The feast was done and Jesus, Peter, James and John were sitting in the temple treasury. The nine had gone back to Capernaum. The people thronged the temple courts and Jesus said,
I am the lamp; Christ is the oil of life; the Holy Breath the fire. Behold the light! and he who follows me shall not walk in the dark, but he shall have the light of life. (Aquarian Gospel 135:1, 2)
Here is the true attainment of Jesus. He was a lamp, a vessel of the divine. Christ, the Only-begotten of the Father, the creator of the world known in Indian philosophy as Ishwara the Lord, was that which blazed within him as pure divinity. The fire which set the lamp alight was the Holy Spirit who brought about the conception of Jesus by the Virgin Mary. “And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). It is the Christ Consciousness within each one of us, just as it was in Jesus, that is the Light of Life.
A lawyer said, You witness for yourself, your witness is not true. And Jesus said, If I do witness for myself I speak that which is true, for I know whence I came and where I go. And no one else in flesh can testify for me, for none know whence I came, nor where I go. My works bear witness to the truth I speak. As man I could not speak the words of Holy Breath; and then my Father testifies for me. (Aquarian Gospel 135:6-8)
I know whence I came and where I go. We came from God and go to God. So a knower (jnani) knows God.
And no one else in flesh can testify for me, for none know whence I came, nor where I go. For none surrounding him knew God.
As man I could not speak the words of Holy Breath. Only those who have transcended humanity can speak directly from the Holy Spirit. Therefore we should be very slow to believe that someone’s words are the very words of God. I made this mistake for many years and it was detrimental to me and others. It is hard to realize that a god is not at all God. This is especially true within Indian religion because in popular Hinduism there is a tremendous amount of mythology that is just that: fantasy and superstition. This, too, is very hard to face. The spiritual knowledge of India produces a great deal of advancement in awareness and energy, and yoga even more. So just because a person has supernormal knowledge and radiates an amazing, even miraculous, energy is no reason to believe that he possesses spiritual realization. One of the most powerful spiritual deceivers I have ever met possessed incredible power, including the ability to transport himself from one point to another in a moment, know the future, heal and (according to a very truthful disciple of his I knew) raise the dead.
Compared to us the gods (karmadevas) are…gods. But not God. I have seen people in India that I fully believed were not human, but not being human is not the same as being God. Because of the unique atmosphere that pervades India things happen there that never could happen outside India. I am convinced that very highly evolved beings from other worlds occasionally (if not often) take physical birth in India and are mistaken for liberated masters and avatars. Often they have tremendous powers and live and move in a miraculous aura. But they are still samsarins, subject to samsara just like us, though of a far higher order than us. And in full sincerity on their part (and often not not sincerely) they can ruin the lives of those who revere them thinking they are so much more than they really are.
Saint Seraphim of Sarov, a Russian Orthodox saint, revealed that archangels can create entire worlds. Think of that! How awesome their mere presence must be. Yet they are only on the third rung of the evolutionary ladder. (See Robe of Light on ocoy.org.) So if they somehow get into earthly incarnation they will almost certainly be considered incarnations of God when they are not. Please remember this: evolution of itself is not wisdom. I have met highly evolved human beings that were in utter delusion. The same is true of any being however evolved until they are established in perfect realization. Until then it is chancy. Swami Ramdas of Anandashram said that a person can evolve to the final step of evolution and then fall back. Beware!
(By the way, in the West certain nature spirits do occasionally take birth. See The Secrets of Doctor Taverner by Dion Fortune. Also insane people often have supernatural powers and supernatural knowledge. They are crazy nevertheless.)
The lawyer said, Where does your father live? And Jesus said, You know me not or you would know my Father, and if you knew the Father you would know the son, because the Father and the son are one. I go my way and you shall find me not; for where I go you cannot come, because you do not know the way. You cannot find the way because your hearts are gross, your ears are dull, your eyes are closed. The light of life cannot shine through the murky veil that you have drawn about your hearts. You do not know the Christ and if the Christ be not within the heart there is no light. I come to manifest the Christ to men and you receive me not, and you will dwell in darkness and in the shadow of the grave till you believe the words I speak. But you will vilify the son of man, and lift him up and laugh to see him die. But then a little light will come and you will know that I am what I am. The people did not comprehend the meaning of the words he spoke. (Aquarian Gospel 135:9-18)
Where does your father live? Believe me, it is not impossible that the scribe (lawyer) meant this literally as a mockery. As mentioned previously, I once spoke to a large group of yogis at the Yogoda Satsanga in New Delhi. Before the time came for me to speak I was handed a piece of paper. On it I read something like this: “Dear honored guest. If God exists, can you tell us his postal address? What is his telephone number?….” The two men it came from obviously thought they were incredibly clever and putting me in my place. As someone once said: “The problem with ignorance is that it picks up confidence as it goes along.” So this kind of snide silliness is common among the deniers of God.
You know me not or you would know my Father, and if you knew the Father you would know the son, because the Father and the son are one. You cannot find the way because your hearts are gross, your ears are dull, your eyes are closed. The light of life cannot shine through the murky veil that you have drawn about your hearts. The Bhagavad Gita says: “One acts according to one’s prakriti. Even the wise man does so. Beings follow their own prakriti; what will restraint accomplish?” (Bhagavad Gita 3:33). Prakriti is the energy constitution of a person, his bodies gross and subtle, among which is the mind and intellect. The quality of these energies determines the way they behave and function. It is inescapable. Those with undeveloped and unrefined energies will have little if any spiritual perceptions or will have distorted perceptions. Only those who have evolved to a certain point can recognize higher truth, higher teachings and higher teachers. There is no way you can teach this: it either happens or it does not. That is why Jesus spoke of eyes to see and ears to hear.
You do not know the Christ and if the Christ be not within the heart there is no light. Of course Christ the Indwelling Light is always within the heart; Jesus means if he is not perceived as present there. This sentence also conveys a very important truth: no amount of outer religious experience means anything; we must be aware of God within us. Otherwise we are in the dark spiritually and intellectually speaking.
I come to manifest the Christ to men and you receive me not, and you will dwell in darkness and in the shadow of the grave till you believe the words I speak. “In darkness and in the shadow of the grave” is a perfect description of life on this earth without God-consciousness. Once after many years I visited my former home and family. Afterward I told my aunt that had given me the gift of spiritual teaching even as little child (she first started when I was only two): “In case you wonder how I feel seeing all my cousins whose way of life I turned from long ago, I will tell you. They are all sitting in their graves waiting to die outwardly since they are already dead inside.” At that time I had not read these words of the Aquarian Gospel.
But you will vilify the son of man, and lift him up and laugh to see him die. But then a little light will come and you will know that I am what I am.
The “little light” was the Resurrection, Ascension and Pentecost! Jesus meant that for them it would be only a little light. They would realize that Jesus was not crazy or deluded, but a supernatural personality, and that would be the end of it. For those in tune, these three events illumined and changed their lives and consciousness forever. Christianity in its right and positive aspects is still running on the power of every moment of Jesus’ earthly life, and especially those three. Every year the Church is renewed in the holy Liturgy (Mass) on the anniversary of those days, as well as others. The Church is still just as it came from the hands of Christ nearly two thousand years ago by means of the Liturgy and the Sacraments. Its life has not diminished at all: it is all a matter of being able to access that abundant life (John 10:10).
And then he spoke unto the people who believed in him and said, If you abide in Christ, and Christ abide in you, and if you keep my words within your heart, you are the way, you are disciples in the way, and you shall know what is the truth, and truth shall make you free. (Aquarian Gospel 135:19, 20)
Everyone is willing to believe that Jesus is the light of the world (John 8:12; 9:5), but not that they, too, are the light of the world (Matthew 5:14). They do not want the responsibility and obligation to become Christs themselves. Like Jesus we must all be for the world the way, the truth and the life (John 14:16). This is “the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14).
And still the people did not understand; they said, We are the seed of Abraham and are already free; we never were the slaves of any man; why do you say, We shall be free? And Jesus said, Do you not know that every one committing sin is slave of sin? abides in bondage unto sin? If you sin not then you are free; but if you sin in thought, or word, or deed, then you are slaves, and naught but truth can set you free; if you are free through Christ, then you are free indeed. You are the seed of Abraham, and yet you seek to kill me just because I speak the truth of Abraham. You are the children of the flesh of Abraham; but, lo, I say, There is a spiritual Abraham whom you know not. In spirit you are children of your father, and your father is Diabolos; you hang upon his words and do his will. He was a murderer from the first; he cannot tell the truth, and when he tells a lie he speaks his own; he is himself a lie, and he is father of himself. If you were children of my Father-God, then you could hear the words of God; I speak the words of God, but you can hear them not. (Aquarian Gospel 135:21-28)
Do you not know that every one committing sin is slave of sin? abides in bondage unto sin? If you sin not then you are free; but if you sin in thought, or word, or deed, then you are slaves, and naught but truth can set you free; if you are free through Christ, then you are free indeed. The idea of never failing (for sin means to fall short–Greek: amartano) is incredible, but it must be striven for and attained at some point in our evolution. We must not adopt our own definition of sin or failing or fault. That which is less than true, less than just and less than an expression of love and mercy is a sin. We can hope that absolute perfection in this can be delayed until life in other worlds, but we must live as though it cannot.
The only real freedom comes when we begin consciously living fully in God, in Christ.
You are the seed of Abraham, and yet you seek to kill me just because I speak the truth of Abraham. You are the children of the flesh of Abraham; but, lo, I say, There is a spiritual Abraham whom you know not. “The truth of Abraham” is the reality of the coming of Jesus and the transformation he would bring about in those who were ready and able, even until right now, this very moment. Abraham was a great initiate, a disciple of the master Melchisedec. In Chapter Ten we read: “In Chaldea, Brahm was known. A pious Brahm named Terah lived in Ur; his son was so devoted to the Brahmic faith that he was called A-Brahm; and he was set apart to be the father of the Hebrew race” (Aquarian Gospel 10:6). Abraham was a Brahmin a scion of the Yadava Clan of India, the family of Krishna which afterward emigrated into the Middle East. This is the spiritual Abraham who was destined to be born as Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah.
In spirit you are children of your father, and your father is Diabolos; you hang upon his words and do his will. He was a murderer from the first; he cannot tell the truth, and when he tells a lie he speaks his own; he is himself a lie, and he is father of himself. If you were children of my Father-God, then you could hear the words of God; I speak the words of God, but you can hear them not. (Aquarian Gospel 135:26-28)
If you were children of my Father-God, then you could hear the words of God; I speak the words of God, but you can hear them not. This is not a condemnation, but a statement of fact: Those not sufficiently evolved to intuit spiritual realities, or who are, but through their own actions have silenced or dulled their inner faculties, are incapable of realizing those realities. The first group is not at all responsible: they cannot reasonably be expected to understand and follow. The second group is fully responsible and is creating even more negative karma for themselves. Both groups should be left alone: the first until they evolve sufficiently and the second until their hearts are purified enough to resume intelligent spiritual life of their own volition. We should just keep on doing what we know to do, refining and purifying ourselves through the holy life and meditation.
A Pharisee stood forth and said, This fellow is not one of us he is a curst Samaritan and is obsessed. But Jesus heeded not the words of Pharisee or scribe; he knew that all the people knew he was a Jew. And then he said, Whoever keeps my words shall never die. A lawyer said, And now we know he is obsessed. Our father Abraham is dead; the prophets all are dead, and yet this fellow says, Whoever keeps my words shall never die. Is this man greater than our Father Abraham? Is he above the prophets? and all of them are dead. And Jesus said, Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad. The lawyer said, You simple man; you are not fifty years of age; have you seen Abraham? And Jesus said, Before the days of Abraham I am. Again the scribes and Pharisees were in a rage; they took up stones to cast at him, but, like a phantom of the night, he disappeared; the people knew not where he went. (Aquarian Gospel 135:29-37)
Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad. Abraham was shown his spiritual destiny as the coming Messiah, Jesus, and rejoiced in it.
Before the days of Abraham I am. Jesus is denying the present doctrine of nearly all Churchianity that the soul comes into existence at the moment of conception. Those who heard him understood or intuited that he was declaring his own eternity, and since they believed that only God was eternal they considered he was blaspheming. When Jesus had said: “I and my Father are one,” his hearers actually took up stones to kill him. “Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me? The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?” (John 10:32-36). Saying we are one with God is not saying we are the same as God in the sense of being the infinite God. Rather, we are a part of God, living eternally in his eternal Being, drawing our total existence from him. In that way we and God are one. We are god but not God.
Read the next section in the Aquarian Gospel for Yogis