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Sunday, May 10, 2009

Was Jesus Real?

This is not a religious piece. Please don't misinterpret it. This is a historical piece. You will not read this anywhere else. At least I haven't. This is my belief. You are free to accept it or reject it. I offer it only as a belief system that I have recently acquired based on new information and how that came to be.

For years, I have struggled with religion. As a kid it bored me and the subjectivity of religion is confusing. As a young adult, I began to question the existence of God. I simply couldn't escape the concept that God was conveniently fear based and most likely invented by man in some desperate need to come to terms with our greatest fear and try to control it, death.

So as I wandered through the evidence for evolution, I became agnostic. I accepted the belief that we had just made it all up. Try as I might, I read many books available on the subject-both for and against-the existence of God. My beliefs were unresolved. I then turned my attention to tangible evidence to try to prove the existence of God. Why didn't that evidence exist? Where was this Arc of the Covenant, the Ten Commandments, the Holy Grail, the Shroud of Turin? I talked to Catholic Priests and Christian ministers. Devoutly religious people. They didn't help. I was always amazed at the intuitive belief systems of devoutly religious people. How had they acquired their beliefs and why had I been left behind?

So all of my life I have spent searching for the answer to the greatest mystery of all. A few days ago, I found it.

It had always been there. That tangible piece of evidence I could never find, I found. It came as the result of a rational concept or belief I had been exploring.

I have never spoken to anyone that believed unconditional love was possible. This is where it all began. I realized that unconditional love conquers everything. I also realized that whether you believe in unconditional love or not, is simply an opinion. Opinions and thus beliefs are fallible. That is what we have been discussing on this blog. Unconditional love conquers fear and control, it conquers anger, hate, and war. Unconditional love, a respect for all human life, is possible because I can conceive it and dream it. Can I achieve it? I don't know but a few humans have come mighty close.

We practice unconditional hate. That is certainly possible. Think about those planes on 09/11/2001 flying into buildings. So if unconditional hate is possible, why then is unconditional love not possible?

In Eckhart Tolle's book, "A New Earth", Tolle makes an astounding statement. He stated that Jesus, as he was dying on the cross uttered, "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do." I had heard and been taught this as a child. But as Tolle described it, he said that only a man who was completely aware of the false beliefs and the false sense of self that humans possess could have uttered such a thing.

Tolle does not elaborate on Jesus' statement other than to say that from his perspective, Jesus' statement was entirely correct. It was uttered by a man that was completely aware-who understood that human beings were held hostage to fear and control, a false sense of self and ego, and that they simply did not recognize this. Indeed the Jews themselves did not believe in Christ. Completely held captive to their opinions that Jesus would come and rid the earth of their enemies. Their collective and false belief system.

I remember a statement that the great Albert Einstein made once. He believed that one day science and religion would converge and one day tend to prove each other rather than be at odds with each other.

Was Tolle's science, the science of the human mind and ego, that false sense of self driven by fear and thus control, the science Einstein spoke of?

Here then is the undeniable evidence. If Jesus' was conscious and aware of this, he understood his presence on earth made men fearful particularly the rulers of the day; he understood that they would exercise control to rid themselves of that of which they feared. A Christ that had no title, was no annointed King, who threatened to disrupt their well established power, control, and credibility. He was thus sentenced to death.

And as he lay dying on that cross, he uttered a statement that Tolle accepted as true. A statement of unconditional love and understanding, "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do."

No human being could have uttered such a thing. A statement of unconditional love for the men that had put him to death. A statement from a man who had committed no crime. A statement from a man that was completely aware of the false sense of self and ego, of fear, that rules the inevitable failings of men. Thus he understood that he could not control the outcome and he accepted his fate. Most importantly, he did not fear that fate like men.

That single statement was completely rational and truthful according to Tolle. For me it was inescapable and undeniable. In a world ruled by fear and ego, here was a statement uttered 2000 years ago by a man, the Son of God, that no mortal could have recognized or uttered. It had to be uttered by the only thing that could have uttered it. God in the form of Jesus.

What proliferated thereafter, in the form of writing and books and religion is irrelevant. It is all conceived and manipulated by fearful and unconscious, mistake prone, human beings. Translated incorrectly and manipulated by man to promote his brand of fear and control.

I made this discovery a few days ago. It was without question for me-proof positive-that Jesus was real and clearly the son of God. God understands unconditional love while no man, although a few have come close, does understand this. I don't need a tangible piece of evidence in the form of the Arc of the Covenant, a Holy Grail, or divine intervention although that may have been what happened here.

I always had the evidence, I learned it years ago. Tolle revealed a statement and then interpreted it for me. Einstein may have corroborated it. A completely truthful and tangible statement of unconditional love uttered by the only being capable of doing so. A man that understood this at a time when nobody else understood it.

Perhaps the real point that day was unconditional love for all of mankind. That was the word of God.

2 comments:

  1. Thank you Brian for sharing your thoughts about a subject that has been on my mind for sometime now. There are so many different religions with their own take on this subject that it boggles ones mind.
    As usual your talent for writing and ability to connect with your readers has come through. I no longer have those same doubts, thanks to you.
    Thank you Brian,
    Dennis

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  2. Thanks as always Dennis.

    Man, not God, distorted religion. Of course. Man has used religion to indulge in fear and control for the past 2000 years. That is my belief. Subtracting the collective ego of failed belief systems and in essence, man himself, brings me to the source of love.

    Unfortunately, many of us have bought into those failed belief systems, or fearing that they were flawed-have left us searching and suspicious. By accepting the failings of man and all of that rhetoric, dogma, one up, fear and control, has been a very healthy and sound rejection for me. It makes sense. With the track record and unconscious ego of men, why would anyone accept those intervening belief systems of the last 2000 years?

    Wars, hatred, slavery, more wars, churches practicing slavery and politics-warring amongst themselves. Insanity. How did that work out? We should believe them?

    Thanks again,
    Brian

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