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Understanding the Gospels

Understanding the Gospels presents Bible wisdom in the context of New Thought, Religious Science and metaphysical teaching. (270,872 words) Like many students of metaphysics, I believed that the religious teaching of a tribe of herdsmen in the ancient Middle East were not relevant in a modern, multicultural, multi-religious society. Then I realized that the Bible is important precisely because the Biblical narratives take place in a multicultural, multi-religious environment. My goal is to present the student, teacher or researcher with an esoteric view of the four Gospels without the need to juggle reference works. I substitute metaphysical equivalents into the text of the scripture, and present this alongside the King James text.

Excerpts from the Introduction:

• My approach to this project has led to some unusual parsing of the scriptural text in that I have developed spiritual meanings for mere sentence fragments that have multiple applications. For example, Matthew, Mark and Luke all have some form of the expression “Indeed there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last." This is the familiar story that we teach our children as the story of the hare and the tortoise. But for my project this expression yields four sentence fragments that have a spiritual meaning: are first, are last, be first and be last. When I make the substitution, this expression has an entirely different meaning. “Indeed there are those who are last (the Truth-seeker who hesitates and deliberates, but once on the spiritual path is disciplined and focused in his spiritual practices) who will be first (be first among their spiritual contemporaries to be awakened to consciousness of the soul and its oneness with the Universal Source of all Life), and (are) first (the Truth-seeker who eagerly starts on the spiritual path, but lacks discipline and consistent spiritual practice) who will be last (experience diversions and distractions but ultimately be successful in awakening to consciousness of the soul and its oneness with the Universal Source of all Life)." These same substitutions can be used in the parable of the laborers in the vineyard where the last to be hired received the same wages as the first. As another example, Luke states “Two men will be working in the field; one will be taken, the other left.” This parses into: the field, the one, the other, be taken and be left. So let’s look at this statement with the substitutions. “Two men will be working in the field (field of material consciousness and sense perception); (the) one (the diligent seeker of the Universal Source of all Life) will be taken (be taken toward the awakened consciousness of the soul and its oneness with the Universal Source of all Life), the other (the materially-minded one) (will be) left (be left to continue working out past actions through the human cycle of births and deaths).”

 

• What is immediately apparent when one reads the new text is that the Bible is more personal, and less threatening. The Gospel of Matthew begins with the genealogy of Jesus, and the first thing I noticed was that those generations represent stages of consciousness that we all embody at one time or another as we mature in our spiritual practices. The birth of Jesus becomes an analogy for the birth of a spiritual consciousness in each of us. And Herod the King becomes an analogy for the wrath of the ego when it thinks that it is being mocked or bypassed by the growing spiritual presence in the individual. The entire message of the Gospels becomes the movement from one state of consciousness or awareness to another, with attention given to the tug of war between the illusion of material reality and the Christ Consciousness and union with God. Jesus (the I AM identity in man) was born in Bethlehem (the substance center in man where the union of love and wisdom takes place and the Christ is brought forth in substance), wrapped in swaddling clothes (confined to the limitations of the physical nature), and lay in a manger (the animal life of the body in which new life is first manifested). His birth was heralded by shepherds (the consciousness that guards and protects pure innocent thoughts) watching their flock (group of thoughts) by night (a period when one seeks the light of spiritual understanding) and wise men (stored up resources of the soul) that followed a star from the east (the inner conviction of our divine sonship that shines in the consciousness of man).

 

• Jesus’ travels through Galilee (the consciousness of endless activity) and Judea (the mental attitude in which the Christ Consciousness will be opened to us - while we are praising the Lord) represent the ebb and flow of awareness we each experience as we move through our lives: (1) his youth in Egypt (the darkness of ignorance in the body consciousness) and Nazareth (the commonplace mind of man, but a place of development through which the Christ consciousness comes into expression); (2) his baptism in the river of Jordan (the stream of thoughts constantly flowing through the subconscious) and when he came out of the water, the heavens (his third eye) opened and he saw the Spirit like a dove (he saw the Spiritual eye representing the Holy Ghost, the omnipresent Christ Consciousness, and the Universal Source of all Life) descending upon him; (3) going into the wilderness (the multitude of undisciplined and uncultivated thoughts in individual consciousness) to be tempted by Satan (the deceiving phase of mind that has fixed ideas in opposition to Truth); (4) traveling to Caesarea Philippi (the temporal power of personality with its false claims of reality); (5) feeding the multitudes (the legions of thoughts that swarm in the mind seeking harmony); (6) his final journey into Jerusalem (the dwelling place of the abiding consciousness of spiritual peace); and (7) his prayers in the garden of Gethsemane (the struggle that takes place in consciousness when Truth is realized as the one reality). Finally, Jesus was crucified (his distinctive characteristics and other traits that identify him as an individual were erased on both the objective and subjective planes) on the cross (the state of consciousness defined by the senses), the veil of the temple was torn in two (he withdrew the bodily consciousness and the acquired Christ Consciousness, his omnipresence in creation, from the body temple to merge in the Universal Source of all Life beyond all attachment to worldly desires) and he gave up the ghost (his life force abandoned his physical manifestation).