What is normal?

we only percieve through our own beliefs...what we know as what we think...what we believe...time will tell...we will never know because everything is really in its on horrible way.

Ryan

If I had to make a guess as to where I'm gonna
end up, I'd take a cue from the ancients. The study
of "spiritual things" was their meat and drink... it
was their equivalent to the quest of modern scientists to find fundamental subatomic particles, and to understand the physics of the "Big Bang"... but I digress here.
Many (if not most) ancient cultures believed in a gloomy "Hades" type of postmortem existence. The Greeks had Hades... the Sumerians had "Nergal"... the ancient Hebrews had "Sheol", and the Aztecs had "Mictlan." (I've only named a FEW such cultures here, Nomad.) Gloomy, dark "cavern" sorts of places all. And... EVERYONE went there, good or evil. (Perhaps this also explains the CRUELTY which characterized these ancient cultures... but then, look at medieval Christianity, which refined the art of torture into a SCIENCE. So who was crueler in the end..?)
This *probably* explains why the ancients generally had an "eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die" attitude toward life here on Earth (the Egyptians being a major exception.) Compare this with the medieval Christian view of life, in which "preparation for the afterlife" took precedence over earthly hedonism. Nonetheless...
Any study of ancient religions shows a far more SCIENTIFIC attitude toward the subject of the afterlife than the medieval Church had. For thousands of years, humanity believed that everyone went to a dismal, gloomy "underworld" when they died. (There likely was - and IS - a very good reason for this.)
Maybe I'll see you in "Mictlan", Nomad... (or pick any other name for it you like... in the end, these far-flung ancient peoples were talking about the same place, more than likely. AND isn't it funny, that many of these cultures were ISOLATED from one another, and yet all believed in the same thing..?)
Logical, huh? I thought so.
And people here wonder why I'm interested in "soul
obliteration"...

B-man

B-man,

One could also say that you are what you eat, and your thoughts create your surroundings.  If everyone expects a gloomy Hades, perhaps that is what evolves.  It has been said that in Focus 27, the mind creates virtually whatever is desired (see Bruce's writings).  Why? because we are always creating our surroundings by the power of our thoughts.

Bruce spoke of a woman who believed death was a long eternal sleep, who was sleeping for centuries on one of his explorations.  Her mind created what it expected to find.

So maybe the gloomy ancients found exactly what they believed.  Hades was their version of a hollow heaven, created by a belief system.

I choose to engage my consciousness actively in search for a better existence.  If you believe that too, you will doubtless avoid any gloomy afterlife.

M-man

Mairlyn, you mean this forum isn't here on earth?
Sorry, Spooky

B-man,

One could also say that you are what you eat, and your thoughts create your surroundings.  If everyone expects a gloomy Hades, perhaps that is what evolves.  It has been said that in Focus 27, the mind creates virtually whatever is desired (see Bruce's writings).  Why? because we are always creating our surroundings by the power of our thoughts.

Bruce spoke of a woman who believed death was a long eternal sleep, who was sleeping for centuries on one of his explorations.  Her mind created what it expected to find.

So maybe the gloomy ancients found exactly what they believed.  Hades was their version of a hollow heaven, created by a belief system.

I choose to engage my consciousness actively in search for a better existence.  If you believe that too, you will doubtless avoid any gloomy afterlife.

M-man
*****************
My question then would be, WHY was this gloomy "netherworld" concept so "popular" amongst the ancients, from Sumer to Polynesia to Meso-America?
Surely they weren't deriving any COMFORT from it. You'd expect the belief to be much rarer, were that the case...
The only conclusion I can come to is that A. There IS something to shamanic exploration/travel; and B. Worldwide, these ancient shamans ALL found the same place when they went looking for the "land of the dead." Being (mostly!) honest men, they told their fellow tribesmen what they had found.
(Does this not give you some inkling of the sense of URGENCY and MISSION that drove the Egyptians to build their pyramids, elaborate tomb complexes, and "cities of the dead"... all in the hopes of somehow riding the (supposedly divine) Pharaoh's coattails (as it were) to escape the gloomy "Hades" fate they believed awaited them otherwise..?)

B-man

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Incorrect.
We are not creating our surroundings by the power of our thoughts.  The function of thought is not to create reality.

thats not how you create your surroundings; with thoughts. There is more to it than that, if your up for the challenge?

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I think maybe it's 2 inches above Earth, but don't take my word for it love.

Nomad,

Dude, you didn't answer the quetion: What's normal? That wasn't a rhetorical question.

Books are good for you. Chewey, lots of fiber.

Bob

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Mmm...lightly salted paperbacks.

I consider myself to be pretty normal, thanks, but I consider you to be rather, er, trollish.

Marilyn!!!

I don't get it.   How did one little doggy melt an entire snowman? Did he drink a keg of beer? Did his owner keep him in the house for too long?

Somebody please explain, because I'm confused.  ???  I asked my guidance, and they answered: "Recoverer, sometimes you overdo this guidance thing." I think I need some guidance on how often to consult my guidance. 

Albert, I think it must have been beer. LOL  Actually, I thought it kind of fit the 2 dimension theory, one solid and one liquid.

Love, Mairlyn 

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There are crazy people on this board, true.

And you sir, are certainly one of them.

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You've got it Roger. LOL 

Luv ya,
Mairlyn