Divine Incarnations: God's Emissaries - Discourse 1, Part 3

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Divine Incarnations: God's Emissaries - Discourse 1, Part 3

 

(p.9) '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 imbued with Cosmic Intelligence. [1]

 

(p.10) Thought of matter, energy of which matter is composed, matter

itself--all things--are but the differently vibrating thoughts of the Spirit,

even as man in his dreams creates a world with lightning and clouds, people

being born or dying, loving or fighting, experiencing heat or cold, pleasure or

pain. In a dream, births and deaths, sickness and disease, solids, liquids,

gases are but differently vibrating thoughts of the dreamer. This universe is a

vibratory dream motion picture of God's thoughts on the screen of time and space

and human consciousness.

 

" The word was with God, and the Word was God " : Before creation, there is only

undifferentiated Spirit. In manifesting creation, Spirit becomes God the Father,

Son, and Holy Ghost.

 

As soon as Spirit evolved a cosmic vibratory thought, through the action of

the cosmic magical measuring power of 'maya', delusion, 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. All things, all created planets and living beings in the Holy Ghost, or

Holy Vibration, are nothing but the frozen imagination of God. This Holy Ghost

in the Hindu scriptures is called the 'Aum' or Maha-Prakriti (Great Nature, the

Cosmic Mother that gives birth to all creation); by the scientists, the

structure of matter, its tissue or material, is also known, to a lesser degree,

as cosmic vibration. " These things saith the Amen [the Word, 'Aum'], the

faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God. " [2] The holy

Cosmic Sound of 'Aum' or Amen is the witness of the unmanifested Divine Presence

in all creation.

 

A cosmic vibration omnipresently active in space could not of itself create

or sustain the wondrously complex cosmos. 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.

 

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.

 

(p.12) Just as the husband is born again in the wife as the son, so the

transcendental God the Father manifested in the Holy Ghost, the Cosmic Virgin

Mary (the Virgin Creation), became the sole reflected intelligence of God, the

only begotten Son, or Christ Consciousness.

 

An analogy may serve to illustrate how the One Eternal Spirit becomes the

Holy Trinity: God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, similarly acknowledged in the

Hindu scriptures as 'Sat', 'Tat', 'Aum'. Imagine the sun as existing by itself,

with nothing surrounding it--a bright mass of light with untold power and heat,

its rays spreading into boundless space. Place a blue crystal ball within this

radiation. The sun now exists in relation to the blue crystal ball. The sunlight

is divided as the inactive, transcendental white light beyond and around the

crystal ball, and as the essentially unchanged light appearing as blue light by

its reflection in the blue crystal ball. This division of the one sunlight into

white and blue light is due to the dividing effect of the third object, the blue

crystal ball.

 

Just as the sun is solitary pure brilliance, spherically spreading its rays

in space when it stands by itself, so Spirit without any vibratory creation is

the Unmanifested Absolute. But introduce the " blue crystal ball " of a manifested

universe, and Spirit becomes differentiated as the vibratory substance of all

manifestations evolved from the 'Aum' or Holy Ghost; the pure reflected

Intelligence of God as Christ Consciousness omnipresent in every object and pore

of space in the realm of vibration; and the supreme Essence of all, Cosmic

Consciousness, the transcendental God the Father of all creation. (Most

analogies employed to define absolutes are at best imperfect intimations, since

by their limited material nature they cannot depict the subtleties of spiritual

truths. In the illustration of the sun and crystal ball, the sun does not create

the crystal ball, whereas the Spirit, as God the Father, evolved the Holy Ghost

with its creative vibratory power to manifest God's universal imaginings.)

 

Thus, metaphorically, as soon as the cosmic bachelor Spirit stirs Itself to

create the universe, He becomes the husband, God the Father, wedded to Cosmic

Virgin Mary or Cosmic Vibration, giving birth to His reflection, the only

begotten Son. [3] (p.13) Christ Consciousness, present in all specks of

creation, is the only undifferentiated, pure reflection of the Absolute, God the

Father. Hence, this Christ Intelligence, the only begotten Son, maintains an

immanent, influential transcendence: Christ Consciousness is not the active

element in creation; the distinct, active, differentiated conscious intelligence

that brings into manifestation all particles of vibratory creation is the Holy

Ghost, which is imbued with the only begotten Son. The inactively active Christ

Consciousness or Son is the conscious Presence of God's intelligent divine plan

in creation, and the Eternal Witness of the work of the Holy Ghost, which is

called " Holy " because it acts according to the will of God manifest in the

immanent Christ Consciousness.

 

Spirit as the intelligent Holy Ghost, creative 'Aum' Vibration, transforms

Itself into matter by changing the rates of the cosmic creative vibration.

Cosmic Intelligence becomes cosmic intelligent motion, or vibration of

consciousness, which changes into cosmic energy. Intelligent cosmic energy

changes into electrons and atoms. Electrons and atoms change into molecules of

gas, such as cosmic nebulae. Nebulae, masses of diffuse gaseous matter, change

into water and solid matter. As Cosmic Vibration, all things are one; but when

Cosmic Vibration becomes frozen into matter, it becomes many--including man's

body, which is a part of this variously divided matter. [4]

 

 

The causal, astral, and

material planes of

God's creation

 

(p.14) This metamorphosis of Spirit through the creative vibration of the

Holy Ghost--taking place within a relatively minute sphere of the

Infinite--produces a triune creation: an ideational, or causal, world of the

finest vibrations of consciousness, God's thoughts or ideas that are the cause

of all forms and forces; an astral world of light and life force, vibratory

energy, the first condensation cloaking the original ideational concepts; and

the material world of the gross atomic vibrations of matter. These worlds are

superimposed on one another, the grosser dependent on the subtler, and all three

ultimately conditional on the sole support of the will and consciousness of God.

 

As in the macrocosm of the universe, so in the microcosm of man there are

three interdependent bodies. Man's soul dons these three coverings that serve as

instrumentalities through which the incarnate spirit can perceive, comprehend,

and interact with God's creation. The very tenuous first covering of the soul,

which individualizes it from Spirit, is one of pure consciousness; it is

composed of God's thoughts or ideas that cause the other two sheaths. Thus it is

referred to as the causal body. These causal ideas emit a magnetic force of

light and intelligent energy, which I have called lifetrons, that form the

astral body of man. The astral body of lifetrons is itself the life energy that

empowers all the senses and functions of the physical body. The physical body is

merely a gross materialization of the causal ideas activated by the life and

energy of the astral body, and endowed with consciousness, self-awareness, and

intelligence from the causal body. All of these vibratory manifestations of the

macrocosm and microcosm derive from the Holy Ghost Vibration and the

transcendent consciousness of God.

 

Thus John summarizes: " In him (the Word) was life; and the life was the light

of men " (John 1:4). [5]

 

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. [6]

 

 

The Cosmic Word or

Holy Ghost: intelligent

creative vibration of Aum

 

(p.16) 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). In the Bhagavad Gita, the Lord affirms: " Among words, I am the

one syllable 'Aum' " (X:25). " Of all manifestations, I am the beginning, middle,

and end " (X:32). " I, the Unchanging and Everlasting, sustain and permeate the

entire cosmos with but one fragment of My Being " (X:42).

 

With the understanding of this truth, we have the underlying science of the

universe and a proper basis for appreciating these verses of Saint John in the

context of their reference to the life of Jesus Christ.

 

In scriptural parlance characteristic of India's sages, Saint John in the

several opening verses of his Gospel posits, in a 'double entendre' reference to

the incarnation of Jesus, the divinity of the Christ state of Jesus as analogous

to the Universal Christ manifestation of God that comes forth as Intelligence

and Creative Vibration at the birth of creation. Devotees in India make no

differentiation between the divinity of God in the microcosm of the incarnate

consciousness of an avatar--as in Lord Krishna, for example--and the divinity of

God in the macrocosm of universal expression. (p.17) Likewise, Saint John speaks

allegorically of the Christ in Jesus as one and the same as the Christ

manifestation in Infinitude (the presence of God in creation), the latter being

the prime intent of his presentation in these verses.

 

 

" Only begotten Son "

refers not to Jesus'

body, but to his

Christ Consciousness

 

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 " [7] 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 [everywhere] 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. " [8] 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.

[9]

 

Before the advent of Jesus, Sage Vyasa, writer of the Bhagavad Gita, was a

son of God, one with the only begotten reflection of God, the 'Kutastha

Chaitanya' or Christ Consciousness. So also, Swami Shankara (the founder of the

Swami Order of renunciation circa A.D. 700), Mahavatar Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya,

and my guru Swami Sri Yukteswar, [10] and others having Christ Consciousness,

became thereby sons of God. The Spirit could not be partial in creating Jesus as

a Christ and all others as spiritually ineffectual mortal beings. Divinely

imported Jesuses could be made by the thousands by God; and they would, being

predestined, naturally behave on earth as Christs--spiritual puppets of God.

Such Christs could hardly be the ideals of mortals struggling with all their

frailties. But when there is one who became a Christ by self-effort to conquer

temptations and by proper use of God-given free choice and power of

God-communion through intense worship or a scientific technique of meditation,

then that example stirs hope of salvation in the frail, timorous,

matter-tortured human breast.

 

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.

 

The Second Coming of Christ (The Resurrection of the Christ Within You) Volume

I, Discourse 1, pg. 7-18

Paramahansa Yogananda

Printed in the United States of America 1434-J881

ISBN-13:978-0-87612-557-1

ISBN-10:0-87612-557-7

 

 

Notes:

 

[1] 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

exegesis [biblical interpretation] 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 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

Universite 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

creation. " ('Publishers Note')

 

[2] 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. "

 

[3] " My womb is the Great Prakriti into which I deposit the seed (of My

Intelligence); this is the cause of the birth of all beings " ('God Talks With

Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita' XIV:3).

 

[4] 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 (10 to the power of 20) 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

different 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)

 

[5] A subtle change in the meaning intended by Saint John, but one with

far-reaching implications, is evident in most translations of this and the

preceding verses. All nouns in Greek are either masculine, feminine, or neuter

in gender. The noun 'logos' ( " word " ) is masculine, apparently leading English

translators to use the masculine pronoun " him " when referring to " the Word. "

However, since English does not differentiate the gender of nouns such as

" word, " the correct pronoun in translation would be " it " --unless referring to a

person, in which case the personal pronoun " him " would be appropriate. Thus, the

use of " him " reflects a theological interpretation by the translator that " the

Word " in fact signifies a person: Jesus.

 

This interpretation became accepted as church orthodoxy in large part through

the efforts of Irenaeus, second-century bishop of Lyons and author of the

influential work 'Against Heresies'. Dr. Elaine Pagels, professor of religion at

Princeton University, writes in 'Beyond Belief' (New York: Random House: 2003):

" Irenaeus tells us that Valentinus's disciple Ptolemy, reading these words [John

1:1-3], envisioned God, 'word', and finally Jesus Christ as, so to speak, waves

of divine energy flowing down from above; thus, he suggests, the infinite divine

Source above reveals itself in diminished form in the divine 'word', which

reveals itself, in turn, in the more limited form of the human Jesus....Irenaeus

challenges Ptolemy's interpretation of John's prologue and argues instead that

'God the Father' is equivalent to the 'word', and the 'word' is equivalent to

'Jesus Christ.'...What Irenaeus's successors would derive from this was a kind

of simple, almost mathematical equation, in which God=word=Jesus Christ. That

many Christians to this day consider some version of this equation the essence

of Christian belief is a mark of Irenaeus's accomplishment--and his

success...Because Irenaeus's bold interpretation came virtually to define

orthodoxy, those who read John's gospel today in any language except the Greek

original will find that the translations make his conclusion seem obvious. "

 

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' (New York:

Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), 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')

 

[6] See Discourse 7, which explains the dual nature assumed by the Cosmic

Creative Vibration: pure Holy Ghost in tune with God's will; and obstructive

Cosmic Satan, originator of all evil, which tries to divorce all creatures from

their Creator.

 

[7] John 3:16, commented on in Discourse 15.

 

[8] John 1:12 (explained in more detail on pages 24-27).

 

[9] " I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but

by me " (John 14:6). That is, no man can reach the transcendent Father beyond

creation without first attuning himself with the 'Son' or Christ Consciousness

within creation. (See Discourse 70).

 

[10] In India's sacred tradition of spiritual succession ('guru-parampara'),

Paramahansa Yogananda's direct lineage of gurus is Mahavatar Babaji, Lahiri

Mahasaya, and Swami Sri Yukteswar. Each of these masters is renowned for his

remarkable spiritual stature, about which Paramahansaji has written in

'Autobiography of a Yogi' (published by Self-Realization Fellowship). See also

individual entries in the glossary. ('Publisher's Note')