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Colony Earth - Part XII: In the Labyrinth of Endurance

The Sufi Hazrat Inayat Khan teaches that the purpose of life is to attain mastery. In his words, the spirit of limitation is the hindrance to realizing the spirit of mastery. “The process of going from limitation to perfection is called mysticism. Mysticism means developing from limitation to perfection.”

Kashmir Shaivism states that we are always the Oneness, but we have chosen to Veil our consciousness in differentiated perception through the limitation of the five senses. We literally are ‘tricking’ ourselves into the illusion that we are separate from the Oneness for the purpose of our  'play' in Time and Space. This ‘trick’ is often called the Veil, for it is an intentional Veil of our forgetting who we are. Worlds are created and destroyed — and nothing has happened. We are, were, and never will be anything but the One.

“No diversity is the real Truth”

The Kashmiri sage and saint, Abhinavagupta writes in the Paramarthasara that all “theories are merely some dialectical speculations useful in discussions and debates. None among such entities has a real existence, as all these are mere suppositions and imaginary concepts of thinkers… No diversity is the real truth.” In other words there is only the Oneness, and all schools of religion and metaphysics with their varying theories of descriptions and explanations of manifested reality, are useful as guides up to and until we have moved our consciousness beyond them - and the temporal illusory hologram.

Abhinavagupta: “The flow of momentary consciousness, the single self working in all minds, the power of animation, the universal soul shining as the whole phenomenon, the gross and subtle forms, the generalities or species and lastly the individual being, all these consist of mere dialectical conception and do not exist at all in reality.” Why? Because as Abhinavagupta says — “No diversity is the real truth.” And when you come to realize this truth, “No other aim in life remains to be accomplished.” You are Home!

In the Tibetan Buddhist Jamgon Kongtrul’s Myriad Worlds, we learn that the process of self-mastery eliminates the idea of a personal self and cultivates the understanding that “all the infinite worlds and all the beings who inhabit them are empty of intrinsic existence, nothing more than the magical play of relativity and emptiness.” The Tibetan Buddhist cosmology enumerates these infinite worlds in grand detail. “To fathom the magnitude of infinite numbers of world systems being born and destroyed every moment requires a broader vision in one’s spiritual view.”

In the Tibetan Buddhist cosmology, the Bodhisattvas are beings that “actually contribute to the creation of new worlds in which they may fulfil their heroic vows to liberate all beings.”  In the translator’s introduction we read, “infinite world-systems arise as phantom appearances based on interdependent connections, and these worlds serve the purposes of enlightened beings, who act as spiritual guides, realizing that these realms have no ultimate reality.” These realms have no ultimate reality.

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The Labyrinth

We are the Oneness, that which pervades and permeates everything. As this ubiquitous unlimited undefinable ‘Thatness’ we have created a labyrinth in Time & Space for us to play in. The labyrinth is a temporal illusion, a woven fabric of birth and death, wars and peace, endless layers of temporal polarities for us to experience, to test ourselves, to learn from. And yet beneath the play, beneath the curtain of each atom – we are That, we are the One Soul setting all of it in motion, a multitude of realms that are only appearances and have no ultimate reality.

The labyrinth appears and disappears, is created, sustained, and dissolved, via three metaphysical principles. In the Indian Sanskrit these three are personified as Brahma the Creator, Vishnu who sustains the universe, and Shiva the Destroyer. The gods and the bodhisattvas are temporal, time based, and no more real or unreal than we are. They are merely different states of consciousness, ‘stations’ in the play, which we by our own effort may become.

The myriad worlds are always there. They interact with us; they play a role in our creation, our evolution, and our destruction. They are a part of the Play. They also come and go according to their allotted time. At the end of the Kalpa, everything is dissolved and the Oneness rests in what is called the Night of Brahma, the polarity of the Day made of many Manvantaras and yugas, the names given to the various phases of the endless Cycles of Time, world without end.

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The Rig Veda

It is my understanding that in the Satya Yuga, the first cycle of time, we have not yet lost our connection to the God-within each of us. We knew all of this and therefore our relationship with other dimensional beings was also known. As we moved down into the ensuing cycles we lost the Knowledge of our true natures, meaning who we really are. As the Kashmiri sage and saint Swami Lakshmanjoo says, we play a trick on ourselves. He says smiling in bliss, “It is just trick!”

As we lost the knowledge of our true Being, we set on a course of externalizing everything, all our wisdom and power; and we began to worship that which we are as personifications of our lost powers. We began to ritualize acts that had once been simple practical useful means to everyday life, for example fire. We externalized our power and imprisoned ourselves in the temporal illusory hologram. We did this, meaning we allowed it to happen. Those of us who were more fearful than others followed the path of mastering tyranny, and became the means and instruments of our delusion. But we agreed, on some level we accepted the loss for the sake of play.

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“Herds in the Skies”

Reading the Rig Veda from this point of view and in a state of consciousness that includes knowledge of the Myriad Worlds reveals a completely different meaning. For example the word ‘go’ in Sanskrit has many different meanings. It is most often translated as ‘cow’, but another meaning is ‘star’ – the poets who composed the verses saw the stars as herds circling the skies above. There are endless examples of multiple meanings of Sanskrit words possible; and yet all the definitions which could point to our earthly interactions with a technologically advance civilization, one that might have ‘seeded’ us, are ignored because they don’t fit into traditional religion.

A few verses I have translated will give you quite another version. Again I freely admit in sincere humility that I have studied Sanskrit for only fours years now, and my knowledge of early Vedic grammar is very limited, so I do not expect anyone to accept my translations. However I do feel that based on the available choices of possible definitions alone, there is considerable reason to read these verses in light of a wider understanding of the universe we live in. These three are from a very well known and famous hymn by the Rishi Dirghatamas.

Rig Veda I.164

Verse 16.

The wheel of burning stars,

is perceived as a sacrifice offered.

Those light-strewers, like birds

cry out to me, making a blind man

in darkwaters, conscious.

That intelligent son, the wise sage,

here, now intent upon knowing, observes

those ancestors, the progenitors of mankind,

enlightened Seers who inhabit the Bhuvas,

the regions of the Air, and orbit the Moon,

as Regents of the Nakshatras Magha & Mula.

The stars in the heavens are seen and described as a wheel turning. Their light is compared to a sacrifice that the Creator has made and offered to us so that we may be inspired and learn from their light. Who has not been left in total awe in the magnificent presence of these heavenly lights. The sage who is now intent upon knowing and remembering, who wants to connect with the ‘fathers’ observes the stars in the heavens. The intelligent are aware of the ancestors that inhabit the regions between heaven and earth, who are even said to orbit the Moon and have guard over specific sectors of the Nakshatras, which are sections of our sky - and perhaps by implication also sectors of the galaxies.

17.

what has become of the abode, the station,

remote in space far beyond, impelling leading driving,

perhaps it is like the stars, those herds of the sky,

inconstant, transient, impermanent,

coming and going far away,

bearing, carrying its future offspring,

indeed producing one part of two, suffering desire, giving,

by no means, not at all the boundary limit of the host multitude.

Here the sage is asking where is the orbiting satellite airship, the space station that comes and goes up in the skies. It carries ‘future offspring’ perhaps in laboratories of genetic banks, which are by no means the limits, but rather only a small portion of the multitude of beings, giving an expanded meaning to the idea of a heavenly host.

18.

who, intelligence restrained regulated,

thus below here in this world,

before speaking to that shinning in the sky

above, beyond, from whom the mind is born

that which abiding abode now known

promoting the favour of the ancestor [pitri],

the father of sky heaven, far distant remote in space.

The sage has restrained and regulated his or her intelligence, meaning has gained self-mastery and is no longer a prisoner to the compulsions that rule and dominate most of us humans, and in Sanskrit are termed the gunas, sattva, tamas, and rajas. Such self-mastery allows the sage to communicate with the beings that are orbiting our planet high in the skies above, our ancestors from remote space, the ‘father’ and progenitors of our race on earth.

The Sanskrit word PITRI is usually translated as ‘father’ or ‘ancestor’ and are the sons of heaven, existing between heaven and earth. They have luminous bodies, are connected to the sun and rays. The Moon is sometimes said to be their abode, their light. The Angirasas are a group of the Pitris. Both are thought to be the original light-gods and the human fathers. The Angirasas and the Pitris are “the apotheosis [elevation to divine status] of the rays of some light phenomena.” [Vedic Etymology-Prof. Fatah Singh]

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Sanskrit scholars who have translated these three verses admit to their obscure riddle-like mystery. The translation of H.H. Wilson says that verse 16 is a “piece of grammatical mysticism” because a ray of the sun is personified as a female.

H.H. Wilson: 16. They have called these, my virtuous females, males: he who has eyes beholds; the blind man sees not: he who is a sage son understands this, and he who discriminates is the father of the father.

The translation of verse 17 is even more perplexing, bizarre, and verging on comical. In a comment Wilson himself admits, “This is rather obscure: according to the Scholiast, the cow is the burnt offering and the calf is Agni, and the positions of the two indicate the station of the offerer with respect to the sun: or the cow may typify the solar rays collectively and the calf the worshipper.” What?

H.H. Wilson: 17. The cow, holding her calf underneath with her fore-feet, and then above with her hind-feet, has risen up: whither is she gone; to whom has she turned back when half-way; where does she bear young: it is not amidst the herd.

R.L. Kashyap says that in his translation 'the Ray-cow has stood up': “the Ray-cow is the same as the heavenly mind (devam manah)… [and] Looking at the limitations of our ordinary world, one wonders where this heavenly mind has gone.” Yes indeed, one does wonder where the heavenly mind has gone! Sweet Jesus! As one scholar puts it, "To this day there is no internally consistent and coherent interpretation of the Vedas. Meaning, however, has been forced out of the hymns..." [B.G. Sidharth].

These translations have been forced, and in my view forced to fit the prevailing religious ideas as accepted by an elite of priests and scholars. To be fair, the translations of R.L. Kashyap and Shyam Ghosh are the most accessible. Still their verses have little in common. It might be said that Shyam Ghosh has created his own Rig Veda, which is rather wonderful, inspiring, and at least makes some sense.

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The Rig Veda has long been thought of as the source of all Indian metaphysics and liberating spiritual wisdom. When I began my meagre amateur translations of this sacred ancient text my only thought was — at last I shall touch the source of the elevating subtle ideas found in the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita, which is a compilation of the best and essence of the Upanishads. I never thought to find evidence of ancient astronauts and earth as a colony. I came in complete reverence, but I could not deny the definitions I found in the M. Monier-Williams Sanskrit to English Dictionaries.

One of the Sanskrit words in verse 18 of Dirgatamas hymn 164 is YAMA. I had read in Shyam Ghosh that in the early Vedic texts there is no mention of hell worlds, which appear to be an invention of the Middle Ages not only in European Catholicism, but also in India. The M. Monier-Williams dictionary defines the word YAMA thus: “a rein, curb, bridle; a driver, charioteer; the act of checking or curbing, suppression, restraint; self-control, forbearance; [the definitions continue with the very interesting] the name of the god who presides over the PITRIS [the ancestors] and rules the spirits of the dead; he is called ‘the gatherer of men’ and rules over the departed fathers in heaven, the road to which is guarded by two broad-nosed, four-eyed, spotted dogs…; [only later] in Post-Vedic mythology he is appointed Judge and ‘Restrainer’ or ‘Punisher’ of the dead; in later mythology, he is always represented as a terrible deity inflicting tortures on departed spirits.”

Therefore we may conclude that the stories of hells, and in fact perhaps hells as temporal holograms, grew in abundance as lurid and terrifying descriptions of their heinous punishments were utilized by generations of tyrants, who saw how effective they were in keeping human consciousness controlled in fear. As I have said before, our every act and thought accumulates as energies that form as a consequence in our individual spirit body, and which we carry from one life to the next. Our own acts, our behaviour and misbehaviour, are quite sufficient to eventually and inevitably bring us to the wisdom of self-mastery.

I suppose if some want hells worlds, the universe is generously prepared to offer such experiences to satisfy our every desire. The Tibetan Buddhist texts and the Hindu Puranas are loaded with descriptions of these places. In my view these terrifying hell worlds are all the product of our descent through the Kali Yuga and the rather muddled density of consciousness in the Middle Ages. Much of the more complicated and elaborate Buddhist cosmology also seems to have developed later. Even the famous Mount Sumeru, which is at the very center of the Buddhist universe, is said to have first emerged in the Mahabharata, where it is called Meru [Akira Sadakata]. The exact dates of the Mahabharata are unknown, but the great epic poem was composed much later than the Rig Veda.

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We are the Oneness, Veiled, enjoying the ‘trick’ as Lakshmanjoo puts it, and we are projecting creating our own temporal illusory holograms in every lifetime. We are not slaves, not victims. We make it all — everything we experience.

“There is only ONE. There is not ever in any sense many, or even two. All perception of distinction and separation, of duality, and therefore what is known as physical reality, is a mind-created illusion, the nature of a dream. What you think you are, a separate individual entity, is part of this illusion. You are not the doer of any action or the thinker of any thought. Events happen, but there is no doer. All there is, is Consciousness. That is what you truly are.” [David Carse]

And as the Kashmiri Abhinavagupta and Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita both say – after you have realized this, nothing remains to be done!

Bhagavad Gita XV.20: Thus this most secret doctrine has been taught... having realized this knowledge a man becomes wise and accomplishes everything that is to be accomplished.

 

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The Heart of Sufism, Essential Writings of Hazrat Inayat Khan; Shambala Publications, Boston & London, 1999.

PARAMARTHASARA of Abhinavagupta, with English translation & notes by Dr. B.N. Pandit, Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers; 1991, New Delhi

The Celestial Key to the Vedas, by B.G. Sidharth; Inner Traditions, 1999.

The RGVEDA, Mandala III, A Critical Study of the Sayana Bhasya and Other Interpretations of the Rgveda (3.1.1 to 3.7.3), by Dr. Siddh Nath Shukla; Sharada Publishing House, Delhi, 2001.

RIG VEDA SAMHITA: Mandala – 1 (Part One), Suktas 1-50, (Text in Devanagari, Translation and Notes), by R.L. Kashyap; Saksi, Published in collaboration with ASR, Melkote; Sri Aurobindo Kapali Sastry Institute of Vedic Culture, Bangalore, India, 2009.

RGVEDA SAMHITA, Volumes I-IV, Sanskrit Text, English Translation and Notes According to the Translation of H.H. Wilson and Bhasya of Sayanacarya; Edited and revised with an exhaustive introduction and notes by Ravi Prakash Arya & K.L. Joshi; Indica Books, Parimal Publications, Delhi, 2002.

Buddhist Cosmology, Philospohy and Origins, by Akira Sadakata; Kosei Publishing Co., Tokyo, 1997, 2009.

Dirghatamas, Life and Vision of Vedic Seers, by Professor Satya Prakash Singh; Standard Publishers, New Delhi, 2006.

Rig Vedic Suktas, Asya Vamiya Suktam, translated by Swami Amritananda; Sri Ramakrishna Math, Mylapore, Chennai, India, 2003.

The Origin of Buddhist Meditation, by Alexander Wynne; Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, London & New York, 2007.

Perfect Brilliant Stillness, Beyond the Individual Self, by David Carse; Paragaté Publishing, Shelburne, VT, 2006.

VEDIC ETYMOLOGY, A Critical evaluation of the Science of Etymology as found in Vedic Literature; by Prof. Fatah Singh, M.A., B.T., D.Litt.; Chaukhamba Surbharti Prakashan, Varanasi, 1952, 2008.

Sanskrit-English Dictionary, M. Monier-Williams; Two volumes, Recomposed and improved edition; Indica Books and Parimal Publications, New Delhi, 2008. 

Abhinavagupta’s Commentary on the Bhagavad Gita

GITARTHA SAMGRAHA, Translated from Sanskrit with Introduction & Notes by Boris Marjanovic; Indica Books; 2004, Varanasi India

 

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