Dear Editor,

While the May 21, 2011 prediction was blatantly and covertly out of place, there are many other interpretations of the Bible which are equally out of place. As children growing up in Jamaica we were fed an everlasting diet of these misinterpretations. As we mature, some of us develop the strength to reject these falsehoods. In so doing, some of us, including me, rejected God for a while, since our only reference to God came through these same false teachings.

We continue to grow and seek truth, even outside of the narrow Christian framework. Look what we found.

” On a personal level, the disciples were to understand that whosoever of whatever generation would interiorise their consciousness in deep meditation would experience the coming of the Son of man – a manifestation of Christ Consciousness – through the Christ light in the spiritual eye (“the lightning which cometh out of the east”) illuminating and spiritualising their whole being (“shining even unto the west”). Souls thus transformed from material body consciousness to refined soul realisation find that the eagles of desires that feed on sensory temptations have fled, and in their stead the heretofore distant eagles of divine yearnings are attracted to feast on truth realisations.

Alas, through the misinterpretation of the passages, (Matthew 24:23-28) and (Luke 17: 22-25) many think that Jesus will return to earth again like lightning out of heaven. The Christ Consciousness of which Jesus spoke can come a second time in any one, at any time – provided that devotees enlarge the cup of his consciousness until it can hold the infinite ocean of Christ Consciousness. A thousand Christs sent to earth would not redeem its people unless they themselves became Christ-like by purifying and expanding their individual consciousness to receive therein the second coming of the Christ Consciousness, as was manifested in Jesus. It is futile to look for another coming of Jesus out of the clouds of the sky. God, who is taciturnly humble, though Almighty, will never permit such a spectacular demonstration of His glory before the undevotional gaze of wicked people. But by moral discipline, continuous devotional prayer and deep meditation, God can be contacted in inner silence as Ever New Joy.

Contact with this Consciousness, experienced in the Ever New Joy of meditation, will be the real second coming of Christ – and it will take place right in the devotee’s own consciousness.”

– The Second Coming of Christ, The Resurrection of the Christ Within You.Paramahansa Yogananda.

All this makes a lot more sense to me than all that has been taught to us over the years as Christianity.

Raymond Beckford

Kingston 19