Sacred Caves of the Truth Seekers, Mysticism and Truths in Trinity

Ardishir Rashidi-Kalhur | Exclusive to iKurd.net
Kurdish American Education Society

In early March of 2021, Pope Francis paid a historic first time visit to Iraq. He conveyed to the citizens of Iraq his heartfelt message of peace with a deep sense of fraternity and sincere truthfulness. The people of Iraq have suffered decades of wars and sectarian conflict in and around their country welcomed the Pope with well deserved enthusiastic cheers of reverence and respect. On march 7th, the Pope visited Erbil, a city in the northern region of Kurdistan. I had the distinct privilege of providing real time commentary and context on the significance of his visit as he disembarked from his plane at Erbil International Airport.

This article is written retrospectively in order to provide complementary information to the reader; these are simply timely comments on the first ever visit by a Pope to the Kurdish region.

The Pope’s visit to Kurdistan, I feel, is a heartfelt and a sincere desire on his part to visit a land that by all accounts is considered to be the real and original Land of the Bible. The scene is Mesopotamia, historic site of Adam and Eve, and where many events found in the book of Genesis take place, also where Noah’s grandson Canaan and later descendants Abraham and his family who immigrated into the Levant where they dwelled and established the second Holy Land, Israel. Israel was the name of Isaac’s son Jacob, given the name Isra (yisra)-el (the righteous El, or the righteous angel). For etymology of the Word “El” refer to the article “Understanding the Yazidis of Kurdistan” on this website. Jacob begat the twelve tribes of Israel. The vibrant story of Abraham and the Israelites, and the deeds and words of Moses which forms the basis of the Judaic canon, and indeed the very roots of Jewish culture, which are recorded in the divinely inspired Torah and in the rich Jewish oral traditions. This includes the story of the land they left behind, the original Holy Land in Northern Mesopotamia, which did not receive the same comprehensive attention in Western literature as did the land of Israel.

For this reason, to more clearly elucidate the spiritual journey of Western Christianity, and to create a more meaningful and renewed understanding and thereby reconnect to the original lands where Genesis takes place, it is spiritually essential to take note of the information presented here, and the Pope’s visit to Kurdistan must be considered in light of this to be a significantly important step in this regard. The recognition of the original lands is of vital importance to a comprehensive spiritual understanding despite of the fact that a majority of the focus of spiritual life in Western culture has been mostly centered around the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ of Nazareth and the resulting development of the New Testament that later ensued, organically emerging out of the Old Testament. This rift in cultural distancing away from the old and onto the new and into our present time, was further accelerated with the emergence and burgeoning advancement of science and technology, and away from the study of theology rooted in the old land.

While science and technology use and manipulate matter and motion to transform social life and cultures, our scientific search for the answer to pinpoint the origin of matter and motion and all that exists in the infinite universe that we can really only observe in part, still remains a perpetually valid philosophical discourse among the old and the new. Among the old, there is a certain group of Kurdish mystics known as the Yaresan, and are known to be a dedicated and earnest community of “truth seekers”. The etymology of the name word Yaresan is said to derive from the root word “Ya”, referring to the mythical dimensionless Pearl of Ya, the origin of which dwelt within the non-temporal, non-spatial and non-material spirit, known by the Yaresan as “Afarin-dekar or Afrain-degar”. The compound word “Afarin to Create (Perfect Creation), Kar means work (The Creator whose Created Work is Perfect). There is a city in Northern Kurdistan named “Afrin” (now under the Turkish-ISIS occupation with ongoing acts of cultural destructions and desecration of life and ancient holy places in Mesopotamia).

Afrin is where it is believed that God the Creator, started his Work of Creation there and is in the upper Mesopotamia where events in the book of Genesis take place. Afarindegar, is also a, “Par-ward-gar” which means a “Nurturer”. Parward, also has two meanings “to nurture and to raise” and also it means “Paradise”. Both, Afarindegar, and Parwardgar, who are the same spirit, is also known as “Khawen-Kar” which means “The Owner of the Factory of Creation”. In Yaresan tradition, after three days of fasting in and around the month of November, there is a celebration called “The Feast of the Creator (Khawenkar)”. No one knows exactly who the “Ya” is, but in general, it is used in conjunction with appealing to a source of power for help and redemption, such as the word “Khoy”, Khoda, etc.. in Kurdish Khwa, Khoda means God. So Ya-Khoy, or Ya-Khwa, which is equivalent to the Hebrew God “Yah-Weh” means “O-Thou”. Furthermore, the myth has it that the “Ya” from itself, created both the Haft-Tan or Seven Archangels, and the Chel-Tan, or, forty Angles of different ranks, all of whom formed the world of the spirts prior to the creation of matter, space and motion. The Pearl of Ya also had a dimensionless shell from which by its “divine will, and non-temporal power” known as “Hyzh, or Hyz” shattered itself into infinite fragments and thereby created the world of space, matter and motion. This story of the beginning of the original state of the universe can be described in Yaresan as:

No Time, No Space, No Matter, No Light,
No Motion, No Change, No Universe in Sight,
Only A Pearl, in a Dimensionless Shell,
For Universal Essence of Consciousness to Dwell,
Out of the Pearl was Born Zahn-u-NaZahn,
And The Angels of Truth out of The Darkness of Dawn
From The Angels of Truth and Ya in Yaresan,
Shell is Turned to Dust Like Rays of the Sun.

This creation myth of the Yaresan faith continues with the story that after the Pearl of Ya shattered itself from a priori ‘spiritual world’, (Ya-Khoy or The Thyself!, known in the Hebrew Bible as Yahweh), a posteriori world of material was created. The Khawenkar (God), then commissioned the Haft-Tan (The Archangels), to survey the universe it had created to its outer edges and report back to God about the most wonderful and most precious fragments found within the entirety of the universe of its creation. The Angels then, in simultaneity of presence transcended to the furthest edges of the universe, visiting every material fragment existing within it, and dutifully reported back to God, the Khawenkar, that one such planet they found was most exquisite, with its natural beauty, was beyond comparison to all of the other cosmic fragments. They called the planet Hardeh, or Erdha, the Kurdish word for Earth. God then commissioned the Angels again to revisit the Earth and find the most suitable place to create life on Earth out of the inanimate dust and clay of the land. On their instantaneous return back to Earth, the Archangels began to mold clay of a single color to make human, but to no avail, and they returned to God reporting their failed attempts.

God then instructed them to return back to Earth again and find clays of many colors, to shape them and mold them in the image of God and of the Angels themselves, but this time to enter the body of the clay to reside and to also play music, to chant, and to dance for seven thousand years, and then report back to God afterward. The Archangels chose the clay at the wellspring of the Tigress and the Euphrates to do what God had instructed them to do. As the epic period of seven thousand years approached its end, the clay begun to resonate and started to wake in a drowsy state of consciousness. In their excitement to see the start of life, the Archangels lift the half-awakened clay and took him to make an appearance before God. By then, the clay had gained more consciousness, and with his first words he uttered a question “Yahu? Ya Manhu?” which can be translated in English to mean “Who Am I? and What Am I Doing Here?”. To this day, among the Yaresan followers, the phrase Ya-huYa-Man-hu is an adage used in reverence of “Ya”.

After the questioning utterance made by the newly formed man of clay, God gave him an answer and told him that now that you have gained consciousness of the world around you and ask these profound questions, I will give you the name Adam (Aayam) (I Am), and give you a precious gift to be your equal companion and give you a home for you two to live in and take care of it and of one another and to enable you to multiply. God then gives Adam the first woman, who had been created under mystical and divine circumstances, with a fully developed sense of sensuousness as a Divine present to Adam and he calls her name Eve, to be Adam’s mate and equal partner.

For the third time God commands the Archangels to take Adam and Eve back to Earth to the headwaters of the Tigress and Euphrates where the angels had made them a home called the Garden of Eden. One can read the rest of the story form here in the Book of Genesis. What is found to be more interesting is that in the Kurdish story of Yaresan, humans, since the beginning, starting with Adam and Eve, began to search for answers to the mysteries of life and the origin of matter and the revolving universe. This is where the story of the Sacred Caves of Truth Seekers and the Truths in Trinity, begins.

Like the air, water, nutrients and the light that sustain life, the many caves of earth, have played a pivotal role in human development as a place of shelter, a place of spiritual retreat, and as a place of contemplation for “Truth Seekers” who have sought to provide answers to the mystery of the question of origin, meaning and purpose of life.

In the story of Genesis, immediately after the expulsion of Adam and Eve from their luxurious and fancy home in the Garden of Eden due to mistreatment of the place, disobeying God by eating from the forbidden fruit of knowledge, they took refuge in a cave, that was later called the “Cave of Treasure” written about in a book, which dates back to around 4th century AD with a definite author unknown. In reality, beside the recently discovered site of the “First Temple” known as Gobeklitepe or Kherr-Tepe (a round and raised hill) found beneath a raised and round hill in N. Kurdistan, near the city of Sanli-Urfa, NE. of the city of Afrin) in the Upper Mesopotamia, (Northern Kurdistan), there
is another cave in Kurdish Bashur (Southern Kurdistan), that predates the Cave of Treasure and the Gobeklitepe, and that is the Cave of Shanidar. Cave of Shanidar, is the first known cave where evidence of human emotion is expressed in laying flowers at a burial site of a fellow human who had been deceased. Although there is recorded evidence of cave dwelling by early and pre-historic humans, the Cave of Treasure sets the beginning of historic caves, used by many sages and prophets that have given us the body of human knowledge and wisdom from ancient to the present.

Following is a list of such Prophets and Sacred Caves who have enriched our present-day spiritual life to reunite us with our origin and the creator who is called in many names and attributes in our many diverse human cultures and believes.

1) The Silent Cave (Mar Khamoosh), located in the Zagros Mountains in the Guran region.
2) Caves in Dala-Hu (in the Zagros Mountain in Kurdish Rojhelat).
3) Cave of Ur-Ayem (Adam from Ur aka Abraham, or Ibrahim Khalil).
4) Caves of Genesis and in Biblical records
5) Cave of Machpelah, where Abraham resided after he immigrated to the land of Canaan,
6) Cave of Elijah
7) Caves of Buddha in India & South East Asia
8) Cave of Mar-Matti (Saint Mathew the Hermit born in the Kurdish city of Amida in Northern
Mesopotamia)
9) Cave of Mar Hoormiz (In Kurdish means the Grand Memory of the Divine), located in Northern
Iraq.
10) Cave of the Jabal-al-nur- the place of contemplation by the Founder of Islam
11) Cave of Sultan Sahak, a spiritual progeny of Yaresan Faith,
12) Cave of Benjamin Lay in the new world in North Amri-KA, A pre-revolutionary American pious
man who lived in a cave walled with books and led a spiritual life as a hermit, whose morality
and antislavery believes influenced the thinking of the American Founding Leaders.

The above caves, which are partially listed, are known as the “Sacred Caves of the Truth Seekers”. Many more examples exist in the historical record about the similar caves used by sages and prophets who retreated to them, searching there in solitude, reflecting on their own individual lives, the unacceptable social life of their communities, and seeking answers to the deep questions of truth and about the universe and its origin and meaning of life with all its complexities. This way of life, of retreating to caves, for sacred and spiritual purposes, in time, led to building of shrines, monasteries, synagogues, churches, temples, stupas, mosques, and Tekyeh, (Spiritual leaning place), places of gathering, where they all become one spiritually, and where God’s presence could be more easily felt.

Today visiting such places in the Zagros range in the foothill of a smaller mountain south of NeuaKuyeh, (lead mountain), in the Kalhur Region, is a common outdoor activity for many mountain goers. It is interesting that Neua-Kuyeh is a tall high mountain atop of which one could see as far as the town of Sumar (where the Sumer civilization had flourished) about some fifty miles or so away, and further well into lower Mesopotamia in Iraq. Years later I wondered if Neua-Kuyeh is not the name of Noah-Mountain where in the Genesis Flood story, was the place for the Noah’s Ark could have landed because of its highland risen high above the Mesopotamian planes. A similar story of flood in the Epic of Gilgamesh, if could have happened, would make perfect sense because of the proximity of the town of Sumar to the Neua-Kuyeh (or Noah’s Mountain) in Kermanshah province.

These above listed “Sacred Caves of the Truth Seekers” may help us better understand one of the least understood concepts in Christianity, the concept of Trinity.

The Truth in Trinity. One may ask then what was the message of these prophets and beacons of enlightenment who retreated to the caves and later built places of worship and contemplation in order to guide humanity toward righteousness, a better way of life, and eventually, toward the source of the origin and the Creator of the physical universe? This is where in pursuit of the Truth, the concept of a divine Trinity makes the most sense among all other explanations put forward by all other schools of thought. The Three Truths, known as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is the contemplative conclusion of the Monastic life given to us by the ancient contemplateurs in Christianity that is so in conflict with modern science which relies on the study of matter and motion and an evidence-based world view.

To understand this logically unreconcilable concept of Trinity, one needs to pay attention not to the physical being and presence of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but to the existence of the three levels of Truth as it relates to human consciousness that exist in the life of every living human being, past to present and in to the future. Following is an explanation of what these three states of existence of Truths are:

The First Truth:

The first truth we find relates to the individual level of consciousness and awareness of one’s own life and its internal complexity of existence. Many if not most of the cave dwellers and those who resided in places of worship like monasteries and the like, were extraordinarily introspective individuals who were in search of understanding truth about themselves first. On this journey they only achieve partial awareness, but not full enlightenment. They may find truth about their own thoughts, feelings, senses, needs, self-control, their environment, the universe, and find a general appreciation of being a part of the fabric of nature and life and able to find a desire to reach a higher level of self-awareness.

However, they would never know at any given moment what their heartbeat might be, or the rate of various neural transmissions across their nervous system, or what number of cells existed in their body and other unknown questions about one’s own existence etc… In this regard, you and I are no exception, and are very much like the sages and prophets who sought to understand themselves better and thoroughly, but proved impassible. This means at this level of individual consciousness, we only know a certain level of Truth about ourselves, but not all the truth about ourselves. This level of knowing the truth applies to all of us as individual sons and daughters belonging to a parent and a larger community as the Father (or Mother). As an example, the Magi, Jesus or Buddha reached this high level of self-awareness and conscientiousness. Therefore, they are recognized as the Son, or in case of a women like Eve, the Daughter of Truth, meaning they knew the most about themselves and the outside world, but not all the Truths. In the Concept of Trinity and in this case, Jesus is The Son. The one with the highest level of Consciousness of self within, and the outer world and of the Creator.

The Second Truth:

The second truth is the truth that the parents and the community and the outside world will know to be truth about the individual mentioned in truth one, which could be you, I or any other living individual past, and present. This is perceived truth reflecting back to the individual from outside toward the individual. Just as in truth level one, no parents or community will ever know the whole truth about the Son, (or the Daughter). Therefore, In the concept of the Trinity, this second level of truth is The Father Truth known about the individual from the outside world. The Son, is the product of the community, symbolized as, The Father, both of whom strive to know more and more of the real truth about self and the outside world, but their level of knowing the truth is forever limited and remains incomplete.

The Third Truth:

The third level of truth refers to the Holy Spirit, the one who knows the Whole and the absolute Universal Truth. That is the truth that resides in you, I, and everyone who has ever lived, lives, or will live, including the truth about all the animate and inanimate infinite fragments of the material world that comes from the original source, the Pearl of Ya. All matters in motion leave a wave-like trace which hypothetically like an echocardiogram, their trace paths are known to the Holy Spirt.

In Yaresan, these three levels of truths form the basis of the Truths in Trinity. Yaresan further holds the belief that no human being, sage, prophet or otherwise, will ever be able to access knowledge of the Universal Truth (Serre-Magu, or the untellable truth). Only partially, by entering the realm of mysticism as practiced by the Truth Seekers, one can achieve a higher level of consciousness known as having a “Besh” or the gift of knowing more of the hidden truth (SerreMagu) about the self, the outside world, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirt, i.e. the Creator of the Universe and its origin, that forms the basis of mysticism and these three Non-Self-Evident Truths in Trinity.

In conclusion, the journey of the Pope to Kurdistan synchronizes perfectly in line with the steps that his predecessor prophets, saints, seekers, and pious men and women have taken from the early rise of human consciousness in the Garden of Eden to the present-day life. The one answer that we continue to receive in the eternal spirit of these Truth Seekers, remains that the universe is created out of the act of timeless love and kindness, as practiced by the early humans like the cave dwellers of Shanidar, and the Gobklitepe in Kurdistan. So next time we make the journey to Kurdistan (The Old Holy Land of the Bible), in the footsteps of the Pope, know that we may be walking on the path of the Truth Seekers whose quest in life is to learn and to know and to teach us more about self, the world around us and the loving spirit of the “Pearl of Ya”, from whom all things flow.

Happy Season of Peace.

Ardishir Rashidi-Kalhur, the President of Kurdish American Education Society, Los Angeles, U.S.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.

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