What did Jesus (and the Comforter) ask people to "believe"? - 4
"By the time the New Testament was written, Jewish apocalyptic writings (symbolic or cryptographic literature portraying God’s dramatic intervention in history and catastrophic dramas at the end of a cosmic epoch) had already produced theories of history that reworked Indo-Iranian notions about the ages of the world. Iranian concepts most influenced Christian views of time, history, and ultimate human destiny. The prophet Zoroaster (c. 7th century BC) and his followers in Iran taught a doctrine of the four ages of the world in which each age was a different phase of struggle between two kinds of powers—light and darkness, goodness and evil, spirit and matter, infinity and finitude, health and sickness, time and eternity. The forces of good and evil battled for the allegiance and the souls of human beings. In the last days a promised savior (Saoshyant) would pronounce final judgement and announce the coming of a new world without end in which truth, immortality, and righteousness would have everlasting reign."
What did Jesus ask people to "believe"?
"Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and
saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent and
believe the gospel." (Mark 1:14-15)
Jesus' exhortation to "believe the gospel" does not refer to study of or
belief in scriptural writings per se.[1] In the original Greek in which the New
Testament was written, the word used for gospel is 'euangelion', "good news" or
"good message." As used by Jesus it expressed the "good message," the
revelations of truth, he was bringing to man from God.
When Jesus said to "believe the gospel," he meant more than a casual mental
acceptance of his message. Belief in general is that conditional receptive
attitude of mind that must precede an experience in order to cognize it. One
must have sufficient belief in a concept in order to put it to the test, without
which one cannot possibly verify its validity. If a man is thirsty and
is advised to quench his thirst with the water from a nearby good well, he must
believe in that advice sufficiently to make the effort to go to the well and
drink from it.
Similarly, Jesus emphasizes that truth-seeking souls must not only repent of the
foolishness of following unsatisfying material ways of living, and believe in
the truths experienced by him through God; they must also act accordingly that
they might realize those truths for themselves.
To be an orthodox unquestioning believer in any spiritual doctrine, without the
scrutiny of experimentation to prove it to oneself, is to be ossified with
dogmatism. Jesus did not ask the people merely to believe in his message, but to
keep faith in his divine revelations with the assurance that by believing in,
and hence concentrating upon, the gospel, they would surely and ultimately
experience within themselves the truths in those revelations. Belief is wasted
on false doctrines; but truth poured out to man through the authority of
God-realized saints is worthy of belief and sure to produce divine realization.
Even on the authority of the fame of scriptural text, one cannot judge what it
teaches, for various are the meanings and consequent distortions drawn from holy
writ, some of which defy the laws of both reason and wisdom. Also, who can deny
what errors might have come down through the centuries in the form of
mistranslations or mistakes made by scribes? The Bible and the Vedas may well be
inspired texts that came from heaven, but the ultimate test of truth is one's
own realization, direct experience received through the medium of the soul's
omniscient intuition."
The Second Coming of Christ (The Resurrection of the Christ Within
You) Volume 1, Discourse 22, pg. 378-379
Paramahansa Yogananda
Printed in the United States of America 1434-J881
ISBN-13:978-0-87612-557-1
ISBN-10:0-87612-557-7
Notes:
[1] "While two of the New Testament gospels use the word 'gospel' (it is missing
in Luke and John), they use it to indicate not the written works themselves, but
rather the message preached either by Jesus (in Matthew) or about him (in Mark).
Not until the middle of the second century are documents about the words and
deeds of Jesus called gospels." - Robert J. Miller, ed., 'The Complete Gospels:
Annotated Scholars Version' (HarperSanFrancisco, 1994).
"The English word 'gospel' is a descendant of the Anglo-Saxon word 'godspel' or
'good news'. 'Godspel' was an accurate equivalent of the original Greek word
'euangelion', literally a 'good message' or 'good tidings'. And the oldest
surviving Greek manuscript copies of the four canonical gospels bear only the
headings. According to Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John (the four books together
comprise the whole of the single 'gospel'; and the word 'canonical' derives from
the Greek 'kanon' or 'measuring rod' and indicates, in this case, those few
gospels that were approved as holy scriptures by the orthodox church of the late
second century)." - Reynolds Price, 'Three Gospels' (New York: Simon and
Shuster, 1997). ('Publisher's Note')
"The Kingdom of God that we were promised is at hand. This is not a
phrase out of a sermon or a lecture, but it is the actualization of
the experience of the highest Truth which is Absolute, now
manifesting itself in ordinary people at this present moment."
Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi
“And Jesus spoke again unto the eleven and said, "Grieve not because
I go away, for it is best that I should go away.
If I do not go away the Comforter will not come to you.
These things I speak while with you in the flesh, but when the Holy
Breath shall come in power, lo,
She will teach you more and more, and bring to you remembrance all
the words I have said to you.
There are a multitude of things yet to be said; Things that this age
cannot receive because it cannot comprehend.
But, lo, I say, before the great day of the Lord shall come, the Holy
Breath will make all mysteries known —
The mysteries of the soul, of life, of death, of immortality, the
oneness of man with every other man, and with his God.
Then will the world be led to truth, and man will be truth.
When She has come, the Comforter, She will convince the world of sin,
and of truth of what I speak,
And of the rightness of the Judgment of the just; And then the prince
of carnal life will be cast out.
And when the Comforter shall come, I need not intercede for you; For
you shall stand approved,
And God will know you then as he knows Me.”
The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ 162:4-11
The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ
Introduction by EVA S. DOWLING, Ph.D.
What is an Age? Astronomers tell us that our sun and his family of
planets revolve around a central sun, which is millions of miles
distant, and that it requires something less than 26,000 years to
make one revolution. His orbit is called the Zodiac, which is divided
into twelve signs, familiarly known as Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer,
Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and
Pisces. It requires our Solar System a little more than 2,100 years
to pass through one of these signs, and this time is the measurement
of an Age or Dispensation. Because of what Astronomers call "the
precession of the Equinoxes" the movement of the sun through the
signs of the Zodiac is in order reverse from that given above. Exact
Time of the Beginning of an Age. Regarding this matter there is a
disagreement omong astronomers; but in this Introduction we are not
called upon to give the reasons of the various investigators for
their opinions; there are enough well authenticated facts for our
present purposes. It is conceded by all critical students that the
sun entered the zodiacal sign Taurus in the days of our historic Adam
when the Taurian Age began; that Abraham lived not far from the
beginning of the Arian Age, when the sun entered the sign Aries.
About the time of the rise of the Roman empire the sun entered the
sign Pisces, the Fishes, and the Piscean Age began, so that early in
this Age Jesus of Nazareth lived.
What is the Piscean Age? This question requires further
consideration. The Piscean Age is identical with the Christian
Dispensation. The word Pisces means fish. The sign is known as a
water sign, and the Piscean Age has been distinctly the age of the
fish and its element, water. In the establishment of their great
institutions John the Harbinger and Jesus both introduced the rite of
water baptism, which has been used in some form in all the so-called
Christian Churches and cults, even to the present time. Water is the
true symbol of purification. Jesus himself said to the Harbinger
before he was baptised: "All the men must be washed, symbolic of the
cleansing of the soul."(Aquarian Gospel 64: 7.) Fish was a Christian
Symbol. In the earlier centuries of the Christian Dispensation the
fish was everywhere used as a symbol. In his remarkable book,
"Christian Iconography," Didron says: "The fish, in the opinion of
antiquarians generally, is the symbol of Jesus Christ. The fish is
sculptured upon a number of Christian monuments, and more
particularly upon the ancient sarcophagi. It is also upon medals,
bearing the name of our Saviour and also upon engraved stones, cameos
and intaglios. The fish is also to be remarked upon the amulets worn
suspended from the necks by children, and upon ancient glasses and
sculptured lamps. "Baptismal fonts are more particularly ornamented
with the fish. The fish is constantly exhibited placed upon a dish in
the middle of the table, at the Last Supper, among the loaves, knives
and cups used at the banquet." In the writings of Tertullian we find
this statement:"We are little fishes in Christ our great fish." The
last two thousand years, comprising the Piscean Age, has certainly
been one of water and the many uses of that element have been
emphasised, and sea and lake and river navigation has been brought to
a high degree of efficiency.
What is the Aquarian Age? The human race is to-day standing upon the
cusp of the Piscean-Aquarian Ages. Aquarius is an air sign and the
New Age is already noted for remarkable inventions for the use of
air, electricity, magnetism, etc. Men navigate the air as fish do the
sea, and send their thoughts spinning around the world with the speed
of lightning. The word Aquarius is derived from the Latin word aqua,
meaning water. Aquarius is however, the water bearer, and the symbol
of the sign, which is the eleventh sign of the Zodiac, is a man
carrying in his right hand a pitcher of water. Jesus referred to the
beginning of the Aquarian Age in these words: "And then the man who
bears the pitcher will walk forth across an arc of heaven; the sign
and signet of the Son of Man will stand forth in the eastern sky. The
wise will then lift up their heads and know that the redemption of
the earth is near." (Aquarian Gospel 157: 29, 30.) The Aquarian Age
is pre-eminently a spiritual age, and the spiritual side of the great
lessons that Jesus gave to the world may now be comprehended by
multitudes of people, for the many are now coming into an advanced
stage of spiritual consciousness; so with much propriety this book is
called "The Aquarian (or Spiritual) Gospel of Jesus, the Christ."
Introduction by EVA S. DOWLING, Ph.D.
The ages of the world
"One fascinating mystical theme in the New
Testament is that time consists of a series of ages. Each age of the
world (or kingdom) is dominated by a powerful force or figure. This
motif exists throughout the globe with a range of specific cultural
meanings. In the 8th century BC in Greece, the poet Hesiod described
the ages of the world as four in number and symbolized by gold,
silver, bronze, and iron, each age successively declining in
morality. In India the four yugas (Sanskrit: “world ages”),
symbolized by the four throws of a dice game, are also viewed as
descending—though in repetitive cycles—from perfection to moral
chaos. Other original schematizations of this theme can be found in
the mythologies of Chinese, Polynesian, and American Indian cultures.
By the time the New Testament was written, Jewish apocalyptic
writings (symbolic or cryptographic literature portraying God’s
dramatic intervention in history and catastrophic dramas at the end
of a cosmic epoch) had already produced theories of history that
reworked Indo-Iranian notions about the ages of the world. Iranian
concepts most influenced Christian views of time, history, and
ultimate human destiny. The prophet Zoroaster (c. 7th century BC) and
his followers in Iran taught a doctrine of the four ages of the world
in which each age was a different phase of struggle between two kinds
of powers—light and darkness, goodness and evil, spirit and matter,
infinity and finitude, health and sickness, time and eternity. The
forces of good and evil battled for the allegiance and the souls of
human beings. In the last days a promised savior (Saoshyant) would
pronounce final judgement and announce the coming of a new world
without end in which truth, immortality, and righteousness would have
everlasting reign.”
Encyclopedia Britannica (1992)
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www.al-qiyamah.org/
www.adi-shakti.org/ — Divine Feminine (Hinduism)
www.holyspirit-shekinah.org/ — Divine Feminine (Christianity)
www.ruach-elohim.org/ — Divine Feminine (Judaism)
www.ruh-allah.org/ — Divine Feminine (Islam)
www.tao-mother.org/ — Divine Feminine (Taoism)
www.prajnaaparamita.org/ — Divine Feminine (Buddhism)
www.aykaa-mayee.org/ — Divine Feminine (Sikhism)
www.great-spirit-mother.org/ — Divine Feminine (Native Traditions)
"Now, the principle of Mother is in every, every scripture - has to be there." Shri Mataji, Radio Interview 1983 Oct 01, Santa Cruz, USA
