New & Noteworthy - February 2025
The largest Buddhist stupa in the Western world was dedicated on October 4th, 2003 in Benalmadina, Costa del Sol, Spain.
DIOGENES OF LYCIA
[2ND century ce]
Not least for those who are called foreigners, for they are not foreigners. For, while the various segments of the EARTH give different people a different country, the whole compass of this world gives all people a single country, the entire EARTH, and a single home.
350—BCE
EMPIRE of ALEXANDER the GREAT of MACEDON
Alexander’s empire included Afghanistan and northern India. The religious thoughts of the conquered peoples, HINDUISM and BUDDHISM, were brought to the west by Greek soldiers returning home.
The practice of dying through MEDITATION
Buddhists believe in the soul’s reincarnations until it reaches eternal enlightenment:
free from earthly attachments, free from suffering, the soul is at PEACE: NIRVANA.
OBLIVION
[WHEN YOU CEASE TO DREAM YOU CEASE TO LIVE]
Lord of the dance: Shiva
Shiva is the deity who destroys the cosmos
so that it can be renewed again.
The endless cycles of TIME
Hindus believe that the (free) soul—ATMAN—is neither born nor dies. Atman is a force, the flame of life: the creative principle. Reincarnation of the soul into an animal, plant or person depended on how one behaved on earth. This religion developed, divided, into a caste system for reasons of “purity”. A “fire” cult (cremation), it accepts statues of deities from other faiths.
63—bce:
Romans under Pompey enter Jerusalem. Judea becomes a Roman province.
In Rome, the Greek deities received new names: Hermes became Mercury. People flocked to Rome and continued worshiping their own gods.
35—ce:
Jesus of Nazareth crucified at Jerusalem [INRI]= Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews
70—ce:
Destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem.
135—ce:
Jerusalem destroyed; rebuilt as Aelia Capitolina.
AN AFTRLIFE:
WHEN DEATH
BECOMES
THE CENTER OF THOUGHT
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Whoever acknowledges me before men,
I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven.
The Jesus-movement spread a new message. Apostles, messengers of Jesus, taught that Jesus was LOVE: he was the morning star and the evening star. [Venus] ‘For this reason the Son of God was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil’. [1 John 3:8] The followers, poor people, needed hope; their lives were hard, hell on earth.
The apostle Peter told the followers: ‘for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls’. [1 Peter 1:9]
The Christian message was that the hereafter was the Kingdom of Heaven.
The Jewish priesthood rejected Jesus as the Messiah. This rejection became a blessing to the world. Instead of worshiping the Roman god Mars, we today explore the heavens and have landed on Mars!
325—CE
CHRISTIANITY declared the STATE RELIGION
At the Council of Nicaea (near Istanbul) Emperor Constantine declared Christianity the official, ruling religion. He summoned Christian leaders at Nicaea to discuss doctrines. Arianism was heatedly debated: God is unique! The Son cannot be God. The Son is a creature, he had a beginning. He is finite. He’s inferior to the Father!
So, in 382 at the Council of Rome the doctrine of the Trinity was settled: the Holy Spirit declared equal in essence or substance to the Son and the Father. The three are one essence but distinct from one another, equal in eternity and power.
Pope Damasus approved the books of the New Testament Bible.
Jerome went to Jerusalem to translate the Greek Septuagint Bible into Latin, known as the Vulgate.
529--CE
Plato’s ACADEMY in ATHENS CLOSED
[founded in 387—bce]
The development of a religious melting pot, pagan influence, was discouraged by Emperor Justinian.
[This decision was the start of the MIDDLE AGES in the west. The Academy’s philosophers/professors fled to Persia: the east. They revered Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle and continued teaching their wisdom: thereby influencing “new-upcoming” prophets.
These new-begotten prophets founded new religions: Resurrection gave way to reincarnation. Some of these “cocktail” religions have survived until today. The Yazidi of Iraq believe in reincarnation; their emblem is a peacock. The Alawites of Syria and the Alevis of Turkey (Shi’a rooted) believe in reincarnation; unlike orthodox Islam. The Druze of Lebanon, their religion is fascinating; though its origin is Shi’a, they accept the Hindu idea that the soul (Atman) is neither born nor dies. Babies must be born in Lebanon because reincarnation happens through/via them.
I was curious to know what Plato had to say about “the” SOUL. So I read his famous book The Republic—better understood today as State or Society.
Homer was revered and quoted. On Death: no longer do the sinews hold the bones and the flesh. When first the spirit has abandoned the white bones and the soul flies off (flutters) like a dream . . .
Plato believed that from the beginning of time the soul existed. The question was: for what reason—why—it entered the body? And: how was it possible that it had “some pre-existent knowledge”? Well, the soul must have had a “pre-existent life”!
It was the Iron Age when Plato wrote this. He thought that pre-existent knowledge had somehow to do with “inherited memory”: it was in the bones. If spirit was in the bones, then the soul was in the flesh; blood, circulating in the body, was soul. That’s why in those days it was so important for a man to be buried by his children; no offspring, he no longer had his soul. [the Drama of MEDEA; bloodline terminated--DNA]
The immortality of the soul in the afterlife is revealed in The Myth of Er. The free soul of the living (non-physical mode of existence) continued as the soul of the dead but had to pursue an afterlife.
PLATO: “Music heals”
Music is a moral law.
It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination,
and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.
Music is balm to the soul.
GALEN of Pergamon [Physician]
[129-ce—216-ce]
The immortal soul is in the empty spaces of the head
VICTOR HUGO [1802—1885]
The soul has illusions as the bird has wings: it is supported by them.
THOMAS HOBBES [1588—1679]
Soul is a delusion
SIGMUND FREUD [1856—1939]
Illusions command themselves to us because they save us pain—and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. So, accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a ‘bit’ of reality against which they are dashed to pieces.
Today in America, we worship in Christian churches, synagogues, Mormon temples, mosques, Meeting Houses: Quakers & Baha’i, Sikh temples, Buddhist stupa, Zoroastrian temple (Chicago), and the many esoteric religions founded since the 16th century with their places of worship.
What they all have in common is the belief that
we, earthlings, are created
FOR A SPECIAL PURPOSE:
the miracle of resurrection
or
rebirth through reincarnation
I have a body but I am not my body.
I have feelings but I am not my feelings. There is in me a state of feeling.
I have a mind but I am not that mind.
The body, the feelings and the mind are
instruments of experiences, perceptions and actions.
The I is simple, unchanging, constant and self-conscious
through the instrumentality of the breath-of-life
COMING UP: ANGEL TALK
Email your feedback about the story to the author at rosecamelia@verizon.net.