Why should anyone see buddhism/hinduism as a route to enlightenment when the religion is inherently cruel?
First off I appreciate your doubts towards religions. People assume they are spiritual because that's what has been put in there head. The outer teaching of most religions is bad but it satisfies most people. I'm always trying to peel off another layer and go one level deeper and past another gate. Doesn't always work but when it does you learn a lot. If you become a spiritual practitioner it takes a lifetime of experience to master the art. Of course psychedelics are a huge help but they will overwhelm you i you aren't taking things seriously. I've had friends from Buddhist countries and they say it's as boring and dogmatic as going to church in the West. They don't understand why outsiders thinks it's so great. On the one hand I agree, I wouldn't want to be a commoner. Work in a rice field, praying at the temple and doing the lame rituals.
You're focused on Tibetan Buddhism, isolated from the rest of the world because it's so high up and poor. Their Buddhism is more like a folk religion because they can't get the notes and scriptures and preaching from the rest of the Buddhist world. And the place is so extreme, for a religion developed in tropical Asia. It's a medieval syncretic religion. Absorbed ideas from Tao, Hinduism, and most importantly Tibet's orignal religion Bon. Had been isolated for hundreds of years. No outside contact! Every resource is so precious up there, hauled on the butt of a giant yak. Of course someone is getting shit kicked with spikes or put in a box until July if they fuck up. One mistake up there and everyone dies. I like the sky burials and Kapila skulls. I'd love to drink mead out of one of those
The reason they have the super bright colored drawings of divine beings.
High in the mountains surrounded by ice and snow, Tibetan Buddhists made some of the most fantastic psychedelic paintings of all time. They weren't shy when it came to smoking ganja and sometimes opium too. Even so that doesn't account for how crazed and trippy the paintings are. The magnificant colors, the fractal shapes, I've only had visions from mushrooms and mescaline that had that sort of detail of a God. Part of their practice was to seal themselves inside a cave. A short stay would be at least 6 months. A longer one maybe 2 or 3 years, can't remember. It seems like 5 or 10 was possible. I lost my book that was my best source, Alexandra David Neel's 'With Mystics and Magicians in Tibet'.
Alexandra David Neel is one of my heroes. She was a petite French Woman who climbed her way up into the Himalayas to Tibet in 1911 at a time it was forbidden. She traveled all over the region, Kashmir, India's Princely states, Sikkim, Japan, China, Mongolia, Burma, Korea. She spent 2 years in a cave meditating. She created a Tulpa, fun at first but things starting getting weird and going out of control. Had to absorb it back into her mind. In 1916 she had reached a level of spiritual development where she was declared a lama and a doctor of Buddhism. That woman had balls of steel. She lived to be 100.
To understand Buddhism you must learn the 4 Noble Truths. Don't ever forget these, they came right from Siddhartha himself.
1. Life is filled with suffering
2. The cause of all suffering is desire
3. There is a natural way to end suffering.
4. The noble 8fold path is the way
Don't forget that my advice to end suffering it to live humble and simple and only desire what I knnow I need and nothing more. The good part about that is not having to write a bunch of crap about religion. All my desire.
Damn now I suppose I have to find the 8 fold path. If you follow the 8 fold path you won't find yourself suffering over your desires. The Buddha means anything by that, anything you want but can't or shouldn't or don't have.
1. Right View 5. Right Livelihood
2. Right Intention 6. Right Effort
3. Right Speech 7. Right Mindfulness
4. Right Action 8. Right Concentration
A big problem with the Bible is how it really doesn't give you good advice on how to live happily. It tells you to do a bunch of stuff but all you get is the smug satisfaction you're pleasing the lord. If you make it a habit to keep this advice in our head you won't be as disappointed in life. You'll be a better person to be around. Buddha thought a lot about improving the lot of his fellow man.
Now on to Hinduism and it's caste system. The caste system is still around because the British used it to keep the people of India separated so they couldn't unite and fight back. This was a common strategy used by the British Empire. India is a land of tradition where people reverie the old ways. At least they used to, India has changed a lot this century. The highest classes were the priests and the warrior class who owned far more land than anyone else. If the classes were equal they'd have a hard time keeping their riches. Coincidentally Great Britain also has a class system with a snmall % at the top owning most of the land and money. The same people have controlled it since The Battle of Hastings.
The United States has been building a class system since the 1970s but it's accelerating greatly. So we see the caste system is not unique to India. All countries had caste systems, it's only been with urbanization and everyone leaving farms and small towns that people around the world of regained their anonymity. Japan still has a caste system although they don't to talk about it. The Japanese untouchables are called the Burakumin. You don't want to be a Korean in Japan either. My grandma was in Japan, her husband was in the Navy so she went there to be with hin. She got to have a maid for her house. So they brought the maids out so she could choose one.
She could see they all got along except for one who seemed like an outcaste. My grandma loved outcastes. Of course she talked to Yuki, the Korean woman, and took her back to the USA with her. She was a lifetime family friend. Taught me how to cook rice without a rice cooker. The reason the USA was dominate was because it made people more equal so the job went to the best man. This has changed, now it's not competence performance is judged on it's loyalty to the current regime. This is called corruption.
Does India's caste system affect it's religions? Some. The priest class can be rich or poor. They get to manage the fire ceremonies and other auspicious moments at the temples but they don't work as merchants. The castes that work well together and share a belief system do well. The Jains and the Zoroastrians for instance. They are minority religions but they work together well. Not really interested in that. My favorite Gods in India are Kali and Shiva. The Goddess of death and the God of destruction. Smoking ganja and taking drugs is one way to please these Gods. Meditating pleases them to. All Gods in India represent the one supreme consciousness that is our preception of existance.
Maa Kali
Shiva does too but his name means light. His wife the Mother Goddess takes many forms, has many names. She is chaos, she is energy. The world we see around us is her play, her dance. It is her form of Maya. This means illusion. There is much bullshit going on all the time we cannot perceive. Meditating while focused on Shiva, taking pychedelics, are the way to pierce the illusion to understand the underlying reality. Some people can't handle the truth.
Shiva making bhang, a cannabis drink, with his family.
When I was a kid I went to India with my grandma. She was a new age type, wanted enlightenment and stuff. It blew my mind, everything about it. The ashram we were at was way into Shiva. I spent a lot of time chanting and meditating to Shiva. I learned a lot but it wasn't until I started smoking pot and tripping that it made sense. It was like I was presensitized. Obviously Shiva had been blowing smoke in my nose when I was sleeping for all those years.
One more note about Shiva, he's not part of the caste systems. He's the opposite. He's inauspicious, has matted dred locks, hangs out wityh ghosts and dead bodies at the burning place. Because it's a good place to meditate. He rubs the ash over his skin so he's gray. He is easy to please if you pray to him. He loves the things that are rejected. He's lord of the animals. If a 2 headed cow is born, it's sacred to Shiva. Prisoners like Shiva. Junkies, criminals, stoners, Sadhus, Sanyassins, the itinerate holy men all worship him.
What has Shiva given me?
Everything.
