Home (theory of the ego death and rebirth experience)
Contents
Mapping this theory to high-level
Buddhism
High mystic metaphor of gods and
fate in Buddhism & every religion
Several lifetimes/reincarn's to
extinguish ego
Stopping the round of reincarnation
Buddhism & Cybernetic Systems
Theory
Once upon a time, the king's son
Buddha
Literalist Thinking about Buddhism
Historical Buddha definable as
in-principle impossible/nonsensical
Reincarnation as egoic moral control scheme
Nirvana, metaphor, kingdom of
heaven
Nirvana: cessation of rebirth into
freewillist thinking
Mapping
this theory and Christianity analysis to Buddhism
I haven't
made the progress I ought in reading the Buddhism intro books. I have spelled out very clearly and cogently
how the cybernetic theory of ego transcendence interprets Christian
myth-religion. I have also shown just
enough how that interpretation can easily map to 3 or 4 key Buddhist concepts
or allegory-ideas:
o Karma
o Rebirth
o Samsara
o Nirvana
o Illusion
o Demons
o Reincarnation
There are
lower and higher meaning-networks for all these terms. Lower thinking thinks rebirth means rebirth
into another person's life. Higher
thinking explains why "rebirth" is undesirable: rebirth actually
means the mind falling back into the habitual egoic worldmodel and way of
thinking, even after several entheogenic peaks. The problem is how to stop that falling back into delusion,
allegorized as the problem of ending the cycle of rebirths and avoiding
reincarnation, to attain nirvana.
Everyone
wants me to map the theory to Buddhism.
This would be very easy if I knew Buddhist myth-religion a little
more. I've already demonstrated how to
connect the theory to Christian myth-religion; now it is far easier to extend
that interpretation to Buddhist sayings and myths and allegories/metaphors.
What
Buddhist sayings or myths or metaphors lend themselves to the same type of
interpretation as I've applied to cracking the puzzle of making good sense out
of Christianity as a clever puzzle to be solved by finding a higher
interpretation?
DC wrote:
>Secondly,
Buddhism avoid making statements such as "this exists" or this
"doesn't exist." as in the 34
negations above. This is the Middle
Way. In generaL, high Buddhism, would
then say, "there is neither "free will," nor is there
"no-free-will," a understanding that needs to be bridged first before
one can apply your thoery in a technically correct way. Ths Middle Way principle is not a
compromise. In this sense, adapting various theories to this principle becomes
techncially difficult and one must understand the high Buddhsit understanding
of general and specific."
>To
further clarify this, here is a short passage of Chih-I (tien- t'ai the Great)
from the Moho Chi Kuan (contemplation and and observation):
>states:
"It is easy for a sticky hand to adhere, and hard to awaken from deep
dreaming. Some people seal up a text
and restrict its sense, declaring their own personal understanding of it to be
right. They vie with others to seize
tiles and pebbles, thinking they are baubles of lapis luzuli. Even the most familiar things and explicit
statements they fail to understand; how
could they not but err when it comes to the abstruse principle and hidden
teaching? This is why it is necessary
to discuss "the returning to the purport."
This
sounds like my strong focus on "networks of word meanings" and the
phrase "in what sense does X exist?"
More useful than asking whether the historical Jesus existed or not,
it's better to ask "in what exact sense did Jesus historically
exist?" Instead of vaguely asking
"Our our choices free, or not free?", we must ask "In what exact
sense are our choices free?"
Instead of asking "Does ego exist, or not?", the only way to
make progress in understanding is to ask rather, "In what sense does ego
exist, and it what sense does ego not exist?
That is, what exactly is the nature of ego?"
Kouros
Mystes wrote:
>>>Our
[pagan] Gods are part of Fate- immersed in the system, almost- just like we;
They must "bow" to Fate and Necessity, just as everything must- but
they (the Gods) have perceptive abilities above and beyond ours, giving them a
godly experience of Fate, while we get the mortal experience.
Merker
wrote:
>To
me this sounds too much like mystic-state allegory: The "Gods" are
those people (!) enlightenend (aware of cosmic determinism) whereas the
"mere mortals" are those people which have not experienced the
block-universe.
>We
don't have the slightest evidence of the existence of literal "Gods".
Apart from that, what would really be the point of it? What's the point of
stating what some hazy Gods are subject to?
It is
often of *utmost* mystic-state importance, the relation of Gods to Fate.
Because
the core of mystic-state experiential insight is that everything that exists is
ruled by Fate; the future is fixed and singular, everything in the world is
fixed eternally in place; egoic agency is powerless to change what one's future
thoughts and actions are to be, because the stream of thoughts is frozen into
place at all points in time. This can
cause self-control instability, and one reaction is prayer to a transcendent
god above Fate's power, outside cosmic determinsm, to rescue and fish one out
of the turbulent stormy control-chaos into safety.
>This
is the same thing with people believing in a literal "saved race".
Rather than imagining this in a literal sense, read "Gods" as
allegory for those of US (!) who transcended the cosmos [primarily] by
ingesting visionary plants.
Religious
systems of myth also need a useful middle category: the immortals, saints,
saved, purified, divinized, who have been raised (being not a free powerful
agent) by a benevolent compassionate mysterious black-box god/savior, up to the
level of the gods, which is often described as being outside cosmic
determinism, beyond the sphere of the fixed stars (determinism).
>Those
who have eaten the holy flesh are in some sense "Gods", *especially*
contrasted by those "mere mortals" which have no clue about the
nature of the cosmos.
A mortal
is one's lower self (freewillist self-concept & worldmodel) which must be
sacrificed to move along to a higher, truer perspective and worldmodel:
determinism (often combined with a postulated ultra-transcendent divine
realm). For the mystic, way down below
is freewillist delusion; much higher and more true is determinism, and far higher
than that -- radically and absolutely higher -- is transcendence of determinism
which has such great height in order to still affirm determinism.
Everything
that exists is subject to and fully ruled by determinism; therefore, to be
above determinism one would have to be in a black-box realm that is beyond
existence and superior to it. This
postulation of a divine realm so high it's even above the deterministic cosmos
of all-that-exists and all-that-is-real, is "non-rational" but only
in a completely controlled and restrained sense.
"I
have ascended to the realm so high, it is above the real, above what merely
exists, up into true existence."
This is the heart of the spirit of Neoplatonism, which is the main
foundation for Christian theology.
>Reading
these terms ["Gods", "mortals"] as allegory, they make
*perfect* sense: Those experienced *have* "a godly experience of
Fate" as opposed to those not in the know, which only know of the mortal
way of perceiving the world [freewill-way of thinking].
>Come
to think of it, Buddhism knows quite a bit about "Gods", i guess it'd
be worth it to check back how well those writings lend to
esoteric-interpretation.
Have I not
repeatedly explained all of this already exactly how that is indeed the
case? You force me to write more about
mythic allegory in Asian Buddhism. It
was enough for me to prove that Christianity is purely mythic allegory, and
prove that all religions are the same here in principle and in general. I cannot spend time spelling it out in
specific and concrete detail again and again for each religion -- though they
are all the same; they are all purely mythic allegory for entheogen
determinism.
*All*
religious writings are sacred exactly because of their densely packed
deliberate support for esoteric-interpretation.
I already
explained the scheme of:
o gods
o mortals
o burn away mortality to become
imperishable/immortal
o immortals
o a god-man twice-born, from a mortal then
from a god
o the gods
o Fate, the Fates
It was a
debated issue whether Zeus (for example) was above Fate. Anyone who states that the ancients arranged
it one specific way is a sophomore, a beginning scholar. This is all a matter of mystic-state
allegory, and mythic symbols have some degree of flexibility.
Favor
myth: where there is talk of gods and mortals and magic, there is both low
literalism and high enlightenment.
Distrust lack of myth: where there is no talk of gods and mortals and
magic, there is neither low literalism nor high enlightenment, but only dull
uncomprehending rationality that knows nothing more than "the literalist
view is false"; the middle level, proud to reject all myth, lacks any
positive understanding and transcendent knowledge.
Dull
uncomprehending demythicized "rationality" doesn't understand what a
rejection of literalism actually should amounts to; they don't know about
literalism versus truly mythic-mystic-state allegory/metaphor.
It takes
several lifetimes, several reincarnations to attain extinction (of the egoic
mode of being), where "lifetimes" are demarcated from each other by
ego death experiences. After a series
of ego death experiences, the mind finally retains the mystic insight rather than
falling back or reincarnating into habitual conceptual patterns of egoic
thinking. Ego (egoic worldmodel or
egoic operating system) is allegorized as "body".
>"This
is the Dharma body of the Tathâgata, the middle way of reality and the
fundamental nature of the Dharma, which is said to be silence and extinction.
>it
must seem that it takes an awfully long time before we attain a stage where we
can open our inherent Buddha nature and reveal our Awakening, but even so,
within one lifetime it can be shown that our persons are indeed the three
bodies that are not separate from the one of the Buddha.
>all of
them alike have the possibility to reveal their inherent Buddha nature in a
single lifetime.
>even
though there is difference between those of superior, average and lesser
propensities among humankind, they can all figure out within a single lifetime,
that they are in fact without any duality, the oneness of the fundamental
substance of the Buddha Tathâgata."
dc wrote:
>Nirvana/extinction
of ego is a teaching of expedient means, to make one seek Supreme
Enlightenment. When that is achieved, a
person reaches the stage of non-retrogression.
Retrogression
into egoic habits of thinking is allegorized as "backsliding" in
Christian myth-religion-mysticism, or the king turning away from God and
falling back into idol-worship.
>There
is also a collective enlightenment where many in a given environment attain
enlightenment at once. In this
collective enlightenment, large groups attain enlightenment simultaneously --
rather than just the rare few.
That
stands to reason, given my assertions that enlightenment is completely
straightforward and easy when equipped with the right tools, which are the
rational, ergonomic conceptual model of mystic insight such as I'm
systematizing, in conjunction with the entheogenic intense mystic altered state
-- that is, a series of mystic sessions interspersed with studying the
concepts.
Because
enlightenment is actually easily rationally comprehensible and the mystic state
is actually easy and ergonomic to produce on demand in typical minds through
(external) entheogens, enlightenment can potentially propagate rapidly
throughout a society.
In a
series of mystic-state sessions, the problem arises that one keeps temporarily
attaining enlightenment (grasping the transcendent worldmodel) but losing it
again, falling back into egoic thinking until the next temporary mystic-state
session. One keeps temporarily rising
above the egoic fleshly way of thinking, then being dragged back down into
egoic incarnation again.
What must
one do, what can one give to *secure* the mind's grasp of the transcendent
worldmodel? How can one kill and negate
forevermore the egoic way of thinking?
There are two solutions: insanity, where egoic thinking is
dis-integrated into chaos, or the divine pattern, the transcendent worldview,
attained by deliberately sacrificing ego.
What exactly does one do to sacrificially kill, cross out, trip up,
fatally wound the ego?
Does one
commit mayhem to fatally violate and disruptively disprove the ego? No, that misses the mark and fails as a
method. What one must do is understand
the meaning of the dying and rising godman -- one then becomes "in" the
godman.
Picture
his sacrificial violent suicide of his own egoic controller self, and consider
that this godman, in the mythic realm, has exorcised his egoic demon so that we
can all secure understanding of sacrificing the ego to gain the transcendent
identity and transcendent knowledge.
Does the godman bloodily kil himself on our behalf? No, we are that godman on the mythic plane;
he on the tree *is me*; I put myself up on that tree; that's *my* blood, that's
*my* pierced side, that's *my* deliberately violated and pierced cybernetic
heart of self-control sovereignty.
I *have
been* pierced; I am in the godman and I *am* that godman. And all the godmen are *the* godman. Only by being that finally overthrown lower
godman's sacrificial self, can I secure transcendent comprehension, the
transcendent way of thinking, and thus avoid being reincarnated once again into
the egoic way of thinking and the egoic worldmodel.
>Do you
want to say that the first Christians saw their godman that [esoteric-only]
way? That much in Paul says just this?
Below, I
focus on such an esoteric system of thinking, without emphasis on the esoteric
understanding of "reincarnation".
It's clear some early Christians in some way believed in some sort of
reincarnation, but I haven't read any details about their views on this subject
-- I suppose they considered reincarnation in multiple esoteric ways. In one esoteric sense, reincarnation is
desirable or is a timelessly already-attained reality, since the Ground peers
out through all people at all times.
In another
esoteric sense, reincarnation is something to be struggled against through a
series of mystic initiations. Most
importantly, mystics everywhere in all times and religions think in the same
general mode, that includes the kind of ideas I'm presenting.
There are
two goals in constructing a theory of esoteric Christianity:
o Show what the ultimate, highest meaning of
Christianity is (regardless of how widespread and refined this understanding
has ever been).
o Show that the earliest Christians, and the
best of the esoteric Christians across history, saw the Christian godman in
this way, and that the Paul character created by the earliest Christians, who
were esoteric/Gnostic Christians, was the mouthpiece and fictional founding
figure to whom such a view of the godman was attributed by those who created
the Paul figure.
The
Catholic, official church started a little later and essentially created and
especially owned the apostle characters early on, particularly Peter and
James. After using the Peter and James
characters -- "the apostles" for short -- to express condemnation
against the teachings attributed to the Gnostics' Paul character, the Catholic
official church later took over the Paul character, resisting Paulinism by
co-opting it. That's why the canonical
teachings attributed to the Paul character are completely inconsistent.
At various
times, the majority of Christians may or may not have seen the godman as
esoteric-only, conceived as I originally described. We must use our judgement in deciding which are the real
Christians, the most authentic form of Christianity, the most original form of
Christian, the earliest authentic form of Christianity, and the most ultimately
important and valuable form of Christianity.
If one
mystic started Christianity with esoteric intent, and one mystic later held the
esoteric view of Christianity, and everyone else assumed Literalist
Christianity, then I'd say that the two individuals are the authentic, real
Christians, and that everyone else had a corrupted version of
Christianity.
So even if
there's little evidence that esoteric Christianity was the authentic original
form in terms of popularity and numbers, we can still use judgement to declare
that the "real", "original", "authentic", and
"intended" form of Christianity.
According
to Literalists, the Literalist version of Christianity was and is the real,
original, authentic, and intended form of Christianity.
According
to Gnostics (esotericists, mystics), the Gnostic or experiential
mystery-religion version of Christianity was and is the real, original,
authentic, and intended form of Christianity.
In
earliest Christianity, suppose there was at least one Literalist and at least
one Gnostic (in Freke & Gandy's general, universal sense of the term). In each era, suppose there was at least one
Literalist and at least one Gnostic.
How could we then declare either version of Christianity "what
Christianity is really about"? If
there has always been a battle to declare esoteric or Literalist Christianity
to be the real (orthodox) version, and the other to be the false (heretical)
version, then how can we talk of "the real" or "the
original" version?
There were
always a variety of esoteric versions of Christianity ("the Gnostics must
be wrong because they don't all allegorize the same way"). Similarly, there were always variety of Literalist versions -- not only
bickering Protestant denominations constantly breaking away from each other,
not only Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant, but *even within
Literalist Catholicism itself*.
Despite
that kind of diversity within esoteric and Literalist Christianity, there are
only two essential conceptions of Christianity: esoteric and exoteric; Gnostic
and Literalist. The view of "the
real meaning of the godman" that I originally posted is what the genuine
esoterics or Gnostics believed and have always believed -- or, what the overall
esoteric/Gnostic "way of thinking" and tradition has been.
Even if no
individual has ever thought exactly the way I described, the views of
individual Gnostics, considered collectively, point to exactly that view. There have always been two forms or levels
of Christianity -- lower Christianity and higher Christianity. Higher Christianity, considered overall,
holds the esoteric, experiential view of the godman as I described.
Higher Christianity
has its own self-reinforcing integrity as a system of thinking -- regardless of
the original and later Gnostic/mystics.
So does Literalist Christianity have its own self-reinforcing integrity
as a system of thinking -- in its own way, it is "perfectly
consistent". I've defined the
Higher Christianity guided by the goal of such "perfectly consistent"
thinking.
That
esoteric-Christianity system of thinking remains perfectly consistent
regardless of what several earliest Christian schools thought, or how they
thought, and what later mystic and heretical schools thought. The original, Gnostic Christians and the
later heretic-mystics may have fallen short of the understanding of the godman
I described, but it's nevertheless essentially "what they believed"
and "how they understood the godman".
To fully
establish the primacy of esoteric Christianity over Literalist Christianity, it
is important to both attain a beautifully self-consistent esoteric
understanding of Christianity that is independent of what any individuals
thought, and, establish that in fact the original Christians and later mystics
held just this esoteric understanding of Christianity.
>you
mentioned that you would like to extend your burgeoning theory to Budhhism
& Islam; ...
I have
gathered books on these and have read some: everything fell together easier
than hoped; I'm now pursuing integrated religion-myth. Putting it one way, I start with
Christianity, work outward to Judaism and mystery-cults and classical myth and
Zoroastrianism, then embrace all religion and world mythology.
>I did
despair at the time that we would ever see a book from _you_, prior to the heat
death of the universe.
Soon,
within the next decade.
>Whereas
Christianity in some ways is a no brainer,
In some
ways -- but in some ways Christianity is the one that is most in denial of
mythic reality; it hides its mystery more than others; it is *posed* as more of
a recalcitrant and brittle puzzle than the religion-myth systems.
>the
body [of true experiential esoteric Christianity that provides enlightenment
and transformation] died circa 400 AD & you've been doing a "Crime
Scene Investigation" of the corpse for the last 1600 years or so.
My
research and paradigm construction has recently led to a new formulation:
Christianity has *always* been a tradition of two opposing traditions, the
esoteric and exoteric brands like Coke versus Pepsi.
Despite
the media disinformation we've been fed, experiential gnostic esoteric
Christianity *didn't* die shortly after Constantine/Eusebius; the power-elite
*taught* us that esoteric Christianity died out and the traditional
Christianity has always been exoteric, but don't believe that propaganda:
esoteric and entheogenic Christianity has *always* survived to some degree as a
continuous popular tradition, suppressed only to some degree.
We're
*told* of some Age of Belief by our establishment history books, but studying
further, we find how much the 1400s were an age of full-on disbelief. Continuing to peer even closer, we
deconstruct such notions of "belief" and "unbelief", and
inquire about what *type* of belief: esoteric or exoteric. We ought to assume that many during the
so-called Age of Belief *did* believe, but their belief was of the esoteric
type: a countertraditional but by no means untraditional type.
The latest
Entheos journal has a great article about Datura, the "lily" held by
Gabriel during the anunciation to Mary that she (our psyche) was pregnant with
the divine sinless and pure child, and would give birth to the son of God:
through entheogens, the egoic mind dies and gives birth to the transcendent
mind. The exoteric establishment
depended on the popularity of this type of Christianity, which was *the*
heresy, even as the establishment did its best to co-opt Christianity.
Forget
what the establishment books tell us about the supposed history of Christianity
-- that is merely the *exoteric* history of Christianity.
>However
if you were to credibly tackle the sophisticated & elegant Buddhism we
might lose you for a decade or more.. :-)
A decade
is all too short. I'll try to publish a
print book not much more than a decade from now. I'll be providing print-on-demand soon. Start saving up for that $65 toner cartridge (so much for the
notion of "instead of buying expensive books I'll print from the
Web").
For my
theory of Buddha or Mohammed, just search-and-replace "Jesus" with
"Buddha" or "Mohammed":
o Jesus was a myth only, and myth is entheogen
allegory; Jesus is entheogen allegory.
o Jesus was none other than the entheogen.
o See JamesArthur.net for more.
o Jesus is a personification of the ego-death
encounter with cosmic determinism and in some sense a way of transcending this
determinism.
o Everything written about Jesus is worthless
folly if read literally, and profound if read through the lens of the
allegorical altered mythic state of cognition.
>In
anycase here are two good books to explore before you embark IMHO.
The books
look relevant to the cybernetic theory of ego death, and hard to find out
about, thanks.
>India
did a pretty decent job of documenting their kings, in the Puranas, and in the case of the story of Buddha in
Magadha, his dad was the king. In the
real story of Gautama, there was none of the religious balderdash. He was simply the king's son who left town and began to meditate and do
austerities, as a follower of Sankaya style meditation, became disastisfied,
had a heavy experience and taught a profound philosophy, denying the Brahman
corruption and sacrifices and taught the mental state of the Middle way. He denied divinity and as such religiousity.
The
"king" theme immediately casts intense doubt on historicity. In myth-religion, the "king"
represents the initiate's delusion of egoic sovereignty or free-will. Surveys of myth are packed full with kings
and kings' sons, reflecting the centrality of the topics of the illusion of
freewill sovereignty and being reborn.
King, son,
sacrifice, religion -- these ideas arose together. Mostly likely, the Historical Buddha story started as standard
flowery whimsical, clever myth, and was -- precisely as happened with liberal
Christianity -- later artificially reified by being stripped of the mythic,
supposely "later accretions" that were actually the original main
point and function of the story.
Just as
Christian thinking has created both a hyper-mythical Jesus and a modern-era
stripped-down "realistic scientific humanist Jesus", so did Buddhist
thinking produce both types of Buddha: the anti-mythical Theorist of
Enlightenment Buddha and the clever poetic mystic-allegory Buddha.
I recall
there are 3 turnings of the wheel of the law, like 3 ways of conceiving merit,
such as the egoic conception of merit and system of merit, the intermediate
scheme of merit, and the transcendent conception of merit.
dc wrote:
>Other
most important factors and terms of high Mahayana Buddhism, which is applicable
to a entheogenic theory, for later explanation:
>1.
Three Bodies of the Buddha
>2.
Ichinen Sanzen
>3.
General and Specific Transmission
>4.
Three Great Secret Laws
>Buddhism
is both crap and wrong. Did you not know that Buddhism was set up as a
psychological ploy to try and rid that part of the world of all its religions
at that time.
>The
'philosophy' which states that there is no real self in the machine - and yet
that self reincarnates. They want to get their act together. Moreover, you
cannot destroy a lie with yet another lie.
That's
literalism, which is the key problem with religion and spiritual ignorance --
plaguing even atheism, which generally ends up being "alternative
literalism", just like mainstream liberal Christianity. Authentic Buddhism, like all the religions,
flows directly from the perennial wellspring of entheogens -- psychoactive
plants and chymicals.
The self
is a largely, essentially illusory mental construct; an illusion of
freewill/separate self agency that remains *delusion* as long as childish
gullible belief in the reality of the illusion persists.
During a
series of visionary plant sessions every couple weeks, the self delusion is
transcended briefly but the self delusion keeps returning, until the mind fully
consciously learns and retains the transcendent mental model. This pattern is allegorized as a series of
undesirable reincarnations, terminating into final release into nirvana, with
no more reincarnating. So it is perfectly
coherent to state that there is no real self and that the self reincarnates. It's all about mystic-state psychological
structures and standard common patterns of development -- the classic
initiation series.
>>As
with making the case for a historical Jesus there are also similar problems
with a historical Buddha. It can be demonstrated that the Buddha is a composite
of godmen, legends and sayings. There is a
host of candidates for a historical buddha as there are for a historical
Jesus. There are about 25 buddhas who appeared before Gotama. The name Gotama
is a common one in ancient India. So what proof is there that the sayings of
many Gotamas may not have been ascribed to one person. There was a universal mythos in the ancient
world which resulted in religions based on astrotheology and perhaps entheogen
use. There is no proof that there was a singular historical personage for any
of them. The only hope to find a single historical figure for any of the
ancient god men would be to evemeristically lift up a common man to superman
status by mythos.
There is
certainly a definable sense in which a uniquely historical Buddha is
in-principle impossible and nonsensical:
The entire
problem revolves around the notion of *singleness*. It's definable as impossible in-principle that there was just a
single Buddha, depending on how you define "a single Buddha". The entire problem is reducable to the
definition of "single historical Buddha". Depending on how you define your terms, there were 100 or more
genuine historical Buddhas, or none at all.
What is
most arbitrary is singling out one man as the *only* historical Buddha -- the
grounds for this are as weak as quicksand.
Any style of argument that elects one particular man as "the only
historical Buddha" is completely vulnerable to using that same argument to
put forth some other man as "the only historical Buddha"
instead.
You end up
with, same as in Historical Jesus studies, the embarrassing problem of too many
"only historical Buddha" candidates and no possible justifiable way
to choose from among them -- and worst of all, all of this misses the only
relevant, active sense of Buddha -- that archetype experienced during the
intense mystic altered state.
Thus in
principle and in essence, in the sense I define, there can be no historical
Buddha; Buddha is strictly and essentially an archetypal expression of insights
and experiences from the intense mystic altered state.
Reincarnation as a moral system is functionally equivalent to heaven and hell.
In the lower mode of heaven-and-hell religions, the egoic freewilling moral agent controls themselves by fear of eternal torment in hell, or temporary torment in purgatory, and hope of bliss in heaven. The egoic mind is taught to identify with that future self in heaven or hell.
In the higher mode of heaven-and-hell religions, freewill is revealed as an illusion, and in conjunction, heaven and hell are redefined as states of thinking in this life.
In the lower mode of reincarnation religions, the egoic freewilling moral agent controls themselves by fear of rebirth in an unpleasant life, and hope of rebirth in a better life. The egoic mind is taught to identify with that future reincarnated self.
In the higher mode of reincarnation religions, freewill is revealed as an illusion, and in conjunction, rebirth and nirvanic cessation of rebirth are redefined as states of thinking in this life. There is no doer, so there is no moral remainder to be carried into the next reincarnation for the purpose of moral punishment or reward.
The caste system demonstrates that reincarnation as a scheme of mundane moral control, like the heaven and hell scheme of moral control, can be abused by a socio-political domination hierarchy. In the caste system, the upper class lives high on the hog, taking everything from the lower classes, saying that the lower classes did something bad in a previous incarnation and thus deserve their current low life.
This functional equivalence of the reincarnation scheme and the heaven-and-hell scheme is a great demonstration of why I could almost focus all my attention on Christianity and leave it to other people to apply the resulting analysis to other religions.
>Nirvana=This
has a number of meanings, depending on how it is meant in either low or high
Buddhism. The literal term, actually
means "death," or "extinction," and referred to a goal of
early buddhism, to free oneself from the cycle of birth and death, which was
already the goal of the hindus......but in high mahayana (Saddharma Pundarika)
it was revealed that the teaching of "Nirvana," was actually a
"Secret and Skillful Means of the Buddha." I already quoted the
applicable passages in previous posts and I told the story of the "Transient
Castle," where the analogy of a leader of travelers conjures up a Castle
to inspire the travelers to keep going to the goal and later it is discovered
that the Castle was an illusion and then the real goal is revealed. This is a
fundamental principle of high Mahayana.
Another Buddhist term is "The Expedient means of Nirvana"
means the "Expedient means of Death," wherein not only are expedients used by wise buddhas to teach the
law, but even nature itself, provides
an "secret" expedient means.
This
reminds me of an animated ad showing a man floating back and forth in sitting
meditation 9 inches above the ground.
It that how I picture enlightenment?
Not at all, but perhaps it is comparable to how I felt when I made sense
of the construct of "kingdom of God" in terms of no-free-will, Nov.
14, 2001, enabling me to finally form a systematic interpretation of
Christianity that fit with my since-1988 core model of block-universe
determinism.
I had
episodically experienced the return of the messiah and entering the kingdom of
God before, even connecting it with the no-free-will concept (this was part of
the "grand forking path" insight), but didn't yet secure a complete,
systematic interpretation.
Upon
finally attaining a complete, systematic interpretation, for a few days I was
in heaven, in nirvana, not in the sense of being in a mystic altered state
while comprehending the metaphors, but rather, just being in the normal state
of consciousness but having a scientific/theoretic breakthrough experience by
reflecting on the experiences and insights of the mystic altered state and
reflecting upon how mystic-state metaphor works as a clever systematic
meaning-puzzle.
In this
sense, my full ascension into heaven didn't occur in the mystic altered state,
but was heavily informed by the insights of the mystic altered state, including
insights about networks of word-meanings.
The
promise of entering a castle-like heaven, as in the book of Revelation, can be
an expedient means. Attaining a
transformed, higher-coherence worldmodel is like attaining a castle, entering a
kind of blissful nirvana, ascending to heaven in the company of the
saints. The castle could be considered
real, as a certain kind of castle.
Alan Watts
is too much of a poet without explaining himself explicitly: in the book The
Way of Zen, he likes saying enlightenment is nothing to be gained, but while
true in a certain sense, I maintain that enlightenment is something to be
gained by the mind: a higher, more coherent worldmodel in addition to the mind's
previous worldmodel.
I
completely reject the notion that expedient means is an option that works
better than explicit explanation of the principles of enlightenment. The most expedient means are entheogens,
combined with teaching rational explicit systematic principles, combined with
teaching how mystic/mythic/religious metaphor works as a poetic
encoding/decoding system.
>Nevertheless,
for some reason of his own, the Buddha declared in the Muryogi Sutra,
"[Expounding the Law in various ways,] I made use of the power of
expedient means. But in these more than forty years, I have not yet revealed
the truth." Like a parent who has second thoughts about the transfer deed
he has written out earlier, he looked back with regret upon all the sutras he
had expounded during the past forty years and more, including those which
taught rebirth in the Land of Perfect Bliss, and declared [that no matter how
earnestly one may practice them,] "...in the end one will never attain
supreme enlightenment, even after the lapse of countless, limitless,
inconceivable asogi kalpas." He reiterated this in the Hoben chapter of
the Lotus Sutra, saying, "Honestly discarding the provisional teachings, I
will expound only the supreme Way." By "discarding the provisional
teachings," he meant that one should discard the Nembutsu and other
teachings preached during the period of those forty-some years."
Honestly
discarding the provisional teachings, I expound only the supreme Way, which
includes teaching the ultimate meaning of the provisional teachings.
Michael
wrote:
>>To
arrive at no-free-will determinism most fully and classically, requires a
series of mystic-state experiences in conjunction with study of the perennial
philosophy. This course of development
is allegorized in religion and high philosophy as, among various other
metaphors, a series of reincarnations/lifetimes leading to the cessation of
rebirth (a series of mystic-state experiences leading to the cessation of taking
for granted the flow of time and one's across-time causal agency)
The above
appears to equate the series of reincarnations, series of lifetimes, and series
of mystic-state sessions. However, the
series of reincarnations is actually *interleaved* with the series of
mystic-state sessions or satoris, as an interleaving of contrasting states. The
initiation sequence is allegorized as a finite series of reincarnations leading
to the cessation of reincarnation, as follows:
1. Child's
life before initiation -- assumes and experiences in-time, freewill thinking
and in-time causal-chain determinism.
2.
Initiation session #1 -- experience of block-universe determinism and
no-free-will. This is rationally
comprehended only slightly (10%), during the mystic state.
3.
Resuming of ordinary-state thinking and experiencing, without retaining the
glimpse of block-universe determinism and the comprehension of
no-free-will. This is reincarnation #1.
4.
Initiation session #2 -- experience of block-universe determinism and
no-free-will. This is rationally
comprehended more than before (20%), but not well enough to be retained.
5.
Resuming of ordinary-state thinking and experiencing, retaining just partially
the glimpse of block-universe determinism and the comprehension of
no-free-will. This is reincarnation #2.
6. Final
initiation session (classically, around session #8) -- experience of
block-universe determinism and no-free-will.
Fully rationally comprehended.
7.
Resuming of ordinary-state thinking and experiencing, retaining fully the
mental worldmodel of block-universe determinism. This is not a reincarnation; naive freewill thinking does not
resume as something seriously believed; the mind at last fully sees through the
illusion. This is nirvana -- the
cessation of rebirth; the cessation of the habitual return of the freewill
mental model as something seriously taken as a literal reality.
The social
function of the literalist view of reincarnation is the standard function of
lower, literalist religion: to prop up the childish, stage-appropriate delusion
of moral reward and punishment, suited for illusory freewill moral agents.
The
literalist view of reincarnation is essentially moralist; to support the
development and stabilization of egoic freewill moral thinking, preliminary to
initiation and enlightenment. During
the process of enlightenment, the literalist view of reincarnation is
superceded by the metaphorical view of reincarnation described here.
The same
change of views from literalist to mystical metaphorical occurs in the
Christian myth-religion regarding the nature of heaven and hell. At first, the ideas of heaven and hell are
shaped so as to inculcate in-time, freewillist, causal-chain moral thinking,
fitting for developing the practical delusion and convention of in-time causal
agency. Heaven is a reward for the good
acts of freewill agents; hell is a punishment for the bad acts of freewill
agents.
During the
mystic initiation process, the ideas of heaven and hell transform to mean
enlightenment and unenlightenment regarding freewill in-time causal moral
agency -- they also refer to psychic turbulence of self-control during the
intense mystic altered state.
I hope
someone more familiar with the concept of karma answers the question.
As an
axiomatic starting point for theorizing, I reject magic, ESP, precognition, the
supernatural, literalist heaven and hell, literalist devils and angels, and
karma.
Look at
how the literalist belief in heaven and hell, reincarnation, and karma work:
they are mundane moral schemes that serve to guide people as moral agents. Hell, reincarnation in a lower class, and
bad karma are all invented threats that the superego holds over the childish
ego, in a mind that takes ego as real and considers the people to be genuine
moral agents possessing metaphysical freedom.
Karma
functions as a kind of moralism, though it is defined in such a way as to
minimize or downplay moralism. It
retains the magic kind of thinking that is the hallmark of the ego and the
egoic self-control system. Suppose we
firmly reject karma -- the fears of lack of self-restraint that immediately
come to mind are the exact same kind of fears as if you firmly reject hell as
punishment.
>My
question is about karma, how does it
fit into egodeath and is it in reality real to think that there is karma? Does
the universe really judge us and give us based on karma?
The ego
lives in the realm of karma. When egoic
thinking is transcended, thinking in terms of karma is also transcended, which
means that the mind retains that practical way of thinking but doesn't take it
seriously.
The
universe does not judge people. The
superego judges the ego, all as part of the egoic system of thinking. People who do bad things often get away with
it an never pay a price in terms of karma or reincarnation in a lower class or
punishment in hell. That is the hard
adult reality.
Karma is a
social convention and a psychological construct that is part of the egoic
personal self-government system."
Michael
Anderson wrote:
>That's
karma. When you hurt another, you are really hurting the greater
"body", to which you are atached. You do not feel it from the
illusory cage of your ego, because the pain is felt by the body outside of time
and space. Likewise with pleasure.
>I
believe that this is what Christ meant when he said, "Whatsoever you do to
the least of my brothers, that you do unto me."
It's
encouraging to see that people understand the framework I'm describing and
prove it by providing compatible ideas I haven't thought of.
>To me,
karma is not a moralistic/judgement-based phenomenon of some sort, rather it is
a logical conclusion that falls out when you recognize the illusory nature of
the ego.
The
uninitiated and unlearned don't know about the way of conceiving karma you
describe. Now we have defined the
lower, egoic conception of karma (per my previous posting) and the higher,
transcendent conception of karma (per your description).
Remember
my general theory of religion: religion has two distinct levels: lower, ethical
training for the mundane egoic, uninitiated mind (including freewill and
separate-self thinking); and higher, metaphysical truth for the transcendent,
adult, initiated mind (including no-free-will and no-separate-self thinking).
If we submit
a concept for analysis such as "karma", we should immediately try to
define two distinct versions of it: the lower, egoic conception, and the
higher, transcendent conception."
Home (theory of the ego death and rebirth experience)