187. Jesus Christ in the eyes of a non-Christian. Part three

 

We were discussing the miracles performed by Jesus Christ                                                                                                                                                                      

1. One of the most spectacular events was his transfiguration. His appearance changed and his clothes became dazzling white. He talked with mighty prophets like Moses and Elijah, and a voice was heard from the cloud. All this happened in front of three witnesses, Peter, James and John. Here is the account:                                                                                                        “After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them. ³ His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. ⁴ And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus” (9:2-4).                            Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!”

This event is described in all three synoptic Gospels and in a letter by Peter:                                ¹⁷ He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”^{[a] 18} We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.(2. Peter: 17-18 )

When a modern reader like yourself, reads all that which I have written above, if he or she is not an unquestioning devout Christian, one of following reactions arise in him/her:

1. It is not true. Such things don’t happen. Bible should not be taken literally. Why don’t these miracles happen now? Not one miracle has been recorded in recent times.
2. There may be some truth in these tales; rest is all exaggeration, carried out by an army of authors, over two thousand years.

You don’t want to appear gullible and superstitious, so you deny the miracles. In a discussion with your scientific-minded friends, you are apologetic about miracles recorded in Bible..     

There is no need to be apologetic. It is they who are close-minded.            They fail to appreciate that Divine power can cause miracles by using as yet undiscovered laws of nature. The known laws are not suspended but other undiscovered laws are brought into action which make it appear supernatural.

But what about the argument that why don’t miracles happen now?

The answer is that miracles happen now also. The same Source from which prophets derived their power still exists. Men of God (mystics) appear in all times and go to the same Source where prophets had gone and got powers, though not in the same order of magnitude as prophets possessed. We see glimpses of such powers. Here are some examples:

Jesus cured sicknesses. My brother suffered from incurable sickness. He went to the Great Mystic of Khyber Pass, who sealed his disease (see blog 104 ).

He suffered from a chronic illness for years, which affected his daily life. He had surgery, but that did not help. Soon he started vomiting blood. He fell down in streets couple of times and was taken to hospital. He was diagnosed with cancer (although that part is not documented). One day he met a dervish. The dervish said that in a far flung area a Qalander lives; only he has the ability to cure him. That man took that difficult journey, (considering his sickness). He met the Qalander the following day. The Qalander heard his story. He gave that man some goat milk to drink, and told him, “I have sealed your disease. It won’t progress. You won’t have vomiting any more. All your symptoms will gradually get better, and you will be alright in a month”. That is exactly what happened. Several years have since passed

St Augustine narrated the miracle of restoration of vision of a blind man (blog 163). Let me repeat it for the sake of continuity:

1. “While the bodies were being carried, on the way, several people who were tormented by evil spirits were cured. There was also a man who had been blind for many years, a well known figure in the city. He asked why the crowd was running wild with joy, and when they told him the reason, he leaped to his feet and begged his guide to lead him where the bodies lay. When he reached the place, he asked to be allowed to touch the bier with his handkerchief.  No sooner had he done this and put the handkerchief to his eyes, his eyesight was restored. The news spread”.
   St. Augustine was there in the city of Milan. He would not have recounted it unless it was authentic. He may even have witnessed it. Augustine was a highly rational man, as is clear from his struggle to understand time, astrology, and how prophets could see future. He was not likely to suffer from what Hume called ‘superstitious delusion’.
   St Teresa of Avilla narrates in her book, how she prayed for vision (blog 78). Here is the account from my blog:
                  “Once she was earnestly begging Jesus to restore vision to a totally blind man. The Lord appeared and talked to her. Then He said that He would always grant her anything she asked, because she won’t ask Him anything which did not tend to His glory. The vision was restored within a week.”

To be continued

 

175. Jesus Christ seen/heard over centuries. Part seven

 

To continue the narrative of the vision of Jesus by Ramdas while he was in a cave.

 

He wore a long, dark, chocolate colored robe or gown with wide, loose sleeves. What fascinated Ramdas were his eyes. They were scintillating like twin stars. The rays they were emitting were filled with tenderness, love and compassion.

Ramdas gazed on them, charmed and delighted. It struck him: “This is Jesus Christ.” There was another person beside him, but Ramdas’s eyes were not for him, although he was aware of his presence. He might be a disciple. Now Christ’s lips moved. He was speaking. Ramdas listened but could not make out what he said. The tongue seemed strange and unknown to him. For perhaps a minute he spoke; then the vision vanished, while the glow of light in the cave remained for some more minutes. Ramdas was completely immersed in ecstasy and only came to external consciousness after broad daylight.

 

10. The great mystic of 19the century, Ramakrishna, (blogs 19-24), had visions of Jesus Christ (1). Before the visions, for some months, he had been listening to Bible by Sambucharan Mallick. Thus he came to know of the pure life of Jesus and the religion he had founded. The desire to follow the Sadhanas (spiritual practices) of that path arose in his mind. It was soon that this event happened:

 

He was sitting in the garden house of a devotee, Jadunath Mallick. There were some good pictures hanging on the walls of that room. One of those pictures was of that of the child Jesus in his mother’s lap. He was looking intently at the picture and was thinking of the extraordinary life of Jesus, when he felt that the picture came to life, and that effulgent rays of light, coming out from the bodies of the mother and the child, entered into his heart and changed radically all the ideas in his mind!

………Rising with a great force, the waves of those impressions completely submerged the Hindu ideas in his mind. His love and devotion to the Devas and Devis vanished, and in their stead, a great faith in, and reverence for Jesus and his religion occupied his mind………

The Master came back to Dakshineswar temple and remained constantly absorbed in the meditation of those inner happenings. He forgot altogether to go to the temple of the Divine Mother and pay obeisance to Her. The waves of those ideas had a mastery over his mind in that manner for three days.

At last, when the third day was going to close, the Master saw, while walking under the Panchavati that a marvelous god-man of very fair complexion was coming towards him, looking steadfastly at him. As soon the Master saw that person, he knew that he was a foreigner. He saw that his long eyes gave a wonderful beauty to his face, and the tip of his nose, though a little flat, did not at all impair that beauty. The Master was charmed to see the extraordinary divine expression of that handsome face, and wondered who he was. Very soon the person approached him, and thereupon from the depth of the Master’s pure heart came out with a ringing sound, the words, “Jesus the Christ! The great Yogi, the loving son of God, one with the Father, who gave his heart’s blood and put up with endless tortures in order to deliver man from sorrow and misery.” Jesus, the god-man, then embraced the Master and disappeared into his body, and the master entered into ecstasy, lost normal consciousness and remained identified for some time with omnipresent Brahmin with attributes (Supreme God). Having attained the vision of Jesus, the Master became free from the slightest doubt about Christ being an incarnation of God.

One day, long after the event, he asked some disciples, that what was the physical description of Jesus in the Bible? They replied that the description was not available in the Bible, but since he was a Jew, he must be very fair in complexion, with long eyes and aquiline nose. The Master said, “But I saw that the tip of his nose was a little flat; I don’t know why I saw him like that.” They came to know, shortly after the Master passed away, that there were three different descriptions of Jesus’ physical features; and according to one of them the tip of his nose was a little flat.

11. There are other numerous visions/locutions of Jesus over the last two thousand years. I have omitted them for various reasons; either they lacked a bodily form of Jesus, or the account was written years later by persons who had not met the individual who had experienced the vision, or were of doubtful authenticity because either the events were implausible or reflected more of that person’s own thoughts. However, the visions/locutions of Saint Catherine of Sienna, and the Blessed Henry Susso are numerous and noteworthy. I have decided to narrate them in separate blogs.

 

 

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ (1) Sri Ramakrishna; the Great Master by Swami Saradananda

 

174. Jesus Christ seen/heard over centuries. Part six

 

We were discussing the account narrated by Swami Yogananda of Therese Neumann

 

“I halted just inside the threshold, at a strange and most frightful spectacle. Blood flowed thinly and continuously in an inch-wide stream from Therese’s lower eyelids. Her gaze was focused upwards at the spiritual eye within the central forehead. The cloth wrapped around her head was drenched with blood from the stigmata wounds of the Crown of Thorns. The white garment was redly splotched over her heart from the wound in her side at the spot where Christ’s body, long ages ago, had suffered from the final indignity of the soldier’s spear thrust.

Therese’s hands were spread in gesture maternal, pleading: her face wore an expression both tortured and divine. She appeared thinner and was subtly changed in many inner and outer ways. Murmuring words in a foreign tongue, she spoke with slightly quivering lips to persons who were visible to her superconscious sight.

As I was in attunement with her, I began to see the scenes of her vision. She was watching Jesus as he carried the timbers of his cross amid jeering multitudes*. Suddenly she lifted her head in consternation: the Lord had fallen under the cruel weight. The vision disappeared. In the exhaustion of fervid pity, Therese sank heavily against her pillow…..again I fixed my eyes to Therese’s face, deathly pale under the rivulets of blood, but now calm, radiating purity and holiness.”

This scene is most important, because in other scenes/locutions by other persons there is only one witness of the event; the subject experiencing it. But here there were two people watching it, Swami Yogananda and Therese Neumann. These two persons lived thousands of miles away and had met only during Yogananda visit to Germany.

7. Swami Yogananda had a vision of Jesus (1). He narrates: ‘One night while I was engaged in silent prayer, my sitting room became filled with an opal blue light. I beheld the radiant form of the blessed Lord Jesus. A young man he seemed, of about twenty five, with a sparse beard and mustache; his long black hair, parted in the middle, was haloed by a shimmering gold.

His eyes were eternally wondrous; as I gazed, they were infinitely changing. I intuitively understood the wisdom conveyed. In his glorious gaze I felt the power that upholds the myriad worlds. A Holy Grail appeared at his mouth; it came down to my lips and then returned to Jesus. After a few moments he uttered beautiful words, so personal in their nature, that I keep them in my heart.’ 

8. Indra Devi (blogs 87-88) had in a dream a beautiful vision of Christ (2). She had found herself in a city, walking on a cobbled street. There were high building walls on both sides. From a side alley the sound of something heavy being dragged could be heard drawing nearer and nearer; and then the whole atmosphere changed­^___the air became surcharged with something that cannot be described.

               A few men with heavy clumsy clothes and rope sandals came in front and then there was someone bent double, dragging on his back a roughly hewn tree shaped something like a cross. It was too heavy for him and he was bare bodied except for a sort of Indian lungi^# She pushed her way through the crowd, and drawing near the person drawing the Cross, cried out “Oh Lord, why do you allow them to this to you?” She went down on her knees and wept. He who seemed so frail and weary looked up at her and she saw that his eyes were not sad. They were like two pools of deep water, full of compassion. For he understood why men do not understand. He forgave those very unfortunate beings who hated him, and offered them Divine Love…….The eyes smiled though the lips were parched. Indra was overwhelmed by the experience….peace coursed from her head right down through her body

9. Swami Ramdas in his book (3) describes his vision of Jesus Christ. He was living in a cave on water diet. On the fifth day, the cave was suddenly lit up by a strange light. Ramdas saw seated before him, on the floor about three or four feet from him, the figure of a man. His face was dazzling with a heavenly splendor. The features were fine, regular and beautiful. There was a short, black, glossy beard and mustache on the face. The lips were crimson red, revealing milk white, lustrous teeth. Soft white black curls flowed down his shoulders.

 

To be continued

 

*Her entrancement usually started with scenes of the events following the Last Supper and ended with Jesus’ death on the Cross; or occasionally with his entombment.

(1) Autobiography of a yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda

(2) Pilgrim of the stars by Dilip Kumar Roy and Indra Devi

(3) In the vision of God, vol 2, by Swami Ramdas

^#   A wraparound cloth that reaches from the waist to the ankles