Guru Jesus My Foot 9
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Christ and the Fallen King of Jews
Here you will be told that the 'Christ' of the Bible is a fallen king and not good for his people. Adjust accordingly. Stay away if you have nervous problems.The time has come to separate truth from falsehood, knowledge from ignorance." [Yogananda, in a lecture from 1930]
Calling One's Father a Christ Looks Like a Marketing Device
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- Unknown: referred to as Babaji in America.
- Known: Shyama Charan Devi Sharman Lahiri (Lahiri Baba, Lahiri Mahasaya) (1828-95)
- Better-known: Yukteswar (1855-1936)
- Others, including the carnal father of Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952). The latter got quite a following in the West.
In Yukteswar's book there are great flaws and minor flaws, and also good, traditional yoga stuff of Hinduism. There is food for thought in many of his sayings.
Today SRF, in the footsteps of his disciple Param(a)hansa Yogananda, propagates the suspect faith: Their Yukteswar is a Christ and even suited to the title Jnanavatar, ie. 'divine wisdom incarnated'. It is mostly due to panegyric Yogananda's output over three decades, and "a master in every way", "one whose words oblige the cosmos , someone of "unerring spiritual insight" [Pa 499-501; Ak 99, Pa, ch. 17 etc.; Hos v].
It seems that Yogananda shoots above the mark there. Now we will study his 'Christ obsession', if that is what it is. It is more of a marketing trick.
Yukteswar advised the departing Yogananda that his book The Holy Science should be the basis of Yogananda's mission. He did not ask for bogey stories of the notorious and probably untrue kind. [MORE]
What? Is there Evidence?
Yogananda calls his guru Yukteswar Christlike. In an article from 1937 - "Yogavatar Shyama Lahiri Mahasaya's Ladder of Self-Realization, for Salvation for All". Inner Culture, March 1937 - he says that Shyama Lahiri (Lahiri Mahasaya) raised many Christs and Yukteswar is praised as "the greatest disciple" among such Christs:NOTE: According to sources there was one miracle he did not do: To rise in just one body. He rose in three different bodies, writes Yogananda, and that's it. It's too late for rising in just one body now. Yogananda:
. Sh[y]ama Charan Lahiri Mahasaya, by his exemplary life, created many Christs and gave the step-by-step methods of Self-Realization (the Ladder of Self-Realization) which enable all to climb to the high abode of complete freedom. Lahiri Mahasaya . . . could perform all the miracles of Jesus Christ.
Lahiri Mahasaya created the following Christlike souls, some of them really possessing the highest Christ-consciousness:How much "Christ exclusiveness" is left for Jesus here? The "Christ" of Yogananda may smack of mongrel adaptations; they are never found in the four gospels, where there is only one Christ (Messiah), Jesus, and no other Christ is permitted a follower. No Christ is above suspicion from here.
1. My Master, Swami Sri Yukteswarji, the greatest disciple, with Christlike miraculous powers.
. . .
3. Swami Pranabananda, who could materialize or dematerialize his body, a feat actually witnessed by myself.
. . .
8. Sri Bhagavati Charan, my earthly father, very high in morality and Self-Realization . . .Lahiri Mahasaya's teaching is the Second Coming of Christ . . . in actuality.
First of all, the Bible's term 'Christ' comes from the Bible's 'Messiah'. It stood for 'king of Hebrews" (who was to be a descendant of David) till the time of Jesus. Jesus aspired to be the king and was felled. But the "Christ kingship" of Jews had fallen long before him.
Messiah, "Oil-Anointed One", ie King, Was Translated into Christ
Here you find many good reasons why we prefer "quack-quack" and "baa-baa" to much God-attributed. Don't believe everything you are told; check things that are important to you. - T. Kinnes"Christ" is a Greek translation of the Hebrew Messiah (Aramaic: Mshikha), and Jesus is an adaptation from Jeshua, which is written in the same way as Joshua (They do not write out vowels in Hebrew, that's why).
The term 'Messiah' in the sense of "king of God's people" is from 1 Samuel, where Samuel pours oil over the head of a Saul, who is then "the oil-anointed one", that is, the king that the people wanted, but who would not be good for them, on God's word. But they would have to stick with him for long. "You will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the Lord will not answer you in that day." [1 Sam 8:18].
After some decades the Lord discarded King Saul as useless or worse, and shepherding, Bathsheba-whoring and husband-killing David took over. His son, Solomon with a thousand wives and concubines, took to idolatry and ruined the kingship, the Old Testament tells. it was a great disgrace. But Jesus (Mshikha Jeshua) implies he himself was greater in wisdom even though the Lord had said to Solomon there would be none wiser than him in the future - Baloney finds many shapes and fields of outlet. It is tragic. [Luke 11:31;
If you stand back and investigate a bit on your own, you could discover nuances to these abstracts. For example, the Hebrew custom of pouring oil over the heads of some people, was instituted as early as in Exodus 29:7-9, where it is told, "Take the anointing oil and anoint him [Aaron] by pouring it on his head. Bring his sons and dress them in tunics and put headbands on them. Then tie sashes on Aaron and his sons. The priesthood is theirs by a lasting ordinance. [Exod 29:9]. However, this "waste of good oil" was part of a ritual for priests, not kings. The first Hebrew king was Saul, who got oil poured over him in 1 Samuel 10, and not earlier.
Interestingly, the "lasting ordinance" of Aaron and his sons fell dead, just as the ritual practice that included "the goat of removal". That innocent animal was one of two that were to be selected yearly to atone for all the yearly sins of Israel. Note the power and strength of two goats if you can! Oh, yes, we are facing one more "lasting ordinance" that Jesus and followers fully ignored, and God too. God knows why. [Lev 16:8-10]
Aaron and his sons were replaced by Levites. Have you wondered why or when the Levites got that great honour among Hebrews? Each Levite started killing his brother and friend and neighbour. About three thousand of them. Then Moses said, "The Lord . . he has blessed you this day." [Exod 32:27-29] They became priests after ruthless killing.
"Run boy! Run for your life!" [Sir Alfred Hitchcock calling out of his car window on seeing a Catholic priest laying his hand on the shoulder of a boy.]Back to Solomon, that wise guy: He said, "King Solomon will be blessed, and David's throne will remain secure before the Lord forever." [1 Kgs 2:45] - Hm. It went to pieces, you see. But before that, God said to Solomon (in a dream): "I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. [1 Kgs 3:12] - Compare the greater-than-Solomon sayings of Jesus against his Father's word. That could not be, says the Old Testament. Bunkum again, alas.
Mind the old Hebrew boasts of their own king: "God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight, and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore. [Bah!] He spoke three thousand proverbs . . . He described plant life [But did he do it well?] Men of all nations came to listen to Solomon's wisdom. [All nations? There is no record of people from New Guinea or America visiting him.] [1 Kgs 4:29-33, passim]"
They overdo it regularly, these guys. Yogananda too.
Here is more about the house of David and their God: Solomon got built a temple and said, "The Lord has said that he would dwell in a dark cloud; I have indeed built a magnificent temple for you, a place for you to dwell forever." [1 Kgs 8:12-3]
Tut-tut! The temple was demolished.
Besides, in previous passages of Bible God insisted on a ceremony with lamps burning near the opening of a specially made tent of goatskin. It was to be another "lasting ordinance" that came to nothing. Poof. "From rags to riches" has a delicate counterpart in "From tent to temple." [Exod 27:21; Cf. 28:42; 29:9 etc, etc.]
| AWAKE a little: The Bible shows God's words in the Bible are not taken seriously by big shots there; and that many God-promises and ordinances evidently come to nothing. There are conflicting tales in the Old Testament too - just as between the Old and New Testament. Keep this nudge in your heart so as not to be taken in. [cf. 1 Kgs 8:18] |
Solomon went on: "Now Lord, God of Israel, keep for your servant David my father the promises you made to him when you said, "You shall never fail to have a man to sit before me on the throne of Israel, if only your sons are careful in all they do to walk before me as you have done." [1 Kgs 8:25]
Here are central passages to show why gospels insist Jesus was the son of David through his non-carnal father, Joseph. What a shame! He could not count on being accepted as Messiah (king of Jews) without that "son of David" thing. He was not either. They crucified him. Note that the throne of David - unbroken kingship, failed too. There is much that fails in Judaism. So why should you side with it? Why let it influence your grey brain cells? Maybe you were forced into it when young and innocent, and scared by all that bloodthirsty, gruesome drivel. Maybe "Christ" is something big to you as a result, and maybe some swamis play on your insecurity and lack of knowledge of their muddy goings. It can be hard to look though demagoguery, hard to rise into knowing the hearts of others. Compare:
"Dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you." [1 Kgs 8:27] "Hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Forgive and act; deal with each man according to all he does . . . (you alone know the hearts of all men), so that they will fear you all the time . . . [1 Kgs 8:39-40]Such fear can be good for you if you act on it as fits. We suggest "into Great Buddhism" added to "Run, boy! Run for your life!" What we mean by "Great Buddhism" will have to rest for now.
Jesus was called a Christ - that is, he aspired to the title of Messiah, king of Jews. People often admire big shots, you know, and wish they could be among their number too. A recurrent Messiah problem with Jesus is that he was not qualified. Mary had him by an angel, and not by anyone in the bloodline of David, the bible tells, and yet gives a fake ancestry line in Matthew 1. The New Testament begins with it. The word "Well begun is halfway ended" does not apply to it.
In the New Testament letters, notably Hebrews, the meanings of 'Messiah' are expanded toward the cosmos. Yogananda builds on these, but absolutely not on how the term was used in the "original Christianity of Jesus Christ", as his fellowship says it teaches: it is a sham.
Now Yukteswar did not use the Christ title himself, but did not hinder Yogananda from the "Christ inflation" either. In SRF they count on a world of many Christs.
Yogananda felt free to crossbreed many terms. He set an "ultra-faithy" tone by his Christ-concepts praising his guru out of the ordinary, quite against the American proverb "It is safest sailing within reach of shore [Ap 522]." Adding to that: "There are many sorts of rogues." "Blind belief takes its toll; it is different with proficiency."
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| Literature | SECTION | First Page |
Ay: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Autobiography of a Yogi. 1st ed. New York: Theosophical, 1946. Online. [oaks.nvg.org/pv6bk12.html]
Ebu: Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica 2006 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD. London: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2006.
Pa: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Autobiography of a Yogi. 11th ed. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1971.
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© November 2006, Tormod Kinnes. All rights reserved.