As Jesus taught, a man stood forth and said, Rabboni, may I speak? And Jesus said, Say on. And then the man spoke out and said, A storm upon the sea last night wrecked many fishing boats, and scores of men went down to death, and lo, their wives and children are in need; what can be done to help them in their sore distress? (Aquarian Gospel 114:1-4)
Jesus came with a spiritual message; but spiritual life and physical life go hand in hand, so Jesus asked the man to speak and tell of the need of the families of those who had drowned. For we are to love God above all, but our neighbors as ourselves secondly.
“A lawyer asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:35-40).
And Jesus said, A worthy plea. You men of Galilee, take heed. We may not bring again to life these men, but we can succor those who looked to them for daily bread. You stewards of the wealth of God, an opportunity has come; unlock your vaults; bring forth your hoarded gold; bestow it with a lavish hand. This wealth was laid aside for just times as these; when it was needed not, lo, it was yours to guard; But now it is not yours, for it belongs to those who are in want, and if you give it not you simply bring upon your heads the wrath of God. It is not charity to give to those who need; it is but honesty; it is but giving men their own. (Aquarian Gospel 114:5-9)
You stewards of the wealth of God, an opportunity has come; unlock your vaults; bring forth your hoarded gold; bestow it with a lavish hand. This wealth was laid aside for just times as these; when it was needed not, lo, it was yours to guard; but now it is not yours, for it belongs to those who are in want, and if you give it not you simply bring upon your heads the wrath of God. The chance to help others is a great benefit hardly paralleled by other advantages, yet how slow people can be to take advantage of it, and how many others pass it by, blinded by greed and ego. Only those who are awakened to a good extent can understand the great value of extending a hand to others. My maternal grandmother was a great healer and of great humility, yet she often said to me: “I believe I have ‘the gift of giving’”–and so she did. “It is more blessed to give than to receive,” are the words of Jesus himself quoted in the book of Acts (20:35) by Saint Paul.
Jesus here is telling us that our giving must be lavish; that first it was ours to accumulate, but then it belongs to those who need it. To withhold it is to rob them and to accumulate negative karma; to give it is to win tremendous wealth of spirit.
It is not charity to give to those who need; it is but honesty; it is but giving men their own. Where this negative practice of rejecting “charity” comes from is unknown to me, but it is my speculation that it has risen from Protestantism, the religion of the merchant class which insists that everyone work and make their own way, ignoring the economic realities that have always prevailed. At the time of the “Reformation” all the charities that were a part of Catholic Christian culture were suppressed and the resulting misery was beyond anything war had ever brought to Europe. “Vagrants” were driven out of the towns and formed wandering bands of robbers that terrorized the countryside. Many lay in the streets suffering and dying that before that had been clothed, fed and cared for by devout Catholics. I well remember attending a feeding of the poor in Varanasi. Hundreds were fed and given money and clothing. As they left, the man and woman who had arranged all this stood respectfully with joined hands and said Thank You to every one. This was dharma in living manifestation. As my friend Haridatta Vasudeva once said to me: “This is the glory of India.”
Then Jesus turned to Judas, one of the twelve, who was the treasurer of the band, and said, Bring forth our treasure box; the money is not ours now; turn every farthing to the help those in such distress.
Now, Judas did not wish to give the money all to those in want, and so he talked with Peter, James and John. He said, Lo, I will save a certain part and give the rest; that surely is enough for us, for we are strangers to the ones in want; we do not even know their names. But Peter said, Why, Judas, man, how do you dare to think to trifle with the strength of right? The Lord has spoken true; this wealth does not belong to us in face of this distress, and to refuse to give it is to steal. You need not fear; we will not come to want.
Then Judas opened up the treasure box and gave the money all. And there was gold and silver, food, and raiment in abundance for the needs of the bereaved. (Aquarian Gospel 114:10-18)
This incident shows us why Saint John in his Gospel says that Judas was a thief. Even worse, he tried to make other disciples participate in his unmerciful ways and brazenly defy the wishes of Jesus their Master. Just think of the great store of karma that was won when “there was gold and silver, food, and raiment in abundance for the needs of the bereaved,” yet Judas got not a drop of it because of his hard heart. And it was even more outrageous because the money was never his. So he did not even have a bad excuse for his ways. It is any wonder that he would betray Jesus for money?
A lawyer said, Rabboni, if God rules the worlds and all that in them is, did he not bring about this storm? did he not slay these men? Has he not brought this sore distress upon these people here? and was it done to punish them for crimes?
And we remember well when once a band of earnest Jews from Galilee were in Jerusalem, and at a feast and were, for fancied crimes against the Roman law, cut down within the very temple court by Pontius Pilate; and their blood became their sacrifice.
Did God bring on this slaughter all because these men were doubly vile?
And then we bring to mind that once a tower called Siloam graced the defenses of Jerusalem, and, seemingly, without a cause it tottered and it fell to earth and eighteen men were killed.
Were these men vile? and were they slain as punishment for some great crime? (Aquarian Gospel 114:19-25)
People continually take a fact, make it into a misleading half-truth and run with it eagerly without restraint. This is a clear example. “If God does everything, then isn’t he responsible?” What do they expect to be told? That God is guilty of all evil? I have been told that in Thailand when people are told that desire creates the troubles and miseries of humanity, the usual response is: “Well, isn’t the desire for Nirvana a desire?” As God told the prophet Hosea: “Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone” (Hosea 4:17).
And Jesus said, We cannot look upon a single span of life and judge of anything.
There is a law that men must recognize: Result depends on cause.
Men are not motes to float about within the air of one short life, and then be lost in nothingness. They are undying parts of the eternal whole that come and go, lo, many times into the air of earth and of the great beyond, just to unfold the God-like self.
A cause may be a part of one brief life; results may not be noted till another life.
The cause of your results cannot be found within my life, nor can the cause of my results be found in yours.
I cannot reap except I sow and I must reap whate’er I sow.
The law of all eternities is known to master minds: Whatever men do unto other men the judge and executioner will do to them. (Aquarian Gospel 114:26-34)
We cannot look upon a single span of life and judge of anything. If a person does not understand or at least know about the two principles of karma and reincarnation he can have no intelligible understanding of life. Without the perspective of these two basic facts, he can neither view nor live life in a comprehensible way. Unless we understand that our life is created by us we will assume that it is imposed on us by happenstance or by a whimsical dictatorial God that wills our confusion, suffering and despair. Believing that we are driven helplessly like a leaf before a blind and uncomprehending wind, we will undergo life rather than live it. The life situations of others will be equally misunderstood. This is a terrible situation, and one that ignorant religion in the West propagates with zeal.
There is a law that men must recognize: Result depends on cause. That is the law of karma. Nothing can happen except as a reaction to previous action. Therefore the present is a mirror of the past and a forecast of the future. Without this understanding we flounder in darkness from life to life.
Men are not motes to float about within the air of one short life, and then be lost in nothingness. They are undying parts of the eternal whole that come and go, lo, many times into the air of earth and of the great beyond, just to unfold the God-like self. Here Jesus adds the third truth that completes the picture: evolution of consciousness as the purpose of our very existence. No religion or world-view is true that does not present these three truths: karma, reincarnation, and evolution of the consciousness (soul). These are the very substance of our life which must be understood as the result of them together.
A cause may be a part of one brief life; results may not be noted till another life. No one escapes the consequences of thought, word and deed. And when we do not see the cause of a situation in this life we must realize it is the result of action in a previous life (or lives).
The cause of your results cannot be found within my life, nor can the cause of my results be found in yours. No one creates the situations of another’s life. Often we think that our life and those of others are directed or caused by other persons, that we are “innocent victims” of other’s actions. But that is not at all so. Others may be instruments of our karma, but the karma was produced by us.
I cannot reap except I sow and I must reap whate’er I sow. Karma is inexorable and inescapable. It is the substance of our life situation. There is nothing we experience that is not karmic creation and reaction. We make our fate: none other. Our life is in our hands and we must live in that perspective. But we can become masters of our destiny. That is the purpose of yoga.
The law of all eternities is known to master minds: Whatever men do unto other men the judge and executioner will do to them. Once someone remarked how sorry they felt for a young man who had a crippled foot. Yogananda responded: “He kicked his mother in a previous life. That is why he is a cripple now.” Masters have compassion and feel our pain, but they also know that it is all our doing.
We do not note the execution of this law among the sons of men. We note the weak dishonored, trampled on and slain by those men call the strong.
We note that men with wood-like heads are seated in the chairs of state; are kings and judges, senators and priests, while men with giant intellects are scavengers about the streets. We note that women with a moiety of common sense, and not a whit of any other kind, are painted up and dressed as queens, becoming ladies of the courts of puppet kings, because they have the form of something beautiful; while God’s own daughters are their slaves, or serve as common laborers in the field. The sense of justice cries aloud: This is a travesty on right.
So when men see no further than one little span of life it is no wonder that they say, There is no God, or if there is a God he is a tyrant and should die. (Aquarian Gospel 114:35-42)
Basically this is saying that fools rule foolishly and everyone suffers, including the fools. Furthermore, since karma and rebirth are not taken into account (or even accepted), when this mess is seen people are quick to say that God is not just or that there is no God. The only solution is for knowledge of karma and rebirth to pervade society in an intelligent and practical manner and for everyone to understand that no one is exempt from these laws.
If you would judge aright of human life, you must arise and stand upon the crest of time and note the thoughts and deeds of men as they have come up through the ages past.
For we must know that man is not a creature made of clay to turn again to clay and disappear. He is a part of the eternal whole. There never was a time when he was not; a time will never come when he will not exist.
And now we look; the men who now are slaves were tyrants once; the men who now are tyrants have been slaves. The men who suffer now once stood aloft and shouted with a fiend’s delight while others suffered at their hands.
And men are sick, and halt, and lame, and blind because they once transgressed the laws of perfect life, and every law of God must be fulfilled.
Man may escape the punishment that seems but due for his mis-doings in this life; but every deed and word and thought has its own metes and bounds, is cause, and has its own results, and if a wrong be done, the doer of the wrong must make it right.
And when the wrongs have all been righted then will man arise and be at one with God. (Aquarian Gospel 114:43-51)
If you would judge aright of human life, you must arise and stand upon the crest of time and note the thoughts and deeds of men as they have come up through the ages past. Only those of highest consciousness can really do this, so the message is that if we cannot do so, then we should be careful about forming an opinion regarding the external situations of ourselves and others. Yet we should keep the facts of karma and rebirth in mind as well as their purpose: evolution of consciousness.
For we must know that man is not a creature made of clay to turn again to clay and disappear. He is a part of the eternal whole. There never was a time when he was not; a time will never come when he will not exist. The truth that we are part of the Eternal should never be lost sight of, otherwise nothing can be understood by us about ourselves and the purpose of our many lives. Being part of the Eternal we have never come into being nor can we cease to exist. Jesus is echoing the verse of the Bhagavad Gita: “There was never a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor any of these kings. Nor is there any future in which we shall cease to be” (Bhagavad Gita 2:12).
And now we look; the men who now are slaves were tyrants once; the men who now are tyrants have been slaves. The men who suffer now once stood aloft and shouted with a fiend’s delight while others suffered at their hands. And men are sick, and halt, and lame, and blind because they once transgressed the laws of perfect life, and every law of God must be fulfilled. All our misfortunes originate in us, in our minds and hearts. What is being done to us was done by us in past lives. We are only experiencing our own deeds echoing back to us.
Man may escape the punishment that seems but due for his mis-doings in this life; but every deed and word and thought has its own metes and bounds, is cause, and has its own results, and if a wrong be done, the doer of the wrong must make it right. And when the wrongs have all been righted then will man arise and be at one with God. This is not a message of condemnation, but a presentation of the truth that has at its core the hope of ascension into higher life and consciousness. Karma is not punishment or blind reaction, but a leading into purification of mind and heart. When all the karmic forces have been manifested “then will man arise and be at one with God.” This is the message of supreme hope and of confidence in man and in God’s plan for him. This is Christianity.
Read the next section in the Aquarian Gospel for Yogis