Known unknown unknowns

"If you put aside what you think you know about Jesus and approach the Gospels as though for the first time, something remarkable happens: Jesus emerges as a teacher of the transformation of consciousness."

So says the Amazon book review for The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind--A New Perspective on Christ and His Message, which they automatically recommend me on my 51st birthday.  Better late than never!

But really, I don't need to put aside what I thought I knew.  I already thought I knew Jesus that way, just not ONLY that way. It is not like it has been a complete secret for the last 1500 years. It is just not widely advertised, because most people don't want their consciousness to be transformed. They want quick, cheap forgiveness, and it is hard to beat Jesus on that. 

Be that as it may, it makes me wonder.  Many people are ignorant of many things.  I was ignorant of many things I recently learned about. Obviously then, there are still many things I don't know, and don't even know that I don't know. Things that are utterly beyond my radar. And judging from the past, some of these are probably hiding in plain sight.

Ignorance - it is not just for other people anymore!

Madmen jump too high

I have kept half an eye on the latest arc over at One Cosmos, about the defense of theism. At the same time I have been nibbling Huston Smith's book Forgotten Truth. This is interesting, as Smith clearly does not believe that the personal God is the highest level of being. However, echoing Schuon, he believes that a deep knowledge of the personal God is a pathway to go beyond that level. This is all way too advanced for me, it is something I may need to reflect on if I become a major demigod. Probably won't happen this year either. 

What I do feel sure of is that between undifferentiated materialism and undifferentiated spiritualism is a chasm of galactic dimensions, which you cannot simply vault over with a book on Neo-Advaita or a couple satsang recordings on YouTube. If you go from atheist to nondualist in such a quick upgrade, chances are that you simply cannot stomach the humiliation of bowing down to anyone other than yourself, or the disgrace of having to restrain your fornication, your greed or your vanity just because some bronze-age tribal religion told you to. As long as there is no other god before you, you are fine. You can continue to do whatever you think is OK, as long as it doesn't get you arrested by the police or worse, mocked by your peers.

There are indeed religious traditions that don't center on a personal God or Savior. But they are few and small, mere sects within larger religions. And they prescribe strict moral codes, intricate regulations and personal sacrifices in the (usually long) time leading up to enlightenment, which is even then far from assured in a lifetime. If you think going it alone without a God is some kind of shortcut, you are badly deluded.

In New Age circles, I have met more people than I can remember who said "I am God" or "we are God". But I am still waiting for someone to say "my husband is God". Then I will know something has truly happened in your life.