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SWAMI SHANKARANANDA
L.M.: Now you believe that deeply, but the West doesn't believe this. We never hear about that in the teachings of the Christian church.
S. SHANK: There is a lot that the West has not heard about, including many saints and sages and sacred writings.
L.M.: There is a whole communion of saints of the East.
S. SHANK: That is a part of that spiritual heritage. There is, for instance, a whole tradition of Sivaite saints and Kashmiri saints. There are many ancient manuscripts and scrolls that are preserved in monasteries and ashrams in Tibet, Nepal, and India-that relate to this man of righteousness, this Isha, which means Jesus. There is even an Isha Upanishad.
L.M.: Do you think that is related to Jesus?
S. SHANK: No, not to him specifically. Though the name Jesus in Sanskrit is Isha, it corresponds to Isha. Jesus was exposed to various meditation techniques, and was qualified to practice them; he discovered the richness of those techniques.
L.M.: Do you think that he taught them to his closest disciples?
S. SHANK: I more than think so. I am self-persuaded that he initiated them into the light and into the sound-and into the mantrams, or at least some of them. There is a reference that supports that on the scriptural level, where he said: Let your consciousness be full of light. The mistranslation is: Let your body be full of light. It is not a mistranslation however, if we equate the body with consciousness; if we understand that symbolically and mystically, the body refers to the body of consciousness. The body contains within it all that is in seed form. So "let thine eye be single”—and your whole consciousness shall be full of light. How can these eyes become single? They don't. But it means your inner eye-which in Sanskrit is called ajna, or the spiritual eye. Let your eye be single: transcend dual vision, or dualism, and you will realize the light. Jesus pointed to man and said: "You are the light of the world." So, let your light shine. Well, it cannot shine forth if I am focusing on duality; if I focus on my limitations.
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