Driving the Money Changers Out of the Temple - Part 1

[Guest guest]

Driving the Money Changers Out of the Temple - (Introduction)

 

(p.225) " The Lord's liberated sons act purposefully and effectively in this

world of relativity, adopting any characteristic necessary to accomplish the

Divine Will, without deviation from inner attunement with the unruffled

calmness, love, and bliss of Spirit. "

 

(p.226) After this he went down to Capernaum, he, and his mother, and his

brethren, and his disciples: and they continued there not many days. And the

Jews' Passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And found in the

temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money

sitting: And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of

the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and

overthrew the tables; and said unto them that sold doves, " Take these things

hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise. "

 

And his disciples remembered that it was written, " The zeal of Thine house hath

eaten me up. "

 

Then answered the Jews and said unto him, " What sign shewest thou unto us,

seeing that thou doest these things? "

 

Jesus answered and said unto them, " Destroy this temple, and in three days I

will raise it up. "

 

Then said the Jews, " Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt

thou rear it up in three days? " But he spake of the temple of his body. When

therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said

this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had

said.

 

Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover, in the feast day, many believed in

his name, when they saw the miracles which he did. But Jesus did not commit

himself unto them, because he knew all men, and needed not that any should

testify of man: for he knew what was in man.

 

-John 2:12-25

 

 

 

Driving the Money Changers Out of the Temple - Part 1

 

(p.227) After this he went down to Capernaum, he, and his mother, and his

brethren, and his disciples: and they continued there not many days. And the

Jews' Passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And found in the

temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money

sitting: And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of

the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and

overthrew the tables; and said unto them that sold doves, " Take these things

hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise. "

 

And his disciples remembered that it was written, " The zeal of Thine house hath

eaten me up " (John 2:12-17).

 

Parallel reference:

 

And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and

bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the

seats of them that sold doves, and said unto them, " It is written, 'My house

shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves' "

(Matthew 21:12-13). [1]

 

When forceful behavior

is a righteous response

to wrongdoing

 

Meekness is not a weakness. A true exemplar of peace is centered in his divine

Self. All actions arising therefrom are imbued with the soul's nonpareil

[unequalled; matchless] vibratory power--whether issuing forth as a calm command

or a strong volition. Nonunderstanding minds might critique Jesus' confronting

the temple mercenaries with a scourge as contradicting his teaching: " Resist not

evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other

also. " [2] The forceful use of a whip to drive the merchants and money changers

out of the house of worship may not seem wholly in keeping with the propagated

lamblike image of Jesus, who taught forbearance and love. The actions of divine

personalities, however, are sometimes willfully startling to shake complacent

minds out of their vacuous acceptance of the commonplace. An accurate sense of

spiritual propriety in a world of relativity requires a ready wit and a steady

wisdom. The proper course of behavior is not always discerned by

scripture-quoting dogmatists whose literal dependence on inflexible dictums may

pay homage to the letter rather than the spirit of spirituality in action. [2]

 

Jesus responded to an untenable situation, not from an emotional compulsion to

wrath, but from a divine, righteous indignation in reverence for the immanence

of God in His holy place of worship. Inwardly, Jesus did not succumb to anger.

Great sons of God possess the qualities and attributes of the ever tranquil

Spirit. By their perfected self-control and divine union, they have mastered

every nuance of spiritual discipline. Such masters participate fully and

empathetically in the events of man, yet maintain a transcendental soul freedom

from the delusions of anger, greed, or any other form of slavery to the senses.

Spirit manifests Itself in creation through a multiplicity of elevating,

activating, and darkening forces, yet remains simultaneously in Uncreated Bliss

beyond the teeming vibrations of the cosmos. (p.229) Similarly, the Lord's

liberated sons act purposefully and effectively in this world of relativity,

adopting any characteristics necessary to accomplish the Divine Will, without

deviation from inner attunement with the unruffled calmness, love, and bliss of

Spirit.

 

The meekness of divine personalities is very strong in the infinite power behind

their gentleness. They may use this power in a forceful dramatization to

admonish those who are stubbornly irresponsive to gentler vibrations. Even as a

loving father may resort to firm discipline to deter his child from harmful

actions, so Jesus put on a show of spiritual ire to dissuade these grown-up

children of God from ignorant acts of desecration, the effects of which would

surely be spiritually harmful to themselves as well as to the sanctity of the

temple of God.

 

Divinely guided actions may command extraordinary means to right a wrong; but

they are never activated by wanton rage. The Bhagavad Gita, the revered Hindu

Bible, teaches that anger is an evil enveloping one in a delusion that obscures

discriminative intelligence, with consequent annihilation of proper behavior.

[3]

 

If Jesus had been motivated by a real spate of anger, he might have used his

divine powers to destroy utterly these desecrators. With his little bundle of

cords he could not have seriously hurt anyone. In fact, it was not the whip but

the vibration of colossal spiritual force expressing through this personality

that routed the merchants and money changers. The spirit of God was with him, a

power that was irresistible, causing a throng of able-bodied men to flee before

the intensely persuasive vibration of a single paragon of meekness.

 

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

You) Volume 1, Discourse 12, pg. 225-229

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. additional parallel references in Mark 11:15-17 and Luke 19:45-46. St.

John's Gospel places this incident at the beginning of Jesus' public ministry;

the other three Gospels relate it near the end of Jesus' life, during his last

visit to Jerusalem (see Discourse 64). Though no definitive explanation for this

can be given, some scholars believe that these two were two separate incidents,

occurring three years apart. ('Publisher's Note')

 

[2] " Many disciples have a preconceived image of a guru, by which they judge his

words and actions. Such persons often complained that they did not understand

[my guru] Sri Yukteswar. 'Neither do you understand God!' I retorted on one

occasion. 'If a saint were clear to you, you would be one! " - 'Autobiography of

a Yogi'

 

[3] " Anger breeds delusion; delusion breeds loss of memory (of the Self). Loss

of right memory causes decay of the discriminating faculty. From decay of

discrimination, annihilation (of spiritual life) follows " ('God Talks With

Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita' 11:63).