The Baptism of Jesus - Part 6

[Guest guest]

The Baptism of Jesus - Part 6

 

(p.108) The way of ascension was made manifest in the baptism of Jesus. As told

in the Gospel According to St. Matthew:

 

And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo,

the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a

dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, " This is My

beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased " (Matthew 3:16-17). [1]

 

Meaning of " the Spirit

of God descending

like a dove "

 

" Spirit " signifies the Unmanifested Absolute. As soon as Spirit descends into

manifestation, It becomes three, the Trinity: God the Father, Son, and Holy

Ghost. (p.109) In the cosmic sense, if one sees the whole universe, it would be

as a tremendous mass of radiant light, like a mist of aurora. That is the great

'Aum' vibration of the Holy Ghost. God's superimposed intelligence omnipresent

in all manifestation--the Son or Christ Consciousness--is reflected as a

wondrous light of opal blue; it overlays and permeates every particle of

creation, yet remains always untouched and unchanged by its ever-mutating

environment. Beyond creative manifestation, through a radiating white light, is

God the Father in the vibrationless heaven of ever-existing, ever-conscious,

ever-new Bliss. That triune manifestation is the cosmic aspect of Spirit

descending in these three forms: as Cosmic Vibration, Christ Consciousness, and

God the Father. This Trinity is manifested in the microcosm of man as the triune

light of the spiritual eye.

 

Man's body, unique among all creatures, possesses spiritual cerebrospinal

centers of divine consciousness in which the descended Spirit is templed. These

are known to the yogis, and to Saint John--who described them in Revelation as

the seven seals, and as seven stars and seven churches, with their seven angels

and seven golden candlesticks. [2] When one is baptized by immersion in the

light of Spirit, the microcosmic spiritual eye in the body may be seen in its

relation to the light of descending Spirit as the Cosmic Trinity.

 

(p.110) In the baptism of Jesus, this is described metaphorically as " Spirit

descending like a dove, and lighting upon him. " The dove symbolizes the

spiritual eye, seen by deeply meditating devotees at the Christ Consciousness

center in the forehead between the two physical eyes. This eye of light and

consciousness appears as a golden aura (the Holy Ghost Vibration) surrounding an

opal-blue sphere (Christ Conciousness) in the center of which is a five-pointed

star of brilliant white light (doorway to the Cosmic Consciousness of Spirit).

The threefold light of God in the spiritual eye is symbolized by a dove because

it brings perennial peace. Also, looking in the spiritual eye produces in man's

consciousness the purity signified by the dove.

 

The mouth of the symbolic dove represents the star in the spiritual eye, the

secret passage to Cosmic Consciousness. The two wings of the dove represent the

two spheres of consciousness emanating from Cosmic Consciousness: The blue light

of the spiritual eye is the microcosm of the subjective Christ Intelligence in

all creation; and the golden ring of light in the spiritual eye is the

microcosmic objective cosmic energy, Cosmic Vibration, or Holy Ghost. [3]

 

All manifestation is a product of vibration, which is of the Holy Ghost, and is

sustained by the inherence of God's consciousness. Thus the light of the

spiritual eye is composed of vibratory lifetrons, the finest ultimate unit of

intelligent energy emanating from the Holy Ghost (the subtlety of lifetrons is

superseded only by the vibrations of pure consciousness). Lifetrons are the

underlying support of the grosser electrons and structural atoms of which all

matter is composed. Each microscopic lifetron contains in miniature the essence

of all macroscopic creation. [4]

 

The triune Spirit

manifested through

man's spiritual eye

 

The consciousness present microcosmically in the spiritual eye in man is

composed of the elements of God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost--transcendental

Cosmic Consciousness, immanent Christ Consciousness, and Cosmic Energy. Jesus

saw the Spirit descending from the abode of Heavenly Bliss in the form of a

microcosmic spiritual eye and settle upon his consciousness. (p.111) The

spiritual eye of Jesus was opened, and through this immersion in Spirit, he

perceived the mergence of his individualized consciousness with the macrocosmic

manifestations of Cosmic Consciousness, Christ Consciousness, and Cosmic Energy.

 

The holy Cosmic Vibration, the primal manifestation of transcendental God the

Father, emits not only the property of light--the magnificent effulgence of

God's divine light and its structural lifetrons and microcosmic spiritual eye of

supernal consciousness--but also the wondrous sound of 'Aum', the Word, the

great Amen, which is the witness or proof of the Holy Presence. During baptism

by Spirit in the form of the Holy Ghost as experienced by Jesus, he saw the

light of the spiritual eye as descended from the macrocosmic Divine Light; and

from this came the voice of 'Aum', the intelligent, all-creative heavenly sound,

vibrating as an intelligible voice: " Thou art My Son, having lifted thy

consciousness from the limitation of the body and all matter to realize thyself

as one with My perfect reflection, My only begotten image, immanent in all

manifestation. I am Bliss, and My joy I express in thy rejoicing in attunement

with My Omnipresence. " Jesus felt his consciousness attuned to the Christ

Consciousness, the " only begotten " reflection of God the Father's Intelligence

in the Holy Vibration: he first felt his body as the entire vibratory creation

in which his little body was included; then within his cosmic body of all

creation, he experienced his oneness with God's innate Presence as the Infinite

Christ or Universal Intelligence, a magnetic aura of blissful Divine Love in

which God's presence holds all beings.

 

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

You) Volume 1, Discourse 6, pg. 108-111

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] Cf. parallel references in Mark 1:9-11 and Luke 3:21-22.

 

[2] " Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the

things which shall be hereafter; the mystery of the seven stars which thou

sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are

the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest

are the seven churches " (Revelation 1:19-20). " And I saw in the right hand of

him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside, sealed

with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, 'Who

is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof?' " (Revelation

5:1-2). Yoga treatises identify these centers (in ascending order) as:

'muladhara' (the coccygeal, at the base of the spine); 'svadhisthana' (the

sacral, two inches above 'muladhara'); 'manipura' (the lumbar, opposite the

navel); 'anahata' (the dorsal, opposite the heart); 'vishuddha' (the cervical,

at the base of the neck); 'ajna' (seat of the spiritual eye, traditionally

located between the eyebrows; in actuality, directly connected by polarity with

the medulla oblongata); and 'sahasrara' ( " thousand-petaled lotus " in the

uppermost part of the cerebrum). The seven centers are divinely planned exits or

" trap doors " through which the soul has descended into the body and through

which it must reascend by a process of meditation. By seven successive steps,

the soul escapes into Cosmic Consciousness. Yoga treatises generally refer to

the six lower centers as 'chakras' ( " wheels, " because the concentrated energy in

each one is like a hub from which radiate rays of life-giving light and energy),

with 'sahasrara' referred to separately as a seventh center. All seven centers,

however, are often referred to as lotuses, whose petals open, or turn upward, in

spiritual awakening as the life and consciousness travel up the spine.

 

[3] The identifying emblem of Self-Realization Fellowship/Yogoda Satsanga

Society of India depicts the spiritual eye, showing the white star and

surrounding rings of blue and golden light at the point between the two

eyebrows, situated within a golden lotus flower. It signifies the meditating

devotee's goal of opening the eye of divine perception, just as the open lotus

is an ancient symbol of awakened spiritual consciousness.

 

[4] As in the macrocosm of the universe, so in the microcosm of man there are

three interdependent bodies. Man's soul dons these three coverings that serve as

instrumentalities through which the incarnate spirit can perceive, comprehend,

and interact with God's creation. The very tenuous first covering of the soul,

which individualizes it from Spirit, is one of pure consciousness; it is

composed of God's thoughts or ideas that cause the other two sheaths. Thus it is

referred to as the causal body. These causal ideas emit a magnetic force of

light and intelligent energy, which I have called 'lifetrons', that form the

astral body of man. The astral body of lifetrons is itself the life energy that

empowers all the senses and functions of the physical body. The physical body is

merely a gross materialization of the causal ideas activated by the life and

energy of the astral body, and endowed with consciousness, self-awareness, and

intelligence from the causal body. All of these vibratory manifestations of the

macrocosm and microcosm derive from the Holy Ghost Vibration and the

transcendent consciousness of God. (See Volume I, Discourse 1, pg. 14)