The Most Cosmic Story Ever Told?

The life and death of Jesus was referred to as the greatest story over told” in the movie of the same name.
In Yeshua the Cosmic Mystic, Theodore J. Nottingham tells us straight off, in the very words of his title, the perspective of his book: a reexamination of Jesus, his life and his teachings that emphasizes one of his defining characteristics – mysticism – as well as the essence of his mission – to remind us of and help us reestablish our connection with the cosmic and the universal. is rather straightforward: if indeed Yeshua bar Joseph   reality, brought into our world a new consciousness of the nature of the Uncreated One and of our own identity, then such truth transcends all cultures, traditions and times. The fact is that such revelation is either beyond time, and holistic in all its implications, or it is not truth at all.” – from “Yeshua the Cosmic Mystic” by Theodore J. Nottingham.

There is something for everyone in this book…at least everyone who has a sincere and abiding interest in spirituality today. The title of the book….Yeshua the Cosmic Mystic: Beyond religion to Universal Truth…says a lot about it.

By linking the two assertions indicated in and by the title (that Jesus was both cosmic and mystic – perhaps primarily so) and that he was not out to create a new religion but rather to show people the way to create / discover a state of being that sought to ground itself in something as broad in scope Universal Truth rather than in anything dogmatic and parochial – the author has widened the appeal of this book to include the philosophically – as well as the religiously – inclined. Indeed, it may be fair to say that the book’s title is reducible to the following statement: the spiritual is philosophical and vice-versa.

Dissecting and analyzing topics as apparently diverse as the thought and the influence of the great German Reformation era mystic Meister Eckhart, on the on hand, and the Old Testament  verse (Genesis 1:26) that is widely translated as God’s assuring man of his/humanity’s dominion over everything and every creature on planet earth – a promise that Nottingham claims was an injunction for man to live compassionately and wisely with “all the creatures’ of the earth and not an all-powerful ruler beholden to nothing but his own appetites.

Finally, the author’s prose is a pleasure to read, taking us deep into millennia of theology and thought with a clarity of style that sacrifices nothing in the way of insight and information.