[see "SERMES-Love,Hopes and Light to you"]
Michael: If you mean the existence of gods like Zeus and Apollo, it
was indeed true in some respects. Zeus was the primary body of El Lantie(God).
I myself was Apollo, which means that he was the primary body for Archangel
Michael. The real Greek gods, however, were not anywhere near as frivolous
as the Greeks made them out to be. Just as we are now, we were working
to spread the True Law back then. Somebody came along later and used their
imagination and changed us around to suit their own fancy. This is why
these gods seem to be so frivolous in Greek mythology which has come down.
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Now that the excavations begun by Schlimann, Evans and others have proved
that ancient myths and kegends reflect actual historical events, it is
more significant to add that Zeus and Apllo, the greatest of all the Greek
gods, really existed as great teachers of mankind. It has already been
made clear by Chino in "The Door to Heaven" and "The Witness of the Kingdom
of Heaven" that Zeus was the primary body of El Lantie called Jehovah and
the Father of all things, while Apollo was the primary body of exChief-ArchAngel
Michael who now rules the Heaven.
And it has recently been revealed through Chino that Zeus was
born on the island of Crete around 1620 B.C., became a priest on the island
of Delos, moved to Delphi on the Greek mainland with his only son Apollo,
and preached totally new philosophical ideas there. In the odyssey by Homer,
Zeus appears as the intimate friend of King Knossos of Crete, which suggests
that Zeus comes from Crete. In addition, there is a sacred cave and a place
in Psichron village on the Lasithi plateau in the middle part of Crete
where Zeus is said to have been born and brought up. [Referred to My Greece
by Kazunosuke Murata, published by Shinchosha, Japan.] He was probably
first dispatched as a priest by King Knossos to the island of Delos, a
colony, and then to Delphi. These two places later became national sacred
places and at each a shrine was built to Apollo. So, "Know thyself," "Referain
from extremes" and other famous aphorisms written on the shrine of Apollo
at Delphi, where Zeus and Apollo.
After a long dark age when Greece was in racial and cultural
disorder, a wandering minstrel named Homer composed in about 750 B.C.,
an epic based on the legends and myths of the MinoanMycenacan civilization,
transmitting the memories of the ancient Aegean civilization and the names
of Zeus and Apollo. In about 700 B.C., the poet Hesiod wrote Theogonia
and systematized the world of gods led by Zeus, the god of justice. In
about 600 B.C., the teachings of Zeus and Apollo were again preached by
the Seven Worthies, including Solon, and led by Thales of Miletos, one
of the largest commercial cities and trading port towns in Ionia, Asia
Minor. The Seven Worthies, superior, practical and active people, not only
preached ethics and morality but were successful in politics, commerce,
learning and other practical based on their experience have been handed
down as aphorisms to the present day.
The members named as Seven Worthies are not always the same,
and thus amounting to nearly twenty in all. They traveled to the shrine
of Delphi, the center of the common religion of the Greeks and wrote such
famous aphorisms as "Know thyself" and "Refrain from extremes," and dedicated
them to Apollo as the first fruits of wisdom. Among their other saying
are "Respect your father,""Give citizens not the most pleasing but the
best advice","Hold a marriage ceremony in a simple manner","Obey the law(True
Law)","Never become rich in a mean manner","Uneducatedness is a burden","Don't
do what you find irritating in your neighbors","Whatever good you do should
be attributed not to you but to Gods" and "Labor for the whole". Many archangels
were incorporated in this group of Seven Worthies, and this must be recognized
as an important period in the history of mankind.
After this period, great natural philosophers appeared in ancient
Greece, set forth various theories on the universe and gave rational explanations
for various phenomena of the universe in place of the preceding mythological
ones: Thales, one of the Seven Worthies, and his followers( the Miletus
school), Heraclitus of Ephesus in Asia Minor, Pythagoras, born in Samos,
who worked actively at Kroton in southern Italy; Zenon, Empedocles, Anaxagoras,
Democritus, etc. Even the soul of man was studied as part of natural phenomena
to be explained by the same rule as the formstion of nature. Here various
ideas were born which would carry the first ideas of evolutionary theory,
nuclear physics, heliocentrism, and chemistry. Our cintemporary civilization's
technology owes a great deal to this period, and I think the appearance
of these scientific ways of thinking was connected with the naturalistic
way of living in the Minoan-Aegean civilization.
It was after the time of these natural philosophers, when men
became interested in the study of men themselves and the sophists were
teaching, that Socrates, the great philosopher, appeared in Athens. He
gave a more profound meaning to the teaching of "Know thyself" of Delphi,
and taught people that real knowledge does not just mean knowledge about
things. He involved his does not just mean knowledge about things. He involved
his audience through dialogue and led them through an awareness of their
ignorance to self-reflection, so that they might be transformed into pursures
and lovers of true wisdom (philosophers). He insisted that people should
endeavor to maintain and nourish what is inside -- the purity of the soul
--rather than seek after fortune, power, social standing, and other changing
external matters. These teachings were derived from those of Zeus and Apollo,
needless to say. And Socrates's courageous death was the embodiment of
his own teaching.
His follower Plato said that there was nothing eternal in the
changing phenomenal world, that all phenomena were the reflection of the
perfect world of ideas (the celestial world), and that man could recognize
and judge immediately what he saw and heard in this phenomenal world because
he remembered (anamnesis) what he had experienced in the process of transmigration
and in the celestial world, the world of ideas. Here, Plato clarified the
transmigration preached by Apollo in Egypt, by Pythagoras, and others.[Note:
In the real sense of the word, man comes into existence only with birth
and his transmigration starts at that time. So, "transmigration" in the
above context means, at that of the incorporated soul body. Refer to "The
Door to Heaven" and "The Witness of the Kingdom of Heaven".]
Aristotle, Plato's follower, a man of wisdom and the father
of all present fields of learning, observed and considered things from
the standpoint of rational empiricism, and thus clarified the basis of
learning for posterity. Zoology was one of Aristotle's favorite subjects
and Darwin, the evolutionalist of the modern age, is said to have respected
him for his minute observation, classification, and his evolutionary theory.
He preached about the mean (mesotes) in his Nikomachean Ethics, also built
upon the teachings of Zeus and Apollo. He was the great teacher of Alexander,
the king of Macedonia who united the Eastern and the Western worlds as
a young ruler and became the first embodiment of an international spirit
that gave birth to Hellenism. Aristotle taught him not only subject matter
but also ethics for a man to follow in living. That was probably why that
great king loved cleanliness, was firm of purpose, and recognized the importance
learning in later ages. For example, he took scholars on his great expeditions
so they could study the geography and history of the places they visited;
he also constructed Alexandria in Egypt, building a large library there
and making the city a great cultural center. So the teaching of Zeus and
Apollo, which began in the Aegean civilization, flowed like a river in
various forms through the Roman period, the whole of Europe and Indian
to reach the Orient.
Before closing this chapter, I'd like you to feel the essence
of the ancient Aegean civilization by telling you of the life and fundamental
teaching of Apollo, who preached at Delphi and other places in Greece as
the primary body of the exchief-Archangel Michael.
Apollo was born as the son of Zeus on the island of Delos in
the Aegean Sea about 3,500 years ago. Zeus followed the will of God and
told people to know themselves, preaching the 2immortality of the soul
and the Shoho. He passed away as an old man when Apollo was eighteen. Immediately
afterward, Apollo felt that life was so meaningless that he went up Olympus,
where he stayed one year and three months, practicing various austerities
to know himself and going on pilgrimages. In doing so, he came to know
that people sought salvation from the sufferings of life, old age, illness
and death. Living in a cave in the mountain, he sat in religious meditation
day after day eating very little so that he could attain self-knowledge
soon and help many suffering people. He experienced all sorts of hardships
which hindered his spiritual enlightenment. He was even attacked by bears
and snakes at night. His physical strength grew weaker every day and his
cloths became rags. But he could not descend the mountain until he had
attained self-knowledge.
One rainy day he was sitting in meditation as usual in front
of a big tree. Then he saw lightning overhead, and at that instant a big
tree behind him was struck by thunder. His mind suddenly became calm and
clear. He said in his heart that he wouldn't mind dying ohn the spot, as
he was, if he had no mission. At that moment, a voice in his heart said
he had gained an immovable mind. Simultaneously the heavy thunder storm
stopped and a gentle golden light began to pour down through the clouds.
Then he saw his dead father Zeus appear before him as if he
were alive, accompanied by Amon, Agatha, and many angels of light, and
they all surrounded him. He could hardly believe his eyes in amazement.
He was told by Zeus what his mission was and who he was, and he was told
by Zeus what his mission was and who he was, and he was given a power to
look through the three worlds(attention:Buddhist terminology to mean the
past, the present and the future worlds.)
Now that Apollo had attained self-knowledge, he went down the
mountain and proceeded to the town of Delphi. Seeing people suffering from
spiritual and physical illness, from hunger because of proverty, he wanted
to help them and tried hard to think out the way of salvation there. Then
he made up his mind to preach on life and death, for which the people were
all suffering, now that he had already been freed from worry about death.
He told people that there was an incorporator for each of them in the next
world -- Utopia -- and that they had each chosen their souls through their
parents to be be here on earth and told them that before coming into the
world again they would do best to train their souls through their lives.
He also showed them the mext world in a reflection in the water. People
were so amazed when they realized the greatness of the gods in the celestial-world.
Apollo now tells to us what he used to tell the people of his days.
"You should not be preoccupied with physical matters and money.
They are never immortal; you cannnot take them to the next world. What
you can take there is only a heart of love given you by our great God,
which is the good self and can never tell a lie. So you must know yourself.
Know your own capacity. You must not judge others' capacity by your own.
Avoid extremes, steady your mind and keep it always in the middle way.
Be faithful to your heart. Be thankful from your heart for parental love
which sacrifices itself for children, and be thankful as well to food which
has given away its life for others. All things in this world are reflections
of those of the world beyond. They are not eternal. Know yourself, perform
your responsibility and then come back to heaven...."
Leaving this world, Apollo, who had preached the shoho, said
to his followers. "A great man will be born in the Orient. (He meant Buddah.)
He will save many people. Take my teaching to him". Thus, Apollo's teaching
was carried to India by his followers and resulted in the philosophy of
Upanishad, Brahmanism. Apollo is also said to have appeared in the dreams
of Socrates and Plato to preach the truth to them, the immortality that
Plato came to know about Atlantis.
Thus the Shoho of Zeus and Apollo, conceived in the last stage
beautiful Aegean Sea, has been handred down to the present age through
Indis and Greece, and is still alive. Seeing that the Shoho is again shining
upon us, isn't it the time now for us to devote ourselves to the reconstruction
of a peaceful, fertile and truthful civilization which reminds us of the
ancient Aegean Civilization?