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Epiphany and Theophany

Revelation in Buddhism and other religions.

These are my views regarding religions theology, theosophy and philosophy after reading and

studying whatever available to me (collected knowledge - sutamaya) and contemplating on these

facts (processed knowledge seintamaya). The last level of knowledge, according to Buddha, is

insight knowledge (vipassana) which can be expressed in various ways as intuition, transcendental

knowledge or, even, epiphany (revelation) and its not relevant here since its more of mundane

affair, and I dont have it yet also.

The many books are - of Buddhas teachings written by various knowledgeable monks in Burmese,

majority, and in English; by scholars in English such as A History of God, Ideas, A History, Pagans

and Christians and Chambers Dictionary of Beliefs and Religions. Last but not the least will be

God Delusion.

Although my opinion is Buddhism is not a religion in its many aspects such as the lack of rites,

rituals, ceremonies, mysticism or miracles, myths and dogmatism, for discussion it has to be included

here as a religion.

If not for Buddhism, religion will be still defined as belief in some form of god. In the beginning,

human beings created a God who was the First Cause -- an opening sentence from A History of

God by Karen Armstrong. Its a good book although at the end Im still confused who created who;

god created human or the other way round. Anyway once we accepted the idea of god, it has to be a

credible one and one way of attaining that credibility is through revelation. Throughout our human

history many gods were recorded to have revealed to many people at various times and Book 1 of

Pagans and Christians by Robin Lane Fox (Folio Society) is a book, from a well-studied effort,

although not well presented because of its academic style of presentation, for the history of

revelations epiphanies - by various gods during that transitional time of Pagans and Christians.

From various criminals, serial killers and rapists, to saints and sages, there were accounts of

epiphanies and its difficult to discriminate whose is correct if one takes a deeper look; superficially

of course criminals are liars. One notable fact that I notice is the form and content of revelation was

always in accordance with the knowledge of that time, never futuristic despite the God being

postulated as Omni-everything. For example, he appeared in a chariot in those days not in any

futuristic vehicle like Virgin Galactic; and he promised the Jew a very arid land despite there being a

very fertile and wide America. It just reflects the knowledge of the story teller rather than that of the

main actor.

But Gotama Buddha never revealed himself to be a god though he never denied the existence of

gods, if we consider those staying above, figuratively, our human plane can be called as gods. What

he revealed is the Dhamma which is all-encompassing in both its contents and coverage. It can be

interpreted as laws of the Nature including Physics, Chemistry, Psychology; guides to liberation (not

salvation) through learning and practice, not blind or unreserved faith; revelation of the Truth and

simply answers to our problems in life - all of which will always be correct (paramatta cica

permanent truth) independent of time, place and person.

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