The Buddha teaches release from life?

[Nick_A]

Originally Posted by Dharmaatmaa

Well, well, well... It reminds me that old mystery - who was born earliea: an egg or a chicken? If we take a faint look at Buddhism, we'll see it's different from Hinduism very much. Even if we take Southern and Northen Buddhist Chirches as well. Even the latter - having got a thousands of Gods and sirits - isn't Hinduismlike at all! He started a new doctrine.



Agreed, Francis. But why do people need a religion, a mind-freezing monstre, if they've got so great philosophy?!



As I know, Buddha didn't say to worship this way to anybody. But ordinary people couldn't understand those difficult doctrines, so there appear priests and cult. There appeared people who comprehend it, and those whose mind cannot catch it. Cult was born (for "dunces").



Of cause, it isn't! I remember a story of a Russian girl who always said "That's rubbish!!!", when couldn't understand something. It was much easier than sit and think. Just say "Plunk, plunk, plunk!.. It's a rubbish!"
It's difficult to explain trikaya in written speach, for to make psychical realities understandable, it's necessary to use mataphors and allegories. You see, there's nothing in our ordinary life that can give us concrete seeing of those we've never dealt with. It's as impossible to imagine sambhogakaya (sic!) as to imagine a four-dimentional object. But I could describe common lines:
1) Trikaya includes three psychical entities;
2) They are nirmanakaya, sambhogakaya, and dharmakaya;
3) They all have got different "density"; dharmakaya is arupa (formless, bodiless), i.e. it has no form, even borders from outter space. It is everywhere.
4) They all have own consciousness. Dharmakaya knows everything.

I'm not going to make you think it's difficult and fanciful. But personally I can't explain that in this pages, using English, without intonations and metaphors. And yes, trikaya is "about spiritual progression", but they exist the same time, together.
Maybe someone other can explain it properly.

Hi Dharmaatmaa

I've been fortunate to become aware of "levels of reality" through my study of cosmology within which a cosmos itself is a level of reality. I remember reading that as a teaching initiating from a conscious source enters into a culture, the first thing it loses during its normal devolution is the awareness of levels of reality. It is interpreted on only one level.

The Trikaya is an expression of simultaneously existing levels of reality and I know I could never begin to appreciate its depth and significance without first beginning to understand this vertical cosmological structure of our universe. Yet it will be scorned just as the Trinity will be scorned.

"The poison of skepticism becomes, like alcoholism, tuberculosis, and some other diseases, much more virulent in a hitherto virgin soil." Simone Weil

This is your Russian girl. Skepticism is a negative emotional attitude as opposed to doubt which is intellectual and impartial. Doubt is the source of questions and true contemplation seeks to further reveal our essential questions. Skepticism in this day and age is considered sophisticated and educated but especially the young impressed by this prestige, are unaware of what they lose through this egoistic satisfaction.

[Any]

Originally Posted by Nick_A

I've been fortunate to become aware of "levels of reality" through my study of cosmology within which a cosmos itself is a level of reality.

Can you suggest some readings?

[Nick_A]

Originally Posted by Any

Can you suggest some readings?

Hi Any

Try reading the first chapter to Jacob Needleman's "A Sense of the Cosmos." If that appeals to you, I could mention a deeper book. But this book is a fine intro and those not sensitive to these ideas lose interest quickly.

Welcome to rawpaint.com

Look for "Jacob Needleman's Chapter One: The Universe

[Dharmaatmaa]

"levels of reality"... Very much deep phrase! I agree in general with what you'd said. But what is "a level of reality"? For example, how dharmakaya can be in a level, and not be in another?! It lives in all levels. All these levels are just our mind limitations. They don't exist in present. Don't you find?

[Nick_A]

Originally Posted by Dharmaatmaa

"levels of reality"... Very much deep phrase! I agree in general with what you'd said. But what is "a level of reality"? For example, how dharmakaya can be in a level, and not be in another?! It lives in all levels. All these levels are just our mind limitations. They don't exist in present. Don't you find?

Hi Dharmaatmaa

Russia eh. That reminds me I must send Christmas greetings to my cousin's family in Moscow.

I cannot explain levels of reality in a post since it requires a different vertical direction of metation most are not used to. But levels of reality are degrees of wholeness where one exists within the other like the Russian dolls. They exist as relationships between cosmoses as well as within one cosmos. You've heard the old expression that "he can't see the forest for the trees." This is an depiction of two levels of reality within a cosmos. The forest has its needs and laws by which it functions as do individual trees. Sometimes they appear to conflict. The tree must die for the sake of renewing the life of the forest. The PC police will not like that one.

The universe is also constructed on such levels but as a vertical reality or the quality of the moment.. Time for a higher level of reality for example is experienced much differently than for us on earth.

Time in Buddhist cosmology is measured in kalpas. Originally, a kalpa was considered to be 4,320,000 years. Buddhist scholars expanded it with a metaphor: rub a one-mile cube of rock once every hundred years with a piece of silk, until the rock is worn away -- and a kalpa still hasn’t passed! During a kalpa, the world comes into being, exists, is destroyed, and a period of emptiness ensues. Then it all starts again.

This is the attempt to comprehend time associated with a higher cosmos from the perspective of our lower cosmos.

The dharmakya exists at the level of reality directly under the Absolute which for us can only appear as dissolution of materiality.

The nirmana-kaya is the level of man and said to be "in the image." of this higher level of reality.

The Sambhogakaya is the vertical level of conscious reality that man can evolve towards and what help from above is forever indicating to man which is rejected in favor of the lures of the Beast.

Levels of reality reveal many things which otherwise seem absurd. the virgin birth in Christianity is just the conscious descent from one level of reality into a lower and adopting the body normal for our earth. Yet without any comprehension of this vertical direction of levels of reality where qualities of consciousness exist within others, it seems absurd. Prof. Needleman in the llinked first chapter writes:

We must explore this thought further, for it can help us to see why the idea of a conscious universe appears to modern man as naive, as either a daydream or a nightmare. Science, as we know it, searches the universe for order and pattern. To pursue this search carefully, objectively, the scientist struggles to be free of his feelings, his inclinations to believe. He may follow hunches--what he calls "intuitions"--but in the final analysis he wishes for proofs that will compel the intellect, and only the intellect. The entire organization of modern science, the community of experimenters and researchers, the teaching of science in the schools, the training of specialists, is based on this ideal of proof that compels the mind. Looked at in this way, we may conclude that the practice of modern science is based on a demand for human fragmentation, the division between thought and feeling. Searching for an outer unity, the scientist demands of himself an inner disunity. Perhaps "demands" is not the right word. We should simply say that in his practice the scientist endorses the division and inner fragmentation from which all of us suffer in our daily lives.
We now see why a conscious universe makes no sense to modern science. In the ancient teachings, higher mind or consciousness is never identified with thought associations, no matter how ingenious they may be. If these teachings speak of levels of reality higher than human thought, they are referring, among other things, to an order of intelligence that is inclusive of thought. Consciousness is another word for this power of active relationship or inclusion. Can the power to include ever be understood through a process of internal division and exclusion? Fascinated by the activity of thinking, and drawn to it to the extent of psychological lopsidedness, is it any wonder that we modern scientific men almost never directly experience in ourselves that quality of force which used to be called the Active Intellect, and which in the medieval cosmic scheme was symbolized by a great circle that included the entire created universe?

Naturally then the more culture drifts into fragmentation and the influence of its "experts,"the less will be the chances of awakening to this vertical psychological direction we can open to that awakens us not only to the nature of the great universe but ourselves as a microcosmos that functions under the same laws as our great universe but only smaller in scale. The discovery of our "place" within this vertical scale of "being" reveals human purpose.
As you can see, it is impossible to describe these things unless a person sincerely wishes to be open to them. People like Jacob Needleman do a tremendous service by writing such books and leaving the trail if needed where the serious seeker can find a lot of info that leads IMO to what they are looking for.

[~estrella~]

Originally Posted by Nick_A

But levels of reality are degrees of wholeness where one exists within the other like the Russian dolls. They exist as relationships between cosmoses as well as within one cosmos. You've heard the old expression that "he can't see the forest for the trees." This is an depiction of two levels of reality within a cosmos.

The universe is also constructed on such levels but as a vertical reality or the quality of the moment.. Time for a higher level of reality for example is experienced much differently than for us on earth.

I get the impression that Needleman's "levels of reality" are just the different "realities" perceived at David R. Hawkins' different "levels of consciousness", nothing else. Quite simple. It is just another wording of the same thing. Nick_A, you should read D.R.Hawkins. Begin with "Power vs Force".

Warning: if you don't like or are skeptic about applied kinesiology, then just skip this in your minde and take all the rest.

[Nick_A]

Originally Posted by ~estrella~

I get the impression that Needleman's "levels of reality" are just the different "realities" perceived at David R. Hawkins' different "levels of consciousness", nothing else. Quite simple. It is just another wording of the same thing. Nick_A, you should read D.R.Hawkins. Begin with "Power vs Force".

Warning: if you don't like or are skeptic about applied kinesiology, then just skip this in your minde and take all the rest.

Jacob Needleman is just revealing ancient knowledge. It is the knowledge of being that always was. I haven't read Hawkins but suspect because there is so much of it around, that it is just another modern interpretation that loses the scope and verticality of the big picture. But thanks for the advice. I'll research him.

[~estrella~]

Originally Posted by Nick_A

Jacob Needleman is just revealing ancient knowledge. It is the knowledge of being that always was. I haven't read Hawkins but suspect because there is so much of it around, that it is just another modern interpretation that loses the scope and verticality of the big picture. But thanks for the advice. I'll research him.

No, in the contrary, there is nothing superficial-modern with him. He states that he "translates" ancient knowledge into modern language, without losing the "verticality" as you say, again, on the contrary. For me, he just confirmed all what I've known but could never be sure about it (the same knowledge that you mention in the many excerpts throughout this forum, only that I got it not from your favorite authors but from others, who just say similar things- not necessarily less "deep" - but with different words, sometimes).
He confirmed for me the truth in Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism ("sanatana dharma", that appellation must please you...). As I said, he does not contradict your authors, but on the contrary, confirms with different words, and shows about our world nowadays.
If you look for him: make sure you look for David R., because there are many Hawkins out there!!
Veritas Publishing , for instance:
Veritas Publishing

From the Author of Power vs. Force:

All human endeavors have the common goal of understanding or influencing human experience. To this end, man has developed numerous descriptive and analytical disciplines: Morality, Philosophy, Psychology, and so on. Regardless of what branch of inquiry one starts from—philosophy, political theory, theology—all avenues of investigation eventually converge at a common meeting point: the quest for an organized understanding of the nature of pure consciousness. To explain that which is simple can be difficult indeed. Much of this book is devoted to the process of making the simple obvious. If we can understand even one simple thing in depth, we will have greatly expanded our capacity for comprehending the nature of the universe and life itself.

In my personal view, when people first read things by DRHawkins, they focus too much on Applied Kinesiology, instead of seeing what is the real context/background etc: the understanding of our world, the universe, and beyond.

On that site:
SpiritualWiki - ZitateBuch1
which is a German web-site, you find English quotes (excerpts) of the book "Power vs Force" scrolling down a bit. On the same site on other pages, you'll also find excerpts of other books.
In my view, according to all what you write on this forum, this would be interesting for you. Again, in my view, it is only expanding what you already know.
I wonder if you do "practice" some of what you write, you write about "know Thyself", do you practice anything in order to know "yourself"? Meditation, for the least? Etc?
One may know so many things about the Absolute without never knowing Him. (or It, if you prefer, for some reason I prefer Him.)

[Nick_A]

Originally Posted by ~estrella~

No, in the contrary, there is nothing superficial-modern with him. He states that he "translates" ancient knowledge into modern language, without losing the "verticality" as you say, again, on the contrary. For me, he just confirmed all what I've known but could never be sure about it (the same knowledge that you mention in the many excerpts throughout this forum, only that I got it not from your favorite authors but from others, who just say similar things- not necessarily less "deep" - but with different words, sometimes).
He confirmed for me the truth in Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism ("sanatana dharma", that appellation must please you...). As I said, he does not contradict your authors, but on the contrary, confirms with different words, and shows about our world nowadays.
If you look for him: make sure you look for David R., because there are many Hawkins out there!!
Veritas Publishing , for instance:
Veritas Publishing
In my personal view, when people first read things by DRHawkins, they focus too much on Applied Kinesiology, instead of seeing what is the real context/background etc: the understanding of our world, the universe, and beyond.

On that site:
SpiritualWiki - ZitateBuch1
which is a German web-site, you find English quotes (excerpts) of the book "Power vs Force" scrolling down a bit. On the same site on other pages, you'll also find excerpts of other books.
In my view, according to all what you write on this forum, this would be interesting for you. Again, in my view, it is only expanding what you already know.
I wonder if you do "practice" some of what you write, you write about "know Thyself", do you practice anything in order to know "yourself"? Meditation, for the least? Etc?
One may know so many things about the Absolute without never knowing Him. (or It, if you prefer, for some reason I prefer Him.)

Yes, my path has precise methods. It first presents a skeleton of the universe and of our being and invites us to fill it in through impartial self knowledge.

I never speak of it in public because it is meaningless when taken superficially and it doesn't cater to the secular mind but rather begins with the awareness of our nothingness. I would be hurting others if I referred to it in a negative atmosphere since it could develop negative associations in another that could hurt them at a future time.