Peace I Leave with You

Excerpts from The Second Coming of Christ by Paramahansa Yogananda

Peace I Leave with You

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. (John 14:27)

Unlike the world, which gives only perishable things, Jesus left with his disciples imperishable Christ-peace. That peace he gave to all who were able to attain it, so that they could enjoy it always in meditation and ecstasy.

That consciousness of God-peace is never-ending. It is the real state of happiness. Everything else will fail you. Nothing else can make you happy because only
the joy of His presence is real.

Don't expect to attain unalloyed peace and happiness from earthly life. This should be your new attitude: no matter what your experiences are, enjoy them in an objective way, as you would a movie. You have to find true peace and happiness within yourself.

Then think of the peace that Christ had. His peace could not be taken from him. We think we will seek that peace "tomorrow." Anyone who reasons this way will never find it. Seek it now.
(Man's Eternal Quest)

The heart is the center of the emotions, so Jesus referred to it in telling his disciples to keep their feelings free from the roiling vibrations of  restlessness and fear, so that the lake of consciousness might remain calm to reflect the Christ Consciousness without distortion. He then reminded them, as he had told them before, of his departure and return (his impending crucifixion and resurrection), and of the final dissolving of his body into Spirit, from which time on his Christ Consciousness would manifest in each devotee's meditating consciousness. He added that if they loved the Christ Consciousness in him, they would rejoice for his sake because he was going to be reunited with the Cosmic Consciousness, absolute liberation in Spirit, greater than his incarnate state of universal Christ-Kutastha Consciousness. ...

Jesus conveyed to his disciples that even though he would appear to them after resurrection in the physical body, still that was not the real Second Coming of Christ.

The Second Coming
is possible when any devotee expands his consciousness by deep meditation and can feel the body of Jesus as the Cosmic Vibration or Holy Ghost,
and the spirit of Jesus as the Christ Consciousness.

Many who saw Jesus after resurrection did not realize the true Spirit-essence of Jesus. They were satisfied to behold Jesus' spirit materialized as the familiar human body of the Master. So it is today with all who utter prayers to the Holy Ghost and Christ without ever realizing them in their consciousness. They are satisfied with ceremonies that they believe bring the contact of Holy Ghost and Christ. But earnest devotees who by a specific scientific yoga technique of meditation on Aum contact the Holy Ghost as the most blissful, all-comforting, all-sorrow-destroying Cosmic Sound truly know what Holy Ghost means. Advanced devotees who not only hear in meditation the blissful cosmic sound of the Holy Ghost, the Word, the holy Aum vibration, but merge their consciousness in the omnipresence of this sound, and feel the universal Christ Consciousness in it, they are the ones who witness the second coming of Christ in their consciousness. Though Jesus can and has informed Christ Consciousness to appear in his Jesus-form to God-realized saints, it is neither necessary nor a fact that Jesus will appear in body again before souls can be redeemed. When he manifests as the Cosmic Sound and the Christ Consciousness in the devotee, then that is the true redeeming Second Coming of Christ of which Jesus spoke.

As a human being has a soul, mind, and body, so also God is the inactively active soul of the universe, Christ Intelligence is the active mind of God planning and guiding the work in creation, and the Cosmic Vibration materialized as the physical cosmos is the physical body of God. Any devotee who wants to bring Christ Intelligence a second time in his consciousness and through that Christ-wisdom reach the Father, or the Cosmic Consciousness, must first master the technique of communing with the Holy Ghost Cosmic Sound, and then realize the Christ Intelligence in it. Simply believing in the Trinity could not give anyone the God-realization of Cosmic Consciousness.

The Holy Ghost Cosmic Vibration appears to the devotee during meditation as

Cosmic Light,
Cosmic Sound,
Cosmic Joy, and
Cosmic Wisdom.

The devotee must not be satisfied to be merely an observer of these inner glories, thinking thereby that everything has been attained. When the devotee can see the divine Light spread over the whole cosmos, feel the Sound of Aum thrumming throughout the cosmos, merge in the Joy in every atom and particular of the universe, intuit the wisdom of Christ Intelligence in every speck of space, then he has communion with the Holy Ghost. This contact of Holy Ghost will be found by the advanced student to be an Incomparable Comforter, giving inner freedom from physical, mental, and soul miseries, and awakening in the soul the intuitive omniscience of Christ-wisdom— as was promised and emphasized by Jesus. (p.1383)