We may get the answer when we learn to see as the
mystics see.
I think it is important to stress the fact that the
saints and seers of India are not the only ones the experience of Oneness with
God.
Many religious traditions recognizes the same
eternal Truth; and all great religious teachers have taught according to their
own intimate experience of God, their “mystical vision” -- whether it is called
samadhi, nirvana, fana (Sufi realization of God), or “union with God.
Since there
is but one ultimate Reality, which all share, each one who has experienced
Oneness has experienced that same ultimate Reality therefore; their experiences
are bound to be similar.
In the mystical experience, which transcends ordinary
religious traditions, cultures and languages, the Christian and the Vedantists
alike can come to the same realization, when they realize the oneness of their
union of their soul and God, or the Source of all existence.
It is this very experience, which Jesus explained at
various times to his disciples. He had known the great Unity in which he and
the Father of the universe were one:
“If you knew who I am,” he said, "you would
also know the Father. Knowing me, you know Him; seeing me, you see Him. Do you
not understand that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? It is the
Father who dwells in me doing His own work. Understand me when I say that I am
in the Father and the Father is in me."
John 14:10
This is also the truth that Vedanta speaks of as
“Non-Dualism.” The term, “Unity,” is, of course, the same in meaning; but it
seems that the declaration, “not-two, or there is only One” is more powerful
than a mere assertion of oneness.
Unity is often used by the religious in reference with
God, but they do not generally include themselves in that absolute Unity.
Non-Dualism,
the philosophy of absolute Unity, is the central teaching, not only of Vedanta,
but of all genuine seers of Truth. This position is embodied in the Vedantic
assertion, Tat Twam ASI, or That Thou Art.
Once we begin
looking at the teachings of Jesus in the light of his “mystical” experience of
Unity, we begin to have a much clearer perspective on all His aspects of the
life and teachings.
His teachings, like those of the various Vedantic
sages who’ve taught throughout the ages, that the soul of man is none other
than the one with Divinity, none other than God; and that this Divine Identity
can be experienced and known through the revelation that occurs inwardly, by
the grace of God, to those who prepare and purify their minds and hearts to
receive it.
The words of Jesus are known to us from our
childhood that, perhaps, they have lost their meaning through our over-familiarity
with them. He attempted to explain to us, with the words, “I and the Father are
one,” this “I,” is one’s own inner consciousness. It is identical to the Self, the
soul is in union with the Lord and Father of us all.
John10:30
Why, then, are we so unable to see it? Why should it
be so hard for us to attain to that purity of heart, which Jesus declared so being
essential? “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8).
Probably because we have not tried going off into
the wilderness, to jeopardize everything else in his life for this one aim, to attaining
the vision of God. Buddha attained this purity through meditation and so can
we.
We too can soften the heart, so that we are pure
enough to hear the call of Divine Grace and be of a “pure heart, of which that
Jesus spoke.
Much of what Jesus taught to his disciples was by
way of explaining to them that his real nature, and the true nature of all men
is Divine; and that the reality of this can be realized directly. Furthermore,
he taught them the path, or method, to follow in order to attain this direct
realization.
Let us look to his own words which attest to this:
In the Gospel book of John, he mourns to God, “O righteous Father, the world
has not known Thee, but I have known Thee.
John 17:25
And, as he sat among the orthodox Jews in the
temple, he said, “You say that He is your God, yet you have not known Him. But
I have known Him.”
Jesus had “known” God directly during a time of deep
prayer, probably during his time in the wilderness; and that experience had
separated him and effectively isolated him from his brothers, because he alone
among his contemporaries seemed to possess this rare knowledge of the truth of
all existence.
This is the difficult plight of all those who have
been graced with the vision of God. It is the greatest of gift; it is the
greatest of all possible visions. Because the “vision” of God is so difficult
to convey to those who had not experienced it, Jesus spoke often by way of
analogy or metaphor in order to make his meaning clear.
He spoke of the kingdom of God. His disciples asked
him, “When will the kingdom come?” Jesus said, “It will not come by waiting for
it. It will not be a matter of saying ‘Here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ Rather,
the kingdom of the Father is [already] spread out upon the earth, and [yet] men
do not see it."
Gospel of Thomas
"... Indeed, what you look forward to has
already come, but you do not recognize it."
The Pharisees asked him, “When will the kingdom of
God come?” He said, “You cannot tell by signs or by observations when the
kingdom of God will come. There will be no saying, 'Look, here it is!' or
'There it is!' For the kingdom of God is within you.”
Luke 17:20
Another of Jesus used the terms, light and darkness
to represent the Divinity and the inherent delusion of humankind, respectively:
Jesus said the
world’s images are manifest in man, but the Light in them remains concealed;
within the image is the Light of the Father. He becomes manifest as the images,
but, as the Light, He is concealed.
He said to them, “There is a Light within a man of
Light, and it lights up the whole world. If it does not shine, he is in
darkness.”
Matthew 5:16
These are terms, which have been used since time
immemorial to represent the Divine Consciousness in humankind and the hazy
ignorance, which obscures it. In the very first paragraph of the Gospel of
John, we find an excellent explanation of these two principles, and their Greek
synonyms, Theos and Logos;
"In the beginning was the Word, Logos, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God. He or It, was with God in the
beginning. All things were made by Him; without Him nothing was made. Within
Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of man. And the Light shone in the
darkness, but the darkness comprehended it not."
John 1:1
A word of explanation is necessary: These two terms,
"Light" and "darkness," are also indicative of the cosmic
aspects of Reality; in other words, they are not only the Divine Consciousness
in humankind and the darkness of unknowing, but they are, at a higher level,
the very Godhead and Its Power of manifestation.
They are those same two principles we have so often
run into, called “Brahman" and "Maya,” “Purusha" and "Prakriti,”
“Shiva" and "Shakti.” It is the Godhead in us, which provides the Light
in us; it is the manifesting principle, which, in the process of creating an
individual soul-mind-body, provides us with all the covering necessary to keep
us in the dark as to our infinite and eternal Identity.
Jesus said, “If they ask you, ‘Where did you come
from?’ say to them, ‘we came from the Light, the place where the Light came
into being of its own accord and established itself and became manifest through
our image.’ If they ask you, ‘Are you it?’ say, ‘We are its children, and we
are the elect of the living Father.’ If they ask you, ‘What is the sign of your
Father in you?’ say to them, ‘It is movement and repose (quietness).’
Jesus said, “I am the Light; I am above all that is
manifest. Everything came forth from me, and everything returns to me. Split a
piece of wood, and I am there. Lift a stone, and you will find me there.”
Here, Jesus
identifies with the Eternal Light; but he seems never to have intended to imply
that he was uniquely and exclusively identical with It; it should be clear that
his intention was always to convey the truth that all men are, in essence, the
transcendent Consciousness, manifest in form:
"Ye are
the Light of the world. Let your Light so shine before men, that they may see
your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."
Matthew 5:14-16
Frequently he declared to his followers that they
too would come to the same realization that he had experienced:
“I tell you this,” he said to them; “there are some
of those standing here who will not taste death before they have seen the
kingdom of God already come in full power.”
Mark 9:1
“The heavens and the earth will be rolled up in your
presence. And the one who lives from the living ONE will not see death. Have I
not said: ‘whoever finds his Self is superior to the world?
Gospel of Thomas
The teaching,
common to all mystics who have realized the Highest, that is: “You are the
Light of the world!" Thou art That! Identify with the Light, the Truth,
for That is who you really are!” Perhaps Jesus did not wish that this should
remain a mere matter of faith with his disciples; he wished them to realize
this truth for themselves.
And he taught
them the method by which he had come to know God. Like all great seers, he knew
both the means and the end; he knew both the One and the many. Thus we hear in
the message of Jesus an apparent ambiguity, which is necessitated by the
paradoxical nature of the Reality.
In the One, souls
and God play their love-game of devotion. At one moment, the soul speaks of
God, its “Father”; at another moment, it is identified with God, and speaks of
“I am.” Likewise, in the words of Jesus to his disciples, we see this same: At
one moment, he speaks of dualistic devotion in the form of prayer (“Our Father,
who art in heaven”); and at another moment he asserts his oneness, “the
Father and I are one."
And so, throughout the teachings of Jesus, one finds
these two, apparently contradictory, attitudes intermingled: the attitude of
the Jnani “I am the Light; I am above all that is manifest; and the attitude of
the bhakta “Father, father, why hast Thou forsaken me?”.
They are the two voices of the illumined man, for he
is both, the transcendent Unity and the imaged soul; he has “seen” this unity
in the “mystical experience.”
Jesus had experienced the ultimate Truth; he had
clearly seen and known it beyond any doubt; and he knew that the consciousness
that lived as him was the one Consciousness of all. He knew that he was the
living Consciousness from which this entire universe is born. This was the
certain, indubitable, truth; and yet Jesus found but few who could even
comprehend it. For the most part, those to whom he spoke were well-meaning
religionists who were incapable of accepting the profound meaning of his words.
The religious orthodoxy of his time, like all such
orthodoxies, fostered a self-serving lip-service to spiritual ideals, and
observed all sorts of symbolic rituals, but was entirely ignorant of the fact
that the ultimate reality could be directly known by a pure and devout soul,
and that this was the real purpose of all religious practice.
Jesus
realized, of course, that despite the overwhelming influence of the orthodox
religionists, still, in his own Judaic tradition, there had been other seers of
God, who had known and taught this truth. “I come,” said Jesus, “not to destroy
the law [of the Prophets], but to fulfill it.”
Matthew 5:17
He knew also
that any person who announced the fact that they had seen and known God would
be persecuted and belittled.
It is the common experience of all the great seers,
from Lao Tze to Meister Eckhart and St. John of the Cross. All were cruelly
tortured and persecuted for their goodness and wisdom. Jesus too found the
world of humankind wanting in understanding; he said:
"I took
my place in the midst of the world, and I went among the people. I found all of
them intoxicated (with pride and ignorance); I found none of them thirsty for
Truth. And my soul became sorrowful for the sons of men, because they are blind
in their hearts and do not have vision. Empty they came into the world, and
empty they wish to leave the world.
