Jesus' Immaculate Conception and Relationship with John--Part 2

[Guest guest]

Jesus' Immaculate Conception and Relationship with John the Baptist - Part 2

 

Jesus and John in

light of reincarnation

 

(p.38) From my guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar, a master of Vedic wisdom with a

universal spiritual understanding, I received a new appreciation of the

Christian Bible--in which I confess to only a cursory interest in my youth,

having been put off by the irrational orthodoxy of missionaries whose aim was to

convert me. Listening to Master expound the Christian scripture with the same

natural ease he felt among the esoteric depths of his native Hindu heritage, I

experienced a wondrous expansion in the realm of truth, which has no boundaries

or religious demarcations. Sri Yukteswar had written, at the request of his

'paramguru', Mahavatar Babaji, an amazingly compacted analysis of the unity of

the Hindu and Christian scriptures: 'The Holy Science'. [1] That commission was

the seed of my future mission--to show the harmony between the original science

of yoga given by Bhagavan Krishna and the original teachings of Lord Jesus. My

mind, therefore, early on, dwelt often on the life of Christ; his presence

became a very real experience to me.

 

As every human being has undergone many lifetimes to fashion his present nature

and condition, an idle curiosity often imposed itself on my mind as to what

incarnations Jesus must have passed through in order to reach Christhood. An

ordinary materially minded man's consciousness is limited to the satisfaction of

hunger, thirst, and minor necessities of the body, including gratifications of

desires. An intellectual man spreads his consciousness to explore the stars or

the deeper regions of the secret caves of wisdom connected with the mind, life,

or surroundings of human existence. A spiritual man, by many lifetimes of

meditation and by extending his love to all, unites his consciousness with the

all-pervading Christ Consciousness. (p.39) Therefore, Jesus the man must have

lived through other incarnations of human schooling and meditation before he

reached his expanded, exalted state as Jesus the Christ.

 

Over the years, I made deep researches in Spirit to ascertain the outstanding

previous incarnations of Jesus--with little result. (God keeps tightly closed

the mystery door that closets a soul's past lives, lest undue and irrelevant

attention be focused on former glories or disastrous errors rather than on the

merits of the here and now. Nevertheless, glimpses He does vouchsafe [guarantee]

when the purpose is beneficial.) One day as I sat in absorbed contemplation,

with the Christian Bible in my hands, I deeply prayed, " Father, tell me who was

Jesus Christ before he came to earth in that incarnation. " In unexpected

instancy, the Father's silent omnipresent voice became manifest in audible

words: " Open the Bible! "

 

I obeyed the Divine Command; and the first verse on which my eyes fell was I

Kings 19:19:

 

'So he (Elijah) departed thence, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was

plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he with the twelfth: and Elijah

passed by him, and cast his mantle upon him'.

 

Then I remembered what Jesus had spoken of John the Baptist: " 'But I say unto

you, that Elijah is come already, and they knew him not....' Then the disciples

understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist " (Matthew 17:12-13). [2]

It was Elisha, incarnate as Jesus, who could recognize his master in John the

Baptist from their past association as Elijah and Elisha. In many places, as

will be shown in these Discourses, Jesus made significant references to John the

Baptist and showed deference to him--when Jesus asked to be baptized of him;

when he extolled John as the greatest of prophets born of woman (which included

himself); when Jesus was transfigured on the mountain and Moses and Elijah

appeared and when afterward he identified Elijah as John the Baptist.

 

Both John the Baptist and Jesus in their former incarnations as Elijah and

Elisha had found complete liberation. (p.40) Who Jesus was [in previous

incarnations, as a human being] before he was born as Elisha is not important,

for it was in that incarnation that he attained the supreme goal. By divine

appointment, Elisha was perfected through Elijah, who cast on him his mantle of

spiritual realization.

 

'The hand of the Lord was on Elijah' (I Kings 18:46).

 

And God directed Elijah to initiate Elisha:

 

'And the Lord said unto him, " Go, return on the way to the wilderness of

Damascus: and when thou comest...Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abelmeholah shalt

thou anoint to be prophet in thy room' " (I Kings 19:15-16).

 

Elijah as the past-life

guru of Jesus

 

Thus did God distinctly appoint Elijah to be the guru of Elisha. The Guru of

Gurus, the Supreme Preceptor [supreme Teacher/Instructor], always designates the

channel through which the disciple shall receive instruction and liberation.

Elijah, finding Elisha plowing with the twelve yoke of oxen is significantly

symbolic, since Elisha, later as Jesus, was to plow the hard soil of human

consciousness with his twelve disciples to bring forth a harvest of divine

wisdom and salvation in many souls. By this incident did God indicate to Elijah

the future remarkable world mission of Elisha; and that he was chosen for this

divine dispensation because he was an extraordinary disciple.

 

To cast a cloth mantle on another has no transforming power in and of itself.

But the casting of a master's garment of Self-realization over the consciousness

of an advanced disciple is the baptism by the Holy Ghost. Having received that

initiation from Elijah, Elisha, without word or argument or persuasion,

thereafter faithfully followed his guru.

 

When it came time for the Lord to end the earthly incarnation of Elijah, the

great prophet said to Elisha:

 

(p.41) " Ask what I shall do for thee, before I be taken away from thee. "

 

And Elisha said, " I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me. "

 

And he (Elijah) said, " Thou hast asked a hard thing: nevertheless, if thou see

me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee; but if not, it shall not

be so. "

 

And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there

appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder;

and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.

 

And Elisha saw it, and he cried, " My father, my father, the chariot of Israel,

and the horsemen thereof. " And he saw him no more: and he took hold of his own

clothes, and rent them in two pieces.

 

He took up also the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and went back, and

stood by the bank of Jordan;

 

And he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smote the waters, and

said, " Where is the Lord God of Elijah? " And when he also had smitten the

waters, they parted hither and thither: and Elisha went over.

 

And when the sons of the prophets which were to view at Jericho saw him, they

said, " The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha. " And they came to meet him, and

bowed themselves to the ground before him (II Kings 2:9-15).

 

So it was that Elisha, as Jesus, came with " a double portion of spirit, " to

bring salvation to many disciples as well as to conquer by all-forgiving divine

love when supremely tested with crucifixion. Elijah and Elisha both had

performed many miracles, and were able to heal the sick, to produce abundance

from a little food, and to raise the dead. Therefore, in accordance with the law

of karma, Jesus possessed great powers even in childhood as a natural endowment

from his incarnation as Elisha. As Jesus imbued life into the shell of his dead

body, spiritualizing and immortalizing it, so also even the decaying bones of

the departed Elisha retained life-reviving power:

 

'And Elisha died, and they buried him. And the bands of the Moabites invaded the

land at the coming in of the year. And it came to pass, as they were burying a

man, that, behold, they spied a band of men; and they cast the man into the

sepulchre of Elisha: and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of

Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet' (II Kings 13:20-21).

 

Jesus' mission and

miracles foreshadowed

in his previous

incarnation

 

(p.42) The soul of Elijah, after converting his physical body into luminous

astral energy and ascending to heaven " in the whirlwind of a fiery chariot, " [3]

remained in the astral land to be timely reincarnated as John the Baptist to

witness for the divine mission his disciple Elisha, reincarnated as Jesus, was

preordained to fulfill. [4] Elijah and Elisha, both being one with Spirit, were

spiritual equals. Yet Elijah, returning as John the Baptist, humbly took an

insignificant part in that incarnation, just to see and support his reincarnated

disciple, Jesus, who came " with a double portion of spirit " to fulfill God's

wish that he play an eminent role in revolutionizing the spiritual destiny of

man. Both Jesus and John were fulfilling the will of God. It is natural that

Elijah, being the master, wanted to be on earth to witness and be the one to

prepare the way for his disciple to carry out his divine dispensation and be

glorified as a savior on earth. A noble father is never jealous of his son's

glory, but rather takes pride if the son surpasses his own repute in the eyes of

the world. And though John played a lesser part, his ordeal of iniquitous

imprisonment and beheading for the sake of truth was no less than the

tribulation of Jesus on the cross.

 

God's plan was in evidence from the moment of conception of these two souls in

the wombs of their earthly mothers, embodying them for their incarnations as

John and Jesus. Even when still in the womb, their spirits recognized one

another and communicated their everlasting fealty and love. Advanced souls who

have broken the cycles of compulsory incarnations do not have to undergo the

ordinary experience of oblivion that disconnects one life from the next. If they

choose it to be so, their ever awake souls can retain their continuity of

consciousness throughout the sequence of death, afterlife, and rebirth--even in

the mother's womb.

 

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

I, Discourse 2, pg. 38-42

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] Published by Self-Realization Fellowship.

 

[2] The names of certain individuals from the Old Testament appear in modified

form in the New Testament, where the Greek rather than Hebrew form of the names

is used. Thus, Elijah is called Elias in the New Testament, Elisha is called

Eliseus, Isaiah is known as Esaias, and so on. To avoid the confusing use of two

names for the same individual, in this publication the Old Testament spellings

have been used. ('Publisher's Note')

 

[3] " The advanced yogi transmutes his cells into energy. Elijah, Jesus, Kabir,

and other prophets were past masters in the use of 'Kriya Yoga' or a similar

technique, by which they caused their bodies to materialize and dematerialize at

will " ('Autobiography of a Yogi', Chapter 26).

 

[4] Jesus and John the Baptist echoed their previous incarnations by outer roles

as well as by their inner spirituality. According to 'Smith's Bible Dictionary':

" In almost every respect Elisha presents the most complete contrast to

Elijah....Elijah was a true Bedouin child of the desert. If he enters a city it

is only to deliver his message of fire and be gone. Elisha, on the other hand,

is a civilized man, an inhabitant of cities. And as with his manners so with his

appearance. The touches of the narrative are very slight; but we can gather that

his dress was the ordinary garment of an Israelite...that his hair was worn

trimmed behind, in contrast to the disordered locks of Elijah. " ('Publisher's

Note')