MITHRA. After Ahura Mazda¯ and together with Ana¯hita¯, Mithra is one of the major deities of ancient Iran, one that later crossed the borders of the Iranian world to become the supreme god of a mystery religion popular throughout the Roman Empire. In the Avesta and the later Zoroastrian literature Mithra turns up frequently; indeed, an entire Avestan.

Mithra is essentially a deity of light: he draws the sun
with rapid horses; he is the first to reach the summit of
Mount Hara¯, at the center of the earth, and from there
watches over the entire abode of the Aryans; he shines with
his own light and in the morning makes the many forms of
the world visible. If his name is synonymous with the word
mithra, meaning “contract, covenant,” as Antoine Meillet
(1907) suggests, his functions are not restricted to merely
personifying that notion. In the Iranian world, besides being
a deity of light with strong solar characteristics (which explains his identification with the Mesopotamian Shamash),
Mithra has a clear significance as a warrior god. Thus, in relation to the gods of the Indo-Iranian pantheon, he is closer
to Indra than to the Vedic Mitra. He also, however, has the
traits of a divinity who ensures rain and prosperity and who
protects cattle by providing it ample pasturage.
The cult of Mithra, together with that of Ana¯hita¯, constitutes the principal innovation of Zoroastrianism as it
evolved after Zarathushtra (Zoroaster) and represents its
major compromise with ancient polytheism. It was probably
Mithra’s role as defender and guardian of asha, truth and
order—the fundamental principle of earlier Indo-Iranian religion, as well as of Zoroastrianism—that redeemed him
from Zarathushtra’s original general condemnation of polytheism.

The Goddesses Al-Uzza, Al-Lat and Menat formed a triad in pre-Islamic Arabia. They were widely worshipped: from Nabatean Petra in the North to the legendary Kingdoms of Arabia Felix in the South, including Saba, the Biblical Sheba; as far east as Iran and Palmyra; and the three of them were very popular Goddesses in Mecca at the time of Mohammed. From left they are: Al-Uzza, whose name means "The Mighty One", the Goddess of the Morning Star; Al-Lat, the Mother, whose name means simply "The Goddess", as Al-Lah simply means "The God"; and Manat, Crone-goddess of Fate or Time. Sometimes the three of them are referred to as the daughters of Al-Lah; sometimes Manat and Al-Lat are considered daughters of Al-Uzza.

Al-Uzza, "the Strong One", was one of the most venerated Arab Deities, and the Goddess of the morning and evening star, Venus. She had a temple at Petra (though which one that was has not been determined), and may well have been the patron Goddess of that city. Isaac of Antioch (a writer of the 5th century CE) calls Her Beltis ("Lady", a title shared by many other Semitic Goddesses), and Kaukabta, "the Star". He also says that women would invoke Al-Uzza from the rooftops, a form of worship appropriate to a Star Goddess. St. Epiphanius of the 4th century CE calls Her the mother of Dusares, the local mountain God, calling Her by the title Chaamu or Chalmous, meaning "young girl or virgin". She has connections with the acacia tree, and Her sanctuary at Nakhlah had three acacias in which She was believed to descend. She has much in common with Ishtar and Astarte as Morning and Evening Star Goddesses—they all have aspects of both Love and War Goddess, and big cats were sacred to Them. She is shown here armed as a bellatrix, standing before an acacia tree, with a caracal, or desert lynx. She was associated by the Greeks with their Aphrodite Urania, "Heavenly Aphrodite".

Rāmānuja (c. 1017 – c. 1137 CE)

Rāmānuja (ācārya), the eleventh century South Indian philosopher, is the chief proponent of Vishishtādvaita, which is one of the three main forms of the Orthodox Hindu philosophical school, Vedānta. As the prime philosopher of the Vishishtādvaita tradition, Rāmānuja is one of the Indian philosophical tradition’s most important and influential figures. He was the first Indian philosopher to provide a systematic theistic interpretation of the philosophy of the Vedas, and is famous for arguing for the epistemic and soteriological significance of bhakti, or devotion to a personal God. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Rāmānuja defended the reality of a plurality of individual persons, qualities, values and objects while affirming the substantial unity of all. On some accounts, Rāmānuja’s influence on popular Hindu practice is so vast that his system forms the basis for popular Hindu philosophy. His two main philosophical writings (the Shrī Bhāshya and Vedārthasangraha) are amongst the best examples of rigorous and energetic argumentation in any philosophical tradition, and they are masterpieces of Indian scholastic philosophy.

Table of Contents

1. Ramanuja’s Life and Works
2. Ramanuja’s Cosmology and Metaphysics
   1. Background
   2. Negative Philosophical Criticisms of Bhedabheda and Advaita Vedanta
      1. Logical Criticism
      2. Argument from Epistemology
   3. Substantive Theses
      1. Intentionality of Consciousness
      2. Consciousness is a Property of Something
      3. Individuals are Real
   4. Hermeneutic Criticism
      1. Vedas as Doctrinally Unified Corpus
      2. “Tat tvam asi” and Co-ordinate Predication
      3. Brahman and Atman
3. Ramanuja’s Theism
4. Ramanuja’s Soteriology
5. Ramanuja’s Epistemology
   1. Perception
   2. Scripture
   3. Bhakti
   4. Error
6. Ramanuja’s Ethics
   1. Substantive Ethics
   2. Foundations of Ethics
7. Interpreting Ramanuja: the Northern and Southern Schools and the Authenticity of the Gadyas
8. Conclusion: Ramanuja’s Place in the History of Indian Philosophy
9. References and Further Readings
   1. Primary Sources
   2. b. Secondary Sources on Ramanuja

Arthur Schopenhauer (22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860
Charles Robert Darwin, FRS (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882)
Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903)
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky 1831 – 8 May 1891
Ramakrishna 1836 – 16 August 1886
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche 1844 – 25 August 1900)
Nikola Tesla 1856 – 7 January 1943
Rudolf Steiner was born in 1861 and lived until 1925
Rabindranath Tagore 1861 – 7 August 1941
Alfred North Whitehead, 1861 – 1947)
Swami Vivekananda 1863 – 4 July 1902)
Walter Bowman Russell (May 19, 1871 – May 19, 1963)
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 1872 – 2 February 1970)
Aleister Crowley  1875 – 1 December 1947
Carl Gustav Jung  26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961
Albert Einstein 1879 – 18 April 1955)
Erwin  Schrödinger 1887 – 4 January 1961
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951)
Wolfgang Ernst Pauli (25 April 1900 – 15 December 1958
Werner Karl Heisenberg (5 December 1901 – 1 February 1976)

A prominent feature of Islam is that most of its rites and practices were adopted from the pagan Arabian rituals of Muhammad's time. To hide their pagan origins, Muhammad claimed that God initially sanctioned these rites. In fact, before, during, and after his mission, Muhammad continued to perform rites that were nothing more than idolatry. For instance, a hadith of al-Bukhari records that, prior to his calling, Muhammad made sacrifices to the pagan idols:

Narrated 'Abdullah: Allah's Apostle said that he met Zaid bin 'Amr Nufail at a place near Baldah and this had happened before Allah's Apostle received the Divine Inspiration. Allah's Apostle presented a dish of meat(that had been offered to him by the pagans) to Zaid bin 'Amr, but Zaid refused to eat of it and then said (to the pagans), "I do not eat of what you slaughter on your stone altars (Ansabs) nor do I eat except that on which Allah's Name has been mentioned on slaughtering." (Sahih al-Bukhari 7:407)

Despite the fact that the parenthetical statements — "that had been offered to him by the pagans" and "to the pagans" — are not part of the Arabic text, the point is still clear that Muhammad ate food sacrificed to idols while Zaid refused to eat it. This is brought out clearly from the following citations taken from F.E. Peters. According to a tradition reported by Zaid ibn Haritha, who was also present at the event,

The Prophet slaughtered an ewe for one of the idols (nusub min al-ansab); then he roasted it and carried it with him. Then Zayd ibn Amr ibn Nufayl met us in the upper part of the valley; it was one of the hot days of Mecca. When we met we greeted each other with the greeting of the Age of barbarism, in'am sabahan. The Prophet said: "Why do I see you, O son of Amr, hated by your people?" He said, "This (happened) without my being the cause of their hatred; but I found them associating divinities with God and I was reluctant to do the same. I wanted (to worship God according to) the religion of Abraham..." The Prophet said, "Would you like some food?" He said, "Yes." Then the Prophet put before him the (meat of the ewe). He (that is, Zayd ibn Amr) said: "What did you sacrifice to, O Muhammad?"

"He said, "To one of the idols." Zayd then said: "I am not the one to eat anything slaughtered for a divinity other than God." (Al-Kharqushi, Sharaf al-Mustafa, cited in F. E. Peters, Muhammad and the Religion of Islam[State University of New York Press (SUNY), Albany 1994], pp. 126-127)

Ibn al-Kalbi also confirms that Muhammad offered up an ewe to al-Uzza, "in accordance with the religion of the people." (Ibid., p. 127)

In fact, noted historian of the Arab peoples Philip K. Hitti accepts the veracity of al-Kalbi's report:

Al-'Uzza (the most mighty, Venus, the morning star) had her cult in Nakhlah east of Makkah. According to al-Kalbi, hers was the most venerated idol among the Quraysh, and Muhammad as a young man offered her a sacrifice. (Hitti, History of the Arabs from the Earliest Times to the Present, revised tenth edition, new preface by Walid Khalidi [Palgrave Macmillan, 2002; ISBN: 0-333-63142-0 paperback], p. 99)

Kabīr,  (born 1440, Varanasi, Jaunpur, India—died 1518, Maghar), iconoclastic Indian poet-saint revered by Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs alike.

The birth of Kabīr (Arabic: “Great”) remains to this day shrouded in mystery and legend. Authorities disagree on both when he was born and who his parents were. One legend proclaims a divine virginal birth. His mother was reputed to have been of the Brahman caste and to have become pregnant after a visit to a Hindu shrine. Because she was unwed, she abandoned Kabīr, who was found and adopted by a Muslim weaver. That his early life began as a Muslim there is no doubt, although he later became influenced by a Hindu ascetic, Ramananda.

Though Kabīr is often depicted in modern times as a harmonizer of Hindu and Muslim belief and practice, it would be more accurate to say that he was equally critical of both, often conceiving them as parallel to one another in their misguided ways. In his view, the mindless, repetitious, prideful habit of declaiming scripture could be visited alike on the sacred Hindu texts, the Vedas, or the Islamic holy book, the Qurʾān; the religious authorities doing so could be Brahmins or Qāzīs; meaningless rites of initiation could focus either on the sacred thread or on circumcision. What really counted for Kabīr was utter fidelity to the one deathless truth of life, which he associated equally with the designations Allah and Ram—the latter understood as a general Hindu name for the divine, not the hero of the Ramayana. Kabīr’s principal media of communication were songs called padas and rhymed couplets (dohas) sometimes called “words” (shabdas) or “witnesses” (sakhis). A number of these couplets, and others attributed to Kabīr since his death, have come to be commonly used by speakers of north Indian languages.

Kabīr’s poetic personality has been variously defined by the religious traditions that revere him, and the same can be said for his hagiography. For Sikhs he is a precursor and interlocutor of Nanak, the founding Sikh Guru (spiritual guide). Muslims place him in Sufi lineages, and for Hindus he becomes a Vaishnava (devotee of the god Vishnu) with universalist leanings. But when one goes back to the poetry that can most reliably be attributed to Kabīr, only two aspects of his life emerge as truly certain: he lived most of his life in Banaras (now Varanasi), and he was a weaver (julaha), one of a low-ranked caste that had become largely Muslim in Kabīr’s time. His humble social station and his own combative reaction to any who would regard it as such have contributed to his celebrity among various other religious movements and helped shape the Kabīr Panth, a sect found across north and central India that draws its members especially but not exclusively from the scheduled castes (formerly known as untouchables). The Kabīr Panth regards Kabir as its principal guru or even as a divinity—truth incarnate. The broad range of traditions on which Kabīr has had an impact is testimony to his massive authority, even for those whose beliefs and practices he criticized so unsparingly. From early on, his presence in anthologies of north Indian bhakti (devotional) poetry is remarkable.

---

Some Muslims in the past tended to view Kab¯ır as a

S: u¯f¯ı, because many of his “words” are somewhat similar to

those of the most liberal and unorthodox Indian S: u¯f¯ıs. Modern Hindus and Muslims tend to see him as the champion

of Hindu-Muslim unity, although Kab¯ır himself expressed

outright rejection of the “two religions” and bitterly castigated their official representatives: pandits and pa¯n: d: es on the

one side, mullas and ka¯zis on the other. For Kab¯ır, there

could be no revealed religion at all—no Veda, no QurDa¯n.

All scriptural authority he emphatically denied, and he

warned people against searching for truth in “holy books”:

“Reading, reading, the whole world died—and no one ever

became learned!”

Synergetics is the empirical study of systems in transformation, with an emphasis on total system behavior unpredicted by the behavior of any isolated components, including humanity's role as both participant and observer.

Since systems are identifiable at every scale from the quantum level to the cosmic, and humanity both articulates the behavior of these systems and is composed of these systems, synergetics is a very broad discipline, and embraces a broad range of scientific and philosophical studies including tetrahedral and close-packed-sphere geometries, thermodynamics, chemistry, psychology, biochemistry, economics, philosophy and theology. Despite a few mainstream endorsements such as articles by Arthur Loeb and the naming of a molecule "buckminsterfullerene," synergetics remains an iconoclastic subject ignored by most traditional curricula and academic departments.

Buckminster Fuller (1895-­1983) coined the term and attempted to define its scope in his two volume work Synergetics.^[1][2][3] His oeuvre inspired many researchers to tackle branches of synergetics. Three examples: Haken explored self-organizing structures of open systems far from thermodynamic equilibrium, Amy Edmondson explored tetrahedral and icosahedral geometry, and Stafford Beer tackled geodesics in the context of social dynamics. Many other researchers toil today on aspects of Synergetics, though many deliberately distance themselves from Fuller's broad all-encompassing definition, given its problematic attempt to differentiate and relate all aspects of reality including the ideal and the physically realized, the container and the contained, the one and the many, the observer and the observed, the human microcosm and the universal macrocosm.

Remember this?

Turns out there are more, and they come in many forms and shapes:

The Temple of the Rose Cross, Teophilus Schweighardt Constantiens, 1618.

Būni Samuel MacGregor Mathers William Westcott Franz Bardon Jakob Böhme

v t e

Rosicrucianism is a generic term referring to studies or membership within a philosophical secret society said to have been founded in late medieval Germany by Christian Rosenkreuz. It holds a doctrine or theology "built on esoteric truths of the ancient past", which, "concealed from the average man, provide insight into nature, the physical universe and the spiritual realm."^[1] Rosicrucianism is symbolized by the Rosy Cross.

Between 1607 and 1616, two anonymous manifestos were published, first in Germany and later throughout Europe.^[2] These were the Fama Fraternitatis RC (The Fame of the Brotherhood of RC) and the Confessio Fraternitatis (The Confession of the Brotherhood of RC). The influence of these documents, presenting a "most laudable Order" of mystic-philosopher-doctors and promoting a "Universal Reformation of Mankind", gave rise to an enthusiasm called by its historian Dame Frances Yates the "Rosicrucian Enlightenment".^[3]

Rosicrucianism was associated with Protestantism, Lutheranism in particular,^[4] and the manifestos opposed Roman Catholicism and its preference for dogma over empiricism. They traced their philosophy and science to the Moors, [Muslims in Morocco, European word for Muslims]  asserting that it had been kept secret for 120 years until the intellectual climate might receive it.

Early seventeenth century occult philosophers such as Michael Maier, Robert Fludd and Thomas Vaughan interested themselves in the Rosicrucian world view.^[5] According to historian David Stevenson it was also influential to Freemasonry as it was emerging in Scotland.^[4] In later centuries, many esoteric societies have claimed to derive their doctrines, in whole or in part, from the original Rosicrucians. Several modern societies have been formed for the study of Rosicrucianism and allied subjects.

Origins[edit]

The Fama Fraternitatis presented the legend of a German doctor and mystic philosopher referred to as "Frater C.R.C." (later identified in a third manifesto as Christian Rosenkreuz, or "Rose-cross"). The year 1378 is presented as being the birth year of "our Christian Father", and it is stated that he lived 106 years. After studying in the Middle East under various masters, possibly adhering to Sufism,^[6] he was unable to spread the knowledge he had acquired to any prominent European figures. Instead, he gathered a small circle of friends/disciples and founded the Rosicrucian Order (this can be deduced to have occurred around 1407).

The ancient roots of Judaism lie in the Bronze Age polytheistic Ancient Semitic religions, specifically Canaanite religion, a syncretization with elements of Babylonian religion and of the worship of Yahweh reflected in the early prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible. During the Babylonian captivity of the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, certain circles within the exiled Judahites in Babylon redefined pre-existing ideas about monotheism, election, divine law and Covenant into a theology which came to dominate the former Judah in the following centuries.

From the 5th century BCE until 70 CE, Israelite religion developed into the various theological schools of Second Temple Judaism, besides Hellenistic Judaism in the diaspora. The text of the Hebrew Bible was redacted into its extant form in this period and possibly also canonized as well. The Rabbinic form of Judaism developed during Late Antiquity, during the 3rd to 6th centuries CE; the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible (the addition of vowels to the consonant text) and the Talmud were compiled in this period. The oldest manuscripts of the Masoretic Biblical tradition however come from the 10th and 11th centuries CE; in the form of the Aleppo Codex of the later portions of the 10th century CE and the Leningrad Codex dated to either 1008 CE or 1009 CE. Regarding Rabbinical works, due largely to censoring and burning of manuscripts in medieval Europe, the oldest manuscripts in existence of various Rabbinical works are quite late. For example the oldest complete manuscript copy of the Babylonian Talmud to survive is dated to 1342 CE.^[1]

Historical background[edit]

Main article: History of Judaism

Pre-monarchic (tribal religion)[edit]

Further information: Ugaritic mythology, Ancient Semitic religions, and Mosaic covenant

The central founding myth of the Israelite nation is the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt under the guidance of Moses, followed by the conquest of the Promised Land (Canaan). There is little or no archaeological or historical evidence to support these accounts, and although they may in part originate as early as the 10th century BCE, according to the Wellhausen hypothesis they reached something like their present form only in the 5th to 4th centuries BCE, when they are alleged to have been edited to comply with the theology of Second Temple Judaism.

Note:

First Temple period:

According to the Hebrew Bible, Solomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple, was the Holy Temple (Hebrew: בֵּית־הַמִּקְדָּשׁ‎: Bet HaMikdash) in ancient Jerusalem, on the Temple Mount (also known as Mount Zion), before its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar II after the Siege of Jerusalem of 587 BCE. There is no direct archaeological evidence for the existence of Solomon's Temple,^[1] and no mention of it in the surviving contemporary extra-biblical literature..

The Second Temple was an important Jewish Holy Temple (Hebrew: בֵּית־הַמִּקְדָּשׁ הַשֵּׁנִי‎: Bet HaMikdash HaSheni; Arabic: بيت القدس‎: Beit al-Quds) which stood on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem during the Second Temple period, between 516 BCE and 70 CE. It replaced the First Temple which was destroyed in 586 BCE, when the Jewish nation was exiled to Babylon. Jewish eschatology includes a belief that the Second Temple will in turn be replaced by a future Third Temple.

The Tzadikim Nistarim (Hebrew: צַדִיקִים נִסתָּרים, "hidden righteous ones") or Lamed Vav Tzadikim (Hebrew: ל"ו צַדִיקִים,x"36 righteous ones"), often abbreviated to Lamed Vav(niks),^[a] refers to 36 righteous people, a notion rooted within the more mystical dimensions of Judaism. The singular form is Tzadik Nistar (Hebrew: צַדִיק נִסתָר).

Contents

  [hide] 

• 1 Origins
• 2 Their purpose
• 3 Lamedvavniks
• 4 Notes
• 5 References in popular culture
• 6 References
• 7 External links

Origins[edit]

The source is the Talmud itself, explained as follows:

As a mystical concept, the number 36 is even more intriguing. It is said that at all times there are 36 special people in the world, and that were it not for them, all of them, if even one of them was missing, the world would come to an end. The two Hebrew letters for 36 are the lamed, which is 30, and the vav, which is 6. Therefore, these 36 are referred to as the Lamed-Vav Tzadikim. This widely-held belief, this most unusual Jewish concept is based on a Talmudic statement to the effect that in every generation 36 righteous "greet the Shechinah," the Divine Presence (Tractate Sanhedrin 97b; Tractate Sukkah 45b).^[1]