…I just looked up the life of Leonardo Da Vinci and found none of what I said about him is true, so I am not sure where I got the information, but it might be a blend of art histories. My memory is so bad these days I really should not say much anymore.
Alexander wrote:
I was pondering this a few years ago; whether an "enlightened" being would still be susceptible to the aging brain. I remember there were some theories going around that said cognitive practice could stave off the effects of decline. I hypothesized at one point that an "enlightened" being might by default be doing those things enough to retain function. But, it looks like it is just random chance.
The past year I have also been witnessing the cognitive decline of my grandmother (90 now), and it is a sad end to a noble life. It does fascinate me how she can remember the times of Franklin D. Roosevelt, but forgets everything else.
It is unfortunate that the body, and the physical brain, wield so much power over us while we are here. I assume cognitive clarity is restored when OOB... but the premise of dying in a kind of body-prison is deeply concerning.
Socrates referred to his own decline in the Crito... That he knew if he escaped the poisoning he would lose his cognitive powers. Which, of course, would have made a quite sad end to his tale.
Perhaps the same concern inspired the Buddha (who was in his 80s I believe) when he ate the poisoned food, or St. Francis when he let himself die of exposure (though he was suffering, I believe, from physical, not mental, infirmities).
After my own run-in with the toxic chemical last year, and its effects on my brain, it became clear just how precarious everything is. Indeed, we are all slaves who can only submit to the Divine Will. A hit on the head can have permanent effects... All the more reason to value the spiritual, and the path to liberation.
Jeffrey wrote:
Yes, there is a group of hypotheses that the enlightened would have impeccable health, or superior cognitive function as they age, but you brought up the evidence to the contrary in the group of mystics you mentioned. The people of the Abrahamic religions have the story of Methuselah, and other ancient patriarchs of the Abrahamic religions, who lived for long periods of time, centuries. Early in my contemplative life I had subscribed to this hypothesis, but as time went by I found few people who were following extreme health measures were contemplatives or had superior cognitive functions.
The final blow for me was when I looked up a Chinese herbalist who had supposedly lived for 250 years, Li Ching-Yuen. So, I looked him up in Wiki and found out that in the decade before his death he claimed he was 170. But, new reporters were doing some research on him in the 1920s and found he had been given an award by an Emperor a century earlier that made him something like 250 years old by the 20s. Then following his story a photograph is taken of him in the 20s as well as 2 articles were written about him. The reports stated he looked like he was in his 70s. Shortly after the photographs and articles another reported came looking for him and his wife stated he had gone off into the mountains to die, so the trail ends there, and WWII and the Chinese revolution came along shortly there after, which erased the trail.
To understand this story more, it turns out that the man was an herbalist, and his family was engaged in selling herbs with a reputation life extension, most notably ginseng, and dong quai. So, we can see that the family was motivated to produce a fantastic claim to promote their herb business, and we can explain the deception by the oldest son would take over the deception upon the death of the father, and that deception kept up for generations until 250 years goes by.
So, if we apply this deception to the biblical patriarchs who supposedly lived for centuries, then we can see how this deception could have been applied in those cases. However, the deception only works when there are no photographs, no close scrutiny, and no DNA tests.
So, back to the bigger picture, we are spirit encased in a "cage of flesh" which we can learn to leave in OOBEs from leading a rigorous, self-aware contemplative life. However, we keep coming back to the cage of flesh until it dies, when we are finally released from it at its death.
So to bring this discussion full circle back to how religions decline we see that decline in how much they emphasize fantastic stories of miracles. What better fantastic story than to have a patriarch who lives for centuries, but remains youthful?
Alexander wrote:
Yes, I remember. And just like you were interested in these tales on longevity, I was also open for a long time to the miraculous. "They are such a core part of Christianity and the Gospels," I thought. "How could they be entirely false?" I paid special attention to that Greek word "dynamikos": for instance, the Gospel quote "He (Christ) felt the power (dynamikos) go out of him" when the woman touched his cloak. When the woman did this, she also experienced healing. In that one line, it seemed to be exploring the mechanics behind miracle-working.
Gurdjieff was interested in miracles as well... He had a few interesting takes on it. His idea of the "large accumulator" makes me think of the extreme things humans are capable of when under the effects of adrenaline. But, I can think of no example of it outside of that.
There are, of course, the contemplative phenomena which are real... but the feats of Jesus, such as walking on water in the physical body, or cursing a tree to make it wither, we know are creative fiction. Purposeful - to show the power of a true spiritual teacher to an ancient audience - but today an unneeded source of confusion for modern readers.
Jeffrey wrote:
On miracles:
I noticed some decades ago that the less miracles appeared in a book of philosophy the more wisdom was present; and consequently I was very pleasantly surprised to see there are very few miracles in the Pali Canon, but it is rich in wisdom. The same goes with the dialogs of Plato, here Socrates demonstrates great wisdom, but no miracles. Rumi, Kabir, Teresa of Avila, and John of the Cross reveal the charisms, but no miracles.
In my own life back 47 years ago when I tapped into major charisms I took up healing work, and I had considerable success at it, and my patients came back for more because they observed improvements in their health from my work on them. However, there was no radical healing. I did not raise the dead, nor did I walk on water, but I flew out-of-body daily, and felt the charisms (virtue/dynamikos) present in me all of the time. So, I concluded that, while there is some healing possible in the transference of energy/charisms/virtue/dynamikos; nonetheless the laws of physics cannot be violated on the material plane, thus miracle stories are only how religions market themselves to the naive, and a means of reducing the competition with mystics, and therefore the pursuit of miracles is a fool errand.
