The Baptism of Jesus - Part 10

[Guest guest]

The Baptism of Jesus - Part 10

 

(p.118) Yoga treatises explain the awakening of the spinal centers not as some

mystical aberration but as a purely natural occurrence common to all devotees

who find their way into the presence of God. The principles of yoga know no

artificial boundaries of religious isms. Yoga is the universal science of divine

union of the soul with Spirit, of man with his Maker. Yoga describes the

definite way Spirit descends from Cosmic Consciousness into matter and

individualized expression in all beings; and how, conversely, individualized

consciousness ultimately must reascend to Spirit. Many are the pathways of

religion and the modes of approaching God; but ultimately they all lead to one

highway of final ascension to union with Him. The way of liberation of the soul

from its ties to mortal consciousness in the body is identical for all: through

the same " straight " highway of the spine by which the soul descended from Spirit

into the body and matter. [1]

 

Man's true nature is the soul, a ray of Spirit. As God is ever-existing,

ever-conscious, ever-new Bliss, so the soul, by encasement in the body, is

individualized ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new Bliss. The bodily

covering of the soul is threefold in nature. The physical body, with which man

so affectionately and tenaciously identifies himself, is little more than inert

matter, a clod of earthly minerals and chemicals made up of gross atoms. The

physical body receives all its enlivening energy and powers from an inner

radiant astral body of lifetrons. [2] The astral body, in turn, is empowered by

a causal body of pure consciousness, consisting of all of the ideational

principles that structure and maintain the astral and physical bodily

instruments employed by the soul to interact with God's creation. [3] (p.119)

The three bodies are tied together and work as one by a knotting of life force

and consciousness in seven spiritual cerebrospinal centers: a physical bodily

instrument, empowered by the life force of the astral body and the consciousness

from the causal form. In its residency in the triune body, the soul takes on the

limitations of confinement and becomes the pseudosoul, or ego.

 

Descending first into the 'causal' body of consciousness through the ideational

centers of the causal spine of magnetized consciousness, thence into the

wondrous spinal centers of light and power of the 'astral' body, life force and

consciousness then descend into the 'physical' body through the brain and spine

outward into the nervous system and organs and senses, enabling man to cognize

the world and interact with his material environment. [4]

 

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

You) Volume 1, Discourse 6, pg. 118-119

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] " And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of

holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it....but the redeemed shall walk

there. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs

and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and

sorrow and sighing shall flee away " (Isaiah 35:8-10).

 

[2] " 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. " (Discourse 1, p.14)

 

[3] The causal body, the idea-matrix for the astral and physical bodies,

consists of 35 idea elements, 19 of which constitute the astral body and 16 of

which correspond to the chemical elements of the physical body. Hindu scriptures

identify the 19 astral-body elements as: intelligence, ego; feeling; mind

(sense-consciousness); five instruments of knowledge (the sensory powers within

the physical organ of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch); five instruments

of action (the executive powers in the physical instruments of procreation,

excretion, speech, locomotion, and the exercise of manual skill); and five

instruments of life force that perform the functions of circulation,

metabolization, assimilation, crystallization, and elimination.

 

[4] Scientific discovery of the electromagnetic energy that forms an organizing

template for the physical body is described in 'Vibrational Medicine'

(Rochester, Vermont: Bear and Company, 2001), by Richard Gerber, M.D.:

" Neuroanatomist Harold S. Burr at Yale University during the 1940s was studying

the shape of energy fields " --which he termed " fields of life " or

" L-fields " -- " around living plants and animals. Some of Burr's work involved the

shape of electrical fields surrounding salamanders. He found that the

salamanders possessed an energy field roughly shaped like the adult animal. He

also discovered that this field contained an electrical axis which was aligned

with the brain and spinal cord. Burr wanted to find precisely when this

electrical axis first originated in the animal's development. He began mapping

the fields in progressively earlier stages of salamander embryogenesis. Burr

discovered that the electrical axis originated in the unfertilized egg....Burr

also experimented with the electrical fields around tiny seedlings. According to

his research, the electrical field around a sprout was not the shape of the

original seed. Instead the surrounding electrical field resembled the adult

plant. "

 

In 'Blueprint for Immortality: The Electric Patterns of Life' (Essex, England:

Saffron Walden, 1972), Professor Burr describes his research: " Most people who

have taken high-school science will remember that if iron filings are scattered

on a card held over a magnet they will arrange themselves in the pattern of the

'lines of force' of the magnet's field. And if the filings are thrown away and

fresh ones scattered on the card, the new filings will assume the same pattern

as the old.

 

" Something like this--though infinitely more complicated--happens in the human

body. Its molecules and cells are constantly being torn apart and rebuilt with

fresh material from the food we eat. But thanks to the controlling L-field, the

new molecules and cells are rebuilt as before and arrange themselves in the same

pattern as the old ones.

 

" Modern research with 'tagged' elements has revealed that the materials of our

bodies and brains are renewed much more often than was previously realized. All

the protein in the body, for example, is 'turned over' every six months and, in

some organs such as the liver, the protein is renewed much more frequently. When

we meet a friend we have not seen for six months there is not one molecule in

his face which was there when we last saw him. But, thanks to his controlling

L-field, the new molecules have fallen into the old, familiar pattern and we can

recognize his face. Until modern instruments revealed the existence of the

controlling L-fields, biologists were at a loss to explain how our bodies 'kept

in shape' through ceaseless metabolism and changes of material. Now the mystery

has been solved, the electro-dynamic field of the body serves as a matrix or

mould, which preserves the 'shape' or arrangement of any material poured into

it, however often the material may be changed. " ('Publisher's Note')