Hi Hbeer, and I know you addressed this to Bruce, but I feel chatty today! Welcome to the forum, and a fine forum it is.

Your burning question intrigued me, and then it seemed so simple to me. What is the value of techniques to clear negative energy, clean up past life karma, etc. if they are done so easily and efficiently in the afterlife?

We all want to be happy, wherever we are....

That's my answer. Why wouldn't we want to be happier here, NOW, and why wouldn't a loving Creator provide us with the means to do it?

I have asked myself that question and I find that the Creator does want me to be happy now, and is doing absolutely nothing to prevent it. We are our own stumbling blocks, and that's what makes it our OWN game here. We have free will, and we start from...we know not where...when we get on this checkerboard of life...

but now I'm turning poetic on myself. I'm late for work. That's what happens when you keep your mind on the higher things....

love, blink

Hi Heidrun and Welcome,

Another aspect that relates to why we do all this stuff and spend our time, energy and money (and read all those books and conversation boards) is that we’re learning more about ourselves and the nature of consciousness.  For many of us that exploration of consciousness and the afterlife is probably the most exciting adventure we can embark on.  Maybe we learn better by bringing insights from there to here instead of just waiting for someone to lay it all out for us.

Just another train of thought.  But Bruce's point that we can help others or help aspects of ourselves is the best reason to be doing this.  Help now has to be better than help later.

Rob

This is interesting territory, and not the easiest to understand. To fly a kite with a view to encouraging some  input - from Bruce or whoever.

If I understand teaching and interpret experience correctly the spiritual path is basically about releasing karma, delusional beliefs or whatever. Forgiveness to use the ACIM term.

It's a pretty big ask however.

If broader Buddhist and other perspectives on the nature of realisation are mixed in this entire cosmos (both normal physical life and the afterlife - or the system of reality containing the complete cycle of birth, death and rebirth) is essentially a mind made karmic creation, unreal and a cause of suffering.

Only the absolute or primordial source or God or unity or PUL (pardon if my terminology is not exactly accurate) is seen as truly real.

Meaning that we (and 'we' doesn't mean as a personal self, but perhaps as ever larger collectives) ultimately have to extend our consciousness to initially become aware of all the higher realities, eventually coming to see that while they can be experienced that they (with the exception of the absolute) along with the self and this physical reality are ultimately not real.

Meaning that much of the 'domestic' karma we can consciously work to release at this level pertains maybe only to cleaning up our current or next few lives. (although who knows if this is the case)

It presumably contributes to but doesn't necessarily greatly impact the eventual transcendence of these 'realities' that will presumably eventually be required of us.  Taking that route we presumably would have to deal with millions of issues (many of which have not even arisen yet) to get there.

The idea in certain Buddhist traditions that complete realisation is possible in 'this very life' apparently conflicts  with this in my view.

Because if disassembly of our belief in all of the multiple layers of reality up to the absolute can only be achieved in a step by step mode like this it's hard not to think that we'll be on the trail for many thousands more lifetimes. (something which Buddhism wouldn't I think necessarily dispute as being a possibility)

Realisation in this lifetime implies either that it's only available to those who are already nearly there, or else that some sort of intuitive leap is possible that short circuits this entire grind of step by tiny step learning and release.

Buddhism being what it is it's not explicit at the levels of teaching I can access about this - but for sure it holds out the possibility. There is a sense in there that for example meditation works in ways we're not conscious of (there's a story that talks of not pruning the branches of the tree that is egotistical delusion, but of rather using methods that work directly at the roots)  - and that breakthoughs of the above sort ARE possible.

Especially using more advanced practices like Dzogchen or the Vajrayana practices which are precisely designed to induce experiential realisation of one's own Buddha or absolute nature.

I guess it's at least possible to imagine that gaining access to major insight of this sort might collapse the entire belief system that props up conventional existence. This is what apparently happened to the Buddha himself too.

So back to recovery, and the release of karmic issues.

What might be your views? I wonder where it fits in in this big picture. I wonder too what the guides and communications some of you have access to might have to say on the possibility of the quantum leap I've described above....

When we raise our own vibrational rate, it effects the rest of the World. Our vibrational rate increases when we let go of limiting ideas.

recoverer wrote on Jul 27^th, 2007 at 1:39pm:



Good point. So I didn't waste my last 30 years 

What you say about the meaning of 'suffering' in the context i used it is true HB. One translation of the Pali 'dhukka' I've heard is 'unsatisfactoriness' - happiness that isn't stable, that it alternates with intervals of true suffering, that even when we get what we want it doesn't make us truly happy or quickly wears thin and so on.

The core point I'm getting at though is whether or not there exist practices or methods we can use to accelerate our transcendence of the whole scene - to produce a breakthrough. A sharp rather than a very gradual reduction in karmic load in the terminology of the original question. And in particular what if anything the explorations of the community here might have to say on that subject.

The Buddhist take on the afterlife is that while it presents great opportunities for realisation that for the untrained mind the risk of an uncontrolled rebirth into highly undesirable life circumstances which might result in the generation of more negative karma is just as big a possibility. We may for example have negative karma lurking in the background which did not come to fruition in the previous life.

Meaning that it's important that we make the best possible use of our given human life to progress on the path.

My intention was not to minimise the value of recovery work or the like. It was rather to raise the question of what the link between this sort of work and the bigger picture described above (presuming this picture is  supported by afterlife work)  - how it contributes.

One way I pretty much know it does is that raising vibration and energy levels as you guys say does in some way also rapidly increase or deepen knowing and insight which contributes to subsequent dropping of delusion.

But again I can't quite say why this occurs, but to me it strengthens the possibility that breakthrough steps in consciousness raising are possible....