Why Do Devotees Fall?
Purity of Heart
Reading and Affirmation for June
From the book The Beatitudes: Their Inner Meaning by Swami Kriyananda
Why Do Devotees Fall?
Truth is one and eternal. Realize oneness with it in your deathless Self, within.
The following commentary is based on the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda.
An endlessly fascinating question is, Why did Judas fall after receiving the extraordinary blessing of being accepted into the inner circle of Jesus Christ’s disciples? For Judas was one of the twelve apostles. Yet he be-trayed Jesus, and earned for himself the opprobrium of Christendom for all futurity for his sin.
We find Judas reprimanding Jesus just days before that betrayal. Jesus, aware that his disciples would soon be facing, with his death, the supreme tragedy of their lives, allowed Mary to express her devotion by anointing his feet with costly ointment. This act of “wanton waste,” as Judas saw it, awakened indignation in that disciple.
“Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?”
This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and kept the purse, and bare what was put therein.
Then said Jesus, “Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. For the poor always ye have with you: but me ye have not always.”
Doubt not the power of delusion. Respect it – indeed, fear it, though not in the sense of cowering before it. For, as Yogananda said, “One is not safe until he attains nirbikalpa samadhi – the state of final union with God.”
Judas, through attachment to money, opened his consciousness to subtle influences, which may be called satanic, that drew his thoughts toward other related attitudes: the importance of worldly power, for instance, and of worldly influence.
The Bhagavad Gita gives a graphic explanation of how easily the mind can be drawn downward, once it begins to feed on wrong attitudes. In the second Chapter, Sri Krishna states:
If one ponders on sense objects, there springs up attraction to them. From attraction grows desire. Desire, impatient for fulfillment, flames to anger. From anger there arises infatuation (the delusion that one object alone is worth clinging to, to the exclusion of all others). From infatuation ensues forgetfulness of the higher Self. From forgetfulness of the Self follows degeneration of the discriminative faculty. And when discrimination is lost, there follows the annihilation of one’s spiritual life.
“At the first thought of delusion,” Paramhansa Yogananda said, “that is the time to stop it.”
Thus, through holy Scripture, God has spoken to mankind.
Whispers From Eternity
194. I will be Thine always
I may go far, farther than the farthest star, but I will be Thine always! Devotees may come, devotees may go, but I will be Thine always.
I may bound over billows of many lives under sad, dark skies of loneliness, but I will be Thine always.
The whole world may ignore Thee, engrossed as it is in Thy gifts of money, power, and pleasure — mere playthings! — but I will be Thine always. Take everything from me if Thou willst, but, Lord, I will be Thine always.
Death, disease, and every imaginable trial may riddle and rend me, yet, while the embers of memory still flicker, look into my dying eyes: They will mutely say, “I will be Thine always.”
My voice may grow feeble, fail, and forsake me, and yet, with bursting heart and with the silent voice of my soul, I will ever whisper to Thee, “My Lord, I am Thine always!”
Paramhansa Yogananda
Inspiration from the Rays of One Light
Then said Jesus, “Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. For the poor always ye have with you: but me ye have not always.”
John 12:7-8
We will take these meaningful words into our meditation together for deep reflection and contemplation. But firstly, we will listen to the beautiful Psalm of David, sung by Mary Kretzmann.
Psalm of David
Listen to the Psalm of David
Reflect, Meditate and Listen to Instrumental Music
Reflection from the Rays of the One Light
Peace Sangha
This week, I was inspired by John 12:7-8
Then said Jesus, “Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. For the poor always ye have with you: but me ye have not always.”
Here is a poem I created called “A Gift for Only the True”.
A Gift for Only the True
She fell with her knees before him
In the silence of the air
A fragrance for mourning
Was poured when he was there
Judas spoke of duty and waste
That he claimed he knew
Yet the Master saw the meaning
Inside the heart no one could view
The prophetic sign unspoken
That no one understood or knew
To Christ love is never measured
Her devotion rose before him
A gift for only the true
Because sometimes love is urgent
A call Mary’s heart knew she must do
She clearly saw the cross approaching
When others had never heard
They walked unmoved by his every word
So she spent her sacred moment
Honouring His divine feet
Detached in a quiet act of divine worship
The world could never repeat
The act of a devotee’s love that
In the eyes of those who thought she would fail
Yet treasured by the saviour
Who mercy never fails
Aum Peace Amen
