The Feminine Gender of the Holy Spirit

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, " jagbir singh " <adishakti_org

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Christ has been much misinterpreted by the world. Even the most elementary

principles of his teachings have been desecrated, and their esoteric depths have

been forgotten. (p.90) They have been crucified at the hands of dogma,

prejudice, and cramped understanding. Genocidal wars have been fought, people

have been burned as witches and heretics, on the presumed authority of man-made

doctrines of Christianity. How to salvage the immortal teachings from the hands

of ignorance? We must know Jesus as an Oriental Christ, a supreme yogi who

manifested full mastery of the universal science of God-union, and thus could

speak and act as a savior with the voice and authority of God. He has been

Westernized too much. [1]

 

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

You) Volume 1, Discourse 5, pg. 89-90

Paramahansa Yogananda

Printed in the United States of America 1434-J881

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

ISBN-10:0-87612-557-7

 

Note:

 

[1] Through the remarkable discovery of early Christian gnostic texts at Nag

Hammadi, Egypt in 1945, one may glimpse something of what was lost to

conventional Christianity during this process of " Westernization " . Elaine

Pagels, Ph.D., writes in 'The Gnostic Gospels' (New York: Vintage Books, 1981):

" The Nag Hammadi texts, and others like them, which circulated at the beginning

of the Christian era, were denounced as heresy by orthodox Christians in the

middle of the second century....But those who wrote and circulated these texts

did not regard 'themselves' as 'heretics'. Most of the writings use Christian

terminology, unmistakably related to a Jewish heritage. Many claim to offer

traditions about Jesus that are secret, hidden from 'the many' who constitute

what, in the second century, came to be called the 'catholic church'. These

Christians are now called gnostics, from the Greek word 'gnosis', usually

translated as 'knowledge'. For as those who claim to know nothing about ultimate

reality are called agnostic (literally, 'not-knowing'), the person who does

claim to know such things is called gnostic ('knowing'). But 'gnosis' is not

primarily rational knowledge....As the gnostics use the term, we could translate

it as 'insight', for 'gnosis' involves an intuitive process of knowing

oneself....[According to gnostic teachers,] to know oneself, at the deepest

level, is simultaneously to know God; this is the secret of 'gnosis'....

 

" The " living Jesus' of these texts speaks of illusion and enlightenment, not of

sin and repentance, like the Jesus of the New Testament. Instead of coming to

save us from sin, he comes as a guide who opens access to spiritual

understanding....

 

" Orthodox Christians believe that Jesus is Lord and Son of God in a unique way:

he remains forever distinct from the rest of humanity whom he came to save. Yet

the gnostic 'Gospel of Thomas' relates that as soon as Thomas recognizes him,

Jesus says to Thomas that they have both received their being from the same

source: 'I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become drunk

from the bubbling stream which I have measured out....He who will drink from my

mouth will become as I am: I myself shall become he, and the things that are

hidden will be revealed to him.'

 

" Does not such teaching--the identity of the divine and human, the concern with

illusion and enlightenment, the founder who is presented not as Lord, but as

spiritual guide--sound more Eastern than Western?....Could Hindu or Buddhist

Tradition have influenced gnosticism?....Ideas that we associate with Eastern

religions emerged in the first century through the gnostic movement in the West,

but they were suppressed and condemned by polemicists like Irenaeus. "

('Publisher's Note')