(Note: This article is taken from remarks at an Easter Retreat on Saturday, April 4 at the Blue Lotus Temple in Bothell, WA)
Palm Sunday: a joyful beginning
Holy Week from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday gives us a microcosm of the spiritual life of the devotee. Palm Sunday symbolizes our first inspirations, insights and awakening. We cry out with joy, “Hosanna!” We are enthusiastic, joyful and eager to be “redeemed.” This is true no matter which spiritual path, guru, or faith awakens us. The “king” riding the “donkey” is the guru or the new-found faith riding the donkey of the ego.
This stage is the honeymoon of the spiritual path. It is, for some, what Paramhansa Yogananda called the “romance of religion:” the outer accoutrements of religion: a new revelation of inspiration, a new teacher and spiritual family, customs, rituals, all bound together with one’s wistful yearnings. This is what sparks our initial foray onto the spiritual path. Like all romances, we give little thought to what lies ahead. But the pageantry and beauty of the “wedding” eventually fade into what, by contrast, seems like the dull routine of daily spiritual practices and the inevitable confrontation with one’s shortcomings, failures, and karmic blocks.
The days between Palm Sunday and the Last Supper represent the unseen inner work that follows the initial honeymoon. In the story of Holy Week, Jesus is said to have gone each day that week to teach in the temple. This is our period of study and practice. It was one of those days, perhaps Tuesday that week, when returning from the temple and climbing the Mount of Olives, that the disciples express wonder at the beauty of the holy temple. Jesus turns to see it and suddenly has a vision of its destruction. His vision suddenly morphs into seeing the challenges his disciples and followers will face in the future.
So it is that during our period of study and practice we get insights into the far reaches of the spiritual path. This period of inner work is necessary before one’s relationship with the soul, with God, or with the guru can evolve into a consistently meaningful and conscious relationship.
The Last Supper: a feast of love
The Last Supper, then, symbolizes the devotee’s breakthrough into a more interactive and attuned relationship to God. At the Last Supper the disciple experiences the love of the guru. This is symbolized by Jesus’ washing of the feet of the disciples. Jesus calls the disciples “friends” not servants. We experience the paradox that combines the personal with the impersonal. For example, a devotee might be uplifted into states of inner peace, joy, unconditional love, or have inner experiences such as light and sound. A more personal experience could include visions, seeing the eyes, the face or hearing the voice of God or guru.
But even here in the midst of this very poignant communion, a discordant note is heard. In the story, Jesus identifies Judas as the betrayer; he predicts Peter’s denial. In our spiritual lives we too may find that no sooner than an inexpressibly uplifting experience comes and we think it is forever, then we crash, tempted perhaps by an old attachment or habit, or crushed by some external circumstance such as illness, grief, or loss. We call it karma; or perhaps a spiritual test. Either way it is the hidden love of God guiding us toward soul freedom.
Co-existence of Light and Dark
In the midst, then, of our committed, consistent and inspired spiritual practices, combined with selfless service and devotion, we are tested, like metal placed in the fire to remove impurities.
In the life of the founder of Ananda worldwide, Swami Kriyananda, he had to endure many health challenges and opposition.2 The one person who did the most to discredit him was nonetheless a great soul. Swamiji explained that as we rise spiritually, we acquire a certain amount of spiritual power.3 He said most people are not that bad because they don’t have enough energy to be bad! We might think bad things, but we don't have the nerve to say them or act upon them.
By contrast, when a soul begins to advance spiritually, aspects of both good and bad traits become more energized and thus more visible. It’s like the panes of glass in a stained-glass window: when it’s dark outside, the panes all look the same—dark. But when the sun is brightly shining through them, you can see that some colors are bright and pure while others are grey and muddy colored.
When a soul is advancing spiritually, their “greatness” is revealed in both positive and negative traits. This visibility helps them to see these flaws and to work on them. But for others who observe their flaws, it is all too easy to be judgmental though it is also an opportunity to be discerning. In such cases, we should contemplate our own flaws and develop compassion for the inevitable tests that lie ahead on the spiritual path as we, too, grow in strength, magnetism, and energy.
And Swamiji would say to us, rejoice when you see your own shortcomings. Let’s face it: most people are more interested in seeing the flaws of others rather than themselves.
I remember Swamiji noting that while most honest people will admit that, “Yes, yes, we all have flaws” just try pointing out one flaw of theirs and its “Oh, no, not THAT one!”
Our Liberator is Known
Another poignant part of the Last Supper, is the “accounting” that Jesus renders to the Father. In the movie “Jesus of Nazareth,” this is portrayed as if Jesus were muttering under his breath, talking to God. (One does wonder who was taking notes during Jesus’ years of ministry and especially at the Last Supper.) Basically, Jesus says to God, “Hey, I did what you told me to do. I have trained the ones you sent me and, as you predicted, only one of them was a bad egg.” It’s a beautiful and touching moment, but it hints at a teaching rarely commented upon which is that from the beginning of our soul’s creation, that soul which is destined to free us is already identified. This has been taught in India since time immemorial.
Jesus is saying that the disciples did not choose Jesus for their guru, but that God choose them to be his disciples. Now, of course, this is very nuanced. In the story of the New Testament, Jesus invited each potential disciple to “follow me.” There is, in other words, always an invitation and always a choice but the fact that Jesus identified each of these disciples is the point here in this teaching. Obviously, these souls had a very specific role to play to be invited.
In Jesus’ accounting he asks God to protect them (knowing that he, Jesus, would be leaving soon). He asks similarly for protection for those many who will be inspired and converted by the efforts of the disciples. So, you see this developing person relationship between the soul and the Spirit.
During the Last Supper Jesus states that "I am the way, the life, and the truth and no one comes to the Father except by me.” When Jesus speaks from this level of consciousness, he speaks as did Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita: from the state of Christ consciousness, the overarching Spirit with which such God-realized souls are identified. After all, Jesus stated “Before Abraham, I AM!”5 Whatever is meant by “I AM” could not be a personality nor a human body with a face. “The Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us.” So while it is natural for Christian devotees to focus on the human called Jesus, Jesus, a son of God, was not speaking like you and I do when we use the personal pronoun “I.” Jesus was not speaking from ego but from the spirit of God. And although Christians have taken that personally, there's no harm in it, except when it gets exclusive and rejects the incarnation of God into other great avatars.
The Soul’s Need for a Guru
The teaching of the need for a true guru is a principle expressed in Indian teachings but in Christianity it isn’t a principle, but is simply a fact limited to the person, Jesus. In the broader context of Truth, the principle is that the guru is the way, the life, and the truth. And as Yogananda would say, “God is the guru.”
This is the great teaching behind Jesus’ words. For those souls for whom Jesus is the savior, it is perfectly fine and understandable to view this as personal to Jesus, but it is an error to deny that relationship as not existing in respect to souls in other faith traditions with other saviors.
Returning to the principle, it is valid to ask: “Why do each of us need a personal savior?” Why? Because WE are personal. WE are identified with the body and personality. It is virtually impossible to overcome the hypnosis of bodily identification and separateness when one is incarnate in human form.
How can it be said that we are made in the image of God when we look into the mirror of introspection and see how fragile, how self-preoccupied, how ignorant we are of our divine nature? The leap from ordinary human consciousness to Infinity is, let’s face it, immense!
The spark of memory of our true divine nature needs to be re-kindled and transmitted so that spark can burst into a divine light to guide us to transcend the limitations of the mortal frame and its ego structure. Moreover, if this truth teaching that we are made in God’s image is valid, there has to be someone who has achieved this realization so that we, too, can see and experience it.
And so there comes from time to time into this world those who have, in past lives, achieved God-realization. They are the way-showers such as Buddha, Krishna, Rama, Jesus and many others.7 They are born like us and encounter the human drama much as we do, but they are free from the karmic compulsions and ordinary delusions that most people face. They act from inner soul freedom, attuned to the divine will.
As Krishna says in the Gita, “O Bharata (Arjuna)! whenever virtue (dharma) declines, and vice (adharma) is in the ascendant, I incarnate Myself on earth (as an avatar). Appearing from age to age in visible form, I come to destroy evil and to re-establish virtue.”8 And so it is, Jesus was such a one, an avatar. But the time has come to see Jesus’ teachings in the true light of their universality.
And so, the Last Supper represents true, inner communion of the disciples with the guru.
The breaking of bread is one of the most poignant and spiritually significant acts of Jesus at the Last Supper. It is fraught with layers of meaning. The most obvious significance is Jesus’ command to “Do this in remembrance of Me.” Thus, was born the sacred ritual of the Eucharist. While the Eucharistic feast has been repeated thousands of times down through centuries under generally prosaic circumstances, there nonetheless have been great saints who, while performing or even viewing the Eucharistic feast, were transported into an ecstatic state of inner communion.9
But there are other layers as well. “Breaking” means to destroy and Jesus’ describing the bread as his “body” suggests the obvious fact of his crucifixion, breaking his body. Yet even deeper is the meaning that “breaking the body” is to destroy the hypnosis of the body’s reality as our self-definition. “Break” in this sense means transcending bodily limitations.
Paramhansa Yogananda added an even deeper interpretation: not of the aspect of “breaking” but of the words of Jesus saying, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.”10 But for me to explain this I must digress.
In the ancient teachings of India, the world is divided into consciousness and form. Consciousness is the “only begotten” aspect of the Father (who is beyond creation) because the Father is only Consciousness and in manifesting creation from what is ONLY consciousness means that some kernel of consciousness is in everything. The indwelling consciousness at the heart of matter is the “son of God” even though not generally cognized by any except a God-realized soul.
In inanimate objects and less self-aware beings, macro or micro in size, consciousness manifests more accurately as instinct, intelligence and intention. The shape, color, and other attributes of minerals reflect their cohesive intelligence and latent individuality. Such is easier to see in plants and animals. All objects in creation possess an element of uniqueness and individuality, and with movement comes hints of future free will.
But the outer form, shape and movement of creation is that part of the God-the -Father that births outward form. It is, in a sense, the Mother of creation. It is ceaseless, restless movement. It births the myriad forms that creation has taken. Those forms are guided in their movement and manifestation by the invisible Intelligence that resides at their center which is known as the Christ consciousness. The quote that “God so loved the world that he sent his only-begotten son” takes on a macrocosmic meaning when understood in this overarching view that states that God’s joy and love rests silently at the heart of every atom of creation.11
The ceaseless universe of forms and energy can also be called the Holy Spirit. It is that all-knowing, all-protecting vibration that, like the mother, gives birth, protects, and comforts its child. As the mother of all creation, it is all-knowing. It too is God manifesting AS the creation. The two—Christ consciousness within creation and the Holy Spirit AS creation—work together in a cosmic dance simultaneously manifesting creation guided by intelligence and, in humankind, its budding self-awareness. When an individual soul achieves realization of all three aspects of the Trinity and takes human form, this “son of God” comes for a divine purpose.12
Returning to the Last Supper, Yogananda likens the “bread” that Jesus said is his “body” to the indwelling Christ consciousness in all creation from the smallest to the largest. He likens the “wine” to the flowing vitality of the Holy Spirit-Mother, the energy of creation out of which all forms appear. To “eat” and “drink” my “body and blood” is to commune inwardly with the universal Christ Intelligence and simultaneously with the universal Holy Spirit (the Amen or Aum vibration).
Doing this in “remembrance of me” is to overcome the delusion of our soul’s containment in the bodily prison of ego. This is our soul’s destiny, the promise of our immortality. These “bread” and “wine” are the divine essences of all Creation and are manifestations of the Father who is beyond creation. When we perceive that our true sustenance is of God, then we are partaking of the bread and wine of divine life. No surprise then that the Eucharistic feast no matter how it is understood contains a great spiritual truth.
And so, this is the Last Supper, a veritable feast of inner communion with the Lord. But this too is marked with a discordant note: Jesus’ identification of Judas as his betrayer and his prediction that Peter would deny him three times that very night. So it is that even we during our own inner communion still have flaws (karma) to work out. We can go from one moment of soul joy to descend the next moment (or day) into the hellfire of personal delusion. We cannot “save” ourselves by effort alone; nor do we have to achieve perfection on our own to realize our divinity.
Our effort attracts the grace that lifts us beyond our (merely) human nature. We give the spiritual path everything we have in devotion, self-discipline and virtue but these alone are insufficient for the realization of God as our true Self. Our soul, when energized by grace, shines forth and eclipses our mere humanness. Think of even just the apostles and their many flaws, heated arguments, and lack of understanding. Yet, they, even unto death, carried out the will of God, just as Jesus did and in so doing Jesus promised the apostles that they would “see” Jesus coming in clouds of glory.
Next in the order of the events of Holy Week comes the crucifixion. As Yogananda put it (somewhat tongue-in-cheek), "Jesus was crucified once, but his teachings have been crucified daily ever since” by misunderstanding, dogmatism and sectarianism.
But do we not do the same? No matter how fruitful and committed we are to being mindful of the Christ presence within and in all people and circumstances, how often do we lose touch during the day and get enmeshed in our tasks, our fears and our desires and thus do we crucify the living Christ within us, our own true self? Like Peter, we, in effect, deny Christ far more often than he ever did.
And so, we must perforce experience the crucifixion in our own way. I don't mean in the way Jesus did, nailed to a cross. That was pretty dramatic, let's face it. Far too many Christians have fixated on their repulsion of or fear of the cross, but as others have noted, in those times long ago the Romans crucified thousands of people. I'm not saying it is to be dismissed, but it was not uncommon. More importantly, there are other ways to be “crucified.”
You can be crucified publicly by lawsuits, by calumny, by libel, by all sorts of things: chronic illness, poverty, and rejection. Jesus promised persecution in the Sermon of the Mount because the world doesn't like devotees. They're embarrassed because the aspiration of devotees makes people feel bad about themselves. And so it is that there are different forms of crucifixion. “Who are my family, my mother, my brothers,” Jesus said, “but those who love God.” We find that we do sometimes get “crucified” in a sense by our own family for taking up the spiritual path, or by our friends who would rather us go to the bar, to the movies or to engage in gossip.
Our karma is our cross. And karma happens whether we take it up with faith and the willingness to do God’s will or not! “Sufficient unto the day,” Jesus said, are the trials and troubles that come to us. Nobody, as Buddha said, gets away from illness, old age, and death. And those are just the basics.
And so it is that we have troubles. The devotee who carries his cross means I accept that which I cannot change as coming from God. My karma is the gift of God because it reminds me of what lessons I have come to learn. It is an expression of the love of God calling us to be purified to return “home” to God-realization.
And so, to the devotee, as Krishna says, “night is day and day is night.” The night of troubles to the worldly man are the daylight of divine will to the devotee. The day of worldly pleasure and material success are the nighttime of delusion to the devotee. Those trials and challenges that we all have in life, the devotee accepts with faith. It is through this that the resurrection of soul-consciousness occurs. With each meditation, with each prayer, the resurrection of Spirit is the natural consequence.
Resurrection is for Everyone
Christians mostly view Jesus’ resurrection as a gift from God rather than the natural consequence of his acceptance of the divine will. “Look at that,” they say, “it’s a miracle (and besides He's the son of God, why not?). In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus prayed, briefly, that the bitter cup of humiliation and pain be taken from him, but he immediately acquiesced to what he knew (from the beginning of his life) was God’s will.
Saying that Jesus paid the penalty of our sins is too close to an excuse not to accept the burden of our own sins (karma). It’s true that in the teachings of India an avatar can take on the karma of disciples, but the “sins of the world” is but much: a mere sentiment. Primarily it is Jesus’ example of acceptance even under such extreme circumstances as crucifixion that is the gift and the lesson for us. His greatest miracle was to say from the agony of the cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”15
Jewish tradition contained references to the resurrection or ascension of the physical body.16 It is not therefore surprising that Jesus’ resurrection of his physical body was appropriate to the great drama of his life. At that time in Jewish history, the sect of the Sadducees didn’t even believe in an after-life. The Jews expected that the Messiah was going to be both a political leader and a spiritual leader. The human body was, in the consciousness of those times, the only reality and definition for “who I am.” So not only was Jesus’ physical resurrection an appropriate symbol, but the idea of retaining or resurrecting one’s physical form was in line with the expectations of his people.
But here too, the deeper point has largely been missed. “I and my Father are ONE” Jesus declared. The destiny of the soul is not to live in corporeal form for eternity. It is to enter communion with the blissful Spirit out of whom we were created. Idolizing the physical body is simply another form of ego-affirmation. The soul has no form and no gender. “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him.”17
So the four major events of Holy Week are a metaphor for the spiritual path; these events are symbols for what we have come to this world to do.
A shift is taking place from an emphasis on crucifixion to an emphasis on communion, on resurrection. Meditation techniques can prepare one to be “Still and know that I AM God.”18 They are a means to achieve “inner” communion rather than only just formal, ritualistic communion.
Christianity has long focused on what is given up; what is endured; what is sacrificed. But that emphasis is from the point of view of the ego which resists sacrifice. But the time has come to focus on the soul’s goal of union with God; on the joy of living for God. In this view, the need for ego transcendence becomes a means to end and not an end in itself. Sacrifice, forbearance, and acceptance will always be essential to the spiritual life but for us in this emerging age our inspiration will derive not from suffering but from the joy of the soul.
As Jesus brought a New Covenant to his times, so too is a New Dispensation, a new, deeper and more universal understanding is emerging. Great souls like Paramhansa Yogananda, author of Autobiography of a Yogi, are way showers of this New Dispensation. Its focus Is on the individual and away from the hierarchy of institutional authority. It has a name: Self-realization. Existing faith traditions will presumably survive and each, in their own way for their own people, will begin to shift the emphasis from outward form to Spirit, to the inner experience of God’s presence using whatever terminology is meaningful to them.
Techniques of silent prayer and mindfulness will grow in popularity. Guidance and wisdom from appropriate and approved sources will always be needed lest chaos and heresy destroy the universal essence of truth. But an important shift, nonetheless, can be expected in the coming times, even centuries.
The worldwide social emphasis on individual freedoms and justice is an outward expression of this inner shift in consciousness. For now, existing institutions are largely resistant to this shift as it would seem to undermine their authority and power over others. But the long-term trend is unstoppable even if some existing power structures seem to be successfully turning the clock back.
What valid faith can condemn other faiths in a world so connected and so in need of universal validation of common goals and universal truths? Accommodation, mutual respect, and shared understanding is obviously needed. Only faith traditions offer the message and motivation for peaceful co-existence in this conflict-ridden human drama. No other human endeavor (art, politics, humanitarianism) uplifts the individual soul away from ego to soul transcendence because God alone, grace-alone is our soul’s salvation. It therefore behooves people of faith to step up and carry forward the universal message that we are children of the One God who manifests all forms.
May everyday be a new awakening, a resurrection of soul Joy!
