A NEW JESUS

“As a human being you have a right to know what you are doing here, trying to live a life. Where did you come from, and where you are going? What is the point of struggling for several decades and then dying? Who are you in the greater scheme of things? Why is there so much suffering in the world and why does evil so often go unpunished? … How can you possibly live your life effectively and fully without somehow resolving these issues? … Believe me, my friend, the answers you seek are not secret wisdom reserved for a few devout seekers. They are readily accessible to all who desire them and are willing to make room for them in their belief systems.” We have very good reason to believe today that the man Jesus not only understood these deeper matters but taught them to his apostles. The quest to bring to life his deepest teachings still continues after nearly twenty centuries of searching by saints, scholars, mystics, prophets and a contingent of lay seekers committed to answering these questions. Despite occasional individual insights we possess today no broadly accepted body of consen-sual knowledge about Jesus' deeds and his more profound teachings. Many Christians today suspect that there must be more to Jesus' teachings than the few moral directives and life principles presented in the Gospels and later historical and Christian doctrinal writings. This lack exists mainly because these documents do not answer the basic spiritual questions just stated, which sit quietly in the back of our minds as “unknowns,” sometimes even believed to be “unknowable.” A few of the wisdom teachers who have arisen out of devotional Christianity during the past two millennia say they have found answers, and they generally agree on their content and significance, though their explanations are phrased in the language of their times and are typically hard for us to understand today. In any case they often seem abstract, unspecific or incomplete, therefore not directly applicable to ordinary life without extensive interpretation and a select filling-in of the gaps. We know today that the most profound teachings of the man Jesus were largely obscured during the creation of the Christian church and over the centuries of its development to follow—perhaps for good reason at the time, but obscured nevertheless. Can we not bypass these religious writings and somehow tap Jesus' sublime wisdom more directly, thus enriching and enhancing our lives in the twenty-first century? ... Herein lies the purpose of this book: to aid the personal and very human search for these almost ineffable answers. We will provide this aid to you not so much through facts and arguments as by inducing key in-sights into your contemplations. We will do so by employing a unique or-chestration of stories, descriptions and explanations about Jesus' life and teachings, this time with a little help from our intuitive friends. Carefully conducted intuitive inquiry is our method of choice.