We have largely freed ourselves from dogma and superstition which now look like primitive wishful thinking. But in the light of the new worldview, the great spiritual traditions going back thousands of years were right in so many ways. Prayer works because it is affirmation, and this promotes confirmation bias in the personal world. And visualisation makes it all the more effective. Karma operates because the conscious subject and their world are not separate entities. And this means that the unconscious expectations generated by actions and intentions operate in the same way as deliberate visualisations. The further major concept of the fundamental spiritual principles is also demonstrated by the new physics. We effectively immortal.
So this great myth is grounded in intuitions that have a true basis in reality. The experiencing consciousness a property of the universe as a whole, as stated by Chalmers. This is described in Consciousness. The consciousness is spirit, the vital, universal, animating principle. And this leads to the immortality of the mind as a natural conclusion. So when the body dies, the being ‘in here’, the mind, the ‘soul, passes on. And you awaken in the next life. As described in The Next Life, the timeless wisdom is true.
It means we are headed for a heaven or a hell, and all of our own making. So in all these ways the great traditions were on the right track. But none of it is to do with the judgement of an almighty deity. This is simply how the universe operates. The version of the next world is defined by the karma of the observations made in this one.
The Spiritual Principles
The soul, karma, immortality and the power of intent are all real operational principles. As held in the Pagan religions, we are triune, body, soul and spirit. Religions added a God to be worshipped and feared, but the great sages of antiquity simply acknowledged a single principle of cosmic law, what we now call natural science. As described here, the central spiritual principles are fully explained by the new physics taken at face value.
In this case our ancestors where not far off the mark. We do not need a deity to explain all this, but all the great principles are real operational properties of the personal relative world. The great spiritual path is evolution beyond the egoism that motivates all individuals. But why bother? This is the open secret. Putting it simply, one becomes a greater being. The benefits are seldom worldly, or so it seems. As stated by the great spiritual leader himself:
Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:19-24, English Standard Version)
The treasures in heaven are literally the better life in the next world. But of course they are also the gleam of a clean and healthy soul. When we cheat and demean others, something is lost within us. The treasure is the clarity and joy in life that comes from living in peace with integrity. And this is the meaning of the final sentence. As he goes on:
The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! (ibid)
The ‘eye’ is the world hologram, the access consciousness. This is the way the world is seen and the context in which reality is approached.
What we discover from the new physics is that this journey arrives at identification with the world. This idea that sounds so absurd and erroneous all makes sense in the personal relative world. This is what motivates people to put their lives aside to aim for a better world. But it also just motivates us to just lead good lives. And it is this perspective that has the power to heal our fragmented human world.
When we understand the very personal nature of the world, so many things finally make sense. There is no God in the objective reality sense. Of course. Only that which has been observed is determinate, and everything else is to some degree indeterminate. By definition, dogma is not determined by any observations. Ironically therefore, the claim that a dogma is definitely true is by definition false.
The spiritual path means taking full responsibility for one’s world. Just as with the transition from youth to adult, which opens many possibilities, this transition gives rise to extraordinary freedoms. We know who we truly are. And we know karma is a real phenomenon. And we stop getting in the way of ourselves. And we steer our worlds gently as best we may. And we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Life is everlasting, and that changes the meaning of this spell on Earth. This is spiritual kindergarten. Much to learn, and much about which to be joyful. This is the spiritual transformation. The cultural transformation is the effect.