The meaning of Easter

Today, millions of people of Christian faith are celebrating Easter which marks the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus. For them, it’s a culmination in the Christian calendar as it marks the victory of Good over Evil, of God made man coming victorious out of some evil hands, of showing Jesus' victory over death itself, which really reveals Himself to be God as opposed to us, men.

For someone who has studied the possibility of Jesus as having had a life after crucifixion, the celebration could appear as futile because he would have found evidences that Jesus did not die on the cross. Yet, this celebration is first and foremost spiritual. Many men and women around the world are taking time to reflect on their relationship with God. For me, this mass communion with God that will take place on this day is even more important than any knowledge that we may have of events of Jesus’ life. Remembering the lives of great souls like Jesus, Mohammed, Guru Nanak, etc serves essentially this purpose: this mass prayer, this mass spiritual communion that will take place on a special day of remembrance is very positive and useful for our planet, for our world. It will reinforce our own spirituality and this always brings in more vitality in whatever we will choose to do afterwards. For me, God is the formidable energy field behind the world, an energy that we can tap in whenever we feel the need to, and disconnecting from Him will tend to make things more difficult for us. A non-believer doesn’t know that he can request help in whatever he is trying to achieve in life. He feels like he is on his own, that he can only count on some few friends or relatives around him to get things done, to help him out, and my own experience of life has shown me that such an individual will often struggle in life. Because you don’t always have your friends and relatives at your side. But you always have God at your side and within you, around you. Prayer time is the time to remember this, to experience this.

Prayer and meditation are ways of discovering the potential that we all have inside of us. This is a practice that should always be encouraged. According to Sathya Sai Baba, man is like a beggar sleeping on a chest full of treasures. Man is simply not aware of his own spiritual potential. He will feel depressed for this and that reasons, will often find trivial causes that he will attribute to his sorrow and sadness. For me, all enlightened spiritual masters like Jesus, Siddhartha Gautama, Guru Nanak and the rest have only worked at making us discover our own spiritual potential. Prayers at Easter or at Christmas are simply occasions that man gives to himself to tap into that potential of his, using that spiritual connection that he always have with the Lord of the Universe, a potential that he always had and carried with him at all times…..Whether we believe that Jesus died or not, on the cross doesn’t change the fact that we can all connect to the Source of life, God and that we should do it as often as we can, so that we remember that we are never alone in whatever we want to achieve in life.

Happy Easter to all Christians around the world!