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Subject: APOLLONIUS 5 THE REAL CHRIST

All Follow-Up: Re: APOLLONIUS 5 THE REAL CHRIST
Date: Fri, 26 Dec 1997 07:49:13 +0200



= Apollonius the Nazarene Part 5: Events in the life of Apollonius of Tyana Apollonius' Visit to the Brahman Sages of the Himalauas as recorded in "The Life of Apollonius of Tyana" by his biographer, Philo= stratus By: Dr. R. W. Bernard, B.A., M.A., Ph.D. =A0 Apollonius's attention was then drawn to India, the fountain-head of Wisd= om. Five centuries previously, Pythagoras had brought some of the Himalay= an wisdom to Greece. But its memory had almost vanished. The world was in= need of a new emissary of the eastern masters. Apollonius believed that = he was called to perform such a mission; and so he set out, accompanied o= nly by his friend and disciple, Damis, on the long and perilous trip to t= he Himalayas, following the same route formerly traversed by Pythagoras w= hen he traveled to India on a similar mission five hundred years before. = This was revealed to Apollonius at a half-abandoned temple of Daphnaean A= pollo some distance from Antioch, where a peasant-priest brought him the = temple treasure, which had been preserved by tradition, handed down from = father to son. This consisted of some sheets of copper on which were figu= res and diagrams. The priest had zealously preserved them till that momen= t; awaiting the arrival of the man worthy to receive this gift. = While engaged in his early morning devotions in the light of the rising s= un, the priest gave Apollonius the copper sheets, which, as a Pythagorean= , he was able to decipher as a record of his Master's journey to India, i= ncluding the deserts and high mountains to be crossed before he reached t= he river in which elephants disport themselves. He also saw before him a = description of the exact spot which he had to reach (in trans-Himalayan T= ibet), and of the monastery among the thousands of monasteries in the Far= East where, five centuries previously, Pythagoras had studied at the fee= t of the same Masters who were soon to become his teachers. = For Apollonius was to become their new western emissary, as Pythagoras ha= d been five centuries previously.* (*Apollonius was to be the last western emissary of the Masters of the Fa= r East for many centuries. After him the door was shut. The Neo-Pythagore= an, Plotinus, two centuries later, tried in vain to follow in his steps a= nd reach India together with the armies of the Emperor Gordianus, but was= compelled to turn back. It was not until a few centuries ago that the Ma= sters found their next great emissary in Conte St. Germain (Francis Bacon= ), who, like Apollonius, retired to the Himalayas after his passing from = the eyes of the world.) = Reaching the little town of Mespila, which had once been Ninevah, Apollon= ius met his future traveling companion and disciple, Damis, who immediate= ly was attached to him and remained with him as his follower tbroughout h= is life. Apollonius accepted him as his guide to take him to Babylon, sin= ce Damis said he knew the way there perfectly, and boasted, too, of knowi= ng the languages spoken in the countries through which they would have to= pass: To this Apollonius smiled and replied that he himself knew all lan= guages spoken by men and understood their silence as well. = (Damis was later to realize that he also possessed knowledge of the langu= age of birds, and could read the great characters, against the blue of th= e sky, formed by the trajectory of their flight. It is claimed that it wa= s from the Arabian philosophers that Apollonius learned to understand the= speech of animals.) = Apollonius's chief public work was that of religious reform, involving th= e abolition of animal sacrifices, which he replaced by bloodless offering= s that involved the death of no living being. The following incident is c= ited concerning his teachings of kindness to animals, which constituted t= he basis of his opposition to animal sacrifices and his advocacy of veget= arianism, = When he reached Babylon, after refusing to do obeisance to the golden ima= ge of the king, the latter, who knew him already by repute, called him an= d, about to sacrifice a white horse to the sun, he asked Apollonius to ac= company him. Apollonius refused, replying, "You, O King, sacrifice in you= r own manner, and give me leave to sacrifice in mine." Then, having throw= n frankincense on the flame, and uttered a prayer to the god, he departed= , so as to have no share in an offering of blood. When the king invited h= im to join him in hunting the animals of his park, he expressed disapprov= al of the pleasure taken in hunting and killing of wild animals kept for = sport. = After they had spent some time with the magi of Babylon and conversed wit= h them, the two travelers, Apollonius and Damis, climbed mountains whose = summits were veiled in the clouds. Unaffected by the gradual unfolding of= their snowy immensities, Apollonius said "When the soul is without blemi= sh it can rise far above the highest mountains." (into the higher spiritu= al planes). They crossed the Indus and came across kings clothed in white= who despised ostentation. One evening, on a lonely river bank, they came= on a brass stele inscribed with the words; "Here Alexander halted." = Coming into the land of elephants, (India), nomads offered Apollonius dat= e wine, which he refused, though he did not forbid Damis to take it, just= as he did not refuse him to eat flesh, not wishing to impose his will on= his disciple; however, he himself abstained from both. = Coming to the court of Phroates, King of Taxila, Apollonius was hospitabl= y received by this vegetarian emperor who led a Pythagorean life except f= or his mild use of wine. When he tried to argue with Apollonius concernin= g the benefits of the moderate use of wine, saying that it promotes restf= ul sleep, Apollonius, defended his water-drinking, saying it preserves th= e soul untroubled and makes true divination (clairvoyance) through dreams= possible, with which wine interferes. = Following the course of the Ganges, they climbed more hills and mountains= (the Himalayas), and when they were eighteen days' march from the Ganges= , they saw in the middle of a plateau (Tibet) high in the mountains, the = home of the wise men, which had the same elevation as the Acropolis at At= hens. A strange fog hovered over the place, and on the rocks surrounding = it were the imprints of men who appeared to have fallen in an attempt to = scale the heights, for an almost perpendicular ascent was necessary at th= is point. = Then a young Indian approached the travelers, and coming over to Apolloni= us, speaking in perfect Greek, he told him to halt and follow him upwards= , saying the Masters were expecting their arrival and had commanded him t= o go to receive the visitors. Apollonius and Damis were then led by their= guide towards the community of Brahman sages dwelling on the Himalayan h= eights, whose chief was IARCHUS, a great Buddhist religious reformer. Phi= lostratus described these sages as "Brahmans who dwell on the earth, and = yet are not on the earth; in places fortified, and yet without walls; and= who possess nothing and yet all things.* = (*From de Beauvoir Preiaulaux, in his "The Indian Travels of Apollonius o= f Tyana," we gather the following facts about these Brahmans , whom he de= scribes as a race superior to the rest of mankind. He writes: "The Brahma= n's education began even in his mother's womb. During the period of gesta= tion she was soothed by song and chants in praise of continence, which in= proportion as they won her pleased attention, beneficially influenced he= r future offspring. After the child's birth, and as it grew in years, it = was passed from one preceptor to another, until it was old enough to beco= me an auditor of the philosophers. These lived frugally, abstained from a= nimal food and women, and in a grove outside the city spent their days in= earnest discourse, communicating their knowledge to all who chose to lis= ten. But in their presence, the novice was not permitted to speak, or spi= t, under the penalty of one day's banishment from their society. At the a= ge of thirty-seven, his student life cease! ! ! d. = "The mountain Brahmans subsist on fruit and cow's curd with herbs. The ot= hers live on the fruit trees which are found in plenty near the river and= which afford an almost constant succession of fresh fruits, and, should = these fail, on the self-sown wild rice that grows there. To eat any other= food, or even touch animal food, they held to be the height of impiety a= nd uncleanliness. Each man has his own cabin, and lives as much as he can= by himself, and spends the day and the greater part of the night in hymn= s and prayers to the gods....") = (According to Damis, the Brahmans used the earth as a couch, but first st= rewed it with choice grasses. They walked, too, in the air; Damis saw the= m. He saw too, the fire which they drew from the sun's rays, while they w= orshipped the solar orb. Among their other miraculous powers were the cap= acity to cover themselves with clouds at will, and to get what they wante= d at a moment's notice [yogic practices which yield `siddhis' or supernat= ural powers -- utilizing undiscovered laws of nature]. Damis describes th= ese marvelous men as being strict vegetarians, who lived exclusively on f= ruits and vegetables. = They were attired in a sleeveless one-piece linen dress; wearing no mater= ial of animal origin. They wore their hair long, which custom they explai= ned on the basis of the physiological and psychological benefits which th= ey considered the hair to impart to the brain. Just as the skin absorbs a= nd transmits solar energy to the body as a whole, so they believed that t= he hair performs a similar function in relation to the brain, for which r= eason they exposed their long hair to the sun as often as possible, hopin= g thus to absorb as much as possible of the ultraviolet solar rays so pow= erful at the high altitude where they dwelt.) = And so saying he told Apollonius who his father was, his mother, all that= happened to him at Aegae, and how Damis joined him, and what they had sa= id and done on the journey; and he related this so distinctly and fluentl= y, that he might have been a companion of their route. Apollonius, greatl= y astonished, asked him how he knew all this. = "In this knowledge," he answered, "You are not wholly wanting, and where = you are deficient, we will instruct you, for methink it not well to keep = secret what is worthy of being known especially from you, Apollonius -- a= man of most excellent memory. And memory, you must know, is of the gods = the one we most honor. = "But how do you know my nature?" asked Apollonius. = "We," he answered, "see into the very soul, tracing out its qualities by = a thousand signs. But as midday is at hand, let us to our devotions in wh= ich you also may, if you will take part."* = [*The Indian yogic science is not based on outer "sun" worship. The yogi = meditates on the inner "sun" or inner spiritual light which can be seen b= y the "third eye" between and behind the two eyebrows, which reveals itse= lf when the attention is held steadily fixed at this inner centre (ajna c= hakra) within the astral body. The outer sun, symbolic of the inner spiri= tual splendour within, is only an outer symbol of devotion to the inner s= piritual light (Naad, Word or Logos)]. = Apollonius then asked Iarchus what opinion the Brahmans held of themselve= s, and was told that they held themselves to be "gods" [advanced spiritua= l beings] because they were good men, who knew all things because they fi= rst knew themselves." Iarchus then told Apollonius his former lives, stat= ing that in his [former] incarnation he was an Egyptian sailor. = The Brahmans then undressed and took a bath, after which they put garland= s on their heads around their long hair, and proceeded to the temple, int= ent on their hymns. There (quoting Damis's account), standing round in a = circle, with Iarchus as their leader, they beat the ground with their sta= ves, till bellying like a wave, it sent them up into the air about two cu= bits; and they then sang a hymn, very like the paeon of Sophocles sung at= Athens to Aesculapius. They then descended to earth."* (*According to Ph= ilostratus, the Brahmans levitate at will in the air "not for the sake of= vain glory, but to be nearer their Sun God," to whom they pray.) = When Apollonius asked the Brahmans whether, since they knew everything, w= hether they knew themselves, they replied in Socratic fashion, We know ev= erything just because we begin by knowing ourselves, for no one of us wou= ld be admitted to this philosophy unless he first knew himself." When Apo= llonius inquired of Iarchus whether the cosmos was composed of Four eleme= nts, the latter replied that it was made not of four but of five, the fif= th being the ether. There is, said the Indian sage, "the ether, which we = must regard as the stuff of which gods are made, for just as mortal creat= ures inhale the air, so do immortal and divine natures inhale the ether."= = On an occasion when he was praising Apollonius for his devotion to mystic= lore, Iarchus said, "My great friend Apollonius, those who take pleasure= in divination [clairvoyance--a byproduct of the awakening of dormant lat= ent spiritual powers in the average man] are rendered divine thereby and = contribute to the salvation of mankind." = The word "salvation" embraced for Iarchus both spiritual and physical hea= lth, for he declared that among the many blessings which the art of divin= ation conferred upon mankind, the gift of healing was the most important,= and to this art of divination he emphatically attributed "the credit of = discovering simples which healed the bites of venomous creatures, and in = particular of using the virus itself as a cure for many diseases. For I d= o not think" he added, "that men without the forecasts of a prophetic wis= dom, would ever have ventured to mingle with medicines that save life, th= ose deadly of poisons." = Thus we see Iarchus instructing his student, Apollonius of Tyana, in the = science of medicine, as he instructed him in astrology and other sciences= =2E Reville, in his "Apollonius of Tyana, the Pagan Christ of the Third C= entury," writes as follows concerning the Brahmans: "They worshipped fire= , which they boasted had been brought down directly from the.sun...With h= is own eyes, Damis saw these sages rise up into the air to the height of = two cubits, without any extraneous support and without any trickery whats= oever. The wise men do not live in houses, and when it rains they summon = a cloud and shelter under it. They wear their hair long, have white mitre= s on their heads, and are clothed in linen garments, woven from a peculia= r kind of flax which is only lawful for themselves to gather. Their prodi= gious wisdom overwhelmed even Apollonius, who was not frequently astonish= ed. They are in possession of absolute science; they know at once the pas= t history of every one they see; they can an! ! ! swer all questions. When asked, "Who are you?" they answer, We are `god.'= Why? Because we are virtuous." [See "The Life and Teachings of the Maste= rs of the Far East" by Baird T. Spalding, in 5 volumes, for a detailed ac= count of the advanced spiritual sciences practised by the Himalayan yogic= adepts of India and Tibet]. = The Brahmans were furnished with everything they needed as a spontaneous = gift of the earth, partaking of fresh vegetables and fruits in season whi= ch were brought to them by their countrymen dwelling below them. During h= is repast with the Brahman sages and their king, Apollonius and Damis wer= e amazed to observe that the food was brought to their tables by self-mov= ing tripods, while automata served as cup-bearers; these mechanical robot= waiters making the use of human servants unnecessary.* = [*Atlantean technology is known to be secretly stored in underground cave= rns beneath the Potala at Lhasa, and in the many other caves that network= underneath the sedimentary structures of the Himalayan mountains. Here w= e a have a demonstration of some of the lost technology being displayed, = two thousand years before our supposedly advanced technological age]. = Apollonius observed his teacher, Iarchus, perform miracles identical with= those purported to have been performed by the New Testament messiah, suc= h as, driving evil spirits out of a woman who was possessed, curing a cri= pple, restoring sight to a blind man and restoring a man with paralyzed h= ands to health. He had a high degree of clairvoyance, could see at any di= stance, beheld both past and future, and could tell the past lives of tho= se he met. = Reville notes that Apollonius studied astrology and the science of divina= tion under Iarchus, for these sessions were secret and to them Damis was = not admitted, nor would Apollonius reveal to him the esoteric knowledge t= hen imparted to him by his Himalayan teacher. [Advanced astrology can rev= eal the dates and times of previous incarnations of an individual; it is = an exact science when properly understood and applied. The popular versio= n commonly available today is but an enfeebled version of the true astrol= ogy, which reveals the inner outworkings of the karmic wheel, which balan= ces all causes with corresponding effects.] = During his stay among the Brahman sages, Apollonius was instructed by his= Master in the basic doctrines of reformed Buddhism, of which movement Ia= rchus was the recognized leader, who had fled to his far-off Himalayan re= treat to escape persecution by the established Brahman priesthood of Indi= a. Apollonius carried westward the Buddhist teachings which he received f= rom Iarchus in the form of certain Buddhist gospels, otherwise known as t= he DIEGESIS or the ORIGINAL GOSPEL, which he translated and rewrote, adap= ting it to the language and psychology of his native land. = Among the ESSENES he found the first converts to this new doctrine, the g= ospel of Chrishna; and those who followed these teachings (the Essenian T= herapeuts, who were otherwise known as NAZARENES) subsequently became kno= wn as the first Christians. On his departure Iarchus gave Apollonius Seve= n rings named after the seven planets, one of which was to be worn on one= day of the week; these seven rings would, he said, impart health and lon= g life. Before parting, Iarchus prophesied that Apollonius would, even du= ring his life, attain the honors of a divinity. = Thus for several months Apollonius lived among men who were `gods' in hum= an form, and from them he learned spiritual wisdom which he was destined = to later bring back to the west as the basis of a new religion (Christian= ity) of which he was to be the founder. It was from Iarchus that he recei= ved the mission that was to send him wandering all his life among the tem= ples of the Mediterranean countries, for the purpose of restoring the anc= ient mysteries to their former purity. = When he left his Brahman master, Apollonius had certain assurance that he= would thereafter be in constant telepathic communication with him and re= ceive his guidance and instruction wherever he may be--which later actual= ly was the case.* = (*On this subject, Magre, speaking of the Inner Voice on which Apollonius= always relied for guidance, writes: "We shall never know to what order t= he spirit-guide of Apollonius belonged; whether the being who advised him= took on a form as chaste as himself and as beautiful as the statue of th= e gods which he liked to contemplate, or whether the voice came from a di= stant Master who wished to see his pupil carry out the mission with which= he entrusted him. = "I shall continue to speak to you as though you were present," Apollonius= had said as he left his Indian Masters. = "Was it their words that he heard at a distance? Did he by divine inspira= tion receive the influx of their wise thoughts? The man to whom he gave t= he name of Iarchus must have brought the consolation of distant support t= o the untiring traveler, the wandering mystic.") = *******
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