Teachings of Jesus Archives

What Is the Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit?

Dove-blasphemy against the Holy Spirit Q: What exactly is the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit which cannot be forgiven?

First we should look at the Bible references to the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit:

“All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come” (Matthew 12:31-32, Luke 12:10).

The word translated “blasphemy” is blasfemia, which means to villify and rave against someone–even to curse and defame them. Intense hatred of the target is implied, also. The word translated “forgive” is afiemi, which means to banish, leave behind, omit, remit. It implies separation from, cessation or reversal. So this means to hate and work or speak against something and for the slate not to ever be wiped clean or the penalty cancelled.

Karma not to be neutralized

In a nutshell: whoever actively and intentionally defames or denounces the action of the Holy Spirit will suffer the consequences, the negative karma–not that they will be damned forever, but that they will absolutely pay off the karmic debt they created by their negativity.

All other karma can be neutralized by positive words and deeds, but not that karma, for it is self-destruction.

How do we blaspheme the Holy Spirit? It is not doing or speaking evil of a saint or master, because Jesus says:

Real Peace vs. Imitation Peace–Which Do You Prefer?

Saint Thomas Cross A Commentary on the Gospel of Thomas

Jesus said, If two make peace with each other in this one house, they will say to the mountain, “Move Away,” and it will move away. (Gospel of Thomas 48)

This actually has two meanings, one outer and one inner.

Outer peace

It is very easy for people to be friends when they meet only occasionally in the right setting. Some families hardly know each other after years because they never really spend much time in one another’s company. But when two people live together–really live together for many hours a day–they meet each other’s quirks and flaws and the entire array of aberrations and peculiarities they have gathered over a long succession of lives.

Considering the fact that this earth plane is the bottom rung of the evolutionary ladder it should not surprise us that prolonged exposure to one another does not conduce to endearment. Conflict is bound to arise and exasperation with one another’s failings, not the least of which is egotism in its many forms.

Often one of the two will be very passive and recessive and will suffer for decades without a word, often without even admitting to themselves what a misery their life has become. When this happens they have “a good relationship” or marriage or association.

Of course it is no such thing at all, quite the opposite, but because

Questions and Answers About Saint Thomas Christianity

Q: Only God IS. I AM THAT. I AM BRAHMAN. MY FATHER AND I ARE ONE. How do the teachings of Advaita, Veda, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, Ramayana fit with St. Thomas Christianity? Western Christianity? Eastern Orthodoxy? Catholicism?

The vital question is, how do those religious expressions fit with Sanatana Dharma? The degree of their agreement with Dharma is the degree of their validity. Dharma is the touchstone of all religious philosophy and practice.

The healings and miracles of Christ have been done by yogis before Christ and after. What does this mean and are these siddhis part of St. Thomas Christianity?

The meaning of Jesus’ miracles is simply that he, too was a yogi–and more, a perfectly realized master, an avatar. Since real Saint Thomas Christianity is the Sanatana Dharma taught by Jesus, certainly those siddhis have manifested. The pinnacle of the church in India was Saint Gregorios of Parumala, whose shrine is visited by thousand of Christians, Hindus and Moslems every day. His miracles are continuous. And Saint Gregorios was committed to the restoration of Dharma to the Saint Thomas Christian community.

Can a householder be a Saint Thomas Christian?

Certainly. Millions have been and are.

How can a St. Thomas Christian participate in Satsang?

That is a completely individual matter, but should not be limited to Christian groups.

Many believe Jesus taught in Kashmir and in fact is entombed in a Shrine in Kashmir. Some ancient Kashmiri texts point to Jesus in Kashmir, do you think this tomb is the tomb of Jesus?

How to Learn More About Jesus and His Teachings

Q: What is the most authentic document of Jesus’ teaching? The Gospel of Thomas? Are there others you would point to?

The Gospel of Thomas seems to be the most authentic. Certainly the four Gospels of the Bible contain his teachings, but mixed in with untrustworthy elements. Still, they should be read with the understanding that the sugar must be separated from the sand, as Sri Ramakrishna said about all scriptures. [Read The Gospel of Thomas for Awakening on our website or in print.]

The Second Coming of Christ by Yogananda [Available for download on our E-library] is invaluable in understanding Jesus’ teachings, as is his autobiography and the books of his public talks [see our post A Yogi’s Recommended Reading List.]

The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ is a remarkable document that does not claim to be infallible, but is also invaluable in understanding Jesus and the difference between THE Christ and A Christ. [Read online on our website and also The Aquarian Gospel for Awakening, a commentary.

The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ seems to be very much conformed to the idea of the narrators. Still, it is good to look into.

In The Christ of India the quotation from the Bhavishya Mahapurana is short but certainly authentic. There we see what Jesus thought of the religion of his land of birth and his definite adoption of Sanatana Dharma. [Also available in print.]

Atoning for Our Sins: The Problem with the Western View

aramaic gospels Q: You write in a Q&A section that Jesus did no such thing as pay for our sins. If that is the case, why does he say in Mark 10:45 that he came to give his life as a ransom for many? Or even more to the point, in Matthew 26:28 he says “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

One problem is that fact that the “original Greek” texts date from sometime after the beginning of the fourth century and have been made to conform to the theology of the Nicene or Constantinian version of Christianity. Even the Aramaic text was corrupted after this time and the Peshitta text was imposed on the Aramaic-speaking churches. Lamsa’s so-called “original” text is the Peshitta.

In the (Aramaic) Cureton Gospels we have the nearest to the original, but the “translation” published in 1894 is little more than a paraphrase of the King James gospels. One of our monks who was a linguist translated all four into English, but after his death the computer disk on which they were found was damaged by a company we gave it over to for transcription. We do have the gospel of John and Luke and hope to post them on our website in the future. But we cannot be sure there was not some meddling with those texts, though they are much older than the Greek.

From the beginning…

The root of the problem goes right back to just after the departure of Jesus from Israel to return to India. (See The Christ of India on our website.) In the ancient book of Kashmiri history, the Bhavishya Maha Purana, there is the following account of the meeting of a king of Kashmir with Jesus sometime after his return:

Sanatana Dharma: a Ploy or the Truth?

To an Indian Methodist bishop who wanted to visit us because: “Here in India I am deeply concerned about reaching Hindus with the Christian gospel, in a way acceptable to them in the language and form they understand. After a lot of research and browsing I have found your way of understanding and presentation of the Christian faith may be the answer to lead the majority community in India and diaspora to the TRUTH.”

Please look more carefully at our website, especially the article and book: The Christ of India. There you will see that our sole purpose is to demonstrate that Jesus of Nazareth travelled to India and became an orthodox Sanatana Dharmi. Then after living half of his life in India he returned to Israel as a teacher of Dharma and after three years returned to India where he lived the rest of his life in the Himalayas as a master yogi.

Those who would truly follow Jesus have only one option: the adoption and following of Sanatana Dharma–not that which is today called Christianity, but is only Churchianity.

What is Sanatana Dharma?

Since the teachings of Jesus were pure Sanatana Dharma, they can be learned from the eleven principal Upanishads (Isha, Kena, Katha, Prashna, Mundaka, Mandukya, Taittiriya, Aitareya, Chandogya, Brihadaranyaka, and Shvetashvatara), the Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Darshan (Yoga Sutras) of Patanjali. Anything that contradicts or adds to them is contrary to Dharma, and therefore contradictory to the original teachings of Jesus.

Hindus do not need “the Christian gospel,” which is a corruption of Jesus’ teachings, but they need to become more deeply aware of and grounded in traditional, authentic Sanatana Dharma.