On this thread I'd like to discuss how to find the depth of our being and ways to allow this part of us to come forth in our daily activities.  Once we tap into our internal depth of being, what we are flows and expresses itself more consciously.  Since this depth is such a natural part of us, I want to try to avoid using "psychic" terminology because I think too many buzz words exist that does more to create blocks rather than ease the way. Instead, think of this more as self-reflection from the inside out.

The depth of our being goes far beyond the astral or mental planes.  It is only from within yourself that you can glimpse what many call the soul or oversoul, which is actually you as the Consciousness Being that you are.  Many of us seem to identify with our thoughts and actions, which are actually the end products of the processes of our mind.  However, underlying these processes is a sea of feeling that is little known or recognized.  This background of feeling portrays itself as imagery much of the time.  The imagery itself is very similar to what one might see in the hypnagogic state between sleep and wakefulness.  The difference is this inner depth of feeling portrays our reactions to our self and others, as well as imaging forth our own inner tendencies.

The key is having a relaxed perception, which allows feeling to come forth and portray itself.  With a little practice, feeling can soon be recognized as the background accompaniment of all our perceptions, all our thoughts, all our actions. The relaxed perception of this internal background allows our feeling to clarify its own meanings and direction because it is the depth of our beingness, the greater "I" from which we exist.

Sometimes people think that they are making themselves feel whatever they want, however, that thinking comes from a lack of familiarity with the realm of feeling.  The "what we want" comes from the realm of feeling.  At best, a person exercising self-control tries to block certain tendencies in his or her inner feeling.  For example, the moment a disagreeable feeling arises, it is resisted or censored, only to arise again and again.

Since we are so thick-headed most of the time, our inner being uses very dramatic language in the form of imagery to get its point across.  For example, a couple days before my mother died I was sitting at my computer working when suddenly a "mini movie" appeared. The scene was of the backyard of the house we lived in when I was about 12 years old. My mother and I were sitting on the patio looking out over the garden, which was something we had done often. After a few moments my mom got up out of the patio chair and turned her back to me with her rear-end, clad in blue jeans. The dramatic, even playful or comical aspect of this image was that her rear-end was right in front of my face. The scene ended and I heard the words "Goodbye, I'm leaving." This scene had come out of the blue, yet I knew instantly that she was going to make her transition to the "non-physical" relatively soon even though she had been in good cheer and fairly good health.
 
Our inner being speaks to us clearly and effectively for the purpose of giving guidance in our everyday lives.  Learning to recognize this inner world and learn from it greatly benefits our spiritual growth toward becoming more loving and caring.

Kathy

Kathy,

Good topic!  The problem with psychobabble (unconscious, superconsious, shadow self, etc.) and New Age "soul" jargon (oversoul, Disk, soul fragment, etc.) is that its very familarity tends to cut us off from fresh insights.  I like what William James said after experimenting with nitrous oxide (laughing gas).  His experiments taught him that consciousness is divided into subtle thin layers, each perhaps with its own properties and potentials yet to be discovered.  Some the Bible's keys to spiritual growth are explicitly dependent on a ruthless honesty and subtle experiences that happen in "the inner parts," "the inner person," "the spirit" as opposed to "the mind," and inner "depths" as opposed to normal mental ruminations.  But the Bible, like William James, lacks a well developed metaphysic to faciliate the achevement of these crucial state, so subtler states must be achieved through meditative trial and error and better methods of verifiction and analysis of state-specific potentials.  A major reason why more Christians never achieve potent mystical states of consciousness is that they overlook the unsophisticated language of mental interiors that must be reached for such breakthroughs to occur.  I marvel at how, every once in a while, I find myself in a special mental zone in which I feel so much more self-aware than usual.  In this aone, I find my prayers far more effective.  More intriguingly, strangers seek my out and pour out their troubles when I'm in such a zone, in stark contrast to my normal experiences.  I long for more insight about how I drilft and out of this "zone" and how to return to it when I feel like I'm treading water with little progress over extensive periods of time.

Don

I don't consider terminology such as Disk, higher self, and oversoul to be psychobabble if it helps people communicate. Some people speak of such things because they have experienced them. Perhaps some people aren't able to have such "fresh insights" because they aren't open to them.

Perhaps a part of tuning into our inner divinity is being respectful towards others including people who have experienced things such as their disk and use such terminology not because they want to engage in psychobabble, but because they want to engage in a commonly understood way of communicating.

How about words such as God, Holy Spirit and Love? Can they be used or will they end up limiting us in some way?

Kathy:

I had some difficulty writing my first post because I felt as if I had to avoid certain words. Consider the word God. I can think of it without having all of the concepts that people have about it. I figure the same is possible for other words.  Since this is a Bruce Moen forum  I don't believe it is wrong to use a word such as Disk. When I think of "Disk" I don't limit myself about the meaning. If somebody is going to become aware of such a way of considering things some terminology needs to be used. In my case my introduction came with Robert Monroe's term "I-there." Not a dirty word as far a I'm concerned.

A part of my response was based on Berserk's past condemnation of viewpoints such as the disk viewpoint. I believe an open discussion about something can't be limited by somebody's aversion to considering certain possibilities.

Doesn't it seem odd that after being gone for a while Berserk decides to take part when the possibility of not using terminology he doesn't agree with is presented?

Kathy:

If people aren't going to be free to say what they think, then I will no longer take part on this thread.

Lights of Love wrote on Mar 6^th, 2012 at 3:54pm:

Lights of Love wrote on Mar 6^th, 2012 at 12:58pm:


Kathy,

Great topic!  I understand what you're describing and I personally believe I really identify with it in my own experiences.  I wonder what you'd say of this or if you have any insight to add...In my life on different, completely separate occasions I've experienced three episodes that I can remember off the top of my head, where I received sudden awareness about another person who I hadn't met yet.  When these experiences take place, what I receive is mostly all feeling, but is accompanied then by a vision along with "knowings" or sometimes even hearing a message (from what I've called The Voice in my own personal experience). 

Then the whole experience is verified by something that happens in my life in the near future, something I couldn't have known or guessed or planned.  The feelings, the vision, and the message is all verified.  I've simply come to trust these feelings and messages.  I've had some messages where the feeling is that this event or outcome will happen several years into the future.  As of yet, one in particular for me hasn't come into being quite yet. 

So what is your opinion, just for the sake of conversation, that what I felt/foresaw is definite, or  probable.  Or are such things able to completely change and alter based on all the variables of thoughts, feelings, choices, and decisions in life between now and that future?  It's such a fascinating subject to me.  I tend to believe it's a little of both.  I believe there is a sort of "higher" meant-to-be which takes precedence over all the stupid little decisions and mistakes we make in our lives.  But at the same time, I also believe that our conscious thoughts, feelings, and actions are always creating, altering, and setting event lines into motion.  After all, we cannot just live our lives sitting on the couch without doing a thing because we believe that there's a set course of events which will run our lives no matter what we do! 

Anyway, from my own experience with this "future stuff" what I've noticed is that I first receive in the form of pure feeling with no logic or thought processes.  Then I notice my conscious mind reacting, such as what my logic thought response is or what my emotional response is.  Then a form of a message comes, usually in words, and lastly comes the vision.  The more I do my own conscious reaction or questioning or wondering, then it's followed up again with another wave of the pure feeling, then words, then vision.  There is so much information in that pure stream of feeling that I believe the messages and visions are just further simplifying what was already relayed in the feeling.

Anyway, this is an interesting thread you started.  I hope I'm not off topic in trying to utilize my own experiences to join the conversation, but I wonder if you have noticed the way you receive information, if it also comes in some kind of pattern of feeling, words, and vision, and how can I best learn to differentiate between actual receiving and actual interpretation or misinterpretation.  Personally, I've found that if I'm unsure about the meaning of something, it tends to crop up again and again making the same presentation.  I assume that's my inner being saying, "Hey, look, I've told you this many times.  It hasn't changed.  You just need to listen and pay attention!"  I can sometimes be very stubborn I suppose.  I find that just trusting, accepting, and being patient is the best way to go. 

I too want to utilize and cultivate this communication during normal daily life activity because I think we actually receive way much more than we recognize.  And I want to be more consciously aware of these types of glimpses or messages, whether they are exactly true or only mere probabilities.  It's simply fascinating, especially when I can see that I didn't do anything specifically to make it come true. 

By the way, above I mentioned knowing people before I meet them.  The same is true of events and objects in my life.  I can become aware or knowledgeable of things coming into my life before they do, even before I have the need to plan anything that has me being a part of making it happen. 

Vicky

Kathy,

You have hit on a very interesting and profound concept - one of which I have thought a lot about - that is that our innermost state is more based on feeling, and less on pure rationality.  As such, emotions can be our guide to any situation, and as you said containing emotion may work in the physical plane, but may not help us be in touch with our innermost core.

The foundation of our innermost being is fueled by God's love which is the root source for all of us.  Yet it only comes through to the degree that we are in touch with the source.  It is interesting that Swedenborg notes that all angels (people in spirit) are astounded when they hear that people seek praise or notice for their good actions.  To the departed who know of God, they see all love/good as coming from him as the fountain or source, and they merely are the conduits for this universal force.  To take personal credit therefore for a good deed becomes an exercise in personal ego stroking, and misses the point of our being this conduit for God's love instead of the separate source of the good action.

Swedenborg felt strongly that each man/woman had their own innermost love, and that at the second stage of death, the soul was bound to follow this love without reservation or care about what others think.  I tend to think that at this level of consciousness, the emotions rule and the rational mind is more secondary.  We are, after a stay in the afterlife stripped down to our purest essence of what we love.  We no longer hide our secrets, and we "go for it" in terms of following our passion.

Thus, strangely enough, some consign themselves to a hellish plane, if they seek out sadistic or masochistic loves.  Others will help or serve others.

One of the more interesting questions that we've brought up on this board is whether or not one can change one's innermost love?  ES thought not, but was vague about it.  I feel that if we use discipline to follow the path of love and service to others while alive we may break the bonds of pure ego serving or self serving loves, and be open to a more pure, general love for others. 


Great thread
Matthew

Hi Vicky,

Oh no, you are not off topic at all.  Your post as well as Don's, Matthew's and Juditha's is exactly the kind of conversation I was hoping for when I decided to start this thread.  Only problem is that I've gotten kind of busy for the next few days so my posts will be slower in coming than what I'd like.

Personally I've found that future probabilities are changeable for all the reasons you've mentioned, but especially because of the choices we and other people make.  Whenever I foresee what I believe to be a possible future event I try to pay close attention if there's some sort of danger or other people involved.  Sometimes the event plays out, and the outcome I originally saw is changed to a different one.  Other times nothing comes of it, but I don't doubt the information I'd received.  I just assume it's valid whether it is or not especially if it may have an effect on someone. 

For example, a while back I had a vision of a car sliding on ice out in front of my truck and me crashing into it at a certain intersection I pass by on a regular basis. On that occasion I was able to avoid a collision, so that one actually played out with a different ending as I'd slowed way down when approaching that intersection.  However, a lot could have occurred that could have thrown the timing off and the event could have never happened.  Either one of us could have easily been delayed for one reason or another and the probability would have vanished. 

I've received information in lots of ways, visions, hearing words or sometimes a couple of sentences, sometimes I'll simply know or feel something. I've also had physical sensations especially when someone's had the intent to harm.  Seeing as well as feeling aura's has also been a wonderful tool that helped to focus my consciousness on the matter at hand, both in counseling and laying hands.  However, I haven't ever noticed any patterns to speak of except with the feeling/imagery I described above and that's probably only because I've been so fascinated with it. Over the years some of the various ways I've received information has been more in the forefront than at other times. 

For example, I no longer see auras as well as I did before I retired.  Most likely because it's not something that is as useful to me now as it had been previously.  I think the form information comes in, or the tool that is used to help focus consciousness doesn't really matter so much as what is useful to you at the time.  You can even make up your own tools if you want to.  I think interpretation just takes practice.  There have been many times when I've been unable to interpret things, especially imagery, but I've gotten better at it the past couple of years and that's mostly because it's something I've practiced.

To me the most important focus is to be more loving, caring and compassionate towards others and if we are, then all of these other things fall into place naturally to help us be even more loving, caring and compassionate. And Vicky, your love and caring is clearly evident to me and so many others, so I think you're doing just fine. One thing I see in myself with some of my interpretations of this feeling/imagery is that there's plenty of room for improvement. That's probably always going to be a given.  I'm working on it though.

Kathy