The meeting, as before, started with a reading of Chapter 16 of Ouspensky’s book "The Fourth Way", on recurrence and reincarnation.
The question arose what part of the person survives one life to exist in another. RM said that in the advaita vedanta belief system, everything is a dream, the whole cosmos is in existence within people's minds. L asked about the case of a tree falling in the forest unobserved, or a meteor striking Neptune. That too would be part of everyone's existence, RM said.
"R" suggested that the sensory reality of her body existing in the world is evidence for her of a physical existence in the world.
L referred to the computer on the table being an object in physical existence, the result of designs by scientists and engineers of genius.
RM explained that advaita is Sanskrit for "not two", representing a non-dualistic view of the world where everything is one.
L asked if music exists independently before it is written down. For example, had Beethoven not written down his fifth symphony, in what manner would it now exist? RM responded that the C influence, which affected Beethoven, would still have existed.
"R" said that our belief of free action is a delusion and our actions are a response to conditioning and other prior actions. L proposed a technique of independent choice based on throwing dice to select what to do. "R" said that the way the dice would fall is still inevitable, even if unpredictable.
The reading continued, with Ouspensky saying: "Very often you hear people say . . . that they can remember their lives in previous reincarnations . . . This is pure fantasy. . . . What may pass from one life to another is essence. So one can have only such vague sensations, instead of definite recollections, that it is hard to suppose that anyone can remember anything concrete."
A said that she has met people in this life who she remembers from a previous life. She also knows how she died and what happens after; the subconscious becomes conscious and there is an appreciation that everyone is connected - after such a realisation it is very hard to return to ordinary life.
D asked for a explanation of what recurrence is. L said it can either be a repeat of the same life, in the same period of time, or a similar life in a future period, perhaps meeting some of the same people again in related situations. A third possibility is reincarnation to an unrelated life. D mentioned a memory of leading a group of French soldiers in Russia during the Napoleonic wars. The discussion moved to what part of the person was it that remembered, essence or personality. T made the comment that whoever it was that had experienced the traumatic time described by D, had perhaps been "woken" by the trauma to a deeper experience of reality than usual. If the remembered event was an occurrence of someone "waking up" from their usual "sleep", maybe D remembers the event from his essence which is said to be universal or eternal. In this case D may or may not have been present at the time to experience this event, which is inexplicable in his present "ordinary" life.
"R" related the essence to the universal or collective unconscious containing all knowledge and experience.
M said there is a need to believe in eternal life as otherwise what would be the point of existence?
L referred to a novel "The End of Mr Y" by Scarlett Thomas, which posits a method by which people can temporarily experience being in another person's mind in the present or the past - such a mechanism would be an alternative explanation for some evidence put forward for reincarnation.
The reading continued, with Ouspensky saying recurrence is a more scientific theory in the sense that we do not have direct evidence for the existence of time outside of our own lifetimes. "Time is life for each person, and it includes in itself all time, so that when life ends, time ends. So reincarnation is a less scientific theory than recurrence - too much is taken for granted." He also writes "As a theory I would say that the theory of recurrence is better than the theory of reincarnation, but we have no real evidence as to whether it is nearer to facts or not. And we cannot have evidence because of our state of consciousness."
"R" recalled from childhood being told "If I were you . . .", and how, at that time, it set her pondering what if it were true that "I were you", and that people might be the same, part of a common flow, except for a part which appears for each person to be distinct and self-conscious.
(An electronic version of The Fourth Way is available from the link on the right. For a Google Books preview of "The End Of Mr Y" click here.)
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Hi Gurdjieff Group
ReplyDeleteThank you for your mail and for including me in your discussions. I read the minutes of you August meeting with much interest and wish to comment as follows if I may.
Q: Does music exist independently before it is written down?
C. Like radio, TV etc. it exists but requires a medium through which it can be 'downloaded' in order for it to be comprehended by the senses. The human brain is the medium for all inventions, compositions etc.
C. I concur with R that free action is a delusion - but does this imply that there is no such thing as 'free will'?
C. Reincarnation is a myth - its popularity gives succour to our ego's wish to exist in perpetuity. However it may serve some purpose by instilling a sense of discipline into people. Humans actually 'reincarnate' through their genes and past life regressions (which are quite common) are the result of the brain i.e. memory, 'tapping in' to the genes which have been passed down from forebears. One stops 'reincarnating' when one stops regenerating i.e. having children.
If individuals reincarnated then the human population would be static but it is now 6.5bn, so where were all these 'souls' 100 or 1000 years ago. Not, as suggested by the Buddists, living on another planet/plane since the 'sins' committed there would presumably be very different from those committed in our earthly environment!
When one thinks of the vast amount of information that can be stored on a micro chip - how much more 'memory' can be stored on the double helix of our genetic code - one strand from our paternal heritage and the other from our maternal side.
Dwelling on the subject of re-incarnation if I may, someone once likened 'Life' to a sheet stretched tightly across 'all knowlege'. Every time a human is born a little bubble appears in the sheet, breaks off and glides about until it runs out of steam and then descends back into and through the sheet of life. However every now and again a bubble appears which is not severed and the link with the 'all-knowing' beneath the sheet is maintained which gives rise to the rare genius in humans. Food for thought - would appreciate your comments.
Regards to you all, especially my much loved friend Monty - hope you are enjoying Autumn, its hot as hell here.
Kind regards
Barbara Lee
Hi All
ReplyDeleteFound the piece I wrote you about - actually it was written by the author Colin Wilson in his article about Tesla. Hope you find it talk and thought-provoking
Regards
Barbara L
Tesla wrote :
I see individuality as a temporary separation from the fabric of nature. The best picture of this that I can imagine for myself is to see a plane or sheet of infinite extent. The sheet is flexible and individual humans and animals emerge rather as if someone had pushed a finger against the reverse side of the sheet and made a bulge. The bulge becomes a sphere with a thin neck still attached to the plane. Then the neck parts and the individual is free, but just for a lifetime.
At the time of death, the sphere goes back down to the plane, re-attaches, flattens and flows out into the whole until there is finally no trace of it. But the temporary individuality has not been lost by has merged with the living entity of nature. We are given a brief leasehold on a separate enclosure. I believe that during the lifetime of some rare humans the neck between the plane of the universe and the sphere of the individual remains actively open during their lifetime and that communication can occur along it both ways between the entity of the universe and the cognition of the individual. I think Nikola Tesla’s vision sprang from this connection and that he could translate the patterns of nature he saw into our own mechanistic frame of reference. I mentioned earlier that the new science will enable us to use our own individual properties to see different aspects of nature which are more complete than the fragmented and mechanical descriptions offered by the old science and that this must involve the whole of our own experience. So for me it is very rewarding to be able to conclude this chapter by recording that my experience and standpoint has been materially changed ion this direction by the act of writing it.
Re. Quote. The question arises, what part of the person survives one life to exist in another.
ReplyDeleteIn the example of a tree falling in the forest unobserved, would that event be a part of our conscious existence.
As there were no sense perceptions to hear or otherwise perceive or be impressed with in the event of the unobserved falling tree: Even if the unobserved tree ACTUALLY fell, there would be no awareness of the event and consequently no REALISATION of its occurrence would survive. M.