The Sermon on the Mount According to Vedanta

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Summary: What did Jesus preach?
Review: What did Jesus preach? It depended on his audience!

Jesus taught the masses according to their capacity. He spoke to them indirectly about spiritual truths through means of parable and metaphor. He was not an elitist. He was a realist.

He taught those closest to him through both indirect and direct means. "When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. He told them, the secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables..." Mark 4:10-11. NIV.

There is the exoteric "outside" type of Christianity of the masses and then there is the esoteric "inside" type of Christianity of the few. One a Christianity of the letter of the law, of doctrine, an indirect religion. The other a Christianity of the spirit of the law, of direct experience, a gnostic faith. One is religious, the other is spiritual. Jesus was an irreligious man. Excommunicated and sentenced to death by the religious and political leaders of his time Jesus was a revolutionary, a freedom fighter that gave his life for his cause. The cause of freedom. The truth shall make you free.

Fundamentalist Christianity is doctrinal religion. Tribal religion. Every esoteric spiritual tradition has a fundamentalist crowd of outsiders claiming to be insiders. They know doctrine, but they do not know God. "The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thy eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thy eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness..." Matthew 6:22-23. KJV

The single eye is the third eye of spiritual intuition that sees the unity of reality. The evil eye is the eye of duality that separates man from God. Eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is seeing only with our physical eyes. Seeing only appearances. Eating from the Tree of Life is seeing with all of our eyes, physical and spiritual. Seeing that the Kingdom of God is within the holy of holies, the heart. The gateless gate to the garden that leads to the great beyond. They have eyes but they cannot see...

With the above said, read "The Sermon on the Mount according to Vedanta." It may just open all of your eyes. Remember, it does not matter what we believe if we do not have love in our hearts.

Love and Peace