Paramhansa Yogananda, author of the 20th century
spiritual classic, “Autobiography of a Yogi,” stated that “Jesus Christ was
crucified once but his teachings have been crucified daily ever since.”
To your enemies you are a schmuck. To those who love you,
you are ever theirs through thick and thin. But to most who only know you
casually, you are a two-dimensional wraith passing through their lives in forms
such as co-worker, neighbor, or fellow church goer. You are defined by others
largely based on your appearance, age, gender, education, social status, and income.
Jesus Christ was ridiculed, feared, beloved, and ultimately
crucified for his crimes. His crimes? Really? What crimes? If Jesus Christ
could be so maligned both then and daily ever since, what chance does this give
you and I to be understood and accepted?
The very words of Jesus were not contemporaneously recorded,
not even in his own language. They were reported decades after his death and
the accounts of his life contain many variations and even conflicting details. Other
accounts of his life and teachings were discarded from the canon of scripture as
false, inaccurate or heretical. In recent times some of these discarded works such
as the Gospel of Thomas are being studied anew. Questions have arisen about the
real reasons some of them were rejected.
Controversies of the nature of Jesus Christ plagued the
first thousand or so years after his death. The so-called Arian heresy was
among the most famous and it was settled at the insistence of Emperor
Constantine who demanded unanimity across his empire for the newly installed
religion.
Some say St. Paul created the foundations of Christianity.
Among the apostles there is recorded disagreement on important questions. In
the gospel of Mark, it is generally accepted that the story of the resurrection
of Jesus was added later! Some doubt the ascribed authorship of the canonical
gospels!
My point is not to declaim or deny the divine nature of
Jesus Christ: according to the gospels Jesus himself proclaimed himself “son of
God.” My point is that I don’t think we really know the true nature of Jesus’
soul or consciousness.
We don’t even know one another; more importantly, we don’t
even know ourselves. Spiritual traditions East and West exhort us to “know
thyself” as the great quest of humankind. No one who embarks on that journey
says that “finding myself” is easy or obvious! We are many things, real,
imagined, actual and potential. We play many roles in one lifetime.
The Old Testament of the Bible has five references to “sons
of God.” The New Testament has three such references. Nor is it clear what
those terms mean even in their own, specific context. What then IS a “son of
God?”
Twice in Genesis (Old Testament) God says He has made us in
His image. Whatever is the “image” of God if God is something more than an
anthropomorphic projection of human perception? Jesus himself said “God is a
Spirit.”[1]
The testimony of the greatest saints of Christianity is
where we should turn. Yogananda taught that the “saints are the true custodians
of religion.” They are, however, often viewed with suspicion by religious
authorities—at least until they are safely buried.
The testimony of St. Therese of Avila, St. John of the
Cross, and St. Francis (just to name a few of the most famous) affirms the
divinity of Jesus Christ not only in the past tense of his human life long ago
but in the present, living sense of omnipresence. “Before Abraham, I AM” Jesus
declared.[2]
And Jesus’ response to being challenged for this statement
was to quote the scriptures themselves when he said, “Do not your scriptures
say, ‘Ye are gods?’[3]
The beloved disciple of Jesus (St. John) wrote in the first
chapter of his gospel that “as many as received Him to them gave He the power
to become the sons of God”[4] Jesus
is never quoted as saying “I am the ONLY son of God.” Other uses of this phrase
in both the Old and New Testaments suggest a broader meaning of this term may
be appropriate. Nor does the term, given the various contexts where it is used,
require that all “sons” of God be the same.
Are we, too, perhaps as old as Abraham? Have we, too, come
down from heaven?[5]
And, if not, are those who “receive” Him at least given the power to become
“the sons of God?” (The gospel says as much, doesn’t it?)
I am not averring the obviously blasphemous thought that any
of us are on a spiritual par with Jesus Christ: only that we have that
potential as children of God, made in the image of God. Only in our case we have
“fallen” and forgotten our divine nature.
Nor am I suggesting that by our own efforts that we can
become “sons of God.” From the words of Jesus as reported in the canonical
gospels, Jesus came to redeem souls and sacrificed his bodily life to do so.
Instead, I am suggesting that the consciousness of the Christ
lives in all persons, perhaps in every atom of creation and it appeared fully
in human form in the man Jesus as a true and fully realized “son of God.”
Yogananda taught that the only reflection of God (a Spirit beyond and untouched
by creation) that exists within the creation is a spark of intelligence and calm
joy that is centered at the still point of all motion. God manifests the
creation through intelligence and vibration: intelligence is the “son” and
vibration is the “Holy Spirit” and mother of creation. The son exists in the
womb of the mother.
But once we open the door to this omnipresent Christ—a
consciousness greater than any limited by a singular human life, we are
confronted with the same question Jesus asked his disciples: “Who do men say I
AM?
Is it perhaps that the omnipresent, ever-living and ever
present Christ is the ultimate redeemer of all souls and that the
Christ-consciousness is not limited to its appearance in human form in the body
of the man called Jesus? If we, too, have that potential why should only one
such human expression exists through all time and space (if its potential
exists in each of us)?
Nor does this possibility limit the status, worthiness, and
appreciation of the life of Jesus the Christ. That there may be other Christs
seems far more likely in the context of the universe and the earth as we know
it today: impossibly ancient and vast. That your mother is beloved to you does
not diminish the love that others have for their respective mothers. Mothers
share in their roles a universal quality not unlike that of living Christs in
respect to their followers.
The redeeming Christ then might be a potential within us but
one which requires the human Christ for its potential to be activated. Why
would that be so? If there were no actual examples of a living, human Christ
then why should we have the audacity to imagine we can aspire to be one also?
Given the depth of the hypnosis that we are but a
sophisticated high-bred animal, it surely would take the power of grace of such
a one to inspire us toward our own soul’s potential. Nor does the power of
grace dismiss the herculean effort that it takes to “follow Me.”
We see in many areas of human life the process and
acceptance of the transmission of knowledge, experience and authority. We accept
that training by proper and competent authorities is the prerequisite for being
commissioned to perform certain public functions, both sacred and profane—from
an airplane pilot to a priest. In former times a father would train his son,
and the skills and arts of the father would be transmitted down through
generations.
As God ordains and commissions the prophets and as sincere
souls look to such messengers for guidance, why would we not need a redeemer
whose “touch,” whose grace even beyond his words and instructions, would be
necessary for redemption? And would the power of that grace vanish when the
human form that expressed it is gone from sight?
What, then is redemption? Redemption is the release from the
hypnosis that we are anything less than the son of God! Here I speak not of an
intellectual concept or affirmation but of transformation towards realization.
We see this redemption in the lives of the saints.
Having rejected the precept of reincarnation early in
Christian history, Christian dogma was forced to leave the final redemption to
the afterlife since so few could achieve sanctity in a single lifetime.[6] The
sacraments were energized to affirm our potential for sanctity even if only
after death.[7]
Taking a step, indeed a giant leap of faith, from Jesus the
ONLY Christ to the acceptance of Christ consciousness appearing in multiple
forms, is to me the only “way, truth and life” by which Christians can enter
the new world of the twenty-first and future centuries. Otherwise, their
beloved dogmas silo themselves to the exclusion of billions of other sincere,
faith-inspired peoples with religions equally infused with saints, miracles,
and redemptive grace.
Just as we reserve a special love for our own mother without
needing to reject other mothers, let those of the many faith traditions
continue to remain loyal to their faith while yet also accepting that the Christ
has incarnated in other forms to guide devotees of other faiths. Let the mantra
of the Twenty-first century be “BOTH-AND” rather than “EITHER-OR.”
Blessings to all,
Swami Hrimananda
[1]
John 4:24
[2]
John 8:58
[3]
Psalm 82:6; see John 10:34
[4]
John 1:12
[5] John 3:13 (KJV): “And no man hath
ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man
which is in heaven.”
[6]
Second Council of Constantinople in 553 AD
[7]
But reincarnation makes far
greater sense in considering both the justice and the mercy of God, but that
topic is another topic.
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