Essence Of Christianity By Sri Swami Chidananda To be rooted in the Divine, to be guided by the Divine, to recognise the reality of the Divine and the Divine alone, and to give secondary place to all that is other than the Divine is the sadhana,that is the great abhyasa. It is for this that strength has to be prayed for: “Deliver us from evil. Lead us not into temptation of succumbing to the influences, pulls and pressures of that which is other than the Divine, that which is other than your ideal, that which is other than the direction of your goal.” In the midst of the many pulls and many pressures from other directions, to be what Jesus the Christ wished you to be, what Gurudev Swami Sivanandaji has clearly asked us to be, is the acid test of the authenticity and genuineness of our spirituality. The relevance of the teachings of Jesus is not merely the church nor merely the words of the Bible. The relevance of the teachings of Jesus is the fact that He is an ever-present Presence, that He is an eternal witness, a companion who walks by us, who lives with us and who notes every movement, every thought, within and without us. It is this presence of His divine personality that has outlived His own contemporary times and is powerfully present. Jesus the Christ is not dead; great ones who have merged in Brahman do not die. They step out of the body and continue to prevail, pervading all space as a Presence that is relevant to everyone who recognises kinship with them. The guru is eternal. The divine teachers are eternal. The relevance of Jesus and the Christianity that He taught is His divine presence here and now, and always unto worlds without end. One who is a believer, one who makes his life, words and actions a response to the call “Follow Me,” keep as one’s touchstone or criterion for action: “If Jesus was by my side, what would I do in this particular situation? How would He have me behave at this moment, in this situation?” Your life should be an answer to this question. One should mould one’s character and conduct, life and actions on the basis of this criterion. That is the essence of Christianity. Ponder this truth on the day of Christmas Eve. May Jesus be a living factor in our lives. Then indeed Christmas will become a turning point into a new life of light and wisdom.

Christ-Consciousness By SRI SWAMI KRISHNANANDA ‘Empty thyself and I shall fill thee.’ This is a wondrous single sentence message of Jesus the Christ. The Spirit is not a quantity and it is opposed to all quantitative measurements and conceptions. ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit,’ is another suggestive statement of the Christ. We cannot understand what is meant to be poor. For us, to be poor is not to have money, grains and gold, not to have a field, a house and friends, and not to be recognised in society. That would be poverty, economically. We cannot think of poverty except in an economic, material and social sense. Likewise, the idea of emptying oneself, as far as our minds can understand, is a physical displacement of content. Far from this is the idea of the Spirit, which is implied in the above single-sentence message. The Christ-Consciousness, and not the personality of Christ, is what is to be taken into account here in our understanding of this statement. There is a difference between Christ and Christ-Consciousness. This fact was repeatedly emphasised by the Christ himself in many of His declarations as recorded in the New Testament. He never regarded Himself as a person, nor did He ever indicate that a person was speaking when He spoke. He always referred to ‘Him that sent me’. He was very much fond of referring to ‘Him that sent me’. He said: ‘I am here to proclaim the Law of Him who sent me here. It is not my law that I am demonstrating or proclaiming to the world.’ The Spirit that spoke through Him was not a creature of time. There is a very humorous and most significant statement of His. “Before Abraham was, I am.” What does it mean? “Before Abraham was, I am”, is a contradiction, grammatically. It conveys no sense. It is a blunder of grammar to say, ‘I am before Abraham was.” But that is the real Christ that spoke. And it is from the standpoint of that reality of Christ, the ‘present’ was precedent even to the ‘past’. The present precedes the past. How could it be? And that is what is implied in saying, “Before Abraham was, I am.” The Spirit is a present and not an event or a content or a creature in the passage of time which is usually dissected into the past, present and future. The Spirit has no past, no present and no future. And this is the Christ-Consciousness. From the above point of view, what would it mean to empty oneself and what would it also mean to be filled by It? This is the great philosophy of the Spirit. We are heading towards real Yoga when we speak about these things. Christ was a great Yogin, Master Yogin, one of the greatest Yogins the world has produced, an Yogin in the true sense of the term. He was perpetually in unison with the Spirit, drew sustenance from the Spirit and operated upon the Law of the Spirit in the world or the realm of matter. Mathematics was not his way of thinking. Otherwise how could a single loaf become basketful, over-flowing, flooding and capable of feeding thousands and yet remaining after the feeding was over. It was not arithmetic that worked there, because one cannot become many and many are not the same as the one. Our consciousness has grown upon it several accretions or layers of material concrescence. The philosophical way of thinking is slightly different from the ordinary way of thinking of the man in the street. I do not mean that you should be philosophers. But you should know the techniques of philosophical thinking, i.e., the art of thinking in a peculiar manner which differs entirely from the give-and-take, economic or commercial attitude of thinking which man usually entertains in his mind. All our thinking is commercial. We cannot think in any other way. But the Spirit is non-commercial, because it is non-material. Anything that we speak of in regard to the Spirit has to be metempirical and we have to shed the prejudice of earthly ways of thinking even before we take the first step in the practice of the way of the Spirit. All prejudices have to be shed. This is one of the conditions of emptying yourself. It does not mean that we have to vomit what we have eaten. We have to vomit the prejudices of the, mind. Hard it is to overcome a prejudice. And prejudice has grown like a fungus or a mushroom on our very consciousness itself. We take for granted many things. Unproved hypotheses are taken for granted; and they become the byword of the street, of the home, of society, of administration and of even international understanding. Everything is based on certain prejudices. But the Spirit does not care for either the nation or the international set-up. It is something superior in its value and content. To be spiritual is hard even to think and conceive; more difficult it is to practise the way of the Spirit. Personal and logical attempts and the so-called scientific attitudes do not help us here. Science itself has become a dogma, though it parades its knowledge of non-dogmatism. Logic is based again on a dogma, of certain presupposed values which themselves cannot be proved by logic itself. There is no such thing as non-dogmatic thinking as far as the ordinary man is concerned. Everything is a dogma. You take for granted that the world is. Who told you that the world is? It is something taken for granted. It is a hypothesis. You cannot prove it by logic, except by saying that you see it. And that you see it, is not a great proof, for, you can see even phantasmagoria, if your head is reeling. That the world is, that the body is a content thereof and that the world is ruled by the quantitative measurements of arithmetic and commercial laws, are hypotheses on which we

Behold Jesus In Thy Midst By Sri Swami Sivananda Prostrations, prostrations; crores of times at the Holy Feet of Lord Jesus, the Saviour of mankind, the Eternal Beacon-light that shines to guide man along the path of Rectitude to the Destination of Supreme Beatitude. Lord Jesus is the incarnation of Bold Understanding, Determined Will and Resolute Action. Study the Gospels again. Meditate on the resplendent, spiritually glowing Divine Form of Lord Jesus. How sweet, how compassionate, how gentle and loving He was! And yet, He showed no leniency towards Himself; He turned resolutely away from Satan–not that He could ever be tempted, but to set an example before us–and He had no patience with the unrighteous impostors and hypocrites. Could anyone on earth declare in more unequivocal, unambiguous and definite terms the rules of moral conduct, the Regulations that govern entry into the Kingdom of God, than Lord Jesus has done? Can we profess allegiance to Him and yet ignore His commands? Let every Christian today remember the flaming words of the Lord: “Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, but he that doeth the Will of my Father, which is in heaven.” And that Will of the Divine Father, Lord Jesus had not only stated in the plainest language, intelligible to the least intelligent among men, but what is even more, has demonstrated in an unforgettably graphic manner in the heart-rending, soul-inspiring life. Lord Jesus declared that it was worse than useless to run after the things of the world, ignoring the supremely important Spirit within. He knew the form of Satan, and therefore, He had forewarned His followers not to let Satan enter any part of their being, and if Satan is detected as having tainted any, to “pluck that part out and cast it out”, in order that the entire being may not be tainted, as heedlessness is sure to cause. We see the wisdom of His Wise Words today. And, what a painful sight it is! True, Lord Jesus bled on the Cross for the redemption of His people. Today, from His Eternal Seat in the Kingdom of God, His Divine Compassionate Heart bleeds even more profusely, for the people of His time were ignorant of the Law and they erred, but the people of the modern world have the resplendent light of Lord Jesus’s life and teachings shining and illumining the path of righteousness, and yet they want only to walk the path of darkness, ignorance, sin, selfishness, sensuousness and misery. If His Merciful Heart bled for the ignorant sinners, how much more would it bleed for the sins of those who err, ignoring His Light! Is this the way in which you would like humanity to show its gratitude to the Saviour? No, a thousand times No. It is never too late to mend. And, there are today thousands of pious, devout, righteous men and women in all parts of the globe; in whose hearts Lord Jesus is reincarnate as one or more of the divine virtues that He had idealised in His own Divine Personality. These men are not publicised in your newspapers; throw away these papers. These men are not in your limelight, but it is nothing but crime-light, the light in which dance the disciples of Satan. But these pious men of God, many of them, walk the humble path, unnoticed by the pleasure-seeker, the glamour-adorer, and the sin-blinded “civilised” man. But they are the salt of the earth; they are the sustainers of real life upon earth; it is their presence that brings down the Lord’s richest blessings upon all men; it its their presence that maintains, sustains, the world. It is they that unostentatiously, but all the same powerfully, radiate peace and happiness. And, if today there is even this much of peace, and this much of happiness that mankind enjoys, it is due to the presence of these divine souls in whose heart the Eternal Jesus has reincarnated in all His spiritual radiance and divine splendour. They have known that Lord Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Worship them. Adore them. Follow in their footsteps. They are not the footsteps of these men, they are in fact the Eternal Footsteps that the Lord Jesus has left on the sands of time. Study the lives of these saints. Reflect over their divine traits. How heroically they have reached in the most trying situations! Emulate them. Christianity is not an arm-chair religion, in fact, no religion can afford to recline on the armchair, if it is to live. Christianity is a Living Religion, a religion which is dynamic and vibrant. So long as there is one pious and devout follower of Christ, Christianity would live, there was only one Lord Jesus, who is today adored by millions all over the world. Even today Lord Jesus lives in our hearts, because, in the worst crises, in the greatest of temptations, he triumphed, holding aloft by his own life and actions the glory of truth and righteousness. He was not a speculative philosopher, but a Living God. Unless this Living God is worshipped in a living manner by living His Life, in our own life, all the speculations of philosophy will vanish into the thin air in which alone, in the vain intellects of the philosophers where alone they had their birth and where alone they existed. Trials and temptations come but to be overcome by the brave. Tests and trying situations are spiritual Vitamin tablets. They come to strengthen your mind and to purify your heart. They are, as it were, the wise men that discover Jesus in you. To succumb to these trials is weakness. To fast, to pray, to discriminate and to overcome these obstacles with the help of the Grace of the Lord is spiritual heroism. When the victory is achieved, to feel, to realise and to proclaim that it was the Lord’s Grace that enabled

A Call To Rebirth By Sri Swami Chidananda When Nicodemus came to Jesus Christ secretly one night He said: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” Nicodemus asked: “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” The great teacher answered; Truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” Water is a universal cleansing and purifying agent. So it means getting rid of mala (impurity) and having chitta shuddi (purity of mind). You have to emerge as purified being. That is also the symbol behind baptism – a cleansing of and getting rid of all sin and emerging sinless, spotless, pure. Fire is also a universal purifying agent. Our fire ceremony also symbolises thorough burning away of all dross – of all that is impure, of all that is contrary to Divinity – and emerge as pure Spirit. This is why it is a symbol of the same rebirth Jesus referred to. It is rebirth from passion to purity; and then from material consciousness into a state of spiritual consciousness to emerge as a new being, aware of oneself as connected with the Supreme Universal Soul, as a spiritual being beyond time and space, without birth and death, name and form, ever pure, ever free, ever full, ever Divine. It is a rebirth of your very identity – a dying to the old self and being born into a new identity where you know of yourself only as related to the eternal Being. It is rebirth into the Spirit, plunging once again into Satchidananda. When you wake up from deep sleep, you wake up into a new reality. Waking up should constitute a rebirth into divine life – a rebirth into total truthfulness. For a spiritual aspirant, there should be a daily rebirth – a leaving behind of all that is dross, gross, undivine – and emerging into a new state of shining purity, spirituality and total divinity. Again and again there should be a rebirth until you become like the pure Cosmic Being, partaking of His total purity, partaking of His glorious Divine nature. Each daybreak should constitute a call to rebirth. This is the invariable condition for the realisation of Reality. It is a call to each one of you to truthfulness, absolute purity in conduct and character, to a continuous compassion and a reluctance to hurt or harm anything created by God. May we be reborn again and again! May you shine with Divinity! God bless you!

Christianity By Sri Swami Sivananda Christianity derives its name from Christ. Christianity speaks of a personal God. There is not much deep philosophy or Yoga Sadhana in Christianity. There is reason for this. Jesus had to deal with the illiterate fishermen of Galilee. He gave them only moral precepts and showed them the way of righteous living. Christianity is based chiefly on Judaism and partly on Buddhism. The doctrines of the Christian religion are all taken from Judaism. Jesus never professed to abolish Judaism and to set up a new religion of his own. He says, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you: Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one title shall in no means pass from the law, till all is fulfilled. Whosoever , therefore, shall break one of these least commandments and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Matthew 5:17-19) Christian faith sprung from the wisdom of India overspread the old trunk of Judaism. Buddhism prevailed in Palestine when Christ was born. Christ himself came in contact with it through John the Baptist. There is a striking resemblance between Buddhism and Christianity in their precepts, in their forms and ceremonies, in the architectural style of their temples, and even in the account of the lives of their founders. The dogmas or metaphysical doctrines of Christianity are the same as those of Judaism but its moral precepts are much higher and nobler than those of the Jewish prophets. Christianity owes to Buddhism that higher morality which distinguishes it from Judaism. The moral precepts and teachings of Buddhism have much in common with those of Christianity. Christ himself taught no dogmas. The teaching of Jesus which is chiefly ethical is embodied in the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord’s Prayer and certain parables known as the parables of the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, and the Sheep and the Goats. Lord Jesus Lord Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the King. He was the son of a carpenter of Nazareth, a large village in Galilee, the northern Province of Palestine. Jesus was a Palestine Jew of the first century. He lived with Joseph and Mary and a large family of brothers or half-brothers in the house of the carpenter of Nazareth. He was baptized by John the Baptist on the banks of the river Jordan. Now he saw a vision of God’s spirit descending like a dove on him. He heard a voice say unto him: “Thou art my beloved son. I am well pleased with thee.” John the Baptist was the Preceptor of Jesus. Jesus was an incarnation of the Hebrew God Jehovah. Jesus is the Greek transliteration of an Aramic name pronounced Yeshua, according to Hebrew Scholars. It was altered into Jesus in English. He was also called Messiah, the anointed one, or the Saviour of the World. Between his 18th and 32nd years of age, Jesus spent his life in India and lived like a Hindu or Buddhist monk. He had burning Vairagya (dispassion) and spirit of renunciation. In India he assimilated Hindu ideals and principles. (Jesus in India) The Cross Lord Jesus totally surrendered himself at the lotus feet of the Lord. He had intense faith in Him. It was the faith that sustained him throughout his life. The Cross of Jesus will remain forever the supreme example of love and suffering without returning evil for evil. The Cross symbolizes a great principle of life. In the Christian theology, the Cross has a wonderful halo. It is not a common cross of wood. The Cross of Jesus is a classic instance of love resisting evil and overcoming it. When Lord Jesus was put to the Cross, he said: “My Lord! They do not know what they are doing. Please forgive them.” What a large heart and wonderful power of endurance Jesus had! He who has control over the flesh, who has crucified the flesh, who has subdued the life-passions, who has self-control, who has mortified the lower nature, can bear the Cross. Jesus’s Qualities Jesus was holy. He was God-man, the incarnation of God. Jesus called himself the Son of God. In Jesus we see perfect holiness, goodness, kindness, mercy, gentleness and justice. He said: “I am the Truth, the Way and the Life.” He is embodiment of all that is best, sublimest and most beautiful. He is the most perfect type and ideal of humanity. He is the embodiment of all his teachings. He is a philosopher, prophet, teacher, reformer. He always practiced what he taught. Jesus was truthful. His thoughts were very pure. There was no hypocrisy or deception in his thoughts. He risked his own life in uttering the truth. The spirit of Jesus is the spirit of Truth. He is called the Sun of Righteousness. He went about doing good. The words of Jesus still elevate people. They still live as a fountain of inspiration. Christ took the sins of humanity on himself, suffered for their sins and made them free. This is the theory of Atonement of Christ. His Philosophy and Teachings Nearly two thousand years have passed since Lord Jesus, the Prophet of Palestine taught the way, the truth and the life to mankind. The words of Jesus were not collected till some generations after they were uttered. Christianity was essentially a radiant way of life, a way of happy and victorious living in this world. There is no record of the life of Jesus until he was fully grown up. He astonished people by his insight when discussing religion with the religious leaders of his day. For three years he explained his claim as the “Only Son of God” and taught people

Judaism By SRI SWAMI SIVANANDA Judaism constitutes the religious doctrines and rites of the Jews as enjoined in the laws of Moses. Judaism is based on Zoroastrianism. It has given rise to two great religions of the world, i.e., Christianity and Islam. The Muslims admit that their religion is founded on Judaism. The Koran also is very clear on this point. Zoroastrian conception of Ahura Mazda as the Supreme Being is perfectly identical with the idea of Elohim (God) Jehovah which we find in the books of Old Testament. Abraham, the Prophet, was the first man who has revealed God to all humanity. He is the Founder of the Hebrew race. Hebrew is one of the descendants of Jacob, an Isralite, a Jew. Isaac had two sons, viz., Essan and Jacob and their descendants are the Christians and Jews respectively. Abraham had two sons (one from Sarah and one from Hagar, the Egyptian woman), viz., Isaac and Ismael who are the fathers of Jews and Muslims respectively. OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT The Old Testament contains the sacred writings of the ambient Jewish race. The newer portion is known as the New Testament which was begun after the coming of Jesus Christ, more than nineteen hundred years ago. Long before Jesus came to this world, the Jews wrote and studied their sacred books. These were written in their Hebrew tongue. The old Hebrew books were translated into Greek about two hundred years before the Christian era. The books of the Jews were arranged into three main divisions. The first was called “The Law”. It dealt with the laws of the world. These books are now the first part of the Bible, viz., Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The second class was that of the Prophets. It included Joshua, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. Psalms and Proverbs constituted third class. The Old Testament contains 39 books. The New Testament contains 27 books. The first four books are Gospels which describe the life of Christ on this earth. The next book tells us of the Acts of the Apostles, particularly of the important Apostle Paul. The twenty-one shorter books give out the ideas underlying the Christian faith of the early Christians. The last book is the book of Revelations. It gives a description of the series of visions, viz., the lamb of God and the heavenly city. The author is John, the favourite Apostle of Jesus. All these books were written in Greek, which was the language of educated men at the beginning of the Christian era. JEWISH SECTS The Law was set forth as a complete system by which men should live. By the Law was understood in a special sense the Pentateuch. Every word of Pentateuch was considered as inspired and an immediate revelation of Moses. (a) There was a need for explanation of the Law. The Scribes were the interpreters of the Law. They explained and applied the rules of the Torah to special cases. The Scribes were recognised as the legislators and the judges of Israel. Their decisions had the force of Law. The first Scribes were priests. (b) The fraternity of the Pharisees were the popular or nationalist party. They believed in the doctrine of immortality, resurrection of the body, the existence of angels and spirits. As religious teachers, they upheld the authority of oral tradition as of equal validity with the written Law. They were inclined to fatalism in the question of the freedom of the will. The Zealots represented one extreme side of the Pharisaic movement. (c) Sadducus were aristocratic priests. They held to the letter of the Mosaic revelation. They denied the authority of the oral tradition as interpreted by the Pharisees. They taught complete freedom of the will in moral action. They had no belief in angels or spirits. They did not accept the doctrine of immortality as a deduction from the Pentateuch. (d) The Essenes followed celibacy, isolation, silence, ceremonial ablutions, and abstinence from animal food. They practised asceticism. They did worship of the sun and the angels. They believed in the dualistic theory of good and evil and the symbolism of light. They abstained from sacrifices and temple worship. TORAH The Prophets of Israel were the great religious leaders who brought great progress in Behraic thought. Rabbis also were authoritative teachers. They worked very hard in the field of Torah. They produced the massive Talmudic literature. They were the representatives of Pharisiasm. Talmud is indispensable, for a knowledge of Hebraic thought. The Torah was given in ten words. Each word became a voice. Every voice was divided into 70 voices all of which shone and glittered before the eyes of all Israel. Torah denotes the divine revelation to Israel on Mount Senai as embodied in the five Books of Moses. The Torah (Law) as given to Moses consists of 613 commandments which are the essence of the divine and terrestrial mysteries. Torah indicates a way of life rather than a form of belief. Moses received the Torah (Law, direction, instruction) on Senai and handed it down to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, the elders to the prophets and the prophets handed it down to the men of the Great Synagogue, a synod of zealous men created by Ezra, the Scribe in the fifth century B.C. The function of the synagogue was to study and teach Torah. The Synagogue was a church, a school, and a court of justice. It was a house of instruction. The unity of God, the Incorporeality of God, and the Holiness of God are the main features of Judaism. God gave His ten commandments to Moses on the Mount Senai. The Lord called unto him out of the mountain and said: “Thus shall thou say to the house of Jacob and tell the children of Israel”. THE TEN COMMANDMENTS I am the Lord Thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before