We're Moving!!!

Peace,

Pardon to all for the extended hiatus! I am moving to www.authorofchange.blogspot.com. See ya when ya get there!!

The Return

Theme Music: "Beautiful" by Jr. Gong & B. Brown (Yes, that B. Brown)

Peace,

First, I want to say pardon self to my delay in posting. It's been a matter of productivity rather than lack of interest. Besides that, I've had 3 drafts erased by google maintenance or computer shutdowns. I have a lot to say, b.u.t. now I'm going to space it out so that I'm more consistent. Here we go:

- Both Justice Rajee and Sha-King posted earlier this week about how they began the process of getting Knowledge of Self. It took me back to those respective times and allowed me recollect on my own experience of adding on to the NGE. It was 1991, and positivity in Hip Hop was in the throes of it's downward slope. Coming from a "conscious" family, it was easy for me to identify with the earlier ideas of PE, KRS, Rakim, etc... I'll never forget seeing the Universal Flag in Rakim's video for 'Move The Crowd', and wondering "What the hell is that?" As time went on, however, I began to become more interested in the music of those who identified themselves as "Five Percenters", specifically Brand Nubian, PRT, & King Sun (Righteous But Ruthless is the joint to this day).

Around the same time, I began to look for more than my Muslim background provided me with. My uncle, (who was/is a Muslim) began to tell me about the "five percent" who would hold ciphers at Temple University and use all kinds of "funny names and numbers"(little did he know that I was already interested). Based on what my uncle told me +Who he introduced me to + the music, I wanted to learn more. At that time, there was a large Ansaar community in Philly, and they were selling a book entitled "The Book Of The Five Percenters" (I now know that the purpose of the book was to deceive, and I wouldn't suggest that anyone learn from a source other than a qualified God or Earth, which I eventually did, b.u.t. I'll get into later). One September night while grabbing a cheesesteak at their restaurant, I noticed the book, and asked my Old Moon(Mother) to buy it, which she did.

After getting the book, I learned Supreme Mathematics and the Supreme Alphabet, and tried to get a basic idea of the history of the Nation. At this point, I would meet different Gods and build with them, b.u.t. I wasn't in the NGE per se. During Kwanzaa of 1991, my mother and father held a large party/feast (depending on how cultural you are) at our home for friends, family and members of their extended network. The surprise guest of the event was a girl who I hadn't seen for a number of years due to her family moving to Allah's Garden (Atlanta, GA). The true surprise was that she came back from ATL with the knowledge of herself! (Remember, I was 15) We got down and started to add on based on what we both knew,which wasn't very much.
Within months, The young sister eventually moved back to Philly, and met another young Earth at Overbrook High. The Earth in turn introduced me to her father, Divine Justice Allah. He took me under his wing, and the rest is my history...

Sha and Just, I am honored to be apart of both of your respective histories, just as I am honored that great men like Divine Justice Allah, Zyhier Allah, and Ramel Supreme Allah assisted me in the process of uncovering the greatness of myself. We will continue to teach and make Allah World Manifest for all people at all times.

Winds Of Change

Theme Music - "Crack Music" by Kayne West

Peace,

I build that all are well physically and mentally during this time. I must apologize for my infrequent postings during the last two weeks, as I've been travelling and doing community work. I also watched in amazement over the last 7 days as Black and Poor people were left out to dry/die in the tragedy that is/was Hurricane Katrina. Even now, I'm still somewhat speechless based on what occured. If this doesn't provide a wake-up call to original people in this country to see what's really taking place, than I'm hard pressed to see what will. It also speaks to the intersection of race & class in our society, and how an idea eventually becomes a reality, when it comes to black = poor.

The chasm between the haves and the have-nots was so obvious that Stevie Wonder could've seen it. In a sense, N.O. reminds me of Jamaica as far as the disparity between the rich and the poor. In the best case scenario, everyone can do for themselves, b.u.t. in a turbo-capitalist society where you have to have a large poor and working class, who's going to do for theose who can't do for ourselves? This should also be a wake-up for the "progressives" within our community who seem to be allergic to money or the acquiring of resources. True Nation Building requires resources and capital. Until we as a community get that, we'll never step out of the status quo.

The following is an editorial from Immortal Technique regarding Hurricane Katrina. As you all know, I don't get down with the "God in the sky" thing, b.u.t. it is a good read nonetheless.

The Hand of God (Katrina’s Ghost)By Immortal Technique

We all know that natural disasters are unavoidable; you cannot fire missiles at a tornado and expect it to stop. Armed troops are as useless in a gunfight against an earthquake as they would be marching towards heaven to challenge God. Dropping a nuke on a hurricane would be like pissing in the wind, the radiation alone blown to every part of the nation would poison this country and everything around it.With that said, things that can be done to avert tragedies when they are known to be coming are a completely different story. Cutting the funding for the now imperative job of rebuilding a levee, and the complete disarray of a nation's forces when the people of America needed them the most is inexcusable. Many comments have been made, both by the left and right. People have acted as if racism has reared its ugly, head. As if its eye had not been watching us from across the perched eagle and gained from our loss over the years. I'm not one for conspiracy theories. I wrote a song called "Bin Laden" and Green Lantern put together a hook to grab people’s attention but the lyrics were focused on what was going on in America, not Bush and the Towers. I wrote in "The Cause of Death" that Bush was not responsible directly, that he didn't plan 9/11. Still, he and his administration have definitely benefited from the end result of all those people dying. Like it or not no matter what your political views are - realize that. And then remember how in a murder case, a simple one that a local sheriff’s department. may get, we always examine those who stand to benefit from the death of that individual. Why did we never ask ourselves the same of 9/11?Well, now with the Katrina disaster we have another opportunity, to ask ourselves: Who benefits from the tragedy that has befallen the people of New Orleans? Who will have that land? Who will buy it out? Will the Federal government assume more control of the nation because of this pressure that it acted to late? And now that we know racism is still an issue because of the media’s portrayal. Can we actually sit down with the Right wing and ask them why they think that Blacks are not victims, but rather the recipients of their just due in America? Why Latinos and Blacks are graceful when we swallow racism and hatred and belligerent disregard for our people? But to them we become racist ourselves, spiteful and 'radical' for simply pointing out what everyone else, even other white people see as truth. America is seen as brave and resilient for striking back at its enemies but when we even criticize the system that enslaved us, stole our religion, raped our women, our land and our spirit we are not brave, we are traitors and ungrateful for the place we were brought to. We are lucky to work here so we cannot complain about picking strawberries or making up the jail populations since it’s probably better than whatever we got in Latin America right? I don’t believe in justice in the hereafter I believe in having it now…

Then there are the people who are wearing the Emperors clothes for him, talking as if Bush was some rock of Gibraltar. As if he had led us like Ulysses Grant thru a Civil War instead of running this country thru the mud. This man is a complete failure as a president and this has finally awoken some people to it. Sept. 11 was a cover up of mistakes, dark alliances and economic power moves. The campaign to remove the Taliban should have never been conducted after 9/11/2001, but rather in 1998 when they started ethnically cleansing their own people the Asiatic so-called "Hazara." We have always put corporate profits before the living standard of people in American foreign policy and now that echoes in our own nation. That is the very nature of Capitalism. But nothing in the form of corrupted Russian Communism offers a viable alternative, only an unmasked totalitarian rule without the details that we have and the choice between Pepsi and Coke. I’m not a Marxist, a Communist or an anarchist I am just a Peruvian/Black muthaf**ka from Harlem but I could see this truth if I were blind.Bush ruined his invasion of Afghanistan by not capturing Bin Laden and leaving that country in ruins while being run by Dick Cheney's b***h Hamid Karzai. The closing in on Al-Quaeda was interrupted and we only sent in a few thousand troops whereas we sent in more but not enough in Iraq now it seems. Iraq…Another blunder, a place we should have never gone. And since Saddam’s guards were not trained by the SOA (Check out www.soaw.org) like most of Latin America’s puppet presidents, he had to be removed by invasion instead of assassination. Fighting the “idea of terrorism” is like boxing the waves the ocean sends at you at the beach. An idea cannot be killed, good or bad it has to be found at the root and explained, then and only then can we understand how to resolve issues. This president hasn’t resolved any issues or finished one thing he started since he was doing lines in college. No Child Left Behind is a disgrace and a secret draft, this economy is crap, gas is damn near $5 in some places in the South and its still $3.40 up here. This president hasn’t resolved anything by flying by the city of New Orleans or taking photo opps in deserted parts of town. Hold on, now that this mess is unfolding and you’re distracted, John G. Roberts will be Supreme Court Chief Justice and another conservative will join in the fray. But the public will not care, they will be split. Blacks and Latinos and poor/conscious whites shaking their heads at the way the people were treated, and racist rich white people and house n***az shaking their heads at the blacks and broke people they see on TV. Their gonna march in backwards and say they were retreating...

That said, I don't blame Bush for all this, he didn't kill all those people personally. In the same method that Hitler didn't kill all of the Jews...it took the complacency of the German people. It took generals, officers and soldiers in the SS, it took the Gestapo. It took people betraying each other. It took Europe and America doing nothing for 4 years while this was going on. It was an entire system that engineered a malicious purposeful chaos.In the same fashion, FEMA, The Dept. of Homeland Security, the local disorganization and a federal soundtrack to ignorance bumpin’ in the background created this great mass to commemorate death. The melodic tune of accepting race relations the way they are, accompanied by a harmony of class fed indifference created a musical soundtrack for the South's misery. And on the drums, fresh off the war drum tour in the Middle East where another disaster is taking place daily, a religious spirit that deducts 40 percent of donations for "administrative purposes." Every option to help these people, our brothers, mothers, grandmothers, sisters, and babies was not exhausted. For that the souls will never know peace, just as my Native American peoples’ souls know no peace. America will never know peace, no matter what religion it hides behind, no matter what it donates in a tax deductible package. This is another example of why it will never know…Our president was on vacation until 3 days after people had been drowning and starving, and now you act like you didn’t know, Jesus knows and so do I. We all know now.

This Friday (Sept. 9, 2005) - after I get out of Superior Court....One of my n***az is about to do 10 years upstate hold ya head G - I’m sending my stuff to specific Black organized charities, people with a personal connection. People who are donating not to receive a cut, but because something doesn’t let them sleep until these people get the supplies that they need to create a new life. The Republican and Democratic Party in the end are not so different. They place blame on each other and yet both have toppled democratically elected government in Latin America, ordered Asia invaded, both voted for Iraq and now both defend the president. I have donated, most of my clothes, jackets, survival items and my services to at least 3 or 4 benefit shows in the near future. Give what you can. Remember empathy is the only language that God can hear your prayers in. For those that believe in God that is, I know some of my soldiers do not, but I do. I believe there will be retribution for this betrayal of our people, and if God is busy then I and others will take up the task. I will be the Hand of God...RBG, muthaf***a. Sadly the mirage of equality shattering was also a wake up call for those of us who thought they cared. Oh you thought they cared?

Intelligent Design or Deceptive Intelligence?

Peace,

Recently, I've been following the discussion regarding Intelligent Design(ID). For those of you who don't know, ID is the new psuedo-scientific theory pushed by conserative christians that states that there is a scientific way to prove the existence of a astral being. The reason that this is important is that the theology is being advocated in school districts across the country. Many people have many perspectives, b.u.t. we have to deal with what is empirical in order to truly be universal. The biggest problem with ID is that it asserts no scientific proof for the existence of a mystery god. See how you see it, b.u.t. let's be universal.


At a recent scientific conference at City College of New York, a student in the audience rose to ask the panelists an unexpected question: "Can you be a good scientist and believe in God?"
Reaction from one of the panelists, all Nobel laureates, was quick and sharp. "No!" declared Herbert A. Hauptman, who shared the chemistry prize in 1985 for his work on the structure of crystals.
Belief in the supernatural, especially belief in God, is not only incompatible with good science, Dr. Hauptman declared, "this kind of belief is damaging to the well-being of the human race."
But disdain for religion is far from universal among scientists. And today, as religious groups challenge scientists in arenas as various as evolution in the classroom, AIDS prevention and stem cell research, scientists who embrace religion are beginning to speak out about their faith.
"It should not be a taboo subject, but frankly it often is in scientific circles," said Francis S. Collins, who directs the National Human Genome Research Institute and who speaks freely about his Christian faith.
Although they embrace religious faith, these scientists also embrace science as it has been defined for centuries. That is, they look to the natural world for explanations of what happens in the natural world and they recognize that scientific ideas must be provisional - capable of being overturned by evidence from experimentation and observation. This belief in science sets them apart from those who endorse creationism or its doctrinal cousin, intelligent design, both of which depend on the existence of a supernatural force.
Their belief in God challenges scientists who regard religious belief as little more than magical thinking, as some do. Their faith also challenges believers who denounce science as a godless enterprise and scientists as secular elitists contemptuous of God-fearing people.
Some scientists say simply that science and religion are two separate realms, "nonoverlapping magisteria," as the late evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould put it in his book "Rocks of Ages" (Ballantine, 1999). In Dr. Gould's view, science speaks with authority in the realm of "what the universe is made of (fact) and why does it work this way (theory)" and religion holds sway over "questions of ultimate meaning and moral value."
When the American Association for the Advancement of Science devoted a session to this idea of separation at its annual meeting this year, scores of scientists crowded into a room to hear it.
Some of them said they were unsatisfied with the idea, because they believe scientists' moral values must inevitably affect their work, others because so much of science has so many ethical implications in the real world.
One panelist, Dr. Noah Efron of Bar-Ilan University in Israel, said scientists, like other people, were guided by their own human purposes, meaning and values. The idea that fact can be separated from values and meaning "jibes poorly with what we know of the history of science," Dr. Efron said.
Dr. Collins, who is working on a book about his religious faith, also believes that people should not have to keep religious beliefs and scientific theories strictly separate. "I don't find it very satisfactory and I don't find it very necessary," he said in an interview. He noted that until relatively recently, most scientists were believers. "Isaac Newton wrote a lot more about the Bible than the laws of nature," he said.
But he acknowledged that as head of the American government's efforts to decipher the human genetic code, he had a leading role in work that many say definitively demonstrates the strength of evolutionary theory to explain the complexity and abundance of life.
As scientists compare human genes with those of other mammals, tiny worms, even bacteria, the similarities "are absolutely compelling," Dr. Collins said. "If Darwin had tried to imagine a way to prove his theory, he could not have come up with something better, except maybe a time machine. Asking somebody to reject all of that in order to prove that they really do love God - what a horrible choice."
Dr. Collins was a nonbeliever until he was 27 - "more and more into the mode of being not only agnostic but being an atheist," as he put it. All that changed after he completed his doctorate in physics and was at work on his medical degree, when he was among those treating a woman dying of heart disease. "She was very clear about her faith and she looked me square in the eye and she said, 'what do you believe?' " he recalled. "I sort of stammered out, 'I am not sure.' "
He said he realized then that he had never considered the matter seriously, the way a scientist should. He began reading about various religious beliefs, which only confused him. Finally, a Methodist minister gave him a book, "Mere Christianity," by C. S. Lewis. In the book Lewis, an atheist until he was a grown man, argues that the idea of right and wrong is universal among people, a moral law they "did not make, and cannot quite forget even when they try." This universal feeling, he said, is evidence for the plausibility of God.
When he read the book, Dr. Collins said, "I thought, my gosh, this guy is me."
Today, Dr. Collins said, he does not embrace any particular denomination, but he is a Christian. Colleagues sometimes express surprise at his faith, he said. "They'll say, 'how can you believe that? Did you check your brain at the door?" But he said he had discovered in talking to students and colleagues that "there is a great deal of interest in this topic."

Polling Scientists on Beliefs

According to a much-discussed survey reported in the journal Nature in 1997, 40 percent of biologists, physicists and mathematicians said they believed in God - and not just a nonspecific transcendental presence but, as the survey put it, a God to whom one may pray "in expectation of receiving an answer."
The survey, by Edward J. Larson of the University of Georgia, was intended to replicate one conducted in 1914, and the results were virtually unchanged. In both cases, participants were drawn from a directory of American scientists.
Others play down those results. They note that when Dr. Larson put part of the same survey to "leading scientists" - in this case, members of the National Academy of Sciences, perhaps the nation's most eminent scientific organization - fewer than 10 percent professed belief in a personal God or human immortality.
This response is not surprising to researchers like Steven Weinberg, a physicist at the University of Texas, a member of the academy and a winner of the Nobel Prize in 1979 for his work in particle physics. He said he could understand why religious people would believe that anything that eroded belief was destructive. But he added: "I think one of the great historical contributions of science is to weaken the hold of religion. That's a good thing."

No God, No Moral Compass?

He rejects the idea that scientists who reject religion are arrogant. "We know how many mistakes we've made," Dr. Weinberg said. And he is angered by assertions that people without religious faith are without a moral compass.
In any event, he added, "the experience of being a scientist makes religion seem fairly irrelevant," he said. "Most scientists I know simply don't think about it very much. They don't think about religion enough to qualify as practicing atheists."
Most scientists he knows who do believe in God, he added, believe in "a God who is behind the laws of nature but who is not intervening."
Kenneth R. Miller, a biology professor at Brown, said his students were often surprised to find that he was religious, especially when they realized that his faith was not some sort of vague theism but observant Roman Catholicism.
Dr. Miller, whose book, "Finding Darwin's God," explains his reconciliation of the theory of evolution with his religious faith, said he was usually challenged in his biology classes by one or two students whose religions did not accept evolution, who asked how important the theory would be in the course.
"What they are really asking me is "do I have to believe in this stuff to get an A?,' " he said. He says he tells them that "belief is never an issue in science."
"I don't care if you believe in the Krebs cycle," he said, referring to the process by which energy is utilized in the cell. "I just want you to know what it is and how it works. My feeling about evolution is the same thing."
For Dr. Miller and other scientists, research is not about belief. "Faith is one thing, what you believe from the heart," said Joseph E. Murray, who won the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1990 for his work in organ transplantation. But in scientific research, he said, "it's the results that count."
Dr. Murray, who describes himself as "a cradle Catholic" who has rarely missed weekly Mass and who prays every morning, said that when he was preparing for the first ever human organ transplant, a kidney that a young man had donated to his identical twin, he and his colleagues consulted a number of religious leaders about whether they were doing the right thing. "It seemed natural," he said.

Using Every Tool

"When you are searching for truth you should use every possible avenue, including revelation," said Dr. Murray, who is a member of the Pontifical Academy, which advises the Vatican on scientific issues, and who described the influence of his faith on his work in his memoir, "Surgery of the Soul" (Science History Publications, 2002).
Since his appearance at the City College panel, when he was dismayed by the tepid reception received by his remarks on the incompatibility of good science and religious belief, Dr. Hauptman said he had been discussing the issue with colleagues in Buffalo, where he is president of the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute.
"I think almost without exception the people I have spoken to are scientists and they do believe in the existence of a supreme being," he said. "If you ask me to explain it - I cannot explain it at all."
But Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary theorist at Oxford, said that even scientists who were believers did not claim evidence for that belief. "The most they will claim is that there is no evidence against," Dr. Dawkins said, "which is pathetically weak. There is no evidence against all sorts of things, but we don't waste our time believing in them."
Dr. Collins said he believed that some scientists were unwilling to profess faith in public "because the assumption is if you are a scientist you don't have any need of action of the supernatural sort," or because of pride in the idea that science is the ultimate source of intellectual meaning.
But he said he believed that some scientists were simply unwilling to confront the big questions religion tried to answer. "You will never understand what it means to be a human being through naturalistic observation," he said. "You won't understand why you are here and what the meaning is. Science has no power to address these questions - and are they not the most important questions we ask ourselves?"

True Confessions

Theme Music:"I Call Your Name" by Switch

Peace,

Last night, I watched an "All eyes on me" special on Kayne West. Now many people have many different things to say on Kayne and his rise within the past few years.These days, he's being presented For myself, I think that he embodies the subtle tension between different mentalities within Hip Hop and weaves them together in a engaging way. He's one of the few artists that can do a video for "Workout Plan" (Which I thought was pretty corny) and then turn around and do the video for "Two Words" (Which I thought was the best video in the last 3-4 years). In a art form where everyone's lying and posturing, his honesty was refreshing. Here are some of my reflections after watching:

- When Sway asked him if he felt disloyal to Dame Dash based on the breakup, he was stumped and was silent for almost 30 seconds. West actually stated that he was and regretted that he couldn't do what was best for him and Dash. For those who don't know, it was Dash that gave him a chance as a rapper. For him to be honest about that was powerful and telling because for some reason, the whole Roc breakup has been played as business as usual vs. the breakup of some of the most powerful black men in the business. There's a very political component to this that's being kept under wraps

- On the program, West also spoke about the role his mother played in his life and being accused of homosexuality as a young man. He went on to appeal to Hip Hop to curtail homophobic behavior. One of the main reasons that many young men are homophobic is their uncomfortability with what it means to be a black man in America. Another reason is the lack of positive male role models around that can provide a balanced picture of manhood beyond tv and hood crime. While I'm not into the destruction of gender roles (far from it actually), youth have to see manhood outside the parameters of what you can do to someone

- Also discussed was West's perceived cockiness and brash personality. On a larger level, I see it as a discussion as on Black Manhood in America. Point blank, Black men are not allowed to be outspoken about where they stand about how they see the world. Granted, some brothers that do speak out say dumb things, however there's still a double standard a far as how Black Men conduct themselves. As men, we should make no apologies for protecting our interests and the interests of those who we represent. Many big stars in Hip Hop have no problem speaking out against each other, b.u.t. are noticeably silent when it comes to speaking out against cultural & structural inequities. Because of the fact that these brothers serve as role models for many of our youth, we have to intervene in our communities and change that dynamic

A Different look

Theme Music - "Angel" by Anita Baker

Peace,

I've been traveling like crazy over the last few weeks, so I have lots to post, b.u.t. for now, I like to post a essay that I found on www.BlackElectorate.com (Shouts out to Brother Cedric Muhammad).
While you know by now that we are our own culture and have our own values, I think that this essay brings up some very good points regarding the existence of a astral being.


Theology Thursdays: The Buddhist Attitude to God By Dr V. A. Gunasekara

The standpoint adopted here is primarily that of Theravada Buddhism. But most of what is said will be applicable to most other Buddhist traditions. The Theravada tradition, also called the Southern school of Buddhism, is based on texts maintained in the Pali language, which are the oldest of the existing Canons of Buddhism and reputed to be the closest to the teaching of the Buddha himself.There is no place for God in the Mahayana traditions of Buddhism as well, and indeed some of the early Indian Mahayana philosophers have denounced god-worship in terms which are even stronger than those expressed in the Theravada literature. Some later Mahayana schools, which flourished outside India, ascribed some degree of divinity to a transcendent Buddha, considering living Buddhas to be a manifestation of this âdhi-buddha. But even here it cannot be said that the Buddha was converted into a Divinity comparable to the God of the monotheistic religions.

Buddhism as a Non-Theistic Religion

Buddhism is unique amongst the religions of the world because it does not have any place for God in its soteriology. Indeed most Asian religions (with the possible exception of some extremely devotional forms of Hinduism) are essentially non-theistic, in that God does not occupy the central place that is accorded to him in monotheistic religious traditions. But Buddhism goes beyond most of these other religions in that it is positively anti-theistic because the very notion of God conflicts with some principles which are fundamental to the Buddhist view of the world and the role of humans in it (see section "The God-Concept and Buddhist Principles" below).However Buddhism is not atheistic in the sense that modern secularism, rationalism, humanism, etc. could be regarded to be atheistic (although it has much in common with them). Buddhism is not concerned primarily with refuting the notion of God (as some atheistic writers have done). It is principally concerned with developing a method of escape from the worldly ills. This involves undertaking a method of mental discipline and a code of conduct, which is sufficient to satisfy the most demanding of spiritual requirements. Indeed only very little of the Buddha's voluminous discourses deal directly with the question of God. He was more interested in expounding a way to personal salvation, and to improve the weal of mankind both in this world and in the worlds to come. It is this task that informs most of the discourses of the Buddha which later came to be compiled into the various Canons of Buddhism.

The Buddha did not take an ambiguous or agnostic position on the question of God as he is sometimes represented as having taken by theistically inclined writers. The Buddha has stated his position on God in clear and unequivocal terms.

The Notion of God

It is first of all necessary to establish what is meant by the term "God". This term is used to designate a Supreme Being endowed with the qualities of omnipotence and omniscience, who is the creator of the universe with all its contents, and the chief law-giver for humans. God is generally considered as being concerned with the welfare of his human creatures, and the ultimate salvation of those who follow his dictates. God is therefore a person of some kind, and the question whether such an entity exists or not is fundamental to all theistic systems.In contrast to this notion of a personal God some modern theologians have interpreted the term "God" as representing some kind of abstract principle of good (or "ground of being"). This view was first developed in the ancient Indian Upanishads where God is equated with an abstract principle (Brahman). The ancient Indian philosophers could entertain such a view because they also had a theory of karma, which really does away with the need for a personal God. Buddhists too have a theory of karma, which is different from that of the Hindus, and which even more unequivocally dispenses with the need for a Deity. The use of the term "God' to denote an abstract reality by monotheistic theologians who have no theory of karma is difficult to justify; one suspects that this is merely a device to explain away the contradictions that arise from the notion of a personal God. In fact the actual practice of theistic religion proceeds as if God is a real person of some kind or other.Just as Buddhism rejects the notion of a Supreme God it also rejects the notion of an abstract God-principle operating in the universe. The notion of Brahman (in the neuter) is not discussed at all in the Buddhist texts, and even in India it may well be a post-Buddhist development resulting from the attempt to reconcile the belief in God(s) with the powerful critique of the Buddha. It is therefore the attitude of Buddhism to the notion of a supreme personal God animating the Universe that we must consider.Buddhism speaks of the existence of category of beings called devas. This term is generally translated as "gods" (with a simple `g' and in the plural). The term deva literally means a shining or radiant being, and describes their physical appearance rather than their supernatural powers (as the translation "gods" seems to imply). To prevent confusion with the notion of a supreme personal God we shall refer to these beings of Buddhist cosmology as devas. Many other religions also postulate the existence of non-human beings who are referred to as `gods' or `angels' if they are considered to be in a better position than humans (with respect to their material conditions of existence). Buddhist cosmology recognizes thirty-two planes of existence some of the higher planes being either states of meditative abstraction or actual domains for the devas. Generally we have direct experience of only two of these 32 planes (those of humans and animals). Planes of existence below these two realms are also said to exist and are characterized by greater degrees of suffering and discomfort. The actual physical location of these planes need not concern us here because the dimensions of the Buddhist universe are even greater than those envisaged by modern astronomy and will contain enough places to accommodate all these planes of existence.We can easily dispose of the devas in the context of the Buddhist attitude to God because the devas are essentially irrelevant to the human situation. Beings are born in the deva-worlds because of particular karmic factors they have accumulated, and after these karmic factors are exhausted they could revert to any of the other planes of existence depending on their unexpended karma. The devas are not particularly endowed with special powers to influence others, and far from saving anyone else they themselves are not "saved". Salvation in Buddhism comes only from full enlightenment, which could be best accomplished from the human plane of existence.

The Vedic and Brahmanical religion of the Buddha's day postulated a large number of gods, many of them personifications of natural forces. However Brahmanical theology had advanced to the point that one of these gods was considered to be superior to all others, and was even considered to be the creator-god (Ishvara). This supreme god could then be considered as the equivalent to the single God of the monotheistic religions which emerged in the Middle East.Different names have been given to the supreme god in the Brahmanical and later Hindu literature, but in Buddhist texts the supreme god is referred to as Mahâ-Brahmâ (or simply Brahmâ) who was the chief of a class of gods called the Brahmâs. Brahmâ of the Buddhist texts may be considered to be the equivalent of the God of the three monotheistic religions that was to emerge in the Middle East. The first of these was Judaism, which promoted one its gods Yahweh as the one God sometime about the 6th century BCE. Next Christianity adopted the same god under the name of Jehovah who is represented as the "Father" of Jesus. Finally Islam adopted the name of Allah for their only God. To get the Buddha's views on God we must therefore consider his views on Brahmâ.One popular misconception of Buddhism must be dismissed at this point. This is view that the Buddha is some kind of God figure. In the Theravada tradition the Buddha is regarded as a supremely enlightened human teacher who has come to his last birth in samsára (the Buddhist cycle of existence). Even Mahayana traditions, which tend to think in terms of transcendental Buddhas, do not directly make a claim for Buddha as God. Thus the Buddha cannot be considered as playing a God-like role in Buddhism.

The Buddhist View of God

In the Buddhist texts Mahâ Brahmâ is represented as claiming the following attributes for himself:"I am Brahmâ, the Great Brahmâ, the Supreme One, the Mighty, the All-seeing, the Ruler, the Lord of all, the Maker, the Creator, the Chief of all appointing to each his place, the Ancient of days, the Father of all that is and will be." (Dîgha Nikáya, II, 263).The Buddha dismisses all these claims of Mahâ Brahmâ as being due to his own delusions brought about by ignorance. He argues that Mahâ-Brahmâ is simply another deva, perhaps with greater karmic force than the other gods, but nonetheless a deva and therefore unenlightened and subject to the samsâric process as determined by his karma. In such Suttas as the Brahmajâla sutta and the Agga¤¤a Sutta the Buddha refutes the claims of Maha Brahmâ and shows him to be subject to karmic law (i.e. cosmic law). Even though long-lived Mahâ Brahmâ will be eliminated in each cycle of inevitable world dissolution and re-evolution. In the Khevadda Sutta Mahâ Brahmâ is forced to admit to an inquiring monk that he is unable to answer a question that is posed to him, and advises the monk to consult the Buddha. This clearly shows the Brahmâ acknowledges the superiority of the Buddha.The Buddhist view is that gods may lead more comfortable lives and be addicted to all the sense pleasures, but in terms of wisdom might be inferior to humans. They are even represented as coming to receive instruction from monks and even lay persons. Later on with the Hindu revival and proliferation of God-cults the Buddhists were increasingly vocal against the pretensions of God and his retinue of lesser gods. Nargarjuna the Indian Buddhist philosopher of the 2nd century CE expressed a commonly shared Buddhist view when he wrote:

The gods are all eternal scoundrelsIncapable of dissolving the suffering of impermanence.Those who serve them and venerate themMay even in this world sink into a sea of sorrow.We know the gods are false and have no concrete being;Therefore the wise man believes them notThe fate of the world depends on causes and conditionsTherefore the wise man may not rely on gods.[Lamotte trans. I, p.141]

In the West a number of "arguments" have been adduced to prove or disprove the existence of God. Some of these were anticipated by the Buddha. One of the most popular is the "first cause" argument according to which everything must have a cause, and God is considered the first cause of the Universe. The Buddhist theory of causation says that every thing must have preconditions for its existence, and this law must also extend to "God" should such an entity exist. But while the "first cause" claims that God creates everything, it exempts God from the ambit of this law. However if exemptions are made with respect to God such exemptions could be made with respect to other things also hereby contradicting the principle of the first cause.But the argument which the Buddha most frequently uses is what is now called the "argument from evil" which in the Buddhist sense could be stated as the argument from dukkha (suffering or un-satisfactoriness). This states that the empirical fact of the existence of dukkha cannot be reconciled with the existence of an omnipotent and omniscient being who is also all good. The following verses from the Bhûridatta Jataka bring this out clearly:

If the creator of the world entireThey call God, of every being be the LordWhy does he order such misfortuneAnd not create concord? If the creator of the world entireThey call God, of every being be the LordWhy prevail deceit, lies and ignorance And he such inequity and injustice create? If the creator of the world entireThey call God, of every being be the Lord Then an evil master is he, (O Aritta) Knowing what's right did let wrong prevail!(Translated by the Author)

The Buddha argues that the three most commonly given attributes of God, viz. omnipotence, omniscience and benevolence towards humanity cannot all be mutually compatible with the existential fact of dukkha.From the Buddhist standpoint the classic theistic statement that "God created man in his (i.e. God's) image" has actually to be reversed. It is man who has created God in his (i.e. man's) image! And as man's own image changes so does that of his God. Thus in the present time with the rise of feminism there is an attempt to change the gender of God from a man to a woman (or perhaps even to a neuter). To liberate himself mankind has to shed his delusions, and one of these is the existence of God.

The God-Concept and Buddhist Principles

Quite apart from explicit statements refuting the God-idea there is a fundamental incompatibility between the notion of God and basic Buddhist principles. We have already mentioned that God cannot be reconciled with the Buddhist notion of causality, which is contained in the theory of "dependent origination" which is one of the discoveries of the Buddha during his enlightenment. Certainly nothing like this theory has been propounded prior to the Buddha.A fundamental Buddhist belief is that all phenomena without exemption (including all animate beings) have three essential characteristics. These are dukkha (explained above), anicca (impermanence), and anattá (insubstantiality, "no-soul"). The attributes of God are not consistent with these universal marks of existence. Thus God must be free from dukkha; he must be eternal (and hence not subject to anicca); finally he must have a distinct unchanging identity (and therefore lack the characteristic of anattá).Another concomitant of the God-idea that is fundamentally incompatible with Buddhism is the belief that God acts as the final judge and could determine if individuals go to heaven or hell. According to Buddhism the destination of individuals is determined by the karmic law, which cannot be interfered by any external process. Only individuals can effect their karmic destinies; even a Buddha cannot "pardon" or otherwise interfere with the karmic process. In Buddhism there is simply no place for a God even if one were to exist.There is also no place for the notion of vicarious salvation, or atonement for human sins by a "suffering" God. The Buddha affirms that "by oneself is kamma done and by oneself is kamma undone". According to Buddhism no one (and this includes gods or God) can save another. This is a cardinal principle of the Buddha, which cannot be reconciled with the declared attributes and actions of God.The Buddhist path to salvation is based on deeds (including mental culture through "meditation") not prayer. God appears to Buddhists to be a vain being expecting all others to pray to him and worship him. Indeed such prayer seems to be the most decisive factor in a person's salvation, not necessarily any good or bad deeds by him. But as mentioned above in Buddhism it is volitional action with determines the karma of an individual.There is no doubt some similarities in the moral codes of Buddhism and some theistic religions. Things like compassion are inculcated in all religions. But in Buddhism this does not arise from a heavenly dictate and there is no limitation in the exercise of these virtues as occurs in some theistic religion. The Persistence of the God-IdeaThe Buddha's refutation of the God-concept was formulated some 2500 years ago, perhaps at the very time that the idea of a single supreme God was mooted in India and in the Middle East. With the rise of modern science, and the discovery of natural causes for phenomena, which were formerly ascribed to the action of God, some philosophers have restated the basic fallacies of the God-hypothesis using modern science and logic (and not the Buddha's Dhamma) as their point of departure. Yet many people in the world formally subscribe to the notion of God. What is the Buddhist explanation for this phenomenon?There are many causes for the persistence of the God-idea. Some of these are induced by social and other factors. These include the institutionalization of theistic religion, the use of vast economic resources to propagate it including the mass media, and the legal right given to parents to impose their religions on their children. There is also the attractiveness of vicarious salvation, or salvation through prayer or forgiveness which permits the committing of many moral crimes for which the doer does not "pay". We shall not consider these here. From the Buddhist point of view the root causes are ignorance and fear, with fear itself ultimately the product of ignorance. Atheistic materialism has failed to dislodge the God-idea not because of any deficiency of its arguments when compared to those put forward by the theists, but because it too has not been able to eliminate ignorance.The ignorance (avijjâ) that is meant here cannot be eliminated by formal education and the propagation of scientific knowledge. After all some leading scientists are themselves completely deluded by theistic suppositions. The progress of science has resulted only in a minor diminution in the power of theistic religion, and in any case theologians have become adept at "reinterpreting" dogma while the general followers continue to do what they have always done.

The Buddha himself grasped the over-pervading nature of ignorance because of his titanic struggle to liberate himself. He even initially displayed some reluctance to propagate his knowledge because of the formidable nature of the task. Nonetheless he proclaimed his knowledge out of compassion for the world because he felt that at least a few "with little dust in their eyes" would be able to benefit fully from his ideas. From the Buddhist point of view the persistence of theism, with all its evil consequences seen in history, is a necessary consequence of the persistence of ignorance.While intellectual and scientific knowledge is not the sole (or even essential) constituent of wisdom it could in the modern world with high levels of educational attainment be a good basis for it. But what is really required is the cultivation of the mind (bhâvanâ, samâdhi). This is usually referred to as "meditation" even though this term is quite inadequate to convey the full implications of what is meant. Many modern-day "meditation teachers" do not give instruction in Buddhist mental culture, and even some of those who claim to do so may take a literal view of a few classic Buddhist texts on the subject. The Buddhist path requires a correct balance between three components: wisdom, morality and mental culture. Progress in all these three areas must be made simultaneously, and exclusive concentration on any one these, especially "meditation" of a highly stylized form, is not the balanced path. The Buddha has asked all his disciples to go to the Dhamma as their guide rather than to specific teachers. The Buddha's final instruction to his followers was to "work out your own salvation with diligence" with the Buddha's teaching (the Dhamma) as the only guide.The path of the Buddha cannot be followed if a person is deluded by the notion of God. This is why a correct understanding of all the ramifications of the God-idea is essential for anyone seeking to progress along the Buddhist path to total liberation.

Culture and Lifestyle

Theme Music: "Love Come Down" by Evelyn Champagne King

Peace,

This past weekend, I facilitated a workshop on Hip Hop & Social Justice. The conversation centered around the direction of the music, the conditions of the community, and how to have the music assist in improving the community's conditions. Usually, I hate convos like this because you tend to get a revisionist yearning for the "good ol days"of Hip Hop when everyone was conscious and positive and everything was good in Black America. This discussion was different, mainly due to the makeup of the participants. There was a good mix of artists, concerned community members, and social activists participating. Additionally, many of the artists were also activists and organizers. Another difference was the discussion of solutions versus bemoaning the current state of hip hop. The workshop was part of a much larger initiative to use the music to help repair and/or develop distressed communities. Here are some of my reflections from the discussion:

- We have to realize that hip hop is neutral, and not positive or negative like many make it out to be. The music will simply reflect the prevailing conditions and mentality of the time. You can't blame the music, you have to blame the conditions that produce the people who make the music. And while you can't change the music, you can help develop the conditions within the community to produce healthier people.

- Regardless of if we want to admit it or not, there is a economic component to this as well. As I've written before, when kids want to be a rapper to make it out of their conditions, then they'll say anything to be rich and famous. We have to create alternatives to the attractive options beyond sports, drugs and hip hop.

- One of the biggest things that we're battling is the idea of a "Hip Hop Lifestyle". The whole idea of a HH lifestyle is to market products to a young and naive demographic who thinks that HH is their Culture for more profits. To them, I say this: If HH is your culture, what does it teach you about women? What does it teach you about politics? How will it ensure your survival? The main reason that people think that HH is a culture is because we exist in a time devoid of a movement (i.e. Civil Rights or Black Power). In the absence of true Culture, the young people cling onto the music as a form of definition. If HH is a culture, that shows the vacuum that we have allowed to exist in the place of a vehicle of development for the youth.