The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ

7 And so they sent a call abroad, and priests from every province came. Benares was on fire with Brahmic zeal.

8 Lamaas from the temple Jagannath, who knew the inner life of Jesus well, was in their midst, and heard the rantings of the priests,

9 And he stood forth and said, My brother priests, take heed, be careful what you do; this is a record-making day.

10 The world is looking on; the very life of Brahmic thought is now on trial.

11 If we are reason-blind; if prejudice be king today; if we resort to beastly force, and dye our hands in blood that may, in sight of Brahm, be innocent and pure,

12 His vengeance may fall down on us; the very rock on which we stand may burst beneath our feet; and our beloved priesthood, and our laws and shrines will go into decay.

13 But they would let him speak no more. The wrathful priests rushed up and beat him, spit upon him, called him traitor, threw him, bleeding, to the street.

14 And then confusion reigned; the priests became a mob; the sight of human blood led on to fiendish acts, and called for more.

15 The rulers, fearing war, sought Jesus, and they found him calmly teaching in the market-place.

16 They urged him to depart, that he might save his life; but he refused to go.

17 And then the priests sought cause for his arrest; but he had done no crime.

18 And then false charges were preferred; but when the soldiers went to bring him to the judgment hall they were afraid, because the people stood in his defense.

19 The priests were baffled, and they resolved to take his life by stealth.

20 They found a man who was a murderer by trade, and sent him out by night to slay the object of their wrath.

21 Lamaas heard about their plotting and their plans, and sent a messenger to warn his friend; and Jesus hastened to depart.

22 By night he left Benares, and with haste he journeyed to the north; and everywhere, the farmers, merchants and the sudras helped him on his way.

23 And after many days he reached the mighty Himalayas, and in the city Kapivastu he abode.

24 The priests of Buddha opened wide their temple doors for him.

CHAPTER 32

Jesus and Barata. Together they read the sacred books. Jesus takes exception to the Buddhist doctrine of evolution and reveals the true origin of man. Meets Vidyapati, who becomes his co-laborer.

Among the Buddhist priests was one who saw a lofty wisdom in the words that Jesus spoke. It was Barata Arabo.

2 Together Jesus and Barata read the Jewish Psalms and Prophets; read the Vedas, the Avesta and the wisdom of Guatama.

3 And as they read and talked about the possibilities of man, Barata said,

4 Man is the marvel of the universe. He is a part of everything, for he has been a living thing on every plane of life.

5 Time was when man was not; and then he was a bit of formless substance in the molds of time; and then a protoplast.

6 By universal law all things tend upward to a state of perfectness. The protoplast evolved, becoming worm, then reptile, bird and beast, and then at last it reached the form of man.

7 Now, man himself is mind, and mind is here to gain perfection by experience; and mind is often manifest in fleshy form, and in the form best suited to its growth. So mind may manifest as worm, or bird, or beast, or man.

8 The time will come when everything of life will be evolved unto the state of perfect man.

9 And after man is man in perfectness, he will evolve to higher forms of life.

10 And Jesus said, Barata Arabo, who taught you this, that mind, which is the man, may manifest in flesh of beast, or bird, or creeping thing?

11 Barata said, From times which man remembers not our priests have told us so, and so we know.

12 And Jesus said, Enlightened Arabo, are you a master mind and do not know that man knows naught by being told?

13 Man may believe what others say; but thus he never knows. If man would know, he must himself be what he knows.

14 Do you remember, Arabo, when you was ape, or bird, or worm?

15 Now, if you have no better proving of your plea than that the priests have told you so, you do not know; you simply guess.

16 Regard not, then, what any man has said; let us forget the flesh, and go with mind into the land of fleshless things; mind never does forget.

17 And backward through the ages master minds can trace themselves; and thus they know.

18 Time never was when man was not.

19 That which begins will have an end. If man was not, the time will come when he will not exist.

20 From God’s own Record Book we read: The Triune God breathed forth, and seven Spirits stood before his face. (The Hebrews call these seven Spirits, Elohim.)

21 And these are they who, in their boundless power, created everything that is, or was.

22 These Spirits of the Triune God moved on the face of boundless space and seven ethers were, and every ether had its form of life.

23 These forms of life were but the thoughts of God, clothed in the substance of their ether planes.

24 (Men call these ether planes the planes of protoplast, of earth, of plant, of beast, of man, of angel and of cherubim.)

25 These planes with all their teeming thoughts of God, are never seen by eyes of man in flesh; they are composed of substance far too fine for fleshly eyes to see, and still they constitute the soul of things;

26 And with the eyes of soul all creatures see these ether planes, and all the forms of life.

27 Because all forms of life on every plane are thoughts of God, all creatures think, and every creature is possessed of will, and, in its measure, has the power to choose,

28 And in their native planes all creatures are supplied with nourishment from the ethers of their planes.

29 And so it was with every living thing until the will became a sluggish will, and then the ethers of the protoplast, the earth, the plant, the beast, the man, began to vibrate very slow.

30 The ethers all became more dense, and all the creatures of these planes were clothed with coarser garbs, the garbs of flesh, which men can see; and thus this coarser manifest, which men call physical, appeared.