The Unknown Years of Jesus' Life--Sojourn in India - Part 6

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(p.92) The community religious services of the West are marvelous if they turn

the mind to God and truth, but they are not enough if they lack meditation and

knowledge of the methods of actual communion with God. On the other hand, the

East emphasizes direct, personal realization of God, but is wanting in

organization and philanthropic social welfare work. (p.93) In order to

understand Jesus Christ's doctrine, it is necessary to combine organizational

efficiency and social welfare philanthropy with personal verification of

Christ's teachings by metaphysical study and the actual contact of God in the

temple of meditation. Then each one can, himself, realize what Jesus Christ was,

and is, through the intuitive self-verification of his teachings.

 

Truth is the ultimate

religion; sectarian

affiliation is of little

meaning

 

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, not 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. "

 

The great message of Jesus Christ is living and thriving in both East and West.

The West has concentrated on perfecting the physical conditions of man, and the

East on developing the spiritual potentials of man. Both East and West are

one-sided. Granted, the East is not practical enough; but the West is too

practical to be spiritually practical! That is why I advocate a harmonious union

of the two; they need each other. Without spiritual idealism, material

practicality is the harbinger of selfishness, sin, competition, and wars. This

is a lesson for the West to learn. And unless idealism is tempered with

practicality, there is confusion and suffering and lack of natural progress.

This is the lesson to be learned by the East.

 

The East can learn from the West, and the West can learn from the East. Is it

not strange that, perhaps due to God's secret plan, since the East needs

material development, it was invaded by Western material civilization? And since

the West needs spiritual balance, it has been silently but surely " invaded " by

Hindu philosophy, not to conquer lands but to conquer souls with the liberation

of God-realization. [1]

 

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. " [2] 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!

 

The Second Coming of Christ (The Resurrection of the Christ Within

You) Volume 1, Discourse 5, pg. 92-94

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] The following was written in 1932 by Dr. W.Y. Evans-Wentz, renowned author

and Oxford University scholar of comparative religion:

 

" Glorious are the spiritual legacies of Egypt and Greece and Rome, but even more

glorious are the spiritual legacies which India is offering to the peoples of

Europe and America through the agency of its Wise Men of the East, of whom Swami

Yogananda, the illustrious creator of the Yogoda [self-Realization] system, is

but one in a long dynasty that extends unbrokenly to our own epoch from the dim

prehistoric ages. The Swami has come to the nations of the West to expound the

supreme science of life, which each of his dynastic predecessors, one after

another, from century to century, has expounded.

 

" It has remained for the illuminated sons of India of this generation to free

the Oriental-born Christ from the prison-house wherein the theologies of the

Occident have kept him imprisoned throughout the centuries; and to proclaim

anew, as he did, the ancient yet ever-new message of worldly renunciation and

selflessness, and to reveal the One Path to Self-realization, to liberation and

world-conquest, which all of the founders of the great historical faiths of

mankind have trod and revealed.... " ('Publisher's Note')

 

[2] John 10:34.