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From: simmonds@demon.siemens.com (Tom Simmonds)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Re: Seven Stages...
Message-ID: <1991Jun26.190514.22530@nas.nasa.gov>
Date: 26 Jun 91 19:05:14 GMT
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> adobe!!asanders@decwrl.dec.com (Alan Sanders)
>Subject: Seven Stages...

>>From where I stand, this discussion has degenerated into 
>flaming speculation: "An enlightened being doesn't do this, 
>doesn't do that..."
>
>We don't know any such thing!
>
>Christ said: "I am the way, the truth and the life."

Since I know something of the Christian Gospels, having been schooled in them
in my youth, I'd like to comment on this.  I think what I have to say is 
relevant to this newsgroup because eastern religion has given me an insight
into the Gospels that I didn't get from my Christian teachers.  Much of what
is supposed to have been said by Jesus is remarkably similar to the teachings
of the Upanishads; so much so that it makes me wonder if he was exposed to 
eastern religion at some unrecorded time in his life.

Please don't interpret this as an attempt to prostelytize.  I am not a
member of any Christian church, nor do I recommend that anyone should
become a Christian.

I think that, when Jesus said "I am the way, the truth and the life", he was
teaching by example.  He was demonstrating the way to find God, ie. to BE IT.
He also said "YOU are the light of the world."

Another quote from the same book (the Gospel of John) goes like this:  "All
things were made by Him [God], and without him was nothing made that was made.
In Him was life, and the life was the light of men...Which Light is the True
Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world...He [the Light,
God, Life] was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world
knew him not.  He came unto his own, and his own received him not.  But to
them that received him, he gave the power to become the sons of God."

That passage, and quite a few others, would fit quite compatibly in the
Upanishads.

When Jesus said "I am the way...", he was speaking from the point of view of
one who has realized his identity as Reality or Life itself.  He was *not*
saying that he was the best and only guru.  He was coming from a place
beyond such petite egoism.

Unfortunately, the depth and significance of what Jesus taught seem to have
been lost to most of the Christians over the centuries.  They have become
fixated on the pointing finger, and have forgotten how to look at what it
points to.  They assume that Jesus was speaking from the same limited egoism
that is their own viewpoint, and therefore, they interpret his words in the
"best and only guru" sense.  In my opinion, it is one of the greatest
tradgedies in history.

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