Jesus' Temptation in the Wilderness - Part 10

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Jesus' Temptation in the Wilderness - Part 10

 

Man's free choice and

power of reason are

his redemption

 

(p.177) The great drama of cosmic existence honors man's free choice and power

of reason. Man, made in the image of God, has the same liberty of free choice in

his sphere as has God the Father. God can redeem man only when in every way he

chooses to act in accordance with divine laws of right living.

 

God is coaxing man with a limitless exhibition of good happenings to influence

him for his own highest welfare. Satan is tempting man with deceptive

contrivances that are pleasant-looking and promise happiness, but after a little

evanescent pleasure give evil consequences instead.

 

Man stands in the middle between God and Satan, each ready to pull him in

whichever direction he wishes to go. Satan is on the left side with his kingdom

of misery cloaked in ostentation, and God is on the right side with His kingdom

of happiness bathed in eternal light. It is up to man to signal God or Satan as

to which direction he wants to be pulled. Man is perfectly free to act,

controlled neither by God nor Satan. Whenever he initiates good actions, or has

a pure, ennobling thought, that is the signal to God; and he is automatically

pulled toward God, toward a paradise of Bliss hidden in the womb of eternal

futurity. But as soon as man thinks or acts in accord with evil, he is

automatically pulled toward Satan, toward entanglement in the realm of

misery-making dualities.

 

(p.178) When man succumbs to temptation, or is angry, or jealous, or selfish, or

greedy, or revengeful, or restless, he has accepted Satan's invitation to come

to his side. When man is master of himself--moderate, calm, understanding,

unselfish, forgiving, practicing meditation--he is inviting God to help him.

 

God is very anxious for all His children to get back to His kingdom, free from

suffering and death and all other terrors and uncertainties of human life in

which Satan keeps man constantly involved through bondage to the senses. Every

time man is tempted to do wrong, he should remind himself that it is not his

subjective mind alone that is tempting him, but also objective Satan. He should

adamantly refuse to cooperate with the Evil One who would destroy him. That is

why Jesus said, " Get thee behind me, Satan " (Luke 4:8) when that Evil Force

showed him kingdoms of temporal glory, which could be his if he worshiped

delusion.

 

The wisdom of Jesus could not be swayed. If someone offered a man a million

dollars, and someone else held before him a thousand dollars as an alternative,

only a fool would prefer the paltry offering. Jesus spoke from his

soul-realization: " I have chosen imperishable Bliss; what care I for anything

temporal? "

 

The deluded man muses how wonderful it would be if he were as rich as Henry Ford

or Andrew Carnegie, but where are they now? Why desire things that must be

abandoned at death? The great poet Saadi of Persia said: " If thou dost conquer

the world and bend all the people to thy will, what then? You will one day have

to leave it all. "

 

As a result of the choice Jesus made, he has eternal life in God's Bliss. By

emerging victorious from temptation, he is a shining example for all souls

struggling to regain their divine sonhood. He showed the way: On the mountain

peak of high meditation, Jesus lifted the veil of body consciousness, sense

appearances, and matter, and identified himself with the " only begotten Son, "

Christ Consciousness. It is then that a soul knows its divine status as a son of

God.

 

There was a time when I believed Satan was a symbolical force, a metaphysical

delusion; but now I know and add my testimony to the testimony of Jesus Christ

that Satan is responsible for all the creation of evil on earth and in the minds

of men. I have consciously seen Satan many times obstructing me by mysterious

misfortunes, and by consciously taking materialized forms while I was receiving

the grace of God.

 

In highest samadhi,

" the devil " of delusive

dualities departs from

man's consciousness

 

On one occasion I was beholding the face of Christ, and just as he passed out of

my vision I saw the evil force too as Satan. It was a terrific vision: Those two

forces passed through my body, one of them the universal Christ-joy and peace,

the other the great cosmic delusion. The Evil Force didn't touch me, only tried

to frighten me. As one goes into the Spirit he sees those two forces distinctly;

but when I reached the highest 'samadhi' I found there is nothing else there but

God. But before that realization is reached, that Cosmic Dichotomy will not

yield its illusory reality as two forces, the power of evil and the power of

Christ, the power of Satan and the power of God.

 

When the Psychological Satan had finished tempting Jesus, the delusion of

memories of mortal habit departed, for a time at least, giving rise to the

feeling of victory for the permanent habit of spiritual consciousness. The

Gospel According to St. Luke notes: " And when the devil had ended all the

temptation, he departed from him for a season. " [1] The departing of Satan " for

a season " signifies the transcendental state of fixed self-mastery, when the

devotee rises above duality and its compulsory struggle with evil.

 

Every master who has attained the realization of the state of 'nirvikalpa

samadhi' feels the obsession of ignorance within him gone. With the

disappearance of the mindset of ignorance that sees everything in terms of

mortal consciousness, sublime changes occur within that advanced devotee. Under

the influence of cosmic delusion, even sincerely aspiring devotees behold matter

as matter, and see the dualities of good and evil and the relativity of

consciousness, which reveals matter as different forms of solids, liquids,

gaseous, and astral substances. But when the influence of Satan is completely

terminated, the liberated devotee finds only the presence of the omnipresent,

ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new blessed Spirit. All evil, all

discrepancies of nature, disappear as forgotten shadows from the consciousness

of the illumined devotee.

 

When Jesus in the wilderness was victorious in defeating the temptations of

Satan, the mortal delusive habit disappeared, and the angels of Intuition,

Calmness, Omniscience, and Self-realization appeared in the consciousness of

Jesus to serve him with lasting Bliss.

 

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

You) Volume 1, Discourse 8, pg. 177-179

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] Luke 4:13.