Just realized that April 1st is Easter Sunday. Besides the Easter bunny and egg-hunt, it would be profitable to discuss some key aspects Christ’s resurrection and its meaning to us. Jesus was crucified on Good Friday but rose from the grave, three days later, on Easter Sunday, to appear before his disciples, multiple times.
Just so that we build knowledge in a cohesive and complementing way, I am providing some comparisons below to Eastern philosophy for better appreciation of key Christian concepts. Please feel to correct if you feel differently. Astral Body: (and resurrection) Per Vedantic philosophy, a human being has an astral body with multiple layers (also called subtle body), besides the gross/physical body. When human body falls, the astral body remains. You may read up more here. The soul/Self lives in the body and remains even after the physical body is disintegrated because it cannot be destroyed. There are many cases of enlightened masters reappearing in the East.. So this is not something difficult to understand. Concept of sin: It could be a little challenge to understand the concept of “sin” in Christianity, and every person as “sinner” from an Eastern philosophical perspective, but if you equate Sin=Karma, it would be a lot less difficult! Every person is under the bondage of Karma, and annihilation of Karma is a key requirement for getting out of the cycle of rebirths. Jesus came to carry the “sins” of the world, for redeeming the world! So the sins need to removed for redemption! Now the concept of sin makes a lot more sense! The Fruit of Knowledge: Adam and Eve fell from Garden of Eden because they ate the “fruit of knowledge”. Knowledge is always considered inferior in Eastern wisdom. The ancient seers always “knew” and their knowledge came through mystical experiences which are later scribed in books. Hence the books are often considered as secondary sources of knowledge and the focus is to “experience” the divinity oneself . The Christian Trinity: The Father (God), Son (Jesus) and Holy Spirit. The usage of terms the Father and the Son are somewhat easy understand in terms of the ultimate consciousness called God and the individual consciousness (called son) in each one of us. In the East, the ultimate consciousness of God has two aspects, namely Father and Mother.. Union of the individual and the universal is the Advaita (only one).. In Bible, Jesus does say, “I and my Father are one!”, though that is not the mainstream teaching. Now the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit (also called Holy Ghost) is a slightly different principle and is a little tricky to understand. Jesus attributed all his miracles to Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit often comes as “wind” (hence the term, holy Ghost).. In the modern days, two people who have spoken on Holy spirit are Benny Hinn and Oral Robertson and the Bible itself provides limited details. In the East, the term Prana (or breath in simplest terms ) is often used by saints to create “live” idols by infusing “prana”……It is actually called “prana pratishta. …very similar to God “blew the air” to create Adam (“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being). Holy spirit is the breath of God! As mentioned in the article, the original Hebrew word used is (Ruach – meaning air which is the same word for breath).. Here is the quote “ We almost get a little spooky talking about the Holy Ghost, but the Hebrew word behind spirit is ruach, and it means "air in motion." It is the same word for "breath." It also means "life." By resemblance to breath and air in motion, it means "spirit." That’s where we get the translation".
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