From Deepak's new book The Third Jesus:

No matter where you look, a cloud of confusion hangs over the message of Jesus. To cut through it we have to be specific about who we mean when we refer to Jesus. One Jesus is historical, and we know next to nothing about him. Another Jesus is the one appropriated by Christianity. He was created by the church to fulfill its agenda. The third Jesus, the one this book is about, is as yet so unknown that even the most devout Christians don't suspect that he exists. Yet he is the Christ we cannot—and must not—ignore.

SIMPLE SOLUTION: The first Jesus was a rabbi who wandered the shores of northern Galilee many centuries ago. This Jesus still feels close enough to touch. He appears in our mind's eye dressed in homespun but haloed in glory. He was kind, serene, peaceful, loving, and yet he was the keeper of deep mysteries.
The first Jesus is less than consistent, as a closer reading of the gospels will show. If Jesus was perfectly peaceful, why did he declare, "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword"? (Matthew 10:34) If he was perfectly loving, why did he say, "Throw out the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth"? (Matthew 25:30)

If Jesus was humble, why did he claim to rule the earth beyond the power of any king? At the very least, the living Jesus was a man of baffling contradictions.

Millions of people worship another Jesus, however, who never existed, who doesn't even lay claim to the fleeting substance of the first Jesus. This is the Jesus built up over thousands of years by theologians and other scholars. He is the Holy Ghost, the Three-in- One Christ, the source of sacraments and prayers that were unknown to the rabbi Jesus when he walked the earth. He is also the Prince of Peace over whom bloody wars have been fought. This second Jesus cannot be embraced without embracing theology first.

The second Jesus leads us into the wilderness without a clear path out. He became the foundation of a religion that has proliferated into some twenty thousand sects. They argue endlessly over every thread in the garments of a ghost. But can any authority, however exalted, really inform us about what Jesus would have thought?

These two versions of Jesus—the sketchy historical figure and the abstract theological creation—hold a tragic aspect for me, because I blame them for stealing something precious: The Jesus who taught his followers how to reach God-consciousness.

I want to offer the possibility that Jesus was truly, as he proclaimed, a savior. Not the savior, not the one and only Son of God. Rather, Jesus embodied the highest level of enlightenment. He spent his brief adult life describing it, teaching it, and passing it on to future generations.

Jesus intended to save the world by showing others the path to God-consciousness.

The idea of the Second Coming has been especially destructive to Jesus's intentions, because it postpones what needs to happen now. The Third Coming—finding God-consciousness through your own efforts—happens in the present. I'm using the term as a metaphor for a shift in consciousness that makes Jesus's teachings totally real and vital.

When Jesus Comes Again
Imagine for a moment that you are at the top of the hill where Jesus is and he delivers a sermon, and you are deeply struck, to the heart, in fact. He promises that God loves you, a statement he makes directly, without asking you to follow the duties of your sect or to respect the ancient, complex laws of the prophets. Further, he says that God loves you best. In the world to come, you and your kind will get the richest rewards, everything you have been denied in this world.

As the son of Adam, your sins have brought you a wretched existence, full of misery and endless toil. But Jesus doesn't mention sin. He expands God's love to unbelievable lengths. Did you really hear him right?

You are the light of the world. Let your light shine before all men. He compares you to a city set upon a hill that can't be hidden because its lights are so bright. You've never been told anything remotely like this or ever seen yourself this way.

Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you shall find. Knock, and the door will open.

Consider the lilies, how they grow: They neither toil nor spin, but I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. Consider the crows, for they neither sow nor reap, they have no storeroom or barn, and yet God feeds them. How much more valuable are you than the birds!

When he preached, "If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer him the other also" (Luke 6:29), Jesus wasn't preaching masochism or martyrdom. He was speaking of a quality of consciousness that is known in Sanskrit as Ahimsa. The word is usually translated as "harmlessness" or "non-violence," and in modern times it became the watchword of Gandhi's movement of peaceful resistance. Gandhi himself was often seen as Christ-like, but Ahimsa has roots in India going back thousands of years.

In the Indian tradition several things are understood about non-violence, and all of them apply to Jesus's version of turning the other cheek. First, the aim of non-violence is ultimately to bring peace to yourself, to quell your own violence; the enemy outside serves only to mirror the enemy within. Second, your ability to be non-violent depends on a shift in consciousness. Last, if you are successful in changing yourself, reality will mirror the change back to you.

Without these conditions, Ahimsa isn't spiritual or even effective. If someone full of desire for retaliation turns the other cheek to someone equally enraged, the only thing that will occur is more violence. Playing the part of a saint won't make a difference. But if a person in God-consciousness turns the other cheek, his enemy will be disarmed.

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May your awareness be perfection

Overall, the Third Jesus Deepak speaks of is much like the Gnostic Jesus of the early church which was eventually suppressed by the orthodox church. The historic Jesus was quite likely neither the Jesus of Gnosticism nor the Jesus of Orthodoxy and which has better claims to theological accuracy is a matter of indifference to me.

But I want to comment on the so-called lack of consistency in the historical Jesus referred to here. I would really expect better of an author like Deepak. These are such lame examples. The citation from Matthew, for example, are the words of a character in a parable. Is it really inconsistency when a story-teller puts words into the mouth of a character in a story that do not tally with the story-teller's own character? That is like confusing an actor with the role he is playing and attributing the vices or virtues of the character to the actor personally.

Much the same applies to the peace/sword example. Cannot a person committed to the ideal of peace also be realistic about the violence his very presence and preaching will cause? Deepak mentions Gandhi later. A modern icon of peace and non-violence. But did not Gandhi's campaign unleash violence? Not only the violence of the British against Indians, but also controversy and conflict among Indians themselves as they took positions for or against Gandhi, for or against his tactics. Would anyone charge Gandhi with being so naive that he would be unaware that his non-violent campaign would nevertheless provoke violence?

Well, Jesus was not naive either. He preached peace, he preached non-violence, but he was very much aware that to preach peace to a world that rejects peace will unleash violence. So why should we be surprised when he says that his coming brings not peace but a sword? When has the preaching of peace and non-violence ever not produced a violent reaction? Why should we charge Jesus with inconsistency when he points to this fact?

I expect that Jesus, being human, was occasionally inconsistent. Why not? But these are not relevant examples of inconsistency. Deepak should do more research and get better examples if he wants to make this point.

Yeah, I don't stand 100% behind Deepak's reasoning either. Findings? Yes. I guess he is trying to bridge religions and bring them together as one, which I find valuable.

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May your awareness be perfection

Yes, me too. But the examples he gave show he did not read the text carefully and when I see that in a person who makes his living by writing, it bugs me.

LOL I would suggest to you to let it go. Yes, Deepak does better in his area of expertise, but I give him credit for trying. He has many followers and I think he is trying to build a bridge that I happily will walk over : )

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May your awareness be perfection

Regarding Jesus and the sword. I see it has an inner process. When you are working toward God consciousness, there will be inner turmoil, your ego will fight it. The sword of Jesus (his message) can cut through ego consciousness. The ego doesn't want us to remember that this is an inner process, it wants to take the message literally. It is all metaphor.

To reply to a post in another thread. This doesn't mean one is cloistered from the world. It means we relate to the outer world as we relate to our inner world. Metaphor is the inner journey.

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