Religion and Theology

Have you ever seen a man with eight arms and five heads, with three faces on each head No, I am not talking about Siamese or conjoined twins.  I am referring to South and East Asian deities who are revered in the Hindu-Buddhist tradition.  How could such strange beings be so respected, especially in India, you might ask.  We are living in a modern age and the Western mind would definitely think it foolish to even entertain such thoughts.  In the beginning, I thought the same way, but after studying and analyzing this phenomenon, I gradually and eventually realized that many modern scientific findings are based on ancient Asian thought depicting these strange beings.  Indeed, Hindu-Buddhist art and architecture portray abstract concepts of the mind and the nature of the universe to facilitate the understanding of important physical and spiritual facts that can help humankind in the challenges of life.

Buddhist images found in East Asia originated from South Asia.  Buddhism is one of the main religions of Japan, China, Korea and South East Asia, but this religion evolved from Hinduism in India.  While Buddhism is more abstract and reason-oriented, Hinduism tends to be more concrete yet intuitive.  Thus many of the images used in Buddhism are abstract derivatives of Hindu images.
Intuitively, during ancient times, Indians felt three forces in all of nature that work together and yet conflict with each other simultaneously.  These forces were good, bad, and neutral.  They felt it all over the Earth, within communities, cities, states and nations, but they also felt it within themselves.  Thus they invented the ritual called anganyasa, which was copied much later by the Roman Catholic Church and is now known as the sign of the cross, wherein the hand motions to the left, right and center of the body, symbolizing the Trinity within, to initiate and close a prayer.

The Indians then created visual images of these intuitive feelings.  First, they produced the image of Brahma the Creator, having four or five faces with a 360-degree view, possessing four arms and hands holding various objects while seated on a lotus flower in the meditation or lotus position.  As her description suggests, she is the mother of all things and is the good side of the Self or nature.  However, her many faces and hands also suggest multiplicities of what is good, which will be further explained later.

But a counter force balances that side and is called Shiva the Destroyer.  His images portray something similar, having four hands holding different objects, but this time, he has only one face.  His depictions are usually more active, standing on one foot, sometimes stepping on a corpse, assuming what seems to be a martial arts position but is sometimes called the Dance of Shiva.  In some instances, however, he is portrayed with only two hands, like a normal human being, seated solemnly in the lotus position.  Implicitly, he is the bad side of nature or the Self.  But as his other pictures show, what is bad is also good, as some teenagers say colloquially.  Again, this will be explained further later.

However, the conflict between good and bad is disturbing thus, Vishnu the Preserver is needed to mediate between the two.  Vishnu looks almost like Shiva, having one face and four arms, in many depictions, but he usually simply stands straight, as the neutral referee between the forces of good and evil within the Self and nature in general.  Because what is good eventually turns bad, the neutral governmental body between the two is usually the leader that harmonizes or pacifies the two troublemakers.

Rodney St. Michael, in his book, Illuminati Healing and Developing the Mind (2003), explains that the Hindu trinity is a visual artistic representation of abstract concepts of the mind and physical properties of the universe.  St. Michael points to Sigmund Freuds work (1923) and his description of the components of the mindthe ego, the superego and the id.   The id is a persons animalistic or bad side, and it is comparable to Shiva.  On the other hand (or on the other face), the superego is someones moralistic or good side, similar to Brahma.  But the ego, is the mediator between the two, like the role of Vishnu and as the body of reason, it stabilizes the troubled mind, pacifies it and maintains its sanity.  It is also an astrophysical phenomenon that is present all over the universe, from the atom (neutral neutron, positively charged proton and negatively charged electron), to the structure of the family (father, mother and Shiva-like children), city, state, nation, world and so forth, not just the structure of the mind.

Colloquially, however, the word ego, which is a Freudian psychoanalytic term, is often incorrectly used, as St. Michael points out.  Even in some religious texts, when the author refers to the ego, what they usually mean is the pride of the superego occasionally they intend to say the id.  The confusion sometimes lies in its abstract nature, which is often difficult to understand for many people.  But once the abstract becomes concrete through a visual representation such as the Hindu trinity, along with the stories that surround them, it becomes easier to understand.  Hence, symbolic mythology plays a critical role in teaching and learning.  Without it, abstract concepts become incredibly difficult to comprehend.

St. Michael also gives a breakdown of the Trinity or the Buddhist Triratna through the ancient Five Elements which modern psychologists also describe as the Hierarchy of Needs.  The Five Elements, which the Chinese call as the Wu Xing, are also known in its more compact form as the Four Elements in India.  They are Wood (or Air), Water, Earth, Fire and Metal (or Ether).  Each is an abstract idea representing many things.  For example, Wood or Air represents males, scholars, or the Yellow race.  Water symbolizes females, shamans, or the Small Browns.  Earth stands for lesbians, the social business class, or Blacks.  Fire depicts gays, the militant business class, the military, or Whites.  Metal or Ether represents bisexuals, the working class, the bi military, or Big Browns.  The hierarchy of these Elements is sometimes portrayed as a five-level pagoda or pyramid-shaped structure in Asian architecture.  Indeed, some idols of Vishnu show him with five heads, instead of one, with each head stacked on top of another, becoming smaller and smaller as it reaches the apex head of what looks like a five-level pagoda constructed of heads.  Each head, of course, has three faces.  This is actually a good visual representation of Abraham Maslows Hierarchy of Needs, a concept used in modern psychology.  Maslow depicts the mind as a five-level pyramid with five needs.  Each of the Five Elements can fit each need.  Thus, at the base is Metal or physiological needsbasic drives or desires such as the need for food, water, sex and so forth.  On top of it is Fire or security needsthe lust for money, shelter, weapons, etc.  Then above it is Earth or belongingness needsthe desire to be in groups such as families, organizations, fraternities, gangs or communities.  Higher in the hierarchy is Water or superego needsthe desire for esteem, morals, care and so forth.  Finally, at the apex is Wood or Air or self-actualization needs or ego needsthe desire for order, optimization of potential, knowledge, etc.  Each person requires all these needs in well-balanced proportions to maintain or preserve good physical and mental health.

Thus, the five-headed Vishnu pagoda is an apt art form that represents these abstract ideas.  Since all Five Elements are within each person, everyone actually has a mixture of all genders, races and classes.  This shows the interconnectedness of people around the world.  Truly, balance and harmony among the Elements is healthful.  On the other hand, to restrict the Elements too much (Brahma) or too little (Shiva) is harmful.  Here, Vishnu takes the role of Wood, Air or the ego, while Shiva acts like Fire or the id and Brahma, with her multiple personas, behaves like Water, Metal or Earth.  In other words, Vishnu is like a male government official, Shiva can be compared to a gay (Dont-Ask-Dont-Tell) military officer or businessman and Brahma is like a female, lesbian or bisexual member of the clergy.  Vishnu tries to preserve order, peace and harmony while the other two attempt to pursue their desires and aversions.  In a way, it also like China, the Middle Kingdom, (Vishnu) pursuing order over Western powers (Shiva, sometimes dancing and stepping on corpses and at other times peaceful and meditative) and the emotionally retaliatory Middle East, South East Asia and Africa (Brahma as Metal, Water and Earth).   Vishnu also maintains the peace by practicing the Middle Way or the Doctrine of the Mean, a guideline that is also an important truth in Buddhism.  Truly, Hindu-Buddhist art forms are very representative of realities within the Self and society or the Universal Self because the components and conflict within the mind also occurs within society.
The prominence of Vishnu or the importance of the ego in controlling the id and the superego is also displayed in Hindu-Buddhist temple architecture.  The main temple in Angkor Wat, Cambodia is an example of a temple dedicated to Vishnu, where a central conical structure is elevated above two shorter conical structures, representing Vishnus role over naughty Shiva and pious Brahma, as described by Rodney St. Michael in Sync My World A SEA  Nautical Map to Relative Peace. 

In reality, good and evil are relative terms that depend on perspective.  During the Dark Ages, the Catholic Church, for example, burned witches like Joan of Arc at the stake because they were evil and the Church had to preserve what was good.  In the process, the Church became evil by murdering them, and witches like Joan became saints, as the Church realized and apologized centuries later for their grave crimes.  These sins include the forced conversions of millions of pagans who were supposedly destined for hell during the Age of Imperialism and the Inquisition.  Indeed, the multiple hands, faces or heads of Hindu deities indicate how good, or even what is neutral, can quickly changed to evil or vice-versa.

As St. Michael describes, the Buddhist practice of balance through the Middle Way is really difficult to achieve, but temple architecture such as the one in Borobudur, Indonesia, can help remind practitioners of this valuable teaching.  The temple grounds include many bell-shaped cages placed on different levels of a pyramid-like structure.  There are naturally more cages near the base, and the cages diminish as one climbs closer to the apex.  Only one cage sits at the apex, and unlike the other cages where a Buddha statue in lotus position is trapped inside, the cage at the apex is empty, indicating that at the center, one is free.  At the Left and Right, especially as one desires or averts toward the extremes, there is more bondage and suffering.   This is a lesson that really hits the nail through architecture.  Mere words would not drive the point across.

In the end, as strange as Hindu-Buddhist art may seem, without it, important teachings would become confusing.  It helps people to understand and appreciate truths and facts in a way that is not only educational, but also deeply penetrating.  What I originally thought of as weird turned out to be very profound, and I am very glad that I found out the truth.