PRAISE FOR PARAMAHANSA YOGANANDA’S COMPLETE

COMMENTARY ON THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS…

The Second Coming of Christ:

The Resurrection of the Christ Within You

(published by Self-Realization Fellowship, 2004)

“Offers startling ideas about the deeper meaning of Jesus’ teachings and

their essential unity with yoga, one of the world’s oldest and most

systematic religious paths to achieving oneness with God….It has been

praised as a groundbreaking work by comparative religion scholars.” —

Los Angeles Times

“A masterpiece of spiritual revelation….As Yogananda delves into the

life and background of Jesus, it becomes clear that the Gospels contain a

universal esoteric message that has been awaiting full and systematic

explication since the apostolic age. In Yogananda’s commentary, what had

been veiled, obscure, and oblique is fully disclosed.” — Yoga International

“The publication of The Second Coming of Christ, by Paramahansa

Yogananda, has all the hallmarks of an epochal offering….A majestic

portrait of universality and depth. This is no ordinary work.” — Dayton

Daily News

“A remarkable new two-volume work…The Second Coming of Christ:

The Resurrection of the Christ Within You contains insights that can help

Christians see their faith in fresh ways.” — Kansas City Star

“In a world that is full of hatred, violence, anger, and darkness, the

bringing out of The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the

Christ Within You by Paramahansa Yogananda synchronizes with the need

of the hour.” — India Post

“Yogananda strips away the divisiveness and dogmatic approach that

have accumulated around Jesus’ teachings and affirms that it is possible for

every individual — regardless of one’s faith tradition — to have the same

relationship that Jesus had with the Divine.” — Sacred Pathways

“Paramahansa Yogananda shows the universal truth of Self-realization

hidden in the Gospels, which is relevant to all people and can help unify all

religions in a higher awareness beyond any sectarian boundaries. This book

can transform humanity at this time of global crisis today if it is sincerely

studied and practiced.”— Dr. David Frawley, Director, American

Institute of Vedic Studies

“This revelatory commentary…breathes with the same heartfelt wisdom

and gentle beauty that we associate with the Autobiography of a Yogi. If for

any reason you may have lost touch with Jesus’ message, Yogananda is an

ideal companion to reawaken you to its meaning and majesty.”— Adyar

Booknews (Australia)

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Paramahansa Yogananda.

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SELF-REALIZATION FELLOWSHIP

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recordings, and other publications, as an assurance that a work originates with the society established

by Paramahansa Yogananda and faithfully conveys his teachings.

Ebook edition, 2016.

ISBN: 978-0-87612-556-4 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-0-87612-687-5 (Kindle edition)

ISBN: 978-0-87612-688-2 (ePub edition)

CONTENTS
Preface
Part I: Jesus the Christ—Avatar and Yogi
1. Jesus the Avatar
God’s manifestation in divine incarnations • The universal Christ Consciousness• True
meaning of “The Second Coming”
2. Jesus and Yoga
Jesus’ years in India • The lost teachings of the Gospels • Yoga: Universal science of
religion
3. Inner Teachings of Jesus the Yogi
How every soul can attain Christ Consciousness • Importance of the Comforter, or Holy
Ghost • Yoga and the Book of Revelation • True Baptism in Spirit
Part II: “One Way” or Universality?
4. The “Second Birth”: Awakening of Soul-Intuition
Jesus’ teachings on “born again” • Expressing the divine potentials of the soul •
Advancing from material consciousness to spiritual consciousness
5. “Lifting Up the Son of Man” to Divine Consciousness
The heavenly planes of God’s creation • The esoteric science of kundalini or “serpent
force” in the spine
6. The True Meaning of “Belief on His Name” and Salvation
Is Jesus the only savior? • Dogma and misunderstanding in institutional “churchianity”
• Blind belief versus personal realization of truth
Part III: Jesus’ Yoga of Divine Love
7. The Beatitudes

How man’s life becomes blessed, filled with heavenly bliss

8. Divine Love: Highest Goal of Religion and of Life

The two greatest commandments: Love of God first, and

serving the Divine Presence in all

9. The Kingdom of God Within You

The core of Jesus’ message: The blissful kingdom of the Heavenly Father and the

method of its attainment

About the Author

Glossary

A note to the reader:

To assist the reader who may be unfamiliar with the concepts and

terminology of Yoga and Eastern philosophy, a glossary has been provided

at the back of the book.

This gives easy-to-find definitions of most of the terms that are

important to understanding Paramahansa Yogananda’s exposition of the

teachings of Jesus — such as Christ Consciousness, Holy Ghost, Aum, the

astral and causal worlds, and the various yogic terms applicable to the

experience of meditation and God-realization.

PREFACE

• Did Jesus, like the ancient sages and masters of the East, teach meditation as the way to enter

“the kingdom of heaven”?

• Were there “hidden teachings” given to his immediate disciples, which have been lost or

suppressed through the centuries?

• Did he really teach that all non-Christians are excluded from God’s kingdom? And does a literal

reading of the Gospel truly probe the depths of his epoch-making message for humanity?

These and other questions are answered with reverent understanding and

unprecedented insight by Paramahansa Yogananda in The Second Coming

of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You. And his conclusions

tally remarkably with contemporary religious scholars’ ongoing

explorations of the profound esoteric and experiential dimensions of early

Christianity, as revealed in the “Gnostic gospels” and other recently

discovered manuscripts lost since the second and third centuries.

Paramahansa Yogananda is renowned as “the Father of Yoga in the

West” and one of the preeminent spiritual figures of our time. The Second

Coming of Christ — his monumental work on the “original teachings of

Jesus” — was published in two large volumes (totaling more than 1,700

pages) in 2004. Taking the reader verse by verse through the four Gospels,

the book’s 75 discourses provide in-depth discussions of the true

significance of Jesus’ words, showing how they can only be fully

understood when considered in the light of their original purpose: as a path

to direct, personal experience of “the kingdom of God within you.”

Reporting on the release of this groundbreaking work, the Los Angeles

Times (December 11, 2004) wrote: “The Second Coming of Christ: The

Resurrection of the Christ Within You offers startling ideas about the deeper

meaning of Jesus’ teachings and their essential unity with yoga, one of the

world’s oldest and most systematic religious paths to achieving oneness

with God….The book aims to recover what Yogananda believed were major

teachings lost to institutional Christianity. Among them was the idea that

every seeker can know God not through mere belief but by direct

experience via yoga meditation.”

Another review, in Sacred Pathways magazine (December 2004), stated:

“Yogananda strips away the divisiveness and dogmatic approach that have

accumulated around Jesus’ teachings and affirms that it is possible for every

individual — regardless of one’s faith tradition — to have the same

relationship that Jesus had with the Divine….He outlines the methods of

God-communion that Jesus imparted to his direct disciples but which were

obscured over the centuries, and explains such topics as the Holy Ghost,

baptism, meditation, forgiveness of sins, reincarnation, heaven and hell, and

resurrection. In so doing, he reveals the underlying unity of Jesus’ moral

and esoteric teachings with India’s ancient science of Yoga, meditation, and

union with God.”

Experts in the fields of religion, history, and healing also praised the

book: “This is one of those rare bridge-building books that can truly change

the way one sees a figure one thought one knew well,” wrote Dr. Robert

Ellwood, Emeritus Professor of Religion, University of Southern California.

“Paramahansa Yogananda’s The Second Coming of Christ is one of the

most important analyses of Jesus’ teachings that exists,” said Dr. Larry

Dossey, M.D., noted author and researcher in the field of holistic medicine.

“Many interpretations of Jesus’s words divide peoples, cultures, and

nations; these foster unity and healing, and that is why they are vital for

today’s world.”

Yoga International magazine (March 2005) began its review of the book

with these words: “Yoga went global in the twentieth century. Now it seems

likely that the divisive chasm between Christian teaching and India’s

ancient spiritual science will finally be bridged here in the twentyfirst.

Paramahansa Yogananda’s new book, The Second Coming of Christ, holds

out this promise, arguing that the division has always been superficial. The

implications for yoga practitioners in the West — and for society at large —

are enormous.”

This present volume is intended as a first glimpse of Paramahansa

Yogananda’s revelatory exposition on the hidden yoga of the Gospels,

which is explained in much greater detail in The Second Coming of Christ.

What Is Yoga, Really?

Most of us are accustomed to looking outside of ourselves for

fulfillment. We are living in a world that conditions us to believe that outer

attainments can give us what we want. Yet again and again our experiences

show us that nothing external can completely fulfill the deep longing within

for “something more.”

Most of the time, however, we find ourselves striving toward that which

always seems to lie just beyond our reach. We are caught up in doing rather

than being, in action rather than awareness. It is hard for us to picture a

state of complete calmness and repose in which thoughts and feelings cease

to dance in perpetual motion. Yet it is through such a state of quietude that

we can touch a level of joy and understanding impossible to achieve

otherwise.

It is said in the Bible: “Be still, and know that I am God.” In these few

words lies the key to the science of yoga. This ancient spiritual science

offers a direct means of stilling the natural turbulence of thoughts and

restlessness of body that prevent us from knowing what we really are.

Ordinarily our awareness and energies are directed outward, to the

things of this world, which we perceive through the limited instruments of

our five senses. Because human reason has to rely upon the partial and

often deceptive data supplied by the physical senses, we must learn to tap

deeper and more subtle levels of awareness if we would solve the enigmas

of life — Who am I? Why am I here? How do I realize Truth?

Yoga is a simple process of reversing the ordinary outward flow of

energy and consciousness so that the mind becomes a dynamic center of

direct perception — no longer dependent upon the fallible senses but

capable of actually experiencing Truth.

By practicing the step-by-step methods of yoga — taking nothing for

granted on emotional grounds or through blind faith — we come to know

our oneness with the Infinite Intelligence, Power, and Joy which gives life

to all and which is the essence of our own Self.1

In past centuries many of the higher techniques of yoga were little

understood or practiced, owing to mankind’s limited knowledge of the

forces that run the universe. But today scientific investigation is rapidly

changing the way we view ourselves and the world. The traditional

materialistic conception of life has vanished with the discovery that matter

and energy are essentially one: Every existing substance can be reduced to a

pattern or form of energy, which interacts and interconnects with other

forms. Some of today’s most celebrated physicists go a step further,

identifying consciousness as the fundamental ground of all being. Thus

modern science is confirming the ancient principles of yoga, which

proclaim that unity pervades the universe.

The word yoga itself means “union”: of the individual consciousness or

soul with the Universal Consciousness or Spirit. Though many people think

of yoga only as physical exercises — the asanas or postures that have

gained widespread popularity in recent decades — these are actually only

the most superficial aspect of this profound science of unfolding the infinite

potentials of the human mind and soul.

There are various paths of yoga that lead toward this goal, each one a

specialized branch of one comprehensive system:

Hatha Yoga — a system of physical postures, or asanas, whose higher

purpose is to purify the body, giving one awareness and control over its

internal states and rendering it fit for meditation.

Karma Yoga — selfless service to others as part of one’s larger Self,

without attachment to the results; and the performance of all actions with

the consciousness of God as the Doer.

Mantra Yoga — centering the consciousness within through japa, or

the repetition of certain universal root-word sounds representing a particular

aspect of Spirit.

Bhakti Yoga — all-surrendering devotion through which one strives to

see and love the divinity in every creature and in everything, thus

maintaining an unceasing worship.

Jnana Yoga — the path of wisdom, which emphasizes the application

of discriminative intelligence to achieve spiritual liberation.

Raja Yoga — the royal or highest path of yoga, formally systematized

in the second century B.C. by the Indian sage Patanjali, which combines the

essence of all the other paths.

At the heart of the Raja Yoga system, balancing and unifying these

various approaches, is the practice of definite, scientific methods of

meditation that enable one to perceive, from the very beginning of one’s

efforts, glimpses of the ultimate goal — conscious union with the

inexhaustibly blissful Spirit.

The quickest and most effective approach to the goal of yoga employs

those methods of meditation that deal directly with energy and

consciousness. It is this direct approach that characterizes Kriya Yoga,2 the

particular form of Raja Yoga meditation taught by Paramahansa Yogananda.

India’s most beloved scripture of yoga is the Bhagavad Gita — a

profound treatise on union with God, and a timeless prescription for

happiness and balanced success in everyday life. That Jesus knew and

taught the same universal science of God-realization and precepts for

spiritual living is the revelation brought to the world at large by

Paramahansa Yogananda, as shown in the pages of this book.3

A brief work such as the present one can provide only an introductory

glimpse of the profound and inspiring unity between the teachings of Jesus

the Christ and those of yoga. Readers who are inspired by this selection of

excerpts will find abundantly more detail and practical teaching for daily

life in the two volumes of The Second Coming of Christ. As Paramahansa

Yogananda writes in the introduction to that work:

“In these pages I offer to the world an intuitionally perceived spiritual

interpretation of the words spoken by Jesus, truths received through actual

communion with Christ Consciousness. They will be found to be

universally true if they are studied conscientiously and meditated upon with

soul-awakened intuitive perception. They reveal the perfect unity that exists

among the revelations of the Christian Bible, the Bhagavad Gita of India,

and all other time-tested true scriptures.

“The saviors of the world do not come to foster inimical doctrinal

divisions; their teachings should not be used toward that end. It is

something of a misnomer even to refer to the New Testament as the

‘Christian’ Bible, for it does not belong exclusively to any one sect. Truth is

meant for the blessing and upliftment of the entire human race. As the

Christ Consciousness is universal, so does Jesus Christ belong to all.”

— Self-Realization Fellowship

1 “Self” is capitalized to denote the soul, man’s true identity, in contradistinction to the ego or

pseudo-soul, the lower self with which man temporarily identifies through ignorance of his real

nature.

2 “Kriya is an ancient science,” Paramahansa Yogananda wrote in his Autobiography of a Yogi.

“Lahiri Mahasaya received it from his great guru, Babaji, who rediscovered and clarified the

technique after it had been lost in the Dark Ages. Babaji renamed it, simply, Kriya Yoga.”

“The Kriya Yoga that I am giving to the world through you in this nineteenth century,” Babaji told

Lahiri Mahasaya, “is a revival of the same science that Krishna gave millenniums ago to Arjuna; and

that was later known to Patanjali and Christ, and to St. John, St. Paul, and other disciples.”

3 A small companion volume, The Yoga of the Bhagavad Gita: An Introduction to India’s Universal

Science of God-Realization, has been published simultaneously with the present book — excerpts

from the comprehensive teachings of the Gita presented in Paramahansa Yogananda’s highly

acclaimed two-volume commentary, God Talks With Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita.

CHAPTER 1

Jesus the Avatar

God’s Manifestation in Divine Incarnations

or mere mortals to cope with a life of unsolved and unsolvable

mysteries in an inscrutable universe would indeed be an overwhelming

challenge were it not for divine emissaries who come on earth to speak with

the voice and authority of God for the guidance of man.

Aeons past, in ancient higher ages in India, rishis enunciated the

manifestation of Divine Beneficence, of “God with us,” in terms of divine

incarnations, avatars—God incarnate on earth in enlightened beings….

Many are the voices that have intermediated between God and man,

khanda avatars, or partial incarnations in God-knowing souls. Less

common are the purna avatars, liberated beings who are fully one with

God; their return to earth is to fulfill a God-ordained mission.

The Lord in the sacred Hindu Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, declares:

“Whenever virtue declines and vice predominates, I incarnate as an

Avatar. In visible form I appear from age to age to protect the

virtuous and to destroy evildoing in order to reestablish

righteousness.”

The same one glorious infinite consciousness of God, the Universal

Christ Consciousness, Kutastha Chaitanya, becomes familiarly apparelled

in the individuality of an enlightened soul, graced with a distinguishing

personality and godly nature appropriate to the times and purpose of the

incarnation.

Without this intercession of God’s love come to earth in the example,

message, and guiding hand of His avatars, it would scarce be possible for

groping humanity to find the path into God’s kingdom midst the dark

miasma of world delusion, the cosmic substance of human habitation.

Lest His benighted children be lost forever in creation’s delusive

labyrinths, the Lord comes again and again in God-illumined prophets to

light the way….

Jesus was preceded by Gautama Buddha, the “Enlightened One,” whose

incarnation reminded a forgetful generation of the Dharma Chakra, the

ever-rotating wheel of karma—self-initiated action and its effects which

make each man, and not a Cosmic Dictator, responsible for his own present

condition. Buddha brought heart back into the arid theology and mechanical

rituals into which the ancient Vedic religion of India had fallen after the

passing of a higher age in which Bhagavan Krishna, India’s most beloved of

avatars, preached the way of divine love and God-realization through the

practice of the supreme spiritual science of yoga, union with God.

Divine intercession to mitigate the cosmic law of cause and effect

[karma], by which a man suffers from his errors, was at the heart of the

mission of love Jesus came to fulfill….

Jesus came to demonstrate the forgiveness and compassion of God,

whose love is a shelter even from exacting law.

The Good Shepherd of souls opened his arms to all, rejecting none, and

with universal love coaxed the world to follow him on the path to liberation

through the example of his spirit of sacrifice, renunciation, forgiveness,

love for friend and enemy alike, and supreme love for God above all else.

As the tiny babe in the manger at Bethlehem, and as the savior who

healed the sick and raised the dead and applied the salve of love on the

wounds of errors, the Christ in Jesus lived among men as one of them that

they too might learn to live like gods.

Christ Consciousness: Oneness With God’s Infinite Intelligence

and Bliss Pervading All Creation

To understand the magnitude of a divine incarnation, it is necessary to

understand the source and nature of the consciousness that is incarnate in

the avatar.

Jesus spoke of this consciousness when he proclaimed: “I and my Father

are one” (John 10:30) and “I am in the Father, and the Father in me” (John

14:11). Those who unite their consciousness to God know both the

transcendent and the immanent nature of Spirit—the singularity of the ever-

existing, ever-conscious, ever-new Bliss of the Uncreate Absolute, and the

myriad manifestations of His Being as the infinitude of forms into which

He variegates Himself in the panorama of creation.

There is a distinguishing difference of meaning between Jesus and

Christ. His given name was Jesus; his honorific title was “Christ.” In his

little human body called Jesus was born the vast Christ Consciousness, the

omniscient Intelligence of God omnipresent in every part and particle of

creation.

The universe is not the result merely of a fortuitous combination of

vibrating forces and subatomic particles, as proposed by material scientists

—a chance excrescence of solids, liquids, and gases into earth, oceans,

atmosphere, plants, all harmoniously interrelated to provide a habitable

home for human beings. Blind forces cannot organize themselves into

intelligently structured objects. As human intelligence is needed to put

water into the small square compartments of an ice tray to be frozen into

cubes, so in the coalescence of vibration into progressively evolving forms

throughout the universe we see the results of a hidden Immanent

Intelligence.

What could be more miraculous than the evident presence in every

speck of creation of a Divine Intelligence? How the mighty tree emerges

from a tiny seed. How countless worlds roll in infinite space, held in a

purposeful cosmic dance by the precise adjustment of universal forces. How

the marvelously complex human body is created from a single microscopic

cell, is endowed with self-conscious intelligence, and is sustained, healed,

and enlivened by invisible power. In every atom of this astounding

universe, God is ceaselessly working miracles; yet obtuse man takes them

for granted.

Science Discovers Intelligent Order

“The rise of science served to extend the range of nature’s marvels,

so that today we have discovered order in the deepest recesses of the

atom and among the grandest collection of galaxies,” writes Paul

Davies, Ph.D., well-known author and professor of mathematical

physics, in Evidence of Purpose: Scientists Discover the Creator (New

York: Continuum Publishing, 1994).

Systems theorist Ervin Laszlo reports in The Whispering Pond: A

Personal Guide to the Emerging Vision of Science (Boston: Element

Books, 1999): “The fine-tuning of the physical universe to the

parameters of life constitutes a series of coincidences—if that is what

they are….in which even the slightest departure from the given values

would spell the end of life, or, more exactly, create conditions under

which life could never have evolved in the first place. If the neutron did

not outweigh the proton in the nucleus of the atom, the active lifetime of

the Sun and other stars would be reduced to a few hundred years; if the

electric charge of electrons and protons did not balance precisely, all

configurations of matter would be unstable and the universe would

consist of nothing more than radiation and a relatively uniform mixture

of gases….If the strong force that binds the particles of a nucleus were

merely a fraction weaker than it is, deuteron could not exist and stars

such as the Sun could not shine. And if that force were slightly stronger

than it is, the Sun and other active stars would inflate and perhaps

explode….The values of the four universal forces [electromagnetism,

gravity, and the nuclear strong and weak forces] were precisely such that

life could evolve in the cosmos.”

Professor Davies estimates that if—as some scientists maintain—

there were no inherent guiding intelligence and cosmic evolution were

governed only by the chance operation of strictly mechanical laws, “the

time required to achieve the level of order we now meet in the universe

purely by random processes is of the order of at least 101080 years”—

inconceivably longer than the current age of the universe. Citing these

calculations, Laszlo wryly observes: “Serendipity of this magnitude

strains credibility,” and concludes: “Must we then face the possibility

that the universe we witness is the result of purposeful design by an

omnipotent master builder?” (Publisher’s Note)

Christ is God’s Infinite Intelligence that is present in all creation. The

Infinite Christ is the “only begotten son” of God the Father, the only pure

Reflection of Spirit in the created realm. That Universal Intelligence, the

Kutastha Chaitanya or Krishna Consciousness of the Hindu scriptures, was

fully manifested in the incarnation of Jesus, Krishna, and other divine ones;

and it can be manifested also in your consciousness.

Just imagine! If you were living in this one room all of your life, having

no contact with or knowledge of what is beyond these walls, you would say

that this is the whole of your world. But if someone were to take you into

the world outside, you would realize how infinitesimal your “world” was.

So it is with the perception of Christ Consciousness. The scope of mortal

consciousness by comparison is like observing only the area of a tiny

mustard seed to the exclusion of the rest of the cosmos. Christ

Consciousness is Omnipresence, the Lord spread over every pore of infinite

space and permeating every atom.4

An ant’s consciousness is limited to the sensations of its little body. An

elephant’s consciousness is extended throughout its massive frame, so that

ten people touching ten different parts of its body would awaken

simultaneous awareness. Christ Consciousness…extends to the boundaries

of all vibratory regions.

The entirety of vibratory creation is an externalization of Spirit.

Omnipresent Spirit secretes Itself in vibratory matter, just as oil is hidden in

the olive. When the olive is squeezed, tiny drops of oil appear on its

surface; so Spirit, as individual souls, by a process of evolution gradually

emerges from matter. Spirit expresses Itself as beauty and magnetic and

chemical power in minerals and gems; as beauty and life in plants; as

beauty, life, power, motion, and consciousness in animals; as

comprehension and expanding power in man; and again returns to

Omnipresence in the superman.5

Each evolutionary phase thus manifests a fuller measure of Spirit. The

animal is freed from the inertia of minerals and the fixity of plants to

experience with locomotion and sentient consciousness a greater portion of

God’s creation. Man, by his self-consciousness, additionally comprehends

the thoughts of his fellow beings and can project his sensory mind into star-

studded space, at least by the power of imagination.

The superman expands his life energy and consciousness from his body

into all space, actually feeling as his own self the presence of all universes

in the vast cosmos as well as every minute atom of the earth. In the

superman, the lost omnipresence of Spirit, bound in the soul as

individualized Spirit, is regained….

The consciousness of Jesus was transferred from the circumference of

the body to the boundary of all finite creation in the vibratory region of

manifestation: the sphere of space and time encompassing planetary

universes, stars, the Milky Way, and our little solar system family of which

the earth is a part, and on which the physical body of Jesus was but a speck.

Jesus the man, a tiny particle on the earth, became Jesus the Christ, with his

consciousness all-pervading in oneness with the Christ Consciousness.

Jesus’ Principal Teaching: How to Become a Christ

God’s work in creation is to draw, through evolutionary promptings of

the Christ Intelligence, all beings back to conscious oneness with

Himself….When there is widespread suffering on earth, God responds to

the soul call of His devotees by sending a divine son who by his exemplary

spiritual life of expressing Christ Consciousness can teach people to

cooperate with His work of salvation in their lives.

It was of that Infinite Consciousness, replete with the love and bliss of

God, that Saint John spoke when he said: “As many as received him [the

Christ Consciousness], to them gave he power to become the sons of God.”

Thus according to Jesus’ own teaching as recorded by his most highly

advanced apostle, John, all souls who become united with Christ

Consciousness by intuitive Self-realization are rightly called sons of God.

To receive Christ is not accomplished through church membership, nor

by outer ritual of acknowledging Jesus as one’s savior but never knowing

him in reality by contacting him in meditation. To know Christ signifies to

close the eyes, expand the consciousness and so deepen the concentration

that through the inner light of soul intuition one partakes of the same

consciousness that Jesus had.

Saint John and other advanced disciples of Jesus who truly “received

him” felt him as the Christ Consciousness present in every speck of space.

A true Christian—a Christ-one—is he who frees his soul from the

consciousness of the body and unites it with the Christ Intelligence

pervading all creation.

A small cup cannot hold an ocean within itself. Likewise, the cup of

human consciousness, limited by the physical and mental instrumentalities

of material perceptions, cannot grasp the universal Christ Consciousness, no

matter how desirous one may be of doing so. By the definite science of

meditation known for millenniums to the yogis and sages of India, and to

Jesus, any seeker of God can enlarge the caliber of his consciousness to

omniscience—to receive within himself the Universal Intelligence of God.

The divine power of Christ realization is an internal experience; it may

be received through unalloyed devotion for God and for His pure reflection

as Christ. The power of church and temple will vanish. Real spirituality

shall come from the temples of great souls who are day and night in the

ecstasy of God. Such souls as I have seen in India surpass the glory of all

the temples. Remember, Christ seeks the temples of true souls. He loves the

quiet shrine of devotion in your heart where you abide with him, there in

the sanctuary aglow with the vigil light of your love. Those who meditate

devoutly will receive Christ on the altar of calmness in their own

consciousness.

In titling this work The Second Coming of Christ,6 I am not referring to

a literal return of Jesus to earth. He came two thousand years ago and, after

imparting a universal path to God’s kingdom, was crucified and resurrected;

his reappearance to the masses now is not necessary for the fulfillment of

his teachings. What is necessary is for the cosmic wisdom and divine

perception of Jesus to speak again through each one’s own experience and

understanding of the infinite Christ Consciousness that was incarnate in

Jesus. That will be his true Second Coming.

Real Christ followers are those who embrace in their own consciousness

through meditation and ecstasy the omnipresent cosmic wisdom and bliss of

Jesus Christ….Devotees who want to be real Christ-ians, rather than just

members of Christian churchianity, must know and truly feel the presence

of Omnipresent Christ all the time, must commune with Him in ecstasy, and

be guided by His Infinite Wisdom.

These teachings have been sent to explain the truth as Jesus intended it

to be known in the world—not to give a new Christianity, but to give the

real Christ-teaching: how to become like Christ, how to resurrect the

Eternal Christ within one’s Self.

4 See also here. The counter-force in creation, which produces disharmony, disease, separateness,

and ignorance, is personified in the Bible as Satan. In yoga philosophy this delusive force is called

Maya or Apara-Prakriti. A comprehensive explanation is given by Paramahansa Yogananda in The

Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You.

5 These five evolutionary stages are referenced in yoga philosophy as koshas, “sheaths” that are

progressively unfolded as creation evolves from inert matter back to pure Spirit. See God Talks With

Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita, pages 63 ff., commentary on I:4 – 6. (Publisher’s Note)

6 I.e., the larger work by Paramahansa Yogananda from which The Yoga of Jesus is extracted.

CHAPTER 2

Jesus and Yoga

he continuity of God’s word through His avatars [was] beautifully

symbolized by the spiritual exchange between Jesus at his birth and the

Wise Men of India come to honor his incarnation.

There is a very strong tradition in India, authoritatively known amongst

high metaphysicians in tales well told and written in ancient manuscripts,

that the wise men of the East who made their way to the infant Jesus in

Bethlehem were, in fact, great sages of India. Not only did the Indian

masters come to Jesus, but he reciprocated their visit.

During the unaccounted-for years of Jesus’ life—the Scripture remains

silent about him from approximately age fourteen to thirty—he journeyed

to India, probably traveling the well-established trade route that linked the

Mediterranean with China and India.

His own God-realization, reawakened and reinforced in the company of

the masters and the spiritual environs of India, provided a background of

the universality of truth from which he could preach a simple, open

message comprehensible to the masses of his native country, yet with

underlying meanings that would be appreciated in generations to come as

the infancy of man’s mind would mature in understanding.

The “Lost Years” of Jesus

In the New Testament, the curtain of silence comes down on the life of

Jesus after his twelfth year, not to rise once more until eighteen years later,

at which time he receives baptism from John and begins preaching to the

multitude. We are told only: “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature,

and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52).

For the contemporaries of such an extraordinary figure to find nothing

noteworthy to record from his childhood to his thirtieth year is in and of

itself extraordinary.

Remarkable accounts, however, do exist, not in the land of Jesus’ birth

but farther east where he spent most of the unaccounted-for years. Hidden

away in a Tibetan monastery priceless records lie. They speak of a Saint

Issa from Israel “in whom was manifest the soul of the universe”; who from

the age of fourteen to twenty-eight was in India and regions of the

Himalayas among the saints, monks, and pundits; who preached his

message throughout that area and then returned to teach in his native land,

where he was treated vilely, condemned, and put to death. Except as

chronicled in these ancient manuscripts, no other history of the unknown

years of Jesus’ life has ever been published.

Providentially, these ancient records were discovered and copied [in the

Himis Monastery in Tibet] by a Russian traveler, Nicholas Notovitch….He

published his notes himself in 1894 under the title The Unknown Life of

Jesus Christ….

In 1922, Swami Abhedananda, a direct disciple of Ramakrishna

Paramahansa, visited the Himis Monastery, and confirmed all of the salient

details about Issa published in Notovitch’s book.

Nicholas Roerich, in an expedition to India and Tibet in the mid-1920s,

saw and copied verses from ancient manuscripts that were the same, or at

least the same in content, as those published by Notovitch. He was also

deeply impressed by the oral traditions of that area: “In Srinagar we first

encountered the curious legend about Christ’s visit to this place. Afterwards

we saw how widely spread in India, in Ladak and in Central Asia, was the

legend of the visit of Christ to these parts during his long absence, quoted in

the Gospel.”

India: Mother of Religion

A wealth of evidence for the primacy of India’s spiritual culture in

the ancient world is presented by Georg Feuerstein, Ph.D., Subhash

Kak, Ph.D., and David Frawley, O.M.D., in In Search of the Cradle of

Civilization: New Light on Ancient India (Wheaton, Ill.: Quest Books,

1995): “The old saying ex oriente lux (‘From the East, light’) is no

platitude, for civilization’s torch, especially the core sacred tradition of

perennial wisdom, has been handed down from the eastern

hemisphere….The Middle-Eastern creations of Judaism and

Christianity, which largely have given our civilization its present shape,

were influenced by ideas stemming from countries farther east,

especially India.”

The scriptures of India “are the oldest extant philosophy and

psychology of our race,” says renowned historian Will Durant in Our

Oriental Heritage (The Story of Civilization, Part I). Robert C. Priddy,

professor of the history of philosophy at the University of Oslo, wrote in

On India’s Ancient Past (1999): “India’s past is so ancient and has been

so influential in the rise of civilization and religion, at least for almost

everyone in the Old World, that most people can claim it actually to be

the earliest part of our own odyssey….The mother of religion, the

world’s earliest spiritual teachings of the Vedic tradition contains the

most sublime and all-embracing of philosophies.”

In his two-volume work India and World Civilization (Michigan

State University Press, 1969), historian D. P. Singhal amasses abundant

documentation of India’s spiritual nurturing of the ancient world. He

describes the excavation of a vase near Baghdad that has led researchers

to the conclusion that “by the middle of the third millennium B.C., an

Indian cult was already being practiced in Mesopotamia….Archaeology

has thus shown that two thousand years before the earliest references in

cuneiform texts to contact with India, she was sending her manufactures

to the land where the roots of Western civilization lie.” (Publisher’s

Note)

India is the mother of religion. Her civilization has been acknowledged

as much older than the legendary civilization of Egypt. If you study these

matters, you will see how the hoary scriptures of India, predating all other

revelations, have influenced the Book of the Dead of Egypt and the Old and

New Testaments of the Bible, as well as other religions. All were in touch

with, and drew from, the religion of India, because India specialized in

religion from time immemorial.

So it was that Jesus himself went to India; Notovitch’s manuscript tells

us: “Issa secretly absented himself from his father’s house; left Jerusalem,

and, in a train of merchants, journeyed toward the Sindh, with the object of

perfecting himself in the knowledge of the Word of God and the study of

the laws of the great Buddhas.”7

This is not to say that Jesus learned everything he taught from his

spiritual mentors and associates in India and surrounding regions. Avatars

come with their own endowment of wisdom. Jesus’ store of divine

realization was merely awakened and molded to fit his unique mission by

his sojourn among the Hindu pundits, Buddhist monks, and particularly the

great masters of yoga from whom he received initiation in the esoteric

science of God-union through meditation. From the knowledge he had

gleaned, and from the wisdom brought forth from his soul in deep

meditation, he distilled for the masses simple parables of the ideal

principles by which to govern one’s life in the sight of God. But to those

close disciples who were ready to receive it, he taught the deeper mysteries,

as evidenced in the New Testament book of Revelation of Saint John, the

symbology of which accords exactly with the yoga science of God-

realization. [See sidebar “Yoga and the Book of Revelation.”]

The documents discovered by Notovitch lend historical support to my

long-held assertion, gleaned from my earliest years in India, that Jesus was

linked with the rishis of India through the Wise Men who journeyed to his

cradle, and for whom he went to India to receive their blessings and to

confer concerning his world mission. That his teaching, born internally

from his God-realization and nurtured externally by his studies with the

masters, expresses the universality of Christ Consciousness that knows no

boundary of race or creed, is what I shall endeavor to make evident

throughout the pages of this book.

Like the sun, which rises in the East and travels to the West spreading

its rays, so Christ rose in the East and came to the West, there to be

enshrined in a vast Christendom whose adherents look to him as their guru

and savior. It is no happenstance that Jesus chose to be born an Oriental

Christ in Palestine. This locale was the hub linking the East with Europe.

He traveled to India to honor his ties with her rishis, preached his message

throughout that area, and then went back to spread his teachings in

Palestine, which he saw in his great wisdom as the doorway through which

his spirit and words would find their way to Europe and the rest of the

world. This great Christ, radiating the spiritual strength and power of the

Orient to the West, is a divine liaison to unite God-loving peoples of East

and West.

Truth is not the monopoly of the Orient or the Occident. The pure silver-

gold rays of sunlight appear to be red or blue when observed through red or

blue glass. So, also, truth only appears to be different when colored by an

Oriental or Occidental civilization. In looking at the simple essence of truth

expressed by the great ones of various times and climes, one finds very

little difference in their messages. What I received from my Guru and the

venerated masters of India I find the same as that which I have received

from the teachings of Jesus the Christ.

The Lost Teachings of the Gospels

Christ has been much misinterpreted by the world. Even the most

elementary principles of his teachings have been desecrated, and their

esoteric depths have been forgotten. They have been crucified at the hands

of dogma, prejudice, and cramped understanding. Genocidal wars have

been fought, people have been burned as witches and heretics, on the

presumed authority of man-made doctrines of Christianity. How to salvage

the immortal teachings from the hands of ignorance? We must know Jesus

as an Oriental Christ, a supreme yogi who manifested full mastery of the

universal science of God-union, and thus could speak and act as a savior

with the voice and authority of God. He has been Westernized too much.

Jesus was an Oriental, by birth and blood and training. To separate a

teacher from the background of his nationality is to blur the understanding

through which he is perceived. No matter what Jesus the Christ was

himself, as regards his own soul, being born and maturing in the Orient, he

had to use the medium of Oriental civilization, customs, mannerisms,

language, parables, in spreading his message. Hence to understand Jesus

Christ and his teachings one must be sympathetically open to the Oriental

point of view—in particular, India’s ancient and present civilization,

religious scriptures, traditions, philosophies, spiritual beliefs, and intuitive

metaphysical experiences. Though, esoterically understood, the teachings of

Jesus are universal, they are saturated with the essence of Oriental culture—

rooted in Oriental influences which have been made adaptable to the

Western environment.

The Gospels can be rightly understood in the light of the teachings of

India—not the caste-ridden, stone-worshiping, distorted interpretations of

Hinduism, but the philosophical, soul-saving wisdom of her rishis: the

kernel not the husk of the Vedas, Upanishads, and Bhagavad Gita. This

essence of Truth—the Sanatana Dharma, or eternal principles of

righteousness that uphold man and the universe—was given to the world

thousands of years before the Christian era, and preserved in India with a

spiritual vitality that has made the quest for God the be-all and end-all of

life and not an armchair diversion.

The Universal Science of Religion

The personal realization of truth is the science behind all sciences. But

for most persons, religion has devolved to a matter of belief only. One

believes in Catholicism, another believes in some Protestant denomination,

others assert belief that the Jewish or Hindu or Muslim or Buddhist religion

is the true way. The science of religion identifies the universal truths

common to all—the basis of religion—and teaches how by their practical

application persons can build their lives according to the Divine Plan.

India’s teaching of Raja Yoga, the “royal” science of the soul, supersedes

the orthodoxy of religion by setting forth systematically the practice of

those methods that are universally necessary for the perfection of every

individual, regardless of race or creed.

Gnostic Gospels: The Lost Christianity?

Through the remarkable discovery of early Christian gnostic texts at

Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945, one may glimpse something of what was

lost to conventional Christianity during this process of “Westernization.”

Elaine Pagels, Ph.D., writes in The Gnostic Gospels (New York: Vintage

Books, 1981):

“The Nag Hammadi texts, and others like them, which circulated at

the beginning of the Christian era, were denounced as heresy by

orthodox Christians in the middle of the second century….But those

who wrote and circulated these texts did not regard themselves as

‘heretics.’ Most of the writings use Christian terminology, unmistakably

related to a Jewish heritage. Many claim to offer traditions about Jesus

that are secret, hidden from ‘the many’ who constitute what, in the

second century, came to be called the ‘catholic church.’ These

Christians are now called gnostics, from the Greek word gnosis, usually

translated as ‘knowledge.’ For as those who claim to know nothing

about ultimate reality are called agnostic (literally, ‘not-knowing’), the

person who does claim to know such things is called gnostic

(‘knowing’). But gnosis is not primarily rational knowledge….As the

gnostics use the term, we could translate it as ‘insight,’ for gnosis

involves an intuitive process of knowing oneself….[According to

gnostic teachers,] to know oneself, at the deepest level, is

simultaneously to know God; this is the secret of gnosis….

“The ‘living Jesus’ of these texts speaks of illusion and

enlightenment, not of sin and repentance, like the Jesus of the New

Testament. Instead of coming to save us from sin, he comes as a guide

who opens access to spiritual understanding….

“Orthodox Christians believe that Jesus is Lord and Son of God in a

unique way: he remains forever distinct from the rest of humanity whom

he came to save. Yet the gnostic Gospel of Thomas relates that as soon

as Thomas recognizes him, Jesus says to Thomas that they have both

received their being from the same source: ‘I am not your master.

Because you have drunk, you have become drunk from the bubbling

stream which I have measured out….He who will drink from my mouth

will become as I am: I myself shall become he, and the things that are

hidden will be revealed to him.’

“Does not such teaching—the identity of the divine and human, the

concern with illusion and enlightenment, the founder who is presented

not as Lord, but as spiritual guide—sound more Eastern than

Western?…Could Hindu or Buddhist traditions have influenced

gnosticism?….Ideas that we associate with Eastern religions emerged in

the first century through the gnostic movement in the West, but they

were suppressed and condemned by polemicists like Irenaeus.”

(Publisher’s Note)

What is needed is a reunion of the science of religion with the spirit, or

inspiration, of religion—the esoteric with the exoteric. The yoga science

taught by Lord Krishna, which provides practical methods for actual inner

experience of God to supplant the feeble life-expectancy of beliefs, and the

spirit of Christ-love and brotherhood preached by Jesus—the only sure

panacea to prevent the world from tearing itself apart by its unyielding

differences—are in tandem one and the same universal truth, taught by

these two Christs of East and West.

The saviors of the world do not come to foster inimical doctrinal

divisions; their teachings should not be used toward that end. It is

something of a misnomer even to refer to the New Testament as the

“Christian” Bible, for it does not belong exclusively to any one sect. Truth

is meant for the blessing and upliftment of the entire human race. As the

Christ Consciousness is universal, so does Jesus Christ belong to all.

Though I emphasize the message of Lord Jesus in the New Testament

and the yoga science of God-union delineated by Bhagavan Krishna in the

Bhagavad Gita as the summum bonum of the way to God-realization, I

honor the diverse expressions of truth flowing from the One God through

the scriptures of His various emissaries.

Truth, in and of itself, is the ultimate “religion.” Though truth can be

expressed in different ways by sectarian “isms,” it can never be exhausted

by them. It has infinite manifestations and ramifications, but one

consummation: direct experience of God, the Sole Reality.

The human stamp of sectarian affiliation is of little meaning. It is not the

religious denomination in which one’s name is registered, nor the culture or

creed in which one was born, that gives salvation. The essence of truth goes

beyond all outer form. It is that essence which is paramount in

understanding Jesus and his universal call to souls to enter the kingdom of

God, which is “within you.”

We are all children of God, from our inception unto eternity. Differences

come from prejudices, and prejudice is the child of ignorance. We should

not proudly identify ourselves as Americans or Indians or Italians or any

other nationality, for that is but an accident of birth. Above all else, we

should be proud that we are children of God, made in His image. Is not that

the message of Christ?

Jesus the Christ is an excellent model for both East and West to follow.

God’s stamp, “son of God,” is hidden in every soul. Jesus affirmed the

scriptures: “Ye are gods.”

Do away with masks! Come out openly as sons of God—not by hollow

proclamations and learned-by-heart prayers, fireworks of intellectually

worded sermons contrived to praise God and gather converts, but by

realization! Become identified not with narrow bigotry, masked as wisdom,

but with Christ Consciousness. Become identified with Universal Love,

expressed in service to all, both materially and spiritually; then you will

know who Jesus Christ was, and can say in your soul that we are all one

band, all sons of One God!

7 Cf. Swami Abhedananda’s translation of this verse from the Tibetan: “At this time his great desire

was to achieve full realisation of godhead and learn religion at the feet of those who have attained

perfection through meditation.”—Journey into Kashmir and Tibet

CHAPTER 3

Inner Teachings of Jesus the Yogi

How Every Soul Can Attain Christ Consciousness

The Importance of the Comforter, or Holy Ghost

“If ye love me keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He

shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever;

even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth

Him not, neither knoweth Him: but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you,

and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless….

“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send

in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your

remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world

giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be

afraid” (John 14:15–18, 26, 27).

oday the same admonition applies that Jesus gave to his immediate

disciples. If a devotee loves him (that is, loves contact with the Christ

Consciousness in him) then he or she must faithfully follow the

commandments—the laws of bodily and mental discipline and meditation

—which are required to manifest the Christ Consciousness in the

individual’s own consciousness.

The promise of Jesus to send the Holy Ghost after he was gone few in

the Christian world have understood. Holy Ghost is the sacred, invisible

vibratory power of God that actively sustains the universe: the Word, or

Aum, Cosmic Vibration, the Great Comforter, the Savior from all sorrows.

The Word: God’s Intelligent Cosmic Vibration

The scientific evolution of cosmic creation from the Creator-Lord is

outlined, in arcane terminology, in the Old Testament book of Genesis. In

the New Testament, the opening verses of Saint John’s Gospel may rightly

be called Genesis According to Saint John. Both these profound Biblical

accounts, when clearly grasped by intuitive perception, correspond exactly

to the spiritual cosmology set forth in the scriptures of India handed down

by her Golden Age God-knowing rishis.

Saint John was perhaps the greatest of the disciples of Jesus. Just as a

schoolteacher finds among his pupils one whose superior comprehension

ranks him first in the class, and others who must be ranked lower, so among

the disciples of Jesus there were differing degrees of ability to appreciate

and absorb the depth and breadth of the teachings of the Christ-man. The

records left by Saint John, among the various books of the New Testament,

evince the highest degree of divine realization, making known the deep

esoteric truths experienced by Jesus and transferred to John. Not only in his

gospel, but in his epistles and especially in the profound metaphysical

experiences symbolically described in the Book of Revelation, John

presents the truths taught by Jesus from the point of view of inward

intuitive realization. In John’s words we find precision; that is why his

gospel, though last among the four in the New Testament, should be

considered first when the true meaning of the life and teachings of Jesus is

being sought.

The “Word” in Original Christianity

Though official church doctrine for centuries has interpreted “the

Word” (Logos in the original Greek) to be a reference to Jesus himself,

that was not the understanding originally intended by Saint John in this

passage. According to scholars, the concept John was expressing can

best be understood not through the exegesis of much-later church

orthodoxy, but through the scriptural writings and the teachings of

Jewish philosophers of John’s own period—for example, the Book of

Proverbs (with which John and any other Jewish person of his time

would have been familiar). Karen Armstrong in A History of God: The

4,000 Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (New York: Alfred

A. Knopf, 1993) writes: “The author of the Book of Proverbs, who was

writing in the third century BCE…personifies Wisdom so that she seems

a separate person:

“Yahweh created me [Wisdom] when his purpose first unfolded,

before the oldest of his works. From everlasting I was firmly set, from

the beginning, before earth came into being…when he laid the

foundations of the earth, I was at his side, a master craftsman, delighting

him day after day, ever at play in his presence, at play everywhere in the

world, delighting to be with the sons of men” (Proverbs 8:22–23, 30–31;

The Jerusalem Bible)….

“In the Aramaic translations of the Hebrew scriptures known as the

targums, which were being composed at this time [i.e., when the John’s

Gospel was written], the term Memra (word) is used to describe God’s

activity in the world. It performs the same function as other technical

terms like ‘glory,’ ‘Holy Spirit,’ and ‘Shekinah’ which emphasized the

distinction between God’s presence in the world and the

incomprehensible reality of God itself. Like the divine Wisdom, the

‘Word’ symbolized God’s original plan for creation.”

The writings of early Church Fathers also indicate that this was the

meaning intended by Saint John. In Clement of Alexandria (Edinburgh:

William Blackwood and Sons, 1914) John Patrick states: “Clement

repeatedly identifies the Word with the Wisdom of God.” And Dr. Anne

Pasquier, professor of theology at Université Laval, Quebec, writes in

The Nag Hammadi Library After Fifty Years (John D. Turner and Anne

McGuire, editors; New York: Brill, 1997): “Philo, Clement of

Alexandria, and Origen…all associate the Logos with the word of God

in the Old Testament accounts of the creation when ‘God spoke and it

was done.’ The Valentinians do likewise….According to the

Valentinians, the prologue to John’s Gospel depicts a spiritual genesis,

the model for the material one, and it is seen as a spiritual interpretation

of the Old Testament accounts of the creation.”

However, the “Word” (as also “the only begotten Son”) came to

signify the person of Jesus only through a gradual evolution of doctrine

brought about by complex theological and political influences. It was

not until the fourth century, writes historian Karen Armstrong in A

History of God, that the church came to “adopt an exclusive notion of

religious truth: Jesus was the first and last Word of God to the human

race.” (Publisher’s Note)

“In the beginning….” With these words commence the cosmogonies of

the Old and New Testament alike. “Beginning” refers to the birth of finite

creation, for in the Eternal Absolute—Spirit—there is neither beginning nor

end….

Spirit, being the only existing Substance, had naught but Itself with

which to create. Spirit and Its universal creation could not be essentially

different, for two ever-existing Infinite Forces would consequently each be

absolute, which is by definition an impossibility. An orderly creation

requires the duality of Creator and created. Thus, Spirit first gave rise to a

Magic Delusion, Maya, the cosmic Magical Measurer,8 which produces the

illusion of dividing a portion of the Indivisible Infinite into separate finite

objects, even as a calm ocean becomes distorted into individual waves on

its surface by the action of a storm.

All creation is nothing but Spirit, seemingly and temporarily diversified

by Spirit’s creative vibratory activity.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word

was God. The same was in the beginning with God.

All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made

that was made.

In him was life; and the life was the light of men (John 1:1–4).

“Word” means intelligent vibration, intelligent energy, going forth from

God. Any utterance of a word, such as “flower,” expressed by an intelligent

being, consists of sound energy or vibration, plus thought, which imbues

that vibration with intelligent meaning. Likewise, the Word that is the

beginning and source of all created substances is Cosmic Vibration [Holy

Ghost] imbued with Cosmic Intelligence [Christ Consciousness].

Thought of matter, energy of which matter is composed, matter itself—

all things—are but the differently vibrating thoughts of the Spirit.

Before creation, there is only undifferentiated Spirit. In manifesting

creation, Spirit becomes God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost….

The Unmanifested Spirit became God the Father, the Creator of all

creative vibration. God the Father, in the Hindu scriptures, is called Ishvara

(the Cosmic Ruler) or Sat (the supreme pure essence of Cosmic

Consciousness)—the Transcendental Intelligence. That is, God the Father

exists transcendentally untouched by any tremor of vibratory creation—a

conscious, separate Cosmic Consciousness.

The vibratory force emanating from Spirit, endowed with the illusory

creative power of maya, is the Holy Ghost: Cosmic Vibration, the Word,

Aum (Om) or Amen.

The Word, the creative energy and sound of Cosmic Vibration, like the

sound waves of an unimaginably powerful earthquake, went out of the

Creator to manifest the universe. That Cosmic Vibration, permeated with

Cosmic Intelligence, was condensed into subtle elements—thermal,

electric, magnetic, and all manner of rays; thence into atoms of vapor

(gases), liquids, and solids.

A cosmic vibration omnipresently active in space could not of itself

create or sustain the wondrously complex cosmos….[Thus] the

transcendent consciousness of God the Father became manifest within the

Holy Ghost vibration as the Son—the Christ Consciousness, God’s

intelligence in all vibratory creation. This pure reflection of God in the Holy

Ghost indirectly guides it to create, re-create, preserve, and mold creation

according to God’s divine purpose.

The Vibratory Nature of Creation

Recent advances in what theoretical physicists call “superstring

theory” are leading science toward an understanding of the vibratory

nature of creation. Brian Greene, Ph.D., professor of physics at Cornell

and Columbia Universities, writes in The Elegant Universe:

Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate

Theory (New York: Vintage Books, 2000):

“During the last thirty years of his life, Albert Einstein sought

relentlessly for a so-called unified field theory—a theory capable of

describing nature’s forces within a single, all-encompassing, coherent

framework….Now, at the dawn of the new millennium, proponents of

string theory claim that the threads of this elusive unified tapestry finally

have been revealed….

“The theory suggests that the microscopic landscape is suffused with

tiny strings whose vibrational patterns orchestrate the evolution of the

universe,” Professor Greene writes, and tells us that “the length of a

typical string loop is…about a hundred billion billion (1020) times

smaller than an atomic nucleus.”

Professor Greene explains that by the end of the twentieth century,

science had determined that the physical universe was composed of a

very few fundamental particles, such as electrons, quarks (which are the

building blocks of protons and neutrons), and neutrinos. “Although each

particle was viewed as elementary,” he writes, “the kind of ‘stuff’ each

embodied was thought to be different. Electron ‘stuff,’ for example, had

negative electric charge, while neutrino ‘stuff’ had no electric charge.

String theory alters this picture radically by declaring that the ‘stuff’ of

all matter and all forces is the same.”

“According to string theory, there is only one fundamental ingredient

—the string,” Greene writes in The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time,

and the Texture of Reality (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004). He

explains that “just as a violin string can vibrate in different patterns,

each of which produces a distinct musical tone, the filaments of

superstring theory can also vibrate in different patterns….A tiny string

vibrating in one pattern would have the mass and the electric charge of

an electron; according to the theory, such a vibrating string would be

what we have traditionally called an electron. A tiny string vibrating in a

different pattern would have the requisite properties to identify it as a

quark, a neutrino, or any other kind of particle….Each arises from a

different vibrational pattern executed by the same underlying

entity….At the ultramicroscopic level, the universe would be akin to a

string symphony vibrating matter into existence.” (Publisher’s Note)

The Biblical writers, not versed in the terminologies that express the

knowledge of the modern age, quite aptly used “Holy Ghost” and “the

Word” to designate the character of the Intelligent Cosmic Vibration.

“Word” implies a vibratory sound, carrying materializing power. “Ghost”

implies an intelligent, invisible, conscious force. “Holy” describes this

Vibration because it is the manifestation of Spirit; and because it is trying to

create the universe according to the perfect pattern of God.

The designation in the Hindu scriptures of this “Holy Ghost” as Aum

signifies its role in God’s creative plan: A stands for akara, or creative

vibration; u for ukara, preservative vibration; and m for makara, the

vibratory power of dissolution. A storm roaring across the sea creates

waves, large and small, preserves them for some time, and then by

withdrawing dissolves them. So the Aum or Holy Ghost creates all things,

preserves them in myriad forms, and ultimately dissolves them in the sea-

bosom of God to be again re-created—a continuing process of renewal of

life and form in the ongoing cosmic dreaming of God.

Thus is the Word or Cosmic Vibration the origin of “all things”:

“without him was not anything made that was made.” The Word existed

from the very beginning of creation—God’s first manifestation in bringing

forth the universe. “The Word was with God”—imbued with God’s

reflected intelligence, Christ Consciousness—“and the Word was God”—

vibrations of His own one Being.

Saint John’s declaration echoes an eternal truth resonating in various

passages of the hoary Vedas: that the cosmic vibratory Word (Vak) was with

God the Father-Creator (Prajapati) in the beginning of creation, when

naught else existed; and that by Vak were made all things; and that Vak is

itself Brahman (God).

“These things saith the Amen [the Word, Aum], the faithful and true

witness, the beginning of the creation of God.”9 The holy Cosmic Sound of

Aum or Amen is the witness of the manifested Divine Presence in all

creation.

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost According to Yoga

The Holy Trinity of Christianity—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—in

relation to the ordinary concept of the incarnation of Jesus is wholly

inexplicable without differentiating between Jesus the body and Jesus the

vehicle in which the only begotten Son, Christ Consciousness, was

manifested. Jesus himself makes such distinction when speaking of his

body as the “son of man”; and of his soul, which was not circumscribed by

the body but was one with the only begotten Christ Consciousness in all

specks of vibration, as the “son of God.”

“God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son” to

redeem it; that is, God the Father remained hidden beyond the vibratory

realm that went out from His Being, but then secreted Himself as the Christ

Intelligence in all matter and in all living beings in order to bring, by

beautiful evolutional coaxings, all things back to His home of Everlasting

Blessedness. Without this presence of God ubiquitously permeating

creation, man would indeed feel bereft of Divine Succor—how sweetly,

sometimes almost imperceptibly, It comes to his aid when he bows his knee

in supplication. His Creator and Supreme Benefactor is never more than a

devotional thought away.

Saint John said: “As many as received him, to them gave he power to

become the sons of God.” The plural number in “sons of God” shows

distinctly, from the teachings he received from Jesus, that not the body of

Jesus but his state of Christ Consciousness was the only begotten son; and

that all those who could clarify their consciousness and receive, or in an

unobstructed way reflect, the power of God, could become the sons of God.

They could be one with the only begotten reflection of God in all matter, as

was Jesus; and through the son, Christ Consciousness, ascend to the Father,

the supreme Cosmic Consciousness.

India’s priceless contribution to the world, discovered anciently by her

rishis, is the science of religion—yoga, “divine union”—by which God can

be known, not as a theological concept but as an actual personal experience.

Of all scientific knowledge, the yoga science of God-realization is of the

highest value to man, for it strikes at the root-cause of all human maladies:

ignorance, the beclouding envelopment of delusion. When one becomes

firmly established in God-realization, delusion is transcended and the

subordinate mortal consciousness is elevated to Christlike status.

Receiving Christ Consciousness by Communion With the Holy

Ghost in Meditation

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of

God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood,

nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God (John 1:12–

13).

The light of God shines equally in all, but because of delusive ignorance

all do not receive, reflect, it alike. Sunlight falls the same on a lump of coal

and a diamond, but only the diamond receives and reflects the light in

brilliant splendor. The carbon in the coal has the potential to become a

diamond. All it requires is conversion under high pressure. So it is said here

that everyone can be like Christ—whosoever clarifies his consciousness by

a moral and spiritual life, and especially by the purification of meditation in

which rudimentary mortality is sublimed into the soul’s perfection of

immortality.

To be a son of God is not something one has to acquire: rather, one has

only to receive His light and realize God has already conferred on him, at

his very inception, that blessed status.

“Even to them that believe on his name”: When even the Name of God

rouses one’s devotion and anchors one’s thoughts in Him, it becomes a door

to salvation. When the mere mention of His name sets the soul afire with

love for God, it will start the devotee on his way to liberation.

The deeper meaning of “name” is a reference to Cosmic Vibration (the

Word, Aum, Amen). God as Spirit has no circumscribing name. Whether

one refers to the Absolute as God or Jehovah or Brahman or Allah, that

does not express Him. God the Creator and Father of all vibrates through

nature as the eternal life, and that life has the sound of the great Amen or

Aum. That name most accurately defines God. “Those who believe on his

name” means those who commune with that Aum sound, the voice of God

in the Holy Ghost vibration. When one hears that name of God, that Cosmic

Vibration, he is on his way to becoming a son of God, for in that sound his

consciousness touches the immanent Christ Consciousness, which will

introduce him to God as Cosmic Consciousness.

Sage Patanjali, India’s greatest exponent of yoga, describes God the

Creator as Ishvara, the Cosmic Lord or Ruler. “His symbol is Pranava (the

Holy Word or Sound, Aum). By prayerful, repeated chanting of Aum and

meditation on its meaning, obstacles disappear and the consciousness turns

inward (away from external sensory identification)” (Yoga Sutras I:27–

29).10

Essential sons of God, clear reflections of the Father untarnished by

delusion, have become sons of man by identification with the flesh and

forgetfulness of their origin in Spirit. Deluded man is just a beggar on the

street of time. But as Jesus received and reflected through his purified

consciousness the divine sonship of Christ Consciousness, so also every

man, by yoga meditation, can clarify his mind and become a diamondlike

mentality who will receive and reflect the light of God.

Baptism by the Holy Ghost

The ultimate baptism, acclaimed by John the Baptist and by all Self-

realized masters, is to be baptized “with the Holy Ghost, and with

fire”—that is, to become permeated with God’s presence in the holy

Creative Vibration whose omnipresent omniscience not only uplifts and

expands the consciousness, but whose fire of cosmic life energy actually

cauterizes sins of present bad habits and karmic effects of past erroneous

actions.

The uplifting vibrations of “the Comforter” bring profound inner

peace and joy. The Creative Vibration vitalizes the individual life force

in the body, which conduces to health and well-being, and can be

consciously directed as healing power to those in need of divine aid.

Being the source of intelligent creativity, the Aum vibration inspires

one’s own initiative, ingenuity, and will.

By contacting God…in meditation, all desires of the heart are

fulfilled; for nothing is more worthwhile, more pleasant or attractive

than the all-satisfying, ever-new joy of God….One who bathes his

consciousness in the Holy Ghost becomes unattached to personal desires

and objects while enjoying everything with the joyousness of God

within.

[An ecstatic experience of Paramahansa Yogananda in communion

with the Holy Ghost Cosmic Vibration of Aum:]

“When sensory perceptions vibrate their pleasures in the body, I

experience a heaviness; a weighty load hangs on the bosom of my soul,

and I feel drawn down to matter. But, O elevating Aum, when Thou dost

vibrate within me, oh, what exultant joy and lightness I feel. I soar

above the body. I am drawn toward Spirit. O great Aum, rolling ocean of

Aum, vibrate long within me so that I may remain awake to Thine

infinite presence, broadened into identity with the Universal Spirit. Oh,

this is the Voice of Heaven. This is the voice of Spirit. Aum, Thou art the

source of all life, of all expressions of creation in the universe. So let me

feel Thee, O great Mother Vibration, rolling within me as a part of Thy

Cosmic Self. Receive me; make me one with Thee. Never leave me; be

always rolling within me like a mighty spiritual ocean, calling to me and

revealing Thine oceanic presence. O Mighty Vibration, O Mighty Truth

that percolates through every atom of my flesh, peace and harmony

eternal, bliss and wisdom eternal, come with Thy presence, with Thy

universal resonance! Oh, these tiny joys, these tiny tonics of sensual

vibrations, I wish to forsake. Enfold me in Thy vibration and carry me

along with Thy rolling sound. Let me be free from the bondage of flesh;

let me roll on with Thine infinite vibratory ripples of omniscient joy, O

great Aum. Be with me, possess me, absolve me in Thee.”

The method of contacting this Cosmic Vibration, the Holy Ghost, is for

the first time being spread worldwide by means of definite meditation

techniques of the Kriya Yoga science. Through the blessing of communion

with the Holy Ghost, the cup of human consciousness is expanded to

receive the ocean of Christ Consciousness. The adept in the practice of the

science of Kriya Yoga who consciously experiences the presence of the

Holy Ghost Comforter and merges in the Son, or immanent Christ

Consciousness, attains thereby realization of God the Father and entry into

the infinite kingdom of God.

Christ will thus appear a second time in the consciousness of every

devout adept who masters the technique of contacting the Holy Ghost, the

bestower of indescribable blissful comfort in Spirit.

Yoga Science of the Spine: “Make Straight the Way of the

Lord”

There is a beautiful revelation of the way to that divine contact hidden

in the Biblical verses where John the Baptist describes himself:

I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the

way of the Lord, as said the prophet Isaiah (John 1:23).

When one’s senses are engaged outwardly, one is engrossed in the busy

mart of creation’s interacting complexities of matter. Even when one’s eyes

are closed in prayer or in other concentrated thoughts, still one is in the

domain of busyness. The real wilderness, where no mortal thoughts,

restlessness, or human desires, intrude, is in transcendence of the sensory

mind, the subconscious mind, and the superconscious mind—in the cosmic

consciousness of Spirit, the uncreate trackless “wilderness” of Infinite Bliss.

As John heard within himself in the wilderness of silence the all-

knowing Cosmic Sound, the intuitive wisdom commanded him silently:

“Make straight the way of the Lord.” Manifest the Lord, the subjective

Christ Consciousness in all cosmic vibratory creation, within yourself

through the intuitive feeling awakened when in the state of transcendental

ecstasy the divine metaphysical centers of life and consciousness are

opened in the straight spinal pathway.

Man’s body, unique among all creatures, possesses spiritual

cerebrospinal centers of divine consciousness in which the descended Spirit

is templed. These are known to the yogis, and to Saint John—who

described them in Revelation as the seven seals, and as seven stars and

seven churches, with their seven angels and seven golden candlesticks.

Yoga treatises explain the awakening of the spinal centers not as some

mystical aberration but as a purely natural occurrence common to all

devotees who find their way into the presence of God. The principles of

yoga know no artificial boundaries of religious isms. Yoga is the universal

science of divine union of the soul with Spirit, of man with his Maker.

Yoga describes the definite way Spirit descends from Cosmic

Consciousness into matter and individualized expression in all beings; and

how, conversely, individualized consciousness ultimately must reascend to

Spirit.

Many are the pathways of religion and the modes of approaching God;

but ultimately they all lead to one highway of final ascension to union with

Him. The way of liberation of the soul from its ties to mortal consciousness

in the body is identical for all: through the same “straight” highway of the

spine by which the soul descended from Spirit into the body and matter.11

Man’s true nature is the soul, a ray of Spirit. As God is ever-existing,

ever-conscious, ever-new Bliss, so the soul, by encasement in the body, is

individualized ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new Bliss.

The bodily covering of the soul is threefold in nature. The physical

body, with which man so affectionately and tenaciously identifies himself,

is little more than inert matter, a clod of earthly minerals and chemicals

made up of gross atoms. The physical body receives all its enlivening

energy and powers from an inner radiant astral body of lifetrons. The astral

body, in turn, is empowered by a causal body of pure consciousness,

consisting of all of the ideational principles that structure and maintain the

astral and physical bodily instruments employed by the soul to interact with

God’s creation.

The three bodies are tied together and work as one by a knotting of life

force and consciousness in seven spiritual cerebrospinal centers: a physical

bodily instrument, empowered by the life force of the astral body and the

consciousness from the causal form. In its residency in the triune body, the

soul takes on the limitations of confinement and becomes the pseudosoul,

or ego.

Descending first into the causal body of consciousness through the

ideational centers of the causal spine of magnetized consciousness, thence

into the wondrous spinal centers of light and power of the astral body, life

force and consciousness then descend into the physical body through the

brain and spine outward into the nervous system and organs and senses,

enabling man to cognize the world and interact with his material

environment.

The flow of the life force and consciousness outward through the spine

and nerves causes man to perceive and appreciate sensory phenomena only.

As attention is the conductor of man’s life currents and consciousness,

persons who indulge the senses of touch, smell, taste, sound, and sight find

the searchlights of their life force and consciousness concentrated on matter.

But when, by self-mastery in meditation, the attention is focused

steadily on the center of divine perception at the point between the

eyebrows, the searchlights of life force and consciousness are reversed.

Withdrawing from the senses, they reveal the light of the spiritual

eye….Through this eye of omnipresence the devotee enters into the realms

of divine consciousness.

Yoga and The Book of Revelation

“Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and

the things which shall be hereafter; the mystery of the seven stars which

thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The

seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven

candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches” (Revelation

1:19–20).

“And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book

written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a

strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, ‘Who is worthy to open the

book, and to loose the seals thereof ?’ ” (Revelation 5:1–2).

Yoga treatises identify these centers (in ascending order) as:

1. muladhara (the coccygeal, at the base of the spine);

2. svadhisthana (the sacral, two inches above muladhara);

3. manipura (the lumbar, opposite the navel);

4. anahata (the dorsal, opposite the heart);

5. vishuddha (the cervical, at the base of the neck);

6. ajna (seat of the spiritual eye, traditionally located between the

eyebrows; in actuality, directly connected by polarity with the

medulla oblongata);

7. sahasrara (“thousand-petalled lotus” in the uppermost part of

the cerebrum).

The seven centers are divinely planned exits or “trap doors” through

which the soul has descended into the body and through which it must

reascend by a process of meditation. By seven successive steps, the soul

escapes into Cosmic Consciousness. Yoga treatises generally refer to the

six lower centers as chakras (“wheels,” because the concentrated energy

in each one is like a hub from which radiate rays of life-giving light and

energy), with sahasrara referred to separately as a seventh center. All

seven centers, however, are often referred to as lotuses, whose petals

open, or turn upward, in spiritual awakening as the life and

consciousness travel up the spine.

By the right method of meditation and devotion, with the eyes closed

and concentrated on the spiritual eye, the devotee knocks at the gates of

heaven. When the eyes are focused and still, and the breath and mind are

calm, a light begins to form in the forehead. Eventually, with deep

concentration, the tricolored light of the spiritual eye becomes visible.12

Just seeing the single eye is not enough; it is more difficult for the devotee

to go into that light. But by practice of the higher methods, such as Kriya

Yoga, the consciousness is led inside the spiritual eye, into another world of

vaster dimensions.

In the gold halo of the spiritual eye, all creation is perceived as the

vibratory light of the Holy Ghost. The blue light of Christ Consciousness is

where the angels and deity agents of God’s individualized powers of

creation, preservation, and dissolution abide—as well as the most highly

evolved saints. Through the white light of the spiritual eye, the devotee

enters Cosmic Consciousness; he ascends unto God the Father.

India’s yogis (those who seek union with God through formal scientific

methods of yoga) lay the utmost importance on keeping the spine straight

during meditation, and upon concentrating on the point between the

eyebrows. A bent spine during meditation offers real resistance to the

process of reversing the life currents to flow upward towards the spiritual

eye. A bent spine throws the vertebrae out of alignment and pinches the

nerves, trapping the life force in its accustomed state of body consciousness

and mental restlessness.

The populace in Israel was looking for Christ in a physical body, so

John the Baptist assured them of the coming of one in whom Christ was

manifested; but he also told them subtly that anyone who wanted truly to

know Christ must receive him by uplifting the consciousness through the

spine in meditation (“the way of the Lord”).

John was emphasizing that just worshiping the body of Christ Jesus was

not the way to know him. The Christ Consciousness embodied in Jesus

could be realized only by awakening the astral centers of the spine, the

straight way of ascension by which the metaphysical Christ Consciousness

in the body of Jesus could be intuitionally perceived.

The words of the prophet Isaiah, which were echoed by John the

Baptist, show that both knew that the subjective Lord of Finite Vibratory

Creation, or Christ Consciousness, could be welcomed into one’s own

consciousness only through the meditation-awakened straight highway of

the spine.

Isaiah, John, the yogis, all know that to receive Christ Consciousness

more than a simple physical contact with a Christlike person is necessary.

One must know how to meditate—how to switch off the attention from the

distractions of the senses, and how to keep the consciousness fixed on the

altar of the spiritual eye where Christ Consciousness can be received in all

its glory.13

Every true religion leads to God, but some paths take a longer time

while others are shorter. No matter what God-ordained religion one follows,

its beliefs will merge in one and the same common experience of God.

Yoga is the unifying path that is followed by all religionists as they make

the final approach to God. Before one can reach God, there has to be the

“repentance” that turns the consciousness from delusive matter to the

kingdom of God within. This withdrawal retires the life force and mind

inward to rise through the spiritualizing centers of the spine to the supreme

states of divine realization. The final union with God and the stages

involved in this union are universal. That is yoga, the science of religion.

Divergent bypaths will meet on the highway of God; and that highway is

through the spine—the way to transcend body consciousness and enter the

infinite divine kingdom.

The Astral Body of Life Energy

Scientific discovery of the electromagnetic energy that forms an

organizing template for the physical body is described in Vibrational

Medicine (Rochester, Vermont: Bear and Company, 2001), by Richard

Gerber, M.D.: “Neuroanatomist Harold S. Burr at Yale University

during the 1940s was studying the shape of energy fields”—which he

termed “fields of life” or “L-fields”—“around living plants and animals.

Some of Burr’s work involved the shape of electrical fields surrounding

salamanders. He found that the salamanders possessed an energy field

roughly shaped like the adult animal. He also discovered that this field

contained an electrical axis which was aligned with the brain and spinal

cord. Burr wanted to find precisely when this electrical axis first

originated in the animal’s development. He began mapping the fields in

progressively earlier stages of salamander embryogenesis. Burr

discovered that the electrical axis originated in the unfertilized

egg….Burr also experimented with the electrical fields around tiny

seedlings. According to his research, the electrical field around a sprout

was not the shape of the original seed. Instead the surrounding electrical

field resembled the adult plant.”

In Blueprint for Immortality: The Electric Patterns of Life (Essex,

England: Saffron Walden, 1972), Professor Burr describes his research:

“Most people who have taken high-school science will remember that if

iron filings are scattered on a card held over a magnet they will arrange

themselves in the pattern of the ‘lines of force’ of the magnet’s field.

And if the filings are thrown away and fresh ones scattered on the card,

the new filings will assume the same pattern as the old.

“Something like this—though infinitely more complicated—happens

in the human body. Its molecules and cells are constantly being torn

apart and rebuilt with fresh material from the food we eat. But thanks to

the controlling L-field, the new molecules and cells are rebuilt and

arrange themselves in the same pattern as the old ones.

“Modern research with ‘tagged’ elements has revealed that the

materials of our bodies and brains are renewed much more often than

was previously realized. All the protein in the body, for example, is

‘turned over’ every six months and, in some organs such as the liver, the

protein is renewed much more frequently. When we meet a friend we

have not seen for six months there is not one molecule in his face which

was there when we last saw him. But, thanks to his controlling L-field,

the new molecules have fallen into the old, familiar pattern and we can

recognize his face. Until modern instruments revealed the existence of

the controlling L-fields, biologists were at a loss to explain how our

bodies ‘kept in shape’ through ceaseless metabolism and changes of

material. Now the mystery has been solved, the electrodynamic field of

the body serves as a matrix or mould, which preserves the ‘shape’ or

arrangement of any material poured into it, however often the material

may be changed.” (Publisher’s Note)

Spiritual truth and wisdom are found not in any words of a priest or

preacher, but in the “wilderness” of inner silence. The Sanskrit scriptures

say: “There are many sages with their scriptural and spiritual

interpretations, apparently contradictory, but the real secret of religion is

hidden in a cave.” True religion lies within oneself, in the cave of stillness,

in the cave of calm intuitive wisdom, in the cave of the spiritual eye. By

concentrating on the point between the eyebrows and delving into the

depths of quiet in the luminous spiritual eye, one can find answers to all the

religious queries of the heart. “The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost…

shall teach you all things” (John 14:26).

Yoga Bestows the True Baptism in Spirit

The way of ascension was made manifest in the baptism of Jesus. As

told in the Gospel According to Saint Matthew:

And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the

water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the

Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo

a voice from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I

am well pleased” (Matthew 3:16–17).

When one is baptized by immersion in the light of Spirit, the

microcosmic spiritual eye in the body may be seen in its relation to the light

of descending Spirit as the Cosmic Trinity. In the baptism of Jesus, this is

described metaphorically as “Spirit descending like a dove, and lighting

upon him.” The dove symbolizes the spiritual eye, seen by deeply

meditating devotees at the Christ Consciousness center in the forehead

between the two physical eyes.

This eye of light and consciousness appears as a golden aura (the Holy

Ghost Vibration) surrounding an opal-blue sphere (Christ Consciousness) in

the center of which is a five-pointed star of brilliant white light (doorway to

the Cosmic Consciousness of Spirit).

The threefold light of God in the spiritual eye is symbolized by a dove

because it brings perennial peace. Also, looking in the spiritual eye

produces in man’s consciousness the purity signified by the dove.

The mouth of the symbolic dove represents the star in the spiritual eye,

the secret passage to Cosmic Consciousness. The two wings of the dove

represent the two spheres of consciousness emanating from Cosmic

Consciousness: The blue light of the spiritual eye is the microcosm of the

subjective Christ Intelligence in all creation; and the golden ring of light in

the spiritual eye is the microcosmic objective cosmic energy, Cosmic

Vibration, or Holy Ghost.

During baptism by Spirit in the form of the Holy Ghost as experienced

by Jesus, he saw the light of the spiritual eye as descended from the

macrocosmic Divine Light; and from this came the voice of Aum, the

intelligent, all-creative heavenly sound, vibrating as an intelligible voice:

“Thou art My Son, having lifted thy consciousness from the limitation

of the body and all matter to realize thyself as one with My perfect

reflection, My only begotten image, immanent in all manifestation. I am

Bliss, and My joy I express in thy rejoicing in attunement with My

Omnipresence.”

Jesus felt his consciousness attuned to the Christ Consciousness, the

“only begotten” reflection of God the Father’s Intelligence in the Holy

Vibration: he first felt his body as the entire vibratory creation in which his

little body was included; then within his cosmic body of all creation, he

experienced his oneness with God’s innate Presence as the Infinite Christ or

Universal Intelligence, a magnetic aura of blissful Divine Love in which

God’s presence holds all beings.

In deepest meditation, as practiced by those who are advanced in the

technique of Kriya Yoga, the devotee experiences not only expansion in the

Aum vibration “Voice from heaven,” but finds himself able also to follow

the microcosmic light of Spirit in the “straight way” of the spine into the

light of the spiritual eye “dove descending from heaven.”…

Through his two physical eyes, man sees only his body and a little

portion of the earth at a time. But spiritual baptism or initiation received

from a true guru expands the consciousness. Anyone who can see, as did

Jesus, the spiritual dove alight on him—that is, who can behold his spiritual

eye of omnipresent omniscience—and through perseverance in ever deeper

meditation penetrate his gaze through its light, will perceive the entire

kingdom of Cosmic Energy and the consciousness of God existing within it

and beyond, in the Infinite Bliss of Spirit.14

8 The Sanskrit word maya (cosmic delusion) means “the measurer”; it is the magical power in

creation by which limitations and divisions are apparently present in the Immeasurable and

Inseparable.

9 Revelation 3:14. Aum of the Vedas became the sacred word Hum of the Tibetans, Amin of the

Moslems, and Amen of the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Jews, and Christians. The meaning of Amen

in Hebrew is “sure, faithful.”

10 Patanjali’s date is unknown, though many scholars assign him to the second century B.C. His

renowned Yoga Sutras presents, in a series of brief aphorisms, the condensed essence of the

exceedingly vast and intricate science of God-union—setting forth the method of uniting the soul

with the undifferentiated Spirit in such a beautiful, clear, and concise way that generations of scholars

have acknowledged the Yoga Sutras as the foremost ancient work on yoga.

11 “And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean

shall not pass over it….but the redeemed shall walk there. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return,

and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness,

and sorrow and sighing shall flee away” (Isaiah 35:8–10).

12 “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of

light” (Matthew 6:22).

13 Whatever celestial star might have indicated to the Wise Men the birth of Jesus, it was a “star in

the east” of greater power by which they knew of the coming on earth of Christ Jesus: the

allrevealing light of the spiritual eye of the soul’s intuitive divine perception located in the “east” of

the body—in a subtle spiritual center of Christ Consciousness in the forehead between the two

physical eyes.

14 In his Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda wrote: “The world illusion, maya,

manifests in men as avidya, literally, ‘not-knowledge,’ ignorance, delusion. Maya or avidya can

never be destroyed through intellectual conviction or analysis, but solely through attaining the

interior state of nirbikalpa samadhi. The Old Testament prophets, and seers of all lands and ages,

spoke from that state of consciousness.

“Ezekiel said: ‘Afterwards he brought me to the gate, even the gate that looketh toward the east:

and, behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east: and his voice was like a

noise of many waters: and the earth shined with his glory.’ Through the divine eye in the forehead

(east), the yogi sails his consciousness into omnipresence, hearing the Word or Aum, divine sound of

‘many waters’: the vibrations of light that constitute the sole reality of creation.”

CHAPTER 4

The “Second Birth”:

Awakening of Soul-Intuition

Hidden Truth in Jesus’ Parables

And the disciples came, and said unto him, “Why speakest thou unto them

in parables?” He answered and said unto them, “Because it is given unto

you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not

given….Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not;

and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand” (Matthew 13:10, 11,

13).

hen Jesus was asked by his disciples why he taught the people in the

subtle illustrations of parables, he answered, “Because it is so

ordained that you who are my real disciples, living a spiritualized life and

disciplining your actions according to my teachings, deserve by virtue of

your inner awakening in your meditations to understand the truth of the

arcane mysteries of heaven and how to attain the kingdom of God, Cosmic

Consciousness hidden behind the vibratory creation of cosmic delusion.

“But ordinary people, unprepared in their receptivity, are not able either

to comprehend or to practice the deeper wisdom-truths. From parables, they

glean according to their understanding simpler truths from the wisdom I

send out to them. By practical application of what they are able to receive,

they make some progress toward redemption.”…

How do the receptive perceive truth, whereas the unreceptive “seeing

see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand”? The

ultimate truths of heaven and the kingdom of God, the reality that lies

behind sensory perception and beyond the cogitations of the rationalizing

mind, can only be grasped by intuition—awakening the intuitive knowing,

the pure comprehension, of the soul.

There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews:

The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, “Rabbi, we know that

thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that

thou doest, except God be with him.”

Jesus answered and said unto him, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee,

except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Nicodemus saith unto him, “How can a man be born when he is old?

Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?”

Jesus answered, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of

water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That

which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is

spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, ‘Ye must be born again.’ The wind

bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not

tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of

the Spirit” (John 3:1–8).

Nicodemus visited Jesus secretly in the night, for he feared social

criticism. It was an act of courage for one of his position to approach the

controversial teacher and to declare his faith in Jesus’ divine stature. He

reverently affirmed his conviction that only a master who had actual God-

communion could work the superlaws that govern the inner life of all

beings and all things.

In reply, Christ forthrightly directed Nicodemus’ attention to the

heavenly Source of all phenomena in creation—mundane as well as

“miraculous”—pointing out succinctly that anyone can contact that Source

and know the wonders that proceed therefrom, even as Jesus himself did, by

undergoing the spiritual “second birth” of intuitional soul-awakening.

The superficially curious crowds attracted by displays of phenomenal

powers received only scantily from the wisdom trove of Jesus, but the

manifest sincerity of Nicodemus elicited from the Master determinate

guidance that emphasized the Supreme Power and Goal on which man

should concentrate. Miracles of wisdom to enlighten the mind are superior

to miracles of physical healing and the subjugation of nature; and the even

greater miracle is the healing of the root-cause of every form of suffering:

delusive ignorance that obscures the unity of man’s soul and God. That

primordial forgetfulness is vanquished only by Self-realization, through the

intuitive power by which the soul directly apprehends its own nature as

individualized Spirit and perceives Spirit as the essence of everything.

All bona fide revealed religions of the world are based on intuitive

knowledge. Each has an exoteric or outer particularity, and an esoteric or

inner core. The exoteric aspect is the public image, and includes moral

precepts and a body of doctrines, dogmas, dissertations, rules, and customs

to guide the general populace of its followers. The esoteric aspect includes

methods that focus on actual communion of the soul with God. The exoteric

aspect is for the many; the esoteric is for the ardent few. It is the esoteric

aspect of religion that leads to intuition, the firsthand knowledge of Reality.

The lofty Sanatana Dharma of the Vedic philosophy of ancient India—

summarized in the Upanishads and in the six classical systems of

metaphysical knowledge, and peerlessly encapsulated in the Bhagavad Gita

—is based on intuitional perception of the Transcendental Reality.

Buddhism, with its various methods of controlling the mind and gaining

depth in meditation, advocates intuitive knowledge to realize the

transcendence of nirvana. Sufism in Islam anchors on the intuitive mystical

experience of the soul.15 Within the Jewish religion are esoteric teachings

based on inner experience of the Divine, evidenced abundantly in the

legacy of the God-illumined Biblical prophets. Christ’s teachings are fully

expressive of that realization. The apostle John’s Revelation is a remarkable

disclosure of the soul’s intuitional perception of deepest truths garbed in

metaphor.

The “second birth,” the necessity of which Jesus speaks, admits us to

the land of intuitional perception of truth. The New Testament may not have

been scribed with the word “intuition,” but it is replete with references to

intuitive knowledge. Indeed, the twenty-one verses describing Nicodemus’

visit present, in condensed epigrammatic sayings so typical of Oriental

scripture, Jesus’ comprehensive esoteric teachings relating to the practical

attainment of the infinite kingdom of blissful divine consciousness.

These verses have been largely interpreted in support of such doctrines

as baptism of the body by water as a prerequisite for entering God’s

kingdom after death (John 3:5); that Jesus is the only “son of God” (John

3:16); that mere “belief” in Jesus is sufficient for salvation, and that all are

condemned who do not so believe (John 3:17–18).

Such exoteric reading of scripture engulfs in dogma the universality of

religion. A panorama of unity unfolds in an understanding of esoteric truth.

“Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

This choice of words by Jesus is an allusion to his familiarity with the

Eastern spiritual doctrine of reincarnation. One meaning to be drawn from

this precept is that the soul has to be born repeatedly in various bodies until

it reawakens to realization of its native perfection. It is a false hope to

believe that at bodily death the soul automatically enters into an everlasting

angelic existence in heaven. Unless and until one attains perfection by

removing the debris of karma (effects of one’s actions) from the

individualized God-image of his soul, he cannot enter God’s kingdom.16

The ordinary person, constantly creating new karmic bondage by his wrong

actions and material desires, adding to the accumulated effects of numerous

previous incarnations, cannot free his soul in one lifetime. It takes many

lifetimes of physical, mental, and spiritual evolution to work out all karmic

entanglements that block soul intuition, the pure knowing without which

one cannot “see the kingdom of God.”

The principal import of Jesus’ words to Nicodemus goes beyond an

implied reference to reincarnation. This is clear from Nicodemus’ request

for further explanation of how an adult could reach God’s kingdom: Must

he reenter his mother’s womb and be reborn? Jesus elaborates in the

succeeding verses as to how a person can be “born again” in his present

incarnation—how a soul identified with the flesh and sense limitations can

acquire by meditation a new birth in Cosmic Consciousness.

“Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter

into the kingdom of God.”

To be “born of water” is usually interpreted as a mandate for the outer

ritual of baptism by water—a symbolic rebirth—in order to be eligible for

God’s kingdom after death. But Jesus did not mention a rebirth involving

water. “Water” here means protoplasm; the body is made up mostly of

water and begins its earthly existence in the amniotic fluid of the mother’s

womb. Though the soul has to go through the natural process of birth that

God has established through His biological laws, physical birth is not

enough for man to be fit to see or enter into the kingdom of God.

The ordinary consciousness is tied to the flesh, and through the two

physical eyes man can see only into the diminutive playhouse of this earth

and its encircling starry sky. Through the small outer windows of the five

senses, body-bound souls perceive nothing of the wonders beyond limited

matter.

When a person is high aloft in an airplane he sees no boundaries, only

the limitlessness of space and free skies. But if he is caged in a room,

surrounded by windowless walls, he loses the vision of vastness.

Similarly, when man’s soul is sent out of the infinity of Spirit into a

sensory-circumscribed mortal body, his outer experiences are confined to

the limitations of matter. So Jesus alluded to the fact, as expressed by

modern scientists, that we can see and know only as much as the limited

instrumentality of the senses and reason allow.

Just as by a two-inch telescope the details of the distant stars cannot be

seen, so Jesus was saying that man cannot see or know anything about the

heavenly kingdom of God through the unaugmented power of his mind and

senses. However, a 200-inch telescope enables man to peer into the vast

reaches of star-peopled space; and similarly, by developing the intuitional

sense through meditation he can behold and enter the causal and astral

kingdom of God—birthplace of thoughts, stars, and souls.

Jesus points out that after man’s soul becomes incarnate—born of water,

or protoplasm—he should transcend the mortal impositions of the body by

self-development. Through awakening the “sixth sense,” intuition, and

opening the spiritual eye, his illumined consciousness can enter into the

kingdom of God. In this second birth the body remains the same; but the

soul’s consciousness, instead of being tied to the material plane, is free to

roam in the boundless, eternally joyous empire of Spirit.

God intended His human children to live on earth with an awakened

perception of the Spirit informing all creation, and thus to enjoy His dream-

drama as a cosmic entertainment. Alone among living creatures, the human

body was equipped, as a special creation of God, with the instruments and

capacities necessary to express fully the soul’s divine potentials. But

through the delusion of Satan, man ignores his higher endowments and

remains attached to the limited fleshly form and its mortality.

As individualized souls, Spirit progressively unfolds Its power of

knowing through the successive stages of evolution: as unconscious

response in minerals, as feeling in plant life, as instinctive sentient

knowledge in animals, as intellect, reason, and undeveloped introspective

intuition in man, and as pure intuition in the superman.

It is said that after eight million lives traveling the successive steps of

upward evolution like a prodigal son through the cycles of incarnations, at

last the soul arrives in a human birth. Originally, human beings were pure

sons of God. Nobody knows the divine consciousness enjoyed by Adam

and Eve except the saints. Ever since the Fall, man’s misuse of his

independence, he has lost that consciousness by associative equivalence of

himself with the fleshly ego and its mortal desires. Not altogether

uncommon are persons more like instinct-motivated animals than

intellectually responsive human beings. They are so materially minded that

when you talk about food or sex or money they understand and reflexively

respond, like Pavlov’s famous salivating dog. But try to engage them in a

meaningful philosophical exchange about God or the mystery of life, and

their uncomprehending reaction is as though their conversationalist were

crazy.

The spiritual man is trying to free himself from the materiality that is the

cause of his prodigal wandering in the maze of incarnations, but the

ordinary man does not want more than a betterment of his earthly existence.

As instinct confines the animal within prescribed limits, so also does reason

circumscribe the human being who does not try to be a superman by

developing intuition. The person who worships reason only and is not

conscious of the availability of his power of intuition—by which alone he

can know himself as soul—remains little more than a rational animal, out of

touch with the spiritual heritage that is his birthright.

The body born of flesh has the limitations of the flesh, whereas the soul,

born of the Spirit, has potentially limitless powers. By meditation, man’s

consciousness is transferred from the body to the soul, and through the

soul’s power of intuition he experiences himself not as a mortal body (a

phenomenon of objective nature), but as immortal indwelling

consciousness, one with the noumenal Divine Essence.

Man remains firmly convinced that he is essentially a body, even though

he daily receives proof to the contrary. Every night in sleep, “the little

death,” he discards his identification with the physical form and is reborn as

invisible consciousness. Why is it that man is compelled to sleep? Because

sleep is a reminder of what is beyond the state of sleep—the state of the

soul. Mortal existence could not be borne without at least subconscious

contact with the soul, which is provided by sleep.

At nighttime man dumps the body into the subconscious and becomes

an angel; in the daytime he becomes once more a devil, divorced from

Spirit by the desires and sensations of the body. By Kriya Yoga meditation

he can be a god in the daytime, like Christ and the Great Ones. He goes

beyond the subconscious to the superconscious, and dissolves the

consciousness of the body in the ecstasy of God. One who can do this is

born again.

This earth is a habitat of trouble and suffering, but the kingdom of God

that is behind this material plane is an abode of freedom and bliss. The soul

of the awakening man has followed a hard-earned way—many incarnations

of upward evolution—in order to arrive at the human state and the

possibility to reclaim his lost divinity. Yet how many human births have

been wasted in preoccupation with food and money and gratification of the

body and egoistic emotions! Each person should ask himself how he is

using the precious moments of this present birth. Eventually the bodies of

all human beings fall painfully apart; isn’t it better to separate the soul from

the body consciousness—to keep the body as the temple of the Spirit? O

Soul, you are not the body; why not remember always that you are the

Spirit of God?17

Jesus said that we must reestablish our connection with Eternity; we

must be born again. Man has either to follow the circuitous route of

reincarnations to work out his karma, or—by a technique such as Kriya

Yoga and the help of a true guru—to awaken the divine faculty of intuition

and know himself as a soul, that is, be born again in Spirit. By the latter

method he can see and enter the kingdom of God in this lifetime.

Sooner or later, after a few or many painful incarnations, the soul in

every human being will cry out to remind him that his home is not here, and

he will begin in earnest to retrace his steps to his rightful heavenly

kingdom. When one is very desirous to know Truth, God sends a master

through whose devotion and realization He plants His love in that person’s

heart.

Human birth is given by one’s parents; but the spiritual birth is given by

the God-ordained guru. In the Vedic tradition of ancient India, the newly

born child is called kayastha, which means “body identified.” The two

physical eyes, which look into alluring matter, are bequeathed by the

physical parents; but at the time of initiation, spiritual baptism, the spiritual

eye is opened by the guru. Through the help of the guru, the initiate learns

to use this telescopic eye to see Spirit, and then becomes dwija, “twice-

born”—the same metaphysical terminology used by Jesus—and begins his

progress toward the state of becoming a Brahmin, one who knows Brahman

or Spirit.

The matter-bound soul, lifted into the Spirit by God-contact, is born a

second time, in Spirit. Alas, even in India this initiation from body

consciousness to spiritual consciousness has become just a formality, a

caste ceremony performed on young Brahmin boys by ordinary priests—

tantamount to the symbolic ritual of baptism with water. But Jesus, like

great Hindu masters of ancient and modern times, conferred the actual

baptism of Spirit—“with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.” A true guru is one

who can change the disciple’s brain cells by the spiritual current flowing

from God through his enlightened consciousness. All will feel that change

who are in tune—who meditate sincerely and deeply and, as in the practice

of Kriya Yoga, learn to send the divine current into the brain cells. The soul

is bound to the body by cords of karma, woven by lifetimes of material

desires, behavior, and habits. Only the life current can change one’s life,

destroying those millions of karmic records. Then one is born again; the

soul opens the inner window of oneness with the Spirit and enters into the

perception of the wondrous omnipresence of God.

So the term “born again” means much more than merely joining a

church and receiving ceremonial baptism. Belief alone will not give the

soul a permanent place in heaven after death; it is necessary to have

communion with God now. Human beings are made angels on earth, not in

heaven. At death, wherever one leaves off in his progress, he will have to

start in again in a new incarnation. After sleep one is the same as before

sleep; after death one is the same as before death.

That is why Christ and the Masters say it is necessary to become saintly

before the sleep of death. It cannot be done by filling the mind with mortal

attachments and useless diversions. One who is engrossed in storing up

treasure on earth is not busy with God; one who is intent on God does not

want many fillers in his life. It is by freeing oneself from earthly desires that

one gains entry into the kingdom of God. The Lord patiently waits for one

hundred percent of man’s devotion; for those who diligently seek Him

every day, and who fulfill His commandments through godly behavior, He

opens the door to the kingdom of His presence.

A multitude of lectures about sunshine and scenic beauties will not

enable me to see them if my eyes are closed. So it is that people do not see

God who is omnipresent in everything unless and until they open their

spiritual eye of intuitive perception. When one can perceive that he is not

the mortal body but a spark of the Infinite Spirit cloaked in a concentration

of life energy, then he will be able to see the kingdom of God. He will

realize that the composition of his body and the universe is not soul-

imprisoning matter, but expansive, indestructible energy and consciousness.

Science has proved this truth; and each individual can experience it.

Through Kriya Yoga, he can have the unshakable realization that he is that

great Light and Consciousness of Spirit.

O man, how long will you remain a rational animal? How long will you

fruitlessly try to look into the endless tracts of creation with only your

myopic eyes of senses and reason? How long will you remain bound to

satisfying the demands of animal man? Shed all constraining fetters; know

yourself as something immortal, having limitless powers and faculties. No

more this age-old dream of rational animal! Wake up! you are the

intuitional child of immortality!

15 See Paramahansa Yogananda’s Wine of the Mystic: The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam—A Spiritual

Interpretation (published by Self-Realization Fellowship).

16 “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).

17 “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?”(I

Corinthians 3:16).

CHAPTER 5

“Lifting Up the Son of Man” to Divine

Consciousness

Nicodemus answered and said unto him, “How can these things be?”

Jesus answered and said unto him, “Art thou a master of Israel, and

knowest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, we speak that we do

know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. If I have

told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you

of heavenly things?

“And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from

heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the

serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that

whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John

3:9–15).

esus, in addressing Nicodemus, observed that merely holding the

ceremonial office of a master of the house of Israel did not guarantee an

understanding of the mysteries of life. Often persons are accorded religious

titles by virtue of intellectual knowledge of the scriptures; but a full

comprehension of the esoteric depths of truth can be known only by

intuitive experience.

“We speak that we do know” is knowledge deeper than the information

derived through sensory-dependent intellect and reason. Since the senses

are limited, so is intellectual understanding. The senses and mind are the

outer doors through which knowledge percolates into the consciousness.

Human knowledge filters in through the senses and is interpreted by the

mind. If the senses err in perception, the conclusion drawn by the

understanding of that data is also incorrect.

A white gossamer cloth fluttering in the distance may look like a ghost,

and a superstitious person believes that it is a ghost; but closer observation

reveals the error of that conclusion. The senses and understanding are easily

deluded because they cannot grasp the real nature, the essential character

and substance, of created things.

Jesus, with his intuition, had full realization of the noumena supporting

the workings of the cosmos and its diversity of life, so he said

authoritatively: “We do know.”

Jesus was attuned to the grand scheme of manifestation behind all

space, behind earthly vision. To belligerent minds he could not speak

openly of his omnipresent perceptions—even the truths he did tell brought

crucifixion! He said to Nicodemus: “If I tell you about matters pertaining to

human souls who are visibly present on earth, and how they can enter into

the kingdom of God, and you believe not, then how can you believe me if I

tell you about happenings in the heavenly realms, which are completely

hidden from the ordinary human gaze?”

Though Jesus regretted, with accommodating patience, that Nicodemus

doubted the intuitional revelations of the Christ state, he went on to tell his

visitor the way in which he—and any other seeker of truth—could

experience these truths for himself.

So many doubt heaven because they do not see it. Yet they do not doubt

the breeze simply because it is unseen. It is known by its sound and

sensation on the skin and the motion in the leaves and other objects. The

whole universe lives, moves, breathes because of the invisible presence of

God in the heavenly forces behind matter.

Once a man gave some olives to another who had never seen olives, and

said, “These have a lot of oil in them.” The person cut the fruit but could

see no oil—until his friend showed him how to squeeze the olives in order

to extract the oil from the pulp. So it is with God. Everything in the

universe is saturated with His presence—the twinkling stars, the rose, the

song of the bird, our minds. His Being permeates everything, everywhere.

But one has metaphorically to “squeeze” God out of His material

concealment.

Inner concentration is the way to realize the subtle, prolific heaven

behind this gross universe. Seclusion is the price of greatness and God-

contact. All who are willing to snatch time from the greedy material world

to devote it instead to the divine search can learn to behold the wondrous

factory of creation out of which all things are born. From the heavenly

causal and astral spheres every physically incarnate soul has descended, and

every soul can reascend by retreating to the “wilderness” of interior silence

and practicing the scientific method of lifting up the life force and

consciousness from body identification to union with God.

“And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from

heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the

serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up” (John

3:13–14).

This passage is very important, and little understood. Taken literally, the

words “lifted up the serpent” are at best a classic scriptural ambiguity.

Every symbol has a hidden meaning that must be rightly interpreted.

The word “serpent” here refers metaphorically to man’s consciousness

and life force in the subtle coiled passageway at the base of the spine, the

matterward flow of which is to be reversed for man to reascend from body

attachment to superconscious freedom.

As souls we were all originally in God’s bosom. Spirit projects the

desire to create an individualized expression of Itself. The soul becomes

manifest and projects the idea of the body in causal form. The idea becomes

energy, or the lifetronic astral body. The astral body becomes condensed

into the physical body. Through the integrated spinal passageway of these

three instrumental media, the soul descends into identification with the

material body and gross matter.

“He that came down from heaven” means the physical body. (Jesus

refers to the human body as “man”; throughout the Gospels he spoke of his

own physical body as “the Son of man,” as distinguished from his Christ

Consciousness, “the Son of God.”) Man descends from the heavenly planes

of God’s creation when his soul, garbed in its causal body of God-

congealed ideas and its astral body of light, takes on an outer covering of

material tissue. So not only Jesus but all of God’s children have “come

down from heaven.”

No human body has ascended into heaven, the etheric essence of which

does not accommodate corporeal forms; but all souls can and will enter the

supernal realms when, through death or through spiritual transcendence,

they cast off physical consciousness and know themselves as angelic beings

garbed in thought and light.

We are all made in the image of God, beings of immortal consciousness

cloaked in diaphanous heavenly light—a heritage buried beneath the

cloddish flesh. That heritage we can only acknowledge by meditation.

There is no other way—not by reading books, not by philosophical study,

but by devotion and continuous prayer and scientific meditation that uplifts

the consciousness to God.

Jesus spoke of an extraordinary truth when he mentioned “the Son of

man which is in heaven.” Ordinary souls behold their bodies (“Son of

man”) roaming only on the earth, but free souls such as Jesus dwell

simultaneously in the physical and in the astral and causal heavenly

kingdoms….

So Jesus’ words are very simple and very wonderful: Even while

dwelling in a body in the physical world, he was beholding himself as a ray

of God descending from heaven. He demonstrated this conclusively after

his death, re-creating his physical body from rays of cosmic creative light,

and later dematerializing it in the presence of his disciples when he

ascended back to heaven….

While Jesus, in his God-ordained incarnation, was effectually engaged

in his Heavenly Father’s work in the world, he could in truth proclaim: “I

am in heaven.” This is the highest ecstasy of God-consciousness, defined by

yogis as nirvikalpa samadhi, an ecstatic state “without difference” between

external consciousness and interior God-union. In savikalpa samadhi, “with

difference,” a less exalted state, one is not conscious of the outer world; the

body enters an inert trance while the awareness is immersed in interior

conscious oneness with God. The most advanced masters can be fully

conscious of God and not show any signs of the body being transfixed; the

devotee drinks God and simultaneously is conscious and fully active in his

external environment—if he so chooses.

This declaration of Jesus offers great encouragement to every soul:

Although man is beset with the perplexities that accompany residence in a

physical body, God has provided him with the potential to remain in

heavenly consciousness regardless of outer circumstances. An inebriate

takes his drunkenness with him no matter where he goes. One who is sick is

all the time preoccupied with his sickness. One who is happy is ever

bubbling with good cheer. And the one who is conscious of God enjoys that

supreme Bliss whether he is active in the outer world or absorbed in inner

communion.

Again and again in the Gospels, Jesus emphasizes that what he attained,

all may attain. His next remark to Nicodemus shows how.

“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must

the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should

not perish, but have eternal life.”

Jesus said that each son of man, each bodily consciousness, must be

lifted from the plane of the senses to the astral kingdom by reversing the

matter-bent outflowing of the life force to ascension through the serpent-

like coiled passage at the base of the spine—the son of man is lifted up

when this serpentine force is uplifted, “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the

wilderness.” We must reascend, just as Moses, in the spiritual wilderness of

silence in which all his desires were no more, lifted his soul from body

consciousness into God-consciousness through the same path by which it

had descended.

As explained earlier, man’s physical, astral, and causal bodies are tied

together and work as one by a knotting of life force and consciousness in

the seven cerebrospinal centers. In descending order, the final tie is a coiled

knot at the base of the spine, preventing the ascension of consciousness into

the heavenly astral kingdom. Unless one knows how to open this knot of

astral and physical power, the life and consciousness remain attracted to the

mortal realm, emanating outward into the body and sensory consciousness.

Most energy moves through space in a spiral form—a ubiquitous motif

in the macrocosmic and microscopic architecture of the universe. Beginning

with galactic nebulae—the cosmic birth-cradle of all matter—energy flows

in coiled or circular or vortex-like patterns. The theme is repeated in the

orbital dance of electrons around their atomic nucleus, and (as cited in

Hindu scriptures of ancient origin) of planets and suns and stellar systems

spinning through space around a grand center of the universe. Many

galaxies are spiral-shaped; and countless other phenomena in nature—

plants, animals, the winds and storms—similarly evidence the invisible

whorls of energy underlying their shape and structure. Such is the “serpent

force” (kundalini) in the microcosm of the human body: the coiled current

at the base of the spine, a tremendous dynamo of life that when directed

outward sustains the physical body and its sensory consciousness; and when

consciously directed upward, opens the wonders of the astral cerebrospinal

centers.

When the soul, in its subtle sheaths of causal and astral bodies, enters

physical incarnation at the time of conception, the entire body grows from

the seed cell formed from the united sperm and ovum, beginning with the

first vestiges of the medulla oblongata, brain, and spinal cord.

From its original seat in the medulla, the intelligent life energy of the

astral body flows downward—activating the specialized powers in the astral

cerebrospinal chakras that create and give life to the physical spine,

nervous system, and all other bodily organs. When the work of the primal

life force in creating the body is complete, it comes to rest in a coiled

passage in the lowest, or coccygeal, center. The coiled configuration in this

astral center gives to the life energy therein the terminology of kundalini or

serpent force (from Sanskrit kundala, “coiled”). Its creative work

completed, the concentration of life force in this center is said to be

“sleeping” kundalini, for as it emanates outward into the body, continuously

enlivening the physical region of the senses—of sight, hearing, smell, taste,

and touch, and of the earthbound physical creative force of sex—it causes

the consciousness to become strongly identified with the delusive dreams of

the senses and their domain of activity and desires.

Moses, Jesus, the Hindu yogis, all knew the secret of scientific spiritual

life. They unanimously demonstrated that every person who is yet

physically minded must master the art of lifting up the serpent force from

sensory body consciousness in order to accomplish the first retracing of the

inward steps toward Spirit.

Any saint of any religion who has attained God-consciousness has, in

effect, withdrawn his consciousness and life force from the sense regions up

through the spinal passage and plexuses to the center of God-consciousness

in the brain, and thence into omnipresent Spirit.

When one is sitting quietly and calmly, he has partially stilled the life

force flowing out into the nerves, releasing it from the muscles; for the

moment his body is relaxed. But his peace is easily disturbed by any noise

or other sensation that reaches him, because the life energy that continues to

flow outward through the coiled path keeps the senses operative.

In sleep, the astral life forces are withdrawn not only from the muscles

but also from the sensory instruments. Every night each man accomplishes

a physical withdrawal of the life force, albeit in an unconscious way; the

energy and consciousness in the body retire to the region of the heart, spine,

and brain, giving man the rejuvenating peace of subconscious contact with

the divine dynamo of all his powers, the soul. Why does man feel joy in

sleep? Because when he is in the stage of deep, dreamless sleep,

unconscious of the body, physical limitations are forgotten and the mind

momentarily taps a higher consciousness.

The yogi knows the scientific art of withdrawing consciously from his

sensory nerves, so that no outer disturbance of sight, sound, touch, taste, or

smell can gain entry into the inner sanctum of his peace-saturated

meditation. Soldiers posted for days on the front lines are able to fall asleep

despite the constant roar of battle, because of the body’s mechanism of

unconsciously withdrawing the energy from the ears and other sensory

organs. The yogi reasons that this can be done consciously. By knowledge

and practice of the definite laws and scientific techniques of concentration,

yogis switch off the senses at will—going beyond subconscious slumber

into blissful superconscious interiorization.

Every human being has learned to enter subconsciousness in sleep; and

everyone can likewise master the art of superconscious ecstasy, with its

infinitely more enjoyable and restorative experience than can be gleaned

from sleep. That higher state bestows the constant awareness that matter is

the frozen imaginings of God, as in sleep our dreams and nightmares are

our own ephemeral thought-creations, condensed or “frozen” into visual

experiences through the objectifying power of our imagination. A dreaming

person does not know that a nightmare is unreal until he wakes up. So also,

only by awakening in Spirit—oneness with God in samadhi—can man

disperse the cosmic dream from the screen of his individualized

consciousness.

Ascension in Spirit is not easy, because when one is conscious of the

body he is in the grip of his second nature of insistent moods and habits.

Without timidity, one must vanquish the desires of the body. A body-bound

“son of man” cannot ascend to heavenly freedom just by talking about it; he

has to know how to open the coiled knot of kundalini force at the base of

the spine in order to transcend the confinement of the fleshly prison.

Every time one meditates deeply, he automatically helps to reverse the

life force and consciousness from matter to God. If the current in the astral

knot at the base of the spine is not lifted up by good living, good thoughts,

meditation, then materialistic thoughts, worldly thoughts, base thoughts, are

emphasized in one’s life. With every good act man performs he is

“ascending to heaven”—his mind becoming more focused at the Christ

Center of heavenly perception; with every evil act he is descending into

matter, his attention captivated by the phantoms of delusion.

Awakening the kundalini force is exceedingly difficult and cannot be

done accidentally. It takes years of concerted meditation under the guidance

of a competent guru before one can dream of releasing the heavenly astral

body from its bondage to physical confinement by awakening the kundalini.

One who is able to awaken the kundalini fast approaches the state of

Christhood. Ascension through that coiled pathway opens the spiritual eye

of spherical vision, revealing the whole universe surrounding the body,

supported by the vibratory light of heavenly powers.

The senses of sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell are like five

searchlights revealing matter. As the life energy pours outward through

those sensory beams, man is attracted by beautiful faces or captivating

sounds or enticing scents, flavors, and tactual sensations. It is natural; but

what is natural to the body-bound consciousness is unnatural to the soul.

But when that divine life energy is withdrawn from the autocratic senses,

through the spinal path into the spiritual center of infinite perception in the

brain, then the searchlight of astral energy is cast onto the boundlessness of

eternity to reveal the universal Spirit. The devotee is then attracted by the

Supernal Supernatural, the Beauty of all beauties, the Music of all music,

the Joy of all joys. He can touch Spirit all over the universe and can hear the

voice of God reverberating throughout the spheres. The form dissolves in

the Formless. The consciousness of the body, confined to a temporal, little

form, illimitably expands into the formless, ever-existing Spirit.

Jesus explains that whosoever believes in the doctrine of lifting the

bodily consciousness (son of man) from the physical to the astral by

reversing the life force through the coiled passage at the base of the spine,

will not perish, that is, be subject to mortal changes of life and death, but

will gradually acquire the immutable state—Christ Consciousness, the Son

of God.

CHAPTER 6

The True Meaning of

“Belief on His Name” and Salvation

“For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son, that

whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For

God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the

world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not

condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he

hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

“And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and

men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For

every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his

deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that

his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God” (John

3:16–21).

he confusion between “Son of man” and “only begotten Son of God”

has created much bigotry in the community of churchianity, which

does not understand or acknowledge the human element in Jesus—that he

was a man, born in a mortal body, who had evolved his consciousness to

become one with God Himself. Not the body of Jesus but the consciousness

within it was one with the only begotten Son, the Christ Consciousness, the

only reflection of God the Father in creation. In urging people to believe in

the only begotten Son, Jesus was referring to this Christ Consciousness,

which was fully manifest within himself and all God-realized masters

throughout the ages, and is latent within every soul. Jesus said that all souls

who lift their physical consciousness (Son of man consciousness) to the

astral heaven, and then become one with the only begotten Christ

Intelligence in all creation, will know eternal life.

Does this Bible passage mean that all who do not accept or believe in

Jesus as their Savior will be condemned? This is a dogmatic concept of

condemnation. What Jesus meant was that whoever does not realize himself

as one with the universal Christ Consciousness is condemned to live and

think as a struggling mortal, delimited by sensory boundaries, because he

has essentially disunited himself from the Eternal Principle of life.

Jesus never referred to his Son-of-man consciousness, or to his body, as

the only savior throughout all time. Abraham and many others were saved

even before Jesus was born. It is a metaphysical error to speak of the

historical person of Jesus as the only savior. It is the Christ Intelligence that

is the universal redeemer. As the sole reflection of the Absolute Spirit (the

Father) ubiquitous in the world of relativity, the Infinite Christ is the one

mediator or link between God and matter, through which all matter-formed

individuals—irrespective of different castes and creeds—must pass in order

to reach God. All souls can free their matter-confined consciousness and

plunge it into the vastness of Omnipresence by tuning in with Christ

Consciousness.

Jesus said: “When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know

that I am he.” He realized that his physical body was to remain on the earth

plane for only a little while, so he made clear to those for whom he was the

savior that when his body (son of man) was gone from the earth, people

would still be able to find God and salvation by believing in and knowing

the omnipresent only begotten Son of God. Jesus emphasized that

whosoever would believe in his spirit as the Infinite Christ incarnate in him

would discover the path to eternal life through the meditative science of

interiorized ascension of the consciousness.

“That whosoever believeth in him should not perish.” The forms of

nature change, but the Infinite Intelligence immanent in nature is ever

unchanged by the mutations of delusion. A child who is temperamentally

attached to a snowman will cry when the sun rises high in the heavens and

melts that form. Likewise do the children of God suffer who are attached to

the mutable human body, which passes through infancy, youth, old age, and

death. But those who interiorize their life force and consciousness and

concentrate on the inner soul-spark of immortality perceive heaven even

while on earth; and, realizing the transcendent essence of life, they are not

subject to the pain and suffering inherent in the incessant cycles of life and

death.18

Jesus’ majestic words in this passage were meant to convey a divinely

encouraging promise of redemption to all humanity. Instead, centuries of

misinterpretation have instigated wars of intolerant hatred, torturous

inquisitions, and divisive condemnations.

“For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but

that the world through him might be saved.” “The world” in this verse

means the whole of God’s creation. The Lord’s purpose in reflecting His

Intelligence in creation, making a structured cosmos possible, was not to

devise a jailhouse of finitude where souls are confined as willy-nilly

participants in the danse macabre of suffering and destruction, but to make

Himself accessible as an impelling Force to urge the world from ignorance-

darkened material manifestation to an illumined spiritual manifestation.

It is true that the vibratory creative manifestation of the Universal

Intelligence has originated the myriad attractions of the cosmic playhouse

through which man is constantly bemused to move away from the Spirit to

material life, to turn away from the Universal Love to the infatuations of

human life. Still, perception of the Absolute beyond creation is intimately

close through the intermediary of Its reflected Intelligence in creation.

Through this contact, the devotee realizes that God sent the Christ

Intelligence (His only begotten Son) to produce not a torture chamber but a

colossal cosmic motion picture, whose scenes and actors would entertain

for a time and ultimately return to the Bliss of Spirit.

Dogma and Politics: How the True Meaning of “Only

Begotten Son” Was Lost

As with “the Word” (see Chapter 3), the “only begotten Son” only

came to signify the person of Jesus through a gradual evolution of

doctrine brought about by complex theological and political influences.

For a detailed history, see, for example, When Jesus Became God: The

Struggle to Define Christianity During the Last Days of Rome by

Richard E. Rubenstein (New York: Harcourt, 1999).

The writings of many gnostic Christians from the first two centuries

A.D., including Basilides, Theodotus, Valentinus, and Ptolemaeus,

similarily express an understanding of the “only begotten Son” as a

cosmic principle in creation—the divine Nous (Greek for intelligence,

mind, or thought)—rather than as the person of Jesus.

The celebrated church father Clement of Alexandria quotes from the

writings of Theodotus that “the only begotten Son is Nous” (Excerpta ex

Theodoto 6.3). In Gnosis: A Selection of Gnostic Texts (Oxford,

England: Clarendon Press, 1972), German scholar Werner Foerster

quotes Irenaeus as saying: “Basilides presents Nous originating first

from the unoriginate Father.” Valentinus, a teacher greatly respected by

the Christian congregation in Rome around A.D. 140, held similar views,

according to Foerster, believing that “in the Prologue to the Gospel of

John, the ‘Only-begotten’ takes the place of Nous.”

At the Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325), however, and at the later

Council of Constantinople (A.D. 381) the church proclaimed as official

doctrine that Jesus himself was, in the words of the Nicene Creed, “the

only begotten Son of God, begotten from the Father before all ages,

light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made,

homoousios [‘of one substance’] with the Father.” After the Council of

Constantinople, writes Timothy D. Barnes in Athanasius and

Constantius: Theology and Politics in the Constantinian Empire

(Harvard University Press, 1993), “the emperor enshrined its decisions

in law, and he subjected Christians who did not accept the creed of

Nicaea and its watchword homoousios to legal disabilities. As has long

been recognized, these events marked the transition from one distinctive

epoch in the history of the Christian church and the Roman Empire to

another.”

From that point on, explains Richard E. Rubenstein in When Jesus

Became God, the official teaching of the church was that to not accept

Jesus as God was to reject God Himself. Through the centuries, this

view had enormous and often tragic implications for the relationship

between Christians and Jews (and later, Muslims, who regarded Jesus as

a divine prophet but not as part of the Godhead), as well as for the non-

Christian peoples in the lands later conquered and colonized by

European nations. (Publisher’s Note)

In the light of that understanding, regardless of one’s circumstances in

this relative world, one feels his connection with the Universal Spirit and

apprehends the vast Intelligence of the Absolute working in all the

relativities of Nature. Anyone who believes in and concentrates on that

Intelligence—Christ—instead of Its products—the external creation—finds

redemption.

To think that the Lord condemns nonbelievers as sinners is incongruous.

Since the Lord Himself dwells in all beings, condemnation would be utterly

self-defeating. God never punishes man for not believing in Him; man

punishes himself. If one does not believe in the dynamo and cuts the wires

that connect his home to that source, he forfeits the advantages of that

electrical power. Likewise, to disavow the Intelligence that is omnipresent

in all creation is to deny the consciousness its link with the Source of divine

wisdom and love that empowers the process of ascension in Spirit.

Recognition of the immanence of God can begin as simply as expanding

one’s love in an ever-widening circle. Man condemns himself to limitation

whenever he thinks solely of his own little self, his own family, his own

nation. Inherent in the evolution of nature and man back to God is the

process of expansion. The exclusivity of family consciousness—“us four

and no more”—is wrong. To shut out the larger family of humanity is to

shut out the Infinite Christ. One who disconnects himself from the

happiness and welfare of others has already condemned himself by isolation

from the Spirit that pervades all souls, for he who does not extend himself

in love and service to God in others disregards the redeeming power of

connection with the universality of Christ. Each human being has been

given the power to do good; if he fails to utilize that attribute, his level of

spiritual evolution is little better than the instinctive self-interest of the

animal.

Pure love in human hearts radiates the universal Christ-love. To expand

continuously the circle of one’s love is to attune human consciousness with

the only begotten Son. Loving family members is the first step in expanding

self-love to those nearby; loving all human beings of whatever race and

nationality is to know Christ-love.

It is God alone as the Omnipresent Christ who is responsible for all

expressions of life. The Lord is painting glorious scenery in the ever-

changing clouds and sky. He is creating altars of His fragrant loveliness in

the flowers. In everything and everyone—friends and enemies; mountains,

forests, ocean, air, the wheeling galactic canopy overarching all—the

Christ-devotee sees the one blended light of God. He finds that the myriad

expressions of the one Light, often seemingly chaotic in conflict and

contradictions, were created by God’s intelligence not to delude human

beings or to afflict them, but to coax them to seek the Infinite whence they

have emerged. One who looks not to the parts but to the whole discerns the

purpose of creation: that without exception we are moving inexorably

toward universal salvation. All rivers are moving toward the ocean; the

rivers of our lives are moving toward God.

The waves on the surface of the ocean constantly change as they sport

with the wind and tidal elements, but their oceanic essence remains

constant. He who concentrates on one isolated wave of life will suffer,

because that wave is unstable and will not last. This is what Jesus meant by

“condemned”: Body-bound man creates his own condemnation by isolating

himself from God. To be saved he must reestablish his realization of

inseparable unity with the Divine Immanence.

“In waking, eating, working, dreaming, sleeping,

Serving, meditating, chanting, divinely loving,

My soul constantly hums, unheard by any:

God! God! God!”19

In this way one remains continually aware of his connection with the

changeless Divine Intelligence—the Absolute Goodness underlying the

provocative riddles of creation.

“He that believeth on him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is

condemned already.” This highlights also the role of “belief” in the

condemnation or noncondemnation of man. Persons who do not understand

the immanence of the Absolute in the relative world tend to become either

skeptical or dogmatic, because in both cases religion is a matter of blind

beliefs. Unable to reconcile the idea of a good God with the seeming evils

in creation, the skeptic rejects religious belief as stubbornly as the

dogmatist clings to it.

The truths taught by Jesus went far beyond blind belief, which waxes

and wanes under the influence of the paradoxical pronouncements of priest

and cynic. Belief is an initial stage of spiritual progress necessary to receive

the concept of God. But that concept has to be transposed into conviction,

into experience. Belief is the precursor of conviction; one has to believe a

thing in order to investigate equitably about it. But if one is satisfied only

with belief, it becomes dogma—narrow-mindedness, a preclusion of truth

and spiritual progress. What is necessary is to grow, in the soil of belief, the

harvest of direct experience and contact of God. That indisputable

realization, not mere belief, is what saves people.

If someone says to me, “I believe in God,” I will ask him, “Why do you

believe? How do you know there is a God?” If the reply is based on

supposition or secondhand knowledge, I will say that he does not truly

believe. To hold a conviction one must have some data to support it;

otherwise it is mere dogma, and is easy prey for skepticism.

If I were to point to a piano and proclaim that it is an elephant, the

reason of an intelligent person would revolt against this absurdity. Likewise

when dogmas about God are propagated without the validation of

experience or realization, sooner or later when tested with a contrary

experience reason will assail with speculation the truth about those ideas.

As the scorching rays of the sun of analytical inquiry get hotter and hotter,

frail unsubstantiated beliefs wilt and wither away, leaving a wasteland of

doubt, agnosticism, or atheism.

Transcending mere philosophy, scientific meditation attunes the

consciousness to the highest mighty truth; with every step the devotee

moves toward actual realization and avoids bewildered wandering. To

persevere in efforts to verify and experience beliefs through intuitional

realization, which can be attained by yoga methods, is to build a real

spiritual life that is proof against doubt.

Belief is a powerful force if it leads to the desire and determination to

experience Christ. This is what Jesus meant when he urged people to

“believe in the name of the only begotten Son of God”: Through

meditation, withdraw the consciousness and life energy from the senses and

matter to intuit the Aum, the Word or all-pervading Cosmic Vibratory

Energy that is the “name” or active manifestation of the immanent Christ

Consciousness. One can assert incessantly an intellectual belief in Jesus

Christ; but if he never actually experiences the Cosmic Christ, as both

omnipresent and incarnate in Jesus, the spiritual practicality of his belief is

insufficient to save him.

No one can be saved just by repeatedly uttering the Lord’s name or

praising Him in crescendos of hallelujahs. Not in blind belief in the name of

Jesus or the adoration of his personality can the liberating power of his

teachings be received. The real worship of Christ is the divine communion

of Christ-perception in the wall-less temple of expanded consciousness.

God would not reflect His “only begotten Son” in the world to act like

an implacable detective to track down unbelievers for punishment. The

redeeming Christ Intelligence, abiding in the bosom of every soul

regardless of its bodily accumulation of sins or virtues, waits with infinite

patience for each one to awaken in meditation from delusion-drugged sleep

to receive the grace of salvation. The person who believes in this Christ

Intelligence, and who cultivates with spiritual action the desire to seek

salvation through ascension in this reflected consciousness of God, no

longer has to wander blindly along the delusive path of error. By measured

steps he moves surely toward the redeeming Infinite Grace. But the

unbeliever who scorns the thought of this Savior, the only way of salvation,

condemns himself to body-bound ignorance and its consequences, until he

awakens spiritually.

“And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and

men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For

every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his

deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that

his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God” (John

3:19–21).

The all-pervading light of God, imbued with the universal Christ

Intelligence, silently emanates divine love and wisdom to guide all beings

back to the Infinite Consciousness. The soul, being a microcosm of Spirit, is

an ever present light in man to lead him through discriminative intelligence

and the intuitive voice of conscience; but all too often the rationalization of

desireful habits and whims refuses to follow. Tempted by the Satan of

cosmic delusion, man chooses actions that obliterate the light of

discriminative inner guidance.

The origin of sin and its resultant physical, mental, and spiritual

suffering therefore lies in the fact that the soul’s divine intelligence and

discrimination are suppressed by man’s misuse of his God-given free

choice. Though nonunderstanding people ascribe to God their own vengeful

propensities, the “condemnation” of which Jesus spoke is not punishment

meted out by a tyrannical Creator, but the results man brings on himself by

his own actions, according to the law of cause and effect (karma) and the

law of habit.

Succumbing to desires that keep their consciousness concentrated on

and confined in the material world—the “darkness” or gross portion of

cosmic creation in which the illumining Divine Presence is heavily

obscured by the shadows of maya-delusion—benighted souls, humanly

identified with mortal egos, repeatedly indulge their erroneous ways of

living, which then become firmly entrenched in the brain as bad habits of

mortal behavior.

When Jesus said that men love darkness rather than light, he was

referring to the fact that material habits keep millions away from God. He

did not mean that all men love darkness—only those who make no effort to

resist the temptations of Satan, taking instead the easy way of rolling down

the hill of bad habits and thus becoming inured to the darkness of worldly

consciousness. Because they shut out the voice of Christ Consciousness

whispering in their personal conscience, they shun the infinitely more

tempting experience of joy to be had through the good habits urged by the

guiding wisdom-light in their souls.

Thus Jesus’ emphasis that by the light of soul-awakening, the mortal

habit of preferring the delusive darkness of materiality can be dispelled

from man’s consciousness. With repeated acts of will power to meditate

regularly and deeply, one attains the supremely satisfying Bliss-contact of

God and can recall that joy to his consciousness anytime, anywhere.

The “Single” or Spiritual Eye

“The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy

whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body

shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness,

how great is that darkness!” (Matthew 6:22–23).

The God-revealing light in the body is the single eye in the middle

of the forehead, seen in deep meditation—the doorway into the presence

of God. When the devotee can perceive through this spiritual eye, he

beholds his whole body as well as his cosmic body filled with God’s

light emanating from cosmic vibration.

By fixing the vision of the two eyes at the point between the

eyebrows in the interiorized concentration of meditation, one can focus

the positive-negative optical energies of the right and left eyes and unite

their currents in the single eye of divine light. The ignorant, material

man knows nothing of this light. But anyone who has practiced even a

little meditation may occasionally see it. When the devotee is further

advanced, he sees this light at will, with closed or open eyes, in the

daylight or in darkness. The highly developed devotee can behold this

light as long as he so desires; and when his consciousness can penetrate

into that light, he enters the highest states of transcendent realization.

But when one’s gaze and mind are turned away from God and

concentrated on evil motives and material actions, his life is filled with

the darkness of delusion’s ignorance, spiritual indifference, and misery-

making habits. The inner cosmic light and wisdom remain hidden.

“How great is that darkness” of the material man that he knows little or

not at all of divine reality, accepting with glee or resentment whatever

offerings of delusion come his way. To live in such dank ignorance is no

valid life for the incarnate soul consciousness.

The spiritualized man—his body and mind inwardly illumined with

astral light and wisdom, the shadows of physical and mental darkness

gone, and the whole cosmos seen as filled with God’s light, wisdom,

and joy—he in whom the light of Self-realization is fully manifest,

receives indescribable joy and the unending guidance of divine wisdom.

As long as a person is intoxicated with evil thoughts and ways, his dark

mentality will hate the light of truth. The one good thing about bad habits,

however, is that they seldom keep their promises. They are eventually found

out to be inveterate liars. That is why souls cannot forever be deceived or

enslaved. Though people of bad habits initially recoil from the thought of

better living, after they have had enough of evil ways and reach the point of

satiety, and have suffered enough from the consequences, they turn for

relief toward the wisdom-light of God, despite any entrenched bad habits

that must yet be vanquished. If they continually practice ways of living in

harmony with Truth, then in that light they come to realize the joy and inner

peace brought by self-control and good habits.

“But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made

manifest, that they are wrought in God.”…The divine seeker, trying every

day to change something that is not good in his nature, gradually transcends

his old habit-bound material ways. His deeds and his very life are re-

created, “wrought in God”; he is in truth born anew. Adhering to the good

habit of daily scientific meditation, he sees and is baptized in the light of

Christ-wisdom, the divine energy of the Holy Ghost, which actually erases

the electrical pathways in the brain formed by bad habits of thought and

action. His spiritual eye of intuitive perception is opened, bestowing not

only unerring guidance on the path of life, but the vision of and entry into

God’s heavenly kingdom—and ultimately, oneness with His omnipresent

consciousness.

18 “The heavens shall be rolled back, and the earth unfurled before your eyes. The one who has life

from the Living One sees neither death nor fear.”—Gospel According to Thomas, verse 111

(Publisher’s Note)

Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita (II: 40) speaks thus about the yoga science: “Even a tiny bit of

this real religion protects one from great fear (the colossal sufferings inherent in the repeated cycles

of birth and death).”

19 From Songs of the Soul by Paramahansa Yogananda (published by Self-Realization Fellowship).

CHAPTER 7

The Beatitudes

And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying, “Blessed are the poor in

spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:2–3).

Parallel reference:

And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, “Blessed be ye poor: for

yours is the kingdom of God” (Luke 6:20).

uring his teaching, Jesus let loose, through his voice as well as

through his eyes, his divine life force and godly vibration to spread

over the disciples, making them calmly attuned and magnetized, able to

receive through their intuitional understanding of the full measure of his

wisdom.

The lyric verses of Jesus that begin “Blessed are…” have become

known as The Beatitudes. To beatify is to make supremely happy; beatitude

signifies the blessedness, the bliss, of heaven. Jesus here sets forth with

power and simplicity a doctrine of moral and spiritual principles that has

echoed undiminished down the ages—tenets by which man’s life becomes

blessed, filled with heavenly bliss.

The word “poor” as used in the first Beatitude signifies wanting in any

outer superficial elegance of spiritual wealth. Those who possess true

spirituality never make an ostentatious display of it; they rather express

quite naturally a humble paucity of ego and its vainglorious trappings. To

be “poor in spirit” is to have divested one’s inner being, his spirit, of desire

for and attachment to material objects, earthly possessions, materially

minded friends, selfish human love. Through this purification of inward

renunciation, the soul finds that it has ever possessed all riches of the

Eternal Kingdom of Wisdom and Bliss, and thenceforth dwells therein in

constant communion with God and His saints.

Poverty “in spirit” does not imply that one should necessarily be a

pauper, lest deprivation of basic bodily necessities distract one’s mind from

God. But it certainly means that one should not settle for material

acquisitions instead of spiritual opulence. Persons who are materially rich

may be poor in inner spiritual development if wealth gorges their senses;

while those who are materially “poor” by choice—who have simplified the

outer conditions of their life to make time for God—will garner spiritual

riches and fulfillment that no treasury of gold could ever buy.

Thus Jesus commended those souls who are poor in spirit, wholly

nonattached to personal worldly goals and fortune in deference to seeking

God and serving others: “Ye are blessed for your poverty. It will open the

gates to the kingdom of all-sufficient God, who will relieve you from

material as well as spiritual want throughout eternity. Blessed are you who

are in want and seek Him who alone can relieve your deficiencies forever!”

When the spirit of man mentally renounces desire for objects of this

world, knowing them to be illusory, perishable, misleading, and

unbecoming to the soul, he begins to find true joy in acquiring permanently

satisfying soul qualities. In humbly leading a life of outer simplicity and

inner renunciation, steeped in the soul’s heavenly bliss and wisdom, the

devotee ultimately inherits the lost kingdom of immortal blessedness.

“Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4).

Parallel reference:

“Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh” (Luke 6:21).

The pangs of sorrow suffered by the ordinary person arise from

mourning the loss of human love or material possessions, or the

nonfulfillment of earthly hopes. Jesus was not extolling this negative state

of mind, which eclipses psychological happiness and is utterly detrimental

to the retention of spiritual bliss obtained by arduous efforts in meditation.

He was speaking of that divine melancholy resulting from the awakening

consciousness of separation from God, which creates in the soul an

insatiable yearning to be reunited with the Eternal Beloved. Those who

really mourn for God, who wail incessantly for Him with ever-increasing

zeal in meditation, shall find comfort in the revelation of Wisdom-Bliss sent

to them by God.

The spiritually negligent children of God endure life’s painful traumas

with resentful, defeatist resignation instead of effectively soliciting Divine

Aid. It is the adorably naughty baby, crying continuously for spiritual

knowledge, who at last attracts the response of the Divine Mother. To Her

persistent child, the Merciful Mother comes with Her solace of wisdom and

love, revealed through intuition or by a glimpse of Her own Presence. No

surrogate consolation can assuage instantaneously the bereavement of

unnumbered incarnations.

Those whose spiritual mourning is appeased by material fulfillments

will find themselves grieving again when those fragile securities are

snatched away by the exigencies of life or by death. But those who weep for

Truth and God, refusing to be quieted by any lesser offering, will be forever

comforted in the arms of Blissful Divinity.

“Blessed are you who cry for God-realization now, for by that single-

minded yearning you shall attain. With the entertainment of ever new joy

found in divine communion, you shall laugh and rejoice throughout

eternity!”

“Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5).

Humbleness and meekness create in man a bottomless receptacle of

recipiency to hold Truth. A proud irascible individual, like the proverbial

rolling stone, rolls down the hill of ignorance and gathers no moss of

wisdom, while meek souls at peace in the valley of eager mental readiness

gather waters of wisdom, flowing from sources human and divine, to

nourish their flowering vale of soul qualities.

The imperious egotist is easily riled, defensive, and resentfully

offensive, repelling emissaries of wisdom who seek entry into the castle of

his life; but the meek and humbly receptive attract the unseen assistance of

beneficent angels of cosmic forces proffering material, mental, and spiritual

well-being. Thus do the meek of spirit inherit not only all wisdom, but the

earth, that is, earthly happiness, along with it.

“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they

shall be filled” (Matthew 5:6).

Parallel reference:

“Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled” (Luke 6:21).

The words “thirst” and “hunger” provide an apt metaphor for man’s

spiritual quest. One must first have thirst for the theoretical knowledge of

how to attain salvation. After he quenches this thirst by learning the

practical technique of actually contacting God, he can then satisfy his inner

hunger for Truth by feasting daily on the divine manna of spiritual

perception resulting from meditation.

Those who seek appeasement in material things find that their thirst of

desires is never slaked, nor is their hunger ever satisfied in the acquirement

of possessions. The urge in every man to fill an inner emptiness is the soul’s

desire for God. It can only be alleviated by realizing one’s immortality and

imperishable state of divinity in God-union. When man foolishly tries to

quench his soul thirst with the substitutes of sense happiness, he gropes

from one evanescent pleasure to another, ultimately rejecting them all as

inadequate.

Sense pleasures are of the body and lower mind; they bring no

nourishment to man’s inmost being. Spiritual starvation, suffered by all who

would subsist on sense offerings, is allayed only by righteousness—the

actions, attitudes, and attributes that are right for the soul: virtue, spiritual

behavior, bliss, immortality.

Righteousness means acting rightly in the physical, mental, and spiritual

departments of life. Persons who feel a great thirst and hunger for fulfilling

the supreme duties of life receive the ever new bliss of God: “Blessed are

you who thirst for wisdom and who esteem virtue and righteousness as the

real food to appease your inner hunger, for you shall have that lasting

happiness brought only by adhering to divine ideals—unparalleled

satisfaction of heart and soul.”

“Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7).

Mercy is a sort of fatherly heartache for the deficiency in an erring

child. It is an intrinsic quality of the Divine Nature. The life story of Jesus is

replete with accounts of mercy sublimely manifest in his actions and

personality. In perfected divine sons of God, we see revealed the hidden

transcendent Father as He is. The God of Moses is depicted as a God of

wrath (though I do not believe Moses, who spoke to God “face to face, as a

man speaketh unto his friend,” ever thought of God as the vengeful tyrant

portrayed in the Old Testament). But the God of Jesus was so gentle. It was

that gentleness and mercy of the Father that Jesus expressed when, instead

of judging and destroying the enemies who would crucify him, he asked of

the Father to forgive them, “for they know not what they do.”

With the patient heart of God, Jesus looked upon humanity as little

children who did not understand. If a wee child picks up a knife and strikes

you, you do not want to kill that child in retaliation. It does not realize what

it has done. When one looks upon humanity as a loving father looks after

his children, and is ready to suffer for them that they might receive a little

of the sunshine and power of his spirit, then one becomes Christlike: God in

action.

The wise alone can be really merciful, for with divine insight they

perceive even wrongdoers as souls—God’s children who deserve sympathy,

forgiveness, help, and guidance when they go astray. Mercy implies the

capacity for being helpful; only developed or qualified souls are capable of

being practically and mercifully useful. Mercy expresses itself in usefulness

when the fatherly heartache tempers the rigidity of exacting judgment and

offers not only forgiveness but actual spiritual help in eliminating the error

in an individual.

The morally weak but willing-to-be-good, the sinner (he who

transgresses against his own happiness by flouting divine laws), the

physically decrepit, the mentally impaired, the spiritually ignorant—all

need merciful help from souls whose inner development qualifies them to

render understanding aid. Jesus’ words exhort the devotee: “To receive

divine mercy, be merciful to yourself by making yourself spiritually

qualified, and be merciful also to other deluded children of God. Persons

who continuously develop themselves in every way, and who mercifully

feel and alleviate the lack of all-round development in others, surely will

melt the heart of God and obtain for themselves His unending and

matchlessly helpful mercy.”

“Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8).

The consummate religious experience is direct perception of God, for

which the purification of the heart is requisite. On this, all scriptures agree.

The Bhagavad Gita, India’s immortal scripture of Yoga, the science of

religion and God-union, speaks of the blessedness and divine perception of

one who has attained this inner purification:

The yogi who has completely calmed the mind and controlled the

passions and freed them from all impurities, and who is one with

Spirit—verily, he has attained supreme blessedness.

With the soul united to Spirit by yoga, with a vision of equality

for all things, the yogi beholds his Self (Spirit-united) in all

creatures and all creatures in the Spirit.

He who perceives Me everywhere and beholds everything in Me

never loses sight of Me, nor do I ever lose sight of him (Bhagavad

Gita VI:27, 29–30).

Since ancient times, the rishis of India have scrutinized the very core of

truth and detailed its practical relevance to man. Patanjali, the renowned

sage of the yoga science, begins his Yoga Sutras by declaring: Yoga chitta

vritti nirodha—“Yoga (scientific union with God) is the neutralization of the

modifications of chitta (the inner ‘heart’ or power of feeling; a

comprehensive term for the aggregate of mind-stuff that produces

intelligent consciousness).” Both reason and feeling are derived from this

inner faculty of intelligent consciousness.

My revered guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar, one of the first in modern times

to reveal the unity of Christ’s teachings with India’s Sanatana Dharma,

wrote profoundly about how man’s spiritual evolution consists of the

purification of the heart. From the state in which consciousness is

completely deluded by maya (“the dark heart”), man progresses through the

successive states of the propelled heart, the steady heart, the devoted heart,

and ultimately attains the clean heart, in which, Sri Yukteswarji writes, he

“becomes able to comprehend the Spiritual Light, Brahma [Spirit], the Real

Substance in the universe.”20

God is perceived with the sight of the soul. Every soul in its native state

is omniscient, beholding God or Truth directly through intuition. Pure

reason and pure feeling are both intuitive; but when reason is circumscribed

by the intellectuality of the sense-bound mind, and feeling devolves into

egoistic emotion, these instrumentalities of the soul produce distorted

perceptions.

Restoration of the lost clarity of divine sight is the purport of this

Beatitude. The blessedness known to the perfectly pure of heart is none

other than that referred to in Saint John’s Gospel: “But as many as received

him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God.” To every devotee

who receives and reflects the omnipresent Light Divine, or Christ

Consciousness, through a purified transparency of heart and mind, God

gives power to reclaim the bliss of divine sonhood, even as did Jesus.

Transparency to Truth is cultivated by freeing the consciousness, the

heart’s feeling and the mind’s reason, from the dualistic influences of

attraction and aversion. Reality cannot be accurately reflected in a

consciousness ruffled by likes and dislikes, with their restless passions and

desires, and the roiling emotions they engender—anger, jealousy, greed,

moody sensitivity. But when chitta—human knowing and feeling—is

calmed by meditation, the ordinarily agitated ego gives way to the blessed

calmness of soul perception.

Purity of the intellect gives one the power of correct reasoning, but

purity of the heart gives one the contact of God. Intellectuality is a quality

of the power of reason, and wisdom is the liberating quality of the soul.

When reason is purified by calm discrimination it metamorphoses into

wisdom. Pure wisdom and the divine understanding of a pure heart are the

two sides of the same faculty. Indeed, the purity of heart, or feeling, referred

to by Jesus depends on the guidance of all action by discriminative wisdom

—the adjusting of human attitudes and behavior by the sacred soul qualities

of love, mercy, service, self-control, self-discipline, conscience, and

intuition. The pure-eyed vision of wisdom must be combined with the

untainted feeling of the heart. Wisdom reveals the righteous path, and the

cleansed heart desires and loves to follow that path. All wisdom-revealed

soul qualities must be followed wholeheartedly (not merely intellectually or

theoretically).

Ordinary man’s occluded vision cognizes the gross shells of matter but

is blind to the all-pervading Spirit. By the perfect blending of pure

discrimination and pure feeling, the penetrating eye of all-revealing

intuition is opened, and the devotee gains the true perception of God as

present in one’s soul and omnipresent in all beings—the Divine Indweller

whose nature is a harmonic blend of infinite wisdom and infinite love.

“Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God”

(Matthew 5:9).

They are the real peacemakers who generate peace from their devotional

practice of daily meditation. Peace is the first manifestation of God’s

response in meditation. Those who know God as Peace in the inner temple

of silence, and who worship that Peace-God therein, are by this relationship

of divine communion His true children.

Having felt the nature of God as inner peace, devotees want the Peace-

God to be always manifest in their home, in the neighborhood, in the

nation, among all nationalities and races. Anyone who brings peace to an

inharmonious family has established God there. Anyone who removes the

misunderstanding between souls has united them in God’s peace. Anyone

who, forsaking national greed and selfishness, works to create peace amidst

warring nations, is establishing God in the heart of those nations. The

initiators and facilitators of peace manifest the unifying Christ-love that

identifies a soul as a child of God.

“Son of God” consciousness makes one feel love for all beings. Those

who are God’s true children cannot feel any difference between an Indian,

American, or any other nationality or race. For a little while immortal souls

are garbed in white, black, brown, red, or olive-colored bodies. Are people

looked upon as variously foreign when they wear different colored clothes?

No matter what one’s nationality or the color of his body, all of God’s

children are souls. The Father recognizes no man-made designations; He

loves all, and His children must learn to live in that same consciousness.

When man confines his identity to his clannish human nature, it gives rise

to unending evils and the specter of war.

Human beings have been given potentially limitless power, to prove that

they are indeed the children of God. In such technologies as the atomic

bomb we see that unless man uses his powers rightly, he will destroy

himself. The Lord could incinerate this earth in a second if He lost patience

with His erring children, but He doesn’t. And as He would never misuse

His omnipotence, so we, being made in His image, must also behave like

gods and conquer hearts with the power of love, or humanity as we know it

will surely perish. Man’s power to make war is increasing; so must his

ability to make peace. The best deterrent against the threat of war is

brotherhood, the realization that as God’s children we are one family.

Anyone who stirs up strife among brother nations under the guise of

patriotism is a traitor to his divine family—a faithless child of God. Anyone

who keeps family members, neighbors, or friends fighting through fostering

falsehoods and gossip, or who is in any way a maker of disturbance, is a

desecrator of God’s temple of harmony.

Christ and the great ones have given the recipe for peace within and

among individuals and nations. How long man has lived in the darkness of

misunderstanding and ignorance of those ideals. The true Christ-method of

living can banish human conflicts and the horror of war and bring about

peace and understanding on earth; all prejudices and enmities must fall

away. That is the challenge placed before those who would be the

peacemakers of God.

“Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs

is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:10).

The bliss of God will visit those souls who endure with equanimity the

torture of the unjust criticism of so-called friends, as well as enemies, for

doing what is right, and who remain uninfluenced by wrong customs or

society’s harmful habits. A devotee of righteousness will not bend to social

pressure to drink just because he happens to be at a gathering where

cocktails are served, even when others mock him for nonparticipation in

their pleasure. Moral rectitude brings short-term ridicule but long-term

rejoicing, for persistence in self-control yields bliss and perfection. An

eternal kingdom of heavenly joy, to enjoy in this life and the beyond, is

earned by those who live and die in right behavior.

Worldly people who prefer sensory indulgences to God-contact are truly

the foolish ones, because by ignoring what is right, and therefore good for

them, they will have to reap the consequences. The righteous devotee

pursues that which is beneficial for him in the highest sense. One who

relinquishes the desultory ways of the world and cheerfully stands the scorn

of shortsighted friends for his idealism demonstrates that he is fit for the

unending bliss of God.

The above verse also offers encouragement to those who are persecuted

and tortured by sensory temptations and bad habits when they have resolved

to cling to moral ideals and spiritual practices. They are righteous indeed,

following the right way of self-control and meditation, which will in time

defeat temptations and win the kingdom of eternal joy for the victorious.

No matter how powerful temptations are, or how strong bad habits, they

can be resisted with the wisdom-guided power of self-control and by

holding to the conviction that no matter what pleasure is promised by

temptation, it will always give sorrow in the end. The irresolute inevitably

become hypocrites, justifying wrong behavior while succumbing to the

wiles of temptation. The honey of God, though sealed in mystery, is what

the soul truly craves. Those who meditate with undaunted patience and

persistence break the mystery seal, and uninhibitedly imbibe the heavenly

nectar of immortality.

Heaven is that state of transcendental, omnipresent joy where no

sorrows ever dare to tread. By steadfast righteousness, the devotee will

ultimately reach that beatific bliss from which there is no fall. Vacillating

devotees, not fixed in meditation, can slip from this supernal happiness; but

those who are resolute gain that blessedness permanently. The kingdom of

Cosmic Consciousness is owned by the King of Heavenly Bliss, and by the

elevated souls who are merged in Him. Hence it is said of devotees who

unite their ego with God, becoming one with the King of the Universe:

“Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

“Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall

say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

“Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for

so persecuted they the prophets which were before you” (Matthew 5:11–

12).

Parallel reference:

“Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate

you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as

evil, for the Son of man’s sake.

“Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is

great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets”

(Luke 6:22–23).

The foregoing verses do not require one to conscript a band of revilers

to make one fit for the kingdom of heaven. In spite of one’s best efforts for

good in the world and in oneself, the barbs of persecutors will never be

absent, as Jesus well knew. The ornery nature of the ego makes the

undisciplined man uncomfortable and mean-spirited toward those who are

morally or spiritually different from himself. The goadings of satanic

divisive delusion keep the self-appointed critic ever scanning for reasons to

malign others. Jesus encouraged his followers not to be dismayed or

intimidated if in trying to live spiritually they find that materially minded

persons do not understand. Those who can pass through the test of scorn

cheerfully, and without yielding to wrong ways in order to “fit in,” will gain

the happiness that results from clinging to virtuous bliss-yielding habits.

It should be considered no great loss when the reproachers and haters

and defamers “shall separate you from their company.” Actually, persons

who are thus shunned are blessed that by such ostracism their souls are kept

away from the bad influence of the company of nonunderstanding,

misbehaving persons.

The spiritually dedicated should never become despondent, no matter

how people speak evil against them or vilify their good name in

declarations of wrongdoing. Blessed are those whose name is denigrated for

not cooperating with worldly or evil ways, for their names shall be

engraved in the silently admiring heart of God.

The Bhagavad Gita (XII:18–19) similarly expresses the Lord’s regard

for such devotees: “He who is tranquil before friend and foe alike, and in

encountering adoration and insult, and during the experiences of warmth

and chill and of pleasure and suffering; who has relinquished attachment,

regarding blame and praise in the same light; who is quiet and easily

contented, not attached to domesticity, and of calm disposition and

devotional—that person is dear to Me.”

One must follow what one knows to be right, in spite of criticism.

Everyone should honestly, without egotistical bias, analyze himself; and if

he is right, he should hold to his joy-producing righteous actions

uninfluenced by either praise or blame. But if one is wrong, he should be

glad of the opportunity to correct himself and thus remove one more

obstacle to lasting happiness. Even unjust criticism will make the disciple

purer than ever and enthuse him all the more to follow the ways of inner

peace instead of yielding to temptations urged by bad company.

It is in the company of God that one remains blessed. One has to find

time for Him in the peace of meditation. Why waste all of one’s leisure

hours in frequenting the movies or watching television, or in other idle

pastimes? In cultivating and adhering to divine habits, the devotee finds

true impetus to rejoice in his inner contentment and in knowing he will

ultimately inherit the kingdom of eternal fulfillment.

The devotee who is denounced for holding to spiritual ways should not

flatter himself that being persecuted for God’s sake means he is doing the

Lord some great favor. “To be persecuted for my sake” or “for the Son of

man’s sake,” signifies being chastised for holding to those practices the

devotee has undertaken at the behest of his Christlike guru for the sake of

acquiring attunement with God.

Jesus spoke to his disciples and followers as their God-sent guru or

savior: “Blessed are you when for following the Son of man (the Christlike

guru-preceptor, the representative of God) you are criticized and belittled

for preferring to walk in the light of his God-tuned wisdom instead of

stumbling with the masses along worldly paths of darkness and ignorance.”

To be hated, ostracized, reproached, or cast out is in itself no cause for

blessing if one is morally or spiritually degenerate; but when despite

persecution the devotee clings to truth as manifested in the life and

teachings of a Christlike guru, then he will be free in everlasting

blessedness. “Rejoice ye in that day, and feel the uplifting holy vibration of

ever new joy; for behold, those who will toil and labor and accept pain to

follow the divine way will be rewarded in heaven with eternal bliss.

“Those who persecute you are a continuity of the successive generations

of those who persecuted the prophets. Think to what great evil those

forefathers came, and consider what reward in heaven the prophets received

from God for bearing the persecution from ignorant persons for His name’s

sake. Holding on to spiritual principles, even if one has to lose his body as

did the martyrs of yore, brings the reward of divine inheritance of God’s

kingdom of Everlasting Exultation.”

“Great is your reward in heaven” signifies the state of eternal bliss felt

in stabilizing the divine contact of God experienced in meditation: One who

performs elevating good actions on earth will, according to the law of

karma, reap the fruits of those deeds either in the inner heaven on earth

while living, or in the supernal heavenly realms after death.

One’s store of good karma and spiritual tenacity determines one’s

heavenly reward in life or in the afterlife. Advanced souls, those who by

meditation are able to experience the ever-newly joyous state of Self-

realization, and who can remain constantly in that inner heavenly bliss

where God dwells, carry with them a portable heaven wherever they go.

The astral sun of the spiritual eye begins to reveal to their consciousness the

astral heaven wherein reside, in graduated spheres, virtuous souls and

saints, liberated beings and angels. Gradually, the light of the spiritual eye

opens its portals, drawing the consciousness into progressively higher

spheres of Heaven: the omnipresent golden aura of the Holy Ghost Cosmic

Vibration in which are enfolded the mysteries of the finer forces that inform

all regions of vibratory existence (wherein is found the “pearly gate” or

entryway into the astral heaven through its pearl-like rainbow-hued

firmament, or boundary wall); the Christ Heaven of God’s reflected

Consciousness shining His intelligence on the vibratory realm of creation;

and the ultimate heaven of Cosmic Consciousness, the everlasting,

immutably blissful transcendental Kingdom of God.

Only those souls who can keep their consciousness fixed in the spiritual

eye during earthly existence, even during trials and persecutions, will in this

life or the afterlife enter the blissful states of the higher regions of Heaven

where the most extraordinary advanced souls dwell in the delightful

proximity of God’s all-freeing presence.

Though Jesus cites especially the great reward accruing to advanced

souls, even a lesser measure of blissful God-communion will bring a

commensurate heavenly reward. Those who make some progress and then

compromise their spiritual ideals or give up meditating, because they feel

inwardly persecuted by the effort required or are outwardly discouraged by

worldly influences or by the criticism of relatives, neighbors, or so-called

friends, lose the contact of heavenly bliss. But those who are divinely

stalwart not only retain the bliss they acquire by meditation but are doubly

rewarded, finding their stability giving rise to ever greater fulfillment. This

is the psychological heavenly reward resulting from applying the law of

habit: Anyone who becomes fixed in inner bliss by meditation will be

rewarded with ever-increasing joy that will remain with him even when he

leaves this earthly plane.

The heavenly state of meditative bliss felt in this life is a foretaste of the

ever new joy felt in the immortalized soul in the after-death state. The soul

carries that joy into the sublime astral regions of celestial beauty, where

lifetronic blossoms unfold their rainbow petals in the garden of ether, and

where the climate, atmosphere, food, and inhabitants are made of different

vibrations of multihued light—a kingdom of refined manifestations more in

harmony with the essence of the soul than are the crudities of the earth.

Righteous people who resist temptation on earth, but who do not totally

free themselves from delusion, are rewarded after death with a rejuvenating

rest in this astral heaven among the many half-angels and half-redeemed

souls who carry on a life that is exceedingly superior to that on earth. There

they enjoy the results of their good astral karma for a karmically

predetermined span; after which time, their remaining earthly karma pulls

them back into reincarnation in a physical body. Their “great reward” in the

astral heaven enables them to manifest desired conditions at will, dealing

entirely with vibrations and energy, not with the fixed properties of solids,

liquids, and gaseous substances encountered during the earthly sojourn. In

the astral heaven, all furnishings, properties, climatic conditions, and

transportation are subject to the astral beings’ will power, which can

materialize, manipulate, and dematerialize the lifetronic substance of that

finer world according to preference.

Completely redeemed souls harbor no mortal desires in their hearts

when they leave the shores of the earth. These souls become permanently

fixed as pillars in the mansion of Cosmic Consciousness, and never again

reincarnate on the earth plane, unless they do so willingly in order to bring

earthbound souls back to God.21

Such are God’s prophets: souls who are anchored in Truth and return to

earth at the command of God to lead others to spiritual ways by their

exemplary conduct and message of salvation. The spiritual state of a

prophet or savior is one of complete union with God, which qualifies him to

declare God in the mysterious spiritual way. They are usually extraordinary

reformers who show to mankind extraordinary spiritual examples. They

demonstrate the power and superior influence of love over hate, wisdom

over ignorance, even if it means martyrdom. They refuse to give up their

truths no matter the degree of physical or mental persecution, dishonor, or

false accusations; and just as steadfastly, they refuse to hate their

persecutors or to use the expediency of revenge to quell their enemies. They

demonstrate and retain the restraint and forbearance of God’s all-forgiving

love, being themselves sheltered in that Infinite Grace.

In all the great ones—those who come on earth to show to humanity the

way to everlasting blessedness or bliss consciousness—are found the godly

traits extolled by Jesus as the way to beatitude. In the Bhagavad Gita, Sri

Krishna enumerates comprehensively these requisite soul qualities that

distinguish the divine man:

(The sage is marked by) humility, lack of hypocrisy, harmlessness,

forgivingness, uprightness, service to the guru, purity of mind and

body, steadfastness, self-control;

Indifference to sense objects, absence of egotism, understanding

of the pain and evils (inherent in mortal life): birth, illness, old age,

and death;

Nonattachment, nonidentification of the Self with such as one’s

children, wife, and home; constant equal-mindedness in desirable

and undesirable circumstances;

Unswerving devotion to Me by the yoga of nonseparativeness,

resort to solitary places, avoidance of the company of worldly men;

Perseverance in Self-knowledge; and meditative perception of

the object of all learning—the true essence or meaning therein. All

these qualities constitute wisdom; qualities opposed to them

constitute ignorance (Bhagavad Gita XIII:7–11).

By cultivation of the above virtues, then even in this material world man

can live in the beatific consciousness of the soul, a true child of God. He

makes his own life, and many of those he contacts, radiant with the infinite

light, joy, and love of the Eternal Father.

20 See Chapter 3, Sutras 23–32 in The Holy Science by Swami Sri Yukteswar (published by Self-

Realization Fellowship).

21 “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out”

(Revelation 3:12).

CHAPTER 8

Divine Love:

Highest Goal of Religion and of Life

And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, “Master,

what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

He said unto him, “What is written in the law? How readest thou?”

And he answering said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy

heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind;

and thy neighbour as thyself.”

And he said unto him, “Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou

shalt live” (Luke 10:25–28).

Parallel passage from Gospel of Mark:

And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together,

and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, “Which is the

first commandment of them all?”

And Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is, ‘Hear,

O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy

God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with

all thy strength’: this is the first commandment. And the second is like,

namely this, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.’ There is none other

commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:28–31).

he whole purpose of religion—indeed, of life itself—is encapsulated in

the two paramount commandments cited by Lord Jesus in these verses.

In them lies the essence of eternal truth distinguishing all bona fide spiritual

paths, the irreducible imperative that man must embrace as an

individualized soul separated from God if he would reclaim the realization

of oneness with his Maker.

“This do, and thou shalt live,” Jesus told the lawyer who had asked how

to obtain eternal life. That is: “If you can love God wholly in actual

communion in daily meditation, and show by your actions your love for

your neighbor (your divine brother) even as you love yourself, you will rise

above the mortal consciousness of this delusive plane of life and death and

realize the eternal changeless Spirit existing within yourself and in Its

everywhereness.”

“On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets,”

proclaimed Jesus to the lawyer mentioned in Matthew. And to the scribe in

Mark who asked which divine commandment was preeminent, Jesus

answered: “The Cosmic Sovereign and our Protector, our one God, is the

sole Lord and Master of all creation. He created you as one of His children,

made in His image and bearing the divine relation ordained by Him. It

behooves you to love spontaneously your Creator with the love He

implanted in you—with all the divine love in your heart, with all the

intuitive perception of your soul, with all the attention of your mind, and

with all the strength of your mental determination and physical energy.”

This, Jesus declared, is the foremost of all cosmic laws ordained by the

Spirit for soul upliftment and liberation; for through the portal of man’s

love God enters into oneness with him, a union that liberates him from the

bondage of delusion. To love God supremely is to receive from Him eternal

contentment and fulfillment, with freedom from all human desires that

irresponsibly provoke continuous births and deaths with their unforeseen

miseries.

Jesus praised the understanding demonstrated by the scribe, and assured

him that he was near to attaining a high degree of spiritual consciousness,

because this man realized that to love God in His supremacy and in His

innate intimacy in all beings is “more than all whole burnt offerings and

sacrifices.” To worship the Creator through outward religious formalities is

to maintain a separateness between the worshiper and Worshiped; but to

love Him is to become His friend, His son, and one with Him.

For God to command that man love Him above everything else might

seem unbecoming of an all-powerful Deity. But all avatars and saints have

known in their hearts that this is not to appease some quixotic whim of God,

but is rather a necessity through which the individualized soul can make a

conscious connection with its Source. God can live without man’s love; but

as the wave cannot live without the ocean, so it is not possible for man to

exist without the love of God. The thirst for love in every human heart is

because man is made in God’s image of love. So the avatars and saints call

upon mankind to love God, not because of compulsion or commandment,

but because the ocean of His love surges behind the little wave of love in

every heart.

A great saint of India said: “He is the cleverest who wholeheartedly

seeks God first”; for in finding Him, he receives, along with Him,

everything that is of God. To love God is to contact creation’s Munificent

Provenance. Many a worldly man foolishly engages his heart, mind, soul,

and physical strength in the pursuit of money or human love or earthly

power, only to lose them—if perchance he had found them—at the time of

death. The wisest use of life is to invest it in seeking God, the one treasure

that satisfies forever and can never be lost or diminished.

Though one must love God in order to know Him, it is equally true that

one must know God in order to love Him. No one can love anything of

which he is entirely ignorant; no one can love a person who is completely

unknown to him. But those who meditate deeply do “know,” because they

find proof of the existence of God as the ever new Joy felt in meditation, or

the Cosmic Sound of Aum (Amen) heard in deep silence, or the Cosmic

Love experienced while concentrating devotion in the heart, or the Cosmic

Wisdom that dawns as inner enlightenment, or the Cosmic Light evoking

visions of Infinity, or the Cosmic Life felt during meditation when the little

life is joined to the greater Life in everything.

Any devotee who even once has sensed God as any one of His tangible

manifestations in meditation cannot help but love Him when thus touched

by His thrilling qualities. Most people never really love God because they

little know how lovable the Lord is when He visits the heart of the

meditating devotee. This actual contact of the transcendental presence of

God is possible to determined devotees who persist in meditation and

continuous soulful prayers.

There is but one Originator of all capabilities of man: God is the Creator

of our love with which we love, of our souls with which we claim

immortality, of our minds and mental processes with which we think and

reason and accomplish, of our vitality with which we engage in the

activities of life. We should use all these gifts in a supreme energetic effort

in meditation to express our love to God until we feel consciously His

responding manifestation.

The average religionist rationalizes the fulfillment of his spiritual

obligation through absentminded prayers or mechanical rituals, or

circuitous wanderings in the forest of theology and dogma. He may attempt

to feel love and devotion for God in his heart, and to put his mind on God

as best he can during times of prayer; and he may try to love God “with all

his strength” by vigorously singing, dancing, or even rolling on the ground

as do some sects of “Holy Rollers.” When it comes to loving God with all

his soul he is at a loss, as he does not even know what the soul is. The only

time he knows something of his soul (and then only in an unconscious way)

is in deep, dreamless sleep. In that state, the “strength” or life energy is

switched off from the five senses and withdrawn inward; the consciousness

of oneself as a physical being is gone. At night human beings have a

glimpse of their real Self, the soul; each morning upon awakening the

majority again take up their mistaken identity as a mortal man or woman.

Outward attempts to apply Jesus’ teaching usually yield only minimal

external satisfaction, not God-realization. But there is an inner meaning to

the exhortation to love God with all one’s heart, mind, soul, and strength.

Jesus used these simple scriptural terms, but projected his understanding

that in them is the whole science of yoga, the transcendental way of divine

union through meditation. In India, where spiritual understanding had

developed for thousands of years before the time of Jesus, God-knowing

sages elaborated these concepts as a comprehensive spiritual philosophy to

guide devotees systematically on the path to liberation. When a person

makes the effort in meditation to know God, using the sincerity of his heart

and deepest feelings, and the intuition of his soul, and all the powers of

concentration of his mind, and all his interiorized life energy, or strength, he

will surely succeed.

That system of spiritual culture whereby one learns to “love God with

all your heart” is known in India as Bhakti Yoga—union with God through

unconditional love and devotion. The bhakta realizes that whatever is in a

person’s heart, that is where his concentration is—on the thing he loves. As

the lover’s heart is on the beloved and the drunkard’s is on his drink, so the

devotee’s heart is continuously absorbed in love for his Divine Beloved.

To “love God with all your mind” means with focused concentration.

India has specialized in the science of concentrating the mind one-pointedly

through definite techniques, so that during the time of worship the devotee

is able to keep his whole attention on God. If while offering prayerful

devotions the mind is constantly flitting to thoughts of work or food or

bodily sensations or other diversions, that is not loving God with all the

mind. The Bible teaches: “Pray without ceasing”; India’s yoga science gives

the actual methodology to worship God with that fully concentrated mind.

To “love God with all your soul” means to enter the state of

superconscious ecstasy, direct perception of the soul and its oneness with

God. When no thoughts cross the mind, but there is a conscious all-

knowingness, when one knows through intuitive realization that he can do

anything just by so ordering it, then one is in the expanded state of

superconsciousness. It is the realization of the soul as the reflection of God,

the soul’s connection with the consciousness of God. It is a state of

exceeding joy: the soul’s crystalline perception of the omnipresent Spirit

reflected as the joy of meditation.

To love God with all the soul requires the complete stillness of

transcendent interiorization. This cannot be achieved while praying aloud,

moving the hands this way and that, singing or chanting, or doing anything

else that activates the sensory-muscular apparatus of the body. Just as in

deep sleep the body and senses become inert, that inner withdrawal is

characteristic also of superconscious ecstasy—only ecstasy is much deeper

than sleep. Ten million sleeps do not describe the joy of it. That is the state

in which one can know the soul, and with that true Self wholly adore Him

who is Love itself.

The fulfillment of the divine command to love God with all one’s heart,

mind, and soul is made possible by the science that enables the devotee to

“love God with all thy strength.” Yoga teaches that science. When one

sleeps, the conscious mind is inactive; the strength is withdrawn from the

sensory-motor apparatus of the brain and from the muscles and nerves and

is concentrated in the faculties of the subconscious mind. One cannot go

into the sleep state of subconsciousness unless, usually passively, the life

force has been switched off from the conscious sensory and motor nervous

system; and one cannot go into the superconscious state, transcending the

subconsciousness, without consciously switching off the life energy from

the senses and muscles.

The mastery of life energy that enables one to love God with all one’s

strength begins with posture (asana, training the body to maintain with ease

and without restlessness the correct posture for motionless meditation) and

breathing exercises for life-force control (pranayama, techniques to quiet

the breath and heart). By such practice, the heart becomes quiet, effectively

switching off the energy from the senses and stilling the restless breath that

keeps man tied to body consciousness. The yogi is able to focus on God

without the intrusive pull of the flesh. The mind, disconnected from

sensations, becomes transcendentally interiorized (pratyahara). The

devotee can then use that free mind in a communion of love for God. When

the devotee can love God with an inwardly concentrated mind, he begins to

feel that love for God in his heart, exquisitely permeating every nuance of

his feelings with the presence of God. The God-saturated heart then feels

the Beloved Lord in the deepest recesses of the soul where the little love

meets and is enfolded by the Great Love. The feeling of God in the soul

expands into realization of God in His everywhereness (the samyama of

yoga: dharana, dhyana, samadhi).

Jesus went very deep in teachings that appear on the surface to be

simple—much deeper than most people understand. That he taught the

entire yoga system, the scientific method of union with God, is evidenced in

the Book of Revelation in the mystery of the seven stars and seven churches

with their seven angels and seven golden candlesticks. God-realization is

attained by opening the “seven seals” of these centers of spiritual perception

to attain mastery over all astral powers of life and death through which the

soul ascends to liberation.

Jesus emphasized that salvation begins with those practices that enable

the devotee truly to love God with the supreme offerings of heart, mind,

soul, and strength. In India’s greatest scripture of yoga, the Bhagavad Gita,

the Lord speaks in words that parallel the scriptural commandment cited by

Jesus: “Again listen to My supreme word, the most secret of all. Because

thou art dearly loved by Me, I will relate what is beneficial to thee. Absorb

thy mind in Me; become My devotee; resign all things to Me; bow down to

Me. Thou art dear to Me, so in truth do I promise thee: Thou shalt attain

Me!”

The First Commandment leads the devotee into observance of the

second great spiritual law, “like unto it.” As one strives to feel God within,

he has also a duty to share his experience of God with his neighbors: “Thou

shalt love thy neighbor (all races and creatures anywhere with whom one

comes in contact) as thyself (as you love your own soul)—because you see

God in everyone.” Man’s neighbor is the manifestation of his greater Self or

God. The soul is a reflection of Spirit, a reflection that is in every being and

in the vibratory life of all animate and inanimate cosmic decor. To love

parents, relatives, associates, countrymen, all races of the earth, all

creatures, flowers, stars, which live in the “neighborhood” or range of one’s

consciousness is to love God in His multifarious tangible manifestations.

Those persons yet unable to love God as His subtle expressions in

meditation can nurture their love for Him as manifested in nature and in all

beings they contact or sense in any way.

It is God who becomes the father to protect the child, the mother to love

the child unconditionally, and friends to help that incarnate soul without the

limitation of familial instincts. It is God who has become the adorned earth

with its canopy of stars to amuse His children with wonder. It is He who has

become the food and the breath and the sustaining life functions of the

multitude of mortal forms. When God’s immanence penetrates man’s

understanding, it awakens man to his duty and privilege to worship God

templed in himself (through meditation), and templed in all beings and

things in the universe (through love of his neighbor in the proximity of his

cosmic home).

Even saints who love God in transcendental ecstasy in meditation find

complete redemption only after they have shared their divine attainment by

loving God as manifested in all souls in the omnipresent neighborhood of

their soul.

Encouraged by love for God in meditation, one might best begin soul

neighborliness by reaching out in helpfulness to persons who are outside

one’s family, yet are nearer than the world at large. Persons instinctively

show preference in giving to their families rather than to strangers; and the

idea of “the world” itself is a concept far removed and abstract. But when a

person lives just for himself and the select few he chooses to favor as his

own, he chokes the expansion of his life, and from the spiritual standpoint

he does not live at all. On the contrary, when a person extends his sympathy

and caring from the “us four and no more” consciousness to his neighbors

and to the world, his little life flows into the greater life of God and

becomes the Eternal Life—the second requisite in answer to the question

put to Christ by the lawyer, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

Most people live in narrow walls of selfishness, never feeling the throb

of the universal life of God. Anyone who lives without knowing that his life

comes from the eternal life, who abides a solely material existence, dies and

reincarnates forgetful of past lives, has not really lived. His mortal

consciousness wandered through delusive dream experiences, but his true

Self, the soul, never awoke to express its godly nature and immortality. By

contrast, any devotee who by meditation realizes the eternal life behind his

mortal life lives forever, never losing his conscious existence at the time of

death, or from one incarnation to another, or in the eternity of soul freedom

in God.

Saints and sages who fulfill the two preeminent commandments are no

longer subservient to the discipline of other commandments, for in loving

God in transcendental meditation and as manifested in others, the

righteousness in all cosmic laws is honored automatically. In the devotee

with God-contact, the Framer of Cosmic Law works as a natural intuitive

goodness that keeps him always in harmony with the universal codes of

God. Millenniums of darkness gathered around the soul may be dispelled

gradually by little flames of observance of numerous rules of conduct. But

when, by supreme effort of the heart, mind, and strength, the all-pervading

light of God visits the soul, then darkness is no more; the advent of the

Great Light engulfs the flickering illumination of disciplined

actions. Therefore, to love God through continuous prayer and meditation,

and to love God through physical, mental, and spiritual service to His

manifestations in one’s universal family of neighbors, is the support and

essence of the entirety of other laws of human conduct and liberated lives.

A rebirth of loving God and loving one’s neighbor as urged by Jesus

Christ would bring a spirit of oneness to heal the ills of the world.

Only by fellowship with God will harmony and fellowship come on

earth. When one actually perceives the Divine Presence in his own soul, he

is inspirited with love for his neighbor—Jew and Christian, Muslim and

Hindu—in the consciousness that one’s true Self and the Selves of all others

are equally soul-reflections of the one infinitely lovable God. Utopian social

and political agendas will have little long-lasting benefit until humanity

learns the eternal science by which followers of any religion may know

God in the oneness of soul and Spirit communion.

To observe the “first commandment,” as cited by Jesus, is the centric

obligation of human life, subordinating and making servile to it the host of

demanding responsibilities man gathers unto himself. Jesus supported the

scriptural command to “Honor thy father and mother” but love God

supremely. Father, mother, friends, beloved ones, are gifts of God. Love the

One Love that hides Himself behind all kindly masks. Love Him first and

foremost, or times without numbering He will visit the heart and slip away

unrecognized and unwelcomed.

To be with God now is of utmost importance. His love is the only

shelter in life and death. Time should be utilized to its best advantage; why

shouldn’t it be to reclaim oneness with the Creator of this Universe, our

Infinite Father?

CHAPTER 9

The Kingdom of God Within You

And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God

should come, he answered them and said, “The kingdom of God cometh not

with observation: Neither shall they say, ‘Lo here!’ or, ‘lo there!’ for,

behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20–21).

esus addresses man as the perennial seeker of permanent happiness and

freedom from all suffering: “The kingdom of God—of eternal,

immutable, ever-newly blissful Cosmic Consciousness—is within you.

Behold your soul as a reflection of the immortal Spirit, and you will find

your Self encompassing the infinite empire of God-love, God-wisdom,

God-bliss existing in every particle of vibratory creation and in the

vibrationless Transcendental Absolute.”

The teachings of Jesus about God’s kingdom—sometimes in direct

language, sometimes in parables pregnant with metaphysical meaning—

may be said to be the core of the entirety of his message. The Gospel

records that at the very outset of his public ministry, “Jesus came into

Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God.” His exhortation to

“seek ye first the kingdom of God” is at the heart of his Sermon on the

Mount. The only prayer he is known to have given his disciples beseeches

God, “Thy kingdom come.” Again and again he spoke of the kingdom of

the Heavenly Father and the method of its attainment:

“Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into

the kingdom of God.”

“Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek

to enter in, and shall not be able.”

“No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from

heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the

serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up.”

“And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter

into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into

hell fire.”

“I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall

go in and out, and find pasture.”

“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father,

but by me.”22

Taken together, these and Jesus’ other declarations about the kingdom of

God provide for a comprehensive understanding of the simple statement in

the present verses that God’s kingdom is to be found not by

“observation”—use of the matter-tuned senses of sight, hearing, taste,

smell, and touch—but by interiorization of the consciousness to perceive

the Divine Reality “within you.”

“The kingdom of God does not come in response to sensory

observation; neither can they find it who say, ‘Behold, it is here or there

somewhere in the clouds.’ Rather, concentrate within and you will find the

sphere of God-consciousness hidden behind your material consciousness.”

Many people think of heaven as a physical location, a point of space far

above the atmosphere and beyond the stars. Others interpret Jesus’

statements about the advent of the kingdom of God as referring to the

coming of a Messiah to establish and rule over a divine kingdom on earth.

In fact, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven consist,

respectively, of the transcendental infinitudes of Cosmic Consciousness and

the heavenly causal and astral realms of vibratory creation that are

considerably finer and more harmonized with God’s will than those

physical vibrations clustered together as planets, air, and earthly

surroundings.

Material objects cognized as sensations of sight, hearing, smell, taste,

and touch are constituted of a play of forces originating and existing beyond

the observational capabilities of human consciousness. The incipient origin

of all material forms and material vibrations lies in Cosmic Consciousness.

Matter is condensed physical energy; physical energy is condensed astral

energy; and astral energy is condensed prototypic thought force of God.

Hence Cosmic Consciousness lies hidden within and behind the layers of

matter, physical energy, astral energy, and thought or consciousness.

As in the macrocosm, so in the microcosm of the human body: Cosmic

Consciousness, which is marked by ever new joy and immortality, is the

creator of human consciousness and as such lies within it. From the infinite

Cosmic Consciousness, individual souls were conceived; these

individualized ideations of the thought of God were cloaked in two further

layers of external manifestation by condensation of magnetic causal forces

of consciousness into the astral body of luminous life energy and the mortal

body of flesh and blood.

Thus the kingdom of God is not separate from the kingdom of matter,

but is both within it—pervading it in subtle form as its origin and sustainer

—and beyond it, existing in the infinite mansions of the Father beyond the

circumscribed physical cosmos.23

That is why Jesus said it is futile to look for heaven with the

consciousness concentrated on material vibrations—identified with bodily

sensations and pleasures and earthly comforts. In the kingdom of matter and

body consciousness man finds disease and mental and physical suffering;

but turning within to the inner kingdom he finds the Comforter, the Holy

Ghost or Cosmic Vibration of Aum, manifesting in the subtle cerebrospinal

centers of spiritual consciousness. To be carried along the outgoing stream

of material consciousness is to be swept willy-nilly into the hades of Satan’s

kingdom—the realm of earthly attachments and limitations of the mortal

body; to follow the inwardly flowing stream of consciousness by meditating

on Aum is to reach the blissful kingdom of God that exists behind the

opaque obstruction of the physical being.24

Communion with the holy Comforter brings attunement with Christ

Consciousness indwelling in the body as the ever perfect soul. Through

deeper communion with the Christ Consciousness comes realization of the

soul’s oneness with omnipresent Spirit—the little Self expanding to its

infinite Self to encompass the boundless divine kingdom of ever-existing,

ever-conscious, ever-new Bliss.

For every body-circumscribed soul the kingdom of God awaits

discovery by those who delve within in meditation to transcend human

consciousness and reach the successively higher states of

superconsciousness, Christ Consciousness, and Cosmic Consciousness.

Those who meditate deeply, concentrating intensely within their state of

silence, or neutralized thoughts, withdraw their minds from material objects

of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch—from all bodily sensations and

disturbing mental restlessness. In this focused stillness within, they find an

ineffable sense of peace. Peace is the first glimpse of the inner kingdom of

God.

Devotees who at will can thus interiorize their minds and concentrate

fully within the resultant peacefulness will definitely find entry into the

kingdom of God-consciousness. That realization gradually unfolds itself as

omnipresence, omniscience, ever new bliss, and visions of the realms of

eternal light in which all liberated souls move in God, materializing or

dematerializing themselves at will. No one can enter this heaven of Cosmic

Consciousness unless through the gates of devout concentration and

meditation he can penetrate his consciousness deeply within himself. That

is why Jesus said unequivocally, “The kingdom of God is within you,” that

is, within the transcendent states of your soul perceptions.

There is a beautiful accord between the teachings of Jesus Christ to

enter the “kingdom of God within you” and the teachings of yoga set forth

by Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita to restore King Soul, the reflection

of God in man, to its rightful rulership of the bodily kingdom, with full

realization of the soul’s godly states of consciousness. When man is settled

in that inner kingdom of divine consciousness, the awakened intuitive

perception of the soul pierces the veils of matter, life energy, and

consciousness and uncovers the God-essence in the heart of all things.

He dwells in the world, enveloping all—everywhere, His hands and

feet; present on all sides, His eyes and ears, His mouths and heads;

Shining in all the sense faculties, yet transcending the senses;

unattached to creation, yet the Mainstay of all; free from the gunas

(modes of Nature), yet the Enjoyer of them.

He is within and without all that exists, the animate and the

inanimate; near He is, and far; imperceptible because of His

subtlety.

He, the Indivisible One, appears as countless beings; He

maintains and destroys those forms, then creates them anew.

The Light of All Lights, beyond darkness; Knowledge itself,

That which is to be known, the Goal of all learning, He is seated in

the hearts of all (Bhagavad Gita XIII:13–17).

Raja Yoga, the royal way of God-union, is the science of actual

realization of the kingdom of God that lies within oneself. Through practice

of the sacred yoga techniques of interiorization received during initiation

from a true guru, one can find that kingdom by awakening the astral and

causal centers of life force and consciousness in the spine and brain that are

the gateways into the heavenly regions of transcendent consciousness. One

who achieves such awakening knows the omnipresent God in His Infinite

Nature, and in the purity of one’s soul, and even in the delusive cloaks of

changeable material forms and forces.

Patanjali, India’s foremost ancient exponent of Raja Yoga, outlined eight

steps to be followed for ascension into the kingdom of God within.

1. Yama, moral conduct: abstaining from injury to others, falsehood,

stealing, incontinence, and covetousness.

2. Niyama: purity of body and mind, contentment in all circumstances,

self-discipline, self-study (contemplation), and devotion to God.

These first two steps yield self-control and mental calmness.

3. Asana: disciplining the body so that it can assume and maintain the

correct posture for meditation without fatigue or physical and mental

restlessness.

4. Pranayama: techniques of life-force control that calm the heart and

breath and remove sensory distractions from the mind.

5. Pratyahara: the power of complete mental interiorization and

stillness resulting from withdrawal of the mind from the senses.

6. Dharana: the power to use the interiorized mind to become one-

pointedly concentrated upon God in one of His aspects through which He

reveals Himself to the inward perception of the devotee.

7. Dhyana: meditation deepened by the intensity of concentration

(dharana) that gives the conception of the vastness of God, His attributes as

manifested in His endless expansion of Cosmic Consciousness.

8. Samadhi, union with God: the full realization of the soul’s oneness

with Spirit.

All devotees may find the door to the kingdom of God by concentrating

on the spiritual eye, the Christ Consciousness center at the point between

the eyebrows. Long and deep meditation as taught by a true guru enables

one gradually to convert the consciousness of the material body into that of

the astral body, and with the awakened faculties of astral perception to intuit

deeper and deeper states of consciousness until one reaches oneness with

the Source of consciousness. Entering the door of the spiritual eye, one

leaves behind all attachments to matter and the physical body and gains

access into the interior infinitudes of God’s kingdom.

The tissues of the physical body are made up of cells; the tissue of the

astral body is composed of lifetrons—intelligent units of light or life energy.

When man is in a state of body attachment, characterized by tension or

contraction of life energy into atomic components, the lifetrons of the astral

body become compacted, circumscribed by identification with the physical

form. By metaphysical relaxation, the lifetronic structure begins to expand

—the grip of the flesh on one’s identity loosens.

By deeper and deeper meditation, the energy frame of the astral self

expands beyond the boundaries of the physical body. The lifetronic body,

being of a sphere of existence unconfounded by the delusional stricture of

the three-dimensional physical world, has the potential to become one with

the Cosmic Energy pervading the whole universe. God as Holy Ghost, Holy

Vibration, is the Light of Cosmic Energy; man, made in the image of God,

is composed of that light. We are that Light compacted; and we are that

Light of our Universal Self.

As a first step toward entering the kingdom of God, the devotee should

sit still in the correct meditation posture, with erect spine, and tense and

relax the body—for by relaxation the consciousness is released from the

muscles. The yogi begins with proper deep breathing, inhaling and tensing

the whole body, exhaling and relaxing, several times. With each exhalation

all muscular tension and motion should be cast away, until a state of bodily

stillness is attained. Then, by concentration techniques, restless motion is

removed from the mind. In perfect stillness of body and mind, the yogi

enjoys the ineffable peace of the presence of the soul. In the body, life is

templed; in the mind, light is templed; in the soul, peace is templed. The

deeper one goes into the soul the more that peace is felt; that is

superconsciousness. When by deeper meditation the devotee expands that

awareness of peace and feels his consciousness spreading with it over the

universe, that all beings and all creation are swallowed up in that peace,

then he is entering into Cosmic Consciousness. He feels that peace

everywhere—in the flowers, in every human being, in the atmosphere. He

beholds the earth and all worlds floating like bubbles in that ocean of peace.

The inner peace first experienced by the devotee in meditation is his

own soul; the vaster peace he feels by going deeper is God. The devotee

who experiences unity with everything has established God in the temple of

his infinite inner perception.

In the temple of silence, in the temple of peace,

I will meet Thee, I will touch Thee, I will love Thee!

And coax Thee to my altar of peace.

In the temple of samadhi, in the temple of bliss,

I will meet Thee, I will touch Thee, I will love Thee!

And coax Thee to my altar of bliss.25

When restless thoughts have been banished, automatically the mind is

made into a sacred temple of peace. God intimates Himself in the temple of

silence and then in the temple of peace. The devotee first meets Him as

peace flowing out of the mental state in which all thoughts have become

transformed into pure intuitive feeling. He touches the Lord with his heart’s

love and feels Him as joy; his pure love entices God to manifest Himself on

the altar of the perception of peace. The advancing devotee feels God not

only in meditation, but keeps Him always on the altar of peace in his heart.

In the temple of samadhi, oneness with the peace that is God’s first

manifestation in meditation, the devotee finds a state of ever new bliss, a

joy that never grows stale. Bliss is a much deeper state than peace. As a

mute person drinking nectar imbibes but cannot describe the ambrosial

flavor, so the rapture of bliss found in the temple of samadhi moves the

experiencer to wordless eloquence. That joy alone can satisfy the innate

craving of the human heart. In patient, persistent meditation, day after day,

year after year, the devotee lovingly demands of his Lord: “Come to me as

joy in samadhi-oneness, and remain forever in my heart on the altar of

bliss!” When in our hearts, in harmony with the hearts of all who love God

in the interior temple of silence and bliss, we rejoice in the joy of our one

Beloved, that united joy is a vast altar of God.

It is incumbent on man as a soul to practice that inner silence; to find

God now. In the use of the senses amid the exigencies of daily life, the

devotee holds to the consciousness: “I am sitting on the peace throne of

inner silence.” In the midst of activity, he remains inwardly recollected: “I

am the god of silence sitting on the throne of each action.” His equanimity

is upset by no unruly feelings: “I am the prince of silence sitting on the

throne of poise.” His inner Self, at one with eternity, in life and in death

rejoices: “I am the king of immortality reigning on the throne of silence.

Destruction of the body, delusion’s insults to the soul, impositions of

restlessness, trials of life—these are but dramas I am acting in and watching

as divine entertainment. I may play for a little while; but always, from the

inner refuge of my silence, I behold the unfolding script of life with the

calm joy of immortality.”

“Yoga” of the Christian Saints

Paramahansa Yogananda wrote: “A belief in the Holy Ghost is one

thing; actual contact with the Holy Ghost is something else! In the past

centuries, great saints such as Francis of Assisi and Teresa of Avila

knew the art of contacting the Holy Ghost and the Christ Consciousness

and the Cosmic Consciousness—the trifold Unity—by the interiorized

intensity of pure devotion.”

In her masterworks The Way of Perfection and The Interior Castle,

the renowned mystic Saint Teresa of Avila gives a systematic

description, from her own personal experience, of the interiorized states

of God-communion. These in essence correspond exactly with the

progressively higher states of consciousness expounded in India’s

centuried, universal soul-science of yoga.

The illumined mystic Saint John of the Cross (contemporary and

supporter of Teresa of Avila) speaks of his own experiences of God as

the Holy Ghost in Stanzas 14 and 15 of his sublime Spiritual Canticle.

Explaining the symbolism, Saint John describes the “roaring torrents” as

“a spiritual sound and voice overpowering all other sounds and voices in

the world….

“This voice, or this murmuring sound of the waters, is an

overflowing so abundant as to fill the soul with good, and a power so

mighty seizing upon it as to seem not only the sound of many waters,

but a most loud roaring of thunder. But the voice is a spiritual voice,

unattended by material sounds or the pain and torment of them, but

rather with majesty, power, might, delight, and glory: it is, as it were, a

voice, an infinite interior sound which endows the soul with power and

might. The Apostles heard in spirit this voice when the Holy Spirit

descended upon them in the sound ‘as of a mighty wind,’ as we read in

the Acts of the Apostles.”…

Evelyn Underhill, in Mysticism (Part 1, Chapter 4), wrote: “It is one

of the many indirect testimonies to the objective reality of mysticism

that the stages of this road, the psychology of the spiritual ascent, as

described to us by different schools of contemplatives, always present

practically the same sequence of states. The ‘school for saints’ has never

found it necessary to bring its curriculum up to date.

“The psychologist finds little difficulty, for instance, in reconciling

the ‘Degrees of Orison’ described by Saint Teresa—Recollection, Quiet,

Union, Ecstasy, Rapt, the ‘Pain of God,’ and the Spiritual Marriage of

the soul—with the four forms of contemplation enumerated by Hugh of

Saint Victor, or the Sufi’s ‘Seven Stages’ of the soul’s ascent to God,

which begin in adoration and end in spiritual marriage. Though each

wayfarer may choose different landmarks, it is clear from their

comparison that the road is one.” (Publisher’s Note)

If through practice of meditation one keeps knocking on the doors of

silence, God will respond: “Come in. I whispered to you through all guises

of nature; and now I say to you, I am Joy—the living Fountain of Joy. Bathe

in My waters—wash away your habits, cleanse yourself of fears. I dreamed

a beautiful dream for you; but, My child, you made of it a nightmare.” God

wants His children to be no longer prodigal sons, but to play their roles in

life as immortals, that when they leave the stage of this earth they can say,

“Father, that was a nice entertainment, but now I am ready to come Home.”

It is a sin against the divine nature of the Self to think that there is no

chance of being happy, to abandon all hope of attaining peace—these must

be exposed as psychological errors born of Satan’s interference in the

human mind. Infinite happiness and peace are always at hand, just behind

the screen of man’s ignorance. How could it be possible for anyone to be

forever barred from the kingdom of God, when that divine realm is right

within him? All one has to do is turn from the darkness of evil and follow

the light of goodness.

The proximity of happiness is as close as one’s own Self; it isn’t even a

matter of attaining, but only of lifting the soul-shrouding veil of ignorance.

The very word “attaining” implies something one wants but does not have

—a metaphysical error. Bliss is the irrevocable divine birthright of every

soul. Tear away the intrusive veil, and at once there is contact with that

happiness supreme. Spirit is happiness. Soul is the pure reflection of Spirit.

Body-bound man fails to perceive this because his consciousness is

distorted: The lake of his mind is constantly roiled by the incursion of

thoughts and emotions. Meditation quiets the waves of feeling (chitta) so

that God’s reflection as the joyous soul is clearly mirrored within.

Most beginners on the path to the inner kingdom of God find that their

meditation is entrapped in restlessness. That is Satan’s lair. The devotee

must escape by perseverance in yoga practice and devotion. “Whenever the

fickle and restless mind wanders away—for whatever reason—let the yogi

withdraw it from those distractions and return it to the sole control of the

Self….Undoubtedly the mind is fickle and unruly; but by yoga practice and

by dispassion, O Arjuna, the mind may nevertheless be controlled. This is

My word: Yoga is difficult of attainment by the ungoverned man; but he

who is self-controlled will, by striving through proper methods, be able to

achieve it.”

The habit of being inwardly in the calm presence of God must be

developed, so that day and night that consciousness will remain steadfast. It

is worth the effort; for to live in the consciousness of God is to be done with

enslavement to disease, suffering, and fear. Just be with God; that is the be-

all and end-all of life. If one resolves never to go to sleep at night without

meditating and feeling the Divine Presence, into one’s life will come

happiness beyond all expectation. Effort is necessary, but that effort will

make one a king enthroned in the kingdom of peace and joy. Time spent in

the pursuit of extraneous material things is a waste of man’s precious

opportunities to know God. I am telling you this from my heart: Blessed is

he who makes up his mind never to rest until he has found God.

A subsistent inner happiness unconditioned by any external influence is

evident proof of the responding presence of God. Progress in divine

communion comes only by meditating with regularity and with deep

concentration and devotion. Every day’s meditation must be deeper than

yesterday’s. The devotee who makes the divine quest his overriding concern

will find in the kingdom of God eternal safety; no tremor of trouble or trials

can cross the threshold of his sanctuary of silence wherein naught is

allowed ingress but the blissful, all-loving Father-Mother God.

One who finds within himself that “secret place of the most High”

becomes suffused with supreme happiness and divine security.26 Whether

he is mixing with friends or sleeping or working, he keeps that place only

for God. With his consciousness centered in the Lord, he finds maya’s

concentric veils suddenly lifting; in joy the devotee sees God playing hide-

and-seek with him in the blossoms, and the stars shining with a stronger

Light, and the sky smiling with the Infinite. When his eyes are spiritually

opened, the devotee beholds, peering at him through the eyes of everyone,

the eyes of the Infinite. Behind the kind or unkind voice of everyone he

hears the truthful voice of the Infinite. Behind the wise or helter-skelter will

of everyone he perceives the constancy of the will of God. Behind all

human loves he feels the supreme love of God. What a wonderful existence,

when all of God’s disguises are cast off and the devotee is face to face with

the Infinite, in blissful oneness of divine communion!

Be always intoxicated with the Divine, with the wave of your

consciousness ever at rest on the bosom of the Eternal Sea. When one is

kicking and splashing about in the water, there is little consciousness of the

ocean itself, but of the struggle. But when one lets go and relaxes, the body

floats; it feels in its buoyancy the whole sea lapping around it. That is the

way the calm devotee feels God, with the whole universe of Divine

Happiness rocking gently beneath his consciousness.

God’s kingdom is within you; He is within you. Just behind your

perceptions, just behind your thoughts, just behind your feelings, He is.

Every grain of food you eat, every breath you take, is God. You are not

living by food or oxygen, but by the Cosmic Word of God. All powers of

mind and action that you use are borrowed from God. Think of Him all the

time—before you act, while you are engaged in activity, and after activity.

In fulfilling your duty to man, remember foremost your duty to God,

without whose delegated power no duties are possible. Feel Him behind

your senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Feel His energy in the

arms, and legs, and feet. Feel Him as life in each exhalation and inhalation.

Feel His power in your will; His wisdom in your brain; His love in your

heart. Wherever God’s presence is consciously felt, mortal ignorance melts

away.

Those who are wise never miss their daily engagement with God in

meditation. They make it the consuming goal of their existence to contact

Him. All who persist with that sincerity shall enter the kingdom of God in

this life; and to abide in that kingdom is to be eternally free.

“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock,

and it shall be opened unto you:

“For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh

findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.”

— Matthew 7:7–8

22 The deeper metaphysical meaning of all these verses, and their application to the science of yoga,

is explained comprehensively in The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within

You.

23 “If those who lead you say, ‘Look! the kingdom is in heaven,’ then the birds of heaven will

precede you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. But the kingdom is

within you and it is outside of you. If you will know yourselves, then you will be known, and you

will realize that you are children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you

dwell in poverty and you are poverty” (The Gospel of Thomas, verse 3).

His disciples said to him, “…When will the new world come?” He said to them, “What you are

looking forward to has come, but you don’t know it” (The Gospel of Thomas, verse 51).

Jesus’ disciples said unto him: “When will the kingdom come?” Jesus answered, “It will not come

by waiting for it. People will not say, ‘Look! Here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ But the kingdom of the

Father is spread out upon the earth and people do not see it” (The Gospel of Thomas, verse 113).

(Publisher’s Note)

24 Among the non-canonical Gospels that have survived from the earliest part of the Christian era is

a fragmentary manuscript known as “The Dialogue of the Savior,” composed around A.D. 150 and

lost until the discovery of the Nag Hammadi manuscripts in 1945. The translation in The Complete

Gospels: Annotated Scholar’s Version includes this passage (14:1–4):

Matthew said: “Lord, I wish to see that place of life…where there is no wickedness but only pure

light.”

The Lord said, “Brother Matthew, you will not be able to see it as long as you bear flesh.”

Matthew said: “Lord, even if I will not be able to see it, let me know it.”

The Lord said, “Those who have known themselves have seen it.” (Publisher’s Note)

25 From Cosmic Chants: Spiritualized Songs for Divine Communion by Paramahansa Yogananda

(published by Self-Realization Fellowship).

26 “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the

Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in Him will I trust….

“There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For He shall give

His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest

thou dash thy foot against a stone….

“Because he hath set his love upon Me, therefore will I deliver him:

“I will set him on high, because he hath known My name. He shall call upon Me, and I will answer

him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him. With long life will I satisfy

him, and shew him My salvation” (Psalms 91:1–16).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

“The ideal of love for God and service to humanity found full expression

in the life of Paramahansa Yogananda….Though the major part of his life

was spent outside India, still he takes his place among our great saints. His

work continues to grow and shine ever more brightly, drawing people

everywhere on the path of the pilgrimage of the Spirit.”

—from a tribute by the Government of India upon issuing a commemorative stamp in

Paramahansa Yogananda’s honor on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his passing

Paramahansa Yogananda was born Mukunda Lal Ghosh on January 5,

1893, in the north Indian city of Gorakhpur, at the foot of the Himalaya

mountains. From his earliest years, it was clear that his life was marked for

a divine destiny. According to those closest to him, even as a child the

depth of his awareness and experience of the spiritual was far beyond the

ordinary. In his youth he sought out many of India’s sages and saints,

hoping to find an illumined teacher to guide him in his soul’s quest. It was

in 1910, at the age of seventeen, that he met and became a disciple of the

revered Swami Sri Yukteswar. In the hermitage of this great master of Yoga

he spent the better part of the next ten years, receiving Sri Yukteswar’s strict

but loving discipline.

After graduating from Calcutta University in 1915, Sri Yogananda took

formal vows as a monk of India’s venerable monastic Swami Order. Two

years later, he began his life’s work with the founding of a “how-to-live”

school—since grown to seventeen educational institutions throughout India

—where traditional academic subjects were offered together with yoga

training and instruction in spiritual ideals. In 1920, he was invited to serve

as India’s delegate to an International Congress of Religious Liberals in

Boston. His address to the Congress and subsequent lectures on the East

Coast were enthusiastically received, and in 1924 he embarked on a cross-

continental speaking tour.

Over the next three decades, Paramahansa Yogananda contributed in

far-reaching ways to a greater awareness and appreciation in the West of the

spiritual wisdom of the East. In Los Angeles, he established an international

headquarters for Self-Realization Fellowship—the nonsectarian religious

society he had founded in 1920. Through his writings, extensive lecture

tours, and the creation of numerous Self-Realization Fellowship temples

and meditation centers, he introduced thousands of truth-seekers to the

ancient science and philosophy of Yoga and its universally applicable

methods of meditation.

Today, the spiritual and humanitarian work begun by Paramahansa

Yogananda continues under the direction of Sri Mrinalini Mata, one of his

closest disciples and president of Self-Realization Fellowship/Yogoda

Satsanga Society of India. In addition to publishing his lectures, writings,

and informal talks (including a comprehensive series of lessons for home

study on the science of Kriya Yoga meditation and the art of spiritual

living), the society also oversees its temples, retreats, and centers around

the world; the monastic communities of the Self-Realization Order; and a

Worldwide Prayer Circle.

In an article on Sri Yogananda’s life and work, Dr. Quincy Howe, Jr.,

Professor of Ancient Languages at Scripps College, wrote: “Paramahansa

Yogananda brought to the West not only India’s perennial promise of God-

realization, but also a practical method by which spiritual aspirants from all

walks of life may progress rapidly toward that goal. Originally appreciated

in the West only on the most lofty and abstract level, the spiritual legacy of

India is now accessible as practice and experience to all who aspire to know

God, not in the beyond, but in the here and now….Yogananda has placed

within the reach of all the most exalted methods of contemplation.”

The life and teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda are described in his

Autobiography of a Yogi. An award-winning documentary film about his

life and work, Awake: The Life of Yogananda, was released in October

2014.

PARAMAHANSA YOGANANDA:

A YOGI IN LIFE AND DEATH

Paramahansa Yogananda entered mahasamadhi (a yogi’s final conscious

exit from the body) in Los Angeles, California, on March 7, 1952, after

concluding his speech at a banquet held in honor of H. E. Binay R. Sen,

Ambassador of India.

The great world teacher demonstrated the value of yoga (scientific

techniques for God-realization) not only in life but in death. Weeks after his

departure his unchanged face shone with the divine luster of

incorruptibility.

Mr. Harry T. Rowe, Los Angeles Mortuary Director, Forest Lawn

Memorial-Park (in which the body of the great master is temporarily

placed), sent Self-Realization Fellowship a notarized letter from which the

following extracts are taken:

“The absence of any visual signs of decay in the dead body of

Paramahansa Yogananda offers the most extraordinary case in our

experience….No physical disintegration was visible in his body even

twenty days after death….No indication of mold was visible on his skin,

and no visible desiccation (drying up) took place in the bodily tissues. This

state of perfect preservation of a body is, so far as we know from mortuary

annals, an unparalleled one….At the time of receiving Yogananda’s body,

the Mortuary personnel expected to observe, through the glass lid of the

casket, the usual progressive signs of bodily decay. Our astonishment

increased as day followed day without bringing any visible change in the

body under observation. Yogananda’s body was apparently in a phenomenal

state of immutability….

“No odor of decay emanated from his body at any time….The physical

appearance of Yogananda on March 27th, just before the bronze cover of

the casket was put into position, was the same as it had been on March 7th.

He looked on March 27th as fresh and as unravaged by decay as he had

looked on the night of his death. On March 27th there was no reason to say

that his body had suffered any visible physical disintegration at all. For

these reasons we state again that the case of Paramahansa Yogananda is

unique in our experience.”

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES ON

THE KRIYA YOGA TEACHINGS OF

PARAMAHANSA YOGANANDA

Self-Realization Fellowship is dedicated to freely assisting seekers

worldwide. For information regarding our annual series of public lectures

and classes, meditation and inspirational services at our temples and centers

around the world, a schedule of retreats, and other activities, we invite you

to visit our website or contact our International Headquarters:

www.yogananda-srf.org

Self-Realization Fellowship

3880 San Rafael Avenue

Los Angeles, CA 90065-3219

(323) 225-2471

SELF-REALIZATION FELLOWSHIP LESSONS

Personal guidance and instruction from Paramahansa Yogananda on the techniques of yoga

meditation and principles of spiritual living

If you feel drawn to the spiritual teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda,

we invite you to enroll in the Self-Realization Fellowship Lessons.

Paramahansa Yogananda originated this home-study series to provide

sincere seekers the opportunity to learn and practice the ancient yoga

meditation techniques that he brought to the West—including the science of

Kriya Yoga. The Lessons also present his practical guidance for attaining

balanced physical, mental, and spiritual well-being.

The Self-Realization Fellowship Lessons are available at a nominal fee

(to cover printing and postage costs). All students are freely given personal

guidance in their practice by Self-Realization Fellowship monks and nuns.

For more information…

Complete details about the Self-Realization Fellowship Lessons are

included in the free booklet Undreamed-of Possibilities. To receive a copy

of this booklet and an application form, please visit our website or contact

our International Headquarters.

Also published by Self-Realization Fellowship…

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A YOGI

By Paramahansa Yogananda

This acclaimed autobiography presents a fascinating portrait of one of

the great spiritual figures of our time. With engaging candor, eloquence, and

wit, Paramahansa Yogananda narrates the inspiring chronicle of his life—

the experiences of his remarkable childhood, encounters with many saints

and sages during his youthful search throughout India for an illumined

teacher, ten years of training in the hermitage of a revered yoga master, and

the thirty years that he lived and taught in America. Also recorded here are

his meetings with Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Luther Burbank,

the Catholic stigmatist Therese Neumann, and other celebrated spiritual

personalities of East and West.

Autobiography of a Yogi is at once a beautifully written account of an

exceptional life and a profound introduction to the ancient science of Yoga

and its time-honored tradition of meditation. The author clearly explains the

subtle but definite laws behind both the ordinary events of everyday life and

the extraordinary events commonly termed miracles. His absorbing life

story thus becomes the background for a penetrating and unforgettable look

at the ultimate mysteries of human existence.

Considered a modern spiritual classic, the book has been translated into

more than forty languages and is widely used as a text and reference work

in colleges and universities. A perennial best seller since it was first

published in 1946, Autobiography of a Yogi has found its way into the

hearts of millions of readers around the world.

“A rare account.”

— THE NEW YORK TIMES

“A fascinating and clearly annotated study.”

— NEWSWEEK

“There has been nothing before, written in English or in any other European language,

like this presentation of Yoga.”

— COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS

OTHER BOOKS BY PARAMAHANSA YOGANANDA

Available at bookstores or directly from the publisher:

Self-Realization Fellowship

3880 San Rafael Avenue • Los Angeles, California 90065

Tel (323) 225-2471 • Fax (323) 225-5088

www.srfbooks.org

God Talks With Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita—A New Translation and Commentary

In this monumental two-volume work, Paramahansa Yogananda reveals the innermost essence of

India’s most renowned scripture. Exploring its psychological, spiritual, and metaphysical depths, he

presents a sweeping chronicle of the soul’s journey to enlightenment through the royal science of

God-realization.

The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You—A revelatory commentary

on the original teachings of Jesus

In this unprecedented masterwork of inspiration, almost 1700 pages in length, Paramahansa

Yogananda takes the reader on a profoundly enriching journey through the four Gospels. Verse by

verse, he illumines the universal path to oneness with God taught by Jesus to his immediate disciples

but obscured through centuries of misinterpretation: “how to become like Christ, how to resurrect the

Eternal Christ within one’s self.”

The Yoga of the Bhagavad Gita: An Introduction to India’s Universal Science of God-Realization

A compilation of selections from Paramahansa Yogananda’s in-depth, critically acclaimed translation

of and commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, God Talks With Arjuna, this book presents truth-seekers

with an ideal introduction to the Gita’s timeless and universal teachings. Contains Yogananda’s

complete translation of the Bhagavad Gita, presented for the first time in uninterrupted sequential

form.

Man’s Eternal Quest

Paramahansa Yogananda’s Collected Talks and Essays present in-depth discussions of the vast range

of inspiring and universal truths that have captivated millions in his Autobiography of a Yogi. Volume

I explores little-known and seldom-understood aspects of meditation, life after death, the nature of

creation, health and healing, the unlimited powers of the mind, and the eternal quest that finds

fulfillment only in God.

The Divine Romance

Volume II of Paramahansa Yogananda’s collected talks and essays. Among the wide-ranging

selections: How to Cultivate Divine Love; Harmonizing Physical, Mental, and Spiritual Methods of

Healing; A World Without Boundaries; Controlling Your Destiny; The Yoga Art of Overcoming

Mortal Consciousness and Death; The Cosmic Lover; Finding the Joy in Life.

Journey to Self-realization

Volume III of the collected talks and essays presents Sri Yogananda’s unique combination of wisdom,

compassion, down-to-earth guidance, and encouragement on dozens of fascinating subjects,

including: Quickening Human Evolution, How to Express Everlasting Youthfulness, and Realizing

God in Your Daily Life.

Wine of the Mystic: The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam—A Spiritual Interpretation

An inspired commentary that brings to light the mystical science of God-communion hidden behind

the Rubaiyat’s enigmatic imagery. Includes 50 original color illustrations. Winner of the 1995

Benjamin Franklin Award for best book in the field of religion.

Where There Is Light: Insight and Inspiration for Meeting Life’s Challenges

Gems of thought arranged by subject; a unique handbook to which readers can quickly turn for a

reassuring sense of direction in times of uncertainty or crisis, or for a renewed awareness of the ever

present power of God one can draw upon in daily life.

Whispers from Eternity

A collection of Paramahansa Yogananda’s prayers and divine experiences in the elevated states of

meditation. Expressed in a majestic rhythm and poetic beauty, his words reveal the inexhaustible

variety of God’s nature, and the infinite sweetness with which He responds to those who seek Him.

The Science of Religion

Within every human being, Paramahansa Yogananda writes, there is one inescapable desire: to

overcome suffering and attain a happiness that does not end. Explaining how it is possible to fulfill

these longings, he examines the relative effectiveness of the different approaches to this goal.

In the Sanctuary of the Soul: A Guide to Effective Prayer

Compiled from the works of Paramahansa Yogananda, this inspiring devotional companion reveals

ways of making prayer a daily source of love, strength, and guidance.

Inner Peace: How to Be Calmly Active and Actively Calm

A practical and inspiring guide, compiled from the talks and writings of Paramahansa Yogananda,

that demonstrates how we can be “actively calm” by creating peace through meditation, and “calmly

active”—centered in the stillness and joy of our own essential nature while living a dynamic,

fulfilling, and balanced life. Winner of the 2000 Benjamin Franklin Award—best book in the field of

Metaphysics/Spirituality.

To Be Victorious in Life (How-to-Live Series)

In this powerful book, Paramahansa Yogananda shows how we can realize life’s highest goals by

bringing out the unlimited potential within us. He provides practical counsel for achieving success,

outlines definite methods of creating lasting happiness, and tells how to overcome negativity and

inertia by harnessing the dynamic power of our own will.

Living Fearlessly: Bringing Out Your Inner Soul Strength (How-to-Live Series)

Paramahansa Yogananda teaches us how to break the shackles of fear and reveals how we can

overcome our own psychological stumbling blocks. Living Fearlessly is a testament to what we can

become if we but have faith in the divinity of our true nature as the soul.

How You Can Talk With God

Defining God as both the transcendent, universal Spirit and the intimately personal Father, Mother,

Friend, and Lover of all, Paramahansa Yogananda shows how close the Lord is to each one of us, and

how He can be persuaded to “break His silence” and respond in a tangible way.

Metaphysical Meditations

More than 300 spiritually uplifting meditations, prayers, and affirmations that can be used to develop

greater health and vitality, creativity, self-confidence, and calmness; and to live more fully in a

conscious awareness of the blissful presence of God.

Scientific Healing Affirmations

Paramahansa Yogananda presents here a profound explanation of the science of affirmation. He

makes clear why affirmations work, and how to use the power of word and thought not only to bring

about healing but to effect desired change in every area of life. Includes a wide variety of

affirmations.

Sayings of Paramahansa Yogananda

A collection of sayings and wise counsel that conveys Paramahansa Yogananda’s candid and loving

responses to those who came to him for guidance. Recorded by a number of his close disciples, the

anecdotes in this book give the reader an opportunity to share in their personal encounters with the

Master.

Songs of the Soul

Mystical poetry by Paramahansa Yogananda—an outpouring of his direct perceptions of God in the

beauties of nature, in man, in everyday experiences, and in the spiritually awakened state of samadhi

meditation.

The Law of Success

Explains dynamic principles for achieving one’s goals in life, and outlines the universal laws that

bring success and fulfillment—personal, professional, and spiritual.

Cosmic Chants: Spiritualized Songs for Divine Communion

Words and music to 60 songs of devotion, with an introduction explaining how spiritual chanting can

lead to God-communion.

AUDIO RECORDINGS OF PARAMAHANSA YOGANANDA

Beholding the One in All

Awake in the Cosmic Dream

Songs of My Heart

Be a Smile Millionaire

The Great Light of God

To Make Heaven on Earth

One Life Versus Reincarnation

Removing All Sorrow and Suffering

In the Glory of the Spirit

Follow the Path of Christ, Krishna, and the Masters

Self-Realization: The Inner and the Outer Path

OTHER PUBLICATIONS FROM

SELF-REALIZATION FELLOWSHIP

The Holy Science by Swami Sri Yukteswar

Only Love: Living the Spiritual Life in a Changing World by Sri Daya Mata

Finding the Joy Within You: Personal Counsel for God-Centered Living by Sri Daya Mata

Enter the Quiet Heart: Creating a Loving Relationship With God by Sri Daya Mata

God Alone: The Life and Letters of a Saint by Sri Gyanamata

“Mejda”: The Family and the Early Life of Paramahansa Yogananda by Sananda Lal Ghosh

Self-Realization (a quarterly magazine founded by Paramahansa Yogananda in 1925)

DVD VIDEO

Awake: The Life of Yogananda

A film by CounterPoint Films

A complete catalog of books and audio/video recordings— including rare archival recordings of

Paramahansa Yogananda—is available at www.srfbooks.org.

FREE INTRODUCTORY BOOKLET:

UNDREAMED-OF POSSIBILITIES

The scientific techniques of meditation taught by Paramahansa Yogananda, including Kriya Yoga—as

well as his guidance on all aspects of balanced spiritual living—are presented in the Self-Realization

Fellowship Lessons. For further information, please see the free booklet Undreamed-of Possibilities.

SELF-REALIZATION FELLOWSHIP

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AIMS AND IDEALS

SELF-REALIZATION FELLOWSHIP

As set forth by Paramahansa Yogananda, Founder

Sri Mrinalini Mata, President

To disseminate among the nations a knowledge of definite scientific techniques for attaining

direct personal experience of God.

To teach that the purpose of life is the evolution, through self-effort, of man’s limited mortal

consciousness into God Consciousness; and to this end to establish Self-Realization Fellowship

temples for God-communion throughout the world, and to encourage the establishment of individual

temples of God in the homes and in the hearts of men.

To reveal the complete harmony and basic oneness of original Christianity as taught by Jesus

Christ and original Yoga as taught by Bhagavan Krishna; and to show that these principles of truth

are the common scientific foundation of all true religions.

To point out the one divine highway to which all paths of true religious beliefs eventually lead:

the highway of daily, scientific, devotional meditation on God.

To liberate man from his threefold suffering: physical disease, mental inharmonies, and spiritual

ignorance.

To encourage “plain living and high thinking”; and to spread a spirit of brotherhood among all

peoples by teaching the eternal basis of their unity: kinship with God.

To demonstrate the superiority of mind over body, of soul over mind.

To overcome evil by good, sorrow by joy, cruelty by kindness, ignorance by wisdom.

To unite science and religion through realization of the unity of their underlying principles.

To advocate cultural and spiritual understanding between East and West, and the exchange of

their finest distinctive features.

To serve mankind as one’s larger Self.

GLOSSARY

Arjuna. The exalted disciple to whom Bhagavan Krishna imparted the immortal message of the

Bhagavad Gita (q.v.); one of the five Pandava princes in the great Hindu epic, the Mahabharata, in

which he is a key figure.

astral body. Man’s subtle body of light, prana or lifetrons; the second of three sheaths that

successively encase the soul: the causal body (q.v.), the astral body, and the physical body. The

powers of the astral body enliven the physical body, much as electricity illumines a bulb. The astral

body has nineteen elements: intelligence, ego, feeling, mind (sense-consciousness); five

instruments of knowledge (the sensory powers within the physical organs of sight, hearing, smell,

taste, and touch); five instruments of action (the executive powers in the physical instruments of

procreation, excretion, speech, locomotion, and the exercise of manual skill); and five instruments

of life force that perform the functions of circulation, metabolization, assimilation, crystallization,

and elimination.

astral world. The subtle sphere of the Lord’s creation, a universe of light and color composed of

finer-than-atomic forces, i.e., vibrations of life energy or lifetrons (see prana). Every being, every

object, every vibration on the material plane has an astral counterpart, for in the astral universe

(heaven) is the blueprint of our material universe. At physical death, the soul of man, clothed in an

astral body of light, ascends to one of the higher or lower astral planes, according to merit, to

continue his spiritual evolution in the greater freedom of that subtle realm. There he remains for a

karmically predetermined time until physical rebirth.

Aum (Om). The Sanskrit root word or seed-sound symbolizing that aspect of Godhead which creates

and sustains all things; Cosmic Vibration. Aum of the Vedas became the sacred word Hum of the

Tibetans; Amin of the Moslems; and Amen of the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Jews, and

Christians. The world’s great religions state that all created things originate in the cosmic vibratory

energy of Aum or Amen, the Word or Holy Ghost. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word

was with God, and the Word was God….All things were made by him [the Word or Aum]; and

without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:1, 3).

Amen in Hebrew means sure, faithful. “These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true

witness, the beginning of the creation of God” (Revelation 3:14). Even as sound is produced by the

vibration of a running motor, so the omnipresent sound of Aum faithfully testifies to the running of

the “Cosmic Motor,” which upholds all life and every particle of creation through vibratory energy.

In the Self-Realization Fellowship Lessons (q.v.), Paramahansa Yogananda teaches techniques of

meditation whose practice brings direct experience of God as Aum or Holy Ghost. That blissful

communion with the invisible divine Power (“the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost” — John

14:26) is the truly scientific basis of prayer.

avatar. From the Sanskrit avatara, with roots ava, “down,” and tri, “to pass.” Souls who attain union

with Spirit and then return to earth to help mankind are called avatars, divine incarnations.

avidya. Literally, “non-knowledge,” ignorance; the manifestation in man of maya, the cosmic

delusion (q.v.). Essentially, avidya is man’s ignorance of his divine nature and of the sole reality:

Spirit.

Babaji. See Mahavatar Babaji.

Bhagavad Gita. “Song of the Lord.” An ancient Indian scripture consisting of eighteen chapters

from the sixth book (Bhishma Parva) of the Mahabharata epic. Presented in the form of a dialogue

between the avatar (q.v.) Lord Krishna and his disciple Arjuna on the eve of the historic battle of

Kurukshetra, the Gita is a profound treatise on the science of Yoga (union with God) and a timeless

prescription for happiness and success in everyday living. The Gita is allegory as well as history, a

spiritual dissertation on the inner battle between man’s good and bad tendencies. Depending on the

context, Krishna symbolizes the guru, the soul, or God; Arjuna represents the aspiring devotee. Of

this universal scripture Mahatma Gandhi wrote: “Those who will meditate on the Gita will derive

fresh joy and new meanings from it every day. There is not a single spiritual tangle which the Gita

cannot unravel.”

The quotations from the Bhagavad Gita in this book are from Paramahansa Yogananda’s own

translation, God Talks With Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita — Royal Science of God-Realization

(published by Self-Realization Fellowship).

Bhagavan Krishna. An avatar who lived as a king in India ages before the Christian era. One of the

meanings given for the word Krishna in the Hindu scriptures is “Omniscient Spirit.” Thus,

Krishna, like Christ, is a spiritual title signifying the divine magnitude of the avatar —his oneness

with God. The title Bhagavan means “Lord.” In his early life, Krishna lived as a cowherd who

enchanted his companions with the music of his flute. In this role Krishna is often considered to

represent allegorically the soul playing the flute of meditation to guide all misled thoughts back to

the fold of omniscience.

Bhakti Yoga. The spiritual approach to God that stresses all-surrendering love as the principal means

for communion and union with God. See Yoga.

Brahman (Brahma). Absolute Spirit. Brahman is sometimes rendered in Sanskrit as Brahma (with a

short a at the end); but the meaning is the same as Brahman: Spirit, or God the Father, not the

circumscribed concept of the personal “Brahma-the-Creator” of the Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva triad

(which is rendered with a long a at the end, Brahma).

breath. “The influx of innumerable cosmic currents into man by way of the breath induces

restlessness in his mind,” Paramahansa Yogananda wrote. “Thus the breath links him with the

fleeting phenomenal worlds. To escape from the sorrows of transitoriness and to enter the blissful

realm of Reality, the yogi learns to quiet the breath by scientific meditation.”

causal body. Essentially, man as a soul is a causal-bodied being. His causal body is an idea-matrix

for the astral and physical bodies. The causal body is composed of 35 idea elements corresponding

to the 19 elements of the astral body (q.v.) plus the 16 basic material elements of the physical body.

causal world. Behind the physical world of matter (atoms, protons, electrons), and the subtle astral

world of luminous life energy (lifetrons), is the causal, or ideational, world of thought

(thoughtrons). After man evolves sufficiently to transcend the physical and astral universes, he

resides in the causal universe. In the consciousness of causal beings, the physical and astral

universes are resolved to their thought essence. Whatever physical man can do in imagination,

causal man can do in actuality — the only limitation being thought itself. Ultimately, man sheds

the last soul covering — his causal body — to unite with omnipresent Spirit, beyond all vibratory

realms.

chakras. In Yoga, the seven occult centers of life and consciousness in the spine and brain, which

enliven the physical and astral bodies of man. These centers are referred to as chakras (“wheels”)

because the concentrated energy in each one is like a hub from which radiate rays of life-giving

light and energy. In ascending order, these chakras are muladhara (the coccygeal, at the base of the

spine); svadhisthana (the sacral, two inches above muladhara); manipura (the lumbar, opposite the

navel); anahata (the dorsal, opposite the heart); vishuddha (the cervical, at the base of the neck);

ajna (traditionally located between the eyebrows; in actuality, directly connected by polarity with

the medulla; see also medulla and spiritual eye); and sahasrara (in the uppermost part of the

cerebrum).

The seven centers are divinely planned exits or “trap doors” through which the soul has

descended into the body and through which it must reascend by a process of meditation. By seven

successive steps, the soul escapes into Cosmic Consciousness. In its conscious upward passage

through the seven opened or “awakened” cerebrospinal centers, the soul travels the highway to the

Infinite, the true path by which the soul must retrace its course to reunite with God.

Yoga treatises generally consider only the six lower centers as chakras, with sahasrara

referred to separately as a seventh center. All seven centers, however, are often referred to as

lotuses, whose petals open, or turn upward, in spiritual awakening as the life and consciousness

travel up the spine.

chitta. Intuitive feeling; the aggregate of consciousness, inherent in which is ahamkara (egoity),

buddhi (intelligence), and manas (mind or sense consciousness).

Christ. The honorific title of Jesus: Jesus the Christ. This term also denotes God’s universal

intelligence immanent in creation (sometimes referred to as the Cosmic Christ or the Infinite

Christ), or is used in reference to great masters who have attained oneness with that Divine

Consciousness. (The Greek word Christos means “anointed,” as does the Hebrew word Messiah.)

See also Christ Consciousness and Kutastha Chaitanya.

Christ center. The Kutastha or ajna chakra at the point between the eyebrows, directly connected by

polarity with the medulla (q.v.); center of will and concentration, and of Christ Consciousness

(q.v.); seat of the spiritual eye (q.v.).

Christ Consciousness. The projected consciousness of God immanent in all creation. In Christian

scripture, the “only begotten son,” the only pure reflection in creation of God the Father; in Hindu

scripture, Kutastha Chaitanya or Tat, the universal consciousness, or cosmic intelligence, of Spirit

everywhere present in creation. (The terms “Christ Consciousness” and “Christ Intelligence” are

synonymous, as also “Cosmic Christ” and “Infinite Christ.”) It is the universal consciousness,

oneness with God, manifested by Jesus, Krishna, and other avatars. Great saints and yogis know it

as the state of samadhi meditation wherein their consciousness has become identified with the

divine intelligence in every particle of creation; they feel the entire universe as their own body. See

Trinity.

consciousness, states of. In mortal consciousness man experiences three states: waking

consciousness, sleeping consciousness, and dreaming consciousness. But he does not experience

his soul, superconsciousness, and he does not experience God. The Christ-man does. As mortal

man is conscious throughout his body, so the Christ-man is conscious throughout the universe,

which he feels as his body. Beyond the state of Christ consciousness is cosmic consciousness, the

experience of oneness with God in His absolute consciousness beyond vibratory creation as well as

with the Lord’s omnipresence manifesting in the phenomenal worlds.

Cosmic Consciousness. The Absolute; transcendental Spirit existing beyond creation; God the

Father. Also the samadhi-meditation state of oneness with God both beyond and within vibratory

creation. See Trinity.

cosmic delusion. See maya.

cosmic energy. See prana.

Cosmic Intelligent Vibration. See Aum.

Cosmic Sound. See Aum.

dharma. Eternal principles of righteousness that uphold all creation; man’s inherent duty to live in

harmony with these principles. See also Sanatana Dharma.

disciple. A spiritual aspirant who comes to a guru seeking introduction to God, and to this end

establishes an eternal spiritual relationship with the guru. In Self-Realization Fellowship, the guru-

disciple relationship is established by diksha, initiation, in Kriya Yoga. See also guru and Kriya

Yoga.

Divine Mother. The aspect of God that is active in creation; the shakti, or power, of the Transcendent

Creator. Other terms for this aspect of Divinity are Aum, Shakti, Holy Ghost, Cosmic Intelligent

Vibration, Nature or Prakriti. Also, the personal aspect of God embodying the love and

compassionate qualities of a mother.

The Hindu scriptures teach that God is both immanent and transcendent, personal and

impersonal. He may be sought as the Absolute; as one of His manifest eternal qualities, such as

love, wisdom, bliss, light; in the form of an ishta (deity); or as Father, Mother, or Friend.

egoism. The ego-principle, ahamkara (lit., “I do”), is the root cause of dualism or the seeming

separation between man and his Creator. Ahamkara brings human beings under the sway of maya

(q.v.), by which the subject (ego) falsely appears as object; the creatures imagine themselves to be

creators. By banishing ego-consciousness, man awakens to his divine identity, his oneness with the

Sole Life: God.

elements (five). The Cosmic Vibration, or Aum, structures all physical creation, including man’s

physical body, through the manifestation of five tattvas (elements): earth, water, fire, air, and ether

(q.v.). These are structural forces, intelligent and vibratory in nature. Without the earth element

there would be no state of solid matter; without the water element, no liquid state; without the air

element, no gaseous state; without the fire element, no heat; without the ether element, no

background on which to produce the cosmic motion picture show. In the body, prana (cosmic

vibratory energy) enters the medulla and is then divided into the five elemental currents by the

action of the five lower chakras (q.v.), or centers: the coccygeal (earth), sacral (water), lumbar

(fire), dorsal (air), and cervical (ether). The Sanskrit terminology for these elements is prithivi, ap,

tej, prana, and akasha.

ether. The Sanskrit word akaśa, translated as both “ether” and “space,” refers specifically to the

vibratory element that is the subtlest in the material world. (See elements.) It derives from ā,

“towards” and kasha, “to be visible, to appear.” Akasha is the subtle “background” against which

everything in the material universe becomes perceptible. “Space gives dimension to objects; ether

separates the images,” Paramahansa Yogananda said. “Ether-permeated space is the boundary line

between heaven, or the astral world, and earth,” he explained. “All the finer forces God has created

are composed of light, or thought-forms, and are merely hidden behind a particular vibration that

manifests as ether.”

evil. The satanic force that obscures God’s omnipresence in creation, manifesting as inharmonies in

man and nature. Also, a broad term defining anything contrary to divine law (see dharma) that

causes man to lose the consciousness of his essential unity with God, and that obstructs attainment

of God-realization.

guru. Spiritual teacher. Though the word guru is often misused to refer simply to any teacher or

instructor, a true God-illumined guru is one who, in his attainment of self-mastery, has realized his

identity with the omnipresent Spirit. Such a one is uniquely qualified to lead the seeker on his or

her inward journey toward divine realization.

When a devotee is ready to seek God in earnest, the Lord sends him a guru. Through the

wisdom, intelligence, Self-realization, and teachings of such a master, God guides the disciple. By

following the master’s teachings and discipline, the disciple is able to fulfill his soul’s desire for

the manna of God-perception. A true guru, ordained by God to help sincere seekers in response to

their deep soul craving, is not an ordinary teacher: he is a human vehicle whose body, speech,

mind, and spirituality God uses as a channel to attract and guide lost souls back to their home of

immortality. A guru is a living embodiment of scriptural truth. He is an agent of salvation

appointed by God in response to a devotee’s demand for release from the bondage of matter.

“To keep company with the Guru,” wrote Swami Sri Yukteswar in The Holy Science, “is not

only to be in his physical presence (as this is sometimes impossible), but mainly means to keep

him in our hearts and to be one with him in principle and to attune ourselves with him.” See

master.

Gurus of Self-Realization Fellowship. The Gurus of Self-Realization Fellowship (Yogoda Satsanga

Society of India) are Jesus Christ, Bhagavan Krishna, and a line of exalted masters of

contemporary times: Mahavatar Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya, Swami Sri Yukteswar, and Paramahansa

Yogananda. To show the harmony and essential unity of the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Yoga

precepts of Bhagavan Krishna is an integral part of the SRF dispensation. All of these Gurus, by

their universal teachings and divine instrumentality, contribute to the fulfillment of the Self-

Realization Fellowship mission of bringing to humanity a practical spiritual science of God-

realization.

The passing of a guru’s spiritual mantle to a disciple designated to carry on the lineage to

which that guru belongs is termed guru parampara. Thus Paramahansa Yogananda’s direct lineage

of gurus is Mahavatar Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya, and Swami Sri Yukteswar.

Before his passing Paramahansaji stated that it was God’s wish that he be the last in the Self-

Realization Fellowship line of Gurus. No succeeding disciple or leader in his society will ever

assume the title of guru. “When I am gone,” he said, “the teachings will be the guru….Through the

teachings you will be in tune with me and the great Gurus who sent me.”

When questioned about the succession of the presidency of Self-Realization

Fellowship/Yogoda Satsanga Society of India, Paramahansaji stated: “There will always be at the

head of this organization men and women of realization. They are already known to God and the

Gurus. They shall serve as my spiritual successor and representative in all spiritual and

organizational matters.”

Holy Ghost. The sacred Cosmic Intelligent Vibration projected from God to structure and sustain

creation from Its own vibratory Essence. It is thus the Holy Presence of God, His Word,

omnipresent in the universe and in every form, vehicle of God’s perfect universal reflection, Christ

Consciousness (q.v.). The Comforter, Cosmic Mother Nature, Prakriti (q.v.). See Aum and Trinity.

“Holy Ghost” is synonymous with “Holy Spirit” — the term used in many modern English

versions of the Bible. Both are translations of the same Greek and Hebrew words. Ruach in

Hebrew and pneuma in Greek are used to signify a range of concepts: spirit, breath, and wind — in

general, the life principle of man and the cosmos. (Similarly in Latin, in which inspiration refers to

the inflow of breath as well as of divine or creative spirit; and in Sanskrit, in which prana denotes

the breath as well as the subtle astral life energy that sustains the body, and the universal Cosmic

Vibratory Energy that underlies and upholds every particle of creation.) At the time of the King

James translation of the Bible, both “spirit” and “ghost” in English conveyed the same meaning as

ruach and pneuma; the everyday connotation of “ghost” has changed in the centuries since then.

The King James rendering, used in this book, avoids confusion between Spirit (the transcendental

God the Father) and Its activating Creative Vibratory Energy (Holy Ghost).

intuition. The all-knowing faculty of the soul, which enables man to experience direct perception of

truth without the intermediary of the senses.

Jnana Yoga. (Pronounced gyana yoga.) The path to union with God through transmutation of the

discriminative power of the intellect into the omniscient wisdom of the soul.

karma. Effects of past actions, from this or previous lifetimes; from the Sanskrit kri, to do. The

equilibrating law of karma, as expounded in the Hindu scriptures, is that of action and reaction,

cause and effect, sowing and reaping. In the course of natural righteousness, each man by his

thoughts and actions becomes the molder of his destiny. Whatever energies he himself, wisely or

unwisely, has set in motion must return to him as their starting point, like a circle inexorably

completing itself. An understanding of karma as the law of justice serves to free the human mind

from resentment against God and man. A man’s karma follows him from incarnation to incarnation

until fulfilled or spiritually transcended. See reincarnation.

The cumulative actions of human beings within communities, nations, or the world as a whole

constitute mass karma, which produces local or far-ranging effects according to the degree and

preponderance of good or evil. The thoughts and actions of every man, therefore, contribute to the

good or ill of this world and all peoples in it.

Karma Yoga. The path to God through nonattached action and service. By selfless service, by giving

the fruits of one’s actions to God, and by seeing God as the sole Doer, the devotee becomes free of

the ego and experiences God. See Yoga.

Krishna. See Bhagavan Krishna.

Krishna Consciousness. Christ Consciousness; Kutastha Chaitanya. See Christ Consciousness.

Kriya Yoga. A sacred spiritual science, originating millenniums ago in India. It includes certain

techniques of meditation whose devoted practice leads to realization of God. Paramahansa

Yogananda has explained that the Sanskrit root of kriya is kri, to do, to act and react; the same root

is found in the word karma, the natural principle of cause and effect. Kriya Yoga is thus “union

(yoga) with the Infinite through a certain action or rite (kriya).” Kriya Yoga is praised by Krishna

in the Bhagavad Gita and by Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras. Revived in this age by Mahavatar Babaji

(q.v.), Kriya Yoga is the diksha (spiritual initiation) bestowed by the Gurus of Self-Realization

Fellowship. Since the mahasamadhi (q.v.) of Paramahansa Yogananda, diksha is conferred through

his appointed spiritual representative, the president of Self-Realization Fellowship/Yogoda

Satsanga Society of India (or through one appointed by the president). To qualify for diksha Self-

Realization members must fulfill certain preliminary spiritual requirements. One who has received

this diksha is a Kriya Yogi or Kriyaban. See also guru and disciple.

kundalini. The powerful current of creative life energy residing in a subtle coiled passageway at the

base of the spine. In ordinary waking consciousness, the body’s life force flows from the brain

down the spine and out through this coiled kundalini passage, enlivening the physical body and

tying the astral and causal bodies (qq.v.) and the indwelling soul to the mortal form. In the higher

states of consciousness that are the goal of meditation, the kundalini energy is reversed to flow

back up the spine to awaken the dormant spiritual faculties in the cerebrospinal centers (chakras).

Also called the “serpent force,” because of its coiled configuration.

Kutastha Chaitanya. Christ Consciousness (q.v.). The Sanskrit word kutastha means “that which

remains unchanged”; chaitanya means consciousness.

Lahiri Mahasaya. Lahiri was the family name of Shyama Charan Lahiri (1828–1895). Mahasaya, a

Sanskrit religious title, means “large-minded.” Lahiri Mahasaya was a disciple of Mahavatar

Babaji, and the guru of Swami Sri Yukteswar (Paramahansa Yogananda’s guru). Lahiri Mahasaya

was the one to whom Babaji revealed the ancient, almost-lost science of Kriya Yoga (q.v.). A

Yogavatar (“Incarnation of Yoga”), he was a seminal figure in the renaissance of yoga in modern

India who gave instruction and blessing to countless seekers who came to him, without regard to

caste or creed. He was a Christlike teacher with miraculous powers; but also a family man with

business responsibilities, who demonstrated for the modern world how an ideally balanced life can

be achieved by combining meditation with right performance of outer duties. Lahiri Mahasaya’s

life is described in Autobiography of a Yogi.

life force. See prana.

lifetrons. See prana.

Mahavatar Babaji. The deathless Mahavatar (“great avatar”) who in 1861 gave Kriya Yoga (q.v.)

initiation to Lahiri Mahasaya, and thereby restored to the world the ancient technique of salvation.

Perennially youthful, he has lived for centuries in the Himalayas, bestowing a constant blessing on

the world. His mission has been to assist prophets in carrying out their special dispensations. Many

titles signifying his exalted spiritual stature have been given to him, but the mahavatar has

generally adopted the simple name of Babaji, from the Sanskrit baba, “father,” and the suffix ji,

denoting respect. More information about his life and spiritual mission is given in Autobiography

of a Yogi. See avatar.

man. The word is derived from the same root as Sanskrit manas, mind — the uniquely human

capacity for rational thought. The science of yoga deals with human consciousness from the point

of view of the essentially androgynous Self (atman). As there is no other terminology in English

that would convey these psychological and spiritual truths without excessive literary awkwardness,

the use of man and related terms has been retained in this publication — not in the narrowly

exclusive sense of the word man, denoting only half of the human race, but in its broader original

meaning.

Mantra Yoga. Divine communion attained through devotional, concentrated repetition of root-word

sounds that have a spiritually beneficial vibratory potency. See Yoga.

master. One who has achieved self-mastery. Also, a respectful term of address for one’s guru (q.v.).

Paramahansa Yogananda has pointed out that “the distinguishing qualifications of a master are

not physical but spiritual….Proof that one is a master is supplied only by the ability to enter at will

the breathless state (savikalpa samadhi) and by the attainment of immutable bliss (nirvikalpa

samadhi).” See samadhi.

Paramahansaji further states: “All scriptures proclaim that the Lord created man in His

omnipotent image. Control over the universe appears to be supernatural, but in truth such power is

inherent and natural in everyone who attains ‘right remembrance’ of his divine origin. Men of

God-realization…are devoid of the ego-principle (ahamkara) and its uprisings of personal desires;

the actions of true masters are in effortless conformity with rita, natural righteousness. In

Emerson’s words, ‘all great ones become “not virtuous, but Virtue; then is the end of the creation

answered, and God is well pleased.” ’ ’’

maya. The delusory power inherent in the structure of creation, by which the One appears as many.

Maya is the principle of relativity, inversion, contrast, duality, oppositional states; the “Satan” (lit.,

in Hebrew, “the adversary”) of the Old Testament prophets; and the “devil” whom Christ described

picturesquely as a “murderer” and a “liar,” because “there is no truth in him” (John 8:44).

Paramahansa Yogananda wrote:”The Sanskrit word maya means ‘the measurer’; it is the

magical power in creation by which limitations and divisions are apparently present in the

Immeasurable and Inseparable. Maya is Nature herself — the phenomenal worlds, ever in

transitional flux as antithesis to Divine Immutability.

“In God’s plan and play (lila), the sole function of Satan or maya is to attempt to divert man

from Spirit to matter, from Reality to unreality. ‘The devil sinneth from the beginning. For this

purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil’ (I John 3:8).

That is, the manifestation of Christ Consciousness, within man’s own being, effortlessly destroys

the illusions or ‘works of the devil.’

“Maya is the veil of transitoriness in Nature, the ceaseless becoming of creation; the veil that

each man must lift in order to see behind it the Creator, the changeless Immutable, eternal Reality.”

meditation. Generally, interiorized concentration with the objective of perceiving God. True

meditation, dhyana, is conscious realization of God through intuitive perception. It is achieved

only after the devotee has attained that fixed concentration whereby he disconnects his attention

from the senses and is completely undisturbed by sensory impressions from the outer world.

Dhyana is the seventh step of Patanjali’s Eightfold Path of Yoga, the eighth step being samadhi,

communion, oneness with God. See Patanjali.

medulla oblongata. This structure at the base of the brain (top of the spinal cord) is the principal

point of entry of life force (prana) into the body. It is the seat of the sixth cerebrospinal center,

whose function is to receive and direct the incoming flow of cosmic energy. The life force is stored

in the seventh center (sahasrara) in the topmost part of the brain. From that reservoir it is

distributed throughout the body. The subtle center at the medulla is the main switch that controls

the entrance, storage, and distribution of the life force.

paramahansa. A spiritual title signifying a master (q.v.). It may be conferred only by a true guru on

a qualified disciple. Paramahansa literally means “supreme swan.” In the Hindu scriptures, the

hansa or swan symbolizes spiritual discrimination. Swami Sri Yukteswar bestowed the title on his

beloved disciple Yogananda in 1935.

Patanjali. Renowned exponent of yoga, a sage of ancient times, whose Yoga Sutras outline the

principles of the yogic path, dividing it into eight steps: (1) moral proscriptions (yama), (2) right

observances (niyama), (3) meditation posture (asana), (4) life-force control (pranayama), (5)

interiorization of the mind (pratyahara), (6) concentration (dharana), (7) meditation (dhyana), (8)

union with God (samadhi).

prana. Sparks of intelligent finer-than-atomic energy that constitute life, collectively referred to in

Hindu scriptural treatises as prana, which Paramahansa Yogananda has translated as “lifetrons.” In

essence, condensed thoughts of God; substance of the astral world (q.v.) and life principle of the

physical cosmos. In the physical world, there are two kinds of prana: (1) the cosmic vibratory

energy that is omnipresent in the universe, structuring and sustaining all things; (2) the specific

prana or energy that pervades and sustains each human body through five currents or functions.

Prana current performs the function of crystallization; vyana current, circulation; samana current,

assimilation; udana current, metabolism; and apana current, elimination.

pranayama. Conscious control of prana (the creative vibration or energy that activates and sustains

life in the body). The yoga science of pranayama is the direct way to consciously disconnect the

mind from the life functions and sensory perceptions that tie man to body-consciousness.

Pranayama thus frees man’s consciousness to commune with God. All scientific techniques that

bring about union of soul and Spirit may be classified as yoga, and pranayama is the greatest yogic

method for attaining this divine union.

Raja Yoga. The “royal” or highest path to God-union. It teaches scientific meditation (q.v.) as the

ultimate means for realizing God, and includes the highest essentials from all other forms of Yoga.

The Self-Realization Fellowship Raja Yoga teachings outline a way of life leading to perfect

unfoldment in body, mind, and soul, based on the foundation of Kriya Yoga (q.v.) meditation. See

Yoga.

reincarnation. The doctrine that human beings, compelled by the law of evolution, incarnate

repeatedly in progressively higher lives — retarded by wrong actions and desires, and advanced by

spiritual endeavors — until Self-realization and God-union are attained. Having thus transcended

the limitations and imperfections of mortal consciousness, the soul is forever freed from

compulsory reincarnation. “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and

he shall go no more out” (Revelation 3:12).

rishis. Seers, exalted beings who manifest divine wisdom; especially, the illumined sages of ancient

India to whom the Vedas were intuitively revealed.

sadhana. Path of spiritual discipline. The specific instruction and meditation practices prescribed by

the guru for his disciples, who by faithfully following them ultimately realize God.

samadhi. The highest step on the Eightfold Path of Yoga, as outlined by the sage Patanjali (q.v.).

Samadhi is attained when the meditator, the process of meditation (by which the mind is

withdrawn from the senses by interiorization), and the object of meditation (God) become One.

Paramahansa Yogananda has explained that “in the initial states of God-communion (savikalpa

samadhi) the devotee’s consciousness merges in the Cosmic Spirit; his life force is withdrawn from

the body, which appears ‘dead,’ or motionless and rigid. The yogi is fully aware of his bodily

condition of suspended animation. As he progresses to higher spiritual states (nirvikalpa samadhi),

however, he communes with God without bodily fixation; and in his ordinary waking

consciousness, even in the midst of exacting worldly duties.” Both states are characterized by

oneness with the ever new bliss of Spirit, but the nirvikalpa state is experienced by only the most

highly advanced masters.

Sanatana Dharma. Literally, “eternal religion.” The name given to the body of Vedic teachings that

came to be called Hinduism after the Greeks designated the people on the banks of the river Indus

as Indoos, or Hindus. See dharma.

Satan. Literally, in Hebrew, “the adversary.” Satan is the conscious and independent universal force

that keeps everything and everybody deluded with the unspiritual consciousness of finiteness and

separateness from God. To accomplish this, Satan uses the weapons of maya (cosmic delusion) and

avidya (individual delusion, ignorance). See maya.

Self. Capitalized to denote the atman or soul, as distinguished from the ordinary self, which is the

personality or ego (q.v.). The Self is individualized Spirit, whose nature is ever-existing, ever-

conscious, ever-new joy. Experience of these divine qualities of the soul’s nature is achieved

through meditation.

Self-realization. Paramahansa Yogananda has defined Self-realization as “the knowing — in body,

mind, and soul — that we are one with the omnipresence of God; that we do not have to pray that

it come to us, that we are not merely near it at all times, but that God’s omnipresence is our

omnipresence; that we are just as much a part of Him now as we ever will be. All we have to do is

improve our knowing.”

Self-Realization Fellowship. The international nonsectarian religious society founded by

Paramahansa Yogananda in the United States in 1920 (and as Yogoda Satsanga Society of India in

1917) to disseminate worldwide the spiritual principles and meditation techniques of Kriya Yoga,

and to foster greater understanding among people of all races, cultures, and creeds of the one Truth

underlying all religions. (See “Aims and Ideals of Self-Realization Fellowship,” page 126.)

Paramahansa Yogananda has explained that the name Self-Realization Fellowship signifies

“fellowship with God through Self-realization, and friendship with all truth-seeking souls.”

From its international headquarters in Los Angeles, the society publishes Paramahansa

Yogananda’s writings, lectures, and informal talks — including his comprehensive series of Self-

Realization Fellowship Lessons for home study and Self-Realization, the magazine he founded in

1925; produces audio and video recordings on his teachings; oversees its temples, retreats,

meditation centers, youth programs, and the monastic communities of the Self-Realization Order;

conducts lecture and class series in cities around the world; and coordinates the Worldwide Prayer

Circle, a network of groups and individuals dedicated to praying for those in need of physical,

mental, or spiritual aid and for global peace and harmony.

Self-Realization Fellowship Lessons. The teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda, sent to students

throughout the world in a series of lessons, available to all earnest truth-seekers. These lessons

contain the yoga meditation techniques taught by Paramahansa Yogananda, including, for those

who qualify, Kriya Yoga (q.v.).

soul. Individualized Spirit. The soul is the true and immortal nature of man, and of all living forms of

life; it is cloaked only temporarily in the garments of causal, astral, and physical bodies. The nature

of the soul is Spirit: ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new Joy.

spiritual eye. The single eye of intuition and omnipresent perception at the Christ (Kutastha) center

(ajna chakra) between the eyebrows. The deeply meditating devotee beholds the spiritual eye as a

ring of golden light encircling a sphere of opalescent blue, and at the center, a pentagonal white

star. Microcosmically, these forms and colors epitomize, respectively, the vibratory realm of

creation (Cosmic Nature, Holy Ghost); the Son or intelligence of God in creation (Christ

Consciousness); and the vibrationless Spirit beyond all creation (God the Father).

The spiritual eye is the entryway into the ultimate states of divine consciousness. In deep

meditation, as the devotee’s consciousness penetrates the spiritual eye, into the three realms

epitomized therein, he experiences successively the following states: superconsciousness or the

ever new joy of soul-realization, and oneness with God as Aum (q.v.) or Holy Ghost; Christ

consciousness, oneness with the universal intelligence of God in all creation; and cosmic

consciousness, unity with the omnipresence of God that is beyond as well as within vibratory

manifestation. See also consciousness, states of; superconsciousness; Christ Consciousness.

Explaining a passage from Ezekiel (43:1–2), Paramahansa Yogananda has written: “Through

the divine eye in the forehead, (‘the east’), the yogi sails his consciousness into omnipresence,

hearing the word or Aum, the divine sound of ‘many waters’: the vibrations of light that constitute

the sole reality of creation.” In Ezekiel’s words: “Afterwards he brought me to the gate, even the

gate that looketh towards the east; and behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of

the east; and his voice was like the noise of many waters; and the earth shined with his glory.”

Jesus also spoke of the spiritual eye: “When thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of

light….Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness” (Luke 11:34–35).

Sri. A title of respect. When used before the name of a religious person, it means “holy” or

“revered.”

Sri Yukteswar, Swami. Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri (1855–1936), India’s Jnanavatar, “Incarnation of

Wisdom”; guru of Paramahansa Yogananda, and paramguru of Self-Realization Fellowship

Kriyaban members. Sri Yukteswarji was a disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya. At the behest of Lahiri

Mahasaya’s guru, Mahavatar Babaji, he wrote The Holy Science, a treatise on the underlying unity

of Christian and Hindu scriptures, and trained Paramahansa Yogananda for his spiritual world-

mission: the dissemination of Kriya Yoga (q.v.). Paramahansaji has lovingly described Sri

Yukteswarji’s life in Autobiography of a Yogi.

superconscious mind. The all-knowing power of the soul that perceives truth directly; intuition.

superconsciousness. The pure, intuitive, all-seeing, ever-blissful consciousness of the soul.

Sometimes used generally to refer to all the various states of samadhi (q.v.) experienced in

meditation, but specifically the first state of samadhi, wherein one drops ego-consciousness and

realizes his self as soul, made in the image of God. Thence follow the higher states of realization:

Christ consciousness and cosmic consciousness (q.v.).

Trinity. When Spirit manifests creation, It becomes the Trinity: Father, Son, Holy Ghost, or Sat, Tat,

Aum. The Father (Sat) is God as the Creator existing beyond creation (Cosmic Consciousness).

The Son (Tat) is God’s omnipresent intelligence existing in creation (Christ Consciousness or

Kutastha Chaitanya). The Holy Ghost (Aum) is the vibratory power of God that objectifies and

becomes creation.

Vedas. The four scriptural texts of the Hindus: Rig Veda, Sama Veda, Yajur Veda, and Atharva Veda.

They are essentially a literature of chant, ritual, and recitation for vitalizing and spiritualizing all

phases of man’s life and activity. Among the immense texts of India, the Vedas (Sanskrit root vid,

“to know”) are the only writings to which no author is ascribed. The Rig Veda assigns a celestial

origin to the hymns and tells us they have come down from “ancient times,” reclothed in new

language. Divinely revealed from age to age to the rishis, “seers,” the four Vedas are said to

possess nityatva, “timeless finality.”

Yoga. From Sanskrit yuj, “union.” The highest connotation of the word yoga in Hindu philosophy is

union of the individual soul with Spirit through scientific methods of meditation. Within the larger

spectrum of Hindu philosophy, Yoga is one of six orthodox systems: Vedanta, Mimamsa, Sankhya,

Vaisesika, Nyaya, and Yoga. There are also various types of yoga methods: Hatha Yoga, Mantra

Yoga, Laya Yoga, Karma Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, and Raja Yoga. Raja Yoga, the “royal” or

complete yoga, is that which is taught by Self-Realization Fellowship, and which Bhagavan

Krishna extols to his disciple Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita: “The yogi is greater than body-

disciplining ascetics, greater even than the followers of the path of wisdom or of the path of action;

be thou, O Arjuna, a yogi!” (Bhagavad Gita VI:46). The sage Patanjali, foremost exponent of

Yoga, has outlined eight definite steps by which the Raja Yogi attains samadhi, or union with God.

These are (1) yama, moral conduct; (2) niyama, religious observances; (3) asana, right posture; (4)

pranayama, control of prana, subtle life currents; (5) pratyahara, interiorization, withdrawal of the

senses from external objects; (6) dharana, concentration, (7) dhyana, meditation; and (8) samadhi,

superconscious experience; union with God.

yogi. One who practices Yoga (q.v.). Anyone who practices a scientific technique for divine

realization is a yogi. He may be either married or unmarried, either a man of worldly

responsibilities or one dedicated to formal religious vows.

Yogoda Satsanga Society of India. The name by which Paramahansa Yogananda’s society is known

in India. The Society was founded in 1917 by Paramahansa Yogananda. Its headquarters, Yogoda

Math, is situated on the banks of the Ganges at Dakshineswar, near Calcutta. Yogoda Satsanga

Society has a branch math at Ranchi, Jharkhand (formerly Bihar), and many branch centers. In

addition to Yogoda meditation centers throughout India, there are twenty-two educational

institutions, from primary through college level. Yogoda, a word coined by Paramahansa

Yogananda, is derived from yoga, union, harmony, equilibrium; and da, that which imparts.

“Satsanga” is composed of sat, truth, and sanga, fellowship. For the West, Sri Yogananda

translated the Indian name as “Self-Realization Fellowship.”