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The Shadow of the Dalai Lama –
Part II – 17. Conclusion
© Victor & Victoria
Trimondi
17.
CONCLUSION
We have now reached the end of
our detailed treatise on the Dalai Lama, Tantric Buddhism, and
Tibetan history. The first part of our study (Ritual as Politics) was
centered on the theme of gender, especially the sexual magic
exploitation of the woman in the androcentric system of Vajrayana for the
mytho-political accumulation of power. The derivation of Tibetan
history and the Dalai Lama’s politics from the cultic mysteries of
Buddhist Tantrism (especially the Kalachakra Tantra) forms the
content of the second part of our book (Politics as Ritual). In
general, we have attempted to show that, in the world view of the
Lamaist, sacred sexuality, magic, mysticism, and myth are united
with his understanding of politics and
history.
Tibetan Buddhism primarily owes
its success in the West to two facts: first, the charm and brilliant
self-presentation of its supreme representative, the Fourteenth
Dalai Lama, and second, the promise to lead people on the way to
enlightenment. Although the tantric path to enlightenment explicitly
involves a dissolution of the ego, it is at first the I of the pupil which is
addressed. “I would like
to overcome the senselessness and suffering of my earthly existence.
I would like to
experience liberation from samsara (the world of
illusion).” When a western sadhaka is prepared to
sacrifice his “little self”, he certainly does not have the same
understanding as the lamas of the “greater self” (the higher self or
Buddha consciousness) which the tantric philosophy and practices of
Vajrayana offers him as a
spiritual goal. The Westerners believe that enlightened
consciousness still has something to do with a self. In contrast, a
teacher of Tantric Buddhism knows that the individual identity of
the pupil will be completely extinguished and replaced by a strictly
codified, culturally anchored army of gods. It is the Tibetan
Buddhas, herukas, Bodhisattvas, deities, demons (dharmapalas) and the
representatives of the particular guru lineages who take the place
of the individual pupil’s consciousness. One must thus gain the
impression that an “exclusive club” of supernatural, albeit
culturally bounded, beings (Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, gods, etc.) has
managed to survive by time and again occupying human bodies anew
(until these wear out). Tibetan Buddhism is not aimed at the
enlightenment of individuals but rather at the continuing existence
of a culture of superhumans (yogis, gods) in the form of possessed
people (the pupils). It is concerned here to perpetuate a priestly
caste that does not need to die because their consciousnesses can be
incarnated into the human bodies of their followers again and again.
This caste and their deities are considered sacrosanct. They live
beyond all criticism. Their symbols, deeds, and history are set up
as exemplary; they are the cultural inheritance which may not be
analyzed but must be taken on blind faith by
believers.
For these reasons Tibetan
Buddhism’s entire promise of enlightenment forms a trap with which
intimate and religious yearnings can be used to magically push
through the politico-religious goals of the monastic clergy. (We are
not discussing here whether this is really possible, rather, we are
talking about the intentions of the Lamaist system.) This
corresponds exactly with what the Renaissance philosopher Giordano
Bruno describes as “manipulation”. Bruno, it will be recalled,
indicated that a masterly manipulator may not speak about his actual
power-political intentions. In contrast, he flatters the ego of the
one to be manipulated (the ego the masses), so that the latter
always believes he is following solely his own interests and
pursuing his completely personal goals — but in truth he is
fulfilling the wishes and targets of the manipulator (without
knowing it). Applied to the Dalai Lama and his religion this means
that people practice Tibetan Buddhism because they hope for
enlightenment (liberation from personal suffering) from it, yet in
reality they become agents of political Lamaism and the Tibetan gods
at work behind it. The Dalai Lama is thus a particularly impressive
example of a “manipulator” in Bruno’s sense.
If people are used to serve as
vessels for the Tibetan gods, then the energy which directly powers
the mysto-political motor of the Lamaist system consists in the
sacred sexuality, the erotic love, particularly in the gynergy of the woman (as
fuel). Tibetan Buddhism is a mystery religion and its mysteries are
the driving force behind its political decisions. Reduced to a
concise formula, this means that sexuality is transformed via
mysticism into power. The French poet Charles Péguy is supposed to
have said that, “every mysticism ends up as politics”. The dynamic
of the tantric system cannot be better described. It is a
large-scale “mystic ritual machine” whose sole aim is the production
of the all-encompassing ADI BUDDHA and the establishment of his
universal political control.
Just how closely intertwined
Lamaism sees sexual magic and politics to be is demonstrated by the
dual nature of the Kalachakra
Tantra. The sexual magic rituals, the cosmology, and the
political program of the Shambhala myth are tightly
interwoven with each other in this document. For a Western reader,
the text seems unintegrated, at odds with itself, and contradictory,
but for a Buddhist Tantric it forms a seamless
unity.
Tantric rituals are thus
politics, as we have described in the first part of our study. But
in reverse, politics is also a ritual, i.e., every political event,
be it the flight of the Dalai Lama from Tibet, the vandalistic
actions the Chinese Red Guard, the death of Mao Zedong, or a film
like Scorsese’s Kundun,
they all — from a traditional Tibetan and not from a Western
point of view — form a performance along the Kalachakra master’s progress
toward the throne of the ADI BUDDHA.
If we judge the politics of Lamaist
Buddhocracy from a Western point of view, especially those of the Kalachakra Tantra and the Shambhala myth, then we
arrive at the following nine assessment
points:
- The politics of the Time
Tantra is “inhuman”, because it is conducted by gods and yogis,
but not by people. These gods possess in part extremely
destructive characteristics. They are nonetheless sacrosanct and
may neither be criticized nor exchanged or
transformed.
- The goal of this tantra is the
establishment of an androcentric, undemocratic, despotic monastic
state headed by an autocrat (the ADI
BUDDHA).
- The Buddhocratic state is structurally
based upon sacrifice: the sacrifice of the loving goddess, the
woman, the individual, the pupil, the king, the
scapegoat.
- Buddhocracy skillfully manipulates several
models of temporary
anarchism in order to in the end turn them around into an
authoritarian system.
- In a Tibetan-style Buddhocracy, the state
and its organs do not shrink from using black magic rituals to get
political opponents out of the way.
- Buddhocratic politics are aligned not
towards democratic decision-making processes but rather towards
divine commands, especially the pronouncements of oracles, of whom
Pehar, the pre-Buddhist
war god of the Hor Mongols, assumes the leading role (of state
oracle).
- The tantric state is pursuing an
aggressive policy of war and conquest (the Shambhalization of the
world).
- The Shambhala myth contains an
apocalyptic vision borne by a “fascistoid” warrior ethos, in which
the faithful (the Buddhists) brutally annihilate all non-believers
(above all the Moslems).
- Tantric Buddhism manipulates the western
masses with falsified images of peace, ecology, democracy, a
pro-woman orientation, social justice, and
compassion.
In this connection we would like
to (in warning) mention once more the significant influence that
both Buddhist Tantrism in general and the Kalachakra Tantra and Shambhala myth in particular
have had over fascism and German national socialism, and continue to
exert. In chapter 12 we reported on Heinrich Himmler’s occult
interest in Tibet, about the former SS member Heinrich Harrer, the
tutor of the young Dalai Lama, and about the significance of Vajrayana for the fascist
ideology of Mussolini’s confidante, Julius Evola. But at the center
of this chapter stood a detailed analysis of Esoteric Hitlerism, the
world view of the Chilean diplomat and author Miguel Serrano who
closely follows Buddhist Tantrism and combines it with occult
doctrines of the Nazis. Most clearly of all, Serrano shows what
awaits humanity if the Kalachakra Tantra were to
gain control over the world: a racist autocracy of androgynous
warriors who celebrate real female sacrifices as their supreme
mystery and worship Hitler’s SS as their historical role-model. In
warning, we would indicate that it is not a coincidence that His
Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama has maintained contact with these
fanatic worshippers of the SS and the German “Führer” since his
flight from Tibet (in 1959), but rather because his tantric
tradition corresponds with many of their ideological and visionary
aspects.
Where Serrano’s Shambhala visions have up
until now remained speculations, they have taken on a horrifying
reality in the figure of the Japanese sect leader, Shoko Asahara.
The world held its breath in the case of Asahara as he ordered the
carrying out of a gas attack on Tokyo’s overfilled underground
railway system in 1995 in which there were numerous injuries and
several people died. It was the first militarily planned attempted
murder by a religious group from an industrialized country which was
directed outwardly (i.e. not against its own membership). The
immense danger of such insidious attacks, against which the masses
are completely unprotected, is obvious. For all the depth of feeling
which the act stirred up among the international public, no-one has
until now made the effort of investigating the ideological and
religious bases and motives which led Asahara to commit his crime.
Here too, the ways lead to Tibetan Buddhism, especially the Shambhala myth of the Kalachakra Tantra. Asahara
saw himself as an incarnation of the Rudra Chakrin, the raging
wheel turner, who destroys one half of the world in order to
(literally) rescue the other half through his Shambhalization plan. Not
only was did he practice Vajrayana, he was also a
“good friend” of the Dalai Lama, whom he met five times in
person.
The atavistic pattern of
Tibetan Buddhism
Despite all these problematic
points, the image of Tibetan Buddhism as the best of all religious
systems and the Dalai Lama as the gentlest (!) of all beings
continues to spread successfully. One of the latest high points in
this glorification has been the cover story on Buddhism in the German news
magazine Spiegel (April
1998). In the case of the Dalai Lama this magazine, well-known for
its critical stance towards religion and anti-church articles which
often did not shy away from a sharp cynicism, let itself be used as
a propaganda instrument by an atavistic, autocratic religious
system. The author of the euphoric article, Erich Follath, was like
so many of his colleagues completely captivated by the god-king’s
charm after a visit to Dharamsala. “I show old friends like you
around my garden!”, the Kundun had smiled at the Spiegel editor and shown him
his flower beds (Spiegel,
no. 16, April 13, 1998). The journalist Follath gratefully accepted
this personal gesture by the divine charmer and in the same moment
abandoned his critical awareness and his journalistic
responsibility. His article is an embarrassing collection of
historical distortions and sentimental celebration of the Kundun, his country, and his
religion. [1]
If we were to characterize the
obvious self-presentation of His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama
on the world political stage, we would soon recognize that he
strictly abides by (a) four positive rules and (b) four negative
ones which proves him to indeed be a masterful
manipulator:
1.
(a) In public, always argue using the
terms of Mahayana Buddhism. Refer to
compassion, love, and peace. (b) Never mention the sexual magic
mysteries and power-political obsessions of Vajrayana.
2.
(a) Lead all arguments that could in any
manner be directed against Buddhism into the “emptiness” (shunyata) and in public “shunyatize” even your own
religious approach: “nothing has an inherent existence” — that is,
everything comes from nothingness and everything ends in
nothingness.
(b) In contrast, never mention in public the
Tibetan gods, demons, and spirits (the Nechung oracle) or their
power-political program (the Shambhala myth), who sink
into this “emptiness” only to push through their “Buddhocratic”
interests and tantric ideology globally.
3.
(a) Apparently take on all progressive
currents within western culture (democracy, freedom of opinion,
human rights, individualism, women’s rights, ecology, humanism, and
so forth). (b) Never mention the autocratic clerical intentions of
the tantric system, and under no circumstances the establishment of
worldwide control by the androcentric Buddhist monastic state which
can perpetuate itself via the doctrine of
reincarnation.
4.
(a) Smile and always appear friendly,
ordinary, modest, humble, and human. Always play the gentle “Lord of
Compassion”, the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara.(b) Never
display annoyance or pride in public, and thickly veil the
destructive aspects of those gods and demons (herukas) whose emanation on
earth you are. Be silent about the cruelty of Lamaist
history.
The smile and the friendly words
of the “living Buddha” are only the outer facade of his many-layered
personality. But it is not what the Dalai Lama says, but rather the
religious system which stands behind him and what his gods command
that determine the politics of Tibetan Buddhism, as we have shown in
the course of our study. It is not the new pseudo-Western
constitution of the Tibetans in exile which counts, rather it is in
the final instance the “political theology” recorded in the Kalachakra Tantra and Shambhala myth and the
sexual magic practices prescribed there for the accumulation of
power which are decisive. It is not the relaxed and friendly
relations between His Holiness and western celebrities which are a
problem, but rather his close contacts with occult sects like Shoko
Asahara’s AUM cult and with representatives of “esoteric Hitlerism”
like Miguel Serrano. The reason they are extremely problematic and
very dangerous is because both occultists (Asahara and Serrano) have
placed the philosophy and practice of Vajrayana and the warlike Shambhala myth at the center
of their destructive world view. It is not the conflict between the
Dalai Lama and Beijing which poses a threat for the West and the
world community, but rather in contrast a possible future cultural
conquest of the “Chinese dragon” by the “Tibetan snow lion” (of
Lamaism). The Shambhala
myth provides the optimal ideological foundations for an
aggressive, pan-Asian superpower politics and for the unleashing of
a Buddhist jihad (holy
war). It is not the gentle downward-looking Avalokiteshvara and the
“simple monk” from Dharamsala, but rather Yama the god of death and Kalachakra the time god with
his woman-destroying cult which are the problem, since they are
likewise incarnated in the figure of the Dalai Lama. It is not that
the Dalai Lama privately seeks advice from an oracle that is
problematic, but rather that a Mongolian war god speaks through the
state oracle. It is not the popularity that Hollywood has lent the
Kundun which should be
criticized, but rather the use of these media giants to distort
historical facts.
Yet the atavistic and mythic
pattern of Tibetan thought and Tantric Buddhism is completely
ignored by people in the West (as long as they are not converted
Buddhists). If it were to be examined, one would inevitably reach
the conclusion that there is absolutely no freedom of opinion in the
Lamaist culture of Tibet, and hence no real criticism either, since
the Tibetan people have always been administered autocratically, and
even in exile have no democracy, having “ opted” for a
constitutionally fixed(!) Buddhocracy instead. Further, since
doctrine has it that the highest ruler of the country, the Dalai
Lama, is not a state president but a living “god” (an incarnation of
Avalokiteshvara and the
Kalachakra deity), his
will must always be valued more highly than that of his subjects,
even should they have a seat in the exile Tibetan
government.
Additionally, Tibet has no
ordinary history but rather a sacred one, with the Shambhala myth at its center
and as its goal. For this reason, every political act of the Kundun and the Tibetans in
exile must be subsumed within this eschatology. Lamaist culture is
in its essence undemocratic, fundamentalist, and totalitarian, and
sees nothing bad in this — in contrast, it holds itself to be the
best system of all. Thanks to the doctrine of reincarnation, the
ruling clerical elite views its absolutist exercise of power as
unlimited even by death.
Every reform policy, every
affirmation of democratization, every profession of peace remains a
lie for as long as the Dalai Lama has not renounced the tantric
ritual system, especially the Kalachakra Tantra. At heart
this rests on the magic transformation of sexuality into power and
ultimately aspires to the militarily enforced enthronement of a
sacred/political world king. Nonetheless, without even the slightest
concession and headed by the Kundun, all schools of
Lamaism continue to hold fast to the — as we believe we have
demonstrated them to be — extremely destructive and humanity
despising rites and associated political
ideology.
Even if the Tibetan clergy were
to relinquish its political privileges for a time in a “liberated”
Tibet, the idea of the hegemony of a patriarchal monastic
dictatorship as the supreme goal would remain, as this is the core
of the entire tantric ritual system. The theocratic system that can
be found in all the past cultures of the world only survives today
in Tibetan Buddhism and parts of Islam. In both cases it demands
worldwide recognition and distribution. Among the Tibetans in exile
it does so — grotesquely — from behind a mask of democracy, human
rights, the ecumenical mission, and the protection of
nature.
However, when they not in public,
the Tibetan Gurus do not shrink at all from talking about their
mystic envisionings, plans for conquest, apocalyptic battles, or the
worldwide expansion of a Buddhocracy. In their followers’ circles
the Shambhala myth has
long since become a power-political factor. Yet it is not even
mentioned in the world media. The lamas tailor their outwardly
presented depictions of Tibet to their audience. If the tenor of an
academic conference is one of sober discussion, then the arguments
of the Tibetans in exile are likewise sober, analytic, and critical.
If another meeting is more emotional and esoteric, then the very
same people there subscribe to the fantastic historical myths of the
eternally peaceful and mysterious, occult highlands (Shangri La) which at the
first conference they claimed to be the invention of a errant
“western orientalism”. In turn, at the congresses of “committed
Buddhists”, the Tibet of old is built up as the sanctuary of all
those values which are gaining ground in postmodern society.
„Tibetan exiles”,
Toni Huber writes, „have reinvented a kind of modern, liberal Shangri-La image
of themselves”, in that they adopt images from the protest movements
of the industrialized West „which are now transnational in scope and
appeal: environmentalism, pacifism, human rights, and feminism”
(Huber, 2001, p. 358). Yet Western values, like the separation of
ecclesiastical and secular power, equality before the law, the rule
of law, freedom of expression, social pluralism, political
representation, equality of the sexes, and individualism, had no
place in the history of Tibet.
But it is not just a result of
pure naïveté when government sources in Europe and America express
the opinion that autocratic Lamaism is compatible with the
fundamentals of a modern constitution. Behind this also lie the
tactical politics of power with an “impending” Chinese threat.
Washington in particular is most interested in making use of an
oppressed Tibet as an argument in discussions with China, the USA’s
greatest competitor.
This dangerous antagonism between
the two superpowers (China vs. the USA) is efficiently stirred up by
their respective internal politics, and Dharamsala does not let a
chance pass without pouring gas on the flames. The Kundun with his loud and
“heartfelt” criticism of China is a American king-piece in the
political chess game between Washington and Beijing. In it, official
posts in the USA are thoroughly informed about the “true” history of
the old and the new Tibet as well as the “undemocratic”
circumstances in Dharamsala. They are advised by such objective
scholars as, among others, A. Tom Grunfeld and Melvyn C. Goldstein.
In public, however, the State Department has until now followed the
pro-Tibetan arguments of the Hollywood actor and Kalachakra initiate, Richard
Gere.
“Clash of Religions”: The
fundamentalist contribution of Lamaism
In the last fifteen years, the
West has to its great surprise discovered just how much political
explosiveness religiously based strategies for world domination
(like the Shambhala myth)
and magic/mystic practices (like the Kalachakra ritual) have been
able to develop today, on the threshold of the third millennium.
Catching the western cultures unprepared, theocratic (and
Buddhocratic) visions of the most varied schools of belief have
burst forth explosively from the depths of the human subconscious,
where they have survived in hiding since the bourgeois Enlightenment
(of the 18th century). Events in Iran, the country where
the mullahs established the first smoothly functioning Moslem
religious state of the modern era, triggered a culture shock in the
West. All at once the atavistic attitudes and rules of violence, the
warrior ethic, racism, intolerance, discrimination against women,
the dictatorship of the priesthood, the persecution of nonbelievers,
inquisitions, visions of global wars and the end of the world, etc.,
with which theocratic (and Buddhocratic) systems are associated were
once more (as in the Middle Ages) were very current
issues.
In a widely respected book, Clash of Civilizations, the
American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, has indicated
with convincing arguments that the confrontations which await the
world of the 21st century primarily have neither economic, class
conflict, nor nationalistic causes. In their search for identity,
people have since the eighties been grouping themselves around
“cultures”, but most especially around
religions.
Surprisingly, all religious
traditions have in the meantime overcome their opposition to
technology. “The West” and “technology” are no longer identified
with one another as they once were. Even the most radical
fundamentalists use high-tech gadgets and the latest means of
communication. It is the students from the faculties of engineering
and the natural sciences who fell particularly drawn to religious
ideas. According to Huntington, social conflicts (rich against poor)
are also no longer a primary factor in the causes of war. Cultural
spheres, such as that of Islam for instance, can encompass both
extremely rich and extremely poor countries at the same time. The
critical factor is the common religion.
The West and its values,
Huntington argues, is becoming increasingly weak as a central power,
while other cultural power blocs are crystallizing. Of these the two
most significant are Islam and China. Its universalistic claims are
increasingly bringing the West into conflict with other cultural
spheres, most seriously with Islam and China. ... Islam and China
embody grand cultural traditions that are very different from those
of the West and, in the eyes of these cultural spheres, vastly
superior to them. The power and self-assurance of these two spheres
are increasing in comparison to the West, and the conflicts of
interest and values between them and the West are becoming more
numerous and intense (Huntington, 1997, p. 19). Wars, under certain
circumstances world wars, are for Huntington hardly
avoidable.
If we take Huntington’s
suggestion seriously, we have to ask ourselves whether the Kalachakra Tantra and Shambhala myth of the Dalai
Lama do not represent an extremely dangerous ideological bomb which
could set the whole world aflame. As we know, the Time Tantra
predicts an eschatological apocalyptic war with Islam. In the year
2327, the prophecy says, Rudra Chakrin, the “wrathful
wheel turner” from Shambhala, will lead his
army into battle against the Mlecchas (Moslems). A
contribution from the Internet has thus rightly compared the vision
of the Time Tantra with the idea of an Islamic holy war (jihad). “The Kalachakra initiation”,
writes Richard P. Hayes, “seems to have been a call to the Buddhist
equivalent of jihad ... the Kalachakra was interpreted externally as
a call to Holy War (to preserve the Dharma against its enemies)”
(Hayes, Newsgroup 11).
For historical reasons Islam has
proven itself to be the most culturally aggressive counterforce to
western culture. The struggles between the Christian Occident and
the Islamic Orient are part of a centuries old tradition. With their
explicit hostility towards Islam the Kalachakra Tantra and Shambhala myth are thus
stirring up a fire which is already glowing fiercely on the current
world political stage and has even spread to the center of the
greatest western power (the USA).
According to Huntington, China
will very soon be the West’s most potent economic and ethnic
challenger. The country will develop into the core state and magnet
of a Sinitic cultural sphere and will culturally dominate all its
neighbors; the entire East Asian economy will be centered around
China. Unification between the People’s Republic and Taiwan is just
a question of time. Huntington sees the “Middle Kingdom” as the one
power that could one day cast doubt on the global influence of the
West.
In contrast to Islam, the
philosophy (which can hardly still be described as communist)
currently dominant in China, that terms itself the “inheritance of
Confucian thought” both on the mainland and in Taiwan, is not
outwardly aggressive and oriented towards conquest. On a general
level, the Confucian ethos stresses authority, hierarchy, a sense of
family, ancestor worship, the subordination of the rights of the
individual to the community, and the supremacy of the state over the
individual, but also the “avoidance of confrontations”, that is,
wars as well.
We must nevertheless not forget
that in the course of its history China has never been free from
external ideological influences. Buddhism in its various forms, as
well as Christianity and communism are cultural imports and have at
times had a decisive influence on the politics of the country. In
the 14th chapter of Part II of our study we thus posed the question
of whether the Chinese might not also be susceptible to the Shambhala myth’s global
visions of power. The “Middle Kingdom” has always had spiritually
and mythically based claims to world domination. Even if it has not
tried to impose these militarily, the Chinese Emperor is nonetheless
revered as a world king (a Chakravartin). As we have
demonstrated in our detailed portrait of Mao Zedong, such a claim
survived even under communism. The Fourteenth Dalai Lama is most
aware of this. For a good five years now his missionary work has
been concentrated on Taiwan (Nationalist China). We have quoted
several prophecies from his own lips which foretell a decisive
codetermining role for Lamaism in shaping the Chinese future.
Taiwan, which — according to all prognoses — will sooner or later return to the
mother country, can be considered the springboard from which the
Tibetan monks and the new Nationalist Chinese recruits ordained by
them could infiltrate the Chinese cultural
fabric.
Return to
rationalism?
Why is the West so helpless when
it encounters the “battle of cultures”, and why is it surprised
every time violent eruptions of fundamentalist religious systems (as
in Islam for instance) occur? We believe that the reasons for this
must be of a primarily epistemological nature: Since the time of the
Enlightenment, the occidental culture has drawn a clear dividing
line between the church and the state, science and religion,
technology and magic, politics and myth, art and mysticism. This
division led to the assessment of all state, scientific, technical,
political, and artistic phenomena purely according to the criteria
of reason or the aesthetics. Rationalism unconditionally required
that the church, religion, magic, myth, and mysticism have no
influence on the “scientific culture of the Enlightenment”. Naïvely,
it also projects such conceptions onto non-Western cultural spheres.
In the issue of Tibet, for example, the West neatly separates
Tantric Buddhism and its mysteries (about which it knows as good as
nothing) from the political questions of human rights, the concept
of democracy, the national interests of the Tibetan people. But for
the Dalai Lama and his system, politics and religion have been
united for centuries. For him and for Lamaism, power-political
decisions — of whatever kind — are tactical and strategic elements
in the plan for world conquest recorded in the Kalachakra Tantra and Shambhala myth.
Since rationalism does not take
the power-political effectiveness of myths and religions seriously
enough, it refrains from the outset from examining the central
contents of religious cults (such as the Kalachakra Tantra for
example). The mysteries of the various religious orientations have
never been more hidden and mysterious than in the Age of Reason, for
the simple reason that this has never examined
them.
To be successful, however, a
critical analysis and evaluation of an ancient world view must
fulfill three conditions:
1.
First of all it must be able to immerse
itself in the world view of the particular religion, that is, it
must be capable of perceiving the world and the universe through the
eyes and filters of the religious dogmata to be examined. Otherwise
it will never learn what it is all about. In the specific case of
Tibetan culture, this means that it must familiarize itself with the
sexual magic and micro-/macrocosmic philosophy of the Kalachakra Tantra and the
political ideology of the Shambhala myth so as to be
able to understand the politics of the Dalai Lama and his executive
at all.
2.
Only after obtaining exact knowledge about
the basis, goals, and history of the religion in question should it
compare these with western values so as to then make an evaluation.
For example, it must relate the “female sacrifice” and the
absorption of gynergy
through yoga practices in Buddhist Tantrism to contemporary demands
for the equality of the sexes. The West cannot overcome the myths by
denying their power. It has itself had to experience their unbroken
and enormous presence even in the twentieth century. In the case of
national socialism (Nazism) the mythological world view developed an
all but superhuman potency. Only if investigative thinkers risk
entering into the heart of the religious cult mysteries and are
prepared to engage with the innermost core of these mysteries can
such “religious time bombs” be diffused. For this reason,
3.
the requirements for a critical reappraisal
of the cultures are that their mystery cults and their contents be
brought into the arena for public discussion — a procedure which is
sure to send a shiver down the spines of the majority of fans of the
esoteric and fundamentalists. But such an open and public discussion
of the mystery knowledge is not at all an achievement of our
liberal-democratic age. If, for example, we consider the critical
and polemic disputes of the fathers of the Christian church with the
various religious currents of their times and the rejoinders of the
latter, then we can see that between the 2nd and the 5th centuries
there was — despite the very primitive state of communication
technologies — a far larger openness about fundamental questions of
how the world is viewed than today. These days, religions are either
blindly adopted or rejected per se; back then religions
were made, formed, and codified.
As absurd as it may sound,
“western rationalism” is actually the cause of occultism. [2] It pushes the esoteric doctrines
and their practices (the New
Age for example) into the social underground, where they can
spread undisturbed and uninhibited, and lay claim to one mind after
another unnoticed, until one day when — as in the case of national
socialism in Germany in the 30s, the Mullah regime in Iran in the
80s, and perhaps the Shambhala myth in Asia in
the ??s — they burst forth with immense power and draw the whole of
society into their atavistic wake. [3]
On the other hand, the “critical
descent” into the mystery cults of the religious traditions makes
possible valuable learning processes. We did not want to reach the
conclusion in our analysis of Buddhist Tantrism that everything
about traditional religions (Buddhism in this particular case) ought
to be dismissed. Many religious teachings, many convictions,
practices, and visions appear thoroughly valuable and even necessary
in the establishment of a peaceful world community. We too are of
the opinion that the “Enlightenment” and western “rationalism” alone
no longer have the power to sensibly interpret the
world, and definitely not to change it. Man does not live on bread
alone!
Hence, in our view, the world of
the new millennium is thus not to be demythologized (nor
dis-enchanted or re-rationalized), but rather humans have the power,
the right, and the responsibility to subject the existing myths,
mysteries and religions to a critical examination and selection
process. We can, may, and must resist those gods who exhibit
destructive conceptions and dualist thoughts and deeds. We can, may,
and ought to join those who contribute to the construction of a
peaceful world. we can, may, and perhaps should even seek new gods.
There is, however, a great danger that the time for a fundamental
renewal of the religious process will disappear if the
atavistic/warlike world views (with western help as well) continue
to spread further and are not replaced by other, peaceful depictions
of the world (and myths). The existing traditions (and the deities
and mysteries behind them) may only be of help in such a process of
renewal in as far as they adhere to certain fundamentals like mutual
respect, peaceableness, openness, equality of the sexes, cooperation
with nature, charity, etc.
The cultural critic Samuel P.
Huntington rejects from the outset the idea of a universal culture,
a new world culture as unrealistic and unwanted. But why actually?
The general interconnection, the technologization, the interlacing
of the economy, the expansion of international travel have like
never before in the history of humankind generated the communicative
conditions for the discussion of a global cultural beginning. This
is, at least as far as certain western values like human rights,
equality of opportunity, democracy, and so forth, already encouraged
by the world community
(especially the UN) with more or less large success. But on a
religious level, everything remains the same — or will there be new
mysteries, oriented to laws of human harmony without a need to
sacrifice intercultural variety and colorful
splendor?
Footnotes:
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