The Ascension of Man--Lifting up the Serpent in the Wilderness--Part 2

[Guest guest]

The Ascension of Man--Lifting up the Serpent in the Wilderness--Part 2

(Dialogue With Nicodemus, Part II)

 

(p.259) " And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from

heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the

serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that

whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. " (John

3:13-15)

 

This passage is very important, and little understood. Taken literally, the

words " lifted up the serpent " are at best a classic scriptural ambiguity. Every

symbol has a hidden meaning that must be rightly interpreted.

 

The word " serpent " here refers metaphorically to man's consciousness and life

force in the subtle coiled passageway at the base of the spine, the matterward

flow of which is to be reversed for man to reascend from body attachment to

superconscious freedom. [1]

 

As souls we were all originally in God's bosom. Spirit projects the desire to

create an individualized expression of Itself. The soul becomes manifest and

projects the idea of the body in causal form. The idea becomes energy, or the

lifetronic astral body. The astral body becomes condensed into the physical

body. Through the integrated spinal passageway of these three instrumental

media, the soul descends into identification with the material body and gross

matter.

 

Man's supernal nature

as an angelic being

garbed in thought and

light

 

" He that came down from heaven " means the physical body. (Jesus refers to the

human body as " man " ; throughout the Gospels he spoke of his own physical body as

" the Son of man, " as distinguished from his Christ Consciousness, " the Son of

God. " ) (p.260) Man descends from the heavenly planes of God's creation when his

soul, garbed in its causal body of God-congealed ideas and its astral body of

light, takes on an outer covering of material tissue. So not only Jesus but all

of God's children have " come down from heaven. "

 

Just as the little threads of flame percolating through the holes of a gas

burner are part of the one flame under the burner plate, so also the one flame

of Spirit underlying all creation appears as a separate soul-flame in every

individual being. When the burner is turned off, the many individual jets retire

into the one central flame. The separate threads of fire had first to come out

of the primary flame before they could go back into it. This illustrates what

Jesus said about souls ascending to heaven, having descended from heaven.

 

No human body has ascended into heaven, the etheric essence of which does not

accommodate corporeal forms; but all souls can and will enter the supernal

realms when, through death or through spiritual transcendence, they cast off

physical consciousness and know themselves as angelic beings garbed in thought

and light.

 

We are all made in the image of God, beings of immortal consciousness cloaked in

diaphanous heavenly light--a heritage buried beneath the cloddish flesh. That

heritage we can only acknowledge by meditation. There is no other way--not by

reading books, not by philosophical study, but by devotion and continuous prayer

and scientific meditation that uplifts the consciousness to God.

 

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

You) Volume 1, Discourse 14, pg. 259-260

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] See Discourse 6 regarding the subtle anatomy of the spine.