The Buddha in space (akasha deva loka), Spaceport 33 where Sakka is an Earth-friendly ruler. This is an artist's conception of the Buddha presenting a sutra to the "shining ones" (devas) on a nearby planet or port called Tavatimsa.
It is amazing and remarkable that the world's mythology repeats and repeats. The consistency of the "mythology" is amazing. The names change:
- Vedic Brahmanism's Indra the God of Thunder
- becomes Buddhism's Sakra, King of Kings and Lords of [the 33] Lords, on Mt. Sumeru (also called Mt. Meru)
- becomes Zeus (the "God of the Sky") the "Father of [Celestials] and Humans" according to Hesiod's Theogony) on Mt. Olympus
- becomes Jupiter to the Romans
- becomes the Vikings' Odin...
the pantheons have the same arrangement with a few alterations to make them understandable to each culture that comes to know of them. Who are the celestial "gods" other than extraterrestrial aliens? They are human (sometimes demigod-hybrids).
But our entire vision of "space alien" has been so maligned by a misinformation campaign that we fail to see that these are the "angels" and "gods" and "goddesses" of the world's spiritual traditions. Soon science will speak openly of the mountains of concrete evidence for UFOs and ancient extraterrestrial civilizations here and elsewhere throughout the solar system and galaxy. (Many already only to be ridiculed by the public relations campaign hired to keep this a secret other governments and the disclosureproject.org is nevertheless divulging).
Wisdom Quarterly often explores the life of Sakra (Sakka), the war in "heaven" (Tavatimsa or "Spaceport 33" as we have dubbed it), and his great Hall of Truth in Buddhism. What did the Vikings (Norse or old German) believe?
Mt. Sumeru (axis mundi), underground bases, Eden as Æsir a paradise in our hollow Earth inhabited by flying ships and space-travelling visitors, the arctic and antarctic magnetic poles in the mythology of the cosmic "tree" Yggdrasil.
Abbreviated from Linda Casselman (Mythology, suite101.com)
Why did ancient Norse warriors go so bravely into battle? Because, should they die in the heat of the fight, they had Valhalla to look forward to, Odin's great Hall of the Slain.
Valhalla is in the Grove of Glesir in Asgard, the home of the Aesir gods [extraterrestrials by definition]. Encircled by a strong outer wall, this glorious hall's inner walls were said to be built of weapons and treasures. The hall was so huge that its 500 [a "large number" of] doors allow soldiers to pour out on doomsday -- Ragnarok.
Ragnarok is the expected "last day" of the world or this cycle, when the gods do battle with evil and ultimately die, bringing about the end of the world. This is the reason for Odin's shinning Hall of Valhalla. When a warrior died valiantly in battle he is would be chosen by Odin and taken up [in a ship not necessarily into space but possibly into a paradise in the hollow Earth] to Valhalla by a Valkyrie (Apsara or Gandharvi) to join his fallen brothers.
Earth is hollow, with spacecraft and cities (2012.com.au)
[This mirrors the view in Judaism and ancient Greek "Paganism" of the world-to-come as Sheol or Hades. In modern times we view the underground in an almost entirely negative light. But it is not this way. Some levels of "hell" are beneath our feet in Christian (purgatory) and Buddhist, Hindu, Jain (naraka) cosmology. But there are other inner-Earth worlds, such as those described by the American Navy Admiral Richard Byrd, in the Vedas (Underground Realms), and in Zoroastrianism (Hamistagan) where everyone ends up for a time.]
- Of course, how would one ever get others to believe that our "solid" Earth is hollow, when the thought of alien spacecraft and advanced space beings not at war with us is impossible to imagine? Evidence counts for nothing in either above us or below us because the possibility is dismissed out of hand. It is too upsetting, overthrowing our preconceptions. It shatters our comfortable paradigm that we are at the center of our self-absorbed universe, which all groups believe of themselves. But call it "mythology" and people are at least able to contemplate it.
Getting into Valhalla, however, is not easy. [Only half get in, with the other half going to Folkvangr.] The chosen first have to pass obstacles, tests of strength, skill, and bravery before gaining entry through the sacred gate, Valgrind. Once inside, one can expect a pleasurable afterlife of miraculous healing, feasting, and fighting [yes, fighting because heaven is not "heaven," with war and conflict still prevalent in the sense realm], as well as a never-ending supply of mead [soma].
Indeed, Valhalla was a very desirable and enviable afterlife for the ancient Norse warrior, much better than the fate of the dreadful and dreary afterlife in the realm of Hel expected for those who died of natural causes. This may have encouraged the warring nature of the ancient Norsemen... eager for a Viking's Paradise!
Not the first to make the connection
Wisdom Quarterly edit of Wikipedia entry on "Tratyatimsa"
Wisdom Quarterly is not the first to make the connection between various culture's spiritual "histories": Tavatimsa is located on the peak of Mt. Sumeru, the axis mundi, at a height of 80,000 yojanas. The total area of the heaven is 80,000 yojanas square. This celestial world is therefore comparable to the Greek's Mt. Olympus in some respects.
According to Vasubandhu, inhabitants of "The World of the Thirty-three" (Tavatimsa) each half a krośa tall (about 1,500 feet) and live for 1,000 Tavatimsa-years. Each Tavatimsa-day is equivalent to 100 Earth-years.
Because that world is physically connected to Earth through Sumeru -- which seems to be a kind of launch site or route or spaceway more than any rock and dirt "mountain." Unlike the space worlds above it, the inhabitants there are unable to avoid becoming entangled in human affairs.
In particular, they frequently find themselves in quarrels with the Asuras, "Titans," who were long ago expelled from Tavatimsa, at the beginning of the reign of the present Śakra (which is actually a position more than a single individual, much like a human monarch or president). This angered them and led to a star war (as in Star Wars or what is commonly referred to as a "War in Heaven," heaven simply being the sky). The Titans now dwell at the foot of Mt. Sumeru, that is to say on the surface of this planet, devising plans to recover their lost home.
The Titans cannot be so different from the Devas. For there is marriage between the two, just as there is between the Æsir and the jötnar in Norse mythology.
The chief of the The World of the Thirty-three is Śakra (Sakka). Other members of the Thirty-three who are frequently mentioned are Viśvakarman (Vissakamma), the devas' crafter and builder; Mātali, who drives Śakra's vimana, spacecraft, or "chariot"; and Sujā, Śakra's Titan-wife and daughter of the Asura chief Vemacitrin (Vepacitti), a kind of Lucifer figure in Buddhism as distinct from a "Satan" or tempter figure (Mara). (Source: Tavatimsa)
- The Sheaf of Barley Sutra (Yavakalapi)
"Once, monastics, the devas and asuras were arrayed for battle. Then Vepacitti, the ruler of the asuras, addressed them: 'If, dear sirs, in the battle of the devas arrayed against the asuras, the asuras win and the devas are defeated, bind Sakka, the ruler of the devas, neck, hand, and foot and bring him before me in the city of the asuras.' [Sakka addressed the devas of the Thirty-three in the same way.] Now, in that battle the devas won. So the devas brought Vepacitti before Sakka in the assembly of the devas...
