Introduction:

Over the millennia humans have been looking to the heavens out of a sense of wonder and awe. Standing under the starry vault of heaven conjures up in ones mind the magnificence and mystery of the universe we live in. With new images being captured by earth's orbiting Hubble space telescope the wonders from outer space captivate our attention with the most unbelievable of cosmic events.

The sun is the most predominate object in the heavens and is witnessed everyday rising in the east and setting in the west. This solar cycle has been repeating itself long before man could look to the heavens and today its common knowledge that the earth travels in an elliptical orbit around the sun. The sunrise and sunset provide a constant source of inspiration and renewal for people the world over.

But in the evening when the sun disappears over the horizon billions of lights appear in the night sky and it is truly a wondrous sight to behold. If you look very closely at these tiny shimmering lights you will notice that some of them change their position over short and long periods of time. This dynamic symphony of heavenly movement has been going on since the birth of the universe. Eventually with the dawn of mankind names and myths associated with the starry heavens became shared folklore with indigenous people all over the world.

My own relationship to the stars came from my childhood while living on the rocky coast of Nahant, Massachusetts and watching the night sky stretch across the Atlantic Ocean. In my college years I studied astronomy and learned the names of stars and constellations. But in my early school years I was never taught anything about the spiritual significance attributed to stars or the cycles of heavenly bodies. When I was about eighteen years old, 1958, I happen to read a book by F.S.C. Northrope titled, "East Meets West". At that time in my life I had no understanding of all those things mentioned existing in the East. Hinduism and Buddhism were not taught to me in secondary school, but in reading Northrope's book the seeds were planted about a world filled with different gods than the one I learned about from my Christian upbringing in a small congregational church in Nahant, Massachusetts.

The fascination with far away places stayed with me until eventually I came to learn of an exotic culture deep within the jungles of Central America known as the Mayans. I learned that the Mayans had built pyramids and astronomical observatories and developed a sophisticated calendar system to decipher the movement of the stars. My initial introduction to the Mayans came from a book written in 1984 by Dr. Joe Arguelles titled, "The Mayan Factor". Then in 1998 another Mayan oriented book appeared titled, "MayaCosmogenesis2012 written by the Mayan scholar John Major Jenkins.

Jenkins demonstrated, to my satisfaction, how the Mayans were attracted to the center of our local Milky Way Galaxy and from this they devised their whole calendric system around the center of the galaxy. The Mayans even built their temples, according to Jenkins, in alignment with this galactic center.

For the first time I saw how a whole culture revolved around the stars, which was for me a very enlightening experience. The knowledge I gained from learning how the Mayan culture developed around the galactic center led me to learning how other cultures had also used star references in the development of their temples notably the Egyptians. It was from the British researcher Graham Hancock with his monumental book "Fingerprints of the Gods" that I finally saw how ancient cultures the world over were aware of a deeper meaning of the way our universe works than historians had ever given these pre-history cultures credit for.

It seems that one discovery about ancient cultures led to another near the end of the 20th century with a follow up book written by Jenkins titled. "Galactic Alignment". This new awareness of how cultures around the world based their belief systems on star systems and the galactic center started me thinking about how cultures of today have absolutely no references to star systems in the development of any belief systems.

When I moved to Southeast Asia in the year 2000 these thoughts were still very much on my mind so much so that I even brought many books that mentioned how ancient cultures incorporated astronomy into their religions and temples. Becoming emersed in a Buddhist part of the world was dramatically different from the sterility of suburban America. Every where I looked in Thailand a golden temple would be rising above the tree line or set on a hilltop. Thailand was initially for me a very colorful and enriching experience coming directly out of a California lifestyle in the San Francisco Bay area. But then a very pivotal event occurred for me in 2002 while on a flight between San Francisco and Bangkok, Thailand. Flipping through the in-flight movie channel I happen to come across a movie produced by Graham Hancock the same British researcher whose work I had read earlier. In the movie Hancock was demonstrating how a temple in Cambodia was aligned to the constellation Draco. Call it coincidence or fate but when I saw this film segment on the temple called Angkor Wat I knew then that I was going to make my first pilgrimage to see one of these temples oriented to the stars. At 35,000 feet above sea level I became aware that even in Southeast Asia there was a temple built mirroring the stars just as the great pyramids were aligned to the constellation Leo, and the Mayan pyramids were aligned to the center of the galaxy.

Now, after four years of visiting ancient temples in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia I have come to the understanding that is was indeed the East which influenced all of Southeast Asia's ancient monuments. From those seeds planted so long ago when I was in my late teens reading Northrope I finally re-discovered India as the birthplace for the oldest stories for the origins of the universe. It was after realizing this fact that the opening into the Vedic scriptures became a serious avenue of research. From reading the translations of the ancient scriptures I also came to realize that in India as with the Mayans in Central America there was a fascination and devotion oriented to the center of the galaxy. For ancient India the center of the galaxy was considered the eye of Brahma and called "Vishnunabhi". For the Mayans the center of the galaxy was the origin of the First Father or "Hunab Ku". Something was being born out of the center of the galaxy and was incorporated into ritual and temple construction for many civilizations in antiquity. What was it that fascinated these ancient cultures so much about the center of the galaxy?

Pilgrimages to various Khmer temples slowly unlocked for me the secrets used in building these ancient temples in Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. Ilearned that the quest for immortality was the ultimate goal of the aancients accompanied by preparations of rituals and ceremonies that was necessary to reach the abode of the gods. Insights from many authors contributed to my understanding this quest to journey out among the stars on the eventful time when the rising sun would align itself with the center of the galaxy. What is more amazing is this event only occurs once every 26,000 years and it is about to happen again on December 21, 2012.

We are living in a time in which we can prepare our souls in much the same way the ancients did to journey to the heavenly abode of the gods. In today's secular world with religious fundamentalism disrupting social structures preparing ones soul to reach the abode of the gods probably sounds preposterous. However, there are monuments scattered all over this planet which indicate that just a few millennia ago people thought otherwise about their relationship to the starry heavens.

Considering the age of the planet earth man's time here is relatively very short. Our current recorded history is a little over 6,000 years, but there are those who believe a very ancient civilization existed on earth well over 12,000 years ago and the myths that have survived down though the ages was the wisdom that those ancient civilization passed on. With the discovery of these ancient cultures what is being provided is a deeper understanding of the relationship which existed with the firmament around us.

Making a pilgrimage to these ancient temples is a way to see and discover the physical dimensions of the temples placed on the earth to mirror the heavens. Its also a way to participate in these ancient belief systems by experiencing the movement that is necessary to reach these temples. Many of the temples are in remote places on earth or on hard to reach mountaintops. The ancient Khmer temples have a definite relationship with nature providing a clue as to how heaven and earth were united in providing meaning for the social structures, which formed around these temples.

Interestingly enough most of these ancient temples throughout the world are referred to as sacred sites. Temples totally in ruin or just a rubble of stone are still referred to as sacred sites. In some way we of the 21st century recognize that the cultures that revolved around these temples had a direct connection to something otherworldly. Perhaps it is felt that the ancients were in touch with the gods.

The gods associated with the Khmer temples were Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. From the sub-continent of greater India Shiva was able to find a home among the jungles of Southeast Asia. These pilgrimages have brought me a lot closer to the gods of India as well as giving me a deeper understanding of how the Khmer Kings honored their gods with their temples. These are impressions I have gained from going on these pilgrimages which have brought me ultimately closer to understanding the heavens through the magnificent portrayal of the universe with temples, and sacred statuary based on the Vedic scriptures. Each temple provided a different set of experiences. Some of those experiences were gained from dreams, some from flights of fancy and imagination, but most were gained from direct personal experience.

Willard Van De Bogart
Banphot Phisai, Thailand
April 20, 2006

Other stories related to the Khmer Empire.

Part I - Stones in the Sky - Prelude to Pilgrimage

Part II - Stones in the Sky - The 2nd Entering of Cambodia - July 27, 2002

Part III Section #1 - Stones in the Sky - The secrets of Angkor Wat - March 2003.

Part III Section #2 - Stones in the Sky - The secrets of Angkor Wat - March 2003.

Part IV - Stones in the Sky - Journey to Preah Vihear - May 2004.

Part V - Stones in the Sky - Journey to Beng Mealea - October 2004.

Part VI - Stones in the Sky - Pilgrimages to Vat Phu - April 1-4, 2005, October 21-25, 2005

Part VI - Stones in the Sky - Pilgrimage to Lingaparvata (Linga Mountain, Champassak, Laos) - February 8-12, 2006