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ETERNAL(!) HELL
“We could never conceive that any expiatory debt—as grave as it may be—would not finally arrive at an end. It is clear that divine justice can never fail, since every fault—as serious as it may be—has its exact mathematical expiatory equivalent. Thus, it is not possible to pay more than what is owed, and if divinity would collect more than what is owed, it would obviously be unjust.” (SAMAEL AUN WEOR)
Hopefully we have now all got past the notion that God is an arbitrary tyrant who damns people to Eternal Suffering with no concern whether or not they have lived Ethically, but only whether they “Believed”. Thus we can get on to the subject of a deeper exploration of DIVINE JUSTICE.
PERFECT JUSTICE is an attribute of Divinity. Even Buddhists who generally deny the existence of God as-such, believe in the Universal Law, the DHARMA. We state that the existence and operation in all things of UNIVERSAL LAW is a self-evident predicate of existence, in the same way that sparks signify the presence of a fire. There are those who will not like this, who have already closed their mind to anything having the taste of the spiritual, who are totally averse to the idea of a Divine Order in the Cosmos. Unhappily there are many such people, often traumatized by their encounters with Abrahamic Dogma, for them we can only hope that they will have some experience which will open up their minds.
We can also say that Divinity is PERFECT MERCY, though Justice seems to include the concept of Mercy. JUSTICE means that a person cannot be condemned except for the bad they have actually done, nor can someone be rewarded except for the good they have actually done. Nor can they suffer more than the bad they have done merits, nor be rewarded more than the good they have done merits.
This is quite a different idea from Christian Soteriology. In the Christian conception a person is not punished in a limited way in accordance with the evil they have done but in an unlimited and infinite way for the evil that they (supposedly) are. Nor are they rewarded for the good they have done in their lives but rather for the good done by another (perfect) person who died for them, saving them from the evil that they *are (*not by their own fault but by that of their ancestors). In truth, it must be very sad to be one of the people who believe themselves and others irredeemably evil, they must struggle to see the Divinity in Humanity.
How strange it is that there are people who believe that the bloodshed of the execution of humanity’s greatest spiritual master is the only means (indeed any means at all) by which they can be “saved”! They call this “Faith”, but it has little to do with real Faith, with that Conscious Faith that sees Divinity everywhere. Of course Faith is important, we aren’t saying that mighty works such as giving huge amounts of money are the real means of being “saved”, because however great our works are they cannot fail to have negative unintended consequences. Only spiritual work bears wholly positive fruits. But spiritual work isn’t just a matter of saying “yes I believe in Jesus, that he was crucified for me(!), etc”.
In order to be honest though, it must be said that the Christian doctrine is not exactly a bad thing. The ATHEIST doctrine that upon death everything is “finished”, which the atheists each conceptualize in various ways as some kind of dissolution, is much more confused and illogical. The Atheists are in fact correct that eventually the EGO will be dissolved, yet they don’t realize that is only the EGO, not the Essence, the I AM. They also totally fail to understand that this is not something immediate but rather is either the fruit of spiritual struggles against the abominable EGO or of dissolution in an Infernal realm. All of their concepts are lacking in clarity, they fail to realise that non-existence is not actually conceptualizable, they do not grasp that the I AM, the INNER LIGHT, the “SOUL” exists and cannot not exist. Atheism is an example of total philosophical and spiritual blindness, the Christians, at the very least, have some concept of DIVINE JUSTICE even if their notions about it are rather childish. The notion that there’s either Eternal Heaven or Eternal Hell, nothing else and nothing less, is quite evidently silly, nonetheless it at least includes some kind of reward for righteousness and punishment for the sinner.
We must comprehend that the Christian concept of afterlife is not incorrect but incipient. The situation is somewhat like Hegel’s notion that his philosophy contained all of the philosophies before it, that they were not different from each other but just steps in a grand progression. Hegel was basically wrong in asserting that his own philosophy was the final and therefore perfect Synthesis of all before him, and his notion of temporal progress was rather naive, but the basic notion of nothing being incorrect, only more or less incipient, applies very well when we are analysing religions.
Nonetheless due to such incipient knowledge being presented as authoritative and people’s lack of exposure to the more sane Oriental Doctrines, many people in fact become Atheists who wouldn’t be so were it not for the logical inconsistencies of the Christian Religion (of course here we are primarily discussing Europe, the USA, not Islamic countries or highly religious ones). This is what the Christian Church has to face up to, the fact that it’s own inconsistent, cruel and illogical doctrines are responsible for creating Atheists.
Still, we can see clearly how the ATHEISM is reactionary, a reaction against the doctrine of the Churches. It is also incipient, rather than incorrect, in the sense that it actually contains in it the seed of some wisdom which the Church does not possess. We are all familiar with the symbol of the YIN-YANG, in which YIN is the DARK, INVOLUTING principle and YANG the LIGHT, EVOLVING principle. Yet in this symbol the YIN, which is Black, contains a White dot and YANG, which is White, a Black dot. This symbolises the fact that in every Involuting tendency there is a SEED of Evolution, and vice versa.
The Churches are (not ultimately, but in relation to the Atheists) the EVOLVING tendency and thus they believe, or comprehend, that there is punishment and reward for actions. The Atheists are the INVOLUTING tendency and believe that Dissolution follows Death. When we synthesise these tendencies we arrive at the idea that after Death, and the completion of the Essence’s births in human form, we either spiritually ascend or descend to the INFERNO, and in both cases the EGO is eventually dissolved. According to Esoteric Teachings, this prepares the way for a new cycle of human births.
BUDDHISM teaches us that we must avoid the EXTREMES of ETERNALISM and NIHILISM. The Churches’ Eternalists teach Eternal Reward and Eternal Punishment. The Atheist Nihilists do not believe in an ESSENCE or “SOUL” (language is rather limited in explaining the actual thing) which continues after Death. The Atheist Nihilists are in a worse situation because they do not comprehend that is the Ego, not the Essence, which is Annihilated. As they have no conception of Divinity, they have no desire to struggle spiritually, and are thus totally condemned to a cycle of Involution.
Yes, the Atheists are reactionary, they are often deceived by trendy pseudo-philosophers and there are some vast holes in their logic. But that doesn’t only apply to them, religious people are often equally reactionary and illogical. In fact we can be sure that among the Atheists there are even men and women with genuine spiritual longings who, put off by the madness of organized Abrahamic religion, become “mystics” of scientific concepts, of physics, or Marxism, or Anarchism. The Churches must understand that until they free themselves from their ancestral, regressive and outdated dogmas, they are quite literally condemning people to (non-Eternal) Hell by the reactions they are provoking.
It is fundamental and necessary to see that the conception of REBIRTH or TRANSMIGRATION is a much more sane way of viewing things than either the ETERNALIST or NIHILIST positions, and we will come to this over the course of this article.
THE PARADOX OF THE DEATH OF THE UNBAPTIZED INFANT
Before beginning we must state that this section is written from the perspective of pure LOGOS i.e. excluding discussion of the emotional side of the subject under consideration. Of course no human being would not be deeply upset at losing a child, and anyone with feeling would be upset by such a terrible thing even when it doesn’t directly affect them. For example, anyone who can hear the words “child was killed in an air-strike” without being angry at the wicked Moloch that does such terrible things, is a person lacking fundamental human sensitivity.
So we will now discuss this question, about the infant who dies shortly after birth. Let us consider it in relation to the Christian doctrine, that there is just One Life (though we could in fact be talking about Islam, in this case the conclusions are pretty much the same). If we believe in the Christian doctrine, that infant either needs to go to Heaven or to Hell. It has a Soul, an Existence, it cannot simply disappear, and in the Christian doctrine there are not many possible destinations.
People say things like “oh that soul wanted to return straight home to God” or some other cliched sentiment. But this makes no sense. Why? Because the baby has done nothing. Not only “nothing wrong”, nothing. It has done nothing good either. It hasn’t lived, and therefore has earned nothing. Because it is in living that we face temptation, it is in the combat against the bad that we purify ourselves, that we become good. “The hotter the battle, the sweeter the victory”. No battle, no victory.
A person cannot be rewarded for overcoming temptation, or punished for not overcoming it, if they have never faced temptation. If the baby goes to Heaven there is the idea that certain souls are created intrinsically better than others. If it goes to Hell there is the notion that some are created intrinsically worse than others. Either those that die like this are Angels passing through a reality which isn’t their home, or in the other case they are Devils, simply fuel for the fire of Hell. This is not JUST, because in JUSTICE all HUMAN SOULS must be created equal, all SOULS should have the opportunity to purify themselves (or to fail to do so). The Doctrine of Multiple Lives, REBIRTH gives this opportunity to everyone, indeed an unceasing opportunity.
Furthermore, we cannot even say for certain that the infant did not die through the agency of others. Perhaps the mother was negligent and did something bad for the unborn child, perhaps she was exposed to some toxin without even knowing it, perhaps the child died in an air strike. So we can’t even say “oh it was the infant’s soul which didn’t want to stay in this world”.
There are a couple of Christian concepts which attempt to resolve this problem. The first is what the CATHOLICS developed, the notion of “Limbo”. This is a kind of Heaven within Hell, where the innocent who have not known Christ (including virtuous adults like Socrates), suffer only from not being in the Presence Of Divinity. This is an attempt to find a solution to the cruelty of souls being born only to be damned, and not even having the opportunity to be saved. Very well, but being cut off from the Presence Of Divinity is still a punishment, and there is no Justice in punishing the innocent, however light the punishment.
The other is the notion, in the vein of C.S. Lewis, that the difficulty of salvation depends on the degree of knowledge a person possesses. Someone who understands the Gospels, who is sufficiently intelligent to understand the right way to act in situations, would need to make more efforts than someone who possesses no knowledge at all. We could say, for example, that the Sentinelese tribespeople won’t be going to Hell even if they do shoot missionaries with arrows, because in their culture they have no understanding that there is something wrong with such an action. Going by this theory, an Unbaptized Infant would go to Heaven, having no knowledge the child therefore has no responsibility.
This is saner than the notion of damning the child to suffer, and it will be difficult for some people to see why such a notion is actually problematic. Indeed it is the best possible resolution of the problem within the Christian framework of One Earthly Life Followed By Eternal Salvation Or Damnation. So we are going to have to put this framework aside, to seek something more coherent.
First let’s briefly critique this doctrine. We can say that as we have already mentioned, in order for there to be a victory over temptation, there must first be temptation. One is reminded of the Nordic notion of VALHALLA, the heaven of the great warriors. Of course we are not saying that one needs to fight physical enemies like a Viking, but when we understand this teaching symbolically we can grasp how one needs to become a warrior to attain salvation, a warrior against temptation and the armies of the EGO. It is in making the battle of life that we earn the victory of spiritual ascension, and there is no way other than this, “the Kingdom of Heaven is taken by force”.
Now, in an attempt to resolve this question about the fate of the dying infant, we must come to the notion of multiple lives, REBIRTH, the “Transmigration Of Souls”. In this conception, every life is a creation of KARMA and this Karma is at once individual and in relation with others. The Prayer of CHRISTOS, known as “THE LORD’S PRAYER” actually sums up the whole principle of Karma very nicely in both of two widely used translations. One says “Forgive Us Our Debts” and the other “Forgive Us Our Trespasses”.
Taking the concept of Debts we can see that in different ways beings help or hinder each-other. Helping someone on the material level of providing shelter etc., would have a similar result for us in this life or in future lives, helping on a spiritual level would have the same similar result. KARMA is transactional, negative actions lead to a debt with the person we have acted negatively towards.
The concept of Trespasses is another side of KARMA, it is to do with interfering in the personal space of another. We actually have a tendency to do this all the time in the sense of trying to impose our views onto other people. People cling to others and expect others to behave in ways which are pleasing to them, and in doing so we cramp the person, try to remake them in our image. It is difficult to comprehend and even more difficult to live, that each person has their own personal freedom to believe, think and (within limits) act as they wish. We should not try to impose ourselves on others. A mild case of this would be proselytizing using fear, the most extreme case would be murder, in which we enter into someone’s personal space to the degree of taking their life away, taking away the thing which most truly belongs to them.
KARMA can be conceived as lessons, or as payments (there are other ways of conceiving it which are also valid, but we will deal with that in the next section). There are lessons brought about by our own past deeds, gifts in recompense for the sufferings brought about by the deeds of others, we are all also teachers and givers to others consciously or otherwise. In the end there is recompense for all the sufferings which others inflict on us and there is a point at which our own lessons are learned and do not bring about any further fruits, whether this be on the mundane level of time passing or on the spiritual level of attaining HEAVEN, NIRVANA, whatever you wish to call the state of Freedom from all Karma.
Therefore, an infant who dies is learning some lesson, experiencing something which will ultimately help them to progress spiritually. They could also be a lesson for their parents in the transiency and frailty of life. It may not be the child or the parents’ responsibility, they may not be the cause of it, but in time the Hand of Divinity can make it a useful experience for them. This is PROVIDENCE.
Over the course of our REBIRTHS all negative experiences without exception become useful experiences by means of this PROVIDENCE. We do not see it, even those who believe in REBIRTH weep when a relative dies, and sometimes the process takes place over periods of time much longer than a single life. Nonetheless, if we open ourselves to it we can feel PROVIDENCE everywhere, understand the essential purity and purpose of existence.
These concepts of REBIRTH and PROVIDENCE are steps on the way to a logically coherent doctrine. We can leave behind one body, one vehicle, and enter into another. We can even enter into Hell Realms, but we cannot stay there forever. EVERYTHING PASSES, with no exception.
THE SO-CALLED “PROBLEM OF EVIL”
CARL JUNG attempted to resolve the Problem Of Evil by postulating a fourth member of the Holy Trinity, of a feminine and dark nature, a force of Evil within the Godhead. We can say that there certainly is a Feminine element in the Trinity, the Mother Goddess. However we cannot accept that Godhead contains any kind of Evil, nor that there is a fourth force beyond: HOLY AFFIRMING, HOLY DENYING, HOLY RECONCILING.
Evidently JUNG made the same unfortunate assumption as has commonly been made by the philosophers of the Occident, that the human life is only a single life. His attempt to resolve the Problem of Evil is not much different from the Theological notion of “Natural Evil”, this being that God makes nature as a machine and that nature cannot be otherwise than a machine, therefore the Evil that arises is not created by God but is just an unfortunate product, a necessary part of existence within the machine of Nature.
Both of these views demonstrate a misunderstanding of the Feminine Element, of the DIVINE FEMININE. They ascribe Evil to the Feminine Element, which is effectively suggesting that the Female is Evil or Defective in comparison to the Masculine Element. In observing the chaos of Nature, it’s rich profusion of diverse forms and the violence which is part of Animal Life, those totally attached to Reason become confused. Such people are too attached to LOGIC at the expense of EMOTION, the BRAIN at the expense of the HEART, the APPOLONIAN at the expense of the DIONYSIAN.
In fact there is no part of Creation which is not a part of the Divine Order. Nature is a struggle for life without rules, with no laws of states to govern it. People consider, in a certain sense quite rightly, that such Chaos is the image of “Evil” and that when such Violence and Struggle for Life appears in the human realm it is something to be checked, prevented and punished. The great philosopher NIETZSCHE saw the fault in this, the pettiness that in seeking to protect humanity from Chaos in fact checks and prevents the development of higher forms of life. “You must have Chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star” he said. He was too ruthless in his concepts, becoming obsessed with “the blonde beast” and Cesare Borgia types, but he had begun to intuit something which is true, that ULTIMATELY there is no GOOD AND EVIL.
Why? Now we must begin by returning to the consideration of things from a different perspective from those which many of us are accustomed to, the Eastern perspective of REBIRTH. In this vision everything is a question of KARMA, every good deed has it’s reward and every wicked deed it’s punishment. Nothing is ever actually destroyed or damaged because the “SOUL” (or “BEING”, or “ESSENCE”) is invincible, as the Bhagavad Gita says “The soul can never be cut into pieces by any weapon, nor can he be burned by fire, nor moistened by water, nor withered by the wind”. It is definitely possible to create suffering for the Transmigrating Entity, but this suffering is not Absolute.
Take the example of a person who is unjustly killed. If we take the Abrahamic conception, something has been permanently destroyed. If we accept the “one life followed by heaven or hell” doctrine, the person killed may even have lost their chance at Salvation, they could have come later to be a “believer” if they weren’t at the time they were killed. The person has lost something they can never get back, there are no further opportunities for the murdered person.
Of course, killing is a terrible act, extremely negative. However, if we take the Oriental doctrine of Rebirth we can see it in a different light. The BEING requires a body, it is essential for self-realization. Dying is one of the hardest things we have to face, being separated from our loved ones, passing through the terrors of the state between death and rebirth. Then we have to grow up, be children again, lose and (perhaps) find again whatever knowledge or wisdom we had in the previous life. Nonetheless, if a killed person gains a new body, nothing is ultimately lost. Evidently the killer will have to face a very severe KARMA in order to bring healing to the slain, the killer will be forced to become in some way a force that heals the person he has forced to take Rebirth.
But Death is not the end of the world. It is unimaginably inconvenient, difficult, painful and lonely to die. Yet even in this most extreme of cases, nothing is ever totally lost. KARMA will give the BEING what it needs to heal the wound of having been killed. In truth no-one is ever absolutely innocent or absolutely guilty anyway, we will all die in the end whether it be by fire and the sword or tucked up in bed.
A poem of RALPH WALDO EMERSON expresses the concept nicely:
“If the red slayer thinks he slays,
Or if the slain think he be slain
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again”
Nature is a STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. We can attempt to shield ourselves from the cruelties of Nature, human beings have built many structures in order to try to prevent the CHAOS, the so-called “EVIL” of Animal Life from entering into the human life. In doing so we have separated ourselves also from the good things of Nature, we have constructed a fiendish BABYLON of fornication and misery. If we only viewed things from the perspective not of one life but of many lives, infinite lives, we would realise that there is no Evil to shield ourselves from. There is a lot of Pain and Suffering, indeed ever-present Suffering, but no EVIL. There is simply the process of balancing the Karmic equation and giving everybody opportunities to attain SELF-REALIZATION.
EVIL exists on the RELATIVE level. There are deeds which must be punished, there are things which cannot even be left to Karma. There are terrible, horrible things which happen in the world, and we must absolutely not be blind to these. Yet in the ABSOLUTE sense there is NO EVIL. Evil exists only as a Shadow exists, it is never triumphant over the Light, in the same way that a Shadow, however large it is, cannot destroy the Sun. There is nothing irreparable, no damage which cannot be fixed. This is very different to the Christian notion, the idea that we are Evil, do Evil, and that this Evil has Absolute rather than Relative existence, indeed that it cannot be pardoned except by the (execution of) Christ.
When we no longer ascribe Evil to Nature, we no longer deride the Feminine. We see the Blessed Mother Goddess in Her glorious bountifulness, giving, giving of Herself for humanity, indeed all living beings. She is no less perfect than the Father, and She is nearer to us. A Tibetan story goes that when Avalokiteshvara, the Great Compassion, saw all the suffering of humanity he shed a tear. From this tear was produced the Goddess Mother, known in Tibetan as “Tara”, who is the consolation for all the suffering humanity. Any normal person finds great consolation in Nature.
“A WHY TO LIVE”
There is one clearly visible way to attack this argument about the Doctrine of Rebirth resolving the problem of EVIL. If there is no purpose, no reason, to being born, dying, being reborn, then we have a similar problem to that of the Christian faith, suffering which accomplishes no purpose. There must be a reason, some kind of reason, for there to be a justification. As we have already stated, the Wheel of Life known as “Samsara” exists to offer all the opportunity of SELF-REALIZATION. This is ample justification for all the sufferings of existence, as it is the process of the BEING uniting with itself, the process of becoming truly Human. True HUMANITY in itself, the existence of the SELF-REALIZED, by it’s existence justifies all Creation.
But what of those who don’t want Self-Realization? Samsara also offers beings the opportunity to be whatever it is they want to be in the course of time, though everyone has to suffer whatever Karmic reactions they bring about by their actions. Divinity and Nature fulfil desires even if those desires are opposed to the Divine Plan. Of course, breaking the Laws of Nature is eventually punished, but if a person is willing to accept the punishment then they can have the things that please their ego. Though Karma is essentially DIDACTIC (the ultimate lesson, for those want it, being how to return to Divinity) no-one can be prevented from skipping class.
Therefore we can see the purposes of KARMA in a number of different ways, as a process to bring about the Divine Human, as lessons or as wish-fulfilment. At the same time it might be simply a dance, a beautiful dance, and it’s beauty be it’s ultimate justification. In fact, it is all of these things and many other things as well, it has as many reasons for being as there are individuals with reasons to be. “All joy wants Eternity” said Nietzsche.
PROVIDENCE
We have already mentioned how the making of experiences of Suffering into useful experiences is PROVIDENCE.
Unfortunately in the Christian system there are forcibly limits to the PROVIDENCE of Divinity. Whatever a person is born as, they are limited by. They have no further chances at attaining salvation. Other people trespass on their lives, create problems for them, circumstances beyond their control fill their lives with difficulties. They are thrust into the world and forced to face the bafflement of existence, and, if the Christians are right, are then made to Suffer Eternally should they, in the confusion of being in the world, pick the wrong God to believe in.
We can see clearly in the world around us how little Justice there seems to be. Wicked people are exalted and live long, peaceful lives full of material opulence. Sincere individuals experience pain of every kind and indeed are persecuted for their sincerity. The Christians can only respond to all of this with platitudes about the incomprehensibility of God and “His ways being beyond our understanding”. If suffering always tended to bring people closer to salvation, only then would it be worthwhile, yet if we look at things from the Christian perspective then this simply isn’t the case. Suffering doesn’t always make people turn to Christianity, indeed it may turn them in quite the opposite direction. But if suffering has no purpose, then Divinity is not GOOD.
Yet over the course of many lives, then we can see something being accomplished. We can see in all our experiences the perpetual REVELATION OF DIVINITY. We may not see it at the time things happen to us, but it is there. The GREAT COMPASSION is always working, healing, uplifting us. When we turn away we cease to see it, but when we turn away then things will always arise to show us the wisdom in turning back towards Divinity. Whether or not we accept It’s presence in our lives, open ourselves up to the LOVE, we are still loved, we are never abandoned.
This is PROVIDENCE. Everything in the end works out for the best, every single wound from the most petty to the most terrible, is healed in the course of time. Divinity is always calling us, always seeking us, always loving us. All that happens to us is just the experience of this calling. In Denying we Affirm and in Affirming we Deny, but beyond all these Opposites and Dualisms is BEING, the foundation of all existence. Every one of us has an INNER BEING beyond the mind, personality etc.
Finally, returning to an earlier point, we should make clear that in order to understand this working of PROVIDENCE we must have the comprehension that there can be no Eternal Hell. If Divinity were to condemn a person to Hell without end then he would be condemning not the EGO but the BEING, because however many negative actions the EGO performs, all of these must eventually be purified and to continue punishment after that would be to punish the BEING. Every BEING is in fact INNOCENT and is an integral part of DIVINITY, and thus He would be condemning Himself. That is to say, the essential Dignity of the BEING is such that if a single BEING were condemned to Eternal Hell for the actions of the EGO, then DIVINITY Himself would be condemned to Hell. Every part contains the Essential Dignity of the Whole, just as children contain the Essence of their Father even if they don’t have all His capabilities.
A FINAL NOTE
In affirming the Reality and Justice of the Doctrine of REBIRTH we do not state that there do not also exist reactionary and regressive Dogmas in the East. Not only the Abrahamic Religions, but also their Eastern counterparts are incipient formulations of the Truth. For example, we cannot say that there is much wisdom in the system of castes. We must go beyond the ideas of the East as well, always seeking a HIGHER SYNTHESIS.
MAY ALL BEINGS BE WELL, MAY ALL BEINGS BE HAPPY, MAY ALL BEINGS BE AT PEACE
https://socialgnosis.org
“We could never conceive that any expiatory debt—as grave as it may be—would not finally arrive at an end. It is clear that divine justice can never fail, since every fault—as serious as it may be—has its exact mathematical expiatory equivalent. Thus, it is not possible to pay more than what is owed, and if divinity would collect more than what is owed, it would obviously be unjust.” (SAMAEL AUN WEOR)
Hopefully we have now all got past the notion that God is an arbitrary tyrant who damns people to Eternal Suffering with no concern whether or not they have lived Ethically, but only whether they “Believed”. Thus we can get on to the subject of a deeper exploration of DIVINE JUSTICE.
PERFECT JUSTICE is an attribute of Divinity. Even Buddhists who generally deny the existence of God as-such, believe in the Universal Law, the DHARMA. We state that the existence and operation in all things of UNIVERSAL LAW is a self-evident predicate of existence, in the same way that sparks signify the presence of a fire. There are those who will not like this, who have already closed their mind to anything having the taste of the spiritual, who are totally averse to the idea of a Divine Order in the Cosmos. Unhappily there are many such people, often traumatized by their encounters with Abrahamic Dogma, for them we can only hope that they will have some experience which will open up their minds.
We can also say that Divinity is PERFECT MERCY, though Justice seems to include the concept of Mercy. JUSTICE means that a person cannot be condemned except for the bad they have actually done, nor can someone be rewarded except for the good they have actually done. Nor can they suffer more than the bad they have done merits, nor be rewarded more than the good they have done merits.
This is quite a different idea from Christian Soteriology. In the Christian conception a person is not punished in a limited way in accordance with the evil they have done but in an unlimited and infinite way for the evil that they (supposedly) are. Nor are they rewarded for the good they have done in their lives but rather for the good done by another (perfect) person who died for them, saving them from the evil that they *are (*not by their own fault but by that of their ancestors). In truth, it must be very sad to be one of the people who believe themselves and others irredeemably evil, they must struggle to see the Divinity in Humanity.
How strange it is that there are people who believe that the bloodshed of the execution of humanity’s greatest spiritual master is the only means (indeed any means at all) by which they can be “saved”! They call this “Faith”, but it has little to do with real Faith, with that Conscious Faith that sees Divinity everywhere. Of course Faith is important, we aren’t saying that mighty works such as giving huge amounts of money are the real means of being “saved”, because however great our works are they cannot fail to have negative unintended consequences. Only spiritual work bears wholly positive fruits. But spiritual work isn’t just a matter of saying “yes I believe in Jesus, that he was crucified for me(!), etc”.
In order to be honest though, it must be said that the Christian doctrine is not exactly a bad thing. The ATHEIST doctrine that upon death everything is “finished”, which the atheists each conceptualize in various ways as some kind of dissolution, is much more confused and illogical. The Atheists are in fact correct that eventually the EGO will be dissolved, yet they don’t realize that is only the EGO, not the Essence, the I AM. They also totally fail to understand that this is not something immediate but rather is either the fruit of spiritual struggles against the abominable EGO or of dissolution in an Infernal realm. All of their concepts are lacking in clarity, they fail to realise that non-existence is not actually conceptualizable, they do not grasp that the I AM, the INNER LIGHT, the “SOUL” exists and cannot not exist. Atheism is an example of total philosophical and spiritual blindness, the Christians, at the very least, have some concept of DIVINE JUSTICE even if their notions about it are rather childish. The notion that there’s either Eternal Heaven or Eternal Hell, nothing else and nothing less, is quite evidently silly, nonetheless it at least includes some kind of reward for righteousness and punishment for the sinner.
We must comprehend that the Christian concept of afterlife is not incorrect but incipient. The situation is somewhat like Hegel’s notion that his philosophy contained all of the philosophies before it, that they were not different from each other but just steps in a grand progression. Hegel was basically wrong in asserting that his own philosophy was the final and therefore perfect Synthesis of all before him, and his notion of temporal progress was rather naive, but the basic notion of nothing being incorrect, only more or less incipient, applies very well when we are analysing religions.
Nonetheless due to such incipient knowledge being presented as authoritative and people’s lack of exposure to the more sane Oriental Doctrines, many people in fact become Atheists who wouldn’t be so were it not for the logical inconsistencies of the Christian Religion (of course here we are primarily discussing Europe, the USA, not Islamic countries or highly religious ones). This is what the Christian Church has to face up to, the fact that it’s own inconsistent, cruel and illogical doctrines are responsible for creating Atheists.
Still, we can see clearly how the ATHEISM is reactionary, a reaction against the doctrine of the Churches. It is also incipient, rather than incorrect, in the sense that it actually contains in it the seed of some wisdom which the Church does not possess. We are all familiar with the symbol of the YIN-YANG, in which YIN is the DARK, INVOLUTING principle and YANG the LIGHT, EVOLVING principle. Yet in this symbol the YIN, which is Black, contains a White dot and YANG, which is White, a Black dot. This symbolises the fact that in every Involuting tendency there is a SEED of Evolution, and vice versa.
The Churches are (not ultimately, but in relation to the Atheists) the EVOLVING tendency and thus they believe, or comprehend, that there is punishment and reward for actions. The Atheists are the INVOLUTING tendency and believe that Dissolution follows Death. When we synthesise these tendencies we arrive at the idea that after Death, and the completion of the Essence’s births in human form, we either spiritually ascend or descend to the INFERNO, and in both cases the EGO is eventually dissolved. According to Esoteric Teachings, this prepares the way for a new cycle of human births.
BUDDHISM teaches us that we must avoid the EXTREMES of ETERNALISM and NIHILISM. The Churches’ Eternalists teach Eternal Reward and Eternal Punishment. The Atheist Nihilists do not believe in an ESSENCE or “SOUL” (language is rather limited in explaining the actual thing) which continues after Death. The Atheist Nihilists are in a worse situation because they do not comprehend that is the Ego, not the Essence, which is Annihilated. As they have no conception of Divinity, they have no desire to struggle spiritually, and are thus totally condemned to a cycle of Involution.
Yes, the Atheists are reactionary, they are often deceived by trendy pseudo-philosophers and there are some vast holes in their logic. But that doesn’t only apply to them, religious people are often equally reactionary and illogical. In fact we can be sure that among the Atheists there are even men and women with genuine spiritual longings who, put off by the madness of organized Abrahamic religion, become “mystics” of scientific concepts, of physics, or Marxism, or Anarchism. The Churches must understand that until they free themselves from their ancestral, regressive and outdated dogmas, they are quite literally condemning people to (non-Eternal) Hell by the reactions they are provoking.
It is fundamental and necessary to see that the conception of REBIRTH or TRANSMIGRATION is a much more sane way of viewing things than either the ETERNALIST or NIHILIST positions, and we will come to this over the course of this article.
THE PARADOX OF THE DEATH OF THE UNBAPTIZED INFANT
Before beginning we must state that this section is written from the perspective of pure LOGOS i.e. excluding discussion of the emotional side of the subject under consideration. Of course no human being would not be deeply upset at losing a child, and anyone with feeling would be upset by such a terrible thing even when it doesn’t directly affect them. For example, anyone who can hear the words “child was killed in an air-strike” without being angry at the wicked Moloch that does such terrible things, is a person lacking fundamental human sensitivity.
So we will now discuss this question, about the infant who dies shortly after birth. Let us consider it in relation to the Christian doctrine, that there is just One Life (though we could in fact be talking about Islam, in this case the conclusions are pretty much the same). If we believe in the Christian doctrine, that infant either needs to go to Heaven or to Hell. It has a Soul, an Existence, it cannot simply disappear, and in the Christian doctrine there are not many possible destinations.
People say things like “oh that soul wanted to return straight home to God” or some other cliched sentiment. But this makes no sense. Why? Because the baby has done nothing. Not only “nothing wrong”, nothing. It has done nothing good either. It hasn’t lived, and therefore has earned nothing. Because it is in living that we face temptation, it is in the combat against the bad that we purify ourselves, that we become good. “The hotter the battle, the sweeter the victory”. No battle, no victory.
A person cannot be rewarded for overcoming temptation, or punished for not overcoming it, if they have never faced temptation. If the baby goes to Heaven there is the idea that certain souls are created intrinsically better than others. If it goes to Hell there is the notion that some are created intrinsically worse than others. Either those that die like this are Angels passing through a reality which isn’t their home, or in the other case they are Devils, simply fuel for the fire of Hell. This is not JUST, because in JUSTICE all HUMAN SOULS must be created equal, all SOULS should have the opportunity to purify themselves (or to fail to do so). The Doctrine of Multiple Lives, REBIRTH gives this opportunity to everyone, indeed an unceasing opportunity.
Furthermore, we cannot even say for certain that the infant did not die through the agency of others. Perhaps the mother was negligent and did something bad for the unborn child, perhaps she was exposed to some toxin without even knowing it, perhaps the child died in an air strike. So we can’t even say “oh it was the infant’s soul which didn’t want to stay in this world”.
There are a couple of Christian concepts which attempt to resolve this problem. The first is what the CATHOLICS developed, the notion of “Limbo”. This is a kind of Heaven within Hell, where the innocent who have not known Christ (including virtuous adults like Socrates), suffer only from not being in the Presence Of Divinity. This is an attempt to find a solution to the cruelty of souls being born only to be damned, and not even having the opportunity to be saved. Very well, but being cut off from the Presence Of Divinity is still a punishment, and there is no Justice in punishing the innocent, however light the punishment.
The other is the notion, in the vein of C.S. Lewis, that the difficulty of salvation depends on the degree of knowledge a person possesses. Someone who understands the Gospels, who is sufficiently intelligent to understand the right way to act in situations, would need to make more efforts than someone who possesses no knowledge at all. We could say, for example, that the Sentinelese tribespeople won’t be going to Hell even if they do shoot missionaries with arrows, because in their culture they have no understanding that there is something wrong with such an action. Going by this theory, an Unbaptized Infant would go to Heaven, having no knowledge the child therefore has no responsibility.
This is saner than the notion of damning the child to suffer, and it will be difficult for some people to see why such a notion is actually problematic. Indeed it is the best possible resolution of the problem within the Christian framework of One Earthly Life Followed By Eternal Salvation Or Damnation. So we are going to have to put this framework aside, to seek something more coherent.
First let’s briefly critique this doctrine. We can say that as we have already mentioned, in order for there to be a victory over temptation, there must first be temptation. One is reminded of the Nordic notion of VALHALLA, the heaven of the great warriors. Of course we are not saying that one needs to fight physical enemies like a Viking, but when we understand this teaching symbolically we can grasp how one needs to become a warrior to attain salvation, a warrior against temptation and the armies of the EGO. It is in making the battle of life that we earn the victory of spiritual ascension, and there is no way other than this, “the Kingdom of Heaven is taken by force”.
Now, in an attempt to resolve this question about the fate of the dying infant, we must come to the notion of multiple lives, REBIRTH, the “Transmigration Of Souls”. In this conception, every life is a creation of KARMA and this Karma is at once individual and in relation with others. The Prayer of CHRISTOS, known as “THE LORD’S PRAYER” actually sums up the whole principle of Karma very nicely in both of two widely used translations. One says “Forgive Us Our Debts” and the other “Forgive Us Our Trespasses”.
Taking the concept of Debts we can see that in different ways beings help or hinder each-other. Helping someone on the material level of providing shelter etc., would have a similar result for us in this life or in future lives, helping on a spiritual level would have the same similar result. KARMA is transactional, negative actions lead to a debt with the person we have acted negatively towards.
The concept of Trespasses is another side of KARMA, it is to do with interfering in the personal space of another. We actually have a tendency to do this all the time in the sense of trying to impose our views onto other people. People cling to others and expect others to behave in ways which are pleasing to them, and in doing so we cramp the person, try to remake them in our image. It is difficult to comprehend and even more difficult to live, that each person has their own personal freedom to believe, think and (within limits) act as they wish. We should not try to impose ourselves on others. A mild case of this would be proselytizing using fear, the most extreme case would be murder, in which we enter into someone’s personal space to the degree of taking their life away, taking away the thing which most truly belongs to them.
KARMA can be conceived as lessons, or as payments (there are other ways of conceiving it which are also valid, but we will deal with that in the next section). There are lessons brought about by our own past deeds, gifts in recompense for the sufferings brought about by the deeds of others, we are all also teachers and givers to others consciously or otherwise. In the end there is recompense for all the sufferings which others inflict on us and there is a point at which our own lessons are learned and do not bring about any further fruits, whether this be on the mundane level of time passing or on the spiritual level of attaining HEAVEN, NIRVANA, whatever you wish to call the state of Freedom from all Karma.
Therefore, an infant who dies is learning some lesson, experiencing something which will ultimately help them to progress spiritually. They could also be a lesson for their parents in the transiency and frailty of life. It may not be the child or the parents’ responsibility, they may not be the cause of it, but in time the Hand of Divinity can make it a useful experience for them. This is PROVIDENCE.
Over the course of our REBIRTHS all negative experiences without exception become useful experiences by means of this PROVIDENCE. We do not see it, even those who believe in REBIRTH weep when a relative dies, and sometimes the process takes place over periods of time much longer than a single life. Nonetheless, if we open ourselves to it we can feel PROVIDENCE everywhere, understand the essential purity and purpose of existence.
These concepts of REBIRTH and PROVIDENCE are steps on the way to a logically coherent doctrine. We can leave behind one body, one vehicle, and enter into another. We can even enter into Hell Realms, but we cannot stay there forever. EVERYTHING PASSES, with no exception.
THE SO-CALLED “PROBLEM OF EVIL”
CARL JUNG attempted to resolve the Problem Of Evil by postulating a fourth member of the Holy Trinity, of a feminine and dark nature, a force of Evil within the Godhead. We can say that there certainly is a Feminine element in the Trinity, the Mother Goddess. However we cannot accept that Godhead contains any kind of Evil, nor that there is a fourth force beyond: HOLY AFFIRMING, HOLY DENYING, HOLY RECONCILING.
Evidently JUNG made the same unfortunate assumption as has commonly been made by the philosophers of the Occident, that the human life is only a single life. His attempt to resolve the Problem of Evil is not much different from the Theological notion of “Natural Evil”, this being that God makes nature as a machine and that nature cannot be otherwise than a machine, therefore the Evil that arises is not created by God but is just an unfortunate product, a necessary part of existence within the machine of Nature.
Both of these views demonstrate a misunderstanding of the Feminine Element, of the DIVINE FEMININE. They ascribe Evil to the Feminine Element, which is effectively suggesting that the Female is Evil or Defective in comparison to the Masculine Element. In observing the chaos of Nature, it’s rich profusion of diverse forms and the violence which is part of Animal Life, those totally attached to Reason become confused. Such people are too attached to LOGIC at the expense of EMOTION, the BRAIN at the expense of the HEART, the APPOLONIAN at the expense of the DIONYSIAN.
In fact there is no part of Creation which is not a part of the Divine Order. Nature is a struggle for life without rules, with no laws of states to govern it. People consider, in a certain sense quite rightly, that such Chaos is the image of “Evil” and that when such Violence and Struggle for Life appears in the human realm it is something to be checked, prevented and punished. The great philosopher NIETZSCHE saw the fault in this, the pettiness that in seeking to protect humanity from Chaos in fact checks and prevents the development of higher forms of life. “You must have Chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star” he said. He was too ruthless in his concepts, becoming obsessed with “the blonde beast” and Cesare Borgia types, but he had begun to intuit something which is true, that ULTIMATELY there is no GOOD AND EVIL.
Why? Now we must begin by returning to the consideration of things from a different perspective from those which many of us are accustomed to, the Eastern perspective of REBIRTH. In this vision everything is a question of KARMA, every good deed has it’s reward and every wicked deed it’s punishment. Nothing is ever actually destroyed or damaged because the “SOUL” (or “BEING”, or “ESSENCE”) is invincible, as the Bhagavad Gita says “The soul can never be cut into pieces by any weapon, nor can he be burned by fire, nor moistened by water, nor withered by the wind”. It is definitely possible to create suffering for the Transmigrating Entity, but this suffering is not Absolute.
Take the example of a person who is unjustly killed. If we take the Abrahamic conception, something has been permanently destroyed. If we accept the “one life followed by heaven or hell” doctrine, the person killed may even have lost their chance at Salvation, they could have come later to be a “believer” if they weren’t at the time they were killed. The person has lost something they can never get back, there are no further opportunities for the murdered person.
Of course, killing is a terrible act, extremely negative. However, if we take the Oriental doctrine of Rebirth we can see it in a different light. The BEING requires a body, it is essential for self-realization. Dying is one of the hardest things we have to face, being separated from our loved ones, passing through the terrors of the state between death and rebirth. Then we have to grow up, be children again, lose and (perhaps) find again whatever knowledge or wisdom we had in the previous life. Nonetheless, if a killed person gains a new body, nothing is ultimately lost. Evidently the killer will have to face a very severe KARMA in order to bring healing to the slain, the killer will be forced to become in some way a force that heals the person he has forced to take Rebirth.
But Death is not the end of the world. It is unimaginably inconvenient, difficult, painful and lonely to die. Yet even in this most extreme of cases, nothing is ever totally lost. KARMA will give the BEING what it needs to heal the wound of having been killed. In truth no-one is ever absolutely innocent or absolutely guilty anyway, we will all die in the end whether it be by fire and the sword or tucked up in bed.
A poem of RALPH WALDO EMERSON expresses the concept nicely:
“If the red slayer thinks he slays,
Or if the slain think he be slain
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again”
Nature is a STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. We can attempt to shield ourselves from the cruelties of Nature, human beings have built many structures in order to try to prevent the CHAOS, the so-called “EVIL” of Animal Life from entering into the human life. In doing so we have separated ourselves also from the good things of Nature, we have constructed a fiendish BABYLON of fornication and misery. If we only viewed things from the perspective not of one life but of many lives, infinite lives, we would realise that there is no Evil to shield ourselves from. There is a lot of Pain and Suffering, indeed ever-present Suffering, but no EVIL. There is simply the process of balancing the Karmic equation and giving everybody opportunities to attain SELF-REALIZATION.
EVIL exists on the RELATIVE level. There are deeds which must be punished, there are things which cannot even be left to Karma. There are terrible, horrible things which happen in the world, and we must absolutely not be blind to these. Yet in the ABSOLUTE sense there is NO EVIL. Evil exists only as a Shadow exists, it is never triumphant over the Light, in the same way that a Shadow, however large it is, cannot destroy the Sun. There is nothing irreparable, no damage which cannot be fixed. This is very different to the Christian notion, the idea that we are Evil, do Evil, and that this Evil has Absolute rather than Relative existence, indeed that it cannot be pardoned except by the (execution of) Christ.
When we no longer ascribe Evil to Nature, we no longer deride the Feminine. We see the Blessed Mother Goddess in Her glorious bountifulness, giving, giving of Herself for humanity, indeed all living beings. She is no less perfect than the Father, and She is nearer to us. A Tibetan story goes that when Avalokiteshvara, the Great Compassion, saw all the suffering of humanity he shed a tear. From this tear was produced the Goddess Mother, known in Tibetan as “Tara”, who is the consolation for all the suffering humanity. Any normal person finds great consolation in Nature.
“A WHY TO LIVE”
There is one clearly visible way to attack this argument about the Doctrine of Rebirth resolving the problem of EVIL. If there is no purpose, no reason, to being born, dying, being reborn, then we have a similar problem to that of the Christian faith, suffering which accomplishes no purpose. There must be a reason, some kind of reason, for there to be a justification. As we have already stated, the Wheel of Life known as “Samsara” exists to offer all the opportunity of SELF-REALIZATION. This is ample justification for all the sufferings of existence, as it is the process of the BEING uniting with itself, the process of becoming truly Human. True HUMANITY in itself, the existence of the SELF-REALIZED, by it’s existence justifies all Creation.
But what of those who don’t want Self-Realization? Samsara also offers beings the opportunity to be whatever it is they want to be in the course of time, though everyone has to suffer whatever Karmic reactions they bring about by their actions. Divinity and Nature fulfil desires even if those desires are opposed to the Divine Plan. Of course, breaking the Laws of Nature is eventually punished, but if a person is willing to accept the punishment then they can have the things that please their ego. Though Karma is essentially DIDACTIC (the ultimate lesson, for those want it, being how to return to Divinity) no-one can be prevented from skipping class.
Therefore we can see the purposes of KARMA in a number of different ways, as a process to bring about the Divine Human, as lessons or as wish-fulfilment. At the same time it might be simply a dance, a beautiful dance, and it’s beauty be it’s ultimate justification. In fact, it is all of these things and many other things as well, it has as many reasons for being as there are individuals with reasons to be. “All joy wants Eternity” said Nietzsche.
PROVIDENCE
We have already mentioned how the making of experiences of Suffering into useful experiences is PROVIDENCE.
Unfortunately in the Christian system there are forcibly limits to the PROVIDENCE of Divinity. Whatever a person is born as, they are limited by. They have no further chances at attaining salvation. Other people trespass on their lives, create problems for them, circumstances beyond their control fill their lives with difficulties. They are thrust into the world and forced to face the bafflement of existence, and, if the Christians are right, are then made to Suffer Eternally should they, in the confusion of being in the world, pick the wrong God to believe in.
We can see clearly in the world around us how little Justice there seems to be. Wicked people are exalted and live long, peaceful lives full of material opulence. Sincere individuals experience pain of every kind and indeed are persecuted for their sincerity. The Christians can only respond to all of this with platitudes about the incomprehensibility of God and “His ways being beyond our understanding”. If suffering always tended to bring people closer to salvation, only then would it be worthwhile, yet if we look at things from the Christian perspective then this simply isn’t the case. Suffering doesn’t always make people turn to Christianity, indeed it may turn them in quite the opposite direction. But if suffering has no purpose, then Divinity is not GOOD.
Yet over the course of many lives, then we can see something being accomplished. We can see in all our experiences the perpetual REVELATION OF DIVINITY. We may not see it at the time things happen to us, but it is there. The GREAT COMPASSION is always working, healing, uplifting us. When we turn away we cease to see it, but when we turn away then things will always arise to show us the wisdom in turning back towards Divinity. Whether or not we accept It’s presence in our lives, open ourselves up to the LOVE, we are still loved, we are never abandoned.
This is PROVIDENCE. Everything in the end works out for the best, every single wound from the most petty to the most terrible, is healed in the course of time. Divinity is always calling us, always seeking us, always loving us. All that happens to us is just the experience of this calling. In Denying we Affirm and in Affirming we Deny, but beyond all these Opposites and Dualisms is BEING, the foundation of all existence. Every one of us has an INNER BEING beyond the mind, personality etc.
Finally, returning to an earlier point, we should make clear that in order to understand this working of PROVIDENCE we must have the comprehension that there can be no Eternal Hell. If Divinity were to condemn a person to Hell without end then he would be condemning not the EGO but the BEING, because however many negative actions the EGO performs, all of these must eventually be purified and to continue punishment after that would be to punish the BEING. Every BEING is in fact INNOCENT and is an integral part of DIVINITY, and thus He would be condemning Himself. That is to say, the essential Dignity of the BEING is such that if a single BEING were condemned to Eternal Hell for the actions of the EGO, then DIVINITY Himself would be condemned to Hell. Every part contains the Essential Dignity of the Whole, just as children contain the Essence of their Father even if they don’t have all His capabilities.
A FINAL NOTE
In affirming the Reality and Justice of the Doctrine of REBIRTH we do not state that there do not also exist reactionary and regressive Dogmas in the East. Not only the Abrahamic Religions, but also their Eastern counterparts are incipient formulations of the Truth. For example, we cannot say that there is much wisdom in the system of castes. We must go beyond the ideas of the East as well, always seeking a HIGHER SYNTHESIS.
MAY ALL BEINGS BE WELL, MAY ALL BEINGS BE HAPPY, MAY ALL BEINGS BE AT PEACE
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