rootseeker.org - -- Weekly Notes

Notes for Lecture TWELVE (AA)

In our survey of the Notes on the remaining material for the semester we have reached India in the period of 400-300 bce.

India - escaped the impact of Alexander and Hellenism - The Mauryan empire in India - Ashoka and his edicts leading to ahimsa, non-violence - His attitude towards Buddhism - No lasting influence though his ideas lived on in later great leaders (f.i. Gandhi)

Upanishads - taught the 'divine' as the 'absolute reality' living within the 'self' - Experience - Meaning of bhakti, dedication - required self-surrender.

Baghavad Gita (BG) - A further development of the Upanishads - Its profound effect on Hinduism - BG a dialogue between Arjuna, the warrior and Krishna, his chariot driver - War between families to start - To fight or not to fight - Warrior who killed relatives sends them to hell - Not to fight is being a coward - Krishna's advice: fight without the 'ego' - Krishna reveals himself as 'god in human form' - How bhakti would play a role in Arjuna's fighting the war - BG of greater influence than any other Indian scripture - Was available to all - Could easily be adapted to ordinary duties of daily life. - BG made the practice of Axial Age spirituality possible for everybody.

Ch 10 - The Way Forward

Footnote (GCS) complete in 'Handout' - Connection between the notions of the Axial Age and Jesus' thinking - Place of bhakti - and 'avatara', descend of god into earthly form - Phil 2:6 and its application - Not the 'incarnation' idea but rather kenosis, self-surrender - Jesus and India?

The spiritual revolution of the Axial Age against the background of turmoil, migration and conquest. - How Karl Jasper sees it - Israel an example: deportation and renewal - End 2^nd c. bce world had stabilized - In China 'school of philosophers' and their spiritual discernment of the unity of all things - But the idea that no school could have monopoly of the truth remained - Later the Chinese were able to add Buddhism - How it worked in China.

India - Greeks were replaced with tribes from Iran - were considered 'unclean' - Buddhism and Jainism most popular in India - Bhakti, t.i. devotion of the BG overpowered Buddhism - Hinduism preeminent but different from Vedic religion of the Axial Age - colorful deities, effigies and temples - Change in the ritual texts impact on 'domestic sacrifice of the householder' - Became to be seen as 'pure essence' (Pharisees in Judaism) - Practice of ahimsa, non violence and bhakti, devotion reveals hunger for union with the deity - The gods Vishnu and Shiva - Buddha and his discouragement of cult of personality (Jesus)

Israel - Impact of the Axial Age was stifled by the exiles - Later realized under the influence of Hellenism - 1' c. ce Holy Land was in turmoil because of Roman occupation - Growing desire for freedom and indecency - Zealots opposed the Romans but were crushed by them which resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple - Essences and Qumran sect had distance themselves from any opposition to Rome - Pharisees developed a most inclusive and advanced spirituality, believing that the whole of Israel was called to be a holy nation of priests and that God could be experienced in the humblest home as well as in the temple - The greatest was Hillel, migrated from Babylon to Palestine - Saw the essence of the Torah not in 'the letter' but in its 'spirit' - Golden Rule - Pharisees were against violence - Story of Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai - After destruction of Jerusalem Javne became new capital of the Jewish religion and with its Rabbinic Judaism the Jewish Axial Age came of age.

Golden Rule - Compassion and loving-kindness became central to this new Judaism - It was based on the latest teaching of the Pharisees - One could not worship God unless practicing the Golden Rule - Study as a spiritual quest as important as mediation - The rabbinic midrash - No orthodox beliefs - The rabbis and the Axial Age principle about God - No theology could be definitive - God revealed himself to each individual according to each capacity.

Jesus - His following another movement as a new way of being Jewish - How Jesus was considered by his followers: messiah - son of God - suffering servant - Jesus no intention of founding anew religion - For him Golden Rule also in the center of his teaching.

Paul - Made Christianity, and made it into a gentile religion - His christos - But expressed also connection with Axial Age principle of kenosisin Phil.2:6 - How the avatara notion of the Bhagavad Gita might have played a role.

Gospels - express a teaching by Jesus that reminded of Mozi's 'concern for everybody' - Also the ahimsa non-violence was no stranger to Jesus teaching - The 'love your enemies' a most striking teaching of kenosis.

Muhommad - and his teaching of the Qur'an a final flowering of the Axial Age - Word about the Qur' an - how it considered the Torah and the Gospel - Qur' an not a doctrine, but a command of 'practical compassion' - The violent society of Muhammad's days - Attitude of Mohammad towards Jews and Christians - Islam as' surrender' an Axial principle - Islam required transcending the 'ego' - Generosity - Teaching about ahimso non-violence - Jihadas 'struggle' of putting God's will into practice.

Notes for Lecture THIRTEEN

Every time I started on making the notes for the final lecture I had to tell myself 'Its too good to put it in a few words'. Therefore I have decided to publish the total Lecture as "L 13" in the 'weekly notes' see below (in www.rootseeker.org)

I wish all of you and your family an enjoyable summer time!

And many thanks for being my students. It was a great joy for me.

Gerry

- - - - -
Final Lecture of the Axial Age course

Conclusions

In every single one of the spiritual ideals of the Axial Age, individuals have failed to measure up to their high ideals. In all these visions, people have fallen prey to 'exclusivity', cruelty, superstition, and even atrocity. But at their core, the Axial spiritualities share an ideal of: sympathy, respect, and universal concern.

The sages were all living in violent societies, like our own. What they created was a spiritual scientific method that utilized natural human energies to counter this aggression.

The most gifted of them realized that if you wanted to outlaw brutal, tyránnical behavior, it was no good, simply issuing external directives.

When warfare and terror are prevailing in a society, it affects everything that people do. The hatred and horror infiltrate their dreams, relationships, desires, and ambitions.

The Axial sages saw this happening to their own contemporaries and devised a teaching rooted in the deeper, less conscious levels of the self to help them overcome this. The fact that they all came up with such profoundly similar solutions by so many different routes, suggests that they had indeed discovered something important about the way human beings work.

Regardless of their views on the gods, the divine, their theology we would say, - that was of not much concern for the sages anyway, - they all concluded that if people made a disciplined effort 'to learn about themselves', they would experience a better understanding of what it means to be 'fully human'.

In one way or another, their programs were designed to eradicate the egotism that is largely responsible for our violence, and they promoted the empathic spirituality of the Golden Rule.

This, they found, introduced people to a different dimension of human experience. It offered them ekstasis, a 'stepping out' from their habitual, self-bound consciousness, and enabled them to get the picture of an 'absolute reality', that they called the 'divine', 'God', nibbana, brahman, atman, or the Way.

Notice, it was not a question of discovering 'belief' in 'God' first, and then living a compassionate life.

No, the practice of disciplined compassion would itself lead to closeness to what is 'higher', the 'divine', God, etc.

Self-defense

Human beings are probably conditioned to self-defense. Ever since we lived in caves, we have been threatened by animal and human predators. Even within our own communities and families, other people oppose our interests and damage our self-esteem, so we are constantly poised - verbally, mentally, and physically - for counter-attack and preemptive strike. But if we methodically cultivated an entirely different mind-set, - the sages discovered, - we would experience an alternative state of consciousness.

The consistency with which the Axial sages - quite independently - returned to the Golden Rule may tell us something important about the structure of our nature.

If, for example, every time we were tempted to say something hostile about a colleague, a sibling, or an enemy country, we considered how we would feel if such a remark were made about us - and we refrained, - we would, in that moment, have gone beyond ourselves. It would be a moment of transcendence. If such an attitude became habitual, people could live in a state of constant ekstasis, not because they were caught up in an exotic trance, but because they would be living beyond the confines of egotism.

The Axial programs all promoted this attitude. As Rabbi Hillel pointed out, this was the essence of religion. The Confucian rituals of 'yielding' were designed to cultivate a habit of reverence for others. Before an aspirant could undertake a single yogic exercise, he had to become proficient in ahimsa, nonviolence, never betraying antagonism in a single word or gesture. Until this was second nature, his guru would not allow him to proceed with his meditation - but in the process of acquiring this 'harmlessness' he would, the texts explained, experience 'indescribable joy'.

The Axial sages put the forsaking of selfishness, and the spirituality of compassion, at the top of their agenda. For them, 'religion' was: the Golden Rule.

They concentrated on what people were supposed to transcend from, their greed, egotism, hatred, and violence.

What they were going to transcend to was not an easily defined 'place' or 'person', but a 'state of happiness' that was inconceivable to the 'un-enlightened person', who was still trapped in the toils of the 'ego principle'.

On the other hand, if people concentrated on what they hoped to transcend to, and became dogmatic about it, they could develop an prying harshness that was, in Buddhist terminology, 'unskillful'.

This is not to say that all theology should be scrapped or that the conventional beliefs about God or 'the ultimate' are 'wrong'. But - quite simply - beliefs about God cannot express the entire truth. A transcendent value is one that, of its very nature, cannot be defined, t.i., can not be limited.

For Christianity doctrinal orthodoxy is very important, and many Christians could not imagine religion without it. That's fine, because these dogmas often express a profound spiritual truth.

The test for these beliefs is simple: if they make people belligerent, intolerant, and unkind about 'another's faith', than those beliefs are not 'skillful', because they are too restricted.

If, however, their convictions impel them to act compassionately and to honor the stranger, then they are good, helpful, and sound.

This is the test of being truly 'religious', in every single one of the major traditions.

Instead of doing away with religious doctrines, we should look for their 'spiritual core'.

A religious teaching is never simply a statement of objective fact: it is a program for action.

Paul quoted an early Christian hymn to the Philippians, not to emphasize the 'incarnation concept', but to urge them Philippians to practice of kenosis, of 'emptying' themselves. If they behaved like Christ, had the same mentality as Christ, they would discover the truth about him. Similarly, the doctrine of the Trinity was meant in part to remind Christians that they could not think about God as a simple personality, and that the divine essence lay beyond their grasp. Some have seen the doctrine of Trinity as an attempt to see the divine in terms of relationship or community; others have discerned a kenosis in the heart of the Trinity. But the object of the doctrine is to inspire contemplation and ethical action.

In the fourteenth century, Greek Orthodox theologians developed a principle about theology that takes us to the heart of the Axial Age.

Any statement about God, they said, should have two qualities:

a) it must be paradoxical, to remind us that the divine cannot fit into our limited human categories, and

b) it must be apophatic, as they called it, t.i., it must 'leading us to silence'.

A theological discussion, should not answer all our queries about the 'unspeakable divine', but should be like a brahmódya, reducing contestants to 'speechless awe'.

Centuries of institutional, political, and intellectual development have tended to obscure the importance of 'compassion' in religion. All too often the religion that dominates the public discourse, seems to express an 'institutional egotism': my faith is better than yours! As Zhuangzi noted, once people interject 'themselves into their beliefs', they can become quarrelsome, busybodied, or even unkind. Compassion is not a popular virtue, because it demands the laying aside of the 'ego', that we so easily identify with our deepest self, which makes people often prefer 'being right' to 'being compassionate'. Fundamentalist religion has absorbed the violence of our time and developed a polarized vision, so that, like the early Zoroastrians, fundamentalists sometimes divide humanity into two hostile camps, with the embattled faithful engaged in a deadly war against 'evildoers'. As we have seen to our cost, this attitude can easily lead to atrocity. It is also counterproductive. As the Daodejing pointed out, violence usually recoils upon the perpetrator, no matter how well intentioned he might be. You cannot force people to behave as you want; in fact, coercive measures are more likely to drive them in the opposite direction.

All the world religions have seen the eruption of this type of militant piety. As a result, some people have concluded either that religion itself is inescapably violent, or that violence and intolerance are endemic to a particular tradition.

But the story of the First Axial Age shows that in fact the opposite is the case. Every single one of these visions began in a 'principled and intuitive recoil' from the unprecedented violence of their time.

The Axial Age began in India when the ritual reformers started to extract the conflict and aggression from the sacrificial contest.

Israel's Axial Age began in earnest after the destruction of Jerusalem and the enforced deportation of the exiles to Babylonia, where the priestly writers started to evolve an ideal of reconciliation and ahimsa.

China's Axial Age developed during the Warring States period, when Confucians, Mohists, and Daoists all found ways to counteract widespread lawless, and lethal aggression.

In Greece, where violence was institutionalized by the 'polis', despite some notable contributions to the Axial ideal - especially in the realm of tragedy - there was ultimately no religious transformation.

Nevertheless, the critics of religion are right, to point to a connection between violence and the sacred, because homo religiosus, the human of religion, has always been preoccupied by the cruelty of life.

Animal sacrifice - a universal practice of antiquity - was a spectacularly violent act designed to channel and control our inherent aggression. It may have been rooted in the guilt experienced by the hunters of the Paleolithic period when they slaughtered their fellow creatures.

The scriptures reflect on occasion the combative context of human nature. It is not difficult to find there a religious justification for killing. If seen in isolation from the tradition as a whole, individual texts in, for example, the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, or the Qur'an can easily be used to sanction immoral violence and cruelty. The scriptures have constantly been used in this way, and most religious traditions have disgraceful episodes in their past.

In our own day, people all over the world are resorting to what can be called: 'religiously inspired terrorism'. They are sometimes impelled by fear, despair, and frustration; sometimes by a hatred and rage that entirely violates the Axial ideal.

As a result, religion has been implicated in some of the darkest episodes of recent history.

Our Response

What should be our response?

The Axial sages give us two important pieces of advice.

First, there must be 'self-criticism'. Instead of simply berating the 'other side', people must examine their own behavior.

The Jewish prophets gave a particularly strong lead here. At a time when Israel and Judah were threatened by the imperial powers, Amos, Hosea, and Jeremiah all told them to scrutinize their own conduct. Instead of encouraging a dangerous righteousness, they wanted to puncture the 'national ego'. To imagine that God is reflexively on your side, and opposed to your enemies, was not a mature religious attitude.

Amos saw Yahweh, the divine warrior, using Assyria as his instrument to punish the kingdom of Israel for its systemic injustice and social irresponsibility. After his deportation to Babylon, when the exiles had been the victims of massive state aggression, Ezekiel insisted that the people of Judah look into their own violent behavior.

Jesus would later tell his followers not to condemn the splinter in their neighbor's eye while ignoring the beam in their own. The piety of the Axial Age demanded that people take responsibility for their own actions. The Indian doctrine of karma insisted that all our deeds have long-lasting consequences; blaming others without examining how our own failings, can contribute to a disastrous situation, and was considered 'unskillful', unrealistic, and un-religious. So too in our current predicament, the Axial sages would probably tell us, reformation must start at home. Before stridently insisting that another religion clean up its act, we should look into our own traditions, scriptures, and history - and amend our own behavior. We cannot hope to reform others until we have reformed ourselves.

Secularists, who reject religion, should also look for signs of secular fundamentalism, which is often as stridently bigoted about religion as some forms of religion are about secularism. In its own brief history, secularism has also had its disasters: Hitler, Stalin, and Saddam Hussein show that a militant exclusion of religion from public policy can be as lethal as any pious crusade.

Second advice given by the sages is: we should follow the example of the Axial sages and take practical, effective action.

When they confronted 'aggression' in their own traditions, they did not pretend that 'it was not there', but worked vigorously to change their spiritual outlook, by rewriting and reorganizing their rituals and scriptures in order to eliminate the violence that had accumulated over the years.

The ritual reformers of India took (agon) 'conflict' out of the sacrifice; Confucius tried to extract the militant egotism that had distorted the li ; and 'P' took the aggression out of the ancient creation stories, producing a cosmogony in which Yahweh blessed all his creatures - including Leviathan, whom he had slaughtered in the old tales. Today extremists have distorted the Axial traditions by accentuating the belligerent elements that have evolved over the centuries at the expense of those that speak of compassion and respect for the sacred rights of others. In order to reclaim their faith, their co-religionists should embark on a program of disciplined and creative study, discussion, reflection, and action. Instead of sweeping uncomfortable scriptures and historical disasters under the carpet in order to preserve the 'integrity' of the institution, difficult texts should be studied by scholars, clerics, and laity, asking searching questions, and analyzing past failings.

We should all strive to recover their compassionate vision and find a way of expressing it in an innovative, inspiring way just as the Axial sages did.

This should not be a purely intellectual campaign; it should also involve a spiritual process.

In these our perilous times, we need new vision, but, as the Axial sages tirelessly explained, religious understanding is not simply ^'conceptual'. A 'self-effacing', compassionate, and nonviolent lifestyle was just as important as textual study.

Even Indra had to change his belligerent way of life and live as a humble Vedic student before he could understand the deepest truths of the tradition.

Because we live in a society of instant communication, we expect to 'grasp' our religion instantaneously, and can even feel that there is something wrong if we cannot appreciate it immediately.

But the Axial sages tirelessly explained that true knowledge is always elusive.

Socrates believed that he had a mission to make the rational Greeks aware that even when we are most rigorously logical, some aspect of the truth will always evade us.

'Understanding' comes only after intellectual kenosis, when we realize that we know nothing and our mind is 'emptied' of received ideas. (Socrates)

The Axial sages were not timid about questioning fundamental assumptions, and, as we face the problems of our time, we need to have that kind of a probing mind, that is also constantly open to new ideas.

Third. We are living in a period of great fear and pain. The Axial Age taught us to face up to the suffering that is an inescapable fact of human life. Only by admitting our own pain, can we learn to empathize with the sufferings of others.

Today we are deluged with more images of suffering than any previous generation: war, natural disasters, famine, poverty, and disease are beamed nightly into our living rooms. Life is indeed dukkha, suffering.

It is tempting to retreat from this horror that is present all over the world, and to deny that it has anything to do with us, and so to cultivate a deliberately 'positive' attitude, that excludes anybody's pain but our own.

But the Axial sages insisted that this was not an option. People who deny the suffering of life and stick their heads ostrich-like in the sand, are 'false prophets'. Unless we allow the sorrow that presses in on all sides to invade our consciousness, we cannot begin our spiritual quest.

In our era of international terror, it is hard for any of us to imagine that we can live in the Buddha's pleasure park. Suffering will sooner or later impinge upon all our lives, even in the protected societies of the first world.

Instead of resenting the international terror, the Axial sages would tell us, we should treat it as a religious opportunity. Instead of allowing our pain to fester and erupt in violence, intolerance, and hatred, we should make a heroic effort to use it constructively.

The trick, Jeremiah told the deportees, was not to give free rein to resentment. Vengeance was not the answer. Honor the stranger in your midst, "P" told the Jewish exiles, for you were strangers in Egypt.

The memory of past distress brings us back to the Golden Rule; it should help us to see that other people's suffering is as important as our own, - even, and perhaps especially - the anguish of our enemies.

The Greeks did put human misery on-stage so that the audience in Athens could learn sympathy for the Persians who had devastated their city only a few years earlier. In the tragedies, the chorus regularly instructed the audience to weep for people whose crimes normally would fill them with abhorrence.

Tragedy could not be denied. It had to be brought right into the sacred heart of the city and made a force for good, as, at the end of the Oresteia, the vengeful Erinyes were transformed into the Eumenides, the "welldisposed ones," and given a shrine on the Acropolis.

So we too have to learn 'to feel with people, even those we have hated and harmed.

at the end of the Iliad, Achilles and Priam wept together. Rage and vicious resentment can make us inhuman; it was only when Achilles shared his grief with Priam, and saw him as his mirror image, that he recovered the humanity he had lost.

We must continually remind ourselves that the Axial sages developed their compassionate ethic in horrible and terrifying circumstances. They were not meditating in ivory towers but were living in frightening, war-torn societies, where the old values were disappearing. Like us, they were conscious of the void and the abyss.

The sages were not utopian dreamers but practical men; many were preoccupied with politics and government. They were convinced that empathy did not just sound edifying, but actually worked.

Compassion and concern for everybody, they saw, as the best policy. We should take their insights seriously, because 'they' were the experts.

They devoted a great deal of time and energy to thinking about the nature of goodness. They spent as much creative energy seeking a cure for the spiritual malaise of humanity as scientists today spend trying to find a cure for cancer. We have different preoccupations.

Fourth. The Axial Age was a time of spiritual genius; we live in an age of scientific and technological genius, but our spiritual education is often un-developed, or under-developed.

The Axial Age needed to craft a new vision because humanity had taken a social and psychological leap forward. People had discovered that each person was unique. The old tribal ethic, which had developed a 'communal mentality' to ensure the survival of the group, was being replaced by a 'new individualism'. This is why so many of the Axial spiritualities were preoccupied by the discovery of the 'self'.

Like the merchant, so was the 'renouncer' a self-made man.

The sages demanded that every single person become 'self-conscious', aware of what he was doing; rituals had to be appropriated by each sacrificer, and individuals must take responsibility for their actions.

Today we are making another quantum leap forward.

Our technology has created a 'global society', which is inter-connected - electronically, militarily, economically, and politically.

That makes it necessary for us to develop a 'global consciousness', because, - whether we like it or not, - we live in 'one world'.

Even though our problem is different from that of the Axial sages, there ideas can still help us. They did not throw overboard the insights of the old religion, but deepened and extended them. In the same way, we should develop the insights of the Axial Age.

The sages were ahead of us in recognizing that 'sympathy' cannot be confined to 'our own group'. We have to cultivate what the Buddhists call an 'immeasurable outlook', that extends to the ends of the earth, without 'excluding' a single creature from this radius of concern.

The Golden Rule reminded 'the newcomers of the Axial Age' not to make their own individual self an absolute value, because that's what makes human society impossible. So we must all learn to 'yield' to one another. Our challenge is to develop this insight and give it a global significance.

In the Holiness Code, f.ex., the 'P' group insisted that no living creature is unclean and that everybody - even a slave - has sovereign freedom.

We have to 'love' our neighbor as ourselves. As we have seen, 'P' did not mean that we had to be filled with emotional tenderness for everybody; in their legal terminology, 'love' meant: being helpful, loyal, and giving practical support to our neighbor, in one word: caring. Today everybody on the planet is our neighbor.

Mozi tried to convince the princes of his day that it made good, practical sense to cultivate jian ai, a deliberate and impartial 'concern for everybody'. It would, Mozi argued, serve everybody's own best interests.

We now know this to be the case for our time.

What happens in Afghanistan or Iraq 'today' will somehow have repercussions in London or Washington 'tomorrow'.

In the last resort, 'love' and 'concern' will benefit everybody more than self-interested or shortsighted policies.

In The Bacchae, Euripides showed that it was dangerous to reject 'the stranger'. But acceptance of the alien and the foreigner takes time; displacing the self from the center of our world-view demands a serious effort.

Buddhists recommended meditation on the 'immeasurables' to cultivate a different mentality. But people who have neither the time nor the talent for yoga could repeat the Buddha's poem 'Let All Beings Be Happy', a prayer that demands no theological or sectarian belief.

The Confucians also recognized the importance of a program of self-cultivation. The rituals were designed to create a junzi, a mature, fully developed human being, who does not treat others carelessly, or selfishly. It makes an impact and transforms the person who is the object of ritual attention and brings out his or her unique holiness.

A 'practically expressed respect' for the other is probably indispensable for a peaceful global society and perhaps the only way to 'reform' unreliable states. But this respect must be sincere.

As the Daodejing pointed out, people always sense the motives behind our actions. Nations will also be aware if they are being exploited or indulged, out of self-interest.

Suffering shatters neat, rationalistic theology.

Ezekiel's terrifying and confusing vision, was very different from the more streamlined ideology of the Deuteronomists.

Auschwitz, Bosnia, and the destruction of the World Trade Center have revealed the darkness of the human heart.

A final word:

Today we are living in a tragic world where, as the Greeks knew, there can be no simple answers; the genre of tragedy demands that we learn to see things from other people's point of view.

If our religion is to bring 'light' to the broken world, we need, as Mencius suggested, to go in search of the lost heart, and do this in a spirit of compassion that lies at the core of all our traditions.

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Notes for Lecture ELEVEN + TWELVE

Ch 8 All is One (400-c300 bce) - China - Economic progress brought new class of merchants - Also increase of in-equality - Many had questions - 'Inward Training' program - 'Q' is raw material of life, basic energy, primal spirit - The 'being' to be liberated - Hui-zi and the 'Great One' - Zuang-zi and non-government - Way of Heaven asks for endless transformation - Once reconciled with the Way of Heaven attuned to the 'absolute reality' - One with the deepest and most divine rhythm of the universe - Zhang-zi about the 'sage' - Where Zhang-zi and Mencius differed - Golden rule was crucial.

India - Mahabharata - seems untouched by the Axial Age - Though story of Judishtira shows he was a man of the Axial Age.

Greece - Plato - his dimension of reality transcended normal experience - Reached by the way of logic reasoning - the 'Good' - Life is miserable, but is not the true reality - All this well accepted by philosophers, but lost for the ordinary people - What Plato did for them - 'Mythos' became subservient to 'logos' - Plato horrified by the death of Socrates, but at the end of his own life advocated the death penalty - What te Axial Age did/didn't do for Greece.

Aristotle - saw theology as the first philosophy, that was concerned with the highest cause of 'being' - the 'Unmoved Mover' - Was a logical consequence of his cosmology, not a mystical intuited reality - God was pure theoria - Aristotle more comfortable with 'emotion' in religion than Plato - His philosophy set the West on its scientific course leading to the second Great Transformation in our time.

Ch 9 Empire (c. 300-220 bce)

China - Here Axial Age was still flourishing while in other regions it was coming to an end - Still there was struggle - a longing for peace

Shang Yang - his revolutionary program lead to the first historical emperor of China 221 Xun-zi created a syntheses of Confucianism and Daoism - If human beings take responsibility for themselves they could turn society around - 'Heaven' would not do it - Heaven was 'nature itself' - Xun-zi revered nature as god-like - his religious rationalism was based on 'mystical silence' - the 'Way' could be comprehended only by a mind that was empty, unified and still (mystical silence)

Daodejing - Laozi - Author(unknown) wrote under pseudonym Laozi - Writing was meant for a ruler, but became a spiritual guide for many till this day - Laozi internalized the old 'external ceremonies' - Instead of taking an aggressive pose, one must retreat and make onself small - Could be done only by reforming the heart, rooting it in stillness and emptiness - Transformation of interior life - A process that works in stages - Acquiring 'knowledge' not in privileged information but by kenosis, emptying - Laozi's writing not speculation, rather gives points for meditation - Where he gives 'conclusions' he does not trace the steps - Each 'wise person' had to journey the Way him/herself - Experience is personal ! - Meaning of the 'void' - In the Dao it is seen as 'Womb of all being' that brings forth new life - The indescribable mystery of 'being' and the need for 'kenosis', of the 'doing nothing mind' - Loss of the ego leads to authentic humanity - By interfering with nature human beings lost 'their way' - One should not fear 'nothingness', it's at the heart of reality - The wheel and the vessel - Return to the spontaneity of the Way - Force and coercion are inherently destructive - Laozi about 'warfare' - It is 'attitude' not 'action' that determines the outcome.

Greece - Alexander - Aristotle's pupil - Conquered Persia (333) and established an empire - Death in 323 - Division: Ptolemy in Egypt, Seleucis in Babylon - Alexander and India - A 2 yr adventure - Alexander always straining for more - Contrast with the 'extinction of self' as a liberating power - Alexander and the Zoroastrians, the Israelites.

Israel - How the breakdown of the empire impacted Israel - Jerusalem changed hands 6 times (320-301) - New Hellenist centers of learning and culture - The 'cosmopolis' - Impact of the Greek culture on the Jews - Jews were divided - Under Egypt hopes of independence growing - More so when Seleucids took over from Egypt.

Greece - Under Alexander Greek civilization merging with cultures of the East - Fusion = Hellenism - New philosophies - Epicurus - Pleasure-as freedom from pain- chief goal in life - Zeno and Stoics - The cosmos is a unity, no split between body and spirit - Logos, reason- pneuma, spirit, is the intelligent divine power that pervades everything - Live in harmony with the processes of the divine logos ! - Phyrro, the Sceptic - He saw scepticism as a therapy, flushing intellectual turmoil - Sceptics ('inquirers') held: an uncluttered attitude, open to all possibilities, is secret to happiness - All philosophies of this time have little 'ghostly relics' of the Axial Ages pioneering, but in 'budget' version - Hellenist philosophy based on science rather than intuition - 3^rd c. a great period for Greek science - Not much impact on 'old religion' - Rather greater tolerance - until Christianity was forcibly imposed as state religion (5^th c.) - Comparison of spiritual strife in China and India with the 'logos' philosophy in Greece - Discovering transcendent peace within vs settle for a quiet life.

Upanishads - taught the 'divine' as the 'absolute reality' living within the 'self' - Experience - Meaning of bhakti, dedication - required self-surrender.

Ch 10 - The Way Forward

Israel - Impact of the Axial Age was stifled by the exiles - Later realized under the influence of Hellenism - 1' c. ce Holy Land was in turmoil because of Roman occupation - Growing desire for freedom and independence - Zealots opposed the Romans but were crushed by them which resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple - Essences and Qumran sect had distance themselves from any opposition to Rome - Pharisees developed a most inclusive and advanced spirituality, believing that the whole of Israel was called to be a holy nation of priests and that God could be experienced in the humblest home as well as in the temple - The greatest was Hillel, migrated from Babylon to Palestine - Saw the essence of the Torah not in 'the letter' but in its 'spirit' - Golden Rule - Pharisees were against violence - Story of Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai - After destruction of Jerusalem Javne became new capital of the Jewish religion and with its Rabbinic Judaism the Jewish Axial Age came of age.

Notes for Lecture THIRTEEN

I wish all of you and your family HAPPY HOLIDAYS !!

And many thanks for being my students. It was a great joy for me.

Gerry

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Notes for Lecture TEN

Socrates - Some details - Wanted to de-construct people's pre-conceptions - Milder version of kenosis, surrender - Needed, to discover 'one's whole self' - Socrates, midwife, bringing the truth to birth within people - Dialectics, rigorous dialogue - Ended in 'silence' - For Socrates 'knowledge was morality' - Evil in the world because of inadequate idea about life and morality - His conception of the 'Good'

China and the Warring States - The struggle changed Chine from a ritualized to a militarized state - Mozi's teaching of non-violence - He objected to waste of money spend on ceremonies - Wanted to replace the 'egotism of kinship' with a 'general altruism - Impartial concern for all humans is indispensable for peace and security - Had his own form of the Golden Rule - 'doing good' more important than 'being good'.

Buddha - His life story - Was independent as a student, relied on his 'own insights' - Learned eventually that the 'awakening to one's true self' is real 'liberation' - 'Craving things' take possession of the mind - 'desires' are looking for a 'new existence' - The process of enlightenment is not a 'born-again-experience' - It's a slow process - Buddha and the god/gods - He had no theories about the creation of the world - His Golden Rule: a person who loves the 'true self' will not harm the 'true self' of others - He taught - like Confucius and Socrates - what a human being could or should be - Buddha: one who is awake!

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Notes for Lecture NINE

Ch 7 Concern for Everybody (450-398) - Great Transformation occurred in regions ready for change after a period of suffering.

Israel - In 2' half of 5' c. Axial Age come to a close for Israel - Much suffering had passed, also a broader world-view was gained - Isaiah's vision - Taken 'ex-clusively' by Nehemiah's strict rules on marriage - a 'pure people' - Ezra's reading of the Law to the people - Re-emphasis on a 'pure people' - Ex-clusing the alien to the unfolding spirit of the Axial Age in other regions - Sign of in-clusiveness: Jonah - How this inclusiveness found a later development.

Greece - Uncertainty in Athens during this period - 446 Truce between Sparta and Athens - Not accepted by younger generation who were ready to listen to new ideas - Anaxagoras ' nous' : what contains the seed of all that exists - just another form of matter - Democritus 'atoms' - Religious polis opposed to new ideas - Others were intrigued - Sophists tried to bring philosophy down to earth - Hippias, the craftsman-philosopher - Believed in common sense: be confident in the workings of your own mind - Sophist touched on many 'themes' of the Axial Age, but with a difference - No desire for transformation - They concentrated of what the 'were', not on what they could 'become' - Protagoras - 'Question everything, do not accept on hearsay or at second hand' - Test all truth - For Sophists and Protagoras there was no transcendent authority, no Supreme God who could impose his views on humanity - Some in Athens found this liberating - Gave fresh insights about religion - City passed law making this 'impiety' illegal - Expulsion of philosophers - Euripides continued the thinking - Without strict reasoning one cannot see the other's point of view - Reasoning, logic, for Greeks charged with feeling - Sympathy, compassion, empathy.

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Notes for Lecture EIGHT

The 'ego-self' got disconnected from the 'inner-self', or: the 'absolute-self' - Root of unhappiness is the 'ego' - True self (purusha) is yearning for liberation (moksha) - Not a supernatural process - It is in the capacity of the human - Suffering and enlightenment can go together

India (530-450 bce) - At this time the dream of enlightenment was not dead - Awareness of the endless cycle of death and rebirth impelled people to act, use their 'karma' - The in-effectiveness of karma - Decline of the old Vedic rites - Upanishads introduces 'liberation' - The 'atman', true self, is in control of the body - A person who has understanding is mindful and always pure - Major political and economic change in N.India - In the East a new form of government with likeness to the Greek 'polis' - Great development in the economy - primitive capitalism - Development positive but also unsettling - Urbanization more advanced in the East, where the next phase of the Indian Axial Age began - Aryans settled in the East and were a minority - Urban area more aware of the material development - Fueled greed , and did damage to the spirit of ahimsa, non-violence - Influence of 'Renouncers' was making a change - Many schools teaching 'liberation' from death and re-birth - Some elements: get rid of 'desire'; cultivate friendship and peace of mind; pain to be accepted with dignity.

Makkhali Gosala +385 (later called Mahavira) - became a 'renouncer' and wanted to achieve enlightenment by himself - Found out could only be done by ahimsa, non-violence - What he experienced in the enlightenment - Let him to offer an alternative ethos - Non-violence was the only religious duty - Could be acquired by empathy with every single creature - Makes one a Jain - who looks at the world in a new way - Aware of the LifeForce in everything - Mahavira's Golden Rule.

Ch 7 Concern for Everybody (450-398) - Great Transformation occurred in regions ready for change after a period of suffering.

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Notes for Lecture SEVEN

China - Abuses in performing of the rites got Confucius involved - What he did to correct the situation - His failure in politics - His teaching method - To become his disciple one had to 'burst with eagerness', 'bubble with excitement' - Teachings collected in the Analecta as short unconnected remarks, though nor without coherence - Confucius saw as root cause of disorder in China the neglect of the traditional rites, with their connection to the Dao, and the spirit of 'yielding' - Where Confucius was an 'innovator': re-animating the Old to gain knowledge of the New - Concentrating on 'this world' rather than 'gain favor with the gods' - 'Till you have learned to serve men, how can you serve the gods' - Confucius brought religion down to earth - The 'junzi', a fully developed human being - 'Ego principle' source of human pettiness and cruelty - 'Be fully conscious of what you are doing' - Have the right 'attitude', have the 'spirit of yielding', learn empathy - In order to enlarge onself, one should try to enlarge others - His practice of the Golden Rule - Confucius' vision was revolutionary in promoting a sense of equality - 'Don't speculate about what lays at the end of the Way - Walking along the path is itself a transcendent and dynamic experience ' (the Great Transformation) - Confucius made an indelible impression on Chinese spirituality - Even those who objected, couldn't escape his influence.

Judaism - Cyrus of Persia (559) - His empire (map 8) - Second Isaiah: his oracles about Cyrus as 'servant of Yahweh' - Return of the exiles to their lost 'Promised Land' - How 2^nd Isaiah saw Yahweh - His 'suffering servant' motif became model in the 'return process' - Israel was reminded that pain was ever present, but the kenosis, surrender of the 'servant' led to exaltation, ekstasis.

Double controversial message of 2^nd Is - a) The restored tribes to be 'a light to the nations', 'so that salvation may reach the end of the earth' - b) Harsh message for the nations who would oppose Israel - Humble servant vs mighty power of the warrior god - Two schools? - Non-violence as redemptive vs subjection of others - 2^nd Isaiah unpleasantly close to the 'false prophets' Jeremiah had warned about - Some details of the 'Return'.

Athens - Change of city government, reorganization - Middle class more power on the council - Brute force replaced by reasonable governing - Logos: debating skill - Heraclitus reflected the change of 'mood' - Themistocles and his fleet building proposal - Triremes: ships with three tiers of rowers - All males were drafted - Created equality on the ships - Also: no more fighting 'face to face (hoplites), but now with the back to the enemy - Leaving the 'self' behind - Military confederation of city-states to fight off the Persians - Athens evacuated to Salamis - Sacked by the Persians - Persian fleet defeated in the Saconia Gulf - Salamis was an Axial moment.

Tragedy - how it brought out an aspect of the Axial Age - Putting 'suffering' on the stage- life is dukkha, suffering - Impact of the 'tragedy' - Some historical facts - Though there was friendship among the city-states, Athens was becoming a divided city - In 461 coup toward 'demokratia', government by the people - Partial failure - Athens was resented by the Greek world, and hated by the people it controlled - Sophocles: acceptance of fate = human greatness.

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Notes for Lecture SIX

Greece - 6^th c. found social unrest in the polis - 594 Solon appointed magistrate in Athens - His efforts to turn 'disorder' into the 'right order' - All were responsible for the 'disorder' because of human selfishness - Combined effort could restore peace and order - Breakthrough of Axial mentality - A 'tyrant' in Athens: Peisistratos - Positive impact on city life - Longing for citizens for more personal religious experience - Mystery celebrations - Their influence on moving toward a vision of the Axial Age. - Philosophies - The 'apeiron' concept.

India - A new philosophy: Samkhya (discrimination) - Impact of its teachings - The 'purusha', person, self, a divine self - Griffiths: the Spirit - Further explanatory details - The 'ego-self' got disconnected from the 'inner-self', or: the 'absolute-self' - Root of unhappiness is the 'ego' - True self (purusha) is yearning for liberation (moksha) - Not a supernatural process - It is in the capacity of the human - Suffering and enlightenment.

China - Chu defeated the armies of the league 597 - Caused a new kind of aggression - Casting aside the constraints of tradition - Principalities at war (map 7) - Old political and social structures disintegrated - Signs of 'deeper change' - More egalitarian civil order - Contempt for ritual observances - Spirit of moderation in decline - Scorn for Way of Heaven endangered the entire cosmos - Typhoon destruction - First meeting of Confucius (551-479 bce).

Ch 6 Empathy - the Golden Rule (c. 530-450)

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Notes for Lecture FIVE

Israelites - 7^th c. brought a 'restoration' (of Hezekiah's failure), and the beginning of the religion of Judaism - First adaptation to foreign (Assyrian) worship cult - Josiah (at 8yr old) made king by the ha-aretz, the 'people of the land' - Assyria in decline, Egypt gaining dominance - Josiah vassal of Egypt - At 16 Josiah had a religious conversion: to worship Yahweh alone - Would lead to: 'political independence' (nation with own national 'god') - Rebuilding the temple - Finding of the 'scroll', the sefer torah, book of the law - Impact of the 'written' text of the law - Religious truth sounds completely different presented this way - Elusive 'knowledge' of oral transmission got lost - The consequent reform of the worship in Judah radical - Destructive impact on the former territories (Samaria, Bethel) - In his reform Josiah obeyed the law 'to the letter' - New legislation in the written law code: 1) centralized worship in the temple - 2) rules about animal sacrifices - 3) change in judicial system: from tribal elders to judges and supreme court in Jerusalem - 4) king was stripped of traditional powers - no longer 'sacred figure' - 'son of God' - Josiah crucial to the reform and new promulgated law - Revered as a new Moses, greater than kind David - The 'revisionists' (Deuteronomists) gave Israel's law a secular sphere, an independent judiciary, a constitutional monarchy, and a centralized state.

Reflection - To the Deuteronomists: a) God did not come down from heaven to speak to Moses on Mount Sinai; - b) nor could the Israelites manipulate him by offering sacrifice.

- c) God certainly did not live in the temple.- d) Israel did not own its land because Yahweh had chosen to dwell on Mount Zion, rather, they owned the land, because, - as Yahweh's people, - they observed his statutes and worshiped him exclusively.

- e) It was essential that the Israelites behave with justice and kindness to one another. The Deuteronomists passionately insisted upon the importance of justice, equity, and compassion and went even further than the teaching of Amos and Hosea. - They rewrote the old laws of the 9^th c. Covenant code.

Opposition - Literacy changed the people's relationship with heritage - Jeremiah and the 'written Torah' - Shift from oral tradition to written text can lead to religious discord, cruel intolerance.

Failure - Josiah's experiment ended in tears - He was killed in a battle against the Egyptian army - None of his reforms survived his death.

Ch 5 Suffering (600-530)

Israel - the Axial Age starts to become a 'reality' - But first the 'shock' of the 'exile' - A little history - Jeremiah's role and warning: It's going to happen, folks! Don't deny the reality - He also foresaw the 'spiritual change' for the exiled Israelites - 'Knowing' their God 'within' (the direct knowledge of the Axial Age) - Change in thinking would cause change in worship - Ezekiel (from Babylon): the suffering will be terrible (he had to eat the scroll) - but it would have a good result (it tasted like honey) - A change of heart was needed - No hope for Judah.

P, J, E, D - What they stand for, some details - Impact on Jewish spirituality - Holiness vs purity in 'P'.

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Notes for Lecture FOUR (AA)

Greece - Prosperity during this period caused the gods in Greece to get greater definition - The city-States: Athens, Corinth, Sparta and its homoioi = 'equals'. - Mentality was turned away from 'kenosis' and non-violence, and focused on military efficiency. - It had its consequences. - Hesiod and his effort to turn people from the 'prideful selfish excess' of warriors to a greater devotion to justice. - The impact of his Four Ages of Men and the Theogony.

Hoplites - New technology - new weapons - new warfare - Hoplite army with new equality - Teamwork instead of personal glory - Devotion to the common good - A touch of kenosis /self-surrender only that it was acted out on the battlefield - Hoplite reform changed the 'polis'.

Chinese - 7^th c. time of wars - Violence kept within bounds by the ritual reform: yielding to the enemy - Impact of the 'yielding' on other relationships - The 'wu wei' principle gave spiritual meaning to war activities - Clash of competing honors first, clash of arms second - 'Sincerity' transformed one to a fully human person - It's impact on family life - 'Shen', sincerity, the divine quality that made each human unique - became with 'shu', empathy, central to the Chinese Axial Age.

Reflection -

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Notes for Lecture THREE

Greece - remained free from Assyrian occupation - Learning from foreign people they started different forms of government, but religion remained untouched -

Polis: the small city-state - Male-oriented with public speaking as important as military skill - No 'esprit de corps' , no room for self-surrender - Aggression inherent in the 'polis' - The games at Olympia - cult of the 'hero' - spilled over into their religion -

Homer - Fame more important than life itself - enhancing one's own prestige while sacrificing the good of the whole - Only the Achilles poem gave signs of self-emptying sympathy.

China - went through a time of transition in the 8^th c. - More cultivation of land, less hunting and slaughtering - Restrain and moderation worked toward 'rethinking religion' - Rituals taught 'reverence and modesty' toward others, but more out of 'self-interest - no kenosis renouncing yet! - Kings Yao and Shun were of influence in the development of 'self-surrender' - They became examples of what every human being had the potential to become.

India - Family became the center of society - Householder was allowed to have a sacred fire, - it made the home a private sacrificial sanctuary. - The 'renouncers' - the deliberate 'homeless ones'. - They shaped the next stage of the Axial Age in India - were the beginning of Hinduism - They symbolically extinguished the flame of the sacrificial fire because they carried the sacrificial fire 'within' themselves - Man's inner 'self' (atman) was the sacrifice - They thus internalized the religion, determined to discover the 'absolute' by becoming aware of the core of their own being, awakening to their authentic self.

Ch 4 Knowledge (700-600 bce) - about enlightenment and 'knowing'.

India - The Upanishads (7-2 c. bce) started to fucus on peaceful conquest of 'inner space' - external ritual was replaced by strict introspection, seen as fulfillment of ancient tradition (see: Armstrong Upanishads in my website www.gcsmorespace.com ) - The sacred syllable 'OM' - stands for all sound - reflects the entire cosmos. - Being a transcendent reality it was also one with the human body. - Here too the Upanishads directed the attention back to the 'inner self' as a means for liberation. - Knowledge of the connection between rites and cosmos takes one to the Brahman, the 'Ground of Being'. - No longer attention to the divine powers 'outside', but turning 'within' - For an outsider it is incredible teaching. - But then, the great sayings are not accessible to normal, secular modes of thought - Cultivating a habit of inwardness that transforms is required (one of "letting go") .

Life was changing for the Aryans around that time - Variety of tribes - 'Renouncers' - Developing process of urbanization. - Little agriculture - more travel/transport. - One philosopher taught: there is an 'immortal spark' at the core of the human person, that participates in the immortal Brahman that sustains and gives life to the entire cosmos. - An 'ultimate reality', an immanent presence in the depth of the 'self' (atman). - Human beings became aware of the deeper layers if consciousness, they became more fully self-conscious. -

This was one of the clearest expressions of a fundamental principle of the Axial Age. Enlightened persons would discover within themselves the means of rising above the world; they would experience 'transcendence' by examining the mysteries of 'their own nature' - not simply by taking part in magical rituals. This knowledge lay beyond concepts and did not depend upon deductive reasoning. It was rather an awareness of an 'inner light within the heart', a direct and immediate intuition, beyond any ordinary joy. This 'knowledge' transformed the individual.

(Cf Armstrong The Great Transformation - also check the 2 articles in www.gcsmorespace.com respectively by Wilber and Laughlin - which show how ancient teaching are being adapted to modern times)

The story of the salt in the cup of water - Early Upanishads were not rebelling against the Old Vedic rites, rather moving beyond them

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Lecture TWO

2) Sanskrit Aryans - From them came the Rig Veda (praise of knowledge), a Hindu sacred text - In it 'knowledge' not acquisition of information, but experience of the 'divine possession' - These people linked their earthly battles with the divine archetype - which later developed into a 'creator god', the brahman, the 'all', a) the life-force of the universe, b) seed of consciousness, c) light that emerges from the waters of unconscious matter. - The Indian visionaries moved beyond concepts and words into the silent appreciation of the 'ineffable', - part of the Great Transformation in India.

3) the Chinese - Civilization arrives slowly and painfully in China - Wise kings and advisers would be the inspiration of Chinese Axial thinking - Shang dynasty not egalitarian - Hierarchy and rank hallmark of Chinese civilization - Nobility and peasants - their life style: summer-winter, ' yin and yang' - Deep anxiety in religious feelings - Sky-god Di and nature gods unpredictable - Later ancestors and nature spirits took their place - King 'When' and his calling to commitment to do 'justice for the people' - Introduction of an ethical ideal into religion.

Change in the Eastern Mediterranean - Hittite in Asia Minor - Egyptians in southern Syria, Canaan and Phoenicia.

4) Israel - Tribes not original in Canaan - Egypt leaving around 1200 bce made new settlements possible - Abraham (and the beginning of Israel) settled in Hebron - Stories of the Hebrew Bible about early Israel not seen by many scholars as 'historical' - Israel was seen as 'different', not because they were foreigners but because they saw themselves as the 'people of Yahweh' - Their religious customs were not much different from the locals - 'gods' and 'high places' - Yahweh a 'warrior god' - other gods and goddesses were gentler - Axial Age had not yet started for Israel - It too had to go through a period of 'anxiety' before it would receive the Axial 'insight' - Elijah and the 'Yahweh alone' movement - Events leading up to the Babylonian crisis/exile.

5) The Greeks - Macynaean Greeks (1450-1200) were passionately competitive - Life in the 9^th c.: local 'lords', their place in society - Desire for weapons and luxury brought trade with Canaan and Phoenicia - Religion in 9^th c. pessimistic: gods were dangerous, cruel and arbitrary - Sense of 'tragedy' stayed with the Greeks as expressed in their 'plays', and the birth of the Greek gods - 'Fate' was a controlling factor. - Family foundation of society - also a 'lethal battleground' - Became reflected in the rituals - Fear and pain were at the base when religious traditions were created during the Axial Age. - They would all insist that it was essential not to deny this 'suffering', instead to acknowledge it fully as an essential prerequisite for enlightenment, safety, or betterment.

6) China - Chinese had no need for rupture from their mythical cult - 9^th c. time of great weakness and disintegration, but religion remained the dominating factor - The King and the Way, no separation between heaven and earth - Chinese never interested in a god who transcended the natural order - All earthly actions were sacred activities sharing co-creatively in the divine process - The Way of Heaven revealed in the one-ness of heaven and earth (Jesus) - Bringing the rituals to the public made all become more fully human - It made them see that the 'transformative effect of the rites' was far more important than the 'manipulations of the gods'.

7) India - saw in the 9^th c. a reform of the rites - Elimination of violence first from the sacrificial ritual developed into an 'indispensable virtue' of the Indian Axial Age - Even death could be overcome (Paul) - Most import effect of the ritual reform was the discovering of the world 'inside the human' - The 'atman', the 'self' makes the human 'unique' - Further development from ritual to solitary meditation - By meditating on the inner dynamic of the ritual, they had learned to look 'within'. A new self-consciousness had been born.

Ch 3 'Kenosis' - surrender, emptying, renouncing

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Be aware - there are several charts

Lecture ONE

Introduction - In our age people are trying to find meaning in turbulent times - What many don't find - and what many are looking for: the significance and value of their lives'.

Axial Age - It's time period and regions - Value for our time - The 'insights' of the Axial Age continues to be of influence.

Faith/Belief in Axial thinking - What is important to the 'modern believer', was of no interest to the Axial thinker: 'assenting to articles of faith' - Their 'experience' led to reverent silence. - Some parallels with Jesus' teachings - Respect for the rights of all beings, not orthodox belief, was for them 'religion'.

Some details of that 'religion' - presence of the divine - meaning of animal sacrifice - finding the divine world 'within'.

The Axial Peoples - their background -

1) Avestan Aryans - how they looked at their 'world' - their gods - sacrifices. - Zoroaster and his Lord Mazda and the Hostile Spirit - the great judgement.

2) Sanskrit Aryans - From them came the Rig Veda (praise of knowledge), a Hindu sacred text - In it 'knowledge' not acquisition of information, but experience of the 'divine possession' - These people linked their earthly battles with the divine archetype - which later developed into a 'creator god', the brahman, the 'all', the life-force of the universe, seed of consciousness, light that emerges from the waters of unconscious matter. - The Indian visionaries moved beyond concepts and words into the silent appreciation of the 'ineffable', - part of the Great Transformation in India.

(AA) (AA) (AA) (FAA) (AA) (AA) (AA) (AA)in the website (under 'Tables') that might be of interest for further reference.