The source of the teaching of Jesus (Issa) -Christ (Krishna)
- Posted on 11/30/2021
Source. Translated by Shamboo.
What did Jesus do between the ages of twelve and thirty? We are aware of his miraculous birth. The Bible also speaks of a famous temple incident at the age of twelve. And then we talk about him again at the age of thirty, when he was baptized in the Jordan River. With all due respect for his accomplishments after that age, we still have eighteen years left without a trace of him.
Is it irrelevant? On the contrary, if we were to accept that Jesus Christ changed the face of the Earth in three years - and He did - then those missing eighteen years become crucially important in the life of a person who is considered God embodied by many - and at least as a saint by others - so every moment is essential, every gesture is instructive, every entertainment is precious.
But the Bible is silent about its missing years. Since 1947, numerous scrolls of parchments as well as fragments have been found in the Dead Sea in Israel and in Nag Hammadi in Egypt. While these findings tell us a bit more about life in first century Palestine as well as biblical culture in general, they do not tell us much about "the lost years of Jesus" as they have come to be called.
However, the newly discovered manuscripts serve to inform our understanding of the level of innovation and interpolation of Western religious literature, especially non-canonical works like Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha . They were officially considered heretics by the Roman Catholic Church but were part of the Catholic literary tradition. It was by studying the Dead Sea Scrolls and those from Nag Hammadi in Egypt that scholars became aware that Christianity was selective in the promulgation of transcendent truth. There were things the Church was hiding from us - and we wanted to know all the details.
So many people began to reconsider Jesus' missing eighteen years. Books written by theologians, religious and independent scholars flooded the market. Reverend CR Potter for example published a very informative book in 1962 called The Lost Years of Jesus Revealed .
Researchers like Anne Read and J. Furst informed the public about Edgar Cayce's work in this area, each publishing their own fascinating book on the subject. In 1976, Andreas Faber-Kaiser published the outstanding work titled Jesus Mouru au Kashmir, which not only explained in detail what happened in the missing eighteen years but also promulgated a rather convincing revolutionary theory of what s 'happened after the crucifixion when Jesus was taken down from the cross (we will return to the Kashmir hypothesis later).
And perhaps the most recent work on Jesus' Missing Eighteen Years has been done by Elizabeth Clare Prophet, whose fairly comprehensive book The Lost Years of Jesus deals with the subject in a fairly nuanced way. In addition, it should be noted that all of the researchers cited above (among others that we will mention shortly) have found to their greatest satisfaction that Jesus has actually been in India. Reverend Potter, however, was more tempted to believe that Jesus spent those missing eighteen years among the Essenes. Nonetheless, even the Reverend seems to admit that this time was spent between studying with the Essenes and a trip to India.
The most famous contemporary work on the travels of Jesus, however, comes from the couple Dick and Janet Bock, whose meticulous research work gave birth to a film The Lost Years (1978) and a book The Mystery of Jesus (1980).
Writer and director Janet Bock tells us: "Little by little it became obvious to us that those years were missing because someone had taken them out of history, of the Bible. One could not imagine that Jesus suddenly appeared in Galilee at the age of thirty and hid most of his life from his disciples whom he loved and whom he asked to follow him. And it doesn't seem possible that those years were considered unimportant and passed away without saying a word… So the idea grew that at one point what was known in his life was erased. Examining the data of the early Christian Church, it became evident that the first councils of the Church, especially the First Council of Nice in 325 AD changed many points of doctrine… These missing years were redacted because they did not coincide with the political needs of the expanding Church. "
The research of the past forty years - by the Bocks and the other authors mentioned above - has lifted the veil on a controversy that has been hushed up since the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. This controversy - over Jesus' travels to India - began in 1894, when a Russian journalist named Nicolai Notovich published a mysterious and provocative book called The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ. Right after the Turko-Russian war, Notovich seems to be starting a trip to the East. In 1887, he arrived in Kashmir where he heard about a Buddhist monastery in Leh, the capital of Ladakh.
Out of curiosity and perhaps also by a stroke of fate, he decided to pay a visit to the monks of Leh. There he was told about an old document. The lama in charge was quiet on the matter - but revealed to him that this document spoke of the life of Saint Issa. (In Latin the spelling of Jesus is Iesus; in Arabic, Isa. Additionally, it should be noted that Isa is the Sanskrit root of the word Isvara, an Indian name for God which literally means "the Supreme Controller".)
Russian explorer Nicholas Notovich.
Notovich was told that the ancient Pali manuscripts were in the palace of the Dalai Lama and that these works were copies of older Sanskrit versions. Copies of these copies existed in a few Buddhist monasteries in the region. Notovich realized that he was fortunate enough to be in one of these monasteries.
The desire to find these scrolls became an obsession for him, and Notovich offered the Chief Lama three gifts - an alarm, a watch and a thermometer - hoping the Buddhist priest would be kind enough to show him the life of Saint Issa in return ... without success.
However, when he left the monastery on his horse, he injured his leg and was forced to return to the monastery, which brought him good luck. At his bedside, the chief lama was now taking care of him and finally revealed to him two large volumes in boxes. This, the lama thought, will make the tired Russian traveler happy. Indeed, Notovitch was overwhelmed. There, in front of him, written on leaves damaged by time was written the story of Saint Issa.
Notovich's leg healed quickly, and he arranged to get an interpreter to translate Issa's manuscript. Annotating the story verbatim, Notovich then quickly returned to the West and published The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ.
The book informs us that at the age of thirteen Jesus left the home of Mary and Joseph in Nazareth. He traveled with a merchant caravan to the holy cities of India and even to the sacred river Ganges. Later he went to Egypt to penetrate the mysteries of the Great Pyramid. And on his way home, he explored the various philosophies of Athens and Persepolis. He returned to Israel when he was twenty-nine - eighteen years later.
It should also be noted that the popular book by Levi H. Dowling called The Gospel of the Aquarian is now known to have been inspired by the works of Notovich. This book was published in 1908, just fourteen years after Notovich published The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ,Levi claimed that this book was a psychic document he received as a revelation. Naturally, the academic world was skeptical and declared the book as simple plagiarism. With a few embellishments and some personal beliefs added by Levi in the book, it tells more or less the same thing as the authoritative Notovich story.
According to ancient manuscripts found by Notovich, Jesus spent six years learning and teaching the scriptures of India (the Vedas) in Benares, Jagannath Puri and other cities in the state of Orissa. It was there that his philosophy began to take shape. Although he found Vedic knowledge of great value, he also saw how this knowledge could be misused. For example, the Brahmin priests - the intellectual class of society - exploited the lower classes, especially the Sudras, teaching that knowledge of the Vedas was only intended for the upper strata of society. Jesus found it repugnant. The Love of God was for every man, woman and child.
Jesus decided on his own to rectify the situation and began to teach the Sudras Vedic knowledge. He therefore initiated his activities as a religious reformer which would mark history when he applied them upon his return to the West. There the Pharisees taught a legalistic religion. Jesus reminded them that there was a spirit behind the law. In the works of Notovich, we also see Jesus who warns the Brahmins too aware of their castes that they have forgotten the true teachings of the Vedas.
The Vedas teaches the principle of class distinction. But, originally this distinction was based on qualification and work. In Orissa, by this time, the whole concept had become distorted, and people were claiming caste rights based on their birth. If someone was born into a Brahmin family, he was considered a Brahmin - even if he lacked the necessary qualifications such as cleanliness, austerity, compassion and truthfulness. Jesus sought to put an end to this hypcrisy.
The original Vedic idea, however, was fully accepted by Jesus and the story relates how he incorporated these ideas when he returned to Palestine. Jesus taught that every living thing should worship God according to their own abilities. This concept is completely Vedic, where everyone - depending on their abilities and their work - naturally falls into a category or "castes". And these castes were considered equal in the sense that they facilitated a particular type of service to the Supreme Being. Some people fall into the category of the intellectual class ( Brahmins ), others are administrators ( ksatriya ), others have more talents of traders ( Vaisya), while others fall into the category of manual workers ( sudra ). But all are equal in the sight of God.
It is not surprising to find Jesus bullying the "Brahmins" for their misinterpretations of Vedic knowledge. In fact, they were not Brahmins, at least as far as their skills and spiritual knowledge are concerned. Similarly, the British criticized the caste system nineteen hundred years later.
Either out of sheer ignorance or impure motivation, the Brahmins of Orissa plotted to kill Jesus, giving further reason to believe that they were not true Brahmins (it is against the Brahmins code to kill in any way. most of the Brahmins being strict vegetarians). After several unsuccessful attempts to kill Jesus, the master flees Jagannath Puri never to return.
Issa's story informs us that after escaping, Jesus stayed in Nepal, deep in the Himalayas. There he spent another six years teaching the science of spirituality. Returning through Persia, he preached against the concept of two gods, one for good, one for evil. Denouncing the concept as a primitive form of polytheism, Jesus was not very well received by the Zoroastrians, who believed in the battle between the two gods. " There is only one God," Jesus (Issa) taught them, " and that is our Father in heaven ."
The following part of Issa's manuscript (and therefore of Notovich's book) is almost exactly the same as the Bible account we are familiar with, Pons Pilate, the Crucifixion, and the Apostles. So what the ancient Buddhist manuscript offers is a possible explanation for Jesus' activities during those missing eighteen years, of which the Bible says nothing.
At this point most readers can probably maintain their initial skepticism. After all, other than the words of a Buddhist monk and a Russian traveler, there is no concrete evidence that this manuscript really existed or that its contents are authentic. Additionally, most readers are probably unsure whether it is possible to travel between Palestine and India at this time. In addition, and this is perhaps the most important question; why would Jesus want to go to India? We are now going to tackle these subjects.
While it is difficult to determine the authenticity and validity of Issa's manuscript, it is not impossible either. In fact, even the attitude of the Church on the subject is interesting. When they were confronted with the question by Notovich, they dodged it. Sometimes they would argue with him, other times they just ignored his work, they seemed fearful all the time, as if they had something to hide, some secret to protect.
According to Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Cardinal Rotelli opposed Notovich's work because he felt it was "premature" , that the world was not ready to hear it. " The Church is already suffering too much from this new wave of atheist thought" said Rotelli to Notovich. The cardinal was obviously fearful of losing his disciples and those around him who were already skeptical of the doctrine of the Church. They didn't need another problem to deal with.
In Rome, Notovich showed his version of the Issa manuscript to a cardinal who was close to the Pope. " What's good about posting that he said?" , said the prelate nervously. " You're going to make a host of enemies. If it's all about the money…" Notovich refused the bribe. Instead he published his book.
Over time, Notovich discovered that the Vatican bookstore contained sixty-three manuscripts that tell of Issa's story - ancient documents that were brought to Rome by Christian missionaries who preached in China, Egypt, Arabia, and India. " No wonder Church officials reacted in a weird way," Notovich realized, " Issa's story is nothing new to them!" , Notovitch extrapolated that Saint Thomas could even have been one of these missionaries in India, which according to The Catholic Encyclopedia evangelized India and all the territories between the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea.
This brings us to the question of first century AD travel between Palestine and India. The apocryphal book The Acts of Thomas describes the apostle preaching the gospel and performing miracles in " the lands of the Ganges" . What is more, Notovich quickly noticed that Thomas could not preach in his native Greek, or even in Hebrew because the peoples of India spoke only dialects from Pali and Sanskrit. It is therefore perfectly probable that he learned the language and that he even had something to do with the Issa manuscript (being one of the only disciples of Jesus in India at that time.)
There is now no longer any doubt as to Thomas's first century preaching activities in India. Researchers have definitively proven that there were trade routes that linked east to west, routes that were frequented regularly. Overland routes led to northern India (where Issa traveled) while sea routes approached southern India. So nobody disputes the fact that Thomas had to preach in India in a very obvious way. What was possible for him was also possible for Jesus.
There is, however, still more decisive evidence of Thomas's travels in the East. Indeed, according to Professor William Steuart McBirnie in his book The Search for the Twelve Apostles :"It has already been proven that the sea route to southern India was widely used in Roman times for the pepper trade and that Roman gold and silver coins from the first centuries AD were discovered in the soil of Malabarese (South India). In addition, there is indisputable evidence of the existence of King Gondophares and his brother Gad as historical figures and not just figures of legends. Their names have been found on excavated coins and also on an inscription from Gandhara which determines their reign around 19-45 AD in Indus Valley Scytho-India. "
According to The Acts of Thomas , the apostle traveled to India with a king named Gondophares who had a brother named Gad. Contemporary scholars support the thesis that Thomas did indeed go to India. The Roman Catholic Church now considers the Cathedral of Saint Thomas in Mylapur (on the outskirts of Madras) to be recognized as a basilica because it rests on the tomb of the apostle. He was buried in India with a martyred death.
In fact, Jesus' tomb is also allegedly in India, as the Kashmir hypothesis holds that Jesus returned to India after his crucifixion. " What!" the Christian believer will wonder. “ Our theology teaches us that Jesus died on the cross for our sins! Only through his sacrifice can we be saved !.” It may also shock some Christians to know that Pope John XXIII openly declared in 1960 that it is through the blood of Christ that man was saved and that his death is not essential for his salvation. In other words, the Kashmir hypothesis does not necessarily contradict Christian dogma. Jesus may have been crucified - but he didn't have to die on the cross.
We must keep in mind the idea that Jesus died in Kashmir and see how this sheds light on the life of Saint Issa. As we mentioned earlier, the German journalist Faber-Kaiser was so convinced of this hypothesis that he wrote a penetrating book, Jesus Died in Kashmir,which meticulously explains Issa's full story (before and after the crucifixion). According to his explanation, Jesus survived the crucifixion and set out eastward, this time under the name of Yuz Asaf. Settling in Kashmir, Jesus married and died a natural death in old age. A community of Jews in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir, still have immense respect for an old crypt in which they have believed for generations that Jesus - or Issa as they call him - is buried.
The thesis of Faber-Kaiser's book is quite solid, supported by the works of Notovitch, by complex biblical interpretations and also by primordial Arabic texts. The Qur'an itself, in fact clearly states that Jesus did not die on the cross: " They did not kill him, they did not crucify him, it only seemed to them that way." (Quran, 155-7). Later, Muslim historian Imam Abu Ja'far Muhammad at-Tabri commented: “ Issa and his mother Mary left Palestine and traveled to a distant land, wandering from country to country.. "The Kashmir hypothesis can therefore serve to harmonize Christian and Islamic views, settling centuries-old disputes. Christians say Jesus was crucified. Muslims say he did not die on the cross. L The Kashmir hypothesis therefore offers a possible explanation which accommodates both Christian and Muslim life points.
There is even more compelling evidence. Jesus Died in Kashmir included sixteen pages of impressive diagrams in which linguistic parallels are drawn between the names of places, tribes, castes in Kashmir and those found in the Bible. In addition, Faber-Kaiser refers to the ancient text of the Bhavishya Purana (which is part of the Vedic canons), which was written in Sanskrit five thousand years ago by the sage Vyasadeva. As a sacred text that includes prophecies, it aligns with the Bible. Faber-Kaiser paraphrases thePurana, "[Maharaja] Shalewahin one day went out for a walk in the mountains and in Voyen, near Srinagar saw a distinguished person dressed in white and light skin color. The [Maharaja] asked him his name, Jesus replied that he was known as the son of God and was born of a virgin. The [Maharaja] was surprised, but Jesus explained to him that he was telling him the truth and that his mission was to purify religion. When the [Maharaja] ] continued to question him, Jesus told him that he had proclaimed his ministry in a country far beyond the Indus and that the people made him suffer. He preached love, truth and purity of heart and for for this reason he was known as the Messiah. " In the same Bhavishya Purana,Jesus also mentions of the preaching in the land of the Amalekites, which is definitely connected to biblical tradition.
Remarkably, all of the prophecies in this Purana are written as if the event had already taken place, which is common practice in prophetic literature. The above-mentioned scenario did not occur for three thousand years after its enunciation, that is to say two thousand years ago. Vedic literature therefore relates the story of Issa and proclaims the fact that Jesus did travel to India.
Notovich was convinced of these facts. But Swami Abhedananda, a known disciple of Ramakrishna, was not. In fact, he was still very skeptical of all of this. And in 1922, he decided to go trekking in the Himalayas region. He briefly heard of Notovich's exploits and as a researcher he needed to verify all of this for sure. Did Issa's manuscripts really exist? Or was Notovich a fraud as many ecclesiastical authorities (and Abhedananda himself) were led to believe? The Swami went in search of a manuscript.
The results were astonishing. When he returned he published a book of his travels called Kashmiri O Tibetti. The book tells about his visit to the Buddhist monastery and how he was read and translated into his native Bengali language the Issa manuscript. Abhedananda soon realized that Notovich's works corresponded faithfully to the text. He then became completely convinced. Note that both Notovich and Abhedananda needed to have the transcript translated for them. He couldn't read the Pali manuscript themselves. The so-called specialists were therefore skeptical when they returned to the West. Surely these enthusiastic researchers were sincere, but maybe there was some error in the translation? Or maybe the Buddhist monk had deceived them?
The problem - however insubstantial - was solved once and for all by a father and son research team. In 1925, Nicholas Roerich, artist, philosopher and distinguished scientist set out on an expedition to the Himalayas. Surprisingly, having no connection with Notovich and Abhedananda, he came across Issa's manuscript. In addition, Nicholas Roerich's son George who traveled with his father was proficient in many Indian dialects including Pali. They read the manuscript first hand, took notes and recorded it in their travel diary. Although at this point they did not realize its value, years later the value of this travel diary became apparent.
Did Jesus preach Krishna Consciousness?
According to Elizabeth Clare Prophet, " Nicholas Roerich's Asian expedition lasted four and a half years. At that time he traveled from Sikkim through Punjab and into Kashmir, Ladakh, Karakorum, Khotan and Irtysh, and then over the Altai Mountains and through the Oyrot region into Mongolia, the central Gobi Desert, Kansu and Tibet. " After all of his travels, Roerich admitted, " We were touched to see how widespread Issa's story is."
Although it remains a mystery in the West, Issa lives in the hearts of the Indian people. And this is a fact that cannot be ignored. The Bible concludes: " … and there are also many things that Jesus did [ie not mentioned in the Bible], which if they were all written, I suppose even the world itself could not. not contain all the books that could be written. "
Conclusion
Although the reader may admit that Jesus may have traveled to India, we are left with the question that was asked before: why did he want to go there? There are several superficial reasons that come to mind immediately and they can be easily understood. Some say they were looking for the three wise men who, it should be remembered, came from the east. Faber-Kaiser speculates that Jesus was looking for the ten lost tribes of Israel. Others say that, due to persecution, Jesus and Mary with Saint Thomas had fled to a land richer in understanding, a land of tolerance and peace.
While some see all of the above may be true, this author admits that this topic is deeper than it looks and that Jesus who preached a completely metaphysical doctrine was looking for a land steeped in spirituality. The Jews were concerned with the here and now. But Jesus, unlike the Jewish teachers, claimed that his kingdom was not in the material world but in the Kingdom of God, in Heaven. The teachings of India, denigrated as "hallucinatory" by Jewish critics were more in line with the mystical teachings of Jesus.
In addition, Jesus exhibited certain mystical powers, which although not very common in the West, were known to the yogis of India. For example, Jesus, it is said, walked on water. The mystical power known as laghima siddhi can make a person lighter than air, therefore able to walk on water. Jesus multiplied loaves and fish, as yogis were known to multiply their own forms ( kamavasayita siddhi ) as well as to manifest all kinds of objects - including breads and fish - from distant places ( prapti siddhi ). Jesus escaped from his grave which was blocked by a large rock, yogis were able to become smaller than the smallest ( anima siddhi) to escape demons. These miracles were not unusual in ancient India, and the miracles of Jesus are too similar to those of the yogis of India for it to be said that it is all coincidental. So a comparative study of Vedic philosophy and the history of Christianity, under the guidance of a genuine spiritual master, quickly reveals the unparalleled knowledge and spiritual depth of the east and its influence on the west.
Writer Alex Kack, in an interesting Eastwest Journal article (January 1978), puts it most eloquently, " Jesus' journey symbolizes the quest for wisdom, the search for wholeness. The East, today too, signifies the other mysterious half of the soul, the hidden consciousness, the higher mind, the intuitive dimension of the psyche that the classical Greek and Hebrew civilizations downplayed or ignored. " This does not necessarily mean that Jesus was in search of wisdom and wholeness. As a son of God, he was able to be perfect from birth. But as the Messiah, the perfect teacher, Jesus was leading the way. For those of us in search of the Absolute Truth, Jesus showed the direction of the east. Likewise, as the sun rises in the east, the light of the east returns to us, we who wait patiently in the west.
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