The Cosmic Christ

What do we mean by Cosmic Christ? For this we need to make a leap in consciousness and accept the concept that Christ is beyond Christianity.

Cosmic Christ, Christ Intelligence, Christ consciousness, Infinite Christ all denote the same meaning.

For 2000 years Christian life is focused primarily on Jesus, which is wonderful. Christians do believe in Jesus Christ. Yet we must realize that Christ was not Jesus’ last name. Jesus and Christ came together in the one person of Jesus.

 This is for most people a new way of thinking. So let us develop the idea further. We have to look at this in two different ways. Jesus has existed in Christianity for 2000 years. The Christ of God has existed from all eternity. The Christ is born from the moment God decides to show himself by materializing creation, which according to standard theory was about 13.8 billion years ago.

In a moment of time this cosmic Christ is revealed to us in a human person called Jesus who could be seen, touched, spoken with and listened to. The mystics understood this, but mainstream Christianity has largely been concerned with the historical person Jesus. You may say, that this is heresy, but

the concept of the cosmic Christ can be checked out in the Bible, however we have never been taught it, or ministers and priest have not understood it. The following examples give us a precise insight. In the (prologue of John’s gospel), ‘God's unifying principle for all of creation’; the hymn at the beginning of Colossians, the hymn at the beginning of Ephesians, 1^st chapter of John’s 1^st letter, they all say ‘the Christ existed from eternity’. Even in the creation story it is said that God created everything

Paul speaks of Christ not only as pre-existent, but also as

Cosmic, that is, he finds in Christ "the key to creation”

The doctrine of the ‘pre-existence’ of Christ asserts the ontological or personal existence of Christ before his incarnation. One of the relevant Bible passages is John 1:1–18 where, in the Trinitarian interpretation, Christ is identified with a pre-existent divine hypostasis called the Logos or Word.

Colossians 1:17 He is before all things, and in him all ... - Bible Hub, biblehub.com/Colossians/1-17.htm, he existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together. ... Colossian 1:15-23 Christ in his human nature, is the visible discovery of the invisible ... He was born or begotten before all the creation, before any creature was made; which is the Scripture way of representing eternity, and by which the eternity of ...

And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. . . also Colossian 1- 17.

There are places in the Bible that refer to God existing or acting “before” there was any creation or any time. “For he [God the Father] chose us before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight...” (Ephesians 1:4).

In Jesus’ own words, His eternal splendor is expressed as He speaks of “the glory you [God] have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world” (John 17:24). More noteworthy, Jude 25 proclaims glory, majesty, dominion, and authority to God “before all ages, now and forevermore.” Remarkably Jude’s three-part sequence indicates past-present-future, signifying that this phrase in the original Greek text, ’pro panto tou aiwnos’, is accurately translated “before all time.”

When we ignore the Christ in Jesus, we lose his Cosmic Dimension. We need to realize, that the Cosmic Christ was fully expressed in the body called Jesus. When Spirit started to reveal itself through matter, we call it creation.

‘For we know that all the rest of creation has been groaning with the pains of childbirth up to the present time’ Romans

8: 22 (ISV).

This passage expresses the co-existence of matter and spirit.

When we realize what the Cosmic Christ means, we begin to understand, that as children of God, we also do have our existence in Christ. We are Christ like. To be in Christ is what is referred to in 2 Corinthian 5, ‘to be a new creation’.

 For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands, (NIV).

What this tells us, is that we need to transcend our current dualistic thinking and let the power of the Cosmic Christ reign in us. We have to accept that we are that energy that can brings about a change in us and hence in the social order, where ultimately all divisions are transcended, where we do not think of male and female, but as living  souls having our being in Christ. Our current thinking has to be surrendered to the power of spirit, that is, that energy and force that is moving us toward the process of being one, rather than seeing ourselves as two. This, I accept is a leap in consciousness for most of us, but we have to start thinking this way, since seeing division and separation in everything, in families, in societies, in religions and in nations will lead us nowhere. We can look upon Christ as the first fruit in our upward movement in the mystery of the Divine.

Paramahansa Yogananda (1893 – 1952) in his book the Second Coming of Christ similarly stated that Jesus came 2000 years ago and after imparting a universal path to God’s kingdom was crucified and resurrected; his appearance now to the masses is not necessary for the fulfillment of his teachings. What is necessary is for the Cosmic Wisdom and for the divine perception of Jesus to speak again through each one’s own experience and understanding of the infinite Christ consciousness that was incarnate in Jesus.

Yogananda also stated the difference between Jesus and Christ. In his human body called Jesus was born the vast Christ Consciousness, the omniscient Intelligence of God omnipresent in every particle of creation. This consciousness is the ‘only begotten Son of God’ so designated because it is the sole perfect reflection in creation of the Transcendental Absolute Spirit or God the Father.

It was of that Infinite Consciousness, filled with love and bliss of God that Saint John spoke when he said: “as many as receive him (the Christ Consciousness), to them gave he the power to become sons of God. Thus according to Jesus’ own teachings as recorded by Saint John, all souls who become united with Christ consciousness are called Sons of God.

It should be noted, that there are vast differences between theoretical religion and philosophy and their actual practice.

For this purpose we will divide philosophy into three parts, ethical, psychological and metaphysical.

a

)   a)  Ethics – scriptural truth as applied to material life, sets forth the science of human duty, moral laws, how to behave.

     b)    Psychology – truth applied to mental well being, it teaches how to analyze oneself; for no spiritual progress can be made without introspection and self-study by which one endeavors to find out what he is, so that he can correct himself and become what he should be.

     c)     Metaphysical – truth pertaining to the spiritual dimension of life, explains the nature of God and the science of knowing Him.

These taken together and put into practice, constitute religion.

We generally assume that great ones such as Jesus, Krishna and other divine incarnations are gone from earth, when they are no longer visible to the human sight. Jesus Christ is very much alive and active today in spirit and taking on occasionally a flesh and blood form, he is working unseen by the masses for the regeneration of the world.

Christian denominations and teachers have done much good keeping the thought of Jesus alive by reciting his life and words, but they have not given or taught God contact to their congregation. Most ministers and priests are chosen for their personality, oratory power, organizational ability and theological degrees, but not according to their Self or God realization.

To save souls one must first save oneself. God contact is evidenced in a holy life, where the ego is diminished and replaced with an ever increasing love for God and the desire to do His will.

We have touched on the Cosmic Christ, on Christ Consciousness, shown biblical evidence that the person Jesus and the Christ are different, but came together in Jesus. We have also touched on the need of Self knowledge and our relationship to the Infinite; we mentioned that the great ones are as alive today as they ever been, even though we cannot see them. This is part of the mystery we need to ponder for ourselves. In addition we have explored the real meaning of religion.

The next step is for us to expand our consciousness from passively relying on what we have been taught, to awaken to the deeper meaning of spiritual life. We will know that we are on the right track, when we feel the peace that is beyond all understanding and live every day in joy, no matter what the outer circumstances may present to our lives.