Vanguard News Network
VNN Media
VNN Digital Library
VNN Reader Mail
VNN Broadcasts

Old April 21st, 2006 #1
Aryan Lord
Senior Member
 
Aryan Lord's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Posts: 6,719
Default Hitler-Buddha-Krishna

http://www.iivs.de/~iivs01311/H-B-K/bookreview.en.htm

ee also: Hitler-Buddha-Krishna – Presentation



Book review by Prof. Manuel Sarkisyanz



Hitler, Buddha, Krishna

An unholy alliance from the

Third Reich until the present day



(Victor and Victoria Trimondi, HITLER, BUDDHA, KRISHNA, EINE UNHEILIGE ALLIANZ VOM DRITTEN REICH BIS HEUTE, Wien, Ueberreuter, 2002)



This book can be considered as marking an epoch in the intellectual history of cross-cultural links of Neo-Fascism. It deals chiefly with Himmler, Tantric "Buddhism" and Krishna, a "blockbuster" surpassing in geo-cultural scope by far previous continental books about "aryosophic" esoterics. (1)



In discussions about "political religion" of "National Socialists" their notions about India's "primeval Aryan wisdom" had not yet received sufficient attention of historians. These were supposedly "archaic" esoterics within SS occultism of the so-called Ancestral Heritage "Ahnenerbe") - a particular concern not so much for HitleSr (who pragmatically preferred to follow English models (2) but very much for Heinrich Himmler who headed the SS: In contrast to the "Semitic" associations of Christianity, a primeval "Aryan" religion was to be "more appropriate to Germanic nature". Thus Himmler's "Ahnenerbe", the central institution for systematic construction of an "Aryan" faith, apparently was meant to receive its "SS-Vatican" in the castle Wewelsburg, Westphalia (p.1 00).



An intellectual father of it became the Dutch philologist Herman Wirth (1885*1981). Having initiated, in 1919, the "National Socialist" movement in the Netherlands, he propagated ever since 1920 the Germanic-"Aryan" Swastika. Insisting that the Aryans descended from the polar "Hyperboreans" (who had allegedly inhabited first the lost Continent of Atlantis and then the Nordic Thule, ("aryosophic" and supposedly Runic notions, inherited from the Theosophy of Elena Blavatska), Wirth maintained that the primordial wisdom from Atlantis had been preserved (by the "Mahatmas") in Buddhist Tibet. Such Theosophy was combined even further with Nordic mythology from the Edda (and with "Runic wisdom") by Rudolf Gorsleben (1883-1930) - to the effect that in Tibet was to have been preserved something of the occult abilities to dominate nature, abilities once in the possession of the Arctic "primordial race" (Urrasse) of Aryans. And this became gospel truth for the occultist faction of Himmler's SS-"Ancestral Heritage". In particular the SS-"Sturmbannführer" Karl Maria Wiligut (1866-1946), an Austro-Hungarian colonel (locked up in a psychiatric clinic in 1924-1927), had - under the pseudonym of "Weisthor", that is "Wise [Nordic God] Thor", - influenced Himmler to believe that the refuge of Aryans from "northernmost Thule", with parapsychological medium-life "memories" about their inheritance was to be sought -below the earth- in Buddhist Tibet. Thus, to "early Buddhism" were attributed particularly "Aryan qualities" (p. 1 00, 90). Nevertheless, it came to be doubted that Buddha's ethos of self-*renunciation could possibly be considered "Aryan". Accordingly, Buddhism was assumed to be a degeneration of the genuinely Aryan Vedic religion of Power. Meanwhile the warlike Vedic Aryans had become the pride of certain anti-*British Indian nationalists - after British images of subjugated Indians had attributed to them effeminate qualities and pragmatically irrelevant other*worldliness.



Because of pragmatically obvious successes, far greater prestige than India had in Himmler's Germany triumphant Japan of the Samurai with their Bushido ethos. (In private Hitler counted the Japanese among the ‘lacquered half monkeys who want to feel the knout’. [3]) And victorious Japanese militarism had instrumentalized a particular Zen school of meditation to drill devaluation of life, discipline, will power and the suppression of emotions. (This went much further than the British models for strenghtening the will power -admiration for which had a much longer history in Germany (4) Thus Himmler himself recommended the model of Japan's Samurais to his SS, the "Samurais of Hitler", the elite of the elites, swayed by lower middle-Class upward mobility. (And the children of Germany's post-war Economic Miracle there were - still in 2000- recommended "the Road of the Samurai" for professional and private "success": pp. 194-195).



It had been the Count Karl Friedrich Dürkheim (no stranger to killing a family of squirrels for pure joy) who contributed Zen "Buddhist" ethics to make contempt for life and death in Hitler's Germany intellectually respectable. Japanese models of sacralization of power through Shinto mythology impressed Karl Haushofer, the mentor of Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess.



However, for practical purposes, there sufficed the Lutheran notion that all governing authorities ("Obrigkeit") came from God... It was in spite of this that SS Chief Himmler promised to get rid of Christianity ("We must finish with Christianity. This great plague..., which has weakened us for every conflict.” [5]) But Nietzsche's declaring that "God is dead" was not enough: Alternatives to the Christian religion, so "alien to the Nordic race", were required to give notions inculcated into the SS a metaphysical foundation:



A sacralization of the warrior caste's duties was expected from the caste ethos of the Bhagavad Gita, the sacralization of race purity through the Brahmanic Code of Manu. For this the rational findings of Indology were put "into the service of the irrational" (p. 524), indological findings of seriously qualified specialists into the service of Himmler to elaborate an esoteric mythology for his SS. Thus Wilhelm Wüst (1901-1993), prominent in the philology of Indoeuropean languages, became Curator in Himmler's "Ahnenerbe" ("Ancestral Heritage") after 1936, 1939 SS-Standartenführer (Lieutenant Colonel) and the man of confidence of the SS Intelligence Service (SO) at the University of Munich -in 1941 its Rector. His kind of indologists made essential contributions to the "Aryan religion" of the SS as the central Order of Warriors, acting as if the Aryan faith were both inherited and constructable (“machbar”). It was to provide cosmogonic bases for Leadership through archetypes of Vedic gods like Indra and Varuna.



Consistently with this, Himmler's expedition to Tibet (in 1938/9) was interested more in its pre-Buddhist religion (Bon) than in Tibetan Buddhism. It sought proofs that Tibet once sheltered a high "Aryan" culture and that its Lamas were administering something of primeval Aryan wisdom (p. 158). Nordic remnants, supposedly going back to "Thule" of the mythic North, to the Hyperboreans and the "Continent" of Atlantis, were looked for in Tibet by Himmler's men. And yet this SS ("Ancestral Heritage") expedition to Lhasa was directed by the qualified Tibetologist Ernst Schäfer (1910-1992) - who had previously participated in an American Tibet expedition. He too was impressed by the four Swastika ornaments on the throne of Tibet's Regent Reting Rimpoche. Impressive for the SS expedition was Tibetan furniture made from parts of human bodies, particularly bones (p. 152f. : Skulls and skin from the corpses of Concentration Camp prisoners of the SS were subsequently made into "gift articles" [Geschenkartikel].) Buddhist reminders of the impermanence of all life, of the world of Suffering to be overcome by non-attachment, were "understood" (that is misunderstood) to suit a "morality" for the Survival of the Fittest, to suit the will to create a world where the weak would have no right to survive. Thus the SS race specialist Bruno Beger was deeply impressed by the Tibetan procedure of cutting dead bodies into pieces for birds' prey, "one of the most impressive experiences in Tibet's mysterious capital". (Later Beger organized a collection of skeletons of extermination Camp victims from Auschwitz, Central Asian Red Army prisoners of war. For participating in at least 86 murders he was sentenced to just three years -and that not before 1971 p.135f). What Hitler stopped was Himmler's plan to use the Tibetans -after the model of Lawrence of Arabia - for a military attack on British India (p.122). His decision resulted from insight into the impracticality of this (and from his admiration for the British Master Race).



Hitler was obviously not impressed by alleged military potentialities of occult abilities to dominate nature - allegedly preserved in Tibet - nor by the "polar powers centred there". This, precisely this, came to be believed, in Neo-Nazi literature, just after Hitler's "right of the stronger" turned out to be an illusion of the weaker. Such Fascism -which according to the Law of the Survival of the Fittest had lost all rights to survive- did survive by virtue of esoteric mvthology, a consolation for failure of biology (of social Darwinism).



Thus Baron Giulio Evola (1898-1974) did derive from the Vishnuite Bhagavad Gita a sacralization of Sadism in terms of the divine will of destruction of everything mortal, the Endlessness of the Divine meaning the perennial destruction of everything temporal: Thus the sacralized sadism of the Kshatrya warrior celebrates the Blood Sacrifice of Life -transcending the mere perversions of "profane" sadism. Accordingly, Murder becomes a holy sacrifice (246). Evola's publications of 1953 and 1961 made him the chief "philosophical authority", the Guru of today's Black Order of spiritual fascism (257), of the New Elite proclaiming anew more than merely Hitler's New Order: It is more explicit about the destruction of modern society. Evola was calling for precisely this ever since his main work, "The Revolt against Modernity" of 1935. Nevertheless, in spite of this admiration for the 55, the Kshatrya Warrior Order, he is but rarely mentioned in its literature of the 55 although he did influence its self-image (particularly the "Ancestral Heritage" of the "Grail Mystery" of the Templars). Better known is his influence on Fascism's "afterthought", the Italian race legislation since 1937.



Evola's "L'Uome come Potenza" ("The Male as Might") is a glorification of power generated through sexual energy, following models of Indian Tantric cults, associated particularly with the Female Energy (Shakti) of Shiva Rudra and Kali, Indian deities of destruction and regeneration. Among Evola's "applications" of them was killing – sacrificing - the Female (the female principle comprising both Compassion and Bolshevism...) -as its energy is to strenghten the Male, the Aryan Masculinity (p.234) which accumulates its own power by sacrificing the "Other".



These notions Evola derived from the Vajrayâna School of Tantric Buddhism. And with concepts from Tantric texts concludes his most influential work: The concept of Shambhala, symbolized by the Swastika pointing to, a center of Hyperborean traditions "of Aryan origins." Images of this mythic realm derive from the Tantric Kalachakra tradition. Its main texts have been made accessible in the post-war period, also by Jean Marqučs Rivičre, a French Sankritist, specialized in police persecution of secret societies, Masons and Jews in the semi-Fascist France of 1941-1944.



Of more popular influence in Latin esoteric post-war Fascism was the Chilean Miguel Serrano (born in 1917): Since 1938 he joined Chile "National Socialists" - and subsequently became their Fuehrer (after experiences as Chile's ambassador in India and in Communist Balkan states). In 1978, under the dictatorship of Pinochet, appeared his book "Hitler esotérico" -and, in 1982, "Hitler el último Avatar", then, in 1991, "Manu por el hombre que vendrá". These he called expressions of "esoteric Hitlerism". To Serrano is attributed the culmination of SS-mysticism. He assimilated most notions from Himmler's Ancestral Heritage and the writings of Evola. Serrano's books are reported to circulate now among Skin Heads, Satanists, and Nazi Metal Music fans. Hitler's birth in 1889 meant for him the beginning of a new Era (p. 425); Hitler was for him more than only a Superman but the Nordic god Wotan and also Kalki, the last incarnation of Vishnu - and the "Manu of the Future". For, as an archetype, according to Serrano, Hitler could not possibly die - and was carried away on an "UFO" (Unidentified Flying Object) to "Shambhala" (where reside his God-Men: pp. 436, 438). Behind what this Chilean Nazi offered is essentially Tantric instruction (p. 493). Indeed, he was, - like Evola and Marqučs-Rivičre - practicing Tantric rituals. And Tantrism meant for Serrano the main "wisdom" of the Hyperborean (Polar Nordic) Warrior Caste. Following Tantric "ethics" he supposed the deeds of the SS to be "beyond Good and Evil" -justifying the extermination of "Lower races" as fulfilment of "cosmic laws" .(Not effect but motivation matters in Tantrism - the motivation of most terrible deeds in it can be "Enlightenment" -which is potential Power (5A.) And the will to (absolute) Power of the "Aryan" is -according to Serrano too- generated by erotic vitalism. In fact, Tantric sex magic is considered to be the "mystical center" of Serrano's fascism (p. 441) - including the Tantric sacrifice of the Female: Woman was to be killed (at least "symbolically": p.442). In the Tantric context killing may result to be "unreal". (About the seeming "unreality" of modem racial genocide on the Black Continental Hannah Arendt noted: "Native life anyhow looked a <mere play of shadows>, so that when European men massacred them [these shadows, the natives], they somehow were not aware that they committed murder.) (5a)



And the living woman Serrano venerated he associated with the Nordic god Odin. She was Savitri Devi (Maximiliani Portas, daughter of an Englishman, born in France in 1905), venerated in the international Nazi subculture as Hitler's high priestess, "Prophetess of Aryan Revival". She had evolved from Greater Greece - through Theosophy - to the race cult of the "genuinely Aryan", that is to the "only surviving Aryan culture": Brahmanic India. There the Brahman Srimat Swami Satyananda, President of the Hindu Mission of Calcutta, revealed to her that Hitler would become the next incarnation of Vishnu. Similarly, the Pandit Rajawade of Poona identified Hitler with the Chakravartin of the Vishnu Purana scripture, destined to rule the world, the god Vishnu previously incarnated in Krishna. And Krishna Mukherji married Savitri Devi. He recognized the Kshatrya tradition of the Indian epic Mahabharata in the militancy of Hitler's Germany. Upon its collapse of 1945, Savitri Devi called upon Kali, the Goddess of Destruction, to destroy those who destroyed Nazi Germany (p. 346f). To this "priestess of Hitler" the hymns to Kali's fearsome consort Shiva, the male divinity of "creative destruction" I merged as a "Mantra" with "Heil Hitler" (pp. 347, 349): For Hitler was to become the coming Kalki (pp. 351, 358), destroyer of those who caused the degeneration of the World Age. And, in 1958, Savitri Devi came to attribute the sacralization of the extermination of Jews to the Bhagavad Gita (p. 356) -years after Austria's Lanz von Liebenfels, "the man who gave the ideas to Hitler", demanded that the Jews become a human sacrifice (p.334).



From occultism derived such "Aryosophic" predecessors of Nazism as the Thule Society of the Bavarian capital. And towards the Occult tends what survives of SS-mythology. The crisis of world economy promoted Nazism from obscurity into mass politics. And the prosperity that followed its military collapse pushed it back into obscurity of present day SS occultism.



Post-war SS mysticism of the Evolas and the Serranos derives its "Aryanism" more from Indian and Tibetan than from Teutonic sources. In the wake of the French Revolution the appeal to the Germanic (that is pre-medieval) past had been directed against the absolutist restoration -and the encouragement of Indologv, of studies about the wisdom of the Brahmans, served against Democracy. For mass consumption, Hitler pretended to defend the Occident against the onslaught of the Asiatics. After this military "defence of the Occident" collapsed, what survived of the SS-Ancestral Heritage took refuge in the Occult, increasingly borrowed from Southern Asia: Present day esoteric Hitlerism is Tantric (p. 441). After Hitler -as if by "meta-electric" energy-, having excluded the left, included Austria, switched on all the mass media, isolated Germany, ranged the whole of Europe into maximal tension, and finally brought: about his short circuit (5 B), he was made to mutate into an archetype of something like divine energy. Hitler has been converted esoterically into a myth, to be rooted in the transcendental - beyond all History. And up to the present day such esoteric Hitlerism is reported to grow (p. 526). In its subculture the SS is symbolized by the Black Sun. And its Sieg Heil ("Hail Victory"), after ending in defeat, was projected into becoming the chief Mantra of occult Power (p. 399, 411, 442) of the Black Sun, symbolizing the end of the World in the Nordic Edda, converted into the Solar Power of the "New Age".



At present, in the mysticism of the traditionally necrophile SS -with its Skull emblem, associated with mountains of corpses- are venerated the icons of Violence and Death. Some of the Rock music groups in this international subculture of Neo-Fascism have CD of 100,000 copies. And among their titles are: "Born in order to hate"; "Gospel of Inhumanity". Some of their bands are named "Spear of Longinus" [killer of Christ] and "Blood Axis", something of Satanism evolving into Pop culture, into the Rock music of Skin Heads (p. 451). According to Goodrick-Clarke, the Neo-Nazi Satanists and their Heavy Metal Rock groups among the Skin Heads in Europe and America are associated with "Kshatrya" notions about "Aryan" India's warriors. The song "Hitler as Kalki [future incarnation of the god Vishnu]" was created by the composer and rock music star known as "David Tibet": He calls himself "sympathizer of the Devil" *in the context of Tantric "Buddhism" (p. 451f). In the Satanist literature the Nordic "Thule" and the SS Ancestral Heritage have become metaphors of the Underworld -with Heinrich Himmler as a Satanist adept. (A political joke from the Third Reich prophesied that-after its final victory- Himmler would become Underworld Marshall when Goering, the Reich’s Marshall, shall have been promoted to world Marshal.) According to Trimondi, even in purely Satanist circles have been absorbed ideas of the Fascist myth makers, of Evola, Miguel Serrano and Savitri Devi. After all, the place of Satan came since more than two centuries to be occupied by nefarious secret societies. And the book "Secret Societies and their Might in the 20th Century" by Jan van Helsing , appearing in 1993, was banned in Germany within three years - under a law against inciting the public ("Volksverhetzung"). However, in 1998 he published "The Mysteries of the Black Sun". Thus, mainly through him Esoterics have become "the most important route of penetration for extreme rightist cosmovision" (p. 398).



Thus the claim that the Third Reich had been conceived by German Templar Knights - as well as by Tibetan lamas - is no longer news. News is that the "gasoline" for the Neo-Nazis UFO's (Unidentified Flying Objects) shall henceforth consist of "Vril" [Virile?] Energy. Indeed, "Vril" is meant to be the "Metaphysical Gasoline" from the Atlantis, the lost Continent, particularly for the UFO's from a "National Socialist" engineering firm...: All this according to Wilhelm Landig's creation, titled "Idols against Thule, a novel full of reality". His Thule Trilogy (from the Vienna of 1971, 1980 and 1991) elaborated notions of Elena Blavatska and of Evola. It is considered a mixture of science fiction, pseudo-scholarly monograph and "National Socialist" history on a mythical pattern (p. 392f). In contrast, more recent publications of SS mysticism are indebted more directly to Tibetan Tantric notions (pp. 402f). "Notions about Might and Supermanhood (Maha Sidha) from Tantric Buddhism... could supply attractive doctrines for a world wide <Kshatrya> culture. sacralized techniques... to convert a soldier into a <holy killing machine>. This is why the SS Ancestral Heritage and surviving "SS mysticism" attempt to give themselves points of support in Tantric notions (p. 531). It is Tantrism that had been called -by its English advocate- "The way to Power'.



Particularly in regard to such present day SS esoterics the Trimondi's brilliant book has unusual scope. It takes the place of an entire library. Its bibliography alone would be worth the price of the book. To read it is a genuine intellectual experience. The authors make rich use of Tantric texts of the Kâlachakra School.



Yet, it has to be reminded that the Kâlachakra System remains marginal even in Tibetan Lamaism -just as Lamaism remains marginal in the Buddhist world as a whole. Helmut Hoffmann (otherwise cited in the book) has pointed out Tibetan historical resistance against Tantrism; the rise of Tibet's dominant "Yellow Church" did involve reactions against it. Hoffman had called attention to Iranian dualist -that is non-Buddhist- origins of precisely the Kâlachakra. (6) Although the authors rightly point out the primacy of compassion in the social ethics of Buddhism and themselves mention that "the Kâlachakra Tantra is in sharp contradiction to the originally pacifist tradition of Buddhism" (p. 513), they generalize from the Tantric Kâlachakra about Buddhism as a whole (p. 254). Thus in the heading "Buddhism as a doctrine of Power" (p. 254) -as well as in the reference to militarist Buddhism -by "Buddhism" is meant its Tantric degeneration. Unfortunately, Volker Zotz's (author of a book about Buddhism in German culture) attribution of "amorality" to Buddhism "from its very beginnings" is repeated uncritically (pp. 456ff), particularly in the unfortunate subtitle "Foundations of Buddhist thought and the ideology of National Socialism" (p. 454).



Thus the main problem with the book is its attempt to characterize Buddhism as a whole - its conclusions from particularities of SS mystery literature to generalities about Tibetan culture. In reality, the qualities attributed by "National Socialist" thinkers to Buddhism are no basis for its characterization -no matter how convincing points of departure Fascism finds in Tantric phenomena of Buddhism's decline. In fact, the Kâlachakra similarities to esoteric Fascism (p. 463) came about by Fascist imitations of Tantric categories of Vitalism and Power - which in themselves had been inherent in Nazi sentiment (not without impacts from Bavarian folk-vitalism). Even the famous [Fascist] Tibetologist's, Tucci's rhapsodies about "heroic Buddhism" (p. 193) cannot be accepted uncritically -just as War Sermons (usually on the text of Christ bringing not Peace but the Sword) could never characterize Christianity as a whole. (Logically Fascists have rejected its message while emulating its institution: the Church with its Hierarchy and Discipline.) Obviously the SS's-film about its expedition to the Dalai Lama's realm (pp. 155f) showed only what its chief desired to be seen -just as the exiled 14th Dalai Lama's Buddhist messages to the democratic world leave out what has been undemocratic in Lamaism. T 0 such present day uncritically unilateral images of exclusively humanitarian and pacifist Tibet this book is a most healthy corrective. Thus the authors point out that a public discussion about the Buddhist Tantrism of Tibet by the Dalai Lama would prevent its misuse and distortion by SS esoterics. But they can be easily misunderstood to the effect that there was nothing humanitarian and nothing pacifical about the Dalai Lama's realm, considering that among his friends was the SS auxiliary Jean Marqučs Rivičre as well as Guru Shoko Asahara who (in 1995) caused poison gas injury to more than 5000 victims in the Tokyo subway -as sacrifice to Shiva Rudra-Chakrin, apocalyptic world ruler in the Kâlachakra Tantra (pp. 505, 518). Such an "Aryan Priest-King" of post-war Nazi mysticism (p. 469f) -and not the specifically Buddhist universal ruler (Chakkavattî) is rightly compared with the Japanese Tenno -and wrongly with the ideal Buddhist emperor Ashoka of the third century B. C. (pp. 469f).

Last edited by Aryan Lord; April 21st, 2006 at 02:03 PM.
 
Old April 21st, 2006 #2
Aryan Lord
Senior Member
 
Aryan Lord's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Posts: 6,719
Default

Most absurdly, Himmler's indologist Wüst and the Fascist Baron Evola as well as protagonists of postwar SS mysticism saw precisely in Ashoka the great power political model... of "the Aryan Priest-King". Their absurdities about Ashoka should have been contradicted most definitely. After all, he recorded his unforgettable regret even about "one thousandth part of those who were slain". "And this has been recorded in order that... whoever they may be, may not think of new conquests as worth achieving... through arrows." And that the only "real conquest is a Conquest through Dhamma [force of MoralitY1." Ashoka's pride was that he "achieved conquest through Dhamma ,... a conquest flavoured with love” (7). And yet, with Ashoka remaining unmentioned in the context of oriental ideals of universal empire, the Chakkavattî/Chakravartin (prototype of Buddhist kingship) appears under the subtitle "Apotheosis of the Führer" (p. 328). Among the numerous references to this Indian embodiment of absolute power remains unmentioned the Chakkavattî-Sutta, one of the earliest Buddhist texts, starting that to the Chakkavattî the East, South, West and North shall submit voluntary: He shall declare that no living being is to be injured. (8) In contrast, the Chakravartin meant by the authors is Kalki from the Brahmanic Vishnu Purana (with reference to whom concludes Evola's "Revolt against Modernity"), Aryan world ruler, symbolized by the Swastika (p. 256). In reality, Kalki in India and the Chakravartin in Buddhist Burma had inspired politically opposite phenomena too:



It was precisely from Kalki that same Pariah groups expected their emancipation against the caste hierarchy. In same rural areas Gandhi was identified with such a future incarnation of Vishnu. About the Chakkavattî Sutta's description of the ideal future state reminded in 1959 U Nu (Burma's Prime Minister 1947-1958 and 1960-1962) - with reference to his anti-*imperialist Buddhist socialism. (9) In the name of the Chakkavattî (Burmanized as "Setkya Min") repeatedly revolted Burma's peasants (as recorder after 1837). With this ideal Buddhist ruler was identified the central figure of the Burmese Peasant War of 1930-1932. (10)



This shows how much more correctly than by Fascist indologists and their subsequent esoterics was Buddhism understood by Hitler's inspirer, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, and the Führer's rival Ludendorff. Chamberlain saw that Buddhism “was moved by humanitarian reverie, proclaiming the equality of all human beings” (10a). Ludendorff reminded that it "preached self-extinction..., spiritual and bodily disarmament" (p. 295), both comprehending its ethos better than Himmler's Professor Wüst and Mussolini's Baron Evola. A "Duce from Bengal" can be seen in Subhas Chandra Bose (pp. 93) only disregarding that a Soviet alliance would have been his first choice: As vanished Redeemer he "is biding his time... Millions of Indians believe... he is hiding in Moscow, being instructed in the principles of revolution... Eagerly they await[ed] him..." (11)



And archetypically less remotely from Communism than from Fascism led historically that "Gnosis", Satanizations of which are inherited in Political Science since Eric Voegelin (and echoed on p. 537): By "Gnosis" is usually meant its Manichean current. In fact, its vision of all material world, with all established institutions, being in the power of Evil, stimulated revolt rather than conservation of the established order. And that class distinctions and hierarchies have no meaning at all for the truly Initiated is among the messages of the Bhagavad Gita too: In the Brahman and in the [despised] cook of dog meat the wise ones behold the same. Already here [on earth] is Heaven won by those whose mind rests upon this Equality... That they are rich and noble think those blinded by ignorance. (12)



That the SS Chief invoked one passage from this <Song Divine> is no more a reflection upon this scripture (that was being invoked again and again by India's social reformers -not only in pacifist Gandhism (13) but also in "Hinduized Communism” (14) than the "socialist" name of Hitler's party is a reflection upon Socialism. It was not so much that Savitri Devi found in the Bhagavad Gita principles that lend themselves for a convincing integration into SS ideology (p. 360); it was rather that she insisted on having found them: Her conclusions are not covered by the texts she quoted (p.357), about fulfilling duty without regard for the outcome, about a just fight, about Heaven for the fallen warriors and the Earth for the victorious ones. Actually, the texts this "Priestess of Hitler" emphasized lend themselves in general to hopeless, heroic resistance against powers of this world, resistance that has been much less offered by Fascists (under whom the weak had no claim to survival) than by anti-Fascists with their faith in a world that shall belong to the weak. (15)



On the other hand, not to every Professor is given the character of professinq convictions: Thus it is more the adjustment of certain German indologists to financial incentives offered by 88 institutions than "affinities" of the Gita and of Buddhism to Fascism that is proved by 88 appropriations of "Oriental" thought.



The weakest text in the book might be that "a Buddhist dissolves his Ego for the 'Liberation' of all suffering beings and a National Socialist for <Nation and Race>, but this could again and again in the history of Buddhism mean the precept of killing out of compassion and wisdom"(p. 458).



SOURCE REFERENCES

1) Jean-Michael Angebert, The Occult and the Third Reich (New York, 1974); François Ribadeau Dumas, Hitler et la sorcellerie (Paris, 1975); RR Carmin, "Guru" Hitler, Die Geburt des Nationalsozialismus aus dem Geist von Mystik und Magie (Zürich, 1985); Jean Robin, Hitler, I'élu du dragon (Paris, 1987)

2) Hitler's speech of 28. April 1939: Deutscher Kurzwellensender; Hitler, Monologe im Führerhauptquartier, edit. W. Jochmann (Hamburg, 1980), pp. 48, 62 f.; W. Maser, Das Regime. Alltag 1933-1945 (Manchen, 1983), p. 259; J.H. Voigt, "Hitler und Indien": Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, IX (1971), pp. 33, 49

3) Hitler, Speech of 22. August 1939 to the supreme commanders; L.P. Lochner, What about Germany? (New York, 1942), p. 3

4) Gerwin Strobl, The Germanic Isle. Nazi perceptions of Britain (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 41, 42

5) Heinrich Himmler, Geheimreden und andere Ansprachen (Frankfurt, 1974), p. 159: Speech of 9th. June 1942

5a). Hannah Arendt, Elemente und Ursprünge totaler Herrschaft (Frankfurt, 1955), pp. 307, 313

5A). S.B. Dasgupta, An introduction to Tantric Buddhism (Calcutta, 1958), p. 179 f; John Blofeld, The Way of Power (London, 1970)

5B) "Die Linke ausgeschaltet, Osterreich eingeschaltet, die Massenmedien gleichgeschaltet, Deutschland isoliert, ganz Europa in Spannung versetzt und schließlich den Kurzschluss erzeugt."

6) Helmut Hoffmann, Die Religionen Tibets (Freiburg B, 1956), p. 58 ff., 119 f., 163; Hoffmann, "Das Kâlachakra, die letzte Phase des Buddhismus in Indien": Saeculum, XV/2 (1964), p. 128

7) Ashoka's 13th Rock Edict: D.R Bhandarkar, Asoka (Calcutta 1925), pp. 300-303; J. Bloch, Les inscriptions d'Asoka (Paris, 1950), pp. 125-132

8) Cakkavatti-Sîhanâda-Sutta, Diaha Nikâva, XXVI, 6: Translation by Rhys Davids, Sacred Books of the East, IV (London, 1957), p. 63f

Monier-Williams, Brahmanism and Hinduism. (London, 1889), p. 114; Bharatan Kumarappa, *introduction to: M.K. Gandhi, Hindu Dharma (Ahmedabad, 1950), p. VIII; U Nu's Speech of November 16th, 1959 before the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (Burmese typescript given by U Nu to the author), pp. 17f, largely reprinted in Bama-hkit of 17. XI 1959, p. 8; Sarkisyanz, Buddhist Backgrounds of the Burmese Revolution (The Hague, 1965), p. 224

10) Cf. Maurice Collis, Trials in Burma (London, 1938), pp. 129, 273f.

10a) Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Briefwechsel mit Kaiser Wilhelm II (Munich, 1929), Vol. 11 p.152

11) J. A. Michener, Voice of Asia (New York, 1952), p. 265; of. NA Chadhuri, "Subhas Chandra Bhose, his legacy and legend": Pacific Affairs (1955), p. 356. All italics are mine.

12) Bhagavad Gita, V, 18f; XVI; 12-17; XIII, 29: translation by R Garbe (Leipzig, 1905), pp. 94, 140f, 132

13) W. Roland Scott, Social ethics of modern Hinduism (Calcutta, 1953), p. 109: "Gandhi maintained that non-violence was... a central teaching of the Gita" (sic); "the Gita ... does not teach, according to his opinions, violence": Wilhelm Mahlmann, Mahatma Gandhi, der Mann, sein Werk und seine Wirkung (Tabingen, 1950), p. 140

14) H.S. Sinha, Communism and Gita, A philosophico-ethical study (Delhi, 1979), pp. 264, 262: "The Gita would always ... shake hand [sic] with communism and bring out a workable synthesis...", "a valuational synthesis of these two systems can save humanity..."

15) There was no Nazi Leningrad that held out against a siege lasting nine hundred days of near starvation (in 1941*1944). On the Fascist side there was no Madrid that withstood more than two years of almost daily bombardments by aviation and artillery (in 1936/8); no [Basque] fishery launch !hat resisted an enemy battleship during an entire hour (on 5. March 1931) before sinking itself (having received about 200 impacts of naval cannon): It was but the Ocean that extinguished the fire of its last machine gun. (Sarria, De arrantzales a gudaris del Mar [Bermeo, Vizcaya, n.n.], p. 108)



Manuel Sarkisyanz (born 1923) had been a subject of the Shah of Iran. He studied at the University of Tehran and then at the University of Chicago. There, he wrote his first book, “Russia and the Messianism of the Orient”. Upon its publication in German he was immediately invited to Germany – initially as visiting professor in Freiburg und then in Kiel. Hs main interests lie in the comparative history of independence movements. Among his dozen of books are “History of the Oriental Peoples of the Russian Empire” (in German), “Rizal (national hero of the Philippines) and Republican Spain”, “Buddhist background of the Burmese Revolution”. His publication on historiography as apology for British rule in Burma (Ohio University Press) has also appeared in the Burmese language. The books of Sarkisyanz on the “American Resurgence in Peru” and on “Felipe Carrillo, the ‘Red’ Apostle of the Mayas” were published in both German and Spanish. The latter is now being translated into the language of Mayas of Yucatán (Mexico) where the author now lives most of the year.
 
Old April 24th, 2006 #3
Abzug Hoffman
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 3,483
Default

Hasn't it been worked out many times that there is not too much difference between Jesus and Buddha?
 
Old April 24th, 2006 #4
Aryan Lord
Senior Member
 
Aryan Lord's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Posts: 6,719
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Abzug Hoffman
Hasn't it been worked out many times that there is not too much difference between Jesus and Buddha?
Apart from the first live and died ignobly and was a hooknosed Jew whilst the Lord Buddha was an Aryan who gave us the Doctrine of Awakening.
Oh yes,one more thing.Buddha was an historical figure unlike Jewsus who never existed.
 
Old April 24th, 2006 #5
Abzug Hoffman
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 3,483
Default Buddha was a slant eye

3-16-98

By Mark Floyd, 541-737-0788
SOURCE: Marcus Borg, 541-737-6195

CORVALLIS, Ore. - The religious philosopher Siddhartha Gautama - better known as Buddha - once said, "The faults of others are easier to see than one's own."

Some 500 years later, Jesus uttered these words: "Why do you see the splinter in someone else's eye and never notice the log in your own?"

Coincidence? Perhaps. But a new book edited by an Oregon State University professor provides a look at a surprising number of similarities in sayings attributed to two of the world's most important religious figures. "Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings" was recently published by Ulysses Press.

"The primary purpose of this collection of essays and sayings was not to make a scholarly case for Jesus having known the teachings of Buddhism, or for cultural borrowing from Buddhism to Christianity," said Marcus Borg, the Hundere Professor of Religion and Culture at OSU, and editor of the book. "It is to provide an opportunity for reflection and meditation. These sayings illuminate each other."

The book raises the fascinating question: How could Jesus, living 500 years after Buddha and 3,000 miles away, embody teachings so similar in nature to his predecessor?

Borg said some historians believe that Buddhist principles had filtered through the Roman Empire by the time of Jesus. Still others suggest that Jesus may have visited India during "the missing years" - a period in his teens and early 20s when there was little documentation about his life.

A more likely explanation, Borg said, is that the similarity in their sayings mirrors the similarities in their experiences. The Buddha, after a six-year religious quest, had an enlightenment experience under the Bo tree; Jesus' quest led him to the wilderness and his spiritual mentor, John the Baptist. Both began renewal movements within their respective, inherited religious traditions - Hinduism and Judaism. And both were given an exalted, even divine status by the communities which grew up around them.

"The similarities of their wisdom teaching may flow out of the similarity of their religious experience," Borg said.

Some of their sayings are remarkably similar. Among them:

Buddha: "The avaricious do not go to heaven, the foolish to not extol charity. The wise one, however, rejoicing in charity, becomes thereby happy in the beyond." (Dhammapada 13.11)
Jesus: "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven." (Matthew 19.21)

Buddha: "Consider others as yourself." (Dhammapada 10.1)
Jesus: "Do to others as you would have them do to you." (Luke 6.31)

Buddha: "Let us live most happily, possessing nothing; let us feed on joy, like radiant gods." (Dhammapada 15.4)
Jesus: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God." (Luke 6.20)

Buddha: "If anyone should give you a blow with his hand, with a stick, or with a knife, you should abandon any desires and utter no evil words." (Majjhima Nikaya 21.6)
Jesus: "If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also." (Luke 6.29)

Buddha: "During the six years that the Bodhisattva practiced austerities, the demon followed behind him step by step, seeking an opportunity to harm him. But he found no opportunity whatsoever and went away discouraged and discontent." (Lalitavistara Sutra 18)
Jesus: "When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time." (Luke 4.13)
"The Parallel Sayings" provides more than 100 examples of similarities between the teachings of Jesus and Buddha, including sayings about compassion, wisdom, materialism, inner life, temptation, salvation, the future, miracles, disciples, attributes and life stories.

There were differences between Jesus and Buddha, and not just in their backgrounds, the language they used or their imagery, Borg said.

"There is a social and political passion in Jesus we do not find in the Buddha," Borg said. "In the judgment of many Jesus scholars, in addition to being a wisdom teacher and healer, Jesus was a social prophet. He challenged the domination system of his day and its ruling elites, and affirmed an alternative social vision.

"Jesus' activity as a social prophet - as a voice of religious social protest - is the most likely reason his public activity was so brief compared to the Buddha's," Borg added. "It lasted only a year, or three or four years - according to the different Gospels - compared to Buddha's nearly 50 years of teaching. Jesus' early death was probably because of his social and political passion.

"If he had been simply a wisdom teacher and healer, I doubt that he would have been executed."....
 
Old April 25th, 2006 #6
Cthulhu
Senior Member
 
Cthulhu's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Posts: 934
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Aryan Lord
Oh yes,one more thing.Buddha was an historical figure unlike Jewsus who never existed.
Actually it is likely Siddhartha Gautama never existed historically but was an amalgamation of teachings from a stream of tantric thought ascribed to a fictional personage.

Quote:
A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
-- Willie Blake
__________________
Cursing braces; blessing releases.
 
Old April 30th, 2006 #7
Aryan Lord
Senior Member
 
Aryan Lord's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Posts: 6,719
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cthulhu
Actually it is likely Siddhartha Gautama never existed historically but was an amalgamation of teachings from a stream of tantric thought ascribed to a fictional personage.
I would suggest that there is more evidence for the historicity of the Buddha than the Jew from Bethlehem.
However the reality of his physical existence does not affect the essential truths of Buddhism.With Christianity it is first necessary to prove the existence of an historical Jesus and then secondly that he established his credentials for being the `son of god` and `saviour of mankind`.Christians are unable to establish that he existed,never mind that the things he claimed for himself were true.Therefore Buddhism as a philosophy has more to commend it than the lie of Christianity.
 
Old April 30th, 2006 #8
-LiveWire-
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: In someone's nose hole!
Posts: 375
Default

Excellent thread AL
I've given it an amazing 1million stars. I think you should write a book compiling all of your interesting topics that you've been covering.
 
Old June 14th, 2006 #9
TheGreenMan
Banned
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Posts: 997
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by -LiveWire-
Excellent .......I've given it an amazing 1million stars. I think you should write a book compiling all of your interesting topics that you've been covering.
Is that the most brown-tongued demonstration of fawning ever to Blot VNN?.

An 'amazing 1 million stars' ?.

'Livey', has someone been blowing you up with laughing gas instead of air?

 
Old June 15th, 2006 #10
-LiveWire-
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: In someone's nose hole!
Posts: 375
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheGreenMan
Is that the most brown-tongued demonstration of fawning ever to Blot VNN?.

An 'amazing 1 million stars' ?.

'Livey', has someone been blowing you up with laughing gas instead of air?

Have you got nothing better to do? Is the gay bar closed or something? Is your wife or BonniePooCap sponging off your meagre-10p-an-hour wage so she can explore black mamba countries?
 
Reply

Share


Thread
Display Modes


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 03:00 PM.
Page generated in 0.21401 seconds.