Vajra,
Quote:To ask a very direct question of you Bruce - do you have any sense from the perspective of experience as to what happens after focus 27 and education?
It might be useful to start by saying that Monroe's focus levels were defined by him as being based on the kinds of people he found inhabiting various areas of Consciousness. His 'C1' (physical reality) through Focus 27 were areas he defined as areas of 'human consciousness.' So, to talk about what might be beyond Focus 27 we would be talking about areas of Consciousness inhabited by 'non-humans.' These could be other life forms like plants, animals, rocks, aliens, etc. But I think what you are asking about is more along the lines of, 'what happens for us humans as a result of going through this whole system of focus levels.' Perhaps this with an eye toward 'what purpose is served' or 'why do we put ourselves through all this wierdness in the first place?' In Voyage to Curiosity's Father, my fourth book, there are lots of answers to those questions that I have come to believe, not that anyone else should believe them, but I do.
I've explored a place I refer to in Curiosity's Father as the Land of Angels which is a place that Graduates of this human 'school' appear to inhabit. If one of the primary purposes of enrolling in this human area of Consciousness is to learn to experience and express Pure Unconditional Love (PUL) these Graduates have completed that purpose. For them every act they commit is one of PUL. In terms of location within Monroe's focus level system my opinion is that the Land of Angels is at or near the very outter fringes of Focus 27. The inhabitants of that area appear to interact with other humans within any of the focus levels I am aware of and probably with humans in other areas that I am not aware of. The inhabitants also appear to interact with other life forms that exist beyond the boundaries of the areas of human consciousness.
Quote:By what means do we find our way into rebirth?
There are many means to do this and several are described in my third book, Voyages into the Afterlife. Basically, for most of us, examining ourselves after a physical lifetime we may decide we'd like to experience another physical lifetime. We chose which of our 'personality traits' will be emphasized and which muted as a way to guide ourselves through the approaching moment of our birth and that lifetime. We do this to cause ourselves (during the lifetime) to be drawn toward some areas of experience and repulsed from others. We may chose the timeframe of our birth, our parents, country, culture, etc. We are free to make any choice for the approaching lifetime that we are aware is available to us. We are free to listen to Helpers, Guides, etc. to assist us in becoming aware of more choices available to us. Then at some point we pick the entry point within time/space for our birth and enter through a process described in detail in the third book.
Sometimes we may have gotten ourselves so 'lost' that we re-enter a lifetime without our conscious awareness, ill prepared, and do our best to find ourselves again.
Quote:What of the 'self' continues? What is the range of possibilities?
It would take a rather large book to describe the full range of possibilities. I could start by asking you, What part of the 'self' you were as a child continues to exist to this day? Would you say that some parts of your childhood self no longer exist? Or would you say that they do (probably) exist but that you are just living your life now through other parts of your self at the moment? For me the latter comes closest to describing an answer to your question. No part of me ever ceases to exist, it just folds into and becomes the parts of myself that I now express my individuality through.
Quote:Is there an escape from the death/afterlife/rebirth cycle?
Why would anyone want to do such a thing? 'Escape' makes it sound as though we had no part in deciding to enter into and join this 'death/afterlife/rebirth cycle.' It also assumes that we exist within one and only one area of consciousness at any given point in our existence. That concept is so foreign to me it is hard for me to think in those terms anymore. In my view we exist within many, many areas of consciousness symultaneously.
Personally, I view my lifetime Here as a welcomed vacation from eternity. While being focused 'over There' the fact that we are eternal beings who exist forever is a more 'in your face' kind of thing. Frankly, knowledge of the eternal nature of our being can get boring after a while. Focusing Here, in a physical lifetime, seems to block awareness of ourselves as eternal beings. It's kind of a welcomed relief for some of us.
Quote:Drawing on the Bardo teachings, or just even observing everyday reality it seems pretty clear that some sort of dissolution of the individual self takes place at some stage during the transition.
Again, I would call it a sort of rearranging of which parts of Self I chose to express through, rather than 'some sort of dissolution of the individual self.' But like the 'Bardo teaching' your refer to, my understanding is just based on my beliefs that spring from my limited experience and understanding of the whole subject.
Quote:'Joe' dies, seems to remain in some way recognisable in the afterlife, but while there is seemingly propagation at some level of characteristics is patently not reborn as the personality 'Joe'.
Or one could say, Joe dies . . . and then choses to emphasize a different set of his personality traits to experience his next incarnation through. Joe didn't dissolve, all the original parts are still there, just emphasis on a different set of his parts.
Quote:Is it even possible that what we contact after death in the afterlife is maybe even just a residual shell of decaying beliefs, that what continues has separated and merged (or may be about to merge) back into some sort of whole that is beyond our reach?
In my view, yes, that is possible. That's why I developed the third workshop, Self Discover and Self Healing. The primary goal of this workshop is to teach folks how to retrieve Aspects of self that are often a sort of shell or fragment of the Whole person often stuck within the effects of beliefs or traumas. In my view it is also possible that what we are in contact with is the whole person, or at least the majority of that person's 'parts.'
Quote:Some argue this is God made, others that it is the means by which (through behaviours which reinforce the 'fearful self' belief system) some unconscious (to us) higher level of ego mind imprisons us in this reality.
Both arguments assume that it is possible to be separated from 'God' or some 'higher level of ego mind.' This is another concept that is so foreign to me that I can no longer think in those terms. For me such a separation is not possible except to the extent that we can cause ourselves to believe it's true and thereby be, temporarily, unaware of our connection. Lack of awareness of this connection is part of what I mean by 'a vacation from eternity.'
Quote:That's just one (albeit widely held) view, but the question remains - is there any other view from the experiential perspective as to what the nature of this reality we find ourselves in is??
I would say that there are as many 'other' views as there are individual awarenesses in existence.
Bruce