What Happens When You Die?

[Koldo]

'Things' being concepts only.

So you mean to say that interdependence exists as a concept only...

You are contradicting what the universe IS. There are no such separations other than the illusion of separation.

What IS the universe?

Which is an aspect of the temporal self.

Think about a single light source that is focused on one of those disco mirror balls, in which each mirrored facet reflects a 'separate' ray of light. There is still only one light, though the facets are many.

One light, though the lamps be many. The light from one lamp or mirrored facet is the same light as from all other lamps or mirrored facets. There is no 'individual' light without the One Light, 'individual light', being illusory.

Why would the individual mind be illusory? It exists as much as the 'one light'.

 

[Koldo]

As a separate thing, only in your mind. However, there is still something that grows out of the ground, but it is not a separate thing called 'tree'. 'Tree' is only the name we give it and then interpret it falsely as a separate thing. The tree itself does not think itself a separate entity.

Trees are not sapient to begin with...
You just said there is something that grows OUT of the ground. That means something that is not the ground. A distinct thing, the tree.

So there are two "I"'s: The "I" that is the subject of thought, and the "I" that is the agent of thought. Then there must necessarily be a third "I", who is conscious of the first two.

Hmm...no.
The 'I' who is the subject of thought is the same who is the agent of though, who is counscious of itself.

As per your own discussion, English is but the symbol of the actual thing, whereas "I" is the actual thing. The symbolic requires thought, but as we are seeing, so does "I". If "I" cannot exist independent of thought, then thought is required to bring it forth. Therefore, "I" is merely a concoction of the mind, which itself is a self-created principle.

The form ( 'I' ) cannot exist independent of thought, and indeed thought is required to bring it forth.

As Descartes said: "I think, therefore I exist". But if that is so, then when not thinking, "I" does not exist, the existence of "I" being dependent upon thought.

Actually, no. Thought is being used to determine existence, but lack of thought can not be used to determine lack of existence. Otherwise we could say: 'That ball does not think, therefore that ball does not exist'.

A laser-eye in a cd player 'sees' without the necessity of an agent of seeing called "I". A tv antenna 'sees' the tv signal without an "I". You cannot control what you spontaneously see or hear, so where is this "I" that you claim does so? "I" only comes into play when there is thought about what is being seen. Without thought, there is still seeing, but no agent of seeing.

You are anthropomorphizing objects...

 

[atanu]

Look here: I am merely attempting to ascertain how and why the Perfect lost sight of itself. If Brahma is imperfect, how did he become that way?
---

I will respectfully ask a thing before I try to answer this. I think that you know that brahman and brahmA do not have the same meaning. Is my thinking correct?

 

[atanu]

You are saying that lila and maya do not exist? That this world is NOT maya?

Having said that, I do agree that this phenomenal world and True Reality are one and the same; that the Ordinary and the Miraculous are one and the same.

Let us distinguish between reality and Reality.

Unless scripture is written from an awakened mind immersed in True Reality, while still living in the world of appearances. To the unenlightened, the universe is a creation of the Absolute, an artifact; but to the enlightened mind, "the universe IS the Absolute [itself] as seen through the glass of Time, Space, and Causation.", as Vivikenanda points out.

Jesus rightly pointed out that scripture is indeed meaningless as a means of attaining eternal life. That is why the Zen Buddhists put scripture aside and go directly to the source. Once a spiritual transformation is attained, scripture can then be read in the proper context.

Before I can answer you fully, i will make a short reply (for want of time).

I am emphasising a point repeatedly since the ego 'i' is just a reflection. A reflection cannot obliterate itself.

 

[idea]

Unless, of course, the 'something' in question is an illusion.

Spirit/mind/conscience/intelligence is not an illusion, any more than matter/energy and all the rest of it are..
Holographic principle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[godnotgod]

So you mean to say that interdependence exists as a concept only...

No, 'things' do. Interdependence means the universe operates as a single unit.

What IS the universe?

The Absolute, manifesting itself as the Many, seen through the filters of Time, Space, and Causation. Remove the filters, and you see it as it is; One, not divided into separate 'things'. That you see it divided into things is an illusion.

Why would the individual mind be illusory? It exists as much as the 'one light'.

'Mind' is a self-created concept.

 

[godnotgod]

Spirit/mind/conscience/intelligence is not an illusion, any more than matter/energy and all the rest of it are..
Holographic principle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I was referring to what we refer to as the 'physical' world; ie; 'matter'. This is what Max Planck said about matter:

“As a physicist, that is, a man who had devoted his whole life to ...the exploration of matter, ...and.. having studied the atom, I am telling you that there is no matter as such. All matter arises and persists only due to a force that causes the atomic particles to vibrate, holding them together in the tiniest of solar systems, the atom. Yet in the whole of the universe there is no force that is either intelligent or eternal, and we must therefore assume that behind this force there is a conscious, intelligent mind or spirit. This is the very origin of all matter.”

Max Planck

and.....

“Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter.”

- Quote attributed to Albert Einstein

See more here: http://peaceandloveism.com/blog/2009/01/matter-does-not-exist/

 

[godnotgod]

I will respectfully ask a thing before I try to answer this. I think that you know that brahman and brahmA do not have the same meaning. Is my thinking correct?

Yes....

 

[Ingledsva]

What happens when you die?

What happens when you die? - Whatever happens!

 

[godnotgod]

Trees are not sapient to begin with...
You just said there is something that grows OUT of the ground. That means something that is not the ground. A distinct thing, the tree.

But it is also the ground, and the ground is also the tree, as everything is everything. I was using the word 'something' only as a matter of convention; not to point to a thing separate from the universe.

Hmm...no.
The 'I' who is the subject of thought is the same who is the agent of though, who is counscious of itself.

The very moment there is self-consciousness, there is subject and object.

The form ( 'I' ) cannot exist independent of thought, and indeed thought is required to bring it forth.

Actually, no. Thought is being used to determine existence, but lack of thought can not be used to determine lack of existence. Otherwise we could say: 'That ball does not think, therefore that ball does not exist'.

Your analogy and logic are erroneous. Humans think; balls do not.

Read Descartes again. He is creating a condition for existence, which is that "I think". Then he says: "therefore", which means that what follows is wholly dependent upon what went previous to that. In other words, if "I think, I therefore exist". If I therefore exist due to thought, then existence is impossible without it, because you cannot have existence without thought. Therefore, where there is no thought, there is necessarily no existence, all of which renders Descartes's 'logic' flawed.

You are anthropomorphizing objects...

To say that a cd laser eye or antenna 'sees' is not to say that they are human. Seeing is a kind of detection. In the case of the cd laser eye or the antenna, that is what they do, without any "I" involved.

Answer the question: where is the "I" in spontaneous seeing?

 

[godnotgod]

What happens when you die? - Whatever happens!

Perhaps we go tip-toeing through the tulips? La la la la......

 

[Ingledsva]

Perhaps we go tip-toeing through the tulips? La la la la......

Now that damn song is stuck in my head!

 

[Koldo]

No, 'things' do. Interdependence means the universe operates as a single unit.

You are not making any sense here. By definition, interdependence requires at least two things. It is a word that only makes sense if at least two things exist. I won't budge on this. :sorry1:

The Absolute, manifesting itself as the Many, seen through the filters of Time, Space, and Causation. Remove the filters, and you see it as it is; One, not divided into separate 'things'. That you see it divided into things is an illusion.

But the filters exist...

'Mind' is a self-created concept.

So the self is a self-created concept.
So the self created a concept to create itself.
Makes sense....not.

 

[atanu]

Yes....

That is good. Creator brahmA cannot create without invoking mAyA. But one foot of brahman is not deluded.

---
The very moment there is self-consciousness, there is subject and object.---

Do you mean that one foot of brahman has no consciousness? That the liberated is equal to being Zombie?

Will that mean that Buddha as a teacher has no reality?

 

[Koldo]

But it is also the ground, and the ground is also the tree, as everything is everything. I was using the word 'something' only as a matter of convention; not to point to a thing separate from the universe.

I never said things within the universe are separated from the universe...

The very moment there is self-consciousness, there is subject and object.

So?

Your analogy and logic are erroneous. Humans think; balls do not.

Read Descartes again. He is creating a condition for existence, which is that "I think". Then he says: "therefore", which means that what follows is wholly dependent upon what went previous to that. In other words, if "I think, I therefore exist". If I therefore exist due to thought, then existence is impossible without it, because you cannot have existence without thought. Therefore, where there is no thought, there is necessarily no existence, all of which renders Descartes's 'logic' flawed.

How is my analogy and logic erroneous? If thinking is a necessity of existence, then that ball does not exist.

Descartes doesn't mean to say that 'I' exist due to thought. Descartes is not saying that 'I exist because I think'. What comes after 'therefore' is a conclusion.

Here is another example to illustrate this: I ( car ) race, therefore i know how to drive a car.

Do people need to race with cars to know how to drive a car?

To say that a cd laser eye or antenna 'sees' is not to say that they are human. Seeing is a kind of detection. In the case of the cd laser eye or the antenna, that is what they do, without any "I" involved.

They don't 'see' anything.

Answer the question: where is the "I" in spontaneous seeing?

What do you call spontaneous seeing?

 

[Thief]

I am not a follower of Deepak. But have you seen heaven or hell? How easy it is for you to attribute ignorance to another person just based on what you merely believe?

There are two kinds of ignorance.

People who are not informed.....are indeed ignorant.

For people who CHOOSE to ignore....the ignorance is profound.

What we believe can be rooted in ignorance.
What we believe can be self deception.

What I believe is tempered in reason.

That you (anyone) persist otherwise is expected.

What happens when we die?
The better reasoning continues because it can.
The rest crumbles to the dust from which it came.

What's so hard about that?

 

[godnotgod]

You are not making any sense here. By definition, interdependence requires at least two things. It is a word that only makes sense if at least two things exist. I won't budge on this. :sorry1:

There are no 'things' that exist independently of anything else, 'things' being conceptual only to represent energy-forms as manifested via the universe. What you call 'things existing' can only make sense in terms of their being interdependent, and interdependence is a feature of the universe being a singular entity.

What we call matter is illusory; it is actually energy at its most fundamental level. So forms of 'matter' we call 'things' are not real. All there really is, is interaction of energy-forms.

When looked at more closely, it becomes obvious that an ocean wave does not really exist as such, as it is actually an energy-form. There is nothing you can isolate as a thing called 'wave'. The same is true of 'wind' and 'river'. But energy-forms which are moving much more slowly only seem to exist as solid things, such as rocks and human bodies. However, at all times, all such energy-forms are totally interconnected and interdependent with other energy-forms.

But the filters exist...

...only as concepts.

So the self is a self-created concept.
So the self created a concept to create itself.
Makes sense....not.

The Self Illusion: How the Brain Creates Identity

"For most of us, the sense of our self is as an integrated individual inhabiting a body. I think it is helpful to distinguish between the two ways of thinking about the self that William James talked about. There is conscious awareness of the present moment that he called the “I,” but there is also a self that reflects upon who we are in terms of our history, our current activities and our future plans. James called this aspect of the self, “me” which most of us would recognize as our personal identity—who we think we are. However, I think that both the “I” and the “me” are actually ever-changing narratives generated by our brain to provide a coherent framework to organize the output of all the factors that contribute to our thoughts and behaviors.

I think it helps to compare the experience of self to subjective contours – illusions such as the Kanizsa pattern where you see an invisible shape that is really defined entirely by the surrounding context. People understand that it is a trick of the mind but what they may not appreciate is that the brain is actually generating the neural activation as if the illusory shape was really there. In other words, the brain is hallucinating the experience. There are now many studies revealing that illusions generate brain activity as if they existed. They are not real but the brain treats them as if they were.

Now that line of reasoning could be applied to all perception except that not all perception is an illusion. There are real shapes out there in the world and other physical regularities that generate reliable states in the minds of others. The reason that the status of reality cannot be applied to the self, is that it does not exist independently of my brain alone that is having the experience. It may appear to have a consistency of regularity and stability that makes it seem real, but those properties alone do not make it so."


The Self Illusion: How the Brain Creates Identity ... - Lapidarium notes
*****


"Q: If self is an illusion, who am I. What is my real existence?

A: You do not exist. That is the truth. That sense of “I and you”, the sense of separateness, is an illusion. It does not really exist. For example, as you are listening to me, you are seeing me but you are not hearing me, and when you hear me, you are not seeing me. But that is happening so fast, that you have this illusion that you are seeing and hearing. The two senses have got coordinated, like in a movie, unless you have those 16 shots moving per second you will not see the hand movement, in the movie theatre. If the projector is slowed down it becomes only like a slide. Similarly, here the senses are coordinating at a particular speed whereby you are feeling that you are seeing, touching as though all these things are going on at the same time. It is this illusion that creates the sense of “Me” and “I”. If this is slowed down, you all just vanish! So, now you are there. If I were to slow down your senses, if you would give me permission, you would just disappear. You will go back home minus yourself! But you will still be very functional, you will in fact be very efficient. The sense of separateness would completely be gone. What remains there is life or you may call it pure consciousness; the stuff from which this whole universe is made. What is there ultimately is consciousness and that has to only to be experienced. How can you see yourself? There is no way to see consciousness, because you are that. Its true nature is...causeless Love."

Bhagavan on the Illusion of Self
*****


"When you understand the difference between mental and physical phenomena, you are likely to reflect that neither the mind nor the body alone can perform actions such as sitting, standing, walking, bending, stretching, seeing, hearing, and so on. Only the mind and body together can perform these activities.
Because of this, the mind and body together are mistaken for “I.” One thinks, “I am sitting; I am standing up; I am going; I am bending; I am stretching; I am seeing; I am hearing,” and so on. In reality, there is no “I” or “being” that sits, stands up, and walks, but only mental and physical phenomena. That is why the Visuddhimagga (2, 231) says:

In reality, mind conditions matter, and matter conditions mind. When the mind wants to eat, drink, speak, or change posture, it is the body that actually eats, drinks, speaks, or changes posture.​

When we expand on this, we can say:

The volition to eat is mental, but what actually eats is the body. The volition to drink is mental, but what actually drinks is the body.
The volition to speak is mental, but what actually speaks is the body.
The volition to sit down is mental, but what actually sits down is the body.
The volition to stand up is mental, but what actually stands up is the body."

http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2010/06/magical-illusion-of-self.html
​

 

[godnotgod]

That is good. Creator brahmA cannot create without invoking mAyA. But one foot of brahman is not deluded.

How is it that the OTHER foot is?

Do you mean that one foot of brahman has no consciousness? That the liberated is equal to being Zombie?

Will that mean that Buddha as a teacher has no reality?

I am referring to the false self creating the concepts of "I" and "me", and not to the authentic Self.

 

[godnotgod]

How is my analogy and logic erroneous? If thinking is a necessity of existence, then that ball does not exist.

Descartes doesn't mean to say that 'I' exist due to thought. Descartes is not saying that 'I exist because I think'. What comes after 'therefore' is a conclusion.

Here is another example to illustrate this: I ( car ) race, therefore i know how to drive a car.

Do people need to race with cars to know how to drive a car? [/quote]

The analogy fails because the intrinsic problem with Descartes is his assumption that there is an "I" that exists that thinks to begin with.

When Descartes says: "I think, therefore I exist", he is not saying: "My thinking is evidence of my existence", but rather: "I exist because* I think".

"I think" and "I exist" are one and the same reality.

A, therefore, B, but only when A is present, so that B is wholly dependent upon the presence of A, so if not-A, then not-B.
*****


Søren Kierkegaard's critique

The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard provided a critical response to the cogito. Kierkegaard argues that the cogito already presupposes the existence of "I", and therefore concluding with existence is logically trivial. Kierkegaard's argument can be made clearer if one extracts the premise "I think" into two further premises:

"x" thinks
I am that "x"
Therefore I think
Therefore I am
​

Where "x" is used as a placeholder in order to disambiguate the "I" from the thinking thing.
Here, the cogito has already assumed the "I"'s existence as that which thinks. For Kierkegaard, Descartes is merely "developing the content of a concept", namely that the "I", which already exists, thinks.
Kierkegaard argues that the value of the cogito is not its logical argument, but its psychological appeal: a thought must have something that exists to think the thought. It is psychologically difficult to think "I do not exist". (A more correct version of this thought would be "I does not exist".) But as Kierkegaard argues, the proper logical flow of argument is that existence is already assumed or presupposed in order for thinking to occur, not that existence is concluded from that thinking.[!!!]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito_ergo_sum
_____

*there·fore


a : for that reason : consequently
b : because of that
c : on that ground

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/therefore

 

[godnotgod]

What I believe is tempered in reason.

If your thinking were truly 'tempered in reason' (*cough*), you would not formulate beliefs. In reality, you temper your reasoning via your beliefs.

The truth is bent to fit your teeth.

You are guilty of what most theologians do. You begin with an assumption, then build your so-called 'reason' around it to make it appear as truth.

You make the tail wag the dog.