ISA

In their own way and style, the followers of every religion call upon the one God who is omnipresent. It is the same God who confers upon all mankind health, prosperity, peace, and happiness. No religion has a separate God showering grace upon those who profess to abide by that faith alone! It is the destiny of man to journey from humanity to divinity. In this pilgrimage he is bound to encounter various obstacles and trials. In order to illumine the path and help him overcome these troubles, sages, seers, realized souls, divine personalities, and incarnations of God take birth in human form. They move among the afflicted and the seekers who have lost their way or strayed into the desert, and they lead them into confidence and courage. Certain personalities are born and live out their days for this very purpose. They can be called karanajanmas (born for a purpose), for they take on the janma (birth) for a karana (cause, purpose). Such guides, exemplars, and leaders appear among all peoples and in all lands. They inspire faith in higher ideals and teach in the voice of God, counseling from the heart.

Of course, there are many aspirants who, by their devotion, dedication, and disciplined lives, attain the vision of the omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient One. They are content with the bliss they have won for themselves. There are others who go out to share this bliss with those beyond the pale; they guide and lead and are blessed thereby. They teach that multiplicity is a delusion and that unity is the reality.

The three stages of Jesus’ life

Jesus was karana-janma, a Master born with a purpose, the mission of restoring love, charity, and compassion in the heart of man. He had no attachment to the self, nor paid any heed to joy or sorrow, loss or gain. He had a heart that responded to the call of anguish, and He went about the land preaching the lesson of love. His life was a libation [metaphorically speaking] for the upliftment of humanity.

Like most seekers, He first searched for the Divine in the objective world. But He soon realized that the world is a kaleidoscopic picture created by one’s own imagination, and He sought to find God within Himself. His stay in the Himalayan monasteries in Kashmir [Northern India] and in other centers of eastern asceticism as well as His philosophical inquiry gave Him greater awareness. From the attitude of being a messenger of God, He could now call Himself the son of God. The bond of relationship increased: the ‘I’ was no more some distant light or entity; the light became a part of the ‘I.’ With the body-consciousness predominant, He was a messenger. With the heart-consciousness in the ascendant, He felt a greater nearness and dearness, and so the son-father bond seems natural at this stage.

Later as the atma-consciousness [soul-consciousness] was established, Jesus could declare, “I and my Father are One.” The three stages may be described as: “I was in the Light,” “the Light was in me,” and “I am the light.” These may be compared to the dwaita (dualism), visishta-adwaita (qualified non-dualism) and adwaita (non-dualism) stages respectively, as described in Vedic [scriptural] philosophy. The final stage is the one when all duality has been shed. This is the essence of all religious disciplines and teachings.

Jesus’ original name was Isa

Jesus was honored by the populace as Christ, for they found in His thoughts, words, and deeds no trace of ego. He had no envy or hatred, and He was full of love and charity, humility and sympathy. Jesus’ original name was Isa, which, when repeated, is Sai. Isa and Sai, both mean Iswara (God), the eternal absolute, the sath-chith-ananda (being-awareness-bliss). In the Tibetan manuscript, at the monastery where Isa spent some years, His name is written as Isha, which means the Lord of all living beings.

When Jesus proclaimed that He was the messenger of God, He wanted to emphasize that every one is a messenger of God and has to speak, act, and think like one. In parallel, this is the truth of that branch of the Vedas that deals with action and reaction, which stresses the discipline of work, prayer, self-less service, and meditation. Jesus asserted that when progress is furthered, each one can recognize all as sons of God, children of God, brothers and sisters of oneself and, so, deserving of worship. In the eternal universal religion known as sanathana dharma, the branch of the Vedas dealing with contemplation is the scripture for this stage. Finally, knowledge ripens into wisdom, and when each one realizes, “I and my Father are One,” the goal of the branch of Vedas dealing with spiritual wisdom is reached.

Do not confine Jesus

The birthday of Jesus must be celebrated by all mankind, for such karana-janmas belong to the whole human race. They should not be confined to a single country or community. Jesus found that scholars and ritualists had befogged the true religion, He engaged himself in teaching both spirituality and morality, for education is the very light of life. Jesus found that people were running after glass beads, imagining them to be diamonds and attaching great value to them. He went around the holy shrines and discovered that they had become bazaars where grace was being bargained for and commercialized. He condemned the priesthood that tolerated and encouraged these practices. So he drew upon himself the anger of the heads of temples and monasteries. They tempted one of his disciples with 30 silver pieces to betray Jesus and deliver Him into their hands.

The Roman rulers were told that Jesus was attempting to assert himself as king and so could be punished for treason. Their insistence made the governor order his crucifixion. When the nails were being driven into him to fix him on the cross, Jesus heard the voice of the Father saying, “All life is one, my dear son. Be alike to every one.” Jesus pleaded that those who were crucifying Him may be pardoned for they knew not what they did. Jesus sacrificed Himself for the sake of mankind.

Carols and candles, readings from the Bible, and acting out the incidents that surrounded His birth are not enough to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Jesus said that the bread taken in the ‘last supper’ was flesh, and the wine, His blood. He meant that all beings alive with flesh and blood are to be treated as He Himself and that no distinction should be made of friend or foe, we or they. Every body is His body, sustained by the bread; every drop of blood flowing in the veins of every living being is His, animated by the activity that the wine imparted to it. That is to say, every man is divine and has to be revered as such.

Man forgets the goal of life

You work as a messenger or servant; later you worship as a son does his father; finally, you achieve the wisdom that you and He are One. That is the spiritual journey of which Jesus has shown the way in clear terms. He announced very early in life that He had come to illumine the spiritual path. Even as a bud, He emitted fragrance. He had the light in Him, or else how can the tiny glowworm light a lamp?

To elevate man, to raise the level of his consciousness, He has to incarnate as man. He has to speak to them in their own style and language, He has to teach them the methods that they can adopt and practice. Birds and beasts need no divine incarnation to guide them, for they have no inclination to stray away from their dharma. Man alone forgets or ignores the goal of life.

Source: Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. XIV