The Unknown Years of Jesus' Life--Sojourn in India - Part 2

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Jesus: " Take My Yoga upon you, and learn of Me, for My Yoga is easy " ...

 

 

Dear Christians, Hindus, and All,

 

Those who are coming from the Christian background will be familiar with Jesus'

words of: " Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for my yoke is

easy " ...(Matthew 11:29a) The Christian word " yoke " has the same meaning as the

word " yoga " --so when Christ was saying to take " His Yoke " upon us, he was saying

to take " His Yoga " upon us. In combination with that, he spoke of the " Kingdom

of God within " and He spoke about the " Temple Within " . That is the Spiritual

Science of Yoga--that God is realized through the " Yoga Within " . " Yoga " means

spiritual union--Union with the Divine Within " . A person is " Yoked " with the

Christ Consciousness that can only come " from within " . So, Christ asked us to

take His Yoga (Yoke) upon us. In fact, it is only through that Yoga.... that

Yoke, that we can learn of Him. It is only through that Union with the

Christ/Christ Consciousness, that we can learn of Him:

 

" 'The Lost Years of Jesus Revealed', by Rev. Dr. Charles Francis Potter

(Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett, 1962), observes: " Many Hindus believe that Jesus'

'Lost Years' were, partly at least, spent in India, getting much of his best

teaching from the Vedas. Didn't he say 'Take my yoga upon you and learn of me,

for my yoga is easy?' Both 'yoga' and 'yoke' are pronounced as one syllable,

with the final vowel silent, and both are the same word, 'zeugos', in Greek. "

[And in Sanskrit, for the generic meaning of Sanskrit 'yoga' is

yoke. " --Publisher.] "

 

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

1, Discourse 5, pg. 84.

 

In Christ,

 

violet

 

 

 

The Unknown Years of Jesus' Life--Sojourn in India - Part 2

 

Jesus' journey to India,

motherland of religion

 

(p.82) The Gospel account of Jesus' early life ends in his twelfth year with his

discourse with the priests in the temple at Jerusalem. According to the Tibetan

manuscripts, it was not long after this that Jesus left his home in order to

avoid plans for his betrothal as he reached maturity--which for an Israelite boy

at that time was thirteen years of age. Certainly Jesus was above the

commonality of marriage. Of what necessity was human love and family ties for

one who possessed supreme ardor for God and a universal love that embraced all

human beings? (p.83) The world urges a conformity to its pedestrian course, and

little knows how to reckon with those who hew a higher path in response to God's

will. Jesus knew his divine destiny and set out for India to prepare himself for

its fulfillment.

 

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. [1] (p.84) 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. " [2]

 

(p.85) The ancient manuscripts say Jesus spent six years in various holy cities,

settling for some time in Jagannath, a sacred pilgrimage site in Puri, Orissa.

[3] The famous temple there, which has existed in one form or another since

ancient times, is dedicated to Jagannath, " Lord of the Universe " --a title

associated with the universal consciousness of Bhagavan Krishna. The name by

which Jesus is identified in the Tibetan manuscripts is Isa ( " Lord " ), rendered

by Notovitch as Issa. [4] 'Isa' ('Isha'), or its extension 'Ishvara', defines

God as the Supreme Lord or Creator immanent in as well as transcendent of His

creation. [5] This is the true character of the Christ/Krishna universal

consciousness, 'Kutastha Chaitanya', incarnate in Jesus, Krishna, and other

God-united souls who possess oneness with the Lord's omnipresence. It is my

conviction that the title 'Isa' was given at birth to Jesus by the Wise Men from

India who came to honor his advent on earth. In the New Testament, Jesus'

disciples commonly refer to him as " Lord. " [6]

 

The Second Coming of Christ (The Resurrection of the Christ Within You)Volume 1,

Discourse 5, pg. 82-85

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] See also page xxix n. " On the basis of archaeology, satellite photography,

metallurgy, and ancient mathematics, it is now clear that there existed a great

civilization--a mainly spiritual civilization perhaps--before the rise of Egypt,

Sumeria, and the Indus Valley. The heartland of this ancient world was the

region from the Indus to the Ganga--the land of the Vedic Aryans, " state N.S.

Rajaram and David Frawley, O.M.D., in 'Vedic Aryans and the Origins of

Civilization' (New Delhi: Voice of India, 1997).

 

The scriptures of India " are the oldest extant [i.e., still standing or

existing] 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 thus has 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. "

 

India's spiritual influence extended not only west, but east. " India conquered

and dominated China for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single

soldier across its border, " observed Dr. Hu Shih, former chancellor of Beijing

University and Chinese ambassador to the United States. And Professor Lin

Yutang, the famous Chinese philologist and author, says in 'The Wisdom of India'

(New York: Random House, 1942): " India was China's teacher in religion and

imaginative literature, and the world's teacher in philosophy....India is a land

overflowing with religion and with the religious spirit. A trickle of Indian

religious spirit overflowed to China and inundated the whole of Eastern Asia. "

 

The high civilizations of the Americas, as well, show definite evidence of

India's influence. " In ancient times, no civilization spread abroad more

extensively than that of India, " Professor Singhal writes. " And thus, occupying

a central position in the cultures of the world, India has contributed

enormously to human civilization. Indian contacts with the Western world date

back to prehistoric times. " He goes on to quote the illustrious scientist and

explorer Baron Alexander von Humboldt, founder of the systematic study of

ancient American cultures, who was convinced of the Asian origin of the advanced

pre-Columbian civilizations in the New World: " If languages supply but feeble

evidence of ancient communication between the two worlds, their communication is

fully proved by the cosmogonies, the monuments, the hieroglyphical characters,

and the institutions of the people of America and Asia. "

 

" The traces of Hindu-Buddhist influence in Mexico...correspond in kind precisely

to those cultural elements which were introduced by Buddhist monks and Hindu

priests in Southeast Asia, " Dr. Singhal observes, and cites the conclusion of

Professor Robert Heine-Geldern in 'The Civilizations of the Americas' as

follows: " We have little doubt that a sober but unbiased comparative analysis of

the Mexican religions will reveal many traces of the former influences of either

Hinduism or Buddhism or of both....to such an extent, both in a general way and

in specific details, that the assumption of historic relationship is almost

inevitable. " ('Publisher's Note')

 

[2] 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'

 

'The Lost Years of Jesus Revealed', by Rev. Dr. Charles Francis Potter

(Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett, 1962), observes: " Many Hindus believe that Jesus'

'Lost Years' were, partly at least, spent in India, getting much of his best

teaching from the Vedas. Didn't he say 'Take my yoga upon you and learn of me,

for my yoga is easy?' Both 'yoga' and 'yoke' are pronounced as one syllable,

with the final vowel silent, and both are the same word, 'zeugos', in Greek. "

[And in Sanskrit, for the generic meaning of Sanskrit 'yoga' is

'yoke. " --Publisher.]

 

Dr. Potter continues: " Fanciful as it may seem to an American, the thought of

any connection between Jesus' teaching and India is rendered less fantastic not

only by the scrolls from the Qumran caves [the so-called Dead Sea Scrolls], but

especially by the new find of many Gnostic Christian books [at Nag Hammadi] in

Egypt....The first part (and several other parts) of John's Gospel--'In the

beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God....'--is

pure Gnosticism. Gnostic mysticism had come to the Jews from the East, from

India and Persia and Babylon; it had appealed to them in their Babylonian

captivity, and they had brought much of it back home with them in the Return....

 

" Lest we should undervaluate Gnosticism because its terms, symbols, and

vocabulary differ so from ours, it should be stated that Gnosticism was Egyptian

Christianity for the two hundred years that the leaders of the new faith were

working out its theology. It was gradually pushed out by orthodox Catholic

Christianity and its books were burned. Similarly, Essenism was the early form

of Palestinian Christianity....At Qumran and at Chenoboskion [Nag Hammadi],

hidden for centuries, were the great libraries of these early forms of

Christianity, which now so suddenly and dramatically have been restored to us.

And Essenism and Gnosticism were much alike: if you doubt it, read the canonical

Gospel of John, especially the first chapter, where you will find both Essenism

and Gnosticism, blended with and sublimated into the Christianity more familiar

to us. " ('Publisher's Note')

 

[3] Records of Jesus' years in India were preserved in Puri, according to His

Holiness Sri Jagadguru Shankaracharya Bharati Krishna Tirtha, spiritual head of

that city's ancient Gowardhan Math and, until his passing in 1962, seniormost of

the reigning Shankaracharyas (ecclesiastical heads of orthodox Hinduism;

apostolic successors to Swami Shankara, ancient reorganizer of the venerable

Swami Order). His Holiness visited America on a speaking tour of major

universities in 1958; his historic tour--the first time any Shankaracharya had

traveled to the West--was sponsored by Self-Realization Fellowship. Sri Daya

Mata, president and spiritual head of Self-Realization Fellowship, wrote: " In my

discussions with His Holiness during my visits with him in India, he told me

that there is proof positive, to which he had access, that as Paramahansaji has

stated, Jesus Christ was in India as a young lad and received training in the

monasteries there. The Shankaracharya further told me that, God willing, it was

his hope to translate these documents and write a book about this period in the

life of Jesus. Unfortunately this could not be accomplished owing to the

advanced age and fragile health of this saintly Shankaracharya. " ('Publisher's

Note')

 

[4] Notovitch recorded that the manuscripts he saw at the Himis monastery in

Ladakh were a translation into the Tibetan language from the original stored at

a monastery near Lhasa, which was written in the Pali language. In Pali (and in

Sanskrit), 'Isa' (pronounced 'ee-sha') means " lord, owner, ruler " --as does the

related word 'Issara' (Pali version of Sanskrit 'Ishvara'). 'Issa', on the other

hand, means " jealousy, anger, ill-will " in Pali--obviously not the meaning

intended by the Buddhist scribes who composed the scrolls. ('Publisher's Note')

 

[5] See also Discourse 21, page 350 n.

 

[6] Jesus' name is pronounced and spelled in different ways in various

languages, but it has the same meaning. In the Koran (written in Arabic), the

name used for Jesus is 'Isa' or 'Issa'--the same as in the Tibetan texts

discovered by Notovitch. Only through changes by speakers in many lands did his

name come to be pronounced 'Jesus'. That English word is relatively modern;

prior to the sixteenth century it was not spelled with a " J " but with an " I " , as

in Latin and Greek ('Iesous'). Even today, in Spanish, though spelled with a

" J " , 'Jesus' is pronounced " Hay-soos. "

 

The Biblical account, given in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew (see Discourse

2), is that both Mary and Joseph were instructed by an angel that the divine

child was to be named 'Yeshua', " savior " (in Greek, 'Iesous'; in English,

'Jesus'): " ...thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from

their sins " (Matthew 1:21). The Hebrew word 'Yeshua' is a contraction of

'Yehoshua', " Yahweh (Jehovah, the Creator) is salvation. " However, the language

of daily use for Jesus and his fellow Galileans was not Hebrew, but the related

dialect Aramaic, in which his name would have been pronounced " Eshu " . Thus,

strangely enough, the name predicted for Jesus by the angel, and given to him by

his family, was remarkably akin to the more ancient Sanskrit name bestowed by

the Wise Men. Aside from the phonetic similarities, there is an underlying unity

of meaning of the words 'Isha' and 'Yeshua'--the two appellations bestowed on

the one revered by millions as " Lord and Savior. " ('Publisher's Note')