I AM the Way, the Truth & the Life

Personally speaking, I AM a Christian! That may be debatable, especially as I continue on my spiritual Journey, but, no matter how far I stray from accepted orthodoxy, I will always be a Christian at heart, because that's the way I was brought up. ( I must make this disclaimer, though; I AM a spirit  being, so when I say 'personally speaking', know that I am speaking AS Charles Haddon Shank ) As such then, I tend to believe that the words of Jesus, recorded in the Gospel ( Good News ) of John ( 14:6 ) are true & veritable. However, against the accepted orthodoxy ( 2,000+years?), did Jesus really mean what we think he meant? ( The words of Inigo Montoya from 'The Princess Bride' come to mind here! ) Did Jesus mean to say, in a universal way ( to the American Indian, for example, or the Australian Aborigine ), that He, again, personally speaking, was the only way to truly know 'God', to commune with the Divine? Or was He simply, given the context of Scripture, telling His Jewish disciples that He embodied everything that the Law & the Temple had pointed to, the Marriage of Heaven & Earth? Or maybe, just maybe, there's something more there!

For the past 5 years or so, I have toyed with the heretical notion, particularly within this 'blog', that the Scriptures we are most accustomed to, the Hebrew, Greek & Aramaic ones we call 'The Holy Bible' ( in its many iterations ( translations ), are not the only ones that bear 'Good News'! Further ( you might wanna sit down for this ), they are NOT the only Revelation of 'God' to 'His' people! ( GASP! ) There are many rabbit-trails we could explore here & some that we have explored previously, within the 'pages' of this blog; questions like, 'who or what IS 'God'?' 'If 'God' is knowable ( as an entity ), why can we only know 'Him' through perusing the pages of a certain book? 'Is the Source of all Life really a 'Him'? Why not a 'Her' ( if there is a 'Him', there MUST be a 'Her', right? )? Must it be a 'Him' or 'Her' ( even both? ), or is such a designation a merely human conceptualization to help us understand the complex simplicity of what Christians call 'the Godhead', or Divinity?!

In Orthodox ( biblical ) tradition, the 'God' of the Bible, who, interestingly enough shares a Name with a Canaanite deity, is the One True God, the Creator of Heaven & Earth. This was in opposition to the prevailing notion of the 'day' that there were many 'Gods'. These 'many 'Gods' were merely different aspects ( as they saw them ) of that One, True God, though. The Bible, having been translated, transliterated & mistranslated over thousands of years from those original tongues, calls these aspects of the One, True God, 'false gods' or 'idols', even 'demons'. ( it's not hard to imagine that much has been lost in the translation ) According to the Journey that has taken me, personally speaking, on a slightly different Path for the past several years, the 'God' of the Bible is also an aspect ( as we have traditionally understood 'Him', anyway ) of this One, True God ( who is neither 'Him' nor 'Her' )!

The Hebrew, Greek & Aramaic Scriptures portray a 'jealous God' ( ? ); One who will suffer no other gods ( before 'Him' ). This 'God' ( elohim ) is the Creator of Heaven & Earth, though many now understand that, read in covenant context, the creation of heaven & earth refers, not to the creation of the physical, material universe, but to the formation of a Covenant, whereby the One, True God revealed 'Himself' as such to a particular ( peculiar ) People, through whom 'He' would disperse this Gospel among the nations. This Good News, of course, whether one understands it literally or mythically ( metaphorically/allegorically? ) is that the Source of All Life 'came down' from Heaven & incarnated in Man, living & dying as a Man ( according to Hebrew mythology ), rising from the Dead ( reincarnation? ) & living forever in 'His' People. The Israelite nation, or People, had 'died' in their sins & must needs be resurrected; the 'Virgin Birth' of Jesus met this necessity & fulfilled all that had been Promised to the Hebrew People. As a picture of humanity, one might note, this 'Gospel' to the Hebrews became the Gospel to the Greeks & Aramaics ( Gentiles ) & thus to all the 'nations'!

The Myth ( Story? ) of Creation that we read in the Hebrew, Greek & Aramaic Scriptures, then, is simply those people's retelling, their understanding of how the Source of All Life descended from 'On High' & brought Life to the Mundane. We may understand from the pages of the Bible ( an interpretation of those ancient Scriptures ) that Humanity is, in some sense, One with the Divinity, having within it that same Spark ( Energy? ) which formed the 'worlds'. ( There are other Scriptures, maybe, that speak more clearly of this 'Spark' within us all, but, for whatever reason, these are the Scriptures we were blessed with! ) We should understand, as well, though, that ALL Scriptures ( from every nation under heaven ) tell this Story ( with some cultural differences )!

The Creator God, then, of the Hebrew, Greek & Aramaic Scriptures, being simply one aspect of the One, True God, the Source of All Life, though 'He', through 'His' incarnation in Jesus the Christ, was the Author of Salvation ( for those peoples ), is One whereby we ( humanity as a whole ) may understand that it is within ourselves, our Higher Selves ( 'further up.......further in' ) that the Power lies ( to save ourselves ). In that sense then, if only in that sense, WE are 'the Way, the Truth & the Life'! Of course, this is dependent, in the personal sense, on how we choose to live our lives: if we choose to live selfishly, as many have done, we will never manifest that Glorious Truth & rather than showing the Way to Salvation ( Heaven ), we will only show others the Path that leads to Destruction ( Hell ).

As the Christ, the Living Incarnation of the Source of All Life ( 'God' to the typical Christian ), Jesus WAS the Way, the Truth & the Life, especially to the Hebrew nation & through them, to 'the nations' ( around them ) as well! In the most universal sense, then, it could truly be said that Jesus IS the Way, the Truth & the Life for ALL humanity because He showed us ( them, really ) that a Man ( generically-man or woman ) was capable of embodying Divinity & that it IS through our choices that we manifest that Divinity, or not. The Divinity, the Source of All Life, call It 'Energy', 'the Universe', or what you will ( 'God'? ), is what It is, not what humanity conceptualizes & creates in the image of their own choosing. It is the Way, the Truth & the Life; there IS truly no other!

Namaste,
Charles Haddon Shank