If one gets a firm grasp of the kleshas, then one can avoid the suffering & squirrel cage wheel issues in life a lot better.
I'm one of those annoying people who have trained themselves to recognize where it's likely that there are exceptions to the rules, and these kleshas are no exception. I'm sure there are some benefits to considering them in an appropriate manner, but if one doesn't see the exceptions, then they leave themselves open to blind spots that could come back to bite them.
So, to my way of thinking then, if you consider your dense body miraculous, that's fine. In many, many ways it definitely is. Kenneth Ring, PhD, was one of the first NDE researchers who crowed about the "crowds" of spirits that want a chance to incarnate & thereby speed their cultivation or enjoy the senses & physical pleasures, etc.
Interesting.
However, I'm of the school that says the dense body is impermanent & can seduce the unaware into all kinds of delusions that then have to be dealt with. Like family is all-important & blood is thicker than water, which is good stuff until your family steals from you or your wife & her family work to kill your daughter or son b/c they can't stand to share them w/ you.
Permanence is a concept that I doubt anyone really has a firm grip on. I wouldn't place too much emphasis on it, especially as a tool to reinforce the idea that the mind, or spirit or whatever you think the
other aspect of our existence is, is in any way superior or permanent.
I was amazed at the family is all-important cult in the Philippines until I learned they were just as wretched a bunch of back-stabbers as American families can be.
Interesting. I was just having that discussion the other day with a friend who is supporting a family down there.
So my point here is that your meat suit is going to conk out at some point & then if you're not a wise & loving/compassionate being, then you will be at a loss for what to make of what just happened.
Or your life will simply end and that won't be an issue.
An awareness of the after-life or the Other Side is a very good idea.
The idea of the "Other Side" is really fuzzy for most people. They think their notion of it is what it is actually like, but they really haven't thought it through other than in a sort of wish-fulfilment type fashion. If they used their intellect to analyze the situation, they'd realize that afterlives as most people think of them is impossible, and that at best, any afterworld you cannot be anything more than a copy — and a rather incomplete one at that.
For example, my grandmother on my father's side came to me while I slept & asked me, "What do I do now?" She was an old bible thumper to a small degree, thank goodness, but toward the end of her 82 years, she got into some pretty weird "700 Club" ideas, Jerry Fartwell, Tammy Faye & the PTL (Praise The Lord) non-sense. What happened after that is still a mystery. Did I leave my body & show her around? I'm confident that my passing will have some answers for me.
Well — I don't want to destroy your confidence. Someone once said to me that before you pull a crutch out from under someone, be prepared to replace it with something else. I'm not saying that for you specifically, your confidence is any sort of crutch. You might be perfectly able to adapt to the realization that afterlives as most people think of them are impossible — but most believers can't or won't or are very resistant.
Instead they deny ( remain
ignorant ) and keep their belief firmly
attached to their
egos, and even
attack others in order to defend their beliefs It's all the kleshas — except the last part has been switched around. Perhaps it needs some revising?