Jewel in The Lotus

The jewel in the lotus
Danijel Turina
Originally written in Croatian in 2010. Translated to English in

2014 by the author. The translation is a significant revision of the
original.
Copyright © Danijel Turina, Zagreb, 2010-2014

All rights reserved.
This book is not allowed to be reproduced, copied or distributed in

any way without explicit permission of the copyright holder.
Cover: Hubble Space Telescope, NASA.
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Table of contents
Introduction........................................................................ 4
The hermetical and the dissociative spirituality.................6
The nature of the world....................................................11
Karma, dharma and reincarnation....................................21
The historical context of the appearance of monotheism in
Indian philosophy............................................................. 37
Atman and karman........................................................... 42
The accretional theory of evolution and Buddha in the
flesh.................................................................................. 51
Buddhism about the gods, the world and the Creator......59
Mahayana......................................................................... 64
The spiritual cosmology................................................... 80
Vipassana, the kalapas and the four elements..................87
Death and rebirth.............................................................. 97
Mara................................................................................110
Trikaya............................................................................ 118
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Introduction
4
Introduction
In most of my writing I only barely touch the “insider” concepts,

but the time has come to change that. This, therefore, is a book
written for the advanced yogis, but enough of it is accessible to a
wide enough audience that if you get it, it's obviously meant for
you.
The concept of “karma”, or spiritual energetic structures, is

somewhat difficult to understand without direct experience,
especially if you aren't familiar with the traditional texts of Yoga
and Buddhism. Knowledge of the literature can create familiarity
with the terminology, but no amount of literature can be a
substitute for direct experience – you just lack a frame of reference
in which you could place what you've read about, you can't ground
it into your reality. This is the reason why further reading becomes
pointless unless it's accompanied by yogic practice, because the
intellectual concepts will remain suspended in such an abstract
way, that it will not be possible to recognize them as a reflection of
anything known or real. Still, the literature is useful and necessary,
because it forms an intellectual frame of reference into which
experience will be able to “land”.
On that thought, I will now try to clarify the origins and evolution
of the various Eastern concepts. This will include a form of
analysis that is different from my usual way of writing; for
instance, my commentary of the Bhagavad-gita was written from
the position from which its author wanted it to be understood, the
position of its literal and absolute accuracy. Still, in order to
achieve complete understanding one needs to approach things from
many perspectives, including the one of a neutral scientist
observing the origin, context and evolution of the terms through
several philosophical systems. Also, in my former writing I
neglected Buddhism and relied mostly on the Hindu sources and
terminology, but those who are familiar with Buddhism will
recognize the similarity between my ideas and the Buddhist
concepts, although I developed them all independently. In any
case, it is time for me to correct this omission.
5
The hermetical and the

dissociative spirituality
6
The hermetical and the dissociative spirituality
One of the most important corollaries of science is that human

intuition is notoriously unreliable in establishing how the material
world actually works. Despite the profound impact of the scientific
understanding of the world, probably the most important discovery
predated science by several millennia, when Buddha understood
that physical matter is no reflection of the Divine, and that no
“divine realities” are to be sought here. He understood that all
phenomena are synthetic, consisting of the subjective experience
and the underlying objective reality. This means that the
attachments and the projections are superimposed on the material
phenomena and perceived by the consciousness as a singular
experience. Attachment to the material phenomena is the result of
“desire”, of investment of one's own spiritual momenta into the
material, which leads to the entanglement of the two, at the
expense of the ability to understand the difference between the
material and the spiritual elements. The prime examples of the
philosophies that advocate such integral, holistic understanding of
the reality are the alchemy and the astrology.
To be clear, the magical understanding of the Universe always

permeated that which is usually called “spirituality”. The Vedas
(karma kanda) are this way from start to end, understanding the
Universe as the body of God, interpreting all the events as the
gameplay of the gods, seeing the gods and the sages in the sky,
seeing fire as a portal into the world of the gods. Basically, this
lack of distinction between the elements of one's own psyche and
the elements of the material world is merely an early stage of
human psychological development. Only by 700-500 BC, in the
time of the Upanishads, did the humans start the transition into the
higher level of abstraction, and in this atmosphere appeared the
Buddha. So the foundations were already there, the philosophy of
his time was on the right track, and it seems that the Buddha
developed his ideas in the context of the early Upanishads, and that
the later Upanishads developed in the context of the early
Buddhism. Those philosophies stimulated each other and helped
each other crystallize into final form; they did not arise
independently. Buddha's concept of the synthetic nature of the
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phenomena originates from the early Vedanta, which stimulates the

growth of the early Buddhism, while the mature Vedanta takes
many things from the Buddhist theory of karma, reincarnation etc.
Those are very smart, complex philosophies, and the period

between Buddha and Shankaracharya produced the mature theory
that exists today, in several branches that do not differ
significantly. Their common elements are these:
1. Synthetic nature of human experience. This means projection

of the spiritual elements into the material phenomena, and the
standard example which is used in the texts in order to illustrate it
is psychological coloration of the experience depending on the
expectations. A piece of rope that appears to be a snake when it is
seen in the dark, causing fear, is one of those standard examples.
The things that are neutral in themselves but depending on
expectations cause either happiness or suffering are another
example, for instance an officer knocking on the wife's door while
her husband is on the front line, causes her mortal fear, because she
expects news of her husband's death, but the officer in fact tells her
that her husband is alive and decorated for bravery, and that he
came to invite her for the special ceremony with the President. A
golden-hued metal causes happiness because it is mistaken for
gold, but this is illusory since the metal is in fact pyrite. In this way
all phenomena are analyzed and we come to the conclusion that
infusion of one's spirit into the world causes one to have
expectation of the world, which are called desires. In interaction
between the world which is indifferent to man, and human psyche
which is prone to delusions, attachments are formed, causing
suffering. This is the teaching of both Buddhism (expressed in the
four noble truths) and more-less all schools of Vedanta.
2. Vectorial nature of action and its inherent reactivity. This

means that action is interpreted as a vector of a force that
necessarily includes the doer, the direction and the amount, and
that every action is immediately followed by an equal and opposite
8
The hermetical and the dissociative spirituality
reaction, it's just that in the relative world of space and time those
reactionary forces are not always immediately visible, but mostly
encapsulated in form of the reservoirs for the potential energy, like
coiled springs, called “karmic seeds” (karmashaya). The corollary
of karma defined in vectorized form are the atomized actions and
reactions, where good and evil do not negate each other, but good
brings good results and evil brings evil results, and no amount of
good deeds can wash away the evil consequences, but instead they
need to be suffered separately.
3. Layered nature of the spiritual world, spiritual bodies,

experiences and consciousness. The theory of stratification of the
spiritual worlds according to their subtlety, or “density” of the
spiritual substance, is a reasonably new invention and can be dated
to the middle ages. The example of a text that embraces such a
concept is Bardo Thodol, the so called “Tibetan book of the dead”,
which explains this concept as a “top-down sieve”, where a soul is
exposed to the decreasingly subtle layers of reality, from pure
buddhahood to hell, until it finds its point of resonance, and there
creates its next incarnation. The Tibetan tradition dates the text
between 8th and 12th centuries AD.
4. Salvation through dissociation. As much as the various

philosophical systems disagree about the definition of liberation,
they all agree about the need for separating the elements of one's
own psyche from the aspects of the material world, leading to
liberation. This approach is directly opposite to the one of
alchemy/astrology/magic/animism, which does not differentiate
between the psyche and the matter, treating them instead as one
entity. The latter philosophies abandon this concept as inherently
illusory, and ceremonies and sacrifices based on this principle are
seen as futile and useless, while knowledge is seen as the way to
salvation. This form of knowledge manifests itself in dissociation
(as opposed to association) and analysis (as opposed to synthesis).
Buddhism calls it “the proper seeing” and Vedanta calls it viveka.
Viveka is therefore not “discernment between good and evil”, as it
9
is often misunderstood, but discernment between the elements of

the psyche and the matter, as well as the analytical, dissociative
approach to all phenomena.
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The nature of the world
11
The hermetic philosophy (in the narrow sense) is based on the

following principles1:
1. The principle of mentalism (the Universe is essentially mental

and is located within the mind)
2. The principle of correspondence (as above, so below)
3. The principle of vibration (everything vibrates, everything
flows)
4. The principle of polarity (everything is dual)
5. The principle of rhythm (cyclical and rhythmical nature of
events)
6. The principle of cause and effect (the laws of the Universe are
inherently causal)
7. The principle of gender (male and female gender are the
universal cosmic realities)
The hermetic philosophies in the wider sense are those that accept
the majority of those premises, and have a magical,
anthropomorphic understanding of the Universe.
To be clear, the hermetic understanding is intuitive and natural to

man. Hermetism is a verbalization of the first idea about the
Universe that the first ape-like hominid had before he descended
from the trees. Hermetism is the way small children perceive the
Universe. Hermetism paints cars, trains, ships and planes with
smiling faces. Hermetism doesn't distinguish between one's own
spiritual experiences and the physical objects associated with those
experiences; in all external things, hermetism sees the symbols and
agents of the spiritual world. Hermetism perceives the material
world as an extension of one's spirituality, and the whole world as
a playground of gods and spirits, who reveal things and whose will
needs to be understood, as one is guided throughout life by the
spiritual forces and their signs.
Hermetism has been so widely accepted as the unquestionable

1 http://www.hermeticsource.info/the-seven-hermetic-principles.html
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truth by the New Age philosophies, that it is simply axiomatically

assumed in all further explanations, often with absurd results, as in
the attempts of uniting the hermetical principles with Buddhism,
which naturally follows from the New Age belief that all
philosophies and religions are but fragments of the One Truth. This
belief is mistaken. There are indeed philosophies and religions that
have enough similarities that they can be considered variations of
the same general idea, but it is also true that there are different
groups of philosophies, which are mutually exclusive, because they
have diametrically opposite opinions on the fundamental issues.
Such is the case with Hermetism and Buddhism.
Hermetism was not alien to the civilization that gave birth to

Buddhism. In fact, the Vedic culture is one of the prime examples
of the hermetic worldview. Still, the conclusions of the Buddha are
fundamentally opposite to the hermetic principles.
This fundamental conflict can be missed if one doesn't consider the

corollaries of the four noble truths:
1. suffering is inherent to human experience (sarvam dukkham,

or “all is suffering” or “suffering is all-pervasive”);
2. suffering is caused by desire (or investment of one's spirituality

into the world, which causes attraction or repulsion to the worldly
objects and their states);
3. cessation of suffering is possible, and is attained by separation

of one's spirituality from the world, by cessation of projections of
one's own spiritual states into the worldly objects;
4. the way toward the cessation of suffering is the practice of the

“noble eightfold path”, which essentially means correct perception
of the phenomena, non-creation of attachments, non-creation of
projections, and ethical principles based on truth and goodness,
which means that the fundamental ethics are based on the principle
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that the sensitive beings suffer in the world and that actions need to
be such that they do not increase this suffering, but to reduce it if
possible.
From the Buddhist perspective, the hermetic principles are de facto

an ideology of attachment and suffering, an ideology invented
from a deluded perspective of inability to distinguish between
one's own spirituality and the worldly phenomena, and from
spiritual reactions that are guided by subjective interpretation of
the worldly states.
For instance, a Buddhist analysis of a pretty sight in nature says

that a certain favorable condition of the worldly elements and
forces interacts with the sensory inputs of a being, which interprets
those inputs according to its physical nature (genetics) and the
current state of the energies that form the mind and the emotions.
A phenomenon that would be interpreted in one way by an insect,
is interpreted in the exact opposite way by a man. This means that
no physical phenomenon is “favorable” as such, but only in the
mind of the observer; emotional characterization of entities is not
inherent to the entities. “Tasty” is not inherent to an apple. “Tasty”
is the result of a specific interaction between you and an apple.
Also, a photograph taken by me in nature is not a photograph of
nature. It is the photograph of my emotional and mental choices
when presented with nature as a stimulus; nature is quite secondary
here. A photograph is in fact a frozen aspect of a photographer's
consciousness. It is the photographer who choses what to see, how
he will perceive, what spiritual states will he attempt to “capture”
with the photograph. He could see those states in either a landscape
or in dust on the floor. The content of a photograph doesn't have
anything to do with the world; it's a window into the mind of the
photographer.
A beautiful sunset after a boring day evokes dramatic spiritual

responses. The same beautiful sunset on Antarctica, lasting for
months, at first becomes common, then boring, then tiresome, and
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finally painful. The beauty is therefore not in the sunset, not even
in the “eye of the beholder”. It is a complex artifact of
consciousness, and that's one of the cornerstones of the Buddhist
teaching: all experiences are synthetic. This means that experience
is a resultant of multiple vectors, which is quite on the line of the
scientific understanding of perception. The earth you walk on
doesn't really exist as “earth”; it's a resultant of a vast number of
forces. Earth is what you get by interaction of an enormous number
of atoms of different substances, none of which is “earth”; they all
need to be in a certain narrow range of temperatures, at certain
gravity, atmospheric pressure etc., and it is all relative to the set of
senses and forces at the disposal of a certain animal species by the
name of “Homo Sapiens”, which you perceive as yourself.
I don't think that people, except maybe a few scientists, really

understand how much of their perception of the world is
determined by their nature. Somehow they all assume objectivity
of their perception of the world, which brings us just a few steps
away from a hermetic worldview in which even gender is a cosmic
category, where gods have the same emotional patterns as humans,
according to the “as above, so below” principle – surely, because
the gods made men at their image, not the other way around.
I'm not sure how to illustrate this point further, because if I stop
here, I'm not sure that the majority of the audience will understand
the “gravitas” of the matter. Let me take something from the
popular literature, for instance the “Twilight” series by Stephanie
Meyer. If you didn't read the Buddhist theory, you probably read
this, so it will be easier for you to follow the imagery.
So, if you enter the “world” of her novels, when you're human you
must pay attention to how you're dressed in order not to freeze
when it's cold. You must pay attention to what shoes you wear in
order not to hurt your feet. You must pay attention not to go to the
dangerous parts of the town or you might get mugged or killed. At
night you must pay attention not to go to the very dark places or
15
you'll be unable to orient yourself, and you might even encounter

some danger. You prefer to go somewhere in daylight, and you
sleep during the night. Your daily cycle is governed by your need
to sleep and rest. Some things are your preferable food and drink,
and some are repulsive. Human blood makes you feel disgust, fear
and nausea.
If someone turns you into a vampire, your perception of the world

radically changes. Your behavior is dominated by thirst for human
blood; spilt blood is your sweetest object of desire, and the greatest
pleasure you know is to drink it. You lack any need for sleep or
rest. Your physical strength and resistance to physical attack are
such that you need fear only fire, other vampires and werewolves:
nothing else could harm you.
What people consider to be food is as unappealing to you as the

plate on which it's served. On the other hand, the people serving
the food are incredibly appealing to you as sustenance, and you
must exercise a great deal of self-control in order not to kill them
and drink their blood to the last drop. Being close to invulnerable,
you don't have to worry about protecting your body from the
elements; clothes and shoes serve a purely decorative purpose and
are useful only for playing a human role. You can hit a mountain at
full speed, and only the mountain and your clothes will get
damaged. You can fearlessly walk through the most dangerous
parts of the town, but you need to avoid sunlight because its
reflection off your skin will reveal you for what you are. Your
senses are so sharp, you can hear a whisper kilometers away; you
can sense scents too faint for a tracking dog to pick up, and you
can see better than any bird of prey. Your perceptions of “hard”,
“cold”, “hot”, “dangerous”, “desirable” and “unpleasant” is
completely different from the human ones. You perceive the same
material Universe the humans do, but you perceive it with an
inhuman body, inhuman intellect and inhuman senses, which
makes your experience of the world's realities completely other.
Time, too, is something completely different for you and for the
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humans, because unlike them, you don't age. A forest full of

predatory beasts is a place of mortal danger and fear to the
humans, but to you, it's a peaceful, pleasant place where you go to
have lunch: bears and mountain lions, preferably. When a human
faces a pride of lions, he thinks about his death. You think how
much of the lions you can eat without interfering with the ecology
of the place, and which one would taste better.
To leave this example and move onto a less fictional one, let's say
you have a gun in your hand and you're surrounded by a pack of
wild dogs. You have a very healthy sense of control of the
situation, you aim for the closest dog, pull the trigger and hear
“click” - the gun had jammed. This sense of change in the
perception of a situation, that's the cornerstone of Buddhist
teaching. It's also a perfect demonstration of the synthetic nature of
the experience and its inherent subjectivity. This is the point
Buddha understood, this is the point where the hermetic worldview
was written off as a narcissist illusion similar to the geocentric
system, alchemy and astrology, all of which approach the Universe
from an implicit premise of the seamless transition between the
inner and the outer world, failing to differentiate between the
material things as such, and their role in our personal world, seeing
the thing and experience as one – that the Sun loves us and is
happy because we feel good when it shines upon us, and that the
forest is terrible because we fear it in the night.
The hermetic worldview is incredibly intuitive, in the same way in

which the geocentric worldview is incredibly intuitive. All our
experience tells us that the earth stands still and the celestial bodies
move. Every child understands that the Sun moves across the sky.
But in reality it is the Earth that moves, revolving around its axis
and around the Sun. A geocentric worldview is an illusion. A
hermetic worldview is an illusion. It is an illusion that is born out
of immersion of subjectivity into the perception of the material
world; it lacks the ability to objectively analyze, and it is first and
foremost a philosophy of a subjective feeling. What makes
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Buddhism so radical is its statement that the entire experience of

the world is synthetic. A synthetic nature of the experience means
that our experience of the world doesn't necessarily have much
connection with the world as it is. Our experience is defined by the
genetic makeup of our biological species, by our senses, and by
interaction of those senses with the substance of the world. You
cannot really tell whether the world is the body of God, God's
dream or some astral being's video game.
Unlike Hermetism, the basic truths of Buddhism are not intuitive at

all; moreover, the majority of people will find them pessimistic or
even depressing. The basic truth of Buddhism, that all is suffering,
sounds crazy, since we all perceive the mixture of pleasant and
unpleasant experiences and apparently the pleasant ones are
sufficiently widespread to form a good balance to the unpleasant
ones. An instinctive reaction to “sarvam dukkham” is directly
opposite to the instinctive heart-centered reaction to the hermetic
principles. Nevertheless, Buddhism is on a far better trail; it is
much closer to the truth.
"Sarvam dukkham" follows very closely on the trail of the

fundamental statement of Yoga, "yogas citta vrtti nirodhah" - yoga
is cessation of the fluctuations in the mind-stuff (citta). This
statement implies that absolutely all fluctuations of the mind-stuff
project suffering upon atman/brahman. Once the mind-stuff
becomes calm, we feel the bliss of brahman shining through from
beyond. Due to illusion, you think that bliss is caused by
interaction of the senses with the favorable objects, but it is not
really the case. Bliss is caused when the spirit dives away from the
senses and toward itself, and some states of the senses and of the
mind promote this inward movement. In sex, pleasure is not caused
by the stimulation of the genitals. Pleasure is what takes place
when, during genital stimulation, you turn your consciousness in
on itself, when your Kundalini rises upwards through sushumna
nadi. Then you have an orgasm, when your energetic system is
rearranged in a way that it can perceive something of the inner
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nature of consciousness, instead of the senses, and it is

accompanied by a form of brain-reset. This experience is still
filtered through a thick layer of bodily limitations, but essentially,
an orgasm is closest to the yogi experience of all common worldly
states – the part of it when you “pop”, when you are no longer able
to maintain the continuity of your thoughts and sensory perception,
and this surge of pleasure overwhelms your existence. As dramatic
as it can feel, it is essentially a form of interruption of normal brain
activity, a reset-pulse. It disturbs the “normal” connection between
the world, the senses and the consciousness, and that's exactly why
an orgasm is a blissful experience. If you attempt to remain
conscious and aware during orgasm, you either won't have one or it
will be subdued into insignificance, or even transformed into pain.
This essentially means that the entire bodily experience of the

world is in fact suffering that covers the inner bliss of atman, and
when this suffering interrupts for even a moment, we get to feel
some of the underlying bliss, and being the fools that we are, we
cling to the world even harder, looking for more, with the
inevitable result of disappointment and pain. This is what Buddha
understood: that the world is total, absolute crap without a single
redeeming quality that would make it worth the effort. The only
proper way to truly understand the world is to leave it behind. Its
nature is absolutely, unconditionally negative. By extinction of all
attachments, and with divestment of psyche from the world, arises
freedom, which is the absolute and utmost bliss.
Knowledge of the nature of the world leads to the realization that

the soul is a foreigner in this world; a superfluous and alien
element. We do not belong here. The world has its own laws and
abides by them regardless of us, and we play the role of mere
witnesses deluded into thinking that we are the important players
in the cosmic drama, while in reality we are attached to a self-
propagating illusion that feeds on the energy of our consciousness.
This is the cornerstone of the teaching of the Gita: that he is
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deluded, who thinks “it is I who act”. In reality, it is “the gunas”,

the qualities of the world itself, who perform all action. Atman is
merely the witness, upon whom the experience of the world is
projected, like movie upon a screen. He who knows this truth, is
not identified with this circus, and binds himself with neither sin
nor merit:
"The Lord does not create

neither the activities nor their fruits,
nor does He incite the beings to action,
nor is He responsible for the connection
between he who acts and the fruits of his activities.
It is the doing of Nature.
The Almighty does not accept anyone's sin, nor merit.
The wisdom is covered by a cloak of ignorance.
Because of that, beings are in illusion.
But in them, who have destroyed ignorance with knowledge,
the knowledge reveals the Almighty, like a rising Sun.
With their minds founded in That,
with their souls founded in Him,
focused at Him, utterly devoted to Him,
utterly cleansed by wisdom
they achieve the final perfection."
(Bhagavad-gita 5, 14-17)
The message of Gita is essentially identical to the message of

Buddhism: if you happened to get stuck here, you should practice
proper action, that which is done with detachment, and which
dispels the illusion. But do work on not returning here, because
this is not a good place. This Universe is very far from being “the
body of God”. In fact, it is closer to being God's nightmare, filled
with all kinds of evil. All our longings should be directed toward
transcendence of the world, not toward wallowing in the mud of its
qualities.
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Karma, dharma and

reincarnation
21
There is a trend in neo-Hinduism, Theosophy, New Age

philosophies and their various offshoots – one of mystifying the
oriental terminology and invoking the ancient origin of the
presented philosophies. The reality is quite different, and I find it
necessary to describe the historic context behind certain terms in
order to remove the confusing layer of mystification and
emotionality.
The concept of karma (sanskrit. karman; action) as it is known

since 6th century BC is not found in the older texts. There was a
concept according to which action produces effect, and according
to which every evil action eventually finds a way to backfire at the
doer, and the afterlife of an individual is determined by his actions
in life. This, however, does not go beyond the usual moralizations
present in all cultures. If reincarnation is mentioned in the Vedic
theory at all, it is in the context of occasional material
embodiments of the beings from the spiritual world with intent of
achieving some particular purpose, or birth in a lower form as a
consequence of a curse suffered over some insult or another evil
deed. Reincarnation as a central mechanism of spiritual
development is unknown to the Vedic theory, which operates
primarily with the concept of heaven (svarga) and hell (naraka).
This has been developed further into a greater number of unearthly
realms, each having a ruler and specific qualities that reflect the
ruler's nature; for instance, the world ruled by Brahma is
significantly different than the world ruled by Indra, but those
worlds are not stratified, but parallel. There is no theory of the
spiritual strata of increasing subtlety, energetic quality or
“vibratory frequency”, as it would be called in the New Age
circles. The Vedic religion is in this respect quite similar to the
religions of other hunter-warrior nations, where the brave and
honorable warriors, after their death, go to Sto-Vo-Kor with
Kahless, where they spend their days hunting a boar, and the
evenings singing about heroic deeds by the fire.1
1 If you don't understand the reference, the Geek is not strong with you.
22
Karma, dharma and reincarnation
Within this religion, the concept according to which the deeds

determine a man's destiny is prevalent, and there is also the
concept of reincarnation, according to which some of the gods and
sages, if they became too proud and were cursed, can be born
among the mortals, as either man or beast, but there is no clear
theory behind it. It's all based on emotion and observation of the
unconnected phenomena.
The second important concept is dharma (sanskrt. dharma; duty,

order, law). In an older version, the term means order infused into
the Universe by the Creator in the very act of creation, according
to which all things within the Universe have their place and their
personal dharma, determined by the part of the “cosmic man”,
Purusha, they originate from. Some texts identify Brahma himself
as the “cosmic man”, and the differences between the four castes
are explained by divine origin: the brahmanas are made from his
head, ksatriyas from his arms, vaisyas from his thighs, and sudras
from his feet. The “value” of the body part one originates from
therefore determines one's role in society. This concept was
therefore used primarily to rationalize the social order, as a “divine
sanction” to the social establishment.
The third concept is that of atman. The word originally means

“breath” and denotes the breath of life, that by which a being is
alive while it breathes, and when it gives its last breath it is thought
that its soul had departed with it.
The fourth important concept is that of brahman. It was originally

developed in order to denote “that something” that gives holiness
and significance to the Vedic hymns and ceremonies. Brahman is
“that something” which is touched by the ceremony and makes it
transcendental.
The above makes it apparent that all the mentioned terms had
primitive origins, and that the philosophical subtlety that is usually
attached to them was developed through time, and wasn't there
23
from the beginning. The concept of the Ancient Vedic Religion that
contains All Wisdom is a mere fairy tale, something that was made
up in order to satisfy an emotional need for safety by providing
divine guidance that is both ancient and certain. Like all things, the
Hindu philosophy too had evolved from primitive origins to its
high summits. There is no significant difference between the
“Ancient Vedic Wisdom” and the Nordic mythology; only the
names of gods and places are different.
Of course, as soon as a term is introduced, the arguments begin

regarding its meaning and significance. Such polemics were the
cornerstone of the culture of the wandering sages, the sramanas.1
To understand who the sramanas were, one needs to look into the
historical context. The “holy men” of that time were divided into
the brahmana caste which performed the Vedic rituals for money,
essentially the priests for hire who lived off the wealthy Vedic
civilization like fat cows in a barn full of hay, and those who
considered this kind of lifestyle incompatible with their perception
of spiritual upliftment, however it may be defined, and left for the
wilderness (aranya) to practice austerities (tapasya), choosing a
life of a wandering ascetic (sramana) on the very margins of
civilization.
Such a way of life was possible mainly because the sramanas of

the Vedic civilization were admired as the wise and saintly people,
and there was an established practice of begging for alms, where
the wandering sages went through villages and towns asking for
food, and the householders would ritually give it, considering it
their duty. The sramanas would then repay them by providing
spiritual advice and instruction.
The caste of spiritual people was thus split into two main branches:
the well-fed performers of the Vedic hymns and rites, who lived in
the towns and villages, and not-so-well-fed beggar-monks who
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sramana
24
lived on the margins of civilization or even in total wilderness,

dwelling mostly on philosophy and personal spiritual practice. This
produced the separation of Vedic theology, into parts recited by the
town-priests, known as “karma kanda”, and the parts produced and
studied mostly in silence by the wandering beggar-monks, known
as “jñana kanda”. Karma kanda consists of the Vedic hymns and
rites, and jñana kanda of the Upanishads, Aranyakas and sutras.
Somewhere in between those two are the Puranas and the epics
(Mahabharata and Ramayana), containing elements of both
traditions. For instance, the Mahabharata is essentially a collection
of stories that were told during the informal stage of the Vedic
ceremonies, after their completion, so it exists within the context of
karma kanda, but its parts were often told by the wandering
monks, the sramanas, who occasionally interpolated the
instructional parts of the Upanishadic genre, such as for instance
the Bhagavad-gita. The parallel existence of both the ceremonial
and shramanic spirituality is, therefore, something we need to
understand in order to get a good grasp of the historical context of
the evolution of Hindu philosophy.
The greatest difference between the “urban” and the “outdoor”

spiritual people is asceticism, also called austerity, or tapasya in
sanskrit. Asceticism is a part of all primitive religions, and can be
reduced to a concept in which a man will perform some severe act
of renunciation or deprivation, thus putting the gods in his debt,
with a purpose of forcing them to fulfill his wish.
Probably the oldest written testimony of asceticism is found in the

Epic of Gilgamesh, where Gilgamesh is challenged by the gods to
perform acts of superhuman endurance in order to deserve
immortality, at which he fails. The quests for immortality, special
powers and renown among other ascetics and gods are woven
deeply into the old tales about the sramanas; apparently, their
motives were initially neither very noble, sophisticated, nor
transcendental.
25
There are two old terms that denote asceticism: tapasya and yoga.
Tapasya originally means “heat”, while yoga originally means
“yoke”, and it is very likely that they described the forms of self-
torture practiced by the ascetics in order to pressure gods into
giving them immortality and powers. There are several mentions of
exposure to fire during the times of great heat, like pancaagni
upasana, which was later interpreted metaphorically, but in the
original meaning the ascetic would have lit four fires around
himself, on the four sides of the world, with the midday sun as the
fifth, and would slowly cook himself in the scorching heat. To this
day we can find the ascetics doing similar things: standing on one
leg for days, cutting themselves with knives etc., with an
occasional self-immolation, so I don't want to hear anything about
this being a metaphor for some spiritual phenomenon,
understandable only to the select initiates. There is extensive
scriptural evidence for the concept of self-torture in the ascetic
context, in the oldest texts, and there is also a living practice that
survives to this day. Tapas therefore originally meant self-torture
by heat, yoga meant putting your body in a yoke of torturous and
painful postures during prolonged periods of time, and all of it was
spiced up with torturous fasts, which meant starvation almost to
the point of death. That's what Vedic asceticism must have looked
like. Only later did the different directions of thought arise,
attempting to interpret the entire thing metaphorically, but judging
on the available evidence, that's not realistic. Originally people
practiced the coarsest forms of self-torture, and it was only later
that some good came out of it. The true, useful techniques of yoga
therefore came into existence in a context where the ascetics had
no problem experimenting on themselves with various methods of
torture, and in this experimental surroundings with a tendency to
go overboard, some correlations were noticed between certain
practices and certain positive spiritual phenomena. Considering
how extreme the practices were, the experiences of near death,
separation of soul from the body, extreme movements of Kundalini
and authentic spiritual visions are not at all surprising, especially
having in mind the constant chanting of the mantras, which were
the concentrated prayers accompanied by visualizations. Of course,
26
the brain damage, disability and death were not surprising either,
and they probably took place much more often than spiritual
experience.
The ancient Indian asceticism is therefore a very dangerous

extreme sport, in which torturous death was seen as a successful
outcome of the practice, and giving up was seen as spiritual
downfall.
This is the context Buddha stumbled upon when he figured out that
the comfortable worldly life is an illusion, and that the realities of
the world are suffering, disease, old age and death. He snuck out of
the house in the middle of the night and joined a group of
wandering ascetics who indulged in extreme practices. Whether the
members of the group were Jains, as Čedomil Veljačić thought, or
simply the generic sramanas, is quite irrelevant for all practical
purposes.
In order for us to understand the functioning of such groups of

wandering ascetics, we must first understand that their way of
thinking didn't have much in common with the way we think today,
which is greatly influenced by science and the scientific way of
thinking, according to which you first need to form a hypothesis
based on experience, then test it experimentally, and then form a
theory, or an intellectual framework of data and hypotheses that
serves to interpret the observation.
Their way of thinking had nothing to do with that; it was magical,

hermetical. They first started with the ascetic practices and only
along the way did they think of coming up with a theory that
explained why that would work. The theory behind asceticism is a
hermetic one, of cosmic unity, teaching that lack in one place must
produce excess in other, that undeserved suffering of an ascetic
must be compensated by the Universe by fulfilling his desires.
They never actually bothered to formulate a theory on how or why
that would work. They all considered it intuitively correct, and it
27
seemed to suffice on the emotional level, and besides, they could

always invoke venerable traditions dating all the way back to the
times of Gilgamesh; if everybody kept doing it, then it must be
good. So there was no coherent intellectual theory behind the
ascetic practice, and that was quite common for most things that
people did in the ancient times. For instance, astrology didn't have
a coherent theory behind it, explaining why stars influence people.
There was just a feeling that there must be some connection
between the inner and the outer Universe and therefore everything
must be connected. The difference between one's emotions and the
outer world was not perceived. On the contrary, the hermetic
statement “as above, so below” indicates that the opposite was
assumed – that what's in the sky must reflect on the the events on
Earth, and what happens on Earth must have an analogue in the
sky, its cosmic template.
When an ascetic cooks himself on a fire, he feels as if the worlds

of the gods burn along with him, that the heavens and the earth are
on fire, and the gods will surely have to do something in order for
it to stop. They will fulfill his wish, if only he would put out the
fire that burns all three worlds. That's how the ancient Indians saw
things. Still, it appears that such extreme practices had an
unintended side effect on the psyche, that goes far beyond what is
usually thought of as normal, and this resulted in creation of the
philosophy of the Upanishads and the Bhagavad-gita, which was
produced at the very times when asceticism was at the heights of
its popularity and was obviously written by the tradition of jñana
kanda as a perfected, more refined version of the teaching and
poetic style that also produced the Katha-upanishad. The
connection between asceticism and such sublime philosophy is
most likely similar to one between astrology and astronomy, or
alchemy and chemistry. What was originally a magical and
emotional practice of attempting to influence things by means of
the illusory hermetic principles, had an unintended side effect of
unexpected discoveries and results, which then continued their life
on a tangent of the original practice. The traditions of Yoga (as it
was known at later times) and Vedanta were therefore formed in
28
the context of Vedic asceticism and renunciation of the world, as a

tangent of an even more marginal discipline of the brutal
asceticism. Still, there was an agreement on one thing, between the
ascetics and the philosophers of the early Vedanta: that salvation
cannot be attained by the Vedic rituals. The Vedic rituals were
considered useful for attaining the worldly goals, such as rain,
good harvest, happiness in life, healthy offspring and the like, but
are quite useless for attaining transcendence.
The attitude of the contemporary ascetics on Vedas and rituals was

not really that much different from that of the early Protestant
Reformationists on the Catholic Church. They all agreed that the
Church was no good, but whatever else you asked them, they
started arguing. Similarly, some of the wandering ascetics thought
that asceticism alone is the virtue. The others thought that truth is
the ultimate virtue, that speaking the truth and leading a righteous
life will result in magical harmonization of the practitioner and
Truth as the fundamental cosmic principle, thus giving him powers
and immortality. This is the origin of the Vedic belief that he who
always speaks the truth possesses a magical power that makes his
words come true, because when he, the truthspeaker, says
something, the Universe is magically coerced into making it true.
The third group of ascetics thought that knowledge is the ultimate
virtue, that only knowledge leads to enlightenment – not just any
knowledge, but knowledge of brahman, of that which is the
essence of righteousness, virtue and holiness in all the sacrificial
ceremonies and good deeds. This group produced the Upanishads,
the group which dwelt on the attempts to produce the Cosmic
consciousness, the realization of the one all-pervading, universal
principle. Within this group there were various fractions with
different ideas on how the knowledge of brahman is best achieved,
and most likely it was achieved by accident, at least in the
beginning; whether harmonious life, deep thought, or extreme
asceticism contributed to the likelihood of the experience, it cannot
be said with certainty. This uncertainty made the opinions divided
– some thought that it was the alignment with the cosmic
principles of truth and virtue that produced the realization of
29
brahman, which is the ultimate truth and virtue. Some thought it

was the result of purification of body and mind in the practice of
yoga (which at this point ceased to be merely a form of brutal and
random asceticism, becoming a semi-science which established
what worked and what did not, with the result of a more focused
practice). The others thought that only discerning between the real
and the unreal can produce enlightenment. Judging by human
nature, it is likely that they each ascribed the result to their own
practice prior to spiritual experience, and God only knows what
was the true cause. Most likely, it was the longing for perfection
combined with focus of consciousness.
So, when the young and hopeful Shddharta Gauthama ran away
from home and decided to do something to save himself from
suffering, sickness, death and the similar wonderful aspects of the
worldly existence, it was logical for him to join the wandering
monks, where he got his ascetic name Shakyamuni. There he
learned the practices of the ascetics, and through many years of
self-torture and starvation brought himself almost to the point of
death. This was the point where he must have thought something
along the lines of this: “I ran away from the world in which there
are suffering, disease, old age and death, and went to practice
asceticism through which I exposed myself to suffering and
disease almost to the point of death. This looks like yet another
form of the same problem, not a solution”. Then he abandoned the
ascetics, who concluded that he had spiritually fallen and returned
to the worldly life. He, however, remembered the state of peace
into which he entered in childhood under an apple tree, and
concluded that this had more to do with true spirituality than all the
asceticism he endured. He sat under a tree, reproduced the state of
consciousness from his childhood, and swore he would not move
from that spot until he attained enlightenment. Of course, most of
it is a Buddhist legend but there is probably a kernel of truth in it:
Shakyamuni gave up on the magical, hermetic methods of attaining
goals, and discovered the path of dissociation, of separation of
consciousness from the world. He discovered the state of dhyana,
meditation. How deep was the enlightenment he attained, it's hard
30
to tell, but his discoveries are so radically new, that I failed to find
a precedent in the history of mankind that would show that anyone
before him accomplished such a thing. Buddha departed from the
magical, hermetic worldview, and replaced it with one that is
analytical and dissociative. The extent of the revolutionary impact
of such a move is comparable to that of the Newtonian gravity and
Einsteinian general relativity. Buddha came to a radical
conclusion: that the Universe cares for no one, that the inner and
the outer are not connected, that asceticism as a method of
coercing the Universe has no value, that prayers to the gods are
useless, and that the most important thing of all is to divest one's
spirituality from the world, that it is essential to withdraw one's
spiritual force from the world, to stop investing oneself into the
world and its activities and to allow the consciousness to dwell
within its own nature, completely transcendental to the world and
untouched by the world, like a lotus flower above the swamp.
Buddha didn't invent all the aspects of the teaching he exposed. In

his time, a great deal of it was already known, and he merely
connected it all into a meaningful whole. The theory of karma and
reincarnation in his time was much more advanced compared to
the Vedic times – it was thought that sin produces attachment to the
bad karmic fruits and virtue produces attachment to the good fruits.
It was thought that each action was instantly joined with a reaction.
It was thought that the unsprouted seeds of past deeds attract the
soul into the next birth, which resulted in formulation of the first
coherent theory of reincarnation. There were different theories that
argued about which forms of action are nonbinding and will not
cause rebirth. There was some rudimentary knowledge about the
stratification of the spiritual world.
But Buddha was the one who brought sense into it all, much like
Isaac Newton who brought sense into the incomplete and incorrect
models of the solar system and mechanics in general. Buddha
removed magic from the equation, and introduced exactness, to the
point of spiritual mechanicism. The phenomena that used to be
31
perceived as a whole are now analyzed down to their constituent

elements – a tomato is analyzed into components, none of which is
Pomidorium. Beauty is analyzed into components, none of which
is beautiful (or Beautium). Things that used to be considered a
reflection of the cosmic hermetic principles are now perceived as
an illusion, the synthetic phenomena that take place due to infusion
of the spiritual elements into a material object or a state, which is
either illusory or transient, leading to suffering.
Maybe the greatest contribution of the Buddhist theory is the

theory of spiritual compounds (or karmic aggregation), which
produces the important corollary of anatman, nonexistence of the
eternal individual soul. This is probably the most questionable
aspect of Buddhism. The theory of karmic aggregation states that
the entity which humans perceive as “self” is a compound of
particles of spiritual substance, an aggregation of karmic matter
formed as a result of spiritual choices and actions. Essentially,
unlike the classic Yoga which perceives the karmic seeds
(karmashayas) as additions to atman which need to be removed,
Buddhism perceives atman as an illusory entity created by the
aggregation of karmic matter (a concept somewhat evolved from
the concept of the karmashayas), stating that there is no “soul”
different from “karma”.
This is actually the point where the word “karma” starts to be used
in the meaning close to what we have today. Karma, in this sense,
means an aggregated structure made of spiritual matter, and for the
first time the idea of “cleansing” the karma starts being used.
In order to illustrate the concept, it might be better if we use the

analogy with colors as the equivalents for emotions that stand
behind actions as their motivators and are invested into action,
creating the “definitions” of personality on the level of action. So
let's say that selfishness as an emotion exists as astral substance of
brown color. A selfish action means that we have created
selfishness as a state of consciousness, existing in form of a selfish
32
brown stain on our astral body, and “sealed” it into existence with
action, because action confirms choice. Our “soul” now contains a
brown stain, consisting of low-energy astral particles. If we feel
greed and confirm it by an action of theft, we likewise “enrich” our
soul with another stain, let's say of dirty red color. This way we
collect “bad karma”, in a sense that our soul consists of increasing
quantities of filthy and lowly things. If we happen to die while we
are defined by various kinds of sin, something interesting happens,
that Buddhism for the first time defines as a possibility. In the
Buddhist theory of karma, integrity of the karmic body, which in
our case includes stains of colored astral matter of various energy
states, exists only as an artifact of perception, maintained by the
continuity of bodily existence, and the cohesive forces between the
karmic particles are variable. Once you remove the body which
creates continuity of personal existence with its continuity of
memory and the sensory inputs, depending on the level of cohesion
between the karmic elements there is a possibility of dissociation
or fragmentation, where each element would re-incarnate
separately, being attracted to a different physical structure
depending on its specific energetic level, if the tension on the
internal bonds due to attraction to the different outside forces
exceeds the strength of the inner cohesive bonds. This process is
very similar to the behavior of materials in physics and chemistry,
for instance when we mix oil and water mechanically without
addition of an emulsifier and they gradually separate, but if we mix
reactive elements they will form strong bonds that can be broken
only with great investment of energy. A common physical body
creates an impression of a virtual whole and functions as an
emulsifier (or a process of freezing a liquid which traps the
bubbles of gas in a resulting solid), but when the body goes away,
dissociation of the karmic elements becomes possible, like bubbles
of gas escaping when a solid thaws into a liquid. This is why the
concepts of karma and reincarnation in Buddhist theory differ
greatly from the Hindu concepts of reincarnation of atman, the
individual soul, which can be stained or purified but cannot be
divided or joined with other souls into greater units, and is
perceived as some sort of an atomic soul-particle which resides in
33
the core of a being as its kernel. Still, Vedanta doesn't differ greatly
from Buddhism in this respect, because in a sense, Vedanta also
abandons the concept of atman as an individual, atomic soul, and
adopts most of the Buddhist concepts, but offers an alternative and,
quite possibly, superior interpretation of nirvana – as the state of
sat-cit-ananda which is the intrinsic nature of brahman, devoid of
karma. So in both mature Vedanta and Buddhism, that which is
usually considered to be soul is in fact karma, an aggregation of
karmic substance. An individual soul in Vedanta is an appearance
which takes place when an aspect of brahman called asmita,
“selfness”, is perceived through the lens of karma. Binding asmita
and karma creates attachment to the world and propagates the
concept of samsara, the continuity of rebirth in the world.
Perception of asmita as one's true nature, unrelated to karma,
enables withdrawal of asmita from karma and the dissolution of
karma into the elements of the material world, while asmita in the
self-realization of brahman attains deliverance from all worldly
things and dwells in its true nature.
The main difference between Buddhism and the mature Vedanta is

therefore not in that Buddhism would negate the existence of soul
and its eternity, because there must have been a good and positive
element in Buddha's enlightenment; there must be an universal
positive principle. The thing is, Buddhism makes a very radical
claim that eternity does not belong to man. The eternity doesn't
belong to any archetypally human spiritual entity, because
humanity in all its aspects is temporary, and the only eternity is
that of the perfect spiritual peace and bliss of nirvana, which is no
anthropomorphic paradise, but negation of all that is human.
Since the great Buddhist teachers such as Milarepa spoke of

enlightenment as a state of self-realization, it isn't all that difficult
to figure out that the difference between Buddhism and the mature
Vedanta is in fact semantical, and was in all likelihood introduced
because Buddha had his fill of anthropomorphisms and hermetism,
as well as the magical perception of the Universe, gods who fulfill
34
desires of humans who made the proper rituals, and heaven that
looks exactly like the human world, only with its drawbacks
removed. He simply took a large broom and swept all that refuse
away. Shankaracharya adopted more-less all the philosophical and
theological concepts from Buddhism, from the compound nature of
the phenomena, through stratification of the spiritual states, futility
of rituals and asceticism for the purpose of enlightenment,
knowledge as the cornerstone element of the practice, all the way
to the absolutely transcendental nature of the goal. His only true
contribution was the concept of the transcendental Self which is
reflected in the beings as atman, and is in fact brahman. The
methods and goals of Vedanta and Buddhism are not really all that
different at their core, and the only difference is in the formulation
of the desired state, where in both cases the same quality is
attributed to it: a blissful state of perfect peace and realization.
So, where the New Age philosophies define “karma” basically as

“a soul's filth”, Buddhism defines the soul itself as karma. The
word karma in Buddhism describes that, which is usually
considered to be soul. Dharma, which is colloquially defined as
“the spiritual path” or “the spiritual law”, means literally
“Buddhism” in the context of Buddhist teaching. Where New Age
defines reincarnation as rebirth of a soul with the purpose of
learning and acquiring new experiences, Buddhism perceives
reincarnation as a release of the potential energy from the karmic
aggregate which is colloquially called “soul”, where the
aggregated parts can in theory fly away each in their own direction,
like parts of a car that collided with a concrete wall at high speed.
Each individual part has its own energetic properties; the bonds
between them are variably strong, and the continuation of the
existence of the compound as a whole is more a matter of the
specific circumstances than a general rule. As a Buddhist nun
explained it to me once, when a pot is broken into shards,
Buddhism would say that the pot reincarnated in form of shards.
This is the official Buddhist understanding of the reincarnation of
karma: continued existence is a property of the consequences of
actions, or energetic structures, the whirlpools of momentum
35
created by attachment and investment of spiritual energy, not to the

soul. A soul is an apparition, a virtual entity in Buddhism, the same
way an apple is a virtual entity formed by temporary arrangement
of the atoms and molecules of matter into a certain state.
36
The historical context of the
appearance of monotheism
in Indian philosophy
37
The poor understanding of Indian philosophy that is prevalent in

the West has lead to several distortions and misperceptions that are
especially common in the New Age circles. The terms that relate to
the concepts of soul and reincarnation are especially easy to
misinterpret, primarily because that, which can be called the New
Age philosophy, came into existence when people, who were
brought up in a Judeo-Christian context, selectively embraced the
Eastern concepts which they found similar to what was known to
them from their native philosophy, or at least this is what they
thought.
An additional problem is contamination of the authentic Eastern

philosophic concepts by an invasion of the foreign, abrahamic
philosophies into the Indian subcontinent. Here I mean primarily
the islamic scourge which crushed everything in its path with
sword and fire, from the destruction of the Buddhist university in
Nalanda onwards, but I also mean the British, whose Christian
concepts also influenced the indigenous philosophies. In short, I
mean the flood of the monotheistic branches within Hinduism,
whose appearance interestingly coincides with the Muslim
invasion of India. An example of this is the Vaishnava dualism of
Madhva, Caitanya and others. If you doubt the existence of such
influence, let's put down the timeline:
1193. - the Muslim fanatic Bakhtiyar Khilji destroys the Buddhist

university in Nalanda; this can be taken as the official beginning of
the destruction of the indigenous Indian civilization.
1238.-1317. - Madhvacharya, the first monotheistic philosopher of
India, the proponent of the extreme dualism which is not
significantly different from the abrahamic concepts of soul and
God. Madhva calls his monotheistic deity Vishnu, but according to
his description, he might as well call it Jehovah or Allah for all the
difference there is between them.
1498. - the beginning of regular European commerce with India.
1486.-1534. - Caitanya, the philosopher of Vaisnava (Vishnuite)
monotheism, proponent of the Vaishnava dualism, founder of what
38
The historical context of the appearance of monotheism in Indian
philosophy
would later be known as the Hare Krishna philosophy. His

concepts of soul and God are for all intents and purposes identical
to the Abrahamic ones; only the wrapping is Hindu.
1500+ - Sikhism was founded, a religion that attempts to unite
Hinduism and Islam, what with its monotheistic theology and the
practice of chanting God's name, attempting to unite Islamic zikr
and Hindu japa.
1757. - the beginning of the British occupation of India.
1830. - Hindu reformation movement Brahmo Samaj is founded,
and includes all abrahamic theological concepts.
1850. - the British control more-less the entire Indian subcontinent.
I don't know about you, but this makes me come to the following
conclusions:
• The conquerors of India brought with them their own

religion and philosophy;
• The Muslims of the time were not all that different from
those of the present day;
• According to the main stream interpretation of Islam of the
time, the non-islamic religions were evaluated according
to the degree of their compatibility with, or, more
precisely, reducibility to the fundamentals of Islam. The
religions that were deemed more compatible were
tolerated to a greater degree than the ones that were
incompatible with Islam or even negated its fundamental
teachings;
• Buddhism was perceived to be a direct negation of Islam.
Advaita Vedanta was perceived to be a direct negation of
Islam. Hindu polytheism was perceived as “idolatry”, a
sinful religion, but an essentially tolerable one, because of
its perceived inferiority to monotheism. Everything that
was perceived to be an offense to Islam was destroyed;
• If someone in India, occupied by Islam, dared to teach
something that was perceived by the Muslims as offensive
39
to Islam, he was separated from his head;

• If he happened to teach something that was perceived as
consistent with Islamic teaching, presumably monotheism,
he was left alone;
• It all significantly contributed to the coalescence of the
philosophies and theologies into the abrahamic concepts.
Essentially, this means that the medieval monotheistic offshoots of

Hinduism are indigenous to India about as much as the medieval
Mosques are indigenous to Spain and Bosnia. The abrahamic
concepts still had a great influence on Indian perception of both
morality and philosophy; it suffices to see the difference between
the perception of sexuality in Kama Sutra, created somewhere
between 100 and 400 AD, and today's sexually frustrated and
restrictive, moralizing India, to understand that this sexual
frustration was in fact imported, that it is a result of violent
grafting of the abrahamic sexual morality onto the Indian
subcontinent.
Basically, wherever you can find Islam specifically or the

abrahamic religions in general, you can see a similar situation.
Whatever remained of the indigenous Indian culture after the
assault of the Muslims, the Victorian English proceeded to run into
the ground. I can't honestly tell which were the worse. It's
generally easy to notice the imported sexual morality, but the
imported concepts of soul and God can hide under the radar,
especially since the Europeans, as well as all other humans,
perceive the theological similarities as “proof” that they were right
all along and that all religions “come from the same God”, not as
proof of foreign interference.
Why does it matter? Because it explains the abrupt interruption of

the evolutionary processes that lead from the shramanic tradition
and Jainism to Buddhism, forming the context that produced the
late Upanishads, Yoga sutra, as well as the works of
40
The historical context of the appearance of monotheism in Indian
philosophy
Shankaracharya and Padmasambhava. It explains why there is an

abrupt cut on the territory of India, which extinguishes Buddhism,
but gives birth to multiple theologies that worship the personal,
anthropomorphic deities, whose spiritual theories are the grotesque
distortions of the older systems, whose elements were adopted out
of context and without understanding.
Maharishi Yogi explained this process of degradation by invoking

the natural mechanisms of information loss during the long periods
of time, but in my opinion, there is a better explanation, the one
that recognizes the violent and destructive influence of Islam and
other abrahamic religions. It's interesting to notice how the “long
periods of time” produced no degradation of information in Tibet,
where the Muslims and the British were absent. It is therefore
essential to understand that the changes on the religious map of the
territory had causes that had nothing to do with “victory” of the
“personalist” philosophies over Buddhism and Advaita, but were
caused by the persecutions, arson and murders committed by the
monotheistic fanatics of Islam.
41
Atman and karman
42
Atman and karman
The Buddhist theory of karmic aggregation, or, in other words, of

the compound structures made of the particles of spiritual energy,
that form a virtual entity called “soul”, is such a radical innovation
in spiritual philosophy that I absolutely must elaborate on that.
The old Vedic theory of soul (atman) is basically what people find
intuitive, and is quite similar to Christian and Muslim concepts.
There are heaven (svarga) and hell (naraka); the heaven is
occupied by the ancestors (pitri), maintained in their exalted
position by the offerings of their descendants in the world of men.
When the offerings stop, for instance when a family line is
extinguished, the ancestors fall from their position, presumably to
hell.1 The concept of reincarnation, in today's sense, is not known;
what is known is the concept of descent of souls into the world
with some particular mission (as in Mahabharata); what is known
is a fall into the world due to a curse (tale of Indra as a pig,
Nahusha as a snake etc.); a concept of avatara is known as an
appearance of a God in bodily form, usually temporary and with a
limited purpose, for instance Shiva in Mahabharata takes form of a
hunter in order to test whether Arjuna is worthy of the heavenly
weapons. Krishna takes form of a hunter from a lower caste in
order to test whether Uttanka is worthy of the nectar of
immortality. Nara and Narayana are incarnated as Arjuna and
Krishna. So the concept of incarnation is not used in today's form,
but more in a meaning we would recognize as Divine intervention
into the worldly affairs. This older Vedic theory of soul is therefore
not very elaborate and solves the issue of sin and virtue with
residence in hell or heaven, with duration proportional to merit or
demerit. Furthermore, the scholars of old used to argue whether the
shudras have atman, or is it the case only with the three higher
castes. After long discussion it was concluded that they probably
have atman.
In the later times, 900-600 BC, a concept develops according to

which not only all humans have atman, but all beings in general.
1 Bhagavad-gita 1,42-44
43
Likewise, a concept of violence as the primary form of sin arises,

stating that dharma, the cosmic law, determines that any sin
committed against other beings must be repaid, and that all beings
are equal. Those ideas were either developed within Jainism, or
were adopted and further developed into the motto of “ahimsa
paramo dharmah”, “nonviolence is the fundamental law”.
This was a positive step in the evolution of the theory of soul and
karma, but due to its extreme nature it was never widely adopted.
Unlike the Vedic systems of thought, which differentiate between
actions according to circumstances, subject and object, with further
elaboration according to caste and similar divisions, Jainism
completely removes the concept of quantity from consideration, by
declaring that atman is a point-like entity that is the same in all
beings, and the actions are considered only in terms of a direct
qualitative equivalence of action and reaction, without any other
considerations. This makes a life of a mosquito equally valuable as
a life of a man, and dharma punishes killing of a mosquito with the
same punishment as it does killing of a man.
Of course, the reasonable people immediately recognized this

position as extreme and most likely wrong, and this kind of
absolutistic egalitarianism was useful only for feeding the
unnecessary guilt.
Still, the concept of universality of atman and the great problem of

violence and suffering were strongly present in the philosophic
circles of the time. The position where only some people have
atman was not philosophically supportable. The position where
only humans have atman and animals and other beings do not was
very soon recognized as the same kind of argument, also
unsupportable. This line of thought crystallized into a conclusion
that all living beings must have atman, which brought about the
radical consequences which were intuitively recognized as
dubious. The answer of the Upanishads was that atman is in fact
identical to brahman, that it is the omnipresent reality of the
44
Atman and karman
Absolute, and that the living beings, the jivas, are merely a
fragmented view into the reality of brahman, like the Moon is
reflected on many surfaces of water without losing its singular
nature.
This perspective keeps the Vedic concepts as valid for the relative
sphere of action, while introducing the new philosophic concepts
on the higher level of abstraction. Jainism at this point introduces
the concept of karma as a form of subtle matter, something similar
to momentum of force, which is exchanged by action. According to
this concept, the souls are seen as point-like atomic entities that
accumulate the “karmic substance” that binds them to the world
and which has a tendency to “sprout” from its latent form into the
retributive consequences and thus be “expended”; this expenditure
releases the karmic momentum into the soul, which reacts by
committing further binding action. For instance, if a being insults
another being, it accumulates karma; when this karma is
manifested as a consequence, the soul suffers a reactive impact, for
instance is slapped as a reaction to the insult. If the soul suffers the
slap and accepts it as a deserved consequence of the insult, no
further karma is created. However, if the soul reacts by feeling
anger and retaliates with a blow, additional karma is created and
the cycle is thus perpetuated. Jainism also introduces the concept
of an ocean of birth and death, from which one can save himself
only by cleansing the old karma and not creating the new.
Cleansing karma has the result of liberation from the cycle of birth
and death, and is followed by the natural state of great spiritual
peace.
A great deal of those concepts was obviously adopted into Vedanta,

Buddhism and the schools of the post-Vedic Hinduism, and we
must notice the eclectic nature of the philosophies of the Indian
subcontinent, which cannot be stated enough. Whenever someone
came up with an idea that was recognized as valid, the others
adopted and extended. After a while, there would be a great
number of branches and hybrids of different philosophies, and it
45
often happened that someone took a concept and drew completely

different conclusions than originally intended, embedding it into a
completely different context.
The Jainist concept of karma contains a certain dose of intrinsic

problems that make it impractical. Despite the elegant
mechanicism of the Jainist definition of karma, there remains the
problem of the definition of nonviolence. A being can interpret
something as violence, while it is in fact not. Is karma created by
perceived violence? In an encounter of a sadist and a masochist, a
sadist can inflict pain upon the masochist, who enjoys it. Does
violence in this context create karma?
The Jainist model is too simplistic and materialistic and thus

unable to resolve paradoxical situations of this kind. To Jainism,
violence is violence, and there are no gradations, no exceptions, no
allowing for circumstances, no finesse. St Augustine could teach
Jainism a thing or two about violence; how sometimes violence
can be an instrument of avoiding greater evils, and how not all
kinds of violences are the same, for instance. Limited violence
committed in defense from an aggressor is not only a “lesser evil”,
it is actually an unqualified good thing. Likewise, vaccination can
be interpreted as violence, since we are using a sharp needle to
pierce a living being's skin and inject harmful substances,
producing pain and discomfort in the process. But we do it in order
to expose the body to the harmful microbes in controlled
conditions, in order to form immunity and avoid contracting a
potentially fatal illness. Is this form of violence evil? Would it be
better if we didn't vaccinate someone who was bitten by a rabid
animal, with a rationale that violence is violence and it can never
be condoned; since a fox already bit him and gave him rabies, do
we have to commit another evil by poking him with a needle?
“Violence doesn't solve anything”, “there is no problem that
violence couldn't make worse”, that's the thinking. The
consequence, of course, is that a person dies from rabies. Of
course, the hypocrites in questions will have a clear conscience,
46
Atman and karman
because they opted for the path of nonviolence. They are the saints
here.
So Jainism introduced some very good and innovative concepts,

but their rawness and lack of refinement makes them very
dangerous in practice, and quite unfit for application in normal life.
Despite all its moralizing about nonviolence, Jainism is not a
useful philosophy.
Buddhism obviously built on those foundations, because aspects of

the Jain philosophy are clearly visible in its teaching, but to
Buddhism, the main problem is not violence. The beings suffer in
this world even without violence. Old age, for instance, is not the
result of violence, and still it causes suffering. Buddha did not
know about the microbes as causes of disease, and even if he did,
he could have cited the diseases caused by deficiencies, which can
be horrible, for instance scurvy, beriberi, rickets, pellagra, spina
bifida etc., and have no other cause but poor nutrition. Violence
can cause suffering, and indeed it often does, but it is not the sole
cause of suffering. If we could completely remove violence from
the world, the fact remains that the very nature of the world and of
human existence produce suffering. Violence is therefore a
peripheral problem, which Buddhism acknowledges and accounts
for, but in a wider context.
The point where Buddhism becomes radical is when it observes

that the main cause of the problem are the hermetic expectations.
People intuitively expect the material object to be a reflection of
some perfect, spiritual object, which eludes them due to the
qualities of the material world, but they still find it worth the effort
because the quest for those material reflections of the spiritual
archetypes is in fact manifestation of the desire for the spiritual,
and will eventually produce the desired result of attaining this
spiritual goal.
Buddha states that this approach is completely wrong. The thing is,
47
everybody understands that an apple, in its ripe, clean and healthy

state, is appealing food for humans, and this perception is projected
into the spiritual realm where the perfect apples are envisioned,
always perfect, appealing and never decaying. Plato would say that
there is an archetypal ideal apple in the ideal world, and that the
material apple is but an imperfect manifestation.
Buddha says that such thinking is the cause of suffering and that it
needs to be permanently abandoned. Not only is there no perfect
apple, but there also is no “apple”. What actually exists is an
interaction of forces and particles, none of which is “apple” or
“Applium”. An apple can be divided into a multitude of different
parts, none of which is apple. There is no archetypal idea or an
elementary particle of apple; an apple is an illusion, an ephemeral
phenomenon. None of the building blocks of apple are “apply” in
any way – they are the atoms of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon,
hydrogen etc.
An example of this core teaching of Buddhism is the tale of a

beautiful buddhist girl who was annoyed by the sexual advances of
a man who kept praising her beauty. After having stoically endured
it for a while, she decided to teach him a lesson. She told him to
come in two weeks, which is how long it will take for her to
produce an extract of her beauty, which they can then consume
together and have the best sex ever. The fool was thrilled with the
offer and promised to come. The girl then took some substance for
inducing vomiting and diarrhea, and stored feces in one vessel and
vomit in another. The substance made her very ill, and she turned
all green and looked more like a wraith than a person, with sunken
eyes and skeletal face, but she did collect an impressive amount of
shit and vomit. After two weeks, the idiot in question appeared and
at first he failed to recognize her because of her altered appearance.
She then assured him it was indeed her, and told him: “here in this
shed is the extract of my beauty – here, in this first vessel is the
first component, in the second vessel is another, and if you want
we can drink them now and then we can have sex”. The guy of
48
Atman and karman
course ran away filled with utmost horror.
This is the fundamental difference between the hermetic idealism

and Buddhism. Before the European science, Buddhism was the
first philosophy that treated the phenomena and entities
analytically, instead of magically, and it is probably the greatest
spark of genius in all of antiquity. Buddhism recognizes the virtual,
ephemeral nature of phenomena, which were perceived as
reflections of the Divine, eternal principles, since the very dawn of
human thought. Buddhism produced a needle to pierce this bubble.
Buddhism also turns the things upside-down in regard to Jainism.

Where Jainism states that violence, which causes karma, is the
main problem, Buddhism states that suffering is the main problem.
Suffering can have its cause in violence, but mostly it doesn't. The
main cause of suffering is desire. Most violent acts have its cause
in some form of desire, and so Buddha reduced violence, which
Jainism sees as the central problem, to a mere manifestation of a
deeper problem. But what's the problem with desire? The problem
is that desire is an investment of spiritual force into the world,
whose nature makes suffering inevitable. This investment is what
binds one, not actions and their consequences. The binding quality
of action is an illusion, because the binding action is always
accompanied by desire, and desire is the act of a binding
investment of self into action. This is how it was also described in
the Bhagavad-gita, and I would guess that the author “borrowed”
the concept from Buddhism, since it appears in Hinduism in its
final, evolved form, and only in the line from Jainism to Buddhism
can we see evolution of the concepts.
The Gita therefore reflects the reformation of the basic Hindu

concepts in light of the Buddhist theory of compounds, which is
such a radically innovative idea that it opened the entire new
directions of accelerated philosophical development. In practice
this means that Buddhism completely abandons the Jainist concept
of atman as a kernel-entity of soul, the “atomic soul” which, as
49
Hare Krishnas put it, “resides in the hearts of all beings”,

including, presumably, the beings without hearts. Where Jainism
perceived a living being as atman surrounded by karmic substance,
Buddhism radically states that there is nothing in the core, no
atman, no archetypal indestructible core of being, and that a
being's personality together with all its qualities is just an
aggregation of karmic substance. This is why I call it the theory of
aggregation, in order to accentuate the fundamental aspect that
makes it a revolutionary and unique step forward, never before
seen.
Defining a being as a karmic aggregation is a fundamental

negation of the idealist philosophy, which states that all material
objects are created by descent of the perfect archetypes from the
ideal world into the imperfect physical matter, which fails to reflect
or maintain this perfection properly, but in the spiritual world,
there are the perfect archetypal ideas, all perfection and beauty the
beings strive for on the material plane, but devoid of decay and
limitation. What is a cow in the material world, is a kamadhenu1 in
the spiritual world. What is a fruit-bearing tree in the material
world, is a kalpataru2 in the spiritual world. In the material world
there are a man and a woman, and in the spiritual world there are
the perfect Divine pairs of Shiva and Shakti, or Krishna and
Radha.
Buddha radically states that this concept is illusory, from start to

finish; and not only that, but also that believing in this kind of
perfection perpetuates the projections that produce desire, which
produces attachment, and the result of all that is suffering, again
and again, in attempts to follow a mirage in the desert of the world.
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamadhenu
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalpataru
50
The accretional theory of
evolution and Buddha in
the flesh
51
How does reactivity of karma function in the context of a soul as a

karmic aggregation?
In this respect, Buddha didn't diverge greatly from the Jainist

teaching: karma is a specific form of subtle matter which is
accumulated by binding action, and spent by reaction released by
the karmic matter within the doer, manifesting itself as either a
harmful event or an unpleasant spiritual condition. Buddha simply
stated that the karmic reaction is produced not only by the violent
deeds, but by all deeds committed out of desire, because desire is
that which binds. The rest of the teaching is similar to that of
Jainism: when karma is spent, there arises the state of
enlightenment, the exception being that the personality is defined
as a negative thing in Buddhism, as a collection of delusions and
attachments which cause suffering, so that enlightenment is not
defined as atman in its isolated and pure state, but as extinction of
the personality which is made of, well, the various causes of
suffering.
If a great deal of the above paragraph reminds you of Gita, there's

a good reason: Gita is a scripture of late Vedanta, which adopted a
great deal of the original Buddhist teaching of karma, and
incorporated it into the Upanishadic teaching of brahman.
Buddha introduced further innovations, which are quite interesting.

For instance, his concept of reincarnation is very sophisticated, far
more so than anything seen before. The thing is, in the theory of
soul as a karmic aggregate, reincarnation doesn't work the same as
in the kernel-soul theory. The aggregation theory states that the
“soul”, which is made of karmic substance, does indeed survive the
death of the physical body, but not necessarily as a singular entity.
If the cohesive forces, between the karmic segments that make the
aggregate, weaken, the aggregate will break into separate
fragments after death, and each of the resulting karmic blocks will
reincarnate independently, binding itself to the kind of physical
destiny that promises the fulfillment of the desires and attachments
52
The accretional theory of evolution and Buddha in the flesh
that formed it.
So karma definitely survives the physical death of the being that

created it, but the continued existence of that being as a singular
entity is not a necessity. In order to explain the circumstances that
determine possible outcomes, I need to explain an aspect of the
theory that is perhaps even more radical than the theory of
aggregation itself: the accretional theory of evolution.
Jainism and the older philosophies know karma only as a negative

thing, as a sum of the results of the evil deeds that cling to the doer,
binding him to the fruits of his actions. To be cleansed of karma is,
in this context, the goal of spiritual development. However,
Buddhism introduces and gradually develops something far more
significant: the all-encompassing theory of spiritual evolution.
There is a significant problem with the Jainist soul-kernel theory: it

fails to provide an adequate explanation for the existence of souls
of obviously different size. If we consider the enormous diversity
of life, ranging from bacteria to humans (or worms to humans, to
contain our reasoning within the range known in antiquity), and
there is an atman-kernel of the same size in all beings, this means
that karma represents the difference between the reincarnational
destinies, determining that he who was once a man can be reborn
as a worm. So basically a being that consists of the atman-kernel
and nothing else is reborn as either a perfect saint or a god, while a
being who has lots of karma superimposed on the atman-kernel is
reborn as a lowly form of life. That is actually a very frequent
understanding of karma, and not just among the westerners. The
concept of karma as spiritual impurity is quite common in the
spiritual circles, but that is so because of lack of knowledge about
the more advanced aspects of Buddha's teaching on karma and the
later developments of the theory. You see, Buddha postulated the
concept of polyvalence of karma.
Polyvalence of karma means that karma is not merely a form of
53
spiritual impurity. Karma is not only a result of evil deeds, but also
a result of desire, love, passionate mercy and desire to do good.
Karma can be a result of a longing for wisdom. All those things
bind and determine a being's destiny, but Buddha's great
contribution to the theory is to acknowledge their polyvalence,
according to which the karmic substance consists of several
aspects. One aspect is the attachment which causes suffering, but
the other aspect is the size of the soul, in a sense of maturity and
number of experiences. Buddha states, in a moment of staggering
innovation, that all beings have been reborn a huge number of
times, maybe millions of times in short-lived forms of life,
gradually maturing due to accretion of karma, the way a snowball
in cartoons grows into a huge avalanche by accretion of snow.
Where karma had a low degree of inner cohesion, resembling wet
toilet paper, accretion functioned less well and the aggregate didn't
hold together because the “adhesive” was weak, and it fell apart
into several lower beings. But certain forms of karma were more
cohesive than others, thus accelerating the process, which made it
possible for souls to grow to sizes sufficient for inhabiting the
higher lifeforms. The term “mahatma”, or “great soul”, for the first
time in the theory of karma makes sense and emerges as a positive
concept, because in the kernel-soul theory all souls would be
equally big, except for the size of the spiritually degrading karma.
In the Buddhist theory of accretional evolution of the karmic
aggregates, the size of the soul means it consists of more “positive”
elements, that have significant cohesive quality. The karmic
elements that have the qualities of nobility and virtue create the
stable compounds, while the karmic elements with qualities of
chaos and evil create the unstable, weakly bound and discordant
aggregates, that dissociate after a being's death. It's a brilliant
theory, quite similar in some respects to the theory of the neural
networks, where the complexity of the structure grows with the
number of attached neurons; by analogy, the complexity and size
of the soul grows by accretion of karmic particles.
The Buddhist theory of karma therefore states that a karmic

aggregate goes through a long lasting period of maturation until it
54
grows to a size sufficient to warrant human incarnation, and that

one's choice of incarnating lifeform is by no means accidental, but
depends on the size of the karmic aggregate, and that it is not
possible for something as huge as a karmic aggregate suitable for
human incarnation to incarnate in a body of a, let's say, worm. That
is so because the complexity of a karmic aggregate is a result of
increasing sophistication and complexity of the spiritual activity,
namely the desires. Certain desires project their realization through
forms of life and circumstances of certain complexity, and a
complex karmic aggregate will, by the very nature of things, not
project the kind of desires that can be fulfilled in a lowly life form.
A desire to study sophisticated philosophy cannot be fulfilled in a
body of a worm. A desire to experience beauty of nightfall through
human senses and mind cannot be fulfilled in a body of a fish. Of
course, if a being adopts, by accretion, a bad karmic component (in
simple terms: if he does something bad), several things can
happen:
A being can be destabilized if bad karmic substance is generalized

(its influence spreading across the main spiritual mass), which
means that a sinful act catalyzes a process in which the entire
personality is dedicated to rationalization and justification of that
sin, which renders the entire karmic aggregate unstable and, on
termination of the present incarnation whose inertia keeps the
karmic elements together, fragmentation and dissociation of the
aggregate can take place, with the components parting ways and
incarnating as various lower life forms. The next possibility is that
the soul “spits out” the sin, isolating it from its main spiritual mass
as a foreign body, and it forms a splinter fragment that separates
from the main mass and incarnates independently after death. Also,
the soul might accept the sin as its own and experience sincere
remorse, and in this act it “grows” by including the size of the
sinful karmic substance, and as a whole suffers the consequence of
the sinful act, temporarily changing its energetic pattern, but when
the effect wears off, the soul ends up magnified and enhanced by
the experience.
55
How much of this theory was formed by Buddha himself, and how
much by the later thinkers, I do not know. Some aspects of the
doctrine were developed in the span of more than a thousand years,
but from many aspects of Buddha's teaching it is clear that he had
to know those things; if not in an intellectually clear and
straightforward way, then at least in the sense of a general
understanding of the principles involved. His instructions about
practicing detachment, extinguishing the spiritual investments into
the world, as well as the development of virtues, have the result of
stabilization of the karmic body, in the sense of calmly suffering
the consequences of past deeds and not creating the new sinful
karma which manifests as incoherence and fragmentation of the
karmic body, as inner spiritual tensions that produce the emotions
such as remorse, hatred, anger, greed and similar sinful passions.
Buddha recommends acquiring and nurturing the ten perfections
(parami), namely (in pali and sanskrit):
• dana (dana); generosity, giving self

• sila (śila); virtue, good conduct, morality and discipline
• nekkhamma (naiṣkāmya); lack of desire
• panna (prajñā); insight of wisdom, discernment and
cognitive clarity
• viriya (virya); manliness, decisiveness, forcefulness
• khanti (kṣānti); patience, tolerance and forgiveness
• sacca (satya); truth
• adhitthana (adhiṣṭhāna); determination, fortitude
• metta (maitri); loving kindness, benevolence
• upekkha (upêkṣa); emotional stability and focus,
detachment
Nurturing the parami produces the state of paramita, possession of
the fullness of those perfections. From the position of the tantric
energetics developed in the northern India and in Tibet, in the
context of the Buddhist teaching about the karmic aggregates or
“energetic bodies”, the perfection in the aforementioned virtues
56
manifests as complete homogenization of the energetic

components within the karmic body. This means that all the lines
of force within the karmic mass are oriented in the same direction,
and that all the whirlpools, the conflicting currents causing
disturbance, are eliminated, which transforms an incoherent
spiritual state into something analogous to laser light, directed and
collimated, and of a very narrow frequency band. From the
position of Patañjali's classical yoga, this is interpreted as the
cessation of the whirlpools in mind-stuff (citta). From the position
of the tantric yoga of the Upanishads and its anatomy of the
chakras and nadis, it is interpreted as withdrawal of the energy
currents from ida and pingala nadis, its focus within sushumna
nadi, and a stable, coherent energetic vibration of all the chakras in
their pure, perfect state. Essentially, this is a practice whose goal is
to purify and harmonize the energy system on the “note” of the
peak of the spectrum of the anahata chakra. From the position of
the advanced yogic practice, as it was known to the tantrikas of
India and Tibet, it is apparent that the goal of Buddha's teaching is
the attainment of initiation into vajra, or a harmonization of the
lower elements to the point of their spontaneous sublimation into
higher spiritual substance. This concept of vajra was developed in
the tantric schools of the Himalayas, especially in the Tibetan
school of vajrayana Buddhism. The concept of vajra is so alien to
the common human experience, that it represents a public secret of
the tantric practice, where the otherwise obscure concepts become
immediately clear to a yogi who is an initiate of vajra, while the
uninitiated have no hope of understanding what it's all about,
because this special, new quality of consciousness is absent from
their experience.
For instance, an enlightened tantric guru is labeled “vajracharya”,
which is intuitively clear to the initiates, since it denotes a person
whose soul is made of vajra and whose teaching manifests this
state, but to the uninitiated, the term is vague and arbitrary.
The same goes for the terms such as vajrasattva, vajrapani and
padmasambhava. Vajra is symbolically represented as the void
(sunyata) from which emanate the two lotus flowers with eight
57
petals each. One symbolizes nirvana, the other samsara. Vajra is,
therefore, the state of the relative Absolute, of nirvana within the
samsara. Vajra (literally: “lightning” and “diamond”) is the jewel
in the lotus (the symbol of the Buddha): “mani padme”.
Om, Mani Padme, Hum. Of Absolute, the vajra in the relative,

Buddha in the body.
The goal of the tantric Buddhism is, therefore, initiation into vajra.
58
Buddhism about the gods, the
world and the Creator
59
Buddha's position on gods is as radical as his position on the nature

of the soul. It's not that Buddha denies the existence of the gods,
the demons and the spiritual worlds. He thinks they are as real as
this world. However, unlike the Vedic religion, which considered
gods to be the higher beings worthy of worship, Buddha sees them
as the poor misguided souls who are unaware of their true position,
which is in most respects very similar to our own. Buddha states
that the gods are as mortal as men, but because of their long
lifespan they are unaware of that fact, because suffering and death
aren't slapping their faces on a daily basis like they are ours.
Likewise, their spiritual fluctuations cause them the same kind of
suffering that we humans also endure; true, they are free of the
material disease and hardships, but spiritual afflictions and
maladies such as anger, hatred, fear and the like trouble them the
same way as they trouble us. Because of this, both gods and men
have essentially the same problem, with human position being
actually better because our problem is more noticeable and
concentrated within a shorter lifespan, so we are more likely to do
something about it and attain buddhahood.1
As for the origin of the Universe, the Buddha responds: “who

cares?”. The Universe exists in its present form, we are in the
position we are in, and now we need to get out. The analogy is a
situation where you fall into a pit and break a leg. Who gives a
damn about who dug the pit and what kind of shovel he used?
What is important is to get out of the pit and treat our injury, and to
avoid falling into pits in future.
As far as the prayers and offerings to gods are concerned, the

position of Buddhism is also radical, and turns the “conventional
wisdom” on its head. The conventional wisdom of the Vedic
religion states that men keep the gods in their exalted position by
their offerings and prayers, and in turn the gods assist men in their
activities.
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhahood
60
Buddhism about the gods, the world and the Creator
Buddhism makes an interesting remark: if you do indeed keep the

gods in their exalted position with your offerings, do you really
think they will allow you to abandon your position of attachment
in which you make your offerings, and attain buddhahood? At the
very moment you desire to attain liberation, those very gods you
nurtured with your prayers and offerings will become your
enemies, and will do whatever is in their power to discourage you
from the path of dharma and return you to the position of being the
source of their nourishment. According to this, all prayers and
offerings are in fact opposed to your best interest, at least in the
long run, because you strengthen your own jailers. In order to free
yourself from bondage, you will eventually, after having dealt with
all other issues, also have to overpower those very gods who grew
strong and fat from your offerings. Buddha was familiar with this
form his own experience with Mara the ensnarer, the demon who
has this world in his power. After summoning everything in his
power to prevent Shakyamuni from attaining buddhahood, and
failing, that one said “ok, great, you became a Buddha, now get out
of here and don't bother me”, in a sense, “I lost one, but I still have
the entire remaining herd peacefully grazing in a dream of
ignorance, and it would be very inconvenient to have this one
preach some ideology of awakening”.
So the gods are essentially an obstacle, and it is harmful to dwell

on them. All the spiritual energy that we invest into them
strengthens the chains that bind us to this world, and the concept of
“devotion to God” is, essentially, from a Buddhist point of view, as
useful for deliverance as devotion to the jailers would be useful for
obtaining release from a prison. Devotion to gods is useful for
having a comfortable life in this world, but it is absolutely
counterproductive for attaining liberation from it. The only useful
attitude one can have towards the gods is indifference. They are
not useful for attaining enlightenment; the truth about the nature of
the world is known through the four noble truths; dharma, or a
noble eightfold path, is known and it is to be upheld, and liberation
will be attained. As far as God the Creator is concerned, Buddha is
quite indifferent toward such a being; for the world is not a good
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place. Its qualities are such that one is to desire deliverance from it,
and why would a creator of such a world merit worship? Whether
the Universe has a Creator or not, from human perspective is as
irrelevant as the question whether a hole in the road was dug by
men or a flood. If you fell into it, you need to get out, and invoking
the assistance of the one who presumably dug the hole is not
particularly wise.
What is Buddha's opinion on this world? Buddha considers it ideal

for attaining buddhahood. It is so unconditionally unpleasant, and
suffering is so pervasive here, that Buddha considered it
impossible for one to escape into the kind of self-deception that is
common in the worlds of the gods. Likewise, he considered the
human existence ideal because a man possesses the intelligence
required for recognizing both his unenviable position and the need
for liberation. The presence of acute and pervasive suffering in this
world is therefore seen by Buddha as an advantage, because this
world reveals the principles that could elsewhere remain obscure,
and is still not as bad as hell, where any kind of emancipation is
impossible, and the only possible form of existence is helpless
suffering for the duration of karma that binds us to that place.
Buddha therefore considers this world to be a very nasty place
which is to be abandoned as quickly as possible, but before that we
should utilize its unpleasant nature to help us identify the problem
and the solutions, and to attain buddhahood, which will take us not
only beyond this world, but also beyond the more subtle ones, with
more subtle snares.
As an illustration of the attitude of Buddhism towards gods, I quote

a joke from the pali canon (Kevaddha Sutta) which illustrates the
matter most succinctly.
A monk used to consider a metaphysical problem he was unable to

solve, and invoked gods one by one in order to ask their assistance,
which they were unable to provide. Eventually he reached Brahma
the Creator himself, greeted him and asked: “Where are the four
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Buddhism about the gods, the world and the Creator
elements extinguished and cease without remainder?”
“I, monk, am the Great Brahma, the Conqueror, the Unconquered,

the All-Seeing, All-Powerful, the Sovereign Lord, the Maker,
Creator, Chief, Appointer and Ruler, Father of All That Have Been
and Shall Be.”, answered the Brahma.
“Be it as you say, friend, I did not ask you that. I asked where the
four elements are extinguished and cease without remainder?”,
replied the monk.
Then the Great Brahma, taking the monk by the arm and leading
him off to one side, said to him, “These gods here believe that I
know everything, and that's why I, in order not to cause their
confusion, evaded your question in their presence, for I do not
know the answer. But let us go and seek out the Buddha, because
he knows.”
The answer to the question, of course, is the vajra.
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Mahayana
The last words of the Buddha for his disciples before he died were:
“Remember: all compounds are impermanent. Strive for your own
liberation with diligence and perseverance.”
What does it mean, really? What are the consequences of Buddha's

teaching and worldview?
There are several important lessons in the teaching of Buddha. The

first lesson is about nonexistence of a magic wand in form of a
god, magical rite or an external force, that will provide a solution
to all our problems. Our “soul” is a karmic aggregate, a compound
of all our decisions, bound together by the cohesive forces between
the particles. If this aggregate dissociates, the illusion of continuity
of the soul's existence will suddenly cease.
By development of the positive emotions and mental coherence

one is therefore in a position to stabilize his soul, so that its
segments start working harmoniously with each other. With
sustained and focused effort, the spiritual substance of the soul is
transformed, and the amorphous substance of the aggregate,
initially resembling weakly bound concrete, transforms into a
homogenous, cohesive and monolithic structure.
When purification of the soul is complete (meaning the state of

homogenous structure and uniformly high energy of the constituent
particles), there occurs the phenomenon of cessation of the four
elements into vajra, which is the key point of the process of
transformation of karma, in a way similar to that which happens
when graphite, under high pressure, transforms into diamond, or
when the process of nuclear fusion takes place in a stellar core.
Enlightenment, according to Buddha, is a culmination of a long
lasting process of transformation of karma, of a karmic aggregate
that makes a “soul”. It is absolutely not something that is the
potential of all beings, and especially it is not a certain event
whose occurrence is but a matter of time. Enlightenment is an
improbable event, highly unlikely, practically impossible to
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achieve accidentally, and one can assume the position of Indra or

Brahma and still not be enlightened. The state of vajra, the relative
Absolute, the state which binds nirvana and samsara,
transformation of the four elements and their cessation without
remainder that could be reborn, is a radical breakthrough. It is not
an experience. It is not something that could accidentally happen to
you when you stumble and break a jar. A diamond is not something
that will happen to you accidentally, that will happen if you leave
bread in the oven for too long, or wake up oxygen from its dream
of carbon or whatever zen bullshit you can think of. In order to
create a diamond, you need to expose pure amorphous carbon to
immense physical forces that will rearrange the carbon atoms into
tetrahedral crystalline structure. So in order to create a diamond,
it's not enough that you start with just any form of matter; you need
exactly the right kind, the pure carbon, and then you need to apply
sufficient force in exactly the right way, for exactly the right time.
So, in Buddha's teaching the enlightenment is not switching your

consciousness into some state, for instance into a perspective of
brahman, as in the teaching of Vedanta. The enlightenment is not
the state of “One” which is “the same in a brahmana of high
learning and humility, in a cow, elephant, dog, and even in the
lowest of the outcasts”, as Gita professes. That doesn't concern
Buddha in the slightest. If asked, this would have been his
response:
“Dear Krishna, even if it all were as you say, what is truly reborn –
the karma that makes the difference between the brahmana, cow,
elephant, dog and an outcast, or the brahman, to which you sing
such high and eloquent praise?” Krishna would respond: “Surely, it
is karman that is reborn. Brahman is neither born, nor does it ever
die.” Buddha would then answer: “If karman is that which is
reborn, then transformation is necessary in the sphere of karman,
in order to prevent rebirth. The aggregation of karma is susceptible
to suffering, disease, old age, death and rebirth, quite
independently of its relation to brahman, which is, under the
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influence of the apparent continuity of existence known as jivan,

known also as the illusory entity of atman. Only in the extinction
of karma does the possibility of rebirth cease. Therefore all efforts
should be directed into the sphere of transformation of karma, and
all activities directed towards switching perspective from the
position of jivan to the position of brahman are to be considered
useless for the purpose of liberation, because the attachments that
define the karma, untouched by the change of perspective,
prevail.” With this, Krishna would have to agree, and would stay
with Buddha as his disciple in order to learn more.
Buddha introduces the concept of the essential prerequisites for

enlightenment. First, one needs to inhabit a body that is at least
human. He needs to have an adequate level of intellectual prowess
in order to understand his teaching. The intellectual aspect of the
teaching is very important, and Buddha therefore constantly
appeals to reason. This is so because purity and composure of
intellect represent a strong indication of the other prerequisites for
enlightenment. A strong and composed mind is a sign of a high
degree of cohesion within the karmic aggregate; in other words, it's
a sign of maturity of the soul. It means that the soul does not
consist of a multitude of weakly bound fragments, whose
interconnections are stressed by discordant forces, but a monolithic
unit of karmic substance. Defragmentation and homogenization of
the karmic aggregate is a process that requires a long time spent in
developing and nurturing virtues, often throughout several
incarnations. A pure, composed and strong mind is therefore an
indicator of this condition.
The second important factor is the ability to recognize the

truthfulness of Buddha's teaching. Immature persons will simply
not have the problems to which Buddha's teaching is the solution.
It's like explaining the virtues of the best pen to an illiterate person.
It's a solution to the problem he doesn't have; he could use the pen
to poke his nose, but hardly anything more. A soul of insufficient
quality (defined as a combination of size, homogeneousness and
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refinement of the four elements) will therefore lack the subtle

interests, and instead will preoccupy itself with things such as
social position, possession, reproduction and pleasure. There is
therefore a concept of a critical mass and of a degree of
organization, like in neurology, where you get increasingly
sophisticated emergent phenomena as you add neurons. A brain
with an insufficient number of building blocks is simply unable to
form structures of sufficient complexity. To say that self-awareness
is the destiny of all beings is simply wrong – a being can keep
incarnating in a body of a single-cell algae, and fail to make any
kind of progress, just as a hydrogen atom can reside in a cloud of
interstellar gas from Big Bang to Big Crunch, while another atom
can evolve through increasingly complex forms, binding with other
hydrogen atoms in the process of fusion, being blown out into the
interstellar gas in a stellar explosion, mixing with other atoms in a
cloud of gas, and eventually participating in the evolution of life
within increasingly complex molecules. Of two identical protons,
one can remain in the same form throughout the lifetime of the
universe, while another can be placed within your DNA as one of
the carbon or nitrogen atoms, or in a gold filling of your tooth.
Similarly, a fundamental particle of karmic substance can remain
in its primordial state for a billion years, while another, its sibling,
can join with other similar particles into compounds and form
complex structures. The first fundament can reincarnate as
protozoa for a billion years, while the other not only changes
bodies from simple to increasingly complex, but probably also
creates evolutionary pressure towards forming increasingly
complex physical beings in order to create adequate conditions for
manifestation of his desires and potentials. As this second chunk of
karmic stuff evolves, it builds increasingly complex spiritual
structures, until it reaches a certain critical mass of maturity where
it possesses a combination of size, homogeneousness and subtlety
sufficient for a spiritual breakthrough into vajra, a qualitative
transformation of spiritual substance, analogous to transformation
of graphite into diamond or of hydrogen into helium.
The evolution of karma is therefore not a necessity. Reincarnation
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of karma is a necessity, but not its evolution. Evolution is a matter

of choice, and is a rare privilege. For this reason, Buddhism
considers the four noble truths to be an advanced teaching of the
highest order, which intellectually reveals the nature of the entire
mechanism of spiritual existence, and provides a way from blind
and ignorant suffering to deliverance for the rare souls who are
evolved enough to understand and apply them.
The third necessary prerequisite for understanding the teaching of

Buddha is the emotional purity. It is difficult to describe,
considering how rare a thing it is in this world, but essentially,
emotional purity is the ability to experience emotions that are clear,
pertinent to the object of contemplation, do not form attachments,
are not governed by personal interest or benefit, and have their root
in the general, universal concept of goodness and virtue. This
means that a person of pure emotions will do good because it's the
right thing to do – not because of its perceived usefulness. Such a
person will feel love for the good and the beautiful, but this love
does not turn into a need for control and possession. Basically, this
means that such a person will feel an aesthetic pleasure from
seeing a beautiful house, a beautiful car or a beautiful woman,
regardless of the fact that he does not have any personal claim on
them, and will feel no envy towards those who do.
The aesthetic sense of a pure person will therefore be independent

of ownership or possession – to such a person, a beautiful car is a
beautiful car, regardless of the owner. A man of impure emotions
will perceive a beautiful car as ugly if it is owned by his enemy, or
call a beautiful woman ugly if she is not his. He will call truth a lie
if he is envious to the one who states it. The pure emotions are free
from such egotistical colorations. When a person of pure emotions
wishes to say that he dislikes someone, he will not criticize his car,
house, wife, children and pets by association, but will instead
recognize the exact thing he dislikes and state it in clear terms.
Such an attitude, among other things, results from a Buddhist
analysis, which separates emotions from their objects, and attempts
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to clarify the thought-space.
Buddhism is therefore the way of gradual increase of purity,

clarity, detachment and spiritual accuracy. Buddhism is not a
magic wand: there is no baptism, or a savior to redeem your sins.
Your personal purity is your job; none can redeem you from it, nor
would you want him to. Buddha can show you the dharma, but the
entire job of developing virtues and removing flaws is up to you.
One could say it's an elitist teaching. Of course it is. There is an

equality of beings in suffering, but not all are capable of ending the
suffering. According to the Buddhist teaching, suffering is simply
inevitable for the beings until they develop sufficient sense to
perceive the problem and apply the solution. Before one manages
to establish the nature of his attachments, he will consider them his
assets, and if one were to attempt taking them away from him, he
would react with fear, repulsion and aggression. An immature soul
sees no problem in the binding things that cause suffering, and sees
suffering merely as an undesirable peripheral thing that
accompanies the process of fulfillment of desires, a thing that can
surely be avoided if he does better the next time. The immature
beings, therefore, see suffering as something that happens to the
“losers”, the ones who are not skilled enough to avoid it, and after
each failed life in the quicksand of the world they rush back into
this very quicksand, thinking they will now do better, that they will
avoid making the same mistakes, avoid suffering and attain
pleasure. This, of course, never happens, because suffering is
inherent to the very nature of the world and to the functioning of
karma, but the immature beings fail to understand that. They think
that suffering is a result of failure, either their own or someone
else's.
Of course, as it usually happens when an elitist teaching is

transformed into a religion of the masses, the original Buddhist
concepts were too sophisticated for the main body of its followers,
who didn't know what to begin with this theory. In formulation of
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his teaching, Buddha targeted the small number of the sufficiently

advanced disciples who will be able to understand the teaching of
nirvana, and started a monastic order. I sincerely doubt he ever had
the intention of creating a massive religion in which the majority
of the followers will practice a few rituals and call themselves
Buddhists. I likewise doubt that Jesus intended to create a religion
whose first association at the mention of his resurrection is the
Easter bunny. Still, the logic of things happened to produce those
end results.
Transformation of the four elements and their cessation in vajra is

an extremely intangible and esoteric concept which only a few
enlightened ones experienced. Those who have gone through the
process cannot explain it to those who have not, because it is a
qualitative transformation of consciousness, not a spiritual
experience. A spiritual experience is, for instance, when you go
through a tunnel towards the light and then you see a spiritual
being. This experience can have a transformational quality, but it is
essentially just an experience, which means you are the same
person before and after. But vajra is something entirely other. In
the context of spirituality, vajra is like expecting a Santa Claus
bearing gifts, who will communicate with you on some common
emotional grounds, in a “good-bad” context, and instead you are
turned into an alien with a completely different hardware for
producing emotions, with no glands producing hormones that
cause the feelings you are used to, and everything is completely
different from anything you have ever read about or heard of, and
no “spiritual teacher” you know had ever mentioned it; there is no
love, no religious concepts, but there are things you see for the first
time, for which you don't have names, compared to which the
human emotions and thoughts are but fog compared to a mountain
made of bright hard diamond illuminated by inner lightning which
is the diamond, the diamond and the lightning are the same
substance, described in different analogies. Instead of thought and
emotion, you experience hard clear light of consciousness without
thought or emotion, with hardness, width and clarity of awareness
impossible to human experience, and if you could think, it would
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be along the lines of “Dorothy, this ain't Kansas anymore, but it's
not the Oz you expected, either”.
But you can't make a human religion out of that. Buddha was smart
and didn't even try. He provided instructions to attain it, and that
was essentially the best thing he could have done. But after a few
centuries, where he wisely stopped, the others filled the vacuum by
creating a religion around human emotionality, explaining the “true
meaning” of Buddha's teaching, in reality rescinding and
supplanting it with a derivative of late Vedanta. This is how
Mahayana came into existence.
Mahayana is, basically, “Buddhism for the masses”, which, despite

being a product for mass consumption, tickles the ego of the
followers by presenting itself as the true, deepest teaching of
Buddha, hidden from the sight of all but the rare most profoundly
initiated individuals.
The following characteristics are usually attributed to the teaching

of mahayana:
• universalism; the concept according to which all beings

will attain nirvana, because nirvana is thought to be
inherent to all beings;
• bodhisattva; the concept according to which the arhat (an
enlightened Buddha) is not the final goal of the spiritual
evolution but only a transitional step toward the state of
bodhisattva, who because of his compassion for all beings
chooses to be reborn within samsara until all beings attain
nirvana;
• upaya (opportunistic approach); attitude according to
which all means and opportunities can be used for
attaining the enlightenment;
• introduction of a complex hierarchy of the heavenly
worlds and forms of prayer, intercession and blessing; the
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concept of liberation by one's own effort is considered

unattainable and is discarded, and in its place a more
pleasant and widely acceptable concept of salvation and
saviors is introduced;
• introduction of the indestructible atman, under a different
name - “Buddha nature”, which is inherent to all beings.
Buddhahood is therefore completely redefined, from a
qualitatively new state which only the rare few can
develop, to an universally present state which is latent in
all, and merely needs to be revealed;
• enlightenment is defined as prajña paramita, a state of
enlightened insight where one's own nature is recognized
as “Buddha nature”, which is essentially identical to the
concept of recognizing atman as brahman in the state of
samadhi.
So basically, mahayana is something that only looks like

Buddhism, and is in fact a combination of Vedanta and all the
rationalizations on the theme of “why it's not good or possible to
attain enlightenment” and “how to make attachment look like like
a more virtuous choice than liberation”. So let us answer the
teaching of mahayana with orderly arguments.
First, the concept of the universal potential for attaining nirvana is

completely non-Buddhist. If nirvana were an inherent reality of
beings, then we could discuss it, but in Buddhism it is utterly out
of the question. Buddhism clearly states that suffering is the
inherent reality of the beings, and the true nature of their existence.
Nirvana is the product of the highest level of maturity, not a
discovery of something that was always there, but unknown. As an
analogy, it can be said that nirvana is the state where a ripe peach
falls from the tree; to talk about a ripe peach as something that is
somehow present in the hidden form in a flower of peach is an
error. The inherent reality of all beings is samsara, the eternal
wheel of birth and death driven by attachments and projections,
made of the substance of suffering.
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Second, the teaching of Buddha does not recognize the concept of

bodhisattva and is actually quite opposite. Any kind of
rationalization that postpones entering nirvana is to be rejected.
Nirvana is the uncertain goal of infinite value, which is easily
missed and it is quite unlikely that another opportunity will present
itself in a next life. The opportunity for attaining enlightenment
rarely presents itself, and is to be taken immediately. The concept
of renouncing nirvana in order to guide other beings within
samsara is utter folly. This is so because a being which didn't go
through the process of transformation into vajra, which had not
been formed by the process of cessation of the four elements into
vajra, a being which is not nirvana within the samsara, has no
ability whatsoever to lead the others to nirvana. His quality of
consciousness is essentially the same as the other beings in
samsara, and attempt to guide them would be like blind leading the
blind. Besides, any such attempt can be colored by egotism, which
the desire for leading others usually is, as much as this egotism can
be masked and presented as generosity, humility and compassion.
This is either a result or a cause of impurity of the four elements of
the spiritual substance, which negates the possibility of
enlightenment. Likewise, unless one entered nirvana, by going
through the process of transformation of one's own spiritual
substance, he cannot state without a doubt that his level of
attainment is truly the very edge of nirvana and not just some
illusion on the very beginning of the path. Furthermore, since all of
dharma is made of the tangential escape from the samsara, it is not
possible to teach dharma unless you happen to embody it, by being
on a tangent away from the samsara. The conclusion is that the
entire concept of bodhisattva is completely wrong, and that any
kind of diversion from nirvana, no matter how well rationalized
into a form of compassion, is spiritual decline and fall, and is an
aspect of samsaric behavior. Bodhisattva, a concept of a teacher of
the world which teaches dharma without entering nirvana, is a
complete error in understanding. Only the fullness of nirvana
which is present within samsara can function as a magnet which
attracts other beings into nirvana. Only the perfect Buddha, the
arhat who is pure vajra, can in some form of connection between
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samsara and nirvana (vajrasattva, vajrapani and padmasambhava)

manifest the perfect nature of dharma. Before one is initiated into
vajra, teaching means losing coherence of one's own karmic
substance, and, likely, spiritual dissociation. So not only that the
“path of bodhisattva” doesn't accelerate one on the path towards
enlightenment, it actually produces the spiritual death of the
practitioner, whose soul will lose integrity if it forms strong
connections with others before initiation into vajra. Only by
initiation into vajra does one attain the higher order of spiritual
substance, defining one's existence in a medium that is an order of
magnitude above the basic four elements, and attaining
independence of the states of the four elements, which remain to be
used only as a means of continued physical existence in order to
instruct others. Only a guru made of vajra, vajracarya, possesses
distance from the momenta of energy introduced by the students,
distance that in fact saves him from being compromised and
having his spiritual core broken. The unenlightened ones should
therefore never engage in guru-student relationships, because it is
absolutely fatal.
Third, the concept of spiritual opportunism, in a sense of using all

the means at your disposal, is essentially correct, but it also leaves
an abundance of room for calling all sorts of binding things and
disciplines the instruments of salvation, so it needs to be taken with
a grain of salt.
Fourth, of Buddha really thought that prayer, intercessions of the

saints, blessing of the bodhisattvas and similar methods could
produce nirvana, he would surely have mentioned it somewhere.
Instead, he stated that enlightenment is attained solely and
exclusively by one's own efforts, and by no external influence.
Enlightenment is the result of inner spiritual transformation and
has nothing to do with the external influences. Rebirth in this or
some other world is equally irrelevant, like prayers, intercession or
curses. Buddha attained enlightenment despite being cursed,
attacked and showered by illusions of Mara and all his demons.
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Therefore, the external forces are irrelevant for enlightenment and

reliance on them is a delusion and an aberration.
Fifth, if Buddha nature were indeed latently present as the nature

of all beings, then Buddha would have said so, instead of stating
the exact opposite: that there is nothing eternal in the beings, that
they are the karmic aggregations and that enlightenment is a
completely new element, accessible only to the rare mature
persons. The concept of the pervasive Buddha nature that resides
in all beings is a result of introduction of the elements of the
mature Vedanta into Buddhism, which closes a circle of a sort,
where the early Vedanta “borrowed” the concept of karma from the
early Buddhism and developed its own theory around it, and the
late Buddhism adopts the elements of this theory which it
recognizes as an improvement, but not understanding their
essential difference from the original teaching of Buddha. Vedanta
and Buddhism thus coalesce, forming hybrid branches and
offshoots, most significant of which are vajrayana, the school of
tantric Buddhism which was originally brought to Tibet, Bhutan
and the surrounding areas by the monk Padmasambhava, and the
Advaita Vedanta simultaneously preached by Shankaracharya
across India. This period on the one hand represents the very
crown of human thought, and on the other hand it is a period of
mixing of the original philosophies beyond recognition of each,
where every hybrid considers itself the “true, authentic, eternal and
original knowledge”, as it usually happens with those things. So
the concept of atman was introduced into Buddhism, but under a
different name, because Buddha happened to teach against the
concept of atman, so taking it under its Vedantic name was out of
the question, and so the “Buddha nature” was born.
Sixth, redefining the enlightenment into attaining insight instead of

a transformation of the karmic mass is a serious problem, and
unlike the previous point, where a hybridization of Vedanta and
Buddhism produced some interesting and good consequences, here
the consequences were mostly bad. Instead of a systematic
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investment of effort towards transformation, a haphazard concept

of zen-enlightenment is introduced for the first time in history, in a
meaning of sudden realization, like a lightning that breaks across
the night sky. Of course, it is a result of introduction of the concept
of atman/brahman into Buddhism, under a different guise, because
only in this context does this concept of piercing the superficial
consciousness in order to reveal the underlying depths make any
sense. In Vedanta and Yoga it is called samadhi, the realization of
atman as brahman, but Buddha, even if he knows about brahman,
and by all indications he does, intentionally refuses to talk about
the experience of brahman as important, because it is merely a
distraction. An experience of brahman has no influence on
karman, since it transcends it completely. Karman remains
uninfluenced by the experience, all the karmic energy is still here,
it's neither consumed nor gone, and returning from the experience
one finds that karman is not “gone, all gone”, in the words of
prajñaparamita hrdayasutra, but consciousness was merely
temporarily displaced from karman into a “place” where karman
never was, into the transcendental brahman which “neither acts,
nor causes action”, in the words of Krishna. But this brahman
exists simultaneously with karman, and one does not negate the
other. Karman cannot be switched off into nonexistence by some
trick of consciousness, but needs to be transformed into vajra,
which is the only thing that matters and the only guarantee of
liberation. Entering the state of brahman provides a unique
perspective, but it does not produce transformation of
consciousness, nor does it provide a qualitative leap of evolution
that would take one out of the worldly circle. Karman is that which
is reborn, not atman/brahman, and that which is reborn needs to be
transformed, and one should not rely on tricks and experiences.
In any attempt to form a hybrid between Vedanta and Buddhism

one should therefore have in mind that they are not the same
teaching and that they do not say the same things “in different
words”. Vedanta speaks of the transcendental brahman and
Buddhism speaks of karma and the conditions that make it possible
to attain liberation from the circle of birth and death. Those two
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truths are not incompatible, but their improper mixture can result
in the loss of truth and clarity in either.
Mahayana considers itself a generous, broad teaching, a “big

wagon” into which all beings can fit, unlike the “small wagon” of
Buddhism into which only the select few fit. In reality, the classical
Buddhism has a realistic idea on how to attain the only goal worth
attaining. Mahayana doesn't even understand this goal to begin
with (with the exception of the vajrayana schools which have a
very good understanding); failing to understand it, it supplants it
with another goal (zen-enlightenment), which is also beyond reach
for the majority of its adherents, and instead of all that it introduces
the temples, priests and ceremonies in hope that someone's
intercession or blessing will save you, because they clearly don't
know how to help you in any way other than by instructing you
how to turn the pray-o-mats 1 and put their hopes in the compassion
of the saints. In the meantime, their saints think something along
the lines of “Ah, after a million lives I reached the brink of
nirvana. I attained liberation from all attachments and the
transformation of the karmic aggregate that makes my personality
has begun. I realize that my entire personality used to consist of the
karmic substance, of four elements bound into compounds, which
are now dissolved into vajra without remainder. But alas, the
horror! An euglena2 in the puddle of water beside me suffers due to
its hopeless love for some paramecium 3 or another. Seeing its
suffering, I understand that I need to return into the world and
remain there until all the euglenae attain buddhahood. I will
intentionally stupefy myself in order not to understand that new
euglenae keep forming due to the source of karmic substance being
inexhaustible, making the ocean of samsara interminable. I will
intentionally stupefy myself in order not to understand that
rejecting nirvana means to spit into the face of Buddha and his
teaching, which stated that it is the only thing worth attaining. In
the point where the four elements coalesce into vajra, I will listen
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_prayer_wheel
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euglena
3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramecium
78
Mahayana
to my heart, the fourth of the four elements, thus establishing an

attachment/desire on this element, and reject nirvana, thus forming
a karmically binding decision which will bind my karmic body
with unforeseeable consequences. But when I see the euglena
suffering for the paramecium of his desire and lusting after its
pulsating vacuoles, desiring to join her and exchange cytoplasm, I
understand that my decision to reject nirvana in order to feed my
attachment to the beings is of the exactly the same silly quality as
its fixation on the paramecium, and I decide I should enter nirvana
instead, but since I already made a karmically binding decision on
my peak energy level, now I can proceed to fuck myself because I
no longer have this order of magnitude of energy at my disposal,
and it is no longer possible for me to rescind this magnitude of
choice.”
In short, there is a name which Buddha used for the “great wagon”.
He used to call it “samsara”.
79
The spiritual cosmology
80
The Buddhist cosmology is often confusing and consists of

guesswork based on unreliable interpretations of some words of
the Buddha, synthesized by taking things out of different contexts,
perhaps taking analogy and metaphor as literal truth. The later
elaborations attempt to unite this patchwork into a sensible
cosmological system, but with limited success, in my opinion.
The most important aspect of the Buddhist cosmological theory is

vertical stratification, or classification of the worlds by the level of
spiritual subtlety of their inhabitants.
Vertical distance between the worlds (or spiritual strata, if you

want) is not measurable as actual physical distance, but as a
difference between the spiritual states. Surely, this concept was too
abstract for some people, so they added a distance in yojanas from
the Earth in the descriptions of such “worlds”. This is particularly
ludicrous considering those worlds are not physical. Stratification
of the worlds is therefore of the kind similar to the stratification of
the wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum: if Buddha knew
about the concept of light as a wave, he would probably have used
a parable with white light and its separation into rainbow by using
a prism. Still, we should have in mind that the Buddhist cosmology
is, for the most part, superstition, nonsense and guesswork, and
that the truth must be sought in the general concepts and not in the
details.
Before I attempt to introduce some semblance of order into this

chaos, I will make a short synthesis of the Buddhist vertical
cosmology. It is important to know that all those worlds are in the
realm of the four elements, below vajra, or liberation. Hinduism
would call them the layers of Prakrti:
The sphere of the formless (arupyadhatu) lacks any spatial

location but it is the domain of the greatest subtlety of experiences
of the gods who attained the state of absorption into the formless
by means of arupajhana meditation (which basically means
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“meditation on the formless” so this doesn't give us much

information about the actual contents of the practice). This sphere
is further divided into four basic areas or aspects:
• area of neither perception nor lack of perception

• area of nonexistence
• area of limitless awareness
• area of endless space
The sphere of form (rupadhatu) is substantial, which means that

it has spatial location and some kind of substantiality. Between 17
and 22 areas are mentioned within the sphere of form. The beings
in those areas are not subject to the extremes of pleasure and pain
like the beings of the lower sphere of kamadhatu, nor are they
separated into genders. When a being from the rupadhatu sphere,
such as Brahma, wishes to visit a being in the kamadhatu sphere,
he needs to take a more coarse form, in order to manifest his
presence within this sphere and become visible to its residents.
Like the sphere of the formless, it is further divided into aspects or
areas, according to the defining types of meditation. Those
meditations are, of course, coarser and more common. Within this
sphere and unrelated to the other divisions there is a segment
called śuddhavasa, “the pure abode”, which is not the residence of
ordinary beings which happened to find themselves there because
of their merits or meditative achievements, but exclusively the
followers of dharma on the path toward arhanthood, who attained
a state which renders them free from the requirement of
reincarnation on the lower planes of existence. They proceed with
their spiritual development from here.
The sphere of desires (kamadhatu) is inhabited by the beings

which differ by the degree of happiness, but they are all under the
authority of Mara and are bound by the sensual desires, which
causes their suffering. The sphere of kamadhatu has its peak in
form of the pleasurable worlds which are the abode of the devas,
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the lower “gods”, which could actually be better described as the

benevolent demons. This is the equivalent of svarga from the
Vedas, the heavenly abode of Indra. It is divided into the following
layers:
• Parinirmita-vaśavartin is the abode of the devas who have

the power over the creations of others
• Nirmanarati is the abode of the devas who enjoy their own
creations
• Tusita is the abode of the “joyous devas”, where
boddhisattvas supposedly reside before their physical
incarnation
• Yama is the “heaven with no conflict”, where devas live
free in the air, and which is closest to the Earth
Below that, but still within the sphere of kamadhatu, there is the
area of the mountain Sumeru, which is the abode of all kinds of
mythological beings that nobody ever sees but it was probably
considered blasphemous to say that they don't exist at all. This is
therefore the imaginary zoo inhabited by faeries, dwarves, nymphs,
dragons, goblins and similar beings.
Below the mountain of Sumeru there is Earth, the world of men,

and if someone has a problem accepting the literal veracity of the
above descriptions, it would suffice for him to take a look at the
silly and mythological descriptions of the parts of this world,
which at least should fall in the domain of verifiable fact, in order
to see without a doubt how much of fiction and pure mythology
must surely be present in the descriptions of the higher worlds.
Basically, the Earth is described as a mountain ring that circles
around the mount Sumeru in the center of the world, around which
the Sun and the Moon revolve. This mountain ring is limited by the
vast ocean, which fills most of the world. Around this ocean there
is a wall of mountain called Cakravada, which defines the
horizontal limit of the world. Within this ocean, there are four
83
continents like small islands.
Below the Earth there is hell, naraka, where the evil beings suffer
for their sins. With this ends the sphere of kamadhatu.
So basically Buddhism knows three main spheres of the world:
• formless sphere
• sphere of form
• sphere of desire
The lesson we must draw from reading those descriptions is that

they are more metaphor than geography. The experiences of the
higher worlds are so rare, fragmented and sensitive to distortion by
the physical body which interprets the experience in order for it to
be verbalized, that the descriptions are more of a figment of
imagination and guesswork than some objective presentation of
reality.
There are similar, parallel “spiritual cosmologies”, like those of the

Theosophy and the Rosicrucianism, but they share the same
problems; what is common to all of them is the concept of spiritual
stratification according to subtlety and refinement, and an attempt
to arrange the system according to some rational pattern, but
anything more precise than that is usually interpolated.
Vedanta is different from those system in that its cosmology is

intentionally rudimentary. Shankaracharya divides the objects of
experience and the levels of subtlety into sthula (coarse), sukshma
(subtle) and karana (causal). The coarse world is this material one,
with the material senses and their objects. The subtle world is
divided into two basic segments: manasic, which is lower, and
buddhic, which is higher. The manasic layer is what the
rosicrucians and theosophists would call “astral world”, and
buddhists the sphere of desire. The buddhic layer is what the
84
theosophists would call the “mental level”, and buddhists the

sphere of form. In some interpretations of Vedanta, the causal layer
is partially equivalent to the formless sphere of Buddhism, but
there is no direct equivalence; it is, basically, what Vedanta
considers to be the karmic body, which contains the causally
reactive karma which causes rebirth. The schools of Yoga and
Vedanta believe that those karmic seeds (karmashayas) can be
“roasted” by knowledge and thus rendered inactive.
In short, if anyone thought that there is a “traditional division” of

the levels of reality, he probably knows better now. There is not
one, but many, and the chaos and silliness of it all shows that
nobody really knows anything with any degree of certainty; it's all
mostly guesswork based on a few basic principles everybody
mostly agrees on. What they agree on is the concept of vertical
stratification depending on spiritual subtlety, and that's more less it.
My approach to all that was “be informed about everything, but
accept only what you can confirm in practice, and even that only as
a framework of terminology and a working model”, which is on
the line of Buddha's recommendation not to accept things based on
authority, but only after you confirmed it by thought and
experience as true, good and useful.
Besides, Buddha had a very good antidote for the excessive

intellectualizations about origin and nature of the world and the
desire to number all kinds of levels and sublevels. He said
something along these lines: “If you are struck by an arrow, will
you immediately go to a doctor to take it out, or will you first try to
establish the archer's city of origin, his caste, number of his
children, name of the maker of his bow, name if the maker of his
shoes, how many cows does he have, how much milk do they
yield, does he make cheese or butter from the milk, and similar
nonsense? While you waste time trying to find out all those
unimportant things, you will die from your wound. So the facts are
that you are who you are, you have a problem, I'm telling you the
solution, and you can either practice the solution until your
85
enlightenment, or you can waste your time asking me about

nonsense such as how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. If
you have time to ask about trivia you are obviously not taking this
shit seriously.”
He used to deal with the questions such as “what happens to

Buddha after he dies”, “is there a Creator”, “is soul different or
identical to the body” in a similar manner. He would simply remain
silent. There is a good reason for that: whatever he answered,
people would misunderstand and form dangerous, binding ideas. If
there is a Creator, he is certainly not what people can imagine, so a
Boolean yes/no answer is in fact wrong. You can imagine Buddha
facepalming when people asked him things along the lines of “are
there birds in heaven”. Any answer would actually confirm some
idiotic preconception, and would therefore be false. He therefore
remained silent, and his silence is correctly interpreted as “you are
asking the wrong questions”. The correct question would be “what
am I misunderstanding about God, soul, myself and the world”.
This is the true problem: the anthropomorphic concepts people
can't seem to get rid of, which create an obstacle in any attempt to
understand the spiritual realities.
86
Vipassana, the kalapas and
the four elements
87
Buddha's thinking reveals his lack of interest for the hypothetical

things and vague philosophy. He dealt with concrete and exact
things. He set a diagnosis for the human condition, prescribed
therapy, provided intellectually clear answers and dispelled the
nonsense that was abundant in the thoughtspace of the time. A
logical question arises: did Buddha think that enlightenment is
attainable by purely intellectual means, or did he integrate some of
the practical aspects of yoga and meditation into his teaching,
because his years as an ascetic must have given him some degree
of expertise?
The answer is, as usual, twofold. On the one hand, Shakyamuni

found the limits of the ascetic practices and managed to attain real
results only after making a radical leap away from this concept. On
the other hand, when he parted ways with the ascetic practice, he
didn't really renounce the ascetic principles altogether, and he
continued to live as a beggar-monk. Likewise, if you were to ask
him whether asceticism and yoga can lead to enlightenment, he
would have said no, thus disowning the practices that were usually
thought of as the instruments of spiritual progress in his time. That
said, at the same time he founded a new spiritual practice of awake
and distanced observation of the mechanisms of creating,
discreating and reforming of the mental structures, known by the
name of vipassana.
Vipassana is different from the Patañjali's theory of yoga in about

the same way as the Einstein's theory of corpuscularity of the
photons and the photoelectric effect differs from the Newton's
theory of light as a wave phenomenon. Patañjali defines
consciousness as a sum of the wave functions, the oscillations
(vrtti) that disturb the mindstuff (citta), and all phenomena within
consciousness are defined in a way in which the modern acoustic
theory defines sound – both speech, noise and music are defined as
waveforms made by summation of the vibrations of various
frequencies, an example of which you can see if you open a .wav
file in a sound editor and look at the visual representation of the
88
Vipassana, the kalapas and the four elements
waveform that defines the sound, and produces the sound once it
has been converted into an electric signal which drives a magnet
which produces the mechanical vibrations of the speaker, which in
turn produce the vibrations of the surrounding medium. The sound
is therefore a synthetic phenomenon, consisting of the various
frequencies, volume and duration. Patañjali sees the phenomena
within consciousness in a similar way, as a synthetic waveform,
which defines transparency, or opacity, of the mindstuff to
atman/brahman.
Buddha's vipassana, however, has a completely corpuscular view

of the phenomena, seeing them as reducible to fundamental
particles. Where Patañjali sees waveforms, Buddha sees the
fundamental particles of extremely short lifespan, but whose entire
energy, upon decay, is spent in formation of the new particles.
Such a particle, named kalapa, dies to give birth to new particles,
according to the laws of conservation of energy and momentum.
Such a mechanism perpetuates the momenta both within
consciousness and within the material world, creating the complex
compounds and phenomena. The model formulated by Buddha is
not to be understood as pertaining to the superficial level of atoms
and molecules, but rather on the more profound level of a
mathematical formulation of the quantum vacuum.1
Unlike the modern physics, which strictly separates the quantum

phenomena of matter and the phenomenon of human
consciousness, which is seen as an emergent phenomenon several
degrees of separation away, on an electrochemical level, Buddha
postulates something that I recognize as a quantum theory of
consciousness. According to this theory, the functioning of both
matter and consciousness is explained with the common model of
the kalapas, or the fundamental particles which you can call
bosons if you prefer, which create the appearance of the totality of
1 http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16095-its-confirmed-matter-is-
merely-vacuum-fluctuations.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_state
89
the material and spiritual reality with their continuity of

appearance, disappearance and expenditure of energy into creation
of other phenomena, going in and out of existence in
infinitesimally small units of time.
Kalapas are incredibly small particles, of quantum dimensions, and

despite occasionally being called “atoms” I think that they are
more compatible with the definition of the photons and perhaps,
more generally, the bosons. Buddha thinks that kalapas exist in
several basic types, divided according to the elements and their
tendencies. The kalapas form compounds, but in a way that is
more consistent with the way in which the quantum fluctuations of
the vacuum, according to some theories, form the more permanent
particles such as protons, than in a way that most people might find
easier to understand, by gluing particles together into larger
structures. Let's put it this way: Buddha had a good idea about how
those things work, but an exact mathematical formulation of these
phenomena was beyond him, and I personally don't fare much
better, so I will follow his example and keep using the simplified
imagery. Essentially, if you disturb the quantum field, particles
containing the energy of the disturbance pop in and out of
existence along the waveform path of the disturbance.
The theory of the kalapas is closely connected with the theory of

the four elements, which, according to Buddha, are the
fundamental constituents of matter. Of course, those four elements
aren't even close to being as silly a concept as most scientifically
educated people might think at first glance. The four elements are
earth, water, fire and air.
Let me stop your expected reaction there: those names are a visual
metaphor, not literal truth. A man who was smart enough to
formulate a theory, 2500 years ago, that is not significantly
different than the modern physical theory of the quantum
fluctuations of the vacuum, was not so silly as to think that fire is
an element. He knew that fire was a complex interaction of
90
different kinds of matter, not an element. When he talks about fire

as an element, he has something completely different in mind,
something that unites the phenomena on the quantum level of the
material universe, with the spiritual phenomena and states.
The element of earth is, rather, a state of “materiality”, inertia of

existence, continuity and tangibility. “Earth” as an element is
closest to the definition of the Higgs boson; it is the difference
between the sum of short-lived particles and a single long-lived
particle such as a proton or a neutron, which can continue existing
for the order of magnitude of 10 35 years. Having in mind that the
current age of the Universe is in the order of magnitude of 10 10
years, you can get the picture. So “earth” is this factor of stability
and permanence of particles and phenomena.
The element of water can be described as “interactivity” or

“cohesion”. Water would be the interactions – strong and weak
nuclear, electromagnetism and, perhaps, gravity.
The element of fire is energy, radiance, radiation. All form of

radiation and propagation of energy are fire, so one could say that
the stars function by producing the element of “fire”, the radiation,
from the element of “water”, the interactivity that initiates the
nuclear fusion.
The element of air is probably the most difficult one to describe,

since I manage to observe it foremost as a spiritual phenomenon of
the expanse of space, and if I had to map it onto some fundamental
physical phenomenon, it would be the cosmological constant 1, or
the inherent spatiotemporal expansiveness of Space.
Those four elements can be observed in both microscopic and

macroscopic scale, for instance the “fire” can be observed in both
nuclear reactions and the processes of oxidation, wherever energy
is released and radiated, and “earth” can be observed in both
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_constant
91
permanence of the protons and firmness of a rock. They can

likewise be observed in spiritual processes, which are essentially
made on the same fundamental elements as the physical Universe,
and reflect the same principles. Buddha observes that within the
fluctuations of our own spirit we can observe the same fluctuation
of the kalapas that continuously creates, dissolves and recreates the
material Universe, because the fundamental building blocks of the
world and of the mind are the same.1
Some interpretations of Buddhism state that this means reducibility

of spirit to matter, while the other interpretations state that it means
reducibility of matter to spirit. Buddha himself chose to answer
such questions with silence. 2 This is so because both statements
contain faulty assumptions. If someone asks you if an airplane is
kind of an automobile or a kind of submarine, what will you
answer? Buddha formulated the new teaching about the kalapas
and the impermanence of the compounds, and this teaching needs
to be understood. This understanding will have a result of seeing
our original position about matter and spirit as wrong. Buddha's
teaching about the kalapas is no mere theory, however. It is
accompanied by the practical discipline of vipassana, which I am
about to explain.
The basic technique of vipassana can be nothing more than sitting

peacefully, feeling one's body deeply on a level similar to that of
the autogenous training, and observing the mental processes in
their impermanence and conditioning. This means that you observe
the emotions and thoughts coming and going, and in the process
giving birth to new emotions and thoughts. This is recognized as a
manifestation of the same basic principle that creates and dissolves
all other compounds. In all that, one observes that none of the
thoughts and emotions that come and go is “self”, that selfness is
not defined in those phenomena. Observing them from a witness
viewpoint, one attains progress in spiritual qualities (parami), for
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14_unanswerable_questions
92
instance by distancing oneself from the passions and desires, and,

most important of all, one spends the karmically reactive substance
which is inherent to the observed compounds. The position of a
detached observer, who feels but doesn't react, creates both
progress in the quality of ksanti and, through the experience of
suffering which is a consequence of observing the traumatic and
stressful experiences from his unconscious self unraveling in his
consciousness, he spends the traumatic cohesive material of such
karmic compounds, thus allowing them to be dissolved into
individual kalapas and transformed. This gradually processes and
transforms his spiritual body, from a state of dramatic whirlpool-
like passions and traumas, into a calm, coherent ocean of spirit, as
the momentum of the whirlpools is spent by suffering, without
forming a reaction that would release the momentum into creating
a new whirlpool, according to the basic principle of samsara.
When the concept of self is separated from the kalapas, one

discovers the possibility to influence the substance of what he
previously thought of as “self” as he would any other external
thing. When you attain the position of a distanced observer, your
thoughts and feelings are seen as no more “you” than your clothes
or other possession. When you think of something as “you”, you
hold on to it with fear for the continuity of your personal existence.
The Buddhist practice of detachment and distance allows you to
abstract the self from the transient phenomena, and eventually, the
attainment of the final goal of liberation.
Such a Buddhist version of yoga produces essentially the same

results as the one of Patañjali – energy of the whirlpools within
consciousness, produced by the self-propagating tensions, is
absorbed and spent, thus calming and homogenizing the spiritual
substance. On the levels of both theory and practice, it is apparent
that the difference between the yogas of Patañjali and Buddha is
more a matter of explanatory imagery and viewpoint, than actual
practice, where the differences are insignificant. The most useful
thing that can be learned from the difference between the two
93
approaches is that they help form a very good stereo image of the
anatomy and behavior of the spiritual substance. A yogi who
understands the behavior of his consciousness from both
perspectives has a greater chance of forming a correct
understanding of the issues and attaining the results, compared to
someone who looks from only one viewpoint and has a greater
chance of missing the point, thinking that something is a metaphor
or a thought experiment. Exactly the opposite: it's a technique of
transformation, a method that can be visualized as taking entangled
and dirty wool freshly shorn off a sheep and transforming it into a
clean, orderly yarn.
A particularly important thing about the vipassana meditation is

observing the inherent painfulness of the experience. Practically
everything that crosses your mind during the practice contains
suffering, trauma and spiritual discomfort, all of which need to be
calmly spent and suffered through. This meekness and patience in
suffering is the mechanism we use for accelerating the process of
“spending karma”, because simultaneously with the endurance of
suffering arise the new insights that become possible only after the
entangled fleece of karma has been disentangled and purified.
“Spending karma” with a method of vipassana is therefore not just
garbage disposal, as Jainism and New Age would let you believe,
but also a process of opening up towards the experience and the
knowledge that is bound together with pain, and if we calmly
suffer and endure the pain, not retaliating, the other side of the pain
of the karmic disentanglement is revealed, and it is wisdom and
knowledge.
I knew a man who said of himself that he walks the path of

bodhisattva, by taking painful karma from other people, the things
they themselves were disinclined to work through, considering it a
grave ordeal. He would take such karmic blocks onto himself, and
his technique of yoga consisted of simply suffering through it, to
experience the spiritual trauma that is bound into the structure and
is released during its dissociation, and the result would be the
94
integration of the sum of the kalapas from the karmic blocks into
his own spiritual body, making his “ego” grow and attain
increasing complexity and ability to comprehend the spiritual
realities and truths. Practice of such a discipline enables a yogi to
develop many abilities that would have eluded him, had he opted
for an easier path. For instance, one develops great endurance for
unpleasant and traumatic experiences, as well as the ability to
endure grave spiritual blows, which are inevitable to an advanced
practitioner in any case. Furthermore, one develops the ability to
directly perceive the spiritual energetics, which is a rare skill, since
most people understand such things only symbolically and from a
greater distance, and perception of the spiritual structures directly
on the level of kalapas, or vrtti, belongs to the level of skill that
only a few expert yogis possess, mostly because the experience is
painful, chaotic and destructive for the ways in which people
perceive both reality and their own personality.
I talked to this Buddhist yogi some sixteen years ago (around

1998) in order to compare our respective techniques, and having
learned about my technique of the inner space and up-stream kriya
he concluded that they operate on the same principles he uses in
transformation of karma, with a slight difference in technical
realization, since I use the Kundalini-whirlpools to accelerate the
dissociation of the compound structures into their basic
constituents, while he uses compassion through which he identifies
with the karma in question and opens him up towards the suffering
it contains. Since similar opening and integration is one of the
main elements of my technique, which does the same thing until
the point where kriya is activated in surrender to the higher
consciousness, I conclude that vipassana, if practiced by an expert
and skilled practitioner such as my colleague at the time, is
principally equivalent to the technique I developed through
experience and effort. My technique contains all the aspects of
vipassana, but joined together with the Kundalini-energetics which
reduces the directness of contact between the traumatic content and
the consciousness, and accelerates the dissociation of the harmful
contents with a focused contact with the energies of the higher
95
order. Nevertheless, my colleague was familiar with the concepts

of the higher and lower orders of energy, so I have to conclude that
there are no significant differences between the techniques that
really work, because the skilled practitioners improvise the tools
necessary in order to overcome the difficulties. In any case, an
effective technique of yoga appears to be something that is
eventually developed by any true seeker of enlightenment, since
the means seem to be spontaneously crystallized from sufficient
spiritual focus, like the diamonds are crystallized when graphite is
exposed to sufficient pressure. A technique of yoga is therefore a
fruit of spiritual labor, and not its prerequisite.
96
Death and rebirth
97
One of the most common objections faced by Buddhism is the

perception of its goal, nirvana, as a negative state, an extinction of
consciousness and all positive aspects of experience, which indeed
does solve the problem of suffering, but in such a way that it
throws out the baby with the bath water, so to say. Buddhism is
therefore perceived as a system that strives for the state of no
suffering, but also no soul, eternity, happiness or goodness, either.
People who think like that usually reject Buddhism as a philosophy

and a worldview and instead opt for some system like Yoga or
Vedanta, which contains more-less all Buddhist concepts related to
karma, but also recognizes the atman/brahman as a positive
principle of human experience, understanding the goal as ultimate
recognition of brahman as one's true identity.
This objection to Buddhism is actually valid in part. A solid

number of practitioners perceives Buddhism exactly in the
negative way that is pointed out and criticized by Shankaracharya,
and from this point of view, Shankaracharya's insistence on
brahman is highly justified. Vedanta and Buddhism are
philosophically so similar, that the teaching about brahman makes
the only true difference between them. Even the teaching about
reincarnation is more-less identical, because Vedanta, too, states
that karman is that which is reincarnated, and not atman; atman is
eternal and unborn, it is merely a different name for brahman,
which is neither born nor does it die, so it is not reborn in any way,
but its light shines through the entirety of the relative experience, it
saturates the human existence like oxygen saturates the air, or the
way butter saturates the milk, and through a process of
discrimination, or analytical filtration of experiences, a man can
understand that his self is in fact brahman, and identification with
karman, the sum of relative experiences, creates the phenomenon
known as jivan, a relative living being, which is ignorantly thought
to be the self, that it is the one who experiences and is reborn.
What people usually know as jivan is in fact the same as the
karmic aggregate from Buddhism – a transient, ephemeral
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Death and rebirth
phenomenon, which today is, and tomorrow is something else.

Jivan is the one who is born an the one who dies; it is a structure
that is different in childhood, adulthood and old age. Vedanta states
that atman/brahman is the silent witness1 (sākśī bráhman), the
calm uninvolved screen upon which life is projected, the golden
bird which dwells atop the tree of life, eating neither sweet nor
bitter fruits, but instead dwelling in the golden light of its own true
nature.2
More than a decade ago I would have been inclined to agree with
Shankaracharya in his assessment of Buddhism, especially having
in mind that I had the state of brahman (nirvikalpa samadhi) in
personal experience, which appeared to confirm the position of
Vedanta, and falsify what I perceived as a negatively defined goal
of Buddhism. Still, based on further experience and analysis I
became inclined to revise my original assessment of Buddhism and
see its discord with Vedanta as a strategic, and not a philosophic
issue.
It appears that Buddha knew simply too much to make such a

glaring omission due to ignorance. It must have been intentional,
and it appears that his teaching of anatman, and apparently
negatively defined nirvana, are in fact a deliberate placement of
accent on the karmic aspect of the problem, and that Buddha was
much more wise and farsighted than I gave him credit. The thing
is, Buddha advocated his teaching from the position of practical
usefulness, and we shall now analyze both perspectives and see
what follows.
From the perspective of Shankaracharya's Vedanta, the only thing

that matters is the realization of brahman. Brahman is
transcendental to karma, and knowledge of That as one's own true
1 "The same Deity remains hidden in all beings, and is all-pervasive and the
indwelling Self of all beings. He is the supervisor of actions, lives in all
beings, (He is) the Witness, the bestower of intelligence, the Absolute and
devoid of the (three) gunas." (Shvetashvatara Upanishad Sl. VI.11)
2 Mundaka Upanishad III, 1:1-3
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identity breaks the bonds that form the illusion of jivan. Without
the association between brahman and karma, which forms the
ephemeral jivan, there remains nothing to hold the karma together
and the reincarnating entity that is misidentified as the soul
disperses like a cloud in the midday sun. The realization of
brahman thus results in liberation. It's all nice and well in theory,
but Shankaracharya is in error – a fundamental and fatal error at
that. You see, brahman is always transcendental to karman, and
eternally free. In the state of brahman, brahman is recognized as
the reality, and jivan is perceived as an illusion. But the state of
brahman is parallel and simultaneous to the state of karman.
Recognition of self as brahman has no influence on the karman,
and this is where Shankaracharya is wrong. Far from it that the
knowledge of brahman will have the effect of dispelling karma; it
will have no effect on karma whatsoever, because brahman is
transcendental to karman. Like a sword, which can cut a man's
body and cause death, but has no effect on atman/brahman, the
realization of brahman has no effect on karman, because it is
transcendental to it. The realization of brahman is therefore a
karmically irrelevant event – it neither creates nor dissolves karma.
After entering the state of brahman, a yogi must always return to
the state of jivan, where the totality of his karma awaits him, to
proceed where he left off. In exact opposition to the teaching of
Shanaracarya, Vedanta in fact lacks any instruments for attaining
liberation from the circle of birth and death, since all its efforts
strive toward the goal which is transcendental to the sphere of
karma and therefore holds no sway over it.
Having recognized this truth in practice quite a few years ago, in

1997, I concluded that there are two essential teachings, about the
relative and about the Absolute. The teaching about the Absolute is
useful for entering the state of samadhi, and the teaching about the
relative is useful for refinement of the energetic bodies in the
relative, and for attaining liberation. Still, for reasons of my own, I
simply formulated my own teaching about the Relative, and did
not dwell on Buddhism at all, up until recently, when I happened to
give it a second look for a different set of reasons, and understood
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Death and rebirth
quite dramatic similarities between the actual teaching of

Buddhism and my concepts of refinement of the relative existence.
Based on that, it clicked to me that Buddha must have known what
I realized years ago, before writing my first book: that the teaching
about brahman is true, but can eventually be a mere distraction and
of little practical use. In the attempt to realize brahman, which is
always here anyway, one wastes the time that would be better spent
on efforts of transforming karma, because that is the factor that
determines our future the most. It is not brahman that is reborn, but
karman; and it is reborn quite independently on realization of
brahman, it being a step into transcendence and not an act of
transformation. Karma, untouched by the experience of brahman,
binds and conditions. Without transformation of karma there can
be no liberation, and an experience of brahman is, in that sense,
but a pleasant and comforting distraction.
Is it possible that Buddha knew a great deal about the eternal and
transcendental brahman, but that he also knew more than
Shankaracharya did, and so he formulated his teaching in a way
that focuses attention toward the true problem, that which
conditions one towards rebirth? When this problem is solved, one
attains liberation, and in liberation, a yogi will most certainly
realize brahman, its nature, eternity and transcendence. Still,
having already disentangled all karmic knots, and having
transformed the compounds of the kalapas into a coherent form
that is no longer karmically reactive, and no longer requires rebirth
of the “self” that created it, the liberation of Buddhism is the true
one, in a sense that there remains no karma that would require a
return from the state of perfection, while the liberation of Vedanta
is a mere excursion, a visit to the goal that comes and goes, and
then one is to return into the world of suffering, because the
practice of Vedanta didn't do anything that would produce a
permanent liberation.
Even if we consider entering samadhi a karmically relevant act

from the position of jivan, this new karma is merely added to the
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existing, and neither transforms nor dissolves it. This is why

Buddha chooses to mention the aspects of brahman only in the
context of nirvana, while on the other hand he diligently avoids
mention of the concepts of the Hinduism and Jainism of the day,
according to which all beings possess atman, as their eternal and
indestructible kernel. This is so because it is certain that everybody
will say “atman” and think “jivan”. Considering any aspect of a
human person an eternal cornerstone of one's reality and
personality is to deny oneself the possibility to transform the karma
that defines jivan, which becomes abundantly clear in the practice
of vipassana or inner space, where one can dissolve and purify
only the energetic structures one removes his personal
consciousness and identity from, and stops perceiving them as
“self”. Aspects of karma that are perceived as “self” are
untouchable by the techniques. By stating that none of those things
are eternal and constant, Buddha creates the philosophical
framework that enables one to detach himself from his karma. By
stating that none of it is atman, one frees the atman from the need
to be any of those things, and one is free to dissolve any energetic
structure without fearing for his own continuity of existence.
Where Shankaracharya gives lip service to atman, Buddha actually
frees it from the reactive bonds of karma.
Where Patañjali sees coherence, and ultimately the complete

cessation of the waveforms that disturb the mindstuff, as the state
where brahman dwells in its own true nature and is observed as
such, Buddha speaks of coherence and dissolution of the karmic
compounds, leading to the state of nirvana.
A state of positive existence is impossible after the dissolution of

the building blocks of soul, if there is no all-pervading positive
principle that is revealed after the illusion is dispelled. From the
very definition of nirvana as a good thing and a desirable goal it is
clear that there is something that is revealed after the illusory
personality has been dissolved, something which is the fullness of
the real, free and unconditioned existence. Since Buddha took a
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great deal of care not to connect eternity and human nature in any
way, it all remains a matter of guesswork, but if we take a closer
look at the Tibetan descriptions of the process of dying and rebirth,
it becomes apparent that this guesswork has very good foundations
in reality. Likewise, the way in which Milarepa describes his
spiritual achievement is quite compatible with the teachings of
Vedanta. The Buddhist concept of nirvana can, therefore, be
understood as a state of brahman without any remainder of karma.
Let's just take a look at this quotation from the Bardo Thödol by
Padmasambhava, also known as “the Tibetan book of the dead”. It
consists of the instructions to a dying person, with the intent of
helping him attain liberation or at least the best possible rebirth:
"O nobly-born (so-and-so), listen. Now thou art experiencing the

Radiance of the Clear Light of Pure Reality. Recognize it. O nobly-
born, thy present intellect, in real nature void, not formed into
anything as regards characteristics or color, naturally void, is the
very Reality, the All-Good.
Thine own intellect, which is now voidness, yet not to be regarded

as of the voidness of nothingness, but as being the intellect itself,
unobstructed, shining, thrilling, and blissful, is the very
consciousness, the All-good Buddha.
Thine own consciousness, not formed into anything, in reality void,

and the intellect, shining and blissful, -- these two, -- are
inseparable. The union of them is the Dharma-Kāya state of
Perfect Enlightenment.
Thine own consciousness, shining, void, and inseparable from the

Great Body of Radiance, hath no birth, nor death, and is the
Immutable Light -- Buddha Amitābha.
Knowing this is sufficient. Recognizing the voidness of thine own

intellect to be Buddhahood, and looking upon it as being thine own
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consciousness, is to keep thyself in the [state of the] divine mind of

the Buddha."1
I don't know about you, but to me that doesn't look like nirvana as
it is usually perceived: as a negative state of cessation of being and
nothingness, a form of real and true death, such as the one
imagined by the materialists. You can now say that it's some
Tibetan offshoot of Buddhism that has more in common with
Shankaracharya's Vedanta (to which it is contemporary) than the
true original teaching of Buddha, but what would you then answer
to the words of Buddha in the work of Dhammapada, a part of the
oldest Therevada canon, that Nibbana is the greatest bliss, and that
the enlightened one “drinks deeply the taste of the bliss of the
Truth?”2 The classical interpretation3 states that this happiness is
the lasting, transcendental joy that is the quality of the attained
peace which is the result of the enlightenment (bodhi). So, far from
being an apocryphal heresy, the Tibetan view of nirvana as the
ultimate, essential, absolute reality which is the fullness of truth,
light and bliss, is in fact the most orthodox teaching of the original
Buddhism4.
After all, only from the westerners who are conditioned by

materialism did I have the opportunity to hear the interpretation of
nirvana as death of the soul or a negatively defined void; from all
eastern Buddhist practitioners I only heard the interpretations of
the kind that is professed by Padmasambhava. The concept of
Buddhism as a “spiritualized version of atheism” is exclusively a
western heresy, created by a superficial understanding of the
concepts of Buddhism. The difference between Vedanta and
Buddhism is therefore foremost in the Buddhist insistence that
nirvana is a state that has nothing to do with a human
understanding of self, but that nirvana is a new state that is
1 Translated by Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup and W.Y. Evans-Wentz
2 Dhammapada 203-205.
3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana#Nirvana_in_Buddhism
4 "'The liberated mind (citta) that no longer clings' means Nibbāna"
(Majjhima Nikaya 2- 4.68)
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Death and rebirth
attained, not revealed, when everything human is dissolved and

dispelled.
The question that arises is what is it exactly that dies and is reborn?
During human life, we see how “I” identifies with various states
and modes of existence. There is a continuity of personality and
memory, but the state of “I” is subject to constant change. What
happens to the “I” when the human body dies?
It is probably best for me to describe the contents of the Tibetan

book of the dead, which describes this very process.
After the physical death, a man at first finds himself within the
subtle (“astral”) body, but within the physical world, and can see
and hear people and see his dead body. After this phase, occurs that
which I usually call the “top-down sieve”, the process of sieving
the pearls through a series of sieves of increasing density. The
biggest pearls remain at the top, while the smaller ones travel
towards the bottom, until they meet the sieve through which they
can no longer fall. The worthless sand, however, travels all the way
through, and is discarded. Bardo Thödol describes the process in
the following way:
A being initially faces the state of nirvana. It is enough for him to

decide: “this is my true nature”, and it will be so: he will forever
dwell in the all-blissful state of pure consciousness, absolute bliss
and perfection of the supreme reality. However, most beings find
themselves unable to make such a choice. Exposed to the pure light
of nirvana, they feel fear, pain, suffering and horror.
Why is that so?
Everyone who is adept at vipassana will immediately understand

the cause. The karmic aggregates that are exposed to such a high
order of magnitude of reality start to strain and dissociate,
releasing a terrible amount of concentrated suffering in the process.
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This is the kind of suffering that is felt by a sinner when he is

forced to face the ultimate truth and consequence of his sinful
actions, because the perfect truth of nirvana makes it impossible
for one to hide in lies, ignorance and darkness, which are forever
the refuge of sinners, who attempt to hide or misinterpret their
actions, inventing false explanations that portray them as good
persons. In the state of nirvana, anyone who deceived, betrayed,
stole, lied or murdered is forced to immediately face the ultimate
truth of those deeds, and this makes it impossible for him to keep
perceiving himself as a good person. He would have to admit that
what he sees in the light of nirvana is the truth, that he is an evil
person, and suffer the immense pain that follows such a realization.
Had he opted to calmly and stoically suffer the pain, he would
have attained purification and the light of nirvana would then
reflect his inner purity, finding no evil or flaw, revealing nothing
but harmony and spiritual peace. Nirvana would then be seen as
the same within and without, and the being would recognize it as
his true nature and fulfillment of his longings.
A sinner, however, sees no light in nirvana, just his inner darkness

reflected and amplified. He sees the horrors of his inner world
assaulting him, he experiences the trauma of his sinfulness, he
faces the virtue of his victims, the consequences of his evil deeds,
the suffering he caused and the evil nature that is his own. Being
unable to acknowledge his evil deeds and his evil nature, he cannot
free himself of those qualities and thus recognizes nirvana as a
great dark evil that looms over him intent on destroying everything
he is. He sees nirvana as a hell full of worst atrocities, vice and
evil. This causes the villains and sinners to run away in the
opposite direction. Even the sort that we might call ordinary people
have the spiritual bodies that “vibrate” far below this level, their
spiritual qualities being of a far inferior order, and due to an
enormous number of attachments and desires that they possess and
nurture, that bind them to the physical and astral plane, they are
unable to recognize nirvana as fulfillment of their longings – in
fact, it's the exact opposite. In nirvana there is no ownership, no
sex, no control or anything similar, and they are conditioned to
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Death and rebirth
perceive it as a bad thing and a negation of their own nature and

their desires, as well as a negation of their concepts of goodness
and fulfillment.
After having ran away from the sight of nirvana in utmost horror,
the soul is exposed to the pale-white light of the world of the
Devas. If it feels attraction towards the form of existence that
resonates with this plane, the longing for the attainment of this
form of existence will result in birth at this plane. But most human
souls are unable to feel attraction towards this form of existence,
either. This is so because life in the world of the gods is a life of
truth and virtue, where all sins are immediately visible and cannot
be hidden, where it impossible to lie because one communicates by
direct insight into the other person's spirit, and most things that
humans perceive as the causes of happiness do not exist there. A
sinful soul would therefore feel naked and violated in the world of
the gods: all its sins and bad intentions would be revealed and
obvious to everybody, and all would despise and avoid it; it feels
as if the powerful spotlights of truth reveal all its flaws in searing
pain and shame. The obviousness of all its lowly and sinful
thoughts also makes it impossible to lie to others, to delude them
and to exploit them, as it used to in the physical world, and since
the beings here are naturally protected from abuse by the very
nature of the world, this makes heaven look like hell to the sinful
soul, and it would run away from it as soon as possible.
Explanation for this is the same as in the case of nirvana – the soul
doesn't want to release the identifications with the lowly and sinful
structures, and the natural process of their dissolution in the
benevolent energy of the heavenly world is perceived as a threat to
its spiritual integrity and existence. For this reason, it perceives
everything good as evil, as a dark threat to its way of life, and
fights it in any possible way, and if it can't fight, it escapes.
Having escaped the sight of the heavenly worlds, the soul

perceives the pale-blue light of the Earth. Most souls, due to the
qualities of their spirit, feel attraction for this place, because the
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karmic patterns that condition them find their natural place of

fulfillment there. For instance, it is possible to lie, to steal, to have
secret dark thoughts, there are sex, ownership, pleasure of having
what the others have not, as well as the coarse sensual experiences
the primitive and unevolved souls strongly identify with and
perceive them as the only valuable and full form of existence.
Experiencing the visions of strongly attractive intercourse of man
and woman, the soul is attracted and bound into conception and
birth.
There are, of course, the beings to whom even this dark world is
unpleasant because its spiritual vibration is too high for them, and
they perceive it as something that threatens their spiritual
structures. Those are the beings of pure sin, to whom every kind of
light of truth in any form and shape is painful, and who desire to
escape into complete darkness, and they are attracted to the dull
gray light of hell, which they perceive as the place where no truth
and virtue will never catch up with them and hurt them. But there
in hell are others like them, the beings of pure sin, whose only
pleasure is to humiliate and abuse others, ridicule truth and virtue,
deny any holiness, and inflict pain to others with the goal of
destroying any form of spiritual existence and increasing the
amount of suffering. If you find it difficult to believe that such
beings can exist, you obviously haven't been watching the news.
They exist here, too, but not for long, because hell is their final
destination, and there they will torture each other and make each
other's existence immensely painful, but compared to the pain they
would feel in the presence of the higher reality and consciousness,
as well as in the presence of the genuinely good and holy beings,
they actually find hell preferable.
It is obvious that Buddhism doesn't think that bodily death marks

the end of a conscious personal existence. On the contrary, the
qualities a being acquired in its previous lives determine the form
of its future existence. A very superficial mind could come to the
conclusion that Buddhism teaches that the extremely sinful beings,
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Death and rebirth
whose karmic bodies dissolve into individual kalapas due to the

incredible amount of accumulated inner tensions, attain the same
kind of destiny that a saint attains in nirvana, but this is a
misunderstanding of the fundamental concepts, and comes from
the lack of experience with vipassana. Fragmentation of karma
does not preclude the personal experience of suffering – it merely
precludes the complexity of soul that is a necessary prerequisite of
salvation. This means that the consequence of a soul's dissolution
due to extreme sinfulness is a fall into many simultaneous
lifeforms, each of which is the same “I”, only experiencing a more
limited existence filled with greater suffering, and without
cohesion and strength of consciousness that is necessary in order to
understand one's position and attempt salvation. This is so because
“I” is not the result of aggregation of karma into greater structures.
Buddhism teaches that “I” has nothing to do with karma. Karma is
reborn, and “I” is merely the subjective experience of suffering,
that is not seated in a single locus, so that it could vanish or change
when karma is fragmented. In enlightenment, one recognizes that
“I” is nirvana, but prior to that, “I” is suffering.
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Mara
110
Mara
"You are emaciated and ill-looking, you are near to death! A

thousand parts of you belong to death and only a fraction of
you is alive. Live, good Sir! It is better to live. Living you may
perform meritorious deeds. From practicing celibacy and
tending the sacrificial fire much merit is made, but what is
obtained from striving? It is difficult to enter the path of
exertion, it is difficult to do, difficult to maintain."
To Mara speaking thus, the Lord replied:
"You who are the friend of the negligent, O Evil One, for what
reason have you come here?” (Mara to Buddha; Padhana
Sutta, Khuddaka Nikaya)1
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed
him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All
this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and
worship me.”
Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written:
‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”
(Satan to Jesus, Matthew 4,8-10)
The problem with the Devil is that the westerners can't really take
his existence and activities seriously, because the entire thing
sounds absurd, like a childish form of a theological deus ex
machina which can only be discarded as superfluous by the serious
thinkers. After all, what is evil but the lack of good? And if that is
so, then what point is there in visualizing some personification of
evil, or cold, or vacuum, or stupidity? Well, that's not really how
things work, and it's not the first time that the “common sense”
actually creates more problems than it solves, because in reality,
the complex energetic relationships between the beings, the
energetic stratification of reality, as well as the concept of authority
over the energies of their respective levels of reality, in a certain
scope, acquired by the investment of one's personal spiritual
energy into the substance of that level, create complexity that
1 http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/snp/snp.3.02.irel.html
111
belies “common sense”, but actually provides a very good model

for explaining the things that can be experienced, but otherwise fail
to make sense. Those explanations belong to the canonical
Buddhist teaching, and everyone who is familiar with vipassana
and energetic yoga, will understand the basic underlying theory. So
yes, my friends, there is a Devil, and Buddhism, one of the most
abstract and scientific of all spiritual teachings in circulation,
actually has a very good understanding of this fact.
In fact, the Buddhist teaching goes so far as to clearly define which

levels of reality belong to the realm of a demonic spiritual being by
the name of Mara: everything below the level of the Brahmas,
which includes the entire realm of desire, encompassing both the
lower and the higher astral plane, as well as prana and the matter,
according to my system of naming those levels. None of it is
arbitrary or imaginary, but most of it is profoundly esoteric in
nature and requires a significant degree of technical prowess to
verify.
There was an incredible multitude of yogis in India throughout

history, with a high degree of spiritual insight. A significant
number among them had a great degree of physical authority of the
world, meaning the material siddhis1. Why is it that so few of them
actually recognized the Devil or his intent and purpose, as well as
the true nature of this world? I would expect this to be a
widespread achievement throughout history, but on a closer look
that doesn't appear to be the case. In fact, only two appear to have
independently understood the Devil and opposed him in a sensible
and planned way. Those two are Shakyamuni and Jesus.
Buddha's entire philosophy can be reduced to the principle of

“disentangle and/or spend all the spiritual momenta that you had
invested in the world, and get out of here”. His approach is
therefore to stop us from providing the power supply to the system,
which would leave the Devil and his toys without energy, and in
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siddhi
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Mara
any case, powerless. Buddha calls the Devil Mara – he is a being

who attempts to portray the negative and binding things as positive
and thus cause attachment to the world and investment of our
personal energy into the “matrix” of the world, either by attraction,
or by intimidation. Mara's goal is therefore the status quo, where
the beings would remain deluded and with their energy invested
into the world. Whether he will attempt to achieve his purpose by
bribery, by intimidation, by trying to convince you that he is God
and Lord of the world and that you have no rights save what he
grants you, or by saying that you are sinful and unworthy of
enlightenment, is beside the point. Whether he will attempt to bind
you by convincing you that this world is the ideal place for
realizing your dreams and desires, a place where you will conquer
your enemies, a place where you will achieve spiritual growth or a
place to which you must return, either to repay some debt or out of
compassion for those who failed to attain liberation, it is all the
same to him. What matters to the Devil is that you stay. Whether
you stay believing you're a slave and fearing your own shadow, or
thinking that you're an enlightened bodhisattva on a noble mission
of redemption of all beings, is quite irrelevant as long as your
energy remains invested into this world.
What I wrote here is pure orthodox teaching of Buddhism, without

much of my interpolation or interpretations. This is what the
Buddhists believe about the demonic being by the name of Mara,
and is almost a quotation from the Theravada canon. So why do I
insist on talking about Satan? Because it is of paramount
importance, and holds the key to the final liberation from the
world. Without knowledge about Satan, it is possible to attain great
spiritual heights, but if you don't know the truth about him, sooner
or later he will trick you, he will deceive you with some spiritual
concept or another, which will bind you to the world and turn the
whole of your spiritual progress into fuel for great attachment and
evil. The majority of the traditional spiritual teachings are the
result of some trickery or another, which the Devil used to deceive
this or that saint, who was spiritually more advanced than you are,
with knowledge greater than yours, and who also, like yourself,
113
thought that devotion to God, truth and virtue will protect him. Do
not delude yourself by groundless optimism. If Buddha and Jesus
had serious problems with the Devil, enough so that they had to
endure real temptation, he will not only have you for lunch, but he
in fact already did, and when you think that you emotionally or
intellectually oppose these ideas, it's in fact him having gas from
digesting you.
The problem which arises when we analyze Jesus' attitude

regarding the Devil is that Christianity is intellectually less explicit
than Buddhism, and so one often needs to work his way through
the imagery, vagueness and contradiction, but essentially, Jesus
calls the Devil “the Prince of this world” 1; he is aware that the
Devil opposes him and interferes with him; he knows that the
Devil seduces his disciples and tries to delude them into sin; he is
aware that the world is under the authority of the Devil; that the
majority of humans walk the path that leads them to ruin; and that
only the few walk the path of salvation. He consciously and
deliberately does probably the only thing that can redeem the
world from the Devil's rule, if it is done right. The Devil obtained
his rule over the world by some kind of an investment of his
spiritual energy, in form of a personal sacrifice for the world: he
sacrificed himself in the process of manifesting his ideas here, he
entangled his spiritual essence into the foundations of this world
and his energy is seamlessly intermixed with the energy of the
world. One can redeem the world from the Devil only in the most
indirect and least straightforward of ways: on one hand, his
sacrifice for the world must be at least as great as the Devil's – his
spiritual investment and expenditure must be as large – and
furthermore, the sacrifice must be performed in such a way that the
Devil sins against that person in a way that would outweigh the
positive investment with which he “bought” the world. So
essentially, the Devil must neutralize all the positive things he
himself had done by doing the things that are at least equally evil,
which is possible only if he acts against his equal or superior spirit,
1 John 12:31, John 14:30
114
Mara
a spirit high, pure and blameless, and thus negate his original intent
and vector. So it's essentially a dangerous gamble, and one who
ventures into that must know absolutely everything about the
esoteric “contracts” and the way spiritual forces interact as vectors.
Those things are highly complex and it is easy to miss something
important and fail. Apparently, that's what happened to Jesus
because he failed and the Devil is still in the position of power. If
Jesus dedicated his entire life to something, with his excellent
understanding of the issues involved, used his own torturous death
as a weapon, and still failed to achieve his goal, then we can
clearly see the extent of the problem.
Satan, also known as Mara. The prince of this world. Sanat

Kumara.
The Theosophy, which is, in my personal opinion, a vehicle created

by the Devil in order to express his own philosophy, diligently
works on the apotheosis of the Lucifer (with the personal name
Sanat Kumara) and his promethean gift of spiritual energy to the
beings of this world, and in essence creates a school of thought that
is directly opposite to the teachings of Buddhism and Christianity,
with the incredibly audacity to proclaim none other than Jesus and
Buddha to be Lucifer's henchmen, the main spiritual branches and
conduits through which his energy flows into the world.
Apparently, if something is the greatest threat to the Devil, he
modifies it and integrates it into the system, turning it to serve his
purpose in a form of spiritual Aikido.
The name Sanat Kumara doesn't appear to be arbitrary. I wouldn't

dismiss the possibility of it being some form or modification of the
actual spiritual name of this being, which found its way into the
different theologies and philosophies in various distorted forms. Of
course, I'm not talking about the stories about the Kumaras written
by Vyasa, which seem to be quite unrelated, but something
significantly older, which he picked up and modified into serving
his own philosophy and teaching, as seems to be the case with the
115
entire Bhagavata-purana, which recycles the older myths. What

does “Sanat Kumara” mean? The usual translation is “eternal boy”
or “eternal youth”, but in a very literal etymology it can be
translated as “eternal, barely mortal”, or, in a more extreme
rendition, “the eternal immortal one”. “Sanat” means “without
origin”, “eternal”. “Kumara” means “boy”, but we can also split it
into the prefix “ku”, which translates as “with difficulty”, or
“barely, hardly”, and the root “mara” which is translated as
“mortal”. I could play with naive etymology here but I don't think
it would be productive. What I do find interesting is that the two
names for the Devil, from the two completely unrelated and
different religions, together form the name that the Theosophy uses
to name the King of the world, whom they also call Lucifer, to
remove any doubt as to whom they mean. It might be a
coincidence, and it might also be an obscure wordplay by the
Theosophists. What matters is that the being called Sanat Kumara
by the Theosophy has the same qualities as the one Jesus calls the
Prince of this world, whom the Bible also calls Satan, and whom
Buddha calls Mara. Looking at the spiritual qualities of the being
that is described in all cases, Buddha and Jesus are talking about
the exactly the same person as I do when I talk about Sanat
Kumara. There is a complete match. My assumption is that there
might be something authentic about the name because it actually
came into my mind in this exact form, “Sanat Kumara”, when I
spiritually explored the boundaries of this world in 1998, and I
asked around to ascertain its meaning, and only then did I come up
with Theosophy and its interpretations. I actually got it
independently, but didn't figure out the whole story until almost a
decade later; initially, I saw nothing that contradicted the
Theosophical narrative – this being was completely immersed in
the world and was for all intents and purposes incarnated through
it. I saw it as the Earth being his physical body; the Theosophists
talked about Sanat Kumar1 having Earth in his aura. None of my
personal visions seemed to contradict what Theosophy was saying,
so I accepted their narrative for the time being.
1 Sanat Kumar is the Hindi form I prefer in common speech.
116
Mara
But to go back to the beginning of the story: why is such

understanding so rare among the yogis? Seeing the manifestation
of Sanat Kumara, even without any understanding of his true
nature, seems to be incredibly rare. But understanding him as the
Devil, understanding his true nature, that seems to be more rare
than the snake's feathers. Why is nobody, save for the Buddha,
providing a good description of the primary problem encountered
by the seekers of liberation?
Let us understand one thing here: one huge and powerful spiritual
entity coordinates all the binding forces with the goal of nobody
getting out of here, and he has the almost-total authority on this
world. This is a serious problem. Why is it not the cornerstone of
Vedanta and Yoga?
I think the answer is rather unpleasant: none of those yogis truly

attained liberation. The Devil found something he could present
them with as a substitute, and they accepted, thus never really
coming to the point of conflict with him, where they would be
forced to recognize him as the problem. It is certainly possible that
a significant number of the yogis had their battle with the Devil in
silence and left the world without much drama, but I can only
really comment on those who left the trail of writing behind them,
and this written trail has very peculiar omissions.
117
Trikaya
118
Trikaya
The Buddhist theory of reincarnation, reducible to the principle of

birds of a feather that flock together, meaning that the beings
reincarnate according to the resonant point of the qualities
accumulated during their previous development and experiences,
provides a very good explanation for practically all phenomena,
except one, which remains unclear. It is the presence of the highly
evolved, advanced souls on the physical plane.
If you read the Tibetan book of the dead carefully, you must have
noticed how this world is the Mos Eisley1 of all Creation – “the
most wretched hive of scum and villainy”, as Obi Wan succinctly
puts it. Anyone with any semblance of goodness and virtue would
have stayed in nirvana or at least in heaven, and only the worst
scum happens to be attracted to the Earth; in fact, it seems that the
inhabitants of hell got most of their “training” here before finding
an even worse hole to crawl into. So how do we end up with the
fact of incarnation of Vyasa, Shuka, Buddha, Shankaracharya,
Krishna or Babaji in this world of depravity, evil and sin? How
does it happen that a being gets born here, who is since the earliest
youth attracted to the spiritual matters, and considers the material
goals irrelevant and uninteresting?
The answer to this question is of considerable complexity. As an

explanation to this kind of phenomena Buddhism offers the
concept of trikaya, the simultaneous existence of Buddha in the
states of dharmakaya, sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya.
Kaya means “body” in sanskrit, and so dharmakaya means “the

body of dharma”, sambhogakaya means “the body of pleasure”,
and nirmanakaya means “created body”.
Dharmakaya is the state of pure, transcendental buddhahood: a

Buddha in the state of pure nirvana, untouched by attachments and
transient phenomena such as life and death. Sambhogakaya is a
form of a Buddha's astral existence, his existence on the astral
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mos_Eisley
119
plane. This body contains joy, thoughs, ideas and teachings of the
Buddha, therefore manifesting buddhahood as eternal joy and
wisdom emanating from the state of nirvana. Nirmanakaya is the
Buddhist name for an avatar: a physical body of a Buddha, a
human incarnation which exists in physical space and time, to
which buddhahood is not an eternal reality but something that
needs to be attained via a process, through effort and labor.
The ocean of Dharma is thus manifested as the bliss of

enlightenment and spiritual truth, and as a physical being which
embodies the process of enlightenment within the physical matter;
it is therefore born in an unenlightened state, strives toward
enlightenment, attains it and then manifests it in the physical
matter as the living Buddha, who thus binds all three states –
dharmakaya, sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya – into a singular
entity which lives nirvana in a physical body, and represent a point
of convergence toward which the other beings can focus their
efforts. This singular, simultaneous existence in all three states is
called trikaya (literally “three bodies”).
Buddhism is not the only one familiar with this concept – the
Christian concept of Trinity, or simultaneous existence of God as
Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is closely on trail of the concept
according to which one God, manifested through different vehicles
of the relative world, can appear as many. In His transcendental
state He is the Father; manifested as the energy of blessing and
inspiration He is the Holy Spirit, and manifested in physical form,
as a man who goes through birth, spiritual path, enlightenment,
manifestation of the enlightened state, and death, He is the Son.
The Buddhist concepts are extremely similar, since some of the

paradoxes of incarnation of a transcendental spiritual entity, which
remains transcendental despite incarnation, can for all intents and
purposes be solved in no other way.
According to Buddhist theory, nirmanakaya is manifested because
120
Trikaya
of Buddha's compassion for the suffering beings. In order to

properly explain what Buddhism means by compassion, it would
be best if I quoted a tale from the life of Buddha.
One day a crying woman whose son died approached him, and
tearfully begged him to use his supernatural powers to revive him.
Buddha then, as the original text states, “felt great compassion”
and told the woman to bring him some mustard from a house in
which nobody ever died, and that he will use it to revive her son.
The woman rushed to do as he said and started going from house
to house, but of course it happened that every family lost someone
at one time or another and she could not complete her task. After a
while she understood how selfish her desire was, because death is a
part of life and all beings eventually die. Then she returned to join
Buddha as a disciple.
If that woman managed to understand the silliness of her selfish

attachment, imagine what it must have looked like from the
position of Buddha. When we look at it this way, Buddha's
“compassion” is obviously closer to the famous Internet meme of
Picard's facepalm, than what people usually imagine. Buddha's
compassion is understanding that the beings, due to their
attachments and stupidity, experience great suffering, while at the
same time there is an ocean of bliss which is nirvana, and it is
within their reach. The compassion of Buddha is therefore an
aspect of nirvana, an intrusion of nirvana into samsara, or an
attracting force with which nirvana guides the sufficiently mature
beings toward itself, if they are ready to discard their petty
attachments which they call by the noble names of love,
compassion and the like, which obscure their true lowly and
pathetic nature. The compassion of Buddha is not a samsaric force,
unlike human love and human compassion, which out of ignorance
create attachments to the passing things, and mourn their inevitable
change. The compassion of Buddha is the song of the eternal,
which echoes through time, symbolically portrayed in Hinduism as
the flute of Krishna which calls the souls, deluded and tormented
121
by the ephemeral things of the world, and awakens them to the

eternal realities of the spiritual world.
Of course, the higher motives for choosing a physical incarnation

exist, in a less extreme form, also in the beings that are not yet
Buddhas, but have outgrown the lowly attachments of the physical
plane, and the motive for their incarnation in this world can be
manifestation of some sophisticated aspect of virtue and goodness
from the higher worlds. Such beings are also much more numerous
than the living Buddhas. Still, without the understanding of the
concept of trikaya, as an extreme manifestation of the principle, it
is also impossible to understand the process of incarnation of the
beings that are less than the Buddhas and more than the ordinary
human souls, which are born in this world due to attachment,
depravity and sin.
Trikaya is therefore the mechanism which explains the incarnation

of the Enlightened one as simultaneous existence on several planes
of being. This concept is further expanded on in Tibetan
Buddhism, and so the process of incarnation of a bodhisattva is
explained in a way that is not only completely foreign to the
western thought, but to Hinduism as well – because in vajrayana
Buddhism, a bodhisattva is never incarnated at all. A bodhisattva
exists eternally in his transcendental state, and his compassion,
which arises when he looks at the material world and the suffering
of its inhabitants, creates a phenomenon known as “tulku”. A tulku
is an artificial spiritual being, created by application of the spiritual
force of a powerful yogi. Such a being is not a mere astral illusion
– those are called “tulpa” – but a being which possesses a karmic
body, desires and consciousness, and is incarnated as a man in the
world of men, passing through birth, childhood, adulthood, old age
and death, but which was created as a crystallization of will and
intent of a bodhisattva, and in self-realization it knows itself as the
bodhisattva who is never born and remains transcendental.
Depending on the needs of the physical beings, a bodhisattva
122
Trikaya
creates a tulku (in fact, often many of them at the same time) which
is most useful to the beings in their present situation, possessing
the qualities that are adjusted to the circumstances of the time.
Sometimes a tulku will be a warrior-savior and the lawmaker,
sometimes a holy guru, sometimes a cave yogi. The Dalai-lama is
thus perceived to be a tulku of the Chenrezig, the Avalokiteśvara
Bodhisattva. This tulku is not an incarnation of the Bodhisattva, the
way westerners understand the concept, but a reflection of his will
and intend for the world, which takes body and throughout his life
crystallizes “the tears of compassion” which Chenrezig cries
looking at human suffering in samsara. Those tears are the holy
teaching, holy example in action or a holy practice of yoga that
leads toward liberation – sometimes, they are the holy beings such
as Tara. This is the way the Tibetans perceive those things, and this
is why they, for instance, happened to ask Milarepa whose
incarnation is he, thinking that he came to be because some
bodhisattva chose to bestow upon the humans a gift of the path of
perfect yoga. Milarepa responded that he appreciates the intent
behind the question, but that he considers the assumption harmful,
because it implies preexistence of perfection – in fact, he
responded, he is an example that even a sinful, lowly wretch, such
as he was in the beginning, can with diligent practice of yoga come
very close to enlightenment.
I don't see those two positions as mutually exclusive. From my

own experience I know that for the largest part of my life I indeed
perceived my own position as that of a lowly and wretched person
who gradually, through the process of yoga, strives and touches the
progressively more sophisticated states and attains enlightenment.
However, in the attainment of the enlightenment it became
apparent that my physical incarnation is in fact a tulku, or an
avatar, which manifests the path from ignorance toward
enlightenment in time, space and through a process, thus providing
an example for the humans, manifesting the gifts of the Supreme
through life and deeds of a limited, relative human being which
strives toward the transcendental perfection. The nirmanakaya,
therefore, does not necessarily have to know his true nature in any
123
part of his temporal existence; what matters is the vector, the

direction, force of his desire for the Divine, the force with which
he desires to touch the transcendental, because this force truly is
God within the world, nirvana within samsara. In time, there are
the beginning, the process and the end, and so nirmanakaya
consists of ignorance, desire for knowledge and the attainment of
knowledge. This temporal process is the gift of the Supreme to the
humans, it is the path that is cut into the relative, material world by
the force of Buddhahood, making it possible for the conditioned
beings to gain insight into the nature of the goal itself.
Surely, only the rare beings will respond to the song of nirvana
within samsara with burning desire, elation and acceptance of the
challenge, and the majority will respond the same way in which the
souls in the bardo react to the pure light of nirvana: with fear,
terror and hatred. The only difference is in the fact that
nirmanakaya has blood they can spill, and flesh they can cut and
crucify, and so he gives them the opportunity to show their opinion
of the Supreme Light in the physical matter. The karmic effect of
such a choice is, of course, ultimately fatal.
Nirmanakaya, however, accepts neither merit for the enlighten-

ment of those who choose to follow him, nor demerit for the
destruction of those who choose to hate him. Nirmanakaya is but a
shadow of the transcendental, its reflection in space and time, a
trace it left in the flesh of the world, a passing shadow of the
intangible eternity – vajra in the world, jewel in the lotus.
Om, mani padme, hum.
124

Jewel in The Lotus

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What is the book about?

What is the book about?

What are some of the main concepts discussed in the book?

What are some of the main concepts discussed in the book?

The jewel in the lotus

Originally written in Croatian in 2010. Translated to English in

Copyright © Danijel Turina, Zagreb, 2010-2014

This book is not allowed to be reproduced, copied or distributed in

Cover: Hubble Space Telescope, NASA.

In most of my writing I only barely touch the “insider” concepts,

The concept of “karma”, or spiritual energetic structures, is

The hermetical and the

One of the most important corollaries of science is that human

To be clear, the magical understanding of the Universe always

phenomena originates from the early Vedanta, which stimulates the

Those are very smart, complex philosophies, and the period

1. Synthetic nature of human experience. This means projection

2. Vectorial nature of action and its inherent reactivity. This

3. Layered nature of the spiritual world, spiritual bodies,

4. Salvation through dissociation. As much as the various

is often misunderstood, but discernment between the elements of

The hermetic philosophy (in the narrow sense) is based on the

1. The principle of mentalism (the Universe is essentially mental

To be clear, the hermetic understanding is intuitive and natural to

Hermetism has been so widely accepted as the unquestionable

truth by the New Age philosophies, that it is simply axiomatically

Hermetism was not alien to the civilization that gave birth to

This fundamental conflict can be missed if one doesn't consider the

1. suffering is inherent to human experience (sarvam dukkham,

2. suffering is caused by desire (or investment of one's spirituality

3. cessation of suffering is possible, and is attained by separation

4. the way toward the cessation of suffering is the practice of the

From the Buddhist perspective, the hermetic principles are de facto

For instance, a Buddhist analysis of a pretty sight in nature says

A beautiful sunset after a boring day evokes dramatic spiritual

I don't think that people, except maybe a few scientists, really

you'll be unable to orient yourself, and you might even encounter

If someone turns you into a vampire, your perception of the world

What people consider to be food is as unappealing to you as the

humans, because unlike them, you don't age. A forest full of

The hermetic worldview is incredibly intuitive, in the same way in

Buddhism so radical is its statement that the entire experience of

Unlike Hermetism, the basic truths of Buddhism are not intuitive at

"Sarvam dukkham" follows very closely on the trail of the

nature of consciousness, instead of the senses, and it is

This essentially means that the entire bodily experience of the

Knowledge of the nature of the world leads to the realization that

This is the cornerstone of the teaching of the Gita: that he is

deluded, who thinks “it is I who act”. In reality, it is “the gunas”,

"The Lord does not create

The message of Gita is essentially identical to the message of

Karma, dharma and

There is a trend in neo-Hinduism, Theosophy, New Age

The concept of karma (sanskrit. karman; action) as it is known

Within this religion, the concept according to which the deeds

The second important concept is dharma (sanskrt. dharma; duty,

The third concept is that of atman. The word originally means

The fourth important concept is that of brahman. It was originally

Of course, as soon as a term is introduced, the arguments begin