The Legend of the Great Stupa
The Great Stupa is an ancient Tibetan Buddhist legend. It teaches that the world's only hope for overcoming increasing chaos is to learn to tame the animal passions using the spiritual path of tantra, or "controlled indulgence." (Making love without conventional climax.)
The Great Stupa itself is both a three-dimensional Tibetan religious monument, supposedly constructed by people who were pure of faith in a past age, and a physical symbol of the non-physical essence of Buddhahood. The legend tells the story of a brigand turned holy man. However, from a sacred sexuality perspective, that's not its most interesting feature.
According to the legend, time moves through aeons, or ages. The current aeon, the last of three, is known as the "Fortunate Aeon." That is both good news and bad news. It's good news because one-thousand Buddhas are predicted to incarnate during this aeon to liberate those imprisoned in sensuality.
The bad news is that we're in the final era of that aeon, the Kaliyuga. The Kaliyuga is the time just prior to the destruction of the world. It is characterized by: unchecked lust, vicious and selfish living, materialistic philosophies and belief in the inevitability of a general meltdown. The
... Mind screams away from its peaceful center in search of the objects of its desire or retreats from objects which repel it. ...
The legend predicts that unless the teachings of tantra are heard and practiced, the destruction of the Great Stupa's outer form is inevitable. Hope lies in the incarnation of tantra teachers, or
Bodhisattvas who have accumulated enough merit in previous lifetimes to have the courage to tame mankind's overstimulated and inflamed animal senses. (Bodhisattvas are enlightened being who, out of compassion, forgo nirvana in order to save others.) ...
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