The Second Birth of Man--In Spirit - Part 7

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The Second Birth of Man--In Spirit - Part 7

(Dialogue with Nicodemus, Part I)

 

(p.249) " Marvel not that I said unto thee, 'Ye must be born again.' The wind

bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell

whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the

Spirit " (John 3:7-8).

 

" The wind bloweth

where it listeth.... "

 

Jesus was describing a metaphysical law of noumena (substance, or cause) and

phenomena (the appearances of substances, or effect) when he compared the

Spirit, and the souls emerging from It, with the invisible wind, and its

presence declared by its sound. Just as the source of the wind is hidden but the

wind is made known by its sound, so the Spirit-substance is invisible, hidden

beyond the reach of human senses; and the incarnate souls born of the Spirit are

the visible phenomena. By the sound, the invisible wind is known. By the

presence of intelligent souls, the invisible Spirit is declared.

 

Jesus was stating that, as it is difficult to find the source of the wind, so it

is difficult to find the Spirit-Source from which all things come. There is a

parallel quotation in the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita (11:28): " The

beginning of all creatures is veiled, the middle is manifested, and the end

again is imperceptible. " All beings come from the ocean of Spirit and dissolve

again in the ocean of Spirit. Everything emerges from the Invisible, to play

upon this earth for a little while, and then enters the invisible state again at

the end of life. Only the middle of life we behold; the beginning and end are

hidden from sight in the subtler spiritual realms. To illustrate: Think of a

huge chain out in the ocean. If you lift the middle of the chain above the

surface of the water, you can see a few of its links, but the ends are still

unseen in the depths. (p.250) So the outer manifestations of life are

perceptible to man's sensory mind, but their origin and ultimate destiny are

unknown to man in ordinary consciousness. He perceives only the middle of the

chain of eternal existence and consciousness, that which is visible between

birth and death.

 

Man remains firmly convinced that he is essentially a body, even though he daily

receives proof to the contrary. Every night in sleep, " the little death, " he

discards his identification with the physical form and is reborn as invisible

consciousness. Why is it that man is compelled to sleep? Because sleep is a

reminder of what is beyond the state of sleep--the state of the soul. [1] Mortal

existence could not be borne without at least subconscious contact with the

soul, which is provided by sleep. At nighttime man dumps the body into the

subconscious and becomes an angel; in the daytime he becomes once more a devil,

divorced from Spirit by the desires and sensations of the body. By 'Kriya Yoga'

meditation he can be a god in the daytime, like Christ and the Great Ones. He

goes beyond the subconscious to the superconscious, and dissolves the

consciousness of the body in the ecstasy of God. One who can do this is born

again. He knows his soul as a waft of the invisible wind of Spirit--soaring free

in the unbounded heavens, entrapped no longer in a whirling dust devil traipsing

heedlessly over the toilsome tracks of matter.

 

This earth is a habitat of trouble and suffering, but the kingdom of God that is

behind this material plane is an abode of freedom and bliss. The soul of the

awakening man has followed a hard-earned way--many incarnations of upward

evolution--in order to arrive at the human state and the possibility to reclaim

his lost divinity. Yet how many human births have been wasted in preoccupation

with food and money and gratification of the body and egoistic emotions! Each

person should ask himself how he is using the precious moments of this present

birth. Eventually the bodies of all human beings fall painfully apart; isn't it

better to separate the soul from the body consciousness--to keep the body as the

temple of the Spirit? O Soul, you are not the body; why not remember always that

you are the Spirit of God? [2]

 

Jesus said that we must reestablish our connection with Eternity; we must be

born again. (p.251) Man has either to follow the circuitous route of

reincarnations to work out his karma, or--by a technique such as 'Kriya Yoga'

and the help of a true guru--to awaken the divine faculty of intuition and know

himself as a soul, that is, be born again in Spirit. By the latter method he can

see and enter the kingdom of God in this lifetime.

 

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

You) Volume 1, Discourse 13, pg. 249-251

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] All human beings experience three states: waking, dream-broken slumber, and

dreamless sleep. The latter, even when brief, is revivifying; man is then

unconsciously resting in his soul nature. Hindu scriptures also speak of

'turiya', literally, in Sanskrit, the " fourth " or superconscious state.

Persistent yogis and all other great devotees of God enter the 'turiya' state:

conscious, unforgettable realizations of soul as one with Spirit.

 

[2] " Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God

dwelleth in you? " (I Corinthians 3:16).