The Christ Consciousness movement is a technically heretical view of Christian dogma. It’s sort of neo-Gnosticism. It focuses on the Christ and the Holy Spirit rather than the person of Jesus the Christ as a phenomenon, and had a Greek emphasis. The word literally means christening or christened one. In a sense, it’s like the eastern concept of a Buddha.
Gnosis is a Greek word as is Christ, and Gnosis is the idea that knowledge of self is knowledge of God. Really in a sense it is adhering to a few passages in the Bible.
A more mystical approach? Yes. Which from my own familiarity with the Bible actually seems to be advocated by Jesus, but the concepts that allow an “organized faith” are deliberately eschewed.
Christ and Buddha come from the same general vibe space, yeah? There are rare references to John the Baptist using a Sanskrit word that roughly means Buddha, and the baptism was potentially a Buddhist practice that Jesus underwent. There isn’t really a practice of baptism as we commonly know it in Judaism.
Christ was trying to show the Jews that the law is not only written, but is within when one connects to the spirit. There is even an emphasis on the concept of internal guidance and is the main “dogma” (if it can be said to have one) of the Christ Consciousness movement.
The Christ Consciousness movement does advocate meditation. They quote a passage from the Bible about retreating into a cloister and being still to know that “I am God”. They don’t believe that any one person is God, but that we are all a manifestation of the divine.
Orthodox seems to worry more about how belief is shown, rather then how it is felt. Yes. There are people who have a less formal affiliation with the Christ Consciousness movement, but the conflict between Gnostic and Orthodox Christianity does still exist. The word cult literally refers to a body of practices, where creed literally refers to a body of beliefs. I was at one point a rather devoted Christian of an orthodox body. I was seeking a closer relationship with God and deeper understanding. But I got sick of the cult of football and gossip, and then when the clergy’s politicking came in, I was done. My Dad even told me that I was following it too much. That I had to be more open to secular reality, in a sense he was right.
The spirit is not in the spectators, yet they are part of the understanding. Maybe they are the necessary paradox as were the Jews in Christ’s time? Yes. So even after my break with Orthodox Christianity, I was still open to the teachings of Jesus and in a sense I still am, but I would not call myself his follower.
Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.
Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~