orlando123 wrote on Oct 15^th, 2007 at 6:22pm:

Thanks man it feels great to get these feeling off my chest.. You are right it is best to release anger in a postive way.. Instead of bottling it up!!

Hopefully, I will find my true feelings of love about God..

peace

briggsandurlacher3:

Perhaps you're accusing God of something he never did.  It is also very possible that you're forgetting what part you took in taking on this incarnation. Many sources say we choose our incarnation. We do so with the understanding of what an incarnation entails. That being the case, why have sour grapes?

Also, where we end up is more a matter of our overall psyche. Consider an experience I had years ago. I was an atheist at the time. If somebody tried to tell me that God and the afterlife existed, there is no way I would listen. I believed science had all the answers.

Nevertheless, one night, because of grace, I had what I refer to as a night in heaven experience.  I found myself in a realm where the happiness level was wonderful. The happiness we seek througout our lives but never quite find.  During this experience I understood without a shadow of the doubt that God (not in an old man in the sky sense) and afterlife exist. Not only did I understand this,  I understood how it is possible without even having to think about it.  It was like, "Oh yeah!" It was such a relief. I understood that in the end everything works out wonderfully for everybody. I also understood that Christ is a big part of it, but not in a dogmatic sense. I didn't see nor hear him. Nor did I ask about him.  However, I did understand that his and God's presence pervaded the realm I was in.

When it comes to who Christ is and what his role is, I don't believe it is like fundamentalists contend. You better believe or else. Certainly beings who live according to love and don't have their minds fettered with non-sensical limiting ideas, aren't looking for people to throw stones at. They understand that we live in a World where all kinds of belief systems are possible.

Consider my case, I didn't believe, yet I found my self in a heavenly realm. Why was this possible? Because even though I didn't believe in a particular way, I was basically a good hearted person. Therefore, it was my heart that enabled me to experience a heaven like realm. Not my beliefs.  During this experience I didn't say, "No, no, no, I don't want to believe in God, Christ and the afterlife." The truth of what I experienced was so real, certain and wonderful, there was no need to argue.

Each of us has false ideas in our own way.  That's just how things work out in this World. But this is okay, because it is the amount of love we live according to that mostly determines where we go. If we spend our life as a negative minded person, the overall energetic we create will determine where we go. If we spend our life as a loving person, our positive energetic will transport us to a positive place.

There might be some instances where a person's belief/beliefs temporarilly interfere with where he or she ends up. Fortunately there are lots of light beings who help spirits who get stuck.  Some helpers are in the physical. I know about the later through my own experience with retrievels.  Regarding whether they are real, all I can say is that a person has to venture into the retrievel business for his or herself, before he or she can become certain. Regarding whether a person deludes his or herself about the matter, this is a matter of how honest a person is when they discriminate the matter.  Regarding whether there are enough retrievers, I've found that there are ways where many spirits can be retrieved without involving a lot of physical people.

Regarding it not being fair that some people get stuck for a while, if we're going to have the freedom for self determination rather than being controlled like a bunch of puppets or being programmed like automatons, the shortcomings of the free will system have to be accepted as unvoidable parts of the creation process.

Jimney Crickets! When you die, just remember to look for the light and call out for help. You don't have to worry about going to hell because one fragment of your mind is based on memories collected while listening to false teachings.  





briggsandurlacher3 wrote on Oct 15^th, 2007 at 6:03pm:

glad i'm not alone in my feelings, briggs.

well i read a couple of george anderson's books, and he mentions some suicides where the souls are in heaven like any other soul...  i've seen other cases like that as well.  i guess the afterlife works on a "like attracts like" principle, like if you have a hellish mindset (in other words you think you can do whatever the hell you want to other people), you will enter a hell-like place with like-minded people, whereas a kind person would enter a kind place with kind people.  bruce moen mentions this in one of the books - a thief who gets trapped in his version of "hell" - living with a bunch of other thiefs.  and eventually the thief realizes the error of his ways and is able to leave his hell.

Hi dave

I agree it is interesting to look for rational explanations - see the Science of Eternity thread, and worth trying to suggest ones. I was a bit hard on Michael Roll in the thread, but I do support his general idea, of looking for explanations of things and not assuming there must be some hard and fast line between the physical world which is amenable to scienitific explanations and the spititual one which is said not to be. His theories revolve around the soul being made up of some kind of as yet unknown sub-atomic particles and he considers that the spirit world is to be found in "dark matter" and "dark energy" as far as I recall. He also thinks this is what used to be known as "ether" - an invisible substance supposed to permeate the universe until around the 1920s or so.

I think one day we will understand the workings of spiritual matters better in more scientific ways. The science of a few decades'time might incorporate all kinds of things that are not widely accepted now. Have you come across Dean Radin, for example? He is a parapsychologist who writes about how in his opinion psi phenomena have now been proven to exist scientifically, although mainstream science for the moment tends not downplay this (he bases himself on collating many reputable studies and looking at the statistical probability of their findings, which he shows quite convincingly to show strong evidence for the reality of various so-called "paranormal" phenomena -- ie things are happenning at a rate way above standard chance, even if it is hard to produce impressive phenomena on demand). At one point he said that, I think it was Sony (a big Japanese corporation, anyway) had set up a group researching psi, and they finally closed it down saying "we found out it exists, but think it will be many years before any practical application could be found").

I've not had any afterlife exploration experiences, though I find accounts of them interesting, but I do think I've had contact with discarnate entities (or at least my experiences can plausibly be assumed to due to them) and I had a quite interesting regression experience.

I think I'm about ready to get off topic! it's been so long since I let myself ramble I'm looking for the thread police.  oh, just checked they're taking a break!

Dave, you got it slightly askew. God said I couldn't have a walk in come into my body just because I was doing such a lousy job of living a happy and fulilled life at the time, and therefore, shame on me, that I would consider this life here to be like a department store where you could just exchange your soul for another soul who would come in and clean up your own act while I watched from a cloud in nirvana.

the ultimate put down by god is to be told by him that he had given me a gift for which I was ungrateful and now I somehow had gotten the idea that life was a department store and didn't want his gift. I said oh, didn't think of it that way god, pardona moi! At the time, there was nothing on sale. it was all work and no play.

actually, years later, come to find out this wasn't god at all! this was a male guide. probably my own DP. I remember feeling desperate. depressed. mid life crisis. no accomplishments. boyfriend sucked. no job. no ambition. all you youngsters out there, sometimes we call it mid life crisis, but depression can hit the best of us for spells, hang in. there is light at the end of the tunnel. I decided to experiment with getting guidance. maybe someone else can try this. it really was an important turning point for me and maybe it would work for someone in a similar spot.

1) I remembered having "god" conversations as a youngster. Decided to have another one in my 40's. couldn't hurt. I remembered the times I felt comforted after such a conversation.
2) I used to walk while doing this conversation thing. this time, since I was so bad off, I decided to bend my knees, as this would allow my ego to go away for a minute while I imagined that god was talking to me. this posture did help me remove some of the depressed thoughts I had.

3) First I spilled my guts, how I really was taking up valuable space in the world, lol, and maybe I should just go home..pretty please? 
4) I imagined the presence to be about 8' away towards the wall and spoke to it though I saw nothing...after I said what all I needed to say, and offered my brilliant idea of god using my life, my body for something "he" wanted to do, which I obviously was seriously failing in doing anything useful for another human being..yada yada...
after this I was told by a presence which as I said, I could not see, but as I got quiet, I could make out male intonation, sort of telling me off, or I should say, in a kindly manner but somewhat urgent that I understand this was my life for better or worse and there was no way in hell god would send in a walk in, so there goes my fine new age idea!!!
I was told to learn to appreciate myself just as I was, with all my hang ups and my nothing going on life, that I must love myself despite there didn't seem a reason to love myself. He said god loves us all just as we are. its a come as you are party and I'd received an invite.

sometimes, I admit Dave, I do shop at Walmarts and I am forgiven for this! 

There is no proof of anything, there is only us becoming more of us. the best way to attain a feeling like you are more than you think you are, is maybe to do a partnered exploration. expanding on that comes naturally and we may be able to do away with our cell phones someday, and that is a practical benefit I'd say.

I was sad the other day  when I read in Shambhala we cannot share what it is that we are certain of, our experiences, because they belong solely to us, and it becomes our proof personal, in the heart. although we try and we try, and we should try. but we should not have expectations that we will be believed, even though we must be as authentic as we can when we tell our stories, that truthfulness will only fall on the ears of the one who is ready and has been waiting for your particular way of saying it.

well, gasp...I'm winded! love you all and have a good forever. alysia

Your post brings to mind Alysia the old saying to the effect that our life is always perfect exactly as it is. That whatever needs to happen is happening, and that if we're dissatisfied it's because we're looking at it through the wrong lens.

It's not that easy to live from this place...

It's tough, but perhaps the reality is that we can't have absolute certainty until we pop the clogs. And even then creative mind means we'll probably be met by exactly what we expect. Not to mention that if we're disposed to doubt there's no proof can stop or overcome that, that can't be second guessed. It's maybe for this reason that all of the great teachers have restricted themselves to 'signs' rather than attempts to deliver 'proof'  by so called miracles or whatever.

So it's maybe not by accident that we have to make the first move, show the first sliver of faith or openness - point being that it's in essence an internal journey we each have to make on our own by our own means. Anything else would amount to compulsion, and Spirit doesn't do that....

But that having put a little out we get a lot more back....

Thank you for reaching out yourself Alysia, and the others too. For sure we all walk alone, and it's a choppy ride. But equally  if we can pull it off correctly we can help others a little too (and lots of other issues to do with the limits of language, conceptual thought and communication: not to mention writing skills) - although this is limited by the very fact of the above.

We in the end have to take responsibility for ourselves.

Sounds like that could be Chogyam Trungpa's very wonderful Shambhala: the Sacred Path of the Warrior you are reading....