A lot of religious texts say that the kingdom of Heaven is within... This could in fact be an internal dimension that exists immediately upon passing from the physical. For instance, when one passes they usually experience the 3-D blackness, after which they travel at great speeds towards the Light. However, some also find themselves immediately flying over vast expanses of beautiful fields/gardens/etc... Experiences of guardians/angels/helpers/relatives/friends are usually immediate as well to help with the transition. This tells me that it is in another dimension/vibrational wavelength that is, quite literally, just a breath away from the one that we currently find ourselves in. One has to keep in mind the notion of multidimensional strings when contemplating spiritual realities as well. For these harmonic strings are in fact the fabric of everything; the fabric of all dimensions. To consider/contemplate this notion is one thing; but, to truly understand the mechanics of this notion, in my mind, requires the interpretation from the spiritual body in and of itself. The physical human brain... at least from my perspective, cannot "unfilteringly" fathom the true expansive breadth of what there is to be fathomed with regards to the underpinnings of multidimensionality in its true form. Even those whom have experienced the inner workings of multidemsionality have an almost impossible time trying to put their spiritual experience into human words/tangible thought forms.

(The kingdom of Heaven is within)
(Always has been, always will be, never wasn't),

PUL,
Cosmic_Ambitions

Hi George After my father died, i went to see this medium and my father came through,and he said he could see our planet earth, from where he was,he said he was in the most beautiful place,and he was with his mother and father who passed before him.So i do think the spirit world is out there in the universe somewhere,i would love it if it was ,to actually see space and the planets would be fantastic.Love and god bless you juditha

Hi George-
There are two kinds of answer to your question. The easy answer is that the spirit world is where we look when we see spirits. This world seems to be in a dimensional system that is more complex than our everyday experiences, and it seems to be structured differently, in the sense that we can more or less wish things into being. At the same time, there seem to be no barriers.

The more difficult answer is the one in which we actually try to express the topology of the spirit world - a topic dear to me. That goes off into speculative philosophy. There seems to be a consensus of opinion that everything evolved out of nothing, and in our universe, that this happened about 15 billion years ago. This is supported by observation of the Hubble expansion of the universe. But things are a bit more complex than that. The causal factors by which this specific universe was created seem to be "eternal", in the sense of having neither beginning nor end. This is an oscillation that gives off universes much like a fire gives off sparks, but each universe is individual and separated.

Outside of the universe is "voidness", a non-place that has no size, no shape, no color, no taste etc. Because it has no qualities except that we point to it, it covers our universe like an infinitesimally thin layer. And, because voidness has no dimension, it also appears to be a minuscule point, so small that it has no interior, so that we surround voidness by our universe. (In physics, the voidness begins with the Planck dimension, and goes smaller.) The universe is like a bubble that expands inward, an inside out sphere. For example, if you look off into space in any direction for about 15 billion light years, you are looking backwards into time and space toward the center, while the place we call "outer space" is the innermost portion, in which the universe is expanding inwards at right angles to everything else. Thus, we are on the "outer edge" of our universe, and the surrounding event horizon 15 billion light years distant is the center.

Because the universe began from a single point, an instant in which everything was one thing, the initial instant of the universe was an expression of what St Thomas Aquinas called the "Uncaused Cause". This Uncaused Cause emanated itself by twisting space, since that is the both action of the repetitive cyclic origination, and the reason that it is a repetitive cycle. This is either like the snake that eats its tail, Ourobouros, or like a multidimensional Moebius strip, or Klein bottle, depending on how you look at it. The present day world is the way the Uncaused Cause looks today. Because it has had time to interact with itself in many ways, the Uncaused Cause is now plural, fragments having been spun off in the guise of bugs, people, fireplugs and trees etc. At the same time, because the Uncaused Cause was initially One, it remains forever One. Meditators sometimes call it the "Mind of God" or the "Cosmic Consciousnes". The state of the "Self", that part of you that identifies with your viewpoint and feelings, is part of both the One and also the Many. When you are not being the Many, you get to be the One, which means that you revert back toward total Oneness, merger into the Uncaused Cause, which is often described as "returning to God", but only to the degree that your attitude (meaning karma and attachments etc) allows. Then, when the world gets rearranged so that you can be part of the Many, you emerge as a Self, separated from other Selves.

In this sense, the spirit world is the transitional space that lies between you and God, and is bounded by your personal awareness at one end, and by the Oneness of God at the other end. It is a sense, an awareness, an experience, but not a true location or place in the sense of having length, breadth, height or location in spacetime. We experience it jointly because we are all one, just as your Significant Other is one with you, so that when you want to phone your SO you occasionally find that your SO is already phoning you. Because the spirit world is in the space of experiences, rather than the space of bricks and boards, it is proper to say that it is everywhere. Yet when we go to look for it, and as we pass through the various levels of definition that define the logic of inner experiences, we can find nothing. All we find is God.

dave

Dave,

Your starting point is the perspective of physical reality. I'm not sure that's the best place to start.

Love,
Rob

I thought about this some more, and need to update my post.

When I had the experience of understanding that there is no such thing as a particular location or a particular moment of time, I also clearly understood that I'm not a body based person and that this physical World isn't what I had been imagining it to be. Therefore, I wasn't seeing things from the perspective of physical reality.

From a relative point of view you can speak of things being spatially located in certain places as they relate to other things. This relatavism, however, doesn't effect the ultimate truth of how there is no such thing as particular location or a particular moment of time, for ultimately there is no such thing as linear space and time.

It may be that spirit realms that relate to the human race, are located in the space that surrounds the planet earth. Races from other planets might have there own spirit realms. You wouldn't find these locations if you traveled in a spaceship, because they vibrate at a level that is too fast for the physical eye.

Mellen-Thomas Benedict had a near death experience that discusses how things such as higher self matrixes surround the planet earth. He also speaks of belief system territories. What he found has a lot of similarities to what Robert Monroe and Bruce Moen found. I've attached a link to this experience below.

I've also attached Carl Jung's NDE. He saw the planet earth from space before human space travel had taken place, and a lot of what he described matches what space travel later found.

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/reincarnation04.html

http://www.near-death.com/jung.html

recoverer wrote on Jul 28^th, 2006 at 2:38pm:

Hi Rob-
Point well made. Spiritual reality and everyday physical science seem to be at odds. That's because everyday experiences are objective, shared phenomena, while spiritual matters tend to be subjective and highly personal. A decent answer to "where" should be able to deal with both aspects of experience. It's like the difference between, "I know how to swim," as opposed to, "I can tell you how to swim."

The most persuasive set of data in life is our experiences that arise from the world of physical existence. Most of the respondents here have cited "vibrations" (which is a term very difficult to define precisely) and "multiple dimensions" or "strings" (also very difficult to define). These responses are all valid in some way, but their language tends to be poetic, an effort to express subjective phenomena, rather than logical and grounded in objective phenomena. A subjective response is thus rather like saying, "Well, you know ..." when the fact is that the questioner does NOT know, which is why there is a question.

You personally go into the spiritual world of events by meditation. Aside from advising people to practice meditation, there is no way to talk about that experience meaningfully. It's just your personal solipcistic "dreamworld" until you can find a basis to share your outlook with others.

Because we cannot directly teleparthize ideas to others, we're stuck with the problem of locating common ground. I began with the logic by which the causal factors related to our existence are limited in their physical expression, because there are no limitations in Spirit. The restrictions on this causal logic are that it must fit physical science. By this I mean actual experimental physics, not fringes nor speculative ideas. Second, the concepts and direction of development must be both sufficient, and also necessary according to at least one logical path of reasoning.

This leads to long convoluted explanations, but I am willing to be that it is at least as good as a poetic explanation. However, it might not be much better, since it could imply that reality is material, which is another can of worms waiting to be opened. So, Rob, having explained my admittedly imperfect response, how would you handle this kind of question?
dave

Thanks for the great thread and physics information.  Dave has a firm grasp on this and im wrapping my brain around the concept.  It is interesting that you say we add poetry to our existence - i believe this poetry is an essential part of the physics. Not because it makes us live in a 'make believe' world although ones poem may be different to anothers - but this poetry is real and it is this poetry that grows and nourishes our souls.  Is this God's gift to us?

It goes back to the saying - we create our own reality physically and spiritually - and without poetry the universe may seem to be a dull, calculated place.  This poetry, i believe, is real and it seems to be a collective conscious poem with variant proses and rhythms that steams from a creative source.

i enjoy the Orphic writings that takes us to, maybe the place Dave is talking about 15 billion light years away.  Here is a link to Orphic writings- poetry in its essence?

http://myweb.cableone.net/subru/Orphic.html

On a more immediate level - i've learnt that a spirit world exists in the Astral realm which is all around us on the physical plane and life here is very similiar to our lives in Earth.  This is inhabited by spirits who have not given much thought to the afterlife and things and it is a extension of school.  Going beyond this i believe the planets are stations and the spirit life that extends far out from the planets is richly filled with spiritual worlds.  Here we get back to thoughts, our thoughts attain the spiritual level right for us and we share our level with like minded spirits; it is here the poetry helps us to conceive or perceive these worlds. Although here now in Earth we are only a part of our total selves and perceive a very small part of the whole.  

Beyond our universe .. is up to us to get there i think - although as you said Dave, our universe is  expanding (like a bun in a oven getting bigger and spreading out) do we and all creation in our universe make our universe expand with our thoughts?