Chaitanya Jyothi Museum Opening, 2000

RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.

Countrymen,

ORBIS NON SUFFICIT
SOLUS DEUS SUFFICIT

I was asked whether any of the historical/theological statements in this fiction are true.

The answer is, No.

Notes – not discourse – amplifying that answer follow.

The author says that faith is acceptance of what cannot be proved. A curious statement given the impossibility of proving anything (Godel). Also ludicrous. Faith is a condition of the whole self created by God in an act of Grace. It is existential. Proof and non-proof, in the sense of scientific empiricism, have nothing to do with faith. Faith is a gifted experience that cannot be compelled and therefore is not predictably replicable. Past that, no theologian will bother responding to the author’s inanity in this particular.

This is a misogynist’s pornography book, aiming to promote group meetings for lurid sexual activity, or, voyeurism of the same.

Religion does not bring a message. It is a response to a condition, a fresh start in view of an experience of New Being, a living following upon a salvation that is also a revelation by God of Himself. It cannot be written or encoded in any medium. It can be gifted by God as Himself, not as a message.

Sathya Sai Baba: My life is my message. Expansion is my life.

He, Being Itself, as experienced unambiguously in the midst of existential conditions, which are entirely ambiguous. Religion is the response to that experience in which the yearning for ultimacy and meaning is answered.

There are no secrets in God. He is He is the only content.

This reality or truth, He Himself, He can communicate with/to/in/for/by anyone, directly, in their own heart, without mediation of word, sacrament, ritual etc., meaning, immediately.

He only is worth having. All the secrets in the world are mere baubles. He knows the content of every heart and nothing is hidden from Him. Secrets are tinsel and trash. God is no secret. To pursue secrets is pornography.

The attractiveness of this book is not its content so much as its literary technique, which might be characterized as literary coitus interruptus.

The author appears unaware that the Templar and Jerusalem Crosses, with arms splayed at their outer extremities, is a construction of four Greek letter Tau’s (T). It is a symbol for the providential fulfillment of life, the consummation or complete infolding of life’s inner aim.

The author appears to believe and has one character say, Nothing in Christianity is original. This is on a level with another English pederast, Norman Douglas: … the quaint Alexandrian tutti-frutti known as Christianity. No theologian is going to respond to such statements or sentiments.

Complete misrepresentation of Council of Nicaea, all aspects, hilariously. Again, no theologian would respond. Truth expands itself and nonsense destroys itself.

The author mischaracterizes paganism as well as Christianity, unfair to both. And Hieros Gamos? Not even close. He makes Hieros Gamos a male fulfillment ritual … apparently none for the female. Misogynist. Very Jewish, but considering the target audience for Best Seller books (a genre, not an event) is Jewish matrons in Westchester County, no wonder.

It was Jewish females who started the women’s lib movement. If The Da Vinci Code is a measure of success, there has been none! Women of religion have no need for women’s lib.

Constantine made no bible nor commissioned one. St. Jerome did, from private sources, his own and Paula’s, and on his own initiative. Constantine was an Arian – a heretic! Any statement of faith – and the Nicene Creed was the best possible at the time and still has not been superceded – by virtue of its finitude, is ambiguous and partial. None could ever be otherwise.

So the question is, what was being aimed at and how well was that achieved? Nicaea aimed to resolve several seminal problems and solved all of them in the best manner available. None can ask more and many have achieved less.

Moreover, it is lying, cheating and stealing to overlook the seriousness of man’s religious, cultural and moral life as focused by clearly definitive historical events, such as the Council of Nicaea, and prefer instead a deconstructed (aka morbidly misanthropic) raving that represents itself only.

The feminine is all through the church – everywhere. BTW, when the author speaks of the church he means, with one partial, non-germane exception, the Vatican. He leaves out Protestantism and Orthodoxy from his tear-down of the church!

No comment called for.

The sacred feminine or Mary Magdalene is a non-issue. Had there been some truth that could upset the church, it would have done so long, long ago. There is none. Do you see Rome or Protestants or Orthodox getting enraged by The Da Vinci Code? Why should they? Nothing there is unknown and nothing comes even close to essentials, either of the Vatican, the Church in whole or religion in general.

The book is queer-oriented, despite its apparent down of male and up of females. The men of the story are the experts and principal actors in everything and the female is the student and minor actor. How patronizing!

Also, in the orgy – aka Sacred Feminine Ritual – and more importantly in its rationalization, the man’s not the woman’s fulfillment is sought. Precisely the point the Jewish females who started women’s lib made – and they were right. Where there is misogyny there is queering as its cause. Men are never misogynists. Only queers are.

Misrepresentation of original sin – again, ludicrously. Original sin (a misleading phrase itself; better is estrangement as a condition of existence) is an existential condition consequent on actualization, on the movement from essence, which is innocent, to existence, which is ambiguous.

Reverence for the feminine is painted as pagan and not religious. On the contrary, not only is it religious but also paganism does not universally or automatically show signs of reverence for the feminine: Mayans, Africans, Semites including especially Arabs, Mexicans, Central and South Americans in general, anyone?

The author has composed a queer screed, thus its popularity in this tutti-frutti commercialized/dehumanized social rubric queers have been allowed to create and force humans to live under – all the fault of humans … and destiny, which is changing for the better, BTW, thanks be to God!

The assertion that the church suppressed Mary Magdalene as the sacred feminine is nonsense. She in fact left Jesus to be a Judaizing missionary in France, after his return from the tomb. She was unfaithful, which comes down to us in the tag whore, which on its face that we see is far from the truth but on its face as the cultural context of the day is accurate and therefore true.

Mary Magdalene was a lady, no whore as we use the word. She was of as prominent a family as Jesus was, but hers was wealthy as well, as his was not. Nor was he ever wealthy, although he moved in the orbit of wealth and influence, e.g., the Bethany neighborhood of Jerusalem, as befitted his lineage.

The truth cannot be suppressed. Truth always and everywhere prevails. Had there been some suppressed truth about Mary Magdalene it would have emerged long ago.

The memory of what is not important to salvation decays and disappears over time. The story of Mary after she left Jesus is of that kind: unimportant to salvation and therefore decaying and disappearing. Partisans may try to keep notions alive, but these will only be notions – such as comprise this book. For example, see its concluding description of the sacred feminine – unrelated to the facts of Mary’s career and meaning.

Salvation is the goal, the key to events. This author assumes that salvation is some news, some unknown facts yet to be revealed. This is not even good humanism! This author has low taste and high ability for promoting it. He deserves his money.

What does not serve the interests and aim of salvation is fogotten, as well it should be. No suppression is present in such a case. The thing disappearing simply was not important, so it was forgotten.

There are no secrets.

As the church was not outraged by Holy Blood Holy Grail and its follow on, so it cannot be outraged by The Da Vinci Code and its certain follow on. Nothing new, no threat there, so the church remains calm, unconcerned.

Rama had children and this did not undermine his mission or his status. God’s will cannot be impeded. To think that the church believes Jesus could not have children because that would undermine his divinity betrays misunderstanding of everything, including the uses and purpose of language itself. It is an unanswerable ignorance. Or, as W. C. Fields put it: “Never try to smarten up a chump.”

All depends on, is governed by, the mission, which is salvation.

The fact is, Mary deserted Jesus for the South of France in order to remain with the Judaizing Herodian mission, which mission turned out to be where her heart really was.

See Barbara Thiering on this and related points. She is right! When Barbara and Margaret Starbird see eye-to-eye, then we will have something useful. One tried some years ago but did not succeed.

The author implies that eros is sexual love. Another hilarity. Libido is love for an inferior. Philia is love for an equal. Eros is love for a superior. Agape is love that is self-less. The acts called sex should include all of these types of love. If they do not, they are demonic, not human acts.

The author wants to make the feminine an independent divine principle. This cannot be done without creating an ontological dualism, a point of view that cannot stand the light of day. His understanding of the feminine principle is weak-minded, egregiously ignorant and unproductive – again, note that in the Hieros Gamos Ritual only the man’s fulfillment is sought. The author’s vision of the feminine is demonic.  He is queer or writing for queers.

The historical/theological content of this book is zero. Therefore, so is its value for salvation.

AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA