The religion of India
“Elihu taught; he said, In ancient times a people in the East were worshippers of God, the One, whom they called Brahm. Their laws were just; they lived in peace; they saw the light within; they walked in wisdom’s ways. But priests with carnal aims arose, who changed the laws to suit the carnal mind; bound heavy burdens on the poor, and scorned the rules of right; and so the Brahms became corrupt.
“But in the darkness of the age a few great masters stood unmoved; they loved the name of Brahm; they were great beacon lights before the world. And they preserved inviolate the wisdom of their holy Brahm, and you may read this wisdom in their sacred books” (Aquarian Gospel 10:1-5).
Readers of the contemporary versions of the Jewish and Christian scriptures believe that Abraham, the ancestor of Jesus (actually one of the prior incarnations of Jesus), must have been some type of “pagan,” an ignorant polytheist, who received a revelation of the One God. But in Egypt the Essenes taught otherwise.
Elihu taught; he said: In ancient times a people in the East were worshippers of God, the One, whom they called Brahm. He is speaking of the Indians who worshipped the One Whom they called Brahman. By “Brahman” they meant the Absolute Reality, the Supreme Reality that is one and indivisible, infinite, eternal, all-pervading, changeless Existence Itself. By His (Its) nature Brahman is indefinable, but the sages of India used the term Satchidananda, which means Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. Brahman is Absolute Consciousness, not only all-powerful but all-power Itself; not only all-knowing and blissful but Knowledge and Bliss itself. The seekers and knowers of Brahman were also called brahmans or brahmins.
Their laws were just; they lived in peace; they saw the light within; they walked in wisdom’s ways, for they followed the primeval Laws of Manu in their outer life and the ways of the yogis in their interior life.
And they preserved inviolate the wisdom of their holy Brahm, and you may read this wisdom in their sacred books. Which Jesus did, as is seen in the Aquarian Gospel.
Abraham, a Brahmin
“And in Chaldea, Brahm was known. A pious Brahm named Terah lived in Ur; his son was so devoted to the Brahmic faith that he was called A-Brahm; and he was set apart to be the father of the Hebrew race. Now, Terah took his wife and sons and all his flocks and herds to Haran in the West; here Terah died. And Abram took the flocks and herds, and with his kindred journeyed farther west; and when he reached the Oaks of Morah in the land of Canaan, he pitched his tents and there abode. A famine swept the land and Abram took his kindred and his flocks and herds and came to Egypt, and in these fertile plains of Zoan pitched his tent, and here abode. And men still mark the place where Abram lived–across the plain.
“You ask why Abram came to Egypt land? This is the cradle-land of the initiate; all secret things belong to Egypt land; and this is why the masters come. In Zoan Abram taught his science of the stars, and in that sacred temple over there he learned the wisdom of the wise. And when his lessons all were learned, he took his kindred and his flocks and herds and journeyed back to Canaan, and in the plains of Mamre pitched his tent, and there he lived, and there he died. And records of his life and works and of his sons, and of the tribes of Israel, are well preserved in Jewish sacred books.” (Aquarian Gospel 10:6-15).
And in Chaldea, Brahm was known. A pious Brahm named Terah lived in Ur; his son was so devoted to the Brahmic faith that he was called A-Brahm; and he was set apart to be the father of the Hebrew race. So Abraham was a noted follower of the Vedic religion, which at that time was spread over the world and not confined to India alone as it later came to be. He was also of the Brahmin caste. (At that time caste was determined by the state of a person’s evolution and karma, not by birth.) Some anthropologists, and Swami Bhaktivedanta the founder of the Hare Krishna movement, have believed that Abraham was actually part of the Yadava clan–the family of Krishna which disappeared from India after his death. If this is true, then all “Jews” are really Indian in their origin and related to Sri Krishna. Their spiritual bloodline came directly from India–a spiritual connection that the Essenes zealously maintained for more than a thousand years. When Jesus went to India he was returning to his ancestral homeland and to his spiritual roots, having been brought up in the wisdom of India by his mother Mary and other Essene teachers. Those who follow the path of Christ will find it leading them directly to the Vedic rishis and their revelations. To be a Christian in the sense of a disciple of Jesus is to be a disciple of the sages of Bharatvarsha (the proper name of India), including Gautama the Buddha as well. And like him we need to “read this wisdom in their sacred books.”
After speaking of Abraham’s Indian roots, Elihu told of his settling in Egypt, in Zoan where later the Essenes had a community and where Elihu taught. There Abraham had taught astrology and studied in the temple of Zoan as well.
You ask why Abram came to Egypt land? This is the cradle-land of the initiate; all secret things belong to Egypt land; and this is why the masters come. In Zoan Abram taught his science of the stars, and in that sacred temple over there he learned the wisdom of the wise. And when his lessons all were learned, he took his kindred and his flocks and herds and journeyed back to Canaan, and in the plains of Mamre pitched his tent, and there he lived, and there he died.
In what was “the West” of that time, Egypt was the center of spiritual wisdom, being a spiritual extension of India from whence all their knowledge was derived, as Apollonius of Tyana proved when he visited Egypt about the time of Jesus. Jesus’ connection to Egypt, then, was old and deep, for as Abraham He had taught the Egyptians in Vedic knowledge, including astrology, and in turn had learned further from them; had ruled Egypt and saved the descendants of Abraham from starvation as Joseph; and as Moses had studied the ancient wisdom and led Abraham’s children from bondage to freedom. This is why after leaving India Jesus went to Egypt where He was formally proclaimed to be The Christ.
Persia (Iran)
When we study the history of the Saint Thomas Christians of India–descendants of the Brahmin disciples of Saint Thomas the Apostle–we find that they had strong ties with Persia. This becomes understandable when we consider what Elihu had to say about Persia.
“In Persia Brahm was known, and feared. Men saw him as the One, the causeless Cause of all that is, and he was sacred unto them, as Tao to the dwellers of the farther East. The people lived in peace, and justice ruled. But, as in other lands, in Persia priests arose imbued with self and self desires, who outraged Force, Intelligence and Love; religion grew corrupt, and birds and beasts and creeping things were set apart as gods.
“In course of time a lofty soul, whom men called Zarathustra, came in flesh. He saw the causeless Spirit, high and lifted up; he saw the weakness of all man appointed gods. He spoke and all of Persia heard; and when he said, One God, one people and one shrine, the altars of the idols fell, and Persia was redeemed. But men must see their Gods with human eyes, and Zarathustra said, The greatest of the Spirits standing near the throne is the Ahura Mazda, who manifests in brightness of the sun. And all the people saw Ahura Mazda in the sun, and they fell down and worshipped him in temples of the sun.
“And Persia is the magian land where live the priests who saw the star arise to mark the place where Mary’s son was born, and were the first to greet him as the Prince of Peace. The precepts and the laws of Zarathustra are preserved in the Avesta which you can read and make your own” (Aquarian Gospel 10:16-27).
The Vedic wisdom, the knowledge of Brahman, prevailed in Persia. Dowling used King James parlance when he says that the people of Persia knew and “feared” God. Those of us with a Jewish or Christian background are used to the idea of being afraid of God, but that is a distortion. The Hebrew word yare and the Greek word fobeo can mean ordinary fear, but their basic meaning is to reverence and be in awe of something, just as in Elizabethan English “terrible” meant awe-inspiring, not frightening. So when we read the Bible we must realize that we are not being told to be afraid of God, but to revere Him and hold a sense of His greatness. It is also extremely interesting that Elihu in his discourse equates Brahman with Tao.
Elihu peripherally gives us a lesson in Trinitarian theology, using the words “Force, Intelligence and Love.” The Holy Spirit is the great Power of God, the Mother (Mahashakti in Sanskrit). The Father is the transcendent Infinite Consciousness or Intelligence. Christ the Eternal Son is the Love of the Father, the immanent extension of the Father dwelling at the heart of all creation that is a manifestation of the Holy Spirit.
Zarathustra was a great being sent into the world to renew the knowledge of the Spirit among the people of Persia. His words: “One God, one people and one shrine,” were a call back to the One in a practical sense. For in the One God all humanity–yes, all that lives–is seen to be one worshipping in the one shrine of Divine Consciousness.
One indication of human evolution is the use of symbols. Words are the basic symbols, but speech, too, must evolve to encompass concepts that cannot adequately be expressed in ordinary verbiage. The more a society develops the more symbolic language is used. For example, we use similes like “cash on hand,” “hit it into the pocket,” “target the goal,” “a sunshine smile,” and so forth. The same is done with religion in which both verbal and visual symbols are used. We call Jesus “the water of life.” When we see the cross we are reminded of all of Jesus’ life, not just His death. In fact, we usually think of His resurrection, even though the Roman cross is not the proper symbol of immortality as is the ankh. Knowing this, Zarathustra used the sun as the symbol of God, as has virtually every religion to some extent. Without the sun there is no life, as without God there is no life. The sun draws the germinating plant out of the dark earth and into its light. In the same way, God draws us out of material darkness into spiritual light, the light of His own being. That is why, as recorded in the Bhavishya Mahapurana, an ancient Sanskrit history of Kashmir, Jesus told the king of Kashmir: “Meditate upon Him Whose abode is in the center of the sun.…In truth, O King, all power rests with the Lord, Who is in the center of the sun.” From the land of Persia the magian priests came to honor Jesus, the Sun of Righteousness, at His birth.
Life, not words
At the end of Elihu’s discourse about Persia and Zarathustra he says some of the most profound words in the Aquarian Gospel:
“But you must know that words are naught till they are made alive; until the lessons they contain become a part of head and heart. Now truth is one; but no one knows the truth until he is the truth. It is recorded in an ancient book. Truth is the leavening power of God; it can transmute the all of life into itself; and when the all of life is truth, then man is truth” (Aquarian Gospel 10:28-30).
Until the words of our religion come alive in our lives, “until the lessons they contain become a part of head and heart,” a matter of our continual thought and deeds, so much so that our life itself is an expression of our beliefs to such an extent that a person observing our lives and words will know exactly what it is we believe, our religion, our “faith,” is nothing.
“Truth is one”–that is, truth is God. Then Elihu says something that is almost never said in any religion today: No one knows the truth until he is the truth. This has two meanings. 1) Until we live absolutely truthfully according to the principles of truth, we cannot really know it or comprehend all its aspects, both theoretical and practical. We must be what we believe. 2) Until we pragmatically become God by ascending into Divine Consciousness–not momentarily but permanently–we cannot know God. God can only be known to Himself, so we must become consciously part of Him. (We already are, but unconsciously.) We must not just be “godly” or “godlike”–we must be God. This is the Gospel of Christ; nothing more, nothing less. Knowing about God or believing in God ultimately means Zero. We must BE.
How can we become God? Elihu gives the way: “Truth is the leavening power of God; it can transmute the all of life into itself; and when the all of life is truth, then man is truth.” God transmutes all of life into Himself; this is the intention behind creation. On a personal level, when all of our life is a manifestation of Divine Consciousness, then we have become the truth, have become God: “that God may be all in all.”
Read the next section in the Aquarian Gospel for Yogis: The Wisdom of Buddha