LIVING IN THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN NOWCharles Day*

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Several recent excellent books offer us a contemporary interpretationor reinterpretation of the teachings of Jesus, the New Testament, andChristianity.Among them are Mysticism for Modern Times by Willigis Jager, ThePower of Now by Eckhart Tolle, The God of Jesus: The HistoricalJesus and the Search for Meaning by Steven Patterson, and TheHeart of Christianity by Marcus Borg.Jager is a German Benedictine Catholic monk who was influenced byhis study of Zen Buddhism in Japan for six years. Patterson andBorg are American Protestant theologians and members of the JesusSeminar. Patterson is an acknowledged scholar of the Gospel of Thomas, a fourth century manuscript discovered in Egypt in 1945.And Tolle, who has lived and taught in several countries, might becalled a generic spiritual philosopher, influenced by his study of Eastern and Western religious traditions in an effort to understand aradical enlightenment or mystical experience he had following yearsof depression.This is definitely an intercultural and interfaith group of authors who, Ithink, offer us a radically different but quite similar interpretation of theteachings of Jesus and the New Testament. Perhaps it is a naiveoversimplification, but I think they have independently concluded thatthe primary message of Jesus was simply:The kingdom of heaven is within,The kingdom of heaven is without,God is within, God is without,God is everywhere, God is all of it,There is nothing but God.And, this is the zinger: We just don’t realize it!In his book, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor,

Joseph Campbell says, “In the Gospel of Thomas (Saying 113) Jesus’disciples ask him, ‘When will the Kingdom come?’ He replies, ‘It willnot come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying 'Here it is'or 'There it is.' Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is spread out uponthe earth, and men do not see it.’"“Not seeing it,” Campbell says, “we live in the world as though it werenot the Kingdom. If you see that the Kingdom of the Father is spreadupon the earth while others do not see it, the End of the World hascome for you, for the world as it was for you has indeed ended. Youare not to interpret the End of the World concretely.”Campbell also says, “In addition to being spread upon the eartharound you, the Kingdom of God is within you.” He is referring toLuke 17:20-21, “And being asked by the Pharisees, when thekingdom of God cometh, Jesus answered them and said, ‘Thekingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say,Lo, here or there! for Lo, the kingdom of God is within you.’"The message that God is within, without, and everywhere, that God iseverything, and there is nothing that is not God, is the metaphysicaland mystical message that Jesus was trying to convey. Thisinterpretation does not diminish in any way the moral and ethicalteachings of the Old and New Testaments. Indeed, it provides theunderlying foundation and rationale for them.Jesus taught that morality and ethics should stem from recognition of the dignity and equality of all beings, regardless of their gender,social, economic, educational, health, criminal, religious, and politicalstatus. These were revolutionary teachings at the time and broughtJesus into conflict with civil and religious authorities as a social andpolitical threat.Morality and ethics, Jesus taught, were the natural byproducts of therealization that we are all an interconnected, unified whole, that weare all one, that I am you, that you are me, that thou are that. But,again, it is important to recognize that, in fact, we just don’t realize it.We may acknowledge our interconnectedness intellectually but fullrealization, enlightenment, or the experience of union with Goddepends upon intuitive, experiential, and transcendental insight into

the interdependent unity of all beings, of all mental and physicalphenomena, of all of creation.Unfortunately, this realization generally escapes us and even feelscounter-intuitive because our socialization, conditioning, and pastlearning experiences have caused and continue to cause us toconsciously and unconsciously separate ourselves out from the restof humanity and from everything else. Moreover, our physiologicaland neurological limitations prevent us from directly perceiving theinterconnected subatomic web of all of reality. And we become afraid,feel isolated and alienated, and fear death as an annihilation of our physical and mental being. We are lost in a “Cloud of Unknowing,” asthe 14th Century Christian mystic put it. The illusion of separation isthe original sin.The Old Testament - the Hebrew Scriptures and sacred book of Judaism - conveys through stories and prophesies the image of anexternalized, patriarchal, anthropomorphic God, a God that isomniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent, a God that is both vengefuland loving, a God that demands respect and fear, a God that tests his“chosen” people and dispenses rewards and punishments accordingto their obedience and righteousness.The New Testament of the Christians shifts the emphasis to a loving,caring, nurturing God, a God who promotes compassion, peace, andsocial justice through his “Only begotten Son, Jesus.” Its stories andparables are generally interpreted less literally and more symbolicallyand metaphorically. Yet, for most Christians, the God of the NewTestament remains an externalized, anthropomorphic being who nowfavors Christians as his “chosen” people, who grants a futureheavenly salvation after death only to the righteous, who continues topunish sinners by sending them to hell, and who adds the additional,exclusive criteria for salvation that one must believe that Jesus Christwas the only Son of God, born of the virgin Mary, and crucified,buried, and resurrected from the deadSix centuries later Mohammed declared that Jesus was but one in along line of prophets. Jesus deserved to be revered, but he was notGod incarnate and to elevate him to that position was a blasphemousviolation of the First Commandment, “That thou shall have no other