Theos-Talk Archives (November 1999 Message tl00134)

In a message dated 11/12/99 8:16:01 AM Central Standard Time, dalval@nwc.net
writes:

> Taking reincarnation into account and the progressive learning
>  process implied in the cumulative experience of many births
>  directed at acquiring a wisdom (meaning a complete knowledge of
>  Self and self, as well a the laws and purposes of the Universe)
>  Would not the "sudden" realization in any one life be the result
>  of the striving for that end in perhaps many previous lives?
>
This is a Mahayana gradualist argument.  But the sudden view
says no.  Remember, I said this two are cross-culturally found.
The sudden view types in Christianity, such as Evagrios and
Eckhart, do not believe in past lives.  In the sudden view
traditions that do, the Dzog chen would contend that a past
life is no more preparatory than the last second of this one.
In fact, the Semde tradition does not even refer to itself as
the sudden "path" because it claims there is no path
(long or short) leading up to the enlightened attitude.
Imagine it like a quantum leap, the electron does not
pass from one space through another to arrive at its
destination.  When it has higher energy, it is radically
a discontinuous jump with no intermediate passing
there space.  It relocates in space without passing
through space.  There are two energy states.  One
is either in one or not.  There is no path from one to
the other.

Grigor