Les visiteurs

Comedy gold!!! ROFL

 

Studying Yajur Veda

I'm studying Yajur Veda in my leisure time as I love the Shukla Yajur Veda tradition or the Vajasaneyi Samhita which is the tradition of the great sage Yajnavalkya who gave the Isha Upanishad to the world. Actually there are two Yajur vedas, Black Yajur Veda also known as Taittariya Samhitha or Krishna (Krishna means Black) YajurVeda from the Vaishampayana school and White Yajurveda also known as Vajasaneyi Samhita or Shukla Yajur Veda from the Yajnavalkya school. There is a story on the origin of the two Yajur Vedas and here is how it goes:
 

According to traditional accounts, Yājñavalkya was the son of Devarāta and was the pupil of sage Vaisampayana. Once, Vaisampayana got angry with Yājñavalkya as the latter argued too much to separate some latter additions to Yajurveda in being abler than other students. The angry teacher asked his pupil Yājñavalkya to give back all the knowledge of Yajurveda that he had taught him.

As per the demands of his Guru, Yājñavalkya vomited all the knowledge that he acquired from his teacher in form of digested food. Other disciples of Vaisampayana took the form of partridge birds and consumed the digested knowledge (a metaphor for knowledge in its simplified form without the complexities of the whole but the simplicity of parts) because it was knowledge and they were very eager to receive the same.

The Saṃskṛt name for partridge is "Tittiri". As the Tittiri (partridge) birds ate this Veda, it is thenceforth called the Taittirīya Yajurveda. It is also known as Kṛṣṇa Yajurveda or Black-Yajurveda on account of it being a vomited substance. The Taittirīya Saṃhitā thus belongs to this Yajurveda.

Then Yājñavalkya determined not to have any human guru thereafter. Thus he began to propitiate the Sun God, Surya. Yājñavalkya worshipped and extolled the Sun, the master of the Vedas, for the purpose of acquiring the fresh Vedic portions not known to his preceptor, Vaiśampāyana.

The Sun God, pleased with Yājñavalkya's penance, assumed the form of a horse and graced the sage with such fresh portions of the Yajurveda as were not known to any other. This portion of the Yajurveda goes by the name of Śukla Yajurveda or White-Yajurveda on account of it being revealed by Sun. It is also known as Vajasaneya Yajurveda, because it was evolved in great rapidity by Sun who was in the form of a horse through his manes.The rhythm of recital of these vedas is therefore to the rhythm of the horse canter and distinguishes itself from the other forms of veda recitals. In Sanskrit, term "Vaji" means horse. Yājñavalkya divided this Vajasaneya Yajurveda again into fifteen branches, each branch comprising hundreds of Yajus Mantras. Sages like Kanva, Madhyandina and others learnt those and Śukla Yajurveda branched into popular recensions named after them.

It is important to note that within the hierarchy of Brāhmaṇas, certain sects believe in the Kṛṣṇa Yajurveda while others practice from the Śukla Yajurveda.

Yājñavalkya married two wives. One was Maitreyi and the other Katyaayanee. Of the two, Maitreyi was a Brahmavadini (one who is interested in the knowledge of Brahman).The descendant sects of Brahmans are the progeny of the first wife Katyaayanee. When Yājñavalkya wished to divide his property between the two wives, Maitreyi asked whether she could become immortal through wealth. Yājñavalkya replied that there was no hope of immortality through wealth and that she would only become one among the many who were well-to-do on. When she heard this, Maitreyi asked Yājñavalkya to teach her what he considered as the best. Then Yājñavalkya described to her the greatness of the Absolute Self, the nature of its existence, the way of attaining infinite knowledge and immortality, etc. This immortal conversation between Yājñavalkya and Maitreyi is recorded in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.

Yajnavalkya teaches Brahma Vidya to King Janaka.

 

Wisdom of Yājñavalkya is shown in Brhadaranyaka Upanishad where he gives his teachings to his wife Maitreyi and King Janaka. He also participates in a competition arranged by King Janaka about the selecting great Brhama Jnani (knower of Brahman). His intellectual dialogues with Gargi (a learned scholar of the times) form a beautiful chapter filled with lot of philosophical and mystical question-answers in Brhadaranyaka Upanishad. He was then praised as the greatest Brahmajnyani by all the sages at the function organised by king Janaka. In the end, Yājñavalkya took Vidvat Sanyasa (renunciation after the attainment of the knowledge of Brahman) and retired to the forest.

There's something wrong with the world

Morpheus: I know exactly what you mean. Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?

The reason why I ended up as a Valentinian gnostic is because right from my teenage I have always felt that there's something wrong with the world. That's the basic premise in the origin of gnostic thought that there's something wrong with this world. This world was not created by the supreme God instead this world is just a shadow copy of the real things that exists in the Pleroma. Plato and Neo-Platonists were right. This world is not real and we are mere prisoners of the cave. The pagan mystery religions exist solely to return us to the source where we came from.

Sexual intercourse for producing spiritual children

Marriage and Procreation were an hotly debated topic among early Christian fathers. What should be the attitude of Christians on procreation, sex and marriage? While I cannot speak for all Christians and for all sects of Christianity out there I will be more concerned with the attitude of those Christians who believed in the same doctrines which I believe in. In this case I am concerned of Valentinianism and the attitude of Valentinian Christians on marriage, procreation and celibacy which is my main concern since I am a Valentinian Christian.

April D DeConick from the Rice University has made a thorough study on this subject and her work The Great Mystery of Marriage. Sex and Conception in Ancient Valentinian Traditions will be the main subject of this post.

April proposes a unique view not supported by reputable scholars in the field by saying that Valentinians neither advocated celibacy nor did they practised promiscuous sexual intercourse but instead they had pure sexual intercourse to bring forth children possessing divine qualities in them or in other words children with a pneumatic spiritual seed in them.

Its true that the positive attitude on marriage and sex by the Valentinian Christians is due to their high emphasis on mythogony. Their eschatology is a consequence of their mythology and their positive attitude on marriage and sex is a consequence of their eschatology. According to them myth was far more real than ordinary reality. Achamoth, also called the Lower Sophia brings forth spiritual fetuses or seeds out of joy after seeing Jesus along with his angels descending to her realm from the above Pleroma. Since these spiritual seeds were conceived without a proper sexual intercourse between Achamoth and Jesus these spiritual seeds were weak and immature and needed a place for them to grow and to become mature. It was then that Jesus ordered Achamoth to bring forth the Demiurge Jehovah so that she can use him as a tool to create earth and human beings. Therefore human beings are nothing but mere carrier bodies for the pneumatic spiritual seeds of Achamoth which she sows every time a child is conceived from a mother's womb.

Earlier I had argued that the Bridal Chamber should be interpreted allegorically as a union between the Holy Father and the individual obviously disturbed by the idea that Valentinians practised carnal sexual intercourse inside earthly Bridal Chambers. The Bridal Chamber in Gospel of Philip should be interpreted allegorically and spiritually. After reading the work of April D DeConick I have to accept that I was wrong and I have to advocate the view that the Valentinians might have had a pure sexual intercourse inside Bridal Chambers just to produce children possessing divine qualities. We cannot be sure because remember Gospel of Philip insists that the marriage in the Bridal Chamber is not fleshy.

However I don't think that marriage and sexual intercourse was so important a thing for Valentinians as April makes it out in her work. The reason being if marriage and procreation were so important to Valentinians then Saint Paul would have obviously stressed more on this point and would have recommended us to strictly marry without fail at least for the sake of bringing forth spiritual children instead Paul advocates the view that it is better to remain as a celibate but if men cannot control then he says it is better to marry rather than to burn with the passion of lust which is completely in contrast with the view espoused by April D DeConick in her work.

Marriage and procreation should be of secondary priority and importance for human beings since it is not mandatory that you should be married to receive redemption instead one should worship only the Holy Father through sacraments and become like the Holy Father which is a view also espoused by the same Gospel of Philip.

It is not possible for anyone to see anything of the things that actually exist unless he becomes like them. This is not the way with man in the world: he sees the sun without being a sun; and he sees the heaven and the earth and all other things, but he is not these things. This is quite in keeping with the truth. But you saw something of that place, and you became those things. You saw the Spirit, you became spirit. You saw Christ, you became Christ. You saw the Father, you shall become Father. So in this place you see everything and do not see yourself, but in that place you do see yourself - and what you see you shall become.

- Gospel of Philip

If time permits then one might concentrate on having sexual intercourse to produce spiritual children so that as many souls as possible receive the gnosis of the Father and return to the Pleroma as soon so possible but the main goal of human beings should be to be in search of the unknowable Holy Father through sacraments and to finally rest with him.

Even the Isha Upanishad advocates that man should live a hundred years without lusting after other men's possessions and without renouncing the works of the Law but one might question what good does it serve when this whole world is full of evil and not from the Father of Truth. If we press hard on the Aryan religion and demand an answer to this question it would go not quite far and they would give an answer like that this world was created for humans and gods so that they can live happily and peacefully here after through give and take i.e. humans should perform Yajna and offer sacrifices to the gods and gods should receive those sacrifices since Yajna is the food for the gods and in turn gods should fulfil the desires of human beings. In this way this world was created for gods and human beings to peacefully coexist and finally to establish the truth of Brahman and live a righteous life accordingly. In this sense the God of the Aryans is a loving god who cares for humanity and wants human beings to live on earth even though it is difficult just for the sake of establishing the truth and saving as many human beings as possible and finally return them to Pleroma. Even though the soteriology of the Aryans is quite similar to the Valentinians the former lack proper mythological explanations for their attitude towards the world and also on the question of how we got here in the first place. The myth of the Valentinians surpasses all religions in correctly communicating to us on questions like how we got here in the first place? Why there is so much evil in this world and why an omnibenevolent and an omnipotent God does not try to stop evil? Why do some people don't believe in any God while others easily believe in the truth? Why do bad things happen for good innocent people? What is the purpose of life? Why does the universe exist? Where do we come from? Where are we going? What should be our attitude? What should be our code of conduct? What should be our role in life? Who should follow the Law and who should not? When does the universe come to an end? We all are truly indebted to Valentinian Christians for their remarkable Depth Psychology on the human condition and behaviour, their insights on the cosmos and their way of creating myths to convey their fascinating ideas even embracing their opponents who think them as unintelligible mad men devoid of any rationality.

Teaching Gnosticism in schools

I honestly had to wait for over 16 years of my life just to hear the word 'Gnostic' and 'Gnosticism' and that too I didn't hear it from one of my teachers or in any lesson of my school curriculum. I heard it while I was watching the National Geographic Channel who did a documentary on the lost gospels found in the Nag Hammadi library in the year 2006 Lost Gospel Revealed; Says Jesus Asked Judas to Betray Him and yes I was 16 years old then.

So if the NGC had not made a documentary I wouldn't have heard about the existence of the Gnostic sects of Christianity to this day or would have encountered that term at some point in time later in my life. It was from their documentary that I was introduced to people like Marvin Meyer and Elaine Pagels and the likes of others. As I was not aware of the big picture at that time the documentary was interesting to watch but I didn't do any further research on Gnosticism. 

This clearly shows that the history which is being spoon fed to us in schools is entirely a fabricated false history of the world suppressing those things which goes against the established order. I prefer to have truth over an corrupt established order based purely on lies. I prefer to have light than be in the darkness like a prisoner in the cave.

Why there is not even a single lesson on the Inquisition of the Catholics or even just a paragraph on the existence of the gnostic sects of Christianity? The stupid Indian school curriculum wants us to believe in the idiotic doctrine of Sarva Dhama Sama Bhava (All religions are equal) and that's why they don't include any material in the school curriculum which goes against that doctrine. They want to make us believe that all religions existed peacefully throughout our human history like the way India believes itself to exist now. Why not a chapter about the Multan Sun Temple in the History subject of the school curriculum? Let the kids know who did what and who is evil and who is good. The Indian minds are so stupid they never question what is being fed into them and they rarely try to know how they got here in the first place. While some good teachers do encourage students to cultivate individual independent thinking rarely do students take such an advice seriously.

Doesn't our kids deserve to know the true history of the world? What are the established systems so afraid of?