The Serpent

Serpents are common symbols in many religions, belief systems and mystical traditions. Their meaning is translated variously as everything from the most evil to the most holy. The Serpent is either a deity or important symbol in Hindu, Ancient Egyptian, Ancient Mesopotamian,  Ancient Babylonian, Ancient Assyrian, Ancient Greek, Hopi, and many other religions, mystical traditions and cultures. How did a common symbol become widespread? It must have had a common origin or understanding.

Yogananda finds a blueprint of the yogic journey in the precise physiology of yoga practice as well as in Jesus’ words. One of the more obscure sayings of Jesus can be found in John 3:14–15. “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”

 Anyone acquainted with the subtle energies in yoga practice will recognize an old friend at the mention of the serpent. Yogananda once again seizes upon the yogic essence of these words when he writes:

The word “serpent” here refers metaphorically to man’s consciousness and life force in the subtle coiled passageway at the base of the spine, the matter ward flow of which is to be reversed for man to renascent from body attachment to superconscious freedom. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus spoke of his own physical body as “the Son of man,” as distinguished from his Christ Consciousness, “the Son of God.”

Jesus said that each son of man, each bodily consciousness, must be lifted from the plane of the senses to the astral kingdom by reversing the matter-bent out flowing of the life force to ascension through the serpent-like coiled passage at the base of the spine—the Son of man is lifted up when this serpentine force is uplifted, “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness.

Such is the “serpent force” the kundalini in the microcosm of the human body: the coiled current at the base of the spine, a tremendous dynamo of life that when directed outward sustains the physical body and its sensory consciousness; and when consciously directed upward, opens the wonders of the astral cerebrospinal centers.

Once there is talk of the kundalini current and the astral cerebrospinal centers, Yogananda’s discussion has gone beyond the mystical Christianity of the desert fathers and Meister Eckhart. We are now deeply immersed in the esoteric language of yoga meditation. Here Jesus is not just a mystic in the sense that he seeks God in the temple of inner silence. He is a yogi in the sense that he is fully cognizant of the flow of energy and the ascent of consciousness as one attains elevated states of consciousness.

For the conventional Christian, steeped in a 2,000-year tradition of Jesus as the savior of all humanity, past, present and future by freely giving himself over to crucifixion, this represents a reorientation of great proportions.

But as Yogananda delves into the life and background of Jesus, it becomes clear that the Gospels contain a universal esoteric message that has been awaiting full and systematic explication since the apostolic age. In Yogananda’s commentary, what had been veiled, obscure, and oblique is fully disclosed.

Coming unto the Father

The Second Coming of Christ tells the story of Christ’s life in chronological order. His birth, his travels, his ministry, his parables, his death, and his resurrection are narrated following the King James Version of the New Testament. This narrative is supported by Yogananda’s extensive commentary. The result is a massively annotated presentation of what might be called mystical Christianity or esoteric Christianity. Inherent in Yogananda’s view is the demonstrable fact that Jesus himself is a yoga master.

We must know Jesus as an Oriental Christ, a supreme yogi who manifested full mastery of the universal science of God-union, and thus could speak and act as a savior with the voice and authority of God. He has been westernized too much.

Jesus was an Oriental, by birth and blood and training. To separate a teacher from the background of his nationality is to blur the understanding through which he is perceived. No matter what Jesus the Christ was himself, as regards his own soul, being born and maturing in the Orient, he had to use the medium of Oriental civilization, customs, mannerisms, language, parables, in spreading his message.

Though, esoterically understood, the teachings of Jesus are universal, they are saturated with the essence of Oriental culture, rooted in Oriental influences which have been made adaptable to the Western environment.

When Jesus is seen as an Easterner, mystical Christianity breaks away from many deeply embedded traditions and beliefs.

First, mystical Christianity becomes a path of spiritual union rather than a path of salvation. The impediment against which the mystic works is a clouded and obscure vision of the immediacy of God. For the mystic, salvation consists not in a redemptive gesture from on high, but rather in grasping the reality that the individual self is now and always has been perfect, one with the Universal Self.

Second, mystical Christianity rends the heavy mantle of time that encumbers the believer’s journey toward redemption. In the temple of inner silence, God himself is immediately available to the accomplished aspirant. The mystical Christian is not constrained to look ahead to some kind of revelation or last judgment at the end of time. The end of time is literally a heartbeat away, and God’s full self-disclosure can happen at any moment.

Third, the physical body is not an impediment to coming face-to-face with God. No longer is the mystical Christian required to walk the path of faith where the best we can expect is to perceive as in 1 Corinthian 13:12,

 “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known”.

We have direct access to the fullness of cosmic consciousness in our present frail and mortal condition. The ancient and proven science of yoga can subdue and penetrate the natural turbulence of the body.

Thus, The Second Coming of Christ continues the legacy of the Sanatana Dharma—the perennial philosophy that proclaims the bliss of God as the overarching goal of all religious practice. This consummation is available to one and all, and the apparent exclusivity of Christ’s claim, “No man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6), becomes a promise to all humanity, irrespective of creed. Yogananda quotes his own guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar, in these words:

Jesus meant, never that he was the sole Son of God, but that no man can attain the unqualified Absolute, the transcendent Father beyond creation, until he has first manifested the “Son” or activating Christ Consciousness within creation. Jesus, who had achieved entire oneness with that Christ Consciousness, identified himself with it inasmuch as his own ego had long since been dissolved.

Yogananda elaborates further in his own words: The Christ Consciousness present in Jesus, and in all vibratory creation and phenomena, is the noumenon, “truth,” the primary substance and essence of life of everything in creation. No human being who is a part of vibratory creation can take his consciousness to Cosmic Consciousness, “the Father” which lies beyond vibratory creation and the immanent Christ Consciousness, without first experiencing the Christ-imbued Cosmic Vibration, or Holy Ghost, that manifests vibratory creation, then passing through the God-reflection of Christ Consciousness. In other words, to “come unto the Father” every human consciousness has to expand and attain realization of the Cosmic Vibration first, and then know Christ Consciousness, in order to reach Cosmic Consciousness

Here we have an exalted vision of what it means to “come unto the Father.” Far from being a guarded privilege available only to those who are Christians, it is the universal embrace of God extended to all his creatures irrespective of culture, ethnicity, or religion. Christ and the Holy Ghost are seen as way stations on the ascent to cosmic consciousness. And cosmic consciousness, or the “Father,” is the underlying base of every human soul.

For those who may have felt that traditional Christianity is devoid of the face-to-face experience of God, there is great assurance to be gained from The Second Coming of Christ. While commenting on passages built entirely on the conventional vocabulary of Christianity, Yogananda is able to pull to the surface the promise of truly ravishing experiences. Consider Yogananda’s words on the ascent of consciousness that is available through the Holy Ghost:

Desire limits the consciousness to the object of desire. Love for all good things as expressions of God expands man’s consciousness.

Desire limits the consciousness to the object of desire. Love for all good things as expressions of God expands man’s consciousness. One who bathes his consciousness in the Holy Ghost becomes unattached to personal desires and objects while enjoying everything with the joyousness of God within.

In deepest meditation, as practiced by those who are advanced in the technique of Kriya Yoga, the devotee experiences not only expansion in the Aum vibration “Voice from Heaven,” but finds himself able also to follow the microcosmic light of Spirit in the “straight way” of the spine into the light of the spiritual eye “ the dove descending from heaven

What did Yogananda have to say about the vast body of his writings? Here are his own words:

In these pages I offer to the world an intuitionally perceived spiritual interpretation of the words spoken by Jesus, truths received through actual communion with Christ Consciousness. They will be found to be universally true if they are studied conscientiously and meditated upon with soul-awakened intuitive perception. They reveal the perfect unity that exists among the revelations of the Christian Bible, the Bhagavad Gita of India, and all other time-tested true scriptures.

This is a bold and extraordinary assertion. The measure of its authenticity must be taken individually as each new reader reflects on the possibility that Krishna and Jesus, the towering avatars of East and West, were proclaiming the same message of eternal, liberating truth.