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“The test of a religion or philosophy is the number of things it can explain.”—American 19th-century poet Ralph Waldo Emerson
LITTLE, if anything, is known about him for sure. Tradition says that he was named Siddhārtha Gautama, that he was a prince, and that he was born about 600 years before the birth of Christ in the northern Indian kingdom of the Sakya. He was called Sakyamuni (sage of the Sakya tribe) and Tathagata, a title of uncertain meaning. Most likely you will recognize him only by his better-known title, the Buddha.
...
The Many Faces of the Buddha
“The first images of the Buddha were made by the Greeks,” writes E. M. Layman. Buddhists claim that these statues are not worshiped but are only aids to devotion, designed to show respect for the great Teacher. At times the Buddha is shown standing, but most often he sits cross-legged, the soles of his feet facing upward. When his hands are atop one another, he is meditating; when his right hand is lifted to the chin, he is blessing; and when the thumb of the right hand is touching the forefinger or when both hands are joined in front of the breast, he is teaching. The reclining pose depicts him at the moment of passage into Nirvana.
Just as there are differences in his various postures, so there are varieties of his doctrine. It is said that within 200 years after his death, 18 different versions of Buddhism already existed. Today, 25 centuries removed from Gautama’s “enlightenment,” Buddhist interpretations of how to achieve Nirvana are many.
Erik Zürcher of the University of Leiden in the Netherlands explains that there are “three basic orientations within Buddhism, each with its own doctrinal ideas, cultic practices, sacred scriptures, and iconographic traditions.” These movements are called vehicles in Buddhist terminology because, like ferryboats, they carry a person across the river of life until he finally reaches the shore of liberation. Then the vehicle may safely be abandoned. And the Buddhist will tell you that the method of travel—the kind of vehicle—is immaterial. Getting there is all that matters.
These vehicles include Theravada Buddhism, which apparently remains fairly close to what the Buddha preached and is particularly strong in Burma, Sri Lanka, Laos, Thailand, and Kampuchea (formerly, Cambodia). Mahayana Buddhism, particularly strong in China, Korea, Japan, Tibet, and Mongolia, is more liberal, having adapted its teachings to reach more people. For that reason it is called the Greater Vehicle in contrast with Theravada, the Lesser Vehicle. Vajrayana, the Diamond Vehicle, commonly known as Tantrism or Esoteric Buddhism, combines ritual with the practicing of Yoga, and supposedly speeds up one’s progress toward Nirvana.
These three movements are divided into many schools, each differing in the interpretation of certain basic elements, oftentimes because of placing special emphasis on certain sections of Buddhist scriptures. And since, according to Zürcher, wherever it went, “Buddhism was in varying degrees influenced by local beliefs and practices,” these schools soon fathered any number of local sects. Not unlike Christendom with its thousands of confusing sects and subdivisions, the Buddha, figuratively speaking, wears many faces.
Buddhism and Politics
Like Judaism and professed Christianity, Buddhism has not limited itself to religious activities but has helped mold political thought and behavior as well. “The first fusion of Buddhism and political action came during the reign of [King] Asoka,” says author Jerrold Schecter. The political activism of Buddhism continues to our day. In the latter part of 1987, 27 Tibetan Buddhist monks were arrested in Lhasa for taking part in anti-Chinese demonstrations. And the involvement of Buddhism in the Vietnam war of the 1960’s caused Schecter to conclude: “The peaceful path of the Middle Way has been twisted into the new violence of street demonstrations. . . . Buddhism in Asia is a faith in flames.”
Dissatisfied with the deplorable political, economic, social, and moral conditions of the Western world, some people turn to Eastern religions, including Buddhism, for explanations. But can “a faith in flames” provide the answers? If you apply Emerson’s criterion that “the test of a religion . . . is the number of things it can explain,” how do you rate Gautama’s enlightenment? Would some of the other Asiatic religions “In Search of the Right Way” do better? For an answer, read our next installment.
...
“Falsely Called ‘Knowledge’”
As early as the first century, Christianity was influenced by false religious teachings, causing Paul to warn Timothy to turn away “from the contradictions of the falsely called ‘knowledge.’” (1 Timothy 6:20, 21) This may have been a reference to a movement called Gnosticism that gained prominence early in the second century but that evidently got started in the first century, possibly with a certain Simon Magus. Some authorities claim that this may be the Simon mentioned in the Bible at Acts 8:9.
Gnosticism got its name from the Greek word gnoʹsis, meaning “knowledge.” Gnostic groups contended that salvation is dependent upon special mystical knowledge of deep things unknown to ordinary Christians. They felt that possessing this knowledge enabled them to teach, as The Encyclopedia of Religion says, “the inner truth revealed by Jesus.”
The origins of Gnostic thought were many. From Babylon, Gnostics took the practice of attributing hidden meanings to Bible numbers, which supposedly revealed mystical truths. Gnostics also taught that whereas the spirit is good, all matter is inherently evil. “This is the same chain of reasoning,” says German author Karl Frick, “that was already found in Persian dualism and in the Far East in China’s ‘yin’ and ‘yang.’” The “Christianity” presented by Gnostic writings is definitely based on non-Christian sources. So how could it be “the inner truth revealed by Jesus”?
Scholar R. E. O. White calls Gnosticism a combination of “philosophic speculation, superstition, semi-magical rites, and sometimes a fanatical and even obscene cultus.” Andrew M. Greeley of the University of Arizona says: “The Jesus of the Gnostics is sometimes incoherent, sometimes unintelligible, and sometimes more than a little creepy.”
Twisting the Truth About Christ
...
Moreover, by forcing the tie between Jesus and the logos of Greek philosophy, which was closely linked with the person of God, the apologists, including Tertullian, embarked on a course that eventually led Christianity to the Trinity dogma.* [For further information on Tertullian’s beliefs, see The Paradox of Tertullian]
...
Knowledge (gno'sis) is put in a very favorable light in the Christian Greek Scriptures. However, not all that men may call “knowledge” is to be sought, because philosophies and views exist that are “falsely called ‘knowledge.’” (1Ti 6:20) ...
... Thus Paul wrote about some who were learning (taking in knowledge) “yet never able to come to an accurate knowledge [...] of truth.” (2Ti 3:6, 7)
The only thing you can ever know for certain in this world is that you exist. Everything else is open for debate
Personal belief, is not the same as knowing
Go!
Stapled shut, inside an outside world and I'm
Sealed in tight, bizarre but right at home
Claustrophobic, closing in and I'm
Catastrophic, not again
I'm smeared across the page, and doused in gasoline
I wear you like a stain, yet I'm the one who's obscene
Catch me upon all your sordid little insurrections
I've got no time to lose, I'm just caught up in all the cattle
Fray the strings
Throw the shapes
Hold your breath
Listen
I am a world before I am a man
I was a creature before I could stand
I will remember before I forget
Before I forget that
I am a world before I am a man
I was a creature before I could stand
I will remember before I forget
Before I forget that
I'm ripped across the ditch, and settled in the dirt
I wear you like a stitch, yet I'm the one who's hurt
Pay attention to your twisted little indiscretions
I've got no right to win, I'm just caught up all the battles
Locked in clutch
Pushed in place
Hold your breath
Listen
I am a world before I am a man
I was a creature before I could stand
I will remember before I forget
Before I forget that
I am a world before I am a man
I was a creature before I could stand
I will remember before I forget
Before I forget that
My end
It justifies my means
All I have to do is delay
My every attempt to evade
The end of the road is my end
It justifies my means
All I have to do is delay
My every attempt to evade
The end of the road!
I am a world before I am a man
I was a creature before I could stand
I will remember before I forget
Before I forget that
I am a world before I am a man
I was a creature before I could stand
I will remember before I forget
Before I forget that
I am a world before I am a man
I was a creature before I could stand
I will remember before I forget
Before I forget that
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh!
Revelation 6:1
The First Seal: Rider on a White Horse
THE EARTH AND THE MOON
1And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see. 2And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.
1. The world we see through, in phase to the physical body, within a pocket from within which we have sound, and we are able to hear. Opposite to light. 2. And within light, as the riding moon: set above us upon its axis; within the planets own orbit: presenting forces which push upon the Earth, and pull against the Earth
Revelation 6:3
The Second Seal: War
MARS - FLESH / INTERNAL ORGANS
3And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see. 4And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.
3. The second step of physical phase. The insides of our physical body, from which we are able to perceive. 4. All that within which we call flesh: that gives us the ability to centre upon this world and fulfill need, and consume as is needed: and move as we need in order to fulfill such need
Revelation 6:5
The Third Seal: Famine
VENUS - PATHWAYS OF THE BODY
This talks about Venus as the invisible pairing to Earth. And how it relates to the physical body. Like two eyes, giving one image. We see one Earth. But there is actually two planets
Revelation Revelation 6:7
The Fourth Seal: Death
THE BODY OF THE UNSEEN SELF
Talks about the embodiment of self in decay. The body which consumes, as it is consumed within the world it feeds upon. The cycle of life, for which we live, to die. The realisation of mortality, which gives life meaning
Revelation 6:9
The Fifth Seal: Martyrs
JUPITER - THE CHEMICAL SELF
Talks about the chemical population of forces, both within the world and the body it relates to. Nutrition and extract within the chemical process as it feeds what is necessary, to where it is necessary
Revelation 6:12
The Sixth Seal: Terror
SATURN - THE MIRRORED SELF
Talks about the point where the sun reverses and manifests as a planet, mirrored to itself (Satan). How the Earth, body and self within all the other aspects of phase (seals), are also reversed. So that the centred physical world and body we see and know, becomes the rings surrounding the reversed, mirrored and/or inside-out sun. Its moons like reflections of the elements of nature
Revelation 7:1
God's People will Be Preserved
SELF IN REFLECTION
Talks about how the phase of the self, manifests what we call the 3-Dimensional world. The 4 directions of the compass. A balanced perspective of 4, from a offset of 3
Revelation 7:4
144,000 Sealed (12 tribes and 12,000)
NEPTUNE - WATER AND BASE FREQUENCY
Talks about water and its relation to the 12 tones of the octave, from which all spectrum and frequency arise
Revelation 7:9
Praise from the Great Multitude
FLUID DYNAMICS
Talks about the propagation of frequency and spectrum. From which all things come. From which all plants come. From which all animals come. From which all life comes. From which everything populates. Sound. Light. Anything within frequency, which is all things. Anything fluid which propagates as bridge
Note: Water is not phase (seal/layer), it is the/a bridge for/of phase
Revelation 8
The Seventh Seal
THE BREATHING SELF
Talks about the half return of gravity, which promotes our physical atmosphere (5/8 with a 1/2 return). Within which we are given the octave (Seven trumpets. A true musical octave is 7 notes, not 8. The 8th note is the return note, same as the 1st)
It talks about how this "slack" within which we are able to breath, also allows the "breathing" of things such as light, sound, and all frequency
Revelation 8:6
The First Four Trumpets
THE MUSICAL 4TH
Talks about the musical 4ths within an octave and their relation to the physical body and world
And their relation to the forming of primary elements in cycles of force and influence
Revelation 9:1
The Fifth Trumpet
THE PERFECT 5TH
Talks about the musical 5ths within an octave and their relation to the physical body and world
Their relation to gravity and axis of rotation within things such as orbits and other cycles of influence and force
Revelation 9:13
The Sixth Trumpet
CARBON - THE MUSICAL 6TH IN MODE
Talks about the musical 6ths within an octave and their relation to the physical world and body
Their relation to the influence and force upon the creation of centre, against gravity
Revelation 10
The Angel and the Small Scroll
THE MUSICAL OCTAVE
Talks about octave and the return of cycle. How it rolls back upon itself
The sphere of atmospheric influence and force
Revelation 11:1
The Two Witnesses
HARMONY
Talks about principles of harmony
Revelation 11:7
The Witnesses Killed and Raised
THE MAJOR AND MINOR HARMONY
Talks about the principles and differences between the major and minor harmony
Revelation 11:15
The Seventh Trumpet
THE MUSICAL 7TH
Talks about the principles and applications of the 7th note in relation to major and minor scales
Revelation 13:11
The Beast Out Of The Earth
MUSICAL TIME SIGNATURE
Talks about musical time signature, in physical relation to measure and frequency
Revelation 13:16
The Mark of the Beast
MUSICAL KEY SIGNATURE
Talks about musical key signature, root notes and structureedit on 5 10 21 by Compendium because: Missing word