and, merging one's self therein, in at-one-ment, Buddhahood is attained through humble faith, the ordinary devotee cometh to know himself, and obtaineth Liberation; even the most lowly, by the power of the pure prayer, can close the doors of the Six Lokas, and, in understanding the real meaning of the Four Wisdoms united, obtain Buddhahood by the hollow path- way through Vajra-Sattva[1].
Thus by being set face to face in that detailed manner, those who are destined to be liberated will come to recognize [the Truth];[2] thereby many will attain Liberation.
The worst of the worst, [those] of heavy evil karma, having not the least predilection for any religion-and some who have failed in their vows-through the power of karmic illusions, not recognizing, although set face to face [with Truth], will stray downwards.
[THE SEVENTH DAY]
On the Seventh Day, the Knowledge-Holding Deities, from the holy paradise realms, come to receive one. Simultaneously, the pathway to the brute world, produced by the obscuring passion, stupidity, also cometh to receive one.[3] The setting- face-to-face at that time is, calling the deceased by name, thus:
- ↑ Vajra-Sattva, as a symbolic deity, the reflex of Akṣḥobhya, is visualized, in Tibetan occult rituals, as being internally vacuous. As such, he represents the Void, concerning which there are many treatises with elaborate commentaries, essentially esoteric. Through Vajra-Sattva there lies a certain pathway to Liberation, he being the embodiment of all the one-hundred and ten deities constituting the manḍala of the Peaceful and Wrathful Ones (see p. 1241). To tread this Path successfully, the Neophyte must be instructed by the Hierophant.
- ↑ This Truth is that there is no reality behind any of the phenomena of the Bardo plane, save the illusions stored up in one's own mind as accretions from sangsāric experiences. Recognition of this automatically gives Liberation.
- ↑ As the gross physical atoms of a life-deserted human-plane body gradually separate and go to their appropriate places, some as gases, some as fluids, some as solids, so on the after-death plane there comes about a gradual dispersion of the psychic or mental atoms of the Bardo thought-body, each propensity—directed by karmic affinity—inevitably going to that environment most congenial to it. Hence, as our text suggests, the brute-passion stupidity has a natural tendency to gravitate to the brute kingdom and become embodied therein as a disintegrated part of the mentality of the deceased. (See pp. 44 ff.)
aim of the Bardo Thödol teaching is to awaken the Dreamer to Reality-to a supramundane state of consciousness, to an annihilation of all bonds of sangsaric existence, to Perfect Enlightenment, Buddhahood.
