I am not suggesting stopping anyone from thinking, exactly because of what you noted: the opportunity for exploitation. What I'm talking about is one's personal quest to find out what lies beyond thinking.

It seems to me that I am not getting my point across to you. I am speaking of finding out what one is made of and why one suffers, and why and how this suffering becomes personal, social, universal, etc. I am not saying that thought serves no purpose; it is absolutely necessary for technology, finding solutions, erecting structures, solving transportation problems, inventing new devices, etc,, but it will never lead one to discovering what is one's essence.

I am also not advocating a one-size-fits-all application that leads to mass belief or acceptance of ideas. This would do nothing less than create a religion, and we already have seen what religions cause in our world.

I content that very, very few people have any interest in uncovering what they are beyond thought. My message is only for those who do have such an interest.

When thought is used to figure out what we are then we are left only with thought and not with a realization. And history has shown that thought has done nothing societally or universally to resolve suffering or to stop the generational perpetuation of suffering. But, again, this is not to suggest that thought is without value when applied to many other issues.

There are psychologists, neuroscientists, physicists, and philosophers who have figured out what we are by use of thought. But this has nothing to do with the personal experience of knowing what it is like to be without thought and without the obstacle of thought blocking the way to happiness or peace. I know I am repeating myself when I say that such conclusions are made on the outside-looking-in.

To your statement: "There are no technological applications of positing life after death, which is to say we can't rely on a model that makes sense of that hypothesis in any systematic way..." I agree. There is no way to make sense of life after death by using any scientific means — not at this time, anyway. But I would add to this that the life-after-death phenomenon has everything to do with the world of thought. It's simply another phenomenon, albeit one that defies scientific explanation and exploration.

What is the difference between interpretation and experience if both are made of thought and occur only to a self? An experience comes and goes and has an experiencer. A realization, as far as I am using the word, is permanent. Many people run around repeating the trope that we are all one, but few actually realize that this is true at the fundamental level. What they are expressing is a thought, an idea, a generally accepted conclusion.