Christmas – A meditation for raising human consciousness

So if you find somebody broad minded Hare Krishna Christmas is the biggest festival in the world today naturally because Christianity is the biggest religion right now in the world and while this celebration has become widely commercialized at its heart it is a celebration that demonstrates the inclusive grace of God in the Bhagavad Gita Krishna says that I descend time and time again to reestablish the principles of religion and the Gita commentators explain that this refers to not only God descending himself but even he sending his representatives so Jesus is considered by the Gita tradition to be a messenger of God the son of God of course Christians consider him to be much more than the son they consider him to be the son of Virgin Mary so directly begotten by God and he is, when Srila Prabhupada was asked about him he said he is our Guru he gave up his life for the service of God he had so much love for God and today I will focus simply on one small meditation about about Christmas where did Jesus appear it is not in the wealthy family it is not in the royal family it is not in the palace he appeared in a manger he appeared in a place where animals were living and he had a relatively ordinary life although it is described in his childhood he was very interested in religious discussions but then as he grew his ministry was practically for just 5 years but in those 5 years he had such a lasting impact and that impact has continued even after his death his death could have been a devastating loss for his followers but the whole process of spirituality centers on devotional reinterpretation of events in this world so his followers rather than seeing Jesus death as a defeat saw it as a resurrection, saw it as a victory, saw it as a ascent and that gave them so much inspiration that they went to lands far and wide and spread the message of Jesus so right from his birth through his indistinctive unremarkable childhood to his remarkable exclusive outreach in the 5 years and his tragic death the inclusiveness what is inclusiveness? that when God's grace comes it does not see anything material Jesus' parents were not priests in fact among the strongest criticism that Jesus leveled was of priests see they have just become ritualistic they are following the letter of the law without following the spirit of the law Jesus' followers were drawn, the apostles were drawn not from the top ranks of society but from the lowest ranks of society Jesus did not have a royal death he was crucified with nails being sent into his body, extremely humiliating and mortifying death and yet through it all he was saying forgive them oh father for they know not what they do so the defining lesson, defining theme that we see through Jesus' appearance activities and death is that God's grace does not depend on anything material even if it be deprivation even if it be poverty even if it be death if somebody is devoted to God then God's empowerment can invert all materially adverse circumstances and enable one to triumph even amidst the greatest difficulties we function at the material level of reality but we are not products of this level and our consciousness needn't be locked at this level so any festivals where either God or his or those who have come, the mission of raising God consciousness appear in this world they all have their specific teachings, they all have their specific mission but their common mission is to raise our consciousness raise human consciousness from the material level to the spiritual level and that raising of consciousness is what we all can take inspiration from without any sectarian consideration whoever has set an example and given teachings of raising human consciousness they can be our inspirations, we are not here to increase the ranks of one sectarian organization or religion we are here to raise our own consciousness and inspire others to raise their consciousness so Jesus can be an enduring inspiration for us in not letting our material circumstances constrict us in our journey towards fuller consciousness thank you.