Recoverer

You bringing up some questionable things that Bashar says is fine.  I knew far before you said anything that Bashar isn't 100% accurate in what he says- no single source of information is.  However, to claim that his goal is to mislead people is a biased and uneducated opinion which serves noone.  It cuts you off from the possible experience of gaining knowledge and perspective you did not have before through Bashar's material, and it dissuades others from doing the same.  If you witnessed any of his sessions you would have a better understanding of what he is about, but your bias of channelled sources will probably prevent this anyway, so I suppose it is a waisted effort. 

You are mistaken if you believe you can change people's beliefs by trying to prove that a source they benefit from is false- for even if you can prove to them that some of the things the source in question says are false, the fact remains that that individual still benefited from whatever perspective that source offered them.  THIS is what's important.  Just like the book Convos with God.  If the book helps the reader to live a better, happier, more fulfilled life, as it has with many, many readers, then obviously that book is what that individual needed at that time- and if it serves as a positive influence and encourages that individual to grow, then THAT is what's important.  And if some things they picked up while reading are false, this will also be revealed when that individual is ready. 

Name one person you have helped by attempting to disprove a source they trusted in.

Yeah, you're right, Recoverer. Orange soda is sometimes not good for you. But sometimes it is.

“There is no book so bad,” said the bachelor, “but something good may be found in it.” 28
          Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. iii.

Not sure that I believe that, but perhaps we can apply that saying to some New Age bogus channeled sources as well? I went through the Bashar site, and it has certain pseudo-wisdom in it, but ranks right up there with the same trite sayings as are found in  a mixture of: Ramtha, Seth,  Elias, The Secret, and other common New Age sources.  And hey, you can get your own private reading at anytime (for a price).  We won't even talk about the "Santa Spirit."

Followers of Seth and Elias (who some claim to continue the Seth material), often follow thousands of hours of channeled material, and many are extremely fluent in it and can cite chapter and verse on virtually any topic.  I respect that degree of study, but I find it hard sometimes to carry on conversations about the nature of reality when I am quoted to about a so called channeled source, rather than actually discussing the topic at hand.

If your thoughts create your reality - explore it  - I have and was convinced of the truth behind this expression - though in a way that is not magical but a bit more subtle, by changing probabilities in the physical world. 

Yes, explore for yourself, as Bruce advises, don't rely on channeled sources or get snookered into following someone else's message, without personally validating it for yourself.

After much investigation into various philosophies, many seekers get tired of the rhetoric and want to move on to the direct spiritual experience.  This can only come from personal exploration and patience.  Unfortunately, this is not accomplished by buying the latest CD from the psychic channeler "du jour."

Dude - no one will begrudge you the right to follow sources like Bashar, but if you think Albert is speaking out against this channeled source for any reason other than what he perceives to be helping others, then you are mistaken.  You ask "how does it help others to speak out this way?" Hmmm.....I wonder, one could equally ask "why should we retrieve deceased humans from stuck focus levels such as focus 23, 24-26?"  If anyone's views are equally valid, why be concerned at all about helping anybody? My answer;  love.  Love is the reason we help each other.  The reason we pick each other up when we fall.  It is the reason we don't usually sit idly by when someone is following a dark path, although we could.

This is a feeling I get from many channeled sources.  The lack of love for others, and the lack of emphasis of love as the driving force for everything.  It is more a personal indulgence - a feel good message saying you can do anything, you can experience ecstasy, make your reality, without factoring love or love of others into the equation.  That is an important sniff test for me when evaluating any source of information.

Albert, no matter what else has been said here, I understand where you are coming from.  From my point of view, you help many people on this board.

Matthew

Thank you Matthew and Roger.

I find myself in quite the quandary when I post as I do at times, because on the one hand I don't want to be disrespectful towards others, and on the other hand I find it hard to just sit on my hands and be mum while the fraudulent gurus and channelers of in this World have their field day with well meaning people who have yet to develop the discrimination to see when somebody is conning them.

Dude is partly correct when he says some people obtain benefit from fraudulent sources and they move on when they want something  better. However,  because I know a number of people who have been mislead by fraudulent sources for much or all of their life, I don't believe the matter is as simple as Dude states.

Consider what J.Z. Knight (Ramtha) once did. She told her followers don't go to the light, go to the darkness. Some of her followers became very upset when they heard this. Because of where she was positioned as she spoke, she couldn't see that they had become upset (Ramtha certainly didn't tell her). She was informed about their upsettness during a break. So what did she do? She decided to use fear to regain control. She came up with this alien/reptilian thing. When the break was over she told her followers to not go to the light when they die, because reptilians use the light to trick people and strip memories from their soul. As a result, a soul will have to return to this World and reincarnate.

If a person dies while believing in J.Z. Knight's nonsense,  and looks for the darkness instead of the light, a retrievel might be needed.

Regarding Walsch, how much lack of character does it take to tell people you channel God when you don't? It is disrespectful to God, and it is disrespectful to the  people you mislead. It is downright arrogant for a person to assume that it is okay for he or she to share his or her ideas with other people as if they come from God or some other high level being, when they don't.

I watched some Bashar videos on Youtube last night and I can't say I was impressed.

As I mentioned before, is grace and genuine guidance so lacking that we have to rely on fraudulent sources of information that mislead people to varying extents? Is a honest person with integrity more likely to find wisdom within his or her self, or from a person who lacks such qualities and misleads others.

Albert-

"Gurus" have a long and sordid history. Thing is, just like unscrupulous internet scammers, they will always be with us. 

Here are just a few examples from http://www.strippingthegurus.com/

Ramakrishna was a homoerotic pedophile.

His chief disciple, Vivekananda, visited brothels in India.

Krishnamurti carried on an affair for over twenty years with the wife of a good friend. Chögyam Trungpa drank himself into an early grave. One of Adi Da's nine "wives" was a former Playboy centerfold. Bhagwan Rajneesh sniffed laughing gas to get high. Andrew Cohen, guru and publisher of What Is Enlightenment? magazine, by his own reported admission sometimes feels "like a god."

These are typical of the "wizened sages" to whom otherwise-sensible people give their devotion and unquestioning obedience, surrendering their independence, willpower, and life's savings in the hope of realizing for themselves the same "enlightenment" as they ascribe to the "perfect, God-realized" master.



But just as Bruce says, belief systems are almost impossible to change.  If a person is convinced that somebody named Lobsang Rampa is an enlightened master, regardless of how much evidence there is showing that he's a shameless fraud, there's not much you or I can do about it.

Maybe the best course is for you to continue to post your own experiences and let them speak for themselves.  A lot of the guru groupies are frankly young and immature persons and logic doesn't have much sway.

R

So, where do everyone's 'dead relatives' fit into all this. Where do all these previously 'living' folks come from that near death experiencers run into, folks that they've never even met? Why do they meet people who are no longer here? It seems to me that if it's all in our imagination then people would report meeting all kinds of people who are still alive, as if they were dreaming. It is tempting to think that perhaps all these experiences originate within the brain itself, from a brain which operates through more than one 'system'. But it just doesn't explain to me all knowledge that people come back from near death experiences carrying with them.

Dude said: Rather than judging the source as genuine or phoney based on preconceived beliefs, I simply see what they have to say, and if I like what I hear, if it arrises excitement within me, if it helps me to broaden my perspectives, if it encourages me to grow, then that is obviously a positive thing.

Recoverer responds: Certainly we can discriminate things in a manner that goes beyond playing around with preconceived ideas.

I gave some channeled sources a shot, until I found that they were lacking.

One of the reasons people don't question the false gurus they follow is because they take the stance, "How could little old unenlightened me determine if this person is enlightened?" I believe it is a big mistake when they take on such a self-defeating approach. WE CAN discern if a source of information is valid if we allow ourselves to do so.