The meaning of the crucifixion

[kisalipa]

"It is said that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. Why should Jesus suffer when he, as an omnipotent God could have just forgiven our sins by will?"

Kindly give Your response to it.
Swami Replied:
The main aspect is not to forgive the past sins of a reformed soul. The main point is to make the human being not to repeat the sin in future. Cancellation of past sins is done only to those devotees, who are reformed by the crucifixion of Jesus. It is told in the Bible that He came to save His people. The word 'His people' mean the devotees, who can get the reformation by the crucifixion and the spiritual knowledge of Jesus. He did not come to save all the people. The meaning of the crucifixion is only to save you if you are not repeating the sin from today onwards since all your past sins are excused and cancelled by God. The person who repeats the sin is not effected by the crucifixion or by the preaching of Jesus. If you are reformed, your sins are cancelled because God suffers for all your sins. This is the meaning of crucifixion. Crucifixion applies only to the people, who are reformed after crucifixion. Such devotees only are His people, who are saved by Him. The past sins of a reformed soul are suffered by God to satisfy the deity of justice. God wrote the constitution and prescribed the punishments for sins. How can He cancel the punishments just by will? Ofcourse, He can cancel. But, immediately people will say that God is a mad administrator since He frames the rule and cancels it immediately!

[Baile]

If by "sin and punishment" you really mean "cause and effect/karmic consequences of one's unconscious actions," then I'm right there with ya bro!

[Clear Blue Sky]

to simply forgive is to excuse the situation; Christ came to detoxify the situation. not to end death but to pull out its sting.

Why did Christ die, in concrete reality? Because religious professionals were jealous and suspicious and condemning of him. Because the praising crowd was fickle easily swayed like cattle with no integrity. because his disciple were life-fearing cowards who cut and ran. Because Judas. Because Pilate was a pass-the-buck wishy-wash politician. Because Herod was a lackadaisical shrug-it-offer. Because Roman guards were just obeying orders. All of these are the same sort of greed, cowardice, negligence etc we see plagueing our own human environment. They need to be dealt with.

[Amilius777]

Jesus was born perfect which means he had reached a level where he didn't incarnate for his own interests but for others. He didn't need to "come back" but he did and was christened by God to do so. His karma was not bad because he purified himself way before he was Jesus. Karma is memory and if you come into a life where you are constantly a doormat and people say you are no good, it is not your karma to go through that. It is your karma of feeling like a doormat because you still hold a low-self esteem about yourself from a past life which attracts this cycle to yourself. You can change this thought-pattern and action with the opposite and your karma will change especially if you live by grace and do to others the opposite of how they mistreat you.

But it is said that when Jesus came on the scene, he didn't suffer for himself. He suffered for others. He healed everyone in towns that had been killed or persecuted by Him in previous lifetimes. Not that he needed to come and do this for himself like I said but he wanted to meet his karma, the karma of others he influenced from other experiences and heal it. This is why Jesus' Way is even higher than anyone before him. And when he was crucified it was due to the fact that he was not only healing and purifying the karma of others in his example of forgiveness and self-sacrifice on the Cross, he was also becoming the Way out of our ego-centric self-centered living into Soul- expanded spiritual consciousness. That was Redemption he was offering to the world, redemption and at-one-ment is accepting who you are right now despite what you've done or been through in the past. What defines you is the True Self, not the ego self. The more one is pulled into the vortex of the ego self and seeing through those eyes the more suffering is added to one's sesarch for happiness. But the opposite brings yes suffering, but a suffering that is compassionate and loving to others and raising yourself, your Soul Group and whatever Collective you are a part of into heaven.

Jesus didn't say he came to take on the sins of all human beings. He came to take away the "sins of many" the sins of "his people"- the Israelites. He had a duty to the Soul Group of those he encountered to lift them all from one state to a higher one, and lift the nation of Israel into a new consciousness.

[Dan_SF]

Ill give you my point of view, as iv understood it, from the Course in Miracles.

Crucification is meaningless.

Ressurection is meaning.

Why should Jesus suffer when he, as an omnipotent God could have just forgiven our sins by will?"

People and their interpretation and misunderstanding of what Jesus was trying to teach have attained a wrong Picture of the whole event.
And out of this wrong picture a wrong teaching was done.

It was not our Holy Father, who commanded Jesus to go to the Cross. Anyone who knows God's goodness, understands this.
Anyone who understands the nature of God, would gladly abandon all the thoughts which are not serving the purest intentions.

Jesus (now) stands as a symbolic link, as an access to the Omnipotent God, for those who can't imagine God without a body.

This world is an illusion, a playout for thoughts which are not of God.

You see, while people cherished the thoughts of war, jealousity, competition, taxes and other acts which are not worth of a Loving God, Jesus undertook a journey to the Cross, only to prove to Others, that this reality, in which the opposites of Omnipotent God seems to be seen, is not real.

The way to the cross stands for all those acts, which brings pain (in any way).

The act of Resurrection demonstrates, that God's will is in charge and no illusions of this world can change the Perfectness of the Holy Father.

He is now acting as Holy Spirit, in the Spiritual dimension, because this enables him to help more than he could do as/in the Body.

(understandable because hating thoughts are easier to catch and cancel in spiritual dimension than in the bodily dimension).

... Such devotees,
... His people

Please understand that there can be only 2 sort of people in this world. But that does not mean that God is making distinctions of any kind.:

The people who Love God and People who misunderstood God.

The people who love God are the Holy Spirits devotees, it does not matter which race, color, sex or how rich or poor they are.

If you love or forgive (without holding what has been done) or love the peace - you are automatically his devotee. And will, sooner or later experience Miracle of some kind.

[FallingLeaves]

remember that god said, your ways are not my ways, your thoughts are not my thoughts. So to successfully interpret the things of God you have to turn away from the things of Man.

Anyway the question for God is, how to let people be as they are without them immediately choosing to die? You don't want them to just choose death, but you can't really tell them what they are doing and not to do it because the way things work out they will take that as a reason to die too. If you look at it from God's point of view, people are all the day long choosing death and yet absurdly calling it life. They just have no clue. So if you are God, what do you do?

[kisalipa]

Q) One of my Christian friends asked me that in Hinduism there is punishment of sinner whereas in Christianity Jesus always excused the sinner. What is your comment on this point?
Swami Replied:
Christianity also speaks about hell and liquid fire punishing the sinners. The divine concept is always one and does not change with the change of one religion to other since there is only one God in all the religions. The one concept of one God cannot change as per the change in the religion, which is created by human beings. The same concept exists in different languages of different religions in the world. Jesus was called as Immanuel, which means that God in human form came to save His people. This does not mean that God is saving all the people. God saves only His devotees (people), who are reformed. The sign of reformation is not to repeat the sin practically from today onwards. If one stops a sin of one type, all the previous sins of that type get cancelled. The type means the category of a specific sin. For example if one stops corruption, all the previous sins related to corruption get cancelled. If one stops all types of sins, all categories of sins get cancelled. But, the sin ends only by the enjoyment of punishment. To satisfy this rule of divine constitution (Avashya manubhoktavyam…). To satisfy this clause, God suffers the punishments of sins of such reformed devotees, who are called as His people. Except this one path, a sin done will never disappear.

[Dan_SF]

Kisalipa, are you asking for answers ? or just pasting some text ?
i somehow got confused by your post #7.

Anyway:

If God would be satisfied by suffering, then he would be a Cruel God.
But This is not the case. God being omnipotent, knows that suffering is leading not to happiness, which is his being.

The mind, (the egoistic thoughts - to address the correct problem ) - which a mind may (implies or not)have developed only in time, can be trained to accept suffering as enjoyment.
God would view this as Sin,but if you understand that Sin, is, actually impossible in God. (because of his omnipotence)

Sin is only an error,which God can correct, without pain, without loss.

whereas in Christianity Jesus always excused the sinner.

Jesus recognized what is actually happening here. The Sinners are only the missprojections of the Mind.
By recognizing this and forgiving it truly, he has been able to cancel out all the previous errors and thus freeing the world from the sin.
With his forgiveness, he free'd himself of the same errors,and with its help he has overcome this world, becoming his True self, which is, in reality, the same/one as God.
This True self is in each of us, being asleep, and just waiting for the "Triggering" effect to occur so that it can be awaken.
Suffering can lead as an trigger to awakening, but there are other ways as well for you to chose from.

In suffering (but not limited to) then it can be said that:

remember that god said, your ways are not my ways, your thoughts are not my thoughts.

Because loving God wants you happy, because yours is His happiness.

To understand this, you have to know, that the world of form is a Misprojection of the Mind, which is casting out the being of God.
And thus making a way to "death, suffering and hate" - just to name few of it, to be valid and so to keep your real self from awakening.

[kisalipa]

Dan,

Continuous happiness or continuous misery leads to boredom of human being or a soul. So you should try and understand the term Happiness which is used specially in scriptures. If you can expereince both happiness and misery equally then that is real bliss or state of God who is in continuous bliss(ananda). I will get more explanation on this topic. Please give me sometime.

[kisalipa]

The Gita is called as Yoga Shasthra, which means the subject of Yoga. Yoga is the basis for spiritual development. The effect of Yoga is not to aspire any fruit from God. Generally, people pray and love God to remove the misery and get happiness. But, if you can enjoy both misery and happiness equally, there is no need of praying or loving God for the removal of misery. Yoga means equal enjoyment of both misery and happiness. In such case, you need not pray God for the removal of misery. The house owner served both sweet and hot dishes in your meals. You are going to enjoy both dishes equally. In such case, there is no need for begging the house holder to remove the hot dishes from meals. When there is no purpose with God, the prayer and love become useless. Generally, we pray or love somebody if there is some purpose. But, if you can love God without any purpose, that is the real love and devotion to God. Yoga removes the need of purpose with God. In the absence of purpose, if you still love God, it is the real love or devotion. You should not think that devotion to God in the absence of any purpose is blind love. If you really analyze, such devotion is not blind because there is valid reason for such devotion also. God created this world and controlled the balance of this universe so that you are enjoying both the materialistic life and spiritual life. You are indebted to God. Therefore, your devotion to God becomes your expression of gratefulness for the favor already done by God. Since Yoga removes the purpose with God because it [Yoga] preaches equal enjoyment of misery and happiness, Yoga is considered to be the basis for the devotion to God.
You may argue that the equality in enjoyment of both misery and happiness alone is not necessary to remove the purpose with God. Even if you maintain the neutrality to happiness and misery, the purpose with God is removed. When you are neutral to everything, you have no purpose with God. Therefore, if we say that the definition of Yoga as the equality in the neutrality in both happiness and misery, then also, such Yoga can be the basis for the real devotion to God. When the final aim is served in the other way also, why not support that way of meaning as the real meaning of Yoga? This is correct for the sake of argument. But, in view of the practicality, it becomes absurd. The human being is awareness and not inertness. The human being is not a stone, which is naturally neutral. The human being is inherently awareness and not inertness as in the stone. Therefore, the human being has to put lot of effort to be inert so that it can be neutral to both happiness and misery. The stone need not put any effort to be inert because inertness is the inherent characteristic of a stone. In spite of hectic effort, the neutrality of a stone cannot be achieved by the human being since its inherent characteristic is awareness, which feels and reacts to the situations.