John D. Ireland (trans.), Arañña Sutra (SN 1.10); Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly
Thus have I heard. Once upon a time the Blessed One (the Buddha) was staying near Savatthi, at Jeta Grove in the millionaire's monastery.
When the night was nearly past, a certain fairy (deva) that lit up the entire Jeta Grove with her surpassing splendor approached the Blessed One.
Having drawn near and bowed, she stood respectfully to one side.*
Classic fairy (Luis R. Falero, 1888)
Standing there the fairy said:
Those living in the forest,
Peaceful, calm, of pure livelihood,
Eating but one meal a day,
How is it they appear so radiant?
The Blessed One replied:
They sorrow not for what is past,
They long not for the future,
The present, now, is sufficient.
So it is that they appear so radiant.
By longing for the future,
By sorrowing about the past,
By this fools wither up
As a tender reed cut down.
Buddhist fairies
*NOTE: A "fairy" or deva (literally, a "shining one") in this case refers to a woodland denizen or an inhabitant of a lesser heavenly plane. Deva or "light being" is a broad category. These beings exist on many planes.
The word is related to the English words diva, deity, and divinity from the Latin deus, "god" in the Greek and Roman sense of the word, "demigod" or "godling," and Western religious "angel" or "archangel." When the term is applied to a human, it usually designates a royal (a legendary hybrid human-deva left behind to rule mere mortals, an honorific title like the one applied to the Buddha's mother Maya Devi).
The devas are angelically beautiful, like Pleiadians and Lyrians, Venutians and the women of Aldebaran. The bodies of devas -- be they lowly fairies or magnificent space beings more brilliant than celestial bodies, planets and suns -- are more subtle and purer than human bodies. They radiate more light. (Auras? Western science now confirms thathuman bodies emit light, not just devas).
The period before dawn-- the third watch of the night -- is the usual time for such beings to visit the Enlightened One, the Buddha. One of his titles, after all, is sattha deva-manussanam, a "teacher of gods (devas) and humans.
Cara St. Louis breaks new research on the Fae, Phe, Fe, or Fey (devas in Buddhism) for the first time to American audiences on the Freedom of Joyce Show. St. Louis is a writer, teacher, activist, and speaker. She has penned the books Consolata's Companion, The Sun Thief, and co-written with Harold Kautz-Vella Dangerous Imagination, Silent Assimilation. The Fae are the so-called "fairies" of legend who are the seed race of modern human beings, the Sidhe (Irish shee), the hybrids.
"When I am silent, I fall into that place where everything is music." - Rumi
Hey, mouth off and I'll smote ye!
XTC's Skylarking spawned the controversial track "Dear God," which was originally issued as the B-side of the album's first single
Interest in the song saw the U.S. album re-issued with "Dear God" included, and the new version of the LP sold a quarter million copies in the U.S., reviving the band's commercial fortunes and earning critical accolades.
Dear God, hope you got the letter, and I pray you can make it better down here. I don't mean a big reduction in the price of beer, but all the people that you made in your image, see them starving on their feet 'cause they don't get enough to eat from God, I can't believe in you
Dear God, sorry to disturb you, but I feel that I should be heard loud and clear. We all need a big reduction in amount of tears, and all the people that you made in your image, see them fighting in the street 'cause they can't make opinions meet about God, I can't believe in you. Did you make disease and the diamond blue? Did you make mankind after we made you? And the devil, too?
I'm getting to it later. I'm busy right now.
Dear God, don't know if you noticed, but your name is on a lot of quotes in this book, and us crazy humans wrote it, you should take a look, and all the people that you made in your image still believing that junk is true. Well I know it ain't and so do you, dear God, I can't believe in, I don't believe in
I won't believe in heaven and hell. No saints, no sinners, no devil as well. No pearly gates, no thorny crown. You're always letting us humans down. The wars you bring, the babes you drown. Those lost at sea and never found, and it's the same the whole world 'round. The hurt I see helps to compound
That Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is just somebody's unholy hoax, and if you're up there you'd perceive that my heart's here upon my sleeve. If there's one thing I don't believe in it's you, dear God.
"Deus"? (Björk) Deus ("God") from The Sugarcubes before the singer became a famous soloist
"No one 'saves' us, no one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path; buddhas only point the way." The path we walk is our actions, our karma, the results of which will take us places. What is the karma to the end of suffering? The Noble Eightfold Path.
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When Bjork was in The Sugarcubes she sang, "Deus does not exist." "Deus" is God's Latin name, of course, from which we derive diva, divine, divinity, borrowing the root from the Sanskrit deva, a "shining one" as the Buddha explained.
Buddhism does believe in God (Maha Brahma), in many Gods (brahmas) and gods (devas), and many Buddhists can believe or not, worship or not. (The route is the meditative absorptions).
Ultimately, however, the Great God or countless other gods, who themselves are not enlightened and liberated from suffering and rebirth, cannot lead us to enlightenment or even point the way. They have a much better time than humans, on the whole. But they may not even be able to tell us how we can get to be reborn where they are. They can say how they did it, to the extent they know the karma (actions) and root causes.
Be here now at every moment like Ziggy.
A buddha (fully enlightened teacher) knows the route to all rebirth-destinations. In the book The 31 Planes of Existence, a treatise on ancient Buddhist cosmology, it is laid out. Do you wish for rebirth in God's company? That's called "Brahma's Retinue" and is rather lowly.
Do you wish to be a God, a brahma or "supreme one"? That's in there. How about a "messenger angel"? That's very low but still above human, a state known as a gandharva or gandhabba, the lowest rank of deva, the heavenly musicians. Why not aspire to rebirth as a beautiful, long-lived, and influential human? That will be very short life compared to any of the deva lives. There are much worse places to land than the human state or manussya loka. Just look at the wild animal world or the ghosts and ghouls.
This human plane offers one advantage over all others -- the ease with which it is possible to attain enlightenment from here, midway between luxurious hedonism and woeful suffering. The devas in general have much better strands of pleasure, so much so that they're intoxicated with parties and good times, rarely allowing themselves to perceive any suffering or shortcoming to the endless round of rebirth...until they fall from their perches/stations. But then it's a little bit late to do anything about it. Now is the time.
The Buddha saw all of these destinations and declared that nirvana -- which is neither a location nor a temporary state but "the unconditioned element" -- is the best, highest above all, the only true refuge and safety. Until then, choose rebirth-destinations wisely. We're choosing all the time by our karma.
Divine Messengers (deva-dūta) is a symbolic name for old age, disease, and death in that these three remind humans of their future and rouse them to earnest striving. In the Numerical Discourses, Book of the Threes, Discourse 35 (AN III.35), it is said:
"Did you, O good person, never see in the world a man or woman eighty, ninety, or a hundred years old, frail, crooked as a gable-roof, bent down, resting on crutches, with tottering steps, infirm, youth long since fled, with broken teeth, grey and scanty hair, or bald, wrinkled, with blotched limbs? Did it never occur to you that you also are subject to old age, that you also cannot escape it?
"Did you never see in the world a man or woman, who being sick, afflicted, and grievously ill, and wallowing in their own filth, was lifted up by some people, and put down by others? Did it never occur to you that you also are subject to disease, that you also cannot escape it?
"Did you never see in the world the corpse of a man or woman, one or two or three days after death, swollen up, blue-black in color, and full of corruption? Did it never occur to you that you also are subject to death, that you also cannot escape it?"
The Three Fates (Flemish Tapestry, probably Brussels, ca. 1510-1520, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England). The Three Fates -- Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, who spin, draw out, and cut the thread of Life -- represent Death in this tapestry (pdl.cmu.edu/Fates).
Greek and Roman Parallels
The symbolism of the Three Fates was adopted and modified by the ancient Greeks (and Romans), whose empire bordered Buddhist India's frontier regions and whose nascent culture was greatly influenced by the East and its ideas. (See Indo-Greek map). In depicting the Three Fates, the symbolic figures triumph over the fallen body of Chastity. Ancient Indian Buddhist lore was incorporated into Western mythology, rife with deep symbolism.
The tapestry, also known as the "Triumph Over Death," is based on the third subject in Petrarch's poem "The Triumphs." Petrarch elaborates: First, Love triumphs, then Love is overcome by Chastity, Chastity by Death, Death by Fame, Fame by Time, and Time by Eternity.
In the Buddhist original, the symbolism of lifespan-factors defines these messengers: Both Buddhists and Greeks recognize these Three Moirae as the "Apportioners" of life, personifying one's destiny -- just as aging, morbidity, and mortality do.
When they were three to the Greeks, the Moirae were:
Clotho ("spinner") spun the thread of life. (Her Roman equivalent was Nona, the "Ninth," who was originally a goddess called upon in the ninth month of pregnancy).
Lachesis ("allotter" or drawer of lots) measured the thread of life allotted to each person, just as illness cuts short our lives. (Her Roman equivalent was Decima, the "Tenth").
Atropos ("inevitable," literally "unturning," sometimes called Aisa) was the cutter of the thread of life. She chose the manner and timing of each person's death. When she cut the thread with "her abhorrèd shears," someone on Earth died. (Her Roman equivalent was Morta ("Death").
Recollecting the Devas These shocking messages of aging, sickness, and mortality are distinct from what is normally contemplated with regard to fortunate devas. Rather than promoting their worship and supplication -- the asking of favors and miracles from them -- the Buddha advised people with a devotional disposition to practice devatānussati or "recollection of light beings." (See anussati). By doing so one may attain rebirth as a deva.
But what are devas from a Buddhist point of view? The cosmology is clear. The word literally means "the Radiant [or Shining] Ones," related to the Latin deus. The word also relates to their penchant for play and sport.Sometimes called gods, godlings, demigods, or even "angels," they are semi-terrestrial (i.e., dryads or bhumi-devas) and sky or space-beings who live in happy worlds, love to play, and are to varying degrees self-luminous and capable of remarkable feats.
As a rule, they are invisible to the human eye. But attuned by meditation, with the development of the divine eye, they can be seen. They may also make themselves visible by taking on a denser form.
As magical as all this may sound, however, they are subject to the same things all human and other beings are: ever-repeated rebirth, old age, and death. Thus, as happy as their lives are, they are not free from the cycle of existence or from misery, nor are they necessarily wiser or more aware of the future than humans. There are many classes of devas in the worlds beyond the Sensuous Sphere (i.e., the Fine-material Realm and the Formless Realm). But within the Sensuous Sphere, which is the same sphere as the human world, there are six classes of devas in ascending order:
Devas under the Four Great Kings (Cātumahārājika-deva)
Devas in the World of the Thirty-three (Tāvatiṃsa)
Devas deligting in space(Yāma)
Devas who are contented (Tusita)
Devas who create (Nimmāna-rati)
Devas who enjoy other's creations (Paranimmita-vasavatti)
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Thus have I heard. Once upon a time the Blessed One (the Buddha) was staying near Savatthi, at Jeta Grove in the millionaire's monastery.
