Immortality and Transmigration

In Western culture practical minds decode the mechanics of fire and ice. Immortality is left to madmen. Plato’s Socrates was one such madman. A saint among the early Greek philosophers, Socrates discourses on the immortality of the soul while drinking poison. He points out that the psychic substance of the soul will live better without the body. This mortal frame is only a disturbance; imprisoned within the corporeal mass the soul is hardly free to soar to the heights of immortality.

Soaring to the heights...

As an idealist, Plato himself felt there must be a higher reality where the immortal soul discovers the true forms. Plato was a mathematician. In our world mathematics is the basis of what we call “hard” science; in Plato’s world mathematics was the basis of mysticism. Plato like Pythagoras before him saw perfection in such divine forms as the circle.

Pythagoras of Samos

While Pythagoras authored many formulas, such as his famous theorem on the triangle, he was considered a cult leader in his own time. His followers the Pythagoreans were suppressed as madmen by the orthodox Greeks of the time. Their idea of immortality included transmigration of the soul, metempsychosis or reincarnation.

His teachings survived through the oral tradition and through Plato’s affection for transmigration and mathematics. The Pythagoreans were early vegetarians. The ancient Greek historian Photius records:

The Pythagoreans abstained from eating animals on account of their belief in transmigration, and also because flesh-food engages digestion too much, and is too fattening. Beans they also avoided, because they produce flatulency, over-satiety, and for other reasons.

According to tradition it was Pythagoras, coined the word "philosophy" ("love of wisdom") and "philosopher" (lover of wisdom). He taught that "only God, not man, could be wise." He felt that it was premature to call philosophy "wisdom" and those who practice it - "wise men." A philosopher is someone who feels attracted to wisdom. According to legend, Pythagoras' teachers were sages from faraway lands. Not only was he schooled in childhood by Middle Eastern priests and astrologers, but also the famous mathematician Thales of Miletus. Thales as the first person to investigate the basic principles, the question of the originating substances of matter and, therefore, as the founder of the school of natural philosophy. Thales was a great natural philosopher erudite in history, science, mathematics, engineering, geography, and politics with theories on all these subjects. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote that Thales of Miletus predicted an eclipse in a year when the Medians and the Lydians were at war.

The account of Herodotus is apocryphal and is subject to some debate as to whether the eclipse in question occurred in on May 28, 585 B.C., or 25 years earlier in 610 B.C.  In any case, Pythagoras himself must have profited by sitting at the feet of such a great master of mathematics absorbing his teachings. It is believed that Pythagoras had visited Tibet when only a teenager and that he learned many of his esoteric doctrines regarding transmigration of the soul from ancient seers of the truth either in India or Tibet.

Plato’s ideas on the immortality of the soul clearly mirror those of Pythagoras, but were not shared by his own disciple Aristotle. Plato held that the body and soul are two distinct entities, the soul belonging to the ideal world and the body to the material world. Like Pythagoras, Plato felt that the soul was temporarily implanted within an embodied form but would one day return to the ideal world. Immortal and unchanging, the soul would seek out immortal understanding or knowledge in the perfect world of “forms. The external body operates in the sensual, empiric world, but the soul aspires for the perfect, ideal world.

Aristotle held a more materialistic view. He felt that body and soul are interdependent. The Renaissance painter Raphael’s “School of Athens” is a fresco of Plato’s academy. In the center of the painting we see Plato strolling with Aristotle, engaged in conversation. Plato points upwards. He seems to say, “It’s up there.” Aristotle’s hand, in contrast, faces the earth. He seems to say, “No, master, it’s down here.” The painting captures the dichotomy between master and student and the essence of their disagreement. Plato’s emphasis is with the ideal, Aristotle’s with the real.

Thomas Aquinas did his best to reconcile Plato and Aristotle with the teachings of the Church. The scientific ideas of Aristotle had recently entered the Western world by way of the Islamic world. Aquinas was commissioned with justifying the ways of God to man. And his justification is quite Aristotelian. Aquinas adopted Aristotle's classification of material objects as well as his views time, space, and motion. Aquinas used Aristotle’s idea of the prime mover as proof for the existence of a necessary being as one of his principle arguments. Aquinas borrows Aristotle’s cosmology just as would Dante later in his Divina Commedia. There is little room between the analysis of Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle's own account of sense perception and empiric knowledge. Not only did Aquinas borrow his cosmology: His moral philosophy is closely based on on Aristotle’s Ethics. Aquinas did his best to create a synthesis between faith and philosophy and was successful in that his system went unchallenged for hundreds of years.

Perhaps Plato is too pagan for the Angelic Doctor. His ideas about transmigration of the soul were avoided and faded into obscurity. Aquinas promotes the Church doctrine of immortality, which while owing much to the Greek philosopher, in the Christian world is distinct from the ideal forms of Plato. Aquinas believes in the objective world as did Aristotle and thinks that we can reason from the design of the world to the designer. Plato believes that the true forms of the ideal world exist beyond our sensual reality and that the senses and their perceptions are unreliable.

If Aquinas ignored the idea of reincarnation in his treatise on God and the immortality of the soul, he was only doing his job. By time Aquinas, working as papal theologican for Pope Clement IV, was writing his Summa Theologica in 1265, the doctrine of transmigration of the soul had been anathema and heresy for at least 700 years. The idea of reincarnation or metempsychosis became heresy the the 5th Ecumencial Council, the Second Council of Constantinople in 553.

2nd Council of Constantinople, 553

 
At the Second Council, the Church took great care to condemn as anathema the philosophy and teachings of Origen of Alexandria. Origen of Alexandria (185-254 AD), was one of the greatest Christian theologians of his time. His seminal On First Principles, is a masterwork of Christian Neoplatonism. Origen absorbs many of Plato’s ideas, including transmigration of the soul. The Alexandrian theologian lived through the troubled times of the Early Church. During those dark days Christians were persecuted, martyred and exterminated. There was little or no doctrinal consensus between the regional churches of his time. Gnosticism opposed Christianity while Origen offered its refutation. Origen offered an alternative Christian system to Gnosticism that was more rigorous and philosophically respectable than the mythological speculations of the various Gnostic sects, while supporting the idea of reincarnation.

A critic of pagan philosophy, he was an astute student of Plato and Plotinus and adapted the teachings of Plato and the Greeks to his interpretation of Christian faith. His explanation was influential. His version of immortality was later rejected by the authorities of the Constantine counsel who were determined to purge the idea of reincarnation from the teachings of the Church. The council asserted, for example:

“IF anyone asserts the fabulous pre-existence of souls, and shall assert the monstrous restoration which follows from it: let him be anathema.”

The critics of Origen attacked him on individual points, and did not create a systematic theology to oppose him.  Even so, one can glean from their writings five major points that Christianity has raised against reincarnation:

(1)   It seems to minimize Christian salvation.
(2)   It is in conflict with the resurrection of the body.
(3)   It creates an unnatural separation between body and soul.
(4)   It is built on a much too speculative use of Christian scriptures.
(5)   There is no recollection of previous lives.

It is surprising that it took at least two centuries for the Church to issue this condemnation of Origen’s particular interpretation of immortality which favored transmigration of the soul. The case against Plato’s view had been building for years.

During the period from A.D. 250 to 553 controversy raged, at least intermittently, around the name of Origen, and from this controversy emerged the major objections that orthodox Christianity raises against reincarnation.  Origen of Alexandria, one of Christianity's greatest systematic theologians, was a believer in reincarnation.

Origen was a serious philosopher and theologian, fascinated with the Greeks devoted to scriptural authority, a scourge to the enemies of the church, and a martyr for Christian faith.   But while he was an important spiritual teacher in the Alexandria of his day with a large body of writings and profound faith, his teachings were declared heresy by the bishops of the Constantine Council of 553. 

The debates over his so-called heresy reveals the antipathy over reincarnation in the theology of the Christian church. While Origen was a lion of the Church in his own lifetime objections were raised against his teachings from about fifty years after his death in the year. The case against him built over the centuries. Bishops opposing his views included Theophilus, Jerome, and the Byzantine Emperor Justinian one of the founders of the Eastern Orthodox Church. 

The bishops were opposed to the idea of the preexistence of souls as well as Origen's Platonic doctrine about the resurrection of the dead.  His teachings became the subject of heated debate throughout Christendom. Bishops began to oppose what they saw as questionable doctrine in Origen’s writings.  Transmigration of the soul would suggest that punishment in Hell, for example, is not eternal. The Doctrine of Eternal Punishment was espoused by Augustine.

In many ways, Saint Augustine of Hippo who succeeded Origen, working and writing some 50 years after his death was the most influential theologian among the Early Church Fathers. Disagreement with his writings is tantamount to heresy, and this applied especially in the case of Origen. Augustine had promoted the doctrine of Eternal Punishment. Origen had favored re-incarnation and temporary punishment. But if any one life is merely a way-station to further learning in a proximate life, then punishment can only be temporary. Eternal Punishment is vitiated by the idea of re-incarnation. This made it unacceptable doctrine, especially for the influential Augustine.

The battle was won after the controversy flared up around 535, and in the wake of this the Emperor Justinian composed a tract against Origen in 543, proposing nine anathemas against "On First Principles", Origen's chief theological work.  Origen was finally officially condemned to Hell forever in the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, when fifteen anathemas were charged against him.

The ninth anathema of Justinian clearly condemns the idea that Hell might be a temporary situation: If anyone says or thinks that the punishment of demons and of impious men is only temporary, and will one day have an end, and that a restoration will take place of demons and of impious men, let him be anathema. This anathema against Origen solidified the position of Saint Augustine and the doctrine of Eternal Punishment in Hell.  

Augustine’s doctrine of eternal torment was not a widely held view for the first five ccenturies after the advent of Christ. Eternal Punishment in Hell is nowhere found in the compassionate teachings of the Early Church, especially in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Early apostles and Church fathers such as St. Paul, Clement of Alexandria, St. Gregory of Nyssa, Origen, and others have no use for the Doctrine of Eternal Punishment.

But Eternal Punishment is especially useful for those who control the doctrine. The only way of escaping Eternal Punishment, after all, is to follow the authorities and maintain a good standing in the community of followers.

St. Augustine’s Doctrine of Eternal Punishment ensures dependence on the priesthood and the Church authorities who will define what behavior is acceptable and what is heresy. And so, with the council of Constantinople and its anathemas, Christian Orthodoxy preserved itself through fear and control, opting to protect it’s doctrinal “truth” through the active suppression of opposing ideas and by condemning its former saints to burn in hell along with their family members.

For the Orthodox, the heretical idea of reincarnation died and went to Hell along with the teachings of Origen and his followers.

But heretics have a way of becoming saints again. After trial by the Church for heresy, on May 30, 1431, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake at the Old Marketplace in Rouen, France. Her rehabilitation took nearly 600 years. Saint Joan of Arc was canonized into Sainthood by the Catholic Church on May 16, 1920. If heretics can become saints, ideas are also reborn and resurrected.

The ancient mysticism of Pythagoras was suppressed, but found new life in the teachings of Plato. Plato’s idealism has come and gone. Rejected by the pragmatists of science, Plato’s cave lives again in the science fiction of the Matrix.

Reincarnation, while sometimes condemned by Orthodox theologians has a way of resurrecting itself in the hearts and minds of those who contemplate the immortal character of the soul.

English poetry is not known for great flights of metaphysical fancy. Shakespeare rarely mentions the soul; his version of comedy and tragedy was moved by baser motives. Money, sex, and power suffice in Shakespeare to move his players across the stage. They strut and fret their lines on love and death. His poetry stabs the heart but rarely touches the soul.

And yet, transcending even the rhapsodical lines of Shakespeare, for higher heights there is the great metaphysical poet John Donne. Long out of favor, Donne has recently been rediscovered. While John Donne’s standing as a great English poet, and one of the greatest writers of English prose, is now assured, his metaphysical observations were out of favor during much of recent history. His reputation remarkable in that his poetry had fallen so far from favor; condemned as inept and crude during the Restoration. Just as Joan of Arc, John Donne had been considered a bit of a heretic, out of vogue with critics. He was rehabilitated with the help of T.S. Eliot and William Butler Yeats. His poem, Metempsychosis or “The Progresse of the Soul” is a long paean to reincarnation and the transmigration of the soul.

“SING the progress of a deathless soul,

Whom fate, which God made, but doth not control,

Placed in most shapes; all times, before the law

Yoked us, and when, and since, in this I sing.”

John Donne’s poem, thick with mythology, biblical reference and fable, chronicles the the predicaments of an immortal soul imprisoned in a series of material bodies. He documents the transmigrations of an individual soul through plant animal, and human forms. His poem takes us through the debates on immortality that occupied philosophers from Plato to Aquinas: Is the soul unique to the human form of life? What is the relation between body and soul? If we as souls transmigrate from one body to the next, do we remember our past lives? Donne’s metaphysical questions go to the core beliefs of civilization and the heart of the debate over immortality. As Plato and Pythagoras before him, Donne sees transmigration as a natural consequence of the immortality of the soul. The possibility that a soul might transmigrate from one body to the next, from vegetable to animal to human intrigues the Elizabethan poet whose insight is far deeper than Shakespeare.

He plans to write volumes on the subject, or at least a book whose insight will go beyond sacred scripture. He leaves us only a fragmentary poem on the Progress of the Soul. Donne begins with the soul whose spark inhabited the apple given by Eve to Adam. He imagines the same soul born in the womb of Eve as Cain who passes from one body to the next, even incarnating as Queen Elizabeth herself. His leaves the poem unfinished, a writing project to be completed at a later date. But while his poem is inconclusive, Donne’s poetry makes it clear that he believes that the immortal soul animates one body after the next in its journey through time.

Resurrection is possible for Christ who teaches us the meaning of Die to Live through his example of sacrifice and rebirth. Why wouldn’t the individual’s sojourn through time describe a similar parallax? The idea of reincarnation or transmigration is certainly not original with Plato.

The ancient wisdom of India is enshrined in the teachings of Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita. There we find the following instruction (translation by A.C. Bhaktivedānta Swāmi Prabhupāda):

देहिनो ’स्मिन् यथा देहे कौमारं यौवनं जरा

तथा देहान्तर-प्राप्तिर् धीरस् तत्र न मुह्यति

dehino ’smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā
tathā dehāntara-prāptir dhīras tatra na muhyati

Bhagavad-Gita 2.13

“As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A sober person is not bewildered by such a change.”

अविनाशि तु तद् विद्धि येन सर्वम् इदं ततम्

विनाशम् अव्ययस्यास्य न कश्चित् कर्तुम् अर्हति

avināśi tu tad viddhi yena sarvam idaṁ tatam
vināśam avyayasyāsya na kaścit kartum arhati

Bhagavad-Gita 2.17

“That which pervades the entire body you should know to be indestructible. No one is able to destroy that imperishable soul.”

न जायते म्रियते वा कदाचिन्नायं भूत्वा भविता वा न भूयः

अजो नित्यः शाश्वतो ’यं पुराणो न हन्यते हन्यमाने शरीरे

na jāyate mriyate vā kadācin nāyaṁ bhūtvā bhavitā vā na bhūyaḥ
ajo nityaḥ śāśvato ’yaṁ purāṇo na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre

For the soul there is neither birth nor death at any time. He has not come into being, does not come into being, and will not come into being. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain.

वासांसि जीर्णानि यथा विहाय नवानि गृह्णाति नरो ’पराणि

तथा शरीराणि विहाय जीर्णान्य् अन्यानि संयाति नवानि देही

vāsāṁsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya navāni gṛhṇāti naro ’parāṇi
tathā śarīrāṇi vihāya jīrṇāny anyāni saṁyāti navāni dehī

“As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, the soul similarly accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones.

(Bhagavad-Gita Chapter 2, verse 22)

As a person gives up old and worn out garments and accepts new apparel, similarly the embodied soul giving up old and worn out bodies verily accepts new bodies.

अच्छेद्यो ’यम् अदाह्यो ’यम् अक्लेद्यो ’शोष्य एव च

नित्यः सर्व-गतः स्थाणुर् अचलो ’यं सनातनः

acchedyo ’yam adāhyo ’yam akledyo ’śoṣya eva ca
nityaḥ sarva-gataḥ sthāṇur acalo ’yaṁ sanātanaḥ

This individual soul is unbreakable and insoluble, and can be neither burned nor dried. He is everlasting, present everywhere, unchangeable, immovable and eternally the same.

(Bhagavad-Gita Chapter 2, verse 24)

जातस्य हि ध्रुवो मृत्युर् ध्रुवं जन्म मृतस्य च

तस्माद् अपरिहार्ये ’र्थे न त्वं शोचितुम् अर्हसि

jātasya hi dhruvo mṛtyur dhruvaṁ janma mṛtasya ca
tasmād aparihārye ’rthe na tvaṁ śocitum arhasi

One who has taken his birth is sure to die, and after death one is sure to take birth again. Therefore, in the unavoidable discharge of your duty, you should not lament.

(Bhagavad-Gita Chapter 2, verse 27)

Commentary by Bhaktisiddhānta Saraswati Ṭhākura

In this last verse the cycle of life is clearly revealed. From birth comes death and from death comes birth. Just like in the spring new buds grow which blossom into flowers and leaves in summer and in autumn change to red, yellow and orange in fall and blow away and become dormant in winter to begin the process all over again in the following year. In the a similar way the soul enters new bodies for its seasons of infancy, youth, maturity and old age and at the end of its cycle of life is born again accepting a new body for another season. This is an inevitable process in the material existence and is the automatic process that governs the birth and death. All beings existing in the material manifestation completely follow this reality.

Ciencia y Misticismo

Ciencia y Misticismo: ¿Quiénes son los locos?

Prueba de Vida

No hay una prueba científica de le existencia de Dios, He buscado. Puedes intentar con Google y obtener el mismo resultado. Las ideas bordean la estrecha área de la “prueba”, sin embargo, puede ser  verdad. Después de todo, la verdad es más extraña que la ficción. Simplemente observa el 2016

El amor desafía toda prueba como lo hace la propia existencia. No puedo probar que estoy consciente. La conversación que tengo en sueños es casi tan real como los que tengo estando despierto. No puedo probar que la materia del mundo existe, como demostrara Bishop Berkeley.

El escéptico filósofo Hume bromeó acerca de que mientras los argumentos de Berkeley no admiten la menor refutación, estos no inspiran la mínima convicción. Uno sospecha de que sus observaciones estaban inspiradas en la amargura. Hume se propuso  refutar a Dios. Dios era escéptico y Hume ya no existe.

Algunos misterios eluden a la ciencia: El origen del Universo, las olas gravitacionales, la cura al cáncer, la teoría del campo unificado, la teoría del todo. El problema de la consciencia es uno de esos misterios.

La teología intenta resolver el enigma, pero la teología es únicamente un departamento especial de pensamiento producido por la mente al trabajar en un aspecto en particular de los materiales presentes que presentan los sentidos.

Como hemos visto como consecuencia de la obra de Kant, la religión mental funciona en el nivel racional de consciencia; este es más o menos el método al igual que el objetivo de la investigación de los moralistas empíricos, los teólogos y los científicos. La crítica empírica de la Biblia y todo el tratamiento mental del tema de la religión, están viciados por la adopción de la así llamada razón. Y debido a que, tal como hemos señalado, la prueba espera, la teología “racional” es un método equívoco de explorar los asuntos en cuestión. Para profundizar el entendimiento de la realidad uno ha de ir por encima de la razón.

A primera vista, la idea de ir más allá de la razón es una anatema para el cerebro lógico. Los grandes científicos han hecho sus mejores descubrimientos al hacer eso y preguntar “¿Y qué pasa sí…?” incluso cuando “¿Y qué pasa si?” desafía la lógica. Esos “experimentos del pensamiento” encienden la imaginación de los científicos y de los escritores de ciencia ficción. Grandes mentes han llegado a soluciones elegantes a problemas matemáticos al razonar en reversa de una visión de realidad. Edward de Bono, filósofo del S. XX llama “pensamiento lateral# a la manera de ver esta forma de solución. Para aquellos para quien Dios es auto-evidente llaman a esta clase de visión “fe”. Los experimentos del pensamiento van más allá de la lógica y la razón y abren la puerta a la imaginación. Gran parte de la ciencia posterior del Siglo XX, incluyendo la teoría de la relatividad de Einstein, la física cuántica y el descubrimiento de los agujeros negros se basó  en gran medida en “experimentos del pensamiento” que iban más allá de la lógica. Einstein nos pidió imaginar un viaje en un elevador a la velocidad de la luz. Shrodinger nos pidió poner un gato en una caja que viva y muera de acuerdo a nuestra propia percepción subjetiva. El autor de Cogito, René Descartes imaginó el mundo físico como una elaborada ilusión y preguntó cómo podríamos estar seguros de que es real, Platón nos recodó que así como los prisioneros en una cueva ven sombras parpadeantes en una pared y lo perciben como la realidad, frecuentemente estamos engañados por los sentidos y la mente en nuestra interpretación empírica de los fenómenos. ¿Cómo podemos saber si es real?

La preciosa lógica que usamos para construir la tecnología falla cuando se aplica a la existencia. Nuestra visión de realidad puede únicamente ser fragmentada, como miles de imágenes en el ojo de una abeja. Con esa visión  fragmentada ¿cómo podemos ver la realidad última? ¿Cómo podemos ver al ser con el ojo de la razón?

El pensamiento rasional y el análisis son deconstructivos. Rompe las cosa. Romper las cosas y re-ensamblar las piezas es trabajo de obrero de fábrica. El análisis es una función primitiva de la mente. Para entender la naturaleza de la consciencia y de Dios es necesario ir más allá del análisis, más allá de la razón.

La habilidad para trascender la razón ha sido siempre cualidad de los visionarios. Incluso los escritores de ficción especulativa han sido capaces de ir más allá de las restricciones del raciocinio ordinario para crear mundos alternativos que capturan nuestra imaginación. La mitología inventiva de Star Wars, por ejemplo, es tan convincente que los ateos prefieren ese universo que el nuestro. Escritores imaginan posibilidades a través de experimentos que solamente más tardes se hacen realidades. Lo que fuera fantástico en tiempos de Julio Verne: los submarinos como el Nautilus, los cohetes a la luna y el viaje de 80 días alrededor del mundo son lugar común hoy en día.

Los escritores de ciencia ficción como Ray Bradbury, Stanislaw Lem y Philip K Dick que escribieron en los 50´s reimaginaron nuestro mundo como misiones a marte, viajes en el tiempo y mundos futuros disfuncionales poblados de sujetos en estado de vigilancia, video teléfonos, androides, y carros auto guiados. Asimov escribe las reglas de los robots y Arthur C, Clarke se preocupa acerca de la inteligencia artificial mucho antes de que el microprocesador se usara de alguna forma sustancial. Estos hombres crearon la mitología de la ciencia ficción en días anteriores a la televisión a color, cuando la NASA usaba reglas de diapositivas para calcular la trayectoria de los cohetes.

En donde los científicos insisten en pruebas rigurosas de la existencia de la conciencia y la mente, son descuidados intelectualmente cuando se trata de viajes en el tiempo, el desplazamiento curvo y la fusión fría. Estas posibilidades no están descartadas, ya que son proyectos de investigación “sexys”. Dios no es un proyecto sexy de investigación. Así que mientras no exista “prueba”, no se busca ninguna prueba”. Pero los científicos no son inmunes a las ideas creativas en ldonde los filósofos se encuentran con la ciencia ficción. Mientras no crucen la línea de la investigación científica y el misticismo.

Es por esto que los pensadores modernos no tienen dificultad en discutir las ideas de si los robots son inteligentes o li tienen derechos los androides. El culto popular del clásico Bladerunner esta basado en la historia de Philip K. Dick, “¿Sueñan los Androides en una Nave Eléctrica?” Es irónico que en una era cuando los humanos tienen pocos derechos la elite académica discuta los derechos de las máquinas. ¿Ya hemos alcanzado la era de Terminator en donde gobiernan los robots? ¿Es posible la inteligencia artificial? O es por definición humana la inteligencia. ¿Y qué del viaje en el tiempo? ¿Cuál es la natrualeza del tiempo y del espacio? Los nerds de la ciencia ficción aman las películas Matriz. Pero ¿no es en realidad Matrix una extensión de la metáfora de Platón acerca de la cueva? ¿Y no es la cueva de Platón un camino concreto de explicar el viejo concepto oriental de Maya, o mundo ilusorio. No es Matrix un ejemplo de cómo somos engañados por el universo subjetivo de Maya?

El inventor Ray Kurzweil desarrolló la tecnología OCR que usamos en el supermercado. Cada artículo que tiene un código en él le debe algo a Kurzweil. A sugerencia de Stevie Wonder, desarrolló los lectores de textos para reprodujeran libros de forma hablada. Kurzweil también desarrolló el sintetizador de teclado moderno. Recientemente desarrolló la idea de que en un futuro podríamos vivir para siempre “subiéndonos” a nosotros mismos a la nube y por ello haciéndonos inmortales.

Por supuesto, los fans de científicos y de la ciencia ficción están abiertos a estas presunciones. Pero trate de discutir el alma, la vida trascendental o a Dios y la ventana se cerrará. Las ideas de Dios y de la fe son irracionales, simples supersticiones, no son dignas de ser discutidas. Está bien hablar de agujeros de gusano en el tiempo o pensar en robots, pero hablar de la divinidad es caer en el factor “woo, woo”, Vivir en una realidad virtual generada por la computadora es genial; realizando que el propio ser eterno está envuelto de algún modo en un mundo ilusorio llamado maya no es genial.

La ciencia ficción y la loca especulación que se remonta “más allá de la razón” es genial, mientras se lleve a cabo en una película o en una pantalla, o en un iPhone. La princesa Lea es genial”. “L Fuerza esté Contigo” es genial. La devoción espiritual y la meditación en un mantra es locura irracional, fanatismo, tal vez incluso peligroso terrorismo.

Hay una delicada línea entre el genio y el misticismo, entre el místico y el loco. Por esta razón, los santos parecen en ocasiones ser locos. San Francisco, cuando apareció ante el Papa y le pidió seguir una vida simple, fue considerado un loco peligroso como lo fue Jesucristo cuando volcó los puestos de los cambistas en el Templo de Jerusalén.

En el lenguaje del Vaiṣṇavismo, un gran sato que tiene la apariencia exterior de un loco se llama avadhuta. Esas personas desafían las convenciones sociales normales y desafían nuestro pensamiento racional. Gaura Kishore Dāsa Babaji era un elevado santo y fue reconocido por los académicos como un pensador  profundo. Mientras que muchos gurus construyen templos y gastan pródigamente en centros de meditación. Babaji vivió en la pobreza bajo un barco en las orillas del Ganges. Evitó escrupulosamente a los hipócritas y materialistas. Mientras que su honestidad y erudición eran incuestionables, Gaura Kishore consideraba la devoción a Kṛṣṇa superior en sabiduría y moral. Estaba bien informado de las conclusiones de las Escrituras, pero pasó su tiempo absorto en tomar el Santo Nombre.

En ese entonces en India había muchos gurus y místicos quienes también eran expertos en lógica y razón. Muchos de estos maestros de élite eran candidatos para acharya, el maestro siguiente más importante en la línea. Para los observadores más casuales, Gaura Kishore Dās Babaji parecía un loco, un avadhuta. Y sin embargo, a pesar de la aparente irracionalidad del comportamiento de Babaji y su excéntrica apariencia externa, el elevado erudito Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī lo aceptó como su guru, considerando que era la verdadera continuación de la línea Gaudiya. Mientras el propio Bhaktisiddhānta fue un distinguido astrólogo, un erudito en Sánscrito, y un comentador del Bhāgavatam que publicara miles de libros, él estimó la devoción de Babaji Maharaja por encima de su escolaridad y su análisis racional.

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Science and Mysticism: Who are the Madmen?

Proof of Life

There is no scientific proof for the existence of God. I looked it up. You can try Google and get the same results. Ideas that skirt the narrow area of  “proof,” however, may still be true. After all, truth is stranger than fiction. Just look at 2016.

Love defies proof as does existence itself. I cannot prove that I am conscious. The conversations I entertain in dreams are every bit as real as the ones I have when awake. You cannot prove that matter or the world exist, as Bishop Berkeley demonstrated.

The skeptical philosopher Hume once quipped that while Berkeley’s arguments admit not the slightest refutation, they inspire not the slightest conviction. One suspects that his remarks were inspired by bitterness. Hume set out to disprove God. God was skeptical and Hume no longer exists.

Certain mysteries elude science: The origin of the universe, gravity waves, a cure for cancer, the unified field theory, a theory of everything. The problem of consciousness is one such mystery.

Theology attempts to solve the puzzle, but theology is only a special department of thought produced by the mind by working on a particular aspect of the materials presented to it by the senses.

As we have seen as a consequence of the work of Kant, mental religion functions at the level of rational consciousness; this is more or less the method as well as goal of the investigation of empiric moralists, theologians and scientists. Empiric criticism of the Bible and all mental treatment of the subject of religion, are vitiated by the adoption of so-called reason. And since, as we have pointed out, proof is wanting, “reasonable” theology is a faulty method of exploring the question at issue. For a deeper understanding of reality one must go beyond reason.

At first glance the idea of going beyond reason is anathema to the logical brain. The greatest scientists have made their best discoveries by doing exactly that and asking “what if?” even when “what if?” defies logic. Such “thought experiments” fire the imagination of scientists and science fiction writers both. Great minds have arrived at elegant solutions to mathematical problems by reasoning backwards from a vision of reality. 20th Century philosopher Edward de Bono calls this form of seeing solutions “lateral thinking.” Those for whom God is self-evident call call this kind of vision “faith.” Thought experiments go beyond logic and reason and open the door to imagination. Much of science after the 20th Century including Einstein’s relativity theory, quantum physics, and the discovery of black holes relied heavily on “thought experiments” that went beyond logic. Einstein asked us to imagine traveling in an elevator at the speed of light. Schrodinger asked us to posit a cat in a box that lives or dies acccording to our own subjective perception. The author of the Cogito, Rene Descartes imagined the physical world as an elaborate illusion and asked how we could be sure that it’s real. Plato reminded us that just as prisoners in a cave see shadows flickering on a wall and perceive reality, we are often deluded by senses and mind in our empiric interpretation of phenomenon. How can we know what is real?

The precious logic we use to construct technology fails when we apply it to existence. Our vision of reality can only be fragmented, as the thousands of images on the eye of a bee. With such fragmented vision how can we see the ultimate reality? How can we see the self with the eye of reason?

Rational thinking and analysis is deconstructive. It breaks things down. Breaking things down and reassembling the pieces is the job of a factory worker. Analysis is a primitive function of the mind. To understand the nature of consciousness and God it is necessary to go beyond analysis, to go beyond reason.

The ability to transcend reason has always been a quality of visionaries. Even speculative fiction writers have been able to go beyond the strictures of ordinary ratiocination to create alternative worlds that capture our imaginations. The inventive mythology of Star Wars, for example is so compelling that atheists prefer that universe to our own. Writers imagine possibilities through thought experiments that only later become realities. What was fantasy during the time of Jules Verne: submarines like the Nautilus, space rockets to the moon, and 80 day trips around the world are commonplace today.

Science fiction writers like Ray Bradbury, Stanislaw Lem, and Philip K. Dick writing in the 1950s re-imagined our world as missions to Mars, time travel, and dysfunctional future worlds populated by subjects of the surveillance state, videophones, androids, and self-guided cars. Asimov wrote the rules for robots and Arthur C. Clarke worried about artificial intelligence long before the microprocessor was used in any meaningful way. These men created the mythology of science fiction in the days before color television, when NASA was using slide rules to calculate rocket trajectories.

Where scientists insist on rigorous proof for the existence for consciousness and the mind, they are intellectually sloppy when it comes to time travel, warp speed, and cold fusion. These possibilities are not ruled out, since they are “sexy” research projects. God is not a sexy research project. So while no “proof” exists, no proof is sought. But scientists are not immune to creative ideas where philosophy meets science fiction. As long as they don’t cross the line between scientific inquiry and mysticism.

This is why modern thinkers have no difficulty discussing such ideas as whether robots are intelligent or whether androids have rights. The popular cult classic Bladerunner is based on a Philip K. Dick story, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” It’s ironic that in an age when humans have fewer rights elite academics discuss the rights of machines. Have we already reached the age of Terminator where robots rule? Is artificial intelligence possible? Or is intelligence a human characteristic by definition. What about time travel? What is the nature of space and time? Science fiction nerds love the Matrix films. But isn’t the Matrix really an extension of Plato’s metaphor about the cave? And isn’t Plato’s cave a concrete way of explaining the age-old Eastern concept of Maya, or the illusory world. Isn’t the Matrix an example of how we are tricked by the subjective universe of Maya?

Inventor Ray Kurzweil developed the OCR technology we use at the supermarket. Every item that has a bar code on it owes something to Kurzweil. At Stevie Wonder’s suggestion he developed text to voice readers to reproduce books in spoken form. Kurzweil also developed the synthesizer into the modern keyboard. Recently he developed the idea that in the future we shall live forever by “uploading” ourselves into the cloud and thus becoming immortal.

Of course, scientists and science fiction fans are open to these conceits. But try to discuss the soul, transcendental life, or God, and the window closes. Ideas of God and faith are irrational, mere superstition, not worthy of discussion. It’s fine to talk about wormholes in time or thinking robots, but talk of divinity is indulging in the “woo woo” factor. Living in a computer-generated virtual reality is cool; realizing that one’s eternal self is somehow involved in a temporary illusory world called maya is not cool.

Science fiction and mad speculation that goes “beyond reason” is cool, as long as it takes place in a film, on a screen, or on an iPhone. Princess Lea is cool. "The Force Be With YOU" is cool. Devotional spirituality and mantra meditation is unreasonable madness, fanaticism, perhaps even dangerous terrorism.

There is a fine line between genius and mysticism, between mystics and madmen. For this reason, saints often appear to be madmen. Since the lateral thinking and faith of the great saints goes beyond reason, it often appears to be madness. Saint Francis, when he appeared before the Pope and asked him to follow the simple life, was considered a dangerous madman as was Jesus Christ when he overturned the stalls of the money-changers in the Great Temple of Jerusalem.

In the language of Vaishnavism, a great saint who has the outward appearance of a madman is called an avadhuta. Such persons defy normal social conventions and challenge our rational thinking. Gaura Kishore Dāsa Babaji was an elevated saint and was recognized by scholars as a deep thinker. While many gurus constructed temples and spent lavishly on meditation centers, Babaji lived in poverty under a boat on the banks of the Ganges. He scrupulously avoided materialists and hypocrites. While his honesty and scholarship were unquestionable, Gaura Kishore considered mystic devotion to Krishna superior to wisdom and morality. He was well-acquainted with the conclusions of scripture, but spent his time absorbed in taking the holy name.

Gaura Kishore Das Babaji

At that time in India there were many gurus and mystics who were also experts in logic and reason. Many of these elite teachers were candidates for acharya, the next important teacher in the line. To most casual observers, Gaura Kishore Dās Babaji appeared to be a madman, an avadhuta. And yet, In spite of Babaji’s apparently irrational behavior and eccentric outward appearance, the highly learned Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati accepted him as his guru, considering that he was the true continuation of the Gaudiya line. While Bhaktisiddhānta himself was a distinguished astrologer, Sanskrit scholar, and Bhagavatam commentator who would go on to publish thousands of books, he esteemed Babaji Mahārāja’s devotion above his own scholarship and rational analysis.

Bhaktisiddhānta Saraswati as a young scholar