Our present age can be likened to one of the final chapters of the Kali Yuga, or an age when the spirit of darkness reigns free and unhindered. The children of this dark realm are born into what is described in the Lankavatarian Book of the Dead as inhabitants of the Karmadhatu:
No one is born into this saha world with a blank-slate, a tabula rasa. No one is born into this world alone. No. There is much congregating going on as the imprints of lifetimes upon lifetimes; eons and eons of karmic associations and attachments and afflictions are there to keep you company. Welcome to the Karmadhatu. This may come as a shock to some, but the Alaya-vijnana is not synonymous with the Tathagata-garbha. As was shown during our study of the Lanka, the Alaya-receptacle is its dark “twin”, a veritable storehouse of images that is not in alliance with the “womb” of the developing gotra—the seed that contains within it the potential for the Amala-consciousness. A child of Karmadhatu is fostered primarily on developing its Body Consciousness, a consciousness that is akin to its Dark Lord and master. Whereas the developing gotra—a potential Bodhisattva and Buddha to be is a child of Dharmadhatu. It is a spiritual-child, quite distinct from its carnal twin; it is fostered on bodhipower and is in direct-kinship with the Tathata Family. One is a child born into the darkness of samsaric phenomena and the other is a child of Unborn Light, delivered (actually returned) into the supraessential stature of the Dharmakaya.
This paints a good picture of the cosmic warfare that inflicts our saha-world, one between the children of darkness and the children of light. One owes an absolute allegiance to its tormented body-consciousness that relishes in its afflictions, it’s pain: incessantly focusing on its dissatisfactions and always looking for new avenues of communication and technologies in which to broadcast its angst; today’s pathological use of social media is a dominate case in point:
I think it is not a secret that social media pastime can cause severe addiction. Addiction arises because of the fact that the social media activity stimulates the pleasure centers in your brain, which are thus activated, for example, when people click the “Like” button on your profile, reply to your comments, or make comments on your photo…
Such activity cannot be called intellectual. For many people, social media becomes a kind of “chewing gum for the brain”, i.e. such an activity does not allow them to get smart, but constantly occupies their mind and attention doing some work.
It is easy to get used to it, because such an activity does not require special intellectual expenses. Pursuant to this habit, people can ignore useful and developmental activities such as reading books, studying some informational articles on the Internet, or learning.
The social media pastime does not provide the brain with enough food for development. All this, coupled with a decrease in the ability to concentrate your attention, can produce the decline in intellectual abilities. (http://nperov.com/health/social-networking-bad-mental-health/)
A quote from our most recent blog also equates this obsessive compulsion to equate the body-consciousness as the Lord Supreme over all:
‘To acknowledge our pain is to recognise the complexities of our bodies as both the place in which we forge meaning in our lives, and the location within which we catalyse liberation’
Being self-confined to the shackles of this body-consciousness and its accompanying physicality, the stage is set for unending Dukkha—suffering and dissatisfaction. It really creates an uneasy and fragile environment for those so self-afflicted, becoming offended and perturbed at the slightest sign of difficulty within the normative challenges of life; they are today’s so called “snowflakes”, melting in the face of life’s trials. This brings to mind H. G. Wells’ science-fiction classic, The Time Machine, wonderfully portrayed in the 1960 movie. A scientific inventor in Victorian England creates a “time machine” that enables him to transport himself into the far distant future. He soon discovers that humanity has “devolved” into two different species—one most torpid, apathetic and snowflake like named the Eloi; the other being muscular-bound and creepy subterranean creatures known as Morlocks, who actually feed on the Eloi. The Eloi sluggishly go along their merry-way, seemingly oblivious of the fate that awaits them when the direful “siren” blows, beckoning them to the underground caverns and to their death at the hands of the Morlocks. Perhaps what we are witnessing today is Wells’ story and future taking hold—a snowflake generation unaware and naively oblivious to the marauding hordes that are overrunning the earth and who shall soon become their ravenous overlords.
One thing, however, disabled the Morlocks—Light, they were powerless and incapacitated by Light. This can serve as a symbol to the other side of the equation, spiritual children of Unborn Light and inhabitants of the Dharmadhatu. As the above quote from the series stated, this has to do with the developing Bodhisattva, True Light Warriors and spiritual heirs to the Tathagatas. One could say that they take as their Magna-Carta the Diamond Sutra.
The immature, stupefied-foolish ones (puthujjana) are those who embrace ideations of separate-existence and an ego-soul (Individual “I”). Blinded by the Five Skandhas, they are oblivious to the bodhi-seed that is within. Being blinded to their true-essential-Self, the Buddha says that they are immature; yet, in their true-potentiality that lays in recognition of their own hidden Buddha-nature, the Buddha implies that they are really not immature-beings. When recognition of the Absolute-Self dawns, something “drops like scales from eyes-long-blind” and the way is open for the Buddha-seed (gotra) to develop and into a Bodhichild enroute to Bodhisattvahood; hence, an immature sentient being awakens into a mature bodhi-being. In this sense, there truly are no “sentient-beings” to be saved, but only children of the Buddha who are empowered through the salvific grace of the Tathagatas to free their own potential seed of Unborn Light.
Within the Diamond Sutra the Buddha teaches that he must liberate all sentient beings, yet the moment they become liberated, “Verily not any one is liberated.”
And why? Because, O Subhuti, no one is to be called a Bodhisattva, for whom there should exist the idea of a being or non-being, the idea of any form of living entity, or the idea of a person. Thus there are no sentient beings to be liberated and even no being-ness who attains Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi.”
As spiritual beings of the Dharmadhatu, they are no longer mere sentient beings and hence no need for liberation. It all seems to be a paradoxical situation, yet once Mind’s own actuositatis of Its own turning-about from all defiled dharmata occurs, this gives reign to the Supreme Salvific Action, a reassertion of Its True undifferentiated and Stainless Stature in the Unborn.