Ceisiwr wrote: ↑Sun Aug 08, 2021 2:25 am
asahi wrote: ↑Sat Aug 07, 2021 1:57 pm
Can we say some of the followers of hinduism , taoism , Islamic and Christianity are actually practising part of devata recollection ?!
Why not? St Aquinas seems to have had an experience of Jhana, or at least access concentration, after Mass.
I believe this to be true yes.
Of course the other religious would not accept it but most of them do not know about rebirth and certainly are teaching some form of re-appearance in the heavenly world as a final goal.
As I understand it, the original translation from the Hebrew in the Bible regarding heaven is not 'for ever' but rather 'for a very long time'.
The Kama-loka divine planes are accessable by virtue and moral discipline so would be a possible destination to those of any or no religion who maintained this.
Some of the mystics of these traditions would have also likely been accessing some of the higher planes beyond this if they had attained to a degree of jhana or concentration, known by some other name.
We already have discussed how the Bodhisattas early teachers such as Alara Kalama had access to the Base of Nothingness, and Udakka Ramaputta who is speculated to have been a Jain was teaching the path to the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception.
Most of the other early religions had venerated the gods of the kamaloka planes closer to the human level since the devas there were more likely to be discerned and more relatable.
The teaching of attainment to heavenly planes is shared with many other religions. The unique contribution of the Buddha's teaching is that of dependent co-arising and the Four Enobling Truths, leading to Stream-Entry.
The Canon also records that most of the devas believe they are eternal, and are filled with dread on hearing the Dhamma.
"Devas who are long-lived, beautiful, abounding in pleasure, established for a long time in high palaces, on hearing the Tathāgata’s Dhamma, for the most part feel fear, terror, and fright:
‘We thought ourselves to be constant, but it seems we are inconstant! We thought ourselves to be permanent, but it seems we are impermanent! We thought ourselves to be eternal, but it seems we are non-eternal! We—inconstant, impermanent, and non-eternal, it seems—are encompassed in self-identification.’
So powerful in the world with its devas, monks, is the Tathāgata—so mighty & majestic.”
When the Awakened One, through direct knowledge,
—the Teacher, the person with no peer
in the world with its devas—
sets the Dhamma wheel rolling:
the cessation of self-identification,
and the cause of self-identification,
and the noble eightfold path,
leading to the stilling of suffering,
long-lived devas—beautiful, prestigious—
become fearful & frightened,
like deer at a lion’s roar.
‘We’re not beyond self-identification.
It seems we’re inconstant,’ [they say,]
on hearing the word of the Worthy One,
the one fully released,
the one who is Such."
https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/SN/SN22_78.html