Trinitarian thinking came from India. It came to the Mediterranean area through both the southern and the northern routes, through Egypt and through Damascus. It was known and valued at Pythagorean monastic settlements and among Christian eremites, many of whom had Pythagorean training. India is the source of Christian Trinitarian Monotheism. Only in India can Trinitarian Monotheism be found prior to its being Christian.

The seminal redactor brought Trinitarian Monotheism in to be the ground of Christian Religion. He brought it in from its Vedic origin as mediated through Pythagorean monasticism. He intended it as the answer to Marcion. The seminal redactor's wish was that Trinitarian Monotheism be the ground of Christian Theology and the support of Christian Ethics. The Church had to put this wish of the seminal redactor into effect because it was a wish connected to a fact which the seminal redactor, as a Sage, was able to see. The fact was that neither the Church nor the Religion could survive without a Trinitarian ground. The Trinitarian ground was what made Christianity unique, virtual and strong in the glittering intellectual whirlpool that was the Roman Empire of the First through Third Centuries CE.

The seminal redactor wanted the principle of Threeness in the Christian Canon, as its base, because this principle is in fact the base of all life. He wanted Christianity resting on plenary cosmology (structure, male aspect). He acquired philosophical language for the principle of Threeness from its source, the Vedas.

Observe that Christianity and the Christian Church are something other than what Jesus was. He was a Unitarian Monotheist. This fact faces us down through the years as the presence within the Christian Communion of Unitarian points of view, such as in Unitarianism, Christian Science and Bahá'í.

Did the seminal redactor credit his source? I am sure that he did. There would be no reason for him not to. Solomon had been in communication with India. Pythagoras and Alexander were on the ground. Vedic Culture was a known and treasured entity in the Greek world. Greek itself, after all, is a scion of the Sanskrit Archetype. And Pandava Brothers had ruled the entire Mediterranean Basin through vassals just prior to the time of Abraham. The seminal redactor would have been aware gratefully of all this and more.

However, the final redactors, who were mere students, members of scholarly academic faculties, did not credit the source of Christian Trinitarian Monotheism, even though, as I am sure, they were aware of it. Nor did they credit the seminal redactor. These students academics at Alexandria, the final redactors who formed the Christian Canon and Tradition, adapted Trinitarian Monotheism from its Vedic source while hiding the where, the why and the how. They used the Archetype of Religion and Culture without attributing it. Nor did they mention Jesus' life in India, the longest and most formative period of his Career.

This elision by the scholars at Alexandria regarding the ground of Christian Theology and the activities of Jesus Trans-Jordan is a curious thing. It was deliberate and widely agreed to. And the effort to discover its motivation yields some energizing insights. However, we will suspend this line of inquiry for the moment and return to an examination of the seminal redactor.

With respect to the Christian Canon, someone, whom I call the seminal redactor, made an original or seminal selection. And it was primarily a selection, not primarily a writing. It is important to grasp this distinction between selecting and writing. The Bible, and especially the so-called New Testament, comes to us as a selection, not as a writing.

Furthermore, we can tell that this someone was far advanced spiritually speaking because, even though the final result of their work, the Christian Canon, does not cover the largest portion of Jesus' Career, details it does relate, and which must be from the core of the seminal redactor's labor, correlate positively with indications from Swami Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, Who is the Source, the Father referred to by Jesus. The seminal redactor knew quite a bit and had a good principle for selecting this text and not that. Only the spiritually excellent can be historically accurate. In addition, only work of the spiritually excellent is temporally persistent. The seminal redactor's selection was self-puissant. This is evident from the fact that the gist of it survived.

We should ask, what was the principle of canonicity employed by the seminal redactor? The answer is not easy to come by, for several reasons, but there is an answer. One reason the answer is not handy is this: the work of the seminal redactor was inundated by that of the final redactors. These people, mostly academic faculties and illiterate cenobites in committee at Alexandria, were not as spiritually advanced as was the seminal redactor and so their work, the Bible, rather obscures and contrives as much as it illumines the initiative of the seminal redactor. Their work also obscures and contrives the Career of the Progenitor, Jesus, Himself.

This being as it may, we are still not without knowledge of the principle of canonicity that was employed by the seminal redactor. We may infer it from what is evident to Sages as the source of all Sacred Literature, namely, the philosophy of Non-Dualism or Adwaitha, which means Not Two in Sanskrit. Only the attitude and philosophy of Adwaitha produces Holy Scriptures. Sages uniformly attest this truth. Humanity will not agree to the elevation of any literature to the stature of Sacred Canon unless it proceeds from the principle of Not Two. Rabbi Ben Maimon calls this principle the Via Negativa. In Vedic parlance it is called by a similar name, Neti, which means, Not only that but also ..... This principle, alone, produces the literature humanity takes for Sacred, Holy, Normative and Canonical.

Only monastics have spiritual excellence necessary for the composition of literature which has this quality and proceeds from this principle of Not Two. Therefore, we also know that only a monastic could have compiled the first selection of a Christian Canon, and only a monastic would have been wise and knowledgeable enough to propose the centering of the Christian Canon, Theology and Piety on the principle of Threeness, Trinitarian Monotheism. A student (academician) could not have done these things. Only a monastic could have done them.

Therefore, there is no puzzlement regarding the principle of canonicity employed by the seminal redactor. The principle he employed was the philosophy of Non-Dualism. Whatever expresses Adwaitha or Non-Dualistic Philosophy ... that there is not two, that the truth is the whole, ... whatever expresses this Truth, which is Reality, is canonical. The logical type which is represented by Adwaitha Philosophy is the principle of canonicity for all Sacred Scripture without exception.

From the range of writings extant at the middle of the Second Century, and from the Theology of Trinitarian Monotheism, mediated through Pythagorean Monasticism, the seminal redactor selected and structured a First Christian Canon. This Canon was filtered by Non-Dualism. It contained a mirror image of Vedic Trinitarian Monotheism. This was his seminal labor, his wish.

We need to distinguish between the Trinitarian Monotheism introduced by the seminal redactor from Sinai, on the one hand, and that which finally informs and is verbalized by the Christian Canon, particularly the so-called Pauline Corpus, on the other.

Between the seminal redactor and the final redactors some development has occurred, not all of it salutary. The seminal redactor introduced Trinitarian Monotheism, but he did not assert that Jesus is one aspect of the Triune Godhead. He was aware and asserted that Jesus reflected one aspect of the Trinity, the Siva aspect, the aspect of Consummation or Destruction of Illusion, 7 but he never asserted that Jesus was Himself an aspect of the Trinity. He would not have said this because Jesus was not an aspect of the Trinity. Jesus was not an Incarnation of an aspect (prosopon, in the Greek technical language, persona, in Tertullian's Latin) of the Godhead. Jesus Himself rejected such an evaluation of His Personality. And rightly so. He was an ordinary spiritual aspirant, an ordinary human being. He had a special Mission but not a special nature. The Mission He had did not require a special nature.

However, by the Third Century, students at Alexandria and elsewhere, they who were filtering writings for a Final Canon, were talking about Jesus as an embodied aspect of the Holy Trinity and they were redacting texts, particularly the so-called Pauline Corpus, to reflect this notion, which was their own fabrication. Academics are habitual fabricators. They easily get full of themselves.

Between taking Jesus as a reflection of an aspect of the Trinity and taking Him as an aspect of the Trinity itself, in the flesh, there is some difference. There is a difference of logical type. The difference is one not of essence 8 but of endowment. Jesus was a spiritual aspirant, like any other. He had birth in this capacity. Like most of the rest of us, he was sent into this Reformatory we call the world in order to learn how not to be sent back. He was a seeker. He was also the Messiah or Saviour anticipated by Hebrew and Buddhist Seers, but He was not a Person of the Triune Godhead. He said Himself that He was not such a One.

Jesus did not think of himself as the Second Person of the Trinity. During his 25th year, while he was resident at a convent in Tibet, Jesus became aware that He was the Messiah anticipated by Hebrew prophets. But a Messiah is not an aspect of the Godhead and Jesus never considered Himself an aspect of the Godhead, as a Person of the Holy Trinity. He prayed to a Person of the Trinity. He was not Himself one of those Persons. Nor did He become one of those Persons during the course of His Career. The Church has always said that.

Very late in His brief Career, Jesus took Himself for a Messiah. Jesus was a late bloomer. For many years He cast about trying to find Himself. He understood Himself, finally, as a Messiah, and when He had this realization He also grasped the Mission on which He had been sent.

Jesus' Mission was fore-ordained, from before His birth, but His recognition of His Mission arrived towards the end of His Career. Jesus was not omniscient. His Mission was present from His birth, and even from before His birth, but His realization of His Mission was not present from His birth and certainly not from before His birth. It was during his 25th year that Jesus became aware of His Mission as the Messiah foreseen by Hebrew Sages (nabiim, prophets, in Hebrew). He was at that moment resident at a convent in Tibet, probably at Hemis.

A Messiah is a Saviour from distress. A Messiah does not have to be an Incarnation of the Godhead in order to accomplish the Mission on which He is sent. A Messianic Mission can be conducted entirely from the ordinary endowment of an ordinary human being. The Mission can be successfully carried out and the goals set for It entirely accomplished from the platform and using the equipment of ordinary humanity. Ordinary humanity is that good and that capable. The Church has always and everywhere been making this point in its condemnation of Marcionism, which contains the groundless thought that ordinary humanity is defective and inclined towards weakness or wickedness.

The Final Canon, the one from Alexandria, is derived from the First Canon, the one from Sinai, but the Final Canon exceeds the intent of the First Canon and that not in the direction of greater veracity but of less. The Final Canon inflates the nature of Jesus, representing it as something it was not. The Final Canon is useful for spiritual exercise, and it may be called a Canon, but adepts are aware that it overstates Jesus' nature and, in some areas, His Mission as well. In the Final Canon, the work of the seminal redactor has been used but it has been altered downwards, distorted by individuals less capable than himself. These individuals understood less than the seminal redactor did and wanted to promote things that were not supported by the facts of Jesus' life.

The difference between the First Canon and the Final Canon is this: the First Canon represented Jesus as a reflection of an aspect of the Trinity, which He was; 9 the Final Canon represents Jesus as an Incarnation of an aspect of the Trinity, which He was not. The Councils emphasized the notion promoted by the Final Canon. Experience gave way to speculation and intimacy to distance.

Footnotes

7- The illusion Siva destroys and the destruction of which issues in what is the essence of consummation is the sense of two-ness or multiplicity. Consummation, in other words, is the experience of unity. It is Yoga precisely defined. Return

8- There are not two essences. Return

9- He reflected the aspect which is personified as Siva, the aspect of Consummation.