Messages

Yoshi,

I understand that life can be really difficult, and this planet can be a total grump, but you have to consider the fact that you were born here for a reason, and it wasn't to kill yourself. You have to spend some time really thinking hard about why you are here, commune with your deeper self and come up with at least a direction, because there's no doubt that you did indeed decide to be born for a reason, and you will deeply regret it if you don't carry that out. Part of the reason for your birth was certainly to encounter the kinds of problems you are presently dealing with, and actually deal with them, get through them, and achieve some kind of balance in your life. If you are considering suicide you have to realize that this is something you've probably done in other lifetimes already, and look where it got you? Right back here. So if you want to get past this pattern you have to get past it without killing yourself. If you do kill yourself, you'll have to be reborn into a very similar lifetime that you will have to face up to and overcome, just as you do now. So it's better to deal with it now rather than later. I'm not sure what you problems really are, but I can assure you that these are a part of the very reason you were born - to overcome this challenge. And once that is overcome, I'm sure there's other reasons for your lifetime here that will make it very much worthwhile to keep living. People aren't born here without a reason and a purpose, they just have to spend some serious time finding out what it is. I wish you great luck. Don't expect it to be easy, but don't give up either.

Especially when you realize that you can reincarnate yourself into any "time frame" of human evolution you wish.
That's when it really starts boggling the mind, because it opens up a slew of new ideas and questions! 

I have serious doubts about whether this is possible. In a disembodied state it is certainly possible to explore various past lives, but we don't jump from one lifetime to another time frame at random or by desire. The process and progress of the soul still occurs within time. You will find this out when you die. Your "next" lifetime won't be out of synch with the timeline of your past and future lives. Not unless you have achieve a remarkable freedom from identification with all lives, and at that point, why would you desire to incarnate at all?

The cycle of birth and death is hard to escape. Not as easy as it might seem.

The experience of time (relatively) doesn't equal time.  And my original statement was in regards to reincarnation and I said that my view of reincarnation makes time irrelevant and unnecessary. 

Nevertheless, we're to the point where we're just trying to repeat our selves in different ways.  Either we don't understand each other or we really disagree with each other.

truce.

Perhaps so. It doesn't make any sense to me to speak of time as something apart from our experience of it. That's pointless theorizing that never intersects with our own conscious awareness. There is no such thing as "time" in the abstract, which is perhaps what you mean, but so what? Nothing actually exists in the abstract. Concepts are just tools for dealing with our experience, but if they have no relevance to our experience, they have no meaning at all. The concept of time only has meaning in relation to our actual experience of time. When we become so abstracted from experience that our concepts no longer have any relation to experience, they all collapse into "illusion". But even then, experience remains, and time along with it. Experience always trumps theory.

Could you point out where I can find this definition of "Change"?
All I can seem to find (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/change) has absolutely no mention of a concept of "time" associated with it.

Every single one of those definitions involves time, either explicitly or implicitly. Read them more carefully, and you will see them referring to past, future, and a change between the two. For example, take the first definition:

1. to make the form, nature, content, future course, etc., of (something) different from what it is or from what it would be if left alone: to change one's name; to change one's opinion; to change the course of history.

This makes reference to time in the form of past, present, and future. Without referencing time, there can be no definition of change. Try it. Give me a definition of change which does not reference time in some way.

Good posts Broken Yogi !

I'll return to the topic for a moment.

The word "focus" is being used here in three different senses (F27, F3/4 or "focus of the self") to describe things that may or may not be identical or even related. This is unfortunate, as I feel English has not run out of new words and government has not banned coining of new words (yet).

The truth is, that no one knows what truth is... Its all theories, so don't take them very seriously. Its fun guessing whats all this about though. Some things are becoming evident as we (mankind) evolve. It has been established both by material sciences and spiritual ones, that the physical world is an illusion, a virtual reality created by our minds, a product of our perceptions. Time and space are merely illusions, no doubts about it. Experienced ones will tell you that even Astral and higher worlds are illusions, although not as solid and persistent as this one. Probably due to the fact that they are closer to "that which is". This "that which is", some sort of ultimate stuff, which simply is, is what this universe is, and of course is us also.

So this universe, we and our all incarnations are illusions created by that which is, which appear to be "placed at" various spaces and times. This is called Lila. (Hindus always use new words to describe new stuff). As you move away from illusions, the virtual reality starts breaking and identity, ego, space, time etc start making little sense. Finally, you are left with nothing or emptiness, which is that which is, and this is called Nirvana.

By this time you must have felt that the question - whether incarnations are in one time or different times, one identity or different one,..... is meaningless. Yes, its not very important, once you are awake (Chetan in Sanskrit is the exact word). What is important is to understand the Lila, see it and know it. It lasts for a split second, all that which is quickly throws you back into the virtual reality.

I don't know why this is so. It is amusing that there is something.

Part of our disconnect does have to do with the focus on theory over experience. More so, it has to do with a category error in the theory which confuses absolute and relative experience.

Even though time is ultimately an illusion, we experience it here in the physical world, without a doubt. And the same is true in the astral world. Everyone in the astral world experiences time (and space) in one form or another. We can talk until we are blue in the face about the absolute, and how time and space are illusions, but our experience is that of time. Even if we go to some astral realm, we will experience time there. We will die and go to the afterlife lower astral realms, maybe visit some higher ones if our karmas so incline us, and then we will take another rebirth in the physical worlds. From the absolute point of view, all that is an illusion, but in our experience it will seem all too real.

So it makes no sense to argue that in the astral realm there is no time, and thus no reincarnation, when our actual experience will tell us otherwise. There is a clear distinction between the time and space of the astral and the physical realms, and again it would be a category error to mix the two together. It's certainly true that in the astral realms, depending on how high one's perspective is, one's past and future lives can be seen as one "person" along a dimensional axis of time, but even then time still exists, it is merely understood and experienced in a higher dimensional way. As long as there is any perception at all, there is time and space.

Of course, if one transcends perception entirely, and enters into the source from which all time and space proceeds, that is a different story. That is called "liberation from the cycle of birth and death", and I highly recommend it. There is no person who can do that, however, because the very thing that must be transcended is the illusion of the "I", the ego, the separate person who seems to be born and die and reincarnate. As long as there is the illusion of "I", there is necessarily going to be the illusion of time and space.

And it's not as if time has to be viewed as a "glitch" in the machine. It's a feature, not a bug. As someone once said, "time is God's way of keeping everything from happening at once". Time lets us actually see the illusions we have created, and work through them. Without time, we would actually be rather lost and incapable of changing. It's not time that we have to transcend, it's the ego, the "I", which is the source of time. We can't transcend time merely by moving to some high astral realm. We have to look at this ego-construct and go beyond it. That's why love is so central to the process, because love is a way of going beyond the ego illusion. If we bring the ego into the astral realm, we also bring along time and all other illusions. And, of course, wherever we go, there we are. In many respects, we never go anywhere, we just spin more hallucinations from our ego. Time is among the first illusions we create, because it is so easy to lose ourselves in time.

Think of time as a place.  A big empty nothing that only contains one thing, you.  In this big place you are copied over infinitely and each copy contains every possibility of your entirety, which is naturally infinite.  Here's the kicker, that big place is contained in a spaceless space.  There is not direction, no time, no change.  Just you. 

Trust me, I know it is hard to grasp, but that's my point.  It is impossible to see the scope of your existence from our perspective.

Time is a construction of our subjective mind to account for something we don't understand.  Because the astral is a subjective place, (so is everything else but that's another discussion) time still seems to happen sometimes.

How can absolute reality be timeless yet our experience is temporal?  I mean isn't our experience a part of absolute reality?  You can't remove one part and apply different rules to it.  Since our experience is a part of absolute reality (all of it in my opinion) then it too is bound by whatever the properties of absolute reality are.  If we experience something that seems uncharacteristic of the absolute then logically it must be some distortion in the way we perceive absolute reality.

Yes, yes, you're speaking to the converted here relative to the absoluteness of reality, that time and space are ultimately illusions, etc. But that's not the subject under discussion here. We are talking about the relative truth of reincarnation, past lives, etc., and the existence of time within the astral worlds. Frank makes a category error by saying that time doesn't exist in the astral planes. That's just plain not true. It does exist there, in the relative sense, just as it exists here in the relative sense. Just because it's ultimately an illusion doesn't mean that the practical knowledge of past lives and their relationship in time to us doesn't exist in the relative world of physical and astral life.

The relationship of astral worlds to physical worlds is a relative matter within the illusion of time and space. If you go beyond that illusion, you also go beyond both physical and astral worlds. I have no doubt of this, because I've seen it myself. But I've also seen that when you remain within the physical and astral worlds, which means all of us, including Frank, time and space remain our apparent boundaries. It's good to have glimpses of the absolute to give us humor about the ultimate non-seriousness of everything arising in consciousness, but we shouldn't make the category error of thereby declaring that time doesn't exist in the astral, when every being who actually lives in the astral experiences time (and space) in one form or another.

That is precisely why it is often warned that the illusions of the astral world are even greater than the physical world, because time can stretch on seemingly forever there, and one can get lost in all the varieties of experience it offers. The genuine experience of the absolute transcends even the astral worlds and their amazing possibilities. In fact, the physical worlds can be a much better spiritual ground for transcendence than the astral worlds, for that very reason. The limitations of egoity are more obvious and clearly defined here. In fact, in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions it is often said that genuine enlightenment requires a human birth, that even the highest Gods and Goddesses of the astral planes must relinquish their experience and submit to human birth in order to achieve full enlightenment.

Ah, I see where your issue resides.
It's your definition of "change".

Time isn't a part of change.  Well... it is only in as much as it's related to here on the Physical world.

Is it possible for you to consider "change" without "time"?  I can definitely visualize it.

I guess in the end of the day we can only subscribe to whatever beliefs we subscribe to.
I've seen no evidence to the contrary that would require me to change mine.   ... so far.  

Well, it's not my definition of change. It's the english language definition. I'm not sure what you are visualizing in terms of change without time, but being able to say that doesn't make it true. Change can only be described as a difference that occurs over time. Otherwise, you are talking about something else.

Even Frank in the links you gave talks about 'this happens, and then that happens, and there's a repeated pattern' etc., all of which indicates that time is quite alive and present in the realms he claim have no time. It's very clear that he doesn't actually mean there is no time there, only that it works on a different scale, and multi-dimensionally, unlike time on earth (which is actually not straight and linear if you take into account relativistic effects). And posters here who are claiming there is no time on the astral also describe things happening there in terms of time, unwittingly I gather. 'This happens, then that, then that, and there is a change.'

So what is change without time? It's like saying we can have movement without space. The very definition of movement requires space, and the very definition of change requires time. What definition of the word "change" are you using?

You missed my point Yogi

I explained why there is no time and no change.  It's a perceptual glitch essentially.  We see something as time and change, but there is only one now and all that has ever happened or will ever happen (from our perspective) exists simultaneously.

It's really not possible for us to fully comprehend the dynamics of reality from this perspective.

You can't define time and change on a universal perspective from the perception of a 3-d being, doesn't work like that.

As I tried to make clear, I agree that the absolute nature of reality is timeless. But reincarnation does not occur on the absolute level, and so it occurs within time, even if that time dimension is a more expanded and plastic one than physical time. To speak of past or future lives still makes sense, therefore, even in a more expanded view of time that takes into account multiple dimensions. It is only when we look at infinite dimensions that timelessness rules, and "we" won't be there either, since infinite identity will also be the case.

But I agree that it's not possible to fully understand reality from this level. Which is why I said that Frank's formulation of time and "out of time" is a category error. We are only talking about relative matters, even if they involve astral experience. The astral is not the absolute reality, I think we need to realize. Which is why time still exists in various forms within the astral.

Time doesn't exist anywhere.  Change is possible without time. 

I don't believe that it is possible for us to perceive the true nature of what we call "time" from this dimensional perspective.

Try on this perspective of reincarnation. 

Instead of being reborn once this body dies, you die in every instant.  You are perpetually dying and being reborn.  Every time you are reborn you a born into a slightly different perspective from where you died.  This accounts for what we call change.  There is no cause and effect, there is one cause (the source, God if you prefer, which I don't) and there is one effect (the unfolding and building complexity of reality).  All of reality is dependent on one instant, the instant reality was perceived.  That one instant is the instant we're living in now.  We don't live for 80-90 years.  We live for an infinitesimal and infinite moment of perception.  We are simultaneously living and dying an infinite number of times over without the passage of what we call time.  The physical body may move through what we call time but there's no directional arrow in which time must flow.  This physical place is like the holodeck on star trek, or better yet the matrix.  It is a fabrication that eludes us into seeing "time" and ignoring our consistent death.

So let's look at "karma" then.  Karma isn't an accumulated force, Karma is a description of your perspective in each of your infinite deaths.  That perspective influences what direction you will shift for your newly reincarnated perspective.  There is no morality involved, it is simply a choice of what angle you would like to view reality from.  In truth, all of these "yous" exist simultaneously on an infinite continuum.  It's your choice into which one you would like to view reality.  But, again, you're actually existing in all of these infinite number of "yous" simultaneously also.  You're never one or the other.  Though, from your perspective in this reality you see this constantly changing perspective as time passing, cause an effect.

What's the one thing you can't touch with the tip of your finger?  Itself.

It may sound confusing, but those are the breaks.  It's hard to articulate something that's entirely non-verbal. 

I actually agree with a fair amount of what you say, but you seem not to acknowledge the basic definitions of time and change. There can be no change without time because change is defined as the differences that accumulates with time. If you see one universe this moment, and a slightly different universe the next, it's because we are observing the universe from a different time perspective.

Now, we can certainly step back and see that time is merely a dimensional attribute of the total universe. We could say that the total universe is beyond time, and does not change, and that time is only a dimension of that universe that we are traveling along, which is why it appears only one instant at a time, just as space does when we travel on a railroad track. And it's certainly true that even time is multi-dimensional, plastic, and there are many different perspectives on time that are possible. But this doesn't mean that time doesn't exist from a higher perspective. In fact, it means that even more "time" exists there, because we can see time in greater and greater detail, rather than from the limited perspective of the physical dimension. So both time and space actually expand in their reality and their immensity. Eventually, we see time and space as infinite, not just in one dimension, but in the number of dimensions it encompasses. And the same goes for identity.

But in any particular perspective, we are always going to experience time in some form. It just may not be time as we normally experience in the physical dimension. Only the absolute perspective can be said to be "timeless", not because there is no time at all - it can be still be seen as an attribute of reality - but because we view it from a perspective that sees the totality of time and space and all dimensions as infinite, and resting upon an infinite ocean of consciousness.

I'm ill-equipped to answer your queries, due to the fact I still need to fully understand these topics myself... instead, I'll allow Frank to do the talking:
http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/welcome_to_out_of_body_experiences/time_perception-t1231.0.html;msg7350#msg7350

Obviously, his is only but a theory based on his experiences... take whatever with a grain of salt.
All I know, so far, is that Frank hasn't lead me astray just yet.  

I read your links, and it appears clear that Frank is not speaking correctly when he says that there is no time in these higher levels. He describes all kinds of examples of time in these levels, distortions and bending of time to be sure, but time nonetheless. It's clear that time in these higher levels is far more plastic than it is in the physical realm, just as space is more plastic, and even identity. But that's something widely acknowledged in virtually all the literature on astral life, including Monroe and Moen. So I don't see what the controversy is, except the Frank seems to overstate things and is creating a false kind of absolutism that's actually mere relativism.

As I said, I subscribe to the Frank-model of the universe right now.
Basically, him and Monroe both agreed that time doesn't exist "There".

And because time doesn't exist, neither can space.  So... "There" isn't really a "place" in the terms that we think it is as it has no height/width/depth.
And because of that you don't "move around" it or "go to it" either.

As for ego... I just can't see much use for having an ego "There".  Although, I guess the idea of being "ego-less" is a tough one to grasp and I don't fully comprehend that concept myself.

But, in any case, I'll just respectfully disagree with you for now. 

I can disagree respectfully, but I must still point out that there's a serious contradiction in these claims. Without time, there can be no change. A world or level that has no time, is a world or level in which nothing can change at all. You say that beyond level 10 there is no time, but clearly there is much that changes and moves in the levels above it. Monroe and Moen describe all kinds of things happening in higher levels, and that means that there is some kind of time going on there. Now, one can argue that it's a different form of time, not the same as our time here in the physical world, but one can't rationally argue that there is not time in these non-physical worlds when there are clearly changes going on, which means time exists there. At least I'm unable to understand this contradiction, and if you can explain it to me I would be grateful.

As for "there", which is beyond time and space, I certainly do believe there is an ultimate level of understanding at the source of all creation which is beyond time and space, but at that level there is no change whatsoever, and no ego either. The ego is the crux of the whole illusion of levels and changes and time and identity, including reincarnation, and ultimately that is all an illusion. But as long as there is a sense of separate identity, there is illusion and thus time and space and change and so forth. One can't really have only some illusions and not others. They all come with this singular illusion of ego, and they disappear when ego is seen through.

"Outside of time".
This is exactly where Focus 10 and beyond are... hence, ego can't exist on the astral (focus 22+).
What's the point of an ego when you can have whatever you want, whenever you want it? 

Frank is actually saying both of those are true.  Since, we're *everywhere* subjectively... we're both here (objectively) and there (subjectively).  So, this being true, we're also outside this system too at the same time as being here and there, beyond any concept of individuality.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around that concept.  LOL
But it's coming along slowly.

There are localized forms of time which have their limits, just as their are localized forms of space and identity which have their limits, but time and ego go together in some fashion or other at every level, or you can't have an "experience" at all. To stand outside of time means to stand outside of identity itself, and vice versa, unless you are merely talking about local forms of time and identity.

This Frank dude seems to have gotten some glimpses of space beyond local time, but not beyond ego, and gotten confused by what he's seen. Happens all the time to the best of us.

But "I", the physical body-based ego speaking here and now, is not "everywhere". It's only here in this physical realm. The deeper ego exists at deeper levels as a deeper sense of identity than we currently have. That deeper ego isn't really "here" either, it's just connected to this physical realm through the reincarnational process. It doesn't actually "incarnate" any more than a man actually becomes his clothes. It's more of a virtual reality experience that actually involves taking on not just a set of fleshy clothes, but the personality of that body as well. We have a different sense of "I" depending on what we identify with, which lifetime we identify with, and which stream or pattern of energy we identify with. We tend to identify with certain streams of lifetimes connected together by subtle forms time and space and energy. If we don't identify with them, we can see them as "not us". But we will always identify with some stream so long as we are egos. If we are beyond ego, then there's only the universal Self to know ourselves as, and all time and space are merely modification of That. That would be enlightenment. As long as we do identify, however, we are stuck to some degree in time, space, and identity, no matter how subtle. It's easy to fool ourselves into thinking that when we have overcome some localized, low level of time, space, or identity, that we are free of all of it, but that's not the case. The universe tends to show us that real quick, not always pleasantly.

I think Frank is making some category errors. On the one hand, he's insisting on the non-separation of time, and yet he's also insisting on the separation of identity. You can't do only one, you have to either do both, or neither. From an ultimate point of view there is neither time nor personal identity, but from the point of view of identity, there is also time. Thus, since we are examining these matters from the point of view of time, we also have to preserve the point of view of identity.

The essence of ego persists through time, both in this world and other worlds and lives. Ego means time, in some basic sense. So the ego persists from life to life, and there remains a continuity in time for the ego. Outside of time, the ego doesn't exist at all, but neither do created worlds exist outside of time. It's a category error to say that they all exist simultaneously, and yet also separately.

So from the point of view of the ego, there is indeed reincarnation, and there's even a sense of linear time involved in the process. This is regulated at a higher level of focus, beyond which there is diffusion and a lack of differentiation in both time and identity. But below that focus point, there is both time and identity, and a relationship between them.

It's also true, of course, that one's bodily identity does not survive physical death, except as a memory. One's past and future lives are indeed different "people", because they have different physical bodies. So it's not true that one's past lives are the past lives of one's present identity. They are the past lives of one's deeper identity. One puts on various "costumes", but one's inner identity remains the same. These bodies are costumes we put on, and that includes the personality of the body. We take these personalities off at death, and put another on in the next lifetime. If we begin to question the actual identity of the one who puts on costumes, we can refocus attention at its source, and we can rise above the illusions of time, space, and identity. But when we do so, we recognize that none of these identities were ever real or separate individuals, they were just the result of identifying with a particular pattern of energy. But we also see that all energy is merely the modification of a single pattern of energy and not separate from any part of that overall pattern. And so we recognize that none of the identities we assumed were actually separate from us. They were just a string of related patterns which called our "self". Until that point, however, we have to recognize the structure in which we appear and not mix levels or categories indiscriminately.