How to evangelize the Hindu culture??

[Mount_Carmel]

A major challenge is they come from the upper Hindu caste

Yes, many amongst the Brahmin class would not warm easily to the idea of Jesus, especially a Divine Jesus consorting with folks they would deem as ‘Untouchable’.
But then some of the mega-privileged here in the ‘West’, also shuffle uneasily at some of the things Jesus said, for instance ‘The Widow’s Mite’ and the ‘Rich man and Poor Lazarus’.

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

Some times I just want to scream you need Jesus !!!

Any ideas

And most Christians you meet don’t make you feel like screaming that as well?

BTW - I think most of them know who Jesus is. Perhaps the best way to evangelize is to let them see Jesus in you.

 

[Pleroma]

Then I would suggest that you start a gnostic thread on which you can wow us with your wisdom and knowledge and not derail this one.

For your kind information I am a born Hindu and I know about Hinduism and Christianity more than the Hindus and the orthodox Christians, don’t tell me on which threads I should post to and which I shouldn’t. I already warned you guys not to judge the Gentiles for the heavenly Father will not forgive you and not to evangelize the Hindus because if you do the only thing you can achieve is being evangelized into their own religion. Its highly impossible to evangelize the Hindus.

 

[Pleroma]

If you manage to stay around here for more than 100 posts (which is doubtful, IMO) you just might learn how much we do know about other faith traditions, including the heresy of Gnosticism.

You guys don’t even know the things that exists in your own religion where will you have time to read about other traditions. You guys only know how to demonize other humble faithful traditions.

 

[Et_Cetera]

I am constantly in contact with Hindus (all very wealthy) and honestly thier culture seems like it completely alien to me. They come off very rude and remeaning towards others

Some times I just want to scream you need Jesus !!!

Any ideas

Leave them alone. They deserve a better friend.

 

[SteveVH]

You guys don’t even know the things that exists in your own religion where will you have time to read about other traditions. You guys only know how to demonize other humble faithful traditions.

Interesting. I have yet to hear anything humble come out of your mouth. If you think you can come to a Catholic forum, tell us how ignorant we all are and how all knowing you are and then expect to be treated seriously, you had better think again.

 

[SteveVH]

For your kind information I am a born Hindu and I know about Hinduism and Christianity more than the Hindus and the orthodox Christians,

And just how is it that you know more about Hinduism and Christianity than the Hindus and the Christians? Please enlighten us.

don’t tell me on which threads I should post to and which I shouldn’t.

I didn’t. I asked you not to derail this thread.

I already warned you guys not to judge the Gentiles for the heavenly Father will not forgive you and not to evangelize the Hindus because if you do the only thing you can achieve is being evangelized into their own religion. Its highly impossible to evangelize the Hindus.

Well, sorry. Christ’s command to his Church was to go out and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. He didn’t leave anyone out. So I would prefer to obey Christ than obey you, in spite of your “warning”.

 

[Pleroma]

Well, sorry. Christ’s command to his Church was to go out and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. He didn’t leave anyone out. So I would prefer to obey Christ than obey you, in spite of your “warning”.

Thanks for missing my whole point. I did not asked the Catholics to stop spreading the message of Christ and his Gospels. My concern has always been that if they want to spread the message of Christ then let them spread the correct message that Pleroma has a local existence and forms the mystical body of Christ instead of a misinterpreted version of Christianity which you guys have held on to.

 

[SteveVH]

Thanks for missing my whole point. I did not asked the Catholics to stop spreading the message of Christ and his Gospels. My concern has always been that if they want to spread the message of Christ then let them spread the correct message that Pleroma has a local existence and forms the mystical body of Christ instead of a misinterpreted version of Christianity which you guys have held on to.

Do you have anything with which you can substantiate your position other than your opinion? You have repeatedly stated that you know more than the rest of us about Hinduism and Christianity but all I have seen so far is just your opinion. Do you have anything of substance to form a valid argument?

Christ is the Pleroma; the fullness of God; the completeness of the divine nature. He is the Head and we are the body, as Paul explains. Please explain what you mean by a “local existence”?

 

[Pleroma]

Do you have anything with which you can substantiate your position other than your opinion? You have repeatedly stated that you know more than the rest of us about Hinduism and Christianity but all I have seen so far is just your opinion. Do you have anything of substance to form a valid argument?

Valentinian Christology, their sacrementology and their eschatology are all derived from the same Pauline epistles which forms the Biblical Canon. I use the same scriptures which you use to arrive at this logical conclusion and I don’t need to give any logical justifications to anyone for the evidence is out there for anyone who studies the ancient scriptures.

Christ is the Pleroma; the fullness of God; the completeness of the divine nature. He is the Head and we are the body, as Paul explains. Please explain what you mean by a “local existence”?

Christianity has thirty Aeons and they form the Pleroma of God which is the body of Christ, our Lord. This was the esoteric message of Saint Paul. What you have got here is just the psychic interpretation of the scriptures which is inferior compared to the pneumatic interpretation of the Gentiles.

Its not my fault if you fail to read the sources which I gave you earlier. Please read it.

On the meaning of the word Pleroma

When we turn from Catholic Christianity to the Gnostic sects we find sects. this term used, though (with one important exception) not in great frequency. Probably however, if the writings of the earlier Gnostics had been preserved, we should have found that it occupied a more important place than at present appears. One class of early Gnostics separated the spiritual being Christ from the man Jesus ; they supposed that the Christ
entered Jesus at the time of His baptism and left him at the moment of His crucifixion. Thus the Christ was neither born as a man nor suffered as a man. In this way they obviated the difficulty, insuperable to the Gnostic mind, of conceiving the connexion between the highest spiritual agency and gross corporeal matter, which was involved in the Catholic doctrine of the Incarnation and Passion, and which Gnostics of another type more effectually set aside by the theory of docetism, i.e. by assuming that the human body of our Lord was only a phantom body and not real flesh and blood.

Irenseus represents the former class as teaching that ‘Jesus was the receptacle of the Christ’, and that the Christ ‘descended upon him from heaven in the form of a dove and after He had declared (to mankind) the nameless Father, entered (again) into the pleroma imperceptibly and invisibly’^. Here no names are given. But in another passage he ascribes precisely the same doctrine, without however naming the pleroma, to Cerinthus^. And in a third passage, which links together the other two, this same father, after mentioning this heresiarch, again alludes to the doctrine which maintained that the Christ, having descended on Jesus at his baptism, ‘flew back again into His own pleroma’ In this last passage indeed the opinions of Cerinthus are mentioned in connexion with those of other Gnostics, more especially the Valentinians, so that we cannot with any certnlnty attribute this expression to Cerinthus himself. But in the first passage the unnamed heretics who maintained this return of the Christ ‘into the pleroma’ are expressly dis-tinguished from the Valentinians ; and presumably therefore the allusion is to the Cerinthians, to whom the doctrine, though not the expression, is ascribed in the second passage. Thus there seems to be sufficient reason Connexion for attributing the use of the term to Cerinthus^ This indeed is probable of this use on other grounds. The term pleroma, we may presume, was common to St Paul and the Colossian heretics whom he controverts. To both alike it conveyed the same idea, the totality of the divine powers or attributes or Colossiaa agencies or manifestations. But after this the divergence begins. They heretics, maintained that a single divine power, a fraction of the pleroma, resided in
our Lord : the Apostle urges on the contrary, that the whole pleroma has its abode in Him-. The doctrine of Cerinthus was a development of the Colossian heresy, as I have endeavoured to show above. He would therefore inherit the teim pleroma from it. At the same time he seems to have given a poetical colouring to his doctrine, and so doing to have treated the pleroma as a locality, a higher spiritual region, from which this divine power, typified by the dove-like form, issued forth as on wings, and to which, taking flight again, it reascended before the Passion. If so, his language would prepare the way for the still more elaborate poetic imagery of the Valentinians, in which the pleroma, conceived as a locality, a region, an abode of the divine powers, is conspicuous.

The attitude of later Gnostics towards this term is widely divergent. The term The word is not, so far as I am aware, once mentioned in connexion with avoided by the system of Basilides. Indeed the nomenclature of this heresiarch, longs to a wholly different type ; and, as he altogether repudiated the doctrine of emanations*, it is not probable that he would have any fondness for a term which was almost inextricably entangled with this doctrine.

 

[Pleroma]

On the other hand with Valentinus and the Valentinians the doctrine of the pleroma was the very key-stone of their system; and, since at first in sight it is somewhat difficult to connect their use of the term with St Paul’s, a few words on this subject may not be out of place.

Valentinus then dressed his system in a poetic imagery not unlike the myths of his master Plato. But a myth or story involves action, and action requires a scene of action. Hence the mysteries of theology and cosmogony and redemption call for a to’pograpMcal representation, and the pleroraa appears not as an abstract idea, but as a locality.

Topogra- The Valentinian system accordingly maps out the universe of things great regions, called respectively the pleroma and the kenoma, the ‘fulness’ and the ‘void’. From a Christian point of view these may be described as the kingdoms of light and of darkness respectively. From Antithesis the side of Platonism, they are the regions of real and of phenomenal of pleroma existences — the world of eternal archetypes or ideas, and the world of material and sensible things. The identification of these two antitheses was rendered easy for the Gnostic ; because with him knowledge was one with morality and with salvation, and because also matter was absolutely bound up with evil. It is difficult to say whether the Platonism or the Christianity predominates in the Valentinian theology ; but the former at all events is especially prominent in their conception of the relations between the pleroma and tlie kenoma. The pleroma is the abode of the AEons, who are thirty in number. These AEons are successive emanations, of which the first pair sprang immediately from the pre-existent Bythus or Depth. This Bythus is deity in itself, the absolute first principle, as the name suggests ; the profound, unfathomable, limitless, of whom or of which nothing can be predicated and nothing known. Here again we have something like a local representation. The AEons or emanations are plainly the attributes and energies of deity ; they are, or they comprise, the eternal ideas or archetypes of the
Platonic philosophy. In short they are deity relative, deity under self-imposed limitations, deity derived and divided up, as it were, so as at length to be conceivable.

The topographical relation of Bythus to the derived AEons was differently given in different developments of the Valentinian teaching. According to one representation he was outside the pleroma; others placed his abode withiin it, but even in this case he was separated from the rest by Horus {"Opos), a personified Boundary or Fence, whom none, not
even the AEons themselves, could pass^ The former mode of representation might be thought to accord better with the imagery, at the same time that it is more accurate if regarded as the embodiment of a philosophical conception. Nevertheless the latter was the favourite mode of delineation; and it had at least this recommendation, that it combined in one all that is real, as opposed to all that is phenomenal. In this pleroma every existence which is suprasensual and therefore true has its abode.

Separated from this celestial region by Horus, another Horus or Kerwma, Boundary, which, or who, like the former is impassable, lies the ’ kenoma ’ t^e region or * void '—the kingdom of this world, the region of matter and material things, the land of shadow and darkness ^ Here is the empire of the Demiurge or Creator, who is not a celestial Mon at all, but was born in this very void over which he reigns. Here reside all those phenomenal, deceptive, transitory things, of which the eternal counterparts are found only in thepleroma.

It is in this antithesis that the Platonism of the Valentinian theory Platonism reaches its climax. All things are set off one against another in these two of this antithesis.

The swan on still St Mary’s lake

Floats double, swan and shadow.

Not only have the thirty iEons their terrestrial counterparts; but their subdivisions also are represented in this lower region. The kenoma too has its ogdoad, its decad, its dodecad, like the pleroma^. There is one Sophia in the supramundane region, and another in the mundane; there is one Christ who redeems the AEons in the spiritual world, and a second
Christ who redeems mankind, or rather a portion of mankind, in the sensible world. There is an -^on Man and another -^on Ecclesia in the celestial kingdom, the ideal counterparts of the Human Race and the Christian Church in the terrestrial. Even individual men and women, as we shall see presently, have their arclietypes in this higher sphere of intelligible being.

 

[Pleroma]

**The localisation of the plerOma carried out in detail.
**

The topographical conception of the pleroma moreover is carried out
in the details of the imagery. The second Sophia, called also Achamoth, is
the desire, the offspring, of her elder namesake, separated from her
mother, cast out of the pleroma, and left ’ stranded ’ in the void beyond^,
being prevented from returning by the inexorable Horus who guards the
frontier of the supramundane kingdom. The second Christ — a being com-
pounded of elements contributed by all the JSons^— was sent down from the
pleroma, first of all at the eve of creation to infuse something like order
and to provide for a spiritual element in this lower world ; and secondly,
when He united Himself with the man Jesus for the sake of redeeming
those who were capable of redemption^. At the end of all things Sophia
Achamoth, and with her the spiritual portion of mankind, shall be redeemed
and received up into the pleroma, while the psychical portion will be left
outside to form another kingdom under the dominion of their father the
Demiurge. This redemption and ascension of Achamoth (by a perversion of
a scriptural image) was represented as her espousals with the Saviour, the
second Christ; and the pleroma, the scene of this happy union, was called
the bridal-chamber ^ Indeed the localisation of the pleroma is as complete
as language can make it. The constant repetition of the words * within *
and ‘without’, ‘above’ and ‘beneath’, in the development of this philoso-
phical and religious myth still further impresses this local sense on the term^.

In this topographical representation the connexion of meaning in the
word pleroma as employed by St Paul and by Valentinus respectively
seems at first sight to be entirely lost. When we read of the contrast be-
tween the pleroma and the kenoma, the fulness and the void, we are
naturally reminded of the plenum and the vacuum of physical specula-
tions. The sense of pleroma, as expressing completeness and so denoting
the aggregate or totality of the Divine powers, seems altogether to have
disappeared. But in fact this antithesis of Keuwfia was, so far as we can
make out, a mere afterthought, and appears to have been borrowed, as
Iren£8us states, from the physical theories of Democritus and Epicurus^.
It would naturally suggest itself both because the opposition of ifK-qpr^s and
K€vos was obvious, and because the word Kevcofia materially assisted the
imagery as a description of the kingdom of waste and shadow. But in itself it is a false antithesis. The true antithesis appears in another, and borrowed probably an earlier, term used to describe the mundane kingdom.

In this earlier representation, which there is good reason for ascribing to Valentinus himself, it is called not Kevafia ’ the void’, * the deficiency, incompleteness '1. Moreover the common phraseology of the appears in Valentinian schools shows that the idea suggested by this opposition to *heir was not the original idea of the term. They speak of the whole aggregate of the AEons. And this (making allowance for the personification of the Aeons) corresponds exactly to its use in St Paul.

Again the teaching of the Valentinian schools supplies other uses which serve to illustrate its meaning. Not only does the supramundane kingdom as a whole bear this name, but each separate AEon, of which that shown kingdom is the aggregation, is likewise called a pleroraa^ This designation is given to an JSon, because it is the fulness, the perfection, of which its mundane counterpart is only a shadovv7 and defective copy. Nor does the narrowing of the term stop here. There likewise dwells in this higher region a pleroma, or eternal archetype, not only of every comprehensive mundane power, but of each individual man; and to wed himself with this heavenly partner, this Divine ideal of himself, must be the study of his life. The profound moral significance which underlies the exaggerated Platonism and perverse exegesis of this conception will be at once apparent.

 

[Pleroma]

But the manner in which the theory was carried out is curiously illustrated by the commentary of the Valentinian Heracleon on our Lord’s discourse with the Samaritan woman"*. This woman, such is his explanation, belongs to the spiritual portion of mankind. But she had had six husbands, or in other words she liad entangled herself with the material world, had defiled herself with sensuous things. The husband however, whom she now has, is not her husband; herein she has spoken rightly: the Saviour in fact means ‘her partner from the pleroma’. Hence she is bidden to go and call him ; that is, she must find ’ her pleroma, that coming to the Saviour vvith him (or it), she may be able to obtain from Him the power and the union and the combination with her pleroma’ {rfiv
bvvap.iv Koi TTjv evcocriv koI ttjv avaKpacriv rffv Trpbs to irKr^papa avTTjs), * For’,
adds Heracleon, ’ He did not speak of a mundane {KoaptKov) husband when He told her to call him, since He was not ignorant that she had no lawful husband’.

Impossible as it seems to us to reconcile the Valentinian system with the teaching of the Apostles, the Valentinians themselves felt no such difficulty. They intended their philosophy not to supersede or contradict Apostolic doctrine, but to supplement it and to explain it on philosophical principles. Hence the Canon of the Valentinians compi’ehended
the Canon of Catholic Christianity in all its essential parts, though some Valentinian schools at all events supplemented it with Apocryphal writings. More particularly the Gospel of St John and the Epistles to the Colossians and Ephesians were regarded with especial favour; and those passages which speak of the pleroma are quoted more than once in their writings to illustrate their teaching. By isolating a few words from the
context and interpreting them wholly Avithout reference to their setting, and quote they had no difiiculty in finding a confirmation of their views, where we see them in only an incongruity or even a contradiction. For instance, their second Christ — the redeemer of the spiritual element in the mundane world — was, views. as we saw, compacted of gifts contributed by all the Aeons of the pleroma. Hence he was called ’ the common fruit of the pleroma’, ’ the fruit of all the pleroma’^, ‘the most perfect beauty and constellation of the pleroma’^; hence also he was designated ‘All’ (natf) and ‘All things’ (navTay.

Accordingly, to this second Christ, not to the first, they applied these texts; Col. iii. 11

• And He is all things’, Rom. xi. 36 ‘All things are unto Him and from Him
  are all things’. Col. ii. 9 ’ In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead’,
  Ephes. i. 10 ’ To gather together in one all things in Christ through God ‘2.
  So too they styled him EvdoKrjTos, with a reference to Col. i. 19, because
  ‘all the pleroma was pleased through Him to glorify the Father’^ And
  inasmuch as this second Christ was according to the Valentinian theory
  instrumental in the creation of the mundane powers, they quoted, or rather
  misquoted, as referring to this participation in the work of the Demiurge,
  the passage Col. i. 16 ’ In Him were created all things, visible and invisible,
  thrones, deities, dominions’*. Indeed it seems clear that these adaptations
  were not always afterthoughts, but that in several instances at least their
  nomenclature was originally chosen for the sake of fitting the theory to
  isolated phrases and expressions in the Apostolic writings, however much
  it might conflict with the Apostolic doctrine in its main lines°.

• St.Paul’s Epistles to Colossians and to Philemon by J.B LightFoot.

 

[SteveVH]

Pleroma:
Thank you. So your basic position is that you choose to adopt a religious belief that the Catholic Church has considered heretical since it was proposed. You are certainly free to do that.

May I ask what attracts you to such a position? In other words, why do you consider the Gnostic view as correct and the Catholic view as erroneous? What is it that persuades you to follow this belief system? And to what authority do you defer in support of your position.

Thanks again.

 

[Pleroma]

May I ask what attracts you to such a position? In other words, why do you consider the Gnostic view as correct and the Catholic view as erroneous? What is it that persuades you to follow this belief system? And to what authority do you defer in support of your position.

Thanks again.

Its because what is in the Vedas is in the esoteric message of Saint Paul and this is so important for me, very very important.

It is worth noting that Valentinianism shows an astonishing degree of similarity to another monistic system, the Advaita Vedanta school of Indian philosophy. In Advaita, the material world is an illusion (maya) attributed to ignorance (avidya) of the true reality. Through knowledge (jnana) of the ultimate reality (brahman), the world of multiplicity vanishes. True redemption (moksha) is the knowledge of one’s true nature.

This raises the intriguing possibility of some kind of connection between the two. There was some awareness of Indian thought in the ancient Roman world. However, at the time of Valentinus, there was no systematic statement of Advaita thought. It is possible that Valentinus came into contact with some form of early Advaita Vedanta teaching. Advaita philosophy as it now stands was given its definitive form by Shankara in the 6th or 7th century AD. There also exists the possibility that he was influenced by Valentinian thought. Valentinians are known to have been active in the Middle East as late as the seventh century. It is possible that Valentinian missionaries or refugees may have made their way to India and come into contact with Shankara or his immediate predecessors. However, any connection between the two remains purely hypothetical.

• Valentinian Monism

Advaita is the orthodox religion of India and it still is. It is the very soul of India, what is heretical to you is orthodoxy for us. Your(Catholics) objection to Valentinian Christians has no theological basis instead it is just purely based on ignorance of other traditions, cultural differences and contempt towards the gnostics.

“While Buddhism is deemed non-theistic, the Vedas are regarded as polytheistic, and the Bible is monotheistic, we have seen that the cosmogonies of Vajrayana Buddhism, Vedanta, and Neoplatonic Christianity have so much in common that they could almost be regarded as varying interpretations of a single theory. Moreover, the commonality does not end there, for in the Near East, the writings of Plotinus (205-270) also influenced Islamic and Jewish theories of creation. This apparent unity could be attributed to mere coincidence, or to the historical propagation of a single, speculative, metaphysical theory throughout south Asia and the Near East. For example, the Upanishads may well have influenced the writings of early Mahayana thinkers in India, and they could also have made their way to the Near East, where they might have inspired the writings of Plotinus. On the other hand, Plotinus declared that his theories were based on his own experiential insights, and similar claims have been made by many Buddhist and Vedantin contemplatives. If these cosmogonies are indeed based upon valid introspective knowledge, then there may some plausibility to the claims of many contemplatives throughout the world that introspective inquiry can lead to knowledge, not only of the ultimate ground of being, but of the fundamental laws of nature as well.”

• Alan Wallace, Buddhist Scholar, Is Buddhism really Non-theistic.

This time the evidence is on our side and its not going to be easy to suppress us and I am quite determined to revive both Hinduism as well as Christianity.

 

[SteveVH]

Advaita is the orthodox religion of India and it still is. It is the very soul of India, what is heretical to you is orthodoxy for us. Your(Catholics) objection to Valentinian Christians has no theological basis instead it is just purely based on ignorance of other traditions, cultural differences and contempt towards the gnostics.

Well, that seems to be a rather subjective judgment call as to why Catholics would reject this belief. You say it is ignorance. Have you ever considered the possibility that it contradicts revealed truth as given to the Apostles by Jesus himself with the Church being the guardian and defender of that truth?

“While Buddhism is deemed non-theistic, the Vedas are regarded as polytheistic, and the Bible is monotheistic, we have seen that the cosmogonies of Vajrayana Buddhism, Vedanta, and Neoplatonic Christianity have so much in common that they could almost be regarded as varying interpretations of a single theory. Moreover, the commonality does not end there, for in the Near East, the writings of Plotinus (205-270) also influenced Islamic and Jewish theories of creation. This apparent unity could be attributed to mere coincidence, or to the historical propagation of a single, speculative, metaphysical theory throughout south Asia and the Near East. For example, the Upanishads may well have influenced the writings of early Mahayana thinkers in India, and they could also have made their way to the Near East, where they might have inspired the writings of Plotinus. On the other hand, Plotinus declared that his theories were based on his own experiential insights, and similar claims have been made by many Buddhist and Vedantin contemplatives. If these cosmogonies are indeed based upon valid introspective knowledge, then there may some plausibility to the claims of many contemplatives throughout the world that introspective inquiry can lead to knowledge, not only of the ultimate ground of being, but of the fundamental laws of nature as well.”

• Alan Wallace, Buddhist Scholar, Is Buddhism really Non-theistic.

Everything that was said above is nothing but speculation and human theory. There is no definitive truth there, not even an ounce of certainty. It “could be” this or that…; it “may” have influenced…; "There “may be some plausibility…” That may be convincing to you, but I prefer tor believe in the certainty that comes from revealed truth.

This time the evidence is on our side and its not going to be easy to suppress us and I am quite determined to revive both Hinduism as well as Christianity.

Who is trying to suppress you? You are free to believe as you choose. So feel free to remove the chip from your shoulder. No one is out to get you.

 

[Adamski]

This thread is totally been derailed I started it to help unhappy rich Hindus in Seattle working for Microsoft and this is very disappointing that this guy is completely talking nonsense

 

[SteveVH]

This thread is totally been derailed I started it to help unhappy rich Hindus in Seattle working for Microsoft and this is very disappointing that this guy is completely talking nonsense

Sorry for my part in helping the derailment by responding to Pleroma’s posts. I just could not stand by in silence.

 

[Adamski]

Sorry for my part in helping the derailment by responding to Pleroma’s posts. I just could not stand by in silence.

His responses make me think he is mentally ill

 

[Pleroma]

This thread is totally been derailed I started it to help unhappy rich Hindus in Seattle working for Microsoft and this is very disappointing that this guy is completely talking nonsense

A psychic Christian trying to help the psychic Hindus that doesn’t help to cure the sickness which you both Christians and Hindus have.