Transcreating Christ: Do unto Oneself

Ask and you are given. 

Seek and one is finding. 

Knock and be opened.

For every asking is receiving 

and the seeking is the finding 

and the knocking is being opened as oneself.

Or is there a person among you, 

if your child asks for bread, 

will be giving instead a stone?

Or if asked for a fish, offer snake?

So do unto oneself as you would do for others.


Note: Obviously, I recognize that this is a somewhat radical transcreation of Matthew 7:7-12, but one I feel is not only necessary, but inevitable, if one sees 7:11 as some poor priestly interpretation of the wisdom in the previous lines, and so not included here ("If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?"). Once this is seen, it is also seen that 7:12 is not some lone line sticking out as a sore thumb and translated as a golden rule, but instead is directly connected to 7:9-10 and the beautiful two lines before those. Nisargadatta Maharaj, the great Indian sage, says, “If you think that Buddha, Christ or Krishnamurti speak to the person, you are mistaken. They know well that the vyakti, the outer self, is but a shadow of the vyakta, the inner self, and they address and admonish the vyakta only.” Thus 7:12 is not some gilded rule of personal conduct but exactly that address to the inner self, oneself. Let Christ be Christ.