There is a very real likelihood of ancient non mainstream, dare I say it, non-peer reviewed knowledge, being undervalued and forgotten. Some manuscripts have been kept. This one has a publication date of 1710 by Limojon de Saint-Didier, Alexandre-Toussaint {approximately 1630-1689}. These are {inter alia} in the internet archive and at Wellcome Collection library, there are other Alchemical texts.
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I have seen a 1699 frontispiece for this.
Peter the Philosopher was made famous by J. K. Rowling. In the Hermetic mercurial tradition, there are references on turning quicksilver into gold. Here silver {quick} is matter and gold is spirit. Transmutation of consciousness is out of gross form to achieve liberation {nirvana} and cease the endless cycle of rebirth and hence death. One never dies again; one ceases to be mortal and hence achieves im-mortality. It does not mean living in meat, incarnate, for ever and ever {or a very long time}. It means not being reborn. No more dying.
Just as in esoteric Vajrayana Buddhism there are Hermetic mandalas:
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The symbolism in sketches like this is extensive and cannot be understood entirely rationally. That approach gets nowhere other than intellectual masturbation. The thought form has to be built with care and the consequences of making it, managed in “real” meaty life. It is the battle royal of soul in matter. The Caduceus in not solely two dimensional. People imagine, incorrectly, that the stone, the rock, Pierre is a thing, a talisman, a magic artefact. They may fuck around in a chemistry lab trying to synthesise it.
One can only grasp and attain these mandalas fully when one is ready. Whoever drew this one was no novice….
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It is a shame that required orthodoxy often squanders knowledge and burns books. Socio-political position and self-advancement so often overshadows. The powerful often destroy knowledge, wisdom and science if it threatens their power base. Because knowledge is power, in a sense, those in search of mundane power seek to handicap and destroy it. Anything not catholic enough in terms of the papal edicts, whatever shape or form they may be, is ostracised and attacked.
Soon New-speak and The Ministry of Truth rule the roost and all dissidents are punished.
In the kingdom of the blind the one eyed man is king.
This pattern is a historically repeating one.
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Sometimes the esoteric can survive in the shadows. Sometimes things are lost for ever. We will never know, by definition, what is lost already.
The orthodoxy always ridicules and talks down, bad mouths, that which does not conform or obey. It has always been thus and it will probably continue to be…
In my opinion it is very unwise to discount the effects of karma both as an individual, as a group or as a nation. Karma suggests that behavioural causes have inevitable effects. Our actions create our future. There are consequences.
Of course, there is no compelling reason why you should pay heed to my opinion. I am not some big cheese new-age book-selling guru, nor have I been recommended by hosts of followers {paid or otherwise}. I am not famous and I have no introduction written by a senior religious figure, a lama with a throne. My provenance if unknown and/or dodgy. I am a retired person living in the countryside without cult or church. Perhaps a lone eccentric in a quiet by-way of a vast internet.
In the philosophy of karma, what you sow you reap.
It is not a great step to imagine that harvest comes towards the end of life. That harvest might be of a dual kind, material financial to retire on and spiritual karmic to set up the next evolutionary step, the next life. By the time you reach the autumn of life one might speculate that one has learned good from bad. One may have acquired a modicum of wisdom and life experience. In the light of that knowledge what you do towards end of life is more important because you can no longer plead inexperience or ignorance. As knowledge increases so does karmic import, karmic impact. You know better. You may not behave consistently with this knowledge.
The time in and around your {natural} death is the harvest of karma from this life and the others which precede. One might die well or cling on to the starboard bow with all your energy, afraid of letting go of the ship of life. In order to die “well” it is perhaps wise to pay off any residual karmic debt {if possible} before passing. This is because karmic debt accrues interest. One might wish an enabling birth subsequent.
But if you are of the “phew I got away with it” mentality under no circumstances, might you feel it necessary to settle accounts. You might take your smugness to the crematorium. You may remain stubbornly convinced, entitled even. As the crem gas burners light, you may look on and still think, “I told you so, there is no life after death!”
Even if you do not believe in karma, in the philosophy of karma, your words, deeds and bile add up. Karmically, you deny karma until such time as karma makes itself irrevocably obvious to you. You can struggle but karma is “bigger” than any petty human. Sooner or later “you” learn and your dogmatic adamant insistence to the contrary is shown to be flawed and inaccurate. This can come as quite a shock!!
For example, if you had unresolved karma with me, once divested of your stubborn personality vehicle, we might meet on the cusp of the dream, in the in between of worlds after physical plane death. There you cannot pretend not to have seen me or make an excuse because you are busy. I, still living, would not be surprised to see you but sure as hell you might be. What might you say?
At one time I briefly considered working with end of life care. But when I thought about it, I might go down like a lead balloon with friends and family.
From a Buddhist perspective having a “good” death gains karmic merit, it is a stepping stone, to the other shore of liberation. Being awake and conscious at withdrawal eases the transfer of emotive unpleasantness and thereby lessens the ongoing karmic burden. Panic and fear are not helpful; resistance is ultimately futile. Because of modern medicine I have had six more years. In the old days I would have died when I broke my femur.
I have a pet theory that modern medicine has complicated the workings of karma. That makes sense because karma too must evolve. Human choices are more nuanced than they once were. The temptation to strive to have life on you own terms and to try to dictate to the universe is strong.
In my dreams I have foreseen meetings {after their death} with a number of individuals with whom I was once acquainted. To my knowledge most of them still breathe earth air. If my dreams are predictive, we shall meet again in a “place” with which I am the more familiar.
What I am hinting here is that karma does not cease on “dying” but persists into the in-between experience on going. The slate is not wiped clean. How you live your life at and towards the end matters.
As I suggested at the beginning it is unwise to discount the notion of karma.
The probability of me being a leftie has increased in my understanding since being in this marriage. The wife notices when I do things the “wrong” way round. When I have picked up something like a bow and arrow I have started the left handed way. I always wore watches on my right wrist. Being forced to write right handed and having many marks deducted for my messy handwriting and shit drawing may have kept me back. I now have a certain natural “ambidexterity”. I had behavioural problems at school, perhaps the obligatory dexterity had a role.
I found out today that I have been doing my meditation mudras the “wrong” lefthanded way. A mirror image. I look at mudras and think that is odd. My hands don’t do that.
The passive nocturnal dreaming seems to be converging on some kind of recent “Tibetan” life. It is not Tibet-envy. I don’t particularly want to be/have been Tibetan and have no strange craving for Yak’s butter.
The dream this morning has me referred to as Rinpoche. A term often used for reincarnated lamas of some attainment. There are rare cases when incarnations are recognised late in life.
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Rinpoché ou Rinpotché, Rimpoché, Rimpotché (tibétain : རིན་པོ་ཆེ་, Wylie : rin-po-che, THL : rinpoche, dialecte de Lhassa API : rin’potʃe) est une épithète honorifique propre au bouddhisme tibétain. L’adjectif rinpoché signifie littéralement « précieux ». Le titre Rinpoché est généralement réservé à un lama incarné. Il fait référence au fait que le lama est reconnu comme la réincarnation d’un grand maître du bouddhisme tibétain, suivant une tradition spécifique du Tibet.
Également appelé tulkou (tibétain : སྤྲུལ་སྐུ་, Wylie : sprul sku, lit. Sanskrit : nirmāṇakāya, « corps d’émanation »), mais dans la majorité des cas, il s’agit simplement d’un titre de courtoisie.
Wikipédia
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I might yet have a career as a ninja action hero in films and as a buddy of Putin {Steven Seagal}.
There is no real likelihood of some senior Buddhist dude saying, “yes, he is the incarnation of Joe Bloggs Rinpoche.”
It seems to me that the rate of recognition of western tulkus is in decline. I have no association with a sangha nor were my parents Buddhist. There was a spurt in recognition occurrence when the Tibetan diaspora took hold.
My behaviour to date is not one of shining virtue and abstemious living. I am not good PR.
There are less Rinpoches than science professors. I have met way more of the latter and only very briefly, en passant, one of the former. By analogy to the US system, I was once an Associate Professor in Physical Chemistry. If I had stayed in that system they might have made me full professor just before I died / retired.
It has often tickled me, the notion of tipping up at Imperial College dressed in full monk’s robes and going around knocking on the doors of people who once knew me, many of whom are professors. I would have to get a swipe card to be let in. They may not let me past security, especially if I was dressed funny.
They may or may not have spoken well of me in then past. I may have pissed a few of them off. The first look on their faces would be precious even for a Rinpoche. You can’t buy that kind of experience; it would be priceless, unrepeatable.
But probably that is not going to happen.
It is possible {though unlikely} in the fullness of time that there might be a Wikipedia page about me. I certainly might be the only one with two EUV and one Quantum Optics patent. I probably have the most extensive physical sciences publications list.
To follow on from the dream I could have both “titles”.
I’ll speculate that it would make me a rather unusual incarnation, were it true and/or real.
In terms of kudos common or garden professors have a contextual kudos which varies. During COVID professorial status was elevated even if they were seen as killjoys. They saved lives. People like Trump don’t like “liberal” or “commie bastard” academics.
In certain contexts, Rinpoches have an elevated status and many seek their blessings. Some have entourages and security. They mix in different circles from ours.
In their own cultural contexts, they have more kudos than profs.
Not sure where this dreaming is headed…
Last night there was no Buddhist / Tibetan influence. We watched a recording of University Challenge and some UK TV. There was no conscious pondering. The whole dream came “out of nowhere”.
There is a part of me that is hesitant to go to bed…
The dream starts in my chambers. They are wooden panelled and there is not a great deal of light. It is not long after dawn and I am getting dressed in my monk’s robes. I am being helped by my assistant, a young relatively novice monk. He is fussing over me. The robes which I am putting on are of Himalayan-Tibetan colour with a yellowish undervest. I am putting them on left-handed in that it is my left shoulder which is relatively bare. I am left-handed. I sit on a chair and the young monk helps me to put on some grey part woollen socks to go with my open toed synthetic walking sandals. He helps me stand up because I am very stiff and slow moving in the morning.
We go to the communal wash facilities in which there are showers and toilets. I use the toilet and come back to the line of washbasins in front of a mirror to wash my face and clean my teeth. Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche is there as a younger man maybe around forty years of age. He is smiling. He notes how the novice and I play fight a little. He jokes that he has seen quite enough of our kung fu and that we should be serious. I say that it is not a good idea to always be so dour. Something which all of us find hysterically funny.
Today I am going to give a seminar at a London university. As I approach the lecture halls / seminar block I come upon an open office scenario with cubicles for side offices. Throughout the office, on slightly raised pedestals, are isolated “Armitage Shanks” style WC toilets without cisterns. They are antique with wooden seats and lids. Several of my erstwhile colleagues from decades ago are in the office. They do not seem to notice the more than half a dozen toilets. They are fixtures. I go into one of the side offices and someone is sat upon the “throne” mid dump. I apologise and back out.
I move down the corridor and into the seminar rooms / lecture theatre. There are more Buddhist monks with me now one of whom is quite senior and bespectacled. I go into the seminar room and pick up an overhead projector which I take to the lecture desk at the front. I comment than in addition to computer slides I sometimes like to scribble.
The senior monk stands up and says that it is important not to try to take notes as handouts will be given. He says that it is particularly important to note whatever it is that Rinpoche writes down by hand. I am holding a marker pen in my left hand as he speaks. The monk says that Rinpoche’s annotations are key-like and important.
A young female member of the audience who knew me from before as a senior tutor asks me why I am wearing robes. I say that I have not yet been fully ordained and that these are by way of an experiment to see how people respond to me during the course of this three days long seminar. I say that tomorrow I might wear a business suit or sports gear.
I say to her that ordination is a bit like semantics. I am very aligned with Buddhist thinking and don’t really need a “certificate”. I say the difference between vegetarianism and a plant-based diet is also semantic. If you eat a fully plant-based diet as a vegan you are already a vegetarian and don’t need to prove your veggie status. Whereas some veggies are insistent about the virtue of their diet, a true vegan just does. Deeds are more important than words.
In around 2003 whilst living in London and working as a lecturer in Physical Chemistry at Imperial College in London I started having waking visions of myself dressed as a Buddhist monk / priest. These visions overlaid normal day to day reality and I was able to lecture to a theatre full of ~one hundred students on chemical reaction kinetics or in smaller groups, chemical applications of group theory, whilst these visions were resident. They persisted on the crowded Victoria Line tube trains. I had repeat visions of om mane padme hum tattooed in Sanskrit on my inner forearms. Accompanying these images was/is the sensation of tattoo. These visions lasted on and on for over a year.
I did not mention this to anyone because I thought it would not go down well in the Chemistry department. I thought human resources might not appreciate this and occupational health might be consulted.
I however was pretty sure that this was past life recall.
Obviously, it is impossible to prove scientifically, that any past life recall is real. At best there can be what the courts call, circumstantial evidence. Dreaming comprises some of this kind of evidence.
In 2009 I had a series of visionary telepathic conversations, early in the morning, walking in the woods near Tring with the master Djwhal Kuhl. He told me of five of my previous lives, two of which were Buddhist. He said that I had been a very close disciple of Siddartha.
The dream yesterday has added Nāgārjuna to the list of possible life-candidates.
Irrespective of accuracy or otherwise the theme of scholasticism and scholar runs through all the/my putative incarnations as does the theme of entrepreneurship. I am “on” the second ray, of the Elephant dreaming class and conditioned by love-wisdom, the teaching ray.
One dream suggests that I was Bakula a close disciple of Siddartha who came late to the path after a scholarly life.
Yesterday’s dream suggests some six hundred years later Nāgārjuna. Who was a “founder” of Mahayana and may have taught at Nalanda university.
Another dream has pointed at a saffron trousered Muay Thai trained Burmese / Thai incarnation, a monk/priest/protector.
Then there is dreaming evidence of a Japanese Vajrayana monk incarnation, with poetry.
{The feeling for me is that I also had a Japanese Zen life but no dreams as yet}.
The next two lives were not substantially Buddhist.
Of late there has been increasing “evidence” for a 20th century incarnation as a Tibetan Buddhist. So far there is no evidence of a named individual. If it was a sequential birth then they need to have died before or in early 1964. If it is a shared emanation then there is no strict constraint of time frame.
It is not for me beyond the realms of possibility that I have had five {six} incarnations with a dominant Buddhist flavour and of a non lay orientation.
It is not going to detrimentally affect my career prospects to write about this here and now.
I can just be some crazy eccentric old git living like a quasi-hermit.
Nirmāṇakāya (Chinese: 應身; pinyin: yīngshēn; Tibetan: སྤྲུལ་སྐུ་, tulku, Wylie: sprul sku) is the third aspect of the trikāya and the physical manifestation of a Buddha in time and space.
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Nearly ten years ago I tried to explain to the anaesthetist that because of the very large amount of meditation I had done there might be some anomalies in how I responded to medication – anaesthetic. They completely ignored me and did not take me in any way seriously. A few days subsequent to the operation I had strong recall of being above the operating table watching the “vultures” around my corpse operating. On going into theatre, I was chatting about the clean room conditions of the operating theatre. The same night after ~ six hours of surgery to remove a colon cancer, I stood on my own two feet. Which freaked out the nurse in recovery.
I am pretty sure that something weird transpired during the operation and that it was not spoken about.
There is no way that a modern medical professional would countenance the notion of a nirmāṇakāya or janmanirmāṇakāya; སྐྱེ་བ་སྤྲུལ་སྐུ, skye ba sprul sku. Nor that they might be biologically different to a regular human being.
If one takes the dreaming “evidence” in this blog, then there is a hint of non-standard reincarnations plural stemming back lifetimes. It could be a Soul reincarnating or it could simply be some kind of emanation. In the latter case the emanation body or nirmāṇakāya may not clothe itself in meat in a standard way. I have not read of any different approach to the medical treatment of Tibetan tulkus. But there is a vast amount of stuff which is kept away from prying eyes. My guess is that Tibetan Vajrayana etc. is like an iceberg, with only a tiny bit showing.
The body may be similar but the “mind” very different. Tulkus may be very different to normal people though looking the same. The manifestation, the emanation, need not be that of a full buddha.
On the horizon for me are up to three more major surgeries. In 2019 they put my titanium pin into the left femoral neck/head whist under the influence of a spinal injection and some other drugs. I can remember the bone shaking pneumatic drill. They would not let me watch even though I asked. It was enough to induce PTSD…I was conscious if drugged.
It can be said or observed that I left / renounced the Imperial palace, when I walked out of my job as a senior lecturer at Imperial College in London. I was a strict vegan for a long time, close to nine years. I walked out of a relationship with a wife, a home and a very young female child. I renounced my family later. I meditated extensively away from the madding crowd. I learned science sport and martial arts. There are some of the twelve acts attributed to Siddartha.
At a very long stretch one could say I share these, have them in common.
There is a part of me that wonders if the medical approach to me needs to take other factors into consideration. This adds a little reticence to the notion of drastic orthopaedic surgery. Somehow, I need to understand better…
The image of Buddha is very widespread and one can get a statue down the garden centre or a poster to put up on the walls of your home. The vibe associated is often calm tranquillity. Never is it in battle with Mara, Māra. In the west Buddha is often seen as wholly benign and passive. Those fond of smoking joints may have a Buddha statuette or have paraphernalia which is Buddha themed. One can get a vegetarian meal called a Buddha Bowl. Back when I was a vegan and visiting Japan I used to eat “Monk’s Meals” there.
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Most of the statues have a Buddha who is not emaciated and with Thai style hair, a bit fat. Rarely is he seen as skinny. He is often depicted with a halo as might be perceived by a quasi-clairvoyant.
It is not as weird as the blonde, blue eyed Aryan representations of Jesus who was probably semitic, Jewish, in appearance. But Buddha is often not quite as brown as he might have been in real life. He lived alfresco and would have tanned up well.
In the West people do not imagine the power, sometimes magical of a Buddha or evolved Bodhisattva. The imaginations do not extend beyond some dude sitting on a mat cross legged meditating.
“Hey man, that is Zen…”
Tibetan Buddhism is perhaps unique in representing wrathful forms of various Bodhisattvas. They do battle with evil. In Vajrayana there is black and white magic. Force sometimes needs met. There is significant power in a Buddha or evolved Bodhisattva. Power beyond normal ken.
The various canons have a list of special powers attained as a Bodhisattva proceeds along their journey to enlightenment. These supra-mundane powers are not to be found in garden centres. Scientists may quibble as to whether they are real manifestations or not.
As a teenager I was fascinated by the TV series Monkey.
“Monkey eats many of the peaches, which have taken millennia to ripen, becomes immortal and runs amok. Having earned the ire of Heaven and being beaten in a challenge by an omniscient, mighty, but benevolent, cloud-dwelling Buddha (釈迦如来, Shakanyorai), Monkey is imprisoned for 500 years under a mountain in order to learn patience.
Eventually, Monkey is released by the monk Tripitaka (三蔵法師, Sanzōhōshi), who has been tasked by the Boddhisatva Guanyin (観世音菩薩, Kanzeon Bosatsu) to undertake a pilgrimage from China to India to fetch holy scriptures (implied to be the region of Gandhāra in the song over the closing credits).”
Which is about the spread of the threefold Tripitaka to China and hence Japan. Evil tries to stop the dharma from being propagated and many adventures ensue. Here Buddhism is proactive and not passive. There is struggle.
The Buddhist canons have many stories of remarkable miracles carried out both by Siddartha and other Bodhisattvas. Padmasambhava considered a Nirmāṇakāya of Shakyamuni Buddha is attributed with magical powers and miracles. Those steeped in the tradition are less likely to scoff than your common or garden Western scientist. Vajrayana differs from East Enders or Coronation Street and markedly so. Exposure and immersion in its depths is likely to blow the minds of anyone lacking openness and fluidity.
Without direct personal experience there is no way to assess what the power of a Buddha or evolved Bodhisattva might be. Common sense suggests caution and not arrogance.
A Buddha is not just a garden ornament, statuette or poster…
Following the “Tibet” line of inquiry yesterday I looked for various films about finding tulku reincarnations. We have seen, Little Buddha, Kundun about the Dalai Lama and Tulku by Gesar Mukpo. Each of which had tremendous, guttural, impact on me. I found “Living Buddha” by Clemens Kuby about the search for and enthronement of the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa head of the Kagyu lineage inter alia. Here is the trailer.
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In this film the 16th leaves clues as to where to find his reincarnation which is supported by a dream of the Dalai Lama. A party is sent to search and after a ~ ten day trek into deepest darkest Eastern Tibet the son of nomadic famer living in fairly primitive conditions embedded deep in nature is located. The lives of that young man and his family are changed forever. The life trajectory of nomadic existence is replaced by a high lama throne, a famous black hat and being thrust onto the stage of global geo-politics.
In principle, the long Karmapa lineage is of quasi-divine reincarnate awakened beings capable of non-human feats such as wide ranging clairvoyance bordering on a mundane omniscience. They return for the benefit of all sentient beings. Padmasambhava, Guru Rinpoche, prophesises that there will be 21 such incarnations. These beings are held in very high esteem in Tibet, among the diaspora and with followers of Tibetan variety Buddhism.
This film is documentary evidence of how a life trajectory can alter radically and suddenly when viewed from the mundane familial life. It also suggests that the intended trajectory did not in fact change, it simply worked out “as planned”. It was just a matter of time.
Over a decade ago I had a number of dreams suggesting that I would meet the 17th one day.
Our current life trajectory is looking like, maybe, a move back to Wales. It includes the purchase of a disabled enabled bungalow in sensible proximity to a major, preferably university, hospital and with a low price tag. I found a bungalow on Right Move yesterday which apart from distance to hospital looked good. Such a place does therefore exist.
Unless something weird is happening whereby this blog is monitored in some way and thereby has a wider audience. What I write here has a very small readership and is a tiny little ripple in a corner of the vast internet. It is therefore unknown and unheard of. Only the wife, the cat(s) and I have experienced its entirety.
Subsequent and during the film last night, I had strong visual images of the 17th and a few of Akong Rinpoche. It is pretty weird and I had not had any weed, nor had a mushroom omelette.
In “Little Buddha” they are searching for the reincarnation of Lama Dorje. One of the crew has a dream of him in jeans standing near to an architect designed house under construction
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They, the Buddhists, start to stalk the family and impinge on their lives. The maths teacher mother is greeted by the mathematical astrologer at the school fence.
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The higher lama looking for his teacher then tips up in Seattle with entourage and takes the boy back to Bhutan for assessing. Along the way they encounter two more emanations of the reincarnated teacher making three.
Three Vajras – Speech, Body and Mind.
Our house is architect designed.
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We are currently waiting for our large pond to be filled with pink lotus flowers and our house is characterised by emptiness.
We have no idea if any Tibetans geezers are having dreams or visions about us/me.
If one day a Tibetan monk seeker / stalker tipped up, our lives could change and radically so. The trajectory, viewed from one angle would be knocked for six.
The odds of this happening are probably better than for a EuroMillions win which would also alter life trajectory, but perhaps not so substantially.
If I had to switch jeans / combat trousers for robes, that could freak people who may have met me, out.
The family joke is I was aiming for Bhutan but saw the flag of Wales with the dragon and reincarnated in Cardiff by accident…
I have found that if you start looking into things Tibetan that complexity soon arrives.
Today I came upon ma ’das sprul sku for the first time.
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Abstract: A ma ’das sprul sku is a non-hereditary reincarnate lama (sprul sku) who assumes his or her predecessor’s status, but who takes birth before his or her predecessor’s death. This paper presents ten oral histories of ma ’das sprul skus and examines what they and their narrators reveal about the logic of transference in establishing the personhood of a ma ’das sprul sku, how ma ’das sprul sku personhood may challenge conventional understandings of sprul sku personhood and temporality, ma ’das sprul sku and their creators as reflective agents, and what the dearth of ma ’das sprul sku hagiographies may imply.
Marcia Calkowski in The Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies.
The notion that a being can have a second incarnation whilst still alive, kind of messes with the idea that one needs to leave the meat before getting some more. She mentions the idea of mandé trülku.
Taken to the limit that could mean that an emanation, similar to that which gave rise to the Dalai Lama, could already be incarnate whilst he lives.
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Literary Sources for Tulku Lines
Successive systems of reincarnation or tulku (sprul sku) are fascinating sources for the study of the social history of Tibet. The tulku, predicated on Buddhist metaphysics of rebirth, is a phenomena in which a person is recognized as embodying a previous person, in their own current body. This is technically referred to in Tibetan as one who is “recognized as having returned to existence” (yang srid ngos ‘dzin or sprul sku ngos ‘dzin).
There are hundreds of multigenerational tulku lines in Tibet. By looking at when such tulku lines were declared, within which contexts, patterns of interpersonal relations, institutional alliances, and regional practices emerge. We are given new visions of these trans-generational social networks and the weblike worlds in which tulkus function.
This suggests that there are so many tulkus that some could be considered common or garden as opposed to the big three.
The naming and interweave is not easily tractable. If I was to start with my recent Tibetan dream, trying to find out who I might have been, there are many pitfalls.
This dream, if taken literally, suggests that I was being escorted out of Tibet in and around the early sixties / late fifties. Clearly that is a big if. It suggests an importance sufficient to warrant an escort and a rank above common or garden
I could search for a person, lama or tulku, who died in and around that time but the list of tulku lines is not easily searchable by date. The dream suggests that I was not going to make it.
But I may have made it. Which might make me a co-incarnation of a living person. We share an emanatory source. That co-incarnation could have passed on since and could in principle have been born biologically before me, say ~1940s in order to be old enough to march to freedom.
The feeling from the dream was that I was a youth / young man. Which puts a window ~1935 – 1945. My hands in the dream were soft inconsistent with extended heavy manual labour.
Points at Southeastern Tibet / Shigatse/ Shigatze which might geo-locate an incarnation but does not take me much closer to a named individual in the twentieth century.
My Tibetan Buddhist Search Committee Dream suggests that I might recognise a magically inscribed cabinet. It suggests that I might recognise Tibetan martial arts weapons.
“The carpet on the floor of the hall has been rolled back to reveal a parquet dance floor of some considerable sheen. Amongst the entourage I can hear gossiping. “It cannot be him; he is too coarse thickset and muscular.”
I hear this and whip off my shirt to reveal my muscular bare chest. I say that I will cooperate with whatever it is they must do. Take a look if you must. I am now wearing saffron yellow trousers, training pants, that are “elasticated” at the ankles. I start to do a forward splits on the floor to warm up. I say that given I am nearly sixty I am surprised that being that old I can still do that.
One of the woman in the entourage says to me that I am much older than that both in this lifetime and stretching way back. I am nearly 73 she says. I do the mental calculation that I must have been “born” in the early 1950s. She says, “we tried to wake you five years ago”. You have been “asleep” and we have been waiting.”
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So, the dreams suggest an inconsistency of age or timing.
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The monastery airport dream points at Leh in Ladakh.
There are other dreams with H.H. Karmapa and H.H. Dalai lama in.
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If dreams are “evidence” then there is quite a bit suggesting some Tibetan connection. If I were a Tibetan having these dreams then the Tibetans would take them more seriously. A hairy arsed sixty-year old Welsh ex-academic spendthrift is not as attractive as perhaps a younger person linked to the sangha.
It is difficult to explain these dreams cropping up from a Freudian or Jungian perspective.
There is circumstantial evidence. It is pretty unlikely that any conscious imaginations / research makes its way fully into dreams. I did not make any of them up. They were recorded as is the morning after.
I have not tried to visualise this putative life as that is more likely to be prone to prejudice / confirmation bias.
It is possible that having looked at this theme there may be more passive dreams on the way….
I can make a statement here which will put me at odds with modern “scientific” thinking. It has no material impact on my life because it can no longer impinge on my academic credibility nor university career advancement. There is no way that I can prove this statement. The flip-side is that it cannot be disproved either, it can be designated anecdotal or opinion.
Since the early nineties I can recall instances where I have met “residues” of people who are no longer technically alive and incarnate. They have “visited” me most often nocturnally, sometimes in dreams but more in waking. I have had visitations in quiet places and times during the day. In most cases these individuals have/had some kind of bond with me and in others a strong sense of debt {karma}. They did me wrong. These instances, whether real or imagined, have coincided with me teaching physics and chemistry at universities or high school privately. Some have been a once only short duration. Some of these have lasted days on and off. Other visits have had a duration of months with irregular and increasingly short visitations, until the visits stop. Some have seemed curiosity driven others by way of penance. Unfortunately, it is not possible to assist “people” to overcome problems which they caused. I cannot help them in their troubles. It is too late.
In some cases, where appropriate, I have done full blown Phowa practice, over several sessions, of visualizing a white Amitabha Buddha field for them and over them. A kind of spiritual WD40.
I had one visit last night. The sense of searching for me by this individual has increased over the last week or so. I do not know for sure if that person is dying, already dead or just having regrets. The feeling is that they are currently still alive in the mundane medical sense.
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In some cases, these visitations are soular, of the soul. In others they are more some kind of emotional / physical residue. At the consciousness level of souls there is a group consciousness. If you like, the white light diffracted into a rainbow, re-members that it was once a part of white light. Contact is soular and although wholly abstract the “brain” constructs a facial facsimile of the meaty body in order to “put a name and face” to the instance. After death these are nearly always more youthful than earth time / age would suggest.
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I have had shamanic training in so-called soul retrieval and have done a number of such rituals myself. The person on the receiving end always reported a pleasant experience and a feeling of being more “together” afterwards. There was an elastic snap of sorts. They seemed beneficial.
Technically speaking the soul cannot be lost from the form except in extremely rare circumstances.
The soul cannot be retrieved because it is the “real” you. It is never lost, it knows what it seeks to do. A reconnection with the wayward personality/meat vehicle might be achieved and enhanced, ritually, by magic. If the soul is fully disconnected that means death of the physical vehicle. A tenuous link can get stretched and the wayward personality vehicle disobey the soul or inner being. A weakening or very weak linkage might allow the soul to wander far from the vehicle on the soular or buddhic plane / level of consciousness. Space in a Cartesian sense does not have meaning thereupon. Geographic, earth bound distances, are no barrier.
The fact of a wandering soul suggests that its control or infusion of the physical personality vehicle is failing. The in toto being is not listening to its soul, its inner-tuition and is governed by materialistic personality whim and desire. The soul is losing the fight and may cut short the life, to wipe the slate clean and start again. The will, the stubbornness, of the lower carnal vehicle is simply stymieing the soul’s learning journey.
It is dark to prevent the soul from imbuing matter. The materialistically oriented personality vehicle thereby lacks a connection to higher purpose and hungrily consumes as an ersatz. This never satisfies for more than an instant. Dissatisfaction pervades.
Often the soul demands things which are inconvenient for the socio-political consuming materialistic vehicle. The small inner voice of calm is ignored and drowned out. The connection to the con-science, that which understands the higher soul group weakens. Behaviour deteriorates and becomes ever more self-centred. The illusion of ME grows more concrete.
The soul is disconnected. The soul is not lost but the vehicle is. Soul retrieval is a misnomer, a reconnection with personality vehicle is better terminology. The stronger the connection, the more profound the infusion by soul, the clearer sense of purpose the in toto being has.
If you, in honesty, are going through the motions of life, then you are not allowing or following the guidance of your true self. The soul.
Dreamyoga 