Jesus of the new age

Jesus of the new age

The astrological Jesus is still a New Age Jesus, or, in more contemporary terms, the Jesus of the new spirituality. Jesus is the man who realized Christ Consciousness, the innate divinity in all men. In a book based on the Edgar Cayce's channeled readings, Christ Consciousness is described as an awareness each of us has, which can be "awakened" by our will, "of the soul's oneness with God."39 Paramahansa Yogananda, the Hindu guru who came to America and whose book, Autobiography of a Yogi, inspired many Westerners to follow Hindu-based teachings, defines Christ Consciousness as "the universal consciousness, oneness with God, manifested by Jesus, Krishna, and other avatars," and is the realization of "God immanent in all creation."40 Unity's The Metaphysical Bible Dictionary expresses it more directly: "Christ is the divine-idea of man....Each of us has within him the Christ, just as Jesus had......The cosmic man...is the Christ....we are not persons, but factors in the cosmic mind. Reveal yourself to yourself by affirming ?I am the Christ, son of the living God'..."41 In one New Age bestseller, the author states that the greatest teaching of Christ was that we all have everlasting life, brotherhood in God, and that we have whatever we request.42

The return of Jesus should be viewed as perhaps "the reception of the Christ Consciousness in an individual."43 When writing as an astrologer about Christ and Pisces related to the movie, "The Last Temptation of Christ," I suggested that this film may have represented the second coming of Christ through a film. I stated in the article that "Humanity has been on the cross...nailed to its own narrow vision, unwilling to sacrifice ego for the resurrection of divinity. Discovering the Christ within frees us to experience that divine nature; what Christ did physically, we must do metaphysically."44

Contained within the Piscean Avatar is the New Age Christ as the one who awakens Christ Consciousness within. This Avatar also is a man, Jesus, who became the Christ. As astrologer Oken puts it:

"Let us make it absolutely clear that when we use the world ?Christ,' we do not necessarily mean Jesus. The Christ is the final step in the evolution of Man. It is a level of consciousness in which the individual has completely unified his Self with the Godhead. In this respect Buddha was a Christ as was Krishna as was Jesus."45

As in most New Age thinking, Jesus becomes the Christ through attaining the Christ Consciousness, the awareness of the divine Self. Jesus and the Christ are separate because anyone who achieves this spiritual awareness of the inner Christ can become the Christ, or as pop singer Jewel puts it, "We all will be Christed when we hear ourselves say/ We are that to which we pray."46

http://www.christiananswersforthenewage.org/Articles_Pisean2.html