Jesus As The Incarnation of The Goddess Lakshmi

On the picture above, Jesus is depicted as being seated in a Lotus position, the Padma-asana, with more or less ten lotus flowers lying in front of him, and with his head being encircled by a divine halo and wearing a thorny crown. But what is more is that Jesus himself here, as far as I can see it, is described as the lotus flower itself, blossoming above its green leaves. Extraordinarily, this Jesus has four arms with the three of which being raised up. What does it symbolize? In my interpretation, it symbolizes not the Christian Trinity, but the Trimurti or the Great Trinity in Hinduism which consists of god Brahmā the creator, god Vishnu the maintainer or preserver, and god Śhiva the destroyer or transformer. The orange robe he wears symbolizes his status as a Hindu holy man and a holy teacher, replete with wisdom, knowledge and understanding. The gesture or formation of the index and middle fingers of his second hand does not refer to his divine-human nature in Christian understanding, but to the unity of Atman (soul) and Brahman in accordance with Hindu religious view. The index finger of his third hand points to his holy heart, a Christian symbol of divine compassion. This holy heart has twelve rays radiating from its depth, perhaps symbolizing his twelve beloved disciples who proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of god to the whole world.

Let us know about the lotus. Rooted in the mud, but blossoming above the water, completely uncontaminated by the mud, the lotus represents spiritual perfection, purity, integrity, honesty, wisdom and divinity, which rise above worldly contamination. Concerning the lotus, Bhagavad Gita 5.10 states, “One who performs his duty without attachment, surrendering the results unto the Supreme Lord, is unaffected by sinful action, as the lotus is untouched by water.” The Confucian scholar, Zhou Dunyi, said, “I love the lotus because while growing from mud, it is unstained.” The lotus symbolism thus points to the journey of transformation from the mud of ignorance to the blossoming and enlightenment of the mind. The lotus also symbolizes the fertile growth of organic life, as the world is continually reborn on a lotus growing out of Vishnu’s navel. On the picture, all this symbolic meaning of the lotus is connected with Jesus as the blooming divine lotus.

Do you know about the four-handed goddess in Hindu religion named Lakshmi? Physically, goddess Lakshmi is described as a fair lady, with four arms, being seated or standing upon a lotus, dressed in fine garments and precious jewels, bestowing coins of prosperity and abundance and flanked by elephants signifying her royal power. The most striking feature of the iconography of Lakshmi is her persistent association with the lotus, referring to her purity, beauty, divinity and spiritual power. Symbolically, the goddess Lakshmi represents wealth, prosperity, abundance, light, wisdom, fertility, generosity and courage, as well as luck, fortune, beauty, love, grace and charm. Because of her abundant love, Lakshmi is believed to be willing to protect her dovotees from all kinds of misery and money-related sorrows. She is worshipped by Hindus, Buddhists, Jainists and many modern pagans.

Because Lakshmi is believed to be the embodiment of love, from which devotion to god or bhakti flows, it is through her that the soul (atma) is able to reach God Vishnu. Lakshmi plays a special role as the mediator between her husband Lord Vishnu and his worldly devotees. When asking Vishnu for grace or the forgiveness of sins, Hindus often approach him through the intermediary presence of Lakshmi. Due to her motherly feeling and compassion and being the consort of the Narayan or Supreme Being, Lakshmi is believed as the Mother of the Universe (Jaganmaatha).

In conclusion, if the Prologue of the Gospel of John claims that Jesus is the incarnation of the divine cosmic Word, ho Logos, the creator of the picture above believes that Jesus is the incarnation, or the embodiment, of the goddess and Mother of the Universe Lakshmi, the goddess of love, compassion, purity, wealth, wisdom and enlightenment, whose four hands are available to help the world and liberate it from poverty, ignorance, sorrows and abhorrence.

Jesus as Buddha Meditating in A Lotus Position Under The Bodhi Tree

The creator of the image above portrays Jesus as sitting in a Lotus position, the padma-asana, meditating on the meaning of life and suffering, under the Bodhi Tree, the Tree of moral enlightenment, taking the role of Siddharta Gautama, the moral teacher and founder of Buddhism later known as Gautama Buddha, in his search of liberation from suffering, dukkha, for human race.

The Bodhi Tree, or the Tree of Enlightenment, under which Siddharta Gautama achieved moral enlightenment or Bodhi, in religious iconography is recognizable by its heart-shaped leaves. It takes 100-3,000 years for a Bodhi Tree to fully grow. According to Buddhist texts, Siddharta Gautama, after gaining enlightenment, spent a whole week in front of the tree standing with unblinking eyes, gazing at it with a feeling of gratitude and admiration.

By presenting Jesus as imitating Buddha Gautama in his search of liberation from suffering and ignorance and moral enlightenment, the creator of the image above interprets the kingdom of god in the teachings of Jesus from a Buddhist perspective. Thus, for him, the kingdom of god becomes the human search of liberation from suffering and unknowingness. His Jesus is an enlightened man, a Buddha.

Jesus Meditating in A Lotus Position Protected by A Seven-Headed Cobra Snake

The picture above depicts Jesus as a Yogi sitting in a Lotus position on the three-storied coiling body of a seven-headed big Cobra snake, concentrating and controlling his mind, senses and body in order to reach union with Brahman, the highest and supreme god of Hinduism, with the seven heads of this cobra draping over him to protect him from evil elements of the world.

Snake worship is an ancient and widespread religious practice in Indian customs. In ancient India, there was a wide belief that if Indians worship snake, they will not cause harm to them and their family. Indians believe that snakes have been the savior of human race from the wrath of demons and also that the earth is balanced on the head of a gigantic Cobra snake named Shesh Naag, one of the many prominent Cobras to be worshiped.

On the similar second picture above, Gautama Buddha is portrayed as taking a seat in a Lotus position under the Bodhi Tree on the four-storied coiling body of a seven-headed Shesh naag, concentrating and controlling his mind, senses and body in order to gain enlightenment necessary for the liberation of humanity from ignorance and forgetfulness. The pink Lotus flower on which Buddha sits symbolizes his purity, divinity, enlightenment, serenity, freedom from suffering, and compassion. The seven heads of this Shesh naag take the form of an umbrella to protect Buddha from all evil and dangerous elements of the world.

The Shesh Naag is viewed by Indians as the resting couch of the Lord Vishnu, one of the most important deities of Hindu religion. As one of the deities of the Trimurti or the Great Trinity of Hinduism, Lord Vishnu is depicted as having four arms, standing and flanked by the other two deities (Brahman and Shiva), and a big seven-headed Cobra protruding above his head protecting him.

Snake is considered also to be the ornament of Lord Shiva around his neck. The Cobra is even associated with the lingam, the stylized phallic symbol or emblem of the Lord Shiva, who is one of the Indian most outstanding gods.

A popular legend says that the elder brother of Lord Krishna, Balram, was the incarnation of Shesh Naag on earth.

It is clear then that the first picture above represents Jesus to be the full imitation of the Buddha, and to be in the company of the three prominent gods of Hindu religion or Trimurti: Brahman, Vishnu and Shiva, and related to Krishna, the almighty god of Hinduism. For Indians, this kind of Jesus has come to their land to give them love, compassion, safety and protection, not to convert them to a Christianity founded by Westerners.

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