Sunday Service Reading #27

From Rays of the One Light
Abiding in God
(to long readings)

Truth is one and eternal. Realize oneness with it in your deathless Self, within. The following commentary is based on the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda.

Yogananda often emphasized—more often to his disciples than to the general public, but also to everyone generally, for it was a universal teaching—the importance of attunement. For divine understanding cannot be created: It must be perceived. To the disciples, Yogananda spoke of the importance of attunement with the guru. To others, he urged the importance at least of attuning oneself to higher consciousness. Can an eagle rise without support from the sustaining air?

Jesus Christ said in the Gospel of St. John, Chapter 15:

I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.

Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.

How can we “abide in him”? Jesus says,“If my words abide in you.” By words he meant not only his spoken words, but his vibrations, his consciousness, of which the words are only an expression. We must abide by the teachings, but we must also absorb those teachings into ourselves, that they become our own experience. For disciples of this path, the more, in their hearts, they live consciously in the presence of the masters, the more they will find the divine presence living within them.

And for all truth seekers, whether disciples or not, the more they live sustained inwardly by the awareness of God's presence, the higher they will find themselves soaring in wisdom and joy.

For the Bhagavad Gita says, in the tenth Chapter:

I am the Source of everything; from Me all creation emerges. Blessed with this realization, the wise, awe-stricken, adore Me.

Thus, through holy scripture, God has spoken to mankind.

VIDEO of Asha's Service on this Subject from 7-5-09

Sunday Service on 7/5/2009 from Ananda Palo Alto on Vimeo.

VIDEO of Swami's Service on this Subject from 7-5-09

MP3 For Download (or online listening) of Swami's Service on this Subject from 7-5-09

Long Readings from the 3 Volume Set:
Rays of the Same Light

#27 Abiding in God
(Titled: Grace Must Be Drawn to One in Rays of the Same Light and Numbered 27)

This passage is from the Gospel of St. John, Chapter 15, Verses 5-8:

"I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

"If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

"If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.

"Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples."

Commentary

In this passage we see the importance of attuning ourselves with the flow of divine grace. Intellectual conviction, emotional conversion, even outward baptism — these alone are not enough. We must also, consciously, receive the Lord's response in our souls.

Merely to believe in God, or merely to recognize our need for Him, still falls far short of the blessed state of actually realizing that He is our own. For true wisdom is not of the mind or of the intellect: It is of the soul.

Many churches, alas, are not deeply concerned with the spiritual path, as such. Their teaching focuses, not on spiritual progress, but on static belief. They do not exhort their members to grow in holiness, so much as to remain true to their first conversion. Few take their congregations to the higher octaves of the religious life. Rarely, for instance, do they remind their members of the words of the Psalmist: "Be still, and know that I am God." 

Rather, they tell their members to be faithful in church attendance, to be morally upright, to pray regularly, to read the Bible. Such admonition stops far short of urging them to deepen their own relationship with God.

The high calling to divine realization, if it is contemplated at all, is usually dismissed as exceeding the expectations of humble piety. "Special graces like these," churchgoers are told, "are reserved for the faithful Christian in heaven."

Such watered-down belief is not faith. True faith is of the soul, not of the mind. Its fruits are for them who offer themselves up body, mind, and soul to God. As Jesus said, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment." (Mark 12:30)

If one loves God, but still finds himself capable of anger, his love is not yet pure. If one can be unkind to any living creature, he has yet to find the Lord who made all creatures, and who dwells in the heart of every one of them. And if one is capable of the slightest thought of "I" and "mine," he jostles God aside by his petty self-involvement. For the path to enlightenment is narrow: God and the mortal ego cannot walk it together side by side. One of them must inevitably make way for the other.

The protagonists of passive faith offer as justification for their belief the fact that Jesus said we are all sinners. All he wants of us, they insist, is that we admit our sinfulness, and surrender ourselves to Him.

The difficulty with this belief is that perfect surrender requires much more than a passive act. How many, among those who draw so much attention to their sinfulness, have renounced their egos? By their very self-absorption, as well as by the passivity of their faith, they only affirm their egos. What they want is for God to come to them, and not to have to offer themselves wholeheartedly into His forgiveness and love.

Jesus taught us to enlist God's grace to help us to overcome sin. It is certainly true that we cannot be redeemed by self-effort alone. It is equally true, however, that we can and must cooperate, by an act of conscious will, with the flow of grace. It is also true that, with such cooperation, there are no spiritual heights that cannot be achieved.

The issue is not grace alone, but our conscious attunement with it. And our attunement depends not on God's love for us — that we have already, for all eternity! — but on our love for God. To offer ourselves up to Him with love demands a deep effort on our own part.

Man's is the responsibility for offering himself into the flow of divine grace. For just as life flows out into the branches from the vine, so the divine life flows into us from deep within our souls, if we will but hold ourselves open to its flow. Calm, earnest, meditative effort must be directed toward "abiding in Christ" — toward living consciously, in other words, in the divine presence within.

Truly to live in the Spirit means to grow progressively in virtue and in understanding. It means much more than living by passive faith. Jesus put it this way: "He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit." To bring forth fruit, in this sense, means constantly to deepen one's awareness of God, and to draw on that awareness, that it permeate every part of one's being.

Jesus accompanied this metaphor of the vine and its branches with a test by which we might know whether we are, indeed, abiding in the Christ Consciousness. "If ye abide in me," he said, "ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you."

How many proofs the sincere devotee receives that God hears his prayers, and answers them! Jesus goes on in this passage to say that this is also how we may know whether we are truly his disciples — not, then, by any boastful claims we might make, nor by shouting to the world, "I've been saved!", but by the demonstrated operation of God's grace in our lives.

His metaphor of the vine and its branches makes it clear, finally, that divine grace flows through living channels, and not directly to the disciple from its infinite source, which is God. Indeed, the metaphor invites a further interpretation. For the flow continues onward through a succession of living channels. Just as the vine puts out branches, so the branches put out twigs, and the twigs, leaves and fruits. Even so, divine grace flows into this world through the agency of great masters, those who are awakened in God. From them, it continues through their disciples. And so it flows onward through successive spiritual generations to those who would live as disciples of the great master. This aspect of Christ's teaching merits special treatment, and will be elaborated on next week.

Thus, through the Holy Bible, God has spoken to mankind.

This passage is from the 10th Chapter, the 8th Stanza:

"I am the Source of everything; from Me all creation emerges.
Blessed with this realization, the wise, awe-stricken, adore Me."

Commentary

This passage offers a striking contrast between true spiritual wisdom and the conceit of the worldly "wise."

Those who think themselves wise in the ways of the world look upon every event, no matter how startling to others, with a bored sense of its inevitability. One who imagines that he has seen everything ends up marveling at nothing. Familiarity reduces even the greatest marvels to insignificance. He is like those guides at the great pyramids who share none of the wonder tourists feel on beholding those amazing structures for the first time.

In the religious life also, as long as one's dedication is merely outward, the initial enthusiasm one feels in the thought of living for God cannot but diminish in time. The novice's mood changes by subtle degrees to one of hopeful, if slightly discouraged, affirmation. As further years pass, he assumes an attitude of plodding determination. Finally, he ends up mechanically repeating the prescribed prayer-formulae, while his mind wanders fretfully through byways of private projects and preoccupations.

In monasteries, the older monks and nuns often look on the religious fervor of novices with a certain wistfulness. Sadder still is it to see certain ones among them regarding beginners with condescension. In their imagined superiority — born, one presumes, of their smug satisfaction in the fact that they haven't yet died — they reveal how completely they have lost the freshness of their own first inspiration.

The Bhagavad Gita is suggesting that the spiritual life, when lived as it should be, brings a continuously increasing sense of inner contentment, calmness, and joy. Spiritually wise alone are they who realize God's presence in their souls. Religion, for these rare souls, means much more than an intellectual system of dogmas, much more than mechanically repeated ceremonies: It means establishing a creative, living relationship with God. Those who are truly wise do not limit their spiritual life to vicarious perceptions of truth, through reading the Scriptures. They live constantly in the inner, direct experience of the Lord's light and love.

The great Indian master Sri Ramakrishna often laughed while recollecting a certain Hindu priest he had heard urging a congregation to greater devotion by crying, "God is dry. You must sweeten Him with your heart's devotion!" Where, indeed, demanded Ramakrishna, does our very power to love come from, if not from God, the Source of love itself?

A mistake often made in religion is the tendency to think that whatever inspiration we may feel in the act of worship derives entirely from worshipful attitudes in ourselves. Too much attention to outward practices diverts people from the thought of giving God a chance to speak inwardly to their souls.

The practice of inner communion is essential, if religion is merely to hold the sincere interest of devotees, and not to become another habit much like eating or sleeping. Here in the Bhagavad Gita, however, we find that inner communion accomplishes much more. Not only does it awaken the devotee to a life of sincere dedication: It leads him to ever fresher experiences of divine joy.

It is natural for beginners on the spiritual path, if they are dedicated, to feel enthusiasm. Those, by contrast, who are advanced on the path — the saints — pass far beyond the tumults of such self-generated enthusiasm: They become "awe-stricken." These people alone can truly "adore," where others, at best, can only praise.

Thus, through the Bhagavad Gita, God has spoken to mankind. Back to Top of Page

Longest Reading from the Book
The Promise of Immortality
NOTE: This book ends at Reading #26.

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