a response to Justin's question

 (if anyone is reading this, it is a response to the question that Justin put as a comment after my last entry, so read his questions to get the context of what I'm saying.)

All right Justin. I’ve been pondering your questions, and I think I came up with my answer. It’s too long to put in a comment, so I just decided to make a new post out of it. It is also possibly repetitive, but I was working it out in my head as I wrote it, so bear with it.

    My thoughts expressed in the blog entry rest on a dualism between the mind/spirit and the body. Both are intrinsically connected, but the body has far more limitations than the spirit. So they are in connection, yet entirely distinct. It is worth nothing that even though many see these entities as in endless conflict with one another, this needn’t be the case. We may see the body as a vehicle for spiritual liberation, ultimate awareness, that can come far more readily from having a healthy, well-functioning body.
    The type of awareness I describe is awareness of the fullness of reality, beyond our many illusions/sentiments that bar us from such a realization (illusions of separateness, indulgence in anger or lust, etc)--basically, awareness of the universe in its pure form. I put forth the idea in the blog entry that this awareness, when achieved, is carried through death into unity with the vast energy field that is the universe. This unity can only come if we first realize our unity with the cosmos here on earth.
    Your question regards the physical/bodily deterioration of old age that may cause one to lose awareness of such a reality, such unity. Referring back to the dualism between spirit and body, the deterioration of old age is, at its base, physical, and resulting from the inevitable connection between these two entities, spiritual as well. What happens is that awareness is lost because the limited body prevents it from occurring. Yet the spiritual position that one has achieve remains the same, for as the spirit is distinct from the body, it cannot be lowered because of the body’s limitations.
    So the spirit is still at the level of enlightenment in reality, but the physical deterioration of the impermanent matter that is our bodies no longer allows one to recognize the spirit’s elevated status. In death, when physical limitations are no more, the spirit becomes the entire reality, and biological deterioration can no longer prevent its awareness of the fullness of reality, and thus its entry into unity with it. So what I maintain is that there is an absolute hierarchy of spiritual levels we ascend, and though awareness of one’s position in those levels happens in life and will yield much joy and zeal for life, that awareness is not a necessary aspect of one’s position in the hierarchy--one can be at the top of the mountain and, because of physical debilitations, have no idea that he is there. This lack of awareness does not change the fact of his position.
    I believe that one way we can learn about our position amidst these levels is through our dreams. Thus, it is perfectly imaginable that a spiritual man who is losing his memory to Alzheimer’s will still dream of higher matters, for in the dream, he is face to face with his spiritual position. Likewise, in the dream, he may even have a certain awareness of this position, even if it does not carry over into his waking life.
    One way that we can think of these debilitating conditions of old age is as severing ones physical, material connection with the world, the necessary process of attaining spiritual freedom that is fusion with the cosmos. Though these people appear to be suffering and losing their mind, they are really juts completing the process of life and death and moving beyond all physical limitations into a mode of existence that is entirely spiritual.

Just some more ideas on the matter, which I’m sure spawn a thousand more questions. Let me know what you think. Thanks for giving some direction to my thoughts mate!