The Third Jesus: The Christ We Cannot Ignore (2008)

I’ve had this book for almost 10 years, but I never had the motivation to read it before now. Perhaps I had to be more prepared for what it said. Perhaps I needed to mature spiritually. Perhaps I didn’t want to be ‘schooled’ in Christianity by someone outside it.

Or, all of the above.

Following on from my reading The Pagan Christ, I’m amazed by the synchronicity of finding the ‘balance point’ between the historical Jesus and the legendary Christ. This ‘third way’ is more akin to Gnosticism than I had originally anticipated. In other words, more like how I usually view Jesus: as the great reformer.

God-Consciousness

If we concentrate on Jesus’ words, as reported in the Gospels (and the Gnostic Gospels), we begin to get a picture of a teacher who was trying to wake his pupils up to the fact that they already have the Kingdom of Heaven within them. “But there are none so blind as those who will not see.” The narrative that was spun around his lessons seems to have clouded the issue of God-consciousness. It is too simple for the intellect, but too hard to actualize while living in the real world. What is the spiritual aspirant to do?

Thus we find in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount:

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Matthew 6:33

Because we are so driven by our individual Egos, we tend to miss how to do this simple act. So the rest of Jesus’ teaching tries to show us how.

And it takes someone as spiritually ‘aware’ as Deepak Chopra to remind us of this.