Son of Man . . .
Do you write about it in your book?
AH: Yes, I do. It is in the chapter on the divine Mother. I interpret the marriage of Cana as the miracle of Jesus turning the water of banal sexuality into the wine of consecrated Tantric sexuality. And I think the true meaning of marriage, whither heterosexual or homosexual, is that it should become the site of the sexual Tantric encounter. The hallowed consecrated place in which two beings can experience the ecstasy of creation and be infused by the Holy Spirit. And be initiated therefore in the ground of life, beyond the reach of the priests and the churches and dogmas, into the glory of God. This is not original, it has been known in Hinduism and Buddhism, and it’s most unlikely that a world savior of Jesus’ awareness would not have known about it.
What happened institutionally that disappeared these teachings?
AH: Well you can’t run an institution with celibate monks and priests and allow for the power of women or the consecrated power of sexuality, can you? Because, if the institutional ambition is to mediate everything, what will happen if people are just initiated in their bedrooms or in the basic fact of loving each other? Priests don’t have any power over that. So they had to convince people they were worms and that they needed priests to mediate between them and some impossibly grand Son of God. It is all about power. Keeping people depressed, enslaved, hating their bodies, their sensu-ality, in love with some very dampened down vision of spirit which is placed outside their possibility and reach. It has worked incredibly well for the churches.
It prevents the two great recognitions that Jesus came to give the world. The first is that we are all children of the Divine, that the Divine is at the core of us, that we can all be Divine if we give, love, suffer and open ourselves enough—and of course that “enough” is vast. It is not easy, it costs everything. The second realization is that body and spirit are not separate. They are one in the blazing of Divine presence. Just as heaven and earth are not separate. If you keep saying heaven is elsewhere, then earth will go on being this inferno of injustice. And people will go on justifying injustice. The church will go on justifying power and not allowing these great energies that could transform everything to come out. It’s terrifying.
How could Jesus possibly be behind all the glory, pomp and power of all of the churches who accrue titles and land, power and gold, in his name? This man who lived as a pauper and who wanted radical egalitarianism?
How much despair is in your life?
AH: I have a great deal of grief and sadness about what is being done to the earth. I have a great deal of sad rage at how spirituality is being distorted. I have real fear for the planet—and I know it’s coming. I know that we are going to go through unbelievably terrible times. But despair? Despair is not something I allow myself, because I don’t have time to despair. I want to work, to try and help as far as I can, as long as I can.
To really take on the challenge of the Christ….?
AH: You have to do what St. Paul says: ‘love endureth all things and hopeth all things.’ That hope is not a silly hope, nor is it an optimistic hope. It is a hope rooted in the innate divinity of every human being, in the innate glory of the inner Christ in every human being.
Is revitalization a possibility?
AH: Oh yes, my book is absolutely dedicated to that. I think that it’s not just a possibility, it’s the last chance. Our greed, our arrogance and our confusion are taking us to the place where we either destroy ourselves, taking much of our natural world with us, or we go through a very difficult and costly transformation which will result in an evolutionary leap for humanity. I’m hoping the latter is possible. I don’t know if it is going to happen. I think that all the signs are not favorable. I think that there are very few people who really see how dangerous things are and how much it will cost to change them. But there are some and the numbers will grow as the catastrophe deepens. Then it will depend upon how passionate and sincere we really are in the pursuit of transformative practices in every aspect of life. The future is either going to be absolutely terrifying, or absolutely terrifying—and transforming. These are the two choices.
So be prepared to be terrified?
AH: Well don’t you think? Thousands of species are disappearing every month, billions of people are living below the poverty line worldwide. There is every sign that the incredible information about the destruction of the environment is still not being taken even remotely seriously by any of the corporations or the governments that are supposedly there to help us preserve ourselves. The world is living in a complete coma of denial about what is actually going on.
I’m promulgating two things—daring to wake up out of this massive coma, and daring to go on the dangerous journey of authentic transformation. Both inevitably involve fear, panic, insecurity—but you will be guided and helped by the cosmic Christ, by the power of love in the universe. Divine grace will shelter and sustain you, if you can stand it. And you will be immensely strengthened if you open up to it. I know this because I am living it. I have been through tremendous suffering and difficulty and I have been protected. I cling on by my fingernails.