Sunday Service Reading #9

There are many places in the Gospels where we see Jesus in open conflict with the Pharisees—that is to say, with man-made as opposed to true, mystical tradition. In the Gospel of St. Matthew, Chapter 15, we see a good example of how they and he “locked horns.”

“Then some of the scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem came and asked Jesus, ‘Why do your disciples break our ancient tradition and eat their food without washing their hands properly first?'”

Jesus, after scolding them for their hypocrisy in observing lesser rules so carefully while ignoring the much more important ones, said,

“Listen, and understand this thoroughly! It is not what goes into a man's mouth that makes him common or unclean. It is what comes out of a man's mouth that makes him unclean.”

It wasn't that Jesus counseled against such wholesome practices as washing one's hands before eating. In an age, however, when lesser rules were given too much importance relative to the truly important observances—cleansing the heart of impure desires, for example—he emphasized the supreme importance of loving God and of communing with Him.

The Pharisees—the orthodox religionists of his day, in other words—had brought true religion down to a level of intellectual hair-splitting. They mistakenly considered the way to understanding to lie through a mine-field of definitions, which they tried to refine to ultimate exactitude. Jesus taught, however, that the intellect alone can never lead one to truth. Without love, indeed, there is no ultimate verity. Without fixity of purpose, born of the heart's devotion, the intellect wanders endlessly. It cannot settle for long on anything. As the Bhagavad Gita says in the second Chapter:

The intellects of those who lack fixity of spiritual purpose are inconstant, their interests endlessly ramified.

VIDEO of Peter Van Houten's Service on this Subject from 3-1-09

MP3 for Download (or online listening) of Peter Van Houten's Service on this Subject from 3-1-09

VIDEO of Tushti & Surendra Conti's Service on this Subject from 3-1-09

MP3 for Download (or online listening) of Tushti & Surendra Conti's Service on this Subject from 3-1-09

MP3 for Download (or online listening) of Pranaba and Parvati's Service on this Subject from 3-2-08

MP3 for Download (or online listening) of Asha's Service on this Subject from 3-2-08

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

#9: By Thinking Can We Arrive at Understanding?
("How to Study the Scriptures" in the original book)

Bible

"Use the Gifts God Has Given You"

"Then some of the scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem came and asked Jesus, Why do your disciples break our ancient tradition and eat their food without washing their hands properly first?'

"'Tell me,' replied Jesus, why do you break God's commandment through your tradition? For God said, "Honor thy father and thy mother," and, "He that speaketh evil of father and mother, let him die the death." But if a man tells his parents, "Whatever money I might have given you I now give to God (as a donation to the temple)," you say that [in this respect] he is absolved of the need to honor his father or his mother. And so your tradition empties the commandment of God of all its meaning. You hypocrites! Isaiah described you beautifully when he said:

""This people honoreth me with their lips; But their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men."'

"Then he called the crowd to him and said, Listen, and understand this thoroughly! It is not what goes into a man's mouth that makes him common or unclean. It is what comes out of a man's mouth that makes him unclean.'

"Later his disciples came to him and said, Do you know that the Pharisees are deeply offended by what you said?'

"Every plant which my Heavenly Father did not plant will be pulled up by the roots,' returned Jesus. Let them alone, They are blind guides, and when one blind man leads another blind man they will both end up in the ditch!'

"Are you still unable to grasp things like this?' replied Jesus. Don't you see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and then out of the body altogether? But the things that come out of a man's mouth come from his heart and mind, and it is they that really make a man unclean. For it is from a man's mind that evil thoughts arise — murder, adultery, lust, theft, perjury and blasphemy. These are the things which make a man unclean, not eating without washing his hands properly!'"

Jesus' vigorous reply to the Pharisees was clearly intended not primarily as a dissertation on parental respect, but rather on true, as opposed to outward and superficial, respect for the Scriptures. In passing only, therefore, may the comment be made that his statement on respect for one's parents can be understood as an insinuation that the Pharisees blessed people for donating to the temple, because such donations found their way into their own priestly pockets. This alone would explain Jesus' accusation that the Pharisees had substituted the precepts of men for the commandments of God.

For had the question really concerned only dedicating one's money to God rather than giving it to one's parents, there are enough Scriptural statements to the effect that God should come first in everything. Jesus himself consistently taught that God should come first in everything. Once, when told that his mother and brethren wanted to see him, he answered with the question: "Who is my mother, or my brethren?" Then he looked at those who were sitting around him, and said, "Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother." (Mark 3:33-35)

The point of this quotation here, then, concerns the larger question of how rightly to understand the Scriptures. The episode quoted is an example of the constant opposition Jesus faced from the over-orthodox Pharisees — scholarly men of dogma-circumscribed understanding — who condemned him for the new interpretations he was placing on traditionally accepted readings of the Scriptures.

They kept trying to engage him in scriptural debate. But such discussion obviously held no interest for him. Rarely do we find him answering his Scripture-quoting critics with contrasting quotations of his own. And whenever he did quote the Scriptures, it was as we find him doing here: using common sense to show the orthodox where their human traditions had strayed from the original, true meaning of the Scriptures.

Otherwise, when he appealed to the Scriptures it was usually to claim, but in a general way, that they endorsed his teaching. Never do we find him descending to the level of Scriptural polemic, point by elaborate point, as the theological fundamentalists of his day were accustomed to doing, and as so many do who vigorously promote him in our own day.

"You search the scriptures," he said in John 5:39, "imagining that in them you will find eternal life. And all the time they give their testimony to me!"

The New Testament shows clearly that Jesus considered mere intellectual knowledge of the Scriptures far from adequate to true understanding. As we read (Luke 24:45): "Then he opened their minds, so that they might understand the scriptures." Jesus, in other words, appealed not only to Scriptural authority, but above all to people's ability to understand that authority.

Again and again, moreover, we find him saying that, without love, no true understanding is possible. As he proclaimed to his critics, after speaking to them of their practice of searching the Scriptures, "But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you."

He appealed also to men's natural spiritual sympathies. To those who challenged him, saying, "Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day?" he replied (Matthew 12:11,12): "If any of you had a sheep which fell into a ditch on the Sabbath day, would he not take hold of it and pull it out? How much more valuable is a man than a sheep? Of course it is right to do good on the Sabbath day!"

And when he accepted the devoted ministrations of a woman, though sinful, he answered the unspoken criticism of his host, a self-righteous Pharisee, by saying, "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little." (Luke 7:47)

We too, then, when we study the Scriptures, should use the instruments of understanding that Jesus recommended. In prayer and meditation let us strive to penetrate behind the words and understand them with the intuition of our hearts. Let us base our perception in love for God, and in charity for our fellowman. Pure, divine love was the ultimate essence of Jesus' teaching.

And let us recognize also, in his constant appeal to common sense, an affirmation of one of the most valuable assets God has given to man. For dogmatism is the coward's defense against any challenge of the unfamiliar.

People who oppose any expansion of their awareness, and who justify their stand by an uncritical appeal to tradition, are the kind of believers to whom Jesus was referring when he said (Luke 5:36): "Nobody tears a piece from a new coat to patch up an old one. If he does, he ruins the new one and the new piece does not match the old." New, fresh insights into truth are better offered to fresh, open spirits, and not to those faded intellects whose mental fiber has been rubbed thin by constant contact with old habits. Such habit-bound believers Jesus did not even try to convince, repeating only, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear."

Jesus' life and mission was a stirring appeal to the highest of all life's adventures: the search for God, and for divine truth. "Truth," as Paramhansa Yogananda put it, "is not afraid of questions." Jesus, by his constant teaching and example, challenged his listeners never to accept fixed ideas and definitions in place of the actual, direct experience of truth.

As he said to Nicodemus (John 3:11): "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen."

To perceive the truth directly with the purified eyes of the soul is the high summons of Christ's life. As he put it, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:32)

Bhagavad Gita

"The Need for Single-Mindedness"

"The intellects of those who lack fixity of spiritual purpose are inconstant, their interests endlessly ramified."

True understanding, as the Bhagavad Gita frequently points out, is not possible without inner mental clarity. And mental clarity, as we learn here, cannot be achieved without one-pointed resolve.

People whose lives are not directed by high aspiration often become spiritual vagabonds. Some of them drift in desultory fashion from theory to theory, from teaching to teaching, and from teacher to teacher. Others lose themselves in the endless labyrinth of theological discussion and debate. Never do such persons achieve firm understanding, which is born only of direct inner perception.

Many such people endlessly pursue new religious teachings, like children chasing after butterflies. But they remain forever discontented in themselves.

This is one of the pitfalls on the spiritual path: fickleness — the tendency to confuse novelty and the fleeting enthusiasm it brings with the changeless joy of divine awakening. People who lack deep spiritual commitment often mistake the babbling brook of emotional release for the mighty river of divine love. Faced, once their first burst of enthusiasm has been spent, with the prospect of long, hard, daily work on themselves, their dedication falters, and their spirits sag. They become easily attracted to any new teaching that seems to them to offer faster, and especially easier, results.

"Outsiders come," Paramhansa Yogananda once said, "and see only the surface. Sooner or later they drift away. But those who are our own, they never leave."

The masters devote their energies to those who are, as Yogananda put it, "their own" — those, in other words, who know deeply in their hearts that it is God alone they want. Such souls are soon led by God to that path which is right for them. Once finding their own true path, they never leave it.

There was a time in the life of Jesus when, as we read in the 6th Chapter of the Gospel of St. John, "Many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him." To those who were close to him, Jesus said, "Will you also go away?" And Simon Peter answered, "Lord, to whom shall we go?"

There is a second kind of spiritual drifter: not the one who wanders endlessly from teaching to teaching, but one, rather, whose thoughts drift endlessly — from doubt to spiritual doubt, or from one intellectual explanation of Scripture to another. Such a person may think to find in endless ramifications of subtle definitions some final insight into reality. The truth, however, constantly eludes him.

Endlessly thinking, endlessly quoting, endlessly debating the fine points of Scripture — such mental vagrancy is for pedestrian minds. Sri Krishna, here in the Bhagavad Gita, urges us to fix our minds in one-pointed aspiration on the Lord. Only thus will our discrimination, like an arrow sped from a bow, fly straight into the heart of Infinity.

Longest Reading from the Book
The Promise of Immortality

#9 By Thinking Can We Arrive at Understanding?
("How To Study the Scriptures" in the original book)

“Then he opened their minds, so that they might understand the scriptures.” (Luke 24:25)

Man finds himself forever mentally divided. On deep levels his soul whispers, “Return to stillness, where you belong. Return to the bliss of your own being.” Ignoring this inner call, however, he allows himself to be drawn out of himself by the noise and excitement of the world. Thus, the call to perfection remains a dim memory, which he thrusts into the recesses of his mind while he pursues more immediate interests: a comfortable home, a loving life-companion, a happy family, a secure bank account, the respect of his fellowman—reassurances to his ego, in short, that his earthly existence is not really the gamble he subconsciously knows it to be.

This dichotomy is present also in his religious life. The scriptures indicate the way to inner perfection, but he reads into them a message of worldly fulfillment. Perfection, he tells himself, will be attained through religious rites, religious structures, and outward rules of religious behavior (without, however, a corresponding change of consciousness). In his soul, if he is spiritually inclined, he longs for divine love. He believes, however, in the power of outer systems to establish divine love on earth, their structure a stone statue as it were, beautifully posed.

Where religious rules abound, love grows dry, peace is held at a distance, and soul-inspiration appears still-born in people’s lives. Devotion then hardens into methods for winning divine favor. Bartering attitudes develop which, though perhaps suitable in the marketplace, make a travesty of the soul’s eternal relationship with God.

If we want truly to please the Lord, we must commune with Him in inner silence. The reward for divine communion—sufficient to our every need if only we knew it!—is bliss. Every spiritual master has emphasized again and again this simple truth.

Buddha declared the need for personal effort, as opposed to supine dependence on divine grace. The people of his time had grown too dependent on outer rituals.

Krishna stated in the Bhagavad Gita, “Those who worship the lesser gods go to their gods, but those who worship Me come to Me.” By these words he also meant name, fame, and other temporary fulfillments for which “the lesser gods,” usually, are but symbols. Such “gods” may be attained, eventually, after arduous effort and countless disappointments, but after that—what? The soul will not know peace until, as Saint Augustine put it, it seeks rest in God. Outside the Self, fulfillment is a sham: It simply does not exist. Expectations of it lead only, in the end, to its desperate affirmation as people tell themselves they have indeed achieved it, because others tell them they have. Those others, meanwhile, give their reassurances with the implied expectation of being reassured in return. People in this respect are like tourists at a modern art museum who glance about furtively to see how others are reacting to some particularly baffling monstrosity, praising it only if that labor of confusion appears to meet with general approval.

To understand the scriptures, one must already understand something of what life is all about.

The Gospel of St. Matthew tells us, in Chapter 15, “Then some of the scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem came and asked Jesus, ‘Why do your disciples break our ancient tradition and eat food without first properly washing their hands?’” The same question might have been put to him by priests in India, where the codes of cleanliness are every bit as strict. Right conduct is important; no master would flout the rules governing it if he didn’t have some important lesson to teach. Error arises only when people define religion outwardly but forget its inner spirit.

The Biblical account continues: “Then [Jesus] called the crowd to him and said, ‘Listen, and understand this thoroughly! It is not what goes into a man’s mouth that defiles him. It is what comes out of it that makes him common and unclean.’”

To the disciples afterward he remarked, “They [the Pharisees] are blind guides. And when a blind man leads another, both of them end up in a ditch!”

Jesus, not surprisingly, was opposed by the narrowly orthodox of his day: the pedants and the prelates whose understanding was enclosed in high walls of dogmatism. They condemned his fresh perception of truth, inspired as it was from within and expressed spontaneously, with joy and wisdom. Scholarly minds prefer the measured phrase, carefully couched in such qualifications as “if,” “however,” and, “from this, therefore, it would seem. . . .” Yet when the theologians tried to engage Jesus in debate, he parried their thrusts effortlessly. It was simply not his way to argue. As Paramhansa Yogananda remarked wryly, “Fools argue. Wise men discuss.”

When Jesus Christ quoted scripture, he encouraged people to use their common sense, first of all, to understand it. He quoted scripture also to show that it endorsed his teachings. “You search the scriptures,” he told the Pharisees, “imagining that in them you will find eternal life. And all the time they give their testimony to me!” (John 5:39)

The New Testament makes it clear that Jesus considered intellectual knowledge greatly inferior to spiritual insight. Primarily, he urged people to seek the source of their inspiration in themselves. (“The kingdom of God,” he told them, “is within.” (Luke 17:21))

He also urged the necessity for love, and emphasized this point again and again. One time he told his carping critics, “But I know you. Ye have not the love of God in you.” (John 5:42) He encouraged people to rely on the natural and generous sentiments of the heart as guidelines to understanding. The Pharisees once asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day?” Jesus answered: “If any of you had a sheep and it fell into a ditch on the Sabbath day, would you not take hold of it and pull it out? How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep? Of course it is right to do good on the Sabbath day!” (Matthew 12:11,12)

Again, he pointed out that motives are even more important than the deeds they motivate. One time, accepting the devoted ministrations of a woman of low character, he answered his host’s unspoken criticism by remarking, “Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.” (Luke 7:47)

Calm feeling, from which springs spiritual love, is the secret of intuitive understanding. This understanding cannot be learned; it comes only by recognition. Intuitive understanding is the universal key to the scriptures. Words, on the other hand, can do no more than echo that understanding. Words are incapable of expressing fully the ideas one wants to convey. For one thing, they create different mental and emotional associations in different people. Language, moreover, evolves. Where ancient writings are concerned, particularly, the meaning of a verse may become quite distorted by time. In translation, moreover, subtle nuances are often lost. The Italian language has a colorful expression for this process: “Traduttore è traditore: To be a translator is to be a traitor.” Add to these problems the fact that, until the invention of the printing press, every sentence had to be copied out laboriously by hand, and we see that endless possibilities existed for error. The intellect alone is woefully inadequate to the task of penetrating behind that linguistic veil to the heart of a scripture, to perceive its true meaning.

Consider this not-unusual example of the problem with words. Everyone knows the saying of Jesus, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 19:24) Many people must have wondered why it even occurred to Jesus that one would want to pass a camel through the eye of a needle! In recent decades, a Bible scholar discovered that the word in the original Greek was camilos, not camelos: “rope,” in other words, not “camel.”

Words are mere symbols of communication. They cannot express the whole of one’s intention, and that intention cannot encompass the whole of what one knows. What one knows, moreover, is never the whole truth, unless one has attained divine enlightenment. The writers of scripture—to say nothing of their translators!—were by no means all of them enlightened. It is important therefore to understand, first, the meaning behind their words, then the truth behind their meaning. The reader must then relate both words and meaning to his own experience of life, to see how well they resonate with what he actually knows. For all of these reasons, intuition is essential to true understanding.

Meditation and deep, listening prayer are the way to develop intuition. Before even reading a scripture, meditate; then read it in an uplifted state of mind. Offer up the thoughts you encounter in that passage to the spiritual eye in the forehead, and pray to be guided in your understanding of them. Above all, seek that intuitive insight which only the heart can provide.

Intuition is the soul’s power of knowing truth. When intuition springs from the soul, it is infallible. Usually, however, it is filtered by the mind’s restlessness, preconceptions, and prejudices, which make it unreliable. Insights one believes to be intuitive should always be tested on the litmus paper of common sense.

And what is common sense? It is understanding born of actual experience, and uninfluenced by emotional predilections. When we defy common sense, we sever the cable that holds the mind anchored to reality.

Dogmatic rigidity is the coward’s defense against the new and unfamiliar. People who fear an expansion of consciousness, and prefer the false security of the familiar, are the sort of “believers” to whom Jesus referred when he said, “Nobody tears a piece from a new coat to patch up an old one, for by doing so he would ruin the new one, and the new piece would not match the old.” (Luke 5:36) Fresh, new insights are not for pedantic minds, the faded fiber of whose intellects has been rubbed thin by long association with old ways of thinking. Jesus didn’t even try to convince such people of threadbare understanding, but left them to gather dust like old clothes with the comment, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”

Again and again he emphasized the importance of common sense, and urged people not to accept dogmas indiscriminately. He also stressed the need, however, for guiding common sense by love for God, and by charity to others. For whereas common sense can protect one against gullibility, it can also blight with skepticism the green shoots of inspiration.

Scriptural misunderstanding occurs most often at opposite ends of people’s spectrum of response. The first end is gullible superstition; the second is automatic denial.

Gullible superstition ignores the cautionary voice of reason. It takes every scriptural statement as the solemn pronouncement of the Almighty. In the opinion of gullible believers, Jesus meant quite literally the words, “The hour is coming, in which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth.” (John 5:28,29) The gullible mind, like a horse with blinders, thinks linearly. It is like a child, incapable of appreciating the subtlety of symbolism. To the blind believer, “graves” means quite literally those pits where corpses are laid. Such naiveté, it should be added, is not wrong in itself; it is simply a stage through which the ego passes on its way to enlightenment. The natural stages, beyond gullibility, are doubt, followed by disillusionment, cynicism, and, finally, charitable recognition that it is after all not possible to confine truth in a straitjacket.

Common sense spurns a literal reading of this passage. “What about all those people,” it asks, “who are never buried at all? Are they excluded from Christ’s promise? What about bodies that are cremated, or utterly demolished in explosions? The atoms of the body, moreover, are eventually reabsorbed into the earth. Even during a person’s lifetime they move on—perhaps even to inhabit other human bodies. How many corpses ‘in their graves’ will be able to respond to Christ’s voice, and for how long?”[1]

It takes very little imagination to realize that by “graves” Jesus meant worldly minded people, “deathlike” in their spiritual ignorance. He used this image on another occasion also, when, to the man who said he wanted to go bury his father before returning to become a disciple, he said, “Let the dead bury their dead.”

Common sense is an invaluable tool for understanding. When it takes the form of automatic rejection, however, it is like gullible superstition in that it merely obstructs understanding. For common sense can be too common: that is to say, too grounded in the commonplace. Automatic negation fills the fountain of inspiration with sand, and reduces its refreshing spray to a muffled gurgle. People who vaunt their “down-to-earth” realism often ridicule anything out of the ordinary, labeling it “impossible.” Our life experiences, however, should guide us to further possibilities.

A three-year-old boy may not easily imagine himself with a beard and a low voice. Experience, however, tells him he has grown already. Perhaps he has seen older boys who have entered puberty. And he is aware that grown men aren’t like himself. It requires no great leap of faith on his part to accept that he, too, will be a man someday, with the characteristics of a man. Thus, experience that informs common sense may be, and often is, vicarious. Common sense can make its assessments on the basis of reasonable assumptions, drawn from what experience has already taught one.

Common sense, when sense, not “commonness,” is what is emphasized, opens the mind; it doesn’t close it. When a sensible but sensitive person hears of higher-than-ordinary states of consciousness, he doesn’t dismiss them scornfully with the words, “Well, I’ve never experienced anything like that!” Rather, he recognizes in human beings a broad spectrum of awareness, from alcoholic stupor and sheer stupidity to intellectual brilliance and genius. On reading descriptions of spiritual exaltation, he responds, “Why not?” Not much imagination is needed to realize that lofty states of consciousness may at least be a possibility.

Common sense is less useful as a guide, of course, when it has no experience to guide it. Most “sensible” people, for example, dismiss miracles out of hand, or perhaps explain them away as allegorical. The Resurrection of Jesus has been shrugged off even by many intellectual Christians, who consider it either a pious myth, or self-justifying propaganda, or an allegory of the body’s death and the soul’s resurrection in heaven. To weigh this miracle on the scales of common sense, however, one needn’t compare it with experiences that one has lived personally. For though common sense restrains and directs the imagination, the general experience of mankind is convincing evidence that many things await discovery in the familiar.

Consider that wonder-drug, penicillin, which was discovered in prosaic mold. Advances in modern science suggest that similar substances, considered ordinary today, will yield other marvels tomorrow. Common sense should be directed, then, toward broadening our experience of life, not toward entrenching us in the humdrum.

Jesus is reported to have multiplied five barley loaves and two small fishes and fed five thousand people. Ordinary experience declares that such a feat is impossible. As a song from the operetta “Porgy and Bess” puts it, “The things that you’re liable to read in the Bible: They ain’t necessarily so!”

On the other hand, one noted Biblical apologist explained this particular miracle—not away, exactly, but into the ground. What happened, he suggested, was even more inspiring: It was a “miracle” of sharing. Jesus, he claimed, asked his disciples to share with others nearby them the five loaves and two fishes that “a lad” in the multitude happened to have with him. Everyone, inspired by this example of generosity, was soon sharing whatever he’d brought with others. This spirit of sharing, inspired by Jesus Christ, became so general that no one remained hungry.

Common sense, when the idea of commonness is emphasized, has a tendency to minimize the possibilities while maximizing the commonplace. Had that author been possessed of more imagination, he’d have realized that his explanation rested not on the generosity of Jesus, but on that of the “lad” from whom the first loaves and fishes were obtained. Indeed, a little imagination might awaken in us, too, the suspicion that if this event was the result only of a simple act of kindness, it probably would not have made history. Would it not have been extraordinary if those people, after being inspired by Jesus Christ, had not shared their food with others who were without any? After all, this was no ordinary sports event, where the thought of sharing with one’s neighbors and, possibly, rival fans is much less likely to arise.

When common sense refuses to peep out of the rut it has worn in the ground by its habits of thought, it may easily persuade itself that that rut contains all there is of reality. In the present instance, however, the explanation seems less probable than the miracle itself. Common sense should exercise a little imagination and try to visualize a scene clearly before it projects such an unrealistic alternative. A person of true common sense, instead of offering this lame “apology,” ought to suspend his disbelief until he knows more.

Gullible superstition insists that miracles like this one prove the divinity of Jesus Christ. What is it that distinguishes gullibility from honest belief? Perhaps only the expectation of receiving something for nothing: grace, for instance, without personal effort or merit. Jesus emphasized the need for personal effort. “Why call ye me Lord, Lord,” he said, “and do not the things that I say?” Martin Luther claimed that faith alone is necessary, but at least his faith was heroic, not passive. In Luther’s day, “free hand-outs,” whether governmental or divine, were unheard-of. Regarding miracles, Jesus said, “The works that I do, [ye] shall do also.” (John 14:12) His miracles, then, suggest the possibility of untapped powers within ourselves, to which all of us have access if we will develop them conscientiously, as the scientists did in discovering penicillin.

A brother disciple of the author’s tells of a time when he was with the Master and several guests. The Master offered them a drink of carrot juice, which the community was producing in its processing plant where the disciple worked. The young man went to fetch some, but to his dismay found only enough juice to fill a small glass. Apologetically he gave the Master this small amount. “Never mind,” the Master said. “Pour what you have there.” Then, seeing that only enough was being poured to give each visitor a mere sip, he added: “No, fill up the glasses.”

“Well,” the disciple explained afterward, “what could I do? I figured, ‘Mine not to reason Why!’ So I filled the first glass, then the second, then the third. I filled all the glasses, and at the end the pitcher was completely full! Master said nothing about it, but I know there hadn’t been nearly enough juice for everyone, nor was any more available to make up the difference. The guests had no idea what had taken place. They exclaimed only that the juice was delicious!”

How are people whose experience of life is not remotely unusual to accept miracles like these? To accept another person’s word for them is not faith, though one may believe in what that person says. To develop true faith, one must deepen one’s own contact with God. Miracles are not, in themselves, very important. Their value lies in the incentive they give us for seeking—not powers, but the awareness of God’s infinite love.

When studying scripture, bear in mind that its true purpose is spiritual instruction and upliftment. Its focus is on inner development. Man’s nature is, however, threefold: physical, mental, and spiritual. Balanced scriptural teachings, therefore, are threefold also. Though life’s highest goal is spiritual enlightenment, true scripture includes all three of these aspects in its teaching. Thus, when the detractors of Jesus tried to trap him into denying one’s social responsibilities, he replied, “Render . . . unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” (Matthew 22:21)[2]

Perfect self-transformation is, of course, spiritual, but to attempt it without heeding the steps along the way to it is like mounting a darkened staircase from which a few steps are missing. If the body’s needs are ignored, the result may be illness, which can hinder spiritual progress. If the mind is restless or confused, to attempt prayer with concentration is like trying to light a fire with a wet match. If in our hearts we hold unkind feelings toward others, to expand our consciousness in meditation is like trying to inflate a balloon that has a hole in it. And if we want Nature to support us, we must live in harmony with her laws. The Bhagavad Gita teaches that the human state cannot be transcended until we accept our present realities and deal with them accordingly.

Thus, the scriptures endorse the need for right diet and physical exercise, for wholesome attitudes, and for loving everyone, along with the supreme need for knowing God. However, as the Indian scriptures declare also, “If a lesser rule conflicts with a higher one, it ceases to be a rule.” Ill health, usually, is an obstacle to spiritual development, but if reasonable efforts to attain good health are unsuccessful, one should not make health his priority. The search for God is our highest duty. No obstacle, moreover, is insuperable. Indeed, many a saint has endured illness all his life, and sometimes it was actually because of his illness that he found God. Illness forced him to try harder than he might have, otherwise. Jesus said, “Seek the kingdom of God first, and all these things shall be added unto you.” Good health will surely be yours in time, if you desire it, but don’t devote your whole life to sweeping out your temple. Take the time to sit in it and meditate. The way of wisdom is to fix one’s priorities, and refuse to let anything deflect one from them.

Jesus issued a stirring summons to the highest adventure there is: the quest for truth. By his example he challenged everyone to deepen his experience of life until he stands face-to-face with Truth itself. Thus, to Nicodemus he said: “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen.” (John 3:11) The challenge Jesus gave us was to make truth our own. “Ye shall know the truth,” he said, “and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:32) By “truth” he meant the intuitive perception of our essential nature, which is one with God.

The Bhagavad Gita suggests that unless the ship of life is anchored in devotion to God, it will drift with every current, to be flung at last on rocks of suffering and disillusionment. “The intellects of those who lack fixity of spiritual purpose are inconstant,” Krishna says, “and their interests, endlessly ramified.” (II:41) True understanding comes only by intuition. And reliable intuition comes only by one-pointed spiritual purpose.

In the absence of intuition, the best “fall-back” position is common sense. This gift of Nature cannot take us to the spiritual heights, but it can keep us in touch with fundamental realities, and limit our imagination’s tendency to distort them with fantasy. To seek the guidance of experience while at the same time keeping ourselves open to ever-greater experiences is, admittedly, a balancing act of skepticism on one side, and hope on the other. This effort is necessary, however. The seeker must soar high while never losing his earthly bearings. Truth is cosmic, but its principles are applicable as well in the marketplace. Truth is eternal, but it is also forever fresh and new. The very simplicity of truth is what confounds the theologians. As Jesus said, “Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.” (Luke 10:21)

If Jesus sometimes scolded his disciples, it was to urge them to deepen their spiritual insight. Thus, when Peter asked him why it isn’t what goes into the mouth, but what comes out of it that defiles a person, Jesus answered, “Are you still unable to grasp these things? Don’t you see that whatever goes into a man’s mouth passes into the stomach and then out of the body altogether? But the things that come out of his mouth come from his heart and mind. It is they that really make him unclean. For from a man’s mind arise evil thoughts: murder, adultery, lust, theft, perjury and blasphemy. These are what make a man unclean, not eating without properly washing one’s hands!” (Matthew 15:16–20)

The Bhagavad Gita states that the first requirement for the development of intuition is one-pointed concentration. Peter’s request for an explanation on a question that should have been clear to someone as spiritually developed as he, showed how powerful prior conditioning can be. His thoughts wavered between the mores on which he’d been raised and the ever-new truths that were being taught him by Jesus Christ.

Study the scriptures calmly, with deep concentration, and in a spirit of lofty aspiration. Otherwise, even scripture may cause you to wander endlessly—from one interpretation to another, from one teacher to another, and from one spiritual practice to many others. Without inner commitment, the babbling brook of released emotions and the swirling eddies of intellectual excitement may exert more fascination than the calm river of wisdom. Surges of emotional enthusiasm spend themselves, however, leaving the mind face-to-face yet again with the need for painstaking effort. When dedication falters, and when spirits droop, it is important to remember the basic guideline for the spiritual aspirant: steadfastness. “Be even-minded and cheerful,” Yogananda used to say. The promise of quick and easy results is the spiritual equivalent of “get-rich-quick” schemes so breathlessly offered in thousands of advertisements.

“Outsiders come,” Paramhansa Yogananda once said to a group of disciples, “and see only the surface. Sooner or later they drift away. Those who are our own, however, they never leave.”

Jesus seldom, if ever, explained his meanings either to the Pharisees or to the spiritual wanderers. It was to his disciples that he clarified them, even when their understanding fell short of his expectations of them.

There was even a time, as we read in Chapter 6 of St. John, when “many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.” To his chosen few he then said, “Will you also leave?” Peter answered for them all: “Lord, to whom shall we go?” This episode occurred as Jesus was nearing the end of his earthly mission. He was weeding out the shallower spirits from among his followers, whose inability to tune in to his spirit made them unfit to transmit his teachings to others.

He made it clear for all time that he alone is a true disciple who cannot be shaken by doubts,[3] and whose intellect has no need for exacting definitions to clarify the divine mysteries. Intuitive understanding, he wanted his disciples to realize, is the key that unlocks the door to spiritual awakening. To confuse wisdom with mere knowledge is to roam endlessly from doubt to doubt, from one intellectual explanation to another, forever thinking, quoting, and debating the pros and cons of everything. Intellectual vagrancy is for superficial minds.

Krishna, in the above quote from the Bhagavad Gita, and Jesus Christ, in his emphasis on intuitive understanding, urged us to fix our minds on God alone. Only thus will our discrimination fly like an arrow, straight to the heart of Truth.

[1]Common sense cannot but ask, further, “Why didn’t Jesus say, ‘my voice’ instead of ‘his voice’?” The obvious answer is that, in his deeper consciousness, he never thought of himself personally.

[2]Some people have called Jesus a revolutionary. This statement is his sufficient answer to that misunderstanding.

[3]Not one who never doubts, be it noted, but one who cannot be shaken by doubt.