Hi dear people,

still I cant sleep through nights because questions go around in my head and fear fills my heart.

For all those who find this sad: it is! But its not something you can just stop - or I would.

I`ve got a question you may be able to answer. From what I see here, we are incarnations of a spirit being. After death, the spirit being leaves the body again. And then?

It seems from your posts that we incarnate again. Do we lose all our memories? It seems so - I certainly dont remember any past lives. How, if we lose our memories, are we still "ourselves"? Can we remember past lives after death? Other past lives? Do we HAVE to reincarnate, I dont see myself wanting to due to the loss of what I consider myself?

painfully yours
may the light be true

Chrwe

Consider what it would be like, to remember every moment of your present life, in full detail, as if every moment was represented by a 'different' person. Consider what it would be like to meet yourself, a version of yourself, perhaps a long time ago, even when you were a child.

Consider what it would be like to have a much greater understanding of your 'self' than you presently can comprehend. Consider that you may have more than one life such as this.

Consider that you may have known everyone else in your life in many other roles and places, in many other 'realities' than the one you are visualizing right now.

This, what you are imagining, as we talk about these possibilities, is only a small part of who you are.

It is not 'easy' to imagine your full potential. But this 'greater You' is taking care of you, and guiding you in ways that I cannot describe.

So, perhaps, imagine this greater You, and imagine how much this greater You loves you, all of you, because this greater You holds all of this together, for you, and only for you, because you matter, to this greater You...

And you, right now, hold a very important key to the happiness of all that is. Simply by existing, you matter. That is what I believe.

chrwe wrote on May 26^th, 2010 at 1:02am:

Hi dear people, still I cant sleep through nights because questions go around in my head and fear fills my heart. For all those who find this sad: it is! But its not something you can just stop - or I would. I`ve got a question you may be able to answer. From what I see here, we are incarnations of a spirit being. After death, the spirit being leaves the body again. And then? It seems from your posts that we incarnate again. Do we lose all our memories? It seems so - I certainly dont remember any past lives. How, if we lose our memories, are we still "ourselves"? Can we remember past lives after death? Other past lives? Do we HAVE to reincarnate, I dont see myself wanting to due to the loss of what I consider myself? painfully yours may the light be true Chrwe

My belief is that after this lifetime we return to the afterlife or heaven, call it what you will.  While there we analyze our actions and reactions to the events from the just past life in an effort to grow in our ability to live a love-filled life and think and feel through love.  Also, while there we are in our natural environment as souls of pure energy and love. 

Each soul makes its choice to live its lives on earth or in spirit.  If they are going to live a life on earth incarnate, then they plan with others, usually in a soul group, the primary activities that they will live through...some of which are immutable events already written for the earth to undergo, while others are planned between souls which may or may not occur based on free will.  Free will trumps all while a soul is incarnate, and a soul can obviate its entire lifeplan by personal choice...whether guided by its incarnate desires or by its higher self...or to stick to the plan like glue.  Free will in everything.   

Beau has a great essay on this site describing the parallel between lives lived and actors on a stage...inspired by "all the world's a stage and the men and women players on it".  In a nutshell, you, your own ego/identity are a character in the play of your life which you planned.  Free will enables you to act extemporaneously, or you can act out the script.  The other characters in your play are members of your soul group who have reviewed the script with you prior to this lifetime and you have each chosen characters to play and the method in which you will play those roles.  Your soul is essentially the actor, while you, as an incarnate being with an ego/identity, are the specific role you chose to play while onstage.  Death is simply the end of the character's role and your ego/identity has then left the stage.          

With that, the actor, your soul, has played hundreds if not thousands of roles on earth.  Just as an actor never forgets a role (s)he plays, a soul never forgets the ego/identities it has had while incarnate.  Further, your soul is in touch with everything you can see, feel, taste, touch, and smell, together with senses you cannot conceive while incarnate.  The soul remembers everything you thought, felt, and understood about your time on earth to a level your ego/identity cannot understand.    So, no...the soul does not forget you as chrwe because you are your soul, you are the actor...the identity of chrwe is simply a role you played for this incarnation...this play of life.

As for whether you have to come back to another incarnate lifetime, it is your soul's choice...free will.  You do not have to but I'm willing to bet you will.  Look at it as on the job training...while in spirit you can study and learn all you want but until you are "acting" it out or undergoing a "live fire" exercise, how will you know if you really understand it?  How will you actually do in front of a live audience?

As for remembering past lives and memories, I have made a catalog of prior lives through meditation and the akashic records.  The feelings and thoughts evoked by those past lives while "looking" and examining those identities come through extremely clearly, and it is done through the perspective of the soul so I see everything the past identity sees as well as the incarnate being itself and everything surrounding it.

I hope this helps assuage some of your fear...I am sorry about the length of it all, but I wanted to give you my take on it...not that it is a certainty for anyone but me, but to me it is all.

I don't believe in the common reincarnation theory, which says there is a soul within a body which, once the body dies, is set free and then incarnates into a new body and then has it's memories of the prior lives more or less disabled.

No, that doesn't make much sense to me. It starts with what the soul actually is. A thing with the properties of to be not a thing. Something eternal, yet with the ability to change. No, that doesn't make sense.

Instead of that rather semi-materialistic descriptions, I find it better to speak of a localised awareness, within the all-awareness, in difference to "soul". Such a localised awareness is nothing but this: The actual awareness. As part of this awareness there might be processes of identification, of what belongs to it and what not. Those processes are generating the image of a "person" or "soul", while these are just a special form, a narrowing form, of this localised awareness. The more this localised awareness identifies itself with certain things, the stronger is the drive to gravitate to them, and "reincarnate" into them.

Spooky

spooky2 wrote on May 26^th, 2010 at 8:41pm:

I don't believe in the common reincarnation theory, which says there is a soul within a body which, once the body dies, is set free and then incarnates into a new body and then has it's memories of the prior lives more or less disabled. No, that doesn't make much sense to me. It starts with what the soul actually is. A thing with the properties of to be not a thing. Something eternal, yet with the ability to change. No, that doesn't make sense. Instead of that rather semi-materialistic descriptions, I find it better to speak of a localised awareness, within the all-awareness, in difference to "soul". Such a localised awareness is nothing but this: The actual awareness. As part of this awareness there might be processes of identification, of what belongs to it and what not. Those processes are generating the image of a "person" or "soul", while these are just a special form, a narrowing form, of this localised awareness. The more this localised awareness identifies itself with certain things, the stronger is the drive to gravitate to them, and "reincarnate" into them. Spooky

Spooky, I don't understand what you are saying...could you please clarify it?

I think he is more or less stating the classic buddhist approach, which in essence means we do NOT have a soul that survives death and there is no afterlife

that our soul is an illusion and there is only "the one"

which, to be honest, does not help since this would indeed mean the "we" that we think we are is irretrievably lost upon decay

an all-awareness of which I am only a part....great...why make these parts who are individual and want to stay so?

Being part of the "one"...fine...losing all "self" within the process...senseless and cruel imo

why live and love and learn if that is so?

I see chrwe...and that doesn't work for me, either.  The experiences I have had through meditation have been so absolutely filled with detail and emotion that I have no doubt that they were lives lived, experiences endured and feelings felt.  At times I have nearly been overcome with the love I felt for another in that past life...even the mundane...buttoning up a cod-piece with rough hands and dirty fingernails...not a common memory nor practice in this day and time for a desk-bound lawyer...

I am not saying Spooky is wrong...our beliefs simply differ.

Hi

Bruce's description of the Disk-self and disk family fits between the all-that-is and the repeating individual:
A group or family of souls live within a higher Soul and get some degree of direction from this arrangement. Loving the 'memories' of 'previous' incarnations of yourself or a Disk-family member would be similar to loving members of your Earth family.

In the Afterlife the individuals are probes that seek experience in order to share their incarnated experiences so that all parts of the Disk can learn together. Later they can go out again as new individuals to get further understanding.

The Disk isn't all-there-is, but is attached to other Disks and that level is attached to even larger Disks much as the individuals we know as humans are a Disk, ad infinitum all the way up to the Godhead, we assume.

An individual incarnates where (s)he can do the most to generate an understanding of how love works in the universe and to generate the energy of love for the progress of the Disk. Once all members have developed a full-enough understanding the Disk-family leaves for higher heavens.

Love is never wasted or lost to oblivion. It is of the essence and becomes the essence.

Bets

I keep telling myself either I wont know about being dead (if there is oblivion) or it will be all for the best, even if I cant see how yet - that I will not feel bad about not being the "me" I know here - but it`s kinda hard to accept ;)

Hi there, I try to clarify.

Language can be deceiving. Often people accept explanations which, after a closer look, turn out to be mere word jugglings, and aren't really explaining anything.

For example, we can say "I have a body". Here on this board most people, I guess, mean by this their body is a tool, a means for us in the physical world. We then, though, have to consider that "I" and "body" are different things. Then we must consider as well, that "I" in this case can't mean the personality we are now, as the personality undoubtly has something to do with the body. To avoid confusion, this "I" therefore is called "soul".

Now, we can say as well "I have a soul". Here is an "I" which "has" a "soul". In this case "I" can't be identical with "soul", as then we would say "I am soul" (not "I am my soul", because then we would have again a separation of an owner, and something which is owned). So when we say "I have a soul" this "I" must be something different than the soul, and it's unclear what one exactly means then.

Furthermore, we must come to the term "soul" itself. If it is not "I", not "my body", what is it then? Usually it is said to be a sort of "essence"(which is unclear enough) and eternal. If something is eternal, it cannot change. Why? Think of something which changes over eons of time. Would you recognize it as the same? No. When it's not the same, it is something different. Therefore, it isn't eternal. This is the deceiving of the term "soul", that it suggests a solid something which doesn't change. From this all kinds of problems arise, as we now can't get this "soul" together with our life, where everything changes. And a soul as such an eternal (unchangeable) thing of course makes reincarnation senseless, because the soul doesn't change, but change, learning, is said to be the reason why reincarnation takes place. The uncritical use of the word "soul" can entrap one to the imagination, that somehow "inside" the body is a copy of it of some more durable and more flexible material together with our mind, feelings, memories, and after physical death we would be just that.

And so it happens then. Finding us somewhere in the belief system territories and are the same as we were. Some new folks hanging around there, but more or less all is the same.

Because of this, I prefer to speak simply of "I", or a localised awareness instead of "soul". It doesn't carry the above mentioned problems. From this, reincarnation is something which happens once such a localised awareness identifies itself with certain physical things, traits, habits. So to speak, it has become unpure. It attracts/produces what it identifies with. If this localised awareness won't identify with anything but just this awareness, what it is, it will at the same moment realise its root within the one awareness, and all things then cease to be separate things because they turn out to be like crystallization points within and through this one awareness.

Spooky

Chrwe,

Quote:

From what I see here, we are incarnations of a spirit being. After death, the spirit being leaves the body again. And then?

I would say that differently.  I am not my body, my body is someing I inhabit in order to experience existence within physical reality.  I would say we are spirit beings "wearing" a physical body.  When that body dies we leave it.  Where do go after that?  What do we do there?  I have my own opinions based on my own experiences.  In my opinion we are eternal beings who have and will exist forever.  In my opinion we incarnate Here and other places multiple times.  But my opinions aren't what matters.  What matters are your opinions and beliefs.  And yours will only change when you, personally, take on the task of finding out the truth about these questions.


Quote:

Do we lose all our memories? It seems so - I certainly dont remember any past lives. How, if we lose our memories, are we still "ourselves"? Can we remember past lives after death? Other past lives?

What does it mean to "lose all our memories"?  Surely you have had the experience of forgetting something that happened during your present lifetime and then remembering it again?  While you weren't remembering it was that memory "lost"?  Just because you are not remembering past lives now does that mean you never had any? 

Quote:

Do we HAVE to reincarnate, I dont see myself wanting to due to the loss of what I consider myself?

Maybe the problem is in your definition of "what I consider myself."  In my opinion nothing we do is ever lost.  And in my opinion we are much more than our physical bodies.

  Do we HAVE to reincarnate?    Personally, I find incarnation in this reality a pleasant breaktime from eternity.  Living here we can forget that we are eternal beings, we can take a vacation from eternity.  I like vacations.  I plan to incarnate here many more times to get the full treatment and effect.  We are here in part to enjoy the ride, so I suggest you sit back, take a breath, and enjoy this place without worrying about what comes next.  Worry won't change one tiny little iota of what actually comes after this physical lifetime.  And, you can always decide to take on the task of exploring that next reality on your own to find out for yourself where we go and what we do next.

Bruce

   I am happy to believe in the concept of reincarnation. Plenty of research and limited experience has me convinved that we do indeed reincarnate on this world. It is even highly logical that God gave us this ability in the first place.

   Sometimes I'm so fed up with this world that I feel like never coming back, at least if it's true that we have a choice. But then I pause and think that maybe when I get back all of my memories on the other side, I may have a different outlook than the one I have now. I'm not concerned as I don't have to decide now anyway. That's the good part of reincarnation. God loves us so much that we have free will to choose. So I'm making the most of this life here now and leaving the worry for the right time later after my earthly vacation is over.    :)

Ralph

Mostly, what Bruce said.

I don't have memories, but I often "know" things...like how to fix something, or how something works inside when I haven't ever torn one of whatever it is apart, or the right approach to dealing with a difficult person or animal, in a way that feels different than intuition or just figuring it out.  Sometimes it's John (my late husband) telling me something...that feels different too.  It's like what Bruce said about remembering something you forgot...

so, what is the ultimate goal? if as spirit beings we decide to continuously reincarnate to learn important life lessons on the physical plane, what are we hoping to ultimately accomplish? is there a point where we feel we have learned all there is and don't need to reincarnate again? and if so, what happens next?

bruce, you say that hanging out in the physical realm gives us a break from our eternal selves, but isn't it true that all previous incarnations of ourselves exist in the spirit realm simultaneously? i was under the impression that even if we decide to reincarnate, we don't actually "leave" the spirit realm but somehow release a part of collective self for the purpose of reincarnating. in other words, here i am on earth in this life, but all of me and my previous personalities reside in the spirit realm.

i think i just blew my mind. hahaha  :D

Hi bird,

From what I believe I understand regarding your second question-- we can incarnate here as often as we can learn and care to.  We also go to other realms where incarnating might not be so physical. In those places we might experience what it's like to have our consciousness interact with various fluids or gasses. Differing densities would also be affected by their chemical make-up, gravitational pressures, velocities etc.

Getting to know the universe takes alot of doing. I expect the same basic rules apply everywhere: do no harm and enjoy with gratitude.  :)
Somewhere along the way we learn to blend our point of consciousness with another and then others. I suspect then we then become as gods, sparks of God merged into a single purpose.

Your second question I won't even attempt since you are comparing finite time and infinite time. Maybe Stephen Hawking could explain it!  :D

Enjoy your exploring!

Bets

Can anyone explain to me, tho, why we forget everything about our past in this life? Would it not be much more helpful to the learning experience if you remembered?

What we forget, as I see it, is from our lack of attention. It is surprising what we can remember from our own lives, when we are deeply relaxed and our minds are clear and we are willing to remember. There are many things that people would rather not remember, because they are painful, or embarrassing, or considered shameful. Even those who have been very fortunate, more blessed in some ways, would not necessarily want others to be 'forced' to experience their own 'lack' through being 'compared' to others. Therefore, what makes better sense than a 'level' playing field? One in which most of us just don't remember too much. Then, everyone gets a chance to be the 'hero' of their own life, no matter where they start, no matter who has a supposed 'advantage'. We just start over. Simple as that.


chrwe wrote on Jun 2^nd, 2010 at 11:11pm:

Can anyone explain to me, tho, why we forget everything about our past in this life? Would it not be much more helpful to the learning experience if you remembered?

Hi

also, what one thinks of as 'my self' is a concept that applies to physical life. Once we get back into the afterlife phase, we may retain attitudes or feelings (not emotions) but not so much the self or ego.  There, much of each individual life experience is shared, then discarded.

This world is relatively dense.  ;)   :D   Boundaries are established here that aren't needed elsewhere to protect each point of consciousness (each 'self' --woops.).

A sense of that merging of self can be found in some NDEs and some other mind states retained from afterlife (some out-of-body) explorations. Discarding all the boundaries of the concept of self is not a giving-up, it's a gain.

Bets

chrwe wrote on Jun 2^nd, 2010 at 11:11pm:

Can anyone explain to me, tho, why we forget everything about our past in this life? Would it not be much more helpful to the learning experience if you remembered?

First, are you asking why we forget things from our past in "this" life, or did you mean from our previous lives?  If you mean the former, I do not have an answer other than the idea that some things leave an impression strong enough to remain in your conscious awareness, while others only arise when you need them.  If the latter, then if you already knew the answers to the test, why take it?  Other than to ace an easy grade, what would be the point, as that is what it would be if you had the full knowledge gained from previous existences available to you now. 

Hmm, ok. It`s hard to wrap my mind around these things. For example, many Buddhist and people like Ken Wilber say we have something like an inner core that does not relate to our memories, feelings or thoughts that is our real soul. I just cant wrap my mind around properly what this essence may be - although I sometimes think you can feel it in other people.

Also, it would be nice to remember past lives, but granted, that would be a bit like "cheating"

sometimes i feel like a lot of what we have learned is possible through the work of bruce and monroe is kind of like cheating. i don't mean it in a bad way, i'm just saying that now i have gained a bit of knowledge, i find that it has completely changed my outlook on many things, things that i'm not sure were "meant" to be changed.

so many people walk through life saying "you only get this one life", or the whole concept of a bucket list. these perceptions have really changed for me. it's a weird feeling when i'm faced with certain standard beliefs that just don't seem to work for me anymore.

bird, I get what you are saying, but in that same vein, there are friends of mine who do not credit anything I say about things they have not experienced themselves.  And that is fine...my guidance has said that they are not ready yet, and exposure to my worldview cannot harm theirs and the path they are living in this life.  Likewise, the understanding and learning I am experiencing in this life was planned and both me and my soulmates had placed various clues, calls, tells and situations which would awaken me to the direction and purposes we had planned before coming into this lifetime.

For the longest time, every woman I met with short dark hair and a petite frame would attract me like a bug to a lightbulb.  I no longer react the same way (lucky for the women!), but one of the women that fit that mold had an extremely powerful message for me, and repeated it to a truly dramatic effect 18 years later which effectively pushed me into my current situation.  Another that fit the description is my wife.  Both of them are longterm soulmates and we are following our lifeplans as the scripts they are.

I was meant to discover and learn about this topic over the course of this lifetime...I don't think the messages and signs resonate to anyone who had not intended to reach some level of understanding along these lines and in this lifetime.  In other words...I don't think you are cheating by investigating these things!   

that really is a great way of looking at it - thanks! it makes so much sense. why do you think people like us have chosen to open ourselves to this information, but others have not? does it imply that we are more highly evolved souls? i don't mean that in an elitist way. but for example, my husband and i came together under very trying circumstances, and long story short i truly believe he and i are following a life plan that we agreed to prior to coming into this life. however, he does not buy into the same belief system as i do. he is not really into the whole afterlife concept or that we are following some kind of plan. if i felt my purpose in this life was to teach and enlighten him, then it could make some sense, but he truly doesn't seem open to any of it. and of course i'm not gonna shove it down his throat if he's not receptive.

Yes, I appreciated that perspective too, useta.

From where I sit, I think that 'noninterest' can be a positive trait in a partner, if a person is an 'explorer', or if a person is considering new outlooks and 'ways of being'. It allows for more personal freedom for the 'explorer', for more freedom to pursue different practices and ideas. To be involved with someone who is actively trying to change your perceptions, your beliefs, etc. can be discouraging and nonproductive. I think we hinder each other's journeys when we do that, and it is very easy to do, even unintentionally.

I think some of us are here to realize our truths about life and the afterlife and as we discover more, we share more and something we say may resonate with others and awaken something inside of them which enables them to begin their own path, and on and on.  I don't think it is any big secret, it is just that while incarnate we can get so caught up in all the materialistic aspects of our earth and the strength of our physical interpersonal relationships and current predominating world views are a high hurdle to overcome in any effort at "feeling" as opposed to "proving" our beliefs.

I don't know if we are more advanced, rather I think that we have simply planned prior to this life to face the idea that there is something greater than our existence on this earth and in three dimensions.  Everyone will come to the truth at some point, whether in this life or the next, or whenever...and certainly upon leaving this lifetime...to me the secret is trying to come to as much an understanding of my eternal soul as possible while still incarnate.

Funny...my wife tolerates my continuous fascination with this awakening with little to no interest.  She has been my child and my mother in our two most recent incarnations together.  Her time incarnate is mostly spent on staying in the third dimension and remaining "in character" on earth, while mine have always had a stronger bent toward curiosity and investigation.  I even know her name as those two previous incarnations and she has no desire to hear them...oh, well.

that's super cool! how did you learn of you and your wife's past lives? i often wonder how my husband and i were connected previously.

bird wrote on Jun 4^th, 2010 at 12:53pm:

that's super cool! how did you learn of you and your wife's past lives? i often wonder how my husband and i were connected previously.

Long story short, I learned how to read my akashic records and how to meditate.  My goal began as an effort to discover why some people meant so much more to me than others...my family and friends, acquaintances that seemed familiar, etc.

A former fiance was an instantaneous familiarity and connection and the most intense 10 months of my life.  We broke up dramatically and left each others lives.  Why had we had so much mre than any other relationship I'd ever had?  Then I met my wife and had a "love at first sight" connection and everything flowed easily.

I was on my way into a mid-life crisis and had an extremely intense vision of the fiance 18 years after our breakup and felt things I hadn't felt in all that time.  I could even smell her perfume after that interlude.  Thus began the search into why and how.

I found that the most recent nexus between me, my fiance and my wife was the life where I died at 17 in 1905...the mother, saddened by the loss of her only son is now my wife, while the sister, who survived the accident but held feelings of guilt for the rest of her life, was the fiance.  And we have played various other roles for each other in many previous lives. 

This was the most recent and interesting connection, and it forced me into the direction I am now moving.  Others include a world war II death with a brother in arms who is now my best friend and client; my son has been my son on three previous occasions; a woman I am yet to meet was a former daughter, lover, wife and at some point may become a business partner. 

Chrwe.\,

chrwe wrote on May 26^th, 2010 at 11:24pm:

I think he is more or less stating the classic buddhist approach, which in essence means we do NOT have a soul that survives death and there is no afterlife

Not sure where you got the idea that Buddhists believe that, not the ones I have talked to anyway.
For me their beliefs about having a soul are just a little difficult for the Western Mind to grasp.  Taken in the context of what we call our Higher Self it says we DO have a soul that survives death and continues to exist after life.   I think your confusion is in not realizing that we are each an individual expression of our Higher Self.  We were created to be self aware beings that are unique personalities by our Higher Self with a purpose that can only be fulfilled if our identity continues survive after "death."

Quote:

that our soul is an illusion and there is only "the one"

Again I would ask in which context, from what perspective could that statement give the illusion being correct?   I have only "one" physical body yet I appear to have hands that perform separate fuctions.  So I have no Body because I have Hands?  What if there IS "only one soul" and I function as that soul's hand or fingers.  Does that mean I have no soul?  Not from the perspective being both the hand and the higher self.

Quote:

an all-awareness of which I am only a part....great...why make these parts who are individual and want to stay so?

Maybe the simple answer is that the "all awareness" you are "only a part of" are both different "versions" of who and what we really are.  You as an individual and you as Higher Self coexist, what you experience depends on which "version of you" you are focusing your attention through.

Quote:

Being part of the "one"...fine...losing all "self" within the process...senseless and cruel imo

In my opinion your belief that you lose "all self" is a basic misunderstanding of who and what you truly are.

Quote:

why live and love and learn if that is so?

Basically, you are right, if at death we as a conscious, self aware being ceased to exist and all that you experienced was lost too, why would we exist at all?  Absolutely no reason too exist at all.  BUT, we do exist as a grand collection of the experiencers/experiences of every part of our Self!  So there must be something you are misunderstanding or not understanding about a reason to exist.  Because none of us would if their was no reason to.  Nature doesn't waste time nuturing useless life forms.

You are not useless.  You exist and will continue to exist long after the point where time and space no longer exist.  Maybe you could consider exploring beyond your present beliefs.

Bruce

Okay,  I’m going to go on a rant here, because, what the hey. :)

Bruce’s comment about knowing Buddhists who believe that we have souls,  that’s  good to hear. I just spoke to a guy today who has been into Tibetan Buddhism for years, and he said that Tibetan Buddhism says that a soul doesn’t reincarnate, just aggregates of mind.

My feeling is that just as false beliefs get passed along with other religions, false beliefs get passed along with Tibetan Buddhism (a very dogmatic tradition).

God, source being, the creator, whatever name you like, provided each of us the opportunity to become souls who become wiser and happier according to how we choose, and some supposed enlightened masters are going to mislead millions of people into believing that they don’t have eternal souls.

As far as I’m concerned, such misguiding influence is on the same level as murder, because it is so spirit killing to tell people that they don’t have eternal souls. >:(  I know that I have one, and it sure makes a huge difference.

Instead of just sitting around trying to negate myself by seeing how I supposedly don’t  exist; I seek to better myself. You can’t avoid a lower realm after you die or unhappiness in this life by pretending that you don’t exist. What you need to do is deal with your state of mind as it exists.

One time my higher self enabled me to find out what it is like to be aware of 12 incarnations  at the same time. It wasn’t hard to be aware in such a way, because I was this large spirit being with a lot of capacity, yet I was still me, minus small and limited viewpoints. It was really cool and I didn’t feel self centered and egotistical.

I’ve been shown images which made the point that source being came up with a way so individual souls can be created.  I figure if the creative powers that be can use energy to create things such as stars, planets and biological life forms, they can come up with a way to create souls.

Tell people that they don’t have souls?  What’s next, tell a little kid that mommy is never coming home when she is just around the corner? :( :o

In a way, it doesn't matter, because if a person takes a practice and follows it with any sincerity or imagination, the truth will present itself, one way or another. A simple practice, like looking into a candle flame, very primitive, just looking at small fires. Looking out over water and noticing what reflects, what moves. Who cares what they say? At a certain point, it all becomes a mantra.

Recoverer,

recoverer wrote on Jun 5^th, 2010 at 6:43pm:

Bruce’s comment about knowing Buddhists who believe that we have souls,  that’s  good to hear. I just spoke to a guy today who has been into Tibetan Buddhism for years, and he said that Tibetan Buddhism says that a soul doesn’t reincarnate, just aggregates of mind.

Yeah, in my language I would say the Disk (Higher Self, I/There - what the Tibetan Buddhist is calling the "soul") doesn't incarnate directly.  Just the "aspects of Itself (us or what the Buddhist is calling "aggregates of mind) directly incarnate Here.  I see no conflict between the two ways of describing the situation, just differences in language describing the situation.

Nice rant BTW.

Bruce

Marshall, the man who pointed me to this site, is a long-time Tibetan Buddhist practitioner and meditation instructor.  He had read all of Bob Monroe's books and Bruce's Moen's books and visited this forum.  After my daughter died and Marshall was starting a book class on "Mind Beyond Death" by a Tibetan Buddhist teacher, Marshall talked about the Monroe and Moen books and this website and outside of class particularly recommended them to me because he thought they might be helpful to me in dealing with my daughter's death.  Now I feel I have a found a new parallel path to the Buddhist path.  I read Bob Monroe's first book back in the 70's.  Had I not been in the oppressive marriage I was in, I might have followed this path much sooner.  But better late than never.

I have found Tibetan Buddhism to use language, symbols and explanations of beliefs that are hard for the Western mind to fully grasp, as Bruce says.  But I think those teachings are quite compatible with Bruce's views, for example.  And, at least in the Shambhala Buddhist variety of Tibetan Buddhism, each person is encouraged to discover his or her own truth, accepting what works for him or her through experience, but not being obligated to believe everything or even anything.  And, of course, with a meditation practice at the heart of it all.

recoverer,

"[...] and some supposed enlightened masters are going to mislead millions of people into believing that they don’t have eternal souls."

Could be the leaders do what they think is right. Either way the millions of people have a responsibility for going along with it. No guns pressed to their temples. Eating too much -> places that sell food -> victim of the vendors -> convenient excuse to continue the cycle. Come to think of it, maybe every possible variety of internal challenges has external counterparts. Ways to deal with, understand and outgrow those challenges.

"One time my higher self enabled me to find out what it is like to be aware of 12 incarnations at the same time."

Did any of the incarnations gain wisdom and break any cycle loops by being 'misled' in some form?

"Tell people that they don’t have souls?  What’s next, tell a little kid that mommy is never coming home when she is just around the corner?"

What's next, a little kid's lost in a canyon but the vultures are nowhere to be found? ;)

Volu:

This past Friday night 20/20 had a segment about a Christian group that teaches its children to hate gay and Jewish people. The parents and their children stand on the street holding up signs that say things such as “God hates fags,” and “God hates Jews.”

The show interviewed a teenage girl who spoke of the hypocrisies to her parents, and she was kicked out of the group and her family. Her father basically said that it doesn’t trouble him that she’s out of the family and going to hell for all of eternity (supposedly), because she went against God. Her siblings have the same response to her. Even the 3 year old sister she raised.

The above people believe they are following somebody’s supposedly infallible interpretation of the Bible, therefore, with fear at their side, they won’t question.

Something similar happens when people follow supposed enlightened people.  Supposedly enlightened gurus, preachers, priests, whatever, point a gun at other people’s heads when they claim to be infallible people who should be believed or else.

Sure some people find their way out of the trap, but many go their entire life without doing so. Perhaps in the long run their souls learn the lesson to not allow self appointed enlightened ones to mislead them, but in the meantime this world continues to be a messed up place, partly because too many people are telling other people what to do and believe, and too many people listen.

Regarding my past lives, I once had an experience with my disk and I met this member who was a young Asian man.  He said he admires me. I believe he does so, because unlike him, I found a way to not be misled by supposed enlightened people who try to force their ideas on other people by claiming they are enlightened and therefore incapable of saying something that is false.

None of us including me gets it right all of the time, and it is dishonest and misleading to pretend that we do.

Regarding what Bruce and Pat said about Buddhism just goes to show that people interpret sources of information in different ways, and some people do so in a manner that is beneficial. :)

P.S. I liked Bruce's rant, even though he didn't call it that.

recoverer,

"Something similar happens when people follow supposed enlightened people.  Supposedly enlightened gurus, preachers, priests, whatever, point a gun at other people’s heads when they claim to be infallible people who should be believed or else."

A youngster frozen out is in a much tougher spot, hopefully the reward being a huge leap in growth. Seeing it visually, the people that bow to these ones have placeholders in them for the kinds of hooks thrown out. Don't see it not happening unless they learn, by engaging, to dismantle what connects the hook within themselves in the first place. Some jokers may even enjoy the power they have over the ones that bow to them, and it's not right, but they aren't going anywhere, lightning doesn't hit 'em, and the days pass. So, victimhood is the symptom, what's within the knee bender is the root of his/her problem. If this incarnation doesn't care for advice, then so it is.

"Sure some people find their way out of the trap, but many go their entire life without doing so. Perhaps in the long run their souls learn the lesson to not allow self appointed enlightened ones to mislead them, but in the meantime this world continues to be a messed up place, partly because too many people are telling other people what to do and believe, and too many people listen."

I hear you. But can't see the magic wand fixing this unless experienced and dealt with by the soul in question.

"Regarding my past lives, I once had an experience with my disk and I met this member who was a young Asian man.  He said he admires me. I believe he does so, because unlike him, I found a way to not be misled by supposed enlightened people who try to force their ideas on other people by claiming they are enlightened and therefore incapable of saying something that is false."

And there's the dilemma - people following supposedly non-enlightened ones from one's standpoint - force (in whatever degree) them to follow one's standpoint? - That just doesn't seem right and sounds like the same 'I know what's best for you' light polarity crapola like the alleged master would say.

I used to think some members paved the way for other members with the accumulated experience. Also used to think members who had access to their disk had a different task at hand than other members. Now I'm just not sure anymore. Cool to hear about meeting the asian incarnation though. Remember any others?

Volu:

I have had contact with disk members, but I haven't received details about them.