Jesus and Apollonius were healers and were both addressed as Kings. Apollonius was a Nirmanakaya. He was accused of confining his teachings to the rich. But like Jesus and Buddha, Apollonius was the uncompromising enemy of all show of piety, all display of religious ceremonies, bigotry and hypocrisy. Clergy demand blind faith by forbidding inquiry as the one unpardonable sin. Their Bible is not the Word of God, but the words of fallible men and imperfect teachers. Every revealer of truth has to become “man of sorrow” and martyr. Jesus Chrestos, a virtuous man in his trial of life, was reborn Christos, a Nirmanakaya. But the former suffered much less than Gautama. On Buddha’s rebirths and migrations, and the Apollonius connection. The Romish Church claimed Gautama Buddha as one of their converts and elevated him to sainthood! But neither Gautama nor Jesus tolerated priestcraft. God’s “little children” were Great Initiates, saving mankind from the insanities of materialism and pessimism. The legendary parts of the lives of Buddha and Jesus are identical. The riddle of the “marriage” at Cana unriddled and the trials of the Sun-Initiate unravelled. Was Shankaracharya Gautama Buddha?

"[Thich Nhat Hanh] shows us the connection between personal, inner peace and peace on earth." --His Holiness The Dalai Lama Nominated by Martin Luther King, Jr. for a Nobel Peace Prize, Thich Nhat Hanh is one of today’s leading sources of wisdom, peace, compassion and comfort. Exiled from Vietnam over thirty years ago, Thich Nhat Hanh has become known as a healer of the heart, a monk who shows us how the everyday world can both enrich and endanger our spiritual lives. In this book, Jesus and Buddha share a conversation about prayer and ritual and renewal, and about where such concepts as resurrection and the practice of mindfulness converge. In this unique way, Thich Nhat Hanh shows the brotherhood between Jesus and Buddha-- and in the process shows how we can take their wisdom into the world with us, to "practice in such a way that Buddha is born every moment of our daily life, that Jesus Christ is born every moment of our daily life."

1. The Origin of the Mysteries. The last incarnation of one of seven “Lords of the Flame” was Baladeva, Krishna’s brother. Hercules is none other than Baladeva in Greek dress. In the Golden Age, Esoteric Knowledge was common property. Initiation arose later on from the necessity to limit the number of those who knew. The Initiate’s maxim was “All for the people and with the people.” The old Initiates were real philosophers, priests, and healers. They commemorated the secrets of their Mysteries in hieroglyphics. Only those, whose purity allowed them to look at the great Isis unveiled, were admitted to the secrets of Nature and Man. But what Gods and Angels had revealed, Moses reveiled and hid from the sight of the world. 2. The Trial of the Sun-Initiate. Vishvakarman (Hierophant or Logos Demiourgos) cut off seven locks of the neophyte’s long hair (Second Sun’s rays) and replaced them with a crown of brambles — thus making him Vikartana, “shorn of his rays.” The neophyte who can overcome the dreadful trials of Initiation (on the cross of his worldly passions) dies in the Chrestos condition (freed from the clutches of matter) before his second and triumphant birth in Spirit as Christos. The Masonic rite of Initiation is based upon the construction of the Temple of Solomon, a narrative modelled upon Egyptian and still earlier symbolisms. Yet, there never was an Occult Society, however open and sincere, that has not felt the hand of the Jesuit trying to pull it down by every secret means. The Jesuits infected mankind with passivity, ignorance, and superstition in order to impose their Universal Despotism unopposed. 3. The Mystery of the “Sun of Initiation.” In the days of Aristotle, few were the true Adepts left in Europe and even in Egypt. Solus-Sol-Sun is “The One” and the Greek name for Helios, the Most High. But there is a great difference between our Sun and its prototype, the Central Spiritual Sun. 4. The Objects of the Mysteries. Whether lesser or greater, Mysteries have always been graded. Theophany is the appearance of God to man; Theopathy, man’s assimilation of his divine nature; Theopneusty, inspiration or rather the power to hear the Voice of God. The last two are experienced when the neophyte passes through the crucifixion of flesh or matter. The Grecian Mysteries were identical with the Initiations of Buddhist and Hindu Adepts. In India, the candidate of the third degree of Initiation has two Gurus. But whether Eastern or Western, the Initiate dares all and keeps silent. Masonic Initiation was modelled on that of the Lesser Mysteries and remains an authority upon the three fundamental degrees. The triple duty of a Mason is to study whence he comes, what he is, and whither he goes. 5. Traces of the Mysteries. The Round Towers in Ireland and Asia were connected with the Vishvakarman and Vikartana rites. In later ages, the Initiates of the Left Path and the anthropomorphists turned them into phallic monuments. The key to the mystery of Initiation (and to the real Christ, not the blasphemous caricature of the Churches) lies on the difference between the terms Chrestos and Christos. There were two Messiahs, Chrest and Christ. Jesus was an Initiate of the Egyptian Mysteries, where the rite of the suffering Chrestos on his trial, and second birth as Christos (by regeneration), were enacted. It was on the seventh day, the third of his ultimate trial, that the Eastern neophyte arose as a regenerated man and returned to earth as triumphant conqueror of death, a Hierophant. Initiates are said to have “crushed the serpent’s head,” i.e., conquered their sensual nature. The Egyptian Initiates held the Rose as symbol of Nature, the mother and nourisher of man, represented as a virgin woman. The Brothers of the Rosy Cross, as a symbol of sexual procreation. The old Indian Mysteries of Initiation were brought to Greece by Orpheus, nine millennia before Homer and Hesiod. 6. The Last of the Mysteries in Europe. Alesia, Arles, and Bibractis, the last bastions of the Ancient Mysteries in Europe, are no more. Occult Wisdom is now replaced by absolute theocracy that displays its crowned priests to the ignorant masses. Whatever else Cheops might have done, he has not built the pyramid bearing his name. Neither Solomon his temple, nor Noah his arc, for that matter. The strict silence of the Initiates and the total loss of all written memorials of secret knowledge may explain why so little is known of the Ancient Mysteries. Yet, there is spiritual Alchemy and physical transmutation: their cradle is to be sought in the most distant times. 7. The Post-Christian Successors to the Mysteries. The Neo-Platonic School of Ammonius Saccas became the successor of the Eleusinian Mysteries and herald of the Eastern Secret Teachings — unveiling the long and laborious descent and re-ascent of the Divine Monad or Soul. Each of us have to pass through the “Valley of Thorns” before he emerges into the plains of divine light and rest. The Eclectic doctrines are strongly reflected in the Epistles of Paul and John the Evangelist. For it is not Judaism and Christianity that remodelled the ancient Pagan Wisdom, but rather the latter that put its heathen curb on the new “faith” and was further influenced by the Eclectic Theosophical system, the direct emanation of the Wisdom-Religion. Ammonius, Plotinus, Iamblichus, Proclus, were prominent Theosophists though they never claimed the title. All that is grand and noble in Christian theology comes from Neo-Platonism. Ammonius was a true Philaletheian, one of us. His Eclectic Theosophical School, a precursor and prototype of the modern Theosophical Movement, was made of the crumbs permitted to be gathered from the antediluvian lore. Woe to those who mock Divine Knowledge and betray her secrets. But those who are pure in thought and deed, and have trust and confidence in their immortal spirit, have nothing to fear.

Empedocles was taught by Egypt’s great Hierophants. He believed that men and animals possess a dual soul. Pythagoras and Plato also make the same division. Empedocles’ dual soul followed the idea of a dual magnetic force, attraction–repulsion, throughout the universe, as confirmed by Kepler. He believed that the Monad, or “breath” of Darkness moving over “the slumbering Waters of life,” is primordial matter with the latent Spirit in it. Empedocles was an acclaimed Thaumaturgist. He recalled the dead to life. He even ruled the wind. But in the eyes of miracle-believing Christians he was an impostor.

Tattvas and Bhutas are the Principles and Aspects of Cosmos and Man. Lokas and Talas are Divine and Worldly planes of being. Colours and sounds are all spiritual numerals. Colour is Spirit (Atman), Sound is Voice (Buddhi), Proportion of Numbers is Word (Higher Manas). Woe to the selfish man who seeks to develop occult powers only to attain earthly benefits, or revenge, or to satisfy his ambition. And warnings to those who are anxious to develop powers by sitting for yoga. Tattvas are the substratum of the Forces in Nature and Man. Sound is no attribute at all, but the primal correlation of Akasha. Akasha is both the highest Tattva and the synthesis of all Tattvas. Esoteric and Tantric Tattvas, and their correspondences with states of matter, body parts, and colours, explained. In the realm of hidden Forces of Nature, an audible sound is but a subjective colour; and a perceptible colour, but an inaudible sound. The Seven Rays of Logos keep vibrating not only in the Tattvic centres of action but in every atom of the body. The lower you go in the Talas the more intellectual you become and the less spiritual. You may be a morally good man but not spiritual. Every human passion, every thought and quality, is indicated in one’s aura by corresponding colours and shades of colour; certain of these are sensed and felt, rather than perceived. The introspective Adept can see the golden aura of a man in his normal condition, pulsating in both the Pineal and the Pituitary Glands, a pulsation like that of the heart, never ceasing throughout life. Watch out! Tantric works tend to Black Magic and are most dangerous to take for guides in self-training.