It is the day when Christians commemorate Jesus Christ's crucifixion. So why is it called Good Friday?
15th Apr 2022 | Author - Viraj Malik
Good Friday falls a day after Maundy Thursday-- when Jesus and his disciples washed their feet and had the last supper. On Good Friday, Jesus Christ was crucified and gave up his life. His sacrifice and the lessons he taught us are remembered on Good Friday.
According to the Bible, the son of God was flogged, ordered to carry the cross on which he would be crucified, and then put to death. It's difficult to see what is "good" about it. Jesus was just 33 years old when he was crucified.
Some sources suggest that the day is "good" in that it is holy, or that the phrase is a corruption of "God's Friday". It's also important to understand why he was crucified and who crucified him.
Jesus was probably crucified by the Roman authorities, who were governing Israel-Palestine at the time, because he was perceived as a political threat. Someone who caused a ruckus in the Temple, the major focal point of Jewish life and a symbol of Jewish national independence, was going to get the attention of the authorities. Jesus was becoming more and more popular within the population and his claim that he was the “Son of God” did not go well with the Roman authorities.
The last words of Jesus, according to various theological accounts, were "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit," which signifies Jesus' complete surrender and alignment to thy will. It was only two days after the day of the crucifixion of Jesus that he was believed to be resurrected and became Christ. Easter Sunday is celebrated worldwide. In addition to commemorating the Resurrection of Jesus, Easter also celebrates the defeat of death and the hope of salvation.
However, there is also another spiritual significance to his resurrection.
One of the first yogis to settle in the west, Yogananda Paramhansa, saw Jesus as a yogi who had attained divine consciousness, which he termed Christ consciousness, and compared it to Krishna's consciousness, which Hindus have long regarded as the ultimate human goal.
Here are some excerpts from Paramahansa Yogananda’s two-volume commentary on the New Testament: The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You
Resurrection has been well understood by accomplished yogis of India since the dawn of the highest ages. Jesus himself was a realised yogi: one who knew and had mastered the spiritual science of life and death, God-communion and God-union, one who knew the method of liberation from delusion into the kingdom of God. Jesus showed throughout his life and death his power of complete mastery over his body and mind and the oft-recalcitrant forces of nature. We understand resurrection in its true sense when we comprehend the yoga science that clearly defines the underlying principles by which Jesus resurrected his crucified body into the freedom and light of God....
No other science has detailed the descent of the individualized consciousness of God as the soul into man and its evolutionary and spiritual ascent back into spirit. In this modern age, Kriya Yoga has been brought forward, after being lost in the dark ages, as a definite method to hasten the spiritual evolution of human consciousness and open the inner cerebrospinal pathway of ascension, releasing the soul through the spiritual eye into the kingdom of the Holy Ghost, the Christ Consciousness, and the Cosmic Consciousness of God the Father.
The Kingdom of God Within You
There is a beautiful accord between the teachings of Jesus Christ to enter the “kingdom of God within you” and the teachings of Yoga set forth by Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita to restore King Soul, the reflection of God in man, to its rightful rulership of the bodily kingdom, with full realization of the soul’s godly states of consciousness. When man is settled in that inner kingdom of divine consciousness, the awakened intuitive perception of the soul pierces the veils of matter, life energy, and consciousness and uncovers the God-essence at the heart of all things….
Raja Yoga, the royal way of God-union, is the science of actual realization of the kingdom of God that lies within oneself. Through practice of the sacred yoga techniques of interiorization received during initiation from a true guru, one can find that kingdom by awakening the astral and causal centers of life force and consciousness in the spine and brain that are the gateways into the heavenly regions of transcendent consciousness. One who achieves such awakening knows the omnipresent God in His Infinite Nature, in the purity of one’s soul, and even in the delusive cloaks of changeable material forms and forces.
Flower
Jesus went very deep in teachings that appear on the surface to be simple—much deeper than most people understand…. [In his teachings] is the whole science of yoga, the transcendental way of divine union through meditation.
