Rig-Veda

• Brahmans culled sacred writings to create R.-V. in order to combat Salem teachers
• most variegated system of theology ever developed

94:1.7The Brah­mans culled the sa­cred writ­ings of their day in an ef­fort to com­bat the Salem teach­ers, and this com­pi­la­tion, as later re­vised, has come on down to mod­ern times as the Rig-Veda, one of the most an­cient of sa­cred books. The sec­ond, third, and fourth Vedas fol­lowed as the Brah­mans sought to crys­tal­lize, for­mal­ize, and fix their rit­u­als of wor­ship and sac­ri­fice upon the peo­ples of those days. Taken at their best, these writ­ings are the equal of any other body of sim­i­lar char­ac­ter in beauty of con­cept and truth of dis­cern­ment. But as this su­pe­rior re­li­gion be­came con­tam­i­nated with the thou­sands upon thou­sands of su­per­sti­tions, cults, and rit­u­als of south­ern In­dia, it pro­gres­sively meta­mor­phosed into the most var­ie­gated sys­tem of the­ol­ogy ever de­vel­oped by mor­tal man. An ex­am­i­na­tion of the Vedas will dis­close some of the high­est and some of the most de­based con­cepts of De­ity ever to be con­ceived.

• portrayed one spirituality of Hindu gods

96:0.1In con­ceiv­ing of De­ity, man first in­cludes all gods, then sub­or­di­nates all for­eign gods to his tribal de­ity, and fi­nally ex­cludes all but the one God of fi­nal and su­preme value. The Jews syn­the­sized all gods into their more sub­lime con­cept of the Lord God of Is­rael. The Hin­dus like­wise com­bined their mul­ti­far­i­ous de­i­ties into the “one spir­i­tu­al­ity of the gods” por­trayed in the Rig-Veda, while the Mes­o­po­ta­mi­ans re­duced their gods to the more cen­tral­ized con­cept of Bel-Mar­duk. These ideas of mono­the­ism ma­tured all over the world not long af­ter the ap­pear­ance of Ma­chi­venta Mel­chiz­e­dek at Salem in Pales­tine. But the Mel­chiz­e­dek con­cept of De­ity was un­like that of the evo­lu­tion­ary phi­los­o­phy of in­clu­sion, sub­or­di­na­tion, and ex­clu­sion; it was based ex­clu­sively on cre­ative power and very soon in­flu­enced the high­est de­ity con­cepts of Mes­o­po­ta­mia, In­dia, and Egypt.

• distinction between mind and heart

111:0.7Ev­ery race of evolv­ing Uran­tia mor­tals has a word equiv­a­lent to the con­cept of soul. Many prim­i­tive peo­ples be­lieved the soul looked out upon the world through hu­man eyes; there­fore did they so cravenly fear the malev­o­lence of the evil eye. They have long be­lieved that “the spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord.” The Rig-Veda says: “My mind speaks to my heart.”