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Saturday, August 25, 2007

More Mythology - Shamanism

I just ran across this quote from that same Myth and Knowing Book I'm reading and I loved it, so here you go! Enjoy!

'Jonathan Ott certainly considers shamanism the first and truest religion: "Shamanic ecstasy is the real 'Old Time Religion,' of which modern churches are but pallid evocations. Shamanic, visionary ecstasy, the mysterium tremendum, the unio mystica, the eternally delightful experience of the universe as energy, is a sine qua non of religion, it is what religion is for! There is no need for faith, it is the ecstatic experience itself that gives one faith in the intrinsic unity and integrity of the universe, in ourselves as integral parts of the whole; that reveals to us the sublime majesty of our universe, and the fluctuant, scintillant, alchemical miracle that is quotidian consciouness"'.

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Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Kali Beheaded

So I"m reading this book called 'Myth and Knowing: An Introduction to World Mythology'
and I'm reading the section under the Female Divine called Kali Beheaded and ran across this passage which I thought was so good that it needed repeated on my blog, so here it is, for all you monists out there. Enjoy!

'The diverse religions of India feature numerous gods and goddesses, but, as one of the earliest philosophical dialogues in the Upanishads suggests, all religious philosophies and all gods, if reduced to their fundamental meaning, are one. Indeed, if any single statement can be made summarizing the Vedic philosophy underlying Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, and Jain belief, it is that the appearance of distinctions among beings and things - that is, the appearance of mundane reality that comes to us through normal consciousness - is an illusion. For beneath all distinctions and appearances, there is a fundamental identity between subject ("I") and object ("other") that transcends our everyday experience of things. Indeed, all things are one from the perspective of the Absolute whether that all-encompassing truth of existence is named Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva - or, for that matter, Parvati, Lakshmi, Durga, or Kali.' - from page 154-155.

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