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The First Miracle of Jesus

Hoffman's portrait of ChristPart 87 of the Aquarian Gospel for Awakening

The truth about marriage

“In Cana, Galilee, there was a marriage feast, and Mary and her sister Miriam, and Jesus and his six disciples were among the guests. The ruler of the feast had heard that Jesus was a master sent from God, and he requested him to speak.

“And Jesus said, There is no tie more sacred than the marriage tie. The chain that binds two souls in love is made in heaven, and man can never sever it in twain. The lower passions of the twain may cause a union of the twain, a union as when oil and water meet. And then a priest may forge a chain, and bind the twain. This is not marriage genuine; it is a counterfeit. The twain are guilty of adultery; the priest is party to the crime. And that was all that Jesus said” (Aquarian Gospel 70:1-7).

Elsewhere we will see that Jesus considered that very few people were capable of marriage in the real sense, that most people were just indulging desire and ego in some form, and that they were not really married, just living together in a dishonorable manner. Here we see the first of his teachings about marriage.

True marriage

There is no tie more sacred than the marriage tie. The chain that binds two souls in love is made in heaven, and man can never sever it in twain. Two basic facts about marriage–real marriage–are made clear.

  1. Marriage is a matter of divine love, not earthly passion, and it is undertaken only at the fiat of heaven for the purpose of fulfilling the highest spiritual karma: the furthering of the evolution of the man and woman. Married life is intended to be as dedicated and disciplined as any other aspect of the spiritual life. It is not for indulgence or whimsy, or to be lived according to the ideas of the world and society. It is to be as sacred and consecrated a mode of life as that of the monastics. For marriage is also a life of renunciation and total dedication, with no place for the desires of the ego. Who is capable of it? Very few, just as there are few able to be true monastics. Jesus is not giving this teaching for humanity in general. He is speaking only to Christines. The rest will have to muddle through until they awaken to the realization that only Christhood matters in this or any other world.
  2. The marriage tie cannot be severed. Marriage can be dishonored and betrayed–yes, sinned against–but it cannot be abrogated any more than the natural order of things, including the moral law innate in creation. We can dishonor our eternal relationship with God, but we cannot cancel it. The same is true of marriage.

False marriage

The lower passions of the twain may cause a union of the twain, a union as when oil and water meet. And then a priest may forge a chain, and bind the twain. This is not marriage genuine; it is a counterfeit. The twain are guilty of adultery; the priest is party to the crime. Through the ages there has been talk about “the battle of the sexes” and men accuse women and women accuse men of being unreasonable, thoughtless, selfish and unloving. That is natural, because Jesus says that an earthly, sensual, ego-based marriage is the joining of oil and water. The man and woman will really be at opposition to one another, two egos striving for the mastery. They can never be at one with one another, for their marriage is based on gender and socialization, not on spirit and striving for spiritual perfection. So they will remain irrevocably separate, isolated, even though living together. The marriage will either break apart externally (for it never even existed, internally), or be maintained as a prison for them both as their aversion for one another increases with the passing of time. A religionist cleric may have “blessed” their association, but it will will not be a genuine marriage, only a false appearance. “The twain are guilty of adultery; the priest is party to the crime.” This is a very severe pronouncement, but Jesus saw with a clear sight unknown to those around him. His words are true. The man and woman are just cohabiting like the lower forms of life. True humanity is also a rare thing, for it is the way to divinity.

The miracle of transmutation

“As Jesus stood apart in silent thought his mother came and said to him, The wine has failed; what shall we do?

“And Jesus said, Pray what is wine? It is but water with the flavoring of grapes. And what are grapes? They are but certain kinds of thought made manifest, and I can manifest that thought, and water will be wine.

“He called the servants, and he said to them, Bring in six water pots of stone, a pot for each of these, my followers, and fill them up with water to the brims. The servants brought the water pots, and filled them to their brims.

“And Jesus with a mighty thought stirred up the ethers till they reached the manifest, and, lo, the water blushed, and turned to wine.

“The servants took the wine and gave it to the ruler of the feast who called the bridegroom in and said to him, This wine is best of all; most people when they give a feast bring in the best wine at first; but, lo, you have reserved the best until last.

“And when the ruler and the guests were told that Jesus, by the power of thought, had turned the water into wine, they were amazed; they said, This man is more than man; he surely is the christed one who prophets of the olden times declared would come.

“And many of the guests believed on him, and gladly would have followed him” (Aquarian Gospel 70:8-18).

The first of the seven postulates of the New Age pronounced by the seven sages who had gathered to proclaim the Christhood of Jesus, was this: “All things are thought; all life is thought activity. The multitude of beings are but phases of the one great thought made manifest. Lo, God is Thought, and Thought is God” (Aquarian Gospel 58:17). That is why Jesus said: “What are grapes? They are but certain kinds of thought made manifest, and I can manifest that thought, and water will be wine.” Therefore “Jesus with a mighty thought stirred up the ethers till they reached the manifest, and, lo, the water blushed, and turned to wine.”

The subtlest element is ether, called akasha in Sanskrit. To change the water into wine Jesus attuned himself to the etheric level of water and changed it into wine since thought is the property of ether. Just as God thought the cosmos into existence, within it Jesus thought water into wine. Implied in this miracle is the truth that all things are composed of a single element: Divine Light. “God said, Let there be light: and there was light” (Genesis 1:3). Since all things are essentially one, a master yogi can seemingly change one thing into another, but it is only changed in appearance–the object remains what it always was: Light. The best exposition of this is the thirtieth chapter of Autobiography of a Yogi.

Why did Jesus tell the servants to bring in six water pots–a pot for each of his disciples that were present? Because his intended miracle was as much a symbol as an actuality. Just as Jesus was going to change the water in the pots into wine, so his greater miracle was going to be the transmutation of the inner consciousness of each disciple from human consciousness to God consciousness–which it already was in essence. In other words, whereas Jesus merely changed the externals of the water, he was going to reveal the eternal nature of the disciples.

That which comes from the hand of God is always superior to that which comes from the hands of men, so the “wine” of Jesus was much better than any other wine that had been served. Those who have been “christed” have changed themselves from water into wine, spiritually speaking.

Seeing something as material as water being changed into wine, “many of the guests believed on him, and gladly would have followed him,” but there is more to discipleship than belief and groupism. It is transmutation, and rare are those who can even grasp that concept, and rarer still are those who will undergo it, hearing and understand the dictum of Jesus: “Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33). For the “all” that must be forsaken is much, much more than mere material possessions and externals. Those who forsake all shall gain All.

Read the next section in the Aquarian Gospel for Yogis: Kings and Kingdoms

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The Aquarian Gospel—Commentary and Text

The Aquarian Gospel for Awakening—A Commentary on the Aquarian Gospel
by Swami Nirmalananda Giri (Abbot George Burke)

  1. The Mother of Jesus
  2. Prophecies of the Births of Saint John the Baptist and Jesus
  3. The Birth of Jesus
  4. Revelations in the Temple
  5. Coming of the Wise Men
  6. Herod’s Reaction
  7. Revelations in Egypt
  8. The Two Selfs
  9. Deliverance From Gods and Demons
  10. About God the Tao
  11. From India to Chaldea
  12. The Wisdom of Buddha
  13. God and Prayer
  14. The Mission of Jesus and John the Baptist
  15. Sin and the Forgiveness of Sin
  16. The Universal Law of Man’s Free Will and the Divine Will For Man
  17. Understanding Death
  18. The True Teacher
  19. The Value of Ritual
  20. The Law Behind All Laws
  21. Opening To The Truth
  22. In the Temple at the Age of Ten
  23. Revelation to the Teachers and People in the Temple
  24. Jerusalem to Nazareth
  25. Nazareth to India
  26. What is Truth?
  27. What Is Man?
  28. What is Power?
  29. Understanding
  30. Wisdom
  31. Faith
  32. Healing and Healers
  33. Conflict Over Caste
  34. The Destiny of All Men
  35. God and Man
  36. The Voice in the Heart
  37. Seeing the Unseeable
  38. To God Through Man
  39. Who Is Jesus?
  40. The Real Versus The Apparent
  41. The Brotherhood of Life
  42. God…and Man
  43. Relating To God
  44. The Worthy Host
  45. Come to the Light
  46. The Kingdom Revealed
  47. The King Revealed
  48. Perspective On Death
  49. Fire and Sword
  50. Evolution: The Path of Glory
  51. The Real Heaven
  52. Getting to the Essence
  53. New Perspective on Religion
  54. In Tibet and Ladakh
  55. Words to the Worthy
  56. The Thirty-Eighth Chapter
  57. The Origin of Evil
  58. The Silence
  59. The Source of Healing
  60. The Fivefold Gospel
  61. Homecoming
  62. In Athens
  63. The Oracle of Delphi
  64. The Real God
  65. Return to Egypt
  66. First Steps to Wisdom
  67. Strong in Will and Intent
  68. Here Comes the Ego
  69. Blessed are the Merciful
  70. Claiming Our Freedom
  71. The Great Test
  72. Comprehending Death
  73. The Christ!
  74. The Asembly of the Masters
  75. The Seven Pillars of the Aquarian Age – I
  76. The Seven Pillars of the Aquarian Age – II
  77. The Declaration of Jesus
  78. John the Baptist – I
  79. John the Baptist – II
  80. John the Baptist – III
  81. Baptism – Jesus and John
  82. Self-Examination and Temptation
  83. The First Disciples Follow Jesus
  84. Jesus’ First Sermon
  85. The King and the Kingdom
  86. Dealing With Challengers
  87. The First Miracle of Jesus
  88. Kings and Kingdoms
  89. The Temple of God
  90. What Is A Messiah?
  91. The Laws of Healing
  92. Nicodemus Finds The Kingdom
  93. The Prince of Peace
  94. Dealing With Spiritual Opposition
  95. The Opened Gate
  96. John the Baptist Speaks of the Christ
  97. John Speaks Further About Jesus
  98. The Woman at the Well
  99. The Disciples and Samaritans at the Well
  100. Jesus in Sychar
  101. More Wisdom In Samaria
  102. The Imprisonment of John the Baptist
  103. In Jerusalem
  104. The Insights of Jesus
  105. Sabbath Wisdom
  106. Prayer and Good Deeds
  107. Divine Laws and Principles for Seekers of the Divine
  108. A New Understanding of the Ten Commandments
  109. Aspects of the Higher Law – 1
  110. Aspects of the Higher Law – 2
  111. Aspects of the Higher Law – 3
  112. Aspects of the Higher Law – 4
  113. Chapter One Hundred One
  114. Chapter One Hundred Two
  115. Chapter One Hundred Three
  116. Chapter One Hundred Four
  117. Chapter One Hundred Five
  118. Chapter One Hundred Six
  119. Chapter One Hundred Seven
  120. Chapter One Hundred Eight
  121. Chapter One Hundred Nine
  122. Chapter One Hundred Ten
  123. Chapter One Hundred Eleven
  124. Chapter One Hundred Twelve
  125. Chapter One Hundred Thirteen
  126. Chapter One Hundred Fourteen
  127. Chapter One Hundred Fifteen
  128. Chapter One Hundred Sixteen
  129. Chapter One Hundred Seventeen
  130. Chapter One Hundred Eighteen
  131. Chapter One Hundred Nineteen
  132. Chapter One Hundred Twenty
  133. Chapter One Hundred Twenty One
  134. Chapter One Hundred Twenty Two
  135. Chapter One Hundred Twenty Three
  136. Chapter One Hundred Twenty Four
  137. Chapter One Hundred Twenty Five
  138. Chapter One Hundred Twenty Six
  139. Chapter One Hundred Twenty Seven
  140. Chapter One Hundred Twenty Eight
  141. Chapter One Hundred Twenty Nine
  142. Chapter One Hundred Thirty
  143. Chapter One Hundred Thirty One
  144. Chapter One Hundred Thirty Two
  145. Chapter One Hundred Thirty Three
  146. Chapter One Hundred Thirty Four
  147. Chapter One Hundred Thirty Five
  148. Chapter One Hundred Thirty Six
  149. Chapter One Hundred Thirty Seven
  150. Chapter One Hundred Thirty Eight
  151. Chapter One Hundred Thirty Nine
  152. Chapter One Hundred Forty
  153. Chapter One Hundred Forty One
  154. Chapter One Hundred Forty Two
  155. Chapter One Hundred Forty Three
  156. Chapter One Hundred Forty Four
  157. Chapter One Hundred Forty Five
  158. Chapter One Hundred Forty Six
  159. Chapter One Hundred Forty Seven
  160. Chapter One Hundred Forty Eight
  161. Chapter One Hundred Forty Nine
  162. Chapter One Hundred Fifty
  163. Chapter One Hundred Fifty-One
  164. Chapter One Hundred Fifty-Two
  165. Chapter One Hundred Fifty-Three
  166. Chapter One Hundred Fifty-Four
  167. Chapter One Hundred Fifty-Five
  168. Chapter One Hundred Fifty-Six
  169. Chapter One Hundred Fifty-Seven
  170. Chapter One Hundred Fifty-Eight
  171. Chapter One Hundred Fifty-Nine
  172. Chapter One Hundred Sixty
  173. Chapter One Hundred Sixty One
  174. Chapter One Hundred Sixty Two
  175. Chapter One Hundred Sixty Three
  176. Chapter One Hundred Sixty Four
  177. Chapter One Hundred Sixty Five
  178. Chapter One Hundred Sixty Six
  179. Chapter One Hundred Sixty Seven
  180. Chapter One Hundred Sixty Eight
  181. Chapter One Hundred Sixty Nine
  182. Chapter One Hundred Seventy
  183. Chapter One Hundred Seventy One
  184. Chapter One Hundred Seventy Two
  185. Chapter One Hundred Seventy Three
  186. Chapter One Hundred Seventy Four
  187. Chapter One Hundred Seventy Five
  188. Chapter One Hundred Seventy Six
  189. Chapter One Hundred Seventy Seven
  190. Chapter One Hundred Seventy Eight
  191. Chapter One Hundred Seventy Nine
  192. Chapter One Hundred Eighty
  193. Chapter One Hundred Eighty One
  194. Chapter One Hundred Eighty Two

The Text of the Aquarian Gospel—by Levi Dowling

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