Rays of the One Light

Weekly Commentaries on the Bible & Bhagavad Gita

Swami Kriyananda

• Publisher: Crystal Clarity Publishers
• Year: 1996
• Print ISBN: 9781565892088
• eBook ISBN: 9781565895249
• Edition: 4
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Asian Religions

East meets West and theological barriers tumble. Two scriptures become one Truth.

This profound commentary gives scriptural authority to the ecumenical hopes of our times. With parallel passages from the Judeo-Christian Bible and the Bhagavad Gita of India, Rays of the One Light reveals a single unified teaching. Concepts such as karma and reincarnation are explained in the words of Jesus; while salvation through grace, and the "only son of God, " are described in the Bhagavad Gita.

Rays of the One Light is based on the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda—a great spiritual master from India, and author of the beloved classic, Autobiography of a Yogi.

Week 1

AT THE HEART OF SILENCE—THE ETERNAL WORD

Truth is one and eternal. Realize oneness with it in your deathless Self, within.

The following commentary is based on the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda.

In the Gospel of St. John, Chapter 1, these immortal lines appear:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

Human vision beholds individuality and separation everywhere. Divine vision beholds the oneness of cosmic vibration, of which all things, no matter how diverse, are manifestations. Cosmic Sound— the “Word” of God—and Cosmic Light: These are eternal. The world, as revealed to us by our senses, is illusory.

In Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramhansa Yogananda relates an early experience he received of the divine aspect of reality:

Sitting on my bed one morning, I fell into a deep reverie.

“What is behind the darkness of closed eyes?” This probing thought came powerfully into my mind. An immense flash of light at once manifested to my inward gaze. Divine shapes of saints, sitting in meditation posture in mountain caves, formed like miniature cinema pictures on the large screen of radiance within my forehead.

“Who are you?” I spoke aloud

“We are the Himalayan yogis.” The celestial response is difficult to describe; my heart was thrilled.

“Ah, I long to go to the Himalayas and become like you!” The vision vanished, but the silvery beams expanded in ever-widening circles to infinity.

“What is this wondrous glow?

“I am Iswara. I am Light.” The voice was as murmuring clouds.

“I want to be one with Thee!”

Out of the slow dwindling of my divine ecstasy, I salvaged a permanent legacy of inspiration to seek God.

Wise are we if we meditate on that experience of Yogananda’s, and salvage from it even a breath of his inspiration. For, quite simply, there is nothing else! As the Bhagavad Gita says in the seventh Chapter:

I make and unmake this universe. Apart from Me nothing exists, O Arjuna. All things, like the beads of a necklace, are strung together on the thread of My consciousness, and are sustained by Me.

Thus, through holy scripture, God has spoken to mankind.

Week 2

DID GOD CREATE THE UNIVERSE—OR BECOME IT?

Truth is one and eternal. Realize oneness with it in your deathless Self, within.

The following commentary is based on the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda.

The Gospel of St. John, Chapter 1, contains a passage that explains the essential truth that creation is a process of becoming. The universe is not separate from God the Creator, but a part of Him even as our own dream-creations, during sleep, are figments of our consciousness. God’s is the life; God’s, the reality. Not a melody could be composed, not a poem written, were the melody and the poem not already there, simply waiting to be expressed.

In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

Ego-directed desire is like static; it distorts the radioed messages of Infinity. But the pristine impulse from the divine, undistorted by limitation and delusion, is the life that gives rise to all that is. As the seventh Chapter of the Bhagavad Gita states:

I am the fluidity of water. I am the silver light of the moon and the golden light of the sun. I am the AUM chanted in all the Vedas: the Cosmic Sound moving as if soundlessly through the ether. I am the manliness of men. I am the good sweet smell of the moist earth. I am the luminescence of fire; the sustaining life of all living creatures. I am self-offering in those who would expand their little lives into cosmic life. O Arjuna, know Me as the eternal seed of all creatures. In the perceptive, I am their perception. In the great, I am their greatness. In the glorious, it is I who am their glory.

Thus, through holy scripture, God has spoken to mankind.

Week 3

IS GOD PRESENT EVEN THERE, WHERE THERE IS IGNORANCE?

Truth is one and eternal. Realize oneness with it in your deathless Self, within.

The following commentary is based on the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda.

The Gospel of St. John, Chapter 1, makes a reference to the divine light that is obscure to the rational faculty, but that enlightens our higher nature: “The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.” Reason recoils from this statement with innumerable questions. What is this darkness? Is it conscious, that it should comprehend anything? What sort of light would be capable of shining in darkness without transforming at least that part of the darkness in which it shines into light? Does this light shine only at night? And if so, why only then?

The solution is that, to divine sight, even daylight seems darkness. The sun itself, like the moon which shines only by reflected light from the sun, is but a kind of reflection of the cosmic light, which, being immaterial, is invisible to the eyes but which is the Great Source of all material reality.

In Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramhansa Yogananda describes his youthful visit to Ram Gopal Muzumdar, the “sleepless saint,” who lived in the vision of that hidden light. “Around midnight,” Yogananda wrote,

Ram Gopal fell into silence, and I lay down on my blankets. Closing my eyes, I saw flashes of lightning; the vast space within me was a chamber of molten light. I opened my eyes and observed the same dazzling radiance. The room became a part of the infinite vault which I beheld with interior vision.

“Why don’t you go to sleep?"

“Sir, how can I sleep in the presence of lightning, blazing whether my eyes are shut or open?”

“You are blessed to have this experience; the spiritual radiations are not easily seen.” The saint added a few words of affection.

This is the “light that shineth in darkness.” It has been described variously in the great scriptures. In the Bhagavad Gita, the eleventh Chapter, the devotee, Arjuna, is given an experience of the infinite state and exclaims in awe:

If there should rise suddenly within the skies

Sunburst of a thousand suns

Flooding earth with beams undeemed-of,

Then might be that Holy One’s

Majesty and radiance dreamed of!

Thus, through holy scripture, God has spoken to mankind.

Week 4

THE INFINITE CHRIST

Truth is one and eternal. Realize oneness with it in your deathless Self, within.

The following commentary is based on the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda.

The Gospel of St. John contains some of the most profound spiritual teachings in the Bible. In the first Chapter many subtle truths are suggested concerning higher stages of Self-realization.

Here, John the Baptist is described as one reaching up toward that high state. “He was not that light,” the Gospel tells us, “but was sent to bear witness of that light.” Jesus Christ, by contrast, is described as the light itself. “That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.”

One essential truth stands out in this teaching: that Jesus came not to dogmatize people with a new teaching, but to bring them timeless, universal truths. Disciples saw the master clothed in human form, and therefore judged him in terms of his greatness relative to the greatness of other teachers. Wisdom, however, sees the master’s very greatness in terms of a cosmic unity.

There is a passage in The Path, by Swami Kriyananda, in which this point is emphasized. The Master, Paramhansa Yogananda, explained,

“The saint who attains that exalted consciousness never says, ‘I am God,’ for he sees it was the vast Ocean that became his little wave of ego. The wave, in other words, would not claim, when referring to the little self, to be the Ocean.”

At this juncture Debi, who was present, cried excitedly, “But Sir, if you are one with that Ocean, that means you are God!”

“Why I?” Master asked. “Say ‘He.’ He is God.”

“But still, Sir, you are one with Him, and He is the only reality. That means you, too, are God.”

“But this body isn’t God!”

“You aren’t identified with your ...

Table of contents

• Preface
• 1. At the Heart of Silence—the Eternal Word
• 2. Did God Create the Universe—or Become It?
• 3. Is God Present Even There, Where There Is Ignorance?
• 4. The Infinite Christ
• 5. The Mystery of Avatara, or Divine Incarnation
• 6. The Importance of Soul-Receptivity
• 7. The Law Is Perfected in Love
• 8. Can Man See God?
• 9. By Thinking Can We Arrive at Understanding?
• 10. Dogmatism vs. Common Sense
• 11. Reason vs. Intuition
• 12. We Are Children of the Light
• 13. Deeds vs. Intentions
• 14. (Palm Sunday) Who Is This Son of Man?
• 15. (Easter) Resurrection for Every Soul
• 16. To Each According to His Faith
• 17. How High Should We Aspire?
• 18. Perfection Is Self-Transcendence
• 19. The Secret of Right Action
• 20. Activity vs. Inner Communion
• 21. The Best Way to Worship
• 22. The Inner Kingdom
• 23. Why Do Devotees Fall?
• 24. How Devotees Rise
• 25. The Eternal Now
• 26. The Redeeming Light
• 27. Abiding in God
• 28. Self-Reliance vs. Self-Reliance
• 29. Self-Effort, Too, Is Needed
• 30. Do You Need a Guru?
• 31. How Democratic Is Truth?
• 32. Does God Hide the Truth?
• 33. Does Satan Exist?
• 34. How Should We Meet Our Tests?
• 35. Who Are True Christians?
• 36. Ego—Friend or Foe?
• 37. Truth Invites; It Never Commands
• 38. Intuition Is Simple: The Intellect Is Complex
• 39. Many Are the Pathways to Truth
• 40. In Surrender Lies Victory!
• 41. Victory Demands the Courage of Conviction
• 42. First Things First
• 43. What Is the Best Way to Pray?
• 44. Why Tell God Anything, When He Knows Everything? Why Offer God Anything, When He Has Everything?
• 45. Faith Is a Call to Prayer; Prayer Is a Call to Faith
• 46. The Promise of the Scriptures
• 47. Reincarnation—the Spiral Staircase
• 48. The Law of Karma—Bondage, or Soul-Release
• 49. What Is It, to Fail Spiritually?
• 50. Living in the Presence of God
• 51. What Was the Star of Bethlehem?
• 52. The Divine Ascension
• 53. The Last Commandment
• About the Author