM before its time, he played an influential role in this process through his involvement in the birth of the Matthew Jesus. A second Jesus, described by Luke, whose pure being was not tainted by life on this earth, was also required.

Why did this I AM take so many convoluted paths before it became accessible to human beings? The short answer is that it can’t just be given to us, we have to earn it. Human consciousness had to evolve to a point where it could handle the power of the I AM, and it has been a long time in the making; from Adam to Elijah to Jesus and now to us. The power of the I AM is like fire; it must burn in us but not consume us. One way we can recognize it our consciousness is when we are angry but the anger does not consume us.

So what is this I AM, is it God or is it human? Well, simply put, it is both. The I AM is that part of God that is in us. Its main role is to make us creative as God is creative. Whenever we express our talent, in those amazing moments when we do great things, it is the I AM expressing itself in us. We also see it when people who don’t like each other ignore their differences and work together in, for example, an emergency. The I AM knows no boundaries of color, creed, gender or nation.

A powerful example of the nature of the I AM arose in a conversation between Michael Parkinson and Paul McCartney which went like this:

“This is just me in here. Paul McCartney is some guy over there doing amazing things. If I thought that was me constantly it would blow my head off.”

The I AM is certainly a mysterious and powerful thing. It can make us anxious and even fearful. Perhaps for this reason knowledge of it has been hidden from us by the churches and secret societies down the ages. The time has come for us to be aware of it and to use it to the best possible effect in our lives. The challenge is that we have to discover it ourselves; it can’t be taught. We can read about it but then it is up to us to have our own firsthand experience of it.


Every detail in the Bible about the life of Jesus shows us how we prepare ourselves to work with the I AM. The previous posts about Repent, Sin and the Word introduce us to ways in which we can strive to become fully human, which means fully integrated with this I AM. In my book I Connecting : The Soul’s Quest I explain it in a non-religious psychological way.

While I recommend the Bible to discover the true meaning of the I AM I must stress that it is NOT about any specific religion; each religious expression is a path up the mountain to the pinnacle of knowledge of the I AM. Nor is it about dogma and definition, this knowledge can only live in us if we strive to become aware of our own true nature, that is, to really know ourselves.

I am always uplifted and inspired when I read the final words in St Matthew’s gospel: “I am with you always, to the close of the age." In the Greek it says: ego eimi, I AM, always with you till the consummation of this period of time.

Contemplating the ego eimi statements in the Bible is one good way to awaken to the activity of the I AM within us. You will find my fist book about the seven I AM sayings helpful, and all my books focus on this work.

First published on Huffington Post

Sunday, April 17, 2016

It took Two Jesus’ to make THE Jesus

It is no accident that the genealogies in St Matthew and St Luke’s Gospel are different. One traces the ancestry of a highly developed human being living on this earth. The other traces the spiritual legacy of a pure human spirit incarnating for the first time on the earth. Wisdom in one, innocence in the other.
The question we can ask is this. Could Christ, a mighty Cosmic Being beyond our understanding, who had never experienced life in a physical body on this earth, just be born through a mother as we all are? That would be like saying the sun could enter this earth and shine from within it.
By looking closely at the two genealogies, it is not difficult to see that two different Jesus children were born to two different Marys with two different fathers called Joseph. The Matthew Jesus descends from the Solomon line of the House of David. The Luke Jesus descends from the Nathan line of the House of David. If we look into our own genealogy, we know that we are quite different from our cousins whose parents were siblings of our great grandparents - then multiply that for all the generations mentioned in the Matthew and Luke Gospels.
The Matthew Jesus child was the product of 42 preceding generations from Abraham to Joseph. Kings visited him when he was born, whereas shepherds visited the Luke child. The Luke Jesus’ genealogy reaches back to Adam when human beings first left their spiritual domain and took on flesh - as told in the story in the Garden of Eden. These details are very important yet often skipped over.
I have written about this in detail in my book Who is Jesus : What is Christ, Vol 1. Why mainstream theologians do not explore this information is a mystery. Others have written about it and some artists have painted the two Jesus children. In this painting Raphael has painted them with John the Baptist and the Luke Jesus’ mother.

Madonna Del Duca di Terranuova by Raphael
Not only that but also these children were born at different times. The Matthew Jesus was older, born at the time when Herod ordered all male children to be killed.
“One notable fact is that Herod ordered all male children aged two and under to be killed, which led to the Matthew Jesus being taken to Egypt, there is no mention of the child described by Luke going to Egypt. Even John the Baptist, who Luke tells us is 6 months older than the Luke Jesus, seems to have escaped Herod’s horrendous order, supporting the fact that these children were born at different times and in different places.” Who is Jesus : What is Christ Vol 1 by Kristina Kaine

To make sense of this story we also need to keep in mind that Jesus and Christ are different beings. Matthew states it clearly when we read the original Greek. Immediately after the genealogy he writes: “Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.” In the original Greek it says, tou de iesou christou he gennesis outos ne which more accurately translates as ‘of the yet anointed Jesus the origin thus was’. Christ comes from christos, a Greek word meaning ‘anointed.’ Matthew is saying Jesus is yet [to be] anointed, Christen-ed, which points to the future baptism.
Before that can happen, these two Jesus children will become one. We read about this event in Luke when his parents lost track of him. They found him three days later and he was a changed person.
After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions; and all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. Luke 2: 46
If we put ourselves in Joseph and Mary’s shoes as they entered the temple and found their unearthly, innocent son - autistic in today’s terms - in deep dialogue with the teachers in the temple, we can experience their amazement. These teachers had devoted their whole lives to understanding the sacred texts and here was a twelve year old boy matching their understanding! What was incredible to the parents was perhaps understandable to the teachers who knew what was about to take place when they found the two Jesus boys together in the temple.

The twelve-year-old Jesus in the Temple. Borgognone, fresco, San Ambrosius in Milan

In this fresco, the Luke Jesus sits on the throne having just assumed the wisdom of the Matthew Jesus, who then leaves the temple. Notice that all eyes are on him as recognition of his mighty sacrifice. Now the innocent Jesus takes on earthly wisdom. This is part of what it takes to prepare for the entrance of the Christ into this earth. This twelve year old boy will grow into a thirty year old man and meet his childhood friend John the Baptist by the river Jordan where the Holy Spirit, which always proceeds the Christ, can enter into him.

First published on Huffington Post with 1.3k likes