Theos-Talk Archives (March 2006 Message tt00894)

Friday, March 17, 2006

An inquiry about Jesus came in, and one may find a few references as to how
THEOSOPHY regards Jesus here below:

Best wishes,

Dallas

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			Re:  Reincarnation of Jesus

As an Adept, Jesus never "died."    "He"  may have reincarnated or he may be
working in his Nirmanakayic "body."

Consider the following:


		DEATH OF JESUS


JESUS LAPIDATED  ( Killed by Stoning -- see footnote)

".....In its mystical sense, the Egyptian cross owes its origin, as an
emblem, to the realization by the earliest philosophy of an androgynous
dualism of every manifestation in nature, which proceeds from the abstract
ideal of a likewise androgynous deity, while the Christian emblem is simply
due to chance. Had the Mosaic law prevailed, Jesus should have been
lapidated. ‡ The crucifix was an instrument of torture, and utterly common
among Romans as it was unknown among Semitic nations. It was called the
"Tree of Infamy." It is but later that it was adopted as a Christian symbol;
but, during the first two decades, the apostles looked upon it with horror.§
It is certainly not the Christian Cross that John had in mind when speaking
of the "signet of the living God," but the mystic Tau — the Tetragrammaton,
or mighty name, which, on the most ancient kabalistic talismans, was
represented by the four Hebrew letters composing the Holy Word.

‡ The Talmudistic records claim that, after having been hung, he was
lapidated and buried under the water at the junction of two streams. "Mishna
Sanhedrin," vol. vi., p. 4; "Talmud," of Babylon, same article, 43 a, 67 a.
	ISIS UNVEILED  II  255, footnote



"... Talmudist says, in substance, the following:  Jesus was thrown in
prison, and kept there forty days; then flogged as a seditious rebel; then
stoned as a blasphemer in a place called Lud, and finally allowed to expire
upon a cross.  "All this," explains Levi, "because he revealed to the people
the truths which they (the Pharisees) wished to bury for their own use.  He
had divined the occult theology of Israel, had compared it with the wisdom
of Egypt, and found thereby the reason for a universal] religious
synthesis."	 ISIS II 202


[A similar description is given in H.P.B.'s Theosophical Articles,
Vol. III, pp. 180-181fn..  “Esoteric Character of the Gospels”   -- 

“:Accused by the Jews of having learned the magic art in Egypt, and of
having stolen from the Holy of Holies the Incommunicable Name, Jehoshua
(Jesus) was put to death by the Sanhedrin of Lud. He was stoned and then
crucified on a tree, on the eve of Passover. The narrative is ascribed to
the Talmudistic authors of  “Scota” and “Sanhedrin,”  p. 19, Book of
Zochiel. And the “Historical Jesus and Mythical Christ, a lecture by G.
Massey.”
  (see I U  II  201-2 )  H.P.B.'s Theosophical Articles, Vol. III,
pp. 180-181fn. ]


EBIONITES (Heb.). Lit., “the poor”; the earliest sect of Jewish Christians,
the other being the Nazarenes. They existed when the term “Christian” was
not yet heard of. Many of the relations of Iassou (Jesus), the adept ascetic
around whom the legend of Christ was formed, were among the Ebionites. As
the existence of these mendicant ascetics can be traced at least a century
earlier than chronological Christianity, it is an additional proof that
lassou or Jeshu lived during the reign of Alexander Jannæus at Lyd (or Lud),
where he was put to death as stated in the Sepher Toldos Jeshu.” 	
	T  Glos  108-9


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		WHO WAS JESUS?


"The position THEY [MASTERS] give to Jesus, as far as we know, is that of a
great and pure man, a reformer who would fain have lived but who had to die
for that which he regarded as the greatest birth-right of man -- absolute
Liberty of conscience; of an adept who preached a universal Religion knowing
of, and having no other "temple of God" but man himself; that of a noble
Teacher of esoteric truths which he had no time given to him to explain;
that, of an initiate who recognized no difference -- save the moral one --
between men; who rejected caste, and despised wealth; and who preferred
death rather than to reveal the secrets of initiation.  And who, finally,
lived over a century before the year of our vulgar, so called, Christian
era."		THEOSOPHIST, July 1883



		HISTORY  OF  JESUS


"...Jesus, whether of Nazareth or Lud,* was a Chrestos, as undeniably as
that he never was entitled to the appellation of Christos, during his
life-time and before his last trial.

*Or Lydda, reference is made here to the Rabbinical tradition in the
Babylonian Gemara, called SEPHER TOLDOTH JESHU, about Jesus being the son of
one named Pandira, and having lived a century earlier than the era called
Christian, namely, during the reign of the Jewish king Alexander Jannaeus
and his wife Salome, who reigned from the year 106 to 79 B.C. Accused by the
Jews of having learned the magic art in Egypt, and of having stolen from the
Holy of Holies the Incommunicable Name, Jehoshua (Jesus) was put to death by
the Sanhedrin at Lud.  He was stoned and then crucified on a tree, on the
eve of Passover.  The narrative is ascribed to the Talmudistic authors of
"Sota" and "Sanhedrin," p.19 Book of Zechiel.” 	   Isis Unveiled, II. 201



INNOCENTS   A nick-name given to the Initiates and Kabalists before
the Christian era.  The "Innocents" of Bethlehem and of Lud (or Lydda) who
were put to death by Alexander Jannaeus, to the number of several thousands
(B.C. l00, or so), gave rise to the legend of the 40,000 innocent babes
murdered by Herod while searching for the infant Jesus.  The first is a
little known historical fact, the second a fable, as sufficiently shown by
Renan in his VIE DE JESUS." 		T. Glossary, p.156-7


"ALEXANDER JANNAEUS, or Alexander Yannai (d. 76 B.C.), Hasmonean (Maccabean)
king of Judaea, succeeded his brother Aristobulus I tq.v.) in 103 B.C.
Alexander imposed his rule on the Palestinian coast and on areas east of the
Jordan and the Dead Sea.  He was an ally of the Sadducees and persecuted
their opponents, the Pharisees.  He was succeeded by his wife, Salome
Alexandra, who reversed his pro-Sadducee policy."
	ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, 15TH Ed. 1981


"We believe that it was the Sadducees and not the Pharisees who crucified
Jesus.  They were Zadokites--partisans of the house of Zadok, or the
sacerdotal family.  In the "Acts" the apostles were said to be persecuted by
the Sadducees, but never by the Pharisees.  In fact, the latter never
persecuted any one.  They had the scribes, rabbis, and learned men in their
numbers, and were not, like the Sadducees, jealous of their order."
	 ISIS II 148



	JESUS OF MYTH AND LEGEND


"A thick film of allegory and blinds, the "dark sayings" of fiction and
parable, thus covers the original esoteric texts from which the New
Testament--as now known--was compiled.  Whence, then, the Gospels, the life
of Jesus of Nazareth?  Has it not been repeatedly stated that no human,
mortal brain could have invented the life of the Jewish Reformer, followed
by the awful drama on Calvary?

We say, on the authority of the ESOTERIC EASTERN SCHOOL, that all this came
from the GNOSTICS, as far as the name Christos and the astronomico-mystical
allegories are concerned, and from the writings of the ancient Tanaim as
regards the Kabalistic connection of Jesus or Joshua, with the Biblical
personifications.

One of these is the mystic esoteric name of Jehovah--not the present
fanciful God of the profane Jews ignorant of their own mysteries, the God
accepted by the still more ignorant Christians--but the compound Jehovah of
the pagan Initiation.  This is proven very plainly by the glyphs or mystic
combinations of various signs which have survived to this day in the Roman
Catholic hieroglyphics.

The Gnostic Records contained the epitome of the CHIEF SCENES ENACTED DURING
THE MYSTERIES OF INITIATION, SINCE THE MEMORY OF MAN; though even that was
given out invariably under the garb of semi-allegory, whenever entrusted to
parchment or paper.  But the ancient Tanaim, the Initiates from whom the
wisdom of the Kabala (oral tradition) was obtained by the later Talmudists,
had in their possession the secrets of the mystery language, and it is in
this language that the Gospels were written."     	HPB ART III 197


"...except a handful of self-styled Christians who subsequently won the day,
all the civilized portion of the pagans who knew of JESUS honored him as a
PHILOSOPHER, an ADEPT whom they placed on the same level with PYTHAGORAS and
APOLLONIUS.

Whence such a veneration on their part for a man, were he simply, as
represented by the Synoptics, a poor, unknown Jewish carpenter from
Nazareth?  As an incarnated God there is no single record of him on this
earth capable of withstanding the critical examination of science; as one of
the greatest reformers, an inveterate enemy of every theological dogmatism,
a persecutor of bigotry, a teacher of one of the most sublime codes of
ethics, Jesus is one of the grandest and most clearly-defined figures on the
panorama of human history.

His age may, with every day, be receding farther and farther back into the
gloomy and hazy mists of the past; and his theology -- based on human fancy
and supported by untenable dogmas may, nay must with every day lose more of
its unmerited prestige; alone the grand figure of the philosopher and moral
reformer instead of growing paler will become with every century more
pronounced and more clearly defined.  It will reign supreme and universal
only on that day when the whole of humanity recognizes but one father -- the
UNKNOWN ONE above -- and one brother -- the whole of mankind below."
	ISIS II 150


[ This quotation from an account by Charles Johnston of his interview with
H.P.B. when he met her for the first time in London, in the Spring of 1887,
soon after her arrival from Ostende appeared originally in Theosophical
Forum (New York) for April, May, June and July 1900-1 ] and was reprinted in
The Theosophical Movement, April 1964.


Question: "How do the adepts guide the souls of men?"

H.P.B.: "In many ways, but chiefly by teaching their souls direct,
in the spiritual world   But that is difficult for you to understand.  This
is quite intelligible, though.  At certain regular periods, they try to give
the world at large a right understanding of spiritual things.  One of their
number comes forth to teach the masses, and is handed down to tradition as
the Founder of a religion.  Krishna was such a Master; so was Zoroaster; so
were Buddha and Shankara Acharya, the great sage of Southern India.

And, so also was the Nazarene.  He went forth against the counsel of the
rest, to give to the masses before the time, moved by a great pity, and
enthusiasm for humanity;  he was warned that the time was unfavorable, but
nevertheless he elected to go, and so was put to death at the instigation of
the priests."


Question: "Have the adepts any secret records of his life?"

H.P.B.: "They must have," she answered; "for they have records of
the lives of all Initiates.  Once I was in a great cave-temple in the
Himalaya mountains, with my Master," and she looked at the picture of the
splendid Rajput; "there were many statues of adepts there;  pointing to one
of them, he said:  'This is he whom you call Jesus.  We count him to be one
of the greatest among us.”  "But that is not the only work of the adepts.
At much shorter periods, they send forth a messenger to try to teach the
world.  Such a period comes in the last quarter of each century, and the
Theosophical Society represents their work for this epoch."
	THE THEOS. FORUM, New York, Apl, 1900



"I have no intention of repeating here stale arguments and logical exposes
of the whole theological scheme; for all this has been done, over and over
again, and in a most excellent way, by the ablest "Infidels" of England and
America.  But I may briefly repeat a prophecy which is a self-evident result
of the present state of men's minds in Christendom.

Belief in the Bible literally, and in a carnalised Christ, will not last a
quarter of a century longer.  The Churches will have to part with their
cherished dogmas, or the 20th century will witness the downfall and ruin of
all Christendom, and with it, belief even in a Christos, as a pure Spirit.
The very name has now become obnoxious, and theological Christianity must
die out, never to resurrect again in its present form.  This, in itself,
would be the happiest solution of all, were there no danger from the natural
reaction which is sure to follow: crass materialism will be the consequence
and the result of centuries of blind faith, unless the loss of old ideals is
replaced by other ideals, unassailable, because universal, and built on the
rock of eternal truths instead of the shifting sands of human fancy.”
	"The Esoteric Character of the Gospels." H.P.B. Articles III, 194



ONE UNIVERSAL ANTIQUE RELIGION


"We can assert, with entire plausibility, that there is not one of all these
sects--Kabalism, Judaism, and our present Christianity included-- but sprung
from the two main branches of that one mother-trunk, the once universal
religion, which antedated the Vedic ages--we speak of that PREHISTORIC
BUDDHISM which merged later into BRAHMANISM.

The religion which the primitive teaching of the early few apostles most
resembled--a religion preached by Jesus himself--is the elder of these two,
Buddhism.  The latter as taught in its primitive purity, and carried to
perfection by the last of the Buddhas, Gautama, based its moral ethics on
three fundamental principles.  It alleged that

1, everything existing, exists from natural causes;

2, that virtue brings its own reward, and vice and sin their own punishment;
and,

3, that the state of man in this world is probationary.

We might add that on these three principles rested the universal foundation
of every religious credal God, and individual immortality for every man --
if he could but win it." 		ISIS II 123


"In seeking a model for his system of ethics why should Jesus have  gone to
the foot of the Himalayas rather than to the foot of Sinai,  but that the
doctrines of Manu and Gautama harmonized exactly with his  own philosophy,
while those of Jehovah were to him abhorrent and  terrifying?" 
	Isis Unveiled ii 164-5


"... THE SECRET DOCTRINES OF THE MAGI, OF THE PRE-VEDIC BUDDHISTS, of the
hierophants of the Egyptian Thoth or Hermes, and of the adepts of whatever
age and nationality, including the Chaldean kabalists and the Jewish nazars,
were identical from the beginning.  When we use the term Buddhists, we do
not mean to imply by it either the exoteric Buddhism instituted by the
followers of Gautama-Buddha, nor the modern Buddhistic religion; but the
secret philosophy of Sakyamuni, which in its essence is certainly identical
with the ancient wisdom-religion of the sanctuary, the pre-Vedic Brahmanism.
	ISIS  II  p. 143)

Already some time before our era, the adepts, except in India, had ceased to
congregate in large communities; but whether among the Essenes, or the
Neo-platonists, or, again, among the innumerable struggling sects born but
to die, the same doctrines, identical in substance and spirit, if not always
in form, are encountered.  By Buddhism, therefore, we mean that religion
signifying literally the doctrine of wisdom, and which by many ages
antedates the metaphysical philosophy of Siddartha Sakyamuni." 
	ISIS II 142



		JESUS TAUGHT


"...the followers of Jesus evidently adhered to a sect which became a still
more exasperating thorn...It appeared as a heresy within another heresy;
for while the nazars of the olden time...were Chaldean kabalists, the adepts
of the new dissenting sect showed themselves reformers and innovators from
the first...

The Essenes...were the converts of Buddhist missionaries who had overrun
Egypt, Greece, and even Jude at one time, since the reign of Asoka the
zealous propagandist;  and while it is evidently to the Essenes that belongs
the honor of having had the Nazarene reformer, Jesus, as a pupil, still the
latter is found disagreeing with his early teachers on several questions of
formal observance.  He cannot strictly be called an Essene...neither was he
a nazar, or Nazaria of the older sect...He is the founder of the sect of the
new nazars, and...a follower of the Buddhist doctrine...what is self-evident
is that he preached the philosophy of Buddha-Sakyamuni.  Denounced by the
later prophets, cursed by the Sanhedrin, the nazars--they were confounded
with others of that name...they were secretly, if not openly persecuted by
the orthodox synagogue.  It becomes clear why Jesus was treated with such
contempt from the first..." 	ISIS II 132



"The motive of Jesus was evidently like that of Gautama-Buddha, TO BENEFIT
HUMANITY AT LARGE BY PRODUCING A RELIGIOUS REFORM WHICH 
SHOULD GIVE IT A RELIGION OF PURE ETHICS; the true knowledge of God 
and nature having remained until- then solely in the hands of the esoteric
sects, and 
their adepts. [p. 137] – 

To assure ourselves that Jesus was a true Nazarene -- albeit with ideas of a

new reform -- we must not search for the proof in the
translated Gospels, but in such original versions as are accessible. ...
Thus, if we take in account all that is puzzling and incomprehensible in the
four Gospels, revised and corrected as they now stand, we shall easily see
for ourselves that the true, original Christianity, such as was preached by
Jesus, is to be found only in the so-called Syrian heresies. Only from them
can we extract any clear notions about what was primitive Christianity."
	ISIS II 133



"... BELIEF IN REINCARNATION has nothing in it that can militate against the
teachings of Christ.  We affirm, furthermore, that the great Nazarene Adept
distinctly taught it.  So did Paul and the Synoptics, and nearly all the
earliest Church Fathers, with scarcely an exception, accepted it, while some
actually taught the doctrine."   	HPB ART  I  172



"Jesus, the Adept we believe in, taught our Eastern doctrines, KARMA and
REINCARNATION foremost of all.  When the so-called Christians will have
learnt to read the New Testament between the lines, their eyes will be
opened and -- they will see." 	HPB ART  I  175



Question:  "Do not the words and teachings of Jesus, taken in their esoteric
sense, point one (the) way to the Theosophic Path?"

"WQJ:  Taken in the sense he intended the people to take them, they lead to
the way.  Taken in the sense in which he desired his Disciples to receive
them, they are teachings upon the way.  Taken in their esoteric sense -- as
he knew them -- they are the way.  Were the wisdom of Egypt and India today
blotted out from both the seen and unseen worlds -- the true seeker would
find in his teachings, when rightly studied, all the teachings of Isis and
Buddha.  As he received his instruction from Egypt, heired from India, it is
more than probable that esoterically his teachings are identical with both."
	WQJ ART  II  459


"...in common with Pythagoras and other hierophant reformers, Jesus divided
his teachings into exoteric and esoteric." 	ISIS II 147


"...what the Homilies do prove, is again our assertion that THERE WAS A
SECRET DOCTRINE PREACHED BY JESUS TO THE FEW WHO WERE 
DEEMED WORTHY TO BECOME ITS RECIPIENTS AND CUSTODIANS.
 
 ... If we now recall the fact that a portion of the Mysteries of the
"Pagans" 
consisted of the ... aporrheta, or secret discourses; that the secret Logia
or 
discourses of Jesus contained in the original Gospel according to Matthew, 
the meaning and interpretation of which St. Jerome confessed to be "a
difficult 
task" for him to achieve, were of the same nature; and if we remember,
further, 
that to some of the interior or final Mysteries only a very select few were
admitted; 
and that finally it was from the number of the latter chat were taken all
the
ministers of the holy "Pagan" rites, we will then clearly understand this
expression of Jesus quoted by Peter: "Guard the Mysteries for me and the
sons of my house," i.e. of my doctrine.  And, if we understand it rightly,
we cannot avoid thinking that this "secret" doctrine of Jesus, even the
technical expressions of which are but so many duplications of the Gnostic
and Neo-platonic mystic phraseology -- that this doctrine, we say, was based
on the same transcendental philosophy of the Oriental Gnosis as the rest of
the religions of those and earliest days.  That none of the later Christian
sects, despite their boasting, were the inheritors of it, is evident from
the contradictions, blunders, and clumsy repatching of the mistakes of every
preceding century by the discoveries of the succeeding one.”  ISIS II 191


"...except a handful of self-styled Christians who subsequently won the day,
ALL THE CIVILIZED PORTION OF THE PAGANS WHO KNEW OF JESUS 
HONORED HIM AS A PHILOSOPHER, AN ADEPT WHOM THEY PLACED 
ON THE SAME LEVEL WITH PYTHAGORAS AND APOLLONIUS.  

Whence such a veneration on their part for a man, were he
simply, as represented by the Synoptics, a poor, unknown Jewish carpenter
from Nazareth?  

As an incarnated God there is no single record of him on
this earth capable of withstanding the critical examination of science; as
one of the greatest reformers, an inveterate enemy of every theological
dogmatism, a persecutor of bigotry, a teacher of one of the most sublime
codes of ethics, Jesus is one of the grandest and most clearly-defined
figures on the panorama of human history.  

His age may, with every day, be receding farther and farther back into 
the gloomy and hazy mists of the past; and his theology -- based 
on human fancy and supported by untenable dogmas may, nay 
must with every day lose more of its unmerited prestige;
alone the grand figure of the philosopher and moral reformer instead of
growing paler will become with every century more pronounced and more
clearly defined.  It will reign supreme and universal only on that day when
the whole of humanity recognizes but one father -- the UNKNOWN ONE above --
and one brother -- the whole of mankind below."  	ISIS II 150


Jesus said: "Know ye not ye are Gods ?" John I.12;   Isis I,  p. 2

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