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God and I in space alone and nobody else in view.

                   "And where are the people, O Lord," I said,
                      "the earth below and the sky o'er head
                         and the dead whom once I knew?"

                    "That was a dream," God smiled and said,
                          "A dream that seemed to be true.
                       There were no people, living or dead,
                     there was no earth, and no sky o'er head;
                          there was only Myself -- in you."

                          "Why do I feel no fear," I asked,
                             "meeting You here this way?
                        For I have sinned I know full well --
                       and is there heaven, and is there hell,
                           and is this the Judgment Day?"

                           "Nay, those were but dreams,"
                                   the Great God said,
                           "Dreams that have ceased to be.
                      There are no such things as fear or sin;
                      there is no you -- you never have been --
                           there is nothing at all but Me."
                                                 

                                by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Hi everybody!
About a ten years ago I had a strange experience that I can't explain even today. I must say that I didn't have any astral projection training in those days (nor I have it now, I am new to this, although I have 15 years of meditation behind me) and neither did my friend who is the other participant in this story.
One night, I couldn't sleep so I was laying in my bad and just looking at the darkness. I was often doing so because then I was developing various pictures from shades of dark and I was enjoying to look at these "visions". At the one moment I saw my friend who was flying trough the room, looking towards me and smiling. He was in real life size and unbelievably realistic. At first, I was a little afraid so I closed my eyes to try not to see him, but I was seeing the same even with my eyes closed! After that I have tried to make contact with him and we sort of shaked hands and I was doing that with my imagined arm not with real one but I am not 100% positive. All of this happend in 5-10 minutes and I was perfectly awake. Tomorrow I met my friend and before I said anything to him about last nihgt's events he told me that he dreamt about being in my house and establishing contact with me. He also told me that he went to sleep about 1 AM, and we agreed the event happened between 1:15 and 1:30 AM, in another words, in real time.
Can someone explain what happened here? Is it possible to interact with someone's dream while being awake?

Vladimir

Very good question!
The concept of karma is often misunderstood by most of the people. Further more,
this ancient eastern wisdom is often misinterpreted by many western so called
"gurus". There is no such thing as good or bad karma. The concept of good and bad,
or any other duality, is product of human mind and, in fact, this is a key element that
generates karma. Also, the concept of justice developed by humans has nothing to
do with karma. Every (karmic) event is neutral in his nature and has no deeper or
hidden meaning but to push us towards spirituality, so we can learn and grow. If we
see some event as good or bad that is because we labeled it as such in our mind with
our thoughts. Such labeling generates more karma and so on - being is trapped in
cycle of birth and death and bound to live trough desired situations. As I said, events
are neutral, they doesn't generate any new events, our thoughts are those which
make new karma. Every our thought, together with billions of thoughts of other
beings, is influencing the whole universe, shaping it and creating future events. It is
some sort of "wish factory", except that laws of nature doesn't recognize which
thoughts are "good" for us and which are "bad". They consider every our desire,
fear, hatred and every other thought as our "wish" and "work hard" to make it
happen in matter universe. So, good Lord is fulfilling all wishes of all beings with no
exception and the world in which we are living today is exactly the one we have
together desired in the past, including our individual lives. So, actual killing is done
much earlier in thoughts of a human being, when it comes to a real life situation it is
too late. No one can escape his karma, every man (being) is bound to harvest,
sooner or later, what he sow in his thoughts. In another words, if you are constantly
thinking of killing someone the laws of karma will fulfill your "wish" and give you the
opportunity to do so. The matter body of every being is just a cosmic machine that
works, moves, talk and act under the laws of karma and it is a great deception when
we think that we are doing all of this. But real freedom that is given to us is freedom
of choice how to react on the event in our mind. For example:
If someone is performing the karma of killing the another person but with thoughts of
helping him and loving him, he generates "good" future karma for himself.
If someone is performing the karma of saving the another person from death but with
thoughts of hatred and wishing him harm, he generates "bad" karma for himself.
If someone is performing any karma without thoughts, without seeing good or bad in
it, just accepting it as it is, he doesn't generate any future karma, and that is the path
of spirituality, the path of ending the cycle of birth and death.

Best wishes, Vladimir

Dear Adam,
yes, indeed, we must become children (again) to enter the kingdom of heaven.
Children are living and behaving 100% in harmony with nature until they develop
thinking process and start to "learn" about duality of the world. Little babies are even
capable to see the aura around the human body. They perceive the world trough
emotions and not trough thoughts and emotions are much higher way of
communication and interaction with the world around us than thoughts or spoken
language. Of course, LOVE is the highest language of the universe.

Best wishes, Vladimir

Dear Inguma,
as I see it, we generally agree on everything. As you said:

quote:But, until I can fully realize this (as opposed to merely philosophizing myself around
the problem), the perception of separation remains...

My point exactly! Duality is just a matter of perception, not actual division.

Also, I agree that every path is good as long as you search for spirituality within
yourself, and everyone has to find out for themselves what suits them the most.

As for the Jesus, in my opinion, he was absolutely right when he said: "the only path
to God is through me". This is exactly what everyone have to say to themselves: "the
only path to God is through me". So, as usual, he was telling the truth.

Best wishes, Vladimir

To Inguma: The soul in not divisionable, it is always ONE, despite appearing as
many in all living beings. Consider your consciousness, do you think it is yours only?
The exact same consciousness is in me too, or in any human or living being, and I
don't mean similar or identical, I mean the same ONE. When you have sense of
individuality that is because of your thinking process, but when the mind is cleared of
thoughts your consciousness is still there and your ego (or the sense of individuality)
disappears and then you can realize that, in fact, you are not your ego, or your body,
you ARE consciousness itself. You can never lose this consciousness (when your
body dies) because you are consciousness itself. Your (every) body is just mere
cosmic machine that acts under the cosmic laws of nature and until you dismiss the
desire to act as an individual and to perceive reality trough your ego that works
under the veil of thoughts, you will be bound to live bodily life in this matter universe
and to act and have experiences accordingly to your thoughts. The physical death of
the body is nothing more than some sort of update, when another body is provided
by nature and being is able to perform and have desired experiences that were not
experienced during previous life. When karma (life events) is performed in
thoughtless awareness and without ego than it does not generate further karma and
that is the path of ending birth and death cycle. On the other hand, our/your
consciousness is nothing more than outer extension of the soul, so you ARE the soul
already, but not yet conscious about it because of the ego and veil of thoughts. The
soul is active, outer extension of passive inner core of what we call God. Notice,
"soul" and "God" are just the words of something that cannot ever be fully described
with words because of its formless nature.
Please notice, it was never my intention to offend your religious beliefs with this
answer. I respect every religion or belief system and it is my opinion that every
scripture or holly book is, in fact, the incomplete record (incomplete, because the
spiritual knowledge is infinite, even if you could have the book as big as universe it
still wouldn't be big enough to have all spiritual knowledge written down in that
book) of the spiritual knowledge that has been presented to certain people, in certain
times, in certain conditions, in certain way or words that have been easiest for those
people to understand and always using some forms to describe formless. But for the
true seeker, sooner or later, it becomes obvious that every  holy book or scripture is
just telling the SAME story but in different words.

To eYeBallKiD: I would rather say the same but in this words: The concept of time
has to be discarded. In fact, we exist in eternal present, but on this human level we
feel the passage of time due to our thinking process. On higher levels of
consciousness the present consists of ALL past and future moments absorbed in one
eternal present moment. Many of the saints have reached enlightenment just by trying
to live in the present. In present moment there are no thoughts, there is no ego, there
is nothing at all but consciousness itself. All of our so called "problems" arise when
we THINK about the past or future and that is exactly what 99,9% of the people do
during their whole lives and never once try to live in the PRESENT.

Best wishes, Vladimir

Hi Arie!
You are probably right, my friend had an OBE experience.
But how to name my experience?

Purely philosophical view:
I think that there is no such thing as good and bad. Reality is in its very nature neutral, people are those who claim it good or bad. In another words, it is purely matter of subjective personal experience, there can never be an objective "scale" of good and bad. Different people have different reactions and different emotions on one same event, they think different about it and they draw different conclusions.On the other hand, you might say, what about established values of good and bad that are approved by most of the people of the world. Those values were built throughout history and also changing with coarse of events, it has nothing to do with objectivity. Just imagine, for example, how different the concept of good and bad could be today if Hitler has succeeded in his crazy intention and won the war (scary thought). Spirituality demands of the seeker to reject every concept of duality including good and bad.

Best wishes, Vladimir

I have to disagree somewhat with you guys. My point of view is that SOUL cannot evolve. Soul is formless, unborn, always existing, unchangeable, forever free of conditioning, forever filled with knowledge and absolute bliss and all of that already IS, and never was nor it will be. The purpose of life, as I see it, is to identify with the soul, and to reject all false identifications like I am this body, I am this mind, I am this ego, even I am living being etc., and realize that we ARE already that soul with all its qualities and we never have been something else nor we would ever be something else. All divine and wondrous knowledge is in us ALREADY and we just have to
reach out and hold to it. PRESENT is the key, past and future doesn't really exist, they just appear to be because of the thinking process. Also, I am intentionally using the word soul and not souls, because really there is only one soul, shared by all living beings because all living beings are in fact ONE. All duality stops on higher levels of
consciousness. In a manner of speaking, every man (being) is Creator himself (!) but is bound to his position in matter universe due to his believes and accordingly to his thoughts. So, in my opinion, soul cannot evolve, but our individual level of consciousness certainly can. I am not saying that this is the ultimate truth (no one can
say that) but having this approach towards life there is really nothing to worry about because the very nature of our existence is immortality and our possibilities are infinite (sky is not the limit).

Best wishes, Vladimir

Hi!
Very good question, but unfortunately nobody could ever answer it, at least while in this matter world. In my opinion, it is not possible to get answer about reason of creation using your brain  and your mind because your brain and your mind are just parts of the creation itself. It would be like asking the carburetor to explain everything about the car.
Also, in my opinion, the problem of unity and duality is not a problem of actual division that took place somewhere in time. It is more matter of view point and level of consciousness because we all ARE already that ONE but still not yet conscious about it because of our ego or individuality.
Best wishes, Vladimir

Hi!
There are countless meditation techniques and you'll have to find out what suits you the best but all of them lead towards the one and same goal - self realization (when person understands that he/she is not his body, mind and ego but pure consciousness) and later on, God realization (when one realizes that consciousness is the only reality that exists).
Whatever meditation technique you chose, you must consider following:
1) Every body position with your spine straight is good, you don't need to perform asanas (special body positions designed for meditation) if it is too hard for you, but the position you chose must be easy to obtain for a long period without any movement (also that is my recommendation for you how to start with meditation:
chose the body position and try not to move at all for 1 minute first day, 2 minutes second day etc. Even eye blinking is counting as a movement and you have to start all over from the beginning. When you reach 15th day it will be a sign of steady position and you can move on further).
2) Basically, meditation is an art of stilling thoughts until they completely disappear. When thoughts disappear, ego also disappears automatically and everything that youare is pure, undisturbed, blissful consciousness. Later on, after you master this stage,
it is just a question of how long you can hold this thoughtless awareness. To achieve this, first you must reduce thoughts of your individual mind and the best way to do this is to chose one object of concentration (it can be anything, either real or imagined) and to try to fix your attention on that object only, like it is everything that
exists and try to "push" away every thought that is not related to your object. Fixed concentration will help to reduce your individual mind's thoughts. Later, when you make some progress with concentration you can chose the pause between two thoughts for your object of the concentration. When you achieve thoughtless awareness you will enter the conscious mind (individual mind is also called unconscious mind) that is one and same for all living beings.
3) Active sex life is not very good for meditation and can be obstacle in achieving higher levels of consciousness. It will also prevent you to awake your kundalini energy which is very helpful in a meditation.
4) One of the most important things is to not put pressure of success on yourself. Meditation (and everything else in life!) must be performed willingly and joyfully just as a child play.
5) You must always keep alerted awareness to be at its max and clear, wondering into kind of sleepy state is a sign that you are doing it wrong. Samadhi (the ultimate goal in meditation) is nothing more than state of superconsciousness, the total opposite of dreaming.
6) There are, of course, tones of stuff more, like pranayama (special breathing exercises), mantras, yantras etc. There is no real need to know about all that because meditation is not about knowing, it is all about actual experience.

Check out the www.heavenlygardens.org for free books on Pantanjali yoga.

Best wishes, Vladimir