Did Jesus go to India?

A PILGRIMAGE TO RISHIKESH

Shiva Caves - Did Jesus go to India?

The Shiva caves just north of Rishikesh have been a place of worship for over 7,000 years. Disappointingly they had none of the grandeur of the echoing Marabar Caves described in E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India but nonetheless they had a haunting quality that was one of my most memorable spiritual experiences of India. It was just a simple cave with a small temple area at the entrance where a sadhu was chanting the Bhagavad-Gita which we could still hear reverberating through the cave as we sat in meditation.

This was a place charged with enormous spiritual energy. We sat in meditation and I tried to tune into the surroundings by extending my psychometry skills to envelop the whole cave. I was sat in the same spot that yogis in the past may have spent nearly a whole lifetime sealed away in meditation. I felt a spiritual presence that extended beyond space and time. I felt that these dedicated holy men had penetrated the mysteries of existence. I perceived that they were not only aware the spirit world but had developed a telepathy that enabled them to communicate with their devotees in a similar way that spirit guides communicate with mediums. What extraordinary states of consciousness had these yogis discovered in this dark solitude? What powers of telepathy, remote viewing, bi-location and spiritual awareness had flowered in these pitch black caves? There was a light still shinning in this darkness.

I had an eerie feeling that I was in touch with the residual energy of people who had remotely guided the course of human history. Here I felt something that I have sometimes experienced in my mediumship: guidance not just from the dead but from living people who in seclusion help spiritual aspirants to higher awareness. When the mediumistic Theosophist, Madame Blavatsky spoke of a White Brotherhood of Ascendant Masters who guide the course of human history I believe she was touching this world of special guides that work both within this world and the next. It could have been fantasy on both our parts of course for I had no way of verifying my experiences but this is what my intuition was telling me…. and as a medium I trust my intuition.

From the Shiva caves we picked our barefooted way across the rocks to another small cave in the cliff face. It was not easily accessible, had no temple entrance, was curtained by trees and had a spectacular view of the foaming white waters of the Ganges. ..

There were no sahus chanting here, just the occasional monkey squawking in the trees and a few lonely birds hovering nearby. It was here that it is claimed Sri Isha lived for some time. Sri Isha (Also spelt Sri Isa and Issa) is the name that legend says was taken by Jesus when he lived and studied in India. These stories were also channelled in the Spiritualist/ Theosophical book The Aquarian Gospels of Jesus Christ by Levi H. Dowling. According to Dowling, Jesus spent a lot of time in India where he learned from the yogi masters.  Claims about Jesus’ life in India, Nepal and Tibet were also made in 1894 by Nicolas Notovitch in the book called The Unknown Life of Christ and more recently in Jesus Lived in India: His Unknown Life Before and After the Crucifixion by Holger Kersten.

Swami Rama Tirtha

Swami (Papa) Ramdas

In the last century, Swami Rama Tirtha and Swami (Papa) Ramdas of Kananghad lived in this same cave and at separate times, and had visions of Isha meditating with them. Neither of these holy men had any prior knowledge that this was the place where Jesus had once resided. As we sat in silence each of us contemplated the embers of the energies that permeate this extraordinary place of solitude.

Later we floated past the caves on the same stretch of the Ganges by white water rafting – which incidentally is a lot safer than driving in India. After a white knuckle ride on a rudimentary safety-equipment-free dinghy we emerged – shaken - into a quiet stretch of water. Here we could see long haired yogis, their faces powdered with ash, meditating beneath the trees of the jungle. High up on a road overhead they would leave their begging bowls relying on the good will of the community to support their austere spiritual efforts. Here God was cultivating the saints, Buddhas and avatars of the future. Clearly this tradition of seclusion, which we had felt at the caves, continues to this day on the banks of the Ganges. How many places on earth have unbroken spiritual traditions like these that have perhaps been practiced here continuously for 7,000 years or more? Chinese and Tibetan cultures have been vandalised, the American Indians and Aborigines have been driven from their homelands, Israel is in a state of perpetual war, Africa and South America have been decimated, Ancient Greece, Rome, Persia and Egypt are no more …  India remains the spiritual mother of the world, for few cultures can still offer and encourage these opportunities for solitude and inner exploration.

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