shivalinga

does it matter who your parents are ?

are we beings of flesh and blood ?

or are we sentient beings residing in material
bodies ,not affected in any way by matter
in either the form of Blood,bones and skin,
or matter in the form of racial stock ?

when we leave this body it turns into food
for worms, is it so special that it's lineage
imparts some type of superiority or inferiority
to the temporary resident of the body ?

the concept of a relationship existing
between the conscious entity residing in the corporeal form that is in some way affected
either by "better" or "worse" affiliations
in terms of lineage is hardly a scientific
or mystic or "spiritual" truth.

Rather it is based on misconceptions not only
of the true nature of reality but also of
the true nature of our being and our
relationship to the being of the transcendent
Whole.

Whether a person is born in an igloo or
in Buckingham palace the only real difference
between them is Karmic in nature, not material
difference based on genetics, but a difference that is born of the evolution of consciousness.

A person is born either in wealth and happiness,
healthy and loved or a person can be born
into a different situation , from middle class
to the lowest and most unhappy situation
that is found, crippled, poverty stricken,
orphaned, abused, etc.

Why is this so ?

why are some born into affluence,love, and education while others into misery ?

It doesn't matter who your parents are, those of
great pedigree may have children of great
misfortune, deformed,sickly,imbicilic,etc.

It doesn't matter if you were born into the
good life,at any moment you may be
sent into a maelstrom of misery, sickness,
poverty,incarceration,mental distress,
etc.

Or, if you are born into misery, at any time
that may change and your life could become
blissfull.

The geneaology of your parents is irrelavant
to the absolute truth, that is to say
easy come, easy go.

when we view the world as a series of unrelated
happenstance occurences, with ourselves
as being the winner or loser depending
on the luck of the draw or the position
in society attained by our lineage, we exist
in what the sages of India call "Maya",
delusion.

This world to them is under the spell of
"Maha Maya", The great illusion, what seems
to be real is in fact an illusion.

even the mundane quantum physicists agree with that,The substance that comprises all material
things(quanta) is not what it appears to be, most of any solid object is empty space.

Atoms have mass or weight in some mysterious
unknown way, they have been searching for
"the god particle", this theoretical stuff
is all pervasive and without it the nature
of quantum physics or "nature on the atomic level" is completley baffling, without it the world
as a solid place shouldn't exist.

Also to the ancients Maha Maya had another
meaning as well, the world as an illusion
created by a magician.

All things exist in our consciousness and mind
relative to our understanding ability and education.

What the world is to a cat is different then what the world is to you.

the world is the same regardless ,but the perception and
understanding of the world changes according
to your ability.

The absolute truth is that which is true in all
circumstances, non relative truth.

to say i am a man is relative to my bodies
continuing existence, my manness ends with the end of my body, it is a relative or non absolute
truth.

all temporary truths are relative to time,
place and circumstance, the absolute truth
transcends those things, it is the eternal
truth.

All temporary circumstances are relative to
the absolute truth, that which is changeless.

So what is the absolute truth ?

http://www.bvml.org/SBTP/bhagavata.htm

http://www.bvml.org/SBTP/nsvd.htm

http://www.bvml.org/SBSST/sri_brahma_samhita.htm

http://www.bvml.org/SBTP/sts.htm

premjan

the nature of your mind and personality does have some relation to the nature of your body and the nature of your upbringing as it is an end-result.

there is some sort of equivalence in principle between certain types of minds (called enlightened) but even in that discussion there is a lot of dispute and most people have a favorite.

Perhaps we could say that there are attributes of mind that are universal, but nearly every mind is different in some way.

shivalinga

that wasn't my point, geneaology has nothing
to do with it, of course your upbringing influences
your mind and personality,but not whether or not
your skin is a certain color or you are descended
from kings or paupers.

mind is another thing though,the vedantic conception
is that there is only one mind,many personalities,
in essence we all share one mind but are experiencing
that mind to various degrees.

It's like the air we breath, we all breath the ocean of air
but experience it differently,some breath smoggy air
others breath thin air, depending on our situation
we experience the air differently, so our mind
is not our self, we listen to the mind,we are not the mind,
we are the consciousness/personality being led by the
mind.

What we think of as the mind depends on our experience and
our intellect, we understand through our intellect ,we
use our intellect through our mind,we exist seperatly
from these two things, we evolve guided by our intellect
through our mind, our experience confirms this,
from a child through our life our consciousness evolves
through our intellect, the mind itself is the same always,
but our intellect informs our consciousness through our mind.

the mind is like a computer net, it allows or disallows
data from passing along depending on the controller,
the user is able to access and use the net to aquire
data but that is regulated by the system operator
depending on your qualification.

The Karma of the individual is the qualifying factor
that is the basis for what our experience will be,
and that is based on the level of the evolution
of your consciousness.

Vajradhara

Namaste all,

thank you for the post, shivalinga.

according to Buddhist thought, karma is the operative cause, though not the sole cause. in fact, there are 23 causes posited in Buddhist Philosophy as to the "why" and "how" of rebirth with Karma being simply one on that list.

it seems, and it wouldn't be surprising in the least, that you are espousing the Atman Doctrine... which, as i'm sure you know, the Buddhists disagree with, to wit, the Anatman Doctrine.

premjan

that the mind is like a computer program. each person's mind is slightly different but all are variations on a theme: in other words it is possible to conceive of a universal mind that includes all particular minds as parametrizations of itself. but I think it is questionable if such a mind actually exists. on the other hand, some peoples' minds are running more flexible and universal programs. other people are running more peculiar and individualistic programs.

I'm not sure it is very useful to think of mind too abstractly. it is just an information-processing mechanism that assists us in concrete tasks (e.g. survival, finding food, a mate and so on).

shivalinga

no, i am saying there is only one mind in the universe,
we share the same mind, the perception of self as mind
is an illusion.

the mind is speaking to us almost constantly, we are not the mind,we do not control the mind, look at memory, memories
pop into our mind without any data accessing by us,
we desire some type of info, or not, then a memory pops
into our mind.

we do not control the mind, the mind controls us.

shivalinga

our minds are not different,our intellects are.

imagine a billion people using a single data base,
they each have an interface, their access and experience
of the data base is determined by their intellectual ability,
they either have the minimum required knowledge
to operate a computer,or they have advanced degrees
in computers, the data base and the tools are the same,
but the person's experience depends on his ability,
or intellect.

the same for the mind, we are all part of one mind/system,
but have varying experiences dependng on our intellectual
states, the Vedic idea is that for the perfected yoga practioner
the whole mind/system is accessible, for him/her the
mind is not the self,but the mind is the portal to a higher
reality.

premjan

the network is the computer, and be done with it.
some memories are subjective and do not originate outside our intellects. some memories graduate to collective or cultural status and are accessible to all (but they still look a little different to each person; reality through a different lens). it is like a network of computers as you said.

shivalinga

this poem by Michael Jackson gives a perfect
rendition of Vedic ideas concerning the mind and the cosmos,
and the relationship of God to the cosmic mind/human mind