CHRIST AND VEDANTA
By Paul Hourihan

Vedanta declares that the Atman, or the Divine Self in each individual, is all that exists, has become everything. The Self-realized soul should, therefore, not only know but be this Divine Self. Christ is that living embodiment of the Divine Essence of the Vedanta philosophy.

In all Christ's teachings it is the Realized Soul that speaks:

I and my Father are one means not that a man is one with God—but that man’s essence is one with Divine essence, soul with the Soul of the universe.

I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. When Christ says that “I” am the Truth, he is speaking from that condition, that spiritual reality, which he has known and become. Indeed when one identifies with Pure Spirit or Soul, and a total disregard and indifference toward the body and its work results, one is in total attunement with God—who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Know ye not that ye are Gods? The Christ-consciousness is our destiny also: to realize within what He experienced, which is the principle of Universal Oneness, and wholeness. That will be the experience of the Truth we have heard so much of, the Truth that is the foundation of our being. As Jesus Christ says, You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.

I am the Resurrection and the Life. It is the completely awakened consciousness in Him that is the Resurrection and the Life—resurrected out of the tomb of its previous body-consciousness.

Before Abraham was, I am reminds us that the Soul antedates the first man, and the last; its timelessness transcending past and future alike.

Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world assures us of the eternal life of our true being, ever sustaining us to the final end of mortal life—and beyond.

And so with all his other mystical utterances. 

Christ is the soul in total identification with the Divine Self. He is one of the supreme instances of personality becoming transformed into Divine Principle, of the individual into the cosmic, of man into God. His life is the Soul’s journey to Self-realization; it is the career of the Soul unfolding its natural sovereignty over nature, over men, over time, over all things. All his acts become symbolic, all his words allegories. Interpreted thus, He belongs to the whole world.

Note: The above quotations are from the King James version of the Holy Bible.

Suggested Readings:

Sermon on the Mount According to Vedanta by Swami Prabhavananda, Vedanta Press, Reprint 1991.

Ramakrishna and Christ, The Supermystics by Paul Hourihan, Vedantic Shores Press, 2002

See also What is Vedanta?

THE LIVING WATER
by Paul Hourihan, edited by Anna Hourihan from lecture transcripts

As we study the stories and scriptures of different religions, it’s fascinating to find parallels between them. For example, in the Chandogya Upanishad, we read, “This highest knowledge, the knowledge of Brahman, having drunk of which one never thirsts.…” The statement having drunk of which one never thirsts recalls the “living water” in the Biblical scene at Jacob’s well in Samaria where Jesus apparently by accident meets a Samaritan woman. Jesus, during his journey with his disciples northward into Galilee, found this ordinary, uneducated and rather immoral woman, who had had five husbands and other lovers, receptive to his high teachings. In the midst of the exchange with her occurs the image of water that also appears in the Upanishads.

“Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus being weary with his journey, sat thus on the well and it was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman from Samaria to draw water. Jesus saith unto her, ‘Give me to drink.’ Then saith the woman, ‘How is it that you ask me to draw the water, I am a Samaritan and the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.’ And Jesus answered, ‘If you knew the gift of God and who it is that saith to you, Give me to drink, you would have asked of him and he would have given you living water.’ The woman said, ‘Sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep, from whence have you that living water? ...’ And he said unto her, ‘Whosoever drink this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water I shall give him, shall never thirst; but the water I shall give him shall be in him a well springing up into everlasting life.’ And the woman saith unto him, ‘Sir, give me this water that I thirst not…’” ^*                                    

Whosoever drink this water shall thirst again. The water in the well represents the senses of ordinary life, which when we satisfy them, leads to an insatiable desire for more of the same. This is the tragedy of the alcoholic, the sensualist, the drug addict, as well as the consumer psychology, which in principle is no different―we always want more.

As noted from the Upanishads (the main Vedanta scriptures), that which quenches all thirst is likened unto the knowledge of Ultimate Reality or Brahman, as it is called in Hinduism. We taste the water of the senses, which appeases us only momentarily, and tragically leads us on to newer thirsts, and deeper hungers than before. This is the nature of the senses and the nature of desire―it can never be satisfied in this world. As the Bible says elsewhere, “The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.”^** We can’t see enough, or hear enough, or experience enough sexuality, or drink enough, or eat enough, and so forth. We can’t gossip enough, or be envious enough. We can’t be attached enough, can’t cling enough—it goes on and on. There’s always a new way to cling to things even when we think we’ve exhausted every possibility. The senses open into a door leading to their own infinite desires―whoever drinks of this water shall thirst again–that is what Christ means. He often speaks in symbols and riddles and here the water is said to be the knowledge of God or Brahman. As we taste some of that knowledge we find it fills us. Although we want more of it, whatever we have brings us deep satisfaction like nothing we’ve known in the sense life. It also opens into its own infinite door, but leading to the realm of the Spirit rather than that of the senses.  

According to the Upanishads, the “Knowledge of Brahman” satisfies us, although we may experience Brahman in another mode, as Love—God as Love. This also is the same Brahman but simply seen under a different mode or dimension. But Love is also knowledge as St. Paul says in his epistle, “Love is the fulfilling of the law.” He claimed that the law that is the whole challenge of being a human being is fulfilled by Love. The knowledge of Brahman must be knowledge that makes us love, that makes us open to life and embrace and adore life, and that is knowledge that fulfills. Both are the same. One leading to the other and then we discover that they are only different sides of the same coin.

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^*    Holy Bible, John 4: 6-15
^**  Holy Bible, Ec. 1:8

See also Words of Wisdom: Christ, Spiritual Life, Knowledge, Truth and archived articles, CHRIST AND VEDANTA, and CHRIST AND THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS.

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