Jesus as the True Teacher, the Sadguru

Painted by M.P. Manoj, based on the original drawing of Joy Elamkunnapuzha, CMI, the picture above represents Jesus as the true Indian teacher, the Sadguru, who teaches dharma, wisdom, compassion and the unity between humanity and divinity. 

In Indian daily life, the life and personality of a Sadguru is marked by tolerance (titiksa), mercy or compassion (karuna), freedom from greed (aparigraha), true friendship with all creatures, doing one’s duty regardless of consequences (samabhava), devotion (bhakti), and mindful concentration on Krishna, the almighty god of Hinduism. 

Moreover, the Sadguru is even believed to be an incarnation of god, an Avatara, a god-made-flesh, full of divinity (as marked by the divine halo floating behind his head), who dwells among the people and leads them to the fullness of happiness and to the union with Brahman, the highest realization that humanity is essentially divinity.

On the picture Jesus Christ is depicted as sitting in a Lotus-position, the padma-asana, the meditation position taken by a holy man to mark him/her as a perfect human being who is replete of understanding, wisdom, insight, purity, integrity and love—virtues symbolized by a Lotus flower. 

Pay attention to the position or gesture of all of Jesus’ fingers which is called Mudra! Mudras are a gesture or position, usually of the hands, that locks and guides energy flow and reflexes to the brain. By curling, crossing, stretching and touching the fingers and hands, we can talk to the body and mind as each area of the hand reflexes to a certain part of the mind or body.

The gesture of the fingers of his right hand is called Guyan Mudra: the tip of the thumb touches the tip of the index finger, stimulating knowledge and ability. The index finger is symbolized by Jupiter, and the thumb represents the ego. Guyan Mudra imparts receptivity and calm.

Another similar gesture is also called Active Guyan Mudra: the first joint of the index finger is bent under the first joint of the thumb, imparting active knowledge.


The position of the fingers of his left hand is called Shuni Mudra: tip of middle finger (symbolized by Saturn) touches the tip of the thumb, giving patience.

In short, the position and gesture of Jesus’ fingers represented on the picture above points to the fact that here Jesus Christ is portrayed as a Sadguru who always has receptivity, calmness, wisdom, knowledge, ability and patience. 

From the body and concentrated mind of that divine Jesus, flows powerful divine energy, the Chi, that makes a cup of wine with a loaf of Host on it and an oil lamp with its burning bright float in the air. 

Conclusively, this Jesus is an Indian magician and an Indian true teacher at the same time.

(Concerning mudras, see http://www.chi-energy-sports.com/chakras.php)

The Nativity of the Red Indian Babe Jesus

Currently in Canada, Native Americans (also known as First Nations or American Indians) cover 5.4 % of the total population; in Mexico 90 %, and in the USA 1.5 %.

Estimates of the numbers of Native North Americans at the time of the European arrival or invasion (beginning with Christopher Columbus in 1492) in what is now the United States and Canada vary between 1.2 to 12 million.

By the end of the 19th century the number of Native Americans had been reduced to 250,000, mainly through imported diseases, dislocation, slavery, mass murder and genocide. Many of the Native American survivors converted to Christianity. 

Despite this mass conversion to Christianity, a resurgence of Aboriginal faith is currently underway in the life of Native Americans. 

One of the many ways in which this resurgence is taking place is to assimilate the indigenous culture and spirituality of Native Americans to the Christian faith. 

We nevertheless should remember that many followers of Native American spirituality do not regard their spiritual beliefs and practices as an “organized religion” in the way in which many Christians do.

Their religious beliefs and life practices form an integral and seamless part of their very being regarded to be inseparable from nature, i.e., from the Mother Earth and the sky, and from wild animals surrounding their neighborhood. 

For many other Native Americans, their traditional beliefs and life practices are more important and more sensible than those of Christianity. Note the following two remarks uttered by two Native Americans:

“Rather than going to church, I attend a sweat lodge; rather than accepting bread and toast [sic!] from the Holy Priest, I smoke a ceremonial pipe to come into Communion with the Great Spirit; and rather than kneeling with my hands placed together in prayer, I let sweet grass be feathered over my entire being for spiritual cleansing and allow the smoke to carry my prayers into the heavens. I am a Mi’kmaq, and this is how we pray.” (Noah Augustine, from his article “Grandfather was a knowing Christian,” Toronto Star, Toronto ON Canada, 2000-AUG-09).

“If you take [a copy of] the Christian Bible and put it out in the wind and the rain, soon the paper on which the words are printed will disintegrate and the words will be gone. Our bible is the wind.” (A statement by an anonymous Native American woman).

 

The three iconographies presented here are the traditional Native American artistic expression of the Nativity of Jesus and the Holy Family. They give witness to the human face of the Sacred. The icons, imaged in the features of America’s indigenous people, reveal anew that sacred power which is believed to be enveloping the very being of all Native Americans. They celebrate the soul of the Native American as the original spiritual presence on this great continent; and as prophetic signs, the three paintings celebrate the reconciliation of the spiritual vision of Native and Christian peoples of this land.

The first and second paintings relate the nativity of the Native American babe Jesus and the visit of their three village leaders. The third picture depicts the Holy Family, painted by Fr John Giuliani. At the center of this picture is the child Jesus whose hands intertwine tenderly with those of his mother Mary and Joseph his father. Their gaze on the child is reflected onto us, the viewer, through his knowing innocence. (Source of the third picture: http://www.bridgebuilding.com/narr/ghol.html).

Jesus Is Making Fun of The Spikes

Look at the picture above, and think about it! The young beautiful lady is polishing not the nails of Jesus’ hands, but the spikes which have been brutally driven into his two hands. What the painter has in her mind when painting it is rather difficult to find out. 

Probably she intends to tell us that modern men should not any longer view the horrible death of Jesus by crucifixion as a divine merciful act to save human beings from the wrath of the avenging and blood-thirsty god, because Jesus himself is making fun of the spikes and his wounds and considers the spikes stabbed on his hands as additional accessories to be polished colourfully. By kidding his wounds and the spikes, Jesus perhaps ridicules his blood-thirsty Father in heaven!

What is the message of the second picture above? I think the painter is saying that if you and the pretty lady do not want to help Jesus polish the spikes already driven into his hands and insteps, and thus assisting him in ridiculing his victimization by god his Father in heaven, Jesus is ready to do it himself!

Thus the two pictures of Jesus presented here are a modern artistic rebellion against the soteriology of the cross which has been considered as an obsolete and superstitious view by modern men. Let us ridicule it! Let us make fun of it! Of course... if you are not an orthodox Christian!

The Crucified Female Jesus: More Articulate!

To undervalue women in general, the Apostle Paul said, “The serpent deceived Eve by its cunning” (2 Corinthians 11:3). 

With the same intention, the author of 1 Timothy stated, “I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor” (1 Timothy 2:12-14). 

In the second century Tertullian, on the basif of Genesis 3, chided women of his time by saying, “You are the devil’s gateway… you are she who persuaded him whom the devil did not dare attack…. Do you not know that every one of you is an Eve? The sentence of God on your sex lives on in this age; the guilt, of necessity, lives on too” (De Cultu Feminarum I, 12).

Those texts are only a few examples of so many other similar religious texts produced in a male-dominated culture, and therefore should be confronted with other texts created by the hands of courageous female followers of Jesus who oppose misogyny. 

That misogyny existed in the mind of male disciples of Jesus is attested clearly in the saying of Mary Magdalene recorded in the gnostic document of the third century titled Pistis Sophia: “My Master, I understand in my mind that I can come forward at any time to interpret what Pistis Sophia has said, but I am afraid of Peter, because he threatens me and hates our gender” (Pistis Sophia 72).

Christian feminists all over the world are currently defying the male interpretation of Christian scriptural and extra-scriptural texts by promoting female-orientated alternative pictures of the Christian faith. One of the feminist boldest expressions of the Christian faith is found in the alternative image they give to the crucified Jesus.

For the Christian feminists, the central and salvific figure can no longer be the male Jesus of Nazareth, but rather the female Jesus who bore her cross, and then was crucified, bloody and naked to the waist with her two dense, filled-up and beautiful breasts being stretched out to the whole world offering pure and life-giving mother’s milk.

Imagine, her body’s red blood, as well as her white mother’s milk, give life to the whole suffering and hungry world. 

Furthermore, in comparison with the man Jesus, the woman Jesus is factually closer to human blood because she should issue blood during her monthly menstrual period, a period that signifies both the health of her reproductive organs and her natural capability of giving a new human life into the world. For this reason, it is more reasonable to speak about the life-giving blood of a woman Jesus rather than that of a man Jesus. 

Perhaps you would agree with me that Jesus as the crucified Mother is more meaningful, more impressive and more articulate than Jesus as the crucified Man if one should meditate on the redemptive and saving significance of the death of Jesus. 

I see on the second image above, in her suffering and agony the crucified Mother Jesus lifts her face up to Heaven seeking strength and power she needs to conquer the power of pain and death.

One important question should be answered. Is it justified to portray the crucified Jesus as a woman Jesus? 

In European tradition, Juliana of Norwich has called Jesus “Mother.” Historically speaking, Jesus was of course a male, not a female, human being. But symbols or metaphors or artistic imagination transcend history. We should know that when Jesus was standing on the Mount of Olives and viewing the city of Jerusalem from this high place, he employed a female metaphor, a metaphor of “a hen”, to express his will to protect the inhabitants of this great city. 

He compassionately and regretfully said, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Matthew 23:37; par Luke 13:34). 

On the basis of that old authentic saying of Jesus, I think the Christian feminists who make use of the portraiture of the woman Jesus to express symbolically their christological point of view are scripturally justified.

Sources of images:
http://www.passionofagoddess.com
http://www.mattstone.blogs.com/photos/female_crucifixion_art/index.html

The original Face of Jesus: European or Middle Eastern?

According to you, what kind of person was the actual man Jesus of Nazareth? Was he a white-skinned gentleman, with long wavy blond hair and two wonderful blue eyes? Almost certainly such a picture of Jesus decorates your study room, and perhaps you adore it. I wish to tell you that this portrait you worship is not the actual look of Jesus of Nazareth; but an artistic product of the European Renaissance era (14th -16th c. CE). In reality this portrait is one of the many portraits of the face of Ceasare Borgia, a bad-tempered son of the Pope Alexander VI (known also as Rodrigo Borgia) who presided the Western Roman Catholic Church from 1431 to 1503. According to the report of Alexandre Dumes (recorded in his Celebrated Crimes vol. II), this pope asked two famous painters Michelangelo Buonarroti and Leonardo da Vinci to paint the face of his son in 1492.

You perhaps do not recognize the above three-dimensional statue of the head and face of a certain young non-Western gentleman. Take notice of his features: brown or dark-skinned; thick, dark and curly kinky short hair; dark or brown eyes. You should know that this is the head and face of Jesus of Nazareth which was reconstructed by an interdisciplinary team of the BBC (in London) for a special broadcasting programme launched during Easter 2001 called Son of God. The head of this unfamiliar Jesus was created by means of a scientific method employing medical, archaeological, geographical, artistic and forensic evidence from the time of Jesus himself. This interdisciplinary science is known as forensic anthropology. 

The BBC production team which produced this image of Jesus worked with a first-century male skull discovered in Israel. This team declared, “Jewish heads are very different today to 2000 years ago, so the team looked for a Jewish skull from the period of Jesus.” 

Using a plaster cast of the skull, the forensic medical artist Richard Neave from the University of Manchester commenced to reconstruct the face by building up layers of clay to represent muscle, fat and skin. Details such as the hair were decided by considering the hair of males in the Middle East which tends to be thick, dark and curly, together with hair styles current in the time of Jesus. The final image of Jesus’ head was produced as a 3-D computer model. 

Joe Zias, an Israeli archaeologist, said, “In reconstructing this head, we are not claiming that this is exactly Jesus’ face, but we are trying to counteract all those bad images of blond-haired, blue-eyed Jesuses running through in Hollywood productions.” 

The presenter of the Son of God broadcast, Jeremy Brown, stated that “He was not the blond, blue-eyed character seen so often in Easter cards. The image we have constructed is far more realistic.” 

If we trace back to centuries earlier, we shall find images of Jesus which were not produced by the Renaissance artists, which represent non-white-skinned Jesuses. 

Note the following images of Jesus which are more similar to the image of Jesus of Nazareth reconstructed by the BBC team mentioned above than to the image of the European white-skinned Jesus.

This image of the dark-skinned and black-eyed and haired Jesus is dated 530 CE, found in a church of Rome. This portrait of the face of Jesus is totally different from those of the Renaissance era.

 

This black woman statue is well-known as the Black Madonna who is taking her black-skinned child Jesus on her lap. This Black Madonna is not the Madonna created generally by modern black theologians both in Africa and in North America in accordance with their unique “black” theological perspectives. 

More than five hundred Black Madonnas were sculptured in black stones or black woods by many artists during the pre-Renaissance era, precisely during the Middle Ages (11th-15th c. CE), beginning in Italy, and currently are scattered throughout Europe housed or enshrined in many churches, temples, holy places and museums. 

Why did they imagine Mary and her child as black-skinned? The most reasonable explanation is that they knew a historical tradition attesting that the historical Mary and the historical Jesus were black-skinned Middle Eastern human beings.

The picture above is one of the Ethiopian black-eyed Jesus, and was made in 17th century. The color of his face skin and his hair is dark, thoroughly different from the color of the Jesus of the Renaissance era.

The image above is the image of the dark-skinned and dark-eyed Jesus with thick, kinky and black hair, dated 1960. His face is rather similar to the face of the Jesus of the BBC discussed above.

Finally, what is the conclusion we can draw? Nothing else than that the white-skinned, long, wavy and blond-haired and blue-eyed Jesus of the Renaissance era is not the Jesus of history. Christians accustomed to turning their face and heart to ancient Europe in seeking for their theological and spiritual resources will certainly not like the Jesus that has been reconstructed by the BBC’s professional team. 

For Constantinian orthodox Christians the world over, this kind of non-Western Jesus is really an insult, actually a Jesus so heterodox that should be rejected and anathematized. 

I am in harmony with James Cone’s judgment concerning the dark-skinned Jesus that “for whites to find Jesus with big lips and kinky hair is as offensive as it was for the Pharisees to find him partying with tax-collectors. But whether whites want to hear it or not, Christ is black, baby, with all of the features which are detestable to white society.” 

One should remember that in heterodoxy we often find truth more obviously and more authentically than in orthodoxy. Happy are those who are heterodox!

For further information concerning forensic anthropology in relation to the reconstruction of the face of Jesus, see

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/forensics/1282186