Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952), author of The Autobiography of a Yogi, influenced millions while popularizing Eastern spirituality in the West. In his lengthy work "The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You," he interprets the Jesus of the gospels as a fully self-realized spiritual Master, and describes how the universal Christ Consciousness is available to all.

Reprinted with permission of the Self-Realization Fellowship.

"They began bringing to Him all who were ill and those who were demon-possessed. And the whole city had gathered at the door. And He healed many who were ill with various diseases, and cast out many demons." --Mark 1:32-34

The spirit of Jesus had control over cosmic energy. The faith of the sick allowed Jesus to send the all-healing energy out of his body to reinforce their weakened life force. The energy in the body of Jesus and the energy in the bodies of the persons healed both came from the cosmic energy of God. Jesus commanded his will to connect the cosmic energy with the energy in his brain and send it down through his hands in ever-flowing, potent rays to the body of the afflicted person.

Healing by sending energy through the hands, "He laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them," is based on the healer's ability to connect with and consciously direct the cosmic energy of God. The body lives in an omnipresent sea of this vibratory power. This energy sustains life and recharges the vitality of the body as it becomes depleted by physical and mental activity. ...The power of the life force transmitted outwardly for healing others is proportionate to the power of the will of the healer. Masters, such as Jesus, who have infinite control of their will, can radiate the all-creative healing ray of life through any organ, but especially through the hands, feet, or eyes. It is the consciously generated and directed power of the life force flowing through the hands that causes healing by employing the lifeforce activity, which creates, integrates, disintegrates, crystallizes, metabolizes, and produces and sustains the complex body of differentiated cells. This life force is intelligent but diminished and out of one's control in bodies governed by weak, ego-identified minds. In persons who have identified themselves with their souls, the intelligent creative life force in its full potential is controlled by the wisdom of the soul. One who knows his soul knows how to work miracles through the life force, the master of life and death, by sending it through the hands in healing rays to burn out disease in any stricken person. The verses cited above, as well as other accounts in the Gospels, relate that Jesus used various outward means of transmitting the cosmic energy: laying on of hands, divinely charged words of healing, transmission of energy by will through the ether, powerful thoughts broadcast to the one in need. ... The cosmic energy, and its individualized expression as life force in the body, is finer even than X-rays, and thus has the power to destroy not only physical germs but mental bacteria of evil tendencies and the bacteria of delusion's ignorance that obfuscates the perfection of the soul. Jesus and great savants healed others in spite of their karma or bad mental habit patterns by sending the cosmic energy into the brain of the diseased patient, where all physical, mental, and spiritual ailments have their roots. The divine energy sent by a master unites with the partially inactive brain energy of the patient, and their combination burns away physical-disease bacteria, or diseased habits, or constraints of ignorance-all of which are lodged in the conscious, subconscious, or superconscious patterns in the brain. This divine way of healing was used by Jesus the Christ to heal possessed souls or the lame or the blind. Only masters have sufficient divine will force to use the cosmic energy, if they have God's permission, to materialize renewed body parts in the affected individual, thereby curing disabled limbs or restoring sight instantaneously. The powerful energy transmitted by a Christlike soul into the brain of a psychologically diseased individual has a similarly direct effect in burning out bad karma and entrenched harmful mental tendencies. God-realized gurus thereby free their receptive disciples from habits of ignorance that have hounded them for many incarnations.

When Jesus healed a person who was possessed, he did it by two ways. First, his consciousness being in tune with the Christ Intelligence in all creation, he used the Christ Will, which governs the astral forces and entities, to compel the unclean spirit to leave the body of the diseased individual. Second, he used his willpower to send the cosmic energy into the brain of the possessed individual and destroy there the obsessions caused by the unclean spirit, as well as the karmic and habit patterns that made the person prone to possession.

In the present verses under consideration, it is related that when Jesus exorcised the devils from many, they came out crying, "'Thou art Christ, the Son of God.' And he rebuking them suffered them not to speak." Since all things of the astral world are hidden according to the will of God, concealing the dynamics of the mysterious workings of material creation, Jesus did not want himself to be revealed except in the natural human way by the declaration of his works in fulfillment of the words of the prophets. ...Jesus said, "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's" -that is, in adaptation, those who believe in medical healing, let them go to the medical doctors; those who believe in healing by the methods of osteopaths or homeopaths or other "natural" remedies, let them use such methods; those who believe in mental healers, let them go to the mental healers. But above all, no matter what one's health practices, the most important belief must be in the unlimited healing power of God and the intercession of masters who are one with God.

Jesus, being in touch with God and His all-healing, all-creative Cosmic Energy, could change the atomic structure of any diseased part of the body into a healthy atomic configuration. Ordinary healers who have no such command over the creative forces would be wise not to take onto themselves the full responsibility of handling cases of severe illness that would prudently benefit from the expertise of the material science of medical doctors. Such medical intervention should not be thought of as a negation, but rather an enhancement, of the effectiveness of continually applied mental and spiritual methods of promoting healing. Those more malleable conditions that have a psychological basis-such as nervous or emotional disorders, mild obsessions, bad habits-as well as common physical ailments that merely require an arousal or reinforcement of weakened life force, most readily respond to the healer's and patient's use of suggestion, divine will force, and invocation of God's power. God created the physical laws of science as well as the underlying subtler divine laws. Belief in and application of one does not necessarily contradict the other so long as one's faith inheres in the Creator Himself.