the religions of the world hold many of the wonderful things God has set before us to discover and utilize. without Christ it's all for nothing.

"Nietzsche’s philosophy isn’t for everybody. It’s too harsh and too forbidding for many people. But it is a way of thinking which is reflexive and absolute. It’s a way of thinking which is primordial and extraordinarily Western. It’s a way of thinking that enables people to be religious, in the sense of the sacredness of life, but also to be open to fact, and to evidence, and to science. It combines those things that lead to glory. And express themselves through tenderness and ferocity."

-Jonathan Bowden

Art level: Divine

NEW LORE

"Arriving at the Beginning"

Student: Rinpoche, when you talked about the Gods coming down at different times during the month to check up on human beings and their actions, did you mean that literally?

Rinpoche: This is meant literally. These particular Gods, such as the four great kings, their retinues, and so forth, come to this world because they are virtuous and therefore they have the supercognition and miraculous abilities to do so, and as a result they are concerned with the state of human affairs. Especially their concern derives from the fact that when human beings behave virtuously, the Gods become more powerful and the Asuras less so, and therefore during that time the Gods are victorious in their perennial war with the asuras. Conversely, when human beings behave unvirtuously the Asuras gain power and the Gods lose it. In order to determine these events, the Gods come to this world to see what we are doing.

Student: I do not understand how the actions of human being swould determine the victory over the Asuras of those particular Gods.

Rinpoche: The Gods are encouraged by human virtue, and this causes everything in their realm to improve. This is the same as when you build a fire to heat a room, the room gets hotter. Do not forget it says that rejoicing in a virtuous or a negative action causes you to achieve the same amount of virtue or negativity as the person w ho performed the action. Rejoicing in our virtue is the way the Gods enjoy the benefits of our virtue.

Most of these statements come from the authority of the vinaya. It is not that many people have directly witnessed such things since then, but it is still very much a part of our tradition. For example, when His Holiness the Dalai Lama performs the hair-cutting ceremony, he gestures with the hair that has been cut off and says, "May the offering of this hair cutting please all the virtuous Devas." The reason for this is that whenever people receive the hair-cutting ceremony, take refuge, or receive ordination, it plants the seed of their certain future liberation, which is a source of great joy and pleasure to the virtuous Devas.