Jesus Christ and Yoga

By Shyam Sundar Goswami

Only through spirituality can man's meanness and smallness be conquered and his divine nature manifested.

To transform materialistic influences requires a gigantic spiritual effort and living spiritual inspiration. This can only be achieved by a great spiritual master.

Jesus Christ, who, by millions of people is regarded as an incarnation of God, came into our world to teach us spiritual truths by which we can be free from bondage and attain immortality. His teaching does not consist of mere words but is based on his own realization in silent prayer. His spirituality was not like something grafted on his personality; reality and strength were exhibited in his mode of life and his activities. He came to this world as the Divine Light to show the path which leads to God to human beings who forgot about him in their deep immersion in the vast ocean of worldliness. His spiritual life inspires us.

This book is an attempt to study the teachings and activities of Jesus Christ for our spiritual development.

Interreligious learning is the norm today, and we have much to learn from how people in other faiths see and interpret even our most fundamental and treasured beliefs.

But we need to learn well; we need stellar examples of deep learning.

Shyam Sundar Goswami's Jesus Christ and Yoga goes deep into the mystery of Jesus in great detail and with great imagination, drawing on every resource available to the Goswami. Jesus is seen differently indeed from this fresh perspective--even as yoga itself is transformed in the light of Christ the great yogi. Goswami's classic study, accessible once more, is now more timely than ever.

Francis X. Clooney, SJ, Parkman Professor of Divinity,

Harvard University

Sri Goswami's remarkable familiarity with the teachings of Jesus, and his citations of corresponding teachings by the seers of ancient India, offer a significant learning experience for both Christians and members of Eastern religions. The notable resonance, albeit not complete, between classical yoga teaching and aspects of Christian theology and spiritual practice takes yoga far beyond being just a physical "feel-good experience" into being a means for acquiring divine knowledge and deepening one's relationship with God.

Fr. Thomas Ryan, CSP,

author of Prayer of Heart and Body, Meditation and Yoga

as Christian Spiritual Practice

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9781639612543

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Jesus Christ and Yoga

Shyam Sundar Goswami

ISBN 978-1-63961-255-0 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88943-573-0 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-63961-254-3 (digital)

Copyright © 2023 by Shyam Sundar Goswami

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

First edition L.N. Fowler & Co. Ltd.

London, England

Second Edition Asian Educational Services

New Delhi, India

Third Edition Christian Faith Publishing Inc.

© The Goswami Yoga Institute

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction to the First Edition

Introduction to the Third Edition

Chapter 1

The Life of Jesus

The Nativity

The Early Life of Jesus

The Unknown Part of the Life of Jesus

The Baptism of Jesus

Self-Purification

Jesus as a Great Spiritual Teacher

The Crucifixion

The Resurrection

Chapter 2

Jesus—An Incarnation of God

Chapter 3

Manifestation of Superpower

Cure of Disease

Restoration to Life

Walking on Water

Multiplication of Food

Manifestation of Other Powers

Chapter 4

The Spiritual Regulation of Mind and Body

Harmlessness

Truthfulness

Non-Stealing and Nonacquisitiveness

Sexual Continence

Cleanliness

Contentment

Ascesis

Spiritual Study

Concentration through Superlove on God

Chapter 5

About God

Chapter 6

Divine Love

Chapter 7

Mantra—Divine Words

Chapter 8

The Highest Spiritual Attainment and Its Means

Biographical Appendix

Transliteration and Pronunciation of Sanskrit Words

Bibliography

Glossary

Index

About the Author

Preface

Time, which is immense and appears to be almost infinite, is only measurable by its cycles. The cycles of materialism are sometimes interrupted by a cycle of spirituality. At one such cycle, the birth of Jesus Christ took place to revolutionize the materialistically metamorphosed human beings by the introduction of his spiritual doctrine, which successfully counteracted the anti-spiritual tendencies of man, and showed him the path to salvation. Such a unique teaching, and the extraordinary life from which it sprang are worthy of the most careful study. This should be done not in a narrow but in a universal spirit, accepting that all beings are from God, and hence, through love of God, they should be linked with one another. This book is an attempt to further this aim.

As the author's knowledge is limited, he has not been able to deal with the subject more profoundly and extensively. He also wishes he could have made the presentation more vivid and done greater justice to the sublimity of this great theme. In order to obtain as wide a view as possible, an editorial committee consisting of fourteen members was formed. All of the members were Christians and had also studied yoga for a long time. The present work has been unanimously approved by the committee. The translation of the Sanskrit texts was made especially by the author. Transliteration of the Sanskrit words is in accordance with a new method introduced by the author. In this method, an attempt has been made to promote a more correct pronunciation of the Sanskrit words.

In this study, the Gospel of Thomas has been included. It is stated that the sayings of Jesus contained in this gospel have been utilized by the Gnostic sects for their own purposes. This, however, does not concern us. Our purpose is to know whether or not these sayings are from Jesus. There is no reason to think otherwise. These sayings disclose the highest spiritual knowledge and, consequently, the very high spiritual standards of Jesus.

In the book, the author also refers to many passages relevant to his subject, taken specifically from the spiritual literature of ancient India. All these quotations have been given in an endeavor to assist in broadening vision and deepening comprehension for spiritual reality and to remove, at least to some extent, those mental barriers which still prevent the attainment of profound, universal, and spiritual understanding.

Acknowledgments

The quotations from The Secret Sayings of Jesus by Robert M. Grant and David Noel Freedman are by courtesy of Messrs. Doubleday & Company, Inc., New York, and Messrs. Wm. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd., London. The quotation from The Complete Works of Saint John of the Cross by E. Allison Peers is by courtesy of Messrs. Burns & Oates Ltd., London. The quotation from the New English Bible is by courtesy of the Oxford and Cambridge University Presses, London.

The Bible quotations in this third edition are from the New American Standard Bible translation, 1995, made available by the Lockman Foundation.

Introduction to the First Edition

During his study of yoga, the author felt the necessity of knowing what the yogins of recent times have said about yoga and what methods they have followed in their lives, with a view to understanding the ancient interpretation of yoga. For this purpose, the three great spiritual leaders of India—Buddha, Shankara, and Chaitanya—were first studied. In Buddha, he found an exemplification of yoga in its highest form—mental concentration developed in its deepest phase, termed Samadhi. In Shankara, he found the power to express the highest spiritual truth realizable in a state concentratedness of the highly spritualized mind, in a form of language which appears to be complex; he is indeed a rare example of an exceptionally brilliant intelligence in harmony with spirituality. In Chaitanya, he saw that aspect of yoga in which all feelings have been spiritualized and transformed into love in its supremely intensified form and concentrated solely on God.

When the author was contemplating to extend his investigations to include other great yogins, a voice from within came, inspiring him to undertake the study of the life and teaching of Jesus Christ.

This study of Jesus Christ comes under two main heads: the study of his life and activities and the study of his sayings. From a yogic viewpoint, it is most important to learn whether his sayings are based on the revealed spiritual knowledge—that truth-revealing, divine knowledge which arises when consciousness is transformed from its restless and infatuate state to single-pointedness and is fully illuminated by spiritual light during deepest concentration. This stage is, above all, worldliness. This means that the whole life of Jesus must have been molded into such a spiritual pattern in which supreme passionlessness was the natural mode of life, and that calm, deep, concentratedness of consciousness in which God alone is held.

There is still another point in relation to the sayings of Jesus Christ. Were they exclusively his own, or did they echo the sayings disclosing the spiritual truth uttered before his coming into the world? If the latter is the case, it will mean that spiritual sayings are fundamentally the same in all ages and in all places. Only their outer shape may appear somewhat different, owing to the adoption of different techniques of expression. However, the study of the sayings is inseperable from the study of the life and activities of a spiritual leader if we really mean to understand them truly.

What is a real spiritual life? It is that life in which there is the recognition and realization of an entity which is beyond all living beings but which is also deep within them, both beyond and also pervading the universe. It is a great spiritual step toward the solution of our most important problem: the overcoming of our limited knowledge and power and our development toward immortality toward the actualization of the possibility of being free from the bondage of matter and mind. It is not merely a matter of spiritual-talking, it is seeing. Only in seeing is man able to overcome all his limitations and realize within himself that perfection which is nothing but godlikeness. This highest possibility of man germinates only in spiritual soil. So spirituality is not something which has been grafted on man and nurtured by superstition, illiteracy, illogicality, and excessive religiosity. It is the truth of life, which is only clear when the opacity of the mind due to excessive mundaneness is transformed into a non-undulatory, monoform, one-pointed consciousness. We find that this spiritual fact has been demonstrated in the great seers and yogins. It has been demonstrated also in Jesus Christ.

Spirituality is not emptiness. We experience its colossal power in protecting our intelligence from being immersed in the mud of materialism, in elevating our feelings from experiencing pleasure of coarser types, and in preventing the material metamorphosis of the mind. It is also our experience that a spiritually awakened mind functions in a most helpful manner at the material level to alleviate our daily weaknesses and miseries and to bestow strength, confidence, peace, and happiness. These are the practical values of spirituality in our everyday lives, but these are rather more superficial. The real value of spirituality lies in our existence acquiring a higher form. At the sensory level, when spirituality lies more or less coiled, this aspect appears to be imaginative, negative, and useless, but it is true in a contemplative life. Spirituality is not only a necessity but also an indispensability in human life.

The recognition and acceptance of God is inescapable, rather inevitable. To deny God is to deny that phase of our existence in which our minds, being free from the pull of the mundane gravity, show an aspect in which the divine knowledge-light is the sole being. In other words, it will mean accepting as a permanent fact the limitations of being human without having any possibility of attaining a liberated life. This is a most degenerative form of human thinking. Only through spirituality does the hidden aspect of our minds become known. Here we see that God is the only being occupying the whole consciousness. When consciousness rises above perception, intellection, affection, and volition, it is not darkened, dulled, or dead, but God appears in it as truth, as the only being which is held there. The consciousness is only of God-form and fully illuminated by divine light. We find this as a fact in Jesus Christ, in all the great seers who came before him, and in great spiritual leaders who came after him.

Our consciousness is endowed with the power of flowing centrifugally as well as centripetally. The centrifuged consciousness exhibits multiformity which gives rise to the images of the outer world. But when the intrinsic, coiled power is awakened in consciousness, its penetration by the world images is prevented by the restraining influence which it exercises over the perceptive-intellective mechanism, and the flow away from God is transformed into that toward God. Through this power consciousness is raised above the sensory level, and its manifoldness is reduced to one-pointedness. It is in this state of concentration that God is held in consciousness, which is now wholly illuminated by divine existence. This state of superconcentrated godly consciousness is the state of yoga—samprajñata samadhi, that is divinely conscious concentration. When concentration is absorbed into supreme consciousness, this is the stage of what is technically termed Maha Yoga—the supreme yoga.

Yoga is based on that control power which causes consciousness to be Godward instead of outward. When the control reaches its highest point, it becomes yoga—supercontrol. Control is associated with concentration, and at the supercontrol levels, concentration becomes superconcentration. This is yoga. In superconcentration, the union with God takes place. This is superunion; this is yoga. So yoga is the real life of spirituality. Through yoga, spirituality becomes a living power in man's life. The living spirituality is yoga. We find this yoga in the life of Jesus Christ as we find it in all great yogins past and present. It makes no difference whether it is called yoga or something else. The essence is always there. We call it yoga because this term was introduced at the earliest phase of spiritual culture in ancient India by the great seers, and it has remained unchanged all through the ages up to and including the modern era.

Spirituality in its highest form is direct union with God in deepest concentration. This contact causes divine power to flow into the consciousness and, at the postconcentration waking conscious state, a part of the divine power remains in the mind. This is why the great yoga masters are able to manifest superpower, and it is quite evident that Jesus Christ also manifested it. Concentration itself absorbs power from God. It can also extract power form the material field. It simply indicates that superpower is a factor in real spirituality; it is an aspect of yoga. The highly rarified concentrative consciousness may have the possibility of absorbing a fraction of power from the infinite energy principle. It is not necessary to think that what we cannot know through the most sensitive instruments and, therefore, cannot do in unknowable and undoable. It was the privilege of the author to witness manifestations of certain forms of superpower by yogins. The existence of superhuman power cannot be denied.

Let us consider the miraculous cures performed by Jesus Christ. We find many yoga masters have demonstrated such power. The driving out of evil spirits from the possessed was very common in India. This can be done by merely seeing the patient. Therefore, there is no reason for disbelieving that Jesus possessed this power. The afflictions attributed to possession by evil spirits cannot, in all cases, be simply accounted for by regarding them as mental and nervous disorders.

In the text, we have given the names of some great yogins, selected from a much larger number, who manifested superpower in many forms like those exhibited by Jesus Christ. Our object was to show that superpower is an aspect of real spirituality, and that the great spiritual masters in all ages have manifested it as Jesus did.

There are controversies about the birth and death of Jesus Christ. The asexual character of his birth was an extraordinary occurrence but is not impossible. His birth was not the only case, similar instances have been recorded, though they are rare. The embodiment of a being is effected by the latent impressions of actions stored up in the life-mind aspect of the organisms. As these impressions of actions arise from affliction, they are associated with the latent impressions of feeling-desire created by an experience. Consequently, pre-experienced pleasure feeling, being linked to certain specific organic phenomena which can respond to the pleasure-desires, becomes operative as a sexual mode of initiating birth. But in certain exceptional cases of conception, where there are no latent impressions of action because there is complete absence of affliction, it is not necessary for the usual sexual mode to become operative. But as long as the latent impressions of action remain, sexual reproduction will be the only means of birth.

Bioenergy, which is the central force in the embodiment and without which embodiment becomes dissolved, comes from the Prana—the infinite energy aspect of the supreme power. It is not that life is invariably associated with matter. The connection with matter is due to certain latent impressions of action; the fruition of which is the length of life in a particular organization of matter. That life can exist extramaterially is demonstrated by this phenomenon: the leaving of one's own body and making it dead-like and then entering into a dead body and making it alive, again leaving the other's body and making it dead and reentering his own dead-like body and making it alive.

The latent impressions of action and feeling-desire restrict the life in a particular body. But when the basic affliction is changed into unafflictedness, the latent impressions, actions, and associated feelings are counteracted and finally controlled by the impressions of superconcentration. As in the latent impressions of action, there can be no element of impressions of superconcentration, so in an embodiment of being, life is restricted to that body, and the mode of birth is always by sexual reproduction. But where there are no latent impressions of action or where they are controlled by the impressions of superconcentration, life is free, and conception need not be limited to sexual means. In such, person's birth assumes an extraordinary character, as in the case of Jesus and some other spiritual leaders. This is why the author has accepted the virgin birth of Jesus Christ as stated in the Gospels of the New Testament.

About the death of Jesus Christ, the general opinion appears to be that he died by crucifixion. But there are some who think that he did not die on the