I-mon wrote:that's good to hear, Doc.
IMO rastafarianism with Selassie (named Ras Tafari Makonnen at birth before his coronation) as the central figure was created out of something much older, and much more interesting in terms of practical spirituality - the tradition of the "bush doctor" with the emphasis on "roots and culture" as a way of understanding and putting modern society in a greater perspective.
Anyway, just putting it up there as another example of a cult of personality based around a guy who never asked for it, yet followed religiously as god in human form by thousands of followers.
As you probably know Doc, in the Indian philosophical traditions it is well understood that the Absolute Reality must be beyond name and form and beyond mind and matter and thus beyond conception for ordinary human states of consciouness, but even though the truth is beyond conception it is still possible and extremely beneficial to worship in whatever way is most appropriate to the individual. For most ordinary people it is perhaps easiest to evoke and then direct this feeling of divinity and worship towards something with a name and a form and various divine qualities, hence the multitude of gods within the Indian pantheon. For others it is easiest or more appropriate to worship god in human form, as an Avatar or perfect human being like Rama or Krishna. Some choose to worship the absolute reality as pure consciouness and call it Shiva, others worship the active dynamic force behind all activity and transformation in the universe and call it Shakti, and then some few try to go beyond all the names and forms.
The point of all of this is not the idea that any one of them is correct or true - the point is the feeling evoked and the mental act of worship itself - the praise of the immensity and magnificence of the one great eternal Absolute, packaged in whatever way that the individual human mind can effectively grasp.
I have read that there was a greek church dedicated to the "unknown God" or something like that. The greeks as I understand it didn't completely dismiss the idea of a all powerful diety but didn't believe that if such a thing existed that it would care about anything mortals would care about. So the more earthly deities were worshiped. Just putting it out there as another point of view that some people may have had. I have heard some people say something similar about the typical conception of God as all powerful and all knowing creator, that he is so beyond mortality that he couldn't possibly care about us.
