John the Beloved was the closest disciple of Jesus the Christ. He authored the book of Revelation, which was dictated by Jesus. He who best understood the mystical teachings of the Christ, ascended at the close of that embodiment, the only one of the twelve apostles to do so. John was the only disciple who did not forsake Jesus as he was dying on the cross. As Jesus saw John standing nearby with Mary, he said to her,” Woman, behold thy son!” and said to John, “Behold thy Mother!” Jesus thereby acknowledged John as his spiritual brother, as worthy to be the son of his own mother—and therefore, he elevated John to the level of Christ.

Jesus embodied the full person of the Christ Self, and unless this had been true, Jesus would not have created that relationship, because Mary was Mother in the archetypical sense of Universal Mother—she embodied the mother flame. When Jesus called John her son, he was speaking not just in the physical sense but also in the sense of the Son of God, the Son of the Divine Mother, whose representative she was.Adapted from The Masters and Their Retreats