Atheists argue that they are able to live moral, productive lives with out Faith in survival of consciousness after death of their bodies in present lives.
Christians, believe that they are transferred to Heaven by Faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the Cross 2000 plus years ago. ( Where ever Heaven is, remains vague. ) They believe those with out faith in what Jesus did for them suffer in Hell,.....where ever Hell is.
Most Eastern Religions teach that individual souls Reincarnate or Transmigrate to other physical bodies after death of present bodies, based on Karma created from present and past lives, until all Karmic actions are exhausted, by various methods too complicated to describe in this Article. But the final Goal is to return to the One Creator of all life.
Krishna Consciousness Teachers do not subscribe to the "Oneness" teaching of Advaitists that Individually of souls are ever completely lost or absorbed in to the Whole. ( of which I also agree, along with the Krishna Folk and Spiritists)
"
Atheists argue that they are able to live moral, productive lives with out Faith in survival of consciousness after death of their bodies in present lives.
Christians, believe that they are transferred to Heaven by Faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the Cross 2000 plus years ago. ( Where ever Heaven is, remains vague. ) They believe those with out faith in what Jesus did for them suffer in Hell,.....where ever Hell is.
Most Eastern Religions teach that individual souls Reincarnate or Transmigrate to other physical bodies after death of present bodies, based on Karma created from present and past lives, until all Karmic actions are exhausted, by various methods too complicated to describe in this Article. But the final Goal is to return to the One Creator of all life.
Krishna Consciousness Teachers do not subscribe to the "Oneness" teaching of Advaitists that Individually of souls are ever completely lost or absorbed in to the Whole. ( of which I also agree, along with the Krishna Folk and Spiritists)
"
Krishna Consciousness Teachers do not subscribe to the "Oneness" teaching of Advaitists that Individually of souls are ever completely lost or absorbed in to the Whole. ( of which I also agree, along with the Krishna Folk and Spiritists)
"
Advaita (Oneness)
Reading Complexity:
Dvaita means "dual,” and advaita means "nondual." The material world is a world of dualities—heat and cold, happiness and distress, up and down, black and white. According to the Vedic literature, however, theAbsolute Truth is free from all such material dualities. It is called advaita.
Some philosophers hold the view that because the Absolute is free from dualities, it must be totally impersonal and devoid of qualities. According to this view, known as Advaita Vedanta, in the Absolute there can be no desires, thoughts, or perceptions, no sense of personal identity, no forms, qualities, or activity, but only undifferentiated spiritual oneness. This being so, whatever we now perceive is illusory.
But this view raises a question which Advaita Vedantists can't answer, "If nothing really exists but one undifferentiated Absolute Truth, where does the illusion of variety come from? How can illusion exist (or even appear to exist)? And if truth and illusion both exist, how can there be oneness?"
As every aging human contemplating death of their present bodies, they all eventfully must:
Choose between three theoretic alternatives: Annihilation, Absorption, or the individuality of the soul before and after death. It is to this last belief that we are led by reason; and it is this belief that has constituted the basis of all religions in all the ages of the world.
I choose to believe in the Combination of Allan Kardec's Spiritist Philosophy and Sant Mat, or what s called "The Path of The Masters."
The Following is taken from Allan Kardec's Spiritist book, Heaven and Hell, and offers very reasonable arguments regarding survival of individual Personalities.
"1. It is certain that we live, think, and act; it is no less certain that we shall die. But, on quitting the earth, whither shall we go? What will become of us? Shall we be better off, or shall we be worse off? Shall we continue to exist, or shall we cease to exist? “To be, or not to be,” is the alternative presented to us; it will be for always, or not at all; it will be everything, or nothing; we shall live on eternally, or we shall cease to live, once and forever. The alternative is well worth the consideration.
Every one feels the need of living, of loving, of being happy. Announce, to one who believes himself to be at the point of death, that his life is to be prolonged, that the hour of death is delayed—announce to him, moreover, that he is going to be happier than he has ever been—and his heart will beat high with joy and hope. But to what end does the human heart thus instinctively aspire after happiness, if a breath suffices to scatter its aspirations?
Can anything be more agonizing that the idea that we are doomed to utter and absolute destruction, that our dearest affections, our intelligence, our knowledge so laboriously acquired, are all to be dissolved, thrown away, and lost forever? Why should we strive to become wiser or better? Why should we lay any restraint on our passions? Why should we weary ourselves with effort and study, if our exertions are to bear no fruit? If, erelong, perhaps tomorrow, all that we have done is to be of no further use to us? Were such really our doom, the lot of mankind would be a thousand times worse than that of the brutes; for the brute lives thoroughly in the present, in the gratification of its bodily appetites, with no torturing anxiety, no tormenting aspiration, to impair its enjoyment of the passing hour. But a secret and invincible intuition tells us that such cannot be our destiny.
2. The belief in annihilation necessarily leads a man to concentrate all his thoughts on his present life; for what, in fact, could be more illogical than to trouble ourselves about a future which we do not believe will have any existence? And as he whose attention is thus exclusively directed to his present life naturally places his own interest above that of others, this belief is the most powerful stimulant to selfishness, and he who holds it is perfectly consistent with himself in saying: “Let us get the greatest possible amount of enjoyment out of this world while we are in it; let us secure all the pleasures which the present can offer, seeing that, after death, everything will be over with us; and let us hasten to make sure of our own enjoyment, for we know not how long our life may last.” Such as one is, moreover, equally consistent in arriving at this further conclusion—most dangerous to the well being of society—“Let us make sure of our enjoyment, no matter by what means; let our motto be: ‘Each for himself;’ the good things of life are the prize of the most adroit.”
If some few are restrained, by respect for public opinion, from carrying out this program to its full extent, what restraint is there for those who stand in no such awe of their neighbors? Who regard human law as a tyranny that is exercised only over those who are sufficiently wanting in cleverness to bring themselves within its reach, and who consequently apply all their ingenuity to evading alike its requirements and its penalties? If any doctrine merits the qualifications of pernicious and anti-social, it is assuredly that of annihilation, because it destroys the sentiments of solidarity and fraternity, sole basis of the social relations.
3. Let us suppose an entire nation to have acquired, in some way or other, the certainty that, at the end of a week, a month, or a year, it will be utterly destroyed, that not a single individual of its people will be left alive, that they will all be utterly annihilated, and that not a trace of their existence will remain; what, in such a case, would be the line of conduct adopted, by the people thus doomed to a certain and foreseen destruction, during the short time which they would still have to exist? Would they labor for their moral improvement, or for their instruction? Would they continue to work for their living? Would they scrupulously respect the rights, the property, and the life, of their neighbors? Would they submit to the laws of their country, or to any ascendancy, even to that parental authority, the most legitimate of all? Would they recognize the existence of any duty? Assuredly not. Well, —the social ruin which we have imagined, by the way of illustration, as overtaking an entire nation, is being effected, individually, from day to day, by the doctrine of annihilation. If the practical consequences of this doctrine are not so disastrous to society as they might be, it is because, in the first place, there is, among the greater number of those whose vanity is flattered by the title of “free-thinker,” more of braggadocio than of absolute unbelief, more doubt than conviction, and more dread of annihilation than they care to show; and, in the second place, because those who really believe in annihilation are a very small minority, and are consequently influenced, in spite of themselves, by the contrary opinion, and held in check by the resistant forces of society and of the State: but, should absolute disbelief in a future existence ever be arrived at by the majority of mankind, the dissolution of society would necessarily follow. The propagation of the doctrine of annihilation would lead, inevitably, to this result.
But whatever may be the consequences of the doctrine of annihilation, if that doctrine were true, it would have to be accepted; for, if annihilation were our destiny, neither opposing systems of philosophy, nor the moral and social ills that would result from our knowledge that such a destiny was awaiting us, could prevent our being annihilated. And it is useless to attempt to disguise from ourselves that skepticism, doubt, indifference, are gaining ground every day, notwithstanding the efforts of the various religious bodies to the contrary. But if the religious systems of the day are powerless against skepticism, it is because they lack the weapons necessary for combating the enemy; so that, if their teaching were allowed to remain in a state of immobility, they would, erelong, be inevitably worsted in the struggle. What is lacking to those systems—in this age of positivism, when men demand to understand before believing—is the confirmation of their doctrines by facts and by their concordance with the discoveries of Positive Science. If theoretic systems say white where facts say black, we must choose between an enlightened appreciation of evidence and a blind acceptance of arbitrary statements.
4. It is in this state of things that the phenomena of Spiritism are spontaneously developed in the order of Providence, and oppose a barrier against the invasion of skepticism, not only by argument, or by the prospect of the dangers which it reveals, but also by the production of physical facts which render the existence of the soul, and the reality of a future life, both palpable and visible.
Each human being is, undoubtedly, free to believe anything, or to believe nothing; but those who employ the ascendancy of their knowledge and position in propagating, among the masses, and especially among the rising generation, the negation of a future life, are sowing broadcast the seeds of social confusion and dissolution, and are incurring a heavy responsibility by doing so.
5. There is another doctrine that repudiates the qualification of “Materialist,” because it admits the existence of a principle distinct from matter; we allude to that which asserts that each individual soul is to be absorbed in the Universal Whole. According to this doctrine, each human being assimilates, at birth, a particle of this principle, which constitutes his soul and gives him life, intelligence and sentiment. At death, this soul returns to the common source, and is merged in infinity as a drop of water is merged in the ocean.
This doctrine is, undoubtedly, an advance upon that of pure and simple Materialism, inasmuch as it admits something more than matter; but its consequences are precisely the same. Whether a man, after death, is dissolved into nothingness, or plunged into a general reservoir, is all One, as far as he himself is concerned; ..................
I prefer to be compared as a grain of sand returning to the Beach or Desert, retaining my individuality and accumulated Personality.
A current Sant Mat Guru, Dr. Ishwar Puri, if correct, about our Astral Body living 1-3 thousand years, depending on Karma, and our Causal body living another million years or more, then to me, Soul growth after transition from the physical body most likely happens on other less dense, higher Spiritual planets than Earth, and if we do have to reincarnate, it will be on higher Spiritual Planets as taught by Krishna in The Bhagavad Gita. It all lines up perfectly. You can have your individuality, and KEEP it, not loosing all the positive things and knowledge you have done in this life and past lives.
Live Life and enjoy it to the fullest now, but do consider all life has an expiration date!
Until we meet again, I remain,
Reading Complexity:
Dvaita means "dual,” and advaita means "nondual." The material world is a world of dualities—heat and cold, happiness and distress, up and down, black and white. According to the Vedic literature, however, theAbsolute Truth is free from all such material dualities. It is called advaita.
Some philosophers hold the view that because the Absolute is free from dualities, it must be totally impersonal and devoid of qualities. According to this view, known as Advaita Vedanta, in the Absolute there can be no desires, thoughts, or perceptions, no sense of personal identity, no forms, qualities, or activity, but only undifferentiated spiritual oneness. This being so, whatever we now perceive is illusory.
But this view raises a question which Advaita Vedantists can't answer, "If nothing really exists but one undifferentiated Absolute Truth, where does the illusion of variety come from? How can illusion exist (or even appear to exist)? And if truth and illusion both exist, how can there be oneness?"
As every aging human contemplating death of their present bodies, they all eventfully must:
Choose between three theoretic alternatives: Annihilation, Absorption, or the individuality of the soul before and after death. It is to this last belief that we are led by reason; and it is this belief that has constituted the basis of all religions in all the ages of the world.
I choose to believe in the Combination of Allan Kardec's Spiritist Philosophy and Sant Mat, or what s called "The Path of The Masters."
The Following is taken from Allan Kardec's Spiritist book, Heaven and Hell, and offers very reasonable arguments regarding survival of individual Personalities.
"1. It is certain that we live, think, and act; it is no less certain that we shall die. But, on quitting the earth, whither shall we go? What will become of us? Shall we be better off, or shall we be worse off? Shall we continue to exist, or shall we cease to exist? “To be, or not to be,” is the alternative presented to us; it will be for always, or not at all; it will be everything, or nothing; we shall live on eternally, or we shall cease to live, once and forever. The alternative is well worth the consideration.
Every one feels the need of living, of loving, of being happy. Announce, to one who believes himself to be at the point of death, that his life is to be prolonged, that the hour of death is delayed—announce to him, moreover, that he is going to be happier than he has ever been—and his heart will beat high with joy and hope. But to what end does the human heart thus instinctively aspire after happiness, if a breath suffices to scatter its aspirations?
Can anything be more agonizing that the idea that we are doomed to utter and absolute destruction, that our dearest affections, our intelligence, our knowledge so laboriously acquired, are all to be dissolved, thrown away, and lost forever? Why should we strive to become wiser or better? Why should we lay any restraint on our passions? Why should we weary ourselves with effort and study, if our exertions are to bear no fruit? If, erelong, perhaps tomorrow, all that we have done is to be of no further use to us? Were such really our doom, the lot of mankind would be a thousand times worse than that of the brutes; for the brute lives thoroughly in the present, in the gratification of its bodily appetites, with no torturing anxiety, no tormenting aspiration, to impair its enjoyment of the passing hour. But a secret and invincible intuition tells us that such cannot be our destiny.
2. The belief in annihilation necessarily leads a man to concentrate all his thoughts on his present life; for what, in fact, could be more illogical than to trouble ourselves about a future which we do not believe will have any existence? And as he whose attention is thus exclusively directed to his present life naturally places his own interest above that of others, this belief is the most powerful stimulant to selfishness, and he who holds it is perfectly consistent with himself in saying: “Let us get the greatest possible amount of enjoyment out of this world while we are in it; let us secure all the pleasures which the present can offer, seeing that, after death, everything will be over with us; and let us hasten to make sure of our own enjoyment, for we know not how long our life may last.” Such as one is, moreover, equally consistent in arriving at this further conclusion—most dangerous to the well being of society—“Let us make sure of our enjoyment, no matter by what means; let our motto be: ‘Each for himself;’ the good things of life are the prize of the most adroit.”
If some few are restrained, by respect for public opinion, from carrying out this program to its full extent, what restraint is there for those who stand in no such awe of their neighbors? Who regard human law as a tyranny that is exercised only over those who are sufficiently wanting in cleverness to bring themselves within its reach, and who consequently apply all their ingenuity to evading alike its requirements and its penalties? If any doctrine merits the qualifications of pernicious and anti-social, it is assuredly that of annihilation, because it destroys the sentiments of solidarity and fraternity, sole basis of the social relations.
3. Let us suppose an entire nation to have acquired, in some way or other, the certainty that, at the end of a week, a month, or a year, it will be utterly destroyed, that not a single individual of its people will be left alive, that they will all be utterly annihilated, and that not a trace of their existence will remain; what, in such a case, would be the line of conduct adopted, by the people thus doomed to a certain and foreseen destruction, during the short time which they would still have to exist? Would they labor for their moral improvement, or for their instruction? Would they continue to work for their living? Would they scrupulously respect the rights, the property, and the life, of their neighbors? Would they submit to the laws of their country, or to any ascendancy, even to that parental authority, the most legitimate of all? Would they recognize the existence of any duty? Assuredly not. Well, —the social ruin which we have imagined, by the way of illustration, as overtaking an entire nation, is being effected, individually, from day to day, by the doctrine of annihilation. If the practical consequences of this doctrine are not so disastrous to society as they might be, it is because, in the first place, there is, among the greater number of those whose vanity is flattered by the title of “free-thinker,” more of braggadocio than of absolute unbelief, more doubt than conviction, and more dread of annihilation than they care to show; and, in the second place, because those who really believe in annihilation are a very small minority, and are consequently influenced, in spite of themselves, by the contrary opinion, and held in check by the resistant forces of society and of the State: but, should absolute disbelief in a future existence ever be arrived at by the majority of mankind, the dissolution of society would necessarily follow. The propagation of the doctrine of annihilation would lead, inevitably, to this result.
But whatever may be the consequences of the doctrine of annihilation, if that doctrine were true, it would have to be accepted; for, if annihilation were our destiny, neither opposing systems of philosophy, nor the moral and social ills that would result from our knowledge that such a destiny was awaiting us, could prevent our being annihilated. And it is useless to attempt to disguise from ourselves that skepticism, doubt, indifference, are gaining ground every day, notwithstanding the efforts of the various religious bodies to the contrary. But if the religious systems of the day are powerless against skepticism, it is because they lack the weapons necessary for combating the enemy; so that, if their teaching were allowed to remain in a state of immobility, they would, erelong, be inevitably worsted in the struggle. What is lacking to those systems—in this age of positivism, when men demand to understand before believing—is the confirmation of their doctrines by facts and by their concordance with the discoveries of Positive Science. If theoretic systems say white where facts say black, we must choose between an enlightened appreciation of evidence and a blind acceptance of arbitrary statements.
4. It is in this state of things that the phenomena of Spiritism are spontaneously developed in the order of Providence, and oppose a barrier against the invasion of skepticism, not only by argument, or by the prospect of the dangers which it reveals, but also by the production of physical facts which render the existence of the soul, and the reality of a future life, both palpable and visible.
Each human being is, undoubtedly, free to believe anything, or to believe nothing; but those who employ the ascendancy of their knowledge and position in propagating, among the masses, and especially among the rising generation, the negation of a future life, are sowing broadcast the seeds of social confusion and dissolution, and are incurring a heavy responsibility by doing so.
5. There is another doctrine that repudiates the qualification of “Materialist,” because it admits the existence of a principle distinct from matter; we allude to that which asserts that each individual soul is to be absorbed in the Universal Whole. According to this doctrine, each human being assimilates, at birth, a particle of this principle, which constitutes his soul and gives him life, intelligence and sentiment. At death, this soul returns to the common source, and is merged in infinity as a drop of water is merged in the ocean.
This doctrine is, undoubtedly, an advance upon that of pure and simple Materialism, inasmuch as it admits something more than matter; but its consequences are precisely the same. Whether a man, after death, is dissolved into nothingness, or plunged into a general reservoir, is all One, as far as he himself is concerned; ..................
I prefer to be compared as a grain of sand returning to the Beach or Desert, retaining my individuality and accumulated Personality.
A current Sant Mat Guru, Dr. Ishwar Puri, if correct, about our Astral Body living 1-3 thousand years, depending on Karma, and our Causal body living another million years or more, then to me, Soul growth after transition from the physical body most likely happens on other less dense, higher Spiritual planets than Earth, and if we do have to reincarnate, it will be on higher Spiritual Planets as taught by Krishna in The Bhagavad Gita. It all lines up perfectly. You can have your individuality, and KEEP it, not loosing all the positive things and knowledge you have done in this life and past lives.
