THOUGHTS
AT THE TIME OF THE WESAK FESTIVAL
ON THE HISTORICAL JESUS

By Aeptha

EXCERPT FROM SUNDAY SERVICE MAY 2, 2004

For those who are in esoteric studies, you know that we are in the powers and potencies of what some have said is the most powerful festival of the year, and that is the Wesak Festival. It is the full moon in Taurus, which is the singular eye of God/Goddess. It is said that it is a time in which the Buddha and the Christos gather on inner levels and pour forth blessings to all sentient life on the Earth. Wesak is celebrated and recognized by Initiates all over the world, and there are many that gather physically in the Himalayas and are gathered now to participate in this festival.

Last year when we were working with the energies of the Wesak, we did a teaching on Buddha with the understanding that the term Buddha is a title that means enlightenment. This teaching is on our website, so I invite you to look it up. (Note: See "The Wesak Festival", extract from Sunday Service 5/4/03.)

We know that Christos is a title meaning anointed one. It is a title that has been given to more than one individual but we associate it with the figure we know as Jesus, or Yeshua. Many of us were raised in traditional homes and the teachings we received about who Jesus was sometimes revealed inconsistencies or gave rise to struggles that led us into explorations of other belief systems. In some cases the traditional teachings even left us with a sense of dogma and indoctrination in association with this figure that we call Jesus.

There are several different streams of thought about Jesus. There are some who say that there was no historical Jesus, but that it was the merging of different figures who were brought together to create a system, because religion and politics were not separate. There are some who say that the story of Jesus is a reflection and a continuation of the myth of Horus. In the last several decades many scholars and theologians have been researching and looking at the implications of what they can garner from the historical figure called Jesus, if there was such a figure.

When I was in meditation yesterday afternoon I asked what we as a community need to understand at this time. I was again called to look at and to share with you some of the teachings and the concepts around what we call the historical Jesus, because as we know we are being asked to move out of areas of mind in which we have become boxed in. I was also told in my communication time with Spirit that many of us, because we have unconsciously found ourselves in conflict with the teachings about the person we have come to call Jesus the Christ, have barred ourselves from the energy, power, and potency of the Christos. What we see in the pictures we have of Jesus is irreconcilable. We see a blue-eyed, fair-skinned, blond-haired Jesus surrounded by children, or perhaps upon a cross, most likely bleeding and dying for our sins because He was the son of God, and He suffered for us. And we were not even there, or were we? Regardless, what does that change?

So here we are in this Wesak time, during this outpouring from the Buddhic and Christos energies, and we may unconsciously be turning our backs on that energy and consciousness, and closing off areas of our being because of the distortions around Yeshua and the Christ. And so I bring to you today perhaps a different concept about who Jesus may have been. Having said that, understand that none of us, except those in direct Spirit communication, are ever likely to know, because the historical records are very scattered. We also recognize, although I certainly wasn't told this when I was growing up, that what we have come to know as the stories of Jesus were actually not created by Jesus himself, nor by people who were able to give first-hand accounts. There was a bringing together of several stories that started toward the end of the first century, many of which were a synthesis based upon the political needs of the time.

Very little, if anything, is known about the first 30 years of Yeshua's life. The perception is that he was born in Bethlehem, but that may have been stated because of the need to associate him with the lineage of David. More likely he was born in Nazareth. Nazareth was a relatively small community that was anywhere between 2 and 2,000 people, but it was within three or four miles of a very large metropolis of 40,000 people. So this was not some backwater hick town. Many of the people in the area were bilingual and spoke both Aramaic and Greek, and there was a huge level of trade and change and influx. So in all likelihood, Jesus would have been exposed to many different traditions from the merchants and imports that were coming in from Egypt. There is the belief that Jesus was a carpenter. There were not very many wooden buildings there, and the reference to the wood in all likelihood was more in relationship to the building of cabinets or the yokes for oxen. There is no historical account of the miraculous birth or the confrontation within the temple at the age of 12.

There is really not much historical information about Yeshua until he reached the age of about thirty, and then there is some history of Him for a relatively short period of time, some accounts show up to a year. There are references to the life of John the Baptist for maybe three or four years. There are a few facts that are generally agreed upon concerning Jesus. He was described as a Spirit person. We would associate that description with a Shaman, a holy person, a person who over and over again showed that he had experience of transcendent reality, the world beyond what appears to be; a person who experienced communication with, and sought to deepen a connection with those that we would call the unseen ones, the holy ones, the sacred ones. He was said to have had a presence about him that attracted people. More healings were attributed to Him than any other figure in Judaic history. He referred to God as Abba, and this would be like saying papa, and so he spoke to God in this very intimate way, which was out of character for the culture of the times. It was documented that he would spend hours in prayer and contemplation, and he used fasting as one of His spiritual tools. He was seen as identifying himself with another reality, not unlike some of the more ancient prophets associated with the early formation of what later became Israel.

He was a teacher of wisdom. Indicators are that He was extremely articulate, extremely bright, an excellent debater, and He used means that not only captivated people, but also challenged them. He not only used parables which we are more familiar with, but He also used aphorisms. He did not use these pithy little phrases just to entertain people, but He absolutely turned people's heads upside down and challenged their reality. He made them think in different ways, created a different perception, and got them out of the box. He challenged their imagination which would then lead to a transformation in the way that they thought and perceived the world around them.

Jesus was also a radical social militant, and in direct conflict with much of what was the norm around him. I remind you that politics and religion were not separated. So there was a school of thought that was fighting for the laws of purity that saw God as holy meaning that which is clean and separate. It was the desire and the instructions of the people to emulate that which was holy. So there were extreme laws of purity and within those laws of purity were ranks of who was pure and who was not pure. And as we know the ranks of who was not pure included everyone from tax collectors to shepherds - which is interesting when you think about who, in one of the accounts, was called to His birth, - to people who had any kind of physical disability, to people who were chronically sick, to people who were poor, because if you were in alignment with God you were wealthy, to people who were in some way sexually maimed such as eunuchs, to people who were women, and by the way children were nobodies also. So this is a whole group of people who were considered unholy, therefore unclean, and could only participate marginally within the community. And then you have Jesus who is saying, "God is a God of compassion, and you are seeking to emulate God's compassion, not God's holiness."

Now what is compassion? In Hebrew the word for compassion means the womb, from which all things come forth, with which you feel deeply, profoundly connected, of which you feel with passion. So there was a God of compassion versus a God that is holy. Compassion is inclusive, deeply felt. It is beyond mercy, for mercy is an act of the mind. In a way, mercy is an act of piousness, because you see yourself as superior to that over which you would have mercy. But to have compassion is to feel your connectedness with, not your separation from, and all is part of your being.

So a God of compassion is a God that is all-inclusive and therefore there are no unclean. And this is what Jesus demonstrated in his actions. The meal was a manifestation of the structure of the society and Jesus did the unthinkable for someone who was clean, by eating with the unclean. Jesus had meals with the untouchables, the women, people who were maimed and people who were sick. He also included people that were oftentimes of an upper-class, but they were those who saw the vision of what Jesus was bringing. So his challenge to the system was considered on the highest level of militancy, because it was a system that was in place and accepted. And here was someone who was challenging the core structures of power. And here was someone who knew the consequences of that kind of challenge, as paid by his mentor, John the Baptist.

I want to share with you another aspect of what I have been researching that thrills me as an esotericist. Many of you who have studied in this area know that we would say that Jesus, when initiated by John the Baptist, received the anointing of the Shekinah, and that He held that anointing in the form of an overshadowing or perhaps even an indwelling. This has been taught in the Mystery Schools for thousands of years. What I was unaware of is that there is historical research being done that has uncovered indicators that in the early years of emerging Christianity there was a struggle as to how Jesus would be perceived, whether He would be seen as the Son of God or whether He would be seen as one who bore the Wisdom of Sophia. The implications of that are huge. Sophia in Greek stands for Wisdom, and in Hebrew this is Chokmah, and there was a tremendous amount of interfacing between those two cultures in that region at that time.

I have to put in a little side note here. We have to be very careful about our perceptions, because that area of the world which is now known as Iran and the Middle East bore and held the light for hundreds of years while Europe was in the dark ages. They held and nurtured the Mysteries and the Secret Teachings for hundreds of years, and in the way that Spirit moves, just as they were beginning to fall into their own dark ages, the dark age of Europe was beginning to emerge into the light. So we are talking here about a group of people who created a foundation that was extremely rich and continued to be rich for hundreds of years, and they were holders of the Mysteries. And understand that the population that we call Judaic was very, very small. I think we can get into a mind set and miss the truth, and that is also why I am bringing to you this understanding of Jesus. We think we know, and we do not know. And as soon as we accept that we don't know, then we can learn. But if we think we know, then we're boxed in. We like to do that because that is the way we feel safe and superior. Part of what Jesus did, as a social visionary and a Spirit being, was to bring a new understanding to politics and socialization that came from a level of the wisdom of Sophia.

The Wisdom of Sophia is not just a female expression of God. Sophia was believed by many to be God herself and it is said that She was there at the beginning, working in the magic of the creation. For those of you who are familiar with the Song of Solomon, there is an exquisite rendering of Sophia who is out on the streets asking, "Can anyone hear me calling to be heard, calling to be to be seen?" And she reaches out her hand of wisdom, and people turn away from her over and over again. And she states in a prophetic way, "By doing this you are creating hell." So Yeshua was seen as the bringer of Sophia, and in one passage he refers to himself as one of the children of Sophia. In one of the Hebrew renditions it is stated that Sophia embodies herself through the holy ones. So I encourage you in your own Spirit being to deepen in your communion with Jesus the Christ, as well as with the Buddha and to be a deep well for that water to pour into.