The Inner Door

It’s now Christmas time: the greatest, most holy time of year. We celebrate with so many traditions all over the world, including many other holy days and observances unrelated to the birth of Jesus Christ. But it is universally recognized as the sacred season where even the astronomical and astrological phenomenon align with an increase of light in the darkest of times. Every tradition, culture and expression in some way relates to the deeper meaning of Christmas time: not only the birth of the universal, divine Christ consciousness, but the awakening of that same divine light in everyone and everything. One of the most extraordinary special traditions is Paramhansa Yogananda’s 8-hour Christmas meditation, practiced at Ananda Portland and by devotees all over the world, meditating deeply to awaken in Christ’s light.

This world is both matter and Spirit, and the awakening Christ in all every thing, and each individual, is the scintillating super highway to become a Christ oneself and realize that divine consciousness everywhere. Swami Kriyananda wrote a beautiful song in which each line beautifully describes this path of awakening in Christ’s light:

When human hopes toward Thee aspire, dark woods of grief are set afire. When someone, anyone, consciously aspires towards higher consciousness and God, that same lamp of devotion ignites the fire that eventually transmutes all human grief, sorrow and suffering. Yogananda said: “Remember that finding God will mean the funeral of all sorrows.” The conflagration of these very real and difficult human experiences goes up in self offering, the rising smoke of blissful freedom in its release. 

Beyond all reach of earthly skill, Thy love alone our hearts can fill. Nothing in this human experience can fill our hearts: relationships, money, travel, lavish gifts…this world is an unfortunate combination of endless pleasures (and pains) which will never, ever fill the void in our hearts. We may imagine or construct a series of false joys, but in the end we will always be insecure, lonely, fearful or otherwise incomplete without God. Fortunately it is a two way street: when we finally seek God earnestly with devotion, our hearts gradually and spontaneously become full with God-happiness and peace. In the prayerful words of St. Augustine “Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.”

Christ’s light that shone on earth from heaven opened for us the inner door. The guru or avatar, most famously represented beautifully as Christ, opens the inner door for us to enter the realms of divine consciousness. We cannot get there without kriya yoga: the practice of transmuting our inner energies by pranayam and Guru’s grace. Yogananda describes the path through the inner door as “deeper, longer, Guru-given meditation”, where at least comes the “celestial Samadhi”, final union with God through Christ.

To all who love the gift is given: joy and freedom evermore! Love is only a humble word which hints at the divine, cosmic power underlying and overarching everything in this universe and far beyond. Love is synonymous with God, and is the final answer and only solution to everything in this world. Sri Yukteswar said that “Divine love is without condition, without boundary, without change. The flux of the human heart is gone forever at the transfixing touch of pure love.” This is the love of God and Guru, the real and only summum bonum of this world, through which our own steadfast seeking, meditation and loving, will give us the ultimate gift of joy and freedom, evermore.