No matter the enchanting wonders of
21st century technology, immortality and the search for transcendence
will always tempt our imaginations. However, neither of these topics seem to interest today’s
educated masses or for that matter the uneducated. There are of course notable exceptions, and there seems a
slowly massing movement of what I like to call consciousness activists.
Still, it often appears like an uphill
battle. The spectacular success of modern technology -- its near apocalyptic
disruption of life on earth -- have created a climate of confused
incredulity. Nevertheless, there is real data that
suggest immortality or at least postmortem survival in various flavors. Other masses of data, old and new, prove
that people have mystical experiences and indeed encounter all manner of transcendent wonders.
As for immortality, consider a
simple argument: if consciousness is not born from the brain – and nobody has a
clue to how that is even possible -- why then should it cease when the brain
dies?
No doubt more telling are case histories
of near-death experience, veridical apparitions and mediumship, convincing reincarnation
stories, and the like. All of this
points to the possibility of consciousness continuing after death.
Once we realize how adjacent our
world of experience is to the ‘next’ world (mind is the link), and learn to
sense the hidden intersections between our psyches, the easier to imagine the
veil lifting that separates the living from the dead – even if it be for a
moment, as was the case the few times it lifted for me.[i]
As far as the god-question: led by
the intuitions of the Upanishads, I’ll say this: In Indian philosophy, the one
consciousness is prior to everything.
Satchitananda --“being-conscious-bliss”
-- is the supreme reality. Fancy
that! The one mind pervades and
transcends the physical world, according to this view. And moreover this one great mind is the root
of those transcendent experiences that people have, mostly muttering about the ineffable.
Now just as pure consciousness is
filtered and particularized through different brains and bodies, thus becoming
personal consciousnesses, so is it filtered and particularized through
different cultures, languages, and historical niches. The various filterings of
pure consciousness thus produce the world’s religions. The records of transcendent encounter in
different cultures express their interactions with the one mind, the one
presumptive absolute.
The model sketched above is
consistent with Hindu spiritual tradition. It honors the oneness of spirit and consciousness and at the
same time celebrates a polytheism of methods in the pursuit of enlightenment. We can use this as a model for what is
living and what is dead in religion, the premise being that the different
traditions are partial perspectives on the one great mind – the absolute factor
hypothesized.
The dead part of these perspectives
needs to be fumigated, buried, and left behind: the fanaticism, the cruelty,
the intolerance, the violence, the catastrophic hypocrisy, and the utter
leaden-brained stupidity.
The living parts represent the
different ways individuals and groups attempt to dialogue with the one mind
whose limits and ultimate nature transcend our understanding, probably
forever.
Speaking for myself, the word religion seems a pejorative term and I prefer
to speak of art forms of transcendent encounter, or ways of engaging the unseen
dimensions of being.
At all levels of culture we find different
styles of dialogue with the transcendent, losing and gaining adherents as with
styles in other domains of self-culture, like fashion, cookery, sports, music,
and the plastic arts. Progress here
consists of dropping the remnants of warped religiosity and radiating outwardly
in a democratic uprush and outreach toward all forms of sentient life.
In a democracy of higher consciousness,
we’re free to explore the unknown god the ancient Greeks celebrated. People have been in dialogue with something unknown – a great
mind and force -- since time immemorial. It’s possible today to do the same, but some of us using a
different, more descriptive vocabulary, free from dead religious encrustations
and scientistic presumptuousness. The
heart of the greatest adventure is still alive and beating within ourselves.
Once we free the concept of mind
from the prison of physicalism, we can embark on a research project into the
supreme frontier of ourselves.
Regarding the soul, said Heraclitus, no matter how far or deep you travel,
you will never reach its boundaries.
The prophet may reveal one aspect
of the one mind, the mystic quite another, while artists, lovers, and diviners of
every stripe will obtain suitably different effects. From the humblest petitionary transaction to the heights of mystical
rapture, the thing I like to dwell on is that all the effects are surprising extensions
and shocking ramifications of our own earth-muddling minds.
The element of newness is this. To
people migrating in the twilight zone of the gods, the unmoored, the rovers and
wanderers without a homeland of spirit -- to them for whom the stench of dead
gods and rotten ideals is insufferable, it may be possible to set up
exploratory interviews with our great unknown friend.
By drawing on whatever images, symbols,
and methods we like in our preferred tradition, we have the trappings of an
experiment. In our post-materialist, post-religious
age, we are also free to wander to the outskirts of tradition and experiment on
our own. As with any art form,
it’s always possible to break open new veins of the possible. That goes with the territory of a truly
pious polytheism of the imagination.
The ways to travel are many as we play the game of a conscious life on
earth.
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