MAYA-GAIA INTRODUCTION & SITEMAP Page Update 08 24 07
Note: My Anthropic Trilogy web-book, evolving since 1997, is a chronicle of my passing all considered opinion through the lens of my Nirvikalpa Samadhi with both an open-mind and healthy skepticism.
Beyond the Implicate Order?
Implicate Order David Bohm's explanation of reality involves what he calls an "implicate" and "explicate" order, with vague references to love, compassion, and other similar attributes that [he implies] may lie beyond both the implicate and explicate orders. The implicate order is the ultimate reality, which underlies our present perception of the world. The reality that we perceive is what Bohm calls the explicate order. All order and variety, according to Bohm, is stored at all times in the implicate order in an enfolded or unmanifested state.
Physical dualism may be a low energy approximation to a deeper monism of cosmic consciousness called "the super-implicate order. A super-implicate order is related to the implicate. order as the implicate order is related to the explicate order. Jack Sarfatti on Bohm and physical duality
Philosophical musings by Tim Boucher on the explicate/implicate orders, solipsism and examples of some things that only exist as potential until brought into reality by a human observation. See: Copenhagen Interpretation Quantum Mechanics
Tuning the Mind in the Frequency Domain: An Integral Approach to Karl Pribram's Holonomic Brain Theory and David Bohm's Implicate Order by Shelli Renée Joye, BSEE, MA, PhD - This Pribram-Bohm composite holoflux theory is congruent with established principles of radio communication engineering. Extending the panpsychist paradigm that consciousness is inherent in the structure of the universe, the holoflux theory describes a single, dynamic, nondual but tunable energy. This energy cycles mathematically, in a lens-like process of transformation between the two domains, the explicate order and the implicate order.
In his book Physics of the Soul 2001- Amit Goswami interprets death, reincarnation and karma in terms of a quantum paradigm and in the chapter The Complete Story of the Tibetan Book of the Dead- presents a definition of an advanced state of samadhi which matches that which I experienced. On page 152 he writes:
NDErs have.."a genuine samadhi experience, an experience of a state of consciousness beyond ego, to be sure, but it is not a true experience of the bardo at the moment of death; it is not deep enough.
What happens if one goes deep enough? For example, deep enough to see the clear light. In progressive states of samadhi, arrived at in the waking state itself via meditation and some grace, one goes through the same kind of ascent and descent, as in the bardos. Samadhi, in which the subject-object split is maintained, and thus some residual identity with the physical body, savikalpa samadhi, is the more common samadhi experience. But there is also mention in the literature of the rare variety, nirvikalpa samadhi, in which there is no division of subject and object and one's identity completly merges with the bliss body, albeit temporarily. In India, there is a strong belief that no one can survive such a complete shift of identity to the bliss body- to the clear light- for more than twenty-one days. (I have read that the sage Ramakrishna himself made such a statement.)" See also: Amit Goswami (video)
The Tibetian Book of the Dead describes events in a state of duality as are scenarios in contemporary NDEs so I assume Goswami is comparing the bardo state to a savikalpa samadhi. For an 2008 update WIE interview with Amit Goswami by Craig Hamilton. In regards to the idea that one can survive in a bliss body (literally in a state of non dual consciousness) for 21 days- see Sahaja and Jivanmukta myths. I would rate the credibility of this notion on a par with the date the Earth was created by Bishop Ussher who in 1650 CE, arrived at an estimate of 4004-OCT-22 BCE by calculating the sum total of all lives of the begats in the bible. Dr. John Lightfoot, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge in the 19th century refined the calculations and arrived at 4004-OCT-23 BCE, at 9 AM. (We assume that this was Greenwich Mean Time)
The fact that I had absolutely no a priori knowledge regarding any aspect of such an experience, is evidence to suggest it is an authentic example of synchronicity with its many perennial features embodied in classical descriptions of Vedic nirvikalpa samadhi and Buddhist satori.
Constructivist Epistemologies of Mysticism: by Michael Stoeber (1992). A Critique and a Revision. Religious Studies, pp 107-116 Department of Religious Studies, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Some philosophers of mysticism stress the dependence of mystical experience upon the conceptual categories of the mystic. This has been referred to as an intentionalist or constructivist view, where the mystic "constructs" the framework of mystical encounter, or experiences that which was "intended" at the outset of the mystical path. Steven Katz, for example, insists that the beliefs, values and concepts of mystics directly affect the nature of their mystical experiences. He says, "the ontological structure(s) of each major mystical tradition is different and this pre-experiential, inherited structure directly enters into the mystical occasion itself". In contrast to essentialist theories which hold all mystical experience to be phenomenologically the same though subject to varying interpretations, this constructivist view interprets the tremendous differences in mystical descriptions to be evidence of differences in experience type. See also A critique of Steven Katz's "Contextualism": An Asian Perspective by Shigenori Nagatomo. Introduction abstract: Response to Katz's contention that mystical experiences found in various religions of the world are different from one another because the cultural and social contexts in which they occur are all different.
Challenging Steven Katz's assertion that there are no unmediated experiences by Gary M. Jaron, 2015 with bibliography of his 22 other papers about understanding mystical experience as a result of the writings of Steven Katz. Steven Katz in 1978 changed how the Academy analyzed mystical experience. This was an important achievement and brought the study to new depths. However, he also created a false description of human experience and many have attempted to challenge him. 'Let me state the single epistemological assumption that has exercised my thinking - There are no pure (i.e. unmediated) experiences.' A simple statement that was flawed the moment it was made. This paper will in greater detail than my prior paper on Katz, Re: article dealing with Donald Evan's challenge to Katz and will disclose the flaw in the logic structure of that statement. It will demonstrate why it can not be accepted as valid on its face. This paper will offer a defensible alternative to his assertion concerning experience. One that has implications for the study of mysticism.
The Taoist Mystical Experience: - Analysis of the Numinous and Mystical Aspects by Jennifer Layton. In his essay "Mysticism and Meditation," Robert M. Gimello's praises Ninian Smart for his distinction between the "numinous" and "mystical" experience; however, this distinction can be misleading for it assumes that the "numinous" experience belongs solely to those mystics of the prophetic religions - Judaism, Islam and Christianity - and that the religious experience of "certain strands of Buddhism (along with some varieties of Taoism, Hinduism, etc.)" is exclusively "mystical" (Katz 171). Gimello, paraphrasing Smart, goes on to describe a numinous experience as "an encounter with a being wholly other than oneself . . . gratuitous, in the sense that those subject to it are not themselves responsible for its occurrence" (Katz 171). By contrast, the mystical experience is "not so much an encounter with a `sacred other' as it is the interior attainment of a certain supernatural state of mind" and is the result of the "subject's own efforts in following a certain contemplative discipline or method" (Katz 172). Layton argues the distinctions are more problematic.
The Reality of the Unmediated: Traumatic and Mystical Experience by Luke Fodor (New York University) Unmediated Mysticism: Forman, discontent with prescriptive accounts of mysticism, argues that certain mystical experiences are, in fact, unmediated, although he agrees that Katz's theory is effective to an extent. Forman claims that certain strains of mysticism are able to produce an unmediated experience that he calls a 'pure consciousness event'. Forman, who claims to have experienced one, defines the pure consciousness event 'as a transient phenomenon during which the subject remains conscious (wakeful, alert - not sleeping or unconscious) yet devoid of all mental content' (1993.p.708) If such an event does occur, its unmediated nature is evident through its lack of content: however, this is just the point in question. Katz's beginning assumption that there are 'no pure experiences' clearly discounts Forman's pure consciousness event. I shall address the larger question of methodology and definition later.
[mg comment: How Katz has been awarded such authority given IMO the major confounding in his consructivist theory as it applies to non dual mystical state...is beyond me. Here, he specifically refers to the religious experience of non dual traditions as exclusively "mystical" that necessarily includes the pinnacle of non dual consciousness- Nirvikalpa Samadhi as an intrapsychic state resulting from the subject's effort. Once more he is utterly close-minded to the transnuminous nature of Nirvikalpa Samadhi in the Atman/Brahman precepts of the Advaita tradition, and the substantial evidence that it can also arise spontaneously, unmediated out of a naive and non religious mindset.)
See also more refutation of Steven Katz constructivist arguments and here
The coherent gatekeeper "intelligence" that directly conveyed to me that- "TO CONTINUE- YOU MUST AGREE TO DIE!" and which I took as an offer for me to choose between returning or continuing my journey- came from an transnuminous, omniscient consciousness orchestrating my experience which, for this moment, "allowed" me free will within a relational duality. (See also my further examination of free will .) This presence reappeared on my return journey where I received the "message" that "YOU ARE RETURNING- YOUR DEATH WAS TEMPORARY! This also establishes that a personal relationship manifests between ourselves and God at least in the dual states of a samadhi consciousness and suggests it can extend into an immanence in our phenomenal life. There is a similar confirmation regarding the efficacy of prayer in my fervent "asking" (imploring) that I be permitted to remember and the possibility that my prayer was answered and the subsequent "trickster" manner in which I was provided reassurance that revealing the details of my TEST for continuing my journey, in these Samadhi Chronicles, would be OK.
I examine the extraordinary synchronicities in my Nirvikalpa Samadhi journey with the scenario and features in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad that extend into my confrontation with the cosmic gatekeeper (I term cosmos gaia) and subsequent annihilation and transformation to non dual union with the godhead.
Knock and it shall be opened, ask and you will receive.
These are all features which deserve to be interpreted as mere religious epiphenomena except that they were experienced by someone who was explicitly anti-religious, non-spiritual and ignorant of all metaphysical precedents.
Update 12 01 06
My recent discovery of an
account of a samadhi experience
with an almost identical description of how a God consciousness manifested just prior to ascending into the pure light of transcendent non-duality plus the feature of being sucked through a tunnel.
Apon passing through the "gatekeeper" my transport again accelerated and my consciousness seemed to be swelling and at a moment when I
felt I was losing sense of selfness, I was sharply aware of a blazing pure-white light - brighter and broader than a welder's arc -
starting at my feet, that coursed steadily up my body- consumming my substance like a fuse ignited. In about six seconds, it reached my
chest and I remember a moment of apprehensive wonder in anticipation that my mind was about to be annihilated. As that happened- my
swelling consciousness lost ALL sense of apprehension or selfness and in the next instance- in a slow-motion burst- inflated into a
cosmic state of light, bliss and love.
This seemed to fill infinite space yet there was a vague awareness of an outer limit. There is no doubt that this is a poignant memory of
the dynamics of my transformation from a state of duality into one of absolute non-duality.
Update 12 05 11 An animated Flash portrayal of the moment in my samadhi journey when I had emerged from the transporting energy stream and a brilliant white light appeared at my feet, steadily coursed up my body annihilating my substance and when it enveloped my head - my consciousness inflated in a slow-motion explosion to Nirvikalpa samadhi non dual/no self - like a drop dissolving in a cosmic ocean of purest light/bliss/love.
This love poses a paradox in that it had the poignancy and quality of the totality of love of family, wife, lovers, self, others and nature and seemed to infuse throughout this cosmic space- yet it also seemed to commune with "other similar systems" beyond. There is great uncertainty over whether this cosmic duality is not simply something I conceptualized in recalling the entire senario or whether the felt love at the time was totally without object.
In estimating the real time my entire journey lasted I can only offer a guess based on my sense of the time from when I left phenomenal consciousness to the time I woke up from an indeterminent time in deep sleep several hours later. My intuition would put the entire time for my journey at around an hour- plus or minus 20 minutes with the total time spent in a non dual state no more than 20 minutes.
There was only a vague memory of a reverse dynamic with a sleepy awareness of "my" light shrinking and of "my" self-consciousness reforming as 'I' entered the reversed stream of energy. There was a moment when 'my' consciousness received a clear "message" that YOU ARE RETURNING- THAT THE DEATH WAS TEMPORARY- which caused a felt sense of awe and gratitude but then some anxiety 'I' might not remember- because 'I' remember repeatedly "asking" that 'I' (be allowed to) remember- "let 'me' remember - let 'me' remember". During my return journey although 'I' was aware of 'my' body with arms crossed and a sense of a 'self' awareness - 'I' had no concept of my human identity or an Earthly reality.
The
veridical feature
in my account which somewhat resembles one reported in NDEs is the "field perception" of seeing my sleeping body at a distance at the
instant I just started to enter the "filamentous tube"...a numinous artifact much less commonly reported. (In recall, I would estimate
the perspective at that moment was from a height of between 20 to 30 feet above my body.)
Samadhi Return Animated Gif The Bible makes
reference to a "silver cord" and accounts of a luminous thread or astral cord in
OBEs
and esoteric literature can be found
here.
Consciousness Wormhole An extended examination of this 'veridical' feature and it's relativity to concepts of astral cords and wormhole paradigms- with additional illustrations.
Update 01 07 12 A slow-mo animated gif portraying the moment in returning from my Nirvikalpa non-dual episode (now back in a state of conscious duality) when the energy stream injected me into a funnel opening to an astral cord connected to the top of the head of my unconscious body - some 30 or so feet below.
In regards to the feature I described briefly in my account- "my consciousness rapidly intensified and as the stream sped me on, an ever-increasing clarity seemed to reveal all personal and collective memory, knowledge and wisdom. As fast as this immense body of intelligence was presented, it was realized, first as awesome, almost immediately became insignificant and then was left far behind in irrelevance." Although I have absolutly no memory of specific details of this knowledge, at the time it was fully realized, suggesting that for a brief instant my personal consciousness may have entangled with the totality of human collective consciousness. There is the possibility that this totality may have included historical knowledge archived in a cosmic consciousness manifested throughout the matrix of protoconscious space quanta through which I passed in my journey. There is considerable synchronicity for this feature in accounts researched in Transpersonal Model of Death.
Update 07 03 08:
Here is another first-person account of a Nirvikalpa Samadhi that was a culmination of a Kundalini "hypnotic trance" where the feature
of "knowing everything" arose before the transformation to nonduality.
New Breakthrough : Schizophrenia Cured!
by Byron Fraser: "Then, suddenly, I was propelled in consciousness to the very top of my head. My mind was simultaneously expanded and I
seemed to see from "beyond" and "above". I lost all consciousness of time and had the inescapable feeling that I "knew everything". There
was also light, an effulgence of light reverberating through every aspect of my being."..."But the most phenomenal thing that occurred
was my immediate and unmistakable awareness of an overwhelming and vast conscious presence stretching off in all directions to infinity."
Update 08 19 08:
Principles of Quantum Buddhism
by Francois Lepine (Quantum Buddhism Association, St-Raymond, Quebec, Canada) Samadhi occurs during deep meditation. Scientifically,
in altered states quantum brain activities may become more directly connected with the universal quantum geometry and its collective
information. Number 10 of 22 abstracts of papers presented at (PL sbg ac at) conference by leading scientific theorists for
interconnecting consciousness and the physical world- with author, Email and association. Many of these papers present highly
technical science-based theories relating to how our personal cosciousness may entangled with a conscious cosmic matrix.
Universal Living Memory From the subatomic to the cosmic, from cells and ideas to souls and God, all dynamic systems have memory. Using the tools of science, University of Arizona scientists Gary Schwartz and Linda Russek demonstrate that everything in the universe is alive, eternal and evolving. Their new model of life, the Universal Living Memory theory, is reconfiguring the scientific landscape. "Schwartz and Russek usher the reader through new doorways to profound discoveries. Here is stunning but sober emerging evidence that every idea ever thought and every awareness ever generated is even now contained in the universe as information or memory, that consciousness survives death, that God exists - and is evolving."
VERITAS Research Program The Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health, Department of Psychology, U. of Arizona, was created primarily to test the hypothesis that consciousness survives physical death- joining a cosmic conscious archive in a coherent state.
Gaia Sutra by Tim Willard: "Is there any teleological meaning to by found in Gaia? Any possibility that Gaia is a sort of neo-pagan divinity? In looking for support for a conscious Gaia, another major body of work stands out as fascinatingly similar--Carl Jung's theories of the collective human unconscious, a repository of thoughts, ideas and archetypes that influence individuals' psychological development. Although some look to locate these collective memories within the workings of cellular DNA, others see the collective unconscious as independent of the physical body.
Could Gaia be an independent conscious entity similar to the collective unconscious? An intriguing model emerges if we weave the Gaia Hypothesis together with several works concerning mind and consciousness. Gregory Bateson's seminal work on mind and nature establishes general criteria for viewing mind as a system. A critical concept for Bateson is the importance of information which is something in the physical mind that has been given abstract meaning beyond its physical nature. This is important because it makes the physical and nonphysical inextricably linked. Since Bateson's criteria for mind all apply to the Gaia system, the obvious question becomes, is Gaia a mind, and if so what is it's nature?"
The question of consciousness survival is really an extention of the cosmic consciousness issue with the latter receiving a considerable amount of scientific support from theoretical quantum physics concepts such as the Anthropic Principle, the fine tuning of the fundamental parameters constituting nature and the cosmological constant and even research in biophysics and new models for the brain/mind/consciousness connection. The question of the survival of our individual and/or collective consciousness in some coherent state is even more problematic for science in that much of the evidence is anecdotal and based on mediumship, past-life memories and other sources which don't yet fit into any scientific paradigm.
It could be argued that the feature of the brief pan-knowledge I experienced occurs entirely within the vedantic subtle anatomy of chakra consciousness. In Kheper.net the crown chakra is normally described as the apex of the seven microcosmic chakra located within the boundry of the human form. But Sri Aurobindo and others described Sahasrara as a higher chakra located outside the head- which manifests in as many as five centers ranging "as high as the arms can reach over the head".
I must say, my intuition suggests there was virtually nothing in my journey that involved chakra spatial configuration and that I am increasingly skeptical of the whole landscape of Kundalini yoga as a practice by which one attains an authentic samadhi. It seems to be an intellectual construct- an invented architecture to exploit the infinite variety of powerful psychological forces that undeniably arise in kundalini meditation- which raises a conditioned reflex through self-hypnosis which provides pseudo-confirmation of its own model.
The evidence for kundalini yoga practitioners achieving extraordinary mental and physical feats, including Olympian sexual performances, is historically very strong but problematic as a path to Samadhi. In her eye-witness account of a group of Tantrika couples in India engaged in a classic Vamacara Tantric-Kundalini ritual, Samaresh Bose stresses the impressive intensity and longevity of the couples sexual performances (she actually dozed off for awhile and when she awakened the Tantrikas were still going at it) but gives no indication that anyone experienced a samadhi-like transcendence.
Compared to other forms of meditation which prescribe emptying the mind, Kundalini involves a repetitive, intensely controlled step by step vizualization, progressing thru a specific chakra anatomy. This raises a comparison to the psychological dynamics where self-hypnosis creates a conditioned reflex of suggested expectations.
An abridged version (with maya-gaia commentaries) of Individuation and Subtle Body- Individuation and subtle systems: Observations on Jung's 1932 Kundalini Seminars. A dissertation submitted by Gary W. Seeman to Pacifica Graduate Institute in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Clinical Psychology. An in-depth examination of Jung's psychological interpretation of the chakras and his various controversies with Indian Kundalini scriptures including his dire warnings to Westerners who attempt Asian meditation practices. Also highlights the role that alchemic tradition played in the formation of Jung's concepts and the independent perspectives of philosopher Jean Gebser on many of the issues Jung raised.
In The Science of Meditation and the State of Hypnosis Jean Holroyd, U. of CA, 2003 writes: There are a couple of perennial questions in the area of hypnosis: (1) Does it involve an altered state of consciousness? Does an induction increase suggestibility? Review of the similarities and differences between hypnosis and meditation leads me to conclude that traditional meditation literature and contemporary meditation research can shed light on both of these questions. Modern neurophenomenological research on meditation, as well as the ancient Buddhist texts on concentrative practices, have the potential to advance our understanding of altered states and suggestibility in hypnosis.
Kundalini and the Paranormal: - Proceed With Caution by Paul Pond, Ph.D. 1989 - The Kundalini hypothesis asserts that there is a specific psycho-physiological mechanism in human beings that is re-sponsible for mystical experience, creativity, genius, psychic phenomena and, under certain conditions, some types of mental illness. We believe that mystical experience is the ultimate goal of the Kundalini process and the other benefits or 'gifts" which result from this process are to be used cautiously lest the goal be lost
The Kundalini Experience: Psychosis or Transcendence by Lee Sannella, M.D. (full book online). Jeffrey Mishlove Interview of Dr. Sannela about issues integrating kundalini and similar spiritual experience.
The Entheogen Reformation by Thomas B. Roberts, Ph.D. - ABSTRACT: In addition to promising leads for treating PTSD, addictions, depression, and death anxiety, 21st Century research at medical schools finds that with careful screening, insightful attention to the variables of set, setting, and dosage, psychedelic drug administration often facilitates significant spiritual experiences, meaningfulness, altruism, well-being, and similar prospiritual effects. This article calls for theologians, professors of religious studies, philosophy, sociology, and psychology to update their courses. It challenges leaders of religious organizations, "How can your institution incorporate these practices and benefit from them?"
Hypnosis and Suggestion Catalog of Scientific Theories of Hypnosis - For over a century scientists and clinicians have proposed mechanisms to explain the phenomenon associated with hypnosis. The key theories of hypnosis, historical and current, are presented here. Within cognitive psychology, most current models of how the mind works what is termed 'executive function' make use of the concept of an executive control system (Norman & Shallice, 1980, 1986) A key debate in hypnosis throughout the twentieth century has been between 'state' vs. 'non-state' theories, properties of these types of theories are given below.
Self Hypnosis for Cosmic Consciousness: Achieving Altered States, Mystical Experiences, and Spiritual Enlightenment by Ronald A Havens. Dr. Havens is Emeritus Professor Ph.D., West Virginia University- Areas of specialization: Clinical Psychology, Eclectic Psychotherapy, and Hypnosis. (mg: Since I have not read this book I Emailed Dr. Haven to get a better feel for his approach. This resulted in a brief correspondence that made clear that the origin for the "cosmic consciousness" that Haven refers to in his title is radically distinct from the extrovert transcendent state that Richard Bucke described as that which we connect to.)
(m-g suggests that kundalini events manifest along the faultline between the Magisteria of psychic and transcendent states and like the more potent entheogens can warp the pre-transcendent, dual state of consciousness that often precurses the transformation into whatever authentic (and incorruptible) non-dual Godhead experience may arise. Thus the memory of the entire episode may entangle psychic-inspired vasanas that results in the integration of an extrapolated paradigm confused by imagination.)
The Conclusions I Presently Hold About My Samadhi Revelation are that:
-
Nirvikalpa Samadhi can be spontaneously experienced by a completely ordinary person with no spiritual knowledge or practice but is more likely to be triggered by the attainment of a state of absolute desirelessness either through meditation or emotional ecstasy.
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A cosmic- God consciousness is a reality and can manifest in a transcendent journey to Samadhi.
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On the journey, we are in a state of duality with that consciousness- can engage in direct correspondence with it and have free-will to respond to a message that TO CONTINUE - YOU MUST AGREE TO DIE.
-
Inherent in this message is that if you disagree you will return to earthly life. If you agree- all hope for survival must be surrendered- that you are giving up your fate to the will of God. (No assumed knowledge about Samadhi will make deception possible as God will know in which case Vedic/Buddhist concepts suggest that bodily death may follow and the soul's fate uncertain between Bardo and Nirvana.)
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Apon agreeing, Grace appears- *seemingly totally democratic and non-judgmental and our individual ego and phenomenal consciousness are annihilated and our numinous consciousness transforms to a deterministic state of absolute non-duality. I can define the moment of union with God as my "I" like a drop explosively diffusing into an ocean of light, bliss and love- instantly become acosmic, wide-aware, infinite and still.
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After an indeterminate time in the light, God may (or may not) will our self-consciousness to be reconstituted and returned to our phenomenal physical body. There is no guarantee.
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In the initial dual state of such a journey, our consciousness can briefly access a collective body of supra-knowledge but that it is likely all memory of this awareness will fade away completely.
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The degree of memory of the journey may range from none- to fragments of the dual segments involving our transportation and transformation into cosmic consciousness- to poignant awareness of events in both the orchestrated states of duality and the final ultimate experience of non duality and back to a state of duality in a numinous return to cognitive reality.
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We are left with free-will to determine how to interpret and integrate the total nirvikalpa samadhi experience into our phenomenal lives.
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Samadhi provides a preview of how our consciousness transcends the extinction of our physical body and ego at our death by immersion into acosmic non-duality.
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A process is suggested that may provide for some unknown qualities of our consciousness to reconstitute via reincarnation- sans karma.
*seemingly totally non-judgemental
It would appear that the only criteria for passage through the "gatekeeper" was to agree to die- however since I have never committed a
mortal sin-
my major
sins against nature
(several incidents of recreational hunting) had been deeply regetted- there is still the possibility that
grace
may be denied to those who have committed seriously evil acts. See
Ultimate Question
for my examination of whether there is any moral prerequisite for entrance into the embrace of Brahman/Bodhi consciousness when we die and my concurrence with some radical teachings of U. G. Krishnamurti.
Update 10 24 07: Out of the compendium of knowledge I've accessed over the past year, I've recently compiled some concepts and vocabulary which I'm integrating with my Nirvikalpa Samadhi experience to propose a tentative model for a Concurrent, Two-Tier, Dual-Nondual, 200 Percent Model of Reality.
In regards strictly to my own case, the transcendent experience (samadhi) all but banishes the fear but not the apprehension and mystery of death, imbues a holistic awareness and concern for Gaia- validating Eco Spirituality as the heart of a new Integral Paradigm of reality that incorporates aspects of both historical metaphysical and new-science concepts. It does not however eliminate a healthy skepticism in evaluating which concepts are most rational and plausible in explaining the transcendent scenario and determining how one's anatomy of belief evolves. Less skeptical individuals having samadhic experience have historically proposed an infinity of sometimes fantastic concepts in creating unique maps of the metaphysical landscape.
Although I have since become open-minded to some of the ontologies that involve a synthesis of quantum science and Eastern mysticism I am most skeptical of the notion of reincarnation. However if one views the features of my journey as a model of a transcendent reality it is undeniable that a cosmic orchestration could provide that an egoless essence is reconstituted and extracted from a reservoir of cosmic consciousness and injected into a phenomenal embryonic mind. There is the possibility that in time a newly conceived human mind will possess a sentience and consciousness that provides a holographic continuum for "our" unremembered selves to fully participate in a new phenomenal, Earthly life. The final scene in Stanley Kubrick's film of Arthur C. Clark's novel 2001 A Space Odyssey is a metaphor essentially portraying such a scenario. (It contrasts with the much darker ending in Clarke's original story.) Amit Goswami's - Physics of the Soul presents a quantum model for reincarnation.
I Googled up a similar opinion by Erek van Ruysbeek: Cosmic and mystical consciousness Ruysbeek offers insightful perspectives on many spiritual issues such as on reincarnation: "Every ego has come to being out of the same universal essence and goes back to that, where it could indeed come to experience again some of the elements from the egos which have previously existed, but not, or at least very seldom, the total, individual egos from a previous time. I am in this respect rather a Buddhist."
Evidence and Experiences Suggestive of Existential Seriality by Nelson Abreu - reincarnation theorist. This literature review guides the reader through different experiential, experimental, and theoretical approaches that can be pursued to investigate the theory of existential seriality (reincarnation). During out-of-body experiences or clairvoyantly, we can see that we manifest through our bioenergies (chi). It is rare, but we can also have mental projections similar to accounts throughout history of cosmic unity and enlightenment (satori, samadhi) that reveal the mental body and consciousnesses that manifest solely through this body. Finally, this paradigm also posits that we are in a process of continual evolution and one day each of us will become a Free Consciousness after we exit the reincarnation cycle and shed the physical (soma) and astral (psychosoma) bodies.
One could hypothesize there could be a vestige of a previous ego that persists in the newly conceived mind which could explain many accounts in India suggesting reincarnation in children with partial memories of past lives. I have no insight (and am skeptical) regarding the concept of Karma nor any clue as to whether at death or in an NDE our consciousness can exist in either an ephemeral or coherent state of duality for an indeterminate time as described in the concept of Bardo.
There is a distinct possibility that the concept of reincarnation is the result of a psychological imperative to provide an alternative
to our organic anxiety over the loneliness in the idea of consciousness residing in an acosmic state in perpetuity. Even with the promise
of liberation and eternal bliss and love there is a conceptual longing for an objective other. For some reflections on the topic:
Phenomenology of Life and the Human Creative Condition
By Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning pp 33-36 - Longing and the Phenomenon of
Loneliness. Longing is essentially a phenomenon that involves an intense wish to remove the physical, mental or spiritual distance which
separates the self from anyone or anything deemed desirable.
From an extended perspective this topic even suggests a reason for creation of a physical universe and provides some slight validity to "my" impression of being aware of other systems beyond the acosmic state in which "my" consciousness was absorbed.
Update: 04 28 08 Maya-Gaia has created a webpage on the subject of- Love Without Object which was "experienced" while "I" was in the non-dual and subjectless state of Nirvikalpa Samadhi. It examines the different ways one actually feels/directs the emotion of love while in a dual/phenomenal subjective state of conciousness as compared to the Love experienced in non-duality.
Rumi says, "There is no Love greater than Love with no object. For then you, yourself, have become love, itself."
Immanuel Kant - An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? (1784) Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! [dare to know] "Have courage to use your own understanding!"--that is the motto of enlightenment. (My caution is that human nature is to rally around the truth proposed by whichever "true believer" is the most charismatic missionary rather than how rational is the belief. ef)
In the following page I present a short essay on Extrapolating Samadhi - which is an examination of how religion and metaphysical concepts have evolved out of the authentic transcendent revelations of their original prophets.
Keith Ward: You certainly have to get rid of (an anthropomorphic God) but you can still talk about a cosmic mind, or the intelligence of the universe, and in the Indian tradition that would be called Sat Chit Ananda, quite widely, Being, Consciousness and Bliss, a consciousness of intelligence and bliss. That's exactly, you know, what I think the sort of God that science would suggest. I think a combination of those two strands of thought is the future of religion in my view. The Anthropic Universe The Science Show with David Deutsch, Frank Tipler, Martin Rees, Paul Davies, Martin Redfern and John Wheeler.
There are three more true occurrences that relate to my transcendent experience that defy classification even among the normal paranormal catagories. I've included these accounts somewhat removed from the other pages due to their inexplicably spooky nature.
My latest (02_09) reflections on the purposefulness that my samadhi has graced my old age HERE.
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