Happy B-Day, Krishna! (UFOs from Heaven)

Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells,  Seth Auberon, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; BBC

The dark lord, blue Krishna: krsna means black or dark (Reuters/BBC.com)

What will a public UFO landing display look like? There was that War Over LA. Albert Hall during the Ultimate Fighting Championship, London, 2002 (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images).

Robert Bingham (center) guides Los Angelenos to daylight UFO summonings and sightings.

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And this one's for patriarchy, Asherah!

Hindus believe that both the Buddha and Lord Krishna were earthly incarnations or avatars of the celestial god Vishnu.
 
India's great celestial goddess and god, Radha and Krishna, are the beloved ultimate couple.

Just as Yahweh (Jehovah, YHVH, one of the Old Testament gods of the Bible and, apparently, the only One that mattered) was once married to Asherah in Judeo-Christian tradition, Radha and Krishna are the immortals, space (akasha)-devas, who came to Earth to frolic.

Ancient Asherah bas-relief

Wait, wait, wait, and hold hold your horses! God had a wife? There is more than one God in the Jewish and Christian Bible? Yes, and yes. The whole sacred book tells of their, the plural gods' exploits on Earth, which scholars construe and misrepresent as a monotheistic -- "one god" -- text about only a single God speaking of Himself in the royal "We." But many kinds of celestial gods and space lords are referred to by name. Scholars who know better gloss this by saying, it's all names for one God. He likes lots of names and classes of names and to refer to himself always in the plural.

Birth then carried across the water in a basket reminiscent of Moses... In pictures: Hindus around the world celebrate Krishna's birthday, one of the most popular Hindu gods (BBC).

• The foundations of Hinduism: Brahminical Vedas

The Bible is much closer to the ancient myths (true and attested to accounts) of the Vedic Pantheon, Ancient Roman Gods, Ancient Greek Gods, and post-Vedic Buddhist cosmology. Buddhists do not worship these gods -- devas, gandharvas, apsaras, brahmas, asuras, nagas, garudas -- but they are well aware of them. And the Buddha taught that if one so wished and, moreover, undertook the appropriate courses of conduct (merit, profitable karma), one could be reborn among the devas. The devas are recollected (devatānussati) rather than worshipped for this reason.

Goddess Radha devi, the favorite consort of the lord: kids play dress up (AP/BBC.com)

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Radha the milkmaid (gopi) was already on Earth in a scene reminiscent of Western religious tradition, as the gods -- including the Cowherd avatar or Shepherd Krishna -- found the "daughters of men" attractive and came in unto them and bore with them hybrid-offspring, heroes of old, men of renown.
 

Janmashtami is Hindu Xmas in India, Lord Krishna's birthday commemoration. Krishna has risen in popular importance above all other incarnations and manifestations of the One God of the Brahmins Brahma (called "Great Brahma" or Maha Brahma in Buddhism).

• [There is something higher but it is not a personality, and it is Brahman, the Ultimate Reality behind the Illusion of Maya, Godhood, Godhead, GOD, realization and union. So we always distinguish: "gods" (devas, deities) from "Gods" (brahmas, divinities) from "GOD" in nontheistic Buddhism. Nontheism does not mean atheism, but rather denotes the fact that whether or not there are gods is not pertinent to enlightenment. Enlightenment transcends that discussion And whether or not their are creators (DNA splicers, cosmic magicians, manipulators of energy, mind/heart readers, powerful aggressors, peaceful enjoyers of the Brahma Viharas or "Divine Abidings"), there is no ultimate uncreated Creator God creator of all...unless one thinks of the impersonal GOD as that creator, but that is more a syncretic Hindu-Mahayana concept than anything the historical Buddha ever taught.]

How the Sumerians depicted the flying visitors from space on compact cylinders

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The Dogon of Mali, Africa

Whether it is Buddhism, Brahmanism (the pre-Buddhist Vedic teachings of the Brahmin-caste priests, later Hinduism, Mahayana Buddhism (a kind of Buddhism steeped in Hindu concepts), Jainism, Sumerianism (of Sumer, Mesopotamia, Iraq), Zoroastrianism, Judaism (Bedouins, Hebrews), Islam, early Christianity, or later Catholicism there are "gods" who came down from on high in space. At least that's where these beings said they were from They may have come from the hollow Earth, nearby Moon, the visible planets, or from the next solar system over, but they came. Even the Dogon know they came.

In Buddhism these "shining ones" (beings of light of varying radiance) are generally referred to as akasha-devas from the akasha-deva-loka or "space light beings world" to distinguish them from the earthling-devas (bhumattha-devas).

Playground of the devas

Recollect the Devas' Merit: Mediterranean Greece as the playground of the "gods" (D&G)

What UFO abductees can teach us

David M. Jacobs with George Boory (coasttocoast.com, Aug. 19, 2014)

Documented research

Prof. David M. Jacobs (ICAR, "International Center for Abduction Research," ufoabduction.com) has conducted decades-long research into the alien abduction phenomenon. He was on last night trying to explain his conclusions to a kind, half-witted host. Jacobs outlined his early interest in UFO sightings, how he focused on alien abductions after he met Budd Hopkins, and expressed his disappointment at how academic and scientific communities generally dismiss the subject of UFOs. There is, he feels, a preponderance of evidence to demonstrate their existence.
 

ET Semjase devi (theyfly.com)

From the beginning of human civilization ,aliens have shown an interest in human reproduction, he notes. UFO abduction incidents reveal this interest. The reason for this are their programs to create hybrids, he explains, describing an early case that Hopkins shared with him in which a woman was shown a baby that looked half-human, half-alien, and was asked by the aliens to hold and nurse the baby.

"They are making hybrids so that they can come down and be here," possibly to takeover this planet, he conjectured. Jacobs also mentioned the telepathic abilities of aliens: They can transfer and access data into and out of someone's mind.
 
He theorizes that hybrids are being created with a tremendous amount of information dumped into them by some insect-like ETs (praying mantis type), who seem to direct the hybrid program, not so much the reptilians (nagas) or Nordics (devas) or titans (asuras).


The show was rounded out by aerospace and defense systems developer Sir Charles Shults talking about his work on the technology of education, as well as various advancements and innovations in the fields of space exploration and AI (artificial intelligence). More

Making gang-rape SEXY in India (photos)

Wisdom Quarterly; TheGuardian.com/AFP (Agence France-Presse) in Mumbai/Bombay

Controversial portfolio fashion shoot photos taken down after uproar (Raj Shetye/TG)

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Our trip to India by bus as Westerners

Indian photographer Raj Shetye is criticized after posing fashion models in scenes echoing brutal and fatal assault of woman on bus.

He has sparked outrage for a fashion shoot that depicted a woman being assaulted on a bus, echoing a fatal gang-rape that shocked the nation.

Human sex trafficking coming to a town near you

  

India Dishonoured: war on women

The project, called The Wrong Turn, appeared in his online portfolio and was then taken down, but not before coming to the attention of the media.

The photos show a female model dressed in high-end fashion garments being groped on a bus by a group of men, also fashionably dressed, in various poses.

 

5 Countries Not for Women

In one image the woman is on the floor with a man standing over her, while one shows her struggling with two men gripping her arms and another has two men pinning her down on the seats.

 

13 most dangerous U.S. cities

The shoot has drawn a torrent of criticism in India, where the fatal gang-rape of a student on a bus in December 2012 sparked nationwide protests over levels of sexual violence against women.
  

Human teeth found in Christ statue

Nirmala Samant, chairwoman of the National Commission for Women, has written to Mumbai’s chief of police calling for an investigation over the photographs. More

• Iraq: Pres. Maliki defiant as he nominates replacement 
• Sydney Syrian "posts picture of son holding severed head" 
• Maliki "forced out" as Iraq's prime minister 
• Vigil for St. Louis teen police killed becomes violent
• Iraq: U.S. plans rescue mission for Yazidi refugees

U.S./CIA destroy Iraq: Now U.S. plans rescue mission for 1 million Yazidi refugees

Third U.S. war on Iraq creates crisis: USA to arm Kurds - live updates

Is anti-Israel/Jewish hate rising? See it for what it is, a natural reaction to CIA crimes

"The Moth" is a storytelling phenomenon in the USA, but why? (The Guardian)

Modern India is no longer tolerant of sexism, discrimination, and rape (aljazeera.com)

Yoga, Meditation in Action: Seane Corn (video)

Yogi Seven, Crystal Quintero, Wisdom Quarterly; Krista Tippett, Trent Gilliss (onbeing.org)

 

American Yogini Seane Corn

Yoga has infiltrated law schools and strip malls, churches and hospitals. This 5,000-year-old spiritual technology is converging with 21st-century medical science and with many religious and philosophical perspectives.
 

Midwesterner Seane Corn ("Off the Mat Into the World") takes us inside the practicalities and power of yoga [mainly those limbs of an ancient eightfold practice focusing on physical postures and breath regulation]. Corn describes how it helps her face the darkness in herself and the world and how she’s come to see yoga as a form of body prayer. More

• Listen to the radio show/podcast
• When Yoga Gets Really Real  When I moved to Jerusalem two years ago, I thought for sure that I would continue my yoga practice, especially after having yoga present in my life in so many ways for so many years. And I thought that I would even find others in this holy city to practice with. A sangha (spiritual community), a space, a teacher...

Exploring Mysteries, Encouraging a Love Affair with Life Parker Palmer pays homage with words of wisdom on "the savage and beautiful country that lies in between."

  

Living with Yoga: rehabilitation

Molested at 6-years-old, Corn made a gift of that experience -- not in spite of it -- by transforming the shame and darkness. She works with child prostitutes and sex trafficking here in the U.S. and in Buddhist countries like Cambodia. She went through a period of drug abuse, sex abuse, and other efforts to numb out and check out. But when she faced and actually dealt with and transformed the shadow, she was able to venture on the road to becoming whole.

  

VIDEO: Body Prayer
Trent Gilliss (onbeing.orgj)

For Seane Corn, yoga is much more than a practice in flexibility. It’s a way of applying spiritual lessons to real-world problems and personal issues. One way she channels her energy and love is through a practice she calls “body prayer,” as she shares in this video from Yoga from the Heart.

She shared this perspective about “body prayer” in the show, “Yoga, Meditation in Action”:
 

“I trust that if I do my yoga practice, I’m going to get stronger and more flexible. If I stay in alignment, if I don’t push, if I don’t force, then my body will organically open in time.

“I know that if I breathe deeply, I’ll oxygenate my body. It has an influence on my nervous system. These things are fixed and I know to be true.

“But I also recognize that it’s a mystical practice, and you can use your body as an expression of your devotion. So the way that you place your hands, the ways that you step a foot forward or back, everything is done as an offering. I offer the movements to someone I love or to the healing of the planet.

 

Hope I can do yoga like Seane during this war

“And so if I’m moving from a state of love and my heart is open to that connection between myself and another person or myself and the universe, it becomes an active form of prayer, of meditation, of grace.

“And when you’re offering your practice as a gift, as I was in that particular DVD, as I do often, I was offering to my dad who’s very ill. And so when I have an intention behind what I’m doing, then it becomes so fluid. Because if I fall out of a pose I’m not going to swear, I’m not going to get disappointed or frustrated. 

Titling a Show on Seane Corn’s Yoga

“I’m going to realize that this is my offering, and I don’t want to offer that energy to my father. I only want to offer him my love. And so I let my body reflect that. And when you link the body with the breath, when my focus is solely on getting the pose to embrace the breath that I’m actualizing, then the practice, it’s almost in slow motion.

“It has a sense of effortlessness. When people can connect to that, it takes the pressure off of trying to do it perfectly. It just becomes a real expression of their own heart.

“Sometimes it’s graceful and elegant, other times it’s kind of funky and abstract, but it’s authentic to who the person is. It’s their own poetry.” More

Learn a New Word; Parker Palmer Reminds Us That Work Doesn't Define You; Yoga Mom and Child; The Ethics of Lockpicking?

This week inspired a lesson from Ralph Waldo Emerson, a poetic reflection on being more than doing from Parker Palmer, a precious moment that will make you smile, and a peculiar story about a lockpicker that will make you think.

Entheogenic use of Cannabis and Yoga

Pat Macpherson, Seth Auberon, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly (Wikipedia edits)

Sadhus: India's Mystic Holy Men (Dolf Hartsuiker). Reviewed at hermitary.com.

An entheogen ("generating the divine within") refers to substances or practices used in a spiritual, religious, shamanic, or sacred context, whether natural or human made, to expand consciousness. Checking out is abuse, but tuning in may be searching (WQ).

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What, man? I'm cool. I can maintain.

Cannabis (street name Mary Jane) has been used in an entheogenic ("generating the divine within") context in India since the Vedic period dating back to approximately 1500 BCE but perhaps as far back as 2000 BCE.
 

WARNING: Avoid intoxicants (in accord with fifth precept, see below). Wisdom Quarterly advocates only the healing use of plants and exercise, not their abuse. Hemp is a miracle; weed is not. Not high-THC, but high-CBD content, is medicinal.
 

There are several references in Greek mythology to a powerful drug that eliminated anguish and sorrow. Herodotus wrote about early ceremonial practices by the Scythians [some argue that the Buddha's family, the Shakyans, were in fact the Scythians], thought to have occurred from the 5th to 2nd century BCE.

• AUDIO: Medical Marijuana: CBD not THC
• Cannabis CAN cure: What is CBD?

Spiritual endeavors are not about partying.

Itinerant Hindu sadhus (revered full-time spiritual seekers) have used it in India for centuries (Edward Bloomquist. Marijuana: The Second Trip. California: Glencoe, 1971). And many yogis look like it, which is not to their credit or benefit, with their dreadlocks (jata), droopy countenances, and failure at spiritual attainments.

• The goal of the Eightfold Path of Yoga, according to Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras, is the stilling of the mind, the vrittis. What does this have to do with Buddhism? Patanjali's whole system of exposition and language (hybrid Sanskrit) would not have been possible without Buddhism:

Patanjali's "eightfold path" of yoga

The factors of the Path to enlightenment

Vyasa's Yogabhashya, the commentary to the Yoga Sutras, and Vacaspati Misra's subcommentary state directly that the samadhi techniques [right concentration] are directly borrowed from Buddhism's meditative absorptions [the Noble Eightfold Path defines samma samadhi as the first four jhanas], with the addition of the mystical and divine interpretations of mental absorption.¹
 

Even if you get blissed out, remember to breathe! Maty Ezraty teaching (lansingyoga.com)

 
According to David Gordon White, the language of the Yoga Sutras is often closer to "Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, the Sanskrit of the early Mahayana Buddhist scriptures, than to the classical Sanskrit of other Hindu scriptures.² According to Karel Werner,

Patanjali's [yoga] system is unthinkable without Buddhism. As far as its terminology goes there is much in the Yoga Sutras that reminds us of Buddhist formulations from the Pāli Canon and even more so from the Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma and from Sautrāntika."³

Uma's dad Robert (nymag.com)

American Buddhist and Dalai Lama translator Prof. Robert Thurman writes that Patañjali was influenced by the success of the Buddhist monastic system to formulate his own matrix for the version of thought he considered [Vedic] orthodox.⁴

However, it is also to be noted that the Yoga Sutras, especially the fourth segment of the Kaivalya Pada, contains several polemical verses critical of [some] Buddhism, particularly the [philosophy of the] Vijñānavāda (Yogacara, "Yoga Practice") school of Vasubandhu.⁵

 
Ancient and modern India and Nepal

Sick hippies, intellectuals, and sell outs

The earliest known reports regarding the sacred status of cannabis in India and Nepal come from the Atharva Veda estimated to have been written sometime around 2000-1400 BC,⁶ which mentions cannabis as one of the "five sacred plants."⁷

 

There are three types of cannabis used in India and Nepal. The first, bhang, consists of the leaves and plant tops of the cannabis plant. It is usually consumed as an infusion in beverage form and varies in strength according to how much cannabis is used in the preparation.

The second, ganja, consisting of the leaves and the plant tops, is smoked.

The third, called charas or hashish, consists of the resinous buds and/or extracted resin from the leaves of the plant. Typically, bhang is the most commonly used form of cannabis in religious festivals.
 

Maybe it's called "pot" because it makes couch potato's pot bellies crave potato chips or called "dope" because... well, it isn't making Bud any wiser. If beer is "liquid ignorance," dope may be its gaseous form. Moreover, CBD is more useful than THC.

• “After years of [pot] growers aiming to boost THC percentages in their crops, many growers have switched to focusing on producing CBD-rich strains because of the increasing demand by medical users” - WQ (ProjectCBD.com)
  

Marijuana in modern Hinduism

Aghori yogi ritually drinking sacred bhang from human skull cup with Shiva behind.

 
During the Indian and Nepalese (particularly in the Terai and Hilly regions) festival of Holi, people consume bhang, which contains cannabis flowers.^8,9

According to one description, when the amrita ("elixir of life") was produced from the churning of the ocean by the devas and the asuras, Shiva created cannabis from his own body to purify the elixir (leading to cannabis' epithet, angaja, or "body-born").

Yogi dozing off on nails (petermalakoff.com)

Another account suggests that the cannabis plant sprang up when a drop of the elixir dropped on the ground. Therefore, cannabis is used by would be Hindu sages due to its association with the mythical elixir and Shiva. Wise drinking of bhang, according to religious rites, is believed to cleanse karma, unite one with Shiva, and avoid the miseries of hell in future lives. [It may well have the opposite effect depending on what one does, the karma one engages in, while intoxicated.]

 

It is also believed to have medicinal benefits. In contrast, foolish drinking of bhang without rites, which is considered bad karma.¹⁰ Although cannabis was regarded as illegal and designated a Schedule 1 drug (no redeeming value), many Nepalese people consume it during festivals (like Shivaratri), which the government tolerates to some extent, and also for personal and recreational purposes.

Buddhism and pot

I'm totally into Buddhism, yoga, veg food. I just use this as like medicine, man. - Yeah, right!

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In Buddhism, the Fifth Precept is to "abstain from wines, liquors, and intoxicants that occasion heedlessness."

How this applies to cannabis is variously interpreted. Cannabis and some other psychoactive plants are specifically prescribed in the Tibetan Mahākāla Tantra for medicinal purposes.

However, Tantra is an esoteric teaching -- a questionable blending of Hinduism and Buddhism -- not generally accepted by most other forms of either Buddhism or Hinduism.¹¹ More

FOOTNOTES

Meditate for health and to end all suffering.

1. John David, The Yoga System of Patanjali with commentary Yogabhashya attributed to Veda Vyasa and Tattva Vaicharadi by Vacaspati Misra. Harvard Univ. Press, 1914.

2. White 2014, p.10.
3. Karel Werner, The Yogi and the Mystic, Routledge, 1994, p.27.
4. Robert Thurman, "The Central Philosophy of Tibet." Princeton Univ. Press, 1984, p.34.
5. John Nicol Farquhar, An Outline of the Religious Literature of India, p.132. 
6. Courtwright, David (2001). Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World. Harvard Univ. Press. p.39.
7. Touw, Mia. "The religious and medicinal uses of Cannabis in China, India and Tibet". J Psychoactive Drugs 13 (1).

8. Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission. Simla, India: Government Central Printing House. 1894. Chapter IX: Social and Religious Customs.

9. "The History of the Intoxicant Use of Marijuana". National Commission of Marijuana and Drug Abuse.

10. "Indian Hemp Drugs Commission Report - Appendix".

11. Stablein WG. The Mahākālatantra: A Theory of Ritual Blessings and Tantric Medicine. Doctoral Dissertation, Columbia Univ. 1976. pp.21-2,80,255-6,36,286,5.

Yoga training and 2015 trip to India

Editors, Wisdom Quarterly; Jeanne Heileman (Yogaworks.com/Larchmont)

Come and see the wonders of North India with Jeanne Heileman (internationalyoga.com)

Yoga instructors Jeanne Heileman and Sarah Ezrin, YogaWorks, Larchmont More info

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YogaWorks trip to India with Jeanne Heileman

This free event is the perfect way to find out more about what makes the YogaWorks method, and YogaWorks Teacher Training, the gold standard for yoga in the U.S. and beyond. The session begins with a free hour class taught in the YogaWorks method followed by a information session led by the trainer. This session is highly recommended for students considering our teacher training, as well as serious students of yoga who are curious as to what taking a teacher training involves and how to take their yoga practice to the next level. Space is limited; RSVP recommended to hold a spot. There will also be a presentation on the upcoming trip to India. More

YogaWorks, Larchmont

Just east of Hollywood, California Larchmont Village has as a casual feel to it, the main street lively with foot traffic. Smack in the middle of the bustle sits Center for Yoga, a peaceful, homey studio steeped in history. Originally founded in 1967 by Ganga White (of White Lotus fame), Center for Yoga was the first yoga studio to open in Los Angeles. Maty Ezraty, one of the original YogaWorks founders, worked as a manager at the Center before moving on to open her own studio on Montana Avenue.
 

Spanning two floors, this charming space has three yoga rooms including a rope wall and a giant main room with high ceilings and a life-size Buddha. True to its classical roots, the studio attracts many devoted yoga students from the Los Angeles area. They come for advanced Mysore style Ashtanga and Vinyasa Flow Classes. Beginners also have a wide variety of Level 1 classes to choose from, like YogaWorks signature and Iyengar.

Enjoy a FREE WEEK of unlimited yoga, meditation, and exercise at YogaWorks

Join us on our trip to see the wonders of India, January 2015 (internationalyoga.com)