I’m not the greatest fan of the new, Disney-owned Star Wars movies (including the animated series). However, I do have to admit that they are at least trying to deal with some of the issues present in the original movies.
I’m talking about the concept of powerful good characters, or lack thereof, because apparently our civilization ties the concept of power so intimately with the concept of evil, the two seem to be the same thing. When you imagine power, you basically imagine Darth Vader, or Sauron, or Balrog, or Emperor Palpatine, or Voldemort. The good guys apparently can’t do much beside being gentle and comforting, forgiving, glowing in white light and they die in order to save you. Think Gandalf, Obi Wan, Dumbledore… they all manifest the Jesus stereotype of goodness, which I find outright puke-inducing. Yeah, the archetype of good power is to allow the bad guy to kill you so that you could raise from the dead, physically or as a Force-ghost, and guide your disciples by providing vague and marginally helpful advice, because you’re too good to be able to do anything useful.
Not sure it’s actually a stereotype? Gandalf, dies fighting Balrog, gets reborn as Gandalf the White, provides encouragement and white light, but doesn’t actually fight and kill anything meaningful but smiles a lot. Dumbledore, provides vague and cryptic guidance to Harry Potter, fights only defensively, fails to kill Voldemort, arranges his murder/suicide and guides Harry beyond the grave through a crumb-trail of hints. Also smiles a lot. Obi Wan, allows Luke to be raised by peasant foster-parents although he lives next door, provides a few days of vague guidance, allows himself to be killed by Darth Vader without really putting up a fight so that after his “suicide by Sith Lord” he could guide Luke in spirit. Smiles a knowing smile of a cave-dwelling saint. Jesus, teaches students things that aren’t really useful for figuring anything out beside the general “you should follow the rules sincerely, and not hypocritically, like the priests”. Arranges his murder/suicide (by instructing the students to get swords, which was punishable by death in Roman Judea), gets himself killed, raises from the dead but only to provide comfort and vague guidance to students. Yes, it’s a stereotype and obviously a Christian one, established as a rationalization for the traumatic martyrdom of Jesus. The only theory according to which Jesus could be the real God is that power in the physical world is somehow not worthy, either as a goal or as an instrument, and if you’re really “the one”, you’ll allow yourself to be killed in order to guide the disciples “in spirit”, you won’t actually do anything to fight evil. But of course, your forfeiture will be interpreted as a victory over evil, at least in spirit. My problem with this is that “moral victory” is another name for losing.
The Disney revision to the Star Wars theology is that the light/dark dichotomy of the Force is in fact an error in understanding by both Jedi and the Sith, and that the true nature of the Force is not split into light and dark, but a unity and balance of the two. This was explained very directly by Bendu in the animated series: he says that Jedi and Sith wield Ashla and Bogan, Light and Dark, and that he is balance. He sees both light and dark as, essentially, disturbances in the balance of the Force, where the light-side wielders are so afraid of the dark they are constantly tempted by it, and the dark-side wielders are constantly preoccupied by proving something to the Jedi, and as a result, neither side is truly at peace. The back story is that long ago, some civilization picked up force-sensitives from around the galaxy and brought them to the planet Tython, which was particularly attuned to the Force. There, they practiced their Force-skills and eventually established the Je’daii order, which taught the balance of the force and avoidance of the extremes of light and dark. The planet had two moons, Ashla which was white, and Bogan which was dark red, and to the Je’daii they served as a metaphor for the light and dark sides of the Force. When force-users became unbalanced, by favoring either side, attempts were made to correct it. So, essentially, Bendu is the last known remnant of the original Je’daii, and those later known as the Jedi were in fact a heretical sect, that embraced an extremist adherence to “Ashla”.
The good part of this is understanding that there’s something wrong with the Christian archetype of goodness. The bad part is that it promotes ethical relativism, where goodness isn’t sufficient, and some evil needs to be introduced into the mixture, so that balance would be achieved. So, instead of realizing that goodness was poorly defined, as something that is inherently incompatible with power, the new theory acknowledges that power is the domain of the dark side, but that one needs to get some of the dark side in order to obtain the amount of power that is necessary if you want to do anything useful and not get crucified.
The thing is, only Christians have a problem with good power. In Hinduism, for instance, Gods are not depicted as rejecting power to the point of assisted suicide. They are described as possessing great power and using it to attain good goals. “Good” is defined as attainment of higher initiation and liberation from the bondage of the lower spheres of existence, and “evil” is defined as attachment and bondage to the lower spheres of existence; essentially, it’s a dichotomy of freedom and bondage. Nowhere is there a problem with power; power is something that you obtain by various means, and use for various purposes, and if you use it wisely it produces liberation, while applications of power from ignorance and attachment produce spiritual degradation, bondage and karmic fallout. Both Shiva and Vishnu liberally use various powers, either in lilas or to vanquish some evil and solve a devotee’s problem; this kind of power is not seen as a lure of Satan or as falling prey to some temptation, it’s a completely normal thing one does when God. He solves problems using great wisdom and power. Krishna, for instance, had a situation similar to Obi Wan’s duel with Darth Vader on the death star: he decided to end his exile and vanquish his evil uncle, king Kamsa. Did he treat this as an opportunity for assisted suicide? No, jumped to his throne, dragged him to the ground and killed him easily, because God kicks ass, and good is far more powerful than evil. Is this some kind of balance between good and evil? No, it’s a better, purer definition of the good, a definition that doesn’t commit an error of relegating power into the domain of evil, but understands that power is a good thing, and therefore inherently in the domain of the good. Evil is inherently powerless, because all greatness and glory forever reside in God. Envious and spiteful, the adherents of evil can create great mischief for God and his friends, but the true cause of this mischief is not power, but manipulation and abuse of the laws of the world. When God intervenes, it becomes clear that He is the only true power, and everything else is powerful only if it takes part in God’s power and greatness.
This, however, is not what we perceive in this world. On the contrary, one of the reasons why we have such problems finding examples of good power outside of mythology is the fact that, as a rule, powerful people in this world are assholes. In fact, the worst and most evil assholes tend to gravitate towards the top of the heap of the powerful. How can this be reconciled with the Hindu vision of power? Very easily, in fact. The “powerful” of this world are merely manipulators of others. As individual persons, they are devoid of any kind of power. Physically, they are as weak as any human, and spiritually they barely hold themselves together, and that only by the fact that singular body they inhabit prevents their spiritual elements from dispersing. They are not powerful because they can bend steel, move mountains, create or destroy Universes, teleport to other planets, or something similar. No, they merely managed to attain control over larger human groups, in which every individual invests his small power towards a common goal, and then the evil individual decides what the common goal is, and how this collective investment of energy, in form of money, aircraft carriers, strategic nuclear submarines and ICBMs, will be used. They decide what the media will write in order to convince and coerce the masses, they decide how to milk the masses for money and where to put the money. They are merely spiders controlling a complex web of social interconnections, in which human individuals invest their power, and it is all directed, allocated and utilized for nefarious purposes. This is not individual power. It is the harnessed power of the collective, and this is the power that is invariably evil, and the evil ones strive for it. This power is not needed by the Gods and the saints, because they have their own; however, to the evil ones this is the only way to exceed the limitations of their personal insignificance.
In a more realistic scenario, Darth Vader and the Emperor would be ordinary, albeit old and sickly humans, in control of the vast imperial army. Only the good beings would have Jedi-like superpowers, and the real fight would consist of peeling away the layers of soldiers and weapons that protect the two evil weaklings on top of the pyramid of social power. A real Darth Vader would not be using a lightsaber, he would be using a phone. Without the invested power of others, he would be nothing. Evil doesn’t have power of its own; its power comes from manipulation of others. Good has the power of its own. Through initiation into God, who is the ultimate greatness, virtue and wonder, the good become aspects of God, and therefore they do obtain power of their own; the more you are God, the more you are powerful, virtuous and wonderful. This process of spiritual evolution is something the evil ones cannot take part of, and thus remain powerless, virtueless and insignificant.
“The only theory according to which Jesus could be the real God is that power in the physical world is somehow not worthy, either as a goal or as an instrument, and if you’re really “the one”, you’ll allow yourself to be killed in order to guide the disciples “in spirit”, you won’t actually do anything to fight evil. But of course, your forfeiture will be interpreted as a victory over evil, at least in spirit.”
Jesus’ mission was not to manifest the power of God by unleashing the rath on the evil of the world.
“For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.” – John 3:17
His mission was to step in the place of those who deserve the rath of God (death) and to enable them to come to God by being justified through the faith in him.
He left his Holy Spirit as a comforter and a guide to those who have faith in him, but he “finished” (John 19:30) all the real work – taking the punishment of the just God who does not tolerate sin, which is, taking an independent stride from God and not doing only the things which glorify him.
Someone could say that for all-powerful God it would be sufficient to wipe out all the evil and things would be fixed, but if God only does things which glorify him, wouldn’t it be more glorious to show mercy and offer a last chance to men? Isn’t there a great beauty in being the ultimate power but acting kindly and gently?
You are constantly repeating in your articles that Jesus didn’t left anything useful.
Yes, Jesus didn’t left anything useful in the sense of elevating an individual to the status of divinity – something impossible in the context of the Bible, but he provided a way for a man to overcome death and to step into the presence of God (John 14:6, John 3:16).
Jesus was not a yogi or a guru who should have provided some technique for disciples to become like Gods (Genesis 3:4-6).
He was there and still is here to reconcile men with God through faith which leads to sanctification.
I know what the Christians believe, that’s beside the point. The point is how their beliefs influence the thoughtspace of the Western civilization. Essentially, when you need to make a value judgment, do you revert to the Christ archetype for the relationship of power and virtue, or do you use some other, perhaps more applicable and less flawed archetype.
Personally, I think the Christians, you included, don’t understand the first thing about what Jesus said and did, it all looks merely as something the cartoon fans would call “retcon”, or retroactive continuity. Basically, it’s when you start with the desired conclusion and interpret things so that you get what you started with.
I have an exercise for you: throw away all empty statements of belief about what Jesus did, and instead try to envision a viable mechanism according to which those things would work, for instance forgiveness for sins, punishment for sins, relationship of God and sin, the concept of all-powerful God, the concept according to which you can repay one’s sins etc, and you’ll see that it becomes a very serious mess. This method, “how would that actually work?”, is what I used to great effect, and I heartily recommend it. I do advise you that it took me decades to figure some of those things out, and I’m still not certain that I got it completely right.
Who do you say Jesus is?
Someone whose failures guided me, that much I can say with certainty. Other than that, I think Sanat Kumar took over his image and used it to promote his own ideas later, to the point where Christianity, as it is commonly understood, teaches more about Sanat Kumar than it does about God. For instance, Jesus essentially taught radical vanaprastha, “let the dead bury their dead and you come with me”, and Christianity is essentially about family values, which alone should raise suspicions, but somehow in the minds of most people it doesn’t. I could go on but essentially, when I stripped away the problematic layers I came to the conclusion that Jesus tried to redeem the world from Sanat Kumar, but he underestimated the magnitude of the problem, and/or was deceived into thinking that one day of suffering and death, inflicted upon him at the direct command of Sanat Kumar, will inflict such a karmic price as to essentially “purchase” the world from Sanat Kumar and give it into his power. What actually happened was rather interesting. He failed, but Sanat Kumar had a real problem, he had to justify his possibly expensive action somehow, and what he did was 1) say that the intent was positive, 2) define intent as allowing the deserving souls to be freed from the world, 3) define deserving as recognising Jesus as God and accepting his supreme rule over them and accepting redemption by his authority, 4) proceed to mess with the historical memory of Jesus in such a way as to point to himself as much as possible, in order to prevent worship of Jesus being actually effective for salvation, and 5) explaining this as a temptation and a test of worthiness, because from the beginning he justified his actions by testing worthiness and tempting souls with the rationalisation that he doesn’t want the unworthy ones to be saved. This, however, was a riskier business than he thought.
Essentially, Jesus forced Sanat Kumar to explain away his possibly fatal action against him in such a way that it opened an actual window for salvation, but this also forced Sanat Kumar to dress this window with many fatal things.
For each man deceived by atheism devil deceived thousands with religion.
What you say about Christianity could also be said about Buddhism and Hinduism.
Distortion of the true teaching is commonplace with anything people get their hands on.
Regarding family values, there is nothing bad about them, but they never supersede the higher order values like loving God with all your might, soul and strength.
We can see in the Bible that Jesus was not about the family:
“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters — yes, even his own life — he cannot be My disciple.”
It seems that you accept some things about Jesus and yet you ignore the others.
How can you have a theory about what he did at the cross and disregard other things like: him saying that he is the only Son of God, that Kingdom can only be entered through him, prophecies which have predicted his coming and the nature of his mission?
Could a being that claims the complete authority of God fail?
I know your stance on karma and the legality by which the devil operates, but that theory, if Jesus is a failure, leaves God as a pathetic god – powerless.
On some occasions you quoted Pauls’ epistles to enforce the theory of the devil being the ruler of the world. Here is one that makes me think of you as being deceived by the devil:
“The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbeliever so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. ” – 2 Corinthians 4:4
“What you say about Christianity could also be said about Buddhism and Hinduism. ”
Of course. Especially about Buddhism; I think it was dismantled by Sanat Kumar with such effectiveness it took me around two decades to figure out what it’s actually about. Hinduism, not so much. I think Hinduism has so many internal contradictions, and its main paths, bhakti and jnana, are so likely to end up with you chasing your own tail forever, he merely used the selectively given experience of samadhi and some other tricks. What Hinduism lacks is anyone with enough spiritual magnitude to actually figure out Satan. That’s why it is not as inherently dangerous to him, despite the fact that it contains excellent teachings.
“It seems that you accept some things about Jesus and yet you ignore the others.”
No. In fact, I care very little about him; enough so that I find his teachings to be internally contradictory, intellectually weak, derivative and based on emotions. There’s nothing there I could use. Also, based on the state of the world I found that he failed in his efforts to defeat Satan. That much is obvious. So, of course he was deceived. I actually don’t hold that against him because unlike you, I understand what he had to face, and it’s completely normal to be deceived by Satan, as long as you don’t stay deceived, or at least if you don’t make moves that don’t give you secondary options, which was his main failure: he was betting that his death would do the trick, but the problem with that is that it gave him no options if he was wrong, which happened to be the case.
Personally, Jesus became interesting only after I personally stumbled upon certain things that made me understand what he was actually doing, and, because I then understood his error, I chose a slower, more careful path.
“Could a being that claims the complete authority of God fail?”
Absolutely.
“I know your stance on karma and the legality by which the devil operates, but that theory, if Jesus is a failure, leaves God as a pathetic god – powerless.”
Well, it’s Jesus himself who invented the concept of a powerless God who gets killed by humans. This was a concept he introduced; his disciples expected him to rule the world as a king from the line of David or something like it, because that’s what the concept of Messiah meant. The fact that he displayed weakness and failure was a great shock, which moulded Christianity into a religion that it is, which brings us back to the topic of this article, that our civilization is unable to associate God with power. With self-sacrifice, easily. So yes, Jesus was a failure to such a degree that it blocked Christians from ever being able to imagine God as anything but a good self-sacrificing character who loves and supports you from a distance, but doesn’t actually lend true force that will enable you to be victorious in this world.
Now, this all is not completely wrong. God actually seems to be contractually prevented from interfering in any way that would be perceived as actually powerful, but this fact is not commonly known, and what is even less commonly known is that Satan also has serious limitations placed upon him by the same contract. For instance, he needs to perpetually pretend that he has spiritually positive true intentions, that he only tempts in order to cull the weak and the fake, and isolate the strong and the faithful. This means he needs to leave viable ways of defeating his traps, albeit unknown to the victim. This is his core weakness according to the contract: he too doesn’t have true power and cannot act freely, because his power is derived from the legality of the contract.
“On some occasions you quoted Pauls’ epistles to enforce the theory of the devil being the ruler of the world. Here is one that makes me think of you as being deceived by the devil:
“The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbeliever so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. ” – 2 Corinthians 4:4″
And maybe the worship of Jesus is good and useful for the likes of you, but not for the likes of me. You see, the best you can hope for is to exploit the way out of here that Jesus installed. You can claim his authority over you and if I interpreted things correctly, and if you understood who Jesus is, correctly, and if you don’t worship one of the emotional lures placed over his image by Satan throughout the ages, you might walk away free. I can’t say how likely that is to succeed, because personally I’m not a betting man, and those odds look too painful even if I were. As for me, unlike Jesus, I know I can be deceived. And I’m not here as one trying to attain personal salvation. Also, I don’t care much about fireworks. I’m here to transform the crap Sanat Kumar accumulated here, from harmful into harmless, and to assure that the thing can be safely terminated without killing most of the souls attached or leaving active seeds that would generate similar things in the future; basically I’m killing the processes that prevent the server from being shut down. It’s not a glorious thing, more like garbage disposal, recycling and a spiritual version of painstaking computer forensics. There are no glorious singular moves, just a long grind, lots of small, invisible touches, and a level of skill and strength nobody can truly appreciate.
This “glory of Christ” thing, that’s the error that guides me. Glory is what produces failure here, because those who want to show off glory are easy for Sanat Kumar to deceive, they are easy to lure into making glorious singular moves that will produce a victory for God. That’s why I chose a careful, slow approach. I kill by surviving and not failing.
I am not a betting man either.
I try to go in the direction where I feel more uplifted and more capable to manifest virtues.
I have tried to go in the direction of meditation you prescribed (mixed Vipassana and Bhakti yoga), but it didn’t worked for me, in a sense that this techniques could not give me peace and courage when I was facing a great deal of trouble in life.
My final breaking point that made me turn from the path of meditation was that I had an experience of the complete horror, like the darkest evil having hands around my neck choking me to death. In that moment I had a strong urge to pray to Jesus, even though I was not a Christian and I was not having a high opinion of him, and that prayer completely relieved my fear.
I could easily say that now, as a Christian, I feel more protected.
I feel that I can in one short honest prayer to God experience more then I could in an hour of meditation.
I could not say with the complete certainty that the path of meditation is bad, and I am also expecting that you could draw a conclusion that this is SK’s trick to full me from the right path, yet only thing that gives me sanity is what Jesus said: “The tree is known by it’s fruit”.
As I said, for people like yourself that might work. But you asked me what *I personally* think, not what I would recommend to others. Those are vastly different things, because I cannot recommend others to do what I would do – It’s like asking Cro Cop to tell you what he would do if a guy tried to beat him up. What he replies has hardly any bearing on your situation. So I don’t really understand what you are trying to do here. If Jesus works for you, great, but what are you doing here then? Trying to convince me to attend kindergarten? Trying to somehow shoehorn me and Jesus into one singular system of belief you could embrace? If so, good luck with that.
I appreciate you honest and packed replies and I apologise for being off topic.
Knowing that I can’t convince you and that it is almost impossible to convince anyone on the matter like this, my intention was to present a different view on Jesus for anyone reading the article who is not familiar with what the Bible says about Him.