Books, sutras and myths

Books, sutras and myths

 

‘Dreaming of a white Christmas’ by the author

A number of very ancient books that are a compilation of spiritual experience do not specifically describe who had the experience, but instead simply compile the experiences and wisdom received.  Occasionally we may be told a name, but the name conveys nothing of who they were or even whether the name is simply a pseudonym.  The word Sūtra is used to describe this sort of book in Hinduism or Buddhism.

A Myth is a story incorporating symbols.  Myths too are found in books but are not direct compilations of spiritual experience. 

When religions were first developed, they were passed from teacher to disciple and from teacher to teacher by word of mouth.  It is exceptionally difficult to remember complex information, simply as a list of information or symbols. What evolved to help with memory is the use of stories – myths, parables, legends and so on.

Fairy stories, legends, and many well known tales such as those about Arthur and the Holy Grail, Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty and even Little Red Riding Hood have a spiritual origin and a spiritual meaning but they are not necessarily descriptions of spiritual experience.  But we can derive a lot of information about symbols and their meaning from them.

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• Apocalypse of Esdras
• Ars moriendi
• Ashtavakra Gita
• Atharvaveda
• Beowulf
• Bhagavad Gita
• Bhagavata Purana
• Bible, the
• Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)
• Book of Enoch
• Book of Five Spheres
• Book of Habakkuk
• Book of Job
• Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz
• Chronicle of the Rebirth of Katsugorō
• Cloud of unknowing, the
• Dao de Jing
• Diamond Sutra, the
• Egyptian Book of the Dead
• Enûma Eliš
• Epic of Gilgamesh, the
• Gentling the Bull
• Gnostic Gospels, the
• Guru Granth
• Hadith
• Huai nan tzu
• Huangdi Neijing
• Hypnerotomachia Poliphili
• I Ching
• Key of Solomon, The
• Kybalion, the
• Legends other
• Lotus Sutra, the
• Lyrics from the Chinese
• Metamorphoses
• Neiye
• Nuremberg Chronicle
• Nursery rhymes
• Poetic Edda, the
• Prose Edda, the
• Quran, the
• Rig veda, the
• Romance of the Rose
• Rosary of the philosophers
• Samaveda, the
• Six Dharmas of Nāropa
• Tabula Smaragdina
• The Book of Family Traditions on the Art of War
• The Boy who saw True
• The Ceasing of Notions [or the Treatise on the Transcendence of Cognition]
• The Enneagram - The Discernment of Spirits
• The Isha Upanishad
• The Kama Sutra of Vatsayana
• The Manuals of Taoist Sexual Practise
• The Marriage of Philology and Mercury
• The Mithras Liturgy
• The Oracles of Hystaspes
• The Rasa’il Ikhwan al-Safa
• The Secret of the Golden Flower
• The Twelve Keys of Basil Valentine
• The Unveiling of Secrets
• Tibetan Book of the Dead [Bardo Thodol]
• Tirrukural, the
• Twenty five Chinese poems
• Upanishads, the
• Urantia Book
• Vishnu Purana
• War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness
• Yasna
• Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
• Zhuangzi
• Zohar