The Yugas (a critical book review)

In their book The Yugas: Keys to Understanding Man's Hidden Past, Emerging Present and Future Enlightenment, the two American “scientists” Joseph Selbie and David Steinmetz, have written a revisionist version of the Indian philosophy of the Yugas, the four-age cycles of history and time. 

All thought-activity is the historical limitation´s action and reaction

Man – the body, the nerves, the mind – is limited by the climate he lives in, by the whole of his social, religious and economical environment, by his experiences, the education he has got, by family influences and the demands, which have been given to him.

All these are factors, which limit Man historical. Our conscious and subconscious reactions to all the influences of the environment – intellectual, emotional, outside and inner – these reactions are, each and every one, actions, which emanate from our historical limitation.

Language is historical limitation; all thought-activity is the historical limitation´s action and reaction.

What happens if the thought is quiet?

You must see your images of life as relative, and thereby disentangle from them

In order to find out whether it is possible for the mind completely to disentangle itself from its historical limitation, you must have the freedom to inquire and discover.

That will say that you must see your images of life as relative, and thereby disentangle from them.

And this also means freedom from romantic possibility-images, which are just as relative as the necessity-images. 

The mind, as we know it, has belief and knowledge as historical background. Could it change?

The question for the Life Artist is whether the mind can disengage itself from its own structure.

Can the mind empty itself for its own structure?

That is the problem.

The mind, as we know it, has belief and knowledge as historical background, is feeded by desires, wants, the desire after safety.

In this way the thinking sucks life out of the present and transforms knowledge and belief into reality, and reality into emptiness.

And in this way the Ego is made independent in relation to the individual´s reality.

Meditation, or art of life, is to empty out the mind completely

The content of the mind is a product of time, of that which usually is called development and cultivation; it is a product of thousand experiences, a gigantic accumulation of knowledge, of memories; therefore an aspect of Man as a historical being.

The mind is in that degree loaded with the past.

The past is based on the images in time, both the personal, collective and universal images; the reservoir, from where we get all our belief and knowledge.

All knowledge originates from the past, all experience is the past, and all memory is the accumulated result of thousand experiences – this is the known, your perspective.

You must demand the utmost of the mind and the heart, or else they remain within the borders of the impossible

Unless you demand that which perhaps seems impossible, you fall in the trap, you become historical limited by what you think is impossible.

It is immensely easy to fall in this trap.

You must demand the utmost of the mind and the heart, or else they remain within the borders of the impossible, in the convenient and comfortable.

Consciousness is a characteristic of Man, both as history, rationality, desires, nature and relationships

Is it possible for the mind altogether to empty itself for its historical limitation?

The mind has many layers of images, both personal, collective and universal.

The so-called consciousness consists of these many layers of images, and there is an intercommunication between these layers, all the layers are dependent of each other and influence each other.

The whole of the consciousness of Man is not only a process whereby something is experienced, but also whereby something gets name, is designated and stored as memories.

Consciousness is therefore not only a characteristic of Man as a rational being. It is also, on various levels, a characteristic of Man, both as history, desires, nature and relationships.

Self-knowledge is the virtue in answering the above question.

When the Ego is not present, then Man, and the Otherness, can fill each other out.

The reactions on the challenges of the world are an expression of Man as a natural being.

On the other hand they are also an expression of the historical limitation of Man, and therefore the instance, which under various forms makes it possible for the Ego to continue. The historical limitation is time and its images, the perspective you have on yourself and the world. The Ego is this historical limitation. The Ego is therefore a philosophical ego.

In such a process there can´t be any openness, devotion and love. Love can only arise when the Ego is not present.

When the Ego is not present, then Man, and the Otherness, can fill each other out. This happens in the devotion. True love is devotion, where you in self-forgetful openness give yourself away with the whole of your being.

That is the reason why the Life Artist must understand the whole of the process of mind, which is the thinking´s process.