A Dream of Gnostic Christianity: Buddhism

The Essenes were a progressive sect -- the first monastic Jews influenced by Buddhism in faraway Kashmir, which had a significant Jewish population (Jesus in India, Kersten Holger).

Elaine Pagels and her scholarship on the Lost Gospels has painted a much more sympathetic and sensible picture of original Christianity than the "Church Fathers" or secretive Vatican officials. What were the patriarchs hiding when they covered up the Buddhist-Christian connection?

BBC documentary examines the question, "Did Jesus Die?" At minute 25 it takes a very logical and grounded turn with surprising conclusions that demonstrate that the "Three Wise Men" were Buddhist monks who found Jesus (a tulku) and returned for him near puberty. They trained him in a Buddhist monastery (Hemis Gompa), and he spread the Buddhist philosophy, survived the crucifixion, and escaped back to a Jewish enclave in Kashmir, Afghanistan, where he died at the age of 80.

There had never been anything like celibate monasticism in Judaism. Lone hermits going into the desert was learned from the mystical East, influenced by Buddhist shamanism (shraman, "recluse" wandering asceticism) that ran counter to corrupt temple-priest craft (Brahmanism).

Inspiring Wisdom Quarterly follower M. Beguine is a Gnostic Christian following the tradition of the Apostolic Johannite Church. She is living out her religious vocation as a solitary recluse in private vows in the spirit of Mary Theotokos, Mary Magdalene, Brighid of Ireland, and Dorothy Day with special places of honor for Julian of Norwich and Hildegard von Bingen.

Her apostolate is mainly intercessory prayer and supporting and participating in her parish. Presently, she is in the process of adapting a hermitical Rule to Life (Vinaya) to her particular circumstances and conditions involving health and location.

She lives in a major urban area in a large high-rise apartment building rather than the common dream of many city dwellers, a more rural setting. She is excited to be at the beginning of a religious formation laying out the plans and structure of her chosen vocation. Read more about her adventure at (G)Nostic Nunnery.

(Gnostic Teachings) Why were ancient Christian texts buried -- and why have they remained virtually unknown for nearly 2,000 years? Their suppression as banned documents, and their burial on the cliff at Nag Hammadi, it turns out, were both part of a struggle critical for the formation of early Christianity. The Nag Hammadi and other texts, which circulated at the beginning of the Christian era, were denounced as heresy by orthodox Christians in the middle of the 2nd century. "We have known that many early followers of Christ were condemned by other Christians as heretics, but nearly all we knew about them came from what their opponents wrote attacking them - Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (New York: Vintage, 1989).

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BBC: Jesus was a Buddhist monk (video)

BBC documentary: "Did Jesus Die?"

(NJ) "Did Jesus Die" is a BBC documentary that examines the question the life of a man who has become the most famous figure in history. It looks at ideas around the question until minute 0:25. The examination of ideas takes a logical and grounded turn with surprising conclusions that demonstrate: The three wise men were Buddhist monks who found Jesus (considered a tulku or incarnation of a bodhisattva aiming to become the Messiah/Maitreya or buddha to come). They came back for him around puberty. After being trained in a Buddhist monastery (likely to be Hemis Gompa in Ladakh, India, near Tibet). He spread Buddhist philosophy, survived crucifixion (with the help of apostles and bribed Roman soldiers particularly the one who lanced him and prevented him from drowning in his own bodily fluids), and escaped Israel to the ancient Jewish enclave of Kashmir, Afghanistan where he died and was entombed as a respected sage (St. Issa) at the age of 80 (the same age the Buddha passed into final nirvana).

BBC Documentary: "Jesus Lived in India"

(BBC Worldwide, Alimirza30) Did Jesus die on the cross or of old age in Kashmir, India? Does the truth destroy the central tenet of Paul's version of Christianity, or does it open Christianity to reveal a "universal" tradition that borrowed liberally from many other traditions? tombofjesus.com

Holger Kersten: "It is simply of vital importance to find again the path to the sources, to the eternal and central truths of Christ's message, which has been shaken almost beyond recognition by the profane ambitions of more or less secular institutions arrogating to themselves a religious authority. This is an attempt to open a way to a new future, firmly founded in the true spiritual and religious sources of the past."

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Thus begins Holger Kersten's book Jesus Lived in India. This German book is a thorough, methodical, and authoritative examination of the evidence of Christ's life beyond the Middle East before the Crucifixion and in India and elsewhere after it.

This article is a summary of Kersten's exhaustive research into Christ's travels after the Crucifixion, his arrival in India with the Mother Mary, and finally his death and entombment in Kashmir. Kersten notes the many parallels of Christ's teachings with other religious [such as Buddhism] and cultural traditions and suggests that at least some of these figures may have been one and the same personality.

It is not possible, Kersten asserts, to disprove that Christ went to India. The current information documenting Christ's life [was massively edited with the burning of every known source that contradicts the Church's official story] is restricted to the gospels and the work of Church theologians. One can hardly trust these sources to be objective considering their obvious interest in maintaining the authority of their Church and its grip on the masses.

The Buddhist connection: a tulku, reincarnation, the search for a bodhisattva, and delusions of messianic (Maitreyanic) grandeur?

The Russian scholar, Nicolai Notovich, was the first to suggest that Christ may have gone to India. In 1887, Notovich, a Russian scholar and Orientalist, arrived in Kashmir during one of several journeys to the Orient. At the Zoji-la pass Notovich was a guest in a Buddhist monastery, where a monk told him of the bodhisattva saint called "Issa" [the pronunciation of Y'shua, his Jewish name, still used by Islam to refer to Jesus]. Notovich was stunned by the remarkable parallels of Issa's teachings and martyrdom with that of Christ's life, teachings, and crucifixion.

For about 16 years, Christ traveled through Turkey, Persia, Western Europe, and possibly England. He finally arrived with Mary to a place near Kashmir, where she died. After many years in Kashmir, teaching to an appreciative population, who venerated him as a great prophet, reformer, and saint, he died and was buried in a tomb in Kashmir itself [which is still there and can be visited, but attempts to disinter the body are prohibited by Islam, which has another saint buried there as well, but the area has been scanned revealing a body inexplicably buried according to Jewish custom and contrary to Islamic custom]. More

(National Geographic) "The Missing Years of Jesus." The years are not "missing" at all; they were carefully edited out by the early Church at various councils. And this has been known by scholars for years even though it has been kept from the Bible-reading public who dismiss this gaping hole in Judeo-Christian history as a perplexing "mystery."

Where to find the full picture of Christianity?
The "Lost" Gospels

(BBC) "The Lost Gospels"