This renowned Master clearly understood the fact that no single book represents some God's only truth.
Nor is any book necessarily some God's perfect words - in this world nothing is perfect.
Time, errors, translations, local traditions, copies, political and religious motives also change things.
Sometimes accidentally - sometimes intentionally. There are in existence over 15,000 manuscripts of TNT In Greek and V Latin - have fun!
The same reasons why your God does not guarantee inerrancy of ancient writings, is the same reason why that same God does not prevent wars. Which is worse?
Yogananda's solution to the mass of confusion about what scripture really means or really said was;
"The only reliable standard of scriptural
interpretation is the testimony of actual
perception - to go into that state of
consciousness in which the prophets
perceived the truths they expounded
and thereby witness the meaning they intended."
If one can go into the future and prophesy, one can also go backwards in time and observe what was actually happening in ancient times.
Interpreting anyone's words literally may have meaning, but it is only the surface or superficial ideas. Meanings of truth go much deeper .
It is like the ocean, when you look at the surface you see very little of what the ocean really consists of - go deeper and you may get the whole picture...
It is written "And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not......"That light was the true light, which lighteth every man that comes into the world." NT KJV John Ch 1
This matter is clearly explained and witnessed in the worlds newest sacred scripture; “The Second Coming of Christ; Resurrecting the Christ Within You.”
Pages 20 & 21, volume 1
© SRF Publishers 2004, LA USA.
Available in HC or Trade paperback ed.
Paramahansa Yogananda speaks;
“Even the light of the sun is considered darkness, because it is part of the physical world of duality; its grossness, also, hides the greater light of God. Only in spiritually transcendent ecstatic states is there no duality of day and night, light and darkness, but God’s light alone. Just behind the darkness of closed eyes in meditation shines that radiance of God.
“Man is blinded by the relativities of life. Without the aid of physical light he sees darkness. But beyond that darkness is another light that pervades the world, providing the life and energy that sustains the whole universe.* The auroral rays of astral lifetrons are a spiritual ectoplasm around the entire cosmos. Out of the astral light, God is creating planets and universes. I am in that light all the time; I see everything aglow with that heavenly essence - all physical manifestation emanates from that astral light, and that light emanates from the creative manifestation of God as light.
“If you saw God right now, you would see Him as one mass of light scintillating over the whole universe.
As I close my eyes in ecstasy everything melts into that great Light. It is not imagination; rather, the perception of the Sole Reality of being. Whatever is seen in that state will happen; that is the proof of the reality of that Omnipresent Light of all becomings.
“Man is so drunk with delusion, it obliterates his true perception so that the darkness of his ignorance (maya) cannot apprehend the light of God vibrating everywhere. Both Cosmic delusion and individual illusion of ignorance (avidya) work together to thus obscure and confound the soul’s inherent sense of God’s omnipresence. In meditation this darkness of sensory dependence goes away and intuition prevails, revealing oneself as light in the magnitude of a whole universe of light.”
*the existence of this universal astral light is discussed in greater detail by physicists in a footnote by the publisher on said pages…..
Other experiences of this light [in Samadhi] are also testified in Yogananda's spiritual classic “Autobiography of a Yogi” Published by Self-Realization Fellowship Publishers LA USA.
See Chapter 14 and other indexed references in this book…..
