Give me, Theodoulos, a nutshell, and we will pour into it all the human wisdom of India, accumulated over thousands of years: all the Vedas, all Buddhism, all the tantras and mantras, and the whole Mahabharata, and the mysterious word "aum". In one nutshell are placed the four main ideas of all Indian wisdom, namely:

1. The soul is not dust and does not consist of dust, but is a special immortal being enclosed in the dust of the body.

2. This world is infinite in time and space; all souls, all bodies, all spirits, and all gods dwell in it; There is no way out of this world.

3. Karma determines the future fate of the soul.

4. Asceticism is a necessary condition for the formation of new karma and a change for the better in the future fate of the soul, as well as for its final liberation from the body.

The whole greatness of Indian thought consists in the insistent assertion that the human soul is not dust, but that it, as the bearer of life, has dominion over dust. The very Sanskrit name for the soul ("alive") indicates that life is contained in the soul, and not in the dust of the body. This notion, nurtured by billions of human beings in India to this day, may shame those European Christians who regard the soul as dust. However, the Indian teaching about the eternity and infinity of the world is worthy of tears and sympathy. This fundamental misconception has led to all the other terrible misconceptions of the Indians. After all, if this world is eternal and infinite, then there is no place for another world. Then the immortal soul has nowhere to go out of this world, and when it leaves one body, it enters another, and so on endlessly. This delusion is the stumbling block of the Buddha and the mother of Buddhism. But it is refuted even by modern science, which asserts that the world of our universe is limited in both time and space, that is, it once arose and will someday disappear. Hence the hope is born that in the labyrinth of the present world there may be doors and windows to some other world, into which the souls of people, separated from their bodies, can pass from the samsara of this world.

People and gods are like cattle

Man, Theodoulos, cannot humiliate himself without humiliating his God, and he cannot humiliate God and not humiliate himself. A crooked hoe is a disgrace to the blacksmith, and a muddy stream flows out of the muddy spring. Among the pagan peoples, both people and gods are humiliated to the level of cattle. People are slaughtered and burned like cattle as sacrifices to evil gods, and snakes, bulls, monkeys and birds are deified as real gods. Exceptions to this could scarcely be found on the whole globe in any rare people before the birth of Christ. And even thoughtful India was no exception. The land of the world's deepest philosophy, the most refined psychology, and the most strenuous human effort—intellectual, intuitive, and moral—India was seething and foaming with polytheistic delusions no less than gloomy Egypt and superficial Hellas, or formidable Syria and Chaldea.

Nowhere could people rise to the idea of a single, omnipotent and humane God. If faith in such a God began to sparkle somewhere, there immediately arose a counterbalance to Him - a god of immorality and destruction, a villain and a misanthrope, from whom people had to pay off with considerable sacrifices. This is how Shiva, the god of destruction, appears in India as an equal member of the trio: Vishnu, Brahma and Shiva. In Egypt, Osiris and Isis are at enmity because of the atrocity committed against Horus. In Hellas, Zeus often finds himself helpless in the face of a whole horde of immoral and nasty deities. He barely manages to stay in power and intrigue against the whole Olympic gypsy camp. In Persia, Ormuzd wages a fierce struggle against his rival Ahriman. In Syria, the monstrous Moloch insatiably swallows the people who are thrown at him as sacrifices. On the American continent and across the Pacific Islands, deities are like these, with the same appetite. The deification of snakes is a common feature of all pagan peoples. The one who appeared to the foremother Eve in the form of a serpent was able - by God's permission - to impose himself on the human race as an obligatory deity. He taught people magic and witchcraft. Humiliated himself, he did everything to humiliate God and people.

People accepted the evil suggestions of the serpent of hell and loved darkness more than light, falsehood more than truth, enmity more than benevolence; they believed more in sacrifices than in mercy, in idols of stone and wood more than in God Almighty, in serpents and other animals more than in their one Creator and Lord.

Among some peoples men are exalted (if it is only ascension) to the rank of gods, especially rulers and heroes, for there was nowhere such a polytheistic pantheon to which new gods could not be added. A pile of garbage does not resent when new garbage is added to it. Only truth does not tolerate addition and subtraction. For example, some Caesars in Rome were proclaimed gods by the Senate and included in the Roman pantheon. Bogdykhan, the king of China, from time immemorial was considered the son of heaven, a deity. The Mikado in Japan is still considered a deity and has a divine origin. Many famous samurai were also numbered among the gods for their patriotism, and temples were erected over their coffins and sacrifices were made. And although the deification of people looks somewhat better than the deification of snakes, both come from the father of all lies and all violence. Everything is calculated and directed to the darkening of the human mind, to the corruption of the heart and to evil; in the final analysis, to bring all mankind to despair and madness.

And indeed, at the time of the appearance of the Savior on earth, the world resembled a prison and an insane asylum; not only resembled, but was indeed a veritable prison for the desperate and a home for the insane. The whole world lay in evil. And the world did not know anything better. After all, neither Indian nirvana nor the Hellenic hades were any consolation for desperate people. That is why some Greek philosophers said, in agreement with the Sibyls, the prophetesses of Rome: "Only a certain God can save the world."

Seed and Seed

The seed is the word of God (cf. Luke 8:11).