Audience: Are there gods, and what constitutes their level of being?
Instructor: Yes, there are gods. The gods that live in those levels do not care about us at all. By the term gods, this is a relative word. Meaning, we are not referring to the one god, by which we mean the Absolute. We are not referring to Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. This is not what we are referring to. By โgodsโ here, if you want to put it in western terms, we can say angels, archangels, we can say like the lower gods of other traditions and mythologies with a lot of gods. It would be the lower gods, not the upper ones. The highest gods in any hierarchal type of religion represent archetypes, aspects of our own Being. For example, Jesus is a master, a god. He represents Christ, which is an archetype in us that we have to develop. Moses is that, too. Odin is that, Quetzalcoatl is that, Buddha himself is that. He is a great god, but he is not one of these gods in this realm. The gods that we talk about here have many levels. That is why I showed you the image of the Tree of Life. It goes into more detail than the Bhavachakra does. In the Tree of Life, you see that the heavens depicted here have nine levels, some say seven, some say nine, some say more than nine. In all of those levels are different levels and classes of gods: Pratyekabuddhas, Shravakayanas... you have elemental Buddhas and different types of angels, all levels, from simple ones that are not well developed, to highly developed gods, but who nonetheless remain enslaved to the attachment to their position.
The gods are needed. They form the celestial hierarchy. They are necessary. They form a very important role for existence to be present. You see, out of the mouth of Yama emerges the worlds, and the first world that emerges here are the heavens. Similar in the Tree of Life: out of the Absolute emerges Kether, Chokmah, and Binah. This is Atziluth. Then, those archetypes (Atziluth) become Briah, then Yetzirah, than Assiah. That unfolding of everything is a process in which gods make it happen and sustain it. They are needed. Nonetheless, they are not fully developed. There are gods at different levels, and are fulfilling their roles, and they remain attached to those places.ย
There are many classes of beings. There may be elemental Buddhas who are very pure, but have no solar bodies. They may have an astral body, mental body, causal body, they can have those developments and once they have the causal body we call them Pratyekas. There are beings who developed the soul, but did not eliminate all of the ego, did not enter the bodhisattva path, and are on the spiral path and developing over millennia, just fulfilling their role in nature, of being a great king over a certain region with lots of power and wealth. They exist, and they are very beautiful, and have a lot of knowledge that can benefit those who walk the path, but they are also tempting gods. For someone who is entering the path of the bodhisattva, they do not like that. If you studied the Pistis Sophia, or the Mahabharata and certain other classes of scripture, those teachings explain very clearly that the path to the Absolute has two aspects. Most people think there are many different religions, but they all pretty much go back up to god. It is not like that. All these classes of gods and demigods are in these regions of nature and the vast majority are on the spiral path, very slowly and gradually through many incarnations slowly rising.ย
There is a quick way, a direct way, that is far more difficult, and it absolutely does not correspond to that spiral path. It is the path of the middle, the direct path, the straight path, the path of the bodhisattva. The demons who are on the path of the left and the saints who are on the path of the right do not understand the ones who walk the path of the middle. Both of them cause problems for the one who is on the path of the middle. If you study the Mahabharata, it is a beautiful example of that, because you see that the Pandava brothers are trapped between the asuras (demons), the demigods, and the saints, and there is this big war going on, but they are taking the path of the middle, direct to God, serving Krishna, but no one understands them.
โBhavachakra: The Wheel of Becoming
