Hello, I am a 21 year old female who has been raised Christian. During my formative years and through High School I had very spiritual experiences included prophetic dreams, speaking in tongues, hearing someone speak in tongues and it then being immediately translated verbatim. I backslid. I am now at a point where I found the same God-presence in Kundalini Yoga/meditation. I am looking for some answers on if I need to believe in Jesus as God, or is there more to this? Please help.
Jesus was a great master, one of a number who have lived on this earth. Others include, but are not limited to, masters such as Moses, Buddha, Shankara, Ramakrishna, and Yogananda. It’s not that these masters are God, but that they act as clear channels for God into this world. In this way, you can see Jesus as a son of God, rather than the son of God. From time to time, as the need becomes very great, and as a deep soul call goes out from people, that Divine sends one of these great souls into the world to help uplift all those who are receptive.
Paramhansa Yogananda did comment upon the Beatitudes, and Swami Kriyananda, Ananda’s founder and Yogananda’s direct disciple, shared his commentary and interpretation in a booklet. This was once in print, and although I don’t see it on the Crystal Clarity publisher’s website, I did find it here.
This is going to be a long answer to a short question. There is so much theological confusion behind what you ask that even in a long answer I can only begin to unravel it. For the “rest of the story,” I urge you to read Swamiji’s book, Revelations of Christ as Proclaimed by Paramhansa Yogananda.
Master talked about great saints from all religion. But I never found anywhere Master taking about Mahavira or any other Jain Saints. Was there any special reason for this? In Jainism the main emphasis is on liberation thru meditation and right living. As per Jain principles as far as I heard and read, liberation is not possible without leaving all inner as well as outer belongings and it claims that even Ram and 3 Pandavas became Jain muni and became Siddha. They had to leave even their clothes...
You are right, Yogananda taught to revere the saints of all religions, he strongly advocated unity amongst religions, and even called his various temples “Church of All Religions.”
Each day, in every group prayer we say at Ananda, we humbly pray to the “saints of all religions.”
For Self Realization we hav to reach a stage where our brain is perfect.Does it mean that we have to achieve a level where our intellect becomes strong&does all kinds of reasoning.I sort of hav a lazy attitude toward reasoning.I’m more devotionally inclined.But I realize that some of my friends have better reasoning ability&do math questions quickly.I’m not stupid but I’m not that intelligent either.So in order to perfect my brain should I start using those brain cells which I had been avoiding?
Reason is only one of many abilities our brains are capable of providing us. Though important, reason is perhaps the least important of the mental abilities we can develop. The most important abilities our minds can provide us are higher awareness and discrimination.
It is interesting that you would ask the question in just this way. Perhaps the reason the question arises is because “Christianity,” by its very name, and “Christ” as the focus of that religion, seems to have claimed “Christ Consciousness” as its unique property. Jesus didn’t do that, but the church that followed has.
When one attains nirbikalpa samadhi, it is said they then realize their oneness with God and drop their individual egos. My question is: When thousands all over the world tune into Yogananda and the other masters, can they be with every one of them simultaneously? Are their personalities still intact or are they more of a "force of God" at that point? It seems contradictory to be an individual and yet be omnipresent.
Yes, dear Friend. When a soul achieves cosmic consciousness this is to achieve oneness with Infinity. Just as every atom of creation is a manifestation of God’s dream and vibration, so a liberated master can be in contact with as many devotees who seek him simultaneously.
Obejctivity?! Dear friends. I love Yoganandaji. His teachings give me strength. But I doubt we all are objectiv. First off, I’ve never experienced samadhi or god. Thoughts are creative and powerful, aren’t they? One gives his whole life to god. Focusing on HIS IMAGE of god. Then sometime he finds god. But is that real god or his imaginary god? Same with meditation! Where is the objective god behind the notion? Can we really get there by "becoming" something?
You are right that we all see life through our own lenses, colored by our expectations, karma, and level of consciousness.
Does that mean that experiences such as samadhi and God-contact might be products of our own imagination, not real at all? I can easily believe that such is the case for many people who say they have had high spiritual experiences. But is it the case for all people, as you suggest?
Yogananda’s first American disciple, Dr. Lewis, once asked that same question. Paraphrasing: “I’ve been visualizing samadhi all these years. How will I know, when I attain it, whether or not it is just a product of my own imagination?”
Yogananda’s answer was simple: “You will know, and you will know that you know.”
That level of knowing does not come from the conscious or subconscious mind. It does not come from the level of consciousness that asks the question. It is direct, superconscious, intuitive perception. We cannot “prove” such things in the sense that physical science demands proof: showing irrefutable evidence to another person. It is personal, subjective. But that does not mean it is unreal. No, it is, rather, a higher level of reality.
That is why it is so important to follow the guidance of those who we believe have achieved that state. True, we cannot know for certain whether they have achieved it. Our belief is the best we can do. But belief will motivate us to try the experiment for ourselves, and eventually (so the great masters tell us) we will know for certain. But only for ourselves; it won’t prove anything to others, except to the extent that they are able to resonate with us. Such is the subtlety of spiritual reality.
And by the way, I am not aware of Yogananda ever speaking of “becoming something.” Quite the contrary, he emphasized that we need to stop being something: the little bundle of self-definitions that limit us, that keep us separate from our own God-nature, that keep us from perceiving who and what we really are.
