"If you see the Buddha walking by the road, kill him!"
Are you religious? If you call yourself Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Pagan, Jew, or Hindu, I'm going to say you are not religious. You are not religious because you are divisive. In fact, I would say that to be truly religious is to be atheistic because A-Theism is the rejection of theology. It's theology that must die.
Perhaps this can be clearer when we hear the playwright Goethe state in "Faust," "Give them the stone of Sophia and you'll find philosophy gone, and what's left? The stone." Now, this makes no sense. Philosophy means lover of Wisdom, lover of Sophia. How can we kill off philosophy and then find the stone of Sophia? Well, what Goethe is saying is that the idealism of philosophy is what is in error. Indeed, all idealisms are in error. It is our thoughts that need to die. It's like a man who talks a lot about being a lover of women and a man who devotes himself to loving a woman through his actions and thoughts.
In using the term idealism, I am not just talking of a state of perfection. The world is already perfect; it's just that what we call imperfections are manifestations of perfection that we don't like. For example, if there were no diseases or death, the planet would overpopulate and not be able to feed the creatures nursing upon Her breast. Furthermore, death is necessary for change. So, the temporal theologies, theories and philosophies must die in order for the new to be born. As a species we are stuck in our philosophies and are thus limiting our ability to evolve.
One can die to philosophy and become most realized through the experience of emptiness. For example, the Bible's Genesis 1:2 says, "and the Earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep." People who are blinded by theology, theories and philosophies take this as the literal state of the beginning of the cosmos from several thousand years ago. Scientists say this time is billions of years ago, while some religious folks say it was a bit over 6,000 years".around the time the Bible was being written.
You could call this state of the universe the original black hole. But what if this black hole isn't from several thousand, or even several million, years ago? Perhaps we are living in a black hole? In fact, this screen you are reading was absorbed by two black holes nestled on both sides of your nose. This article is not "out there," it's in your head. So is the beginning of the universe. Indeed, the beginning of the universe is non-local, which means it is everywhere and yet is not locatable.
It is this state of emptiness that the mystics of various traditions try to get to. In the physics of David Bohm, this is called the "Unmanifest Implicate Order" which gives rise to the "Manifest Explicit Order." The Unmanifest is the place of ultimate potential. There is no end to the possibilities there.
This calls into question the scientists love for objectivity. Objectivity is a farce. Smoke a little pot, drop some acid, or have a couple of drinks and the universe looks different. Furthermore, how a skunk sees things and how you see them are different. Why should an intellectualized scientist think his take on the world is better than that of a skunk? With the skunk, and all other creatures, the potentials of perception's perspectives of the universe are limitless. Indeed, each one of us, me writing, your reading, are creating the universe from a unique perspective. Drop a little acid (LSD) and you'll see a different world".and if I joined you on this trip down the rabbit hole, I too will see a different world.
So, objectivity, meaning that one sees the world "as it is," is a lie. No one sees the world as it is for the world is looking at itself from unique perspectives. What is real is what is looking and what is looking takes on several perspectives. A rattle snake just sees the world differently than us. Yet, the rattlesnake sees (or smells, feels) the world as a rattlesnake and we see it as we see it as a human being. Who has the right view? Depends on whether you ask the rattlesnake or the intellectualized scientist studying the snake.
Just as an eye needs a mirror to see itself, the world needs us as a unique perspective to know itself. Thus, Socrates' dictate to "know thyself" isn't really complete. The command should read, "know thyself and know the world as thyself." As the Hindu Upanishads state in regards to Brahmin, the Self (Nature), "it is above, it is below, it is, in fact, this entire world. When one knows this, one knows bliss in the Self and in all worlds is free."
It is in this way that the mystics say we must die to ourselves in order to know the Self. Indeed, there is a point in meditation in which one can transcend the body and see one's self as non-local, meaning not locatable and, at the same time, being throughout the world. This happened to me once. During this time, I saw the room I was in as being within me. Suddenly, there was a perceptual shift in which the room I was in was in me and I was the entire room, as well as the greater universe outside the room. I then experienced a deep knowledge that I could drop the body at will. I became scared and ended the meditation.
This could be what people are talking about in near death experiences where they transcend themselves and can look down at the situation they are in. Interestingly, after this point, the reporting of near death experiences become different and become more a function of their religious beliefs. Thus, a Christian may see his or her self with Christ, or with the devil (if they are filled with guilt) while a Native American may find his self sailing across a great expanse of the "happy hunting ground" he was taught about in his youth. Or, perhaps if you're filled with guilt you will find yourself in some kind of hell during your near death experience? Perhaps the possibilities are endless, just as Mind is endless.
Perhaps if we use our own minds as an example, we can understand eternal life. Pay attention to your thoughts. They arise, reach an apex, and return to the depths of your mind. What if you are a thought arising from the Universal Mind? You too arise, reach an apex, and return to the universe. So, do you identify yourself with your mind, body and spirit or do you know yourself as a manifestation of Mind, Body and Spirit.
As Christ is seen as the Son of God (and Man), then so are you. Myth is about us.
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