Here is part 3 –
In the east it is well attested that an enlightened being may alter the appearance of their manifest form to skilfully meet the needs of their work. The Risen Christ did not appear in the likeness of Jesus, as his disciples had known him immediately before his crucifixion and earlier. So the Risen Christ was not just a resuscitated or a reawakened Jesus. The Risen One was Jesus in a utterly new form. That is why even those who had been part of Jesus’ inner circle only recognized him by some intimate sign. Thomas when he touched the wounds, Mary of Magdala when the unknown ‘gardener’ spoke her name; or the two disciples, who “… knew him in the breaking of bread”.
The reasons why the form of risen Jesus looked different is because he now wore an ageless and timeless body. His face was clear window for his true being, for his Spirit. In most of us, only our eyes are ‘windows for the soul’ – in a realized Sage, every single atom is radiant with “I Am”. Another reason for the change of Jesus’ appearance was because he willed it so. There are many accounts of other sages doing the same, Padmasambhava, the Comte de St Germain, Nicholas Flammel – to name a few.
Only those people who had already experienced the true Self of Jesus – through the alchemy of realization or that of love – were able to identify the Risen One as Jesus. Because of their earlier experiences of receiving spiritual teaching from him, of bathing in his aura, they were already attuned to his true Being, and could see in the new form that Self made manifest. Thus a great Bodhisattva can ‘appear’ in whatever form is useful to help others.
Dionysius the Areopagite, one of the greatest of the Christian Initiates, taught that the body of the risen Christ was both male and female. This is the same teaching as that symbolized by the hermaphrodite in Alchemy.
The Immortal Body is destined goal of human evolution. It is inherent in us all. It unites the most far-reaching hopes of humankind. In this form, this envelope of Enlightened consciousness, life and death are wedded together by the Ruach-Elohim, ‘Breath of Eternal Life’. To the Sage who is at-one with the Radiant Life-Breath, to inhale is to embody – to exhale is disembody. This pair-of-opposites are simply like the upward and downward wing-beats of an eagle that flies from infinity to infinity.
Tags: Immortal body