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nunaem
28th January 2011, 11:59 AM
The Vision of Christ that thou dost see
Is my vision’s greatest enemy.
Thine has a great hook nose like thine;
Mine has a snub nose like to mine.
Thine is the friend of all Mankind,
Mine speaks in parables to the blind,
Thine loves the same world that mine hates,
Thy heaven-doors are my hell-gates....
Both read the Bible day and night,
But thou reads black where I read white.

—William Blake: The Everlasting Gospel


"Jesus did not envisage an advance of the whole mass. The possibility of movement depended on seeing, and see the mass of people could not. They were without either eyes or ears for the world he lived in. For his purposes they were dead, debris, obstruction to those who could move, trees that could not bring forth fruit were fit only to be cut down and burned. For him the Kingdom of God was nothing that required any "advancing." It was not like some old prairie wagon or royal chariot that had to be pushed laboriously up a hill. The Kingdom of God did not require any doing-to-it at all. It already was, it already existed, as a present reality. It was a way of seeing life, oneself, other people, the world, the universe. It was a way of seeing that made everything look profoundly different. It was a way of seeing that that depended on having a certain kind of eyes, a new and added faculty of perception, which most people lacked. And the whole task was to live then and there according to this different way of seeing, right in the face of a world that was blind to it."

"Jesus' teachings were not meant for "the world," for those who intended to stay in the world and do the things that the life of the world requires--that is, for the great mass. It was addressed only to those who had begun to emerge from the mass' inertness, for those who were spiritually alive or struggling to become alive--in short, for the few in Jesus' inner circle or their like. Only for them."

"The alive person, however acts spontaneously. From the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaketh when it speaketh genuinely: all else is a lie. And this was why Jesus spent time with the publicans and harlots--not at all out of pity, because they were outcasts, but because they were less starched and collared in virtue. They were more real, more honest. There was no pretense about them. Their knees had not stiffened into poses, nor were they everlastingly striking attitudes, and thinking how fine they were. They were at least going somewhere--maybe in the wrong direction, but at least going somewhere, and doing it openly and strongly. They were nearer reality than the "virtuous" ones who had got in the habit of living for appearances."

"The essence of Jesus' teaching, therefore is in regard to that different way of seeing that he called the Kingdom of God. And life consisted not in striving to live up to some rule of conduct, or in effecting changes in other men or in social conditions, but in undertaking to act strictly in accord with one's own way of seeing, even though it was flatly contrary to all the codes, traditions and practices of one's day.
But this is difficult, costly, and dangerous. It requires an ability to make sure of one's course and to hold it (if necessary, in the face of the whole world), from resources one finds entirely within oneself. The overwhelming majority of men simply do not desire such a thing. They cannot even conceive it as desirable. And at the mere thought of being called upon to stand so utterly alone, and to be sure and strong without anyone to lean on or to quote for authority, they are seized with panic."

"There is evidence enough that Jesus did not attempt to make them understand. He was not trying to keep the sheep at his heels. He was not trying to get them somewhere. He was not trying to do anything with them. He had no use for sheep.26 To live the life that he found laid upon him to live, he had to cut loose from all sheep, and to unlearn sheep ways, to get the sheep nature out of himself. Insofar as he went to sheep at all, it was to find among them those who were not sheep. There were those who were like young bull-calves, who knew not that they were different from the cows among which they had grown up, who needed once to hear a real bull bellow and to feel the vibration of that bellow in their very bones, before they could realize that they were not like the rest, not placid cows, but themselves bulls, bulls at least in the making. So that from that hour they were different, and lost to the way of the herd they had grown up with. When Jesus went to the crowd it was always with this purpose. He was combing the crowd for his own kind. His parables were choice bait. There was a concealed hook behind it, a big hook for big fish. The minnows might nibble at it, but there was never any danger that they would run away with it. It could be only those he was looking for, the big fish, who could attempt to bolt the bait whole, and so get the hook fastened in their very gut. As Jesus spoke, therefore, he was ever watching for the tell-tale signs of a catch, as a fisherman watches his bob. And his innermost teaching was ever reserved for those few who, by the light in their eyes, had made it manifest that they had some comprehension of what he was driving at.

This is implicit enough in the whole course of the record, but there is also explicit evidence in the same direction. Did not Jesus say, “Give not that which is holy to the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under feet, and turn again and rend you” (Matt. 7:6)? And quite in keeping with this warning I find also, “And seeing the multitudes [ who were the crowd], he went up into a mountain [apart, where the crowd was not], and when he had sat down, his disciples [who were not the crowd, but the inner circle, the few who came nearest to understanding what it was all about] came unto him: and he opened his mouth and taught them [and not the crowd], saying. . .” (Matt. 5:1). So that, from gleanings like these and from the sheer impossibility that the masses could comprehend a man like Jesus, I have come to believe that in the beginning the whole teaching as we have it in the Gospels, was something reserved for the inner few, and that it was never intended to be given out to the world, as it is now, with the democratic indiscriminateness of a radio broadcast. Originally it was anything but a universal gospel, anything but a message for all and sundry. Certainly it was not for the inferior, and the broken, and those who suffered from their own botchedness. Jesus’ motive was not pity. He did not stoop. He was looking for those who could see, those who could hear. Ability to see and hear was the test for admission to the inner circle. The heart of the teaching was reserved for those very few who had proved themselves possessed of the kind of seeing that belonged to the “Kingdom of God,” and who were determined to live according to that way of seeing, even though it brought them into head-on collision with the whole world about them."

- William Gayley Simpson

Jesus: Tribute and Re-Appraisal. (http://www.solargeneral.com/library/which-way-western-man/wwwm03a.html)

Jesus in Retrospect (http://www.solargeneral.com/library/which-way-western-man/wwwm03b.html)

Glass
28th January 2011, 04:22 PM
that was good. thx.