Physciality as the Root of Necessity
Adi Da Samraj, October 1, 2004
The particularly in the West, and this incarnationist thinking is wrapped up in all kinds of things including scientific materialism. Physicality as the root notion of necessity.
This is even part of the Buddhist tradition, interestingly. The tradition of Advaita Vedanta has no problem saying the Self, the Atman that is the Param‑Atman, the non‑separate Self, not just the Self. Buddhists just can’t say the Self. They just can’t say it, because it seems to suggest a separate interior somebody, and there’s a fundamental disinclination to defining anything separately. So, they can’t say the Self. So there’s constantly got to be an accounting for the nature of phenomena, that is somehow transcendental, so there’s always a referencing to phenomena, characteristically in the Buddhist tradition.
There are sixth stage Buddhist traditions. The dominant ones are sixth stage, but they are different from the tradition of Advaita Vedanta, because of this distinction in the preference relative to the philosophical language that’s the basis for describing Reality.
Ultimately yes, the Self has to be realized, but we can’t say the Self, you see. You look at the phenomena until you are relieved, somehow or other of the binding power of phenomena, and what is realized is not described.
But, it’s the Self. So, in the Christian tradition, it’s all this bodily resurrected Jesus, but it’s a vision. It’s a spiritual vision. It looks like light. Physical resurrected up into the sky, but it’s light. You can’t say it though, because that sounds like Gnosticism, and Aramaeas who wrote five volumes in which he defined heresies, and Gnosticism was a heresy, so you can’t say it’s spirit. You have to say it’s flesh.
Well, the entire Western tradition is based on it, and that’s where scientific materialism came from. Science, as it is, could not have been invented anywhere in the world, but in the West. And it’s because of this Christian tradition, and its incarnationist theology. It allowed for this way of getting at things, you see, which is a useful method from a certain perspective. But it’s the particular genius of the westernized mind, and Christianity is its source tradition in religious terms, this incarnationist tradition. But it’s just a theological preference, and it created science, as well as pictures like Jesus going up into the sky and disappearing behind the clouds, or somehow getting to Galilee in a flash, and yet he was physically existing.
So, it is a paradox, you see, commanded by theological preferences. And those who are involved in the Christian tradition are persuaded by it, well it’s theirs to figure out, theirs to deal with you see. It’s not obligatory for anybody else. One does not have to believe it, except under force, you see. It has been forced on some people, like other religions have been forced on people.
Hopefully, especially in democratic societies, it’s not an enforced belief, like free enquiry is permitted and encouraged. But free enquiry should also mean that free discoveries are also allowed, and not demonized by the dominant propaganda, materialistic, incarnationist, you name it, whatever it is.
The Buddhist tradition has this kind of orientation I’ve just described to You which gives it something in common with Western modes of thinking. Perhaps this explained some of the popularity of Buddhism in the West at the present time.
Everybody loves the Dalai Lama, but nobody is going to lift a finger to save Tibet from the Chinese. Nor are all the liberal governments who meet the Dalai Lama, even though the Chinese don’t like it. Those government representatives are not going to become Buddhists. But there are popular Buddhist movements of various kinds, including those associated with Tibetans who are traveling throughout the world, and it finds a congenial ring with the Western disposition, because it has this orientation, fundamental orientation to the perceived world, prakriti rather than purusha, if you like. A different philosophical orientation, just as there are different theological orientations in the traditions. There are different philosophical orientations that characterize civilizations and they come together in some characteristics and separate at other points.
The Western leaders who meet with the Dalai Lama are not whole‑heartedly recognizing the pursuit of Nirvana. Also, if you look at the sixth stage traditions that come out of the Tibetan culture, principally mahamudra traditions and dzogchen traditions, they are likewise, based on this fundamental orientation toward phenomena, the transcendental nature of phenomena. You’ve got to keep your focus on the phenomena because you can’t speak of the Self, you see. It’s anathema. Just as Gnosticism was anathema from the point of view of the early Christian tradition.
Words like the atman, para‑atman, purusha, and so forth, these are anathema from the Buddhist position. You’ve got to speak of phenomena. It can be described as illusory, on and on. You can say all kinds of things, but you’ve got to keep addressing phenomena, you see.
The mahamudra tradition, basically, is built on this philosophy of dependent arising, and the idea of emptiness. In other words, there is no independence to any phenomenon that arises. It is all dependent on a great cycle of causes and effects and so forth that is without ultimate definition.
Dzogchen tradition largely, it’s very similar to the mahamudra tradition, but it basically founds itself in these notions of nirvana and samsara are the same. But they’re very samsaric about it. They’ve got to be constantly referring to the disposition of identifying with the root, clear, whatever, blah blah blah, you see, while feeling the transcendental nature of phenomena.
So, there’s a lot of dzogchen presuming to be in some absolute condition while you continue persistently to look ordinary and do ordinary things and don’t discipline, and don’t change, and don’t even meditate.
Whereas, in the mahamudra tradition, there is stil a lot of expectation of disciplines of various kinds and so on. Purification of the mind, the disposition of compassion. It’s not that it’s absent from dzogchen, but there are certain peculiarities that are the unique aspects of the two as variants on the sixth stage traditions that come from Tibetan or Vajrayana Buddhism.
So every culture, religious, philosophical, cultural, even in scientific, all aspects of human culture are characterized by various idea modes relative to the fundamental and ultimate dichotomies, and spirit and flesh, self and energy, and so on, consciousness and light, and separate. One of them is viewed as dominant, and the other secondary to it, and you get a whole different kind of tradition. Insist on the flesh nature of the resurrected Jesus, then you, because you don’t want to be Gnostic about things, you seem to be throwing out the baby with the bath water, in some sense. You can’t acknowledge spiritual things.
The Buddhist tradition can’t acknowledge Consciousness, unless it means something you know with or something that is separate. Whereas, the tradition of Advaita Vedanta doesn’t mean anything separate about the reference whatsoever. It’s just a convenient way of pointing at the root condition. But its tendency is to be exclusivistic about it, and that’s its conditional limitation, the effort to exclude phenomena in order to identify with the Self.
So, all of the sixth stage traditions participate in the sixth stage error, but there are different modes of appearance to that error. As with the previous stages of life. All the traditions that are associated with any of the developmental stages of life are built upon the errors inherent in those stages of life.