Collage: idealized Nordic white version of Middle Eastern Jewish guru
How can we save the world, Sid? - Teach, Jess.
It is the goal of Buddhism -- to the extent that we set any goal but basic goodness or being true to our enlightened nature for its own sake -- is to experience the Buddha's awakening. The enlightenment of disciples is exactly like that of the Awakened One. The difference is all the Bodhisatta (Buddha-to-be) did in past lives to become a teacher able to realize and communicate the Dharma (the Truth) to the world and establish it so that it keeps liberating others even after his own liberation. In just the same way, one might speak of an "original Christianity" where being Christed (dying to oneself and being born again) is the goal, as Dr. DC Ammon Hillman speaks of in the use of "mysteries" as mystery cults had been doing for millennia. No one intended to found a "religion" but only to point out the path-of-practice for advancing to the heavens or making an end of all rebirth and suffering here and now.
Jews and Judaism rejects the belief that Jesus [actual name "Yeshua ben Yusuf of Nazareth"] was the long awaited Messiah [Buddhism's Maitreya, or a political rebel arrived to overthrow imperial Roman rule, according to Dr. Reza Aslan], arguing that Jesus did not fulfill messianic prophecies, was not lawfully anointed [though "anointed" actually comes from the Greek kristos, which is a means of ingesting a psychedelic/entheogenic drug by pressing and holding an anointed cloth against the open skin to take things ("dotes") like snake venom or entheogenic compounds in the cult pharmacopeia through the skin followed by an antidote, as Dr. Hillman goes to great pains to explain] and was neither divine nor resurrected [but rather realized all humans have divine potential and had the audacity to tell them that, because in that sense we are all GOD, and his followers bribed Roman soldiers to cut him down during his crucifixion long before anyone dies from this special form of Roman humiliation and torture reserved for political crimes (trying to foment an insurrection against Roman rule, explains Dr. Aslan). Jesus the Christ would then mean "Yeshua the Anointed One."]
Why "Christ" is a position NOT a person
Hollywood, can you make Him more white? Maybe Judy Garland, Shirley Temple, meets Thor?
Jesus dipped in bleach gone too far?
(Library of Tehuti) Learn the hidden truth about Christhood and its universal nature across ancient wisdom traditions.
Part 2 of the “Many Christs” series shows how "Christ" was not a name but a title and state of consciousness achievable by all. A disciple of Christ would strive to experience it.
Explore the suppressed teachings from the Nag Hammadi Library, ancient Egypt, and Eastern philosophical traditions, all of which point to our innate divine potential and nature.
This tulku was great rinpoche
Learn about the universal path of ascension shared by mystics and sages throughout history. Discover practical techniques to awaken the "Christ Consciousness" by including meditation, self-inquiry, and compassionate practices.
Understand why this powerful knowledge has been hidden and how it relates to the current global shift in consciousness. Begin the journey to realizing our true divine nature and unlocking our unlimited spiritual potential today.
00:00 TRUTH OF CHRISTHOOD
06:39 UNIVERSAL PATH OF ASCENSION
13:14 PATH IN PRACTICE
🌀 All artwork is illustrated and designed by the Library of Tehuti Team. If there is any problem or inquiry about this video, please contact: libraryoftehuti@gmail.com. Thanks for presence and engagement. 🌀
"Ashes to ashes, funk to funk me, we know Major Tom's a junkie, strung out on heaven's high, hitting an all-time low," observes almost-Buddhist monk David Bowie (genius.com).
Where did it all begin? It surely wasn't with the Catholic ("Universal") Church, the great appropriator of all sorts of popular spiritual traditions it abrogates to itself with precious little explanation to its fan base.
Buddhism has a "Lent" called the Rains Retreat (Vas or Vassa), with fasting, meditating, studying, and staying at the vihara or temple complex as the monastics go into retreat.
One of Wisdom Quarterly's "Mexican Buddhists," Pfc. Sandoval, also being Catholic, wants a Lenten sacrifice, removing meat like Catholicism (and many other Christian groups, mainly Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox Ethiopian) originally called for until Vatican anti-popes like John Paul II watered the tradition down so much as to undermine it. The whole of Lent was originally about abstaining from killing and devouring animals, which is certainly kinder than the million animals killed a day in the USA for consumption with all the harm that does to the environment and climate.
Bless me, Padre, I want to go back to heaven.
Parishioners in the diocese like spectacle, cake (or communion wafers known as prasad in India and in Hinduism), along with all the candlelight, bells, recitations in a holy foreign language, and incense. It appeals to our sense of mystery and wonder.
Like most great spiritual things, India is the source. (Of course, Egypt and ancient Sumer) were replete with spiritual/religious hokum. It's not anything many civilizations were lacking -- except, oddly, one of the greatest, namely, the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC). Excavations have not revealed religious practices or temples, nor has anyone deciphered their pre-Sanskrit writings.
Some mornings I draw my forehead designs, others I just white it all out. Then I hit the pipe.
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The West does asana in place of ashtanga.
The yogic sadhu ("holyman") tradition of spreading ashes all over one's body, with particular attention to designs on the forehead are definitely an ancient Indian custom. Wandering ascetics, not always having access to rivers (to wash away their sins, unskillful karma, or uncleanliness in) resorted to the very smart practice of smearing pyre ash all over themselves.
It is a great cleanser, absorbing oils and lifting dirt. It is then rubbed off like a facemask, revealing clean and rejuvenated skin. Think dry shampoo. Talcum powder became the custom in cold Europe, which needed to stay somewhat clean and not as smelly as the commoners. Cleanliness became close to godliness, which is odd because for so long it was not.
Forehead art -- placing a mark (tilaka) as carefully as applied cosmetic makeup around the bindi or third eye, where Catholics now place a cross -- has been all the rage among holymen for centuries.
Incense ash will do, but pyre (cremation) ashes are more symbolic of being aware of death and accepting of our dust-to-dust journey in samsara (the continued wandering on of cyclical rebirths, which always end in death and redeaths).
It's a drishti(focal point) for darshan(to be seen as being holy), a puja(devotional) practice rededicating ourselves to our religious principles -- virtue and truth and the pursuit of all that is Good and to remind ourselves that life is fleeting.
Buddhism's 13 sane ascetic practices or "austerities"were established to counter the extreme asceticism of some yogis who, as ineffectual "penance" for their sins, would practice extreme self-mortifications that only harmed the body while not purifying the mind/heart, leading away from the spiritual goal of liberation (moksha) rather than toward it.
The Buddha is a Catholic saint. (No, really).
So just as St. Issa/Jesus didtapas (austerities) to purify his mind and heart and exercise his spiritual powers, it is good for use to follow suit.
First things first, it's that time of year to "remove meat" (Latin carnival), to prepare our bodies for Lent to burn away sin (shake off accumulated bad karma) from our spiritual body as a penance, as a sadhana. If Issa/Yshua/Jesus could endure 40 days of not eating, we can surely endure 40 days of indulging in all the great vegan fare now available.
People want to live forever (in heaven), but they won't even stop killing (or paying someone to kill) and devouring animals for even half a season?
Ash Wednesday: a holy day of prayer and fasting in many Western Christian denominations. It is preceded by Shrove Tuesday (aka Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, Pancake Day) and marks the first day of Lent, the six weeks of penitence (and sacrificing something we like by abstaining from it) before the rebirth that is Easter. It's the "long dark teatime of the soul" (Douglas Adams), as it were.
Fasting and abstinence
Not killing and not causing to kill, is that so hard? It's like the first commandment. Mercy.
Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, meditating alone without food -- and loving it.
Many Lent-observing Christian denominations emphasize making a Lenten sacrifice, as well as fasting and abstinence during the season of Lent. This is particularly true on Ash Wednesday.
The First Council of Nicaea spoke of Lent as a period of fasting for 40 days [as a means of mental, physical, and spiritual purification] in advance of Easter.
Whatever the Council's original intent, this 40-day fast came into wide practice throughout the church [38].
While starting a Lenten sacrifice on Ash Wednesday (e.g., giving up porn, masturbating, meat, or cussing, or cellphone use), it is customary to pray for strength to keep it through the whole season of Lent.
All such sacrifices (abstentions) are good tapas (austerities) performed for the sake of self-purification. If nothing else, they bring into sharp relief our bad habits, energy drains, and clear away distractions and deviance from leading the kind of "good life" we'd like to live. It's better if no one tells us what to give up. We know. We ourselves can see. It's just that letting go is so hard because we've built all sorts of supports to our harmful behaviors that have mortared our habits in place. Just do it. Let go. It's only temporary. Pick up the bad habits in 40 days.
Many often wish others a similar blessing: "May God bless your Lenten sacrifice" [39]. In many places, Christians historically abstained from all food for a whole day until the evening, and at sunset, Western Christians traditionally broke the Lenten fast, which is often known as the Black Fast [40, 41].
In the Ethiopian Church, one of the oldest in all of Christianity, eating vegetarian/vegan food was considered fasting, so one is at no risk of starving. A plant-based diet is a cruelty-free, compassionate, and smart choice to survive and thrive spiritually and physically. Just look at yogis.
The Grateful Dead came through Alpine Valley. These are real "Deadheads," not actors, from an excerpt of the television show The 90's.
In "Love on $14," Steve Martini and James McCartney spend three days at Alpine Valley Amphitheater in East Troy, Wisconsin, interviewing Deadheads like Jeffrey Lotus Heart about their dedication to the culture surrounding the band.
What is we hardwire the soft mushy brain with some hardware (WIRED/Getty Images).
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The Responsibility of Immortality: Welcome to the New Transhumanism
Give us peace, love, understanding, and LSD!
In the summer of 1990, I was running a pretty weird nightclub in the Roppongi neighborhood of Buddhist Tokyo, Japan.
I was deeply immersed in the global cyberpunk scene and working to bring the Tokyo node of this fast-expanding, posthuman, science-fiction-and-psychedelic-drug-fueled movement online.
The Japanese scene was more centered around videogames and multimedia than around acid and other psychedelics.
And Harvard professor and psychedelics researcher Timothy Leary, a dean of 1960s’ counterculture and proponent of psychedelia, who was always fascinated with anything mind-expanding, was interested in learning more about it.
Fired Harvard Prof. Timothy Leary, LSD researcher, with John Lennon and Yoko Ono
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AI is advancing, so transhumanists biohack.
Prof. Leary anointed the Japanese youth, including the 24-year-old me [Joi Ito], “The New Breed.”
He adopted me as a godson, and we started writing a book together about The New Breed, starting with “tune in, turn on, take over,” as a riff off his original and very famous “Turn on, tune in, drop out.”
We never finished the book, but we did end up spending a lot of time together. (I should dig out my old notes and finish the book.)
Leary introduced me to his friends in Los Angeles and San Francisco. They were a living menagerie of the counterculture in the United States since the ’60s.
There were the traditional New Age types: hippies, cyberpunks, and transhumanists, too.
In my early twenties, I was an eager and budding techno-utopian, dreaming of the day when I would become immortal and ascend to the stars into cryogenic slumber to awake on a distant planet.
Or perhaps I would have my brain uploaded into a computer network, to become part of some intergalactic superbrain.
"Immortality"? No.
["Intergalactic superbrain"? Sounds like Brahman (godhead, "GOD"), the Hindu/Mahayana Buddhist conception of the "higher self" or "luminous mind" they identify as our eternal "soul," atman, undying consciousness. Consciousnessis dying all the time by it very nature, by virtue of how it works, which is segmented into three sub-phases of arising, turning, and passing away. In this way -- which can be observed directly in vipassana or insight-meditation -- all the contents of "mind" in the process of consciousness are impermanent, IMPERSONAL, and unsatisfactory. But never mind about that, call it a "self," worship it, strive for it, and call yourself "immortal." You shall be as Gods (devas, brahmas), right? Taking Molly/E/MDMA, Ecstasy, and going to raves talking about how desperate you are not to die because you don't understand what death is and isn't. Religion, not being good enough, forces you to worship Science as the new religion, the new thing that extends the promise of immortality, which in Buddhism is a mental defilement or asava called "craving for eternal existence." It is flawed and full of suffering, but we don't see that because we are driven by fear of dying and desperate attachment to things we don't understand are causing this suffering. It would be far better to wake up than to cling to notions of immortality, but trying telling that to the dying. Living beings (us and the gods) are the dying. We have no idea there is liberation, the deathless, through enlightenment and nirvana.]
Good times. Those were the days and, for some, still are.
Sumerian god driving out the evil spirit, the "Chaos Monster." Figures are repeated on opposite side of temple doorway. These bas-reliefs now in the British Museum. More
Sumerian kings of ancient Mesopotamia
Humans have been yearning for immortality at least since the Epic of Gilgamesh.
In Greek mythology, Zeus grants the Goddess Eos’s mortal lover Tithonus immortality -- but the goddess forgets to ask for eternal youth as well. Tithonus grows old and decrepit, begging for death.
When I hear about life extension today, I am often perplexed, even frustrated. Are we are talking about eternal youth, eternal old age, or having our cryogenically frozen brains thawed out 2,000 years from now to perform tricks in a future alien zoo?
The latest enthusiasm for eternal life largely stems not from any acid-soaked, tie-dyed counterculture but from the belief that technology will enhance humans and make them immortal.
Today’s transhumanist movement, sometimes called H+, encompasses a broad range of issues and diversity of belief.
But the notion of immortality -- or, more correctly, amortality [non-mortality] -- is the central tenet.
Transhumanists believe that technology will inevitably eliminate aging or disease as causes of death and instead turn death into the result of an accidental or voluntary [aka suicide and euthanasia] physical intervention. More
AUTHOR: Joi Ito is an Ideas contributor for WIRED, and his association with the magazine goes back to its inception. He is coauthor with Jeff Howe of Whiplash: How to Survive Our Faster Future and director of the MIT Media Lab.
Ken Bakeris an American
journalist, author, former pro athlete, and television news personality.
He is the senior correspondent for E! News as well as the host of E!
Online's daily Web show Live From E!. He went from Catholicism to explore Buddhism and secular practices in an attempt to get back to his roots in the imperial Church. Will he get back to the bosom of the Mother Goddess/Virgin Mary? Will the Father God smite him for straying like the prodigal son? Will the Son of Man show his infinite mercy and forgiveness? Read it and find out. Here is a FREE book offer from Crown Publishing via Goodreads to find out.
The Ken Commandments:
My Search for God in Hollywood
An E! News star mixes
memoir and investigative journalism in his own version of A.J. Jacobs' excellent and Wisdom Quarterly recommended The Year of Living Biblically.
It chronicles his own [Jewish] spiritual journey as he
investigates the religious lives of the rich and famous in Hollywood.
Ken
Baker, the L.A.-based senior correspondent for E! News and E! Online,
has worked in Hollywood for 20 years, hobnobbing with
multi-millionaires and interviewing movie and TV stars on a regular
basis.
In that time, in the land of fairy tales and double-dealing,
Baker had in many ways become one the materialistic and carnal people he
never wanted to be, abandoning his Christian heritage and losing his
spiritual center in the process.
Finding himself alone and confused one
night in Las Vegas, he has a spiritual awakening that puts him on a journey
to find God [or more likely GOD/Brahman rather than Brahma/God], not only in himself, but in the celebrities who lives
intersect with his on a daily basis.
In this book, Hollywood meets
the spirit of A.J. Jacobs, as author Ken Baker sets off on an experiment
that will bring him closer to the spiritual lives of the rich and
famous and in the process help to reveal the light and dark of Hollywood
in new ways.
Meditate: Go on retreat
From New Age spirituality, to Bible-based Christianity, to
Buddhist retreats, to meditation classes, to atheism studies, to the
mega-church of the nation's top TV preacher, Baker will immerse himself
in a diverse range of spiritual practices side by side with the
celebrity set, revealing a world that is deeper and more GOD-centered
than you'd ever imagine. More
Book giveaway for The Ken Commandments from Crown Publishing (goodreads.com)
Our new favorite head, Koi Fresco (or "freshgoldfish"), was in Ojai, California recently on a retreat with GOD (someone at one with para-Brahman).
Via Skype, of course, because GOD doesn't have time to be everywhere all the time like his/herreputation would suggest. Koi is no longer a Hesher, having given up the herb, so with a clear mind and a pure heart, he went in search of darshan and found it in the company of groovy 1960s' Western guruRam Dass's (former Harvard Professor Richard Alpert), now 85-years-old, author of the famous Hippie-Hindu-Buddhist classicBe Here Now. Here Koi sends in a video report.
I Talked to God! (My Conversation with an Enlightened Being) Baba Ram Dass
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