The Miracle of Easter

Good morning.

Today is Easter Saturday, and although my body is still not really recovered from my last severe cold, it really pushes me to talk a little bit about Easter, so I will try.

We only see what's on the outside

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Easter is a very special time for me, because I experience the Easter days and what happened during Easter with Jesus in a completely different way than most people, and this is why I would like to talk a little bit about it: to offer you my view of what happened, to lend you my eyes.

Jesus was a Guru. Jesus was a King of the Inside. He often said this. He said: "My kingdom of is not of this world."

When he was arrested on Thursday and then interrogated, he was asked: "Are you a King?"

And he said: "My kingdom is not from this world."

But people did not know what he was talking about. All they knew was this world, and that's how they perceived Jesus, with their eyes which only could see this world.

Everything Jesus said was always only about the inside, that's why nobody really understood what he was talking about, because people could only see the outside. And on Easter, this becomes particularly apparent.

Easter is a demonstration of what's possible for a human being who is spiritually mature.

It's a demonstration, a culmination of all the things Jesus was talking about during this time where he was preaching and speaking to the people.

But nobody could see this, really.

What the Christian church describes and sees is seen with the eyes of the outside. We see the crucifixion, and we believe Jesus suffered, and we believe Jesus died, and we believe that then a miracle happened, something which is normally physically completely impossible: that a dead body rose from the dead.

And because this is so impossible and so extraordinary, we made Jesus into somebody who is not like us.

We made somebody godlike out of Jesus, the Son of God, and only he can do this. But all this is a misunderstanding, and, unfortunately, through this misunderstanding, the true message of Easter gets lost, because we only can see that what our physical eyes can see, and we do not see what only the inner eye can see. That's why I would like to talk a little bit about how I see it, how I experience this time.

Jesus was a Guru, and by this, I mean: he was somebody who learned to go inside. That's what he was talking about all the time when he talked about prayer.

He often said: "Just pray."

And there's this one beautiful... sorry. My body is still not recovered, and my voice is not really ready yet. He once said: "This is how you pray: Thy Will be done." That's what he said. That's how you pray.

And this is surrender. This is turning to God. This is going inside.

When you do this, you don't worry about what's happening on the outside. You just say 'yes' to whatever happens on the outside, no matter what it is, and you live inside.

That's what Jesus was talking about all the time. That's the kingdom he was talking about – inside –, and that's what every Guru talks about, not only Jesus.

What is possible for a Guru

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And now it is like this that at the time when Jesus was living in Judea, people didn't know anything about gurus.

It wasn't part of their everyday life and culture.

And it's the same with us these days in the Western world: we don't know about these people. We don't know what's normal for them and what's possible. And I am lucky. I have an Indian Guru, Swamiji, and he talks about this. India is a country where there's much more knowledge about spirituality and about Gurus and about that what is possible for human beings when they mature spiritually.

And these Gurus, some of them, display capabilities which, for ordinary people, seem like miracles.

They can do things nobody else can do.

But there are so many of these Gurus in India, there were so many Gurus in this culture in the course of many, many years, that it's common knowledge there: this is possible. Not for me, maybe not for you, but there are people like this. We call them Gurus. They can do this.

And these Gurus, they talk about how to get there. These extraordinary abilities they can display are completely unimportant, but that's the only thing ordinary people can recognize. They cannot recognize the inner strength, the inner kingship of such a Guru.

But the Guru doesn't care about extraordinary abilities. The Guru is only concerned with surrender, with prayer. He's only concerned, or she, if it's a woman, with turning inside more and more.

And I would like to talk about one of these abilities which these Gurus are capable of, and that is that they can leave their body for a certain period of time, and with their awareness, with their soul, they can go somewhere else.

And Swamiji, my Guru, he once shared how that was for him when he experienced this for the very first time. He was somewhere deep in the Himalayas where he was together with a Guru. He met a total of 11 Gurus during his long years of traveling in the Himalayas. So, one day, he was with this Guru... he stayed with this Guru for a long time, and one day, this Guru went into meditation, together with Swamiji.

And during this meditation, this Guru left his body and took Swamiji with him. Through the power and consciousness of this Guru, Swamiji was taken along, and Swamiji experienced how he – that what he really is, his consciousness, his soul – left his body. He could see his body sitting there, and then this Guru took him somewhere else.

And then, after some time, they returned into their bodies, and then, he woke up from meditation; he was back in his body and continued living like before.

And this is possible for human beings. And there's another description which Swamiji gave where he talks about this.

Return within three days

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Once, Swamiji wanted to go into deep meditation, and he knew that there is something he wanted to do with his consciousness. He wanted to leave his body to do something and then return. And he told his disciples who were nearby: "Listen. I will go into meditation, and your job is to take care of my body. Make sure that for the next 3 days, nobody harms my body.

It will appear as if my body is dead, but it's not dead. I'm just meditating. I go somewhere else. If I don't return within 3 days, then you can bury my body." He explained to them that the soul can leave the body for 3 days, but it has to return in these 3 days. After the 3 days, it's not possible anymore; then the body is dead. And that's what happened. Swamiji went into deep meditation. He left his body.

The disciples took care that nobody who could come near Swamiji's body, so it stayed safe and undisturbed. And then, after 3 days, Swamiji returned, and he recovered from meditation, and everything was fine. And in that culture, in India, they know that this is possible. There are people who experienced this themselves. There are people who witness this. It's kind of common knowledge for some people.

What happened on Good Friday

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And that's what happened with Jesus during the crucifixion. Jesus knew what would come, and, of course, he said: "Yes, I am willing." And he was prepared.

Of course, it was an extremely unpleasant physical experience to be crucified, extremely painful. But he was prepared. He was not attached to his body.

And he knew what is possible for him. He knew it.

So, he was crucified, and his soul left his body. The body was not dead, but it appears like dead, and then it was arranged that the body of Jesus was not harmed.

The guards broke the legs of the other two men who were crucified that day, but not Jesus' legs. He was not harmed. And then, a friend went to Pontius Pilate and asked for permission to take Jesus's body off the cross, and the permission was granted, so they took his body. They took care of the body and brought the body to a safe place, into a grave. At that time, the graves were not in the ground, but like in a little cave, in a chamber. So, they took the body, they made sure that the body is safe for Jesus to return. Jesus knew he can return, and that's what he did.

And then, after the body of Jesus recovered from the crucifixion, he was seen again by his disciples and by other people.

He was alive, and he was even more luminous, he was even more radiant than before the crucifixion, because this new experience of surrender, of letting go, cleansed him even more, made him even stronger inside.

It is all about this 'inside'

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But it is all about this 'inside', that's the thing Jesus tried to teach us all the time, every day.

Through the crucifixion, he demonstrated to us: "Hey. You really don't have to be afraid, not even of this."

And he was talking about you. The Church made somebody unhuman out of Jesus, simply because the people could not understand what was happening.

For them, for the people who witnessed the crucifixion, and for all the people who came afterwards, this was an unexplainable happening, and the only explanation they had was that he's not human. He's the Son of God, and that's why this could happen to him, but we are different. But this was not the message of Jesus.

Jesus always said: "Listen, I am the son of man. I'm like you. And I'm the Son of God. I'm like you." That's what he said.

He constantly invites us to follow his example – not the example of being crucified; that's what our stupid minds make out of this; no –, the example of: "Hey, turn inwards. Meditate"... – that's what Jesus called prayer – ..."and then your inside will grow. Your soul will grow. You will discover that what you really are, and you will start living in the Kingdom of God, in the Kingdom of Heaven, (in) your inside.

And then, when you begin to live there, you have no reason to fear anything."

He demonstrated to us: "This is how you live life. This is how you cope with everything which could possibly happen to you.

You turn inside, and you just surrender everything."

And that's the source of the strength of Jesus. That's the source of his kingship, and that's possible for every human being. That's why he was talking to us. He didn't want to brag. He didn't want to say: "Hey, look, I'm special." No, quite the opposite. That's what the church did later, out of misunderstanding. He always said: "I'm like you. You are like me. Look. Look into the right direction."

Normally, we only see Jesus as suffering, and we only see the cross. That's what is displayed everywhere: the symbol of Christianity is the cross and Jesus hanging on the cross.

But what happened there, the miracle, nobody can see.

Eternal soul

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This inner strength, this: when you live as a soul, nothing can touch you, nothing. And the soul is eternal.

Jesus used to talk about eternal life. He wasn't talking about something which comes after death.

It's not that the body gets to live for eternity, also not Jesus' body. This is all a mix up, out of misunderstanding.

Jesus survived the crucifixion.

He went on living. At some point, his body died, like your body, like my body.

But when you discover who you really are, this what's inside, this soul... when you start living in your inner kingdom, there you discover that what is eternal – now. It is not that you become somebody who then is living eternally. You already are that; you just have to discover this. That's all. That's what happens when you start praying. Jesus describes how to pray. He says: "Thy Will be done."

He said: "This is how you pray: Thy Will be done." Surrender, saying 'yes'. Loving what is, that's how you pray.

That's meditation. It's one and the same. There's no difference between meditation and true prayer. And he said: this is the way. When you do this, you discover your inside. You discover your soul. That is timeless, doesn't die. It was never born and will never die.

So, during Easter, Jesus lived through something and displayed something which is not unhuman, which is not something impossible. He didn't display a miracle.

He showed what happens when you go onto the path to Heaven, when you start praying, when you start meditating. He showed: this is how you live then. You become independent of this world. You become independent of this body.

You discover your true nature, which is a soul, resting in God, living in God's Kingdom, in God's Heaven, which is here, in you, now.

He publicly displayed this, and, of course, nobody could understand it. Easter is not about crucifixion. Easter is the power of the inside. That's the miracle. The miracle of Easter is Jesus' capability of remain true to this even when he was suffering and in despair, for a moment.

When you let go, there is no suffering

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Often, people, when it comes to Easter, they talk about Jesus' suffering.

Jesus was not suffering. He displayed the opposite. There was one moment of suffering, and he let go again. That's what he teaches us: the let go. He said: once you let go, there's no suffering. That's what he showed us. But people could not see his inner strength. They could only see the little things visible on the outside, and that was not pleasant during a crucifixion.

So, we talk about the suffering of Jesus, but those who really suffer are the people around Jesus: those people who do not know anything about this Kingdom of Heaven, who do not know anything about meditation, about turning inwards. Those are the ones who are suffering.

You.

You are suffering, not Jesus.

Yes.

Often, it's being said that Jesus takes away our sins, relieves us of our burden, and it's it is being said that this happened through Easter.

I want to briefly touch this. What is this burden we carry? What is this sin which burdens us?

Every time we do something and we believe: "I am doing this", I'm putting weight on my shoulders. I'm burdening myself. I'm increasing this feeling of 'I', and it doesn't matter whether I do something good or something bad.

If I do something bad, I know I did this, and it's a burden on me forever. And if I do something good, I think: "Oh, I am somebody great", and this also is a burden for me because it creates this 'I': "I am doing this. I achieved something. I achieved something great. I did something bad." Doesn't matter which way.

And Jesus tells us a different way of living. He said: don't live as an 'I'. Don't live as somebody with wishes and preferences and choices.

He says: if you forget all of these things, if you forget all of your wishes, all of your preferences, if you don't choose but instead say: "Life, God, your will be done", then this prison of 'I' disappears. Then, through me, maybe good things happen, but I know this has nothing to do with me. It's not that I did something great.

And if something bad happens, I don't feel guilty. I know this has nothing to do with me. Maybe I feel sad, but I'm willing: "Your will be done." No choice, no wishes, no preferences. And when you live like this, you live without any burden. You say 'yes' to everything in every moment. Then there's no reason to fight, no reason for sorrow.

And that's what Jesus calls sin: this burden, this misunderstanding. The word 'sin' is beautiful. The original meaning of sin is: looking into the wrong direction; misunderstanding.

And the word 'repent' means: turning around, looking into the right direction – "Not my will, your will." This is what life is about. And then, life becomes very, very easy. And that is why it is said that Jesus takes away our sins: he demonstrates by his example how life becomes when you live without wishes, without choice, when you live in a pure 'yes'. Then you're being carried, then you are light. You have no burden, no worry, no pain. The body has pain when the body is sick or when the body gets tortured, but you don't have any weight on you.

You're always free, in every moment, and what Jesus experienced during Easter shows us what's possible when we live like this.

The recipe for life

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The last time I talked about Easter and the crucifixion, I got very mixed reactions. People said: "You know, if I will get crucified when I let go. I don't want this."

But this is, of course, a misunderstanding. Jesus didn't say: "Hey. Just let yourself be crucified, and then you can enter the kingdom of Heaven just like I did." This is, of course, not his message.

His message is: when you live like this, you can live through anything. He gives you the recipe how to live your life, how to be ready for anything you are worried about.

It doesn't mean that it happens to you. You are not a Jesus. Your job is not to demonstrate to mankind what's possible. Your job is to live your life and to reach Heaven, period.

So, don't worry about crucifixion. But there are things you are worried about right now. There are things you think: "When they happen, I don't know what to do." There are things you think about, you believe: "When they happen, I'm helpless." And Jesus shows us how to live this life: "Learn how to pray", which means: learn how to meditate, turn inwards, more and more. Live this outward life from the inside, and then you will develop this strength you can feel in Jesus.

And with this strength, you will be carried through anything.

Not through a crucifixion – this is not part of the script of your life –, but everything which will happen in your life, you will be ready for. You will have the strength. You will not have any reason to worry. That's his example.

He was willing for the most extreme to show you: "Look how life is possible. Even this becomes possible."

It doesn't mean that you have to endure this, but even this... That's why it's so important to discover that Jesus was a human being like you, like me. It's possible for you to discover this strength, to discover this kingdom inside of you.

That's why we celebrate Easter every year, so we remind ourselves: "Ah, yes. I know. This is possible. I want to become like Jesus. I want to become as strong as he is, as light as he is, as pure as he is." And this purity is the absence of 'I'. This purity is the absence of "I want. I prefer", the absence of "I choose, I choose this over that." No. Just 'yes' – that's purity. This is true purity.

Easter reminds you of what's possible for you. Don't get hung up on the crucifixion.

See the beauty.

See the miracle.

The miracle of saying yes even to something like this, like a crucifixion, and the miracle of living as a soul, and then, everything is possible.

Everything.

The true tragedy of Easter

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I don't know whether this makes any sense, what I'm speaking about right now, but this is how Easter is for me.

For me, it's a festival. For me, it's nothing tragic. For me, it's no dark event. The tragedy is of the people who couldn't see him. The tragedy today is of everybody who cannot see the inside, who cannot see what's really important. That's the tragedy.

The tragedy is not what happened to Jesus. Jesus was purely beautiful, and he went through this willingly for our benefit, so we could finally see what's possible, and also for his benefit, because he became even more pure and even more light and radiant.

So, instead of remembering Jesus' sacrifice and what he did for you and for us – that's what is being done in the Church these days – do something else.

Easter: your challenge

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You can do Easter like this: "Okay, I want to become like Jesus. I want to learn this too. I want to discover this Kingdom of God. I want to become independent of this body. I want to be as beautiful as Jesus." That that's what you can do on Easter. And then you learn how to pray. Learn meditating. The Samarpan Meditation is the perfect tool for this. But if you don't like this, you find your own tool. I'm only talking about the meditation because I love it, and it helps me so much. And I believe that Jesus was always talking about meditating when he talked about praying.

So, this is what you can do on Easter. This is why we celebrate Easter: to give you the possibility to say: "Yes, I want to learn this too." It's not about remembering suffering. It's not about remembering sacrifice. This is about you, about me. What do you want? Do you want to become successful in this outside world? All of this will be gone as soon as this body dies. Or do you want to discover eternal life, your soul? You can do this. It's possible for every human being. That's what Easter is about. That's the challenge. Easter is a challenge to you. And if you're ready, take it up.

"Take it on", I think, you say it in English: "Take on the challenge." Yes. Take on the challenge.

I'm so happy that you are here.

I love you.