Truth and Grace is Greater than the Law - Ananda Washington

Truth and Grace is Greater than the Law

Nayaswami Padma McGilloway

The law was given by Moses, but truth and grace came by Jesus Christ.” This quotation from the gospel of St. John, Chapter 1, is not a critique of Moses. It describes the universal truth that the evolution of consciousness requires that we first learn the do’s and the don’ts of behavior before we can begin to experience transcendent truth and the love of God. The great yogi-preceptor Patanjali stated the same essential truth in his outline of the 8-Fold Path.

There is a story from India about the medieval saint known as Guru Nanak. Revered by both Hindus and Moslems, a Moslem cleric once found Nanak lying in the mosque with his feet facing the altar. Outraged by this insult, the cleric demanded that Nanak move his feet in another direction. Guru Nanak replied that perhaps the cleric could tell him where he could move his feet that God was not present. But every time the cleric tried to move Nanak’s feet, the altar would move and remain in its fixed position relative to Nanak’s feet! Guru Nanak’s state of God-consciousness was such that the relatively minor temple etiquette rule no longer held sway!

When Moses came down from Mt. Sinai with the ten commandments, he found that the Israelites were worshipping a golden calf, the symbol of their own materialistic tendencies. It is tempting to the ego to seek fulfillment through the senses and in the creation and to ignore the Creator, invisible behind all appearances. But in succumbing to this, we are forced to learn our lessons through the operation of the laws of karma and duality.

The very first time Dr. Lewis (who was Yogananda’s first disciple in America) met the Master he asked Yogananda what was meant by Jesus’ words, “If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be filled with light?” In the course of a dramatic first meeting, Yogananda, pressing their foreheads together, showed him the spiritual eye, the inner light. This experience stayed with Dr. Lewis the rest of his life even as meeting his guru changed his life!

Self-realization teaches the importance of experience over belief. That passage from the Bible made no sense to Dr. Lewis until he experienced it for himself. In the story, Way of the Pilgrim, a devotee wanted to understand how to “pray unceasingly” as Jesus taught. After much searching, the pilgrim found someone who taught him to repeat “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me” thousands of times, in synchronization with the breath, until all distracting thoughts subsided and his consciousness was immersed in God. It is in God-consciousness that we find freedom.

As Krishna says to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita: “Precious Thou art to me! Give Me thy heart! Cling to Me! For Thou art sweet to Me. Let go those rites and writ duties! Fly to Me alone and I will free Thy soul from its sins!”