For those pantheists

[Bhaktajan II]

But can you offer evidence of 'disembodied consciousness' that may be acceptable to the 21st century material science community?

Ah yet, to formulate AI logarithms, every possible re-action that could occur must be accounted for and Inputted into the software script.

PS: Brahman is preceded by Param-brahman. Param-brahman is preceded by Bhagavan.
Bhagavan is un-born [aka never had a birth] because Bhagavan is outside material time.

Q. What is the calculus of "being" outside material time?
A. Absolute being

Consciousness is manifest with a body.
When Consciousness [San. 'chaitanya', 'cheta'] leaves the material body it roams [by a rule of thumb similar to the pattern a t-shirt tumbles in a washing machine] and gets a birth in a vacancy commensurate with a level of consciousness accrued by one's past actions.

We get what we really worked at previously.

Repeated births allow for learning spiritual higher transcendent truths via the Vedic literatures ---yet who the hell is even interested in such things ... so many lifetimes yield nothing more than trying the pastures on the other side of the hill ad infinitum.

 

[RJM]

I don't do reincarnation. I believe the infinite Spiritual 'universe' is big enough for us not to have to keep coming back to the planet earth. My Father's house has many mansions.

Except perhaps in some particular case, like having to repeat a grade at school, perpetual reincarnation upon the planet earth makes no sense to me?

Like the same limited population of souls keep being reborn here on planet earth?

 

[wil]

As is usually missing but should be implied in every post...

In my opinion...

It is my belief...

As none of us have the definitive answer...

Even thou we oft think we do.

 

[Bhaktajan II]

I don't do reincarnation. I believe the infinite Spiritual 'universe' is big enough for us not to have to keep coming back to the planet earth. My Father's house has many mansions.

So Jesus did not die and rise again?

There is no after life?

Many mansions are occupied only once by passer-bys?

The living soul does not exist? The living soul does not migrate from one body to another?
The living soul and the dead body are one and the same?

Like the same limited population of spectators is filled with faceless crowds?

Like the same limited population of sand keep being washed upon the shores?

To repeat a grade at school perpetually is pointless ---that is the point--- but there is a place under heaven to facilitate it.

 

[RJM]

... To repeat a grade at school perpetually is pointless ---that is the point--- but there is a place under heaven to facilitate it.

But is repeated rebirth/returning to the planet earth dimension the only place under heaven to facilitate the soul's progress to eventual perfection?

 

[Thomas]

The material environs is defacto reality ---how each p.o.v. that views reality sees it from a subjective vantage point.

OK

Simultaneously one reality and consciousness of it from different vantage points.

OK

Reality is primary consciousness from the brain is secondary.

Ah ... there's the rub. This assumes 'reality' is conscious because we are ... when in fact there's no evidence nor proof.

 

[Thomas]

So Jesus did not die and rise again?

Ah, c'mon. We've been over this time and again.
Resurrection :: Reincarnation — there are significant differences.

There is no after life?

No-one said that?

Many mansions are occupied only once by passer-bys?

Nor that.

The living soul does not exist?

Nor that.

The living soul does not migrate from one body to another?

No, not in our belief system, no. The Dalai Lama seemed nice enough to acknowledge that and, BTW, acknowledge the profound wisdom and insight of the teaching.

The living soul and the dead body are one and the same?

Nope.

To repeat a grade at school perpetually is pointless ---

RJM Corbet's view of karma is far more balanced than mine.

I'm afraid my view is far more pessimistic. He sees it as a grade-school. I see it as playing hop-scotch while wearing a blindfold. Indeed, the game of 'snakes and ladders' sums it up (it was, after all, born of the teaching).

I can appreciate it as a message of hope in a cruel world, but then I have a different message ...

 

[Bhaktajan II]

But is repeated rebirth/returning to the planet earth dimension the only place under heaven to facilitate the soul's progress to eventual perfection?

Complicated reply required. Where are getting the calculus that "returning to the planet earth to facilitate the soul's progress to eventual perfection?"

Complicated reply required because there is mention of this in Vedic scriptures: Terrestrial planets are situated between the lower planets and the celestial planets.

One set is for pleasures and the other is for much more refined pleasures. Like 3rd class vs 1st Class accommodations.

It's odd to suggest that ie: Now that I joined the Army I can practice my surfboarding. Or, conversely, Now that I joined the knitting club I can practice my electric guitar.

 

[Bhaktajan II]

Reincarnation — there are significant differences.

Please provide me with the chapter and verse whence you garnered this wisdom.

Do you argue about other similarly subtle differences in other fields of discussion?

So Jesus did not die and rise again? ---was obviously directed to RJM.

If cash is acceptable cash is acceptable. We've been over this time and again.

Resurrection :: Reincarnation [yes 3rd class all the way past 1st class to deluxe accommodations w/ parades and speeches] it is a Rose by any other name.

My school defines "What happens to the soul after death" ta!

 

[Bhaktajan II]

I can appreciate it as a message of hope in a cruel world, but then I have a different message ...

"Happy are the kshatriyas to whom such fighting opportunities come unsought, opening for them the doors of the heavenly planets."
aka
"happy are the worker to whom such working opportunities come unsought, opening for them the doors of the heavenly planets."

"It is far better to discharge one's prescribed duties, even though they may be faulty, than another's duties. Destruction in the course of performing one's own duty is better than engaging in another's duties, for to follow another's path is dangerous."
"It is better to engage in one's own occupation, even though one may perform it imperfectly, than to accept another's occupation and perform it perfectly. Prescribed duties, according to one's nature, are never affected by sinful reactions."
"The conclusion is that everyone should be engaged according to the particular mode of nature he has acquired, and he should decide to work only to serve the supreme cause of the Supreme Lord."

But both materially or spiritually, one should stick to his prescribed duties even up to death, rather than imitate another's prescribed duties. Duties on the spiritual platform and duties on the material platform may be different, but the principle of following the authorized direction is always good for the performer. When one is under the spell of the modes of material nature, one should follow the prescribed rules for particular situations and should not imitate others.

 

[RJM]

Terrestrial planets are situated between the lower planets and the celestial planets....

Terrestrial planets? Plural?

As in: a soul might depart the planet earth and receive rebirth within another terrestrial/material world/dimension?

Yes. That could be easier to deal with.

It's odd to suggest that ie: Now that I joined the Army I can practice my surfboarding ...

Charlie don't surf, lol.

(Sorry, reference the movie: Apocalypse Now. American GI soldiers surfing in Vietnam while bombs and napalm explode around them. It's a classic quote ... )

 

[Bhaktajan II]

Complicated reply continued [I think you may get a kick out of this]:

From the highest planet in the material world down to the lowest, all are places of misery wherein repeated birth and death take place. But one who attains to My abode, O son of Kunti, never takes birth again.
PURPORT
All kinds of yogis—karma, jnana, hatha, etc.—eventually have to attain devotional perfection in bhakti-yoga, or Krishna consciousness, before they can go to Krishna's transcendental abode and never return. Those who attain the highest material planets or the planets of the demigods are again subjected to repeated birth and death. As persons on earth are elevated to higher planets, people in higher planets such as Brahmaloka, Candraloka and Indraloka fall down to earth. The practice of sacrifice called pancagni-vidya, recommended in the Katha Upanisad, enables one to achieve Brahmaloka, but if, in Brahmaloka, one does not cultivate Krishna consciousness, then he must return to earth. Those who progress in Krishna consciousness in the higher planets are gradually elevated to higher and higher planets and at the time of universal devastation are transferred to the eternal spiritual kingdom. When there is devastation of this material universe, Brahma and his devotees, who are constantly engaged in Krishna consciousness, are all transferred to the spiritual universe and to specific spiritual planets according to their desires.
https://asitis.com/8/16.html

May of the verse in Chapter 8 of the Bhagavad-gita discuss this.

ie:
Chapter 8, Verse 10
One who, at the time of death, fixes his life air between the eyebrows and in full devotion engages himself in remembering the Supreme Lord, will certainly attain to the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Chapter 8, Verse 11
Persons learned in the Vedas, who utter omkara and who are great sages in the renounced order, enter into Brahman. Desiring such perfection, one practices celibacy. I shall now explain to you this process by which one may attain salvation.

Chapter 8, Verse 12
The yogic situation is that of detachment from all sensual engagements. Closing all the doors of the senses and fixing the mind on the heart and the life air at the top of the head, one establishes himself in yoga.

Chapter 8, Verse 13
After being situated in this yoga practice and vibrating the sacred syllable om, the supreme combination of letters, if one thinks of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and quits his body, he will certainly reach the spiritual planets.

Chapter 8, Verse 14
For one who remembers Me without deviation, I am easy to obtain, O son of Prtha, because of his constant engagement in devotional service.

Chapter 8, Verse 15
After attaining Me, the great souls, who are yogis in devotion, never return to this temporary world, which is full of miseries, because they have attained the highest perfection.

Chapter 8, Verse 16
From the highest planet in the material world down to the lowest, all are places of misery wherein repeated birth and death take place. But one who attains to My abode, O son of Kunti, never takes birth again.

 

[RJM]

Complicated reply continued [I think you may get a kick out of this]:

From the highest planet in the material world down to the lowest, all are places of misery wherein repeated birth and death take place. But one who attains to My abode, O son of Kunti, never takes birth again.
PURPORT
All kinds of yogis—karma, jnana, hatha, etc.—eventually have to attain devotional perfection in bhakti-yoga, or Krishna consciousness, before they can go to Krishna's transcendental abode and never return. Those who attain the highest material planets or the planets of the demigods are again subjected to repeated birth and death. As persons on earth are elevated to higher planets, people in higher planets such as Brahmaloka, Candraloka and Indraloka fall down to earth. The practice of sacrifice called pancagni-vidya, recommended in the Katha Upanisad, enables one to achieve Brahmaloka, but if, in Brahmaloka, one does not cultivate Krishna consciousness, then he must return to earth. Those who progress in Krishna consciousness in the higher planets are gradually elevated to higher and higher planets and at the time of universal devastation are transferred to the eternal spiritual kingdom. When there is devastation of this material universe, Brahma and his devotees, who are constantly engaged in Krishna consciousness, are all transferred to the spiritual universe and to specific spiritual planets according to their desires.
https://asitis.com/8/16.html

May of the verse in Chapter 8 of the Bhagavad-gita discuss this.

ie:
Chapter 8, Verse 10
One who, at the time of death, fixes his life air between the eyebrows and in full devotion engages himself in remembering the Supreme Lord, will certainly attain to the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Chapter 8, Verse 11
Persons learned in the Vedas, who utter omkara and who are great sages in the renounced order, enter into Brahman. Desiring such perfection, one practices celibacy. I shall now explain to you this process by which one may attain salvation.

Chapter 8, Verse 12
The yogic situation is that of detachment from all sensual engagements. Closing all the doors of the senses and fixing the mind on the heart and the life air at the top of the head, one establishes himself in yoga.

Chapter 8, Verse 13
After being situated in this yoga practice and vibrating the sacred syllable om, the supreme combination of letters, if one thinks of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and quits his body, he will certainly reach the spiritual planets.

Chapter 8, Verse 14
For one who remembers Me without deviation, I am easy to obtain, O son of Prtha, because of his constant engagement in devotional service.

Chapter 8, Verse 15
After attaining Me, the great souls, who are yogis in devotion, never return to this temporary world, which is full of miseries, because they have attained the highest perfection.

Chapter 8, Verse 16
From the highest planet in the material world down to the lowest, all are places of misery wherein repeated birth and death take place. But one who attains to My abode, O son of Kunti, never takes birth again.

Thank you. I should read the gita again.

I liked your 2nd para: PURPORT

All kinds of yogis—karma, jnana, hatha, etc.—eventually have to attain devotional perfection in bhakti-yoga, or Krishna consciousness, before they can go to Krishna's transcendental abode and never return...

This is like Paul's famous sermon on love

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+13&version=NIV

 

[Thomas]

Please provide me with the chapter and verse whence you garnered this wisdom.

Reincarnation is a rebirth into a new body, a new form of existence that may be similar or entirely different from what went before, maybe human, maybe not. Maybe on this plane of existence, maybe not. Even if a human, the returnee is substantially a different person than the one who went before. That person is dead and gone, the returnee is born as a new person, different body, different identity ...

In the case of resurrection, on the other hand, the person remains the self-same person. Same body, same soul, same identity, same-same. The resurrected is the same person, same body, same identity, same life, the continuation of its prior existence in the same form.

The Judeo-Christian notion of resurrection is a transformation of the body, for while the Judeo-Christian tradition acknowledges the soul/body duality within a given context, it also adheres that 'the person' is a single, corporate being of body and soul.

'Reincarnation' was never an issue in the Christian Tradition until the Church responded to certain New Age theories in the last century. Metempsychosis, the Greek concept of the transmigration of souls was discussed (notably by Origen) but was never any part of the Christian teaching.

 

[Thomas]

Back to the plot ...

According to the world of Quantum Phenomena, there are an infinite number of regions like our observable universe, but only a finite number of 'histories' for such regions (a finite number of quanta-combinations), which means then that every possible history happens an infinite number of times.

So, as the theory goes, Elvis is alive and well and in the building, just not in this universe. I am pope, or awarded the highest-degree of swordsmanship in the Muso Shinden Ryu, or I'm duetting with my dad, he on the fiddle me on the uilleann pipes ... in fact not 'or', but 'and' and 'alternatively'.

In fact, in a universe somewhere, we are all in a room, having a drink ...

 

[Thomas]

This from Marco Pallis:
"To pass to the question of "reincarnation" itself: this is an unhappy word, too often used, because it almost inevitably will evoke the picture of a human birth in our own familiar world."

"... samsara, transmigration, the existential round of birth and death as presented by Hinduism and Buddhism (where it constitutes a basic doctrine) is before all else indefinite; whatever forms popular imagination may graft on this idea, it is contrary to its real meaning for us to try and define the particular form which 'rebirth' will take for such and such a being – the traditional classification of beings in heavens, hells, human or animal realms etc., is evidently schematic and symbolical and does not violate the above condition in any misleading way. Only one other thing need be laid down about samsara ... namely that the illimitable character of All-Possibility excludes repetition; no being or thing can retrace the existence of another in the sense of a real identity, be it even for a moment; the uniqueness of creation applies down to the smallest characteristics or components of the beings concerned."

"... the vital question here is "who is he or she?", or in other words, "what is self ?" The Vedantic doctrine of atma, universal selfhood, and the seemingly opposed Buddhist doctrine of anatma, universal non-selfhood, provide an answer to this question from two complementary angles... there is nevertheless a meeting point between the Semitic idea of a "soul" and its salvation and the Indian idea of "human birth hard to obtain" (within the process of transmigration) discernible in the fact that Deliverance or Buddhahood can only be attained as from a given birth: even though a Buddha "remembers all his past lives," his Enlightenment is not definable in terms of samsaric experience at any remove; it is a unique and eternal event, to us paradoxical and inexpressible."

"It is noteworthy that Guénon, when writing about the Hindu doctrines, alluded very little to samsara as such; he wished rather to emphasize the principial simultaneity of that which, from the standpoint of ordinary experience, appears as successive ... it is Western misunderstanding, notably on the part of Theosophists, that is exclusively responsible for current reincarnationist phraseology."

"While I feel sure that all are agreed in rejecting the possibility of repetition in the arising and existence of beings, as spelling metaphysical nonsense, the possibility of another (but different) human birth is not formally ruled out by the Orientals; for them, this possibility goes in with the rest of samsara and they neither try to limit it in positive or negative terms. One can perhaps best express the traditional view by saying that human birth is a rare and correspondingly precious opportunity, determined like everything else in an indefinite Round of Existence by antecedent karma. Popular simplifications apart, this is the doctrine one meets in Asia."

+++

And from "Living One's Karma" by the same author:
"An instance of how popularised interpretations can lead to a certain amount of doctrinal distortion is provided by current beliefs in Buddhist countries concerning the possibility of "rebirth as a man". People all too readily assume that a human rebirth, provided they keep leading fairly ethical lives (often at a lowish level) is there for the asking. I could mention several examples of this kind of attitude from my own experience, by no means all of them drawn from among the simple and uneducated. People find it easy to imagine that it is but a matter of a little careful moral accountancy on their part, and their next human life will be as good as assured! With these people "merit", good karma, comes to be regarded wholly in a quantitative sense, rather as if it could be meted out by the pound, a matter of manipulating a neat double column balance-sheet in such a way as not to leave oneself too heavily in debt. They forget the common dictum about "human birth hard to obtain" or the Buddha's parable about the purblind turtle swimming in a vast ocean where there is also a piece of floating wood with a hole in it. He estimated any particular being's chances of obtaining a human birth as about equal to the likelihood of that turtle pushing its head through that hole!

By this far-fetched parable he evidently wished to impress on people the extreme precariousness of the human chance, warning them thus against the folly of wasting a precious opportunity in trivial pursuits. In a world that likes to think of itself as "progressive" how many people, I wonder, make even a slight attempt to follow this advice?

The essential thing to remember, about the human state or any state describable as "central", is that it marks the point where exit from the fatal round of birth-and-death is possible without the prior need to pass through another state of conditioned existence. The door is there, whereas if one has been born into some more peripheral situation it is indispensable, before one can aspire to Deliverance, to gain a footing on the axis, in other words to find the way to a human birth. Once on the axis, the path lies open trodden by all the Buddhas; what is essential is not merely to occupy one's human position passively, thanks to the karma that placed one there, but to realize it actively and this is the express concern of a spiritual life.

What everyone needs to remind himself of in the first place (if he gets so far) is that before he can even begin to ascend the axial mountain that leads towards Buddhahood he has first to become "true man" (as Taoism puts it) which, in our world, is the station from which the mountain itself begins to rise; and that is why religion, in general, starts off by propounding the need for a purposeful life of virtue, because this chiefly is a means of regaining the missing human norm, the one we all bear in name but rarely possess in fact.

 

[RJM]

Back to the plot ...

According to the world of Quantum Phenomena, there are an infinite number of regions like our observable universe, but only a finite number of 'histories' for such regions (a finite number of quanta-combinations), which means then that every possible history happens an infinite number of times.

So, as the theory goes, Elvis is alive and well and in the building, just not in this universe. I am pope, or awarded the highest-degree of swordsmanship in the Muso Shinden Ryu, or I'm duetting with my dad, he on the fiddle me on the uilleann pipes ... in fact not 'or', but 'and' and 'alternatively'.

In fact, in a universe somewhere, we are all in a room, having a drink ...

Actually I believe the (virtually) infinite multiverse theory is attached to string theory/m-theory, I think. And string theory is losing ground. But other universes to our own are treated as a possibility but not really as a theory by mainstream standard-model physics: branching universes, bubble universes, and so on.

A theory in physics must have strong evidence in its favour. Otherwise it's just an idea, not a theory. Even the Theory of Relativity is treated as still just a theory, which may one day still be disproved --never as a cast-iron fact.

The sum-of-all-histories is a different issue altogether. It proposes that when you throw a ball it tries out all possible routes in the universe before settling into the one that best conserves energy. However the vast majority of the possible paths cancel each other out -- for every forward movement there is a corresponding backward movement, etc.

So the possibility is that although an electron belonging to an atom of you could in theory be somewhere east of alpha centauri, the overwhelming probability is that it will be found close to the nucleus of the atom, lol.

I think ...

(Post edited)

 

[Thomas]

Actually I believe the (virtually) infinite multiverse theory is attached to string theory/m-theory, I think. And string theory is losing ground. But other universes to our own are treated as a possibility but not really as a theory by mainstream standard-model physics: branching universes, bubble universes, and so on.

Yes, so I've been reading. I always have trouble with the multiverse theory in that the degree of diffraction is utterly, utterly boggling. It's a bit like the Q source in Scripture theory, it's a neat solution, but there's no evidence for it.

And again, like Schrodinger's Cat, it's not both dead and alive at the same time, it's definitely one or t'other, it's just we don't know until we open the box. So it's an analogy, but let's not get carried away. I'm not looking for Elvis tickets any time soon...

So the possibility is that although an electron belonging to an atom of you could in theory be somewhere east of alpha centauri, the overwhelming probability is that it will be found close to the nucleus of the atom, lol.

Probably ...

 

[Thomas]

The posts which allude to karma/reincarnation, btw, I think do have a relevance to the discussion.

Especially the much-overlooked but, to me, crucial aspect of the debate is the idea of 'self' and 'not-self', and most especially the simultaneity of non-repetitive multiple states of being (as opposed to the common assumption is of successive, same states), and, of course, the special status of the human state.

Pantheism, it seems to me, has an inadequate idea of what constitutes the 'self', nor adequately defines why the cosmos and all therein, if God, is ignorant of the fact and deficient in its ultimate nature (from one aspect) and implies that God is subject to change, growth/decay, corruptions, etc., which seems to me to apply anthropomorphic principles to the divine, and we're back with the flawed logic of the 2ndC Gnostics et al ...

 

[RJM]

Yes, so I've been reading. I always have trouble with the multiverse theory in that the degree of diffraction is utterly, utterly boggling. It's a bit like the Q source in Scripture theory, it's a neat solution, but there's no evidence for it.

And again, like Schrodinger's Cat, it's not both dead and alive at the same time, it's definitely one or t'other, it's just we don't know until we open the box. So it's an analogy, but let's not get carried away. I'm not looking for Elvis tickets any time soon...


Probably ...

There's also the problem that quantum events like the sum-of-possible histories apply only within the sub-atomic world. They don't really expand into macro-reality. Which is the thing that new-age thinkers and writers do, that irritates quantum physicists so much, lol.

But quantum mechanics would not apply to multiple universes, except to their origination: like our big bang. I think.