Life after Death

When I die there will be no experience—no regrets or joyous reunions, for there will be no apparatus to manage or attend such consciousness or effort. Even if “spirit” carried on in some idea or another, it is a mindless, blank stare at a static white board without sensory perception for eternity, as unaware as the universe is of itself. Biology fills the void for a time. Life is a symptom of our universe, but it is not intentional, nor has any ideas at all about how it happens. Funny, just like you and me.

Biology is a byproduct of the universe—a symptom. The cycles are endless. The earth is like a slow motion chia pet. Humans have been on this cosmic stage about 20 minutes. Imagine a time-lapse from beginning to end—it would be no mystery.

Taking a Hindu version at face value, if I am here to grow to perfection through repetition, over and over and to resolve the unsolved desires and issues of karma, why would I have ever been born in the first place, having had no karma to be born with?

I have possibly however, inherited such a thing from evolution, that monkeys rang up my karmic credit after they received it from their progenotes, and so on and so on, all the way back to the spawn of life. If it ever died out, nothing would ever know it ever was a thing at all.

That which truly exists must exist all the time, but the body does not exist all the time. Therefore, it cannot be real.

The ultimate oxymoron is life after death. That would contradict the meaning of both.

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Physics and Mysticism

“All this was familiar to me from my research in high-energy physics, but until that moment I had only experienced it through graphs, diagrams and mathematical theories. As I sat on that beach my former experiences came to life; I saw cascades of energy coming down from outer space, in which particles were created and destroyed in rhythmic pulses; I saw the atoms of the elements and those of my body participating in this cosmic dance of energy; I felt its rhythm and I heard its sound, and at that moment I knew that this was the Dance of Shiva, the Lord of Dancers worshipped by the Hindus— Frifjof Capra, The Tao of Physics

In essence the dance of Shiva, a high speed representation of the atomic level—high energy movements, pulsations, and rhythms.

“I was particularly attracted to the puzzling aspects of Zen which reminded me of the puzzles in quantum theory. At first, however, relating the two was a purely intellectual exercise. To overcome the gap between rational, analytical thinking and the meditative experience of mystical truth, was, and still is, very difficult for me.—Frifjof Capra

Mysticism is utilizing what has been experienced, while physics is theorizing, describing, and viewing the fields behind the instruments of what is probable. They have the same descriptions of matter and energy—one through boot strapped logic and rigorous tests, the other through intuition and the meditative arts.

Yet throughout the ages these displays of the cosmic dance are interpreted differently, based on the available language, technology, and culture. How would Black Elk describe this today? “Crazy Horse went into the world where there is nothing but the spirits of all things. That is the real world that is behind this one, and everything we see here is something like a shadow from that one—Black Elk

Or the Incas and their depiction of Alpa Camasca, meaning “animated earth”, or the Kofan and their ability to “intuitively” read the vibrations of plants and communicate their usefulness in language and practice—through a special process of seeing the cosmic rhythms.

“At the same time, everything is more than it appears, for the visible world is only one level of perception. Behind every tangible form, every plant and animal, is a shadow dimension, a place invisible to ordinary people but visible to the shaman”—Wade Davis, on the people of the Piraparaná, Amazon

So there we have it (there are many more) multiple cultures and even physicists describing a world very different from our normal level of magnification, each pointing to the universe as a unified cosmic dance—a dance without a regulating force.

“In other words I feel, no longer a stranger in the world, but that the external world were my own body…but a very overwhelming feeling that everything that happens, everything that I have ever done, anything anyone else has ever done, is part of a harmonious design—that there is no error at all—Alan Watts

It is probably true quite generally that in the history of human thinking the most fruitful developments frequently take place at those points where two different lines of thought meet—Werner Heisenberg

What about when 10 lines of thought, jungles, and time irrelevant meeting at the doorstep of modern physics? Is that evidence?

Are You You, Or Are You It?

For what it’s worth—the idea that everything and everyone are separate bits and entities is an unscientific, social construct.

Everything you see is seen on the inside of your brain, while at the same time, that brain is on the inside of everything you see. Everyone else is also inside what they are seeing too (insert puddle analogy here) I know this seems rather obvious when you spell it out, so why does one feel we are individual agents of it? Why think of consciousness as an emergent property that arises from the brain—tradition, hypothesis, original sin? Why? Here’s an idea—

“The brain does not create or produce consciousness; rather, it filters it”—Peter Fenwick.

“My brain is only a receiver”—Nikola Tesla

Your brain is primarily a receiver too. Sure it has some memory and some habitual functions to conserve energy, but since birth it has received input—countless lines of opinion, indoctrination, definitions, and visual stimuli form a particular viewpoint and, occasionally can regurgitate a few lines of coherent feedback out of the mix, or pull an idea out of thin air (inspiration). How could an emergent property like a brain, developed by outside stimuli, suddenly become independent of it—unless that’s how you were taught to see it? There is no outside stimuli. You’re going through it and it’s going through you. That’s why your body is covered in little tubes. In and out, that’s what it does.

So you are inside of what you are looking at, and inside your brain we are seeing what we’re inside of. It is not outside you—it is you. The whole universe is you. It is all one thing. It’s all one process.

Our current thinking is a neat trick based mostly on a Hebrew interpretation from an authoritative culture where you are the created subject of a king—independent agents of freewill guilty of original sin, that you and your actions are somehow separate from the environment. This illusion permeates deep in our culture. You are responsible to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling”. You are on your own—but, “Any immutable attribute of oneself, cannot be a sin”. (1)

Maybe your brain being a receiver of consciousness is why it is so difficult to change your personality. It is 3 pounds of fat, receiving impulses and scanning for danger. How do you make it stop is the question? There are ways.

We are apertures of the entire cosmos, independent only as semi-unique physical structures—outposts in a self regulating organism where there is no freewill. Everything is a reaction to the flow of stimuli—even a well thought-out decision. Enjoy the ride!

Reincarnation—Fact, Wishful, or Something Else?

Some children are remembering past lives of themselves (or others?) with the two most compelling accounts in recent memory being Anne Frank (Barbro Karlén) and pilot James M. Huston Jr.

At 3 years old, James claimed to have been shot down in WWII and told his parents his real name, the ship, the mates, and so on. This persisted so they investigated and found his story contained many obscure facts and corroborations with the deceased man’s living relatives—including old shipmates from the USS Natoma—in the battle of the pacific.

It’s interesting to examine western vs eastern thought on the subject, where westerners turn to reincarnation as a comforting idea but difficult to believe, while the easterner has no trouble believing it but wants to get out of its endless cycles of futility. Funny, really.

So, from where do these past memories arise in these kids? The stories are many, and now with the internet many of the details can be verified using an objective approach.

There is a grey area between life and death, a conscious brain and consciousness. Where do these memories come from? What else could it be? Is everything a cold hard fact, or is there more to it that makes Hebrew religions and hard atheism alike, uncomfortable?

It happens in every culture and even those religions that don’t believe it, are being forced to consider it, like in the story of Marty Martyn.

These two accounts are also covered in depth on Netflix “Surviving Death” episode 6

Science and Religion—Maybe Mix in a Little?

Has any religious doctrine ever supplanted a scientific discovery? I used to answer that question with an emphatic no, but I may have been wrong about that. It is highly likely that Newtonian physics was supplanted by the Upanishads—the ideas from Hindu philosophy called quantum mechanics.

What’s different about the Upanishad -vs- say, Christianity, is the Upanishad can be made into math by the most skilled of all scientific minds. It can be tested, and it can be fit into what we know about the nature of duality, consciousness, mind, and matter.

Is it mere coincidence that physics can be so mystical in similarity, that uncertainty is certain, and that through observation we find that waves become particles (matter) and that the “real world” is illusory (not what it appears to be) upon our observation of them?

“The Upanishads describe how reality arises out of consciousness. But consciousness cannot be found inside our bodies as a substance or an organ.” That trying to see the Self (Brahman) with the same electrons and photons as It, the projector only records interference because me are mixing waves of the same substance. What is sought is the seeker—the seeker is the sought.

“Since we haven’t been able to locate or explain this interaction, we’re left with a deceptively simple choice: either consciousness or reality doesn’t exist”—Erwin Schrödinger

But I despise the two choice debate. And as we see psychologically, consciously, physiologically, and every where in between, that consciousness is reality. There is no such thing as experiencing a non-experience. It’s all one thing. Everything is waves—some long and some short. Some last a lifetime while others millennia, but nothing is permanent —so no thing is real but one thing.

Realizing this has boosted physics out of the arena and into space.

On the other hand, the Upanishads uphold an idealist view – that consciousness exists by itself, and that the physical world depends on it. There is no objective reality that exists independently of the observer. Schrödinger supported this view and lamented the aversion for it: “it must be said that to Western thought this doctrine has little appeal, it is unpalatable, it is dubbed fantastic, unscientific. Well, so it is because our science – Greek science – is based on objectivation, whereby it has cut itself off from an adequate understanding of the subject of cognisance, of the mind”

Curious to know what other physicists of the era were influenced by the upanishads?

Werner Heisenberg, Carl Sagan, Robert Oppenheimer, Erwin Schrödinger, Niels Bohr, Nikola Tesla…

The golden age of physics and invention had a common thread that is wont to ignore (customary). The Upanishads and Indian philosophies date back about 5000, years. Their rebirth was witnessed at the turn of the 20th century.

“I do believe that this is precisely the point where our present way of thinking does need to be amended, perhaps by a bit of blood-transfusion from Eastern thought”—Erwin Schrödinger

Beginning the Finishing

Good vs Evil—Human Game Pieces

“I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.” Isaiah 45:7

—The word translated “evil” is from a Hebrew word that means “adversity, affliction, calamity, distress, misery. and woe “ The word also refers to moral evil, and often does have this meaning in the Hebrew Scriptures.

If god created everything “but” one thing—how would this even be possible? Is she that good?

On another note, Jesus stands on the right hand of god, but who stands on the left? Why does it never say? Never let your left hand know what your right hand is doing… There are clues so lets take a look.

Isaiah sums it up just fine but so does Job. Satan is the prosecutor set to test Job, while Jesus is the defense attorney. After striking a back-room deal, all three were in on the trials of Job—together! They are one in purpose and different in approach, but working together no doubt—if any of it were true. It actually makes a better Hindu script.

In Hindu philosophy this all works just fine. God is everything and nothing happens that doesn’t happen to god. It’s the best thing going to relieve the boredom’s of infinite living. In fact it’s a drama so interesting that it comes and goes in cycles forever. It is your karma, meaning; it is your doing.

Christianity is at odds with its own doctrine. Contradiction #1267 and counting. It’s what happens when you shoehorn monotheism into an obvious knot.

The goal is to identify what is actually going on; not what we wish was going on…

Your God is not God

A man who believes in God can never find God. If you are open to reality, there can be no belief in reality. If you are open to the unknown, there can be no belief in it. After all, belief is a form of self-protection, and only a petty mind can believe in God.

As long as belief exists, there can never be the unknown; you cannot think about the unknown, thought cannot measure it. The mind is the product of the past, it is the result of yesterday, and can such a mind be open to the unknown? It can only project an image, but that projection is not real; so your god is not God, it is an image of your own making, an image of your own gratification.

There can be reality only when the mind understands the total process of itself and comes to an end. When the mind is completely empty-only then is it capable of receiving the unknown. The mind is not purged until it understands the content of relationship—its relationship with property, with people until it has established the right relationship with everything. Until it understands the whole process of conflict in relationship, the mind cannot be free. Only when the mind is wholly silent, completely inactive, not projecting, when it is not seeking and is utterly still —only then that which is eternal and timeless comes into being— J. Krishnamurti

Now with the word ‘god’ there is nothing to which it refers, so each man creates his own image of that for which there is no reference. The theologian does it in one way, the intellectual in another, and the believer and the non-believer in their own different ways.

Your belief in God will give you the experience of what you call God. You will always experience what you believe and nothing else. And this invalidates your experience. The Christian will see virgins, angels and Christ, [a Heavenly Father] and the Hindu will see similar deities in extravagant plurality. The Muslim, the Buddhist, the Jew and the Communist are the same. Belief conditions its own supposed proof. What is important is not what you believe but only why you believe at all. Why do you believe? And what difference does it make to what actually is whether you believe in one thing or another? J. Krishnamurti

“Belief comes from fear and is the most destructive thing. One must be free of fear and of belief. Belief divides people, makes them hard, makes them hate each other and cultivate war. In a roundabout way, unwillingly, you are admitting that fear begets belief. Freedom from belief is necessary to face the fact of fear. Belief like any other ideal is an escape from “what is”. When there is no fear then the mind is in quite a different dimension. Only then can you ask the question whether there is a God or not. A mind clouded by fear or belief is incapable of any kind of understanding, any realization of what truth is. Such a mind lives in illusion and can obviously not come upon that which is Supreme. The Supreme has nothing to do with your or anybody else’s belief, opinion or conclusion”.

Hope is evidence of despair. Faith is evidence you’ve accepted that. Through this system of belief the trap is sprung and servitude to dogmas will forever divide us through that belief—any belief will do.

Project Reality

Which mythology is the true religion? This is interesting

He said “the world is a projection of the one who sees it, in exactly the same way that a dream is a projection of the dreamer—that in fact everything you see is your own projection from your mind. When that projecting system vanishes, then you no longer see things as inside or outside, you simply recognize it as being your own self”.

“But until that moment (awakening), everything you see is a an internal projection, in much the same way that a movie is projected on to a screen, but it’s all going on inside your own head”—David Godman, excerpt on Sri Ramana Maharshi

What we see as reality is a projection from the mind (the receiver) onto the background (which is consciousness) that permeates everything. Like watching a movie in the theater, you can never see the screen behind the images. That screen is consciousness that pervades the entire cosmos.

Our minds are filled with cultural distractions based on incorrect myth—that you are separate ego. “I”, is then fed by grasping at objects focusing thought projected outside of the Self.

When you pursue the identification of “I” by focusing deeply on who is the the thinker of those thoughts, it leaves, vanishes, goes back to the source—that is the moment of awakening, and seeing the true reality that is not objects at all, but the Self, which is one. That is god in this philosophy, and it is you, and it is everything—and good and evil are all inflicted on itself.

Nothing can be seen without a background—and consciousness is all that. There is only one philosophical question worth pursuing; Is any of it serious? When all is said and pondered into paralysis and analyzed ad nauseum, what is it that remains besides I am?

We are connected to the world by little tubes and nerve endings on our skin. The whole cosmos perpetually passes through us, and us through it.

My first try at painting

What Really Was The Good News?

The awareness of full consciousness—that same ethereal beginning that has been the primer for many religions, cultures, counter cultures, shaman, and silent men and women since time immemorial, has dominated the landscape of thought since man could put into words.

Since the religion is now and forever about following Jesus instead of his message, shows his followers did not understand “the good news” any more than the modern day followers of Jesus. Then, shortly after his death, the intellectual transfer to the stupor of faith, counterfeited the mystery to carefully guard the irrelevance of the church. Now “ever learning but never coming to a knowledge of the truth“. Welcome to belief in faith.

The early church opted for idol worship and sequestered Jesus—the only true son of god, which stopped the real gospel in its tracks. We certainly can’t have anyone else running around like gods, can we? So for now we simply have been persuaded we can never measure up, relegating ourselves to hoping for grace—which was never the point. But alas, now you can never compare yourself to Jesus no matter what the effort—or be the heretic, for only He and god are one, but that too, was never the point.

When Christianity institutionalized Jesus as the one, it essentially ensured castration—the gospel will never usher in the kingdom of god on earth—so we have look elsewhere.

So what secret was he trying to reveal? It had to be subtle, for like so many others that claimed I AM were put to death by revealing what we really are—showing how ignorance can easily blaspheme the truth.

 John 10:34—”Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?

35 If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken;

36 Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the a Son of God?” (In the Greek he is a son of God, not the son of god. Italics in the KJV delineates translator interpolation, not emphasis—and in this case incorrectly. A son of god means our immortal existence is a coexistence of equals, not a monarchy. We are all of the same status, and deep down I think most of us (you) know this.

The term “son of god” in the original context implies “equal in nature and authority to god”.

Psalm 82:6 I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.

The ultimate reality—that all of us are each the cosmic whole. The great mystics have all seen this. This is the central mystery Jesus wanted us to see.

Although writers are constrained by the language and religious bias of their culture (using familiar terms like father, and He) Jesus was one who knew the game and that universal and everlasting life is wonderfully crafted and masterfully—us

This ideal state of intellectual and ethereal perfection can be achieved by mankind through purely human means that takes no belief to achieve—for it is a method that can be taught. But who will listen? Certainly not me, the sinner. I could never be like god, so follow the leader we must?

But the things he did we were also to do—“even greater things than these“, but we’ll never do it when we substitute our true nature for faith and idol worship.

So here we are. Here I AM, as those who know have known for a long time. There is no monarchial boss or patriarchal authority. It is an endless happening. Life is what we do. It is what we are.

The good news is not simply that Jesus was a son of god, but to open everyone’s eyes that they are too. Equal measures of the whole thing. I and the ethereal are one. It doesn’t help that the word ‘God’ has been hijacked to mean what it means. If we’re going to participate as who we actually are, a new word would help.

If I were to believe in god, I never will see it nor be it.

The Christian definitions of god and father hierarchy are at odds with the experience. If you were to get a peek behind the curtain and see that it is you—you are the whole thing, you would look at people differently, knowing full well that they are too, but they haven’t learned how to grasp it? Wouldn’t that make you smile, knowing how simply and effectively we have fooled ourselves for the moment? That there is no hierarchy or intimate bosses taking notes on your behavior?

But really, this is all a necessary component of the physical experience. If everybody recognized this we’d have the kingdom of god on earth. That would be silly to have it “be done on earth as it is in heaven”. So we stick with faith and worship the messenger instead of experience the whole of the message. It can’t possibly be our doing, can it? That would mean personal responsibility. We’d rather follow the gurus which is obvious because that’s what humans do—look outside themselves for validation.

What Denomination of Atheism are You?

How much do we need to know before we can safely say we don’t believe?

Having not much in the way of indoctrinations outside Christianity, my unbelief is limited to a specific scope of practice—a field test of the words and ideas that were forced on me without my consent since birth. Really, can we reject all the other gods we don’t yet know?

Since we don’t know much about eastern religion, nor the meanings of orthodoxy, or Hinduism, most of us here have an atheism to the Yahweh god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The other gods we hardly know, so considering blanket disdain or unbelief in something unknown is nearly impossible but yet, hardly worth the time to explore it out.

The key strong belief lies in pretending this life holds vast importance, that your worry and concern are somehow moral, noble and righteous. But this just isn’t true, and fearing to really live life because of the dogmas has crippled humanity into a fear of being afraid, instead of allowing life to play out the scenes. Fear as a normal part of this exploration, like the order of operations, first comes fear, then comes the faith (which isn’t faith at all, but worry)

We have been conditioned to believe here in the Christian god out of fear and faithless worry, but really it’s all the other gods we don’t know that we should be concerned, worried, and watching about—for we know this one isn’t real.