"The Christ" (from a post to - The Nonduality Salon email list) "Christ" is an anglicized variant of a Greek word with the literal meaning of "anointed." It originated as the closest koine approximation for the Hebrew term "moshiach" -- the promised Messiah of Old Testament prophecy, the "anointed of G-d." As often happens when ones modus operandi is experiential rather than formally philosophical or religious, "The Christ" has taken on a different meaning and function here. "The Christ" is really a perceptual mode that encompasses the collapse of the dualistic paradigm, it is Ruben Feldman's "unitary perception," J. Krishnamurti's "great meditation," Saumen Sengupta's "what is," the in-the-moment revelation that theistic language diminishes to "G-d," it is rightful embodiment of the truly sacred -- it is bodhisattva. It is emphatically not a particular human being, dead or otherwise, but rather an "anointing" that is the birthright and original state of human consciousness. It is also a symbol worthy of shattering -- and that shattering is also "The Christ," in action rather than as static symbol. So, let us by all means kick the symbolic Christ off the shelf and sweep up what shards remain -- the actual, historical Jesus would surely have done the same. In that shattering moment, let there be the actual Christ, the great revelational perceptual unity that renders all symbols and images moot, spent catalysts at best. The anointer and the anointed are surely one, and let no (wo)man put asunder! Amen.