Rsdf Chronicle I: Religio-Spiritual Development Quotations, References & Commentary

Copyright © 2012 by Religio-Spiritual Development Foundation.

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CONTENTS

DEDICATIONS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PRELUDE

INTRODUCTION

SECTION ONE:

MUNDANE REVIEW OF RELIGIOUS AFFIRMATIONS AND COMMENTARY

PRIMAL RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS

•   Introduction

•   African Primal Religions

•   Paganism

VEDIC RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS

•   Introduction

•   The Vedic Religious Traditions’ Scriptures (Sastras)

•   Vedic Key Concepts

•   Conception Of Evilness In The Vedic Religious Traditions

•   Notes On The Vedic Ways For Pursuing Liberation (Moksha)—Salvation From Evilness And Unfulfilment

•   Vedic Vaishnava Religious Tradition

•   Vedic Mãyãvãdīs Religious Tradition

SEMITIC RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS

•   Judaism

•   Gnosticism

•   Christianity

•   Islam

IDEOLOGIES RELATED TO SPIRITUAL MATTERS

•   Evolutionism

•   Humanism

•   Satanism

SECTION TWO:

INTRODUCTION TO MULTI-RELIGIOLOGY

Introduction

Subsection 1: Pantheon Of Different Religions

Subsection 2: Scriptures Of Different Religions

Subsection 3: Introduction To Comparative-Religiology

POSTLUDE

Once every so often a book appears that challenges some of society’s very foundations—one or several authors may have written it; it may turn out to be a best seller or, on the contrary, be purchased and read by only a small number of readers. Nonetheless, the fact is that this type of text burns into society generating controversy, polemic and debate; as a result, it is attacked by some and defended by others. This revolutionary capacity is not, of course, reserved exclusively to books, but can extend (and in fact, it does) to films, music, paintings, plays and other cultural products.

(Chandellé René, 2005, Beyond the Da Vinci Code)

Divinity availed multi-religious information for humanity to learn and get the essence thereof and apply it at all time. ‘Multi-Religiology’ is therefore imperative in serious Spiritual Development. Thus, the soul in-carnated in the human form of life ought to learn vital information about life on the overall and apply it so that at their ex-carnation moment God The Ultimate Divine Being (God TUDB) could deliver them back to the Spiritual Realm’s Mokshaloka (Nirvana). Human development that matters to God TUDB is Spiritual Development and therefore we must spend our resources (conscious, interlect, time, money, and so on) in our endeavours to make serious advancement in Spiritual Development.

(Dr. Sekokotla ‘Skox’ Sekokotla: Author of RSDF Chronicles)

DEDICATIONS

This book is dedicated to

(i) God The Ultimate Divine Being (God TUDB) for availing variegated scriptural information to the spirit living being in the human form, and

(ii) The people who engage in Multi-Religiology and address God TUDB in a non-hypocritical and unbiased manner.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Acknowledgements are hereby made to all who made contributions (directly or indirectly, actively or passively, positively or negatively) to the compilation of this book.

PRELUDE

RSDF Sermon about the bigger picture of life

The information from scriptures inform us that God TUDB lived alone for aeons until it came to be that he start to get bored. He then manifested sound followed by his creation of goddess whom he made his eternal consort. He then expanded into the spiritual realm within his expanse and expanded into (created) innumerable living beings in the spiritual realm that he allotted energies and commanded them to dissipate it to please him lovingly at all times to eternity. With time, God TUDB used his illusory energy to mislead some of the living beings of the spiritual realm to be demoniac and rebelled against the aforementioned instruction (commandmend) which he gave to them. God TUDB then expanded into (created) the material realm and relegated the rebelled living beings into this existence for them to learn not to rebel against him—thus their ‘fall from the glory of God TUDB’ from the spiritual realm. God TUDB, who knows all, knew all that before it happened!

God TUDB is the source (thus the owner) of everything, pervades everything, and transcends everything—existences (realms), living beings (goddess, demideities (devas and demons), spirits and souls), energies, time, and destiny.

God TUDB exists in many forms, including the unmanifested form. He has many names (ultimate name, original names, primary names, secondary names, tertiary names, quaternary names, and epithets). He controls everything (energies, realms, living beings, fate, and so on.) through his inherent potency as omnipotent. God TUDB has not provided information about how he came into being!

The study of Divinity is Divinity’ology.

Realms comprise of the spiritual realm and material realm. Both realms have three compartments—bottom, middle, and upper compartments. The material realm is 25 per cent (1/4) of the overall existence and has innumerable galaxies (visible and invisible), which have innumerable stars, planets, and living beings. In the material realm (world) there is coexistence of the good and the bad—the holy and the unholy—the fulfilling and the unfulfilling, and so on. There are laws governing material nature under control by God TUDB directly or indirectly through goddess / demideities / spirits / energies—namely the law of the modes of material nature and the Law of Karma. And, there are forces of material nature—namely the forces of attraction and the forces of repulsion, the electromagnetic forces, the force of gravity, forces of goodness and forces of evilness, and so on. The studies of material existences are cosmology, chemistry, physics, electronics, engineering, geology, archaeology, anthropology, technology, and so on.

The living beings are goddess, demideities (angels and demons), spirits, and souls who vary in the forms in which they are incarnated and also vary in the degree of consciousness, knowledge, and potency (ability) to dissipate energy allocated to them by God TUDB. All the living beings were initially associated detached parts and parcel of God TUDB until some rebelled (under ontrol by God TUDB using his illusory energy!) to uphold God TUDB’s instruction of eternally dissipating their God-given energies to curb his boredom. All that eventuality planned and executed by God TUDB who knows everything before he let it happen! God TUDB then made the material realm and placed the rebelled living beings in there as dissociated parts and parcels of him who must redeem themselves through upholding his eternal commandment.

The variegated incarnations of the souls could be studied as animal sciences, plant sciences, microbiology, entomology, acarology, human science studies (for example, sociology), and so on.

The living beings, incarnated in various forms, have consciousness, thoughts, emotions, feelings, senses, and needs. The souls in the human form, who are theists, pursue attainment of fulfilment of their needs through prayer to Divinity. Human beings are urged to (i) evoke their consciousness to the ultimate through instincts, dreams, thoughts, emotions, feelings, and senses and scriptures, and (ii) to worship God TUDB at all time being adequately informed. This is operating in the mode of goodness that vanquishes unfulfilling karma (according to the Vedic Religious Tradition)—a process that guarantees liberation (salvation) from the Samsara Continuum. This process ought to be embarked on after going through ‘spiritual empowerment process’ whose stages are summarised as follows:

Stage 1: Enquiry about life—its owner, its origin, its good and bad, its fate, and so on.

Stage 2: Gathering information (from instincts, dreams, thoughts, emotions, feelings, senses and scriptures) about the bigger picture of life.

Stage 3: Realisation of protocols outlined by God TUDB in the religio-spiritual paths availed by him to humanity—namely, Primal religious traditions, Vedic religious traditions, Semitic religious traditions, and so on.

Stage 4: Endeavouring to live congruent to protocols of the religio-spiritual path that one chooses.

At the moment of our ex-carnation (‘death’), God TUDB evaluates our search, learning, internalisation, and application of the gist of religio-spiritual information that he supplied to us as various scriptures and determines whether he redeem us and take us to the spiritual realm or not. We are thus to be serious in our spiritual development in pursuit of qualifying to be redeemed at the moment of our ex-carnation (‘death’) by God TUDB.

Energy is mainly categorised into material and spiritual, illusory and non-illusory, potential and kinetic.

Time is eternal like God TUDB, the spiritual realm, the living beings, and energies.

Things Noteworthy

● Divinity ought to be understood in this book as

a. a ‘divine being or principle’ that is able to control (regulate) things in existences; and

b. the ‘realm’ of God TUDB and all the divine beings (goddess, demideities (angels and demons), and spirit beings.

● Paganism is a label given by adherents of Semitic Religious Traditions to other theists of different religious traditions.

● Samsara is hereby purposefully defined as a realm whereby fulfilment and unfulfilment coexist.

● Moksha is hereby purposefully defined as a situation of fulfilment and holiness.

● The essence of humanity’s prayer to Divinity is asking for redemption and eternal liberation from unfulfilment and evilness—thus asking for eternal moksha.

About This Book

The reader of this book is hereby warned that this informative book is somewhat a loaded manuscript that reviews religio-spiritual affirmations in an uncompromising manner. It is broad and thus requires open mindedness. The reader is also made aware right here, at the outset that this book is not written by puppets of conventional sectarian religio-spiritual vanguards.

This book is an introduction to rationalization on multi-religiology and comparative religiology.

History informs us that the living being (soul) in the human form experienced fulfilment and unfulfilment coexistent in the materio-physical existence of God TUDB (under control by his Ishvara aspect (the ultimate divine controller of the whole all in every respect)), and embarked on various endeavours (theistically and atheistically) in pursuit of escaping from evilness in all its variegated manifestations of unfulfilment. (See http://www.worldreligions.com for such pursuits by theists.)

Secret Societies (for example, Freemasons, Priory of Sion, Knights Templar, Zionists, Opus Dei, The Pope’s Armada, The Illuminati, and so on) are not reviewed in this book though these ‘secret societies’ play their roles in the religio-spirituality of humanity. The reader may visit http://www.thecrowhouse.com and may also search for Conspiracies of Life on YouTube and learn about things that would evoke his or her consciousness about the complex nature of life.

We urged God TUDB in tautology to salvage us from those who might be irritated or upset or angered or challenged by the manner in which we rationalised on sacred matters in this book.

REFERENCES

http://www.thecrowhouse.com

http://www.worldreligions.com

NOTES

INTRODUCTION

We have mentioned in the prelude that history informs humanity that the soul in the human form experienced fulfilment and unfulfilment in the materio-physical existence of Divinity under control by Divinity and embarked on varied endeavours (theistically based and non-theistically based) to try to escape from evilness and, we referred to http://www.worldreligions.com for the reader to witness the multitudes of human religions for people of theistic orientation.

From page 156 of the book titled The Quest for Enlightenment, which is a compilation of articles from Back to Godhead magazine by Swami Bhaktivedanta A. C. Prabhupāda, we learn that Carl Jung wrote the following in his book titled The Undiscovered Self:

‘The goals of religion—deliverance from evil, reconciliation with God, rewards in the hereafter, . . .’

From Krüger et al., (1996, pp. 263-4) we are informed that

‘[t]he central themes of Authoritarian Religion are obedience and submission. Its cardinal sin is disobedience. ‘The surrender to God,’ said Fromm, ‘is not because of the moral qualities of the deity, but because of its controlling power.’ God is everything—powerful, forceful and dominant—while humans are poor, powerless and insignificant. Obedience and submission provide comfort and a sense of belonging. Therefore protection and security are gained, but at the expense of one’s independence, worth and integrity.’

Watchtower (1990, p. 7) asserts,

‘ . . . for thousands of years mankind has had a spiritual need and yearning. Man has lived with his trials and burdens, his doubts and questions, including the enigma of death. Religious feelings have been expressed in many ways as people have turned to God or their gods, seeking blessings and solace.’

Although people of different religions need one thing—‘eternal moksha’, Johnsen (2002, p. 149) asserts that ‘People of different religions, never cease to fight.’

Myths are said to be cornerstones for believing that divine principle could salvage the living being from unfulfilment and evilness, and Watchtower (1990, p. 41) states that ‘a reason for considering myths is that they are the foundation for beliefs… Myths are evidence that ancient man was searching for gods, as well as for meaning in life.’

Watchtower (1990, p. 35) asserts that

‘ . . . there are many legends and myths that are equally commonplace. For example, there are legends about man’s fall from divine grace owing to his illicit attempt to achieve immortality, the need to offer sacrifices to atone for sin, the search for a tree of life or fountain of youth, gods and demigods who lived among humans and produced superhuman offspring, and a catastrophic flood that devastated nearly all humanity.’

Sitchin (1985, inside fold of hardcopy front cover) affirms that myths are products of information brought to the human psyche by the divine deities (demideities) called the Anunnaki—the biblical Nefilim. These demideities came to planet Earth from their planet (Nibiru, Marduk, Planet X) c.450,000 years ago with the subsequent making (not creation from Earth as affirmed in other sacred texts such as the Bible, Qur’ān, and so on!) of human beings (the Lulu Amelu)—Sitchin (1985, pp. 76-7 and 102-15). From this premise, humanity is warned not to take myths for granted but to analyse them thoroughly.

People have agonised extensively about the ultimate manifestation of evilness (in the materio-physical samsara realm) called death (hereby called ex-carnation) that there are numerous myths about the immortality of the soul, and Chapter 3 of Watchtower (1990) reviews myths related to religions, such as those around creation, the immortality of the soul, and so on.

There are numerous affirmations about the origin of worshipping Divinity by humanity. Watchtower (1990, pp. 23-5) affirms that ‘ . . . a theory, commonly called animism, was proposed by the English anthropologist Edward Taylor (1832-1917). Taylor suggested that experience such as dreams, vision, hallucinations, and lifelessness of corpses caused primitive people to conclude that the body is inhabited by a soul (Latin, anima). According to this theory, since they frequently dreamt about their deceased loved ones, they assumed that a soul continued living after death and that it left the body and dwelt in trees, rocks, rivers, and so on. Eventually, the dead and the objects the souls were said to inhabit came to be worshiped as gods. And thus, said Tylor, religion was born.

Another English anthropologist, R. R. Marett (1866-1943), proposed a refinement of animism, which he called animatism… . Marett concluded that instead of having the notion of a personal soul, primitive people believed there was an impersonal force or supernatural power that animated everything; that belief evoked emotions of awe and fear in man, which became the basis for his primitive religion. To Marett, religion was mainly man’s emotional response to the unknown… . In 1890, a Scottish expert in ancient folklore, James Frazer (1854-1941), published the influential book The Golden Bough, in which he argued that religion grew out of magic… . Even the noted Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), in his book, Totem and Taboo, tried to explain the origin of religion. True to his profession, Freud explained that the earliest religion grew out of what he called a father-figure neurosis. In Freud’s theory, ‘the father figure became God, and the rites and rituals became the earliest religion… .’

‘For Egyptians, Babylonians, Syrians, and lesser Mediterranean peoples of the day, each major power of nature was a distinct deity. The storm was the storm—god, the sun the sun-god, the rain the rain-god. When we turn to Hebrew Bible we find ourselves in a completely different atmosphere. Nature here is an impression of a single Lord of all beings’ (Smith, 1998, p. 273-4). The overall picture in all these facts is that some people had the conviction of one Supreme Divine Being while others imagined many gods. This makes humanity on the overall to be a somewhat polytheistic pagan community!

Some ancient people were given sacred information by Divinity. From The Quest for Enlightenment (1997, p. 189), we learn that ‘ . . . divine revelation is absolutely necessary because very few men can arrive at the truth through the philosophical method.’ The Bhagavad-Gītā(Bg) is a compendium of sacred information given (revealed) to a human being (Arjuna) by Divinity (Krishna) c.5,000 years ago and it gives instructions about how to worship God TUDB (Krishna)—through ‘working eternally in loving devotion without any expectation for reward, including eternal moksha!’ The Torah is another sacred book that was given to Moses by Divinity (YHWH—Yahweh, Hashem, Jehovah, Allah, among others.) on Mount Sinai c.3,300 years ago, providing prescripts on how to live as servants of God TUDB (YHWH, Hashem, Jehovah, Allah). Again God TUDB as Allah gave Muhammad (peace be upon him) the Qur’ān through Archangel Gabriel c.1,500 years ago in Saudi Arabia. God TUDB Krishna, incarnated as Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu c.500 years ago (in 1486), also availed sacred information to humanity in the India subcontinent on how to only worship his ultimate form in the right way through the chanting of Hare Krishna Mantra at all times.

The names Bhagavan, Krishna, YHWH, Jehovah, Allah, and Buddha are said to be some of the many names of one God TUDB (Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1987, p. 62) who brings true religious information to humanity. Yet, the religious information that God TUDB brought to humanity at various times and localities on planet Earth differ and at times contradict each other, leading to confusions and conflicts of the souls in the human forms. The other fact is that the translation or interpretation by individuals vary and at times leads to confusion and conflicts among people.

From the biblical book of 2 Timothy 3: 16, we are informed that ‘All scripture are given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness’

In The Quest for Enlightenment (1997, p. 176), it is asserted that ‘[t]here is no ambiguity in the words of God… .’ It is attested on the same page of the book referred that it is our imperfect conception of the Word of God that we perceive ambiguities in the various sacred affirmations! Page 190 of the same book also refers; ‘yet it is God who is the prime cause of all causes’ (The Quest for Enlightenment, 1997, p. 181). What a strange set-up this is!

‘In his life, Ramakrishna tested three great faiths: Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity. He found, through direct experiential practice, that although each religion differed drastically in doctrine, all of them were legitimate spiritual paths. Any one of them could do the job of bringing us home to God’ (Johnsen, 2002, p. 82).

Watchtower (1990, p. 30) affirms as follows regarding the relationship of people to God TUDB named YHWH (Jehovah, Hashem, El Shaddai, Eloi, Elohim, among others.): ‘He made out of one man every nation of men, to dwell upon the entire surface of the earth, . . . for them to seek God, if they might grope for Him and really find Him, although, in fact, he is not far off from each one of us’ (Acts 17: 26-27).

The cause of humanity’s religious diversity is said to have been caused by Divinity. Watchtower (1990, p. 39) tells of the divinely regulated dispersal of humanity from Babylon c.4,500 years ago: ‘As this family multiplied, some of the offspring banded together and started to build an immense tower in defiance of God. God thwarted their scheme by confusing their language and dispersing them to the far corners of the earth… . As the human race dispersed from Mesopotamia, their religious ideas and memories went with them.’ There is a parallel of this saga in Sitchin (1985, p. 246), ‘ . . . Enlil was so disgusted with mankind that he schemed its obliteration by the great flood. Then, in the Tower of