This is a continuation of our extracts from Yogananda’s The Second Coming of Christ
articles that originally appeared in East-West, Inner Culture, and Self-Realization magazines.
Real spiritual teachers know not only how to baptize with water but also with Spirit, or the Holy Spirit. But alas! Many Hindus in their temples, and many Christians in their churches are baptized only with water, temporarily experiencing good physical baptism, but knowing and perceiving nothing of those marvelous soul-renewing experiences of spiritual baptism.
Ministers in churches and priests in temples are oftentimes chosen only by virtue of their intellectual study of the scriptures, and sacerdotal authority conferred on them by ceremonies performed by formally higher spiritual authority. But real ministers and priests first train their inner selves in the theological school of intuition and meditation.
They must spiritually baptize themselves first before they can aspire to baptize others at all. They teach their disciples not for mundane gains, but, being impelled by God, they baptize them spiritually. It is admirable to lecture and teach good principles, but one cannot redeem souls until he has progressed far himself.
Baptism by the Holy Spirit
The human body is a collective vibration of grossly stirring atoms, and electrons and intelligent life force (finer than electrons). The soul, a reflection of spirit, while dwelling within it, cannot remember its omnipresent state. But by meditation one can tune in with the cosmic mind which emanates from the vibration of all atoms and life force. The Christian Bible says, “God is the Word”–cosmic, intelligent sounding vibration.
Sage Patanjali, greatest of Hindu Yogis, says, “The Spirit, God the Father, or Ishwara, manifests Himself as the cosmic vibration, or matter.” “The Spirit was made flesh”–for the intelligent spirit materializes itself into gross flesh by changing its rate of vibration. Cosmic intelligence becomes cosmic intelligent motion, or vibration, which changes into cosmic energy. This intelligent cosmic energy changes into electrons and atoms. Electrons and atoms change into gas, sometimes known as cosmic nebulae. Cosmic nebulae, or masses of diffused gaseous matter, change into water. Water changes into solid matter. Man’s body is a part of this variously divided matter. In cosmic vibration all things are done; but when cosmic vibration becomes frozen into matter, then it becomes many.
So man’s body, being separated from cosmic vibration, again must retrace the various states of higher vibrations in order to lift his consciousness from the vibrations of breath, heart, and circulation to the vibrating sound emanating from cosmic life force and all atoms. With closed eyes, one can feel his consciousness limited by feelings of the flesh and by the sounds of breath, heart, and circulation. But by deep meditation the consciousness of the body-caged soul begins gradually to spread itself from the limitations of the body into omnipresence, to limitlessness.
The cosmic Word, emanating from cosmic vibration, is called the “Holy Spirit.” Spirit signifies an intelligent, invisible, conscious force, or intelligent cosmic vibration. It is holy because the emanent (outflowing) consciousness of God the Father, or Christ intelligence, guides it to create all finite matter. The ancients, not versed in the polished language of modern times, used “Holy Spirit” and “Word” for Intelligent Cosmic Vibration, which is the first materialization of God the Father in matter.
The Hindus speak of this “Holy Spirit” as the “Aum.” “A” stands for “Akar” or creative vibration; “U” for “Ukar” or preservative vibration; and “M” for “Makar” or destructive vibration. The storm-roar of the sea creates the waves, preserves them for some time as larger or smaller waves, and then dissolves them. So the cosmic sound of AUM or Holy Spirit creates all things as Nebulae, preserves them in the forms of the present cosmos and worlds, and ultimately it will dissolve all things in the bosom-sea of God. But this cosmic dissolution is sometimes only partial and temporary, and again sometimes it is complete and for a long time. In the partial temporary dissolution, portions only of matter and worlds are dissolved; but in complete dissolution the entire system of universes, all stars and planets, all things are dissolved. But the dissolving of all creation is impossible until all souls cease to desire anything at all and thus become fully emancipated in God. Unredeemed souls desire life, and with it they desire the earth, the sky, and its starry beauties. So, in order to fulfill our desire for children, souls come on earth as fleshly human beings. Aum has to create the entire universe at the behest of God the Father. Because of the endless rise and dissolution of the desires of creatures, their universe is endlessly being dissolved and recreated again.
Hence, baptism by the Holy Spirit means first the dissolution of all wrong desires by good desires and then the conquering of all good desires by the sole desire for blessed contact of God. To know God is not the negation of all desires, but instead their complete fulfillment. Men of the world strive wrongly to fulfill desires by forgetting to distinguish between those of the world and those of the soul. Just as by feeding somebody else your hunger cannot be satisfied, so by wrongly trying to satisfy the senses your soul can never be happy. The senses crave indulgence, greed, and temptations to excite and amuse them, whereas the soul can be satisfied only by the calmness, peace, and bliss born of meditation and the moderate use of the sense servants.
Ambition for good things, noble achievements, spiritual organizational work, and serving the many must be instituted to displace desires for selfishness and greed and for helping only one’s own self or one’s immediate family. Enjoy all good work and achievements with God. By contacting God in the world and in meditation you will find all your heart’s desires fulfilled. Then you will be a true man or woman of renunciation, for you will find that nothing is more worthwhile, more pleasant, or attractive than the all-beautiful, all-satisfying, all-thirst-quenching, ever-new, joyous God.
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