Saturday, March 7, 2009

On mysticism and spiritual materialism



Is there something more to a human being than the body and the personality? The word personality originates from the Latin word persona, which means mask. Is it possible to find someone or something behind the mask? What do you think?

The mystics of all religions have much in common. They claim that they have experienced what is behind the ego, behind the personality and the body, behind the psychological and physiological functions, but they can not really communicate it because language is not made for this purpose. They try the best they can by using words like: the formless world, Brahman, pure existence, existence beyond all existence, Nirvana, God or Dao, but those words doesn't explain much to us everyday people.

I am not that interested in the existence beyond all existence. I am interested in what is here in this world and what I can experience with my senses, what I can see with my own two eyes and what I can understand with my limited little mind. The time will come, for sure, when I no longer have any senses and no sense of I. I will cross that bridge when I come to it. When I am dead, as I see it, the time is ripe to "experience" existence beyond all existence. Sometimes I feel that many so called spiritual people do not care much about what is going on here in this world. They don't care much about the play. They are like actors who leave the play to search for the truth behind the scene. They search in the basement of the theater and in the attic. They do not seem to care if a decent man’s pension is dependent of how many land mines Raytheon Company manage to sell. They do not know about such things. They never speak up against injustice, exploitation and the insane greed of the rich. Why do those who have seen the reality behind the reality, neglect to explain that it is evil to sell land mines or exploit poor people to become richer?