A couple of years afo, I asked people to try the experiment of leaving their body and go read a word written on a piece of paper and lying on top of a cabinet in the same room (obviously, word written by someone else and unknown to the experimenter).

Nobody has come back to say they wer actually able to do it.

Why is that? Is it because people know for sure they would NOT be able to do so and thus would crush their beliefs/hopes...

I would REALLY love for someone to do this...

Thanks

hmmm...sounds reasonable...nyone tried it yet? :-/

Sam Parnia is doing work with this idea. He is doing his research with NDEs instead of OBE, but the approach is similar. Most OBEs from what I've learned don't take place in the physical plane so such an exercise would be futile, but there are military experiments on youtube and the like. It's a subjective experience no matter how you look at it. And suppose I told you that I had done your experiment, what then? How would you know whether I had done it and if I was successful? If you are honestly looking for proof it's out there. There are people who make their living proving or disproving things and their work is out there too. Good luck if you are looking for your proof. Parnia's research is far from conclusive, but I think he may be barking up the wrong tree anyway.

Yours,
Beau

The problem with this experiment is that what we perceive while OOB is extremely influenced by our thoughts and beliefs.  So if you try to guess what the word is before you see it, chances are you will see that word.  Also, it is very difficult to read anything while in nonphysical realms.  It is very hard to focus on writing, and the letters and words seem to constantly change.  

Snoopydoo wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2009 at 12:42pm:

I would REALLY love for someone to do this...

So... Can you?  :o

while sleeping one night,i say lottery numbers.there were 4 numbers in the 40s and 2 lower numbers.but i did not write them down.i did not rember what numbers in the 4os were,but i told the guys at work that there will be 4 numbers in the next lotto draw.sure enugh there were 4 numbers in the 40s.I could kick myself for not writing the numbers down.george.

I figured people would be coming out with the "easy-out" excuse...

If people were "able" to do it, don't you think that someone whould have already came out with this test successfully and proved to the whole world that it can be done?

I'm sure if it "could" be done, there would definitely be someone who would have gone for the million dollar challenge offered by James Randi (who could resist a sure million, right?) and WON IT!

But nobody has which brings me to the conclusion that nobody can... until proven otherwise!

Why are people on this board so afraid to give this test a shot?

I think it's because deep down inside, they know it can't be done and don't want their hopes to be shattered...

So, obviously, I am not able to do any of this and I personnally don't believe any of you can either...

Sorry to be like this today but I'm tired of all these people telling there is an afterlife and that we can really get OOB but nobody is willing to prove it to the world or to prove it to themselves by doing this so EASY test...

Snoop

There have been people who have done this.  In fact, much more conclusive verifications have been made via OBE than simply reading a word on a piece of paper.  Read Robert Monroe's Journeys Out of the Body.  

I do not try experiments like this for a couple reasons.  One, I could care less about proving my experiences to anyone.  I do not explore nonphysical dimensions for fame and fortune, I do it for personal growth and knowledge.  Most of the people I talk to about it tend to take my word for it, anyway.  

Two, when I am out of my body, the last thing I think of is doing a test.  The second I am out, the urge to explore higher levels takes over and I am off.  There are things to discover which are far more important than doing a test like this.  And like I said, even if I were to perform this test, the results will always be of a subjective nature, and therefore will usually be inconclusive.

But, I ask you... if you feel this experiment is such an important thing to do... then why don't you do it yourself?  

Snoop-

Joe McMoneagle is probably the best known and accurate Remote Viewer the military program ever produced. The CIA program Project Stargate, was run by Skip Atwater, the man who is the former Research Director at The Monroe InStitute, and his star pupil Joe is married to "Scooter" Holmes McMoneagle, and she is Bob Monroe's step daughter who was the Director of Monore Institute for 20 years or so when Bob was alive. Joe does this live on TV, has studied and conformed, and has written many books about it.

Joe cannot read numbers or letters out of body. I cannot either, though I have tried. The letters and numbers change, seemingly more the harder one tries to focus on them....

However, you can see pictures, and from this there is a system one can use, which has been successful. I have won the Fantasy Five locally, and Paul Elder ("The Eyes of an Angel" author) won millions in the California lotto. Here is how it works/worked:

A pool of target pics is selected (this is MUCH more conplicated than just picking them out because of the limitations of remote viewing), one target photo for each number. The Remote Viewer RV's himself/herself opeing an e-mail in the future with the pics corresponding to the winning numbers which is sent by the viewer's partner (the one who maintains the target pool). Powerball or Megamillions requires two target pools, one for the special ball, and one for the other numbers. This is a HUGE target pool, and it is difficult to maintain and assemble (trust me, I know).

The viewer then makes sketches of the pics he/she has viewed remotely in this future e-mail and sends them to his/her partner. The partner selects the photos from the target pool which most closely correspond with the sketches, and purchases a ticket with those numbers on it. Then the drawing happens. The partner sends the pictures corresponding to the winners to the viewer, and it is this e-mail which is viwed remotely "in the past". Both the winning number target photos and those the viewer sends (if they are different) are replaced in the target pool. This can be as many as ten target photos in a five number lottery, more with Powerball and Mega-Millions.

However, Paul got six out of six and won millions for himself and his partner and group. I won several thousands. Maintaining and changing the target pool is very time consuming. You cannot have a dog and a bear and a cow in the same pool, because remotely they all are 4 legged animals and look the same "out there" to a viewer. Same with vehicles, people and such. It is a difficult task.

Many people would say the vibration of your "Get Rich" scheme prevents it's manifestation. I do not. But then, I do not think you actually wanted to win or actually know this question has an answer, but rather to be right, and to prove to yourself that this is a bunch of crap. Believe me, it is not. I have no need to prove it to your satisfaction, but you do. Well, then, do it. I have had more confirmation in this work than even a left brain like me needs, and I say it is your fear that is holding you back. You are afraid that all of this is so. FEAR NOT! But it is so...

Love and Light, and good luck with Mega-Millions!

Thomas

Hi Snoop,

I didn't do the numbers thing but how about my experience? Can you explain the following if obe's are not real and just a sort of dream? Here it is:
Ok here is my 100 % proof that it is not all in the head! (to me anyway)
I went to TMI in Spain for a week long gateway voyage where you do 5 or 6 times a day a session for 45 min to an hour with hemi-sync.

During one of the sessions the goal was to ask for an answer to a question you had.
Well my question was " is obe real or is it all in the head ?Please give me some proof"!(by the way i didn't tell anybody about this question)

During the session i went to focus 12 and asked the question and after a while the face of the instructor (Carol Sabick) appeared before my eyes, i was a little confused what this supposed to mean but after a while said "thanks" (for the answer) and the image went away.

After the session we went for lunch and Carol said " so how did it go?" I said: " well i don't know exactly".

O she said " but you where definitely out off body because i saw you standing in my room, you had a confused look on your face and then you said:  thanks!"
She was working on the control panels,in an other room, for the hemi-sync music while she saw me out of body!!!

So the next session there was an other topic, but i thought this is amazing i am going to do that again and say:"Hi i am here again"!
But i woke up after the session and could not remember anything, so i thought ok maybey next time.

At the end off the day Carol said that she forgot to tell me but during the session after lunch she had also joined us with hemi sync. And during the hour while in an altered state she said I "popped up" before her and said" Hi i am here again"!

If something is not clear about it please let me know.

If this happened to you how would you explain it away?

Snoop,

I think you are assuming that physical senses and nonphysical senses are much the same.  In my experience they are quite different.      Nonphysical senses operate over a wide range of experience and do better with connections to things that have feelings.  Words or numbers written on paper won't provide much stimulation of nonphysical senses.  It would be easier for example to sense the kind of personality the person whose photograph youj might use instead of paper with words or numbers.  Better yet at sensing the "personality vibes" of the person whose piece of jewlery you put in that spot.

And in my opinion you would have to account for the Interpreter Overlay from each person who attempts to give you the information.

Bruce

Snoop,


Snoopydoo wrote on Apr 6^th, 2009 at 10:09am:

Sorry to be like this today but I'm tired of all these people telling there is an afterlife and that we can really get OOB but nobody is willing to prove it to the world or to prove it to themselves by doing this so EASY test...

Easy test?  Of whether or not the afterlife exists?  A piece of paper with a word or number on it?

How you come to the conclusion that no afterlife exists based on getting number off a piece of paper must be an interesting piece of logic based on interesting assumptions.

No one can prove it to you except you.  You need, in my opinion, to be the one to gather the evidence and weigh your own evidence, and prove it or not prove it to yourself.  Any other "proof" will never be trusted.

Here's a test for you . . .

You are in a room with twenty strangers.  Each person, including you, has written the name of a deceased person personally known, on a slip of paper, folded it twice and put it in a basket.

You draw a piece of paper at random from the basket  You have no way of knowing who the deceased person whose name you drew is, nor which of the other 19 people in the room wrote the deceased's name on the paper you drew.

Your task, in a mediation exercise is to visit with the deceased and get information that the person who wrote the deceased's name could verify.

Information like, favorite hobbies, physical lifetime scene that both the deceased and the person who wrote their name were in together, a favorite memory the deceased has of the writer from during their physical lifetime, etc.  Basically, specific information only the deceased and the person who wrote the name down would know.

Spend about 15 minutes in a meditation/conversation with the deceased to gather the info.  Then return from the exercise experience and make detailed notes.  Then share your notes with the person who wrote the name and see what can be verified as accurate.

Now, based on the accuracy of the information you, yourself, received from the deceased can you make some evaluation about whether or not the deceased persoon still exists?  If the only way you could have gotten the accurate information is via a conversation with a dead person, then that says something about the existence of the "dead" person after their physical death.

This is a routine occurance in every workshop.  The information only serves as evidence of communication with the deceased to the person who directly experienced gathering the evidence, and perhaps to the person who knew the deceased and verified it.

Bruce

I'm probably repeating some of what was said, but first of all, when you see something such as letters physically, photons of light reflect off of the letters seen and strike the retina of your eyes. When you're non-physical you don't have a pair of eyes so this visual process can't take place.

Physical reality makes use of building blocks known as atoms, and the subatomic particles of which they are composed. Since our organs of perception and nervous systems are made of the same building blocks, we are able to interface with other physical items quite well.  When we try to interface with physical objects non-physically, we don't have the same means of doing so.

Atom based building blocks aren't required in order for an experience to seem real. I've had non-physical experiences that seemed just as real and as clear as physical experiences. In fact, I've had non-physical experiences that seemed even more real and clear than physical experience.

I've been able to verify things I've seen non-physically, but never words.

I have received spirit messages that came in written form and was able to verify what I read later on. Of course, this isn't what snoopydo is asking about.

Perhaps it is just as unrealistic for a skeptic to expect people to prove non-physical reality by how they interact with physical reality, as it would be to expect a person to prove that electricity exists by using a means of testing that doesn't include electricity.  

Snoopydoo, I am wondering why you would have thought that the people you had asked to look for these numbers you speak about were able to go OOB at will, and to be able to observe them? Were they saying that they could go OOB? Or were you all just sort of sitting around fooling about? Of course the world was flat, until someone figured out that perhaps it just wasn't that way. Or how about air or germs. What, because they were never seen they didn't exist?
I wouldn't worry about the people here, or shattering their hopes, or crushing their beliefs. There are some who think along the same lines as you. Personally I think it better to keep your mind open instead of closed to the possibility, of possibilities. And those poor souls who so desperately feel the need to have their proof, well, they will have it soon enough. Just keep being curious. Your on the right track just perhaps on the wrong trail. At least your looking for the possibility's.

Isn't it unfair to win something such as a lotto by using something such as remote viewing? Why should everybody else invest their money if somebody else is going to use their psychic ability to cheat? When a person does so, they take money away from other people. Perhaps nothing you see is real, except for when it comes to lotto numbers.

Researchers in parapsychology have performed many lab experiments under controlled conditions to test the ability you have in mind.  Only one person has apparently succeeded--a Miss Z in an experiment run by Dr. Charles Tart.  Miss Z floated out of her body and read a random computer-selected 5-digit number posted on a shelf near the ceiling.  At the time, she was wired to measuring equipment that would have made fraud diifficult.  But it was later shown that she could have cheated by reading the numbers off a faint reflection from a clock on the wall.  In any case, she was unable to replicate this feat and replication is the foundation of experimental knowledge.  

I disagree with Dude about Robert Monroe's first book.  (1) During an OBE Monroe pinched a distant lady and the lady later showed him the red mark where she was pinched.  This interesting coincidence is not as evidential as it might seem.  People often feel pricking sensations.  Monroe does not prove that the woman's welt appeared at the same time that he was persent to her OOB.  

(2) Monroe later visited an OOB hospital where an old friend was observing a "medical" procedure.  Monroe didn't recognize his friend who was elderly at the time Monroe knew him.  But he later saw a younger picture and claimed that it was the younger version of his old friend that he had seen OOB.  But this might merely be wishful thinking based on poorly recalled similarities between the astral young man and the man in the picture.  In any case, none of Monroe's examples are remotely close to the evidential value of Miss Z's alleged feat of astrally reading specific words or identifying a computer-generated 5-digit number.   If Miss Z's feat is genuine, it raises the bar as to the clarity of perception required for an indisputable OBE claim.  Remember, all sorts of impressive ESP tests may been passed in studies of t he paranormal skills of regular dreamer who have not contacted alternate realities!

Don

Well, as Don has pointed out before, the value of "proving" afterlife existence (other than the relief it would bring to countless millions of people whose loved ones have died) is quite simple: Proof would give credibility to this whole subject and would open the floodgates to serious researchers.

Just one example: If the public knew that retrievals were real and that they were an important service for we humans to do, there would far more folks doing them.

I don't think it's especially productive to say, as Dude and others do, that no proof is needed. Maybe not for him, but not all of us have had his experiences.

Note for Bruce- The fact that I'm told something by a deceased person that I would have no other way of knowing, and then I find out that what I was told turns out to be true......that does not constitute evidence of afterlife survival.

The reason is simple- there first needs to be an ironclad "firewall" that ensures 100% that I didn't already know the information and had long since forgotten it before my contact with a deceased person occurs.

I've been to your workshop, and have heard attendees report that they were told thus and so by someone they claim they contacted.

The thing is, neither you nor we can be totally assured that what they were told was not something they had already known but had forgotten.  They can say they didn't know, and may be totally sincere in that conviction, but that doesn't rule out the possibility that the information was stored in their subconscious long before the workshop.

Wanting proof is not something we should apologize for.  After all, the Wright Brothers wanted proof that a machine could fly.  They could tell anyone who would listen that it can, but until that day at Kitty Hawk, most would not have listened.



+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I think C1 is structured so that any proof would remain a subjective experience. If the imagination is defined as imaginary which it is to most, then so be it. It's not for everyone to know. Some people learn great lessons here because they believe they have one round on C1 then out like a light. Nothing. It may actually make some better people in the long run. I'm just saying that there is good reason for no empirical proof.

Roger,

I understand your point that even "verified information" may not mean proof of an afterlife.  Explanations such as "ESP" "mindreading" and the like are always brought up.  You say you would want a firewall to know that any information gleaned was not forgotten and then remembered.

Ah, if it were only that simple.  The fact is, that we are, at our most basic level manifestations of unique points of consciousness.  At times, it appears that we may access information that is known to the universe, but that we, as earthly individuals would have no way of knowing.  Cayce called this th akashic records.  Jung wrote of a collective unconsciousness.  In Monroe/Moen speak, there may be a hall of records or information center in Focus 27.

So how do we know if an ADC is an ADC or our own consciousness accessing this vast knowledge base?  How do we know whether a medium is speaking to our departed loved one, or accessing the information without true communication via ESP or another method of information gathering?  Where is the ultimate proof?  Some would say "we just know" when its real.  A subjective experience.  

That isn't very satisfying, is it?  Yet our conscious awareness must by its very nature be subjective.  Objective reality seems to consist of a physical plane where the rules are agreed upon by a multitude of individual points of consciousness.  These appear to us as unbreakable laws while we live (gravity, laws of physics, etc.).  Our rational minds like to make these laws immutable, yet we always seem to find exceptions that bend the rules.  Although we may cite certain laws in physical space as objective, we find that our own experience is always subjective.  

Take Don's dream,  for example, in which he wrote of having a lucid conversation with a person (perhaps a deceased friend or colleague- I don't recall exactly) at an outdoor cafe, and touching their chest to see if they were real.  On awakening, he knew it was just a dream.  Yet during his dream, for all intents and purposes, to his conscious mind it was his present reality.  

I put it to you that no one can ever pass your test of infallibility for afterlife communications.  One can always conjure up other plausible explanations.  What seems clear, beyond doubt, is that those who experience direct communications from loved ones appear profoundly affected and changed by the experience.  They feel the proof, apart from the confirmatory evidence.  And nothing can convince them that it wasn't authentic.  


Matthew

Hi Matthew-

Actually you and I are in agreement with the fundamental point I was trying to make....conclusive evidence of the afterlife really cannot be provided in the sense that we want.

That's why it's misleading to refer to the retrieval accounts posted on this website as representing verification.  They really don't verify anything other than the retrievers' own conviction that a genuine contact took place.  Not only are there too many variables, but we are obligated to take the truth as perceived by the retriever as our own truth about their conclusions.

So maybe we're just hung up on semantics.  I too experienced something when I was younger that, to me, is convincing evidence that a sphere of reality exists beyond our own physical plane.  In my case (which I detailed in a post some time ago) there was even a witness who watched the entire scene unfold.

But I would never characterize that experience as representing proof of anything because it simply doesn't.

I just wish that folks would be a bit more careful before using words such as proof or evidence unless they first qualify those adjectives.  As you say, they are subjective experiences and therefore shouldn't be characterized as representing objective truths.

Sometimes I think there's some sort of protocol that ensures we humans will never have the kind of objective evidence many of us want.  

Don's story about Leonard, who saw his deceased son in law suddenly appear and actually take the wheel of his truck and drive it while Leonard was sitting next to him.....well, if I were Leonard, I would instantly stop worrying myself over whether or not we survive death.

But since I'm not Leonard, and since Leonard had no witnesses, I will always have to wonder whether the whole thing was a lucid dream or a fanciful tale.

Having said all of this, there are researchers who are attempting to use valid scientific procedures to establish evidence of afterlife existence.  Maybe some day they will succeed, maybe not.  In the meantime, at least for me, the jury is still out.

R

Quote:

Quote Roger: Sometimes I think there's some sort of protocol that ensures we humans will never have the kind of objective evidence many of us want.

Yes exactly. It's called the psi uncertainty principle. I think spontaneous psi experiences are meant to wake us up to the possibility that there is more than what we experience in the physical world. I don't think there will ever be concrete, without a shadow of doubt, scientific textbook type of proof of the existence of an afterlife. As mentioned, it can only be experienced and interpreted subjectively. We are consciousness. Everything else are metaphors used to explain experience based mostly on culture and belief.

Kathy

Okay, I'm with what these last several posts are saying, but then how does psychology work if not within the realm of subjectiveness?  I mean afterall you can't go inside someone else's consciousness or "look under the hood" with a mind.  You can look at the brain, but not the mind, if you accept my distinction.  Yet it's considered a science, isn't it?

Not trying to be a smart-youknowwhat or anything, just sincerely asking.

Snoopydoo--- this is what I saw-howver, not in my house:
A tall  bureau, mans dresser, mahogany or very dark like mahogany in color. I think 5 drawers. On the top was a folded paper with the word READ on it.   Perhaps someone on the blog did put that paper there and hoped for one of us to "see" it.  I don't know which house I'm in. ---

Now how do I prove it?  Maybe someone here place such a paper on their dresser??? cat :P

Hi Cat,

Thanks for sharing your experience with all the others.

Contrary to others, you were at least ABLE to see a WORD whereas many people seem to say that it's not possible to see a word in a non-physical reality, so they seem to be contradictory to what you've experienced.

Has anyone confirmed to you what you have seen (the word READ in the decor you described)?

Thanks

Snoopydoo

I do not consider Psychology a science. I would say it is an Art. There are no laws of Psychology that hold true for everyone and everything. I'm not saying it isn't helpful. It is therapy in the same way drawing a picture can be therapeutic. When you are dealing with the subjective realms it is an art, but there is an art to physics too, and certainly there can be a science to art but that art I find to be rather dull and predictable.

Thanks to all of you for your input on this.

I would have loved for someone to tell me their story about this experiment...

Just to let everybody know, I do often have dreams where I am fully able to read names and maps, etc. So, wouldn't someone OBE be able to read too?

No one else's proof will ever suffice in this realm. Prove or disprove it to yourself, Snoop. I've never heard of anyone in OBE reading anything that corresponded with C1, because they are not in C1 when in OBE. I'd like to hear more about your dreams in which you've read something though. What did you read? Was it of any interest to you? Do you remember it upon waking? Can you remember your waking life while you are dreaming?

I have proven to myself my own existence outside of my physical body, but once you have done so, the thrill of proving it to someone else or even of talking about it with someone else is not as great anymore. Especially to someone who isn't interested in exploring for themselves...good luck, though. Perhaps you will find someone who will gratify your request one way or the other.

If you require a more scientific example read My Big TOE by Thomas Campbell or just go to his discussion board sometime. The flavor is a little different there, but the goal is pretty much the same.

Hello Snoopydoo.

  I just read this whole topic for the first time today. I can understand, being science minded myself, your need for concrete proof that oobe and afterlife exploration is genuine and real. However, I have learned that deductive reasoning through adequate research can be conclusive enough without direct evidence and personal experience being necessary for acceptance. I consider personal experience being the proverbial icing on the cake. I haven't yet achieved a full blown, self controlled oobe yet, but I'm patiently working on it.

  Over the years (I'm 49 now), I have studied many religions, philosophies, the occult, metaphysical, new age, ufology, paranormal experiences by many authors, and modern physics discoveries confirming multiple dimensions.

   I own and have read all of Robert Monroe's books and Bruce Moen's books. I've read many posts on this website since it was first formed. Most of what I have studied has improved my understanding of the big picture, which encompasses the physical worlds (C1), the focus levels, the higher planes, the lower planes, the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and probably more that I forgot to mention.

  My personal experiences are very subjective and could possibly be reasoned away as just imagination. Combined with the knowledge obtained from many outside sources, however, this gives me an unshakeable belief in what lies both within me and beyond this physical world, which is merely a Pitstop on the Road to Eternity.

Here's something for you Snoopydoo.

http://www.my-big-toe.com/phpBB34/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2915&hilit=

I found this today and I think it addresses what you are asking for better than anything else I've read to date.

I am not afraid to try the experiment. I'm not really clear on what is expected.

I have had more than one dream in which I picked up books and was not able to read them. Or thought I was reading them, but could not remember the words when I awoke.

But I don't know if that is because it is not possible. There is no reason to think so, really. The experiment may have other less obvious benefits, anyway.

Rather than try to go out of body and read something in the same room, I could volunteer to try to read something you put in your room in a designated place. Or 'a' room, you designate. I don't know how to 'spring out of my body' like some describe. But, I believe that a 'match' can be made in a different manner. I truly believe the information will be available, and it would be interesting to be able to capture it in the form of a word or words, rather than images. The images may be impossible to stop, to help in interpretation. But, if you state that the exact word or words must be found, that is a specific condition to meet.

Please define the parameters of this experiment within what I can actually perform and I will be happy to attempt the demonstration.

If I am wrong, so what? I will have made the attempt.

Hi Moonsandjunes,

I would be happy to put a word on a peper in a room somehwere but I cannot figure out how you could come into this room and read it when you don't know where the room is???

Thanks

Snoopydoo

I should not need to know 'where' exactly the room is. What is important is to find the word. And to be able to remember it. Just let me know when you've done it.

OK, the word is on a sheet of paper on top of my desk and ready for you to see but I still can't figure out how you could find it without knowing anything about my whereabouts...

Give it a shot...

Snoopydoo

Ok, will report back tomorrow a.m. Need to meditate/sleep on it.

Words are appearing. Looking for the right one.

Thomas that was an interesting post you made.
Not quite sure I followed all the logistics. Is there a way to do it without working with someone else? or is there something crucial about getting the emails from someone else? Or if you got the number right, why would the emails even have to be sent?

Is there something crucial about having someone else pick the pics? I would probably want to do something silly, like 12 lords a leaping... 5 gold rings, etc. or something rom the other song: 12 apostles, 10 commandments, one is one and all alone...I can see how larger numbers are a problem.

But the thing about not being able to see numbers was interesting in and of itself. Does that mean the mind doesn't conceptualize quantites in RV or that the representations of the quantities aren't the same as the ones written in C1. I kept thinking of how much I would have to practice to learn a new representation...Sanskrit, Arabic (except the nummerals), Chinese, Hebrew, Russian...the symbols don't look so different within the same language until you study them. Some how your mind must go back to that state when you are RV.

Snoopydoo you shuld be the one doing the experiment to prove it to yourself.

Hello.

Snoopydoo, I was skipping down the trail of word association all night. The feelings presented were positive. I had the feeling of a 'yes' -- a positive feeling, as I have said.

But I have no confidence that I have succeeded in this experiment because all of the words which ended up on the front and back of an envelope seem to be my own exploration of the subject of 'one word' -- a subject which had plenty of content for me to go flying off into my own imagination.

So, what is the word?

I was waiting for the 'confirmation' feeling I get when I feel 'connected' and know I am in the right place. I haven't had that particular feeling (it's kind of like a settling feeling in my chest, toward the back of me), but I have had a big 'yes' feeling.

That's all for now.

To be fair, here is the 'word association' which I began. It is obvious that the subject of 'one word' led me to a personal question. Perhaps it is one which requires some thought to understand.

In order, as written, okay, all correct here as written:

God
Emmanuel
Yes
Snoopydoo
y it is that is brought (these letters were highlighted 'by themselves' in a post I read last night)
Nam
Myoho
Renge
Kyo
meet
enter
hello
good
morning
hello

The word I had written down was 'cucumber'.

Snoopydoo

Hilarious. :)

I get it.

Brief explanation, for anyone who is interested in the words derived from Sanskrit in the above list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daimoku


quote:
Namu: The word nam derives from Sanskrit. A close translation of its meaning is "to devote oneself." Nichiren established the practice of chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo as a means to enable all people to put their lives in harmony or rhythm with the law of life, or Dharma. In the original Sanskrit, nam indicates the elements of action and attitude, and refers therefore to the correct action one needs to take and the attitude one needs to develop in order to attain Buddhahood in this lifetime.

Myoho: Myoho literally means the Mystic Law, and expresses the relationship between the life inherent in the universe and the many different ways this life expresses itself. Myo refers to the very essence of life, which is "invisible" and beyond intellectual understanding. This essence always expresses itself in a tangible form (ho) that can be apprehended by the senses. Phenomena (ho) are changeable, but pervading all such phenomena is a constant reality known as myo.

Renge: Renge means lotus flower. The lotus blooms and produces seeds at the same time, and thus represents the simultaneity of cause and effect. The circumstances and quality of our individual lives are determined by the causes and effects, both good and bad, that we accumulate (through our thoughts, words and actions) at each moment. This is called our "karma." The law of cause and effect explains that we each have personal responsibility for our own destiny. We create our destiny and we can change it. The most powerful cause we can make is to chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo; the effect of Buddhahood is simultaneously created in the depths of our life and will definitely manifest in time.

The lotus flower grows and blooms in a muddy pond, and yet remains pristine and free from any defilement, symbolizing the emergence of Buddhahood from within the life of an ordinary person.

Kyo: Kyo literally means sutra, the voice or teaching of a Buddha. In this sense, it also means sound, rhythm or vibration. Also, the Chinese character for kyo originally meant the warp in a piece of woven cloth, symbolizing the continuity of life throughout past, present and future. In a broad sense, kyo conveys the concept that all things in the universe are a manifestation of the Mystic Law.

p.s. thank you, Snoopydoo, for reminding me of what remains truly important to me

http://www.sgi.org/nichiren.html
a little history on Nichiren