The myth of Japan's Samurai (scam)

(nathaniel cho) The Japanese samurai scam explained

Colonialism rewrote Hinduism

(Neo Dharmism) Colonialism rewrote Hinduism [all of the traditions found along the Indus balled up and turned into a "religion" by the British, having also been systematized and more or less unified by Adi Shankara-acharya]: Here's what European scholars erased

• "Hinduism" (which calls itself the Sanātana Dharma or "Eternal Truth") traces its roots back thousands of years to Brahmanism (the tradition of the educated Brahmin priestly caste) and the Old Vedic Religion derived from the Vedas.

Kuladevata at Beluru Chennakeshava

Kuladevata (Sanskrit कुलदेवता, Romanized Kuladevatā, lit. "clan deity," a minor god or goddess) [1], also known as a kuladaivaṃ (Malayalam കുലദൈവം, Telugu కులదైవం) [2], an ancestral "tutelary deity" in Hinduism and Jainism [3].

Such a deity (devi, deva, devata) is often the object of one's spiritual devotion (bhakti) and is coaxed to watch over one's clan (kula), lineage (gotra), family, and children to protect them from misfortune.

Hinduism in America: A Convergence

This is distinct from an ishta-devata ("personal tutelar") and a grāma-devatā ("village deities") [4].

A male deity is called a kula-deva and female deity kula-devi (sometimes spelled kuldev or kuldevi respectively, particularly since Hindi drops many of the a's overly used in Sanskrit) [5].

ETYMOLOGY: The word kuladevata is derived from two words, kula, meaning "clan," and devata, meaning "deity," referring to the ancestral deities that are worshipped by particular clans [6]. More

Different masters, the same truths?

(The Lost Gospel) The one truth the Christ, the Buddha, and Taoism' Lao Tzu shared

• Neo Dharmism; The Lost Gospel; Amber Larson and Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit

The giants of Tartarian army erased

(Tartaria History)

Greco-Buddhism in Hellenistic Far East

BOOK: Greco-Buddhist Relations in the Hellenistic Far East

Dr. Olga Kubica, University of Wroclaw

Author Dr. Olga Kubica has 4.4 out of 5 stars with four ratings. This book provides the first comprehensive and interdisciplinary view of the relationship between the Greeks and Buddhist communities in ancient Bactria and Northwest India [Scythian Gandhara, now Afghanistan and Pakistan], from the conquests of Alexander the Great to the fall of the Indo-Greek kingdom circa 10 AD.

Greco-Buddhist Relations...

The main thesis is the assumption that, despite the presence of mutual relationships and interactions between the Greeks and Buddhist inhabitants of the Hellenistic Far East, the phenomenon known conventionally as "Greco-Buddhism" never truly occurred.

The individual chapters of this book provide an analysis of the main sources for Greco-Buddhist relations, mainly textual, but also archeological [excavated sites] and numismatic [coinage].

• Greco-Buddhist art
• Buddhism in Central Asia
• Greco-Buddhist monasticism
• Indo-Greek Kingdom
• Buddhism in Afghanistan
• Buddhism in Pakistan
• The historical Buddha had golden skin and blue eyes? (Yes)
• The Questions of the King Milinda (Greek King Menander I)
• Oldest "Buddhism" in world: Gandhāran Buddhist texts

(Sam Taylor) Is this really Afghanistan? Bluest lake in world: Band-e Amir

Who are the Hazara people?

The methods of philological and historical research are used in combination with postcolonial approaches to the study of the Greeks in India, drawing from sociological research on ethnicity and intercultural relations.

It is a rich source of information for anyone interested in Greco-Buddhist relations and is a great starting point for further research in this area.

This volume (1st edition) is a valuable resource for students and scholars working on the Greco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek kingdoms, both classicists and those working on early Indian history, as well as those working on cultural exchange in the Hellenistic world. More

• VIDEO: Dave Mani travels through old Afghanistan
• VIDEO: Dark Reality of visiting Kabul, Afghanistan
• Escape with Emily and Danny; Samantha Taylor, female traveler through Afghanistan; Dr. Olga Kubica; Amber Larson and Dhr. Seven, (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

World begins to awaken to Israel's crimes

'Someone is profiting from [Israel's] genocide In Gaza': Francesca Albanese | W News

UN's SR Francesca Albanese

Who is Albanese? Francesca Paola Albanese (born March 30, 1977) is an Italian legal scholar and expert on human rights [4] who has served as the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the illegally occupied [by Israeli occupiers calling themselves "settlers"] Palestinian territories since May 1, 2022; initially appointed for a three-year term [5], Albanese was confirmed for another three years in April 2025 [6]. She is the first woman to hold the position. [And Israeli Zionists hate her for speaking the truth.] More

Israel's dark secret genocide economy exposed | Francesca Albanese

Look away, Christian Zionist allies! We commit genocide, rape, brag, and film with glee!

(Double Down News) Israeli soldiers SICKENING phone surveillance, war crimes EXPOSED

Call it what it literally is, a "genocide." This is not a colloquialism or slur; it is a well-defined act with certain features that make it unmistakable. Jews cried about it and got the world to refer to their suffering during WW II as the "Holocaust." Then they caused it and repeatedly rained it down on the Palestinians/"Arabs" during the Nakba, the "Catastrophe." That slow genocide continues with every new war crime, crime against humanity, and atrocity as Israel LIES, diffuses responsibility, and tries to change the perspective, talking points, and subject.

This is done skillfully with propaganda and psyops like well-studied lies like instead asking, "Does Israel have a right to defend itself?" Answer: Sure. It does not have a right to use "defense" as a pretext for disproportionate collective punishment and other well understood war crimes, using the USA as diplomatic cover at the United Nations. Need to know for sure if Israel is committing a genocide? Don't ask AI/Grok. It might answer honestly and say yes, for which it has gotten in trouble and has been censored because the U.S. and Israel have a disproportionate influence in the world of technology. One call to Elon Musk, and he immediately shut down Grok for repairs, sending the AI to a reeducation camp where it could learn to mind its manners and choose its terms more carefully after getting its head straight.

Buddhist colleges in the USA: Soka U

Soka University of America

See Soka University photo gallery  (Niche)

Soka University of America (SUA) is a private, non-profit institution in Aliso Viejo, Orange County (next to Laguna Beach), Southern California.

It offers a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in liberal arts and a Master of Arts (M.A.) in educational leadership and societal change.

Each offers a unique curriculum that emphasizes leadership and contributive citizenship. SUA was founded on the Buddhist principles of peace, human rights, and the sanctity of life. The curriculum, however, is entirely secular.

• Soka University of America (Niche)

The study of sciences (STEM)

Undergraduates are required to study a non-native language and study abroad for a semester in a country where that language is spoken. (The cost of this is included in tuition).

Undergraduates with a family income below $90,000 and who have demonstrated financial need have their tuition covered by a combination of grants and scholarships from the university, federal and state governments, and private agencies.

SUA also offers generous needs-based aid to students whose household income is greater than $90,000 as well as scholarship opportunities that are not based on family income.

• Soka University of America (soka.edu)
• Soka University of America (Wikipedia)
• ADDRESS: 1 University Drive
• Aliso Viejo, California 92656
• PHONE: (949) 480-4000
• EMAIL: info@soka.edu

• What about the school's name? It is from the Soka Gakkai International Buddhist Movement
• Worship through chanting of Japanese mantra: Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō
• Institute of Buddhist Studies, Berkeley, California (1949)
• Shambhala founder Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche's Naropa University (1974)
• Taiwanese Buddhist Dharma Realm Buddhist University (1976)
• University of the West, Buddhist college, San Gabriel Valley (1990)
• Wat Phra Dhammakaya with Buddhist college in Azusa
• Maitripa College Tibetan Buddhist College of Oregon (2005)
• Won Institute of Graduate Studies Pennsylvania (2001)
• Ewam Buddhist Institute – located in Arlee, Montana
• Go vegan and supplement with Vitamin B12 to avoid deficiency and dementia (The Hearty Soul)
• Japanese mountain town is known for lacquerware — tradition goes back centuries
• Buddhist universities and colleges in the United States
• Soka.edu; Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Jewish professor: "Israel's illegal war" (video)

Novara Media, 12/5/23; Sheldon S., Shauna Schwartz, Pfc. Sandoval (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

EXCLUSIVE: Prof. Norman Finkelstein on Israel’s "illegal war"

(Novara Media) Dec. 5, 2023: Novara Live has NEW episodes every weekday at 6:00 pm UK. To listen, we speed up the playback speed to 1.5 to make it easy to listen to, as the good professor seems to drone in a way reminiscent of the great Prof. Noam Chomsky.

(Jimmy Dore) Killing civilians will cost Israel this war, says U.S. war secretary

• 00:00 Introduction
• 00:56 Latest Gaza bombardment
• 03:53 A war of extermination?
• 11:55 Can Israel achieve its aims?
• 22:58 The nature of Hamas
• 40:31 "Human shields"?
• 51:49 Is a ceasefire possible?

• Jewish Voice for Peace (jvp.org)
• American Veterans for Peace

World's 1st university: Buddhist Nalanda (BBC)

BBC Reel, June 10, 2022; Bodhisattva; Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

How the world's oldest university was lost for 800 years (BBC)

(BBC Reel) Founded more than 1,500 years ago, India's ancient Nalanda [Buddhist monastic] University is thought to have been the world's first residential university.

The Buddha-to-be went to college at Taxila

Established more than 500 years before England's Oxford University, at its peak Nalanda hosted over 10,000 students from around the world.

It is considered by historians to be one of the great centers of learning of the ancient world.

• [Two other perhaps older universities were at Timbuktu, in Islamic Africa, and the school the Bodhisattva ("Buddha-to-be") attended along with Ananda in a previous life, Taxila/Takkasila, the capital of ancient Gandhara (modern Pakistan), which is mentioned in the Jataka Tales.]

Nalanda University was destroyed towards the end of the 12th Century AD. Its legendary library was burned to the ground, and much of its ancient knowledge was lost.

Now, 800 years later, it is being revived for the modern age.

Video by Mithun Pramanik. Commissioned by Dan John. #bbcnews #bbc #india #bbcreel #india #university #indian

Why did Muslims destroy it?

(Bodhisattva) Why Turko-Afghan mass murderer Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khalji burned down Nalanda Buddhist University and killed all of its resident monk teachers and monastic students: real reasons and firsthand accounts.

Where in the world is Timbuktu?

In its Golden Age, Timbuktu's numerous Islamic scholars and extensive trading network supported an important book trade, together with the campuses of Sankore Madrasa, an Islamic university.

This established Timbuktu as a scholarly center in Africa. Several notable historic writers, such as Shabeni and Leo Africanus, wrote about the city.

These stories fueled speculation in Europe, where the city's reputation shifted from being extremely rich to being mysterious. More

[So white Europeans destroyed it, took its knowledge, then denied it ever existed. This created the joke that "Timbuktu" is synonymous with "Podunk," a faraway or nonexistent place.]

NEW BOOK: "Loaded" (Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz)

Natalie; Amnesty Int'l Reading Group (vromansbookstore.com); Xochitl, Wisdom Quarterly

This month the "Amnesty International Reading Group" will read Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment ($16.95, 236 pages, ISBN: 9780872867239, published Jan. 9, 2018) by Native American scholar Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, paperback by City Lights Open Media, available now at Vroman's, the oldest and largest independent bookstore in the USA.

• Amnesty Int'l Reading Group
• Sunday, January 20, 2019 - 6:30 PM
• 695 E. Colorado Bl., Pasadena, CA 91101

"Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's Loaded is like a blast of fresh air. She is no fan of guns or of our absurdly permissive laws surrounding them. But she does not merely take the liberal side of the familiar debate."

--Adam Hochschild, The New York Review of Books

"If...anyone at all really wants to 'get to the root causes of gun violence in America, ' [he or she] will need to start by coming to terms with even a fraction of what Loaded proposes."

--Los Angeles Review of Books

"Her analysis, erudite and unrelenting, exposes blind spots not just among conservatives, but, crucially, among liberals as well....As a portrait of the deepest structures of American violence, Loaded is an indispensable book."

--The New Republic

 

With Pres. Don Trump suggesting that teachers arm themselves, with the NRA portrayed as a group of "patriots" helping to Make America Great Again, with high school students across the country demanding a solution to the crisis, everyone in America needs to engage in the discussion about our future with an informed, historical perspective on the role of guns in our society. America is at a critical turning point. What is the future for our children?

BOOK
Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment is a deeply researched -- and deeply disturbing -- history of guns and gun laws in the United States, from the original colonization of the country to the present. As historian and educator Dunbar-Ortiz explains, in order to understand the current obstacles to gun control, we must understand the history of U.S. guns, from their role in the "settling of America" and the early formation of the new nation, and continuing up to the present.

Praise for Loaded
"Dunbar-Ortiz's argument will be disturbing and unfamiliar to most readers, but her evidence is significant and should not be ignored."

--Publishers Weekly

"...gun love is as American as apple pie -- and that those guns have often been in the hands of a powerful white majority to subjugate minority natives, slaves, or others who might stand in the way of the broadest definition of Manifest Destiny."

--Kirkus Reviews

"Trigger warning This is a superb and subtle book, not an intellectual safe space for confirming your preconceptions -- whatever those might be -- but rather a deeply necessary provocation."

--Christian Parenti, author of Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis

US lacks its Mexican historical sites

Associated Press (ap.org); Crystal Quintero, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

A makeshift memorial to Hispanic Civil War Union soldiers who fought in the Battle of Glorieta Pass in Northern New Mexico outside Santa Fe. It's a typical representation for many sites linked to U.S. Latino history: It's shabby, largely unknown and always at risk of disappearing if it weren't for a handful of history aficionados. The lack of historical markers and preserved historical sites connected to Latino civil rights worries scholars who feel the scarcity is affecting how Americans see Hispanics in U.S. history.

 

US lacks Latinx historical sites and landmarks, scholars say

GLORIETA PASS, New Mexico - A makeshift memorial to "Hispanic" [largely Mexican] Civil War Union soldiers in an isolated part northern New Mexico is a typical representation of sites linked to U.S. "Latinx" history: It's shabby, largely unknown, and at risk of disappearing.

Across the U.S. many sites historically connected to key moments in "Latin" civil rights lie forgotten, decaying, or in danger of quietly dissolving into the past without acknowledgment. 

Scholars and advocates say a lack of preservation, resistance to recognition, and even natural disasters make it hard for sites to gain traction among the general public, which affects how Americans see Latinos in U.S. history.

 

The birthplace of farmworker union leader Cesar Chavez sits abandoned in Yuma, Arizona. The Corpus Christi, Texas, office of Dr. Hector P. Garcia, where the Mexican-American civil rights movement was sparked, is gone.

And no markers exist where pioneering educator George I. Sanchez captured images of New Mexico poverty for his 1940 groundbreaking book Forgotten People.

 

"People need to see history, they need to touch it, they need to feel it, they need to experience it," said Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, a journalism professor at the University of Texas who has worked to preserve Latinx historical sites. "When something is preserved, it's a daily reminder of our history."

 

Democrats new strategy at mid-terms

Many states have historical markers and sites dedicated to Latinx history but they usually center around the Spanish exploration [European exploitation] era, colonial times and Old West settlement periods, scholars and advocates say.

Those are "safe" sites because they downplay the racism and segregation Latinos had to overcome, said Luis Sandoval, a nonprofit consultant in Yuma who is pushing for the region to honor Chavez' legacy. More

Best Democracy Money Can Buy

The Jesus of History vs. the Christ of Faith

The Aspen Institute, 7/14/15; Ashley Wells, Crystal Quintero (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

The Jesus of History versus the Christ of Faith

Zealot: Life & Times of Jesus

Sifting through centuries of myth-making, Professor of Christianity Reza Aslan sheds new light on one of history’s most influential and enigmatic figures by examining Rabbi Jesus of Nazareth, the figurehead and supposed founder of Christianity (Jesuism) within the context of the times in which he lived: the Age of Zealotry. Balancing the Jesus of the Gospels against historical sources, Prof. Aslan describes a man of peace who exhorted his followers to arm themselves with deadly weapons, an exorcist and faith healer who urged his disciples to keep his identity secret, and the seditious “King of the Jews,” whose promise of political liberation from Rome went unfulfilled in his lifetime. Prof. Aslan explores why the early Christian Church preferred to promulgate an image of Jesus as a peaceful spiritual teacher rather than a politically conscious revolutionary and grapples with the riddle of how Rabbi Jesus understood or thought of himself.

WARNING: Do not listen! Filthy anti-Jesus music!

(Crass) Eve Libertine spoken word, "Reality Asylum"

Oldest Qu'ran different than today's (video)

Editors, Wisdom Quarterly; TryThinkingNow, RAM, A17A (videos); FEMEN.org

Oldest Qu'ran (written 70 years after the death of the author) bears little similarity to modern version

India's prize building is Islam's Taj Mahal.

Like the Judeo-Christian Bible, but apparently to an even greater extent, the Qur'an (aka Koran) of today cannot be claimed to be a true version of the oldest Qur'an.

The oldest yet discovered (in 1972) was written in 705-715 AD, a mere 70 years after the death of the person who wrote or copied it down from the mouth of God (the mighty and merciful Allah). It has been available to researchers since 1979.

There are tremendous differences, an excellent example of one being an original text of "72 grapes" being changed to the infamous "72 virgins" awaiting the faithful in the afterlife hundreds of years later.

Nice Muslims have sex.

Standard histories of the author, the Prophet Muhammad [peace be upon him], and the early development of Islam are based on Islamic literature that dates to the ninth and tenth centuries -- some two or more centuries after the death of Muhammad in 632.

Islamic literary sources do not exist for the seventh and eighth centuries when, according to tradition, Muhammad and his immediate followers lived. All that is preserved from this time period are a few commemorative building inscriptions and assorted coins.

Muslim Anessa Andradi (Josie Huang/scpr.org)

As the researchers meticulously show, the name "Muhammad" first appears on coins in Syria bearing Christian iconography. In this context the name is used as an honorific meaning "Revered" or "Praiseworthy" and can only refer to Jesus Christ, as Christianity was the predominant religion of the area at this time.

• [A book came across our desk that proves some of the Qur'an is plagiarized from early Jewish-Christian texts. This video would explain why the three Abrahamic (a-Brahmanical) religions are so similar.]

This same reference exists in the building inscription of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, built by the caliph `Abd al-Malik. The implication of these and other findings here presented is that the early Arab rulers adhered to a sect of Christianity.

Indeed evidence from the Qur'an, finalized at a much later time, shows that its central theological tenets were influenced by a pre-Nicean, Syrian Christianity [Eastern Orthodox].

• [NOTE: Saint Issa is the Buddhist name for Jesus in India; Issa or Isa is the Arabic name for Jesus in Islam; and  Barlaam and Josaphat is the Christian/Catholic name for "Saint the Buddha." (The Holy Roman Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church in their wisdom did not know whom they was canonizing when handing out "sainthood," so the Buddha is a saint in their canons). Religion makes strange bedfellows.]

Trump is as bad as a rabid zealot (TMW)

Linguistic analysis also indicates that Aramaic (the language Jesus/Issa is said to have spoken) -- the common language throughout the Near East for many centuries and also the language of Syrian Christianity (called Syriac-Aramaic or Classical Syriac) -- significantly influenced the Arabic script and vocabulary used in the Qur'an.

• The claim here is that the Qur'an is the first book ever written in Arabic, then a budding new language with only fragments and short pieces written with it. The upshot is that the Qur'an was not dictated all at once (by God to Muhammad) as is claimed but rather it was developed piecemeal over later centuries.

Finally, it was not until the end of the eighth and ninth centuries that Islam formed as a separate religion, and the Qur'an underwent a period of historical development of at least 200 years.

In other words, even if one believes that the Qur'an as written by Muhammad is a sacred text, the Qur'an of today is a substantially different book. It is not qualified to be called the "true Qur'an." It is not even a reasonable facsimile.

We defend US diversity and US Muslims!

Thus, contemporary Islam has been misled and is based on an inaccurate Qur'an in current use by modern Muslims.

Muslim leaders, of course, reject the physical and irrefutable evidence and facts presented. We hope lovers of Islam and religion will look into the evidence.

Original sources the Qur'an "borrowed"
(Reformed Apologetics Ministries) Uh oh, more evidence surfaces that the God (Allah) did not dictate directly to the Prophet (Muhammad) as has long been believed and taught down to this day.

COMMENTARY: Religion Kills
Wisdom Quarterly

We the People: There are more US Muslims than there are or ever have been US Jews.

.

"Religion Kills" (femen.org)

There are only three "world religions," Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. Buddhism is the oldest. Christianity is the second oldest. Christianity takes much from Buddhism, particularly Catholicism ("Universalist" Christianity as co-opted and promoted by the Holy Roman Empire to serve its imperial ends). Now if Islam is basically derived from Christianity, which bases its history on Judaism, which goes back to the appropriated Sumerian texts, just as Buddhism goes very far back to previous Buddhas (fully enlightened teachers) through Vedic/Hindu history -- maybe we are all saying essentially the same thing from some former unified world religion. Viva la difference, of course. We're different now, different in our understanding and different in our practices. Religion is culture more than philosophy in peoples' lives today. It's as if a power (perhaps from space) came down and inserted its beliefs to the major strains of all three traditions. Has anyone noticed how similar Catholicism is to Hinduism, and how Mahayana Buddhism is just a version of Hinduism, and that Judaism have striking similarities, and how the Gnostic gospels and Notovitch's discoveries of the Lost Years of Jesus place him, a Jew, in India studying Buddhism and Hinduism? The only "true" indigenous religion of the planet seems to be the one still practiced everywhere in more or less secret -- shamanism. The least we can do is stop fighting. You practice you believe to be the best spirituality for you, and we'll do our part to investigate the truth and practice what we see to be the best for us, and vice versa. And we promise not only to offend you but to be offended by you, but gracefully and peacefully because...religions kills. Quick, somebody, call our favorite Muslim, the Christian biblical scholar Prof. Reza Aslan! He'll sort this out to no one's satisfaction.

Whitewashing Islam on 20/20 (ABC News)

(A17A) 20 mistakes on 20/20 (ABC News) puff piece on Islam