A New Dispensation - Second Coming of Christ

 In Chapter 4 of the Bhagavad Gita Krishna says to Arjuna, his disciple,

“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.

Who knows the truth touching my births on earth and my divine work, falls no more down to earthly birth. To Me he comes, dear Prince!”

The descent of a world savior-teacher (an avatar) into human form is a rare event in human history. As it is, saints are rare enough but the birth of one such as Jesus Christ, Krishna, Buddha and in this modern era, Paramhansa Yogananda and the lineage that sent him to the West, heralds a new covenant, a new dispensation for those “with ears to hear and eyes to see.”

No avatar comes for everyone in the world though some have a larger family to serve than others. It is not quantity but quality that the great Ones come to bring. That “quality” is spiritual power, the grace to rise given to those who “receive Him.”[1]

The spiritual family of a world teacher contains the broad range of human beings from sinners to saints yet, like the calm at the center of the storm (of delusion), the avatar offers a powerful vortex of grace. The avatar typically has at least two kinds of people to uplift: the inner circle of disciples who are ready to be liberated and enlightened (and to do so give their all to serve the work), and the larger family of souls to be blessed and inspired most likely for the benefit of future lifetimes. A third “circle” would be the avatar’s general influence upon society at large.

As time goes on after the appearance of the avatar, the family grows and branches out. The power of the ray of grace will tend to diminish, perhaps be diluted and even go in opposite directions from its source. Sub-groups split off into individual sects, each emphasizing different aspects of the avatar’s mission and teachings. Hence the need from age to age of a repeat of the avatara (descent of Spirit into human form).

What is an avatar? An avatar is a soul, like you and me, who in past lives has achieved God-realization. Such a one returns to human birth voluntarily, as an act of love and as a son of God, to do God’s work on earth according to the unique expression of that soul’s nature and the needs of those who are “his own.”[2]

Some devotees emphasize the divine nature of the avatar and equate the avatar with the descent of God Himself. And, why not, for when the soul becomes God-realized the soul IS God though no single expression can limit Infinity. (It is not right for such a one to say I AM GOD, but, instead, “God is manifest in me.”) Other devotees emphasize the human or historical nature of the avatar and his impact on world history or upon the lives of individuals. It is not either-or, but both-and, depending on what eyes and ears are able to perceive.

I would like to contrast the mission and expression of Jesus Christ with that of Paramhansa Yogananda. The times in which each lived were very different. Jesus was born in a far-flung, dusty province of the Roman Empire as inconsequential as any though, importantly, among the “Chosen people” who had chosen love and obedience to God according to the covenant of Abraham and Moses.

Yogananda, born in timeless India, nonetheless entered the twentieth century in what was the first global century in recorded history. From bullock carts to trains and planes, television, radio, movies and the nuclear age, the contrast with the life of Jesus Christ could hardly be greater.

Jesus was more like a wandering Hindu sadhu than a pope in his royal robes and palatial surroundings. Jesus decried the potential for a “rich man” to enter the kingdom of heaven saying that to follow him to eternal life one must leave all possessions and the worldly life behind. While honored in the breach by Christians at large down through the centuries this is the example Jesus set for his direct disciples.

Yogananda’s param-guru, Lahiri Mahasaya was commissioned by Mahavatar Babaji to eschew the attraction of a monk’s life to return to the householder life to begin sharing the liberating teachings of kriya yoga to any who were sincere, regardless of caste, class or the absence of outer renunciation.

This, then, is the new covenant, the new dispensation for our age: that regardless of social status or class, anyone who strives for soul-emancipation can receive the heretofore esoteric but liberating techniques of advanced yoga life-force control that can accelerate their spiritual advancement beyond the normal pace bestowed by good works, prayers and rituals alone.

Additionally, Paramhansa Yogananda taught that Jesus’ promise of his “second coming” is fulfilled in Yogananda’s mission by the awakening of Christ consciousness (soul-consciousness) through advanced meditation techniques, devotion and the spiritual life. Yogananda’s purpose was to resurrect the deeper and universal teachings of Jesus which are aligned with those of Krishna in ancient India and which apply to all people of every nation and generation.

“The time to know God” (through meditation) “has come!” Yogananda announced. No longer shall East and West “never ‘twain [to] meet” for the needs of humanity in this global era is to transcend sectarian differences and, while, if one chooses, to retain one’s treasured faith tradition, to accept all true spiritual paths as sincere channels for those who love and serve God in this world.

May the Light of Christ-consciousness shine upon you!

Swami Hrimananda

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[1] John 1:12

[2] An avatar may take birth as male or female. The gender of the avatar is inconsequential. More likely the avatar’s gender is that which is suitable and appropriate to the accomplishment of his mission.

Who is Jesus Christ?

 

Paramhansa Yogananda, author of the 20^th century spiritual classic, “Autobiography of a Yogi,” stated that “Jesus Christ was crucified once but his teachings have been crucified daily ever since.”

Consider how each person you know perceives you differently and so differently than how view yourself!

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

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[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.

 

He said; She said; the world goes 'round

Scene: sometime after the novelty of a new relationship has worn off:

"Can you give me a hand here? I can't lift this thing?"

"I'm busy, can't you see. I need to finish this."

or is it: "When will you be back?" "Hard to say, depends on when I get things done."

He prizes his independence, freedom and self-sufficiency and doesn't feel he needs permission or approval for his plans. Focusing on his work and/or interests, he is self-absorbed and sometimes forgetful. She sees the two of them as partners, working together, planning and sharing; she's considerate, articulate and organized.

He doesn't like being held to perform according to someone else's expectations as to time, place or satisfaction. She expects him to know or support what she needs and to view her as his first priority just as she feels he is hers.

[Genders could be exchanged; used only for illustration.]

Independence vs commitment! Is one better or a higher priority than the other? We need to learn to stand on our own two feet and yet, we need to give and receive help. We are born helpless and need parents, teachers and mentors for the first two or three decades of life! And, truthfully, much longer even this.

Both represent important aspects of the experience of human life and the soul's journey towards freedom. Free will and independence are the core and the center of human life but connection and oneness is the soul's journey and goal.

The conversation I am framing is actually not really about men and women but using these archetypes or, if you prefer, stereotypes, as labels which make good handles for (static) conceptualizing--though poor handles for the reality of life's ceaseless ebb and flow.

When we are born and as infants we have yet to reacquire a strong ego self-identity. Gaze into the eyes of an infant and you see luminous consciousness, but very little ego. For the first few months of life, the infant is happy no matter who holds her. But as the months pass, an attachment forms to (usually) the mother.

The very growth and interaction with its parents could be described as a process by which the child is taught day after day that she is a separate entity and her likes and dislikes, the essence of ego, is inextricably linked to who and what she is. This includes her name: her handle. "Do you like this?" "Do you want that?" Incessant programming of likes and dislikes. Partly, this programming is instinctive survival and growth training.

I have heard it said that you teach a child the name of a bird, the child will never see the bird again: he'll only repeat the name of the bird and imagine that he now knows the bird because it has a name. Names are the mental handles by which we pour the essence of reality into a neatly and tightly sealed jar.

No sooner than this child grows through adolescence and towards adulthood and he is attracted to someone with whom he falls in love and, for a time, feel one again with another. This is short-lived yet the desire is strong enough that nowadays people will attempt it multiple times during their life. 

We are born as One. We grow as two. We seek to be One again. I suppose most people eventually simply accept one another's differences and take from the relationship the best they can and leave the rest. This is a realistic approach but it doesn't erase, though it might suppress for a time, the impulse for union, for completion, for expansion beyond the ego into a greater awareness. This impulse is the spiritual remembrance or impulse.

It has been said that "It may be a blessing to be born into a religion but it is a misfortune to die in one." Religion, like relationship, should teach us how to love purely and unselfishly and, eventually, how to love all as a part of ourselves.

The commitment needed in a relationship is similar to the commitment on the spiritual path. Both can sharpen our skills and depth of commitment but from the depth and safety of learning to love we can grow to love all as One. (This does not imply that we marry "everyone" only that we can expand our love impersonally, which is to say, without thought of self, to all.)

While remaining true to our commitments (both spiritual path and human relationships), we expand to appreciate, respect, and indeed love all as extensions of our soul-Self.

Spiritual journey is similar: we "date" by trying on different religious or spiritual costumes and ideas. Then we marry and become one (of those or one of "them").

If we are sincere and our chosen path is true, we will go beyond the support of the outer forms into the center of our soul's being. Later we emerge appearing perhaps to be as one (of those). Like the Zen saying: before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water!

The spiritual path is necessarily an "inside job," so comparisons are tentative at best. Thus it is some of the mystics of Christianity, though persecuted by their own religious hierarchy, nonetheless emerged in support of the very same structure through which they passed beyond. I think in this regard of St. Theresa of Avila, St. Joseph of Cupertino, and the more recent Padre Pio.

In marriage too there can be a mid-stage of hurts, betrayals, persecution or conflict, and a later stage of acceptance and reconciliation.

The lesson is to understand that, whether from the soul's perspective or the ego's, we ebb and flow between the need to be apart, centered in the Self or in our own needs and realities, and other times to be giving, serving and self-forgetful. This is as true in our relationship with God as it is in our marriage or partnership.

Even the most devoted lover (whether of God or spouse) will have times when struggle, inner conflicts, outer demands preoccupy one's thoughts, emotions, energies and actions. And other times when absorbed in the love and contemplation of the beloved.

Only in enlightenment does the distinctions wholly cease, the inner and outer having merged into one.