I have sought truth and knowledge all my life, Implume. I went through an anti-Christian Norse pagan phase after my dear wife died, but God in his wisdom and mercy reconciled me to that fact that it is all the ALL. Leloup is like my guru, only he doesn't know it. I like Ethan Walker's The Mystic Christ a lot, too.
You chose well, Vic. Leloup has, at the least, a good feeling for mystical awareness. I suspect he actually lives that condition. When theologians of different faiths gather, they lay out the distinctions between one religion and another. When sufficiently advanced mystics gather, they discover the same inexpressible experience underlying all religions.
Jesus spoke Aramaic. In the Western Aramaic (Syriac) version the passage begins with the word "I" repeated: ena ena, as in "I-I". It is the intensive form of "I" or "I am". In a culture where the word for God (Alaha) means Unity, the sense of the individual (Jesus) cannot be be ultimately separated from the divine. Only the "I am" exists, which is Alaha (GOD). It is the eternal "I am" that dwells in each of us. It is THAT which existed "before Abraham" that says, "I am the way".
The basic mystical discipline is to let go of attachment to, and identification with, both cravings and aversions. The bodhisattva witnesses the good and the bad in his life with non-discriminating attention. Only when his consciousness is cleaned of any personal awareness can he open to the being-consciousness-bliss underlying normal egoic awareness. Needless to say, becoming a bodhisattva is a tough gig.
