Message of Jesus Christ - New Year Resolution

In the Book of Mathews (22.37) in the New Testament, there is a story where Jesus was asked the question "what is the greatest commandment of all"? To this Jesus said “ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments".  Jesus also preached the concept of repentance.

So in a nutshell, Jesus's main message was

1. To repent for one's sins (in other words one should not live a materialistic sinful way of life anymore especially after repentance)
2. To love God and love one's neighbor (in other words one should live a God centric way of life)

When Jesus was posed the question of which is the greatest commandment, he could very well have said that following him is the way of life and who so ever do not will perish in hell. Instead, however, he directs our attention to the Almighty God in heaven. Modern church, however, does not preach love of God and neighbor as the core principle of Christianity. Anyways, that is for another post.

The Srimad Bhagavata Purana which is the essence of all Vedic scriptures teaches the same principle - to Love God (SB 1.2.6). The entire Bhagavata purana was written simply to stress on this one essential and eternal truth. 

The central message of Jesus (barring all modern day corrupted teachings of the church) is the same as the central message of Bhagavata Purana. One who is without duplicity and fault finding tendency will see the central theme of both Jesus and Sukadev Goswami. And if we are sincere in our quest for a higher truth, then we also regardless of religious designation, should pursue this one principle of Love of God. 

Of course, this is not easy because today we love everything but God. We love our selves, our past & present lives, our family, friends, house, country, sports, philanthropy, social status, economic status etc etc and seek pride in them. If we want to learn to love God, then we have to transform our love from all that to God. 

God appears in many forms with many names according to time and place. So for Christians loving God can mean loving Jesus, for Muslims it can be Allah, for Jews it can be Moses and for us it can be Krishna, Rama etc

Perhaps this can be our New Year's resolution - to try to bring God more into the different aspects of our life, learn to be more grateful to Him and make an attempt in loving Him!!

Hare Krishna