 Gnosis of the Creed –by Swami Nirmalananda Giri
Chapter Thirteen—And the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures.
And ascended into heaven.
He sitteth at the right hand of the Father.
 Resurrection
Because of our modern system of reckoning time, people are often confused as to how it can be said that Jesus was in the tomb three days. By the Jewish (and present-day Eastern Christian) system of calculation, a “day” begins at sundown, not at midnight. In Genesis we read: “And the evening and the morning were the first day.”
Jesus was buried on Friday afternoon before sunset, after which it was Saturday. We do not know the precise time He came forth from the tomb, but it was surely after sunset on Saturday, making it Sunday. In this way His burial spanned three days.
Symbolism
But what is really important here is the symbolism of the three days.
Man is a body, a mind, and an individualized spirit–he is physical, psychic, and spiritual. We must resurrect from the confinement of our consciousness within all three and ascend to God. In each of the three we experience “evening,” a period of preparatory darkness, and the dawn of that day’s “morning” light. Body
At the beginning of our evolution in relative existence, we first start with physical embodiment, and for ages identify with it totally, calling the body “me,” and believing that to be “alive” means to be in a “living” physical body. But then the light dawns on us and we realize that we are not this perishable body, but that we are trapped in it and made to continually undergo the evil dreams of death and birth. Then we begin to purify the body so it can no longer bind us and pull our minds and spirits down again into the bondage of rebirth. As the very first step we eliminate from our diet all animal flesh (including eggs) absolutely, all harmful vegetable substances such as caffeine and nicotine, and all harmful chemicals such as alcohol and mind-altering drugs, whether legal or illegal. Further, we so discipline and control the bodily senses that they cannot nail us any longer onto the cross of material sufferings or pleasures.
The “morning light” comes into us through meditation. Mind
When this has been done to perfection, our consciousness “resurrects” and ascends to the next level of our being, which is the mind. And what will we discover there? That it is dark with ignorance. It cannot see Reality; rather, what it thinks it “sees” is an hallucination of the ego. It does not really know anything. This is a very difficult insight for most people to cope with, and if their egotism is strong, they simply do not acknowledge it, and pull back, refusing to go any further. This is why some people begin the Way of Christ but after a few weeks, months, or years begin to get shaky and eventually vanish without a trace, having returned to the kingdom of darkness. But those who press onward, more desirous of winning immortality than of feeling good about themselves, face the facts about their condition and begin to work with the mind to purify it, just as they did with the body. (Those who do not work with the body never really–i.e., effectively–get to the mental stage.)
The Effect Of Meditation
By meditating we become aware of our mental states. Many people say: “Whenever I sit to meditate my mind just goes wild.” The truth is, their mind is always wild, but they do not experience it until they try to be inwardly still.
It is amazing how blind we can be to the true state of our mind. But meditation leaves us no illusions. People often say: “When I was meditating, problems came up that I thought I had gotten rid of years ago.” Meditation makes the mind give up all its secrets. This is described in the book of Revelation: “And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them”–that is, the buried impressions from many past lives arise in the mind during meditation. Saint John Chrysostom said that meditation is the place where confessions are extracted and judgment is passed upon them. Even more, he said that armies of evil thoughts and desires are hiding in our heart, but suddenly with a roar and a shout they rise up and begin to do battle against our meditation, for they know that in time meditation will utterly wipe them out.
Negative thoughts and feelings will arise during meditation as a matter of course, but if we keep on meditating they will be dissolved. God allows us to see them as they arise so we will not foolishly think that we are already purified and free from darkness. Also, it helps keep us humble and in a correct perspective, realizing that we need to keep on working, for we have a long way to go before reaching perfection.
In real spiritual life meditation is often a war with hand-to-hand combat unto death. The secret is to keep on meditating. When faced with the awesome depths of the mind, the foolish turn back, but the wise press on, for meditation is a powerful mode of “psychic surgery” which deeply purifies and reshapes the mind. Every time the aspirant meditates he is subtly changed. If his life has been so ordered to conform to the principles of Christ, the change will be permanent, and the more he meditates, the greater will be the effect–strengthening and freeing him. The Psychic Sea
However we look at it, there is the great psychic sea to cross. Sad to say, most people do not cross it, but drown in it, getting lost in all types of “expanded consciousness” experiences and the development of psychic awareness and powers. Those things are definitely real and are in no way “of the devil” as the ignorant think, however, they are eventually proven to be as unreal and as binding as the awareness and powers of this material world. We lose our spiritual consciousness by diving into them and getting lost in them.
The common folly of people involved in psychic phenomena is very much like that of divers who, going too deep into the ocean without adequate equipment, experience what is called “the ecstasy of the deep,” wherein they feel wonderfully free, with no need at all for breathing equipment, so they toss it away and drown in that intoxicated state. In like manner, those with psychic development frequently feel that they are progressing spiritually and have no need of anything more, contentedly drowning their spiritual consciousness in the waters of psychism.
The psychic world is so vast that we can wander through it for ages, being continually entertained and interested. But in the final summing up it will be seen to have no value whatsoever as far as our progress toward God is concerned. Psychic tourism is a terrible trap to fall into, for it can hold us in its fascination for lifetimes, becoming a kind of spiritual drug. One writer on esoteric matters has appropriately called those who get caught up in the realm of the psychic, “astral junkies.” Spirit
Until the time of resurrection, our spirit is darkened, forgetting where it has come from and identifying completely with the ever-changing and suffering body and mind. A great deal of work is required to even become aware of our present status.
Once we rise above the psychic, we can enter into the domain of the spirit to behold our spirit helplessly bound in its “grave clothes,” like the Lord Himself in the tomb. The Lord in His resurrection passed through the grave clothes–and so must we. Just as Christ left them behind in the tomb, when we resurrect into spirit we leave behind all bonds of body, mind, and spirit. Those who are wise get busy right now and work intensely to free themselves from any further entanglements.
This triple phase of liberation is symbolized by the three days in the tomb.
Another Meaning
There is another aspect to the three days’ symbology. In Robe of Light there is a diagram of the levels of existence. There are twelve divisions, divided into three greater areas, extending from animal existence to Divinity. The three days before resurrection also symbolize the passage of our spirit through all those levels of evolution and manifestation, from animality to Divinity, before we can truly be said to have resurrected. This is the process the spirits of Adam and Eve went through before they could return to this world as Jesus and Mary. Jesus had already truly resurrected long before He was born on this earth. The resurrection He acted out in this world was a symbol of the resurrection we must all go through, a resurrection possible through Him.
Why Not Three Full Days?
Why was Our Lord only in the grave for a few hours on Friday, a full twenty-four hours on Saturday, and then a few more on Sunday?
Friday represents the time needed for physical resurrection, Saturday represents the time needed for psychic resurrection, and Sunday represents the time needed for full resurrection into spirit. Although we may think it is a great labor to conquer and resurrect from the body, this symbolic time period tells us that the real labor is that of passing through the mind-psychic levels. We must be prepared, since Christ has shown us that that is where the greater part of our work lies. Once we can break the seal of the body and resurrect into the mind, we should not expect instant salvation and quick perfection. Instead, an even longer path lies before us. Once we have passed that, there is yet more before the spirit is freed. “According To The Scriptures”
The Creed says that He rose again “according to the Scriptures.” That expression has two meanings: (1) His resurrection was the fulfilling of prophecy. The Scriptures had foretold all He would do; therefore, on the road to Emmaus, “beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” But (2), it also means that He carried out all the events of His life and resurrection according to the exact details which the Law and Prophets had laid down.
We must do the same. The path to resurrection is not a spiritual free-for-all, but a matter of essential, invariable, precise spiritual laws which must be observed for success. Hidden in this expression of the Creed is the requirement that we must adhere to definite principles of spiritual unfoldment, just as did Christ. Those who “do it their way” get nowhere. As the prophet Isaiah said: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way.”
May we, then, strive to “rise again, according to the Scriptures.” Ascension
“And ascended into heaven. He sitteth at the right hand of the Father.”
As we have discovered, “ascension” is more than the lifting up of the body. Rather, it is the return to “heaven,” to the original state of oneness with God, the Absolute, Whom we symbolically call Father.
In enacting His great mystery-drama, Christ showed that there must be resurrection from the threefold “burial” of body, mind, and spirit. When, through resurrection, a person has that plenitude of enlightenment, he then ascends to perfect union with God.
This phrase also means that Christ returned, triumphant, to the divine status from which He had descended. We, too, must return to our Source, having conquered the threefold ignorance and bondage of body, mind, and spirit. Christ Himself says in the book of Revelation: “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out.” The evolutionary cycle will have been completed, and there will be no more “going and coming” between the visible and invisible realms. Death will cease, and eternal life alone remain for us.
Another statement regarding this in Revelation is: “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne.” Those who truly overcome through a total metanoite, a total reformation and transmutation of being from earthly to heavenly, from fleshly to spiritual, will then be established, not just near God, but in the very throne of God, which is His inmost Being. The Right And Left “Hands” Of God
Since the expression “right hand of the Father” has come up, let us consider the subject of the right and left hands of God, for the Lord also spoke of them in His public teachings.
The law of relative existence is the law of duality. Absolutely nothing can exist within the realm of relativity without being dual, polarized to both negative and positive. This even applies to God Who “in the beginning” emanates His own Self from Himself as Two: God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. We might metaphorically say that at the beginning of a creation cycle God stretches forth His “hands,” the Two through Whom He subsequently does all things, that He may again bring into manifestation a universe in which the separated spirits can evolve back toward Him and ultimately re-enter His Being.
The “right hand” of God is the positive, masculine power, symbolically called “the Son.” He is the directing, conscious, intelligent will, but will and thought have no meaning if there is no dynamic power to carry them into action. Therefore, as an active counterpart to the “right hand,” the Son, there is simultaneously manifested the “left hand,” the feminine power which is the great primordial energy, the cosmic dynamism, the great out-breathing, the “Holy Breath” (i agia pneuma), the Holy Wisdom (Agia Sophia), which is usually called the Holy Spirit.
As far as the creation, gross and subtle, is concerned, these two “Hands” are also Father and Mother–a subject already covered.
Right And Left
All spirits originate in and come forth from the Bosom of the Father through the Son. The Son then gives us into the hands of the Mother, Who sends us forth into Her manifestation as relative existence with the inner impulse to climb the ladder of evolution through a succession of embodiments, both gross and subtle, in order to return through Her to the Son, and from the Son back to the Father.
To accomplish this She first sets us into the descending current which projects the spirit outward from the formless Unmanifest into the region of manifestation through form, i.e., embodiment. We call this descent into the material universe “the lefthand path.” Contradictory as it may seem (for reality always seems contradictory to our limited intelligence), the further we go down the lefthand path, the more complex we become in evolution until at last we attain to human status, which is both the nadir and the apex of the descending current.
Having thus gained the capacity for conscious, wilful ascent through inner cultivation, we are enabled to choose to enter the ascending current, “the righthand path,” and begin “taking and following the narrow, long, blessed path to wisdom”–back to the Bosom of the Father.
This Right Hand of God draws us upward, just as the Left Hand impelled us downward. In the Gospel, Jesus calls the lefthand path “the Broad Way” and the righthand path “the Narrow Way.” Basically, the Right and Left Hands of God are these two streams of polarization.
On the Left Hand we are helplessly impelled downward (or outward) in its great flowing torrent of energy. And as we tumble downward within it we gather around ourselves more and more shells or layers of that energy until we come into manifestation in the physical universe. On the other hand–literally–when we consciously enter the Right Hand current we begin to wilfully shed those layers of energy that act as veils between us and God. This is not done easily. On this earth plane a structure that took centuries to construct can often be demolished in moments. But in this process of return it is not so. A Clarification
We tend to think that the lefthand path is evil and the righthand path is good, but this is a misunderstanding. Both are necessary. The lefthand path is the path which gets us more and more enmeshed in materiality so we can engage in the process of evolution. (We must remember that this is supposed to be a painless process entirely under the control of our will and not the bondage it has become). The righthand path is that which liberates us from materiality and releases us more and more into the spirit. To become arrested at some point on either path is the real misfortune–as it is to immerse ourselves in the lefthand path when we should be on the righthand path. That is when the lefthand path becomes destructive and “evil” for us.
By ascending the righthand path we eventually complete the circle and “go out no more,” being irrevocably established as gods with God. Just what that divine state will be like, we cannot conceive. To attempt to define or understand or imagine that condition is totally useless, it is so far beyond us. Those in that state left “humanity” behind aeons ago.
The Work Of Christ
The work of Christ is the return of the spirit to God, not the forgiveness of our sins so God will not be mad at us and send us to hell. Many people think that Jesus came to save us from hell, but the truth is, He came to save us from both heaven and hell, since to be in either place is to be separated from God in our awareness. Heaven can even be a worse place than hell, because it is so pleasant we want to stay there at ease instead of working to pass on to be with God in His pure Being. But when we are in hell we are perfectly willing to get out of there and go higher!
We have all gone to heaven and to hell many times throughout our cycles of lives on this earth. Until we return to God, Who is beyond heaven and hell, beyond life and death, we will never know real peace or security. The Bible never speaks of either heaven or hell as everlasting, but only aionion, “age-lasting”–lasting for a long span of time–for they are not permanent, but are only temporary stages in the unfolding drama of the spirit.
Another aspect of the work of Christ is the conquering of death, which is not a condition of the body but of the spirit. The real death is forgetfulness of who we are. For when we know who we are, we know who God is. As Tennyson says to the little flower in the poem: “If I could understand what you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is.” That is, if we could understand the full unity of the root with the whole flower, then by inference we would know what God and man are. For they are one.
The work of Christ is also the work of resurrection and return, of leaving the realm of manifestation which is our tomb, and returning to sit at the right hand of the Father, having completed the perfect cycle. It was not the destiny of Christ to be a mummy in the grave, and it is not ours, either, though the overwhelming majority of religious people are just that: well-wrapped mummies in well-kept tombs called “churches.”
If we do not resurrect as did Christ, we will keep circling within the orbit of the earth, continually undergoing birth and death. And that is everlasting damnation, indeed. More chapters of the Gnosis of the Creed:
• Chapter One—The Nicene Creed
• Chapter Two—I believe
• Chapter Three—In one God, the Father almighty
• Chapter Four—Maker of heaven and earth, And of all things visible and invisible
• Chapter Five—And in one Lord
• Chapter Six—Jesus Christ
• Chapter Seven—The Only-begotten Son of God, Begotten of the Father before all ages. Light from Light, True God from true God. Begotten not made, Being of one substance with the Father; By Whom all things were made.
• Chapter Eight—Who for us men, and for our salvation
• Chapter Nine—Came down from heaven
• Chapter Ten—And was incarnate by the Holy Spirit
• Chapter Eleven—Of the Virgin Mary. And was made Man.
• Chapter Twelve—He was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. Suffered and was buried.
• Chapter Thirteen—And the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures. And ascended into heaven. He sitteth at the right hand of the Father.
• Chapter Fourteen—And He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead.
• Chapter Fifteen—Of Whose kingdom there shall be no end.
• Chapter Sixteen—And in the Holy Spirit, the Lady and Giver of life: Who proceedeth from the Father. Who together with the Father and the Son Is worshipped and glorified. Who spoke by the prophets.
• Chapter Seventeen—And in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
• Chapter Eighteen—I confess one baptism for the remission of sins.
• Chapter Nineteen—And I look for the resurrection of the dead. And the life of the age to come. Amen.
1) Genesis 1:5 [Go back]
2) Revelation 20:13. This verse also refers to the transmutation process at the end of all earthly rebirth. [Go back]
3) “So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre. And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in. Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.” (John 20:4-7) [Go back]
4) Elsewhere on this website. [Go back]
5) Luke 24:27 [Go back]
6) Isaiah 53:6 [Go back]
7) Revelation 3:12 [Go back]
8) Revelation 3:21 [Go back]
9) “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” (Matthew 7:13,14) [Go back]
10) Just as all that glitters is not gold, so much of the negative thought and action their adherents call “the lefthand path” is no such thing. We are speaking of the real lefthand path which is never actually negative through we may turn it to our own harm through ignorance. [Go back]
11) “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” (I Corinthians 2:9) [Go back] |
