I have heard several times on this forum that individuals choose to be born into a physical body.  But what I don't understand is how they know what they what the life will be like?  Is the some sort of brochure that gives them a nice little overview?

Funny to me the way you put it as a brochure. Bruce has a great book out that shows some interesting answers to your question. Its called Voyages into the Afterlife, Charting Unknown Territory. I highly suggest it for you. Chapter Nine is very interesting. Its about a place/area/energy that he has named the Planning Center. You should look it up and I think you will really enjoy the read.
Joe

Thanks, unfortunately I'll get around to reading it. :-[

Greetings,

Besides Bruce's book(s), keep in mind that alot of planning goes into setting up a life.
While in the 'after'life between incarnations, we confer with others there about what we've learned and what we still want to experience.
Also, I believe (but some others disagree) that we get some experiences added to our gameplan, just to keep events rolling and to fill in weaknesses we have that we might not be conscious of.

Life is expected to be wonderful when we stick with the plan, as I understand it  :)

Bets

Hi Inventech. I guess that's a big topic there's varying views about.

The Monroe/Moen view talks as Bets says about life planning and so on, that we have a fair degree of choice in choosing lives.

On the other hand Buddhism and ACIM tend to regard the cycle of birth and death as something fundamentally we dream up as a result of a mistaken view of reality - one that if we are to achieve happiness must be transcended.

Buddhism talks of only the realised having the choice of whether or not to be reborn. Tibetan Buddhism in the  Bardo teachings talks in terms of karma and our state of realisation determining the desirability of the circumstances into which we are reborn - positing that these include not just various worldly scenarios (influenced by health, life circumstances, parents, our own ego nature and so on) but also other realms ranging from hellish to heavenly with the world somewhere in between.

The world is seen as ideal to spiritual progress - tough enough that we don't get lost in indulgence as in the heavenly worlds, yet not so tough that we are necessarily driven to bestial behaviours to survive. Not to mention that access to spiritual teachings is possible here too.

The Bardo teachings do say that provided we're not possessed of too negative a karma, and can maintain some equanimity in the afterlife (not get sucked by fear or desire into heading in the wrong directions) that (while not being able to avoid rebirth) we can to a fair degree influence our being born into favourable circumstances, and that that as well as everything else will allow us to progress spiritually.

Buddhism is very clear about just how nasty a hand karma can deal in the form of an unfavourable rebirth - most of us have been relatively lucky, but just think how bad it can be with illness, poverty, lack of education, uncaring parents, war and so on.

Karma too can its said ripen unpredictably - a very nasty life can follow a pleasant one. This is regarded as the major incentive for serious spiritual work in 'this very life' - the next may not present such opportunity for progress.

I'm a little unsure how to reconcile the two views, but think that maybe it's just that the Moen/Monroe view is perhaps more applicable to those of reasonable accomplishment - they don't after all deny that there are many beings that are weighed down by negative and egotistical conditioning that are drawn into negative forms of existence.

Bruce?

The Buddhist view I suspect is (a) more generalised as to the full range of possibilities, (b) perhaps reflects certain cultural/historical attitudes, (c) is packaged in a form that's more readily understandable and (d) perhaps is pitched like the teachings of most institutional religions a little in a direction to encourage commitment.

On the other hand there seems to be every reason to think that what happens in the afterlife is a reflection of our deepest beliefs, and that while in our current society we're predisposed towards a 'nicey nicey' view that what we experience in the end will be of our own making. No more, no less...

ACIM is, as I see it perfectly aligning with Monroe/Moen schools of thought in regards, Monroe accounts for an addictive type of wheel we get on to experience physical life. once on the wheel, u r committed to completing the cycles. Eastern thought, or Buddhism has many correlating factors to bring the west closer to the east, just as new age thought sprang from the cauldron of ancient civilizations, as well as the Bardo, it all fits together in a paradigm like pieces of a well fitting puzzle.

As I see it, this addiction to ELS, is where it can seem the soul is being recycled into it's lives against it's own will.
against it's own will, in one sense means (again, I am just thinking)
in one sense means a veil of forgetfulness has been placed over the ego as to it's beginnings, in order to assume "a different" life, w/yet another intention to unfold and develop itself.

to work out the kinks whereby, Ian calls this karma. In essence, what i consider karma is so much more than payback time, but rather a cooperative measure with others.
and the karma can be seen as the intentions for coming in here, we assume, self realization, a thing greatly feared as it means to let loose of our attachments here, and we consider these attachments to be something we ourselves created, and have that ego pride in that, as to say, we did this, so we are these magnificent god beings for awhile, and that too is ego, but not full enlightenment, and shows the attachments are the meaning we place on ELS, to identify with ELS, but not necessarily with God nor high morality.

to achieve enlightenment means the ego's fun time is over, all the addictions to ELS which get generated over many lifetimes, construed as karma, have been satisfied. yet the fun is over, the joy of being free is not welcomed by society, nor understood. to become enlightened is necessarily a lonely walk, as must have been for JC and other like masters.

Monroe in one of his out of body explorations saw a line of curls getting ready to dive back in, and the requirement was to undergo a memory wipe out program.
This is the same thing ACIM says, when it admonishes us to remember who we are. for we have forgotten.
This who we are, I am fond of remembering I am PUL. For saying this, they will kill you if "they" are in a bad mood.

lol. by the time you remember you are this PUL thing, which is pure life force also, it doesn't matter if they kill you because by that time you are anxious to return to the starting point anyway, because remembering who you are, you remember it was wonderful being in that place of love essence.
Love is the only truth of our beings. as think about it, you are not going to take your degrees, your objects, nothing physically earned is going with you when you leave.
there are many who know and love us on the other side, and they are among those who helped you or me plan the journey, as nothing can be planned without others agreeing to be in your life as well.

I think we all struggle with the remembering part and not too long ago people called it "I have to find myself."
Make my mark. etc. or fortune. these were the original plans for that soul.
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The Monroe/Moen view talks about life planning and so on, that we have a fair degree of choice in choosing lives.
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the way I see this, it's clearly arguable, unless you can see a "higher self" as well as a lower self operating here, just until high merges with low. I viewed higher self, in an obe,  conceiving HS had plans of which I became privy to.  gradually the HS and lower self over the years begin to express as one thing. In the Course language, the lower self is construed to be the ego, with it's necessary interests of serving it's self at first, and needing corrected vision as it goes along searching for it's identity.
the higher self can be seen as Christ mind, or identified as the Holy Spirit, the One who is privy to the whole plan and pulls the puppet strings of the ego. (things that we consider are going wrong, are actually part of the intentions of the soul, in that regard. ie:ACIM says the journey is already done. it refers to linear time as an illusion we labor under.   If you've remembered Home, it can be like a nightmare to come back here unless fortitude, or inspiration can be received by asking for it.
the idea is born it's a mistake here. It's only a mistake in the sense you can't remember the Oneness, that went before the journey, or of the time you knew who you are in an expanded sense. it's referred to in the Course as "a tiny mad idea, we could break off from God, and be somehow different, or what would happen if I do this? a sense of curiosity.
that's why I like Bruce's vision of Curiosity. it jives with ACIM teachings. Curiosity is not negative to experience, yet you've all heard that curiosity killed the cat. in a certain sense we can see we might have been willing to experience what it's like to die. In order to die, we would have to forget we are immortal. J says in the Course it was a tiny mad idea with far reaching consequences; I take this to mean the wheel which is hard to get off without diligently studying how to exactly within a spiritual pathway of your choosing. To an ascended master, we are all mad, because we "know not what we do."
It makes perfect sense to me everything said in ACIM because he would have known the peace of God before any of us achieved that, and knowing what he knew, he was forever taken off the mad wheel of reincarnating, thru his will, which was one with his Father. I once was lost but now am found, is a wonderful explanation of how it will be for every soul I believe, in it's own time.
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On the other hand Buddhism and ACIM tend to regard the cycle of birth and death as something fundamentally we dream up as a result of a mistaken view of reality - one that if we are to achieve happiness must be transcended.
_____
ACIM puts the responsibility not on God to wake us up but our own self responsibility, seeing as we made the dream real by believing it it. it's better if the job is ours to do, as that way we're not relying on God to undo our mistakes for us. as God only recognizes our perfection, not that we have achieved the separation that God does not give credence to, as God is Love. If a human loves another person here, we wish to not be separate from that person. To say, if God were a person who had children, he would not want to be separated from his children.
and so we try to understand God, what he is.
We need to look more upon ascended masters before we can understand what a God being is exactly.

Atheists demonstrate this separation from god concept by vocalizing against god. This is seen by J in ACIM as an attack on truth, which truth he does equate with whom he called the Father. the ego is seen as responsible for all forms of viciousness and attack, the uncorrected ego, that is. at the same time, we are shown all egos are capable of viciousness if pushed far enough and in one life or another.

this way we can't go around saying there are some worse than others if we agree, crimes of passion we all would engage in if forced to and out of 800 lives or so, everyone is going to experience some form of violence, whether perpetrator or victim wise, as in that role, always within agreement with each other on unremembered levels.

Is it a mistake? all anger is unjustified according to ACIM. I am in agreement. corrected perception is the first step. but knowledge is a ways off from corrected perception.
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I learned a lot from Bruce's books regarding perception and interpretation functions of the mind.
which line up perfectly with ACIM's instructions. as does Monroe's explorations, point to C1 as limited awareness.
_____
Buddhism talks of only the realised having the choice of whether or not to be reborn.
________
self realization is the same as discovering who and what you are. Read Bruces books regarding how he set off to discover who he was.
I'm aware, in my personal life, I will have a choice. I do not want to live within a mostly unenlightened society again, it seems my HS was eager to be in a time of great changes taking place and to be a part of that, which I believe we may end up seeing some remarkable changes here shortly.
_____
Tibetan Buddhism in the  Bardo teachings talks in terms of karma and our state of realisation determining the desirability of the circumstances into which we are reborn - positing that these include not just various worldly scenarios (influenced by health, life circumstances, parents, our own ego nature and so on) but also other realms ranging from hellish to heavenly with the world somewhere in between.
______
I believe it's even possible to choose, from HS standpoint the life of a retarded person, etc. all manner of circumstances, from a king to a pauper, all these lives are in the wheel somewhere until they are all experienced, if need be. The oneness concept realized is that the retarded child is teaching the parents about how to love it despite they see it as a handicap at first. many retarded souls can be very highly evolved souls who sacrificed themselves for the parents progress. because, as I see only love is real, is eternal, is who we are in essence. I once had a strange experience in a supermarket with a retarded girl. she mentally told me we were both from the heaven worlds garbed in separated clothing. the love coming from her eyes was making it hard for me to concentrate on my task of putting my groceries on the counter. we had to stop and commune spiritually.

I even remember looking over my shoulder to make sure it was me and not someone else she mentally talked to. yup. it was me. I felt such honor to meet her and I'll never forget the love she exploded in me. I learned to not be fooled by appearances here.
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The world is seen as ideal to spiritual progress - tough enough that we don't get lost in indulgence as in the heavenly worlds, yet not so tough that we are necessarily driven to bestial behaviours to survive. Not to mention that access to spiritual teachings is possible here too.
___
to add to your thought the world is also seen as a grand experiment in some factions. it's the free will idea, while ACIM goes one step further to help us generate peace in the world; ACIM continually reminds us the journey is already done and it has been successful; inferring it cannot really be an experiment taking place. it can be an experiment only if we look for ways to choose to be separately invested egos.
J is talking about what he did here. he has proven death is an illusion, therefore we are in a dream. a dream is not reality, yet neither is physical reality, the real truth of our essence.
______
The Bardo teachings do say that provided we're not possessed of too negative a karma, and can maintain some equanimity in the afterlife (not get sucked by fear or desire into heading in the wrong directions) that (while not being able to avoid rebirth) we can to a fair degree influence our being born into favorable circumstances, and that that as well as everything else will allow us to progress spiritually.
____
here on this site we speak of how we are building our afterlife right this moment by what we choose to believe. that the believing is the seeing, and also the seeing is the manifestation of the believing.
we are in the end, not able to escape the position of being co-creators with God. and we are also able to create locales where god becomes non-existent. or hellish places, requiring aide from retrievers. when I say building our afterlife, I include being recycled into ELS until full enlightenment is realized. or remembering who we are.
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Buddhism is very clear about just how nasty a hand karma can deal in the form of an unfavorable rebirth - most of us have been relatively lucky
____
arguable point Ian. especially as you read further, ACIM does not consider luck as having anything to do with anything, it's a concept we invented to explain something we still find mysterious. a duality world where Murphy's law seems to be in force. but I'm not debating with you, I'm just sharing what I learned from ACIM and observing some of those unfavorable circumstances, which were only unfavorable during the moment of the experience..in hindsight perfection was revealed.
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but just think how bad it can be with illness, poverty, lack of education, uncaring parents, war and so on.
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yes, I felt bad as I had no shoes, then I met a man with no feet.
we need to develop compassion here on ELS. we have not done so as a whole but the time is coming, we will see this happen.
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Karma too can its said ripen unpredictably - a very nasty life can follow a pleasant one. This is regarded as the major incentive for serious spiritual work in 'this very life' - the next may not present such opportunity for progress.
___
I hear u saying, don't waste a moment in idleness of thought. I agree but I don't believe in chance factor, nor sequential lives, rather they are all happening in one simultaneous vast expanse of exploding proportion, while the little dreaming mind perceives the measured rising and falling of the sun and moon, planets, etc. it's our backdrop for dreaming.
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I'm a little unsure how to reconcile the two views, but think that maybe it's just that the Moen/Monroe view is perhaps more applicable to those of reasonable accomplishment - they don't after all deny that there are many beings that are weighed down by negative and egotistical conditioning that are drawn into negative forms of existence.
____
as I see it the oversoul has everything under control, except for the new consciousness, whether it will develop it's will sufficiently to realize there is a choice, which master to serve; the ego, or the HS. I don't think any of us have it smooth here, although I was told I did once have a rather smooth life, and found it incredibly unchallenging for all it's enjoyment, so the thing to keep in mind is that plans are continually re-drawn according to the development of free will, as apparently here in ELS, we may carve the rules into stone, only to change our minds and make new rules, just to see what that is like..it's part of the creative urge to be here, and also part of the creative urge to get the hell out! lol. the key is cooperating which each other to get maximum velocity towards self realization and gain the choice factor upon transition. to be, or not to be...hmm. it was always the QUESTION!  who said that- Plato?
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The Buddhist view I suspect is (a) more generalised as to the full range of possibilities, (b) perhaps reflects certain cultural/historical attitudes, (c) is packaged in a form that's more readily understandable and (d) perhaps is pitched like the teachings of most institutional religions a little in a direction to encourage commitment.
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I would, if I had time take more interest in Buddism, as it is right up my ally. However, the obes and similar explorations I've undergone is what led me to study Monroe, where I found less dry, generalized accounts..I always navigated to personal stories for my type of development. as I did find in ACIM, an identifiable person, the historical figure of J, whom I thought I remembered, I had walked with him, or someone in my groupsoul had known how he talked, and in ACIM I found that same voice I could relate to it very well. actually my body was involved with the messages, especially the crown chakra.
I'm the only one Ive been able to find who experienced the Course in a physical way.
_____
On the other hand there seems to be every reason to think that what happens in the afterlife is a reflection of our deepest beliefs, and that while in our current society we're predisposed towards a 'nicey nicey' view that what we experience in the end will be of our own making. No more, no less...
____
I think personally it will be in the afterlife much more than we can imagine right now, but more of an "oh, I'm awake, I was sleeping, now I'm awake. or we could see life as swimming underwater. then coming up and walking on land once more,  to say it's a different sensation to walk, then to swim.
I think i about gabbed myself out of breath...
hope this is a helpful sharing...

:) Thanks Alysia, good stuff.

One thing that strikes one about this sort of territory is that the questions are so big, and the answers potentially so varied and yet with hugely profound implications for the meaning of life.

Do we for example find ourselves existing as apparently separate individuals with a definite role to play in this cycle of birth and death as a part of the divine plan in a divinely created universe, or is it more a case that we're stuck in a not very attractive and not very real or important but apparent reality that requires the assistance of Spirit if we are to awaken from the dream?

This variety is reflected in the variety of views held by the traditions too.

Or are all possibilities simultaneously true?

I guess that short of already having a hotline to higher knowledge that it's in the end it's a case of avoiding getting stuck in belief systems by adopting fairly lightly held views, and not getting attached to them.

We need some sort of working hypothesis appropriate to our stage of spiritual development to inform our view and behaviours, and so end up more or less intuitively betting on one square or another - but on the other hand  it's almost certain that whatever our understanding is that it will eventually prove to be at best limited.....

I know, the questions cannot be answered if they are too big. only in as you say, those meditations.  do we exist as separate individuals, here, I'd say it appears so. there, we have more obvious connections than here. this my opinion based on obes. and meditation.

do we have definite role in this cycle of birth and death? my opinion from reading my chosen books and intuition is that question depends on what root race you came in on. root races have nothing to do with the color of skin, but rather as I see huge clouds of individual sparks incarnate into the same planet areas for certain events to participate in. they too are in their unique cycles.
I don't know about a divinely created universe, just this world, and the astral layers and focus levels of consciousness is what we may want to concentrate on, and this world cannot be called divine, nor created by a god that we've never met.
my theory is based on god is love. which is a state of consciousness that is that love itself enlightens the being.
as you know, ACIM says we as egos made this world, therefore it should not be confused, divine with the ego.
I do believe we all require assistance to awaken from the dream, it's part of the PUL thing we talk about here.
and in ACIM you will discover that we cannot forgive those who trespass against us, not without help from HS.

Yet we shouldn't make it complicated. HS has been placed in our mind. Hs is divine. our success is assured to hear this voice. it's there if you can quiet the ego voice down long enough, through meditation. I know you meditate.

I like your question are all possibilities simultaneously true? Is it's a yes or no question, I'd say yes.
because you can look at a duality based world in two ways.
if everyone is in their own world, thinking their own thoughts, thinking they are separated beings from everyone else, it's their reality. if it's their reality, it's true..for them.
It may not be true for you, thankfully, as here, you wouldn't want to be involved in certain people's reality of their own making. yet just because we don't participate in their world, we participate in our own, doesn't mean the possibilities they hold are not true, and that our own is true only.
this just another way of saying, like Monroe said, there is no bad, there is no good, everything is happening at once in a multitude of universes that we cannot fathom the infinity of it all.

too much intellectualizing goes on here frequently, and I'm as guilty of it as anybody else. then we can fall back on simplicity in that case. for instance, why bother posting here?
we can conclude because we want community.
what is community? it's a coming together of the likeminded.
what is the feeling? if it's love, we're probably in the right place.
I'm all for not getting attached to any belief system, person, place or thing. In that respect I am a Buddhist.
however the one thing I cannot detach from is feeling PUL.

I've been feeling PUL here for 8 years. but it is certainly difficult to intellectualize that!

I highly recommend Bruce's 5 books (talking to anybody new here) for further talk about PUL.
fondly, alysia