The Buddha’s explanation as to ‘why’ suffering and dissatisfaction exist within the human mind and the material environment is as good an explanation as any other theory found in Social Science, Psychology or Psychiatry. Past and present lives, when viewed genetically and collectively then take on a new scientific meaning when detached from the dogma of religiously motivated individualism – a mistaken mind-set which perfectly mirrors the Bourgeois ideal state of unbridled ‘individualism’ defined as being the ‘perfect’ (and preferred) mode of predatory capitalism! Of course, from a dialectical position, what we experience today will inevitably dictate how material life will unfold in the future. This intprets the past, present and future existences as taught by the Buddha as coinciding with the past from which the present as emerged – and the ‘future’ into which the present will ‘develop’. Indeed, outside of the superstitious meaning often encouraged amongst the Buddhist laity – it is an established fact that the Theravada Sangha of ordained monks and nuns discuss past, present and future lives in exactly this manner (Abhidhamma) – clarify this issue further by specify the ‘past’ life equals the past moment, the ‘present’ life equals the present moment, and the ‘future’ life equals the life yet to come. Around two to three-thousand years ago, when very few people could read and write, the ordained Buddhist monastic seemed a world apart from the average lay-person. There was good reason for this separation which probably does apply to contemporary life in all but the materially poorest of places. Whatever the situation, the agency of theistic ‘faith’ should NOT replace materially-derived ‘wisdom’. Of course, where literacy is unknown, then faith tends to be the strongest. Ancient India was both poor and illiterate and so the Buddha’s Enlightenment offered a strand of awareness which required the open rejection of ordinary existence. This was, in effect, the rejection of religious-based ‘faith’ – and yet amongst the ignorant masses – ‘faith’ continued to function as a very powerful force and still does. This misinterpretation is encouraged in the West as the theistic religions that have historically dominated these countries have been ‘faith’ based. This is why Buddhism in the West is falsely presented as just another version of the Judeo-Christian religion – when it is clearly (dialectically) far superior to these theistic paths. The philosophy of ancient India, particularly that found within Buddhist ideology, intersects perfectly with the thinking that undermines modern science. India, even before ancient Greece, is well-known to have developed a system of material interpretation of reality. The Buddha seems to have developed his system of interpreting reality from within this system of understanding and explaining existence. The Buddha, whilst experiencing material reality, purified his perceptual understanding so that he realised the ‘essence’ of the human conscious ability – which is used to ‘sense’ the world through the six-senses that comprise the inner and outer body and the physical environment within which it exists. Worshipping the Buddha as a ‘God’ – or continuing to worship the ‘polytheism’ of India – was to miss the dialectical point that the Buddha was making. Perceiving the ‘essence’ of perception is an interesting challenge.
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Given that the inner content of the mind is a reflection of the external world, then all religiosity is false in that it is a misreading of that external stimuli. For any spiritual path to be effective, it must ‘see through’ the fog of religion and the confusion of the inner mind. None of the images constructed in the inner fabric of the mind represents anything other than what they are – namely ‘disconnected’ and ‘disparate’ phantoms of light and shade. Religion is constructed from this jumble of nonsense when the capacity for logical thought is applied to it. The logic capacity of the mind chops and resizes all this mad kaleidoscopic light show and generates a type of ‘plausibility’ that fills in the huge gaps of credibility through mindless ‘faith’. None of it is real, but due to a cultural and historical lack of clarity of thought, even the most intelligent of individuals still consider it a possibility that the irrationality this religiosity represents might well be ‘true’ when viewed in the right light, or given the right conditions, etc. The fact that none of it ever makes any independent sense, is lost even on the greatest of minds! Meditation, when uncoupled from its associated religiosity becomes a vehicle through which the empty nature of the inner mind can be perceived. This is achieved by the ‘attention’ capacity ‘detaching’ itself from the ‘thought content’ so that it is no longer experienced through the illusion of some kind of substantiality. When detached, these thoughts no longer present anything than what they are – phantoms and light shows within the inner mind. Instead of the ‘awareness’ capacity being limited to the thought constructs themselves, it ‘spreads’ to encompass the entire physicality of the inner mind itself, generating an ‘expansion’ of awareness. This is a very real experience. Furthermore, as the awareness is now fully extended throughout the terrain of the inner mind, it is emphasised and extended through the six senses so that the awareness also permeates the inner body. This appears to extend into the physical environment through the sense-organ – sense data dichotomy. This is how the ‘awareness’ capacity when freed from attachment to thought constructs and the misreading of inner (irrational) phantasms as cogent religion – appears to ‘expand’ into and ‘through’ the physical environment. This is not a mysterious event but rather an evolutionary necessity that has become lost through the complexities of modern living. The point is that it is possible to free the awareness from the tyranny of constructed and conditioned thought forms and thought patterns, etc. When this happens, the thought capacity appears to manifest as if in a deep pool of silver-like water, which ‘reflects’ inwardly all it encounters in the external environment. Despite the accuracy of this reflection, religiosity derives from the natural distortion of this capacity (which appears to be a by-product of human evolutionary adaptation). Whether accurate or inaccurate, however, none of these reflections are ‘real’ in the material sense. Thought forms are the creations of bio-chemical interactions that ‘cease’ at the point of physical death. It is possible to understand all these processes prior to death, and to free the awareness of attachment to form following a relatively straightforward course in meditative self-development. Not only is the awareness capacity ‘freed’, but so is the logic capacity which evolved to ‘order’ thoughts. When freed from the rigid thought constructs conditioned throughout history, this type of enhanced logic can be used to strengthen and develop Socialist science to an ever-greater degree! Physical death then becomes an exercise in the logical closing-down of the bio-chemical processes of the body which sees the perception capacity quite literally ‘folding-in’ upon itself. There is nothing to fear and everything to gain!
For Marx religion is like a fix of opium designed to take the minds (and bodies) of the collective working-class off of the daily suffering implicit within the life of a capitalist society! Whilst for Lenin, religion of any sort is nothing but a ‘fog’ which distorts the collective thinking of the working-class. Furthermore, Marx exposes the underlying philosophical premise of any form of theism as being the product of ‘inverted’ thought processes, or to put it another way, a body of knowledge built upon a foundation of illogical thinking and incorrect conclusions. Marx explains that the idea of an ‘all-knowing’ God is nothing but a ‘thought’ in the human mind – a product of wishful thinking and imagination – which is then mistaken as existing ‘independently’ somewhere ‘out there’ in the universe. This argument is as powerful as it is simplistic and straightforward. For Marx, the vast body of theological literature does not matter – as it is all premised upon a false understanding of reality that relies upon ‘blind faith’ to exist and continue to exist. This is where religion receives its greatest support, as ‘faith’ does not require logical though or correct scientific scrutiny to ‘exist’ and ‘function’ throughout society. The Church Authorities are political entities that support the predatory capitalist system, and they sustain this influence (regardless of its obvious ‘corruption’) through the propagation of the agency of ‘faith’. Just as the Medieval Church gained its political power by aligning itself with the imperial Roman apparatus – modern Christianity has been developed by the bourgeoisie to represents its own best class interests – and grew-out of the process of industrialisation over the last four-years or so. Modern Christianity, therefore, exists as a statement of class dominance by the bourgeoisie which masquerades as a vehicle for personal development and deliverance. By transferring ‘religion’ from the ‘public’ to the ‘private’ sphere – as Marx and Lenin agree – the power-mongering of its modern priesthood is dismantled and disempowered. Religious doctrine is then replaced into a position of its founding – where it becomes a vehicle for self-cultivation with NO political ambitions or political power. An argument can be made that by placing religion into the ‘private’ sphere – religion is being returned to its ‘genuine’ state and purpose of being a vehicle for ‘inner’ development. This private-undertaking should be the only ‘lawful’ function that religious possesses. The ideology of Marxist-Leninism suggests that as times unfolds throughout a ‘Socialist’ society (which sees the working-class seizing control of the means of production) - it is believed that the ‘impulse’ toward religion will eventually die-out quite naturally as society is transformed from one of exploitation’ to that of ‘collective co-operation' - from ‘daily suffering’ to ‘daily collective and personal empowerment’! As the outward aspect of social organisation becomes ‘classless’, ‘just’, ‘productive’ and ‘equalitarian’, etc, the ‘inner’ health and vibrancy of the human-condition will becomes so ‘purified’, ‘positive’ and ‘progressive’ that there will no longer appear the impulse for the need for religion to arise as a psychological, emotional and physical habit. Therefore, Marxist-Leninist ideology offers a critique of religion that is so devastating to the Bourgeois Church that its power-brokers would rather support the ideology of ‘fascism’ and declare Marxism to be ‘evil’ than honestly and truthfully face the allegations levelled by Marx and striving to work with its conclusions rather than propagandising against it. Religion, if handled the right-way, can be useful for the development of a Socialist society, with any Socialist government possessing the moral responsibility of ‘integrating’ religionists into a new Socialist world-order with as little friction as possible. ACW (15.4.2021)
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AuthorAdrian Chan-Wyles PhD - Political Commissar and BMA (UK) Historian & Researcher. Archives
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