Birth and Death

[Victor]

I've read somewhere that the concepts of birth and death are exactly that. Man made concepts, since we don't know for sure. An idea is that we were never actually "born" and we'll never actually "die", we always WERE and always WILL BE. I'm not talking about reincarnation or anything, really.
I'm not exactly sure what I AM talking about, because it's always been a hard idea for me to comprehend.
What I try to fathom is what consciousness was like BEFORE being conceived, and ESPECIALLY what it'll be like afterwards.
I'm not well informed on these things, so I apologize in advance for any ignorance I might display.

[EDIT] *I forgot the last part, asking for other people's thoughts on this.

...What are your thoughts?

[UniversalEnergy]

A Universal Principle attributed to Albert Einstine: The Law Of Uncertainty states that any realisitic description of the universe must describe it in all possible states at the same instant of time; thus a person is unborn, alive and dead at the same moment.

It appears under other Universal Principles from North American Indian Cultures that all souls are unified after they have obtain liberation, freedom from karma. Freedom from the Law of Karma requires us to be unattached to the results of our actions. Karma means nothing more than "action".

[Victor]

I'd like to understand this further. Because it's confusing, but it makes a sort of confusing sense...if that makes sense.

[Celtaur]

Birth and death of the physical body is of it's own accord, but the spirit is eternal. I believe sleeping may possibly prepare us for death - how much do people love to sleep, how peaceful is that? And by the time one falls asleep, they didn't realize they had, they simply shut off, and the next thing you know, you're awake again.

So if the soul doesn't immediately ascend into a divine realm after leaving the physical body I don't think it would matter much, because eventually, even trillions of years later the spirit would be bound to awaken in another state somewhere somehow, and wouldn't it simply have seemed like just a second? Just like 8 hours does when sleeping all night, time ceases to exist in ones awareness. Like before birth in the current physical, it seemed like nothing, no time. Billions of years passed by and it simply seemed like those billions of years did not exist. That the current moment is always a now moment, always present. So regardless of the physical, consciousness always is perceived as being here now I would say.

[Vivitskaya]

If we began our lives again at the beginning, would we do anything differently? Could we do anything differently?

We act in each moment exactly according to the countless preceding actions and events that have led up to this point, and there can be no other action than the one we actually take. In this sense we have no, or very little, free will. We live under the Law of Accident. Everything happens as a result of what has happened before it in a long uninterrupted chain of accidents. We cannot do.

If we begin to awaken, we may fall under fewer laws.

The moment of birth and the moment of death are intimately connected, in my experience of childbirth. In our beginning is our end. We have been, in our previous lives, not an Egyptian Priestess or an Apache Indian, but ourselves. We tread the same path again and again, repeating the same mistakes and experiencing the same joys. We cannot do differently.

If we come into contact with a Way we may fall under a higher influence. This contact will never be repeated in the same way.

If we work on ourselves it may be possible to accumulate something that can survive death, a soul. This may take many lifetimes. Perhaps we can even accumulate something that can be of enduring service to the Absolute. But this is a long way away from us as we are.

Ponder the Ankh. Eternity passing through linear time but eternally returning to it.

El Greco's The Burial of Count Ortiz can be seen as an illustration of eternal recurrence.

I know many people remember past life times. I don't, but I recognise moments and some indivduals in this life time (deja vu).

[Celtaur]

If we work on ourselves it may be possible to accumulate something that can survive death, a soul. This may take many lifetimes. Perhaps we can even accumulate something that can be of enduring service to the Absolute. But this is a long way away from us as we are.

In my paradigm of spirituality, I already have a soul, my soul is what is conscious and connected to and is divinity experiencing itself as manifested through that conscious awareness. I do believe I can purify and attune my soul to higher vibrational energy to become more consciously aware of that connectedness and oneness, but none the less I do believe I have a soul, or rather the soul has me, I am the soul.

[Vivitskaya]

This is interesting, because it highlights the difference between what the ancient Egyptian called Ba and Ka.

Ba is our animal soul, which we all have. Ka has a lower part that includes our appetites (which is why food was placed in burial chambers) and a higher part, the spiritual Ka. The spiritual Ka is what I understand by our immortal soul, that part of us that is able to reunite with the Absolute upon death. This spiritual Ka is not given us, but is acquired through conscious labour and intentional suffering. It descends upon us from above, or we climb the ladder up towards it.

Wishing you well.

[Celtaur]

This is interesting, because it highlights the difference between what the ancient Egyptian called Ba and Ka.

Ba is our animal soul, which we all have. Ka has a lower part that includes our appetites (which is why food was placed in burial chambers) and a higher part, the spiritual Ka. The spiritual Ka is what I understand by our immortal soul, that part of us that is able to reunite with the Absolute upon death. This spiritual Ka is not given us, but is acquired through conscious labour and intentional suffering. It descends upon us from above, or we climb the ladder up towards it.

Wishing you well.

I ask this because I have a genuine interest in your perspective, and glad you can shed light on some of the ancient beliefs of the Egyptians, thank you.

Because I do like to look at things from various angles, and I do have an aversion to inflicting self suffering as a tool to spirituality, I would like to ask a possibly difficult question. The first perspective deals with dogma, the second deals more with the journey of unification. Both are questions of consideration from a place of curiosity and willingness to understand and not meant to discredit anyone's personal beliefs.

1 - Could this belief of the "Ka as not being given to us, but acquired through conscious labor and intentional suffering" be a dogma instituted by the powers that be at the time? There is much to this - suffering. It is spoken of greatly in Buddhism as the pattern of the human condition, it is shown in the story of the Jesus and in the fall of satan into hell...

I do wonder though, because the ladder is a symbol of heirarchy, could this belief have stemmed from the Pharoah's - the powerful rulers that were considered gods? The "descending on us from above" is a metaphor for humans being on the lower levels, reaching for something higher.

In a number of religious systems there is an organized heirarchy, Catholocism may be one example with priests, bishops, cardinals, etc representing a heirarchy towards God. To many this type of system is considered to be an organized attempt at having power over the lower parts of the system (the everyday attendees). The attendees often look up to this heirarchy, accepting rules and judgments by those they call a higher authority (for example "father" in Catholicism), a symbol of authority and rulership. Many have an aversion to this type of "middle man", and see them as those who attempt to get between oneself and the source by enforcing their judgment, rules and dogma to enforce their power in effect telling others they must follow their way, and obey them to get access to and acceptance by the source. Throughout the centuries, the organization of heirarchy has often suppressed people telling them they do not have, they are not good enough, they are not accepted, they are not enough and to attain unity with God, with the source, they must follow, obey and do as they are told or the consequence will be non unity with the Source and in many cases eternity in hell. In this type of system, the heirarchy not only attempts to control one in the current life, but also to do this, instill fear over ones spiritual self even after death.

So, relative to your discussion, could this be another example of ancient beliefs of suppression, not only in the current life through hard labour and self inflicted suffering, but also withholding one's own ability to acknowledge their own spiritual connection with divinity? Was this belief installed by an authority, a figure who retained their own level of heirarchy and power by using this belief to suppress those below?

Now, from looking at the same consideration but not from the perspective of dogma....

2 - This Ka you mention - maybe it has parallels with the perspective as can be seen as in the kabbalah - the purpose of being departed from the divine, so that the journey and purpose is to refine one's consciousness to again attain the unity with divinity, to become one with the higher soul, the divine. That Birth marks the separateness and through this is the cause and result of separateness. Therefore reunification is the purpose, and through that purpose, suffering is a result of the separateness. And that the meaning of suffering is not referring to acts of self infliction in this lifetime, but the suffering is itself through being separate, and is a metaphor for the divine branching out from itself, and the desire to return to oneness.

[Vivitskaya]

In my understanding, self-inflicted suffering leads nowhere. Self-flagellation or wearing horse-hair shirts represents an incomplete understanding or degeneration of the idea of intentional suffering.

We will suffer regardless of whether we know it or not. Life is suffering, in being parted from the Absolute as you pointed out. We suffer when we experience negative emotions. We suffer when we do not think that others value us sufficiently. We suffer when life is not as kind to us as we think we deserve. Suffering is unavoidable as we are. This is what I understand Buddhism means by saying that life is suffering.

It is possible to make this inevitable suffering profitable. It is possible to transform it.

If we react to a situation with indignation we are suffering, but because we are identified with righteous anger we think that the state we find ourselves in is just. This is self-calming and so feels less like suffering.

Intentional suffering means that we know that we are suffering. We are present to our state. We see ourselves in all our weakness, without sentimentality, without excuses, without self-pity. It means that we do not seek to avoid difficulty. We seek to transform.

This is what coats and perfects our higher being bodies.

Our higher being bodies are sometimes known as higher emotional centre and higher intellectual centre; Body Kesdjan and Objective Reason; the Virgin and Child; astral body and mental body.

This kind of transformation is Karma-Yoga.

I agree that a ladder or hierarchy is a simplistic way of looking at the possibility of connecting with the higher. The heavenly host of Cherubim, Elders, Archangels etc. seem to me to be ways of trying to make the qualities of universe comprehensible to us at our level. Another way of looking at it, as I believe the Sufis do, is as worlds within worlds.

P.D. Ouspensky describes the Ray of Creation as ranging from the Absolute, subject to 1 law; All Worlds (all galaxies), subject to 3 laws; All Suns (our galaxy), subject to 6 laws; our Sun, subject to 12 laws; All Planets, subject to 24 laws; Earth, subject to 48 laws; the Moon, subject to 96 laws (hell).

It is unpalatable to us that we are a very long way from the Absolute. This teaching is for those who are disappointed in what they have been searching for, those that have realised that what they know is not enough for them, that it can lead them nowhere.

Organised religion and its hierarchies are a construct of man, yet at the heart of all the great religions lies the same esoteric truth. At the centre there can be no disagreement.

Creation is a descending octave, emanating from the Absolute and creating all worlds and life in its descent/unfolding. Below the Absolute itself this descending octave is a mechanical process. The further down the process of creation, the less the connection with the Absolute, the less conscious it is. Man’s spiritual journey is an ascending octave, back up the Ray of Creation. It is a way against Nature, as nature is part of the descending octave.

It is only through our living bodies that the Absolute can become manifest in time and matter. The Absolute wishes to become conscious of itself. In order for this to happen we must become self-conscious.

[Celtaur]

In my understanding, self-inflicted suffering leads nowhere. Self-flagellation or wearing horse-hair shirts represents an incomplete understanding or degeneration of the idea of intentional suffering.

We will suffer regardless of whether we know it or not. Life is suffering, in being parted from the Absolute as you pointed out. We suffer when we experience negative emotions. We suffer when we do not think that others value us sufficiently. We suffer when life is not as kind to us as we think we deserve. Suffering is unavoidable as we are. This is what I understand Buddhism means by saying that life is suffering.

I'm glad you gave clarity to this, I think the term "intentional suffering" can often summon images of such acts as self-flagellation, etc. I agree, the 4 noble truths speaks of naturally inevitable suffering, and transcending.

P.D. Ouspensky describes the Ray of Creation as ranging from the Absolute, subject to 1 law; All Worlds (all galaxies), subject to 3 laws; All Suns (our galaxy), subject to 6 laws; our Sun, subject to 12 laws; All Planets, subject to 24 laws; Earth, subject to 48 laws; the Moon, subject to 96 laws (hell).

This is interesting. This is of the 7 rays of creation... I will look into the laws further.

Organised religion and its hierarchies are a construct of man, yet at the heart of all the great religions lies the same esoteric truth. At the centre there can be no disagreement.

This is true, the source is the ultimate truth.