What did Jesus mean by Blessed are the poor in spirit?

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What did Jesus mean by " Blessed are the poor in spirit? "

 

And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying, " Blessed are the poor in

spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven " (Matthew 5:2-3).

 

(p.434) During his teaching, Jesus let loose, through his voice as well as

through his eyes, his divine life force and godly vibration to spread over the

disciples, making them calmly attuned and magnetized, able to receive through

their intuitional understanding of the full measure of his wisdom.

 

The lyric verses of Jesus that begin " Blessed are... " have become known as The

Beatitudes. To beautify is to make supremely happy; beatitude signifies the

blessedness, the bliss, of heaven.[1] Jesus here sets forth with power and

simplicity a doctrine of moral and spiritual principles that has echoed

undiminished down the ages--tenets by which man's life becomes blessed, filled

with heavenly bliss.

 

The word " poor " as used in the first Beatitude signifies wanting in any outer

superficial elegance of spiritual wealth. Those who possess true spirituality

never make an ostentatious display of it; they rather express quite naturally a

humble paucity [scarceness] of ego and its vainglorious [boastful] trappings. To

be " poor in spirit " is to have divested one's inner being, his spirit, of desire

for and attachment to material objects, earthly possessions, materially minded

friends, selfish human love. Through this purification of inward renunciation,

the soul finds that it has ever possessed all riches of the Eternal Kingdom of

Wisdom and Bliss, and thenceforth dwells therein in constant communion with God

and His saints.

 

Poverty " in spirit " does not imply that one should necessarily be a pauper, lest

deprivation of basic bodily necessities distract one's mind from God. But it

certainly means that one should not settle for material acquisitions instead of

spiritual opulence. (p.435) Persons who are materially rich may be poor in inner

spiritual development if wealth gorges their senses; while those who are

materially " poor " by choice--who have simplified the outer conditions of their

life to make time for God--will garner spiritual riches and fulfillment that no

treasury of gold could ever buy.

 

Thus Jesus commended those souls who are poor in spirit, wholly nonattached to

personal worldly goals and fortune in deference to seeking God and serving

others: " You are blessed for your poverty. It will open the gates to the kingdom

of all-sufficient God, who will relieve you from material as well as spiritual

want throughout eternity. Blessed are you who are in want and seek Him who alone

can relieve your deficiencies forever! "

 

When the spirit of man mentally renounces desire for objects of this world,

knowing them to be illusory, perishable, misleading, and unbecoming to the soul,

he begins to find true joy in acquiring permanently satisfying soul qualities.

In humbly leading a life of outer simplicity and inner renunciation, steeped in

the soul's heavenly bliss and wisdom, the devotee ultimately inherits the lost

kingdom of immortal blessedness.

 

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

You) Volume 1, Discourse 26, pg. 434-435

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] " Beatify " is derived from Latin 'beatus', happy + 'facere', to make. The

word used for " blessed are... " in the original Greek of the Gospels is

'makarios', which in Latin is 'beati', from which comes the English 'beatitude',

state of blessedness or utmost bliss.