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Organisations as guardians of their truth

The study of history is to acquaint oneself with the opinions and perspectives of people who lived a long time ago.

We have touched but briefly on this aspect in previous pages but its importance calls for closer consideration.

Organised movements are usually organised around a central ethic, ideal, or purpose. Organisations often start because of a handful of people who believe in the same ideal and then provides impetus to ‘sell' the ideal to more and more people—hoping to gain growth in numbers of adherents to the ideal. The dynamics involved in ‘selling' people an ideal, getting more people to adhere to (believe in) the ideal, usually benefit from the concept of ‘more adherents makes the ideal truer'. What this means is that religious, civil and political organisations know that humans tend to be herd animals and their ideal will only be accepted as true and right when a herd of people believe in it. Humans tend to ‘know' that if “everyone is doing it” then it must be right. Faith, or belief, therefore comes easier when more people believe it. Human nature therefore causes a situation where we can consider Truth and Faith to be products of society's acceptance and adherence to the truth of an ideal. This is the stuff nations, wars and religions are made of—a large herd following an ideal. The larger the herd, the truer the ideal—is the basic principle behind the dynamic.

One of the many forces in operation to keep such a herd ‘healthy' and intact is the fact that dissenters from the herd, people who question the ideal, are treated with suspicion and intolerance. Dissenters are most often marginalized (pushed out to the hazy edges of the group), sometimes expelled and often persecuted and crucified.

The fact that more adherents seems to make an ideal truer, and therefore more attractive, if only for the fact that we subconsciously know more and more people will join that herd and there is security in larger herds, brings us to consider the marketing aspect. Few people ever think for themselves (because we are inherently herd animals) and are quite content to wait around to be told what to think, believe, and know as true. This dynamic makes democracy tick.

The average human mind seems to remain unwilling to engage in original thinking, or thinking beyond the culturally condition parameters. Nevertheless, the average human mind desperately seeks ideology (something to believe in to give hope), group membership and acceptance. Therefore, billions of minds in the world are hungry to be told what to believe in, what to do to follow the herd, and what is right or wrong.

There are veritable wars being waged for the real estate of human minds. Whoever controls the information transmitted by the media and whoever has the largest marketing budget controls most of this real estate. This real estate is beyond any doubt the most valuable real estate on earth because it produces economic returns for generations.

Democracy is a system of government that requires ‘the people to speak their minds' in deciding who they want to govern their country. However, the people minds are convinced of right and wrong by marketing. Therefore, those who are the better marketers of their ideas manipulate democratic systems of government. More often than not, whoever is the better marketer depends on who invests more money into the effort.

The above helps us to seek answers to the following questions many people ask themselves sometime in their lives:

•  Did the German people follow Adolph Hitler, for more than a decade, and allowed him the extreme power he exercised because they are as evil-minded as he was, or did Hitler merely manipulate the German nation's democratic will with superior marketing?

•  While most Christian denominations disagree almost entirely, and distance themselves from the Roman Catholic Church, they all adhere to the collection of 64 books which the Roman Emperor's councils selected from the more than 250 available Scriptures as the only Truth, being the definitive ‘Word of God' for all humankind. Is this ‘truth' the result of superior marketing and destruction of opposing Scriptures, or is it Truth regardless of what marketing and political forces were at play during the years?

•  Materialism (consumerism) is the fastest growing religion of the West. This ideology delivers instant gratification (albeit for a brief moment) to humankind's base and most pressing needs—the need for food, shelter, group affiliation and social status. Is Materialism such a successful world-view or ideology because it is superior to the alternatives or is it the lifestyle of choice (of many millions) because of the marketing forces behind it?

There is a tendency in the business of religion for organisations to guard their truth by destroying any opposing ‘truths' and to declare it, its proponents and followers as evil.

The following two examples serve to illustrate this point:

•  When the Roman Emperors finally thrashed out the Roman Catholic Creed and the list of authorized Scriptures, in the 4 th century, they found it necessary to protect their truth (against opposing views) and consolidate differently believing groups into their organisation. This process continued with great fervour for more than three centuries but did not die down even in the present time.

Immediately after the Roman Councils reached their decisions regarding the Western Bible and the Christian Creed they passed laws making other opinions and Scriptures illegal. Contravention of these laws carried punishment of death and torture—not only in this world but also in the world beyond death—for eternity. This destruction of opposing views (and its adherents) did not end by simply burning books, schools, and killing teachers but the exclusivist belief was ingrained in the souls of all people of the Western world. The Christian religion became the Empire's foremost occupying force and very soon crack squads of well trained mercenary scouts were replaced by missionaries who would ‘sell' the new religion to unconquered nations and prepare them for incorporation into the organisation which swayed the power of eternal life or death over them—the head of which was seated in Rome.

Once the ‘occupying' forces of the Roman religion came into power in the new countries (remember that even the kings of those countries bowed to the Roman Pope) relations with Rome would be peaceful. In addition, of course, the Christian church would then set out to burn and destroy relics, temples, symbols, Scripture, leaders, and schools of other religions.

The Christian religion teaches that eternal peace and prosperity will come to loyal devotees only once ‘the entire world' has heard the Good News of Christ's message—which translates into, everyone become Christians under the authority of the Roman Church. Christians are therefore conditioned to believe they are doing God's work when they engage in evangelical activities to convert people from other religions and belittle or destroy their books, shrines, and holy places.

•  Mohammed, the prophet from Arabia , compiled the Koran in the 6 th century (some believe by divine Revelation), which leans heavily on Jewish and Christian Scripture. He defined all religious ideologies other than the Islam he founded as impure but retained a measure of tolerance for the Christian Bible and the Jewish Scriptures (which forms the basis of Christian religion). During Mohammed's lifetime, Islam did battle with the indigenous religions of Arabia and successfully united the entire region (a mercenary and warring people) under the control of Islam. The Koran instructs devotees to ‘take up the sword and treat the unbelievers severely', and the principle of Jihad, the holy war, is solidly enshrined as the foundation of its spirituality.

After Mohammed's death, Islam split into two groups led by members of Mohammed's family and immediately set out to do the work of God to convert the world to Islam. Since the use of threat and force are sanctioned as, a valid tool to facilitate conversion Islam grew in popularity ahead of the sharp end of swords. Those who would resist conversion were killed as a service to God. History attests to hundreds of prayers of thanksgiving uttered by Islamic generals and soldiers for the honour to have been ‘chosen by God' to be the executioner of numbers (often in the thousands) of men, women and children who were defiled and unrepentant unbelievers. Those non-believers, who were spared, mostly Christians and Jews, were marginalised and additionally taxed and compelled to wear identifying marks of clothing to separate them from normative society.

An Islamic general who ‘investigated' the collection believed to be the most complete library in the world, the library of Alexandria, summarily burned it to the ground after declaring that the Koran contains everything humankind need to know. In northern India , our records and Islamic records show clearly, that thousands of temples, Scriptures, relics, shrines, and holy icons were destroyed along with devotees who dared not convert to Islam. Many thousands of The Way devotees' lives were spared because they worshipped Yesu, which the Koran recognises, and were sold into slavery in Europe —where they were treated as dissenters from the true Christian religion and marked and marginalised. Later when Islam came to Eastern Europe these slaves and their children were still marginalised and formed wandering groups of people who survived on the inherited occult and craft skills, which their ancestors brought from Kandahâr ( province of Arachosia in Kushana). This group of people still roam Europe after more than 1 500 years, still without a country or home—they are known as Roma or Gypsy people.

Islamic religion teaches that eternal peace and prosperity will come to loyal devotees only once ‘the majority or entire world' converts to Islam. Moslems are therefore conditioned to believe they are doing God's work when they engage in evangelical activities (often by force and threat) to convert people from other religions and belittle or destroy their books, shrines, and holy places.

Religious organisations often practice an exclusivist ideal that can be expressed in the saying, ‘if you are not with us you are against us'. The study of history suffers immeasurably from past regimes that dominated most of the world from time to time. During the past two thousand years, thousands of book titles were literally wiped from the face of the earth. All that we can know of these books are brief references to them by theologians, historians, and scholars who write from within the large dominating religions. One author within The Way, St. Origen of Alexandria, wrote more than four hundred books in his 2nd century career but 7 th century Christianity declared his works that which discuss the doctrine of metempsychosis (reincarnation) and apocatastasis (salvation of all beings) anathema and it was destroyed together with the schools, teachers and students who rebelled. Thousands of holy shrines, temples, sacred icons, and monasteries were destroyed. During the 2 nd and 3 rd century (hundreds of years before Islam), various travelers, and authors discussed the number of temples, shrines, and monasteries in the area between North India , Afghanistan , and central China . The numbers they mention vary between six thousand and fifteen thousand. By the 18 th century, explorers could report only a few hundred sites, and mostly Islamic mosques built over other temples, shrines, and holy places—forever removing those holy places from history.

Many an occupying religion would pounce on a competitor's holy items made from precious metals to melt it down for coins or jewellery—forever removing it from history.

In many instances, the zeal by which these conquerors would wage their marketing wars would remove entire records and all traces of conquered kingdoms, lifestyles, and ideologies. One Holy Scripture that miraculously survived many onslaughts is Acts of Thomas, which mentions (among other gems of information) the reign of the Indo-Scythian king Gondophares and his brother Gad, devotees, and patrons of The Way. Christians have been trying to remove this Indian Holy Scripture ever since they first heard about it in the 2 nd century. Since the 19 th century Christians rarely (if ever) resort to the usual method of burning and killing to get rid of competitive documents but rather employ scholars to discredit opposition. Their main argument against Acts of Thomas was that it was a 2 nd century work of fiction because there is no historical evidence that any king by the name of Gondophares ruled the area. If The Way wanted to refute such a claim (but we have no interest to engage anyone in a marketing war), we could only refer to the truth we know in our hearts as historical proof. While most Western academics do not regard Tradition as proof of history, they do concede that the entire Old Testament is the product of oral Tradition that was captured in writing by the insistence of the Zoroastrian king Cyrus in the 4 th century BCE. Nevertheless, Christian scholars and marketing chiefs left The Way alone after they ‘discredited' Acts of Thomas as fiction. However, during the first half of the 20 th century archaeologists discovered coins and rock inscriptions, in the area where Yesu and Thomas founded Church of the East, bearing the names of king Gondophares and his brother Gad. Did this discovery trigger another wave of marketing war against Church of the East? Yes, and that is exactly the reason why The Way's Senior Council did not produce the ancient coins and other ‘proof' in their safekeeping. During the past forty years attempts to steal the last bits of ancient Tradition in the Church's safekeeping has increased dramatically. Ancient relics are being moved to areas where it can better be protected against Christian, Islamic, and Materialistic fanaticism.

Some organisations can and do take their marketing wars so far that they remove all traces of opposition—making the study of the history of religion, in particular, very challenging.

A Christian theologian of the 4 th century writes about dissenting sects and in passing refers to the Manicheans (a later division in Church of the East), as people who meet in secret, under the cover of darkness, to fornicate with goats and drink human blood. Archaeology also discovered pictures (similar to today's cartoon sketches in newspapers reflecting a political event) depicting Manicheans involved in bestiality with goats. The rumour was thus doing its rounds in the author's area.

At this stage of the course, we know better to simply jot down a note about Manicheans having a sexual penchant for goats. We take a step back from the work to understand what is being said. The author is not necessarily telling the truth, or telling a lie, but he is telling us how he perceives the Manicheans, and that perception is part of his context. He does not mention anything else about the Manicheans besides the fact that he believes they are ‘evil children of the dark forces'. He is obviously not a fan, this much is certain.

What we can gather from the passing gloss he offers us is that the Manicheans in his area meet after work in the evening, that they celebrate the holy meal ritual with red wine, as Melchizedek, Mithra and Yesu our Lord did, and that they sometimes take a goat to the meeting. Why the goat? We know from other sources that early expressions in our own Tradition (where goats were once used for holy sacrifice) that those groups would continue to have a goat present at their devotional meetings. Their goat was a symbol of their reformation—a symbol that they used to barbeque meat to appease God but now they are in communion with God because they are in communion with one another—“where two or three are present in my name, there I AM”, so teaches the Lord. We cannot state that the particular Manicheans the author is referring to were not sexually involved with their goat (because we simply don't know) but we do know of other groups, related to the Manicheans, who use a goat in devotional meetings for different purposes. Nevertheless, the Manicheans' reputation was tainted by the Christian's slander and it remained so for hundreds of years. If have not heard of Manicheans before you probably remember them in context of the slander, likewise if you have not heard of them before, you will probably always remember them as the goat-lover church. Such is the nature of slander.

Attempts to mislead the world

When religion is not separated from government we can always expect to see religious motives being served by government devices and government motives being served by religion. The question remains however, whether the separation of government and religion is at all possible or even truly conceivable.

The following is an extract of an article written by Stephen Knapp. The article uncovers the tip of the iceberg of Christian and Muslim government efforts to hide (or deny) important history from present and future generations. Church of the East quotes the article here ‘as is' without correction or change, not because we entirely agree with its contents or support all its views but because it serves as a good example of work in the right direction happening outside of our sphere of activity.

We have to realize that there was a comprehensive strategy to overlook, cover, and falsify the real history of India . Not only did the invading Muslims try to do this over the centuries, but the British, while in India , also played a heavy hand in this. As pointed out by P. N. Oak in Some Missing Chapters of World History on page 16:

"Major General Alexander Cunningham, a retired army engineer was appointed in 1861 as the first archaeological surveyor under the then British administration in India, not because he had any special know-how or knowledge but because as early as September 15, 18 42 when he was a mere Lt. A.D.C. to the Governor General Lord Auckland, Cunningham had suggested in a letter to Col. Sykes (a director of the British East India Company) a scheme for falsifying Indian archaeology as an 'undertaking of vast importance to the Indian Government politically and to the British public religiously (so that) the establishment of the Christian religion in India must ultimately succeed.' In pursuance of that political objective Cunningham attributed a very large number of Hindu townships and buildings to Muslim authorship."

Max Mueller also expressed the same sentiment in a letter to the Duke of Argyll, who was then the Secretary of State for India : " India has been conquered once, but India must be conquered again and that second conquest should be a conquest by education." Thus, it seems that most high officials in the British administration were intent on using their own field of operation to subvert Hinduism and whatever was left of Vedic culture. Thus, the process of character assassination by the British, in cahoots with the Muslims, was on.

Here in we can see the motivation for perverting the real history of India . This is why the reading public has consistently been cheated for many years of the real glory and advanced nature of India and Vedic culture. Because of this, archaeologists, historians, and architects, what to speak of scholars and tourists, have all along presumed the medieval monuments of India are all of Muslim origin. Or that without the Muslim invasions and their so-called artistic and architectural "contributions" India would never have had such wonderful monuments today. This idea that has gone on for the last six to eight centuries has created a monster which many antiquarians find difficult to shake off. We now must unlearn these false notions and histories and begin to associate such things as the dome, lime concrete, and the ornate carvings and artwork as indigenous features of Indian architecture.

Prior to the founding of the British rule in India there was no archaeological department. Incorrect and false archaeological records started during the long alien Muslim rule that preceded the British in India because of the Muslim practice of grabbing and misappropriating Hindu temples and palaces to become mosques and tombs. Thus, when the British came to power in India , many historic buildings were already under occupation and possession of Muslims. When the British first set up an archaeological department, not only did they have their own reasons to falsify Indian history, but they also simply consulted the Muslims who occupied the buildings and recorded their bluff. Of course, if the Muslims told the truth about the Hindu origin of the buildings they occupied, they may have very well lost the right to the possession of such buildings. Such deceptions have gone on to become the basis of the archaeological department of India .

Because of this, from the very first generation of European-trained Hindus up to the present day, a sizable section of Hindus have been wasting their time and energy discussing and even deploring all their own "faults" as pointed out by their detractors. Thus, they have fallen into playing the very game that their European Christian and Muslim critics have started.

We need to have a correct view of world, and especially Indian, history. In all honesty, it would be correct to say that at this point, Muslims and Christians should be deemed to be disqualified from writing on Hindu history not only because they have a record of hostility to Vedic culture, but also because their outlook on the world and their antiquity of history generally goes back no further than to a Mohammed or Jesus. They are unable to visualize any part of the world having a balanced or advanced society before Islam or Christianity came along to "save" everyone. To them anything that is pre-Christian has to have been heathen, barbaric, godless, or pagan, and traced back to Greece or Rome . Thus, their religious loyalties stunt their intellectual horizons. This is quite evident as viewed in the case when Mr. P. N. Oak wrote to Harvard University to a professor of the civilization of France asking for particular information about pre-Christian France . The single-line reply he received simply stated that they know nothing of pre-Christian France . This shows the appalling state of research that such noted universities as Harvard are content with. Thus, they have no interest in pre-Christian history.

Another example of the lack of real concern for the correct view of Indian history is explained in World Vedic Heritage, page 1127: "In addition to Cunningham's devilish plan delineated in the letter to Col. Sykes, we, luckily, have an unguarded testimony of a fellow Britisher, James Furgusson (see pp. 32-33 and 76-78, Indian Archaeology, by J. Furgusson, 1884) that 'During the 14-years he has been employed in the Survey, he (Cunningham) has contributed almost literally nothing to our knowledge of archaeology or architectural geography.' Naturally, because Cunningham looked upon archaeology merely as a stick to beat the Hindus with.

"Consequently, once when Cunningham's assistant, J. D. Beglar expressed the view that the so-called Kutub Minar (in Delhi ) was a Hindu tower, Cunningham haughtily overruled him to assert that it was a Muslim tower. This is on record." And thus, the Kutub Minar, which thousands of Indian and foreign tourists visit each year, is pronounced and recorded as a tower that was originally built by Muslims. Furthermore, Muslim inscriptions on such Indian buildings, mosques or tombs, should not necessarily be mistaken to signify the ORIGINAL builder, but only the captor, occupier, or usurper. Even Muslim chronicles may mention the building of such things as canals, giving themselves the credit, when actually the canals were already there.

It has been through this process that Hindus have been robbed not only of architectural credit, but also of anything else that is good and artistic, including music, poetry, literature, styles of painting, color decoration, gardens, fountains, pottery, porcelain, carvings, etc., even when found in India. Thus, the once global Vedic culture and India have been humiliated and made to appear small and despicable, while Hindus in general have been made to appear puny and insignificant by these same outside forces. Thus, it is time for people to realize the immense contribution that the Vedic culture and the ancient Hindus have given to the world. It is time to understand the real history of India .

The above article an extract from http://www.stephen-knapp.com . Students should perhaps visit the author's web site to learn more about his context, intended audience, and the intent of his work.

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