Happy Easter, everyone. Happy Passover, too.
It’s so interesting that we celebrate Jesus’s resurrection from the dead at this time.
The reason I say that is that everyone rises from the dead, not just Jesus. Not everyone takes their physical body with them (although we of this generation will). Most simply step out of it and away they go.
The body dies but the soul lives on. As Jesus said,” God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” (1)
Not everyone goes “back to the Father.” Until now most people ended up on the Astral Planes, very far “below” where Jesus did.
And not very many people come back to the Earth plane in a physical presence after death, as Jesus did. I only know of Sri Yukteswar Giri, Paramahansa Yogananda’s guru, whom Kat writes about today, who came back in full form.
The “Salvation” or “Redemption” Jesus talked about, we’d call “Ascension.” Ascension, in that it signifies leaving Third/Fourth Dimensionality behind, represents an ending of the need to die and be reborn again, which is a feature of this level of reality but not of higher levels.
Throughout his life, Jesus modelled enlightenment – the Holy Spirit descending on him in form like a dove and Jesus being transfigured on the mount are two examples. His earliest experience, he told me on An Hour with an Angel, happened when he was very young:
Jesus: At a very early age, around five, five and a half, I was completely, can I say, reunited or filled with the Holy Spirit. That full reconnection to Father/Mother One, what you think of as God or Source, what I think of as Mother-Holy Spirit, took place.
And so that awareness and that connection, that knowing, and what you would think of as information, was available to me from the start, or from a very early age. (2)
He also performed miracles to get the attention of people – reading minds, changing water into wine, walking on water, healing folks, raising the dead, etc.
During Jesus’s time, he travelled widely, following a spiritual circuit that might include the Oracle at Delphi, the Egyptian hierophants, the Magii of Persia and the yogis of India. I saw evidence of his presence when I was in India:
Steve: And where did you go in India to study?
Jesus: Everywhere.
S: I passed a marker outside Pondicherry that celebrated the passage of Matsya, the fish prophet. Was that you?
J: Yes. Yes, it was. (3)
Another like him, who lived as a contemporary of Jesus and travelled the circuit, was Appolonius of Tyana. (4)
Contrary to what we might expect, Jesus never thought of himself as “the only” Son of God, as he acknowledges here:
Jesus: I never thought of myself as the only voice, or the only teacher, or the only way. I was one. I was one where the Word, because of the Holy Spirit, was in flesh. But I certainly was not the only one. (5)
Sri Ramakrishna considered Jesus an avatar or direct descent of the Divine into form. (6) But Jesus was loathe to accept that term:
Steve: You mentioned the Holy Spirit in flesh, and that raises questions about your ministry. Do you consider that the word “avatar” applies to you and your ministry?
Jesus: Avatar is not a word that I particularly cherish. Let me put it that way.
S: All right.
J: There are those who wish to label me as an avatar. And I would accept that label, but I would not choose it. I would choose the label, or the description, of teacher. (7)
If we can accept that Jesus actually spoke what have become known as his sayings, seldom have they been surpassed for their pithiness and rock-bottom truth. Examples are “I and my Father are one.” “The Father is in me and I am in Him.” “My Father is greater than I.” They perfectly summarize our situation.
I’m tempted to say that Jesus’ sayings are more widely known than those of any other teacher I can think of. Why, even a Zen master, reading them, is said to have exclaimed, “This man is close to enlightenment!” 
One of his sayings was “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (8) Unfortunately I didn’t ask Jesus about this particular saying but I did ask him, when he said “I am the Light,” who was “I am.”
Steve: And when you say, “I am the light,” who is “I am”? Are you speaking as Jesus, or are you speaking as the Christ, as the Light?
Jesus: No, I am speaking as the Light. (9)
I presume then, as well, that Jesus would say that this same Light, this Self, this Christ or Atman is the way to God, the truth of our nature, and the escape from rebirth that full realization of that Light would bring.
Somebody stop me. Even though I’m not a Christian, I could go on talking about Jesus forever. For me, he is in a category of his own. No one’s teachings have excited me as much as his – even though Matthew Ward (St. Matthew) tells us that a lot of what Jesus was said to have uttered and done was made up by church officials. (10)
I’m not sure what to do when the New Testament is revealed as in large measure a construction of the Church. I can’t see myself ever being willing to let go of my much-underlined, ragged New Testament copy – which has been around the world in my backpack. I cannot thank Jesus enough for what I’ve learned from him.
So here we are at Easter time, when again we so appropriately honor he whom Matthew knew as Emmanuel and whom we know as Yeshi, the master Jesus, the Son of Man; that is, as an exemplar of what all of us can and will become, many Ascensions from now.
Footnotes
(1) Matthew 22:32.
(2) “Transcript of An Hour with an Angel, with Jesus, Jan. 9, 2012,” at http://goldenageofgaia.com/2012/01/transcript-of-an-hour-with-an-angel-with-jesus-jan-9-2012/
(3) Loc. cit.
(4) See Philostratus, The Life of Apollonius of Tyana.
(5) “Transcript of An Hour with an Angel, with Jesus, Jan. 9, 2012,” ibid.
(6) Now, Shivanath Shastri told Sri Ramakrishna: “Sir, one of my Christian friends has come to see you. Having heard of you from me, he was very eager to meet you.”
On hearing this Sri Ramakrishna bowed his head to the ground and said: “I bow again and again at the feet of Jesus Christ.”
Surprised at such utterance, Rev. Sannyal said: “How is it, sir, that you bow at the feet of Christ? What do you think of Him?”
Sri Ramakrishna: “Why, I look upon him as an Avatara.”
Rev. Sannyal: “Incarnation of God! Will you kindly explain what you mean by it? Is he one like Krishna and the others?”
Sri Ramakrishna: “Yes, exactly like that. An incarnation like our Rama and Krishna. Don’t you know there is a passage in the Bhagavata where it is said that the incarnations of Vishnu or the Supreme Being are innumerable?” (Paramahansa Ramakrishna in Swami Prabhavananda, First Meetings with Sri Ramakrishna. Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 1987, 106-7.)
(7) “Transcript of an Hour with an Angel, with Jesus, Jan. 16, 2012,” at http://goldenageofgaia.com/ascension-as-of-2012/the-masters-speak/transcript-of-an-hour-with-an-angel-with-jesus-jan-16-2012/.)
(8) John 14:6.
(9) “Transcript of an Hour with an Angel, with Jesus, Jan. 16, 2012,” ibid.
(10) See for instance Matthew’s Message, Sept. 11, 2010; Jan. 5, 2014; and May 15, 2019.