Revelations of Christ

Yogananda Paramhansa

Description

This galvanizing book, presenting the teachings of Christ from the experience and perspective of Paramhansa Yogananda, one of the greatest spiritual masters of the twentieth century, finally offers the fresh perspective on Christ's teachings for which the world has been waiting. This book presents us with an opportunity to understand and apply the Scriptures in a more reliable way than any other: by studying under those saints who have communed directly, in deep ecstasy, with Christ and God.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• General officer
• Spirituality
• Religion
• General
• Paramahansa Yogananda

Informations

• Publié par: Crystal Clarity Publishers
• Date de parution: 22 mai 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781565896260
• Langue: English

Extrait

Revelations of Christ
Proclaimed by
Paramhansa Yogananda,
Presented by his disciple,
Swami Kriyananda



Crystal Clarity Publishers
Nevada City, California
Crystal Clarity Publishers • Nevada City, CA 95959-8599
Copyright 2010 by Hansa Trust
All rights reserved. Published 2010
ISBN: 978-1-56589-240-8
Printed in USA
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Designed by Renee Glenn Designs
Cover Illustration is by the artist Dana Lynne Andersen
Titled: Pearl of Great Price
www.awakeningarts.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kriyananda, Swami.
Revelations of Christ / Proclaimed by Paramhansa Yogananda ; Presented by his disciple, Swami Kriyananda. — [Rev. 2nd ed.]
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-56589-240-8 (tradepaper)
1. Jesus Christ—Oriental interpretations. 2. Yogananda, Paramhansa, 1893-1952. 3. Christianity and yoga. I. Title.
BT304.94.K75 2010
232.9—dc22
2010026608
www.crystalclarity.com
[e-mail]
800-424-1055
Dedicated
To Those Sincere Christians
Whose Faith Has Been Shaken
Foreword
Introduction
Part One: The Basics
1. Major Disadvantages
2. A Name for Truth
3. True, vs. False, Religions: Part One
4. True, vs. False, Religions: Part Two
5. The Purpose of Religion
6. A Question of Degrees
7. Religion and the Heart
8. Whence the Correction?
9. What Is God?
10. Who Are We?
11. Salvation from What?
12. Still, Wasn’t Jesus Also Unique?
13. Son of Man vs. Son of God
14. Does Satan Exist?
15. A New Revelation
Part Two: Gemstones in Christ’s Teachings
16. How It All Began
17. The Spinal Highway
18. The Serpent Power
19. The Need for a Personal Savior
20. New Wine
21. God Alone Saves
22. The Ages of History
23. The Missing Years
24. Conclusion
About the Author
Further Explorations
Crystal Clarity Publishers
Ananda Sangha Worldwide
The Expanding Light
Foreword
To my many friends and spiritual companions around the world:
Something truly wonderful has happened. There has been given to humanity a great gift. It is a spiritual treasure to cherish deep in the heart, and to pass on to children for generations. I am speaking of the extraordinary book, Revelations of Christ: Proclaimed by Paramhansa Yogananda , presented by his disciple, Swami Kriyananda.
For longer than any of us can remember, the words and teachings of the great Master, Jesus, have been guiding lives upon the earth. Yet those words and those teachings have in too many cases been interpreted and understood in ways that may have distorted, however inadvertently, their original meaning. Because the Messages of Jesus are so profoundly important, it is essential that they be embraced with only the deepest love for, and loyalty to, God and truth, not any institution or religious tradition. For spiritual truth lies outside of institutions and traditions and can only reside within the fullness of a human heart that is united with the soul in the purest yearning for the bliss of truly knowing the Divine.
The sadness of some religious institutions and traditions is that, sincerely motivated though they surely are, often their own inner political maneuverings and mechanical workings stand in the way of simple, true, and uncompromised religious experience and spiritual knowledge. Now this remarkable and magnificent new book by Swami Kriyananda glides us gently past those maneuverings and workings, bringing us to the doorway of a deeper, richer embracing of Eternal Truth. In a text that is at once crystal clear and wonderfully insightful, we are invited to move through that doorway into a place of gloriously larger views of Jesus and God and of Life Itself than many of us have ever been blessed to behold.
My heart pounded with soft excitement as I turned each new page, and now it sings with praise and gratitude to Swami for this astonishing gift to the soul. I believe with all my being that these are the words of Jesus as they were meant to be relayed and understood. I am humbled to have been touched by this sacred energy.
Without adequate words to express my thanks, I am . . .
Neale Donald Walsch
Introduction
How is one to understand the life and teachings of the great master Jesus, whose title “the Christ” meant the “anointed of God”? Tradition offers us two approaches: one, the authority of the Church; the other, that of historical analysis, which Christian scholars lately have been applying to certain recently discovered texts.
There is another approach, less widely known but more reliable than any other: It is to study the writings and sayings of, or better still to live with and study under, saints who have communed directly, in deep states of ecstasy, with Christ and God. Such persons are true spiritual masters. They have lived in every country, and have belonged to every religion and every social level. They have taught the Truth from their own deep realization. When they’ve been free to speak out, their impact has been widespread and profound. Often, unfortunately, freedom of speech has been denied them; they’ve had to submit to the control of religious superiors, who considered their own authority a supreme right bestowed on them by God.
All true saints—those, in other words, who have reached the highest spiritual attainments—have endorsed the teachings of Jesus Christ either directly or indirectly, by stating the same truth similarly. Christian saints want to support their Church, and usually consider it their duty to sow seeds of harmony, not of dissension. There have been times in history, on the other hand, when a saint was divinely commissioned to correct one or more serious errors.
The difficulty saints have endured under church authority has been due—understandably, but at the same time unfortunately—to officials who were administrators but were rarely, if ever, themselves saints. Such authorities have insisted that their approval was needed before anyone—particularly anyone of merit—could preach spiritual truth. The very fact of any Christians being also saints has been perceived, at least during their lifetimes, as a threat to institutional authority. For what the authorities want first of all to ascertain is whether some “saintly upstart” is preaching truth or heresy.
Saint Francis of Assisi, whose sanctity was certainly due to his own deep love for God and to his deep, inner communion with Him, has been acclaimed by the Catholic Church as a true son of the Church, which takes credit for his holiness and attributes it to the saint’s humble obedience to Church authority.
Any saint in Christian history who ever spoke, or even hinted at, truths that weren’t sanctioned by the Church was punished and, in many cases, excommunicated. An example of an excommunicant was Meister Eckhart in Germany, who (fortunately for him) died before notice of his punishment could reach him.
Saint Joseph of Cupertino, to whom even crowned heads in Europe came for inspiration and blessings, was orthodox in everything he said and did. He repeatedly, however, performed the miracle of levitation, an act which embarrassed his less-than-saintly superiors. After fifteen years of virtual incarceration in an apartment of the Basilica in Assisi, he was carted off in the dead of night—not once, but repeatedly whenever his whereabouts became publicly known—to a succession of small, distant monasteries.
A Claretian monk of my acquaintance in Los Angeles, California, developed a reputation for bilocation (appearing in more than one place at a time). He was quietly transferred to a distant house of the same Order in Spain. Catholics themselves describe this practice of quiet removal as “sending one to prison.”
Therese Neumann, the great Catholic stigmatist in Bavaria, Germany, was prohibited for a time by her bishop from even seeing people.
And Padre Pio, in southern Italy, was also for a time forbidden from performing mass in his capacity of priest. Regarding this saint, an Italian friend of mine in Rome once visited him, and, during his confession, stated that he practiced Kriya Yoga (a meditation technique brought to the West by my great Guru, Paramhansa Yogananda).
“Oh, hush!” the saint warned hastily. “You mustn’t speak of these things.” Then he added, “But you are doing the right thing.”
There are two major disadvantages to having a church as the supreme authority. The first is that the churches are committed—necessarily so—to giving priority to their own supremacy as Christ’s representatives. Therefore they cannot be objective concerning any concept they perceive as a threat to that supremacy.
The second disadvantage follows from the first: Church authority, if too firmly exercised, reduces religious teachings to a faint echo of the divine truths it proclaims. Water cannot flow higher than its source. When religious institutions appoint themselves as the only source of truth—though in fact, such truths as they utter can only flow through them—they block that flow. Of course, they never state that they are that source; all of them claim to be representing Christ’s Truth. Nevertheless, the teachings they promulgate wane in power from a mighty waterfall to a gurgle.
My purpose in writing this book is to present the teachings of Jesus Christ as they were proclaimed by one of the great saints and spiritual masters of our own times, Paramhansa Yogananda, who was sent by God to the West with the commission of restoring the teachings of Jesus Christ to their full and original glory.
There is another, urgent reason why this book is being written. Christendom has come under attack not only from theological dilutions, which it has long endured and has at least succeeded in surviving; and not only from those familiar enemies of religion, the materialistic sciences: but also from a new and seemingly formidable (though in fact spiritually toothless) source. For, since the discovery in hidden places of ancient documents, some of which seem to cast doubt on traditional perce