Jesus and the Tao
I
am the way; I am the truth and the life, and no one comes to God save through
me.
~ Jesus of Nazareth
This
statement is attributed to Joshua bin Joseph, also known as Jesus of Nazareth, and
it is one of the most often cited phrases in the Christian cannon.
But
what is the meaning of this formula, of these words?
Could
it be as simple as the Church suggests, that this is a concrete articulation
from the founder of the Christian Church that a person must be a Christian to
go to heaven?
That
there is a single catalyst for the salvation of the individual, the reception
of the sacrament of baptism, a ritual of water purification administered by a
duly appointed officiant of the church, along with the conscious and cognizant
assent to the words spoken in the right, indicating faith and belief in the Trinitarian
God; the father and the son and the holy spirit?
Is
that what Jesus meant when he uttered these words, if he uttered these words, in
the era before the instantiation of the church, when Jesus himself was just a
Jew, an itinerant Rabbi, a Pharisee and critic of the prevailing social order.
Do these words mean that?
Do
these words tell us anything about what it means to be a Christian, about the way, of Jesus; its connection to truth, to the lived experience of the
faith, the life of the believer, and
their relationship to the ultimate arbiter of all that is, to God, the creator of the universe?
These
words do not tell us anything about those things, and for many they never will.
I am the way; I am the truth and the
life, and no one comes to God save through me.
For
most people this will always be a simple message relating a simple belief; that
there is one path to God and salvation, and it runs through the Church founded
in the first century of the common-era.
That
is the end of it, but there is more, much more
For
those who want to understand more, you must be willing to immerse yourself in the
mystery of Christ Consciousness, the truth concerning who Jesus is, and what
it means for a man to self-identify as the way
toward an understanding of, or even a personal-existential convergence with the
ultimate reality that is God.
Let
us examine this expression in its parts, and let us not be afraid to draw from
the entire scope of human wisdom to discern their meaning.
I am the way; I am the truth and the
life, and no one comes to God save through me.
The
Way
The
Truth
The
Life
The
Way:
Lao
Tzu, the founder of Taoism wrote of the way
in 500 B.C.E., in his tractate, the I Ching,
this is called the path of least resistance.
To
live in the way means living in
harmony with the tune of the Universe, which is the will of God, the creator
and sustainer of all that is; God the infinite, God the eternal, God the fount
of all being.
God
who loves everyone, blesses everything, and harms nothing.
God
who calls everything into existence, and in whom all things exist.
God
whose being is co-terminus with our own.
God
the omnipresent, the omniscient, the omnipotent.
God
who is not, not present in any space.
God
who understands our experience, even as we experience it ourselves.
God
who has the perfect ability to accomplish the divine will.
God
who called forth the light, and called it good.
To
live in the way is to begin like a
block of stone, whose edges and corners are rounded and smoothed through its
encounter in the world with the presence of the divine, in the spirit of the
infinite that dwells in each and every one of us, through our relationships
with our neighbors; our friends and family, the stranger, our enemies.
The
divine current is like water, it seeks us out, even in the lowest places, going
lower than any other thing will go, it shapes us there until we become a like a
rounded smooth and rolling ball, freed from the edges that drag us.
The
Truth:
The
truth is recognizable by these basic
characteristics.
The
truth will never lead you astray.
When
you are in possession of the truth
you are in possession of what is, independent of any other thing concerning it.
When
you have arrived at the truth you
have discovered the foundation of all understanding.
The
truth is like a seed within you, as
you nurture it your understanding will grow, it will fill you.
We
are dynamic creatures, called on to do things in the world, to do and to be in
relation to every other doer, creator-creature, co-actor; who is, ever was, and
ever will be. Even if we lead the simplest of lives, we are invested with great
power, and therefore must take great care of our desires and the choices that
we make.
When
we plant the seeds of our ambition in the soil of what is real and true, they will germinate, sprout and
shoot, stretching their roots into the well that nurtures them, reaching for the
light that calls them, bringing them to the end they were intended for.
This
is not to say that truth guarantees
success, nothing is guaranteed, but the good soil, the pure water, and the
clear light provide the conditions by which we may thrive along the way to the infinite.
The
truth reveals who we are.
The
truth is the firmament on which we
come to know ourselves, not merely as individuals, but as beings in
relationship, in relationship to each and every other, and in relationship to
the whole.
Knowing
that there is truth is not the same
as knowing the truth.
In
order to fathom the difference between what is truth and what is false we require a discriminating perspective,
and a sensitivity to the laws of consequence, like the rules of Karma that govern us.
We
are each of us an Arjuna, born into a
field of conflict and sickness, of debilitating illusions, called upon to wield
wisdom like a surgeon wields a scalpel, to excise doubt and ignorance like a
surgeon would a cancer, and with a habit of discipline rise above the clinging
ground that would trap us.
As
Marcus Aurelius said, what we do echoes
in eternity. Our lives have significance, each and every one of us matters,
the things we say and do to one another matter.
As
Jesus put forward in his recapitulation of the Shema:
Hear
O’ People, God is one, the infinite is one.
Love
God with all your strength and all your heart and all your mind
Love
your neighbor as your self
Do
unto others what you would have them do unto you, be proactive, share with the
starving a morsel of your own food, share with the naked a piece of your own
clothing, share with the burdened a part of their suffering.
Where
two people are gathered, there is God, not as a third person in their company
but present in the relationship that exists between them.
To
serve God means serving the other, to receive from god means that we accept the
aid of another. God is in the other, as God is in us, the living-breathing,
seeing-feeling God.
This
is the truth of the human condition and our relationship to the divine.
If
any system of beliefs claims to be true and
does not engender certainty regarding these existential questions, does not
promote growth toward these ideals, this understanding of who we are, then we may
assume one of two things, that the system of belief as a whole, or some set of
claims within it is false (and must be rejected), or the problem lies within
us, that we are unwilling or have not properly understood the teaching in
question and so have not properly enacted those beliefs in our lives.
Truth is the light that directs us along
the way of life. Bask in it.
The
Life:
This
is the sum of our existential experience. The things we have done and said are
fixed, even while the consequences of those things flow out from us on
trajectories of their own, and beyond our control.
The
content of our lives is always changing, updating with each and every moment,
intersecting both actively and passively with the lives and choices of others,
with the consequences of their actions and our own at disparate points in time
and space.
This
life is a journey, we are on a
forward trajectory and there is no return, there is no going backward.
Only
the living approach to the divine, not just any life, but the life of a
sentient being, self-cognizant, aware and free.
Every
person who has ever lived is blazing a trail into the unknown.
No
one comes to God save through these ~ Jesus
Let
us parse this statement.
Only
the living come to God, this is not to say that God is not present at all times
in all places, we re-affirm the basic proposition that God the infinite is one,
the creator and sustainer of all being.
This
is a qualified statement, only the living come to the knowledge and understanding
of God, come into a relationship with God as free, sentient, and self-purposive
agents.
Only
the living are able to discern the truth,
only the living are able to choose the way,
the way of God, the way to God, the ultimate foundation of reality.
Reality
itself constant change, it is the continuous progression of infinite
potentiality. We are each of us an expression of that.
The
universe is, always has been, and forever shall be in a state of flux.
This
is chaos, it is the permanent state of what is, this is order.
Chaos
and order, though they are syntactically opposed to one other, they are at-one-and-the-same-time
able to be predicated of the same subject, reality.
This
is harmony.
The
universe is always moving outward-moving forward, it is forever expanding,
transforming potentialities into actualities.
Knowing
the truth does not bring peace,
finding the way does not bring
happiness, the experience of life is not bliss.
As
human beings we are faced with inherent limitations, the conditions of our
existence in time and space mean that we only ever know partially, we walk
along the way intermittently, and life itself is beset with pain and suffering.
We
are imperfect and prone to fear and doubt, to anger and resentment, we are
impatient, short sighted and self-serving.
We
are stubborn and oftentimes intractable. We exist in a continuum that is in a
state of constant flux and change, and yet we all to often attempt to demand
from it permanence and stability.
We
want to hang on to what we have even as the world changes all around us.
To
stand still in the continuum requires a great effort of will.
To
deny the natural progression of the continuum requires an incredible degree of
deliberate belligerence. This is difficult, but it is not impossible, and once
fixed because we are relational beings, that which has become unyielding is
able to draw others into its sphere of influence, like a stone in the river,
the unyielding and belligerent draw others to them themselves in a current of
opposition.
They
separate themselves from one another, through dogmas and creeds, by ritual and
doctrine into categories of us and them.
This
generates friction between the unyielding individual(s) and the way, it blinds them to the truth, and distorts their lives.
Friction,
like desire, manifests itself as fear and anxiety, it causes pain and suffering
in both the self and others.
When
we see these manifested in our own lives we should question the way that we have taken.
Are
pain and suffering, fear and anxiety the way
of Christ? Do they represent the truth
of the human condition, is that the life
Jesus would lead us to?
While
we may at times experience them, they are not the ultimate reality we are
directed toward. And the good news is
faith in the hope that there is life
beyond them.
The
life awaits us beyond the
vicissitudes of time and space, this is the firm content of Christian hope. We
may also have it now, fully realized in the normal course of our own lives.
All
that we are, all that we may aspire to already exist within us as potential.
We
are the uncarved block.
Our
dreams of doing, our ambitions, in the first part they are dependent on our
personal efforts for their actualization, in the second part they depend on the
co-operation of our fellows, our sisters and brothers, whose competing and
complimentary ambitions should always concern us.
Every
action, once committed alters the range of what is possible, of what is
probable, and of the scope of our potential. We must be mindful of the
consequences of our actions if we are to reach the limits of our capabilities; and
ride crest of that potential.
The
only things that happen are the things we make happen, or allow to happen through
our intention and will, whether we are passive or active.
All
actualities are realized potentialities.
To
do anything well and enduring, we must be aware of and appreciate the context
within which our ambitions dwell, we must grounded it a well-founded understanding
of everything that connects to it. We must see things in the light of truth, for what they are.
The
locus of our attention must be singular, and at-one-and-the-same-time
relational. You must see the thing itself, the thing that you have done, and
its effect on the world around you, together.
This
is the direction of consciousness, it must be guided by truth and integrity if it is to keep you on the way to life.
This will fulfill the purpose
of existence:
To
grow
To
understand
To
progress
To
exist, always in a state of becoming…more, seeking harmony in the will of God, finding
the infinite in our potential, germinating the seed God has planted within us.
