Indeed, the hidden and the manifest
Give birth to each other.
Difficult and easy complement each other.
Long and short exhibit each other.
High and low set measure to each other.
Back and front follow each other.


Tao Te Ching

Dialectic monism

When I searched for stuff regarding the relationship between Heraclitean philosophy and Taoism I came across this post frm a message board. It deals with dialectic monism. To view the whole thread and its discussion click here.

I: FOUNDATIONS

1. Change is unchanging; the unchanging is change. This is the Logos.

2. Unchanging change is not purely cyclic, for repetition is changeless.

3. Transcending repetition, spontaneity is both random and progressive.

II: PHYSICS

4. Change is first potentiality and later actuality. The transition from potential to actual informs time and space, which are the antecedents of matter.

5. Manifesting spontaneous order and progression, change self-organizes the physical capacity to perceive itself with ever-increasing awareness.

III: EPISTEME

6. Change is understood in terms of distinctions. When perceiving itself, the unity of change becomes the universal dialectic of "this" and "that."

IV: PRAXIS

7. Spiritual practice consists of reconciling our perception of distinctions with the awareness of unity. We learn to see duality, yet experience oneness.

8. A society reflects the spiritual development of its individual members.

V: EXCELSIOR

9. Science reveals the world, art interprets it. Philosophy synthesizes both.

10. Our human destiny, through the arts and sciences, is a common ascent.

The human body is not a thing or substance, given, but a continuous creation... an energy system... which is never a complete structure; never static; is in perpetual inner self-construction and self-destruction; we destroy in order to make it new.

Norman O. Brown

Black Sabbath - N.I.B.

Some people say my love cannot be true
Please believe me, my love, and Ill show you
I will give you those things you thought unreal
The sun, the moon, the stars all bear my seal

Follow me now and you will not regret
Leaving the life you led before we met
You are the first to have this love of mine
Forever with me till the end of time

Your love for me has just got to be real
Before you know the way Im going to feel
Im going to feel
Im going to feel

Now I have you with me, under my power
Our love grows stronger now with every hour
Look into my eyes, you will see who I am
My name is lucifer, please take my hand

Samsara, nirvana and sunyata

Whatever can be conceptualized is therefore relative, and whatever is relative is Sunya, empty. Since absolute inconceivable truth is also Sunya, Sunyata or the void is shared by both Samsara and Nirvana. Ultimately, Nirvana truly realized is Samsara properly understood.

Nagarjuna

Very beautiful. My plans for the future includes to go deeper on the subject of sunyata and what it really means. Both in regards to my personal philosophy and what it means for buddhism. I like buddhistic metaphysics but as with so many things I dislike alot of the moral and ethical stuff that it endorses. Not always the principles per se but also why they are to be used.

Thus spoke Zarathustra. . . again.

I was siting on the train yesterday and read Friedrich Nietzsches "Thus Spoke Zarathustra". Everything just felt right when I had read the chapter "The Home-Coming". I must have read the right thing at the right moment because something connected with me. Below you can see me quote the whole chapter. Its not the same translation I read (which was done by R.J. Hollingdale for penguing classics) but something I found after a quick search on the internet.

The Return Home

O LONESOMENESS! My home, lonesomeness! Too long have I lived wildly in wild remoteness, to return to thee without tears!
Now threaten me with the finger as mothers threaten; now smile
upon me as mothers smile; now say just: "Who was it that like a whirlwind once rushed away from me?-
-Who when departing called out: 'Too long have I sat with lonesomeness; there have I unlearned silence!' That hast thou learned now- surely?
O Zarathustra, everything do I know; and that thou wert more forsaken amongst the many, thou unique one, than thou ever wert with me!
One thing is forsakenness, another matter is lonesomeness: that hast thou now learned! And that amongst men thou wilt ever be wild and strange:
-Wild and strange even when they love thee: for above all they want to be treated indulgently!
Here, however, art thou at home and house with thyself; here canst thou utter everything, and unbosom all motives; nothing is here ashamed of concealed, congealed feelings.
Here do all things come caressingly to thy talk and flatter thee: for they want to ride upon thy back. On every simile dost thou here ride to every truth.
Uprightly and openly mayest thou here talk to all things: and verily, it soundeth as praise in their ears, for one to talk to all things- directly!
Another matter, however, is forsakenness. For, dost thou remember, O Zarathustra? When thy bird screamed overhead, when thou stoodest in the forest, irresolute, ignorant where to go, beside a corpse:-
-When thou spakest: 'Let mine animals lead me! More dangerous have I found it among men than among animals:'- That was forsakenness!
And dost thou remember, O Zarathustra? When thou sattest in thine isle, a well of wine giving and granting amongst empty buckets, bestowing and distributing amongst the thirsty:
-Until at last thou alone sattest thirsty amongst the drunken ones, and wailedst nightly: 'Is taking not more blessed than giving?
And stealing yet more blessed than taking?'- That was forsakenness!
And dost thou remember, O Zarathustra? When thy stillest hour came and drove thee forth from thyself, when with wicked whispering it said: 'Speak and succumb!'-
-When it disgusted thee with all thy waiting and silence, and discouraged thy humble courage: That was forsakenness!"-
O lonesomeness! My home, lonesomeness! How blessedly and tenderly speaketh thy voice unto me!
We do not question each other, we do not complain to each other; we go together openly through open doors.
For all is open with thee and clear; and even the hours run here on lighter feet. For in the dark, time weigheth heavier upon one than in the light.
Here fly open unto me all beings' words and word-cabinets: here all being wanteth to become words, here all becoming wanteth to learn of me how to talk.
Down there, however- all talking is in vain! There, forgetting and passing-by are the best wisdom: that have I learned now!
He who would understand everything in man must handle everything.
But for that I have too clean hands.
I do not like even to inhale their breath; alas! that I have lived so long among their noise and bad breaths!
O blessed stillness around me! O pure odours around me! How from a deep breast this stillness fetcheth pure breath! How it hearkeneth, this blessed stillness!
But down there- there speaketh everything, there is everything misheard. If one announce one's wisdom with bells, the shopmen in the market-place will out-jingle it with pennies!
Everything among them talketh; no one knoweth any longer how to understand. Everything falleth into the water; nothing falleth any longer into deep wells.
Everything among them talketh, nothing succeedeth any longer and accomplisheth itself. Everything cackleth, but who will still sit quietly on the nest and hatch eggs?
Everything among them talketh, everything is out-talked. And that which yesterday was still too hard for time itself and its tooth, hangeth today, outchamped and outchewed, from the mouths of the men of today.
Everything among them talketh, everything is betrayed. And what was once called the secret and secrecy of profound souls, belongeth to-day to the street-trumpeters and other butterflies.
O human hubbub, thou wonderful thing! Thou noise in dark streets!
Now art thou again behind me:- my greatest danger lieth behind me!
In indulging and pitying lay ever my greatest danger; and all human hubbub wisheth to be indulged and tolerated.
With suppressed truths, with fool's hand and befooled heart, and rich in petty lies of pity:- thus have I ever lived among men.
Disguised did I sit amongst them, ready to misjudge myself that I might endure them, and willingly saying to myself: "Thou fool, thou dost not know men!"
One unlearneth men when one liveth amongst them: there is too much foreground in all men- what can far-seeing, far-longing eyes do there!
And, fool that I was, when they misjudged me, I indulged them on that account more than myself, being habitually hard on myself, and often even taking revenge on myself for the indulgence.
Stung all over by poisonous flies, and hollowed like the stone by many drops of wickedness: thus did I sit among them, and still said to myself: "Innocent is everything petty of its pettiness!"
Especially did I find those who call themselves "the good," the most poisonous flies; they sting in all innocence, they lie in all innocence; how could they- be just towards me!
He who liveth amongst the good- pity teacheth him to lie. Pity maketh stifling air for all free souls. For the stupidity of the good is unfathomable.
To conceal myself and my riches- that did I learn down there: for every one did I still find poor in spirit. It was the lie of my pity, that I knew in every one.
-That I saw and scented in every one, what was enough of spirit for him, and what was too much!
Their stiff wise men: I call them wise, not stiff- thus did I learn to slur over words.
The grave-diggers dig for themselves diseases. Under old rubbish rest bad vapours. One should not stir up the marsh. One should live on mountains.
With blessed nostrils do I again breathe mountain-freedom. Freed at last is my nose from the smell of all human hubbub!
With sharp breezes tickled, as with sparkling wine, sneezeth my soul- sneezeth, and shouteth self-congratulatingly: "Health to thee!"

Void, Chaos, Causality! Whee!

I know there is alot of quotation and re-publishing on the blog right now but to be honest I dont care about that at all. What follows is a post at the Occult Corpus forums made by the user "Rin".Not very deep but well worth thinking about.

[ Taoism ]
Metaphysically, Taoism can be said to assert that everything that appears to exist is one of the "Ten Thousand Things" which arise by the interaction of Yin and Yang. Yin and Yang are sometimes said to be expressions or qualities of Tao (I'm sure there's a better way to word this, so please forgive my linguistic failings). Tao can be described as being beyond "existence" and "non-existence", and that any attempt to assert that it is either/or will fail (but it won't necessarily be utterly false, either). Much like dark matter in astro-physics, the Tao is inferred by its "influences" or "effects" on observable and experiential phenomena. The point I want to make with reference to the Tao in the context of this thread is its infinite potential, that it can be said to contain everything we can possibly imagine and everything we possibly cannot.

[ Buddhist Karmic Causality ]
Karma is slightly different in Buddhism than in Hinduism or Jainism. Though despite the differences it has been, historically, largely moral in nature. In Western nations that have seen a spread of Buddhism, the idea of karma is expanding to include general causality (if you place your hand in a fire, it will burn). Many people in the dialogues between Buddhist philosophy and science have made the connection between karma and Newton's third law of motion ("every action has (an equal and opposite) a reaction").

One of the implications of this is that everything that exists presently does so because it has been caused to exist. That the result of karma, multiplied across vast distances of time, space and other have brought us to where and what we find ourselves today. We're like in a seething ocean of causality where causes and conditions interpenetrate and produce countless holographic-like effects. Some of these are the Earth itself, human beings, star formations, cultures, and even the idea of selfhood. It's said that since everything is causal, nothing is permanent.

[ Chaos ]
Chaos theory tells us that chaos has to inevitably give rise to order or patterns. Although, because those patterns arise from chaos, they must inevitably return to chaos. Chaos is, therefore, like a vast ocean of potentiality where order arises like waves before subsiding back. The appearance of patterns is largely illusory because the order that arises is not wholly separate from the chaos out of which it arose and it is, by extension, connected to other systems of order. We can also observe intra-pattern chaos and order (such as in a nation whose political factions swap out and change altogether, back and forth and in between).

Chaos theory in magic can tie together the idea of the Tao as being infinite potential (you could insert a poor simile here and say that Tao is like a blank canvas) and that of Buddhist Causality (another simile could say that causality is like every possible colour of paint being made available to you, to play endlessly across a canvas). With proper awareness and trans-rational understanding**, one could look deeply into systems of chaos and get some idea of what kind of pattern will emerge and when.

And since we're all part of this vast, beginningless sea of progressive, aprogressive and entropic chaos, we can ourselves effect change in the currents in, around, and that is us. A big key in this is to stop viewing yourself as being separate and distinct from everything that happens around you, and things that appear to happen far away from you (in both time and space). Even quantum science will tell us that time and space are illusory, and that distance is largely meaningless on the quantum level of reality.

Chart of the Great Ultimate (Taiji tu)

The quote is taken from the website of Stanford University. You can find it here.

The relations among the different cosmological configurations that intervene between the Dao and the "ten thousand things" are illustrated in the Chart of the Great Ultimate (Taiji tu), which was discussed at length by both Taoist and Neo-Confucian authors. Texts in the Daozang (Taoist Canon) contain several versions of this chart; the one reproduced below is the best-known version.

On top, the chart depicts the Absolute (wuji) as an empty circle.

Below is another circle that represents the Great Ultimate (taiji) as harboring the Two, or Yin and Yang, shown as two semicircles that mirror each other. Each semicircle is made of black (Yin) and white (Yang) lines that enclose each other, to depict Yin containing True Yang and Yang containing True Yin. The empty circle within these lines corresponds to the empty circle on top, alluding to the notion that Yin and Yang are the "function" or "operation" (yong) of Emptiness, which in turn is their "substance" or "core" (ti).

Following this are the Five Agents (wuxing), which constitute a further stage in the progressive differentiation from Oneness to multiplicity. The lines that connect the Agents to each other show the sequence in which they are generated, namely Wood, Fire, Soil, Metal, and Water. In the configuration of the Five Agents, the Great Ultimate is represented by the central Soil (which is said to have a "male" and a "female" aspect) and reappears as the small empty circle below, which represents the conjunction of Water and Fire ("Great Yin" and "Great Yang") and of Wood and Metal ("Minor Yang" and "Minor Yin").

The circle below the Five Agents represents the joining of Heaven and Earth, or the active and passive principles that respectively give birth to and support the existence of the "ten thousand things." The state of multiplicity is represented by the circle at the base of the diagram.

The darkness was one

The Eternal Parent, wrapped in invisible robes slumbered. Time was not, for it lay asleep in the infinite bosom of duration. Space was not, for there was no place or point. Darkness alone filled the Boundless All. And the Darkness was One.

The Seven Sublime Forms and the Five Truths were not yet, and the universe, the child of Necessity, had not yet been breathed out. Alone, the One Form of Being stretched boundless, infinite, causeless, in dreamless sleep. And life pulsated unconscious, throughout that all-presence. The Great Wheel was not yet. The Dark Formers and the Luminous Forms, were not yet. The Forms that come from No-form rested in the bliss of eternal non-being. And the Darkness was One.

A vibration thrills through Darkness, expanding within and without, touching the whole Universe which was now an embryo in Darkness. Then, the Ray flashed out into a web of 7 lights, and the 5 truths molded the whole into LIFE. Yet still, the Darkness was One.

And the Cosmos was born from the web, a woven fabric of many colors and tones. And the cloth was woven perfectly, no color dominated, yet none were the same; no tones were the same, yet all were harmonious; all blended in a variegated ever-changing cloth, whose capacity for infinite change was proof of the miracle of life. And all things living are part of this woven fabric of life. And all they have to do to delight in this gift of life, is BE. Yet through the changing of times and places, through the births and deaths of stars that form the Web of Life, the Wheel Spins relentlessly in the Grand Illusion. Yet still, the Darkness IS One.

Delar av "the darkness was one - a doctrine of cosmogenesis".

Joh 18-19

Detta är Jesus ord från Joh 18-19:

18. Om världen hatar er, kom då ihåg att den har hatat mig före er.

19. Om ni tillhörde världen skulle världen älska er som sina egna. Men nu tillhör ni inte världen, utan jag har kallat er ut ur världen, och därför hatar världen er.

God Of Emptiness

Lies - And you fill their souls
With all oppressions of this world
And all the glory you receive?
So, What makes you supreme?
Lies - Your crown is falling
I offer fantasy
And you, you creator are
Blind with envy

Let the children come to me
Their mother loves me, so shall they
Woman, bleeding, ate my gifts
Man was close behind
Just like a snake I'm slithering
Thru my world divine
And like the cat I'm stalking
I'll take your soul and You'll
Be like me
In emptiness, free

Just bow to me faithfully
Bow to me splendidly

(Morbid Angel - Covenant - God of Emptiness)

Sokrates

If there is a life after death, then I will go to be with people like myself. If there is not a life after death, then I will not know the difference.

(Sokrates)

Flashback

Jag tänkte härmed ciera mig själv under en diskussion på forumet Flashback. Lite ändrat är det men grunden är helt densamma. Det är ett svar på både en första frågeställning samt svar till denna frågeställning.

Utan att vara jättepåläst om religionens inflytande på vår historia så kan jag säga med säkerhet att den har haft både bra och dåligt inflytande och inget av det. Religion har genomsyrat så oerhört mycket i vår historia (i princip allt på någon nivå). TomasTvivlaren [medlem på flashback] lägger fram flera idéer som han tycker är bra som religionen har bidragit till men det faktum att vi inte kan veta hur det hade varit utan religionen gör att argumenten slår löst i luften. Kanske hade allt varit mycket bättre utan religionen. Kanske har den hindrat oss mer gentemot positiv utveckling än den har berett vägen för densamma. Och sedan finns det också den klassiska frågan om vad som är positiv respektive negativ utveckling?

Frågeställaren talar om "religion" vilket i dagens samhälle innefattar hur mycket som helst. Även en fråga som "Vad anser ni om kristendomens påverkan på historien?" är egentligen alldeles för stor för att avhandlas här. Tänkt då om vi ska ta alla religioner i åtanke.

Att de kristna sedan ser det som att religionen är av godo är inte så konstigt. De ser ju gud som en sorts allgod varelse. Det är istället människors fel att allt går åt helvete. _Vi_ utnyttjar religionen på fel sätt. _Vi_ med _vår_ fria vilja ställer till det osv. Det som sannerligen kommer av religionen är då alltid gott för dem och det är allt som inte är inom religionens ramar som gör att vi tar felsteg.

Kort och gott anser den kristne antagligen att religionen står för allt gott i samhället och allt som går emot den är något som drar oss bort från Gud (vilket är synd).
Vi andra kan omöjligt säga att det har varit enbart bra eller enbart dåligt för världen. Det finns såklart två sidor av myntet och antagligen ännu fler.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra

For all things are baptized at the fount of eternity and beyond good and evil; good and evil themselves, however, are only intervening shadows and damp afflictions and passing clouds.

Friedrich Nietzsche - Thus Spoke Zarathustra (before sunrise).

Chaos Magic

What is Chaos Magic:

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word "chaos" is Greek in origin. Its original meaning was: "a vast gulf or chasm; the neither abyss, empty space, infinite darkness, the first state of the universe." In English, this was refined to mean "the formless void of primordial matter, the 'great deep' or 'abyss' out of which the cosmos or structure of the universe was evolved." The popular modern interpretation of the word as being a synonym for "disorder" is a recent and somewhat misleading development. Both order and disorder are themselves manifestations of the Primal Chaos. The original meaning had more in common with what the Eastern mystics call the Tao. I think this is not at all accidental.

Chaos Magic:

One of the most frequently cited tenets of Chaos magic is that "Nothing is True and Everything is Permitted," a quote attributed to Hassan I Sabbah and used by Friedrich Nietzsche in his work Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Like Crowley's "'Do what thou wilt' shall be the whole of the law," this phrase is often mistakenly interpreted in its most literal sense to mean that there is no such thing as objective truth, so people are free to do whatever they choose. However, "Nothing is True and Everything is Permitted" is more widely interpreted to mean "there is no such thing as an objective truth outside of our perception; therefore, all things are true and possible."

Baphomet

Baphomet är en gudom som väcker stor uppmärksamhet. Bilden av Eliphas Levi är antagligen den mest kända (dens er ni här till höger) men också Church of Satan och andra Satanister använder Baphomets sigill som symbol. Mina tankar om denna gudom är givetvis symboliska. Myterna är inte sanna i sig men är ett sätt att förklara teorier om universums uppbyggnad och vad som fanns innan och vad som kommer efteråt. De idéer jag lägger fram nu är tills tor grad baserade på Tani Jantsangs artikel om Baphomet som man kan köpa här.

Geten Pan symboliserar Baphe Metes ("initiation into wisdom measurement") - exoteriskt - och Bahi Mid ("the watery abyss and the ten") - esoteriskt. Den svarta geten sitter på toppen av en halvglob. En symbol för den mörka kraften som kosmokrator. Jag hittade faktiskt något tänkvär på wikipedia (av alla ställen) om detta:

However, “Kosmokrator”—with cosmos (Greek κόσμο) and κράτορας ("kratia"), as in dēmokratikós, or "democratic" does not mean to create but to rule, direct or influence. Koine Greek κοσμοκράτορας, which literally means "world-ruler" and is applied to Satan in Ephesians 6:12, ("against the world-rulers (κοσμοκράτορας/Δείτε επίσης) the darkness of age") would, by this Gnostic interpretation, lead to an indication of the power of Satan and his identity with the Demiurge. This usage would according to some vilify the logos[10] as it was used by Heraclitus, meaning the ruling or guiding principle of the universe.

Benen på geten med sina hovar representerar jorden, fjällen på magen är vattnet, vingarna är luften, huvudet är elden och det över huvudet är den svarta flamman (den mörka kraften inuti kosmos).

Uppe till höger ser vi en ljus måne i mörkret som symboliserar ande i oformat mörker. I nedre högra hörnet ser vi en mörk måne omringad av ljus som symboliserar materia i format ljus. Det formlösa blir format, arupa blir rupa, chaos blir ordning/kosmos etc. PÅ getens högra arm (den som pekar upp) står ordet solve som betyder upplösning (entropi, outvecklat kaos) och på den andra armen står det "coagula" som betyder stelnande, det bundna, det formade kosmos. Det är bron från mörker till ljus, kaos till kosmos, det formlösa till det med form osv.

Detta är inte statiskt dock. Mörker blir ljud som sedan blir mörker igen. Kom ihåg att min syn är cyclisk precis som året med dess årstider. Det finns andra spekter som Tani lyfter fram men som jag inte ska beröra vidare här. Några få ord kan dock sägas om Baphomets sigill. Detta består av 3 olika symboliska värden. Den första kan sägas vara bokstäverna i ringen som stavar till ordet Leviathan på hebreiska. Leviathan är en varelse av kaos och som därför är något som existerade innan kosmos. Den andra är pentagrammet som visar hur kaos blev till kosmos och hur det agerar i kosmos som för oss kan te sig som entropi (vilket gör att hela universum är i ständig omvandling - ej statiskt). Geten är Pan som också betyder alltet. Det är universum här och nu som vi upplever det. Det är det gränslösa mörkret med det bländande ljuset i (void/vajra, Amon Ra i andra traditioner).

Tao Te Ching quote

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao;
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.
The named is the mother of ten thousand things.
Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.
Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations.
These two spring from the same source but differ in name;
this appears as darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gate to all mystery.

To find ones Self?

A reoccuring part of my blog includes publishing quotes. Most often things I agree with or find interesting because of some other reason. This is one such quote:

. . .one does not “find” one’s self. One creates one’s self.

Occultism for the millions (sid. 44)

Den sanna viljan och det dynamiska självet.

De flesta jag stöter på verkar tro att den sanna individen eller det man innerst inne är är en kärna, en enhet. Jag får oftast en ganska statisk bild när andra beskriver vad de egentligen är. Det jag ser är en kärna som beskrivs som att den inte ändras eftersom det är "ditt sanna jag". Denna enhet vill många få fram genom att ta bort det som inte är av en sådan natur som passar in på deras själsbegrepp. Allt i som kan delas tas bort som vår kropp, våra tankar och andra liknande saker. Allt i strävan efter att hitta kärnan. Min känsla är att människan genom detta gör på samma sätt som fysikerna som söker materiens minsta beståndsdel men som ständigt misslyckas eftersom de hela tiden kommer på att det man förr trodde var den minsta beståndsdelen egentligen består av än mindre delar osv.

Jag väljer att citera ett inlägg från ett annat forum (som verkligen satte ord på mina åsikter på ett bra sätt):

This is a way to the true self, though I feel like the opposite is also a way to the true self;

You ARE your job, you ARE the pleasure and pain, your desires and families, thoughts, and memories... What I've come to realize is that what we are talking about is unity, although unities are difficult to come to terms with. Since if your true essence is oneness, then we assume that these various mutliform things such as our bodies, thoughts, and so-on, which are compound and divisible are not One. Because of that fact, we seek an abstract 'One' that is indivisible, and so figure that procedure via elimination will take us to that. BUT, like with the quest for the atom, we find it more and more internally divided as we go along.... the abstract 'one' recedes... This is when Unity is sought as a 'being'.

I believe there is a 'one' that can be known and it is movement: becomming. Try to think of difference itself in its pure state: NOT as secondary relation between same things: pure difference, becomming.... take an organism; the unity of it's being may be compound, but what makes it 'One' is it's trajectory; the fact that, as a healthy organism, it follows a single 'line of pursuit' to the things it needs, desires, or wants... this is quite different than the abstact one; it is a simple unity, but it is inclusive of all the various things which compose it. I look at the TW [True Will] as being not that which we discover after 'peeling off all the layers', but that which we always have, but attain and greater facility with, and deeper range to, the more we integrate and co-relate the different parts of our being. I'd say it is the muscle by which we flex our metaphysical AND our physical 'direction' (indeed, as ONE). It is our singularity of focus, which we build through practice...

Därför anser jag att en själ, i den formen som västerlänningar oftast använder ordet, inte existerar. Det finns ingen självatomism. Kärnan är en illusion, det finns inget som oförändrat är "jag" (varken som överlever till vår fysiska död eller efter jordelivet till en himel eller ett helvete). Detta är givetvis relaterat med hur jag anser att hela världen styrs av evigt tillblivande. Det formlösa som manifesterar sig i form, kaos som manifesterar sig i ordning osv och som alltid återvänder till sig själv (alltså både kreativt och destruktivt).

Vårt själv är som en våg på öppet hav. Vi ser hela tiden en våg och vi känner igen den om vi följer den med blicken men vattnet som vågen manifesterar sig i ändras hela tiden. När vågen till slut slår mot stranden är det inte samma vatten i vågen som när den började rulla mot stranden. Innehållet har bytts flera gånger men samtidigt är det samma våg som följer en viss linje och som aldrig skulle kunnat existera om inte det vattnet den nyss lämnat efter sig hade existerat.

Kali - the feminine force

Quotes from the book "Kali - the feminine force" byAjit Mookerjee.

The image of Kali is generally represented as black, 'just as all colours disappear in black, so all names and forms disappear in her' (Mahanirvana Tantra). . . In her absolute, primordial nakedness she is free from all covering of illusion. She is nature (Prakriti) stripped of 'clothes'. She is full breasted; her motherhood is a ceaseless creation. She gives birth to the cosmos parthonegenetically, as she contains the male principle within herself. Her dishevelled hair (elokeshi) forms a cutaion of illusion, the fabric of space-time which organizes matter out of the chaotic sea of quantum-foam. . .

As Virgin-creator, Kali is depicted as sattva-guna, white; as sustaining Mother, rajas, red; as the absorber of all, tamas, black. In the equilibrium of the potential state there will always be disturbance arising from the desire for creation - a cycle of Kalis 'opening' and 'closing'. Her world is an eternal living flux in which all things arise and all disappear again. She is the archetypal image of birth-and-death, giver of life and it's destroyer. . .

Great Godess, who art Though?

She replies; I am essentially Brahman [the Absolute]
From me has proceeded the world comprising Prakriti [material and substance]
and Purusha [cosmic conciousness]
the void and the Plenum.
I am [all forms of] bliss and non-bliss.
Knowledge and ignorance are Myself.
I am the five elements and also what differens from them,
the panchabhutas [five gross elements] and tnamatras [five subtle elements].

UI am the entire world.
I am the Veda as well as what is different from it.
I am unknown.
Below and above and around am I.

Att komma fram genom mörkret...

Jag är egentligen inte teist. Teist i formen av tro på en eller flera gudar. Just uttrycket "gud" är för mig något väldigt underligt att någon kan tro på. Visserligen är jag för religiös för ateisterna men samtidigt för mycket ateist för de religiösa. Ordet gud betyder för mig en väldigt personlig varelse. Något med kraft att tänka själv. En varelse likt en människa eller något annat djur men på en helt annan nivå.

I kristendomen kan man föra samtal med den gud de tror på genom bön. I nästan alla religioner med gudar kan man kommunicera med dem genom riter och ritualer men för mig blir det oftast för antropomorft. Man ger guden för mänskliga drag. Detta gäller även i religioner där jag kan se igenom myterna för att se hur de symbolisk representerar något större. När jag läser boken "Aghora - at the left hand of god" vet jag att principerna Kali och Mahakala är sådana jag själv kan se för, vad jag anser" de egentligen är. Se igenom de antropomorfa föreställningarna utövarna av hinduism själva kanske har.

Då jag nästan helt utelämnat etik och moral som något verkligt viktigt har jag mest fokuserat på kosmologi och metafysik. Detta inkluderar de riktigt stora frågorna som vi egentligen aldrig kan bevisa som sanna eller kanske aldrig kan få svar på. Men vissa idéer slår helt rätt när man hör dem medan andra inte gör det.

Skapelsen är en sådan sak som inte slår rätt i mitt huvud. För att något ska ha skapat behöver vi någon som skapar. Kristendomen har en tydlig skapare i Fadern (Gud). Innan skapelsen fanns alltså en oskapad varelse som genom stor kraft skapade allt vi ser och känner idag. Dessutom medföljer det att tiden ses på som linjär i dessa tanketraditioner.

Jag känner mer för en tanke om att universum emanerade och att allt faktiskt är cykliskt. Det som emanerar är inte personligt. Som mitt första inlägg i bloggen antyder emanerar kosmos från det mörka, från kaos, mörkret, apeiron, ginnungagap, tomheten etc. Detta kaos är inte vad vi till vardags kallar kaos. Detta kaos är det ursprungliga kaos. Kaos är det ändlösa blivandet - det statiska existerar inte. Tomheten är inget i sig men innehåller potentialen till allt. Genom emanation blir den till. Den manifesterar sig själv.

Det finns lite olika tankar. Vissa är skarpt dualistiska. De kan mena att detta mörka eller kaos är något ont som vill förstöra det vacka och statiska kosmos. Andra hävdar motsatsen. Jag är inte dualist och anser att kosmos föds ur kaos men att kaos också är det som kosmos dör genom för att sedan återuppstå igen. Kaos är både det som manifesterar sig självt i kosmos samt förstör detsamma (vilker är varför vi upplever det som att tiden går).

Det som kan verka statiskt här och nu innehåller egentligen denna mörka kraft som den är född ut. Den är inte skiljd från den och de är inte i motsats till varandra. Detta är vad forskare kan mäta som entropi ("all physical matter inevitably evolves towards an undifferentiated state of inert uniformity"). På så sätt är den mörka kraften ständigt hos oss, inuti varje liten del av kosmos. Det är det det enda (singular). Det mörka som manifesterar sig självt i det många och det ljusa som ständigt söker sig tillbaka till den mörka enheten. Detta är inte godhet eller ondska. Det finns ingen absolut godhet och ondska. Mörkret bara är och ljuset är vad mörkret manifesterar sig genom.

Genesis

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Arla i urtid fanns ingenting, ej sand eller hav eller svala vågor; jord fanns icke och ingen himmel, där fanns ett omätligt gap gräs fanns icke.

Eddan

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The Beginning and The Origin of all Being Things (of the all-there-is) is the Apeiron. and therefrom is the emergence of the being things thereinto is also their waning according to their fate. and they pay each other their justified debt and penance for their injustice according to the law of the Time.

Anaximander

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The substance of the great Life completely follows Tao.
Tao brings about all things so chaotically, so darkly,
Chaotic and dark are images.
Unfathomable and obscure in it is the seed.
This seed is wholly true.
In it dwells reliability.
From ancient times to this day
We cannot make do without names
In order to view all things.
Whence do I know the nature of things?
Just through them.

Lao Tzu, Tao Teh Ching

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