Religious attachments
And strike, and strike, and strike, and strike, and strike, and strike, and strike, and strike, and strike, and strike until you have victory. For every enemy that is aligned against you let there be. For we would strike the ground for you will give us victory God. I hear a sound of an abundance of rain, I hear a sound of victory. I hear a sound of shouting and singing, I hear a sound of victory. I hear a sound of an abundance of rain, I hear a sound of victory. I hear a sound of an abundance of rain, I hear a sound of victory. The Lord says it is done. The Lord says it is done. The Lord says it is done. For I hear victory, victory, victory, victory, in the quarters of heaven. In the quarters of heaven, victory, victory, victory, victory, victory, victory, victory. For angels are being released right now. Angels are being despatched right now....
I'm trying to start a new page in my blog and as I'm writing these words I've come up with the general theme of belief. We all believe something, don't we? So I thought I'd start out with religion, because religion affects all of us in some way. Here I'd like to point out - as some people reading this might have sensitive souls, or large Egos, or both - that I'm not seeking to attack or denigrate any religion or anyone's religious beliefs. I just want to examine the various polarities, inconsistencies, and duality which comes with all beliefs and how this all relates to faith, which is another word for trust, and the absence of belief. More to the point what ridiculous lengths do we all go to, and allow to go through our minds, trying to overcome the fear and anxiety when it comes to those three different aspects of our existence - life, love and death?
So we start with the most religious of all of us - the atheist. "There is no such thing as God," the atheist will tell you. Fine. But why do so many of you need to get so religious, and so evangelical about it? You cannot actually prove that there is no such thing as God, because God is a concept, and it's a concept which is shared between billions of people all over the world. It might not be God, it might be Allah, Jahweh, Jah, Jehovah, Brahma, or some other name. But as you can see, God quite clearly exists. The existence of God might be cultural, it might be symbolic, but God exists just as words exist, and the meanings of words exist, if only in our minds.
But I get it. You don't see yourself as religious. I don't either. But I don't see the need, or the sense in trying to start preaching to others that there is no such thing as God, or that religion is bad, or wrong, or evil, because if you start doing that you start becoming religious yourself and you become the one thing you're supposed to be opposed to - which is religion and God, right?
"The great Dao flows, such as it may left and right. All things on earth depend on it for existence, and it never declines, Meritorious accomplishments yet anonymous. Clothes and supports all things on earth yet doesn't master. Always without desire befits the name small. All things on earth return here, Why? Not being their master befits the name great. Because of its ultimate non-self, it becomes great. Hence it can accomplish its greatness." --Lao Tzu, "The Tao Te Ching", Chapter 34
Let me give you an example of what I'm trying to get at here. Let's take the example of Taoism, which developed out of the Yin Yang School of Thinking, which came out of the I-Ching, Taoism being developed in 6th century BC China by Chinese philosopher and writer Lao Tzu who wrote the Tao Te Ching, which is the foundation of Taoism. Lao Tzu (not his real name, because 'Lao Tzu' simply means 'Old Boy') and another Chinese philosopher Zheng-Zhou (please don't ask because I haven't the foggiest) came up with Taoism to counter Confucianism, developed by another, possible better known philosopher Confucius who was living around the same time.
Now many will tell you that Taoism is 'godless' and it's widely accepted as a very anti-authoritarian spiritual movement.
But maybe you'd like to read through the quote above taken from Chapter 34 of the I-Ching which describes 'the great Dao'. The Dao is translated as 'the way' or the 'method' and you can see for yourself how this compares to the figure of Jesus Christ in Christianity.
"Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." --John 14:6, "Holy Bible, New International Version"
All religions, in fact I'd even go as far to say all belief systems or attachments as I prefer to refer to them - not just religions but also philosophies, ideologies, be they religious, political, or neither - borrow, steal and copy from one another. East, west, north, south it makes no difference. The roots of all religions, belief systems, and scientific disciplines is of course mysticism. It's out of mysticism that you get everything else - philosophies, religions, political ideologies, everything as the mysticism gets translated into language and culture, and then into more language and even more culture.
It's all connected. There's no such thing as a pure religion or a pure belief system. "There is no God but Allah." comes out as the exact same thing as "There's no such thing as God."
In the above image you have some women in a gym or hall who are practising yoga, which is a form of meditation which developed out of Hinduism. Yoga is a form of meditation and mind control, which like contemplation, and prayer, is a form of giving up control to other. Consider if these women were pointing their bums west, which means that they would be facing east, towards Mecca, they could just as easily be praying in a mosque. Only of course as Muslim women they wouldn't be allowed to strip down and wear so few clothes, but the body language is exactly the same.
There is also no difference in the relationship between the minister at a mosque and those who pray and the teacher of yoga and the women who are practising yoga. It's still unity under external authority. It makes no difference whether we are talking about the Holy Koran, the Hindu Upanishads, the Holy Bible, the Tao Te Ching, it's still following a scripture or text which was written by someone else. It makes no difference whether we're referring to a priest, a vicar, a mullah, or some other religious leader, a teacher, a guru, a master, or a god or some other deity, it's still following external authority through a belief system.
There are three main forms of meditation. There is the main school of meditation which arises out of Hinduism and other similar religions and philosophies, out of which you get yoga, and through which you get the various forms of meditation which were developed out of Tibetan Buddhism. Then you have Zen, or 'za-zen' as it is also known, which is the form of meditation first developed in China when Mahayana Buddhism - the major form, was fused with Taoism to become Chan Buddhism, and later the Japanese flavour which is known as Zen. This is a stripped down, simplified form of meditation where you discipline yourself to focus your mind on perception alone, without any thinking. Then you have Vipassana meditation (which I was trained in) which comes out of Therevada or Southern Buddhism, which spread throughout what is now Sri Lanka and south east Asia, but also north into places such as Bangladesh and Nepal.
The man in the image above is a Buddhist monk practising 'za-zen' or Zen meditation. Out of this you get the eastern concept of 'no mind'.
This is where you get the schism between Therevada and other forms of Buddhism. Up until the 1950's so relatively recently, given the fact that Buddhism first developed in the 5th century BC other forms of Buddhism - Mayahana, Zen, Tibetan Buddhism, all rejected the Therevada calling it 'hinayana' Buddhism, or 'the lesser vehicle'. Other forms of Buddhism, mainly arising out of Mahayana Buddhism, describe themselves as 'the greater vehicle', and so you get different aspirations on the way to 'nirvana' or perfect enlightenment - arahat, boddhisatva, and buddha. But what then is nirvana if enlightenment is something which is seen as being something other than you? Is this not the same as say, Christian heaven?
You see as much as Zen tries to claim to be the 'cool' minimalist, and subversive flavour of Mahayana Buddhism with all it's koans (such as 'one hand clapping') it's actually Christianity which is far more subversive, because most Christians when they pray aren't practising 'no mind' but are far more focussed on telling God what He should do. I give you the Lord's Prayer as the classic example (I've bolded the imperatives in the Prayer just to make my point clear).
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours
now and for ever.
Amen.
"The Lord's Prayer" (Church of England website)
This is in addition to being talked at by a priest, a minister or preacher, being told what to think and believe, how you should act, being told religious stories from the Bible, and every so often, just to the the organist chance to play his music, or a choir to sing, everyone sings religious nursery rhymes.
It's interesting to note that both Zen and Mahayana Buddhism have got progressively more complicated over the years and seem to be reverting back to the opening premise of the Buddha, Prince Siddhartha Gautama, which is "You suffer because you desire." Please keep in mind that the original texts and scriptures of Buddhism, the Pali Canon, are roughly the same size as the complete Encyclopaedia Britannica. This is a lot more than the Holy Bible, which is just 1,200 pages or the Holy Koran, which has just 604 pages. You might want to check out the Wikipedia section for Buddhism - it's vast.
However on the other side you have Therevada Buddhism, of which many see Mahayana Buddhism in all its favours, including Zen, as inauthentic. This is because Therevada is the oldest existing school of Buddhism, the 'School of the Elders', the strict, conservative flavour of Buddhism, which has been around in pretty much the same shape and form for more than 2,000 years.
This is where we get to the whole point of Vipassana meditation which is pure contemplation and training your conscious perception to increase through focussing on 'sunnata' - Sanskrit (or Pali) for 'The Void', the 'Great Emptiness' so as to increase the scale and dimension of your thinking. As you increase the scale and dimension of your conscious awareness, learning to register and let go of sensations, register and let go, register and let go, register and let go. Vipassana meditation, which I was taught in a few months by Babu my master, took me over 15 years to properly practise and master.
As you do this you resolve your karma, because as you become more aware of the environment in which you exist, you begin to see your past karma and choices as being progressively less and less significant and important. It is for this reason that Therevada, unlike Buddhism doesn't advocate that it is the one true way to nirvana or enlightenment, or Theosophy for that matter, which was derived out of Tibetan Buddhism in 1875 by Madame Yelena Blavatsky, Henry Olcott and William Quan Judge in New York. There was this amazing conflict throughout the 20th century between Rudolf Steiner, who wanted to become the global leader of the Theosophy movement, and Jiddu Krishnamurti, who through his preaching in India, the United States, Europe and Britain became the messiah figure of Theosophy, a kind of modern Buddha figure, much of what Krishnamurti taught was very closely aligned with that of the original Buddha. This was by design by the Theosophists in Britain and the United States.
Actually, and this is my own personal conviction, or belief, Therevada (Southern) Buddhism is a lot closer to Rastafarianism than it is to other forms of Buddhism. There's a premise I'm working on is that this connection is part of the transformation of Christianity from a derivative of Judaism to becoming what it is today, one of the most popular spiritual movements on the planet. The symbol of the cross is much more widely known throughout the planet than the symbolism of any other spiritual movement, with the crescent of Islam coming a close second.
Christianity became a faith out of the tradition of mystical theology which started to develop in Alexandria in Egypt in the first or second century AD. This came out of the works of Origen and what is known as the Alexandrian theology, where it was understood that knowledge of God in creation and of sensible things, and thus you could 'know' God through intellectual contemplation. At the time Alexandria in Egypt was a massive trading centre between East and West, which is how you get Roman architecture in India and how the Roman Empire collapsed through the purchase of too many spices, in particular pepper. Quite how much early Christian theology was influenced by Therevada and how much was influenced by the Hindu Bhagavita is unclear but this was where Christian mysticism first developed and where the tradition of contemplation first comes. This was before Mahayana Buddhism started spreading east throughout Asia out of India.
Hinduism is not just a religion, it is a major part of Indian culture, and has always been difficult to export, which is how we get Buddhism to begin with, as Buddhism is a stripped down version of Hinduism. Therevada is rooted in Brahmanism, which is somewhat older than Hinduism as we perceive it in the modern sense. Most Buddhism is translated out of Sanskrit, but Therevada used mainly Pali, the ancient language of India, hence the Pali Canon - the original scriptures of Buddhism based on the final teachings of the Buddha. It was the Pali Canon which after Buddha's death which was preserved in three palm baskets, the 'Tipitaka' or 'three baskets'.
Being honest I'm more inclined to believe that early Christianity was influenced more by Therevada monks who visited Alexandria and it's out of this influence that early Christians were able to access the teachings of the Hindu Bhagavita and (later) the Hindu Upanishads. Therevada is strict and conservative because it places far more focus on the final teachings of the Buddha, the candle-lighting strategy through syncretism and acceptance of the beliefs of other non-Buddhists, which is why Therevada has always been much more mystical in its approach to other forms of Buddhism. "A person without a spiritual life is like an unlit candle," the Buddha once said. This influenced early Christian thinking through the third century AD when Christian mystics and theologists through St Macarius of Egypt which came up with the belief that one knows God through the heart, and not the mind.
This was roughly a century or so before Mahayana Buddhism first appeared in China as 'Chan' Buddhism - the Chinese had difficulties in pronouncing the Sanskrit word 'charna' which means 'meditation', which Buddhism is really all about. It was Bodhidharma who first introduced Buddhism to China - and also founded Shaolin Kung Fu - around the 4th century AD. The Chinese initially had a lot of difficulties with Buddhism. They found it too miserable. They couldn't wrap their minds around the aestheticism and need for chastity, as the Chinese have always been very family orientated as a culture. What happened was sometime after Bodhidharma came to China there was another Buddhist scholar Ajiva Kumar who helped to translate Buddhist texts from India into Chinese and through this process Buddhism became fused with Taoism which resulted in Chan Buddhism, which we now know to be Zen Buddhism.
Meanwhile further west in Egypt early Christian mystics and the Church were grappling with an issue of their own over the unity between Mankind and God. Through the works of St Macarius they had come up with the concept of the 'agape' - which means awe or wonder - which burned in the heart and through which one could find unity with God, rather than just through intellectual contemplation. However people at the time were divided into three classes:
- psychic: people who were more intellectual in nature.
- pneumatic: people who were more spiritual in nature.
- wooden: people who were more focussed on physicality and material aspects of living.
The early Christian church rejected these divisions because they argued that being 'wooden' did not exclude a possibility to find unity with God through the heart. What they rejected was the notion that 'wooden' people were somehow incapable of love. At the time, in the latter part of the 4th century there was a shift away from 'gnosis' or knowledge of God because it became more widely believed, through the works of Saint Basil and Saint Gregory, that you needed to transcend knowledge and belief to find the 'agape', seen as the highest form of contemplation. This is where we arrive at the Cappadocian tradition, where to know God you need to move beyond knowledge and belief into a 'Cloud of Unknowing' - the 'agape' to achieve what became known as 'theoria', the highest form of contemplation to connect to God through unity with the heart and mind - which is where we get the trinity and the association in Christianity with the number 3. (Three in numerology is the base magical number and symbolizes natural growth and biological evolution).
Therefore in order to find unity with God, you yourself have to become divine.
Then in the early years of the 5th century AD an obscure Syrian monk turned up in Alexandria and exerted what must be one of the strongest influences on Christian thinking, both east and west. I'm referring of course to Pseudo-Dionysius, the Areopagite. This monk took on the name of Dionysius, who was St Paul's first convert in Athens in the 1st century AD (this is referred to in Acts in the Holy Bible), and was heavily influenced by Neoplatonism. This Syrian monk claimed that God dwells in 'divine darkness' and is therefore unknowable through sense and reason. Therefore in order to know God, one must give up sense and reason and enter into a spiritual union with God. Through spiritual union with God (theosis) to be granted 'theoria' (which today is understood to be divine grace) and in so transending time, space and physicality, one achieves unity with God who reaches down or descends to the hesychast.
It is out of this we get the whole mythology of Jesus Christ, the central figure of religion, the messiah, and the unity through which Mankind becomes God so that God can become Man. Out of this we get the Virgin Birth and Christmas, and also out of this we get Easter and the Resurrection.
In this way Christianity aligned itself both with Hinduism, a polytheistic religion with many gods, and the Therevada which maintains that there is no reality but the ultimate reality or The Void.
"If you think that you understand Brahma, you do not understand and have yet to be instructed further. If you know that you do not understand Brahma, then you truly understand for the Brahma is unknown to those who know it and known to those who know it not." --Upanishads (Hinduism)
Pseudo-Dionysius created the concept of the Eucharist, the perfect vision of the deity, perceptible in its uncreated light, and the 'mystery of the eighth day'. It is out of the Eucharist, where God transcends time and space, that Christianity became a spiritual faith movement rather than a law-based religion. The Eucharist dates back to the early 5th century AD being developed at roughly the same time and period as Chan Buddhism in the East.
Then a couple of centuries later, specifically in the 7th century AD on the Arabian peninsula in what we know understand to be the Middle East, a new Abrahamic religion started flourishing - Islam. Islam is a monotheistic Abrahamic religion teaching that Muhammad is the messenger of God. Islam teaches that Allah (God) is all powerful, merciful and unique, and has guided Mankind through various prophets, revealed scriptures and 'natural signs'. Therefore Islam has a very rich mystical tradition on a par with any other religion or faith. The primary scriptures of Islam are the Quran, believed to be the verbatim word of God, as well as the teachings and parables - called the sunnah, which is made up of accounts which are called hadith, of Muhammad (c. 570-632 CE).
As with the other Abrahamic religions the central concept of Islam is tawhid or unity with Allah (God). Therefore Islam can only be seen as a faith based spiritual movement and religion which is backed up by the law or doctrines. Unlike Christianity, which ascribes God a human form, in Islam God is transcendent, has no human form, was never born, had no offspring, cannot be seen until Judgment Day, and cannot be compared. Allah is just the personal term for God, Taqwa is the consciousness and awareness of God, Ar-Rahman means 'the entirely merciful' and Ar-Rahim 'the especially merciful' and also refer to God. The Golden Age of Islam is generally perceived to be between the 8th and 14th centuries where it flourished both east and west of the Arabian peninsula.
Islam, despite being a peaceful religion, has had more than it's fair share of civil conflicts, strife, wars and ideological conflicts. This started in the final years of Muhammad's life. During the last 22 years of his life, starting at the age of 40, Muhammad meditated in a cave and received revelations from God, coveyed to him through the archangel Gabriel. His companions memorized and and recorded the content of these revelations which became known as the Quran. During this time while in Mecca Muhammad preached to people in Mecca telling them to abandon polytheism and worship one God. Most early converts to Islam were women, the poor, foreigners and slaves. The Meccan elite profited from the pilgrimages to Mecca and of course Muhammad, through his preaching, was destabilizing the social order by preaching about one God, and giving ideas to the poor and slaves which weren't at all appreciated by the Meccan authorities.
The Meccan authorities started to persecute Muhammad, who was stigmatized and labelled in various ways, as a poet, an illiterate imbecile, possessed by demons, or just mad, so Muhammad fled with his family and followers to Abyssinia and then, in 622 they performed the Hijra (emigration) to the city of Yathrib (now Medina) and took refuge in the Kaaba and started to become a religious and political leader. There after some battles with the Meccan authorities Muhammad managed to achieve unity among all the Arab tribes and thus Islam started to become established. However after his death in 632, just like after the death of Prince Shakyamuni Siddhartha Gautama, the original Buddha, his followers descended into a state of conflict and disagreement. Just as there was division between the Southern disciples of Buddha (Therevada) and others (which developed Mahayana Buddhism) there was disagreement among Muslims as to which of the four successors - Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman ibn al-Affan and Ali ibn Abi Talib - over who would lead them. However they came together to form the Caliphate - the four being known in Sunni Islam as 'al-khulafa ar-rashidun' (the 'Rightly Judged Caliphs')
However Islamic history is peppered with various wars, crusades, conflicts and fighting - not least during The Crusades and coming into conflict with Christianity and Judaism over control of the Middle East.
So we come to the final religion I'm going to cover in this evolutionary history of religious beliefs which is Sikhism, the youngest of the major religions.
Sikhism originated out of the Punjab in India at the end of the 15th century from the teachings of Guru Nanak, the first of ten gurus. The 10th guru, Gobind Singh (1666-1708) named the Sikh scripture Guru Granth Sahib as his successor, thus ending the succession of human gurus and establishing the scripture as the 11th 'eternal' guru, a religious spiritual/life guide for all Sikhs. Guru Nanak taught that living an 'active, creative and practical life' of 'truthfulness, fidelity, self-control and purity' is above meta-physical truth. This gives the ideal that Man 'establishes union with God, knows His will, and carries out that will'. Guru Hargobind, the sixth Sikh Guru (1606-1644) established the concept of the mutual coexistence of the 'miri' (political/physical) and the 'piri' (spiritual) realms.
Sikhism developed out of times of occupation and persecution by the Mughal, the Islamic rulers of India at the time gaining many converts from both Hinduism and Islam. Similar to Therevada Sikhism believes that no one religion contains the whole truth or has a monopoly on Absolute Truth. Sikhism is based on faith, prayer and meditation. The fundamental prayer being the ik onkar in the Mul Mantar, which is the opening of the Guru Granth Sahib, or Sikh scripture. The core doctrines are the belief in One Creator for the whole of Mankind, divine unity and equality for all of Mankind, acts of 'seva' (selfless service) and a commitment to strive for the benefit and justice for all as well as an honest conduct and livelihood whilst living a householder's life.
Sikhism emphasizes 'simran' or meditation and remembrance of the teachings of the Gurus, which can be expressed musically through 'kirtan' or internally through 'naam japna' (meditation on His name) as a means to feel God's presence. It teaches followers to transform the 'Five Thieves' (lust, rage, greed, attachment and Ego).
Sikhism, together with Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism is seen as one of the four major Indian religions. Sikhism shares a lot of the concepts of these religions, such as reincarnation, karma, meditation, compassion, and non-violence, but like these other religions Sikhism is the only monotheistic religion of India.
So now we come to the end of this long blog post, which is longer than I wanted it to be. But I've made it this long to make a point.
As you've been reading through this rough 'thrown together' evolutionary history of various religious beliefs and doctrines you can make out a pattern and be able to map out a history or story of human evolution when it comes to religion and religious beliefs.
The principle of unity is not to try and seek control over others and the way they think and feel. Unity does not come, and cannot come, through the domination of one human being over another, or one group of human beings over another group of human beings. This is not what religious freedom, or freedom of consciousness is all about.