Taoist Immortality & The Gospel Story

The major events within the lives of spiritual Masters are often symbolic of the internal changes that occur for practitioners of their given tradition. For instance: the birth, baptism, transfiguration, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of Master Jesus can - from a mystical or esoteric point of view - be seen to represent the various expansions of consciousness that the Christian seeker experiences, as s/he walks this path.

Though the language is different, the particular stages through which practitioners pass are often quite similar, across traditions (a point made by Joseph Campbell in his Hero With A Thousand Faces). So the Inner Alchemical stages through which a Taoist initiate passes, en route to Immortality, bear clear resemblances to the stages described through the Christian Gospel Story. And both of these can be seen as examples of the Stages of Initiation described by Esoteric science. I've explored this all in more detail in this new essay. Enjoy!

Learning the Language of Birds & Beasts ...

This beautiful passage from the Gospel of the Nazarines, also called the Gospel of the Holy Twelve (the original Gospel from which the present four Gospels were derived - hidden by members of the Essene community in a Buddhist monastery in Tibet) describes a spiritual training that could just as easily have been that of a Taoist adept:

And Jesus, after he had finished his study of the Law, went down again into Egypt that he might learn the wisdom of the Egyptians, even as Moses did. Going into the desert, he meditated and fasted and prayed, and obtained the power of the Holy Name, by which he wrought many miracles. And for seven years he conversed with God face to face, and he learned the language of birds and beasts, and the healing power of trees, and of herbs, and of flowers, and the hidden secrets of precious stones, and he learned the motions of the Sun and Moon and stars, and the powers of letters, and the mysteries of the Square and the Circle and the Transmutation of things, and of forms, and of numbers, and of signs.