I had a wierd thought a few moments ago and would appreciate some help on the thought.

Reincarnation?
How long before a soul reincarnates, if at all?
Does it keep certain attributes out of its former incarnation?

hi nanner,I have heard it could be a few weeks or maybe 100 years.time in the spirit is a lot defferent than here on earth.Why do you want to reincarnate,after you pass on?George

Yeah - I think I`ll come back again for a spin or two. Afterall theres so much to learn here.
How about you or  anyone else?

 8-) ;)Nanna,

I remain a skeptic as far as reincarnation goes and do not like the idea at all. I know my not liking it will not alter anything if it is true.

But if you guys insist you are going to be reincarnated, God will give you your wish. As for me, I am not coming back to earth when I I finally pass over. I am moving on into  the light forever.

alan

I dont think you will have a say in that action alan.not unles you are in the highest realm.we all go to the spiritworld and stay for a long time if we wish,but in time you will feel the pull to be reburned here again.George

 ;D Hek George to come back and be "reburned" I really hope not. Only kidding I know you meant to type reborn

ALAN

Dr. Robert Schoch has a new book, "The Parapsychology Revolution," that critically assesses Ian Stevenson's research on past life recall in young children.  I heard Schoch discuss his conclusions on Coast to Coast a couple of nights ago.  While he considers Stevenson's research the most interesting of its kind, he rejects the conclusion that such alleged 'memories" point to prior incarnations.  Instead, he argues that these children have more likely retrieved these memories by ESP.  I don't own the book, but want to buy it.  

In a couple of Ian Stevenson's cases, the  prior personality was still alive at the time of the child's birth.  So the child's takeover of the prior personality's memories is either possession or ESP, not evidence for reincarnation.  Also, Swedenborg's astral explorations initially produce several past life memories.  But as he ascends to higher planes, he learns that these are false memories created by an unconscious merger with other discarnate spirits whose  memories he has tapped and confused with his own memories.  Swedenborg's guides offer to descend to the lower reincarnation planes to prove this point, but the denizens of these planes are  too stuck in their belief system to pay attention to such demonstrations.  

Don

As opposed to relying on book knowledge, I propose that people try to find out about reincarnation through spiritual means. I've asked several times, and have received the answer that it doesn't occur in the over and over manner some people believe.

Especially not in the eastern manner where you supposedly have to incarnate thousands of times, until you finally become sick enough about doing so, that you are willing to commit spiritual suicide and think yourself out of existence.

We get attached to things in this World because we believe this is how we'll find happiness, peace and love. What if we are clear minded enough so upon death we can move on to a higher realm and find out where happiness, peace and love are really found? Why would we need to return for the reason eastern gurus teach?  People who reach higher realms during NDEs, seem to have no inclination to return to the physical World.  When I had my night in heaven experience, I didn't get the feeling that I still need the physical World.

Some people have the idea that you have to incarnate into this World over and over again in order to come closer to God.  Perhaps believing such a thing is similar to believing that spirits in a lower realm are more likely to come closer to God than spirits in a higher realm,  because somehow being seperated from him is what allows you to come closer.

In a way, I can see why eastern gurus believe that you have to become really sick of this World until you become enlightened, because how could you get to the point where you are willing to commit spiritual suicide by thinking your way out of existence, if you weren't sick of your existence and ready to call it quits?

If our attachment to our identity is as strong as the over and over viewpoint suggests, then how is it we are supposedly able to let go of our identity with all of its memories, when we incarnate? Either we're attached to them or we aren't!

This World is a very difficult place to incarnate. There are so many negative influences and so many people who end up going down the wrong path. This leads them to lower realms for who knows how long. Perhaps some spirits never make it out of a lower realm, and as Bruce wrote, have the chord pulled from them when it is time for a disk to move on. If this is the case, wouldn't the majority of souls eventually end up in such a realm, if they had to incarnate thousands of times as some people contend? Sounds a bit risky to me.

People who speak of disks/I-there/soul groups/whatever term is used, speak of how members of such groups share their lessons with each other completely. If this is the case, where is the need of particular selves incarnating over and over again?

Some people will take a few passages from the gospels and try to claim that Jesus Christ basically said the same thing as Eastern gurus. I don't believe this is true.  It seems to me that he came to tell people as you sow so you reap, so they need to live their lives in the right way so they can move onto a nice place afterwards. He didn't tell people, you'll have to incarnate over and over again until you get so sick of it, that you're willing to think yourself out of existence. He did say that there are many mansions in my father's kingdom. I wonder who would occupy such mansions if there aren't any souls to do so.

Perhaps there are some exceptions. Some souls do incarnate more than once. But hundreds or even thousands of times? Why?

Hi nanner Reincarnation is definetly not on my list for going into the spirit world,when i get there i dont intend to come back here,i just want to stay in the spirit world forever as thats where the real love is.

Love and God bless   love juditha

<<If our attachment to our identity is as strong as the over and over viewpoint suggests, then how is it we are supposedly able to let go of our identity with all of its memories, when we incarnate? Either we're attached to them or we aren't!>>

Excellent point.  

Also, I would guess that for a lot of people, their feelings about reincarnation are affected in large measure by the quality of their own lives.

A person whose life is full of joy and satisfaction would probably hope to be born again.

A person who has known only sadness and pain would probably hope to be born only once.

Make sense?

It would be strange if reincarnation went in the opposite or even an angular direction than we speculate it to be. For us "here", we usually think of reincarnation as a "future" scenario. But considering that time itself probably changes in different dimensions, i.e., states of being, then one could possibly reincarnate in the past. Apart from that it's "our" position", there's really nothing that certifies this point in time, space and reality as being the premium vantage point.  

But one scenario that I heard was truly strange: you come back and live the same life over again with adjustments learned from previous rounds. Yikes! Once you live this life in perfection, satisfaction and all the other better outcomes, then you move into a different life/higher state of existence. It's a weird version of get the homework right - then graduate.  

Though I must admit that if the "repeat" is true then it would go toward explaining a lot of what we go through now in a variety of ways. One example: Déjà vu. Another is this forum: all of us may have done this very same "forum thing" before.  But wait a minute, it gets even weirder: it's not just the possibility that we were doing the forum thing the same as we're doing it now, we may have switched identities if the general reality context remains the same but the elements within it change positions.

Nanner, is that you or is/was/or will it be, me? LOL

theres one more way to look at reincarnation but it's difficult. its to look at it from the oneness angle. perhaps the disc angle.

it is that a Soul, your total being is comprised of between 500 and 1500 lives inserted into a fictional type movie, as probes, and all this action is a simultaneous action of all, and the time periods they exist in as physical beings vary. so no linear time in that respect.

this would account for the peculiar way some of us can view another self within the obe or dream vista. Monroe visited his future self as a point in question. I've viewed several selves of my own. I've visited with an Italian man and knew for certain he and I were the same person and we re-united briefly. I had need some advice from this other self and I received it.

but to answer Nanners question about reincarnation I can't answer that, as I cannot conceive of being not myself. the idea of becoming part of the stew is repugnant to me. I want to remain myself for all time. just stubborn that way I guess.
another friend of mine want to merge into all that is and maybe we create that circumstance through the wish.

then maybe we do go to the 7th level where it's nothing but peaceful floating in bliss. somehow that turns me off too.
I think we need restful periods logically speaking but I also think there's something about a human being which has a lust for life and desires to be more than it ever could be.

theres a song title comes to mind: Give me one moment in time, when I'm more than I thought I could be, then for that one moment in time, I will be free.

so George is right and wrong. we do reincarnate my opinion, but it only SEEMS like re-intering because its all happening at once. then George cannot see how what he decides is important too, because there is no element of force on the other side, it's your own idea to be or not to be.

 Tis a tricky subject, because time is a tricky subject, we don't fully understand time, especially relative time.  Nor do most truly understand what we really are, being involved with physical and with human bodies, we have a strong tendency to view stuff as set things, with bounds and metes, etc.  

 My sense is that both types of reincarnation happen, though the literal, more Eastern perspective of John Doe reincarnating as Joe Donn, tends to be more rare.

 More often, it seems that an immense Light being who exists outside of linear time/space, projects various innate aspects of itself into various time/space cycles, and so all these selves are very connected and part of a larger self, thus they can have memories from these different other selves, because its really One self, and to a large extent these memories and that process is manipulated by the Greater Light being.  

 The end results aren't really that much different so perhaps the distinctions aren't that important either.  

 Since we are on a Bruce Moen site, i would point out that he seems to believe in some type of reincarnation, since he mentions bits and pieces here and there, like in the story of Curiosity the probe, or when he was a child having a memory of messing with some other guy's gal, etc.

  For me, i believe in some kind of reincarnation because i've had some pretty powerful verifications with others, and the info that they have received as well.  

 One example.  Years ago, i had this very vivid dream of being in a huge Library.  At first, i'm looking at it from a detached, observer perspective, but also from the perspective of this man who in the dream i know unequivocally is "me", or that we are aspects connected to the same greater Self.  A very wise, oldish looking man hands this man-me/we, a large book.  

 I open it up, and there is like a 3D movie playing, and as i'm watching i see this rough, trapper/pioneer type trudging through the forest in a snow storm.   As i'm watching, i realize that this person is also "me" too, and i start to experience this real life "movie" in a book as well, as still having the two other perspectives.    I know the man gets mauled by a bear, but the bear doesn't kill him, but he's there dying.  

 A Native American healer woman, who is a half breed, finds him shortly after and tries to nurse him back to life.  For some odd reason, i connect the singer Tori Amos to her, maybe there was a resemblance somewhat or maybe because i knew consciously that Tori had Native American blood in her, but is more white looking.  

   Years later, i meet this lady on an astrology site, and we find out that we have a lot in common (spiritually and physically), and that she lives very close to where i use to live when i lived in MA.  A little while after talking and becoming friends, her husband seems to die out of the blue, which hit her really hard because they were very close.  I tried to be there for her, but honestly it wasn't very easy dealing with such heavy vibes at times, but i felt this underlying but unusually powerful sense of duty or responsibility to her and decide that no matter what, i will be there for her.  When i go up to visit some family and friends, we decide to meet up.

 We had talked very little about other lives, and when we did it was in the very general sense.  Later on, when revisiting MA, we hang out again, and she seemed to be doing a little better.  We go out to a bar because someone she knows was playing in a band that night.  

 As we're sitting there, she looked a lot like Tori Amos for a moment or so, and all of a sudden that dream came flooding back into my head along with a lot of these other impressions of her, us, and our other life influence.  

 I decide to ask her if she felt like had some deeper connections to Native American culture, and she said yeah she did, and it was strong at one time.   I start telling her about this dream that i had had years before, and i started telling her that she was the half breed Native healer who had found me and nursed be back to life, that we had a relationship but that i had hurt her a lot in that life, through my insensitivity and casual manner.   I mentioned that she was a very good healer in that life, very attuned to the nature forces and had almost a telepathic like connection with animals in that life.  

 As i'm telling her this, she starts looking at me more and more strangely, seemed to be getting whiter.

   After i finished, she took a few moments and then started telling me that many years ago, her spiritual mentor, an older lady, decided to give her an unusual b-day present.  Her mentor knew an older lady, who for years was involved with the A.R.E, and who did other life readings and she was generally known as a pretty accurate sensitive.    She stopped doing these readings years ago, but my friends friend thought that she'd might do one for her.

 So, she got a reading from this older lady, and the older lady mentioned two particularly strong other life influences.  One was when she was a half breed Native American woman who was a healer, and very good at it, very in touch with nature.    This was quite early on in the white settler days, so there weren't a lot of half breeds around yet, and because she was half breed, she felt different but she was respected by her tribe because of her healing and pyschic abilities.

 She met and fell in love with a white pioneer type, who ended up breaking her heart and she felt a lot of resentment towards him, towards men, and towards white people because of him.  The sensitive lady said that she had unfinished business with this man, and that he would come into her now life.   The man who in that life, spent much time among both the Natives and the Whites, and also didn't seem to completely fit in either side also though blood wise he wasn't half breed.  

   After all this was laid out, we just kind of looked at each other, and we both knew deep down that all this was true.   For myself, it explained my deep, pervasive sense of responsibility to her, my desire to be there for her no matter what during a very difficult time in her life.  
It's odd, but we became friends right before her husband died via an accident.   It's like i was meant to be there, like it was all pre set up.   A lot of her other friends, seemed to have given up on her, because all she ever wanted to talk about was her grief, her husband, and his death.  She became very, very depressed at one point and for awhile was that way.  

 Me, i don't tend to be the best friend in the world normally, i'm kind of detached and non committal though i do genuinely care about friends, but i tend to hold people at a distance on a personal level.    I tend to lose touch fairly easily with people.    

 There was nothing glamorous about this other life info, it was filled with a lot of pain, remorse, and guilt on my part.  It did help me to accept more fully some other life info that i had been struggling with for awhile, but at that point i didn't care about those connections.   It just made sense to me my deep feelings of responsibility to this lady and my resolve to be there for her no matter what and though at times i really wanted space from her and all that very heavy energy.    

 Truly, as the lady had said, we had unfinished stuff between us, and more towards my end, since i, or an aspect of the greater We, had treated her so selfishly and her feelings so casually, and hurt her so much.  

 In the end, "reincarnation" is all about relationships between people, and about balance and becoming the responsible, loving, and serving Light Being that you were originally to begin with, but masked over.  

  In a sense, i believe all of "this", this life and other lives, is basically an illusion of the Soul and that our "real" life is in Spirit, and being a fully conscious Co-Creator with Source...but meanwhile, other lives do have their influence on us in our so called present lives, and at times they have quite a strong influence.

 I've had other experiences and unlikely match up of info, here and there, and so for me, i just don't doubt it any more.   I don't look at it the same way as i use to say 10 years ago, BUT i know that my core, essential essence includes many other selves in many other space/time cycles.   There is no real "separation" between me and them, but at the same time there are differences and we all are unique as each snowflake is.    

  To me, this whole Disc, probe creation, other lives thing, is a remarkably similar microcosm process of what THE Creator did with us, our Spirits, in the beginning.  

 Like with the Creator, with us, the Whole is greater than the sum of its parts/aspects.  Truly it is "as above, so below."    We, our Souls and all this, is naught but a reflection of Creator and its original creation, and that whole process.   We're One with each other and with the Creator, and yet we are different, self aware, and unique selves.  And we've created and then projected other, new and unique aspects of our Self, both in physical and in nonphysical.    And in the end, we're all connected, all One.    

 As far as more traditional, literal reincarnation, like i said, this seems to be much more rare.   In my own experience, as far as i know, its only happened once with me.   And it involved the trapper dude that i had just talked about.  

   He reincarnated directly, and not surprisingly their lives were very unusually similar in many respects, even to having the same first and last name and visiting many of the same places, and having a similar wastrel, unloving, and irresponsible pattern involving much materialistic hedonism (sex, gambling, drinking, fighting, etc, not nice guys in the least bit).    

 Except that the 2nd self, at the end of his life, he sacrificed his life so that others could live.   This kept him out the hells of the nonphysical when he passed over, whereas the first one spent some time in one of those hells before directly incarnating his essence.

 So, like most things, its not a black and white issue.  People have a tendency i've noticed, to turn such things into either--or, and very little inbetween.   To put boxes on the life process essentially...   Just remember that when you are putting boxes on the life process and on us, you're putting boxes on the Soul, and on the Creator too.    These are infinite, they do not fit into any little boxes though i too tend at times to put some here and there.  

 THE only law there is, the law of energy resonation aka like attracts and begets like, and the reality of freewill.   All the rest is totally limitless, and anything goes in a sense.  

 

I want to respon to everyone on this subject, however Rondele is first in mind right this min.


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A person whose life is full of joy and satisfaction would probably hope to be born again. A person who has known only sadness and pain would probably hope to be born only once. Make sense?

Rondele honey - I dont nessecarily think that a person whom has had an overzealious life will automatically want to incarnate again verses a person whom has had a desolate lifestyle will decline another shot at it. Let me explain:

See, although you can see that little shinning face with a smile next to this post. This soul has really had a pretty much run for her money in this incarnation. Beginning with being molested at the age of 4 up till 10, all the aftermath to moving into her own apartment at the age of 14 - working after school till evening time, so to be able to afford it and not have to live on the streets. I`ve been beaten and shot at. Stabbed in the right leg by a family member.

....And primarily while growing up in a southern town of the east coast where during the 60`s there was still alot of prejeduce going on, I didnt fit in, in either white nor black catagory on the bus  for I was german...lol.. my school books were torn more than once, my locker spray painted with a swatsticker on a monthly basis. The bonestructure on my fists still show the aftermath of a few fights from my younger days, that weren`t based on little old non-sense fusses, but rather because some decided that a german girl needed to be hung for to make a point that "non southerners" or immigrants are`nt welcomed there.

I`ve lost two children of my own and had a divorce which nearly killed me..lol.. Had been condemned by court to pay all marital bills on my own, whileas my now exhusband, of a (21 year friendship and 7 year marriage with myself) decided to replace me and have a child with a friend of mine, thus been exempt (in germany) from having to pay the marital bills and all that happened while I was in rheumatic Rehab 7 years ago. The largest insult to me had been that he asked me to stay living in our house together with him (so I would continue to pay the bills, hinse he be unemployed), my friend and their baby?!! Now thats really sick in the head!..lol.. The bump in the night would not have been the friendly ghost named casper! LMAO. I am still paying off our bills and if I don`t my other alternative is to go to jail or chapter 13. Chapter 11 or 13 here, carries lots of bad consequences!

Hmm, I`ve lived in Condos with my own pool, had 3 houses so far... but at one point in my life I lived in the backwoods of Kentucky with no running water or electricity (not by choice either, for my mother drove me up there and DROPPED ME OFF TO SOME 33 YEAR OLD MAN I had never even seen before...lol...!)

Theres times where my cubbord had so much food in it that when just looking at it so over filled that I had no appetite anymore, but then there were a few times that I literally went thru the garbage of my neighborhood and ate left overs found there, for I had no money for food.  

My career field had always been in management in the USA, meaning that I also had alot of responsibility for others to carry not just for myself. Coming from a very desolate family background, having no family members to be emotionally nor physically rescued by -
I would say this soul has had a hard life. Yes, she`d do it again. Not because she`s sadisticly impressed, but magnificantly capable of understanding that it all "helped" her in the long run, she looks at the big picture.

Now I am sharing this openly with you, for I feel that you might want to look at it from my tiny view. Ergo: I`VE HAD A GREAT LIFE FULL OF EXPEREINCES! Yes, regressing thoughts make me wonder what in the heck was my soul thinking at the time of incarnation, however when I took the moment to sit down and think about it, I can recall admitting that its been really neat to expereince the feeling " forgiveness" towards my aggressors, its been really neat to have experienced the emotion called "hate", quite frankly I`ve always managed to experience "love and to give it to others inbetween too", the experience of "understanding" and so so many other emotions...

THIS LIFE has made me what I am today, whom I love dearly... and considering that, I really am glad all those things had happened. It was for me a growth period, just as your life has been for you, or for others.

So I slightly disagree that its affected in large measure by the quality of their own lives. For I moreso believe its if the persons consciousness allows them to feel like a "victum" or a "survivor" and then what a person does with the acquired knowledge of such a route counts the most for decisions.. I am the latter of the two and I try my very best to teach love - one starts by learning to love oneself and then give that to others.  

Love ya,
Nanner

Hey Desert good point, you brought up.

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Nanner, is that you or is/was/or will it be, me? LOL

Whomever can identify themselves, but has not "lived" the discribed incarnation of mine (which all I did had been write about 15% of) is most likely the person whom traded places with me this go around...lol..


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or will it be, me?

Thats always depending on "if you listen and watch your surroundings and reality carefully" and not make the same mistakes others make.

Hugs,
Nanner

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THE only law there is, the law of energy resonation aka like attracts and begets like, and the reality of freewill.   All the rest is totally limitless, and anything goes in a sense.

Justin,
That resonates a great deal with my thoughts ingeneral. Thank you for reminding me.
Love,
Nanner

PS: I still want that cat! Breed it and call me pls.. ;)

Alan McDougall wrote on Feb 6^th, 2008 at 3:19pm:

8-) ;)Nanna, I remain a skeptic as far as reincarnation goes and do not like the idea at all. I know my not liking it will not alter anything if it is true. But if you guys insist you are going to be reincarnated, God will give you your wish. As for me, I am not coming back to earth when I I finally pass over. I am moving on into  the light forever. alan

That may not be up to you. Meaning, while you are 3D now.
How do you know if you made a deal or not before coming into this lifetime?
A deal to 'see things through'.

That is how I look at it.  That maybe even though life is tough down here that maybe I made a deal to 'live it' and get whatever needs to be done....done.
No matter how many lifetimes it takes.

Who would not want to 'Live in the Light'?  Then again, how much will you 'learn' by only living the 'easy life'?
Maybe to get to the point in which we all want to get to takes many many lifetimes down here to 'speed it up'.
To learn what we need to learn.

So we are here to learn?  I guess that is true if we agree that earth is a school.

But here's an interesting question.....if we accept that we were all created by God, and if we accept that God is perfect and by definition, therefore, is incapable of creating anything less than perfect, why do we have to learn anything??

How can a perfect God create anything as imperfect as, for example, a Hitler or Pol Pot or Charlie Manson?

So then the question becomes, perhaps God didn't create us.  Or maybe He created our souls, but not our bodies/brains, as ACIM says.

A real "who-dunnit" for you mystery fans out there.

R

Rondele,
I have pondered that question at least 20 centuries (exageration) or more, so that I wouldnt loose my cookies, ..lol..maybe I have though and havent realised it yet too....

I decided to put it to rest by explaining it to myself this way. ..lol..(guess it works for me)

We were created by All there is aka God, so to "experience emotions" individually. Be it for whomever in the long run - its all about experiencing and therefor thru experiencing theres eventually a growth that comes forth.

I mean, considering that I am under the impression that there are other worlds out there where we can incarnate to and other species as well, maybe even nicer that our fellow mankind is (which might not be so hard to top) ...we sure wouldnt appreciate one of our "human self centered dudes" whom possibly lack in common sense of basic respect but with a 357 S&W or a soul with very very little experience to meet up in that other dimension which just might be a bit more higher in consciousness, so I sort of figure theres a reason for being here going thru all this mess and how does Old Dood make it known.. "what kinda Hell is this"..lol..

Hugs,
Nanner

What I am hoping for is that all of this is a trial run for something bigger, I am really really really hoping exactly that. Dont take my illusion...lol.. ITS MINE! ...lol...

I believe it is important to consider that when people experience past lives in some way, they might be experiencing what other disk/I-there/soul group members experienced.

It could be that they've experienced past lives as viewed in a conventional sense. This doesn't mean that as a probe/self, they had hundreds or thousands of incarnations.

Yesterday during my lunch break I went to the library, and grabbed a Rosemary Altea book off the shelf. I turned to a page about reincarnation. She said that sometimes people experience what they believe to be a past life, but actually is a visitation from a spirit. She also wrote that there are so many ways available for a soul to learn, it is unlikely that one would keep reincarnating in this World over and over again (I don't remember her exact words).

There have been occasions while laying in bed awake, I would for a short period of time experience a lifetime that has nothing to do with me. Nothing led me to the conclusion that I was experiencing a past life. It is possible that I tuned into the mind current of another person or a spirit. I experienced this quite a bit one night while on a nine hour air flight. I tried to meditate, but I kept experiencing the lives of other people. Who were they? I don't know. Perhaps some of my fellow passengers, perhaps the people who lived on the land we flew over.  

Regarding Ian Stevenson's cases, there are some where a person would be born with a birth mark that matches the location where the person they have memories of was injured before he or she died.  This reminds me of Bruce Moen's story of Joshua. Bruce had a liver condition until he retrieved Joshua. Joshua was killed by being stabbed right where Bruce's liver condition was located.  Bruce's liver condition went away after Joshua was retrieved. Bruce suffered with Joshua's ailment not because he was the same self/probe, but because Joshua was a fellow disk/total self member. Bruce's arrangements for incarnation were made years before Joshua was retrieved. Perhaps something similar happened with Ian Stevenson's cases, or cases where people get rid of a physical problem during  hypnosis, after doing a past life recall.  When I read about Bruce's Joshua story, my spirit guidance started communicating to me because they wanted me to pick up on a clue as to how reincarnation doesn't taken place in the limited over and over again manner people tend to believe.

How could the knowledge gained through thousands of incarnations, be smushed down into one body? Perhaps just a very small part of our soul/total self  is incarnated, while the rest of our soul/total self remains in the spirit World.

Fascinating thought, that we might have a "do-over" for our specific lifetimes as these individual personalities. Or numerous do-overs for this lifetime.

I would never want to relive my life for many reasons, although I find that, because of all that I have read, I am somewhat convinced that there will be some kind of "life-review" at some point. I am hoping that some of the actual "life-review" can be skipped if enough energetic work is done on different levels of my being here.

I have many times in my life that I would prefer not to revisit. However, if I had to take the good with the bad, I suppose I could do so, at this point, having reached a particular level of self-acceptance.

I have no definite conclusions on reincarnation. I'll have to wait until I get there.

However, I did try a few regressions on my own and came up quickly in those meditations with several other completely different personalities in completely different lives. I was not conscious of "inventing" these personalities, and they were detailed, much as Justin describes in his previous post. The detail, in particular, is different from other types of meditation, in that the experiences were more vivid that usual, and longer. After going through some of these exercises I was amazed by them.

These other personalities seemed completely unaware of me (this personality). They were living their own lives, sometimes of another gender, in many different places and times.

These are spontaneous images, true to character....is it possible that I invented them when I was not conscious of doing so? Certainly, just as we do in dream imagery. But why were the scenarios so coherent? I found them plausible, whether they were actually my own lives or not.

love, blink :)




Desert wrote on Feb 7^th, 2008 at 12:00am:

It would be strange if reincarnation went in the opposite or even an angular direction than we speculate it to be. For us "here", we usually think of reincarnation as a "future" scenario. But considering that time itself probably changes in different dimensions, i.e., states of being, then one could possibly reincarnate in the past. Apart from that it's "our" position", there's really nothing that certifies this point in time, space and reality as being the premium vantage point.   But one scenario that I heard was truly strange: you come back and live the same life over again with adjustments learned from previous rounds. Yikes! Once you live this life in perfection, satisfaction and all the other better outcomes, then you move into a different life/higher state of existence. It's a weird version of get the homework right - then graduate.   Though I must admit that if the "repeat" is true then it would go toward explaining a lot of what we go through now in a variety of ways. One example: Déjà vu. Another is this forum: all of us may have done this very same "forum thing" before.  But wait a minute, it gets even weirder: it's not just the possibility that we were doing the forum thing the same as we're doing it now, we may have switched identities if the general reality context remains the same but the elements within it change positions. Nanner, is that you or is/was/or will it be, me? LOL

Blink:

Yes, you can take care of issues while still alive, so you don't need to take care of them during a life review.  NDE man Danion Brinkley has helped hospice patients do so. Will you miss some things, yeah probably. It is probably good to leave a few surprises. :)

wrote on Feb 7^th, 2008 at 2:23pm:

Fascinating thought, that we might have a "do-over" for our specific lifetimes as these individual personalities. Or numerous do-overs for this lifetime. I would never want to relive my life for many reasons, although I find that, because of all that I have read, I am somewhat convinced that there will be some kind of "life-review" at some point. I am hoping that some of the actual "life-review" can be skipped if enough energetic work is done on different levels of my being here. I have many times in my life that I would prefer not to revisit. as

[/quote]

Nice line of thought here, I think. The mystic Neville Goddard stated flat out that nobody reincarnates, that it's a very crude and superstitious idea. "Leave such ideas to the sleeping man," he stated. He put it very clearly that "we are born but once via the womb of a woman."

In addressing this reincarnation stuff, he taught a technique he called Revision and said this is how it's done in the worlds beyond. Working from our higher 4th dimensional self, we revise our earth life, changing it and smoothing out any imperfections. Thus, there is simply no reason whatsoever to actually try to come back and relive something, hoping we can do it better.

Just some grist for this mill.

-Chuck-

Nanner wrote on Feb 7^th, 2008 at 4:50am:

Quote: THE only law there is, the law of energy resonation aka like attracts and begets like, and the reality of freewill.   All the rest is totally limitless, and anything goes in a sense.     Justin, That resonates a great deal with my thoughts ingeneral. Thank you for reminding me. Love, Nanner PS: I still want that cat! Breed it and call me pls.. ;)

  I would if i could Nanner, but we took precautionary measures already.   She can't have baby kittens.  

I'll ask her to visit you nonphysically, though its kind of hard to pet a nonphysical kitty.  

asethaa wrote on Feb 7^th, 2008 at 3:09pm:

wrote on Feb 7th, 2008 at 2:23pm: Fascinating thought, that we might have a "do-over" for our specific lifetimes as these individual personalities. Or numerous do-overs for this lifetime. I would never want to relive my life for many reasons, although I find that, because of all that I have read, I am somewhat convinced that there will be some kind of "life-review" at some point. I am hoping that some of the actual "life-review" can be skipped if enough energetic work is done on different levels of my being here. I have many times in my life that I would prefer not to revisit. as

Nice line of thought here, I think. The mystic Neville Goddard stated flat out that nobody reincarnates, that it's a very crude and superstitious idea. "Leave such ideas to the sleeping man," he stated. He put it very clearly that "we are born but once via the womb of a woman."

In addressing this reincarnation stuff, he taught a technique he called Revision and said this is how it's done in the worlds beyond. Working from our higher 4th dimensional self, we revise our earth life, changing it and smoothing out any imperfections. Thus, there is simply no reason whatsoever to actually try to come back and relive something, hoping we can do it better.

Just some grist for this mill.

-Chuck-
[/quote]


 Why should we believe Neville Goddard, does he show an unusual attunement to Spirit, does he have a lot of verifications in relation to his info and work?  

  One major flaw with the above arguement.   The physical, unlike the nonphysical dimensions whether the lower hells, the BST's, and higher heavens, has unique properties which cannot be experienced in any of those other consciousness states.  

  Only in the physical, can people regularly and easily interact with folks on all different wavelengths.   In the nonphysical states, its all much more in line with "like attracts and begets like."      Sure, a guide type can temporarily slow down their vibrations somewhat and interact with consciousnesses at slower vibrating levels, like in the BST's, but even they have a hard time reaching those stuck in the "hells" or even just in the etheric where people get stuck between physical and nonphysical.  

 So, it makes quite a bit of sense to me, that we come/phase here to work out stuff that we imbalanced here to begin with.   It's a unique place of conditions.  

 When all become Light beings who express and are receptive to love, then the physical will no longer be needed and its "reality" will wash away.  

 Or at least some credible sources like Rosiland McKnights guidance say.  

From spiritual work, there is a strong inference that the afterlife is not experienced in everyday terms of rational abstract thought.

In meditation, rational thought gets in the way and must cease to proceed. The higher states of samadhi require that eventually ALL thought must cease in order to reach unity with God, as thinking distracts. In regressions, the spirits contacted tend to be monomanaical in throught, totally one tracked without the ability to abstract (because, perhaps, abstraction requires a place to hold the abstract thought, which is difficult without a brain), and thought occurs on a primary level in terms of nominals and absolutes. That's why a person who builds a BST can get trapped into it

The everyday state of mind corresponding to "non-thinking" is sleeping. Some of the esoteric Buddhist texts suggest that by lucid dreaming we can prepare for the afterlife - the idea being that this allows us to exist in a dreamworld as thinking beings. If we can "think" without the use of a brain, this might be useful.

Looking at our existence as a process, the nature of what we are is only partially dependent upon the body we choose. We exist as a dynamic flow of information, always in motion, never able to stop.  This is also true of the "material world", which is always engaged in some kind of change by which it manifests its nature. So too, our dynamic manifests our own nature. This dynamic carries values from which we derive goals, and from goals we derive our attitude toward events, which determines how we respond to the stimulii that the events bring us. This means that just as the flows and eddies of a river determine which banks get built up and which ones get washed away, so too the flows and eddies of our dynamic existence will continue to define what we attach to, and what we avoid. In other words, we carry our likes and dislikes into the grave where they define what happens next.

We find support for this in the way that some spooks build BSTs in which to hide -  they can't see any farther with the limited apparatus they're using, because it lacks the concepts needed for escape. To rescue them requires that Bruce, or one of us, encounters them and gives them new information through which they can get past their stuck places. I have exactly the same experiences working with entities attached to people, and when I encounter spirits in the afterlife who have issues to be worked out.

As a result, when we die, the Bardo Thodol tells us that we are "blown hither and thither by the winds of karma", meaning that our residual urges and such are pushing us along in spite of our preferences.

I use the perspective that everything is actually either a projection of potentialities from God from which we pick and choose the world in which we want to live, or everything is the dynamic nature of God into which we are absorbed in death. If we pick a path through the world that can attach to a physical shape, we can use the faculties of that form to think, since the brain is an effective computer. (As far as I have been able to tell, we attach by breathing - once you intend and take the first breath you get all the feelings that go along with it, and life proceeds as if a person. Until then, all the potential lives are just passing images.) Otherwise, we are, to the degree that we allow it, merged into the nature of God, much like a meditator who has quieted all the competing thoughts and ideas.

The question is why would a person want to leave the unity of merger into God, even if imperfectly merged, and go back to the cycle of deaths.

As anyone who has had a transcendental experience knows, the experience of transcendence does not remove our drives, desires or urges. No matter how we struggle to retain the divine, the mundane slowly creeps back, until in a moment, a day, a week or a year, we find that we have subsided back into our intiial state. (If you have never had a transcendental experience, this is rather like the manner in which a wonderful dream slowly fades, no matter how we struggle to stay asleep. - And then we smell the morning coffee and it's gone, as we renew attachments to the world.)

I suggest that we have the ability to stay forever as one with God. The problem is that to stay in oneness with God we have to stop wanting the things that come with being people (or whatever critter you reincarnate into) - we have a lot of options in our universe. If there is even the tiniest little urge remaining, then it will redirect us into another incarnation. After all, God gives us what we want - whether we want it or not - So watch out what you wish for!  

For major urges and strong attachments, reincarnation seems to occur rapidly. Within a week or so after the 9-11 attack I found that most of the Arabic pilots could not be contacted in spirit because they had been reborn. For those with little attachment to the material world there seems to be a much longer time between rebirths. This suggests that we do indeed have an eternal life in heaven available, but in general we choose to reincarnate instead. The usual analogy is that this is like choosing a piece of broken glass when we are offered a priceless diamond.

The Egyptians beieved in transmigration of souls through a vast number of preliminary stages, so that we work our way up from primitive ceatures to humans. Superficially, this makes excellent sense. Support is found in the fact that virtually everyone n regression who is asked to "go back as far as you can recall just now, and tell me what is there and what yo are doing" comes back with some kind of tale involving their existence as an animal. I personally recall being a worm, plus a whole lot of shaggy things that presumably were primate ancestors to my present form. Since those forms were the most advanced forms I knew, it makes sense subjectively that I would keep choosing the highest lifeform I could, and eventually I wound up as I am today.

In particular, there is absolutely no evidence in regression work to support the idea that we start out as people. Like hell, which simiarly cannot be located  - this is a myth designed for the gullible by the exploitive fire-and-brimstone crew, so that they can rationalize their egocentric feelings and desires. (These are the guys who seek the Voodoo Chicken solution to their own guilt.)

The solution to this dilemma that Buddhism suggests is quite creative. First, there are the "Four Noble Truths", that life is frustrating and inconvenient, that the frustration and inconvenience arises from attachments to material things that are transient and innately cannot satisfy us, and that gettign rid of clinging and attachment gets rid of frustration and inconvenience. Then we have the "Eightfold Path", which is like Patanjali's yoga sutras etc, and offers one way to rid ourselves of attachments. By ridding ourselves of attachments we allow ourselves to remain longer in a transcendental state.

The issue of rebirth is handled in Buddhism by the suggestion that the best and highest goal is to serve others. (We support this by our awareness that all is God, so to serve others is to serve God, and to discover our own nature in God.) The Buddhisattvic Vow is a promise to return to serve others and help them get rid of their hangups. that helps all of us to clear up our issues, and thus is a universally useful thing. In later incarnations we encounter the world as we have "improved it" by service, and thus we help our own progress as well.

Any other expression of the value of service to others is obviously equally useful, and any life in which we offer such service will benefit us and the rest of the world.

Criticisms of these concepts tend to be arbitrary, mythic or merely opinionated. There are a few data that seem to controvert these concepts, but the bulk of evidence seems to support them. In particular, logical arguments against these general principles seem largely non-existent. unfoprtunately, this seems to make people unhappy when their favorite manifestation of God is compared to other manifestations of God. It worries many people to think that Jesus said much the same thing as Krishna, as Moses, as Mohammed, as Arjuna, as Vajnavalkya, or as Zoroaster etc. I tend to view that kind of objections as elite snobbery, but since I'm equally snobbish for my own ideas, maybe that's a basic problem with any kind of metaphysics. ;-)

dave

rondele wrote on Feb 7^th, 2008 at 12:52pm:

So we are here to learn?  I guess that is true if we agree that earth is a school. But here's an interesting question.....if we accept that we were all created by God, and if we accept that God is perfect and by definition, therefore, is incapable of creating anything less than perfect, why do we have to learn anything?? How can a perfect God create anything as imperfect as, for example, a Hitler or Pol Pot or Charlie Manson? So then the question becomes, perhaps God didn't create us.  Or maybe He created our souls, but not our bodies/brains, as ACIM says. A real "who-dunnit" for you mystery fans out there. R

 My understanding is this.  We were created as companions and potential Co-Creators with The Creator, the First Source.  

 In order to create self aware, unique and individualized aspects out of itself, it had to give these aspects Freewill.    In order to give Freewill, the condition for and awareness of "unSourceness" had to be provided, otherwise there couldn't be freewill, but yet this "unSourceness" wasn't and isn't a real reality, because its not eternal, and its not what The Creator experiences itself.  

    Learning was not originally a necessity.  "Learning" only became part of the process, when some used their freewill to concentrate on and indulge in unSourceness.   In doing this more and more, they cut themselves off in consciousness, from the pure At-One-Ment consciousness with their Creator--that perfectness.  It wasn't "God" who did anything at this point, it was all pure freewill.  

 So instead of becoming full and fully conscious Co-Creators with same, they became self limited, largely unconscious Co-Creators with same, until they returned via living that which is Creative, pure, and Source like in their illusionary and temporary "creations".  

 The question is, was this ever actually necessary?  I have come to believe that it wasn't ever necessary to begin with, to be Co-creators with The Creator, though perhaps it has given us a different perspective.    Ego, the part of us that tries to keep us separated from each other and from The Creator, whispers that it was necessary of course.     Only those who have completely transcended same, know for sure.   Any here?    Yeshua was, and he never taught that it was necessary.

 It doesn't have to be either-or.   The left brain not in touch and balanced with the right brain, views things linearly and cut and dried.   It says Either one...or not at all.  This mind, is overly structured, is to quick to put limitations on itself, on life, on Reality, and the whole process.

 All the above is actually a pretty simple concept and makes a lot of both "logical/intellectual" and feeling sense.  

"I'll start with the below paragraph first, even though Dave wrote it last, because it is the main paragraph I want to address. My comments can be found within double quotation marks."


Criticisms of these concepts tend to be arbitrary, mythic or merely opinionated. There are a few data that seem to controvert these concepts, but the bulk of evidence seems to support them. In particular, logical arguments against these general principles seem largely non-existent. unfoprtunately, this seems to make people unhappy when their favorite manifestation of God is compared to other manifestations of God. It worries many people to think that Jesus said much the same thing as Krishna, as Moses, as Mohammed, as Arjuna, as Vajnavalkya, or as Zoroaster etc. I tend to view that kind of objections as elite snobbery, but since I'm equally snobbish for my own ideas, maybe that's a basic problem with any kind of metaphysics. ;-)

""Can't a person know something without it being referred to as elite snobbery?  Does one have to bow down to gurus who put themselves on a pedestal, so one won't be considered a snob? There is no way that Jesus, Krishna (and Arujuna), Moses, Mohammed and Vajnavalkya said the same thing. Regarding my opinions being arbitrary, mythic and merely opinionated, why not try to see a viewpoint beyond what you read, experienced in a trance state, and collected from hypnosis subjects, and see what happens when you make contact with light beings who exist at higher realms, and see if they have things to say that differ from what gurus say after they parrot each other over and over again? Since they don't even acknowledge the existence of something such as a higher self/oversoul/disk, how could they possibly know what reincarnation looks like from such a vantage point?

Regarding my feelings for Christ, I would think it would be apparent by now that such feelings aren't based upon book knowledge, but upon experiences and messages I received, mainly after I was willing to acknowledge that perhaps I don't know who/what Christ is actually all about.  I still don't know,  but it sure seems to me that I've been notified that he has more to do with divine reality than people who don't try to find out for themselves but instead stick to the opinions they formed, are willing to admit.  

If somebody such as Krishna or Vajnavalkya were reaveled to me I would have considered them, but they weren't.  What am I supposed to do? Pray to God for answers and then not accept the answers I receive, because some people who want to believe that every Tom Dick or Harry guru who walked this earth, is just as valid of a messenger of God as Jesus was? Forget it. ""




[quote author=dave_a_mbs link=1202219576/15#25 date=1202414083]From spiritual work, there is a strong inference that the afterlife is not experienced in everyday terms of rational abstract thought.

In meditation, rational thought gets in the way and must cease to proceed. The higher states of samadhi require that eventually ALL thought must cease in order to reach unity with God, as thinking distracts. In regressions, the spirits contacted tend to be monomanaical in throught, totally one tracked without the ability to abstract (because, perhaps, abstraction requires a place to hold the abstract thought, which is difficult without a brain), and thought occurs on a primary level in terms of nominals and absolutes. That's why a person who builds a BST can get trapped into it

""I don't believe that thought has to come to an end in order for unity with God to be found. The only thing one does when they reach such a state, is experience a part of God in his unmanifest state. Is there something wrong with his ability to manifest and create? If he chose not to make use of such an ability, none of us would exist. In fact, there wouldn't be anything to experience at all, because even love and peace are the results of his ability to create something that can be experienced.

It isn't a matter of bringing one's thought processes to a halt. If this was the case, anybody who had a lobotomy would have an enlightenment experience. The key is to get to the point where one no longer needs to look outwardly for peace, happiness, security, knowledge and love, so one will let go of one's opinions and experience truth as it is through universal mind. When I have done so I was still able to think in a regular way. However, I was connected to a level of mind where things are known as they are. The only reason there was something to know, is because God's creative aspect of being got around to creating something that can be experienced. Otherwise you'd have an awareness being with infinite creative potential, who never got around to making use of it.""  

The everyday state of mind corresponding to "non-thinking" is sleeping. Some of the esoteric Buddhist texts suggest that by lucid dreaming we can prepare for the afterlife - the idea being that this allows us to exist in a dreamworld as thinking beings. If we can "think" without the use of a brain, this might be useful.

Looking at our existence as a process, the nature of what we are is only partially dependent upon the body we choose. We exist as a dynamic flow of information, always in motion, never able to stop.  This is also true of the "material world", which is always engaged in some kind of change by which it manifests its nature. So too, our dynamic manifests our own nature. This dynamic carries values from which we derive goals, and from goals we derive our attitude toward events, which determines how we respond to the stimulii that the events bring us. This means that just as the flows and eddies of a river determine which banks get built up and which ones get washed away, so too the flows and eddies of our dynamic existence will continue to define what we attach to, and what we avoid. In other words, we carry our likes and dislikes into the grave where they define what happens next.

We find support for this in the way that some spooks build BSTs in which to hide -  they can't see any farther with the limited apparatus they're using, because it lacks the concepts needed for escape. To rescue them requires that Bruce, or one of us, encounters them and gives them new information through which they can get past their stuck places. I have exactly the same experiences working with entities attached to people, and when I encounter spirits in the afterlife who have issues to be worked out.

As a result, when we die, the Bardo Thodol tells us that we are "blown hither and thither by the winds of karma", meaning that our residual urges and such are pushing us along in spite of our preferences.

I use the perspective that everything is actually either a projection of potentialities from God from which we pick and choose the world in which we want to live, or everything is the dynamic nature of God into which we are absorbed in death. If we pick a path through the world that can attach to a physical shape, we can use the faculties of that form to think, since the brain is an effective computer. (As far as I have been able to tell, we attach by breathing - once you intend and take the first breath you get all the feelings that go along with it, and life proceeds as if a person. Until then, all the potential lives are just passing images.) Otherwise, we are, to the degree that we allow it, merged into the nature of God, much like a meditator who has quieted all the competing thoughts and ideas.

The question is why would a person want to leave the unity of merger into God, even if imperfectly merged, and go back to the cycle of deaths.

As anyone who has had a transcendental experience knows, the experience of transcendence does not remove our drives, desires or urges. No matter how we struggle to retain the divine, the mundane slowly creeps back, until in a moment, a day, a week or a year, we find that we have subsided back into our intiial state. (If you have never had a transcendental experience, this is rather like the manner in which a wonderful dream slowly fades, no matter how we struggle to stay asleep. - And then we smell the morning coffee and it's gone, as we renew attachments to the world.)

I suggest that we have the ability to stay forever as one with God. The problem is that to stay in oneness with God we have to stop wanting the things that come with being people (or whatever critter you reincarnate into) - we have a lot of options in our universe. If there is even the tiniest little urge remaining, then it will redirect us into another incarnation. After all, God gives us what we want - whether we want it or not - So watch out what you wish for!  

""Coming out of a transcendental experience while still involved with the physical World, isn't the same thing as being a bodyless being who has moved on to the World of spirit, and is surrounded by the love and light that pervades the realm, rather than the mixture of influences that exist in the physical. There are too many examples of people having NDEs where they felt no need from an attachment standpoint to go back to their life in the physical World, even though they weren't involved with a spiritual practice beforehand. The same was true for me when I had my night in heaven experience. This experience wasn't below samadhi, it was beyond it. It was a state where I didn't have to bring my thoughts to a stop, in order to see what truth is about.

We weren't created as unique beings by accident, as eastern teaching tend to assume.  We were created so we can partake with God in the creative process. He decided to provide the gift of life to many others.  He allowed self determination to be a part of the process, rather than creating a bunch of automatums who can't decide for themselves.  In the end we all get to return to God (there might be some exceptions) with the lessons we learned and the uniqueness we have to contribute, so we all get to share an eternal state of love and oneness.  A state that wouldn't be a possibility, if he didn't get around to creating us in the first place.

It isn't a matter of renouncing the physical World. The physical World can't compete with what the spirit World has to offer. It is more a matter of learning to be a being who knows how to live according to love,  and learning to be a soul who can exist with many possibilities.  How can one learn about such possibilities, if one is intent on snuffing all of one's being out of existence until only pure awareness exists?  Isn't it interesting that people who have NDEs tend to speak of the importance of living according to love and taking part in life in a meaningfull way, rather than telling people to renounce the World because you'll incarnate over and over again if you don't.  It is gurus who have little knowledge of the spirit realms who speak of such things.""



For major urges and strong attachments, reincarnation seems to occur rapidly. Within a week or so after the 9-11 attack I found that most of the Arabic pilots could not be contacted in spirit because they had been reborn. For those with little attachment to the material world there seems to be a much longer time between rebirths. This suggests that we do indeed have an eternal life in heaven available, but in general we choose to reincarnate instead. The usual analogy is that this is like choosing a piece of broken glass when we are offered a priceless diamond.

""I find the above hard to believe.  The evidence provided by people who explore the afterlife realms show, that people with issues tend to get stuck in a lower realm like state after they die, until they reach a point where they call out for help. Once they call out for help, they'll receive some help before they choose to incarnate again, if they choose to incarnate again. The evidence shows that incarnations don't take place in a haphazzard whoever jumps into a body first manner. A fair amount of planning first needs to take place.

Even if you did receive this week in a clear manner, perhaps within a week meant quite a different thing for the Arabic pilots involved.  Regarding what you found through hypnosis, is it possible that many of your subjects tuned into memories that came from their disk/oversoul, rather than past selves in a conventional manner?""


The Egyptians beieved in transmigration of souls through a vast number of preliminary stages, so that we work our way up from primitive ceatures to humans. Superficially, this makes excellent sense. Support is found in the fact that virtually everyone n regression who is asked to "go back as far as you can recall just now, and tell me what is there and what yo are doing" comes back with some kind of tale involving their existence as an animal. I personally recall being a worm, plus a whole lot of shaggy things that presumably were primate ancestors to my present form. Since those forms were the most advanced forms I knew, it makes sense subjectively that I would keep choosing the highest lifeform I could, and eventually I wound up as I am today.


"Even if the above is true, isn't it possible that this is done in a disk/oversoul sense. Therefore, the self that incarnated millions of years ago as a dinasor, isn't the same self that incarnates as a human today? I just don't see how so many memories could be stuffed into a body. It must be that a small portion of a disk/oversoul incarnates, while the rest of the disk/oversoul remains in the World of spirit.""

In particular, there is absolutely no evidence in regression work to support the idea that we start out as people. Like hell, which simiarly cannot be located  - this is a myth designed for the gullible by the exploitive fire-and-brimstone crew, so that they can rationalize their egocentric feelings and desires. (These are the guys who seek the Voodoo Chicken solution to their own guilt.)

""I believe you are being rather simplistic. Do you really believe that past life regression has the ultimate say on the matter? If hypnotists can hypnotize people to act like chickens and celebreties, if Michael Newton can over suggest people as you suggest, then perhaps other hypnotists have influenced people more than they are willing to acknowledge.  If a person is in a hypnotic state, there might be more to it than the words a hypnotist recites. Thoughts are things, and if a hypnotist somehow projects his thoughts to the person he or she hypnotizes, he or she might be effected accordingly.

Certainly I've made points that go beyond an exploitive fire and brimstone approach. Points that are partly based upon my experience.  The fact that you've made such a statement simply shows your distaste for Christianity.  

Even if some human spirits started out as lower life forms, does this mean that every spirit who ever incarnated into the human system has done the same? Isn't it possible that spirits from all kinds of places incarnate here?""

The solution to this dilemma that Buddhism suggests is quite creative. First, there are the "Four Noble Truths", that life is frustrating and inconvenient, that the frustration and inconvenience arises from attachments to material things that are transient and innately cannot satisfy us, and that gettign rid of clinging and attachment gets rid of frustration and inconvenience. Then we have the "Eightfold Path", which is like Patanjali's yoga sutras etc, and offers one way to rid ourselves of attachments. By ridding ourselves of attachments we allow ourselves to remain longer in a transcendental state.

""This was already addressed when I spoke of people who move onto higher realms during NDEs without having to go through some yogic path before they do so. Why don't NDE people and out of body explorers ever receive the message that you better follow something such as the four noble truths or else? Not to say that they don't have anything to offer, but I don't believe we incarnate to this World so we can renounce it.  We come into it so we can learn from it.""

The issue of rebirth is handled in Buddhism by the suggestion that the best and highest goal is to serve others. (We support this by our awareness that all is God, so to serve others is to serve God, and to discover our own nature in God.) The Buddhisattvic Vow is a promise to return to serve others and help them get rid of their hangups. that helps all of us to clear up our issues, and thus is a universally useful thing. In later incarnations we encounter the world as we have "improved it" by service, and thus we help our own progress as well.

""My guess is that when people who make such vows return to the spirit World, they find that the divine powers that be have orchestrated things quite differently.  I have yet to read an NDE or OBE account, or had an experience, which shows that Boddhisatva vow is adheared to in a universal manner. I believe the sentiment behind the Boddhisatva vow is noble; however, it is misleading in that it suggests that a person needs to become an enlightened Buddha before they stop incarnating.  Many eastern based groups have used the fear that some people have of reincarnating over and over again, as a means to get people to not leave a group.""


Any other expression of the value of service to others is obviously equally useful, and any life in which we offer such service will benefit us and the rest of the world.

""Related to this, even though I don't agree with some of the conclusions of Eastern thought, I believe that people benefit from such teachings in various ways. For example, I believe it is fine when somebody such as Ramana Maharshi says happiness can be found inside. Hopefully they'll reach the point where such teachings don't become a way of thinking that they can't see clear of.""

SO there we have the essence of the argument.

On one side we have a lot of tradition, especially of the Western perspective, which supports very little of what the Eastern perspective proposes. This is supported by a very large number of people who have had specific experiences in which they experienced that perspective.

On the other side of the mountain we have the Eastern perspective, tradition, etc, and experiences by a very large number of people who support that viewpoint.

Questions about whether hypnosis mysteriously corrupts people (hypnosis is guided meditation, and has properties appropriate to any meditation), whether we have been programmed into this or that belief, and whether we are just plain wrong are all very pertinent here. The same fervor that supports a Western persective can support an Eastern one as well, and the same delusions that cause the Estern metaphysician to err will also cause the Western seeker to make equivalwent mistakes.

So where do we turn to get answers?

I refuse to accept the word of the Constantine dynasty as the direct and unbiased word of God. In the same way, I don't accept any other scripture as useful until can personally make it work for me. That seems prudent, although a lot of people would tell me that I am denying God's Son and his words, and that this runs the risk of eternal hellfire and brimstone. Seems to me that any religion that can't withstand questions isn't worth the time of day. So I question.

We have a misunderstanding about the nature of samadhi. At present it is not useful to go there, as the experience is needed to understand the experience, and all the rest is just "my trance experience is better than your trance experience" which is a worthless debate. As Charlie Tart put it, "It is a state specific consciousness." There are inadequate words in English, and Sanskrit doesn't do much better - just a list of terms.

What we have in specific form are reports from people who have OBEs, NDEs, regressions, and who rescue souls directly. A number of cases, such as the Indian kid who abruptly astounds his family by pointing out that Rajinda or Jalal, who lives down the block, still owes him money, and knows the secret hiding place, suggest that something is hapening that is inexplicable. These can be denied - denia lis the first line of defense of  a threatened mind. - Or they can be questioned. Regrettably, there is little more than the facts of the case, and meanings are uncertain.

The thousands of Eastern gurus who have similar experiences through adoption of meditative techniques are similarly open to question, as their experiences might be the result of their meditative methods. The counter to this is that other methods do not give other results for them. For Westerners, we have experiences focussed on Jesus, that always lead to Jesus-oriented experiences. Nothing proven here either.

What we can see is that virtually all the great religious leaders have supported one train of thought, which was not especially brought out by the post-Constantine bible. They agreed that there is a single principle of life that we call God - albeit expressed variously. They also agreed that some actions lead to discomfort, some actions lead to improvement. The Easterner calls this "cause and effect activity" and uses the term "karma", meaning "action". The details seem to be more a matter of how each individual' experience of God will occur.

The idea of "buddhahood" and "enlightenment" seem to be matters of great confusion. This is especially true within Eastern religions. Kashmir Saivism uses a different model of the spirit world than Buddhism, and both differ from Wicca or New Age Christianity. If we admit that we have free will and choice, than this might be personal bias. However, "enlightenment" is a simple expression that reflects a participatory experience of the metaphysicval nature of the world. We all have this (at least on this forum) to some degree, so everyone is partially enlightened. Those who are able to act from the point of their participation in God, as God, would be said to be "perfectly enlightened" - although their notion of God might seem strange to the rest of us (or it might not). This is neither a Western nor Estern perspective, just a matter of awareness. A buddha is a person who has awakened to that realiztion and lives in that state of mind. There are literally thousands of buddhas in the world today. However, none of them are in a position to influence the rest of the world as Siddhartha did, because circumstances differ. Jesus would be termed an enlightened buddha, as would all the truly great religious thinkers - although history might confuse material gains with spiritual greatness.

Whether taking vows of service or not leads to a better afterlife or not is an interesting question. Aside from the theory of improving the world etc, there seems to be precedent for making choices that provide service to others. Jesus comes to mind. Of course we could argue that the whole "Jesus trip" was accidental, drafting some ignorant soul into a suicidal death spiral against which he vainly struggled all his life, but there are too many coincidences and transcendental truths in Jesus' words for me to readily accept that idea.

We have absolutely nobasis to believe that the afterlife preserves everyday conscious awareness. We have a lot of information that opposes that idea. - I don't know about you guys, but I find this thought scary as hell.  Literally. The problem is to overcome our biases and examine the data. Scripture of all religions, Est or West, seems to support an afterlife, but how we experience it is unknown.  

Meditation requires that interfering ideation cease in order to reach deeper truths. This is equally true when we study geometry. The levels of meditation are defined accordng to the information they provide. First, we focus and suppress side trips and attain the level called "concentration".  Here we focus on the world as we experience it. Next, by suspending self-stimulation further, we reach the level called "meditation". This is a transcendental trance mode in which we perceive the interconnections of both the world and the transcendental. The outcome of this level is called "sarvastarka samadhi", meaning the trance state in which we recognize the absense of contradictions, and the manner in which everything serves as a part of everything else, right up to the to the level of Godhead. Then by silencing the mind so that all the side trips stop completely we can reach the next level which is commonly termed "contemplation". This level and wth absorption into the participatory experience of the presence of God, and is called "nirvastarka samadhi" which essentially means that there is only one.

To suggest that the sequence of development of the mental discipline to silence the mind and emotional side trips is equivalent to being a mindless idiot is fallacious, argumentum ab ignoratio elenchi. People who believe that simply fail to understand meditation.

As far as I can tell, all of the people on this forum are somewhere in the range between concentration and nirvastarka samadhi, inclusive. Because samadhi is such a powerful experience, there is a tendency to think that, "My experience was valid and you are full of BS," but everyone has slightly different experiences. The only common point is awareness of God, and that cannot be expressed. We lack language, and we cannot easily recover the transcendental aspects of samadhi from memory, even as sensations.

I'm open to better ways to look at thngs. I'd like to find a way to view matters that is free of doctrine, especially the militancy and closed mindedness that we tend to use in order to avoid thinking hard thoughts. (And that is true of all religions and their followers.)  It is always easy to criticize that which bothers us. It is far more difficult to offer alternative options, especially when they might uncover uncomfortable concepts. One fact which is extremely uncomfortable for most of us is that weare fearful of what we do not understand, and especially what death holds for us. That fear is whence the vehemence and militancy of opinionated groups arises.

Having nothing but (1) my meditations and (2) my own investigations, that's the nformation that I use. To that I add logical implications that come from physics etc, because those ideas have been pretty well pinned down. Regression seems to give the same information as do soul retrievals, and as do meditation.

So where is a better source of information?

dave

Dave:

I don't want to go on about this forever. I'll just end up repeating some of the same points. I will say a few things.

You seem to be interested in scaring people. You want them to believe that they'll have to incarnate thousands of times with little respite inbetween, until they finally get to the point where they'll admit that there is no such thing as an individual self, a soul.  If you assume an average lifetime of 60 years and multiply 60 by just two thousand incarnations, you get 12,000 years of suffering and toiling before a soul gets around to thinking its way out of existence. I used to embrace such a way of thinking, until I found out differently. Now that I think about it, this way of viewing things is just as creepy as a fire and brimstone approach.

On the other hand, forum members who have read Bruce Moen's books, might figure that when Bruce met up with folks such as Robert Monroe, Nancy Monroe, and Ed Carter, it is significant that each of them was getting on quite fine in the spirit World, even though they didn't become enlightened Buddhas before dying.

Regarding there being thousands of enlightened people as you claim, I guess this is a possibility if immoral people like Osho are judged to be enlightened, and enlightenment means you have the incomplete and not completely accurate viewpoints that gurus tend to have.

Regarding my experiences with Christ being nothing more than a product of the approach I took, some of these revelations came before I asked for them, and some came in a manner that is hard to refute. It takes a lot of audacity for a person to claim that they are meaningless, because he didn't have enough humility to find out for himself what Christ is about. Regarding the supposed meaningless of his crucifixion, this can only be judged by people who are inspired accordingly, not by people who act like a rebelious angel anytime the subject of Christ comes up. Regarding having the willingness to question, as I wrote before, I did question, and received answers.  Regarding Christ acting according to divine authority, rather than being a guru who was more interested in playing God than serving God, again, a person can find out about this authority for his or herself, if he or she has the humility to ask.  

Are there any takers, or do people prefer to rely on what the limited perspectives of their intellects tell them?

wrote on Feb 7^th, 2008 at 3:39pm:

Nanner wrote on Feb 7th, 2008 at 4:50am: Quote: THE only law there is, the law of energy resonation aka like attracts and begets like, and the reality of freewill.   All the rest is totally limitless, and anything goes in a sense.     Justin, That resonates a great deal with my thoughts ingeneral. Thank you for reminding me. Love, Nanner PS: I still want that cat! Breed it and call me pls.. ;)   I would if i could Nanner, but we took precautionary measures already.   She can't have baby kittens.   I'll ask her to visit you nonphysically, though its kind of hard to pet a nonphysical kitty.

Justin, that Kitty cat your holding up is my kitty cat from 25 years ago. I knew it right off the bat, when I saw it...lol.. **hands on my hips** - Justin I want my kitty car back ...lol..Seriously - thank you though, too bad that she cant have babies, too too sad.
Hugs,
Nanner

First off I am new to this forum yet this is my um... third post I believe. Let me say I am here because I fear death. If there is an afterlife and reincarnation bit I would probably not come back because the fear of death is not fun at all. I am a techno geek though heavily into role play fantasies so if the afterlife does not let me live those out I will be forced to return regardless of my fear. I need to be able to log in and be Terethian the noble High Elven cleric which fights for justice and peace throughout the land. (which is consequently filled with monsters to kill and get experience points.)

Now if the afterlife let's me put together a group fantasy party in which we can basically enter a dream like state together with other consciousnesses (most likely the consciousnesses of NERDS like me) I would like totally meet with them several times a week for roleplay sessions in true dungeons and dragons style except in true lucid dreaming greatness.

Wow... so yeah... bottom line if I can't get my fantasy kick in the afterlife I'll be back right away. lol.

wrote on Feb 8^th, 2008 at 3:04am:

First off I am new to this forum yet this is my um... third post I believe. Let me say I am here because I fear death. If there is an afterlife and reincarnation bit I would probably not come back because the fear of death is not fun at all. I am a techno geek though heavily into role play fantasies so if the afterlife does not let me live those out I will be forced to return regardless of my fear. I need to be able to log in and be Terethian the noble High Elven cleric which fights for justice and peace throughout the land. (which is consequently filled with monsters to kill and get experience points.) Now if the afterlife let's me put together a group fantasy party in which we can basically enter a dream like state together with other consciousnesses (most likely the consciousnesses of NERDS like me) I would like totally meet with them several times a week for roleplay sessions in true dungeons and dragons style except in true lucid dreaming greatness. Wow... so yeah... bottom line if I can't get my fantasy kick in the afterlife I'll be back right away. lol .

Hi and welcome to the board.  ;) I really liked your last sentence! lol.. as you grow with us here, you will come to understand and share so much that I am really happy for all of us. Hope you take some time to read up on the Index Links and Bruces free articles too - I think you`ve landed on a website here that should get you to visit more often, exchanging thoughts and findings.

Love,
Nanner

Dave quote: If there is even the tiniest little urge remaining, then it will redirect us into another incarnation. After all, God gives us what we want - whether we want it or not - So watch out what you wish for!
____

I'd say so Dave. at different times of my life, I'd ask for something and god would give it to me if I was serious. then, darn it, I wouldn't want it at all. god would say well, you left out some details of what you wanted. so I learned, I dont really know if when I get what I think I want, I'll still want it, so I let some higher source lead me. I don't make mistakes that way. its true, have to be careful what you wish for. its because of free will. keeps you hopping though, this having a life business.

In line with your thoughts, I am in agreement with another chap name of Cozzolini, who happens to have a more scientific view, rather than emotional view, of our afterlife areas. since I have been most of my life an emotional gal, it was no small feat to read Cozzolini but the benefit was immense, in that here was another viewing point quite foreign to me but after the 3rd time through I understood most of it.
Cozzolini agrees with Dave. and don't forget R, while you're reflecting on our afterlife areas, Dave works with his spooks..from that perspective, he most likely has much insight to offer us here on the board. Dave is someone I could re-read each post and come away with something different each time.
my god, I wish we could get paid for what we're doing here. we'd all be rich I'm sure. but we are rich when we share.
Cozzolini says for simplicity, we use a 7 layer plane construct, even though it's not quite that black and white. you've all heard the term 7th heaven?
theres some grist there. at the 7th highest level of our afterlife he would say is the merge with god level, where complete unadulterated bliss is attained.
on this level no reincarnation is entertained, after all, you have everything you ever needed and are attached to nothing at all, just one with god. there eons can go by, still, you are in bliss.  so a couple of eons go by and he says if while floating there as this little spark of god, this little unit of consciousness has any thought at all, it begins again, a cycle of lives. this can be such a thought as a little desire to awaken from this bliss and seek an adventure perhaps. immediately the soul is drawn into a circle of it's mates who are also with a single desire, or a single wish to become.

there, they draw up plans and plots, and there is no limit to human dramas which can be drawn up. why? just ask yourself why not? all these others would be like a disc of players. also a soul can join somebody else's disc upon occassion there will be graduations from one disc to another. as well, you will see disc blinking out of this universe and blinking into another universe, if everything that can be gained here, has been gained.

when the overview is gained, all the cards are on the table, it turns out to have been worthwhile. we have to keep in mind Monroe's school of thought. C1. what is C1?
by definition it means a limited type of perception. we cannot see the whole picture until we do the merge with god, then we are able to see we did choose to come here.

just to throw in my personal 2 cents..some years before my twins were birthed to me, they came as energy beings to try and get me to come out of my body and play with them. I heard their laughter and knew the sound of it, but did not know why these children spirits were upon me every night.

Years later they were adults, and one day we were all laughing together, and it was dejavous, there it was, that same exact energy signature of the laughter. and I knew, we had lived together before in another time of history. then Michelle recalled a life where we all wore long dresses and walked some grassy knolls...

I have tons of stories, and so little time left to write them!! we live, we want to live, we want to do it ALL!
why is everyone here so down on life?  we can do ANYTHING here because of our joining together to do it. It is going to be a heaven on Earth or I'll eat my hat.

Nanner, I was molested. I retrieved the molester to a higher place of consciousness. I became like an angel to him because I saw his soul needed it. he will never molest another child. I had agreed to do this. the suffering is over for both of us. He may return as my grandchild if my daughter decides upon this.
Nanner, you've lived quite the life. You've overcome much. I wanted to thank you for all that you shared.

R, I think reincarnation is not the same thing as linear life after life type of incarnations. there are sojourns inbetween lives to account for. we don't all have the same number of incarnations. some souls only incarnate one time, and thats enough for them and it's off to another planet. while some really become quite attached to physical Earth, for what it offers; we tend to think of it as addiction or obsession maybe in some cycles. always there is this thing in a person, which says, I know I can do it better, I see where I went wrong, I just need to try a little harder then I'll get it right.
its something inside of us, we want to taste it all and be winners. just to have one life is like having only one potato chip...no can do...
it's not hard to see myself without a body as I was moving about as an orb one time, and once was enough, I might add for that adventure. so if the mind is intact without a body, and indeed, we might notice here, we move outside of our body frequently enough, it's not hard to understand that we have been able to occupy a flesh and blood body before and will do so again perhaps. the body is only some water and some minerals, that return to mother Earth...its a car one drives around...no big thing, don't get attached to it too much, but take care of it well.

love, alysia

welcome Tere, you've got the right idea. sure you can have your fantasy, I'm sure there are many who would join you. All nerds are welcome on planet Earth, and sometimes those nerds are just pretending to be nerds. love, alysia

Quote:

Nanner, I was molested. I retrieved the molester to a higher place of consciousness. I became like an angel to him because I saw his soul needed it. he will never molest another child. I had agreed to do this. the suffering is over for both of us. He may return as my grandchild if my daughter decides upon this. Nanner, you've lived quite the life. You've overcome much. I wanted to thank you for all that you shared.

Yes Alysia - and thank you,  however I am now at the point where I have successfully come to realise that it is "I - the real "eye" that had chosen to live this type of life" and thats a very special step forward, I (eye)  thinks..lol..? My tires  ;) ... lol...

I am so so happy for you that you retrieved the molester to a higher place of consciousness, see I had no idea of how to go about this that way, at the time. So I am very proud of you gal. Anything coulda happened, but you had no fear and you had enough love for the both of you. Thats a very special step forward!

I now really do find that its all about: learning PUL, (which if realisation kicks in what that one word really means entails is very friggin hard to learn to put into place, as you have come to learn the hard way too!) overcoming and recapping the invested emotions learned.

And the end when one can say: I understood the messages, the homework lessons and the gifts I had been given in life, then it turns out to be just as Elisabeth Kübler Ross said: "A graduation party from a school called earth"..

Hugs,
Nanner

Heart chakra blocks and other energetic blocks come in many ways.  It can be quite surprising when it comes to what kind of issues block us. Some may block us for many years without us realizing it.

One thing that keeps us going when life becomes difficult is hope. Even though things are tough today, if we hang on, our future will be bright.  How much hope can a person have if due to false teachings, they believe they are going to have to reincarnate hundreds or even thousands of times before they get to move on to a better way of life? Some might say life isn't that tough, but for many it is very tough. Just read the newspaper or watch the evening news and you'll see that what I say is true. This being the case, if a person is going to have incarnate many many times until they become a supposed enlightened Buddha, they are going to have to live more than a few very tough incarnations. Therefore, hope becomes an ultra-marathon competition.

When I belonged to a cult that was based upon eastern teachings, people were aware of the reincarnate over and over concept. They weren't concered, because they felt confident that they would become enlightened during this lifetime. Eventually most of us learned that not even our guru was enlightened, and we left the group. Since we've left the group, some members have found that other gurus they followed were also fake, yet they still never got over this idea of having to reincarnate over and over again until you become an enlightened Buddha.  Therefore, somewhere within their subconscious mind they have a collection of thoughts that don't enable hope and joy to flow completely within their hearts.  I believe it is tragic that so many people have taken on such an unnecessary hope sapping belief system, because some fake gurus decided to play the role of God.

Regarding the past life recalls hypnotherapists tap into, here are the possibilities:

1. Prior lives in a disk/I-there/soul group manner are tapped into, rather than past lives that took place in a linear sense.
2. On some occasions past lives that took place in a linear sense are experienced, but this doesn't mean that one has to incarnate thousands of times until one has no iotta of attachment to the World at all.
3. Due to suggestion, a hypnosis subject creates a personality, similar to how hypnosis subjects take on the role of being chickens and celebrities when a hypnotist hypnotizes them to do so.
4. A person's higher self or other form of spirit guidance uses a hynotherapy session as an opportunity to create a story that doesn't actually represent a past life, but nevertheless benefits the patient in some way. I say this, because I've found that my guidance creates different types of learning experiences that aren't to be taken literally. Robert Monroe expressed the same principle in his book Far Journeys. His guidance created all kinds of experiences for him for learning purposes.
5. Sometimes, because a person is in a hypnotic state, they tap into the experiences of people and spirits who have nothing to do with them. I wrote on a previous post of how I have had such experiences (without hynotherapy).  The book "A siren call for hungry ghosts" a book about channeling, includes cases where people became involved with channeling, after a hypnotist got them into a state of mind that caused them to be associated with misleading spirits. Before a person refutes this, I suggest they read the book.

I would say that some combination of the above is a more rational explanation, rather than a conclusion that supposes that hypnotic regressions always support the conventional linear reincarnation viewpoint.

Another comment about hope.  Jesus said if you believe in me and follow my teachings, you'll go to the kingdom of heaven when your life in this World is over.  What makes a person's heart feel better? What he says, or the over and over and over and over and over and over....................................................reincarnation viewpoint? What do you wish for your brothers and sisters?

   I agree with a lot of what you said Albert, but you seem to missing something key here.   You speak as if we as probes of our Disc are somehow separate from our Discs.  

 We ARE our Disc and vice versa.    While we individually as a probe, may not have to reincarnate over and over again, thousands of times.

 Our Disk is still projecting oft hundreds or more lives into space/time to come to the point of totally transcending same.  

   Our Disk's are "stuck" too, just to a lesser degree than its average probe tends to be in a physical life.  Bruce clearly outlines that it was originally the Spirit self, which got stuck in all this, but after waking up enough, it kind of pulled out to some extent, but still being stuck, starting sending individualized aspects of itself into space/time cycles to complete the process.

   So, while there are some differences between the perspectives, they really boil down to the same thing.   We have Earth lives to help get ourselves unstuck.    Some Discs probably originally became involved, not because they needed too, but because they were originally trying to help unstick other Discs and probe members of same.  

 The Cayce readings talk about how a Soul group came with the Jesus Soul who was their 'leader' in a sense, way back when, to help out those who were becoming ever increasingly stuck.  

Some from this original Soul group of helpers, started to become stuck somewhat themselves, and thus the process of "learning" and multiple incarnations happened for them.   Some of it was addiction, and some was necessary karma balancing, and learning.  

  So while the distinctions aren't completely the same, the whole process and end result is basically the same thing, except that one views it more linearly and the other non linear, but spiritual development is spiritual development and the physical is best catalytic experience for that.  
 We learn to attune to enough Light, and then we don't have to experience it anymore as a Total Self/Soul, but all selves connected to our Disc must be retrieved first, and we also try to retrieve probes from other Discs.  

Justin:

I believe that a disk is made up of the first self that remembered its origins and became a disk, and the many selves (probes)  it creates. Even though various selves experience themselves in an individual way, they are never actually seperate from the disk they came from. Once a self returns to a disk it learns what it needs to learn in order to become yet another disk. What it does after reaching such a level of consiousness, varies according to need.

I figure if a disk is able to do what a disk does,  send out probes and keep track of them, it needs to be at a level where it acts according to unconditioned mind rather than a mind that is limited to attachment based beliefs. Consider when my higher self enabled me to experience 12 different selves at the same time. This experience and other experiences tell me that a higher self/disk conciousness isn't bound in a manner that forces it to keep sending out probes that reincarnate in this World. So why does it do so?

1. To continue with its original purpose of collecting information and learning what the creative aspect of being is about.
2. To help source being with the process of utilizing unmodified awareness/creative being, so that many more selves/souls can be created. If you think about it, something has to be done in order for being to get involved with the process of life in a particular way. Disks help provide a way.  What disks do has something in common with what we do when we have children.  The difference is that disks do so with the knowledge of how to do so, while we rely on our DNA to take care of everything.
3. We keep creating bodies to be occupied down here, so somebody has to fill the orders.

There might be some specific psychological issues a disk needs to work on, and sometimes it is best to work then out through a physical incarnation.  Might as well do so if we keep creating bodies down here.  However, the entirety of a disk and all returned members don't incarnate into a body. Just a new probe/self, or perhaps a member that would benefit from another incarnation.

I believe you overestimate the separation from God issue. I'm definitely not at the same level of development as my higher self, yet I'm able to connect to God's love and light. I do so through my higher self. So what's this talk of our higher selves being separated from God? I'm afraid I have to go with what my experience tells me rather than what a Cayce reading said. Even while in this World, none of us is actually separated from God. Perhaps we experience him some when we do something as simple as smile at another.

When it comes to retrievers, it seems to me that retrievels are done in the spirit realms so selves can be moved to focus 27, so further decisions can be made.  According to the explanations Bruce provided, the beings who help with retrievels are often light beings who haven't even returned to their disks. They emanate and live according to PUL. Do you really believe these beings are seperate from God, simply because they haven't figured everything out? It seems to me that you are looking at the glass as half empty rather than half full. For goodness sakes, I've made contact with Christ during my life, and I haven't overcome all of my imperfections.  

Hi Recoverer-
First, your collection of criticisms of methodology involving hypnosis are excellent.

This is to the point of all research in which we use subjective feelings. Both the experimenter and the experimental subject bring a host of extraneous and confounding data to the situation. Both must see in terms of prior fixations and beliefs, both those instrumental in the clinical situation under test, and those gained by exposure in society. When I was teaching methodology, the mst difficult points were the subtle ones like this.

The experimenter can, by selection of appropriate words and pharases, minimize any suggestions, so that what is obtained relies more on the subject. However, there is always freight carried over from the socia origins of the terms we use. The subject responds in words and phrases learned, together with their contexts, in a social setting, so that social factors enter the situation. Language alone confounds us.

There is no point in trying to argue about the worship of a dead Savior as opposed to the worship of a live guru. The Savior is unavailable, hidden behind millennia of books and revisions, and the guru is hidden behind social circumstances that many of us would prefer to avoid. The key is in the attitude with which we approach our own situation in life, and not the objects to which we point in justification.

That most of the people on this forum have had extremely persuasive psychic experiences does not mean that those experiences can be carried over into the lives of others and accepted unchanged. Even the descritions would differ. Each individual sees reality a bit differently, else we'd all be the same. So too with our metaphysical realities.  It is this diversity that makes this topic so difficult.

If we line up a dozen people, each of whom has had a transcendental experience of a spiritual personage, we would find only a very few lines of correlation, while there would be a lot of dfferences due to innate bias derived by living in society and having diverse experiences, ideas, drives, values, education etc. It is unavoidable. That doesn't mean that any one of those experiences is valid - or invalid. Nor can we tell whether they were obtained by ESP, memories, imagination, falsehood or other means. What we can suggest is that for a dozen people there are a dozen equally fervent belief systems. I've had dozens of people describe visions of saints, Jesus, Mary and assorted other holy manifestations - My aproach is to accept them as valid, because I can't do anything useful by denying them their beliefs. However, I can ask how their spiritual leader would lead them out of their conflicted situation. Often, that's all that's needed.

As for the technicalities of reincarnation, to my mind it makes sense to explain my recollections of evolution, the thousands and thousands of incarnations as hairly little critters, and hulking apelike things, in terms used since Egyptian days - that we work our way up from something like a protozoa - or perhaps a bundle of abstract energy. I've spent weeks going through this stuff, and it convinces me. Theres no particular reason that it should convince you.

It is also possible, and nobody can as yet tell the difference, that we get born as a single shot, one-time-through human, just like we appear to be. But my experiences tend to disagree. Your might tend to agree. - OK - Works for me.

I can feel my mind failing, as words, ideas and concepts flee my aged memory. It's called senile dementia, and there's no known treatment, much less cure. (Alsheimer's is a specific, highly aggressive syndrome of this general condition.) We all get to experience it to some degree. I feel that at the present rate, by the time I die I will lack any higher mental functions whatsoever. Any cognitive activity will be in a primary process modality, because that's all that's left. This is like trying to think while asleep - and is the state I believe we enter as we die and go into the afterlife. But if you don't like that idea, then you can imagine whatever you like - and you'll be just as correct, until one of us discovers how things actually are. What I suggest is more useful at this point is finding a method of dealing with the situation that will serve us in either case.

Unless you can define enlghtenment, I respectfully suggest that you might choose a different term for whatever it is that you mean. Otherwise, it would be more clear to start with a working definition, such as "enlightenment occurs when we turn the wall switch to the UP position". ;-)

dave

Dave:

You're right when you say that there are many versions of what enlightenment means. I can't say I feel like categorizing all of the versions.

At this point I don't know if it will do any good for me to say more than I have about reincarnation.  I figure a lot of people won't have the time to read the posts I've already written.

Despite how it might seem, I didn't write my posts with the expectation that you need to change your viewpoints. I mainly wanted to add alternative possibilities. Sometimes I get more involved with what I write than I should. In the end it is up to each person to decide for his or her self.

Each of us will find out some day what we were wrong about, and what we were right about, including me. I for one hope I am wrong about at least a few things, so things will be more interesting than I've been able to figure so far.  As long as we keep a pure heart along the way, we should be okay.  

The next time we have a difference of opinion (it is bound to happen ;)) please don't take it personally. I'm certain my approach sometimes comes off as more gruff than I mean.

I must add that the messages and experiences I've had relating to Christ, have occurred in a manner where the dots connect in a manner that is beyond my cultural influences.

I think enlightenment needs re-defining. its not like it's some far off goal. enlightenment seems to come most often to the person who gives up trying to find it and just decides to leave it into the hands of a greater power. somebody today said theres no rush.

if a person is in a rush all the time they miss out on whats to be enjoyed in the moment of time given to you, as it can be said tomorrow is not promised to us. that makes each moment precious. one way of praying is to accept you already possess what it is you hope for. therefore if one wants to be enlightened, just see it as already done. this clears the mind of all that teeth grinding action of trying to measure up to somebody else's ideals (cults, limiting type thought systems where everybody is ab libbing their own interpretations)

Faith is what builds mountains..that means you have to come out from among them and go into your closet..it's between god and yourself then. thats where true happiness originates along with sharing what you learned, without being overly enthusiastic about the sharing. we will be misunderstood always. but when you make the contact with that inner Light force all questions are answered there, not on the outside of yourself.
fellowship is good, but can entangle and mislead. thats why it's necessary for each to conclude what enlightenment is for you. Reincarnation was taken out of the bible or never was there. it does say Ye must be born again.
yet if you think about, each day I am born again, into each day. When a peaceful mind is attained it matters little about reincarnation and enlightenment and the process.

its just not a concern because the day is full of joy and peace because something is taking care of us when we give it to god.

one time I asked god what do you want me to say once I get there? I am afraid I am in lack of words.

God said, never mind. I'll tell you when you get there. just start walking.

sounds like a plan.  :)  it really is exciting to live in this century, each of us doing our small part.

May I play God for a moment and suggest a operational definition of enlightenment?

I suggest that all of us have experiences, and that through these experiences we learn, grow and develop. Enlightenment must be of this sort, although it seems to develop through state specific experiences. As one example, R's "night in heaven". Accordingly, how about this, "enlightenment is a participatory awareness of the nature of the cosmos and our place in it".

I suggest that this includes, at least potentially, all the people on the forum. Some of us readily recognize experiences that come to us, others take a little more experience to realize what's happening. But everyone seems to have roughly the same array of basic experiences.

On this basis, the issue would seem to be how easily can we generalize. Every experience is a representative of the entire universe. By inference, then, to be "fully enlightened" would amount to grasping everything as a unity in every experience.

If these are acceptable terms, then when we look at Rajneesh / Osho or whoever else - we cannot deny that they are to some degree enlightened, and thus, that they are capable of bring new awareness to others. The fact that they are playing in an area of social and personal interaction that's a bit too steamy for us is trivial. It also means that anyone through whom we acquire awareness is our guru - the term "sat-guru" (satyam = existing, being, true being) is sometimes used to define the de facto teachers in our lives.

The effective teacher may be quite different from what we expect. Many people learn about love from an unexpected pregnancy, or a bad marriage. Others learn about life through  NDEs. We may learn to love peace by being sent to war. Other examples abound. The qualifications may widely differ  amongst those from whom we receive information, but for us the issue is to understand, develop insight and awareness. A true sage will be enlightened by rocks and trees, they don't have to be brilliant to bring the message of how reality operates. And then there are people like me who require dedicated teachers who can explain things from time to time.

Now, Recoverer, I ask how we are to interpret what we get from these experiences of uncertain origination? We have no scientific proof, nor will we soon fnd one. We can do correlative comparisons, and we find that a large number of ideas seem to be reflected from very many different sources. What we have is a combination of historical and mythic information, and personal experiences which are always unique.

I'm inclined to think that the answers we seek, about God, the Universe and Everything, will come from examination of the moment, since everything reflects everything else. The issue being where we are and what we understand, rather than where it came from, how it arose, or how we arrived here. If true, then to examine the past is unlikely to lead as much farther, because the past is no longer present for us as real, but is simply part of our history.

This is not an argument, but a discursive development of ideas in which we all share.

dave

Dave, you just reminded me of a cute story I'd like to tell. this is recent history.

a friend just sent me a cartoon where two ducks are yelling at each other 'YOUR MY BEST FREIND! then the other duck is yelling back NA AHH! YOUR MY BEST FRIEND!"

well I moved recently and obtained for myself a slightly obnoxious neighbor. he began to tell me of all his wondrous psychic deeds he had performed to be of service to others. for some reason I was not too impressed but continued to listen to see if I could be of service to him in any way and it's difficult to ignore neighbors on your doorstop even and especially obnoxious ones.

A couple of times he exhibited somewhat frightening behavior; he would move close to my face and reminded me of how an evangelist works to bring a sermon of power to the people. his voice would get louder as he told of his wondrous deeds and I felt my space was invaded as his body circled the room in awe of himself he was.

I sought advice of a friend how to deal with him in nonthreatening manner. my friend, a male, told me what the man was thinking. he said he was thinking I was easy game.

not I became fortified with the truth. here comes the good part. lol.

I never get angry with people because anger doesn't serve me or them. so the next time he called upon me to tell me of his wondrous escapades I was ready. During a break in conversation just before he was ready to invade my space again, I broke in to say, you know what Sam? YOU ARE MY GUIDE!  lol. he looks at me with a dazed look in his eye and it was funny as one of his eyes is glass but you can't tell, it looks real, but for a minute his eyes looked crossed...and he shakes his head no, YOU ARE MY GUIDE ALYSIA!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/spiritvideo/Alysia/Tofunny.gif

we did this back and forth for a minute and ended up laughing. he never was obnoxious again from that moment forward.

we really are each other's teachers in that sense. love, alysia