Course XXVIII ten great religions

This continent, virgin and splendid in its savage state, extended toward the south-east, where the mountain range loomed with its immaculate crests, emerging as if from the sea foam.

These Atlantean peoples founded flourishing colonies in the heart of the jungle.

According to Incaic traditions, four brothers founded Cuzco, but one of them killed the others and transformed them into rocks, and the killer, after his death, became rock to be worshipped.

The early worship of the Indians was that of stones, on which they put their offerings and made sacrifices.

After the great catastrophe –the collapse of the ancient Atlantean continent– new tribes, of the few that could save themselves, arrived.

These tribes knew the pure worship of the Solar Divinity in the great city of golden doors.

They established the same rites upon the rock of Huiracocha, essential god and infinite principle; they kindled the holy fire of the god Pachacamac, oriented forever toward the Solar god, the great god Inti.

They built great temples of gold, since the Solar rite did rejected any instrument or adornment that was not of gold.

Virgins in white and adorned with crowns of gold, who only could be married by a king, kept the flame constantly burning in the sanctuary.

The male aspect, symbolized by the Sun, was completed by the female worship of the goddess Mama-Quilla or Coya, the Moon. In long rows, devotees attended at night to her temples, which were totally of silver, in order to worship and revere her.

Also the Incas worshipped other gods, namely, Catequil, the god of thunder; Cuicha, the rainbow: and Chozco, the god of love, similar to Venus.

This people knew the fundamental principle of the universe because it was aware of a non-manifested god. Piguerao, who disappears when the universe becomes manifested, twin brother of Atachucho, personal god, born of the early egg.

The first mate, the American Adam and Eve were Manco-Capac and Mama Oello Huaco, even though not all believed that that they founded the human race, since certain people felt that it was funded by the Inca Rock, direct descendant of the Sun.

Aztecs, Miltecs and Toltecs are very similar as to religion and customs, and also descendants of the Atlanteans.

Contrary to the red-skins of the Rocky Mountains, who had preserved on high level customs of an entirely spiritual religion by means of patriarchal and venerable habits, these Indians of Central America were materialistic, fierce and blood-thirsty.

In their view, the universe had been created by Citlantenac, the subtle universe, along with Citlalique, the thick universe.

In their cosmogonic annals they remembered four ages, namely, the age of water, when Earth inhabited by giants had the Flood.

The second age, the age of earth, where the surviving giants took refuge, was destroyed by severe seismic movements.

The third age, age of air, had been swept by cyclones.

As to the fourth age, that of fire, immense flames devoured human beings, and the Sun, the Moon and stars had been born and ascended to the firmament.

The gods are formed by the broken knife of Citlantenac, and men are born of certain bone of a dead god.

Earth was revered in the goddess Amon, but Cinteotl was the favorite; she rules over the growth of corn (maize), traditional plant of the Indians, and also protects germination.

They represented her like a beautiful woman laden with spikes and holding a child: they immolate in her honor human victims that had to be healthy and strong persons without physical defects. These persons were placed upon the altar of sacrifice, their chest was opened with a sharp knife, and their still palpitating heart was taken out and consecrated to this frightful goddess.

It would be impossible to enumerate all gods revered by these peoples. Tosi was the mother of gods, grandmother of men, and patron of magicians and wizards.

Mixcoatec was the god of storms. Xiuhteuctli, the god of fire. Chihuatcoatl, the goddess serpent, kind and loving, had given birth before any other woman and was patron of women in labor.

But the great god, the sweet god, in white, is Quetzalcoatl, the Plumed Serpent, who promotes peace. As he descended on men, he prohibited human sacrifices and banished the evil individuals.

Especially revered by the Toltecs, his symbol was a cross. Tired of being among men, he wished to return to the celestial regions, and left Tula, the highest city where he was revered, in desolation.

The god Texcatlipoca reigned after Quetzalcoatl; he was evil, vindictive and perverse, and again sowed sorrow among men.

Quickly the Indians were disappearing and remained buried forever under missing cities, treasures and memorials of their ancient and divine religion.

But since nothing perishes totally, an ancient tribe of Indian still remains intact, in the Rocky Mountains –they are pure descendants of the lost Atlantean Race of the dynasties of the eagle.

In the mountains, even today the deep echo of revered names of Manitu, the eternal god, resounds, and also that of Masson, the son of the living god. They have remained there like an eternal symbol.

The origin of the Romans is very obscure because the Etruscans, ancient remnants of the Iranians, and the Sabinians, inhabitants of the Latium, were of Aryan-Semite origin; but in Sicily and throughout the coast of Calabria Italic people lived, of pure Celtic race, who eventually make their lands thrive and, mixed with other peoples, founded the Roman caste.

The Celts extended throughout the Atlantic coast of Spain, invaded Gaul and went through the British Islands.

The Gauls were a pure Celtic race, and their lands extended from northern to the Ocean and Rhin.

It was very difficult the arrival of other peoples because of thick forests, virgin jungles, torrential rivers, impervious ways through, long winters and numerous wild beasts.

Even the Gauls, devoid of any contact and forced to fight fiercely for their survival and preservation, remained in a half-savage state.

A clan was supreme authority or, rather, the family concept and the experience of the elders.

Since they lived by the product of hunting and fishing, their worship consisted of images of those animals, which they wore like amulets, and also feathers, bones, et cetera.

Pliny describes them properly: of fierce aspect and grim gaze, they defended themselves with stones and gross spears. Their savage and guttural cries frightened and drove the enemy army away.

The priestly or druidic caste was the most representative of the Gauls. Since their childhood they were devoted to the goddess of war. They lived detached from their parents, reared by priests, and prepared in the art of war and manipulation of weapons.

When they were grown-ups, the entire people served and revered them. In the beginning of spring – when the snow melted or, more exactly, after the first Full Moon of March– was time to fight.

They guided heir people like gods-warriors. Their wars were among their own tribes, or all together against the barbarians from the other shore of the Rhin.

Without any mythology, they revered Nature, trees, mountains, rivers and, over all, their ancestors.

They had a caste of virgins devoted to serve in the temple; these virgins worshipped the Moon, and paid perennial homage to the Moon.

In Full Moon, they went out in long rows, in white, singing hymns to the Moon and imploring its help. The oldest and more expert woman became a pythoness and by means of palpitating entrails of newly-sacrificed bird she foretold the time to come of tribes, destiny of peoples, hours to combat and signs of blessing or curse

The Germans were a people brother of the Gauls.

A Celtic people lived as if they were lost in the immense snowy steppes of Nordic countries, now Scandivania.

They were red-haired men, of sharp and metallic gaze, tall and handsome; their shrill cries, like the wind, resounded in the vastness of glacial deserts.

They inherited from their Aryan parents the worship of divine Nature, which they embellished through legends and poems.

Brothers of these peoples are the Germans of northern Europe, who preserve the type, worship and warlike tradition.

The epic of these peoples is written down on the Scandinavian Edda –their holy book. This books should not be mistaken for the Eddas, written about 1200 by Snorri Sturlesson.

Alphadur is the only god, born of the boreal light on the luminous skies. Thor or Donar is the god of power; Odin is the god of wisdom; and Freyr is the god of kindness. They are the Scandinavian Trinity.

Eventually, Odin is over the rest of gods and becomes the powerful Wotan, god and lord of heaven and earth, another Jupiter that steadily rules over destinies of gods, men and demons.

His enemy is Sartur, the black Satan of earth and abysses. A cold and implacable space exists between them

Friga, wife of Wotan, is symbol of fertilization, of holy home and of worthy conjugal life.

Her sons are the shining Azas, thirty-two brave warriors that defend the Walhalla. They fight against Imes and his people –the giants of ice.

There is a great war between earth and heaven, between giants and gods. Thor, the god of lightning, firstborn of Odin, and Bera, the god of courage, fight in the Great War and destroy those immense figures of ice.

Earth becomes a river of blood, and a new race appears upon it. >From the cut head of Imes, the first human mate emerges –Aske and Embla.

Nine shining virgins, the far-sighted Walkyries have come into being from the powerful thought of Wotan; they usher the combat and lead on their white horses the dead victor, the fallen soldier toward the happy abode of the Walhalla. They see the destiny of men and always lead them to victory.

Combat was the highest religious worship among savage peoples of those gelid jungles. With unstoppable impetus they rushed in fight because they knew that after death they would be taken away to paradise on a white and winged steed by those warlike goddesses.

Worship was held in the jungle, under an ilex or holy ash trees; ilex was devoted to the ancestors and ash tree to the gods.

There that savage pythoness in white, on moonlight, evoked the gods and decided day and hour of the combat. She was over chiefs of clan, and her word was absolute and sacred.

Sometimes Furni, the fierce wolf, tied by the gods to a frightful chain, howled among thunders and lightning, claiming for human blood; then they sacrificed human victims to placate the wrath of this terrible wolf.

Upon the altar of white stone, the priestess opened the chest of young people chosen for the martyrdom.

But this people had to perish, this religion has to end, driven away by the Roman eagle and the Christian cross.

This had been foretold by their holy books when they prophesized that the wicked Lake would destroy and defeat the gods and that the Walhalla would collapse in flames, and everything would be again in ruins.

But others rejected sedentary life and preferred the desert to the city, the country tent to the comfortable house, and the unleavened bread of natural furnace to tasty dishes.

Among the rest of peoples, usually even Semites fragmented the Divinity by attributing it different aspects and forms.

But these pure sons of the sand and of unending routes have in their simple minds only one concept about God: Eloh, spirit, invisible being, unknown power, which they were unable to define.

These nomadic Terakites, divided into several tribes, formed perhaps the twelve tribe of Israel. But the tribes of Ben Israel and Ben Jacob prevailed over the others.

These nomads, called “Hibrim” by the Assyrians and Chaldeans (which means “Hebrews”, that is, those who come from beyond the river) had a very high worship of preservation of their own race and purity of their own blood.

They were descendants of the Semitic Atlanteans, who for centuries and centuries, had to fight to maintain their blood intact, since it had to be handed on to subsequent generations to form the new type of man.

Their ancestral mission had been to maintain in the world the physical type of the new race, which they had begotten from their Atlanteans ascendants.

This power to keep the race intact revealed an absolute intolerance to mix their blood with anyone outside their tribe.

The religion of the early Hebrews was entirely simple and vast.

While caravans and camels slowly went through roads toward the Euphrates or through paths of Syria or the Fore-Lebanon, they offered their prayers to the Almighty with slow rhythmic songs, similar to the Iasar of the Israelites and the Kitab-el-Aghni of the Arabians.

Now and then they settled and camped close to an oasis and, before continuing slowly their journey, erected a stone memorial called “Iad” and, when they did not find a stone, then piled lots of stones that until our days the Arabians of the desert call “El Galgail”.

The wind that formed enormous dunes and whistled day and night through their tents; lightning that hurt implacably their cattle, so lovingly guided by them; the Moon that traced its paths by a strip of light projected on the sand; and the starry sky and the burning sun, all this was their “Eloh”.

Instead of dividing these elements and of assigning to them different names and attributes, they assimilated them together like a unique expression of supernatural power, “Elohim”, which at the same time is the God One and the powers of God together in One.

This simple worship, practiced by the early Egyptians, Chaldeans and Assyrians –which they lost in the course of time and progress–, had laid the foundations of the monotheistic concept that still lasts in the world.

Jehovah is a name given to God later, when this God One becomes more material and more united to destinies of the Israelite people.

The Hebrews were devoid of mythology, since their simple worship did not accept it; even really they had not any worship itself, since they carried with them, in the Teraphim or portable ark, an oil that usually they poured on their stone memorials.

The Hebrews had worships and temples just after their captivity in Egypt and Babylon, once they settled in Palestine.

According to the Semitic concept, God is All, and the Absolute, cannot be named, and comprises everything, but man is transient.

Unlike the Aryans, who believe in life after death and in “Pitris”, invisible protectors of the race, the Semites, and particularly the Hebrews, do not believe that man survives in the hereafter. To them, a venerable and respected old age, their name uttered reverently after their death, and the memory of the patriarch perpetuated in their race, all this is enough.

Beyond is just the nothing, eternal silence, what a man must not investigate. In the most extraordinary of cases, certain enlightened beings were taken away, during their lifetime, toward the kingdoms of God, in order to live beside Him.

Nomadic tribes of the Hebrews, or rather, certain tribes, had settled in low Egypt to such an extent that got their own name, and were called Ben-Joseph’s. They prevailed over those Ben-Israel’s and those of Ben-Jacob’s tribes, and attracted and controlled them, by keeping an aristocratic predominance.

But frequent nomadic invasions had weakened Egypt and the Pharaohs, and these foreigners promoted periodical intestine revolutions in Pharaohs’ provinces.

A young Levi, assigned to the Egyptian worship and called Moses, rebelled the Hebrews against the Pharaohs and, at the head of this people, led them to escape toward the desert of Canaan.

The Hebrew people did not take anything from the Egyptian worship, since in Judea always was considered blameworthy anything that remembered Egypt, namely, calf of gold, serpent of brass, and other idols. They just preserved the Egyptian priesthood, copied from Levis.

As you have seen, the Hebrew worship is based totally in worships of Chaldea and Assyria. But the pure early worship of the Elohim, which had culminated on the beautiful patriarchal figure of Abraham and that was only universal monotheism, gradually became racial monotheism –Jahveh, the Jehovah of the Jews, was not any more an Eternal God that comprises everything, but the peculiar god of the new people, a god reduced to a narrow strip of earth, to a short number of men and to a personalized relativity.

As this people settles in Canaan and establishes itself like a steady tribe, it further condenses in itself this individual god.

The spiritual concept of the Hebrews becomes more and more obscure, in spite of David’s reign and if Solomon’s Temple: the more splendid is their spiritual progress, the more materialistic they become.

But pain and prophets awakened this people to preserve the heritage of the Semitic religion throughout races.

During their captivity in Babylon, far away from Jerusalem, far away from splendor of Palestine, and far away from the great solemnity of their destroyed Temple, they though again of the true immensity of God, and to hear the vital voice of their prophets.

Back again in Jerusalem, by will of Cyrus “the Great”, King of Persia, they re-established the purest worship. Ezra re-unites lost and scattered laws of the people and enlarges and establishes definitively the Torah.

The spiritual life flourishes, and philosophies and men proclaim the existence of the spirit after death.

The subsequent Sadducees are materialistic, while the Pharisees are spiritual in Israel.

They not only consider the dead letter of law, but also study its esoteric and hidden part. And when the emerging Christians wanted to possess the holy books of the Hebrews, gladly the latter delivered them; so they gave the dead letter to the Christians, and hid the esoteric part that is beautifully reflected on the Talmud.

But other peoples, of Semitic origin, and particularly those tribes that letter were called Ligurians, invaded the Italic peninsula, destroy their ancient inhabitants and impose their laws and religion, of Egyptian and divine origin.

Since then, the worship of ancestors begins and the hero and dead chief of a tribe are transformed into God.

The origin of the ancient Romans is entirely mythological and based on beliefs of all ancient Aryan religions –a god made man.

Rea Silvia, a priestess of the worship of fire, or Solar, secretly marries the God Mars, and becomes mother of Romulus and Remus. The two children are the product of a divine and human manifestation. Abandoned in the river, a shepherd picks them up and a she-wolf suckles them; here is the symbol of the descent of the pure souls to the lower world to conquer them.

Romulus killed his brother and later founded a people of outlaws that established a kingdom by means of work and efforts.

So, like the Assyrians, their religion is based on strength, power, war, order, law and militarism.

The highest religion of the Romans is courage, victory in combat, and grandeur of their people.

The only God, the only priest, is the king, or dictator, or emperor. Their only god is their indomitable and unstoppable pride that never allows them to rest.

The Eagle had to be the first religious image of the Romans because like the eagle they wanted to fly upper and upper.

They choose gods after becoming great and extending extraordinarily their domains by the contact of the Greeks, whose sense of religion and mythology was inborn.

The Romans never had their own gods; they copied them from the Hellenic Olympus. Jupiter, king of heaven, is Zeus of Athens; Venus is Aphrodite; Mars is Ares; Appolo is Phoebe; Vulcan is Hephaistos, and so on.

But along with the worship and imitation of Greek gods, there was a decline of the family worship, of the early worship, and so the grandeur of Rome was undermined.

Romans were particularly superstitious or skeptical, and their power and splendor were such that attracted all worships of other extant religions.

In the times of the empire there were numberless sects in Rome, which sometimes degraded and belittled their own gods and their own worship. Therefore, it was natural a reaction produced in time of the Christians.

The Roman Empire had tolerated everything and had admitted all gods in its pantheon; but could not renounce to deify its ruler because the support and structure of the entire Empire is the almost divine power of the soldiers that ruled over it. Thence, the violent persecution against the Christians that denied the basic divinity of the Empire.

The Romans were not rich as to science or philosophy because they adapted the Greek philosophers and foreign sciences, and to them, war was the supreme interest and the only desire of man.

The Roman religious period can be divided into three stages:

First: That of Nature and family worship of this warlike people, when they flourished to the utmost.

Second: Period of adopting Greek gods, that of settlement of the Empire.

Third: Christian period, that of quick descent in the great Empire of the eagles.

Teaching 16: The Mongolians
The origin of Chinese civilization (Chun-Chin) are lost in the fog of Vedic times, because Vedas were those tribes settled on the rock of Chung-Yang, defeated their inhabitants, and assimilated them and adapted themselves to them

This country, extended from Tibet until the Yellow Sea, has kept better than anyone else the concept of a divine religion, since like the Egyptians they see their emperor as the highest being. He rules over men and gods; the Pantheon of Chinese gods is subject in its category to the orders of the emperor; thence the name of this kingdom –Celestial Empire.

The most ancient and real emperor, since precedent dynasties are only myths and legends, was Yu, of the Hia’s dynasty.

He builds cities, organizes armies, fights against his enemies and is always victorious in his undertakings.

The Chinese annals date back from that time; they are perfect codes related to social, moral, and economic order.

But it is Confucius who transforms the Chinese imperial grandeur into religion.

He transforms the military order into practical philosophy: obedience to the king into filial devotion, like a son for his father and a man for God. He establishes a discipline that has to transform the human sorrow in continuous happiness; but this can be possible through a perfect leader and chief, who lives a life strictly moral.

The Book of the Annals, written by him, became code, religious text, which still today is a guide of the high Chinese aristocracy.

But Confucius’ religion does not deal with life after death, since it is merely materialistic. Its entire purpose consists in providing man with a happier and more comfortable life.

It is Lao-tse the philosopher and great Chinese Initiate in metaphysics. He teaches men the science of the soul, and says all that we see is manifestation of a sublime, hidden and fundamental principle, and that the true bliss consists of looking for that unique truth, which can reincorporate a human being in his early state.

Yang, the male principle, and Yin, the female principle, are the two energetic forces that maintain the universe.

Lao-tse leaves in China such a number of disciples that they form a true army, and a religion that still survives, called Taoism. “Tao” means “path”, “religion”; but eventually the Taoist religion lost its early concepts of pure spirituality, and became a magical religion. A Taoist priest drives away evil spirits, consecrates family Manes, makes amulets and relics, and certain liquor extracted from a peach, which is like an elixir of life, a tonic of rejuvenation.

But Buddhism was the most disseminated religion in China, even though today the Shintoism prevails, which is a synthesis of the three, but independent and based on the worship of fire. The Emperor professes this religion because it is a synthesis of the three; the aristocracy follows Confucius’s laws; priests and sages follow Lao-tse laws; and the people is Buddhist.

Buddhism is so closely linked with the figure of its founder that it is impossible to speak of one and not to remember the other.

In Kapilavastu, a little kingdom of Punjab, the prince Siddhartha is born. Devaki Maya, his mother, dies when she gives life to him; and he stays comfortably with the king, his father, in his palace. He grows up unaware of miseries of the world, marries a close princess, and very soon the mate has a child.

But a cloud of infinite doubt floats over the brow of this beautiful prince –his desire of knowing life.

Therefore he goes out of his palace and, as he sees men suffering growing older and dying, decides to abandon his crown and his family, in order to look for the secret of the eternal happiness.

This prince becomes a Sanyasi and, begging his bread, travels through dusty roads in search of the Arcane.

He follows the path of study and knowledge; tries Tantric Yoga exercises; reduces his body to a skeleton through penitence; and has experiences of mystical love; but does not find the secret.

And then, under the holy Bo tree, receives the highest Initiation and discovers the reason of human suffering; attachment is cause of pain in life, of death, and of being born again. When being is devoid of desires and renunciation is absolute, then he does not suffer or return to earth any more and find the eternal happiness by reincorporating himself in the Non-Absoluteness.

Since that day he begins his mission on earth –to show the path of happiness, the right path, to men.

As a reaction produced in the religious consciousness harassed by many symbols, ceremonies and laws, a powerful Buddhism emerges and drags the multitude.

Thousands of adepts appear wherever the Buddha goes.

He said men were all equal and this way gave a deadly blow to Hinduism adhering strongly to caste division. He said God is the essence of all things, and this way he threw down, and killed at one stroke, millenary gods. He said the righteous work is the only work that man must do, and this way he destroyed another fundamental belief of the ancient religion, which based the fruit of future rather on divine help than on right behavior,

The Buddha placed celibacy on the summit of perfection; that is why he was followed by rows of monks that had abandoned everything in the world in order to hear and practice his word. One day, his own son would come to him to ask his admission in the community.

It is beyond imagination the hatred produced by the Buddha’s doctrine among the Brahmans. But along with hatred, a desire of rivaling with him emerged; it was like a Hindu Counter-Reformation.

In different Hindu sects, men appeared that understood the impossibility of fighting against so enlightened man or against so useful doctrine, with the exception of the same weapons. They understood the need of returning to the early source of religion and to drink in pages of Vedas those eternal truths that they had forgotten in order to apply them again and profess them in their temples and ceremonies. In short, Buddhism awakened the consciousness of India, brought a word of freedom to men, who until then had felt slaves, and encouraged the rehabilitation of early Vedas.

But Buddhism was not destined to settle in India.

The Buddha died at the age of eighty in the arms of his disciple Ananda, and then fights began again, and did not end until two generations later, when the Chatrias, guided by Brahmans, destroyed all Buddhists in India and swept that religion in its entire soil.

But the blood of martyrs always becomes seed of new triumphs; the Buddha’s religion was not dead. Just it has been transplanted to other more fertile and needy lands of its spiritual help.