In other books I have shown the Dolmen, round towers and steeples or crosses that come from them as symbols of great knowledge and concepts beyond the ability of most archaeologists to interpret. They are superceded in terms of meaning by the much later constructions of Java that we will hear Mircae Eliade talk about shortly. He is one of the Eranos Conference attendees like Jung and Campbell that I enjoy quoting. His scholarship is most elucidating and integrative. This excerpt will provide greater meaning to the things I said about the Khmer Temples at Angkor Watt, their reservoirs and moats as well as the older center from the time of Christ nearby. It is not easy for those of us today who are inculcated with alphabets and logic to apprehend the majesty of structure, form and symbolism so take off your 'thinking cap' as the story of the Dalai Lama involved. Put your heart and soul on the front burner and read it more than once before you use the rose-coloured glasses of ego and logic.
"On the subject of Barabudur, the famous Buddhist temple on the island of Java and the most beautiful monument in Asia, whole libraries have been written. {But few are available in English and I confess to my own ignorance, as to whether these kinds of temples are as lucid as the Pyramid with Phi and Pi or the 'henges'.} Purely technical explanations have been attempted taking account only of the laws of architecture; endless controversies have been joined over the religious and magical meanings hidden in that colossal monument. Dutch Orientalists and architects have published over the past fifteen years books of great value on Barabudur. The names of Krom, Van Erp, and Stutterheim must be mentioned. The last of these, in a work of 1927, laid the foundation for a true interpretation of the temple: 'Barabudur is nothing less than a symbolic representation of the Universe'. From this intuition Paul Mus's investigations start. The beginning of his book consists of a history of the controversy, an exposition of the principal hypotheses, and a critique of methods. Examined in turn are theories of the most illustrious India specialists, art historians, and architects. Then Mus undertakes to discuss the problem. It must be remembered that this gigantic volume is preceded by an 'avant propos' of 302 pages in which the author establishes the validity of his methodology. In order to justify the symbolic function of the Javanese temple, Mus emphasizes a truth often remarked by Orientalists: that if the Buddha was not represented iconographically for several centuries, it was not due to incapability on the part of Indian artists, but to the fact that a type of representation superior to images was essayed. 'That would no have been a defeat of plastic art, but rather the triumph of a magical art.' (5) When an iconography of the Buddha was adopted, the symbolism was poor by comparison. The 'aniconic symbol' of Enlightenment (the wheel, etc.) was much more powerful, more 'pure', than the statue. {A human statue does not convey mathematical vectors and concepts, but appeals to the ideas placed in people's minds by interpreter's of such things as the 'wheel of Life' which Tarot readers are familiar with and 'I Ching' is connected to.} Ananda Coomaraswamy also has published evidence for this thesis in his 'Elements of Buddhist Iconography’. (6) The conclusion to be drawn from this is that Buddhists, as well as Hindus (and Asians in general) before Buddhism, used symbolism more effectively, precisely because the symbol was more comprehensive and 'active' in the magical sense than plastic representation. If the Buddha was indeed considered to be a god (as he was, in fact, immediately after his demise), then his magical 'presence' was preserved in anything emanating from him." (7)
It is important to understand or accept the things he is saying but it is hard for us to understand, especially in the Western world. The artistic representations of the Buddha could be considered like photographs of your loved one that recall events and feelings and thus bring great happiness. This may be part of the cultural milieu that leads to the Asian predilection to enjoy photography; The Gothic cathedrals in Europe built by the Templars which we have delved into in 'CtIC' (Columbus, the Itinerant Cathar) are built upon the mathematical vectors as I have said. The vectors of force are also symbols of the forces that have associated names that some call gods. In the event that Buddha dies and someone calls him god -does that make him a real GOD? Sitting under the Bodhi Tree did not change Buddha into a God. He did however, become a person who showed how others should act and what effort and discipline it requires to find a path to the Godhead which is 'within' as they say in Buddhism - "ALL is WITHIN". The completion of the phrase is "THE UNIVERSE".
My own personal path was described to me by the most erudite and enlightened person of my life as being a 'householder' which she said was the same as what I had taken as the 'Bodhisattva Way'. Her husband was an Arhat which is the less logical path that some characterize as 'contemplators of their navel'. Thus he would be more able to attune to these architectural symbols perhaps. In the end of any meditation does one find themself in a similar place without logic? Certainly each of us has different visions or appreciations of the message or beauty (no mean or simple art) that entails such grandeur that the emotions are often overwhelmed. Joseph Campbell wrote:
"In what I am calling 'creative' mythology... the individual has had an experience of his own--of order, horror, beauty, or even mere exhilaration--which he seeks to communicate through signs; and if his realization has been of a certain depth and import, his communication will have the value and force of living myth--for those, that is to say, who receive and respond to it of themselves, with recognition, uncoerced.� (8)
The 'uncoerced' word seems to me most intriguing. Does he mean that religious experience often has a component of manipulation? Is he referring to a force that would coerce if you are not careful? My belief and experience has never felt any coercion from forces, though when I was uncertain and without knowledge there was a time, long ago, that I felt some fear. The fear could manifest certain personal doubts and lead to improper conclusions based on programming or closed-end beliefs. There are those who can use force of spiritual things to coerce, but without fear and in knowledge of truth (often a simple faith) one is 'protected'. The mirror technique or personal acceptance of Jesus from the crossing motion of what most associate with Catholicism is what I use to visualize acceptance of any such energy and return all negative energy to its sender. It may be that others will find better ways for themself. My travels along this road are not to be imitated and each person will find their own special mantra or guide. The yogis say if you meet a guru on your path -'Shoot him!'. This does not mean we can't learn from yogis or gurus or each other as we share. It does mean you must never allow anyone to take charge and interpret for you the personal spiritual path you must take. Returning to the quote from Mircae Eliade:
"That is why his 'name' had just as much effectiveness as his 'doctrine' (his verbal, revealed body) and his 'physical remains'. The pronunciation of the Buddha's name, the mental assimilation of his teachings, the touching of his physical remains ('relics' which, according to tradition, were deposited in monuments, 'stupas')--by any of these paths man makes contact with the sacred, absolute body of the Enlightened One.
This being the case, we would suspect from the outset that a grandiose temple like Barabudur must itself be a vehicle to transport the faithful to that supernatural plane where the 'touching' of the Buddha is possible. {In life after death experiences, which are scientifically documented, the Christian will see Jesus when they reach the white light stage and the Buddhist will see Buddha, the truth as taught by the actual men who did live these lives is the same. The reality is that religion and their lives have been used against people!} Any work in a traditional culture leads by certain 'tracks' ('vestigium pedi') to the contemplation of the divinity or even to incorporation into him. {This is not a mere metaphor, and one does not have to die to achieve this experience. It is often not achieved but a hysterical exhilaration and misinterpretive hallucination that is experienced.} The first Brahmanical {The 'Brahmans' could be considered the equivalent of the western aristocracy and users of 'mystery' or magic in the schools we call the octopus'. They developed the caste system and the horror of the 'untouchables'; which ranks near the top of all deviate and perverse acts ever done by man to his fellow man.} 'work of art' was, undoubtedly, the Vedic altar 'where the nature of God is reflected but where the sacrificer finds himself also magically incorporated.’ (9) The journey to divinity in India is made on many paths: ritual (magical), contemplative, mystical. One of the paths most employed down to the present day is meditation on an object so constructed that it 'encompasses the doctrine.' That object, very simple in appearance, is called a 'yantra'. One who meditates on a 'yantra' magically assimilates the 'doctrine', incorporates it. Mus shows keen insight when he asserts that, from a certain point of view, the Barabudur temple is a 'yantra’. (10) The structure is so made that the pilgrim, by walking through it and meditating on each scene depicted in the bas-reliefs in the numerous galleries, assimilates Buddhist doctrine. I must emphasize this point: the temple is a symbolic body of the Buddha, and therefore the believer 'learns' or 'experiences' Buddhism by visiting the temple just as effectively as by 'reading' {Emphasis} the Buddha's words or by meditating on them. In all these cases there is an approach to the supra-real presence of the Buddha: the temple or 'stupa' is his architectonic body. {Remember the Septuagint identifies Jesus as arch-tecton.}
Indeed, the 'stupa'--that monument peculiar to Buddhism, which is found in considerable numbers in India, Ceylon, and Burma--is identified with the mystical body of the Buddha. (11) This must be understood, however, according to the mental laws which guide traditional cultures. The 'stupa' is not only a funerary monument, as has been said up to now; the presence of cosmological symbolism gives it a broader meaning. (12) The 'stupa', like the Vedic altar, is an architectonic image of the world. Its cosmic symbolism is precise: an 'imago mundi'. But the 'stupa' may be considered also a funerary monument since--if not in reality, at least in tradition--it contains a relic of the Buddha. Paul Mus calls attention, however, to construction sacrifices of human beings in Asia, sacrifices which--at least in regions studied by him--have the meaning of 'animating' the structure'. There is a need of a 'soul', a 'life', for the new structure to be animated. Perhaps we have here a variant of the legend of Master Manole which, in turn, is only one of numerous examples of 'rites of construction' investigated by Lazar Saineanu in the case of Balkan peoples. (Biblio - 'Convorbiri literare', 1888, and 'Les rites de la construction d'après la poesie populaire de L’Europe orientale', in 'Revue de l'histoire des religions', 1902. Cf. also P. Caraman, 'Consideratii critice asupra genezei si raspandiri baladei Mesterului Manole in Balcani', 1934.)....
As Mus says, the 'stupa' is the Buddha's 'body' rather than his 'tomb'. (13)… And besides, in the Indian view of things, even the human body is imagined as a Cosmos--with its 'horizons', its 'winds'--and Mus gives us a penetrating analysis of all the implications of such a concept. (14)
The 'stupa' is the cosmic 'dharma' rendered visible {The As Above, so Below, that connects the image of the cosmos in the body with the one in the Universe.}; as such, it is without other symbolisms, it suffices to insure a contact with the mysterious nature of the Buddha, vanished into Nirvana, but who has graciously left us his Law to take his place. 'Whoever beholds the Law beholds me: whoever beholds me beholds the Law', he teaches in effect in the canon. From that high estate of belief, the 'stupa' is made to appear as the Law; it is in the same stroke, to a certain extent, the portrait of the Buddha." (15)
Is this view of reality worth more consideration than simply calling it a religion that is like all others? Does it claim to give guidance by less than or more than logical terms that allow us to see that language has no better means of delivering us to true enlightenment. Is it related to the kind of culture that existed in the pre-semantical priesthoods of shamans and what is now called 'goddess-worship'? You know what I think and you will have to decide what degree of purposeful manipulation was involved in the alphabetic homogenization of thought.
The 'stupa' has been compared to the ziggurats and even the pyramid, but I can see no reason to compare them to the Great Pyramid which has little to compare with most of the other pyramids. The 'stupa' of Barabudur is more than those pyramids perhaps. The mathematics of the Great Pyramid is truly such a sublime language that only the creators of the first ephemeris of the heavens might understand. We have seen the Phoenician born scientists and sages of Greece gained much from this Pyramid in Neolithic Libraries and other books I have done. Thales or Pythagoras and their 'spheres' that contemplate the 'sephirah' of the Hebrew. But maybe I have just not read enough about the related cosmology of the Hindu. They do have a lot to offer, but I find them less precise in their calculations such as the 24,000 year sidereal age rather than the 26,000 of the Mayan when we now know 25,800+ is the case.
The whole issue of a JOY FOR (or of) LEARNING is involved here. When words create images through effortless appreciation of artistic means they are vehicles like the statues of Barabudur. But how often are dry dates and supposed acts of heroes and political figures really able to convey such coping-skills of allowing us to come closer to our soul and the 'Universe' of possibilities including our place and purpose therein? One could say that the Mayan language which is a combination of phonetic symbols like an alphabet and a pictographic imagery akin to the statues and 'stupas' of Buddhism; is superior to our limited semantical thesis of communication that causes such frequent reference to Thesauruses. The Thesaurus should become a 'dino'-saurus!
In 1991 we finally broke the Mayan Code that was a language able to communicate across the often different languages of many tribes (over 200 if memory serves) because it combined the images of our heart with the constructs of our mind that symbols of vernacular or common idiomatic convention known as alphabets allow. We are not more advanced because we all agree to behave according to the thoughts words convey in the hands of proselytes and politicos. We will know truth only through the moral and ethical appreciation and meditation upon the spirit of god in universe that harmonizes with purpose beyond our often feeble awareness at an individual level.
Thus the spiritual guides of forces in nature and of refined soulful creatures such as we are after our death, are able to coach us towards majestic communions with oneness rather than race or religious different-ness as an egotistical goal. Ah, but therein lies the rub! Who can really benefit from such a hierarchy that allows everyone access to such omniscient power? Knowledge in the hands of the few becomes power of a great use for those who need it because of their insecurities. Faith in each other and the oneness of brotherhood does not seek to make the caste system or denominational differences of race and prejudice.
"These symbols--axis, cosmic pillar, horizons--function with equal I validity in both microcosm and macrocosm (As above, so below). It is easy to understand that if the Universe was considered to be a 'giant', a 'man' ('Purusha'), then cosmic functions are found also in the human body. Indians (and Mesopotamians as well, for that matter) knew a 'mystical physiology', that is, a MAP of man drafted in cosmic terms {And their chakra chart of acupuncture chart if put over our current physiologists and neurologists lymph and nervous system charts are very accurate.}. In our book on Yoga (16) we had occasion to speak about a 'mystical physiology' elaborated in terms of ascetic methods, on the basis of contemplative experiences and techniques. Paul Mus, together with Dr. Filliozat, (17) brings out other aspects of these homologies between the human body and the macrocosm.� (18)
There are many illustrations of symbols in our day to day lives that might guide us toward seeing the Theogany of the Eastern philosophies in a more familiar frame of reference. Rock and ROLL is one of them. Its' passionate intensity reached people in ways beyond the use of mere words; it was also a racial issue backlash that drew young whites and blacks together in appreciation of the forces of intolerance and social manipulation. The silliness of segregation and the Scale of Nature that sought to limit one human and aggrandize another group by the sick and ugly differences of race or those attributes termed 'jungle music' made a statement that slowly creep into the consciousness of many through the symbols and emotional hooks of music and rhythm which are often in tune with natural harmony.
The Peace symbol of the 'Make Love not War' era and the songs of John Lennon like 'Imagine'; evoke images near and dear to my own heart. Even though I was perceived by my peer group (at least those who didn't talk to me) as a military 'short hair' because I was in the militia or playing the role of driven over-achiever in the public accounting field my heart was in essence with the true 'hippies'. It didn't take a person with psychedelic experience through LSD to know the truth of the consciousness revival and art of Peter Max.