Tracing Jesus - I

(A self-styled history of what happened to christianity overy the past twelve hundred years. My version of the story.)

Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Silence the voices within. Go deaf to the voices without. Relax. And then feel the force that is in you. The force that has infinite power to do good. The force that makes you feel positive, happy and in harmony with your surroundings. That is the god within you. The stronger you feel this force, the closer you are to divinity. The closer you are to god. And when you open your eyes, you smile and only goodness comes out of you. Good actions, good speech, good thought.

You are now Jesus. Jesus the god, Jesus the divine. You are also Muhammad. You are also Ram, Buddha. You are one with the divine being.

For Christians, Muslims and Hindus alike, this is heresy. If I were born five hundred years earlier in Europe, I could be burned at the stake for writing this. So would you, for reading. But this is the heart of Gnostic philosophy. If you understand this, you attain Gnosis. The final frontier of oneness with god. And perhaps it is this simplicity of attaining divinity that scares religious fanatics and church fathers the most.

Twelve hundred years ago, in the Middle East, bordering the Mediterranean Sea, , one man (or perhaps it is a group, with him as the most elevated person in the group) attains divinity through self purification. Cutting beyond the religious morass of his times, he rediscovers the ancient roadmap to being one with god. He rediscovers the belief system that we know today as Gnosis. He asks his followers to preach this truth. The forgotten ancient truth that god lies within and can be reached through godlike, pure thoughts and actions.

In six years he has about hundred followers and believers, has caught the imagination of an entire race, and threatens to undermine an ancient cult. His doctrine of love and forgiveness paves his way to torture and death on the cross. But he has laid the foundation, shown his followers the way. He has given the message that god lies within ones self, and not in the temple.

For fifty odd years his followers fight the existing religious cult to spread this message. They are persecuted, tortured, killed, yet they continue to spread the base of Christianity. The message of Christianity is a powerful one, and draws everyone to itself. Its persecutors find the going increasingly tough.

Then one day, one man with political vision and far sight, with a cosmopolitan upbringing and an open mind, decides to turn the tables on this select group of people who call themselves Christians. Instead of persecuting them, like he was doing earlier, he becomes its greatest ambassador. And he goes one step ahead of the existing Christians. He throws the gates of this belief system open to everyone all across the world. This man is Paul of Tarsus, the man who took the message of Jesus outside the land of Jerusalem, into the heart of ancient civilized world - Rome.

It was at this point when the idea of elevating Jesus from a divine human being, to being god himself, first surfaced. Paul needed an idea that would be lapped up by the non-jewish “gentiles”. An idea powerful enough to divert their attention from the pantheons and the emperor worships. This idea was Jesus’s resurrection. That Jesus had ascended to heaven after three days of crucifixion. Paul propagated the idea that Jesus was resurrected after death and ascended to heaven in body. Christianity, from being a cult of the chosen ones, changed overnight into a religion of mass appeal.

And Paul's version of the message of Jesus, or the Pauline Christianity, became the foundation for modern Christianity. From it emegered the ideas of Jesus carrying our sins on his shoulder, absolving us of all guilt. From it emerged the idea of confession as a ticket to purity, even after the direst of sins. This was a convenient and easy version of christianity. And it spread fast.

Pauline Christianity was just another doctrine, another version of Christianity. The average person was open to listen, question, reject or object to these doctrines. You could chose to be part of the Gnostic Christians, who believed that they could all be like Jesus by doing things the way Jesus did. Or you could be a part of the Pauline group and worship Jesus as the god, who would cleanse you of all your sins and thus hold you free of them.

In this way four hundred years passed. The followers of Christ increased in number across the Roman Empire. These early Christians were of various doctrines and belief systems and the only unifying thread perhaps was that they all had Jesus as the central figure.

Then an emperor, desperately in need of a theme to strengthen his hold on the people of his nation stumbles on the Pauline doctrine of Christianity. It has all the qualities he is looking for. It is a young belief system with no political or strong social force behind it. It is gaining popularity at an increasing rate, with a strong base of preachers, philosophers and believers.

All this new religion needs, from Emperor Constantine's point of view, is a state backed version, which serves his political purpose of unifying the nation into a hierarchical structure. Constantine realized that there was no greater binding force for man, than his religion and his god. When the idea of the emperor as the god began to lose popularity, Constantine decided to make god himself the emperor, and rule under his name. Hence came the day of the convening of Nicene council, and the rise of the Roman Catholic version of Christianity. The message of Jesus, and his early followers was to be lost for the next thousand years, under heavy firing from this "official" version of Christianity.