by Harvey Kraft
Sakra’s healing powers consisted of inner satisfaction, bliss, will power, clear judgment, wisdom, and immunities from illness. He and his Deva aides revered the Buddha and promised to protect his Dharma and followers. Vowing to help all beings everywhere so that they may be able to hear the Buddha’s Law, Sakra sent forth Four Heavenly Kings (Skt. Devaraja) to protect people in the four quarters of the world-system.
With a large support cast these Kings resided in the First Heaven of Desire, named the “Heaven That Spans All Directions” (Skt. Catur-ma-haraja-kayikah). At this height the Devas guided the orbits of the sun and moon around the Golden Mountain. Also living here, were creatures with healing properties, the benevolent good spirits and water nymphs (Skt. Apsarases) inhabiting Nature.
Below the Heavens of Desire was the world sphere. On behalf of all humanity, the Four Heavenly Kings imbued this space with four universal desires in support of the sustenance, nourishing and evolutionary progress of civilization:
1. The Desire for security, stability, peace, and harmony
2. The Desire to distinguish the negative from the positive
3. The Desire to sacrifice one’s individual desires in consideration for the well-being of the whole
4. The Desire for freedom from self-delusions that caused disharmony
The Four Heavenly Kings embodied these desires for the sake of collective harmony, health and happiness, peaceful and productive communities, and the orderly alignment of Nature needed for stable, predictable climates.
The Heavens of form in the Golden Mountain Cosmology (Pali/ Skt. rupa-dhatu) were charged with managing the time-space-scale framework of the Six Worlds. This was the province governing the formation and functions of phenomena.
Situated alongside the top one half of the Golden Mountain between the Heavens of Desire and the Heavens of Formlessness, the Heavens of Form were populated by celestial beings with form-bodies. The Buddha encouraged seers to peer into the Heavens of Form by achieving increasingly higher levels of trance consciousness through meditation (Skt. dhyanas). There they would find six sections divided into eighteen heavenly communities.
The top section housed the first three Heavens of Form (sixteen– eighteen) belonging to the Great Brahma (Skt. Mahabrahma). The higher tier was originally depicted in Brahmanic literature as the palatial City of Brahma. The two levels below were the residencies of Brahma’s court and followers.
In the Rig Veda, Indra and his twin Agni were chief among the gods. But in the Brahmanic Upanisads and Brahmanas a trinity of gods (Skt. Timurti) came to the fore led by Brahma, the Creator of All Existence, coupled with two parental deities, Shiva (the Destroyer) and Vishnu (the Preserver), respectively, the protective father and nurturing mother providing balance to life.
The Buddha dropped the parental roles of Shiva and Vishnu assigned to them by the Upanisads and Brahmanas. They were absent from his design of Heaven. In their place, the Buddha took upon himself the role of parenting humanity.
The next section in the Heavens of Form, the “Heavens of Three Forms of Luminosity,” consisted of three tiers (thirteen–fifteen) featuring: (1) the Spotlight Heaven that directed light to illuminate one spot in Existence, (2) the Heaven of Never-Ending Light whose light traveled far beyond all limits, and (3) the Signal Light Heaven wherein light carried messages across great distances.
The following section, named the “Heavens of Three Pure Forms,” included three tiers (ten–twelve) featuring: (1) the Heaven of Concentrated Pure Forms where a limited amount of purity was concentrated in a small space, (2) the Heaven of Never-Ending Purity wherein pure forms existed across an unlimited area, and (3) the Heaven of Interactive Pure Forms wherein pure forms were able to communicate and travel across great distances.
The next three tiers (seven–nine) in the section called the “Heaven of Three Blessing Forms” included: (1) the Heaven of Clear Skies which produced the blessings that ensured a good climate; (2) the Heaven of Good Birth whose blessings brought forth the formation of a good life; and (3) the Heaven of Fruitfulness whose blessings provided for stable and bountiful childbearing.
Below that the “Heaven of Transcendent Forms” (6) was the housing for unconscious forms, those hidden from unenlightened consciousness. This realm would conjure transcendent forms, such as thought-forms and energy-forms hidden from the view of others living in the Six Worlds system.
The sixth section in the Heavens of Form encompassed the “Five Heavens of Delightful Forms” (1–5). These realms of joy were the delightful states bequeathed to those who had aspired for higher consciousness. The names of these Heavens reflected the beautiful joy-forms, expressions of happiness achieved through the practices of liberation: (1) Free of Troubles, (2) Free from Heated Passions and Thoughts, (3) Enjoying Beautiful Activities, and (4) Exuding a Beautiful Appearance. Located at the center summit of this section, the fifth heavenly abode (5) was named Delight in Freedom (Skt. Akanishtha) and served as the home of the Great God of Freedom, Maha-Ishvara, who sat on a lofty perch appreciating with delight all the beautiful forms in Existence.
The Heavens of formlessness in the Golden Mountain Cosmology (Pali/Skt. arupa-dhatu) constituted the highest level among the Heavens. It conveyed that the Buddha-Dharma extended beyond the reach of all the deities residing in the Heavens of Form and Desire below. The Heaven of Formlessness had no deities living in it. It could be peered into for only a limited period of time through the practice of concentrated trance mediations. The view from this highest tier of the Golden Mountain encompassed all the Heavens, Earth, and Underworlds.
The Heavens of Formlessness included in ascending order the following four tiers: (1) the Realm of Boundless Space, (2) the Realm of Boundless Consciousness, (3) the Realm of Transcendent Space, and, (4) the Realm of Transcendent Consciousness (Neither Thought Nor No Thought).
This Heaven defined the overarching presence of the Universal-Mind, the transcendent space and boundless consciousness that encompassed the world-system, but was not limited by it. Here was the universal storehouse of all the memories and potentialities throughout the history and future of the sun solar system.
The Buddha had shown his audience a view of Sumeru that revealed the Mind of Nature. Fixing their thoughts on the various Heavens, as he had illustrated, some entered a meditation wherein they began to climb toward a state free of the burdens of Form or the influences of conflicting Desires. In gaining this insight, a host of people from varied religious persuasions chose to become Sakamuni’s disciples. Exposed to the boundless scope of this Buddha’s vision, they realized that the Buddha’s wisdom superseded that of the gods, while clarifying their roles and purpose. Through the Golden Mountain Cosmology, he awakened in his followers a deeper appreciation for the underlying structure: the Threefold Field of Existence undergirding the Mind of Nature.
CHASE
One day a herd of elephants stampeded through a town just as the Buddha had arrived for a visit. When they saw him in their path the elephants came to a sudden stop. Earlier, witnesses said, they had spotted a man hitting the animals with a stick. Somebody recognized him as the one who often professed the words of Zoroaster’s Vi-Daeva-datta. Others remembered seeing this man near a boulder that earlier had rolled down from a hill and nearly missed Sakamuni.
As the dust settled, another commotion arose with the arrival of Siddhartha Gautama’s son, Rahula, and his aunt Prajapati. Rahula had been given his name from the Upanisads meaning Conqueror of Sorrows. Prajapati’s name was derived from the Vedic Lord of Creatures, meaning the one who cherished all creatures. They had crossed into India to find Sakamuni. The moment their eyes fell upon the Buddha, they beheld his transformation from the Siddhartha Gautama they had known. They brought with them the news that Darius I had invaded Scythian Aryana and captured the Saka city of Babil. He had marched as far as the Kingdom of Gandhara along the Indus River.
Initially, after seizing the throne in Babylon, Darius I consolidated his rule by crushing rebellions
in Babylon, Elam, Persia, and Medes and across the vast Persian Empire in Egypt, Assyria, and Lydia. The defeated rebels would see his wrath. The Achaemenid ruler regularly practiced mutilation, crucifixions, and impaling to punish political disloyalty.
When the Elamite rebel leader was brought before him, Darius killed him personally. In his own words, Darius described the fate of another rebel leader, Phaortes, responsible for a major revolt in Medes that spread further into Armenia before the Persian brutally put it down:
Phaortes was captured and brought before me. I cut off his nose, his ears, and his tongue, and I put out one eye, and he was kept in chains at my palace entrance, for all the people to behold him. Then did I crucify him in Ecbatana; along with all of his foremost followers . . . I fayed and hung out their hides and stuffed them with straw.169
Next he turned his military focus to the east where Cyrus the Ach-aemenid had been defeated and killed. Seeking revenge, Darius I invaded the Scythian tribal lands of Eastern Aryana. His victory expanded the holdings of the Persian Empire as far as the Indus Valley (521 BCE). Then, heading south to the Arabian Sea coastline (519 BCE), he personally led the invasion of Makran (aka Maka or Magan) determined to “smite the rebel demon worshippers”170 (Prs. Daevas). This area was the primary seat for the Saka tribes and a hub for the Lion-Sun practitioners of the original Vedic teachings. From there, he crossed into the southern range of the Indus River Valley (521–519 BCE) where he took hold of the gold nugget fields at Kolar, the key trading centers at Gandhara and Taxila, and the western side of the Punjab crossing into the Indian subcontinent.
In the name of Zoroaster’s God, Assura Mazda, Darius had extended his hold on Aryana territory, including Medes and Scythian tribal regions in the north, Saka lands in the south, and Vedic encampments in the Indus Valley (Sindhu) in the east.
When he returned victorious from these campaigns, in addition to the empire’s administrative capital in Susa, he ordered the construction of an extraordinary self-aggrandizing ceremonial capital in Parsa. The purpose of the royal city-palace named Persepolis (518–516 BCE) was to glorify his stature. There he would host visitors, such as gift-bearing vassal-kings, store the treasures he collected in battles, and proclaim his edicts. From this point he assumed the title of Darius the Great, King of Kings.
When Sakamuni learned of the attack on their homeland and the brutal killing of innocent people, he proclaimed that violence in the world was caused by violence in the mind. He would rededicate his effort from this point forward to the achievement of peace in the world by lifting human minds out of hellish conditions.
The Buddha invited his family to stay and join his Sangha. The young man and elder woman immediately and eagerly pledged to become devoted followers of his Teachings. Until that moment only mature men had taken the vows.
Gathering his Sangha community to share the news that he would not be able to return to his birthplace, Sakamuni announced that he needed to explain one more important point regarding the Doctrine of Rebirth. During his redesign of the Golden Mountain Cosmology he made clear his position regarding the reincarnation of the soul and its transmutations through the Six Worlds, but now, he said, turning to his disciples, he must clarify further his position on multiple lifetimes:
“We have been together before this lifetime, traveling like a tribe across time, through many worlds. What keeps us bound to one another through many manifestations is our powerful bond. The depth of our commitment has held our migration in tact. Now as before, I continue to lead you on a journey headed for our original home, the Buddha-land. To all of you who follow me across this Great Transmigration, I pledge to free you of suffering; I promise that beyond the realms of Earth and Heaven, you will find more than you ever imagined to be possible.”
As he spoke these words, the entire Golden Mountain Cosmology shook with delight. The Buddha shined a beam of light from his forehead showing heavenly beings dancing and jumping for joy. Beautiful, colorful flowers fell from the sky. In the air exotic flying creatures created music with their wings. The fragrant aroma of wisdom arose from the lotus blossoms along the banks of the Ganges River.
The crowd of disciples cheered with contented delight, having learned that they were travel companions of the Buddha through the journey of transmigration across numerous lifetimes. Celebrating the discovery of their profound cosmic relationship, some bowed to one another in recognition while many others doubled their commitment to use the vehicles of Learning and Realization to enlighten others.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Relativity
In the Age of Pyramids and Ziggurats the seer-stargazers applied their skills in celestial observation and calculation to align human activities with divine order. According to the cosmographic Egyptian text, The Book of Nut, the Sky Goddess represented the celestial dome of the world firmament.
Above and beyond her arching figure, they observed the cosmic field of space, the Duat, surrounding the world sphere above the sky and below the Underworld. The celestial bodies inhabited various layers of the Duat. The twelfth and outermost layer was unknown territory described as the “ocean of space beyond the stars,” a dark, cold region “empty of Heaven and Earth.”
During the New Kingdom (1550–1070 BCE), by charting the motions of the sun and stars across Nut’s back, the Egyptians invented “star clocks.” These timekeeping devices and diagrams tracked the cyclical procession of the rising stars (decans) divisible by the number twelve—thirty-six groupings of stars, a year of three hundred sixty days with twelve months in a year, and the twelve hours of night. The clocks were not designed for counting the passing of time, but for synchronizing prayer rituals and divination activities with the rhythmic pace of eternal harmony.
The Sumerians and then Babylonians studied the transit of celestial bodies and sought to link their configurations to human events. Connecting divinity and destiny they refected the belief that whichever god possessed the Tablet of Destiny (Sum. Dup Shimati) had the power to defeat chaos and bring order to the world. Fixing their gaze upon the celestial bodies, both Egyptians and Sumerians connected human destiny with cosmic patterns. They regarded the sun, moon, planets and stars as Heavenly deities, and deemed their alignments to be essential to success, creativity, destiny, and harmonious order.
THE CIRCLE
From the highest vantage atop their ziggurat tower-temples, the Babylonian priests observed that the horizon encircled the world and intersected with the circular rim of the sky dome. Heaven and Earth locked circles at the outer edge of the world.
To Babylonian cosmologists the geometry of the circle denoted more than a physical shape. It defined the cyclical repetitiveness of time, celestial movements, and nature. As the cosmos behaved with relative constancy, it gave priest-astronomers the ability to measure celestial cycles, anticipate the regularity of seasons, and read omens.
Through “writings in the sky” the gods inscribed their intentions upon this divine tableau. To predict future activities required the ability to read and translate the divine language of the astral plane. To that end, the seer-observers developed and applied mathematical configurations that would allow for the anticipation of future outcomes based on celestial movements across time and space. Using these tools they measured the relative associations of planets and stars and compared their config-urations to prior data collected about human and natural events.
The Sumerian/Akkadian priests created the first numerical system based on the circle as the embodiment of cosmic order. They divided the circle into 360-degrees, the number they used for the days in the year, and from it derived the sexagesimal (base-60) numerical system. This base number was used to divide the circle into six sections (60° x 6 segments = 360-degree circle).
The Magi Order serving the Chaldean King Nebuchadnezzar took another step forward in the development of proto-mathematics and celestial orientation. Mirroring the twelve-part, harmony-aligned Egyptian “star clocks,” they divided the circle into twelve i
ncrements of 30 degrees each (30° x 12 segments = 360 degrees). Using this semisextile (base-30) structure, the New Babylonian mathematicians configured the astral canopy into twelve slices of 30-degrees each. They used this mathematical foundation to calculate angles, develop the earliest-ever algebraic equations, and organize the stars into constellations.
Seeing that the circle governed life, they created a circular map of the cosmos. Their invention of the Zodiac, the map of astral harmonics, refected the Magi’s effort to decipher meanings from cosmic patterns. Their seers discerned in the geometric alignments and juxtapositions of celestial bodies mathematically defined rules that translated into harmonious order or disorder. They made use of data collections, astral observations, and trance visions to chart the patterns of the Heavens and correlated them to anticipated influences on events yet to take place on Earth.
The priests of ancient Sumer/Akkad had started the practice of compiling and organizing star lists and related data. They were first to differentiate between fixed and rising stars. The Magi wise men continued the exploration. With the assistance of data collection teams they measured and calculated relative distances, geometric relationships (shapes and angles), and movements of bodies in space and time.
Ancient astronomy was based on the brightness of celestial bodies. The brightest were the Seven Planets, composed of five discernible planets and the two largest luminous bodies seen from Earth. They were Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, plus the Sun and Moon (Earth was not included). The Seven Planets, also known as the Seven Heavens, had inspired Babylon’s Magi astronomers to develop the mathematics of cosmic bodies in motion. These calculations enabled them for the first time to successfully anticipate the dates for eclipses.
By comparing the positions and movements of the Seven Planets relative to the so-called slow or fixed stars, they found that in due course history repeated itself. Therefore, the re-appearance of a particular astral/ planetary pattern in the sky suggested that a similar trend or outcome would occur on the same date in the calendar. The principle of cyclical interstellar harmony among Heaven, place, time, events, and outcome set in motion the development of astrology. Linking data about past human events relative to the positions of celestial bodies—aspects— they predicted outcomes, changes, or challenges ahead.
