Prabhujee

Prabhujee (traditional Indian devotional song, or bhajan)

O Lord, have compassion
Come and dwell in my heart
for without you I am so lonely
fill my heart with your love

I know no ritual, prayer or sacrifice
I only know how to call on your name
I have sought You all over the world
fill this cup with the nectar of your love

Never stop dancing

Never stop dancing
Dance is sacred
it is life itself
it's liberating and healing
Dance is medicine
Dance takes away suffering and illness
Dance brings bliss to all the spirits
Dance worships the Creator
Dance is prayer

Yemayá Asesú

Yemayá, whose name can be translated as the Fish Mother, or the Mother of the Fish, is the Queen of the Seven Seas, the Goddess of the oceans in Yoruba spirituality. Ebós (sacrifices) of watery fruits (melons, etc.) are often placed in blue blankets, tied up and cast into her waters in countries like Nigeria, Brasil and Cuba, asking her for blessings of money, love, and protection for loved ones. When her devotees dance ecstatically for Her, they usually wear blue skirts and perform slow side to side motions, sort of imitating the rhythms of the tides with their hands and gestures.

She is the embodiment of motherly tenderless and nurture - which makes sense if we consider that life on this planet originated in her watery womb, in the ocean. As such, She is said to be the Mother of all the Orisha (deities) and of all humanity. Her association with prosperity not only has to do with the abundance of fish that She carries within Her, but also with the use of cowrie shells as currency in ancient Yorubaland.

Knowledge is contagious. At-CHOO!

Elton John is a Genius!

One can measure the greatness of a nation and its moral progress by the way in which it treats its animals. - Mahatma Gandhi

Auntie Noxie's going to jail!

Transexual Bat Mitzvah

Bruce Feiler, who is a beliefnet blogger and author of Abraham, praises the celebration of a Bat Mitzvah as a way of welcoming and affirming a congregation member who had a gender reassignment operation. He says,

What?! A second bar or bat mitzvah if you change genders?! The bat mitzvah itself is a very young institution, made popular in the last century as a way for girls to feel included in the traditionally male-centric Judaism. This seems like a perfectly welcome change and exactly the way that religion can maintain its tradition but still be relevant in the modern world.

HAPPY EARTH DAY

Eve, Mother of Life

The next time someone in the Abrahamic traditions tries to tell one of you, dear readers, that homosexuality is wrong because God created Adam and Eve, tell them: "Please, you HAVE GOT to get your mythology RIGHT!". It's high time we right the wrongs of the Abrahamic religions, the blatant appropriations of Pagan myths, the lies and the misconceptions.

Originally, Eve was not created by Jehovah. Jehovah was birthed by Hebat, the Mother of the Gods! In the Hurrian tradition, Hebat was the Mother of Life, the Creatrix and the wife of Teshub the storm God who was a kind of Baal. Her mount was a lion and She had the qualities of a warrior.

The Hurrians were a Hittite people, but were disseminated throughout the Middle East, and had been the neighbors of the Jews and their ancestors for many generations so that the Jews and their ancestors had been exposed to the tales of Hebat for centuries, and eventually re-imagined Her in Genesis and blamed Her, their Creatrix, for all the evils and sin in the world.

Evidence for Eve, the Goddess, reached its apex with the Amarna Tablets, also known as the Letters of Amarna. This archeological find, consisting of royal tablets, makes mention of a king of Salem (pre-Jewish name for Jerusalem meaning Peace) whose name was Abdi-Khebat. His name meant 'servant of Eve', which indicates that just as today we have Abdullahs or servants of Allah in the Middle East, there was once an age where kings were named after Eve and she was the official Goddess of the ruling dynasty in Jerusalem.

In addition to this, the myth of Noah was derived directly from the Sumerian account having to do with Shurupak - ancient tablets have been found with the original tale. The original, historical Noah was a merchant ... and a heathen, of course. Furthermore, in the Sumerian myths (Abraham came from Ur, which is in Sumeria), the Goddess Astarte was the Civilizer of humanity and it was She who gave humans the Code of Laws known as the Mes, the civilizing gifts ... She gave humanity its Laws in a holy mount. Sound familiar?

In addition to this, the myth of God creating the world in six days and resting on the seventh (shabat) is derived directly from the Sumerian tale of how the Gods labored for six generations and rested on the seventh generation (shapatu) by going on a strike. In Sumerian myth, the Gods had originally created humans from dust and breathed the breath of life unto them. Sound familiar?

In conclusion, it is now clear that the Bible, and in particular the tales from Genesis, is recycled mythology.

Attack on science and reason

A Skeptic Bible

King James had his version, Spanish Queen Valera had hers, and now even the agnostics have theirs! Check out the Skeptics' Annotated Bible.

By the way, Reformislam.org has also posted on their webpage a reformed Qur'an! It dismisses verses that speak of jihad or that are demoralizing towards non believers.

The Legend of the 99

I have a HUGE amount of respect for people who, not only find NON VIOLENT ways to deal with conflict, but who do so creatively. According to this article entitled 'Jihadi Cool': Comic book action heroes may be better weapons against terror than bullets or bombs, Kuwaiti psychologist and entrepreneur Naif Al-Mutawa has created an anti-terrorist network of Muslim super heroes to counter Bin Laden's sick anti-Western rhetoric and propaganda. The ideas for the super heroes and their powers are derived from the 99 Quranic names of God, and they're meant to be used as a tool to attract young Muslims and distract them from the grip of fundamentalism.

The nectar of the holy name

Just as a modern adage says milk does a body good, it should also be said that the holy names of God do a soul good. The holy name of God dissipates all negativity and suffering and saves living entities from the ocean of births and deaths. It is the most powerful sound vibration in the universe and can easily and blissfully be chanted anytime anywhere.

All glories to Sri Gaura-Nitai!
All glories to our Lord Sri Krishna and our Lady Srimati Radharani!

A gay anthem

The Winds of the Sahara

My ancestors from the Lasalle tribe :) of northwestern Puerto Rico came from families of enslaved Africans and European pioneers who had brown skin coupled with yellow eyes. Some of my cousins and uncles still have the brown skin/yellow eyes combination ... one of my cousins even has brown skin, yellow eyes and the golden, blond hair of a Valkyrie, the perfect combination of the beauty of Africans and of Europeans.

There are several legends about our origins that have evolved for so many generations that they're lost into the mists of myth and it's hard to discern fact from legend, but the name of the family, we know for sure, is of French origin, and so it's quite likely that the enslaved Africans in my lineage originated in parts of Africa that were colonized by France. The French language is probably the most widely used language in Africa, and one of the countries where it is in use is Mali.

My own grandfather who was a mulatto, when he showered, would often sing in the shower, but not in Spanish. He would sing gibberish. It sounded African. He would use many words with the letter l, sort of like the Moors do when they wail. He would sing and ululate! Everyone thought it was funny and he was being silly, but when I studied Santeria and other African religions, I learned that when you see someone dance or hear somebody sing, the way that they dance and sing tells you about their spirits and ancestors.

I've recently become quite fond of Tinariwen's music - in fact, it's one of my favorite musical ensembles. It's a group from Mali as well. I feel a strange familiarity, and yet at the same time I'm very attracted by the strangeness of the environment and music of Mali. I always ask myself what it could mean, and that's probably why the above video intrigued me. More or less 7:35-8:00 minutes into the video, which features traditional music from Mali, there is a very familiar beat which reminds me of the Latin rhythms that evolved into salsa in the Spanish Caribbean.

The pandero used in Puerto Rican plena music also seems to be of North African origin. We tend to think that our African influenced music originates in West Africa, but there are no panderos in West Africa. Saharawis use their own version of the pandero.

It is said that throughout the year, but especially during the months of the hurricane season (between August and October), the dry winds of the Sahara cross the Atlantic Ocean and blow into the Caribbean bringing with them the sands of North Africa. Perhaps this influences more than our weather. Perhaps in those winds travel the memories, the sounds, the joy, the tired breath of the working people ... and even the music of the Sahara.

The Wizard of Oz, alternative ending

Torch Song Trilogy

Torch Song Trilogy is one of my favorite movies ever. It is of huge importance: a piece of gay history. Back in the eighties it was one of the first movies to show gay life in the big screen, and to show the horrible effects of religion on the families, relationships and lives of gay human beings. It broke many taboos and opened the way for a gay presence in the film industry.

Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God? - Plato

Medicinal properties of laughter

When Jesus spoke of how we should make ourselves like children, he was on to something. Children laugh many more times than adults do, and the physical and psychological health effects of laughter are now well documented. Happyness requires laughter, it requires innocence, freedom, and the ease of letting go that children are so adept at.

According to this page on humor therapy, laughter stimulates physical healing, enhances our creativity, is rejuvenating and regenerating, is sexy and good for relationships, laughter opens the heart and gives us a glimpse of freedom from the mind. When we laugh, there is a decrease in stress hormones and the brain secretes hormones known as pheromones, which are known as the happyness hormones and are known to help speed up the healing process, boost the immune system and increase overall health. These same hormones are secreted when we make love, kiss, cuddle, or when we give or receive a massage or even a hug. There are even laughter therapies specifically created for patients of diabetes, cancer, and other ailments.

Having said that, here's my favorite scene from my favorite comedy, To Wong Foo.



... p to the r to the n to the cess ...

Raoui (Storyteller)

Raoui (Storyteller)

Tell me a story
from the thousand and one night
to make me forget my own story,
My heart is full of my own story

Tell me a story of sultan's son
and the ogress' daugther
and forget that we are adults
and as children
we believe all your stories,
and make us forget our pains
this time
and take us along far very far
My heart is full of my own story

The early semi retirement trend

I read the book Work Less, Live More, by Bob Clyatt, some time back. It changed how I view my life and my future, and I thought I'd share this book here.

People who plan for early semi-retirement aren't necessarily lazy. I've found that many financial planners who put together ideas for early retirees, are genuinely compassionate individuals who care deeply for the working class. And many early retirees are hard working persons, who simply feel that they want more out of life than a life sentence of slavery.

Work is what you do so that sometime you won't have to do it anymore. - Alfred Polgar

It doesn't make sense to wit until you're in your sixties to retire, knowing that you probably won't have the health to travel and really enjoy a lifestyle of luxury and leisure.

Retirement has also come to mean something different today because people who retire realize that they need something to give them drive and purpose, and so many turn to part time work and other activities that subsidize their retirement by providing additional income, which is, in effect, semi-retirement ... and makes sense. One can only lounge around doing nothing for so many weeks before one can't stand the boredom. Semi retirement signifies a healthy balance between a life of work and a life of leisure.

Without going into an early-retirement seminar, I'll just say everyone should consider the possibility of an early semi retirement. There are many books and websites, including the one sited above, that can help people plan for a happy, fulfilling, stress free, and well financed semi retirement.

The Biblical tradition of polygamy

The recent events at the polygamist compound make me think of the profound dishonesty of Christians who spit out their family values at gay people, using the Bible.

I recently watched the movie Lifting the Veil on Poligamy, a piece of anti-Mormon Christian propaganda that does not even address, in fact it even denies, the presence of polygamy in the Bible. Not only does polygamy originate in the Bible, but the rape of women is ordered there in verses such as the ones in Deuteronomy 21, where there are instructions to massacre entire tribes and take their women, if found to be attractive.

The history of polygamist abuse of children and women starts with Abraham himself, the inventor of the Abrahamic religious tradition, who had a wife Sarah, as well as had children with one of his slaves, Hagar. In the story, under the whispers of Sarah, he ends up exiling his slave and his firstborn son, Ishmael, to the desert with no more than a bottle of water and piece of bread, because Sarah did not want her son to share his inheritance with the slave woman's son.

and she said to Abraham, "Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac." - Genesis 21:10

The Bible relates that it is a miracle that Hagar and Ishmael even survived.

When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. Then she went off and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she thought, "I cannot watch the boy die." And as she sat there nearby, she began to sob. - Genesis 21:15-6

After that, we see in Genesis 30 his grandson, Jacob, having sex with two of his wives (Rachel and Leah, who were sisters) and two of his slaves. Out of these four women, the twelve tribes of Israel arise. The Bible does not utter absolutely any form of value judgement against polygamy or sex with slaves (which, presumably, did not require their consent and served as moral justification for this practice in the New World for almost 400 years). This was family values in the Bible.

Not only does the Bible indicate that Abraham sent his own son off into the wilderness with his helpless mother, but the authors of the Bible believed that the God of Abraham had allowed him to do so. Only in the Bible, with its twisted presentation of family values, does abandoning one's own child become a sacred duty, and a polygamist father was stripped of all responsibility by virtue of these verses.

And so, it's only thanks to the legends of Abraham, Jacob and the like that false prophets such as Muhammad and Joseph Smith were able to get away with so much iniquity and abuse, and were able to confuse the common sense and good judgement of ignorant persons who followed them, carrying forward this institution of polygamy and presenting it as a moral, correct, God-given law that they had to submit to. It originates in the Bible, and it finds legitimacy there.

If DCFS had existed four thousand years ago in the Middle East, and if Abraham and Jacob had been caught raping their slaves and practicing polygamy, they would have probably been convicted like normal criminals ... and after the fact, Abraham would have been also forced to pay child support to Hagar, since he abandoned Ishmael. By today's standards, the most important of all Biblical patriarchs was a deadbeat dad.

The Bible is also the first one to illustrate the animosity and jealousy that existed within these polygamist families. Not only do we know of Hagar and Ishmael, but we also know that Jacob's children sold their own half brother Joseph as a slave. The dynamics that existed in these families were absolutely dysfunctional.

Perhaps the culture of pervasive psychological, physical and sexual abuse that is found in modern Mormon polygamist nests should tell us something about the origins of the Biblical tradition itself, what the lives of the women who were abused and mistreated in the Bible were like, and it may even help to explain the episodes of anger, violence, and jealousy that the God of Abraham exhibited: the authors of the Bible were projecting their own dysfunctional models of relating to authority figures, which they learned as children.

Da Vinci, the elephant!?

Milkmen

It turns out, male lactation is a phenomenon known to occur due to various reasons, including hormone intake, drug intake (which makes sense), but also evolutionary pressure may lead to it, and this is so interesting I had to share it. Men have all the same equipment needed for breastfeeding, and if stimulated, the nipple may produce milk.

The Lactating Widower:

A Sri Lankan widower has attracted the attention of doctors for his ability to breastfeed his young daughter.
Mr B Wijeratne, from Walapanee, near Colombo, took to breastfeeding her soon after his wife died three months ago while giving birth to their second child.
His elder daughter, 18-month-old Nisansala Madhushani, was so used to her mother's milk that she would not take formula milk.
Mr Wijeratne told Sinhalese language newspaper Lankadeepa: "My child would reject the powdered milk I tried feeding through a bottle.
"Unable to see her cry I offered my breast. That's when I discovered that I could breastfeed her."
The 38-year-old's ability to produce milk was noticed by doctors at the government hospital in the town of Kurunegala.
Dr Kamal Jayasinghe, a spokesman for the hospital, said: "Men with a hyperactive prolactine hormone can produce breast milk."
His younger daughter, who has still to be named, has taken to powdered milk.

I was reminded of the myth of how Zeus gave birth to Dionysus, after the original mother Semele died. Zeus carried Dionysus inside his own thigh. The myth does not mention breastfeeding, but based on what I now know the myth was probably incomplete. More on male breastfeeding:

http://www.switch.tv/videos/39 - Milkmen, a short film on male breastfeeding



http://www.unassistedchildbirth.com/miscarticles/milkmen.html - interesting article, included the following account:

I knew these two wonderful guys, very dear friends of mine for years. A mutual acquaintance of ours was pregnant, unplanned, and did not want to do the whole "adoption thing" so when the guys approached her about taking the baby, they just proceeded as if it had been a planned surrogate pregnancy. The guys were adamant that the baby should get breastmilk. So when she was in her 7th month we bought a really good quality breastpump and Ian started pumping, every 2 hours during the day and once during the night. He was wonderful about it! He used an SNS (supplimental nursing system) after she was born, with donated milk from several friends who were nursing. He was making milk but not a full supply. By the time the baby was 12 weeks old he was making a full milk supply! He stayed at home with the baby (he was a massage therapist) and nursed her exclusively until she was 8 months old!! I don't think many people outside their intimate circle knew about it, I'm sure folks would have had a fit if they'd known...but I thought it was wonderful!

And, finally, the article entitled Are the men of the African Aka tribe the best fathers in the world? describes the interchangeability of gender roles between the men and women of the Aka tribe, as well as the frequency of male lactation among them.

This one article in specific got me thinking of the possibility that, with overpopulation and climate change on the horizon, and the very real chance of food shortage that we will face, it is entirely possible that some human populations will face the kind of evolutionary pressure that may require many or most of the men the lactate and breastfeed within several generations, so that this may eventually become the norm in some cultures and men's bodies will begin to reflect that change.

There is a huge body of historical evidence that shows that one of the elements that influences the evolutionary development of men and women within the diverse cultures of Earth is culture. The book 'When God Was a Woman' mentions that in many cultures in the Middle East, such as Libya and Egypt, it was women who went to war and worked, and men stayed at home. The same was the case among Celts, and chronicles mention that several thousand years back, Celtic women were much larger physically, and much more muscular. Later, as a result of patriarchal programming, women became smaller.

It seems, therefore, fair to propose that culture does affect evolution, and that it does affect the physical appearance of men and women after many generations of social programming, and that if we convince women of their physical superiority, and even encourage and pressure them to be stronger and more physically active, that they will begin to act on that programming and begin to change and grow physically, just as by convincing them of their physical inferiority we have in fact made them smaller over the last several millenia.

Perhaps as the attitudes towards male parenting and gender roles change in some cultures, eventually men's bodies will also change just as the bodies of women have changed throughout history as a result of social and cultural programming ...

"You can worship stones, so long as you don't throw them at me."

- Wafa Sultan, Arab woman, atheist, activist for secularism

Three Kings

three kings our ancestors gave us
three kings was our epiphany
our clan's totem
three loco kings
the mark of our identities

los pobres viejos y las viejas
worried sick
prayed their rosarios
fulfilling their vows
to gain merit for us
and they clad their three kings in their hopes
and they painted their skins in their image
one black for those who mourn
one white for those who seek clarity
one red for those who live
and crowned them with their pride
and with each divine child that was born
our holy kings had their hands full

latin kings our ancestors gave us
hardworking kings rich in gold
rich in the fruits of their labor
kings rich in incense and myrrh
spirit and devotion
kings rich in hope
who revered the child of hope

but our youth grew angry
when they were shamed
and denied their pride
when they were shamed
and denied their culture
and they became latin kings a la kkk
an urban tribe of murderers and gangbangers
seeking father figures
seeking to belong
in a culture uprooted from their culture
seeking to belong
with their laughable accents
who initiate their own by beatings
because they were powerless at home
into a tribe of stupid bastards with their cocks cut off
murdering their neighbors who talk and walk like them
instead of building kingdoms for their queens and princes

three kings my mother gave me
kingly because of their dignity
three kings my grandfather gave me
before them my ancestors prayed for us
generation after generation
and their love protects us
and they keep us through the window of our totem

three kings is the ark of our covenant
that places my tribe under the wings of God
may the mothers of my mothers
may the forefathers of my forefathers be in peace
may they live forever and ever
ashe

I saw a well-equipped invading army indiscriminately killing millions of civilians and raping 200,000 women. Eight million uprooted people walked barefoot to take refuge in a neighbouring country. The institution of Islamic leadership supported the invading army actively, in capturing and killing freedom fighters and non-Muslims, and raping women on a massive scale. Each of 4,000 mosques became the ideological powerhouses of the mass killers and mass rapists, and these killers and rapists – these Islamists – were the same people of the same land as the freedom fighters and raped women. That was the civilians of Bangladesh and the killer army of Pakistan in 1971. All the Muslim countries and communities of the world either stood idle, or actively sided with the killers and rapists in the name of Islam.

The message was clear: something was very wrong – either with all the Islamic leaders, or with Islam itself.

- From the book 'Leaving Islam', by Ibn Warraq, the author of the book 'Why I am not a Muslim'

Too often our churches are guilty of sanitizing and domesticating King's radical message. We embrace the King of Montgomery, Selma, and Birmingham, while ignoring the King who boldly and courageously opposed the Vietnam War, arguing that "America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube." We lose sight of the man who was assassinated while supporting sanitation workers in Memphis. We forget that prior to his death, King was in the midst of organizing a Poor Peoples campaign to unite white, black, and brown around a shared economic justice agenda. Dr. King understood that the next phase of civil rights had to realize economic justice for the disinherited of America. At worst, some will proof text and manipulate King's words – such as "we should be judged not by the color of our skin but by the content of our character" in order to justify their own ideological arguments to reverse many of the gains of the civil rights movement, including in affirmative action programs.

Adam Taylor, Baptist minister and beliefnet blogger

I have never seen the slightest proof of the religious theories of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal god.

- Thomas Edison

The literalist Christ versus the mythical Christ

The controversy surrounding the wild claims around whether or not they found Jesus' tomb underlines how shaky the foundation of the literalist interpretation of Christianity is. People are told that they MUST believe in Jesus' bodily resurrection to be able to call themselves Christian, but this is not so easy in our day and age.

Not only is it difficult to believe in the possibility of bodily resurrection, and I also question the need for this belief, but even the accounts of it are shady. Magdalene claimed that she saw Jesus on the way to Emaus, but that she didn't recognize him. You would think that, having been in such close proximity to him for three years, his appearance would have been engraved in her mind. Perhaps she imagined the whole thing, or maybe she saw him metaphorically, meaning he was right there in her heart.

And finally, what would be the purpose of a bodily resurrection and ascension to heaven? Is this really necessary? Why would Jesus need a physical body in outer space? There's no oxygen there, so presumably his neurons would starve and he would die again, plus what will protect his body from the Sun's radiation? Perhaps the aliens that brought him there in the first place had some kind of technology to preserve his body similar to the way the priests of that other resurrected man-God did with Osiris when he was mummified and magical chants were uttered to preserve his ka. Or maybe it's just a metaphor, a symbol of how the immortal soul lives on after this life, which was never meant to be taken as a literal fact in the first place.

Oh, and then there's all the other dying and resurrecting men Gods, including Tammuz who was mourned in Biblical times by Jewish women to the dismay of the prophets, and Bacchus, Osiris, and later on Antinous. There was nothing original in the Jesus myth.

Osiris was said to be the 'bread of life' which confered immortality on those who partook of it. Sound familiar? Bread and ale were a sacramental mean which represented Osiris' body and blood, and later on the flesh of sacrificial goats and wine served as Bacchic sacraments in the orgia and in the Orpheic version of communion, where they sometimes used bread instead of flesh. Mithra (whose birth was celebrated December 25th, and who was also said to have twelve apostles) also had a sacramental communion.

All of these traditions were later on effortlessly incorporated into Christianity, which sort of swallowed all the other religions.

And so were the lamentations of Isis and Neptys for Osiris, which were one of the most dramatically shocking portions of the passion play of Osiris. Entire cities cried when this performance took place, the women ululated, and there was a general sense of participation in the passion which brought the events to life year after year. With the Christ, it was the Maries who mourned him but otherwise the festival may have changed little with the advent of Christianity and the banning of the other cults. This is not difficult to imagine, if we consider that there are places in Latin America where men allow themselves to get crucified in order to produce a similar, visceral empathy from attendants at the passion play. This is part of what the passion play does: it ellicits the participation of the entire community. The same thing apparently happened at one point during the mysteries at Eleusis: all the initiates wandered along with Demeter up and down the stage looking for Persephone, who had just been abducted by Hades. The maenads or bacchae of Dionysos were also known to ritually participate in the God's myth through violent rituals.

Did Jesus not say: "I am the Vine"? (Or at least were not these words put in his mouth by his devoted followers?) An entire corpus of mythology was written into his myth with these words, and with the last supper, and his wine miracles. He was identified with those other wine Gods, Dionysos and Osiris. Any person in antiquity would have gotten the cue.

Why do Christians feel the need for a literal interpretation of the resurrection, when there are so many examples out there of deities whose resurrection was used to communicate to the human psyche a notion of life after death? I am perfectly fine with Jesus being a mythical or purely spiritual entity. I can still be touched by the experience of communion and be moved to tears out of love for God. It's just a matter of faith. In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna explains that he will assume whatever form the devotee loves in order to have an intimate, loving relationship with mortals.

While it is true that Osiris was most likely a historical pharaoh of the first dynasty of Kemet, it is also true that his story and the jealousy and intrigue that took place in the royal house which led to his treason and murder by his own brother were probably greatly exagerated when his myth was articulated. And this is okay, the point is that the myth works. And so does the Christ myth. It does not have to be literally interpreted. Christ was, like Osiris, a man-God, who was later deified and mythified. To ancient Egyptians, Osiris was the most popular of the Gods, and he had been a Nisut or King within the first dynasty. His followers claimed that he was a historical person just like Jesus.

Will James Cameron sink Christianity like he did the Titanic? I doubt it. Perhaps he will help sink literalist interpretations of Christianity, but the Christian pagan myth, like the Osirian and Bacchic ones, is a myth that works. It beautifully and efficiently conveys, like the Osirian myth did for millenia, the idea of immortality of the soul and in the same way that the boat of a million years was populated with the hopes of millions of mortals for an afterlife for themselves and for their loved ones, generation after generation, so will the cross bear the same hopes for many generations to come.

That Christ was a pagan God all along should not surprise anybody. In fact, it should be liberating. Not a day goes by without everyone seeing the harm, the violence that Abrahamic religions are doing to humanity and the unnecessary suffering that they generate. Fanaticism and violence are the order of the day in the Middle East.

Furthermore, monotheism is completely unnatural. Almost everywhere where monotheistic religions are followed, they were imposed through the use of violence, intimidation, genocide, slavery, racism, and brutality. The entire western hemisphere of the world saw all of these things at one time or another. And in those places where people call themselves 'monotheistic', the practice is really in fact polytheism. No religion has as many deities as Catholicism, and there are very few religions where idolatry and Pagan syncretism are in more evidence.

In Venezuela, if you ask most people: ¿Quien es la reina? Who is the Queen? Everyone knows who you're talking about: María Lionza, a Goddess, er, Virgin, the Queen of the heavens, who was originally known there as the aboriginal Goddess Yara, and whose cult incorporates shamanism, trance and channeling of spirits, accompanied by litanies of rosaries to the Virgin Mary. Cuba is almost entirely Pagan, and so is most of Brasil and the Caribbean, with every imaginable African cult merged into what on the outside appears as Catholicism, except that in Europe people don't offer tobacco and rum to their saints. These are different 'saints'.

Even in the Shia tradition, which is supposedly a strictly muslim faith, there is reverence for the prophet, for his family members, for his son in law Ali, for the twelve imams and a number of other saints and prophets, and the expectation of the Mahdi, a messiah Christlike figure. Fatima, the daughter of the prophet, is sort of like the Virgin Mary in Latin America, and has incorporated some of the elements of the pre-Islamic Goddesses.

There is also the prominence of jinn cults, which hints strongly at syncretism. In fact, the Gnawa of black ancestry from Morocco revere jinn by sacrificing chickens and other animals, offering libations, and a host of other African Pagan elements. Each jinn has its own suite or trance rhythm (such as the black suite, the white suite, the blue suite, etc.), its own incense and tea and other correspondences not too different from the ones we see in Voodoo and Santeria, where each spirit has his own 'toque' or peculiar beat used to invoke it. One female jinn, known as Aisha Qandisha, is imagined as a love Goddess similar to Ezili in Voodoo, except that this one is a goat footed jinn. If this is not a Pagan deity I don't know what is. There is nothing inherently muslim about her. When she possesses men, she turns them gay or effeminate, and she loves to give advise on love and sex matters. Many poets are also believed to be possessed by her and other female jinn throughout the muslim world. Yet the Gnawa, in spite of the prevalence of these jinn cults, call themselves muslim.

And then there's Jesus, the man God. This very statement violates the first two commandments of the Jewish faith. He is Pagan, and the prevalence of men Gods with similar mythologies in Greek and Mediterranean cultures should suffice to prove this point.

My point when I speak of these cults is to point out that humans often naturally gravitate towards a more human, embodied spirituality than monotheism offers, particularly women and gay men. In places like India, it is acknowledged that everyone worships according to their inherent nature, and that no one should try to impose a certain cult on anyone else. This not only ensures that people of different persuasions can live together in peace. It also allows us to play out the intrapsychic drama that is going on inside of us, to discover our own myth and live it out naturally, without the intrusion of others whose psychological profile may differ from ours.

This is exactly what monotheism lacks. It tries to produce an artificial, one size fits all model of spirituality which is unnatural and potentially harmful. It often demoralizes gays and women, and it drains the more creative souls. The pervasive byproduct of this is the prevalence of the syncretistic cults that I've already mentioned.

Pagan religions are not perfect. Oftentimes, in Egypt as in India, it proposed a hierarchical order in society which is not compatible with democracy, but so is Islam not compatible with democracy. In fact, in Islam there are two classes of humans: men and women, who are really half citizens in many or most muslim countries. However, people were much healthier psychologically in Greek classical society. The religious imagery incorporated the diversity found within the populations, and oppression and iniquity were not rampant like they were in the dark ages, and like they still are in the muslim world, where the concept of freedom of conscience is completely foreign.

If there was ever a time for Pagans to stand up, it is now. The arrested development of Pagan spiritualities in the hands of religous bigots in the fourth century was devastating to the Western psyche. It was Dionysos, not the Christ, who was supposed to supplant Zeus among the Olympians. Roman Christianity was corrupt from the beginning, it plunged Europe into an embarassing dark age, and it produced an adulterous relationship between religion and state that lasted for more than a millenium and produced millions of casualties. It took more than 1,200 years for philosophers to be able to think freely again, and shortly after the Renaissance we entered the age of science.

... and we are now discovering, thanks to Jungian psychology and spirituality, that the Gods were not as full of depravity as Abrahamic religions made them out to be. They were not abominations, in fact I would argue that a God that has Moses killing three thousand people (like the God of Abraham did in the book of Exodus) is an abomination. There is essentially no difference between Moses and Bin Laden - they both murdered 3,000 on the same day out of religion-based prejudice. This same God murdered hundreds of thousands when he removed the Canaanites from their homeland and gave that land to his people. He also had Elijah massacre all the prophets of Baal, even when the Bible says they were on their knees, ready and willing to accept him as their new God. But he murdered them anyway. Is this not an abomination?

The Gods are libido, they are life, they are maps that we can study to learn about the psychological history of our ancestors and ourselves, we can learn about sex, about aggression, and about gender roles. Is the Oedipus complex not named after a mythical figure? What about the Narcissus complex? The myth of Psyche and Eros can help us understand what happens to the soul when we are infatuated or when we fall in love. The legends associated with Zeus tell us of those in power and how they operate. Vulcan's rejection by his mother and wife, and how he turned all of his suffering into beautiful art by immersing himself in his workshop also point out a certain profile that can be found in many Vulcan type of men. This is the stuff of psychoanalysis and it is fascinating.

The God of Abraham is just another deity, a jealous one with strong infanticidal instincts similar to Cronos and Saturn. In fact, he may be Saturn himself. His holy day is the Sabbath, that is Saturn's Day. And Saturn tried to swallow his own children because he did not want to be replaced - did not Abraham feel the instinctive drive to do this? Is this not what this God did to his own son Jesus, according to Christian mythographers? The sacrifice of the child is a senile myth which elaborates the inner drama of one who has entered old age and know he is about to be replaced. By sacrificing creativity, by murdering his own children, he ensures that he will remain in power. And he is all about power and domination. But he eventually falls, like his father Cronos did. He always falls in the end when the younger Gods rebel. Zeus replaced him with his court of twelve Olympian Gods, and in the next age he was replaced by Jesus and his twelve apostles. The ancient Greeks knew that Dionysos would eventually replace Zeus, it was just a matter of time.

There is already a Christian Pagan movement in the US (particularly among Unitarian Universalists who celebrate his festivals with some level of Wiccan syncretism), and in northern India where Christianity is thriving and Hindus who have come into contact with Christianity can't help but wander if he fulfils the prophecy in the Bhagavad Gita 4:7-8, which would make him the new Krishna. Paramahansa Yogananda also incorporated Jesus as one of the Gurus of his own tradition when he brought the wisdom of yoga to the West. Welcome the Christ, the new Osiris, into the pantheon of the Pagan Gods.

PS. Syncretism was the pagan way. Pagans in antiquity did not have a problem revering Christ along with other deities. This image shows a relief from the third century of Common Era of Antinous holding grapes and a cross. Antinous was a dying and resurrecting man God and was apparently identified in his holy city of Antinoopolis in antiquity with both Jesus and Dionysos.

The Broken Christ

I recently baptised my niece at an Episcopalian church. It was an interesting experience to be there after not having visited a church for so many years, and having been involved in Vaishnava spirituality for some time. (My readers may know Vaishnavas as 'the Hare Krishnas') I have a Vaishnava understanding of the Christ, so I was still open to the Christ in my heart, and I did not want to be biased, I wanted to be open to the sermon, even if I don't think I can agree with traditional Christian tenets.

Then the priest began talking, in Spanish, of el Cristo roto. The broken Christ. The broken Christ? A broken God? This struck me as a Pagan theme. I immediately loved the idea of a broken Christ. I love the vulnerability of the Christ, the Christ who cried at Gethsemani. This is the Christ that ellicits my devotion and compassion because here he is all human.

The folklore of el Cristo roto originated with a priest who had a crucifix. The crucifix fell and the figure of the Christ was broken, and the priest decided that he wanted to fix it. Then, he says, the Christ asked him not to fix him, to leave him broken, and that he wanted to be known as the broken Christ. Perhaps the crucifix didn't speak, but what the priest meant by this is that he intuited this, there was a profound epiphany which was making itself evident in the crucifix.

Out of this event arose a series of speculations about Jesus. First of all, we know that Jesus said that 'whatever you do for these small ones, you are doing for me'. So that the broken Christ is the Christ in all of us. We are all parts of the body of the Christ. This is similar to a teaching that I've heard numerous times, from Prabhupad and other Gurus in my own tradition: they say that we are all parts and parcels of Krishna. This Krishna also states in the Gita. The priest also spoke of how society is broken, and how when we heal others or society, we are healing Christ.

It is impossible to ignore the fact that the entire broken Christ theology began as a result of idolatry: the priest had an idolatrous relationship with a crucifix, which was perceived as Christ, as if it was a living object, a fetish. And in this tradition, the Episcopalian priest was lending validity to idolatry. He saw it as a legitimate religious experience. This is how it is in popular expressions of Christianity in Latin America.

I admit the reason why I immediately loved the notion of the broken Christ is because I thought of Osiris, who was really one of the main prototypes for the Christ. In the passion play of Osiris, there is a moment where his brother Seth the Usurper discovers that Osiris, who is an immortal, did not die when he drowned in the Nile, as Seth had arranged. So he took his body and cut it into fourteen pieces and scattered the parts of the wronged God throughout the upper and lower Nile. In the end, Isis travels to every corner of Egypt in search for the fourteen parts of his body, and finds all but his penis. She, being the Queen of witchcraft, then used her heka (chants) and conjured up a magical dildo and mated with his mummified body, and became impregnated with the spawn of the Green God, the reinstater of Ma'at or righteousness, Horus.

I can easily imagine an ancient Egyptian priest 3,000 years ago, giving a sermon or imparting teachings similar to the ones I heard during my visit to this Episcopalian Church. He would have been baldheaded and worn white clothes, as a sign of cleanliness, and he would have lived at the temple for a certain portion of the year, perhaps for three months. He would have articulated some version of Osirian soteriology, explaining that when we die, we become Osiris if we are right by Ma'at, if we are righteous, and if we revere the Lord of the West. He would have explained that praying for the dead, particularly those from one's family, was everyone's duty.

His ancient priest would have also stressed the importance of hard work, of labor in the fields, which brought the community together and helped to consolidate national and familial identities and communities. Labor was very important from the viewpoint of the Pharaoh, who was considered a deity and the mediator before the Gods, and all priests were really functionaries of Pharaoh so they would have stressed this. Work ethics were, therefore, an important aspect of righteousness and Ma'at.

And he would have explained that service to society, to the Pharaoh, and to those in need is a way of upholding Ma'at, and a way of healing, of reassembling Osiris, who symbolized the oppressed as he was the archetypal victim, the wronged God. In Egypt, Ma'at (1) was the embodiment of justice and righteousness, and She was a Goddess. Social justice was worship. Oppression was isfet, evil.

We learn from Isis' ordeal that if Osiris is not reassembled, Ma'at cannot be reestablished wherever there is isfet. Seth, who is the red God of the desert and of lifelessness, will reign and Horus will never come into being and challenge him.

Osiris, on the other hand, is life. He is the Green Man of Egypt, the vegetation God. He must die, in the same way that the seed (2) must die and enter the earth, it must be interred, to be resurrected during the harvest. But at the time of harvest, we mortals must be in the field, doing the Gods' work, in order to ensure that there will be Ma'at, plenty, and peace. If no one works the fields, the sacrifice will have been in vain. Without our works, the sacrifice is useless.

Osiris, like the Christ, must be sacrificed (that is, 'made sacred', in Latin). He must be broken and scattered. He must give himself and die, that we may live. It is no surprise that Christ's resurrection is celebrated during the spring, where the entire northern hemisphere renews its greenery, for he is the new Green God, he took on almost all of the themes of the previous dying and resurrecting Man-God, to the point that even two thousand years later, his priests are spontaneously re-imagining Osirian myths within a Christian paradigm. Like Carl Jung said: archetypes don't die. They are as riverbeds which run dry, and when it rains again, become rivers again. El Cristo roto has become the new Osiris.

1. The Goddess Ma'at, sometimes translated as divine order or righteousness, was the measure of all things. In fact, in Sumeria, a word which may share roots with Ma'at is mes, the many civilizing gifts of the Gods, which included justice, authority, the arts, the professions, etc. And it has been suggested that the word math, or mathematics, ultimately derives from Ma'at, which would make perfect sense. Astronomers relied on mathematical calculations to find find a fixed order in the outer cosmos. Engineers also relied on it to build their buildings and monuments.

2. Bika Reed's translation of 'Discussion between a Man and his Ba' explains that mummification served to protect the dead body in the same way that a husk protects a seed. The earthly body is the seed out of which arises the new body that the Ba will inhabit in the life to come, according to Egyptian metaphysics.

Good Gay God!

While visiting a Spanish religion forum I came across a subject that someone started on whether or not Jesus was gay, where they shared this page with information on the strange relationship that Jesus had with 'John the beloved'.

I said: 'Why not?', I mean we are all parts of the body of Jesus, therefore Jesus is also gay. There is a black Jesus which is revered in Colombia (Cristo Negro de Corcovado) whose shrine is a place of pilgrimage. But there is more to this issue than mere Christian theological rhetoric and liberation theology. Some excerpts:

"J Richards" suggested that Mark 7:14-16 shows that Jesus approves of homosexual acts. The critical phrase reads: "There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him..." Richards suggests that Jesus gave great emphasis to this teaching, directing it to everyone. Richards suggests that the sentence refers to dietary laws and also extends to "blood transfusions, medication, organ transplants, and artificial insemination" and to homosexual acts as well.

Mark 14:51-52 describes the incident when Jesus was arrested by the religious police. It describes how one of Jesus' followers was scantily dressed. The King James Version says he had a linen cloth cast on his naked body; the size and location of the cloth is not defined. The New International Version says that he was "wearing nothing but a linen garment." When the police tried to seize him, they were able to grab only his cloth; the man ran away naked. Reverend Peter Murphy wrote: "We don't know from the sources what really was going on, but we do know that something was very peculiar between Jesus and young men." (Emphasis in the original.)

Michael Kelly wrote of Jesus' attitude towards a same-sex couple as described in Matthew 8:5-13: and Luke 7:2: "One day a Roman Centurion asked him to heal his dying servant. Scholars of both Scripture and Ancient History tell us that Roman Centurions, who were not permitted to marry while in service, regularly chose a favorite male slave to be their personal assistant and sexual servant. Such liaisons were common in the Greco-Roman world and it was not unusual for them to deepen into loving partnerships....Jesus offered to go to the servant, but the centurion asked him simply to speak a word of healing, since he was not worthy to welcome this itinerant Jewish teacher under his roof. Jesus responded by healing the servant and proclaiming that even in Israel he had never found faith like this! So, in the one Gospel story where Jesus encountered people sharing what we would call a 'gay relationship,' we see him simply concerned about — and deeply moved by — their faith and love." Kelly implies that Jesus' sensitivity towards the gay couple might have arisen from his own bisexual or homosexual orientation.

The first part of the article presents arguments against the case for Jesus being gay, while the second part presents the case for Jesus being gay. I personally don't care if he was or wasn't gay, and can't conclude one way or another, but I do beleive that a gay Jesus is as legitimate as a straight one, and that a gay Jesus would probably fulfil a spiritual thirst in many gay men. People always want to envision God in their image, and project their own identities and issues against the canvas of Godhead. This is part of human nature.

I did read after these arguments for and against gay Jesus about the Corpus Christi controversy. This is the name of a play that portrays Jesus and his disciples as gay men in modern Corpus Christi, Texas. The reaction to this from the Christian Reich has been venumous. I have recently received emails even from some of my own cousins who are Christian with anti-Corpus Christi propaganda, to which I replied that gay men are part of the body of Christ and asked not to be sent any more of this anti-gay crap. They were shocked and haven't talked to me since.

Corpus Christi is Latin for 'the Body of Christ'. Are gay men not part of Christ's body?

Therefore, how can making him relevant to us be blasphemous? As I read more about the Corpus Christi play, I learned that there is one scene where the apostle Philip (who is an AIDS patient in the play) is hugged by Joshua (Jesus) and healed from AIDS. I thought this was brilliant. This is exactly what original Christianity was all about: Jesus hugging and giving solace to people at the margins of society, Jesus healing people, and Jesus giving himself and transcending even death.

Apparently Jesus is greater than homophobia in many Christian churches and hearts. The article ends with this interesting note:

On the other hand, a survey conducted by Talk Radio in London, UK, on 1997-DEC-14 found that:

51% said that revelations of Jesus being a homosexual would not affect their religious belief.
49% said it would.

Jesus creates an alternative family

... with only a few words

Jesus saw his mother there. He also saw the disciple whom he loved standing nearby. Jesus said to his mother, "Dear woman, here is your son." He said to the disciple, "Here is your mother." From that time on, the disciple took her into his home. - John 19:26-7

New Queer Christian blog

http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/

Earthlings, the movie

The following is a documentary which unveils the horrors of the meat and other industries which are founded on exploitation, abuse and cruelty to animals by the members of our species. It has shocking visuals, but it's only depicting the reality of the meat industry, and I believe that it's important for all the members of our species to watch this and to understand the huge amount of unnecessary suffering that they generate by choosing to consume certain products. As consumers, we have a direct impact every day on this, we either sponsor it or boicot it with every decision that we make when we purchase things.

The movie is entitled Earthlings, and it can be seen in its entirety here:

http://veg-tv.info/Earthlings

I am hoping to awaken others to the cruel realities of animal exploitation and cruelty and I invite you to take in this message of non violence and ponder it, and then make informed decisions as an ethical person and as a consumer, and hopefully stop financing this madness.

The movie is impossible to find at Blockbuster. This may be because many movies are promoted jointly with products sold by powerful corporations (McDonalds, etc.), and Blockbuster apparently does not want to risk the sponsorship of these corporations. I asked a customer service rep at Blockbuster if they would make this movie available, but was told that the movie is no longer being produced, which is doubtful. Never has this issue been more relevant and pressing as it is today.

The movie can only be found through networking with animal rights activists, as it lacks significant financial backing and many of the organizations that deal with animal rights are either non-profits or religious organizations (I heard of this movie from the Hare Krishnas here in Chicago). For this reason it was made available online for free, and I'd like to ask my readers, if you are moved to compassion after watching it, to please share this movie with as many people as you can. Little by little, the non-violence movement will gain momentum, but for the time being we who care would like to influence the media and the minds of people on the side of compassion and non-violence.

One who kills a cow is as one who kills a man. - Isaiah 66:3

Please visit goveg.com for more information on animal cruelty and to learn little things that everyone can do every day to change this shameful paradigm.

"Dumbledore is gay"

- JK Rowling, author of Harry Potter

Homosexuality among animals

I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
-John Stuart Mill

Fafafines

HIV and karma

Aware of the deficiency of my intelligence, I focus my attention on Pavana Kumar (Hanuman) and humbly ask for the strenth, intelligence and true knowledge to relieve me from all of my sins which generate suffering. - from the Hanuman Chalisa, a prayer to Lord Hanuman

Earlier last month, I was watching a program about the chimpanzees that are being raised by humans in the Gombe natural reserve in Africa, under the tutelage of the heroine of the movement for the preservation of that fascinating species, Jane Goodall. It was Jane Goodall who first observed apes making tools, and it was she who first observed them in awe before a waterfall, as if experiencing a religious kind of awe. Jane Goodall described this behavior as a rudimentary form of spirituality.

I was very saddened by the program. It shows the effects of the illegal bush meat industry is having on the great apes. There are hundreds of orphaned apes that are being raised by humans. They are often found clinging either to body parts of their dead mothers, or alone, famished, confused and fearful. Their rescue stories often sound miraculous. They then have to be forcibly removed from their dead mother's arms, and taken to the reserve to be taken care of by human mothers, some of whom are nursing more than one chimp or gorilla at a time.

The nightmare does not end there: these human mothers have to give up everything and dedicate many years of their lives to raising chimps, which is a job that takes most of one's day and night. Baby chimps, like humans, need a lot of love and patience, constant affection and care. The first two years of their lives they do not let go of their mothers. There is constant physical contact. Many of them do not abandon their mothers' constant physical proximity until they're six, or sometimes until many years after reaching adulthood, and after she's raised several other siblings. Their bond lasts until death.

Depriving a baby chimp of his mother causes irreparable psychological and spiritual damage. We can only begin to imagine what it must be like to deprive an entire generation of apes of their mothers. The psychological problems of adolescent chimps are quite in evidence in the reserve: there are problems of violence, and many of the younger ones transfer their motherly/filial affection toward each other, and establish strong bonds with others of the same age, which roughly makes up for the mother-hunger.

Apes are one of the only other species, besides humans, that have a culture, that is, behaviors that are learned and passed on from generation to generation, like staying in the branches in certain locations in order to avoid predators, tool making, how to crack open nuts, etc. All of this folklore, which includes skills that are crucial to survival in the wild, is lost when apes are raised in captivity. This directly impacts the evolutionary momentum of the entire species.

Chimpanzee population consisted of around a million living entities back when Jane Goodall started doing her work several decades ago, but now there are only more or less 150,000 chimpanzees, many of them in captivity or natural reserves. Within one generation, it is likely that due to deforestation, loss of habitat, and the bush meat industry, there will be no more chimps in the wild. Another species, the humans, will become the sole custodians of their fate.

Chimps share between 98-99% of our genes, thus eating them can almost be considered an act of cannibalism. It is the only other species where laughter is part of normal, everyday social interaction ... as well as crying (although this one has also been observed in dogs and elephants). Their social, emotional and psycological lives are as complex as ours. Their babies look human ... and so do their elderly. The sounds we make when we make love are almost identical to theirs. At our wildest, at our most natural, we humans express our ape nature just as much as they do.

Even if we put aside the repulsive notion of someone eating an ape, I've always thought of the suffering that we are generating and the possible karmic repercussions of the unfair and unnecessary destruction of another species' habitat and families, especially now that we are the only species with the intelligence and the resources to save the chimp from extinction.

This article about the origin of VIH indicates:

Studies suggest the virus first entered the human population in about 1930 in central Africa, probably when people slaughtered infected chimpanzees for meat. AIDS has killed more than 25 million people and about 40 million others are infected with HIV.

It was apparently during the first few decades of the 20th century that the version of HIV virus that the chimps had muted, and being a very intelligent virus it transformed itself to became a human parasite. It seems to have entered the human body via consumption of ape meat.

Just as we are descended from apes, the human version of the HIV virus is descended from apes' version of HIV. In this sister species we've found clues to our origins ... and possibly our apocalypse.

In Africa, there are nations where between 33% and up to 40% of the population (Rwanda) is HIV+. The most productive generation (that between 20-40 years of age) has almost disappeared in Rwanda, leaving elderly ladies to take care of dozens of orphans alone in societies with hardly any middle aged people. Naturally, these old ladies have their hands full and cannot also be teachers, carpenters, etc. The working class has to come from somewhere else. Such a society cannot function normally, but becomes dysfunctional. It is an incomplete society.

The point that I'm making with this entry is: How ironic then, that due to our destruction of the continuity between the generations in ape societies, the members of our species in Africa find themselves in the very same paradigm that the apes are. This is karma! Perhaps it's time for us to wake up to the fact that, to Mother Earth, the lives of these living entities are no less valuable than ours. That we are part of the same cycle of life. That we interexist.

In Hinduism, God has names and aspects not only in human form, but also animal form, which makes perfect sense because Spirit dwells in them as well. Many of the same archetypal forces that shaped our species, shaped other species as well. In my own Vaishnav tradition, there is a God known as Hanuman, one of the heroes of the Ramayana, who personifies devotion, diligence, and service to God and all of creation.

Hanuman was the monkey and servant of the divine incarnation or avatar known as Rama. Lord Rama appeared six thousand years ago in the holy city of Ayodhya in order to show members of our race how to sanctify all of their relationships: he exemplified the ideals within all human relations: he was the ideal husband, the ideal king, the ideal master, the ideal brother, etc. His loving relationship with Hanuman shows us how to treat other species.

The psalm known as Hanuman Chalisa tells of an instance in the epic of Ramayana where Lord Rama embraces Hanuman, and tells him: "Friend, I love you just as much as I love (my brother) Lakshmana". Imagine if Jesus the Christ had said this to a highly intelligent, loyal ape sidekick and pet, with genuine love and thankfulness, and you may begin to understand the tenderness that this Christic incarnation had for Hanuman, and the tenderness that this episode evokes in the devotees. That is the example that was set by Lord Rama for us to follow in our relations with lesser animals. He did not treat Hanuman even as an inferior, or as a beast, but as the highly intelligent living entity that he was, fully capable of loving and worthy of being loved.

The stories from the holy epic of Ramayana are often used in India to teach human values to children. They are oftentimes no different from the tales of super heroes in the West, except that to his devotees, Lord Hanuman is a real person, a God that protects children and helps them get good grades in schools, a true living super Hero that they can literally count on and that exemplifies obeisance to parents and service to creation.

It is said that Hanuman cries tears of love everytime people chant the holy names of Lord Rama and that he is devotion personified. The merit and the sanctifying effects of the cult of Hanuman are endless: he is one of the main deities that helps develop Hindu children's characters from an early age, so that they will be diligent, responsible and devoted citizens as adults. With Hanuman, we learn about the true purpose of religion.

Even if our animal nature is over-developed, through Hanuman's grace we can still reach the feet of Lord Ram through devotion to creation, by following his example. If our minds are like monkeys, unstable and always running after the senses, and keep us from doing yoga and staying focused on one thing for more than three minutes, with Hanuman's grace we can learn discipline and diligence by channeling our energy into service like he did.

Hanuman also reinforces the idea, which is prevalent in Hinduism, that everyone worships according to their own nature: there is a dharma, a path of religion and righteousness, which is appropriate to each peculiar soul according to their peculiar karma and tendencies. True to one's nature, one can always turn to God, for as Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita 3:33: "what use is there in repression?"

Even dogs serve humanity and the rest of creation: they lead the blind, they work as shepherds and guardians, lead our sleds, and in doing so they channel their inherent tendencies into service to creation and incur karmic merit. Work is worship in Hinduism: it is noble, in fact it is one of the very definitions of the word dharma, some of the other definitions being religion, decency and righteousness.

I cannot discern a huge difference between a simian mother who, with infinite patience, raises her children, teaches them how to hunt termites, how to find food and shelter, gives them love and protection throughout the years, and a human mother who does the equivalent for her human children. The ideal of the loving ape mother was embodied in Hanuman's holy mother, Anjana.

In India, when apes and elephants die, funerals are held: they are cremated and prayed for just like a human. Even in the Ramayana, Lord Rama himself held a funeral for a vulture. Few other cultures take compassion for other living entities to this level: how relevant this is to us, in this age of Kali where we're pushing thousands of species to the verge of mass extinction. These are the values that we should be fostering and teaching our children, who usually limit their love of animals to familiar pets, like cats and dogs.

If even elephants have been seen solemnly observing silence before the bones of ancestors and holding funerals of a sort, why should humans, who ostentate complete and very elaborate religious systems, not also hold funerals for other species? When one ponders the possibility that animals have spirits, it becomes evident that Spirit transcends species and that we may transmigrate back and forth between species.

I would like to invite my readers to look at the members of other species, especially the most innocent, defenseless animals, with the eyes of Spirit. Do not limit your sense of social justice and compassion to the members of our own species. For as Lord Krishna said in the Bhagavad Gita 5:18:

The humble sage, by virtue of true knowledge, sees with equal vision a learned and gentle brahmana, a cow, an elephant, a dog and an outcaste.

The Arabs must replace the mentality that glorifies destruction with a mentality that glorifies construction.

- Former Kuwaiti Minister Ahmad Al-Ruba'i on Arab Conspiracy Theories

... the world is overpopulated with the wrong kind of people ...

- Ellen DeGeneres

I am not Catholic! I am Jewish! - Mother Mary, in Medjurgorje

Islamic Republic of Britistan?

Archbishop Rowan Williams is now denying that he called for Islamic shari'a in Britain. He was quoted earlier this week stating that the barbaric legal system of the Muslims should perhaps be introduced in order to solve minor family disputes, and that its role might be similar to the Jewish Beth Din.

I still remember it was thanks to the recent establishment of shari'a in northern states of Nigeria that Miss Universe was cancelled there several years back due to fear of violence and terrorist attacks after some contestants had stated they would boicot the country due to the (then) planned execution by stoning of Amina Nawal, a woman who was accused of adultery after her husband impregnated her and divorced her.

And it is thanks to shari'a that in Iran several gay men have been executed in public in recent years, a problem which has generated international outcry but little tangible response from the rest of the world.

I should like to know why nearly every man that approaches greatness tends to homosexuality, whether he admits it or not.

- D.H. Lawrence