Where Did Jesus Go When He Was Dead for Three Days?

Dear Oakes,

According to Yogananda these three days are highly meaningful: “The resurrection of Jesus in three days has special significance. He was advanced enough to reincarnate his soul from the physical to the astral, and from there to the spiritual [causal] plane…. So, Jesus resurrected Himself from the physical to the astral plane, then to the spiritual [causal] plane, in three days.”

These were the three days of his complete liberation. In other words, he was not dead, really, nor was he gone anywhere, but was working within his own consciousness, which he was purifying. Yogananda explains that it “took three days to burn out all the last glimpses of mortal delusions left in him.”

In truth it was, however, more an act of teaching, than his real need to be purified. He came as a Son of God, an avatar, one who was already fully liberated. He came without any ego (“I do nothing of myself”), which means that he didn’t accumulate any karma. His act of purification, then, as well as other acts of his life – for example, his need to be baptized by John, the Baptist – were to give a teaching to the world.

In divine friendship,
Jayadev