The Martyrdom of the Avatar Jesus the Nazarene

As Expounded By Masters
An inspiration for all anointed ones

Compiled and edited by Swami Isvaramayananda

In the edited statements of the discarnate Master Imperator:

“Each age has had its divine message, and each has erred in thinking its own message final. You know that (the Judeo-Christian) revelation began with Melchisedek and has continued even until now. Truth (for the Christian) has hitherto centred itself in a single representative, but hereafter it will not be so. The times of open vision have arrived, and truth will be given through many mediums, permeating the world and animating receptive souls.”

The incarnation of an exalted spirit for the purpose of regenerating mankind is not confined to a single instance. The specific salvation which mankind derives from these special saviours is that which at the time it stands in need. They are in degree different from ordinary men even as among men there is every grade of nationality in the body: some gross and sensual, others refined and ethereal. The body of Jesus was of the most ethereal nature, and it was trained and prepared during thirty years of seclusion for the three years of active work that spirit had to do. In the case of most incarnate spirits the assumption of corporeity dims psychic vision, and cuts it off from remembrance of its previous existence, Not so with Jesus. So little did his body blind the sense of spirit that he could converse with the angels as one of their own order, who was cognizant of their life, and remembered his own part in it before incarnation. The life of Jesus was different in degree, though not in kind, from the ordinary life of man. His was abnormal like that of all who enjoy communion with the world of spirits. Their lives are less known than his and no halo has been thrown around them, but do not doubt that there are some here and there who can hold communion with the spirit world. In Christ Jesus the spiritual principle was most evoked, and he was the most godlike of any who have walked the earth.

The Christ was sent into the world to inaugurate a new spiritual epoch, and he was influenced mainly by a high discarnate spirit. The Divine Spirit never acts directly through mediums. You can no more communicate directly with Him than you can communicate with the blades of grass around you. The twelve apostles were all mediums, specially chosen on account of their mediumship, which was developed by association with their Head. In the same way Moses was commanded to choose seventy elders who were gifted with mediumistic power.

Born into the sphere of humanity, the Anointed One became subject to persecution from a prince of the world. The word went forth to slay the Anointed One because his royal claims were thought to be in conflict with the pretensions of the earthly monarch. Threatened by enemies, the young child was withdrawn to Egypt, where from a full storehouse he gathered a rich store of knowledge. Egypt had been, since earliest days, the receptacle of mystic knowledge, and there was derived much of that mystic knowledge that the Anointed One displayed in after years. in the Egypt of esoteric lore is that armoury whence the spirit may find the power to overcome, thoroughly equipped for the conflict, But in proportion as the spiritual perceptions are quickened, so do the spiritual foes come into more prominent view. The adversaries, who are the sworn enemies of spiritual progress and enlightenment, will beset the aspirant’s path and remain a ceaseless cause of conflict. By degrees they will be vanquished by the faithful soul that presses on, but conflict with them will never wholly cease during the probation-life, for it is the means whereby the higher faculties are developed, and the steps by which entrance is won to the higher spheres of bliss. This is the life of the progressive spirit — self-sacrifice, whereby self is crucified; self-denial, whereby the world is vanquished; and spiritual conflict, whereby the adversaries are beaten back.

The life of the Christ, so far as it was public, was comprised within three years and a few months. For that the previous thirty years had been a preparation. During all that time he was receiving instruction from the exalted angels who inspired him with zeal and love for his mission. He was a constant communer with the world of spirit, and was the more able to drink in their teachings that his body was no bar to his spirit. Silent spiritual growth is the source of public spiritual teaching.

When the Anointed One came forth from the seclusion of his preparatory training, instructed in the wisdom of Egypt and nurtured in silent meditation, clothed in purity, animated by charity, instinct with zeal, he went forth to his people to preach the gospel he had learned. Men knew that he was not like other men: that his life was not bound by social or domestic ties, though the harmony of the domestic circle was pleasing to him. Such a life could never be understood aright by his contemporaries. It is inevitable that such lives be misunderstood, misinterpreted and maligned. The Scribes and rulers, the Pharisees and Sadducees, were the ignorant foes of the Christ, even as your learned men and theologians are today.

Prematurely was that divine life cut short by human ignorance and malignity. The drama of Calvary was of man’s, not God’s, devising. It was not the eternal purpose of God that Jesus should die when the work of the Christ was but just commencing. He came to save man in the sense that all regenerators of men have been their saviours, but not in the sense that the scene on Calvary was foreordained to occur when man consummated his foul deed. Had the full life on earth of Jesus been completed, what vast, incalculable blessings would men have reaped? But they were not fitted, and they pushed aside the proffered blessings, having just tasted them. So it is with all great lives. Men take from them only what they can grasp, and leave the rest for after-ages, and after-ages revere a spirit incarnated too soon. He was too pure, good and uncompromising not to provoke jealousy. His doctrines were too searching, his life precepts too spiritual, to be popular. So the age that could not receive the advanced truth crucified him who taught it. Hanging on the cross, the friends of the Christ were few indeed — a few women whose readier instincts and affections were true and firm in the hour of deepest darkness; and two — Joseph and Nicodemus — who had been the least open, even seeming cowardly, about their allegiance. The rest had fled. Where was their teacher? Dead! And his gospel? Dead too, to all appearances.

But men judge hastily. None knew who rolled the stone from the tomb’s mouth. An angel did it, by the power of Spirit wherewith your world is ever sustained and regenerated. The same power that stirred its occupant availed to vivify his message, and nurture it through good and evil report, until it became a mighty engine of spiritual truth.

The Master Jesus was not, as the Christian Church asserts, God, who died a miraculous death. The idea of the Christ’s divinity did not arise until many years after his death. It is true that he died, and appeared among his friends, but not in the body in which he lived amongst them. The body of earth cannot be restored once it has been resolved into its elemental state. After his death Christ’s body was a materialised spirit body, and he appeared only to his friends when ideal conditions could be secured. In your atmosphere exist essences from which all material objects on your earth are formed, and the spirit body can accrete to itself atoms which make a covering for it. It is enabled by a process of magnetic attraction to attach to itself particles of grosser matter and so render itself temporarily visible to your eyes. We do not use scientific terms, but we hope you will understand.

The spirit-body has clothed itself for a time with atoms of matter which are in a perpetual state of change. When the process of earthly education is complete, these atoms are cast aside, and your resurrection takes place: the rising being not at a distant period after a sleep in the unknown, but instant, immediate. Immediately on its release from the body the spirit is clothed with a refined substance, impalpable to your senses, though as perceptible to ours as gross material substance is to yours. The spirit-body passes through many refinements as it advances through the spheres. The appearance of Jesus was of the spirit body, which he was able to manifest in tangible form. His earth body never rose. The return of the Christ is a spiritual, not material, fact. He has left no successor, nor will any spring from him. His influence is devoted entirely to the enlightenment of your globe, for to each world is assigned its own source of spiritual light.”

Another discarnate master has explained that Judas was a proud and presumptuous spirit who, desiring to progress, demanded, before incarnation, to be allowed to participate in the work for which the Christ was preparing. In vain did his guides warn him that the influences of fleshly life would obscure the remembrance of his good resolutions and at the same time rouse his instincts of envy and cupidity. Jesus foresaw that the fate Judas was shaping for himself would purge him of the evil qualities retarding his progress, and therefore acceded to his request. His humble earthly origins (a condition of the trial he had elected to undergo) weighed heavily upon him and his jealousy of others’ admiration and respect for the Celestial Envoy gradually became hatred. Craving luxury, he robbed the common purse, of which he was the custodian. His opportunities had been granted Judas so that, through a failure which was foreseen as inevitable, he might be cured of his flaws, once and forever, by his self-inflicted misery.

When, righteousness is weak and faints
and unrighteousness exalts in pride
then, my spirit arises on earth
For the salvation of those who are good
for the destruction of the evil in men,
for the fulfilment of the rule of righteousness
I come to this world in the ages that pass

Bhagavad Gita (Translated by Juan Mascaro, Penguin Books)