Bruce said: "I remember heading out with a friend on some nonphysical exploration or other when we both unexpectedly stopped after being called to by an elderly lady.  Standing in front of her we noticed that she was all dressed up in white, glowing clothes and behind her were these huge, white gates.  The gates looked like wrought iron in shape and construction but the were painted with a thick, white, sparkling pearl-like substance.  The lady did her best to welcome us and induce us to both pass through the Pearly Gates into her heaven, saying we should be happy that we had arrived at the Gates to Heaven.  Since that wasn't what we had planned to explore we thanked the lady and told her we had other places to visit instead.  She had a very shocked look on her face as we flew off into the darkness."

Recoverer responds: "The above is a bit puzzling. You would think that a lady who believed in such a heaven wouldn't be in a position to welcome people into such a heaven, she would leave it up to Jesus or perhaps St. Peter if she was Catholic.  I also find it puzzling that a spirit wouldn't be able to recognize that Bruce and his friend were spirits that still made use of a body.

I've found that quite often what is experienced non-physically is a simulation, not a literal experience of an actual realm.

In Voyage to Curiosity's father Bruce speaks of a hollow heaven. Other sources of information that seem honest also speak of hollow heavens. When I read Bruce's account the following questions occurred to me:

1. For the denomination Bruce spoke of, who did the first person of the referred to denomination meet up with when he (or she) went to the hollow heaven Bruce wrote about? Did he end up in a hollow heaven all by himself?

2. If this person did end up all by himself, wouldn't he expect to meet up with beings such as God, Jesus, the Apostles, Moses, an Angel or some of the Christians from Biblical times? Even if these beings weren't members of this person's denomination, certainly they would be qualified to abide in heaven.

3. I find it puzzling that souls masquerading to be Jesus were the first light beings to appear to the souls in the hollow heaven Bruce spoke of, because I figure Jesus himself would've done so beforehand. If Jesus' spirit can appear to me, Howard Storm, George Ritchie, and many other people, why couldn't his spirit appear to the people in the hollow heaven Bruce wrote about?

4. Supposedly spirit communication takes place with telepathy. Also, numerous people including near death experiencers have spoken of the intense love Jesus radiates. This being the case, it is hard to figure why souls in a hollow heaven would have a difficult time recognizing Jesus. Especially, if they expected to meet him.

There are other factors I find curious, but perhaps what I said is a good enough start. If hollow heavens exist in some manner, perhaps they exist simply so each soul is able to have the free will to decide for its self if it wants to move onto a more expansive way of viewing life. Nevertheless, because some of the facets of the hollow heaven Bruce experienced seem illogical, perhaps he was presented with a symbolic representation rather than experiencing an actual hollow heaven.  Therefore, I refer back to what I said when I mentioned that quite often we experience a simulation rather than an actual realm.

In one of his youtube interviews Howard Storm suggests this possibly.  When he witnessed Jewish people being burned to death during the holocaust (during his NDE), and saw them greeted by angels as their spirits left smoke stacks, he stated that he might've experienced a simulation rather than an actual event.

Bruce wrote: "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."

Recoverer responds: "The above contradicts what a lot of people including myself have found. When I've experienced a heavenly realm it felt so wonderful I couldn't imagine this World having more to offer. Many near death experiencers speak of how they don't want to leave a heavenly realm and are anxious to return.

Does a being such as the planning intelligence get bored and have to reincarnate?

Outside of the lessons that are available in this World, what could this World offer that is preferable to what a higher realm has to offer? Is there something better than perfect love and peace? Plus, it isn't as if the creative aspect of being can't be used in a heavenly realm.

There is also the matter of how this World includes many terrible incarnations. How could it possibly be more enjoyable to go through the suffering many people go through, than to abide in a heavenly realm?

Regarding reincarnation, going by the spirit messages I received and what makes sense to me, no self incarnates more than one time.  This is a hazy area. Some people receive information one way, and some people receive it another way.

If we think in terms of all time periods happening at the same time, then all parts of a disk are incarnated at the same time.  Therefore, a probe that is incarnated in the 18th century is a different parcel of consciousness than a probe that is incarnated in the 21st century."

Beyond Focus 27, and what Bruce said about it, I remember a mind-journey where I thought I was in Focus 27, but on the very edge of it: A plane, nearly featureless, let it be a short-cut lawn or a sandy desert, there were people sitting, like meditating. Each one alone. What I got from that was, they will be soon leaving Focus 27, or better said, they will be soon overcome any attachments of the human life, so that they can act as really true helpers for the humans, or leave this human sphere, to merge with something more encompassing, or roam on their own the now, for them, greater world.

Spooky

Albert,

I respect your experiences with Christ, and they are yours.  Everyone's perception is unique.  The misconception I feel, that is inherent in your questions is that a person must encounter JC in their afterlife experience. 

If God is love, and JC was the embodiment of God on earth, then it is possible that loving people come to heaven in all sorts of ways, without having a personal conversation with him.  Yes, there are instances where people have met JC who were not christian, and surprised to find him at the end of the tunnel.  But there are many instances where this was not the case (NDE Mellen-Benedict).

Some people need to see what they want to at the time both in death and life.  Bruce did not postulate that we all reincarnate, without exception.  He just stated his findings on a center for incarnation, and ideas why incarnating might be a welcome break from the spirit realm.

As to bias, it was, to me clear in your writings that JC is a figure that has been verified to you, and that if other explorations don't factor him in as a presence, you wonder and/or doubt their "reality." As I said, I accept your profound experiences with him one on one, yet I am uncertain that the personification of the divine is right for all of us.  When Storm was asked which was the "best religion" the answer was whatever brings us closer to God.  Swedenborg too found that righteous pagans, and those who loved God and their fellow men ended up in heaven. 

In Swedenborg's point of view, it was the state of the soul vis a vis love that determined where they would be.  True, he felt that after finding themselves in heaven, most pagans would be schooled about Christ, and their reality.   That was his take on things.

The NDE and afterlife experience is so varied and so dependent on a person's own inner consciousness, that I think trying to standardize who we should meet, etc. is not a useful exercise.  There is not just one post-mortem reality.


Matthew

Hi all. Thank you for the careful reply Bruce. I've not read many of your books, and not the one which looks at some of these possibilities. Nor have i read ES.

What's interesting about this thread is that it shows considerable agreement about the 'what' of the afterlife, but quite a lot of variation in how we interpret the 'why', and how we describe it.

We seem mostly to see an afterlife where initially we arrive with our learned patterns of behaviour and personality more or less intact, and create a surrounding reality in accordance with these, but that over 'time' (?) these fall away to reveal our true nature or core self/beliefs - at which point we create/migrate to like realities. (sounds a lot like dissolution to me)

There's clarity to the effect that it's our true nature/beliefs that determine the realities we are drawn to/find ourselves in/create, with the caveat that confusion may introduce potentially a lot of randomness into the process.

We seem to do better at accessing (from this life) the earlier stages of the afterlife than the rebirth/release stages, but even there there is a fair amount of insight and agreement. (e.g. Spooky - your beings waiting to move on, having transcended the cycle of re-birth. Robert Monroe describes more integrated beings moving beyond the cycle of life/death too)

Differences in language, expression and specific beliefs/objections to beliefs make the the views seem far less harmonised than i suspect they actually are.

Depending on our perspective we can look on the earth/afterlife/time/space/relative reality as a realm of ego and of suffering, a learning school, a realm of God, or even as a vacation from eternity.

Depending on our system of logic/expression we can talk of God as manifesting will in our mind/created realities in various ways using concepts like ego, self, duality, Spirit, Christ, Love, our own higher mind,  Buddha nature and so on.

My personal sense is that these views are all (from the perspective of our dualistic minds) at least partially true - and may appear totally true to us depending on our view or perception.

The ego dominated mind sees little except those  'others' vs. 'me' in a dog eat dog physical world of competing selves. When they look beyond the physical they still tend to create a power based reality of demons, devils  and other negative entities.

To the mind manifesting only Love the negative aspects of this existence are as nothing - unreal. (they only become significant iof your beliefs make them so)

Most of us have a considerable connection to God and Love, but are equally still quite heavily bound to our belief in the reality of the physical/relative and self based world and its importance. Others that have transcended this may choose to manifest in it out of Love to help others, but for them it may have no absolute reality or significance whatsoever and be quite incidental.

I guess i was pushing a little because i felt there was possibly a bit of a tendency to view the afterlife as some sort of personal heaven, and to feel that we only had to intellectually decide to do so and we could transcend the likelihood that our beliefs determine our afterlife experience come what may.

We seem to agree that this is clearly not the case. I guess the point is that there is an enormous gulf between thinking something, and 'being' something - the whole point of spiritual self work is transformation. Until we transcend certain less than loving beliefs they will determine the afterlife realities/route we create for ourselves back into the world  - and presumably the sort of scenario we find ourselves in it.

The Buddhist expression of all this (the wheel of death/dissolution/rebirth into a more or less desirable physical life) tends to emphasise the unsatisfactory nature of this life, and the desirability of transcending this - yet peculiarly enough it's all there in what we describe...

There's probably no problem there Doc. While i've never heard a Buddhist teaching to the effect that we can remain in the non-physical in some sort of teaching role (it doesn't remotely mean there isn't one), it seems likely to follow logically from the principle that we are inevitably driven by our deepest beliefs and convictions.

'Dissolution' too just happens to be the word used in some quarters for a process which (while we're maybe not quite sure of the detail) we're pretty sure happens.

Reincarnation is likewise by the principle that beliefs/attachments determine outcomes presumably only inevitable for those (very much the majority) attached to continued physical existence in the earth life system. (that's almost Monroe speak  )

It seems perfectly reasonable that there may be some who while they are not ready to transcend individuality are more than ready to give up earth life to enable them to maximise their assistance to others. There may also be others who while they could move on choose to remain in this sort of teaching role - in much the same way that Buddhism teaches (the Bodhisattva ideal) that realised teachers have chosen to be reborn on earth for this same reason. By what we have said there may even be some early on acting out the facade of teacher, and misleading others...

It's maybe worth saying too that Buddhism posits that there are many realms into which we can be reborn, and many of these seem not to be physical, or at least do not seem to operate to the same rules as earth life. (the wheel of life briefly sketches some of the possibilities)

It does teach though that a human life (better still an appropriate one) is pretty ideal as a basis for spiritual progress - tough enough to force us to confront the reality of egoistic behaviours, but not so tough that we are driven out of all consuming fear into karmically unhelpful behaviours  - which could in turn cause re-incarnation in an even worse realm.

The result is that it's taught that we should do all the spiritual work we can in this life to help ourselves gain the freedom from ego needed to enable an optimum (suitable human) re-birth. (it's basically taught too that we should not over indulge in this sort of speculation  - that we should instead concentrate on our knitting. That is work at what is directly relevant to our spiritual progress)

There's a pretty high degree of unanimity between spiritual teachings too to the effect that we (even those realised) ultimately don't gain complete  freedom to move on until we collectively transcend individuality. (i can't say if 'we' means just all humans, or all earth life, or as i suspect it may mean all physical and non physical life with any attachment to individuality in the cosmos. Buddhism routinely talks of assisting 'all sentient beings')

What i can't even speculate on is what the full range of afterlife possibilities may be - but i can't help feeling too that the possibilities are probably infinite.

You mention choice, but i think it's not a simple matter in this context. We all have 100% freedom of choice at all times, and indeed there exists the possibility of our deciding to move beyond this sort of existence at any time.

The problem is that out of fear we actually are unable to bring ourselves to do so - the attachment to physical existence, self-hood or whatever other ego inspired beliefs we hold, and the fear caused by the possibility of losing what we as a result mistakenly value (by the principle above) binds us to the possibility of only those options we can entertain.

When dominated 100% by unthinking, instinctive and reactive ego backed by a rigid template of associated beliefs we presumably have no freedom of choice at all, whereas those who have developed rather more equanimity have freedom within the areas they have ironed out.

The realised person can access this total freedom of choice, but i think maybe that at that stage the love we all hold for our fellow beings (but which is significantly obscured by ego in most of us) kicks in and we become unwilling to move on without doing what is necessary to release them too. We all become Christ....

Pardon my going on, but it's quite scary and at the same time wonderful territory....

Hi George,

ES doesn't say we are not human after a year.  And for any person, the time passing can vary greatly.  To be honest, since there is no sense of time in the afterlife, I'm not sure how you correlate earth-time with afterlife  consciousness.

Anyhow, the only point he brings up that he experiences is that the outer mask that we wear, from our upbringing and earthly lives falls away, and our true inner motivations take hold.  We are, in my opinion, still as human as we ever were or will be, just without false pretense or lies. 

Unless you define the human condition as being a person with an outer exterior way of acting and an inner way of acting which may be quite different.

Matthew