The Lost Years of Jesus

1) Do I detect a note of sneering and mockery in your posting?

You might Knight, but I don't think anyone else does. 😮

"By it's fruit is the tree known."

Exactly. Do you think you might be over reacting here?

Secondly, I've got nothing against Principled. This is a point of light issue, there's nothing personal.

I don't think the digs at Judy's beliefs are point of light issue, Knight.

Thirdly, I am only too aware that tone can be misjudged and what is 'matter of fact', passionate or firm, can be misconstrued as harsh.

Please bear that in mind and give Principled the benefit of the doubt. You seem like a nice fellah elsewhere, it's not too late to edit.

What I do know is that sometimes you have to fight your corner, fight for what you believe in, fight for what you know to be right.

Fighting isn't always the best policy.

......my views are different to those expressed.

I just wanted to say that I do enjoy reading the posts of those who sometimes do share different viewpoints.

This is what I feel about "The Lost Years of Jesus"....
( I wasn't going to share this..... this is just an add on... but oh well,,,, )
I don't feel that I personally really need to know.... and study it like a history story or a gathering of facts of what I know...

it is this what is important to me...

the living experience of the energy of Christ.

I believe that the energy of Christ is pure Love.
This Love is not lost it is within us and we do not need knowledge and facts to discover what we truly are.

I believe this...
I may be in a situation where I may never ever learn to read or I may not have a lap top, but I believe that it would still be possible for me to experience the Love that is the Christ energy, even if I knew nothing other than my current living experience of that life time and even if I knew nothing I would still know and recognise the Love whatever my circumstances and situation, even if I couldn't name it, there would just be a sort of knowing of omg or that inner yes feeling.

( Please don't tell me, this is off topic, it is how I so so often think... by going off topic!!!! )

I wasn't going to say all this, because I am not of any religion
but I do believe in the energy of Christ
which is pure Love
and I also believe that this Love
is alive today and in the living if we can allow ourselves to be open to the experience of Love in the living.

And most importantly of all... this is not a criticism of those who do enjoy researching and discovering the Lost Years of Jesus... I send you Love and joy for your searching and your discoveries.

As a child I used to wonder so so much about how it was for Jesus as a growing youngster and if at times he was lonely here and how he would feel when he sat and looked at the stars above on a clear clear night.

How would you begin to separate what is anyway?

And until just now, I didn't know how deeply I felt...
because I am not religious...
I am not anything...
I am just trying to live this experience...

Barafundle; One should not fight for Truth? Of all the people on here you are absolutely the last person I would have expected to come up with that.
If every spiritual teacher allowed false teaching and hypocrisy to stand for fear of stepping on someone's toes ...

I just wanted to say that I do enjoy reading the posts of those who sometimes do share different viewpoints.

This is what I feel about "The Lost Years of Jesus"....
( I wasn't going to share this..... this is just an add on... but oh well,,,, )
I don't feel that I personally really need to know.... and study it like a history story or a gathering of facts of what I know...

it is this what is important to me...

the living experience of the energy of Christ.

I believe that the energy of Christ is pure Love.
This Love is not lost it is within us and we do not need knowledge and facts to discover the truth of what we truly are.

I believe this...
I may be in a situation where I may never ever learn to read or I may not have a lap top, but I believe that it would still be possible for me to experience the Love that is the Christ energy, even if I knew nothing other than my current living experience of that life time and even if I knew nothing I would still know and recognise Love whatever my circumstances and situation, even if I couldn't name it, there would just be a sort of knowing.

( Please don't tell me, this is off topic, it is how I so so often think... by going off topic!!!! )

I wasn't going to say all this, because I am not of any religion
but I do believe in the energy of Christ
which is pure Love
and I also believe that this Love
is alive today and in the living if we can allow ourselves to be open to the experience of Love in the living.

And most importantly of all... this is not a criticism of those who do enjoy researching and discovering the Lost Years of Jesus... I send you Love and joy for your searching and your discoveries.

As a child I used to wonder so so much about how it was for Jesus as a growing youngster and if at times he was lonely here and how he would feel when he sat and looked at the stars above on a clear clear night.

How would you begin to separate what is anyway?

And until just now, I didn't know how deeply I felt...
because I am not religious...
I am not anything...
I am just trying to live this experience...

Flit, I was astonished when I read your posting! We'll not find wiser or more heartfelt words anywhere on Healthypages.

The missing link - Jesus was an Essene priest. At the Transfiguration, the man Jesus was overshadowed by the Christ Spirit and for the duration of his Holy Land ministry God spoke through Jesus. At the Ascension, it was the Christ Spirit that re-ascended to Heaven, Jesus the man lived on.

Re the Crucifixion - (Briefly) As I understand it Jesus was given a herbal preparation, what I don't know, but whatever it was, it put him in a comatose-like state and caused his heartbeat to slow, appearing to be dead. Afterwards he was revived.

The irony is that having spent the last three years or so trying to convince people he was the Messiah, he and the Essene elders feared that the downtrodden Jews - having just witnessed his 'death' - would indeed proclaim him as the Messiah and use him as a figurehead to spark a bloody uprising against their Roman oppressors, if they knew that he had miraculously survived. (Over 100,000 Jews were butchered or carried off into slavery when the Jews eventually did revolt in AD 66-70) As a man of love and peace that was the last thing he wanted, so together with Mary Magdalene and others, he/they departed to the East once more, travelling and teaching over many years in Persia, India, Ladakh, Kashmir etc.
Jesus died at a ripe old age and is buried at Rozabal, in Anzimar, a suburb of Srinagar, Kashmir. And that is Christianity's greatest secret.

This is obviously your truth, knight of albion, but it's hardly proveable. And as Flit implies, it hardly matters anyway. What's worth fighting for here? An opinion. A belief. Other people don't have this belief. It matters not. Fighting implies aggression and imposing your belief on others. Not the way to go IMHO.

xxx

The thread starter never "owns" a thread, so I don't own this one. But there is perhaps a certain moral obligation to keep in touch with it (so long as it's on track). To sum up, I raised the subject of the lost years of Jesus, particularly in the light of the manuscript(s) published by Nicholas Notovitch.

In the absence of the original documents, it's a subject which only ever can be raised: it cannot be proven to be true. Even if the writings others have seen came to light again, there would still be a large body of sceptics toward them. So all we can do is raise the subject (which by the way is the actual thread topic!) as a subject of interest. When the thread was on-topic, I'd like to thank all who partook so far. I try to be open-minded, and while I don't yet at all dismiss the idea that Notovitch translated a real manuscript, I did learn - thanks, Judy - that there's more cause for doubt out there than I'd realised. That's the worth of raising any topic: that you can learn from the responses.

Since it can't actually be proven or otherwise at this time whether Notovitch published an authentic text, it remains a subject for us all to simply ponder. If anything, I feel, the bottom line is that there are indeed about seventeen crucial missing years in the life of Jesus. The lack of reference to him in the gospels during this time is highly suggestive to me of the fact that he was not at that time in his homeland: hence they had nothing to recount. So there must be some amazing story associated with these missing years, a story and an aspect to the real life of Christ which the gospels can't tell us about. (I've suggested that he was learning and preparing, not being ready before he was.)

Thereafter the thread goes into areas I'd rather not much comment on. People, individuals come along as we all know who crave attention. The more you respond, the more the posts will come back. They just love it, ya know, the attention. In my own mind, it's just kind of "mentally edited out" as not being in this thread at all.

It's nothing to do with this thread IMHO. And as to the original thread-topic, I think it's been well-covered? Again, I'd like to thank all for their contribution. (Which doesn't mean it's over, as that's not for me to say. :).)

V

You might Knight, but I don't think anyone else does. 😮
Exactly. Do you think you might be over reacting here?
I don't think the digs at Judy's beliefs are point of light issue, Knight.
Please bear that in mind and give Principled the benefit of the doubt. You seem like a nice fellah elsewhere, it's not too late to edit.
Fighting isn't always the best policy.

This is obviously your truth, knight of albion, but it's hardly proveable. And as Flit implies, it hardly matters anyway. What's worth fighting for here? An opinion. A belief. Other people don't have this belief. It matters not. Fighting implies aggression and imposing your belief on others. Not the way to go IMHO.

xxx

The thread starter never "owns" a thread, so I don't own this one. But there is perhaps a certain moral obligation to keep in touch with it (so long as it's on track). To sum up, I raised the subject of the lost years of Jesus, particularly in the light of the manuscript(s) published by Nicholas Notovitch.

with apologies, for brevity

It's nothing to do with this thread IMHO. And as to the original thread-topic, I think it's been well-covered? Again, I'd like to thank all for their contribution. (Which doesn't mean it's over, as that's not for me to say. :).)

V

All these sentiments [and others] are endorsed by the moderating team, who have been keeping a close watch on this thread, and we also thank members for their contributions.

No, Flit ... re your edit line ... nobody is going to shout at you for expressing your POV 🙂

Holistic
On behalf of the Moderating Team

An article in Wikipedia on the text, "The Lost Years of Jesus" is here.

As it is International Woman's Day.......:)

At this time, an old woman approached the crowd, but was pushed back. Then Issa said, "Reverence Woman, mother of the universe,' in her lies the truth of creation. She is the foundation of all that is good and beautiful. She is the source of life and death. Upon her depends the existence of man, because she is the sustenance of his labours. She gives birth to you in travail, she watches over your growth. Bless her. Honour her. Defend her. Love your wives and honour them, because tomorrow they shall be mothers, and later-progenitors of a whole race. Their love ennobles man, soothes the embittered heart and tames the beast. Wife and mother-they are the adornments of the universe."

"As light divides itself from darkness, so does woman possess the gift to divide in man good intent from the thought of evil. Your best thoughts must belong to woman. Gather from them your moral strength, which you must possess to sustain your near ones. Do not humiliate her, for therein you will humiliate yourselves. And all which you will do to mother, to wife, to widow or to another woman in sorrow-that shall you also do for the Spirit."

RxXx

Nice one, Rachel. Very nice!:)

xxx

Regarding the Notovitch translation and his book, one thesis has it that the account is authentic, another counter-opinion has it (sources cited by Judy [Principled]) basically that Notovitch was a charlatan who made it all up. It occurred to me that scientifically or objectively, the first step on from here would be to research the life of Notovitch himself - to find out what else he did and to get a feel for his character. It would seem unfair to make strong allegations against a man, for example, if otherwise everything we can know about him is honourable and respectable. Conversely there may be tabloid-style stuff about him to be discovered.

I haven't looked into this yet (if there is anything more to discover about his broader biography), but entering his name into Google happened to lead me to this link, a chapter of another book. It's by Prof. Fida Hassnain, "A Search For The Historical Jesus":
[DLMURL] http://www.spinninglobe.net/jesusearch.htm [/DLMURL]

The chapter includes this. I was very happy to read of someone who had indeed travelled and made the effort to go to Himis on this quest, as it's the obvious thing to do rather than being an armchair theorist:

[COLOR="Blue"]I went to Ladakh a number of times to make a search. It was Nicolas Notovitch who had found the Buddhist scrolls in Ladakh. These scrolls can be divided into three sections; the first dealing with the reincarnation of Jesus, the second with his travels to India and the third deals with his ministry in Palestine. Publication of these scrolls by Notovitch, first in French and then in English, created a row among Christians of his time. Some denied the existence of such scrolls, stating that these were fictitious. But some believed that the scrolls were real and there was a need to find documents about the missing years in the life of Jesus. As the issue touched the very foundations of Christian dogma, the Church accelerated its efforts to dispatch agents into India, Tibet and other countries "to trace, buy, confiscate and steal ancient documents referring inter alia to Jesus' life in India and death in Kashmir."

Notovitch had found these Scrolls in 1887 in Hemis gompa in Ladakh. In 1922, Swami Abhedananda succeeded in finding another version, slightly different from that found by Notovitch. He published an account of his journey, along with a portion of the text of the scroll he found at Hemis in his Bengali book Kashmir-o-Tibbate.

The Chief Lama had made a serious allegation to Nicholas Notovitch around 1810 [wrong date, obviously - V] that many Muslims would like to possess these scrolls - which is very significant. But why Muslims should try to get them is not clear. Maybe the Church employed these Muslims agents. I have read about one such attempt made by the Church to depute a neo-Christian Ahmad Shah to Ladakh in 1894, for this very sinister purpose. He wrote a book, Four Years in Tibet, in which he tried "to refute the finding of Nicolas Notovitch."

Despite my efforts, I could not find these Scrolls. I think that due to their fear of the British, the masters of India up to 1947, the Lamas may have concealed these Scrolls in the underground cells, which they call the "Black Treasure."

In 1939, Elizabeth Caspari visited Hemis monastery. To her surprise, the Lama showed her some scrolls saying: "These books say your Jesus was here". She and her companions looked at these parchments in awe.

Shortly before the pilgrims departed, the librarian, carrying
ancient mss approached Mrs Caspari on the roof of the gompa and said;
"These books say your Jesus was here." (Summit Univ. Press)

My search persuaded me that almost all documents about Jesus have found their way into the hands of neo-Christians in Ladakh, or the Church authorities. With much effort and persuasion, I located a Tibetan translation made in 1802 from an ancient Chinese manuscript, The History of Religion and Doctrines - the Glass Mirror. This was an ancient Chinese manuscript translated into Tibetan by Le-zan Chhes-kyi Nima in 1802, called Grugtha Thamschand kyi Khuna dan Dod - Thsul Ston-pe Legs Shad Shel-gyi Melong.

Yesu, the teacher and founder of the religion, who was born miraculously, proclaimed himself the Saviour of the World. He commanded his disciples to observe the ten vows, among which includes prohibition of manslaughter and attainment of eternal joy through good deeds. He preached that evil actions plunge one into hell, where there is eternal torment and misery. A sin committed in a state of consciousness cannot be condoned or pardoned. This is one of the virtuous results emerging out of the teachings of the Buddha. His doctrines did not spread extensively, but survived only in Asia, for a long period. The above information is derived from the Chinese treatises on religions and doctrines.

I found this manuscript in the care of S. S. Gergan, who has a rich collection of Chinese, Tibetan and Ladakhi documents, scrolls and manuscripts. His father, Rev. Gergan, was the first Ladakhi Christian priest, who translated the New Testament into Ladakhi. It is natural that being a Christian, he worked with zeal in his missionary work, and may have obtained many documents relating to the traces of Christianity in Ladakh and Tibet.

Here we have an account of how Christians (the Vatican, or Protestants?) may have made efforts "to trace, buy, confiscate or steal" manuscripts such as Notovitch says he came across, plus confirmation that there was every reason for the monks of the time (probably after 1939 and in the 1940s) to hide the texts more thoroughly.

I'd also like to confess that while the Notovitch MS is online to read, my copy of the main modern book on all this, "The Lost Years of Jesus" by Elizabeth Clare Prophet, is in another house, in its attic, and I've been conducting this thread totally from memory. So two corrections are in order. At one point I wrote that Yogananda had seen the original texts. I think I was getting confused in memory with Swami Abhedananda. Secondly, I've written (from slightly faulty memory) that the last person to see the texts was Elizabeth Caspari (a direct pupil of Maria Montessori in how to teach the Montessori method of education) "in the 1950s". The above quote corrects me that she saw the texts in 1939. That's the last known sighting of the originals by a Westerner.

I knew Elisabeth Caspari personally to a degree, and her character was impeccable. If she says she was shown these documents - even if she could not read them - then it certainly happened, but in 1939. So texts were there in Himis - Notovitch didn't make all that up.

V

As it is International Woman's Day.......:)

At this time, an old woman approached the crowd, but was pushed back. Then Issa said, "Reverence Woman, mother of the universe,' in her lies the truth of creation. She is the foundation of all that is good and beautiful. She is the source of life and death. Upon her depends the existence of man, because she is the sustenance of his labours. She gives birth to you in travail, she watches over your growth. Bless her. Honour her. Defend her. Love your wives and honour them, because tomorrow they shall be mothers, and later-progenitors of a whole race. Their love ennobles man, soothes the embittered heart and tames the beast. Wife and mother-they are the adornments of the universe."

"As light divides itself from darkness, so does woman possess the gift to divide in man good intent from the thought of evil. Your best thoughts must belong to woman. Gather from them your moral strength, which you must possess to sustain your near ones. Do not humiliate her, for therein you will humiliate yourselves. And all which you will do to mother, to wife, to widow or to another woman in sorrow-that shall you also do for the Spirit."

RxXx

In reading these words, I'd also like to add that just intuitively, to me they do not read as the kind of words a Russian male of the 19th century would "make up". Is there not an authentic ring about them (as with many other parts of the gospel Notovitch found), rather than their being the kind of thing to be produced by a 19th-century Russian male's mind?

V

That's very interesting V! And, through the wonders of the internet, I even have Prof. Fida Hassnain"s email address for you!!!! 🙂
However, I think you might need a pair of these for his web site though! 😎

Loved the words you quoted Cirrus. Jesus did not discriminate against women, but if those were his words, you can be sure they would not have been included in the scriptures chosen for the NT - after all, Mary Magnalene was deliberately vilified, even though she was an important Christian leader.

Flit, what can I say, you are already there - streets ahead of the rest of us!

And to the rest of my friends, God bless you all! :grouphug:

Love and peace

Judy

I believe that the energy of Christ is pure Love.
This Love is not lost it is within us...

The heart of the matter. Thanks Flit.