"As the Father hath loved me,
so have I loved you."

Excerpts from The Second Coming of Christ by Paramahansa Yogananda

Jesus: I love you

"If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.

"As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in His love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." (John15:7-11)

“If your consciousness is in tune with my Christ Consciousness and the emanations of Cosmic Vibration coming from me, you will be able to accomplish whatever you wish due to your will working through the Cosmic Intelligence and Cosmic Vibratory Energy, the creative Word of God."

Jesus promised his disciples that "if ye abide in me, and my words abide in you"—if their consciousness were perfectly in tune with the Christ Consciousness and Its emanations of Cosmic Vibration—they would be able to demonstrate untold wonders through operating the universal creative principle.

Any devotee, of any era, who is in tune with Christ Consciousness materializes the glory and wisdom of Cosmic Consciousness (the Father) hidden in and beyond all creation. Those who would discipline their consciousness for expansion into Christ Consciousness — such were considered by Jesus to be his real disciples.

Then Jesus spoke to them precious words, none dearer to the devotee's heart, that he loved them with the same divine, impartial, undying love with which the Heavenly Father loved him. Even as he felt God's love within himself always, so would they abide always in God's love flowing through Christ Consciousness if they continued to keep His commandments.

What love could be purer;
what love could be greater than
the love that Jesus expresses here for his disciples?

Human love requires human meriting and is subject to whims of feeling; but God's love is unconditional, eternal, unchanging.

Visualization

Try to imagine the love spoken of by Jesus in these verses.

Close your eyes, put your attention on the heart, and feel the greatest love that you ever felt for another person. Let that love saturate every cell of your body.

Now expand the feeling of love, like an encircling sphere embracing your family, friends, all your loved ones. Feel your love ever increasing; include in that sphere all the people in your city, then all of your country.

Now everything in the world is bathed in that love. The whole earth, the solar system, the far-flung galaxies and island universes — everything is floating in this vast sphere of love.

Feel, meditate on, merge yourself in that love which permeates and upholds the infinitudes of manifestation — a demonstrable presence of God's heartbeat of bliss, setting the pace of cosmic harmony and unity, and known to the devotee as the All-in-all fulfillment.

The Infinite Love of God

The love felt in the heart at the beginning of this visualization is human love. And the love that expanded until it encompassed everything is the universal love of Christ, the infinite love of God. The love that most persons feel for dearest family and friends, Jesus felt for the whole world and every living being. The Christ Consciousness that encompasses everything in its love was born in the body of Jesus, in the body of Krishna, in the body of Buddha.

Only one who has had the perception of the Infinite can fathom that indescribable love of God that suffuses all creation—the Christ-love, the divine power of attraction that draws all beings into an ever greater harmony and ultimately reunites them with God. It is a love unflawed by any selfishness or physicality or mortal instinct, uncircumscribed by the limitations that taint even the grandest human love. The love that dwells in the souls of all creatures—the sum and perfection of the love of all mothers, all fathers, all friends, all lovers— that is Christ-love: the love of the Father reflected in the consciousness of Jesus and every God-united master.

"Continue ye in my love"

To feel that soul-love of all pure hearts is to be transported in an ecstasy of joy so great, so overwhelming, that it cannot be contained —a charge of bliss passing through one's being, a thousand million volts of rapturous power. This divine emotion is beyond description —a communion of unutterable sweetness with the Infinite Grace, the Indescribable Glory, the Eternal Protection. That is the love of God which Jesus felt, and in which he sheltered his disciples: "As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love."

Jesus wanted to be sure that when his body passed away the disciples would continue to be aware of the divine love he had helped  them to feel within their hearts. Many kindle a little light of desire for God and then fail to give it fuel, and the fire dies. The flame of love and yearning must be fueled again and again with daily practice of meditation and self-discipline. Jesus pointed out that any devotee would be able to abide in the unending divine love in the bosom of Christ Consciousness and God by following the laws of God he had emphasized: primarily, as he himself had demonstrated to them, by loving God as the joy of meditation, with all the heart's devotion, mind's concentration, soul's intuition, and body's "strength" (withdrawing the energy from the senses to focus the attention on Him); and loving Him as present in the souls of all living creatures.*

"neighbors":
all those one happens to meet.

By keeping those two foremost commandments of the Father, Jesus, and all liberated devotees, abide eternally in the Lord's unending, ever joyous, ever new love. "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full": The truths by which the disciples would be able to abide in Christ-love were vibrated by Jesus into their receptive consciousness through the Holy Ghost Cosmic Vibration, that God's ever new Bliss present in him and omnipresent in the Cosmic Vibration might remain with them permanently after his body had been dissolved in Spirit. He wanted them, through the unshakable communion attainable by deepest meditation, to transmute the conditional joy of their current stage of realization into the full, absolute joy of Spirit.

The Gospel preserves a record of Jesus' words on this holy occasion; but readers should realize—and try to feel within themselves as though they, too, were present—that behind those words was the tangible vibratory presence of God. During times of divine fellowship (satsanga) such as Jesus' Last Supper with his disciples, those who are receptive feel transported into a higher consciousness of God-perception pouring into their hearts and minds as the master speaks. This attunement imbues the devotee's consciousness, in the highest way, whenever he summons the guru's grace in the inner temple of deep, worshipful meditation. (p.1396)