Opening the Pandora’S Box of Religion: An Essay

By Anthony Joseph

Opening Pandoras Box is an essay inspired by the horrible deeds of terrorists on 9/11 2001. It is a personal investigation into the nature of the worlds great religions, their positive and negative traits. The authors conclusion is that of the three or four most influential spiritual geniuses of the last four thousand years would include Krishna, Moses, Buddha, and Jesusthose that had spiritually developed adherents, especially in meditation, urged their students to become like them, rather than simply follow a belief system. These teachers gave their students, at whatever level of development, exercises to lessen and evaporate their ego consciousness and eventually to become one with the universe or Godor any word you wish to apply. I think Jesus did teach this also, but early Christianity turned away from it to become an institution and to seek converts. Unquestionably, an institution can do great spiritual good in regards to outreach, but mystical developments must come from a one-on-one teacher basis.

The farther away from this oneness goal, the more likely to be mistaken about it since the larger the ego, the more self-oriented it will be and the more likely it will be wrongnot only about the goal itself, but also about the process.

Being simply a student, I am talking about these things as a student and urge my readers to investigate all this for themselves.

Anthony Joseph

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 26, 2012
• ISBN: 9781479743445

Anthony Joseph

Anthony Joseph has spent last forty years studying and practicing the mystical traditions of the worlds great religions. He studied with Sasaki Roshi, Maesumi Roshi, Bardo Tulku Rinpoche and Kleoth an Indian master. Joseph is an accomplished keyboard player.

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Copyright © 2012 by Anthony Joseph.

ISBN:      Softcover   978-1-4797-4343-8

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Rev. date: 04/13/2013

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Contents

New Thoughts about Avatars

Opening The Pandora’s Box Of Religion 9/11/04

What Is Faith? What Is Experience?

The Small Self

Suffering

Anger

Sex And Orgasm

God

Love

Happiness

OUR RELIGIONS

Krishna

Hinduism

Lord Buddha

Buddhism

Moses

Judaism

Jesus

Christianity

Protestantism

Islam

Sufism

Lao Tzu

Taoism

Spiritual Teachers

TOPICS

The Golden Rule (Do Unto Others…)

Reincarnation

Karma

Turn The Other Cheek

The Forgiveness Of Sins

Resurrection

Last Judgment

Other Levels

Mystery

What Is Evil?

Scapegoats

Spiritual Grandiosity

Earthly Punishments

Boredom And Time

Bibles

Ritual

Men And Women

Prayer

9/11

Appendix

PART TWO

Three Needed Qualities: Focus

Spiritual Love

Finding The Courage To Discover Your True Self

PROBLEMS WE EXPERIENCE

Judging Ourselves and Others

Sin

Perfectionism

Trying To Please Others, Or Insisting That Others Please Me

Doing The Wrong Thing To Accomplish The Goal

Discomfort In The Moment

Don’t Feel

The Process Of Death

PART THREE

Reflections Of A Student

What Is Mind? What Is Ego?

The Role Of Emotions

Why Is There Suffering?

Thoughts And Feelings

Some Special Qualities Of Feelings

Years Of Meditation Practice

The Nature Of Resistance

The Actual Process Of Meditation

Prayer

The Role Of Heart

Other Entities

Epilogue

New Thoughts about Avatars

As has been said many times, the beginning of religion is in the fact and fear of death and the insurance of going to the right and happy place in the hereafter! Many are born into a family with religion being injected at an early age and with the thought that this is the one true faith, the only way to the heavenly realms. Many are filled with feelings of guilt about sin and that only this religion can forgive ones sins. Many feel pity or anger toward nonbelievers, pride at being the defender of the faith, and shame at being unworthy to carry the banner. It is very difficult to abandon all these feelings of anger and rejection from one’s family and friends, fear of damnation, and often a lack of resoluteness. Some are equipped with a kind of infantile reality about plowing through life’s challenges.

The dark side of religious education is consumed both with the religion’s holy books and the taint of world history with their thought biases.

These thoughts are based on absolutely no experience of true spiritual tenets but, since they deal with eternity, are defended with arcane fierceness and sometimes with violence. Dark faith blends with the kind of ego that carries grandiosity and anger-violence with it. Some people are current with the religious mores of the times, some as much as 3000 years behind the times, showing features of a tribal or even caveman-like mentality about it. Scientific beliefs, open to proofs, are much less problematic since they can be proven or not and are not mixed up with God’s will. It is time to improve religion. The new age demands it!

What happens after death is the ultimate prod to fierce beliefs since one wants to be right. Indeed, one must be right to ensure entry to higher realms. This is the true Gordian Knot of religion that can only be cut with a high level of wisdom and determination and grace. The key to cutting through is meditation at a profound level.

If one believes in other universes, then perhaps we can say that religion is at the point of switching from faith to experience, and that other universes or galaxies—perhaps in our distant past—have been at the same point. Ultimately, religion must answer the question of suffering: why is there suffering, and where does it come from and can it be stopped?

Faith is one of the hallmarks of the Piscean age. It is very likely the Aquarian age will enter into the age of religion as heartfelt science through its mystical practices (to be discussed thoroughly in this paper). We are not yet complete, not yet one with the universe or God if you prefer. How long will all this take? The Hindus suggest half a million years per soul! Is there a way to shorten this process?

Religion falls into three distinct areas: those dealing with the fear-anger complex, like Islam, aspects of Roman Catholicism and archaic Judaism; those dealing with social justice, like modern Judaism and Christianity; and finally those dealing with direct connection to the higher levels—that is, mysticism and the power of avatars (incarnations of perfected beings) for example, Eastern religion in general. Any success in obtaining any of the avatar powers will break apart belief systems that have no grounding in reality. These practices were already codified over four thousand years ago—yes, on this planet—and are indeed in books!

1.   Ultimately, over thousands of years, religion will move—I think—from a belief system to a system of heartfelt science, yoking oneself with higher beings and realities through specific techniques called yogas. This text explores all these possibilities.

2.   Early or primitive religion is based on protection from the forces of nature through nonexperiential, but often fierce, trust in animal or nature or facts of nature, that is, volcanoes, spirits, and/or totems. The unexpected events of life also promote some kind of belief in the unseen.

3.   From the beginning, there was/is some hope or belief in the spirit living on after death, some think as wish fulfillment.

4.   Around four to five thousand years ago, the Universe (God) sent hugely developed spirits (avatars, or perhaps benign and developed alien beings) to instruct mankind on the nature of themselves and the universe and how to eliminate suffering and the causes of suffering. There seem to have been—that is from their own actions, gifts, and manifestations—five of them: Krishna (Hinduism), Moses (Judaism), Lao Tzu (Taoism), Buddha (Buddhism), and Jesus (Christianity).

5.   Though simply a student, I have pursued studies with masters of the mystical traditions that are part of the first four traditions. Christianity has never had such a continuous school. (Teresa of Avila and Madam Guyod are two names that come to mind of important mystics that were silenced by the Roman Church.)

These teachers agree on the following points: spirits enter and reenter bodies for development not only on this plane, but on thousands more in the universe; with this phenomenon, a sense of dualistic separation, maintenance for oneself, protection, desire for pleasure, a fear of one’s own destruction, and anger at anybody or thing that thwarts one’s wishes is created. There are perhaps three basic angers that occupy incarnated reality: (1) that of being in a body with its limitations, pains, old age and death; (2) that of having to take care of the body with food and protection; (3) that of pleasuring it, what some would call Freud’s id. These are spoken about in the later chapters. This basic phenomenon we of course call the ego.

The ego, listed as one of the component parts of a human being in the Indian spiritual system, is necessary for survival at lower stages of evolution. Its physical home is the medulla oblongata in the brain. It looks out for itself basically and is friendly to its own sexual mate and offspring and is suspicious of the other. Its negative thoughts are of fear, anger, desire, and aversion; and it is ignorant of the rebound effect of karma It is a detriment to spiritual advancement precisely because of these limiting qualities. Survival in the world in a more advance state is pursued by the ego trying not to hurt others or oneself but without attachment to the results of its efforts. Eventually, in a more advanced entity, the ego must disappear. There is always need for a small amount of ego to survive in a body, even in the case of very advanced beings.

Willed action called karma is the fundamental activating force of the universe. Such action always returns to the actor, albeit within a huge time possibility. The return gives the spirit, now in a body, a chance to view itself, more often within suffering (because vested self-interest is the primary quality of ego), less often within a pleasant experience. This viewing may be used to forward one’s own development. One can speak of development in two parts: part one improves the ego, making it kinder, less willful, retaliating, and defended; part two dissolves the ego. This is done not only through actions for the benefit of the other, but by a very high level of focus coupled with nonattachment and very specific yogic practices which always involve the central channel. (This spiritual godlike channel rises from the base of the spine to the spot between the eyes at the tip of the nose and is called Sushumna within the Indian system. It is flanked on either side by two other mundane channels called ida and pingala.) The area where one’s spirit guides (guardian angels) reside is called luminosity by the Tibetans. We all have it, although it is usually cloudy! It’s where our imagination resides and flourishes in our minds. These avatar practices yield about eighteen achievements which the great spiritual geniuses in the history of humankind all achieved and in fact demonstrated in their lives.

Our towering figures, mentioned above, could do the following things which no ordinary man can do—speak with other spirit entities; foretell the future; remember the distant past or unknown past; read other’s minds and speak to others mentally; heal other’s physical, spiritual, and emotional ailments; defy the laws of nature by forcing matter to do their will, walk on water, levitate, generate a holograph body during life which, after death, is visible to all, even at the same time and in different places; reinvigorate their own and other dead bodies or produce a similar real material body after death; have their bodies disappear and reappear in a differing space; produce warmth in the belly area, protecting their bodies from the cold.

Other things that are unseen that avatars can do are the following: enter their own and others’ dream states consciously; force their own spirits (souls) out their cranium at death; see the varied lives and karmas of other beings, their deaths, and reincarnations; enter other physical bodies of their own will; dissolve the negative actions of others; possess a complete and noncontingent peace and joyfulness of spirit; merge with what is termed as the white light at the moment of death; eliminate the need to enter other bodies for further development (unlike nearly all of humanity). Note how many recent science fiction films incorporate some of these traits. There is real public interest! Soon we might have Levitation 101 in college courses!

The three figures which are recorded in their respective holy books to have done these things were the following: Krishna, Lord Buddha, and Jesus. Of course, tampering (let’s call it Zealoting) with the master’s words became somewhat common in less-advanced students.

In the case of the Gita and the 108 volumes of the Buddha’s teachings and methods, the students both recording the information and addressed, have to have been advanced since all major practices require Samadhi (a perfectly focused meditation state, requiring at least twenty-five thousand hours of practice in which the ego disappears, at least within meditation). What has come down to us as the Bible contains both enlightened words of great masters, as well as unenlightened information and opinions.

In the Hindu description of major avatars (those completely one with the universe, not needing to incarnate, not needing teachers), these three entities are stated, along with quite unknown figures that lacked public recognition and public encounters. The first two lived among spiritual students that had accomplished long meditation practices, which would include the first great stage of merging with (no separation between) what is perceived or heard during meditation; and the second stage, which is meditation with the cessation of breath, which brings about noncontingent bliss and complete lack of anxiety or suffering.

All of these accomplishments have yoga associated with them, which are part of the spiritual tradition of Hinduism and Buddhism, and which are available in contemporary texts and which can be studied and (usually with the help of someone who has accomplished them) practiced. In the largest sense, a quieted mind state produces the possibilities of speaking to and receiving responses from one’s own spirit guides. This is the first development that will come to a seeker who has practiced enough sincere meditation. Remember how we speak of guardian angels, but have medication suggested if we claim contact with them!

With quieter mind states, one can mentally speak telepathically to those who have similar development (Karl Jung was an advocate for the practice of telepathy).

A central channel runs through the seven major chakras (base of the spine, three inches below the navel, solar plexus, heart, throat, third eye or just above the middle of the eyes, and the crown), and within these is a series of knots at each of the points, which need to be untied in order to accomplish the other avatar qualities just spoken about. On either side of the channel are smaller channel tubes through which pass the energy of ordinary everyday perception; these energies need to enter the central channel, and are most easily penetrated by the process of visualizing heat-fire at each