• Philosophy and Spirituality
    Welcome Guest
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    Threads of Note Socialize
  • P&S Moderators: JackARoe | Cheshire_Kat

nirvana vs non existance

S

scottahit

Bluelighter
Joined
Sep 25, 2003
Messages
314
Location
birmingham U.K.
nirvana vs non existence

What I don't understand is how the buddist/hindu concept of death is any more appealing to people than the western materialistic view of non existence.
In both personal consciousness and identity disappears as the spirit (or body for the west) is absorbed into the whole, be that the earth or the universal oneness. Now if personal consciousness disappears in what sense can you be said to still exist except the parts you were made of in the west that being matter in the east matter and essence or spirit or energy whatever you want to call it. I know truth isn't decided by the way we would prefer things to be, but were is the attraction, it seems no more appealing than non existence as far as I understand. Am I missing something?
 
personal conciousness is gone either way, but what are you, what is anything, other then part of your mind/awareness? if you believe conciousness ends, what is left? nothing. so i guess that is a reason why. very good question
 
Last edited:
Well the hindu/buddhist concept of death is reincarnation. The alleged nirvana or non existance you are talking about is what happens when you become liberated from this alleged cycle of birth and death. I would guess its presented in an appealing way because it is compared to the alleged cycle of birth and death, which for some reason is supposedly not appealing. Personal preference I guess.
 
But even the concept of rebirth, its not the conciousness than is reborn but the persons spirit and karma. Or to put it in another way there aliveness (non personal) and their ledger balance of good and bad acts.
Now if it isn't the persons conciousness that is reborn yet the new born personal conciousness received the dead persons karma (legder of good and bad conciquences) That means the new conciousness is paying for the sins (or whatever you what you want to call it) that it didn't commit. Even if you arque that its life force, spirit, energy came from the person that did rack up that ledger.
Seems a bit odd.
 
Not sure what you mean by 'conciousness' vs. 'spirit'. I thought it was the ego that is born and dies, and the underlying 'spirit' is never born and never dies. So any suffering would be the ego's fault for having been born, I think.
 
Your reasoning is predicated on a misunderstanding of both nonexistence and nirvana.
Having attained enlightenment, "you" cease to exist, but experience and existence persists, aliet sans the self-other division. The self experiencing the other is replaced with pure experience, universal consciousness, etc.
Does none of this make sense? Well, I can't really communicate what this would be like. The truth is in the experience.

As for non-existence, I would argue that we truly have no real conception of it. If we try to imagine the "experience" of non-existence, we do so from the perspective of a hypothetical 3rd person...which is problematic, to say the least.

ebola
 
^^^^^
how clever, you twat. Blind faith is the way of the lazy mind.
get over yourself.

ebola, cheers, thats obviously quite a difference. I haven't heard it explained that way before.
 
Such an impressive response from someone with such limited awareness - you have no clue whatsoever, and your post makes that painfully clear.

To assume simply from the well wishing in my post, that I operate on blind faith and a lazy mind -pishh!

You hardly make this worth the time I am wasting typing it out for you.

I would suggest you get over your own insolent arrogance -

You come here asking if you're missing something, knowing full well that you just don't get it, and yet, you somehow think you have the vision to see what others may hold, through tossing around prejudiced insults, and especially in this forum - quite the wrong place for your attitude my lost friend -

There's nothing quite like alienating your peers before you *really* even know anything about them!

But, thats exactly how ignorance operates, and I know better than to expect anything more from one so blind as to blindly call others as such, without having garnered the wisdom to be able to know in the first place.


Good luck, with your attitude, you won't get far in your quest...

And perhaps, someone such as you shouldn't!
 
And tell me how you added to thread in any way but to make yourself feel all superior.

Yes my knowledge of eastern religions is limited. THEREFORE MY QUESTION. If I was so arrogant I would not feel the need to ask such a question in an open attitude to learn what others think.

Did you add any knowledge. NO, you just patted yourself on the back that YOU ARE THE HOLDER OF THE TRUTH AS YOU SEE IT. YOU WERE TO CONDESENDING TO EVEN TELL US WHAT THIS WONDERFUL KNOWLEDGE IS.

Just because my understanding of eastern history of thought is limited doesn't automatically make me ignorant, I have over 2 years uni training in more western theology and philosophy.

If eastern thought creates such arrogance maybe its better left alone
YOUR A GREAT AMBASADER TO YOUR CAUSE.

My guess is that it has been a loonngg time since you felt the need to ask anyone anything. Hey you've got the universe, huminity, knowledge all down pat. Your just waiting for us plebs to one day catch up.

Maybe you should start re-asking questions, were all on the same boat no matter what you think.

So I'd say its you thats in the wrong place, This place is for those who see value in dialog, something you are obviously past needing.
 
Last edited:
dude this is a great thread!
i was about to give up T&A and just keep posting in the midget christian thread...8)

But even the concept of rebirth, its not the conciousness than is reborn but the persons spirit and karma.
Click to expand...

wow, man, that just made me understand what is meant by reincarnation!!!!!! WOW...i never really got it before :) thank you
and yea, i agree totally that it happens like this

and as to your original question
i would say...exactly! there is no difference :)
why should there be a difference between "material" and "spiritual" ?
it's the same to me :)
dying doesn't seem good to me either way tho! haha
i do my best to avoid it

if it happens to me, however, i won't be able to feel bad...ya know...cause i won't be conscious of myself anymore...

but
man fuck death! :D
i don't wanna die no time

:) peace

oh
but your argument with LAO TZU is totally unnecessary
he wasn't trying to offend you
although i completely agree that his post is random and extraneous and not answering any question or helping anyone...*hint hint* (that's why i don't post much in T&A anymore...i never have anything to say that adds to the discussion)
 
yea man, hate is lame

but i guess...yea...no one tries to take the upper hand on me quite like LAO TZU just did there :p

and if they DO
i will shoot them down
but insult? no never
not unless i think they WANT me to
and then we can play cat + mouse a little...until i get bored :)

but i don't think LAO TZU was going for that
although i guess he figured he would either offend you or kill your thread, haha
(lame, man, LAME!)
 
ebola, you say that experience continues though not in an ego centric way. Cool, Is this experiencing entity for lack of better words the centre that makes you, you. If one was to take my nose I'm still me, take my foot and so on. Is this experiencing centre the one thing that can't be taken, without you still being you.

If so how does that fit into reincarnation where that doesn't seem to continue from one life to the next.
cheers
 
Last edited:
^ it's more like what makes everyone everyone, in an impersonal way. it doesn't make "you", but it's the defining characteristic of all conciousness, be it human or animal or even microscopic , onecelled organisms. its a magical thing that most people take for granted; you are aware, you have conciousness.
as for rebirth, i've heard it described as dice being stacked on top off each other, the dice being individual selfs, and the space the dice are in is our essebce
 
This is actually quite humoruos to me!

You want me to add something relating directly to your question, here...

First off, some of you NEED to learn to read between the lines of things, not all the information you *want* is always going to be the information you *get* - and that is just the way of things, so, garnering the ability to develop that type of vision is first and foremost, for it applies to ALL areas of your life!

Often times the words or information do not make sense, and must be pondered for lengths of time to be fully digested or before their message hits you.

Things are not always so black and white, cut and dried, and handed to you on a silver platter without any effort on your part to delve deeper into the mysteries of existence, into yourself to be able to find them...

The words given to you are only that, and the meaning behind them is what you must find - this requires vision.

You can mis-interpret my postings as much as you like, If you could see them for what they are, and not how your ego is presenting them to you, you'd be much better off.

And, only if you really knew me, thats what makes your retort so funny.


More directly to the question at hand -

It isn't about being 'appealing' or 'attractive' to you, thats coming at it from the incorrect angle - at least you realize that things aren't the way you'd 'prefer' them to be, but do you really understand this?

And, really, there is not a way to explain things to you, as I have outlined - it is an understanding you must find - not through others, not through words, and as I posted earlier - that understanding may find you, and it may not, and really you have no control over that - so let go, and relax...theres no need to get all bent out of shape just because someone isn't directly giving you something you so obviously want badly right now this very instant... I monitor these threads, and see what direction they take, and if I feel I need to add concrete input, I would -

But the people here in this forum are a very interesting mix of intellegent and differing levels of awareness, so for the most part my input is not needed... often, as in this case, I'll just put a little reminder in there, not to give up, or to encourage furtherment etc. etc...

"keep seeking" = keeping researching, learning, gathering information, struggling with the problem in your head....

"it may yet find you" = cause if you do the above, what you're looking for may present itself to you...

You cannot be handed ready made answers, thats not how it works, if it were only so easy. Your interpretation of the words is just as important as the intention with which they were given, and how YOU interpret them is out of MY control...

Sorry you couldn't understand this simple encouragement, and my apologies for offering it to you so benignly.8)

So ask yourself - why does it need to be appealing, whats the criteria for needing it to be so -

Its more, just what you are in tune with, and not, which one I should choose out of a fear of death...


And yes, gloggawogga and Ebola both made good points!

oh, and, good one Leg ;)
 
^^^^^^
MY GOD, step back and read your own post for a minute, do you REALLY believe that you have so arrived. That you sit back in your wisdom with a smirk on your face as we other bluelighters stumble around in the dark slowly making there way towards the knowledge of life, the universe and all the questions that religion, philosophy, psycology try to answer, yet YOU possess with such fullness.

If this isn't the way you mean to come across then i'd revise your writing style somewhat.
 
>>ebola, you say that experience continues though not in an ego centric way. Cool, Is this experiencing entity for lack of better words the centre that makes you, you. If one was to take my nose I'm still me, take my foot and so on. Is this experiencing centre the one thing that can't be taken, without you still being you.
>>

Based off the tiny glimpse of egolessness I have experienced, it may be more accurate to say that experience diffuses into the universe in its entirety...or that the universe collapses into a singularity of experience (which are in the same moment, the same thing, really). There is no central "you". In bumper-sticker philosophic terms, "all is one".

>> If so how does that fit into reincarnation where that doesn't seem to continue from one life to the next.
cheers>>

hmmm...I don't know what to make of reincarnation, really. To me, it seems that reincarnation is one of the last hold-overs of human pettiness in eastern thought. That is, reincarnation seems to be an attempt to apply to the afterlife qualities of everyday, mundane experience.

That being said, if reincarnation is to exist, I think it is best explained via metaphor. One's personal consciousness is a raindrop. Upon death, it falls back into the ocean. Upon "rebirth", water evaporates from the ocean, forms a cloud, and new raindrops fall. This metaphor is a bit sloppy, prinicpally because the raindrops, ocean, and clouds are actually different perspectives through with the same thing may be viewed.

ebola
np: converge
 
Well, heres the point -

There is really nothing to arrive at, and I have no beliefs as it were.

Can you see a smirk on my face? - you may want to quit projecting your own reflection onto your perception of others.

Hmm..

At some point we are all stumbling in the dark, and more often than not, I am no different than anyone else and I possess nothing - nothing more or less than anyone else -

Have you ever looked at one of those 3-D computer rendered images - where you have to adjust the focus of your eyes to see into the 3-D 'world'
amid the choas lying on the surface that you see with the focus of your normal vision?

Same concept, different medium...


Leg, I share your sentiment about posting here.


Ebola - that is a beautiful metaphor, I could not have worded it any better!
 
>>Ebola - that is a beautiful metaphor, I could not have worded it any better!>>

heh...thanks. I'm pretty sure I stole it though. From Stanley Grof, maybe?

ebola
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top