CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
THE INNER LIFE OF JESUS
Back to fesus In rethinking Christianity in India, we must take into account the challenge which is made in many quarters that we should understand the real mind of Christ and apply it fearlessly to Indian conditions, without reference to the traditional teaching of the Christian Church.
It was the Christmas Eve of 1939.
At that time I was living in Benares, for long ages the centre of the spiritual quest of India. That active modern Hindu organization, the Ramakrishna
Mission, had arranged, as was their custom, to celebrate Christmas fittingly.
In a large room of their Mission House on the wall was hung a picture of the Virgin Mary holding the child
Jesus in her arms.
In characteristic Indian fashion a beautiful garland of flowers was hung around the picture.
Immediately below it was a bunch of deep-red roses and many chrysanthemum plants with their large, lovely blossoms of yellow and white. Two electric lights on either side of the picture flooded it with their brightness.
In the room facing the picture about a hundred men (mostly Hindus) sat cross-legged on the carpeted floor, wrapping themselves with shawls as the evening was chilly.
About a hundred women sat in the adjoining room, somewhat in the dark.
The chapter in St. Luke's Gospel telling of the birth of Jesus was read in English and translated verse by verse into Bengali and this was followed by prayer.
Those who happened to come late sat down after worshipping reverently for a moment with clasped hands.
There were four addresses, one in Hindi, one in Bengali and two in English.
Two of the speakers were Sannyasis of the Ramakrishna Mission, one was a Professor of the Benares Hindu
University and the fourth was myself.
One or two lyrics were sung to the accompaniment of Indian musical instruments— drum, harmonium and cymbals.
After the service, light refreshments were served and all those present, regardless of caste or creed, joined in the simple meal.
This service was significant as showing the growing reverence and worship of Jesus in India.
The closing remark of Swami
THE INNER LIFE OF JESUS
Vireshwarananda, who spoke in English, was also quite significant. He said, " The dogmas and doctrines of Christianity may disappear but Christ will live."
This shows that India is making a clear distinction between Christ and Christianity.
Though we cannot agree with the Ramakrishna Mission in regarding Jesus as only one of the many Avatars of God, we may well rejoice over their reverence for Him and particularly over their serious attempt to carry out in practice His great ideal of social work.
The distinction between Christ and Christianity which was drawn in that service is being echoed in many quarters.
Swami Abhedananda was the head of a large and growing Ramakrishna Mission House in Calcutta.
He was highly respected by all those who knew him.
In his younger days he lectured for thirty years in America on the Vedanta.
He made a careful study of the history and doctrine of the Christian Church.
As early as 1909 he gave a lecture on Jesus Christ in which he made a powerful indictment of the Christian Church but expressed his loyalty and devotion to Jesus Christ.
"A Hindu," he said, " distinguishes the religion of the churches from the religion of Jesus the Christ.
Speaking from the Hindu stand- | point, the religion which the churches uphold and preach to-day, which. has been built around the personality of Jesus the Christ, and which is popularly known as Christianity, should be called
' Churchianity,' in contradistinction to that pure religion of the heart which was taught by Jesus the Christ and practised by His disciples.
The religion of Christ, or true Christianity, had no dogma, no creed, no system, no theology.
It was the religion of the heart, a religion without any ceremonial, without ritual, without priestcraft ; it was not based upon a book, but upon the feelings of the heart, upon direct communion of the individual soul with the Heavenly Father.
On the contrary, the religion of the Church is based upon a book, believes in dogmas, professes a creed, has an organized system for preaching it, is backed up by theologies, performs rituals, practises ceremonial, and obeys the commands of a host of priests." * Dr. E. Stanley Jones often draws a distinction between Christ and the Christian Church.
In his Christ at the Round Table he says, '' We believe so profoundly in what we are doing, so profoundly in the Gospel of Christ and the Christian Church, so profoundly that in Christ is the key to the future, that we dare subject everything, including ourselves, to the most rigid scrutiny and criticism, knowing that if what we are doing is founded on 1Swami Abhedananda, Lecture on Jesus Christ, p. 1.
THE GOSPEL AND INDIA'S HERITAGE
reality, the more searching that scrutiny and criticism the more it will shine.
It is the tendency of all institutions and organizations to become set and rigid. Founded to express life, they often end by throttling that life. They must undergo constant criticism, perpetual readjustment and recurrent renewing if they are to remain vital.
Christian Missions are no exception.
One of the most hopeful things of the future is that we are subjecting ourselves to a self-criticism that is relentless and perhaps unparalleled in any other body in the world.
We are in a situation that searches us to the core and that demands reality. We must have reality or perish.
So we turn to the Mind of Christ as that ultimate reality, to be subjected to Its criticism and to Its inspiration and to Its meaning. And the best minds of India know that everything depends upon our catching anew that Mind and living it out." ? j Sadhu Sundar Singh likewise makes a difference between Churchianity and Christianity.
'' There are not in the Church enough men of the deepest spiritual experience to give final authority to what its teachers say.
So I go direct to God.
The Creeds were made by men who had spiritual experience, as is shown by their reference to the 'Communion of Saints'; - but now the people who repeat them have not the same rich experience.
With me a revelation in Ecstasy counts for more than Church tradition.
'Churchianity' and ' Christianity' are not the same thing. John Wesley and General Booth followed God's guidance in opposition to the Church, and they proved to be right.
Every one, however, is not a mystic, so the authority of Church tradition is necessary for the majority. Roman Catholics have gone too far in one direction, some Protestants in the other.
But it is not enough to be a member of the Church, one must also be a member of Christ." * "There was a type of convert in the past," says Mr. Chenchiah, sometime Chief Judge, Pudukottah State, " who hated Hinduism and surrendered himself whole-heartedly to what he supposed to be Christianity.
The convert of to-day regards Hinduism as his spiritual mother who has nurtured him in a sense of spiritual values in the past.
He discovers the supreme value of Christ, not in spite of Hinduism but because Hinduism has taught him to discern spiritual greatness.
For him, loyalty to Christ does not involve the surrender of a reverential attitude towards the Hindu heritage.
His special asset in the search is that he has no co- *E. Stanley Jones, Christ at the Round Table, p. 196.
*B. H. Streeter and A. J. Appasamy, The Sadhu, p. 150.
THE INNER LIFE OF JESUS
ordinate loyalties.
St. Paul and St. Peter and other Apostles and the Church are not to him absolute guides.
Accepting gratefully the light from these quarters, he still believes that Jesus and His demands alone are obligatory.
He seeks to face the original stimulus, Jesus, afresh and understand the meaning and significance of the fact of Jesus anew.
This emancipation from double bondage, namely, to the traditions of Hinduism on the one hand and to the traditions of Christianity on the other, gives him the freedom to study the question of the meaning and significance of Jesus untrammelled by doctrine 'and dogma and seek in the living forces of Hinduism a positive key to the still inaccessible riches in Jesus." * We have here the opinions of four different leaders, all of them representative and influential.
Swami Vireshwarananda and Swami Abhedananda speak for modern educated Hindus, Dr.
Stanley Jones for missionary leaders, and Sadhu Sundar Singh and Mr. Chenchiah for Indian Christians.
These vigorously expressed opinions by leaders of thought, quite different in their temperament and outlook, all point in the same direction.
They all make a distinction between loyalty to Christ and loyalty to the Christian Church.
They express dissatisfaction with the Christian Church but plead for a fuller surrender to Christ. Such a volume of testimony, which is steadily on the increase, cannot be easily ignored.
In the chapter on the Church I deal with some of the difficulties connected with the Christian Church in India.
At this point I should like to point out the importance of the call "' Back to Christ! " which these men sound.
In every country and in every age people must always have real faith in Christ; they must go back to the original source from which Christianity started.
So many doctrines and rites, professing to be interpretations of the mind of Christ, arise that constantly efforts must be made to go back to Christ Himself to study what
He said, to live as He taught we should live, to imbibe His Spirit and so to understand Him more clearly.
Particularly is there a need for this in a country like India where Christianity is being preached newly and where a young Christian Church is growing.
The danger of accepting doctrines and institutions which purport to be Christian but which may or may not interpret the spirit of Christ aright is really a serious one.
For this reason we must go back to Christ; we must learn afresh the meaning of His Gospel and by faith and devotion come closer to His mind and spirit.
* Rethinking Christianity in India, p. 49.
THE GOSPEL AND INDIA'S HERITAGE
'"' Who is Jesus?'
This question has been asked by a multitude of men and women all through the ages; it is being asked to-day the world over with a new earnestness.
Here in India, for instance, it is being asked by the educated Hindu with his philosophic mind.
He inherits an ancient tradition and the search for truth is a passion with him.
In modern India with so many religions actively propagating themselves, he asks earnestly,
Who is Jesus?
Is He the only Incarnation of God?
How does He compare with the great religious leaders of the world such as Buddha, Muhammad, Krishna, Zoroaster, Confucius and others?
Does He really differ from them or is He in the same class with them?
Does He give us that abiding peace which is the quest of our souls?
Does He give us that sense of unity for which we crave amidst all the diversity of the world?
Can we attain oneness with God through Him?
The outcaste in India from an entirely different background is asking the same question, "' Who is Jesus?" with an earnestness which even the most hopeful Christian would not have anticipated some time ago.
The spirit of the outcaste people is awake all over the country; there is a real stirring among them.
They have come suddenly to realize with a new force that as long as they remain in the Hindu fold they will be oppressed and downtrodden.
Begging favours from high caste Hindus, they say, will lead them nowhere; they must leave Hinduism with its oppressive social and religious laws and seek refuge elsewhere.
Many of them are seriously asking about Jesus: Will He give us our birth-right as human beings?
Will He give us our social equality? Will He give us clean homes, educated children, decent standards of life?
In this book an effort is made to answer the question, '"' Who is Jesus?" which is being asked from such different quarters and with so much eagerness.
As the inner life of Jesus was the source from which all His activities took their rise, an account is first given of the life of prayer and meditation and of communion with God which Jesus led.
While He loved prayer, He did not love it only for its own sake.
To Him communion with God was utterly incomplete without an active life of service and sacrifice.
So, an account is also given of the active life of teaching and preaching and of healing the sick with which He was busily occupied in the course of His ministry.
His teaching was umique and touched on all the main problems of religion and ethics.
Several chapters are devoted to His teaching about God, sin and its forgiveness, fellowship with God, the Church and the
THE INNER LIFE OF JESUS
future life.
The teaching of Jesus, unique as it was, was made far more powerful and effective by His life of utter selflessness which culminated in the death on the Cross.
The meaning of His suffering and sacrifice throughout His life and on the Cross on Calvary is pointed out.
Jesus rose from the dead.
His entire teaching and His whole life of service and sacrifice receive a new significance from His Resurrection.
An account is, therefore, given of the Resurrection of Jesus and of its meaning.
The book closes by seeking to answer the question, '"' Who is Jesus?" in the light of all these facts—His unique teaching, His life of utter self-sacrifice, His death on the Cross and His Resurrection.
It is pointed out in the final chapter of the book that we must believe that Jesus is the supreme Incarnation of God. Only God manifest in human flesh could live as He lived, suffer such shame and pain on the Cross and rise again to a new and wonderful life.
Jesus' Love of Solitude for Prayer _ India is rich in the literature and experience relating to the inner life.
For many centuries her saints and devotees, her Yogis and Bhaktas, have devoted much of their time to the development of the inner life.
Thousands of them have sought for solitude among the mountains or in the forests; those who were not able to leave the world have sought for it in their own homes.
They have elaborated various fruitful methods for concentrating the mind on God.
With singular insight they have pointed out the difficulties in the way of attaining concentration and have shown how they might be overcome.
They have also realized what a close and intimate connection the body has with the mind in the realm of the inner life.
In books on Yoga the inner life is described in great detail and often with real understanding.
Many of the Bhakfi saints in India practised Yoga and found it 'of great use.
The hymns a§ well as the lives of the Bhakti saints make clear what a'rich and fruitful inner life many of them led.
One comes across even to-day scores of devout people who carry on the Indian traditions of the inner life under new circumstances, often with interesting variations.
It is worth while for us to understand something of the inner life of Jesus, especially in its relation to the achievements and the failures of the Bhakti saints of India.
In His teaching Christ made clear the great need for private prayer.
He said:
" When thou prayest, enter into thine inner chamber, and having shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall recompense
THE GOSPEL AND INDIA'S HERITAGE
thee." ° This precept is amply illustrated in His own life.
We are told in the Gospels that Jesus was in the habit of spending a considerable amount of time in private prayer.
"And in the | morning, a great while before day, he rose up and went out, and departed into a desert place, and there prayed." °
" And after he had taken leave of them, he departed into the mountain to pray." "
"And it came to pass in these days, that he went out into the mountain to pray; and he continued all night in prayer to God." ® "And it came to pass, as he was praying alone, the ' disciples were with him: and he asked them, saying, Who do the multitudes say that I am?" ° '" And it came to pass about eight days after these sayings, he took with him Peter and John and James, and went up into the mountain to pray." *°
" And it came to pass, as he was praying in a certain place, that when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, even as John also taught his disciples." **
When I visited Nazareth I was impressed by the quiet and peace which reigned there.
It was in such surroundings that Christ spent the greater part of His life; He would have had ample opportunities there for prayer and meditation.
While saying that Jesus loved solitude for prayer we must remember that His love of prayer was combined with a life of active service.
A careful study of Jesus as He appears in the four Gospels shows us that there was a perfect symmetry between His inner life of prayer and His outer life of service. Even among those who are devoted to God there is a great difference in this matter.
Some, especially in India, find such joy in prayer and meditation that they do not feel inclined to show their love of God in practical work for men. Yoga is of such absorbing interest to them that they are not prepared to undertake any social or spiritual tasks which are likely to reduce their time or strength for it.
It is not that they become experts in Yoga immediately.
Slowly and steadily, perhaps for years, they learn to concentrate their mind on God.
They put themselves under the instruction of those who have advanced in Yoga and carefully seek to follow their advice.
They study the many books on Yoga which are available and try to get some hints for their spiritual develop- ° Matthew vi. 6.
® Mark i. 35.
™ Mark vi. 46.
® Luke vi. 12.
° Luke ix. 18.
* Luke ix. 28.
™ Luke xi. 1.
THE INNER LIFE OF JESUS
ment.
As they succeed in controlling their mind and fixing it on God, they experience a new joy; this joy acts as a stimulus and drives them to seek further advances in the life of prayer.
Sometimes they may work for this growth in Yoga in the company of other men in monasteries or in places of pilgrimage.
There are others (especially in the West) to whom poverty makes an immediate appeal; they throw themselves heart and soul into work for the uplift of the poor; they run schools and hospitals and are busy with social work.
Some of them do not believe in giving only temporary relief; they want to find out the actual causes of poverty and distress; they hope to educate the people and to show why there is so much suffering in the world; they desire to remove completely these root causes of poverty by passing the necessary laws.
Many active persons, even when they love God, find the social work itself so pressing that they have little time for prayer or meditation.
The days become crowded with various duties; the time for prayer is often broken into by urgent calls for service.
In any case, with such pressing needs among the poor and the suffering, prolonged prayer and elaborate meditation seem to them utterly selfish.
We note how Jesus combined perfectly His love of prayer and His love of social work.
Prayer was very real to Him; He constantly sought the Presence of God; on all occasions, whether of joy or of sorrow, He prayed to God.
At the same time He gave Himself fully to help suffering, sinful men.
No one could have done more for others than He did; and yet no one lived a more continuous or a more earnest life of prayer.
It is profitable to trace the effect of His inner life on His outer and also the effect of His outer life on His inner.
As an instance of the effect of His inner life on His outer life of service, we may consider the long night He spent in prayer before the choice of His disciples." He had come into the world to establish the Kingdom of God.
For this purpose a band of disciples who caught through Him a vision of the Kingdom and who were prepared to do everything within their power to bring about its establishment was quite necessary.
Such disciples had to be chosen carefully and trained with infinite patience and love.
It is characteristic of Christ that before choosing them He spent a whole night in prayer.
This shows how in the choice of His followers He realized His utter dependence upon the Father.
The appointment of workers was not a mere question of organization with Him.
It was not done in a spirit of worldly wisdom 2 Luke vi. 12-16.
THE GOSPEL AND INDIA'S HERITAGE
and knowledge of men; it was done in complete reliance upon the Father's unlimited resources.
The reception which Jesus gave to the seventy disciples on their return is a good example of the effect of His outer life on His inner.
In the course of His ministry, Jesus sent out seventy of His disciples on a preaching and healing mission.
When they returned they brought back the good news that their work had been quite successful and that even those who were possessed of evil spirits had been healed.
" In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou didst hide these things from the wise and understanding, and didst reveal them unto babes: yea, Father ; for so it was well-pleasing in thy sight." *°
The Greek text uses a strong expression to show the nature of His joy on that occasion.** He exulted; He had an outburst of Ananda, to use an expression familiar in the religious literature of India.
The great joy which He had at this time was very characteristic of Him.
Many of the saints of India have spoken of their joy in God. This experience has often been of a selfish character. They have sought God for the joy which He gives and have remained absorbed in it, as long and as uninterruptedly as possible.
Not so Jesus.
This supreme experience of joy came to Him because others had been helped and their physical and spiritual diseases had been healed.
His joy did not arise from anything which had been done for Him, but it occurred because others had been given a new life.
Thus His outer life of service introduced into His inner life an element of absolute selflessness.
When we say that Jesus loved prayer and meditation in solitude, we must also remember that He did not do this at the expense of public worship.
In the chapter on the Church I show . how Jesus was devoted to the temple with its elaborate worship and the synagogue with its informal services.
Thus He had a wide catholicity of taste in the matter of worship.
He loved prayer and contemplation of God in solitude and at the same ie He took a real and living part in the public worship of His ay.
The Fellowship of Fesus with God We have seen that Christ devoted a good deal of time to solitary prayer and meditation.
We may now enquire how actually He spent this time.
Only a very few prayers of His are * Luke x. 21.
"Philip Loyd, The Treasures of the Heart of Fesus, p. 68.
THE INNER LIFE OF JESUS
recorded in the Gospels.
They are all quite brief.
"I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou didst hide these things from the wise and understanding, and didst reveal them unto babes: yea, Father; for so it was well-pleasing in thy sight." *° "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." ** "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." 77
All these prayers are very brief.
They could not have taken a long time to utter.
The model prayer which He taught His disciples was also quite brief.** We have a long prayer of intercession by Jesus recorded in the seventeenth chapter of St. John.
The thoughts of Jesus are there stated by the Fourth Evangelist in His own words, often with His characteristic explanations. This seems to have been His general practice.
It is not likely that Jesus offered the entire prayer as it is now found in the Fourth Gospel.
Probably the Evangelist has taken a few brief prayers of Jesus and expanded them at some length.
It is clear, then, that Christ did not spend His time in offering long prayers.
Nor is it likely that He had the habit of repeating His brief prayers again and again.
His instruction about this matter was clear:
'" In praying use not vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do." *® In His own practice He would not have broken a principle which He laid down so emphatically.
How then did He spend the time which He devoted to prayer?
We may say that He probably spent it in passing through the mystical experience known to the Christian saints as contemplative prayer or ecstasy or the unitive life and to the Hindu Yogis as Samadhi.
It is necessary to point out here that the term Samadhi has been used in India to indicate different kinds of mystical experience.
At least two types stand out.
Sanskrit writers speak of — Savikalpa Samadhi and Nirvikalpa Samadhi. Savikalpa Samadhi is the experience of God in which the difference between the worshipper and the object of worship is recognized.
The devotee feels that he is in communion with God. The distinction between the two is not lost.
In Nirvikalpa Samadhi the soul merges itself in God; no difference between the Bhakti and the God whom he worships is recognized."° :
We may say that in His moments of solitary prayer Christ SInukerx. 20.
% Luke xxiii. 34.
"Tuke xxiii. 46.
* Matthew vi. 9-13.
*® Matthew vi.
Wte.
* Sadananda, Vedanta Sdra, 193-9.
Translated by Swami Nikhilananda, pp. 114-16.
THE GOSPEL AND INDIA'S HERITAGE
had the experience of Savikalpa Samadhi.
He was in fellowship with the Father, but did not become identical with Him.
" Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me." **
" Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I say unto you I speak not from myself: but the Father abiding in me doeth his works." ** "Neither for these only do I pray, but for them also that believe on me through their word ; that they may all be one'; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us: that the world may believe that thou didst send me." ** We remember His piercing cry on the Cross, " My God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me?" ** The comforting and loving Presence of the Father, which had always been with Him and which had sustained Him through the heavy trials and difficulties of His life, seemed to have left Him at this, the most critical and the most painful point of His career.
Jesus could not endure this separation from the Father.
The suffering He underwent on the Cross was little when compared with the agony of the loss of the Presence of God.
This intense cry, because of His isolation from the Father, was wrung from the depths of His soul.
I have said that Jesus probably did not spend His time in offering long verbal prayers or in uttering again and again certain of His brief verbal prayers.
He exhorted very definitely that this should not be done.
For this three reasons may be suggested.
_ 1.
There should be no vain repetition in prayer with the idea that God will hear us because of our much speaking.
' And in praying use not vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking." ?> Many religious people, though sincere and devout, have believed that God will hear them because they pray at great length.
They imagine that their own self-effort will move God.
Such is not the teaching of Christ.
God does not listen to us merely because we work ourselves up into a state of fervour and pour forth a torrent of words.
As in His own case, a brief prayer sincerely uttered will be quite adequate.
* John xvi. 32.
= John xiv. 10.
8 John xvii. 20, 21.
* Mark xv. 34.
> Matthew vi. 7.
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The second reason which may be suggested is also clear from Christ's own teaching.
" Be not therefore like unto them (the Gentiles): for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him." ** God knows everything.
He is acquainted with all our needs.
It is not necessary to lay before Him at great length our problems and difficulties.
He knows them far better than we do. Any lengthy prayers are not needed in order to get His attention.
3. 'The communion between the human spirit and the Divine Spirit is a very exalted experience.
It takes place on the loftiest level of human life.
Human language is but a poor medium for the transaction of such experience.
Great poets and thinkers, with an extraordinary knowledge of words, have often com: plained of their inability to express in words the noble thoughts and emotions which surge through them.
Even those of us who are not great poets or thinkers have occasionally passed through some wonderful experience which has defied expression.
Our hearts have been deeply moved by perhaps the sight of a glorious sunset, but when we try to state such experience in words we fail completely.
The fellowship between Christ and His Father took place on the loftiest summit of religious experience. Words were not at all adequate to express or to deepen such experience.
It may be asked whether Jesus knew or practised Yoga if He experienced Samddhi.
Some writers have made the suggestion that He probably practised Yoga as it is understood in India.
On this point there is no evidence at all.
We cannot say that He came in contact with any Yogi or learnt any method of Yoga.
The history of religious experience all over the world shows that many people attained Samadhi without following Yoga.
Most Christian mystics had the experience of Samadhi but it was not brought about by any method of Hindu Yoga.
The fact is this.
Some men have a naturally strong physical constitution.
Others obtain a strong constitution by careful physical training.
Methods of physical training need not be despised.
When a man is weak they may make him strong; when a man is strong they may make him stronger.
But there are many strong men who have never undergone any physical training.
In the same way Jesus experienced Samadhi without following any technical process of Yoga.
This shows that He was a ripe soul and that He did not need any external aids to help Him in His experience of fellowship with the Father.
We know from certain incidents in the Gospels that Jesus had > Matthew vi. 8.
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definitely mystical experiences.
One such experience is recorded as having taken place immediately after His Baptism.
" And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway from the water: and lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon him ; and lo, a voice out of the heavens, saying, This is my beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased." ** His Baptism was a momentous step in His spiritual career.
It marked His entrance into that unparalleled life of service and sacrifice, of which we have an account in the Gospels. After the ceremony of initiation,
He had a vision of the Spirit of God resting upon Him and heard a voice from heaven declaring that He was the beloved Son in whom God was well pleased.
As He began His public ministry He received in this impressive manner the gift of spiritual power and the divine assurance endorsing His mission.
Immediately after His Baptism, His temptation took place.
** Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he afterward hungered." **
St. Matthew goes on to tell us how at this time Satan arrived and tempted Him in various ways.
What happened was probably this.
After His Baptism Jesus felt impelled to go into the wilderness for prayer and meditation.
'This urge within Him was a divine impulse; He was driven by the Spirit of God into the wilderness ;. it was no selfish motive which made Him seek quiet and peace away from the haunts of men.
As He was absorbed in prayer and meditation, neglecting even food and drink, He saw a vision or a series of visions in which some of His spiritual problems were set out and solved.
In the chapter on the Public Ministry of Jesus the meaning of these temptations is briefly discussed.
At this point we may note that Jesus was a mystic who passed through abnormal spiritual experiences and saw_ visions and heard voices.
The third incident in the Gospels which provides us with evidence of the mystical nature of Jesus is the Transfiguration.
"And it came to pass about eight days after these sayings, he took with him Peter and John and James, and went up into the mountain to pray.
And as he was praying, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment became white and dazzling." *° Here also we have convincing proof that, in an * Matthew iii. 16, 17.
°° Matthew iv. 1 and 2.
*® Luke ix. 28, 29.
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hour of intense prayer, the face of Jesus glowed with supernatural beauty and He was in communion with the spirits of Moses and Elijah.
A person who was in the habit of passing through such spiritual experiences as these may well be regarded as having had Savikalpa Samadhi.
"TI and the Father are one"
We read in the Fourth Gospel that He said, " I and the Father are one." *° A great many Hindu readers are at once attracted by this verse and understand from it that Jesus had an experience of Nirvikalpa Samadhi.
It appears to them to say the same thing as the text in the Upanishads, "I am Brahman" (Aham
Brahmasmi).
The Advaita doctrine is that there is only one Reality, God (Brahman).
People think that they are separate from Brahman.
This ignorant belief is the root of all trouble in the world.
Because of the wrong idea that they are separate beings, men become selfish; they are bitter towards those who may compete with them; they are worried about their own prestige.
But if they realize that they are indeed Brahman, all these false anxieties will cease and they will be filled with bliss.
Jesus attained to that knowledge.
He realized that He and God were one Reality, that there was no difference at all between Him and God and that He Himself had no separateness of being.
The followers of the Advaita always tend to understand this verse in some such sense.
Any saying of Jesus must be interpreted in connexion with all His other teaching.
A verse cannot be taken apart from its context and explained satisfactorily.
It may be quite true that on the surface this verse is like the texts in Upanishads which set forth Advaita. But we must remember that Jesus always thought of God as His Father.
The name which He constantly used for God was Father.
In this verse too He speaks of God as Father.
This means that the relation between God and Jesus is a personal relation between Father and Son.
Jesus also says, "'The Father is greater than I." ** This shows that He regards Himself as wholly dependent upon the Father; He is not identical with God.
Again, on the Cross one of His prayers was, " Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." "
Here again we see His recognition of the Father's love and His own willingness to ° John x. 30.
* John xiv. 28.
® Luke xxiii. 46.
THE GOSPEL AND INDIA'S HERITAGE
submit Himself entirely to Him.
He has a separate life of His own with its joys and sorrows.
This life He gladly puts into the Father's hands, not that it may cease but that it may bear richer fruit.
Jesus' conception of the Father's greatness and of His own difference from Him is brought out also in two other sayings of His:
" But of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." **»
" And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, even God." ** We can, therefore, say that "I and the Father are one" did not refer to any oneness or identity in the real nature of God and Jesus. The relation between God and Jesus was a personal one.
God was His Father and Jesus was His Son.
He loved His Father; He realized His entire dependence on Him; He gladly submitted Himself to Him.
Worship was the expression of His love for the Father; the Temple was the place where He met His Father and had fellowship with Him.
There is no hint in this verse that.the nature of God and man is one and the same.
The oneness of Jesus with God was a moral identity.
He was one with the Father in the sense that He loved what His Father loved and hated what His Father hated.
The Kingdom of God, in which the Father realized His purpose for the world, was the sphere in which Jesus worked.
The men and women whom God created were the people for whose redemption Christ lived and suffered and died on the Cross.
This does not mean that He had no will of His own, no desires or plans of His own.
He had His own separate life.
But at the same time He submitted Himself fully to the Father's will.
We see this clearly in His prayer in the garden at Gethsemane.
There we find that He struggled to fall in line with the Father's will for Him.
His own natural inclination at the time was to escape the bitter humiliation and death which were ahead of Him.
But He put Himself completely in the Father's hands.
He prayed that not His will but the Father's might be done.
The brief account in St. Mark gives a vivid picture of what happened.*® Here we see something of the nature of His communion with God.
It was the complete devotion of His will to the will of His Father.
He did not worship God for any selfish reasons of His own, in order, for instance, to get certain blessings
% Mark xiii. 32.
* Luke xviii. 19.
* Mark xiv. 32-41.
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for Himself.
But He worshipped God and was ready to suffer to the utmost for Him.
The doing of the Father's will was of the essence of His oneness with the Father.
In the oneness between Jesus and God there was also a oneness of feeling.
Sometimes in an exalted mood people feel that they are one.
Such feeling of oneness gives a glow to family life.
The husband feels one with his wife; the mother with her children; the children with their parents.
In most families this occurs only when there is an occasion of great joy or of deep sorrow, while in some it is a permanent feature.
Without such a feeling of oneness, family life, with its difficulties and struggles, its misunderstandings and hardships, becomes impossible.
This feeling of oneness binds the family together and makes life in it attractive and worth while.
Jesus must have had something also of this experience in His relation to God.
We read how His face was lit up during an hour of prayer.
"And it came to pass about eight days after these sayings, he took with him Peter and John and James, and went up into the mountain to pray.
And as he was praying the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment became white and dazzling." * This shows that prayer gave rise to a wonderful experience of joy in His heart and transfigured His face.
On the other hand, we also know that there was deep grief in His heart when in a moment of spiritual anguish He lost the sense of His Father's Presence.
Hanging on the Cross, He cried out, "' My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" *"
From this verse we see how much He took to heart the loss of the Father's Presence.
Jesus was one with God in His great purpose for the redemption of men.
It was this which sustained Him through the valley of the shadow of death; it was this which made Him drink the bitter cup of the crucifixion to its dregs.
St John has described Jesus' life of communion with His Father as being one with God.
This word " one" does not occur in the other three Gospels. So we may ask whether Jesus actually described Himself as being one with the Father.
This is difficult to say but in the Synoptic Gospels we have ample evidence of the life of fellowship which Jesus led with the Father.
We see in them clearly how close He lived to God and what delight He took in His Father's work.
The experience is there; of this we have no doubt whatever.
As to whether He Himself used the *® Luke ix. 28, 29.
* Mark xv. 34.
THE GOSPEL AND INDIA'S HERITAGE
term "oneness" to describe that experience or as to whether St. John used it, we cannot be sure.
The terms " oneness" and " union " have been greatly attractive to the saints.
They show, as no other words can, the closeness and the intimacy of the fellowship between God and man.
Some readers of St. John's Gospel understand "I and the Father are one" to mean that by this Christ declares His own
Deity and asserts that He is indeed God.
The main difficulty in accepting this meaning is that according to the Gospel of St. John the oneness between God and Jesus is like the oneness among the followers of Jesus.
" Neither for these only do I pray, but for them also that believe on me through their word ; that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us; that the world may believe that thou didst send me.
And the glory which thou hast given me I have given unto them; that they may be perfected into one; that the world may know that thou didst send me, and lovedst them, even as thou lovedst me." ** Here the union between God and Christ is said to be the pattern of the union which should prevail among the followers of Christ.
If we understand "I and my Father are one" as teaching the Deity of Christ, it is difficult to understand the present passage.
Then the followers of Christ would also possess Deity, which is against all Christian doctrine.
The followers of Christ are not gods, nor do they possess any claims to Godhead.
What this prayer desires is that there should prevail among Christians such a spirit of love and fellowship as exists between Christ and God.
This makes it clear that the union between God and Christ which is spoken of in the Fourth Gospel is a union in love and work and not an identity in their essential nature.*®
We may note here that there is a remarkable absence of the sense of guilt and of the need of divine forgiveness in the prayers of Jesus. The prayers of the Christian saints are full of a deep sense of penitence.
They realize that they are entirely unworthy' of the goodness and the love of God.
They do not deserve any of His abundant mercies.
They have offended Him grievously again and again.
There has been a constant struggle between the flesh and the spirit in their lives, and the flesh has often been victorious.
Their nobler desires have been constantly overwhelmed by their baser passions.
The more advanced the saints % John xvii. 20-23.
® See my What is Moksha? pp. 44-68, for a discussion of the verse "I and my Father are one."
THE INNER LIFE OF JESUS
are in their spiritual life, the more deeply they feel their sinfulness.
We find an entire absence of this sense of guilt and of the need for God's forgiveness in the prayers of Jesus.
This fact should be carefully noted.
Especially when we seek to understand the meaning of Christ's life and death, we must remember this.
Not that He was ignorant of the fact of sin in the world.
He emphatically teaches that men are sinful and that their first duty is to repent and seek God's forgiveness.
We shall see in a later chapter what an important place Jesus gives in His teaching to the need for our realizing our sinfulness and asking God for His gracious pardon.
As far as other men are concerned, Jesus clearly feels their sinfulness and their need of God's forgiving love.
But in His own personal experience there is no trace at all of the conviction of guilt.
There are no confessions of sin and no prayers for God's forgiveness in His life of communion with the Father.
This important fact should always be carefully remembered when we try to understand the real significance of Christ.
The Christian Church has devoted a great deal of attention to describing the public activities of Jesus—His teaching, His miracles, His suffering and death on the Cross and His Resurrection.
These are quite important.
But we must remember that these wonderful public activities which men saw had their roots in a deep, inner life of prayer.
Prayer covers a wide range of experience.
It may mean the simple, short prayer of the child who with real trust seeks the help and love of God or the advanced prayer of the Bhakta who becomes rapt in God and whose spirit is in communion with the Spirit of God.
To get an accurate idea of the work of Jesus we must seek to understand something of His inner life of prayer.
It is quite clear that there was a deep urge within Him to devote considerable time to solitary prayer.
He did not regard this time as wasted as some active workers are apt to do.
Nor did He devote Himself to prayer from a sense of duty. He did not strain and strive after a life of prayer.
There was a natural instinct in Him which made Him seek quiet and peace for communion with the Father.
After a heavy day's work He felt that He must seek more clearly the Presence of God.
So intimately are His inner and outer life bound together that we cannot understand Him clearly unless we make an effort to grasp the meaning of His inner life.
From the few hints which we have in the Gospels about His life of prayer we gather that He experienced oneness with God in mystical ways.
Unless we realize this, we are apt to lose sight of some of the profound influences which were behind His life.