Tag Archives: Paramhansa Yogananda

Is ‘Raca’ a racial slur used in the time of Jesus Christ?

Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, ‘Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment’: But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without cause shall be in danger of the judgment : and whosoever shall say to his brother, ‘Raca’ shall be in danger of the council : but whoever shall say, ‘Thou fool,’ shall be in danger of hell fire. (Matthew 5:21-22)

Raca : a derogatory term in Aramaic (literally, “I spit on you”) conveying extreme contempt.

Raça Negra : Portuguese for “Black Race”

Seems possible that in Jesus’ time Raca was a racial slur against black peoples.. could it have been equivalent to the N-word at the time?

Ethiopian painting of The Sermon on the Mount

Jesus spoke out against injustices, this verse is one clear example. He ministered to the sick and outcasted and to prostitutes and forgotten ones.. legends of him going to India say he spoke out against the caste system there and was met with fury by the ruling priestly elites..

“Jesus makes another point in these verses : Words are very potent vibratory actions, affecting favorably or adversely the one who uttered them and also the one to whom they are directed. To express contempt to any individual (“say to his brother, ‘Raca’”) is spiritually libelous against that individual’s soul, which is ever perfect regardless of how loathsome his egoistic expression. By scorning a fellow being, one demeans his own soul’s forbearing nature and subjects himself to the scrutiny of the tribunal of his conscience and its records of his many regrettable failings. It would be a humbling, if not horrific, experience if one had to face an archival reading of the shames in all of his past incarnations. The merciful God has forgiven so much in every man who is consciously struggling toward the light of wisdom; it is the awakening nobility of the soul that likewise feels patience rather than contempt for others whose actions show no such awakening.

Further, anyone who calls another a “fool” shall himself suffer from the fire of ignorance. Ignorance is hell, as it engenders all manner of evil and burns away wisdom. True knowledge and wisdom are the source of salvation from the miseries of the human condition. To inhibit the potential unfoldment of anyone’s soul wisdom by a strong suggestion of ineptness is to do them a great wrong. Negating anyone’s will and branding the subconscious mind with defeatist thoughts of inferior abilities is reprehensible. To foster in anyone an attitude of surrender to ignorance sets in motion the lawful principle that to pull down another human being is a sin that puts oneself “in danger of hell fire” – the fire of ignorance that consumes one’s own spiritual merit in the act of willfully demoralizing, humiliating, or denigrating another person.

It is plain that Jesus spoke figuratively in his reference to hellfire*. He did not mean that the omnipresent God of love has created leaping tongues of fire in a hell at some point of space to burn the disembodied souls of sinners, rife with bad karma. The Heavenly Spirit who is the Father of all human children could not possibly roast them alive forever because they made some temporary mistakes during their sojourn on earth.”

-Paramhansa Yogananda (The Second Coming of Christ)

*The concept of eternal damnation in hellfire, as in orthodox interpretations, is not supported in this verse or elsewhere in the New Testament. The word used for “hell” in the original Greek of the Gospel is : Gehenna, from Hebrew : Ge Hinnom, the valley of Hinnom southwest of Jerusalem, where children were formally burned as living sacrifices to the Ammonite god Moloch (2 Chronicles 28:3; Jeremiah 7:31-21). In Jesus’ time, according to Biblical historians, the valley was used as a dump for the filth of the city, where continual fires were kept to consume it – “a place,” according to commentator John Gill, “whose fire was never quenched; and in which they burned the bones of any thing that was unclean, and dead carcasses, and other pollutions.” The name was thus commonly used by the Jews to denote the after-death realm of punishment. Encyclopedia Britannica states about Gehenna : “Mentioned several times in the New Testament (e.g., Matthew, Mark, Luke, and James) as a place in which fire will destroy the wicked, it also is noted in the Talmud, a compendium of Jewish law, lore, and commentary, as a place of purification, after which one is released from further torture.”

Note that the valley of Gehenna/Hinnom, where these fires were perpetuating burning in Jesus’ time sound very similar to the burning ghats of India, where dead bodies are burned ceremonially, as a spiritual purification and their souls are thus freed from bodily consciousness.

Also note that the valley of Gehenna/Hinnom was previously the place where children were offered as living sacrifices to the god Moloch. Thus, the place was defiled and came to be known as a symbolic ‘hell’.

Ancient cult offering living children as human sacrifices to god Moloch

Today, there still exists a Satanic cult to Moloch that sacrifices children and operates in elite levels of politics, government, Vatican, Hollywood, ect.. notice how these same corrupt people, corporations and special interest groups use racism to continually & systematically downpress and suppress the people of God. Especially the black peoples of the earth. Jesus was black, maybe the Jewish and Roman elites even called him ‘Raca’??

🤔🤔

One of the oldest paintings of Yahshua the Christ

Blessed are the Peacemakers commentary by Paramhansa Yogananda

Blessed are the peacemakers : for they shall be called the children of God. (Matthew 5:9)

They are the real peacemakers who generate peace from their devotional practice of daily meditation. Peace is the first manifestation of God’s response in meditation. Those who know God as Peace in the inner temple of silence, and who worship that Peace-God therein, are by this relationship of divine communion His true children.

Having felt the nature of God as inner peace, devotees want the Peace-God to be always manifest in their home, in the neighborhood, in the nation, among all nationalities and races. Anyone who brings peace to an inharmonious family has established God there. Anyone who removes the misunderstanding between souls has united them in God’s peace. Anyone who, forsaking national greed and selfishness, works to create peace amidst warring nations, is establishing God in the heart of those nations. The initiators and facilitators of peace manifest the unifying Christ-love that identifies a soul as a child of God.

“Son of God” consciousness makes one feel love for all beings. Those who are God’s true children cannot feel any difference between an Indian, American, or any other nationality or race. For a little while immortal souls are garbed in white, black, brown, red, or olive-colored bodies. Are people looked upon as variously foreign when they wear different colored clothes? No matter what one’s nationality or the color of his body, all of God’s children are souls. The Father recognizes no man-made designation; He loves all, and His children must learn to live in that same consciousness. When man confines his identity to his clannish human nature, it gives rise to unending evils and the specter of war.

Human beings have been given potentially limitless power, to prove that they are indeed the children of God. In such technologies as the atomic bomb we see that unless man uses his powers rightly, he will destroy himself. The Lord could incinerate this earth in a second if He lost patience with His erring children, be He doesn’t. And as He would never misuse His omnipotence, so we, being made in His image, must also behave like gods and conquer hearts with the power of love, or humanity as we know it will surely perish. Man’s power to make war is increasing; so must his ability to make peace. The best deterrent against the threat of war is brotherhood, the realization that as God’s children we are one family.

Anyone who stirs up strife among brother nations under the guise of patriotism is a traitor to his divine family – a faithless child of God. Anyone who keeps family members, neighbor, or friends fighting through fostering falsehoods and gossip, or who is in any way a maker of disturbance, is a desecrator of God’s temple of harmony.

Christ and the great ones have given the recipe for peace within and among individuals and nations. How long man has lived in the darkness of misunderstanding and ignorance of those ideals. The true Christ-method of living can banish human conflicts and the horror of war and bring about peace and understanding on earth; all prejudices and enmities must fall away. That is the challenge placed before those who would be the peacemakers of God.

-The Second Coming of Christ by Paramhansa Yogananda

(Read the entire chapter for the complete commentary of the entire Beatitudes of Christ)

Happy Gnostic Easter 🐰Resurrect into the Light ✨

“Behold thine immortal Self resurrected with Christ in the illuminating Light of Christ Consciousness, present in every soul, every flower, every atom.”

~Paramahansa Yogananda

At this sacred time of Easter, when we honor the life and resurrection of Lord Jesus Christ, may you awaken anew to the presence of his infinite consciousness—in the unfolding of God’s beauty in nature, in every impulse to reach out to others with empathy and love, and in the growing awareness of His joy within your soul. Liberated ones such as Christ come to lift us from the illusion that we are frail mortal beings, bound by the body and the dualities of this world. They remind us of the indomitable strength within us, of the love of which we are capable, and the oneness with the Divine that we can attain if we attune our lives with God and reach beyond this little “I” to care for all as part of our greater Self.

How deeply our hearts respond to Christ’s tender compassion, for our own true nature is love. We rejoice at his victory over human limitations because within every one of us is the urge to express our boundless soul. While the world prompts us to live on the surface of life, reacting to people and experiences according to the ego’s likes and dislikes, Christ and all God-united souls blaze before us the trail to freedom and divine expansion. Gurudeva Paramahansa Yogananda said, “The love that most persons feel for dearest family and friends, Jesus felt for the whole world and every living being.” It was this all-embracing love that motivated Christ to willingly lay down his life for the welfare of others. His supreme sacrifice was the culmination of countless acts of compassion, and a strength and humility cultivated by responding divinely to many daily trials. Let us take to heart his example and embrace the opportunities each day brings to resurrect our consciousness from the ego-bound lesser self to the soul’s goodness and understanding. The spirit of Christ manifests in us when we look for the positive qualities in others instead of judging them; when we forgive instead of harboring feelings of resentment; when with deep faith and an open heart we set aside our preferences to seek attunement with God and pray, “Father, not my will, but Thine, be done.”

Above all, Christ’s ability to love purely and selflessly, the spiritual strength that enabled him to conquer mortal consciousness, were forged in the stillness of soul-communion, in the loving relationship with his Heavenly Father that was his very life and being. To follow in his footsteps, we too must go within. This Easter, renew your resolve to nourish by meditation your relationship with the Divine, and to practice Christ’s way of kindness, forgiveness and loving service to all. As you draw closer to the Source of all love, Christ’s resurrection will have ever deeper meaning for you. May the infinite love that sustained Lord Jesus fill your consciousness and flow out to all who cross your path.

Loving wishes to you and your dear ones for a joyous and blessed Easter,

~Sri Daya Mata