Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the MasterTheosophy / New ThoughtMystical / EsotericEnglishShareMystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 30Project Gutenberg #13143 - EnglishMoreVersion - 1 availableProject Gutenberg #13143LanguageEnglishEspañol‹Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 4Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 5Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 6Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 7Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 9Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 11Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 1Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 13Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 15Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 17Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 18Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 19Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 21Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 23Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 24Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 26Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 28Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 30Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 31Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 32Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 33Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 35Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 36Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 38Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 40Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 41Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 42Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 43Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 44Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 47Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 51Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 52›The Inner Teachings.Mystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 30ListenPlay this chapter in spoken English.Save chapterListen to chapter1The first and main phase of the Inner Teachings of Mystic Christianity is that connected with the Mystery of the Life of Jesus. The outer teachings give but an imperfect view of the real life and nature of the Master, and theologians have built up an edifice of dogmatic theory around the same. The Mystery of the Life of Jesus forms the subject of some important Inner Teachings of the Mystic Fraternities and Occult Brotherhoods, and is considered by them to be the foundation of the other teachings. And so we shall consider this phase of the subject at this point. 2In the first place we must remember that the soul of Jesus was different from the souls of other men. His was a "virgin birth"--not in the commonly accepted sense of the term, but in the occult sense as explained in the second lesson of this series. His soul was fresh from the hand of the Creator--His spirit had not been compelled to work through repeated incarnations, pressing forward for expression through humble and ignoble forms. It was free from taint, and as pure as the Fountain from which is flowed. It was a virgin soul in every sense of the term. 3This being so, it follows that it was not bound by the Karma of previous incarnations--as is the case with the ordinary soul. It had no entangling ties--it had no seeds of desire and action planted in previous lives, which were pressing forward toward expression in His life. He was a Free Spirit--an Unbound Soul. And therefore He was not only unbound by any Karma of His own, but was also free (by nature) from the Karma of the race or of the world. 4The absence of personal Karma left Him free from the selfish personal Desire which binds men to the wheel of action and personal ambition. He had no desire or thought for personal aggrandizement or glory, and was perfectly free (by nature) to work for the good of the race as an outside observer and helper, without suffering the pains and sorrows of race-life, had He so wished. But He chose otherwise, as we shall see in a moment. 5The absence of Race-Karma, or World-Karma, freed Him from the necessity of the pains of humanity, which are a part of its collective Karma. He would have been perfectly able to live a life absolutely free from the pains, trials and troubles that are the common lot of Man, owing to the Race-Karma. He would have escaped persecution, physical and mental pains, and even death, had He so elected. But He chose these things of His own free will, in order to accomplish the great work that He saw before Him as a World-Savior. 6In order for Jesus to enact His part as the Redeemer and Savior of the race, it was necessary for Him to take upon Himself His share of the Karma of the race--virtually taking upon Himself the "sins of the world." Before He could lift the burden from the race of men, He must become a man among men. 7To understand this more clearly we must remember that to a being such as Jesus--a soul free from Karma--there would be no such thing as temptation, longings, desires, or any of the mental states of the ordinary man with the Karma of successive past incarnations resting within him as seeds of action pressing forward ever for unfoldment and expression. 8Jesus, the free soul, would have been practically an outside observer of the world's affairs, and not influenced by any of its ordinary incentives to action. In this state He could have aided the world as a teacher and instructor, but He would not have been able to accomplish His great task of Redeeming the world, in its highest spiritual significance, as we shall see as we proceed. It was necessary for Him to take upon Himself the burden of the earth-life in order to become the Savior of the people of the earth. 9The occult teachings inform us that during His sojourn abroad, Jesus was simply a teacher, with but a dim perception of His real mission. But gradually He began to experience periods of Illumination in which He recognized His real nature and the difference between Himself and other men. Then came to Him the conviction of the mighty work that lay before Him in the redemption of the race, and He began to see the necessity of entering into the Karmic circle of the race in order to carry out the plan. This came gradually, by slow degrees, and the final sacrifice was made only in the Wilderness after His Baptism by John. 10In the Wilderness, after His long fast and His days of meditation, the way opened up for Him to take upon Himself the burden of the Karma of the earth people. In that scene of the most tremendous spiritual struggle that the earth has ever witnessed, Jesus deliberately bent His shoulders that the weight be placed upon His back. From that moment the earth-souls received a blessing far beyond the comprehension of the mind of the ordinary man. Into the Karma-bound circle came this mighty soul, animated by Pure Spirit, for the purpose of lifting a great portion of the burden, and of joining in the work of the actual unfoldment and redemption of the race. 11For be it remembered that, being a free soul animated by Pure Spirit, Jesus was A GOD--not a man, although inhabiting the fleshly garments of humanity. His power was superior to that of many of the high intelligences scattered throughout the universe, and playing important parts in the cosmic processes. Jesus was Pure Spirit incarnate in human form, with all the powers of a God. Although of course subordinate in expression to the Absolute--the Great Spirit of Spirit--He was in His essential nature the same in substance. Verily, as He Himself said, "I and the Father are One." 12His youthful mind was not able to grasp the truth of His real nature, but as that human instrument became perfected by age and training, He realized the Truth and perceived His own Divinity. 13But even a God, such as he, could not raise up the world from its burden of Karma, by acting from the outside. Under the Cosmic Laws, established by the Absolute, such work could be performed only from within the circle of earth-life. And so Jesus saw that to raise up Man, He must become a Man. That is, to help lift the earth's Karma, He must enter into it, and place Himself within its Circle of Influence. And this He did. 14We wonder if our readers can realize, even faintly, just what this sacrifice meant? Think of a Pure Spirit--a Free Soul--so filled with the love for the race of men as to renounce deliberately, for aeons of time, total immunity from all mortal existence, and willingly to place itself under the burden of pain, woe, misery and sin which formed the earth-people's Karma. It was a thousand-fold greater sacrifice than would be that of a Man of the Highest spiritual and mental development--an Emerson, for example--who, in order to raise up the race of earth-worms, would deliberately place himself within the being and nature of the Group-Soul animating the race of earthworms, and then stay within its influence, striving ever upward and onward until finally, after aeons and aeons of time, he was able to bring up the earthworm Group Soul to the level of Man. Think of this, and then realize what a sacrifice Jesus made of Himself. 15In the Wilderness, when Jesus took the final steps of renunciation and sacrifice, He at once passed within the circle of the Race Karma and laid Himself open to all the pain, misery, temptations and limitations of a Man. His power, of course, remained with Him, but He was no longer a God outside of the world-life, but an imprisoned God working from within the race, using His mighty power, but bound by the Karmic Law. He became open to influences from which previously He had been immune. For instance when He was "tempted" by the Devil of Personal Attainment, and urged to seek worldly glory and renown, He was tempted only because He had taken on the world's Karma and was subject to its laws. As a God, He would not have felt the temptation any more than a man would feel the temptation of the earthworm. But as a man He was subject to the desires and ambitions that perplex and "devil" the race. And according to the rule that the greater the mental development the greater the power of such temptation toward self-aggrandizement (because of the mind being able to see more clearly the opportunities), Jesus was subjected to a test that would have been impossible to an ordinary man. 16Jesus, knowing full well that He had in His possession the power to manifest the things with which He was tempted, was compelled to fight off the temptation to place Himself at the head of the race as its ruler--as the King of the World. He was shown this picture to compare with the other whose last scene was Calvary--and He was called upon to feel the desire of the race for such things, even unto its highest degree. Imagine the desire for personal aggrandizement of all the world thought beating upon His mind demanding the expression which could be had through Him alone. And then imagine the struggle required to defeat this opposing power. Think of what the ordinary man has to meet and overcome to conquer the desire for Personal Aggrandizement--and then think of what the Master had to fight, with the focussed desire of the entire Race-Thought striving to express itself through Him! Truly the Sins of the World bore down upon Him with their mighty weight. And yet He knew that He had taken upon Himself this affliction by entering upon the Life of Man. And He met it like a Man of Men. 17It was only by fixing His mind fully and firmly upon what He knew to be His Real Self--the Spirit Within His soul, and holding His mind "one-pointed" upon the fact--that He was able to fight the fight and conquer. Seeing the Truth, He could see the folly and illusion of all that the world had to offer, and He could put forth His mighty Will bidding the Tempter retire from the scene and from His mind. It was in this full knowledge of His Spirit--His Real Self--that He was able to rebuke the Tempter, saying, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord, thy God!" He held fast to His realization of the God Within--the Spirit that was within Him and all men--and thus denied out of existence the power of the earth-things--the illusions of mortality--the maya of the race. 18But not alone this and other weaknesses of man's mortal nature were constantly besieging the mind of the Master after He had taken upon Himself the Karma of the Earth. He had also taken upon Himself the mortal life consequent of the human frame which He inhabited. He must live, suffer and die--even as all men--and according to the law of mortality. And so He moved forward toward the end, knowing fully what lay before Him. He, a God, had taken upon Himself all these attributes of mortality, in order to be able to perform His work as the Redeemer and Savior of the race. 19And so, He lived, and suffered and died--even as you and I. He drank the cup to the dregs, suffering as only such a finely organized mental nature could suffer. And, men, poor creatures, speak of His sufferings as terminating with the last breath upon the cross. Why, they only began there! 20For know ye, that Jesus the Christ is still within the race of men, suffering their woes, paying with them their penalty, every day, every hour--yea, and must remain so throughout the ages, until finally the soul of every man, yea, even that of the last man; the most degraded man in the world, is fully cleansed of the Karmic taint, and thus fully "redeemed" and "saved." And within the soul of every man is found the Christ Principle, striving ever to elevate and lift up the individual toward that realization of the Real Self--and this is what "redemption" and "salvation" really means. Not a saving from hell-fire, but a saving from the fire of carnality, and mortality. Not a redemption from imaginary sins, but a redemption from the muck and mire of earth-life. The God within you is like the fabled Hindu god who descended into the body of a pig and then forgot Himself. It is to bring you to a realization that you are a god and not a pig, that Jesus, the Master, is working within your soul as the Christ Principle. Have you never heard His voice, crying from within your soul, "Come out--come out of your pig-nature and realize the god that you verily are!" It is this "recognition, realization and manifestation of the god within you" that constitutes "salvation" and "redemption." 21The Occult Teachings tell us that Jesus, after His final disappearance from before the eyes of His apostles, passed on to the higher planes of the Astral World where He rapidly discarded all of His astral and mental vehicles which the soul had used in its manifestation. The Astral Body and its corresponding higher sheaths were cast off and discarded. That is, all except the very highest of all. Had He discarded every vestige of individual soul-existence His spirit would have immediately merged itself with the One Spirit--the Absolute--from which it had originally proceeded and Jesus, as an entity, would have disappeared entirely within the Ocean of the One Spirit. This highest state of all He had deliberately resigned until the passage of ages, in order that He might accomplish His work as the World-Savior. 22He retained the highest vehicle--the Spiritual Mind in its highest shade of expression--in order that as an entity He might labor for the race. And so, He exists at this time--one in substance with the Father, but yet maintaining an apparently separate entity-existence. But this must be remembered, that Jesus, as Jesus the son of Mary and Joseph, no longer exists. When He cast off the lower vehicles of His personality, His personality disappeared. But His individuality persisted--that is, He is still HE, although His personality has disappeared, leaving Him--the real Him--existing as the CHRIST ‹Previous chapterMystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 28Next chapterMystic Christianity; or, The Inner Teachings of the Master 31›Similar passagesBy tradition and source labelFind similarCompare selectedCompare with similarAsk Deep ThoughtSelect passages to search for parallels.Tap any verse to select it, then compare selected passages or ask Deep Thought. Public domain in the USA