The Following Published Texts Are Important in This Research:

Chogyam Trungpa..."Shambhala, The Sacred Path of the Warrior"...1984........

Campell, Leroy A......"Mithraic Iconography and Ideology"....Leiden:1968......Persian and Avestan sources........

Norbu, Namkhai "Drung, Deu, and Bon: Narrations, Symboloic languages, and the Bon traditions in ancient Tibet"... 1995.......descriptions of the Drala and Werma deities... translation of important Bon Texts...

Wangyal, Tenzin....."Healing with Form, Energy and Light.....The Five Elements in Tibetan Shamanism, Tantra and Dzogchen"....2002...... overview of the..... Shamanic ...Tantric....and Dzogchen teachings and practices of Tibet.....outlines of descriptions from the imporant Bon texts...........

These are unedited research notes focusing on actual historical traditions......including the great pre-Islamic cultures of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Central Asia...... .... Persian Mithraic......Shang Shung & Persian Bon-po......Tibetan Manichaeism.......Northern Silk Route and Iranian Buddhism.......Early Tibetan Tantric Nyingma.........Altaic Shamanic Kam.......Japanese Elemental Shinto..... Pre-Islamic Sufism.......Manichaeist Taoism...... Greek and Roman Lodge "Mystery Religions"...... French Celtic Druidae and Catharic Traditions...... Sham Ash Sun Gods...... Khazaric Semitic Kabbala....... Indo-Iranian (Aryan) Sky Gods & Earth Goddesses.... Kashmiri Tantric Shaivism, etc.........Numerous viewpoints are sought and presented.....no conclusions are drawn.

Notes on the Cathar Christians.....the Shambhalians (Manichaeans or Bonpos) of France?......"Within each person there is a spark of life that was un-touched by the material world.......any movement that tended toward the spiritual was a movement towards pure white light.......tendancies towards the material world led to diminished brilliance.....the Christians called these extremes Good and Evil........some people claim that the Cathars descended from the Essenes, similar to the Nogomils or the Lollards who were exterminated in England....the Cathar story is a Holocaust story.....their history in southern France and their command of genocide by the Pope of Rome is quite tragic.....Pope Innocent the Third in 1209 launched a crusade against them.....He called in Simon de Montford to slaughter, and extinguish their power, their religion....."

The Shambhala Teachings and Tibetan Manichaeism........"In A.D. 1000 the Arab historian Al-Beruni wrote: "The majority of the Eastern Turks, the inhabitants of China and Tibet, and a number in India belong to the religion of Mani, the Buddha of Light"........

MANICHAEISM.........The Five Elements are at the core of 2nd Century Manichaeism........According to Mani the First-Man now emanates sons as a man who puts on his armor for the combat. These five sons are the five elements opposed to the five aeons of darkness: Clear Air, Refreshing Wind, Bright Light, Life-Giving Waters, and Warming Fire. He put on first the aerial breeze, then threw over himself light as a flaming mantle, and over this light a covering of water; he surrounded himself with gusts of wind, took light as his lance and shield, and cast himself downward toward the line of danger........

Küntu Zangpo is  one of the peacful Bon deities, his name means "The All-Good" and he is seen as the supreme deity of all knowledge and has strong links to Shenla Okar in the sense that both are hierophanies of the bönku or "The body of Bon", the ultimate Truth..... Küntu Zangpo is Künzang Akor which means "The All-Good cycle of A", "A" being the last letter in the Zhan Zhung-alphabet ....the White A......

The Shambhala Diet & the Manichaen Diet ........

"NYIDA: The vegetarian diet of Shambhala. Nyi stands for yellow and green foods, primarily vegetables and fruits, and da for white foods such as milk, yogurt, cheese and tofu....

One of the main principles of the Manichaeans was a vegetarian diet of mainly green and yellow foods. Supposedly, light was concentrated in these foods......

"Is Manicheism the source of the Dzogchen teachings of Tibetan Buddhists. Beginning with an ancient Persian form of Zarathustrianism which penetrated the Tibetan region in the 5th Century BC, and followed by a heretical Pudgalavadin form of Buddhism in the 3rd century BC, both of which pave the way for the influx of the teachings of Mani in the late 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th centuries AD.

This Manichaean faith became totally dominant in northern Tibet  when the Uighur King converted to Manichaeanism in 762 AD. ....

"According to Kuznetsov, Bon was introduced to Tibet in the fifth century BC, when there occurred a mass migration of Iranians from Sogdhiana in north-east Iran to the northern parts of Tibet.." .....June Campbell: "Traveller in Space"..

In the 3rd century B.C.E. emerged the Pudgalavadins from the Hinayana school of Buddhism, who derive their name from the word pudgala, meaning 'person'. The Pudgalavadins claimed that for reincarnation to take place, there had to be a continuous person who was reincarnated again and again, thus requiring a kind of individual soul, not an autonomous self, but a soul in constant transformation. This view was criticised by other Buddhist sects who said that Pudgalavadin teaching implied the reality of a self and, therefore, contradicted the basic Buddhist teaching of anatman (no self). These Pudgalavadins were persecuted in India but flourished in Central Asian Bon areas where they, with the possible influence of Mani and Manichaeanism, seem to have developed into, or merged with, the Dzogchen teachings of the Great Perfection in Tibet. An  early form of this Dzogchen then possibly evolved into Ch'an and Zen and spread eastward.

Manichaeanism entered into Tibet and northern India at the end of the third century A.D.  By 670-692  existed in strength  in eastern Turkestan where the Uighur Turks were intermixing with Iranians and Scyths. Manichaeanism, along with Buddhism, became extremely prevalent in this area. Manichaeanism tended to express itself in Buddhist terminology in this land and itself was part Buddhist, yet Manichaeanism has many elements considered inharmonious with traditional Buddhist ideas.  This Buddhist Manichaeanism mix, of which Mani would have been proud, possibly had a profound influence on Mahayana Buddhism which would soon become the dominant form of Buddhism. Manichaean elements are especially discernible in Buddhist schools such as the pure land sect and continued to influence the unique development of Vajrayana Buddhism in Tibet. Thus these forms of Buddhism speak of a central deity, a light land, 5 elements in need of redemption, and other traditional Manichaean teachings.

Dzogchen, The Supreme Highest Yoga Tantra, Atiyoga, Dzogchen, or Great Perfection is said,according to both early Bon and Nyingma sources, as well as by  Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Taye (19th century Nyingmapa scholar and adept)  to have come from the northwest into Tibet.  Dzogchen is also said by these early writers to come from Persian sources and to have existed in Tibet before Padmasambhava came in the eighth century. We concur with this assessment and suspect that Dzogchen originated with the insights of Mani the Persian Messenger of Light and the Manichaean message which came into the area from the northwest.

There is also a tradition that Dzogchen,and Padmasambhava,  come from a place called Oddiyana in Shamballa. Texts from this same Tun huang site identify Oddiyana as "Shamis en Balkh" in modern day Balkh, Afghanistan where many ruins, Buddhist stupas and monasteries exist. This is the town oft associated with Padmasambhava, and Rabia and Rumi as well. Although Padmasambhava is usually thought to be Indian, it is possible that he is from the Afghanistan region also associated with his name.

Later Bon is perhaps the mixture of older Iranian Bon with the Pudgalavadin Buddhism that entered Tibet before more traditional forms of Buddhism. We are told by Kongtrul and Longchenpo that Nyingma split off from the Bon Religion when the "new translations" period began in Tibet after Padmasambhava.  Scholars are now concluding that Padmasambhava did not begin Nyingma as later tradition asserts, only incorporated it from the older Bon/Nyingma tradition that preceded him. They also report that the Central Asian Dzogchen View is common to and found within not only Bon, but also the Nyingmapa lineage, as well as in some northern Indian elements of the Sikhs, Nathas, and Bauls.

Recent discoveries in Tun huang caves seem to indicate that a pre-Buddhist form of Dzogchen teachings in the Tibetan region and Central Asia area became the Taoist alchemical tradition of yoga that evolves into Ch'an and Zen. Both Zen and Dzogchen teach the concept of sudden enlightenment in contrast to other Buddhist schools that teach gradual unfoldment. Within Tun huang texts we also seem to see non-Taoist texts transforming into Taoist texts and Central Asian Buddhist liturgy transforming itself into Taoist liturgy. One scholar writes that this type of pre-Buddhist Zen like Dzogchen teaches that there is no permanent self nor immortal part nor reincarnation. One must first develop an immortal body and personhood by uniting solar and lunar souls. This last teaching is similar to to some mandaean and Manichaean teachings on the soul and Ziwa and Noorah light bodies.  A early form of  Dzogchen may possibly have evolved into the Ch'an and Zen traditions that one encounters farther eastward."