“…they may have accumulated infinite merits in their infinite existences, still, the depletion of so much merit might leave more opportunities for their demerits to bear fruit, perhaps at the cuti-patisandhi moment.”,… coupled with Lal’s:
“…No living being has an infinite existence. Their lifetimes may be very long in terms of our time scale that we are used to. However, even the lifetime of an arupavacra brahma (which can be many aeons), is a just a blip the samsaric time scale.
Since there is no beginning to sansara, and therefore also no beginning to the acquiring of merits (as also of demerits), then they have indeed ‘accumulated infinite merits in their infinite (in the past) existences’ But Lal is also right,as I see, because their lives there are inherently limited as to duration, so however long those lifetimes are, even if they were infinite, the merits being infinite as well, they would remain stuck there for ever.
…”there could be many who are Sotapanna Anugami, and would be very much interested.”
I was under the impression that, apart from those who attain a deva bhava solely due to merits, the others would be (ariyas) who had developed Sakadagami bhava in a human life immediately preceding that.
Meaning: are not Sotapannas and Sotapannas Anugani still attached to gross-material existence ? How is it that they can attain a deva realm (through magga phala) lower than that of a Sakadagami? They are freed of only the four lowest realms, not the human one.
y not