Tibetan Book of the Dead - Description of Death, Between Death & Re-birth, and Re-birth
I saw an interesting though perhaps over-dramatized video on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, "Secret Tibetan Book of the Dead | History Channel Documentary", http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ermcc6iDqQA, 44 min 01 sec, with the transcript available [Transcript allows you to browse through the text of the video and choose to view only the parts you are interested in.] The video has input from some Western experts on the book including some professor(s). The experts comments are quite interesting and thought-provoking.
There is a wikipedia page associated with it, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bardo_Thodol. A few extracts:
The Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State differentiates the intermediate state between lives into three bardos:
...
[Ravi: Carl Jung's comments on it:]
In an introduction to Evans-Wentz' version, Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung summarizes his psychological commentary:
The Bardo Thödol [Tibetan Book of the Dead] began by being a closed book, and so it has remained, no matter what kind of commentaries may be written upon it. For it is a book that will only open itself to spiritual understanding, and this is a capacity which no man is born with, but which he can only acquire through special training and special experience. It is good that such to all intents and purposes useless books exist. They are meant for those queer folk who no longer set much store by the uses, aims, and meaning of present-day civilisation.
— Carl Jung
[Ravi: I have been very impressed with whatever little I have read of Carl Jung. From the little I have read of both Jung and Freud I think Jung seems to have got the psychological understanding of humans more right. But then that is just my opinion based on very little reading - I could be way off.]
--- end wiki extracts (& comments) ---
The book pdf is available here: http://www.holybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Tibetan-Book-of-the-Dead.pdf. I have downloaded it but not yet read/browse-read it.
There is a wikipedia page associated with it, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bardo_Thodol. A few extracts:
The Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State differentiates the intermediate state between lives into three bardos:
- The chikhai bardo or "bardo of the moment of death", which features the experience of the "clear light of reality", or at least the nearest approximation of which one is spiritually capable.
- The chonyid bardo or "bardo of the experiencing of reality", which features the experience of visions of various Buddha forms (or, again, the nearest approximations of which one is capable).
- The sidpa bardo or "bardo of rebirth", which features karmically impelled hallucinations which eventually result in rebirth. (Typically imagery of men and women passionately entwined.)
...
[Ravi: Carl Jung's comments on it:]
In an introduction to Evans-Wentz' version, Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung summarizes his psychological commentary:
The Bardo Thödol [Tibetan Book of the Dead] began by being a closed book, and so it has remained, no matter what kind of commentaries may be written upon it. For it is a book that will only open itself to spiritual understanding, and this is a capacity which no man is born with, but which he can only acquire through special training and special experience. It is good that such to all intents and purposes useless books exist. They are meant for those queer folk who no longer set much store by the uses, aims, and meaning of present-day civilisation.
— Carl Jung
[Ravi: I have been very impressed with whatever little I have read of Carl Jung. From the little I have read of both Jung and Freud I think Jung seems to have got the psychological understanding of humans more right. But then that is just my opinion based on very little reading - I could be way off.]
--- end wiki extracts (& comments) ---
The book pdf is available here: http://www.holybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Tibetan-Book-of-the-Dead.pdf. I have downloaded it but not yet read/browse-read it.
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