Today we celebrate Resurrection Day, the day that Lord Jesus made his physical body come to radiant life after being horribly crucified. Since then, there has been much said and written about the resurrection of believers upon the Second Coming of the Christ. However, why should so much be made of resurrecting the body alone? Is the assumption that all believers should have also gone through an inner transformation when “them bones rise again?”

The word resurrection has interesting Latin roots. It comes from the verb rego, to make straight, plus the preposition of sub, or under; then surrectum, to rise. Put together, “a straightening from under again.” So taking the root meanings, to take what is under, making it straight and to arise; this instruction can be perfectly applied to sadhana, spiritual practice. To take what is under, the lower impulses of the ego-mind, making it straight through God-remembrance, then for consciousness to rise into spiritual union with our Heavenly Father. Rather than focusing on the body alone as resurrected, this way of understanding the word entails the transformation of the inner person, the whole man. Jesus, the son of man, becomes Jesus Anointed—the Son of God. And in his wake, we, who he commanded, are to follow in his footsteps. For the Master said, [Matthew 10:38] And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.

Celebrating resurrection this time of year, the spring equinox, is wonderfully symbolic of the arisen consciousness. Locally, the daffodils are bursting into bloom, like so many rays of golden suns, life is returning after slumbering in winter, seeds burst their bonds and branches reach out for the light—new life, new hope, a renewed world. As we meditate upon this miracle of nature, let us know that an even greater miracle is promised within—the resurrection of Divine Consciousness, that we may know our Heavenly Father in truth and reality.

So let us pick up our cross, the body, and follow after our Lord, to meditate deeply upon that inner Light that is seeking to draw us unto itself. This story is not a fairy tale, nor is it an event that only took place two thousand years ago, but this is a living legacy from all those who have gone before us into resurrected Divine Consciousness—and is seeking to do so in you now. Blessings to you my dear ones on this Resurrection Day, a blessed day for a new life in Christ-Consciousness.

Christendom marks today as Ash Wednesday, 46 days before Easter, a time of repentance, penance and fasting (excluding Sundays, a time of feasting). The ashes of the palm branches collected the year before are a blessed anointing with the words repent and believe.

Many Christians will take advantage of the 40 days (the time Jesus fasted in the wilderness) as a time to do or not do something as a spiritual discipline. Spiritual disciplines are times of great reward. Living in an era today when instant gratification is oftentimes the watchword, the rewards of not doing something in the name of sadhana (spiritual practice) are not readily known. However, it can be a wonderful time to let go of something, especially something that you now indulge in but really know is not good for you.

In years past this has been a time of not eating sugar, not watching television, dedicating longer times to meditation, time chanting with Papa’s recording of Ram Nam–it can really be anything you choose. When you dedicate yourself to this kind of practice it has a purifying effect on you; you feel it in body, mind and spirit. Penance for the sake of punishing yourself for real or imagined sins is a misguided attempt at purification. Penance done in the right spirit will leave you feeling clean, inside and out, and closer to God.

Here is something Reverend Jill sent out by email and I thought had wonderful wisdom from Sri Yoganandaji:

As we begin the first day of Lent, a time to reflect more deeply, I wanted to share these passages from this month’s Master’s Lesson:

“The tigers of worries and sickness and death are running after you and the only place that you can be safe is in silence.”

“When you meet people, do not become affected by their state of consciousness.  When they are singing of God, be one with them, but just as soon as they show undesirable qualities, stand aloof.  Meet people with silence, eat with silence, and work with silence.  God loves silence.”

Love to you all on this first day of the holy season

Jill

This is a wonderful time of year as we approach Easter, recognizing the rightful death of the ego and the joyful resurrection of Christ-consciousness. We can take time to read the teachings of Jesus from the Gospels, Master’s commentary in the Second Coming of Christ (published by Amrita or SRF), any of Mother’s transcripts or listen to her talks, especially Easter talks, available on the crossandltotus.com website (under talks).

The more we explore the teachings of Jesus the clearer it is what a magnificent Avatar he is. Our teachings are rooted in Jesus and Krishna, and find universal resonance throughout all the world’s great religions and spiritual traditions. Let us use this opportunity for going deeper into silent meditation and being lifted up as on wings of angels in His peace and Divine Presence. Discover the blissful joy of Christ Consciousness embodied in the life and teachings of Jesus and sleeping in potential in every human being. Be blessed–dive deep and soar high!

 Have a blessed Christmas Eve. It is a remarkable time, for many it includes family, for all of us it is a time to tune-in to the Divine emanations resounding within and without.

 It is touching to think about that historical night when Mother Mary suffered while travelling on a donkey or walking on foot as they made their way to Bethlehem. Then, to find no room to stay, in those days it was not an inn as we think of it, but a walled enclosure, open to the sky overhead. However, even these were filled to overflowing. But kindness won out as they were directed to a cave used as a barn. The humble beginnings of God born in man; a cave so entirely appropriate for a Yogi-Christ.

 It is also entirely fitting to meditate upon the inner drama of God born in man. While it is true that all mankind has the Christ-seed within, for most of humanity it lies in potential only. For aspiring souls that seed awakens, sending out branches to the Light, roots deep into the Soul. It is the tree of life that is growing right within us! New growth captures new Light, new revelations and ever-new bliss.

 This is mankind’s next evolutionary step; and it occurs within the devoted individual, and as more individuals burst the shell of humanness a forest of Christ-like souls will inhabit this earth—bringing a new era of peace and fulfilling mankind’s greatest potential. What we celebrate tonight is the tremendous potential embedded in you, me, and in all. This is the eve on which it all begins.   

This Christmas morning the full moon shines above as a beacon of light to all the darkened world below. This reminds me that the Christ-child was born into this world to bring Light and illumine all creation, to all those who would receive the Light.

Avatars (the descent of Divinity into flesh) come to this world to help awaken it to the fact that all creation is of Divine origin. The world and those identified with it lose all relationship with their innate Divinity, and thus suffer and create further suffering for others. God, a respecter of man’s free will, beckons all humanity to rediscover the truth of their true nature. However, mankind is stubborn and stiff-necked in their adherence to being bound in their ignorance.

Therefore God sends examples of fully realized Beings, avatars of immense spiritual realization and strength. These divinely realized Beings are not meant to be set up as idols and worshiped from a distance; rather they come to awaken the same Divine nature in each individual that the avatar is awakened to within him or herself. It is man’s ignorance that says, “Divinity resides in that one only.” This ignorance acts in opposition to the very reason why an avatar takes incarnation. To embrace and become fully awakened to one’s own Divine nature fulfills the purpose of a Divine Incarnation.

To “receive” Jesus Christ is more than to proclaim faith in his Divinity, it means to realize through experience your same Divinity. It means you have looked within and you have seen the Divine Light shining as a star; you have been inspired by three wisdom kings to surrender the gold of the world, the bitterness of the world, and even your joy and worship at the feet of the Christ-Light being born within you. It is to protect that Light from the vain jealousy and hatred of King Herod, seething within and seeking to destroy the Light. It is to love and nurture that Christ-Child-Light at every turn, to never deny it or side with the forces of this world in their desire to suppress that same Light. To receive the Christ means that you experience the whole story within you.

So, on this precious Christmas morning, let us sense the sacred meaning embedded in these wonderful stories and images. Let us follow that star by going deeper into a meditative state in which we are illumined within by the Christ Light. Let us hear the angelic music of Spirit singing the song of Bliss and Joy that is within and everywhere about us and manifests as universal love and service. These are not just stories of another time and place, this is your journey, discovering who and what you truly are. It really is, as is said, “The Greatest Story Ever Told!”

It is in this Spirit that I write to you this morning, and it is my keen desire that you should know the truth of it. Not simply because I have said so, or that great realized Beings have told you so, but because you were inspired to seek this truth out within the laboratory of your own Being.

Please accept this as my Christmas Card to you, this year I simply have not been able to send out my usual Christmas Cards. We have received so many beautiful cards, and with each card I receive the love and good wishes sent with each of them. One card came from Dianne D. had this wonderful quote from C.S. Lewis that says so much: “The Son of God became a man to enable men to become Sons of God.”

Have a joy-filled Christmas.

I recently gave a talk entitled, Jesus Was a Jew. It reminded me of a story Mother once told of a little girl who came home from Sunday School and exclaimed to her mother,”Mommy, they said Jesus was a Jew!” The mother reassured her child saying, “Never mind dear, we all know he was a good Methodist!”

We all look at the Master through the lens of our own minds, conditioned by time and circumstance. We see artists’ renditions of Jesus with blond hair and blue eyes, fair skinned, all which would have been highly unusual for a Jew of his time. It makes many comfortable to think of him as “someone like us;” as a “good methodist.”

Even the teachings of the various churches that follow him would have been foreign to Jesus, certainly many of his followers would have been astounded. The notion of the trinity became officially recognized 300 years after the time of Jesus, and for many of his direct followers to think of him as one of three aspects of one God would have been news to many of them at the time. Even three hundred years later it took some pretty fancy reasoning to work it out, with many tries before there came an acceptable version. Yet today it is held as sacrosanct for all true believers.

There is no evidence Jesus intended to start a new religion. He called upon those he healed to keep secret what had happened, he pointed his teachings toward loving God and one’s fellow man, and his focus was upon strengthening faith in God, whom he called Abba, Father. He taught in Jewish synagogues and the great Temple, and strove to challenge those who ran the temple to be pure and upright. He did not break with Jewish tradition, in fact he said he was the fulfillment of its promise.

When Paul, not a direct disciple, asked for permission many years after the time of Jesus to initiate others who were not Jews into these  teachings it created quite a stir. James, and even Peter rejected the idea. Later Peter had a dream in which he received sanction for Paul to do so. The point is, the direct disciples did not see themselves as anything other than Jews at the time. Paul even came up with his own fancy reasoning so that new male converts did not have to be physically circumcised, a Jewish rite, but that their faith in Jesus made them circumcised. Why go through the trouble of reasoning this out unless it was thought that becoming a Christian was essentially becoming Jewish.

And why do I now point out these self-evident facts? It is to focus on what is essential to the life and teachings of this Jewish rabbi. Even his breaking of bread and sharing of wine was a rite already established by the Essenes. While Jesus  borrowed heavily from the ancient tradition in which he was born, he also articulated the greatest spiritual principles to be found anywhere. This man, whose background we are told so little, gave us the keys to finding the kingdom of heaven, only to be found within.

What he gave us was so much more than a new religion, he gave us the Truth! He taught us to live the life of a true spiritual being, to love God first, surrender to His will, and to serve our fellow man, even unto death. Jesus taught us how to truly live. I say he taught “us,” because he teaches us still through the stories of his life, and the power of his words that resonate around the world.

“Come, follow me,” he said to his direct disciples, and he says to all of us. To follow him means to live as he lived, to know what he knew, to be even as he was; a Son of God. “Follow me,” not in blind belief, but see with your own eyes, hear with your own ears, know with your own mind the same as he saw, heard and knew his heavenly Father. He calls to us even now, “Come, follow me.”

Christmas Eve. As a child there is such magic in the air in anticipation of what is to come in the morning. We perpetuate the story of Santa Claus because we love that same feeling, for children and for ourselves. Why? Because it stirs something deep, wonderful and beautiful inside.

Later in life we learn the unreality of it all, and something diminishes inside. That is until we see the wide eyed wonder in a child in anticipation of the magic. What is it in us that so yearns for magic? It is the intuitive faculty within that yearns for God.

God is that feeling of magic, of charm, of an open field of possibilities, and of joy and love. To feel the openness of anticipation means a beautiful world of splendor awaits us. Being overly mindful of the “realism” of life kills in us this awareness, it removes the childlike wonder.

Jesus said that children are blessed, because a childlike nature is part of entering into heaven. The Master actually thanks God for not revealing heaven to the intellectual and prideful, but rather to the childlike in spirit. Jesus and his disciples were living in a tough existence, he was no starry eyed dreamer, his world could scarce afford that. Rather, his affirmation of innocence as necessary is a statement of a tremendous truth. We must be open to wonder; to the incredible beauty in which we can look at a lily of the field and find greatness.

Some may scoff at such words, but this cynical mindset is exactly what Jesus was thanking God for leaving in ignorance. Blessed are the children, of all ages, for such is the kingdom of heaven.

I am sitting to meditate on Christmas Eve, and I sit in wonder, anticipation of untold possibilities, of magic in the air; for such is the kingdom of God.

Painting: Esteban Bartoleme Murillo

The approach of Christmas is oftentimes ascribed as to why this season can be stressful, and surely it is a time that can be jammed packed with activities and demands. However, for many years I observed in my spiritual life, and now the lives of many others, that there is an additional layer of why this can be a difficult time.

The winter solstice occurs on or near December 21^st. The solstice marks the shortest day of sunlight due to the earth’s tilt and its rotation around the sun. It has long been noted that celestial movements relate to changes in consciousness, and from this observation astrology had its origins. The winter solstice and its opposite the summer solstice, as well as the two equinoxes, have special relevance to inner changes as well as the more obvious outer changes.

Since meeting my Guru and my subsequent initiation I noticed that the time preceding the winter solstice was oftentimes difficult, stirring up much mental and emotional turmoil. In the beginning I associated this fact with the holidays making me more acutely aware that I was alone.

As the seasons rolled by I noticed that this intensity in the buildup climaxed, not with Christmas, but, with the solstice itself. With the solstice the intensity would “break,” and the immediate days before Christmas were much easier, very enjoyable. Year after year I noticed the same pattern, and once seen it could not be unseen.

It is no accident that the birth of Jesus is marked at this time of year. Symbolically it is the depth of darkness and the beginning of the procession to the light; a perfect time for the birth of the “Light of the world” to incarnate. Historians tell us that for the shepherds to be out tending their flocks at night, as depicted in the scriptures, it would be springtime, lambing season. So, December would not be the historical birth date of Jesus, but March or April. However, not only is the end of December symbolically right, but the intense purification before the solstice followed by uplifting joy is the perfect time for the birth of the savior.

When we understand that this increasing intensity is part of a purification rite, and its purpose is the birth of something new, then we can consciously cooperate with this progression, understand it, and receive the greatest benefits from its annual occurrence.

Rejoice, for something wonderful is coming! Prepare the way, and spread your wings so that the seasonal uplifting currents will carry you heavenward; listen carefully and you will hear the celestial music of the spheres. The tender birth of the Christ-child is coming; the ancient prophesies are to be fulfilled right within your own being.