Sunday Service Reading #15

IN THE GOSPEL of St. John, Chapter 20, we read the inspiring account of Jesus' resurrection:

The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.

Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord! . . .

Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in their midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.

The resurrection of Jesus, doubted by many but affirmed by those who were close to him, was a miraculous event, though one not unique in history. For many great saints of other religions have appeared to their disciples after death. Sometimes their appearances have been, as that of Jesus was, in flesh-and-blood form, and not only in vision.

Paramhansa Yogananda relates in Autobiography of a Yogi the account of his guru Sri Yukteswar's resurrection after his earthly passing. Miracles of this type are revealed only rarely to the masses, but accounts of them, related by men and women of reputed truthfulness, have inspired many devotees with faith in the reality of subtler-than-material states of existence.

Resurrection, Yogananda explained, means transformation, ultimately, from any lower state of being to a higher one. Worldly consciousness cannot imagine such transformation except in terms of, perhaps, some vauge improvement in our present quality of life. Divine consciousness, however, is capable of taking the base metal of worldliness and transforming it into the spiritual gold of divine wisdom and love.

Ah! ye who into this ill world are come—fleeting and false—set your faith fast on Me! Fix heart and thought on Me! Adore Me! Bring Offerings to Me! Make Me prostrations! Make Me your supremest joy! and, undivided, unto My rest your spirits shall be guided.

MP3 for Download (or online listening) of Asha Praver's Service on this Subject from 4-12-09

VIDEO of Devi's Service on this Subject from 4-12-09

MP3 for Download (or online listening) of Devi's Service on this Subject from 4-12-09

MP3 for Download (or online listening) of Asha's Service on this Subject from 3-28-08

MP3 for Download (or online listening) of Devi's Service on this Subject from 3-28-08

MP3 for Download (or online listening) of Devi's Service on this Subject from 4-8-07

Longest Reading from the Book The Promise of Immortality
Resurrection and the Meaning of Divine Tests?

“The first day of the week came Mary Magdalene early, when it was still dark, to the sepulchre, where she saw that the stone before it had been removed.

“Then she ran, and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken away the Lord!’ . . .

“That same day in the evening—it was the first day of the week; the disciples had assembled, and the doors were closed owing to their fear of the Jews—Jesus appeared to them. Standing in their midst, he said, ‘Peace be with you.’”

The resurrection of Jesus is the final and greatest lesson of his mission on earth. People might, in time, have accepted his suffering and death as the summation of his life, had it not been for that joyful ending.

Tradition, in emphasizing the Crucifixion, has treated the Resurrection as only another miracle, not as a teaching and an example for us to emulate. As a lesson, the Resurrection demonstrates the joyful promise behind all of life’s trials: the victory that awaits whoever accepts hardship, not despairingly, but with faith.

The Crucifixion epitomizes the persecution that the world inflicts on those who live for God. For it often happens that, in exchange for divine love and friendship, devotees receive hatred and contempt. Those who are drunk with pride resent any reminder of their unimportance in the general scheme of things: that only their souls are important, as expressions of God.

The Resurrection gives not only the comforting reassurance that heaven does exist, but that love and joy are, in the end, more powerful than hatred. Thus, and very fittingly, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection together dramatize the two essential conditions for knowing God: willingness to face for His sake any test that comes; and faith to accept it with love and courage, firm in the knowledge that all things pass, whereas God’s love is ours forever.

“Living for God,” Paramhansa Yogananda told the author, “is martyrdom.” It entails sacrificing not only the physical body, but even the animating ego.

The cross is universally recognized as the symbol of Christianity. Unfortunately, so completely does it define Christ’s religion that many Christians believe also that holiness is demonstrated by the intensity of one’s suffering rather than by a serene attitude in the face of suffering. Some people even believe that a joyful spirit is displeasing to God. This belief is utterly contradicted by the example of Jesus Christ. It is also contradicted by the teachings of all true saints. Consider these words by St. Francis de Sales, “A sad saint is a sad saint indeed!” And these by St. Teresa of Avila, “A sad nun is a bad nun!”

Pious over-emphasis on the suffering of Christ has distorted a divine truth. Religion, when lived truly, transforms sorrow into joy. True devotees, especially if they meditate, experience joy—subliminally at least—during even the severest trials. Sometimes they must cling to it determinedly, as if to a lifeline in heavy seas! When the waves subside, however, and calmness returns, they discover that joy was theirs even at the height of the storm.

Human life is in any case burdened with countless woes. The religious life has no monopoly on them. Nor is spirituality demonstrated by the mere fact of a person’s suffering. What counts is the spirit in which we meet our tests.

The Crucifixion and the Resurrection are symbols—indeed, affirmations—of the faith and courage necessary for salvation. In a sense, Jesus already demonstrated his inner freedom by the manner in which he accepted death: calmly, with unshaken faith, and with concern for others—even for his tormentors. “Father,” he cried out in his agony, “forgive them, for they know not what they do!” Both his suffering and, later, his resurrection were proofs of an eternal truth: that God loves us all, indifferent to Him though so many of us are. What God asks of those who love Him is not suffering, as such, but a victorious attitude even in seeming defeat. If we can persevere in this attitude, we find that sacrifice itself becomes a victory. By maintaining our joy during outer adversity, our hearts’ love deepens. Suffering is only the fruit of ego-centeredness. Joy is the fruit of a life lived for God.

A great Sufi saint once put it beautifully: “He is no true lover of God who does not forget his suffering in contemplation of the Divine Beloved.”

In Greece, the author once asked a shopkeeper, “Why do Greek artists portray the Nativity scene with the Virgin Mary suffering? Considering that she’d just given birth to the Christ child, wouldn’t she have been filled with divine joy?”

The shopkeeper solemnly replied, “She is grieving because she knows that her Son will die on the cross.” How absurd! As if suffering were the underlying lesson of that glorious life!

Jesus brought to mankind a very different message indeed. Its focus was not on suffering, but on eternal bliss, transcendent above all human sorrows. Indeed, one wonders how greatly Jesus even suffered, in the human sense. For a master lives in divine consciousness. What would beatitude signify, if physical agony were capable of overwhelming it? Matter, in that case, would be the fundamental reality, even as materialists claim. Suffering overwhelms one only when his consciousness is centered in his ego.

During the early years of Christianity, much controversy centered on this very point, with scathing accusations and counter-accusations of heresy. Paramhansa Yogananda wrote that (as often happens with sincerely held but conflicting beliefs) both sides were right: the Gnostics (who held that Jesus couldn’t have suffered at all) and the institutionally orthodox (who held that Jesus, in his agony, bore the suffering of the whole world), but that both also were wrong.

He explained that when a liberated master takes on a human body, he experiences pain and suffering, as other human beings do, but never personally. That is, he never experiences it in ego-consciousness. Those who are centered in their egos think, “It’s to me this is happening!” God-centered saints, on the other hand, think only, “This is what is happening.” A master assumes the human state voluntarily, motivated by pure compassion for mankind. Thus, he may choose to experience human pain also. On the other hand, if he has no lesson to teach others through pain, he may choose not to experience it at all.

Had Jesus not willingly assumed body-consciousness, his suffering on the cross would have been a mere pretense, and his assumption of humanity a sham. Instead, he was as wholly human as we are. The difference between him and us was that his consciousness, even while suffering, radiated outward from himself, and included others in his compassion. The consciousness of most people, by contrast, especially when they are suffering, seeks compassion from others for themselves. Their awareness, unlike that of Jesus, is centripetal; that of Jesus, and of every great master, is centrifugal, flowing outward, not inward. Divine bliss was, for Jesus, life’s abiding reality. He was wholly without man’s obsession with self which asks constantly, “What about me? What’s in it for me? What are the risks or benefits for me?” Jesus was a channel of divine consciousness. He sought to draw people’s attention, not to himself as a man, but to God alone. Like a clean window, he helped people to appreciate the vistas lying outside their little rooms of ego-consciousness. At the same time, again like a window, he framed that immensity by a human personality, in order to make it comprehensible to their understanding. His very suffering on the cross was only a frame through which humanity might glimpse God’s compassion.

Certainly, Jesus was not the “man of sorrows” that most people imagine. Had he been that, multitudes would not have flocked to him as they did. People are attracted by what they themselves want from life: joy, not sorrow; sympathy, not pity, and certainly not heavy sighs for their sinfulness! Jesus Christ was self-giving, as the Bible makes very clear. He was endlessly kind. These qualities in a human being produce happiness, not grim and puritanical self-righteousness. In his agony on the cross he showed that even in suffering he grieved not for himself, but for others and for the ignorance that causes mankind repeatedly to reject—even to the point of wanting to destroy it—the gift of divine love. “Father,” he said, “forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

A liberated master plays out his earthly role transcendently. That is to say, he never forgets his inner freedom. Never touched by delusion, he demonstrates the way to live under the most challenging circumstances in a spirit of inner freedom.

The Crucifixion had a further significance. As we know, it was an atonement for people’s sins. Man cannot escape the meshes of ignorance by his own efforts alone: His mind is already infected by the very disease of ignorance that he must dispel! Wrong actions through many lives have woven a mental cocoon around his soul, enclosing it in spiritual darkness. The strands of this cocoon are formed of man’s ego-motivated actions and desires, and are woven around the thought, “I—I—I!” Some of these strands, indeed, are almost rope-like, very difficult to sever with the delicate knife of resolution alone. The role of the guru, or savior, is to show his disciples how to sunder those bonds with the axe of superconscious perception.

A master, in order to hasten his disciples’ spiritual evolution, may sometimes offer his own body as a shield against the violent storms of delusion.

Egoic action implies self-commitment, and is therefore binding. It is what is known in Sanskrit as karma, which brings its own retribution or reward according to the type and intensity of its instigating energy. Karmic retribution gradually makes a person aware of the law governing the universe. Karmic rewards deepen our attunement with the law, and are accompanied by expanding happiness, understanding, and an inner serenity . Karmic retribution, on the other hand, has a darkening effect on the mind until one determines to learn its lessons.

A master may expiate his disciples’ bad karma by taking onto himself the punishment that is due them. A window not only opens onto the panorama, framing it like a picture to make it perhaps more suitable to people’s tastes: It also lets light into a room. Moreover, it protects those who are in the room from Nature’s inclemency. The guru’s function is similar. He brings the light of divine truth into the human mind. He protects people from the storms of adversity by taking onto himself karmic blows that might be too severe for them. Finally, his physical presence is a protection against life’s “inclemency,” raising people’s consciousness and making them immune to disturbing influences. In taking karma onto himself, he acts as a strong man may who receives onto his own chest blows that might be fatal to a weaker person.

Jesus in his agony on the cross atoned for the karma of many people. Had he taken upon himself the sins of the whole world, however, as people commonly believe, the world would have been transformed, and its inhabitants, sanctified. History suggests that no such uplift occurred. Rather, people seem generally to have sunk into deeper spiritual darkness. The centuries following the Crucifixion are known today as “the dark age.” They exhibited a degree of moral depravity that would have been abhorrent, formerly.

We are told that Jesus died for “all the world.” This expression is general in many languages, however. The French say, “tout le monde,” which means, literally, “the whole world,” though it is thought of as meaning simply, “everyone.”

Jesus can only have atoned for the sins of those whom he had been sent specifically to help. This number was limited, as he himself stated.[1] Many Christians are unaware that others knew God long before Jesus was born. Jesus himself, however, acknowledged the prophets before him, saying, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” (Matthew 5:17) We cannot accept literally, therefore, the assertion of St. Paul that Christ’s crucifixion atoned for original sin and for the fall of man.

It is natural to ask another question: Did the Crucifixion atone for Judas’s betrayal of Christ? Not only was Judas in greater need than most people of expiation, considering the enormity of his sin, but he also did more, by later repentance, to earn redemption. Yet neither the Bible nor tradition suggest that Jesus atoned for that sin by the Crucifixion, nor that Judas was saved by his repentance.

The mystery of who exactly was saved, and to what extent, was never explained satisfactorily by St. Paul, who painted with the broad brush of generalizations. No doubt Paul’s intention was to encourage people in their faith. Indeed, without faith one cannot receive divine grace. By grace, moreover, and not by theological niceties, comes salvation. If we love Jesus truly, however, and don’t deny him,[2] the issue of our salvation is for him to decide. To declare that we accept him as our “personal savior” is presumptuous. The best we can ever do is, by devotion to him, invite his blessings.

Orthodox Christians believe that the Crucifixion atoned for the sins of those, at least, who accept Jesus Christ. The scars of sin, however, seem as deeply etched in many of them as in others, whether Christian or non-Christian. And the aura of sanctity is as bright around the saints of other religions as around those in Christianity. Insistence that Jesus atoned for the sins of all men is harmless, if it inspires faith in God’s grace, but it can do harm if it deludes people into thinking that Christianity is, therefore, the only true religion.

What seems evident, on pondering the subject objectively, is that those who were clearly transformed after the Crucifixion were the close disciples of Jesus.

Spiritual complacency, born of passive dependence on Christ’s suffering on our behalf, may only perpetuate our ignorance, the root cause of all our suffering. Complacency never fired anyone with zeal to know God.

To extract wisdom from what must otherwise be abandoned as a theological fallacy, this much may be stated as a historical fact: The Christ consciousness has sacrificed itself repeatedly through the atonement of great masters for human error.

To return to the subject of the Resurrection, not only have there been other great masters besides Jesus, including many who lived long before him: There have been masters, also, who resurrected their bodies after death. The case of Jesus was extraordinary, certainly, but it was not unique. One marvelous account of physical resurrection is detailed in Paramhansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi, in the chapter titled, “The Resurrection of Sri Yukteswar.” Christian saints, also, have been known to appear in their physical bodies to disciples after death.

Jesus Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection are lessons, above all, in divine freedom. A true devotee should be willing, as Jesus was, to pay the price even of painful death, out of love for God and in the hope of gaining eternal freedom. Whatever wrongs one has committed must, sooner or later, be expiated. Wouldn’t it be better to rid oneself of these debts sooner than later?

What about us, then? When our time comes to leave this world, wouldn’t we rather leave it in soul-freedom than in bondage?

Jesus is quoted in the Bible[3] as saying, “He that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.” (Matthew 10:38) To “take up one’s cross” signifies to accept with faith and courage, and not with self-pity, whatever tests come one’s way. Otherwise, merely to live in this world is anyway to bear the “cross” of material existence, with its burdens of fatigue, hunger, and physical and emotional distress. Suffering is familiar to all men. Injustice and cruelty are the common lot. Sorrow and happiness alternate constantly in life. Generally, however, people have no conception of why they suffer. They may consider themselves victims of an indifferent destiny, of an angry God, or of hostile forces they are powerless to combat. Lacking either the wisdom or the courage to lift their consciousness from suffering to inner joy, they may blame their difficulties simply on life’s unfairness. They may even develop what the French call “la nostalgie de la boue”—“nostalgia for the mud,” seeking unconsciousness through drugs or alcohol. Stupefaction is one of the sadder symptoms of the disease of spiritual ignorance. (Milder ways of escaping reality are to devote hours daily to watching television, or to spending time in other harmless but time-wasting diversions. Sukdeva, a great saint in ancient India, stated, “All time is wasted that is not spent in seeking God!”) To most people, the sufferings they endure are afflictions, not opportunities for growing in wisdom.

A true devotee offers up his trials bravely, even lovingly, to God. He sees every test as an opportunity for spiritual gain. Each test passed brings him an increase of inner freedom, joy, and wisdom. At last he learns to behold God’s love behind every trial. No longer do his tests, then, seem like punishment, whether karmic or divine.

Resurrection, in the highest sense, occurs on a soul level. Tribulation, though a “cross” that all human beings must bear, is welcome to those who aspire to attain freedom in God. Joyful submission, indeed, is the way to pay off one’s karmic debts without incurring any new ones. Resentment, on the other hand, only adds new debts to the old ones.

Cosmic law is unrelenting. Its purpose is to teach recognition of the underlying unity of all life.

Were inner freedom easy to achieve, it would imply a state not very different from the ego-identity with which all of us are familiar. The “pearl of great price” cannot be bought with debased currency: power, fame, wealth, and bodily and emotional pleasures. Though we may sometimes imagine that God’s attention is far away, He is eternally near us—nearer even than the tearful prayers with which we implore His help.

The disciples of Jesus were greatly tested by the Crucifixion. They’d believed that he was going to be declared King of the Jews: Instead, he was seized by fools, beaten, infamously judged, and crucified. For the disciples, there ensued a time of deep spiritual darkness. They assembled in secrecy lest they, too, be arrested and executed. Yet for all that, they did assemble, and with faith. All of them, even Thomas (the “doubter”), came together as disciples.

And all at once, Jesus was standing in their midst. He said to them, “Peace be with you.” Those few, simple words epitomized the ending of every test of God’s, once it is accepted with love and faith. These attitudes, love and faith, by no means imply passivity. However deep be a person’s sorrow, if he offers it up determinedly to God, the divine light must dawn for him at last. God’s peace will enter his heart, bringing solace greater than he could ever have imagined. As the lyrics of a song state that the author wrote many years ago when undergoing a divine test:

Those who in their grief forget God never learn this supreme lesson of life. One, however, who clings to God through every trial finds reassurance at every plateau as he climbs up the mountain of Self-realization. In every reassurance he experiences Easter, and the Resurrection.

“Ah! ye who into this ill world are come—fleeting and false—set your faith fast on Me! Fix heart and thought on Me! Adore Me! Bring offerings to Me! Make Me prostrations! Make Me your supremest joy! and, undivided, unto My rest your spirits shall be guided.” Such were Krishna’s immortal words in the ninth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita.

Wise alone among mortals is he whose discrimination leads him resolutely toward God: who realizes to the depths of his being that worldly attainments are illusory, and will always bring disappointment—sometimes at the very moment of triumph. No matter how shining with promise this world seems, its fulfillments are as evanescent as the glistening sunlight on a dewdrop.

Divine tests may seem to portend all that we most feared. In the end, however, what they bring is the very opposite! We may imagine that God is testing our endurance: In fact, what He is testing is our love.

Our tendency, beneath adversity’s blows, is to close inward upon ourselves like travelers in the desert during a sandstorm, huddled self-protectively within our mental cloaks to shield our bruised feelings. People often emerge only slowly from a siege of suffering. Sometimes it takes years to reach the point where, with renewed trust, they can open their hearts once again to life’s gifts. Many, alas, remain embittered all their lives, requiring rebirth into a new body, or perhaps into successive bodies, before they can wash away their subconscious memory of pain. How long the process takes depends on one’s own strength, and on his spirit of inner freedom.

Poor, foolish humanity! God Himself cannot help them so long as they determine to shut themselves within thick walls of egoism. Many shoot arrows of outrage and accusation at Him, though He comes to them lovingly, His hands outstretched to help them. Even devotees, during tests, sometimes misunderstand the workings of grace and question God. To all humanity, however, God whispers silently, “Even if you reject Me, I will wait. Eventually you will understand how deeply, through eternity, I love you.”

The true devotee remains inwardly as joyful during life’s dark as during its shining moments. His faith, though it tremble sometimes in the storm, remains firmly rooted; he embraces every test as a gift sent to him by his Heavenly Father/Divine Mother. To him, even arduous tests are as precious to his soul—though, admittedly, not to his ego!—as gifts that come wrapped attractively. For the storms of life, though appearing to bode disaster, in fact bring nourishing rain. One’s consciousness afterward becomes like a fertile meadow, covered with the wildflowers of heavenly solace.

God is our infinite Beloved. He is our one and only true Friend. His wish for us is our eternal happiness. The tests He sends have only one purpose: to help us grow in wisdom. The sooner we accept them with understanding, the sooner we’ll come to realize that His support was with us always—not for our errors, but in spite of them. For we are His own. Even were we made to walk through fire, we would remain unharmed and the flames would be a balm to our souls, burning off impurities that for eons had given us pain.

Have faith in God! Love Him above all else. Surrender your heart to Him. Open yourself to Him even, and especially!, in your darkest hours. For He alone, and not the brief dewdrops of earthly attractions, can give you the peace for which your soul longs.

Christ’s resurrection was an outward act, but it symbolized a great inward truth: That person whose love remains firm through all trials finds himself resurrected at last into eternal bliss.

The teaching of the Resurrection applies also to life generally. Resurrection signifies, as Paramhansa Yogananda put it, “any beneficial or uplifting change.” In this sense, resurrection can be experienced repeatedly throughout life.

Referring to our need for inner resurrection, Yogananda often quoted this heartfelt plea from the Bhagavad Gita: “O devotee: Get away from My ocean of suffering and misery!”

Offsetting those cautionary words of Krishna’s is a promise, and an eternal consolation: “Arjuna, know this for certain: My devotee is never lost!”

[1]“I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (Matthew 15:24)

[2]To deny any God-known master in his spiritual nature is also, in some measure, to deny God.

[3]The word “quoted” is used here, instead of, “Jesus said,” because it seems unlikely that he was actually referring to the cross. The manner of his death was not yet known. We see in this passage an obvious example of later scholarly tampering.