The belief, then in an existence apart from God, is the major sin; ultimately, the only sin, error or misconception (Van Druten as cited in Isherwood, 1971, pp. 350-351).
In continuing with Swami Prabhavananda’s discourse, he states:
The final cause of our mental impurity is our clinging to life, our fear of death—and this is natural to all, good and bad alike. Buddha calls it Tanha, the thirst for life, and Christ [Jesus] refers to it as the same, “He who loves his life shall lose it.” Only the illumined saint has no sense of ego, no attachment, no hatred, and no fear of death; they have all vanished.
Even if we could have spiritual enlightenment instantly, this very moment, we shouldn’t like it, we should draw back at the borderline. Even if we have been seeking God, we draw back at the moment when we feel we are about to have the vision of Him: we are afraid, because we cling to this life and this consciousness. We are so afraid of losing this everyday consciousness, even though it means passing into that wider infinite consciousness—in comparison with which our normal perceptions are, as the Gita says, “like a thick night in a sleep.” . . . Before we are ready to realize God, we must purify our hearts [minds], we must prepare ourselves (Prabhavananda as cited in Isherwood, 1971, p. 319).
In addition to the central theme of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus in his teachings gives us four cardinal attributes that we must develop in our search for God. They can be outlined as follows:
Attribute No. One—the Right Desire:
If we are to come into the conscious awareness of the inner-reality of God, we must possess that seemingly cold and inhuman desire, and love toward Him that Jesus taught—a desire so strong that one forsakes all material bonds willingly and joyously to gain entrance to the kingdom of God (Spirit) within.
Vedanta philosophy states that:
God becomes realized only by shutting our senses to the outward things and turning our minds toward the kingdom of heaven within. We must gather the scattered forces of the mind and direct it with a concentrated heart toward God, the abiding reality. The natural inclination of man is to seek and express life in the outside world, to find enjoyments outside. But religion tells us to overcome this natural desire and seek the true abiding happiness in God who is within.
Man, as he knows himself is not the real man. The world is not as it appears to be. Behind this surface life, where we experience the play of life and death, there is a deeper life which knows no death; behind our apparent consciousness, which gives us the knowledge of objects and things and the experiences of pleasure and pain, there is the pure, infinite, blissful consciousness. This truth of God is experienced only by those blessed souls who turn their gaze inward. Somehow, man got caught in the net of ignorance. It is the nature of ignorance to accept the unreal, the shadow, for the real . . . We may accept the shadow as the reality; we may seek life, love, happiness in the fleeting objects, persons, and things, accepting them as abiding, as real. But Mother Nature gradually reveals the truth, “God alone is the unchangeable reality, and in Him only is to be found abiding happiness” (Prabhavananda as cited in Isherwood, 1951, pp. 224-225).
If we are to embark on the spiritual path we must develop the right desire. We must do as God commanded through Saint Paul, and not look at the things which are seen, but to look at the things which are unseen; for the things which are seen are temporal. But, the things which are not seen are eternal (2 Cor. 4:18). Jesus tells us in Matthew 16:24 that, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself [carnality] and take up his cross and follow me.” He also tells us, in Matthew 10:37-39 that, “He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me, and he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me.” We must desire to find Him more than anything else. For if we do not we will not find Him, because we are not worthy. Why? Because, we will be accepting the unreal, the shadow, for the real. “He that taketh not his cross and follow after me, is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:38).
Attribute No. Two—the Right Denial:
You must deny the flesh (worldliness), in order to attain the real. You cannot serve two masters! Carnality has no reality, in itself, and therefore cannot enter into the domain of the real, I cannot stress this enough; carnality cannot enter the kingdom of God (Spirit)! Jesus tells us, that, “he that findeth his life shall truly lose it; and he that loses his life [self] for Christ’s sake shall truly find it”(Matt.10:39). Only if we give up the old man (carnal self) can we expect to find the Christ: God (Spirit) within. In comparison the Vedanta philosophy expresses it thusly:
The watchword of religion and spiritual life is renunciation of the thirst for life in the world . . . Neither Jesus nor Buddha nor Ramakrishna nor any seer or prophet would ever make any compromise with the idea of spiritual life. They all declare in one voice that God and worldliness cannot go together . . . Where is the root of all cravings? Where is the source of worldliness and thirst for life? The root is ignorance. Ignorance is to accept the unreal for the real. The first—begotten child of ignorance is the sense of ego. All cravings and thirsts for life and worldliness are centered round this ego. This ego is a false self, not the real I. It is the outcome of false identification of the atman (the spirit within) with the body, mind, senses, etc. This sense of ego can be said to be a figment of our ignorant mind. It has no real existence. Peel off one layer after another of an onion, and what remains? Nothing. What is this ego? Are you the body, the mind, the senses, the intellect? Are you any of these, or a combination of these? Is any of them permanent? As you analyze to find what your ego is, you reach a point where you realize that it is only a shadow. Yet we build our whole world round this shadow of an ego.
Behind this ego is the real man, the Atman, God. To renounce this ego is the meaning of renunciation . . . the ego has no meaning; it is only a shadow . . . Man is spirit and has a body and mind. Through ignorance, he forgets that he is spirit and identifies with the body, mind, senses, etc. and thus there arises the sense of ego. Religion teaches us to overcome this ignorance and realize that our real life, love, happiness can be found only in spirit in God . . . Religion tells us to wake up from this sleep of ignorance, stop chasing the shadow; gather all the forces of the mind, intellect, senses and direct them to the realization of the one end—which is God, the abiding reality . . . (Prabhavananda as cited in Isherwood, 1951, pp. 225-226).
Attribute No. Three—the Right Discrimination:
We must realize God (Spirit) alone is real. All else is illusory (temporal, transient). As stated before, by following carnality we are following a shadow; something that has no substantiality of itself. We must abandon hope and trust in the transient, for God (Spirit) is our hope! In the Beatitudes Jesus lays out plainly the qualities and attributes that the aspirant on the path must possess in order to come into the conscious awareness of the kingdom of God (Spirit). In Matthew 5:3 Jesus states, “Blessed are the poor in spirit [material bonds given up to find Him], for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Fortunate is the man that has given up carnality; the belief in some power other than God (Spirit), for he shall find the Christ: God (Spirit) within. For as long as we direct our minds outward on the things of the world we overlook the reality of God (Spirit) within. God (Spirit) is within us and is waiting for us to turn to Him. We must remember God (Spirit) is the Life of our life. “He is the true light [Life], which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (John 1:9).
Father Hurley taught that, “Every soul is by nature in bondage to the flesh; and to the things of the flesh. It is by ignorance that we misidentify our True Selves: God (Spirit) within, to be one with the earthly selves. Thus, all suffering is a result of this bondage. Our souls are longing for eternal happiness. So the soul looks relentlessly out in the world for the food that will satisfy its hunger. Just to find after consuming meal after meal, that it did not satisfy it all” (Hurley as cited in UHSCA Sunday School Synopsis, n.d.). Such, is the chase, after the fruits of the flesh. For they have no true reality and thus cannot insure lasting joy, happiness, and security. To continue on, Jesus states, “Blessed are ye that mourn for ye shall be comforted.” Fortunate is he who cries and toils because he has not found God (Spirit); for he shall find that peace that surpasseth