THE HOLY SPIRIT

“They are going, by the Holy Spirit’s power, to be part of the greatest miracle of all, bringing men to salvation.”

“The theme of this section is reassurance and encouragement. Jesus gives the disciples three basic reasons they should cease being troubled in their spirits. First, He tells them that, although He is going away, He will return for them so that they may ultimately join Him where He is going (vv. 1-3). Second, He tells them that, though He is going away, He will be the only means by which men may come to God and go to Heaven (vv. 4-11). Third, He tells them that, though He is going away, their ministries are not finished. In fact, the best is still ahead. They are going, by the Holy Spirit’s power, to be part of the greatest miracle of all, bringing men to salvation (vv. 12-14).”…

25 These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you.
26. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have told unto you.

Jesus now summarizes all that He has been saying in this section. Referring to the many things which He has taught them while He has been present with them in the flesh, He tell the disciples that the Comforter not only is going to remind them of these things, but also will go to teach them all things necessary to their understanding and happiness. The Comforter will recall to their minds Jesus’ teachings, will enable them to understand truly and completely, and will develop and expand them into new and wonderful truths.

Jesus has referred to the coming Comforter as the Spirit of Truth (v. 17)…[whose] primary function is the work of making men holy. This is the work we call sanctification.

In v. 16 Jesus has said that the Comforter is going to be provided to the disciples by the Father on the basis of His (Jesus’) prayer that He should do so. Now He says that the Father is going to send the Comforter in His (Christ’s) name. These statements are essentially identical and imply a joint action involving both Father and Son.”

Jack Wilson Stallings and Robert E. Picirilli,
The Randall House Bible Commentary: The Gospel of John,
Randall House Publications, 1989, page 205
Advocate, (Gr. parakletos), one who pleads another’s cause, who helps another by defending or comforting him. It is a name given by Christ three times to the Holy Ghost (John 14:16; 15:26; 16:7, where the Greek word is rendered “Comforter,” q.v.).
Comforter, the designation of the Holy Ghost (John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7; R.V. marg., “or Advocate, or Helper; Gr. paracletos”). The same Greek word thus rendered is translated “Advocate” in 1 John 2:1 as applicable to the Comforter to be sent by Christ. It means properly “one who is summoned to the side of another to help him in a court of justice by defending him,” “one who is summoned to plead a cause.”

“The pneumatological activity … of the Paraclete … may most helpfully be considered in terms of the salvific working of the hidden Spirit.”- Michael Welker

“This self-effacing character of the Spirit’s presence finds a kind of verbal reinforcement in scripture due to an ambiguity present in both Hebrew and Greek, where the words ruach and pneuma carry a semantic width that encompasses the range of English words: “Wind,” “Breath,” “spirit.” In the Priestly account of creation, are we to translate Genesis 1:2b as saying that “The spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters” or would it be better rendered,” a wind of God swept over the face of the waters”? When Jesus says to Nicodemus,” The wind blows where it chooses and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8), the Greek of the Gospel contains a kind of theological pun in its double use of pneuma.

Taking seriously this veiled presence of the Spirit, expressed in the hidden character of pneumatological action, by no means implies a denial of more manifest activity also. The kind of bivalent working that Kathryn Tanner discusses in her chapter is surely just what one would expect of a divine Person, in contrast to the uniformity of action associated with a mere force such as gravity, unvarying in its characteristics…

According to this understanding, the sanctifying work of the Spirit is a continuing activity that awaits its final completion in the creation of the community of the redeemed, a consummation that will manifest fully only at the eschaton. Of the Persons of the Trinity, we can appropriate most specifically to the Spirit the title of deus absconditus, the hidden God.

We have acknowledged that a veiling of pneumatological activity is not the only thing to be said about the work of the Paraclete, yet recognition of a degree of reticence in the nature of the Spirit’s presence does offer opportunities for the theological understanding of a number of puzzling aspects of the human encounter with divine reality. There is the important and pressing problem posed by the need to understand how the apparently clashing cognitive claims made by the different world faith traditions can be reconciled with the evident presence of authentic spiritual experience within all of them. I have suggested elsewhere that this phenomenon may most helpfully be considered in terms of the salvific working of the hidden Spirit.”

Michael Welker, The work of the Spirit: pneumatology and Pentecostalism
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006, page 170-1

“This book is my attempt, as a sociologist of religion, to answer the question raised by my friend that day. It is about Sahaja Yoga, the new religious movement (NRM) whose member was responsible for the ‘cool breezes’ which he felt.”- Judith Coney

“One spring afternoon in 1992, a Norwegian friend who was living in my village for a year whilst he completed a Master of Business Administration at Bath University dropped over for coffee. After exchanging the usual set of pleasantries about the weather and a few comments about the local primary school, he introduced a new topic into the conversation. Knowing my interest in new religions, he said, was I aware that some people in the next village were ‘giving cool breezes’? I confessed my ignorance and pressed him for details. One, a woman called Jane, he continued, had given him a sort of massage and as a result he had felt a Cool Breeze on the top of his head. ‘I really did, you know!’ he went on, looking slightly uncomfortable, as he did not quite believe it himself. ‘What’s it all about?’

This book is my attempt, as a sociologist of religion, to answer the question raised by my friend that day. It is about Sahaja Yoga, the new religious movement (NRM) whose member was responsible for the ‘cool breezes’ which he felt.”

Judith Coney, Sahaja Yoga (Introduction page)
Publisher: RoutledgeCurzon; 1 edition (May 24 1999)
Judith Coney is a lecturer in the Department of Study of Religions at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

The Holy Spirit

“The Holy Spirit of Wisdom has frequently changed its gender. It has been suggested that, because of the change in language and culture within the early Church, ‘this feminine aspect (ruach) to the inauguration of Jesus is neutered to pneuma in Hellenistic Christian communities and eventually masculanized to spiritus in the Latin church’ [12] This led to a shift from feminine to masculine metaphors. As Jung has remarked: ‘the Holy Ghost is not subject to any control.’ [13] but blows where it will, like the wind.”

Caitlín Matthews, Sophia: Goddess of Wisdom,
The Aquarian Press, 1992, p. 135.
(12. p. 128 King; 13 p. 116 Jung 1954)

“It states that the Fourth Gospel does not narrate Jesus’ baptism but explains its significance. Since the Holy Spirit descended and remained on Him, He is singled out as the Son of God who will baptize with the Holy Spirit (John 1:32-34.) His teachings direct to rebirth through the Spirit where a new state of being is attained by the grace of the Spirit — this is the only way of entering the Kingdom of the Spirit. Water is associated with the Spirit (John 3:5-8; cf 1:13.) However, this salvation of humankind through rebirth can only take place after His death and exaltation (cf 3:14.) Therefore this promise of the coming Spirit points to the future: “Now this he said about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive; for as yet the Spirit had not been given [or, Spirit was not yet], because Jesus was not yet glorified” (7:39.) The discourses following Last Supper hold the key to the narration of the Spirit. It is referred to as the ‘paraclete’ (Counselor) or ‘advocate’, ‘intercessor’ or more appropriately the Spirit of paraclesis i.e. the declaration of the comfort and encouragement of the gospel in the coming age that would fulfill this promise. With these terms and the use of masculine instead of neuter pronouns, the concept of the Spirit attains a more personal nature than at any other point in the Bible.”

Dictionary of the Bible, C. S. Sons, 1963, p. 393.

“A second characterization of the divine Mother describes her as Holy Spirit. The Apocryphon of John relates how John went out after the crucifixion with ‘great grief’ and had a mystical vision of the Trinity. As John was grieving, he says that

The [heavens were opened and the whole] creation [which is] under heaven shone and [the world] trembled. [And I was afraid, and I] saw in the light … a likeness with multiple forms … and the likeness had three forms. [14]

To John’s question the vision answers: “He said to me, ‘John, Jo[h]n, why do you doubt, and why are you afraid? … I am the one who [is with you] always. I [am the Father]; I am The Mother; I am the Son.'”[15]

This gnostic description of God — as Father, Mother and Son — may startle us at first, but on reflection we can recognize it as another version of the Trinity. The Greek terminology for the Trinity, which includes the neuter term for spirit (pneuma) virtually requires that the third ‘Person’ of the Trinity be asexual. But the author of the Secret Book has in mind the Hebrew term for spirit, ruah, a feminine word; and so concludes that the feminine ‘Person’ conjoined with the Father and Son must be The Mother. The Secret Book goes on to describe the divine Mother:

… (She is) … the image of the invisible, virginal, perfect spirit … She became The Mother of everything, for she existed before them all, The Mother-father [matropater] … [16]

The Gospel to the Hebrews likewise has Jesus speak of ‘my Mother, the Spirit.'[17] In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus contrasts his earthly parents, Mary and Joseph, with his divine Father — the Father of Truth — and his divine Mother, the Holy Spirit.”

Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels, 1989, p. 49-50

(14. Apocryphon of John 1.31-2.9, in nhl 99; 15. Ibid., 2.2-14, in nhl 99; 16. Ibid., 4.34-5.7, in nhl 101; 17. Gospel to the Hebrews, cited in Origen, comm. jo. 2.12.) (14. Apocryphon of John 1.31-2.9, in nhl 99; 15. Ibid., 2.2-14, in nhl 99; 16. Ibid., 4.34-5.7, in nhl 101; 17. Gospel to the Hebrews, cited in Origen, comm. jo. 2.12.)

“The Kingdom of God that we were promised is at hand. This is not a phrase out of a sermon or a lecture, but it is the actualization of the experience of the highest Truth which is Absolute, now manifesting itself in ordinary people at this present moment.”

The Paraclete Shri Mataji



“Now about Christ, I think greatest message of Christ is His resurrection. This is resurrection, that He showed what Krishna has said in His lifetime, that the spirit doesn’t die, it cannot be killed, it cannot be blown out, it has to rise, and it rises. Whatever you may try, it is eternal, and that is what Christ has proved by His resurrection. But by His resurrection He has achieved a great thing, which Hindus do not know and the Christians have not carried the message because they also do not know.”

The Paraclete Shri Mataji
Public Program, Melbourne, Australia—April 6, 1981



“Tell all the nations and tell all the people all over the Great Message that the Time of Resurrection is here. Now, at this time, and that you are capable of doing it.”

The Paraclete Shri Mataji
Cowley Manor Seminar, UK—July 31, 1982



“This is the transformation that has worked, of which Christ has talked, Mohammed Sahib has talked, everybody has talked about this particular time when people will get transformed.”

The Paraclete Shri Mataji
Chistmas Puja, Ganapatipule, India—25 December 1997



“The Resurrection of Christ has to now be collective resurrection. This is what is Mahayoga. Has to be the collective resurrection.”

The Paraclete Shri Mataji
Easter Puja, London, UK—11 April 1982



“Announce it to all the seekers of truth, to all the nations of the world, so that nobody misses the blessings of the Divine to achieve their meaning, their absolute, their spirit.”

The Paraclete Shri Mataji



“The main thing that one has to understand is that the time has come for you to get all that is promised in the scriptures, not only in the Bible but all the scriptures of the world.”

The Paraclete Shri Mataji



“I bow to all the seekers of truth. The seekers of truth is a very special category of people. They’ve existed in all the centuries before also. And you find glimpses of that in many literary work. Today I read a book written by Ayala from Spain who was there in 1906. And he had described a seeker of truth how he became a saint.

William Blake from England, about hundred years back he lived, has said that, ‘The time will come when many seekers of truth will be born. They are the men of God, they will be transformed, and they will have powers to transform others’.

This transformation is what we call is the birth which takes place second time. It is not just a certificate we should have from some institution that we are born again. Or we have become a twice born person, as we call in India a Brahmin, who thinks that he is really baptized. But the real baptism is a happening.

Recently there has been a very beautiful discovery of Saint Thomas’s writings who was a disciple of Christ and on his way to India he wrote a beautiful description of what a saint should be, and what Christ wanted us to be, in a very large book, and put it in a jar in Egypt. This book was recovered only 48 years back and has been again deciphered by a very good gentleman who came out with the book call Gnostic. Now Gna in Sanskrit language also means to know. To know on your central nervous system. Is not a mental knowledge. By reading books you cannot become a realized soul. It is not a mental achievement. That’s exactly what Saint Thomas has written that it is not a mental thing.

That it has to be a happening within us by which we know our Self, we get our real baptism. He’s against all kinds of theories of sufferings. He says Christ has suffered for us. We have to just awaken Christ within us. And God Almighty is a Father who is so much full of compassion and love for His children. Why should He make you suffer?

Logically one should understand if Christ had suffered for us are we going to suffer more than Christ had suffered? Has He left something undone that we have to suffer any more? He suffered because there was a problem in the human awareness. People were lost in ritualism and in philosophic discussions. So His message was that of Resurrection. That is being clearly shown if you see the Sistine Chapel in Vatican you see a huge, big Christ sitting there and judging people and giving them resurrection. So the time has come for us, all of us, to enter into the Kingdom of God. Now the time has come. This is the Blossom Time that many have to become the fruits.”

The Paraclete Shri Mataji
Geneva, Switzerland—11 August 1988



The Paraclete Shri Mataji

“Now this Kundalini is the power which is placed in the sacrum bone (coccyx), nowhere else… And imagine this bone is called sacrum“sacrum” means ‘sacred’. So they knew there was something in it… This is the primule, is the germinating power within us. Now this fact has been accepted for thousands of years in India and elsewhere. For in the Bible also … they talk of the Tree of Life. That is the same as this…

So this is the thing that is being described in our ancient books, in all the scriptures, even in the Qur’n they are described as Ruh, R-U-H, Ruh‘Ruh’ means the ‘cold breeze’, the ‘Cool Breeze’ (pneuma). The Cool Breeze (pneuma) of the Holy Ghost is described in the Bible also.

You cannot suddenly start a new idea about something. If it is an evolutionary process, if it is a living process it must have its background, its history, and it must culminate into something fruitful. Like every fruit has a tree behind it… If it is a living fruit it has to come out the tree that have existed for thousands and thousands of years, and out of that this tree has to come. It must have a base and this is traditionally called the kundalini awakening process…

Christ has said very clearly that you have to be born again. I mean the whole message of Christ’s life is Realization … when Christ came on this Earth to show that you have to become the spirit. By His resurrection He showed that, and this is the message of Christ.”

The Paraclete Shri Mataji
October 23, 1980—Hampstead, UK

Add a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *