The Rig Veda

The Rig-Veda is a collection of over 1,000 hymns, which contain the mythology of the Hindu gods, and is considered to be one of the foundations of the Hindu religion. While the Rig is the oldest of the Vedas, there are three other Vedas. There is the Sama Veda, which is the "knowledge of chants" or a number of basic hymns recited at sacrifices. There is also the Yajur Veda or "knowledge of rites" which serve basically as a "how to make sacrifices" book. The final Veda is the Athara Veda, this Veda represents the knowledge given by Athara who was a sage. These Vedas were passed on orally for many generations. When they were written down, they were first written in Vedic, an early form of Sanskrit. Then around 300 B.C. the Vedas were written down in the form we have them today.

The Bhagavad Gita

The Bhagavad Gita (Bhagavad Gita, "Song of God") is a Sanskrit text from the chapter Bhishma Parva of the Mahabharata epic, comprising 700 verses.

Krishna, as the speaker of the Bhagavad Gita, is referred to within as Bhagavan (the divine one). The verses themselves, using the range and style of Sanskrit meter (chhandas) with similes and metaphors, are written in a poetic form that is traditionally chanted; hence the title, which translates to "the Song of the Divine One". The Bhagavad Gita is revered as sacred by Hindu traditions, and especially so by Vaishnavas (followers of Vishnu). It is commonly referred to as The Gita.

Patanjali's Yoga Sutras

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali is an essential yoga text. "Sutra" is a Sanskrit word meaning "thread". In Indian philosophy a "sutra" is similar to our "epigram" or "aphorism" -- a statement in which the maximum meaning is packed into the minimum number of words. By its very nature it can be hard to understand, and a great deal of study, together with the guidance of a good teacher, is necessary to extract its true meaning.

Who was Patanjali? No-one knows. There is some doubt about when exactly he lived -- suggested dates range from 5th century BCE to 2nd century CE. One thing we can be sure of is that he did not originate the teachings in the Yoga Sutras, but inherited a huge mass of earlier teachings; his contribution was to condense, systematize and refine these teachings.

The concepts contained in the Yoga Sutras are a tool for developing an understanding of the human psyche.

Channeling

Channeling is a means of communicating with any consciousness that is not in human form by allowing that consciousness to express itself through the person channeling. Most commonly, the term channeling refers to communication with spirit guides, who are non-physical.

If we look at our history on this planet and most all of the ancient scriptures that have been written over the course of our existence we can began to understand that most all of these were channeled. This encompasses all religions. If you ask, most biblical scholars and religious leaders will tell you that the bible was written through the divine inspiration of God. What does this mean actually? Does this mean God came down and sat at a desk and scribed the text we now find in the bible? No, this means that humans sat down and were inspired by the spirit to write the text.

Read the article for a more in depth information…

A Course in Miracles

A Course in Miracles is a complete self-study spiritual thought system. As a three-volume curriculum consisting of a Text, Workbook for Students, and Manual for Teachers, it teaches that the way to universal love and peace—or remembering God—is by undoing guilt through forgiving others. The Course thus focuses on the healing of relationships and making them holy. A Course in Miracles also emphasizes that it is but one version of the universal curriculum, of which there are "many thousands." Consequently, even though the language of the Course is that of traditional Christianity, it expresses a non-sectarian, non-denominational spirituality. A Course in Miracles therefore is a universal spiritual teaching, not a religion.

A Course in Miracles was "scribed" by Dr. Helen Schucman through a process of inner dictation she identified as coming from Jesus. A clinical and research psychologist and tenured Associate Professor of Medical Psychology, she was assisted by Dr. William Thetford, her department head, who was also a tenured Professor of Medical Psychology at the Medical Center where they both worked.

The Bible

Bible refers to the collection of canonical religious writings of Judaism and of Christianity. The books that are considered canon in the Bible vary depending upon the denomination using or defining it. These variations are a reflection of the range of traditions and councils that have convened on the subject.

The Christian Bible consists of the Hebrew scriptures, which are called the Old Testament, and some later writings known as the New Testament. Some groups within Christianity include additional books as part one or both of these sections of their sacred writings – most prominent among which are the biblical apocrypha or deuterocanonical books.

In Judaism, the term Christian Bible is commonly used to identify only those books like the New Testament which have been added by Christians to the Masoretic Text, and excludes any reference to an Old Testament.

The Nag Hammadi

In December of 1945 some Egyptian peasants found over 1100 pages of ancient papyrus manuscripts buried by the east bluff of the upper Nile valley. The texts were translations from Greek originals into Coptic°, the Hellenistic stage of the ancient language of the Pharaohs— evolving after the invasion of Alexander the Great in 332 BC and subsequently replaced by Arabic following the Muslim conquest of 640 AD.

The site of this discovery, across the river from the modern town of Nag Hammadi, was already famous as the location called in antiquity CHNOBOSKEION ('Goose-Pasture'), where in 320 ADSaint Pachomius founded the earliest Christian monastery. Less than a half-century later in 367 AD (and thus 30 years prior to the canonization of the NT at the Third Council of Carthage), the local monks copied some 45 diverse religious writings —including the Gospels of Thomas, Philip and Valentine —into 13 leather-bound codices. This entire library was carefully sealed in an urn and hidden nearby among the rocks, where it remained undetected for almost 1600 years. These papyri are now preserved in the library of the Coptic Museum at Old Cairo.

About Hinduism

Hinduism is a religious tradition that originated in the Indian subcontinent. Hinduism is often referred to as Sanātana Dharma ( सनातन धर्म) by its practitioners, a Sanskrit phrase meaning "the eternal law".

Hinduism is the world's oldest major religion that is still practiced. Its earliest origins can be traced to the ancient Vedic civilization. A conglomerate of diverse beliefs and traditions, Hinduism has no single founder. It is the world's third largest religion following Christianity and Islam, with approximately a billion adherents, of whom about 905 million live in India and Nepal. Other countries with large Hindu populations include Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius, Fiji, Suriname, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago.