I think that what "Christ-hood" points to, along with Buddha-hood and the status of other spiritual figures, is a conception of the possible human.
The book "Destructive Emotions" provides very good examples of some modern notions concerning this.
This ideal is embodied from time to time by individuals by way of good genes and effort. They have achieved a state that can give us all hope.
In this sense, we are all Buddha and descendants of Christ, or potentially so.
I hope I am not misrepresenting him when I say I am with Joseph Campbell, who indicated that these figures, places, objects, etc. are all at once symbolic and immanent. That is, the River (or Cup) of Life is not the Nile or the Ganges. You don't have to take great personal risk by bathing in a dirty river just downstream of where they burn and dump copses. The River of Life is symbolic. Your appreciation of it is immanent.
Drinking water from a glass can be drinking from the Holy Grail if you look at it with the right kind of eyes and feel it with the right kind of heart.
Otherwise, I think, you indulge in foolishness that can put your personal well-being and the well-beings of those around you at great risk.
Some people kiss cobras because they take the figurative literally. That's bad mojo in my book.
Last edited by babayada; 01/04/07 08:11 AM.
