I am pretty sure the only way into heaven is through Jesus. The question for me is, just what does that mean?
John 14:6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
I'm going to paraphrase with emphasis:
I AM [is] the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me[the sense of I AM].
From some of the content passed along in the gospels I think it's possible that a Jew awakened and began to teach but was killed before he could develop his followers to understand his teaching and the Chrisitianity that resulted is an attempt to translate unconditioned nondual expressions of insight into dualist ego constructs.
From my view point, Jesus was not talking about his body, mind, or ego or any external way. He was pointing to the truth that is found in seeing your existence and following it back to the sense of I AM. Not I am this or that. Paul was at the edge of it when he said "It is not I that live, it is Christ that lives in me"(Gal 2:20). So who or what is the Christ that lives within Paul? Paul being the ego identity.
It's not the name Jesus, or Christ that is important at all, it's the sense of being, of I AM, that is key. But the church has turned to maintaining a society of egos and generally attempts to block awakening.
Luke 17:21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
This statement in Luke is what Zen Buddhists would call a koan. A challenge to the rational ego. The Christian church wants to shut that door and bar it. Heaven is something controlled by the authorities a place for the ego to gain admittance to.
Yet Paul almost gets it. The ego doesn't exist so how can it get to heaven? The consciousness that lives the ego can be called Jesus, Christ, God, Buddha nature, Tao, Brahman, What Is. It doesn't matter what you call it, because there is no it there, no name, just IS.
lfen
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