Overview
I will use some Eastern philosophical terms in this essay, as their cultures developed this sort of conversation quite superbly over thousands of years. The “West” has barely begun to discuss it in the same ‘cosmic sense’, for but a few years.
My focus in this life has largely revolved around understanding the role of extreme suffering, complex PTSD and spiritual experience, as well as Autism. But those are just words. Let’s examine the problem of Atman and Jiva, “Living in the same body”.
Atman is a Sanskrit word meaning roughly “eternal, transcendent, unchanging divine self” from beyond all space and time, equal to the supreme reality Brahman. In various systems, including Advaita Vedanta, which is a major school of nondualist philosophy that proclaims as it’s core tenant “Atman and Brahman are one”.
Now this sounds just lovely doesn’t it? That humans are part of the infinite bedrock of being, functionally from a western standpoint ‘one with supreme GOD’?
Unfortunately while the experience of Atman, which is considered to be beyond all change and suffering, is quite ‘ducky’, the experience of the jiva is not so nice.
Jiva is a Sanskrit term that refers to the individual soul or self. It is often understood as a part of the Atman, the ultimate reality, but temporarily bound to the cycle of birth and death (samsara).
So, to put it in very simple Western terms, the real question is, “Why is ‘God’ an asshole?”
Now we aren’t going to dwell on this exact question so much in this essay, but let’s stipulate the following:
The infinite reality does everything that it wants to do, and the motives and realities associated with thorny topics are likely not easily understood, but as a Christian might say, “The clay cannot speak against the potter”. Well, that doesn’t sound so ducky at all.
Now a nondualist practitioner might say, “well you are both the infinite and the finite. The unbounded and the bounded. So it’s all ‘alright'”. It’s fair.
There is a legitimate point there. If only one being actually exists, and that being likes hurting themselves, then that is that being’s business is it not? If ‘God’ is a cutter, that might make him/her a ‘masochist’ but not a sadist, as all the little lives within the infinite Brahman
are rather illusory, the product of maya (Maya is a Sanskrit term that refers to the illusion or delusion that prevents us from perceiving the true nature of reality.)
So, technically by the numbers, there’s nothing wrong with a being torturing or allowing to be tortured, little ‘imaginary cells within it’s own body”.
Really it can’t be argued. This is acceptable from that standpoint. It’s rather like the theosophical problem called “the problem of evil”. That is the problem of why an infinitely powerful, omniscient, and omnipresent (and presumably loving) God is an asshole?
The answer to that of course, is that ‘God’ is evil, and that is not a problem. Remember the potter and the clay, and throw in a little predestination from Augustine and John Calvin, and that answer works just fine (you may have to admit that God can do anything that he wants and that by definition such acts are not ‘evil’). But that explanation still blows, as the say. It really does.
It’s like God is suffering form dissociative identity disorder, and as a matter of fact, that is exactly what Bernardo Kastrup, a widely recognized philosopher writes.
Is the assholery of God a problem that we should all care about? Does this affect everyone equally? Is there anything that can be doing about this? These are the questions we will address.
This Truly is Messed up, for all Parties Concerned
Now lots of good, regular folks, don’t pay this problem much mind. Just guzzle alcohol on Friday nights, eat lots of barbecue wings (or conversely caviar, fancy cheese and wines or whatever your thing is, based upon economic class) and keep yourself distracted from the gnawing in your innermost self.
Or conversely sell ‘your mind/soul’ to some human-created religion, and cram into place, probably uncritically, the ‘solution’ posited by that religion, all the while wishing anyone who disagrees with you (rocks your very tiny and unseaworthy boat) to go to hell, or whatever, but to just get out of your face. Don’t even give me the hypocrisy of ‘hate the sin, love the sinner’. That’s just cover for “My invisible friend can beat up your invisible friend, and I’ll pretend to be more holy than thou, as cover for wishing you into hell, to protect my feeble facade, so that I can feel better.” I mean, as far as any Christian knows, they could be judged a goat not a sheep and sent to eternal torment and they have no way of knowing until they die or are prematurely judged at any rate, depending on your warring denomination of Christianity.
Now for spiritual people (those who have an actual communications link with the highest reality, directly and don’t let themselves be deceived by some religion), they run into the same problems, but maybe even worse.
It doesn’t take much in the way of spiritual practices and life changes, to make that atman positively glow. The student comes to identify with the atman more, and their jiva (human selves) less. They hope that by ‘fleeing to the atman’ that they can escape from suffering and eventually the ‘wheel of life’ (samsara).
The only problem there is, that they still have a ‘human’ weighing them down. If you go completely crazy about liberation as in eastern religions, you actually may achieve moksha/ enlightenment.
Now here’s the problem with that. “Enlightenment” is actually an intermediate state of consciousness; don’t believe the bull shit. If you are alive, you almost certainly are not fully liberated. (some say that bodhisattvas and other perfected beings can be fully god and fully man, rather like the claims made about Jesus, but that’s usually a ‘being sold the Brooklyn bridge sort of aspiration).
Myself personally, I did experience Nirvikalpa Samadhi (Nirvikalpa Samadhi is a profound state of meditation in Hindu and Buddhist traditions, characterized by the complete absence of thought or mental activity. It’s often described as a state of pure consciousness, devoid of any objects or content.
Key characteristics of Nirvikalpa Samadhi:
Unification with Brahman: In Hindu philosophy, Nirvikalpa Samadhi is seen as a state of union with Brahman, the ultimate reality.
Absence of thought: There is no mental activity, no thoughts, feelings, or perceptions.
Pure consciousness: The mind is in a state of pure consciousness, without any objects or content.
Bliss: This state is often associated with a deep sense of bliss and tranquility.)
What ‘they’ (most spiritual teachers) don’t tell you, is that the instant of ‘Enlightenment’ means that you will die in that instant. I mean, that if you are finished with the ‘game of life’ (that’s what ‘Enlightenment’ means, then you necessarily have to die. I know that I did.
Some few ‘dummies’ come back. I know that i did, after about what? I’m not certain. I just know all of the heat left my body form the feet flowing upwards and my heart stopped.
That seemed pretty dead to me.
So I won’t bore you with what I saw, and what happened. NDE (near death experiences) are all different and are like assholes, everyone has one (or dies at any rate) and they all differ, they all ‘stink’. Why is this? That’s a great question and I won’t address it in this essay, but it is certainly addressed in Platonic Surrealism.
So I did come back… and it took months to learn to walk and talk properly again; Now I had an MRI and there was no brain damage, so I don’t know, might have only lasted 5 minutes. But who knows. Rigor mortis seemed to be setting in, which would indicate something more like 12 hours, but scientific Kevin won’t accept that, that sounds ridiculous.
If you DO manage to learn the trick of walking around so changed after coming back from death (some folks ‘die’ without physically dying I guess, it must have been my first time doing it, I wasn’t practiced enough apparently), then your problems have just begun.
Pretty much nobody can help explain this stuff. If you are very lucky and were born as part of a tight cultural identity that knows about this stuff, like Zen or Tao, then experienced folks who have also experienced this, or at least studied some above average cultural books may be able to stabilize you.
The problem even then, is that such traditions often ‘wash away the personality and the ‘ego’ as this reduces the suffering caused by a ‘glowing atman’ and a suffering jiva. If you make yourself ‘dead while living’ then the ‘real death’ will have no sting.
It does sort of work, but NOT COMPLETELY.
And that’s if you want to walk around as what I call a ‘mushroom head’. You may have the peace that passes understanding — but not one hundred percent. You can’t get more than ninety nine percent, as the ‘ego’ (jiva) refuses to give up the last one percent. This is a known thing, and is used as an excuse why some ”supposedly enlightened teachers’ feel like its’ a good idea to buy a few dozen Bentley’s and to have wild sex with all their cute young students. I mean, the teacher is screwing the pretty girls (or boys) for their own benefit, they say they are ‘transferring shaktipat’ through Tantric sex, or whatever the excuse is. And eventually, even a relatively ‘Enlightened teacher’ often slips back into sex, drugs and rock and roll like a rock star. Not always. But often.
So really, I think that it’s fair to say, that maybe NOBODY has solved his problem.
As Jeffrey J. Kripal says, ‘the human is two’ and he’s so correct.
With all Possible Sincerity, this is an Unsolved Issue we must Solve!
That’s why I remembered Platonic Surrealism. I can’t promise that it will work for anyone else, but it worked for me. I first started remembering Platonic Surrealism about fifty years ago, when i was twelve. It has increasingly become more clear to me, as the information kept transferring from my right brain hemisphere (the more ‘big picture’ and creative), to my left brain hemisphere ( the logical and verbal).
In short, my ‘Jiva’ had to remember a stabilization system, and to put it into place as my new , self-remembered and (relatively) perfected superego (a term coined by Sigmund Freud in his psychoanalytic theory. It represents the moral component of the personality, often referred to as the “conscience.” The superego develops during childhood as a result of internalizing societal rules and parental values.)
How this works could well use a full book to describe, but it is in fact extraordinarily simple.
The human tendency is to confuse ‘Awareness’ (the highest aspect of being, beyond space, time and normal thought, functionally ‘atman/brahman’ in a rough sense, and which is mediated by the right brain hemisphere) with the contents of the left brain hemisphere, the jiva/ego sense of self.
Then really every religion and spiritual system in the world ever, at least except a few dangerous old systems which pervert things, has you attempt to WEAKEN THE EGO,
which is just bollocks. The ego is the tool which can stabilize the “human is two”, by
surrendering (yet structuring a bit) to the ‘big picture self’ (the right brain hemisphere).
Platonic Surrealism has you STRENGTHEN THE EGO, not weaken it. But strengthen it in a particular way. The ‘replacement superego/ego’ (the two become almost one) says and sees this; “I am also that”. I am pure Awareness. I am that which is beyond time and space and normal consciousness. I am atman and I am one with Brahman. I am also ‘that’ when pointing in the ‘direction’ of the ‘regular physical world and her peoples’.
Then the ego is at peace. It never needs to wonder what it is, or need to change in any way.
JIva becomes ‘synchronized’ with atman/Brahman (Id (the primal unconscious desires), Ego and Superego+ the ‘larger life).
It doesn’t mean that you won’t suffer any more… you still feel physical, emotional and mental pain sometimes, but in your core, your deepest core, you start to heal.
It does take time. The healing takes time.
But the pain caused by separation and confusion, the pain caused by a flip-flopping self goes away.
The Atman purposely lowers the ‘heavenly light and sound’ down to a level that one of it’s beloveds, the jiva can support, and over time the jiva learns to communicate with the atman better in return.
‘God’ learns to love HIM/HER Self.
‘God’ and man (woman, etc.) learn to stop being a butt much, and to live in peace with themselves.
This is the promise of Platonic Surrealism.
Kevin Cann
9/20/2024