Eastern Religions

• Consciousness is primary.
• Matter is an epiphenomenon, rule-governed consciousness which changes according to those rules.

• Sacrifice is a way of revealing how the universe works. It is part of a transactional system of exchanges between nature and the universe.
• Sacrifice reveals the logic, architecture, function, and meaning of the universe.
• Sacrifice is the structure and knowledge of reality. It is cause and effect logic.
• It is a form of commerce and economy which binds in a totality, in a unity.
• Sacrifice is a way of controlling reality, a kind of science that organizes reality into a hierarchy of gods, forces, and humans. Sacrifice puts together the creator, the created (nature), and the self into a meaningful articulation.
• Sacrifice has the following aspects: structural, cognitive, power/hierarchy, rules.

An act that separates the sacred from the profane.

The universe is a closed system of cause and effect from which there is no escape.

Hindu religion is the study of being.

Hymns

• Rig veda
• Sama veda
• Yajur veda
• Atharva veda

• Authorless – revealed to your mind as that truth which is self-evident
• Self-evident
• Imperishable – they purport to a truth which is imperishable

• Terse philosophical aphoristic (brief and memorable) texts.
• Philosophical discourse, considered the final part of the Vedas.

• 108
• 10 main (major) Upanishads, because traditional commentators have commented on them.

• Authorless
• They comment on the Vedas
• They are divided into main sentences (Maha Vakyas) and supporting sentences.
• They deal with the nature of reality (known and knower) and how the conscious mind is a part of that.

• They are the 4 main sentences of the Upanishads.
• I am Brahman.
• You are that.
• All this is verily Brahman.
• Brahman is infinite knowledge.

• It is the longest poem/book every written.
• I8 books, around 100,000 verses.
• Book 6 is the Bhagavad Gita, a summary of the Upanishads, and didactic and philosophical.
• It has an author – Vyasa.

• Deistic texts, mythological stories.
• Ex: the bible is a deistic text.

18 books

• They have an author.
• Sectarian books with a specific symbol (highest god) for Brahman.
• They detail cult practices and recommendations for appropriate behaviors.
• Deeds of sectarian gods
• Descriptions of sacred sites for pilgrimage.

• Uses organic metaphors
• Talks about beginnings
• Helps you raise questions that keep you thinking, because Brahman is accessible only through reason.

• Through knowledge, because knowledge is imperishable.
• Out of constant change is constant fear. In change there is death or loss.
• He who embarks on the path of philosophy becomes brave and loses fear of death.
• This mind identifies itself with the imperishable.
• As you lose fear of death, you will approach immortality.

Because they have seen the futility of death.

• Ontological problem: The question of being is important – does a dead person exist? In this lies the problem of immortality: the problem of being.
• Ethical problem: If there is no life after death, there is no reason for ethics. If there is no judgment or consequences, there is no reason for ethics.
• Scientific problem: If the chain of cause and effect is broken, life loses meaning.
• Salvation solution: Is there any utterly true salvation? Yes, an escape from the cycle of life and death.
• True wisdom begins by taking death seriously, for it is a philosophical problem requiring our clearest thinking.
• Knowledge and death are self-relational, not transactional. Death leads to another birth, but not so far knowledge.

• Transcending logic: realm of gnosis, cognition, where the self (atman) manifests itself as a witness
• Transactional logic: realm of karma, work, transactional cause and effect, where the universe is revealed by sacrifice, where the ego (jiva) participates in this exchange, unable to overcome the cycle of cause and effect, which manifests through sacrifice.
• They are twin aspects of reality, properties of the soul.

• Freedom from the cause and effect cycle to obtain Brahman.
• Freedom from the world of sense data.

• Dharma: Justice
• Artha: Material prosperity
• Kama: Enjoyment
• Moksha: Philosophy, liberation, immortality
• The first two are the means and second two are the ends.
• Some ego is required to motivate you to go through the first three in order to achieve the fourth.
• Ego is defined by what it desires, and desire is unending.

That which is not science.

Desire, because desire reaches into non-being, requires fulfillment on a psychological and cosmological level.

• Student (16 years): Learn a trade, marry.
• Householder (32 years): Do the job you were taught, take care of your wife and children, buy a home.
• Philosopher: Semi-retirement, hair gets 1st gray, child turns 16, prepare for the great departure.
• Renunciate: The most free you will ever be.

He fights at the transactional level of logic, but at the transcendent level, he must realize “I am Brahman,” beyond birth and death. The transcending level is salvation.

• Detachment is the separation of transcendent properties from transaction al properties.
• It cannot be asceticism (side-stepping, not participating in the transactional level) or gluttony, rather, a balanced life well lived.

• When the 5 senses become focused, the clarity is interpreted as happiness, and freedom from desire is experienced as joy.
• Happiness is the infinitization of pleasure.

• Absolute Existence
• Absolute Consciousness
• Absolute Bliss
• All this is our true nature.

War brings into focus the destruction at the heart of existence.

The battlefield is a sacrificial field, a sacred plane where reality is reorganized.

• An attitude that orients us to that which is ultimate.
• That which asks ultimate questions about who you are ultimately.
• The bonding of you to the All – there is only one.
• The path of religion is the personal evolution from finite to absolute, mortal to infinite, darkness to illumination.

• You look into the other’s eyes and see yourself.
• You exist as the other of the other.

• Work: Through work, achieve the earth realm.
• Sacrifice: Through sacrifice, ascend to heaven.
• Knowledge: Through knowledge, go beyond heaven to Brahman.

No. Without desire, action is not possible.

Yes. That which is attained through desire is temporary, and ego is temporal.

No. That which is attained through knowledge is eternal, so there is no ego in it.