Escape to Reality: Nirvana (video)

This video will make you question your existence: Prepare to be amazed!

(Fexl) July 8, 2023. So maybe everything we perceive and experience, from the vivid colors that saturate our vision to the tangible sensations that course through our fingertips, is nothing more than an elaborate illusion. Or could it be that the world around us is an intricate fabrication, meticulously designed to deceive us?

NOTE: Sri Shankara, the systematizer and founder of "Hinduism" as a British-style "religion" (combining many disparate spiritual traditions long existing in India, including Raja Yoga and Brahmanism, claiming to be rooted in the ancient pre-Indian Vedas of the Indus Valley Civilization), was not the originator of the analogy of the elephant and blind men. The historical Buddha gave this analogy. If Sri Shankara retold the tale, he was using the Buddha's wisdom. But Sri Shankara was against the Buddha and Buddhism, regarding it as a foreign teaching (dharma) that came to India. In his effort to systematize an indigenously Indian religion or Eternal Dharma, he subordinated Buddhism to play a minor role as a kind of incarnation of Vishnu tradition (as happened to Krishna and Christ).

Escape to Reality: "Life or Death?"

Wheel 45/46. Escape to Reality: Buddhist Essays (BPS.lk) edited by Wisdom Quarterly

"By one's own deeds the fool is consumed, as by a fire." —The Dhammapada

In his address delivered at Oslo when he was awarded the Noble Peace Prize, the great humanitarian Dr. Albert Schweitzer spoke for all humanity when he said:

“Let us face the facts. Man has become a superman. Not only has he innate physical forces at his command but, thanks to science and to technical advancement, he controls the latent forces of nature. But this superman suffers from a fatal imperfection. He has not raised himself to that superhuman level of reason which should correspond to the possession of superhuman strength.”

This is the Great Showdown. The latent forces of nature that humans now control will destroy us as readily as they will serve us. They are mindless and efficient, like a razor: It is for humans to decide whether to shave — or cut our throats. The razor does not care. It waits, supremely indifferent.

Can we raise ourselves to that superhuman level of reason necessary for our survival on this planet? Are we mature enough to realize that we cannot destroy each other any longer without destroying ourselves?

This sensual world is a world of delight -- a realm within the Sensual Sphere (Kama Loka). But the strands of pleasure are better for the sensual devas above us and even better in the Fine Material Sphere above this region. This sphere is full of desire, pursuit, and pleasure but also much disappointment and suffering. Higher worlds have more pleasure with less struggle (though, ultimately, things still fail to fulfill and end craving).

Yet, how many of us are able to give up these lesser pleasures for greater ones? Could we stop clinging to this sensual existence for the tremendously more blissful nirvana? It's not likely. (Why? It's because we do not see the danger inherent in our predicament).

We are like monkeys, grasping some lump of salt inside through a small opening. Thus holding onto it, our hand has become a greedy fist that cannot pull out of the coconut. The coconut is fastened to a tree, and the hunter (Mara) is coming to collect us. And still we can't let go. What the?

Are We Grown Up?

The Buddha's advice? "If, by renouncing some lesser happiness, one may gain a greater one, let the wise person renounce the smaller out of consideration for the larger" (The Dhammapada).

The capacity to renounce a small, immediate happiness in order to secure some greater, more distant happiness is a mark of maturity.

Few children have it, and those who do are really more mature than many adults. It means clear vision, sound judgment, and self-control, all of which are sings of a truly adult mind.

Many people go through life without ever growing up. We find it impossible to resist the temptation of immediate pleasures.

Under the wise guidance and control of some mentally more mature person, we may forego such pleasures and pursue a line of action that yields greater happiness in the long run. But it is not of our own independent choice.

Given the necessary opportunity and freedom to decide for ourselves, we will fritter away our time and energy in the pursuit of the moment’s pleasures, letting the future look after itself.

For such people, a theistic religion is a great help. It serves as a steadying and guiding influence. Most people are like children who need a wise parent, a parent who rewards virtue and punishes vice, who encourages honest endeavor and discourages laziness.

But, as Ingersoll once said, in nature there are no rewards or punishments. There are only consequences.

A person who plants a fruit tree, tends it carefully, and waits patiently, is not “rewarded” when at last it bears fruit. One may die before that happens, or the fruit may be indigestible because of some change in one's personal chemistry. But the fruit appears all the same, not in order to reward but because that is the way of nature.

It is the same when a person trains a puppy badly and it grows up into a surly dog. The dog may or may not bite one, and if it does happen, it will not be as a “punishment.” It will merely be a consequence of bad training.

To the Buddhist, all phenomena are consequences, including all personal phenomena. However pleasant or painful they may be, one does not regard them as the rewards or punishments dispensed by some Supreme Being.

One accepts them as the results of one's own karma (past deeds), one's own past physical, verbal, and mental actions.

One stands on one's own feet and molds one's own destiny [though often quite unaware of one's own power to create one's fate], in this and in countless future lives.

It is a religion for adults. For this very reason, it does not appeal to those who lack mental maturity. It is too free, too unsheltered. But to the mature, it is the only reasonable and acceptable way of life.

Accepting this doctrine (Dharma) of personal responsibility, the Buddhist faces life fairly and squarely. One can pursue the slight happiness offered by this world (and sphere) of the senses, or if one has clear vision, sound judgment, and self-control, one can forego such happiness and seek something infinitely higher.

What is this “something”? It is mental progress, clearer and ever clearer vision, sounder and ever sounder judgment, greater and ever greater mastery over self, until at last, as an enlightened being (arhat), one reaches the very zenith of mental evolution and attains nirvana.

This is the Way taught by all buddhas. It is not an easy road or a short one. Most of us have far to go. But we must all go on that road sometime, and the sooner we start, the sooner we will reach the ultimate goal.

Let us not wait for many more lifetimes before we start. Let us not fool ourselves that if we wait patiently, trusting in some Supreme Being, our reward will be eternal bliss.

Let us not hang about, like grubby children, expecting a parent or governess to wash us, undress us, and tuck us safely into bed. If we do, we shall wait indefinitely. More