National Enquirer Hare Krishna Edition

NEHKE (National Enquirer - Hare Krishna Edition) was written by an anonymous genius over several years, published around the internet at several forums now long forgotten. A certain scribe collected them so as to preserve good laughs for future generations.

Pagal Baba, fresh back from a tour of the Saturnian moons, had this to say: "The original NEHKE reporter might still be lurking out there somewhere, feeding and gathering strength, waiting for the opportunity to tickle our hysteria one more time..."

Entries are reposted at a rate of one every day as long as they last. And if the original NEHKE reporter is somewhere out there reading all this, I'm an e-mail away and you're free to post the latest news here!

National Enquirer Hare Krishna Edition
http://nehke.blogspot.com/

Good Yule!

Good Yule to all friends and fellow folk, random readers and the rest! May your year, after yet another dark season, grow towards great brightness within. As Mother Nature begins to renew herself, let there be revolution and growth anew for all!

Dichotomy of Light and Darkness

Winter solstice, past by a mere moment now, marks the transition from darkness to light, from death to new life. Yet one more cycle in the grand order of nature has rolled its course and revolves anew, the time of renewal is at hand. While the Indians were also very aware of the peaks and transitions in the universal cycles, especially so in the ancient Vedic times, it was in the North where the extremes stated their presence.

Many of you may have been following Uma's series on the old pagan celebration of Yule, the rebirth of Mother Nature, later remodeled into a grand Christian celebration with an eerie abundance of pagan symbols and practices. While the celebration of these transitions of universal reach indeed has its place in the mesocosmic sphere, a natural turn in the human fabric of old, it is not those I write of today. I'm about to dig deeper into the superficiality of the good-evil duality often imposed on worlds of light and darkness.

The Ancient Aryan Divide

The division into good and evil is regrettably not as clear-cut as God versus Lucifer or Christ versus Antichrist, a lesson well learned from the ancient Indian evolution of religion. Vasistha was among the leading Vedic seers, while for the Zoroastrians he was among the villains. While asuras were the bad guys for the Vedic seers, Ahura-Mazda (or Asura-Maya in Sanskrit, a close relative of the Avestan language of the Parsis) was the lead monotheistic deity of the Zend-Avesta scripture.

These two polar religions came to plant the seeds of two very different religious traditions. Zoroaster was a grand-ancestor for the doctrines of a dual god and anti-god, the expectance of a messiah and a linear approach to the cosmic order. The Abrahamic tradition, or Judaism, Christianity and Islam, evolved in a mixture of Zoroastrian ideals and the ongoing evolutions in Egyptian and Middle-Eastern native polytheistic systems.

A whole different branch and orientation of religion, the greater part of which goes under the loose label of Hinduism in the contemporary world, evolved from the root of the ancestry of Vedic seers. Hinduism as we know it is a loose amalgamation of distinct traditions that evolved under shared cultural premises, a most heterogeneous compilation held together with unitarian texts such as the Bhagavad-gita.

The fact that the two religious divides forming the vast majority of the Earth's population is on a deep level divided almost as deep and fundamentally as the grand cosmic order of the ancient cultures is every bit as exciting as it is scaring. It is then little wonder that the Abrahamic dualist heritage has always sought to reform all known cultures and peoples into the faith of the one true savior, one supreme deity and one word of god, or a succession of subsequent revelations in the case of later traditions.

The Indic tradition, on the other hand, unsubscribed from an ontology that assigned them among the evil, in both its root movements. While the direct descendant of the brahmana-tradition, the heritage of the Vedic seers, maintained a sense of duality evident in the legends of the Puranas, it was against a canvas of higher, nondual ideas evolving from the old Upanishads, tense and often asystematic philosophical discourses that sought the deepest essence of the Vedic sacrifical religion. The Sramana tradition, to which the Buddhists and the Jains are the only surviving heirs, sought to eliminate the realm of duality altogether, and in doing that went so far as to do away with the supreme deity himself.

The roots of the ancient good-evil divide appear to lie in an ancient conflict tearing apart a single cultural heritage, a world where the devas and the asuras dwelled together. Mitra and Varuna, a dual deity of whom the latter is well known as an oceanic deity in the Puranic lore, are in fact among the asuras of the Rig-vedic tradition — asuras receiving oblations just as the devas did. The details of the evolution effectively reduce the concept of an absolute, primordial divide into a partition much more complicated and human, into the internal disagreements of an ancient sacrificial, fire-worshiping culture.

Powers of Light and Darkness

Neither light nor darkness possess inherent ethical value; they are neutral potentials reposed in their own nature. As darkness clouds, creates mystery and brings towards unity, light unveils, explains and exposes a vast arena of plurality prior to growing so bright as to grow all-engulfing, thereby becoming essentially one with darkness again, a field of a single, undivided nature containing all of reality in its ever-vibrant lap. (Udesidning: An ancient Nordic way of integration in darkness.)

Nothing is good or evil of its own nature; all depends on the application, and moreover the applier. Magic is neither good nor evil owing to its technical procedure of conjuration, whether born of light or darkness, white or black. The divider of good and evil is in the human choice between benevolence and malevolence, between sacrificing and feeding the egotic drive consuming its objects to grow stronger.

A transcender of duality wields light and darkness with equal might, regardless of his preference, a preference that in its fundamental essence is only a latent sensation of the past, a game or an amusement of sorts, unbinding to the player who has ascended from a participancy to entertained spectatorship. Having seen the pinnacles of light and darkness under the ancient egotic drive, one evolves into a seer of non-duality, experiencing the inherent voidness of reality as we know it.

With the diffusion of apparent essence and substance into ethereal streams, one transcends stereotypic moral assessments and dwells in a lasting perception of inherent and foundational unity, even while an adept conventionalist as needed in the common world. The art of life has now been mastered.

The Old Pagan Approach

While the philosophical sophistication of Indic traditions is often lacking in ancient native religions, they do an amicable job in the practical transcendence of duality in living in a seamless harmony with nature and gods in their own world of mythos. In fact, many ancient native traditions supersede the seclusion-seeking Indic mystics in their ability to interact with plurality in a state of active integration, perhaps with a flavor of the smooth and flowing natural Tao of the Chinese — a quality I've always been in tremendous awe of!

The action-in-knowledge tradition also found its exponents among the Buddhists with the gradual evolution of Buddhism first into Mahayana, and onwards into an admixture with the tantric tradition especially prominent in Tibet. In the Tibetan model, Hinayana and Mahayana, or the lesser and the greater vehicles, are stepping stones into the highest dimension of vajra-sattva, the lightning-strata, where one becomes a wielder of cosmic powers, conquering and subjugating the energetic release produced in the meeting of the fundamental dualities of nature, the energetic bases of archetypal male and female energy, personified as the man and the woman of the human world.

Transcending and mastering the fundamental fabric of existence, the conscious being evolves into a god-like state of integration with the flow of the cosmos, unveiling the infinite peace and inner ecstasy ever-present in the ultimate non-dual god-experience. Consciousness employs a third strata beyond light and darkness, the infinite halls of existence itself. Night turns into a day and day yet again into a night. Winter falls over the fertile summer fields, spring awakens Mother Nature to life anew. Light and darkness rise and fall time and again of their own accord; the wheel of existence revolves forevermore.

North of the Moon - Old Yule Series

With the holidays approaching, a double announcement is in place. First of all, Uma's new blog: North of the Moon, exploring spirituality, old Nordic and European pagan traditions, the ancient Scandinavian-Aryan connection, and the general mysteries of life.

Second, a series of articles on the Old Yule, the pagan and Aryan predecessor to Christmas, glossing the age-old midwinter festival of fertility and new birth, the Yule observances, the Tree of World, the original Father Yule and a host of angels, goblins and others of old yet remembered. First in the series:

• Old Yule 1: The Mother and the Deadly Midwinter

And good Yule and a happy new year to all!

GeeVees - 00: Roots

The GeeVees is a series of articles covering reflections from a decade of spiritual and religious practice, lessons every bit as valuable for current and former Gaudiya Vaishnava adherents as they are for the thoughtful interpreter able to penetrate the universals in motion.


My Brief History with the Tradition

In the early age of fifteen, a rush of sudden interest brought me to the shore of Hinduism in my ongoing quest for curiosities. It was the Hare Krishna faith that I first met, the only extant Hindu sect in Finland offering prospects for a committed contemplative life. My initial expectations of life as a monk were soon betrayed, however, as I embarked on a tour that was to last the better part of my five monk years as a missionary promoting the movement’s literature.

The escalating discomfort with duty versus absorption, combined with a major fall-out with the then-guru, one of the many leaders of the movement who later came to retire from the obligations of guruhood and vanish to the fringes of the movement, led me, now a married man of nineteen, to seek a more genuine experience of spirituality along the lines I had chosen. Further disappointments with the movement’s leadership had me looking beyond for answers — answers I was to find with an elderly Indian guru of the same tradition making his grand tour across the West.

Hopes soon perished, with less than two years in the group, as my plate was filled with vain hopes, hollow prospects and scores of internal conflict. With all the verbal profundity, it turned out to be little more than a personality cult with more charlatans than actual substance. The trail of much of the half-baked esoterics led to the old school Gaudiya Vaishnava renunciates living in the Braj area of northern India, where I was later initiated by an old scholar, chairman of the renunciate assembly at Radhakund.

It was more than theory that I had sought, however, and naturally connected with more teachers to get hands-on experience on the lifestyle and practices of the babaji tradition. A certain charismatic teacher, singer and meditator in his own right, had us under his tutelage for the better part of four years, a time that opened whole new horizons on the content of the religious and mystic substance of the tradition. Partially brilliant and partially bizarre teachings, sometimes incongruent with the common doctrine, combined with behavior that had more to it than just personality quirks, led me away from him, and astray as far as my then-wife was concerned.

In the span the year following our divorce, I lived the better half in the way of the traditional babaji ascetics, myself engaged in intense practice day in and day out, in quantities easily eclipsing a decade of ordinary practice, whatever the quality may have been. Meeting with yet another disappointment of a teacher, and more dead-ends and impassable lands than paths you could decently walk, a return to a blank drawing board had me moving on for an indefinite pilgrimage without any particular destination.


In the Times Beyond

In late February 2008, I jumped onto a train towards Varanasi for the upcoming Shiva Ratri festival. The original plan was to head towards Orissa, exploring the combination of old Buddhist ruins and grand Hindu shrines in the general area. That, and the Puri beaches were quite inviting too. From there, I would have taken the grand circuit across the four principal Buddhist places of pilgrimage in the north. It was not to be, however — not yet, anyway.

In Sarnath, a Buddhist center half-an-hour drive outside Varanasi, I bumped into a colorful group of Buddhist monks from the Thai Theravada school. The Irish monk was heading south and incidentally had a spare train ticket. Off we went, visiting Ramana Maharshi’s ashram in Tiruvannamalai and Sai Baba’s headquarters in Puttaparthi, for a two-week tour and back. I had considered dropping off in Chennai and flying over to Sri Lanka to explore the ancient Buddhist ruins and the contemporary scene, but I rather liked both his company and his plans.

Returning to Varanasi, we were joined by a Romanian-American nun and two Thai monks for a walk towards Lumbini, the birthplace of the Buddha in southern Nepal just across the border. Crossing some seven hundred kilometers on foot over three weeks, I got to know the lot rather well. With all the positives, however, I understood their way of life was not cut out for me, not the way it was available in the contemporary setting anyway. I decided to stay back in Kathmandu as they left for a bus-and-train journey back to Varanasi.

It was Kathmandu where I was based for four months, spending time with friends old and new, working with a few NGOs, exploring the mountains and the world of men in a way I had never seen it before. It was a time of great evolution, re-modeling the past and transforming into a new being, an individual being who was no longer subject to rules of religious conformance.

A liberation in its own right, it created a grand arena of contemplations for me. Thence are the thoughts that follow in the upcoming essays, written over a cool Scandinavian winter near a crackling fireplace, surrounded by familiar nature-spirits and a regenerating atmosphere, a muse and a friend of many years sitting by my side.


On Gaudiya Vaishnavism

The religious tradition founded by Sri Chaitanya (1486-1534) came to be called Gaudiya Vaishnavism owing to the ancient name (Gauda) of its motherland, Bengal. Sri Chaitanya’s was a devotional movement, bent in its core on mystical absorption and participation in the cosmic drama of Radha and Krishna, the tradition’s transcendent god and goddess. The outer praxis was that of a people’s movement, ecstatic preachers and wandering bards spreading the gospel of Sri Chaitanya far and wide, the chanting of the holy names of god brought to every town and village in the movement’s path.

The theological foundation, based on elaborations on Sri Chaitanya’s teaching, was laid by the six Goswamis, renunciate disciples of his, scholars in their own right with abundant time to commit to philosophical pursuits in the rustic environment of Vrindavan, the place of Krishna’s sports in the years bygone. It is especially the Vrindavan tradition that holds the meditational practices in the highest value, generation after generation preserving, interpreting and elaborating on the esoteric heritage of the Goswamis.

On grassroots level, the basics of Gaudiya Vaishnavism are not that radically different from other devotional Hindu movements. Some of the tradition’s later mutations, the Hare Krishnas for a good example, appear to have almost entirely shunned the esoteric tradition, favoring a public digest version of Hindu devotional religion with a few idiosyncrasies thrown in. The stripped version of the tradition is not, however, too compelling for a western audience, for one might just as well choose any other tradition that is better localized and established, being left with every bit as much substance with fewer cultural complications.

At its heart, beyond preliminary ideas of understanding the nature of spirit and matter and their interconnection with god, the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition aims to dissociate the psyche of the adherent from the present state, associating it with a sense of identification with the residents of Krishna’s transcendent heaven realm. The inner sensation of the adherent evolves from faith through various steps to fulfilled love, transporting his soul and mind away from the current world and implanting them in the spirit-identity. It is the fundamental incompatibility of the two worlds that most serious practitioners seem to struggle with.


Appeal for the Adherent

As it is now officially declared across the vast internet fields that I am an apostate unworthy of association, why would a practicing Gaudiya Vaishnava dare reading my writings? There may, after all, be lurking many a seed-of-doubt, crisis-of-faith and confusing-concept under the foliage. It would perhaps be better to just sleep in the cradle of belief, shielded from influences that could expose you to the unwanted.

The fact of the matter is that I was every bit as much in the cradle as most of my former comrades of faith, and these are the issues I had to confront as I rocked in the cradle over the years. They are real issues, and they deserve to be explored. Whether my solutions are real is immaterial; it is the questions we must all unearth and ponder in our depths. Unlocking the questions may, in fact, turn out to be a mine of potentials revealed with the perspective expansion.

I am sometimes asked whether it might be better to just forget about it all myself, and indeed I have received a fair hate mail or two over my writings. It is absurd for anyone to assume that twelve years of intense practice, and by far the biggest continuous tract of my life so far, is something one could just wipe aside as if it never existed. And neither do I see a valid reason for it, inasmuch I may have the ability to observe subtleties beyond a black-and-white model of absolutes.

The many valuable lessons of my Gaudiya Vaishnava years remain with me as an active facet of my sphere of understanding. Experiences positive or negative, they were all due coming and molded me in the ways I needed, crashing into my life one after another on karmic tracks beyond my capacity to observe. They were all good, for they were all for the good, and I believe sharing of the experience is something that may help others in good, too. The disinclined are cordially invited to exclude themselves from the audience.


Appeal for the Broader Audience

No activity occurs in vacuum, in a dimension void of connections to the rest of human existence, and no idea is too contextually bound to become a slave to its times and unfit for broader application. The lessons learned over the journey, a journey still rather incomplete, have countless parallels in the countless lives of many akin to myself. It is for the perceptive seeker, student and master that I write, for those able to extract and reinvent, drawing from the identity of principles beyond the specifics.

While the parallel themes are developed to an extent in the upcoming essays, there’s a long way for me to go until a comprehensive, or even a half-way decent system of archetypal concepts is in place. The readers are invited to take my observations as seeds of inspiration, fountains for rivers and oceans of understandings exceeding mine a thousand-fold.

As Indic religion in general, Gaudiya Vaishnava talk is riddled with Sanskrit-rooted jargon and very specific and detailed uses of context-related terminology. I will be doing my best to keep the text friendly for non-expert readers, glossing the unavoidable complications and choosing colloquial terms wherever possible. Blind as I am with my own writing, an obtuse language-gremlin or two may escape the hunt — please feel at ease with giving feedback on any and all aspects of the forthcoming series.

Protect Space Bunnies - A Call for Arms

Folks at the comments department have been wondering what I'm doing. A general sense of curiosity is in the air particularly on what I am doing right now...

The thing is, as the following grotesque illustration from the Internet demonstrates, evil bitches have set out to exterminate the race of Space Bunnies once and for all. Can anyone with a heart just stand by as our innocent space hare brothers are being persecuted without mercy!

 

A call for arms is hereby issued from the Royal Ministry of Space Bunnies, led by venerable Easter Bunny Jr. Watch for a draft booth in your neighbourhood! Down with the eevil biutches! Hooray!

Surya-kunda Disaster

The annual festival of Surya-kunda (Suryakund) is perhaps the best-attended event of the local Vaishnava babaji society, marking the passing of Siddha Sri Madhusudana Das Babaji. Surya-kunda is a small village located in western Uttar Pradesh, some 40 kilometers off Vrindavana, a solitary place with a number of resident Gaudiya Vaishnava hermits. This year's event ended with a grand disaster — temple roof caved in, dozens dead and many more wounded.

(View archival material of the earlier events: video, photos)

Throughout the three-hour program of songs and processions around the village, people have taken advantage of the temple rooftop for a premium view of the program. The roof is particularly crammed at the concluding feast towards the afternoon, hosting up to hundreds of visitors from the total participation easily reaching over a thousand.

At the closing of the festival, as almost everyone had concluded their meals and began to move about, the ashram roof caved in on top of the crowds sitting in the large temple hall below. Many mahantas, important religious leaders from around the area of Vraja, along with hundreds of others, were taking their meals downstairs at the time of the accident, with hundreds more sitting on the falling roof.

Dozens are estimated dead, though no exact information is available as of yet. Participants smeared with blood were seen running around, wounded or mangled by the crashed building materials. Fractured skulls, fatal blood-loss and maimed limbs — the less fortunate were carried to their final rest. Apparently the supporting pillar of the building had given in, leading the entire roof to crash.

Some died on the spot, some on the way to the hospital, and some in the hospital. Exact information is yet to come in. An Italian devotee fell through the roof, but got off with a bit of blood and managed his own way home. Reports indicate that among the casualties was a well-built, hairy, bearded babaji, resident of Radha Colony, dressed in raggish clothes — very likely to be the same Bhakticharan Das Babaji with whom I lived last winter.

The social convention of segregating the sexes in religious festivals tells, assuming this year's seating arrangements followed the long-established trend of the event, that the majority of victims were men. Men are given places inside the temple and on the roof, women have a separate large area on the outdoors temple premises.

A disaster of this magnitude is likely to hit the news soon. News follow-ups will be posted to the comments-section. The information for this report was received from Malati Dasi, a participant herself, fresh off the spot. Background information mine.

Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness

In a recent blog entry, following up on a discussion on gay rights, Advaitadas commented on the famous preamble to the United States Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

His gripes with this statement, a statement that on face value would seem self-evident and foundational to our society, are manifold. Some of the perspectives in the review are regrettably rather poorly thought out.

Conditioned Fathers of Nation

The first objection of the rebuttal, straight out of a text-book as it were, reads as follows: 

"Actually, this is not an authoritative statement in principle because those who drafted this constitution are of course conditioned souls, who are prone to mistakes, inattentiveness, deceit and imperfect senses."

In the authors' view, it seems evident that "conditioned souls" are unable to produce anything factually authoritative owing to their blundersome nature. Even if the aeroplane flies, even if our understanding of the laws of physics and principles of engineering add up to the expected result, it is important to understand that the aeroplane flying on the sky is unauthorized. Even with the imposters at flight control declaring he's authorized for a take-off.


The Perfect Verdicts

Wishing to reach certain knowledge, the author — like millions of his Hindu bretheren — turns to his infallible scriptures, the shastra.

"Comparing this statement with the verdicts of shastra was amusing, because it turned out to be not-so self-evident at all."

It should be interesting to create a society modeled on the basis of the ancient dharma-shastras — take, for example, the famous Manu-smriti. Never mind the fact that they were compiled by people whose credentials are wholly unknown to us, and at times long gone, adherents commonly hold them to be timeless, authoritative and definite.

Since the said genre of scriptures is so obviously outdated, being written for a wholly different social context, we are essentially left with nothing "authorized" for the contemporary situation, nothing with a broader range of information, anyway. Of course, there is no scarcity of reformers who claim to have understood the timeless message and its necessary contemporary application. Now, who authorized and de-conditioned them? Jim Jones, have company.

Might it, therefore, be wiser to settle for general values that seek to give everyone equal opportunities (note emphasis) for adhering to a belief or disbelief of their choice, giving them the freedom of choice for life, liberty and pursuit of happiness in their way of choice as long as it doesn't infringe on others' rights. I'd say that looks like a pretty damn good deal, on paper anyway.

The prospect of an "authorized system of governance" sends shrills down my spine. Would you rather have a Vedic king and a forced caste system, a Japanese Solar Emperor with hordes of Samurai troops, pharaoh Ved-anxt-amun the heir of Osiris and prince of the underworlds, or Mullah al Taleban with the sword of Allah? They are all authorized by their own conflicting heritages.


All Men are Created Equal

This statement was the unjustified object of massive nit-picking. The arguments are two-fold, one discussing the aspect of creation, other the concept of equality.

1. No one was ever created. ... The jiva is beginningless and thus never created.

Now, it is rather unlikely that the founders of the United States were bent on saying that all units of the Hindu soul were created, equal or otherwise. After all, it does clearly say that "all men are created equal". In the Puranic theory, the creation of men occurs at a stage of creation called visarga, following the primary elemental creation (sarga).

2. No one is equal, created or otherwise.

I would argue that the uncreated could well be equal. However, to the equal — what does the word equal imply in the statement under scrutiny? Does it mean that everyone earns the same amount of money, is as beautiful, intelligent and physically fit as everyone else? It seems, again, rather unlikely that this is what the founding fathers had in mind. Created equal then means created to be given equal opportunity.

Now, the meaning of giving equal opportunity is obviously not as clear-cut when we speak of diverse individuals, rather than a mass of people. We're skating again on this dreaded arena of subjectivity. Where have gone all those beautiful truths, the absolute revelation endowing us with the right to abstain from progressive thought?

"Regarding equality on the material level, no Barack Obama is going to turn each homeless bum in Harlem into a Beverly Hillbilly. Inequality is intrinsic. Even communism failed to bring equality to even a single nation."

And exactly so. Therefore, rather than imposing a single standard — of absolute equality, or any other absolute for that matter — we need to face the problem of giving equal opportunities for diverse men to pursue life, liberty and happiness in their desired way. Let a hundred flowers blossom, behold the garden's beauty in its diversity, every flower given a chance to prosper in its own nature.

The inalienable rights, basis for the concept of equal opportunity, are of course outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As evident, the basis of equal opportunity is a relative concept intrinsically tied with our times, due to evolve with the progress of humanity. Perhaps Advaitadas can next tackle the unauthorized Declaration of Human Rights for us.


Wars, Abortion and Right for Life

That someone should contend inalienable right for life is beyond me.

"What about the lives that were lost in all the US interventionalist wars, and that are lost now since abortion was legalized?

That there are shortcomings in the observance of the ideals is hardly surprising. No doubt, a good political analyst would write a book on the intended consequences of the U.S. foreign policy in terms of saving and improving life.

Abortion was, in fact, legal when the Declaration of Independence was drafted in 1776. Laws against abortion began to appear in mid-1800s and became prevalent after the turn of the century. The re-legalization of abortion is then hardly in contrast with the intentions of the statement in question.

The ethical justifiability of abortion, and at its root the debate on "what makes a person and when", are more complex issues than a few lines would cover. Is semen person? Is the freshly fertilized embryo a person? And moreover, when examining religious arguments on when a person is present, we must look at the scriptures as a whole and ask some pertinent questions.

"The soul is made to enter into the womb of a woman through the particle of male semen." (BhP. 3.31.1) "On the first night, the sperm and ovum mix, and on the fifth night the mixture ferments into a bubble. On the tenth night it develops into a form like a plum, and after that, it gradually turns into a lump of flesh or an egg, as the case may be." (BhP. 3.31.2)

Now, we know that in the Puranic theory there are souls in plants and animals as well. The killing of plants in particular is sanctioned. Now, would it be more wrong to kill a bubble of fermented mixture or a tender daffodil? Would you spare an old oak tree or a form like a plum? According to the text, the first sensations occur during the embryo's fifth month.  90% of abortions take place within the first 12 weeks.

"Can the US government insure or protect Life? Hardly. 'For those who are born, death is sure.' (Bhagavad Gita 2.27)"

It's not that the life insurance company is there to protect you from dying either, you know. The idea here is to give all men an equal right for life while it lasts, and seek to protect its unnatural termination by diverse means.


Absolute and Relative Liberty

With liberty, we are again contrasting the concepts of absolute and relative liberty. Advaitadas tackles the absolute:

"Freedom is an illusion. In this world we serve our families (by having to maintain them), governments (by paying taxes) and our senses. In the spiritual world we serve Krishna, but there is no freedom anyway anywhere."

There is (bhaktas close your ears) a twilight zone between the material and spiritual worlds, inhabited by mayavadi demons, rascal scientists and other humbugsters, all merged into one homogeneous blob of liberated consciousness free from mayas of all flavor.

The concept of liberty should be understood as follows: All men have an inalienable right to pursue their lives as they see best, within the boundaries of law, and no-one has a right to restrict this without consent.

Families and other obligation-demanding social groups are generally founded on consentual agreement of cooperation for the attainment of a greater good. Otherwise, the concept of liberty is seen in effect for example as the rights for free speech and fair trial, which I'm sure we all appreciate.


Pursuit of Happiness

The final aspect, almost as if it were the factor giving a meaning for the rest, is an inalienable right to pursue happiness. Regrettably, the author seems to find no happiness in the world.

"Any enjoyment which arises from the touches of the senses are just sources of misery. They have a beginning and an end and thus a wise men does not rejoice in them." (Bhagavad Gita 5.22) 'This world is miserable and temporary.' (Bhagavad Gita 8.15) As the Christian founders of the American state must have known from the Bible, this is the valley of the tears.."

The concept of happiness does not, of course, entail only pleasures of the senses. For example, for Advaitadas pursuit of happiness would mean having a cozy small home, enough money to support himself, and peace to chant and meditate as he wishes. To others, there may be a wide array of sensual, intellectual, musical or political ventures equally meaningful.

If we were to not grant diverse individuals their inalienable rights for pursuing happiness, only the mainstream happiness would survive, and I very much doubt Advaita's flavor would survive. Whether or not each individual quest for happiness meets its end, and whether an unrelated theology favors it or not, everyone has a right to pursue their ideals.


Absolute and Accommodating Solutions

There are two approaches to managing the human situation, the absolute and the accommodating.

The absolute approach seeks the implementation of an infallible, unchanging truth, and with its establishment the coeffective elimination of lesser, relative solutions. Absolute truth evidently depends on the presence of an absolute truth-maker and truth-affirmer, and in theistic models where a deity is the ultimate affirmer, the presence of an absolute mediator. The utopian house of cards falls with the presence of asymmetric cards, the non-absolute and conditioned individuals, the subjects of a totalitarian regime.

The accommodating approach seeks to facilitate, rather than to control and manipulate, the diverse approaches to life and happiness in a manner that provides for smooth co-existence. Unlike the absolute, the accommodating is ever-evolving and never final, a relative solution tied with its times, never a final truth unto itself and for its own sake. While the absolute leaves no room for improvement by its very nature, the accommodating takes pride in its incompleteness, seeking perfection instead of declaring its presence.

Don't go looking for a solution you can worship. Look for a solution that works.

Buddha Blast: Conquering the Cosmic Winds

The following text originates in Maharatnakuta-sutra, an excerpt from the legend of Magician Bhadra's attainment of buddhahood. It holds interest in a number of ways, perhaps the most intriguing the highly superlative description of the Buddha's powers. The description is particularly fascinating in the light of the fact that neither the Buddha nor his followers ever declared him to be anything equivalent to a creator-god or other cosmic godheads or avatars, but rather depicted him as a man who worked his way up the cosmic ladder over eons and eons of time.

Extracted from Garma C.C. Chang's translation under the title "A Treasury of Mahayana Sutras", Motilal Banarsidass, 1991 (online). Subheadings mine. In contrast to the Pali scriptures, the Mahayana canon is decidedly more juicy and abundant in its descriptions of the Buddha, even if it causes the scene of the narratives to switch from a more history-flavored one into a world of magic and mysteries.

aṇor aṇīyān mahato mahīyān

ātmāsya jantor nihito guhāyām /
tama-kratuḥ paśyati vīta-śoko

dhātu-prasādān mahimānam ātman //

"Smaller than the smallest, greater than the greatest,
the self is hidden in the creature's heart.
Crosser of darkness, conqueror of pleasure and pain,
In elemental tranquility, he perceives the majesty of the self."

The anatman-doctrine (teaching of no permanent self) of the Buddhists notwithstanding, the narration that follows is almost a perfect commentary as if it were on this classic aphorism of Katha-upanishad (2.20), an early philosophical work seminal to the teachings of later Hindu philosophers. The exposition of ten cosmic wind wheels reflects the elemental principles of derivative causation found in both Buddhist and Taoist schools of metaphysical and analytical thought.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Powers of the Tathagata

When the magician saw that the World-Honored One had accepted his invitation, he thought, "Gautama does not know my intention; he is definitely not an All-Knowing One." Then he bowed and took his leave.

The Venerable Maudgalyayana was in the asembly at that time and saw what had happened. He approached the Buddha and said to him, "Bhadra intends to deceive the Tathagata and the monks. May the World-Honored One decline his invitation!"

The Buddha told Maudgalyayana, "Do not think in this way. Only those who have desire, hatred, and ignorance can be deceived, but I eradicated those defilements long ago, for I realized that not a single dharma ever arises. I have been firmly abiding in right action for many kalpas. How can anyone deceive me?

"Now, you should know that the magician does not perform real magic, but the Tathagata does. Why? Because the Tathagata realizes here and now that all dharmas are illusory. Even if all the sentient beings were as skilled in magic as Bhadra, all their magical powers combined could not compare with those of the Tathagata, even if their powers were multiplied by a hundred, a thousand, or any amount, numerical or figurative."

Producing Billion-world Universes

The Buddha asked Maudgalyayana, "What do you think? Can the magician magically produce a billion-world universe and magnificently adorn all of it?"

Maudgalyayana answered, "No."

The Buddha said, "Maudgalyayana, you should know that I can magically produce magnificently adorned worlds, as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, inside a hair's tip, and even this does not exhaust the Tathagata's miraculous powers.

The Great Cosmic Wind Wheels

"Maudgalyayana, you should know that there is a great wind-wheel called Breaker that can break a billion-world universe to pieces.
   "There is another wind wheel called Great Hurricane that can ruin worlds and then rebuild them.
   "There is another wind wheel called Propeller that can revolve worlds.
   "There is another wind wheel called Secure Abiding that can blow as high as the Akanistha Heaven.
   "There is another wind wheel called Scatterer that can whirl away and scatter Mount Sumeru, the Black Mountain, and other mountains.
   "There is another wind wheel called Fierce Flame that can blow fierce flames up to the Brahma Heaven during the raging conflagration at the end of a kalpa.
   "There is another wind wheel called Quencher that can quench the raging conflagration at the end of a kalpa.
   "There is another wind wheel called Cool that can cause a cloud to cover a billion-world universe.
   "There is another wind wheel called Universal Downpour that can pour down heavy rains on the worlds during the raging conflagration at the end of a kalpa.
   "There is another wind wheel called Drying Up that can dry up the spreading flood at the end of a kalpa. There are so many wind wheels that I could not finish enumerating them even if I spoke until the end of this kalpa. All this, Maudgalyayana, you should know.

Conquering the Great Wind Wheels

"What do you think? Can the magician dwell securely in any of these wind wheels for a moment?"

Maudgalyayana answered, "No."

The Buddha told Maudgalyayana: "The Tathagata can walk, stand, sit, and lie undisturbed in the wind wheels.  The Tathagata can also put those wind wheels into a mustard seed and display their motions without the mustard seed either expanding or contracting, and without the wind wheels in the seed obstructing each other. Maudgalyayana, you should know that the feats of magic accomplished by the Tathagata have no limit."

When the Venerable Maudgalyayana and the assembly heard the Tathagata's words, they were all overwhelmed by wonder and awe. They all bowed down before the Buddha and exclaimed in unison, "Because we have now met the great Teacher who has these awe-inspiring miraculous powers, we are greatly blessed. One who has the opportunity to hear of the wonderful miraculous powers of the Tathagata, the World-Honored One, and generates profound faith and understanding will certainly gain great blessings adn bring forth a vow to attain supreme enlightenment."

Mongolian Mystery Being

i have roamed the dark side of the moon

past the milky way on silver spoon

i have screened the texture of my brain

i have hardly ever gone insane

i am...

the mongolian mystery being

too fast to ever be seen

the ranger of deserted lands

master of infinite sands

i am coming to take you away,

to show you the way

cross arid and gray,

so what you say?

GeeVees - The Great Repercussion

The random audience has repeatedly sought my comments on diverse subjects related to the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition, of which I was a part in its several forms for well over a decade. This six-part series should contain most of the themes on my mind at the time of this writing, the outcome of countless nights of reflection, creative contrasting, recontextualization, and selective discarding or re-adaptation of old mental constructs.

• 00: Roots — On my background, on Gaudiya Vaishnavism, on the purposes of this series.
  
• The Nectar Name — Reflections on my experiences with chanting the name, subsequent experiences contrasted with other traditions.
• Ritual Culture — Integating into a native Gaudiya Vaishnava environment, mastering a culture of ritual purity and superstitions.
  
• Gopi Girls Forever — A gloss on the method of living in the "love land", reflections on its applications, psychological dimensions.
• Agamas and Sahajiya Roots — The natural human and the fundamental divinity of duality, heterodox roots of the methods of worship.
• Divinities and Tantric Buddhism — Archetypal deities and classical tantric deity practice, Tibetan Buddhist methods and theologies.
• The Human God — Dimensions of divinity, graded perceptions of dualistic, antropomorphic god and the dimension of nondual existence.
• Doctrinal Picks — Fundamentally valuable aspects in the Gaudiya Vaishnava doctrine, their universal application.

None of the essays that are to follow should be considered final in terms of research. Think of them as previews, alpha-version renderings of elaborate themes. I have no timeline for the current production, I work on pure inspiration. Bear with me and enjoy the ride.

Bihari Sandwich

The state of Bihar, bordered by two other ancient centers of religion, namely Uttar Pradesh in the west and Nepal in the north, was once a land of culture, learning and prosperity. In contemporary India, it has grown infamous for its crippled human and economic situation, resulting in wide-spread crime and corruption. Regrettably the following joke is politically incorrect.

While in Bodh Gaya, we stopped at a small café-restaurant for a snack — two cheese tomato sandwiches and a bottle of coke. It took a fair half an hour for the sandwiches to come around. Waiting for the meal, we went all philosophical and finally solved the grand riddle:

How many Biharis does it take to make a sandwich, and why does it take so long?

First Bihari takes the order.
Second Bihari checks the order against available ingredients.
Third Bihari goes to steal some toast.
Fourth Bihari goes to steal some tomatos.
Fifth Bihari goes to steal some cheese.
Sixth Bihari goes to steal some butter.
Seventh Bihari makes the sandwich.
Eighth Bihari steals the ready sandwich.
Ninth Bihari apprehends the sandwich thief.
Tenth Bihari begins to beat him up.
Eighth Bihari threatens to call the police.
Sixth and seventh Bihari laugh like never before.
Eighth Bihari bribes tenth Bihari to stop the beating.
Ninth Bihari insists on receiving a commission.
Eleventh Bihari recovers the sandwich and brings it to the counter.
Twelfth Bihari picks it up and serves it to your table.

The entire process takes twelve Biharis and thirty something minutes. The amount and value of ingredients may extend delivery time, as expensive ingredients may attract theft already in the production phase, and therefore lost ingredients need to sometimes be re-stolen before the meal can be completed.

Diwali for Shiva-Shakti

Stories on the background of the Diwali, or Deepavali, festival are manifold, and the celebration spans even across religions. For some, it's about Rama's return to Ayodhya. For others, it's about the killing of Narakasura. Many Hindus, especially in northern India, celebrate the birth of goddess Lakshmi with pompous festivities. For the Jains it marks the parinirvana of Tirthankar Mahavir, the last of their prophets, and for the Sikhs — how entertainingly typical — it's about their struggles and conquests.

A less known story is told in the Skanda-purana, the story of how Ardha-Narishvara, or the half-Shiva, half-Shakti deity, came to be. To become Shiva's half, the legend tells, Shakti undertook a 21-day austerity called Kedar-vrata, concluding with success and union on the Diwali day. A beautiful ancient temple of Ardha-Narishvara is found at Kedar Ghat in Varanasi, impregnated with some of the most intense energies I have ever experienced in a shrine.

Gangsta Man

Yeah
This is Ice-T
I'ma slow it down for a minute
I wanna talk to all the ladies out there
I got my man J-e-ll in the house
I got a message I wanna send out to all the fly ladies, yeah
Check me out

It's time for me to kick game
And if I can't do it, then ladies, Ice ain't my name
Now real brothers ain't easy to understand
And it's a long hard road to become a man

Drama seeks and chases him through every year
His homie dies, you might see him shed a tear
But mostly hardcore feelings are all you see
Cause you gotta be raw to be called a gee

But every man slows down
You'll see this side when there's probably no one around
And there's no safer place
Than if you ever are some gee's homebase
But it ain't easy, these brothers got barricades around the hearts
It's gonna take time before the trust starts

But girl, you must be true
Cause if your man's a gee, he'll definitely die for you
Look him deep in his eyes, let him know you're there
Show him that you really care
Trust me, you move with time
Through the darkened halls of his mind
You just might find

The me inside of a gangsta.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

— Ice-T: "Inside of a Gangsta"

Sampradaya Sunday

A certain person, in a certain discussion, quoted a classic verse (with typos and all):

sampradaya vihina ye mantraste nishphala matah
atah kalau bhavishyanti chattvara sampradaya
sri brahma rudra sanaka vaishnava kshiti pavana
chattvaraste kalau bhava hy utkale purushottaman.

"If one receives a mantra from someone who has no links to any one of the four sampradayas, then that mantra will have no effect. Therefore there will arise four sampradayas [ Sri, Brahma, Rudra, Kumara ] who will purify the whole world. These four sampradayas will originate from the influence of Lord Purushottama in the region of Utkala."

Stray verses like this are too many to poke my attention. But the simplistic summa summarum thrown at the end got me all going and wild. Hold on to your hats, gentlemen... Tsadada-da-da-daaah:

"So the only means to attain perfection is by following one of these 4 sampradayas, which are all Vaisnava-sampradayas. Sankaracharya didn't follow any of them, so how can he be a bona fide spiritual master?"

I would reply in greater detail if I were not at a net cafe and without my reference library. Bear with the shabby scribblings that follow.

The origins of this verse, attributed to Padma-purana, are dubious at best. As far as I recall, it is partially referenced in Jiva Gosvami's sandarbhas, and in full as above — I believe for the first time — in Baladeva Vidyabhushan's writings in the 1700-1800s. I'd have to look up the references, I remember spending some time tracking down the verse with some of its fellow peculiarities some years back.

Padma-purana itself is a treasure-house of interpolations, its different editions varying widely, and unsurprisingly some editions containing material essential to certain Hindu factions being published almost exclusively by them. Reportedly some renditions now even contain verses penned by Rupa Goswami, a 17th-century devotional theologian.

Let's anyhow accept the verse as valid and worth consideration, just for argument's sake. The four sampradayas there are said to be tied with Purushottama, or Vishnu. It is then hardly surprising if the said sampradayas are Vaishnava-sampradayas, no? Shankara also had a Vaishnava side to his personality, often unacknowledged, as it wasn't as overt as the emphasis of the personalists.

The verse doesn't however say, yasya panthaM, yasya satyaM, yasya jIvanaM vinA kenApi na gacchati, even if it is favorite ammunition among some sectarian Vaishnavas. It is not the way, the truth or the life of all spirituality. It merely attempts to systematize and legitimize the sects of a certain Hindu substratum, and bears little effect for the rest of Indic religious traditions.

A matter of great curiosity is the fact that the Madhva-sampradaya, to which the Gaudiyas profess belonging to, actually hails from the Hamsa-avatara as the root-teacher of their paramparas or disciplic lineages. They indeed would not credit the Gaudiyas as an orthodox branch if were to get down to the details of the Madhavendra-Lakshmipati connection, even if some courtesies are occasionally exchanged between the traditions.

The whole sampradaya and parampara facade is such a bottomless can of worms. It was best put by Todke Baba of Shivapuri when I asked of his sampradaya. "This sampradaya, that sampradaya. It yields but headache, disturbance and quarrels. Men waste their lives away in minute debates of doctrinal sophistry." I heartily agree with him.

If it works, then go for it, and do it. "Just do it." (Nike 3.14) There's little gain in dwelling in a state of spiritual stagnation while making oneself believe one is on a progressive path, clinging to the feeble straw of being legitimized and therefore insured by one's heritage. "Because it says so in the scriptures, and as I go through the prescribed motions, it follows I must be advancing and quite happy." For its not being so, for having to face that it doesn't add up, would amount to an existential crisis of cataclysmic dimensions.

Andaman Ananda

Most of our time at the Andamans so far has been spent relaxing and resting, we both took a pretty decent India crash with our health in the early September weather. Nice and cool hotel room, food from the hotel restaurant downstairs, cable TV and you're all set...

Last three nights have finally given both of us the kind of deep, almost comatose healing deep sleep you need to regain your health. Before that, most nights were half-slept and half lightly-slept, and not exactly our tickling each other all night long.

The environment and weather here are heavenly. Beautiful and totally perfect for what I need right now, and have in fact been needing for a long time now. It's "India Light" in a very scenic and functional setting, a very gentle climate and very pleasantly quiet.

We'll be spending a few more days at Port Blair, and then move onwards to cruising across the little islands around, and probably spending a bit more time at Little Andaman. I am under the assumption that there is no internet on the other islands.

Photos to follow if and when I get a chance to copy them over to a PC and sort them out. Guests interested in commenting can comment again.

Travel Summary

Long time, no writing at the blog... Short segments on each bit of the journey up to date, as follows.

Kathmandu to Varanasi

Booking bus tickets all the way, I assumed I'd be in for a smooth ride. Hell, it was anything but smooth! Bumpy for one, but the so-called change at the border was but a plain bad joke. The travel agent on the Nepal side handed me a ticket, a ticket I brought to the agent on the Indian side — to receive 172 rupees in cash for the bus ticket! A few hundred rupees were lost in pointless commissions, you could have just as well done everything yourself.

And the road from Gorakhpur to Varanasi is very, very, very bumpy. And coming down from the mountains, it was also pretty damned hot — I was sweating much more than my fair share during the 24 hours total that it took me to finally get to Varanasi.

Bom Bholenath

The ghats at Varanasi were totally flooded after the rainy season. There was no more walking 'round the ghats, up and down, and even the burnings at Manikarnika took place primarily on the roofs of buildings! I staid at the Shanti Guesthouse, a charming place right atop the ghat with a beautiful view of the Ganga, spending much of my time hanging around at the rooftop restaurant, chatting away my time with heaps of beautiful people, to be mentioned some other time with a bit more time and attention at my hands.

Delhi Seasons

Delhi, with the heat and the pollution, totally finished me off. I developed a mighty series of large boils atop my central belly and right collar bone, got a terrible dry cough, and spent 4-5 days in near 40 degree fever. In the magical Delhi, you get three seasons at once — the cold season of AC cooled subways and shops, the windy season of the cheap guesthouse fans with speed regulators defunct, and the humid and hot season in place otherwise. Does "floating pollutions" count for a season?

I spent the better part of a day at the Home Affairs Ministry extending my visa and entertaining the bureaucratic system with diverse curious forms and procedures, to be given a sealed letter at the end of the day, addressed to the Mathura F.R.O. office. Fortunately it contained a positive one-year extension decision, and made the visit to Mathura a very smooth and brief one.

Radhakund

My visit to Radhakund was pretty much a sneaking in and out, I really wasn't interested in any level of extended exchange with the folks there. Sakhicharan and Bisakha were kind enough to host me for a few nights, enough for me to get my practicalities done. And we enjoyed many a conversation, and we ate many platefuls of delicious kichari! To eat something plain and bland for change — what a tremendous pleasure and indulgence!

Curiously enough, on my way out I was greeted by Ishan who was on the way to the airport to pick up Babaji Maharaja, coming in from Kolkata, and got a ride to Delhi. (Obviously I left a generous donation for the gas.) How odd that our paths crossed so near without meeting — I had heard the other day that he'd be coming, but my schedule was just way too tight. I started writing a short letter in Bangla, but realized my written skills were just way too rusty to put anything intelligible together. For later, then.

Kolkata

The train from Delhi to Kolkata took a grand total of 38 hours!! Finally reaching Howrah at ten at night, I just floated to the first reasonable hotel listed at my Lonely Planet. Hotel Howrah — this old, grandiose building had evidently been at least a four star lounge back in its hay days, perhaps sometime in the fifties... Still offering rooms for decent prices — and excellent room service, meals to bed! — it's a pretty charming place, in fact. Charming enough to have kept me from hovering over to look for a place in the Park St. area where most folks seem to be staying.

Uma joined me on the 4th — without her luggage. One of those plane swaps had been just a little bit too tight, tight enough to leave the luggage stranded somewhere on the way. A few days of her goofing around with clothes I had in stock was worth the 4000 Rs. compensation, I suppose. It was fun all the same! We've been going around, visiting Kalighat and some of the other classic Kolkata sights, and much of the time just relaxing and enjoying each others' company — assuming it's mutual, that is!


Towards the Andamans

Tomorrow afternoon, a ship starts its 60 hour journey towards Port Blair. I am not expecting to have internet connections on the way, nor during most of the three weeks or thereabouts we'll be spending there, floating from island to island. Catch up with you a bit later — have good times!

And I am so going to be snorkling around the beaches!!

House at Radha-kunda - Sold

This property has been sold.

Devotees wishing to migrate to the most sacred corner of Braja Mandala will be happy to know of a beautiful spot and a house at Radhakund. Built in the spring of 2007, the house, with 220 square yards of land and a beautiful garden with good soil and sweet water is located a five minute walk away from the sacred ponds, near the water tanks.

The walled property is located on a walled area developed by Pal Babu, an elderly Bengali gentleman, investor and a long-time devotee. Ideal for devotees owing to strict standards on to whom the land is sold, you can expect to live in a peaceful environment full of devotees, aloof from the often chaotic local suburbs, protected by heavy three-meter walls and a high iron gate.

The house consists of a kitchen, a bedroom, a basement, and an external toilet-bathroom combo, total building area being around 80+ y2. There's space for building a 12 y2 room atop the large basement, a blessing in the hot summer season. The basement needs to be revamped to handle the peak of the rainy season. No pipes or water pumps have been installed, but aren't a major expense if you need a bit of extra convenience. We've been quite content with the hand pump!

Purchased in November 2005 for 1200 Rs / y2, the price has soared to double in two and half years, and can be easily expected to double again in the next two years. The land market is hot at the moment — in a few years prices will be in the Vrindavan range and good locations hard to find.

The property is modestly priced at 900,000 INR or 14,000 EUR in a place where surrounding areas of land has still a steeper price. Possibilities for payment in installments are available — ask me or make a suggestion!

Pictures of the house and a Google Map are available at my Picasa Web Albums: http://picasaweb.google.com/ananda.loponen/RadhaKundaHouse . A good aerial view of the area is available at Vraja Journal: http://vrajajournal.gaudiya.com/area/ongoing/Photos_of_the_Land

Further inquiries may be sent to malatilata@gmail.com and ananda.loponen@gmail.com (please include both). Malati is currently living in the house and available to show it around for interested visitors.

Commenting

Commenting rights have now been limited to registered users only. I am about to travel, and the blog doesn't deserve to be a playground for the wanking of obsessed, anonymous degenerates. Apologies to all substantial commenters effected by the change.

Maya

embarking on a journey
a journey to the sky
on silver wings of angel craft
god taught me how to fly

whispers in the wilderness
in love with deep blue sky
i kiss the flower pollen sweet
to yonder worlds i fly

puzzled by the world of men
so different from my sky
concrete buildings, bars of steel
so sad, they'll never fly

nature is my summerlands
plants and sapphire sky
rosy gardens ruby red,
emerald fields to fly

a honey bee of innocence
a daughter of the sky
mother nature's virgin girl
so blissful when i fly...

Synergetic Angel Symposium

the confederation of angels has assembled;
it seems that the nations of the world are finally at peace;
memories of the days mankind lived in harmony are rekindled;
a beautiful nostalgia, the ancestors are dancing once again...

the spacious assembly hall is full;
chairman gabriel is giving his well-prepared speech;
rumor has it that god helped him sketch the outline;
sentient beings applaud the deeply illuminated speech.

lobbying is over, the time for action is at hand;
it has been resolved that flowers be planted everywhere;
a task-force is in place for re-establishing mountain streams;
and a crew has been dispatched to clean the stratosphere.

a new era of bliss and celebration unfolds;
celestial bodhisattvas have flown to their quarters;
son of man has left for his kingdom in a chariot of fire;
and the ancient sufi masters are playing their last lullaby...

the pestilence of worlds is gone;
mankind has finally been cured of its obsessive cravings;
lust, hatred and delusion are now bizarre tales the grandfathers tell;
harmony prevails, there is now a foundation for universal peace.

Kathmandu Friends

One of the beautiful aspects of Kathmandu is the constant flow of beautiful people you come across. In the sketch above, Shantiwale Tokyo Baba from around Badrinath. He spent months sitting at the Berlin Wall before it was finally torn down.

My experiences in the Vaishnava world led me to an almost xenophobic state, ready to give up my hope in humanity. My experiences here have revitalized the hope, rekindling a spark of trust in a fundamental potential for goodness.

The curious can skim over my FaceBook KTM Friends album for a few memories from this part of the world.

Three Paths, Three Phases

— Psychological Archetypes on the Way to Enlightenment —

Historically speaking, the Buddhist tradition has evolved over three distinct phases, namely Hinayana, Mahayana and Vajrayana. The base natures of the three traditions hold interest far beyond matters of history and schools of philosophy. They represent three sequential archetypes of psychological evolution.

Hinayana - The Small Journey

In the immediate centuries following the Buddha, his teachings were embraced by eighteen schools, filed under the collective Hinayana-heading. Sautrantikas, Sarvastivadins, Pudgalavadins and the rest are now little but marks on the leaves of history. Vibhajjavada, later identified as Theravada and preserved in Sri Lanka, is the only surviving school of old Buddhism.

The Hinayana-school, or Southern Buddhism, is primarily concerned with the eradication of individual suffering. Loathsomeness of the body, death-contemplations, understanding of impermanence and non-self, and diverse meditational methods for concentration and introspection, are some of its founding pillars.

This path or phase is primarily concerned with strong individual discipline, relying on the individual's efforts to ensure his own salvation. The least religious form of Buddhism, and quite possibly in its earliest days more of a psychological than a spiritual system, Hinayana represents the stage of isolating and gaining control.

On a journey towards god or enlightenment, each individual - regardless of the tradition - must first cross the small journey, transforming anarchy and chaos into control and tranquility. It is essentially a phase of withdrawal and implosion, an elimination of the field of experience and a dive into nirvana the tranquil, a state of eternal peace.

Mahayana - The Grand Journey

Its roots in the early schisms between the Sthaviras (Theras) or elders, and the Mahasamgikas or the greater assembly, Mahayana or Northern Buddhism grew to be the prominent among the two offshoots of Shakyamuni's establishment. Its emphasis was deeper on the ethereal and illusory nature of existence, with Nagarjuna presenting his Madhyamika-philosophy and refining the concept of emptiness (shunyata), and his rivals from the Yogachara-school and the teaching of one mind (citta-matram).

This path or phase is, in contrast to the individual salvation of the Hinayanists, more concerned with compassion and universal salvation. Mahayana is characterized by acts of extensive kindness and the Bodhisattva-way of seeking to liberate all sentient beings. Contrary to the self-reliant Hinayana, it recognizes a multitude of heavenly Buddhas with their own enlightenment-heavens or pure lands, featuring even schools where salvation is attained merely by calling out for the Buddhas with unswerving faith.

Having gained control of anarchy and established a serene platform, one embarks on the greater journey of a sacrificing the ego on the altar of the universe, eliminating the trouble-maker not with infinite, concentrated implosion, but rather through infinite and unconditional expansion. The subsequent vastness of open space provides a platform on which reality can finally be confronted and experienced still - rather than running away from it or towards it.

Vajrayana - The Diamond Journey

A later growth from the Mahayana-tradition amalgamating tantric and shamanistic elements, Vajrayana was introduced to Tibet in the eight century by Padmasambhava, a tantric master from India. The tradition employs a multitude of esoteric and magical deity-practices and visualizations as its methods of transcending the human ego.

This path or phase, contrary to classical Hinayana and Mahayana, neither runs away from or towards the world. Vajrayana embraces the base nature of the world, removing fear of interaction by a skillful reconciliation of plurality and action with the base of emptiness. An entire pantheon of enlightened archetypal deities is utilized for inner cultivation.

Having gained control through contraction and expanded infinitely through compassion, one now finds an open field of stillness on which the flavors and textures of the manifest world can be experienced, and indeed even indulged in, without a sense of ego-identity and the subsequent bondage. At this stage, the world is no longer an alien domain calling for positive or negative reaction - it has transformed into an enlightened field of infinite play.

Three Paths, Three Archetypes

These three traditions, Hinayana, Mahayana and Vajrayana, represent three archetypal stages everyone will have to cross in reconciling their relationship with perceived reality. Initially, there is the running away. Then, there is the running towards. Finally, there is the stillness in which reality is experienced in its own saturated, yet plain nature - a state described as vajra-sattva by some, a crisp and pristine level of penetrating diamond-clarity.

Even if the three stages are sequential and inherently interconnected, they represent very distinct emphases. An unprepared leap from one to the other, lacking a sufficiently matured psychological platform, will easily lead to an internal dead end. On a journey, one considers not the distance traveled as a measure of success - motion and evolution define the success of an ongoing journey, regardless of the specific distance crossed in the ongoing process of advancement.