Tag: religion
Proactive moral behavior is required of all of us
The Astral Plane
The astral plane, also called the astral realm or the astral world, is a plane of existence postulated by classical, medieval, oriental, esoteric, and new age philosophies and mystery religions.[1] It is the world of the celestial spheres, crossed by the soul in its astral body on the way to being born and after death, and is generally believed to be populated by angels, spirits or other immaterial beings.[2] In the late 19th and early 20th century the term was popularised by Theosophy and neo-Rosicrucianism.
Another view holds that the astral plane or world, rather than being some kind of boundary area crossed by the soul, is the entirety of spirit existence or spirit worlds to which those who die on Earth go, and where they live out their non-physical lives. It is understood that all consciousness resides in the astral plane.[3] Some writers conflate this realm with heaven or paradise or union with God itself, and others do not. Paramahansa Yogananda wrote in Autobiography of a Yogi (1946), “The astral universe … is hundreds of times larger than the material universe … [with] many astral planets, teeming with astral beings.”
My sense is the term astral plane has fallen a bit out of favor. In some cases it is replaced by ethereal plane. In Buddhism, it is traditionally referred to as ultimate reality or vaguely as nirvana, or what comes after nirvana. More recently among scientists and philosophers, we are seeing the concept of a conscious universe or a thinking universe, a universe in which consciousness is a primary force, feature or dimension. However we refer to it, we need a term that evokes dimensions or planes of awareness beyond earthly or mundane awareness or ‘relative reality’, as it is put in Buddhism.
The concept of an astral plane dates back to Plato if not before. The Buddha was referring to something like that without using any term when he spoke about nirvana. The Buddha was a Scythian who argued against the strong Scythian belief in an absolute distinction between right and wrong and a single, great God (Ahura Mazda) who created the world and could be known only through doing good.
It’s a good development that scientists and philosophers today are increasingly seeing what the Buddha and many others have seen throughout the ages. I believe deep meditative states and a moral life afford us frequent opportunities to commune with or glimpse dimensions or realms beyond our normal default cultural behavioral realms.
Buddhism is a profoundly ethical teaching but it also rejects absolutes. We humans are characterized by emptiness, impermanence, and the suffering wrought by clinging to any concept, belief or idea, and yet are capable of freeing ourselves from ‘relative reality’ through ethical practice and experiential samadhi states.
The Buddha remained silent on matters related to anything like the astral plane because he knew that focusing on ethereal aims (especially in his day?) tends to reify them, which then leads to ossification, doctrine, worship without reason. I wonder if in our day, the Buddha would reason differently as many reasonable thinkers now accept that consciousness may be inexplicable by rank materialism or particle physics or biology based on those; and thus may/must be a primary aspect of all that we know of.
My current understanding of Buddhism and ancient history has been recently influenced by Christopher Beckwith’s The Scythian Empire: Central Eurasia and the Birth of the Classical Age from Persia to China, which I highly recommend to Buddhists and everyone else. ABN
Raymond Ibrahim on Islam in Europe
‘The End of Days’ — Abrahamic fanaticism in Israel and USA
….believing-without-thinking is well inside the Netanyahu regime by virtue of Bibi’s dependence on extremist Zionists such as Ben–Givr, Smotrich, and Strook for his political survival. There are implications to think about here. And we should then take care to connect some dots: Christian Zionists in America are less influential on the Israel question than these shockingly deluded extremists, but not by much, and America’s Christian Zionists are just as extreme in their version of “the end of days.”
We cannot look upon Israel’s Zionists with any kind of detachment or critique from some conjured place of elevated superiority. Americans have long told themselves similarly grand, delusional stories to justify their history of injustices and cruelties: Bush II’s Gog and Magog bit is merely an over-the-top telling, a variant on the theme. U.S. policy, certainly since the 11 September disasters, has been based ever less on rational calculation—to say nothing of concern for the global commonweal—than on what I think of as desperately held beliefs in the face of twenty-first century realities.
It is the same with the Israelis as the killing proceeds daily in Gaza and, increasingly, in the West Bank. Israeli policy—and this is true of American policy, too, at bottom—is conceived and executed by people who do not act rationally. They answer to their gods, whether this means Yahweh or divine Providence—“the Great Œconomist,” as some of the eighteen-century historians used to put it.
There are grave implications here. Chief among them, there is no talking to these people, for they live and act behind the thick, protective wall of messianic belief. They may pretend to listen to others, but they do not hear. Nothing others may say can change them. This is a highly consequential circumstance, given the power people who act irrationally hold.
Between the U.S. and Israel, our world is defined by those who view it in radically simplistic binaries. To them there is no place for complexity in our increasingly complex global environment. One could argue this is a good definition of incompetence. This is our dreadful predicament—dreadful because the way forward, beyond these people, cannot be but long and arduous. And here we come to a final conclusion of sorts.
Only failure holds any promise of forcing either Israel or the U.S. to change course. I unshyly applaud all the very costly foreign policy failures of both for this reason, although I must quickly add that failure very often disappoints because the policy cliques in Washington and Tel Aviv seem committed to going from one failure to the next without changing anything.
If anything, Zionist Israel appears yet more dedicated than the U.S. to its course of righteous murder and destruction in the name of its apocalyptic destiny. This seems to me the grimmest reality of our time. If the assault Israel prosecutes in Gaza and the West Bank—and now possibly in Lebanon and Iran—is an end-days battle against Gog and Magog, how can the righteous desist, or make peace, or negotiate an enduring settlement? How can it end short of the Israelis’ destruction?
This essay is worth reading and its points are well-taken but, to my eye, it is merely a slice of the big picture. Yes, the Abrahamic fanaticism of US and Israeli policy is real on its own but it is also a tool used by cabal globalists who stand above both populations and direct them both openly and subtly. Other tools used by cabal are Ukraine War, DEI, open borders, election fraud, attempted assassination of Trump, arrest of Durov, etc. Cabal is fueled by the ‘religious’ fanaticism of KOBK as much or more than that of Abraham. ABN
Kenneth Copeland’s unique style
I am posting this because Copeland is a highly unique speaker. He is also a preacher and I post stuff on both speech and religion. This kind of video can be interpreted as insulting to Copeland but I am definitely not posting it for that reason and do not believe that is the only interpretation. This video also highlights Copeland’s dramatic and idiosyncratic speech and facial mannerisms, which to some degree are characteristic of some Christian preachers. I personally am on the side of all good religions and all good people. ABN
FLASHBACK: Brooklyn tunnels
Moscow Patriarchate Condemns Move to Ban Ukrainian Orthodox Church
Russia’s Orthodox Church on Tuesday condemned a vote by Ukrainian lawmakers to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which many believe to be aligned with Moscow.
“This is an unlawful act that is the grossest violation of the basic principles of freedom of conscience and human rights,” Russian Orthodox Church spokesman Vladimir Legoida wrote on Telegram.
On Tuesday, Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada passed a bill outlawing religious organizations with links to Russia. That ban would include the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which lawmakers accuse of maintaining links with Moscow.
Legoida said the bill creates “a legal basis for the total liquidation of the parishes of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church — the religious community that unites the majority of Ukrainians.”
FLASHBACK 2015: David Duke summarizes the state of the world
How Yahweh Conquered Rome
Four US states DENY religious and philosophical exemptions to childhood vaccines to attend school
Solzhenitsyn — ‘Bolshevism committed the greatest human slaughter of all time’
Hot Takes on the British Finally Rioting Against Immigrants — Andrew Anglin
The British have been rioting against immigrants after a Rwandan immigrant (born in the UK) stabbed up a Taylor Swift dance class, killing three little girls.
I’ve reported on this as news items, but I haven’t really given much commentary on it. This is not because I’m lazy, but rather because I don’t really have much commentary on it, beyond the fact that I hope it continues to produce entertaining content for me to consume.
I’m not going to say “I support rioting and kicking female cops across the road like soccer balls.”



