What did Jesus (and the Comforter) ask people to believe? - 4

[Guest guest]

" The Kingdom of God that we were promised is at hand. This is not a

phrase out of a sermon or a lecture, but it is the actualization of

the experience of the highest Truth which is Absolute, now

manifesting itself in ordinary people at this present moment. "

 

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

 

 

“And Jesus spoke again unto the eleven and said, " Grieve not because

I go away, for it is best that I should go away.

If I do not go away the Comforter will not come to you.

These things I speak while with you in the flesh, but when the Holy

Breath shall come in power, lo,

She will teach you more and more, and bring to you remembrance all

the words I have said to you.

There are a multitude of things yet to be said; Things that this age

cannot receive because it cannot comprehend.

But, lo, I say, before the great day of the Lord shall come, the Holy

Breath will make all mysteries known —

The mysteries of the soul, of life, of death, of immortality, the

oneness of man with every other man, and with his God.

Then will the world be led to truth, and man will be truth.

When She has come, the Comforter, She will convince the world of sin,

and of truth of what I speak,

And of the rightness of the Judgment of the just; And then the prince

of carnal life will be cast out.

And when the Comforter shall come, I need not intercede for you; For

you shall stand approved,

And God will know you then as he knows Me.”

 

The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ 162:4-11

 

 

The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ

Introduction by EVA S. DOWLING, Ph.D.

 

What is an Age? Astronomers tell us that our sun and his family of

planets revolve around a central sun, which is millions of miles

distant, and that it requires something less than 26,000 years to

make one revolution. His orbit is called the Zodiac, which is divided

into twelve signs, familiarly known as Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer,

Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and

Pisces. It requires our Solar System a little more than 2,100 years

to pass through one of these signs, and this time is the measurement

of an Age or Dispensation. Because of what Astronomers call " the

precession of the Equinoxes " the movement of the sun through the

signs of the Zodiac is in order reverse from that given above. Exact

Time of the Beginning of an Age. Regarding this matter there is a

disagreement omong astronomers; but in this Introduction we are not

called upon to give the reasons of the various investigators for

their opinions; there are enough well authenticated facts for our

present purposes. It is conceded by all critical students that the

sun entered the zodiacal sign Taurus in the days of our historic Adam

when the Taurian Age began; that Abraham lived not far from the

beginning of the Arian Age, when the sun entered the sign Aries.

About the time of the rise of the Roman empire the sun entered the

sign Pisces, the Fishes, and the Piscean Age began, so that early in

this Age Jesus of Nazareth lived.

 

What is the Piscean Age? This question requires further

consideration. The Piscean Age is identical with the Christian

Dispensation. The word Pisces means fish. The sign is known as a

water sign, and the Piscean Age has been distinctly the age of the

fish and its element, water. In the establishment of their great

institutions John the Harbinger and Jesus both introduced the rite of

water baptism, which has been used in some form in all the so-called

Christian Churches and cults, even to the present time. Water is the

true symbol of purification. Jesus himself said to the Harbinger

before he was baptised: " All the men must be washed, symbolic of the

cleansing of the soul. " (Aquarian Gospel 64: 7.) Fish was a Christian

Symbol. In the earlier centuries of the Christian Dispensation the

fish was everywhere used as a symbol. In his remarkable book,

" Christian Iconography, " Didron says: " The fish, in the opinion of

antiquarians generally, is the symbol of Jesus Christ. The fish is

sculptured upon a number of Christian monuments, and more

particularly upon the ancient sarcophagi. It is also upon medals,

bearing the name of our Saviour and also upon engraved stones, cameos

and intaglios. The fish is also to be remarked upon the amulets worn

suspended from the necks by children, and upon ancient glasses and

sculptured lamps. " Baptismal fonts are more particularly ornamented

with the fish. The fish is constantly exhibited placed upon a dish in

the middle of the table, at the Last Supper, among the loaves, knives

and cups used at the banquet. " In the writings of Tertullian we find

this statement: " We arelittle fishes in Christ our great fish. " The

last two thousand years, comprising the Piscean Age, has certainly

been one of water and the many uses of that element have been

emphasised, and sea and lake and river navigation has been brought to

a high degree of efficiency.

 

What is the Aquarian Age? The human race is to-day standing upon the

cusp of the Piscean-Aquarian Ages. Aquarius is an air sign and the

New Age is already noted for remarkable inventions for the use of

air, electrici, magnetism, etc. Men navigate the air as fish do the

sea, and send their thoughts spinning around the world with the speed

of lightning. The word Aquarius is derived from the Latin word aqua,

meaning water. Aquarius is however, the water bearer, and the symbol

of the sign, which is the eleventh sign of the Zodiac, is a man

carrying in his right hand a pitcher of water. Jesus referred to the

beginning of the Aquarian Age in these words: " And then the man who

bears the pitcher will walk forth across an arc of heaven; the sign

and signet of the Son of Man will stand forth in the eastern sky. The

wise will then lift up their heads and know that the redemption of

the earth is near. " (Aquarian Gospel 157: 29, 30.) The Aquarian Age

is pre-eminently a spiritual age, and the spiritual side of the great

lessons that Jesus gave to the world may now be comprehended by

multitudes of people, for the many are now coming into an advanced

stage of spiritual consciousness; so with much propriety this book is

called " The Aquarian (or Spiritual) Gospel of Jesus, the Christ. "

 

Introduction by EVA S. DOWLING, Ph.D.

 

 

“The ages of the world. One fascinating mystical theme in the New

Testament is that time consists of a series of ages. Each age of the

world (or kingdom) is dominated by a powerful force or figure. This

motif exists throughout the globe with a range of specific cultural

meanings. In the 8th century BC in Greece, the poet Hesiod described

the ages of the world as four in number and symbolized by gold,

silver, bronze, and iron, each age successively declining in

morality. In India the four yugas (Sanskrit: “world ages”),

symbolized by the four throws of a dice game, are also viewed as

descending — though in repetitive cycles — from perfection to moral

chaos. Other original schematizations of this theme can be found in

the mythologies of Chinese, Polynesian, and American Indian cultures.

 

By the time the New Testament was written, Jewish apocalyptic

writings (symbolic or cryptographic literature portraying God’s

dramatic intervention in history and catastrophic dramas at the end

of a cosmic epoch) had already produced theories of history that

reworked Indo-Iranian notions about the ages of the world. Iranian

concepts most influenced Christian views of time, history, and

ultimate human destiny. The prophet Zoroaster (c. 7th century BC) and

his followers in Iran taught a doctrine of the four ages of the world

in which each age was a different phase of struggle between two kinds

of powers — light and darkness, goodness and evil, spirit and matter,

infinity and finitude, health and sickness, time and eternity. The

forces of good and evil battled for the allegiance and the souls of

human beings. In the last days a promised savior (Saoshyant) would

pronounce final judgement and announce the coming of a new world

without end in which truth, immortality, and righteousness would have

everlasting reign.”

 

Encyclopedia Britannica (1992)

 

 

, " violettubb " <violettubb

wrote:

>

> What did Jesus ask people to " believe " ?

>

> ...Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and

saying, " The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent and

believe the gospel. " (Mark 1:14-15)

>

> (p.378) Jesus' exhortation to " believe the gospel " does not refer to study of

or belief in scriptural writings per se.[1] In the original Greek in which the

New Testament was written, the word used for gospel is 'euangelion', " good news "

or " good message. " As used by Jesus it expressed the " good message, " the

revelations of truth, he was bringing to man from God.

>

> When Jesus said to " believe the gospel, " he meant more than a casual mental

acceptance of his message. Belief in general is that conditional receptive

attitude of mind that must precede an experience in order to cognize it. One

must have sufficient belief in a concept in order to put it to the test, without

which one cannot possibly verify its validity. (p.379) If a man is thirsty and

is advised to quench his thirst with the water from a nearby good well, he must

believe in that advice sufficiently to make the effort to go to the well and

drink from it.

>

> Similarly, Jesus emphasizes that truth-seeking souls must not only repent of

the foolishness of following unsatisfying material ways of living, and believe

in the truths experienced by him through God; they must also act accordingly

that they might realize those truths for themselves.

>

> To be an orthodox unquestioning believer in any spiritual doctrine, without

the scrutiny of experimentation to prove it to oneself, is to be ossified with

dogmatism. Jesus did not ask the people merely to believe in his message, but to

keep faith in his divine revelations with the assurance that by believing in,

and hence concentrating upon, the gospel, they would surely and ultimately

experience within themselves the truths in those revelations. Belief is wasted

on false doctrines; but truth poured out to man through the authority of

God-realized saints is worthy of belief and sure to produce divine realization.

>

> Even on the authority of the fame of scriptural text, one cannot judge what it

teaches, for various are the meanings and consequent distortions drawn from holy

writ, some of which defy the laws of both reason and wisdom. Also, who can deny

what errors might have come down through the centuries in the form of

mistranslations or mistakes made by scribes? The Bible and the Vedas may well be

inspired texts that came from heaven, but the ultimate test of truth is one's

own realization, direct experience received through the medium of the soul's

omniscient intuition.

>

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

> You) Volume 1, Discourse 22, pg. 378-379

> 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] " While two of the New Testament gospels use the word 'gospel' (it is

missing in Luke and John), they use it to indicate not the written works

themselves, but rather the message preached either by Jesus (in Matthew) or

about him (in Mark). Not until the middle of the second century are documents

about the words and deeds of Jesus called gospels. " - Robert J. Miller, ed.,

'The Complete Gospels: Annotated Scholars Version' (HarperSanFrancisco, 1994).

>

> " The English word 'gospel' is a descendant of the Anglo-Saxon word 'godspel'

or 'good news'. 'Godspel' was an accurate equivalent of the original Greek word

'euangelion', literally a 'good message' or 'good tidings'. And the oldest

surviving Greek manuscript copies of the four canonical gospels bear only the

headings According to Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John (the four books together

comprise the whole of the single 'gospel'; and the word 'canonical' derives from

the Greek 'kanon' or 'measuring rod' and indicates, in this case, those few

gospels that were approved as holy scriptures by the orthodox church of the late

second century). " - Reynolds Price, 'Three Gospels' (New York: Simon and

Shuster, 1997). ('Publisher's Note')

>