Eternalistic belief
Eternalism is described in this sutta as the belief which is based upon the Past, and believes that the Universe (loka) and Soul or Self (attha) is eternal as 'rock mountain or strong-fastened pole'. The World doesn't create new Souls and therefore, the Souls are living in eternal cycle of dead and rebirth, only differed in name, location, and time. These kind of beliefs come from four origins: *a. Some ascetics and brahmins who have reached high level of meditation; due to this achievement, they could remember their past-lives from one till tens of thousands of past-lives. *b. Some ascetics and brahmins who have reached the spiritual achievements which provided them access to memory of Earth's evolutionary process from one till 10 times Earth's formation and destruction process. *c. the ascetics and brahmins who managed to recall the Earth's evolutionary process from ten to forty times. **. (from a-c) Here, they recalled how they had name, family, heirs, food, joy and sadness, then death and rebirth in their past-lives. Based on their experience, they concluded that the Universe and the Soul must be Eternal. *d. the ascetics and brahmins who use logics and inferrence and come to the conclusion that the Soul and Universe are eternal. Buddha said that there were 18 types of Eternalistic belief, all based on one or these four base of thoughts. All of the followers of these beliefs defended and clung on their faith and didn't believe in another faiths.
