http://www.victorzammit.com/week8/


COMMENTARY: BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL WHAT YOU DO ON EARTH!

Francesco Coll then based in Washington D.C. of The Inner Peace Movement (IPM) in 1990 taught me a great deal about the paranormal. What he taught me was enough to convince me absolutely that the afterlife exists. The people at IPM were the ones who started me on a path of development that led me to become ‘clairaudient.’ Since that time I’ve had many contacts from the afterlife dimension, including my parents and others. Usually they come through either to express love, thanks or ask for forgiveness. These contacts are always spontaneous, unsought and always personal- I am not able to do this for others. It's as if I have been given just enough to know that it is real.

Recently a person I had known well came through from the afterlife seeking forgiveness. He confessed that while alive he had tried to do harm to me, motivated by professional jealousy. While alive he had status and position and had lived a life of luxury in an upper middle class area, driving a high status car. I was able to forgive him, as I can forgive anyone, no matter what they did, because I am fully aware that the Law of Cause and Effect will make them pay a price for their actions. But among other things, I asked him to describe the environment where he is now in the afterlife. He said:
“I live in a horrible slum, a squalid dark area … dirty buildings, dirty everything.” This is consistent with the transmissions of former Catholic Monsignor, Hugh Benson, through the medium Anthony Borgia. He claimed that those who were selfish – never did anything for anyone - will be living in a dark slum and squalid area in the afterlife even if they never did harm to anyone. We here on Earth have been warned!

Hello Alan:

I was searching for an article at the www.near-death.com site, and found that your NDE is there.

http://www.near-death.com/forum/coma/000/01.html

I was looking for the below article. I have the book. It has more extensive information than the attached article. Generally I'm not into channeled information, but I like Margaret Tweddell's book. Don might find it interesting, eventhough he's not into channeled information. A spirit didn't speak through Margaret's body. Just sent messages.

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/paranormal08.html

The reason I refer to this article, is because it says something similar to what you said. See the below.

"There is no sudden metamorphosis from an idle person into an active person, from a nonreligious person into a religious person, from a money-centered person into a God-centered person. This is not an automatic thing. Your personality -  your likes and dislikes, your hopes, your fears - are still attached to you, although in a more nebulous form than when you are on Earth in a physical body.

I see people come over. They arrive and have high hopes that everything is going to be different for them.  However, nothing can be different for them because they have brought with them what they are. There is so much harmony here, and if they have brought a disharmonious personality with them, they find it very difficult to link in with the harmonious existence that we have. This is something that grieves me when I see it.

It is not true, as some people think, that if we only give verbal assent to belief in God, well, that's fine - that is our passport to heaven and everything will be all right. What we have to remember is that Jesus showed us the path by which it will be all right. He doesn't say, "It's all right, brother, come along in. Sit down now and relax and do nothing." He says, "It's all right. You are on my way. There are a lot of stones in it, but you are on my way. If you ask me, I'll help you over the stones."  The old teachings that "as you strive, so you'll be helped" are right. The Lord helps those who help themselves.

If you truly try to follow the laws of the Kingdom which the Lord has revealed, and ask for his help, he will aid you in becoming a whole person. As I see it from here, there is a rod of light - a pulsating power, the vital force of the Holy Spirit - right down through you. It is the self-centeredness of the personality which erects blocks and disturbances which make it impossible for the Holy Spirit to function through you. If you ask for help from the great physician, the Lord Jesus, he will help you to unlock the inner, healing power of the Holy Spirit which is within you so that it can be diffused and can spread throughout your being. The Lord will help you to achieve the attunement, the shalom, the peace, the wholeness which is heaven."

I suspect the issue in the afterlife is that we end up where deep down we feel we deserve to be.

It becomes even more likely than in life because if Buddhist teaching is correct (and it's pretty reliable in my experience) the ego is in the afterlife/bardos separated from the higher self so that we get a view of what we truly have been (and mistakenly think we are) stripped of all the self delusion we usually cover it up with.

The resulting guilt, and very likely resulting fear (Buddhist tradition talks of the negative aspects of our mind later manifesting from this separated ego and our perceiving it as demons or hostile entities) lead to our creating a 'reality' that reflects what we feel we deserve. (easily done in that much more plastic reality)

It eventually may lead to our being driven into an unfortunate rebirth in our frantic attempts to escape from what we fear....

This is karma in action in the afterlife: IF we have with the help of Grace/higher mind developed sufficient equanimity in life through meditation,  spiritual work and plain old life experience it's possible we may be able to muster enough detachment to avoid identifying with these horrors - and thus avoid being driven into a nasty rebirth.

On the other hand a person that has spent their life indulging their ego passions inevitably identifies with what they perceive, does not have the higher knowing to see that it's unreal, and does not have the equanimity to avoid getting sucked in.

Likewise a person with a mind where much of the ego has been dissipated will create much less by way of these sorts of fear inspiring manifestations.

If we can (as ACIM) terms it truly forgive ourself - cease to believe that we are guilty, know that we are 100% loved by God - then we can choose to take anything that manifests as being unreal, and can respond to it with love  - with the result that it can gain no traction and will with perceived time fade away...

This is all very interesting but I'm not sure it clarifies things for me.

If you create your own reality, then manifesting a life of luxury in C1 must reflect that you believe you deserve it. To go on to live in a slum after you die seems a little strange.

On the other hand, if somehow you are manifesting luxury because you are afraid you DON'T deserve it in C1 and you are trying to prove to yourself that you do, then maybe it makes sense if you end up in a slum on the other side.

It seems to me that there is some more subtle lesson about how conciousness works hidden in these stories.

(Alan, your moral does remind me of something I once read; that the Golden Rule uses the verb "do" in the active sense, where other statements of that rule are passive and involve avoiding harming someone else; and though Christians who take the "do" part a little too literally can be rather obnoxious and harm their own cause, or even harm others, being active about doing good might be ...significant. Especially when you recall we are all supposed to be interconnected).

Vajra you were posting while I was and I missed your comment. Interesting indeed. I certainly find the path of your last paragraph to be challenging. Some "if's" are bigger than others.

Of course we all want to be able to detach when we are in pain. I suppose being able to detach when in luxury is also a big challenge. Wonder if that is why Don Juan had to show up dressed in a fancy suit in one of Castaneda's books; maybe he was practicing detahment.

It's just one view Lucy. But if you go with it as a model then a lot depends on what stage of the afterlife is involved.

It's taught that shortly after life we create from much the same urges as we did in life. If we liked fishing, we might create a fishing hut, and so on. If we wanted a hareem we might create one full of houris, or make ourselves very rich, or whatever. Or we might set ourself up as a robber baron in a dog eat dog reality.

It's only subsequently when (i think the way its described says) the winds of karma start to blow and dissolution starts that the ego splits away from the composite (of higher and lower/misled selves and spirit) we think of ourselves more truly.

When that happens, and we're genuinely faced with both what we are and have been, and the guilt kicks in it makes sense that we might be inclined to create very differently - to feel that we only deserve pretty rough circumstances.

It seems like it may be a lot to do with stage - some  it seems are for example so fearful and so attached to earth life that it can take a very long time for them to move on even to the free creation stage.

The million dollar question for me regarding the afterlife travel reported here, and by the likes of Robert Monroe is that of whether or not it's possible to get past a certain point in the bardos, or to access realities created by minds very different to ourselves. e.g. if you believe firmly in benign realities then that's what you create, but what if vice versa is true.....

Alan et al-

Yes, we create our own reality, not by what we "want" or believe, but by what we are and what we do.

Just because a terrorist wants to be serviced by 72 virgins, or believes that will happen when he dies, that doesn't mean it will take place.

Instead, just like Max in one of Bruce's books, he will find himself in a place populated by other souls who think the same way he does.  He'll look in vain for those 72 hotties.

So creating your own reality doesn't mean we will get what we want, it means our afterlife reality will be consistent with what our true essence really is.

And yes Lucy, you are 100% correct when pointing out the important of doing.  Not in the sense of promoting a particular religious dogma, but by doing what is right and what flows from a righteous heart.

In other words, a person who thinks he/she will be rewarded by going to church each Sunday is missing the point unless he/she also has a heartfelt love of the Lord.  That's far more important than adhering to the dogma of a particular religion.

Similarly, a person who gives to the poor but who does so in hope of having a good afterlife existence without any real concern/love for others will probably be disappointed.

The description Alan's friend gave of the squalid slum in which he found himself is exactly the same as what Swedenborg found when he explored the afterlife.

The real point of our lives is to be aware that we are all in a constant, daily struggle to do the right things and most importantly in building and sustaining a good inner character.

Do those and you'll be fine.

R

I basically believe that if we didn't live our life in this World in a positive way, we'll end up in a realm that matches our overall state of mind, and stay in such a realm until we decide to change our way.

Changing our way might take some work, and will require us to be honest about how we affected others.

Albert-

Yes, I think you are correct.  Changing our ways is important, as long as we recognize that it's not just what we do that counts.

It's like an unruly kid who finally agrees to do his chores after constant cajoling by his parents.  If he carries out those chores full of resentment, and doesn't change his basic mindset, it's not all that helpful.

Character counts.

R

A lot of harm is created by overly simplistic interpretations of the afterlife attraction principle, like attracts like.  One must ask about the precise nature of the attracting energies.  In my view, the Monroe-Moen concept of BSTs has some merit, but is misleading.  More basic is the purity of one's core desires; but these desires are an amalgam of both conscious and unconscious longings.  For many, these unconscious longings mask well-defended selfish agendas and attitudes of which we are unaware.  For example, some form of confession of sins is essential to spiritual progress, but many Christians in effect plea-bargain with God; that is, they confess "respectable sins" like pride and self-absorption to avoid focusing on shortcomings and weaknesses that create their UNIQUE barriers to spiritual progress.  In short, inadequate self-knowledge is a major obstacle to a more advanced postmortem fate.  For this reason, the right kind of meditation is crucial to spiritual advancement.  Meditation must include a willingness to hear the inner truth about subtle attitudes that permanently negate progress towards pure unconditional love (PUL).  PUL is more than a virtue occasionally displayed; it is a core desire that becomes the essence of one's personality.  One should meditate on possible reasons why Swedenborg found several self-deluded bishops trapped in hellish planes and on the relevance of this tragedy for other naive seekers!

Jesus' restatement of the like attracts like principle is very important: "You will be judged by the same judgments you pronounce, and the measure [= standards] you dish out will determine the measure that is dished out to you (Matthew 7:2)."  My core desires create the lens through which I view others.  To the degree that my core desires are self-serving, I make unconscious judgments about who supports and retards my goals and agendas.  In the afterlife, this pattern of judgments will attract other spirits to my plane who display a similar pattern.  Also, the various ways I unconsciously measure the worth, beauty, and usefulness of others will attract to my plane others who measure me in the same ways.  Personal beliefs are merely one piece of the puzzle of our postmorten fate. 

This brings me to the heart of the Christian Gospel.   The true Christian views herself as the unworthy recipient of Christ's limitless grace and relates to others out of a sense of privilege rather than mechanical duty.  The resulting pure unconditional love and acceptance creates a high vibration harmony which produces the true  heavens.  It is not so much the identity of Jesus as the essence of His unique PUL vibration that makes Him a Savior.  Put differently, it is not moral rules, but the underlying laws of consciousness from which they are inferred that are decisive to spiritual progress.   This is true because these laws of consciousness create potential for life at an optimal quality of high vibration and harmony.

Don   

That's a nice thread, and nice too to see so much broad concensus expressed in differing language.

It's worth echoing what you said Rondele and Don about the difference between thinking an being. It's the 'being' that matters. Some use the term 'beliefs' to say the same thing - meaning in that case very deeply held behaviour determining orientations not necessarily expressed or known rather than superficial thoughts.

For sure as you say Lucy it's very challenging territory. We're so instinctively inclined and culturally conditioned to believe that it's what we think and decide that matters, when the reality of what we are is normally very different. It sets up what is the whole point of the spiritual task, and of meditation - that of becoming something quite different. When you don't even know what this is, when it's simply not possible to address this task intellectually. Properly done Spiritual work just creates conditions where Spirit, Higher mind, true nature of mind or whatever can get through to us past the clamour of thinking mind and be heard - the rest is down to Grace/Spirit and the Christ energy working through us. The change happens mostly unconsciously.

Your point about Christ identity versus the energy he represented is a very nice case in point Don - you could say that his role was to ground the pure love based energy or vibration in the world, to show there is no other truth, and to illustrate an embodiment of what we all eventually will become. He was a specific physical individual, but that's not the point......

Alan McDougall,
"We here on Earth have been warned!"

The writer talks about professional jealousy, then goes on to describe his own jealousy. A fair warning to him is that the spirit could care less about a fancy car, though the body does. Another fair warning is that some spirits carry body concepts such as living in dirty houses with them to the astral. If he had been help-pul he could have described the different areas of the astral to him, like focus 27. Sometimes spirits are in the lower regions because they dont't know about other areas.

To forgive someone because they will pay a price for their actions shows he's selfish and not as holy as he perhaps would like to be. It'd be ironic if he ended up renting a room in the dirty, dark and squalid area.

Pardon my coming in again Volu and Alan. Forgiveness is funny business.

One way of looking at it is that when you forgive in the normal or traditional sense you actually make the original transgression real in the mind of yourself, and of the other person. With the result that you have created something in both of you which now has to be released.

Yet most of us have been taught to approach it in these terms.

A higher view might be to recognise that since nothing ego made is real or can damage us (in the absolute sense), that true forgiveness is more about recognising that whatever wrong it was simply never happened, that as a result the issues of guilt or blame don't arise, and that consequently the apparent offender is innocent...

Most of us struggle to forgive - because having been led by ego to identify with the physical body and this reality we just cannot raise our view enough to see this truth.

We instead out of an ego inspired fear of damage to the body and our situation in the world (which are as unreal as the perceived wrong - but ego causes us to identify with them) believe that a wrong actually occurred.

Yet in truth (from the non dual perspective of Spirit) 'it never happened'....

Don-

Beautifully put.

One of my major questions about what Swedenborg said relates to the importance of our inner, core makeup.  Specifically, it is not clear whether this core character is a condition of birth or whether it can be changed via our own efforts.  ES did make it clear that it cannot be changed once we enter the afterlife.

Here is a pertinent quote:

"Everything about us comes from the primary tendency of our life......If we are good we make our heaven according to it, and if we are bad we make our hell according to it.  It is our basic motivation, our personality, and our character, since it is the reality of our life.  It cannot be changed after death because it is our essential self." 
From Heavenly Doctrine S57

If it's our "primary tendency", how do we change it?  You recommended meditation to gain self-knowledge.

My question would be, once we gain that knowledge, and once we recognize our unconscious inner longings, how do we go about changing them? 

Btw, it's no mystery re. the bishops ES wrote about.  They were hypocrites.  They preached one way of life and behavior, but didn't live their own lives accordingly.

R

I don't agree with Swedenborg's premise that our basic nature can't be changed once we join the afterlife.

If the influences in this World are set up so that many souls afterwards end up in a lower realm for all of eternity, why in the World would souls take the chance of incarnating into lives that have negative influences?

Knowing about the value of living according to love isn't an automatic thing while we are here in this World.  My strong belief and feeling is that if a person/soul knew what it meant to live according to love, there is no way he or she would choose darkness over light. To say that they would do such a thing, is to say that darkness actually has more to offer than the light, because why would a person choose the darkness if he or she truly knew better?

I believe that we have freewill, but related to what I said above, we have to learn to make use of our free will.

When a soul gets to the point where it truly lives according to love, there is no way it will be able to feel completely content in a heavenly realm, if it understood that other souls abide in a lower realm. You might as well ask a mother to forget about a lost child. The father in Jesus' prodigal son story certainly didn't forget about his child.

There are sources of information that do not support Swedenborg's claim. Going by my experiences and the messages I received, many souls find their way out of a lower realm.

This World is filled with negative influences. To suggest that a person can't be influenced by them, is the same as suggesting that a person can't be affected by positive influences. If positive influences have no affect, why would people bother with trying to influence other people in a positive way?

A child: "Daddy, don't tell me the moral of the story--it isn't possible to influence me one way or the other. I am as I am, because this is how I was created, and there is nothing that can be done about it."

or,

A child: "Thank you for teaching me Dad."

Hi Roger,

Don will have to correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Swedenborg meant that we cannot progress after we die.  My understanding of the quote you provided is that presumably we come into this life to learn to grow our inner core being towards that of PUL (or otherwise) and what we are... what our inner core being is at the time of our death reflects the progress we made during our lifetime. The phrase "It cannot be changed after death because it is our essential self." simply means what we have become is what we are at the time of death.

It is intent that moves consciousness in its evolution. If the intent that motivates us in all of our everyday decisions is loving, this will change the core of our being toward PUL. I believe Don is saying the same thing using the word desire.

Good thread and posts guys :-)

Kathy

Albert-

Kathy is right, Swedenborg did not mean that we can't progress after we die.  He never said we end up in lower realms for all of eternity.

His main emphasis was how essential it is to hone and shape our inner character (our "essence") while in this life.  Because those things that we love determine where we end up after death.

If we are attracted to those things that do not contribute to improving our core essence, the law of attraction will ensure that we will find ourselves with others of similar inner characters.

Don says "more basic is the purity of one's core desires."  That is what we need to strive for in this life, per ES.

Having said that, however, I am still perplexed as to how we can actually change our core essence.  Yes, we can do good things and show compassion to others, but as Don says, there are also unconscious desires (ES would call them our "loves") that come into play.

Even if we come face to face with those loves via meditation, it is not clear from ES how we change them assuming they are undesirable.  He does point out that mere actions are not enough.  As Kathy says, we need to have a loving intent behind those actions.

Note to Don- I know you have read Howard Storm's Descent Into Death.  I thought of that book while reading the following from a book about ES:

From Heaven and Hell 574:

'As a spirit comes willing or out of his own freedom to his hell and enters it, he is received warmly at first and believes that he has arrived among friends.  However, this lasts only a few hours. 

During this time, he is being examined to determine how clever he is and therefore how strong he is.  Once this examination is finished, they begin to attack him in various ways, progressively more sharply and violently.  This is achieved by leading him farther and more deeply into hell, for the farther and deeper one goes into hell, the more vicious the spirits.'

This is almost an exact match of the description Storm wrote about his own descent into hell.  He too was confronted by spirits who were initially friendly, but who quickly became his tormentors as he followed them deeper into their hell.

R

Yes, the question: Are we still enemies?

The answer: I was never your enemy.



wrote on Sep 11^th, 2009 at 5:53pm:

Pardon my coming in again Volu and Alan. Forgiveness is funny business. One way of looking at it is that when you forgive in the normal or traditional sense you actually make the original transgression real in the mind of yourself, and of the other person. With the result that you have created something in both of you which now has to be released. Yet most of us have been taught to approach it in these terms. A higher view might be to recognise that since nothing ego made is real or can damage us (in the absolute sense), that true forgiveness is more about recognising that whatever wrong it was simply never happened, that as a result the issues of guilt or blame don't arise, and that consequently the apparent offender is innocent... Most of us struggle to forgive - because having been led by ego to identify with the physical body and this reality we just cannot raise our view enough to see this truth. We instead out of an ego inspired fear of damage to the body and our situation in the world (which are as unreal as the perceived wrong - but ego causes us to identify with them) believe that a wrong actually occurred. Yet in truth (from the non dual perspective of Spirit) 'it never happened'....

I wish for you a spirit always free
That's the key  let it be
I hope that each day becomes your friend
That you find laughter there
Again and Again
And when you speak your mind
Be fair what you say
And make your own way
At the end of each day

jimmy lafave

The key perspective about changing our core elements or state of 'being' Rondele (it applies to forgiveness too, in that when we move beyond intellectual understanding to embodying the view we become unable to comprehend of anything except that nothing happened) is possibly this:

We're inclined to think intellectual thought and decision driven action is required of us. It's not, at least not at the level of consciously changing ourselves, or our mind.

There are of course obviously negative actions we need to steer clear of (because they suck us deeper into negativity), but the real changes (which may entail adjustments in places at levels far beyond what we are conscious of, or what we think of as 'me' i.e. what you might call the release of karma) are it's variously taught brought about by Christ and Spirit. (or higher mind)

What's required of us is simply to open to this influence, to realise that we want it, that what we are doing right now is not what we want - and then the actual change just happens. We don't directly bring it about. The law of free will means it won't happen though if we're at any level resistant to change, or attached to opposing beliefs - nothing is ever forced on us.

So our task is in a sense only to prepare the ground, mostly by re-accessing our heart - the compassion, wisdom and loving nature that was always there - so that at some level we ask to be helped...

If we look deep inside our innermost self we can feel and understand that we have a mixture of both love and fear within us. That is the duality, the struggle in which we live here in ELS. Mostly it has to do with our core beliefs. When our intent is motivated by fear, (what ES refers to as selfishness) we usually experience some form of pain even when that pain doesn't manifest right away, but it is likely to manifest in the form of stress. (tense muscles, headache, etc.) When our intent is motivated by love, we are likely to be rewarded with feelings of inner love upwelling and radiating out from us. This love produces the feeling of inner joy that is felt by others as it radiates forth from within us. It is something that is freely given forth from deep within. 

The more pure our intent/desire is, the clearer the feedback we receive. When our intent/desire contains a mixture of both love and fear, what I call cross-purposes, (unconscious desires) then it is sometimes difficult for us to understand exactly what our true subtle intent/desire is. As Don mentions, meditating and "hearing our inner truth" is crucial in making a distinction in our intents/desires that motivate us.

Put simply, the more we release, let go of our inner fear, the more we allow our inner core essence (our love connection to Christ/Buddha/Great Spirit/God Consciousness) to up well from deep within. This happens quite naturally when fear/ego is not present in our intent/desire. The reason for this is because the pattern of the total consciousness system, of which we are a part of, has evolved in this direction.

The greater consciousness system has evolved into a huge being of love (PUL) essence. We are and always have been a part of that being/system. The laws of this physical world may lead us to believe in separation from that which we are a part of, however in truth, there is no separation.

I think this is what others here are saying with the use of different words. Whatever works for our personal understanding and spiritual growth is what it is all about. 

Kathy

Kathy,
"Put simply, the more we release, let go of our inner fear, the more we allow our inner core essence (our love connection to Christ/Buddha/Great Spirit/God Consciousness) to up well from deep within."

My gathering is that our total selves already are perfectly in balance (male/female, light/dark) but are experiencing the dualities to know and understand our core(s). The clock ticks, but want to know what makes it tick, sort of. Ngh. I'm not finding the right words to describe it.

When you mention letting go of our inner fear, this is what comes to mind,

I (self extension and total self) don't fear death as I am eternal. No beginning, no end.

The body does have a start, and fears the death/end of it. Many expressions are connected to this.

I have my doubts and fears, and I've become aware that many of them stem from the very vessel I'm connected to. Funny how they can slip into the the thought stream seamlessly. I've let go of a few by will, others I deal and have dealt with in repetition until I break or have broken them.

At the end of the day, I've never dealt with fear when dealing with my higher aspect. Otherwise would be a tell tale of an entity wanting to dine on my emotions. BUT there's something to consider. One incarnation, having overcome some fears, being shown the way by the greater self, is ready to open new doors as others are closed. What's behind the new doors are concepts that this incarnation does not fear, but for another incarnation, it'd be too much to handle. This incarnation may deny the new concepts are of a higher nature because the incarnation fears it - body fear/spirit balance.

recoverer wrote on Sep 11^th, 2009 at 12:41pm:

Hello Alan: I was searching for an article at the www.near-death.com site, and found that your NDE is there. http://www.near-death.com/forum/coma/000/01.html I was looking for the below article. I have the book. It has more extensive information than the attached article. Generally I'm not into channeled information, but I like Margaret Tweddell's book. Don might find it interesting, eventhough he's not into channeled information. A spirit didn't speak through Margaret's body. Just sent messages. http://www.near-death.com/experiences/paranormal08.html The reason I refer to this article, is because it says something similar to what you said. See the below. "There is no sudden metamorphosis from an idle person into an active person, from a nonreligious person into a religious person, from a money-centered person into a God-centered person. This is not an automatic thing. Your personality -  your likes and dislikes, your hopes, your fears - are still attached to you, although in a more nebulous form than when you are on Earth in a physical body. I see people come over. They arrive and have high hopes that everything is going to be different for them.  However, nothing can be different for them because they have brought with them what they are. There is so much harmony here, and if they have brought a disharmonious personality with them, they find it very difficult to link in with the harmonious existence that we have. This is something that grieves me when I see it. It is not true, as some people think, that if we only give verbal assent to belief in God, well, that's fine - that is our passport to heaven and everything will be all right. What we have to remember is that Jesus showed us the path by which it will be all right. He doesn't say, "It's all right, brother, come along in. Sit down now and relax and do nothing." He says, "It's all right. You are on my way. There are a lot of stones in it, but you are on my way. If you ask me, I'll help you over the stones."  The old teachings that "as you strive, so you'll be helped" are right. The Lord helps those who help themselves. If you truly try to follow the laws of the Kingdom which the Lord has revealed, and ask for his help, he will aid you in becoming a whole person. As I see it from here, there is a rod of light - a pulsating power, the vital force of the Holy Spirit - right down through you. It is the self-centeredness of the personality which erects blocks and disturbances which make it impossible for the Holy Spirit to function through you. If you ask for help from the great physician, the Lord Jesus, he will help you to unlock the inner, healing power of the Holy Spirit which is within you so that it can be diffused and can spread throughout your being. The Lord will help you to achieve the attunement, the shalom, the peace, the wholeness which is heaven."

Hi Recoverer,

The link you went to was just a small excerpt of my total experiences, thanks for taking the time to look at it.

The forum program no longer gives me email reminders of when a topic I have subscribed to has had a respondent . Thus my absence from this thread

Alan

Hi Volu,

I like your post. Since our human view of the larger consciousness system is so limited I think it is difficult for us to describe our total self, but we can feel the vastness and perfection of it deep within our core. Since evolution is something we can see and understand in ELS I think that concept makes a good analogy or model of the larger consciousness system, which is in a perpetual state of evolving/growing it's consciousness.

If we think of primordial consciousness as having the potential to evolve we can understand that the most beneficial and stable way for it to evolve is in the direction of PUL. I don't think we can really comprehend how long it has taken for it to evolve into what it is now, which is a huge brilliant being of love. However, I do think if we can understand evolution as patterns that develop, like fractals that are in a state of a continuance of change. That change of course is whatever is the most beneficial to the entire system... and we can know it is spiritual growth toward PUL because that is the way it has already evolved.

I just finished reading a book that's been on my reading list for a couple years now. "The Biology of Belief" by cellular biologist, Bruce Lipton. I thought it was an interesting read that was helpful to me in understanding how we humans on a cellular basis evolved from within the larger consciousness system and how we can continue to evolve in the same direction toward that of PUL. We, as little streams of consciousness, are not only beneficial to the evolution of our total self, but also the entire system when we choose love.

Kathy

I don't believe souls are condemned because they have been selfish,it does not add up..it's nigh on impossible to perfect in this imperfect world..experiences shape us,people shape us,we live in a very negative world,we are bombarded with negative energy each and every day and i think this is taken into account..I am not condoning any kind of negativity,far from it..According to spirit communicators,during our life review we are not judged,rather we judge ourselves..if souls are readily condemned to the dark area, then the light area must contain very few souls, for the world is full of arrogant and ignorant people, absolutely factual..

Hi recoverer and others in the thread

In the link to an excerpt of my NDE I mention realms I just post it here for the interest of those who have not read my account


It was also shown to me that we are not really judged by God, but by our own actions in life, which dictate ones eternal destiny. If all our actions had become totally evil, by the end of our life, we would become a being of darkness and it would have simply become impossible for us to enter the light of God.

(Darkness cannot penetrate the light!). To reach this point we would have to have become totally depraved being (like Hitler), with no redeemable qualities. The destiny of this type of person, by his own actions, would be eternal banishment down into the deepest darkness of this vast infinitely long evil end of the tunnel, remote from the love of God forever.

I was also shown that there are degrees of punishment in the void. Ranging from a grey depressive atmosphere, progressively down into utter horror, terror, hopelessness, despair and desolation in black darkness. I did not see any lake of fire! I, however, got the clear impression that God will one day thrust all evil away from him into the infinite utter remote darkness of the deep and forget them there forever, where they could perform their awful perversions upon each other forever. Indeed reaping what they had sowed.

They could call out to God for eternity, from this awful place, and never hear from God again. Separated and forgotten by him forever, by they're own evil actions. (Self-inflicted punishment). What an awful horrifying thought.

Of course the reverse is true for loving righteous people the will go from glory to never ending glory and bliss


This was my view after my first Nde but I have altered that somewhat, in that I now believe almost all humans have light and redeemable qualities that will lead them to unity with the great light or I AM

There's different ways of pitching this stuff in conceptual terms (and this is not to argue for one view over another, just to show possibilities), but either way the consequences tend to be much the same for us at the practical level.

For example - the ACIM view says we were collectively already perfect with God in love, but that a part of mind that felt/feels guilt as a result of separating from this knowing created this whole reality (in a sense as a hiding place, because it mistakenly fears punishment), and set it up so that we mistakenly identify with the body and intellect as 'me', with the result we project this guilt on others,  consequently act aggressively towards them and as a result dig ourselves deeper into an ever more compelling belief in separation.

The resulting buy-in to this shared belief system as to the nature of this reality (what it is, that it's dog eat dog, that we are a mind in a physical body, and that we have to fight to survive) is ego.

We have free choice - we can one by one return to God and love (although it's not complete until we all manage it), or continue to cling to our ego beliefs and get sucked deeper into this reality - we won't be forced one way or the other.

But if we choose for Love then Spirit and Christ help us with the intuition, lessons (uses our experience in this reality to teach) and knowing we need to transcend in a sense the evidence of our eyes in favour of a higher view, to awaken and see that we've been dreaming and not been seeing the true Reality that another part of us (collective mind) has collectively known all along..

What's lost by those that transcend this reality (body, self hood etc) only seems like a loss while we hang on to the ego beliefs in this reality, it's in fact nothing. The loss is like waking from the dream - it's not death, just a change of view.

Buddhism teaches a very similar message, except that it refers to the dream as Samsara, and i guess to higher mind of one sort or another instead of God. The body we think we inhabit is meanwhile taught as being (along with this  entire reality or Smasara) a creation of ego mind, and not vice versa.

In these views this reality is the creation of collective ego, and has to be transcended/our belief in it shed if we are to return to God, love and our original perfection, or to awake from the dream of separation.

The dream/this reality is simultaneously used as a learning school by Spirit/higher mind to bring us to a reality based 'view', but that wasn't why it was created.

In this view we're not so much evolving to higher levels, but rather awakening from the dream of ego to realise the perfection we already are......

By a spiritualist medium

I get asked these two questions a lot.

I’ve never been to Hell, never heard a dead person speak of it, nor have I ever heard a spirit guide discuss it with me.  I have also never met or heard of a human being who has died, gone to Hell, and come back to tell the tale.

I do not believe in the Christian Hell.  It makes no sense to me.  My understanding is that a murderer can repent for his sins on his deathbed and go to Heaven if he accepts the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior.  But if I live my entire life with compassion, peace, and love in my heart, never intentionally hurting another living soul, and I do not accept Jesus as my savior then it’s off to the fires for me.  How is that fair?

Truthfully?  I believe Hell was made up by men who wanted to scare the living daylights out of people, and so they concocted the stories, put it in a book, and passed it on from one generation to another, and now some people accept it as fact.

If there is a hell, it’s the hell you create in your own mind.  My guides have explained to me that one of the reasons people resist crossing over when they’ve died is because they fear the judgment and damnation of God and assume, based on their life events, that they are going to Hell.  Who would be in a hurry to cross over if they assumed Hell was waiting for them on the other side?  So it’s all just great.  All the murderers and rapists and child molestors are hanging around ouija boards because they have to suck the energy of living people to keep from crossing over.  This does not help us.

Don’t bad guys get punished somehow?  Sure.  They punish themselves with guilt and shame when they get to the other side and go through their life review.  You want to talk about Hell?  Sit with Hitler during his life review as he realizes that he has to fix and make amends in another incarnation for the acts he committed during his time on Earth.

So what about Satan?  Does he exist?  This is more of a gray area as far as I’m concerned.  I have never met Satan, my guides don’t talk to me about Satan, and I don’t personally know anyone who has ever encountered him.  I know there are lower vibrational beings out there who might be trying to harm us and who will take advantage of our fear, shame, guilt, anger, and pride.  They are to be avoided, which is why raising your vibration and your level of consciousness is so important.

I’ve met spirits masquerading as Satan though.  And I’ve encountered some powerful demons on the astral plane, which makes me wonder if they have a “boss.”  Maybe he would be considered Satan.  I don’t know.  As with all things, I try not to adopt a belief in something unless it empowers me and/or I have experienced it personally.

I do know that being afraid of Satan, demons, and evil men does me no good.  The more I vibrate with love, joy, and peace, the less I encounter anything I would consider evil or negative.  So that’s the direction I’ll continue to head.

Hell is not a place, but a state of mind and an expectation.  You have the power to avoid Hell any time you wish.  The choice is yours.  Whether you believe in Hell or not, isn’t it logical to act with love, compassion, and peace towards your fellow Man?  Then it doesn’t matter whether Hell exists or not.  You won’t be going there.

Kathy and Rondelle:

Thank you for the clarification about what Swedenborg wrote.