What did Jesus (and the Comforter) ask people to "believe"? - 6

"Today the people from all over the world, forgetting their races, their caste, communities, religions, their nationalities are singing together the praise of God — Is My dream has come true today. We have to believe in the Totality, in the Universality. This Universe is One. God has not made them separate. All religions are One, coming from the same Source. So we believe in every religion. We follow every religion." - Shri Mataji

The Second Coming of Christ (The Resurrection of the Christ Within You)

The Second Coming of Christ (The Resurrection of the Christ Within You)

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')

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

"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

The preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom that Shri Jesus refers to has nothing to do with the smoke and mirrors conjured by the guardians of various churches — absolutely nothing! It is the Kingdom of God which is within, clearly explained by the Great Adi Shakti Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi. It is this Kingdom which will be preached to all the nations. It is this Kingdom which all the nations will be called to witness. It is this Kingdom which every Hindu, Buddhist, Jew, Christian, Muslim, and others in all the lands will be asked to seek. Each and every soul born on Earth will know about this Kingdom and this will go on for generation after generation after generation until each and every soul born on this Earth since the beginning of time knows the existence of the Kingdom within. Then one day, when there are no more beings desirous of redemption left, the remaining rebellious Antichrist elements—intoxicated by power, pride and arrogance as they wallow in gluttony, sin and sodomy—will be annihilated. That shall be the End. That shall be the Second Coming!

Not a single soul will escape or plead innocence by reason of ignorance. They will take rebirth after rebirth after rebirth till they become aware of the Resurrection, and be subject to the Last Judgment.

In the meantime, those who hear about the Good News of the present Resurrection will be subject to the Last Judgment. This Gospel of the Kingdom of God within will be preached to all nations and peoples of many tongues, till the End! The Last Judgment is taking place as these lines are being read.

So it was written and so it shall be done. Amen!

"You have to take a stand in your family, in your surroundings, with your friends, and you have to tell them, "You better all get realized." The reason for that is that the Christ who crucified Himself is going to come back with his Eleven Forces of Destruction. And when He starts He is not going to ask you to take any Realization. No one is going to be bothered whether you are going to hell. He will just sort out. But those who have got Realization will enter into the Kingdom of God. You have to enter into the Kingdom of God here, as I say, in the Seventh Chakra."

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi
The New Age Has Started, Houston, USA — October 6, 1981

"You are arriving at that point where your destruction is sure because you have to become the spirit. You have to rise in spiritual life and if your movement is downward who can help you? This is a very interesting Time as I have told you — is the Time of Judgment — and at this Time we have to be careful that we are our own judges."

Shri MatajiNirmala Devi
The Main Qualities To Imbibe, Cabella, Italy — Oct 5, 1997

"So this is the eleventh Power of Destruction. He (Lord Jesus Christ) has the Power called Samhara Shakti by which He kills people. So before killing them and finishing them off, in the Compassion of your Mother we have to first try to transform them. If they cannot be transformed then its alright; then let Ekadesha take over. So these eleven very great destructive Powers will be used by the Kalki, the One who is going to manifest on a White Horse. Before that today is a very Great Day that these Powers we are going to use for transformation."

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi
Ekadesha Rudra Puja, New York, USA — September 17, 1983

"Today the people from all over the world, forgetting their races, their caste, communities, religions, their nationalities are singing together the praise of God — Is My dream has come true today. We have to believe in the Totality, in the Universality. This Universe is One. God has not made them separate. All religions are One, coming from the same Source. So we believe in every religion. We follow every religion.

And the whole concept of nations is also mythical. The whole world was made One with lots of rivers, mountains and sea. We have divided them. We have made all these differences—higher, lower, East and West. Look at the sun; it moves in all directions. Look at the Mother Earth; it revolves all the nations. It does not only revolve one nation. It's our myth.

We should get out of minds so that this dream of Mine will cover the whole Universe one day. Today I'm feeling extremely happy to see all of you together to finish all the wars, all the violence, all the immorality, all the deceitfulness, all that is wrong against, is destructful to human beings and to create complete benevolence in this world....

You go as messengers of Peace, Love, Bliss and tell them that there is an All-Pervading Power which is everywhere, in every nation, in every person, in every human being. It can vibrate. So, nobody should think they are individuals, separated by any such small nonsensical thing. We are all One, living in the Ocean of God's."

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi
Christmas, India — December 25, 1991

May the Great Adi Shakti be victorious again!
May the Great Divine Mother vanquish all the forces of Evil!
May the Great Primordial Mother destroy all falsehood from the face of this Earth!
May the Great Durga Mata annihilate all the raksasas (demons) in the guise of false gurus on this Earth!
May all the forces arraigned against Her be sufficiently warned of the Cosmic Forces gathering for the Final Battle!
May the entire Armageddon Army be powerless to even bend a single hair of the Great Universal Mother!
May Her ancient spiritual warriors, armed to the teeth with the mighty Truth and descending on their tortured Mother Earth in ever increasing numbers, rise and spread the Message of the Promised Resurrection!
May the Good News bring Hope, Joy and Eternal Life to all humankind.
May the Night of Power be more rewarding than a Thousand Months of Ramadan!
May the Spirit in all hearts unite His Human Family and heal His Earth!
May the conches blown by Her ancient spiritual warriors awaken humanity to the Call of the Last Judgment!
May Peace reign on Earth until the Day of Noise and Clamor!
May the Mighty War against the Armageddon Army now begin in earnest!
May the Great Holy Spirit be victorious!
May the Great Ruh of Allah be victorious again!
May the Great Adi Shakti be victorious again and again!

NOTE: If this page was accessed during a web search you may wish to browse the sites listed below where this topic or related issues are discussed in detail to promote global peace, religious harmony, and spiritual development of humanity:

www.adishakti.org/
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