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In the Gospel of John 20.22, we read before the arrest of Jesus -
And having so spoken, he breathed on them, saying, "Receive the Holy Spirit."
This was an initiation rite, an empowerment. It contrasts, it seems, with the other tradition of the Holy Spirit descending on followers at the Feast of Pentecost, unless we see this as one of two experiences of such bestowal. It is more likely this is a separate tradition of the Holy Spirit's transmission in the Christian faith.
The scripture is based on the Hebrew, or Jewish, understanding of Spirit in the Scriptures and teachings Jesus would have known. Jesus would have known this "Spirit" was ruach, meaning "breath, wind, spirit." He would, furthermore, have known ruach is the word at the beginning of the Torah, Genesis 1.1-2 -
In the beginning, Elohim [God] created the heavens [skies] and earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness covered the deep [all was water]. Elohim's ruach moved over the surface of the waters.
While the Genesis passage is usually read "Spirit of God," this is an unlikely rendition. The writer is positing the primal chaos, hence "wind" fits best. Also, there are no grounds to assume Jesus, a Jew, would have held a teaching formulated after his time - the Holy Spirit as a "person" of a Trinity and identified as God. Such a belief would have contradicted the Jewish insistence on God's oneness. Yet, we can see the Christian Trinity connoting "personas," as the framers of the Trinity used the term in Greek for "masks." So, Father, Son, and Spirit would not refer to the Absolute, but the Absolute's expressions, or faces - I have written elsewhere on this site of this in relation to the Buddha Bodies, or Kayas, in Buddhism, as well as the Christian mystical teaching, as in Meister Eckhart, of the Godhead, or God-beyond-God, so beyond the Trinity.
Yet, Jesus transmitted something. And reading it literally - that he breathed on them the holy breath -, leaves us wondering what Jesus conferred - just breath?
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Ruach was a power of the Divine Presence. No one defined it, the word pointing to a subtle presence, or quality. Jews knew ruach by its manifestations. We cannot see breath or wind; still, we see their effects and feel both.
Hence, the reader may recall the prior writing here entitled "the Way of the Worthy One", July 7, 2020, in which we wrote of transmission of Mind, or the Absolute, in Zen Buddhism. Jesus is doing something similar in conferring a grace that teaching or spiritual practices could not bestow. The gift could only be given by direct transmission. This is so, for the presence of Spirit is not the same as the empowerment, or filling with Spirit. That Spirit is present does not mean one is infused with Spirit - so, a Spirit person.
And, as to the Way, the closer one moves into intimacy with Spirit, the more one takes upon herself the quality spirit. The movement away from Spirit entails a decrease in the embodiment of the quality. Still, nothing one does can procure for her spirit; what she does, however, can posture her to receive spirit. Spirit comes directly from Spirit, not indirectly through any teaching or any spiritual practice. This as one can open the blinds to let sunshine flood a room, but the opening of the shades does not make sunshine or make the Sun shine into the room. In fact, in spiritual practice, over-doing spiritual practice hinders communion with Grace. One must balance the Yin-and-Yang of the Way.
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