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(I'm typing how I'd speak, so please excuse the grammar)

Surely many things in our life are illusions, for example: Job security LOL.

Seriously, though, I go through my days feeling like I'm looking a screen. Like I can't really touch what's in front of me. Oh sure, I can extend my arm, but it's like controlling a machine. For sure I'm not alone in feeling this way.

Once you began (or begin) to experience other realms of being, haven't you felt a little detached from this reality? Like there's much more out there, the here-and-now is undoubtedly temporal therefore inconsequential (if not - I actually hope not - let me know). Or could we all just be fooling ourselves on some level? I don't discount the fact that even while in the boundaries of physics there is much to learn...But what is the real objective here? We're here for a reason that's for sure. But we're left here, blind amongst the blind, clamoring to make sense and purpose out of our known existence...I'll post my little theory after this post. :) Some may find it controversial, but I mean no disrespect to anyone and their beliefs...

Buddhism suggests that life is the illusion of nothing or nothingness. That's a tough concept to get ones mind wrapped around. On the other hand, so is the concept of life being an illusion to absolute reality - Hinduism. I'm an open-minded skeptic (if that makes sense), which is why I'm trying to rationalize this and all the other unusual and extraordinary experiences I've had. How can nothingness exist, and if nothingness is reality, how can anything tangible exist?

Something I ponder on often:
Imagine earth, our home. Earth is part of a system of planets circling a star which is encompassed in a sea of stars (milky way), a galaxy neighboring other galaxies (which are more numerous than the stars in the milky way), these galaxies make up our universe...an unfathomable distance from one end to the other. But beyond that, you have space, which is infinite. And how can we really understand infinity? Perhaps way to understand the infinite size of space is to accept that there is no container, it doesn't exist. It is nothingness. I'll stop at there, but the philosophy goes beyond there to the subject of the origin of matter and so on...

Questions, comments?

I understand your feeling of being detached. The more I study and practice these "exercises" of being outside of my thoughts and body, the more I feel that way. I think it is just part of what happens when you start to be in touch with more than just your "5 senses". We can start to easily access these feelings and thoughts. I find myself knowing now after my experience that there is so much more out there for me to explore, that it definetaly has an impact on my everyday life. I think you will get a clearer understanding of life and reason if you can learn to explore these worlds. I myself have held off on trying to understand beliefs as you have mentioned, such as Buddhism or Hinduism, until I have fully explored the gates I have opened. That way I can put together my experiences as well as other peoples experiences, before I can even try to answer any religious questions. It really starts to make sense the further you go with it. Have you read the Frequently Asked Questions of the Afterlife on this site, these might help give you an idea on what other people experience and make more sense to you on why we are here. It truly is an excredible world to fathom, and could never be summed up in one book, therefore I feel exploration of the unknown is the only way to find the answers? of course this is only my opinion..I hope it makes sense
-MandyLynn :)

Hi emc,

A couple months ago I started a thread that kind of goes along with some thoughts you're sharing here.

http://www.afterlife-knowledge.com/cgi-afterlife-knowledge/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=afterlife_knowledge;action=display;num=1109259074;start=

IMHO it's all illusion, just like Buddhism and Vedanta tell us.

But the illusion is real.

EX: You don't have a rooster on your head at the moment. I don't have a duck on my head either. Rooster and duck are unreal. But the rooster that is unreal is REALLY different from the duck that is unreal. That's a real difference. Ya get somethin' for nuthin'. Might as well get the whole universe, eh?

I think it was Ogden Nash who wrote this -

There was a faith healer named Beale.
Who said, "Altho pain is not real,
When I sit on a Pin,
And the point punctures in,
I dislike what I fancy I feel."

dave

I think if you really tried to understand infinity you would become crazy. This is something I constantly struggle to understand. Does God even understand infinity? How could anyone, it is un-explainable whats after that and that and that How did it start and what is before that? Its just waaay to insane, isint it?

Very Insane.... But nothingness is infinite. That makes sense to me. I'm about to go to work, I'll post more when I get there.

you said:
Surely many things in our life are illusions, for example: Job security LOL.
_____

ha ha! some good honest thoughts here. you're right job security is an illusion. laughing is good though.
_______

Seriously, though, I go through my days feeling like I'm looking a screen. Like I can't really touch what's in front of me. Oh sure, I can extend my arm, but it's like controlling a machine. For sure I'm not alone in feeling this way.
______
no, this room we're in is very real. it's a board, but at night it becomes a room while obe...strange huh?
Reading Cozzolino, "the Path" helped me with the movie idea. lightened up my seriousness about it all. Other books, like Destiny of Souls, will point out we experience our limited self here, and a part of our awareness remains outside the situation of physicality location, thus the feeling of this being a movie, life is a projectory screen for the infinite mind, and manifestation of personality, ego. we play in this stuff. the objective is pleasure, the comparison is pain. PUL frees you from the ELS addiction. The energy of PUL is not just another belief system once experienced. the portion of you outside the situation receives your perceptions and nudges you to make decisions to decide what u want to create here insofar as attaining an experience.
________

Once you began (or begin) to experience other realms of being, haven't you felt a little detached from this reality?
_____
fer sure dude! only I put it this way. Bruce talks about belief system crashes. sometimes when you crash out of one, it actually feels like you're dying. it's because part of you is dying. part of your identity. u get so you can crash easier is my experience, so that a more comfortable belief replaces the one that died. you can actually get good at crashing if that makes any sense.
_________

Like there's much more out there, the here-and-now is undoubtedly temporal therefore inconsequential (if not - I actually hope not - let me know). Or could we all just be fooling ourselves on some level?
_________
you're very good at expressing yourself for one thing. and self expression for some of us is a valid pathway in itself..ask a withdrawal expert and they will tell u this.but as to fooling ourselves on some level, of course we work with allusions which is nothing more than a belief system which alludes to some satisfying destination that we've dreamed up. the thing is that dreams do come true and we have the freedom to dream up whatever we wish here for the sheer experience of attaining the dream. like you said theres much more going on than meets the physical eye and it has something to do with developing a strong will, leastways for myself these days.
_________

I don't discount the fact that even while in the boundaries of physics there is much to learn...But what is the real objective here?
____
well, after reading Elias underlying thread throughout the transcripts, the objective is entirely up to you. He's such a profound simpleton. for example, he says if you are forcing yourself to do something which is not giving you enjoyment, simply cease and desist doing it. how many of us would ever live quite so risky? yet there appears to be operating from my experience that those who risk are aided in their efforts by a benevolent universe just waiting on the sidelines for them to take the risk. then u get a sense of empowerment.
________

We're here for a reason that's for sure. But we're left here, blind amongst the blind, clamoring to make sense and purpose out of our known existence
______
this goes back to the nothingness train of infinite thought. if you subscribe theres more to life than meets the eye, you can see Earth planet as a kindergarden school for the soul traveling here. you admit you know nothing so you pick and choose all the beliefs that are out there. pretty soon you just put all the books on a shelf and go have yourself a beer or a latte or a belief system crash. take two aspirins and call me in the morning, doc will say. but it's a movie, don't get too serious or you miss the objective to enjoy yourself. if you start having an empty head, as in detached, you start picking up the collective thoughts around you is the best way I can put it. this can be very tricky to tell whose thought you are thinking, but it's fun also.
_________

Buddhism suggests that life is the illusion of nothing or nothingness. That's a tough concept to get ones mind wrapped around. On the other hand, so is the concept of life being an illusion to absolute reality - Hinduism. I'm an open-minded skeptic (if that makes sense), which is why I'm trying to rationalize this and all the other unusual and extraordinary experiences I've had. How can nothingness exist, and if nothingness is reality, how can anything tangible exist?
____

I see the nothingness as a point of origin of somethingness. you cannot have nothing unless you first have something which becomes the nothing. the tangible universe is temporary in the sense that everything deteriorates over time; in the sense of objects having no eternal value, than nothing tangible exists except as allusion. a good reason not to get attached to things. Ego asks these kinds of questions and theres nothing wrong with the ego as a navigation tool through life, you need it. going back to a philosophers statement, Alan Watts quote: two warriors were sword fighting; they ran each other through and exited the bodies, still fighting and struggling on the astral plane; suddenly they looked down at their bodies on the earth and at the same time bust out laughing, saying to one another, wow! we really got into it this time! ha ha! we thought we were really there and there was nothing but physical life. I enjoy chatting with you!

Job secuity??
I believe money or what ever else I need will come to me when I need it, as long as I make the effort.. and so it does.

Wow whats real? I tryied to enter the world today but got as far as sitting under the trees on the glorious land that was provided for me to explore next to the home I that was provided for me to live in with my daughters that were provided for me to love.........
A red cardnal was up in the tree, it whistled at me I whistled back... and back and forth we talked.. was that real????? was the hot sunshine on my skin soothing or an illusion, do I really need to eat?

Well I could have just put the holographic universe subject in here I guess.

According to some scientists the whole universe could be an illusion.

Nobody proved it but it would explain a lot of things.

And yes I WILL read the book this summer so I can finally understand the whole concept :P

wrote on Apr 22^nd, 2005 at 3:59pm:

hey! when your having fun it's real! when your not it's an illusion. the gratitude for the house, that's real. you are already there Firequeen. it dont' get much better than what you're talking about. love, alysia

I remember, when I was little, under the age of five, that I had the feeling of being dammed disappointed :( in being here. Then I got involved in the public school system and worked very hard on being invisible to the point where some teachers, at the end of the year didn’t even remember who I was. I didn’t remember to this day who they were either except for one. And he became a world famous artist-Hi, Mr.Segal (George)-you’re a love! :-* Meanwhile, I also experienced the feeling, way down, that it/this was all a big joke. It wasn’t until I read ACIM , Ultimate Journey and listen to Bruce’s Harborside tapes that I started to really get the joke. I also read many books, including Watt’s If You Meet Budda on the Road Kill Him; previous to these. They are all so open-ended that I now am excited about the possibilities and I am greatly reassured. But back to the disappointment part. I had this underlying feeling that somehow, I, was another I that was viewing this I and because of this I never really felt connected to whatever drama was going on around me. Not that I didn’t get caught up in the playacting of it, but there was a part of me that didn’t really take it “seriously enough”. In fact, right now, I get very caught up in “my career as a social worker scenario” :P and have to remind myself that it’s not real all the time ;). But anyhow, I worried that others might sense that part of me. Some did/do but now, of course, I know that none of it is serious. I mean really, what’s the worst that can happen, you die? That’s a laugh! ;D In turn, I’ve felt freer to see the humor in situations and help others to see the humor. We can both have a good laugh and love connection appears as a side effect. :-*

One joke that I’ve experienced is the one where my ex mother-in-law coveted this island off south west Florida so much that she dragged my first husband, her son, me and our sons down there on vacation a couple of times. She really forced the issue, so we went, it was nice and years later my husband and I divorced. End of story, right? But nooo! ::) After the divorce I moved back across the country to NJ, fell in love, and wound up moving to this same little island in Florida. He owned a house there, as his dream was to someday leave NJ and move to Florida. What were the odds on that? Anyhow that’s an example of one of my private jokes. I’m still shaking my head and laughing at that one, as I’m sure she is on the other level. :-*

Hi Jean, I'm convinced we are probes here, or extentions of that which we already are and tap into frequently enough, remembering self, then quickly forgetting once more to re-ground self into the allusions alluding to limitation as reality. great little honing device, we made it up.
speaking of making it up, although I get enough precognition dreams to realize I surf towards these probabilities already in place for me, created on another level, no doubt by my own greater self, I still sense we are here in one vast experiment, and making it up as we go along, insofar as working within belief systems and a polarized planet as structures to break free from. this is where the humor part comes in. because everything you become attached here to, perhaps addicted even, the inference is you must unattach from it in order to make room for greater awareness. one's addictions tend to crowd the head. it's ironic so produces laughter as a release valve. it's cleansing. but so is tears.
but think about it, we can make things up. We're free to do that. it's a freeing thought. we can be what we want to be merely by changing our mind. I think I'm seriously addicted to people. ha ha! hmm. barbara Striesland was right, people need people. guess I can't pretend I'm invisible then anymore! yes, that was one of my protective devices as a child also. no, I wasn't a happy camper either; all the time I would look around me and think "now, what did I come here for?" oh oh, wrong family! ha ha! long story. lol. I find the life review facinating topic and a fine way to create the future. I sense a force here that is objecting to the use of the word love in signing off, so I am questioning the use of the word, why it would bring objection? can I not express love because I am being pretentious? I believe in love. I will always believe in love so I think I shall continue to sign off in love anyway, it is a good affirmation if nothing else. love, alysia

I agree totally that we are producing this world as we probe and experience it. The only thing we don't create is overall focus of returning to love by loving but we are creating the experiences of love and expanding them exponentially. But I know you know that already. Like last week I was reading a chart and it had my brother's name listed as an emergency contact. So I made up an excuse to call the client and then got around to asking her if her emergency contacts name was blank blank. She responded that no it wasn't and she gave me another last name-spelled intirely different. So I said to myself, I guess it,s time to call my brother. So last Saturday I half heartedly left a message on his machine to call me. Two things you have to understand, 1) I have only one phone line, therefore when I'm on this board, which is alot on the weekends, no calls can come in, and 2) my brother and I have had a very poor relationship and decided to write to each other instead of conversion because of the tension. This morning when I took a break and shut down the web, you guessed it, my brother called. The conversation was wonderful and the love exchanged was palatable-I'm still reeling from the effects.

Meanwhile two weeks ago when I was on the web, one of my sons who really rarely calls was even able to knock the PC off the web to connect with me. It was the only time that it was off the internet all afternoon.

Are they coinsidences or not? Who cares but they sure are fun! Like this week I just discovered that one of the most beautiful souls that I work with who is a psychic to boot, has her birthday on the same day as mine. I love it!

Love, Jean

well Jean, guess ACIM was right after all. Relationships, whatever they look like are the most important issue of all in this dive into Earth Life System. when your brother and your son called you, bet it lifted you all the day long! funny how kindness multiplys itself through the heart. funny how this secret that you take your relationships with you into the afterlife, but not your achievements exactly, nor your possessions, becomes a challenge to express. somehow the after life becomes the great equalizer of all ambitions. all the more reason to take and make your life a thing that is fun which I see you are doing...ah, yes, savor the moment for it is borrowed...oh dear, I'm lapsing into poetry...see what you've done? ha ha! recently my girls and I have realized the value of living closer together..the way they do in the villas of Italy. I moved a 1,000 miles away just so I could have some peace in the house to write a book, lol, and one of the twins is a bit of a rebel also, had declared forthrightly, we should not become the 3 mousketeers this life. (done that alot in previous lives) was my cue to make a break. absence makes the heart grow fonder. was not long before the twins began hollaring for the mom to return; the house had gotten quiet and boring in my absence they said. lol. never satisfied, now are we? was good to discover they loved me after all, actually, it didn't make my day, it made my life. so I'm right on your wave length about relationship Jean. blessings, alysia

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https://afterlife-knowledge.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi Forums >> Afterlife Knowledge >> Is life really an illusion? https://afterlife-knowledge.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?num=1114008662 Message started by emc2k99 on Apr 20^th, 2005 at 7:51am