Berserk
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[Chumley:] "Heck, Don... I'd've thought you'd have had the "New Agers" you depise so much, in "Hell" being sodomized by demons with barbed, red-hot whaling harpoons, while being constantly forced to watch reruns of "Barney" (as the theme song from "Jeopardy" eternally repeats on "Hell's" Muzak system) all the while screeching in agony as the blood boils, hot as molten steel, inside their scalded arteries... while you and your new-found buddies...look on from "Heaven" chortling and chuckling and having a swell time (in between rounds of choir practice, self-flagellation, tiddly-winks, and *clean* knock-knock jokes... ____________
Well, all that might initially be great fun to watch, but you need to know one thing about me, Chumley. Before I came up with "Berserk" as my handle, I was known as "Deadworm" on New Age sites. At the time I wanted a handle that sounded both pseudo-humble and gross without being in excessively poor taste. I later opted for "Berserk" only because, being Swedish, I wanted to identify myself with my pillaging Viking ancestry. So endless knock-knock jokes would be OK, but not if they were "clean." Fortunately, the principle of like attracts like would ensure that in my Heaven the knock-knock jokes would be gross. In your scenario, I'd have to watch the TV reruns too just to get to the exciting torture and that would bore me as much as the hellbound New Agers. So I'd prefer the mischief of tricking New Agers into succumbing to my retrieval efforts. I'd lead them to believe they could reincarnate as sex symbols on Earth. After I lured them from their Hollow Heaven, they would find to their horror that I was consigning them eternally to the tenor section of my Heaven's Gregorian chant choir. That fate would be particularly delicious to me if I knew that on earth they could only tolerate heavy metal music. "[Chumley:] "Instead, you've got 'em in a "Hollow Heaven."...If you are correct, there are only BSTs for ALL of us, after death...If so, in what way is YOUR Heaven a better place, than that of the New Agers? Or anyone else's "Hollow Heaven"?" _____________________
Good question! How could Chumley tell if he was in the REAL Heaven? Well, if you were forced to grovel to God and the saints and were forced, as an act of penance, to crawl to church over broken glass, that might be a sign that a better Heaven was available somewhere. But if you were retrieved, how would you know that the next Heaven was an upgrade? I don't think you could tell from the layout. New Agers seem to feel that if they astrally visit a realm with a Welcoming Center, a Healing Center, and a Library, they have arrived in Focus 27. As if you just fall flatass with a loud thud into the Hollow Heavens with no welcoming facilities! As if denizens of Hollow Heavens would need no Healing Center for their initial adjustment period! As if they would lack a library or its equivalent full of books that reinforce their narrow perspectives! No, from my research there are two better criteria for distinguishing the real heavens: (1) NDE visitors describe residents of the real Heavens as brighter than our sun, though their appearance does not hurt the visitor's astral eyes. (2) The real Heavens radiate an obvious upgrade in pure unconditional love.
OK, Chumley, before you have a cow and rant against the prospect of being imprisoned with a bunch of wussy goodie two-shoes, consider what the Christian definition of agape love really is. Quite simply, to love you means that in my presence you expeirence yourself as both loveable and capable. Capable of what, you ask? Well, that's where the principle of like attracts like kicks in. Your "true" Heaven would be devoid of saintly wusses, perhaps a Heaven of loving but jaded miltary veterans.
But as I've noted before, I doubt that BST is the right image for afterlife levels. I think our core desires are more indicative of our progress towards PUL than our beliefs and logically prior to them The rich mix of our core desires often remains after new facts force us to alter our beliefs. So I like to think of the Heavens and Hells as CDTs (Core Desire Territories). And I think this modification helps remove the contradictions between the Monroe-Moen model and the models espoused by other astral adepts.
Don
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