Angels and The Brown Scapular and Our Lady of Mount Carmel

One sometimes needs to wonder what exactly the purview of a Guardian Angel is. Most practically they should keep us from danger, but if our lives are already sufficiently sheltered, then they may extend their mandate toward guiding us morally or intellectually, in that way helping to guard us from foolishness. Or maybe, not to always be focused on preventing a negative, working only on Damage Control – on shielding what may already be a very flawed beings in an effort to keep them from getting any worse, perhaps our Angels may sometimes take on an entirely positive goal, to move us toward those moments of thoughtful epiphany where we might realize something important enough to better our character and to make us a better people for it. Or maybe they consider it important enough if they can only just make us happier for a moment.

Angels like to work in riddles. I have known instances where an Angel will simply come out and flat tell me something directly, but then it’s so hard to grasp the implications of what’s said that it might as well be a riddle. So the impression I get is that they do not just give out the answers. And that is why they to work in riddles, asking those puzzling questions, giving nothing directly, but only planting seeds, not giving Knowledge but arranging so that it will grow.

Not more than just a few years ago, an Angel came to me with something of a riddle – “Why is it that the only religious garb Our Lady has ever worn is that of a Carmelite Nun?” He was referring to Our Lady of Mount Carmel who has made repeated Apparitions wearing that particular habit. Ordinarily Our Lady appears in fashionable clothes suitable for each particular occasion – She obviously treats style as an important factor in Her considerations, and the Queen of Heaven doesn’t need to keep any vows of poverty. So it is a bit curious that She should ever dress in the plain clothes of a Nun. And, then, when she does, it is only as a Carmelite. And I was to figure out why.

First I did some research. I had been brought into the Catholic Church by the Carmelite Order. The clerics of my first Church were all Carmelites and my God Mother was in their Third Order. So I already knew something about the Carmelites, as though by osmosis. One particular Tradition of theirs is uniquely intriguing – that of the Brown Scapular. It presents a kind of loophole in the ordinary Christian Procedures of Salvation. I myself got a Brown Scapular before I was even officially all the way a Catholic. Perhaps I should say a word on the Brown Scapular, which really brings up the story of the Carmelites themselves since the two stories can hardly be separated. A thousand years ago, when Christendom rallied its Knights to protect the Holy Land from the first waves of the Barbarian Invasion from the East, as much protecting Islamic Civilization as Christian, many good men found themselves far away from home. A certain few Crusaders, who were from a Land where every Church was called an “Our Lady”, had been surprised to find a Marian Devotion already in place in the Holy Land when they arrived. It was a local Religious Order of Monks that called themselves the Carmelites, named after their main Monastery situated on the slopes of old Mount Carmel. The Crusaders had been shown a small Chapel in the Mount Carmel complex, which even back then had been more than a thousand years old, a Shrine to Our Lady that was said to have been Her room when She had come to Mount Carmel seeking refuge during one of the earliest Persecutions.

Some of the Crusaders were so impressed by this Marian Devotion, that they joined the Order and became Carmelites themselves. But later when they returned to Europe they ran into the problem of their local Bishops questioning their affiliation in what was not a recognized Catholic Brotherhood. So petitions were forwarded to the Pope asking for approval of the ‘new’ Order, but the paperwork dragged on slowly. The Leader of the Carmelite’s Petition Movement, Simon Stock, was imprisoned for safe-keeping, probably so he could not drum up any new support for the Carmelites before anybody could be certain it would actually be ratified. Apparently being incarcerated was very demoralizing for him and so Our Lady came to Him as an Apparition, for the first time in Her Carmelite Garb, and for his consolation presented him with The Brown Scapular saying “Those who die wearing the Brown Scapulars will not know Hell Fire”, and went on to say that on the First Saturday of each month she would personally fetch from Purgatory all those found wearing a Brown Scapular. I can only guess that Our Lady has always been a bit uncomfortable with the General Doctrines of Christian Salvation that posit the necessity for Murdering Her Son and then of having everyone agree, as a matter of Faith, that it was s good thing that He was killed. Forgiveness of Sin through complicity in the worst of all possible crimes seems incongruous as a Religious Doctrine. Religions should not have to lurk in ethical shadows and moral vacuums. So Our Lady presented a Brown Scapular that could save without being rooted in blood and misery. A Devotion could be enough.

Well, right after creating this first Brown Scapular, Our Lady transported Herself nearly a thousand miles away, appearing on the same evening to the Pope in Rome, telling him “If you will not be the Pope who gives approval to the Carmelite Order, Heaven can soon arrange a new Pope who shall”. Of course, then, the Pope immediately did the right thing and granted official recognition to the Carmelites. That is how the Order was accepted into the Catholic Church. But, really, our understanding of the History of the Carmelites Order should go back to its true beginnings – back to the times of the Prophet Elijah.

Now it’s a fact of History that the Messianic Mission of Christ had failed. Of course we can impute this failure to widespread moral decadence, but isn’t that always very much the case? If we should wish to be charitable, then we might notice that perhaps the historical timing had been all wrong. By the time of Christ there had been strong Empires on every point of the compass surrounding Jerusalem and the world must have had very little want for a King of Kings. But looking back less than a thousand years before the time of Christ we can notice a period when Civilizations all about were in decline and no new Empires had yet risen up to take their place, and this is when perhaps a serious Messianic Mission could have stood half a chance. It was about at the time of King David. Indeed, without any competing Empires to intimidate them, first King David and then King Solomon seemed to flourish, relatively speaking, despite themselves. David danced drunk and naked in the streets, killing men to steal their wives. The People must have been somewhat leery of that. Solomon who came next was a playboy who bankrupts his Kingdom to build a Temple for a Religion that obviously had no personal interest for him. It was as though it were his very plan to make his People either resentful of Religion or of himself. This Davidic dynasty, soft with decadence and corruption, did not continue long past Solomon as first a Tax Revolt disintegrated into Civil War and the nation was finally dismembered by the rising Assyrian and Babylonian Empires. It was like a wasted Life. The brief window of Messianic Opportunity had already closed. But why had there not been a Messiah when a Messiah might have been successful? Good question. It was a matter of being ill-prepared – there had not been any preparation in Righteousness and Purity. Such was the opinion of Elijah the Prophet who seemed to have been aware of the Lost Opportunity and who made it his Mission to see that if there ever should be a Next Time, that the proper preparations in Righteousness should be taken. Well, as we can see now from hindsight, it was already too late for any Successful Messianic Mission, but perhaps History still might be able to learn some lessons from what had happened.

Even the Bible gives us some hint of Elijah’s Mission. We are told of a drought, and that day after day for seven days Elijah had asked that a servant climb Mount Carmel and look for any cloud. None was seen until on the seventh day when there was a small cloud. Looking back, we find that this meant that there would pass Seven Generations until the Next Opportunity. So Elijah went to work and put together an Organization, a Brotherhood, that could stand up to Seven Generations of Work, building a Social and Religious Purity from which it could be possible to raise up a plausible Messiah.

Well, most importantly, the Family of the Messiah would have to be especially monitored and protected. So Elijah, resorting to magic, passed down to the Brotherhood he established a very special ‘dead’ shrub kept in his old Cave at Mount Carmel. It seemed that every time a new Baby was born in the line of the Messiah, the ‘dead’ shrub would momentarily come to life and bloom forth in leaf and flower. The Monks of the Order would then scurry forth and find among the new babies one with a special birthmark. Of course, after the first Generation, the Monks knew exactly where to look for the new baby – they already knew who the mother would be. And so the Generations were counted off.

It was always girls. The dead shrub did not bloom for boys. Maybe this was at first surprising, as the Hebrews were a Patriarchal Society. But this was not a matter of inheriting power or passing down property. Perhaps when we consider Virtue, it is more likely to descend from Mother to Daughter.

Anne, who would be Mary’s mother, was the Sixth Generation baby, and so when she reached maturity, and became pregnant, the Brotherhood seemed to hold its breath and wait for the Seventh Sign and the Birth of the Seventh and Final Generation of Purity. But it didn’t happen. Anne had baby after baby and the dead bush remained dead. It must have been puzzling.

But the Angels intervened. This is where our History becomes a bit peculiar. No materialist will like what comes next. I refer to the published notebooks kept on the accounts given by Anne Catherine Emmerich, Catholicism’s foremost seer and visionary, who looked back on Biblical Times and saw what had really happened and wasn’t afraid to tell about it in detail. I decided to trust her insofar as her views were almost always at variance to the traditions she could have been supposed to uphold had she simply been a mouthpiece for Church Propaganda. Anyway, the way she tells it, there had been the Holy Thing from the Old Arc of the Covenant, now lost, but before the Arc had been lost, by being hid too well (they forgot where they hid it!), the Holy Thing had been removed for safe keeping. This Holy Thing goes all the way back to Adam, having been given to Abraham by an Angel and then passed down, from father to son, until it finally rested with Joseph in Egypt, but with Moses raiding Joseph’s Tomb and taking it along on his Exodus, placing it among the other Sacred Objects in the Arc. This Holy Thing was said to be the Spiritual Core of Purity from Adam himself, grabbed out of him by an Angel just a moment before his First Sin and subsequent decline from Spiritual Being to mere man. Spiritual Being on a par with the Angels one moment, not much more than a monkey the next.

The Angel, coming to address the problem with Anne, asked that this Holy Thing be passed into her by her husband, who just so happened to be a Priest who could be well informed on the situation. The Brotherhood did not keep every Priest current of the Messianic Developments, but they did initiate those into the Mystery who where in the right positions to be useful, and Anne’s Husband the Priest was positioned to be very useful here. One wonders about the details of how such holy things can be passed back and forth into people, but as it worked out, the Holy Thing from Adam became Mary inside of Anne. Whatever the biological details were, as far as the Holy Thing was involved, Mary comes to us as the Pure daughter of the still Spiritual Adam from Paradise – the Child Adam would have had if he had never fallen from Grace.

Well, of course, nine months later the dead shrub in the Cave of Elijah burst forth in its greatest floral profusion yet. It’s sad but it has stayed dead ever since. One can go to the Holy Land even today and still see it, there in Elijah’s Cave. It is most likely the oldest and best preserved dead shrub in existence.

And Mary was the Seventh Generation. She was the Cloud of Elijah’s Prophecy come to end the Drought. And the Messiah would not come unbeknownst or in secret. The Gospels do us a bit of a disservice here, presenting the view that Jesus had to convince everybody of His Messianic Pretensions. But a great many people knew exactly who Jesus was. And they all knew who Little Mary was. Concerning Her nothing was left to chance and the Messianic Plans could at times become quite elaborate. Which leads us to our little love story.

Little Mary was to be mother to the Messiah, and so She needed a husband. Although She Herself was of the House of David, it was thought that Her husband should also be of the House of David, though from a more remote branch of the Family. The Priests, in league with the Brotherhood, arranged to find an acceptable husband.

In selecting a husband for little Mary they would again rely upon a legacy of Elijah’s magic. All of the eligible bachelors of the House of David were assembled and were asked to hand in their walking sticks. The one who would be destined to marry Mary – his walking stick would have to come alive and bloom, much the same as that ‘dead’ brush in Elijah’s Old Cave. None of them did. The Priest in charge of the ceremony was confused and inquired if every bachelor on the list had indeed showed up. Well, an old bachelor, Joseph David, who did not wish to be married anyway thought that those who preferred to remain single should be exempted, and so he had stayed home. Well, he was immediately summoned and was compelled to come quickly – free or in chains, it would be his choice. No sooner then when he entered the hall did his beat up old walking stick bloom with these huge White Lilies, which then as now symbolize Purity and Virginity (this would be the first premonition of the Virgin Birth). We had a winner! It was said that Our Lady, then a 14 year old girl, asked for one of those Lilies, pressed it and saved it as a souvenir that She kept close by Herself for the remainder Her life.

Well, most of the bachelors were there only because they had been asked to be, and few had entertained any great expectations for themselves, suspecting of their own unworthiness. But there were a few who considered themselves in serious contention, and they to various degrees emotionally invested themselves into the process. One young man in particular thought that he truly had it all – noble breeding, wealth, capacity, virtue (and there was no pretence about it – he was an outstanding Young Man) – and he was heartbroken when Mary went to a reluctant old man who didn’t seem very eager to have Her anyway. This young man was so disconsolate that he ended up by selling off his things and becoming a Member of that Order of Essenes at Mount Carmel. Disgusted with Life, he would go into Religious Retirement and leave the world and all of his disappointments behind. He would have been happy enough to grow old and die without ever another word being spoken of him, but such would not be the case as we shall see.

It was correct that he had plenty of capacity and virtue. At the Monastery on the Mountain he proved himself to be a skilled and dedicated worker and then an inspiring leader, and after 30 some years found himself the Superior of that Order. Well, by this time Christ had been born, had grown up, had His Ministry and had finally been Murdered. The once solid Following of Jesus split into violent factions, making Mary Herself a possible target. Paul would kill Stephen, who had been a rival of Peter’s and Peter would reward Paul with a lucrative Christian Franchise. With such dealings afoot, Mary could not be safe. So our ‘young man’, now an old man, the Superior of the Monastery at Mount Carmel with many men under his command, discerned what his role must be in all of this and sent a covert delegation to quickly rescue Mary from the intrigues and conspiracies of Jerusalem and its environs. Our history does not go into much detail on this. Did they offer Her a polite invitation which She graciously accepted, or did they crash Her doors and ride away with Her folded over their saddlebags? We only know that when She arrived at Mount Carmel She was ready to appreciate Her stay.

But what a contre-temps it must have been for our young man, now an old man, after a lifetime with a broken heart he was finally to be face to face with that Girl, now a well advanced Lady, whom he had fallen so much in love with decades before… a Lifetime before. It is said that She recognized him instantly and asked him whether it did not seem just like ‘yesterday’ that they had met for the first time. And so it was that the Old Man, once a Young Man, entirely forgot all the years of disconsolation, loneliness, and heartbreak, and was completely enraptured in a moment of unalloyed happiness… what we would call a perfect smile.

Which brings us back to the question the Angel had asked me, why Our Lady chooses to dress as a Carmelite. I thought the answer was that She was showing Her appreciation for the Protection which that Order had given Her during Her lifetime, as well as in gratitude for the Care the Order had taken of Her Family for the Seven Generations since the time of the Prophet Elijah. That seemed like a reasonable enough answer, but it was too easy…it lacked elegance. I felt no validation from my Angels, and my dreams were still being stirred up with hints which would stop if I had gotten the Answer. So I kept The Riddle on my mind and continued to think it over. And then after about a month had gone by the answer came so instantly to me that I am not at all certain whether I thought of it, or my Angel finally just gave up and simply put the answer into my head – that Our Lady wears the Habit of the Carmelites because the Carmelites pre-date and transcend the Catholic Church. I could say it is a Jewish Order, but that too is limiting after we consider that Elijah himself was not exactly Jewish, wandering in from the hills to live with the Hebrews, he wasn’t a member of any one of their 12 tribes. Her wearing that Carmelite Habit is expressive of Her first loyalties which go beyond any particular Religion while recognizing the confluence of Religious Traditions. We are reminded that the Blessed Virgin is Jewish Girl and Catholic Girl both at once, as well as carrying forward whatever Religion it was that Old Elijah had brought with him out of those Hills.

Well, the Answer is one thing, but after the Answer, what was the Lesson that I was supposed to have learned? What was the Angel’s Guiding Purpose? How had I been changed by it all? Well, certainly, so much thoughtfulness can never go entirely to waste. But what I came to feel might have been something akin to what the first Crusading Carmelites had felt, that Religion was supposed to be more Universal, and more Ancient than just their own particular Religious Tradition. And then that any True Religion needs to have some little bit of a Love Story behind it. The World may have forgotten that young man turned old man, who had brought Our Lady to Mount Carmel, but She still wears the dress he gave Her. And that’s Religion too.

Meditation, Yoga, and Enlightenment

Perhaps somebody should conduct a study to see whether it is first Meditation that attracts the most people to the Eastern Traditions, or Yoga. One can look around and be puzzled as to whether one sees more beginning Meditation Classes or more beginning Yoga Classes. But one thing we can hardly fail to notice, and that is that most Organizations offer them both – Meditation and Yoga.

It is relevant to speak of here of basic beginning forms of Meditation and Yoga. We need to keep in mind that the earliest traditions of these spiritual arts were by no means as elaborate as they would become after so many hundreds of years of development and elaboration. It is probable that Meditation and Yoga had very simple beginnings.

Here, we can consider the purely pragmatic value of Meditation, remembering that much of the Tradition for Meditation comes from out of the Monasteries, both East and West. Imagine yourself in the position of being the Administrator of a Monastery, with a limited food budget and a compound full of men of all ages, some of whom could be expected to be rather rambunctious. Back in an age where there are no books (and your vailable scrolls being the most precious of reference materials, not meant for casual reading to pass the time), and no televisions. One can only work the men so hard for so long without killing them. Sooner or later one must give them their own time and hope they do not tear the place down with the riotous behaviors typical to men in general. Just think of how much easier the Administrator’s job could be if he could convince even just a few of his charges to just sit down and shut up. This may have been the first important impetus behind the Traditions of Meditation – a means of making grown men behave themselves.

Of course this is not why we still Meditate today. If one lives alone, who would one be sitting down and shutting up for? Our restless energy can be channeled into any number of hobbies, not being restricted by the poverty and lack of resources of an overcrowded Monastery. Yes, a little quiet time for reflection can do us all some good, but Meditation is now considered to have gone far beyond the point of being merely a form of crowd control, where we are less in the way and a lot less trouble if we sit in the corner and keep quiet. Even so, still it remains the first Lesson in Meditation to sit down and simply be quiet.

Next, about the Yogas. We must realize that Monks were not told directly, in those very words, to just sit down and shut up for the sake of their being less trouble to Management. No, they were told that sitting down and shutting up would be immensely beneficial for them Spiritually – that it would Enlighten them if they were of the intellectual persuasion, or if they were merely sensualists that Meditation would put them in a state of Bliss, Ananda, as they call it.

This is where the Yogas enter in. Typically it starts with breathing exercises, particularly the Breath Retentions Exercises, which simulate Bliss as everybody knows who has ever held his or her breath long enough to pass out – that right before one loses consciousness one feels very light-headed, or, in the parlance of the street, very ‘high’. Is this a good thing? Well, remember, again, that these practices arose from the Monastic Traditions. While ordinary men would ordinarily go out and get drunk or wasted on drugs (for instance, men in the Military), the poverty of the Monasteries precludes all of that, but the men can make do by learning to hyperventilate themselves into a stupor after a hard days work. Again, from the point of view of the Monastery’s Administration, anything that keeps the men out of trouble at so little cost is a positive.

But of course Yuga, just as Meditation also, has come far from these earliest humble beginnings of breathing deep for a buzz.

The fortunate thing is that so many Traditions put so many collective years of practice into the Yogas that many substantial benefits were discovered. Focused attention on breathing lead into awareness of body energy flows and a heightened sense for the body’s well being. This lead progressively into the more elaborate systems of the Tantric and Kundalini Yogas.

This leads us back to Meditation. How? Well, one can only be so aware of the body while in the waking consciousness, but if one can go into the relaxed hypnogogic state of consciousness then as one physically dissociates, one ‘sees’ within the body more than just feeling it and what would ordinarily be felt as pressures or slight pains become sensations of Light. Visual Imagery becomes quite vivid. Furthermore, if one can sustain Meditation, much the same way as Dreams come after about an hour of Sleep, likewise, in Meditation these same REM cycles begin to occur, and what we call Dreams in sleep occur as Visions in Meditation. And anyone who has ever had a very intense Lucid Dream or Vivid Dream can not underestimate the intensity of a Vision experienced during a prolonged Meditation.

Of course it takes a great deal of practice before one can combine disciplined breathing patterns with holding specific postures while relaxing one’s self down to levels of deep consciousness so comparable to Sleep. But practice makes perfect.

And now we come to the notion of Enlightenment. I have spoken in other essays about how Dreams are each person’s gateway into the Higher Collective Consciousness. So it is with deep Meditation, as the same REM states are being accessed. The Collective Consciousness approaches each person as a moral-social entity, and communicates to each person for their moral-social betterment and Perfection.

There is a very common Modern Error, which has become almost Universal, which is to speak of the Dreams and Visions as coming from each individual’s Subconscious Mind – a sum of personal experiences, sensations and perceptions. Often we even hear that dreams are ‘random’. You see, Science is committed to the Materialistic View of the Universe. Materialism is the Religion of Atheists, and Science has picked up on their lingo. So while it may be entirely obvious to anybody who has had the actual Subjective Experiences, that Dreams and Visions are messages from an External and Objective Collective Consciousness, still our Modern Culture of Materialism has effectively won the Battle of Terminology and so we have even ‘Spiritual’ people speaking of ‘subconscious’ content.

Anyway, if we can get used to the Reality of being connected to the Collective Consciousness and Higher Unified Being through our Dreams and Visions, then we can appreciate how we are being lead toward Wisdom and Perfection. Often people assume that the Goal of Wisdom and Perfection consists mostly in terms of Meaning and Understanding, and this is true enough, but only in the sense that Meaning and Understanding should prompt the correct actions and responses from us as we act in the World or in our Dreams. For instance, it is most common for people to inquire as to what their Dreams ‘mean’, but the most important factor is really how they acted within their dream – whether they act appropriately or not. So it is that the “Naked In the Street Dream” (which we have all had) has an entirely different meaning depending upon whether or not the Dreamer was embarrassed or not.

The Collective Higher Mind is looking for the Correct Response. We are being monitored for Correct Behavior. And how can we determine whether we have behaved correctly in a Dream? Well, that’s easy. The Collective Higher Mind will repeat dreams and visions until they elicit the correct response. So it is that people have recurring Dreams, or Dreams with the same basic motif. What people should understand by this repetition is that they had not yet made the correct response, or that they still need more practice exercising the correct response. Once the correct actions are taken and then verified, then the Collective Higher Mind moves onto the next level of Perfection. And, yes, Dreams and Visions will come along with messages and guiding signs for those who have significant trouble in figuring out what they are doing wrong. Here we see Guides and Angels in our Dreams and Visions.

Indeed, it is one of the best arguments against the Notion of the Personal Subconscious Mind that people have such difficulty understanding their own Dreams and Visions, or that Dreams and Visions have such difficulty in communicating with individuals. Between the Collective Consciousness and the Individual there is some distance of disconnect – while generalizing for Humanity in general, the Collective Consciousness often speaks in terms that the individual may still be unfamiliar with. The same Archetypical Symbols appear everywhere in the World, even to individuals who have not had enough Cultural Education to recognize them. If everything was from personal content, then there would be little trouble in understanding what is effectively just our own regurgitated thoughts.

Now here we should appreciate the difference between supposing that dreams are random, meaningless and useless, and the viewpoint that Dreams and Visions come from the Collective Consciousness as a series of Lessons and Tests that progress us toward our Moral Perfection. In this regards, Meditation and Yoga are only useful in proportion as they allow more access to these mechanisms of the Collective Consciousness. And then we must see that Meditation and Yoga are not really geared for any entirely personal development, but, as with the Collective Consciousness, is directed more toward the Moral Perfection of the Collective – for the improvement of Society and the World as a whole. The Individual is helped only so that Society may be improved by one individual at a time. And here we should hope, if we are allowed a metaphor to express our wish, that the Tide will raise all boats at once.

Is Buddhism Positive or Negative

When one objectively evaluates the history of the World civilizations, and the impact that religions have had on them, one discerns that perhaps more often than not Religion had a negative impact – that Religion had served in effect as a destroyer – an agent of chaos and eventual mass misery – causing a decimation of population levels to almost the level of genocide. We would be hard pressed to suppose that such a thing could really be considered so good.

But people are more or less conditioned to believe that Religions always exercise a positive moral influence. We hear all the time from advocates who wish us to believe equally in all religions that all religions have an equally positive message. Well, this simply ignores the real differences between all of the various doctrines, but in regards to this particular essay, it ignores history. The messages of the most recent Religions (over the last several thousand years, that is) have mostly been negative.

Now, it’s not essential to the character of Religion that it HAS TO BE negative, that is, at cross purposes to Civilization and the Collective Organization of Humanity. Indeed, some of the earliest of the World Religions had been formulated specifically to promote the moral needs of Civilization. Zoroastrianism, as a prime example, actually formulated and elaborated upon the concepts of Morality, taking the side of the Good. However, most of the current World Religions formed up IN REACTION to the Civilizations of their time. Yeah, yeah, yeah… civilizations can turn bad, corrupt, evil (we should know). But the problem is if Religion embeds too much detail in its doctrine, history, anecdotes, traditions that can be construed as Anti-Civilization, then, no matter how much that Religion tries to reform itself down the road, there will always be fundamentalist pressures exerted toward the effect of being Anti-Civilization. After all, many people will simplistically always believe that Original is better – that any well considered elaboration of the Belief System, if it comes subsequent to, must only be a ‘corruption’ of the original teaching, and so if the Founder of their Religion was Anti-Civilization, well, so they would be also. The problem with this is that any Religion founded on the premises of being Anti-Civilization will never be able to formulate and maintain a Civilization of its own – it will have too many internal contradictions. Every generation of Theologian and Scholar that tries to steer the Religion more toward being Pro-Civilization will be met with various waves of uneducated Fundamentalists who simply know within their unreflective and unimproved minds, ‘for a fact’, that the Original Founder of their Religion was perfectly correct in hating and opposing Society and its Establishment.

In this context we must realize that the Original Buddha was trying to pull down a Civilization. He was reacting against the Vedantic Hinduism of the Aryan Brahmins. Though he was an Aryan himself, he was of the Warrior Caste (being a Prince), and resented the Brahmins because they were able to exercise so much relative power of their own. He saw this is an incidence of corruption and whether he specifically intended to destroy his host Civilization or not, that was the direction in which his followers took his Religion. Any Society that became Buddhist, disintegrated.

Yes, no Civilization was able to make much progress with Buddhism as their founding and central Religion. We have small hinterland communities remaining as veritable fossilized vestiges, but no Buddhist Civilization remains. History shows us not much more than Barbarian Regimes that established themselves with War and lasted only until a more powerful Barbarian Band swept in to drive them out. The Kushan Empire, in Northern India, with a strong influence from Zoroastrianism, did much in trying to recreate Buddhism in a Positive Way by advocating Mahayana Buddhism, which had come out of South India, also from Empires that had endeavored to make Buddhism more Civilization-Friendly.

Where Original Buddhism was so very hedonistically egocentric with its over-emphasis upon the individual to the neglect of Society and the Collective, Mahayana Buddhism took the focus off the individual and returned the center of attention to the Universal, and in Moral terms concentrated upon the virtue of social Compassion. Yes, I could not agree more with the positive direction they took and I truly admire the elegance of their well thought out doctrines; however, as I have said above, the Original Message could never be entirely left behind. While the scholars and the schooled theologians might all get aboard the New Improved Religion, there would still remain the dangerous masses as well as the Class of the Stupid Rich and Wealthy who would always find a way to use the Original Doctrines as an excuse for justifying whatever selfishness they would have in mind when they would deliberately take actions to subvert their host Civilizations.

Perhaps the biggest problem with Original Buddhism was its emphasis on Quietism – the withdraw from positive social behaviors into an isolating Meditation. Mahayana Buddhism was never able to delete Meditation from its Religion ( it just seems so primary and essential… when you mention Buddhism, who doesn’t think ‘meditation’), just as they could never drop the Gautama Buddha – discredit him and drop him from the Religion, but had to retain him, or they would lose the cachet of being “Buddhist”. It reminds me of a later Buddhist Story of two Zen Monks – the one saying to the other “If you see the Buddha on the Road, kill Him”. Mahayana Buddhism, at least at the elite level, knew that Buddha had not been of the Mahayana persuasion – that there were two different Buddhisms entirely, a right one and a wrong one, and that the man Gautama Buddha had been wrong – or rather that his Philosophy, though wonderfully adapted for tearing down a Civilization, was arranged poorly for sustaining one.

The lesson here is that Religions cannot be reformed, as there will always be Fundamentalist Reactions that press for the re-adoption of what had been the Original. So any of the Major World Religions that had started in opposition to their host Civilizations, as corrupt as they may have been, will forever be abrasive and contrary to Civilization, as virtuous and enlightened as they may now be. If the Religion was created to be a weapon, it will always remain a weapon, whether there is a deserving target or not.

Christianity had the same problem. Early Christianity, as pure Paulism attacked the Roman Empire, going so far as to reject ALL moral obligations, with its Doctrines of Salvation and Forgiveness of Sin. Perhaps Paulist Christianity was a reaction to Zoroastrian Morals – Salvation and Forgiveness of Sins being a rejection of Moral Responsibility. Law was said to be obsolete. But when Christianity became Established after Constantine, and especially after Gregory, really the First Pope, they tried to forget the original Christian-Paulist intransigence by emplacing a Moral Marianism and a very controlled dispensation of Salvation and Forgiveness that now depended upon the Sacraments of Confession and especially of Atonement and Obedience to Church Authority. Yes, while the Bishops, forever Paulists, never once in their long History ever moved an inch from an almost absolute putrid level of stinking corruption, the Common People were expected to live moral lives, at least to the point where the overall Society was deemed to be optimally healthy. After all, how else can you run a Civilization? But after the invention of the printing press and the vernacular Bibles became an affordable commodity for any half literate family, again the widespread awareness of Paulist Doctrine resulted in a huge rebellion against both Morality and Civilization. Fundamentalism vs. Civilization. Salvation and the Forgiveness of Sins would give us the Slave Trade, Rum Running, the Factory System, and the most merciless exploitation of man by man that we now call Capitalism (really, wage slavery) – it would be the highest success Barbarianism had ever achieved.

Yes, some Barbarians are doing very well. However we must keep in mind that Barbarism depends upon, indeed, it is definable in terms of its limited population densities. Any time a Barbarian Society approaches even a slight tension from a lack of elbow room – competition for land, positions of influence, etc, either positive institutions will instigate, or the lack of preventative institutions will allow for various means of De-Population – Wars, Civil Rebellions, Plagues, Famines. The way Capitalists talk of ‘necessary’ business cycles when discussing Recessions and Depressions (where only poor people actually die of starvation and exposure), so it is that Barbarian Societies (I won’t call them Civilizations) depend upon ‘necessary’ cycles of Population Burn Off. Note all the various Wars and Revolutions in the West since the Fall of Catholic Civilization. When Capitalism brags of its success, we must take into account how many people are killed off so that the survivors may suppose themselves living in such a ‘perfect’ system. We have all heard of the Example of the ‘Lifeboat’ – more room for passengers than can be provided with food and water. Well, when the 7 people in the Lifeboat throw 3 of themselves overboard, yes, the Survivors are certainly more comfortable than before, but it hardly makes for a perfect Model for Social Living. The Goal of Religion, for the benefit of Civilization, should be to arrange that all 7 people in the Lifeboat be provided for. To insist that it cannot be done, well… that’s simply ‘barbaric’.

If every one of the Religions now popular have compromised credentials, and would eventually cause more harm than good, than the only viable alternative is to start afresh with an entirely new Religion, consciously formulated so that there is not the least hint of opposition to Collectivity, Society, and Civilization. No right to bear arms, or oppose tyranny, or rise up against any imaginable injustice – all such claptrap is mostly used as an excuse for self-interested violence. What Bandit hasn’t some excuse for his pillaging and his killings? They quote scripture while they kill, but remember to fill their saddlebags with gold candlesticks before they ride home. In the future we should be absolutely certain there is not the least trace of any such justification for anti-social behavior in anything that could be construed as Scripture or Religious Tradition. No more excuses.

Now, where Buddhism isn’t especially violent, except for how monks must now be justifying their riots and their attempts to overthrow their host governments (for reasons as small as raising commodity prices to Market levels… which the Western Media refers to as ‘Pro-Democracy’ Protests), still traditional Buddhism does little to uphold Civilization. As mentioned above, too much influence in Buddhism goes toward influencing the individual to abandon Society and Public Service. They lose Civilization by default. While the Good People meditate, the Bandits ride free as the wind.

As a present example of dysfunction we can refer to the ongoing career of Ram Bomjon, the ‘Buddha Boy’ of Nepal. If he were to become an influential World Religious Leader, I would suspect the end result to be negative for a number of reasons: as a Buddhist he tacitly concedes that the Original Buddha was a positive exemplary character worth emulating and that the Original Doctrines can’t entirely be rejected. No matter what he himself says, people will simply think that he must be endorsing the same old generic Buddhism that had never so far helped any Civilization. Then we have his own actions which go toward supporting all of the old negatives. Just consider, what kind of example is he giving us with his Six Year Meditation. Should we suppose then that all teenagers should drop out of school and meditate? Well, if only they would, but, again, following Rom Bomjon’s example, they would think themselves free to come and go as they please. History will tell us of his Six Year Meditation in Silence and Fasting, that he wondered around the jungle, spoke to friends, gave speeches to assembled crowds, and when he became uncomfortable living among the trees decided to have a nice cozy apartment built for himself. And who can really fast if they can snack on ‘medicinal herbs’ whenever they like, for, after all, isn’t that just another way to call a ‘salad’? Anyway, so far of what we have seen of Ram Bomjon’s initiatives, it is not likely the makings of a Religion that will do Civilization any favors.

If Ram Bomjon is serious, he will have to renounce Buddhism, even to the extent of asserting that Gautama Buddha was something of a over-hyped Media-Guru of his Day, just as any former Christian, to do any good, would have to renounce Christianity as actually being Paulism, and that Paul was the Anti-Christ.

The World needs a New Religion and it has got to be really new. And this time, no mistakes.

What’s The Plan? To Save or Destroy

It is an intuitively easy answer to suppose that Rom Bomjon will revive himself from his deep meditation in 2012, do something entirely wondrous to capture both international attention and then universal support, with which he will forge a combination of institutions that will Save the World. But in the context of human history, we should realize that any significantly positive development would be almost unprecedented. Usually such things work out much for the worst.

You see, in most cases new or reinvigorated Religious or Philosophical Movements cast their ambient Civilizations in the somber light of being morally corrupt, or the enemies of True Religion – as with that Chinese Cult that couldn’t resist making enemies of their Government (and how was that supposed to help?). By vilifying their Ambient Civilizations, the effective results are that the New Religion or New Philosophical Movement ends up in creating a set of Institutions or a Matrix of Beliefs designed explicitly for Destroying Civilizations in general, or at least designed to weaken and subvert Civilization. The way it happens is that the Prophet, or Messiah or Whoever It Is speaks against his present Enemies, or actually takes well documented action against them. Well, all of these Anti-Authoritarian measures become part and parcel of the Next New Religion. When the Leader had made particular threats and fulminations against particular individuals of his time, well, they are generalized upon so that future believers suppose they simply have to threaten and fulminate in order to be Good Believers.

But what happens when this Next New Religion BECOMES the Authority. In its very bosom are its own seeds of destruction. The best example is Islam and its ubiquitous Swords and all of those thousands of quasi-religious injunctions to kill all those who aren’t in total agreement on what are some rather vague points; and so it is that Islam has never been able to yet sheath its Sword that it drew over 13 centuries ago. Then we have Taoism and Original Buddhism that could not survive an Institutionalized Escapism. It seems a huge paradox, but its true that when a Religion tells every responsible citizen to care only for eradicating their egos, that attention goes from the Collective Community to everybody’s Egos just as certainly as if they were the worst of all possible egotists – there is little effective difference between Positive Egotists and Negative Egotists, as neither are very good at going to work, paying their taxes and keeping up on their house and car payments – the kind of stuff that Civilization depends upon.

So, the Trick that any New Religion would have to achieve would be to effectively Co-opt the Present Civilization. A Founding Religious Leader CAN NOT attack his Civilization, no matter how corrupt or hostile it is to himself, or set up institutions that would subvert or weaken the holds of that Civilization, because it would only set up echoes and repercussions that would reverberate down through the future Generations until it is the New Civilization – His OWN Civilization that is being hurt and undermined. For instance, several centuries ago during the so-called ‘Age of Enlightenment’, in order to destroy the Ancient Regimes and the last institutional vestiges of Catholic Civilization, we had the glorification of some rather destructive new institutions – Political Demagoguery and Factionalism (which they call Democracy), the Private Press (designed to propagate Anti-government propagandas), and the unrestricted flow of Armaments to private citizens. Well, since then, that is, since the American and French Revolutions, has the World yet even had a moment’s Peace and stability. Review History. The Institutions founded to Destroy the Ancient Regimes have continued to De-Stabilize those Regimes that have followed.

Well, it can be argued that these Unstable and Chaotic Regimes have been Prosperous to an unprecedented degree. Well, that is a deceptive argument. Certainly the Historical Data is clouded by the unexpected Event of the Americas being discovered, which opened up so much new land. More empty land is always good. But, even apart from that, we must see how such Prosperity is attained and whether it is worth the price.

The effective difference between Civilized Institutions and Barbaric Institutions is in the Population Densities which they can sustain. Civilization, by promoting Peace and Community Spirit, assure for the most population density. Barbarism, by default of Institutions, or by actually having purposely dangerous institutions, allowes for Wars and Plagues and Civil Strife to periodically carry off large segments of the Population. Well, what happens after a great many people DIE, is that the survivors are able to re-divide basically the same Level of Existing Wealth so that the Survivors really can believe themselves better off than before. So it is that the Capitalist Prosperity that the West is so boastful of is easily enough had, if you’re careful to always have World War Ones and World War Twos, and all of those other Smaller Conflicts that have worked so well for thinning the herd, so to speak. Would the West be so prosperous today if all those people murdered off while they were so young had been allowed to live and reproduce. Today wouldn’t everybody’s slice of the Pie be so much smaller?

So, yes, Barbarism can be appealing enough, but only if one is one of the Survivors.

Now, even Civilizations can get overcrowded, and so Civilizations require some institutions for leveling the Population Density, but they are more voluntary in nature – for instance, the Institutions of Monastic Celibacy in both East and West were largely calculated to insure that a significant portion of the population would not procreate or add to the demand for limited parcels of Land. Catholic Civilization lasted a thousand years with that formula for success.

But, so far in History, NO Civilization has yet survived. What has happened was that population densities exceeded the ability of the Institutions to cope with them, and that the concentration of Wealth into morally irresponsible private hands strangled off the public funds necessary for the public infrastructures – transportation, education, police and security. Once these major institutions unraveled – Civilization Collapsing – then Population would of necessarily fall back down to Barbaric levels of far lighter density. Millions of people die. In today’s terms, we would have to talk of Billions of people dying. Do we really want this cycle to continue – each new and seemingly Prosperous Civilization rising on the bones of the last, all falling from simple lack of effective institutionalized planning.

Anyway, what does this mean to us as we hope that Ram Bomjon will come out of his Meditation in 2012 with some major Epiphany for the World? Well, it means that he should immediately reach out and find allies and friends in the Existing Order, without setting up the slightest Religious precedent for encouraging divisiveness or glorifying the making of enemies. Not a single Negative Word or Deed to spoil the Next Bible. He should put forward institutions that emphasize sharing and cooperation should be put forward on their own merit, as these will allow for the highest densities of Population and thus the Highest Civilization known to History, while also advancing Institutions which will envision a natural and peaceful equilibrium in Population Level. And here I would again suggest the resurgence of the Monastic Orders on a wide scale.

The World Can Not Be Democratic

The United States insists that every individual Nation be democratic.

Cynically, I can only assume that America is doing this to destabilize everything. Like the old Barbarian Vikings – to destroy a Cathedral to steal a candlestick.

But if anybody in the United States ever studied History, they would find that the end of Empire building is collective Jurisdiction. America is Globalizing the World while refusing to see what the ultimate end of it would be – a One World State. And after all the Pro-Democratic Propaganda, America would CERTAINLY renege on having World Rule open to Popular Universal Vote. America doesn’t even like the United Nations General Assembly. America still rigs elections to keep Blacks from voting…. If only they would vote Republican.

Condaleessa Rice is supposed to be smart, but probably because she plays the piano so well. Has she ever bothered to think that all her Pro-Democracy activism would stop as soon as it ever effected America. Oh, yes, she has. The President of Venezuela, democratically elected, is ignored because she personally does not like the man. He is not cute enough for her. He doesn’t make her laugh at cocktail parties. He does not like her piano. And the Palestinian Authority’s Hamas Party, democratically elected – she ignores them also because they are not cute. You see, America doesn’t really give a shit about Democracy, but spreads the Doctrine around the World, simply to create an atmosphere of instability.

America destroying other peoples Cathedrals so they can steal the candlesticks.

If Ram Bomjon Really Wants People to Stay Away

Old Sai Baba of Shirdi was perhaps as great a Saint as they come, which presents quite a dilemma. You see, Great Saints attract quite a crowd. And Shirdi was not a big town, and Old Sai Baba had only one last residual vestige of ego-conditioning left, that he enjoyed some little bit of privacy. And so the crowds put him in a bad temper and he used his last traces of Worldly Thinking to plot how he was to get rid of them.

Ram Bomjon asks people to leave him alone.

Old Shirdi Baba thought it a better strategy to chase them away.

Really objectionable people he actually did physically chase away, and if they did not run fast enough to stay out of reach, they were beaten with his rather long and massive walking stick.

Then he started a program of soliciting contributions. When asked why, by a particularly confidential devotee, he replied that most people found it so offensive that he would publicly solicit funds that they stayed away. It worked out for him. The money that he did get, he gave away anyway.

He put up flags for the same reason. He lived in an old dilapidated Mosque, but it was surrounded about by all sorts of ostentatious flags. It made him look horribly Vain for one who was supposed to be a Holy Man, and so it served to keep people from visiting. People don’t visit Holy Men that seem so morally and ethically flawed.

Now, the problem with Rom Bomjon assuming such a strategy is that it could make it difficult, later on, to call back the Masses and the Media after he effectively manages to chase them away.

However, it is not as though it doesn’t appear that he is already making the kind of public relations mistakes that could only serve to drive the unwanted crowds away. Let us look at the situation. A few years back Rom Bomjon started as the dedicated Buddha Boy who did not eat or drink, and spent all of his time in silent meditation. In Spiritual Circles he was the Perfect Poster Boy. Perfect!

But since then we find him afraid of snakes… and for a reason…. Has he REALLY been bitten three times? What is THAT about? He has begun carrying around a sword. A SWORD? Did they have to call it that? Couldn’t he have gotten a “snake stick” from somewhere so that the Founder of the Next World Religion won’t be memorialized carrying around a Sword. Heck, if we wanted that – a Sword Religion, we already have too much of THAT Religion already, don’t we? And then we have him coming out of a silent Meditation to do some public speaking. Now, I don’t know the language, but I could see in the video that the crowd was bored and restless, people chatting, people getting up and leaving.

And his greatest claim to fame is that he does not eat. DOES NOT EAT. But it has been released by his press secretary or somebody that he is taking “medicinal” herbs. In other words, he is EATING.

So now he is a 18 year old kid who dropped out of school. He eats, he speaks (badly), and he’s afraid of snakes. Hey, the last time I looked… isn’t everybody like that?

Well, the “strategy” might begin to work. People might start leaving him alone.

But I am really willing to believe it is a strategy, or just a series of stupid public relations gaffes. Mostly that the Young Man REALLY isn’t eating. If it is found that he really has been sneaking food, then I’m out of here far too quickly to worry about the door slapping me on my ass.
But if our Young Man comes out of his Meditation in 2012 ready to do Business, with some degree of skill and maturity, then people will come back quickly enough.