48. Noble Eightfold Path
- A letter to an old friend
Published by T. T. and P. R. in April 2023
Thank you very much for your letter and the Eightfold Path [1] for the New Year. I was busy with various things in January, but I read it right away, probably because I was trying to escape from my miscellaneous affairs. I was able to catch a glimpse of the world of ‘Himalayan esotericism’, which I had never known before, and had an unexpected experience.
The first thing that struck me as being interesting was that the author borrowed the concept and name of energy from physics and had tried to express the phenomenon of injecting energy into something that activates it. This is a natural and easy-to-understand logic if you think of it as an extension of the concept of energy. Next, regarding the concept of enlightenment, I found it interesting that the mental state that can be reached by receiving energy is treated as if it were a physical excitation phenomenon. Moreover, the excitation phenomenon is not linear, but is rather a non-linear phenomenon in which there is a threshold and no excitation occurs unless the energy exceeds the threshold.
Such explanations seem to be just funny, but, on the contrary, from the Himalayan point of view, although modern science seems to be superior, it actually restates what was known some 5,000 years ago. It seems that it is regarded as just an explanation. From that point of view, people today take extra detours to attempt to understand logically what the people of the Himalayas 5,000 years ago grasped intuitively, so it was within reach. If such an understanding is correct, it may be said that we have moved a prized treasure, placed within reach, to a distant place where it can only be reached by a much more difficult path than that taken by the monks.
I had never thought about enlightenment that can be achieved through training, but I have always been interested in "inspiration", which directly leads to the correct answer without going through logical thinking. I also tried to find out when epiphanies are most likely to occur, but I didn't get any clear results. Recently, however, I have come to realize that it is easier for inspiration to occur when there are many mistakes and failures. It seems that it is relating to the fact that I myself made a lot of mistakes and failures, but also then found that I had a relatively large number of inspirations.
Furthermore, recently, the early symptoms of dementia, which I myself think are age-related changes, have become noticeable. Maybe that's why mistakes and failures are much more common than before. However, by noticing that it is easier for inspiration to occur after making a mistake or failure, I realized that there may be a positive aspect of aging that makes it easier for inspiration to occur. If that is true, then age-related changes are a source of blessing and should be welcomed.
So, it may be a big leap, but if we can regard enlightenment as a form of inspiration, then instead of training with enlightenment as the goal, we should accept the changes of aging positively and wait for a big epiphany comparable to enlightenment. I realized that it might be the privilege of the elderly to be able to do this. Now that the average life expectancy is increasing and the percentage of elderly people is also increasing, the value of the potential resource is enormous if everyone can share the wisdom acquired by the inspiration of the elderly.
And one more thing about the issue of life and death. This is because the eightfold path is explained to make oneself happy and also to make others happy, so the subjective concept of oneself and the objective concept of one's body are regarded as being the same. From the common sense of the present age, I think that it is easy to accept that it is only about the life expectancy of one's own body of at most 100 years. On the other hand, however, it is clear that we are dealing with lives that have continued to exist for an infinite number of generations, so I think we need to be very careful here to avoid misunderstandings.
Today's culture is dominated by the individualistic notion of basic human rights that equate one's life to the lifespan of one's body, and such common sense lends itself well to justifying a free economy because individualism permits oneself to benefit with the highest priority. For this reason, it seems that even religion, which has gained the support of the political and financial worlds and is held up by the support of many people, is being ruled by the current culture based on individualism. Therefore, it may be unavoidable that even Himalayan esotericism, which pursues the way of the world of the pure heart, remains in vague expressions.
On the other hand, looking at the real world today, the concept of basic human rights in our current culture does not include the human rights of future generations, so it is not a crime to let future generations shoulder the burden of debt. Therefore, the people of the future will be deprived of all their belongings by the people of today, and soon the people of the future will be deprived of even the right to be born, and the human race will be extinct. At a time when such a crisis is imminent, how is it possible that the gods, held up by the major religions, are able to remain calm without even showing signs of fighting the demons who rule over civilization and stand at the top of it? Are even the minds of the gods controlled by demons? From that perspective, shouldn't we admit that the current Eightfold Path, like other religious scriptures, lacks the wisdom to survive in our time? If so, in terms of energy concepts, the energies of the gods are powerless to overcome the energies of the demons.
When you think about it that way, you can clearly see that you're in the depths of despair right now, and you might feel like it's too late to do anything about it. However, it's okay to have a scenario where you say, "This is the time!" Perhaps the gods are disappointed with how easily humans pray for God's help even in small things, and are waiting for them to stop praying in this crisis and try to stand on their own feet again. It may be. If that's the case, the gods might send reinforcements when they see humans standing up on their own feet to face the devil. Even if it isn't, in the enlightenment or inspiration of a man who stands up for himself and faces the devil, he may find a way to overcome the devil.
Now that I've come this far, I think my outlook has changed completely. Humanity is now in danger of survival, and it seems certain that survival in the distant future will not be easy. However, there is a range of predictions about the difficulty of long-term human survival, ranging from predictions of almost zero chance of survival to predictions that there will be no extinction even if the situation is quite serious. There are also various survival scenarios, some of which place importance on prayer and love, while others place importance on technology to protect the environment. In short, there are multiple roads to the future, so be careful not to present only one scenario and be tempted to do so. Also, beware of campaigns that emphasize the need for collective strength and try to lure everyone in.
We live in an age when scientific successes are conspicuous, and objective data and logical explanations are easily evaluated. We live in an era in which there is no data due to a lack of basic understanding, and mental problems that have no established foundation can be easily ignored. This point is often referred to in the field of medical welfare, but people who are physically healthy yet have emotional scars have to live in a time when there was no medical care. There is a psychiatric clinic that is just a token, but there seems to be criticism that it only prescribes psychotropic drugs and makes pharmacies profitable.
Regarding this point, I think that it would have been easier to take up the problem of the mind in the age of Himalayan esotericism, when the science of the body was underdeveloped. This is especially so since there was no individualism. I think that within the realms of the spiritual existence it would have been accepted naturally that it would continue to live beyond generations into the future. If people of today want to feel that they are continuing to live in people of the future, it may require difficult training, but once enlightened, they will be able to experience the senses of future people. Then, one should be able to experience the lives of people in the future through intuition, and should be able to perceive the future with one’s own sense of the present. If such a person becomes a bridge to the future and paves the way to the future, there is no doubt that present humans will be able to have hope for the distant future.
The Noble Eightfold Path has invited me to such a bright world of association. Thank you again.
Note
1. Eightfold-pass is a book written by Yogmata Keiko Aikawa in Japanese and published in 2017 by Kawade co. Although its English translation is not published yet, the essence of the book is found in a book entitled The Road to Enlightenment – Finding The Way Through Yoga Teachings and Meditation written by the same author and published by Kodansha USA in 2014.
