The Unknown Years of Jesus' Life--Sojourn in India - Part 3

[Guest guest]

The Unknown Years of Jesus' Life--Sojourn in India - Part 3

 

(p.86) The ancient history relates that Jesus became learned in all the Vedas

and 'shastras'. But he took issue with some precepts of the Brahminic orthodoxy.

He openly denounced their practices of caste bigotry; many of the priestly

rituals; and the emphasis on worship of many gods in idolic form rather than

sole reverence for the one Supreme Spirit, the pure monotheistic essence of

Hinduism which had become obscured by outer ritualistic concepts.

 

Distancing himself from these disputes, Jesus left Puri. He spent the next six

years with the Sakya Buddhist sect in the Himalayan mountainous regions of Nepal

and Tibet. This Buddhist sect was monotheistic, having separated itself from the

distorted Hinduism that prevailed during the dark age of Kali Yuga. [1]

 

Cycles of progress and

degradation in outward

expression of religion

 

Though true God-realized masters have arisen in India in every age, preserving

from generation to generation the eternal truths of Spirit ('Sanatana Dharma'),

the outward religious practices of the masses have undergone cycles of progress

and degradation as have the religions of other lands and cultures. According to

my guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar, the most recent descending and ascending Dark Ages

(Kali Yuga) lasted from about 700 B.C. to A.D. 1700. In India, this period saw

the gradual perversion and loss of the sublime spiritual science of the Vedas

and Upanishads, resulting in priestly adherence to a number of misunderstood

precepts falsely held to be taught by the scriptures. (p.87) It was during this

time of spiritual darkness that the avatar Gautama Buddha took incarnation in

India (c. 563 B.C.), to right some of the gross abuses of truth perpetrated by

priestly pundits. His message of compassion for all beings and his Noble

Eightfold Path taught how to escape misery and free oneself from the karmic

wheel of birth and death. [2]

 

The Tibetan scrolls relate that while among the Buddhists, Jesus applied himself

to the study of their sacred books and could perfectly expound from them.

Apparently around age twenty-six or twenty-eight, he preached his message abroad

as he wended his way back to Israel through Persia and adjacent countries,

encountering fame from the populace and animosity from the Zoroastrian and other

priestly classes.

 

All 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 St. John, the

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

 

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

You) Volume 1, Discourse 5, pg. 86-87

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 'yugas', or world cycles of civilization, are explained in Discourse 39.

 

[2] With the passage of time, Buddha's doctrines also fell prey to the limited

understanding prevalent in Kali Yuga; his teachings degenerated into a

nihilistic philosophy: The state of 'nirvana', or cessation of dualistic

existence, was misinterpreted as extinction of the self. Buddha, however, meant

extinction of the deluded ego, or pseudoself; the little self must be overcome

in order that the real, eternal Self may achieve liberation from human

incarnation. This perversion of Buddha's doctrine, with its emphasis on a

negative state of nonbeing (extinction), was later supplanted in India by the

doctrine of Swami Shankara, founder of the time-honored monastic Swami Order,

who taught that the goal of life is the positive attainment of the

ever-conscious, ever-existing, ever-newly blissful state of oneness with Spirit.