In the Name of The Master of Judgment

For those of us fortunate to live in the first world, if we have been blessed enough to have been born in a station where we do not have to struggle greatly simply for survival, it is a time in which much we could desire is at our reach.  Food, drink, entertainment, and music, all of these are easily and can be rather inexpensive.  Other pleasures both legal and illicit add more depth to the understanding of this world.  In these times, we find ourselves bombarded everywhere we go.  We are saturated and chained to the point of having no privacy whatsoever … shattering our intimacy and private moments needed by our family, and wanted by our Lover.  The senses bombarded constantly, especially for those in big metropolises; it takes discipline and periods of refreshment.  How often have we wanted that special time only to be interrupted by a mobile phone call?  Vibrant colors, strong fragrances, loud sound, the clamor of transport, the dust of movement, the heat of corporate clothing, the bright sun seems magnified by the fortresses of metal, glass, stone, and cement.  It is then not difficult to understand how many people simply become automatons until freed from their work.  Masks are worn as we are all in a great human drama which unfortunately is going in a direction that can be life-sapping.  In our quest for certainty and simplicity, it is important to try to set aside time for a healthy solitude.

Life in a Metropolis: Chaotic but Structured

Fall and winter approach.  Both allow us time in their very nature to contemplate life.  As the holiday weekends approach—namely the secular Thanksgiving weekend, and the December holiday season which contains the Christian and Jewish holidays of Christmas and Hannukkah—an opportunity presents itself for a period of contemplation and mild detachment.  For the Muslims, the most sacred month of Ramadan offers this very chance.  This need not be understood as completely separating oneself from the world, but a period of enjoying an increasingly forgotten simplicity.  It is a time to refresh and recharge, but also a time to try to reconnect with that which we must all eventually confront.  Odd is it may seem to “isolate” oneself, it can be necessary at times as it can allow the mind to be in some way restored to a state of clarity and perceptiveness we forget because of the numbness needed for modern life.  To slow down, to feel, to increase our perceptiveness, to increase our clarity, to learn something new beyond our work lives, to rekindle connections with those important to us, and to focus on our spiritual lives.

Reality can be complex, but understanding and appreciating it does not have to be!

This fall and this winter, use whatever free time to you have to genuinely and gently drop-out in order to be refreshed.  For those of us in very important positions it may not be possible to completely separate from our professional lives, but an exercise in judgment can help a lot of us make the most of what free time we have in the season of austerity.  Work to complete the circle and find a healthy medium so needed, so rare in this realm of medication, disorders, self-dosing, and weariness.  The most important aspects of your existence depend on you being at your best; the best will also know their flaws and so will the best for them understand and be merciful.

Bound to the Will of The Most Gracious

            It is not odd to feel alienated today.  In fact, the rates of alienation are increasing.  We are separated more than ever from our surroundings, from the people in our lives, from our work, and in some cases are barred from truly experiencing emotions: we have become detached and not in the way fostered by ascetic religious pathways.  For some of these people—those not mentally ill, or who simply manage to find satisfaction in this way of life—this is not an issue because they are content with their lot.  It is not a stretch of truth to say that there is a supernatural mirror to this physical reality: many of us have become distant from spirituality.  This means a true spirituality—an experience with God in proper form—rather than a shallow lingering at the surface.  It is an eternal quest to rekindle an old friendship with a lover and a friend for God is The Friend and The Lover of those who can open their hearts to Hum.  Like a human relationship, a Divine relationship also takes effort, requires sacrifice, needs understand, and demands acceptance of both good and evil in it.  In our atmosphere of rampant individualism, the necessity of seeking authentic spirituality is paramount.

Life becomes barren when we lack what we need.

What is authentic, you ask?  While a human being may understand spirituality to an extent, they do not always know authenticity, orthodoxy, or a proper understanding of rite.  To be authentic in your spirituality—to truly excel in cultivation—requires the points already addressed, but it also requires the choice of a living religion.  The serious embracing of a religion can be difficult for many, even those who are mentally and emotionally allied with a holistic worldview simply because it requires the lessening of their individuality and the self-denial of their freedoms.  Seekers must also find the correct interpretations in their newfound religions so that they can develop properly by not being stifled by ideas of political or legal extremism.  In the Islamic faith, the example laid down in the ahadeeth of Muhammad stresses the moderate enjoyment of what has been allowed and in constant mild-tempered behavior coupled with good deeds.  One can also find warnings against sectarian behavior for these traditions are very broad even in their conservative forms; most raised in hedonism will not see it, but even they can have change of heart.  Authenticity principally lies in the established religions which for those of us here in the West is the tradition of Abraham: Islam, Christianity, and Judaism.  Cults, “movements,” and new age systems do not offer anything positive with the latter more a form of self-help with spiritual underpinnings meant for cash from corrupt “gurus.”

Why is seeking it so necessary?  To reconnect with the Almighty whose Radiance pervades existence is the priority of many people.  Even those so enamored with materialism in science and mathematics are seeking answers.  That they do so wanting to do good is encouraging, but their materialism is its own folly as it can prevent a wider understanding of Divine reality because of its insistence on solely understanding physical phenomena.  The deductionist model is acceptable in the viewing of the merely physical manifestation of reality as it is rational, simple, logical, and has great yield.  Spirituality is not something with can be reduced to its parts.  It requires a willingness to cultivate a sense of holistic understanding in which everything is properly separate, but also properly interconnected.  This is necessary to re-center humanity in its proper role as guardian, steward, and user instead of predator and exploiter on Earth.  It also reestablishes the guideline for communication with God.  We are subordinate to The Fashioner of what we know.  One cannot simply desire something, but out of fear not act on it, and then expect an improvement or change.  This may seem elementary, but the entrance to an entirely new world—a new facet—can be a daunting task.  Strive, strive, and strive.

Even though barren, we can still find something of worth in the desert.

The individual, the human being, attains a level of completeness in his spiritual development when focused on its way.  Therefore in our zeal to follow our selves’ desires we are neglecting important parts of our very selves which need attention.  Such a message may seem paradoxical to newcomers, but religion is not anti-individual at all; individualism is anti-tradition.  Our full worth rests in our deeds and intentions as these are just husks of flesh and bone which will in turn give way to soil and dust.  Our full worth can be unleashed in understanding, embracing, and cultivating a spiritual love.

In societies which hold the individual as the focus of ideological progress, many people become excited at the idea of becoming “different” or more “original.” Westerners tend to cherish individuality to the point of rebellion, attempting to stand out and draw attention to themselves by their lifestyle, clothing, hairstyles, or adoptive cultural tendencies. In the last few decades, a variety of people – from Christian apostates and atheists, to crypto-Marxists and reform Jews – have been part of an interesting current.  Perhaps, in an attempt to reject the “old clothes” of Christendom, they have decided to take on the “new clothes” of Buddhism.  In America and Europe, the s0-called “progressives” are attracted by the mere idea that it is a an ultra-permissive religion and the antithesis of Western thought.  Those Western individuals find Buddhism “exotic” and are spurred on mostly by the superstitious, secret, and arcane qualities they perceive in this religion.

Such people convert under a spell of delusion, because ultra-permissiveness is not inherently associated with traditional Buddhism, any more that it is associated with Christianity.  In this sense, the when progressives attempt to incorporate Buddhism into their lifestyle, they are in reality attempting to hijack Buddhist ideas for themselves and make them fit into their secularist lifestyle.

Much of Buddhism in the West has been combined, in varying degrees, with the New Age movement.  The New Age movement has little to do with any of the mainstream branches of traditional Buddhism. As the eminent scholar, A. K. Coomaraswamy once stated, Buddhism today is “most famous today for everything it originally never taught.”  In the East, where Buddhism existed under the patronage of the Chinese, Indian, Tibetan, or Japanese cultures, there was a certain regard for tradition, self-cultivation, and  a metaphor for the divergence of heroic spirit from the sentiments of modern people.  According to these versions of Buddhism, a man can, as Evola describes it, “overcome the state of caducity, restlessness, ‘thirst’ and the forgetfulness typical of ordinary people” by his secession from the visible and material world.  In this doctrine, there is a metaphor for the divergence of heroic spirit from the sentiments of modern people. 

‘Western’ Buddhism – if there is even such a thing – is the exact opposite of this.  In fact, it overtly panders to the sentiments of modernity.  Buddhism, as practiced by many people in the West, exists in name only, attracting the most miserable ex-Christian rejects and atheists. It has degenerated into an extremely sick religion inhabited by atheists, agnostics, and at best, pantheists. These people congregate together at ‘dharma-centers’, which are little more than outpatient mental wards for depressed materialists, and engage in idle chatter about attainment of oblivion and the denial of all things spiritual. The crisis of Western Buddhism is therefore characterized only by secularism and its worldly character.  This criticism is supported by clear textual evidence (atthakathas), which can not merely be explained away as a matter of diverging interpretations, or even the product of historical evolution. The modern, revisionist, version of Buddhism lends itself to an unspiritual historical exegesis according to the letter. It is an exegesis which virtually ignores a deeper meaning implied in the Nikayas and explained in the commentaries. As an example, Siddhartha said “the six senses and their world are not the soul” (cf. Chachakha Sutta, MN 3). It seems odd, then, that modern Buddhists should say of the Buddha that he taught the rejection of the soul, because this would mean clinging to the six senses. Rather than denial of the soul, the Buddhism does teach one to distinguish the distinguish predicates of the soul from the very soul itself, and thus transcend base instincts.

Western Buddhism is almost entirely modernist.  Contrary to what its purveyors might believe, it is not ancient or traditional, and certainly not traditionalist.  Western Buddhism has been heavily influenced by the concepts of freethought and secular humanism. It has become a platform for mundane social activists, who incorrectly fancy themselves “experts” on the topic because of their involvement in purchasing all manner of trinkets and implements.  The fact is that Western Buddhists largely ignore any aspect of Buddhism which requires self-discipline, as they have distorted the original message of Buddhism into an amoral doctrine in order to mix politics and religion.

If the modern portrayal of Buddhism is representative of the teaching of the Buddha, then it is certainly an ingenious exposition which can prove war to be peace and freedom to be slavery.  However, if the premises of this portrayal are flawed, then the modern explanation of Buddhism is certainly not worth studying except as a lesson regarding the famous “principle of degeneration” which was already well-discussed by other Traditionalists like Evola. Traditional Buddhists worldwide need to take back the religion from the modernist heretics, and not allow Buddhism to turn into a rubbish-heap of mystical spiritual suicide and nihilism.

The author of this article was raised in a Buddhist family.  He is currently a Roman Catholic.

Among critics of Islam, there few voices more prominent than the revisionist Irshad Manji.  Calling herself a “refuseniks,” Manji has been praised in the media, along other radical feminists such as Wafa Sultan and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, for their virulent denunciations of Islam and Muhammad.  Western pundits praise Manji for her “bravery,” and portray her as a courageous woman who is fighting fighting oppression and marching bravely forth toward the so-called democratic-atheistic values of the West.  Contributing her appeal is Manji’s persona herself: she is an ethnic minority in Canada and a radical lesbian feminist who voices solidarity with great liberal values of the secular and multicultural state, making her the ideal candidate to be the overaged poster-child of politically correct demagogues. Continue Reading

On 8 September 1907, Pope St. Pius X issued the encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis, which condemned modernism in relation to the Roman Catholic religion, which, in part, translated from the original Latin, reads:

Undoubtedly, were anyone to attempt the task of collecting together all the errors that have been broached against the faith and to concentrate into one the sap and substance of them all, he could not succeed in doing better than the Modernists have done. Nay, they have gone farther than this, for [...] their system means the destruction not of the Catholic religion alone, but of all religion.

In order to understand this proposition, let us consider, first, what the Catholic church defines as Modernism, which may be found in the Catholic Encyclopedia:

An exaggerated love of what is modern…The modern ideas of which we speak are not as old as the period called “modern times”. Though Protestantism has generated them little by little, it did not understand from the beginning that such would be its sequel…In general we may say that modernism aims at that radical transformation of human thought in relation to God, man, the world, and life, here and hereafter…

A full definition of modernism would be rather difficult. First it stands for certain tendencies, and secondly for a body of doctrine which, if it has not given birth to these tendencies (practice often precedes theory), serves at any rate as their explanation and support. Such tendencies manifest themselves in different domains. They are not united in each individual, nor are they always and everywhere found together. Modernist doctrine, too, may be more or less radical, and it is swallowed in doses that vary with each one’s likes and dislikes.

In particular, the crisis that the Catholic church faced at the time may be described as three-fold: first, the character of Scripture had been reduced to its materialist view, stripped of its higher meanings, or even worse, disregarded selectively as being merely historical relic.  Such a problem can still be seen not only among those who accept the Second Vatican Council, but among many camps of self-proclaimed Christians today.  In such quarters, Christianity has been reduced to a lukewarm faith of people who continually revise their faith to fit the spirit of the times.

Second, through the idea of democracy, the importance of the hereafter was denied, and secular cults were promoted as the competitor to belief in the Catholic faith.  Since secularism and democracy promote the idea that man bears no responsibility to the Divine, this implied the creation of a society arranged around the potential of a comfortable earthly life.  As a consequence, it allowed for the infiltration of every type of moral impropriety into the daily lives of Catholics.

 Last, an attempt to combine the vocabularies, epistemological, and metaphysics of modern philosophers with that of the Church Fathers occurred, so as to make them compatible with the newly-emerging secular world.

Perhaps, if we can truly understand why the Catholics had been concerned about the state of their faith in 1910, we can also understand why other faiths, particularly the Islamic faith, feels themselves to be in the midst of a crisis.  Such ideas are actively being promoted by the globalist, controlled media, and perhaps with a more hostile face than in the past.  People who make policies in the name of the post-Christian west feel that the Muslim world is such a threat to the modernist way of life that the entire industrialized world must be mobilized against it in order to bring them to democracy and modernism.  Such people, which include not only politicians, but also banksters, media moguls, and pseudo-intellectuals wish for Muslims to renounce their way of life and reject what they feel to be Divine Revelation.

Those well versed in history will perhaps be able to note that during the French Revolution, the idea of total war combined with the spread of militant secularism were the main themes.  Such themes are once again being promoted in an attempt to destabilize the Islamic world, just as they were used to destabilize France.

From Pope Pius X’s stark warning over a century ago, to the troubled period of the early 21st century, the message remains the same. While the encyclical is addressed to the Roman Catholics in particular, the message can be heard by all the religious traditions of the world in general.  It is an exhortation to strength in the face of militant secularism which denies faith, and the worship of the individual instead of God.

In the Oath Against Modernism, we are presented with a sort of plan that upholds Tradition as a whole and defends it against unlawful innovations and revision, the content of which is so edifying as to be worthy of the consideration of every intellectually-oriented practitioner of traditional religion, and to these last, the application of this very oath to each of their respective religious traditions, mutatis mutandis, should not pose much difficulty.

It is a known fact that there are many causes that are quite popular among the liberal bourgeoisie, who, in reality, have little understanding of the causes they are supporting.  In March of 2009, this especially came to be seen in Berekley, a city known for its liberal political views.  During that period, protesters gathered to mark the 50th anniversary of the an uprising against the policies of the Cultural Revolution in Tibet.  However wrong and anti-traditional the Cultural Revolution was, there was another visual oddity worthy of mention and criticism.  According to some local residents, prayer flags began to show up, scattered around this college town, clearly visible in public spaces.

To the supposedly culturally and socially aware, such a sight may not be strange or troubling in the least. Yet, if one examines the situation from an authentically honest vantage point, then there does seem to be something slightly problematic with such a display, for liberals have long sought to attach the Christian faith in the public sphere.  On the other end of the political spectrum, those in America who call themselves conservatives would certainly have been outraged had they been symbols of the Islamic faith.  After all, have not entire court cases been fought over the constitutionality of crèche scenes and crosses in public areas? If someone had put up a roadside shrine to the Virgin Mary like the ones seen in many countries of Latin America, or displayed a banner with the shahada, would these selectively “tolerant” individuals really think it so benign? Was this not a public sidewalk? And lastly, don’t practicioners of monotheism have a right not to be confronted by the talismanic gilded idols of Tibetan Buddhism?

This is not a denigration of the Tibetans, nor of their religion.  However, the very same people who have attempted to eliminate traces of monotheism now have no problem showing a more “spiritual” side by displaying the relics of an ancient religion.  To add to the irony, many such people cannot tell the meaning or function of such relics. They wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a bodhisattva or buddha, the differences between the Sakya, Kagyu or Gelug sects, or how many levels there are in the bardo plain.  They just like the flags.  It gives them a false sense of self-confidence that they are socially aware, and care for others.  It’s “good karma”.  It is a symbol of their solidarity with the oppressed “colored” Tibetan people, and so on and so forth.  The Tibetans, though perhaps worthy of support from those who support self-determination seem to be getting quite a bit of support from people who never understood much about Tibetan history or religion in the politics.

In the modern world, where standardization is the norm, members of society are over-socialized.  This means that they are only marginally capable of adopting broadly acceptable principles, and applying such principles ad absurdum in order to accuse others of violating those principles.  Therefore, while supporting the “non-white” Tibetans is considered acceptable by the media or by pseudo-academics, supporting the right of Afrikaners to live in peace in South Africa, or supporting the right of the Palestinian people to preserve their ethnic rights is not acceptable, and hence the average American does not support it.

In a society which operates as a secular theocracy, the undifferentiated man is therefore able to use activism as an act of piety which helps him to repress his failure in the religious world.  However, unlike religion proper their social activism only engages in pathetic, narcissistic, and deluded attempts for selfish ends which ignore all current realities.  Social activism becomes their new form of spirituality and religion, and their priests become the evangelists of liberalism, who in their cult-like zeal, attempt to play the role of dilantette pseudo-intellectuals; prayers are replaced by catchy slogans, and morality is replaced by vague principles of secular democracy, liberalism, and egalitariansm.

Another manifestation of the corrupt pseudo-religion of liberalism

Such is the religious consciousness of so-called “modern man”: He is driven by a sense of rebellion and self-hatred to believe in the faith of his ancestors, and at the same time afraid that consigning all religion to the realm of superstition might offend others.  He thus picks and chooses, as if he were a glutton sitting at a buffet table.  From Christianity, he picks the phrase, “thou shalt not judge,” from neo-Paganism a respect from the environment, and from Buddhism a sense of nihilistic abandonment from pressing moral issues.  Tibetan Buddhism, to them, feels like a “good superstition,” because the progressive “modern man” might say, “The Dalai Lama doesn’t tell me what I can and can’t eat, or whom I can and can’t sleep.  The Dalai Lama is a man of peace, diversity and openmindedness,” or perhaps, “The Dalai Lama makes me feel good about myself.”

For G. K. Chesterton, a Christian apologist of the early 20th century, it is not possible to reconcile the primitive orthopraxy of idol worship with modernity, for if the ultimate answer is God, then the image of an anthropomorphic pantheon does disservice to man by leaving questions unanswered.  This is one of the great ironies of the well-meaning white liberal who has fallen into a multicultural daydream with the Tibetan culture: if the flag-waving crypto-pagans of Berekley are closed off to any sort of religious belief, what precisely are they doing in their quasireligious exercise?  Chesterton states that at the heart of man and his senses, is a desire to “sacramental idea” that makes itself felt throughout human existence.  The prayer flags become this new sacramental idea.

What we have in the Berkeley prayer flag display does a disservice both to the revealed faiths and to that which is noble in pagan religions. Who can know if the people displaying them remember the Christian faith of their ancestors, or a time when it was the message of Christ that gave the universe a sense of purpose and wonder? Like the nomadic consumer today, many modern souls go shopping for that wonder and purpose in other, more exotic, and more elite marketplaces, committing to nothing, and are ultimately left unfulfilled. That is because religious faith in any manifestation, requires a relationship that modern man finds himself less and less capable of maintaining.  In any form of religious devotion, whether it is Islam’s submission to Allah, the Christian veneration of saints, or Hinduism’s bhakti, one concedes to a higher power some sort of deference.  The “modern man,”  however, can only lament this desperate sense of inferiority and lack of self-confidence.