Theos-Talk Archives (December 2009 Message tt00011)

If you don't mind I will add your comment, ok? Makes good sense and can make a better understanding of Dugpa influence through the centuries... :-)




________________________________
From: Morten Nymann Olesen <global-theosophy@stofanet.dk>
To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thu, December 3, 2009 10:01:19 PM
Subject: Re: Theos-World Are the Jesuits inside the Vatican still at it?

Dear Martin and friends

My views are:




Interesting.

1.
>From your blog I read:
"'A wealthy Arabian lady who was a faithful follower of the pope played a tremendous part in this drama. She was a widow named Khadijah. She gave her wealth to the church and retired to a convent, but was given an assignment. She was to find a brilliant young man who could be used by the Vatican to create a new religion and become the messiah for the children of Ishmael. Khadijah had a cousin named Waraquah,, who was also a very faithful Roman Catholic and the Vatican placed him in a critical role as Muhammad's advisor. He had tremendous influence on Muhammad."

M. Sufilight says:
I have however always thought that Muhammed was part of an Esoteric Circle of early Sufis and not part of a Catholic plot. This view I will keep.
It is said that the Naqshbandiyya lineage in part arrvied from Aku Bakr, Muhammad's father-in-law. And it is known, that this esoteric group interacted with the Khwajagan ("The Masters") of the Hindu Koosh.

In Naqshbandiyya we have the great Bahaudin Naqshband (d. 1389) who said:
THE PALACE OF THE ENLIGHTENED
"The Path (Order) of the Masters derives its substance in unbroken succession from earliest times. It maintains its connection, in parallel way, with both the ancients and the contemporary teachers, by direct communication of being."

Khwajagan's was officially established near Balkh around year 1100. And we know that Balkh in the early days was a major center for esoteric teachings at the Nava Vihara monastery. 

2.
Idries Shah wrote in "The Sufis":
"Jabir Ibn el-Hayyan was for a long time a close companion of the Barmecides, the viziers of Haroun el-Rashid.These barmakis were descended from the priest of the Afghan Buddhist shrines, and were held to have at their disposal the ancient teaching which had been transmitted to them from that area. Haroun el-Rashid was a constant associate of Sufis, and there are instances on record of his making reverential pilgrimages to meet Sufi masters." (p. 196)


A comment by M. Sufilight:
It is also known that at the time of Geber it can be found that one of the strongholds of the Afghan-Sufi-Buddhists was at Balkh, and at the monastery known as Nava Vihara.
This monastery and nearby shrines was through many centuries the hot-bed of esoteric sufi-buddhist-zoroaster teachings. These doctrines lived side by sides at that place. And no Buddhist was allowed entry to it unless he first was known to have written a paper on Buddhism.
The Nava Vihara Monastery was it is said build on an old fire-temple of the Zoroastrians. A number of their temples had a form like a CUBE and was placed in the center of the shrine almost similar to the Kaaba at Mekka.
The Nava Vihara Monastery was for centuries compared on equal foot with the highly regarded monastery called Nalanda Monastery or Nalanda University.

3.
The famous Buddhistic traveller Alexandra David-Neel writes in 'Les Nouvelles Littéraires', 1954, p.1 that Shambhala  (as in a sense referred to by Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine, vol.2 p. 320 and 400.)  - is to be found at Afghanistan - near or at the city of Balkh.

And since it is said that it was at the palace of the Shamballah King that the famous Kalachakra scripture was obtained, the issue is not unimportant to the Seekers after Truth.

Kalachakra
"The Kalachakra thus passed directly to Shambhala, where it was held exclusively for hundreds of years."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalachakra


4.
The following is from one of the best known translators of Buddhistic texts in our present time.  He is named Alexander Berzin. Although I disagree with him, I find the below by him very interesting to contemplate and even relate to our present time. It is interesting because it mentions the many ups and downs in the area of Afghanistan through the centuries.

A. Berzin writes:
"According to early Hinayana biographies of the Buddha, such as the Sarvastivada text The Sutra of Extensive Play (Lalitavistara), Tapas­su and Bhallika, two merchant broth­ers from Bac­tria, became the first disciples to receive layman's vows. This occurred eight weeks after Shakyamuni's enlightenment, traditionally ascribed to 537 BCE. Bhallika later became a monk and built a monas­tery near his home city, Balkh, near present-day Mazar-i-Sharif." 
.......
"Nava Vihara, the main monastery at Balkh, soon became the center of higher Buddhist study for all of Central Asia, comparable to Nalanda Monastery in central northern India. It emphasized study primarily of the Vaibhashika abhidharma and admitted only monks who had already composed texts on the topic."
.......
"Balkh had been the birthplace of Zoroaster in about 600 BCE. It was the holy city of Zoroastrianism, the Iranian religion that grew from his teachings and which emphasized the veneration of fire. Kanishka followed the Graeco-Bactrian policy of religious tolerance. Thus, Buddhism and Zoroastrianism peacefully coexisted in Balkh, where they influenced each other's development. Cave monasteries from this period, for example, had wall paintings of Buddhas with auras of flames and in­scrip­tions calling them "Buddha-Mazda." This was an amal­gam of Buddha and Ahura Mazda, the supreme god of Zoroastrianism."
.......
"The Han Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang (Hsüan-tsang) visited the Western Turks in approximately 630 on his way to India. He reported that Buddhism was flourishing in the Bactrian portion of their empire, especially at Nava Vihara Monastery in Balkh. He cited the monastic university not only for its scholarship, but also for its beautiful Buddha statues, draped with silk robes and adorned with jewel ornaments, in accordance with local Zoroastrian custom. The monastery had close links at the time with Khotan, a strongly Buddhist kingdom in East Turkistan, and sent many monks there to teach. Xuanzang also described a monastery near Nava Vihara dedicated to advanced Hinayana meditation practice of vipashyana (Pali: vipassana) - the exceptional perception of impermanence and of a person's lack of independent identity."
.......
"Moreover, although Mahayana had made advances into Afghanistan from Kashmir and Punjabi Gandhara during the fifth and sixth centuries, Xuanzang noted its presence only in Kapisha and in the Hindu Kush regions west of Nagarahara. Sarvasti­vada remained the predominant Buddhist tradition of Nagara­hara and northern Bactria."
.......
"Yahya ibn Barmak, the Muslim grandson of one of the Buddhist administrative heads (Skt.: pramukha, Arabic: barmak) of Nava Vihara Monastery, was the minister of the next Abbasid caliph, al-Rashid (ruled 786 - 808). Under his influence, the Caliph invited to Baghdad many more scholars and masters from India, especially Buddhists. A catalogue of both Muslim and non-Muslim texts prepared at this time, Kitab al-Fihrist, included a list of Buddhist works. Among them was an Arabic version of the account of Buddha's previous lives, Book of Buddha (Arabic: Kitab al-Budd)."
.......
"Nava Vihara, though still functioning during this period, was limited in its capacity and required extensive training before one could enter."
.......
"Hinduism was also present throughout the region. Visiting in 753, the Han Chinese pilgrim Wukung (Wu-k'ung) reported both Hindu and Buddhist temples especially in the Kabul Valley."
http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/archives/study/history_buddhism/buddhism_central_asia/history_afghanistan_buddhism.html


5.
Nava Viahra in Wikipedia:
"An Arab author, Omar ibn al-Azraq Al-Kermani, wrote a detailed account of Navbahar at the beginning of the eighth century that is preserved in a later tenth-century work, the Kitab al-Buldan by Ibn al-Faqih al-Hamadhani. He described Navbahar in terms more readily understandable to Muslims by drawing an analogy with the Kaaba in Mecca, the holiest site of Islam. He described that the main temple had a stone cube in the center, draped with cloth, and that devotees circumambulated it and made prostration, as is the case with the Kaaba. The stone cube referred to the platform on which a stupa stood, as was the custom in Bactrian temples. The cloth that draped it was in accordance with Persian custom of showing veneration that applied equally to Buddha statues as well as to stupas. Al-Kermani's description indicates an open and respectful attitude by the Umayyad Arabs in trying to understand the non-Muslim religions, such as Buddhism, that they encountered
 in their newly conquered territories."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nava_Vihara


Balkh was for sure very central in the good old days.
And what about Balkh today?



M. Sufilight



  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Martin 
  To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Thursday, December 03, 2009 5:48 PM
  Subject: Re: Theos-World Are the Jesuits inside the Vatican still at it?


    
  Check my blog here: How the Vatican Created Islam , part of the info I found here on TS Talk and part I found on the web...

  ________________________________
  From: Morten Nymann Olesen <global-theosophy@stofanet.dk>
  To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com
  Sent: Thu, December 3, 2009 5:30:03 PM
  Subject: Theos-World Are the Jesuits inside the Vatican still at it?

  Dear friends

  My views are:

  One of my friends e-mailed this one on another forum. Try especially listen to the secend speaker in this video where Christopher Hitchens are telling something which aught to be carefully considered. At least that is what I think.

  The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world
  http://www.intelligencesquared.com/iq2-video/2009/catholic-church
  I do of course not agree on all what is said.
  But, ...any comments?

  - - -
  THEOSOPHY OR JESUITISM?
  http://www.blavatsky.net/blavatsky/arts/TheosophyOrJesuitism.htm

  M. Sufilight

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