Here, we’ll take you to the stained glass society and they’ll say, gee this is very much like a Christian church, and we’ll say “isn’t that interesting, yes.” We’ll take them to the hymn singing society, no stained glass. We’ll take them to a place that looks very much like a classroom. And we’ll say now look this is the way we have done it because we don’t think these things are too important. How do you want to do it? Well, I’ll say we want a mosque society. We want a society where we have a tower and three times a day we want to have a reader. And he gets up in the tower and calls the faithful and when we come in we want to kick our shoes off because it seems unseemly to study things sacred with your shoes on. And we want sit down and we want to be read to. We don’t want any pictures in there because we are not used to pictures in our places of worship. And we will say to these Mohammedans fine, you set up the Mosque Urantia Society and follow along in accordance with your tradition.
And there may be another contemplative society, maybe they will say we want our custodian of our temple to wear yellow robes and we don’t want much noise in there because we want to come in and read the book quietly and pray. We’ll say fine, why don’t you set up the Buddhist Urantia Society. Talk about the differences – we haven’t begun to see the differences that will be attracted to this book. And if we can go wisely, we will build something that is so flexible, so tolerant, so broad, that it will accommodate all of the bosses kids with their different outlooks, their different customs, their different ways of doing things.
I am not just thinking of small differences in a little group like this, I am trying to think ahead for the whole darned planet, because this book is for the planet. And I know Los Angeles covers most of the worlds, but there are a few regions out side of the city limits still.
(Audience Members: “There’s New York. We’re going to annex that next week. I always thought the Forum was conducted like a Christian Science Church as much as any church I can think of because you were trained to read the Christian Science bulletins very quietly and then sat down – that’s the way we used to do it at your house.”)
The Forum grew up and followed a tradition; my dad set the tradition and they perpetuated it for twenty years. But we had a ritual and I used to make the most of it. We had a chime gizmo – you could play bugle calls on it – and I used to play different marine corps bugle calls to call the faithful after the intermission for the second hour. I used to play liberty call, chow boats, day-day and sick call, and call to arms and all that sort of thing. I told them very solemnly that if this wasn’t played just right nothing in the second hour would count and the whole thing was for not because it says in the blue book here that if you deviate by a hairs turning from the ritual the spirits will not be propitiated.
So we had a ritual back there and we always rang the gong between the first and second halves.
(Audience Member: “There was something of just plain efficiency in that – like ringing the bells in school.”)
You develop rituals. Jesus tried to completely de-ritualize the prayer life of his brothers and sisters and out of it we got one of the most beautiful rituals that’s every evolved – the Lord’s Prayer – which we all like. At that point, I go for a little ritual. That’s something we can say together if we want to say something together.
You know when the two movements of the Jesus Brotherhood merged – John’s movement and Jesus’ movement – they had quite a hassle.
In the beginning of the second week of this month, Abner had assembled all of his associates at the Gilboa camp and was prepared to go into counsel with the Apostles of Jesus. For three weeks these twenty-four men were in session three times a day and for six days each week.
(You know, a tape on that session would be fascinating.) (Page 1624)
The first week Jesus mingled with them between their forenoon, afternoon and evening sessions. They wanted the Master to meet with them and preside over their joint deliberations but he steadfastly refused to participate in their discussions, though he did consent to speak to them on three occasions. These talks by Jesus to the twenty-four were on sympathy, cooperation, and tolerance.
And if he were here today he wouldn’t participate in any of our discussions about how to run a group. Because just think what a terrible thing it would be if he approved somebody’s plan; for ever more we would be afraid ever to deviate from that plan and there is no right plan. There is no one right way of doing this, I believe. There are many ways that will appeal to many people. Sympathy, cooperation, and tolerance. And that’s what you all need – getting started is sympathy, cooperation, and tolerance.
(Audience Member: “That’s one reason the Executive Committees hesitates so much to sanction certain actions of others. They regard it too seriously. They take too much as tradition. And they don’t want – they are tying to avoid it, and of course the very lack of it makes society feel awfully neglected.)
Yes. Well the Executive Committee is trying to do what Jesus did in teaching his brothers and sisters to pray. And they probably winded up doing something. There is another reason too, and that is it is awful hard work to do stuff like that. The Brotherhood is made up of human beings. (Very hetero too). That’s right. I’ve had an evolution in my own thinking. I had three years sitting right in the middle of the Brotherhood at Chicago. I’ve had about two years of getting awfully well acquainted with some societies and things outside and it has helped me get two viewpoints. In other words I have acquired a societies viewpoint and I still have what I learned when I was President of the Brotherhood; and I know how puzzled they can be in Chicago.
Distance lends enchantment and the distance of Chicago adds to the stature of all the people in Chicago, but you know, they are folks just like we are here in Los Angeles. Sympathy, cooperation and tolerance. Wasn’t he wise? He wouldn’t sit with them. For a week he lubricated things between the sessions and then he went away. Let see what happened.
Andrew and Abner alternated in presiding over these joint meetings of the two apostolic groups. These men had many difficulties to discuss and numerous problems to solve. Again and again would they take their troubles to Jesus only to hear him say, “I am concerned only with your personal and purely religious problems. I am the representative of the Father to the individual, not to the group. If you are in personal difficulty in your relations with God, come to me, and I will hear you and counsel you in the solution of your problem. But when you enter upon the coordination of divergent human interpretations of religious questions, then upon the socializing of religion you are destined to solve all such problems by your own decisions. Albeit, I am ever sympathetic and always interested and when you arrive at your conclusions touching these matters of non spiritual import, provided you are all agreed, then I pledge in advance my full approval and hearty cooperation. And now, in order to leave you unhampered in your deliberations I am leaving you for two weeks. Be not anxious about me for I will return to you. I will be about my Father’s business for we have other realms besides this one.”
Jesus refused to have anything to do with this meeting but he called the meeting. Jesus knew that these two groups had to get together – he brought them together. He was not vitally concerned with what they decided; he hoped they’d be unanimous. He refused to participate but he initiated this meeting. Jesus knew they had to have an organization. And Jesus knew that he was not going to design it because he didn’t have to. This is something which men can do. Men can’t reveal God, but men can build organizations. Jesus called this meeting.
(Audience member: “He got their emblem in at least – baptizing.”)
That was the price which was paid. Jesus’ twelve had to buy baptism in order to get John’s movement. John’s twelve bought everything else.
(Page 1625)
On the afternoon of their final discussion of financial questions, Jesus returned, heard their deliberations, listened to their decisions, and said: “These then are your conclusions, and I shall help you each to carry out the spirit of your united decisions.”
And I think that’s exactly the way he feels today about what we are trying to do here on earth. He’s very interested in what we are doing. I don’t think his Spirit of Truth will participate in these things, but I think he will try to help us carry out whatever plan we adopt.
(Page 1486)
This is the midwayers restatement of Jesus’ teachings about churches at Urmia.
The brotherhood of man is founded on the fatherhood of God. The family of God is derived from the love of God. God is love. God the Father divinely loves his children, all of them.
The kingdom of heaven, the divine government is founded on the fact of divine sovereignty. God is spirit. Since God is spirit, this kingdom is spiritual. The kingdom of heaven is neither material nor merely intellectual; it is a spiritual relationship between God and man.
If different religions recognize the spirit sovereignty of God the Father, then will all such religions remain at peace. Only when one religion assumes that it is in some way superior to all others and that it possesses exclusive authority over other religions will such a religion presume to be intolerant of other religions or persecute other religious believers.
That’s quite an indictment of Christianity and Mohammedism , too. And even Judaism did this once when then Macabees revolted from the Salucedi, Alexander’s successors in Syria. They used force to effect conversion in Galilee and some of the peripheral districts.
Religious peace, brotherhood, can never exist unless all religions to completely divest themselves of all ecclesiastical authority and fully surrender all concepts of spiritual sovereignty. God alone is spirit sovereignty. You cannot have equality among religions (religious liberty) without having religious wars, unless all religions consent to the transfer of all religious sovereignty to some superhuman level, to God himself.
The kingdom of heaven in the hearts of men will create religious unity, not necessarily uniformity because any and all religious groups composed of such religious believers will be free from all notions of ecclesiastical authority – religious sovereignty.
God is spirit, and God gives a fragment of his spirit self to dwell in the heart of men. Spiritually, all men are equal. The kingdom of heaven is free from castes, classes, social levels and economic groups. You are all brethren.
But the moment you loose sight of the spirit sovereignty of God the Father some one religion will begin to assert its superiority over other religions, and then instead of peace on earth and goodwill among men, there will start dissensions, recriminations, even religious wars, at least wars among religionists.
This has been too true.
Freewill beings who regard themselves as equals, unless they mutually acknowledge themselves as subjects to some super sovereignty, some authority over and above themselves sooner or later are tempted to try out their ability to gain power and authority over other persons and groups. The concept of equality never brings peace except in the mutual recognition of some over-controlling influence of super-sovereignty.
The Urmia religionists lived together in comparative peace and tranquillity because they had fully surrendered all their notions of religious sovereignty. Spiritually they all believed in a sovereign God; socially, full and unchallengeable authority rested in their presiding head – Cymboyton. They well knew what would happen to any teacher who assumed to lord it over his fellow teachers. There can be no lasting religious peace on Urantia until all religious groups freely surrender all their notions of divine favor, chosen people, and religious sovereignty. Only when God the Father becomes supreme will men become religious brothers and live together in religious peace on earth.
Let’s consider what happened at Urmia. What was Urmia? On the way to the Caspian Sea Jesus had stopped several days for rest and recuperation at the old Persian city of Urmia on the western shores of Lake Urmia, which is the other big lake in Asia Minor, besides Lake Van. On the largest group of islands situated a short distance off shore, near Urmia, was located a large building – a lecture amphitheater- dedicated to the “spirit of religion”. This structure was really a temple of the philosophy of religions.
I think we can be pretty sure which island it was on too, because I looked this up in Britannica and among the islands in Lake Urmia, there is only one that has fresh water on it, so I’m pretty sure unless the water table has changed, this would have been the island.
(Audience member: “Has anyone been there since the book has been published? Does it give a name to the island?”)
No.
This temple of religion was built by a wealthy merchant citizen of Urmia and his three sons. This man was Cymboyton and he numbered among his ancestors many diverse peoples.
The lectures and discussions in this school of religion began at 10:00 every morning in the week. The afternoon sessions started at 3:00 and the evening debates opened at 8:00. Cymboyton or one of his three sons always presided at these sessions of teaching discussion and debate. The founder of this unique school of religions lived and died without ever revealing his personal religious beliefs.
On several occasions Jesus participated in these discussions, and before he left Urmia, Cymboyton arranged with Jesus to sojourn with them for two weeks on his return trip and give twenty-four lectures on “The Brotherhood of Men,” and to conduct twelve evening sessions of questions, discussions and debates on his lectures in particular and on the brotherhood of men in general.
In accordance with this arrangement, Jesus stopped off on the return trip and delivered these lectures. This was the most systematic and formal of all the Master’s teaching on Urantia. Never before or after did he say so much on one subject as was contained in these lectures and discussions on the brotherhood of men. In reality these lectures were on the “Kingdom of God” and the Kingdoms of Men.”
More than thirty religions and religious cults were represented on the faculty of this temple of religious philosophy. These teachers were chosen, supported, and fully accredited by their respective religious groups. At this time there were about twenty-five teachers on the faculty and they lived in cottages, each accommodating about a dozen persons. Every new moon these groups were changed by the casting of lots. [This is kind of like Univitatia too, isn’t it?] Intolerance, a contentious spirit or any other disposition to interfere with the smooth running of the community would bring about the prompt and summary dismissal of the offending teaching. He would be unceremoniously dismissed and his alternate in waiting would be immediately installed in his place. [They had a waiting list; they had standbys here.]
These teachers of the various religions made a great effort to show how similar their religions were in regard to the fundamental things of this life and the next. There was but one doctrine which had to be accepted in order to gain a seat on this faculty. Every teacher must represent a religion which recognized God – some sort of supreme Deity. [So we know that much about Cymboyton’s belief.] There were five independent teachers on the faculty who did not represent any organized religion, and it was as such an independent teacher that Jesus appeared before them.
(Page 1491)
After the death of Cymboyton, his sons encountered great difficulties in maintaining a peaceful faculty. The repercussions of Jesus’ teachings would have been much greater if the later Christian teachers who joined the Urmia faculty had exhibited more wisdom and exercised more tolerance.
Cymboyton’s eldest son had appealed to Abner at Philadelphia for help but Abner’s choice of teachers was most unfortunate in that they turned out to be unyielding and uncompromising. These teachers sought to make their religion dominant over of the other beliefs. They never suspected that the oft referred to lectures of the caravan conductor had been delivered by Jesus himself.
As confusion increased in the faculty, the three brothers withdrew their financial support and after five years the school closed. Later it was reopened as a Mithraic temple and eventually burned down in connection with one of their orgiastic celebrations.
Julia put her finger on the secret of the success of Urmia when she said they must have had some kind of a board. They had Cymboyton. He paid the bills and he ran off anybody who got out of line. This thing worked as long as Cymboyton lived.
Now, it is the purpose of the Urantia Brotherhood to be Cymboyton in connection with the social spread of the teachings of Jesus. Just as much intolerance can grow up out of this blue book as grew up out of the teachings of the gospel. And in the articulation of the Brotherhood, and I had as much to do with putting it together as anyone alive, we are trying in an impersonal, corporate way to provide for Cymboyton’s function, because without a Cymboyton there is chaos and a tower of Babel. And with Cymboyton you have a policeman. And even the spread of the blue book is going to require a policeman, just as much as Urmia failed when the policeman died.
Now, that’s the whole catch of Urmia. Cymboyton was mortal and none of his sons commanded his respect; they had trouble in the faculty. And of course when Abner sent these folks up there that did it; this is when the mud really hit the fan at Urmia.
It’s the purpose of the Brotherhood, in a corporate sense, to provide for a corporate legal person who can take action and in the name of this blue book can strike down contention, can disavow that which is unfortunate. If some outfit wants to practice nudism and free love, this Brotherhood can take its charter away from them and say you can do as you please but you cannot involve the name Urantia in such practices. Do you follow me? And there is only one way to do this on a permanent basis, and that is to provide the elective, democratic mechanics which provide for the self-government of the Brotherhood.
(Audience member: “Do we have it?”)
We will in four and one half years. For nine years we’ve got a dictatorship. You folks don’t have anything to say about what goes on in Chicago. You can’t control it. But we are half way through that period, and four and one half years from now you have just as much to say about this Brotherhood as any other society. And I submit, whether you like it or not, you don’t function without Cymboyton.
(Audience member: Why couldn’t we have a Cymboyton?)
Well, Cymboyton died; who is going to be his successor? Now you are dealing with a papal concept. This story here is the principal reason why I refused reelection as president of the Brotherhood. I don’t want to be Cymboyton.
(Audience member: “But does everybody understand it? I only understand it since you told us hear.”)
Inaudible discussion among audience.
I wrote a memo to the Executive Committee and I cited this. I said, we want Cymboyton in the corporate sense but not in the personal sense. Those who do not know history are doomed to relive it. Now let me give you and example – two examples – of the nearest I have seen Cymboyton working out. There was a guy, who after a time of troubles came to the Principate in Rome, his name was Nerva and he was the first of the so called good emperors. And he was followed, perhaps not in this sequence, by Trajan, by Hadrian, by Aeneas Pius, by Marcus Aurelius, five Cymboytons, the Romans had. And who followed Marcus Aurelius? That fathead gladiator son of his Commodus and he had all the power and authority of the princepts in the Roman principate and he wrecked it. Marcus had just finished conquering Czechoslovakia and what do they do, they gave it back to the barbarians. Can I give a second illustration?
The second illustration of the nearest Cymboyton ever came to working out was in the Ottoman Empire were they had a succession of Sultans – what did they call them padashas – ending with Soliman the Great. These men were all men of ability, every one of them. The least they did was do a good job of organizing and the most that they did was conquering other Christian kingdoms in the Bulkans. And Soliman had to fight the son that should have succeeded him. He killed him and his successor was a fathead and most of them were fatheads from then on. You can’t depend on a person or a succession of people to do Cymboyton’s job. Sooner or later it runs out. The only thing you can depend upon is a corporate entity to do this.
I can’t quickly classify each of these religions but I will describe them. You’ve got some of their scriptures here in the Urantia Book, but the scripture of a religion is different from the feeling of a religion. The Sermon on the Mount is one of the most beautiful things in the Bible, but it has very little influence in Occidental civilization. So let’s consider these religions practically. And I guess maybe I would like to start as the blue book does with Hinduism which is the most ancient religion.
Hinduism comes pretty close to teaching about Thought Adjusters. Hinduism teaches that the human being is something like Plato’s indestructible soul and that the nucleus of a human being is called an Atman and that this nucleus seeks for coherence with the absolute and the absolute is the highest concept in Hinduism. It is the true and final reality and its not a person. As James Bissett Pratt says in his “Personal Realism”, when you start monkeying around with the depersonalization of God, you have embarked upon a slippery slide and below you lie nothing but the grinning jaws of the absolute.
In the highest concept of Hinduism you have monism, not monotheism, because there is no God. Your job is to purge yourself of reality, of illusion rather, of the “maya of the world” to use a Buddhist term. So that you can strip this Atman down to its bare, pure essential and when you can do this, then you move into the over-soul of creation - you become one with the Brahman.
Now just below this level of final reality, there are three personalizations of deity. This is the Trimurti of Hinduism. Here you have a Brahma and Brahma is a personalization of the Brahman – he is the highest illusion because only the Brahman has real reality. Brahma doesn’t mean very much in India even though he is the chief of the Trimurti. I think there is only one temple to Brahma in all India. The other two members of the Trimurti are Shiva and Vishnu: Shiva the destroyer and Vishnu the preserver. And most of Hinduism revolves around - in the middle levels, not the philosophical levels – the worship of Vishnu or Shiva in one form another.
From here on down Hinduism can get to be a pretty low life beatnik proposition. You can quickly descend into all kinds of queer rights, abominations and odd practices of fertility worship, phallic worship, all the things that happened at one time or another. Hinduism is the hardest religion to put your finger on. You can prove anything with Hinduism, just like you can just about prove anything in the Bible. If you just look long enough you will find a quotation to support whatever act you want to rationalize.
Hinduism has a principle in it called karma and the karma principle is in these papers. The karma principle is expressed in these papers when they say that when you wake up on the first mansion world, you have all of your unfinished business to pick up right there. In Hinduism the karma principle says that when you die, you die as an imperfect being, therefore there are lots of unresolved tensions in your soul and these tensions have to be resolved and the only way you can resolve them is to be reborn. And this is the basis for the theory of the transmigration of souls – reincarnation. And so you come back into this world in that form and condition best suited for the working out of this karma – the resolution of these principles. If you have been a real louse in your previous life you may be reincarnated as a dung beetle. This may be grandfather out there in the road. If you have been a real good guy, maybe a saint, a hermit, a holy man, you may be reincarnated as a raja – a real lucky guy.
So you get a queer ethic in Hinduism. As you look at suffering, you say well, you brought it upon yourself. You’re in a bad way, you deserve this. This has a parallel in the Old Testament in the book of Job which Jesus discussed with one of the twelve as an example of bad theology. Remember, no matter what happened to Job, Zophar, Eliphaz and Bildad just said, well you’ve got it coming. You see, in Job the fallacy is the belief in the omnificence of God; that God is personally responsible for everything that happens.
In Hinduism the fallacy is the belief that you are responsible by your deliberate good or bad acts in the previous existence for everything that happens to you in this existence. This is why the caste system works in India. If you are born into a high caste you have it coming; if you are born as an out-caste you have that coming. You are getting everything you deserve. The Hindu believes in a universe of justice, but his fallacy is that you have built up a cause for good treatment or bad treatment in life because of a hypothetical pre-existence. This makes it pretty hard to raise money for charities in India because if you are good to people who are in trouble maybe you are working against the will or the purpose of the Brahman. You are thwarting justice.
Hinduism does have the concept of Avatars. Vishnu incarnates and a broadminded Hindu would gladly accept Christ as an incarnation of Vishnu. He would say that is perfectly all right – we understand this. Hinduism will adopt anything. Hinduism won’t fight with a religion, it absorbs it.
The early Vedic scriptures present a pantheon of Gods headed up by Dyaus Pitar, the sky god, and this Dyaus is the same word as Zeus and the word deity. If you will think back, this goes back to Turkistan and to the Andites and to the spread of the Andites westward into Greece and eastward into India and southward into Persia. All of these religions have affinities in Persia as in India. You receive the spirit of divinity by drinking Soma and Soma was undoubtedly an intoxicating drink and if you don’t under the physiology of alcohol you could confuse being spiritual with being spiritous. It’s the same root word.
In the Hindu scriptures you have roughly several levels. You have the Vedas which were written down many years afterwards and some of the most wonderful hymns and praise of god are in the Vedas. This is good reading. And then you have the Brahmanas – these are Deuteronomy or Leviticus, all kinds of rules and regulations. These are priestly codes – how do you perform this operation, how do you perform that operation. They are pretty deadly dull reading.
Still later you have a monistic reaction against so many deities. Agni goes back to the Vedic. Three-headed Agni and the three heads are what’s left of the trinity concept taught by the Adamson people – by the Adamites. This later appearing monistic reaction produced some of the most intriguing philosophic writings that have ever been reduced. Shoppenhauer referred to them as the comfort of his soul. They are the Upanishadas . And David Hume has published a translation of the Thirteen Principle Upanishadas. And I think if this society had a library, I would recommend you buy it for your library. They are philosophic discourses on the nature of reality. This is not easy reading.
And then you have the epics in Hinduism and perhaps the greatest of these epics is the Majabarata. And within the Majabarata, these things are Homeric in type, is one of the most beautiful things in Hinduism called the Bagavad Gita, sometimes referred to as the new testament of Hinduism. The Bagavad Gita is the story of one of the incarnations of Vishnu and of the epic which he preaches to (I’ve forgotten the name of the principle character – a warrior) and Vishnu is his charioteer (Arjuna). This dialogue is a good example of the ethic of Hinduism. And basically it is an acceptance of where you are. Arjuna does not want to fight, he does not want to kill these people but Vishnu tells him that you are a warrior, this is your fate, your karma.
It’s one of the most intriguing religions because you can find everything from soup to nuts in Hinduism. I read stuff in Hinduism that I just get excited about. I read about practices that are revolting.
(Audience member: “Do they ever stop and go to heaven in case they’ve gone all the way through?”)
There are heavens in Hinduism but they are temporary places. In other words let’s say in this life you really were good and they check you out and you haven’t got it made yet and you can’t vanish into the Brahman, but you’re too good even to come back as a raja, you might have your next incarnation in some Hindu heaven. But this too is illusory, just as illusory as it the world. Your final goal is to find unity with the Brahman as a drop of water joins the ocean. The Hindu teaching of heaven is exactly the same as the Urantia teaching of annihilation. The personality finds union with the Supreme and is not. The Atman finds union with the Brahman and is not. This is final peace – you believe this. In Hinduism, God is everywhere. There is no place were God is not, or the absolute is everywhere.
A good example is a story they tell about a little Hindu boy who is talking to his teacher. And he says, “But teacher, if Brahman is in me and if Brahman is everywhere, then why did Brahman the elephant almost run Brahman the me down the other day?” And the teacher, by a slippery device said, “Ah yes, it is true, but did not you who is Brahma see Brahma riding on top of the elephant warning you Brahma to get out of the way of Brahma the elephant?”
Hinduism is polytheistic, and in its lower levels Hinduism is demonistic. The place is full of demons. In its higher levels it is polytheistic. In its upper levels you find the Trimurti, not a trinity. For example, Vishnu and Shiva are working at swords play. If Shiva is the destroyer and Vishnu is the preserver, this is not cooperation. At its highest levels, Hinduism is monistic but not monotheistic. And it’s all of these things at the same time.
Christianity is hopelessly compromised with the non-white man’s resentment of the fact that the white man has dominated this world for the last 100 years. The white man had the military armament and he used it. Most people do that.
There is one other thing about Hinduism that is a little hard for us to understand. A Hindu is an Indian and they think of it as synonymous. There is a blurring of nationalism and membership in Hinduism. The word Hindu means something that the word Christian does not mean in the west. Here in American you are a German, a Swede, a Swiss; but a Hindu is an inhabitant of the sub continent of India as well as a member of a religious body.
Well should be talk about the two heresies that arose in India? The first one is Jainism, sometimes called Suduanism and it was founded by a teacher by the name of Majavara in the 6th century B.C. and it was a semi protest against Hinduism. It’s most peculiar feature is that it looked upon life exactly as Albert Schwitzer looks upon life. All living things are important and an extreme Jainist will actually wear surgical gauze across his breathing equipment lest he destroy inadvertently some micro-organism. They will eat vegetables only. They’ve got their cosmology. If you think the cosmology in the Urantia Book is tough you take a look at the cosmology of Hinduism, or Jainism. These people have heavens within heavens within heavens within heavens. They’ve got big cycles turning little cycles, and these cycles are turning smaller cycles and the small cycles are awfully long. They have numbers as big as the numbers in the Urantia Book. These features of the Urantia Book which are foreign to Christian thinking are going to be one of the most appealing things about this book to a Jainist, to a Hindu, to a Buddhist. This book is written to appeal to those people as well as to us.
Jainism isn’t very big. If my memory serves me, Jainism is about five million or so in India and in a population the size of India, this is not much.
The other heresy was founded by Guatama Siddhartha and in the founding of it he became known as the Buddha. And the word Buddha is exactly like the word Christ – it’s a title. The word Christ means the anointed one; the word Buddha means the enlightened one.
Guatama never claimed too much. Buddha taught a religion of quiescence – of simply sitting down and putting the world out of your mind. I told you the story of the three monks and the hair in the begging bowl. And when you finally achieved enlightenment you look upon the world and you know it is nothing. In fact you should go blind. Your whole sensory mechanism ought to be disconnected. There are considerable elements of this in Zen Buddhism.
Buddha taught a life of forsaking the world – a monk-like approach to salvation. He lived a life of service. As usual, his life was much greater than his teachings, as Jesus pointed out to Ganid. The original ideal of Buddhism is the “the Aharat. This is the saffron-robed monk who, by denying everything, by renouncing all desire, finally escapes into the peace of Nirvana.
And you say, “where is Buddha.” Buddha is in Nirvana. Is Buddha conscious? No. Is Buddha unconscious? No. Is Buddha alive? No. Is Buddha dead? No. Does Buddha know I am here? No. Does Buddha not know I am here? No. This is the nita, nata answer – not this, not that. All you could say about Buddha is no.
Nirvana is not the absolute in the same sense that the Brahman is the absolute of Hinduism. But functionally Nirvana is the absolute and when you reach Nirvana you have passed into the over-soul of creation.
This form of Buddhism persisted in India until…well there was another one that came in too. It died about 600 AD; it lasted about 1200 years. It produced one of the greatest rulers who ever lived; a man who is ranked next to Moses as the outstanding spiritual character between the days of Melchizedek and Jesus. This man was Asoka and he ruled over a temporarily united India. He was one of the successors of those who resisted Alexander and his successors when they invaded India late in the 300s BC – about 320 BC let’s say. So that would put Asoka in the 3rd Century BC. Here was a great emperor ruling a very powerful state and he renounced war and all over India he put up these markers renouncing war. This is a man who could have conquered much more, but he believed the teachings of Buddha and had produced peace in India. That’s an unusual thing for an emperor to do.
The evolution of Buddhism is to me fascinating, second only to the growth of Christianity: because Buddhism has grown. Buddhism entered a period of fermentation late in the 1st Century AD in an area which would now be best described as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Russian and Chinese Turkistan. In other words, he comes up on this side of India as does Pakistan, and takes in the Kashmir and goes out and crosses the mountains into Russia and then turns east into China. It’s built like a boomerang. And that eastward turning is very important because this country, ruled by the Kucheans contested this eastward turning with the Chinese. This is the Terra Basin, up north of Tibet and it was probably then a little more fertile than now and it was a gateway to China. It was one of the gateways between the east and the west. It’s how Buddhism entered China.
Let’s consider the dominions of the Kucheans because they are fascinating. Alexander’s empire extended across the Indus road. And after the battle of Ippsus which was about 310 BC or thereabouts, this is when it was finally determined that it was going to break up. The guys fighting to hold it together got roundly trounced. So they split it up into three units. There was Macadon in Europe; the general by the name of Ptolomy who was one of the ancestors of Cleoptra, got Egypt and the Palestine coast; and a guy by the name of Seleucus got the rest of it extending way out here in Asia, roughly the whole Persian empire. It’s called the Empire of the Seleucidi. They alternated it between the name of Seleucus and Antiochus. Antioch was named for one of these rulers.
They tried to hold things together but it was a little too difficult and long about 220 BC the extreme end of this empire broke off and became the kingdom of Bactria. It was a poor man’s version of Magna Graecia. It was the eastern-most outpost of Hellenistic culture. And these Bactrians maintained things for a while.
(Audience member: “Where they largely Greek?”)
Yes and Macedonians and settlers came in for a hundred years afterwards. Greece poured people out like Europe poured people out. This whole area was dotted with Greek cities. In other words, the circumstances of events were preparing the way for the spread of Jesus’ teachings east as well as west. There was a thin lattice-work of Hellenistic culture that extended beyond the Indus because the greatest of the Bactrian kings was a guy by the name of Menander. He wacked out a big empire on the Indian side of the Indus, south of the Himalayas. He lost Afghanistan to the nomads, the predecessors of the Kucheans.
At about 50 AD, more or less, the whole Greek political structure finally collapsed and the Kucheans who were semi-civilized barbarians, about like the Goths were when they moved into the Roman Empire, they weren’t complete barbarians – they had a veneer. These Kucheans took this area over and they held the northern hinterland where they had come from. These Kucheans were theologically neutral rulers. They weren’t Buddhists, they weren’t Hindus, and in this area it was possible for something new to happen. Here we have Hinduism fermenting, we have Buddhism fermenting and we have the rag-tag end of Hellenistic culture fermenting. And this is where the Gospel of Jesus should have found its Asiatic vehicle – a vehicle which would have been to it exactly what Judaism and Greek philosophy was in the west. But they weren’t there. Stiff necked Abner not only broke up Urmia, but he didn’t have any boys out in the Kuchean domains with the good news.
This is where Mahayana Buddhism evolved in contrast to the older form of Buddhism which is called Hinayana Buddhism. Hinayana means little vehicle, Mahayana means great vehicle. This is where the life of Buddha triumphed over the teachings of Buddha. Mahayana Buddhism developed a God concept. Mahayana Buddhism also developed a lot of ritual. All of the ritual in Tibet is a modification of Mahayana Buddhism. Mahayana Buddhism died in India but lived in China. It spread north of the Himalayas and India for a while was the holy land of the Chinese Buddhists. And Chinese would brave the waters and the deserts to go down to India and visit this holy land. Sanskrit was the original holy script of Buddhism in China.
Mahayana Buddhism, I would rate, as the second best religion on earth. Mahayana Buddhism is a very appealing Buddhism. It exists on all levels. You can get a lot of superstitious practice in Mahayana Buddhism, but in the upper level you have a concept of truth plus tolerance. The one thing about Buddhism that appeals to me more than Christianity is, it is a much more tolerant religion. Mahayana Buddhism teaches – oh its got devils and demons for the peasants – and as you move up topside it has the incarnations of the Buddha, and there are many of them, - scores of them, hundreds of them, thousands of them, millions of them - until there are so many that polytheism vanishes before the emerging concept of the principle that is incarnated. This is the eternal Buddha. In other words you get the things so polytheistic it became monotheistic in the end. Buddhism in its highest reaches is a monotheistic religion.
I told you the story of the Protestant missionary in Peking. It’s from James Pratt’s Pilgrimage of Buddhism. This Protestant missionary, around 1900 was visiting a Buddhist monastery in the environs of Peking. It was a very beautiful monastery; it had been there for hundreds of years – you can image what kind of landscaping had taken place. In the old building the stones were mellow with the dust of time. This Protestant, Christian missionary, was responsive to aesthetic values and was quite enthusiastic. And his enthusiasm reached such a point that the Abbot was so pleased that when they passed the central sanctuary the Abbot said: “My friend, would you like to come in a burn some incense to the Buddha?” And the missionary looked at him and said: “My good sir, you don’t realize you and I worship different Gods.” The Abbot looked a moment and smiled and said: “But how can that be, there is only one God.”
This is the one thing that would have made Buddhism extremely attractive to me; it’s that tolerance, that realization that there is only one, regardless of what you call him. I heard Tigawa (sic) talk in the Methodist Temple in Chicago many years ago. Tigawa is a very fine Christian; he’s unique in the sense that he won’t take money for his religious activities so no one can tell him what to do. And I heard Tigawa saying if you send missionaries to Japan, don’t send theologians because the Buddhist have about as good a theology as we’ve got. But if these missionaries do not have the spirit of Christ in their hearts, they are utterly useless to us.
What is the theology of the Mahayana Buddhism at its best? The papers say that the fastest growing religious group today, in the world, is the Shin sect of Buddhism in Japan. They do not give that accolade to a Christian group.
In Buddhism, in the Mahayana, the monk is not the hero; it is the server of all. In other words, the hero here is patterned after the life of Buddha, not his teachings. And if you want the name for that he is a Buddha sakwa or an aspirant to the level of finality.
The greatest of the Buddha sakwas is a being by the name of Amida. Amitaba is different form of that same name. It’s hard to read Buddhism because it’s like in the west, we’re more used to it. Theoderick can be Theodore or Detrick, they are all the same name. But you couldn’t hardly say Theodore the Great and think of the Oscar god who went into Italy. That’s got to be Theoderick.
This Buddha sakwa had completed all the requirements of entry into Nirvana. He was at the threshold and then he turned back and he looked over his shoulder and he saw all of the struggle for happiness and peace going on on earth and he vowed a vow that he would never enter Nirvana until the last human being had made the grade. And this theology teaches that if you pray to Amida and if you are virtuous, Amida will heed your prayers, he will help you. This religion has even a goddess of mercy, like Mother Mary and here name is Kwenyon (sp?). And my mother has a statue of Kwenyon, the goddess of mercy in Buddhism.
It’s a pretty fine religion. It’s lasted a long time and I can see no reason why Mahayana Buddhism should not serve just as well as a background for the teachings of Jesus as any other religion. Tinely, in his evaluation of religion today says there are only two really good religions on earth: Christianity and the Mahayana, and neither of them is good enough to do the job.
This is the second greatest religion that has ever appeared on earth – I think. Questions about the Mahayana?
(Audience member: “I was wondering why the established organization of Mahayana Buddhism wouldn’t represent as a stable and immovable vested interest as the ecclesiastical structure of Christianity and therefore be an obstacle.”)
There is no central structure. It will be. But I think people may find something in this blue book that they don’t find in Christianity.
Zen Buddhism in contrast to Shin has more of the contemplative side of Buddhism. Then there is the Lotus sect and Purediline(sp?) sect – there are different churches in Buddhism just as there are in Christianity. When you think of Zen versus Shin you are thinking of Congregationalist versus Episcopalians let say.
While we are in Japan we can dispose of Shinto. It’s more of a codified patriotism today then a religion. It’s very similar to emperor worship in the days of Rome, which was hardly worship. It was more of a formality you went through to declare your solidarity with the Roman state. Shinto I think we can pass over as something which has become much more of a quasi-religious patriotism than a true religion. It’s the official religion of Japan. But Japan actually is a Buddhist country.
Let’s take up Confucius. I think the teachings of Confucius sustained the same relationship to Buddhism in the east that the teachings of Socrates sustained Christianity in the west. Plato evidently did teach what Socrates taught because these papers say that in the west we are nominally Christians in our religion and Socratic in our philosophy. I would say that in the east people are mostly Buddhists in their religion and Confucian in their ethics. Confucius did not teach a religion or philosophy; he taught an ethic. The God concept in Confucianism is not at all clear. The concept of God is presented more as the concept of a heavenly order. John was still alive, the apostle John was still alive at Ephesus when the Mahayana was coming into being. That gives you a feel for the generation span; he was an old man.
In Confucius you are taught social order, ethical relationships, the veneration of the past. Confucius stabilized Chinese society at the cost of formalizing it and stagnating it. The first emperor of the reunited Chinese states – Ch’in Shih Huang Ti. He was the Shin emperor of China and gave the name China to China. His was a dynasty that lasted only a generation and a half. It was just prior to 200 AD and Confucius would be 6th Century or the 500’s. He tried to destroy all the works of Confucius because he wanted China to be progressive. But they were restore under the Han dynasty which started about 200 AD. It was the Han dynasty which ruled in China in the days of Jesus.
Confucianism has stabilized China at the cost of progress. Because if you are going to venerate past practice, then you are not going to change. If produces a very stable set of ethics and a very clear cut code of morality and obligation - it stresses the family. If you borrow money your whole family is behind that loan and is liable for it unless it is paid.
We’ve covered everything on the east starting with India except Lao-Tse who is my favorite character. If I could reopen the canon of the bible I would add the Tao to King to it. I no it should be pronounced Tao to Chung, but nobody understands what you are talking about. And it should be called Lao-Tsu. But then again, in Warsaw should be called Warszawa we still like Warsaw.
Lao-Tse supposedly was a contemporary of Confucius and he was a keeper of the archives at a place called Lao up in what is now, not too far from Peking, along the Yellow River, in the north of China. This was the seat of the Chu Emperors. The Chu Emperors at that time had about as much authority in China as the Holy Roman Emperor did around 1500-1600 AD. China was feudal, just as Europe was feudal at this time.
Lao-Tse was more than a librarian, he was a teacher. And according to legend he was observed by the keeper of one of the gates in the Great Wall of China, which was even then partly built. And this captain of the gate saw the old philosopher, because that is was Lao-Tse means, it is old philosopher. He saw him walking through his gate and he said, “Say old philosopher, what do you think you are doing?” Lao-Tse replied “I’m going through into the country beyond the wall.” The gatekeeper said, “there is no civilization out there.” Lao-Tse said, “Yes, I understand this, that’s why I am going there. I am going to spend the rest of my life in meditation.” And the captain says, “But you cannot do this, what will happen with your classes down at Lao Jung, we need you, our young people need your teaching. You cannot leave us.” And the old philosopher said “But I have spent my life in teaching and in giving people what I have and I think these few remaining years should be mine to spend in quiet meditation.” Then the captain said “Well, you’ve got a point there, let me think.” Then he looked up and said “I’ll make a deal with you. I will let you through the gate if you will sit down and write out your teachings so that posterity will still have them.”
And this is one of the sweetest legends I know. I like to picture the old Chinese, and he must have been quite old, squatting down with his paint brushes, his inks, his paper and in beautiful strokes drawing characters which spell out the Tao Teh King (sp?). I have found the Tao Teh King is the most intriguing writing I have ever encountered. If you want to taste the flavor of it you must not stop with one translation because they Chinese characters lend themselves to many interpretations. At one time I was almost tempted to study Chinese, simply to experience the joy of reading this in the original, but that’s stupid. So I contented myself with buying every translation of the Tao Teh King that I could buy. I once owed seven translations of the Tao Teh King and each one was fascinating to read and somehow in reading the seventh I felt I was getting nearer the meaning of the original. Tao Teh King is sometimes translated as The Simple Way. It starts out very much as the papers start out when it says, the Tao that can be named is not the true Tao. Or the God which can be named is not the true God. And the very first section in the blue book says, God has never revealed himself by name. And they list all the names which we have applied to him.
In this first chapter on the Tao Teh King it says, “Unity begets duality, duality begets triunity, and triunity is the ancestor of the 10,000 things.” The Urantia Book paraphrases that statement. It’s in the Tao Teh King where it likens spirit values to water because they bless everything and harm nothing. And like water, they always seek the lowest places for their ministry. Isn’t that beautiful? It’s in Tao Teh King that he points out the virtue of emptiness because it can be filled. It’s in the Tao Teh King that he teaches humility and the avoidance of contentions. This is one of the most peace promoting documents I have ever read, just as the Upanashadas are some of the most stimulating, intellectual speculations I have ever read.
You know, these were written by the wise men of old and while they are not in our tradition, these men were just as wise as the prophets who are in our tradition. I don’t know of any other person I can quite compare Lao-Tse to; he has a unique flavor. If you want to sample just one non-Christian religion, take Lao-Tse because the scripture is very short, it doesn’t take very long to read the Tao Teh King. And if you are lucky enough to get an unstuffy translation, you may be intrigued to get a better one. If you’ve got a good one you will be intrigued to get a still better one.
Buddha, Majavara, Confucius, Lao-Tse, are all children of the 6th Century – when Machiventa Melchizedek stirred things up. This is the century in which Greece responded with the birth of philosophy, not religion.
(Audience member: “There is one sentence in the Urantia Book which tells about the greatest teachers of the world...”)
Yes, and Tao is the man who reconciled Jewish theology and Greek philosophy and laid the foundation for the later reconciliation of Christian teaching and Greek philosophy.
Let’s go back to the Vedas again and let’s see some of these boys pouring down into Persia with their fire gods and their thunder gods, and their Soma and whatnot. And also in the 6th Century BC a religious teacher arose in Persia by the name of Zorothustra or Zoroaster – “thus spake Zorothustra.” And he produced a religion which is the only religion to perpetuate any phase of the seven master spirits here on earth. He taught a religion which is very important to us because if you do not understand Zoroastrianism you cannot understand all of Christianity because Zoroastrianism had a considerable influence on Christianity. First because it influenced Judaism during the Babylonian captivity. Secondly it influenced Christianity directly. Third, its daughter religion, Mithraism, was for a long time one of Christianity’s principle competitors. The concept of Satan comes from Zoroastrianism. When it says in the bible that “God stirred up David to number the people”, that passage was written before the Jews came under Persian influence. In a parallel passage, and I am referring to the two passages in Kings and Chronicles where it says: “and Satan stirred up David to number the people” – a very bad thing - this is post Zoroastrian in its authorship because prior to their encounter with Zoroastrianism, the Jews reckoned that Yahweh was responsible for evil as well as for good.
The whole story of the Caligastia rebellion, the Lucifer rebellion, is at the foundation of Zoroastrianism. And the religion that Zoroaster preached was this kind of a religion. In eternity there is one God and his seven expressions and the name of this God is Ahura-Mazda. The word Mazda is associated in our mind with light and Ahura-Mazda is the God of Light. In eternity, Ahura-Mazda is alone and victorious. But in time he contends on equal terms with Ahriman, the God of Darkness, or the Lord of Darkness. In time, this is an equal contention; in eternity the light will triumph.
If you will read the scriptures of Zoroastrianism concerning the day of judgment, you will be shocked because they will seem so familiar to you. And of course, you know which came first because these things go back to the 6th Century BC. Zoroastrianism presents a morally challenging religion. In Zoroastrianism you are confronted with a challenge; there are two armies and you’ve got to choose sides and as you choose, so do you eventually become.
Zoroastrianism is a militant religion. The Zoroastrians were no more afraid to fight than were the Mohammedans. Zoroastrianism persisted until it was destroyed by the Mohammedan invasion of Persia which would be, well the Hajara was 622, so add a few years, say along about 650 AD. Between the revival of the Sasinian Empire, that the neo-Persian Empire. Let’s go back. The Bactrians way back here were cut off from the western Greeks by the Parthians who came down about 200 BC. The Parthians once reached the Mediterranean Sea. They were semi-barbaric horsemen. There were people living in the days of Jesus who could have remembered the Great Parthian Invasion that smashed all the way to the water. It was the Parthians that fought the Romans to a standstill. It was the Parthians that poured molten gold in the mouth of Crassus, one of the triumvirate, when he tried to do some conquering. These Parthians lasted until about 200 AD when the Persians revolted and established the neo-Persian Empire, the second Persian Empire, sometimes called the Sasinian Empire. You see, the second Persian Empire is separated from the first by all the era of Alexander, his successors, and the Parthians, and then they reestablished.
This period is a period in which you have nationalistic religions contending. When western Rome went down, eastern Rome did not. And it gradually metamorphosed into what we call the Byzantine Empire and this is the chrysalis of the Greek Orthodox Church. And the Greek Orthodox Church under the Byzantines was a department of the state. The ecumenical patriarch in Constantinople was in essence the secretary of religion, reporting to the Byzilius (sp?), the Emperor in Constantinople. So here you have a nationalist religion in Bzyantium, you have a nationalist religion in the Persian Kingdom, and you have a real fight between these two religions, each of whom supported and promoted the heresies of the others. If you were an Estorian (sp?) Christian you were welcomed in Persia because you were anti Greek Orthodox. But if you were a Greek Orthodox you had a hard time in Persia.
We touched upon the Mohammedan religion. The Mohammedan religion presents a clear-cut monotheism – a very clear picture of a highly anthropomorphic God. And if you are going to have a monotheism you better have anthropomorphism too because as the papers point out, if you’ve got a solitary God, sooner or later philosophy will abstract his personal qualities and you will end up with an impersonal God. So as long as the Koran has to portray a solitary deity, it’s probably just as well that he is an anthropomorphic deity. I think the exact dimensions of Allah are given in the Koran. He is a man, but he is a great big guy; he’s pretty big. The Koran has a good deal to say about ethical practices, dietary practices, the position of woman in life. And you girls will be fascinated with the fact that you’re much better off under Paul than you are under Mohammed – under Paul you keep quiet in the church, under Mohammed you don’t even have souls, you don’t go to heaven, because it would be embarrassing, because the Mohammedan paradise is an eternally lost weekend. It is a sensuous version of Valhalla. You know in Valhalla you wind up there and you fight all day and if you’re killed they bring you back to life and feast all night and the next day you fight all day. No working, lots of drinking in heaven, that’s why you don’t drink on earth. They booze it up for ever more and each guy has one dozen or two dozen dark-eyed whores. And this Allah’s ideal of a perfect gal and you have your tribe and you let nature take its course. You simply have at having fun and you won’t be bothered by your wife looking over your shoulder because she won’t make it, because she doesn’t have a soul.
The Mohammedan religion, like Communism, is a religion of a people and a state. There is no dualism in Communism; its very much like Mohammedanism in this respect; all of your loyalty is in one basket – the State, the church, the true believer, the infidel and so on. The Mohammedans conquered (it was one of the darndest things that ever happened when they erupted out of Arabia) and they were successful because just prior to the conquest, the Byzantines and the Persians had engaged in a life and death struggle which utterly exhausted both kingdoms. At one time the Persian army was encamped on the Asiatic shore of the Sea of Marmora, that’s on the Asiatic side of the straits, the Addars had overrun the Balkans and were right smack up against the triple walls of Constantinople and Hereclitus the Emperor, considered transferring his court to Carthage which had been reconquered for the Byzantines by Belasaria some two hundred years earlier. And it was the ecumenical patriarch that loaned him the treasures of the church (loaned him now) and he put an army together and instead of arguing about Constantinople he embarked his army and struck for the heart of the Persian Empire, starting raising hell and burning everything. And by the time the Byzantines finally drove the Persian’s back, everybody was worn out. It was into this power vacuum that the Mohammedans erupted.
The Mohammedan religion is a religion for men, not for women. It’s a very masculine religion. It’s a fighting religion. It teaches that one’s surest passport to Paradise is to die killing the infidel. At the same time this Mohammedan religion exhibits tolerance. If you are one of the people of a book, like the Koran, you can pay a head tax and you will be tolerated. Jews and Christians were recognized as people of a book. Later on Zoroastrians came in under that same category. The story of the Christian relation to the Jewish people is one of the most shameful stories in recorded history. The story of the Mohammedan relations to the Jewish people is one of the brighter pictures in human history. When the Mohammedans entered Spain, the Jews were their alleys, because they had suffered much at the hands of the Vizagopic (sp?) Christian conquerors of Spain. Under the Mohammedan regime in Spain, a Jew became a Prime Minister of the Emirate of Cordoba.
I don’t know how the Mohammedans will take the Urantia Book; its going to be very interesting to see. I don’t know how hungry they are.
(Audience member: “When you say “anyone had a book” – about the Christians and Jews – do you mean because they had bibles?”)
Mohammed recognized Jesus as a prophet; Mohammed recognized all of the Jewish prophets as prophets and himself as the last prophet. Jerusalem is a holy city in the Mohammedan religion, as well as in the Jewish and Christian religion – it’s the third most holy city, ranking after Mecca and Medina.
(Audience member: “How could thinking Mohammedan women get any comfort from this religion?”)
Well thinking Mohammedan women haven’t had much to think with for a long time. It’s just recently, as in Turkey let’s say, a Mohammedan gal is raised, she has some freedom, at about age thirteen they begin stuffing her. If they can get her up above 200 pounds she will sell better in the marriage market. And she moves from seclusion in her father’s home to seclusion in her husband’s home and from then on she deals with women and some merchants. She has no education, she doesn’t read the Koran. She isn’t going to object very much because this is all she knows. She has never had a bathtub so she doesn’t know the joys of a bathtub.
Now what will happen in a country like Turkey, let’s see. They’ve set up a secular government in Turkey which is apart from the church. (Audience: “They are still Mohammedans?) Oh yes.
(Audience member: “Well, I’m going to organize the Mohammedan women, they would like this book.”)
We they are just breaking loose, for example in Morocco, one of the Princesses in Morocco is a westernized gal and because she is Princess So and So she can get by with some things and they are just now cracking this whole thing.
We should go back to Asia and touch upon one more religion. Up in the same area where Mahayana Buddhism arose, a religion arose about 1500 AD. It represented the teachings of Nanak Shah, more properly known as Guru Nanak - guru means teacher. He was the first of the
Sikh teachers and that religion is written down in a book called the Granith Sahib. And the Sikhs are a little more reverent of the Granith Sahib than the bible belt Protestants are of the Holy Bible. They just barely miss worshipping the Granith Sahib. It’s kind of icon like, you know what I mean?
If you want to read some good reading, read the Granith Sahib. This is a putting together of much that is good in Mohammedanism and Hinduism, with maybe some lingering traces of Buddhism there, for all I know. Make it the bible of the world – you get all of that stuff in one volume. I think Sikhism is in there, it should be. You will be a potpourri, a sampling of all of these scriptures.
This religion has given rise to an interesting community in India. When you say the word Sikh you are talking about a people and a religion. They are mentioned as having arisen contemporary with Protestant Christianity, and the word “Protestant” doesn’t appear in this book. In the most delicate way they point out that…. (tape ends abruptly).