How should we view Jesus in the Dharmic Religions?

[ajay0]

The russian writer Nicolas Notovitch, after visiting Hemis Monastery in Ladakh, wrote 'The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ' upon reading the tibetan text "Life of Issa" which traces the journey of Jesus from Israel to the east and his study of the dharmic traditions. The book was published in 1894 in French and subsequently in other languages.


Notovitch's book obviously invited heavy controversy when published and a major propaganda and smear campaign was launched against him and his work. Swami Abhedananda, a brother monk of Swami Vivekananda and disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, himself visited Hemis monastery in 1922 to verify the reports of Notovich. The lamas at the monastery confirmed the same to Abhedananda.

The Swami himself got the tibetan manuscript translated with the help of a lama, and subsequently published his travelogue along with the notes taken in a book form in bengali and english.

Swami Abhedananda - Wikipedia

In 1899, the founder of the ahmediya sect of Islam, Mirza Ghulam Ahmed,wrote the book Jesus in India claiming Jesus's presence in India.

Jesus in India (book) - Wikipedia

In his book Jesus lived in India, the German author Holger Kersten also promoted the ideas of Nicolas Notovitch and Mirza Ghulam Ahmed.


Paramahamsa Yogananda, author of the famous work 'Autobiography of a Yogi' and the Zoroastrian spiritual master Meher Baba also had stated that Jesus had lived in the far east and India.

 

[Vinayaka]

Here's Rajiv Malhotra's take on it ...

 

[wizanda]

And if Yeshua took his wisdom from Hinduism and Buddhism, why not we go to the first sources rather than through Yeshua.

Because everything is One, and if we have a large jigsaw puzzle, where we have most of it already laid out, and we miss the last piece in the puzzle, we never understand the whole.

In my opinion.

 

[MonkeyFire]

Jesus is the passive Buddha.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Because everything is One, and if we have a large jigsaw puzzle, where we have most of it already laid out, and we miss the last piece in the puzzle, we never understand the whole. In my opinion.

There are many last pieces in the puzzle. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the Mahdi of the Ahmaddiyas or Dada Lekhraj Kriplani of the Brahmakumaris and not Yeshua. There have been many messengers, manifestations, prophets after Yeshua.

Jesus is the passive Buddha.

Yeah, like creating a ruckus at the temple or sending the swine down the escarpment or looking at a class-mate to make him fall dead or cursing the cities. Passive Buddha, indeed! Why should Christians be after Dharmic people all the time? We have our ways, you have yours.

 

[Marcion]

First of all, I don't see that there is such a thing as a "dharmic religion". This is falsely trying to appropriate western thinking with eastern philosophy. Either you have 'dharma', which is a purely spiritual philosophical concept or you have religion which is a much more recent cultural (western) phenomenon.

However, it is possible to try to view the historical Yeshua from an eastern philosophical perspective but that of course depends on the type of eastern philosophy that you support.

My viewpoint is more tantric-yogic and I see the historical Yeshua (not the Jesus of the more hellenistic Jesus Christ) as a spiritual master or teacher of a tantric type of mysticism as reflected in the teachings of Q-lite and in his behaviour in the first half of gMark. I see the Jesus of the passion story as an important secondary development leading to the more religious Christianity, so leading away from the more tantric historical Yeshua and heavily blurring it.

Although I find the concept of karma in the teachings of Yeshua, I don't find a direct reference to reincarnation, which does not mean it may not have been present before the Q-lite sayings were copied into gMatthew and gLuke.
I don't believe the ideas about Yeshua having travelled to India have a solid base but his teachings may have been somehow influenced by eastern philosophy.

 

[Loviatar]

Basically the core of why I look to Eastern religions rather than Western ones is the inability to reconcile a deity that's both cosmically all-powerful and completely all-loving with logic. So, I can't believe Jesus was the embodiment of a deity that's both. But otherwise, his teachings seem to line up nicely with Dharmic teachings and what feels right.

The go-to explanation that I've generally seen is that he was a guru or even a bodhisattva, which seems plausible to me. A more out-there option though, but one which is consistent with the Gospels as a whole rather than just snippets of them, would actually be viewing him in light of the Hindu "avatar" tradition. Who's to say he wasn't the earthly incarnation of some deity who has a tremendous amount of power over this world specifically, and who had a keen interest in the Jewish people?

 

[Marcion]

A more out-there option though, but one which is consistent with the Gospels as a whole rather than just snippets of them, would actually be viewing him in light of the Hindu "avatar" tradition. Who's to say he wasn't the earthly incarnation of some deity who has a tremendous amount of power over this world specifically, and who had a keen interest in the Jewish people?

If you keep in mind though that only a part of all people who practise a Hindu type of path believe in this philosophy of 'avatarism'.

 

[Loviatar]

If you keep in mind though that only a part of all people who practise a Hindu type of path believe in this philosophy of 'avatarism'.

Yeah, I should have specified "Vaishnavite, Shakti, Mahayana and Tibetan Buddhist." I didn't mean to lump Shaivites, Sikhs, or others in.

 

[atanu]

I am more so asking Hindus if they believe Jesus is cosmic or heavenly in any sense, because Buddhists of course have different views about the beings that descend from the heaven realms- even among ourselves...

I have not much interest in historicity of any name but I have interest on the impact component of a teacher towards maintenance of a spiritual view versus a materialist view. In this, I think his teachings have been very influential for spiritualism. Hindus however do not need that teaching in addition to what we already have (Sri Sri Chandrasekhara Saraswati of Kamakoti Peetam says that it is true for all religions). However, studying Jesus' teachings with an open mind can do no harm, IMO.

 

[Jainarayan]

Yeah, I should have specified "Vaishnavite, Shakti, Mahayana and Tibetan Buddhist." I didn't mean to lump Shaivites, Sikhs, or others in.

Avatars are a uniquely Vaishnava concept. People think of the Daśāvatāra, but there are actually 22 avatars of Vishnu. One list puts the number at 39. Those 22 (or 39) manifestations are full avatars (purṇāvatāra e.g. Rāma, Krishna, Narasimha), partial avatars (anshāvatāra), lilāvatāra, and expansions of Vishnu.

 

[Loviatar]

Avatars are a uniquely Vaishnava concept. People think of the Daśāvatāra, but there are actually 22 avatars of Vishnu. One list puts the number at 39. Those 22 (or 39) manifestations are full avatars (purṇāvatāra e.g. Rāma, Krishna, Narasimha), partial avatars (anshāvatāra), lilāvatāra, and expansions of Vishnu.

So far as I know, Shakti beliefs generally include avatars of the Devi as well. Avatar - Wikipedia

Some forms of Buddhism also have a similar doctrine by way of Trikaya, one of the three of which makes earthly Buddhahood a sort of incarnation of a force with two other outside bodies. Whether it's the same concept as avatars probably relies on someone's definition of divinity though, it's arguable.

Speaking of the Vaishnava incarnations though: I find the parallels between Revelations descriptions of Christ's second coming and common Vaishnava descriptions of Kalki really interesting. Riding down from the sky on a white horse, associated with something fiery (eyes for Christ, sword for Kalki), who makes war on the chaos and depravity that the world's sunken into.

 

[Jainarayan]

So far as I know, Shakti beliefs generally include avatars of the Devi as well. Avatar - Wikipedia

I just don't think Shaktas or Shaivas use the term or concept or concept of avatars as Vaishnavas do. It's more like 'forms'. We have a Shaiva and Shakta or three here. maybe they could weigh in.

Speaking of the Vaishnava incarnations though: I find the parallels between Revelations descriptions of Christ's second coming, and Vaishnava descriptions of Kalki, very interesting.

Simple explanation imv... most of the Jesus stories were lifted from Hindu stories and writings, which preceded Jesus by about 1,000 years:

• Krishna was born in a prison cell. Jesus was born in a cave.
• An evil king tried to kill Krishna. An evil king tried to kill Jesus.
• Krishna's father secreted him away for safety. Jesus's (foster) father took the family to Egypt to escape the threat.
• Krishna showed his friend Arjuna his divine form. Jesus's transfiguration to his disciples.
• Krishna died from an iron arrowhead wound to fulfill a prophecy (actually a curse) when his work was done. Jesus died nailed to a cross to fulfill a prophecy when his work was done.
• Krishna was a cowherd. Jesus called himself shepherd (granted it was metaphorical, but what religious story isn't?).

There are plenty more I'm sure, but those are the ones that come to mind. How did this happen? Easy... for thousands of years the peoples of Eurasia traded with each other and otherwise had contact. The Silk Road was not one Point A to Point B road. It was a network that ran all through the near East, Middle East, through the Roman Empire to China, all through South Asia. Thousands of travelers made their way back and forth. Buddhist artifacts have been found in Scandinavia in Norse settlements. People, stories and news get around.

 

[Aupmanyav]

We have enough avatars and do not need any more. Keep your avatara to yourself. Completely irrelevant for us. We are not going to bite. We do not like intruders. His followers created may-hem all around the world and still do.

 

[Marcion]

If we should have any view of him at all, that is...

Firstly, I don't believe that Dharma has anything to do with religion, so i.m.o there is no such thing as a "dharmic religion".
However, I do subscribe to the ideal of following Dharma.

I see the Jesus of Christianity as a syncretic mostly mythical personality that mixes in Jewish, Hellenistic, perhaps even Roman religious elements with an originally more purely tantric or mystic Yeshua the Nazarene (not from a place called Nazareth).
This tantric or mystic Yeshua has been obscured by the gospel writers who used the tantric teachings of Yeshua second hand by twisting the original sayings of Yeshua into a different (syncretic) direction while framing them with their own ("false") sayings of Jesus.

So the Christ figure has very little to do with the more dharmic teachings of the original Yeshua (if indeed he was a historic figure, but why else would the original sayings be so much more powerful and mystic than those of the gospel writers?) and the link with the character of the original Yeshua is quite weak in the christian gospels. It seems the gospel writers did not have a grasp of the meaning of the original sayings and/or were not interested in it, quite a remarkable and mysterious thing when I think about it.

The Yeshua of the original sayings teaches the law of karma and how to avoid accumulation of samskara's by focussing on serving the loving Father in everything and by implementing a mystic approach to life. No christian author in the New Testament seems to have been able to really explain the teachings the way they are meant. Which makes me wonder whether the Ebionites still revered the original sayings collection and still tried to understand and practise the original teachings of Yeshua. They were vegetarians and lived an ascetic life style, so in that sense they still lived in line with the teachings of Yeshua. Sadly we know little more about them as they disappeared from history after only a few centuries.

 

[Aupmanyav]

You might request the admin to change the name of the forum in which you are posting. Dharmic religions are those for which social regulations, 'dharma', righteous action, gets precedence over the idea of Gods.

 

[ajay0]

The Yeshua of the original sayings teaches the law of karma and how to avoid accumulation of samskara's by focussing on serving the loving Father in everything and by implementing a mystic approach to life. No christian author in the New Testament seems to have been able to really explain the teachings the way they are meant. Which makes me wonder whether the Ebionites still revered the original sayings collection and still tried to understand and practise the original teachings of Yeshua. They were vegetarians and lived an ascetic life style, so in that sense they still lived in line with the teachings of Yeshua. Sadly we know little more about them as they disappeared from history after only a few centuries.

Glad that you mentioned the Ebionites and their vegetarian lifestyle.

Imho, Jesus had come to India through the Silk Route connecting India and Israel at that time through the numerous merchant wagons criss-crossing the Silk route, offering his services as a carpenter for food or transport. He may have arrived in India and probably studied the dharmic religions and synthesized it with his background of Judaism, resulting in Christianity. This may provide the reason for the numerous similarities between these religions and also the reason for his absence in the bible during his teenage years and youth.

The early Christian traditions such as the Ebionites and Essenes probably epitomised the original christianity as taught by Christ till his teachings were compiled and edited by the romans in the council of constantinople, so as to make it more palatable to roman sensibilities. Many traditions of christianity such as christmas are originally roman fertility festivals.

The edited teachings were then passed off as the bible and all teachings which varied with it were deemed as heretic and wiped out, thus completing the disintegration of the original christianity as Christ taught.

Christs teaching 'I and my Father are one', is astonishingly similar to the vedic saying 'Aham Brahmasmi - I am He', and also the sufi enlightened master Mansur Al Hallaj's saying 'Anal Haq - I am the truth'.

It is quite probable that Christ said these teachings from the vantage point of enlightenment, and like Mansur, he too was tortured and killed in the name of blasphemy , as the people then were not able to comprehend Advaita or nonduality in the proper perspective.

 

[Rishi]

Ancient Dharmic religion pre-dates Rabbi Jesus by thousands of years. We’ve had no view of him simply because he does not exist in the primordial ancient Dharmic religions.

 

[Marcion]

Here's Rajiv Malhotra's take on it ...

This man is twisting things around and creating a false form of hateful paranoia.
I can imagine and I applaud that many countries and cultures wish to rid themselves of the inferiority complex imposed on them by white European imperialists.
But this should not be done by spreading nonsense like this or e.g. the nonsense that caucasian people never immigrated into India from Iran but that the Indians were a sort of "ready-made isolated ethnic purely Indian mix" right from the start of time.
There is plenty to be proud of the rich culture of India without inventing such irrational stories inciting hatred and divisive thinking.

If Jesus was ever in India and learnt his (tantric) teachings there, the knowledge of this is not at all a danger for the South Asian tantric cult that pervades India but rather a danger for the view of the syncretic religion of christianity exposing it as too much diverted from what the historical Jesus himself originally taught.

If it was true that the teachings of Jesus originated (in part) in India, this illustrates that India is more or less historically at the centre of most of the world's religions or spiritual paths. This has nothing whatsoever to do with proselitizing done by christians or muslims in India. Besides, such christian missionaries never argue that Jesus lived in India.

If certain Indians are so much concerned that their lower castes and poorer classes are turned into christians, muslims or buddhist then they should make an effort to teach them indigenous forms of spirituality such as yoga or tantra.
This sectarian attitude that people who become christians, muslims or buddhist are "lost to hinduism" is a very dangerous divisive way of thinking. How people follow their dharma should be their own choice, it should have nothing to do with creating hatred and suspicion among so-called 'religions'.

Christians and muslims are known for creating nasty divides between so-called "believers and non-believers". If you transpose this divisive way of thinking into so-called 'hinduism' then you are only copying the worst from these religions. The world does not need this way of thinking, rather it should treat the whole of humanity as belonging to one single human culture as was taught by the great spiritual personalities of South Asia.

 

[Aupmanyav]

If Jesus was ever in India and learnt his (tantric) teachings there, .. If it was true that the teachings of Jesus originated (in part) in India, ..

There is not even a slightest shred of evidence for it. The Kashmiri Muslims say so to aid their tourism industry, and Buddhists do so for evangelical purposes - "See, even your Jesus found wisdom only from Buddhism".