Found 160 posts tagged ‘end of the world’ |
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Restoring the Lost Sense –
August 27, 2022 |
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| [Inexplicable images from generations ago invite us to restore the lost
sense of immediacy. We follow the founder of the Theater of
Spontaneity, Jacob Moreno, who proposed stringing together "now and then
flashes" to unfetter illusion and let imagination run free. The images
we have collected for this series came at a tremendous price, which we explained previously.] |
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Restoring the Lost Sense –
August 13, 2022 |
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Restoring the Lost Sense –
July 4, 2022 |
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| [Inexplicable images from generations ago invite us to restore the lost
sense of immediacy. We follow the founder of the Theater of
Spontaneity, Jacob Moreno, who proposed stringing together "now and then
flashes" to unfetter illusion and let imagination run free. The images
we have collected for this series came at a tremendous price, which we explained previously.] |
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Restoring the Lost Sense –
April 4, 2022 |
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| [Inexplicable images from generations ago invite us to restore the lost
sense of immediacy. We follow the founder of the Theater of
Spontaneity, Jacob Moreno, who proposed stringing together "now and then
flashes" to unfetter illusion and let imagination run free. The images
we have collected for this series came at a tremendous price, which we explained previously.] |
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Restoring the Lost Sense –
December 10, 2021 |
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| [Inexplicable images from generations ago invite us to restore the lost
sense of immediacy. We follow the founder of the Theater of
Spontaneity, Jacob Moreno, who proposed stringing together "now and then
flashes" to unfetter illusion and let imagination run free. The images
we have collected for this series came at a tremendous price, which we explained previously.] |
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I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought –
September 28, 2021 |
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If you feel that "we are living through a time of unprecedented and troubling change," recall that so did folks in 2004 (see clipping), and verily so did folks in every year of recorded history. As the archives of old newspapers, magazines, and books make perfectly clear, humanity is always at a crossroads, and it is always the "end of the world." We might actually find comfort in that, and in the Buddhist conception that past-present-future is all of a piece. Clipping from Suddenly They Heard Footsteps by Dan Yashinsky, 2004.
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I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought –
June 2, 2021 |
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A Contested Prophecy, Literally True?
Skeptics cite Jesus’ promise that “this generation” will see the end of days as a failed prophecy, yet — extraordinarily — in the light of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, we can see Jesus’ words as very literally true. We’ll touch upon this, as we’ve not seen the insight discussed elsewhere. Mark 13:24-30 quotes Jesus as predicting that the sun and moon will be darkened, the stars of heaven will fall, the powers of heaven will be shaken, the Son of Man will appear in the clouds with great glory, angels will gather from the four winds, and — crucially — “this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.” How can such a statement be literally true? It was literally true for each individual of that generation upon his or her death, for what Jesus described is parallel to the death experience detailed in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Skeptics don’t seem to see the individual trees for the forest. One at a time, human beings face the end of the[ir] world upon death. Light is extinguished and the soul navigates the turbulent “afterlife” environment of the Bardo, featuring terrifying winds and deafening thunders and deities and angels in the clouds.
Jesus makes an analogy four verses later of a man leaving his house and taking a far journey, and that, too, is parallel to the first day in the afterlife as described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. (“Thou wilt see thine own home, the attendants, relatives, and the corpse, and think, ‘Now I am dead! What shall I do?' and being oppressed with intense sorrow, the thought will occur to thee, ‘O what would I not give to possess a body!’ And so thinking, thou wilt be wandering hither and thither seeking a body” [Book II, Part I]). Indeed, Jesus’ prophecy of the future can be understood as fulfilling itself for one person at a time, upon death. As the Tibetan Book of the Dead explains, when one’s earthly nervous system shuts off, the light of the sun, moon, and stars are no longer visible; only the “astral light” would be detectable to the deceased’s etheric being. In Book II, Part I of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, we learn that in the post-death Bardo realm, “The fierce wind of karma, terrific and hard to endure, will drive thee onwards from behind, in dreadful gusts. Fear it not. That is thine own illusion. Thick awesome darkness will appear in front of thee continually.” Yet “the embodiment of all that is wise, merciful and loving” will appear “as clouds on the surface on the heavens or a rainbow on the surface of the clouds.” It is the father of heaven (whom the Tibetans call the Manifester of Phenomena, who has dominion over worldly existence) appearing in the center of the sky, seated in a lion-throne (Book I, Part II), attended by angelic Bodhisattvas shining amidst a rainbow halo of light. Those not versed in comparative religion might be surprised to learn that Tibetans acknowledge that one might see Jesus in the afterlife. The Tibetan Book of the Dead explains that the “Great Body of Union ... will appear in whatever shape will benefit all beings whomsoever,” meaning that the godhead will take the form most appealing to the individual, such as Jesus to a Christian.
As a final note, concerning the overlap between Tibetan Buddhism and Christianity, Philip K. Dick explored at length in his Exegesis the “perpendicular path” to salvation that Christianity offers, and this same “Great Straight Upward Path" to enlightenment is made explicit in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. (Dick, conversant with both philosophies, preferred Christianity’s.) Both feature the peculiar doctrine of instantaneous spiritual emancipation without further suffering, and this doctrine underlies the entire Tibetan Book of the Dead. “Faith is the first step on the Secret Pathway,” explains a footnote in the Tibetan text, “Then comes Illumination; and with it, Certainty; and, when that Goal is won, Emancipation.” As in the ancient Egyptian symbolism of the sun-god Ra, it is the “hook” (as on a fishing line) of the “rays of grace” that catch and drag one perpendicularly from the dangers of the Bardo (Book I, Part II).
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I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought –
January 1, 2021 |
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It's been said that i n every birth is a death, every death a birth. The very first episode of Dark Shadows proclaims, "Welcome to the beginning and the end of the world."
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Original Content Copyright © 2025 by Craig Conley. All rights reserved.
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