The Three Wise Men of the Orient

     Legends abound concerning the worship of the infant Jesus by the "wise men from the east." A common tradition is that they were magi (Hebrew chartumim; Greek magoi) a priestly class of mystics among ancient Medes and Persians credited with esoteric powers and knowledge by which they were able to interpret hidden meanings in the scriptures and to read secrets of the past and divine the future.

     The adoration of the Wise Men is far more significant than merely another scene of pageantry recognizing the holy birth. It was the defining stamp of God placed on the life of Jesus that would in the future characterize his mission and message - a reminder that Jesus was born in the Orient, an Oriental Christ; and that his teachings bore the influence of the Eastern culture and customs. There is a very strong tradition in India, authoritatively known amongst high metaphysicians in tales well told and written in ancient manuscripts, that the wise men of the East who made their way to the infant Jesus in Bethlehem were, in fact, great sages of India. Not only did the Indian masters come to Jesus, but he reciprocated their visit. During the unaccounted-for years of Jesus' life - the Scripture remains silent about him from approximately ages fourteen to thirty - he journeyed to India. His own God-realization, reawakened and reinforced in the company of the masters and the spiritual environs of India, provided a background of the universality of truth from which he could preach a simple, open message comprehensible to the masses of his native country, yet with underlying meanings that would be appreciated in generations to come as the infancy of man's mind would mature in understanding.

     Whatever celestial star might have indicated to the Wise Men the birth of Jesus, it was a "star in the east" of greater power by which they knew of the coming on earth of Christ Jesus: the all-revealing light of the spiritual eye of the soul's intuitive divine perception located in the "east" of the body - in a subtle spiritual center of Christ Consciousness in the forehead between the two physical eyes.

     During meditative concentration at the point between the eyebrows, the spiritual eye can be seen: a brilliant white star in the center, encased within a sphere of sapphire-blue light, encircled by a radiant golden aura. The golden light is the epitome of the vibratory sphere of the Holy Ghost; the blue light is the omnipresent Intelligence of the Christ Consciousness; the star is the mystic door into the Cosmic Consciousness of God.

     Jesus said, "If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." When the Wise Men saw a star intimating to them the birth of Christ, they were beholding through the wisdom-star of infinite perception in their spiritual eye where the Christ Consciousness was newly manifested in the body of infant Jesus. Had it been a star in the skies, it could hardly guide the travelers . . . for it is impossible that a star can show the place in which a cottage stands; much less still, the place in which the Babe lay down."

                                           ~ ParamahansaYogananda  

                                                          from The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the                                                                       Christ Within You