The key is in your hands

From:
Osho
Date:
Fri, 14 July 1977 00:00:00 GMT
Book Title:
Far Beyond the Stars
Chapter #:
11
Location:
pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
Archive Code:
N.A.
Short Title:
N.A.
Audio Available:
N.A.
Video Available:
N.A.
Length:
N.A.

Deva means divine, manoj means out of the mind, born out of the mind, so the whole name will mean, born out of the divine mind.

And that's where we come from, that's the stuff we are made of. We can forget about it but we cannot be other than it. We can remain oblivious of it, for many lives together we can go on ignoring it, but it remains there.

The english word 'ignorance' is very good - it means the one that has been ignored: 'ignor-ance'.

So, we can ignore it and we can remain in ignorance. The moment you look into it, the moment you stop ignoring it, it is there. It has always been there, it has been always yours; you just have to knock, you have to ask for it.

Just for the asking it was going to be yours, but you can keep it behind yourself. One can go on having the key and may not unlock the door. That's how it is: every man is born with the key and the treasure, but we never manage to unlock it, we never use the key. The key is attention and the treasure is god.

Once you become attentive about yourself you will come to realise god. You are the lock, the ego is the lock. Behind the ego is god, the treasure, and in your hands there is the key. That key is what attention, meditation, dhyana is called... to become more aware, aware of one's own being.

We are aware of other things. Passing through a garden you see the trees but you don't see the seer. Moving on the street you see the traffic, you see everybody except yourself moving there; you just go on missing yourself. Your attention is everywhere all around... just not turned inwards.

To change the attention from the object to the subject is the whole of religion.

[The new sannyasin asks why the foundation's symbol is yin.]

In fact the reality is a transcendence of both. Yin and yang, the out-going and in-going, are only aspects, not the total. The totality is bi-sexual, it is neither yin nor yang. The totality is trans-sexual, it is neither man nor woman. So only on the surface are you a man and somebody a woman, but the deeper you go. the more you will come to know that the deepest core is neither this one nor that.

People are extroverts ordinarily, hence they need introversion; that is the meaning of the symbol.

People are in the outside. they are already there; people are yang. The yin is needed for balance.

Once the balance has happened neither yang nor yin is needed. Then you simply transcend both, and when you transcend both you really arrive at the reality... which is neither.

How can reality be male or female? And how can reality be divided into the outer and the inner?

The reality is one. This door you are seeing... does it lead in or out? If you are standing outside it leads in; if you are standing inside it leads out, so how will you define this door - in or out? Will you call it an entrance or an exit? From one side it is an entrance, from another side it is an exit; it is both! It is neither, that's why it is both; it depends on you, where you are.

Because people are yang all meditations belong to yin. People are out-moving, out-going, wasting their energy in the objective world, in the world of ten thousand things. Hence meditation teaches them how to come in. Once you have come in you know that there is no out and no in. Then you can be in the marketplace and meditate: you can go outwards and remain in... then divisions disappear.

So that symbol is yin, mm? just to help people who have become too yang. Good.

[A seeker who is visiting the ashram for several months, says he has been meditating here, but has not done groups. He was in primal therapy in the West for two years.]

Very good! After primal there is nothing left except sannyas! The other day I was reading about janov, the founder of primal therapy. He has become very disturbed by a fact that people who have gone through primal have become apolitical; they are not more interested in politics.

I was surprised that he is surprised. that has to happen, that should happen. that is not something to be disturbed about; that is something he should be happy about! We need a world without politics, and if anything can help people to become apolitical that will be a blessing. But he has become very disturbed, he thinks that something has gone wrong. But soon he will find one thing more: people who have gone through primal will not only become apolitical, they will become sannyasins!

That is a second step: when you are no more political nothing is left than to be religious.

[The seeker says: All my early childhood I was thinking about the reason of living, thinking 'What's the goal? What's the meaning of life?' When I was seventeen suddenly thinking stopped, and I knew that there is nothing, there is no god.... It was so frightening for me that since that day I have never been aware again of myself, of what's going on.]

It has been a great revelation; you simply misinterpreted it. Because you interpreted it as emptiness you missed the whole point. You had come very close to god! That is the face of god - emptiness.

God has no human face, god is a facelessness. When you look into god it is empty: you will not find anything there. You can look into my eyes and you will find the same emptiness.

You simply misinterpreted it... but that happens, mm?

[The seeker says: I know it was the deepest depth I saw - that there is nothing, absolutely nothing....

And why was it so? Why was it not a joy?]

That is your interpretation, that's where interpretation comes in.

The experience was of pure emptiness. It is neither good nor bad.

Mm mm, so that's why you became afraid, because you have been brought up in a christian atmosphere where god has always been thought to be something positive, joyful, this and that.

There was nothing so you became trembling. You are still trembling, and many years have passed but the shock is still there in your body; you have not been able to forget the shock.

If you had been in the East that would have been a satori, a samadhi. If you had been by some accident a buddhist, you would have danced! There would have been another kind of interpretation because you would have been brought up for this experience, you would have been trained for this experience - that this is what god is; this is the ultimate illumination: emptiness.

It depends on the interpretation. That's why I say that Buddhism is a higher standpoint than any other religion, because all other religions prepare you for childish things and then when you come against reality you are shattered. They simply give you toys to play with, and when the reality erupts it is terrific and you cannot tolerate it.

Only Buddhism prepares you exactly for the reality as it is, but then it doesn't appeal to people. Why bother about emptiness? This is the problem.

[The seeker answers: I knew that was the only and the first time I was really in reality.]

You were in reality... but you missed it! You missed it because of your christian mind, because of your whole upbringing. There was no thought at that moment but once that experience became part of memory the whole past interpreted it.

When you say it was empty and it was nothingness and there was no joy in it, this is all interpretation.

Once you know that that's how reality is, then great joy will arise out of it - not that there is joy but because you have come across reality you will feel great joy arising in you. But your background didn't allow that joy to arise. rather it created the trembling... and you are still trembling.

If you are here go through groups, through meditations. I will try to help you to move again into that same reality. It will be difficult this time because you will hesitate to go. That time it happened....

Mm, you were not aware, it happened out of the blue, so you could not prevent it. This time you will try to prevent it because you are still trembling. When you come closer to it you will start escaping.

So it will be good if you are here for three, four months. Do a few groups and this whole atmosphere will help you to go into it again and to have another vision of it, with a new interpretation. Listening to me, the new interpretation will enter your being.

Once you can see emptiness as all, as the face of god himself, it brings great celebration. But in fact you were fortunate to have it that way, mm? It was a great blessing... it was a gift, and it will be coming again.

Do a few groups, mm?

So what should I do about your sannyas?

[Osho gives him sannyas.]

Prem means love, shunyam means emptiness - love for the emptiness. And create great love for it:

just nourish and cherish the idea that it is coming again... just make way for it. And this time, very happily welcome it and dissolve into it.

It is your very being, it is the very ground of all being. The whole existence arises out of that utter emptiness and dissolves back into it. We are all waves of that emptiness.

But the indian word 'shunyam' is not just empty. The english word 'empty' is negative, the eastern word 'shunyam' is not negative: it is very positive. It means full of emptiness, not empty of anything but full of emptiness, full of nothingness, bubbling with nothingness, exploding with nothingness. But nothingness is not thought of as nothing but only as no-thingness. You will not find anything there, that's true.

[The new sannyasin says: Not even I was there.]

Yes, that's right, because you are also a thing. All are things - all disappear into that.

No, nothing remains. Only nothing remains, and only nothing is true....

You are not there because you cannot be in front of nothing - you disappear. You can be only with things, you exist only in relationship with things because you are also a thing....

You are; whether you allow it or not you are part of it... we are part of it, we are it! This time it is going to happen in a different way, in an eastern way, you will see.

[A visitor says he has done many things in his life, always changing from one thing to another.

Osho says that's not a bad thing; in fact it is the people who are fixed who get into trouble. It's easy to find yourself when you've lived a fixed, unchanging routine, but the self that you find will be simply dead.]

[Another visitor says she is very confused since she came to Poona.

That's very good! says Osho. That's the right beginning. That's what happens in Poona - first, confusion!

He goes on to say that everyone is confused but we pretend we aren't and cover it up with masks and hypocrisies. the situation here doesn't bring confusion, Osho explains; it simply destroys one's pretenses and efforts to hide the confusion that was already there.

It is as if someone who is ill goes to a doctor who confirms the illness. The man will feel confused - he was perfectly okay before and now this doctor is creating trouble - but the illness was there all along. So you have come to the doctor, chuckles Osho. People who start getting confused when they come to me are my people... they give a right indication. Give me an opportunity to destroy you so utterly that the new can be born. Once the disease is diagnosed, it is better to take the whole treatment, mm? Become a sannyasin!]

[A sannyasin who has completed the groups Osho suggested, says she feels beautiful, more open and accepting, and moving into more relationships. But in her present relationship, she says, at first she felt no expectations and then jealousy came up - she is afraid to allow it in case it destroys the relationship.]

No, don't repress, otherwise the relationship will never be really a relationship. Jealousy is not good, but a repressed jealousy is far more dangerous than an expressed jealousy. No jealousy is the best thing to have, but if it is not there then the next choice should be jealousy expressed; the next best is jealousy expressed.

Hope for the first but you will have to try the next; the first comes very very late in your personal growth. it is indicative of a very very integrated person, that he doesn't feel jealous. Only a person who has accepted himself so totally and one who is so happy with himself and does not have any idea of comparison with anybody else can be non-jealous. jealousy arises because of comparison.

For example, you love a person and the person loves you and then one day you see him being attracted towards some other woman - and comparison comes in. So he is deserting you; so he has found somebody who is better than you? Then has he found somebody who is more beautiful than you?

You may not figure it out so clearly but that's exactly what creates jealousy: the very idea that somebody can be better, that somebody can be more beautiful, somebody can attract your man more than you yourself. That creates a kind of inferiority inside and you start being jealous. You will create all sorts of hindrances possible to destroy this possibility.

No jealousy is possible only when you have come to accept yourself so utterly that now there is no comparison; you don't compare yourself with anybody. Even if your man moves to somebody else it does not create any comparison; it is just a simple fact that he became attracted to that woman. It does not bring you into any conflict with the other woman; it does not say anything about you. If it says anything, it says something about the man, nothing about you, it has no reference to you at all.

But that is possible only when you have become so integrated that you can live without a lover, you can live without being loved and you will be as happy as when you are being loved, when love is no more a necessity but just fun. If you are loved, good. if you are not loved, perfectly good - you don't hanker for it.

There is no ego need in it and you don't make it an ego trip. You don't say that this man loves you - that means he has chosen: you out of all the women of the earth and you are the topmost. And when this man chooses you and you choose this man, this man is the topmost in the world and he has chosen the topmost girl in the world. Naturally then one feels very good: so the two topmost persons are together!

If you start becoming interested in some other man he feels hurt, because what will happen to the topmost man now? He is no more the topmost. Or if he starts being interested in some other woman you are no more the topmost girl any longer.

This is all that goes on in the name of love and relationship. But one has to accept the reality - you cannot do that which is not possible right now. So right now two things are possible: expressed jealousy is possible, repressed jealousy is possible. Repressed jealousy is very dangerous.

Expressed jealousy is thrown out of the system: you are finished with it, you get rid of it; you don't accumulate it. Repressed jealousy goes on being accumulated: it becomes more and more like a volcano - one day it explodes. One day for no reason at all it will explode: any small thing will become the last straw on the camel and it will happen. Then you will look foolish and stupid because it is out of all proportion.

For example, your boyfriend is reading a book and he is not looking at you; now this becomes the last straw on the camel. You take the book and throw it away and say 'While I am here, why do you go on reading the book?'

This is out of all proportion. The book is not a woman, but this becomes just an excuse and all that he has been doing and all that you have been repressing has exploded. Now, he will think this is very strange - just for the book! And you will also feel very strange, feeling that this is not the real reason.

That's how relationships become very stupid, because in the right moment you repress, then in some wrong moment it comes up. It is better to bring it up when it is alive, at least it will be in context; it will not be stupid, one thing.

And when you always bring it up, it never accumulates, it never becomes volcanic. It is better to say to your man if you are feeling jealous, that you are feeling very very jealous! There is no need to make him feel guilty - simply state the fact. You are not saying that he should not do this - remember; there is no need. If he wants to move with another woman he will move. What can be done about it? One is almost helpless.

Before he became your boyfriend he must have loved other women, so he has moved from them:

some day he will move from you too. One comes to accept realities, that it's okay. If he were not a mover he would not have come even to you in the first place, he would have been stuck with one woman forever, but he is a mover so you could get a chance. Now he's moving, so it's okay.

Don't make him feel guilty - simply state your jealousy. Say, '[I am] feeling jealous. Nothing is wrong about you; whatsoever you are doing, you are doing. What can you do? If I cannot stop my jealousy, how can you stop your lust for others?' You understand?

'If I cannot stop my jealousy, what can you do? When a woman passes by and suddenly you become interested, what can you do? You are helpless, as I am. So I understand; please try to understand me too.'

This is what I call the basic understanding that is needed in every relationship: don't make him feel guilty, that's all. He does not make you feel guilty and ask why you are feeling jealous; one should not feel jealous. That is not the point, that one should or should not; one is feeling.

But don't repress it; if you repress it your love will become poisoned. So when this man is holding your hand, your hand will be cold if you have repressed jealousy. Your hand will not have the flow of energy, it will not have any warmth. How can you be warm with this man? You know well that he is destroying your happiness so you become cold; you hold yourself. He may be loving to you, he may be making love to you, but you remain cold, you don't show any sign of love. You simply pass through it as if you are at the most tolerating all this nonsense; you start showing boredom.

This will be automatic because that jealousy is there in your stomach - it will poison. It is better to get rid of it. Right now you have to go through it, get rid of it: when you are feeling angry, be angry!

Don't accumulate madnesses, drop them. Whenever they are alive, lively, warm, go into them. And this will not destroy your relationship, no - this will make it more warm, hot.

Don't be worried whether it is going to last forever or not; nothing lasts forever. So if it is going to last for a few days, let it be hot - why make it cold? Otherwise before it is finished, it is finished!

One day, through learning, through experiencing many relationships, one becomes mature. Then jealousy disappears. Then you are simply happy if this man comes and shares his energy with you, or if he wants to share with somebody else you are happy That is his freedom, you have nothing to do with it. We are only our own masters and nobody should pretend to be a master to somebody else. When freedom is left intact love grows infinitely.

So at this moment you can do only one thing: don't make him feel guilty, that's all. If jealousy is there, say so: be angry, break a plate, mm? slam the door. Do all the things that are needed.... And no woman has to be taught about that - they are born with the ideas!

Keep this with you (Osho passes her a box) and whenever you are feeling very jealous and very angry put it on your third eye. It will help you, mm? Good.

Generated by PreciseInfo ™
The following is taken from "THE HISTORY OF THE
JEWISH KHAZARS," by D.M. Dunlop, pp. 4-15.

"... Our first question here is, When did the Khazars and
the Khazar name appear? There has been considerable discussion
as to the relation of the Khazars to the Huns on the one hand
and to the West Turks on the other. The prevalent opinion has
for some time been that the Khazars emerged from the West
Turkish empire. Early references to the Khazars appear about the
time when the West Turks cease to be mentioned. Thus they are
reported to have joined forces with the Greek Emperor Heraclius
against the Persians in A.D. 627 and to have materially assisted
him in the siege of Tiflis. it is a question whether the
Khazars were at this time under West Turk supremacy. The
chronicler Theophanes {died circa A.D. 818} who tells the story
introduces them as "the Turks from the east whom they call
Khazars." (Ed. Bonn, 485) On the other hand, the West Turks
appear in the Greek writers simply as Turks, without special
qualification.

The Syriac historians mention the Khazars earlier than A.d.
627. Both Michael Syrus (Ed. Cabot, 381, col. 1, line 9) and
Bar Hebraeus (Ed. Budge, 32b, col. 1, line 13) tell how,
apparently in the reign of the Greek Emperor Maurcie (582-602),
three brothers from "inner Scythia" marched west with 30,000
men, and when they reached the frontier of the Greeks, one of
them, Bulgarios (Bar Hebraeus, Bulgaris), crossed the Don and
settled within the Empire. The others occupied "the country of
the Alans which is called Barsalia, " they and the former
inhabitants adopting the name of Khazars from Kazarig, the
eldest of the brothers. if as seems possible the story goes
back to John of Ephesus (So Barthold, E.I., art. Bulghar) {died
circa A.D. 586}, it is contemporary with the alleged event. It
states pretty explicitly that the Khazars arrived at the
Caucasus from central Asia towards the end of the 6th century.

In the Greek writer Theophylact Simocatta {circa 620} we
have an almost contemporary account of events among the West
Turks which can hardly be unrelated to the Syriac story just
mentioned. (Ed. Bonn, 282ff, Chavannes, Documents, 246ff)
Speaking of a Turkish embassy to Maurice in 598, this author
describes how in past years the Turks had overthrown the White
Huns (Hephthalites), the Avars, and the Uigurs who lived on "the
Til, which the Turks call theBlack River." (Unidentified. Til is
apparently the same as atil, itil, "river." Cf. Atil, Itil=the
Volga. Zeuss (Die Deutschen, 713n.) denied that the Volga was
meant. Marquart, followed by Chavannes (Documents, 251),
suggested the Tola, a tributary of the Orkhon, which is probably
too far east). These Uigurs, says Theophylact, were descended
from two chiefs called Var and Hunni. They are mentioned
elsewhere as the "Varchonites." (Menander Protector, ed. Bonn,
400) Some of the Uigurs escaped from the Turks, and, appearing
in the West, were regarded by those whom they met as Avars, by
which name they were generally known. The last part of this is
confirmed by another Greek author, according to whom Justinian
received representatives of thepseudo-Avars, properly Uigurs,
in A.D. 558, (Menander, ibid., 282) after which they turned to
plundering and laying waste the lands of eastern and central
Europe. If the derivation from Uigur is right, the word "ogre"
in folklore may date from this early period.

Theophylact also tells us that about the time of the
Turkish embassy in 598 there was another emigration of
fugitives from Asia into Europe, involving the tribes of the
Tarniakh, Kotzagers, and Zabender. These were, like the
previous arrivals, descendants of Var and Hunni, and they
proved their kinship by joining the so-called Avars, really
Uigurs, under the Khaqan of the latter. It is difficult not to
see in this another version of the story given by Michael Syrus
and Bar Hebraeus. The Kotzagers are undoubtedly a Bulgar group,
(Cf. Marquart, Streifziige, 488) while Zabender should be the
same name as Samandar, an important Khazar town, and hence
correspond to Kazarig in the Syriac. Originally, it seems,
Samandar derived its name from the occupying tribe. (Menander,
ibid., 282) We appear to have confirmation that the Khazars had
arrived in eastern Europe by the region of Maurice, having
previously been in contact with the West Turks and destined to
be so again.

On the other hand, the older view implied that the Khazars
were already on the outskirts of Europe before the rise of the
Turks {circa A.D. 550}. According to this view, the affinities
of the Khazars were with the Huns. When Priscus, the envoy to
Attila in 448, spoke of a people subject to the Huns and living
in "Scythia towards the Pontus" called Akatzir, (Priscus, ed.
Bonn, 197) these were simply Aq-Khazars, i.e., White Khazars,
Jordanes, writing circa 552, mentions the Akatzirs as a warlike
nation, who do not practice agriculture but live by pasturing
flocks and hunting. (Ed. Mommsen, 63) In view of the distinction
among some Turkish and the remainder as "black," when we read
in the Arab geographer Istakhri that the Khazars are of two
kinds, one called Qara-Khazars (Black Khazars), the other a
white kind, unnamed, (Istakhri's account of the Khazars is
translated in Chapter V) it is a natural assumption that the
latter are the Aq-Khazars (White Khazars). The identification
of the Akatzirs with "Aq-Khazars" was rejected by Zeuss (Die
Deutschen, 714-15) and Marquart (Streifziige, 41, n. 2) as
impossible linguistically. Marquart further said that
historically the Akatzirs as a subject race correspond rather
to the Black Khazars. The alternative identification proposed is
Akatzirs=Agacheri. But this may not be very different from the
other, if Zeki Validi is right in thinking that the relation
between the Agacheri and the Khazars was close. (Ibn-Fadlan,
xxxi)

There are one or two facts in favor of the older view which
have not been explained away effectively. If the Khazars had
nothing to do with the Akatzirs and appeared first as an
off-shoot of the West Turks at the end of the 6th century, how
do they come to be mentioned in the Syriac compilation of circa
569, (Rubens Duval, cited Chavannes, Documents, 250, n. 4) going
under the name of Zacharias Rhetor? The form Kasar/Kasir, which
here comes in a list of peoples belonging to the general
neighborhood of the Caucasus, refers evidently to the Khazars.
Thiswould fit in well with their existence in the same region a
century earlier. We have also the testimony of the so-called
Geographer of Ravenna (? 7th century) that the Agaziri
(Acatziri) of Jordanes are the Khazars. (Ed. Pinder and Parthy,
168)

The Khazars, however, are nowhere represented simply as
Huns. The question arises, If they were subjugated by the
latter shortly before A.D. 448, as Pricus tells, how long had
they existed previously? Here we must consider the views of
Zeki Validi, which are put forward exclusively on the basis of
Oriental sources and are quite independent of the considerations
which have just been raised. He believes that he has found
traces of one and the same Urgeschichte of the Turks, not only
in Muslim but also in Chinese sources, the latter going as far
back as the Wei dynasty (366-558). (The Later Wei is meant
(Zeki Validi's dates)). In the story the Khazars play a leading
part and even claim to be autochthonous in their country.
(Ibn-Fadlan, 294. Yet on the basis of the same tradition, the
original home of the Khazars is represented as the lower Oxus,
cf. ibid., 244, 266) Zeki Validi cites a story in Gardizi,
according to which the eponymous ancestor of the Kirgiz, having
killed a Roman officer, fled to the court of the Khazar Khaqan,
and later went eastward till he found a permanent settlement on
the Yenissei.

But as the Kirgiz in early times are believed to have lived
in eastern Europe and to have been south of the urals before
the beginning of the Christian era, Zeki Validi would assign a
corresponding date to this episode and is unwilling to allow
that the mention of Khazars this early is an anachronism.
(Ibn-Fadlan, 328) These are remarkable claims to make for the
antiquity of the Khazars.

The principal Muslim sources which Zeki Validi relies on are
relatively late, Gardizi, circa A.D. 1050, and an anonymous
history, the Mujmal al-Tawarikh w-al-Qisas, (Ibn-Fadlan, 311)
somewhat later (though these doubtless go back to ibn-al-Muqaffa'
in the 8th century, and through him to pre-Islamic Persian
sources), nor does his Chinese source mention the Khazars
explicitly. But the view that the Khazars existed anterior to
the Huns gains some confirmation from another quarter.

The Armenian History going under the name of Moses of
Chorene (5th century) has a story which mentions the Khazars in
the twenty years between A.D. 197 and 217. (The chronology of
the text is confused, suggesting both these dates and an
intermediate one. Ency. Brit. (14th ed.), s.v. Khazars, has the
date 198. Carmoly (Khozars, 10, in Itineraries de la Terre
Sainte, Brussels 1847) must refer to the same incident when he
speaks of the Khazar Juluf, who ruled seventeen nations on the
Volga, and, pursuing some rebel tribes, burst in to Armenia
between A.D. 178 and 198. The source of Carmoly's information
is quite unknown to me). According to this, the peoples of the
north, the Khazirs and Basilians, made an agreement to break
through the pass of Chor at the east end of the Caucasus "under
the general and king Venasep Surhap." (In the Whistons' 18th
century translation, ii, 62 (65) "sub duce ac rege eorum
Venasepo Surhaco." Kutschera thought that the two kings of the
Khazars were intended (Die Chasaren, Vienna 1910, 38) Having
crossed the river Kur, they were met by the Armenian Valarsh
with a great army and driven back northward in confusion. Some
time later, on their own side of the Caucasus, the northern
nations again suffered a heavy defeat. Valarsh was killed in
this second battle. His son succeeded him, and under the new
king the Armenians again passed the Caucasus in strength,
defeating and completely subjugating the Khazirs and Basilians.
One in every hundred was taken as a hostage, and a monument in
Greek letters was set up to show that these nations were under
the jurisdiction of Rome.

This seems to be a very factual account, and by Khazirs
certainly the Khazars are to be understood. it is, however,
generally held that the Armenian History is wrongly ascribed to
Moses of Chorene in the 5th century and should be assigned to
the 9th, or at any rate the 8th, century. (For a summary of the
views about Moses of Chorene, see an article by A.O.
Sarkissian, J.A.O.S., Vol. 60 (1940), 73-81) This would clearly
put quite a different complexion on the story of the Khazar
raid. Instead of being unexceptionable evidence for the
existence of the Khazars at all events in the time of Moses of
Chorene, it would fall into line with other Armenian (and also
Georgian (A favorable example of the Georgian accounts in
Brosset, Inscriptions Georgiennes etc., M.R.A. 1840, 329)
accounts which though they refer to the Khazars more or less
explicitly in the first centuries of the Christian era, and even
much earlier, we do not cite here. Thigh interesting in
themselves, these accounts, in view of their imprecision and
lack of confirmation, cannot be regarded as reliable.

The Muslim writers provide us with a considerable amount of
material which may be expected to throw light on the date of
the emergence of the Khazars. As already indicated, some of
this demonstrably derives from Pehlevi sources, composed before
the Arab conquest of Persia. What the Arabic and Persian
writers have to say about the Khazars deserves careful scrutiny,
as liable to contain authentic information from an earlier
time. It is not surprising that these accounts, written when
the Khazar state north of the Caucasus was flourishing,
distinguish them from the Turks encountered by the first
generations of Muslims in central Asia. But a passage like the
following, where the Khazars are set side by side with the
leading types of contemporary humanity, is somewhat remarkable.
In a discussion between the celebrated ibn-al-Muqaffa' and his
friends the question was raised as to what nation was the most
intelligent. It is significant for the low state of their
culture at the time, or at least for the view held by the Arabs
on the subject (ibn-al-Muqaffa' died 142/759), that the Turks
and Khazars were suggested only after the claims of the
Persians, Greeks, Chinese, Indians, and Negroes had been
canvassed. Evidently in this respect the Turks and the Khazars
shared a bad eminence. But they are given quite different
characteristics: "The Turks are lean dogs, the Khazars pasturing
cattle." (Ibn-'Abd-Rabbihi, al- Iqd al-Farid, ed. of A.H. 1331,
Ii, 210. The anecdote is commented on by Fr. Rosenthal,
Technique and Approach of Muslim Scholarship, Analecta
Orientalia, 24 (1947), 72) Though the judgment is unfavorable,
we get the impression of the Khazars as a distinct, even
important, racial group. How far this corresponds with the fact
is not certain. Suggestions have been made connecting the
Khazars with the Circassian type, taken to be pale-complexioned,
dark-haired, and blue-eyed, and through the Basilians or
Barsilians already mentioned, with the so-called "Royal Scyths"
of Herodotus. (iv, 59) All this is evidently very speculative.
Apart from the passage where the Black Khazars are mentioned,
described as being dusky like the Indians, and their
counterparts fair and handsome, (See Istakhri's account of the
Khazars in Chapter V, infra) the only available description of
the race in Arabic sources is the following, apparently from
ibn- Sa'id al-Maghribi: "As to the Khazars, they are to be left
[north] of the inhabited earth towards the 7th clime, having
over their heads the constellation of the Plough. Their land is
cold and wet. Hence their complexions are white, their eyes
blue, their hair flowing and predominantly reddish, their
bodies large and their natures cold. Their general aspect is
wild." (Bodieian MS., i, 873, fol. 71, kindly communicated by
Professor Kahle) This reads like a conventional description of
a northern nation, and in any case affords no kind of support
for Khazar affinity with the "Circassian" type. If we are to
trust the etymology of Khalil ibn-Ahmad (Yaqut, Mu'jam al-
Buldan, s.v. Khazar) the Khazars may have been slant-eyed, like
the Mongols, etc. Evidently nothing can be said positively in
the matter. Some of the Khazars may have been fair-skinned,
with dark hair and blue eyes, but there is no evidence that this
type prevailed from antiquity or was widely represented in
Khazaria in historical times. A similar discussion on the
merits of the different races is reported from the days before
Muhammad, in which the speakers are the Arab Nu'man
ibn-al-Mudhir of al-Hirah and Khusraw Anushirwan. The Persian
gives his opinion that the Greeks, Indians, and Chinese are
superior to the Arabs and so also, in spite of their low
material standards of life, the Turks and the Khazars, who at
least possess an organization under their kings. Here again the
Khazars are juxtaposed with the great nations of the east.
(Ibn-'Abd- Rabbilu, op. cit. i, 166) It is consonant with this
that tales were told of how ambassadors from the Chinese, the
Turks, and the Khazars were constantly at Khusraw's gate,
(Tabari, i, 899. According to ibn-Khurdadhbih, persons wishing
access to the Persian court from the country of the Khazars and
the Alans were detained at Bab al-Abwab (B.G.A. vi, 135)) and
even that he kept three thrones of gold in his palace, which
were never removed and on which none sat, reserved for the
kings of Byzantium, China and the Khazars. (Ibn-al-Balkhi, Fdrs
Namah (G.M.S.), 97)

In general, the material in the Arabic and Persian writers
with regard to the Khazars in early times falls roughly into
three groups, centering respectively round the names of (a) one
or other of the Hebrew patriarchs, (b) Alexander the Great, and
(c) certain of the Sassanid kings, especially, Anushirwan and
his immediate successors.

A typical story of the first group is given by Ya'qubi in
his History. (Ed. Houtsma, i, 17) After the confusion of
tongues at Babel (Gen. 10:18; 11:19), the descendants of Noah
came to Peleg (Gen. 10:25; 11:16-19; 1 Chr. 1:19; 1:25), son of
Eber (Gen. 10:21; 10:24-25; 11:14-17; Num. 24:24; 1 Chr.
1:18-19; 1:25; 8:12; Neh. 12:20), and asked him to divide (Gen.
10:5; 10:25; 10:32; Exo. 14:21; Deut. 4:19; 32:8; 1 Chr. 1:19)
the earth among them. He apportioned to the descendants of
Japheth (Gen. 5:32; 6:10; 7:13; 9:18; 9:23; 9:27; 10:1-2;
10:21; 1 Chr. 1:4-5) - China, Hind, Sind, the country of the
Turks and that of the Khazars, as well as Tibet, the country of
the (Volga) Bulgars, Daylam, and the country neighboring on
Khurasan. In another passage Ya'qubi gives a kind of sequel to
this. Peleg (Gen. 10:25; 11:16- 19; 1 Chr. 1:19; 1:25) having
divided the earth in this fashion (Deut. 32:8), the descendants
of 'Amur ibn-Tubal (Gen. 10:2; 1 Chr. 1:5; Isa. 66:19; Eze.
27:13; 32:26; 38:2-3; 39:1), a son of Japheth, went out to the
northeast. One group, the descendants of Togarmah (Gen. 10:3; 1
Chr. 1:6; Eze. 27:14; 38:6), proceeding farther north, were
scattered in different countries and became a number of
kingdoms, among them the Burjan (Bulgars), Alans, Khazars
(Ashkenaz Gen. 10:3), and Armenians. (Ed. Houtsma, i, 203, cf.
Marquart, Str. 491)

Similarly, according to Tabari, (i, 217-18) there were born
to Japheth Jim-r (the Biblical Gomer (Gen. 10:2-3; 1 Chr.
1:5-6; Eze. 38:6; Hos. 1:3), Maw'-' (read Mawgh-gh, Magog (Gen.
10:2; 1 Chr. 1:5; Eze. 38:2; 39:6; Rev. 20:8)), Mawday (Madai
(Gen. 10:2; 1 Chr. 1:5), Yawan (Javan) (Gen. 10:2; 10:4; 1 Chr.
1:5; 1:7; Isa. 66:19; Eze. 27:13; 27:19)), Thubal (Tubal),
Mash-j (read Mash-kh, Meshech (Gen. 10:2; 1 Chr. 1:15; 1:17;
Eze. 27:13; 32:26; 38:2-3; 39:1)) and Tir-sh (Tiras (Gen. 10:2;
1 Chr. 1:5)). Of the descendants of the last were the Turks and
the Khazars (Ashkenaz). There is possibly an association here
with the Turgesh, survivors of the West Turks, who were
defeated by the Arabs in 119/737, (H.A.R. Gibb, Arab Conquests
in Central Asia, London 1923, 83ff. Cf. Chapter IV, n. 96) and
disappeared as aruling group in the same century. Tabari says
curiously that of the descendants of Mawgh-gh (Magog) were
Yajuj and Majuj, adding that these are to the east of the Turks
and Khazars. This information would invalidate Zeki Validi's
attempt to identify Gog and Magog in the Arabic writers with
the Norwegians. (Ibn-Fadlan, 196ff) The name Mash-kh (Meshech)
is regarded by him as probably a singular to the classical
Massagetai (Massag-et). (Ibn-Fadlan, 244, n. 3) A Bashmakov
emphasizes the connection of "Meshech" with the Khazars, to
establish his theory of the Khazars, not as Turks from inner
Asia, but what he calls a Jephetic or Alarodian group from
south of the Caucasus. (Mercure de France, Vol. 229 (1931), 39ff)

Evidently there is no stereotyped form of this legendary
relationship of the Khazars to Japheth. The Taj-al-Artis says
that according to some they are the descendants of Kash-h (?
Mash-h or Mash-kh, for Meshech), son of Japheth, and according
to others both the Khazars and the Saqalibah are sprung from
Thubal (Tubal). Further, we read of Balanjar ibn-Japheth in ibn-
al-Faqih (B.G.A., v, 289) and abu-al-Fida' (Ed. Reinaud and De
Slane, 219) as the founder of the town of Balanjar. Usage leads
one to suppose that this is equivalent to giving Balanjar a
separate racial identity. In historical times Balanjar was a
well-known Khazar center, which is even mentioned by Masudi as
their capital. (Tanbih, 62)

It is hardly necessary to cite more of these Japheth
stories. Their JEWISH origin IS priori OBVIOUS, and Poliak has
drawn attention to one version of the division of the earth,
where the Hebrew words for "north" and "south" actually appear
in the Arabic text. (Conversion, 3) The Iranian cycle of legend
had a similar tradition, according to which the hero Afridun
divided the earth among his sons, Tuj (sometimes Tur, the
eponym of Turan), Salm, and Iraj. Here the Khazars appear with
the Turks and the Chinese in the portion assigned to Tuj, the
eldest son. (Tabari, i, 229)

Some of the stories connect the Khazars with Abraham. The
tale of a meeting in Khurasan between the sons of Keturah (Gen.
25:1; 25:4; 1 Chr. 1:32-33) and the Khazars (Ashkenaz Gen.
10:3) where the Khaqan is Khaqan is mentioned is quoted from the
Sa'd and al-Tabari by Poliak. (Loc. cit.; Khazaria, 23, 142,
148; Cf. ibn-Sa'd, I, i, 22; Tabari I, i, 347ff)) The tradition
also appears in the Meshed manuscript of ibn-al-Faqih,
apparently as part of the account of Tamim ibn-Babr's journey
to the Uigurs, but it goes back to Hishim al-Kalbi. (Hisham
ibn-Muhammad, the authority given by ibn-Sa'd=Hisham
ibn-Lohrasp al-Sa'ib al-Kalbi in ibn-al-Faqih's text (in V.
Minorsky, "Tamim ibn-Bahr's Journey to the Uyghurs," B.S.O.A.S.,
1948, xii/2, 282)) Zeki Validi is inclined to lay some stress
on it as a real indication of the presence of the Khazars in
this region at an early date. ((Ibn-Fadlan, 294) Al-Jahiz
similarly refers to the legend of the sons of Abraham and
Keturah settling in Khurasan but does not mention the Khazars.
(Fada'il al- Atrak, transl. C.T. Harley Walker, J.R.A.S., 1915,
687) Al-Di-mashqi says that according to one tradition the
Turks were the children of Abraham by Keturah, whose father
belonged to the original Arab stock (al-'Arab al-'Aribah).
Descendants of other sons of Abraham, namely the Soghdians and
the Kirgiz, were also said to live beyond the Oxus..."

[Zionism, chabad, Nazi, ZioNazi, Judeo-Nazi, racism, fascism,
Illuminati, Freemason, NWO, Lucifer, Satan, 666]