'There are multiple soul-bodies in human beings: the absolute soul or absolute spirit is the highest, and the relative soul or relative spirit is next. The relative soul can be divided in turn into the reasoning (spiritual) soul, the thinking (human) soul, the desiring (animal) soul, and into the ethereal body and the physical body. There are various kinds of knowing appropriate to the various souls, and likewise there is religious, philosophical, and scientific knowing for human beings.' (Wang, p.1) Its author Professor Solon Wang explained in Hindu yoga that the seven chakras are like the knobs of a radio, which can communicate the multi-levels of soul-bodies and the multiple planes of the cosmos. The highest achievement of a human being can obtain by returning to reality. The Hindu sage Ramakrishna described the Cosmic Conscious that one will find the world of name and form vanishing into nothing and the ego merging into the cosmic consciousness when one dives deep in search for self and bring one's mind to the unconditional state. Buddhism also describes it as 'great enlightenment' or 'intuition' that form and void does not differ from each other. They are identical with each other. Similarly, reception, conception, mental function and consciousness are also identical with the void. All things in the void are not created and annihilated, not pure and impure, and not increasing and decreasing. If one investigates and perceived the state of void in mind, one will obtain one's deliverance from all sufferings and distress.
In philosophical knowing, mystical philosophy such as Chinese Taoism and Hindu Raja Yoga are similar to the religions. They obtain 'intuition' or the ultimate truth through cultivation, which the ultimate purpose is to acquire 'absorption'. A quote from German philosopher Paul Deussen about the absorption in Raja Yoga that 'Meditation becomes absorption when subject and object, the soul and God, are so completely blended into one that the consciousness of the separate subject altogether disappears, and there succeeds that which in Maitr. 6. 20-21 is described as nirātmakatvam (selflessness).' (Wang, p.14) Therefore, mystical philosophers are real-knowing. In contrast, most of the rational philosophers, except Plotinus and Spinoza, do not admit "intuition". They acquire knowledge by "logical reasoning". It is the work of two relative souls - the rational soul and the intelligent soul. They try to explain all cosmic phenomena by using a first principle, which derived by following the inductive method from all cosmic phenomena. Since the relative cosmos is only a small part of the absolute cosmos, the rational philosophers therefore cannot get the whole knowledge but only some aspects. As a result, rational philosophy has divided into many sects and may contradict each other, such as theism and atheism, spiritualism and materialism, teleologism and mechanism, asceticism and voluntarism, altruism and egoism, etc.
Science can be divided into natural science and the latest developed psychical science. Most natural scientists study all things only abided by the rules of matter, energy, space, time and the law of causality through the methods of 'observation' and 'experimentation'. They do not admit the existence of soul and spirit. Therefore, it can be called material science. Since the material world attached to the five organs of a human body and is only related to the desiring soul of a human, the knowledge is limited to their abilities and therefore stuck in the lowest plane of the relative cosmos. Natural scientific knowledge is only the surface of the cosmos, not the real nature or the truth of the cosmos. Religionists often think of the relative cosmos as illusory. Plato also commented on the sensory knowledge as the shadow projected onto the wall from outside and seen by the prisoner. Moreover, the absolute theory about time and space was finally replaced by Einstein's theory of relativity, and the law of causality was superseded by Heisenberg's the law of probability. While natural science cannot explain phenomena such as supernatural power and ghost, some natural scientists eventually admit that scientific materialism was a supposition and there is no existence as objectiveness. In contrast, psychical scientists also use the same methods as the natural scientists, but they deny the five rules in natural science. They study supernatural powers such as telepathy and clairvoyance and phenomenon related to the soul and spirit that are unlimited by time, space and the law of causality. Professor Wang supposed that it might develop into a 'scientific religion' and co-operate with 'intuitive religion' to awake human beings and create a new era in the near future.
However, modern society under the sway of materialism caused by the prevalence of natural science and the capitalism advocated by the democratic government, people are discouraged to value religion and philosophy and to believe psychic phenomena. Many people have therefore become materialistic and spiritual blind. Since many people do not develop their spirituality, they are afraid of death and loneliness. They try all means to prolong life and wish to incarnate and return to this world after death. While many people are born to the material world and persuaded to obsess with their sensory desires, it can generates a nightmare in the world that man robs, conquers, and kills each other out of greed and selfishness. If one is obsessed with the external world, one will only become a slave of pursuing materialism rather than to be a master of oneself. Under such circumstance, one will not be truly free and able to find out the true self. Neither can one find out one's complexity and the truth of the cosmic life. The society is only a creation of man and has not existed for long compared with the entire universe. It is the man's attempt to manifest the human power and omnipotent. Inevitably, it has gradually run against nature and made a lot of restrain, oppression and obstacles to human beings for self-evolution. It is also an arrogant idea to believe that man can conquer and control nature, so can avoid death. In the massive universe human beings are a part of the nature rather than the other way around. The ultimate truth will hardly change and destroy by the human effort. If somehow some people insist in such an idea, they may eventually realise that it is only the human world they are destroying, never the truth of the universe. World War I and World War II were two good examples and have left man something to think about for such a warning.
Human beings cannot detach themselves from nature. The nature suffices and nourishes human beings physically and mentally. Form time to time, people feel the need for a rest or a holiday to be away from the man-made society and being with nature. Even when one cannot physically being with the nature, one will try to satisfied one's desire by means of pictures, TV programmes or sound in CDs. Longing and refreshment are the subconscious signs of seeking for union with nature.
The innate nature of the self is an infinite force and absorption, not one's social identity. One's identity is a changing object depended on one's social situation and relationship with others. Therefore, it is a social construction and often attaches a particular kind of value. The self may manifest through various identities, but an identity cannot fully represent the self. Socially, we are all taught to conform to the culture and tradition we are in since we were born, and rarely question about the way they are and the authorities. Not until we discovery and find out there are differences from what we were conformed to, can we become aware of the pattern or mould in which we have grown up. However, because many people have undoubtedly believed in our culture and tradition being the only dogma and righteousness, the differences cannot enlighten people's mind for further understanding and exploration towards the comic life. Therefore, many people condemn, oppress, ignore and are afraid of the differences and being different. While most people do not thought deeply about how one's mind has entirely shaped by the society and the culture in which one has grown up, people are unaware of the conditioning and just carry on, ignoring, struggling, oppressing, achieving, or being frustrated with the given pattern of the society. The more oppression one has, the greater one's interiority will haunt oneself. Conflicts take place in the mind between the conditioning of which one is aware and the desire to be free from it. However, the old pattern often impels one's mind to produce a new conformity and authority to oppose what one must not conform. It generates contradiction and endless conflicts between patterns.
The ancient sage guided us and pointed out that the truth does not depend on any authority and tradition. All things are not separate but in one. Everything is linked and works together, even in dualism. What we need is to find the balance in our mind, merge ourselves into the cosmos and become wholesome. To begin with, it is essential for us to throw away our external decorations and look within. Then we will be able to understand the true self and our complexity through meditation and can develop our potential. We need no mask and oppression to ourselves, no force and suppression to others, and there will be no fear when we reach that understanding and practise on it. Thus, the self evolves through our exploration. If the religious concept of the human world as illusion is true, then what is here that we have been obsessed with, such as objects, relationships and one's identity, etc, is not really important. After all, we all die sooner or later and there is nothing we can take away with us from this world. Just as how we were born to this world. However, what is important for such an illusion to exist is that it is there for us to learn about the true self in order to evolve.
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