My mind has been really active in persuit of philosophy and mythology recently, but I have not done a good job writing it all down, so I have not been putting it on the blog. Instead, I have been appeasing the blog gods with inane shit about pomegranites. But the task is so overwhelming. The only way to do it is to write a bit now, think about it, and write more and more entries. I was hoping to be able to write one big one that was just my personal dogma and get it out of the way so I could talk about india and things that people want to hear about. But this is what I am doing in India--just thinking a lot.

My Western education has done a very good job of teaching me to think critically about everything, and in some respects this is getting in my way. Also, my relationship to religion throughout my life has made it impossible for me to be anything but athiest. These two facts mean that I almost never just take the wisdom of my Guru and beleive it and love it--instead, I mangle it in my own head. I have none of the true faith or devotion that people here value so highly. I am, and probably will always be an athiest.

But I have been awakened to a spiritual feeling which was always lurking inside me, and I have been trying to form a view of reality that allows it. So, I beleive that everyone has a spark of the devine in them, an atman which is an infinite part of an infinite whole, as I wrote in an earlier entry. This spirit is not unique to humans or even to living beings, it is inherant and probably the foundation of matter. My sister can probably correct me on this point, but my impression is that physicists are still mystified about the fundamental nature of matter, they can continue dividing it into smaller parts, but have not reached the answer yet. The answer that I propose is that conciousness--awareness--is the fundamental foundation of matter. This sounds like god but it is not--clearly, it is not the type of god who could enforce any type of morality, and although it is unseen, it is also seen in every moment of every body's life. Also, I beleive that it is possible for physicists to discover this, to express it in their own scientific language, whether it be string theory or whatever better vocabulary my sister comes up with. This would be impossible in the traditional view of what God is.

So the larger god, the Brahm, is only what is the conglomeration of all the Atman in the universe--it is nothing outside of what simply is. But humans are in a unique position in all the world because we are self aware and have the capacity to engage with our own atman, to worship and be moved by it, and to allow it to guide us to our own dharma. Most people choose not to be, but through introspection, renunciation, and doing selfless noble deeds, we can become enlightened.

Although matter decays, this sould which is at the foundation of matter does not have to decay--it will always exist in some form, until it doesn't anymore (which could happen but is beyond the sphere of my knowing). In that way, I do beleive in transmigration as a possibility, but it is also possibility that the atman of our bodies simply goes on to be the atman of the earth or the ganga or wherever our bodies are deposited when we die.

My thoughts are in constant flux, and I will probably not stick to this. Look for more entries later on. Now, I have to go bang on drums.
peace
jed