If one does not believe in the supernatural phenomena present in the Christian tradition nor in Jesus Christ as the Savior of mankind, it is still possible to appreciate the philosophy of life he preached as such and even to adopt something from it for one’s own use.

 

Goal

 

‘I am the way,’* Jesus told his followers, who had lost their way in life. Palestine had become part of the Roman Empire and nothing had stayed the same. The social climate had changed and alienation from the ancestorial faith was increasing.

The ‘way’ mentioned in the Gospel, as in all other cases, involves movement toward a specific destination or goal. In the Gospel, this goal is named specifically:

But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Matthew 6:33

 

Having the Kingdom of God as the goal of a spiritual quest creates a significant language barrier for agnostics (and atheists even more so)  seeking the essence of the Gospel. Although it is this expression that is primarily the obstacle, the essential meaning of the Kingdom of God can also resonate with the inner lives of people who have no affinity with ecclesiastical faith.

The Kingdom of God is within you. Luke 17:21

 

 

Higher feelings

 

As God is, first of all, the Creator, the ‘Kingdom of God within’ can be understood as a source of creative energy, which manifests itself in deep inner movements. We experience these movements as, among other things, inspirations, path-breaking insights, intuitive abilities, creative inspiration and unconditional love. These experiences are associated with higher consciousness or the higher self, and I will henceforth refer to them as higher feelings. Such feelings are ‘higher’ because they go beyond the life activity that is regulated by instincts and reflexes. Another feature of these feelings is that they can occur without any reason, which is well known to those who have experienced creative inspiration, much as outbursts of love are not always explainable. In essence, they are something ‘not of this world,’ and that is what is meant by ‘the Kingdom of God.’ The four parables in the thirteenth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel provide insight into its characteristic qualities through comparisons with the seed, the leaven, the hidden treasure, and the most beautiful pearl.

However one looks at it, the Gospel supports an understanding of the Kingdom of God as a spiritual center within the inner world of every human being, from which the highest feelings and aspirations emanate. Such a characterization can be well understood by both agnostics and atheists who in some way or another acknowledge a certain transcendent dimension to extraordinary human experiences. In other words, the search for the Kingdom of God in oneself is also the search for the transcendent meaning of one’s own life, which can be known or realized by one’s ‘higher self.’

 

 

Landmarks

 

Since we are talking about a spiritual path, where each person has their own point of departure (their inner state) as well as their own inner landscape (i.e., the content of their inner world), the progress toward a given goal also has its own specific trajectory, its own pace, and its own results for each person striving towards it. In other words, the destination is the same, but the roads that can lead to it are different.

The Gospel only indicates the direction to be followed and gives a series of landmarks to determine its accuracy. Within ecclesiastical Christianity, having only these was perceived as insufficient. Spiritual teachings conveyed in this form frightened many of Jesus’ contemporaries, who were accustomed to religions presenting detailed prescriptions of correct belief and the fulfillment of rituals. In later times, all of these emerged within Christianity as well.

This has happened in all world religions. Buddhism, initially non-religious, also became a religion, but the fundamental teachings of Buddha did not lose their significance as an individual and independent spiritual path in itself. In Christianity, such an approach towards the spiritual teachings of Jesus was not universally recognized, but the opportunity to perceive them specifically in this way remains, as it is embedded within the underlying essence of the Gospel. However, the inhibitions that were instilled by the church in the minds of Christians have also remained, which has accustomed them over the centuries to view spiritual autonomy as ‘pride’ and a source of ‘sinfulness.’

 

 

Risks

 

In spiritual life, of course, one can get lost. One can, for example, fail to recognize one’s ego in what appears to be one’s higher consciousness, or misunderstand something because of a lack of spiritual vision – and this is something to be reckoned with. However, when you know the destination, the direction to be followed, and the landmarks, do you need much more to start the journey? And the closer its trajectory is to the essence of the spiritual teachings that give it purpose, direction and reference points, the less risk there is of going astray. This way of thinking led me to the idea of selecting from Jesus’ sayings those that speak of the most important things. And then the question arose: what additions are needed?

People vary in their needs for clarification, additional information, comparisons of one option to another, and aids to help them move towards their goal. Since such content is only of auxiliary value and is easy to find on the internet, I have only provided a few additions to the roadmap that is already given in the Gospel.

This is how I came to the ‘Path of Agape’, which will be discussed next. But first I would like to discuss the original meaning of two fundamental concepts within the spiritual paradigm of Christianity: love/agape and synergy. Their interpretation in ecclesiastical teachings differs from their meaning in the Gospel, which has affected their representation in European culture. If we move away from confessional dogmas and doctrines, we find that these concepts are connected to the higher purpose of one’s own life, a question that has been pondered for centuries.

 

 

 

TWO IMPORTANT CONCEPTS IN THE EVANGELICAL PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE

 

Love (agape)**

 

The oldest records of the New Testament have come down to us in the ancient Greek language. In them, Jesus uses the word agape in his statements about love, clarifying what this love is. Agape is the unconditional love for all as a state of mind, as opposed to eros, meaning sensual attraction or passionate love; philia, meaning the love for one’s friends, and storge, the love for family and relatives. It is the word agape that resounds when Jesus urges his listeners to love even their enemies. This is the kind of love that emanates from the Kingdom of God within us. According to Jesus, each one of us receives this love from God the Father, and through it He makes Himself known to us.

The commandment of agape is central to the Gospel. Its distinctiveness lies in the inseparability of the love for God from love for one’s neighbor, i.e., anyone who is near. Thus, in Christianity the love for one’s neighbor becomes more than an ethical norm – it receives a spiritual meaning.

There is one important aspect of this unconditional love that is ignored and sometimes even excluded by ecclesiastical worship: agape includes the love of oneself. How could it be otherwise? Afterall, we are talking about unconditional love. In the commandment of love, it is said unequivocally: ‘Love thy neighbor as yourself.’ Instead, the Church has always cultivated an attitude towards oneself that is focused on one’s shortcomings and sins, an attitude capable of inducing self-hatred in people. In fact, this very attitude became one of the main reasons Western Christians abandoned the faith of their ancestors on a massive scale in the twentieth century.

From a natural-scientific point of view, loving one’s neighbor (let alone an enemy) as oneself contradicts the laws of nature. Behaving as if others are equal to oneself is not compatible with the main instinct of all living beings: self-preservation. Agape elevates man above his instincts. It is a counterbalance to these instincts and to one’s ego. While the ego sets one apart from other people, a conscious equalization of oneself with other people cuts egoism at the root. In my opinion, this attitude seems more certain to minimize one’s own egoism than the imbalance that arises when you place yourself lower than others. Such an imbalance has given rise to an entire branch of psychotherapy.

Jesus put loving one’s neighbor as oneself above the worship of God, rituals, and sacrifice, even though religion was inconceivable without these elements in his day.

‘Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.’ Matthew 5:23-24

 

It cannot be said that all of the above has lost its importance within Christian denominations. It would even be wrong to say that it has ceased to be the main element there. Leo Tolstoy described what exactly had happened in his essay What is my faith:

‘…The teaching of the church not only did not deny what seemed to me the main thing in the teaching of Christ (that is, love, about which Tolstoy wrote above – AA), it quite recognized this, but recognized it somehow in such a way that this main thing in the teaching of Christ was not put in the first place.

Thus, the question arises: what prevents us from putting the essence of the Christian meaning and philosophy of life – namely, unconditional love as a state of the soul – back in the first place? The ‘Path of Agape’ is the result of my attempt to make such a rearrangement.

 

Synergy

 

According to clerical teachings, man is first and foremost a sinner and the main goal of his life is the salvation of his soul, so that after death it can escape hellfire. This presupposes a belief in the Last Judgment and in hell. However,  the Gospel gives another purpose to human life: it is a conscious participation in synergy or, in biblical language, in the creation of the world.

The notion of synergy has also entered Christian theology as the cooperation of sinful man with a merciful God in the salvation of his soul. This concept takes on a completely different meaning if we see man as endowed with spiritual power (as Jesus himself often did, along with denouncing human sins). Similarly, the answer to the question of the meaning of human life becomes different as well.

 

In the 1920s, the scientist-geologist and thinker Vladimir Vernadsky put forward a hypothesis about the noosphere – the ability of mankind to influence the state of the Earth by means of his reason and choosing – as a geological phenomenon. This was his vision of synergy. Our birth, our life and our death are all synergetic phenomena within the macro-processes on Earth. As a result, we all participate in the creation of the world, whether we realize it or not. Through our choices regarding what to do and what not to do, we exert influence on the world at the present moment as well as on what it will be. The same insight, though phrased differently, resonates in many of Jesus’ statements, especially when he relates people’s behavior to the actions of their Father, the Creator of the World, which serve as examples to follow. Hence the commandment of self-improvement in the Gospel: Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.

 

 

THE PATH OF AGAPE

 

The Kingdom of God and agape are interrelated features of the spiritual philosophy of life that is reflected in the Gospel. To find the Kingdom of God in oneself is to find in oneself the source of unconditional love – agape – and vice versa.

Since everyone can perceive the manifestations of agape and doing so brings us closer to our higher self, I decided to call this form of self-realization the Path of Agape. It corresponds with the content of the Gospel in all its characteristics; from there it takes its main goal, as well as its direction toward it, and its landmarks.

In my opinion, all the main issues are contained within the eight themes of the Gospel, which I perceive as its ‘spiritual octave.’ The higher self (in the language of the Gospel: The Kingdom of God) and agape set the goal and direction of this path, while the other six themes are landmarks, spiritual practices, and behavioral rules in everyday life that facilitate progress along the Path of Agape.

To be clear, I did not set out to create a Christian alternative to the Buddha’s eightfold path. It was only after I had chosen the gospel themes that I find most meaningful and interrelated that I noticed the same number of component parts in both spiritual pathways. This coincidence is random and has no significance. What is significant is the long-noticed presence of points of convergence in the content of the teachings of Jesus and Buddha. At this point, however, I do not pay particular attention to this. It is not surprising that some spiritual paths have much in common, because they have the same goal: the perception and awareness of the transcendent reality that lies beyond the horizon of everyday life. I do want to note that there is a very important difference between the Christian spiritual path and the Buddhist one: the former leaves room for recognizing the supreme transcendent factor in the macro-processes of existence (the Creator, God, a Higher Consciousness, etc.) and also sees the value of human personality, while both these aspects are alien to the path of the Buddha.

The Path of Agape in practice is the realization of the inner revolution that Jesus preached. This revolution involves a shift of attention from the material to the spiritual and from the external to the internal. This kind of transformation of perception and awareness of events is taught to monks and is called for in church sermons. Under the circumstances of everyday life, however, the focus of attention of most people – both religious and non-religious – remains on material concerns and selfish desires, whilst spiritual aspirations coming from the higher self are banished to the periphery of personal life. The Path of Agape is a systematic and purposeful practice of reorientation away from selfish aspirations toward spiritual objectives in daily life. Whether this reorientation will be gradual or radical, whether it will be preceded by learning some additional skills or not is a personal choice.

Below I present the spiritual octave of the Gospel at the heart of the Path of Agape in two versions. In the first, the Gospel themes are named in the language of Christianity with Jesus’ statements from the New Testament’s four Gospels, which make it possible to see how the Path of Agape corresponds to the original spiritual teaching in the Gospel. In the second version, the same themes are named in the language of modern spiritual pursuit and quotations are not used.

I have selected statements made by Jesus according to the Gospels of the New Testament which are, in my opinion, the best known and most characteristic of all his statements on the particular theme. Their number in each case does not exceed five. I have chosen to limit the number of quotations and supplementary materials in favor of concentrating on the purpose, direction and spiritual guidelines which are explicitly named in the Gospels and in my opinion need no further explanation. Not among them are excerpts from texts found in Nag Hammadi. I made no exception even for the most significant of them, the Gospel of Thomas. The point is not so much that the authenticity of these sources is debatable (the authenticity of the canonical gospels is debatable as well), but rather that they are not part of European culture’s dialogue with Jesus’ philosophy of life, as represented in his sayings in the New Testament.

I see the main purpose of cultural Christianity as enabling all those who cherish their Christian roots to find the basis for them in the canonical texts. Their images and metaphors, their legends and parables, constitute the language in which meaning and ethics have been transmitted from generation to generation in the Christian world. It is a language of a different order than that in which we communicate with each other, but if it comes from the culture that has shaped us, we can understand it without translation and perceive what is said more deeply. For this reason alone, I think it would be worthwhile for everyone nurtured by European culture to absorb what the New Testament says about the transcendent meanings of phenomena, regardless of their measure of interest in Christianity as such. No matter how significant Jesus’ sayings in the Nag Hammadi Gospels are, because of their obscurity they could not have been influential in shaping European culture. In any case, their most important message is contained in the New Testament.

 

THE EIGHT THEMES OF THE GOSPEL

that make up its spiritual octave,

with references to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John

 

1.     Kingdom of God

God’s kingdom is coming, but not in a way that you will be able to see with your eyes. People will not say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’ because God’s kingdom is within you. Luke 17:20-21

And don’t be concerned about what to eat and what to drink. Don’t worry about such things. (…) Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and he will give you everything you need. Luke 12:29-31

 

2.     Agape

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. Matthew 22:37-39

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor’ and ‘Hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you. Matthew 5:43-44

 

3.     Peace

Put your sword back in its place! For all who take hold of the sword will die by the sword. Matthew 26:52

Reach a settlement quickly with your adversary while you’re on the way with him… Matthew 5:25

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Matthew 5:5

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Matthew 5:9

…so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. For he causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Matthew 5:45

 

4.     Do not accumulate treasures on earth

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven… Matthew 6:19-20

… it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God! Matthew 19:24

 

5.     Give, and it will be given to you

Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. Luke 6:38

… this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury; for they all put in out of their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, put in all she owned, all she had to live on. Mark 12:43-44

 

6.     Be perfect

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:48

But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew 6:20-21

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Matthew 5:8

… first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. Matthew 7:5

 

7.     Freedom

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Matthew 5:6

Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. John 8:32

 

8.     Synergy

I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me, and I in him, bears much fruit… John 15:5

What I tell you in darkness you must speak in the daylight, and what is whispered in your ear you must shout from the housetops. Matthew 10:27

You are the light of the world… So let your light shine before men... Matthew 5:14-16

 

 

SPIRITUAL OCTAVE

translated into the language of modern spiritual inquiry

 

1.   Follow your ‘higher self’.***

 

2. Love

 

3. Don’t give in to hostility

 

4. Stick to material

 

5, Strive for ego-minimalism

 

6. Engage in self-discovery and self-development ****

 

7. Identify freedom as a state of consciousness

 

8. Realize your impact on changing the world

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

The novelty of Christianity lies in the commandment of love in the Gospel, where love for God and love for those who are near are united into one whole. The Old Testament does not have this connection. The love of God and love of one’s neighbor are commanded there, but separately and in different books (Deuteronomy and Leviticus, respectively). The connection of the love of God and the love of one’s neighbor is a Christian characteristic. This commandment opens the way to the spiritual essence of Christianity, named in the first message of John (1 John 4:16): God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.

 

The spiritual freedom to approach and relate to the essence of the Gospel in one’s own way is still perceived in the Christian world as inappropriate and risky. Dreams of the ideal church are still alive and the search for their fulfillment continues. But at the same time there is a growing number of those who do not want any church at all. The Path of Agape is an opportunity for all those who are far from any religious belief in their inner life to come closer to the spiritual basis of their culture and build a relationship with it. It does not in any way interfere with other people’s search for the ideal church. The Path of Agape is a non-religious approximation of the essentials of Christianity, which are the same for all its forms.

 

Although progress along such a path requires one’s own efforts, it does not preclude what religious traditions call grace. All spiritual paths are not merely cause-and-effect events. ‘The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from’ and there will always be unexpected impulses and spontaneous realizations of deeper meanings of what is happening both around and within us.

 

**********************

 

*The full statement is: ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life’ (John 14:6). In this case, only the distinctive feature of Jesus’ spiritual teaching, which he named first, is important, and that is ‘the way.’

 

** These are excerpts from my book How I Read the Gospel. On the main things for unbelievers, in which several chapters are devoted to the importance of agape in the evangelical  philosophy of life.

 

***As stated earlier, the ‘higher self’ is another name for the inner voice that emanates from the Kingdom of God in the Gospel.

 

**** In the Gospel of Thomas there is this saying of Jesus: ‘If you do not know yourselves, then you are in poverty and you are poverty.’ We can only wish it had been included in the New Testament – its novelty would have been more obvious.