The Life of Isa
Sathya Sai Baba said in His December 1978 Christmas discourse that Isa (another name for Jesus) was born with a purpose in life. He taught that first you work as a messenger or servant of God, later you worship Him as a child does a father, and finally you achieve the wisdom that you and He are one.
The followers of each religion call upon the one God who is omnipresent and listens to their prayers from whichever clime, or clothed in whatever language, they come. It is the same God who confers upon all humanity health, prosperity, peace, and happiness. Each religion has no separate God showering grace upon those who profess to abide by that faith alone! It is the destiny of every human being to journey from humanness to divinity as he or she has already journeyed from animality. In this pilgrimage, he or she is bound to encounter various obstacles and trials.
To help the human race overcome these troubles, sages, seers, realized souls, divine personalities, and incarnations of God appear on earth and illumine the path. These path lighters move among the afflicted, the seekers who have lost their way or strayed into the desert, and lead them into confidence and courage. Certain personalities are born and live out their days for this very purpose. They assume birth for a cause or purpose. Such guides, exemplars, and leaders appear among all peoples and in all lands. They inspire faith in higher ideals and teach as if their voice is the voice of God, counseling from the heart.
Of course, by devotion, dedication, and disciplined lives, many aspirants attain the vision of the omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient One. They are content with the bliss they have won for themselves. Others long to share their 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. They tell you that you are really three in one: the one you believe you are, the one others believe you are, and the one you really are.
Jesus was a master born with a purpose, the mission of restoring love, charity, and compassion in the human heart. He had no attachment to the self; He never paid heed to sorrow or pain, joy or gain. His heart responded to the call of anguish, the cry for peace and brotherhood. He went about the land, preaching the lesson of love, and He poured out His life as a libation in sacrifice to humanity.
Like most seekers, He searched for the Divine in the objective world of nature, but He soon realized that nature was a kaleidoscopic picture, created by His own imagination, and sought God within Himself. Here, His stay in the Himalayan monasteries, in Kashmir and in other centers of Eastern asceticism and philosophical inquiry brought Him greater success. From the attitude of being a messenger of God, He declared, after returning from the East, that He was the Son of God.
The old attitude had meant duality, a master-servant relationship. As a servant, He could not move beyond the orders of the master, or God. He had to carry out the duties laid down in the scriptures of his faith. This Jesus found too irksome, for he felt He was the image, while God was the original. The bond of relationship increased; the “I” was no more in some distant light or entity; the light became a part of the “I.” With body consciousness predominant, you feel you are a servant or messenger. With heart consciousness in the ascendant, you feel nearness and dearness, and so the father-child bond seems natural. Later, as the soul consciousness becomes stabilized, you can state: “I was in the light, then the light was in me, and now I am aware that I am the light” just as Jesus could declare at this stage, “I and my Father are one.”
Jesus could assert that His life was His message, for He lived among humans as He advised them to. All of you have to start your spiritual pilgrimage proclaiming that you are a servant of God or a messenger of God and are trying to live up to that high and responsible status. This is the dualism stage. Then you progress to discover the divine within yourself and realize that God is your precious heritage to claim and utilize. That is the qualified dualism stage—when you feel you are a child of God, of the same nature as God. Finally, you merge in God consciousness, and the salt doll has dissolved in the sea. This is the essence of all religious disciplines and teachings.
Jesus was the name He was known by; He 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; He was full of love and charity, humility and sympathy. The name Jesus itself is not the original one. He was named Isa, which with the sounds reversed is Sai. Isa or Sai both mean “God,” “the Eternal Absolute,” “the truth-awareness-bliss.” In the Tibetan manuscript at the monastery where Isa spent some years, the name is written as “Issa.” The name Isa means “Lord of all living beings.”
When Jesus proclaimed that He was the messenger of God, He wanted to emphasize that everyone is a messenger of God and has to speak, act, and think as one. This is the true karmakanda [sacred action section] of the Vedas, the spiritual practice of work—of repeating God’s name, of meditation, of selfless service. Jesus asserted that to further human progress you should recognize all as children of God, as your brothers and sisters and so deserving of worship. In Sanathana Dharma, the upasanakanda [personal God section of the Vedas] is the scripture for this stage. Finally, knowledge ripens into wisdom and the goal of the jnanakanda [knowledge of reality section] is reached, when you realize that “I and my Father are one.”
All humanity must celebrate the birthday of Jesus, for such purpose-born men 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 were 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. These authorities tempted one of Jesus’s disciples with 30 silver pieces to betray Him and place Him in their hands.
They told the Roman rulers that Jesus was attempting to assert Himself as king and so should 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 everyone.” He pleaded that those who were crucifying Him be pardoned, for they knew not what they did. Jesus sacrificed Himself for the sake of humankind.
Carols and candles, readings from the Bible, and plays on the incidents surrounding his birth are not enough to celebrate Jesus’ birthday. Jesus said that the bread taken in the last supper was His flesh and that the wine was His blood. He meant that you should treat all beings alive with flesh and blood as He Himself and make no distinction between friend and foe, we and 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.
First you work as a messenger or servant of God; later you worship Him as a child does his or her father, and finally you achieve the wisdom that you and He are one. That is the spiritual journey, and 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, the flower emitted fragrance. He had to have the light in him, or else how could the tiny glowworm light a lamp?
To elevate the human being, to raise the level of human consciousness, God has to incarnate as a human being. He has to speak to people 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. Only the human being forgets or ignores the goal of life.
Source: Sanathana Sarathi, February 1979
