Hi

On another thread Doc M has made the plea that we get some topics and discussion going that will help 'newbies' and others progress.
In that vein, could we recollect some steps toward the afterlife that marked our individual afterlife experiences?

In other words, what three(?) milestones did you have that led you to further and further involvement with the afterlife?

(Perhaps you've mentionned or reported it before, but this will create a place dedicated to just that topic.)  Thank you.

Betson

Only one significant milestone has led me here:  the death of my father one year ago.  Since then I am increasingly obsessed with reaching him, but still have had nothing "verifiable".  Which means to me that I'm not convinced it was real. 

After fooling around with various blogs and websites, I finally decided to read "Journeys out of the Body", which perhaps would have been a good place to start one year ago.  Picked up a used copy on Amazon last week and though I was afraid it would be difficult reading, to my delight have found it a real page turner, hard to put down! 

Look forward to experienced folks offering their stories and advice.

About three years ago, I sought and experienced a very detailed encounter with my mother, who had died the previous year.  It was very moving and cathartic, but I could not validate it as "real" and so over time I began to doubt that it was real. I posted about it here. Then, last year my sister had a stroke, and during her final days, I was "reminded" that my mother had told me that my sister would pass soon during our initial encounter. The reminder was so stark and sudden that I can't deny that it came from somewhere else. I posted that story here recently.  Since then I have read Bruce's books, and have been working with his CDs to learn to explore better.  However, my experiences since have been less dazzling and much more "debatable".  I did a retrieval recently, and got a name, date and city, which I have not been able to verify (although I have not tried too hard). I too would like to be able to "standardize" my access to my larger consciousness. But my belief systems are strong, and while I am willing to move beyond them, I am finding it a struggle. That's why I am here.

Hi Bets! fun to be on-line with you.

I think I have some great psychic connection that I am unable to face or have not learned how to deal with, so I repress it. I'm good at repression. When I read your post, I recalled being a kid (early grade school phase). When we went to Sunday School, we heard many Bible stories. Some were too big for me, I think. One from the Scriptures was of the young boy..Samuel? gee it's been a while...being alone and hearing God's voice call him. Well, when I would e at my grandparents' house, which was a big house, 2 stories plus attic plus basement, I was terrified to be alone. I was terrified to go upstairs by myself. One fear was that I would hear God's voice calling to me. The idea that following a voice would lead me to peace was nonexistent for me. I repressed all that intuitive stuff as best I could.

Bardo
I went to read your earlier posts. I thought of writing you earlier after seeing your post on Matthew's thread.

I took a workshop with Bruce in 2000. No I'm not good with this stuff but that doesn't mean Bruce's stuff doesn't work. I have been a single parent and have had to put soem practical matters first, for one thing.

I see this site as a place that should be safe for people to come and post and be safe regardless of how outlandish I may think they are (you are not outlandish!). I feel like to some extent I am sitting not in my own living room, but in Bruce's, and that it is OK to disagree with ideas but not to attack people.

Two things new folks here don't know.
1- Their question has probably been asked and answered before...multiple times. Sometimes it is difficult to get excited about a question again. I'm sorry if people seem not effervescent about things posted here, but this is the down side of this board being here for 10 years or so.
2- In the past there has been conflict here, and yes, some interesting people no longer post here. You could probably find it in the old posts if you had the time.

That said, I'm glad you posted your experiences here. Sometimes you don't get a big response because people have heard these things before and there is nothing new to add. I am sure that your posts touched people even if they did not reply. All these stories add energy.

I think confirmation exists on different levels. Of course, we all want that confirmation on the big "scientific" level. We want an experiment we can repeat and show to the public. We aren't there yet, and maybe it won't work that way. And frankly, inside organized science, it doesn't work that easily either, but that is another story.

On the other extreme, there is confirmation on the personal level. Something happens that you cannot deny. We all experience this sort of thing all the time but usually it is not in matters pertaining to the afterlife...just in everyday stuff, when we figure something out. Maybe you happen to know where you were at 2 PM on October 24, 1996. That is not something you can prove to anyone else, but YOU know it. That sort of thing. Of course, unless you need an alibi for a serious crime, no one will ask you to prove it.  The problem only arises when you need for someone else to know it too.

Some personal encounters are so transformative that no one doubts that the speaker experienced something that changed them. That is all the proof you get with that sort of thing. I actually think there may be more of this than we (as a culture) talk about. That is why this board being a safe place for people to come and talk about anything is so important.

So your experience with your mom letting you know about your sister ahead of time is personal. I don't doubt that something happened because I have heard/read many similar stories and because I think it accomplished giving you a moment of peace in a difficult time. I don't think you should have to prove to the world that this was real. Surely it is as real as where you were at 2 PM on October 24, 1996.

Now we get to the in-between place. Maybe some mini-confirmations can be had. The stuff Bruce talks about. He did an exercise in the workshop, and this is an old exercise in its basic form, I had tried it years earlier. You draw the name of another workshop participant out of the hat and then ask to intuit something about them. Then you get up with that person and compare notes. When it works it is striking. YOu learned something about a person you didn't know before and then you verify it with that person.

This works better in person than on the board. I hope you won't get discouraged when it doesn't work here. Sometime ssomeone organizes a group meeting at the Park, and sometimes there are correlations in what people experience. I think the problem is that in order to get "proof" we need to have a common language, but the psyche likes to be creative and use symbols the way it wants to.I would like to see more discussion on this. It would work better if people could partner up but that takes such a big time commitment.

Does it buoy you up to read others' experiences? Some of the archives from around the time of 9/11 were pretty interesting. I don't think the board can take the place of a workshop. But I hope you will continue to post here. I am sad at your losses but I think you got messages that brought you peace and enhanced your sense of curiosity.

Lucy,

I loved your post.  And I especially agree about what you said of the different types of confirmation. 

These are all interesting posts.  I have a long one to share, which may be more along the lines of what Bets was originally pointing toward.  A lot of my experiences that I learned the most from are also in my normal life, not just "out there" experiences.  And, too, most of mine seem to have the personal kind of confirmation. 

Bets,

Yes, I thought you meant for us to share what we learned of an internal shift of our knowledge.  But if you mean for us to express specific experiences in our life, I have several, which I'm sure most of us do.  I guess I don't have the typical ones that bring a lot of folks here looking for solace or answers.  For instance, when my dad passed away this year in January, I haven't been sad in the typical way most people are, haven't been questioning my beliefs, faith, or suddenly thinking about what happens after we die.  But that's because I've had a lifetime of experiences preparing me in a way.  For those of you who are familiar with my history of experiences, you can see why I'm able to take my dad's death "ok".  I mean, I of course miss my dad, but as far as afterlife beliefs go, I'm completely fine with his passing.  I've also had a few visits with him since his death, so that of course is just icing on the cake. 

I guess my biggest experience that made me ok in my beliefs, faith, and quest for knowledge has been the many times I've had direct experience with what I'd call answered prayer.  I'm not religious but have grown up with using God as my word for what I believe as a higher power, but not in the traditional religious way.  What I mean is, I too still get hung up on wondering what our higher self is, how it connects to me, to others, how we are all connected, what came first, the chicken or the egg.  Then you throw in Bruce's Disk stuff and I'm even more confused.  His disks make sense to me, but that's HIS experience, not mine.  So the best I can do for myself is to take other people's experiences and analogies and make sense of them in my own way, and kind of adopt my own ideas and concepts.  Does everyone else sort of do that too?

But back to what I call answered prayer...I've had plenty of experiences of being faced with something huge, praying to God, and then having a direct experience that can only be described as an answer to that prayer.  Even my ex-hubby, who the only thing he can believe in is that the lights will come on when he flips the switch, was pretty dumbfounded many times in our years together over the things he witnessed.  But he fought constantly to deny that God, angels, afterlife, spirit, soul, and even consciousness could possibly exist. 

One of the more personal things I can share about this topic, is that when I am in that frame of mind to really pray hard, I mean when something has hit me so emotionally devastatingly hard that the only thing left to do is to pray for guidance, it's a feeling inside me of strength that can only be described as a sort of pulling together every cell of my consciousness and focus it on that one thought.  The power of that kind of determined concentration is, to me, what makes for some pretty amazing experiences.  Relating it to what Bruce teaches, this to me is what he means by Placing Intent and Pure Doubtless Intent.  For me though, it takes quite a bit of emotion, and that's something I want to learn not to rely on.  Bruce teaches this kind of determined concentration (minus the emotional desperation) and it's an area I really try to work on in ways that don't have me feeling such a personal/emotional connection to or desperate need for.  I think it gets to the point where desperation doesn't work anymore, and actually blocks you from getting what you want.

One of the personal areas I'm working on growing in, is to learn to let go of my fears in such a way that that kind of emotional helpless feeling isn't something I have to hold onto anymore.  It's not something I need to rely on as the only way to make "magic" happen.  Basically, my experiences seem to be wanting to teach me to learn to let go of fear, become confident, worry-free, and be able to not hold myself an emotional prisoner over things that I can't control.  It's also one of the reasons I so dislike that I'm still stuck in the stage of having mostly very personal psychic and spiritual experiences.  I want to be able to work outside myself, help others, and not be so afraid of ...well, I'm not really sure what I'm afraid of.  I'm not afraid of death, but I'm afraid of not having all the things I want to have in this life.  I don't want to die before I'm ready to die, know what I mean?  Anyone who knows me knows I absolutely HATE surprises.  One of the downsides of being psychic and knowing what's going to happen, is that you expect it so much that when things "appear" to not be working out, it's easy to freak out, become so frustrated thinking "Oh my God, this isn't possible.  I was told what was going to happen, so how come everything is screwed up right now??"  And I always feel responsible, like there's something I'm either supposed to do or something I didn't do right, and now I've messed it all up.  Well, I think this is what they call "faith" and what that's all about.  Sometimes we just need to trust what we know and believe even if it doesn't appear to be the way we think it should be.  Usually, everything works itself out eventually.  But for me to have the patience and grace to not worry about things?  Forget it, I haven't come that far yet.    

One of my most important answered prayer experiences is my story of Luis, the man who popped out of thin air before me to let me know he had come to answer my prayer.  In the prayer, before surgery (1996) to remove a tumor from my lungs, I said, "God, I don't want to die yet.  There's so much I want to do and have in life.  There's so much I want to experience.  I know there are so many people to meet and things to learn.  I want to raise my son, and I want to have a daughter one day.  I want all of that.  If it's in your plan for me to die, then I accept it with open arms, but if I have any say in the matter then I want to live!   Please just tell me if I'm going to die or not.  I just don't want death to be a surprise."

I wasn't afraid of having sugery, wasn't even afraid of death or what comes after this life, but was only afraid of being taken away from my life before I was ready.  I'm pretty feisty when it comes to getting what I want, and I knew how badly I wanted to finish my life and do all the things I planned to do.  But I wasn't really expecting a real answer to my prayer.

Luis walked into my room with family members there several times, talked to me, said a prayer with me, comforted me, and let me know the surgery would be fine and that I had nothing to worry about.  We all just assumed he was a hospital worker and it was his job to comfort patients.  After a few talks I told him that I didn't want to die, and he said that I wasn't going to die.  At that point I had no idea he was actually there just to answer my prayer but thought he was just being kind.

It wasn't until a few days after my surgery, when one night I awoke and thought of him, and saw him appear before me.  I was so shocked I said, "It's you!  You're here!"  And he said, "I'm always here for you Vicky."  He went on to tell me that it was his job to come here to answer my prayer about wanting to know if I was going to die or not.  That was his job.  That's why he was here.

That moment was the most profound ever.  When he said that, I remembered my prayer before my surgery, and knew that I had said it in my head, that no one knew I had said it or what I'd worried about.  So how could he know it?

Have I ever been able to see him again?  No.  I have tried.  I've directed thoughts to him, asked him to come again, asked to hear or experience him again in some way.  I have no idea who or what he is, where he came from.  God knows I wish I had had the presence of mind to have asked him a billion questions, but at the time he appeared to me out of thin air, I was too much in shock and amazement, and the overwhelming feeling of love, kindness, and peace I felt in his presense completely dispelled any fear, pain, or doubt in my mind.  Thinking about the seemingly "important" questions that I have in life meant nothing at that moment.  Ironically, my big fear of dying and having to leave my life was also completely dispelled.  The comfort and love that I was feeling in his presence was so incredibly wonderful that if I did die then, or was told it was my time to go...well, that would have been perfectly ok! 

The best way I can maybe come a little bit close to describing those feelings of pure love and comfort would maybe be an experience like you get for a few seconds when you look into the eyes of someone you're completely in love with and he's looking back into your eyes the same way, and you're heart jumps out of your chest, and there's that unspoken language going on between you.  It can be sexual or it doesn't have to be.  It's just a brief feeling of the most amazing feeling you can ever feel.  So it was like that, but maybe times a million. 

So just because I've had such amazing experiences doesn't make me an expert, and it doesn't make me a different person.  I'm still begging the question, "If I can have an experience like that once, why the heck can't I have it again and again and again??  I just want to feel and know that kind of love and guidance is out there and experience it over and over.  Why are we left to spend our whole lives knowing what we are all longing for, but knowing we can't have it until we die??"

So you see, I'm not scared at all about dying or what's out there.  I just hate feeling so gosh-darn lonely in this life.  Once you experience that kind of Love, and then don't get to experience it, you are left feeling the aftermath of having it "not there".  You are left with only having the knowledge and memory of it, but not actually FEELING it.  It's the same feeling of loneliness as when someone you love isn't expressing that energy.  Even if he says "of course I love you, I always will", it's not the same thing as actually FEELING the energy of his conscious expression of it.  Words do not suffice.  That's what amazed me about Luis' presense that night in the hospital room.  That he could "turn on" that energy, direct and focus it toward me, and so completely impress and engulf me with it that it completely overtook me in such a way that I'd have been perfectly fine with dying at that moment just so I could have that feeling again and again and again.

Of all the afterlife experiences I've had, this one was the most profound and personal.  It also happened long before I became more skilled and knowledgeable about a lot of afterlife beliefs.

Vicky

Volu,

I'm glad you liked it and thanks for your reply.  I know you are right about the different types of emotion and how they affect the energy we put into something.  Our thoughts are a frequency we send out and it's pointless to give energy to worry or frustration, yet even though I know and believe this I still fall into that trap from time to time.

<<Pondering and viewing from different perspectives is a also good trait, but tiresome when worrying about the correctness of it is breathing one down the neck when checking out multiple angles. Does this sound familiar? >>

Yes, it sounds very familiar.  I seem to get myself either on a good track or bad one, thought-wise, and inevitably something comes along to tilt the scales the opposite way, but it's while being stuck in the cycle of worry that is (obviously) most frustrating because I know it does no good.  I am typically a positive person who knows how to use that energy for creating a good flow in my life.  I'm a Libra, so my life really seems to be all about finding balances. 

<<The good thing about encountering something you really like, but not there anymore I figure is that it made one conscious about that it exists, and can encourage one to start reaching for it. >>

I completely agree.  I think the whole point of anything is for us to become consciously aware and then at that point we become somewhat responsible in a way, like we then get the choice of how we will react, what we will do about it or because of it, how will we let it help us grow?  As far as reaching for it, as you say, that's definitely on my goal list.  But I think maybe it's more of a mindset than something I can actually repeat as a physical experience.  Take my story of Luis, for instance, the spiritual being who came to me in that amazing way.  Here I've been wanting to see him appear again, talk to me, let me ask questions, and that's been my focus.  But perhaps the point of being given that experience at all was just to affect my mindset, to let me know there IS guidance out there "above us", someone who is more aware of the bigger picture than we're able to be in this life.  It is comforting, for sure.  So I do try to let that become my focus instead...just being appreciative of that gift of knowledge.  It can be hard to do at those times in my life when something has me wrapped up in some difficult emotions. 

I've heard people say that that is what we are here for in this life, to have and experience emotion and feelings.  Men are more prone to being able to switch gears, turn their focus away from some emotion, which doesn't make it go away but allows them to not deal with it at the moment.  I have never been able to do that.  I have to deal with what I'm feeling at any given moment.  Stupid hormones!   

Vicky

Volu wrote on Aug 19^th, 2010 at 4:58pm:


I don't think I'm too concerned about what others think, unless I think they are under the wrong assumption concerning me.  But my worries tend to be more of the nature of things that I can't control.  Of course friends tell me, so then why worry?  And it's true.  Why worry about the outcome of something that you can't control?  But then I get tangled up thinking, well what did I do to mess it up, or what should I have done better?  Inevitably I just try to remind myself that at any given moment I'm just doing the best I can.  That's why they say hindsight is 20/20. 

Libras can be very indecisive.  A great example of the way I typically worry is when I was about to get divorced two years ago and couldn't decide where to live or how to figure it out.  It was hard to balance my indecision about location, distance, affordability, appeal, safety...after all, I have two kids to think of too, not just myself.  I drove myself (and my friends) crazy with all my indecision.  I would ask myself questions like, where am I meant to be, where do I belong, how do I know if I'm making the right decisions, what if I choose an apartment to save money but I am unhappy, or what if I choose something that I later find I can't afford?  I was in such an emotional mess that I couldn't just take initiative to try to get the best of what I wanted.  I guess I felt like I didn't know what was possible. 

Finally one day talking to Bruce, he told me, "Vicky, you are going about it all wrong.  Take my advice and see what happens.  Decide where you want to live and what you want the most.  It doesn't matter if it seems do-able or not.  Then get on Craig's list and put up an ad stating exactly what you want.  Don't mention price, just let that fall into place."

So I did what he said, writing up an ad about how I wanted to rent a house (even though I doubted I could afford one) and exactly what area of what neighborhood I wanted (even though I knew it had to be too expensive) and was just as exact about details as I could be.  And in 3 days I got an offer that was just perfect.  Even the price was less than what I had decided I could afford!  It was truely an inspired idea and not something I would have believed in if Bruce hadn't convinced me to do it.  When I reflect on things like that, they inspire me and lift my spirits, especially in times when I feel indecisive again.

But I sometimes find that being positive doesn't always give me the results I set out for, (trying to manifest what I want) and I end up very disappointed and discouraged even if I've told myself to keep my chin up.  So I don't know what can knock me down until I find myself knocked down and trying to get back up.  Know what I mean?  It makes me think, "Why wasn't I meant to accomplish that goal?" And picking myself back up can be quite a chore. 

I guess that's just the way life is sometimes.

I like that you said "but letting go of the worry connected to what you probably will end up doing anyway".  That is good advice for all areas of my life.  And yes I'm doing pretty well anyway. 

Thanks for the great conversation.  I'm going to take an active conscious roll in changing my energy from having "worry as a bothersome companion"!!  Great analogy.

Vicky

Hi George,

Do you mean from the divorce?  Yes, I get child support.