The Larger Picture

The Origin of Mankind

The Rise and Fall of Civilizations

Atlantis

The Root Races

• First – Polar

• Second – Hyperborean

• Third – Lemurian

• Fourth – Atlantean

• Fifth – Aryan

• Sixth –

• Seventh -

Globes, Rounds and Chains

Cosmic TimeYears

Satya Yuga 1,728,000

= Mahayuga(4.32 million years)

Treta Yuga 1,296,000

Dwapar Yuga 864,000

Kali Yuga 432,000

Manvantara 306,720,000 = 71 mahayugas

Kalpa = 1 day of Brahma

4,320,000,000 = 1000 mahayugas

Year of Brahma

3,110,400,000,000 = 360 days & nights

Age of Brahma 311,040,000,000,000 100 years of Brahma

A B S O L U T E

COSMOS

Heirarchy of Beings Heirarchy of Compassion

Judeo-Christian Hierarchy Kabbalah Hindu Buddhist Theosophical

Void (OT) Ain Parabrahman Sunyata (Void) Absolute

The Deep (OT), God (NT) Ain Soph Brahman First Logos

Adi-Buddhi “The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” (OT), “Word was with God” (NT)

Ain Soph Aur Purusha and Prakriti Second Logos

Maha-Buddhi God (Elohim); Logos or Word (NT)

Kether (or Kether, Chocmah, Binah)

Brahma Avalokiteshvara Third Logos

Daiviprakriti Word (NT) Fohat

Sons of Light Seven Sprits before the throne Tree of Life Seven Logoi

Four recording angels Four Maharajas Lipikas

3rd Dhyani Chohanic

2nd Dhyani Chohanic

1st Dhyani Chohanic

Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones,

Dominions, Virtues, Powers,

Principalities, Archangels, Angels

Builders, Watchers, Chain Manus, Manasaputras, Barnishads, Kumaras, etc.Round ManusGlobe ManusRace ManuHigher Devas

Dhyani Buddhas

Dhyani Boddhisattva

Super-Terestrial Bodhisatvas

Terrestrial Buddhas Saints, “Just Men Made Perfect”

Rishis, Jivanmuktas, Boddhisattvas, Buddhas, Asekha, Arhats

Buddhas, Chohans, Mahatmas

Human Beings Human Beings Human Beings Human Beings

Animals Animals

Plants Plants

Minerals Minerals

1st Elemental 1st Elemental

2nd Elemental 2nd Elemental

3rd Elemental 3rd Elemental

Levels of ReligionsAll religions have at least three levels: the

ceremonial level; the dogma level; and the spiritual level. The spiritual level is the real heart of a religion. The other two layers, ceremonies and beliefs, can change through the centuries but spirituality is essentially unchanged.

People whose understanding of religion is basically on the first two levels may become intolerant of other sects or religions. Wars have been waged due to disagreements on these levels.

People whose religious life is on the third or spiritual level do not feel threatened by other religions. They see the essential identity of the different religions on this level.

Hinduism Christianity Thomas Aquinas

Judaism (& Kabbalah)

Islam (& Sufism)

Atma Atma Spirit (pneuma)

Ruah (or Neshamah)

Ruh

Buddhi Buddhi; Anandamayakosa

Contemplative consciousness; spiritual or mystical consciousness

Higher Mental

Karanopadhi; karana sarira; vijnamayakosha

Rational Soul Nephesh Nafs al-natiqah

Lower Mental

Manomayakosha Psyche

(Soul)

Sensitive Soul Nafs al-haywaniyah

Emotional Sukshma sarira

Kama rupa

Vegetative Soul Nafs al-nabatiyah

Etheric Linga Sarira; pranamayakosa

Physical Sthula Sarira (Soma) Body Body Gewiyah Jism

The Bible and the Ageless Wisdom

• LITERAL INTERPRETATION – brings about internal contradictions and incredibilities, such as 7 days of creation, Noah and the ark, Joshua and the stopping of the sun, God repenting his actions, etc.

• ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION – sees the underlying spiritual teaching and wisdom behind the symbolism of the stories without worrying about scientific or rational contradictions

Ark was 450 feet (137 meters) long; 75 feet (22.8 m) wide, 45 feet (13.7 m) high

Animals were gathered in 7 days

How many known land and air species are there?

• Insects: 5 – 10,000,000 million

• Arachnids: 80,000

• Mammals: 4,260

• Reptiles: 6,787

• Birds: 9,703

At 5 million species, Noah had to bring in 500 pairs per minute for 24 hours a day for 7 days (8 species per second)

How long did it take to get the kangaroos and koalas from Australia, the llamas from South America, the tigers from Asia, the pandas from China?

The sun stood still and the moon stopped until the people had taken revenge on their enemiesJoshua 10:13

Earth rotates at 1,600 km/hour. If you stop this, all loose objects would fly and the oceans would swamp the land and there would be a disaster all over the world.

Judges 16:17 That he told her all his heart, and said unto her, There hath not come a razor upon mine head; for I have been a Nazarite unto God from my mother's womb: if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man.

Hair is not connected to nervous system and hence will not affect a person by cutting it

Spiritual connection with higher self (connected [sun stood still] or cut off [hair cut off])

Spiritual self within; I Corinthians 3:16,17  Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

Enemies: the qualities of the lower self represented Philistines and the Gibeonites

The Disunity and Violence among Religions

Christianity:

Protestants and Catholics in Ireland

Islam:

Shi’ites and Sunnis in Middle East

Kosovo; Aceh; Mindanao; Nigeria; Israel; India; Iraq; etc.

Crusades; French Religious Wars (16th cent.); Thirty Years War (17th cent.)

Hinduism: Gandhi

“I am a Hindu, a Muslim, a Christian, a Zoroastrian, a Jew.”

From: Shashi Tharoor, India: From Midnight to the Millenium.

Catholicism: Asian Bishop’s Assembly

“We are daily more convinced that the Spirit is leading us in our time . . . to an integration, profound and organic in character, of all that is best in our (Asian) and traditional forms of prayer and worship, into the treasury of our Christian heritage. Thus is a fuller catholicity made possible in this age of the Church.“Asian prayer has much also to offer to authentic Christian spirituality. “The great religions of Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam . . . have been the treasury of many of the religious experiences of our ancestors from which our contemporaries do not cease to draw light and strength.”

Asian Bishop’s Second Plenary Assembly, 1978, cited in Prayer, The Life of the Church in Asia, Bea Institute, Loyola School of Theology, Ateneo de Manila

University, 1979.

Christianity: Fr. Thomas Merton

“Is it therefore possible to say that both Christians and Buddhists can equally well practice Zen? Yes, if by Zen we mean precisely the quest for direct and pure experience on a metaphysical level, liberated from verbal formulas and linguistic preconceptions.”

From Zen and the Birds of Appetite

Zen is perfectly compatible with Christian belief and indeed with Christian mysticism (if we understand Zen in its pure state, as metaphysical intuition.)

Islam: Hazrat Inayat Khan

What is religion to the mystic? The religion of the mystic is a steady progress towards unity.

No one can be a mystic and call himself a Christian mystic, a Jewish mystic or a Mohammadan mystic. For what is mysticism? Mysticism is something which erases from one’s mind all idea of separateness.

From The Inner Life

Transpersonal Psychology: Abraham Maslow

“To the extent that all mystical or peak-experiences are the same in their essence and have always been the same, all religions are the same in their essence and have always been the same. They [religious practitioners] should, therefore, come to agree in principle on teaching that which is common to all of them, i.e., whatever it is that peak-experiences teach in common (whatever is different about these illuminations can fairly be taken to be localisms both in time and space, and are, peripheral, expendable, not essential).

This something common, this something which is left over after we peel away all the localisms, all the accidents of particular languages or particular philosophies, all the ethno-centric phrasings, all those elements which are not common, we may call the ‘core-religious experience’ or the ‘transcendent experience’ ”. Maslow, Abraham H. Religions, Values and Peak Experiences. P. 20

The Essential Unity of ReligionsSpirituality or the transcendent consciousness is a common heritage of all humankind. It is beyond labels and dogmas. It is an experience. It is the heart of true religious experience. From it emanates genuine love and compassion.

The growing appreciation of the spiritual, as opposed to the doctrinal, is the long term key to religious harmony. It is the source of true unity amidst diversity.

The Unity of Life

Unity of Mankind

Spiritual perfection and spiritual knowledge can only be reached on the spiritual plane; in other words, only in that state in which all sense of separateness, all selfishness, all feeling of personal interest and desire, has been merged in the wider consciousness of the unity of Mankind.

H.P. Blavatsky

One Earth, One Humanity, One Life