Liberation From Rent Serfdom: A National Renters Coop

In my musings and considerations of such things as shelter, if I'm not mistaken first considered whilst living on the streets and sometimes sleeping by the river in Chattanooga, habiting coffeehouses downtown, on the bluff and in the North Shore, I considered the absurdity and futility of so many young people who are trying to find their place after leaving family home, bouncing from city to city and throwing away thousands and thousands of dollars on rent before they might finally find a place to purchase a home.  I had myself sworn off rent for many years, preferring a mobile abode, whether an rv or a boat, to what I dubbed "rent serfdom," at least until I came back from a second rather harrowing and disheartening journey out east.  I might note, I'm soon to reembark on adventures in a mobile abode, again escaping "rent serfdom," but I though it pertinent to share a notion I had whilst considering this normative lot of young people, whether in the university, professional or service industry oriented or blue collar, and wondered if there might be a way for such young people (not to mention other more established renters) to cooperatively utilize their collective equity to purchase the apartment building they abide in that the moneys that would be profit for the land owner would go into a collective fund that would be invested in the sustainable and environmentally friendly improvements on the tenement and invested similarly, that after a certain period paying market rate rent the renter would be able to have the return of a certain percent of the rent paid over however many years, perhaps with dividends!

If this model might be successfully begun with a few reasonably sized apartment buildings or complexes, high rise tenements or such, the cooperative organization could then help other cooperatives to purchase their apartment building in other cities, with either a nationwide organization or agreements between coops that would allow individuals to carry their coop account, and that investment they have made with whatever portion of their rent moneys, with them to their new coop-tied apartment in another city.  There would certainly be an option to cash out after a certain period renting through the coop, and perhaps other ways to access said investment for other purposes.

Though I am quite illiterate regarding  the ways of finance, the basic idea is that if the profit received from a renter paying market rate rent is an investment rather than enriching corporations or tenement owners, the renters will thus have a nest egg upon the cessation of their lease, rather than starting from square one each time they move.  Though this is just a rough estimate, if someone pays say $50,000 on rent in a coop owned building over five years, they might have $10,000 or more they could take with them upon ceasing to be a coop renter, else could perhaps eventually purchase the apartment they abide in with the coop.

Obviously I haven't worked out the details insofar as either the financial or legal considerations, but it has occurred to me this means might be a way for people to be free from the cycles of "rent serfdom" and quit throwing their hard earned money to the wind.

PLEASE feel free to develop this idea and share it with others that such a means might manifest to empower our brothers and sisters, mamas and papas and others as they endeavor to make a go of it in this world of mobility.  

The Ramayana: Why is Ram such a jerk to Sita . . .?!

The Ramayana: Why is Ram such a jerk to Sita . . .?!

Though I've been turned on to the “Hindu” religion (more properly known as sanAtana dharma) since Shivaratri of 1997, I only recently purchased and perused a copy of one of the pinnacle sacred texts of said religion, the Ramayana. This epic tells of a King named Ram, who is in fact an incarnation of God, who loses His kingdom because of a jealous stepmother and then loses His wife to a demon king who kidnaps Her and takes Her across the sea to his kingdom Lanka (Sri Lanka). Ram battles many demons through the course of the story, and then with the help of the Monkey god Hanuman, Ram battles the demon king Ravana and then returns to rule His kingdom Ayodya.

A few things very much impressed me about the true tale told in the Ramayana, perhaps foremost (in a positive regard), that of the demons Rama slays through the course of the action, some find redemption delivered them through the wrath of God being exacted upon their hides. The first of these demons redirected towards dharma who find deliverance by Ram's wrath as mentioned in the tale told is the demon Mareecha.

Mareecha and Subhahu were a pair of huge and terrible demons who had desecrated the sacred fires and prayers and devotions of the sages at Vishwamitra's ashram. Ram and Lakshmana promised to protect the holy sages and their ashram, and laid in wait for the two vile demons to attack the sages. When they appeared, they looked like great hills of stone, hair red as blood and rotting flesh dripping from their claws. Rama and Lakshmana realized no ordinary arrows would fell these massive demons. Ram chanted a mantra Vishwamitra the great sage had taught Him, and His Manavastra weapon flew towards the demon Mareecha like lightning and thunder. The Manavastra struck Mareecha and conveyed him miles away and into the sea, where he sunk deep into the water and into the caves at the bottom of the sea, though to his surprise, Mareecha was still alive. Subhahu was readily slain and became but a pile of ashes.

Later in the story we discover that Mareecha had turned from his evil ways and was living as a hermit in a hut in the forest caring for the birds and animals. It turns out, Mareecha was uncle to Ravana, the villain of the story. Ravana comes to Mareecha to order him to disguise himself as a golden deer to help Ravana enact his plot to kidnap Sita. After attempting to disuade Ravana from his evil plan, Mareecha consents, recognizing it is his fate to be slain by the arrow of Rama. Mareecha does his duty and is indeed slain by Ram's arrow after leading Rama and His brother Lakshmana away from Sita, that Ravana might steal Her away to Lanka.

On another occasion, Rama and Sita and Lakshmana were wandering through the Dandaka forest, when a great and terrible demon came out of the forest covered with the entrails of dead animals and charged at them. Viradhha had blood dripping from his mouth and certainly stank of rot.

 Ram and Lakshmana flung many arrows at the raging demon, though none seemed to stay his rage until Ram aimed an arrow at the center of the demon's forehead, just above the brow. Rama placed His foot upon the throat of the fallen and dieing demon, when suddenly with a flash of light, the disgusting demon disappeared and a handsome young man with a kind visage rose from where the body had fallen.

The young man told Rama and Lakshmana that he had once been a Gandharva abiding in heaven, and had been cursed to become a demon living in the forest. Ram slaying him had freed him, and this angel freed from a curse soared away into the sky to assume his proper place singing and playing music in heaven. Gandharvah and Apsarasah are what in the Western religions are known as angels, the Gandharvah as heavenly musicians, and Apsarasah are flying nymphs who generally present themselves as chaste “angels” to the children of the Western traditions, due to the relative immaturity of most of those folks.

A third demon that Ram saves by savaging is a fellow named Kabandha, a rather curious demon who had his mouth in the center of his belly. Rama and Lakshmana slayed this foe, as they always did and do, and Kabandha said in a kind voice that he had been awaiting that day for years, cursed by Indra and Holy men for being a punk-ass, turning himself into an evil form to frighten people.

 A golden chariot drawn by six white horses appeared from the sky to convey Kabandha to heaven, though not before Kabandha tells Rama to seek Sugriva, the Chief of the Monkeys and thus directs Ram to Hanuman, the Monkey god, who both later help Rama to free Sita from Her bondage.

Indeed, from the account proffered in the Ramayana, it becomes apparent that sanAtana dharma, aka “Hinduism,” does offer a greater grace than the Abrahamic religions, as by performing their dharma even the demons can find redemption.

 What benificence!! What gracious and kind means this Divine!! Then why is Ram such a jerk to Sita, His purportedly beloved Wife, once He and Hanuman and the army of monkeys save Her from the clutches of Ravana?!

Upon Sita being rescued, She willing goes through the fire to prove Her purity and faithfulness to Ram, somewhat at His insistence. They return to Ayodya, and despite Sita having already proven Herself true, upon Ram's subjects calling Her into question Ram sends Sita away to live at the ashram of Valmiki, where She gives birth to Rama's Sons Cush and Luv.

What a jerk, right?!

Once Ram's servants, including Hanuman, come across the adolescent boys Cush and Luv in the forest, and are readily defeated by the scrappy boys, Ram goes into the forest with an army to confront these purported foes, and then discovers them to be His Sons.

 Though pleased to have found His Sons healthy and well trained and taught by Valmiki, and willing to take them to rule Ayodya with Him, Ram still refuses to take Sita back as His Wife and Divine Consort. Sita bows to Ram's will and apparent rejection, and chooses to return to Mother Earth from whnence She came.

WHAT A JERK!! Right?! After so many years of faithful devotion, and even after Ram's initial rejection, Sita still gives way to Ram's will, and returns to the earth from where She had emerged at Her infancy.

 What a jerk!!

 Lest you remember that said Divine Pair were for many lifetimes at play in love, and that They would return to earth as Radha and Krishna, again at play in their abiding love in the forest, as Radha, one of many Gopis, does follow Her Most Excellent Lover, pining after Him as He wanders the woods even as He's blessing so many other women with His loveplay, and again blessing Laksmi, Mother Earth and Goddess of Wealth and Beauty as She did manifest again to play with Her Beloved Vishnu.

Many lessons are taught in the Ramayana, if some require some patience and the surrender of notions of decency and propriety and what devotion means to discover. Among these lessons is that our life stories are not ever to be contained in one lifetime lived, as everyone's karma and dharma spans many lifes and many loves, even sometimes through very dispicible lifetimes and incarnations lived. Our dances with eachother and with “God” are to be read over lifetimes and in fact over the span of ages and eons . . . 

Namaste

ई

                                          ई

Devanagari letter ई, I, as in the English personal pronoun . . . one of the most curious spells of modern history, truth be known.  The Devanagari letter and the sound it represents is one of Lalitha's names, Maha Shakti the Great Mother.  Lalitha is particularly known for Her playfulness . . . The letter and intonation is also one of Vishnu's names, I ought note, and also every time somebody intones said personal pronoun they are invoking Her or Him, the Divine subtly slipped into the English personal pronoun, not unlike how when people cheer "Hooray!! Hoorah!!" they are inadvertently invoking Hari-Hara" . . .
Consider how curvy ई is compared to the i and I . . . This might be indicative of the "Western" approach to "God," which the Abrahamic religions attempt to render as a monologic, "straight," figure, as opposed to the playful and variegated and multifaceted Divine presented in sanAtana dharma, a Divine that is real as we are real, not so easily delineated or readily inscribed . . .

The Eye of Horus, rather looks like the Devanagari I, as well, whatever esoteric intentions might be behind that...

Ganesha and Kartikeya's Big Race (initial draft of a chapter for upcoming book)

Ganesha and Skanda's Race Around the World

One day as two of God's Sons were engaged in blissful play on Mount Kailash, and their Father Shiva suggested they have a race to settle a dispute over who might partake of the nectar of immortality. Not just a race to yonder mountain, nor merely a contest of normal childish proportions. These two of God's Sons determined to engage in a race around the whole world.

Kartikeya set out with all due haste with hopes of victory. More concrete minded in many respects than His Brother, Skanda set out to the west, across the sea to the southern part of Africa. Their he met the Zulu's and they recognized His Divinity by His radiant aura. They bowed themselves to the ground before this god who had come to them from the waters. Due to the passage of time and differences in pronunciation, the Zulu people now know Kartikeya as Unkulunkulu, and tout His birth in a bed of reeds by Umvelinqangi as their greatest day of celebration, the anniversary of the birth of their God. Kartikeya was born in a bed of reeds when His Father Shiva, full of all the male potency of the Universe, ejaculated whilst on the banks of the Ganges, and His seed floated into a bed of reeds whence Kartikeya was born.

In the meantime, Kartikeya's brother Ganesha sat pensively pondering His strategy. Skanda was fast, faster than Ganesha. One of Ganesha's names, Lambodara, betrayed His weekness, an enourmous belly!! In a fair fight, Ganesha could easily defeat his Brother, as none other than Their own Father Shiva had ever defeated Ganesha in single combat, but Ganesha was rather a heavy set boy and not the swiftest on His feet. Ganesha gladly received a meal from His Mother Parvati, and enjoyed the rice and lentil dal and reita that His Mother provided Her Big Boy as He pondered His strategy.

Kartikeya continued on His path, apparently north across the expanse of Africa. The young Skanda met and befriended many peoples along the way, and taught the tribes and civilizations along the way skills and technologies that transformed their lives mostly for the better. Skanda was born a warrior, and a leader of legions, and the peoples He encountered that embraced Him the most were often warrior peoples. It is likely due to their devotion to Unkulunkulu (Kartikeya) that the Zulus defeated the British in the battle of Isandlwana, the last major defeat of an army with modern armaments by people with “primitive” weapons. In the north of Europe, an entire nation was named after Skanda, as the ancient peoples there, precursors and likely ancestors to the Vikings, grew enamored of His teachings and the blessings in battle He did likely bestow upon Him, and thus still today this land is known as Scandinavia.  It may be that Alexander the Great had something to do with Skanda's meandering journey, as Alexander is "Iskandar" in many tongues, and thus telling that Alexander did get turned back when invading India.

Ganesha thought again of the race, and wondered if there was any possible means to yet defeat His Brother in the grand race. His Mother and Father were seated nearbye, relishing eachother's company and their conversation sounded like sweet song, more moving than any love ballad ever sung. Ganesha turned away shyly as His Mother leaned to lay a kiss upon He Beloved Husband Shiva's lips. Suddenly it came to Him, His Mother and Father, Parvati and Shiva, were in fact the whole world. Ganesha had no need to travel the whole of the globe in order to win this race! All He had need to so was run a leisurely circle around His Parents, and the race would be won. Ganesha missed His Brother, as Kartikeya was His best friend and favorite playmate, but He still wanted to win this contest. He stood, and then paced a circle around Parvati and Shiva, and thus won the “race around the world” whilst His Brother Kartikeya was still out on His path around the globe.

Kartikeya, also known as Skanda, had made His way across the Atlantic Ocean and had met many peoples who seemed very familiar. Kartikeya was surprised to discover that the peoples of these lands spoke in a tongue which shared many words with the people of His homeland. He taught many things to the peoples of the Americas, as these lands later came to be known. Kartikeya became known as Quetzalcoatl and Kulkulkan and many other names as He imparted teachings to the tribes He encountered. Whether or not Kartikeya would win the race around the world, whether or not He would defeat His Brother was becoming irrelevant, as Kartikeya had experienced so much beauty, both in the peoples and places he encountered along the way, vast deserts and wondrous jungles and grand mountains Skanda had explored.

Kartikeya on His Vehicle 

                      An early depiction of Quetzalcoatl

By the time Kartikeya had reached the Americas He had fully grown into manhood, and wore a thick beard, an unusual feature to the beardless peoples he met amongst those later called American Indians. Thus it is Kulkulcan and Quetzalcoatl are depicted as bearded amongst the beardless...Kartikeya who'd came from across the sea, and indeed from across two oceans, the Indian and the Atlantic. Quetzalcoatl is associated with the “One Reed” cycle, according to the Aztec calendar, again alluding to Kartikeya's birth in a bed of reeds. An analogous deity to Quetzalcoatl in the America's is a god with the very Sanskrit sounding name Viracocha, rather phonetically nigh two of Kartikeya's names, Virasutaya (Eminent art Thou in the Universe) and Viraghnaya (Vanquisher of heroic opponents).  Another interpretation proffered has been that Viracocha is Vaman, the dwarf avatar of Vishnu, as Waman asked King Bali to move his kingdom and peoples to Patala, the "Underworld," upon His reallocation of the globe.  (https://www.booksfact.com/religions/machu-picchu-saksaywaman-vamana-temples-cusco-peru.html)

Below are depictions of Kartikeya and His vehicle, a peacock, and Quetzalcoatl, 

the Feathered Serpent, respectively. 

There might be some question as to the order of Kartikeya's journey, as the first depictions of Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, are amongst the Olmecs, who many posit traveled to the Americas from Africa, and thus it might be Kartikeya spent time in northern Europe to inspire the appelation “Scandinavia” before He went to abide amongst the Zulus.

In the Pacific, Skanda appeared in a great ship when the Tahitians were battling the Hawaiians. He is touted in the Polynesian myth to have walked across the water to shore, and was received as god Rongo. Rongo taught peace to the Maori, healed people and discouraged them from sacrificing humans to Him, and offered them knowledge of the Kumara (sweet potato) as a substitute for the rampant cannibalism that had been a common practice. Kumara is one of Skanda's names as He is known in India.

When and how Kartikeya finished this race to finally arrive at Mount Kailash, this writer has yet to determine. It does seem likely, if not certain, that this grand “race around the world” may in fact describe the movements of peoples, metaphorically, though it is my belief that Kartikeya, His Brothers Ganesha and Ayyappa (who most Westerners know as Jesus Christ, by the way), their Sisters and Parents Shiva and Parvati (and in Ayyappa's case, Mohini/Vishnu), and the other Devas and Devis are real beings who sometimes manifest amongst the peoples of this world, living in real human history and often as those who make history.

Namaste

Dedicated to my son, birth name Kieran Drew Archer . . . and to Ganesha . . .

Ayyappa, Most Famously Known in Recent Centuries as Jesus . . .

Ayyappa, also known as Sastha (Mount Shasta?) shown seated between two of His Brothers, is the Son of God Shiva and Goddess/God Vishnu (Krishna sometimes comes as a Goddess named Mohini), and is the Protector of Created Beings. 

Jeshua ben Joseph (aka Jesus Christ), pictured with Krishna watching over Him, is said to have said "I have other sheep that are not of this fold..." (John 10:16) indicating He had followers other than Christians, and thus that He had lived other places/lifetimes.

Jeshua pictured with His real "Mother" Krishna looking over Him? 

The Virgin Mary thus the suitable surrogate mother to birth the Avatar of Ayyappa known as Jeshua ben Joseph?

Vishnu/Krishna (Who is Paramatma, the Supreme Self who is the source of Atman, God seeded in all beings, and Ayyappa's Mother) as "the Holy Spirit"??

Shiva as "The Father"? 

Ayyappa heals the blind:
Upon completing his princely training and studies when he offered 'gurudakshina' or fee to his guru, the master aware of his divine power asked him for a blessing of sight and speech for his blind and dumb son. Manikantan placed his hand on the boy and the miracle happened.  (http://srinagaroo.blogspot.com/2013/04/lord-ayyappa.html?m=1)

Ayyappa raises the dead:

One of Ayyappa's names is Lakshmanapranadata generally meaning Reviver of Lakshmana's Life,

Ayyappa Mantra

Bhootha natha Sadaananda

Sarva Bhootha daya Para

Raksha Raksha Maha Bhaago

Sastre thubhyam Namo Namaha

The protector of all created beings

Ever blissful and merciful to all

protect me, SASTA, prostrations

unto Thee Oh Great warrior !!!

Madman's Task revised . . .

A Madman's Task, But Somebody Gotta Tell The Truth

A madman's task, this. An errand knight's endeavor, a sorcerer's conjuring secrets from the depths of our memories ancient and sublime, stark and dark truths that do invert assumptions and paradigmatic presumptions proffered by the Official discourse; upending religious predispositions and spells spun to lull the minds of the people to sleep, disturbing those subtle taboos surreptitiously existing between the lines of discourse which somehow prevent us from seeing the obvious stories of history; challenging, in fact, assumptions of which end is up and which is down, in terms of the common paradigms proffered, and indeed challenging those constructions which purport to tell which way is to heaven and which to hell; and telling long obscured tales of collusion and subtle twists to the tales of the world's religions, where indeed true tellings of the politics of the gods and stories of transcendent passion and compassion often leave the truth sounding more like a puzzle or a riddle, a science fiction or fantasy rendering than what is supposed to be “real life.” This madman's task has seeming fallen upon this humble wanderer, this grad school dropout, this foolish dilettante, to deconstruct some of the pivotal points of the religious paradigms that are held by nigh half the world's peoples.

Indeed, for what I have come across in my studies and searchings has implications which overturn the array of world mythologies and world religion(s) as these stand in the minds of most, and thus has quite startling implications for culture and society as a whole. This only scarcely hidden story I have uncovered would/will/ought unravel the myth of “the West” as it is constructed, and present a quite inverted construction and mythic typology compared to the current, and if considered and critically examined shall likely inexorably alter the common cosmology of much of the world.

Essentially what I contend is that the Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam represent rather deliberate inversions or at least twisted versions of the religion of Abraham's ancestors, which I shall assert to be sanAtana dharma or “Hinduism.” Central to this lila, this rather absurd play, is the very construction of who and what is “God” and who or what is to be taken as the opposite of God by our collective and common mythological understandings.

These are facts no one affiliated with any of the religions involved would reasonably call into question:

-brahman is Sanskrit for the Universal Divine Being, and atman is that Divine Soul as is manifest in each.

-Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva are the Creator, Maintainer and Destroyer expressions of God according to sanAtana dharma (Hinduism).

-Buddhists generally taut abrahman and unatma, that is, they do not believe in God nor the seed of God already present in each and all.

-Abraham and Sarah and Hagar and their tribe originated from Ur of the Chaldese, the which has been determined to be in far southeast Iraq, rather near Indus Valley Civilization, which was in fact waning at the time Abraham is tauted by the Torah/Old Testament to have departed his homeland in Ur to venture to the west, somewhere around 1900 BCE.

-Brahma and Saraswati are the Creator and His Consort according to Hinduism. The Hakkar is a tributary river to the Saraswati River. Abraham and Sarah and Hagar sound rather like Brahma and Saraswati and Hakkar, likely too much for this to be mere coincidence.

-according to Judaism, “the Righteous” go to a place called Abraham's bosom or Sheol after they die to await Judgment Day. Sheol translates to “Hades” in Greek, i.e., “Hell.”

-The Hebrews worship Yahweh. (find purported origin of name)

-The Lord of Death and Hell in Hinduism is Yama, who was the first mortal to attain knowledge of brahman and thus became a Deva (a god) and was given charge for schooling other mortals not devoted to the Divine already, as well as charge over the underground Hell, supposing any mortal souls need such harsh schoolings as are therein proffered.

-The Horned God of Europe, who many have identified with the horned figure on the Indus Valley Seal or Pasupati, Protector of animals and souls, an ancient Avatar of Shiva, has served as the model for much of what has been constructed as “the Devil” in at least the Judeo-Christian lore (and also, I might note, in pop-culture inversions—or re-inversions—in their representations of the mischievous “Devil”).

I first had my questions regarding the heaven and hell of the Christian religion, and specifically the place the Hebrews called “Sheol” or the Bosom of Abraham, when or perhaps even before I was a Christian minister. I was not alarmed enough about the potential implications of that underground place as the holding place of righteous dead Jews (Huh? I thought the underground place some people go after they die is Hell?! Why does the Bible say that the Bosom of Abraham is “down?”) to give it a great deal of thought at the time, assuming perhaps that some theologians must have already worked that problem out at some point in the long history of the church. To spell it out for you, what I am thus contending is that Abraham's covenant of loyalty to Yahweh (i.e., Yama) was essentially the beginning of a grand inversion by which the Lord of Hell is being held up as God . . . and then the Being previously considered the Universal Divine Self was rendered “the Devil.”

I was also given clue to the importance of the connection between Abraham and Brahma, if rather as a warning than as a heads up, when I was attending Oklahoma Baptist University. A religion professor had been giving a lecture about Abraham and company traveling across southern Asia to settle in Palestine and the class was about to let out. Dr. Dawson then said, with rather an odd glint in his eyes,

“Now there may be those who tell you that Abraham is somehow connected to the Hindu god Brahma . . . but we know better than that, now don't we?!”

(Below image from Silemania, Iraq, near Ur of the Chaldese where Abraham and his tribe began their journey west to Palestine.  Many tout the carved image is Ram and Hanuman...)

I resigned my ministry and largely ceased my affiliation with the Christian church before my last year in college at OBU largely as I had determined that what they taught is largely untrue, both in terms of their understanding of language and Divine truth and in terms of history, though I had no idea to what degree they were in err, if not covering up the truth of the story to bolster their spin. Again and most startlingly, it is actually their god that is the Lord of Hell. According to sanAtana dharma, those who are not otherwise devotees of brahman in whatever guise, via Shiva or Krishna or Parvati, etc., then Yama is in charge of their dharma/schooling. As the Abrahamites left the place and religion of their homeland in Ur and it seems from the name of their patriarch rejected brahman, they thus became attached to Yama as their Lord, and they called him Yahweh. The God of the “polytheistic” Hindus is actually the God of Abraham's forefathers, brahman, both and neither male and female, “God” to Abraham's forefathers.

Essentially, one might see the dispersion of people and specifically religions from India and from sanAtana dharma as a dialogue that is essentially the question “to Be or not to Be.” Buddhism tauts Nirvana, non-Being as they see it, as bliss, and Abrahman, no-God, as a philosophical hypothesis or supposition around which entire civilizations were built.

Though not so bold or forthright with their statement of the question or challenge to the established notion of brahman (nor perhaps generally much aware of this aspect of said root to their religions), the Abrahamic traditions nonetheless have been bound on that task to find means of interpreting the world without those more ancient and more abiding understandings of what this all is as expressed in brahman. It is as if Abraham and crew said, as they departed from Ur and the world according to sanAtana dharma, “If indeed, Abrahman (no “God” as we were taught) then what?” As would be predicted by sanAtana dharma, Yama becomes their Lord and the Deva (god) responsible for their dharma (schooling), again as alluded to by the place the Hebrews believe they go after death, the underground place they call Sheol or the Bosom of Abraham, and the name of their God “Yahweh” so phonetically nigh to “Yama.” If viewed from the broadest perspective, it is as if humanity is playing out the “question of God” or perhaps “To be or not to be . . .” in the play of peoples and nations, tribes and myths, experimenting with how whatever really is the truth will respond to the presentations proffered. A discursive play of words ordering the play of nations. At least as played out in the Abrahamic religions, the answer or apology proffered to that rejection of brahman is fitted to within the context of the religion they left behind, sanAtana dharma, still certainly prominent in the wandering tribe's constructions of reality after leaving behind Abraham's ancestors who “worshiped other gods” (Old Testament/Torah), and thus the “Hindu” Lord of Hell, Yama, becomes their God as “Yahweh.”

I suppose I ought to note that Muslims obviously do not worship Yahweh (Yama), but in fact seem to have unconsciously endeavored to return their devotions to the Gods of their ancient forefathers by worshiping “Allah,” a name rather starkly near the name AllA, an appellation attributed to Durga, Consort of Shiva, that means “Mother” in Sanskrit. The all important confession from the perspective of Islam is called one of the kalimas, again rather quite like another name of Shiva's Wife, Kali Ma (“Black Mama”). Ummah is the central tenet of Islam translates as “community.” Uma Himavati is yet another of the names of Shiva's Consort, a Woman the Upanishads tout as Brahman in Female Form. Before Mohamed, it might be argues that Arabia was essentially “Hindu.” One of Allah's Daughters', according to the pre-Islamic mythology, was named Manat. One of Shiva's three Daughters is named Manasa. By these evidences and many more, it appears that the cycles of the three Abrahamic religions rather succinctly follow, else are response to and despite their intentions bound to within the context of sanAtana dharma. The above information is among the many reasons I am a practitioner of yoga (translates as “yolk” and is root to said English word), a practitioner of sanAtana dharma, “keeping it together forever.”

In essence what I am proposing is a unified perspective of mythology and religion and culture and history that recognizes that many of the figures of various mythologies may well be/are actual conscious entities, else at least deserve consideration as something more than merely imaginary characters, indeed more than merely abiding and intrinsic archetypes. In order to adequately analyze a mythology's purport, one cannot approach without some faith in the reality of what you study, it's verity and that at some level and in some guise, its gods are real. With that in mind, what I would propose to do is to in some guise trace the play of the gods across recorded history. Exemplary of this would be examining relationship between the Hindu maya/Mahamaya and the Greek goddess Maya, daughter of Atlas according to said mythology. The relationship between Lalitha (Hindu tradition) and Lilith (Judeo-Christian lore) is another example of the tantalizing possible secrets of the Gods are there to be discovered, as are traces of Pasupati/Shiva on a cauldron found in Scandinavia, far away from Indus Valley Civilization as we know of it, thus identifying the Horned God of Europe with Shiva, not to mention the Baba Quiveri Indians along the border in Arizona who worshiped Bairabu and Viraseva, Bhairavi and Great God Shiva, etc.

Whether transmitted by social and cultural means available to the description of the social scientist or else manifest by esoteric and occulted and “supernatural” phenomena, these seeming lineages of mythology do indeed exist beyond mere coincidence. That these nigh cognates and such so soundly connect seeming disparate mythologies as traces in the narratives and plays of peoples and cultures, myths and religions and the play of the Gods/gods, is well enough evinced. Indeed evidence indicates the possibility of a continuous and contiguous plot that supersedes individual cultures and religions and civilizations and the rather narrow purview of most histories writ, and might discern the subtle discourse that tells history in terms of the mind(s) of God/the gods, whether they be merely us or no.

Dance of Dualism in the Kali Yuga

(Rough outline for book)

To Be or Not To Be : brahman or Abrahman

Yugas, Kalpas and the age of the Earth

Tropes and archetypes: Kali Ma and Gauri Ma myth and the Kali and Gauri Yuga, illusory dualims...

As Above so Below: tribes and nations representing/presenting various angles on that question, the play of peoples as God pondering, mind played out in matter, in intrigues of state and in everyday people's lives.

Buddhism touts Abrahman and unatma

Abrahamic religions indirectly posit or subtly posit the theory of Abrahman, represented in Abraham's departure from his homeland and the religion of his ancestors, who touted brahman.

Hebrew myth of Abraham meeting Yahweh to sacrifice Isaac is his meeting with Yama, as would be expected by the paradigm of Abraham's ancestors. Why else would the “bosom of Abraham” be underground?! Jeshua thus likely was an Avatar of Ayyappa, the Protector of Created Beings and Only Son of Shiva and Vishnu (i.e., when Vishnu was a Woman named Mohini) come to the Hebrews (Abrahamic/Abrahman touting people) to “save them” . . . from the error of the rhetorical position they play...? Islam a last ditch attempt to revive the Abrahamic/Abrahman thesis, calling on Kali Ma (kalima) and Uma Himavati (Ummah)... “Mommy!!!!”

Dispersion theory, and why European historiography rejected such, i.e., racism and sexual repression and fear of their own origins (thus they came up with the Aryan invasion myth)...

Dispersion of Indus Valley Civilization: The Race Between Ganesha and Skanda.

Northern Europe: Pasupati and the Horned God, Indus Valley Seal and Gundestrup Cauldron

American Indians

Zulus: Kartikeya and Unkulunkulu

Abrahamic religions

Buddhism, the question internalized

The Lila (Grand Play) of history in this age is a rhetorical question . . .

Responses to theodicy, “Good God, all-powerful, so why is there suffering

Dispersion of the thesis “to Be.”

Dispersion of the antithesis “not to Be.”

[The Panchen Lama on Mao Tse Tung (note the similarity represented in Judaism and their modern day Nebuchadnezzar, Hitler) . . .]

*The question is an oversimplified tension, a shallow binary dualism

Foucault on inescapable arrangement of power in binary arrangement of power

Derrida's “differánce” the solution

Tandava the cure for the delusion of dualism and is the truth that transcends it . . .

Shiva-Kali Ma are not opposites, despite One as “Effulgent” and the Other as “Black/Dark,” One a Male and One a Female, and are in fact the selfsame Self . . . Differánce Divine. Similarly, though there are overt differences Kali Ma and Gauri Ma, and metaphorically and otherwise the Kali Yuga and Gauri Yuga (the Golden Age in the midst of the Dark Age), these are not properly understood as opposites, but in fact are the Same and same when one sees beyond the veils of Maya. As Ma Gauri (“Golden”) emerges from Ma Kali (“Black/Dark”) and Both remain in essence the same Beautiful Goddess Mother of the Universe, so the Gauri Yuga in the midst of the Kali Yuga is in truth not so different nor in truth separate from the essence of the encompassing Kali Yuga. This truth of Advaita is indeed the saving grace might yet be found in this “Dark Age.”

“God” is Really the Lord of Hell and “the Devil” is Really God . . .?

To simply state the gist of my theory, the Hebrews were Hindus, or at least Abraham and his forefathers were before his tribe went west to Palestine (a theory many espouse outside of the official Western religio-historical establishment), and their god “Yahweh” bears much resemblance to and is likely derived from Deva Yama, the Hindu Lord of Death and Hell.  The Judeo-Christian “Devil,” in terms of the origins of said figure, similarly bears more than mythological resemblance to the God of Abraham's forefathers, Shiva (known as the Horned God to pre-Christian Europe), and possibly to Shiva's Consort, Devi Lalitha (Goddess Lalitha).

Below is the Indus Valley Seal showing Pasupati Shiva, and the Gundestrup Cauldron found in Denmark depicting the Horned God that European Christendom turned into "the Devil."

 

In other words, over the course of the development of the Abrahamic religions, Yama, the Hindu Lord of Death and Hell, was rendered as “God” (Hebrew Yahweh), and the figure who was formerly “God” (Sanskrit Brahman), i.e., to Abraham's forefathers, became figured as “the Devil” by the renderings of Judeo-Christian mythology.  Related to these conjectures, it seems the Hebrew rite of circumcision is similarly derived from a Hindu incest taboo rite.

I'll begin by noting something that bothered me from my days as a Southern Baptist minister and perhaps before.  Back in the day before I realized myself a yogi, whilst an undergraduate student at Oklahoma Baptist University and pastor at the First Baptist Church of Connerville, Oklahoma, or perhaps before (I resigned and later renounced all trappings of my ministry and moved to Chicago for grad school at the U of C after finishing my undergraduate degree), I made note of a rather confusing idiosyncrasy regarding the Judeo-Christian concepts of Heaven and Hell.

According to Jewish tradition, the destination of righteous Jews after they die is a place called “the Bosom of Abraham” or “Sheol” (New Testament, Luke 10:22).  Sheol is described as “down,” as in underground (Old Testament/Torah, Genesis 37:35).  The Hebrew word Sheol is generally translated to the Greek word “Hades” in the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament), and that Greek term generally translates to the English “Hell,” if you didn't know!!  This troubled me a bit, but I brushed it aside, assuming some theological explanation was surely expounded in some doctrinal statement somewhere.

One other clue I was granted in those days that something was amiss in the orthodox Judeo-Christian narrative was a statement made by a rather stodgy religion professor at OBU after a lecture about Abraham and his crew moving west from “Ur of the Chaldese” to Palestine (Ur has been determined to be in close proximity to else a part of Indus Valley Civilization, identified by most archaeologists as having existed in far southeastern Iraq).  At the end of this lecture, Dr. Dawson said with rather a scowl:

“Now there may be those who tell you that Abraham is somehow connected to the Hindu god Brahma . . . but we know better than that, now don't we!” he said in a passively-aggressively threatening manner, almost certainly a warning to those wishing for a career with the church, if a clue to those real seekers of truth (whether intended as such or no).
  

(A seeming Hindu temple discovered in Silemania, Iraq near Ur. Depicted above is a murti depicting Hanuman bowing to Lord Rama)

I later explored that strand of the historical narrative to conclude that indeed, papa Abraham was a “Hindu” (if not a term coined until three thousand years later) before he went apostate and left the homeland and faith of his fathers.  Voltaire (1694-1778) posited that Abraham and his crew were a tribe of traveling Brahmin priests (Godfrey Higgins, Anacalypsis, 1833, Vol. I, p. 405).  Abraham, Sarah and Hagar (Abraham's wife and her handmaiden, according to the Hebrew tradition) indubitably sound like Brahma, Saraswati (Brahma's Consort) and Ghaggar (the name of a tributary river to the Saraswati River), too much to be mere coincidence considering where Abraham and his tribe are touted by the Old Testament to have originated.  Some have further posited that the three Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, are respectively very much patterned after the Hindu Trimurti, Brahma, Vishnu (Krishna) and Shiva, the names of God as Creator, Maintainer and Destroyer according to Hinduism, and thus the three primary Personalities of God according to the religion of Abraham's forefathers.

Abraham received his name from his god “Yahweh” (a name purportedly revealed to Moses five to seven hundred years later, though extant throughout the Old Testament) when he and his tribe left the land of his ancestors (Genesis 17:5).  Abraham also sounds rather quite like Abrahman, a Sanskrit term meaning essentially “no-God.”  Abrahman is a primary tenet of most forms of Buddhism, thus Hindus often refer to Buddhists as “atheists.”  According to sanAtana dharma (roughly translated as “keepin' it together forever,” in recent times known as “Hinduism”), if one is not devoted to a legitimate guru or form or expression of the Divine (brahman) then Yama, the Lord of Death and Hell, is one's Guru and guide in your pathway back to God.  

One of the Hindu myths that tells why the Creator, Brahma, is not much worshiped in India is that early in the process of creation, Brahma (Himself a created Being, created to create) created this hot mama all Weird Science style, then He began to lust after her.  According to some tellings, Brahma grew a fifth head to continue to lust after this beautiful maiden when she sought to evade His gaze.  Shiva then comes along and informs Brahma that as He had directly created this mama, she is thus Brahma's daughter, and not someone He ought lust after.  Shiva then severs Brahma's fifth head with His fingernail—thus, it must have been a small head which Shiva did cut off of Brahma, i.e., a circumcision (Asceticism and Eroticism in the Mythology of Siva, Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty,  London, New York:  Oxford University Press, 1973, pp. 123-127). 

If Brahma, His Consort Saraswati and Ghaggar (a river tributary to the Saraswati) are indeed connected to Abraham, Sarah and Hagar of the Abrahamic traditions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), as many have contended, then it is not a far stretch to assume that there is a connection in terms of the Hebrew rite of circumcision and the Hindu myth about Brahma losing His fifth head.  To follow this line of reasoning, in it's origin the Hebrew rite of circumcision was an incest taboo rite!  And indeed, it seems likely along those same strands of the mythological narrative and reasoning that Yahweh was in fact Yama, as would prescribed by the faith of Abraham's fathers for one who had left the religion of Brahman.

Essentially, Yahweh, worshiped by Jews and Christians as “God,” is actually the being Abraham's forefathers knew as the Lord of Hell!!  And then what did the Abrahamic project do next along those lines of reasoning but to render the figure who was God into “the Devil” in their myth-making.

It has been noted by scholars and indeed by popular culture that the figure of “the Devil” was largely a bastardization of the Horned God (see R. Lowe Thompson, The History of the Devil - The Horned God of the West - Magic and Worship, London:  K. Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1929), who was worshiped across Europe and parts of Asia as Cernunnos, and was and is known in India as Pasupati, the Protector of Animals and Souls, an ancient horned Avatar of Shiva found on the Indus Valley seal (5,000+ years old).  Deva is Sanskrit for “God” and Devi is Sanskrit for “Goddess,” and the term “devil” seems to have origins in Persia, quite near where many worshiped Deva and Devi, via the Avestan language (early Iranian used in Zoroastrian scripture) term daeva, which means “wrong gods,” or “gods who are not to be worshiped” (Wikipedia, “Daeva”). 

According to sanAtana dharma/“Hinduism,” the Goddess Mother of the Universe is known as Devi Lalitha, and is Herself as much brahman (“God”) as are Shiva and Vishnu.  Lalitha is overtly bastardized as “Lilith” in the Hebrew and Christian traditions, which say she was a woman who was supposed to be Adam's wife but who would not submit to him as greater, and who was thus exiled to the desert to copulate with and give birth to thousands of demons each day (reference). 

So to recap, I am essentially theorizing that:  the Jewish and Christian God Yahweh is actually a refiguring of Yama, the Lord of Hell according to the religion of Abraham's forefathers; the Judeo-Christian “Devil” is actually a bastardization or inversion of the God that much if of the ancient world (and indeed Abraham's tribe) worshiped before Abraham and his crew left the proximity of India and the religion of sanAtana dharma (“Hinduism”) circa 1900 BCE; and modern circumcision originated from an archaic incest taboo rite!!  Rather mind-boggling if not paradigm shattering concepts to wrap your mind around, no?!  

A description of Lord Yama that sounds rather like the "Judgement Seat" of "God" the Christians talk about, no?:

He is the god of departed spirits and judge of the dead. A soul when it quits its mortal form repairs to his abode in the lower regions; there the recorder, Chitragupta, reads out his account from the great register called Agrasandhani, and a just sentence follows, when the soul either ascends to the abodes of the Pitris (Manes) [ancestors], or is sent to one of the twenty-one hells according to its guilt, or it is born again on earth in another form. (http://www.mythfolklore.net/india/encyclopedia/yama.htm)

Next diatribe of madman religio-historical theorization, whether published here or elsewhere:  Jesus was originally born as the Son of Shiva and Vishnu (that one time Vishnu/Krishna manifest as a sexy Goddess named Mohini) who is named Ayyappa, the Protector of Created Beings . . .

Jeffrey Charles Archer is a grad-school dropout, vagabond wandered, dilettante of a sadhu, and author of one published travel narrative, Memories and Musings of a Post-Postmodern Nomadic Mystic Madman. 

Boys and Girls are Girls and Boys . . . Genderation and Violence

Of all the dualisms generally proffered in this age of binary stupidity, one which too often proves dysfunctionally divisive and the source of much violence yet which is amongst the most primal of dichotomies we know, masculine/feminine is perhaps the most mistakenly arrayed in the prominent “Western” socio-cultural constructions and general milieu. The assumption that male=aggression/action and female=passive is in fact nigh the polar opposite of the teachings of tantra and yoga in general, and of many of the rest of the world's cultures. The tantric understanding of such is that masculinity in archetypal perfection is Shiva, God the Destroyer, most compassionate One and Master of Yoga, source of peace and tranquility. Though Parvati, Goddess Mother of the Universe, is sometimes engaged in meditation and austerities, She is most often represented as active, slaying demons, riding Her big kitty cat Dharma, adoring Her Husband or his lingum or caring for children. Shiva is mostly depicted sitting in meditation, and only occasionally in action.

Not to get too Freudian, mind you, but to look at the tantric perspective of the relationship of female and male from an archetypal and deconstruction perspective, from the perspective of form, it only makes sense that the male, bearing the projecting part, ought play the more passive role to effect a legitimate balance, and that the female, bearing receptive parts, ought play the more active or even aggressive role to effect the same. This natural and balanced state, represented in matriarchal societies and in some guises in Hindu culture (and in many undercurrents in “Western” culture), is not unlike the Hindu understanding of the Destroyer aspect/expression of the Divine as the Most Compassionate, thus balancing potential destructive force by placing such with the One most likely to show mercy and forbearance. Similarly in relation to gender, the one bearing “the rod” ought be the one with the most restraint, and the one who is to be penetrated, or better the receptive party, ought thus be the more active if not aggressive player in the partnership. 

 In the general “Western” understanding, promoted if not primarily promulgated in some guise by all three of the Abrahamic religions, does a great disservice to both men and women by a formation of gender that links male to aggression and female to passivity, in effect justifying violence against women because, “Oh, that's just the nature of men/masculinity.” In Nature the true nature of the male is passivity, to be the “pillar” so to speak. Though of certainty testosterone, when not properly utilized via right mind and right practice and true Nature, is potentially a physiological cause of aggressive behavior, the basic assumptions made by American/"Western" culture that woman is/ought be passive and male is/ought be aggressive/active foments discord undue, and is certainly to no small degree responsible for “rape culture” as such exists in this society. Were masculinity associated with quiet strength, wise reserve and compassion, and the feminine as active, dynamic and potent (Shakti, the name of Shiva's Wife/Consort and an appellation applied likewise to designate Laksmi and Saraswati, Consorts of the Maintainer and Creator, means “Power”), such things as political correctness would have no meaning as such is a response to discursive abuses of power that are largely a product of the preexistent misdeployal of gender, and the divorce rate would almost certainly thus plummet. If culture, mores and etiquette taught and fomented those constructions and conceptions of gender which are indeed more natural to humans (outside of cultural contrivances and patterning)--again, male as passive and female as active, and terms like “sissy” and “pussy” put into disuse (obviously discursive violences at least indirectly abusive to both men and women), then gender bias and most sex crimes would cease to perpetuate.

Now mind you, I'm not saying you will find that such a more healthy gender balance is extant in say, Indian culture generally, as patriarchal influences have been present for many years in Indian society in juxtaposition to said more natural balance of male and female presented in tantra and yoga generally. Nonetheless, to shift and reform gender consciousness and cultural binaries towards a pattern of “male=passive, female=active” as presented in tantra yoga would certainly do much to balance sex and gender disparities and injustices present in society generally, and such would also almost certainty improve mental health in our society as many of those ailments are in fact derived from or directly caused by gender formation issues created in and by a society that wrongfully and mistakenly arranges gender in the first place!! The very “penetrative” project of “manifest destiny” and the necessary correlative construct of male=aggressive in what has been designated “Western culture” is symptomatic of misdirected masculine impetus and potency, and indeed not of a basic flaw in “male nature.” The key to correcting such is not to encourage men to be more “feminine,” but in fact to rethink the very constructions of masculine and feminine in light of those more ancient deployals and in light of  Nature, and thus to recognize that Western constructions are not equal to nor necessarily the same as Nature's construction of gender. We are free to reimagine and reconstruct what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman, and would do well to do so in light of the perpetuations of violence so endemic in this day and age under current constructions, violences that would likely dissipate were we to return to turn to those better constructions of that most basic binary as is proffered by yoga, Nature, and nigh all of our ancestral cultures.

Verfremdungseffekt . . .

Despite the rather tedious lack of overt action in this player's part in the screenplay played of late, the script's still proven rife and a virtual roller coaster emotional ride, with reworking and refiguring the plot and other players, contemplating roles and maybe getting glimpses of who the players, friends and lovers and purported foes, really are behind veils and facades.  All the while maintaining mindfulness and perhaps employing the Verfremdungseffekt (estrangement effect) to engage the audience and other players and Self...unattached to writ role and ascribed character and perhaps inciting the other players (/audience) to transcendent self-awareness as they play their scripted parts in this Grand Play.

Jesus's True Identity Revealed

In my humble opinion Jeshua ben Joseph (aka "Jesus") was very most likely an Avatar of Ayyapa, Son of Shiva and Mohini (Vishnu as a woman) and is the Protector of created beings...

"Only 'begotten Son'" 'cuz his Dad and Mom are actually both Dudes, the Destroyer and Maintainer Expressions of God (Both who are married to Women, btw:  Parvati and Laksmi, and sometimes share one body as Hari-Hara . . .).

Ayyapa does have four Brothers, Ganesha and Kartikeya, and twins Cush and Luv, and one Sister, Jyoti...

Scandalous Yoga . . .

Was just contemplating that sometimes scandal and seeming misbehavior is sometimes dharma, i.e., doing one's divine duty to keep things together.  What brought my thoughts to that subject is thinking about the Beatles' guru's purported sexual misconduct...Without said person behaving scandalously would we have the song Sexy Sadie? And in a similar vein, the Panchen Lama said of Mao Tse Tung that he was an incarnation of an angry deity who invaded Tibet to force the dissemination of Tibetan Buddhist teachings...Is misbehavior sometimes one's proper dharma?!
This is not to justify wrongful behavior, but merely to recognize that She works in mysterious ways...

Caution in Writing . . .

The task that has presented itself to me is daunting, if not terrifying. That presumptions about the most recent four to five thousand years of history, religion and culture are (by some accounts, surely) threatened by what I have to tell the world is only part of what daunts and just a portion of what is so terrible in approaching this task.  The theories I have to proffer are likely to shatter the paradigms held by the majority of the people on this planet is not all would cause a writer intending said short treatise some degree of trepidation.  That zealots, Jewish, Christian and Muslims and possibly others, might find the secrets I've to tell enough reason to put a price on my head or issue a fatwa for my execution is indeed not the cause of greatest concern for this writer in approaching the task. Rather, it is the danger inherent in uncovering occulted truths hidden by such potent spells obscuring, so much so that those most obvious clues regarding this mystery, clues that should be ascertainable to even the most daft of students, are veiled even to the most brilliant of academics—else the latter are too afraid to tell of what they do perceive of this Grand Conspiracy.

Some thought on Dance and Transit...

Intricate this nata, this dance this play . . . when is well directed and the stage well set and the screenplay well writ, good timing and yoga flow adjusting sense vibration just so, it doesn't even feel choreographed or scripted, as all we the actors, dancers and players are the Author of this Play.

___________

One thing I like about the freedom of the road:  once you surrender to the true flow, your true Self, the question is not what must I do, it's what do I wish to do (...once you realize your real wishes are the same as or commensurate to Goddess's/God's. Most readily accomplished when there are no attachments nor distractions)...this can be done at home too...

Tandava

Of all supposed dualities or dichotomies, light and dark is the most apparent and stark . . . An animal can perceive and is in fact controlled by cycles of light and dark, even if it does not have eyes, and to most animals our systems of ethics doesn't make sense. Why do silly people endeavor to conflate the apparent dualities presented them with the actual Nature of the Universe...? Being is not divided, just at play as Him and Her, effulgent and blacker than night, in a dance that is in truth itself illusion, if beautiful nonetheless..
Shiva-Kali Ma Tandava !!

Apsarasah and Angels

Of the myriad of gods and goddesses, and versions of God and Goddess proffered in this grand world, and so many varied understandings of the Divine to be found among the world’s peoples, it has occurred to this writer, yogi, former Baptist Preacher, grad school dropout, dilettante of an historian and sadhu and veritable hippie wandering freak that in fact in quite a number of cases gods and goddesses and other mythic figures from one tradition—or at least their archetypal figuration—are found in other guises in other traditions, and not necessarily always in ways which might be explained in terms of cultural anthropology or perspectives proffered by traditional historiography. 

The most obvious (if intentionally occulted) and likely most important example of the relationships woven through supposedly unrelated mythologies and purportedly disparate cultures is the connection between Abraham, the patriarch of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and the Hindu Creator Brahma, that the name Abraham somehow relates to the Sanskrit word Abrahman, and that the three Abrahamic religions somehow relate to the more ancient formulation of the Hindu Trimurti, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva (Creator, Maintainer and Destroyer), as I have expounded in other posts to this blog.  With the aforementioned genealogy in mind, I have been given cause to consider the relationship of apsarasah (divine flying nymphs of the Hindu and later Buddhist traditions) to the “Western” understanding of “angels.”  

Apsarasah are described as “female spirits of the clouds and waters” (Wikipedia), are often described as in the service of a god or goddess, and are said to be seducers of both gods and holy men, and are often married to celestial musicians known as Ghandarvas.  They are often depicted with wings, and are often portrayed in the scriptures as seducing ascetics when such holy men press the limits by raising too much tejas (“fire”) for the comfort of the gods.

To further set the stage for the hypothesis I am posing, I ought note that I am reading the development of culture from a markedly pro “dispersion theory” prejudice and perspective, despite that perspective being eschewed by the academe for the most part. 

Whether developed solely or primarily in or around India, the religion known as sanAtana dharma has definitively preserved that paradigm and mythos which seems the root to nigh all the rest, and which is quite clearly the beginning point for the Abrahamic religions.

I should also note that I personally read history as a tale of the gods at play, gods who are not-not us, and yet bear certain signatures sometimes writ quite large as they play across the span of history, human and otherwise.   Indeed, a mythically aware reading of history betrays certain persons and personalities, figures and figurations showing up in a variety of cultures and mythologies, deities or other important mythic and archetypally recognizable figures who seem nigh ubiquitous in the worlds’ many seeming disparate paradigms, else whose stories can in fact be traced upon a map as if recording the journey of a mortal across land and sea, and from one country or people to another. 

One example of this might be endeavoring to trace the figure of Kartikeya/Skanda from his seeming origin in India: a Son of Shiva who was born when his Father spilled His seed into the Ganges River, which then floated into a bed of reeds and Skanda was thus conceived and born.  In South Africa the Zulus worship Unkulunkulu, son of Umvelinquangi, a sky god who created the bed of reeds in which Unkulunkulu was born.  Unkulunkulu and Umvelinquangi seem rather clearly connected to Kartikeya and Ganga—a goddess who is most often depicted as hovering in the sky and pouring the waters of the Ganges on Shiva’s head.  

Skanda is also depicted as a god of war whose Sanskrit name means, among other things, “perishing,” “destruction” and “attacker.”  The first recorded use of the place name “Scandinavia” is by Pliny the Elder in the first century BCE.  The assumed Germanic root of “Scandinavia” is “skaden,” which means “damage” or “danger.”

There is a Hindu myth which tells of Kartikeya/Skanda and Ganesha (Shiva and Parvati’s Son) engaging in a race around the world.  Kartikeya undertakes the journey in a literal sense, whereas Ganesha merely runs a circle around his Father and Mother, understanding Them to be “the whole world.”  Perhaps it is that Kartikeya/Skanda running around the whole of the globe is in fact emblematic of said being’s conquests and the devotions thus proffered him by the peoples whose lands he has visited or “conquered,” whereas his brother did not venture far. 

A couple of interesting corresponding coincidences is that the Zulus, worshipping the war god Unkulunkulu (Kartikeya?), defeated the British in the last major engagement where an army with primitive weapons beat an army equipped with firearms, and that the Scandinavians were well enough known as warlike peoples.  Perhaps a tad more a stretch, Alexander the Great is known by the name Iskandar in the Arabic—again, rather phonetically like the name Skanda.  Iskandar’s campaign to the east was successful until he invaded India, as his troops began to run short of food.  Perhaps it is that by invading India, Skanda’s Mom—who is in one Avatar known as Annapurna, Goddess of Food—cut them off? (see post titled, "Ganesha and Kartikeya's Big Race")

Though not the primary inquiry I’ve intended to explore herein, the above example well enough displays the sort of genealogy of culture and play of the gods that I believe in truth underlie the whole of history and beyond.  With the aforementioned in mind, the theory I propose regarding the beings known in the Abrahamic traditions as “angels” is that they are in fact very much the same beings as apsarasah (singular, apsaras), and perhaps also to be identified with Ghandarvas—who are celestial musicians, very much like some “angels,” and who are often married to Apsarasah, but that they comport themselves chastely when visiting “Westerners,” covering their beautiful bodies when dealing with the Abrahamic peoples—perhaps as adherents to those religions are too much separate from the ancient traditions wherein sexuality is not equated with sin.  Thus said emissaries of the Divine do not generally favor those runaway children of sanAtana dharma with divine sexual favors, though are still attendant to said humans in various ways that those peoples’ faiths do allow, clothed head to toe in white robes to veil their transcendent sexuality from those in their charge who do not understand sex as truly Divine.  

Muslims, I might note, have some seeming memory or recognition of the celestial beings who are in fact not improperly to be perceived as objects of desire and divine lovers, believing that those men who live righteously in submission to Allah are to be rewarded with the caresses of celestial maidens in Heaven.  AllA, sans the "h," is one of Devi Durga's names, by the way, and at least one of the daughters of Allah, Manat, has a name that sounds very like one of Shiva's Daughter's names, Manas...

The picture in the post was taken by me when a friend and I were looking at some 

land I was interested in on the Wyoming/Colorado border around 2010. 

Didn't notice the flying figure till later examining the photo later.

I am indeed positing that such beings known as apsarasah, known to the “Western world” in veiled form, as “angels,” do indeed exist, though do present themselves in varied guises as the context and beliefs of the people to whom they are ministering merit, as I indeed believe to be the case with other immortals, devas and devis, gods and goddesses who are at play in the lila (Sanskrit for “play” in terms of both “making merry” and a writ and to whatever degree scripted play cycle) of history and life on earth and amongst and with those of us playing as mere mortals.

Namaste