It's All In Your Mind: The Virtual Basis of Religion, Sex, Time, And Death
GoingtoHeaven.org
Prologue
“If God had wanted it that way, He would have made you all of one religion, but He has done otherwise so to test you in the various ways He has given you. Therefore, press forward in good works; unto God shall you return, and He will tell you about those areas in which you disagree.”— The Koran, Verse (5:48)
“To study metaphysics as they have been studied appears to me to be like puzzling at astronomy without mechanics.... We must bring some stable foundation to argue from.”— Charles Darwin
“One ought to know that on the one hand pleasure, joy, laughter, and games, and on the other grief, sorrow, discontent and dissatisfaction arise only from the brain. It is especially by it that we think, comprehend, distinguish the ugly from the beautiful, the bad from the good, the agreeable from the disagreeable...”– Hippocrates
The haunting memories of those earlier times are still there, scattered and generalized through our waking perceptions, still alive in our dreams and our nightmares. This is the personal and universal mind that is ours alone, and depending on how far back we go, shared with all others on this planet.
“The past no longer exists. The future is nowhere to be found. And how can the present move from place to place?”— Nagarjuna
“The question of whether the world is nothing but a physical accident or whether there is a plan, this is the main question of every human being. Be- cause the only answer to our suffering would be that there is a purpose in it, that there is a spirit behind it. If these would not exist, our life would be a hopeless business.”-Isaac Bashevis Singer
Our temporary solutions are to shock the mind into states of thoughtlessness with the help of various social substances, excessive sensuality, and thrilling ritual. These will always be available. If there were any permanent solutions, however, or at least some practical methods for a thoughtful dip into the present tense without self-denying or self destructive behavior, it would seem whoever has them should step up and tell us about them.
Finding lasting fulfllment for a human, then, is nearly the opposite of the rat with its pleasure button. While animals drive themselves quickly to exhaustion, only a small percentage of humans are that compulsive. In fact, most of us do learn to enjoy the conscious generation of joy and happiness as a regular experience that makes life itself more vibrant.
“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life.”– Steve Jobs (1955-2011)
