The Paraclete: "Every religion has talked about our 'second birth' "
Feeling the fountain of Cool Breeze/Ruach/Pneuma/Reeh al-Qiyamah/
Prana/Qi of the Spirit (Mother, Tao, Kukulkan, Paraclete, al-Ruh) flowing out of the fontanelle for very first time. Verily, verily, it is the Fountain of Immortality! (Fontanelle comes from fontaine, French for "fountain".)
NOTE: All disciples of the Holy Spirit/Shri Mataji, as promised by Jesus, are empowered to trigger the Cool Breeze in other human beings (as photo above demonstrates): "Jesus solemnly assures the disciples that they will, in the future, perform even greater miracles than He. By this He means to say that through the power of the Holy Spirit, they will bring about the greatest miracle of all – the salvation of lost souls. He promises them that whatever they ask for, in connection with their ministry of bringing the miracle of salvation to lost men, will be granted them." Jack Wilson Stallings and Robert E. Picirilli, The Randall House Bible Commentary: The Gospel of John (1985) p. 205
"The Holy Spirit: Breath of God... The interesting part of this is the Hebrew word for spirit is ruach, and it means 'air in motion.' It is the same word for 'breath.' It also means 'life.' By resemblance to breath and air in motion, it means 'spirit.' That’s where we get the translation, and the Hebrew word contains all those different meanings. If we just leave it with our English word 'spirit,' we’re not getting the full attributes of what the Bible is trying to describe. It’s trying to describe that there’s a breath involved. Let’s take this into the New Testament because we have almost the same thing where Jesus is talking about the Holy Spirit. He says, 'That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit' (John 3:8). Jesus is talking about the Holy Spirit, and He’s saying it is like wind. When you get into the Greek behind that, the Greek word is pneuma, which again means 'a current of air,' 'breath,' or a 'breeze,' and again by analogy, 'a spirit.' So both the Hebrew and the Greek word are talking about breath. It’s talking about wind." — G. Robertson, The Holy Spirit: Breath of God
"In her function as Paraclete the Breath will abide with the disciples as She abode with Jesus. Indeed, She will abide with them forever (Jn. 14:16). As She dwelt with Jesus, She will now dwell with them. Through Her indwelling, the disciples will know Her with a new intimacy." — Donald L. Gelpi, The Divine Mother, A Trinitarian Theology of the Holy Spirit
"Indeed, Jesus taught that his messiahship and the corresponding outpouring of the Spirit were firmly rooted in OT understanding (Luke 4:18ff., citing Isa. 61:1-2), and, similar to intertestamental Judaism, understood the messianic Spirit of the Lord to be the Holy Spirit (Matt. 12:32), the spirit which had foretold through the prophets that the coming Messiah would inaugurate the age of salvation with the pouring out of the Spirit on all flesh." — T S Caulley, Elwell Evangelical Dictionary
The Breath of God in the Old and New Testament
"The link between Spirit and Breath is mentioned throughout the Bible, yet most modern-day Jews and Christians are unaware of this relationship. For example, the ancient Hebrew word ruah not only meant ‘spirit,’ ‘breath,’ and ‘wind’; it was also used in essentially the same ways as the Greeks, Hindus, and Romans used the words pneuma, prana and spiritus. The ancient Hebrew scribes often linked the word ruah with Yahweh (the name of the God of Israel). Thus, the term ruah Yahweh, which appears often in the Old Testament, can be translated to mean ‘the spirit of God,’ ‘the breath of God,’ or ‘the wind of God’ (God’s breath manifested as wind)…
In the New Testament, all references to God’s spirit, breath, or wind appear as the word pneuma, instead of ruah, because the Gospels were originally written in Greek. In John 3:8 (AV), for example, Jesus appears to be speaking in riddles when he says to the bewildered Nicodemus:
The wind [pneuma] blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of spirit [pneuma]."
Andy Caponigro, The Miracle of the Breath
New World Library (2005) p. 9-11
Concepts In Other Cultures That Correlate With Qi
"The ancient Hindus wrote of prana, the invisible ‘breath of life’ that they cultivated through Yoga. Ancient Greeks described a concept which in several important aspects parallels the Chinese notion of qi with the word ‘pneuma.’ Like the Chinese qi, this Greek word is often translated into English as ‘breath’— with similar misleading results. The Greek pneuma, like the Chinese concept of qi, was a complex idea that blended spiritual and material aspects of the vital essence of life into a comprehensive description of that without which life itself could not exist...
Also like qi in ancient China, pneuma was an important concept in ancient Greek medicine. It too was the substance with which people filled their lungs (‘pneumon’ in Greek). But like its Chinese counterpart, the Greek pneuma represented an even more vital substance. It took on the meaning of the breath of life, breathed into mortals by the gods."
Yu Huan Zhang & Ken Rose, A Brief History of Qi
Trade Paperback Book, 2001, pp. 15-16
"There must be some primal force, but it is impossible to locate. I believe it exists, but cannot see it. I see its results, I can even feel it, but it has no form." (Zhuang Zi, Inner Chapters, Fourth Century B.C.E.)
"Qi means air, breath, or vapour—originally the vapour arising from cooking cereals. It also came to mean a cosmic energy. The Primordial Breath is a name of the chaos (state of Unity) in which the original life force is not yet diversified into the phases that concepts of yin and yang describe." (Kathleen Kuiper, The Culture of China, 2011, p. 103)
"Qi likewise is difficult to translate. The dictionary gives many meanings, including ‘air’, ‘gas’ and ‘vapour’. To the early Chinese naturalists, this term seemed to bear some resemblance to what we now call ‘matter-energy’, corresponding in a way to the pneuma of the ancient Greeks and the prana of the ancient Hindus." (Peng Yoke Ho, Li, Qi and Shu, 2002, p. 3)
"In every part of the world, already thousands of years ago, humans have speculated about some kind of life force. In China it is called qi (also spelled chi), in India prana, in ancient Greece pneuma, in Latin spiritus, and in Hebrew ruach. There are hundreds of life energy beliefs, which have many similarities. This encyclopedia presents and explains them all, showing their similarities, but also their differences." (Book Description: Life Energy Encyclopedia: Qi, Prana, Spirit, and Other Life Forces around the World, Stefan Stenudd, 2009)
"In Eastern philosophy qi is also called prana and it is known that the body’s natural production of prana increases through the raising of the kundalini energy via meditation and a yogic lifestyle. Because qi or prana runs on the neutrino level, it is very difficult to detect as qi is what fills the 99% of space in each atom." Prof. Lu Zuyin, Scientific Qigong Exploration: The Wonders and Mysteries of Qi, 1997
"The scientific experiments introduced in this book (Scientific Qigong Exploration) opens up new doors for great scientific breakthroughs in the 21st century... Dr. Yan Xin's experiments indicate that our consciousness carry tremendous energy and information, and that qi energy can change DNA and RNA—an implication that human beings can completely redesign their life toward better health, longevity and even immortality. This is a book any visionary scientists and social scientists must read. Great minds will eventually be able to see the implications and set to work on unearthing the treasure of qigong for the common good." Jing Lin, Associate Professor, University of Maryland
"The experiments themselves are kind of dry reading but the implications they have on the potential for human growth are staggering. And the scientists who conducted these experiments are not people who are easily swayed by whimsical tales and flights of fancy, they are hard core scientists and physicists who are among the top the Chinese have to offer." Anthony D. Statler
Qi: "when it goes into man’s chest, the man becomes a sage"
"What, if any, are the equivalent Chinese terms for 'spirit' and 'spirituality'? A brief consideration of this question provides some helpful background for understanding how the spiritual dimension of human life is conceptualized and expressed by the Chinese.
Etymologically, in Chinese 'it is probably qi that bears the closest resemblance to ‘spirit’ (Adler 1997). A simple comparison shows the basis for this judgment. According to Barnhart, 'The original English use of spirit are mainly derived from passages in the Vulgate, in which Latin spiritus is used to translate Greek pneuma and Herbrew ruah' (1999; 1047). Holl gives the original meaning of ruah as 'air in movement' (1998: 8), while Adler highlights 'the analogous words in Hebrew, classical Greek, and Sanskrit (ruach, pneuma, and prana) that similarly cover the range of meanings from wind and breath to spirit' (1997).
The original pictograph for the Chinese character qi consists of three roughly horizontal strokes representing parallel layers of clouds arising from the condensation of moisture. It thus denotes 'air, vapour, gas' (Lindqvist 1991: 172). Later, the pictograph for rice was inserted under the original strokes, probably to show “the ‘vapors’ rising out of a saucepan of boiling grain” (172). This composite pictograph became the present character for qi. Pas and Leung speculated that, in a natural extension of meaning, qi as vapours “came to mean ‘breath’ (which in winter is very similar to steam). Because in many cultures ‘breath’ signifies ‘life,’ a further extension became understandable: ‘vital spirit, vitality, vital breath, life energy, vital force’ “ (1998:78). They stress the parallels qi has in other traditions, particularly regarding the fact that the same vital principle or energy that qi represents is supposed to course through both the cosmos and individual beings, quoting Mair’s judgment that 'The same concept exists in the Indian tradition as prana, in the Greek tradition as pneuma, in the Latin tradition as spiritus, and in the Hebrew tradition as ruah' (Mair, quoted in Pas and Leung 1998:78).
Qi is a central term in both Daoism and Confucianism, the two dominant Chinese intellectual traditions influencing all aspects of life, from health to medicine, martial arts, fengshui (geomancy), to literature and various fine arts. A multiplicity of terms have been used for translating qi into English, including 'ether, elan vitale or vital force, humour, breath or psychosomatic force' (Lai 2001:446), but often it is simply left untranslated. Interestingly, qi is seldom translated as spirit, suggesting that, despite the commonalities, there are also important differences between the two.
In its most generalized sense, qi denotes 'the primal stuff out of which everything else in the universe condenses' (Van Norden 1996: 227). Its all-encompassing nature is exemplified by the following extracts from the ancient classis Guanzi:
'the qi of all things changes and thus becomes life'; 'when qi goes to the ground, grain grows; when it goes into the heavens, there emerge constellations; when it floats in the air, it becomes ghosts and spirits; when it goes into man’s chest, the man becomes a sage,' and … 'therefore when there is qi, there is life; when there is no qi, there is death.' (quoted in Tang, 1991:21)"
Cathy Ota, Clive Erricker, Spiritual Education
Sussex Academic Press, pp. 154-55
"The qi must have something to do with the pneuma mentioned by Jesus"
Spirit and Qi
"In Christianity the Spirit is God permeating God`s own creation. According to the creation study in the Hebrew Scriptures, ‘a wind [spirit] from God swept over the face of the waters’ in the beginning of creation (Gen. 1:2)….. Hence, the primary mission of the Spirit has to do with life, creating it, sustaining it and directing it towards its future destiny. The Spirit is the source of life, not only of the present life but of eternal life as well. The Spirit is within creation, but is not conditioned by creation.
Chinese theologians Chang Chun-shen and C. S. Song suggest that this Sprit is what the Chinese would call qi—air, breath and spirit. According to the teachings of Confucianism and Taoism, qi is the material origin of all things; it is at the same time the origin of the life-force and energy moving into action. Or rather it is in itself equipped with life-giving properties and energy for action. The following is a standard expression of qi:
Ch’i [qi] fills the space between heaven and earth. Heaven and earth themselves, all things between heaven and earth, are all constituted by ch’i. Because of ch’i everything between heaven and earth moves, changes, and functions. It itself moves and moves all things. It is the subject of changes and movements and the origin that causes them. Human beings and animal-plant life also consist of ch’i. The human body is filled with ch’i which comes and goes. The ch’i within the human body and the ch’i outside it are the same ch’i and interpenetrate one another.
… The qi must have something to do with the pneuma mentioned by Jesus. ‘The pneuma [air, wind or spirit] blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes’ (Jn 3:8). This is the mystery of pneuma and qi. It is wind as well as spirit. It moves and works like wind, blowing where it wills. This actually is similar to the Old testament concepts of ‘soul’ and ‘breath’ and ‘soul’ …"
Zhihua Yao, In the Power of the Spirit
Tripod 91 (Jan.-Feb. 1996), pp. 29-30
"Chi serves as the mysterious bridge between God and humanity."
"Chi and the Christian understanding of the Holy Spirit share many commonalities. The Old Testament ruach and the New Testament pneuma carry the same ambiguity of multiple meanings, as does Chi, such as ‘breath, air, wind or soul.’ The word ruach has its etymological origin in air, which manifests itself in two distinctive forms; that of wind in nature and that of breath in living things. Because God as Spirit manifests herself as wind, or ruach, she is also Chi...
The cosmic dimension of Spirit is expressed in the idea of Chi, the vital energy which is the animating power and essence of the material body. The Spirit is also breath in living things. Breath is none other than wind, the movement of air or ether in the living, which is also Chi. While wind brings nature to life, breath makes the living alive. In the Hebrew Scriptures, God’s breath is identified with life-giving power (Genesis 6:17, Num. 16:22, Ps. 104:29; Eccles. 3:1, Isaiah 37:6 etc.) and the Spirit becomes a life-giving power in the birth of Jesus (Matthew 1:18-20; Luke 1:15, 35, 37). In these passages, we notice that Chi, the vital energy, which has her origin in God, is the life force of living creatures. Human beings live and die because of the breath of life, Spirit or Chi, which penetrates our entire bodies. If healing is associated with the circulation of Chi, it is certainly true that the Spirit as breath is not only the power that sustains and restores life but also the power that changes and transforms all living things. Therefore, it is important to allow Chi not only to heal our physical bodies, but also our mental and spiritual entities as well. All these concepts emanate the life giving Spirit which is in all things and is the Spirit God has provided us. It is the spiritual energy which inhabits all of us as it is an utterly dynamic living and vital force. Chi serves as the mysterious bridge between God and humanity.
Chi, like pneuma, is translated as ‘breath,’ ‘energy,’ ‘ether’ or ‘material force,’ but is better rendered as ‘matter-energy.’ Chi is pervasive in the universe, giving rise to all things, endowing them with life and energy. It is a substrative psycho-physical reality underlying the world as it appears to our consciousness and corresponding in a way to the pneuma of the ancient Greeks. The Great Ultimate is full of Chi. Chi is not only all-pervasive reality but also undifferentiated singleness. According to this concept of Chi, the distinction between wind and breath is simply one of modes of manifestation. Chi is the essence of all life and all existence. Without Chi, life does not exist and if there is no Spirit, nothing living can exist. God as the life-giving spirit is the proper source of life and strength. In a derivative sense, ruach also denotes the life-force of the individual (Judges 15:19) and of the group (Num. 16:22)…
Chi is the ultimate reality and is immanent in all things. Because all things in the universe consists of Chi, no being can exist apart from Chi. There is no place where there is no Chi; the sky, the sun and the moon are accumulated Chi. This notion of the Spirit as Chi assists us in reaffirming the idea of divine immanence or Immanuel, God is with us. Due to interchangeability of Chi and Spirit, the concept can be captured in the combined term of Spirit/Chi. This means that God is in all things, which allows one to realize that everything exists in God and that everything exists because of God.”
Andrew F. Walls, Akintunde E. Akinade, A New Day
Peter Lang Pub Inc (Jun 15 2010) pp. 293-95
Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi was
Christian by birth, Hindu by
marriage, and Paraclete by duty.
"The Paraclete represents direct,
intimate divine intervention,
supporting and teaching
believers and challenging the
world, as Jesus did." (D. Stevick
Jesus and His Own, 2011, 290)
As a result of that awakening, what happens is that you achieve your Self-realization, your Self-hood. Secondly, when this power is awakened, it rises and passes through six subtle energy centres in your body, nourishing them and integrating them. Ultimately, this power breaks through the fontanel bone area called as the talu or the brahmarandra and connects you to the all-pervading power of Divine Love, which is described in the Bible; also as the 'Cool Breeze of the Holy Ghost'; also in the Koran as 'Ruh', and also in the Indian scriptures as 'Prana'. Patanjali has called it as 'Ritambhara Pragya'.
Whatever the name, this is a power which is all-pervading, which does all the subtle works of living process, of evolutionary process. The existence of this all-pervading energy is not felt before realization but after Self-realization you can feel it on your finger tips or at the centre of your palm or above the fontanel bone area."
The Paraclete Shri Mataji
Extracted from address by Dr Nirmala Srivastava (Shri Mataji) to the Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, China—September 13, 1995
"The Spirit is not depicted in the Fourth Gospel as a diffused power that does everything in general. The divine Helper is not a symbol for the intrinsic relatedness of the creation to God. Rather, the Farewell Discourses describe the Paraclete as a speaker and an actor, a partisan, engaged for specific things and against others... While the Paraclete is related to the divine life, she is at the same time related to humanity — an intimate strengthener, corrector, reminder, instructor." — Daniel B. Stevick, 2011, 292
(present everywhere), omnipotent (of unlimited power),
Divine Mother of extreme beauty and ageless eternity.
"Therefore a person should ever strive for the
destruction of ignorance, for one's birth is fruitful when
ignorance is destroyed. One thereby attains the end of
human existence and the state of being liberated
while living." — The Divine Mother (Devi Gita 4.7-8)
"May all the gods attend to what I have to say. By
merely hearing these words of mine, one attains my
essential nature. I alone existed in the beginning;
there was nothing else at all, O Mountain King. My
true Self is known as pure consciousness, the highest
intelligence, the one Supreme Brahman/Thus through
hearing about, reflecting upon, and ascertaining the
Self by the Self, one should also, through intense
meditation, realize that I am in essence the Self...
By this meditation, O King, the noble person will
perceive me directly and then merge into my own
essence since we two are one. By practicing this yoga,
one realizes me as the supreme Self. In that instant,
ignorance and its effects all perish."
— The Divine Mother (Devi Gita 2.12;/4.40;49-50)
"The Devi insists that liberating knowledge can be
attained here in this world, while still living. Seeking
such knowledge alone makes life worthwhile, and
the attainment of knowledge completely fulfils the
ultimate purpose of existence." C.M. Brown, 2002. 25
(Except for quotes and images of Her incarnation
Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, this site is almost entirely
about Devi, the Divine Feminine. The Devi's yoga
(to unite) requires absolutely discarding all external
rules, rituals and rulers. Only then can meditation and
merging with the Divine Mother within truly begin.
Hence the term Self-realization, and the means of
realizing Her as one's divine core or Self begins here,
and within oneself. Thereafter, if one takes even a
single step in any direction to seek the Divine Mother/
Spirit-Paraclete one is assuredly going the wrong way.
Verily, verily, you will only find Her within yourself!)
The Times of India
Yogi Ashwini Ji, Dec 21, 2004
The guru, through shaktipath, initiates a person on the path of sadhana. The process requires immense energy, which is transferred from guru to shishya. If this energy is channelised towards people who have no value for it, the energy dissipates. That is why it is said that knowledge or 'gyan' should not be distributed before people who don't value it. This can also be said for people who come to listen to a discourse not to imbibe gyan but to defy it. These people are not searching; they are ruled by ego.
They are not interested in sadhana, are a drain on the energy of the initiator and are no good for the evolution of mankind (which is the purpose of shaktipath).
The practice of yog has become a subject of social discussion. It is fashionable to proclaim, "I do yoga..." There are no dearth of people who, for selfish reasons, go around claiming to be yoga masters. What one needs to understand is that yog is not tying yourself up in knots or standing on your head. Yog is a complete science of the being's evolution, of which the physical is just the beginning. If this were not so, we should be calling trapeze artists yoga gurus. It is surprising to see how people go about introducing yogic practices to all and sundry, without proper instructions or an understanding of an individual's capacity. Today, through the medium of television, people are introducing certain higher practices which are becoming a fashion among the masses.
These practices may impart a feeling of shortlived well-being to the practitioner and disturb the Kundalini. Kundalini, if awakened in an uncontrolled manner, may cause irreversible damage to the body, because a normal body does not have the capacity to hold this shakti. These practices are being peddled only to gain name, fame and money. They are no good for either teacher or sadhak. It is unfortunate that the indiscriminate teachers of yoga do not understand the negative karmas they earn for themselves as a result. They are trapped in a web of maya, described as such in 'Patanjali Yog Sutras'.
A real sadhak would never indulge in such careless acts. Modern methods make a mockery of a pious and sacred path such as yoga.
It is very difficult to stay away from the clutches of maya. Only those who hold the hand of a guru are able to truly adopt and walk the path of sadhana. This is precisely why it is so difficult to find a true guru and serious sadhaks.
When a guru accepts somebody as a shishya he takes complete responsibility. The shishya is monitored by the guru not daily or hourly but every moment, which is why earlier gurus had such few disciples. Sir John Woodroffe, a renowned sadhak and practitioner of tantra in the early 19th century, understood this. He observes, "In older times a guru used to give diksha to 10-15 disciples in his or her entire lifetime. Initiating even a single person requires immense amount of energy and even greater amount of practice to regain that energy".
I wonder how people go around initiating thousands of people. Having been a teacher of an ancient healing technique, I observed that people were coming to learn this method only to gain in social prestige. This set me thinking. I stopped teaching to get deeper into the true meaning, practice and purpose of yog. Gyan is energy which flows only to those who have the capacity to follow the practices of yog strictly as told for mankind's evolution. For others, it is merely meant to impress.
The Times of India (Dec 21, 2004)
Fountain of Immortality: Meditate to experience it daily as the Cool Breeze (Ruach, Pneuma, Reeh al-Qiyamah, Prana, Qi) of the Holy Spirit (Divine Mother, Tao, Devi, Kukulkan, Paraclete, al-Ruh)
"In yoga, self-realization (atmajńana) means knowledge of the self or atma. The reason the term 'realization' is used instead of 'knowledge' is that jnana refers to knowledge of self based on experience, not mere intellectual knowledge." Atmajńana, literally "knowledge of the soul or supreme spirit".
A Sanskrit-English Dictionary by Sir M. Monier-Williams
"According to Hunbatz Men, ‘Ku’ is sacred, God. ‘Kul’ is coccyx, the base of the spine, where latent spiritual energy resides. ‘Can’ means serpent. ‘Kukulcan’ therefore is synonymous with ‘kundalini’—which is what the Kukulcan/Quetzalcoatl archetype is all about, of course." Dr. J. J. Harper
"The Kundalini is your own mother; your individual mother. And She has tape-recorded all your past and your aspirations. Everything! And She rises because She wants to give you your second birth. But She is your individual mother. You don’t share Her with anybody else. Yours is a different, somebody else’s is different because the tape-recording is different. We say She is the reflection of the Adi Shakti who is called as Holy Ghost in the Bible. But She rises without any difficulty. Hardly any time it takes."
The Paraclete Shri Mataji
"So to feel that All-Pervading Power the thing lacking in us is that we have not felt so far the connection, and this connection has to be established — that is possible. Built within us is the Power, what we call Kundalini, which is coiled three and a half, and which rises through six centres to pierce through your fontanel bone area, and you start feeling the Cool Breeze (Ruach/Pneuma/Qi/Prana/Reeh al-Qiyamah) in your hand. And also the Cool Breeze starts coming out of your head so you have to certify yourself. Nobody is going to certify you!
This is the first sprouting of the seed. It is a living process and a living process of a living God! It sprouts spontaneously as a seed sprouts spontaneously. Then you start seeing the effects of it on your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual self which is tremendous, fantastic. It is such a vision that even the flight of your imagination cannot reach it; but you are that. You are that glorious thing. You have that glory within yourself."
The Paraclete Shri Mataji
"In reality, giving baptism means the awakening of the Kundalini power so that after it rises and pierces the Sahasrara (Kingdom of God), there is the union of the all-pervading power of God and the Kundalini power. This is, in fact, is the final job of the Kundalini power.
But the clergy know nothing about this. On the contrary, they are vainly trying to do something which they are not even authorised to do. Otherwise you will find these clergymen involved in all sorts of acts of kindness- kindness to animals, service of the poor, service of patients and so on. You would say, 'Mataji, these are all noble deeds'. Yes, certainly they are noble deeds, but then, it is not the work of God. It is not the work of God to serve the poor by paying them money. The real work of God consists in helping the people to enter the Kingdom of God, and to enable them to unite with God."
The Paraclete Shri Mataji
Shri Kundalini Shakti and Shri Jesus Christ
Translation of Shri Mataji's advice given in Marathi at Hinduja Auditorium, Bombay—September 26, 1979.
"It is important to understand about your own Kundalini, as Self-realisation is Self-knowledge. And the one who gives Self-knowledge is your own Kundalini because when She rises, She points out what are the problems on your chakras. Now we say that it is pure desire. It is your chaste desire. It has no lust or greed in it. That power is your Mother and She Is settled down in the triangular bone. She knows everything about you just as a tape recorder. She is absolute knowledge. Because She is so pure that whatever chakra She touches, She knows what is wrong with that chakra before hand; so She is quite prepared and She adjusts herself fully so that you do not get a problem by the awakening. If any chakra is constricted, She waits and goes on slowly opening that chakra.
The Kundalini is the primordial power and is reflected in you. In a human being, it is like many strands of energy, like rope. This energy is all twisted together to form that Kundalini. In a human being the strands are 3 x 7 = 21 Nadis raised to the power of 108. When your kundalini rises, one or two strands out of this come up and pierce the fontanelle bone. It has to pass through the innermost nadi known as Brahma Nadi. It is a spiral movement throughout. The kundalini is spiral and nadis are also like a spiral. The outermost nadi is the right-side nadi, Pingala Nadi. The second innermost is Ida Nadi. She starts sending these threads through Brahma Nadi; by that they relax the centre. By relaxing of centre, the sympathetic nervous system also starts relaxing, your pupils start dilating and when it has pierced the Agnya, then the eyes will be completely dilated and shining. Then She enters into Sahasrara (Kingdom of God).
It is absolutely the pure light of knowledge of love, compassion and attention. All these things are in that energy. We know of many energies like electrical, light energy etc. These energies cannot think. They cannot adjust and work on their own. They have to be handled by us. But this energy itself is the living energy and knows how to handle itself. It thinks. If you see a seed being sprouted you will find at the tip of the seed there is a small little cell which knows how to go around the soft places, how to encircle the stones, and how to find its way towards the source. That cell has got a little Kundalini in it. But within you a tremendous force of Kundalini exists.
When a realised soul says that he should have more compassion, 'as my compassion is not alright; my concern about others, my generosity is not alright, I have exploited other's love', then this energy starts moving, giving you that greater dimension of love and compassion. If you do not want to grow in your awareness then She does not supply the energy which is stored in you.
The Kundalini is there to nourish you, look after you, and make you grow by giving you a higher, wider and deeper personality. All Her power is nothing but love. She gives the power to forgive. Even when you think, the energy for thinking comes from Kundalini because you are asking Her help.
The power of Kundalini is absolute purity, auspiciousness, holiness, chastity, self-respect, pure love, detachment, concern, enlightened attention to give you Joy. As a mother will try whatever is possible to give joy to her child. In the same way, this Kundalini has only one power and that is how to give Joy to Her own children. When we talk in the light of Kundalini, we have to understand that this light spreads in your life, outside your life and expresses itself in a very beautiful manner.
When you worship Adi Kundalini, the reflection in you, which is your Kundalini, is very happy. Also the deities feel happy.
The power of Kundalini which is your own Mother has to rise and manifest itself because of your pure desire. In your introspection, pujas, and in your meditation, you should see for yourself why are you in meditation. It is for pure desire of compassion and love to be awakened within us. The growth has started and you will find that this shell which is human conditioning and ego will just break open. It is in the triangular bone, which comes up, manifests and can save the whole world. Just see the magnificence, the expansion, the greatness of this Kundalini which was within you and which came up in its full strength and has shown tremendous things.
The joy we feel during music recitals is because Kundalini is dancing. She gets happy because you ask for nothing but enjoyment of collectivity.
You are yourself fully connected when you are absolutely detached and your Kundalini is dancing. You are alone and never alone. This oneness with the whole gives you all the security and joy you want. That's why the Kundalini awakening means collectivity. Unless and until you want pure collectivity in your being Kundalini won't rise.
When you worship Adi Kundalini, you are trying to cleanse your Kundalini, as well and please the deities. This is an object. It cannot be changed. But the reflector can change. The movement of Kundalini depends on temperament of person. Kundalini can give you honesty, and faith in honesty by actualising the experience. Supposing you want to go to a garden and you are suddenly there. Then you will know that your desire is pure and it has worked out. All such miracles happen. The pure desire works out because it is powerful.
When it works, the whole thing works out and you develop faith. That faith is within you. Nobody can challenge you if you have faith. It will be done. Your pure desire is now being fulfilled, you are now connected, and you are now Divine. You are realised souls. You are different from others. For you, all this subtle knowledge is being absorbed, because your Kundalini is absorbing it. Whatever is absorbed is absorbed back by me. But that becomes like a barometer. You immediately know without thinking, asking, you know about anyone because Kundalini is the reflector. The better a reflector you become the more the Kundalini shows. Though Kundalini is an individual Mother, in Her functions and methods She is just the same. You cannot cheat the Kundalini; She knows you out and out. We must meditate to get into thoughtless awareness by which we allow the Kundalini to grow."
The Paraclete Shri Mataji
Philadelphia, USA—Oct 15, 1993
Self-realization/Kundalini Awakening/Second Birth
Guided by the different prophets and religions through the ages, the human being has always looked for self-fulfillment and sought a way to get closer to the ‘Self’. The ultimate stage in this search and the evolution of the human being is to get back to and fully integrate the primordial energy which is at the origin of our creation.
All the religions and philosophies tell us of Union with the Divine, but are unable to make this experience a reality. This knowledge is only accessible in sayings and remains fixed at the mental level, keeping us far from the pure knowledge, which springs from the source inside human beings.
The Self-realization/'born again of the Spirit' technique of Shri Mataji (also called Sahaja Yoga i.e., spontaneous growth of the inner self/spontaneous salvation) is based on a living experience, the origin of which resides within us. It allows us to gain access to a state of consciousness which is beyond thinking or emotion.
This awakening happens inside us when a subtle energy called the Kundalini (Kukulkan) ascends, thus establishing our Yoga (or union) with the primordial Being.
The Kundalini is to be found in the triangular sacrum bone at the base of the spine. This extraordinary energy rises up the length of the spinal column inside the backbone. Once awakened, it passes through all the chakras of the subtle system to emerge, finally, through the last centre at the top of our head, the Sahasrara (Kingdom of God). We then get the yoga or union with the spirit which is within us.
While the Spirit is the reflection of Almighty God, the Kundalini is the mirror of His presence within us. That presence is in the form of the Divine Feminine, the Adi Shakti in the Indian tradition, or the Holy Spirit (Spirit-Paraclete) according to the Christian tradition. By passing through the fontanel on the top of the head, the Kundalini brings about our Self-Realisation, second birth or baptism. When this happens, one feels a cool breeze (Ruach/Pneuma/Qi/Prana/Reeh al-Qiyamah) on the palms of one’s hands and on top of the head. This is the Holy Spirit (Divine Feminine), the same Cool Breeze (Ruach/Pneuma/Qi/Prana) as that perceived by Christ’s disciples at Pentecost.
The Greeks identified this energy under the name of pneuma, Muslims speak of Ruh, Christ called it the Holy Spirit. Jewish mystics talk of the Shekkina and, well before that, the Sumerians worshipped Inanna, the goddess who gives spiritual birth and the sacred breath. Several thousands of years ago, Indians already spoke of Chaitanya of the Self (Atman), which Shri Mataji translates as Cool Breeze. Knowledge of the existence of this Cool Breeze (Ruach/Pneuma/Qi/Prana/Reeh al-Qiyamah) is not new, but that knowledge has been lost or distorted over the centuries.
"There is another Truth which has to be accepted, that there is a subtle Power of Divine Love which does all living work. The living process can be explained after Self-realization. The awakening of the Kundalini takes place spontaneously and pierces through the fontanelle bone area. The Spirit, which is reflected in our heart, get enlightened and makes our attention enlightened and we see the Light of the Spirit spreading in our attention. It happens simultaneously that a Cool Breeze is felt on our fingertips and the same Cool Breeze is felt out of our fontanelle bone area. The Cool Breeze is called by various names (Ruach/Pneuma/Qi/Prana/Reeh al-Qiyamah). We need not argue about names."
The Paraclete Shri Mataji
"God created only one world. We have made different countries. Not only that, but we think that we are all different people. Of course He has not created even one leaf like the other. In the same way we are created differently. This is variety to create beauty. But this has led us to lots of confusion. So this Kundalini is your Mother. She is your individual Mother. And She knows everything about you. And She is anxious to give your second birth. She is anxious that you should get this benevolence.
But it is your pure desire only that can manifest this happening. All other desires are impure. Because it is said in economics that in general desires are not satiable, wants are not satiable. So, these desires are not pure. We move from one desire to another desire. So the pure desire within us, which is the power of Kundalini, is to be one with the Divine, to be in yoga with the Divine. This is achieved through the awakening of Kundalini.
But what is Kundalini? Is the reflection of the Holy Ghost. We have God the father, God the son, but what about the mother? How can you think of a father, and a son and not of the mother? Holy Ghost is the Primordial Mother. And She is reflected within us as the Kundalini. And in the heart is reflected the God Almighty. God Almighty is the witness; witness of the play of the Holy Ghost that is His power. They are inseparable like moon and moonlight or sun and sunlight.
That is why when the Yoga takes place, the Kundalini rises up to the head here up to the fontanel bone area, breaks through this fontanel area and you feel the Cool Breeze of the Holy Ghost coming out of your head. This is the seat of the Spirit though in human beings it resides in the heart.
The Paraclete Shri Mataji
The Time of Resurrection
Public Program, Geneva, Switzerland—11 August 1988."
Self-realization/Kundalini awakening/'born again' of the Spirit
The Paraclete’s method of Self Realization/Diksa occurs within each human being. Through this process an inner transformation and evolution begins to take place. One can actually begin to feel the Cool Breeze (Ruach/Pneuma/Qi/Prana/Reeh al-Qiyamah), as described in all religions and spiritual traditions of the world. The Divine Mother/Devi's diksa is the process that bestows spiritual knowledge (divyam jnanam), destroys sin (papa) and ignorance (avidya), and the seed of sin and ignorance. This self-salvation (moksa) from within is promised by the Devi/Divine Mother/Spirit-Paraclete!
In order to successfully carry out this self-discovered, self-contained and self-sustaining initial experiment and, subsequently, a life-long experience of being 'born of the Spirit', please follow the instructions below:
1. Sit comfortably on a chair.
2. Take off your shoes so as to have a better contact with the earth.
3. Please familiarize with instructions 1-9 on where the right hand is to be placed on various parts of the body. The intensity of experience depends on your sincerity and pure desire. (If you are not ready it would be advisable not to continue, and return another day.)
You may use the term "Divine Mother", Mother Kundalini (Kukulkan), "Holy Spirit/Spirit-Paraclete" (Christians), "Adi Shakti/ Durga/ Maa/ Devi/ Amma" (Hindus), "Ruh" (Muslims), "Shekinah" (Jews), "Prajnaparamita" (Buddhists), "Aykaa Mayee" (Sikhs), "Tao/Wu Chi" (Taoists), "Thian" (Confucian), or just "God" or "Divine Mother" in any language you are comfortable with.
1. Put your right hand on your heart and silently in your heart ask the following question 3 times:
"Mother, am I the spirit?"
2. Putting your right hand on the upper part of your abdomen on the left-hand side of your body, silently ask the following question 3 times:
Mother, am I my own master?
3. Put your right hand on the lower part of your abdomen, on the left-hand side of your body, and ask the following question 6 times:
Mother, please give me the Pure Knowledge.
4. Put your right hand again on the upper part of your abdomen on the left-hand side of your body, and silently affirm the following phrase 10 times:
Mother, I am my own master!
5. Putting your right hand again on your heart on the left-hand side of your body, silently affirm the following phrase 12 times with confidence:
Mother, I am the spirit!
6. Now place your right hand on the left-hand side of your neck, where it joins the shoulder, and turn to your right. In order to free this centre, it is necessary to get rid of all feelings of guilt. Repeat the following phrase 16 times with conviction:
Mother, I am not guilty at all!
7. Put your right hand on your forehead and lightly press the temples. Here it is necessary to forgive in order to liberate this chakra from whatever may be blocking it. Silently, and with sincerity, say the following phrase several times:
Mother, I forgive everyone in general!
8. Put your right hand on the back of your head, put your head back, and this time ask for forgiveness for all the mistakes that you have ever committed, but without feeling guilty. Repeat the following phrase several times:
O Divine Power, if I have done anything wrong knowingly or unknowingly, please forgive me!
9. Now close your eyes and put the center of your right palm on top of your head, spread out your fingers and press hard with the palm of the hand. Gently massage the scalp in a clockwise movement and, with humility, ask 7 times:
Mother, please give me my Self-Realization (Second Birth/ Kundalini Awakening).
Put your hand down, meditate and remain in silence for a few minutes, with your attention still on the Holy Spirit/ Spirit-Paraclete / Divine Mother within.
After Self-realization meditate twice daily on the Divine Feminine within yourself and begin purifying your mind, body and soul. That is all it takes to participate in the Last Judgment and Resurrection, the promised evolution of physical humans into the eternal spirit and everlasting life as promised by each and every religion, holy scripture and messenger of God Almighty.
Over a sustained period of daily meditation the Divine Wind will begin to flow daily from the palm of your hands and top of the head, especially during meditation. Eventually it may even flow on a 24/7 basis after a year or two of daily meditation. This gentle Cool Breeze is the sure sign that you are indeed taking part in the Last Judgment and Resurrection preordained for all humanity — you will self-certify this truth.
After some time you will be able to meditate anywhere by putting your attention on the Divine Feminine in your heart or mind i.e., just keep your palms open (upwards) for the Divine Wind to flow out, and meditate. Shri Mataji is only the initial catalyst for your second spiritual birth to take place. After that we continue on our own. We can only continue in the Sahasrara Chakra (Kingdom of God) within.
Important Reminder: Daily meditation—the innermost intimacy with the Divine (Silence on Self) in the Sahasrara (Kingdom of God)—and experiencing the Divine Wind is key to participating in the Last Judgment and Resurrection. There is absolutely no need for any existing religious ritual or practice. Please do not corrupt this purity and sacredness with any human innovation. His Holy Spirit within will perfect you for the eternal afterlife. You will bear witness to your own resurrection and your own Spirit. The Resurrection must thus never ever be contaminated and corrupted by human novelties or religious doctrine!
Again, all you need to do is to keep your palms open and facing upwards, as they rest on your knees, for the Divine Wind to flow out better, and just meditate in Silence. Nothing else - no rule, ritual or ruler! Nothing external (rule, image or worship). Nothing manmade (ritual, dress or diet). Nothing human (ruler, guru or religious institution). Just meditate on the Divine Mother within, gradually increasing in silence and non-duality. Please help safeguard the utmost importance of this sanctity from being corrupted again. Moreover, this tiny spark of today is still far from becoming the eschatological 'fire' of tomorrow:
Saying 10: Jesus said, "I have cast fire upon the world, and look, I'm guarding it until it blazes."
"This saying articulates a subversive aspect of the mission of these sayings. The collection does not entirely revolve about the positing of an alternative way of living and conceiving of self; it also describes the social displacement and social reorganization that follows those personal alternatives. The violence of that subversion becomes evident here when Jesus announces in this declarative statement, that he has `cast fire' upon the world. The problematizing of the world which seems so much a part of these sayings carries with it an increment of destruction and violence. Although Jesus has cast this fire upon the earth, the fire remains weak and needy, requiring protection from its originator until it can take hold. That describes a subversive violence, one which begins very small and hidden, but which eventually erupts into full force destruction. Fire bears a double significance in this saying, a duality of meaning that underscores this twin role of violence and dependence: the fire that Jesus casts seems to relate to a judgmental use of fire, the metaphor of fire as an apocalyptic or eschatological tool, while the tending of the fire in the second half of the sayings suggests the kindling of a small force that will be protected until it develops. The positive and pastoral role of the guardian of the fire balances the negative role of the fire itself, because this fire is not an instantaneous destructive one, but one that needs tending and care until it matures.
The articulation of such violence should not surprise readers, because it seems to be a corollary to the kind of loosely formed community which these sayings posit. Since these people are the ones who have ears to hear (Saying 8) and senses to perceive (Saying 5), they do not form the majority, but an entitled minority. They are, in fact, the fire that needs to be guarded and tended until they may mature. This community chooses their minority status: the conflict with the dominant religious environment in which they live enhances their own identity. The clearer the distinction between their minority and the dominant religious expressions of their day, the more violent and subversive will their opposition to it remain. Jesus' saying makes that opposition essential to the self-understanding of the readers and seekers, while also acknowledging that the opposition does not put them immediately in a place of power but in a place of fragility, which demands Jesus' protection."
Richard Valantasis, The Gospel of Thomas
Routledge; 1 edition (June 27, 1997) pp. 69-70
"The nature of the Spirit is that it is an universal being within every individual. As there is one God Almighty His projection on every human heart is the same, but the projection of the Spirit varies because of the different types of projecters. When this Spirit, which is the source of joy and truth, is connected through the Kundalini the human attention becomes enlightened. Thus one knows the absolute truth on our central nervous system and becomes a joyous collective being. The Spirit is projected in the heart but the seat of God Almighty is above the fontanel bone area, above the apex of the head.
After this living force of Kundalini is connected to the all pervading Divine power within a human being, it starts developing the spirituality of a person. One touches the spirituality within oneself and grows into another dimension, the fourth one. Thus a saintly and wise personality develops. This personality is the one which is unfolding itself naturally, spontaneously (Sahaja), but also, by knowing how to handle this all-pervading power through the knowledge of purity, one can evolve in a much faster way into that new dimension.
Once the Spirit starts shining fully in one's attention one actually becomes enlightened in the sense that one can see for oneself that one becomes one's own guide, one becomes one's own master. Then you don't need any guide, but you are the master of yourself. In the past this process was limited to one or to very few persons but now a phenomena to allow en-masse realisation was discovered about twenty years ago."
The Paraclete Shri Mataji
First small English Book, Chapter 2, titled 'Vishwa Nirmala Dharma'
Is this about Religion?
“Truth is beyond religion. It is about being. It promises knowing. It ensures becoming that which is eternal, infinite and absolute.
Religions preach part of this truth only. Therefore they are incapable of transforming you. The partial truth, traps you in partial lies.
The journey to the Self cannot be about religion because religion is outside of you.
The journey to your Self is towards the inner mystery. It leads you to your own consciousness. It leads you through awareness and to awareness.
You see, learn and know your own Self. There is no alien search, therefore ritual, scriptures and preachers only bind you to yet another alien self.
Why? Religion preaches alien means. It asks you to follow the path of a Prophet or Messiah you never met, follow the edicts said to be laid down by them in books not written by them. Most importantly religion's claim to your soul usually comes from the accident of birth which placed you in a family, where along with other identifications, there is a religious lineage.
Religion is therefore at best a social identity. Completely at variance to the Path of your Self which is based on dissolving the artifice of all identities. The Self which KNOWS truth, therefore no borrowed truths will do.
This is why religion is no longer about spirituality. It is the game of power and numbers. The spiritual must be about the spirit. Yours! And to know your spirit you have to first embark on a journey of finding it. It can only be therefore truly discovered within you.
The priest and padres who propound, have not known this state themselves. If they had, they would not speak as they do. Discriminating sexually, racially, on gender and spiritually. They speak thus, calling one the son of God and all others pagans, one the only prophet and so on. Knowing would not allow them to speak thus. They parrot scholarly lies, because belonging to churches and spiritual institutions gives them power. The same powerlessness that drives you drives them. You are still truthful enough, and therefore salvageable, because you have not chosen to enter the game of spiritual manipulation just to free yourself of the demon of powerlessness. They have compromised the greatest realm of truth and love to gain power over confused lost souls.
That's all that Churches, Temples and Mosques offer; manipulation of fear. They spend their time ruling on sin and virtue so that the fear in you grows sufficiently to seek their help. A congregation is therefore a question of numbers not enlightened beings. Conversion is a game of power and size, not truth and inspiration. Where does truth or light figure in any of this?
It is important therefore to begin to ask questions. The right questions. You are searching for a critical Path. Perhaps the most precious thing you will ever seek. Let the journey begin with truth. Ask yourself….if the practice of the religious was so virtuous and exemplary of God's order why are we forever hearing stories of priests as paedophiles, rapists, children are being sexually abused by mullahs and padres, religion (spiritually sanctioned hate to be more precise) is being offered as the justification for heinous acts such a September 11th, airline blow-ups, unending wars between Israel and the muslim world, the longest war in history- the 300 year war was on religious intolerance, riots, cross-border terrorism, jihad calls against nations, people and individuals. This is the breeding ground and theatre of religion. A theatre filled with discrimination, violence and intolerance. Can the highest Truth of the Self, which promises wonder, liberation and infinite love ever flower in such a space?
Fear cannot be the reason for searching truth. And religion specializes in fear. Are you a good Hindu, Muslim or Christian is their question. Are you an enlightened being is not?
Your answer will decide where and how you will search.”
Is this about Religion?
http://www.ifsha.org/healing/religion.htm
Web May 17, 2012
The Gospel of Thomas
The Paraclete Shri Mataji
"Actually, thank God they have found out now the book written by Thomas who has described Gnostic way of life, where gnya means 'to know.' In Sanskrit language, gnya means 'to know,' gnya. So he has described very nicely the gnostic life. This was the Gnostic Bible, or whatever we call it, saying about a personal experience of achieving God realization, Self-realization. It talks about Sahaja Yoga (spontaneous salvation) out and out."
The Paraclete Shri Mataji
Christmas Puja, Pune, India—December 25, 1987
spontaneous:
1. Happening or arising without apparent external cause; self-generated.
2. Arising from a natural inclination or impulse and not from external incitement or constraint.
3. Unconstrained and unstudied in manner or behavior.
4. Growing without cultivation or human labor.
salvation
a. Deliverance from the power or penalty of sin; redemption.
b. The agent or means that brings about such deliverance.(www.thefreedictionary.com)
"In his (Jesus) life time which was so very short, whatever he has said, every word is great but as I told you that this Paul tried to completely change, re-edit the bible and he's put lots of things in there, whatever weaknesses he has, he has put them nicely.
Now recently I've got a book which was hidden in a jar in Egypt for about, till fifty years they discovered it, and this book is called as the Library of Hammadi. The place was called Hammadi were it was discovered, and what Christ has said, what Thomas has written, when Thomas was coming to India he put all these things there, is very interesting."
The Paraclete Shri Mataji
Christmas Puja, Ganapatipule—December 25, 1992
"Paul never even met Christ, and just made up lies. And we know what he saw was supra-conscious. Actually, he was a bureaucrat who killed one of Christ's disciples, Stephen, and saw Christianity as a good platform to jump on for his forum. He fought with everyone. Thomas disappeared and his treatises were found 50 years ago in Egypt. It's all sahaja."
The Paraclete Shri Mataji
Talk with Spanish Sahaja Yogis—October 12, 1994
"This living process is very clearly described in Indian scriptures since ancient times. There are 108 Upanishadas in the Sanskrit language which have exposed the knowledge about Kundalini awakening and the spiritual ascent. Also it is indicated in other scriptures of other countries. In the Bible it is called the tree of life and it is quoted that, 'I will appear before you like tongues of flames'. When the Kundalini rises, She passes through various centres which look like tongues of flames when enlightened.
The Cool Breeze of the Holy Ghost of Pentecost is this power that you can feel in Sahaja Yoga (spontaneous growth of the inner self). In the Gospel of St. Thomas, very clearly describes the Sahaja experience as the ultimate of our religious life. Also it says we must look after our centres. This Kundalini has to ascend and pierce through six subtle centres which are placed in the spinal cord and in the brain. The last breakthrough is the actualisation of the baptism as one feels the Cool Breeze of the Holy Ghost emitting out of one's fontanel bone area."
The Paraclete Shri Mataji
First English Book
"In the Thomas gospel, Jesus is presented as a spiritual guide whose words (when properly understood) bring eternal life (Saying 1). Readers of these sayings are advised to continue seeking until they find what will enable them to become rulers of their own lives (Saying 2) and thus to know themselves (Saying 3) and their legacy of being the children of 'the living Father' (Saying 3). These goals are presented in the image of 'entering the Kingdom' by the methodology of insight that goes beyond duality. (Saying 22). The Gospel of Thomas shows little or no concern for orthodox religious concepts and doctrines...
The Gospel of Thomas emphasizes direct and unmediated experience. In Thomas saying 108, Jesus says, 'Whoever drinks from my mouth will become as I am; I myself shall become that person, and the hidden things will be revealed to him.' Furthermore, salvation is personal and found through spiritual (psychological) introspection. In Thomas saying 70, Jesus says, 'If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you. If you do not bring it forth, what you do not have within you will kill you.' As such, this form of salvation is idiosyncratic and without literal explanation unless read from a psychological perspective related to Self vs. ego. In Thomas saying 3, Jesus says,
...the Kingdom of God is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living Father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty, and it is you who are that poverty." - Wikipedia
Definitions of unmediated
"1. [adj] - without the interposition of other agencies or conditions
Quotes - Example use of the word unmediated
1. unmediated relations between God and man"
www.webdictionary.co.uk
"unmediated - having no intervening persons, agents, conditions"
www.thefreedictionary.com
"not mediated : not communicated or transformed by an intervening agency"
www.merriamwebster.com
JESUS CHRIST: THE KINGDOM OF GOD WITHIN
The Gospel of Thomas
Stevan L. Davies (Author)
It has always seemed to me far more than a vivid coincidence that in 1945 should occur both the first lethal explosions of nuclear boom at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the discovery in a small desert cave near Nag Hammadi, in upper Egypt, of a lost gospel, now known as the Gospel of Thomas. It is as if, at the very moment when humanity was brought face to face with its most extreme capacities for horror, evil, and destruction, so also, in Jesus’ astonishing, incandescent vision of the Kingdom in the Gospel of Thomas, humanity was shown what it could still achieve if only it woke up and realized the splendor of its divine secret identity. The sixty years since then have only emphasized more and more intensely the challenge implicit in this synchronicity; are we, as a race, going to continue pursuing the self-destructive vision that is now plunging the world into war, ruining the environment, and creating for everyone an increasingly degraded and ugly planet, or are we going to take up the ecstatic challenge of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas to see that the Kingdom already exists in and around us and is only waiting for our transformed insight and for the action that flows from it to break into flame and change everything?
The Gospel of Thomas is more than the most exciting archaeological find of the last century, even more than another gospel to add to the four canonical ones. It is far more than another Gnostic text, or one that carries on the tradition of Jewish wisdom sayings, or, as some have also claimed, a cross between the two. These are scholarly descriptions and distinctions, fascinating and helpful in their way, but they do not begin to describe the extraordinary importance of the Gospel of Thomas, or to show how it can be used today by all sincere seekers to awaken their divine identity and to focus its powers on a radical transformation of the world.
The Gospel of Thomas really is, I believe, the clearest guide we have to the vision of the world’s supreme mystical revolutionary, the teacher known as Jesus. To those who learn to unpack its sometimes cryptic sayings, the Gospel of Thomas offers a naked and dazzlingly subversive representation of Jesus’ defining and most radical discovery: that the living Kingdom of God burns is us and surrounds us in the glory at all moments, and the vast and passionate love- consciousness—what you might call 'Kingdom-consciousness'—can help birth it into reality. This discovery is the spiritual equivalent of Albert Einstein’s and J. Robert Oppenheimer’s uncovering of the potential of nuclear fission; it makes available to all humanity a wholly new level of sacred power. By fusing together a vision of God’s divine world with a knowledge of how this divine world could emerge into and transfigure the human one, the Gospel of Thomas makes clear that Jesus discovered the alchemical secret of transformation that could have permanently altered world history, had it been implemented with the passion and on the scale that Jesus knew was possible. Its betrayal by the churches erected in Jesus’ name has been an unmitigated disaster, one major reason for our contemporary disaster.
Unlike the Buddha, or Krishna, or any of the Eastern sages whose wisdom of transcendental knowledge left fundamentally intact the status quo of a world often characterized as illusory, the Jesus we see in the Gospel of Thomas saw and knew this world as the constant epiphany of the divine kingdom and knew too that a wholly new world could be created by divine beings, once they had seen this and allowed themselves to be transformed and empowered as he was, by divine wisdom, ecstasy, and energy. What Jesus woke up to and proceeded to enact with the fiercest and most gloriously imaginable intensity was this new life of 'Kingdom-consciousness,' not as a guru claiming unique status and truth—the Gospel of Thomas makes this very clear—but as a sign of what is possible for all human beings who dare to awaken to the potential splendor of their inner truth and the responsibilities for total transformation of the world that it then inspires within them.
Jesus’ full revolutionary vision in all its outrageousness, grandeur, and radical passion is to be discovered in a close reading of the Gospel of Thomas. The greatest of the sayings are like the equations of physicists Werner Heisenberg or Niels Bohr—complex but intensely lucid expositions in mystical and yogic terms of the laws and potential of a new reality, an endlessly dynamic and fecund reality created by our illusory perceptions and their sterile hunger for separation, division, and stasis.
What I have discovered on my own journey into the increasingly challenging understanding of 'Kingdom-consciousness' is that as I continue to uncover and develop in my own depths the 'fire' that Jesus speaks of in the Gospel of Thomas, reading the sayings by the brilliant light of this 'fire' becomes even more astonishing. The sayings expand in radiance, significance, and reach as I expand my own awareness of divinity and of the powers available to all those who dare to risk transformation.
What I have to offer here is a linked reading of seven of the sayings that have most inspired me. Through this linked reading, I hope to open up to seekers everywhere the full glory, as far as I understand it now, of what Jesus is trying to communicate through the Gospel of Thomas, not just to Christians but to the whole of humanity. Let us begin with saying 2:
Jesus said: The seeker should not stop until he finds. When he does find, he will be disturbed. After having been disturbed, he will be astonished. Then he will reign over everything.
This saying suggests that the Jesus who is speaking in the Gospel of Thomas is not presenting himself as a Messiah with a unique realization and a unique status of mediator. This Jesus—for me, the authentic Jesus—is like the Buddha, a human being who was awakened to the full glory of his inner divinity and so knows the secret of every human being and hungers to reveal it to change the world. The life to which Jesus is inviting everyone is not one of endless seeking, but of finding—finding the truth and power of human divinity by risking everything to uncover them.
From his own harrowing experience, Jesus knows that finding cannot be without suffering; to find out the truth and power of your inner divinity is to be 'disturbed'; disturbed by the gap between your human shadow and its dark games, the abyss of light within; disturbed by the price that any authentic transformation cannot help but demand; disturbed by the grandeur you are beginning to glimpse of your real royal nature with all its burden of responsibility and solitude. Jesus knows too, however, that if you risk this disturbance and surrender to the unfolding of your divine nature, extraordinary visions will be awoken in you—visions that will astound you and drag you into what the Sufi mystics call the 'kingdom of bewilderment' that 'placeless place' where everything you have imagined to be true about yourself or about humanity is rubbed by the splendor of what you discover. And from this increasingly astonishing self-discovery, tremendous powers to influence and transform reality will be born in you. Just as unprecedented energy is unleashed by the splitting of an atom, so through the 'splitting' of human identity to reveal the divine identity within it, a huge new transforming power is born, a ruling power, the power that great saints and sages have displayed through gifts of healing, miracles, and undaunted stamina of sacred passion and sacrifice. The seeker who becomes a finder and ruler makes a leap in evolutionary development from human being, unconscious of the Divine hidden within him or her, to an empowered divine being, capable in and under the Divine of flooding reality with the glory of the Kingdom. To reveal this secret, live it out, and release it in all its radical power, to make 'finders' and rulers of us all, is why the Jesus of the Gospel of Thomas lived and preached and died.
This empowering vision of saying 2 leads naturally, as in the text itself, to the challenge of saying 3.
Jesus said: If your leaders say to you 'Look! The Kingdom is in the sky!' Then the birds will be there before you are. If they say that the Kingdom is in the sea, then the fish will be there before you are. Rather the Kingdom is within you and it is outside of you. When you understand yourselves you will be understood.... If you do not know yourselves, then you exist in poverty and you are that poverty.
The savage, gorgeous radicalism of this saying should not be underestimated: Jesus is, consciously and with the most subversive imaginable scorn, mocking all versions of the spiritual journey that place the ultimate experience beyond this world, in some transcendent 'otherwhere.' All the patriarchal religions and mystical transmission systems—including those conceived in Jesus’ honor—subtly devalue the immanent in favor of the transcendent. This addition to transcendence with its rhetoric of 'the world as an illusion' keeps intact the status quo in all its misery, horror, and injustice.
In saying 8, Jesus makes fiercely clear what daring to know the truth of yourself will demand and cost: nothing less than a total commitment to the Divine and a total reversal of the ordinary values of the untransformed world.
And he said: The man is like a thoughtful fisherman who threw his net into the sea and pulled it out full of little fish. Among all the little fish, that thoughtful fisherman found one fine large fish that would be beneficial to him and, throwing all the little fish back into the sea, he easily chose to keep the large one. Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear.
Superficially heard, that saying seems fairly obvious. It seems to be saying that 'Kingdom-consciousness' is life’s ultimate treasure and all lesser things should be given up for it. Dig deeper and you will see that the saying reveals just what this giving up of lesser things will entail. It is, after all, crazy for a fisherman trying to earn a living to throw back all the 'little fish': it reverses all comfortable laws of commerce or livelihood. And this is precisely Jesus’ point—one he makes relentlessly throughout the Gospel of Thomas. If you really want to become a mystical revolutionary, dedicating your life to seeing and enacting 'Kingdom-consciousness,' you are going to have to surrender all conventional ways of being, acting, or living, and all conventional games of status or power. You are going to have to risk the divine madness that is the true sanity of the fisherman, who so clearly sees and knows the ultimate value of 'the large fine fish' that he is willing to throw back all the “little fish” and risk poverty and the contempt of his world to stay true to that divine reality that overturns and potentially transforms all worldly realities. The way of life that Jesus advocates throughout the Gospel of Thomas is in the starkest imaginable contrast to the conservative, prosperity-conscious, family-centered, rule-ridden ethos so often promulgated in his name. For the Jesus of the Gospel of Thomas, only a life of wandering poverty, abandonment to the winds of God, and resolute refusal of the false securities of dogma, authority, or worldly or conventional religious rules of conduct and purity can bring you to the state of utter authenticity and surrender that birth to the Kingdom in you and make you a revolutionary agent of its birth in reality.
From what I have said, it should now be clear why in saying 10 Jesus announces, “I have thrown fire on the world. Look! I watch it until it blazes.” The “fire” that Jesus has thrown—and is constantly throwing on the world—is the fire of a revolutionary transcendent and immanent knowledge and love that menaces all the world’s political, social, economic, and religious hierarchies and elite, and all their self-serving justifications for keeping a vicious and unjust set of structures in place. The Jesus of Thomas is not the tender, often ethereal victim, or the suffering servant; he is the most fiery-eyed of revolutionaries, a being who knows he has discovered the nuclear secret of a new, potentially all-transforming power of love-in-action, and he is committed to seeing that its unleashing upon the world and transfiguration of the fire of its truth and laws take place. In saying 71, he announces cryptically, 'I will destroy this house'; scholars have taken him to mean that either he will bring down the Temple with all its elite and hierarchy and business policies throughout a revelation of a direct egalitarian vision of human divinity, or that he is pledged to destroying the House of Herod that is currently 'defiling' the house of David. These are entirely too limiting and local interpretations of the enterprise of Jesus. The Jesus of Thomas is not a peacemaker; he is an incendiary of love, a pyromaniac of divine passion, announcing the laws of a transformed world and of the enormous struggles, sacrifices, and sufferings, both internal and external, necessary to engender it. As he proclaims in saying 16, 'People think, perhaps, that I have come to throw peace upon the world. They don’t know that I have come to throw disagreement upon the world, and fire, and sword, and struggle.'
Jesus has far too mordant an understanding of ruthlessness and corruption not to realize that only divine violence can end human violence—only a sacred violence of utter abandon to God and utter commitment to transformation can dissolve the human violence that keeps the world sunk in degradation. Not only does Jesus know this, but he faces its necessity and lives it out in the extremity of his own life; he is fully aware that his knowledge of the laws of the birth of the Kingdom threatened all previous human accommodations to the way of the world; after his very first public sermon, the Gospel of Matthew tells us, occasional attempts on his life were made. Unlike many of the gurus and so-called teachers of our time, whose vague transcendental waffling further drugs an already comatose culture and leaves every aspect of the status quo intact, Jesus’ vision of the new way was rooted not only in visionary ecstasy but in an utterly illusionless and ruthless analysis of power in all its aspects. This is what made him—and makes him—dangerous, perpetually scandalous, and what makes the Gospel of Thomas a fiery challenge, not only to less incendiary versions of his own message, but to all philosophers who do not propose a complex mystical revolution on every level.
Jesus risked such an almost alienating fervor and uncompromising urgency of address not merely because he understood that the Kingdom could not be birthed by any less absolute passion, but because he knew too, from the majesty and astonishment of his own experience, that empowerment on a scale as yet undreamt of awaited any being radical enough to accept and risk the terms of transformation he was proposing. Anyone who reads the Gospel of Thomas with an open mind and awakened heart will realize that what Jesus was trying to create was not an ethical or sophisticated revolution alone; he was attempting to birth a fully divine human race, a race of beings as radically alive and aware as he was himself. In saying 108, he makes this clear: 'Jesus said: He who drinks from my mouth will become like I am, and I will become he. And the hidden things will be revealed to him.'
The Gospel of Thomas
Stevan L. Davies, Shambhala Library, December 2004, pp. ix-xx
Related Articles:
The Gospel of Thomas Prologue
Logion 1
Logion 2
Logion 3
Logion 4
Logion 5
Logion 6
Logion 7
Logion 8
Logion ...
"The preachings of religion make a person dependent on priests, temples, idols, blind faith, and dogma"
"The Upanishadic literature is not a religious scripture and is free from dogma and doctrines. It is not a part of any religion but is a philosophy for all times and for all. This philosophy does not oppose any school of thought, religion, or interpretation of the scriptures, but its methods for explaining its concepts are unique. The Upanishads should not be confused with the religious books of the East; there is a vast difference between the philosophy of the Upanishads and the preachings of any of the religious scriptures of the world. In religion and religious books, there is little practicality and much theory. One is not supposed to interpret religious sayings, for there is always the possibility of distortion. For this reason, their explanation is delegated to a few teachers and preachers who are considered to be the custodians and authorities on these scriptures. Common people do not have the opportunity to study the scriptures in depth, but instead must rely on the interpretations of such preachers who may show no signs of enlightenment and yet have influence over the conscience of the masses. Whether these clerics actually know and practice religious truths or not is never questioned, and those who do question are considered to be atheists and heretics. Intellectual bankruptcy such as this leads the masses to blind faith and causes many wars and divisions in the human race. For the younger generation today, however, empty religious preachings are not fulfilling, for the modern mind likes to use reason and logic before it accepts anything as truth.
With the development of science and technology, there has arisen a provocative mind that questions the existing religions and their role in society. The modern mind has started questioning, but the search for truth still remains obscured because scientific explorations are directed externally and not toward the inner levels of life. Science and technology are materially oriented, but a human being is not matter or energy alone. Most human resources are currently being directed to matter, mind, and energy, but little effort is being made toward the expansion and exploration of human consciousness. Modern psychologists are scratching the surface of mental life in order to eliminate superficial human problems in the external world, but the vital questions of life are not yet resolved, for they are beyond the grasp of materially-oriented thinking.
The Upanishads prepare, inspire, and lead the student to know and realize the Ultimate Truth. First of all, the philosophy of the Upanishads frees one to cast away his intellectual slavery to blind faith, superstitions, sectarian beliefs, and dogmas. Then it helps one to expand his individual consciousness to Universal Consciousness; thus one's personality is transformed, and one becomes a universal being. An individual is essentially Brahman, or identical to Universal Consciousness, and direct realization of that truth is called enlightenment. Current religious preachings, on the other hand, are enveloped in a thick layer of dust, and they need a complete shakeup. Religion needs modification to suit the needs of modern man. There seem to be two options for humanity: either it stops listening to the preachings, starts seeking the truth, and rejoices in the broader awareness of truthful living; or it continues to follow religious dogma, fails to attain the next step of civilization, and remains in ignorance and suffering. Upon careful analysis of the living and thinking structure of modern human society, anyone can see that the process of human evolution is in a state of stagnation. All current research is directed to the external world; thus the human goal has become materially oriented and superficial. Human beings today have nothing better to live for than acquiring many comforts. These may be necessities and means, but because attaining them lacks a goal or aim, they create a hollow and empty philosophy that brings only strain and stress.
The preachings of religion make a person dependent on priests, temples, idols, blind faith, and dogma, and dependence is a habit of the lower mind. Such crutches may be useful at a certain stage for some people, but they do not lead one to Ultimate Truth. A dependent mind is not free, and without freedom, enlightenment is impossible. Religious dogmas are full of beliefs and myths that do not satisfy the human intellect and that bind believers to a narrow view of life and human potential. Such preachings instill more fear than love in the hearts of the masses. Religion either promises salvation or threatens the tortures of hell, but it does not provide sound solutions to the hellish problems and situations that plague human beings here and now. Nor does it satisfactorily explain life before birth or after death. One of the main themes of Upanishadic philosophy, however, is to attain a state of fearlessness, cheerfulness, and self-confidence. In addition, the Upanishads lead the student to know life in its totality. Knowledge of life before birth, knowledge of now, and knowledge of life hereafter can be realized through the methods given in the Upanishads. The Upanishads provide systematic methods for self-training, self-transformation, and self-enlightenment. They lead aspirants 'from the unreal to the Real, from darkness to Light, and from mortality to Immortality.'
The founders of religion were selfless and sincere—great seers, sages, and spiritual leaders. But as religions grew, the teachings of the founders were lost, and only the preachings of their selfish followers remained. Because of this, the great religion of the East was reduced to the narrow faith and beliefs of Hinduism, Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Practical Christianity also disappeared forever, and there remained only churchianity. History shows that religionists do not actually encourage one to follow in the footsteps of the founder of their religion by practicing his teachings, but, rather, they instruct their followers to worship the image or the name of the founder of the religion through priests. Many religious leaders who claim to know God are more miserable than those they attempt to lead; they suffer from trite egoism, jealousy, and selfishness. The light of truth cannot shine through such barriers. Thus, the blind are leading the blind. The philosophy of the Upanishads is not bound by a single founder or religion, however, and it is as applicable today as it was thousands of years ago, and it will be so for as long as humanity exists.
Religious dogma sets forth rigid commandments presented in terms of good and bad, black and white, with no explanations to support them. In the long run, these create serious overreactions and overcompensations in the human mind. All the books from the different religions repeat set laws of conduct in the same way, yet each of these religions claims that it is superior to all the others. Religious beliefs may offer solace to lower, primitive, less educated, and uncultivated minds, but they have nothing to offer those who already know what to do and what not to do, and who are seeking logical solutions to life's questions and guidance in learning how to be. In today's so-called civilized I society, the moral laws preached by the leaders and preachers seem to be incomplete. Such teachings and preachings are, therefore, misleading and are a mere waste of time and energy. As long as the preachers, police, and army have to guard the morality of human beings, this cannot be considered to be a civilized society. The moral custodians of today's world are actually atomic weapons, not the laws given in the religious books of the world. Thus, material forces are guiding the destiny of human life. Human beings have lost their center of equilibrium and live without any sense of equality, love, and mutual understanding. Religions do not teach unity but create divisions in human society. The Upanishads do not impose commandments, but, rather, offer practical guidelines and methods for self-discipline and self-unfoldment. The steps for inner growth contained in the Upanishads can be incorporated into one's individual lifestyle and can help one examine the accomplishments of one's spiritual practice (sadhana).
Religions can be divided into two groups. One group follows the prophets but does not believe in inner experience. These religions are actually cults and are full of rituals, fear, guilt, and fanaticism. The other group of religions has a vast spiritual literature, but the followers are exploited by priests who involve them in rituals without explaining their purpose or establishing their validity. Therefore, both types of religion have been exploiting humanity and, thus, crippling human efforts to evolve and attain the next step of civilization in which people will learn to live with others in mutual understanding and love. The vast majority of the human population practices religious rituals in some way or other, but no ritual exists that can eliminate the ignorance that causes pain and misery.
Religions have two great weapons to conquer the hearts of their followers: faith and grace. The way faith is described in religious scriptures is not actually faith at all, but is blind belief based on ignorance and rigidity of tradition. Tradition and truth are entirely different. One is mingled with customs, systems, cultures, habits, thoughts, feelings, and desires, and the latter is a search for the Ultimate Reality. For attaining truth, everything the aspirant has, including thoughts, deeds, and speech, becomes a means for attaining truth; while in tradition, all means are used for the sake of convenience, pleasure, and gratification. Religionists and their faithful followers are afraid to analyze the very nature of their faith. Thus, one is lost in a morass of religious fanaticism. Faith that does not recognize the faculty of reasoning and that has not been filtered by reasoning is based on blind beliefs that remain unexamined. They thus unnecessarily create doubts, and when doubts are not resolved, such faith disappears. Blind faith, being empty and devoid of any real reason or fact, is often found wanting when one has a problem and expects to find a strong basis that will support and carry him through difficult times. Then one finds, instead, nothing to hold on to or anchor oneself to. Because of this weakness in religious faith, religious dogma says that faith is a gift from God, and that if one questions it, then it might vanish and be lost. True faith is supported by pure reason, which is attained through thoughtful analysis of life. Following the extended practice of sadhana; and purification, a few fortunate seekers realize and know the nature of the world as it is and also experience the all-pervading truth that enlightens the' dark chamber of the aspirant's heart.
The Upanishads say that to rise above and reach a state beyond and to know the real nature of the transitory world, one must cultivate logic and pure reason and make sincere efforts with the help of deep contemplation. They declare, 'Only that which is good and auspicious in Upanishadic literature should be revered and brought into practice, and the rest should be left behind for further introspection.'
In religions, grace is considered to be a gift bestowed on the seeker, either as a reward for following the commandments or by mere whim. Thus, the bestowing of blessings serves as a bribe to make one conform, and it implies that the seeker is helpless to succeed by his own effort. There is often little sense of individual mastery but rather a reliance on the favors of fate or the judgments of the preachers. Fear and insecurity are the logical results.
Today religion has degenerated so much that it has become totally materialistic. No matter how good a heart one has, if one is not on the list of followers and supporters of the church, then one's faith does not have any value in the eyes of religionists. Religious leaders and preachers who claim to be custodians of faith and grace sell faith to blind followers for wealth and favors, and, thus, religious materialism takes the place of spiritual sincerity.
Various schools of theology argue over the semantics and meaning of the verses and parables of religious scriptures and never reach any shared interpretation. In order to confront the question of life, one must remain unaffected by religious dogma, doctrines, and superstition, and one must make use of one's finest instrument, the intellect. The Upanishads do not encourage students to depend on the sayings of the scriptures; rather they inspire them to be self-reliant and discriminating. Religious dogma encourages people to follow the canons of a particular sectarian belief that is limited to a specific group. Thus, instead of expanding universal brotherhood, it further divides humanity and pollutes human feelings with biases and prejudice. Upanishadic philosophy is the expression of supreme knowledge directly experienced by great sages and is not confined to caste, color, society, or nation.
Today the world lives under the law of fear, trembling with doubts and uncertainty. No prophet of the law of love is to be found, and one finds no leaders who give object lessons, sympathy, and good will, and who identify with the true happiness of individuals and nations and the highest good of mankind. Many religious leaders exist, but it is amazing to note how tired and confused they are. 'Rise, awake, and gain knowledge'—this Upanishad declares that one should not act like a gigantic inert person who is dumb and desolate, who knows not the meaning of life and the universe. All human beings have the essential potentialities to understand and direct their life streams toward the ocean of bliss. The message of Upanishadic philosophy extends good will to the whole of humanity, saying, 'Let all of mankind be happy; let all of humanity attain physical, mental, and spiritual health; let all receive and enjoy auspiciousness; let no one experience pain and misery here and hereafter."
Swami Raja, Enlightenment Without God
Himalayan Inst Pr (June 1982) pp. 11-18
"Equally appealing for modern believers, the Jesus of the hidden gospels has many points of contact with the great spiritual traditions of Asia." (repeated homepage article)
"Despite its dubious sources and controversial methods, the new Jesus scholarship of the 1980s and 1990s gained such a following because it told a lay audience what it wanted to hear. For some ideological perspectives, the new view of early Christianity has been almost too good to be true, in validating postmodern approaches. The hidden gospels have been used to provide scriptural warrant for sweeping new interpretations of Jesus, for interpreting theological statements in a purely symbolic and psychological sense, and for challenging dogmatic or legal rules on the basis of the believer’s subjective moral sense. Generally, the hidden gospels offer wonderful news for liberals, feminists, and radicals within the churches, who challenge what they view as outdated institutions and prejudices. And this is by no means true of the churches alone: since Christianity is so fundamental a component of Western culture, any radical reinterpretation of the movement’s core message is bound to reverberate through contemporary issues and debates. Though proponents of the radical view usually write as scholars, there is rarely much pretense of objectivity, in the sense that orthodoxy and the institutional church are regularly blamed as authoritarian, patriarchal, and narrow, while the heresies suppressed were egalitarian, creative and libertarian.
The rediscovered texts help shift the whole ground of debate within the churches, permitting liberals to argue from their own distinctive version of the primitive gospel. Feminist scholars in particular note the central role which women play in texts like the Gospel of Mary, which is believed to show that women were apostles, leaders and teachers in the earliest Jesus movement: if this is the case, how can modern churches refuse to grant priestly authority to women today? Apart from the obvious appeal for women, the new portrait of Gnosticism is profoundly attractive for modern seekers, that large constituency interested in spirituality without the trappings of organized religion or dogma. For such an audience, texts like Thomas are so enticing because of their individualistic quality, their portrait of a Jesus who is a wisdom teacher rather than a Redeemer or heavenly Savior. Modern readers are drawn by the work’s presentation of the mystical quest as a return to primal innocence, an idea that recalls the psychological quest for the inner child. Regardless of the work’s historical value, reading Thomas undoubtedly can provide the basis for meditation and spiritual insight, as well as justifying diverse forms of contemporary spirituality. As N. T. White remarks, the emphasis on the ‘real’ Jesus of the alternative gospels ‘appears to legitimate precisely the sort of religion that a large swathe of America yearns for: a free-for-all, do-it-yourself spirituality with a strong agenda of social protest against the powers that be and an I’m-OK-you-are-OK attitude on all matters religious and ethical. You can have any sort of spirituality you like (Zen, walking labyrinth on church floors, Tai Chi) as long as it isn’t orthodox Christianity.’ Some have given this eclectic creed the suspect title of ‘flexodoxy’, flexible orthodoxy.
Equally appealing for modern believers, the Jesus of the hidden gospels has many points of contact with the great spiritual traditions of Asia. This concept makes it vastly easier to promote dialogue with other great world religions and diminishes any uniquely Christian claims to divine revelation. Pagels has written that ‘one need only listen to the words of the Gospel of Thomas to hear how it resonates with the Buddhist tradition... These ancient gospels tend to point beyond faith toward a path of solitary searching to find understanding, or gnosis,’ She asks, ‘Does not such teaching—the identity of the divine and human, the concern with illusion and enlightenment, the founder who is not presented as Lord but as spiritual guide—sound more Eastern than Western?’ She suggests that we might see an explicitly Indian influence in Thomas... The statements of this Jesus even have something of the quality of Zen kaon: stories like the woman with the jar of meal are obvious examples. Coincidently or not, the Jesus movement was initially known as the Way, which is the same self-descriptive term used by other great religions and philosophical systems, including Buddhism and Taoism. Jesus thus becomes far more congenial to modern sensibilities about both gender and multiculturalism.”
Philip Jenkins, Hidden Gospels: How the Search for Jesus Lost Its Way
Oxford University Press (Feb 18 2003) pp. 16-18
QUOTES OF THE PARACLETE SHRI MATAJI
"The Self is the Spirit. This Spirit resides in the heart of every human being and is in a witness-like state. The Spirit is the projection of God Almighty, while the Kundalini is the projection of the power of God, of His desire which is the Primordial Mother, or you can call it Adi Shakti, Holy Ghost or Athena.
So the Kundalini is the projection of the Holy Ghost, while the Spirit is the projection of God Almighty. The All-pervading Power of love is the power of the Primordial Mother, which creates and evolves, and does all the living work."
The Paraclete Shri Mataji
"All such miracles have been here to show that these are Swayambhus. But then people started making statues and started worshipping; then making more statues and worshipping. As a result there were incarnations, other incarnations; as we think that Dattatreya, the primordial master, took incarnations on this Earth. And most of them then tried later on to say that we should not talk of the flower but we should talk about the honey and we have to get to the honey.
So they started talking about the Ruh, about the all-pervading power, about Brahmachaitanya. All of them practically talked like that. Not in the beginning I would say, but later on when they found that the people were just busy worshipping any stone. Get from there, put some, I mean they became just stone worshipers. So another kind of religion just came in, which just said that we should believe in God Almighty and we should just worship Him as an abstract god.
So, this abstraction also turned out to be futile because when you talk about flower you worship the flower and when you talk about the abstract, you just talk. It's a talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. You cannot get to the honey. So even if you talk of the honey what's the use of talking about it? You have to have it. For that, we have to become the bee and that is why it is important that you have to have your Self Realisation.
And in every religion whatsoever, even in Islam it is said you have to become a wali. In Christianity it is said you have to be born again. In Buddhism it is said you have to become Buddha, means you should be knowledgeable. In Mahavira's things it is said you must get your Self Realisation. Lao Tse has said it. Just you should start from Socrates onward. Of course, we should. Forget about Plato and these people because I don't think they had much sense of spirituality.
But most of these people have talked about Self Realisation. And there's no religion in which they have not talked about Self Realisation. Even in the Judaism or when they believe in the coming of the Saviour for their salvation, even they have talked about. So it is all described in Koran. There's a complete Surah describing about 'The Sent One', means the 'Avatar', means 'The Incarnation'. And also said that you won't believe, you won't accept and all those things.
So now, once you are realized souls, then only you start seeing that all this talk is futile. You have to become a realized person. If you get your realisation, then only you can get over the superficial illusions and you can go deep into it. All these illusions are there in all the countries, in all the religions, and that's why there is a problem. And we have seen people suffering from the pangs of fundamentalism."
The Paraclete Shri Mataji
Ganapatipule, India — January 7, 1990
"Now what I have told you about Adam and Eve, we have found out, said by also John in his Gnostics book. It's very surprising. They always told you that Christ must have told you many things, but they are not in the Bible. So if you understand that this Adi Shakti came as a serpent—the Adi Kundalini part of Her—and told the Adam and Eve, especially Eve, that she should ask for the fruit of knowledge to be eaten. The reason I gave you is exactly written there, that the Mother power, the feminine power, didn't want Her children to live like animals without understanding what is the knowledge of the higher realms, not giving them chance to rise higher through their freedom and then to higher and higher awareness. It was the concern of the Mother."
The Paraclete Shri Mataji
Cabella, Italy, June 26, 1994
"Saha means 'with,' Ja means 'born.' Yoga means 'union with the All-pervading Power of Divine Love.' This is a very subtle subject, absolutely valid and can be proved of our ascent into our higher awareness. At the very outset one has to be a seeker of truth and with a scientific attitude one should approach the subject. It should be treated espectfully like a hypothesis and if found by experiments as truth should be accepted by honest people in the spirit of honesty. Because this is for one's total benevolence and for the benevolence of all the world.
This knowledge is of very ancient times and mostly comes from India. Of course, every religion has talked about our second birth and also about the tree of life. As the knowledge of science comes from the West, but is accepted by the East, why should such a knowledge of reality be denied? Why not at least heed to it seriously, when it is the knowledge of the roots of all our civilisation and evolution?
The nations have to think why the modern civilisation is killing all human values. What we need is a careful introspection as to where we have gone wrong. Where did we miss out on our path of progress? How has this decadence crawled into our society? Why are most of us sick with frustration and insecurity.? Why are some of the people of the progressive countries succumbing to physical and mental deterioration.? Science has no answer, so let us take to spirituality. Why not ask a question? Is there any other power that controls the universe? As described in all the scriptures there is an All-pervading Power of God's love (Paramachaitanya). It is a subtle power which does all living work and which cannot be felt at the level of human awareness.
Sahaja Yoga means that a seeker of truth (Sadhaka) has a birth-right to get his Self-realisation (Atma Sakshatkar) spontaneously. Self-realisation or Self-knowledge is the destination of human evolution and also of all the religions. This is the last breakthrough a human being has to achieve, for which there is a complete living machinery placed in the human spinal cord and in the brain. This machinery is being established step by step during our evolution . This living machinery works out through its power manifesting the parasympathetic and both sympathetic nervous systems. Whatever we achieve in evolution is expressed by our conscious mind through the central nervous system.
To connect us to this subtle energy which permeates into every atom and molecule, there is also a power of pure desire which is placed in the sacrum bone of human beings, which is called as Kundalini. 'Kundal' means coils. It exists in three and a half coils. There is a Divine mathematical coefficient about three and a half coils. This triangular bone is called 'sacrum', that means that the people in Greece in the ancient times knew about this divine sacred power of Kundalini; that is why they called this bone sacred. This sacrum bone is placed at the base of the spinal cord and it is triangular in shape.
The Kundalini is like a connecting cord as in every piece of electrical machinery, which connects the machinery to the main source of electricity. In the same way, when this energy of Kundalini is awakened, threads (some of them) rise and ultimately connect the human being to the All-pervading Power (Paramachaitanya).
It is a spontaneous happening, it is a living process. The whole evolutionary process has been a living process, and now a stage has come for human beings to have the last state of Spiritual existence through Self-realisation. Human being can be compared to a seed which is not active spiritually, and has not started its living process of growth in spirituality, but when it is embedded in the Mother Earth, the Mother Earth has the power, to sprout the seed.
In the same way the Kundalini can be awakened spontaneously by the power of Sahaja Yoga. When this Kundalini rises, a new life process starts in the human awareness, resulting in the growth of spirituality. This spiritual life growth is a new state into which a human being starts growing in his innate Divinity. This nourishes and enlightens his physical, mental, emotional and spiritual being.
This living process is very clearly described in Indian scriptures since ancient times. There are 108 Upanishadas in the Sanskrit language which have exposed the knowledge about Kundalini awakening and the spiritual ascent. Also it is indicated in other scriptures of other countries. In the Bible it is called the tree of life and it is quoted that, 'I will appear before you like tongues of flames.' When the Kundalini rises, She passes through various centres which look like tongues of flames when enlightened.
The cool breeze (pneuma) of the Holy Ghost of Pentecost is this power that you can feel in Sahaja Yoga. In the Gospel of St. Thomas, very clearly describes the Sahaja experience as the ultimate of our religious life. Also it says we must look after our centres. This Kundalini has to ascend and pierce through six subtle centres which are placed in the spinal cord and in the brain. The last breakthrough is the actualisation of the baptism as one feels the cool breeze (pneuma) of the Holy Ghost emitting out of one's fontanel bone area."
The Paraclete Shri Mataji
