My parents are in their 90s and by definition approaching the end of the road. I've meanwhile had a few brushes with death, most recently through illness. Recoverer has meanwhile been posting about soul.

I've been thinking about some of the differing views on the above, and would appreciate hearing what you guys have to say on the subject of survival. And what experience you have to back it up.

Buddhism in essence seems to say that it's higher primordial/dharmakaya/absolute mind/awareness that's immortal, and that the characteristics that go to make up what we'd regard as a personal self are subject to ongoing change, have no permanence and transmit via karma - in the form of both mind tendencies, biology and evolving life situation.

Realisation its said puts one beyond the influence of karma, but also allows one to if required out of e.g. compassion for other humans to reincarnate (as multiple reincarnations/emanations at once if required) from the dharmakaya or absolute reality into a body in the world complete with at least certain attributes from previous lives. Which implies that this reality is far from being just an amporphous timeless blur.

Such an incarnation still has to learn to live in this reality and achieve realisation as we all do, although they are said to quickly achieve both. (there's a lot written about the amazing behaviours of reincarnations which can show remarkable knowledge and powers as children) I've no information beyond the above which in essence summarises what's generally taught as undergone by Tibetan Rinpoches or reincarnated teachers.

The bit i've no idea what the teaching on is whether or not the unrealised can also store in and transmit anything via the dharmakaya/higher mind/the absolute. We all embody primordial awareness however. Do you know anything about this Dave, Blink, anybody?

This is quite an important point because those positing an immortal soul suggest a range of possibilities. At one extreme this soul will contain all personal characteristics, and allows for reincarnation of more or less an exact physical and mind replica of self - even if this is in the afterlife.

ACIM seems to be close to the Buddhist view, saying that essentially everything to do with ego is unreal and lost on death, but seeming to say (hope I have it right) that essential attributes are retained in the absolute.

Others such as the Urantia Book I seem to recall suggest that what we learn through love is replicated in the absolute and retained with our piece of God/soul, but that anything selfish dies with the body. i.e. a wholly egotistical person will essentially die or at least transmit nothing much beyond physical death.

We could say there are four elements in play (maybe you guys have a better definition?) - physical body, thinking brain-based intellect and learning, higher/absolute mind and learning/primordial awareness, and karma.

What do you guys figure happens to each of these in the case of the death of an unrealised person? Do we have any experience to verify it?

It might be best to first off suggest a different division if needed.

I can lead off from the Buddhist perspective:

Physical body and brain based intellect/learning are lost.
Karmic influences from past lives determine both birth and life circumstances and mind tendencies, but change continuously as they play out.
Its possible that certain attributes transmit via higher mind/awareness/dharmakaya/the absolute

My most relevant experience is a 100% clear separation of brain based intellect/thinking mind from awareness (can't be sure if it's the higher variety)  in meditation.

What do you guys think?

based on just what we can call medium tendencies and obe tendencies also, I can stick to experiences as these seem to be what folks understand best.

my experiences are in what I call the astral areas or we could say focus levels 10 on up to 27 and once in awhile focus 33.

when I obed and dreamed I was dead was a time I was just beginning to do retrievals in conscious manner with phasing. there was a very real sense that I was "released". actually, in physical reality, I was freed from a role where I was realizing I was playing the role of my mother's daughter whom wished to win her love.
so you may see here that the daughter role died. In the roles we play in life a large belief system complete with attendant expectations, emotions, desires, is built into a role that we as spirit put on, and essentially, my mother and I had become room mates, in one swift moment when I realized she was incapable of being the mother I had expected her to be for 55 years. I released the need to attain her love and she presented to me her inability in this matter.

actually a burden was lifted from the heart to complete the karmic ties with her, and realize we are spirit which dons different roles life after life. so I was floating out there in the obe feeling rather free at first, noting I was no longer attached to whatever I had been attached to.

I had no memories at this level just a sense that was of the adventurous sort, in my essence which must always seek interaction with others and communication.

so perhaps we can say the memories are saved as the akashic records, and what changes in death is the roles we play, as we can come back and play different roles to one another. waking up was strange the next day as it felt like a new life was to begin and it really was all new.

also my grandmother, deceased retained her form and acted as guide to my mother, we both could see in our mind's eye her form living with us in the house. when I established contact with her, I asked her to change into her younger self for my sake to see. she did and was at once a young lovely woman. then I asked why she did not retain her youthful appearance? she replied mother had an image of her older self as she looked just before she died, and that mother would have difficulty remembering her youthful appearance.

so we are not talking about an enlightened, self realized family..just down home folks in my family, bunch of rowdies actually but admirable in a sort of rough way.

my sister died young, at 38 or so, and was astral bound for a number of years before I knew consciously to help her get on. she also took the form of a 13 yr old younger version of herself to appear to mother whom failed to recognize it was her. my sister haunted the family a bit, until she could contact me and settle our differences via a conversation. then she went to live on I think focus 27, she had a house, I saw it, she had a new beau, it could have been focus 23 though. but it was definetely a rise for her from the lower astral to something better.

and so I'm not answering the question you brought up very well Ian.

I have heard from another explorer that his parents he has contacted whom passed over and he said they were not as emotional as they had been in life but they were still together and were pleasant to him.

I think perhaps in relationship to Buddism, we can say where we have been defines to some degree where we are headed, in that our experiences produce an essence, which experience cannot be the whole of us, but we distill our characters from the many experiences and roles we play life after life.
I'm reading of root races at present. apparently the 6th and 7th root race has begun its work of evolvement here, these are the ones who were born after 1900, these are the ones who can reach enlightenment the quicker.
some say there are nine root races, just depends which book.

a personal self versus an impersonal self, I don't know what that means. you'll have to explain it better Ian.
Basically PUL runs the universe and it adds to a soul, but does not take anything away from a soul, so I don't see loss in the term, personal loss of self. in enlightenment an expansion of awareness occurs instead of a contraction of awareness and I would think on the other side, a continuation of this expansion process occurs, what is started on this side.
there are a loss of anger, hatred, and lust upon death in a process where the emotional body, as these are building blocks, these are real material of finer nature, does disintegrate gradually within the lower astral field, which I am sure my sister was trying to burn off all her bitterness over dying young and she finally did. also while she did this sloughing off of her hurt and anger, she took care of abused horses, and was burning off some karmic thing doing that, as she had a great love of horses.

while the self is being cleansed, it feels like part of you is dying, because we get so attached to the idea that an emotion, or a role is us. so it wants to live. if it's no longer useful and slows us down, it has to break away from us, and I think the Buddhist are talking about the negatives are dying, but whatever is a fruit of the soul endures along with the sense "I am."

what I think this is, is a person begins to realize they own their soul, but before claiming ownership they may go thru very difficult trials.

thanks George. u reminded me, I came in contact with my twins souls 7 years before they were born to me. I recognized them when they were born. they used to pull on my legs to get me to come out of body.
I also recognized my husband to be a year before we were married by a stream of light in the eyes, and the room sounds disappeared for a second and I knew we would be together.

Monroe met his future self also in his books. he met a past self with the name Munroe, spelled with a u instead of an o...so there is something to predestination.

Hi,

We retain the same awareness, consciousness and continue as a unique being forever. We are not absorbed into the universal mind, source call it what you may. The Buddha concept of loss of self is no different to eternal death or elimination of the spirit and soul and is a horrifying concept from which that all people flee.  I did not neon to sit in a cave for twenty years contemplating about an existence and place that I will only know for sure is real when I die. I could sit and meditate forever on the city of Istanbul, but until I have been there myself will never know if my contemplations and visions about this remote place from my perspective were true or not.

I know I dont have to muse, hypostatize, postulate about he continuation of my self and my beloved ones that have passed over before me. I have died , retained my  knew I has  still Alan over there and my parents greeted me in a way in my brief sojourn in a loving way that I could still recognize them. Maybe further into the death experience one change and evolves into a higher exalted state of spiritual energetic awareness Alan

Regards

Alan

Good post Vee.
May I suggest something with out sounding 'lordy'?
Could you break up your posts a bit into paragraphs? It is hard for me to read them and I like to read your thoughts.
Far be it from me that I am some expert on grammar. My kids and Mrs Dood love to point that out to me.

As for on topic: What I would like to know is how did the 'Centers' in focus 27 look lets say 100 years ago. 200 years...500 years?

Did they have high tech looking screens then?  I would not 'think' so.  
Was everything on a Scoll back in Roman days for example?
Has anyone that has traveled there asked about this?
Like the 'Re-Entry Tower'.  Was it a tower back then or some kind of wooden machinery?
A 'mill' that squeezed us down to a curl?

I always think of weird stuff like this.  I assume since we are a TV generation things would look like what we are use too.

Thanks for your thoughts and wonderful summary of it all, Vajra, you put it all so well. What is always so nice is to see that everybody is thinking about it all and I wonder if we will ever know the answer really, even when we leave our bods. And I will start paragraphing, Dood, thanks for mentioning that, I agree it's hard to read all in one big bunch. I've really enjoyed this thread and reading everybody's thoughts.

Vee, I'm glad u posted about how we create the afterlife, I'd been trying to say that, but you put it into perspective for me.   darn, I can almost see forever!!!

When we go to sleep at night,we have no idea of time.its like we do not excist.Than we wake up.Lots of people die in there sleep,and this makes me wounder.maybe we will go to the spirit world,and stay there for a 1000 years earthtime,after the 1000 years we might want to go back to earth for another life.then we wake up as a new born baby,and start another lifetime here.but we will forget about being in the spirit world.1000 years is a long time,but to us its the first time we have been here.right or wrong

I guess Alysia i was thinking of the view behind this paragraph lifted from the web ( which you will recognise) when i held back from trying to reconcile the various concepts:

'According to the Zen tradition, at a teaching assembly Shakyamuni (the Buddha) held a flower up in one hand, and turning it in His fingers, winked. Mahakasyapa, one of the Buddha's chief disciples, smiled. 

The Buddha confirmed that Mahakasyapa had understood His teaching. The Zen tradition claims this as the first instance of what it terms wordless mind-to mind transmission of the truth outside the scriptures and claims Mahakasyapa as the first patriarch of their tradition. 

If only we will listen, though, each flower has a wordless teaching for each of us. The scriptures are always guideposts, summaries or hints and true teaching is essentially wordless and finally consists of feelings and knowledge that words can never fully convey. Amida's (the Buddha of Compassion) call too is, paradoxically, entirely wordless. Memory is wordless. Aesthetic emotion is wordless. Love is wordless.'

It's very Buddhist, but the view is perhaps generally applicable. I suppose if i read it correctly it's basically saying that conceptual thought is only a prop, not the reality. 'Don't mistake the pointing finger for the moon' is what the Zen guys say.

That's not to say that getting the thought sorted out is not important, or that it's not fun but it's not the critical element in our story. It seems to me that when we get into concepts that we need (as we normally do) to stay light, and especially to avoid drifting into preaching or defensiveness. Regardless of what's written or said our thoughts are our own....

Moving back to the discussion of ideas in this forum. I couldn't agree more Alysia that it's an amazing learning opportunity ( we're all contributors to the Sitter's Digest) provided we can as you say remain open and always search for what rings positive/true.

It's a bit of a privilege in fact to be able to exchange views with you lot!!! Now back to the fun stuff...

Thanks, Alan, I like the metaphor of a PC you used there, often notice how we have come to use the computer to compare and explain how we fit into things. I do find sometimes how tortured is the path of the individual and how restful it is to go AHHH and just meld in with the god consciousness and let go of it all. But I guess, (just guessing) that there must be some very real inherent value, (value is too weak a word) in the struggle of the individual, although as Stuart Wilde often reminds us, Life Was Never Meant to be a Struggle. Vee

I figure love is like a super glue. If we love something, even if for false reasons, we have a hard time letting go of that something. Eventually, we learn to love what is truly worth loving, and as long as we keep loving it, it'll stay alive.

If we come to the point where we truly love ourselves, our spirit selves, as long as the energy of love is available, we'll keep applying super glue to our existence.

We come to the point where we truly love ourselves, only after we've evolved to the point where we choose only those aggregates that enable us to be wise and loving.

When I had my night in heaven experience, I felt like I was a being who was formless, but yet still existed as a definite being. I did not feel like I was alone. I felt like I was with God and may other beings, who also existed in a formless yet definite way.

I've had a couple of experiences where I was more conscious than usual while asleep, and I abided as an awareness/energy being, as another awareness/energy being taught me how to do so. These experiences did not feel like a dream.

There was also the experience I shared on another thread. The one where I walked around a town (not physically) while being happy and excited about being a part of one self. I walked up to complete strangers and hugged them, and they were happy to hug me back, because they also understood that we are a part of one self. Yet, we also understood that at the same time we are unique and distinctive beings. It is only when we try to view others being something other than parts of the one self, that we run into problems.

I've had other experiences that support the above, but instead, below are what some people have found during NDEs.

From Mark Horton's NDE:
"Still moving (backwards always for some reason) I suddenly just relaxed completely and allowed "myself" to dissolve (?) open up (?) merge (?) into the "oneness" that surrounded me. The ex- plosion of emotion and (again words are almost useless) over- whelming "love" that I now felt made any previous feelings I had experienced even during this episode, however "long" it had/was/is going on, seem like nothing! I cannot possibly put into words that any human language has that feeling. I was ev- erything, I was nothing. I was everywhere, I was nowhere. I was everywhen, I wasn't. My intellect had expanded to contain every thing, time, place, and even being that was, is, or ever would be! I was unique yet I was the tiniest part of the whole. I know this is sounding like gibberish... it even does to me a times when I read it on paper; but to have been it! Words don't exist to describe the joy and love and warmth. It truly is inde- scribable! "

Another experience:
"Now this is very difficult to describe, but time ceased to exist. It had no value there...past and future were completely non-existent. I was traveling in an intense, burning now. Now was everything. I ceased to be a noun (person, place or thing) but became a verb (an action). I was Ray-ing instead of Ray. This is the best I can do to describe what no-time is like. It is beautiful in it's own intensity and burning Now-Ness.

I was given a huge message at this point. The Being told me "This is Who You Really Are", as the Universe opened up to me. I could not tell the difference between myself and the infinite galaxies. I became all-powerful and all knowing - and yet I was still Ray. I cannot describe this better than this, but this "story" feels so inadequate next to the real thing.

Then the Being guided me and introduced me to another being of the most Incredible Beauty and Love that anyone could comprehend. It was a Greater Being of intense Light. It was God. The first Being guided me to this Light and let it enfold and swallow me up. I became one with Love times a million, billion, trillion forever and ever. We were made of the same stuff! Every Being that had ever existed in all of Creation was now part of this Greater Whole Being called God. I was one with all of them, and yet I was still Ray...all powerful, little old me!"

http://www.cinemind.com/atwater/RayNDE.html

Another experience:
"I understood (I use this term because I did not actually hear) the drops were the experiences of all who had lived. The experiences existed as separate items yet belonged to the whole. The whole was the collective knowledge of all. I understood there was no individual, just one, yet each experience was individual making up the whole. This concept of ONE is so foreign to any description I can give, there seems to be no way now of describing it. My previous understanding of one was a single uniqueness. In this case one is something else. Many being one and one being many, both existing simultaneously in the same time and space. I further understood that the collective experiences are omniscient knowledge. Everything that has been spoken, heard, and experienced. "

http://www.cinemind.com/atwater/KenNDE.html

To change tack on this discussion a little. We've had quite a lot of discussion of issues of self, ego and the afterlife (not just in this thread), and have ended up with mixed views on the nature of 'self'. Some have found the Buddhist idea that transcendence of self is ultimately necessary if we are to return to reality/achieve complete realisation a bit too radical. 

A more moderate view might be that we can't function in the world without some sense of what we are vs. the reality we live in. Egolessness arguably doesn't mean losing this ability, only any grasping/attachment that causes us to try to position self relative to it according to some mind made sense of 'what should be' - whether that is suppression of self out of say some mistaken religiosity, or of seeking advantage for the self.

The idea seems to be to remain in the 'natural' state if you like - to relax and allow ourselves to be guided by intuition so that we go with the natural flow of events. Perhaps the Tao, if we are to draw on another tradition.

This sounds fine, but it gets interesting (and possibly quite radical) if you stop to think what might be left if we all achieved this.

I'm still reading Robert Pirsig's Lila (a discussion of values) which draws on this sort of thinking to posit that most of us live from a learned framework of static values - a static view if you like of what 'I' am, need and want; and how this and all the other 'I s' (the "We')  should as a result act in the world if we are to prosper. This changes very slowly, and it's effectively encoded in the culture of our time by which we are all conditioned.

This is in some ways i guess 'going with the flow', and interestingly enough it does tend to produce an apparently relatively trouble free life. But it's pretty sterile.

He goes on to say that there's a few who despite knowing these values are driven to try new ways of living - that live from intuitively received dynamic or evolving or maybe even radically changing values, and become the leaders of change in our world. Great teachers, artists, musicians and social pioneers come to mind in this regard - people ranging from the Buddha to Jesus to those in the 60s who experimented with new ways of living and kicked off the New Age or whatever you want to call our era. Also those 'off the wall' types living very ordinary lives that only seem to make sense in retrospect.

This is not an easy path - the forces of conservatism (the defenders of static values) in society will turn on such people (harbringers of change) and perhaps even literally crucify them.

But this for them is 'going with the flow too. It's just that their intuition (heart or deeper knowing side) is feeding a different message to that received from the intellect (head) by those that adhere to static values.

I suppose the question I'm posing is what is the 'right' behaviour in light of this? Static values alone would simply leave us more or less stuck - living in a society that provides relatively little opportunity for spiritual development and progress.

On the other hand if everybody lived wholly from intuitively received dynamic values we at minimum would be faced with an absolutely incredible rate of change in the world (potentially for the good), but could if too fast see some sort of societal or functional melt down out of there being more variety and faster change around than most of us could cope with. This would potentially cause a reversion to selfish/violent behaviours resisting change in some cases too.

The reality seems to be that the 'flow' is controlled by maintaining the correct balance in this and all the other variables that determine our rate of evolution of consciousness and everything else- that it's by definition right as it is.

But imagine if we really get motoring at some point in the future  - we could perhaps in the end when our total reality becomes no longer the right learning environment (too perfected and not challenging enough) or we no longer are bound by karma to imagine it into existence do the old 'blink out to a higher reality' trick. And in doing so perhaps prove the truth of the Buddhist idea that ultimately form (including physical self) is empty - of no relevance once we've superseded it.

It actually might just be happening. We've through history seen a progression from individual rule of the fittest, to more highly organised rule of the fittest groupings and nations, to the Victorian rule of public morality/societal values as a means of curbing the excesses of selfish power, to the reassertion of a higher sort of individuality which is also at times selfish and indulgent within that framework (post WW2, really accelerating from the 60s), heading perhaps now into a more balanced individual responsibility and ability to draw on a blend of intuition and wisdom to better live from love.

We may of course blow it before we or any sub group gets that far and get sent back to zero. Spiritual snakes and ladders.....

Sorry if I'm rambling.

HI Goerge,

Yes indeed in my case i can remember no previous incarntion although this does not mean that i have not had any previous lives.

alan

You're welcome Kathy, and thank you for what you wrote. I agree with what you say. I still have some fears I'm not completely letting go of, and I can feel these fears present resistance at times within my heart chakra. When I let go of fear, I'm overcome with pleasant feelings.

I believe we need to become certain that what we truly are can never be harmed by anything.

Thanks Kathy for your post, I (unfortunately  ) seem to never get tired of the reminder to simply let go of fears.

Vajra, from your post, I myself see the problem is, you can either be driven by a program taught to you by someone, or living from intuition- but when the latter is the case, you somehow are thrown back to the first, as then the things you receive through intuition are then programs as well. So, the point has to be to discern between stupid, not satisfying programs and the true self-appropriate programs for our actions in this world. How can we discern between the two? Finally, we always have to come back to an honest and clear review of how we feel, isn't it? Do we feel free or do we feel narrow and under pressure.
  Then there is another aspect, when it is the aim to really realize the illusion of the physical world, then we won't be any longer here in this reality. We can't have it all, both the "illusion" of living a life as a human being, and at the same time to be entirely de-attached from this illusion.

Spooky

Kathy said:
“God and man will once again walk hand in hand.”
____

Hi Kathy, I hope I'm not too old to see that happen. I've been calling it the shift in consciousness...assistance in the form of intelligent energy blanketing the Earth.
we all feel it differently. some will find that not only is PUL more easily felt, but so is fear intensified, if we have some fear in there, now is the time for it to be shown so we can decide to just face off with it.
For all those who work with their fears, its really a good thing just to become aware if you have any. some of us are afraid, but just accept the fear as normal.
What my guidance told me long ago, which I didn't really get until recent, is to square off with it, not run from it, I mean, no matter how threatening it looks.
just the act of looking at it closely tends to make it lose its definition or importance.

then it can be replaced with PUL, what a relief that is! We do have assistance and it sure makes going to sleep easier at night to know we are observing some major changes taking place, in the individual, and the whole of humanity.

thanks Kathy, I enjoy having you around. love, alysia

Kathy said: And if our physiology is changed as well then evolution as Atwater indicates, will probably continue at a faster rate than what we’ve considered normal in the past.  All of us, not only here on this forum, but everywhere people are talking about their spiritual experiences, verifying them, confirming them within their own consciousness. I guess you could say we are all bell ringers drawing attention to these things.
_____

Yes I agree about last year. I had housing foundation issues to fix, a biggee for me in the faith dept. made me stronger person, and even more grounded!

and I compare my problems with yours, you too were rebuilding your home. This similar situation we went thru was difficult as money is related to flow of energy too into our lives.
and money was concerned with it. I'm happy for you, sensing all that u went through.
I like what u said above about the speed up. also I notice people in bad moods seem to get out of those moods quicker these days, at least I'm gratified to be seeing this happen with strangers I meet. it does not seem I have conscious control over interactions..everything is spontaneous to happen correctly even if things don't pan out like I expected, I know its right. the experience of dying, the after effects in my life went on into the years. I was more at peace with everything. calmer. even serene at times.
It does seem like a speed up of time itself also.

love, alysia

Hi Rogerscott-

As one of the linguistically challenged bord users, I regret the misuse of the Queen's English such that it has given you English anguish. Us barbarians out here in the Colonies don't always use a "spell check". Besides, we recognize that one of the greatest problems between our two nations is the assumption that we speak the same language.

Anyhow, gung hay fat choy!

dave