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Weekly Intent - Desh Kapoor

Intent - July 06, 2008

Desh Kapoor
The Soul and our Death
When Krishna (in Bhagwad Gita) told Arjun about how his "Atman" will survive the death and is unborn and never hurt, he made a very bold statement.

So bold that most of the people could not even fathom its significance. And thus, if it hadn't already, a new industry was born where Atman - most often characterized as "Impure consciousness" (Advaitists) or "conscious entity but separate from God" (Dualists) - was "to be purified". And both the positions, in my view, make a complete mockery of Krishna's bold statement. It is a great example of how, when mediocrity approaches brilliance, it brings it down so many notches.

Atman as Krishna characterized it was no different from Him (Krishna) and He was no different from the Brahman (Universal Consciousness). There was no difference. If Atman was an inferior form of Parmatma then it cannot be eternal and unborn (as many dualists claim)! That would be a complete mockery of a creator, if there was one! Why, and more importantly HOW would the infinite and the perfect be running parallel to the imperfect and therefore the finite? For one that is not infinite has to be finite of existence.

The very problem that Krishna was trying to solve was of a human being assessing himself as someone inferior than the infinite and so due to "fear" born out of such inadequacy, creating a whole new world of make-believe morals and systems. If one could imagine and experience oneself as the Universal Consciousness, then would there be any need for actions cloaked and defined by morals? Morality is the altar at which the fearful (because they have a higher power - King/Master/God - to please) and those who live limited existences, reside.

The fearless, because they are free, have no such needs or pretentions. Their actions do not bind them because their actions are done without an eye to the consequences. That is left to the natural flow of the Universal Consciousness. They very well realize that it is foolish and useless to speculate on which action produces which result - for in "Good Action", good the adjective does not qualify the action, but the result! When I say "I will do Good" I am essentially saying that MY action will produce a "Good" result! The free and fearless recognize that ACTION of itself has NO adjective. It is colorless. And further that the cause and effect has very little meaning at the cosmic (or even the atomic) level, hence the action-to-result relationship cannot be predicted and if predicted is at best meaningless. Only those afflicted with speculative mindsets in cosmic journey venture to define and distribute moralistic codes and edicts.

This is a very subtle but critical distinction in understanding what Krishna said. So, if there is no color to action (or karmas), but karmas are what bind you, then isn't it somehow contradictory? But, this is the very distinction that is critical and at the heart of Krishna's philosophy! Overlay of a color on the colorless Karma is where the entire misery of mankind begins. This color is what we (as in, the world and individual) are. This color is our mind. It is also our bounds and our burden. It is the I. Action - the colorless karma has no "I". It is what it is. There is no distinction between the Action of a Butcher and the Action of a Saint. It is just Action. The values and the colors that are added to different "actions" create the moral and religious web.. and leads to the this strong but temporary element called Ego/Mind.

This colorless Action is also the Universal Consciousness, the "God", if you will. It is the same in everyone/everything. The color that is created by the mind and ego makes it seem as if this color is a property of the Action. It is NOT. It comes off of that Mind, and it dies with it... but the neutrality of "Action" or the Karma, in itself cannot be affected by the color of our mind (and its imagined moral/religious values).

Now, when you look at the entire definition of Atman - the infallible, the one that is not affected, the one that cannot be harmed and one that is neutral, then you realize that Krishna was trying desperately to extricate the Atman that had been "brought down" to the levels of an impure entity to its pristine (and infallible) glory! We needed to differentiate between Atman and the Individual. That is what Krishna desperately tried to do. Atman is the Universal Consciousness and Individual is the mind/ego/color of the Karma etc. There is no such thing as a combination of characteristics. This grey area was created by us lesser minds for our convenience. And this is what Krishna tried to salvage the Timeless from. At the structural level, the color was the same as the Action, but characteristically they were different.

The Atman that we still believe as impure, therefore, really did NOT exist. If colorless and pure Karma (or the Consciousness) was the Sky; and color of mind was the yellow camera filter, then if you moved the filter across the sky from East to West, there would be two ways to describe that action:

1. The Yellow filter moved across the Blue sky from East to West.
2. Yellow Sky moved from East to West against the Blue Sky.

Given enough poetic license, both the descriptions are correct and similar. But are they? It is a truth that at the most basic sub-atomic level there is no difference between the filter and the sky, but while the filter is limited, the sky is not. And that is what Krishna was at pains to tell the mankind.

But the inherent structual one-ness despite the characteristic differentiation was rolled into one by the lesser minds of subsequent analysts of Gita to say that there was a Yellow Sky that really moved from East to West (Atman was to be purified to become the Parmatman).

So, when a person dies, what remains distinctly and identifiably and that which carries on the journey as the proverbial soul is NOT the Atman but the mind. And this mind is NOT eternal. It also does not have a set path to take until it extinguishes itself. Also it cannot be but hurt and wallow in its own pain. That is its characteristic. The stronger the mind, the longer is its existence.

Krishnamurti has explained it the best while condoling his friend on his brother's death (in the words of his friend):

He greeted me most affectionately. At the dining table I came right to the point: "Has John survived his bodily death in a subtler form? Yes or no?" There was a moment's silence. "My gut feeling," I went on, "is that he is here beside me, right now."

"Of course he is, right here beside you," said Krishnaji. "He's very close to you, and will continue being close for some time." Two hours later we were still deep into the subject of death and the hereafter. He referred to that part of the personality that survives bodily death as an echo, instead of an astral body, as the Theosophists call it, the echo of the person who lived on earth, the duration of its life on the other side depending on the strength of the individual's earthly personality. "Dr. Besant's echo, for instance," he said, "will go on for a long time, for she had a very strong personality."

"Your viewpoint here is very similar to that of the Theosophists," I said.

"With one important difference," he replied. "There is no permanent substance that survives the death of the body. Whether the ego lasts one year, ten thousand, or a million years, it must finally come to an end."

What survives on death is, therefore, of temporal existence and programmed to come to an end. It is a manifestation. It will meet its end. Just like Krishna the preacher.

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Posted by Intent at July 6, 2008 04:59 AM

Comments

Profound exposition Desh; though the conclusion is rather drearfully bleak. Nice time to put a quote in here of something I had just re-read:

"To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?"

Indeed, the fear of liberating Death hath long ago been dispelled, the only objective now is to accept Grace enow to suffer life’s “slings and arrows” with a quieted heart. Having overcome myself, my egoistic wants, by humbled folly rather than wised soul, only undesiring content may I preach to those existing under the current worldly status quo.

NAY! Make fall the heavens with hellish screeds because the sleeping ones sleep til light screams them awake or morning nudges moves their soul. To perdition the hereafter whether temporal or no, right here right now we have a world to awake unto our collective soul!

Onward gallant comrade!

:)

peace

Desh, you are right on with your assessment.

Am I but a point in time substantial?

A lengthy moment? A dwindling spark?

A thought of God, having no real thrust of my own?

A handful of clay and a bit of wind?

A voice for a completely made-up mind?

Shiver me timbers quite literally!

Yield to perishable fruitcakes.

Thanks Craig (empyrius), KAN and Keith! Craig - the conclusion was not meant to be bleak.. what I was saying is that the mind is not forever.. and it is this that will ultimately wither off for the ocean of consciousness/parmatman to carry on endless as it always does.

Now, just as the waves come up from the ocean and disappear after sometime.. you can say that mind is different from the consciousness and has been created or will die off.. you could see that ocean and the waves are one.

-d.

No, I hear you Desh, and I understand. I’m just another one of those dudes who always want to retain the “me” and “mine” in consciousness. EGO, a terrible “thing” to have though a terrible “thing” to waste . . .

;) ;) ;)

Giving us a grand opportunity to contrast Hamlet’s musings with that of some Upanishadic material:

[Chandogya]: The spirit who is sleeping without dreams in the silent quietness of deep sleep, that is the Atman, that is the immortal beyond fear: that is Brahman.

[Maitri] In the beginning all was Brahman. ONE and infinite. He is beyond north and south, and east and west, and beyond what is above or below. His infinity is everywhere. In him there is neither above, nor across, nor below: and in him there is neither east nor west.
The Spirit supreme is immeasurable, inapprehensible, beyond conception, never-born, beyond reasoning, beyond thought. His vastness is the vastness of space.
At the end of the worlds, all things sleep: he alone is awake in Eternity. Then from his infinite space new worlds arise and awake, a universe which is a vastness of thought. In the consciousness of Brahman the universe is, and into him it returns.
He is seen in the radiance of the sun in the sky, in the brightness of fire on earth, and in the fire of life that burns the food of life. Therefore is has been said:
He who is in the sun, and in the fire and in the heart of man is ONE. He who knows this is one with the ONE.

Amen

Desh,
Your insights are impressive.
Yet a trace of conceptualization remains
within your writing.
In truth there is only The Infinite.
There is no I, you or me.
All action (karma) is relative.
The Infinite Being assumes an endless array
of forms and phenomena of which there is no
concrete substance at any level.
Think of the dream.
Within that context there may be a Desh (form)
which you assume to be you and the focal point
of the dream experience. There is even apparent separation of what seem to be solid objects (forms).
Yet when you awake the realization dawns that the Desh dream body was a consciousness creation having no substance at all.
In fact, it wasn't even a focal point of awareness
possessing individual consciousness at all.
A higher (unified) consciousness produced the dream of Desh doing such and such.
One might then assume the brain of the apparent
Desh body after awakening produced the dream.
But did it?
The answer is no.
The Cosmic Being (consciousness) is the real culprit. Dreams within dreams.
The Eternal Cosmic Being has no limitations.
The limitations (concepts) existing are self imposed and have creative power due to aeons of
ceaseless repetition.
Ironically the (self) that imposes these limitations has no substance and is only real
in so far as it is blindly believed in.
Metaphorically you seem to standing at the edge
of a cliff.
One needs then to just take the dive and free consciousness from all attachment to
forms, concepts and phenomena.
Todd


Ref. 6

Most seek to expand their personal balloon until they encompass what they imagine to be "infinity".

Their efforts are spent entirely protecting and accumulating.

A few will see the futility of this endeavor and be willing to expose their balloon to the sharp edges of a sage.

There is no two.
No seer and object.
No subject and object seen.
Consciousness is subject, object and witness.
Todd

Desh,
You should be a regular contributor
on this website.

Dear Todd,

#8: it might as well be unconsciousness lol


Irv,

So now, you're a sage?
Or else, you're a liar.
Which is it?


@7 Now it's clear why Stan wants your prick out of here. Didn't your mom tell you pricking people without their "explicit consent" is called rape?


@11 I guess you're not from these parts.
Sage grow wild around here.

dot-Irvine

P.S. Do I have your explicit consent to answer for you, Irv?

#6 Irvine writes:

"Most seek to expand their personal balloon until they encompass what they imagine to be "infinity".

Incorrect.
Most (presuming you are referring to humans) don't "seek" to expand their "personal balloon", anymore than a BALLOON seeks to expand its "personal balloon".

Humans do what they are made to do, just like balloons. It all just happens, via forces of which neither one can fully, nor even partially comprehend.

"Their efforts are spent entirely protecting and accumulating."

Entirely?
Harddly.

Human life is a little bit o'this,
and little bit o'that,
and little bit o'theotherthings,
but entirely?
harddly.

"A few will see the futility of this endeavor and be willing to expose their balloon to the sharp edges of a sage."

Again, there is no "endeavoring" about it, just as the balloon does not "endeavor" to get blown up.

The "few" (that small, small group you so casually inform the rest of us, that you are 'a', if not 'the' primary example, here on IB if not on EARTH) who see what's going on, have no need of sages, phonies, fakes, charlatans and other wannabes teacher-types like Todd and perhaps yourself, and countless others, to smooth out their sharp edges.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::


#7

Well, there are certainly concepts in Desh's writings -- which comes with the inherent limitations of human language -- Todd seems to be living in concepts though.

Todd writes:

"One needs then to just take the dive and free consciousness from all attachment to
forms, concepts and phenomena."


Talk is cheap.
If you could DO what you talk about,
you wouldn't talk about it.

There is no need -- if not for further attachments -- to tell "Desh", this:

"Desh,
You should be a regular contributor
on this website."


"Most seek to expand their personal balloon until they encompass what they imagine to be "infinity".

Their efforts are spent entirely protecting and accumulating.

A few will see the futility of this endeavor and be willing to expose their balloon to the sharp edges of a sage.

7. Posted by Irvine Welsh"


According to you what Shri Ramana Maharishi, Shri Ramakrishna Parama Hamsa etc. claimed that they have experienced are all lies !!!

Are you not being unwise in making How you experienced your life as a yard stick for all others lives ?!

Regards
manikanta


Re. 15

What others?

There are no others in this dream.

Ramana is dead

Shri Ramakrishna Parma Hamsa is dead.

Everything they said is dead.

They spoke to the moment.

That moment is dead

There is only one alive spot in the entire universe...and you won't find it in your past.


Irvine

They spoke to the moment,

Irvine


"P.S. Do I have your explicit consent to answer for you, Irv?" #13

Yes, I would like that very much......since I have self-censored myself to 5 posts/day at IB.


"Yes, I would like that very much......since I have self-censored myself to 5 posts/day at IB."

No problema, amigo. Here is what 'you' replied to my comment.

Dot: Was it then that you pricked her ballom, irv?

IW: Yes, and I felt a sharp pain in my butt, and
she was gone. What do you make of that, Dot?

Dot: I dunno, Bud. It was your fricken dream.


...the only thing to know about balloons is that you are happiest when you finally open up your hand and let it go. It is worth watching this video just to see the little girl do that at the end.

Wonderful, lovely song:

Rufus Wainwright - Across The Universe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H71Fv3PcQQY

~~Freyja


Hi Freyja, your apropos are GREAT ! -make Irwing bearable a little.

--I am wondering what do you mean about the video...what did you see...? that:

'if Irvine lets go of his belief (balloon), that SINGLE red one, than in an instant he will see, that we all are on the ground too...the SAME ONE Wow !...not floating in his mind...and all balloons are gone...'


OH what a wondrous awakening that would be !

( holding his balloon made us appear floating too ?)


I thought, that all of us on this blog already know, that being alive in the moment is best and needs no concepts, maybe Todd heard this fascinating news also.


Quite a burst of comments! :-)

Todd, Irvine, . , Mani, John, Freyja and Preity:

Thanks for your comments!

Todd: We do understand it conceptually - that there is no I and you.. and I am along you on that. However, it has been the downfall of mankind that it has - in absence of any better understanding - used human paradigms to even interpret the profound. Hence the market or love for Atman and Brahman. My contemplation is that there is NO Atman. There is just Brahman.

I am convinced that the era of Krishna was replete with Dualists who could not get away from useless constructs. It was in such environment that he came to bring back the message of ONE Brahman. His Atman was an attempt to extricate the Brahman from the humanistic constructs of His time.

Cheers,
Desh

My imagination cannot get a good grip on this One Brahman thing-less thing.

One Cosmos, perhaps, yes. One dynamic Constant just may be.

But One God and no ME makes no sense, whatsoever. Waaaaaah!

One God that is space itself, and this One Brahman takes up all that space?

Or, One God who is Father Time, but whose space is no further away?

Can Brahman make Himself go away? Nah, He's impotent in that regard.

Many a man has gone insane wishing/thinking themselves as the IT.

If I create a ladder and put you in the middle, are you then stuck?

Useless constructs have brought humanity to this very edge.

How sharp can we be, really? We were never cut-out for this.

Besides...what makes us think anyone else really KNOWS?

Love makes us gullible creatures. My God is Silly.

Silly, imperfect, and naive? Damn straight! But inexperienced?

Probably not. Go figure. (No #'s needed.) Luvz, UT

Yes Desh!
No Atman.
Only Brahman.
No I, you or me.
No person, human or body.
Not even mind or vibration.
Only Brahman

John,
For that hour you were The Teacher.
On the surface the energy (vibration) of your comment seemed hostile.
yet that is just the (apparent) surface form.
The vibration of your comment is Pure Cosmic Joy.
And by reading it the realization of ecstatic joy
as the primal constituent of creation was fully
realized. An egoic reaction would be to defend, fight back or be offended.
Yet there was more to be gained from your comment than any. It is fairly easy to live in Cosmic Ecstacy in a cave, mountain or under exhilarating circumstances. To see Cosmic Joy under less than
desirable circumstances is the true test.
Thanks.

I believe the Lord breathed life into Creation, and yet in the mysteriousness that is the ineffable YHWH, her/his Spirit, the Holy Spirit if you will, fills immaterially the cosmos entire. Also, Jesus Christ is the son of God, but are we all not the daughters and sons of God!?!?! Yet, I can in good faith pray: Hear O Israel! The Lord is our God! The Lord is One!

I was thumbing through the Rig-Veda, the Upanishads, Bertrand Russell, Spinoza, and even that grand old Stoic Marcus Aurelius to fortify my argumentation (the Holy Spirit is Atman or the Logos) and yet I will just cut and paste these following definitions of some theological -isms- that are probably familiar to most intentbloggers yet clarifying anyway, if anybody cares to read.

Peace

Theism: Classical theism can be identified by a number of features: First, it involves a god who is active within the human world rather than detached from it. Second, theism places immense value upon the experience of god, either through symbolism, literature, or mysticism. Thirdly, this god is usually described as the ideal paradigm of moral perfection. Finally, the theist god is conceived of in highly personalistic terms and often comes to worldly fruition in the form of a human incarnation.

Classical theism is often contrasted with the views of Deism. While Deism typically asserts that a deity created nature but does not interact with it, theism usually holds that god not only created the world but is also present within it as well. While deism emphasizes the deity's transcendence over humanity, classical theism stresses the immanent nature of God. For the deist, god exists as a mystery apart from the everyday world, whereas for the theist, the relationship between God and the world, and therein God and humanity, is far more involved. However, theism should also be juxtaposed with pantheism, the doctrine which identifies a highly immanent god with the universe itself. In contrast to Pantheism, theism considers the physical world to be essentially different than its Creator, the Ultimate being, and human life is in no way an iteration of the life of god. Theism should also not be confused with monism (v.i. [vide infra; see below]), the religious or philosophical principle that regards everything in the universe as a part or manifestation of some ultimate principle or being.
http://[DELINKER]www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Theism

Panentheism: The term panentheism (meaning "all-in-God") was coined by German idealist philosopher Karl Christian Friedrich Krause (1781-1832), in the process of replacing scholarly notions of the transcendent God with a more participatory notion of the divine. Derived from the Greek words pan (all), en (in) and theos (God), this term refers to the belief that God is the entirety of the universe, but also beyond it as well. Thus, the panentheistic God is both an immanent force within all creation, and the transcendent power over the universe.

Panentheism has not yet been embraced by a large amount of major religious and theological groups, although it has been recognized experientially in most historical religions. But, it is gaining momentum among contemporary theologians and philosophers of religion, serving as an acceptable means for reconciling difficulties with other beliefs concerning the nature of God.

Panentheism is typically viewed as a theological and philosophical middle ground between strict monotheism and pantheism (not "pan-en-theism"). For the strict monotheist, God and the world are separate, with God usually seen as completely transcendent (above and beyond the world). For the pantheist, in contrast, God is identified with the universe as a whole, and is seen as being immanent within the world rather than transcending it. Panentheism seems to reflect a philosophical urge to balance immanent and transcendent properties of the divine by preserving aspects of God's transcendent self-identity while also promoting a deep sense of intimacy between God and the universe.

Panentheism is easily confounded with pantheism, the belief that the totality of God is fully infused within the universe. Unlike pantheism, panentheism does not stipulate that the universe is synonymous or co-terminous with God. Instead, it holds that there is more to God than the universe. Under both classifications, God (G) is considered to be of the same ontological substrate as the universe (U). However, for the pantheist the universe is the whole of God, while for the panentheist it is only a part of God. Thus, in panentheism, God maintains a transcendent character in addition to an immanent one, and furthermore is viewed as both the creator and the original source of universal morality. To summarize, in pantheism, G = U [=; equals], while in panentheism, G > U [>; is greater than].

Panentheism can also be confused with monism (v.s. [vide supra; see above]), which refers to the metaphysical view that the totality of existence is essentially a single, uniform essence, principle, substance or energy. While panentheism does reduce the world to a single essence (the divine), this essence is identified solely as divine and nothing else, while a monistic explanation could potentially reduce all things to a non-spiritual principle. Further, by asserting that God transcends the world as well as providing constituent elements for it, panentheism can be simultaneously described as dualistic, as it conceives of God as separate from the world as well as imbedded in it. In addition, panentheism is pluralistic in the sense that it attributes volition to the various beings and events of the world, independent of God. Thus, equating panentheism with monism would represent an insufficient evaluation of the multifarious implications of pantheistic thought.
http://[DELINKER]www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Panentheism

Whew! Good stuff.

pax vobiscum

Ref: 27, level7, don't mean to cause you more distress, do you seriously think that this exchanges is the test of one's spiritual prowess ?

By the way, how long did you spend in the cave to know what's easier ?


Sorry, I meant Ref: 24, level7, don't mean to cause you more distress, do you seriously think that this exchanges is the test of one's spiritual prowess ?

By the way, how long did you spend in the cave to know what's easier ?

Igor,
I have a sense of humor too!
Do you think I actually take any of this blogging seriously?
You have read enough of my comments to see where I am coming from.
If you desire a serious spiritual exchange drop me a line at...
toddi999@yahoo.com

Todd, the only laugh I get here is from Ed's lines and, well from Avtar. Yours are sweet though which lets your nature through.

Don't you feel sometimes that the comments we make aren't for the addresser but for the third party, it is for him/her is our humble efforts mostly directed. Otherwise it's all in vein.

Got your email, if you feel like sharing something you can always drop me a line too, igor@zeromaxgmbh.com

With Love

igor

Igor,
I try not to analyze too much.
One line/comment can be construed an infinite
number of ways.
In the end everything is The universe communicating with itself.
Look for my email.

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