In addition to refuting a number of popular preconceptions in the first instalment, Hazrat Inayat Khan now unfolds some of the spiritual truths that may be found within religious beliefs about Jesus.

The soul who realized the truth even before he claimed to be Alpha and Omega, is Christ. To know intellectually that life is eternal, or that the whole of life is one, is not sufficient, although it is the first step towards perfection. The actual realization of this comes from the personality of the God-conscious soul like a fragrance in his thought, speech and action and affects the world like incense put on the fire.

There are beliefs such as that of salvation through Christ, but the man who is prejudiced against religion closes the doors of his heart before having had the patience to understand what it really means. It only means that there is no liberation without an ideal before one. The ideal is a stepping stone towards that attainment which is called liberation.

There are others who cannot conceive the idea of Christ’s divinity. The truth is that the soul of man is divine, and that divine spark deserves to be called really divine when with the unfoldment of the soul it reaches the point of culmination.

There are also many different beliefs about the immaculate birth of Jesus. In point of fact when a soul arrives at the point of understanding the truth of life in its collective aspect, he realizes that there is only one Father, and that is God; that this world, out of which all the names and forms have been created, is the Mother and that the Son, who becomes worthy through his recognition of the Mother and the Father, by serving them and thus fulfilling the aim of creation, is the Son of God.

Then there is the question of the forgiveness of sins. Is not man the creator of sin? If he creates it he can also destroy it. If he cannot destroy it his elder brother can. The one who is capable of making is also capable of destroying. He who can write something with his pen can rub it out with his eraser from the surface of the paper. And if he cannot do it, then his personality has not yet reached that completeness, that perfection which all must attain. There is no end to the faults in man’s life, and if they were all recorded, and there were no erasing of them, life would be impossible to live. The impression of sin in metaphysical terminology may be called an illness, a mental illness and just as the doctor is able to cure illness, so the doctor of the soul is able to heal. If people have said that through Christ sins are forgiven, it can be understood to mean that love is that shower by which all is purified: no stain remains. What is God? God is love. When His mercy, His compassion, His kindness are expressed through a God-realized personality, then the stains of one’s faults, mistakes and wrong doings are washed away, and the soul becomes as clear as it has always been. For in reality no sin or virtue can be engraved or impressed upon a soul; it can only cover the soul. The soul in itself is divine Intelligence; and how can divine Intelligence be engraved with either sin or virtue, happiness or unhappiness? For a time it becomes covered with the impression of happiness or unhappiness, but when these clouds are cleared from it, then it is seen to be divine in its essence.

The question of the crucifixion of Christ, apart from its historical aspect, may be thus explained: that the life of the wise is a continual crucifixion. The wiser the soul becomes, the more it will realize the cross, for it is the lack of wisdom which causes the soul to commit all actions, good or bad. As it becomes wise, the first thing that happens is that its action is suspended, and the picture of that suspension of action becomes a picture of helplessness: the hands nailed and the feet nailed. Such a soul can neither go forward nor backward. It cannot act, nor move. This outward inaction may appear as helplessness, but in point of fact it is the picture of perfection.

As to the belief that Christ gave his life to save the world, it explains the real meaning of sacrifice: that no man in this world going towards the goal will escape from the test to which life will put him. And that test is sacrifice. At every step towards the final goal, the attainment, a greater and greater sacrifice will be demanded of him, until he arrives at a point where there is nothing, whether body, mind, action, thought, or feeling, that he keeps back from sacrifice for others. It is by this that man proves his realization of divine truth. In short, the Christ-ideal is the picture of the perfect man; and the explanation of what the perfect man is and what are his possibilities can be seen in the verse of the Bible, ‘Be ye perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect.’