What is the Holy Spirit in Christian Prayers?

During Baptism, Holy Communion and other occasions in Church you may have heard the prayer, ‘In the Name of The Father, Of the Son and of The Holy Spirit”. Amen.

What does “The Holy Spirit’ represent in this trinity? The Father denotes the Creator, the Son Jesus and the third one? A Catholic Priest and friend of mine Lucas Jozef told me it refers to The Spirit of God.

When I asked a few people following the Christian faith they also said the same. However, the well-known spiritual writer, Ruzbeh N Barucha has a different interpretation of The Holy Spirit. He says it is the Goddess Energy. With out the Mother Energy, the Father as well as well as Son are dormant energies. (Courtesy: The Musk Syndrome, Penguin India).

Except perhaps Hinduism and Buddhism, a number of religions have down played the role of the Goddess Energy. ”Zorastrianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, to name a few, but the fact remains that if God is the Father and Christ is the Son, then there has to be a mother, and the Holy Spirit is the Mother Energy, according to Ruzbeh Barucha.

Bhagwan Rajneesh also took exception to the Christian view of God as masculine which is opposed to the feminine in Hindu pantheon. The Sanskrit word for Holy is Bhagavati, the feminine of Bhagavan, Osho writes in his book Hridayam Sutra. In Buddhism there is the Yin and Yang, the female and the male energy which is missing in Christianity.

Osho said father is an unnatural institution and a result of private property while the mother is natural and exists everywhere. We call our country motherland but the western concept is father land which is male chauvinistic, according to Osho.

Lord Shiva is nothing (but a Shav) without the Shakti, the Goddess energy, perhaps the reason why you find Ardhanareeswara, the androgynous figure of Lord Shiva and Parvati being worshipped in temples and homes.

I look forward to different interpretations about the Holy Spirit, if there are any. Amen.

A long time skeptic now sees Enlightenment in Marriage!

Since early childhood I have been attending wedding functions and witnessing the formation of new families. However, my search for a fuller understandng on why mankind needs marriage is perhaps reaching fruition now.

My mother used to say marriage brings discipline and purpose to life. My first guide and mentor in the media world, Mr Hari Kartha, always reminded me of the four stages of life mentioned in our scriptures- childhood, teenage, youth and old age. A youth needs to marry and lead a settled life with wife and children before renouncing all this and seek salvation.

According to Swami Sukha Bodhananda enlightenment should be our intention in life. "Even marriage ultimately leads to enlightenment. Before getting married you lived for yourself. The moment you married 'I' in you has to be divided into two. If you continue with only the 'I', your wife will finish you. The 'I' in you gets expanded to include the two of you or else you would become self-centered. From the Union of two you get children."

So one thing is very important in marriage: the dilution of ego. I have already stated in my first blog post on marriage that love is the foundation on which a successful marriage can be built.

In order for love to flow, ego is a hindrance. So first we need to start shedding it.

As Bhagawan Rajneesh said when a boy or a girl meet, there is a point where each of them feel the love towards each other and forget themselves temporarily may for seconds or minutes-that is Truth or a samadhi state. But once you come out of it, you fall in the realm of Reality. What next: should we remain lovers or think of marriage. Will our parents accept the relationship and related issues of caste, wealth, religion all crop up-- the truth is lost and reality sets in. According to Rajneesh, Reality is Truth interpreted. (This is the best possible definition of Truth and Reality I have stumbled upon in my readings).

I remember our high school NCERT text book on biology which had a chapter on reproduction. It said a marriage was not about sexual attraction, kissing, inter-course, child birth, but lot of subtle family, cultural, ethical, societal factors come into play to make it a success.

How many of us rush into marriage not knowing what is the purpose behind it, what is the goal, what are the foundations required to make it a success.Therein lies the crux of the problem we see in marriages.

I was seeking an answer to all these in the past 40 years and it was only a casual reading of Shiva Mantras by Swami Sukhabodhananda (thanks to KrishnaMani Ma'm of KrishnaJyothi Group) that skepticism about marriage has now started vanishing. If someone had told this to me 17 years ago, what miracle would have happened to my family life?