WHO ARE THE PERSONALITIES AT
TEMPLE UNIVERSAL?
JESUS
The Awakened Christ
"For God so loved the world, that He gave
His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in
Him should not perish, but have eternal life."
(John 3:16)
'You shall love the Lord your God with all your
heart, all your soul, and all your
mind.' "This is the great and foremost commandment.
"And a second is, 'You shall love your
neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments
depend the whole Law and the Prophets." (Matthew
22:37-40)
"A new commandment I give to you, that you
love one another, even as I have loved you, that
you also love one another. By this all men will
know that you are My disciples, if you have love
for one another." (John 13:34-35)
Look at the birds of the air, that they do not
sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns,
and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you
not worth much more than they?" (Matthew 6:26)
Therefore don't worry, saying,; What will we eat?'
or 'What will we wear? For it's the Gentiles who
strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly
Father knows that you need all these things. But
strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness,
and all these things will be given to you as well.
(Matthew 6:31-33)
"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to
you. I don't give to you as the world gives. Don't let your hearts be troubled, and dont' let
them be afraid." (John 14:27)
"If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word;
and My Father will love him, and We will come to
him, and make Our abode (home) with him." (John
14:23)
"He who has My commandments and keeps them,
he it is who loves Me; and he who loves Me shall
be loved by My Father, and I will love him, and
will disclose Myself to him." (John 14:21)
"Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also
loved you; abide in My love." (John 15:9)
"But love your enemies, and do good, and lend,
expecting nothing in return; and your reward in
heaven will be great, and you will be sons of the
Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful
and evil men." (Luke 6:35)
"Whoever wishes to become great among you
shall be your servant; and whoever wishes to be
first among you shall be slave of all. For even
the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to
serve and to give His life a ransom for many."
(Mark 10:43-45)
"If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed
your feet, you also ought to wash one another's
feet. For I gave you an example that you also should
do as I did to you." (John 13:14-15)
"Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And
yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart
from the will of your Father. But the very hairs
of your head are numbered. Therefore do not fear;
you are of more value than many sparrows. (Matthew
10:29-31)
CHRIST THE MESSENGER
Delivered by Swami Vivekananda in Los Angeles,
California, 1900
The wave rises on the ocean, and there is a hollow.
Again another wave rises, perhaps bigger than the
former, to fall down again, similarly, again to
rise, driving onward.
The great soul, the Messenger we're to study this
afternoon, came at a period of the history of his
race which we may well designate as a great fall.
THE GREAT IMPACT OF JESUS ON HISTORY
And the three years of his ministry were like one
compressed, concentrated age, which it's taken nineteen
hundred years to unfold, and who knows how much
longer it will yet take! Little men like you and
me are the recipients of just a little energy. A
few minutes, a few hours, a few years at best, are
enough to spend it all, to stretch it out, as it
were, to its fullest strength, and then we're gone
forever.
But mark this giant that came; centuries and ages
pass, yet the energy he left on the world isn't
yet stretched, nor expended to its full. It goes
on adding new vigor as the ages roll on.
These are the sign-posts, here and there, which
point to the march of humanity; these are truly
gigantic, their shadows covering the earth - they
stand undying, eternal!
As it's been said by the same Messenger, "No
man hath seen God, but through the Son." And
that's true. And where shall we see God but in the
Son?
GOD IS REFLECTED IN HIS PROPHETS AND INCARNATIONS
The Omnipresent God of the universe can't be seen
until He's reflected by these giant lamps of the
earth - the Prophets, the man-Gods, the Incarnations,
the embodiments of God.
You can't even form a higher ideal of God other
than what these great embodied souls have practically
realized and set before us as an example. Is it
wrong, therefore, to worship them as God? Is it
a sin to fall at the feet of these man-Gods and
worship them as the only divine beings in the world?
If they're really, actually higher than all our
conceptions of God, what harm is there in worshipping
them? Not only is there no harm, but it's the only
possible and positive way of worship.
However much you may try to struggle, by abstraction,
or whatsoever method you like, so long as you're
a man in a world of men, your religion is human,
and your God is human.
And that must be so. Who's not practical enough
to take up an actually existing thing and give up
an idea that is only an abstraction, which he can't
grasp, and is difficult of approach except through
a concrete medium? Therefore, these Incarnations
of God have been worshipped in all ages and in all
countries.
A SHORT HISTORY OF ISRAEL
We're now going to study a little of the life of
Christ, the Incarnation of the Jews.
When Christ was born, the Jews were in that state
which I call a state of fall between two waves;
a state of conservatism; a state where the human
mind is, tired for the time being of moving forward
and is taking care only of what it has already;
a state when the attention is more bent on particulars,
on details, than on the great, general, bigger problems
of life; a state of stagnation, rather than a towing
ahead; a state of suffering more than of doing.
Mark you, I don't blame this state of things. We've
no right to criticize it - because had it not been
for this fall, the next rise, which was embodied
in Jesus of Nazareth would have been impossible.
The Pharisees and Sadducees might have been insincere,
they might have been doing things they ought not
to have done; they might have even been hypocrites;
but whatever they were, these factors were the very
cause, of which the Messenger was the effect. The
Pharisees and Sadducees at one end were the very
impetus, out of which came at the other end, the
gigantic brain of Jesus of Nazareth.
The attention to forms, formulas and the everyday
details of religion and rituals may sometimes be
laughed at; but nevertheless, within them is strength.
Many times in rushing forward we lose strength.
As a fact, the fanatic is stronger than the liberal.
Therefore, even the fanatic has one great virtue,
he conserves energy, a tremendous amount of it.
As with the individual so with the race, energy
is gathered to be conserved.
ANCIENT JUDAISM
Hemmed in all around by external enemies, driven
to focus in a center by the Romans, by the Hellenic
tendencies in the world of intellect, by waves from
Persia, India, and Alexandria - hemmed in physically,
mentally, and morally - there stood the race with
an inherent, conservative, tremendous strength,
which their descendants haven't lost even today.
And the race was forced to concentrate and focus
all its energies upon Jerusalem and Judaism.
But all power when once gathered can't remain collected;
it must expend and expand itself. There's no power
on earth which can be kept long confined within
a narrow limit.
It can't be kept compressed too long without allowing
for the expansion at a subsequent period. This concentrated
energy amongst the Jewish race found its expression
at the next period in the rise of Christianity.
The gathered streams collected into a body. Gradually,
all the little streams joined together, and became
a surging wave, on the top of which we find standing
out, the character of Jesus of Nazareth.
THE NATURE OF THE PROPHET
Thus, every Prophet is the creation of the past
of his race, a creation of his own times, and the
creator of the future.
The cause of today is the effect of the past and
the cause for the future. In this position stands
the Messenger. In him is embodied all that's the
best and greatest in his own race, the meaning,
the life, for which that race has struggled for
ages; and he himself is the impetus for the future,
not only to his own race but to unnumbered other
races.
We must bear another fact in mind: my view of the
great Prophet of Nazareth is from the standpoint
of the Orient.
Many times you forget, the Nazarene was an Oriental
of Orientals. With all your attempts to paint him
with blue eyes and yellow hair, the Nazarene was
still an Oriental. All the similes and imageries
in which the Bible is written - the scenes and locations,
the attitudes and groups, the poetry and symbol,
- speak to you of the Orient: of the bright sky,
the heat, the sun, the desert, the thirsty men and
animals; of men and women coming with pitchers on
their heads to fill them at the wells; of the flocks,
of ploughmen, the cultivation that's going on around;
the water-mill and wheel, the mill-pond, the millstones.
All these are to be seen in Asia today.
THE VOICE OF ASIA AND THE VOICE OF EUROPE
The voice of Asia has been the voice of religion.
The voice of Europe is the voice of politics.
Each is great in its own sphere. The voice of Europe
is the voice of ancient Greece.
To the Greek mind, his immediate society was all
in all: beyond that, it's Barbarian. None but the
Greek has the right to live. Whatever the Greeks
do is right and correct; whatever else exists in
the world is neither right, correct, nor should
be allowed to live. It's therefore intensely human
in its sympathies, intensely natural, intensely
artistic. The Greek lives entirely in this world.
He doesn't care to dream. Even his poetry is practical.
His gods and goddesses aren't only human, but intensely
human, with human passions and feelings, almost
the same as us. He loves what's beautiful, but,
mind you, it's always external nature; the beauty
of the hills, the snows and flowers, the beauty
of forms and figures, the beauty in the human face,
and, more often, the human form - that's what the
Greeks liked. And the Greeks being the teachers
of all subsequent Europeanism, the voice of Europe
is Greek.
There is another type in Asia.
Think of that vast, huge continent, whose mountain-tops
go beyond the clouds, almost touching the canopy
of heaven's blue; a rolling desert of miles upon
miles where a drop of water can't be found, neither
will a blade of grass grow; interminable forests
and gigantic rivers rushing down to the sea. In
the midst of these surroundings, the oriental love
of the beautiful and sublime developed in another
direction. It looked inside, not outside. There's
also the thirst for nature, for power, for excellence,
the same idea of the Greek and Barbarian, but it
extended over a larger circle.
IN ASIA
In Asia, even today, birth or color or language
never makes a race. That which makes a race is its
religion.
We're all Christians, Muslims, Hindus, or Buddhists.
No matter if a Buddhist is Chinese or from Persia,
they're brothers, because of professing the same
religion. Religion is the tie, the unity of humanity.
And then again, the Oriental, for the same reason,
is a visionary, a born dreamer. The ripples of waterfalls,
the songs of birds, the beauties of the sun, moon
and stars and the whole earth are pleasant enough;
but they're not sufficient for the oriental mind.
He wants to dream a dream beyond. He wants to go
beyond the present. The present, as it were, is
nothing to him.
The Orient has been the cradle of the human race
for ages, and all the vicissitudes of fortune are
there - kingdoms succeeding kingdoms, empires succeeding
empires, human power, glory and wealth, all rolling
down; a Golgotha of power and learning. That is
the Orient: a Golgotha of power, of kingdoms, of
learning.
No wonder, the oriental mind looks with contempt
on the things of this world and naturally wants
to see something that changeth not, something which
dieth not, something which in the midst of this
world of misery and death is eternal, blissful,
undying.
An oriental Prophet never tires of insisting on
these ideals; and, as for Prophets, you may remember
that without one exception, all the Messengers were
Orientals. Therefore, we see, in the life of this
great Messenger the first watchword: "Not this
life, but something higher," and like the true
son of the Oriental, he's practical.
THE PRACTICALITY OF THE WEST AND THE EAST
You in the West are practical in your own way,
in military affairs, in managing political circles
and other things. Perhaps the Oriental isn't practical
in those ways, but he's practical in his own field;
he's practical in religion.
If one preaches a philosophy, tomorrow there are
hundreds who'll struggle their best to make it practical
in their lives. If a man preaches that standing
on one foot would lead to salvation, he'll immediately
get five hundred to stand on one foot. You may call
it ludicrous; but, mark you, beneath that is their
philosophy - that intense practicality. In the West,
plans of salvation mean intellectual gymnastics
- plans which are never worked out, never brought
into practical life. In the West, the preacher who
talks the best is the greatest preacher.
THE BEST COMMENTARY
The best commentary on the life of a great teacher
is his own life. "The foxes have holes, the
birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man
hath not where to lay his head."
That's Christ says is the only way to salvation;
he lays down no other way. Let's confess in sackcloth
and ashes that we can't do that. We still have a
fondness for "me and mine." We want property,
money and wealth. Woe unto us! Let's confess and
not put that great Teacher of Humanity to shame!
He had no family ties. Do you think that Man had
any physical ideas in him? Do you think this mass
of light, this God and not-man, came to earth, to
be the brother of animals? And yet, people make
him preach all sorts of things. He had no sex ideas!
He was a soul! Nothing but a soul - just working
a body for the good of humanity; that was all there
was to his relation to the body. In the soul there's
no sex. The disembodied soul has no relation to
the animal, no relationship to the body.
KEEP THE IDEAL
The ideal may be far beyond us. But never mind,
keep the ideal. Let's confess that it's our ideal,
but we can't approach it yet.
He had no other occupation in life, no other thought
except one, that he was spirit. He was disembodied,
unfettered, unbound spirit. And not only so, but
with his marvellous vision, he'd found that every
man and woman, whether Jew or Gentile, whether rich
or poor, whether saint or sinner, was the embodiment
of the same undying spirit as himself. Therefore,
his whole life showed this one work, to call on
them to realise their own spiritual nature.
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS WITHIN US
He says, give up these superstitious dreams that
you're low and poor. Don't think you're trampled
on and tyrannised over as if you're slaves, for
within you is something that can never be tyrannised
over, never be trampled on, never be troubled or
killed. You're all Sons of God, immortal spirit.
"Know," he declared, "the Kingdom
of Heaven is within you."
"I and my Father are one." Not only dare
stand up and say, "I'm the Son of God,"
but "I and my Father are one." That was
what Jesus of Nazareth said. He never talks of this
world and this life. He has nothing to do with it,
except that he wants to get hold of the world as
it is, give it a push and drive it forward and onward
until the whole world has reached to the effulgent
Light of God, until everyone has realised his spiritual
nature, until death has vanished and misery banished.
"These great children of Light, who manifest
the Light themselves, who are Light themselves,
they, being worshiped, become, as it were, one
with us and we become one with them."
THREE WAYS OF PERCEIVING GOD
For, you see, in three ways man perceives God.
At first the undeveloped intellect of the uneducated
man sees God as far away, up in the heavens somewhere,
sitting on a throne as a great Judge.
He looks upon Him as a fire, a terror. Now, that's
good, for there's nothing bad in it.
You must remember, humanity travels not from error
to truth, but from truth to truth; it may be, if
you like it better, from lower truth to higher truth,
but never from error to truth.
Suppose you start from here and travel towards the
sun in a straight line. From here the sun looks
small in size. Suppose you go forward a million
miles, the sun will be much bigger. At every stage
the sun will become bigger and bigger. Suppose twenty
thousand photographs had been taken of the same
sun, from different standpoints; these twenty thousand
photographs will certainly differ from one another.
But can you deny that each is a photograph of the
same sun?
So all forms of religion, high or low, are just
different stages toward that eternal state of Light,
which is God Himself. Some embody a lower view,
some a higher, and that's all the difference.
And a few individuals who had developed enough
and were pure enough, went still further, and at
last found God. As the New Testament says, "Blessed
are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."
And at last, they found that they and the Father
were one.
You find that these three stages are taught by
the Great Teacher in the New Testament.
Note the Common Prayer he taught: "Our Father
which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name,"
and so on - a simple prayer, a child's prayer. Mark
you, it's the "Common Prayer" because
it's intended for the uneducated masses. To a higher
circle, to those who had advanced a little more,
he gave a more elevated teaching: "I'm in my
Father, and ye in me, and I in you." Do you
remember that? And then, when the Jews asked him
who he was, he declared that he and his Father were
one, and the Jews thought that was blasphemy. What
did he mean by that? This has been also told by
your old Prophets, "Ye are gods and all of
you are children of the Most High."
Mark the same three stages. You'll find that it's
easier for you to begin with the first and end with
the last.
The Messenger came to show the path: that the spirit
is not in forms, that it's not through all sorts
of vexations and knotty problems of philosophy that
you know the spirit. Better that you had no learning,
that you never read a book in your life. These aren't
necessary for salvation - neither wealth, nor position
nor power, not even learning; but what's necessary
is one thing, purity.
PURITY
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall
see God " for the spirit in its own nature
is pure. How can it be otherwise?
"The Kingdom of Heaven is within you."
Where goest thou to seek for the Kingdom of God,
asks Jesus of Nazareth, when it is there, within
you?
Cleanse the spirit, and it's there. It's already
yours. How can you get what isn't yours? It's yours
by right. You're the heirs of immortality, sons
of the Eternal Father. This is the great lesson
of the Messenger.
DISPASSION
And another which is the basis of all religions,
is renunciation.
How can you make the spirit pure? By renunciation.
A rich young man asked Jesus, "Good Master,
what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?"
And Jesus said unto him, "One thing thou lackest;
go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give
to the poor, and thou shalt have treasures in heaven:
and come, take up thy cross, and follow Me."
And he was sad at that saying and went away grieved;
for he had great possessions. We're all more or
less like that.
The voice is ringing in our ears day and night.
In the midst of pleasures and joys, in the midst
of worldly things, we think we've forgotten everything
else. Then comes a moment's pause and the voice
rings in our ears: "Give up all that thou hast
and follow Me." "Whosoever will save his
life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his
life for My sake shall find it."
This is the one ideal he preaches, and this has
been the ideal preached by all the great Prophets
of the world: renunciation.
BE SELFLESS
What's meant by renunciation? That there's only
one ideal in morality: unselfishness. Be selfless.
The ideal is perfect unselfishness. When a man is
struck on the right cheek, he turns the left also.
When a man's coat is carried off, he gives away
his cloak as well. We should work in the best way
we can, without dragging the ideal down. Here's
the ideal. When a man has no more self in him, no
possession, nothing to call "me" or "mine,"
has given himself up entirely, destroyed himself
as it were - in that man is God Himself; for in
him self-will is gone, crushed out, annihilated.
That's the ideal man.
To be unselfish, perfectly selfless, is salvation
itself; for the man within dies, and God alone remains.
All the teachers of humanity are unselfish.
Suppose Jesus of Nazareth was teaching, and a man
came and told him, "What you teach is beautiful.
I believe it's the way to perfection, and I'm ready
to follow it; but I don't care to worship you as
the only begotten Son of God." What would be
the answer of Jesus of Nazareth? "Very well,
brother, follow the ideal and advance in your own
way. I don't care whether you give me the credit
for the teaching or not. I'm not a shopkeeper. I
don't trade in religion. I only teach truth, and
truth is nobody's property. Nobody can patent truth.
Truth is God Himself. Go forward."
GREAT SOULS
In India they have the same idea of the Incarnations
of God.
One of their great Incarnations, Krishna, whose
grand sermon, the Bhagavad-Gita, some of you might
have read, says, "Though I am unborn, of changeless
nature, and Lord of beings, yet subjugating My Prakriti,
I come into being by My own Maya. Whenever virtue
subsides and immorality prevails, I then body Myself
forth. For the protection of the good, the destruction
of the wicked, and the establishment of Dharma,
I come into being, in every age." Whenever
the world goes down, the Lord comes to help it forward;
and so He does from time to time and place to place.
In another passage He speaks to this effect: Wherever
you find a great soul of immense power and purity
struggling to raise humanity, know that he is born
of My splendor, that I am there working through
him.
Let us, therefore, find God not only in Jesus of
Nazareth, but in all the great Ones that have preceded
him, in all that came after him, and all that are
yet to come. Our worship is unbounded and free.
They're all manifestations of the same Infinite
God. They're all pure and unselfish; they struggled
and gave up their lives for us, poor human beings.
They each and all suffer vicarious atonement for
every one of us, and for all that are to come hereafter.
WE ARE ALL PROPHETS
In a sense you're all Prophets; every one of you
is a Prophet, bearing the burden of the world on
your shoulders.
Have you ever seen a man or woman, who isn't quietly,
patiently, bearing his or her little burden of life?
The great Prophets were giants - they bore a entire
world on their shoulders. Compared with them we're
pigmies, no doubt, yet we're doing the same task;
in our little circles, in our little homes, we're
bearing our little crosses. There's no one so evil,
so worthless, but he has to bear his own cross.
But with all our mistakes, our evil thoughts and
evil deeds, there's a bright spot somewhere, there's
still the golden thread somewhere through which
we're always in touch with the divine.
For, know for certain, the moment the touch of the
divine is lost there'd be annihilation. And because
none can be annihilated, somewhere in our heart
of hearts, however low and degraded we may be, there's
always a little circle of light which is in constant
touch with the divine.
SALUATIONS TO ALL THE PROPHETS
Our salutations go to all the past Prophets whose
teachings and lives we've inherited, whatever might
have been their race, clime, or creed! Our salutations
go to all those Godlike men and women who are working
to help humanity, whatever be their birth, color,
or race! Our salutations to those who are coming
in the future - living Gods - to work unselfishly
for our descendants.
