As I write these words it is snowing thick, puffy flakes! While
for the sake of many practical holiday matters, I hope it stays light and
fluffy, for now it is a pleasure (on all levels) to behold. The shortest day of
sunlight is now past and the only way is “up” towards greater Light.
At Ananda, throughout the world—even in India—we celebrate Christmas.
We do so in two ways: the social form and the spiritual way of meditation. Included
in my meaning of “social” are the celebrations with family and friends; gift
exchanges; and, importantly, recognition and celebration of the birth of Jesus
Christ as reported in the four gospels. The spiritual “way” is of course
through meditation and especially in the tradition, happening even now as I type
throughout the world, begun by Paramhansa Yogananda of an eight-hour, day of meditation
upon the cosmic Christ universal.
But let’s view, first, the story of Christmas. We, in this new
age of Dwapara Yuga (the electrical or atomic age), are very fond of facts but
rather short on truth. Science has given up on finding a “theory of everything”
and is content to make new discoveries, particularly ones that can be put to
practical (meaning monetary) use. Facts have their place in daily life, for
sure.
But truth is something lasting and of the spirit. Endless debate
and research has surrounded things like, “How can a woman (mother of Jesus) become
pregnant asexually?” “What about the star seen by the wise men? How is that
possible, astronomically?”
For the sake of brevity and focus, I will leave aside these factual
questions so dear to the historian (and, I suppose, to the doubter). The real
story of Christmas involves, by contrast, its meaning to you, and me. We’ve
lost the interest and habit of “story,” which is to say myth. Even the word “myth”
connotes in our usage of it “that which is false.” I take issue with that but I
don’t control our use of words in our language!
The story of Christmas is that “God so loved the world that
He sent His ‘only-begotten’ Son.” Well, what does THIS mean? Certainly not the
orthodox Christian interpretation! According to Paramhansa Yogananda and
according to the Bhagavad Gita (India’s
beloved ‘bible’), God sends redeemers or saviors time and time again into human
history. Jesus is not the only such incarnation of divinity. Nor is he and the others
mere puppets. For as the beloved disciple St. John wrote in the first chapter
of his gospel, “And as many as received Him, to them gave He the power to
become the sons of God.”
Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Rama, Yogananda and many others are
no different than you or me. Rather, their level of awakening, of realization
of their true soul-Self, has achieved perfection in union with God. Ours is yet
struggling to emerge. They come to remind us of who we are AND to transmit the
power of redemption. This doesn’t come through mere words or belief systems or
rituals but through actual, but spiritual, power. “To RECEIVE HIM” means to
take the savior’s life, teachings, and vibration (spirit) into your thoughts,
feelings, and actions until He is in You, and You in Him.
What is “only begotten,” Yogananda taught, is that this
universal, cosmic Christ-spirit resides at the still center of every atom of
creation. It is the pure reflection of the Father-Spirit beyond and untouched
by creation. It, and it alone, is Pure.
Second to this is the Word (In the beginning was the Word…..and
the Word WAS God………and the Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us). The Word
is the vibratory aspect of all creation. It is secondary because its very
motion and movement is the underlying foundation and structure for creation.
While it, too, is pure, it is halfway, as it were, between pure Spirit and the
creation which completely hides Spirit.
Hence Jesus, as a person inhabiting a human body, with a
concomitant personality, is not the sole and exclusively begotten son of God, but
his consciousness is united with God: “I and my Father are One.” But
Christians, Hindus and others confuse the appearance, the form, with the Spirit
behind the form.
This is the story—the promise of our own mortality—that allows
the Christmas story to endure, and, further, why we, at Ananda, as disciples of
Paramhansa Yogananda, and as practitioners of kriya yoga from India, ALSO celebrate
Christmas in both its social and its spiritual aspects.
A blessed, happy, and Merry Christmas to you,
Swami Hrimananda
