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Meet Sarat Chandra Das: The spy who came in from the cold of Tibet and wrote a book about it
Book Excerpt from the Introduction of Journey to Lhasa: The Diary of a Spy, Sarat Chandra Das, by Parimal Bhattacharya
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October 27, 2017, 08:30 am

-- Sarat Chandra Das, by Wikipedia
-- The Indian Spy Who Fell for Tibet: Sent by Britain to carry out a secret survey, Sarat Chandra Das became enchanted instead, by Samanth Subramanian
-- The Scholar-Spy Who Saw Tibet's Densatil Monastery in All Its Glory, by Asia Society
-- Journal of the Buddhist Text Society of India, Volume 4, edited by Sarat Chandra Das, C.I.E.
-- A Short Description of the Phur-Pa, or the “Enchanted Dagger”, by Sri Sarat Chandra Das
-- The Origin of Mankind. Compiled From the Legendary History of Tibet, by Sri Sarat Chandra Das
-- Bhutia Boarding School, Darjeeling [Bhotia Boarding School], by Wikipedia
-- Kim, by Rudyard Kipling

How did a middle-class Bengali become a British agent in the forbidden kingdom?

On the fringe of Darjeeling town, where the Hill Cart Road winds into a thick urban sprawl, is a neighbourhood known as Lhasa Villa. One needs to ask around to find the origin of this name, a nineteenth-century villa that still stands somewhere here. But only a dogged spirit with a pair of strong legs can find it in the forest of concrete and tin 50 feet below the road, at the end of a steep pebbled path.

It is an old derelict cottage, the remains of what had once been a pretty structure, now indistinguishable from the tenements that have grown around it. One must exercise the imagination to remember that a century ago this was a place of solitude, filled with the call of crickets and murmuring pines, and that a spy once lived here. He was a spy who had fallen in love with the land of his mission and remained its lifelong lover.

But Sarat Chandra Das was more than a spy.

Trained as an engineer, he went to Tibet in the late nineteenth century on a secret mission, became a well-known Buddhist scholar on his return, and even wrote a thousand-page dictionary of the Tibetan language. He also became a Rai Bahadur, a Companion of the Indian Empire, won a medal from the Royal Geographic Society and was supposedly the model for a character in a Rudyard Kipling novel.

Born in 1849 in a middle-class Bengali family in the Chittagong district of East Bengal, now Bangladesh, Sarat Chandra Das studied civil engineering in Calcutta’s Presidency College. A sharp and diligent student, he soon attracted the attention of his sahib teachers and, even before he had obtained the degree, was appointed the headmaster of Bhutia Boarding School in Darjeeling.

It was 1874. The school had been newly set up to teach the rudiments of English and science, particularly the skills of cartographic survey, to boys in the hills. Darjeeling, too, was a new hill station surrounded by verdant mountains and the majestic Kanchenjunga towering in the sky. Coming from the at Gangetic plains, young Sarat Chandra was captivated by such beauty. He explored the hills around town and made a trip to the neighbouring kingdom of Sikkim.

But his destiny lay elsewhere, across snow-covered ranges to the north, in the mysterious land on the roof of the world. After he had read a book of travel into Tibet by two Englishmen in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century (the book was lent to him by the deputy commissioner of Darjeeling) Sarat Chandra felt “a burning desire for visiting Tibet and for exploring its unknown tracts”. That is what he writes in his brief autobiographical sketch.


Old map of Tibet | Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

However, there was the larger picture. Across Tibet lay the two mighty empires of Russia and China, and the British were uneasy about their imperialist designs, particularly that of Russia. A thorough knowledge of this buffer kingdom – mostly unknown and ten times the size of England – was imperative for them to come to grips with the geopolitical reality of the subcontinent.

But Tibet had always been wary of outsiders, except the Chinese, and the forbidding mountains and hostile tribes inhabiting its frontiers had kept it virtually cut off from the rest of the world.

This had also deepened its mysterious charm. Since the early nineteenth century, the presence of foreign powers like Russia and Britain in Asia had prompted Tibet to tightly shut its doors to outsiders. It was almost impossible for Indians from the plains, let alone white-skinned Westerners, to enter this kingdom of snow.

But trade had been going on between India and Tibet along the high mountain routes since ancient times. It was monopolised by Tibetans and the hill tribes of the border region. The only other people who had access to these routes were the Buddhist monks, a tradition that had continued for centuries.

The British began to exploit this chink. They sent spies into Tibet disguised as Buddhist monks in secret and dangerous missions. These spies were called Pundits. Pawns in the so- called Great Game played by Russia and Britain on the high chessboard of central Asia, these men were drafted from among the hill people. They were given a basic training in land survey and specially made instruments that they could conceal in their baggage to hoodwink the border guards.

With sextants and theodolites in secret chambers of their boxes, compasses fitted on walking staffs, paper and hypsometers tucked in hollowed-out prayer wheels, and rosaries with one hundred beads instead of the sacred hundred and eight, they measured distances by keeping count of their paces and mapped swathes of the Tibetan territory. Some of these Pundits had shown remarkable acumen and grit, a few had perished or been killed, and one of them, Nain Singh Rawat, had even won a gold medal from the Royal Geographic Society for exemplary work.

But these men lacked the formal education required to gather the kind of in-depth knowledge of the land, particularly its people and culture, that the British government in India hungered after. As an English-educated young man with a training in civil engineering, Sarat Chandra Das was cut out for the job. And his “burning desire” for Tibet was matched by an eager nod from the top bureaucracy; it was never known which of these occurred first.

But setting up a boarding school for hill boys in Darjeeling and installing a young Bengali engineer as its headmaster, must have been part of a larger design. The new school was on the radar of the government. It was patronised by Sir Alfred Croft, the director of public instruction and Sarat Chandra’s mentor, and was even visited by the Viceroy.

Ugyen Gyatso was an assistant teacher in the school. He was a lama from the Rinchenpong monastery in Sikkim, which was affiliated to Tashilhunpo lamasery in Shigatse, eastern Tibet. It was Ugyen who procured from Tashilhunpo a passport for Sarat Chandra and accompanied him to Tibet. For the secret mission, Sarat Chandra’s salary was raised from one hundred and fifty rupees to three hundred rupees a month. He was married. Before setting off, Sarat Chandra had told his wife that he was going to Shigatse for a few days on some official business. Naturally, she had no idea where Shigatse was or what was the nature of the “business”; neither did she know that a pension of one hundred rupees had been fixed by the government for her if her husband didn’t return from the mission.

Sarat Chandra went to Tibet twice; first in 1879, for four months, and then in 1881 for an extended stay of fourteen months.

This book, fist published in 1902, is based on the extensive notes he had taken during his second journey. Much of its materials – which he had used to prepare two reports for the intelligence and survey departments – were strictly classified until the end of the nineteenth century. Before him, other English travellers had written about their journeys into Tibet, notably George Bogle, an East India Company officer, explorer Thomas Manning and the great botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker. Sarat Chandra had read them carefully and had more or less followed the route Hooker had taken through Sikkim and Nepal during his foray into the Tibetan territory in 1849.


Old map of Lhasa

Lama Sengchen Dorjechen was an unusual man. Being a part of the ruling establishment in a land caught in a time warp – a land that did not have material uses of the wheel! – he had an avid interest in Western science and had procured through Sarat Chandra some of its wonders, including smallpox vaccine, a photographic camera, magic lanterns and even a complete lithographic press. While Sarat Chandra studied Buddhist literature in the lamasery’s library, Sengchen took a sabbatical from his ministerial duties to learn arithmetic and English from him. He had even begun to write a handbook on photography in the Tibetan language.

Sarat Chandra was taken by the Tibetans as one among the long line of scholars who had brought new knowledge and wisdom from India, the land of the Buddha. He himself, on the other hand, had seen Tibet as a high and dry repository of priceless ancient texts and belief systems that had been ravaged in India by bigots and tropical climate. The fascination and respect was mutual. And he returned with two yak-loads of rare books and manuscripts, splendidly pulling off a mission fraught with great hardship and danger. He was feted by the British government for this, was sent to China as part of a diplomatic mission and he became quite a name in the Himalayan explorers’ circuit.


Satellite view of Tibet

But there was a dark aftermath.

Soon after Sarat Chandra returned to India, his true identity and the purpose of his mission came to light in Tibet. The people who had hosted him and assisted him inadvertently during his stay were charged with sedition. They were arrested, mutilated and thrown into dungeons. Sengchen Dorjechen was drowned alive in the river Tsangpo in a public spectacle of capital punishment. Such brutality was wired into the Tibetan culture, and Sarat had witnessed it during his stay there. In this book there are descriptions of petty criminals begging on the streets of Shigatse—manacled, mutilated and their eyes gouged out. There are also other murky shadows of a closed theocratic society.

But that is only a small part of Journey to Lhasa. Page after page, what comes forth in this book is a spirit of inquiry and wide-eyed fascination for everything that the author had seen and come in contact with – from architectural details to aspects of cuisine, from customs of polyandry to etiquettes of drinking tea, from the rhythms of village life to the politics of Lamaism. And then there is the grandeur of nature, the animal world, the rich and varied aspects of Tibet’s material and spiritual life. It all reads as if a besotted lover is recounting all the details of his paramour’s beauty, spot by spot, but in a lucid and precise prose.

This lucidity and precision in describing a little-known land helped Francis Younghusband lead a military expedition there in 1903. Tibet was prised open like an oyster. Thousands of Tibetans defending their land with crude weapons were killed, the temples and lamaseries were sacked. And yes, a few of the still-surviving prisoners who had befriended Sarat Chandra were freed after thirty years of incarceration.

This also ended the Great Game and drew a curtain on a fascinating chapter of espionage that had continued for most of the nineteenth century. Overnight, men like Sarat Chandra became redundant, forgotten, a relic from the past. We find him making an appearance in the caricature of an English-educated Bengali spy in the figure of Hurree Chunder Mukherjee [R17] [Hurree Babu] [Babu] [Hakim] [The Seeker] in Rudyard Kipling’s famous novel Kim.

In the autumn of his life Sarat Chandra Das was a bitter man, recounting in his autobiography the raw deal he had been given by the British government and quoting stoical lines from Hafiz’s poetry.

He even sued the government on pension-related matters and published his autobiographical sketch in Modern Review, a mouthpiece of Indian nationalists.

But Sarat Chandra also embraced Buddhism with zeal, wrote copiously on spiritualism and founded the Buddhist Texts Society. A year before his death, he visited Japan accompanied with Ekai Kawaguchi, a Japanese monk and a Tibetologist like him. Sarat Chandra’s home in Darjeeling, named Lhasa Villa, was a most sought-after address for the scholars of the world who had anything to do with Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism.

As I write these lines, Lhasa Villa, or what has remained of it, still stands. But nobody remembers Sarat Chandra Das anymore, nobody knows what happened to those books, thangkas and manuscripts that he had brought from Tibet. Standing before the rickety cottage, it is now difficult to imagine that this remarkable man had spent the creative years of his life here. He had named it after the city of his dreams and had written here his books and a dictionary of the Tibetan language, in what was almost a Borgesian quest, cataloguing bit by bit the semantic dimension of a world that he had been able to trespass.

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Tibetan Communist Party
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 7/10/20

Before he had to flee, the young Dalai Lama had a number of meetings with the “Great Chairman” and was very impressed by him. As he shook Mao Zedong by the hand for the first time, the Kundun in his own words felt he was “in the presence of a strong magnetic force” (Craig, 1997, p. 178). Mao too felt the need to make a metaphysical assessment of the god-king: “The Dalai Lama is a god, not a man”, he said and then qualified this by adding, “In any case he is seen that way by the majority of the Tibetan population” (Tibetan Review, January 1995, p. 10). Mao chatted with the god-king about religion and politics a number of times and is supposed to have expressed varying and contradictory opinions during these conversations. On one occasion, religion was for him “opium for the people” in the classic Marxist sense, on another he saw in the historical Buddha a precursor of the idea of communism and declared the goddess Tara to be a “good woman”.

The twenty-year-old hierarch from Tibet looked up to the fatherly revolutionary from China with admiration and even nurtured the wish to become a member of the Communist Party. He fell, as Mary Craig puts it, under the spell of the red Emperor (Craig, 1997, p. 178). “I have heard chairman Mao talk on different matters”, the Kundun enthused in 1955, “and I received instructions from him. I have come to the firm conclusion that the brilliant prospects for the Chinese people as a whole are also the prospects for us Tibetan people; the path of our entire country is our path and no other” (Grunfeld, 1996, p. 142)...

The Fourteenth Dalai Lama and communism:

The Kundun’s constant attestations that Buddhism and Communism have common interests should also be seen as a further currying of favor with the Chinese. One can thus read numerous statements like the following from His Holiness: "The Lord Buddha wanted improvement in the spiritual realm, and Marx in the material; what alliance could be more fruitful?” (Hicks and Chogyam, 1990, p. 143); “I believe firmly there is common ground between communism and Buddhism” (Grunfeld, 1996, p. 188); “Normally I describe myself as half Marxist, half monk” (Zeitmagazin 1988, no. 44, p. 24; retranslation). He is even known to have made a plea for a communist economic policy: “As far as the economy is concerned, the Marxist theory could possibly complement Buddhism...” (Levenson, 1992, p. 334). It is thus no wonder that at the god-king’s suggestion, the “Communist Party of Tibet” was founded. The Dalai Lama has become a left-wing revolutionary even by the standards of those western nostalgics who mourn the passing of communism.

Up until in the eighties the Dalai Lama’s concern was to create via such comments a good relationship with the Soviet Union, which had since the sixties become embroiled in a dangerous conflict with China. As we have seen, even the envoy of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, Agvan Dorjiev, was a master at changing political fronts as he switched from the Tsar to Lenin without a problem following the Bolshevist seizure of power. Yet it is interesting that His Holiness has continued to make such pro-Marxist statements after the collapse of most communist systems. Perhaps this is for ethical reasons, or because China at least ideologically continues to cling to its communist past?

These days through such statements the Kundun wants to keep open the possibility of a return to Tibet under Chinese control. In 1997 in Taiwan he explained that he was neither anti-Chinese nor anti-communist (Tibetan Review, May 1997, p. 14). He even criticized China because it had stepped back from its Marxist theory of economics and the gulf between rich and poor is thus becoming ever wider (Martin Scheidegger, speaking at the Gesellschaft Schweizerisch Tibetische Freundschaft [Society for Swiss-Tibetan Friendship], August 18, 1997).

-- The Shadow of the Dalai Lama: Sexuality, Magic and Politics in Tibetan Buddhism, by Victor and Victoria Trimondi

Tibetan Communist Party
བོད་གུང་ཁྲན་ཏང
西藏共产党
Leader Phuntsok Wangyal
Founders Phuntsok Wangyal
Ngawang Kesang
Founded 1939 (as the TDYL)
1943 (as the TCP)
Dissolved 1949
Merged into Communist Party of China
Ideology Communism
Marxism-Leninism
Political position Far-left
Politics of Tibet

The Tibetan Communist Party (Tibetan: བོད་གུང་ཁྲན་ཏང, Wylie: bod gung khran tang; Chinese: 西藏共产党; pinyin: Xīzàng Gòngchǎndǎng) was a small communist party in the Kingdom of Tibet, which functioned in secrecy under various names. The group was founded by Phuntsok Wangyal and Ngawang Kesang in 1943. It emerged from a group called the Tibetan Democratic Youth League created by Wangyal and other Tibetan students in Lhasa in 1939.[1][2]

Phuntsog Wangyal (far left) with the Dalai Lama, Chen Yi, and the Panchen Lama in Lhasa,1956

“Phunwang showed that you could be a true Communist while at the same time proud of your Tibetan heritage,” stated the Dalai Lama.

-- Phuntsog Wangyal - obituary, by The Telegraph

The Party sought to unite all Tibetans into one entity, compassing Kham, Amdo, and Ü-Tsang.[3] The Party contacted the embassy of the Soviet Union asking for its assistance as it began planning a socialist uprising in Tibet and Kham. Later Wangyal also contacted the Communist Party of China and the Communist Party of India.[4]

The Tibetan communists prepared guerrilla struggles against the ruling Kuomintang, whilst promoting democratic reforms inside Tibet.

In 1949, the party merged into the Communist Party of China.[5]

References

1. New Left Review - Tsering Shakya: The Prisoner
2. "Case anthropologist tells story of Tibet Communist Party founder". 2 July 2004. Retrieved 21 June 2008.
3. Goldstein, Melvyn C. Goldstein/Sherap, Dawei Sherap/Siebenschuh, William R.. A Tibetan Revolutionary: The Political Life and Times of Bapa Phüntso Wangye. University of California Press, 2004. p. xiii
4. Goldstein, Melvyn C. Goldstein/Sherap, Dawei Sherap/Siebenschuh, William R.. A Tibetan Revolutionary: The Political Life and Times of Bapa Phüntso Wangye. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. p. 42-44, 78-82
5. Melvyn C. Goldstein; Dawei Sherap; William R. Siebenschuh. "A Tibetan Revolutionary". Retrieved 21 June 2008.

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Part 1 of 2

Spirituality
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 7/15/20

In 1954, Chaim Cohen, Attorney General of Israel, declaims to Judge Halevi about these same slaughtered Jews:

"For those and millions of Jews like them there came true the old curse, 'And, lo, they were meant but to be taken like sheep for slaughter, for killing, for destruction, for crushing and shame.' There was no spirit in them. The Jewish masses in Warsaw were in the same condition."

-- Perfidy, by Ben Hecht

The “Holy of Holies,” both Kabalistic and Rabbinical, are thus shown as an international symbol, and common property. Neither has originated with the Hebrews; but owing to the too realistic handling of the half-initiated Levites, the symbol has with them acquired a significance which it hardly has with any other people to this day, and which it was originally never meant to have by the true Kabalist. The Lingham and Yoni of the modern average Hindu is, on the face of it, of course, no better than the Rabbinical “Holy of Holies,” — but it is no worse; and this is a point gained on the Christian traducers of the Asiatic religious philosophies. For, in such religious myths, in the hidden symbolism of a creed and philosophy, the spirit of the tenets propounded ought to decide their relative value. And who will say, that, examined either way, this so-called “Wisdom,” applied solely to the uses and benefit of one little nation, has ever developed in it anything like national ethics. The Prophets are there, to show the walk in life, before, during, and after the days of Moses, of the chosen but “stiff-necked” people. That they have had at one time the Wisdom-Religion and use of the universal language and its symbols at their disposal and in their possession, is proved by the same esotericism existing to this day in India with regard to the “Holy of Holies.” This, as said, was and still is the passage through the “golden” cow in the same stooping position as the one shown in the gallery of the pyramid, which identified man with Jehovah in Hebrew esotericism. The whole difference lies in the Spirit of Interpretation. With the Hindus as with the ancient Egyptians that spirit was and is entirely metaphysical and psychological; with the Hebrews it was realistic and physiological. It pointed to the first sexual separation of the human race (Eve giving birth to Cain-Jehovah, as shown in the “Source of Measures”); to the consummation of terrestrial physiological union and conception (as in the allegory of Cain shedding Abel’s blood — Habel, the feminine principle) and — childbearing; a process shown to have begun in the Third Race, or with Adam’s THIRD son, Seth, with whose son Henoch, men began to call themselves Jehovah or Jah-hovah, the male Jod and Havah or Eve — to wit, male and female beings. Thus the difference lies in the religious and ethical feeling, but the two symbols are identical. There is no doubt that, with the fully initiated Judaean Tanaim, the inner sense of the symbolism was as holy in its abstraction as with the ancient Aryan Dwijas. The worship of the “god in the ark” dates only from David; and for a thousand years Israel knew of no phallic Jehovah. And now the old Kabala, edited and re-edited, has become tainted with it.

With the ancient Aryans the hidden meaning was grandiose, sublime, and poetical, however much the external appearance of their symbol may now militate against the claim. The ceremony of passing through the Holy of Holies (now symbolized by the cow), in the beginning through the temple Hiranya gharba (the radiant Egg) — in itself a symbol of Universal, abstract nature — meant spiritual conception and birth, or rather the re-birth of the individual and his regeneration: the stooping man at the entrance of the Sanctum Sanctorum, ready to pass through the matrix of mother nature, or the physical creature ready to re-become the original spiritual Being, pre-natal MAN. With the Semite, that stooping man meant the fall of Spirit into matter, and that fall and degradation were apotheosized by him with the result of dragging Deity down to the level of man. For the Aryan, the symbol represented the divorce of Spirit from matter, its merging into and return to its primal Source; for the Semite, the wedlock of spiritual man with material female nature, the physiological being taking pre-eminence over the psychological and the purely immaterial.

The Aryan views of the symbolism were those of the whole Pagan world; the Semite interpretations emanated from, and were pre-eminently those of a small tribe, thus marking its national features and the idiosyncratic defects that characterize many of the Jews to this day — gross realism, selfishness, and sensuality. They had made a bargain, through their father Jacob, with their tribal deity, self-exalted above all others, and a covenant that his “seed shall be as the dust of the earth”; and that deity could have no better image henceforth than that of the symbol of generation, and, as representation, a number and numbers.

Carlyle has wise words for both these nations. With the Hindu Aryan — the most metaphysical and spiritual people on earth — religion has ever been, in his words, “an everlasting lode-star, that beams the brighter in the heavens the darker here on earth grows the night around him.” The religion of the Hindu detaches him from this earth; therefore, even now, the cow-symbol is one of the grandest and most philosophical among all others in its inner meaning. To the “MASTERS” and “Lords” of European potencies — the Israelites — certain words of Carlyle apply still more admirably; for them “religion is a wise prudential feeling grounded on mere calculation” — and it was so from its beginnings. Having burdened themselves with it, Christian nations feel bound to defend and poetise it, at the expense of all other religions.

But it was not so with the ancient nations. For them the passage entrance and the sarcophagus in the King’s chamber meant regeneration — not generation. It was the most solemn symbol, a Holy of Holies, indeed, wherein were created immortal Hierophants and “Sons of God” — never mortal men and Sons of lust and flesh — as now in the hidden sense of the Semite Kabalist. The reason for the difference in the views of the two races is easy to account for. The Aryan Hindu belongs to the oldest races now on earth; the Semite Hebrew to the latest. One is nearly one million years old; the other is a small sub-race some 8,000 years old and no more.

-- The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, by Helena P. Blavatsky

Most important, the central doctrine of nazism, that the Jew was evil and had to be exterminated, had its origin in the Gnostic position that there were two worlds, one good and one evil, one dark and one light, one materialistic and one spiritual.... The mystical teachings of Guido von List, Lanz von Liebenfels, and Rudolf von Sebottendorff were modern restatements of Gnosticism.

When the apocalyptic promise of Christ's resurrection was broken, the Gnostics sought to return men to God by another route, more Oriental than Hellenist. They devised a dualistic cosmology to set against the teachings of the early Christian Church, which, they claimed, were only common deceptions, unsuited for the wise. The truth was esoteric. Only the properly initiated could appreciate it. It belonged to a secret tradition which had come down through certain mystery schools. The truth was, God could never become man. There were two separate realms -- one spiritual, the other material. The spiritual realm, created by God, was all good; the material realm, created by the demiurge, all evil. Man needed to be saved, not from Original Sin, but from enslavement to matter. For this, he had to learn the mystical arts. Thus Gnosticism became a source for the occult tradition.

A famous medieval Gnostic sect, the Cathars, came to identify the Old Testament god, Jehovah, with the demiurge, the creator of the material world and therefore the equivalent of Satan. Within Gnosticism, then, existed the idea that the Jewish god was really the devil, responsible for all the evil in the world. He was opposed to the New Testament God. The Cathars tried to eliminate the Old Testament from Church theology and condemned Judaism as a work of Satan's, whose aim was to tempt men away from the spirit. Jehovah, they said, was the god of an earth "waste and void," with darkness "upon the face of the deep." Was he not cruel and capricious? They quoted Scripture to prove it. The New Testament God, on the other hand, was light. He declared that "there is neither male nor female," for everyone was united in Christ. These two gods, obviously, had nothing in common.

The synagogue was regarded as profane by Christians. The Cathars -- themselves considered heretical by the Church -- castigated Catholics for refusing to purge themselves of Jewish sources; Church members often blamed the [Cathar] Christian heresy on Jewish mysticism, which was considered an inspiration for Gnostic sorcery.

But Gnostic cosmology, though officially branded "false," pervaded the thinking of the Church. The Jews were widely thought to be magicians. It was believed that they could cause rain, and when there was a drought, they were encouraged to do so. Despite the displeasure of the Roman Popes, Christians, when they were in straitened circumstances, practiced Jewish customs, even frequenting synagogues.

This sheds light on an otherwise incomprehensible recurring theme within Nazi literature, as, for example, "The Earth-Centered Jew Lacks a Soul," by one of the chief architects of Nazi dogma, Alfred Rosenberg, who held that whereas other people believe in a Hereafter and in immortality, the Jew affirms the world and will not allow it to perish. The Gnostic secret is that the spirit is trapped in matter, and to free it, the world must be rejected. Thus, in his total lack of world-denial, the Jew is snuffing out the inner light, and preventing the millennium:

Where the idea of the immortal dwells, the longing for the journey or the withdrawal from temporality must always emerge again; hence, a denial of the world will always reappear. And this is the meaning of the non-Jewish peoples: they are the custodians of world-negation, of the idea of the Hereafter, even if they maintain it in the poorest way. Hence, one or another of them can quietly go under, but what really matters lives on in their descendants. If, however, the Jewish people were to perish, no nation would be left which would hold world-affirmation in high esteem -- the end of all time would be here.

... the Jew, the only consistent and consequently the only viable yea-sayer to the world, must be found wherever other men bear in themselves ... a compulsion to overcome the world.... On the other hand, if the Jew were continually to stifle us, we would never be able to fulfill our mission, which is the salvation of the world, but would, to be frank, succumb to insanity, for pure world-affirmation, the unrestrained will for a vain existence, leads to no other goal. It would literally lead to a void, to the destruction not only of the illusory earthly world but also of the truly existent, the spiritual. Considered in himself the Jew represents nothing else but this blind will for destruction, the insanity of mankind. It is known that Jewish people are especially prone to mental disease. "Dominated by delusions," said Schopenhauer about the Jew.

... To strip the world of its soul, that and nothing else is what Judaism wants. This, however, would be tantamount to the world's destruction.

This remarkable statement, seemingly the rantings of a lunatic, expresses the Gnostic theme that the spirit of man, essentially divine, is imprisoned in an evil world. The way out of this world is through rejection of it. But the Jew alone stands in the way. Behind all the talk about "the earth-centered Jew" who "lacks a soul"; about the demonic Jew who will despoil the Aryan maiden; about the cabalistic work of the devil in Jewish finance; about the sinister revolutionary Jewish plot to take over the world and cause the decline of civilization, there is the shadow of ancient Gnosticism.

-- Gods & Beasts: The Nazis & the Occult, by Dusty Sklar

For the belief in being able to contact the dead, see Spiritualism.

The meaning of spirituality has developed and expanded over time, and various connotations can be found alongside each other.[1][2][3][note 1] Traditionally, spirituality referred to a religious process of re-formation which "aims to recover the original shape of man",[note 2] oriented at "the image of God"[4][5] as exemplified by the founders and sacred texts of the religions of the world. The term was used within early Christianity to refer to a life oriented toward the Holy Spirit[6] and broadened during the Late Middle Ages to include mental aspects of life.[7] In modern times, the term both spread to other religious traditions[8] and broadened to refer to a wider range of experience, including a range of esoteric traditions and religious traditions. Modern usages tend to refer to a subjective experience of a sacred dimension[9] and the "deepest values and meanings by which people live",[10][11] often in a context separate from organized religious institutions,[12] such as a belief in a supernatural (beyond the known and observable) realm,[13] personal growth,[14] a quest for an ultimate or sacred meaning,[15] religious experience,[16] or an encounter with one's own "inner dimension".[17]

Etymology

The term spirit means "animating or vital principle in man and animals".[web 1] It is derived from the Old French espirit, which comes from the Latin word spiritus (soul, courage, vigor, breath) and is related to spirare (to breathe). In the Vulgate the Latin word spiritus is used to translate the Greek pneuma and Hebrew ruach.[web 1]

The term "spiritual", matters "concerning the spirit", is derived from Old French spirituel (12c.), which is derived from Latin spiritualis, which comes from spiritus or "spirit".[web 2]

The term "spirituality" is derived from Middle French spiritualité, from Late Latin "spiritualitatem" (nominative spiritualitas), which is also derived from Latin spiritualis.[web 3]

Definition

There is no single, widely agreed-upon definition of spirituality.[2][3][note 1] Surveys of the definition of the term, as used in scholarly research, show a broad range of definitions with limited overlap.[1] A survey of reviews by McCarroll each dealing with the topic of spirituality gave twenty-seven explicit definitions, among which "there was little agreement."[1] This impedes the systematic study of spirituality and the capacity to communicate findings meaningfully. Furthermore, many of spirituality's core features are not unique to spirituality; for example self-transcendence, asceticism and the recognition of one's connection to all were regarded by the atheist Arthur Schopenhauer as key to ethical life.[18]

According to Kees Waaijman, the traditional meaning of spirituality is a process of re-formation which "aims to recover the original shape of man, the image of God. To accomplish this, the re-formation is oriented at a mold, which represents the original shape: in Judaism the Torah, in Christianity there is Christ, for Buddhism, Buddha, and in Islam, Muhammad."[note 2] Houtman and Aupers suggest that modern spirituality is a blend of humanistic psychology, mystical and esoteric traditions, and Eastern religions.[14]

The Shambhala legend is the description of the famous Buddhist paradise -- the land of spiritual enlightenment and simultaneously the land of plenty that people of the Mongol-Tibetan world dreamed about since the early Middle Ages. The concept of this paradise was absent in early Buddhism; it was introduced later to cater to the sentiments of common folk who could not comprehend some of the abstract principles of the Buddhist faith and needed something "real" to latch onto. Current practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism move back to the original roots of the faith, in some sense, by downplaying the material side of the utopia and putting more stress on its spiritual aspects.

-- Red Shambhala: Magic, Prophecy, and Geopolitics in the Heart of Asia, by Andrei Znamenski

The Lamas have no special term for their form of Buddhism. They simply call it "The religion" or "Buddha's religion"; and its professors are "Insiders," or "within the fold" (nan-pa), in contradistinction to the non-Buddhists or "Outsiders" (chi-pa or pyi-'lin), the so-called "pe-ling" or foreigners of English writers...

-- Social Identity Theory, by Saul A. McLeod

The last king of Shambhala - Rudracakrin. Cf. Karin Meinert (Ed.) Buddha in the yurta - Buddhist art from Mongolia; Hirmer Verlag, Munich; 2011:182, English-Mongolian edition and English-Russian edition - Slightly rubbed. Author: (MONGOLEI, 19. Jahrhundert)

In the year 2327 (C.E.) — the prophecies of the Kalachakra Tantra tell us — the 25th Kalki will ascend the throne of Shambhala. He goes by the name of Rudra Chakrin, the “wrathful wheel turner” or the “Fury with the wheel”. The mission of this ruler is to destroy the “enemies of the Buddhist teaching” in a huge eschatological battle and to found a golden age...

The Shambhala state draws a clear and definite distinction between friend and enemy. The original idea of Buddhist pacifism is completely foreign to it. Hence the Rudra Chakrin carries a martial symbolic object as his insignia of dominion, the “wheel of iron” (!)...

Mounted upon his white horse, with a spear in his hand, the Rudra Chakrin shall lead his powerful army in the 24th century. “The Lord of the Gods”, it is said of him in the Kalachakra Tantra, “joined with the twelve lords shall go to destroy the barbarians” (Newman, 1987, p. 645). His army shall consist of “exceptionally wild warriors” equipped with “sharp weapons”. A hundred thousand war elephants and millions of mountain horses, faster than the wind, shall serve his soldiers as mounts. Indian gods will then join the total of twelve divisions of the “wrathful wheel turner” and support their “friend” from Shambhala...

Here too, by “weapon” is understood every means of implementing the physical killing of humans...

The ancient origins and contents of the Shambhala state make it, when seen from the point of view of a western political scientist, an antidemocratic, totalitarian, doctrinaire and patriarchal model. It concerns a repressive ideal construction which is to be imposed upon all of humanity in the wake of an “ultimate war”. Here the sovereign (the Shambhala king) and in no sense the people decide the legal norms. He governs as the absolute monarch of a planetary Buddhocracy...

Further to this, the Shambhala state (in contrast to the original teachings of the Buddha) is based upon the clear differentiation of friend and enemy. Its political thought is profoundly dualist, up to and including the moral sphere. Islam is regarded as the arch-enemy of the country. In resolving aggravated conflicts, Shambhala society has recourse to a “high-tech” and extremely violent military machinery and employs the sociopolitical utopia of “paradise on earth” as its central item of propaganda.

It follows from all these features that the current, Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s constant professions of faith in the fundamentals of western democracy remain empty phrases for as long as he continues to place the Kalachakra Tantra and the Shambhala myth at the center of his ritual existence. The objection commonly produced by lamas and western Buddhists, that Shambhala concerns a metaphysical and not a worldly institution, does not hold water. We know, namely, from history that both traditional Tibetan and Mongolian society cultivated the Shambhala myth without at any stage drawing a distinction between a worldly and a metaphysical aspect in this matter. In both countries, everything which the Buddhocratic head of state decided was holy per se.

The argument that the Shambhala vision was distant “pie in the sky” is also not convincing. The aggressive warrior myth and the idea of a world controlling ADI BUDDHA has influenced the history of Tibet and Mongolia for centuries as a rigid political program which is oriented to the decisions of the clerical power elite...

From an “occidental” way of looking at things, an internalization implies that an external image (a war for example) is to be understood as a symbol for an inner psychic/spiritual process (for example, a “psychological” war). However, according to Eastern, magic-oriented thinking, the “identity” of interior and exterior means something different, namely that the inner processes in the yogi’s mystic body correspond to external events, or to tone this down a little, that inside and outside consist of the same substance (of “pure spirit” for example). The external is thus not a metaphor for the internal as in the western symbolic conception, but rather both, inner and exterior, correspond to one another. Admittedly this implies that the external can be influenced by inner manipulations, but not that it thereby disappears.

In the case of Heraclitus... every process in the world, and especially fire itself, develops according to a definite law, its 'measure'. It is an inexorable and irresistible law, and to this extent it resembles our modern conception of natural law as well as the conception of historical or evolutionary laws of modern historicists. But it differs from these conceptions in so far as it is the decree of reason, enforced by punishment, just as is the law imposed by the state. This failure to distinguish between legal laws or norms on the one hand and natural laws or regularities on the other is characteristic of tribal tabooism: both kinds of law alike are treated as magical, which makes a rational criticism of the man-made taboos as inconceivable as an attempt to improve upon the ultimate wisdom and reason of the laws or regularities of the natural world: 'All events proceed with the necessity of fate . . . The sun will not outstep the measure of his path; or else the goddesses of Fate, the handmaids of Justice, will know how to find him.' But the sun does not only obey the law; the Fire, in the shape of the sun and (as we shall see) of Zeus' thunderbolt, watches over the law, and gives judgement according to it. 'The sun is the keeper and guardian of the periods, limiting and judging and heralding and manifesting the changes and seasons which bring forth all things ... This cosmic order which is the same for all things has not been created, neither by gods nor by men; it always was, and is, and will be, an ever living Fire, flaring up according to measure, and dying down according to measure ... In its advance, the Fire will seize, judge, and execute, everything.'

-- The Open Society and Its Enemies, by Karl R. Popper

Applying this concept to the example mentioned above results in the following simple statement: the Shambhala war takes place internally and externally. Just as the mystic body (interior) of the ADI BUDDHA is identical with the whole cosmos (exterior), so the mystic body (interior) of the Shambhala king is identical to his state (exterior)...

For Westerners sensitized by the pacifist message of Buddhism, the “internalization” of the myth may thus offer a way around the militant ambient of the Kalachakra Tantra. But in Tibetan/Mongolian history the prophecy of Shambhala has been taken literally for centuries, and — as we still have to demonstrate — has led to extremely aggressive political undertakings. It carries within it — and this is something to we shall return to discuss in detail — the seeds of a worldwide fundamentalist ideology of war.

-- The Shadow of the Dalai Lama: Sexuality, Magic and Politics, by Victor and Victoria Trimondi, translated by Mark Penny

It is not easy now to ascertain the exact details of the creed -- the primitive Lamaism— taught by the Guru [Padmasambhava], for all the extant works attributed to him "were composed several centuries later by followers of his twenty-five Tibetan disciples. But judging from the intimate association of his name with the essentials of Lamaist sorceries, and the special creeds of the old unreformed section of the Lamas— the Nin-ma-pa— who profess and are acknowledged to be his immediate followers, and whose older scriptures date back to within two centuries of the Guru's time, it is evident that his teaching was of that extremely Tantrik and magical type of Mahayana Buddhism which was then prevalent in his native country of Udyan and Kashmir. And to this highly impure form of Buddhism, already covered by so many foreign accretions and saturated with so much demonolatry, was added a portion of the ritual and most of the demons of the indigenous Bon-pa religion, and each of the demons was assigned its proper place in the Lamaist pantheon.

Primitive Lamaism may therefore be defined as a priestly mixture of Sivaite mysticism, magic, and Indo-Tibetan demonolatry, overlaid by a thin varnish of Mahayana Buddhism. And to the present day Lamaism still retains this character.

-- The Buddhism of Tibet, or Lamaism With Its Mystic Cults, Symbolism and Mythology, and in its Relation to Indian Buddhism, by Laurence Austine Waddell

In modern times the emphasis is on subjective experience[9] and the "deepest values and meanings by which people live,"[10][11] incorporating personal growth or transformation, usually in a context separate from organized religious institutions.[12]

Development of the meaning of spirituality

Classical, medieval and early modern periods

Bergomi detects "an enlightened form of non-religious spirituality" in Late Antiquity.[19]

Words translatable as "spirituality" first began to arise in the 5th century and only entered common use toward the end of the Middle Ages.[20] In a Biblical context the term means being animated by God.[21] The New Testament offers the concept of being driven by the Holy Spirit, as opposed to living a life in which one rejects this influence.[6]

In the 11th century this meaning changed. "Spirituality" began to denote the mental aspect of life, as opposed to the material and sensual aspects of life, "the ecclesiastical sphere of light against the dark world of matter".[22][note 3] In the 13th century "spirituality" acquired a social and psychological meaning. Socially it denoted the territory of the clergy: "The ecclesiastical against the temporary possessions, the ecclesiastical against the secular authority, the clerical class against the secular class"[23][note 4] Psychologically, it denoted the realm of the inner life: "The purity of motives, affections, intentions, inner dispositions, the psychology of the spiritual life, the analysis of the feelings".[24][note 5]

In the 17th and 18th centuries a distinction was made between higher and lower forms of spirituality: "A spiritual man is one who is Christian 'more abundantly and deeper than others'."[24][note 6] The word was also associated with mysticism and quietism, and acquired a negative meaning.

Modern spirituality

See also: History of Western esotericism and New Age

Modern notions of spirituality developed throughout the 19th and 20th century, mixing Christian ideas with Western esoteric traditions and elements of Asian, especially Indian, religions. Spirituality became increasingly disconnected from traditional religious organisations and institutions. It is sometimes associated today with philosophical, social, or political movements such as liberalism, feminist theology, and green politics.[25]

Transcendentalism and Unitarian Universalism

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) was a pioneer of the idea of spirituality as a distinct field.[26] He was one of the major figures in Transcendentalism, an early 19th-century liberal Protestant movement, which was rooted in English and German Romanticism, the Biblical criticism of Johann Gottfried Herder and Friedrich Schleiermacher, the skepticism of Hume,[web 4] and Neo-Platonism.[27][28] The Transcendentalists emphasised an intuitive, experiential approach of religion.[web 5] Following Schleiermacher,[29] an individual's intuition of truth was taken as the criterion for truth.[web 5] In the late 18th and early 19th century, the first translations of Hindu texts appeared, which were also read by the Transcendentalists, and influenced their thinking.[web 5] They also endorsed universalist and Unitarianist ideas, leading to Unitarian Universalism, the idea that there must be truth in other religions as well, since a loving God would redeem all living beings, not just Christians.[web 5][web 6]

Brahma
BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON

If the red slayer think he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.

Far or forgot to me is near;
Shadow and sunlight are the same;
The vanished gods to me appear;
And one to me are shame and fame.

They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
I am the hymn the Brahmin sings.

The strong gods pine for my abode,
And pine in vain the sacred Seven;
But thou, meek lover of the good!
Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.

Theosophy, anthroposophy, and the perennial philosophy

See also: Western esotericism

A major influence on modern spirituality was the Theosophical Society, which searched for 'secret teachings' in Asian religions.[30] It has been influential on modernist streams in several Asian religions, notably Neo-Vedanta, the revival of Theravada Buddhism, and Buddhist modernism, which have taken over modern western notions of personal experience and universalism and integrated them in their religious concepts.[30] A second, related influence was Anthroposophy, whose founder, Rudolf Steiner, was particularly interested in developing a genuine Western spirituality, and in the ways that such a spirituality could transform practical institutions such as education, agriculture, and medicine.[31][32]

The influence of Asian traditions on western modern spirituality was also furthered by the perennial philosophy, whose main proponent Aldous Huxley was deeply influenced by Swami Vivekananda's Neo-Vedanta and universalism,[33] and the spread of social welfare, education and mass travel after World War II.

Neo-Vedanta

Main article: Neo-Vedanta

An important influence on western spirituality was Neo-Vedanta, also called neo-Hinduism[34] and Hindu Universalism,[web 7] a modern interpretation of Hinduism which developed in response to western colonialism and orientalism. It aims to present Hinduism as a "homogenized ideal of Hinduism"[35] with Advaita Vedanta as its central doctrine.[36] Due to the colonisation of Asia by the western world, since the 19th century an exchange of ideas has been taking place between the western world and Asia, which also influenced western religiosity.[30] Unitarianism, and the idea of Universalism, was brought to India by missionaries, and had a major influence on neo-Hinduism via Ram Mohan Roy's Brahmo Samaj and Brahmoism. Roy attempted to modernise and reform Hinduism, from the idea of Universalism.[37] This universalism was further popularised, and brought back to the west as neo-Vedanta, by Swami Vivekananda.[37]

"Spiritual but not religious"

Main article: Spiritual but not religious

After the Second World War, spirituality and theistic religion became increasingly disconnected,[24] and spirituality became more oriented on subjective experience, instead of "attempts to place the self within a broader ontological context."[38] A new discourse developed, in which (humanistic) psychology, mystical and esoteric traditions and eastern religions are being blended, to reach the true self by self-disclosure, free expression and, meditation.[14]

The distinction between the spiritual and the religious became more common in the popular mind during the late 20th century with the rise of secularism and the advent of the New Age movement. Authors such as Chris Griscom and Shirley MacLaine explored it in numerous ways in their books. Paul Heelas noted the development within New Age circles of what he called "seminar spirituality":[39] structured offerings complementing consumer choice with spiritual options.

Among other factors, declining membership of organized religions and the growth of secularism in the western world have given rise to this broader view of spirituality.[40] The term "spiritual" is now frequently used in contexts in which the term "religious" was formerly employed.[8] Both theists and atheists have criticized this development.[41][42]

Traditional spirituality

Abrahamic faiths

Judaism

Rabbinic Judaism (or in some Christian traditions,[which?] Rabbinism) (Hebrew: "Yahadut Rabanit" – יהדות רבנית) has been the mainstream form of Judaism since the 6th century CE, after the codification of the Talmud. It is characterised by the belief that the Written Torah ("Law" or "Instruction") cannot be correctly interpreted without reference to the Oral Torah and by the voluminous literature specifying what behavior is sanctioned by the law (called halakha, "the way").

Judaism knows a variety of religious observances: ethical rules, prayers, religious clothing, holidays, shabbat, pilgrimages, Torah reading, dietary laws, etc.

Kabbalah (literally "receiving"), is an esoteric method, discipline and school of thought of Judaism. Its definition varies according to the tradition and aims of those following it,[43] from its religious origin as an integral part of Judaism, to its later Christian, New Age, or Occultist syncretic adaptations. Kabbalah is a set of esoteric teachings meant to explain the relationship between an unchanging, eternal and mysterious Ein Sof (no end) and the mortal and finite universe (his creation). While it is heavily used by some denominations,[which?] it is not a religious denomination in itself.

Hasidic Judaism, meaning "piety" (or "loving kindness"), is a branch of Orthodox Judaism that promotes spirituality through the popularisation and internalisation of Jewish mysticism as the fundamental aspect of the faith. It was founded in 18th-century Eastern Europe by Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov. Hasidism emphased the Immanent Divine presence in everything and has often focused on optimism,[citation needed] encouragement, and daily fervour. This populist emotional revival accompanied the elite ideal of nullification to paradoxical Divine Panentheism, through intellectual articulation of inner dimensions of mystical thought.

The Musar movement is a Jewish spiritual movement that has focused on developing character traits such as faith, humility, and love. The Musar movement, first founded in the 19th century by Israel Salanter and developed in the 21st century by Alan Morinis and Ira F. Stone, has encouraged spiritual practices of Jewish meditation, Jewish prayer, Jewish ethics, tzedakah, teshuvah, and the study of musar (ethical) literature.[44]

Christianity

Main articles: Catholic spirituality and Christian mysticism

Catholic spirituality is the spiritual practice of living out a personal act of faith (fides qua creditur) following the acceptance of faith (fides quae creditur). Although all Catholics are expected to pray together at Mass, there are many different forms of spirituality and private prayer which have developed over the centuries. Each of the major religious orders of the Catholic Church and other lay groupings have their own unique spirituality – its own way of approaching God in prayer and in living out the Gospel.

Christian mysticism refers to the development of mystical practices and theory within Christianity. It has often been connected to mystical theology, especially in the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions. The attributes and means by which Christian mysticism is studied and practiced are varied and range from ecstatic visions of the soul's mystical union with God to simple prayerful contemplation of Holy Scripture (i.e., Lectio Divina).

Progressive Christianity is a contemporary movement which seeks to remove the supernatural claims of the faith and replace them with a post-critical understanding of biblical spirituality based on historical and scientific research. It focuses on the lived experience of spirituality over historical dogmatic claims, and accepts that the faith is both true and a human construction, and that spiritual experiences are psychologically and neurally real and useful.

Islam

Five pillars

Main article: Five Pillars of Islam

The Pillars of Islam (arkan al-Islam; also arkan ad-din, "pillars of religion") are five basic acts in Islam, considered obligatory for all believers. The Quran presents them as a framework for worship and a sign of commitment to the faith. They are (1) the creed (shahadah), (2) daily prayers (salat), (3) almsgiving (zakah), (4) fasting during Ramadan and (5) the pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj) at least once-in-a-lifetime. The Shia and Sunni sects both agree on the essential details for the performance of these acts.[45]

Sufism

Main article: Sufism

The best known form of Islamic mystic spirituality is the Sufi tradition (famous through Rumi and Hafiz) in which a Sheikh or pir transmits spiritual discipline to students.[46]

Sufism or taṣawwuf (Arabic: تصوّف‎) is defined by its adherents as the inner, mystical dimension of Islam.[47][48][49] A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a ṣūfī (صُوفِيّ). Sufis believe they are practicing ihsan (perfection of worship) as revealed by Gabriel to Muhammad,

Worship and serve Allah as you are seeing Him and while you see Him not yet truly He sees you.

Sufis consider themselves as the original true proponents of this pure original form of Islam. They are strong adherents to the principal of tolerance, peace and against any form of violence. The Sufi have suffered severe persecution by more rigid and fundamentalist groups such as the Wahhabi and Salafi movement. In 1843 the Senussi Sufi were forced to flee Mecca and Medina and head to Sudan and Libya.[50]

Classical Sufi scholars have defined Sufism as "a science whose objective is the reparation of the heart and turning it away from all else but God".[51] Alternatively, in the words of the Darqawi Sufi teacher Ahmad ibn Ajiba, "a science through which one can know how to travel into the presence of the Divine, purify one's inner self from filth, and beautify it with a variety of praiseworthy traits".[52]

Jihad

Main article: Jihad

Jihad is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the word jihād translates as a noun meaning "struggle". There are two commonly accepted meanings of jihad: an inner spiritual struggle and an outer physical struggle.[53] The "greater jihad" is the inner struggle by a believer to fulfill his religious duties.[53][54] This non-violent meaning is stressed by both Muslim[55] and non-Muslim[56] authors.

Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, an 11th-century Islamic scholar, referenced a statement by the companion of Muhammad, Jabir ibn Abd-Allah:

The Prophet ... returned from one of his battles, and thereupon told us, 'You have arrived with an excellent arrival, you have come from the Lesser Jihad to the Greater Jihad – the striving of a servant (of Allah) against his desires (holy war)."[unreliable source?][57][58][note 7]

Asian traditions

Buddhism

Main article: Buddhism

Buddhist practices are known as Bhavana, which literally means "development" or "cultivating"[59] or "producing"[60][61] in the sense of "calling into existence."[62] It is an important concept in Buddhist praxis (Patipatti). The word bhavana normally appears in conjunction with another word forming a compound phrase such as citta-bhavana (the development or cultivation of the heart/mind) or metta-bhavana (the development/cultivation of loving kindness). When used on its own bhavana signifies 'spiritual cultivation' generally.

Various Buddhist Paths to liberation developed throughout the ages. Best-known is the Noble Eightfold Path, but others include the Bodhisattva Path and Lamrim.

Hinduism

Main article: Hinduism

Hinduism has no traditional ecclesiastical order, no centralized religious authorities, no governing body, no prophet(s) nor any binding holy book; Hindus can choose to be polytheistic, pantheistic, monistic, or atheistic.[63] Within this diffuse and open structure, spirituality in Hindu philosophy is an individual experience, and referred to as ksaitrajña (Sanskrit: क्षैत्रज्ञ[64]). It defines spiritual practice as one's journey towards moksha, awareness of self, the discovery of higher truths, true nature of reality, and a consciousness that is liberated and content.[65][66]

Four paths

Traditionally, Hinduism identifies three mārga (ways)[67][note 8] of spiritual practice,[68] namely Jñāna, the way of knowledge; Bhakti, the way of devotion; and Karma yoga, the way of selfless action. In the 19th century Vivekananda, in his neo-Vedanta synthesis of Hinduism, added Rāja yoga, the way of contemplation and meditation, as a fourth way, calling all of them "yoga". [69][note 9]

Jñāna marga is a path often assisted by a guru (teacher) in one's spiritual practice.[71] Bhakti marga is a path of faith and devotion to deity or deities; the spiritual practice often includes chanting, singing and music – such as in kirtans – in front of idols, or images of one or more deity, or a devotional symbol of the holy.[72] Karma marga is the path of one's work, where diligent practical work or vartta (Sanskrit: वार्त्ता, profession) becomes in itself a spiritual practice, and work in daily life is perfected as a form of spiritual liberation and not for its material rewards.[73][74] Rāja marga is the path of cultivating necessary virtues, self-discipline, tapas (meditation), contemplation and self-reflection sometimes with isolation and renunciation of the world, to a pinnacle state called samādhi.[75][76] This state of samādhi has been compared to peak experience.[77]

There is a rigorous debate in Indian literature on relative merits of these theoretical spiritual practices. For example, Chandogyopanishad suggests that those who engage in ritualistic offerings to gods and priests will fail in their spiritual practice, while those who engage in tapas will succeed; Svetasvataropanishad suggests that a successful spiritual practice requires a longing for truth, but warns of becoming 'false ascetic' who go through the mechanics of spiritual practice without meditating on the nature of Self and universal Truths.[78] In the practice of Hinduism, suggest modern era scholars such as Vivekananda, the choice between the paths is up to the individual and a person's proclivities.[66][79] Other scholars[80] suggest that these Hindu spiritual practices are not mutually exclusive, but overlapping. These four paths of spirituality are also known in Hinduism outside India, such as in Balinese Hinduism, where it is called Catur Marga (literally: four paths).[81]

Schools and spirituality

Different schools of Hinduism encourage different spiritual practices. In Tantric school for example, the spiritual practice has been referred to as sādhanā. It involves initiation into the school, undergoing rituals, and achieving moksha liberation by experiencing union of cosmic polarities.[82] The Hare Krishna school emphasizes bhakti yoga as spiritual practice.[83] In Advaita Vedanta school, the spiritual practice emphasizes jñāna yoga in stages: samnyasa (cultivate virtues), sravana (hear, study), manana (reflect) and dhyana (nididhyasana, contemplate).[84]

Sikhism

Main article: Sikhism

Sikhism considers spiritual life and secular life to be intertwined:[85] "In the Sikh Weltanschauung...the temporal world is part of the Infinite Reality and partakes of its characteristics."[86] Guru Nanak described living an "active, creative, and practical life" of "truthfulness, fidelity, self-control and purity" as being higher than a purely contemplative life.[87]

The 6th Sikh Guru Guru Hargobind re-affirmed that the political/temporal (Miri) and spiritual (Piri) realms are mutually coexistent.[88] According to the 9th Sikh Guru, Tegh Bahadhur, the ideal Sikh should have both Shakti (power that resides in the temporal), and Bhakti (spiritual meditative qualities). This was developed into the concept of the Saint Soldier by the 10th Sikh Guru, Gobind Singh.[89]

According to Guru Nanak, the goal is to attain the "attendant balance of separation-fusion, self-other, action-inaction, attachment-detachment, in the course of daily life",[90] the polar opposite to a self-centered existence.[90] Nanak talks further about the one God or akal (timelessness) that permeates all life[91]).[92][93][94] and which must be seen with 'the inward eye', or the 'heart', of a human being.[95]

In Sikhism there is no dogma,[96] priests, monastics or yogis.

African spirituality

Main article: Traditional African religion

In some African contexts,[which?] spirituality is considered a belief system that guides the welfare of society and the people therein, and eradicates sources of unhappiness occasioned by evil.[97] In traditional society prior to colonization and extensive introduction to Christianity or Islam, religion was the strongest element in society influencing the thinking and actions of the people. Hence spirituality was a sub-domain of religion.[98] Despite the rapid social, economic and political changes of the last century, traditional religion remains the essential background for many African people. And that religion is a communal given, not an individual choice. Religion gives all of life its meaning and provides ground for action. Each person is "a living creed of his religion." There is no concern for spiritual matters apart from ones physical and communal life. Life continues after death but remains focused on pragmatic family and community matters.

Contemporary spirituality

See also: New Age

The term "spiritual" has frequently become used in contexts in which the term "religious" was formerly employed.[8] Contemporary spirituality is also called "post-traditional spirituality" and "New Age spirituality".[99] Hanegraaf makes a distinction between two "New Age" movements: New Age in a restricted sense, which originated primarily in mid-twentieth century England and had its roots in Theosophy and Anthroposophy, and "New Age" in a general sense, which emerged in the later 1970s

when increasing numbers of people ... began to perceive a broad similarity between a wide variety of "alternative ideas" and pursuits, and started to think of them as part of one "movement"".[100]

Those who speak of spirituality outside of religion often define themselves as spiritual but not religious and generally believe in the existence of different "spiritual paths", emphasizing the importance of finding one's own individual path to spirituality. According to one 2005 poll, about 24% of the United States population identifies itself as "spiritual but not religious".[web 8]

Lockwood draws attention to the variety of spiritual experience in the contemporary West:

The new Western spiritual landscape, characterised by consumerism and choice abundance, is scattered with novel religious manifestations based in psychology and the Human Potential Movement, each offering participants a pathway to the Self.[101]

Characteristics

Modern spirituality centers on the "deepest values and meanings by which people live".[102] It often embraces the idea of an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality.[103] It envisions an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being.

Not all modern notions of spirituality embrace transcendental ideas. Secular spirituality emphasizes humanistic ideas on moral character (qualities such as love, compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, responsibility, harmony, and a concern for others).[104]:22 These are aspects of life and human experience which go beyond a purely materialist view of the world without necessarily accepting belief in a supernatural reality or any divine being. Nevertheless, many humanists (e.g. Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre) who clearly value the non-material, communal and virtuous aspects of life reject this usage of the term "spirituality" as being overly-broad (i.e. it effectively amounts to saying "everything and anything that is good and virtuous is necessarily spiritual").[105] In 1930 Russell, a self-described agnostic renowned as an atheist, wrote "... one's ego is no very large part of the world. The man [sic] who can centre his thoughts and hopes upon something transcending self can find a certain peace in the ordinary troubles of life which is impossible to the pure egoist." [106] Similarly, Aristotle – one of the first known Western thinkers to demonstrate that morality, virtue and goodness can be derived without appealing to supernatural forces – argued that "men create Gods in their own image" (not the other way around). Moreover, theistic and atheistic critics alike dismiss the need for the "secular spirituality" label on the basis that it appears to be nothing more than obscurantism in that:

• the term "spirit" is commonly taken as denoting the existence of unseen / otherworldly / life-giving forces; and
• words such as "morality", "philanthropy" and "humanism" already efficiently and succinctly describe the prosocial-orientation and civility that the phrase "secular spirituality" is meant to convey but without risk of potential confusion that one is referring to something supernatural.

Although personal well-being, both physical and psychological, is said[by whom?] to be an important aspect of modern spirituality, this does not imply spirituality is essential to achieving happiness (e.g. see). Free-thinkers who reject notions that the numinous/non-material is important to living well can be just as happy as more spiritually-oriented individuals (see)[107][need quotation to verify]

Contemporary spirituality-theorists may suggest that spirituality develops inner peace and forms a foundation for happiness. For example, meditation and similar practices are suggested to help the practitioner cultivate her/his inner life and character.[108][unreliable source?] [109] Ellison and Fan (2008) assert that spirituality causes a wide array of positive health outcomes, including "morale, happiness, and life satisfaction.".[110] However, Schuurmans-Stekhoven (2013) actively attempted to replicate this research and found more "mixed" results.[111][need quotation to verify] Nevertheless, spirituality has played a central role in some self-help movements such as Alcoholics Anonymous:

if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead[112]

Such spiritually-informed treatment approaches have been challenged as pseudoscience,[113] are far from uniformly curative and may for non-believers cause harm (see iatrogenesis).

Spiritual experience

Main article: Religious experience

"Spiritual experience" plays a central role in modern spirituality.[114] Both western and Asian authors have popularised this notion.[115][116] Important early-20th century western writers who studied the phenomenon of spirituality, and their works, include:

• William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)
• Rudolph Otto, especially The Idea of the Holy (1917)

James' notions of "spiritual experience" had a further influence on the modernist streams in Asian traditions, making them even further recognisable for a western audience.[29]

William James popularized the use of the term "religious experience" in his The Varieties of Religious Experience.[115] He has also influenced the understanding of mysticism as a distinctive experience which allegedly grants knowledge.[web 9]

Wayne Proudfoot traces the roots of the notion of "religious experience" further back to the German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834), who argued that religion is based on a feeling of the infinite. Schleiermacher used the idea of "religious experience" to defend religion against the growing scientific and secular critique. Many scholars of religion, of whom William James was the most influential, adopted the concept.[117]

Major Asian influences on contemporary spirituality have included Vivekananda[118] (1863–1902) and D.T. Suzuki[114] (1870–1966). Swami Vivekananda popularised a modern syncretitistic Hinduism,[119][116] in which an emphasis on personal experience replaced the authority of scriptures.[116][120] D.T. Suzuki had a major influence on the popularisation of Zen in the west and popularized the idea of enlightenment as insight into a timeless, transcendent reality.[web 10][web 11][30] Other influences came through Paul Brunton's A Search in Secret India (1934),[121] which introduced Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) and Meher Baba (1894–1969) to a western audience.

Spiritual experiences can include being connected to a larger reality, yielding a more comprehensive self; joining with other individuals or the human community; with nature or the cosmos; or with the divine realm.[122]

Spiritual practices

Main article: Spiritual practice

Waaijman discerns four forms of spiritual practices:[123]

1. Somatic practices, especially deprivation and diminishment. Deprivation aims to purify the body. Diminishment concerns the repulsement of ego-oriented impulses. Examples include fasting and poverty.[123]
2. Psychological practices, for example meditation.[124]
3. Social practices. Examples include the practice of obedience and communal ownership, reforming ego-orientedness into other-orientedness.[124]
4. Spiritual. All practices aim at purifying ego-centeredness, and direct the abilities at the divine reality.[124]

Spiritual practices may include meditation, mindfulness, prayer, the contemplation of sacred texts, ethical development,[104] and spiritual retreats in a convent. Love and/or compassion are often[quantify] described[by whom?] as the mainstay of spiritual development.[104]

Within spirituality is also found "a common emphasis on the value of thoughtfulness, tolerance for breadth and practices and beliefs, and appreciation for the insights of other religious communities, as well as other sources of authority within the social sciences."[125]

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Part 2 of 2

Science

Relation to science

See also: Conflict thesis and Relationship between religion and science

Since the scientific revolution of the 18th-century Enlightenment, the relationship of science to religion[126][127][page needed] and to spirituality[citation needed] has developed in complex ways. Historian John Hedley Brooke describes wide variations:

The natural sciences have been invested with religious meaning, with antireligious implications and, in many contexts, with no religious significance at all."[128]

Brooke has proposed that the currently held popular notion of antagonisms between science and religion[129][130] has historically originated with "thinkers with a social or political axe to grind" rather than with the natural philosophers themselves.[131] Though physical and biological scientists today see no need for supernatural explanations to describe reality[132][133][page needed][134][note 10], some[quantify] scientists continue to regard science and spirituality as complementary, not contradictory,[135][136] and are willing to debate,[137] rather than simply classifying spirituality and science as non-overlapping magisteria.

A few[quantify] religious leaders have shown openness to modern science and its methods. The 14th Dalai Lama, for example, has proposed that if a scientific analysis conclusively showed certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then the claims must be abandoned and the findings of science accepted.[138]

Holism

Main article: Holism

During the twentieth century the relationship between science and spirituality has been influenced both by Freudian psychology, which has accentuated the boundaries between the two areas by accentuating individualism and secularism, and by developments in particle physics, which reopened the debate about complementarity between scientific and religious discourse and rekindled for many an interest in holistic conceptions of reality.[127]:322 These holistic conceptions were championed by New Age spiritualists in a type of quantum mysticism that they claim justifies their spiritual beliefs,[139][140] though quantum physicists themselves on the whole reject such attempts as being pseudoscientific.[141][142]

Scientific research

Health and well-being

Main article: Religion and health

Various studies (most originating from North America) have reported a positive correlation between spirituality and mental well-being in both healthy people and those encountering a range of physical illnesses or psychological disorders.[143][144][145][146] Although spiritual individuals tend to be optimistic,[147] report greater social support,[148] and experience higher intrinsic meaning in life,[149] strength, and inner peace,[150] whether the correlation represents a causal link remains contentious. Both supporters and opponents of this claim agree that past statistical findings are difficult to interpret, in large part because of the ongoing disagreement over how spirituality should be defined and measured.[151] There is also evidence that an agreeable/positive temperament and/or a tendency toward sociability (which all correlate with spirituality) might actually be the key psychological features that predispose people to subsequently adopt a spiritual orientation and that these characteristics, not spiritually per se, add to well-being. There is also some suggestion that the benefits associated with spirituality and religiosity might arise from being a member of a close-knit community. Social bonds available via secular sources (i.e., not unique to spirituality or faith-based groups) might just as effectively raise well-being. In sum, spirituality may not be the "active ingredient" (i.e., past association with psychological well-being measures might reflect a reverse causation or effects from other variables that correlate with spirituality),[105][152][153][154][155][156][157] and that the effects of agreeableness, conscientiousness, or virtue – personality traits common in many non-spiritual people yet known to be slightly more common among the spiritual – may better account for spirituality's apparent correlation with mental health and social support.[158][159][160][161][162]

Intercessionary prayer

Masters and Spielmans[163] conducted a meta-analysis of all the available and reputable research examining the effects of distant intercessory prayer. They found no discernible health effects from being prayed for by others. In fact, one large and scientifically rigorous study by Herbert Benson and colleagues[164] revealed that intercessory prayer had no effect on recovery from cardiac arrest, but patients told people were praying for them actually had an increased risk of medical complications. Knowing others are praying for you could actually be medically detrimental.

Spiritual care in health care professions

Main article: Spiritual care in health care professions

In the health-care professions there is growing[quantify] interest in "spiritual care", to complement the medical-technical approaches and to improve the outcomes of medical treatments.[165][need quotation to verify][166][page needed] Puchalski et al. argue for "compassionate systems of care" in a spiritual context.

Spiritual experiences

Neuroscientists have examined brain functioning during reported spiritual experiences[167][168] finding that certain neurotransmitters and specific areas of the brain are involved.[169][170][171][172] Moreover, experimenters have also successfully induced spiritual experiences in individuals by administering psychoactive agents known to elicit euphoria and perceptual distortions.[173][174] Conversely, religiosity and spirituality can also be dampened by electromagnetic stimulation of the brain.[175] These results have motivated some leading theorists to speculate that spirituality may be a benign subtype of psychosis (see).[153][176][177][178][179] Benign in the sense that the same aberrant sensory perceptions that those suffering clinical psychoses evaluate as distressingly in-congruent and inexplicable are instead interpreted by spiritual individuals as positive – as personal and meaningful transcendent experiences.[177][178]

Measurement

Considerable debate persists about — among other factors — spirituality's relation to religion, the number and content of its dimensions, its relation to concepts of well-being, and its universality.[180] (ref) A number of research groups have developed instruments which attempt to measure spirituality quantitatively, including the Spiritual Transcendence Scale (STS), the Brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness/Spirituality (BMMRS) and the Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale. MacDonald et al gave an "Expressions of Spirituality Inventory" (ESI-R) measuring five dimensions of spirituality to over 4000 persons across eight countries. The study results and interpretation highlighted the complexity and challenges of measurement of spirituality cross-culturally [180].

See also

·         Religion portal
·         Anthroposophy
·         Esotericism
·         Glossary of spirituality terms
·         Ietsism
·         New Age
·         Numinous
·         Outline of spirituality
·         Perennial philosophy
·         Reason
·         Relationship between religion and science
·         Religion
·         Sacred–profane dichotomy
·         Secular spirituality
·         Self-actualization
·         Self-help
·         Skepticism
·         Spiritual but not religious
·         Spiritism
·         Sublime (philosophy)
·         Syncretism
·         Theosophy

Notes

1.      See:
* Koenig e.a.: "There is no widely agreed on definition of spirituality today".[2]
* Cobb e.a.: "The spiritual dimension is deeply subjective and there is no authoritative definition of spirituality".[3]
2.       Waaijman[4][5] uses the word "omvorming", "to change the form". Different translations are possible: transformation, re-formation, trans-mutation.
3.       In Dutch: "de hemelse lichtsfeer tegenover de duistere wereld van de materie". [22]
4.       In Dutch: "de kerkelijke tegenover de tijdelijke goederen, het kerkelijk tegenover het wereldlijk gezag, de geestelijke stand tegenover de lekenstand".[23]
5.       In Dutch: "Zuiverheid van motieven, affecties, wilsintenties, innerlijke disposities, de psychologie van het geestelijk leven, de analyse van de gevoelens".[24]
6.       In Dutch: "Een spiritueel mens is iemand die 'overvloediger en dieper dan de anderen' christen is".[24]
7.       This reference gave rise to the distinguishing of two forms of jihad: "greater" and "lesser". Some Islamic scholars dispute the authenticity of this reference and consider the meaning of jihad as a holy war to be more important.[57]
8.       See also Bhagavad Gita (The Celestial Song), Chapters 2:56–57, 12, 13:1–28
9.       George Feuerstein: "Yoga is not easy to define. In most general terms, the Sanskrit word yoga stands for spiritual discipline in Hinduism, Jainism, and certain schools of Buddhism. (...). Yoga is the equivalent of Christian mysticism, Moslem Sufism, or the Jewish Kabbalah. A spiritual practitioner is known as a yogin (if male) or a yogini (if female)."[70]
10.      See naturalism

References

1.      McCarroll 2005, p. 44.
2.        Koenig 2012, p. 36.
3.       Cobb 2012, p. 213.
4.     Waaijman 2000, p. 460.
5.      Waaijman 2002.
6.      Wong 2009.
7.       "The medieval mind". the Psychologist.
8.       Gorsuch 1999.
9.       Saucier 2006, p. 1259.
10.      Sheldrake 2007, pp. 1–2.
11.     Griffin 1988.
12.    Wong 2008.
13.      Schuurmans-Stekhoven 2014.
14.       Houtman 2007.
15.      Snyder 2007, p. 261.
16.      Sharf 2000.
17.      Waaijman 2002, p. 315.
18.      The Academy of Ideas, The Ethics of Schopenhauer
19.      Bergomi, Mariapaola (2018). "Non-religious Spirituality in the Greek Age of Anxiety". In Salazar, Heather; Nicholls, Roderick (eds.). The Philosophy of Spirituality: Analytic, Continental and Multicultural Approaches to a New Field of Philosophy. Philosophy and Religion. Leiden: Brill. p. 143. ISBN 9789004376311. Retrieved 2019-04-29. My aim is to show that [...] an enlightened form of non-religious spirituality did exist.
20.      Jones, L.G., "A thirst for god or consumer spirituality? Cultivating disciplined practices of being engaged by god," in L. Gregory Jones and James J. Buckley eds., Spirituality and Social Embodiment, Oxford: Blackwell, 1997, 3–28 [4, n. 4].
21.      Waaijman 2000, pp. 359–60.
22.      Waaijman 2000, p. 360.
23.     Waaijman 2000, pp. 360–61.
24.      Waaijman 2000, p. 361.
25.      Snyder 2007, pp. 261–61.
26.      Schmidt, Leigh Eric. Restless Souls : The Making of American Spirituality. San Francisco: Harper, 2005. ISBN 0-06-054566-6
27.      Remes 2014, p. 202.
28.      Versluis 2014, p. 35.
29.      Sharf 1995.
30.      McMahan 2008.
31.      McDermott, Robert (2007). The Essential Steiner. Lindisfarne. ISBN 978-1-58420-051-2.
32.      William James and Rudolf Steiner, Robert A. McDermott, 1991, in ReVision, vol. 13 no. 4 [1] Archived 2015-09-23 at the Wayback Machine
33.      Roy 2003.
34.      King 2002, p. 93.
35.      Yelle 2012, p. 338.
36.      King 2002, p. 135.
37.    King 2002.
38.      Saucier 2007, p. 1259.
39.      Paul Heelas, The New Age Movement: The Celebration of the Self and the Sacralization of Modernity. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996, p. 60. Cited in Anthony Giddens: Sociology. Cambridge: Polity, 2001, p. 554.
40.      Michael Hogan (2010). The Culture of Our Thinking in Relation to Spirituality. Nova Science Publishers: New York.
41.      Hollywood, Amy (Winter–Spring 2010). "Spiritual but Not Religious: The Vital Interplay between Submission and Freedom". Harvard Divinity Bulletin. Harvard Divinity School. 38 (1 and 2). Retrieved 2 December 2019.
42.      David, Rabbi (2013-03-21). "Viewpoint: The Limitations of Being 'Spiritual but Not Religious'". Ideas.time.com. Retrieved 2014-01-04.
43.      Kabbalah: A very short introduction, Joseph Dan, Oxford University Press, Chapter 1 "The term and its uses"
44.      Claussen, Geoffrey (2012). "The Practice of Musar". Conservative Judaism. 63 (2): 3–26. doi:10.1353/coj.2012.0002.
45.      Pillars of Islam, Oxford Islamic Studies Online
46.      Azeemi, K.S., "Muraqaba: The Art and Science of Sufi Meditation". Houston: Plato, 2005. (ISBN 0-9758875-4-8), p. xi
47.      Alan Godlas, University of Georgia, Sufism's Many Paths, 2000, University of Georgia Archived 2011-10-16 at the Wayback Machine
48.      Nuh Ha Mim Keller, "How would you respond to the claim that Sufism is Bid'a?", 1995. Fatwa accessible at: Masud.co.uk
49.      Zubair Fattani, "The meaning of Tasawwuf", Islamic Academy. Islamicacademy.org
50.      Hawting, Gerald R. (2000). The first dynasty of Islam: The Umayyad Caliphate AD 661–750. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-24073-4. See Google book search.
51.      Ahmed Zarruq, Zaineb Istrabadi, Hamza Yusuf Hanson – "The Principles of Sufism". Amal Press. 2008.
52.      An English translation of Ahmad ibn Ajiba's biography has been published by Fons Vitae.
53.       Morgan 2010, p. 87.
54.      "Jihad". Retrieved 20 February 2012.
55.      Jihad and the Islamic Law of War Archived August 18, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
56.      Rudolph Peters, Islam and Colonialism. The doctrine of Jihad in Modern History (Mouton Publishers, 1979), p. 118
57.       "Jihad". BBC. 2009-08-03.
58.      Fayd al-Qadir vol. 4, p. 511
59.      Matthieu Ricard has said this in a talk.
60.      "Rhys Davids & Stede (1921–25), p. 503, entry for "Bhāvanā," retrieved 9 December 2008 from University Chicago". Dsal.uchicago.edu. Archived from the original on 2012-07-11. Retrieved 2014-01-04.
61.      Monier-Williams (1899), p. 755, see "Bhāvana" and "Bhāvanā," retrieved 9 December 2008 from University of Cologne(PDF)
62.      Nyanatiloka (1980), p. 67.
63.   See:
§  Julius J. Lipner, Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices, 2nd Edition, Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-45677-7, p. 8; Quote: "(...) one need not be religious in the minimal sense described to be accepted as a Hindu by Hindus, or describe oneself perfectly validly as Hindu. One may be polytheistic or monotheistic, monistic or pantheistic, even an agnostic, humanist or atheist, and still be considered a Hindu.";
§  Lester Kurtz (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace and Conflict, ISBN 978-0-12-369503-1, Academic Press, 2008;
§  MK Gandhi, The Essence of Hinduism, Editor: VB Kher, Navajivan Publishing, see p. 3; According to Gandhi, "a man may not believe in God and still call himself a Hindu."
64.   Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary, क्षैत्रज्ञ Jim Funderburk and Peter Scharf (2012); Quote:
§  क्षैत्रज्ञ [ kṣaitrajña ] [ kṣaitrajña ] n. (fr. [ kṣetra-jñá ] g. [ yuvādi ], spirituality, nature of the soul Lit. W.; the knowledge of the soul Lit. W.
65.   See the following two in Ewert Cousins series on World Spirituality:
§  Bhavasar and Kiem, Spirituality and Health, in Hindu Spirituality, Editor: Ewert Cousins (1989), ISBN 0-8245-0755-X, Crossroads Publishing New York, pp. 319–37;
§  John Arapura, Spirit and Spiritual Knowledge in the Upanishads, in Hindu Spirituality, Editor: Ewert Cousins (1989), ISBN 0-8245-0755-X, Crossroads Publishing New York, pp. 64–85
66.       Gavin Flood, Brill's Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Editor: Knut Jacobsen (2010), Volume II, Brill, ISBN 978-90-04-17893-9, see Article on Wisdom and Knowledge, pp. 881–84
67.      John Lochtefeld (2002), The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Rosen Publishing New York, ISBN 0-8239-2287-1
68.      D. Bhawuk (2011), Spirituality and Cultural Psychology, in Anthony Marsella (Series Editor), International and Cultural Psychology, Springer New York, ISBN 978-1-4419-8109-7, pp. 93–140
69.      Michelis 2005.
70.      Feuerstein, Georg (2003), The deeper dimension of yoga: Theory and practice, Shambhala, ISBN 1-57062-935-8, p. 3
71.      Feuerstein, Georg (2003), The deeper dimension of yoga: Theory and practice, Shambhala, ISBN 1-57062-935-8, Chapter 55
72.      Jean Varenne (1976), Yoga and the Hindu Tradition, University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0-226-85116-8, pp. 97–130
73.   See discussion of Hinduism and karma yoga in two different professions in these journal articles:
§  McCormick, Donald W. (1994). "Spirituality and Management". Journal of Managerial Psychology. 9 (6): 5–8. doi:10.1108/02683949410070142.;
§  Macrae, Janet (1995). "Nightingale's spiritual philosophy and its significance for modern nursing". Journal of Nursing Scholarship. 27 (1): 8–10. doi:10.1111/j.1547-5069.1995.tb00806.x. PMID 7721325.
74.   Klaus Klostermaier, Spirituality and Nature, in Hindu Spirituality, Editor: Ewert Cousins (1989), ISBN 0-8245-0755-X, Crossroads Publishing New York, pp. 319–37;
§  Klostermaier discusses examples from Bhagavata Purana, another ancient Hindu scripture, where a forest worker discovers observing mother nature is a spiritual practice, to wisdom and liberating knowledge. The Purana suggests that "true knowledge of nature" leads to "true knowledge of Self and God." It illustrates 24 gurus that nature provides. For example, earth teaches steadfastness and the wisdom that all things while pursuing their own activities, do nothing but follow the divine laws that are universally established; another wisdom from earth is her example of accepting the good and bad from everyone. Another guru, the honeybee teaches that one must make effort to gain knowledge, a willingness and flexibility to examine, pick and collect essence from different scriptures and sources. And so on. Nature is a mirror image of spirit, perceptive awareness of nature can be spirituality.
75.      Vivekananda, S. (1980), Raja Yoga, Ramakrishna Vivekanada Center, ISBN 978-0-911206-23-4
76.      Richard King (1999), Indian philosophy: An introduction to Hindu and Buddhist thought, Edinburgh University Press, ISBN 0-7486-0954-7, pp. 69–71
77.   See:
§  Harung, Harald (2012). "Illustrations of Peak Experiences during Optimal Performance in World-class Performers Integrating Eastern and Western Insights". Journal of Human Values. 18 (1): 33–52. doi:10.1177/097168581101800104.
§  Levin, Jeff (2010). "Religion and mental health: Theory and research". International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies. 7 (2): 102–15.;
§  Meyer-Dinkgräfe, Daniel (2011). "Opera and spirituality". Performance and Spirituality. 2 (1): 38–59.
78.   See:
§  CR Prasad, Brill's Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Editor: Knut Jacobsen (2010), Volume II, Brill, ISBN 978-90-04-17893-9, see Article on Brahman, pp. 724–29
§  David Carpenter, Brill's Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Editor: Knut Jacobsen (2010), Volume II, Brill, ISBN 978-90-04-17893-9, see Article on Tapas, pp. 865–69
79.      Klaus Klostermaier (2007), A Survey of Hinduism, 3rd Edition, SUNY Press, ISBN 978-0-7914-7081-7, pp. 119–260
80.      Mikel Burley (2000), Hatha-Yoga: Its context, theory and practice, Motilal Banarsidass Publications, ISBN 81-208-1706-0, pp. 97–98; Quote: "When, for example, in the Bhagavad-Gita Lord Krsna speaks of jnana-, bhakti- and karma-yoga, he is not talking about three entirely separate ways of carrying out one's spiritual practice, but, rather, about three aspects of the ideal life".
81.      Murdana, I. Ketut (2008), Balinese Arts and Culture: A flash understanding of Concept and Behavior, Mudra – Jurnal Seni Budaya, Indonesia; Volume 22, p. 5
82.      Gavin Flood (1996), An Introduction to Hinduism, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-43878-0
83.      Rochford, E.B. (1985), Hare Krishna in America, Rutgers University Press; ISBN 978-0-8135-1114-6, p. 12
84.   See:
§  Ramakrishna Puligandla (1985), Jñâna-Yoga – The Way of Knowledge (An Analytical Interpretation), University Press of America New York, ISBN 0-8191-4531-9;
§  Fort, A.O. (1998), Jīvanmukti in Transformation: Embodied Liberation in Advaita and Neo-Vedanta, State University of New York Press, ISBN 0-7914-3903-8;
§  Richard King (1999), Indian philosophy: An introduction to Hindu and Buddhist thought, Edinburgh University Press, ISBN 0-7486-0954-7, p. 223;
§  Sawai, Y. (1987), The Nature of Faith in the Śaṅkaran Vedānta Tradition, Numen, 34(1), pp. 18–44
85.      Nayar, Kamal Elizabeth & Sandhu, Jaswinder Singh (2007). The Socially Involved Renunciate – Guru Nanaks Discourse to Nath Yogi's. United States: State University of New York Press. p. 106. ISBN 978-0-7914-7950-6.
86.      Kaur Singh; Nikky Guninder (2004). Hindu spirituality: Postclassical and modern. English: Motilal Banarsidass. p. 530. ISBN 978-81-208-1937-5.
87.      Marwha, Sonali Bhatt (2006). Colors of Truth, Religion Self and Emotions. New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company. p. 205. ISBN 978-81-8069-268-0.
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89.      Singh Gandhi, Surjit (2008). History of Sikh Gurus Retold: 1606–708. English: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors Pvt Ltd. pp. 676–77. ISBN 978-81-269-0857-8.
90.     Mandair, Arvind-Pal Singh (October 22, 2009). Religion and the Specter of the West – Sikhism, India, Postcoloniality and the Politics of Translation. United States: University of Columbia. pp. 372 onwards. ISBN 978-0-231-14724-8.
91.      Singh, Nirbhai (1990). Philosophy of Sikhism: Reality and Its Manifestations. New Delhi: South Asia Books. pp. 111–12.
92.      Philpott, Chris (2011). Green Spirituality: One Answer to Global Environmental Problems and World Poverty. AuthorHouse. ISBN 978-1-4670-0528-9.
93.      Singh Kalsi; Sewa Singh (2005). Sikhism. United States: Chelsea House Publishers. p. 49. ISBN 978-0-7910-8098-6.
94.      Hayer, Tara (1988). "The Sikh Impact: Economic History of Sikhs in Canada" Volume 1. Surrey, Canada: Indo-Canadian Publishers. p. 14.
95.      Lebron, Robyn (2012). Searching for Spiritual Unity...can There be Common Ground?: A Basic Internet Guide to Forty World Religions & Spiritual Practices. CrossBooks. p. 399. ISBN 978-1-4627-1261-8.
96.      Singh, Nikky-Guninder (1993). The Feminine Principle in the Sikh Vision of the Transcendent. Cambridge University Press. p. 172. ISBN 978-0-521-43287-0.
97.      "The spirituality of Africa". Harvard Gazette. 2015-10-06. Retrieved 2020-02-04.
98.      Mbiti, John S. African religions & philosophy (2nd rev. and enl. ed.). Oxford: Heinemann. ISBN 0435895915.
99.      Otterloo 2012, pp. 239–40.
100.     Hanegraaff 1996, p. 97.
101.     Lockwood, Renee D. (June 2012). "Pilgrimages to the Self: Exploring the Topography of Western Consumer Spirituality through 'the Journey'". Literature and Aesthetics. 22 (1): 108. Retrieved 19 September 2019. The new Western spiritual landscape, characterised by consumerism and choice abundance, is scattered with novel religious manifestations based in psychology and the Human Potential Movement, each offering participants a pathway to the Self.
102.     Philip Sheldrake, A Brief History of Spirituality, Wiley-Blackwell 2007 pp. 1–2
103.     Ewert Cousins, preface to Antoine Faivre and Jacob Needleman, Modern Esoteric Spirituality, Crossroad Publishing 1992.
104.    Dalai Lama, Ethics for the New Millennium, NY: Riverhead Books, 1999.
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·         Kapuscinski, Afton N.; Masters, Kevin S. (2010). "The current status of measures of spirituality: A critical review of scale development". Psychology of Religion and Spirituality. 2 (4): 191–205. doi:10.1037/a0020498.
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Further reading

·         Downey, Michael. Understanding Christian Spirituality. New York: Paulist Press, 1997.
·         Hanegraaff, Wouter J. (1996), New Age Religion and Western Culture. Esotericism in the mirror of Secular Thought, Leiden/New York/Koln: Brill
·         Charlene Spretnak, The Spiritual Dynamic in Modern Art : Art History Reconsidered, 1800 to the Present.
·         Eck, Diana L. A New Religious America. San Francisco: Harper, 2001.
·         Metzinger, Thomas (2013). Spirituality and Intellectual Honesty: An Essay (PDF). Self-Published. ISBN 978-3-00-041539-5.
o    "Spirituality and Intellectual Honesty with Thomas Metzinger". Krishnamurti Educational Center. July 19, 2017 – via YouTube.
·         Schmidt, Leigh Eric. Restless Souls : The Making of American Spirituality. San Francisco: Harper, 2005. ISBN 0-06-054566-6
·         Carrette, Jeremy R.; King, Richard (2005), Selling Spirituality: The Silent Takeover of Religion, Taylor & Francis Group

External Links

·         Religion and Spirituality at Curlie
·         Sociology of Religion Resources
 

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Social Identity Theory
by Saul A. McLeod
Simply Psychology
October 24, 2019

Henri Tajfel's greatest contribution to psychology was social identity theory. Social identity is a person’s sense of who they are based on their group membership(s).

Tajfel (1979) proposed that the groups (e.g. social class, family, football team etc.) which people belonged to were an important source of pride and self-esteem. Groups give us a sense of social identity: a sense of belonging to the social world.

We divided the world into “them” and “us” based through a process of social categorization (i.e. we put people into social groups).

Henri Tajfel proposed that stereotyping (i.e. putting people into groups and categories) is based on a normal cognitive process: the tendency to group things together. In doing so we tend to exaggerate:

1. the differences between groups

2. the similarities of things in the same group.

This is known as in-group (us) and out-group (them). The central hypothesis of social identity theory is that group members of an in-group will seek to find negative aspects of an out-group, thus enhancing their self-image.

Prejudiced views between cultures may result in racism; in its extreme forms, racism may result in genocide, such as occurred in Germany with the Jews, in Rwanda between the Hutus and Tutsis and, more recently, in the former Yugoslavia between the Bosnians and Serbs.


Our Blessed Homeland; Our Glorious Leader; Our Great Religion; Our Noble Populace; Our Heroic Adventurers
Their Barbarous Wastes; Their Wicked Despot; Their Primitive Superstition; Their Backward Savages; Their Brutish Invaders

The last king of Shambhala - Rudracakrin. Cf. Karin Meinert (Ed.) Buddha in the yurta - Buddhist art from Mongolia; Hirmer Verlag, Munich; 2011:182, English-Mongolian edition and English-Russian edition - Slightly rubbed. Author: (MONGOLEI, 19. Jahrhundert)

In the year 2327 (C.E.) — the prophecies of the Kalachakra Tantra tell us — the 25th Kalki will ascend the throne of Shambhala. He goes by the name of Rudra Chakrin, the “wrathful wheel turner” or the “Fury with the wheel”. The mission of this ruler is to destroy the “enemies of the Buddhist teaching” in a huge eschatological battle and to found a golden age...

The Shambhala state draws a clear and definite distinction between friend and enemy. The original idea of Buddhist pacifism is completely foreign to it. Hence the Rudra Chakrin carries a martial symbolic object as his insignia of dominion, the “wheel of iron” (!)...

Mounted upon his white horse, with a spear in his hand, the Rudra Chakrin shall lead his powerful army in the 24th century. “The Lord of the Gods”, it is said of him in the Kalachakra Tantra, “joined with the twelve lords shall go to destroy the barbarians” (Newman, 1987, p. 645). His army shall consist of “exceptionally wild warriors” equipped with “sharp weapons”. A hundred thousand war elephants and millions of mountain horses, faster than the wind, shall serve his soldiers as mounts. Indian gods will then join the total of twelve divisions of the “wrathful wheel turner” and support their “friend” from Shambhala...

Here too, by “weapon” is understood every means of implementing the physical killing of humans...

The ancient origins and contents of the Shambhala state make it, when seen from the point of view of a western political scientist, an antidemocratic, totalitarian, doctrinaire and patriarchal model. It concerns a repressive ideal construction which is to be imposed upon all of humanity in the wake of an “ultimate war”. Here the sovereign (the Shambhala king) and in no sense the people decide the legal norms. He governs as the absolute monarch of a planetary Buddhocracy...

Further to this, the Shambhala state (in contrast to the original teachings of the Buddha) is based upon the clear differentiation of friend and enemy. Its political thought is profoundly dualist, up to and including the moral sphere. Islam is regarded as the arch-enemy of the country. In resolving aggravated conflicts, Shambhala society has recourse to a “high-tech” and extremely violent military machinery and employs the sociopolitical utopia of “paradise on earth” as its central item of propaganda.

It follows from all these features that the current, Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s constant professions of faith in the fundamentals of western democracy remain empty phrases for as long as he continues to place the Kalachakra Tantra and the Shambhala myth at the center of his ritual existence. The objection commonly produced by lamas and western Buddhists, that Shambhala concerns a metaphysical and not a worldly institution, does not hold water. We know, namely, from history that both traditional Tibetan and Mongolian society cultivated the Shambhala myth without at any stage drawing a distinction between a worldly and a metaphysical aspect in this matter. In both countries, everything which the Buddhocratic head of state decided was holy per se.

The argument that the Shambhala vision was distant “pie in the sky” is also not convincing. The aggressive warrior myth and the idea of a world controlling ADI BUDDHA has influenced the history of Tibet and Mongolia for centuries as a rigid political program which is oriented to the decisions of the clerical power elite...

From an “occidental” way of looking at things, an internalization implies that an external image (a war for example) is to be understood as a symbol for an inner psychic/spiritual process (for example, a “psychological” war). However, according to Eastern, magic-oriented thinking, the “identity” of interior and exterior means something different, namely that the inner processes in the yogi’s mystic body correspond to external events, or to tone this down a little, that inside and outside consist of the same substance (of “pure spirit” for example). The external is thus not a metaphor for the internal as in the western symbolic conception, but rather both, inner and exterior, correspond to one another. Admittedly this implies that the external can be influenced by inner manipulations, but not that it thereby disappears. Applying this concept to the example mentioned above results in the following simple statement: the Shambhala war takes place internally and externally. Just as the mystic body (interior) of the ADI BUDDHA is identical with the whole cosmos (exterior), so the mystic body (interior) of the Shambhala king is identical to his state (exterior)...

For Westerners sensitized by the pacifist message of Buddhism, the “internalization” of the myth may thus offer a way around the militant ambient of the Kalachakra Tantra. But in Tibetan/Mongolian history the prophecy of Shambhala has been taken literally for centuries, and — as we still have to demonstrate — has led to extremely aggressive political undertakings. It carries within it — and this is something to we shall return to discuss in detail — the seeds of a worldwide fundamentalist ideology of war.

-- The Shadow of the Dalai Lama: Sexuality, Magic and Politics, by Victor and Victoria Trimondi, translated by Mark Penny

We categorize people in the same way. We see the group to which we belong (the in-group) as being different from the others (the out-group), and members of the same group as being more similar than they are.

Social categorization is one explanation for prejudice attitudes (i.e. “them” and “us” mentality) which leads to in-groups and out-groups.

Examples of In-groups and Out-groups

o Northern Ireland: Catholics – Protestants
o Rwanda: Hutus and Tutsis
o Yugoslavia: the Bosnians and Serbs
o Germany: Jews and the Nazis
o Politics: Labor and the Conservatives
o Football: Liverpool and Man Utd
o Gender: Males and Females
o Social Class: Middle and Working Classes

Social Identity Theory Stages

Tajfel and Turner (1979) proposed that there are three mental processes involved in evaluating others as “us” or “them” (i.e. “in-group” and “out-group”. These take place in a particular order.

Social Categorisation → Social Identification → Social Comparison

Categorization

The first is categorization. We categorize objects in order to understand them and identify them. In a very similar way we categorize people (including ourselves) in order to understand the social environment. We use social categories like black, white, Australian, Christian, Muslim, student, and bus driver because they are useful.

If we can assign people to a category then that tells us things about those people, and as we saw with the bus driver example, we couldn't function in a normal manner without using these categories; i.e. in the context of the bus.

Similarly, we find out things about ourselves by knowing what categories we belong to. We define appropriate behavior by reference to the norms of groups we belong to, but you can only do this if you can tell who belongs to your group. An individual can belong to many different groups.

Social Identification

In the second stage, social identification, we adopt the identity of the group we have categorized ourselves as belonging to.

If for example you have categorized yourself as a student, the chances are you will adopt the identity of a student and begin to act in the ways you believe students act (and conform to the norms of the group).

There will be an emotional significance to your identification with a group, and your self-esteem will become bound up with group membership.

Social Comparison

The final stage is social comparison. Once we have categorized ourselves as part of a group and have identified with that group we then tend to compare that group with other groups. If our self-esteem is to be maintained our group needs to compare favorably with other groups.

This is critical to understanding prejudice, because once two groups identify themselves as rivals, they are forced to compete in order for the members to maintain their self-esteem.

Competition and hostility between groups is thus not only a matter of competing for resources (like in Sherif’s Robbers Cave) like jobs but also the result of competing identities.

Conclusion

Just to reiterate, in social identity theory the group membership is not something foreign or artificial which is attached onto the person, it is a real, true and vital part of the person.

Again, it is crucial to remember in-groups are groups you identify with, and out-groups are ones that we don't identify with, and may discriminate against.

APA Style References

Tajfel, H., Turner, J. C., Austin, W. G., & Worchel, S. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. Organizational identity: A reader, 56-65.

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Ajoy Ghosh
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 7/16/20

-- The Indian Communist Party and the Sino-Soviet Dispute (Reference Title: ESAU XVI-62), by Office of Current Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), February 7, 1962

Ajoy Ghosh
General Secretary of Communist Party of India
In office: 1954–1962
Preceded by: Chandra Rajeswara Rao
Succeeded by: Chandra Rajeswara Rao
Personal details
Born: February 20, 1909, Bardhaman district, West Bengal, India
Died: January 13, 1962 (aged 52)
Nationality: Indian
Political party: Communist Party of India
Occupation: Politician; Indian freedom fighter

Ajoy Kumar Ghosh (Bengali: অজয়কুমার ঘোষ) (20 February 1909–13 January 1962[1]) was an Indian freedom fighter and prominent leader of the Communist Party of India.[2]

Early life

Ghosh was born in Mihijam village of Bardhaman district in the state of West Bengal, India. He went with his father Doctor Shachindranath Ghosh to Kanpur.[3]

Political life



In 1926 before entering in Allahabad University Ghosh met with Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt. He was a member of Hindustan Socialist Republican Association. He was arrested and latter imprisoned after Lahore Conspiracy Case trial in 1929 but released due to lack of evidence. He was again arrested in 1931 and came into contact with Srinivas Sardeshai in jail. After release he joined in the Communist Party of India.[3] In 1934, he was elected to the Central Committee of the CPI and in 1936 he was elected to its Polit Bureau. In 1938, Ghosh became the member of the editorial board of the Party's mouthpiece, the National Front. He was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of India from 1951 till his death in 1962. He was leading the Communist Party of India during the China-India war in 1962 and supported India's position instead of that of the People's Republic of China.[4][5] He was the prominent person in the centrist faction before the split of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) from the Communist Party of India.



Works

References

1. Anil Rajimwale (26 December 2009). "Ajoy Ghosh: The Creative Marxist". Mainstream Weekly.
2. Pyotr Kutsobin (1987). Ajoy Kumar Ghosh and Communist movement in India. Sterling Publishers, New Delhi. OL 2508703M.
3. Vol - I, Subodh C. Sengupta & Anjali Basu (2002). Sansad Bangali Charitavidhan (Bengali). Kolkata: Sahitya Sansad. p. 5. ISBN 81-85626-65-0.
4. The India-China Border Dispute and the Communist Party of India: Resolutions, Statements and Speeches, 1959-1963 (Communist Party of India, 1963), 61-96
5. “The Sino-Indian Border Dispute,” B. 644 (R) November, 1962, 4, India, CPR 12-61-12-62 folder 3 of 4, Papers of President Kennedy, National Security File, Robert Komer, Box 420, John F. Kennedy Library.

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Part 1 of 2

Teutonic Order
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 7/16/20

“Now I shall tell you about myself, who and what I am! My name is surrounded with such hate and fear that no one can judge what is the truth and what is false, what is history and what myth. Some time you will write about it, remembering your trip through Mongolia and your sojourn at the yurta of the ‘bloody General.’”

He shut his eyes, smoking as he spoke, and tumbling out his sentences without finishing them as though some one would prevent him from phrasing them.

“The family of Ungern von Sternberg is an old family, a mixture of Germans with Hungarians—Huns from the time of Attila. My warlike ancestors took part in all the European struggles. They participated in the Crusades and one Ungern was killed under the walls of Jerusalem, fighting under Richard Coeur de Lion. Even the tragic Crusade of the Children was marked by the death of Ralph Ungern, eleven years old. When the boldest warriors of the country were despatched to the eastern border of the German Empire against the Slavs in the twelfth century, my ancestor Arthur was among them, Baron Halsa Ungern Sternberg. Here these border knights formed the order of Monk Knights or Teutons, which with fire and sword spread Christianity among the pagan Lithuanians, Esthonians, Latvians and Slavs. Since then the Teuton Order of Knights has always had among its members representatives of our family. When the Teuton Order perished in the Grunwald under the swords of the Polish and Lithuanian troops, two Barons Ungern von Sternberg were killed there. Our family was warlike and given to mysticism and asceticism.

“During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries several Barons von Ungern had their castles in the lands of Latvia and Esthonia. Many legends and tales lived after them. Heinrich Ungern von Sternberg, called ‘Ax,’ was a wandering knight. The tournaments of France, England, Spain and Italy knew his name and lance, which filled the hearts of his opponents with fear. He fell at Cadiz ‘neath the sword of a knight who cleft both his helmet and his skull. Baron Ralph Ungern was a brigand knight between Riga and Reval. Baron Peter Ungern had his castle on the island of Dago in the Baltic Sea, where as a privateer he ruled the merchantmen of his day.

“In the beginning of the eighteenth century there was also a well-known Baron Wilhelm Ungern, who was referred to as the ‘brother of Satan’ because he was an alchemist. My grandfather was a privateer in the Indian Ocean, taking his tribute from the English traders whose warships could not catch him for several years. At last he was captured and handed to the Russian Consul, who transported him to Russia where he was sentenced to deportation to the Transbaikal. I am also a naval officer but the Russo-Japanese War forced me to leave my regular profession to join and fight with the Zabaikal Cossacks. I have spent all my life in war or in the study and learning of Buddhism. My grandfather brought Buddhism to us from India and my father and I accepted and professed it. In Transbaikalia I tried to form the order of Military Buddhists for an uncompromising fight against the depravity of revolution.”

He fell into silence and began drinking cup after cup of tea as strong and black as coffee.

“Depravity of revolution! . . . Has anyone ever thought of it besides the French philosopher, Bergson, and the most learned Tashi Lama [Panchen Lama] in Tibet?”

The grandson of the privateer, quoting scientific theories, works, the names of scientists and writers, the Holy Bible and Buddhist books, mixing together French, German, Russian and English, continued:

“In the Buddhistic and ancient Christian books we read stern predictions about the time when the war between the good and evil spirits must begin. Then there must come the unknown ‘Curse’ which will conquer the world, blot out culture, kill morality and destroy all the people. Its weapon is revolution. During every revolution the previously experienced intellect-creator will be replaced by the new rough force of the destroyer.

[Louis Tully] [Wandering around street] I am the Keymaster. The Destructor is coming. Gozer, the Traveller, the Destroyer.

[Gozer] Subcreatures! Gozer the Gozerian, Gozer the Destructor, Volguus, Zildrohar, the Traveller has come. Choose and perish. Choose. Choose the form of the destructor. The Traveller has come.


-- Ghostbusters, directed by Ivan Reitman, starring Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Rick Moranis and Sigourney Weaver, written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis

He will place and hold in the first rank the lower instincts and desires. Man will be farther removed from the divine and the spiritual. The Great War proved that humanity must progress upward toward higher ideals; but then appeared that Curse which was seen and felt by Christ, the Apostle John, Buddha, the first Christian martyrs, Dante, Leonardo da Vinci, Goethe and Dostoyevsky. It appeared, turned back the wheel of progress and blocked our road to the Divinity. Revolution is an infectious disease and Europe making the treaty with Moscow deceived itself and the other parts of the world. The Great Spirit put at the threshold of our lives Karma, who knows neither anger nor pardon. He will reckon the account, whose total will be famine, destruction, the death of culture, of glory, of honor and of spirit, the death of states and the death of peoples. I see already this horror, this dark, mad destruction of humanity.”...

Well, there isn’t much left and this happens to be the most interesting. I was telling you that I wanted to found an order of military Buddhists in Russia. For what? For the protection of the processes of evolution of humanity and for the struggle against revolution, because I am certain that evolution leads to the Divinity and revolution to bestiality. But I worked in Russia! In Russia, where the peasants are rough, untutored, wild and constantly angry, hating everybody and everything without understanding why. They are suspicious and materialistic, having no sacred ideals. Russian intelligents live among imaginary ideals without realities. They have a strong capacity for criticising everything but they lack creative power. Also they have no will power, only the capacity for talking and talking. With the peasants, they cannot like anything or anybody. Their love and feelings are imaginary. Their thoughts and sentiments pass without trace like futile words. My companions, therefore, soon began to violate the regulations of the Order. Then I introduced the condition of celibacy, the entire negation of woman, of the comforts of life, of superfluities, according to the teachings of the Yellow Faith; and, in order that the Russian might be able to live down his physical nature, I introduced the limitless use of alcohol, hasheesh and opium. Now for alcohol I hang my officers and soldiers; then we drank to the ‘white fever,’ delirium tremens. I could not organize the Order but I gathered round me and developed three hundred men wholly bold and entirely ferocious. Afterward they were heroes in the war with Germany and later in the fight against the Bolsheviki, but now only a few remain.”...

“During the War we saw the gradual corruption of the Russian army and foresaw the treachery of Russia to the Allies as well as the approaching danger of revolution. To counteract this latter a plan was formed to join together all the Mongolian peoples which had not forgotten their ancient faiths and customs into one Asiatic State, consisting of autonomous tribal units, under the moral and legislative leadership of China, the country of loftiest and most ancient culture. Into this State must come the Chinese, Mongols, Tibetans, Afghans, the Mongol tribes of Turkestan, Tartars, Buriats, Kirghiz and Kalmucks. This State must be strong, physically and morally, and must erect a barrier against revolution and carefully preserve its own spirit, philosophy and individual policy. If humanity, mad and corrupted, continues to threaten the Divine Spirit in mankind, to spread blood and to obstruct moral development, the Asiatic State must terminate this movement decisively and establish a permanent, firm peace. This propaganda even during the War made splendid progress among the Turkomans, Kirghiz, Buriats and Mongols....”

“Russia turned traitor to France, England and America, signed the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and ushered in a reign of chaos. We then decided to mobilize Asia against Germany. Our envoys penetrated Mongolia, Tibet, Turkestan and China. At this time the Bolsheviki began to kill all the Russian officers and we were forced to open civil war against them, giving up our Pan-Asiatic plans; but we hope later to awake all Asia and with their help to bring peace and God back to earth. I want to feel that I have helped this idea by the liberation of Mongolia.”

He became silent and thought for a moment.

“But some of my associates in the movement do not like me because of my atrocities and severity,” he remarked in a sad voice. “They cannot understand as yet that we are not fighting a political party but a sect of murderers of all contemporary spiritual culture. Why do the Italians execute the ‘Black Hand’ gang? Why are the Americans electrocuting anarchistic bomb throwers? and I am not allowed to rid the world of those who would kill the soul of the people? I, a Teuton, descendant of crusaders and privateers, I recognize only death for murderers!”

-- Beasts, Men and Gods, by Ferdinand Ossendowski

Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem
Coat of arms in the style of the 14th-century
Active: c. 1192 – present
Allegiance: Kingdom of Jerusalem (1190–1291); State of the Teutonic Order (1226–1525); Duchy of Prussia (1525–1701); Holy Roman Empire (1190–1806); Austrian Empire & Austria-Hungary (1804–1918); Confederation of the Rhine (1806–1813); German Confederation (1815-1866); Kingdom of Prussia (1701-1918); Kingdom of Bavaria (1805-1918); Kingdom of Württemberg (1805-1918); Grand Duchy of Baden (1806-1918); Grand Duchy of Hesse (1806-1918); North German Confederation & German Empire (1867-1918); Holy See (1190–present)
Type: Catholic religious order (1192–1929 as military order)
Headquarters: Acre (1192–1291); Venice (1291–1309); Marienburg (1309–1466); Königsberg (1466–1525); Mergentheim (1525–1809); Vienna (1809–present)
Nickname(s): Teutonic Knights, German Order
Patron: Virgin Mary; Saint Elizabeth of Hungary; Saint George
Attire: White mantle with a black cross
Commanders
First Grand Master: Heinrich Walpot von Bassenheim
Current Grand Master: Frank Bayard[1]

The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem[2] (official names: Latin: Ordo domus Sanctæ Mariæ Theutonicorum Hierosolymitanorum, German: Orden der Brüder vom Deutschen Haus der Heiligen Maria in Jerusalem), commonly the Teutonic Order (Deutscher Orden, Deutschherrenorden or Deutschritterorden), is a Catholic religious order founded as a military order c. 1192 in Acre, Kingdom of Jerusalem.

The Teutonic Order was formed to aid Christians on their pilgrimages to the Holy Land and to establish hospitals. Its members have commonly been known as the Teutonic Knights, having a small voluntary and mercenary military membership, serving as a crusading military order for protection of Christians in the Holy Land and the Baltics during the Middle Ages.

Purely religious since 1810, the Teutonic Order still confers limited honorary knighthoods.[3] The Bailiwick of Utrecht of the Teutonic Order, a Protestant chivalric order, is descended from the same medieval military order and also continues to award knighthoods and perform charitable work.[4]

Name

The full name of the Order in German is Orden der Brüder vom Deutschen Haus St. Mariens in Jerusalem or in Latin Ordo domus Sanctæ Mariæ Theutonicorum Hierosolymitanorum (engl. "Order of the House of St. Mary of the Germans in Jerusalem"). Thus the term "Teutonic" echoes the German origins of the order (Theutonicorum) in its Latin name.[5] It is commonly known in German as the Deutscher Orden (official short name, literally "German Order"), historically also as Deutscher Ritterorden ("German Order of Knights"), Deutschherrenorden, Deutschritterorden ("Order of the German Knights"), Marienritter ("Knights of Mary"), Die Herren im weißen Mantel ("The lords in white capes"), etc.

The Teutonic Knights have been known as Zakon Krzyżacki in Polish ("Order of the Cross") and as Kryžiuočių Ordinas in Lithuanian, Vācu Ordenis in Latvian, Saksa Ordu or, simply, Ordu ("The Order") in Estonian, as well as various names in other languages.

History


Extent of the Teutonic Order in 1300.

Formed in the year 1192 in Acre, in the Levant, the medieval Order played an important role in Outremer (the general name for the Crusader states), controlling the port tolls of Acre. After Christian forces were defeated in the Middle East, the Order moved to Transylvania in 1211 to help defend the South-Eastern borders of the Kingdom of Hungary against the Cumans. The Knights were expelled by force of arms by King Andrew II of Hungary in 1225, after attempting to place themselves under papal instead of the original Hungarian sovereignty and thus to become independent.[6]

In 1230, following the Golden Bull of Rimini, Grand Master Hermann von Salza and Duke Konrad I of Masovia launched the Prussian Crusade, a joint invasion of Prussia intended to Christianize the Baltic Old Prussians. The Knights had quickly taken steps against their Polish hosts and with the Holy Roman Emperor's support, had changed the status of Chełmno Land (also Ziemia Chelminska or Kulmerland), where they were invited by the Polish prince, into their own property. Starting from there, the Order created the independent Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights, adding continuously the conquered Prussians' territory, and subsequently conquered Livonia. Over time, the kings of Poland denounced the Order for expropriating their lands, specifically Chełmno Land and later the Polish lands of Pomerelia (also Pomorze Gdańskie or Pomerania), Kujawy, and Dobrzyń Land.

The Order theoretically lost its main purpose in Europe with the Christianization of Lithuania. However, it initiated numerous campaigns against its Christian neighbours, the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Novgorod Republic (after assimilating the Livonian Order). The Teutonic Knights had a strong economic base which enabled them to hire mercenaries from throughout Europe to augment their feudal levies, and they also became a naval power in the Baltic Sea. In 1410, a Polish-Lithuanian army decisively defeated the Order and broke its military power at the Battle of Grunwald (Tannenberg). However, the capital of the Teutonic Knights was successfully defended in the following Siege of Marienburg and the Order was saved from collapse.

In 1515, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I made a marriage alliance with Sigismund I of Poland-Lithuania. Thereafter, the empire did not support the Order against Poland. In 1525, Grand Master Albert of Brandenburg resigned and converted to Lutheranism, becoming Duke of Prussia as a vassal of Poland. Soon after, the Order lost Livonia and its holdings in the Protestant areas of Germany.[7] The Order did keep its considerable holdings in Catholic areas of Germany until 1809, when Napoleon Bonaparte ordered its dissolution and the Order lost its last secular holdings.

However, the Order continued to exist as a charitable and ceremonial body. It was outlawed by Adolf Hitler in 1938,[8] but re-established in 1945.[9] Today it operates primarily with charitable aims in Central Europe.

The Knights wore white surcoats with a black cross. A cross pattée was sometimes used as their coat of arms; this image was later used for military decoration and insignia by the Kingdom of Prussia and Germany as the Iron Cross and Pour le Mérite. The motto of the Order was: "Helfen, Wehren, Heilen" ("Help, Defend, Heal").[10]


The Order's Marienburg Castle, Monastic state of the Teutonic Knights, now Malbork, Poland

Timeline


Reliquary made in Elbing in 1388 for Teutonic komtur Thiele von Lorich, military trophy of Polish king Wladislaus in 1410.

• 1190 Formation
• 1218 Siege of Damietta
• 1228–1229 The Sixth Crusade
• 1237 absorption of The Livonian Brothers of the Sword
• 1242 The Battle on the Ice
• 1242–1249 First Prussian uprising
• 1249 Treaty of Christburg with the pagan Prussians signed on February 9
• 1249 Battle of Krücken
• 1260 Battle of Durbe
• 1260–1274 Great Prussian uprising
• 1262 Siege of Königsberg
• 1263 Battle of Löbau
• 1264 Siege of Bartenstein
• 1270 Battle of Karuse
• 1271 Battle of Pagastin
• 1279 Battle of Aizkraukle
• 1291 Siege of Acre (1291)
• 1308–1309 Teutonic takeover of Danzig and Treaty of Soldin
• 1326–1332 First Polish–Teutonic War, for Kuyavia, with involvement of Lithuania and Hungary
• 1331 Battle of Płowce
• 1343 Treaty of Kalisz, exchange of Kuyavia for Kulm and other territories
• 1343–1345 St. George's Night Uprising
• 1346 Purchase of Duchy of Estonia from Denmark
• 1348 Battle of Strėva
• 1370 Battle of Rudau
• 1409–1411 Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War, the Teutonic knights are defeated by Polish king Władysław II Jagiełło and Lithuanian Grand duke Vytautas the Great at the Battle of Grunwald (Tannenberg) (1410)
• 1414 Hunger War
• 1422 Gollub War ending with the Treaty of Melno
• 1431–1435 Second Polish–Teutonic War
• 1454–1466 Thirteen Years' War
• 1466 Second Peace of Thorn (1466)
• 1467–1479 War of the Priests
• 1519–1521 Third Polish–Teutonic War
• 1525 the Livonian Order buys itself de facto independent from the Teutonic Order
• 1525 Order loses State of the Teutonic Order due to the Prussian Homage, it becomes Ducal Prussia

Foundation

In 1143 Pope Celestine II ordered the Knights Hospitaller to take over management of a German hospital in Jerusalem, which, according to the chronicler Jean d’Ypres, accommodated the countless German pilgrims and crusaders who could neither speak the local language nor Latin (patriæ linguam ignorantibus atque Latinam).[11] Although formally an institution of the Hospitallers, the pope commanded that the prior and the brothers of the domus Theutonicorum (house of the Germans) should always be Germans themselves, so a tradition of a German-led religious institution could develop during the 12th century in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.[12]


Hermann von Salza, the fourth Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights (1209–1239)

After the loss of Jerusalem in 1187, some merchants from Lübeck and Bremen took up the idea and founded a field hospital for the duration of the Siege of Acre in 1190, which became the nucleus of the order; Celestine III recognized it in 1192 by granting the monks Augustinian Rule. However, based on the model of the Knights Templar, it was transformed into a military order in 1198 and the head of the order became known as the Grand Master (magister hospitalis). It received papal orders for crusades to take and hold Jerusalem for Christianity and defend the Holy Land against the Muslim Saracens. During the rule of Grand Master Hermann von Salza (1209–1239) the Order changed from being a hospice brotherhood for pilgrims to primarily a military order.

The Order was founded in Acre, and the Knights purchased Montfort (Starkenberg), northeast of Acre, in 1220. This castle, which defended the route between Jerusalem and the Mediterranean Sea, was made the seat of the Grand Masters in 1229, although they returned to Acre after losing Montfort to Muslim control in 1271. The Order also had a castle at Amouda in Armenia Minor. The Order received donations of land in the Holy Roman Empire (especially in present-day Germany and Italy), Frankish Greece, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Emperor Frederick II elevated his close friend Hermann von Salza to the status of Reichsfürst, or "Prince of the Empire", enabling the Grand Master to negotiate with other senior princes as an equal. During Frederick's coronation as King of Jerusalem in 1225, Teutonic Knights served as his escort in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; von Salza read the emperor's proclamation in both French and German. However, the Teutonic Knights were never as influential in Outremer as the older Templars and Hospitallers.

Transylvania, Kingdom of Hungary


Tannhäuser in the habit of the Teutonic Knights, from the Codex Manesse

In 1211, Andrew II of Hungary accepted the services of the Teutonic Knights and granted them the district of Burzenland in Transylvania, where they would be immune to fees and duties and could enforce their own justice. Andrew had been involved in negotiations for the marriage of his daughter with the son of Hermann, Landgrave of Thuringia, whose vassals included the family of Hermann von Salza. Led by a brother called Theoderich or Dietrich, the Order defended the south-eastern borders of the Kingdom of Hungary against the neighbouring Cumans. Many forts of wood and mud were built for defence. They settled new German peasants among the existing Transylvanian Saxon inhabitants. The Cumans had no fixed settlements for resistance, and soon the Teutons were expanding into their territory. By 1220, The Teutonics Knights had built five castles, some of them made of stone. Their rapid expansion made the Hungarian nobility and clergy, who were previously uninterested in those regions, jealous and suspicious. Some nobles claimed these lands, but the Order refused to share them, ignoring the demands of the local bishop. After the Fifth Crusade, King Andrew returned to Hungary and found his kingdom full of grudge because of the expenses and losses of the failed military campaign. When the nobles demanded that he cancel the concessions made to the Knights, he concluded that they had exceeded their task and that the agreement should be revised, but did not revert the concessions. However, Prince Béla, heir to the throne, was allied with the nobility. In 1224, the Teutonic Knights, seeing that they would have problems when the Prince inherited the Kingdom, petitioned Pope Honorius III to be placed directly under the authority of the Papal See, rather than that of the King of Hungary. This was a grave mistake, as King Andrew, angered and alarmed at their growing power, responded by expelling the Teutonic Knights in 1225, although he allowed the ethnically German commoners and peasants settled here by the Order and who became part of the larger group of the Transylvanian Saxons, to remain. Lacking the military organization and experience of the Teutonic Knights, the Hungarians did not replace them with adequate defenders which had prevented the attacking Cumans. Soon, the steppe warriors would be a threat again.[13]

Prussia

Main article: Prussian Crusade

In 1226, Konrad I, Duke of Masovia in north-eastern Poland, appealed to the Knights to defend his borders and subdue the pagan Baltic Old Prussians, allowing the Teutonic Knights use of Chełmno Land (Culmerland) as a base for their campaign. This being a time of widespread crusading fervor throughout Western Europe, Hermann von Salza considered Prussia a good training ground for his knights for the wars against the Muslims in Outremer.[14] With the Golden Bull of Rimini, Emperor Frederick II bestowed on the Order a special imperial privilege for the conquest and possession of Prussia, including Chełmno Land, with nominal papal sovereignty. In 1235 the Teutonic Knights assimilated the smaller Order of Dobrzyń, which had been established earlier by Christian, the first Bishop of Prussia.


Frederick II allows the order to invade Prussia, by P. Janssen

The conquest of Prussia was accomplished with much bloodshed over more than fifty years, during which native Prussians who remained unbaptised were subjugated, killed, or exiled. Fighting between the Knights and the Prussians was ferocious; chronicles of the Order state the Prussians would "roast captured brethren alive in their armour, like chestnuts, before the shrine of a local god".[15]

The native nobility who submitted to the crusaders had many of their privileges affirmed in the Treaty of Christburg. After the Prussian uprisings of 1260–83, however, much of the Prussian nobility emigrated or were resettled, and many free Prussians lost their rights. The Prussian nobles who remained were more closely allied with the German landowners and gradually assimilated.[16] Peasants in frontier regions, such as Samland, had more privileges than those in more populated lands, such as Pomesania.[17] The crusading knights often accepted baptism as a form of submission by the natives.[18] Christianity along western lines slowly spread through Prussian culture. Bishops were reluctant to have Prussian religious practices integrated into the new faith,[19] while the ruling knights found it easier to govern the natives when they were semi-pagan and lawless.[20] After fifty years of warfare and brutal conquest, the end result meant that most of the Prussian natives were either killed or deported.[21]


Map of the Teutonic state in 1260

The Order ruled Prussia under charters issued by the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor as a sovereign monastic state, comparable to the arrangement of the Knights Hospitallers in Rhodes and later in Malta.

To make up for losses from the plague and to replace the partially exterminated native population, the Order encouraged immigration from the Holy Roman Empire (mostly Germans, Flemish, and Dutch) and from Masovia (Poles), the later Masurians. These included nobles, burghers, and peasants, and the surviving Old Prussians were gradually assimilated through Germanization. The settlers founded numerous towns and cities on former Prussian settlements. The Order itself built a number of castles (Ordensburgen) from which it could defeat uprisings of Old Prussians, as well as continue its attacks on the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland, with which the Order was often at war during the 14th and 15th centuries. Major towns founded by the Order included Allenstein (Olsztyn), Elbing (Elbląg), Klaipėda (Memel), and Königsberg, founded in 1255 in honor of King Otakar II of Bohemia on the site of a destroyed Prussian settlement.

Livonia

Main article: Livonian Crusade


Teutonic Order castle in Paide, Estonia

The Livonian Brothers of the Sword were absorbed by the Teutonic Knights in 1237, after the former had suffered a devastating defeat in the Battle of Saule. The Livonian branch subsequently became known as the Livonian Order.[22] Attempts to expand into Rus' failed when the knights suffered a major defeat in 1242 in the Battle of the Ice at the hands of Prince Alexander Nevsky of Novgorod. Over the next decades the Order focused on the subjugation of the Curonians and Semigallians. In 1260 it suffered a disastrous defeat in the Battle of Durbe against Samogitians, which inspired rebellions throughout Prussia and Livonia. After the Teutonic Knights won a crucial victory in the Siege of Königsberg from 1262 to 1265, the war had reached a turning point. The Curonians were finally subjugated in 1267 and the Semigallians in 1290.[22] The Order suppressed a major Estonian rebellion in 1343–1345, and in 1346 purchased the Duchy of Estonia from Denmark.

Against Lithuania

The Teutonic Knights began to direct their campaigns against pagan Lithuania (see Lithuanian mythology), due to the long existing conflicts in the region (including constant incursions into the Holy Roman Empire's territory by pagan raiding parties) and the lack of a proper area of operation for the Knights, after the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem at Acre in 1291 and their later expulsion from Hungary.[23] At first the knights moved their headquarters to Venice, from which they planned the recovery of Outremer,[24] this plan was, however, shortly abandoned, and the Order later moved its headquarters to Marienburg, so it could better focus its efforts on the region of Prussia. Because "Lithuania Propria" remained non-Christian until the end of the 14th century, much later than the rest of eastern Europe, the conflicts stretched out for a longer time, and many Knights from western European countries, such as England and France, journeyed to Prussia to participate in the seasonal campaigns (reyse) against the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In 1348, the Order won a great victory over the Lithuanians in the Battle of Strėva, severely weakening them. The Teutonic Knights won a decisive victory over Lithuania in the Battle of Rudau in 1370.

Warfare between the Order and the Lithuanians was especially brutal. It was common practice for Lithuanians to torture captured enemies and civilians, it is recorded by a Teutonic chronicler that they had the habit of tying captured Knights to their horses and having both of them burned alive, while sometimes a stake would be driven into their bodies, or the Knight would be flayed. Lithuanian pagan customs included ritualistic human sacrifice, the hanging of widows, and the burying of a warrior's horses and servants with him after his death.[25] The Knights would also, on occasion, take captives from defeated Lithuanians, whose condition (as that of other war captives in the Middle Ages) was extensively researched by Jacques Heers.[26] The conflict had much influence in the political situation of the region, and was the source of many rivalries between Lithuanians or Poles and Germans, the degree to which it impacted the mentalities of the time can be seen in the lyrical works of men such as the contemporary Austrian poet Peter Suchenwirt.

The conflict in its entirety lasted over 200 years (although with varying degrees of aggression during that time), with its front line along both banks of the Neman River, with as many as twenty forts and castles between Seredžius and Jurbarkas alone.

Against Poland

Main article: Teutonic takeover of Danzig


Pomerelia (Pommerellen) while part of the monastic state of the Teutonic Knights

A dispute over the succession to the Duchy of Pomerelia embroiled the Order in further conflict at the beginning of the 14th century. The Margraves of Brandenburg had claims to the duchy that they acted upon after the death of King Wenceslaus of Poland in 1306. Duke Władysław I the Elbow-high of Poland also claimed the duchy, based on inheritance from Przemysław II, but he was opposed by some Pomeranians nobles. They requested help from Brandenburg, which subsequently occupied all of Pomerelia except for the citadel of Danzig (Gdańsk) in 1308. Because Władysław was unable to come to the defense of Danzig, the Teutonic Knights, then led by Hochmeister Siegfried von Feuchtwangen, were called to expel the Brandenburgers.

The Order, under a Prussian Landmeister Heinrich von Plötzke, evicted the Brandenburgers from Danzig in September 1308 but then refused to yield the town to the Poles, and according to some sources massacred the town's inhabitants; although the exact extent of the violence is unknown, and widely recognized by historians to be an unsolvable mystery. The estimates range from 60 rebellious leaders, reported by dignitaries of the region and Knight chroniclers, to 10,000 civilians, a number cited in a papal bull (of dubious provenance) that was used in a legal process installed to punish the Order for the event; the legal dispute went on for a time, but the Order was eventually absolved of the charges. In the Treaty of Soldin, the Teutonic Order purchased Brandenburg's supposed claim to the castles of Danzig, Schwetz (Świecie), and Dirschau (Tczew) and their hinterlands from the margraves for 10,000 marks on 13 September 1309.[27]

Control of Pomerelia allowed the Order to connect their monastic state with the borders of the Holy Roman Empire. Crusading reinforcements and supplies could travel from the Imperial territory of Hither Pomerania through Pomerelia to Prussia, while Poland's access to the Baltic Sea was blocked. While Poland had mostly been an ally of the knights against the pagan Prussians and Lithuanians, the capture of Pomerelia turned the kingdom into a determined enemy of the Order.[28]

The capture of Danzig marked a new phase in the history of the Teutonic Knights. The persecution and abolition of the powerful Knights Templar, which began in 1307, worried the Teutonic Knights, but control of Pomerelia allowed them to move their headquarters in 1309 from Venice to Marienburg (Malbork) on the Nogat River, outside the reach of secular powers. The position of Prussian Landmeister was merged with that of the Grand Master. The Pope began investigating misconduct by the knights, but no charges were found to have substance. Along with the campaigns against the Lithuanians, the knights faced a vengeful Poland and legal threats from the Papacy.[29]

The Treaty of Kalisz of 1343 ended open war between the Teutonic Knights and Poland. The Knights relinquished Kuyavia and Dobrzyń Land to Poland, but retained Culmerland and Pomerelia with Danzig.

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Part 2 of 2

Defeat by the Mongols

In 1236, the Knights of Saint Thomas, an English order, adopted the rules of the Teutonic Order. A contingent of Teutonic Knights of indeterminate number is traditionally believed to have participated at the Battle of Legnica in 1241 against the Mongols. The combined German-Polish/Lithuanian force was crushed by the Mongol army and their superior tactics, with few survivors.[30][31][32]

Height of power


Map of the Teutonic state in 1410

In 1337, Emperor Louis IV allegedly granted the Order the imperial privilege to conquer all Lithuania and Russia. During the reign of Grand Master Winrich von Kniprode (1351–1382), the Order reached the peak of its international prestige and hosted numerous European crusaders and nobility.

King Albert of Sweden ceded Gotland to the Order as a pledge (similar to a fiefdom), with the understanding that they would eliminate the pirating Victual Brothers from this strategic island base in the Baltic Sea. An invasion force under Grand Master Konrad von Jungingen conquered the island in 1398 and drove the Victual Brothers out of Gotland and the Baltic Sea.

In 1386, Grand Duke Jogaila of Lithuania was baptised into Christianity and married Queen Jadwiga of Poland, taking the name Władysław II Jagiełło and becoming King of Poland. This created a personal union between the two countries and a potentially formidable opponent for the Teutonic Knights. The Order initially managed to play Jogaila and his cousin Vytautas against each other, but this strategy failed when Vytautas began to suspect that the Order was planning to annex parts of his territory.

The baptism of Jogaila began the official conversion of Lithuania to Christianity. Although the crusading rationale for the Order's state ended when Prussia and Lithuania had become officially Christian, the Order's feuds and wars with Lithuania and Poland continued. The Lizard Union was created in 1397 by Prussian nobles in Culmerland to oppose the Order's policy.

In 1407, the Teutonic Order reached its greatest territorial extent and included the lands of Prussia, Pomerelia, Samogitia, Courland, Livonia, Estonia, Gotland, Dagö, Ösel, and the Neumark, pawned by Brandenburg in 1402.

Decline


Battle of Grunwald

In 1410, at the Battle of Grunwald (German: Schlacht bei Tannenberg) – known in Lithuanian as the Battle of Žalgiris – a combined Polish-Lithuanian army, led by Vytautas and Jogaila, decisively defeated the Order in the Polish-Lithuanian-Teutonic War. Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen and most of the Order's higher dignitaries fell on the battlefield (50 out of 60). The Polish-Lithuanian army then began the Siege of Marienburg, the capital of the Order, but was unable to take Marienburg owing to the resistance of Heinrich von Plauen. When the First Peace of Thorn was signed in 1411, the Order managed to retain essentially all of its territories, although the Knights' reputation as invincible warriors was irreparably damaged.

While Poland and Lithuania were growing in power, that of the Teutonic Knights dwindled through infighting. They were forced to impose high taxes to pay a substantial indemnity but did not give the cities sufficient requested representation in the administration of their state. The authoritarian and reforming Grand Master Heinrich von Plauen was forced from power and replaced by Michael Küchmeister von Sternberg, but the new Grand Master was unable to revive the Order's fortunes. After the Gollub War the Knights lost some small border regions and renounced all claims to Samogitia in the 1422 Treaty of Melno. Austrian and Bavarian knights feuded with those from the Rhineland, who likewise bickered with Low German-speaking Saxons, from whose ranks the Grand Master was usually chosen. The western Prussian lands of the Vistula River Valley and the Brandenburg Neumark were ravaged by the Hussites during the Hussite Wars.[33] Some Teutonic Knights were sent to battle the invaders, but were defeated by the Bohemian infantry. The Knights also sustained a defeat in the Polish-Teutonic War (1431–1435).


Map of the Teutonic state in 1466

In 1454, the Prussian Confederation, consisting of the gentry and burghers of western Prussia, rose up against the Order, beginning the Thirteen Years' War. Much of Prussia was devastated in the war, during the course of which the Order returned Neumark to Brandenburg in 1455. In the Second Peace of Thorn (1466), the defeated Order recognized the Polish crown's rights over western Prussia (subsequently Royal Prussia) while retaining Teutonic Eastern Prussia, but under Polish suzerainty. Because Marienburg Castle was handed over to mercenaries in lieu of their pay, the Order moved its base to Königsberg in Sambia.

After the Polish–Teutonic War (1519–1521), the Order was completely ousted from Prussia when Grand Master Albert of Brandenburg converted to Lutheranism in 1525. He secularized the Order's remaining Prussian territories and assumed from his uncle Sigismund I the Old, King of Poland, the hereditary rights to the Duchy of Prussia as a vassal of the Polish Crown, the Prussian Homage. The Protestant Duchy of Prussia was thus a fief of Catholic Poland.

Although it had lost control of all of its Prussian lands, the Teutonic Order retained its territories within the Holy Roman Empire and Livonia, although the Livonian branch retained considerable autonomy. Many of the Imperial possessions were ruined in the German Peasants' War from 1524 to 1525 and subsequently confiscated by Protestant territorial princes.[34] The Livonian territory was then partitioned by neighboring powers during the Livonian War; in 1561 the Livonian Master Gotthard Kettler secularized the southern Livonian possessions of the Order to create the Duchy of Courland, also a vassal of Poland.

After the loss of Prussia in 1525, the Teutonic Knights concentrated on their possessions in the Holy Roman Empire. Since they held no contiguous territory, they developed a three-tiered administrative system: holdings were combined into commanderies that were administered by a commander (Komtur). Several commanderies were combined to form a bailiwick headed by a Landkomtur. All of the Teutonic Knights' possessions were subordinate to the Grand Master, whose seat was in Bad Mergentheim.


Castle of the Teutonic Order in Bad Mergentheim

There were twelve German bailiwicks:

• Thuringia;
• Alden Biesen (in present-day Belgium);
• Hesse;
• Saxony;
• Westphalia;
• Franconia;
• Koblenz;
• Alsace-Burgundy;
• An der Etsch und im Gebirge (in Tyrol);
• Utrecht;
• Lorraine; and
• Austria.

Outside of German areas were the bailiwicks of

• Sicily;
• Apulia;
• Lombardy;
• Bohemia;
• "Romania" (in Greece); and
• Armenia-Cyprus.

The Order gradually lost control of these holdings until, by 1809, only the seat of the Grand Master at Mergentheim remained.

Following the abdication of Albert of Brandenburg, Walter von Cronberg became Deutschmeister in 1527, and later Administrator of Prussia and Grand Master in 1530. Emperor Charles V combined the two positions in 1531, creating the title Hoch- und Deutschmeister, which also had the rank of Prince of the Empire.[35] A new Grand Magistery was established in Mergentheim in Württemberg, which was attacked during the German Peasants' War. The Order also helped Charles V against the Schmalkaldic League. After the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, membership in the Order was open to Protestants, although the majority of brothers remained Catholic.[36] The Teutonic Knights became tri-denominational, with Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed bailiwicks.

The Grand Masters, often members of the great German families (and, after 1761, members of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine), continued to preside over the Order's considerable holdings in Germany. Teutonic Knights from Germany, Austria, and Bohemia were used as battlefield commanders leading mercenaries for the Habsburg Monarchy during the Ottoman wars in Europe.

The military history of the Teutonic Knights was to be ended in 1805 by the Article XII of the Peace of Pressburg, which ordered the German territories of the Knights converted into a hereditary domain and gave the Austrian Emperor responsibility for placing a Habsburg prince on its throne. These terms had not been fulfilled by the time of the Treaty of Schönbrunn in 1809, and therefore Napoleon Bonaparte ordered the Knights' remaining territory to be disbursed to his German allies, which was completed in 1810.

Medieval organisation

Administrative structure about 1350



Universal leadership

Generalkapitel

The Generalkapitel (general chapter) was the collection of all the priests, knights and half-brothers (German: Halbbrüder). Because of the logistical problems in assembling the members, who were spread over large distances, only deputations of the bailiwicks and commandries gathered to form the General chapter. The General chapter was designed to meet annually, but the conventions were usually limited to the election of a new Grandmaster. The decisions of the Generalkapitel had a binding effect on the Großgebietigers of the order.

Hochmeister

Main article: Grand Masters of the Teutonic Order

The Hochmeister (Grandmaster) was the highest officer of the order. Until 1525, he was elected by the Generalkapitel. He had the rank of ruler of an ecclesiastic imperial state and was sovereign prince of Prussia until 1466. Despite this high formal position, practically, he was only a kind of first among equals.

Großgebietiger

The Großgebietiger were high officers with competence on the whole order, appointed by the Hochmeister. There were five offices.

• The Großkomtur (Magnus Commendator), the deputy of the Grandmaster
• The Treßler, the treasurer
• The Spitler (Summus Hospitalarius), responsible for all hospital affairs
• The Trapier, responsible for dressing and armament
• The Marschall (Summus Marescalcus), the chief of military affairs

National leadership

Landmeister

The order was divided in three national chapters, Prussia, Livland and the territory of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. The highest officer of each chapter was the Landmeister (country master). They were elected by the regional chapters. In the beginning, they were only substitutes of the Grandmaster but were able to create a power of their own so that, within their territory, the Grandmaster could not decide against their will. At the end of their rule over Prussia, the Grandmaster was only Landmeister of Prussia. There were three Landmeisters:

• The Landmeister in Livland, the successor of the Herrenmeister (lords master) of the former Livonian Brothers of the Sword.
• The Landmeister of Prussia, after 1309 united with the office of the Grandmaster, who was situated in Prussia from then.
• The Deutschmeister, the Landsmeister of the Holy Roman Empire. When Prussia and Livland were lost, the Deutschmeister also became Grandmaster.

Regional leadership

Because the properties of the order within the rule of the Deutschmeister did not form a contiguous territory, but were spread over the whole empire and parts of Europe, there was an additional regional structure, the bailiwick. Kammerbaleien("Chamber Bailiwicks") were governed by the Grandmaster himself. Some of these bailiwicks had the rank of imperial states

• Teutonic Order Bailiwick of Thuringia (Zwätzen)
• Teutonic Order Bailiwick of Hesse (Marburg)
• Teutonic Order Bailiwick of Saxonia (Elmsburg from 1221 until 1260 moved to Lucklum)
• Brandenburg
• Teutonic Order Bailiwick of Westphalia (Deutschordenskommende Mülheim)
• Teutonic Order Bailiwick of Franconia (Ellingen)
• "Chamber Bailiwick" of Koblenz
• Teutonic Order Bailiwick of Swabia-Alsace-Burgundy (Rouffach)
• Teutonic Order Bailiwick at the Etsch and in the Mountains (south Tyrol) (Bozen)
• Utrecht
• Lorraine (Trier)
• "Chamber Bailiwick" of Austria
• Teutonic Order Bailiwick of Alden Biesen
• Sicily
• Teutonic Order Bailiwick of Apulia (San Leonardo)
• Lombardy (also called Lamparten)
• "Chamber Bailiwick" of Bohemia
• Teutonic Order Bailiwick of Romania (Achaia, Greece)
• Armenia-Cyprus

Local leadership

Komtur

The smallest administrative unit of the order was the Kommende. It was ruled by a Komtur, who had all administrative rights and controlled the Vogteien (district of a reeve) and Zehnthöfe (tithe collectors) within his rule. In the commandry, all kinds of brothers lived together in a monastic way. Noblemen served as Knight-brothers or Priest-brothers. Other people could serve as Sariantbrothers, who were armed soldiers, and as Half-brothers, who were working in economy and healthcare.

Special offices

• The Kanzler (chancellor) of the Grandmaster and the Deutschmeister. The chancellor took care of the keys and seals and was also the recording clerk of the chapter.
• The Münzmeister (master of the mint) of Thorn. In 1246, the order received the right to produce its own coins – the Moneta Dominorum Prussiae – Schillingen.
• The Pfundmeister (customs master) of Danzig. The Pfund was a local customs duty.
• The Generalprokurator the representative of the order at the Holy See.
• The Großschäffer, a trading representative with special authority.

Modern organization

Evolution and Reconfiguration as a Catholic Religious Order

The Roman Catholic order continued to exist in the various territories ruled by the Austrian Empire, out of Napoleon's reach. From 1804 the Order was headed by members of the Habsburg dynasty.

The collapse of the Habsurg monarchy and the Empire it governed in Austria, the Italian Tyrol, Bohemia and the Balkans brought a shattering crisis to the Order. While in the new Austrian Republic, the Order seemed to have some hope of survival, in the other former parts of the Habsburg territories, the tendency was to regard the Order as an honorary chivalric Order of the House of Habsburg. The consequence of this risked being the confiscation of the Order's property as belongings of the House of Habsburg. So as to make the distinction clearer, in 1923 the then High Master, Field Marshal Eugen of Austria-Teschen, Archduke of Austria, a member of the House of Habsburg and an active army commander before and during the First World War, had one of the Order's priests, Norbert Klein, at the time Bishop of Brno (Brünn) elected his Coadjutor and then abdicated, leaving the Bishop as High Master of the Order.

As a result of this move, by 1928 the now independent former Habsburg territories all recognized the Order as a Catholic religious order. The Order itself introduced a new Rule, approved by Pope Pius XI in 1929, according to which the government of the Order would in future be in the hands of a priest of the Order, as would its constituent provinces, while the women religious of the Order would have women superiors. In 1936 the situation of the women religious was further clarified and the Congregation of the Sisters of the Order was given as their supreme moderator the High Master of the Order, the Sisters also having representation at the Order's general chapter.

This completed the transformation of what remained in the Catholic Church of the Teutonic knights into a Catholic religious order now renamed simply the Deutscher Orden ("German Order"). However, further difficulties were in store.

The promising beginnings of this reorganization and spiritual transformation suffered a severe blow through the expansion of German might under the National Socialist regime. After Austria's annexation by Germany in 1938, and similarly the Czech lands in 1939 the Teutonic Order was suppressed throughout the Großdeutsches Reich until Germany's defeat. This did not prevent the National Socialists from using imagery of the medieval Teutonic knights for propagandistic purposes.[39]

The Fascist rule in Italy, which since the end of the First World War had absorbed the Southern Tyrol, was not a propitious setting, but following the end of hostilities, a now democratic Italy provided normalized conditions, In 1947 Austria legally abolished the measures taken against the Order and restored confiscated property. Despite being hampered by the Communist regimes in Yugoslavia and in Czechoslovakia, the Order was now broadly in a position to take up activities in accordance with elements of its tradition, including care for the sick, for the elderly, for children, including work in education, in parishes and in its own internal houses of study. In 1957 a residence was established in Rome for the Order's Procurator General to the Holy See, to serve also as a pilgrim hostel. Conditions in Czechoslovakia gradual improved and in the meanwhile the forced exile of some members of the Order lead to the Order's re-establishing itself with some modest, but historically significant, foundations in Germany. The Sisters, in particular, gained several footholds, including specialist schools and care of the poor and in 1953 the former house of Augustinian Canons, St. Nikola, in Passau became the Sisters’ Motherhouse. Although the reconstruction represented by the reformed Rule of 1929 had set aside categories such as the knights, over time the spontaneous involvement of laypeople in the Order's apostolates has led to their revival in modernized form, a development formalized by Pope Paul VI in 1965.

With the official title of "Brethren of the German House of St Mary in Jerusalem", the Order today is unambiguously a Catholic religious order, though sui generis. Various features of its life and activities recall those of monastic and mendicant orders. At its core are priests who make solemn religious profession, along with lay brothers who make perpetual simple profession. Also part of the Order are the Sisters, with internal self-government within their own structures but with representation in the Order's General Chapter. Their ultimate superior is the High Master of the Order. The approximately 100 Catholic priests and 200 nuns of the Order are divided into five provinces, namely, Austria, Southern Tyrol-Italy, Slovenia, Germany, Czech Republic and Slovakia. While the priests predominantly provide spiritual guidance, the nuns primarily care for the ill and the aged. Many of the priests care for German-speaking communities outside of Germany and Austria, especially in Italy and Slovenia; in this sense the Teutonic Order has returned to its 12th-century roots: the spiritual and physical care of Germans in foreign lands.[40]

There is an Institute of "Familiares", most of whom are lay people, and who are attached by spiritual bonds to the Order but do not take vows. The "Familiares" are grouped especially into the bailiwicks of Germany, Austria, Southern Tyrol, Ad Tiberim (Rome), and the bailiwick of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, as also in the independent commandry of Alden Biesen in Belgium, though others are dispersed throughout the world. Overall, there are in recent years some 700.

By the end of the 20th century, then, this religious Order had developed into a charitable organization and established numerous clinics, as well as sponsoring excavation and tourism projects in Israel. In 2000, the German chapter of the Teutonic Order declared bankruptcy and its upper management was dismissed; an investigation by a special committee of the Bavarian parliament in 2002 and 2003 to determine the cause was inconclusive.

The current Abbot General of the Order, who also holds the title of High Master, is Father Frank Bayard. The current seat of the High Master is the Church of the German Order ("Deutschordenskirche") in Vienna. Near the St Stephen's Cathedral ("Stephansdom") in the Austrian capital is the Treasury of the Teutonic Order, which is open to the public, and the Order's central archive. Since 1996, there has also been a museum dedicated to the Teutonic Knights at their former castle in Bad Mergentheim in Germany, which was the seat of the High Master from 1525 to 1809.

Honorary Knights

Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem
Coat of arms of the order
Awarded by Pope Francis
Type Dynasty order of chivalry
Established 1190
Country Holy See
Religious affiliation Catholic Church
Ribbon Black
Motto Helfen, Wehren, Heilen
Grand Master Frank Bayard
Grades
Honorary Knight
Statistics
Total inductees 11?
Precedence
Next (higher) Sovereign Military Order of Malta
Next (lower) Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice

Ribbon bar

See also: Category:Honorary Knights of the Teutonic Order

Honorary Knights of the Teutonic Order have included:

• Konrad Adenauer
• Udo Arnold
• Franz Josef II
• Rudolf Graber
• Otto von Habsburg
• Karl Habsburg-Lothringen
• Joachim Meisner
• Eduard Gaston Pöttickh von Pettenegg
• Eduard Schick
• Christoph Schönborn
• Carl Herzog von Württemberg

Protestant Bailiwick of Utrecht

A portion of the Order retains more of the character of the knights during the height of its power and prestige. Der Balije van Utrecht ("Bailiwick of Utrecht") of the Ridderlijke Duitsche Orde ("Chivalric German [i.e., 'Teutonic'] Order") became Protestant at the Reformation, and it remained an aristocratic society. The relationship of the Bailiwick of Utrecht to the Roman Catholic Deutscher Orden resembles that of the Protestant Bailiwick of Brandenburg to the Roman Catholic Order of Malta: each is an authentic part of its original order, though differing from and smaller than the Roman Catholic branch.[41]

Insignia

The Knights wore white surcoats with a black cross, granted by Innocent III in 1205. A cross pattée was sometimes used. The coat of arms representing the grand master (Hochmeisterwappen)[42] is shown with a golden cross fleury or cross potent superimposed on the black cross, with the imperial eagle as a central inescutcheon. The golden cross fleury overlaid on the black cross became widely used in the 15th century. A legendary account attributes its introduction to Louis IX of France, who is said to have granted the master of the order this cross as a variation of the Jerusalem cross, with the fleur-de-lis symbol attached to each arm, in 1250. While this legendary account cannot be traced back further than the early modern period (Christoph Hartknoch, 1684), there is some evidence that the design does indeed date to the mid 13th century.[43]

The black cross pattée was later used for military decoration and insignia by the Kingdom of Prussia and Germany as the Iron Cross and Pour le Mérite.

The motto of the Order is "Helfen, Wehren, Heilen" ("to help, to defend, to heal").[year needed][10]

Influence on German and Polish nationalism


A German National People's Party poster from 1920 showing a Teutonic knight being attacked by Poles and socialists. The caption reads "Rescue the East".

Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany posed for a photo in 1902 in the garb of a monk from the Teutonic Order, climbing the stairs in the reconstructed Marienburg Castle as a symbol of Imperial German policy.[45]

The German historian Heinrich von Treitschke used imagery of the Teutonic Knights to promote pro-German and anti-Polish rhetoric. Many middle-class German nationalists adopted this imagery and its symbols. During the Weimar Republic, associations and organisations of this nature contributed to laying the groundwork for the formation of Nazi Germany.[45]

Before and during World War II, Nazi propaganda and ideology made frequent use of the Teutonic Knights' imagery, as the Nazis sought to depict the Knights' actions as a forerunner of the Nazi conquests for Lebensraum. Heinrich Himmler tried to idealise the SS as a 20th-century reincarnation of the medieval Order.[46] Yet, despite these references to the Teutonic Order's history in Nazi propaganda, the Order itself was abolished in 1938 and its members were persecuted by the German authorities. This occurred mostly due to Hitler's and Himmler's belief that, throughout history, Roman Catholic military-religious orders had been tools of the Holy See and as such constituted a threat to the Nazi regime.[47]

The converse was true for Polish nationalism (see: Sienkiewicz "The Knights of the Cross"), which used the Teutonic Knights as symbolic shorthand for Germans in general, conflating the two into an easily recognisable image of the hostile. Similar associations were used by Soviet propagandists, such as the Teutonic knight villains in the 1938 Sergei Eisenstein film Aleksandr Nevskii.

See also

·         Teutonic Knights in popular culture
·         Iron Cross
·         Prussian virtues

Notes

1.       "Der Hochmeister".
2.       Van Duren, Peter (1995). Orders of Knighthood and of Merit. C. Smythe. p. 212. ISBN 0-86140-371-1.
3.       Redazione. "La Santa Sede e gli Ordini Cavallereschi: doverosi chiarimenti (Seconda parte)".
4.       Riley-Smith, Jonathan Simon Christopher (1999). The Oxford History of the Crusades. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192853646. Teutonic knights are still to be found only in another interesting survival, Ridderlijke Duitse Orde Balije van Utrecht (The Bailiwick of Utrecht of the Teutonic Order). Like the Hospitaller Bailiwick of Brandenburg, this commandery turned itself into a noble Protestant confraternity at the time of the Reformation.
5.       Innes-Parker 2013, p. 102.
6.       American Historical Association, National Board for Historical Service, National Council for the Social Studies – 1918 : Historical outlook: a journal for readers, students and teachers
7.       "History of the German Order". Teutonic Order, Order of the Teutonic Knights of St. Mary's Hospital in Jerusalem. Archived from the original on 2011-07-18. Retrieved 2011-01-30. The 15th and early 16th century brought hard times for the Order. Apart from the drastic power loss in the East as of 1466, the Hussite attacks imperilled the continued existence of the bailiwick of Bohemia. In Southern Europe, the Order had to renounce important outposts – such as Apulia and Sicily. After the coup d’état of Albrecht von Brandenburg, the only territory of the Order remained were the bailiwicks in the empire.
8.       Sainty, Guy Stair. "The Teutonic Order of Holy Mary in Jerusalem". Almanach de la Cour. http://www.chivalricorders.org. Retrieved 2011-01-30. This tradition was further perverted by the Nazis who, after the occupation of Austria suppressed it by an act of 6 September 1938 because they suspected it of being a bastion of pro-Habsburg legitimism.
9.       "Restart of the Brother Province in 1945". Teutonic Order, Order of the Teutonic Knights of St. Mary's Hospital in Jerusalem. deutscher-orden.de. Archived from the original on 2011-07-18. Retrieved 2011-01-30.
10.      Demel, Bernhard (1999). Vogel, Friedrich (ed.). Der Deutsche Orden Einst Und Jetzt: Aufsätze Zu Seiner Mehr Als 800jahrigen Geschichte. Europäische Hochschulschriften: Geschichte und ihre Hilfswissenschaften. 848. Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany: Peter Lang. p. 80. ISBN 978-3-631-34999-1.
11.      Monumenta Germaniae Historica, SS Bd. 25, S. 796.
12.      Kurt Forstreuter. "Der Deutsche Orden am Mittelmeer". Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte des Deutschen Ordens, Bd II. Bonn 1967, S. 12f.
13.      The Teutonic Knights: A Military History by William Urban
14.      Seward, p. 100
15.      Seward, p. 104
16.      Christiansen, pp. 208–09
17.      Christiansen, pp. 210–11
18.      Barraclough, p. 268
19.      Urban, p. 106
20.      Christiansen, p. 211
21.      The German Hansa P. Dollinger, page 34, 1999 Routledge
22.      Plakans, Andrejs (2011). A Concise History of the Baltic States. Cambridge University Press. pp. 44–45. ISBN 9780521833721.
23.      SEWARD, Desmond (1995). The monks of war : the military religious orders (Second, Revised ed.). England: Penguin Books. p. 98. ISBN 0140195017.
24.      Christiansen, p. 150
25.      SEWARD, Desmond (1995). The monks of war : the military religious orders (Second, Revised ed.). England: Penguin Books. p. 100. ISBN 0140195017.
26.      HEERS, Jacques (1981). Esclaves et domestiques au Moyen Age dans le monde méditerranéen (First ed.). France: Fayard. ISBN 2213010943.
27.      The New Cambridge medieval history. McKitterick, Rosamond. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press. 1995–2005. pp. 752. ISBN 0521362911. OCLC 29184676.
28.      Urban, p. 116
29.      Christiansen, p. 151
30.      The Mongols and the West, 1221–1410, Peter Jackson, Routledge, New York, ç2018, p.66-78
31.      The Rise and Fall of the Second Largest Empire in History, Thomas Craughwell, Quayside Publishing Group, Massachusetts, ç2010, p.193-195
32.      Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongolian Empire, Christopher Atwood, Indiana Univ. Press, Bloomington, ç2004, p.79
33.      Westermann, p. 93
34.      Christiansen, p. 248
35.      Seward, p. 137
36.      Urban, p. 276
37.      Dieter Zimmerling: Der Deutsche Orden, S. 166 ff.
38.      Der Deutschordensstaat
39.      Sainty, Guy Stair. "The Teutonic Order of Holy Mary in Jerusalem". Almanach de la Cour. http://www.chivalricorders.org. Retrieved 2011-01-30. [T]he Nazis...after the occupation of Austria suppressed [the Order] by an act of 6 September 1938 because they suspected it of being a bastion of pro-Habsburg legitimism. On Germany's occupying Czechoslovakia the following year, the Order was also suppressed in Moravia although the hospitals and houses in Yugoslavia and south Tyrol were able to continue a tenuous existence. The National Socialists, motivated by Himmler's fantasies of reviving a German military elite then attempted to establish their own "Teutonic Order" as the highest award of the Third Reich. The ten recipients of this included Reinhard Heydrich and several of the most notorious National Socialists. Needless to say, although its badge was modelled on that of the genuine Order, it had absolutely nothing in common with it.
40.      Urban, p. 277
41.      Official website of the Bailiwick of Utrecht, accessed March 15, 2010
42.      The offices of Hochmeister (grand master, head of the order) and Deutschmeister (Magister Germaniae) were united in 1525. The title of Magister Germaniae had been introduced in 1219 as the head of the bailiwicks in the Holy Roman Empire, from 1381 also those in Italy, raised to the rank of a prince of the Holy Roman Empire in 1494, but merged with the office of grand master under Walter von Cronberg in 1525, from which time the head of the order had the title of Hoch- und Deutschmeister. Bernhard Peter (2011)
43.      Helmut Nickel, "Über das Hochmeisterwappen des Deutschen Ordens im Heiligen Lande", Der Herold 4/1990, 97–108 (mgh-bibliothek.de). Marie-Luise Heckmann, "Überlegungen zu einem heraldischen Repertorium an Hand der Hochmeisterwappen des Deutschen Ordens" in: Matthias Thumser, Janusz Tandecki, Dieter Heckmann (eds.) Edition deutschsprachiger Quellen aus dem Ostseeraum (14.-16. Jahrhundert), Publikationen des Deutsch-Polnischen Gesprächskreises für Quellenedition. Publikacje Niemiecko-Polskiej Grupy Dyskusyjnej do Spraw Edycij Zrodel 1, 2001, 315–346 (online edition). "Die zeitgenössische Überlieferung verdeutlicht für dieses Wappen hingegen einen anderen Werdegang. Der Modelstein eines Schildmachers, der unter Hermann von Salza zwischen 1229 und 1266 auf der Starkenburg (Montfort) im Heiligen Land tätig war, und ein rekonstruiertes Deckengemälde in der Burgkapelle derselben Festung erlaubten der Forschung den Schluss, dass sich die Hochmeister schon im 13. Jahrhundert eines eigenen Wappens bedient hätten. Es zeigte ein auf das schwarze Ordenskreuz aufgelegtes goldenes Lilienkreuz mit dem bekannten Adlerschildchen. Die Wappensiegel des Elbinger Komturs von 1310 bzw. 1319, ein heute in Innsbruck aufbewahrter Vortrageschild des Hochmeisters Karl von Trier von etwa 1320 und das schlecht erhaltene Sekretsiegel desselben Hochmeisters von 1323 sind ebenfalls jeweils mit aufgelegtem goldenem Lilienkreuz ausgestattet."
44.      In this example (dated 1594), Hugo Dietrich von Hohenlandenberg, commander of the bailiwick of Swabia-Alsace-Burgundy, shows his Landenberg family arms quartered with the order's black cross.
45.     (in Polish) Mówią wieki. "Biała leganda czarnego krzyża Archived 2008-02-27 at the Wayback Machine". Accessed 6 June 2006.
46.      Christiansen, p. 5
47.      Desmond Seward, Mnisi Wojny, Poznań 2005, p. 265.

External links

·         "Massive Ceremonial Hall Discovered Under Crusader Castle in Northern Israel" – Haaretz, Nov.22, 2018

References

·         Christiansen, Erik (1997). The Northern Crusades. London: Penguin Books. pp. 287. ISBN 0-14-026653-4.
·         Seward, Desmond (1995). The Monks of War: The Military Religious Orders. London: Penguin Books. p. 416. ISBN 0-14-019501-7.
·         Urban, William (2003). The Teutonic Knights: A Military History. London: Greenhill Books. p. 290. ISBN 1-85367-535-0.
·         Selart, Anti (2015). Livonia, Rus' and the Baltic Crusades in the Thirteenth Century. Leiden: Brill. p. 400. ISBN 978-9-00-428474-6.
·         Innes-Parker, Catherine (2013). Anchoritism in the Middle Ages: Texts and Traditions. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. p. 256. ISBN 978-0-7083-2601-5.

External links

·         The order's homepage in Germany (in German)
·         The order's homepage in Austria (in English)
·         Territorial extent of the Teutonic Knights in Europe (map)
·         An Historical Overview of the Crusade to Livonia, by William Urban
·         "The Early Years of the Teutonic Order", by William Urban
·         Museum in the residential castle of the Teutonic Order in Bad Mergentheim (in German)
·         Zwaetzen and the German Order in Central Germany (in German)
 

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19th Kushok Bakula Rinpoche
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 7/17/20

It was not until 1990 that the Communist Party of Mongolia relinquished its monopoly on power. In 1992 a new democratic constitution came into effect.

Today (in 1999) the old monasteries destroyed by the Communists are being rebuilt, in part with western support. Since the beginning of the nineties a real “re-Lamaization” is underway among the Mongolians and with it a renaissance of the Shambhala myth and a renewed spread of the Kalachakra ritual. The Gelugpa order is attracting so many new members there that the majority of the novices cannot be guaranteed a proper training because there are not enough tantric teachers. The consequence is a sizeable army of unqualified monks, who not rarely earn their living through all manner of dubious magic practices and who represent a dangerous potential for a possible wave of Buddhist fundamentalism.

The person who with great organizational skill is supervising and accelerating the “rebirth” of Lamaism in Mongolia goes by the name of Bakula Rinpoche, a former teacher of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and his right hand in the question of Mongolian politics. The lama, recognized as a higher tulku, surprisingly also functions as an Indian ambassador in Ulan Bator alongside his religious activities, and is accepted and supported in this dual role as ambassador for India and as a central figure in the “re-Lamaization process” by the local government. In September of 1993 he had an urn containing the ashes of the historical Buddha brought to Mongolia for several weeks from India, a privilege which to date no other country has been accorded by the Indian government. Bakula enjoys such a great influence that in 1994 he announced to the Mongolians that the ninth incarnation of the Jabtsundamba Khutuktu, the supreme spiritual figure of their country, had been discovered in India.

The Dalai Lama is aware of the great importance of Mongolia for his global politics. He is constantly a guest there and conducts noteworthy mass events (in 1979, 1982, 1991, 1994, and 1995). In Ulan Bator in 1996 the god-king celebrated the Kalachakra ritual in front of a huge, enthusiastic crowd. When he visited the Mongolian Buriats in Russia in 1994, he was asked by them to recognize the greatest military leader of the world, Genghis Khan, as a “Bodhisattva”. The winner of the Nobel peace prize smiled enigmatically and silently proceeded to another point on the agenda. The Kundun enjoys a boundless reverence in Mongolia as in no other part of the world (except Tibet). The grand hopes of this impoverished people who once ruled the world hang on him. He appears to many Mongolians to be the savior who can lead them out of the wretched financial state they are currently in and restore their fame from the times of Genghis Khan.

-- The Shadow of the Dalai Lama: Sexuality, Magic and Politics in Tibetan Buddhism, by Victor and Victoria Trimondi

His Holiness 19th Kushok Bakula Rinpoche
Title 19th Kushok Bakula Rinpoche
Personal
Born: 27 May 1918, Royal Palace of Matho
Died: 4 November 2003 (aged 85), Saket, New Delhi
Religion: Tibetan Buddhism
Senior posting
Period in office: 21 May 1917 – 4 November 2003
Predecessor ?
Successor: 20th Kushok Bakula Rinpoche

Ngawang Lobzang Thupstan Chognor[1][2] (Tibetan: ངག་དབང་བློ་བཟང་ཐུབ་བསྟན་མཆོག་ནོར, Wylie: ngag dbang blo bzang thub bstan mchog nor), commonly known as 19th Kushok Bakula Rinpoche (19 May 1918 – 4 November 2003) was a Buddhist lama, who also served as India's ambassador to Mongolia. He is mainly known for his efforts in reviving Buddhism in Mongolia and Russia by linking them with the community of Tibetan exiles in India.[3]

He was born in the Matho branch of the Royal House of Ladakh, India. He was the youngest child of his father, Nangwa Thayas, the titular King of Matho, and his wife, Princess Yeshes Wangmo of the Royal House of Zangla. He was recognised by the Thirteenth Dalai Lama as a reincarnation of Bakula Arhat,[4] one of the Sixteen Arhats who in legend were direct disciples of Gautama Buddha. He was a direct descendant of the last King of Ladakh Tsepel Tondup Namgyal. He was, in fact, his great-great-great grandson.[5][6][7]

"In 1962 ... allowed the Indian troops to convert a section of his Pethub Monastery into a makeshift military hospital. When a section of people in Kashmir demanded plebiscite, Rinpoche categorically stated that Ladakh would never go to Pakistan and would remain with India."[3]

Later he served in the Parliament of India, and was deeply engaged with welfare, education and rights of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes of India. In his later years, he became India's Ambassador in Mongolia.[8] He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1988.[3] The airport at Leh in the Indian region of Ladakh is named after him.

References

1. Nils Ole Bubandt; Martijn Van Beek. Varieties of Secularism in Asia: Anthropological Explorations of Religion, Politics and the Spiritual.
2. "Tributes paid to 19th Kushok Bakula Rinpoche on 99th Birth anniversary". Reach Ladakh Bulletin. 30 May 2016.
3. "Architect of Modern Ladakh". Daily Excelsior. 14 January 2018. Retrieved 12 April 2018.
4. "Tribute to the Venerable Kushok Bakula Rinpoche". FPMT. Retrieved 12 April 2018.
5. Tondup, Dawa. "The History of the Political Ordeal of Ladakh". Reach Ladakh Bulletin. Retrieved 6 November 2019.
6. The History of the Political Ordeal of Ladakh
7. Tondup, Dawa (6 November 2019). "The History of the Political Ordeal of Ladakh". Reach Ladakh Bulletin.
8. "Former Ambassadors". Embassy of India Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Retrieved 23 April 2018.

Further reading

• Nawang Tsering Shakspo and Henry M. Vyner, M.D. (2006): Kushok Bakula Rinpoche — Saint and Statesman, World Buddhist Culture Trust, New Delhi

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U.S. Buddhism Leader Havanpola Ratanasara Dies (February 28, 1920 - May 26, 2000)
by Elaine Woo, LA Times Staff Writer
The Los Angeles Times
June 2, 2000

The Venerable Havanpola Ratanasara, a monk who strove to build an American style of Buddhism and led Buddhists, Catholics and other denominations in interfaith dialogues, has died.

At 80, Ratanasara was believed to be the oldest Buddhist monk in Southern California. He suffered from diabetes and heart problems and died in his sleep last Friday surrounded by monks in his apartment at the International Buddhist Meditation Center in Los Angeles.

Ratanasara founded the Buddhist Sangha Council of Southern California, an effort to unite Buddhists of disparate ethnic backgrounds and traditions.

A leading exponent of a "united Buddhism in America," he was a co-founder of the American Buddhist Congress and served as executive president until 1999. He also led efforts to ordain women as Buddhist monks. "He was the glue in the Buddhist community in Southern California," said the Rev. Kusala (Thich Tam-Thien), a Buddhist chaplain for the University Religious Conference at UCLA. "He was so concerned about getting people together and talking. . . . It's a rare combination to find a scholar-monk . . . with a political bent who could really change the community he lived in."

Ratanasara was a native of Sri Lanka who immigrated to the United States in 1980 and became a U.S. citizen. After undergraduate work in Sri Lanka, he earned a master's degree at Columbia University and a PhD in education at the University of London. In addition to holding university positions in Sri Lanka, he was a United Nations delegate for that country in 1957.

In the United States, Ratanasara began to ponder how Buddhists could join the mainstream of American society. Largely because of immigration, the nation has the largest variety of Buddhist traditions in the world, but Ratanasara saw differences of language and culture as major obstacles to unity within American Buddhism as well as to dialogue with other faiths. "How can we become Americanized, yet hold to the core of Buddhism? How can we develop an American Buddhism, which will be vital and appropriate to this society and still retain our individual, unique traditions?" Ratanasara asked in an interview several years ago.

In 1987, he and the Rev. Karl Springer, an American-born Buddhist leader, led efforts to organize the American Buddhist Congress. The national body, which weighs in on national debates from a Buddhist perspective, represents members of many Buddhist traditions, including Thai, Chinese, Korean, Sri Lankan, Tibetan, Vietnamese and Cambodian, as well as American-born converts.

There are 3 million to 5 million Buddhists in the United States, about 500,000 of whom reside in Southern California.

Ratanasara served as Buddhist representative to Pope John Paul II during the pontiff's visit to Los Angeles in 1987. He also was co-founder of the Los Angeles Buddhist-Catholic Dialogue, a program pioneered by the local Buddhist council and the Catholic archdiocese, and a past vice president of the Interreligious Council of Southern California.

As past president of the Buddhist Sangha Council of Los Angeles, which he organized in 1979, Ratanasara directed the most widely representative regional Buddhist council in the country.

In 1988, Ratanasara and his colleagues took a bold step by ordaining a Thai woman. The action revived a practice that had died out centuries ago in Ratanasara's Theravada Buddhist tradition, which is mainly practiced in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Burma and Cambodia.

More than 150 monks and worshipers came to view Ratanasara's body Wednesday at the Wat Thai Temple in North Hollywood. "He was like a father. He taught me to be a good monk," said one of the mourners, the Venerable Havanpola Shanti, a nephew of the Buddhist leader. Ratanasara is survived by four nephews in the United States.

A service will be held at the temple at 4 p.m. Saturday. After cremation, some of Ratanasara's ashes will be taken to temples in Sri Lanka.

Ratanasara founded schools in Sri Lanka, including Buddhist Studies International. Contributions to support Buddhist Studies International can be sent c/o the Venerable Havanpola Shanti, 933 S. New Hampshire Ave., Los Angeles 90006.

Staff writer Roberto J. Manzano contributed to this story.

***********************************

Ceylonese Here Does Triple Duty
by The New York Times
Sunday, March 23, 1958



U.N. Delegate, a Buddhist Scholar, Is a Graduate Student at Columbia.

Three-ring circuses have nothing on a 38-year-old Ceylonese Buddhist who is seeing New York for the first time.

The Venerable Havanpola Ratanasara does triple duty as an alternate delegate to the United Nations, a full-time Columbia University graduate student and a devoted practitioner of Buddhism. In his spare time he tours the city on foot.

Though Mr. Ratanasara is new to this country, his diversified abilities are even newer to his classmates at Teachers College, where he is studying for a master’s degree in education.

He is an expert in Singhalese, an honor graduate of a school for Buddhist monks and personal friend of Ceylon’s Prime Minister, Solomon Bandaranaike.

A lively little man with a flair for Oriental languages, Mr. Ratanasara has a habit of speaking rapid-fire English in candid spurts.

Scorns ‘Power Bloc’

“You Americans believe in atomic bombs, hydrogen bombs and all those things,” he said the other day. “Well, we don’t. We are peace-loving people and want no association with any power bloc.”

When the United Nations General Assembly was meeting last fall, Mr. Ratanasara regularly attended the all-day sessions of the Social; Humanitarian and Cultural affairs Committee, to which he is attached as a member of the Ceylonese delegation.

Sitting in the United Nation’s chambers, garbed in his native yellow robes, Mr. Ratanasara can rely on a varied background to serve him in his work on the committee.

In Ceylon he was a school principal. He was educated at a school for Buddhist monks, where he received a bachelor’s degree in Pali, the official language of Buddhism. In addition, Mr. Ratanasara gave frequent radio talks on Ceylon’s educational system, and plans to become an instructor in languages when he returns home.

At the end of a day’s diplomatic sword-clashing, Mr. Ratanasara leaves for Columbia. His classes there usually begin at 5 P.M. The rest of the evening, and well into the early morning, he spends studying for the next day’s classes.

“It’s a bit tiring at times.” He grins, “But I manage all right.”

Mr. Ratanasara is the only Ceylonese at Teachers College. He arrived last September as an exchange student on a fellowship grant from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Shortly after his arrival, he became an alternate United Nations delegate and got the title Venerable to go with his new position.

Between politics, studies and Buddhism, Mr. Ratanasara finds time to visit various points in the United States. He will visit Harvard next month.

Teachers College officials have considered asking him to stay on for a Ph.D. after he gets his master’s this June.

“It’s another two years,” Mr. Ratanasara muses. “ But I’d do it. After all, I’m getting to like it here.”

***********************************

Ven. Dr. Havanpola Ratanasara
by urbandharma.org
Accessed: 7/17/20

Ven. Dr. Havanpola Ratanasara was born in the Sri Lanken Village of Havanpola Feb. 28, 1920. With his parent's permission, he became a novice monk at the age of 11, taking full ordination 9 years later at the age of 20. He went on to obtain his first university degree from the University of Sri Lanka, then a post graduate degree and diploma for Educational Research from Columbia University in New York and finally a PhD in education from the University of London in 1965. In the course of his academic career as an educator, he founded the Post Graduate Institute of Pali and Buddhist Studies at the University of Kelaniya in Sri Lanka.

In the early years, he participated in numerous international seminars and conferences presenting papers on various topics. One of his many books titled, “Buddhist Philosophy of Education” was written to emphasize the feasibility of formulating a general system of education built on a foundation of Buddhist philosophy. First published in 1969 it was reprinted in 1995 to celebrate the opening of his ‘Buddhist Studies International’ in Sri Lanka, an institute dedicated to the promotion of Buddhist learning, peace and harmony among the peoples of the world.

In 1957 at the personal request of the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, Ven. Ratanasara was asked to represent Sri Lanka as a delegate to the United Nations, the first Buddhist monk awarded this honor. He is reported to have said during an interview in 1958 on being a United Nations delegate, “You Americans believe in atomic bombs, hydrogen bombs and all those things,” he said the other day. “Well, we don’t. We are a peace-loving people and want no association with any power bloc.”

In 1980 Dr. Ratanasara emigrated to the United States, settled in Los Angeles and devoted himself to the promulgation of inter-Buddhist, inter-religious understanding and education. He initiated the establishment of the Buddhist Sangha Council of Southern California, an organization of Buddhist clergy of all traditions, serving as its president. He also served as Executive President emeritus of the American Buddhist Congress, a national organization of Buddhist temples and organizations, of which he is a founding member. In 1983 he founded the College of Buddhist Studies, Los Angeles and was the president and a member of the academic staff.

Dr. Ratanasara played an active role in inter-religious understanding for twenty years. He served as a Board Director for numerous international conferences on religion and peace. He was a member of the executive Council of the Interreligious Council of So. California and served as a Vice President. He served as Co-Chair for the on going Buddhist- Roman Catholic dialogue in Los Angeles. In 1992 Ven. Ratanasara was named the Chief Sangha Nayake (Judicial Patriarch) for the Western Hemisphere for his lineage, formalizing his role as chief advisor of his tradition. In 1995 he founded the Buddhist Studies International Center in Iriyaweteya, Sri Lanka, which has become a center for those who want to study Buddhism and meditate in a true Buddhist cultural setting. Buddhist Studies International is a center of training for American, Latin American, Korean, Indian, and Bangladesh students wanting to become teachers of Buddhism in their native homelands.

From his paper, "The Importance of Interfaith Dialogue" presented at the Intermonastic Dialogue Gethsemani Monastery, Louisville, Kentucky July, 1996.

"Now, it seems to me that since we are so ready to I embrace each other, and claim that we are already honorary members of each other's religion, there is really no reason why we cannot continue talking. We are alike in that we all suffer, and our primary concern is the end of suffering; this is what we call liberation. As His Holiness the Dalai Lama has put it: "I am interested not in converting other people to Buddhism but in how we Buddhists can contribute to human society, according to our own ideas." And I have always maintained, and maintain today, that if we had enough in common thirty years ago to begin talking to each other, then we have enough in common to continue."

At the time of his death May 26, 2000, he was working on: "The Path to Perfection: A Buddhist Psychological View of Personality, growth and Development."

***********************************

‘A Remarkable Step’ : 45 American Buddhist Groups Convene, Form National Unit
by John Dart, Time Religion Writer
Los Angeles Times
November 14, 1987

Forty-five American Buddhist organizations of various ethnic and sectarian traditions have formed a national body to further their own cooperation, to educate and grow, and, perhaps eventually, to add another religious perspective to church-state debates and national issues.

“We’ve taken a remarkable step,” said the Rev. Karl Springer of Boulder, Colo., the Jewish-born co-chairman of the new American Buddhist Congress.

Looking around at the assembled Asian and Caucasian delegates, many in colorful saffron robes, Springer adjourned a three-day meeting at the Kwan Um Sa Korean Temple in Los Angeles this week with hopes of even more members joining soon.

Growth Expected

“I expect that within 90 days the membership will go up to 70 groups,” Springer said after the meeting. Many groups have expressed interest but could not send a representative, Springer said.

Organizers said that between 3 million and 5 million Buddhists may live in in the United States, but that through the Congress it may be possible next year to come up with a more exact estimate.

The body’s newly approved constitution said that all Buddhists “share a strong and fundamental common ground in the essential teachings of Lord Buddha. The most central message of nonaggression, compassion and benevolence to all beings is paramount. . . .”

Elected to chair the executive committee along with Springer were the Venerable Havanpola Ratanasara, a Sri Lankan monk living in Los Angeles, and the Rev. Do Ahn Kim, abbot of the meeting’s host temple.

Springer and Ratanasara were the principal leaders behind the Congress, which started with a call to organize in August, 1986.

If the first Congress lacked anything in representation it was the absence of the largest Japanese Buddhist groups among the founding members, Springer conceded. Interest has been shown by the San Francisco-based Buddhist Churches of America, which recently received approval from the Defense Department to certify the first Buddhist chaplains for the armed forces.

Ratanasara said the Buddhist Churches of America will first have to “get consent of all the groups in its organization.”

Resolutions approved by delegates included those which “wholeheartedly request” the government of Vietnam to release religious prisoners and which “call upon” the Chinese government “to desist from excessive population transfer and other threats to the people of Tibet” and to begin negotiations with the Dalai Lama, the self-exiled holy leader of Tibet, to protect Tibetans’ rights.

Springer and Ratanasara said it may be a few years before the American Buddhist Congress speaks to domestic issues. Buddhist Churches of America, for example, has issued statements opposing legislative attempts to permit prayer in public schools. “Maybe in four years,” Springer said. “Right now we’re concerned with organizational areas.”

Another resolution, aimed at informing more Americans about Buddhism, urged joint observances at local levels of Buddha’s birthday, also known as Vesak. Though all ethnic traditions celebrate the day in the spring, the actual dates vary.

“Everybody still celebrates their own traditional date, but at the regional level we already hold joint celebrations on a day that does not conflict with anyone’s observances,” said Ratanasara, who is also president of the large Buddhist Sangha Council of Los Angeles.

Springer said he also hopes that the Congress can achieve an agreement on a set national day for Buddha’s birthday.

Nominated for Office

Springer, 38, who said he has been a Buddhist for the last 18 years, was also approved as a suggested nominee for vice president of the World Fellowship of Buddhists, a group that will meet next fall in Los Angeles at the invitation of a Hacienda Heights temple. The international group, which only recently admitted mainland American Buddhist groups as members, has always met in Asia.

Besides the three men chosen to chair the executive committee and elected to four-year terms, the delegates elected one woman among six vice chairpersons, the Rev. Karuna Dharma of the International Buddhist Meditation Center in Los Angeles.

Others elected were the Venerable Phra Sunthorn Plamintr, Buddhist Council of the Midwest, Chicago; the Venerable Thich Thien-Thanh, Buddhist Congregation of the United States, Long Beach, Calif.; the Rev. Jomyo Tanaka Roshi, Mandala Buddhist Center, Bristol, Vt.; the Rev. Jakusho Kwong Roshi, Sonoma Mountain Zen Center, Santa Rosa, Calif., and the Venerable Kurunegoda Piyatissa, American-Sri Lanka Buddhist Assn., New York.

Officials said the Congress will meet next in New York, at the latest by 1989. The organization, which adopted a modest first-year budget of $55,000, will have two headquarters, in Los Angeles and New York, they said.

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The Importance of Interfaith Dialogue: A Buddhist perspective
An Examination of Pope John Paul II's Crossing the Threshold of Hope
A talk given at the Intermonastic Dialogue
Gethsemani Monastery, Louisville, Kentucky
July, 1996
by Ven. Havanpola Ratanasara, Ph.D.


Rabbi Alfred Wolf, Ven. Havanpola Ratanasara and Pope John Paul II - Los Angeles, California - 1987

In his published work, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, made some observations with which I, as a Buddhist, wholly agree. The Holy Father reminded us all, that "what unites us is much greater than what separates us ... It is necessary ... to rid ourselves of stereotypes, of old habits and above all, it is necessary to recognize the unity that already exists." Since all of you are already knowledgeable about the history of inter-religious dialogue, it isn't my intention to bore you by rehashing it. But I think it is worth our while to pause every now and then, to "step back" and remind ourselves just how far we've come in the last three decades. The evidence, which confirms the Pope's observation of a "unity that already exists" is most encouraging. Formal interfaith dialogue, however, does not materialize, fully developed, out of a vacuum. It evolves gradually, in response to the needs and aspirations of the broader community of which its participants are members. The "unity that already exists," of which the Pope speaks, is the life of the community, and a tacit consensus, that "what unites us" is at least as important as "what separates us." On the other hand, this pre-existing "unity" must be recognized, and positive steps taken to build on it. No less encouraging, therefore, is the evidence that what was begun some thirty years ago continues with increasing momentum.

Brief History of the Development of Inter-religious Dialogue

While in recent times interfaith dialogue has become not only national but international in its scope, I cite the experience of Los Angeles as but one example, since it is the one with which I'm most familiar. Almost from the very beginning, dialogue in Los Angeles included Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Jews, and Christians. Since it is unique in being a truly "global" community, Los Angeles provided an ideal environment for such dialogue. Over 120 languages are spoken there. And all religions and ethnic groups are represented as well, including all major Buddhist traditions, each with its own language and customs.

Formal dialogue, however, required a catalyst, and it was the Catholic Church which, by the enlightened leadership of its pontiffs, provided it. As early as 1964, in his first encyclical letter, Ecclesiam Suam, Pope Paul Vl already emphasized the need for inter-religious dialogue, an attitude which was further underscored in Nostra Aetate which was wholly dedicated to the subject indicated by title. It was Nostra Aetate however, that set the stage for the beginning of genuine interreligious dialogue. This decree initiated a fundamental change in the way the Church viewed other religions. For the first time, it encouraged dialogue with them.

For its part, the Catholic community in Los Angeles lost no time following the guidelines set by Nostra Aetate. In 1969 the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, together with representatives of the Catholic and Jewish communities, founded the Interreligious Council of Southern California (ICSC). In 1971, Buddhist communities joined in. This became the focal point of the Los Angeles dialogue. In 1974, the Catholic Archdiocese formed the Commission on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs (CEIA) to coordinate and expedite its relations with other religious communities. The work of both of these organizations continues, sponsoring ongoing dialogue, but also (and just as important), informal contacts among the various participating religious organizations. These activities have enhanced considerably mutual understanding, and a lessening of conflicts among religions

Development of dialogue after these first steps was impressive. Nostra Aetate, to its great credit, called upon Catholics to repudiate anti-Semitism in all its forms. It also encouraged them to promote dialogue between Catholics and the Jewish community. In 1977, in Malibu, an all-day conference, the first of its kind, brought together about 50 Catholic sisters, with about as many Jewish women. Since that auspicious beginning, conferences have been held annually. It's worth noting too, that in Los Angeles, the Catholic and Jewish communities had already developed strong ties prior to Nostra Aetate indeed as far back as the 1920's. And in the 1950's and 1960's Loyola University (now Loyola Marymount) became a meeting place for members of the two faiths, and the American Jewish Committee did much to encourage this. During this period, however, such contacts were mostly informal, but nonetheless important. Most significant as well, have been the activities of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, which has its headquarters in Los Angeles, and is dedicated to combating racial and religious bigotry.

Through the initiatives of both of the organizations I mentioned earlier (ICSC and CEIA), meaningful informal exchanges with the Buddhist community were begun, and have continued apace. A highlight of this process was a visit by Pope John Paul II to Los Angeles in 1987. In 1989, the Los Angeles Buddhist-Catholic Dialogue began. It marked the beginning of a formal Buddhist-Catholic communication. It was sponsored by the Buddhist Sangha Council of Southern California and the Catholic Office of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs. A commemorative pamphlet published in 1991 described this as a "very early and preliminary dialogue, with a great need for mutual patience and simply getting to know one another."

This is certainly true. But what I think is most significant is that this formal dialogue in fact conferred recognition on what had already been happening, more informally, for almost twenty years. And this "informal" communication continues to the present day, alongside more formal or "official" dialogue. This suggests that the mandate for our dialogue, far from being "imposed from on high," whether by Nostra Aetate or anything else, is an expression of a genuine respect and friendship, which, I would like to think, would be happening anyway. As a document prepared by the Vatican's Secretariat for Non-Christians puts it: "Dialogue does not grow out of the opportunism of the tactics of the moment, but arises from reasons which experience and reflection, and even the difficulties themselves, have deepened." This is not to suggest, of course, that Nostra Aetate did not provide the impetus to get it going; it surely did. But if the will to carry it forward had not existed, I think we would not be meeting here today.

Also encouraging, is the evidence of international interreligious dialogue. In 1979, The World Council of Churches first published its Guidelines on Dialogue with People of Living Faiths and Ideologies. In the index to the fourth edition of that publication, I counted 75 major international meetings concerned with interreligious dialogue, from 1969 to 1989. And most recently, in Summer 1995, the Vatican Pontifical Council for ~ Interreligious Dialogue organized a Buddhist-Christian Colloquium in Taiwan. It was attended by 10 Christians and 10 Buddhist scholars, as well as four members of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, and many monks and nuns from a monastery in Taiwan, as well as some of the Catholic Bishops in Taiwan. The attending scholars came from Japan, Taiwan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Italy, and the United States. The very fact that an international colloquium at such a high level was taking place at all, seems to me, a most auspicious development.

The Prospects for an Ongoing Dialogue

Perhaps the only mistake we can make now, is to allow our optimism to become complacency. While it is true that much has been accomplished by way of interfaith dialogue, there remain significant stumbling blocks to its longevity. One of the most enduring impediments to dialogue is the belief by members of the various religions, that by participating in it they may be compromising their own beliefs. I would like to address this concern.

In his book which I cited at the beginning of this address, the Holy Father, with characteristic eloquence, makes another point with which any Buddhist would find it hard to disagree, and which states an important principle on which dialogue can go forward: "... there is basis for dialogue and for the growth of unity, a growth that should occur at the same rate at which we are able to overcome our divisions --- divisions that to a great degree result from the idea that one can have a monopoly on truth." For a Buddhist, his or her faith is no bar to dialogue with other religions. The reason is that Buddhism is neither a system of dogmas, nor a doctrine of "salvation" as that term is generally understood in theistic religions. The Buddha exhorted his disciples to take nothing on blind faith, not even his words. Rather, they should listen, and then examine the teachings for themselves, so that they might be convinced of its truth.

Once, when the Buddha was visiting a market town called Kesaputta, the local people, known as the Kalamas, sought his advice. Wandering ascetics and teachers used to visit the town from time to time, and were not reticent about propagating their own particular religious and philosophical doctrines, and at the same time disparaging I the teachings of others.

The Buddha advised them in this way:

"It is proper for you, Kalamas, to doubt, to be uncertain, do not be led by reports, or tradition, or hearsay. Do not be led by the authority of religious texts, nor by mere logic or inference, nor by considering appearances; nor by delight in speculative opinions, nor by seeming possibilities, nor by the idea, this ascetic is our teacher. But rather, when you yourselves know [that] certain things are unwholesome and wrong, [that such] things are censured by the wise, and when undertaken, such things lead to harm, [then] abandon them. And when you yourselves know [that] certain things are unwholesome and good, [that such] things are approved by the wise, and when undertaken such things lead to benefit and happiness, [then] enter on and abide in them."

What the Buddha's teaching offers, then, is an intellectual and spiritual "crutch," that we may use until we I are able to tread the path to liberation and Enlightenment alone. While the teachings of other religions do have much in common with Buddhism, the latter is unique in its emphasis on this point. As the Buddha put it: "One is indeed, one's own savior, for what other savior could there be? When one is in control of oneself, one obtains a savior difficult to find." The Buddha compared his doctrine, the Dhamma, to a raft which one uses to cross over a lake or stream, but is left behind when one reaches shore. It would make no sense to continue lugging the raft about, once it had served its purpose. So attachment to doctrine for its own sake, be it religious, political, or ideological, is illogical from a Buddhist's point of view. It follows then, that a Buddhist needn't fear "losing" his faith by coming into contact with the faiths of others.

This principle of "eclecticism" has, in my view, two corollaries. The first is that differences between faiths should not be overdrawn, or created where none exist. For example, in his book, the Pope characterizes Buddhist soteriology as almost exclusively negative.

This he explains in the following way:

"We do not free ourselves from evil through the good which comes from God; we liberate ourselves only through detachment from the world, which is bad. The fullness of such a detachment is not union with God, but what is called nirvana, a state of perfect indifference with regard to the world. To save oneself means, above all, to free oneself from evil by becoming indifferent to the world, which is the source of evil. This is the culmination of the spiritual process."

Now, it seems that such "indifference" to the world, were it true, would be but a step removed from contempt for the world. And nothing could be farther removed from the Buddhist attitude. In fact, it was out of love for the world, that the Buddha spent 45 years of his life teaching. Nor was he reticent about involving himself in what today, we would call "social issues." On one occasion, in fact, he intervened to prevent what started as a petty squabble over land ownership, from developing into armed conflict. And many Buddhist traditions emphasize the Bodhisattva ideal. This means that even one who has achieved liberation vows to remain in samsara (the cycle of birth and death), until all sentient beings have been enlightened. It is difficult, in Buddhist terms at least, to imagine an altruism more encompassing than this.

The second corollary is that we must be no less candid about our differences than we are sanguine about our similarities. Sometimes Buddhists who are highly regarded in the Buddhist community, and whose words therefore carry an aura of authority, lose sight of this principle. In a misguided zeal to promote an ecumenical atmosphere, they misrepresent the Buddhist position, by making it more compatible with the beliefs of other religions than it actually is. For example, in his (1995) work, Thich Nhat Hanh attempted to attenuate the doctrine of "not-self" (anatta) by suggesting that the Buddha did not really mean what he said. Such attempts to water down basic Buddhist principles tends to have the opposite effect of that intended, because other participants will then express opinions on Buddhism, based upon what they have heard, believing that they have it on good authority. As a result, their remarks will appear to their Buddhist colleagues as ill-informed or disparaging of Buddhism.

What I am actually talking about here are canons of sound scholarship which all participants in the dialogue should recognize and try to honor. When non-Buddhists express opinions on Buddhism, they should take care to do their homework. Informed comments not only engender ill feelings, but an attitude of condescension on the other side. Genuine dialogue, however, is possible only in an atmosphere of mutual respect, based upon a consensus that it is being conducted among equals. And, this is obviously no less true when Buddhists talk about Christianity or other religions. At the same time, it is necessary that all of us remain committed to an open forum, where the participants are free to express ideas and views without fear of recrimination for "political incorrectness." It may happen that certain religious communities who are only recently part of the dialogue and therefore new to its ways, will be unable to "find their tongue" when others make criticisms which seem to them unjustified or ill-informed. Their first inclination, then, will almost naturally be to want to silence their critics. This is all the more reason why the representatives of each faith should be aware of the special needs of others. And again, this means each member should recognize a responsibility to familiarize himself with the traditions of the others.

These caveats, however, are not merely a paraphrase of the old saw, "lf you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." As Buddhists, we cannot and do not close our eyes to the evil and injustice in the world. We are no less bound than our Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu brethren to take a stand on it. The easy part, of course, is staking out a position when we agree with each other. No religion that deserves to be taken seriously condones slavery or oppression in any form. Both the Pope and his predecessors have issued encyclicals sternly condemning political and religious persecution, as well as reproving the excesses of all forms of economic organization, capitalist, socialist, or communist. And Buddhists would be the first to agree. The hard part is taking a stand, when we disagree with each other. And this I identify as a second potential stumbling block to interfaith dialogue. Buddhists have often said what everyone knows, but is all too easily forgotten, that harsh or idle words, once uttered, cannot be retracted. They remain "out there," to poison the ambiance in which dialogue takes place, and may, in the few seconds required to utter them, undo what has taken years to accomplish. On the other hand, we cannot and will not always agree; and none of us can hope to enjoy the approval of everyone all the time. As the Buddha reminded us, "there never was, there never will be, nor does there exist now, a person who is wholly praised or wholly blamed." The very fact we are here, however, and expressing our willingness to talk to each other, suggests that we --- all of us --- must be doing something right!

Reflection on this second potential impediment to dialogue at once reveals a second reason why it should continue. In the WCC's booklet, Guidelines on Dialogue, to which I alluded earlier, the author remarks that "[i]t is easy to discuss religions and even ideologies as though they existed in some realm of calm quite separate from the sharp divisions, conflicts and sufferings of humankind." I wholly agree, and not only, but all Buddhists would agree with the author when he suggests that "[r]eligions and ideologies often contribute to the disruption of communities and the suffering of those whose community life is broken." Religious differences have often been the most deeply rooted and destructive of all. If we, as representatives of the world's major religions, can show the rest of the world that we can communicate with each other, they just might come to realize that there is no reason why they cannot do the same.

In Buddhism, virtuous conduct (sila) includes "right speech" (samma vaca). And by practicing the virtue of right speech in the context of dialogue, we will be setting an example for the larger community to emulate. As I pointed out earlier, dialogue already takes place as a part of the life of the community, even before it becomes formal. The many problems which beset our communities, indeed all mankind, at the close of this century are articulated in the political forum --- the environment, nuclear proliferation, international terrorism, human rights, urban violence, social justice, and the like. Representatives of the religious community, therefore, are drawn into the fray. The only question is whether we will rise to the occasion.

I would like to focus upon just one of these issues --- one indeed, that must concern us as representatives of the world's religions --- religious intolerance and persecution. Not only has it not disappeared, but it is actually on the rise in many parts of the world, and has shown itself in shameful incidents, even in our own country, and even within the last few weeks.

A recent spate of Church bombings has elicited a formal response from the White House, and has alarmed the public out of its characteristic lethargy. In fact, on the very day that I was working on this address, I happened to glance at the daily paper, only to see on the front page, a heart-rending picture of a 92-year old black minister standing in front of what was left of his church, in Boligee, Alabama. Let me put it in his words: "The last Sunday we were in [our church] I had a real good sermon. And there wasn't any quarrel in the church. My sermon was about turning over a new life, to start a new thing, to start living better, to start working together, to live in the Spirit of God, to get along. Four days later they called me. My daughter drove me back out there. And it was all burned down. It was gone. The church was all down in ashes, just one wall and one corner still standing. The other walls had fallen in, and there was nothing left but ashes. So I said a prayer, and I asked the Lord to take charge. I asked the Lord to take control of it. I asked him two things. I asked him to help me build another church. And I asked him to tell us who did it. Because he's the Lord. He knows.'' The very same day the Times reported that a church in South-central Los Angeles had received its second arson threat.

As a Buddhist, who with great sadness must watch what is happening to his Christian brethren, I am reminded of the words of the Buddha: "Yo appadutthassa narassa dussati suddhassa posassa ananganassa. Tam eva balam pacceti papam sukkhumo rajo pativatam' va khitto." ("Whoever harms a harmless person, one pure and guiltless, upon that very fool the evil recoils like a fine dust thrown against the wind.") When I see things like this happening, I find it difficult to forgive the perpetrators, even though I know I must. The Buddha told his monks that "even if bandits were to sever you savagely limb by limb with a two-handed saw, he who gave rise to a mind of hate towards them would not be carrying out my teaching." As a Buddhist I do not profess to know whether Christ ever really healed the sick, raised up a cripple, made the blind see, the deaf hear, or raised the dead. But I do know that he never made anyone lame, or blind, or mute; nor did he ever put anyone to death. He was at the very least a good, compassionate, and virtuous human being; he was, indeed, everything that the Buddha was, and taught us what we should be. Even though we (and I speak now not only as a Buddhist, but as a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu, as a human being, as one of you) . . I say, even though we may wonder whether we can find it in our hearts to forgive those who harm us, who beat us, kill us, defame us, or burn our churches and temples, we must remember that Christ himself had no second thoughts about those who persecuted him, beat him, spat upon him, and even killed him. He forgave them from the cross; can we do less?

And this is why we must continue our dialogue; this is why we must talk! The only alternative to talk is the build up of resentment and anger, which in time must inevitably become open hostility and conflict. Nor can religions take the attitude that they will start talking, when they have "settled scores." As the Buddha reminds us, "In those who harbor such thoughts as 'he abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me,' hatred is not appeased." In Buddhism there are few instances of "eternal truths," and so, when the Buddha himself declares something so to be, we have to assume that he really meant it. In an often quoted verse, the Buddha stated that "[h]atreds never cease through hatred in this world; through love alone do they cease. This is an eternal law." And did not Jesus say, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you"? And again, in St. Paul's letter to the Romans, we read: "Bless those who persecute you; never curse them bless them resist evil and conquer it with good."

Concluding Note

The Pope's conviction, then, that what unites us is greater than what separates us offers firm ground upon which to continue building an edifice in which all faiths can feel at home. I, as a Buddhist, believe that Buddhism is a "universal" religion, in the sense that it is concerned with the fundamental human condition, and thus with the problem of suffering, first and foremost. The Buddha said, "it is suffering I teach, and the cessation of suffering." But in this respect it is like other religions, and Christianity in particular. For it too, is concerned with the problem of suffering. As the Pope himself reminds us, "Stat crux dum volvitur orbis." ("The cross remains constant while the world turns.") For Christians (as well as other theistic religions), this observation has at once led philosophers and theologians to seek an answer to a most perplexing question: since there is obviously evil in the world, how can God permit it? The Buddhist is no less aware of, and concerned about, the reality of evil and suffering. But for us, the question is not how God can permit it, but rather, what are we going to do about it?

In any case, the corollary of the universality of suffering is not that we claim that everyone should be a Buddhist, but rather that, with respect to the fundamental problem with which Buddhism is concerned, everyone already is a "Buddhist," whether he accepts that name or not. Referring to Hinduism and Buddhism, the Holy Father states that "[t]he Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. The Church has a high regard for their conduct and way of life, for those precepts and doctrines which, although differing on many points from that which the Church believes and propounds, often reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens all men." On this point, I must mention a comment by Francis Cardinal Arinze, President of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. In one of the most gracious gestures of the Church in our memory, a letter sent this year to the Buddhist community, the Cardinal extended his wishes for a "Happy feast of Vesakh." Vesakh is the day on which Buddhists commemorate the birth, Enlightenment, and death of the Buddha. True to the spirit of its founder, Buddhism has been renowned throughout its history for its tolerance of other beliefs and values. But as the Cardinal reminds us, this is not enough. He points out that "the pluralistic society in which we live demands more than mere tolerance. Tolerance is usually thought of as putting up with the other, or at best as a code of polite conduct. Yet this resigned, lukewarm attitude does not create the right atmosphere for a [truly] harmonious existence. The spirit of our religions challenges us to go beyond this. We are commanded in fact love our neighbors as ourselves." And in the Dhammapada the Buddha exhorts us: "Conquer anger by love, conquer evil by good; conquer avarice by giving; conquer the liar by truth."

Now, it seems to me that since we are so ready to I embrace each other, and claim that we are already honorary members of each other's religion, there is really no reason why we cannot continue talking. We are alike in that we all suffer, and our primary concern is the end of suffering; this is what we call liberation. As His Holiness the Dalai Lama has put it: "I am interested not in converting other people to Buddhism but in how we Buddhists can contribute to human society, according to our own ideas." And I have always maintained, and maintain today, that if we had enough in common thirty years ago to begin talking to each other, then we have enough in common to continue.