The message of Christ can be described as a message of radical love: The radical love of God and the radical love of neighbor. Jesus proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God, which is radical love. The message of radical love is contained in two statements made by Jesus. They are: “I and the Father are one” (John10:30), and “Whatever you do to the least of my brothers and sisters, that you do unto me” (Matthew 25:40).

Jesus experienced radical love, and he wanted us to experience it too. However, it is a journey, with four stages or stepping stones. We can understand Jesus’ message more clearly by seeing how this journey was reflected in his own life. His life had four important moments.

Birth
The first moment was his birth as a human being. His physical mother, Mary, conceived him, protected him, nourished him and gave birth to him as a human being. In this sense, he was one hundred percent human.

Circumcision
The second important moment was the day of his circumcision. On the eighth day of his birth he was circumcised and he became a Jew. Later he was presented in the temple. The temple was the symbol of Judaism. It was his spiritual womb. We can say Jesus entered into the womb of Judaism on that day. Judaism became pregnant with him. As a Jew he had to grow in the womb of Judaism. As a Jew he might have said that Judaism was his way, his truth and his life.

Baptism
But as he grew in his religion he realized the limitations of it. The first limitation was that his religion divided humanity into two: Jews and Gentiles. It limited God to being only the God of the Jews, and it made humans subservient to religion or the Law. This brought him to the third important moment in his life, his baptism. With this experience, Jesus came out of the womb of Judaism and entered into the universal presence of God. It was the inauguration of the new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-34), in which God wrote the Law in his heart: “You are my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11).

God did not reveal to him what he should do or should not do but who he was. In this experience, the wall between the Jews and the Gentiles was broken down and a new human being was born, the Son of God, in whom the Jews and the Gentiles were united. God was no longer the God of the Jews but the God of the whole of humanity and creation. Now the religion, the Law, was no longer the way, the truth and the life. Jesus himself was the way, the truth and the life. This consciousness transcended the Law but included the Law. It did not abolish the Law but fulfilled the Law. Jesus does not replace the Law with himself but he inaugurates a new consciousness in which the truth is within.

“I and the Father are one.”
The fourth important moment in the life of Jesus was when he said, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). It was the realization of his eternal identity with God. We do not know exactly when Jesus entered into this consciousness. However, with this realization, the ascending aspect of his spiritual evolution came to an end. In this sense, he was one hundred percent divine in the source and one hundred percent human in the manifestation.

We can call the first of these moments that of the birthing of his individual mind, or consciousness. The second moment was the birth of his collective mind as a Jew. The third moment birthed the universal mind (the son of God) and the fourth moment the unitary mind, or being one with God. Another way of describing it is as a growth from individual love to collective love, from collective love to universal love, and from universal love to divine love.

The tree of life
We can explain these moments through the symbol of a tree. A tree has leaves, branches, a trunk and then roots. The leaves are the symbol of our individual identities. There are so many leaves and so many individuals on the tree of life. If each leaf is living for itself, then it is living in individual love. When the leaf realizes it is connected to a branch, it moves into the collective identity and lives for its collective identity. This identity unites us with some and separates us from others, just as one branch is separated from another. In this level, our love becomes collective love. We live for our collective identity and may even be willing to die for our collective identity. The trunk is the symbol of our universal mind. All branches and leaves are attached to the trunk, but at the same time it transcends them. Here our love becomes universal love. The trunk lives for all and dies for all. We Christians say that Jesus died for all, and he did so because he lived for all. There is only one trunk and one universal mind, or one Son of God. The trunk or the universal mind is the mediator between the roots, which represent the unitary mind, and the branches and leaves. The trunk receives from the roots and nourishes the branches and the leaves. It speaks to the roots in the name of the leaves and the branches and it speaks to the branches and the leaves in the name of the roots. At the level of the roots—the unitary mind or consciousness or God—our love becomes divine love or unitary love.

Jesus the Whole Truth
Jesus is the whole tree. He is a leaf as much as he is a one physical being. He is a branch as much as he belongs to the Jewish tradition. He is the trunk as much as he is the Son of God, the universal person, who lives for all and who dies for all. He is the roots as much as he is one with the divine.

The radical love of God and neighbor
In the universal consciousness, whatever we do to others we do to Christ or God. This is the radical love of God and the radical love of neighbor. Jesus called this experience, symbolically, the kingdom of God. Jesus invited his listeners to enter into this kingdom of God, to this unity of life, to eat the fruit from the tree of life which God had planted in the Garden of Eden.

One Way, Many Expressions
The way he proposed is one. It is the transition from individual love to collective love, from collective love to universal love, and from there to divine love. But he described this one way with different words, such as repent, rebirth, becoming like little children, interior death, growing into a tree and losing one’s self in order to find it. He began his ministry saying, “The kingdom of God is at hand, repent” (Mark 1:15). He said to Nicodemus, “Unless you are born again you cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven” (John 3:3). He admonished his disciples, “Unless you become like little children, you cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3). He said to his disciples, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone, but when it dies it gives a mighty harvest” (John 12:24). Jesus described the kingdom of God thus: “The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. It is the smallest of all seeds but when it grows it becomes so big that the birds of the air will come and make their nests in it” (Matthew 13:31-32). “If you lose your self (conditioned self or ego), you will gain it (unconditioned self). If you gain or hold to yourself (conditioned self), you will lose it (unconditioned self)” (Luke 9:23-24).

The “one way” to God
All these expressions refer to the same “one way”. In this “one way”, there are many levels. The conversion to which Jesus invited his listeners is not about an individual entering into a branch (religion) or moving from one branch (religion) to another branch (religion). It was an invitation to make the leap in consciousness from the branches to the trunk and from there to the roots.

As the universal mind, Jesus holds all the leaves and all the branches. All individuals and all religions are connected to the universal mind. No one is outside this tree and no religion is outside this tree. There is only one way, one truth and one life. This is the way of the tree, the way of unity and non-duality. This way embraces different levels of truth, the un-manifested truth and manifested truth. Sin consists in fragmenting this tree of life. The tree is one whole. When we fragment this tree into leaves and branches then we fall into good and evil, into duality and violence. It is eating the fruit from the tree of duality of good and evil, which God forbade humanity to eat. It is the tree of ignorance. Ignorance—not knowing our essential unity—is the source of violence.

When Jesus said “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), he did not say anything new, as this knowledge was already in the human consciousness. The same experience had been realized in the tradition of Upanishads five hundred years before him. The sages of the Upanishads had declared: Aham brahma asmi, I am Brahman, or I am God, or I and God are one. However, the Jewish tradition believed in a creator God and experienced the human-divine relationship as dualistic. Jesus had a non-dualistic experience of God. He saw God not as his creator but as his Father. It was revolutionary (and ultimately led to his crucifixion for blasphemy) and was totally new to the Jewish tradition. It essentially elevated the God experience of Judaism to the level of the realization witnessed in the Upanishads.

The Original Contribution
The original contribution of Jesus in the spiritual evolution of human consciousness was to bring together the radical love of God and the radical love neighbor. In the tradition of Upanishads the focus was on the radical love of God, realizing one’s true self. The love of neighbor in the sense of social transformation was not much stressed. In Judaism there are the two great commandments: love of God and love of neighbor. The love of God was dualistic and the love of neighbor was limited to the fellow Jew. Jesus elevated the love of God from dualistic love to non-dualistic love. He expanded the love of neighbor to everyone (see the parable of the Good Samaritan) including creation (“Proclaim the good news to the whole creation”). His love of God was one hundred percent as he said, “I and the Father are one,” and his love of neighbor was one hundred percent when he said, “Whatever you do to the least of my brothers and sisters, that you do unto me”. The love of neighbor is the descending aspect of our spiritual journey. In this sense Jesus achieved the radical love of God and the radical love of neighbor.

Jesus Fulfills
Jesus did not teach something completely new. His mission was to fulfill and not to abolish. Jesus integrated the spiritual understandings that were discovered before him and added his own original contribution. This fulfilling mission of Jesus is not limited to him alone. It has to be done by every individual. The present has to fulfill the past. Otherwise the past kills the present and uses the present as a vehicle to go to the future. In this sense the present has no life of its own. It becomes mechanical. When his disciples asked Jesus why a person was born blind, whether it was because of his sins or the sins of his ancestors (a kind of karma and reincarnation theory), Jesus said, “Neither. He was born to manifest the glory of God.” This was a revolutionary answer of Jesus. His vision was that the person who was able to see should see God in the blind person and the blind person should see God in the person who was able to see. For both of them it should be an experience of God. Jesus was telling them, Don’t ask why this person was born blind. Don’t make your journey with theories, but ask the question of how this encounter could help you manifest the divine attributes, awaken the divine within you. Human relationships are meant to help each other to experience the divine within and to manifest divine attributes. God is in the person who is able to see, and God is also in the blind person.

Karma, reincarnation and caste system theories build a wall between these two. Jesus broke down this wall and established communion between them. Jesus died for breaking down the barriers, for including everyone in his vision, for actively trying to liberate people from all oppressions, particularly religious oppressions, and for inviting his spiritual tradition to grow in divine-human relationship. He died for unity, growth and liberation. The religious authorities of his time refused to accept his call. They interpreted his claims as blasphemous. The result was violence, death on the cross. Jesus died for the radical love of God and the radical love of neighbor. In this radical love, all religions, all spiritualities and all philosophical systems are present. In this sense Jesus’ message is all inclusive. Our spiritual journey consists in growing into this radical love of God and the radical love of neighbor.

The Parable of the Four Boat Men
We can describe this message through a parable. Once there were four boatmen living in a small village. They used to take people from one side of the river to the other. Every day they used to get around 50 persons. They charged 5 Rupees per passenger, so they earned 250 Rupees per day. At the end of the day they prayed like this:

The first boatman prayed: O God, I am very grateful to you for sending 50 fares today so that I can earn 250 Rupees. Please send more fares tomorrow so that I can earn more money and become rich. Thank you for the 250 Rupees.

The second one prayed: O God, I thank you so much because today I could take fifty of my countrymen from this side to the other side. I am so happy that I can be at the service of my countrymen. Please send more of them tomorrow so that I can serve them too. Thank you for giving me 250 Rupees to maintain my family.

The third one prayed: O God, I am so happy today because I could take you from this side to the other side fifty times. Please come more times tomorrow so that I can serve you even more. Thank you for giving me 250 Rupees to take care of my family.

The fourth person prayed: O God, please forgive me for making this prayer. I realize that you alone exist. You are in me and you are in the others. It is you who are taking yourself from this side to the other side. The work which I do is not mine, but you who live in me do all the work. I am blessed to have this vision and to be your instrument. Thank you for giving me 250 Rupees to take care of my family.

All the boatmen did the same work and earned the same amount of money, but their motives were different. The first boatman lived in individual love, the second boatman lived for collective love, the third boatman lived in universal love, and the fourth boatman lived for divine love. Our spiritual journey is to grow from individual love to the love which is the kingdom of God.