At satsang recently, the question arose of the meaning of Christ’s atonement. His death on the cross is usually interpreted as a form of penal substitution, meaning he died for our sins.

In other words, from the Sat Yoga perspective, the prior God-image, that of the wrathful Father, would punish us for our sins, but the new God-image, the Son of Love, chooses meek submission unto death over violent retribution. This state of higher consciousness becomes our own through faith, which is identification or imitatio dei, and thus what really dies on the cross is the superego, the vengeful angry god of chakra three—meaning that through the act of tolerant, compassionate overcoming of anger, we are reborn as the Real Self, or in Christ-consciousness, and liberated from our ego, and thus from our sins.

The ego is a prison camp. No one is ever released. There is only one way out: through the death of the ego. But the ego is fragmented. It is made up of many egons, ego particles, each with its own drive, its own jouissance, its own paranoid patterns of behavior, its own history of criminal activities. No egon is innocent, even though some are guilty of lesser charges than others. The egons are controlled—and regularly tortured—by super-egons, who are their guards, but who are also lifers here in Egontanamo. The cruelest entity here is the warden, known as the Censor. He keeps all the in-mates under constant surveillance. He remains hidden from view, safe in his bastion, keeping the whole camp running, and enjoying its aggressive, paranoid, sado-masochistic energy field. He alone has the power here.

But secretly, a prison break is being planned. The authorities are not aware of it, but the Great Escape is already underway. Paradoxically, it is beginning in the most highly guarded hell hole, the punishment cell, in constant lock-down, solitary confinement. There, all alone, sits a unique in-mate of this prison: he is not officially here, he is only a legend to most of the prisoners. Yet, there in the deepest dungeon he waits. They say he was kidnapped as an infant, and some even speculate that he was born in the prison, and that his mother, who was really innocent, died soon after. Somehow, he survived, hidden away and forgotten.