From: radams@cerritos.edu
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Re: revelations or lack thereof...
Date: 31 Dec 92 10:22:50 GMT
Article-I.D.: ogicse.47845
Distribution: world
Organization: Cerritos College, Norwalk CA

In article <1hg73rINNa7j@sandman.caltech.edu>, 
billc@devnull.mpd.tandem.com (Bill Carter) writes:

> In article <47566@ogicse.ogi.edu> radams@cerritos.edu (Roger Adams) writes:
>>Christ became the Christ by his own efforts, all the great ones became
>>so by their own efforts. According to Paramahansa Yogananda, the great
>>ones like Christ did not just fall out of some heavenly sphere onto earth
>>to help us mere mortals.
> 
>    That may be what Yogananda said, and I
>    don't disagree with him, but don't you agree that most modern-day
>    Christians see Jesus as the product of an "immaculate conception",
>    the Son of God from day one?  And would you say that most Hindus
>    see Krishna as an ordinary human Joe Chariotdriver?  This is in
>    contrast with Buddhism, where Siddhartha Guatama is supposed to
>    have been a plain old ordinary guy like you and me.  Come to think
>    of it, I suspect there are Buddhist sects which deify Guatama
>    but I don't think they are the mainstream.
> 

These great ones were divine in their oneness with God prior to returning to
this physical plane to help other souls to realize their oneness with God also.
So they were divine and yet had to overcome, to a certain extent, delusion once
again when they returned to this plane. They thus show by their example how to
overcome imperfections and attain enlightenment. The divine consciousness does
not fully manifest from day one in these great ones, but it is still present to
a degree. Yogananda said that he was fully conscious in the womb of his mother
and remembers what it felt like. He also remembers when he was newly born,
recalling past lives including being a Himalayan Yogi in previous incarnations.
When,as a baby, his mother took him to her great master Lahiri Mahasaya, the
master said that the child would become a great yogi and lead many souls to
God. The Christ  child, not having been taught to read or write, taught the
true meaning of various scriptures to the confounded scribes. Buddha was
considered a divine incarnation by some who told his parents of this fact and
so goes the story of how Buddha's parents went through great pains to isolate
his life, try to keep him from seeing death, old age, disease, etc. and keep
him away from saints. The message of the great ones is that we are divine
also but have yet to realize it.

> You wrote;
>>This is a nonsectarian issue. Truth is not in words, philosophy, and scriptures
>>which only point to Truth. Truth must be experienced directly. All arguments
>>are among the followers and not the founders of Christianity, Buddhism, Hindu-
>>sim, etc.
> 
>    I think that whether Hinduism, say, is a "revealed" religion or not is
>    indeed a sectarian issue.  

What I meant is that Truth exists, and the various religions have different
ways of approaching Truth. As time passes, the religions tend to grow
apart even though essential agreement is enjoyed by the founders. Thus it
is futile to contrast the religions at their superficial levels since they
are contrived differences anyway.


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	Roger Adams
	radams@cerritos.edu               To those in whom love dwells,
	Cerritos College                  the whole world is one family.
	11110 Alondra Blvd                             A Hindu Proverb
        Norwalk, California 90650
	USA        		          293 Dwapara :-)
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