 89. Jesus or Christ |
What is the significance of the words "Jesus" and "Christ"?
Jesus is the man – the activity. The mind, the relationship that he bore to others. Yeah, he was mindful of friends; he was sociable; he was loving; he was kind; he was gentle; he grew faint; he grew weak; and yet gained that strength which he had promised in "becoming" the Christ by fulfilling and overcoming the world. Ye are made strong in body, in mind, in soul and purpose, by that power "in" Christ. "The power, then, is in the Christ. The pattern is in Jesus."
-E. Cayce
Jesus was the name given by the family signifying a divine child, or Lord of creation, and the name Christ was given later and signified the Christ consciousness which was manifest in the body of Jesus. The family of Jesus, seeing the miraculous signs which attended his birth, named him "Lord of Creation" or "Isa," and later due to changes in pronunciation, called him Jesus.
-Yogananda
It is important to note the difference between Jesus the man and Jesus the Christ. Jesus was the name of the man. The Sanskrit origin of this name is found in the word "Isa," or "Lord of Creation." Mispronounced by travelers in many lands and being used in many different languages, the word Jesus came to be used in place of "Isa." The Spanish pronounce it "Hazus."
-Yogananda
The Christ-consciousness is a universal consciousness of the Father spirit. The Jesus-consciousness is that (which) man builds in his body as worship (the body is the temple of God). In the Christ-consciousness, then, there is the oneness of self. Self's desires, self's abilities, made in at-one-ment with the forces that may bring to pass that which is sought by an individual or soul. Hence, at that particular period, self was in accord. Hence, the physical consciousness had the desire to make it an experience of the whole consciousness of self.
-E. Cayce, paraphrased
RAM DASS STATES:
No man comes to the Father but through me – Jesus the Christ. What does this statement mean? In almost all holy books, and especially in the words of "holy beings," we are dealing with transmissions to different levels of disciplines and devotees who can hear different things. (We are of God. He who knows God hears us. He who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.)
In the "New Testament" are these the words of Jesus or of the Christ?
We have really at least two beings in that one being. One of them is Jesus who is the son, a form of the Father made manifest on earth:" "I am in the Father; the Father is in me." Then there is the Christ, which is the consciousness out of which that form is manifested, the consciousness that acknowledges the living spirit. That's not necessarily Jesus, the man. The predicament is that, depending upon our degree of readiness, we become involved with the devotional relationship either to Jesus, the man, or to Christ, the consciousness. And my experience of that particular biblical quote is that it is "Christ" speaking, not Jesus; that Jesus is a historical statement of the perfection made manifest, and at that historical moment "Christ" said to somebody, "You can only come to the Father through me," though it may have been interpreted as coming from that body which was Jesus. For someone else, at another moment, it means the greater body out of which that body comes, which is the Christ body.
