From the "Some Things Never Change" File

In The Assassin Lotus, the Muslim conquest of the Silk Road Buddhist kingdom of Khotan is recounted in a poem by the 11th century Turkish scholar Mahmud al-Kashgari:

"Like river torrents,

We flooded their cities,

We captured their monasteries,

And shat on their statues of the Buddha." 

A thousand years later they're at it again, most recently destroying Sufi and Shiite mausoleums in the ancient Silk Road city of Palmyra.

A photo released on Monday by a militant website shows the wreckage of one of two mausoleums that were destroyed by Islamic State militants in the historic town of Palmyra, Syria. PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS

Desperately Seeking Soma

“Soma was conceived to be a divine presence dwelling within a psychoactive substance of the same name, which was consumed by humans and deities before battle and at the end of ritual celebrations. Perhaps it was soma that inspired the early Hindu seers to probe deeper into the nature of reality.”  ~Todd T. Lewis,  Buddhism 

The True Drama

ILLUSTRATION BY AGATA MARSZAŁEK

"The true drama, and especially the tragedy, calls for the hero to exercise will, to create, in front of us, on the stage, his or her own character, the strength to continue. It is her striving to understand, to correctly assess, to face her own character (in her choice of battles) that inspires us–and gives the drama power to cleanse and enrich our own character."  

~ David Mamet

Mandala

"In the strict use of the mandala, there is a central point or focus within the symbol from which radiates a symmetrical design. This suggests there is a center within each one of us to which everything is related, by which everything is ordered, and which is itself a source of energy and power. Virtually every spiritual and religious system known to man asserts the reality of such an inner center. The Romans worshiped it as the genius within. The Greeks called it the inner daemon. Christian religions speak about the soul and the Christ within. In psychology we speak of the Higher Self." ~MIchael H. Brown (michaelbrown.org)

"Truth Stands Invincible"

It seems the national motto of India applies to the famous Buddha statues of Bamiyan:

"The Taliban thought it had destroyed one of the world's wonders, the monumental Buddha statues of the Bamiyan Valley. But the Buddhas shine again in the towering cutouts in the mountainside where they stood for centuries. They are back, thanks to 3-D light projection. And they look great."

Read the whole story HERE.

The Best and the Worst in Us

In his book, The Spiritual Doorway in the Brain, neurologist Kevin Nelson, M.D. describes the dual nature of the spiritual experience:

"It is sometimes impossible to tell where the healthy spirituality of the sage ends and spiritual psychosis begins. [...] We are all too aware today of the power of spiritual experience to do harm, as we watch people blow themselves--and others--up in the name of God. [...] The spiritual can be urgent and propulsive--spiritual truth has often come to be a matter of life and death. When we feel we connect with something larger than ourselves, we are willing to sacrifice our small selves to that something that we feel, that we know, is greater. This impulse can drive us to reach out to our fellow man in ways that are noble, inspiring, and even heroic. But it can also lead to intolerance and folly. In short, spiritual experiences bring out the best and worst in us."

Soma

THE ASSASSIN LOTUS is an adventure thriller involving the rediscovery of a long-lost elixir called soma, much praised in the ancient sacred texts of both India and Persia. As Wikipedia explains:

"Soma (Sanskrit: सोम sóma), or Haoma (Avestan), from Proto-Indo-Iranian *sauma-, was a Vedic ritual drink^[1] of importance among the early Indo-Iranians, and the subsequent greater Indian and greater Persian cultures. It is frequently mentioned in the Rigveda, whose Soma Mandala contains 114 hymns, many praising its energizing qualities. In the [Persian] Avesta, Haoma has the entire Yašt 20 and Yasna 9-11 dedicated to it.

"It is described as being prepared by extracting juice from the stalks of a certain plant. In both Hindu and Zoroastrian tradition, the name of the drink and the plant are the same, and also personified as a divinity, the three forming a religious or mythological unity.

Indra, god of war

"There has been much speculation concerning what is most likely to have been the identity of the original plant. Soma is associated with the warrior-god Indra and appears to have been drunk before battle. For these reasons, there are stimulant (amphetamine-like) plants as well as entheogenic plants among the candidates that have been suggested. [However,] there is no consensus on the question..."

THE ASSASSIN LOTUS presents a possible theory of the soma plant's identity, and asserts that it played a central role in the origins of Hinduism and Buddhism. The insights soma offered into human consciousness may have been what triggered the ancient warriors' turning inward, eventually leading to the meditation and yoga practices still widely used today. Soma's hidden history would seem to suggest that warriors and mystics share a talent for transcendence, that courage in battle and peace of mind may share the same deep source.