Jesus Christ and the Mysteries

It has often been remarked that key episodes in the life of Jesus can be taken as symbolising stages on the spiritual path for any true disciple. This goes along with the idea that Jesus's life was an externalisation or enactment of the ancient mysteries, those rituals that initiated the qualified candidate into the realities of the spiritual world, originally through the offices of sage-priests in touch with that world but in later, more degenerate times through drugs as the spiritual quality of both priest and candidate dropped and the materialisation of the environment reached the point at which the windows between the physical plane and higher ones became more opaque. I was once lucky enough to be left alone in the King's chamber of the Great Pyramid for a few minutes and it seemed obvious that this was meant as a place of ritual in which the neophyte would experience death and rebirth while lying in the stone sarcophagus that is the only object there. This was the core of the ancient mysteries. It was a dramatic ritual for the Egyptian initiate but performed literally by Christ as he revealed the hidden secret of life and made potentially accessible to everyone what had been open (and only partially open at that) to an elite few before. He did more than that, of course, but that was part of what he did.

The life of Christ can give us a deep understanding of the spiritual path that we too must tread before we are worthy to join him in his heavenly kingdom. I will examine seven major episodes from his life but there will certainly be more that can teach us new things about ourselves for it is a fact that a study of Christ's life can be endlessly revelatory.

Here are the seven episodes that I see as crucial stages to be passed by the aspiring disciple on his way to eternal life. There follows my interpretations of these stages but each one of them will richly reward further meditation which, of course, has long been known by Christians.

• His Birth.

The obvious beginning. Christ must be born in our heart. This doesn't just mean becoming a Christian for that can be largely an external thing. It means that we acknowledge the reality of Christ as the truth in the light of which all other truths must be seen. We accept his reality as the foundation of everything and resolve at the deepest level of our being to coordinate our soul to that. This is clearly an aspiration. We are a long way off from realising it and will stumble and fall many times but a sincere start has been made. We have reoriented ourself from a focus on this world and its goals to the higher spiritual world. I don't say this has specifically to be directed at the historical figure of Jesus Christ himself but, if it is within the parameters of any other spiritual approach, it should be directed towards something that echoes and holds at least part of the reality of Christ. The highest form of spiritual reality, of truth, beauty and goodness, we can conceive of at the moment.

• Preaching in the Temple.

This is a moment at which we have made some progress on the spiritual path and are able to share something of what we have learnt. It may not be at a very elevated stage. Jesus was only 12 after all! But it will still be better than the worldly wisdom of the "Doctors" who may represent the professionals of outer teaching.

• Baptism.

At this point we are brought into closer contact with the soul or higher self. This is the part of us that exists on the spiritual level, above that of the everyday mind which we normally assume to be the centre of what we are, and which is the source of intuition. It is the real beginning of being guided by this spiritual sense and going beyond the threefold lower self associated with the physical, emotional and mental worlds. We now really know ourself as the soul, something that until this point we have had intimations of but not been able to fully centre ourself in. We still can't do that but a point has been reached at which the balance of power has definitely shifted and the baby Christ within us has reached some kind of maturity. Clearly many people might think they have reached this stage before they have because their intellectual understanding of the soul has outstripped their ability really to be it. This is one of the pitfalls to be negotiated by the disciple, both in respect of himself and in respect of others, outer teachers, to whom he might wish to give spiritual allegiance. By the way, I don't think this stage on the spiritual path has much to do with the religious ritual of baptism. That is a symbolic echo of it at an earlier point in the cycle.

• Temptation in the Wilderness.

Once you have reached a certain stage of spiritual development you will be tested to see if you can maintain that in the face of appeals to egotism. Actually, tests and trials are an ongoing feature of the spiritual life but this is now serious stuff. You have attained a certain level of real knowledge. What effect does that have on you? Does it fuel pride? Is there a temptation to use it for your own ends? Or do you humbly accept the responsibility of it, seeing it not as your possession but as a gift from God, a gift that could be withdrawn should you react to it as your own? The significance of this stage should be obvious. It is perhaps the culmination of all the previous tests with the aim of giving you a clean bill of spiritual health. But it has echoes at many earlier stages of the spiritual path. Tests are one of the more important parts of the path and one to which we should be constantly alert. I say this as someone who has often fallen short where tests are concerned. But I suppose that's the point. We keep failing until we succeed. Failures are to be expected but we have to learn from them.

• Transfiguration.

I interpret this as the moment we become fully aligned with the soul. We are now, as it were, the soul in embodiment. The spiritual self illuminates the whole being of the threefold lower self which become vehicles of expression rather than centres in their own right. Obviously this is a stage in theosis well beyond most of us at present but I think it can be seen in the lives of some of the saints. Our being is irradiated by spiritual light. The process that came into full view at the baptism reaches a culmination. Christ in us has reached full maturity.

• Crucifixion

It is interesting that this last stage is not the conclusion of the path. We seem to have reached the pinnacle of spiritual achievement. What can there be left to do? But there is something more. We have to give it all up. All the hard-won spiritual success must be renounced for it is only by doing this that our motive can really be seen to be true. We give back to God all he has given to us, thereby showing that it is love of God that has driven us forward not the quest for some kind of personal reward. We are prepared to sacrifice all we have attained to prove our dedication to God. This is what Christ showed us in the Garden of Gethsemane. "Not my will but Thine be done". This is what it really all comes down to. The full renunciation of self. But please note this is not the seeing through of the illusion of self as in some forms of spirituality. Self is real. The crucifixion is agony. It is not some kind of peaceful transition to bliss. There is the sense of real and total sacrifice. There was for Christ and I expect there will be for us though it will probably be in the nature of an existential crisis rather than a physical one. For Jesus it was clearly both but that was because of the nature of his mission.

• Resurrection

After the supreme sacrifice comes glory. The risen Christ. The soul loses everything, or apparently does. But it must give up everything, and this is not done with one eye on the prize. It really seems to be spiritual abandonment and darkness. But after death there is rebirth. The soul is remade as a completely spiritualised being, an individualisation of God himself. It is the entry into the fifth kingdom of life, that of immortal souls. For immortality up to this point has been conditional. Now it has been completely won and there is no return. The resurrection of Christ marks the fulfillment of life and the return of the soul to its Creator but this time with full knowledge. The circle is complete.

These are the mysteries of Jesus Christ, demonstrated in his life which also, I believe, actually made them possible of achievement for human beings. He was the trailblazer who through his life and death connected the physical world to the spiritual, bringing them both together and opening up a channel between the two. He created a path that now anyone following after may walk if they so wish - and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifice for just because it is possible does not mean it is easy. But it is possible and we can do it with Christ as our guide.