THE PHANTOM PHILOSOPHER

God

When I was four years old I started having dreams of being in battle.  I would wake up sweating, feeling scared and full of regret.  I thought how does a four year old have regrets, or even know what regret is.  After eleven years I finely came to the conclusion I was seeing the end of my last life as a soldier in WWII.  After that I had one more dream that ended the scene, then I never had those dreams again until my son went and served in Iraq forty years later.

That experience was a profound gift from God.   I realized that my awareness traveled from one life to another.  That could only mean one thing, that my awareness was just a small part of an all pervading awareness.  I realized that God did exist and that I was just a small part of that great reality.

I resolved to study religion and anything to do with the human experience to come to an understanding of God and his connection to humanity.  To that end I began studying religion when I was fifteen years old.

The following is my conclusion to forty years of study.

Only One Universe Exists.

Not one for Scientists and another for Saints.  Only one reality exists and a true understanding of it will include both science and religion.  A true understanding of existence will cut through all the dogma of religions and explain exactly what the allegories mean and how they relate to physical realities.

A true understanding of the universe will be able to show the allegorical connections between all the religions and science.

When I began studying life I was struck by how religions and the sciences contradicted each other.  I couldn’t believe it.  I wouldn’t believe it.  I came to the conclusion that the only reason religions and science contradicted each other was because I didn’t know enough to see how they fit together.  I resolved to study until I could see the connections.  This is my statement of connections.

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the light”.  And Christianity says that one must believe in Jesus and believe that he died on the cross for us to be forgiven of our sins and receive our admission into heaven.

I had to ask myself, “ How does that happen from belief”?  People’s beliefs come and go, they evolve with time and they can be changed by facts.  Belief is also what we do when the thing is not an obvious fact in front of us.  We don’t believe in the Sun and the Earth and our own lives because they are obvious facts.  I wanted to understand God as an obvious fact.

I also wondered, “What about all the people who lived before Jesus?”  Are they just out of luck along with all the people who didn’t get an opportunity to hear the story of Jesus?  Could a loving God condemn Billions of people to an eternity of hell for just not being born in the right time and place?  And what about the rest of the universe?

Are we all that there is?

Couldn’t possibly be true.

I was confirmed in the Lutheran religion and one thing always bothered me about western religions in particular.  The religious snobbery.  The idea that only we know the truth.  That only the believers of Christ are saved.  I always remembered, even at an early age, that everything was God and I felt uncomfortable disregarding other people’s beliefs.

I came to the conclusion that some of the assertions about Jesus were just plain wrong.  That to truly believe in Jesus we have to disregard the fantasies created around him by people who didn’t understand his mission.  To truly believe in Jesus we had to come to a real understanding of his life.

As I studied Hinduism I saw the correlation to Christianity.  They also taught  that every human being has an inner essence that lives after death.   That this soul is literally the stuff of God.

It finely dawned on me that it wasn’t the story of Jesus that was important but the motif that story represented.  Jesus was not the first to represent that motif and he hasn’t been the last.

I realized that the story of Jesus and Christianity’s insistence in believing that story was a political statement, not a religious one.  Christianity, like all institutions has a history that defines it’s character.  But the history and doctrine of Christianity does not limit the truth.  It is a reflection of the particular truth expressed through the life of Jesus.  Yet recorded and worshiped by people who interpreted events in the light of their own knowledge.

Within every religion is a Spiritual component, a Political component and a Cultural component.  The Cultural component is the particular person, culture and time period that the religion was created in.  The Political component is the Countries character and particular assertions that keep it separate from other religions.  And the Spiritual component are the teachings from that master and the universal truths that all religions recognize.

Our salvation does not come from just believing in the physical reality of Jesus’ life, but understanding that the motif he represents applies to all of our lives.  In that way we come to the understanding of our unity with all people.  Believing in Jesus the man keeps us separate from people of other faiths.  And only furthers Christianity as an organization.

Jesus is also claimed to have stated, “What you are, I once was.  And what I am, you shall become.”

Belief is the first step on a long road of spiritual evolution.  But if you don’t travel the road, belief can only do you so much good.

If God is anything He is reality and truth.   Reality is in the here and now and thought happens a moment after as a reflection.  Thought is not reality.  That is why most Eastern religions say that Enlightenment starts with the cessation of thought.

That is why I believe that belief in Christianity is more akin to visualization in Hinduism then the blind belief that most people perceive.  Jesus asked people to believe when it came to his miracles.  Some people were healed then relapsed and he said it was because they lost their faith.  And there was a women who was healed for just touching the hem of his garment and he said it was because her faith was strong.  This all has implications that are much more profound then the word belief or faith can indicate.

I think Christianity missed the mark when they invented the idea of a messiah.  That someone else would guarantee our lives or save us some how.  The idea that someone else is responsible for our lives just doesn’t ring true.  Sounds too much like Socialism.

Jesus can’t save us from our ignorant selves, but he can serve as an example of what we shall evolve into.  For Christians he is an example of perfection beyond being human.  Maybe that is our connection to God.

The Hindu religion has created a whole discipline around the idea of belief in Bhakti Yoga.  The Yoga of devotional adoration.

One of the universal truths of all religions is that God is Omnipresent, Omnipotent and Omniscient.  The universal life is everywhere, it is all power, and since energy and matter are inter-changeable God is all matter.  And being Omniscient it is all thought, feeling and emotion.

So if we are here, walking on this planet, and we know that God is everything,  there must be a mechanism that can be understood by the human mind that connects God to humanity.

God the Creator is not separate from creation because there is nothing outside of God to work with.  So the idea of Jesus being the only Son of God is a Political and Cultural statement and does not reflect the Spiritual reality.

I believe that the Prophet Paul, who never met Jesus, created the worship of Jesus to fortify his own doubts.  And the Roman Empire codified it to solidify their own power.

But to worship Jesus, the man,  is to deny the real teaching that he brought of our unity with existence.  His example must apply to us also or it is meaningless.

Religions like Buddhism and Zen teach us to identify the closest relationship we have with existence, which is our awareness.  It is not the things we observe and worship that is our direct connection with God.  But our own Being.  And how existence is aware through us.

If God’s primal essence is awareness then we must come to the realization that awareness is not created by a brain.  It existed in the universe before creation.

So where does God’s awareness reside?

One must understand the core ideas in the major religions and how it relates to the physical world.

Jesus said, “I and my Father are One”, meaning the creation and the Creator are the same thing.

Krishna said, “Atman and Brahman are One”, meaning the awareness in humans and the awareness of existence are one and the same.

Buddha said, “Awareness and space are One,” meaning the capacity expressed by awareness is the same as the capacity expressed as space.

Albert Einstein said, E=MC2,  Energy equals Mass, times the speed of light squared.

All these statements are basically saying the same thing.  They express the space, movement in space duality of existence. Matter is an extension of space, just as thoughts are an extension of awareness, like clouds being an extension of the atmosphere.

Einstein, before he died, described space as having qualities that made it appear alive, because of the realization that gravity was a quality of space itself.

Steven Hawking, in his book, “A Brief History of Time”, said that Black Holes just evaporate back into space.  There is more to space then emptiness.

The one thing that physics leaves out, but has been hinting at, is Awareness.  Einstein talks about the universe being a four dimensional fabric of space and time.  And the laws he formulates show the relativity of motion between different observers.  Yet the observer does not rate a place in the formula.

The physics community has recently come to the conclusion that the Big Bang happened, not from a dense singularity, but from the vacuum of space itself.  That is a major conceptual change that has caused no ripple in the intellectual world.  We have been confronted with the metaphysical fact that something came from nothing.

That is a confirmation of the Hindu teaching of Akasha and Prana.  Akasha being space and Prana being movement in space.  The Hindu’s teach that Akasha and Prana are different forms of the same thing.

A few years ago the physics community also came to the conclusion that it was space itself expanding and not so much the matter in it. That is a confirmation of the Hindu teaching of the Days and Nights of Brahma.  They describe the expansion and contraction of the universe as Brahma inhaling and exhaling.  An interesting similarity.  Yoga techniques harness the power of breath coupled with visualization and concentration to enhance spiritual powers.

From gravity to magnetism to the electromagnetic spectrum, space becomes matter.

In Buddhism the term Tathagata refers to the suchness of existence as expressed in both the suchness of space and the suchness of our awareness.

And Buddha described Enlightenment as the act of dropping our ego/body and merging our suchness/space with the universal suchness/space.

I say to you, that space is the physical reality of awareness and awareness is the psychological reality of space.  Space is the spiritual side of matter and the material side of spirit.  It is the midpoint between science and religion because the space/movement in space duality reflects the awareness/matter duality of existence.

The four dimensional fabric of space/time is really a seven dimensional fabric of space/time/awareness.  Four dimensions of space and time.

The fifth dimension is awareness in matter.  People, animals, the crude awareness in plants.

The sixth dimension is what Christianity calls the Communion of Saints.  That is the individual awareness of souls in the spirit world that reincarnate in and out of life.  The Saints who came before and make up a hierarchy of spiritual dimensions.

The seventh dimension is the background primal awareness of existence,  God.

When Hinduism and Buddhism says that, due to the fact that God is the essence of our own awareness, we are already Enlightened.  That is exactly the same idea as when Christianity says that because of Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross we are already saved from our sins.  Both are a recognition that our essence is literally God, but that the original sin or ignorance of our being rests in our ego’s idea that we are individual and separate from our fellow human beings and God.

Just as the whole history of any plant is encapsulated in it’s seed, so also the whole history of the universe is encapsulated in every atom and by extension every human spinal column.

Physics tells us that light can be viewed as either a wave or a particle.  It expresses it’s wave nature when you view it traveling through space. But does not express it’s particle nature until it falls on a material object.

So also, the wave packet nature of atoms, flying through space, does not express it’s particle nature until it falls upon the awareness of a being living in it.  It is our awareness in matter that makes the universe appear to be solid.

The whole history of the universe is encapsulated into the structure of the wave packet that is the atom flying through space.  It expresses it’s whole history from the creation of the atom all the way to the creation of the human spinal column and beyond.  We evolve through that line from it’s beginning until it’s end.

The human being did not come into existence from the evolution of apes.  Our awareness existed as a part of God before the universe was created.  We came into physical existence with the creation and evolution of the atom.  As awareness evolved out from matter it became more particularized.  It took on a personality.

All the different religions of the world point to this fact in different ways.  They show the symbiotic relationship between space/awareness and matter/thoughts.

Meditate on your own awareness and you will perceive space.

There is no contradiction between Creation and Evolution.  God creates through Evolution.

Awareness is space, Awareness/space begins to move creating matter.  Awareness evolves through the matter as a duality to observe itself.  Awareness evolves out from the matter to merge back into space.  The cycle repeats itself.

Each human is a micro-cosmic representation of the Macro-cosmic God because each individual being is a unit of infinite space/awareness expressing itself through the energy fields that bring it into existence.

Hindu mythology is a poetic understanding of the metaphysical qualities of the universe.  The understanding of the teachings of Purusha and Prakrti and the three Gunas are an understanding of the dual nature of existence.  Awareness and matter, Space and movement in space.  And the three Gunas are a reflection of the three qualities of the Atom.

Purusha is the spiritual essence of existence. Space as a reflection of the quality of God’s infinite nature, Awareness.  Prakrti is the nature of matter.

The three Gunas reflect the qualities of the atom in that Sattva or Being/goodness reflects the quality of the space expressed within the atom becoming particularized from the space without.  Rajas, or the energy principal reflects the quality of the atom’s movement through space.  The speed of it’s movement determines it’s volume.

And Tamas, or lethargy and dullness reflects the quality of the atom’s decay through time.

Kundalini Yoga through it’s description of the seven chakras, or energy centers in the human spinal column is also a description of how awareness “IS” the function and structure of the atom in it’s wave packet manifestation as it flies through space.

When Christianity says that people are born in sin what that really means is our awareness is limited and defined by our physicality.  Our pure limitless awareness has now taken upon itself a certain particular personality and it expresses itself through that personality.  When we identify our limitless awareness  with our physicality we strengthen our ego that perceives our separation from others.

The first Commandment is to Love the Lord God with all our heart, mind, and soul.  That is to realize the whole universe is one existence.  And the second Commandment is to Love our neighbors as ourselves.  To realize all of life is US.

When Buddha became Enlightened he said there was no God.  I wondered about that until I realized the Knower can never put itself into the realm of the known.  Our eyes cannot see themselves.  There is no separate personality of God for Buddha to interact with because ‘HE’ was the personality.  We are God’s personality.

And yet that is still the wrong way to understand it, because for Siddhartha to become the Buddha, he had to cease to exist, which put him into the realm of God’s Consciousness which is a nothingness, space.

Christianity says that because Jesus died on the cross our sins are already forgiven, if we believe in him.  What that really means is that if we realize what the motif means, if we realize that we have a soul that will live beyond death and merge back into the universal awareness, our punishment for sin is our comparison of our actions in life and how they are in conflict with the truth of universal awareness.  When we hurt others we show our ignorance of the universality of awareness.  Jesus wasn’t kidding when he said to “Love thy enemy as thyself.”

When we believe in Jesus, we realize that we are bigger then one life time and one person.  The forgiveness of our sins is a recognition that the materiality we surround ourselves with can never taint the pure awareness that is our essence.

That brings us to sin or evil in the material world.  If a person falls from a great height and dies, can we refer to that as evil?  Certainly anything born into a physical body will experience pain.  Buddha said life is misery. But life and attitude is not something that happens to you, it is how you react to it that defines your humanness.

When Jesus says to love our enemy as ourselves, that is not an abstract thought, but the utter truth.  The awareness that is looking out of my eyes is the same awareness that is looking out of your eyes.  There is only one awareness in existence and it is living in every separate personality.  That is the reason for the saying, “Wherever two or more of you are gathered in his name, there is Love.”

In that sense, Love is a recognition of unity.

If we can realize our true being as awareness, unlimited infinite awareness, that expresses itself through every vehicle it brings into existence, we realize the admonition from Christianity that we are already saved by Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.  And Buddhism’s and Hinduism’s admonition that we are already Enlightened because we realize that the material world and all it’s associations can not taint in any way the vacuum of space/Awareness.

The things we do, cannot define, what we are.  The same as, the whole history of matter, does not define or limit, what the essence of space expresses.

With that understanding also comes an understanding of Karma and our future heaven or hell in the after world.  When we are confronted with the reality of perfection that is God, we cannot but judge ourselves in the light of that perfection.  Our heaven or hell is the degree to which we have lived up to that perfection.

This interpretation of Christianity connects it with Eastern religions.

Eastern religions are not dogmatic in the sense western religions are.  Eastern religions basically agree with each other.  Where they differ is in their focus of importance.   Western religions, because they do not understand the motifs they represent, differ with each other.  They fight and kill each other over their misunderstanding.  If they understood they would see the connections and no disagreement would be necessary.

Because of what is said here,  All religions, in their dogmatic sense, have now become obsolete.  The world now has the key to understand how all religions and science fit together in perfect harmony.

The Law of Three

The Law of Three is the law which governs the direction which energy travels.

The Trinity is a basic concept common to all the religions and sciences.  It is one of the primal fundamental laws of existence.

The vacuum of space is expressed in three dimensions. Length, Width, and Depth.  Through the Big Bang at the beginning of material existence, the three dimensions of space rolled itself into the tri-unit of the atom to create the physical universe.  Looked at from the energy viewpoint it is more akin to the plucking of a guitar string.  The resulting vibration expresses it’s trinity nature.

Thus, the energy of God‘s awareness, which is the vacuum of space, i.e., “gravity” solidified itself to become physical matter, Electromagnetism.  Waves combining to create particles.

That is the answer to the question in western Philosophy of how matter and awareness can come together.  Matter is Awareness solidified.

This connection between the vacuum of space and matter, or God’s awareness, and the physical universe, is the direct reason why humanity has the ability to perceive it’s world.  As Aristotle said, “a thing can only perceive itself”. Thus humanity can perceive the universe because humanity “is” the universe.

Past                Present                 Future             Time

Length              Width                 Depth               Space

Known          Knowledge            Knower         Awareness

Son                Holy Ghost            Father

Shiva                Vishnu                Brahma

Destroyer       Preserver             Creator

Negative           Neutral              Positive

Electrons        Neutrons              Protons

Matter             Energy                    Spirit

Expression                                    Essence

Circumference                                Center

 

 

The Law of Seven

The Law of seven is the law which shows the stages of evolution from the vacuum of space, or spirit, to the densest matter.  It too has been mentioned in religions and the sciences.

The idea of creation happening in seven days, I think, could be better understood if we accepted the idea of seven stages of creation.

One hint in the Bible is the description of a vision of Jesus holding seven lightning bolts surrounded by seven stars.

The Hindu model of existence consists of seven Chakras or energy centers in the human body,  which corresponds to the seven stages of existence.

The Electromagnetic spectrum consists of seven wavelengths.

Each octave on the musical scale consists of seven notes.

There are seven layers or shells of electrons orbiting the nucleus of atoms.

The Hindu Chakras

7.Spirit = Akasha              God-Awareness-Space

Mental            6.Spiritual Mind                 Love-Eternal Consciousness         Super Ego

Body                5.Intellect                             Ego Consciousness                          Ego

………………….4.Instinctive Mind               Instincts-Abstract ideas                Id

………………….3.Prana-Vital Force             Breath

Physical         2.Astral Body                         Energy-Nerve System

Body              1.Physical Body                     Physical Senses

 

 

The following shows the connection between the Law of Three and the Law of Seven.

The Law of Three                     /                                      The Law of Seven

                                                                                Chakras or energy centers

1                            2                         3

Past                   Present              Future             Time

Length               Width               Depth              Space                 7. SPIRIT-AWARENESS

Son                  Holy Ghost         Father             Love                   6. SPIRIT-MIND              Sup-Ego

Known            Knowledge         Knower            Ego                    5. INTELLECT                     Ego

Shiva                  Vishnu             Brahma          Abstract             4. INSTINCTIVE MIND      Id

Destroyer         Preserver          Creator

Contraction                                Expansion

Exhale               Pause               Inhale Breath                              3. PRANA-VITAL FORCE

Negative          Neutral             Positive Energy                           2. ASTRAL BODY

Electrons        Neutrons           Protons                                         1. PHYSICAL BODY

Space-Awareness = Akasha

Mind and Body.   = Prana

 

 

The following definitions of the seven systems of the human body is a western counterpart to the eastern teachings of the seven Psychic Centers.

1. The reproductive system, represented by the sacral plexus of the cerebro-spinal nerve system, which controls the lower limbs and the external organs of reproduction.

2. The negative system of nutrition, represented by the prevertebral hypo gastric plexus of the sympathetic nerve-system, which controls the organs of elimination, bladder, intestines, urinary ducts, and the inner organs of reproduction.

3. The positive system of nutrition, represented by the prevertebral solar or hypo gastric plexus of the sympathetic nerve-system, which controls the stomach, intestines, gall-bladder, bladder, gall-ducts, urinary-ducts, seminal-ducts, and the gland like organs of the liver, kidneys, spleen, and intestinal glands.

4. The system of blood-circulation, represented by the heart-plexus of the sympaticus, which controls the heart and the blood-vessels.

5. The respiratory system, represented by the throat-plexus or plexus cervicus of the cerebro-spinal system, which, together with the brachial plexus, controls the upper limbs.

6. The non-volitional (sympathetic) nerve-system, which is represented within the skull by the medulla oblongata, the enlarged continuation of the spinal column, forming the basis of the brain and controlling the special sense-organs, eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin.

7. The volitional nerve-system, represented by the pituitary gland, a small conical body in the depth of the great-brain tissue, whose physiological function has not yet been discovered,  Attention has to be drawn upon the close natural relationship of the pituitary gland with the optical nerves, in connection with a higher interpretation of this organ as an undeveloped base of a Consciousness of the seventh order.

Page 141.  Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism.  Lama Anagarika Govinda

Samuel Weiser  1974

The Reproductive system and the negative system of nutrition fall under the physical body.

The positive system of nutrition and the system of blood-circulation falls under the Astral body.

The respiratory system falls under Prana.

The non-volitional nerve system falls under the instinctive mind.

The Volitional nerve system falls under the Intellect and the Spirit mind.

The Soul or spirit of humans falls under Spirit/Awareness.

 

 

END

I have to wonder about the human race.  It’s turning into a rat race.  People so busy competing with each other, hurting each other, using each other, I have to wonder about their self confidence.

I know people are hurting.  I know people have lost their faith.  Things don’t add up sometimes and it makes people disappointed.  We all crave to be loved and understood for who we are.

We all have our own particular reason for becoming angry or sad or disappointed.  People let us down, people hurt us.

If somebody could just know and understand what we have gone through.  Maybe we could reconcile our lives with our pain.

But I have to tell you honestly, don’t give up hope.  All this has a meaning.

You might not see it now.  But it will add up in the end.

And the incredible euphoria you will feel when you realize what is really going on, will make the miserable journey all the more worth while.

The end of each life time, is like the return of the prodigal son.

We are the souls that have gone out from the source and are returning.

The angels of heaven feed off the experience of our lives.

They learn through us.  For they do not have the ability to experience something new.  And they can’t appreciate the glory of Heaven.

They are trapped in who they are, for angels are free beyond our wildest imagination.  But they do not have the ability to learn something new through the struggle and effort to survive.

That is why God placed humans above the angels.  It is our lives that change and grow.  As it is said in the Bible, “Heaven and earth shall rise up together.”

Our particular lives enhance heaven, and heaven inspires our struggles.

It is through our experience, that both heaven and earth evolve, fulfilling the process of God fluctuating between the extremes of his personality.

But the greater realization is that, it only appears to be our particular experience, because we are seeing it from our end.  While God and heaven partake of our experience without our least suspicion.

All the Angels of heaven and God himself cheer, like wild fans, at every trial and tribulation that humanity suffers through, like parents empathizing with their child’s lives.  Take heart in the fact that God and the whole universe partakes of our experiences and evolves through our pain.

 

PEACE

I do not come here to destroy any religion.  My purpose is to prove the existence of God, show the universal truths all religions believe in and cut away the dogmatic ideas and language that keep religions separate.

I do not care one iota for furthering anyone’s belief in any religion. Even though I personally love studying religion.  What I care about is the experience of God.  Religions were created as a reaction to a person who was experiencing God.  Are you going to settle for believing that person or would you rather experience God also.

We do not worship Jesus because he believed in God.  Heck, we believe in God.  We worship Jesus because he was a living example of experiencing God, being at one with God. The same as Krishna or Buddha.

I believe that Jesus, Krishna and Buddha lived and were the reasons why three great religions started.  But I do not believe that any religion has a monopoly on explaining existence.  Because existence is not limited by any religion.

Religions are human’s feeble attempt at understanding the profound fact of life.  I believe religions are different pieces in a greater puzzle of life.  I believe humanity evolves through it’s particular religions until it comes to an understanding of how all religions fit together.

I believe our understanding goes through an evolution until we can see how all religions and science fits together in a Grand Unified Theory.

There was a time when all the religions of the world didn’t exist.  But existence was still there.  Existence is not dependent on explaining it.  And we are part of existence.

Most religions only cater to the mind and there is more to the human being then the mind.  That is why believing in God is just not good enough.  We, who are part of existence, have the ability to experience God directly.

That is why, after humanity has been around thousands of years, we still compete and fight with other humans.   I can understand fighting over natural resources, but fighting over religion.  That is just plain ignorant.

 

It’s actually quite tragic that most of the people in the western world think Yoga is all about positions of the body. Asanas/positions are only one small part of Hatha Yoga. The Yoga of physical well being. Hatha Yoga also encompasses diet, control of breath, sleep and exercise, understanding and controlling different bodily systems.

Raja Yoga has to do with mental proficiency. Memory, Concentration, Visualization, Meditation, Perception, Attention.

Gnani Yoga has to do with knowledge, the scientific and intellectual knowing of the universe.

Karma Yoga has to do with the actions and consequences in one’s life.

Bhakti Yoga deals with the devotional adoration of the absolute. Love.

Kundalini Yoga has to do with the Chakras or energy centers that make up the human body. Our spinal column is a representation of the evolution of the universe from the beginning of time till it’s end. The atom in it’s wave packet form is the same thing. That is how we are a micro-cosmic representation of the macro-cosmic God.

So you can see there is more to Yoga then positions.

The sages codified Hindu intellectual thought into six Darshanas.

Three sets of two. Each set is composed of a Philosophical side and a practical application side.

Nyaya and Vaisheshika, Samkhya and Yoga, Mimamsa and Vedanta. Nyaya is a school of logic and epistemology, going into a subject for proofs, intuition, inference, comparison, testimony, physics. Vaisheshika is the theory of the four kinds of valid knowledge, perception, inference, rememberance, intuitive, it teaches that nature consists of eternal atoms distinct from the soul, by knowledge of which the soul can achieve release.

Samkhya opposes matter (Prakriti) to soul (Purusha). As in Jainism the individual souls are infinite and discrete, and salvation consists in recovery of the soul’s original purity in isolation from matter. Samkhya’s doctrine of the three gunas or constituent characteristics, causing goodness (sattva), passion (rajas) and lethargy (tamas) in things and beings, is very influential in many departments of Indian thought. They also reflect qualities of the atom in that rajas reflects the atom’s movement through space, which determines it’s volume. Tamas reflects atomic decay and Sattva reflects the awareness of space being solidified into the wave packet nature of the atom flying through space. Space and movement in space.

Yoga are the practices of unifying the body and mind.

Mimamsa is a school of Vedic exegesis, a perpetuation of Brahmanical sacrificialism. it is the philosophy or knowledge part of the Vedas and is based on the Aranyakas and Upanishads.

Vedanta is the most important in that it is the central Hindu philosophical tradition to this day. It is of course the teachings of the Vedas. It’s greatest teacher was the Philosopher Shankara.

Hinduism is the most Philosophically complete religion ever created. It’s total amount of sacred literature would stagger the imagination of most westerners.

The Vedas, divided into three categories, the Samhita’s or collections of hymns and formulas, the Brahmanas or sacrificial texts, and the Aranyakas or ‘forest treatises’ which culminates in the Upanishads. The Ramayana and The Mahabarata, which includes the Bhagavad Gita, would take many years to read and understand.

Hinduism has, in my mind, answered all the important questions concerning the connection between man and God. The idea that we all evolve, through successive lifetimes, to become Enlightened like Krishna, Buddha and Jesus seems to me fair for the misery that most people experience in life. To know that somewhere down the line, everything is equal between all things that exist, is a comforting thought.