Introduction to Metaphysical Bible Interpretation

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When I am dealing with interpretations and approaches to Jesus Christ and to his teachings, I know that many of you are going to prefer another emphasis or even another level of meaning, other than the one I am presenting as class material but, please understand that because I present it as class material and may base an assignment on that as presented in class, in no way I mean to ignore other levels of meaning or other types of emphasis. You remember my little scheme about the four levels of meaning:

1. The literal which can be subject to distortion or correction;
2. The mundane or planetary level;
3. The metaphysical or that which is true about the inner life of each"individual, regarding time, space or circumstance.
4. The cosmic level or that which deals with planetary systems, and cosmic phenomena.

I have tried as much as possible to keep the interpretations I will present in this class, somewhere between the level of the literal, and the humanistic and metaphysical. The levels are not always clearly defined and they will often overlap and there will be elements of each in each presentation, but do hot think that I am implying, "this is the interpretation of this ihcident." For instance, the story about the woman who had a daughter grievously vexed with the devil and she was in a highly negative emotional state and she came bursting oh the scene and she ran and began to appeal to Jesus and it is said that "He answered her not a word" and then his disciples came and said, "get rid of her, she is crying after us," and so Jesus said, "I did hot come but for the lost sheep of Israel," then He says a very strange thing to this woman, "It is not right to take, the children's bread and give it to the dogs." That could mean just about anything or may mean nothing, do you understand? It is not explained what He means when He says that. Now, the woman in question, instead of paying attention or rather being concerned about what He might have meant, said a thing that was in her heart rather than what her ego might have been saying; all she said was, Yea, Lord, but even the dogs will eat from the crumbs which fall from the Master's table," and Jesus immediately says, "Oh, woman great is thy faith, be, it done unto thee as thou wilt." Who is he talking about? All the time talking to her about her because of the way she responded to what might had been interpreted as an insult. By ignoring the insult, thinking only about her daughter's need and believing in the healing principle, the mother healed that daughter and that is great.

Now, the reason I bring this up is because that could be interpreted quite plainly on all four levels, there is not only humanism in this, there is cosmic symbolism: that mother, that daughter, Jesus, those words, all have a corresponding simultaneous level of meaning. Can you see now why Ed Rabel in the Unity movement would choose to talk about mothers and daughters and egos and feelings rather than about any other valid level of meaning? I could, if I were so inclined, delve into what the cosmic implications are there, or the plenetary implications, but why we would then focus on the humanistic metaphysical meaning? Because that level would be the most helpful to this particular group and purpose of the Unity movement at this time. Our mission, Unity's mission, is not to figure out cosmic paths of this life wave evolution. We have movements better engaged in that, they are doing a pretty good job at it and we are not here to figure out karmic patterns like this. Elements like this may come into our level, there is a connection, interconnection between the levels, but primarily our work in in Unity is two-fold, the outer work is to provide a setting for people who accept or prefer the kind of religious and metaphysical truth that we prefer, which is our choice, but our inner work is here and now consciousness conditioning; this is really it, this is what Unity teachings are all about, not figuring out why your present life-role is what it is according to planetary and cosmic plane but whatever it is what it is, this is how we can help you achieve a better state of consciousness while in this world, and so, primarily the Unity teachings, the Unity wave is consciousness conditioning for continuous improvement and, therefore, I have found that that level of Bible interpretation which has this as its main thrust, helping the person to see himself, understand what is going on a little better and think in a manner becomes a consciousness conditioning is the most helpful and it is by far the one that congregations and audiences respond to, at least when they walk into a Unity center or church, that is the level of meaning they respond to andI feel that if we help people with that approach on that level, if they are ready for bigger things, the more spectacular or more occult or cosmic things, they will find they don't necessarily mean Unity.

Now, of course, the main subject that we will be dealing with ultimately will be Jesus and we want to establish right now that I am going to deal with Jesus as the simple SPIRITUAL AWARENESS. Occasionally he will be dealt with as the Christ, but not always, for the most part he will be dealt with on the symbology of spiritual awareness connected to Christ and leading man more and more toward Christ consciousness but not so much as Christ consciousness itself, is the Way Shower. Even He said, "I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life;" in other words, will be more in the direction of "spiritual" awareness heading into Christ consciousness rather than Christ consciousness headed into human nature. We will be heading toward Christ consciousness, not speaking from Christ consciousness. Although paradoxical, it wouldn't be possible to speak toward Christ consciousness if Christ consciousness weren't already there in the first place. Christ consciousness itself makes it possible for you to be on a level lower than itself. It is the Christ consciousness which makes it possible for you to be in the Christ consciousness; in other words, you couldn't not be in Christ Christ consciousness unless you were first in Christ consciousness; in other words, you could not do anything evil if you weren't primarily and essentially absolutely good. Christ consciousness is the whole thing. You can have parts which look like opposites but they are not opposites, they are part of the whole thing. What is the opposite of wholeness? There is not such a thing because if you say "partial", well, partial is part of wholeness or allness which is what God is; then, there are not opposites because the incomplete or partial is part of wholeness; imperfection is part of perfection. This is why we say, God is absolute good and there is only ONE presence, only ONE power. But not number one power, it means ONLY. Alright, within the only-ness and allness of absolute good you can have evil because there is only one presence and one power which is absolute good, you can have an aspect of that which seems to be its own contradiction but it is a part of it. You will get this later on.

Jesus Christ will be dealt, with as the symbol of "Spiritual awareness" in man, not in the cosmos, in man, human beings which worry about the price of eggs. That is what we are dealing with in Unity, people who worry about the price of eggs, not cosmic entities who have evolved into this karmic wave, bla.,.bla... and are still worried about the price of eggs. That is where we are and where we go to is up to each individual as he assumes his proper role in man's destiny. But spiritual awareness can come only from Christ and can only go back toward the Christ, and so we have Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus, but we are mostly concerened in these lessons with that aspect of him which is the symbol of "spiritual awareness" leading and guiding us all toward Christ consciousness.

The Gospel of John is not a synoptic Gospel. It is not a biography of the personality of Jesus it is a symbolic biography of spiritual awareness in our being and in more cases than in any other Gospel, Jesus is dealt with as the actual Christ. Not so much in Matthew, Mark and Luke, in those Gospels they pretty much stay in the symbolism of "spiritual awareness" but in the Gospel of John quite often he will become the embodiment and spokesman for the whole Christ principle.

Text of the original transcript from top of page 2 through paragraph 3 on page 3.
Transcribed by Mark Hicks on August 8, 2013