Integrating Christianity into a spiritual context

[ethereal]

I recently had a realization about "Christ died for our sins..." I've heard that phrase from many Christians over and over, but I never got a satisfactory context of what it really means. It just didn't "click", until I read the following explanation and piecing together some other things:

"Christ took the sins of the world on his shoulders. When you reach a very high
level of consciousness you pick up negative karma from the collective human
karma. This is what Christ did. He held all of the suffering of man in mind
(“please forgive them for they know not what they do”). Jesus could die for all of us because he could feel our collective suffering."

I read somewhere else that when your consciousness is high enough, you're able to transfer karmic merit (good karma) to others, and take on other people's karmic debts (bad karma).

Now it finally makes some sense! It seems like Christians believe in karma even though they say they don't

I'd be interested in learning more about how to integrate Christianity into a larger spiritual context, if anybody else has any additional insights to share on this topic. I think by doing so, people will be more willing to learn about Christianity, and they'll be understanding it at a higher spiritual level as well (so both sides win ).

[Matthew Shea]

The concepts of karma are very much a part of Christianity, but it's not called the same thing. In Christianity, sinfulness roughly equates to bad karma and good works (or charity) equate to good karma. Everything you think or do, good or bad, has impacts far beyond that specific thought or action, just as with karma. Salvation, though, has nothing to do with your works. That requires faith in Jesus' sacrifice as payment for humanity's sinfulness.

Overall, my experience tells me that many of the concepts associated with eastern religions, such as Hindu and Buddhism, have their equivalents in western religions, like Christianity. The perspective and the lingo tends to be different, however, but translating between the two is usually not difficult given a reasonable working knowledge of both.

To change the subject a bit, here are a couple paragraphs out of an e-mail correspondence an atheist friend and I were having about some purported contradictions in the bible. He was trying to make the the point that, since the bible acknowledges the existence of other gods (false gods), those gods must be real despite the contradictory claim that Jehovah (Yahweh) is the one true God. I used a bit of subjective logic do deal with the issue. This has been slightly edited to remove a local reference that everyone here might not understand. The edit does not change the meaning, however.

Just because something is false does not prohibit its existence. For instance, you may consider my belief in the omnipotence of the one-eyed spaghetti monster to be completely false, but that belief still exists and, in my warped little belief system, the omnipotent one-eyed spaghetti monster is very real just as Zeus, Apollo and Mars were very real to those who believed in them. Today, most people consider those gods to be quaint legends that happen to make a good story. The bible claims, however, that Yahweh is the only true God. The others, while perhaps real to us, are not real to God but, since they are real to us, to deny them would be tantamount to something like failing to deal with an inner-city crime problem because, as a suburban resident, that largely does not exist in my world.

The concept of free will is very tightly intertwined with this whole argument. Christians believe that God created us to have our own free will. Being omniscient, God knows our future but does not control it. We can believe in whatever we want, think whatever we want and do whatever we want. An aggregation of the beliefs that arise from that free will is one of many things that distinguish one person from another and one society from another. This free will is what enabled the ancient Egyptians, for example, to believe in the divinity of the Pharaoh, at the same time Israel strictly believed in Yahweh. That free will also enables the existence of “false” gods and belief systems, despite what the bible instructs. Again, to those who believe in them, those gods and their correspondent belief systems are very real and cannot be denied to exist, even by God himself. After all, he’s the one who endowed us with the ability to create them and make them real, or even to deny his very existence.

[ElizaJ]

The concept of Karma is very much a part of the bible. It is clearly stated in Galatians 6:7: Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.

Thus, the concept of "You reap what you Sow" is very much the same as the concept of the Law of Karma.

[Adam]

"Jesus died for our sins."

Can I believe in that literally? No. That is why I am not a Christian.

Can I believe in that figuratively? Absolutely. It still doesn't make me a Christian by any strict definition.

Jesus held many titles after his death. One of the most fitting was the Prince of Peace. With what we have of Jesus' life tells us that he was a person who stood up for the little guy, as long as that little guy was trying to stand on his own as well. When he told a lawyer to love his neighbor, and the lawyer asked who his neighbor was, Jesus gave the parable of the Good Samaritan, a kind hearted man who was persecuted by the majority because of his culture of birth. To put this into perspective, imagine a white preacher in Alabama in the 1950's giving the same parable to an all-white congregation about a black man helping a white racist, despite a school teacher, a preacher, and a police man passing him by for dead. Imagine the outrage that would have ensued from such a sermon. Such acceptance of people, no matter what their birthright, didn't take roots in the hearts of men until the 1960's, almost two thousand years after Jesus's life... Now we can't imagine inner peace and racism coexisting in the same person.

If it can be believed that Jesus had a choice in whether to die or not, why would he choose to die in such a humiliating, degrading way, flanked by two of the lowliest criminals, stripped of his pride, executed publicly? This is speculation here, but it seems that he chose to die that way to show that humility is important, and that even a great spiritual leader is not above the filth of the earth.

Jesus's message was of love and acceptance... most of all, of forgiveness to our fellow men... and that message is repeated in the corners of all religions, written between the lines and hidden behind the beurocracy of the churches; echoed in the Wiccan challenge when entering a circle, where you enter in perfect love and perfect trust, and the password is a kiss.

And, what greater way to show love, than to do everything necessary, even die, to bring peace to others, even people that you don't even know?

So, my interpretation of Jesus dieing for our sins is not that he literally took up my sins, blotting out the spiritual ledger of good and evil, but that he died as an example of peace, sacrificing his own life so that others, even two thousand years later, can know what peace feels like, and so that we can know forgiveness from each other as we learn how to forgive everyone else.

[ethereal]

Interesting posts! Definitely learned more about Christianity from different people's viewpoints I agree with Matt that these religions often have conceptual equivalents and I find these relationships fascinating; it's like having different people independently coming up with the same Truth.

Some additional tidbits to add that I've gathered here and there:

- heavens roughly correspond to lower and higher celestial realms, and hells roughly correspond to lower astral realms. And the human realm = purgatory the physical realm where man's soul/spirit has the best karmic opportunity to either choose God and heaven, or choose the ego and hell. Apparently, the demarcation is consciousness level 200 / Courage where the levels of hells and levels of heavens meet. Level 200 also represents Service-to-Others (STO) 50%+ and Service-to-Self (STS) 50%-, for those familiar with channeled works using those terms.

- Jesus taught the way of unconditional love, Buddha taught the way of enlightenment (in levels of consciousness terms). Also kind of makes sense, given where the people they were teaching were geographically, temporally, and consciously located.

I think a key difference between Christianity and other religions is the issue of reincarnation; anybody have any ideas of reconciling this? I remember reading about a few verses where Jesus referred to certain people being reborn, thus supporting the notion of reincarnation. But then this also seems to contradict what most Christians believe. Maybe it's the Church's smart ploy to get people to become more committed to God and goodness in this lifetime, by leaving reincarnation on the backburner?

[Adam]

To me, the idea of reincarnation stems largely from the environment that the religion grew up in... In Asia and Europe, while many of the world religions were forming, there were very few deserts. In the Middle East, where Christianity gets its roots, there was very little other than desert. This is also where the split between monotheism and polytheism happened. Typically, religions started by attributing the sun to their primary god, and the 'lesser' gods controlled the other aspects of life. In a lush environment, the presence or absence of the sun would certainly be notable, but it did not change people's daily lives, as there were plenty of other ways for a man to die. In the desert, however, if one did not respect the sun, it meant certain death... The god/sun of Abraham was a most cruel god/sun indeed.

Back to reincarnation... in lush regions, if something died, it would soon be replaced the next season. Cows had calves. Plants regrew. All sorts of life went in very neat, predictable cycles. In the desert, however, if something died, there was never a guarantee that it would be replaced... Death was all too often a very final event, and not just for a single person.

In the Abrahamic religions, though, water was often the key to rebirth, as well as a symbol of the afterlife... I think only the Martians hold water in higher regard. (For the confused, read Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein.) Baptism, being fully immersed in the afterlife (water) and coming back whole, was a deeply spiritual event for these people... It deserves its own study and praise until fullness of knowledge is attained.

The Abrahamic idea of only one chance at life reflects perfectly the hard nature of these people's environment... Whether that is a flaw or not is purely subjective, owing only to the circumstances which a person finds themselves in.

The very Christian idea of forgiveness, though, is also unique in the Abrahamic branch. Buddha taught a person to not accept insults... After all, if a man gives you a gift, and you do not accept it, to whom does that gift belong? Jesus taught his followers to turn the other cheek; to accept the 'gift,' but then to lay it down, so that nobody owns it. Even Neo-Paganism, the youngest and oldest of religions, does not have forgiveness to the extent that the Christians have, because of the view of the earth as a closed system. Again, whether that is a flaw or not is purely subjective.

If we take the sacrifice of Jesus as literally taking on sins, then forgiveness becomes the key to Christian reincarnation. More figuratively, Jesus' sacrifice is the epitome of forgiveness, even for those who killed him, and that led him to reincarnation in the form of a religious icon.

[Matthew Shea]

Adam, that's a very interesting insight on the origins of a single life vs. reincarnation. That's certainly something to ponder.

I'll point out that, where the soul is concerned, it is always eternal, both in Eastern and Western religions. It seems to me that, for those religions that believe in reincarnation, "heaven" has a much higher cost of entry. You reincarnate until you achieve the highest levels of consciousness before you die. For Christians, Jesus' sacrifice effectively acts as a filter for God, causing him to see us in the light of that perfect sacrifice (the doctrine of Justification). That perfect sacrifice perfects us in God's eyes, allowing our souls entry straight into heaven when the earthly body passes away. Viewed in that way, it can be argued that having to repeat your earthly existence many times over is much more harsh than only having to do it once. The main sticking point with reincarnation, however, isn't so much the concept, which is a good one, but more whether or not you believe God/Buddha/Spirit/etc would require or even allow it. You could argue both sides of that ad infinitum.

Now the concept of being reborn is totally different. Being reborn involves making a mature, conscious decision to put aside the ways of this world and follow Christ. There's no relation to reincarnation there.

In regards to why the Church doesn't believe in reincarnation, you're probably right, ethereal, that only having one chance encourages better behavior, but Justification would tend to have the opposite effect. Reincarnation could partially explain, however, the more laid back approach to advancement of society in the East (i.e. more social stability) vs. the constant development and change we see in the west. After all, if you've only got one lifetime to get things done, you'd better start gettin'.

[Jeremy Bennett]

Great thread!
I was on the fence for a while, (growing up christian, yet seeing the truth of Zen buddhism, etc.) - re: reincarnation.

I am now firmly over it. (blog post about original sin and reincarnation)- What convinced me, was a book by Edgar Cacye
(which is since out of print: I think the name is "Edgar Cayce on Reincarnation")
which talks about the many readings he did for people (referencing past lives)as well as early church history that definitely points to political reasons for getting rid of the concept of reincarnation (which was not necessarily uncommon in the early church)

He was a Christian minister and clarvoiant, the most notable clairvoiant in the 20th century, with over 14,000 personal readings for people)
Official site of Edgar Cayce's A.R.E. - Association for Research and Enlightenment

I would say that his understanding/view of the universe is the closest I've come to what I've seen/experienced to be true (beyond just Christianity, or any one "Eastern" religion.

and also re: "Jesus dying for your sins" - I lean towards something like what
the first post mentioned - a "karmic switch" of sorts - and/or the idea that grace, is more powerful then Karma (though it's an aspect of it as well) -
I yet, though, have found anything specifically about a certain view of his death (for all of our sins) that has really "clicked" with me yet.

[AndrewJ]

You might this post at Spiritcode.com interesting and relevant. It's titled 'What is Salvation?' and is from a Christian perspective.

Spiritcode - Spiritual growth - Spiritcode Journal - What is Salvation?


Andrew

[say]

There's one book/movie that somehow changed the way I look at Christianity. It's The Last Temptation of Christ. I've also made a thread about it.

[Megan]

That's how I see us all in relation to the issues you brought up, Ethereal. And I think we're about to crack it. We've been crunching for a long time now.

I see Christ as a Great Soul who identified with humankind, with compassion and without judgment, and took in all human souls and the cosmos in which we are embedded.

As we look to him, we are assimilated to his likeness in that we become capable of identifying with the whole human race and the cosmos in which we are embedded, in the way which he did.

This is the "growing up into him who is our head," the Bible speaks of, I think. One hardly has to be a Fundamentalist to appreciate this. As has been said of him, "If Jesus doesn't exist, we shall have to invent him."

There is a whole information aspect to this (the universe as quantum computer), and an eschatological aspect as well (evolution culminating in eschaton), I believe.

I also have a sense that these intuitions are universal, and not just "Christian."

And Ethereal, I think what you said about "feeling our collective suffering" is absolutely KEY to this understanding.

[sourceofmiracles]

Originally Posted by ethereal

I recently had a realization about "Christ died for our sins..." I've heard that phrase from many Christians over and over, but I never got a satisfactory context of what it really means. It just didn't "click", until I read the following explanation and piecing together some other things:

"Christ took the sins of the world on his shoulders. When you reach a very high
level of consciousness you pick up negative karma from the collective human
karma. This is what Christ did. He held all of the suffering of man in mind
(“please forgive them for they know not what they do”). Jesus could die for all of us because he could feel our collective suffering."

I read somewhere else that when your consciousness is high enough, you're able to transfer karmic merit (good karma) to others, and take on other people's karmic debts (bad karma).

Now it finally makes some sense! It seems like Christians believe in karma even though they say they don't

I'd be interested in learning more about how to integrate Christianity into a larger spiritual context, if anybody else has any additional insights to share on this topic. I think by doing so, people will be more willing to learn about Christianity, and they'll be understanding it at a higher spiritual level as well (so both sides win ).

Wow!! that is incredible. Somehow I never thought of it in that context. Many mystics who attain a higher level of consciousness have talked about feeling the suffering of the world. Your explaination also falls in line with Integral theory of human development which pulls from Lawerence Kohlberg's levels of moral develompent and James Fowler's stages of faith.

for example, a fundamentalist interpret the Bible/Koran/Torrah literally which automatically rules out all the others (and other interpretations). While someone with a more pluralistic point of view might draw the spiritual goodness of all three.

With so many catastrophic changes happening in christianity (naghamadi library, gnostic gospels, Ted Haggard and other fallen evangelists and priests) it seems like it is now comming into a new reformation such that some are even begining to call themselves "Christ followers" instead of christians.

Here is yet another change in Christianity: integral contemplative christanity.

[Megan]

Sourceofmiracles, to James Fowler and Lawrence Kohlberg, I would add Dr. Antonio Damasio, a neuroscientist who has written extensively on the role feelings play in social and ethical behavior.

I believe all the information of the world is stored in feeling, and can be accessed and healed through feeling.

All of it, the whole history of the world is accessible and healable. The universe is a quantum computer that conserves information according to Seth Lloyd of M.I.T. Time is not what we think it is.

Christ is the "holding place" for all our work to take place in the world.

Thank you for the link to Integral Contemplative Christianity. I think Ken Wilber's thinking is important here also. I like the quote on that page:

Karl Rahner, the noted Christian theologian, once remarked that “the Christian of tomorrow will be a mystic, or not a Christian at all.”

Integral Training

I do think another Reformation is afoot.

And all things are of God, who has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and has given to us the ministry of reconciliation.
--II Corinthians 5:18

[Megan]

Karl Rahner, the noted Christian theologian, once remarked that “the Christian of tomorrow will be a mystic, or not a Christian at all.”

One might also say,

The scientist of tomorrow will be a mystic, or not a scientist at all.

From M.I.T.'s Technology Review:

Technology Review: In your new book, you are admirably explicit: you write, "The Universe is indistinguishable from a quantum computer." How can that be true?

Seth Lloyd: I know it sounds crazy. I feel apologetic when I say it. And people who have reviewed the book take it as a metaphor. But it's factually the case. We couldn't build quantum computers unless the universe were quantum and computing. We can build such machines because the universe is storing and processing information in the quantum realm. When we build quantum computers, we're hijacking that underlying computation in order to make it do things we want: little and/or/not calculations. We're hacking into the universe. ...

Technology Review: And why does the universe tend to complexity?

Seth Lloyd: This notion of the universe as a giant quantum computer gets you something new and important that you don't get from the ordinary laws of physics. If you look back 13.8 billion years to the beginning of the universe, the Initial State was extremely simple, only requiring a few bits to describe.

But I see on your table an intricate, very beautiful orchid -- where the heck did all that complex information come from? The laws of physics are silent on this issue. They have no explanation. They do not encode some yearning for complexity.

Technology Review: Q&A: Seth Lloyd

[chunter]

I am not a Christian anymore - I'm proud to say I've evolved beyond it. But I found myself unconsciously looking for meaning in various aspects of Christian teachings and I created - or perhaps discovered - the meaning for myself. This of course might not mean anything to you personally, but this is my "interpretation" if you will:

(According to the Catholic bible) God punished humanity for the sins of Adam and Eve by saying men would work for the rest of their lives and women would have painful childbirth. Why make men work and women have kids? What a stupid punishment. I mean, women can choose to skip the kids and men can marry a sugar-mama, so god was pretty dumb, eh?
Now I know there's one god - consciousness - and this god is me evolving, you evolving, us evolving, consciousness evolving.
I started thinking...I hate parenting. I hate how my kid is dishing out the same **** I dished out to my parents. I remember my dad saying, after my son was born, "it's payback." I think of how I value growth and wisdom and why it's so frustrating to deal with issues and feelings and behaviors in my own child the same as what I've finally overcome in myself and then *BINGO*:
Whoever wrote the bible was obviously talking about CHILDREN. Adam and Eve were the first kids. They disobeyed God and got kids of their own for whom they suffered to bring into the world and had to work to support. Each of us is born with "original sin" because we were the "original sinners." Kids are the way we pay ourselves back and we use them to fix our flaws. You say, "but not everybody has kids. So the people who do are sinners deserving payback?" No, childless people "have kids" too for the same reasons and we ALL pay the price for fresh ignorance. Here's an example: YOU finally grew wise and stopped driving like a reckless youth. YOU have learned. But there is a brand new reckless youth on the road today. There will never be "wisdom" alone on the road until we stop creating more stupidity. We all must grow and learn so we can stop the self-punishing cycle of birth and death so ALL/ONE will be wise on the road of life.


Here's something ironic:
"God wanted Jesus to give his life to save us all from our sins."

"Sin" is ignorance. God doesn't sin because god is the Highest Self who knows all. We (the Ego), just like Jesus, must give our ego-self, for the sake of god (our highest self)
Jesus was the example of what we all must do for "God". So Jesus is a lesson to be learned like all else in life.
I think Christians have misinterpreted HOW Jesus is going to save them. He set the example to help us help ourselves. There's a Christian saying: "Feed a man a fish and you feed him for a day; Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." Jesus was the message - he taught us how to fish. Problem is, Christians keep coming back hoping he'll feed them. He has long since presented the lesson; Learn from him and move on.

[ethereal]

Another little snippet I got off Dr. Hawkins:

> One of the greatest things for me was he explained the statement
> made by Christ "None shall reach heaven except thru me" I have
> always had trouble comprehending that...but he explained it, and
> said "Jesus Christ is just a nominalization; Christ was referring
to
> the Christ Body, which is the body right above the buddhic body,
and
> below the Atmic...which is 'God Himself'....so in order to reach
> the 'level of God' we do indeed have to pass thru the Christ body.

Now the question is, what are these Christ/Buddhic/Atmic bodies, lol! I'm guessing they're different layers/sheaths of the etheric/causal bodies?

[Simmiah]

Originally Posted by ethereal

Another little snippet I got off Dr. Hawkins:

> One of the greatest things for me was he explained the statement
> made by Christ "None shall reach heaven except thru me" I have
> always had trouble comprehending that...but he explained it, and
> said "Jesus Christ is just a nominalization; Christ was referring
to
> the Christ Body, which is the body right above the buddhic body,
and
> below the Atmic...which is 'God Himself'....so in order to reach
> the 'level of God' we do indeed have to pass thru the Christ body.

Now the question is, what are these Christ/Buddhic/Atmic bodies, lol! I'm guessing they're different layers/sheaths of the etheric/causal bodies?

When I read that statement "None shall reach heaven except thru me" I wonder what the original statement was that was translated. I was thinking this because if I rephrase the word me to I.. I get "None shall reach heaven except thru I" I think of the idea of connecting with your real self.. The eye of the I.. (well I think Hawkins uses it this way..heh..correct me if I'm wrong).

I was reading that Hawkins wrote that 500 is achieved through spiritual surrender to God. So I believe Jesus was talking about this. I am glad to see reconfirmation of this concept here.

I believe the above bodies are the higher levels of consciousness.. they say we have a higher self. I believe that perhaps us down here are only limited parts of our larger selves...I read somewhere that (paraphrased) "cancer is not chosen down here. it is chosen by something higher than us." I suppose in theory for me they are the parts of us that are more connected & "know" more than our minds/egos do.

[Sunny]

Jesus was a mystic who was operating at the highest level of consciousness possible on Earth, 1000 or Enlightenment on the Hawkins scale. In other words, he was experiencing a purely non-linear, non-dualistic, subjective world. A few of his closest students were also operating from this mystical paradigm (which begins at 500 or Love on the Hawkins scale), but the general population was not. Most people were operating out of the dualistic, linear, objective paradigm falling anywhere between 0 Shame- 499 Reason on the Hawkins scale. This caused three problems. The first is that all language is linear and dualistic so in order for Jesus to explain what he was talking about he used metaphors and parables (like Steve does in some of his blogs) that pointed to the non-linear, non-dualistic experience. These metaphors and parables were often misunderstood by the general population especially as they were passed down over time. The second problem was that Jesus’ teachings were not written down at the time they occurred. Instead they were passed down through word of mouth and recorded almost 300 years later (like one of us trying to explain what Steve means in some of his blogs to our chil