Monday, December 31, 2012

Cosmic Drama: the Final Chapter: My Redeemer Liveth!

The Cosmic Drama - Part Five (of Five)
"My Redeemer Liveth"

This is part one of a series of articles. It has its origins in a prior blog article entitled, "Who is Jesus Christ?" You may wish to read that first, though not absolutely necessary. This series attempts to describe the Trinity, or, how God can be omniscient, omnipresent, infinite, and immanent in creation at the same time. And, what significance this has for the reality we face as individuals. As the prior article on Jesus Christ noted, "Who Jesus is says a great deal about who we are." So, too, who God is addresses who we are.

Returning full circle now to the life of Jesus Christ, we see how “TAT” (the second of the Trinity: the “Son”) appears on earth in human form to awaken the “TAT” within those who are ready! Such awakened ones also sow seeds of awakening in many souls, perhaps for a future lifetime. Those many such “descents” (avatars) have a public mission of uplifting consciousness in a race, nation or civilization and a personal mission to individual disciples more spiritually advanced.

Because the “Son” (the memory of our divinity) has fallen asleep through many lives, it takes another Son to awaken that memory. A further “proof” of divinity in human form is the simple fact that without the possibility of becoming “One with the Father” in human form, there would be no evidence of our divinity (in human form). Giving a coin to a street person may be a nice thing to do but it doesn’t make you a saint and it doesn’t show the power of God over all creation, which, as his “sons,” is our potential! It is natural, therefore, that there have been demonstrations down through the ages of the power to even raise the dead. While this is not flaunted to the masses, it has been witnessed by individual disciples who were willing to give their lives for and to dedicate their lives to their testimony.

The fully-awakened “son of God” is not a God-made puppet, but a soul, like you and I, who has achieved that final Self-realization and returns in human form to enlighten his (her) fellows. While this is said to have taken place in a past life, the point remains that the incarnation of divinity in human form is the natural fulfillment (indeed the divine purpose) of the Christ Intelligence (TAT) in nature and in all creation taken to its penultimate manifestation. Indeed it is said that the drama of creation is that souls make the free choice to reunite with our Creator and become fully-realized “sons of God” as Jesus, and other world saviors in history, have done.

As Krishna teaches in the Bhagavad Gita (India’s revered scripture), this descent of divinity into human form (the “avatara”) takes place in every age and nation as divinely ordained by the call of human hearts. “God so loved the world that He sent his only-begotten Son.” The redemptive power of Jesus’ life and spirit lies in both the message and uplifting spiritual power of Self-realization which has its source and its manifestation in attunement with the will of the Father. The New Testament reveals that Jesus knew of his impending crucifixion and even briefly prayed that it pass, but that he accepted the will of his father. Thus must we all do in placing the ego (and body) on the cross that our soul might be resurrected in the Christ Consciousness of our soul’s eternal and immortal reality.

This is the means by which we, too, can ascend. “No man hath ascended to heaven, but he that hath descended.” The meaning of this odd sentence is simply that we are all children of God and have come from God. To God we must return, like the prodigal son, that we might be free. Jesus was not boasting.
But the deeper understanding of this precept is that the indwelling and universal Christ consciousness (son of God) is that which leads us upward or home to God. But first the child must be born in the manger of our humble heart, in the darkness of material delusion. Jesus, and all other great saviors of humankind, come into each culture and age to wake us up and remind us of our immortality and identity as souls (not mere bodies and personalities). “We are of old!”

But what is awakened is within us. Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is with you.” Thus Jesus was the personification (human incarnation) of the Christ which resides, latently at least, in every atom of creation. Christ-in-human-form comes to awaken the Christ within. Whether incarnate in human form or at the still heart of every atom, this, and this alone, is the “only begotten son of God” in creation.

We, too, are potential Christs. When we have “ears to hear” and “eyes to see” this reality, then it is the Holy Spirit (“I will send to you the Holy Spirit, who will bring to your remembrance all these things.”) that leads us back to perfection, back to our home in God-consciousness. God is not in some faraway place but is a state of consciousness, bereft of name and form, and “behind” every atom of creation. This is why meditation is so important and effective as a means of perceiving the God presence within and in all creation.

When the infant child of divine memory is awakened, it is the Mother that nurtures the child to adulthood. The living Christ, or guru, comes only for a short time and fulfills his role by re-lighting the spark of that divine memory in in our consciousness. The Holy Spirit, or Virgin Mother, is that pure vibration (or feeling) of God to which we then attune ourselves that we might grow in Self-realization.

This vibration is the conscious and divine motor or engine of creation. The Bible refers many times to the “sound of many waters,” “thundering’s,” and “lightning.” We chant “Amen” (or “Aum”) with our prayers as a deeper-than-conscious recognition that the “word” of God is neither in English, nor Sanskrit, nor Latin, nor Hebrew, but is an actual sound heard deep in the inner silence. It “knoweth all things” because all things have been created by it (see the first sentences of the gospel of John). We mimic this holy sound with prayers, hymns and chants and various incantations and rituals. The sacredness one might feel at Mass, at prayer, upon a holy mountain, in nature and gazing upon a field is the living, vibratory presence of God AS creation: the Holy “ghost” unseen but felt.
It could be said that the “first coming” of Christ (the TAT, or “son” of God) is when God gives birth to the cosmos. The “second coming” would be the appearance of TAT (the Christ consciousness) in human form (as the guru). The “third coming” would be its awakening in the individual soul. The “fourth” would be the individual soul’s final redemption, or Self-realization: Oneness with the Father.

When Paramhansa Yogananda titled his life’s work, “The Second Coming of Christ,” he was using the phrase from the New Testament. It is a play on words in the sense that he, too, is an avatar, but that what he brought, through meditation (especially kriya yoga), was the “keys to the kingdom” that allows awakened souls to commune with the Holy Spirit (as Aum). Patanjali, author of the famous Yoga Sutras, and other great rishis, have declared that communing with God as Vibration, as Aum, is man’s highest duty for the entire purpose of creation is, as the Baltimore Catholic catechism declares, to “know, love, and serve God.” And, by deeper understanding of this phrase, to “become One with Father.”

Let us celebrate the coming of Christ as the awakening of this realization (of God’s presence) in our own hearts. And let us then share that presence by sharing the gifts of creation, and the greatest gift of all – God’s love – with all whom we meet.

Blessings to you this Christ-mas, and may the New Year bring us ever closer to Self-realization!

Nayaswami Hriman

The above is based upon and inspired by the teachings of the modern Yogi-Christ, Paramhansa Yogananda and the writings of Swami Kriyananda, a direct disciple and founder of the worldwide work of the Ananda communities. For additional reading, see “Revelations of Christ,” by Swami Kriyananda, available from Crystal Clarity Publishers, Nevada City, or the East West Bookshop nearest you.

Saturday, December 29, 2012

The Cosmic Drama Continues: part 4 of 5: In Walks the Devil!


The Cosmic Drama
Part Four (of Five) - In Walks the Devil!


This is part one of a series of articles. It has its origins in a prior blog article entitled, "Who is Jesus Christ?" You may wish to read that first, though not absolutely necessary. This series attempts to describe the Trinity, or, how God can be omniscient, omnipresent, infinite, and immanent in creation at the same time. And, what significance this has for the reality we face as individuals. As the prior article on Jesus Christ noted, "Who Jesus is says a great deal about who we are." So, too, who God is addresses who we are.


When God “sent out” His power through vibration (“Aum”) and seeded it with His reflected Intelligence, the creation (especially the powers and intelligences behind matter) are endowed with procreative power, desire, intelligence, and individuality. Just as the son, who may resemble his father in many ways, is given free will to make his own choices in life, so too, the creation and the souls in creation have been given, and have, made choices. As vibration acquires form, individuality and intelligence it acquires a relative degree of independence. Not absolute, but relative. This power, force and intelligence assumes unto itself a self-perpetuating momentum, not unlike the famous computer HAL in the movie: 2001: A Space Odyssey. The outflowing power of God becomes, by degrees, not only independent but, as it begins to assert its self-identity, either rebelliously or ignorantly, it become satanic. The term “satanic” implies a conscious intention to remain apart and independent. It implies a purposeful rebellion against harmony and attunement with the Creator. It is not sharp line in the sand, but a gradual continuum from divine attunement to forgetfulness to restlessness to ignorance to harm and to conscious evil.

Endowed with intelligence and empowered to go out and multiply and then acquiring the form and feeling of separateness (from God), this outgoing power takes onto itself the responsibility and desire to create, multiply, dominant and remain its own “god.” (Think of the myth of Lucifer or Adam and Eve wanting to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.) Thus does the outflowing force begin gradually to make its own way. The further from God its consciousness inclines, the more the good intention becomes gradually an evil one, usurping God’s power and worshipping itself as godlike. (Thus was Jesus tempted by Satan to have dominion over all the earth if he would but worship Satan as the creation itself.) Thus humans set up false gods, worshipping money, the pleasures of the senses, power over others, addictive substances, and so on. Satan, in the form of the creation, invites us to worship him as the summum bonum of existence. In the end he takes our souls, metaphorically speaking (only), in the sense that we lose (temporarily) our soul joy and innocence in God’s bliss. Death, old-age, disease, disappointment—at last, he reneges on his promise leaving us with neither God’s peace nor our moth-eaten treasures on earth.


There is another aspect to this loss of innocence. As Spirit is cloaked in form, individuality, and separateness, it finds itself competing for survival in a world of the senses. Forced to feed, clothe and shelter itself, it finds that the compelling necessities of its outer form cause it to look outward through the senses. The outer world gradually becomes its reality and lost is the divine memory of its own omniscience and immortality. It will take untold incarnations for this lost soul to (ascend first to the human level, and then untold more incarnations to) rebel against the “anguishing monotony” of continued rounds of rebirth, struggle, pleasure, pain, illness and death after having exhausted every avenue of sensory and ego-affirming, but ultimately disappointing, fulfillment.


Thus, the macro-characters in the cosmic drama are God (as the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) and the satanic force which opposes harmony with and union with God. Paramhansa Yogananda put it this way: the satanic force has sowed the creation with patterns of imperfection (pain, disease, & physical death) so that our memory of divine perfection will impel beings to want to return to the creation to make it perfect. But alas, the cosmic drama requires the villain that we might love the hero. The villain must be punished and the hero is applauded. As we act more like the hero we come closer to God. In this way, even the satanic force of maya (delusion and ignorance) act to sow the seeds of our longing for perfection. This perfection, this bliss, this union is found only within our souls—in God alone. We have an eternity of free choices to discover and seek this re-union, just as the prodigal son in Jesus’ story, hungry and famished, decides to begin the journey home to his Father. There he is welcomed and embraced (not punished).

Whether we view the betrayal of God’s divine purpose as the result of the “first man and woman” (Adam and Eve) or as a choice we all make, especially beginning with puberty, is perhaps a matter of taste. The reality is that, from the human point of view, evil exists, ignorance exists, wrong choices and bad things happen and we need to make things better. Blaming God has its place, but only to a point. Doing so doesn’t change the bad things. We have to take action and we have to take at least some responsibility for ourselves and our neighbor. Without this, life would be not worth living. Besides, in truth and at the present moment, most people wouldn’t have it any other way and are not the slightest bit interested in knowing, loving, serving and uniting in love with God.

The "devil made me do it",

Nayaswami Hriman

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

The Trinity - FATHER, SON AND HOLY GHOST

The Cosmic Drama
Part Three (of Five)
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost - AUM, TAT, SAT

This is part one of a series of articles. It has its origins in a prior blog article entitled, "Who is Jesus Christ?" You may wish to read that first, though not absolutely necessary. This series attempts to describe the Trinity, or, how God can be omniscient, omnipresent, infinite, and immanent in creation at the same time. And, what significance this has for the reality we face as individuals. As the prior article on Jesus Christ noted, "Who Jesus is says a great deal about who we are." So, too, who God is addresses who we are.

In India, that aspect of God that is the Creator, separate and untouched by “His” creation is called “SAT,” and can be called “the Father.” The creation itself as a creative act of SAT and a manifestation of the Creator in the act of “becoming,” is “AUM.” The creation comes into being through an illusion caused by movement (“duality”) in opposite directions from a point of rest at the center. A whirling fan or the hubcaps of a wheel can create the appearance of solidity owing to their motion. Basic subatomic particles, atoms and molecules combine in an infinite variety of ways to give the appearance of separate objects. This “God AS the underlying reality of creation” is called “AUM” in India and, in Christianity, is given the term the “Holy Spirit.” It is “ghost-like” (Holy Ghost) because invisible; its presence is “felt” as a breeze, a whispered sound, or an ethereal rumble of thunder or a crashing sea.  Its visible appearance is as the inner light of meditation.

In Christianity, it is personified as the Virgin Mother of Christ: virgin because God AS creation is unpolluted or untouched by creation’s subsequent and infinite variations. In India, Divine Mother (personified in a variety of goddesses) is the personification of the AUM vibration.

This primordial and essential level of creation is characterized by sound and light, especially sound. Hence we find in the great faith traditions the universal intonation of a core and divinely conscious prayer-word such as “Aum,” “Amen,” “Amin,” and “Ahunavar.” This utterance attempts to articulate the metaphysical reality called “the Word.” “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1).” A word is a sound uttered based on thought and consciousness. The Aum vibration is the voice of God at the heart of all creation. It creates, sustains, and withdraws from sight all things. As the living presence of God in creation, it is the “Comforter” and brings to our “remembrance” all things because all things are made by it. In hearing it, we also enter into the presence of God’s presence and “remember” that presence. In that presence wisdom comes to us. Listening to the inner sound (of AUM) brings to devotees not just comfort but protection and inner guidance.

Just as the artist or scientist or inventor has a seed idea that triggers further details and enthusiasm and finally manifests in the intended object, so creation is said to contain three distinct levels: thought (ideation), energy (astral), and the physical cosmos. The investigations by science into the underlying chemical, atomic, electrical and electro-magnetic properties of matter are suggestive of the energy or astral world that underlies the superficial appearance of matter on the gross level of the senses.

But if the universe were only God’s manifestation it would be a sham. For God to set in motion His creation and yet remain apart from it, He had to impregnate the creation (Divine Mother, his consort, the Virgin and the Aum vibration) with His seed, which is to say, with his intention, His “looks,” and, you might say, His DNA. Genesis declares that we are made in His image and thus we “resemble” our Creator, not in physical appearance but in our true essence. (The five points of the body—two feet, two arms and head—resemble the five points of a star commonly seen in meditation.)

God thus had to bestow upon His creation, His only begotten Son, His own intelligence and intention, the seed of His own perfection in Bliss. In order to sustain and perpetuate His creation, he had to endow the perpetual motion of the illusion of creation with intention and intelligence. His seed of intention and intelligence resides at the center of each atom and each object and endows all things with the power and the desire to procreate. As God is Bliss itself (meaning the summum bonum of existence), and as it is the nature of Bliss to express itself and share, so too God’s creation and creatures find joy in the act of procreating (on all levels of intelligence and intention) and, at the same time, as the inner essence of Being. God is thus Being and Becoming.

This spark of divinity and intelligence is always appropriate to the need and context. Thus it is that trees make more trees and only trees, not frogs. Thus it is objects seek to survive and to perpetuate their existence. This divine spark of intelligence and joy is itself the aspect of God that is immanent in creation. This is the true and “only begotten son of God.” The intelligence inherent in creation is God’s “son,” for it resembles him in these respects. “God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son” that the son might reveal the Father. This intelligence seeks to reveal the Father. All creation is endowed, to some measure, with the bliss of God and the desire, born of the nature of bliss itself, to expand and multiply.
In India the term of this is TAT, or the Christ Intelligence in creation: the reflection in creation of the Infinite Spirit beyond creation. In matter and in lower life forms it can only express itself instinctually. But when it reaches the human form, the soul has the potential to become “one with the Father.” In Christianity it is given the term “Holy Ghost:” the silent, invisible ghost or spirit which gives “life” to all things.

Joy and blessings,

Nayaswami Hriman