I

What is the relationship between the present subject of consciousness and the remembered self of past actions? The present and remembered selves are spatiotemporally continuous. This is the criterion of personal identity for practical, legal and moral purposes. In this sense, it is undeniable that a past action was performed by me and not by anyone else.

Spiritually, past and present selves are neither simply identical nor simply different. I did it although it was not the present I that did it. (On the other hand, the very recent self has remained capable of "wrong actions," in Buddhist terminology.)

In meditation, we approach:

acceptance of responsibility, as against attachment to guilt, by letting memories of past actions arise and pass without denying, suppressing, rationalizing or analyzing them, except when the analysis can lead to a beneficial outcome;

an awareness, realization and understanding that are deeper than feelings or emotions and that cannot be hastened by either thought or will - so we need patience.

I also need more clarity about past and present selves.

It

It has become this and us.
We contemplate this and It.

Do we need another pronoun for the Absolute? Advaita Vedantists, quoting Chandogya Upanishad, say, "Thou art That." So should I write "That" instead of "It"?

It is currently understood as energy. I think that we are It's self-consciousness.

Sri Chinmoy, using theistic language, said:

"Man said, 'I need you for my realization.' God said, 'I need you for my manifestation.'"

He also compared Hinduism to a mother who listens when one of her children meditates and says, "Mother, God is impersonal," and also when another of her children meditates and says, "Mother, God is personal." In both cases, she says, "I see, my child."

The Purpose Of Life?

What is the purpose of life?

Life was not designed but evolved so it has no purpose.

Is survival not its purpose?

It has no purpose. Some organisms survive longer than others because they are better able to survive in their environment but survival is not their purpose. All organisms die but death is not their purpose.

Why do conscious beings have purposes?

Organisms were naturally selected for sensitivity to environmental alterations.
Therefore, sensitivity quantitatively increased until it was qualitatively transformed into sensation.
Then, sensation was selected because pleasure and pain have survival value.
Therefore, survival and pleasure are purposes of conscious organisms but not of life.

So we have purposes although we do not exist to fulfill any purpose?

Yes.

What purposes should human beings pursue?

"And it harm no one, do what thou wilt."

But what needs to be done? (Lenin: What Is To Be Done?)

Self-conscious purposive individuals exist only in social relationships so the question, "What is to be done about human life?" divides into "What is to be done about consciousness?" and "What is to be done about society?"

Well, what is to be done about them, then?

Many answers are given but I think that the most helpful are Zen for consciousness and Marxism for society. Zen is practice of immediate awareness without a future goal whereas Marxist practice is purposive and aims to make itself redundant.

I am thinking of Rev W, a Zen monk, and Comrade M, a revolutionary socialist who left the organization because of problems last year. These men seem to have nothing in common and even to be opposites in many respects but both addressed the question, "What is to be done?" The logic of changing society is to change mental states and vice versa although those who approach the question from opposite ends rarely meet.

Religious Experiences

I was indoctrinated in Catholicism but have heard and read enough Evangelical propaganda to know the difference between these two interpretations of Christianity. I accept Evangelicals' testimony that belief in Christ can change lives. It does not follow that a man who died two thousand years ago still exists as a supernatural being. The mind is powerful enough to generate illusions and alternative perceptions of reality.

The content of visionary experiences is culturally conditioned. Mystical experience is of inner union or identity between self and other. Numinous experience is of an awesome power or presence perceived as transcendent. None of these experiences requires an object that is personal, let alone identical with a semi-historical figure.

Evangelicals must accept my testimony that practice of zazen changes understanding and perceptions. It does not entail the continued existence of the Buddha as a supernatural being.

I heard an Evangelical street preacher inform the public that, without a personal relationship to Jesus, all the cultural wealth, knowledge and experience of humanity is worthless. This is obvious nonsense.

Four Spiritual Insights

Buddhism
The Buddha: There is a way to the end of suffering.
Bodhidarma: zazen, just sitting meditation.

Yoga
Patanjali: Yoga is control of thoughts...by practice and nonattachment.
Krishna: karma yoga, nonattached action.

I accept these insights, not the teachings in which I was indoctrinated.

Preparing For Death

Plato wrote that philosophy was preparation for death, preparing to think without a body.

Christians believe that their religion prepares them for judgment after death.

Tibetan Buddhists believe that meditation prepares them for the bardo or intermediate state.

I suggest that meditation does prepare us for death - for letting go of everything, including thought and belief.

We are always close to death because life is temporary local negative entropy. We cannot swim against the stream indefinitely and will be swept down to the lowest energy level, the heat death of the universe.

Embodied Divinity II

Paganism	many morphic gods; the Wanderer
pure monotheism	one never incarnated god; prophets
Petrine and Pauline Christianity	a man raised up by God
Gnosticism	apparent incarnation
Hinduism	many temporary descents
Johannine Christianity	one permanent embodiment
Krishna and Aslan	perennial embodiment

This sequence begins and ends with gods like men, and sometimes like animals. "Morphic" means anthropomorphic and sometimes zoomorphic: Anubis, Ganesh, the evolutionary avatars of Vishnu. The Wanderer is simply Odin/Wotan on Earth. Krishna is the supreme deity on Earth according to some of his devotees.