The Passion of Judas : Preface

PREFACE The word passion is generally associated with the sufferings and crucifixion of Jesus Christ and with the so-called traitor Judas, who is assumed to have betrayed Jesus to the Authorities in order to have him put to death. For nearly two thousand years this scenario has been taken for gospel-truth. The Passion of Judas re-establishes the facts. Judas, who was expressly appointed by Jesus to 'hand over" the Light to the Powers of Darkness in order to encompass the destruction of their world, in his wrath denounces and chastises as the real traitors those who have condemned him with a venomous hatred for nearly two thousand years. The Passion of Judas is not the personal interpretation of a myth: it is believed to be the truth. In the description of what happened during the Last Supper, for example, John's Gospel has been followed word for word in the most reliable ancient Greek version, where the word "betrayal" does not exist. According to John's 7 general theme, the Rabbi, identified as the "Light that shines in the Darkness", although not received by darkness, cannot but shine, yet cannot compel darkness to receive it. It must be "handed over" by one of "his." Without that procedure, enacted by Judas, his coming on earth would have been of no avail. With his famous kiss, Judas, as related by Matthew in accordance with John, xxvi, 49-50, declares himself as being "his" and the Rabbi -- again according to the best translation from the early Greek -- received him with the words: "comrade, so here you are." Thus they both certify that the procedure is correct. When the truth is understood and lived, its significance is too immense to be expressed adequately by any single person. It is so extensive and so deep that it explodes the values of an Era, and becomes the driving force of a new Period in human history. In it is, indeed, the "shock of the future". Ripeness is knowledge. Ripeness and knowledge are the clarity of a mind in which the delusions of mistaken evidence are dissipated. "The world is an illusion", says the East. Is it a fact? Is this illusion a truth or a delusion? "Nothing but this world exists", says the rationalist. Again: is it known as a fact? "God exists", ' God does not exist": are either of these assertions correct? No: they are both erroneous and absurd, because that which is supposed to be signified by the word God is unconceivable. Some can -- and theologians do -- delude themselves into 8 "thinking" God, when cogitating on the word God, and gradually shifting from the word to that which it is supposed to signify. But a mind on its way to maturity delves into the word. The obviousness of the word (the existence or non-existence of God) then disappears in the favour of other words, such as "the First Cause," "Eternal", the "Creation", etc. ... But when probing again into any one of those words, qualifications or attributes, one can see that they are mere substitutes, snares for lulling the mind into the false security of an apparent "explanation" of the mysterious fact that anything at all exists. For a mature mind, whether the world is an illusion or a reality is irrelevant, because even an illusion is "something" and the existence of "something", whatever it is, is impossible to understand. Likewise, God is no explanation because God cannot be explained. It is as simple as that. When thought has eliminated the illusory answers to its fundamental questions on man, life, death and the universe, and has reached the ultimate unanswerable question: "how is it that anything at all exists?" and when it desperately hurls itself with all its might against that barrier, it cannot but explode within its frontiers of time and space. Then -- if this really happens as a vital catastrophe -- the psyche receives its death- blow. It sees that its entire structure was made of words without substance, while all that was unstructured in it (the collective and personal subconscious and 9 unconscious mass) had been acting as a barrier against its understanding of this very fact: that those words had no substance. That is the death to oneself mentioned two thousand years ago by the Master of Masters, Rab Yhshwh, called Jesus. It is extremely simple and fantastically diffcult. It means a mutation from a sub or pre-human state to the state of Ben-Adam (superficially translated "Son of Man": again, words without meaning!) stated by the Rabbi as being his. It is very easy to go towards one's physical death fighting for a cause, or even in a senseless battle, but it is very diffcult to know what is meant by dying to oneself, because one cannot know it until it is done. Yet an attempt to say something about it must be made, not only because it is the most important of the Rabbi's teachings and because it comes as a haunting leitmotiv in the double drama Jesus-Peter and Jesus-Judas, but also because it has been misunderstood and betrayed for two thousand years, and has therefore wounded the psyche with a wound that has not healed. In this Passion of Judas there are two "Satans". One is Peter. The other is introduced by Jesus into Judas. This may startle some readers, but is clearly stated by Matthew and by John. These two "Satans" are direct illustrations of (for Peter) the refusal and (for Judas) the acceptance of the Death-Resurrection of Jesus, hence for themselves and for their world. The question of who accepts and who rejects a certain event may 10 not be immediately apparent. It is, however, supremely important. In it is the key, not only to the understanding of Jesus' teaching, not only to receiving the entire biblical Revelation, but also to an understanding of the causes of the general failure to perceive clearly the cosmic vocation of perfected humanhood. The key is hidden in the real meaning of what the word Satan is intended to signify. When it is known exactly what Satan is -- not mythically or symbolically or in any mental projection or through any unconscious fear based on religious distortions and superstitions -- then it is known exactly that there is a liGng transcendance in us, how it is meant to operate, and how more often than not we chose to murder it. At this point it is necessary to touch on the original code of the Sacred language by means of the method in philology concerned with meanings, called semantics or semasiology, or Qabala as Jesus knew it. Do not be deterred by those high-sounding words, but were the secret meaning of the Bible's Revelation an easy matter, it would not have been distorted during five thousand years, and it is hoped that the matter can be simplified so as to render it intelligible. Readers who wish to go deeper into that science can consult The Cipher of Genesis 1 and The Song of Songs 2 and the excellent 1 The Cipher of Genesis by Carlo (Stuart & Watkins London; Shambala, Berkeley. California 1970) 2 The Song of Songs by Carlo Suaris (Shambala, Berkeley and London 1972) 11 volume TREE II 1 in which there are some 80 pages on what is considered to be a revival of the very ancient science of the structure of Energy, called Qabala. Here are the facts: this science expressed itself with signs that became the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, out of which the Hebrew idiom was structured. Every one of those signs, named Aleph, Bayt, Chimel, Dallet and so on, is also a number, and moreover an equation, or rather a parameter (its quantities vary in different cases) describing one or other aspect, and evolving process, of the One cosmic Energy. In the commentaries on the ' 'Song", many illustrations of the relationship between the roots of the idiom and their forgotten origin are given and will not be repeated here, although it is mentioned because the question: how, out of the symbols of equations or parameters, could an idiom have been built? is always arising. It sounds absurd. Could Einstein's E=MC2 become the word Emc with any meaning at all? A dispassionate study of the roots of the Hebrew idiom, combined with the knowledge of fundamental cabalistic texts such as Sepher Yetsira give the answer. We will leave it at that, and approach directly the parameter Satan. There being no vowels in the original graph, we have here a combination of three parameters: S for the symbol Seen or Sheen (NO 300), T for the symbol Tayt (NO 9), N for the symbol Noun (NO 700). Satan is thus S.T.N. or 300.9.700. 1 Published by Chrisopher Books/Painted Cave Books, in Santa Barbara, California (Summer 1971) 12 Let us now consult the code. No 300 has always meant traditionally -- and mythically -- the Spirit or Breath of God. In a terminology better suited to our time, and if we agree to consider the wide Universe as a living process, 300 stands for the active flow of universal life, wherever it is present in its purity and sanctity. It is the active agent of the indwelling, inherent, permanently pervading flow of Life in the Universe: the active agent of YHWH, (traditionally translated "the Lord" when those letters are read in the Bible). And the Rabbi is indeed -- not was -- that active agent. His name, YHSHWH, is none other than Y.H.300.W.H. In India he would be said to be an Avatar, the descendant to earth, or incarnation of deity. Being egoless he is always alive, and can take at any time and in any place any human form he wishes to take. Judas, in this Mystery, comes to assert the fact and to say that the Spirit of Truth has come, and that from now on the Rabbi considers the doctrine of his expulsion to an imaginary heaven, the worship of the dead body he used two thousand years ago and the supposed eating of his flesh and drinking of his blood in what is thought to be a communion as a scandal. Judas comes to say that the Bible, from beginning to end, will have to be re-read and re-understood. He knows, of course, what tenacious resistances this new Era will meet. And with this we come back to the schema S.T.N. that must be read from S to N: S-T-N (S meeting T). According to the original code, this T (Tayt 9) is the 13 archetype of the primeval female energy drawn from the enormous mass of unspecialized substance (Psychological unconscious or physical neutral hydrogen). It is exemplified by its projection, in living organisms, as the character of the cell itself. The function of the organic cell, of the psychic cell isolated in an ego, or of any constituted cell, church, institution, government, authority, is to build a structure around its centre, with itself as sole purpose. Its process is a resistance to anything that would upset it. Its aim is duration. Analogically, that aspect of energy will build a stronghold for termites or condemn Giordano Bruno to be burnt alive. This T will resist S with all the power it can muster. It is the "darkness" that does not receive the "light". The third element in S-T-N, the final N (700) stands for the Principle of Indetermination which is the fundamental source, the primary element of Life and Freedom, without which the entire universe would be a senseless machine. We can now see what Satan is, as taught by the Master and understood by Matthew and John: an interplay between life and resistance to life, varying according to the powers of contrasting energies. We can see it, but it is not easy to understand it because, strange as it may seem, the resistance of T is necessary to S. Let us remember YHWH sending Moses to ask Pharaoh to liberate the people and saying "1 will harden his heart so that he will refuse", or falling upon Moses in an attempt to murder him (a test of resistance) when 14 Moses comes to rest by his wife. Or "God" attempting (It is also relevant to keep in mind, to kill Jacob, etc... 2 Chronicles xxvi, 1721, the ruthless destruction of Jerusalem ordered by the deity). "Satan", the fact, compels us to think in two opposite directions, and that is its beauty. The Hindu religion with the opposite divinities Shakti and Shiva symbolizing the constructive and destructive aspects of Energy are aware of this double flow of life. The Christian belief in a one-way frame of Breath emanating from a personal God, infinitely ' 'Good", has created the insoluble problem of "Evil", but Judas comes to say that there is a time for a shell to resist or else the germ inside it will not live for lack of protection, and a time for it to yield or else the gem inside it will die of suffocation. To know when to resist and when to yield is wisdom and maturity. The psyches structured on archaic archetypes are mentioned on an earlier page. They are built on inertia, memories, submissiveness to authorities, and the wish to last for ever in a security that their inner contradictions will always negate. These are the "Satans" that must and will be destroyed by the shock of a future that is already here, unless they realize what a blessing it is to die to oneself. Then their psychic structures will crumble and their inner vastitude will be empty so as to receive "Him" who perpetually -- and desperately -- knocks at the door: "He", the newness of Light and Life. 15 The quality Satan is the privilege of a somewhat evolved mankind. In the vegetable and animal species, the flow of life is captured in the shapes of pre-existant prototypes and fashioned according to an endless repetitiveness, with a very small margin of variations conceded by the environment, climate and other factors, such as -- for the animals -- the relative number of eaters and eaten between species, as they struggle for survival. (The remaining balance is what some dreamers call the harmony of nature. That endless reproduction of seed, each according to its kind, (Gen. i, Il) is traditionally thought to be "good". But in that process, obviously, the "flow", or "breath", of life (S=300) can not transcend the memories of the seeds (T=9) and therefore cannot meet its essential Principle of Indetermination (N = 700). Recent explorations and investigations in anthropology have revealed the existence of very primitive tribes, far below the state of consciousness in which an individual can understand the structure of an ego. Their tribal laws, customs, beliefs, rituals, all go towards the reproduction of the "seed" according to its established memories. (We will not, in that respect, investigate the minds of most of our "civilized" contemporaries). When the Gospels are seen as an episode in anthropogeny, the Rabbi as a forerunner of a ripened humanity (ours being only pre-human), then Peter and Judas appear to have reached satanhood, a stage where the "Breath" or ' 'Spirit" is recognized as such. And the 16 Rabbi needs the two: the nay to resist and the aye to obey. Both, unwilling or willing, have acted in "joint opposition" and brought this world of ours to its final stage, where a mutation (outer and inner) is imperative. We can now, perhaps, solve Matthew's riddle: Jesus calling Peter "Satan" after having invested him with authority. We will not enter into any discussion as to the wrong interpretations, and interpolations, obvious enough in the episode at Caesarea Philippi (or the real meaning of such words as "Son of man"," "Son of God", "my Father who is in heaven", or Peter saying to the Rabbi "You are the Christ" and the Rabbi "strictly charging the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ"). We will only and candidly follow (Matt. xvi, (13-23) Jesus' trend of thought, as it is interpreted by Peter's Church, because it is that interpretation and not what Jesus may have actually said that has been, and still is, an historical factor. (The word Abben that the Master of Qabala may have used means many things besides "stone"). Jesus comes to the district of Caesarea where Philipp is attempting to establish a hellenistic revival of the God Pan, and where a number of people wish to install him, Jesus, as a substitute to that God. So he asks his disciples who those people say that he is. They say that he is one or other of the prophets. "But who do you say that I am?" he asks. Simon Peter answers: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," and Jesus blesses him, because he says this answer is revealed to 17 Peter directly from God. He thus states that Peter's centre of consciousness (Tayt=9) is directly in contact with the Breath (Sheen=300). He therefore goes a step further and, according to the well established biblical tradition, tests Peter by conferring upon him the power to convey the Breath. Will Peter's Tayt accept the sacred impregnation, dissolve into a non-entity, and allow the Breath to go as it will? So Jesus asks his disciples to tell no one that he is the Christ. That was the first test. Had Peter and his apostolic successors never declared that they represented the Christ, they would not have been "humbly" inflated egos acting with the authority of "God's representatives"; they would have simply spread the Gospels as they had been asked to do, and created a fraternity, a real community. The second test follows immediately: Jesus says that he must be killed and on the third day be raised. . This is too much for Peter. God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you says he. There are a number of reasons for that rebuke. Peter loves Jesus: we cannot doubt it. He is horrified at the idea of his sufferings. But there is more to it: "that" shall never happen includes death and resurrection; "that" is both the dying and the resurrecting, or else Peter would not have said it: not that way. Why need Jesus resurrect, when he, Peter, has the power to "bind and loose" on earth and in heaven? What is the use of Jesus? -- and this is perfectly in the tradition of Rome. Here is a free translation of the "Act of Faith" taught in that Church, as 18 read in the French Missel: My God, I firmly believe all that believes and teaches the holy Church, catholic, apostolic and roman, because it is you, o infallible Truth who have revealed it to it. So be it. Yes: what is the use of Jesus alive on earth? What, even, is the use of the Gospels? Consult Peter's successors. They are the only ones to know, to interpret, to be qualified to teach . . . in spite of the statement: A disciple is not above his teacher: nor a servant above his master. (Matth. x, 24) Jesus' words in reply to that rebuke are extraordinarily accurate: Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me: for you are not on the side of God but of men. Never, through Peter's Church will the Breath of Life reach its Holy Freedom! Those words have been hushed, of course, by the Churches, practically obliterated from mind or treated lightly, just as the three denials of Peter "before the cock crowed" are treated with indulgence. It would be senseless to condemn the past, and there is reason to think that the Rabbi knew perfectly well what he was doing. Moreover, it is banal to say that had history not been what it has been, we would not be here, now, writing and reading this. Let us turn a new page and open ourselves to the beauty, the freshness, the joy of the New Life that is calling. In this Mystery of the Passion of Judas, I went as far in the explanations of the biblical texts as I thought I could without weighing down the dramatic performance. 19 There is more left to say than has been said. The two women, Martha and Mary, are two aspects of love. I needed a magician, and chose King Balthazar, perhaps because I like his name. 20

Carlo Suares: Judas, or Jesus Accepted Carlo Suares: Lexicon: Shaitan / Satan