Beyond Religion: Reclaiming A Spiritual Jesus

What if the most important thing about Jesus isn’t where he walked, but what he awakened? We sit down with author and pastor Robert Ochs to follow a forty-year trail from carpentry and sea training to ancient libraries and pulpits, tracing how a life of work, service, and study led him to reexamine the nature of Christ. Along the way, Robert reveals the moments that cracked open his curiosity—a gifted copy of The Mystical Life of Jesus from an agnostic friend, long stretches of quiet on the water, and an assignment in Athens that put him close to artifacts and the discipline of manuscript research.

Robert’s perspective is both reverent and adventurous. He explores the potential influence of the Essenes, suggests how prophetic schools could have shaped Jesus’ early formation, and draws from texts like the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library to illuminate a message centered on inner transformation. Instead of a distant heaven, he points to the kingdom within; instead of fear-driven devotion, he argues for a spirituality measured by love, stillness, and conscious practice. His engineering background surfaces as he connects spiritual growth to ideas of energy, frequency, and vibration, while his pastoral heart keeps the conversation grounded in compassion and everyday choices.

We also talk about the realities of authorship—why purpose outlasts profit, how disenfranchised Christians are finding fresh hope in his work, and what his next book will tackle as it brings “secret teachings” into dialogue with modern issues. If you’ve ever felt loyal to a denomination but hungry for a deeper inner life, this candid, research-rich conversation offers a map: meditate, question, study, and let love recalibrate your way of being. Subscribe, share with a friend who’s searching, and leave a review to tell us what shifted for you after listening.

Robert's Book: https://amzn.to/4aqUzn5

Transcript

Welcome & Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Every conversation tells a story, and the best ones begin with honesty, courage, and a little curiosity. That's where Elsa Kurt comes in. She's an author, podcaster, and independent media personality, and this is where she brings real life to the table. Authors, thinkers, creators, leaders, everyday folks with extraordinary journeys. We sit down, we dig in, and we talk about what matters, what's messy, what's beautiful, and what just might inspire you to look at the world a little differently. So pour a cup of something good. Settle back and join me. This is Elsa Kurt Interviews, where truth has a seat and everyone's welcome.

SPEAKER_04 0:41

And today I have with me uh the author of Finding the Nature of Christ. This is Robert Oakes. Thank you so much for joining me today. How are you?

SPEAKER_03 0:50

I'm doing very well. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 0:52

You are very, very welcome. I'm so glad. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. You did forewarn me that some people are are maybe going to get uncomfortable, right? And that's okay. It's okay to get uncomfortable. So um I think it's obviously I think it's a fascinating topic. Um, so I mentioned the title. So when people hear this title, they might expect something abstract or even academic. But when you look at your life, um, it's anything but that. And I I took a look at your your bio, of course, and now uh you correct me if you need to. You have been uh a carpenter, a sailor, an engineer, a linguist, a pastor. You have worked with your hands, you've worked with equations, uh, languages, and then with people, of course. So before we even talk about the book itself, I I really want to start there. Um, how does a life that wide and varied lead someone to write about the nature of Christ? This is so fascinating to me. Um, I would love for everyone to share a little bit about you and then, of course, that journey.

Sea Training And A Life-Changing Choice

SPEAKER_03 1:55

Well, I come from humble beginnings. My my father was a carpenter, and uh I was very fortunate, very blessed. When I was 12 years old, he took me under his wing and taught me all about carpentry. So when I um by the time I graduated from high school, I was drawing a journeyman's wage. I'd already had a career set up for me, you know. But I was also a good high school student. And uh somewhere along the line, um I met with my congressman and uh ended up getting uh nominated, or I should say appointed to the United States Naval Academy in Anneapolis and to the United States Virgin Marine Academy in Kingspoint. And my congressman told me pick one. And uh so I had to uh kind of think about that a little bit, you know. I thought I would have a little bit more uh uh less strict atmosphere if I chose the Virgin Marine Academy, because I would be appointed, or once I graduated, I'd be uh commissioned as an instant in the Navy Reserve or as a third maid on a merchant ship. But the thing that really intrigued me was when I went on my sea training, the second semester of my freshman year. It's a good thing it was early, because uh that's where I found out about life. And uh, you know, I had to make a decision. Uh we've uh I shipped out of New Orleans and went all the way to Hamburg, Germany. And all the ports in between. And during that time I had a lot of time to myself and I kind of had an epiphany. And uh all the guys on the ship, the crews, uh the officers, everything else, they were all telling me the same thing. They said, if you want to be a family man, don't be a sailor. And I said, Well, why is that? Well, come to find out, most of them had been married three or four times. Wow. They said, You're gonna be out to sea nine months out of the year, and it's not conducive to a good home life. And um I thought about it, and then when we got to the ports in uh Europe, I discovered what my home life was gonna be like. You know, as soon as you get off the ship, the very first places that you run into in the harbor were the bars and the bottles. Sure, right. I that was my life I really cared to be around. So I resigned after that first year. So I wasn't a sailor for very long.

SPEAKER_04 4:38

You know, yeah, yeah, that's a like you said, that's that's a whole other life and not at all conducive to family life, to growing a family. So yeah, those those stats are are pretty hard to hear that you know, that many of them um just can't sustain that kind of life. Um so what motivated you to become an author? Because there's so many people who say that they want to write a book or have a dream of writing a book, uh, you know, but they never really take that next step. What was it for you that made you feel compelled?

Family History Sparks Writing

The Book That Challenged His Faith

Greece, Manuscripts, And Deep Research

SPEAKER_03 5:13

Well, back in the late 1990s, my dad had taken me to go visit my great uncle. And uh he had a cousin who was still alive. He was in his 90s at the time, and uh he suggested that they go over and visit her. Well, come to find out, she was the daughter of the family of immigrants that uh immigrated to the United States from Germany. Well, that got my curiosity up, so I started asking all sorts of questions. And then when we took my uncle back home, he gave me a big suitcase filled with uh pictures from my great-grandmother's album. And the good thing about him was she put first names on them, but she didn't put last names on them. Oh boy, didn't know who they were per se. Sure. So I decided that I was going to start doing some genealogy research and find out who all these people are. I did that, and then I began to realize that just looking at births and dates, it's kind of boring. You know, there were some that had some real interesting stories along with it, and I thought to myself, what can I do for my posterity? And my grandchildren just kept asking me all the time about all these stories that I had in my youth, and I thought, why not write about them? So I wrote a lot of you know, maybe four or five pages, and then the four or five pages turned into about 20 pages, and then a little bit more, and and uh, you know, they they love the stories where I wrestled a bear, you know. Yeah, it's those little things that that really excited them. But as far as this book goes, what motivated me about this was um when I was in the service, I was on uh survival training up in the state of Washington. And uh I was rooming with a good friend of mine, he was also uh an airman at the time, and um we got into some serious conversations and ironically he had a book on him and he gave it to me. He said, You can have this. Now he as he talked to me, he was an agnostic but the book he gave me was The Mystical Life of Jesus. And I wasn't sure if I was gonna read it because I had just been ordained to the priesthood about two years prior to that. And if it uh wasn't in accordance with my denomination, I wasn't gonna read it. Sure. Well, they decided to go into town one weekend, and I was uh I needed to send some money back home to my family, and so I decided to stay there and read the book, and it said a lot of things in there that was different than what I heard in the Bible or saw in the Bible. And I told myself at that time, I'm gonna research this. And the question that I asked myself or the statement that I told myself was if I'm ever gonna understand the nature of Christ, I think that would help me to better understand myself. And that thought I woke up with every single morning. It was like a mantra. And then suddenly the funniest thing started occurring. All these serendipitous events would occur. You know, like for one one day I come home from work and I found a book in my mailbox. The book was on meditation by a uh uh a master in Korea yoga. And I read the book and I actually started practicing meditation as a result of reading that book. And um then there were other events that came along. When I when I was in the service, my permanent change of station was in Athens, Greece, and that opened up a whole different avenue of learning. Absolutely. I took two archaeology classes, was on archaeology dick. I discovered how to to research ancient manuscripts, I started reading uh, you know, such of those manuscripts. I found out about the Dead Sea Scrolls, I found out about the Nagamati Library, which is very interesting, by the way. And uh and then I started having dreams. And uh but you know, all along I suppressed all this information, you know, being the pastor and preaching about it, I didn't want to say anything to the teacher because I knew how this would affect them until one day I opened up and I found out that they needed to hear this, they wanted to hear this, yeah. And the congregation started to grow. And um I was dumbfounded by that, but I didn't open up all the way.

SPEAKER_04 10:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:29

So when I retired and I had the time and I had the knowledge now, because this is a four to fifty year period when all this went on. Yeah, you know, I took all my notes, yeah. And I and I put them in my notes. Wow. That's what uh motivated me to write the book because I felt like there was some something nudging me onward. I didn't really want to do it because I knew it was time consuming and I never really considered myself to be a writer. Okay. But it just kept nudging at me and I could not overcome it. And so finally I just sat down and did it.

SPEAKER_04 11:10

Wow. Tell me a little bit, if you will, what was the so you were hesitant to share everything that you were learning. What was holding you back? What was the concern? Um, you did touch on a little that, you know, people who go strictly by the Bible and like it's whatever the Bible says, that's all there is and and nothing else. Were were those the people that you were concerned with uh uh sharing this information with?

Sharing Controversy From The Pulpit

Reexamining Early Christianity

SPEAKER_03 11:38

Well, what I had to um realize before I did it was the original church of Jesus Christ is not the same church that uh became the Roman Catholic Church in in the uh 5th century. And uh they had a narrative that they tried to put out there because they were dealing with a nation where most of these new converts were previously pagans. So they had to make Jesus look like this dominating God uh and you better obey him or else you're gonna go somewhere you don't want to go when you die. That's not the way it was. Right, right, that's not the way it was. Um you know, here's one of the things that was really astounding to me. We've always been told in the Bible that Jesus uh had learned from his father and grew in stature and became the person that he was and did all the miracles and all these things as a result of that learning. Actuality his maternal grandfather was a high priest in the Essene community and Jesus associated with the Essenes. The Bible didn't say that. Uh Josephus calls them another sect of Jews, but they were in a they were the ones that started the prophecies because Jeremiah was a master of the Essenes, Isaiah was a master of the scenes, and they started the prophecies about the anointed one that will be coming. And Jesus' grandfather was a high priest there. And uh there was a school that was uh among the um layers in the ruins on Mount Cornell. It was the eighth level, and the people around there called this the school of the prophets. What's interesting is there were manuscripts that talked about who some of the famous people were that went to that school. One of them was Pythagoras, who we know as being the father of geology. And there were two young boys around six years old. One was named John, the son of Zacharias, and the other one was named Yeshua, the son of Joseph.

SPEAKER_04 14:26

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 14:27

Wow. And he was six years old, and then it hit me.

SPEAKER_04 14:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:33

That's where he got the knowledge to confound the the Sanhedrin during his barn mitzvah when he was 12, 13 years old.

SPEAKER_04 14:43

Tell me a little bit more about that whole process of research because it sounds uh daunting, actually. I mean, was it all just readily available to you because of where you were being in Greece? I mean, there's you know, uh so much different access, I would imagine, to that kind of information, no?

SPEAKER_03 15:01

Well, it's difficult to find a lot of that. You can they got a wonderful museum in Athens, you know, that uh now I didn't get to the manuscripts on there, but I had I saw a lot of the artifacts from that time period. But I um it was hard to come by, but I have all the books of the Dead Sea Scrolls. And I have in my possession all the books of the Nakamani Library.

unknown 15:26

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 15:27

And uh what's interesting, a lot of those books in the Nakamati Library, some of those books were books that were initially in the Bible that got removed later because it didn't wasn't carrying out the narrative that they wanted to. But those are the most important books because uh the the book I'm writing now is When Wisdom Warns. That'll probably come out in spring, but it's dealing with the secret teachings of Jesus. Okay, and that's where the Nakam Body Library books come in, because it's through all those. And when I write about it, I'm going to uh I'm gonna update it to issues that uh dominate our day and time now. Okay. Uh like um transgenderism.

SPEAKER_04 16:19

So if you could, I'd be really curious. I'm sure everyone would be really curious if you could share just one thing. Of course, I don't want you to give away anything really in the book. I want everybody to go and read it, but um could you give me like one thing um that you learned about Jesus' early life that would surprise people?

Essenes, Prophets, And Jesus’ Schooling

SPEAKER_03 16:41

Well, first of all, the three wise men um they didn't actually, they were not there during his birth. They came into play when he was about three years old. And what motivated them to do that was because Jesus was a very special boy. You know, he was able to do things that was beyond his years, and they had heard about it and they had come over from the eastern parts of the world to check this boy out. Now, the Bible says there were three of them, but there are other references that says that there were 12 of them.

SPEAKER_04 17:20

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 17:21

So uh I haven't gone into that.

SPEAKER_04 17:23

Yeah. Um, um, you mentioned so that you're working on another book right now. Um, from this book to that one. Is this a series or are they just standalone books?

SPEAKER_03 17:36

They're standalone books. I've got uh I've got several others in mind to write. It's more uh historical fiction. And uh and outside of this genre, you know.

SPEAKER_04 17:49

Nice. Isn't that wild how that happens? Did you think I'm just curious? Random question. I'm curious. When you wrote your first wrote and published your first book, did you think, okay, that's it, I did it, I purged this desire to do this, or did it immediately ignite a fire to write more books?

SPEAKER_03 18:08

Well, you know, when I first published it, I didn't anticipate that anyone would know about it. You know, it's in the road where there's about thousands and thousands of books on that genre. And I'm sure that the next book out there is gonna be right down at the bottom of the list. Of course, nobody knew who I was, but you know, I didn't care. I didn't care, I didn't care whether I make money off of it. I didn't write it because I wanted to make money off. I had a message, and it's pertinent to this day and age, and I've got to get it out there. Yeah, and um and that's what keeps nudging me on. Yeah, I nudging me on with this next book, especially this next book. Because uh I'll be talking about things that Christianity has talked has not talked about in ages.

Lost Texts And A New Book

SPEAKER_04 19:02

Yeah, I and I think it's a great time for it too, really. You know, as as more people, um, as as much as the mainstream media does not want you to know this, folks, but uh there is a huge turn toward Jesus. I know that there is a lot more people out there that have these questions and want to have that connection and want to understand and know more about the life of Jesus, what he means in in each of our lives. Um, so I I think books like this are very, very timely and very necessary. And I I love your attitude about putting it out there because there's so many people um, unfortunately, that think like they're gonna write a book and it's gonna, you know, hit the bestseller's list and they don't know anything that's you know, they think they're gonna live off of their book. And it's just, you know, as you mentioned, there are just, you know, millions of books out there, you know, thousands upon thousands of authors out there and aspiring authors out there. And if your motivation is is, you know, if your scope of of focus is so narrow that all you're thinking about is the dollar signs, you're you're going to be very disappointed. But if you're doing it with your mindset of that, you know, you just have this knowledge inside you and this information or story, whatever the case is inside you that you feel compelled to put out in the world, um, it will reach who it needs to reach. So I I love that you just said, you know what? I know all of these things and I'm doing it anyway because I believe in it so much. So I I just absolutely applaud you for that. And I'm I'm really looking forward to reading the book. Books. I gotta add the S at the end of that. There's more than one.

SPEAKER_03 20:39

Well, the some of the reviews that I've gotten back on this have been uh from Christians, Christians who were disenfranchised for whatever reasons. Sure. One of them, you know, Side's name is Reverend, such and such. And as controversial as this book might be, he got a lot out of it. Yeah, and and uh so many of them was were saying this is beyond denominational boundaries. And that's what they like about it. Yeah. And surprisingly, all the reviews are five stars. See, I'm not complaining, you know.

SPEAKER_04 21:19

But you know, it's um but it's clearly hitting hitting a uh striking a chord with people, right? It's it's it's hitting something with people, it's resonating with them, um, you know, probably things that they didn't even know that they needed to know, right? I think that's uh probably a huge part of it. Um what would you want? My my almost last question for you what is one thing you would want the reader to walk away from having read your book? Like what would you want them to think or feel after?

A Surprising Detail About The Magi

SPEAKER_03 21:53

It's one thing to go to church. Every single Every Sunday night, every Wednesday night, and call yourself a good Christian and believing in God. That's what my opinion is that really what you're saying is you believe in your denomination and what you're saying. But there is are you spiritual? There's a difference between being religious and being spiritual. And I'm hoping that what the book does is teach you how to become spiritual. And I'm going to give you a hint. This is out of the book of Thomas. It's one of the books that was in the Nagamadi Library. This is going to be in my next book. Jesus was saying, he said, There are some readers out there that say that heaven is in the sky. But if that were true, all the birds of heaven would be flying there. There are other leaders that are saying that heaven is within the sea. And if that were true, then all the fish of the sea would be swimming there. Verily I say unto you, the kingdom of heaven is within you. Now you start looking at scriptures like this. Be still and know that I am. That book on meditation I mentioned. That's a good book to start out with.

SPEAKER_04 23:37

Yeah.

Writing Beyond One Book

SPEAKER_03 23:38

Because when you go into yourself, what Jesus was saying is that the kingdom of heaven is not a place, it's a state of consciousness. And and and I could go on and I'd get into details, I'll just mention it real quickly. Jesus, of course, will be at the highest level. But when we die, you know, we may not be. You know, we think we're gonna go to heaven. You know. Um the scientists of uh Einstein and Tesla say it the best. And I also have a broad background in physics and quantum physics and things like that, because I was engineering for years. Um they say that and Tesla says it the best, it's all about energy, frequency, and vibration. That's what it is, and here's um vibration and frequency. It's all about love because when you go within yourself, your inner vibration begins to rise. Your aura starts to change colors to the higher levels, and uh that's what I would hope that that people would be motivated to do once they read these books, both of these books.

SPEAKER_04 25:14

So I'm so excited. It sounds so fascinating. I I'm so looking forward to reading this. Um, can you tell everyone where they can find your books? If you're doing, I don't know if you're doing any uh in-person book signings, but if you are, please feel free to let everybody know where they can go. But yeah, all that good stuff.

Purpose Over Profit As An Author

SPEAKER_03 25:34

I've got a book fair coming up in New York in uh July. I don't have the exact date yet. And um I know Elena was telling me about one in in uh London coming up. So that's exciting. That's exciting. Um I've had people ask me to uh be a part of uh they they want me to have a uh so a gathering so I can talk about this. Nice. And uh so and they want me to bring books, you know, so I can do that. I haven't gotten the final words on some of that yet. You know. Um you can get my book on Amazon. Just put my name down there. You gotta be careful because there's more than one Robert Oakes, believe it or not.

SPEAKER_04 26:24

I'll make sure I put the links. I'll be putting the links in the in the buy in the uh show notes for everybody so they'll be able to click right on it and go straight to it. So yeah, we'll have that for everybody.

SPEAKER_03 26:33

One the one that I prefer, and I'll give you the link, you may have it, is um my personal bookstore, which is online. And that link is books.buy with a slash oaks-n-sperry-publishing. Perfect. Okay. That will be where only my books you can find. And the thing about going to Amazon when they give you the link, you gotta compete with about a thousand other books that are out there on the same genre. So you you know, my book, oh, it's so tough.

SPEAKER_04 27:15

Yeah, we're not gonna let that happen. We're gonna get them right to it. So no problem. Robert, I can't thank you enough for coming in and sharing your story and your books with me and my audience. And I look so forward to reading them and uh talking about them more with my audience. So uh again, thank you very much for joining me today.

SPEAKER_03 27:34

Well, thank you very much, Hilton. I certainly enjoyed it. And um, you know, feel free to contact me if you want, you know, if you have if you if you read the book and have questions, feel free to contact me.

SPEAKER_04 27:46

Absolutely. Thank you. I appreciate that. I I would pretty much guaranteed I will because I love going through like a fine-toothed comb and and like writing down questions. And usually I'll just sit there and think about them and try and figure it out. But now, now I'm gonna bug you.

SPEAKER_03 28:00

Well, I mean, that's one reason why I was real interested in being a part of this because I noticed in your other podcast you are like that.

From Religion To Spiritual Practice

SPEAKER_04 28:09

I am you know I am, it's true. Yeah, yeah. I'm a little, I don't, I'm, I can't, uh, I'm not nearly as good as you. I'm I'm not a big researcher like you, so I'm so grateful to you and people like you who will do all the heavy lifting for me so I can just read it. Lazy girl that I'm being, but no, I'm I'm somewhat kidding, but also serious. Oh, I appreciate it. All right, my friend, we will talk again soon, I hope. And for everybody else watching, take care, and we'll see you in the next episode. Take care.

SPEAKER_03 28:40

Okay, well, thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

You got it. You've got a story worth sharing. Now it's time to tell it well. Whether you're an author, entrepreneur, influencer, or podcast guest, stepping in front of the camera or microphone can feel overwhelming. On the other side of the mic is your practical, encouraging guide to becoming a confident, authentic, and engaging interviewee. Written by media personality and best selling author Elsa Kurt, this book blends real world wisdom from hundreds of interviews with a touch of humor, grace, and heart. It's more than a how to. It's a roadmap to presence, professionalism, and peace in every conversation.