Gospel of Judas and the shaping of Christianity- An interesting commentary on race and religion

I recently finished reading Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity by Elaine Pagels and Karen L. King. I could not help but relate its central theme to the Vedantic philosophy of self-awareness as the key to the realization of truth.

The Gospel makes a scathing attack on the Church as it evolved after Jesus's death with emphasis on rituals and less on what Jesus taught.The Gospel mentions that Jesus had a poor opinion of all his disciples except Judas himself since he felt that except for Judas none of the others understood his message and instead followed their "lower gods". In fact Jesus wanted Judas to "betray" him to show the world the uselessness of the body in the quest for Truth. Judas obliged and Jesus had told him that in doing so the world would demonize him but he would see the Truth that the other disciples would be denied. In fact it mentions that contrary to the belief that Judas committed suicide he was "murdered" by the other disciples for having being responsible for Jesus's death.

According to the book, Jesus, in the Gospel of Judas, describes a higher heaven and the presence of an intermediate heaven ruled by 12 lower gods( hence the 12 disciples). These lower gods have an influence on humans and create the negative feelings of anger, greed, lust, jealousy, fear, etc. Human beings have the capacity to overcome the influences of these gods and realize the higher heaven when these lower gods have no power over them. At this stage the "enlightened" human realizes the Truth-God. This was really interesting reading and sounds very similar to the Hindu mythical and philosophical concept of heaven and spirituality.

All this makes me wonder; if this were really the authentic Gospel according to Judas and describes Jesus's teachings, whether Jesus was influenced by philosophies from the East-especially the Buddhist and Hindu philosophies-from India which was not very far away. Its long being argued that Jesus spent part of his life before he started his ministry, in India. Obviously he was a deeply spiritual person who in his quest for the "higher Truth" went out to seek it and that might have taken him to India- the land of abstract spiritual philosophies. He might have returned "enlightened" and tried to help others realize it. But Israel and the surrounding regions in his time was not ready for such abstract knowledge and they silenced him. I shot my idea to the author Elaine Pagels but I guess she was not interested and sent me a cute "thanks for the nice suggestion" reply back!!

Its interesting to note that his message which was silenced for so long comes to life finally in Europe 300 years after Jesus's death under Emperor Constantinople who adopts "Christianity" and declares it a state religion of the Roman Empire. The circumstances under which he does so are also very interesting. It seems Jesus (or an angel)shows up in one of his dreams when he was losing badly to his enemies in a battle and suggests to him to put a sign of cross as his emblem if he wants to win. He does so and vola!!- he comes back victorious- amazing how the "Prince of Peace" helps a king in a violent battle and needs a trade off to do that!!

During the years after Jesus death until its adoption as a state religion Christianity evolves in different forms based on the interpretation of Jesus's teachings by his followers and some of them had radically different ideas and practices. Now here's the interesting part and this reveals a lot about the psyche or personality of different races.

Constantinople understood that Christianity is practiced in many different and sometimes contradictory forms throughout his Empire and here's what he does. He organizes a conference - The First "Church" Conference in History known as the First Ecumenical Council in Nicaea in 325 A.D. where he invites the various groups of believers in this new faith to attend. At the end of the Conference some of the factions reconciled , others who disagreed were kicked out, exiled or their followers jailed or even killed and a "constitutional framework "of Christianity as is generally accepted today was established. A common belief system known as the Nicaean Creed with the belief in the Trinity- - The Father, Son and the Holy Spirit -was also accepted. This led to the formal establishment of the "Church" as we know it today.

The reason I mention this story is to emphasize the difference in people of different races. Hinduism evolved in India over thousands of years and over time and like Christianity later on, developed different interpretations of God and ways to reach the "Truth" Although there were times when a single Emperor ruled over the entire subcontinent which was much bigger in size than the Roman Empire under Constantinople there is no mention of any Indian Emperor trying to organize religion into a single set of belief systems and practices. That may be the reason Hinduism is so diverse in his approach towards God while Christianity isn't. This story also reveals a lot about races- Indians are more spiritual and therefore less organized- disorder is the path to higher realization. The European race known for its man management and organizational skills failed to get the "spiritual" gene! Thats why Hinduism never spread across continents while the White man adopted Christianity and the first thing he does is to organize it!! He even takes it across the seven seas and sometimes (ab)used it to further his goals and ambitions. And thats why I believe that the white race may never understand the real meaning of God although they might have a better organized religion. They just don't have it in them. Just like Asians lack the man management gene!! Nobody's perfect!! Islam, on the other hand, was shoved down people's throat when powerful Muslim armies from the Arab lands swept across Asia and Europe during the Middle Ages. That might reveal a great deal about the personality of the Arab races. And we can well appreciate these characteristics in these different races even now!! How I hate to generalize because not everybody is the same.