message to my friends

[f. maiello]

Prashant Sharma wrote:

>         The point I am trying to make is that whatever one thinks about
> the "other state" is because, and in terms of, some existing philosophy.
> There is no "proof" that there is some other state of being, independent
> of what a philosophy defines that to be. It is therefore quite clear that
> only one philosophy can get you "there". Some other school of thought will
> lend itself to an approach that shall take one somewhere else. So, as long
> as we are going places let us ride the same bus. The possibility that we
> arrive at the same place is not ruled out, but it is not proven either.
>

There may be no empirically scientific way of
proving that the state of egoic liberation is
the same for all humans, other than through an
insight of the intuitive intellect.  And if such
insight is applied to other faculties of the human
being, such as ideas of whether people feel the same
pain from a toothache, or have the same sensation
in their gut when riding a rollercoaster, or get
the same surge in their heart from falling in love,
these are then seen and recognized to be archetypal
patterns universally inhering in every human being.
Therefore, by deductive reasoning, why wouldn't the
same experience ensue if the ego is suspended or,
more ideally, lost?  Why would one believe that the
experience would be so different for different people?
Isn't it basically the same human nature involved?
Even if different philosophies postulate different
characteristics theorized to eventuate if someone's
ego gets de-fused, how would that effect the actual
event itself?  And even aside from this, there aren't
either meaningful differences from one spiritual
philosophy and another, since they are also universal
archetypal revelations.  For example, Sankara asserts
that "atman is brahman," Jesus said, "I and my Father
are One," Moses reporting the message of Jehovah,
"I AM THAT I AM," are clear utterances of what is thus
a universal archetypal pattern of non-dual philosophy.


>
> > >         Why then did Buddha expound a philosophy and thus
> > > (in your way of putting it) carry the raft on his back?
> > >
> >
> > It was his prarabdha to be a teacher.  He was also utterly
> > detached from his teaching--which, incidentally, was the
> > antithesis of a philosophy or religion.
>
>         Which didn't make the end result any different did it?
>

Not sure what you're saying here.  Do you mean he still carried
his philosophy "on his back"?  I would say yes, but he didn't care
because he was egoically detached.

namaste