Answers to FAQ, Page 3

Answers to Frequently Asked Questions

Page 3

Are we hungry, thirsty, cold, hot, happy, sad in the Afterlife?

It is possible to experience any of those things in the Afterlife. It is also possible to choose not to. What we believe to be true seems to be the biggest factor in what we experience. In a dream you might be thirsty or hungry, hot or cold. It may seem quite real. If you awaken within that dream, realizing it is "just a dream" you become more free to make other choices.

Do we develop new senses in the Afterlife?

From my experience, any "new senses" we seemingly develop in the Afterlife are available to us in This life. Input from our physical world senses tends to swamp them out, sort of like trying to hear a quiet whisper in a noisy crowd. Once the noisy crowd is gone, it's easy to think the whispering just started. It was really going on all along, and we just couldn't hear it. We can learn, to a certain extent, to hear the whispers during This life. That's what meditation and other mind-quieting forms of focused attention are all about.

What kinds of other entities are common in the Afterlife?

There may be more, but I've only encountered just a few. If we limit the list to sentient beings, the most common entity in the Afterlife is a human being. These come in two varieties, those who no longer live in a physical body and those just visiting, either consciously or during dreams. I've also encountered people who were not human by virtue of "being raised on a different planet."

If we include entities which are not sentient, then the next most common are things created by human thought. Essentially, anything the human mind is capable of conceiving can "take form" in the Afterlife. Things like: rocks; trees; cars; monsters; houses; furniture; mountains; streams; skateboards; anything a human being can imagine can exisit in the Afterlife.

Where do these entities come from?

Human, the most common "entity" come from the physical world. Nonhumans come from their particular home world. Nonsentient things mostly come from human thought.

What do these entities do and want?

The most common variety, humans, continue to exist and do the things that humans do. The nonhumans I've encountered are usually here to observe, record, and try to learn from human experience. Humans and nonhumans seem to want to continue to exercise their free will, to explore whatever they are interested in learning about.

Can prayers help the dead in some way? Religions teach praying for the dead, especially catholics. In George Anderson’s book, "We Don’t Die," he claims prayers said by people still physically living can help those in the Afterlife. That these prayers are "keeping them in the light" or have "caused them to rise to the next level," or more than one level.

In my experience, some people don’t realize they’ve died. Some do, but are confused about what to do next. For some, the circumstances of their death limit "movement" in the Afterlife. What people in each of these cases need most is to become aware of their situation and surroundings. Helpers, formerly alive humans who live and "work" in the Afterlife always attempt to facilitate such awareness. But sometimes the deceased’s state of awareness makes it difficult, or impossible, for a Helper to reach such a person. When that happens, the person is "stuck" where they are, in Monroe Institute program language, the person is "stuck in Focus 23." This stituation is one in which physically alive humans have an advantage over Helpers in "unsticking" the deceased. Prayer is one way physically alive humans can help the Helper, so to speak.

My understanding of George Anderson’s "keeping them in the light," through prayer would be translated as, "bringing them to awareness of their surroundings." You could think of it as turning on a light in a darkened room. His "caused them to rise to the next level," in my experience, would mean "to facilitate a retrieval by a Helper," or to "do the retrieval yourself." What you say in your prayers to assist the deceased can have powerful effects. During prayer you can be in direct contact with them, whether you’re conscious of it or not.

When we die, are we all going to the same place, but seeing a different view of it?

In the broadest sense, yes. The Afterlife is within the nonphysical world, but there are many different places There. It would be like saying we all go to Colorado. The ones who land in the Denver County jail would have a far different experience than those who landed at the Denver International Airport, yet they would all be in Colorado. Where we "land" in the Afterlife seems to be determined most by our beliefs and expectations.

What I want to know about is your perception of the whole relationship between belief systems and what really happens when we die.

Answering that one has taken two over 350-page manuscripts so far. I'd suggest you read everything in all the areas of this Web site, and request copies of articles available in the Resources in this site, and get a copy of my books . After that, if you have some specific questions, I'll try to answer them. Sorry if it looks like I'm side-stepping your question, but I don't know how else to cover the "whole relationship."

Concerning reincarnation, isn't it true that when we exist as pure souls in the Afterlife, we tend to reunite and plan our future lives together, perhaps playing out different roles in our next physical existence?

From what I’ve seen, when we, as human beings, are living in the Afterlife, we have the freedom to chose any future activity we are aware of. Some people who wish to reunite in the Afterlife and play different roles in future incarnation relationships can agree to do that. People may decide to incarnate together for any number of purposes and some may go it alone. Some people opt for not reincarnating and chose to continue living in the Afterlife. They are free to explore opportunities for future activities There as well as Here. In each case, my explorations indicate we make the best choice for ourselves we’re aware of at the time we make it. Free will choice seems to be the rule in Focus 27 as far as our future activities are concerned. The only limit seems to be how aware we are of the choices available to us.

Within your question is the issue of "reuniting." In most cases, when I’ve retrieved someone from Focus 23 they’re met in Focus 27 by someone they knew during a physical lifetime. This reuniting seems to have more to do with helping to stabilize the "newgoner" (as someone once labeled "the recently deceased") in his or her new environment. On occasion, people arrive in Focus 27 and no one they know is available to meet them. It’s fairly rare, but it does happen.

In my first manuscript there’s a story of a little boy’s retrieval that was a partnered exercise. It was a training run in which two of us did the retrieval together and compared notes later. This little boy died shortly before we found him and when we got him to Focus 27, no one he knew was available to meet him. A Helper arrived, a grandmotherly type. She greeted the boy and explained his mother couldn’t come and she would take care of him. The Helper was actually my partner’s deceased mother with whom we worked on occasion.

Is there a state/region beyond Focus 27 where you lose your personal identity and merge with the essence of the Supreme Being/Creator/Cosmic Source/God?

No and Yes. Your question gets at the heart of the greater question, "Who or what am I?" It took three chapters of my first book just to lay the foundation for an answer. I’ll try to condense it and hope it’s not too confusing.

I used to think I was just the personality that inhabited my physical body. I thought at death that personality disappeared or merged or some other esoteric thing I didn’t understand. In my explorations I’ve discovered I am more than my physical body, much more.

I discovered there is another me. That me is something I call my Disk, something Bob Monroe called the I/There. Others might call this the Higher Self, Greater Self or Oversoul. The me inhabiting my physical body is but one small part of the Disk. I’ll use "Disk" and "Greater Self" synonymously for the remainder of my answer just to avoid constant repetition of "Disk". In my explorations, I’ve seen my Greater Self. To me, it looks like a large disk with many small, round lights arranged in concentric circles. It’s my understanding each of these lights is a personality of my Greater Self, that has completed its cycle of incarnations. Each carries the knowledge and wisdom gained through their countless incarnations. These "other me’s," if you will, maintain their personal identity as individual parts of my Greater Self. They didn’t lose their personal identities when they became members of my Disk, rather, they added all within themselves to it. Each individual became an integral part of my Greater Self.

I, the one in my physical body, am nonphysically connected to members of the Disk via something that looks, to my perception, like a multi-strand, fiber optic cable. It connects between the shoulder blades and may be the basis of the "silver cord" others have written about. Information passes through this "cord" between myself and my Disk giving Disk members awareness of my activities and me awareness of them, once I learned how.

It’s also my understanding that I was created by my Greater Self as a unique combination of traits of Disk members. My Greater Self used parts of itself to create the unique personality that I am. From one perspective, I see myself as a "Probe, not unlike something NASA would launch to explore the Unknown. In other words, my Greater Self created me from parts of itself and sent me into physical world reality to explore. I also understand that my Greater Self is, itself, a similar Probe, created and "launched" by its creator. I expect my Greater Self will one day return to its creator to become a member of whatever It is. I expect when that happens my Greater Self will not lose its personal identity, but rather join its Greater Self.

So, getting back to your question, the "No" part of my answer is that, in my experience, we don’t "lose our personal identity." The "Yes" part is that to my understanding, we rejoin or merge with our Greater Selves, as the individuals we become through our incarnations in the physical and nonphysical worlds. From my perspective, I can see how what mystical traditions say fits with what I’ve discovered, but I would say, we remain individuals AND continue to exist as the "All" or the "Source."

You don't mention physical reincarnation. Why? What about it?

I remember living other lives, in other places and times. I’ve been a farmer in southwestern France in the middle 1800’s, a Hebrew in a small settlement 4,300 years ago, a young girl in Central America, time unknown and the father of my present children in a lifetime during the early part of this century. In fact, childhood memory of the circumstances of one of my deaths is one of the things that drove me to explore the Afterlife. I don’t pretend to completely understand reincarnation and how it works. There are still some facets I’m exploring, but I have no doubt reincarnation, as it’s generally understood, is a fact. I also know, as a result of my exploring, that some parts of myself have nonphysical incarnations. Some parts of my Greater Self never physically incarnate and spend their time exploring from a nonphysical perspective.

Your picture (on the Web page) shows physical reality as this little blue planet, this speck of dust, the earth. In truth, physical reality comprises innumerable, vast galaxies and myriad’s of life forms.

I agree with you completely. Some members of my Greater Self lived all their physical world incarnations within other systems, on other planets, in the our physical universe. The picture you refer to is just a convenient way to symbolize physical and nonphysical realities within our local system.

Where do other animals, like dogs and tigers, exist after they leave the physical world? Do they coexist with humans? If so, can we decide to reincarnate ourselves as other animals?

This is an area in which I’ve not done any exploring. I know from other people that animals do have a nonphysical existence, but I don’t know much about it. Maybe I’ll add it to my list of things to explore in the future.

What effect does attempting to be physically conscious while at the same time dreaming have? I.e. being able to change the course of a nightmare to a happy dream. Researchers suggest that this helps develop positive thinking. Is this all it does?

By "physically conscious" I assume you mean, "conscious like when I’m physically awake," often called lucid dreaming. If that’s not right please let me know.

Becoming lucid in a dream is, in my opinion, a step toward being able to change the course of a dream. Once conscious in a dream, you are conscious in the nonphysical world. In fact, once lucid you have access to any area of nonphysical human consciousness. As to specifically changing the course of a nightmare into a happy dream, that is possible once you’re lucid. The difficulty in doing so seems to lie in our understanding of what a nightmare is. It is possible to project one’s fears into nonphysical reality and create things that look and behave as if they are very real, terrifying beings. This can be done so subconsciously you’re not aware you’re doing it. Running from these things, fighting with them, anything which is done out of fear, only makes them appear to strengthen. It is also possible to project one’s fear in a way that it masks over who or what is really there with you in the nightmare. For example, someone who lives in fear of a Devil, could subconsciously project that fear onto the real Jesus in a dream and He would look and act like a Devil. I’ve found a way around this and it’s based on a "law" of the nonphysical world that says, "Love and Fear cannot coexist." This leads to a simple way to change the course of a nightmare into whatever is "really" happening in the dream. In a lucid dream nightmare, first, feel your Love,. You might do this by remembering what it felt like to first hold your baby, or pet your cat, or whatever you need to do to feel your Love. Next, project your Love toward whatever is terrorizing you in the nightmare. When you do, one of two things will most likely happen. If the object of your terror is fabricated out of your fear, it will disappear. If your fear is masking something or someone in the dream, making them look or appear to behave in a terror-inducing way, the mask will disappear. Sometimes this mask is seen as a black fog, black cocoon or other blackness before or as it disappears. In my experience the "black" IS Fear. In either case, fear object or fear mask, once the fear is not there, the dream will change. This is where it can get very interesting.

So, positive thinking is not all that it does to change a nightmare. By extending your love, it’s possible that you will see and understand what is really happening in the dream. The possibilities are endless.

What role does time and space play in reincarnation? Is it possible to decide to pop into the physical world during 500 BC in ancient Egypt? If so, would this physical world be on the same time line I am currently experiencing or does time just repeat itself in one big loop?

I’ve not done a lot of exploring yet in the area of your question. What exploring I have done suggests the answer lies in the question, "Just how physical is the physical world in which we live?" Some of the realities I’ve visited in my explorations are indistinguishable from our physical world to those who "live in those realities." People living in those realities have no idea they are not living on our "physical earth." That seems to suggest that someone could "pop into . . . 500 BC in ancient Egypt" as you suggest. Time for me is not so much "one big loop" as it is a tapestry on which all "times" exist simultaneously. Jumping from one thread in the tapestry, our present earth, to ancient Egypt, is just a matter of knowing how to do that. Of course, if you forget you jumped from here to there, you may be stuck living lives along that thread. Kinda makes you wonder where you jumped from to get here doesn’t it?

What are the chances of meeting an entity in the Afterlife that you have known in the physical world? And can YOU contact a specific entity from the physical world?

Something about using the word entity to describe inhabitants of the Afterlife seems too clinical and mystical. These are just people who are no longer living in physical bodies. I assume your question is about meeting someone in the Afterlife after you leave this physical world to live there. From my experience, the most likely situation is that someone you know will be waiting to meet you when you leave this world. Once there and accustomed to your new way of life, you are free to visit with anyone there you’d like to see, ANYONE.

To your second question, I would say yes whether you mean can I, Bruce, contact a specific person or can you do so. I don’t completely understand how this works, but all I need to do is place my intent on contacting a person and it happens. All anyone needs is the name of the person involved to find that person.

What inhibits a deceased from returning to the physical world to reunite with loved ones, since you claim that in level 27 you can do whatever you please?

The most consistent inhibiting factors I’ve found are the beliefs of the physical world person being contacted. Many times when I’ve gone to check on a specific deceased person, I find them close by a loved one who still lives in the physical world. Often they are making constant unrecognized attempts to communicate with the physically alive person. Many of us were brought up to believe such contact is impossible or worse, potentially harmful. These beliefs are powerful inhibitors that can act at levels we are barely conscious of. Part of the story of my book series is the story of how my direct Afterlife experiences exposed beliefs I held which inhibited my nonphysical perception. As these beliefs were replaced by knowledge, my perceptual capabilities improved. To sum up, the deceased do come back to visit us, it’s just that very few of us are aware of their presence.

Are people who believe in life after death justified in their beliefs?

Very interesting way to state your question. From my experience exploring there, I have absolutely no doubt about the existence of the Afterlife. Too many times I’ve received unequivocally verified information and evidence. So in general, yes, those who believe in human existence beyond the physical world are, in my opinion, justified.

But, as to whether or not they are justified in their specific set of Afterlife beliefs, or whether those beliefs will serve them well in the Afterlife, that’s a separate question. Someone who believes death will be like going into a sleep from which they will never awaken may very well enter such an Afterlife state. Some who believe they’ll be chased by the Hounds of Hell as they attempt to find Heaven may find themselves running from such Hounds for a very long time. The strongest influences I’ve found on Afterlife experience are the beliefs held prior to death.

The two examples above are taken from the experiences of real people I’ve retrieved from Focus 23. One had been dead and sleeping for centuries, believing the Helpers that continually tried to reach her were just part of the dreams in her endless sleep. I found this woman sleeping on a large canopy bed in a castle, and the story of her retrieval is in my first book, Voyages into the Unknown. The woman running from the Hounds of Hell was the aunt of a friend of mine. The woman had been dead for only a couple of days when I went looking for her, and her retrieval story is in my second book, Afterlife Knowledge, Voyage Beyond Doubt.

Is there anything after the Afterlife, or is it eternal? If so, would one not tire of afterlife eventually?

I used to joke with my father-in-law, a minister and avid golfer, asking if he didn’t think he’d get tired of hitting a hole-in-one off every tee in Heaven. I use the term Afterlife to describe the place created by humans for humans in the nonphysical world where we go at death. As I’ve been gathering material for my next two books, I’ve discovered there is more to the nonphysical world than just an Afterlife existence for humans. There are other realms to explore and learn about. I’ve also discovered that the Afterlife is, like the physical world, a school we’re all attending in the continuing evolution of Consciousness. Just as we came to the physical world to increase our understanding of who and what we are, we enter the Afterlife with the opportunity to continue our learning.

I guess I would say that the Afterlife being eternal, we are. We are free to continue the evolution of our consciousness in whatever way we decide to do so. Some opt to continue existence There, expanding their understanding of who and what they are in a nonphysical realm. Some opt to return to the physical world to live another lifetime here for one reason or another. All of our activities seem to be moving toward a time when we graduate from the Earth Life System school. During the recent partnered exploring I’ve been doing with some friends we’ve discovered where this evolution leads. The story of these explorations and what we’ve discovered will be in my next two books.

Can you recognize someone from your past life, like mum or dad? And if you can, can you be sure that it’s not a bad guy that looks like them (demon or something)?

When we enter the Afterlife, there is a very high probability that we will be first met by someone we recognize, often a mother or father, if they’ve preceded us. Others we knew during our physical lifetime who are living in the Afterlife may also come to visit, and we are always free to seek such people out.

As for concern about bad guys, demons, etc., I’ve never met a real one. In my experience, anything which appears threatening or frightening in the nonphysical world is a product of our own fear. Time after time people have expressed worry about demons and monsters and many of them have discovered the truth through their own experience.

In my second book, Afterlife Knowledge, Voyage Beyond Doubt, there’s a story about a man who was terrified by a Banshee that kept swooping down at him. It turned out that the Banshee was a product of his own fear, projected as a thought form into the nonphysical world. There are no demons and monsters, only our own fears.

If you could ask Jesus or Buddha questions about the nature of the physical universe that haven’t been answered yet but might have a chance of being validated by science in the near future, that would lend a tremendous amount of weight to your position. Such as; Will the universe collapse on itself and where is the "dark matter"; Is travel beyond the speed of light possible and how; Does God guide evolution and how did the current human form come into being; How was DNA created and how much information is stored there; Will there be a Grand Unification theory and what is missing currently?

They only real position I take is that knowledge of the Afterlife is available to anyone through their own direct experience. Nothing I say can or should influence anyone’s belief regarding the question of the Afterlife’s existence. No sense having anyone trade in their present beliefs for mine. The only person who needs proof of the Afterlife’s existence is the person who seeks that proof. It took me three years of gathering evidence until I was left with absolutely no doubt. It’s my hope that what I’ve written in my books will allow others to find their own undeniable evidence much faster.

As for convincing scientists, most consistently demonstrate they can’t accept conclusive evidence of phenomenon beyond their beliefs. One of the best examples comes from Princeton University’s PEAR Lab. Two scientists there have been carrying out experiments for many years which prove psychokinesis is a reality using the techniques of good science and statistics. Yet other scientists refuse to consider the possibility because they believe it’s impossible for a human mind to influence physical objects. In another example a remote viewer, Joe McMoneagle, successfully demonstrates on national television that he can accurately describe an unknown scene miles away. People still claim it’s impossible.

In my experience, no amount of evidence gathered by someone else ever can change a person’s beliefs. The only way a person’s beliefs are changed is when they encounter irrefutable evidence through their own, direct experience. Even then belief can be powerful enough for that person to deny what they have experienced.

As to your specific questions, I’ve discovered a little about some of them in my explorations. Travel beyond the speed of light is only a limit in the physical world. Traversing millions of light years in seconds is easy in the nonphysical world, I know because I’ve done it. The thing we call God built evolution into the creation in which we live. That’s clear from the material recently gathered in partnered exploration sessions I’ve taken part in. Both of these topics are covered in my next two books.

In my second book, Afterlife Knowledge, Voyage Beyond Doubt, a piece of a "Grand Unification theory is contained in one of the appendices. A friend of mine who entered the Afterlife during my third Lifeline program passed it along a few weeks after his death. His claim is that gravity is an electro-magnetic phenomenon and he describes it in detail.

By the way, if you want to have fun with a physicist ask him or her to explain what magnetic lines of force are physically made of. Physics uses the term magnetic lines of force to explain how a magnet can exert a force at a distance. Whatever they are they exist in a complete vacuum, devoid of any physical material, but don’t be surprised if you feel like you’re getting the run-around when a physicist tries to answer your question. Such a common, physical world phenomenon, and yet their attempts at explaining it show they have zero understanding of what a magnetic line of force is made of. If they can’t explain such a simple thing that lies at the basis of much of their own science, why should we accept their judgment about other unexplained phenomenon?

How do I know if I am going to Heaven or Hell?

What you believe about that matter has the greatest influence over where you go and what you experience in the Afterlife. The next most important factor seems to be how we live our lives that affects our beliefs.

In my second book, Afterlife Knowledge, Voyage Beyond Doubt, there’s a chapter entitled, Max’s Hell. It recounts the story of a partnered exploration in which Rebecca and I went looking for a man named Max. We found him in one of the hells of Focus 25 and it wasn’t at all what I expected. It turns out Max lived his life in a way that built up an attraction within him that pulled him into a hell after he died. He was not sent there as punishment by anyone, and he’s free to leave at any time. The trick is he must realize where he is and decide to change those aspects of himself that hold him in his hell. As far as Max knows, he’s living in a place just like the earth he left. The only difference is that everyone living where he is now behaves toward him exactly as he did toward people Here.

In my fourth book, a work in progress, explorations of something called the Hollow Heavens of Focus 25 are covered as well as more details of Max’s Hell. Turns out there are many different Heavens in Focus 25, each tailored to the belief systems of the inhabitants. They are called Hollow Heavens because each places great restrictions on the thoughts, beliefs and activities of the inhabitants. The further exploration of Max’s Hell reveals the details of people’s existence in such places and how they can leave. Turns out there are Helpers who work exclusively on assisting people out of both the Hollow Heavens and Hells of Focus 25.

As to whether you personally might be going to Heaven or Hell, the answer is all in your beliefs and knowledge at the time you die. Until then you are free to learn to explore the Afterlife on your own and discover more about your question. From my experience, there are a lot more choices besides Heaven and Hell in the Afterlife.

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