Berserk

I think it is important to understand the relationship between desires and beliefs, because I feel there is more to it than you may believe.  I feel that our beliefs influence our desires, for it is our beliefs that form our realities in the first place.  An individual naturally would not desire something which was contrary to their beliefs- even if this belief is hidden from one's normal conscious awareness. 

I feel that we shed our physical ideas of reality the longer we are out of it, for it simply does not apply anymore... but say in the initial stages of nonphysicality when many inhabit BST's... I feel the specifics of the different religions only influences one's vibrational level to the extent one focuses on them. 

I believe that everyone and everything we encounter and experience is basically a reflection of an aspect of ourselves.  I have seen this to be true in my life, and of course it closely relates to the law of attraction, which applies in the physical and especially the nonphysical of which we are speaking.  The idea is to learn from these reflections and evolve to a higher level of being.

So far , this is what makes sense to me.

I believe it is largely a matter of how much we'll open to love. If we have beliefs that cause us to view others in a judgmental seperatist way, that'll limit how much we open to love, and we'll end up with spirits that have the same love level. It is also a matter of what our overall psychological makeup is.

If there is one person who believes in religion A, and another person who believes in religion B, and each person is equally judgmental towards others, despite their similar love level they won't end up at the same place, because they judge each other. Each will find a realm with the same love level, but different beliefs. First they will be attracted to their love level, and then segrate a little more according to their beliefs.

This doesn't mean that every person who is a member of religion A or B will end up in a corresponding belief system. If a person (spirit) is able to open up to love despite some of the dogmatic ideas of their religion, and if a person has enough openess of mind where he or she won't accuse a light being of being satan simply because this light being has viewpoints that are different than a person's religious beliefs, such a person won't need to go to a belief system territory where a period of adjustment has to be gone through. It isn't just a matter of what a spirit is capable of. It is also a matter of allowing a spirit to have the opportunity to take responsibility for its own growth and decide for itself when it wants to open up to a more love based way of being rather than a fear and judgment based way of  being.  

Many people have more than one aspect of mind.  Their strongest aspect (energetic) determines where they go.

I don't believe that spirits who aren't able to move towards the light always end up in an interactive belief system. There could be cases where they end up in an energetic level with souls with a similar energetic; however, they don't have a lot of awareness of these other souls. Instead, they keep recreating their own little dream Worlds. To the extent they are willing to reflect upon the parts of their body based life that caused them to end up in the realm they ended up in, to that extent they'll find a way to move beyond such a realm.

It might be hard to accurately determine what non-physical reality is like when we are still connected to physical reality in some way.

I've had a number of lucid dreams and OBEs where I was conscious of being a person who is having a non-physical experience. On some occasions I made the point of trying to discern how real everything seems.

Visuall perception: Just as real as physical reality. On some occasions more vibrant.

Movement: More flexible than physical reality. I could float, fly and move in ways that are beyond my physical fitness and capabilities. There have been a few lucid dreams where I thought I was awake rather than being in a non-physical state, and was excited about how I suddenly had the ability to float and fly. I have never felt physical side effects while in a non-physical state. For example,  being out of breath, or a muscle feeling as if it is being strained.

Smell: Just a little bit, not anything like I smell while physical.

Taste: Just for a short period of time, never to the extent I experience while physical.

Sense of touch: Very little. For example, there have been occasions when I experienced non-physical kissing and/or sex. During such experiences I paid close attention to how the sense of touch felt. The sense of touch wasn't as strong as it is while physical. I believe I was able to experience the sense of touch while in a non-physical state, because my body's nervous system enabled me to do so. I figure spirit beings don't have a body's nervous system to make use of.  I figure the same type of neural interplay might be involved when I smelled and tasted things while in a non-physical state.

Conversations: Even though I hear some words while in non-physical states, I never hear them to the extent that I hear them while physical. Usually conversation is more a matter of knowing what was communicated, rather than hearing word after word. I figure spirits don't have vocal chords and don't make use of sound waves when they communicate. They communicate with thought.

Knowledge/understanding: I can understand things more thoroughly while in a non-physical state than I can while in a physical state.

Hey everybody, just so you know, we are golden points of light in a sea of golden light. You can quote me on that.

For me, the uniqueness of C1 includes the spectrum of different individuals that inhabit the same envirnoment.  Some of the most loving souls inhabit the same house, place of work, country, as do some of the most selfish or unloving.  Clearly, unlike the planes of pure consciousness, the rule of like attracting like is subtly changed on earth.  We DO attract things into our lives, but we are able to see, speak with, and interact with souls on all spiritual levels of development.  We also seem to lose our ability to interact freely with telepathy, and in C1 we do not create our environment by merely thinking about it (as has been reported in Focus 27). 

I'm not sure what I think about the term Belief System Territory.  Some heavens are likely created by a group consciousness belief (Islamic heaven, Jewish heaven, christian heaven), however, everything I've experienced tells me that spiritual growth and existence is less dependent on cultural beliefs associated with any religion, and more on the expression of love for each other and for God.  As such, the idea that people would be in a BST based on an earthly religion rings false in the sense that the community would need to be at the same level of vibration for love.  If they are, then they could choose to worship within the cultural beliefs which they prefer.

I think Don's question about the misinterpretation of astral explorers of BSTs is a good one.  If you believe that all fundamentalist christians are misguided and dogmatic (for example), then you might imagine them all in their own BST.  Multiple verifications would be needed to know that our own "interpretor" was not responsible for what we saw while exploring focus levels or on an astral exploration. 

Is C1 a BST?  Not as defined, since there are multiple beliefs, and as I said before multiple levels of growth all interacting with each other.  If the question to us is which are of consciousness is "real," the discussion becomes moot.  Wherever you go, there you are (Buckarro Bonzai).  Reality is conscious awareness, be it in C1 or somewhere else.

Ultimately, if we can give up fears and attachments and act, feel and express love, there is likely a unity, present all the time that we finally experience, instead of this feeling of separateness.  At that stage, my guess is that there are no more levels of travel from one focus to another.  Perhaps that is the ultimate reality.

Matthew

Matthew:  

"Is C1 a BST?  Not as defined, since there are multiple beliefs, and as I said before multiple levels of growth all interacting with each other."

Gordon:

Yes C1 has multiple beliefs, in a religious, political and philosophical sense; but we share some assumptions about the essential nature of three dimensional physical reality which bind us together in relative illusion, parameters that we believe cannot be overcome (ie matter is solid, we need food to survive, sex is essential, learning valuable, war inevitable, competition and greed natural,  the dead non-existent in "real" terms, money and real estate "real", humans are limited bodies,   (list goes on)

these details and others define the parameters of our illusion regardless of religion etc., and place us firmly in the belief system territory mode as far as I'm concerned.

gp

I was asking in general, at either level. I agree with Gordon that we are bound by parameters which amount to beliefs: gravity, sex, eating, etc.. But there are poeple who have levitated, who are celibate (through choice not chance), and who consume neither food or water.

I have explored what Bruce calls the BSTs, and found several almost indistinguishable from C-1, and they also seemed (to use that term) real to the extent I could feel the sun on my cheek (sun? cheek?) and hear birds chirping (birds? ears?). A Course in Miracles workbook starts with the lesson: Nothing I see means anything. Remember singing, "Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream?" Well, what I am saying is that life IS a dream. And just like when we seem to awaken from dreaming in the moring, we will awaken from this waking dreams as well. This point, the nature of reality, is what A Course in Miracles is all about. Who cares where it came from? Isn't The Bible really channelled material, too?

And ALL of this seems based on the supposition that we are our physical bodies, and that this C-1 physical consciousness has intrinsic value and "it" must be real because our senses can define it. We are more than our senses (x-rays, infrared, radio waves, etc), and more than our bodies (isn't that the point of OBE?). But it is those very beliefs which I mean: our formative suppositions, or sponsoring thoughts.

I think C-1 is the way it is because that is the way we have conceived it, just as Focus 27 is the way it is because that is the way the energies there have conveived it. It all seems like thought form to me, either on 27 or in C-1, just denser here.

And finally, some of the others here seem pretty darn crazy to me.....

By the way, thanks everyone for your thoughts on this. If we are really making it up, can't we make it a loving dream? I think this is what is happening with the "Earth Changes," but that is another thread which no one seems to want to talk about. It was those changes and very times we are experiencing which drew me to the work, not really retrievals (though they are fun and fill the time).

Thomas