BUDDHA and EINSTEIN
Einstein said this
“Buddhism has the characteristics to be expected in a cosmic religion of the future: It transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; is linked to the natural and spiritual, and is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity
“If there is any religion to cope with modern scientific needs, it is Buddhism.”
“A human being is part of the whole called” Universe “a part limited in time and space. He feels his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.
“This delusion is a kind of prison for us, we summarizes our desires and affections to a few people around us. Our task is to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody can achieve this completely, but the struggle to achieve this feat in itself, is part of the liberation and the basis of inner security. ”
——
This is the beginning of this interesting theme that leave us to think and wonder how a religion can be basically scientific and refers such actual themes and subjects that science is today dealing with.
What are the knowledge of the old world (New world?)
How can so many thousands years ago could someone talk about the Whole Universe? A universe as a whole. The Now!
jmvc
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This is one of my favorite quotes of Einstein. I agree. He was a deeply spiritual man.
The answer to your question is the Now! All is Now! We are just slow in discovering the true reality.
–The main hindrance is the ‘I am the body’ idea?
Any identification with any object is an absolute hindrance, because ‘I’ am totally devoid of objectivity or any trace element of it.
–One can either seek to understand what one is, or what one is not?
I can only know what I am not. There is no “ I “. If there were I, would be an object. I am not at all in any conceivable way, manner, state, form or dimension. For the same reason there is no such thing as Reality, Truth, Absolute, Self, Consciousness, Mind, or any other concept whatsoever.
–But there is I-am-not?
There is no “I am not” either. There is no thing, positive or negative, not even presence or absence.
–What is?
Absence of the concepts of absence of presence and of presence of absence.
–Then what are objects?
Objects are I. The whole sensorially perceived and imaginable universe is I.
–So, you are the universe?
Not at all. The universe is I.
Pantheism maintains that God is the universe.
God is not the universe. The universe is God.
–What is the difference?
The difference between subject and object. The universe is not the subject of God.
–Then the universe is both God and you?
No, it may be both God and I.
–So you are God?
No. God is an object, your concept, and so are ‘you’. As for me, this-which-I-am is not any thing at all.
–Then nor is God?
Every concept is a thing, but as such is not. Neither God nor I is an object.
–You say the universe is you. How do you know that?
I said the universe is I. You can say it. Every crawling beetle can say it. What else is there that it could be? Where else is there for it to be? Movement, space and time are only concepts. There can only be ‘I’ and I am not, no matter who says it.
–Then why are the beetle, you and I different?
We are not different. We only appear to be different. Noumenally, we are one. But as phenomena, as one another’s objects, we sensorially perceive and mentally interpret one another as beetle, you and I. But as what we are, we are not.
–So we are not either phenomenally or noumenally?
Phenomenally we are not as entities. Noumenally we are not as concepts which are also objects. What we are is not entity or concept, objectivity of any kind. Therefore we cannot say or think we are anything, for that is what we are not.
–Then we can’t know ourselves at all?
We can’t know ourselves at all because we are not anything to be known. We can only BE ourselves which is being what we are.
–How is that to be done?
It is not to be done. It is. Everything is as it is.
–Then regarding ourselves as something is the hindrance to understanding?
Yes.
–And the remedy?
Cease regarding the universe as an object (since it is I), objects as entities (since there are none), ‘yourself’ and others as such (for neither ever was)! Look in the right direction. Look where there is no direction at all, where no longer is there any “thing” to be measured from any ‘where’.
So that is liberation? Liberation for whom? From what? There has never been either.
It just is as it is. That’s all you can say.
Which means that there is no entity or object at all as such, not even ourselves, not even ‘I’?
Not even ‘not-I’. How could there be? Think man, think! Does not thought unite with intuition in this ultimate insight?
That is the answer which dualistic language can’t give, which can only be a perceived noumenally, that is by intuitive apprehension.
Jack Haas says it well in his ” The Way of Wonder.”
Faith, absolute faith, is the acceptance of walking with eyes fully open into the infinite darkness; faith is without expectation, hope, petition, or piety, or it is not faith, it is merely belief. Belief is a characteristic of concept, faith is a characteristic of mystery; for ‘belief’ is the acceptance of something we do not know, whereas ‘faith’ is the acceptance that we do not know.
…For just as we can receive the knowable only by ‘knowing’, so it is that we can receive the Unknowable only by not-knowing.
If God is considered to be the One – infinite, omnipresent, without a second, all-pervading ultimate reality – then what is there to know, and who is there to know it?
Making God into an object redefines the supreme divinity into an entity like us: a thing, force, or person that exists within existence. This anthropomorphizing succeeds in making religion possible, for now God can be reached via a “path,” just like the Eiffel Tower can.
Begin here. Do this. End up at God’s doorstep.
Neat and tidy. All that’s required is to believe in the rightness of the path. God no longer is unknown mystery, for both the way and the endpoint are tidily defined.
Only problem (and it’s a big one): religion has converted Godliness into a concept that can be understood by the human mind. Wonder and Mystery have been collapsed into commandments, tenets, beliefs, theologies, and other attempts to force the unknown One into the cage of conceptual structures.
Genuine faith is a rejection of these graven images that humans have formed not out of stone, metal, or wood, but words. Genuine faith is an unreserved opening to what can’t be known or described, because God isn’t an object.
When we have given God back his or her rightful being – which is to say, his or her unknowability – then what happens is that we begin to also find out our own proper place in the cosmos; when the event (God) which is so important to our lives becomes impossible to understand, then we also become impossible to understand, after all we were ‘created in his own image’. And if that image is beyond our imagination, then we must also be beyond our own imagination.
When God’s attributes are gone, our own attributes are gone, and only then is it possible for the two mysteries to blend into One; before this absolute unknowing occurred – when we ‘knew’ God and ourselves – we saw them as distinct, different entities – for that was the only way to ‘know’ them (i.e. by separating them), but when we finally ‘unknow’ God and ourselves, only then, when the lines of division vanish, can the separate entities merge into One.
i agree in all that
i know the essenece of buddhaism
i i wsnt only in a small writing to show that einstein as a man of science and a spiritual man also.
sorry i will say that exists several universes perhaps coexisting.
no god ? yes i agree in the usual term and minning of it .
space and time as well as 11 dimensions
we can see only in our imagination.
it will took ages to discuss a theme like this
i am a man of science as well spiritual, there is no contrdition on that .
one thing: in a cosmic sense there is no past neither future only the NOW .
and what you say :that when only the lines of division between god and our selves vanish
can the separate entities merge into one.
THANKS A LOT FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTION
EINSTEIN NEVERTHELESS IN MY OPINION THE MAN WHO GHANGES ALL SCIENCE THOUGHT, ALONG ALL IS LIVE SAYS OFTEN THAT IS WRONG.
HE HAVE SAID I DO NOT KNOW NOTHING.
DONT FORGET EINSTEIN WAS A MAN AND COULD ONLY SPEAK AS MAN WITH ALL THE LIMITATIONS OF A HUMAN BEEING.
WE CAN SAY A LOT OF WORDS AND ThE MEANING IS NOTHING.
THANKS AGAIN FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTION.
I AM A OPEN MIND
“After all, that longing for the One takes place in the psyche of beings that are, obviously, separate entities — since we don’t yearn for something that we already possess, or are.”
–By now this is getting to be a non-dual cliche’, so this doesn’t really help, but I will say it anyway. The irony is that we ARE yearning for “something that we already possess, or are.”
I think the matter really is like the analogy given recently regarding the picture that alternately can be seen as a vase or an old lady depending on your perception or focus. Most of us see either the old lady or the vase, but are perfectly capable of seeing the other. This is our conditioning, seeing one or the other. The trick is seeing both at once because phenomena and noumenon exist simultaneously in such a way that neither is absolutely the case independent of the other. Phenomenon is noumenon, noumenon is phenomenon.
What is noumenon? Some may ask.
Noumenon is the subjective aspect of phenomenon which is the objective aspect of noumenon. Phenomena can have no apparent existence apart from noumenon whose objectification it is AS appearance. Noumenon has no existence, apparent or non-apparent, other than as a concept.
Therefore, having neither being nor non-being, noumenon represents the total absence of both as objects in the thought process. It is merely a symbol that represents the source of conceptuality which is inconceivable because conception cannot conceive itself in the same way an eye cannot see itself. In short, noumenon is the non-objective source of all conception which is all the universe is…a product of conception in mind.
Nothing really exists. Things appear to exist, but so does a dream which appears very real. However, is there a creation in a dream? Is there an end? Everything just begins when the dream begins (no egg or chicken first) and ends when you wake up.
At that point, what exists? One may say ‘I’ exist, but when you follow it through… where is this ‘I’? What composes it? What circumscribes it? You then see that ‘I’ does not exist except as an idea. Even our arms and legs are ideas in mind.
So, what is left? We cannot find our ‘I’ except as its objectification as all that appears…arms, legs, others, mountains and stars. We are everything and nothing at the same time!
Some call this Oneness, but it is not even that. There is no-one at all. Who would it be and where?
Milton Munitz’ book, “Does Life Have a Meaning,” the notion of boundless existence.
This isn’t really a “notion,” though. Munitz makes clear that the awareness of That — That existence exists — can never be anything more than exactly That: simple awareness, without any cognitive content of What boundless existence is.
At best, all we can have is an awareness of Boundless Existence. However, this awareness is not an exercise in understanding, of making possible a kind of intelligibility. Nor is it a case of our finding some value in our awareness of Boundless Existence because of the presence and activation of certain properties or powers it possesses.
The only contribution to the resultant experience of awareness is made from our human side. It is the combination of this absence of all normal conditions and sources of meaningfulness (such as we find in the case of our interactions with existents) that distinguishes our experience of Boundless Existence from all other human experiences.
When we find meaning in life, it always is the result of our interacting in some fashion with someone or something else.
A beautiful sunset leads us to feel the wonder of nature. Gazing at our baby’s peaceful sleeping face causes us to marvel at the continuity of life and the love that binds. Kneeling before the altar to take communion, a religious believer is reminded of the sacrifice that Jesus supposedly made to absolve humanity’s sins.
In his book, Munitz answers the question of his title with a strong “yes.” Life does have a meaning. Lots of meanings, though. Not one, since each and every person finds meaningfulness in different ways.
So how does an awareness of Boundless Existence, which I seem to feel in much the same way Munitz describes, contribute to a meaningful life if the only thing we can say about Boundless Existence is nothing?
Since it is devoid of all properties, Boundless Existence is another way of interpreting and sanctioning the use of the concept of “Nothing.” Yet how can the admission of such Nothing into our lives perform a crucial and important role? How should we make room for it in our manifold interactions with various Somethings?
…How can our awareness of it be the source for achieving meaning, if meanings are to be found only in the interactions of human existents with other existents?
Well, how does a blank canvas contribute to the creation of a painting? How does an open mind contribute to the acquisition of knowledge? How does a clear blue sky contribute to the perception of a jet streaking across the horizon?
These are backdrops. In a sense, they are inseparable from the focus of our attention — a painting needs a canvas to exist, as a bird needs the sky to fly in — and in another sense, they are separable. Similarly, says Munitz:
The relation between Boundless Existence and the existent observable universe is not one of Creation of the latter by the former. Boundless Existence is not a creator, not a person, not an infinite mind, not a being possessed of the attributes, qualities, or properties of power, wisdom, or goodness, nor indeed of any other.
It does not stand to the existent observable universe and its contents in the relation of one entity (being, object, substance) to another. It is not “separated” from the world in the way in which we think of the relation between a craftsman and the work he produces.
…in one respect we can (with proper qualifications) affirm that Boundless Existence is a “property” of the existent observable universe, whereas in another respect it is not a property at all.
Boundless Existence simply is what it is. Which is, nothing that we can know, understand, experience, feel, comprehend, or cognize. It’s akin to looking into emptiness and saying, “There’s nothing there.”
Exactly.
Yet that nothing also is everything. Existence is the background to essence, philosophically speaking. Also, realistically speaking — if existence didn’t exist, there would be no place for anything to be what it is.
Therefore, an awareness of Boundless Existence leads us to this conclusion: the meanings in our lives come from us. There’s no ground floor to the cosmos that everything rests on, other than the Nothing of Boundless Existence.
Meaninglessness thus is the backdrop to a meaningful life.
Hunger and satiety, boredom and excitement, routinized performance and genuine creativity, restricted and shared experience, evil and good, welcome accidents and disastrous ones — these and many other parameters for mapping the course of interactive meanings are everywhere germane, applicable, and replicable to the lives of individuals.
However, they play no role whatsoever insofar as we think of our lives under the aspect of Boundless Existence. Boundless Existence has no powers of its own, no cares or concerns, no standards, no goals, no plans, no order of operation — not even a blind, purely causal one.
…When we take this perspective, what can we say? We cannot point to any wider scheme in terms of which the enormous variety of human experiences takes on a role, fills a place, or contributes to our understanding of how or why they are what they are.
We must remain silent; there is nothing to say that would give our lives meaning in the cosmic sense because, in living in a world that has this dimension of Boundless Existence, our lives, too, are surrounded by and immersed in meaninglessness.
The only sources of genuine, redeeming positive meaningfulness of our lives are on the level of interactive meanings — as human existents living in a universe that is itself an existent, and by interacting with other existents, but whose Existence, in general or in part, is without meaning, without intelligibility or value.
Right here, right now, you are the source of meaning in the universe. Only you. Meaning doesn’t come from anywhere else.
No God. No guru. No holy book. No philosophical treatise. No manifestation of nature. Your interactions with the world are the fountainhead of meaning. Flow on, freely and happily.