Karma-Dharma-Bhutadaya
Jeffrey Charles Archer
Hindu Gods and Goddesses
Beyond "To Be or not to Be," Beyond Dualism, Beyond Duelism (Portions of a Chapter for An Upcoming Book)
Dualism and the Dark Age
Dualism. Dvaita. The bane of good souls and the people generally in the Kali Yuga. "Us vs. Them," "God vs. the Devil," and divisions into binary dualisms generally is the great cause of suffering in this Age. The proclivity to create "the Enemy/enemies" else to manufacture a "scapegoat" is the primary problem proffered humanity in this Dark Age.
The Jewish people created a succinct dualism by calling themselves "God's chosen people," more than implying that the rest of the world was "not-chosen." In Abraham's apparently complete break with his ancestors' and their religion, and exemplified by the Hebrew people's historic practice of killing every man, woman, child and animal amongst their foes, the Hebrew construction of reality is very much based on an absolute rejection of anyone "not-us."
Christians seperate themselves from God by their notion of the "sin nature," and from the rest of the world by the dichotomy of "the saved" vs. "the lost," this despite the fact that their own scriptures tout that Jesus Himself is recorded as having said that He came to save the Jews, not the Gentiles, not the rest of the world's people. His supposed followers are the ones who decided that Jesus came to save the whole world, AFTER Jesus had parted from their company. Not unrelatedly, it seems many Christians (though not all, mind you) seem to have more faith in the existence of evil and "the Devil" than in the integrity and compassion of God, and in fact thus empower and give license to veritable "evil" and to a great many injustices by their animosity towards the rest of the world/non-Christians and by narrowly prejudiced judgement of any perspective that disagrees with their particular dogma.
The Muslims seperate themselves (and to some slight degree, the "people of the book," Jews and Christians) from "the infidels," and from all (including Jews and Christians) who do not accept "the kalima," the Muslim's all-important confession of faith in Allah and Mohammed. Though the Hebrews eradicated their conquered foes, and the Christians try to "save them," the early Muslim conquests only attempted to eradicate those who would not convert (other than Jews and Christians) amongst those they conquered. Jewish or Christian cities the Muslims had conquered who would not convert were granted "djimi" status and levied a one percent poll tax and granted self-rule. Regardless, Islam is still based on a succinct dichotomy of "us vs. them," despite the less succinct separation they place between themselves and the "people of the book."
The Abrahamic religions are all three too much caught up in the fear or pride based division/delusion of "us vs. them," and are thus blinded to the beautiful Oneness of God and all that truly Is, to the reality that beyond the illusion of time and space humanity and all beings and Being are Advaita, literally "not-second," not in truth other than the First, the Eternal, brahman, "God." All else is illusion and delusion, forgetfulness of our true Nature as Divine. A Sikh saint once said, upon being chastened for pointing the bottom of his feet towards the altar at a temple, "Where might I point the soles of my feet where God is not?"
In this last Age of a cycle of four Ages, the Kali Yuga, The "Dark Age," our most dumbed-down state, most forgetful of the intrinsic Unity of All with the Divine (one's True Self), a base response to trauma or suffering is to blame someone or something "other," forgetting that in truth there is no real "other," and certainly no "Other." People in this age generally are rather prone to creating quite terrible and nasty enemies for themselves out of whatever "other" is available, and too often in the name of "God."
The easiest division to make cognitively is a bifurcation, to split things into whatever "this vs. that" or "us vs. them" is at hand, the which is nigh always an error, an error that in most cases leads to much suffering and injustice. In this Age when we're at our stupidest (compared to the last three Ages, so it is said) such easy constructions as a simple binary offers are too often the choice of people when facing conflict, rather than to consider the intricacy and multiplicity of factors involved in any such scenario, process or set of relationships, and the intrinsic connectedness if not unity of all things.
Inclined to think in binaries, most in this Dark Age cannot clearly discern what the Isa Upanishad means by the assertion that "He who sees all beings in his Self, and his Self in all beings, what fear does he have?" At least a base symptom of the malady of the Kali Yuga is the proclivity to blame someone else, to construct an "other" as the enemy or scapegoat or as "the one/ones who need to change," rather than recognizing the supposed "other" as like you and even another expression of the same Divine Self, another player in the Grand Play of life on Earth on a like pilgrimage through the lila of eternity, and that what one has the certain power and right to change is his or her own self in relation to the Divine that exists both inside and out, and the right to change one's own life practices.
Now mind you, I do recognize that in this presentation of the play of these religious perspectives I am myself thus constructing a division of us vs. them, "them" being the Abrahamic religious discourse as opposed to "us" who can see the delusion of dualism. I suppose I must clarify by noting that as I am refering to these various religious groups I am speaking of the general discourse said groups proffer in general terms, and do not mean to essentialize all practitioners as fitting within those generalities. There are within all peoples and among all groups of religious practitioners some Self-aware individuals, and coversely some Hindus and Buddhists who are prone to such "us vs. them" delusions, despite the very clear precepts of both religions that teach otherwise, that both teach ahimsa and satyagraha and extreme restraint as the generally proper response to conflict with supposed "others" presented us in the midst of this Grand Illusion, the matrix of smoke and mirrors that is maya.
To reify, I do not wish to imply that among the practitioners of the "Abrahamic" faiths there none who are Self-Aware individuals, nor that they should renounce their religions, nor that those religions are in essence "bad" nor "evil." I only mean that those constructions are prone to dualistic renderings of conflicts and interactions generally, whereas constructions that do not create such stark and arbitrary separations between "us and them," between "God" and humanity, between Nature and civilization, do indeed prove more harmonious and in concert with what really is. Reality is in fact and by any reasonable scientific purview never truly a binary function of off/on, us/them, self/not self, saved/lost, the faithful/infidels, black/white, nor even of male/female, and such integrous worldviews as do not promote such ignorant dualistic thinking are more prone to fomenting peace and genuine prosperity, both amongst their own and in the world generally.
The complexity and intricacy of reality and Being cannot ever quite be fitted to within the base dichotomy of black and white, save perhaps by tandava. The closest the teachings of sanAtana dharma come to a black/white dichotomy in terms of cosmology is in the Dance, the Tandava, of Shiva and Kali Ma, wherein an Effulgent (though not necessarily "white") Dude is dancing with The Black Mama, the two always in motion and thus not ever quite merely two, but existentially both Many and One; the Great Mama, Dark like the depths of the Womb, conveying all the Sensuality and Beauty and Potency of Feminine, of The Mother, and the Great Papa, Protector of Souls and Animals and the Source of Light, together in constant Motion conveying Devotion and Passion and Playfulness and indeed, Desire, but never quite presenting merely Two, and never in truth other than One.
Indeed as these various groups, faiths, peoples and lifeways have developed to be such significant factors in this world at this or any time, they are each certainly variously cast to play particular roles in the lila of the Kali Yuga, or to be more specific, the Gauri Yuga of the Kali Yuga, as these are Golden times compared to what awaits as the dualistic, "us vs. them" darkness ensues as the rest of the Dark Age continues after the Golden Age part, according to the teachings of sanAtana dharma. Indeed the Gods are at play, only they are not-not us.
The various religious constructions of this world, indeed all of the variegated arrays of paradigms and peoples, can be seen as strategically deployed to create means of transforming the self-destructive impetuses of this Age of Ignorance, to distribute the cognitive malaise and confusion of reality caused by the dualistically debased state of human cognition in such ways as such dimwittedness might cause the least sorrow and suffering. It is not unlike a board game played with the planet as board, with the Players being Devas and Devis and other orders of beings, and by the ancient accounts of many traditions, extra-terrestrials from various star systems that have been involved in many of the acts and scenes across the Ages and Play cycles played out via humans and their tribes and civilizations, nations and religions and philosophical disputations, at least according to the ancient teachings of sanAtana dharma and many other more recent if still ancient mythologies. And indeed when seen true, the Play and Plays of life on earth is merely a game God/True Self is playing with HerSelf/HimSelf in this Illusion born of Desire. The arrangements and rearrangements of peoples designed to foment peace and find good balance to the diversity of peoples and lifeways can be discerned in the Grand Narrative if one shifts one's focus to include the span of eternity, of forever, and to the entirity and integrity of the show here and now, and not merely one's own or one's own people's seeming separate story, but the whole show and all the nata (actors, players/dancers) integrously dancing towards the perfect bliss and synchronicity that is in truth all that Exists.
One clear example of the above theory, of the Gods engineering the development of human civilization, would be the aforementioned movement of King Bali's Kingdom to across the Pacific at the firm request of Vaman (Dwarf Avatar of Vishnu), who granted the "Underworld" to Bali that Lord Indra could reign unhindered across the Eurasian and African landmasses, i.e., not unlikely to prevent war between the two powerful kings, as well as certainly to fulfill so many subtle intentions of the script of the Grand lila at play in the Gauri Yuga of the Kali Yuga. Traces of Lord Indra's rulership are to be found in the figurations of very analagous gods like Zeus, Thor, Jupiter, Perun, Marduk, etc., and likely various gods in the African pantheons, and traces of Bali's kingdom in Patala well enough evinced by the Saksaywaman Temple, clearly built to honor Deva (God) Vaman (Vishnu's fifth Avatar of Ten), and many other linguistic and cultural clues.
We are the playthings of the Gods and We are the Gods—if forgetful ones, mind you, or at least so it seems to me. And more importantly, we are God. Not our individual selves/jiva/souls/egos else ids, mind you, caught up in karma (action) and desire as nigh all are to whatever degree, but our True Self, the Eternal One that resides in and outside each and every, that resides in everyone's heart, about the size of your thumb, the Upanishads do tout. sat cit Ananda, "righteous mind bliss" as what is Natural and is Nature. "Sin Nature" as what is Natural is a terrible lie, a copout, a crutch to enable or attempt to justify people doing wrongs.
In these dimwitted days of the Kali Yuga, many ifn't most are prone to miss the beautiful complexity and multifaceted nature of what is real, and instead are sadly prone to lump things into stupid binaries and thus to heap sufferings and sorrows upon themselves and others. It's easy to make a scapegoat, but such never truly serves the abiding good of the people.
My wish for the Abrahamic religions, and any crew inclined towards binary stupidity in an Age beset by said malady, is that they become respectfully aware of the many respective roles to be filled in this Age-long play that has scarce begun, and become duly aware that though some of their own presumptions and dogmas are wrong and mistaken, as are some of those of other peoples and religions, all do fit in the Divine Play at hand, and all peoples and their lifeways and religions do contain the seed of righteousness, of the Compassionate and Eternal Divine. Truly, diversity is vital to life lived, and everyone's own place and conditions of birth and the practices of their people do somehow fit into the Grand Play integrously and do provide possible pathways to Divine bliss, as it is with all peoples and good practice and well kept tellings of the ancient and abiding Story and Stories.
Requisite for a well developed play are variously arrayed characters and groups, factions and factors well woven together, preferably in such concert as to compliment rather than to compete or to dealve into suffering-filled conflicts. If one can learn to see the Divine in and through the whole show, and that when seen true, other peoples and their Gods are true too, all Players in a Game that includes all people and peoples and times; if one can accept that the Truly Divine, Compassionate and Great, in whatever variegated forms sometimes certainly maintains Presence(s) by many names and amongst various peoples, and even amongst the fold of your "enemies," beyond the "us/them," then, Religion can be true.
Ekam sat vipra bahudha vadanti
The Truth is One, the Sages speak of it variously.
Posted by Jeffrey Charles Archer at 4:33 PM No comments: Links to this post
Early Draft of A Very Important Book . . .
A Madman's Task, But Somebody Gotta Tell The Truth
A madman's task, this. An errand knight's endeavor, a sorcerer's conjuring of secrets from the depths of our memories ancient and sublime, stark and dark truths that do invert assumptions and paradigmatic presumptions proffered by the Official discourse; upending religious predispositions and such spells spun to lull the minds of the people to sleep, disturbing those subtle taboos surreptitiously existing between the lines of discourse which somehow prevent us from seeing the obvious stories of history; challenging, in fact, assumptions of which end is up and which is down in terms of the common paradigms proffered, indeed challenging those constructions which purport to tell which way is to "heaven" and which to "hell." This treatise, a task telling long obscured stories of collusion and subtle twists if not inversions of the tales of the world's religions, where indeed true tellings of the politics of the gods and stories of transcendent passion and compassion often leave the truth sounding more like a puzzle or a riddle, a science fiction or fantasy rendering than what is supposed to be "real life."
This madman's task has seemingly fallen upon this humble wanderer, this once-upon-a-time was a Southern Baptist preacher, this grad school dropout, this dilettante of a sadhu, to fearlessly deconstruct some of the pivotal points of the religious paradigms that are held by nigh half the world's peoples and to offer a legitimate view of the history of religion and of the world in relatively recent times with a view of the Grand Story.
Indeed, for what I have come across in my studies and searchings has implications which overturn the array of world mythologies and world religion(s) as these stand in the minds of most, and thus has quite startling implications for our world's culture and society as a whole. This only scarcely hidden story I have uncovered would/will/ought unravel the very artifice of the myth of "the West" and the religious constructions thereof as currently constructed, and present a seemingly inverted construction and mythic typology compared to the current, turning the upside-down right-side-up, and if seriously considered and critically examined shall likely inexorably alter the common cosmology of much of the world.
Essentially what I contend is that the Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, represent rather deliberate inversions or at least twisted versions of the religion of Abraham's ancestors, which I shall assert to be sanAtana dharma, or as has been known for the most recent millenium, "Hinduism." Central to this lila, this rather absurd play, is the very construction of who and what is "God" and who or what is presented as the "opposite" of God by our collective and common mythological understandings in the so-called West as well as in the rest of the world.
Below are facts no one affiliated with any of the religious perspectives involved would reasonably call into question:
-brahman is Sanskrit for the Universal Divine Being, and atman is Sanskrit for that Divine Soul as is manifest in each, alongside each jiva (individual soul).
-Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva are the Creator, Maintainer and Destroyer expressions of God according to sanAtana dharma (Hinduism).
-Buddhists generally tout Abrahman and unatma. That is, they do not believe in "God"/The Universal Divine Self nor the Presence of same already present in each and all.
-Abraham is the touted Father of the Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
-According to the Torah/Old Testament, Abraham and Sarah and Hagar and their tribe originated from Ur of the Chaldese, the which has been determined to be in far southeast Iraq and rather near Indus Valley Civilization, which was in fact waning at the time Abraham is touted by the Torah/Old Testament to have departed his homeland in Ur to venture to the west, somewhere around 1900 BCE. Both the Old Testament and New Testament contend that Abraham's forefathers worshipped other gods.
-According to various sources, Voltaire, 18th century historian, writer and philosopher, believed that the Hebrews were travelling Brahmin priests.
Flavius Josephus, a pre-Christian Greek historian, and a few other noteworthy ancient writers, touted that the Hebrews came from the "Hindu" religion.
-Brahma and Saraswati are the Creator and His Consort according to Hinduism. The Ghaggar was a tributary river to the now dry Saraswati River that flowed from the end of the most recent ice age till well over 5,000 years ago, and like is now only intermittent. Abraham and Sarah and Hagar sound rather like Brahma and Saraswati and Ghaggar, likely too much for this to be mere coincidence.
-according to Judaism, "the Righteous" go to a place called Sheol (which the New Testament calls "the Bosom of Abraham") after they die to await Judgment Day. Sheol translates to "Hades" in the Greek Septuagint, i.e., "Hell," and Sheol is generally described as "down" in Old Testament representations.
-The Hebrews worship Yahweh. Again, Abraham's forefathers "worshiped other gods." (From The Old Testament/Torah (New International Version, Joshua 24:2-3)): "2 Joshua said to all the people, "This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: 'Long ago your ancestors, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River and worshiped other gods.3 But I took your father Abraham from the land beyond the Euphrates and led him throughout Canaan and gave him many descendants..."
-The Lord of Death and Hell in Hinduism (and in many religions of "the East") is Yama, who was the first mortal to attain knowledge of brahman else to have died, and thus became a Deva (a god), the Lord of Death and Hell in fact, and was given charge for schooling other mortals not duly devoted to the Divine already, as well as charge over the underground Hell supposing any mortal souls need such harsh schoolings as are therein proffered. It is not a great etymological nor historical leap to assume some relationship between the figures of Yama and Yahweh, as both are figured as the Judge of the Dead.
-The Horned God of Europe, who many have identified with the horned figure on the Indus Valley Seal or Pasupati, an ancient Avatar of Shiva as the Protector of animals and souls, has served as the model (if rather inverted), along with Devi Lalitha (who the Hebrews and Christians insulted with their renderings of "Lilith") for much of what has been constructed as "the Devil" in at least the Judaeo-Christian lore. And I might also note, constructed in pop-culture inversions—or actually re-inversions—in "the West's" carnivalesque representations of the mischievous "Devil," often depicted as a sexy female, rather like Devi Lalitha.
I first had my questions regarding the heaven and hell of the Christian religion, and specifically the place the Hebrews called "Sheol" or the Bosom of Abraham, when or perhaps even before I was a Christian minister. I was not alarmed enough about the potential implications of that underground place as the holding place of righteous dead Jews (Huh? I thought the underground place some people go after they die is Hell?! Why does the Bible say that the Bosom of Abraham is "down?") to give it a great deal of thought at the time, assuming perhaps that some theologians must have already worked that problem out at some point in the long history of the church.
To spell it out for you, what I am thus contending is that Abraham's covenant of loyalty to Yahweh (i.e., Yama) as presented by the renderings of Moses in the Torah, was essentially the beginning of a grand inversion by which the Lord of Hell is being held up as God . . . and then the Being previously considered the Universal Divine Self was rendered "the Devil." Now mind you, Yama is not a bad guy. Read the Katha Upanishad to get a glimpse of the Hindu Lord of Death and Hell as he teaches a young man named Natchiketas the secret of death, and inadvertantly, the secret of life.
I was also given clue to the importance of the connection between Abraham and Brahma, if rather as a warning than as a heads up, when I was attending Oklahoma Baptist University. A religion professor had been giving a lecture about Abraham and company traveling across southern Asia to settle in Palestine and the class was about to let out. Dr. Dawson then proffered in conclusion, with rather an odd glint in his eyes,
"Now there may be those who tell you that Abraham is somehow connected to the Hindu god Brahma—but we know better than that, now don't we?!"
Though very likely mostly intended as a warning to those who wanted a career with the Southern Baptist Convention and affiliated churches, something within Dr. Dawson seemingly wished to grant a clue to those real truth seekers in the class. Such is, by my reckoning, the way of the Divine, oft enough using seeming opposition as a vehicle toward revealing the truth.
I resigned my ministry and largely ceased my affiliation with the Christian church before my last year in college at OBU largely as I had determined that what they taught is to too great a degree untrue and too often intentionally designed to obscure the real truth, both in terms of their understanding of language and of Divine truth and in terms of history, though I had no idea to what degree they were in err, if not covering up the truth of the Big Story to bolster their spin. Again and most startlingly, it is actually their god Yahweh that is the Lord of Hell. According to sanAtana dharma, those who are not otherwise devotees of brahman in whatever guise, via Shiva, Krishna, Parvati, Ganesha, etc., nor properly attached to the Guru, are under the authority of Lord Yama, who is thus in charge of their dharma/schooling.
As the Abrahamites left the place and religion of their homeland in Ur and it seems very likely from the renaming of their patriarch to "Abraham" (rather quite close to the Sanskrit Abrahman, which again translates from the Sanskrit as "no God" or "Atheist") rejected brahman, the Divine according to Abraham's forefathers, they thus became attached to Yama as their Lord and they called him Yahweh. The God of the "polytheistic" Hindus is actually the God of Abraham's forefathers, brahman, both and neither male and female, present and expressed in so many Persons, Faces and Deities, gods and goddesses who are expressions of brahman, as in truth, beyond the illusion of time and space, all is.
"Donald M. Craig points to ancient sources regarding a history of Abraham from India:
…Flavius Josephus …(in the) Antiquities of the Jews … quotes Aristotle (384 b.c.e.–322 b.c.e.) as saying that Jews are derived from the Indian philosophers and are known as the Calani. Clearchus of Soli was a student in Aristotle's school. In his book, De Somno, he elaborates on the story of how Aristotle discovered this information, but the basic concept remained the same.
Megasthenes was a traveler who became an ambassador of Seleucus I of Syria to the court of Chandragupta Maurya, the first unifier India, before the latter's death in 288 b.c.e. According to Godfrey Higgins, in the first volume of his massive Anacalypsis, Megasthenes wrote that the Jews were an Indian tribe or sect called Kalani. Except for the spelling he agreed with Aristotle and Clearchus.
Higgins also claims that Ur of the Chaldees, the home of Abraham mentioned in the Bible, was actually Ur of the Chaldeans. "Chaldean," he continues, is actually "Kaul-Deva" or the Holy Kauls, a Brahmanical caste of India. The Kauls or Kaulas are today considered to be a Tantric tradition.
He writes that the tribe of the Brahmin Abraham was expelled from or left India and settled in Goshen in Egypt. Finally, he states, "The Arabian historians contend that Brahma and Abraham, their ancestor, are the same person" [emphasis added]." (www.ModernMagick.com; dmkraig.net)
The Hebrews, according to a reading of the Torah's narrative from the view that assumes Abraham's forefathers were "Hindu," were thus at least discursively deployed as playing the role Abrahman to the brahman of Abraham's forefather's religion, and thus they found Lord Yama ("Yahweh") to be their Lord. Over the course of time the Abrahamic religions continued said challenge to that which is brahman by endeavoring to turn Him Who was God (brahman) to Abraham's father and much if not most of the world, Pasupati (Shiva) or "the Horned God," into "the Devil." I write, "...if not most of the world" as there are many indications that sanAtana dharma was the religion of American Indians through the Americas, of much of Africa, and as noted earlier, amongst the "pagans" of Europe.
Essentially, one might see the dance of peoples and especially myths and mythemes across the span of the globe over the past few thousand years, since the beginning of the Kali Yuga, as a dance of the rather base or basic (and oxymoronic) dichotomy, "to Be or not to Be," as Shakespeare's famous phrase in Hamlet doth ask, very much couched in terms of "brahman and/versus/or Abrahman."
In terms of the Abrahamic religions, at their inception it is clear there was a definitive break between father Abraham and his tribe and other tribes of his kinsmen, one so complete it entailed a change of religion for Abraham and his tribe as well as his name change from Abram to Abraham, perhaps indicating "Abrahman" to acknowledge his state as an apostate Hindu, his covenant with Yahweh, i.e., Yama the Lord of Death and Hell, sealed with a death (the ram in place of Abraham's son Isaac) to acknowledge his subservience to Yama, the Lord of Death and Hell, a subservience that would be prescribed by sanAtana dharma/Hinduism for those not properly attached to the Guru/the Divine/brahman.
Though not so bold or forthright with their statement of the question or challenge to the established notion of brahman (nor perhaps generally much aware of this aspect of the roots of their religions) as the Buddhists, the Abrahamic traditions nonetheless have been bound on that task to find means of interpreting the world without those more ancient and more abiding understandings of "what this all is" and who "God" is as expressed in brahman and the teachings and traditions of Abraham's ancestors, at least insofar as this reading of the Old Testament in terms of the mythology of Abraham's forefathers.
As Jesus is touted to have quoted in the New Testament, "Abraham's fathers worshiped other gods." It is as if Abraham and crew said, as they departed from Ur and the world according to sanAtana dharma, "If indeed, Abrahman (no "God"/not True Nature as we were taught of and by our ancestors) then what?" As would be predicted by sanAtana dharma, Yama becomes their Lord and the Deva (god) responsible for their dharma (schooling), as alluded to by the place the Hebrews believe they go after death, the underground place called "Sheol" or the "Bosom of Abraham," and the name of their God "Yahweh" being so phonetically nigh to "Yama," both being the "Judge of the Dead," and issuing as the Hebrews did from so nigh Indus Valley civilization, their partiarch Abraham and his wife Sarai and Haggar so likely directly related to Brahma, Saraswati and Ghaggar and thus the "Hindu" religion.
If viewed from the broadest perspective, it is as if humanity is playing out the question "To Be or not to Be . . ." in the play of peoples and nations, tribes and myths, perhaps experimenting with how whatever really is the truth will respond to the presentations proffered outside of the religion of Abraham's forefathers, outside the religion of brahman. A discursive play of words ordering the play of nations and peoples and religions. At least as played out in the Abrahamic religions, the answer or apology proffered to that rejection of brahman is still fitted to within the context of the religion they left behind, sanAtana dharma, still certainly prominent in the wandering tribe of Abraham's constructions of reality well after leaving behind Abraham's ancestors who "worshiped other gods" (consider the return to worshipping cows in Moses's time, seven hundred years after Abraham), and thus the "Hindu" Lord of Hell, Yama becomes their God as "Yahweh," again, as prescribed by sanAtana dharma, the religion and Gods of Abraham's forefathers
I suppose I ought to note that Muslims obviously do not worship Yahweh (Yama), but in fact seem to have unconsciously endeavored to return their devotions to the Gods of their forefathers by worshiping "Allah," a name rather starkly near the name AllA, an appellation attributed to Durga, Consort of Shiva, that means "Mother" in Sanskrit. The all important confession from the perspective of Islam is called one of the kalimas, again rather quite like another name of Shiva's Wife, Kali Ma ("Black Mama"). Ummah is a central tenet of Islam that translates as "community." Uma Himavati is yet another of the names of Shiva's Consort, a Woman the Upanishads touts as Brahman in Female Form. Before Mohammad, it might be argues that Arabia was essentially "Hindu." One of Allah's three daughters', according to the pre-Islamic mythology, was named Manat. One of Shiva's three Daughters is named Manas. If you listen carefully to the Muslim pronunciation of "Amin," they pronounce it very much like the proper pronunciation of AUM, which does maintain a slight "ñ" sound at the end of the intonation of the "M."
By these evidences and many more, it appears that the cycles of the three Abrahamic religions rather succinctly follow, else are response to and (despite their seeming intentions) bound to within the context of sanAtana dharma. It might be noted with the aforementioned in mind that Judaism, Christianity and Islam seem to either imitate or critically respond to the Persons of the Trimurti (Trinity), Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, respectively. The above information is among the many reasons I am a practitioner of yoga (translates as "yolk" and is root to said English word), a practitioner of sanAtana dharma, literally "eternally keeping things together" else "keeping it together forever."
In the case of Christianity, I shall posit a theory that Jeshua ben Joseph, aka Jesus Christ, or Isa as He was known to the Hindus and Buddhists He learned from during His "missing years," or as "Yousa Azaph" to the Hebrew tribes and others during His post-crucifixion/resurrection retirement in Kashmir, was in fact an Avatar of the Hindu god Ayyappa (also known as Deva Shasta), the Protector of Created Beings, Son of Shiva (Mahadeva, "Great God") and Vishnu (God the Maintainer and paramatma, the Spirit of God extant in each and all as Atman) this one time when Vishnu was a fertile Transsexual called Mohini.
I believe Ayyappa came as Jeshua as to fulfill His dharma as the Protector of Created Beings in relation to the Hebrews position in the global discourse of this age, as the Abrahamites were living a faith that was in whatever guise contending "Abrahman," an at least symbolic/discursive challenge to the Abraham's ancestors positing of "brahman." Jeshua Himself touted that He did not come to save the "Gentiles," but in fact came only to save the Jews. Whether He knew it or not, the lila (play, Divine Play) afoot with the discursive position "Abrahman" vs. "brahman," "to Be or not to Be," was and is a prominent if not the most prominent dualism at play in the Grand Play, the Grand lila, of this age generally, the Kali Yuga, a time that might be dubbed the Age of Dualistic Delusion, and that the lila He was endeavoring to transform was itself devised as a means to play with and transform the dualistic delusion so rife over the 432,000 year course of this Dark Age. The apparent break between Abraham and his "Hindu" kin (quotation marks used as said term was not introduced until three thousand years later) resulted in a discursively deployed construction of the break as "Abrahman vs. brahman," despite the theistic nature of the Abrahamic (Abrahmanic) religions. It seems Ayyappa sought to redirect the Abrahmanic Hebrews towards dharma, to return to the Divine of Abraham's ancestors, brahman, as He had come to know/remember it during His time in India with the Brahmins and then with the Buddhists, as has been acknowledged by many over the last few centuries in the "West," and as has been touted in parts of India for over 1,900 years.
To diverge a bit from the discussion of the westward and later internal play of brahman vs. Abrahman, there is ample evidence that people moved from India and thereabouts to across the Pacific, as Vishnu (as Vaman) did grant King Bali land in "Patala," a term associated with "the underworld":
"According to Vishnu and Bhagavata Puranas, Lord Vishnu's fifth avatar is Vamana (Waman), who was first fully human Avatar and he traveled all over the world on his hawk (Garuda).
When Vaman took 3 parts of land from King Mahabali (Asia, Africa and Europe), he asked Bali to settle along with his people in Patala Loka (South America).
Vaman travelled on his Hawk (garuda) and destroyed all demons who lived in this region, to make it clear for Bali and his men to settle here."1
The Inca temples Saksaywaman and Machu Pichu in Peru are in fact Vaman temples, according to a very rational interpretation of the facts:
"Saksaywaman or Sakshat Waman, Machu Picchu, Inti Watana, Room of 3 Windows are temples of Inca creator god Viracocha, who is Vamana avatar of Lord Vishnu
Saksaywaman is distorted form of Sakshat Waman and a temple on the northern outskirts of the city of Cusco, Peru, the historic capital of the Inca Empire.
Saksay or Saqsay is a Quechua word meaning, `to be full', and Waman is the Hawk (or person travelling on Hawk).
According to Vishnu and Bhagavata Puranas, Lord Vishnu's fifth avatar is Vamana (Waman), who was first full human avatar and he traveled all over the world on his hawk (Garuda)."2
In essence what I am proposing is a unified perspective of mythology and religion and culture and history that recognizes that many of the figures of various mythologies may well have been and might be actual conscious entities, else at least deserve consideration as something more than merely imaginary characters, indeed more than merely abiding and intrinsic archetypes, and very importantly are to be recognized as historical figures in some guise or another, and that in fact the whole show is one Grand Screenplay, so to speak. Ekam Sat Vipra Bahudha Vadanti, "That which exists is One, sages call it by various names."
In order to adequately analyze a mythology's purport, one cannot approach without some faith in the reality of what you study, it's verity and that at some level and in some guise, its gods are real, and in some way do fit the Grand Narrative, the Big Story of the play of life on Earth, a grand lila (play both as in a somewhat scripted play, and in terms of the verb) that certainly includes all other peoples and their gods. With those things in mind, what I would propose to do is to in some guise trace the play of the gods across recorded history and the traces granted by the unfettered study of historical and archaeology, and by the tools proffered by anthropology and critical theory generally. Exemplary of this would be examining relationship between the Hindu Maya/Mahamaya, Mother of Buddha and the substance of this reality/illusion, and the Greek goddess Maya, daughter of Atlas according to said mythology, not to mention the Maya people. The relationship between Lalitha (Hindu tradition) and Lilith (Judeo-Christian lore) is another example of the tantalizing secrets of the Gods that are there to be discovered, as are traces of Pasupati/Shiva on a cauldron found in Scandinavia, as said cauldron bears an only slightly modified Indus Valley Seal, far away from Indus Valley Civilization as we know of it, thus identifying the Horned God of Europe with Shiva. On the other side of the world, the Baba Quiveri Indians along the border in Arizona worshiped Bairabu and Viraseva, who are rather obviously directly related to the Hindu deities Bhairavi and Great God Shiva.3
Whether transmitted by social and cultural means available to the description of the social scientist or else manifest by esoteric and occulted and "supernatural" phenomena, these seeming lineages of mythology do indeed exist beyond mere coincidence. That these nigh cognates and such do soundly connect seeming disparate mythologies as traces in the narratives and archaeological record and tell an extraordinary and ancient ifn't timeless story of the plays of peoples and cultures, myths and religions and the play of the Gods/gods, is well enough evinced. Indeed evidence indicates the possibility of a continuous and contiguous plot that supersedes individual cultures and religions, mythologies and civilizations and the rather narrow purview of most written histories, and might be writ to discern and analyze the subtle discourse that tells history in terms of the mind(s) and play of God/the gods, whether He/She/they be merely us or no. If a particular "religion" is true, it must be able to integrously account for all the peoples and plays and religious perspectives of the whole world, and of the whole of the universe for that matter. sanAtana dharma does this better and with the authority of antiquity more veritably than all the other world religions and whatever other paradigm proffered, unequivocally, especially as most of this worlds religions are in fact derived from, and essentially part of sanAtana dharma.
"God" is Really the Lord of Hell and "the Devil" is Really God . . .?
To simply state the gist of my theory, the Hebrews were Hindus, or at least Abraham and his forefathers were before his tribe went west to Palestine (a theory many espouse outside of the official Western religio-historical establishment), and their god "Yahweh" bears much resemblance to and is likely derived from Deva Yama, the Hindu Lord of Death and Hell. The Judeo-Christian "Devil," in terms of the origins of said figure, similarly bears more than mythological resemblance to the God of Abraham's forefathers, Shiva (known as the Horned God to pre-Christian Europe), and possibly to Shiva's Consort Devi Lalitha (Goddess Lalitha).
In other words, over the course of the development of the Abrahamic religions, Yama, the Hindu Lord of Death and Hell, was rendered as "God" (Hebrew Yahweh), and the figure who was formerly "God" (Sanskrit Brahman), i.e., to Abraham's forefathers, became figured as "the Devil" by the renderings of Judeo-Christian mythology. Related to these conjectures, it seems the Hebrew rite of circumcision is similarly derived from a Hindu incest taboo rite.
I'll begin by noting something that bothered me from my days as a Southern Baptist minister and perhaps before. Back in the day before I realized myself a yogi, whilst an undergraduate student at Oklahoma Baptist University and pastor at the First Baptist Church of Connerville, Oklahoma, or perhaps before (I resigned and later renounced all trappings of my ministry and moved to Chicago for grad school at the University of Chicago after finishing my undergraduate degree), I made note of a rather confusing idiosyncrasy regarding the Judeo-Christian concepts of Heaven and Hell.
According to Jewish tradition, the destination of righteous Jews after they die is a place called "the Bosom of Abraham" or "Sheol" (New Testament, Luke 10:22). Sheol is described as "down," as in underground (Old Testament/Torah, Genesis 37:35). The Hebrew word Sheol is generally translated to the Greek word "Hades" in the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament), and that Greek term generally translates to the English "Hell," if you didn't know!! This troubled me a bit, but I brushed it aside, assuming some theological explanation was surely expounded in some doctrinal statement somewhere.
One other clue I was granted in those days that something was amiss in the orthodox Judeo-Christian narrative was a statement made by a rather stodgy religion professor at OBU after a lecture about Abraham and his crew moving west from "Ur of the Chaldese" to Palestine (Ur has been determined to be in close proximity to else a part of Indus Valley Civilization, identified by most archaeologists as having existed in far southeastern Iraq, else in modern day Afghanistan or Pakistan). At the end of this lecture, Dr. Dawson said with rather a scowl:
"Now there may be those who tell you that Abraham is somehow connected to the Hindu god Brahma . . . but we know better than that, now don't we!" he said in a passively-aggressively threatening manner, almost certainly a warning to those wishing for a career with the church, if a clue to those real seekers of truth (whether intended as such or no).
(A Hindu temple discovered in Silemania, Iraq near Ur. Depicted above to the left appears to be a carved murti depicting Hanuman bowing to Lord Rama, to the right. The similarity is obvious.)
I later explored that strand of the historical narrative to conclude that indeed, papa Abraham was a "Hindu" (if not a term coined until three thousand years later) before he went apostate and left the homeland and faith of his fathers. Voltaire (1694-1778) posited that Abraham and his crew were a tribe of traveling brahmin priests.
As quoted in the Introduction:
He writes that the tribe of the Brahmin Abraham was expelled from or left India and settled in Goshen in Egypt. Finally, he states, "The Arabian historians contend that Brahma and Abraham, their ancestor, are the same person" [emphasis added]." www.ModernMagick.com; dmkraig.net
If Brahma, His Consort Saraswati, and Ghaggar (a river tributary to the Saraswati) are indeed connected to Abraham, Sarah and Hagar of the Abrahamic traditions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), as many have contended, then it is not a far stretch to assume that there is a connection in terms of the Hebrew rite of circumcision and the Hindu myth about Brahma losing His fifth head for lusting after a Divine Maiden He had created, essentially thus His Daughter. To follow this line of reasoning, in it's origin the Hebrew rite of circumcision was an incest taboo rite! And indeed, it seems likely along those same strands of the mythological narrative and reasoning that Yahweh was in fact Yama, as would prescribed by the faith of Abraham's fathers for one who had left the religion of brahman.
Essentially, Yahweh, worshiped by Jews and Christians as "God," is actually the being Abraham's forefathers and much of Asia knew as the Lord of Hell!! And then what did the Abrahamic project do next along those lines of reasoning but to render the figure who was God into "the Devil" in their myth-making.
It has been noted by scholars and indeed by popular culture that the figure of "the Devil," at least in European lore, was largely a bastardization of the Horned God (see R. Lowe Thompson, The History of the Devil - The Horned God of the West - Magic and Worship, London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1929), who was worshiped across Europe and parts of Asia as Cernunnos, and was and is known in India as Pasupati, the Protector of Animals and Souls, an ancient horned Avatar of Shiva found on the Indus Valley seal (5,000+ years old). Deva is Sanskrit for "God" and Devi is Sanskrit for "Goddess," and the term "devil" seems to likely have origins in Persia, quite near where many worshiped Deva and Devi, via the Avestan language (early Iranian used in Zoroastrian scripture) term daeva, which means "wrong gods," or "gods who are not to be worshiped" (Wikipedia, "Daeva").
Above pictured are the Indus Valley or Pasupati Seal, and one scene embossed on the Gundestrup Cauldron, depicting the Horned God.
According to sanAtana dharma/"Hinduism," the Goddess Mother of the Universe is known as Devi Lalitha, and is Herself as much brahman ("God") as are Shiva and Vishnu. Lalitha is overtly bastardized as "Lilith" in the Hebrew and Christian traditions, which say she was a woman who was supposed to be Adam's wife but who would not submit to him as greater, and who was thus exiled to the desert to copulate with and give birth to thousands of demons each day (reference). I ought note, by Her Nature as Goddess of Play and from what I know of Her, She has certainly had a ball with that one . . .
So to recap, I am essentially theorizing that: the Jewish and Christian God Yahweh is actually a refiguring of Yama, the Lord of Death and Hell according to the religion of Abraham's forefathers; the Judeo-Christian "Devil" is actually a bastardization or inversion of the God that much if of the ancient world (and indeed Abraham's tribe) worshiped before Abraham and his crew left the proximity of India and the religion of sanAtana dharma ("Hinduism") circa 1900 BCE; and Hebrew and thus modern circumcision originated from an archaic incest taboo rite!! Rather mind-boggling if not paradigm shattering concepts to wrap your mind around, no?!
The following description of Lord Yama seems rather like the "Judgement Seat" of "God" the Hebrews and Christians talk about, no?:
"He is the god of departed spirits and judge of the dead. A soul when it quits its mortal form repairs to his abode in the lower regions; there the recorder, Chitragupta, reads out his account from the great register called Agrasandhani, and a just sentence follows, when the soul either ascends to the abodes of the Pitris (Manes) [ancestors], or is sent to one of the twenty-one hells according to its guilt, or it is born again on earth in another form." (http://www.mythfolklore.net/india/encyclopedia/yama.htm)
The Realm of the Pitrs is very likely the place Christians refer to as "Heaven," as indeed in said realm one does get to be in the company of one's ancestors. The twenty-one hells according to sanAtana dharma likely somehow corresponds in whatever guise to the 22 layers of the Mayan worldview, with an Underworld, Xibalba with its nine layers (the which array is likely somehow echoed in Dante's "Nine Circles of Hell") and then thirteen Heaven Realms.
The True Identity of Jesus Revealed: Avatar of Ayyappa, the Protector of Created Beings
As this is perhaps the most pertinent issue I have determined to address, I decided I ought pen (type) a more complete and pleasantly penned composition than the previous published writings addressing this issue, detailing why I have become convinced of such a paradigm shattering theory. So here I present to you truth seekers a rather more detailed telling of why I have come to believe that Jesus Christ, more properly known as Jeshua ben Joseph, was in fact an Avatar (embodiment of the Divine) of Deva (God) Ayyappa, also known as Shasta and Aiyanar.
It has been well enough noted and touted that there are many uncanny similarities between the Persons of Krishna and Christ. A Quaker named Kersey Graves (1813-1883) compiled a list of some 346 elements in common between Krishna's story and Christ's story. Indeed, none can reasonably deny that some of the analogies are quite convincing, not the least of which is the phonetic similarity of the names. Nonetheless, something never quite seemed quite right in my reasoning with that attempt to tie together those two purported God-men. Though I believed that these connections were not without merit, I somehow had a sense they were NOT the same Dude. Only fairly recently in my own spiritual pilgrimage did I come across accounts of the God named Ayyappa/Shasta, Son of Krishna/Vishnu as Mohini (when He was manifest as a She) and Shiva. Ayyappa is the Son of God the Maintainer and God the Destroyer, when the former was a fertile transsexual. Almost immediately something in my intuition else rational faculties told me that Ayyappa, the Protector of Creater Beings, was a very likely candidate for the more ancient and abiding identity of the person/Person called Jeshua ben Joseph, aka Jesus Christ. Consider as you continue, especially if reading this from a Christian persective, that Jesus is touted to have said to his/His disciples, "I have sheep in other pastures . . ."
During my undergraduate years I was for a time a Southern Baptist preacher. Though this might not seem a good starting place for a seeker of truth, it was in fact somewhat due to clues proffered by the mostly Southern Baptist professors at Oklahoma Baptist University that I began to question the dogmas of that faith. Years later after I was introduced to the teachings of sanAtana dharma I still felt that somehow Jesus was a legitimate expression of God and one who well enough presented and the teachings of eternity (quite literally, "sanAtana dharma"). Ayyappa was the Person I was eventually drawn to that seemed to present a legitimate connection between my first religious impulses (other than devotion to the wilderness and women) and the abiding truth of sanAtana dharma.
Ayyappa/Shasta is indeed a unique Son of God, as the Christian title, "the only begotten Son of God," does tout of Jeshua ben Joseph. Vishnu (God the Maintainer, known as Krishna in His most popular form, Who makes love to 10,000 women just as each wished to be made love to...), this one time did manifest on earth as a Woman by meditating intensely upon Devi, the Goddess, in order to deal with a particular menace, a dangerous demon named Bhasmasura.
After Vishnu had defeated Bhasmasura, Shiva asked Him to show Himself again as Mohini, His female form. Well, as Shiva is the essence of male virility, He ends up desiring the lovely and seductive Mohini. They end up hooking up and Shiva impregnated Mohini/Vishnu with Ayyappa, also known as Shasta, the Protector of Created Beings. This certainly seems to fulfill the "only 'begotten' Son" scenario proffered by the Christian religion, and in fact does fit rather well with the "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" trinity of Christianity, as Jesus's original Mother, Vishnu, is paramatma, the Soul of Atman (God's "Spirit" extant in all beings). Ayyappa does have Brothers and Sisters, though none of Them were given birth to by Vishnu!!
I mean, if your Divine Mom is generally a Dude, what might you refer to Her/Him as? Again, of important note in this guise, as Vishnu is the paramatma, the aspect of God that dwells in everyone as Atman, God indwelling, then how would Jesus/Ayyappa refer to this Being to people not exposed to the teachings of Abraham's forefathers, if not as a "Holy Spirit?" This little clue, by the way, seems very likely to explain the rather confused misogynistic tendencies of Christians, despite the New Testament statement that "there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, neither man nor woman, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." If you're Original Mother is a not generally a female, and in fact is a Dude who can make love to 10,000 women just the way they desire, the potential for identity crisis is rather not unlikely . . . and sounds like a very modern dilemma, with transsexual mothers/fathers being a very current issue in the global discourse of 2019.
Thus and to reiterate, assuming my identification of said Persons as the same Being is legitimate, Jesus's (Ayyappa's) real Mom (again, Mary was a surrogate mom) is generally a Dad, and is to whom Jesus was referring when He referred to "the Holy Spirit"—i.e., Vishnu in His role as paramatma.
Another Christian understanding of Jesus is that He was "the Word," as their scripture says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." Ayyappa is very much associated with AUM (as is His half-brother Kartikeya), the Primal sound, which is almost certainly the origin of the Judeo-Christian "Amen," another quite obvious correlation between Ayyappa and Jesus. Yet another obvious similarity is found in one of the most prominent stories about Ayyappa: as Manikantan, He healed a deaf and blind boy, a miracle later attributed to Jesus Christ!
"Upon completing his princely training and studies when he offered 'gurudakshina' or fee to his guru, the master aware of his divine power asked him for a blessing of sight and speech for his blind and dumb son. Manikantan placed his hand on the boy and the miracle happened." (http://srinagaroo.blogspot.com/2013/04/lord-ayyappa.html?m=1)
Raising the dead is another miracle attributed to Ayyappa, as His name Lakshmanapranadata, which means Reviver of Lakshmana's Life, clearly indicates. Indeed these many indications incline me to believe that the two mythological figures are the same Person, as they have such attributes in common.
The many touted similarities between Krishna and Christ are well explained by the aforementioned theory, as well, as "the Son" was endeavoring to fill the roles of Krishna/Mohini (the Divine Mother of Ayyappa/the "Holy Spirit" of Jesus) in Her/His apparent absence. Again, Shiva is "the Father."
One last and seminal consideration along this line of reasoning is that during the "missing years of Jesus," many say He went away to the east to learn from the Brahmins and then by the Buddhists (once He had a break with the ritualistically bound Brahmins) before returning to Palestine to teach. His issues with the Brahmins is thus reflected in His issues with the Pharisees and Sadducees when he returned to Palestine. According to Hindu tradition, the Buddha was the Ninth Avatar of Vishnu, so it makes sense Vishnu's Son from when Vishnu was a Divine Transsexual would be drawn from brahmin Hinduism and it's "Pharisaical" rules to hanging out with Buddhists, who follow the teachings of Jeshua's original Mother when She was, as generally is, a He, and did live as the Buddha. Many other connecting factors wait to be unraveled with this identification of Jesus as Ayyappa in mind, factors which give clue to the history and dance and pilgrimage of peoples and the play of the gods and of God and Goddess throughout history and eternity. Buddhists tout Ayyappa/Shasta as an Avatar of Buddha, by the way, or as an emanation thereof. And to reify that Jesus Christ was indeed and in truth an Avatar of Ayyappa, the appearance of a star never before seen is associated with Ayyappa !!
"Every year, millions converge upon Sabarimala irrespective of caste or creed, with garlands and irumudis, chant paeans to Lord Ayyappa, bathe in holy river Pampa, climb up the eighteen stairs, hoping to catch a glimpse of Lord Ayyappa, the Dharmasastha.
The Jewel Casket is carried on head from the ancestral residence of the royal family of Pandalam to the Shrine on the day. A Garuda, the Brahaman kite, follows this ornaments-carrying procession, hovering about in the sky, After these ornaments are worn on the Lord the bird circles the temple in the sky three times and disappears. Excited by this sight the devotees begin to chant "Swamiye Saranam Ayyappa". A Star never seen before in the sky appears on the day of Makarajyothi day before the sighting of the Jyoti. A Jyoti is seen for a little time on the hilltop showing the presence of Swami Ayyappan gracing his devotees." (http://www.sabarimalaayyappan.com/lordayyappan.htm)
Though the light that shows in the sky is said to not really be a star, but is rather light on a nearby hill, the commemoration nonetheless does present itself as the same basic mytheme as the star telling of Jesus Christ's birth. I have no doubt there are more analogies between Ayyappa/Shasta and Jeshua ben Joseph, but I am personally already quite convinced, and rather relieved that this discovery might and ought open Christianity to beyond the sad ailment of exclusivism, and to honest brotherhood and oneness with the rest of the world and eternity.
Dance of Dualism in the Kali Yuga
(Rough outline for book)
To Be or Not To Be : brahman or Abrahman
Yugas, Kalpas and the age of the Earth
Tropes and archetypes: Kali Ma and Gauri Ma myth and the Kali and Gauri Yuga, illusory dualims...
As Above so Below: tribes and nations representing/presenting various angles on that question, the play of peoples as God pondering, mind played out in matter, in intrigues of state and in everyday people's lives.
Buddhism touts Abrahman and unatma
Abrahamic religions indirectly posit or subtly posit the theory of Abrahman, represented in Abraham's departure from his homeland and the religion of his ancestors, who touted brahman.
Hebrew myth of Abraham meeting Yahweh to sacrifice Isaac is his meeting with Yama, as would be expected by the paradigm of Abraham's ancestors. Why else would the "bosom of Abraham" be underground?! Jeshua thus likely was an Avatar of Ayyappa, the Protector of Created Beings and Only Son of Shiva and Vishnu (i.e., when Vishnu was a Woman named Mohini) come to the Hebrews (Abrahamic/Abrahman touting people) to "save them" . . . from the error of the rhetorical position they play...? Islam a last ditch attempt to revive the Abrahamic/Abrahman thesis, calling on Kali Ma (kalima) and Uma Himavati (Ummah)... "Mommy!!!!"
Dispersion theory, and why European historiography rejected such, i.e., racism and sexual repression and fear of their own origins (thus they came up with the Aryan invasion myth)...
Dispersion of sanAtana dharma: The Race Between Ganesha and Skanda.
Northern Europe: Pasupati and the Horned God, Indus Valley Seal and Gundestrup Cauldron
Zulus: Kartikeya and Unkulunkulu
Buddhism, the question internalized
The Lila (Grand Play) of history in this age is a rhetorical question . . .
Responses to theodicy, "Good God, all-powerful, so why is there suffering
Dispersion of the thesis "to Be."
Dispersion of the antithesis "not to Be."
[The Panchen Lama on Mao Tse Tung (note the similarity represented in Judaism and their modern day Nebuchadnezzar, Hitler) . . .]
*The question is an oversimplified tension, a shallow binary dualism
Foucault on inescapable arrangement of power in binary arrangement of power
Derrida's "differánce" the solution
Tandava a cure for the delusion of dualism and is the truth that transcends it . . .
Shiva-Kali Ma are not opposites, despite One as "Effulgent" and the Other as "Black/Dark," One a Male and One a Female, and are in fact the selfsame Self . . . Differánce Divine. Similarly, though there are overt differences Kali Ma and Gauri Ma, and metaphorically and otherwise between the Kali Yuga and Gauri Yuga (the Golden Age in the midst of the Dark Age), these are not properly understood as opposites, but in fact are the Same and same when one sees beyond the veils of Maya. As Ma Gauri ("Golden") emerges from Ma Kali ("Black/Dark") and Both remain in essence the same Beautiful Goddess Mother of the Universe, so the Gauri Yuga in the midst of the Kali Yuga is in truth not so different nor in truth separate from the essence of the encompassing Kali Yuga, itself a grand illusory head trip, if one befitting sanAtana dharma, "Keeping it together forever," the rhythms and rhymes and movements of bodies celestial and physical, temporal and spacial, in this dance of the ages, kalpas and yugas arranged in patterns and rhythms abiding the span of the Universe from creation to destruction. This truth of Advaita is indeed the saving grace might yet be found in this "Dark Age" (even as this ought be and really is in truth the Gauri/Golden Age, and is indeed the Great Lesson thereof).
[Upanishads "he who sees difference between . . . (dog, etc.)"]
In terms of worship in this Kali Yuga, though I certainly would not deny the efficacy of the Maha Mantra,
"Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare,
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare !!"
I would argue that from a perspective of the subtleties of the discourse, the play of mythemes and array of "light" and "dark," "Golden" and "Black," devotion to Kali Ma is also a very effective way both to find bliss in the Gauri Yuga and in the Kali Yuga generally, and to overcome the tendency towards dualistic thinking. To see beyond the dichotomy of black and white is unequivocally key to transcending the suffering manifest by dualism in an age when people are so prone to such simplistic and incorrect assessments as such binaries arrangements generally proffer in relation to life lived. Devotion to Kali Ma, who presents the Darkness, the Womb, the Mother, is a very positive transformational mode to employ in response to the darkness of dualism in through the course of this Dark Age.
In response to the dualistic stupidity of racism, which recent years have shown endeavoring a last gasp attempt to drag us into ignorant and dualistic, "us vs. them" constructions, devotion to either Kali Ma or Krishna are both granted as an antidote in this age, as "Kali" and "Krishna" both mean/translate as "black," and both are dark skinned. Devotion to Shiva, He Who destroys such delusions, is likewise effective. Indeed, even if one does not necessarily believe in the verity of these deities, the conceptual means proffered in these lauded forms of that which is "Divine" are valuable to get beyond dualistic delusion so endemic in this age.
Shiva and Kali Ma in the Tandava is yet another conceptual mode to transcend that dualism that even Christianity, in one of the early Church Councils, did renounce. Shiva and Kali Ma, Beloveds to One Another and in truth the same Person, in the Dance that is the Dance of the Universe, is the closest that sanAtana dharma, as I understand, generally comes to a significant dualism at any ontological level. The discursive construction might well find analogy in the idea of Jacques Derrida's différance.
Ancient Hinduism's Response to Racism . . .
To my first impression, among the most potentially troubling features of the love story of Siva and Parvati is the account of Parvati coming to Siva in the form of a Dark Skinned Goddess, wherein Siva addressed Parvati as "Kali Ma" ("Black Mama") and She takes offense at said seeming slight and leaves Siva to do tapasia (austerities) to shed Her dark skin to become Gauri ("Golden"). Upon completing Her tapasia, Parvati sheds Her dark skin and becomes Gauri (Golden, but Her shed skin stands and becomes Kali Ma, fully as much the Great Goddess as Gauri. At first glance it might appear that this story is racist, that either Siva and/or Parvati are racist, else that the myth potentially promotes such. After giving much consideration to this dilemma, this story that seems potentially to foment or condone racism, I have concluded that this story is not other than Siva responding to Parvati's insecurities, and well enough knowing that Her response would be to do austerities to become Gauri, or "Golden," knowing that His Beloved had need to manifest in both Divine Forms, Gauri and Kali Ma, for a number of reasons He alone was (at least overtly) overtly privy to at the time.
Shiva is certainly not a racist, as He touts non-attachment to physical form as a primary step in attaining moksa, and in fact has His own dark skinned forms, specifically Bhairava.
In His wisdom Siva knew that Parvati would have need to be Kali Ma, as well as Durga (Who Herself has at least a few dark skinned forms, by the way). It has also occurred to me that by Siva calling His Consort Kali Ma, Mahadeva (Great God) Siva was also, in fact, endeavoring to defray potential racism amongst the people, as Kali Ma is almost certainly the most worshiped form of Parvati, granting a high status to the "Black Mama" in Indian society in general, and these days globally. Shiva is almost only ever shown in intimate circumstances with Kali Ma, as presented in sacred murtis, indicating clearly enough Shiva did not have any aversion to this form of His Consort and Beloved.
In fact, the duplication of forms of the Great Goddess thus, as Kali Ma and Gauri, has certainly elevated the status of the "black mama" generally in society, from India to the whole world, as yoga and Vedanta and other mediums have very much broadened reverence for the Dark Mother of the Universe in today's popular culture and society generally. Great God Siva certainly knew this as He touched on His Beloved's slight insecurity, the which She certainly knew—at some level—why She felt, i.e., as a means of Divine transformation. Shiva's slight toying with Parvati's insecurities (something Shiva is very much known for as a means to help others surpass attachments) was designed, in the Mind of the Eternal, sat cit ananda, to grant the children to come a means to deal with a likely foible or shortcoming endemic to the Kali Yuga, the propensity towards dualistic thinking and thus prejudice, "us vs. them" dichotomies and so forth.
In it's more ancient and properly practiced form, the caste system is also designed to defray divisions in society by creating social divisions that are by their nature clearly dependent upon one another, as they are divisions of labor (as opposed to other potential designations of group formation) that did not have aught to do with color, at least ideally.
Lastly, I might and ought note that Krishna, the most popular and many argue most important Avatar of Vishnu (God the Maintainer), means "Black" in Sanskrit. The obvious statements made to a world wrestling with issues of racism thus would be, God and Goddess are often Black, therefore we ought to recognize the Divine in others regardless of their colors !!!!!
Beyond the aforementioned means by which racism is defrayed by sanAtana dharma, the very idea, let alone fact, of reincarnation necessitates that one consider that in a past life one might have lived as one of those now considered "other" or even "enemy" to one's family and tribe in this life. Most have been born of many races, and have lived as the opposite sex and of any number of orientations and persuasions through the course of however many lifetimes.
Ganesha and Kartikeya's Big Race (initial draft of a chapter for upcoming book)
Ganesha and Skanda's Race Around the World
One day as two of God's Sons were engaged in blissful play on Mount Kailash, and their Father Shiva suggested they have a race to settle a dispute over who might partake of the nectar of immortality. Not just a race to yonder mountain, nor merely a contest of normal childish proportions. These two of God's Sons determined to engage in a race around the whole world.
Kartikeya set out with all due haste with hopes of victory. More concrete minded in many respects than His Brother, Skanda set out to the west, across the sea to the southern part of Africa. Their he met the Zulu's and they recognized His Divinity by His radiant aura. They bowed themselves to the ground before this god who had come to them from the waters. Due to the passage of time and differences in pronunciation, the Zulu people now know Kartikeya as Unkulunkulu, and tout His birth in a bed of reeds by Umvelinqangi (note the last part of the word "-qangi," quite nigh Ganges) as their greatest day of celebration, the anniversary of the birth of their God. Kartikeya was born in a bed of reeds when His Father Shiva, full of all the male potency of the Universe, ejaculated whilst on the banks of the Ganges, and His seed floated into a bed of reeds whence Kartikeya was born.
In the meantime, Kartikeya's brother Ganesha sat pensively pondering His strategy. Skanda was fast, faster than Ganesha. One of Ganesha's names, Lambodara, betrayed His weekness, an enourmous belly!! In a fair fight, Ganesha could easily defeat his Brother, as none other than Their own Father Shiva had ever defeated Ganesha in single combat, but Ganesha was rather a heavy set boy and not the swiftest on His feet. Ganesha gladly received a meal from His Mother Parvati, and enjoyed the rice and lentil dal and reita that His Mother provided Her Big Boy as He pondered His strategy.
Kartikeya continued on His path, apparently north across the expanse of Africa. The young Skanda met and befriended many peoples along the way, and taught the tribes and civilizations along the way skills and technologies that transformed their lives mostly for the better. Skanda was born a warrior, and a leader of legions, and the peoples He encountered that embraced Him the most were often warrior peoples. It is likely due to their devotion to Unkulunkulu (Kartikeya) that the Zulus defeated the British in the battle of Isandlwana, the last major defeat of an army with modern armaments by people with "primitive" weapons. In the north of Europe, an entire nation was named after Skanda, as the ancient peoples there, precursors and likely ancestors to the Vikings, grew enamored of His teachings and the blessings in battle He did likely bestow upon Him, and thus still today this land is known as Scandinavia. It may be that Alexander the Great had something to do with Skanda's meandering journey, as Alexander is "Iskandar" in many tongues, and thus it is telling that Alexander did get turned back when invading India.
Ganesha thought again of the race, and wondered if there was any possible means to yet defeat His Brother in the grand playful competition. His Mother and Father were seated nearbye, relishing each other's company and their conversation sounded like sweet song, more moving than any love ballad ever sung. Ganesha turned away shyly as His Mother leaned to lay a kiss upon Her Beloved Husband Shiva's lips. Suddenly it came to Him, His Mother and Father, Parvati and Shiva, were in fact the whole world. Ganesha had no need to travel the whole of the globe in order to win this race! All He had need to so was run a leisurely circle around His Parents, and the race would be won. Ganesha missed His Brother, as Kartikeya was His best friend and favorite playmate, but He still wanted to win this contest. He stood, and then paced a circle around Parvati and Shiva, and thus won the "race around the world" whilst His Brother Kartikeya was still out on His path around the globe.
Kartikeya, also known as Skanda, had made His way across the Atlantic Ocean and had met many peoples who seemed very familiar. Kartikeya was surprised to discover that the peoples of these lands spoke in a tongue which shared many words with the people of His homeland. He taught many things to the peoples of the Americas, as these lands later came to be known. Kartikeya became known as Quetzalcoatl and Kulkulkan and many other names as He imparted teachings to the tribes He encountered. Whether or not Kartikeya would win the race around the world, whether or not He would defeat His Brother, was becoming irrelevant, as Kartikeya had experienced so much beauty, both in the peoples and places he encountered along the way, vast deserts and wondrous jungles and grand mountains Skanda had explored.
By the time Kartikeya had reached the Americas He had fully grown into manhood, and wore a thick beard, an unusual feature to the beardless peoples he met amongst those later called American Indians. Thus it is Kulkulcan and Quetzalcoatl are depicted as bearded amongst the beardless...Kartikeya who'd came from across the sea, and indeed from across two oceans, the Indian and the Atlantic. Quetzalcoatl is associated with the "One Reed" cycle, according to the Aztec calendar, again alluding to Kartikeya's birth in a bed of reeds. An analogous deity to Quetzalcoatl in the America's is a god with the very Sanskrit sounding name Viracocha, rather phonetically nigh two of Kartikeya's names, Virasutaya (Eminent art Thou in the Universe) and Viraghnaya (Vanquisher of heroic opponents), though equally convincing is a theory associating Viracocha with Waman, the Dwarf Avatar of Vishnu.
Kartikeya's vehicle is a peacock, and thus the "feathered serpent" of Quetzicotl.
Quetzicoatl and Kartikeya, respectively, pictured above.
Deva Waman requested of King Bali that he and his peoples move across the ocean and to Patala, the "Underworld" to India, and as "The West/Underworld" to ancient Egyptians.
Vaman travelled on his Hawk (garuda) and destroyed all demons who lived in this region, to make it clear for Bali and his men to settle here.
Machu Picchu, which is about 90km northwest from SaksayWaman in Cusco Region, Urubamba Province, Machupicchu District in Peru, was built as temple of Inca God, the creator, Viracocha.
This Viracocha is none other than Vamana God.
Viracocha means "one who turns the world upside down", which perfectly matches the description of Vamana Dev."(https://www.booksfact.com/religions/machu-picchu-saksaywaman-vamana-temples-cusco-peru.html)
There might be some question as to the order of Kartikeya's journey, as the first depictions of Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, are amongst the Olmecs, who many posit traveled to the Americas from Africa, and thus it might be Kartikeya spent time in northern Europe to inspire the appelation "Scandinavia" before He went to abide amongst the Zulus.
In the Pacific, Skanda appeared in a great ship when the Tihitians were battling the Hawaiians. He is touted in the Polynesian myth to have walked across the water to shore, and was received as god Rongo. Rongo taught peace to the Maori, healed people and discouraged them from sacrificing humans to Him, and offered them knowledge of the Kumara (sweet potato) as a substitute for the rampant cannibalism that had been a common practice. Kumara is one of Skanda's names as He is known in India.
When and how Kartikeya finished this race to finally arrive at Mount Kailash, this writer has yet to determine. It does seem likely that this grand "race around the world" may in fact describe the movements of peoples, metaphorically, though it is my belief that Kartikeya, His Brothers Ganesha and Ayyappa (who most Westerners know as Jesus Christ, by the way), their Sisters and Parents Shiva and Parvati (and in Ayyappa's case, Mohini/Vishnu), and the other Devas and Devis are real beings who sometimes manifest amongst the peoples of this world, living in real human history and often enough as those who make history.
1https://www.booksfact.com/religions/machu-picchu-saksaywaman-vamana-temples-cusco-peru.html
2Ibid.
3Matlock, Gene D.. Journey to Baboquiveri, Gene Matlock Explores the Path of an Ancient Migration; The O'Odham: Native-Americans With Ancestors From India? http://www.viewzone.com/baboquivari.html
Posted by Jeffrey Charles Archer at 10:06 AM No comments: Links to this post
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