Christ and Ramana - Happy Easter

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Christ and RamanaBy Banning Richardsonfrom The Mountain Path, Jayanti Issue 2001=============================================

It is a tenet of Hinduism that all spiritul paths lead to thesame goal. In a broad sense this is true, but also it hides thetruth. For if one has followed one religion or another, oneYoga or another, one has still in the end to go through theprocess of self-analysis, of inner search and surrender which isbest described in our time by Sri Maharshi.In other words the 'goal' is not a goal but a path.When one has learnt everything that one can from one's inheritedor acquired religion or spiritual discipline, one has to takethis prized possession and cast it to one side - the mostpainful of acts - and, starting afresh, follow the simple,scientific method that the Saint of Arunachala teaches us.I have said that this saint is the greatest contemporaryexponent of this age old teaching. This is as true for thescientific minded Westerner as it is for the Easterner.Dr. Jung writes, "The identification of a Self with God willstrike the European as shocking. It is a speciphically orientalRealization, as expressed in Sri Ramana's utterances.'No doubt such identification is shocking to the Western Christianor other orthodox religionist, but as I have implied, it isconsonant with Christ's teachings, if they are approached afreshwithout prejudice.If one examines the New Testament carefully one findsthat Christ is trying to convince a fanaticallymonotheistic people that God could inhabit human form for aspecial purpose, and that the nature of God was not somethingdifferent from man's but that one could see the image ofGod in a perfect man.And he proclaimed himself to be a perfect being who had presidedover human destiny since the world began. This in itself was anoverwhelming dose for the orthodox Jew to swallow.One would not therefore expect that Christ would go fartherand show that this Perfect Being is latent in every man ,because God is in every man. But in fact he does say thisby implification, and sometimes directly, throughout histeaching.Take for instance - "The kingdom of God cometh not withobservation; Neither shall they say, Lo here ! Or lothere! For behold, the Kingdom of God is within you."In other words his first lesson was, 'Heaven is withinyou and it is a spiritual state, not a material place."

 

Having made this clear, he goes on to say, "Be ye therefore perfect,

even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.'

 

Thus he was saying in fact, "God dwells within you; you can become

perfect like Him. '

 

This was a revolutionary teaching , and its full implications are

understood only if one comes into touch with the teachings of

Ramakrishna or a Sri Maharshi."

 

But Christ went even farther than this. In verses 33-36 of the

tenth chapter of St. John's Gospel we read -

"Jesus answered them(the Jews): Is it notwritten in your law,I said,Ye are gods?""If he called them gods, unto whom theword of God came, and the scripturecannot be broken; say ye of him,whom the Father has sanctified, and sentinto the world, Thou blasphemest;because I said, I am the son of God?"So we might ask today, do you acuse Sri Maharshi of blasphemy for saying thatthe True Man within us is God, when Christ was executed on the same charge 2,000years ago? Just because the church has petrified his teaching, as Judaism beforehas petrified the teaching of the Prophets, do you expect those who feel God stirringwithin them to join the mob who cry 'Blasphemy ' ?

And to pursue this argument a little farther in order to revealthe basic similarity of Jesus Christ's and Bhagavan Maharshi'steachings, one remembers that Christ answered the rich, youngman who came to him and asked, "Good master, what shall Ido that I may inherit eternal life', by saying "Why callest thoume good? There is none good but one, that is God'.This, taken with the quotations already mentioned, clearlyshows that he believed that God was in all men and that all mencould attain the perfection that he, Christ, himself revealed,through following his path - i.e., actively loving God and one'sfellowmen , and knowing that the Kingdom of Heaven iswithin each one of us.