Hi All,

I've dipped into this forum for a couple of years now and even posted sporadically. One thing that strikes me is the diversity of cultural background and beliefs of people who use this site. But one thing that people seem to share is the belief that they are more than their physical body and that death of that physical body is not the end of their existence.

Two questions:
1. Is this something that posters have always believed e.g. perhaps as the result of religious upbringing or something they have come to believe/know in adult life ?
2. If it has come as a result of belief change - was it a sudden reality blowing 'eureka' type experience or a subtle incremental change over time. If the former at what age?

This interest comes after a conversation with a skeptic friend the other night who was asking me about my beliefs and I was wondering how my experience compared with others.

Thanks,
Dave

Thanks Seraphis- presumeably even tho' you may have always suspected it was so, it was your hemi-sync work which really confirmed it for you...

D

I believe in the afterlife because of numerous experiences I have had.

In younger years there was no compelling interest in an afterlife, although I was a 'believer' as a child for a few years, very short in number, before dropping completely out of that 'scene' to explore many others, including atheism. None of my beliefs were ever well-founded, more like snippets of other people's beliefs.

In recent years, through a combination of personal exploration, reading of others' personal experiences, and continuing to study 'lightly' in a broad way, I feel 'intuitively' secure in the existence of an afterlife. There are too many connections which point to its existence.

My beliefs in what is 'possible' have expanded in a huge way. More than that, the process of searching, exploring, and coming across interesting ideas/people have become so rewarding that, if there is no afterlife, well, I seriously have no regrets in believing that there is.

After a terrible event, so near to me, Haiti, rather than to be angry at 'God' or depressed at a feeling of 'helplessness' -- I feel that there are things to do, places to go, hope to feel, no matter what the situation. That's a pretty huge and exciting way to live.

It is not difficult for me to imagine that this 'way of life' can linger and continue in an afterlife that is a completely startling and amazing place, one in which anything and everything can appear.

B2-

'After a terrible event, so near to me, Haiti, rather than to be angry at 'God' or depressed at a feeling of 'helplessness' -- I feel that there are things to do, places to go, hope to feel, no matter what the situation. That's a pretty huge and exciting way to live'.

For me that is one of the great benefits of this ; a subtle but powerful change in viewpoint from one of confusion and anger to one of opportunity and growth. I also pick up your point - '...process of searching, exploring, and coming across interesting ideas/people have become so rewarding that, if there is no afterlife, well, I seriously have no regrets in believing that there is'. It amuses me when some people are accused of spreading 'false hope' in an afterlife when positive benefits are coming from it and it can never be logically disproved since discarnates can never communicate that they don't exist !

D

Thanks for all your interesting replies !



D

For me, I seam to have known sence I was a very young child. When I was about five I started phasing into past life memories and experiences. One time I recalled my suicide. By hanging. The same people were involved in this lifetime as that. In this case myself and my mother. I hung myself in a closet with her finding me. I knew at the time of the expearence that I was having was a real memory and that this current lifetimes connection with my now mother, was an effort to correct something from that past lifetime. I have known positively sence then and even writing about it right now, some forty seven plus years later, I remember the expearence like it was yesterday. All of the emotions. The leaving of the body. The regrets once I experienced the death of my then body. The effect of the suicide on her. From that point onward I have known, without doubt, that I was more that my phyical body. (thanks Bob) Know that reincarnation was avalable to all.  Further, I have always been able to read peoples minds to a certain extent. More of their emotions and pictures is what I pick up on. I pick up on lies and transgressions extremely easily. The emotion of when someone is killed as an example. Sometimes seeing the event or more times often, knowing by receiving communication from them, what happened to them.  It is past the point of thinking it could be true, but now, knowing that it is true. Really, at some times its a burden. As an example, knowing when someone is in emotional trouble can be quite a weight. When you know how someone was killed or if they are getting sexually abused. You know because of the emotion and pictures they put out. Sometime its does effect me very personally and can be extremely overwhelming. At Gateway at TMI, there was one participant that was having an extremely difficult time. When I walked into the room the first day I picked up on it instantly. (She was a guest there on a scholarship) I knew that the reason for her current problems in this lifetime (she was extremely introverted) was caused by her father and his brother systematically raping her over the years in the bush.They would take her out hunting, or coon dog training, as a pretext and then rape her. She was very young when it started but continued to live with the two men, with problems still occurring but more involving pressure on her for sex to continue and her now being grown up and an adult having the power to not allow it. But the memories of the events and the continuing pressure were really holding her back this lifetime emotionally and spiritually. She had only just moved away from their land before coming to Gateway. My ability to pick up on her fear, her emotions, and parts of the actual events made some days extremely difficult. Moving into her experiences was at sometimes overwhelming and heart-wrenching. I know she truly loves her father.  In the end, although not totally resolved, she seemed to come to grips with it, and although not sharing the expearence with everyone she confirmed the expearence to a few other of the attendees and the trainer who had sponsored her. It was a sensitive issue to bring up but in the end she seemed far more extroverted. 
I experienced a big win during one of Gateway outside exercise while connecting to nature. That was a connection to "All". During that expearence I was shown the meening of life's experiences, the need for sacrifice by all of us, and the gift of love and forgiveness, both excepting, and giving. A life changing expearence that I had at Gateway. Everyone should go if they have the opportunity. Anyways... So the answer would be I have known for the most of this lifetime.