In continuing to lay the foundation to examine the various aspects of Gnosticism, we look at the two major characters that feature centrally in all Gnostic literature. They are Jeshu and Christ/Maitreya. Central to the whole Christian story is the life of Jesus. What do we actually know about this life if we look at the historical evidence? The reality is that we know absolutely nothing. In recent times, scholars have started to point out the blindingly obvious fact that there is no historical footprint of a man that the Christian faithful are convinced existed. What we are dealing with is not reality but a legend. Until someone, who has causal consciousness, is given the job by the Hierarchy to lay down the fact of exactly what happened in Palestine during this time period, we are going to remain in the dark.
Here is the rub. According to Laurency, we are not entitled to know anything about the lives of any member of the Hierarchy. What they get up to is their own business, not ours. These highly evolved beings have no interest in promoting themselves. They are here to do a job. It is the job that matters, not them.
Give Humanity a piece of information and they invariably anthropomorphise it, turn that human character into a god and promptly worship it. This is why the true biographies of these great adepts are not revealed. A good example is the life of Buddha. Do you really think he was born a prince, had a wife and son and then abandoned them? Not in a month of Sundays. Think of the karma involved there. If you take that story and place it in our triadic model, then you begin to see the wife as the matter aspect, found in the 1st Triad. The son becomes the consciousness aspect found in the 2nd Triad and Buddha, himself, is the motion/energy aspect, the father. Now the allegory comes alive and its esoteric meaning is understood.
Bearing these things in mind, let us look at what esoteric knowledge tells us about the life of Jeshu. You will see similarities to the narrative portrayed in the Gospel, but there are significant differences, not least when these events were actually supposed to have occurred. So, the Jesus of the Bible was really called Jeshu and was born in Judea, to Israelite parents in the year 105 BCE. This puts the start of the story even further from when the Gospels were supposed to have been written. If Paul’s letters were written in the 1st century CE and references are made to Jesus’s family as though they are still living, there is no way this could be the case. As it is, most of Paul’s letters are forgeries. That is not me speaking, this is the common consensus amongst biblical scholars today.
Jeshu’s parents were wealthy; no humble carpenter here with an unmarried teenager in tow. Jeshu was born into the highest social class in his community. His mother and father were indeed called Mary and Joseph and they were both gnostics. Mary accepted the role of being the mother of an avatar. You could say, well of course she would. Who would not want to be part of such a great drama? But think of it in another way. You give birth to an avatar and as a result, you are not going to exactly have a ‘normal’ parent/child relationship. Mary and Joseph left Jeshu to develop in whatever manner he saw fit. If he did not want to eat his vegetables, there was going to be no argument.
At the age of 12, Jeshu decided to enrol himself into a knowledge order known as the Essenes. They were a secret society that had their base in the southern Judaean desert. We know about this location as this is where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. The public face of this order was a school for the prophets of Israel. How quite you take lessons in becoming a prophet, I do not know. The order was founded about 150 BCE by a Jew, who had been initiated into the ancient Chaldean Kabalistic tradition. His objective was to establish, in what was a relatively young Jewish nation, an esoteric doctrine of its own. He compiled a doctrine, using snippets from ancient Jewish text; mixed in a good dose of imagination to account for missing facts and baked it in the desert for a few years. Out of the ‘oven’ popped the Jewish Kabala, which has undergone several revisions since then.
Here is an interesting titbit. Blavatsky, in ‘Isis Unveiled’, said that the gnostics were “but the followers of the old Essenes under a new name”. Laurency says this is nonsense, as the Essenes were not founded by a member of the Planetary Hierarchy. This is a basic prerequisite for a genuine esoteric knowledge order. Laurency also tells us that members of the “Black Lodge” have also founded many such orders.
Alas, from the very beginning, this society had the wrong aim and direction. Firstly, it was made exclusively Jewish. This hardly chimes with the concepts of unity. What were the core drivers of the formation of such an ‘exclusive’ sect? They were religious fanaticism and national chauvinism. Laurency tells us that any exoteric interpretation of its symbols was regarded as being sacrilegious and punishable by death. It was the Essences that sentenced Jeshu to death.
Needless to say, the prevailing spirit within the Essene order ran completely counter to the life principles that would have animated Jeshu. He had taken the (i3) and was, therefore, a perfected human being. Now, according to Laurency, Jeshu was a rare individual, even within the ranks of enlightened persons. He was, apparently, free of all negative traits, devoid of ego and not likely to be tempted by anything, except possibly chocolate but as that was only found in the Americas, his resolve was never put to the test. Not all initiates are full of sweetness and light. Each has an individual character, which after causalisation, forms a template upon which all subsequent incarnations will proceed. This can make life experiences lighter or darker. This may seem unfair. You arrive in the 4th Kingdom with baggage. However, destiny sorts out these kinks in one’s character as one evolves. That is what makes life so exciting and unpredictable. It should be noted that Jeshu was fully aware that he was to become the instrument of the Monadic (43) self, Christ/Maitreya. It was his task to lend the Bodhisattva (world teacher), his body at the appropriate time.
Because Jeshu was not attracted to any facet of the 1st Triad, he was looked upon with suspicion by his fellow Essenes. According to esoteric lore, at 19, Jeshu travelled to an Essene monastery at Mount Serbal. There, he availed himself of its voluminous library. When he subsequently left this order, it was because he realised that the order had become irredeemably petrified by dogmatism. There was not a cat-in-hells chance of infusing any new ideas into the sect. He spent seven years in this order and during this time he was regarded with suspicion by the other monks because his general demeanour made a mockery of all their self-deceptive hypocrisy.
So, there was no option but to leave the order, which he did after his visit to Mount Serbal. He travelled to Egypt and enrolled in an esoteric temple and there he took the (i4), acquiring Essential/Unity consciousness (46). He then went walkabout, travelling to India and Tibet, where he stayed in a monastery until the appointed time for him to return to Palestine. This occurred in 76 BCE. He was now 29 years old.
Once back home, Jeshu gathered around him a group of disciples belonging to various esoteric societies, such as the gnostics, cabalists and hermetisists. These were no illiterate fishermen. He became their teacher and initiated them further into the esoteric mysteries. The story of the fishermen came from the fact that this group called themselves fishermen since the new epoch they were entering was Pisces and the symbology of this sign is that of fish. Laurency tells us that the lives of this band of brothers were rational, purposeful and in alignment with the laws that govern the refinement of one’s envelopes and mind. Consequently, they were vegetarian and strictly exclude alcohol from their diet. So much for the wine served up at the Last Supper.
The true story of the life of Jeshu has not been allowed to be published. We would have to first reach a stage in our consciousness to appreciate and understand the events occurring in such a life. The story that did get published about this life was, needless to say, completely distorted and the rest is history.
Just to complete the story on Jeshu, he reincarnated about 70 years after he was stoned to death. Yes, he was stoned, not crucified. His new persona was that of Apollonius of Tyana. If you read up about this amazing person, you immediately are struck by the similarity between this person and the life of the historical Jesus. In this last incarnation, Jeshu took the (i5) and because a master. Laurency classifies this level as superessential. Bladon calls it lower-spiritual. Let’s just call it a 45-self. So much simpler. Today, this monad has taken the (i6) and become a 44-self and the chohan or lord of the 6th Ray. That really is a meteoric rise up the ranks.
It is time to close this discussion. The presentation of Christ/Maitreya’s life will have to wait till next time.