The pattern behind self-deception

[mik1e]

Brain (nervous system) is the receiver/interpreter of signals of subtle bodies. All what you fell (see, hear, ...) in "normal" state of the mind comes to you consciousness via nervous system.

In meditation you train your mind to perceive (process) the information directly, without interference of nervous system. This helps you to understand the mechanisms of subtle bodies and clean them. Simultaneously you obtain the information about imprints of your previous incarnations and understand that some part of your "self" continues to exist after the death of your physical body. If your meditation experience is strong enough, you can keep your consciousness at the moment of death, and consciously select the obstacles of your next incarnation (but it is true for really high-level practitioners).

[psychicexplorer]

Thanks for that explanation.  It was explained quite well.

[Matthew]

Buddhism rejects reincarnation categorically. The Buddha taught there was no self to pass from life to life. Buddhist "rebirth" is more akin to a candle lighting a candle. The last state of mind of one life being the spark that starts the next life off.

I'm agnostic currently on the subject. Sorry I have not answered some earlier questions. They are not forgotten. Other commitments have kept me off the PC.

Matthew

[mik1e]

Buddhism rejects reincarnation categorically.

Buddha fought with ideology of Brahmanism, like Freud fought with teaching of psychiatry. That led both of them to inventing  totally new theories, which had to describe the same world and phenomena from totally new point of view. Such trick is very nice when you want to cut the ground from under feet of your opponent, but not really good if you want to describe the reality, because denying all what was said previously, you occasionally can throw the baby out with the bath water.

The same thing, IMO, happened with Buddhism. In their polemics with Hinduism they deny existence of any material carrier which can keep the memory about previous incarnations (otherwise they would have to accept the existence of Atman, which, according to Hindu teaching, is the "self" which reincarnates.) Acceptance of Atman, the core concept of Hinduism, means acceptance of the whole teaching which Buddha wanted to destroy. That's why they are so categoric with respect to this topic.

However, if one decides to think himself (but not just reproduce texts written in polemics with ancient opponents, like many religious Buddhists do), he will face the question: how the information from a lot of previous lives can be transferred to current living being without physical carrier? This question can be easily ignored by those who are not good in physics, but for people with scientific mind and scientific background it is clear that there should be some carrier.

This carrier needs not to be the same object as Atman, described in Hinduism, but statements about total absence of such carrier are also not correct. Such "physical" approach makes things much clearer and easier, and allows to focus on investigation of real nature of the phenomena, rather then on quotation of ancient texts. And this approach is totally in lines with Buddha's teaching.

[Matthew]

That is why I am agnostic on this issue.

As I also studied Physics and Mathematics at University I am familiar with the arguments you are producing. However, at subtle levels we know that Physics has not really got much further than this:

"Objects appear to be real and solid but are made of particle-wave type things and lots of space and we can't properly describe these phenomena".

I'm agnostic about Physics too.

And Freud. Though less so on that score ... his main problem was that when he said his patients were sexually abused and got better when they talked about it his bills didn't get paid and he was castigated by his colleagues in the field for causing trouble. Instead he invented the electra and oedipius complexes and set psychology back approximately 50 years ... just so he could keep up his cocaine habit.

M

[mik1e]

You are right, modern physics has no instruments and theories to deal with subtle world. But we are, actually, on the threshold of new physics, which may appear on our eyes, as it was at the beginning of 20-th century with quantum mechanics.

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, discovery of Podkletnov, IMO, opens the door to phenomena of subtle world. At least everybody agrees that no one current physical model or theory can explain his findings. Unfortunately, this new knowledge will be used for creating weapons first, but I hope that, finally, its "peaceful" implementations will appear, too.

[Matthew]

Goes further than that Mik1e ... modern physics has no complete theory to deal with the gross world. It is nowhere near approaching the subtle.

M

[elliberto]

IMO people talking about physcis should be versed in physics, otherwise commenting on it is meaningless.
Can you honestly say you are well versed in quantum field theory? Or general relativity?

"Objects appear to be real and solid but are made of particle-wave type things and lots of space and we can't properly describe these phenomena".

To the extent that physics can't properly describe quantum-gravity (so really really small particles in really really strong gravitational fields). The rest can be described fine in the sense that what is possible to measure is in good agreement with theory.
So IMO the limitations of physics in doing what it is supposed to do: predict observables are greatly exagerated.
If you expect more, maybe your expectations are unrealistic. Because is it really reasonable to expect a method for predicting observables to also answer existential questions?