In her best-selling book, _Out on a Limb,_ Shirley MacLaine
recounts how a friend once said to her: "You know that nothing is
recorded in the Bible about Christ from the time he was about
twelve until he began to really teach at about thirty years
old. Right?" "Yes," MacLaine replied, "I had heard about that
and I just figured he didn't have much to say until he got
older." "Well, no," her friend responded, "a lot of people
think that those eighteen missing years were spent traveling
in and around India and Tibet and Persia and the Near
East....They say he became an adept yogi and mastered complete
control over his body and the physical world around
him....[he] tried to teach people that they could do the same
things too if they got more in touch with their spiritual
selves and their own potential power."[1]
Did Jesus travel to the East to study under gurus? Did He
_become_ "the Christ" as a result of what He learned and
accomplished there? Are there mystical "gospels" that have been
suppressed by the church, keeping us from knowing the _real_
Jesus? In this article, we will look at these and other important
questions related to the Jesus of the New Age movement. We begin
by examining the claims of a controversial Russian writer.
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*Glossary of Key Terms*
*Caste.* A term applied to the social groups in India which
rank in a hierarchical order. The four primary castes -- from
highest to lowest -- are: _Brahmins_ (priests), _Kshatriyas_
(warriors), _Vaishyas_ (peasants), and _Sudras_ (unskilled
laborers).
*Cosmic Christ.* Variously defined, but always seen as
divine. Many New Agers speak of him (it) as a universal,
impersonal entity who -- among other things -- indwelt the body
of the _human_ Jesus for three years (from his baptism to his
crucifixion).
*Jains.* Followers of Jainism. Jainism is a religious system
of India that arose in the sixth century B.C. in protest against
the ritualism of Hinduism and the authority of the _Vedas._ Jains
are rigidly ascetic, believing in a strict control of wrong
thought and action as a means of escaping from the transmigration
of the soul (rebirth) that results from one's past actions
(karma)....
Source File: crj0057a.txt
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