The Christian tradition observes this day as The Second Sunday of Easter in an ongoing celebration of Jesus’ resurrection. Indeed, the resurrection of Jesus (or any great spiritual master) is ongoing and meant to bless us not only on Easter Sunday, but every day of our lives. Their presence and grace is available to us! Yogananda tells us, “Liberated souls such as Jesus, whose mission continues beyond their incarnation, are able to materialize their bodies at will anywhere in the astral heavens or in the physical world at any time—today or unto thousands of years after their ascension.”
In today’s Gospel from John 20:19-31, the disciples experience the truth of Yogananda’s words: On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
The resurrected Jesus blessed his disciples by imbibing them with the very same Energy, Consciousness, and Spiritual Force that was working in and through him. Various traditions might name this consciousness the Holy Spirit, God’s Spirit, or the Great Spirit. To the degree that we nurture a sense of conscious contact with Jesus, Yogananda, or any true spiritual master, we too are able to receive an infusion of their grace, just as the disciples in today’s Gospel. Availing ourselves of the outpouring of God’s goodness is not complicated. It is simply about loving God with persistence, determination, and heartfelt devotion. Yogananda shares with us how prayer, motivated by love, can bring us into the flow of the Spirit’s grace:
“Prayers sent out soulfully once or many times, mentally or orally, bring a demonstrative response from God. To utter “God” with devotion with each repetition of his name is to plunge the mind deeper and deeper in the ocean of His presence until one reaches fathomless depths of divine peace and ecstatic joy, the sure proof that one’s prayers have touched God. To repeat “my Lord, I love you,” countless times, sincerely, feelingly, so that with each utterance the devotee’s love and understanding of God grows deeper, is a sure method of contacting God through prayer. Prayer with devotion is a wonderful means of opening oneself to the freely flowing blessings of God, a necessary link of man’s life to the Infinite Source of all blessings.
My Lord, I love you.
My Lord, I love you.
My Lord, I love you.
Breathe on me
That I may receive
Your Holy Spirit.
