Isa Masaha: The Holy Man West of Tibet

Yesterday's Jesus as Isa is a pair calling for explanation. This article explores the Jesus featured in a peculiar account of an old Hindu scripture, where Jesus is featured as a sage with a golden glow, clad in white robes, living in western Tibet in the years following his preaching of dharma among "uncultured civilizations" — the lands of the Mlecchas.

While the authenticity of the narration in the Bhavishya-purana is questionable, it is nevertheless worth studying to gain insight into the blending of Jesus Christ and the Dharmic religions. The topic of the Jesus of Aquarian Gospel and his possible travels across India is somewhat outside the scope of this article, written merely in explaining the word Isa and commenting on apocryphal references to Jesus found in Hindu scriptures.

"Shrine of Hazrati Yousa Asouph" — believed by some to be Jesus' tomb in Kashmir.
For more information, see Flickr photos and The Tomb of Jesus Christ Website.

In Arabic (and Qur'an), Jesus is known as Īsā, the al-Masīḥ one of his frequent titles. "He is also a word from God and a spirit from Him." He is also called Yasu in Arabic speaking countries, much like people in India call him Yeshu or Ishu, and many others in their own variants by culture and language.

Some versions of Bhavishya-purana ("Ancient Text of Future"), a popular Hindu text of uncertain origins, have an account of a great sage known as Isa Masaha. The Bhavishya-purana itself is largely in the "Hindu Apocrypha" department, in the body of texts that are somewhat canonized, but in many cases either entirely of more recent origin, or substantially enlarged by later authors over the centuries.

A persian miniature of Jesus / Isa
giving the famous Sermon on the Mount

The word Isa is also an often-used short form of the Sanskrit word Isvara, "Master" or "God", not unlike the word "Lord" in English and Christian usage. In a curious parallel, the word "Father" is "isä" in Finnish; also used for the Father-aspect of the Trinity: Isä, Poika and Pyhä Henki. For a Wisdom Wheel parallel: Yang: Creator, Father/Heaven; Yin: Neutralizer, Son/Lamb/Earth; Wuji: Nondual, Uncreated Holy Spirit. We are dealing with universals, once again.

The word "isä" in Finnish comes from Proto-Uralic ičä;  while Uralic languages are not directly related to Indo-European languages (such as Sanskrit and Latin), the two have shared plenty of terrain and culture with the Aryan languages over the millennia. (This is why even a language as peculiar as Finnish has some uncanny similarities with a wide range of European and Indic languages.)

It's more than likely that texts like Bhavishya-purana have been altered (read: critique that prompted this write-up) — whether by Christian missionaries eager to establish a predating legacy of Jesus for the Hindus, or by Hindus themselves in an attempt to absorb the emerging spread of Christianity under their syncretic umbrella. For reference, the relevant passage is in Bhavishya-purana, Catur-yuga Khanda, Second Adhyaya. (Link to text. The transliteration and translations there are sloppy, but sufficient to understand the meaning in the original.)

The following are summary notes of the text and the discussion of Isa Masaha and king Shalivahana, taking place following Jesus' years of preaching in the distant lands:

• Describes himself as Isa-putra (Son of Isa or God) and Kumari-garbha-sambhava (Begotten of virgin womb).
• Lives on a mountain in Western Tibet near Mount Kailash and Manasarovara (Hunadesh: Lands of the Huns).
• Acted as a teacher of dharma to the Mlecchas (barbarians and uncultured people outside Vedic civilization).
• Became Masiha (messiah) to dissipate the spread of the fearsome religions by the uncivilized, who had lost the way of the truth.

In the text, Isa presents to king Shalivahana (c. 78-102 CE) a summary of the principles of dharma he taught  (verses 27-30) for people, whose pure way had become corrupted over time:

1. The mind should be made pristine.
2. Embodied beings are subject to good and bad taints.
3. Abolishing sacrifices, one should pray in highest pristinity.
4. As duty and in thoughts one should speak the truth.
5. In contemplation one should worship the Lord, established in the Solar Field, the Immovable Master himself, everywhere like the light of the Sun.
6. Having the Lord firmly manifest in the heart leads to everlasting purity and welfare.
7. "In this way, my name came to be established as Isa Masiha (Jesus Messiah)."

While not exactly a reflection of the entirety of the key teachings in the Gospel (in that they omit the central teaching of love), these teachings are certainly very much in line with the spirit of the original teachings of Jesus. Also, the connection of Isa/Father as the Prime Solar Force goes well with my Wisdom Wheel model in contextualizing Christian triune theology with other cosmologies — something for another day.

The characterization of Christianity as the religion of the Mlecchas, or uncivilized barbarians, isn't particularly complementary — while certainly an accurate description from the Brahmana point of view, where people living in deserts were regarded as being of sinful birth, lacking in culture of purity and as such ineligible to study the finer truths of theology and philosophy. If this were the handicraft of a Christian missionary, I would have expected a more complementary spin to the story.

It would be interesting to read the text in its entirety at some point. Overall, the Puranas — including Bhagavata, which is relatively late — are in the habit of listing chronologies of rulers in a future tense, when the narration is placed into anciety. For reference, see the 12th book of Bhagavata-purana. The correlative tables I have drafted for some of these lists make for a reasonable match with the actual names and sequences in history, reaching well into the common era — as with king Shalivahana (Gautamiputra Satakarni), a historical ruler of the Satavahana empire who is told here to have met Jesus the Messiah.

Still, many fundamentalists subscribe to the idea of such texts being 5,000 years old in their current form, believing them to be literal and detailed predictions for some 4,000 years into the future. I'd take it all with a grain of salt when it comes to claims to the ancience of Indic scriptures from the believers — or any other scripture with an uncanny level of specific detail for a  "prediction" of the future for that matter.

Predictions are based on enlightened and inspired observation and intuition of the patterns and undercurrents of the world, and are therefore by definition more abstract in nature. They are also not a proof of anything else than of themselves — they certainly do not validate a number of other unrelated claims heard in the same general direction.

Whatever the historicity of all these predictions may be, let's remember the gist of the lesson to be learned: Great teachers and prophets do not concern themselves with the particularities of the future, they address the problems of the humanity here and now. The thought of a salvation is a slim joy if the primal peace of the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven is absent from within you during your lifetime.

On that note, souls in the Kingdom of Heaven do not wave the flag of Israel or the insignia of any collective of people on Earth, whether crosses and crucifixes or wheels of dharma. They live in both immanence and transcendence, dwelling in an absolute state of pristinity within — whatever the path they may have followed in reaching that supreme peaceful and enlightened destination of the heart.

Power Mantras for Healing the World (C.M. Labs)

This is an offbeat prelude to the world of mantras. Stay tuned for an upcoming article studying the mechanics and effects of diverse mantras on the many layers of the human mind, studied parallel to computer CPU architecture for a clear point of reference and technical illustration.

∋ HH Imposter Kapila 1 ∈

Many meditative traditions know how to cook up new power mantras with archetypal vibrations revealing the true nature of reality. Authentic sages with original mountain powers are supremely eminent and certified mantra-formulators by virtue of their virtue of formulative ability. Sometimes the sages issue new mantras to remedy the downward course of the degraded human civilization.

The following global mantra-formulae are forged and guaranteed for beneficial public practice by Imposter Kapila 2.0 of Cosmic Mantra Laboratories with great inner sanctimony and pontifness. These self-effulgent mantras should be venerated with the highest transcendental spuriosity and awesomeness.

|| oṁ para-mana-tāraṇaṁ maraṇa-kāraṇaṁ paramaṁ soma-samaṁ ||

Global Seed Mantras for Universal Powers

Cosmic Mantra Laboratories of Himalayan juggernaut fame is proud to present the following seed mantras for the prevailing powers for healing the world. These mantras are presented as the result of years of relentless research and development in transmutating the very fabric of existence.

► उसों - Usommmmm... U.S.: We're all on the same planet here you know!
► एउओं - Euommmmm... EU: Oopsie daisie it goes: Euh, Om, and Amen!
► नोओं - Nooommm... North Korea: Noooo... hmmm... noooo... hmmm....
► फ्रों - Frommmmm... France: Finish with "...mage" to conclude the meal.
► सौहं - Soouhmmmm... Soviet Union: Sooo... uhmmmm...: "I am that"?
► रों - Rommmmm... Italy: Drinks for Vatican clergy and Berlusconi.
► उम्ं - Ummmmm... U.K.: Seriously, a fat and loud "Ummmmmm"!
► जपों - Japommmm... Japan: Lit. "Chant Om" and the robots roll on.
► इङ्म्ं - Imnmmmm... India: I'm Incredible Impossibly Impenetrable India.
► छां - Chammmm.... China: "Cham" is archaic for (Genghis) Khan.
► श्वींङ् - Swinnngggg... Sweden: Austin Powers special mojo mantra.
► फिं - Fimmmmm... Euro/Finland: Finnish Markka and less foreign bills!
► सुॐ - Suommmmm... Suomi/Finland: "Good Om" for good vibrations!
► ॐ - Ommmmmmm... Omni: Real cosmic deal beyond time and space.

Chanting these mantras will undoubtedly help the world powers in understanding their true inner nature and the necessary future course of action in creating a better and brighter world for everyone. Union-wide standardization of national mantras is expected to advance in the ongoing EU plenary session in Strasbourg, France. ॐ फ्रों फ्रोमगे हूं.

I-T-P: Incantate, Transmutate, Prosper. Chant for a better tomorrow!

Localization: Mantras in Research & Development

We did not include Denmark in the above list in fear of sounding derisive or apocalyptic. It would have been ► दं - Dammmmm... Goes with ► दूं - Dummmmm for Dutch, the other super-flat land in Europe that needs to keep Poseidon at bay. (Chant ► पों - Pommmmm for recurring economical low tide.) These mantras may or may not be authorized for general public chanting, pending further clinical and neuropathological trials.

Other mantras still in research and development:

► ब्रं - Brammmm... Brazil: Samba carneval shakti mantra.
► बुं - Bummmmm... Bulgaria: Still fixing up the finances.
► फ्लं - Flammmm... Belgium + Flemish: More fuel for the flames.
► गें - Gemmmmm... Germany: Cutting edge industrial productivity.
► हूं - Hummmmm... Hungary: Humming towards Europe again.
► जां - Jammmmm... Jamaica: The official Iron Lion Zion mantra.
► सं - Sammmmm... Sahara + Saudi-Arabia: For some more sand.
► स्पं - Spammmm... Spain + South America: Major global spam producers.
► स्फीं - Swimmmm... Switzerland: Floating in the stormy European ocean.
► तां - Tammmmm... Taleban: U.S. composed military taming mantra.

Of the above mantras in works, Brazilia, Jamaica and Switzerland are good to go public and global anytime. The positive effects of the rest are still under scrutiny in our underground cognitive laboratories. We care for the condition of your mind and issue our mantras in a spirit of global responsibility, respecting universal happiness, good environmental standards, and those who respect those, who respect these.

World Powers: Localized Root Invocation Mantras

In practice, the universal seed-mantras can be combined with appropriate local magic invocations like "Aaccchaacchaa", "Perkele", "Yeehaa" or "Bonkers" for enhancing a sense of tribal commonality. When combined, they result in the following root-mantras or exhaustive straight invocations for the prevailing state of affairs:

► उसों यीहा - Usommmmm Yeehaa! · U.S.
► एउओं स्तन्देर्ध्स - Euommmmm Standards! · EU
► नोओं सोङ्ग - Nooommmm Soong! · North Korea
► फ्रों चुएस्तशेकेसे - Frommmmm Qu'est-ce Que C'est? · France
► सौहं स्पसिबपेरेस्त्रोइक - Soouhmmmm Spasiba Perestroika? · Soviet Union
► रों चोसनोस्त्र दि मएस्त्रो - Rommmm Cosa Nostra Di Maestro? · Italy
► उम्ं बोन्केर्स - Ummmmmmm Bonkers! · U.K.
► जपों फुजिक्योतोबोत्सन - Japommmmm Fujikyotobot-san! · Japan
► इङ्म्ं आच्छाच्छा - Imnmmmmm Accchaacchaaa!? · India
► छां छिङ्गशङ्गगोङ्ग्फु - Chammmm Ching Shang Gongfu!! · China
► श्वींङ् हेजसन - Swinnnggggg Hejsan! · Sweden
► फिं वीदूनौत् कोमेन्त - Fimmmmm Vii Duu Nöt Komment. · Euro/Finland
► सुॐ सिसुकस पेर्केले - Suommmmm Sisukas Perkele! · Suomi/Finland

Cosmic Mantra Laboratories recommends using the short seed mantras as primary devices for personal and cosmic transformation. The short universal mantras leave a healthier universal imprint, free from the constraints of national peculiarities. They also clutter your environment with less tribal residue and prevent fires arising from the friction of juxtapositionally vibrating tribes with diverging fundamental invocations of exhaustive intent. Remember to chant your mantras diligently to keep the cosmos humming.

Lord Blogannatha Svami rewards diligent chanters with supreme happiness!

Output of the India Years (MPI 50)

Project manager profile in 2007.

As I've worked further towards a synthesis of my experiences and accumulated skills from over the years in Hindu and Buddhist circles, it's clear that with sufficient abstraction all scenarios and their dynamics can be pooled into a symmetric set of multi-field expediency, also in diverse business and technology contexts.

Engaged in diverse projects in diverse groups, the unifying environment across the board has been one of intense focus and dedication to improving and perfecting one's accomplishments, while acting a carefully tailored frame of mind. When you do things for a holy purpose and it reflects on your entire existential status, motivation for getting the job done properly and thoroughly is naturally available. Moreover, when you are meticulous with every emerging detail, things tend to get done very efficiently.

Here's how the net total reads when distilled into additions to my professional CV, and you are allowed to tell me to shove it because I'm so full of it. In my world, everything is in perpetual beta regardless. [People interested in networking can look me up with the full CV at LinkedIn.]

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Form = Emptiness and the
Meaning of Three Fingers

Summary and Specialties

I have a long and solid background in Hindu, Buddhist and Oriental studies and associated meditative and cultivation disciplines, along with parallel research into psychology and general-purpose applications of their diverse methodologies, also in business and technological environments.

On the creative and alternative side, I have a definite personal and professional interest in deep aesthetics, expressive photography and innovative media, ayurveda and natural medicine, activism for good causes, and a general love for symmetry fueled by all these years.

Language skills: Native fluency in Finnish and English, major French and English with minor Swedish at school, good modern/classical Bengali, practical Hindi, philosophical Sanskrit and Pali interpretation, working  knowledge of several other Indic, Nordic and Romance languages and related writing systems.

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My early years with the Hare Krishnas, all the ding-ding notwithstanding, did provide me with a very useful and versatile environment for developing diverse skills and accumulating valuable experience on several fields. "Service is good for you", they say for karma-yoga. Even while the basic intention of the said service is of course to advance development of inner virtue, it's hard to escape the practical market realities in sales and missionary work.

ISKCON: Sales / Marketing / Communication / Technology
Religious Institutions industry, Marketing and Advertising industry
June 1995 – January 2000 (4 years 8 months)

Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International: Book and CD sales, direct marketing. Sales team leader, trainer, manager and cashier (1999), sales accounting, . Personal rapid marketing to diverse age and industry target groups. implementation of innovative direct consumer cold lead sales strategies for fast sales results for groups and other high-yield audience connectivity scenarios.

Library and store bulk sales, event sales booth presentations, sales material arrangements and stock control. Customer follow-up and ethical sales development for customer post-sale satisfaction and returning business, internal law and organizational structures. Projections for on-road stocks with overhead for unexpected sales on the basis of past sales volume by season, location, team members, and revenue requirements.

Dramatic highlight from diverse
more and less strange projects

Department and project leadership, talks and lectures, congregation expansion models, cell group organization, education and consultation,  audio archive organization and source material networking, community management and conflict resolution, event organization and promotion, periodic internal upskilling in management and sales seminars, scalable on-road and large catering cooking and organization skills, dramas and scripts.

Poster/brochure design, prepress and promo material printing, e-communication, Internet, Telnet and BBS systems, textual research and language studies, personal web projects and other computer work. Communication and coordination across heavily hierarchical and often archaic multi-level managerial and advisory structures in national and global scope; success in a highly demanding environment.

Modeling and implementation of philosophical and operative formulas in practical contexts; mental training and discipline to sustain functionally desirable perspectives across environments. Deep philosophical research on practical and metaphysical causation, causal chains and causal combinatorics, and derived practical projections and mental projection models.

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The second related entry is a combination of web freelance work and involvement in the diverse aspects of Swami B.V. Narayana's international movement and related websites, publishing, propaganda, and congregational work.

Freelance / GVS: Developer / Designer / Promoter / Organizer
Information Technology and Services industry, Publishing industry
June 1999 – January 2002 (2 years 8 months)

International Ali Baba
of Propaganda Work

Freelance: Small/medium business websites, basic eCommerce solutions, CMS customization and simple custom CMS prototyping and deployment, brochure sites and home pages, graphics and content production, web software modification, CMS and publishing systems testing and deployment, miscellaneous scripts and utilities, personal and volunteer NGO website projects. Self-directed learning through tutorials, manuals and professional collaboration.

GVS: Desktop publishing, translation and editing, brochures and promotion, general prepress work and on-demand click-print mass publishing, community management, event organization, lectures and seminars, tutorials and study materials preparation and production, audio archival and associated online resources, e-book library compilation, organization and material production, promotional writing, miscellaneous research, resource sites and general propaganda strategy.

Collaboration and pioneer work with Gaudiya Vedanta Publications in editing, layout, custom fonts and general prepress, parallel with independent startup publishing, distribution and sales models and trials. International Gaudiya Vedanta Society congregational organization, engagement continuity cultivation, market expansion strategy and public representation. International networking and strategic think-tanking for exchange of ideas and effective outreach across mixed target groups.

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Here are the years I spent divided between Finland and India while digging deeper into the ancient traditions, producing associated services and resources, and providing diverse consultation, research papers, and community organizational support for a small global audience. Total 50 individual and indexed projects.

Sri Krishna Chaitanya Shastra Mandir: Editor / Translator / Research / Archival / Prepress / Project Manager
Publishing industry
February 2002 – August 2007 (5 years 7 months)

Radhakund CPP (Chief
Production Professor)

Manager for Sri Krishna Chaitanya Shastra Mandir global and local publications in English, four produced and mass-printed books with matching e-book versions, general production management.

Author and producer for general digest e-books and websites [Gaudiya.com], translation [Sanskrit and Bengali to English and Finnish] and integrity verification, direct clarifications with original author, general proofreading, manuscript organization and archival work, historical and doctrinal research and exegesis, research papers and general queries, abstracted information storage and applications, synthesis and systematization of scattered source texts.

Desktop publishing, printing press contacts and production supervision, website design, copywriting and development, wiki logging and encyclopedic collaboration, cross-referenced multilingual databases and reference tools development, shared authoring models and workflow conceptualization, small-scale website networking and centralized search engine infrastructure.

Lots of this in sorting the
head into good order.

Communications and consultation, local and virtual community management, miscellaneous research and writing, source material hunt and digitization, fund raising strategies, education and seminars, audio/video recording and media archival projects, video editing and advanced DVD authoring, environmental projects.

Founder of associated Lake of Flowers Productions providing 100+ GB of free multimedia online. Former president and executive project manager for Gaudiya Kutir, a budding non-profit organization with audience and contributions from people in the Americas, Europe, and India, working towards syndicating and organizing dozens of related projects and agendas.

Freelance / SKCSM: Madhavananda Project Index
Published URL: http://md.gaudiya.com/

The MPI is an exhaustive personal project index covering a total of six years of research and 50 individual projects undertaken

Collecting and archiving
audio/video at events.

and brought to various stages of completion, managed from both Finland and India. Further published works and productions are included in the combined portfolio and task tracker portal. A good deal of the related resources were acquired in collaboration with Sri Krishna Chaitanya Shastra Mandir and associated helpful people. Much of the production cycle and related adventures were also documented and archived online in substantial detail with photos [Vraja Journal].

Among others: Archival work, book publishing and prepress, printing and e-books, multi-project environment management, construction and rural property development, dozens of networked website projects, classes and seminars, language tools and localization, local and virtual community management, community think-tanks and study groups, promotion and study materials, tutorials and manuals, standards research and establishment, resource networking and project support, lecture podcasting and media production, 10000+ organized photos, server administration, software development, etc.

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The following initiatives grew out of this abundant pool of projects and enthusiasm. While the limited amount of available project participants and material resources limited the expansion of operations to an unfortunate degree, two out of the following three major initiatives are still alive and well, continuing to serve a global audience with diverse informative, cultural, religious and academic resources.

Lake of Flowers Productions: Director / A/V Recorder and Producer / Systems and Infrastructure
Publishing industry
March 2002 – Present (8 years 8 months)

Lake of Flowers Productions was in its prime between 2005 and 2007, producing and publishing online a total of 100.8 GB of audio recordings and edited video footage, and photographed and archived thousands of high-quality photos. Presently in archival mode, the site is supported by ads and donations, and continues to serve out free media indefinitely. As of October 2010, 27 TB of tracked media have been downloaded.

The storage and online file serving solution was provided with support from the Internet Archive (Archive.org) and their petabyte project, as free availability of high-quality media and cultural history was a shared agenda. In-house developed tools for connecting with the Internet Archive server networks made the operation silk smooth. Footage from the archives has been featured on Comedy Central's The Daily Show and in numerous independent productions.

Areas of work: A/V recording, equipment screening, testing and purchase, A/V editing and post-processing, codec, compression and storage solutions, scripted processing, online infrastructure, networked resources, peer-to-peer media distribution models, scripted image and metadata archiving, A/V versioning and archiving, web development, online archive scripts and tools, DVD authoring and production, general design, prepress and print, newsfeeds and podcasting, open-source audio/video tools

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Gaudiya Grantha Mandira: Developer / Digitizer / Systems Provider
Libraries industry
February 2002 – Present (8 years 9 months)

Software and technical solutions provider, text digitization and transliteration with Gaudiya Grantha Mandira, a non-profit initiative founded by professors Jan Brzezinski and Neal Delmonico for digitizing, transliterating, and eventually translating ancient and medieval Sanskrit and Bengali texts as a free public service.

The current library hosts almost 600 previously unavailable texts in diverse formats for both academic research and seekers of wisdom, provides an additional platform for collaboration, and a well-rounded set of free tools for converting text between all common transliteration schemes and associated Indic scripts.

Some initiatives, like a semantic markup language for automated text processing, cross-referencing and miscellaneous notation, an abstracted data storage system for bibliographies and metadata cross-referencing of categorized shorter texts, and an advanced full-text library search engine, are still in the air pending more resources and volunteer participation.

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Gaudiya Kutir: President / Project Director / PR / Networking / Systems and Infrastructure
Non-Profit Organization Management industry
June 2005 – June 2007 (2 years 1 month)

The Gaudiya Kutir was a syncretic networking initiative to advance availability of information and resources on cultural, meditative and religious traditions from medieval Bengal. With agendas for I. Education, II. Preservation, III. Celebration, IV. Facilitation, and V. Outreach, it aimed for a broad field of activities and global expansion. I contributed as founding member and VP (later President), community leader, project manager, systems developer, and resources producer.

The organization sought to pool volunteer resources and ongoing projects under one roof, providing synergy, contacts and additional resources to efforts with parallel interests and potential. With over a dozen major internal projects and assistance for numerous independent initiatives, it successfully disseminated information and provided resources to a small but growing global audience. In absence of sufficient supporting interest and funding, the project was gradually frozen, and contingencies were shaped for the initiatives to continue independently.

Activities: project organization, human and material resource management, volunteer management, local and virtual community development, lectures and seminars, educational initiatives, copywriting and press releases, promotional materials, server infrastructure, material and resource development, event organization, social media and networking, networked websites, software development, project consultation, audience activation initiatives, translation and interpretation

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Finally, below is the conclusion of the diverse business work I somehow managed to somehow accomplish in between the cracks to keep bread and butter on the table, parallel to all the religious, cultural, internal and mystical ventures oriented for broadening my overall perspectives.

CodeWallah: Developer / Designer / Project Organizer
Internet industry
October 2004 – February 2009 (4 years 5 months)

Fixing things up for
people in need..

The two final years of the CodeWallah phase went largely off the grid across India and Nepal in search of the ultimate code and the patterns of a grand paradoxical abstraction, with periodic meditation retreats and seclusion, general free wandering on foot, entertaining villagers, publishing blogs, photos, doodles, poems, serious news and editorials, and hacking in a random client update at times of electricity and "available" business time in a cyber-café somewhere down the lane.

Wandering with native and foreign
holy men of many denominations

In Nepal, I worked with two environmental/educational NGOs and an orphanage, providing marketing and networking help, volunteer organization, manual labor, technical solutions, food, and organization structuring help on a volunteer basis.

Somewhere down the line I first grasped that strange unifying light atop the yonder mountain peaks after muttering too many mantras, studying too many books, casting too many spells, hoping too many hopes, dreaming too many dreams, and walking way too many miles both physically as well as far far down the rabbit hole and back again.

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kaccin nobhaya-vibhraṣṭaś chinnābhram iva naśyati |
apratiṣṭho mahā-bāho vimūḍho brahmaṇaḥ pathi || BG 6.38

Arjuna: "O Mighty-Armed One, would one not fall from both spiritual and material, as a torn cloud perishes without any foundation, if he is bewildered on the path to transcendence?"

pārtha naiveha nāmutra vināśas tasya vidyate |
na hi kalyāṇa-kṛt kaścid  durgatiṁ tāta gacchati || BG 6.40

Krishna: "O son of Pritha, whether in this or the yonder worlds, he is not destroyed; for one who is a doer of good will never attain a foul destination."

Reincarnation Illustrated

If you ever meet a Hare Krishna devotee pushing books on a street corner, this is the general picture you will get about karma and reincarnation, and the need to break free from the cycle of transmigration.

Here's  they forget to tell you when they are recruiting you into the ranks — until it's too late... Caveat emptor!

"I'm a tweet wittow biwd in a diwded cage; Tweety'th my name but I don't know my age. I don't have to wuwy and dat is dat; I'm tafe in hewe fwom dat ol' putty tat."

Tweety knows the deal, and this indeed becomes the natural position of a living entity in the Hare Krishna movement. Mind you, on this one I can really say that I've been there and done that!

Raganuga.Com Audio Archives

The audio archives of the now retired Raganuga.Com are available for download at The Internet Archive:

Raganuga.Com Audio Archives

The download area contains all materials hosted under the lectures (patha) and songs (kirtana) sections of the site. Most of the materials come from Advaitadas's old source tapes I once cleaned up and uploaded.

The kirtana are recordings of songs primarily from Radha-kunda from over the decades. The patha are Advaitadas's translations of lectures by Pandit Ananta Das Babaji and Pandit Vaishnava Pada Das Babaji.

     

Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5, the media can be freely downloaded and shared. A special mention goes to The Internet Archive for their hosting service.

Total download size in MP3 (VBR) format is 1.9 GB. The files are available for download individually in several formats (MP3 64kbps, MP3 VBR, Ogg Vorbis) and in a single zip file.

Raganuga.Com Audio Archives

The God Who Created the God Who Created the God

Religious philosophers tend to argue in favor of an original intelligent cause as an answer for the question of our origins. It stands to reason, they argue, that an original cause be accepted to avoid the paradox of beginninglessness. The original cause being of course a monotheistic god, who is assumed perfect and benevolent.

From these roots come the marked difference in the linear and finite versus cyclic and infinite models of the Occident and the Orient, along with some wildly varying concepts of god or its equivalent. When it comes to god and gods, much is assumed and little is certain.

The pursuit for an original cause is much like a walk in Escher's paradox.

Original Cause as a Non-Solution

Proposing that there is an original cause is philosophically unsatisfactory, inasmuch as the original cause always remains incomprehensible to us smaller units, its originality unproven in the face of the possibility that our original cause is but the a link in a chain of causation. The concept of a greater creator merely begs the question whether there might be more creators at work somewhere up the pyramid of creations.

If there is one creator god for the existence we know, it is in fact entirely plausible that there may be any number of other, more compassive gods further up the line of creations, the extent of which we'd never be able to decipher as either infinite or finite. The seemingly definitive solution of an original cause now effectively returns to square one, once again face to face with the paradox of infinity and beginninglessness.

Brahma, the Hindu demiurge, is born from a lotus growing from Vishnu's navel.

Hierarchy of Creator Gods in Indic Lore

The Vaishnavite mythology, found throughout the Puranic lore, posits the existence of a single eternal transcendent deity, Vishnu, who dwells beyond the world of creations, and also permeates the creation as its supporting substratum. At the dawn of creation Vishnu, lying at the bottom of each of the universes he created, let a lotus sprout from his navel, atop which awoke Brahma, the creator god of the Hindu trinity, set to organize the elements of the cosmos provided by Vishnu.

This prime creator, in turn, set forth a number of Prajapatis, progenitors of mankind and diverse species, along with a number of sages to impart wisdom to the creation. In a fair number of epics the lesser gods, created by Brahma, mistake their immediate creator to be the supreme creating deity and the original cause, and in fact he is found to be so deluded on a number of occasions himself.

The god Brahma also features in early Buddhist lore as one among a number of Brahmas, each presiding over their own Brahma-worlds, fancying themselves as creator gods, frequently original causes in their own right. These Brahmas feature in a number of legends from the Buddha's cosmic adventures, and it was in fact Brahma Sahampati who urged the Buddha to go forth and preach the dharma in the wake of his enlightenment.

The theology of some Vaishnavas, most notably the Gaudiya tradition and the Hare Krishnas, further posits that Krishna is, rather than an avatar of Vishnu, in fact the original source god, of whom Vishnu is an extension for purposes of creation. Yet they are in some respects identical, one deity and one mind, and yet again different in some minute manners. Overall, I get the effect of calling to an office for the person responsible, only to be routed around in circles until the line breaks. No wonder some prefer speaking face to face, whether it's gods or service personnel.

Not surprisingly, adherents of the Shaiva school likewise claim Shiva to be the supreme god, as again the Shaktas insist that Shakti is the ultimate mother-godhead, of which Shiva, Vishnu and the rest spring forth. Faced with the immense plurality and conflicting opinions of the Indic gods, good old Christian monotheism might begin to seem like a welcome breeze of fresh air. If so, please breathe to your liking before starting the following section.

David Tarleton: The Aeon Sophia at the Birth of the Demiurge

Gnostic Demiurge and Judeo-Christian Creator God

I recall a lively conversation I once had with an elderly Jehovah's Witness. He was adamant that the mainstream Christian Church was wrong in claiming that Jesus was God, while he was in fact the first creation, as also god's instrument for the making of the creation that sprang forth — all standard Jehovah's Witness theology.

Incidentally I was also once filled in into the higher secret of the Church of the Latter Day Saints, again by an elderly gentleman somewhere in northern Finland. All was fine with my theology, but the fact that I was a monk at the time. Skipping the preliminaries, he related how we, as married couples, are to evolve and one day become creator gods and goddesses of our own universes.

To make things even more confusing on the Judeo-Christian front, we are confronted with the question of their god being perhaps a legion of gods, as the plural address Elohim and covenants to "not have any other gods" indicate. How much do the Elohim have in common with the gods of the Olympos mountain, the Egyptian Pantheon and the Hindu gods of Himalaya?

It was the Gnostic tradition that first identified the Judean God as a so-called Demiurge, an inferior and imperfect deity responsible for the creation of an imperfect world. Gnostic estimates of the lesser deity span from an embodiment of evil to merely an imperfect yet benevolent being. The Gnostics view the birth of the Demiurge as an accident that was never meant to happen, in effect describing an unplanned pregnancy leading to the birth of a defective god.

In contrast to demiurge are the eternal Pleroma, self-manifest beings transcending our dimension, ascension among whom is the final destination of the humans. As fascinating as it is, one can't help but wonder whether there might be yet another layer of causation beyond the supposedly eternal Pleroma, who as a matter of fact sound remarkably similar to the residents of the Immaterial Realms of the Buddhist cosmology, who are again superceded by the cryptic nirvana.

The Judeo-Christian God's wrath in the Genesis incident over Adam's acquisition of classified knowledge is interesting in its own right. We even find the following admission in God's own words (3.21): "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." Interestingly, the serpent was right over the fruit's effects, while God was in fact trying to prevent access with threats of death upon eating. Now that ought to get the conspiracy theorists running!

Left: Intimidating Jaffa servant of an Egyptian Goa'uld. Right: The Ori grant supernatural powers to their Priors.

Evil Gods of Science Fiction

The well-documented traits of the God Institution have also found their way into popular entertainment. For an example, the popular TV-series Stargate features two separate races of malevolent beings posing and worshiped as gods, only to be overthrown by their subjects in due course.

The Goa'uld, evil and technologically advanced power-hungry parasites, used humans for slavery for millennia in the guise of various Egyptian, Greek and Oriental gods, posing as immortal lords and the creators. The Goa'uld were snake-like creatures who bonded with human hosts, integrating themselves with the hosts' spinal cord and the brain. (Incidentally the often-controversial kundalini-energy of Hindu Tantrics literally means "female serpent" and, when activated, rises up the spinal cord and yields psychic powers.)

Again the Ori, an ascendend incorporeal species, inspired massive crusades to have everyone worship them, for they gained power through the energy sapped from lower sentient beings. For them, the religion is a conduit for transferring upwards the energy expended by the worshipers. In return for worship and absolute dedication, they offered their followers a false promise of ascension, unwilling as they were to share of their power. Really, exactly how many of the available promises of afterlife are guaranteed real deals? It's a pity religions don't come bundled with a money-back guarantee.

While there would be a number of other juicy examples to illustrate the concept, let's focus on the gist of the idea, namely the assumed integrity and benevolence of the said god or gods. There is no reason to assume that a more powerful being would have also evolved in benevolence, even if the religions of the world do tend to take the goodness of their gods for granted. Hey, the gods of the Zoroastrians being the demons of the Brahmanas and vice versa, one or other of the gods out there has got to be evil! And evil or not, faithfully worshiped by devout followers.

Something is fundamentally wrong with the above scenario.

Final Thoughts

The final day of reckoning pending and yet to be proven, there are few compelling reasons for worshiping one authoritarian god or the other. Given the insubstantiability of the said claims of absolute originality, omnipotence and omniscience, there is little reason to accept demands of allegiance. Neither claims of rightful ownership of our souls or threats of damnation or annihilation can serve as a basis for a healthy, working relationship. If there's one thing that puts me off on so many levels, it is intimidation.

If some choose to voluntarily pursue the worship of a god or several gods or goddesses, whether it be for solace, pleasure, profit or wisdom, I don't see it as objectionable as long as the relationship remains non-abusive. If a god or the gods are real, existing and sentient beings, it stands to reason that our free will ought to be respected, and all forms of life, regardless of evolutionary level, ought to have certain rights. Just like we also treat nature and animals, eh? Do unto them as he did unto us...

Coming from a god who created hell, a promise that he can save me from going to hell isn't exactly playing it fair. You cannot create a threat and then play the good guy for alleviating the threat! When a threat is produced to gain advantage from the object of threat, it is called coercion. Use of coercion with self-produced ultimatums spanning infinity cannot be the work of a a truthful, loving and benevolent being.

Not that I'm an atheist. Atheism as a concept is far too limited, as is theism along with its bretheren ideologies. Pantheism and monistic nondualism are high on my chart of working elements for a coherent overall picture of existence. No single theory in itself seems to be adequate for capturing the essence of existence, and a comprehensive Theory of Everything is yet to be written. Be that as it may, it seems evident that the era of authoritarian creator gods is nearing its inevitable end.

Further Reading

Brahma (Buddhism): A fascinating gloss on the role of the god Brahma in Buddhist lore, little known to many Hindu adherents who fancy Brahma as a Hindu deity. Ironic as it is, the god of the Brahmanas was identified as one of the Brahmas known to the Buddha long before the Puranas began to grow into their current renditions!

Brahma (Hinduism): A good overview of the Hindu lore of creation, the birth of Brahma, who was to become one of the popular Hindu trinity, and the subsequent gods he created for the sake of expanding his domain. Path to Deification: How we evolve into gods, as understood in the theology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Gnosticism: Pleroma and the Demiurge. Goa'uld and Ori: Two fictive races of false gods in the Stargate universe.

Karma: Universal and Buddhist Interpretations

The word karma, in its simplest sense, means action. In a broader context, it features the causal relationships brought about by the action, likened to seeds awaiting to ripen in the future. Karma is generally understood as the sum-total of one's activities and their latent effects, weaving a complex causal web leaving even the wisest perplexed over matters of predetermination and free will.

The exact course and formation of causal relationships can be hard to decipher.

The concept has been broadly popularized in the West by Buddhist and Hindu teachers over the past century. The Buddhist tradition has excelled particularly in its presentation of the underlying ethics, while the Hindus, and in particular the Vedantic tradition, have done some interesting groundwork in estimating the subconscious mechanics of karmic ripening.

A comprehensive gloss on the treatment of karma in Buddhism and Hinduism, along with Jainism and Sikhism, the other two main dharmic religions, is beyond the scope of this article. In the following, I hope to first distill the essentials of what determine the nature of the effect arising from a particular cause, and then gloss the Buddhist ethical analysis of action and offence as applied in their old monastic code.

A number of universal factors affect the causal content of each action.

Universal Karma

Karma is the sum total of several variables instead of the outcome of a single factor. Cause here means all direct and indirect, often far-reaching consequences born from the action. First and foremost, karma is born of the desire and intent of the doer. The consequence befalling each action are defined, among others, by the following:

1) Intention. Was the intent positive or negative, good or evil? Was the act done impulsively, with contemplation or by accident?
2) Implementation. Was the act fulfilled in accordance with the intention, or to a contrary result? Was the good or evil act brought to a conclusion?
3) Effects. Are the factual effects of the act positive, negative or mixed, individually as well as collectively?
4) Object. Was the object of a good deed particularly wanting or without need? Was the object of an evil deed helpless and innocent, equal and neutral, or greater and evil itself?
5) Circumstances. Was the act done out of a real need, or whimsically? Was the doer in a forced situation or faced with a free choice?
6) Atonement. Did the doer of an evil act try to make amendments by attempting to correct its consequences? Was the repentance superficial or genuine?

We can all form examples of the above for ourselves, the principles ought to be clear enough. In examining the factual consquence of the act and its effect on its object, the collective effect of the transformation effected in the object, and the underlying intents, we all begin to fathom just how complex the network of cause and effect really is.

I would assume the above to be largely universal, and for the most part also applicable in a court of law as in ethical measurement, even if it is evident that analysis and interpretation of the variables involved is an inherently subjective venture. Religions have certainly all had their say on the matter, and particularly so among Indic religions, where extensive theories of personal causation have evolved.

Buddhist monks of Thai and Tibetan traditions gathered in Lumbini, Nepal.

In Buddhist Monasticism

The ancient Buddhist monastic rules (vinaya) make for a particularly fascinating read in this context. This owes largely to the excessively detailed and thorough philosophy of offense featured in the commentarial tradition, primarily assessing an offense against the criteria of motivation and implementing act. The system of Vinaya Pitaka doesn't discuss the variables of the offense with regards to its possible consequences; its sole intent is to judge whether an offense has occured, and if so, at which degree of severity.

There are four parajika-offenses or unforgivables for the Buddhist monks, committing which a monk is unconditionally exiled from the monastic community for the remainder of his life. They are as follows: 1) sexual intercourse, 2) homicide, 3) theft, and 4) exaggeration of spiritual status. These offences are applicable at this severity only while living as an ordained monk; should the monk for example be unable able to control his sexual urge, he may forsake monkhood and live in a relationship for as long as he wishes, and later in his life again become a monk. However, having sex while still ordained is unforgivable.

The monastic tradition, rich in its abundance of rules, naturally gives the bulk of its attention to these four severest offences. As an example, the tradition defines theft by four criteria:

1) Object: Anything belonging to another or a group of people.
2) View: The object is understood as belonging to another or a group of people.
3) Intention: One decides to steal the object.
4) Effort: One steals the object.

In the above, in absence of factor 2) no ethical violation has occured. (The object accidentally stolen must of course be returned once understood as such.) In absence of factor 3), where the thief has accidentally stolen an object he has contemplated on stealing, a full offense is not committed, neither is it in absence of factor 1) where the thief has stolen no-man's property or something of his own. Additionally the value of the object is in direct proportion to the severity of the crime.

Homicide, in turn, is judged according to the following criteria:

1) Object: A living human being. (Commentarial tradition includes featus here; the rule was born consequent to abortion medicines administered to nuns.)
2) Intention: To knowingly, with understanding, contemplation and intention wish to terminate a person's life. "Knowingly" also includes the following:
3) View: A perception of an object as a living human being.
4) Effort: Whatever may be done in order to terminate an individual's life.
5) Outcome: Life is terminated as a direct consequence of the act.

In the above, in absence of factor 2), for example in an accidental shot, no ethical violation punishable as homicide has occured. In absence of factor 3), for example in the accidental killing of an animal or another human instead of the object (not however if the other is viewed upon as the object), a full offense has not been committed. In absence of factor 4) a full offence has also not been committed, for the transition from will to action has not occurred. A death caused without intention, and thereby also without effort, does not lead to an ethical violation.

Those interested in the Vinaya-tradition may want to study Thanissaro Bhikkhu's Introduction to the Patimokkha Rules and Buddhist Monastic Code, freely employed in this article. In the latter, particularly the fourth chapter discussing the parajika-offences makes a thorough study of ethics, coupled with illustrative examples.

Continued in The Banishment of the Watch-Maker...

Review: There Will Be Blood (2007)

Today's review deserves a prelude to do the depth of the movie full justice. It's a very decent movie about an all-out asura exploiting the people and the oil fields of early 20th century California, after all!

Asuras, featured in both Hindu and Buddhist mythology, are evil or envious gods, beings of great prowess and ambition, fallen deep into the dark side. As a psychological profile, asura-hood features intense paranoia, envy, cruelty, and lust for power over all. The asura's self-securing drive for achievement leads to consuming competitiveness and a division of world into allies and enemies — divided by their fitness for furthering personal ambitions.

Fully immersed in his schemes, the asura grows paranoid of others; they are all seeking to thwart him, they are his enemies, a pitiful foe begging to be confronted and eliminated. No abuse or crime is beyond the scope of the asura; his sheer hunger for control drives him to manipulate others, his conscience is all but dissolved in his dark primal instincts. In short, asura is a psychopath of some power. And if there is an asura, There Will Be Blood...

Title: There Will Be Blood
Year: 2007
Genre: drama
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0469494/

Released in January 2008, There Will Be Blood explores the grim world of southern California's oil boom at the turn of the 20th century. Featuring the ghastly life of Daniel Plainview, it portrays some of the darkest aspects of human psyche with substantial realism, owing largely to the excellent performance of Oscar-winning Daniel Day-Lewis.

The narrative carries you through some thirty years of Plainview's life, from the beginnings as a budding businessman to a shrude capitalist who shuns no opportunity at exploiting one and all if it serves his purpose. As the film unfolds, the wicked nature of our oil miner becomes more and more explicit, and even apparently innocent acts in the path turn out to feature as aspects of his elaborate schemes.

The born-again young Christian priest of the village, a gifted fanatic with bizarre stage acts in his Church of Third Revelation, grew to be a second favorite character of mine, right along with Plainview of course, who did little to work on his largely irrational anger towards the priest. Overall, the characters are well performed, even if it is Day-Lewis's performance that carries the watcher to the farther shore of the two-and-half-hour movie, the theme of which might otherwise have not been that interesting to me.

The atmosphere and environment are well-created and realistic, camera moves very well and the occasional handheld shots create an engaging visual display. The movie is saturated with the eeriest of musics, if indeed it can be so called, predicting ill at each turn even where none is to be seen. The end of the movie is as grim and unexpected as any I've ever seen, perfectly fitting for a movie of such caliber of unusuality. Not your run-of-the-mill American tale, not by a long shot.

[ 8/10 ]

Metric Soul and Divided Minds & Divinities

"A one-hundredth part of a hair's tip, and again split into hundred,
this fragment is the living self or soul, also conceived of as endless."
(Svetasvatara Upanisad, 5.9)

The following text is drawn and expanded from my reply to a friend's query on the Upanisadic descriptions of the soul being the size of a ten-thousandth of the tip of the hair, and at the same time pervade the body; in general, the diverse depictions of the soul to be of a particular measure can come across as confusing. The second half of the post discusses the greater "divided spirit" issue of God and soul.

Oxymoron of Metric Soul

The soul, if we choose to believe in one that is, being an immaterial spirit-substance, cannot have a scale of comparison with matter. It is no more the size of a proton than it is the size of a hamburger or a Polish truck-driver. It is neither proportionate nor disproportionate to the object it appears to animate, for it has no proportion in common with inanimate matter.

Of course one might compare the soul to a lamp and the pervading of the body to its rays in a room, and that's a rather appropriate analogy as long as we forget about our attempts to pin it out on the metric scale. Both the lamp and the rays are finite objects, as are the individual jiva-soul and his field of awareness; hence the metaphor works in this application.

Technically speaking, the soul pervades and animates the body through the conscious mental functions (citta) filtered through the medium of ahankara conjointly with Antaryamin, the Inner Regulator or the so-called "super-soul" (paramatman). The antaryamin is variously identified as Ishvara (Supreme God) or Atman (Supreme Self) in differing schools of thought.

Atisayokti - Literary Exaggeration

Everything in the scriptures is a mixture of literal and metaphorical. There is svabhavokti or statement (ukti) reflecting or object's own (sva) nature (bhava), and there is atisayokti or excessive (atisaya) statement. All the four standard atisayoktis in the alankara-shastra (e.g. Alankara-kaustubha: 8.23), or the classical Indian corpus of books on  literary composition and criticism, feature departures from the literal or face-value meaning.

The third excessive metaphorical statement, where the impossible is being stated, is the one we are primarily after at the moment, for the soul has no material scale. Therefore, the statement of comparison is an impossibility. The two first atisayoktis are comparisons to other objects (and I suppose taking this as a hyperbolic diminutive would be every bit as valid), the other overt and the other covert, and the fourth features effect as simultaneous with or preceding the cause.

If we were to indeed indeed pursue this literally, as fundamentalists frequently do, we would have to first ask whether this proverbial hair is Afro-American, French or Vedic Indian — perhaps the sage in question split his own hair tip into 10,000 pieces and compared it to his soul, discovering it was an exact match under his microscope? Did he split it with a Vedic hair-splitter? Perhaps everyone's soul is 10,000 tip of their own hair? This again is problematic for men with thinning hair or baldness; their souls must be approaching limbo...

God and Souls - Divided Minds

A related field of paradox is in the supposed division that exists between the Jiva-Atman and the all-pervasive Brahman or ultimate God. From where I look at things, Advaita-vedanta is quite right in insisting that the atman (which is equated in the realization-stage with the brahman although brahman and brahman alone was the atman was all along) cannot be factually divided into individual soul-units, and that the individuality in question is only a temporary illusion rooted in Avidya or primal ignorance. This is naturally solved with the acquisition of Jnana or knowledge proper.

Let us assume the presence of an individual "soul fragment", a separate conscious unit. Fragments by definition cannot have the same quality as an unbreakable whole, for they differ in the quality of being fragmentable. Again, if the great whole can be divided into fragments, a second is thereby posited next to the non-dual, leading to a number of questions on the unique nature of the supposed one and the greatest non-dual spirit proclaimed across the Upanishads.

The Theory of Simultaneous Difference-Nondifference

Gaudiya Vaishnavism proposes an inconceivable symbiotic difference-cum-non-difference solution to the issue under the heading of acintya-bheda-abheda. Aristoteles would insist things either are or are not, for they cannot be both. A follower of Jiva Goswami's would then employ the acintya-shakti defence: You need to believe that God has the power to not make sense to make headway with the dilemma.

All too often, the inconceivability card is a handy answer to each and every equation that doesn't exactly add up because a transcendent object is beyond logical derivation and accessible perception. This leaves me wondering whether this God does not become irrelevant altogether, stretching entirely out of our objective human grasp and contact as he does.

Of course we also have the standard explanation with the shakti-vada and the nonduality between the energy (shakti) and the energetic (shaktiman), the former of which would include all of us and the inanimate world. Not the least of the problems is the fact that shakti-vada has nothing to do with Vedanta and everything to do with the tantric tradition.

Setting aside doctrinal purism and strict Vedanta interpretation for a moment, the tradition of Kashmiri Saivism which is the root of the shakti theory also features an extensive existential grid, in many ways unique, and in many others parallel to the Vedic Sankhya and its model of causal derivation.

All of that notwithstanding, the problem of evidently divided consciousness between us and God remains. I for one do not possess all the knowledge of God, indicating we are clearly separate units of consciousness. There is little practicality to the proposal of the every-day experience of me being one with a personal and actively omniscient God.

Like Sun and Sunshine?

Omniscience indicates a flawless and all-pervading entity or state of being. This one, all-knowing and all-encompassing God is all that is. Shakti cannot be classified as a second separate unit, even as dependent and subordinate, for this would be introducing dualism, the existence of a second beside God; assuming the non-duality of God and creation, one would expect us souls to share of the same pristine strata of undivided and omniscient existence.

The simile of the sun and the sunshine should be understood for what it is: a simile. A simile does not constitute proof in and of itself, it is a manner of illustrating a more abstract principle. The problems we run into applying this to the case at hand are manifold.

The most obvious of all is the fact sun and sunshine do not feature a known conscious property, whether unified or divided; both are mechanical, passive factors incapable of decision-making, unlike soul and god. Independent decision-making and limited or unlimited fields of awareness, in turn, are the very factors begging the question to begin with.

If a simile is employed in illustrating simultaneously one and different consciousness(es), and especially in the capacity of proof, it should be a comparison of strict equals.

A Monistic Angle

There is a very vivid and distinct duality here, indicating we need to either admit to the non-reality of duality and divided consciousness, labeling them as a mere illusion (and moreover an illusion occuring in Brahman with no existence to its occurence), or do away with an undivided and omniscient, yet eeriely antropomorphic God.

Advaita-siddhanta considers Isvara (personal god) to be the most you can see of the nondual absolute through the veil of maya; as ajnana or individual ignorance is dispelled, the ignorance concerning duality is dispelled, and the one atman alone remains aglow. The doctrine of atman then becomes a de-facto doctrine of anatman, for there was no everlasting individual soul to begin with.

Neither duality nor nonduality are entirely satisfactory for a philosophical answer. I don't have an exact answer for the way all stuff works, though I do have some cool ideas I need to explore a bit further. The citta-matram doctrine of the Yogacara-school of Buddhism, the theory of an unified mind-field and repository consciousness or alaya-vijnana, comes across as rather fascinating to me, and also correlates with some of my experiences.

Summa Summarum

My preferred approach to the question, independent of any scriptures, is to conceive of a single mental field in which both the Ishvara and the jivas are fluctuation in greater or smaller degrees. The only factual omniscient potential is in the universal mind-field, an uninvolved, egoless all-containing entirety, where no catalyst (ahankara) for individuality exists; hence seeing without a seer is actualized. The concept appears to make seamless sense to me, independent of conformance to any ancient or contemporary theories.

In the end, fiddling with lofty philosophical formulations amounts to little more than an entertaining mind-game fulfilling our intellectual urges. Otherwise, assumptions of mastery of a theory may help one to comfort himself and bring order into the surrounding chaos, or to command and conquer existence through comprehension.

Nirvana and God remain lurking in the fabric of the harmony, peace, clarity and joy of an independent nature we discover within ourselves through personal experience, introspection and natural immersion. Even if we all have our respective philosophies and mythologies with diverging particulars, it really doesn't matter a damn thing as long as you arrive at the conclusive non-dual One-Zero paradox at the end.


Related satire from Dissociated Press: Hare Krishna Swami Loses Soul - Downtown Helsinki (DP)