I was raised Protestant, so the Catholic Church was always “those others” to me. The first Catholic raised person I met in my life was in the past year, and I’m in my forties.
They harbour much anger due to the authoritarianism, which wasn’t the case with my Protestant upbringing.
The Egyptian and Mithraism influence on the Roman Catholic Church were just things that surfaced in my readings about these matters over the years.
Jesus did not found any religion and / or organized religion.
He was born into an environment wherein Judaism was the prominent organized religion.
His mom, Mary, was a member of an elite priestly class. (Aaronic order)
His cousin, John (The Baptist) was also born within the same environment. His dad was also a priestly class of the Aaronic order.
As mentioned by Ra above, the entity called Jesus begin a lifetime of seeking and searching within the religious construct of Judaism.
Both Jesus and his cousin John are deemed heretical by the religion authority of their time and convicted with death penalty. Jesus apparently survived the ordeal while John sadly did not.
Thus there’s no “original church” to begin with.
After the ‘demise’ of their respective teacher, the disciples of both Jesus and John spread around the area, spreading the teaching. Yet none founded any religion.
How the ‘teaching’ then evolved to became (many) religion and some even become powerful to become an official religion/ideology of Roman Empire, such as Catholicism (made official around 300 CE), happened through a lengthy and complex processes.
Neither did Buddha, and yet here we are. Human nature is human nature, it happens spontaneously.
As far as the influences on the Catholic church, it’s completely normal for people of different cultures to influence one another with their customs and philosophies once they start mixing, and Rome was the epicenter of Mithraism.
This can easily be researched online, many doctoral theses were written on this, along with books and evidence. The Egyptian influence is also well documented.
I think my observation is quite straightforward, if you look at the Roman Catholic church then and now…have they even read the gospels?
Alas, more eloquent individuals than myself have had their voices heard on this, hence my sharing of the Alan Watts clip.
To be precise, neither did (Prince) Siddhartha.
Buddha is a ‘title’, with root meaning of ‘awakened’, well similar to the ‘enlightened’ which is more commonly used nowadays.
There are some common patterns, organized religion tends to ‘make exclusive’ a terminology which supposed to be inclusive.
For example; instead of everyone to be sons and daughters of the loving Heavenly Father, religion turned it into Jesus as the only son of God.
Instead of everyone has potential to be ‘enlightened’, religion turned it into “Siddhartha” as the only one who is Enlightened (a Buddha).
Yes this is apparent by the ‘though process’.
Example: Jesus as the (only) son of God thus also a God. (while you or others are not)
Make sense only if the person is familiar or exposed to the concept of Hercules son of a God named Zeus who mated with a mortal human named Alcmene. Since Zeus is a God thus Hercules is also a God and also a human.
While the ‘dogma’ of salvation from original sin due to ancestor eating a forbidden apple is clearly heavily influenced by Judaism and/or it’s root; the ancient Sumerian/Mesopotamian religion. As to cancel such sin, somebody need to die / sacrificed thus the God will be pleased and the sin will be forgiven.
I guess without going into all the complexities of belief systems of ages past, we no longer have this obstacle in our way nowadays. For anyone who seek, they will find. At some point, words and words and more words is an obstacle in itself. Discovering the sources of so many distortions over the ages, was simply of some intellectual interest to me…until I realised transcending the intellect is the real gold. Maybe it was a necessary step on my path.
The creator is in us all, and these personalities of ages past (Jesus, Buddha, etc) who realised this consciously are inspiration to me nowadays, which was what I was trying to convey.
Organised religion and the dead-end that it is, may be a necessary step on someone else’s path, so nothing is “wrong” per se, just the adventure continuing (with all its twists and turns). I think God loves a good story, and this is one epic tale.
Yes that’s exactly what Jesus did and also Siddhartha did.
The seeking need to start by each own self.
All the (negative) distortion is a catalyst for everyone to start the seeking.
Thus the Service-To-Self in their own way are unknowingly and unintentionally serving others by providing such catalyst.
There are some additional details given by Ra/Quo on where did Jesus go for his seeking during the so called “Lost Years”.
Not much detail on Siddhartha’s life though by Ra/Quo, perhaps because nobody in llresearch circle asked them about it or familiar about his life story. But nonetheless Siddhartha went to similar journey of seeking, leaving behind a luxurious life, since he was born as a prince.
On a side note, I found an interesting session wherein an entity named Yadda bewildered with ‘being challenged by (only) the name of Jesus Christ’.
I Yadda. I with this instrument, greet you in love and light of infinite Creator. We like this instrument. She challenge in name of Jesus Christ. We say, “How about Buddha?” We not fully grasp this instrument’s fanaticism, but even she be provincial, we say, “Okay,” because she passionate, she care, and she real. And so are we. We come in love and light of infinite One, One Who is All, and we come only because we wish to underscore need for laughter, need for merriment, and need for intensity of life. Not the outer life. You must forget all those clothings you put on your body and on your mind and on your head. All those hats you wear—mother, father, employer, employee, all those things—take them off, throw them away. You want a reputation? Do not go into spiritual seeking. No reputation to be had there. No, sir. You must think carefully before you become one interested more in the inner journey than in the outer journey. You know you gonna die. But you know why you alive?
Thanks for sharing that session, that was a nice read.
For sure, along with growing and evolving.
As for Siddhartha Gautama, I’m well familiar with his life story, Buddhism has been of prominent influence on my spiritual evolution.
Although as is so often the case, the “facts” of someone’s life so seldom give a measure of the human. When I read my own CV, I always think to myself “this says nothing about me”.
I’m more interested in his teachings after his awakening, and the teachings of those who followed in his footsteps, especially the Zen lineages (the five houses). The Shōbōgenzō by Dōgen Zenji is a treasure trove.
Zen has been described thusly:
“If Buddhism is the father, Taoism is the mother of this prodigious child. But there can be no denying that the child looks more like the mother than the father.”
So once again, you had cultures mixing and influencing one another with their philosophies, and the result was wonderful, so its not necessarily a concern. Mithraism was in its turn influenced by Zoroastrianism, and so the dominoes falling can be traced further and further back, like a good detective story, with mixed results, sometimes positive, sometimes negative.
Even in my own life I mix and match; a pinch of the Gospels, two cups Buddhism, copious amounts of Zen & Daoism, and last but not least, our friends of Ra, not to mention the herbs and spices; Alan Watts, Eckhart Tolle, Jiddu Krishnamurti…and so on and so forth… a truly delightful casserole, one for the books! Keep tasting as you stir, and balance flavours according to you own taste buds…and don’t forget the greatest teacher of all…life.
I consider Christianity, in its least distorted form, to be a wonderful movement for spiritual development.
I attribute the rise of Christianity to changes in the mental and consciousness of the masses of people, cultural changes, political influences, a side effect of wars and conquests and migrations and other accompanying frictions and mutual influences, over several centuries.
I believe that the most significant influences that caused the emergence of Christianity came from three civilizations: Roman, Greek and Egyptian.
Rome: the figure of Julius Caesar, who was a sort of messiah for the people of the time. As a brilliant politician and military man, from the Romans’ point of view he was a “God-sent Messiah” leading the Roman Empire to triumph, prosperity and freedom from external invaders.
Egypt: Monotheism, thanks to Echnaton. Specifically, cosmogonic monotheism, with one sun god as the common source of all things and who can be referred to simply as the One God.
Greece: Plato and Greek philosophy. And in particular love, which was called agape. Agape was the highest form of love. It meant the love of God for people, as well as people for God. It was also an unconditional and transcendent love.
In addition to this, I believe that along the way there were at least a few select people who pushed these religious transformations forward. Like Saint Paul and Jesus himself, of course.
In the end, beyond the historical complexities, which are impossible to pinpoint anyway (at least for me), the most important thing is the one general idea behind Christianity, which in one sentence I could present: The unconditional love (“Greece”) through conception of oneness (“Egypt”) and perseverance, courage and strength of character to stay in faith on that path (“Rome”). At least I perceive it that way…
That I agree with you, and that Christianity was discovered by Joel Goldsmith which he taught in his Infinite Way movement.
He mentions his perplexity and dismay with the “Egyptian” Roman Catholic Church in his book The Thunder of Silence.
There were times where I spent time exploring “Scriptures of Early Church Fathers” which majority doesn’t make it to the final cut of an official bundle called “The Bible”.
This site is one among my main source:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/
Among the earliest llresearch material that grabbed my attention was the one that I quoted above where Ra told a story about young Jesus accidentally caused a fatal wound to another child. I read about this previously on the “Infancy Gospel of Thomas”.
Based on my exploration; there isn’t any ‘least distorted form of Christianity’, there might exist a 'least distorted form of teachings as told by Jesus". And add to the fact that Jesus is not a Christian, as Allan Watts correctly pointed out, Christianity is / are religions about Jesus but not the religion of Jesus.
Any form of ‘distortion’ is actually can be seen as wonderful, including the catalyst given by the service-to-self group. And as Ra mentioned the STS contribution is indeed needed as catalyst to boost polarization thus spiritual development.
In case of Jesus, his polarization was indeed boosted by many STS contribution within a material which he spent time studying as a child, a bundle of Judaism holy scrolls named Tanakh.
I think the most unfortunate turn of events was that the Old Testament wasn’t discarded with the inception of Christianity, because the “god” of the Old Testament is not the God described by Jesus.
…but Jesus also said some off-sounding things sometimes, like Luke 14:26… that verse has always bothered me.
And Luke 9:60 is another one I found bothersome.
There were a few other instances during my rereading of the gospels recently that made me uncomfortable…like when his mother was calling from outside… that would be the Matthew 12:46-50 incident.
…a little bizarre in my opinion…
Well “The Gospel of Luke” was written as a “report” from Luke to somebody named Theophilus (Luke 1), presumably somebody in Roman Empire structure. In modern era, this is similar to “Intelligence Briefing Report”. It’s not a first account witness and it contains many layer of distortion.
I got the sense that those who make an effort to ‘standardize / cannonize the wide range of spectrum of Christianity’ is in the same “polarization group” as the “god” described in Old Testament. Ra/Quo explained who this entity claimed to be Yahweh and spoke to Moses really is.
In any case, the Old Testament a.k.a Tanakh is also the catalyst that act as a trigger for Jesus to start his own seeking journey.
That’s perhaps why Jesus decided to use a new name, unfamiliar to the Judean population, Abwoon D’Bashmaia in Aramaic, translated to English as “Heavenly Father” which might not be 100% close, closer translation is perhaps “Father-Mother of the Cosmos” while literally it means “Father womb of all breath”.
Ra’s labelling of “One Infinite Creator” might relatively be closer in translation.
And yeah, although it’s a speculation of mine, perhaps during his seeking journey Jesus find out who this Yahweh in Tanakh really is, yet keep such knowledge to himself as saying about such sensitive matter might not be constructive to his mission.
Indeed, not to mention the entity Abraham spoke to, telling him to sacrifice/kill his son.
I think for me personally nowadays as far as Jesus goes, I assume some bits and pieces of the story reached us intact (or relatively intact) and other bits and pieces were distorted (lost in translation, misunderstanding, tampering perhaps, omission, other influences as previously mentioned, etc.)
It’s all a bit convoluted, sadly. We know he was a high priority target, so his teaching and its influence on humanity was likely also a high priority, to nip in the bud.
And so the saga of polarity continues.
The Nag Hammadi scrolls really does make him sound like a Zen master.
That is such a thing a zen master would say!
And on another note, if you ever want to give yourself a treat, you should read The Gateless Gate and The Blue Cliff Records. It’s collections of zen kōans, somewhat reminiscent in a few instances of the parables and their meanings.
The cosmic joke is that the same “Kingdom of Heaven” as Jesus liked to call it, was in everyone wanting to stone him, and all the other characters who participated in this grand old tale, from Barabbas to Pontius Pilate to Caiaphas to each and every Roman soldier to the Samaritan woman at the fountain.
The secret is in the seeker.
It’s humorous, is it not? What did Meister Eckhart once say?..I’m paraphrasing…“if only artists would stop depicting Jesus in agony and sadness, if they knew what I know they’d depict him laughing.”
The ‘core’ of the teaching can be found in the “Lord’s prayer”.
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Yes it also has suffered a distortion from translation.
Forgive and you shall be forgiven.
As mentioned; forgiveness shall break the bond of karma.
This is in contrast with “an eye for an eye” that was popular in Judaism context, or maybe “10 eyes for an eye” in Roman Empire context.
Or a Yogi, if Jesus and John preach in India, both of them will definitely be called as a “Yogi Master” by the society. The same label that was given to Siddhartha during his seeking journey. The word “Yoga” by itself has literal meaning of “Unify”. Thus “Yogi” are those who seek/teaches unification with the infinite.
Nonetheless previously I had a suspicion that Jesus did travelled to these region as part of his seeking.
Which Ra mentioned as:
At the age of approximately thirteen and one-half of your years, this entity left the dwelling place of its earthly family, as you would call it, and walked into many other places seeking further information. This went on sporadically until the entity was approximately twenty-five, at which time it returned to its family dwelling and learned and practiced the art of its earthly father.
And from Quo I stumbled upon this:
Zachary
One brief follow-up, Q’uo. It is said that that secret teaching that Jesus conveyed to his disciples was Kriya Yoga, is that correct?
Q’uo
I am Q’uo and am aware of your query, my brother. In general, this is mostly correct, although at that time it was not described as that particular type of yoga. However, many other entities throughout the history succeeding from the times of the one known as Jesus, have found this particular type of yoga in their own experience, or in the experience of others who became their teachers who had learned of this type of yoga in a, what you might call, trickle down fashion from other teachers so that there were some alterations or changes made to this type of yoga that eventually has evolved into that which you know as Kriya Yoga.
And during the same session Quo also explained how Jesus seek unification with the one infinite creator which he called as “Father”. A process that anyone can seek and not exclusively only available to Jesus.
Specifically back to the “Zen master”, according to Quo Jesus did travelled as far as to “Far East” as part of his seeking journey.
J
In the middle years, in the many travels made by Jesus, did he visit what is known now as Mexico?
Q’uo
I am Q’uo, and we look upon this query with some concern, for there is the possibility of the infringement upon the free will of those who feel there is value in the possibility of this occurrence having truly occurred. We would, however, suggest that this entity remained in the vicinity of the near and far east, and was also one who journeyed into various portions of the continent now known as Asia, but did not partake in any journeys which crossed the barrier known as the Pacific Ocean.
Jesus certainly beat Marco Polo by way many centuries… 
My PC is in for repairs, so I’ve been participating in this conversation on my phone, which can be a bit challenging when linking and quoting.
I’ll respond as soon as I get it back later on today, but thank you for a very interesting conversation thus far.
The possibility of Jesus (and maybe some disciples after his death…I’ll get to that later) reaching India / Tibet / elsewhere is quite an intriguing idea to me, because the possibility then exists that he awakened in the Far East during his “missing years”, and then returned to his homeland subsequently to start his ministry. We have him going missing at around 13 years old, and returning at around 25 years old. Did he get schooled in Vedanta or maybe the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism…or maybe one of the
Dzogchen traditions?
If I recall correctly, didn’t Swami Vivekananda also allude to this in his address to the World’s Parliament of Religions in 1893?
Ah yes, I have just listened to his speech again, these were his words:
Another piece of the puzzle…
A-ha! Soooooo, we can only wonder and speculate where, who and what teachings he encountered.
As for his disciples and their whereabouts after his death, I have just finished a book called The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese, which is fiction against a real historical backdrop. Oprah was going on and on about the book, and even had a ten part podcast series about it, so I figured I’d better read it.
It’s a modern day masterpiece as far as I’m concerned, but the reason I mention it here, is because the story takes place in Kerala province in South India between 1900 and 1977, and the Indian family at the heart of the story are Saint Thomas Christians. They claim that Thomas reached their shores shortly after Jesus’ death, and started his mission there.
Here’s the wiki page about the Saint Thomas Cristians in India:
So that’s quite interesting…“doubting Thomas” went far, if this is to be believed. 
For me unfortunately the “Lord’s prayer” is not helpful, and I think it’s misleading to people. God is not “out there in the sky somewhere”, and the “kingdom” is not a future event, it’s in us right now.
The people were asking Jesus “when will the kingdom come, this kingdom of heaven you are talking about?” Jesus replied “the kingdom of Heaven is spread upon the earth but men do not see it.”
As for forgiveness, I’m slowly but surely discovering that true forgiveness is realising there’s nothing to forgive.