7.1.6 What are the limitations of contemporary Christianity as a fully developed model of reality?

 

Over millennia, the East has had a proliferation of models of reality – that is to say, there exist in the East extensive oral and written records of the systemised experiences of individuals on the path to enlightenment. When a fresh experience of the absolute nature of reality arises in the East, as a result of the evolutionary activity of karma, the newly enlightened person, if empowered and made articulate by karma to speak directly and clearly to the surrounding culture, can relate the new teaching to the existing spiritual systems. For much of the East, the ancient Sanskrit language forms the basis of the culturally accepted models of the implicate structure of reality, against which any new experience and articulation of the absolute will be measured and tested.

 

From the point of view of the aspirant struggling against the mind’s accumulated ignorance to attain enlightenment, the pre-existing models of reality serve as a map. These systematic and structured records of previous spiritual journeys help the traveller in consciousness to identify the major experiences, and provide sound advice on how to understand and transcend each stage until the final goal is reached and the journey ceases. Properly and wisely used, such guidance enables the traveller to journey with greater safety and speed towards realisation of the absolute through direct experience.

 

From the point of view of the newly enlightened person struggling to articulate experiences which can only crudely be put into words, the existing models of reality enable the realised mind to compare and contrast contemporarily relevant ways of expressing the experiences encountered along the path. The availability of comparable models of reality is of great importance in providing a stabilising perspective on a newly emerging spiritual system. Fresh and culturally stimulating visions of reality only arise occasionally in history, as part of the fall and rise in a culture’s spiritual development.

 

Consider carefully the origins of Christianity, in terms of the availability of comparable spiritual systems. Jesus had only the study of Jewish scriptures, for a comparative experiential map, to guide him and assist him in articulating his inner experience of the absolute in terms accessible to his contemporaries. The scriptures indicated clearly and unequivocally the terrible role which the awaited Messiah would have to fulfil.

 

The gospels abound with examples of Jesus’s concern to comply with the authority of the Jewish scriptures, so that the ancient prophecies might be fulfilled. The events of his ministry had been foretold in detail, that is to say, his actions were culturally expected and predetermined. Jesus carefully and deliberately set out on the path to crucifixion, so that the words of the prophets would come true.

 

The Jewish spiritual system, as discussed in chapter 2 of this book, marked the first culture-wide attempt in Western consciousness to express the experience of reality as a unified whole. From the vantage point of later millennia, the Jewish model can be seen as a first attempt by Western consciousness to produce a fully developed model of reality. Jesus’s task was to refine and develop that map. His task was to show in greater detail the path to the goal and the nature of the goal itself.

 

Lacking the extensive range of comparative teachings which we in the West have had available to us in the twentieth century, Jesus had to rely for guidance on the available teachings based on the Jewish scriptures, and on his own experiences on the path to enlightenment. As a result of this, key aspects of his teaching were formulated in the limited terms of Jewish Palestinian culture of two thousand years ago. Jesus taught that the kingdom of heaven was to be gained solely through belief in him and his teaching. Central to the difficulties facing contemporary Christianity is the unwillingness of many ordinary people to accept Jesus as the sole authority and means of access to God.

 

The situation of profound and widespread ignorance of comparative spiritual systems which existed at the time of the origins of Christianity is at the root of the misconception distorting Jesus’s original teaching. Jesus taught that he was the sole source of access to God because, quite simply, in the limited context of his time and place, he really was the sole point of access. In the overall context of humanity’s progressive development of models of reality, Jesus can clearly be seen as one enlightened teacher among many.

 

The next major area of difficulty for contemporary Christianity is its insistence on belief in Jesus as a prerequisite for experience of the kingdom of God. Jesus had undoubtedly travelled along the path to the final stage of enlightenment; but it is clear from the evidence in the gospels that he was unable to teach, except privately to his disciples, the direct experience of the kingdom of heaven [Matthew 13, 10-11; Mark 4, 10-11, 34]. This does not suggest a limitation in Jesus’s ability as a teacher; rather, it indicates a limitation in the culture he was working in at that place and time.

 

Belief in spiritual matters is only necessary, for an individual or a culture, when direct intuitive experience is not possible. In that culture of two thousand years ago, which was taking the first steps in the lengthy transition of Western civilisation into an ethically-based civilisation, widespread direct experience of the absolute nature of reality was not possible. Where a society has not yet evolved sufficiently to have produced a fully developed model of reality, the only way for most individuals to access spiritual truths is through belief in another person’s direct intuitive experience.

Jesus taught that he was the sole source of access to God and that salvation lay in belief in him, because in the limited terms of his relatively unevolved culture that was the literal truth. The need for belief in Jesus remained strong for as long as Christianity fulfilled its karmic function of evolving Western civilisation into an ethically-based culture. The capacity of individuals to be satisfied, through belief, about the truth behind Jesus’s teachings, waned correspondingly as the civilising effect of his message achieved the necessary moral evolution in Western consciousness.

 

This process of Western culture evolving spontaneously towards a spiritually-based civilisation has as its inevitable consequence the growing realisation that, for increasing numbers of individuals, belief of itself is no longer sufficient to satisfy their spiritual aspirations. Fully developed spiritual understanding is not possible if it is based merely on belief. Direct intuitive experience of the nature of reality is the key to a mature spiritual understanding.

 

As all who have such intuitive knowledge agree, the direct experience of the absolute nature of reality is inexpressible. The absolute is pure experience of being, transcending any conditioned modes of expression. Any teacher must articulate the inexpressible in fresh, contemporary terms, in order to help others along the path.

 

It is impossible for any teacher to describe a detailed and systematic path leading to direct experience of the absolute without incorporating both an individual and a cultural bias into the descriptive system. That bias may not be apparent to the teacher’s contemporaries, since they share the cultural bias, and the teaching will seem new and revelatory to them. As the relevance of a teaching fades with the passage of time, its limitations become apparent. As a spiritual system becomes less relevant to the way people live their lives, and less able to address and satisfy their need for inner growth, so do its limitations become clear.

 

The individual bias shows in the choice of theistic or purely transcendental modes of description of the absolute. The true, final and absolute nature of reality can be accurately described both as God, and as mind in its unconditioned state, devoid of qualities. God is the first reflex in conditioned existence of mind in its unconditioned form – God and mind in its unconditioned state are one and inseparable.

 

The cultural bias shows in the structural detail of the system of expression. The language and concepts used, and the experiences discussed, all reflect the need for development in consciousness of a particular culture over a particular time. The only unshakeable absolute in any spiritual system is the inexpressible, pure and all-embracing goal, knowable only by direct intuitive experience; all else in any model of reality is only relative in nature and has only temporary cultural validity.

 

Jesus taught his understanding of the absolute nature of reality in theistic terms, because it suited both his nature and the needs of his contemporaries. Why did Jesus choose to represent his experience of the absolute in the male imagery of God the Father? The answer is certainly not because God, the first reflex of the one mind in its unconditioned state, is male.

 

It makes as much sense to talk of God the Mother as it does to talk of God the Father. Neither view is more true than the other, although one view may be more relevant in particular circumstances to particular people.

 

Teaching in terms of God the Father was the natural extension of the traditional Jewish patriarchal symbolism which existed in the male-dominated culture of Palestine two thousand years ago. By adopting and expressing anew the existing cultural points of reference, Jesus was able to reach the greatest number of people with his teaching. To teach of God the Mother would have been meaningless in that particular historical context.

 

The male-orientated, early Christian model of reality was also characterized by an aversion to woman’s sexuality, which was to be contained and controlled inside an allegedly God-ordained marriage (children, for the procreation of). The Christian notions of God as male and of marriage sanctified by religion as the sole legitimate arena for sexual experience, have been treated as absolute products of divine wisdom, although only based on the relative authority of Jesus and the disciples. In this way views relevant to and originated in a particular culture two thousand years ago, have been passed down to our profoundly different culture as unshakeable holy writ.

 

As such rigid religious attitudes become increasingly irrelevant to the way the majority of people live their lives, the inevitable reaction sets in. The power and influence of the Christian Church is waning where it fails to adapt to the rapid changes in people’s thinking. Generally speaking, Christian Churches have lost sight of the freshness and vitality of Jesus’s original teaching.