911 and 77 (21)
Like many others I know all about Jesus but there are not many others who also know about Lobsang. The Tuesday Lobsang Rampa story is so fantastic that few people can believe it so they prefer to rubbish it rather than look into it and such people want to be or expect to be respected but what exactly is the basis of that respect meant to be? I do not respect them at all because just as they choose, choose, to think in a robotic or semi robotic way which is what they do when they automatically dismiss such a story and by doing so show least respect for the most deserving of our respect, then so to do they earn merit for my complete disrespect.
But then, the story of Jesus is also fantastic, isn't it, and those who have more or less spat on Lobsang, figuritively speaking at least, are very often christians out to destroy the competition which is what they seem to do best while boasting about their love.
Pitted together in a battle of the giants in a Jesus versus Lobsang competition, there would be 'no-contest' and Lobsang would be the outright winner. In fact Jesus would not just be second, but he would be a poor second.
I am sure Jesus followers will make claims that Jesus was unique and special and suffered at the cross and may throw in a couple of other attributes to strengthen their argument but taken one at a time and examined and compared there really is no doubt about it, Jesus would come second.
Let's take a look at their teachings and their ways of teaching because, in essence that is what both of these amazing men were: our teachers. And, make no mistake, they were marvellous teachers too, both of them. Jesus was rarely literal, speaking in riddles and parables in fact the very word parable is almost synonymous with Jesus. Lobsang, on the other hand, explained how things are, life, spirit and related subjects. Lobsang was always clear and had a more exact way of explaining things and even went to a lot of trouble to put it all in english and on top of that express it in a form of english that at the time, early 60s, I would say, set a precedent or certainly broke away from the traditional book writing norm when tackling a esoteric subject, the fashion in english has always been to intellectualise everything and to turn each simple fact into a book-writing expedition on it's own to slightly overstate the case. He could have done it that way, just appealed to the intellectual reader but he didn't and he did the exact opposite and he did it extremely well.
So in comparing Jesus with Lobsang and the teaching merits and differences it is clear that Jesus left room for interpretive error - and the proof of this is in the many interpretations of Jesus basic teachings - and it is also clear that Lobsang explained far more and far more effectively than Jesus. As teachers Lobsang wins hands down, outright winner.
As for suffering, Jesus spent a long weekend, from an average Friday, at least probably not a particularly good one, not for him anyway, to the bank holiday Monday, nailed to a cross - although, thinking about it now, I suppose it would be more correct these days to describe it as being screwed, totally screwed, and apart from that little hiccup he basically was eating and drinking the whole time, I mean, let's see, feeding the five thousand, the last supper, turning water into wine, the feast of the circumcision..."would you like another slice of foreskin, Jesus?" is the caption I keep hearing in my minds ear, look, if you can make a couple of fish feed thousands making a meal out of... but, seriously, Jesus had quite a good time most of his life and that weekend, as far as suffering goes, is hardly worth making a song and dance about. And, in any case, he was all done and dusted by his thirties. Lobsang suffered, he had a hard life from the outset even from the days of his severe testing as he sat alone waiting to be accepted into a Tibetan monsastery and then in the monastery his life was not easy by any means but even that life was a doddle compared to what lay in store for him and he was tortured several times by the Japanese and later by the Russians but on top of that he was rejected, denounced, treated with fascination, unwarranted interference into all aspects of his private life and rejection to the point of it being an extreme suffering that any normal person would be driven insane by. And yet he kept it up for many more years than Jesus did. On the suffering front, then, Lobsang, again wins outright and there is absolutely no contest there at all. Jesus was usually accepted even though he wasn't understood, Lobsang was not accepted and was not understood either.
Then there is the "God's only Son" attribution that Jesus has been given. In my considered opinion this is metaphor and Lobsang explained it far better when he wrote about the Overself. Once you grasp the idea of the overself then you can also grasp that this is an intermediary between us as humans and the total unity of Being (God if you prefer) and it is fairly clear, I think, that it is this overself, that each of us belongs to which is, in a manner of speaking, the only way to God. No other explanation - and I have been a student of the spiritual reality for decades now - makes much sense. Not only does that make more sense but when people inadvertantly become 'locked' to the overself (that's not the right word but I can't think of a better one) then they actually do experience reality as if they are Jesus and that is perceived by the rest of us as a psychotic episode but think about it. I know of one person who switched into that mode for a time and went into a UK supermarket to seek disciples out and, guess what, she came out with two - which makes me wonder if they had a special offer, you know, buy one get one free! The story is true despite my joking.
God's only son or "Jesus was the Son of God" is a metaphorical way of explaining the overself and more particularly, the relationship or where it fits into the overall scheme of things - in my opinion - and no other interpretation makes any real sense. So Jesus obviously knew that, he obviously did know, he was genuinely spiritually knowledgeable and certainly that is or seems to be a rare thing but it is not unique and it is not special enough to form a whole religion over. Lobsang recounts a time when he was taken in and cared for in New York and while he was asleep the family who were hiding him were visited and when Lobsang woke up they were in awe of him because, they explained, while he had been sleeping, an angel had visited them and told them to ask him to instruct them on how to pray. Compare that with any of the angel visitations relating to the Jesus events or for that matter any of them in the old and new testaments of the bible; where in them is there anything resembling such an incredibly qualifying and utterly moving and profound yet simple example of the nature of the Greater Reality?
People decide what is true not on the basis of liklihood but on the basis of normality in other words if it is twisted and re presented to be mind-paletable then it will be grabbed and taken up which is what christianity is at best but it is also an extremely malignant system too. But if it is strange, too strange to believe, then it will be attacked. That is really what is behind the pseudo-reasoned rationale that denounces Lobsang - the accusations against him have always been of that nature. That is the hallmark of our civilisation today - that we operate in such a superficial and insane manner and it does amount to insanity.
I recommend that you read one of Lobsang's books, "You Forever" was the one I first read (in 1968), "Chapters of Life", "Third Eye" and others are wonderful too, they can fill you with wonder and awe, genuinely they are wonderful and awesome, literally. Some of his other books are less valuable but if you read one of his best books first then you will almost certainly want to go on to read all of them regardless. When you read a Lobsang Rampa book it is usually best to put aside your disbelief - don't worry, it will return soon enough. Also, don't try and read book after book, like some mad student cramming exercise, but stick to one at a time-period, one that you give time for it to sink in, because when you are challenging your own conventional understanding of reality, which you almost certainly will be doing, the only way to learn anything new about, to 'absorb' it is to formulate your own understanding and that is a process that takes time, or put another way it's called consolidation and you need to allow for it when reading Lobsang's explanations simply because to a 'western' mind they are just so very strange and so is the matter of fact and down to earth manner of expressing them too. We are just not used to, just not familiar with, this simple and easy expression of the extremely strange and unusual. Ask yourself as you dismiss an idea, in one of those books, are you dismissing on the basis of reason or on the basis of strangeness? And bear in mind the saying "Truth IS stranger than fiction" because that definitely applies to the Lobsang story - or, just take my word for it if that helps. He was genuine, he was greater than Jesus, by far.
By Paul E. Coughlin
SaneThinking.com
18 May 2007
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