Theos-Talk Archives (July 2008 Message tt00047)

2008/7/2 Konstantin Zaitzev <kay_ziatz@yahoo.com>:
> Surely she acknowledged existence of historical Jesus, who was
> nevertheless a somewhat different person from that which was 
pictured
> by the church myth.
>
> See an article by David Pratt with a good collection of quotations
> from HPB & other sources:
> http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dp5/jesus.htm


The David Pratt article is very interesting. Thank you.  Madame 
Blavatsky wrote an answer to this in the Theosophist of 1883.  On a 
quick first reading, I did not see that David Pratt refers to this 
article.  Her article does suggest she and the Mahatmas recognised a 
historical Jesus but did not recognise this Jesus in the Christ of 
the Gospels. See below.

regards
A.M.

================

FOOTNOTES TO "THE STATUS OF JESUS"

[The Theosophist, Vol. IV, No. 10, July, 1883, p. 261]

[In a communication on "The Status of Jesus" a correspondent 
writes: "The long procession of martyrs who died for the love of 
Jesus is unknown in the history of Buddhism"; and asks: "What is the 
exact position given to Jesus, by the Mahatmas, in the sacred order 
of adepts? departed from the earth? . . . Would Jesus now be 
termed . . . a Dhyan Chohan, a Buddha, or a Planetary Spirit? And is 
he now . . . interested or concerned at all with the progress of 
humanity on Earth?" H. P. B. replies:]

"There is often greater martyrdom to live for the love of, whether 
man or an ideal, than to die for it" is a motto of the Mahatmas.

The position THEY 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 birthright 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 [one] of our vulgar, so called, Christian era. 

We do not know which of the Buddhas our correspondent is thinking of, 
for there were many "Buddhas." They recognize in him one of 
the "Enlightened," hence in this sense a Buddha; but they do not 
recognize Jesus at all in the Christ of the Gospels. . . . .