In this process of open inquiry into who Jesus is and the nature of Christ, I am leaning towards a perspective that may not sit well with religious orthodoxy (probably an understatement) but which makes good sense in light of world spiritual pluralism. This means that the exclusivism and exclusionary beliefs of mainline Christianity no longer make sense to me. In fact, I find them repugnant and deeply problematic. The exclusivism of Jesus as the sole irreplaceable way to salvation grossly conceived as entry into a hedonically pleasant place called heaven simply makes no sense.
First, if heaven is a place, it remains stuck in the dimension of space-time and chained to the idea of confined personhood. This means it is neither transcendent nor the highest possible realization, especially when compared to Buddhist and Yogic perspectives. The summum bonum of say the Buddha Dharma is so sublime and beautiful that a crudely hedonistic heaven seems to pale into insignificance and ignobility.
Secondly, in light of the many exceptional and excellent spiritual masters in world history, to claim that Jesus is the one and only irreplaceable figure through whom entry into this heaven is possible smacks of a certain presumptuous arrogance unsubstantiated by evidence. This claim is often made in conjunction with blatant ignorance or inadequate knowledge of alternative spiritual figures such as the Buddha, Shiva, and Krishna, just to name a few.
Thirdly, the ancient and profound spiritual wisdoms of our collective human heritage beckon us to step outside our dogmatic cocoons to truly understand and fairly appreciate what each spiritual tradition has to offer. For example, an honest enquiry into the teachings and processes of the Buddha Dhamma and Shiva Yoga would reveal clear, detailed, rigorous, systematic, and effective methods of body-mind-consciousness liberation unsurpassed in world sacred literature and culture.
Without going into academic discussions and scholarly citations, I merely wish to sketch a general picture of how I see Jesus as Christ and Christ as the fundamental reality of all that is. This has implications for how I see diverse spiritual masters and paths of practice in our pluralistic world. From biblical writings especially the four gospels and Pauline and Johannine epistles, while taking into account non-canonical gospels and texts such as the Nag Hammadi and Dead Sea Scroll collections, my impression of Jesus the Nazarene is one of towering spirituality and deep contemplativeness coupled with prophetic vision and action, infused with strong apocalyptic tenor and tone. There is an ethos of moral integrity and courage, imbued with a radical orientation away from the values of worldly attachments towards a new mode of being that is at once transcendentally freeing and immanently loving. There is immense energy and intensity while flowing in serenity and wisdom. Jesus can be justifiably seen as divine incarnation in whom the fullness of deity dwells bodily — the eternal logos made flesh and God the Son, an image of God and an exact imprint of God’s nature filled to overflow with the Spirit of God. These are familiar terms and concepts used in Christian tradition. This is also how I experience Jesus both in narrative imagination and relational prayer. Granted that these modes of encountering Jesus are inescapably structured by the matrix of words and ideas, stories and assumptions provided by Christian theology and tradition.
On top of that, I see Jesus beyond his historical context and narrative architecture to touch the deeper dimension of who and what he is, beyond words and ideas. This is done through rigorous ontological inquiry on the basis of stable calm attention made pliant and malleable through meditation. In this process, a heart posture of openness and surrender to the unknown and potentially unknowable is extremely helpful. In other words, this process of inquiry is not merely an act of the intellect but involves intuition and emotion in an intentional movement that radically opens up to and into mystery. Doing so acknowledges the limits of my ideas and knowledge, and accepts the stance of not-knowing as a commitment to epistemological humility. A beginner’s mind that openly wonders and curiously questions becomes a crucial part of this inquiry process, even when inconvenient or challenging or faced with external pressures to conform. Even so, one does not jettison logic and reasoning prematurely. Rather, analytic rigour and sharp reasoning are employed to their very limits, with no tolerance for sloppy thinking, fallacious argumentation, and unquestioned dogmas.
Once I do all that, it is possible to come to see and know Jesus not simply as a God-man in Galilee but as the hidden yet all-pervasive principle or reality of the cosmos and beyond — Christ. Some call this reality the cosmic Christ. I prefer the term “cosmotheandric Christ” coined first by Catholic theologian Raimon Panikkar and elaborated by Franciscan nun Ilia Delio. As such, Christ transcends the man Jesus even if Christ is fully manifest in and as Jesus. This is possible with the mathematics of infinity. If Christ is infinitude itself, then one can see how any portion of that infinitude remains irrevocably infinite. Thus, if we conceive of Jesus as a humanly enfleshed portion of Christ, he remains essentially infinite even while temporally “limited” as a human being. Hence, Jesus is not a partial or smaller expression of Christ but one in whom the fullness of Christ dwells bodily.
Lest we slip into abstruse metaphysics, let me reiterate that this cosmotheandric Christ is not merely a nice-sounding concept but a living experience accessible through contemplative practice and inquiry. In fact, Christ is alive and knowable in every moment of experience — waking, sleeping, dreaming, deep dreamless sleep, even in the dying process — by virtue of the fact that Christ is none other than the primordial ground of consciousness that we are. The primordial consciousness of Christ united with primordial energy (also called subtlest clear-light mind of enlightenment indivisible from subtlest clear-light energy of enlightenment) is non-local, atemporal, in perfect symmetry, with infinite degrees of freedom, and ineffably beyond words and concepts. Even saying this much is saying too much. Be that as it may, pure consciousness or pristine awareness is not esoteric or inaccessible to us but the very dynamic nature of all that we experience from moment to moment, and the very fabric of our existence from moment to moment. It is the empty transparent knowing, that self-aware ungraspable being that underlies all content of experience; that is the space within which all experience occurs; that is the very ingredient of which all experience is made; and is the faculty by which all experience is known. This primordial consciousness is non-separate from all creation — the cosmos in however myriad parallel universes — and from all life-forms including humanity. Yet, the cosmos however gigantic and life-forms however numerous are both infinitesimal compared to the fathomless infinitude of primordial consciousness that simultaneously embraces and transcends them all. This primordial consciousness that we live and breathe and by which we experience from moment to moment is Christ, seamlessly united to and nondual from all that is — the cosmos, life, and humanity. This seamless whole and unbroken fabric of reality is what I call the cosmotheandric Christ.
Let us take a short detour into contemplative philosophy for a moment. In the ancient Indian texts of the Upaniṣads, the Sanskrit term used for this is pūrṇatva or “pleromic fullness,” after the Greek word pleroma that connotes roughly the same meaning of inexhaustible fullness. At the same time, this ultimate reality inseparable from historical and material reality is in essence empty (śunya) of inherent existence. Assuming that readers understand this concept and heuristic of emptiness (please read my other essays for elaboration on this), suffice to say here that while empty of inherency, seamless reality is also luminous (prabhāsvara) by nature, that is everything shines with a brightness natural to themselves, which is the capacity and ability of consciousness to manifest myriad phenomenal appearances. Reality is also aware (jñāna) and knowing or cognizant (vidyā) by nature, which is the quintessential nature of consciousness itself. This makes consciousness ceaselessly responsive by virtue of its intrinsic energy (jñānavayu) that emanates forth in non-objectifying compassion (karuna). In the language of the Buddha, this empty essence of reality is termed the svābhāvika dharmakāya (essential truth body); its cognizant and knowing nature, the jñāna dharmakāya (wisdom truth body); its luminous appearances, the sambhogakāya (blissful enjoyment body); and its manifold displays of compassion, the nirmāṇakāya (emanation body). Taken together, the dharmakāya, sambhogakāya, and nirmāṇakāya comprise the three bodies of enlightened being, the definitive meaning of the term “Buddha.”
Seen from this cosmotheandric perspective, we can surmise how Jesus need not be the one and only manifestation of Christ in the historico-material dimension. Yes, we can see how Jesus had a unique personality and mission, enacting a “finished work” distinctive to his raison d'etre, but this does not automatically or necessarily exclude the possibility of other Christ manifestations in history. For me, the particular work of Jesus lies in its mimetic and psychodynamic functions that liberate the human mind from deep-seated guilt and shame. For me, I see Gotama Buddha and Adiyogi Shiva as two manifestations of Christ. I also regard Krishna as another Christ manifestation. They each have their work cut out for them. There may be more Christ manifestations and I would not prematurely close off that possibility. But for me, these are the ones most personally meaningful and significant for my personally unique journey of life and contemplative practice. I have described some qualities and attributes of the Buddha and Shiva elsewhere in another essay (see Christ — Like Buddha, Like Shiva) and will not do so here. Suffice to mention here that even as the infinite fullness of Christ can manifest transmutatively as a seemingly limited human bodymind, be it Jesus of Nazareth or Buddha of Kapilavastu or Shiva of Kailasha or Krishna of Vrindavan, the infinite fullness of Triune pleroma and Brahmic pūrṇatva is not reduced in the very slightest, let alone exhausted in and as history. Open and relational, selflessly radiating in non-controlling love, and constantly evolving in ever new and ever fresh expressions of itself, the cosmotheandric Christ as God in Triune relational dynamism is ceaselessly responsive to the needs and cries of sentient beings throughout space and time. The Triune nature of Christ is a whole topic in itself and will be dealt with in a separate essay, theologically and more importantly experientially. Without clear non-erroneous experiential referents to the terms “Father,” “Son,” and “Spirit,” we risk wallowing in intellectual discourse and story-making devoid of clear wisdom and insight into the way things are. This digs us deeper into delusion rather than extricates us from the bondage of suffering rooted in defilement and delusion.
Let me conclude. A friend and mentor once shared with me that all roads do not lead to Christ but Christ can meet us on all roads. That said, given the recent rapid evolution of my thinking and maturation in my experience, I now read this statement rather differently. At present, this is how I see Christ in relation to all other spiritual masters and pathways: “All roads are found within Christ however named and Christ does meet us on all roads.” Through the prism of the cosmotheandric Christ, I see semantically cognate concepts that point to Christ in other spiritual cultures. If seen through the lenses of those cultures, Christ can be understood and realized as an alternate expression of their respective ultimates like Adi-Buddha or Dharmakaya or Dao or Paramapurusha or Paramashiva or Brahman. In other words, it matters not whether we use the term Christ or Adi-Buddha or Dharmakaya or Dao or Brahman or Paramapurusha or Paramashiva to designate this supreme nondual reality. What matters is singularity of the Real amidst difference. Hence, I submit to you that such interspiritual pluralism is the least problematic and most inclusive way of narrating and contextualizing ultimate reality. Open to mystery yet grounded in reason and insight, this inclusive contemplative journey is a journey without beginning and without end. But we must take the first step. And the next step. And the next. On the path of authentic spiritual practice that we call sādhanā. Nothing less will enable our liberation and enlightenment. Nothing more is needed. This clarion call of inclusive enlightenment is our challenge of the day.
