Jesus Was a Yogi

A Disciple and a Master

Will Franks 🌊
4 min readDec 25, 2024

Who was Jesus?

Here’s one answer:

Jesus was an awakened master.

“The most famous yogi in the world, though most people don’t know him as a yogi”

– Amrita Baba

Here is a short account of his life from that perspective:

In Jesus’ youth (between the ages of 12–30, of which we have no record) he travelled to India and met his Guru, Maranatha.

Maranatha lived in Kashmir 2000 years ago. He belonged to the Nath lineage which is where Jesus received his name “Isha Nath”, by which sadhu holy men in India still refer to him today. He was actually a few years younger than Jesus.

This name “Maranatha” actually appears twice in the Bible. It is clearly discernable as an Indic name, Mara meaning “death” and “Nath(a)” meaning master, bringing a full meaning along the lines of “Master over Death”. However, the Church lost the meaning of the name and today assume that it is an Aramaic term meaning “Come, Lord”.

The knowledge of Jesus’ life as a yogi with a master continued through the Indian subcontinent but was clearly lost to (or censored by) the early Church.

The name “Maranatha” in the Southwick Codex, a medieval Christian text.

Jesus entered into a classic master/disciple relationship with Maranatha before returning to his own homelands as an awakened master.

Jesus later attained full light body, or rainbow body, a phenomenon witnessed by his disciples as his final ascension. This same attainment, the “rainbow body” has been realised by thousands of historical Buddhist, Christian, Hindu and Daoist practitioners. It is an essentially universal phenomenon that becomes possible when a yogi has attained full enlightenment and is characterised by the dissolution of the physical body into light (as opposed to the usual bodily decay process). Incidentally this attainment is not possible without connection to a guru or enlightened master. This possibility is open to every one of us, not least through the beings of Ishanatha and Maranatha, through Guru Yoga practice.

Guru Padmasambhava manifesting the Rainbow Body

So one way to view and relate to Jesus is as a yogi who completed the path, attained full enlightenment with the help and blessings of his master, and now stands available to all humanity as a guru or master in his own right. A master who will aid any sincere devotee in attaining enlightenment themselves.

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, this is really pretty distant from the dominant Christian understanding of Jesus. But it opens a doorway for a radically liberating way of relating to Jesus, and to his master Maranatha.

Jesus’ presence is readily accessible through heartfelt prayer and chanting/mantra recitation practice (namely, Guru Yoga). Like any enlightened master, he will bestow his love and blessings on those who sincerely desire to connect with him.

It has further been put forth (by Paramahansa Yogananda) that in his prior incarnation (to being Jesus of Nazareth) he was the Old Testament prophet Elisha, diligently working towards his later enlightenment in a future life.

We are invited to investigate all of this for ourselves. To invoke the presences of Ishanatha and Maranatha and to verify, through our own living connection to them, the nature of their attainments, their relationship, and their availability to humanity as enlightened masers.

“The essential purpose of all masters is to help those who turn to them to recognize and realize their innate enlightened nature.

The purpose of gurus is not that their followers lift them on high thrones and give their own responsibility to them.

There is Christ, fully enlightened nature within everyone of us.

It is Jesus’ and His Gurus gift to each one of us to show and reveal it to us through practice until we become Christs ourselves.”

Read more here:

And I would further recommend this video on the subject, which succinctly presents a map of full enlightenment and the nature of the lightbody phenomenon.

Deep thanks to Amrita Baba for his work and practice, his effort to present these teachings, and his invitation to take none of this on faith but to discover for ourselves, the love and blessings of Jesus, Ishanatha, the awakened master from Nazareth.

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Will Franks 🌊
Will Franks 🌊

Written by Will Franks 🌊

Musician, Minstrel, Care Worker, Tantrika

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