Easter Message - Resurrecting the Christ

Behold thine immortal Self resurrected with Christ in the illuminating Light of Christ Consciousness, present in every soul, every flower, and every atom.

                                                                                 Paramahansa Yogananda

Let us be one with Christ Consciousness

When we open our inner eyes of soul wisdom, we behold the omnipresent Light of God. Within this Light is the consciousness of Christ, the "Son" or pure reflection of God present everywhere in the universe. This Christ Consciousness, the Infinite Christ, is God's intelligence and love knocking on our souls, urging us that all we have to do is look to this Light within and we shall see all ignorance and diversities vanish. To him who has opened his inner eye, everything is One.

Resurrection means that the universal Spirit present in all creation as the Christ Consciousness is constantly being resurrected, awakened or manifested in everything. Whenever we do away with ignorance and think good thoughts, Christ is being resurrected within us; that is, the Christ Consciousness that was fully manifested in Jesus is awakening within us.

Resurrection is not the power of Spirit in the body of Jesus only; Spirit is in everyone. Nor does man have to die in order to resurrect Spirit. The physical resurrection of Christ was only part of the lesson of his life. Every time we give up a weakness and feel happy in being good, Christ is resurrected anew. We can bring Christ Consciousness within us right now.

We have to resurrect our calmness from restlessness; resurrect our wisdom from the earthliness of ignorance; resurrect our love from mundane human attachment with its limited love for family, society, and country, to divine love for all.

To find the real Christ, we must expand your consciousness as Jesus did. The physical way of practicing what Christ taught is to behave toward all as the children of our Father, and the spiritual way is to meditate until we feel the vast joy of God through the Christ Consciousness. Universal brotherhood will not come until, by deep concentration and devotion, we withdraw our restless thoughts and feelings and sit in the temple of our soul, where the vast joy of God expands and engulfs this world.

We understand resurrection in its true sense when we comprehend the yoga science that clearly defines the underlying principles by which Jesus resurrected his crucified body into the freedom and light of God.

Jesus' resurrection was little understood, and much disbelieved even though he made himself visible to hundreds of people and not only to his close disciples. In those days they comprehended only that Jesus was dead and then he was alive, but they did not understand the science and art of ascension and resurrection, as is defined in the timeless scriptures of Yoga.

No other science has detailed the descent of the individualized consciousness of God as the soul into man and its evolutionary and spiritual ascent back into Spirit.

A prayer for Easter Morning: "Heavenly Christ, saturate our consciousness with Thy consciousness. Give us a new birth in Thee."

"At this sacred time of Easter, when we honor the life and resurrection of Lord Jesus Christ, may we awaken anew to the presence of his infinite consciousness in the unfolding of God's beauty in nature, in every impulse to reach out to others with empathy and love, and in the growing awareness of His joy within our soul."

Happy Easter!