Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh explains that nothing dies; it only changes form--whether it's clouds, corn, or even Jesus.
For someone who is dealing with a painful loss or a personal fear of death but knows nothing about Buddhism or meditative technique, what do you recommend as way to begin to let go of fear and grief?
I think there's a way of training ourselves in order not to become the victim of fear and grief -- that is to look deeply into ourselves and to see that we are made of non-self elements. And when we look around ourselves, we can recognize ourselves in the non-self elements, like a father looking at his children can see himself in his children, can see his continuation in his children. So he is not attached to the idea that his body is the only thing that is him. He's more than his body. He is inside of his body but he is also at the same [time] outside of his body in many elements. And if we have the habit of looking like that, we will not be the victim of our attachment to one form of manifestation, and we will be free. And that freedom makes happiness and peace possible.
Other than meditation, is there any specific practice that can help you come to this understanding?
Yes. The Buddha advised us to bear in mind that everything is impermanent, that nothing has an absolute entity that remains the same. And when we keep that insight in mind, we can see more deeply into the nature of reality, and we will not be locked in the notion that we are only this body, this life span is the only life span we have. In fact, because nothing can be by itself alone, no one can be by himself or herself alone, everyone has to inter-be with every one else. That is why, when you look outside, around you, you can see yourself. And when you look into yourself, you can see the world outside. So that is a training.
I wonder if you'd answer the question you say you like to pose to your Christian friends: "Where was Jesus before he was born?"
In the Christian tradition, people speak of the living Christ, the living Jesus. It means Jesus is not affected by birth and death. So the question can be rephrased, "Where was Jesus after he was born?" Because if you look at that manifestation of his body and you think that Jesus is only that body, you are misled -- Jesus must be much more than that body, that manifestation. So if you can answer that question, you can answer the other question.
It's like when you look at a sheet of paper and look deeply, you can see that the paper is made of trees and sunshine and earth and clouds, and even before the manifestation of the sheet of paper in this present form, you can only see the sheet of paper in the non-paper elements that existed before.
So we should be able to see Jesus Christ even with that manifestation. And before that manifestation, we cannot say that Jesus did not exist because the nature of Jesus is the nature of no birth and no death. And birth and death cannot affect Jesus. If we look like that we have a much deeper understanding of the person, of the nature of the Lord.
Can you explain what you mean by that manifestation? What is being manifested?
Manifestation is showing a presence -- when conditions are sufficient, something manifests itself. And that is not a beginning, that is a continuation also. It's like a beautiful cloud in the sky -- that is a manifestation: before being a cloud, the cloud has been other things like water, vapor, heat and so on. So looking deeply, you can only recognize the presence of the cloud in the non-cloud elements that have been there before that manifestation of the cloud.
You say that without awareness or mindfulness we live like dead people. Can you talk about what you mean by the practice of resurrection?
Usually people have a tendency to be caught in the worries concerning the future or in the regret concerning the past. There is some kind of energy that is pushing them to run and they are not able to establish themselves in the present moment. And that prevents them from getting in touch [with] what is there in the present moment. And life is available
only
in the present moment. If you abandon the present moment you cannot live the moments of your daily life deeply. That is why those who are not capable of being there in the present moment, they don't really live their life -- they live like dead people, like the French writer Camus used to say.
That is why if you know the techniques of mindful breathing, mindful walking, mindful smiling, you can bring your mind back to your body and you become truly alive at every moment and that can be described as the practice of resurrection. Resurrection can be at every moment for life to be truly possible.
Is that what you're talking about when you say "When you come back to mindfulness and awareness the energy of the Holy Spirit is present in you"?
Yes, when mindfulness is there you are attentive to yourself, you are attentive to other people around you and understanding becomes possible, compassion becomes possible. And that improves the quality of your life and the lives of those around you.
You say that we should not only accept but welcome the notion of impermanence. How is it that impermanence "makes everything possible"?
If things were not impermanent, life would not be possible. Suppose you sow a seed of corn. If the seed of corn is not impermanent, it cannot sprout and become a young plant of corn and you would have no corn to eat. That is why impermanence is very important, crucial for life. That is why instead of complaining about impermanence you have to say "Long live impermanence!"
What would you say to someone, for example, whose child has just died? How should they understand what's happened?
I would say that when conditions are not sufficient, something cannot manifest itself fully. It may be waiting for a few other conditions in order to manifest. And if we keep that in mind and if we are capable of seeing that manifestation in other forms then we don't have to be the victim of despair and fear.
Suppose you are impressed with a particular cloud in the sky. When it is time for that cloud to become the rain you won't see that cloud anymore and you will cry. But if you know that the cloud has been transformed into the rain and the rain is calling you, "Darling, I am here, I'm here," if you have that kind of capacity of recognizing the continuation of that manifestation, you don't have to live in despair and grief. That is why for those who have lost someone who is close to him or to her I advise that they look deeply within and see that the one who was close is still there, somehow, and with the practice of deep looking they can recognize his or her presence very close to him or to her.
Do you ever have doubts about these truths? How do you deal with your own doubts?
Doubt in my tradition is something that is very helpful. Because of doubt you can thirst more and you will get a higher kind of proof.
If our true nature is one of no birth and no death, what are our present lives for? How can we find meaning in the actions that we take?
Our life is a manifestation, and we can very well make that manifestation beautiful and meaningful and have a good influence on other manifestations in the now and in the future. If we know how to create the energy of love, understanding, compassion, and beauty, then we can contribute a lot to the world, influencing positively other manifestations. Because if the manifestations that happen in the present moment are beautiful and good, their continuation in the future will be also good and beautiful.
You say that people of any faith can use these teachings.
Yes.
But most Christians and others profess a faith in an embodied life after death. How can your teaching of no-death/no-self be useful to them?
There is an interesting story I would like to tell you. There is a lady who believed very strongly that if she died she would go to heaven and she would meet her husband, who died at the age of 30. And she said that when she was 70, and I asked her, "When you go to heaven, how old do you expect your husband to be -- 30 or 70? If he's 30 and then you are 70, then that's no match at all!"
So because we are attached to a specific form of manifestation, that is why we suffer. If we are free from that kind of attachment, we can easily recognize ourselves in other people, in different forms of manifestation, and then we don't have to suffer.
Is there anything more you want to add?
I think concerning the question about the presence of Jesus. In the Bible there's a story telling us that there was a disciple of Jesus walking with him but not recognizing him at all -- that is after the crucifixion. And then only when Jesus begins to break the bread do they recognize that the person that had been walking with him is their teacher.
My suggestion is that Jesus is very close, if you have the kind of eyes that is free from attachment and you can recognize him at anytime and anywhere. So the same thing is true with the person who is dear to you. You may have thought that he's no longer there, she's no longer there and you are looking for him or for her elsewhere and in the future. But if you have that kind of eye that we call a "signlessness" you'll be able to recognize him or her right in the here and the now and you will no longer be a victim of fear and grief and despair.
http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Buddhism/2002/09/Long-Live-Impermanence.aspx
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
The Ego Hallucination
The root of the matter is the way in which we feel and conceive ourselves as human
beings, our sensation of being alive, of individual existence and identity.
We suffer from a hallucination, from a false and distorted sensation of
our own existence as living organisms. Most of us have the sensation
that "I myself" is a separate center of feeling and action, living inside
and bounded by the physical body—a center which "confronts" an
"external" world of people and things, making contact through the
senses with a universe both alien and strange. Everyday figures of
speech reflect this illusion. "I came into this world." "You must face
reality." "The conquest of nature."
This feeling of being lonely and very temporary visitors in the
universe is in flat contradiction to everything known about man (and all
other living organisms) in the sciences. We do not "come into" this
world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean "waves,"
the universe "peoples." Every individual is an expression of the whole
realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. This fact is rarely,
if ever, experienced by most individuals. Even those who know it to be
true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of
themselves as isolated "egos" inside bags of skin.
The first result of this illusion is that our attitude to the world
"outside" us is largely hostile. We are forever "conquering" nature,
space, mountains, deserts, bacteria, and insects instead of learning to
cooperate with them in a harmonious order. In America the great
symbols of this conquest are the bulldozer and the rocket—the
instrument that batters the hills into flat tracts for little boxes made of
ticky-tacky and the great phallic projectile that blasts the sky.
(Nonetheless, we have fine architects who know how to fit houses into
hills without ruining the landscape, and astronomers who know that the
earth is already way out in space, and that our first need for exploring
other worlds is sensitive electronic instruments which, like our eyes,
will bring the most distant objects into our own brains.)(1) The hostile
attitude of conquering nature ignores the basic interdependence of all
things and events—that the world beyond the skin is actually an
extension of our own bodies—and will end in destroying the very
environment from which we emerge and upon which our whole life
depends.
The second result of feeling that we are separate minds in an alien,
and mostly stupid, universe is that we have no common sense, no way of
making sense of the world upon which we are agreed in common. It's
just my opinion against yours, and therefore the most aggressive and
violent (and thus insensitive) propagandist makes the decisions. A
muddle of conflicting opinions united by force of propaganda is the
worst possible source of control for a powerful technology.
It might seem, then, that our need is for some genius to invent a new
religion, a philosophy of life and a view of the world, that is plausible
and generally acceptable for the late twentieth century, and through
which every individual can feel that the world as a whole and his own
life in particular have meaning. This, as history has shown repeatedly, is
not enough. Religions are divisive and quarrelsome. They are a form of
the "damned," the true believers from the heretics, the in-group from the
out-group. Even religious liberals play the game of "we're-more tolerant-
than-you." Furthermore, as systems of doctrine, symbolism, and
behavior, religions harden into institutions that must command loyalty,
be defended and kept "pure," and—because all belief is fervent hope,
and thus a cover-up for doubt and uncertainty—religions must make
converts. The more people who agree with us, the less nagging
insecurity about our position. In the end one is committed to being a
Christian or a Buddhist come what may in the form of new knowledge.
New and indigestible ideas have to be wangled into the religious
tradition, however inconsistent with its original doctrines, so that the
believer can still take his stand and assert, "I am first and foremost a
follower of Christ/Mohammed/Buddha, or whomever." Irrevocable
commitment to any religion is not only intellectual suicide; it is positive
unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world. Faith
is, above all, open-ness—an act of trust in the unknown.
Alan Watts ~ "On the Taboo of Knowing Who You Are (pp.12-14)
beings, our sensation of being alive, of individual existence and identity.
We suffer from a hallucination, from a false and distorted sensation of
our own existence as living organisms. Most of us have the sensation
that "I myself" is a separate center of feeling and action, living inside
and bounded by the physical body—a center which "confronts" an
"external" world of people and things, making contact through the
senses with a universe both alien and strange. Everyday figures of
speech reflect this illusion. "I came into this world." "You must face
reality." "The conquest of nature."
This feeling of being lonely and very temporary visitors in the
universe is in flat contradiction to everything known about man (and all
other living organisms) in the sciences. We do not "come into" this
world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean "waves,"
the universe "peoples." Every individual is an expression of the whole
realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. This fact is rarely,
if ever, experienced by most individuals. Even those who know it to be
true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of
themselves as isolated "egos" inside bags of skin.
The first result of this illusion is that our attitude to the world
"outside" us is largely hostile. We are forever "conquering" nature,
space, mountains, deserts, bacteria, and insects instead of learning to
cooperate with them in a harmonious order. In America the great
symbols of this conquest are the bulldozer and the rocket—the
instrument that batters the hills into flat tracts for little boxes made of
ticky-tacky and the great phallic projectile that blasts the sky.
(Nonetheless, we have fine architects who know how to fit houses into
hills without ruining the landscape, and astronomers who know that the
earth is already way out in space, and that our first need for exploring
other worlds is sensitive electronic instruments which, like our eyes,
will bring the most distant objects into our own brains.)(1) The hostile
attitude of conquering nature ignores the basic interdependence of all
things and events—that the world beyond the skin is actually an
extension of our own bodies—and will end in destroying the very
environment from which we emerge and upon which our whole life
depends.
The second result of feeling that we are separate minds in an alien,
and mostly stupid, universe is that we have no common sense, no way of
making sense of the world upon which we are agreed in common. It's
just my opinion against yours, and therefore the most aggressive and
violent (and thus insensitive) propagandist makes the decisions. A
muddle of conflicting opinions united by force of propaganda is the
worst possible source of control for a powerful technology.
It might seem, then, that our need is for some genius to invent a new
religion, a philosophy of life and a view of the world, that is plausible
and generally acceptable for the late twentieth century, and through
which every individual can feel that the world as a whole and his own
life in particular have meaning. This, as history has shown repeatedly, is
not enough. Religions are divisive and quarrelsome. They are a form of
the "damned," the true believers from the heretics, the in-group from the
out-group. Even religious liberals play the game of "we're-more tolerant-
than-you." Furthermore, as systems of doctrine, symbolism, and
behavior, religions harden into institutions that must command loyalty,
be defended and kept "pure," and—because all belief is fervent hope,
and thus a cover-up for doubt and uncertainty—religions must make
converts. The more people who agree with us, the less nagging
insecurity about our position. In the end one is committed to being a
Christian or a Buddhist come what may in the form of new knowledge.
New and indigestible ideas have to be wangled into the religious
tradition, however inconsistent with its original doctrines, so that the
believer can still take his stand and assert, "I am first and foremost a
follower of Christ/Mohammed/Buddha, or whomever." Irrevocable
commitment to any religion is not only intellectual suicide; it is positive
unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world. Faith
is, above all, open-ness—an act of trust in the unknown.
Alan Watts ~ "On the Taboo of Knowing Who You Are (pp.12-14)
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Bardo
In his commentary on the Bardo Thodol, the late Chogyam Trungpa explained that bardo means "gap," or interval of suspension, and that bardo is part of our psychological make-up. Bardo experiences happen to us all the time in life, not just after death. The Bardo Thodol can be read as a guide to life experiences as well as a guide to the time between death and rebirth.
Scholar and translator Francesca Fremantle said that "Originally bardo referred only to the period between one life and the next, and this is still its normal meaning when it is mentioned without any qualification." However, "By refining even further the understanding of the essence of bardo, it can then be applied to every moment of existence. The present moment, the now, is a continual bardo, always suspended between the past and the future." (Fremantle, Luminous Emptiness, 2001, p. 20)
The Bardo Thodol traditionally is read to a dying or dead person, so that he or she may be liberated from the cycle of samsara through hearing. The dead or dying person is guided through encounters in the bardo with wrathful and peaceful deities, beautiful and terrifying, which are to be understood as projections of mind.
Buddhist teachings on death and rebirth are not simple to understand. Most of the time when people speak of reincarnation, they mean a process by which a soul, or some essence of one's individual self, survives death and is reborn in a new body. But according to the Buddhist doctrine of anatman, there is no soul or "self" in the sense of a permanent, integral, autonomous being. That being so, how does rebirth function, and what is it that is reborn?
This question is answered somewhat differently by the several schools of Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism teaches of a level of mind that is always with us but so subtle that few ever become aware of it. But in death, or in a state of deep meditation, this level of mind becomes manifest and flows across lives. Metaphorically, this deep mind is compared to light, or a flowing stream, or wind.
This is only the barest of explanations; fully understanding these teachings takes years of study and practice.
There are bardos within within the bardo that correspond to the three bodies of the Trikaya. The Bardo Thodol describes these three bardos between death and rebirth:
1. The bardo of the moment of death
2. The bardo of supreme reality
3. The bardo of becoming
Taking these one at a time:
The bardo of the moment of death. The Bardo Thodol describes a dissolution of the self created by the skandhas and a falling away of external reality. The consciousness that remains experiences the true nature of mind as a dazzling light or luminosity. This is the bardo of dharmakaya, all phenomena unmanifested, free of characteristics and distinctions
The bardo of supreme reality. The Bardo Thodol describes lights of many colors and visions of wrathful and peaceful deities. Those in the bardo are challenged to not be afraid of these visions, which are projections of mind. This is the bardo of sambhogakaya, the reward of spiritual practice.
The bardo of becoming. If the second bardo is experienced with fear, confusion and nonrealization, the bardo of becoming begins. Projections of karma appear that will cause rebirth in one of the Six Realms. This is the bardo of nirmanakaya, the physical body that appears in the world.
http://buddhism.about.com/od/vajrayanabuddhism/a/bardothodol.htm
Scholar and translator Francesca Fremantle said that "Originally bardo referred only to the period between one life and the next, and this is still its normal meaning when it is mentioned without any qualification." However, "By refining even further the understanding of the essence of bardo, it can then be applied to every moment of existence. The present moment, the now, is a continual bardo, always suspended between the past and the future." (Fremantle, Luminous Emptiness, 2001, p. 20)
The Bardo Thodol traditionally is read to a dying or dead person, so that he or she may be liberated from the cycle of samsara through hearing. The dead or dying person is guided through encounters in the bardo with wrathful and peaceful deities, beautiful and terrifying, which are to be understood as projections of mind.
Buddhist teachings on death and rebirth are not simple to understand. Most of the time when people speak of reincarnation, they mean a process by which a soul, or some essence of one's individual self, survives death and is reborn in a new body. But according to the Buddhist doctrine of anatman, there is no soul or "self" in the sense of a permanent, integral, autonomous being. That being so, how does rebirth function, and what is it that is reborn?
This question is answered somewhat differently by the several schools of Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism teaches of a level of mind that is always with us but so subtle that few ever become aware of it. But in death, or in a state of deep meditation, this level of mind becomes manifest and flows across lives. Metaphorically, this deep mind is compared to light, or a flowing stream, or wind.
This is only the barest of explanations; fully understanding these teachings takes years of study and practice.
There are bardos within within the bardo that correspond to the three bodies of the Trikaya. The Bardo Thodol describes these three bardos between death and rebirth:
1. The bardo of the moment of death
2. The bardo of supreme reality
3. The bardo of becoming
Taking these one at a time:
The bardo of the moment of death. The Bardo Thodol describes a dissolution of the self created by the skandhas and a falling away of external reality. The consciousness that remains experiences the true nature of mind as a dazzling light or luminosity. This is the bardo of dharmakaya, all phenomena unmanifested, free of characteristics and distinctions
The bardo of supreme reality. The Bardo Thodol describes lights of many colors and visions of wrathful and peaceful deities. Those in the bardo are challenged to not be afraid of these visions, which are projections of mind. This is the bardo of sambhogakaya, the reward of spiritual practice.
The bardo of becoming. If the second bardo is experienced with fear, confusion and nonrealization, the bardo of becoming begins. Projections of karma appear that will cause rebirth in one of the Six Realms. This is the bardo of nirmanakaya, the physical body that appears in the world.
http://buddhism.about.com/od/vajrayanabuddhism/a/bardothodol.htm
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Take a jump!
"You are that which can never change.. you appear as this body, you appear as this form, you appear as your thoughts and emotions, but you are really the back of it all... That is you, my friend, the Oneness the Source." ~ Burt Harding
Monday, May 30, 2011
This is It
Liberation is not about abandoning attachment to life, pleasures of the senses and fleeting experience, nor about being free from physicality and the limitations of this physical body. Nor is it frowning upon the necessity for pragmatism, personal ambition and living in comfort. It's about accepting quite simply that this life is all there ever is, and we are here eternally without exit. There truly is no need to transcend the wheel of endless birth, death and rebirth... Why should we?
My spin on Eastern Philosophy and beliefs about rebirth and immortality goes something like this.. There are no higher or lower realms, human consciousness is the highest (and lowest) evolutionary state, with heaven and hell (and everywhere in between) existing solely in the minds of men. There exists no real evidence of sentient life anywhere but on Planet Earth, thus we eternally return here and continue to work on getting it right, till there is peace and harmony, love and compassion, and all that is holy, sacred, ruling over the Earth.
JDZ
My spin on Eastern Philosophy and beliefs about rebirth and immortality goes something like this.. There are no higher or lower realms, human consciousness is the highest (and lowest) evolutionary state, with heaven and hell (and everywhere in between) existing solely in the minds of men. There exists no real evidence of sentient life anywhere but on Planet Earth, thus we eternally return here and continue to work on getting it right, till there is peace and harmony, love and compassion, and all that is holy, sacred, ruling over the Earth.
JDZ
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Going Beyond Words
To understand each other, I think it is necessary that we should not be caught in words; because, a word like God, for example, may have a particular meaning for you, while for me it may represent a totally different formulation, or no formulation at all. So it is almost impossible to communicate with each other unless both of us have the intention of understanding and going beyond mere words.
The word freedom generally implies being free from something, does it not? It ordinarily means being free from greed, from envy, from nationalism, from anger, from this or that. Whereas, freedom may have quite another meaning, which is a sense of being free; and I think it is very important to understand this meaning. After all, the mind is made up of words, amongst other things. Now, can the mind be free of the word envy? Experiment with this and you will see that words like God, truth, hate, envy, have a profound effect on the mind. And can the mind be both neurologically and psychologically free of these words?
If it is not free of them, it is incapable of facing the fact of envy. When the mind can look directly at the fact which it calls 'envy,' then the fact itself acts much more swiftly than the mind's endeavor to do something about the fact. As long as the mind is thinking of getting rid of envy through the ideal of non-envy, and so on, it is distracted, it is not facing the fact; and the very word envy is a distraction from the fact. The process of recognition is through the word; and the moment I recognize the feeling through the word, I give continuity to that feeling.
J.Krishnamurti - The Book of Life
The word freedom generally implies being free from something, does it not? It ordinarily means being free from greed, from envy, from nationalism, from anger, from this or that. Whereas, freedom may have quite another meaning, which is a sense of being free; and I think it is very important to understand this meaning. After all, the mind is made up of words, amongst other things. Now, can the mind be free of the word envy? Experiment with this and you will see that words like God, truth, hate, envy, have a profound effect on the mind. And can the mind be both neurologically and psychologically free of these words?
If it is not free of them, it is incapable of facing the fact of envy. When the mind can look directly at the fact which it calls 'envy,' then the fact itself acts much more swiftly than the mind's endeavor to do something about the fact. As long as the mind is thinking of getting rid of envy through the ideal of non-envy, and so on, it is distracted, it is not facing the fact; and the very word envy is a distraction from the fact. The process of recognition is through the word; and the moment I recognize the feeling through the word, I give continuity to that feeling.
J.Krishnamurti - The Book of Life
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Believing is Seeing
To doubt serves a spiritual purpose, scientifically to question every teaching, religious and otherwise, that one is taught, accepting nothing on blind faith. The critical analytic intelligence is applied to the philosophizing of Spirit for the primary purpose of rejecting dogmas and superstitions of religious gurus that do not ring true personally, from the heart. Beyond this necessity for negating what is false, one has to have confidence and faith, be self-affirmative and able to get beyond the limited doubting mentality.
Needing physical or outwardly apparent evidence is the way of the materialist, whether it be the atheist who needs scientific proof for the existence of God or the orthodox religious theologian brainwashed into believing the Divine is "outside of him" personally and that all that is human must be transcended or eliminated.
The dualistic view is in believing that the external world, which includes priests and organized religions, is Divine and holy while the individual human being and inner person is profane, imperfect. It is also based on the notion of an external world existing separate and apart from our personal creating of it mentally. Whether the world be the creation of an external God or of a reality that we have no personal control over. The fear of the sinner who fears punishment by God and going to Hell or that of the skeptical nihilist who believes only in matter and the material objective and empirical 'realities'.
There is a fatalistic and powerless feeling that goes with believing I am nothing more than this physical body, which will die inside of 80 or so years; and more globally, the reactionary view to all the war, death, crime and poverty we read about in the news. If one does not have Faith, seeing a big picture, a reason for everything we cannot always fathom, then gloomy pessimism and despair is the only option left. Amidst the general uncertainty and precarious nature of existence, there has to be trust and belief in a benevolent and supportive Universe or God.
It is more empowering to believe the Universe is perfect, does not make mistakes, and I came into this world as an eternal unlimited being with a reason and purpose here. That everything I experience, the good, the bad, the ugly and the beautiful, are all of my own creation, and within my power to resolve, transform and regenerate. It really does come down to my most ingrained beliefs about life, death and the nature of reality. A valid belief system is based on what is true for you personally, and not upon any socialized religious precept or sophisticated group mind concepts of any kind. Most importantly, this core believing is independent of self-limiting beliefs adopted from outside authorities and the social environment. The Higher Self is composed of our truest core values, independent of all fears, limitation and doubt that go with the human psyche bound to physical reality.
The only solution as I see it is to do as Gandhi said and "Be the change you want to see in the world"... this requires looking within, beyond the doubting and fears that lead nowhere, to the very essence of what you believe and how you individually choose to take responsible ethically guided actions in your world. The answer is not in outward, or political activism of any kind... but change from the inside out, beginning with the individual, coming from a place of peace, love, faith and universal goodwill.
In Faith
Joel
Needing physical or outwardly apparent evidence is the way of the materialist, whether it be the atheist who needs scientific proof for the existence of God or the orthodox religious theologian brainwashed into believing the Divine is "outside of him" personally and that all that is human must be transcended or eliminated.
The dualistic view is in believing that the external world, which includes priests and organized religions, is Divine and holy while the individual human being and inner person is profane, imperfect. It is also based on the notion of an external world existing separate and apart from our personal creating of it mentally. Whether the world be the creation of an external God or of a reality that we have no personal control over. The fear of the sinner who fears punishment by God and going to Hell or that of the skeptical nihilist who believes only in matter and the material objective and empirical 'realities'.
There is a fatalistic and powerless feeling that goes with believing I am nothing more than this physical body, which will die inside of 80 or so years; and more globally, the reactionary view to all the war, death, crime and poverty we read about in the news. If one does not have Faith, seeing a big picture, a reason for everything we cannot always fathom, then gloomy pessimism and despair is the only option left. Amidst the general uncertainty and precarious nature of existence, there has to be trust and belief in a benevolent and supportive Universe or God.
It is more empowering to believe the Universe is perfect, does not make mistakes, and I came into this world as an eternal unlimited being with a reason and purpose here. That everything I experience, the good, the bad, the ugly and the beautiful, are all of my own creation, and within my power to resolve, transform and regenerate. It really does come down to my most ingrained beliefs about life, death and the nature of reality. A valid belief system is based on what is true for you personally, and not upon any socialized religious precept or sophisticated group mind concepts of any kind. Most importantly, this core believing is independent of self-limiting beliefs adopted from outside authorities and the social environment. The Higher Self is composed of our truest core values, independent of all fears, limitation and doubt that go with the human psyche bound to physical reality.
The only solution as I see it is to do as Gandhi said and "Be the change you want to see in the world"... this requires looking within, beyond the doubting and fears that lead nowhere, to the very essence of what you believe and how you individually choose to take responsible ethically guided actions in your world. The answer is not in outward, or political activism of any kind... but change from the inside out, beginning with the individual, coming from a place of peace, love, faith and universal goodwill.
In Faith
Joel
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