Messages

so..... uh, none of you experienced/well-read/very knowledgeable AP'ers know of any particular fixed astral locations that have moonlight or anything?  anyone? []

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it would really really help if there were a special help/instruction topic for avatars in the "general FAQs" under the "help stuff" menu or somewhere in the sections on how to use the forum.  those are the places i tend to look for the rules on a website or other things.  it didn't occur to me to look for "topics" on it, because why should info on using the forum be hidden away in topics?  i'm also not sure i found the "news scroller" thing, and if i have, i didn't see anything about avatars. and i wouldn't have ever looked at a news section, anyway, since it's not exactly "news"... it's something that's kinda constant on the forum.  but if putting the info in the Help Stuff section isn't possible, then i guess make this topic a "sticky".

quote:In my young years I did experiment but even then felt a terrible strong foreboding sense of going the wrong direction.

you felt that because you were discovering it was the wrong direction for you.

quote:Male homosexuality is based very strongly in lust .

heh heh, you could say the same thing about male heterosexuality.  but really, they fall in love with each other as much as hetero males fall in love with women.  homosexuality is about more than just sex (though the media loves to dwell on only the sex aspects of homosexuality, giving everyone the idea that that's all it's about), it is about falling in love.  these people just fall in love with the same gender.

quote:Looking at Homosexual men (some of who I do know) they seem generally to be very agressive hostile provokative and unhappy.

perhaps this is because they live in a world where they are constantly bashed and persecuted???  i mean, for the longest time they've had to hide themselves, for fear of being hated or disowned by their own families, and for fear of being beaten up or worse.  it is only recently that they are feeling safer about "coming out" (though i'm sure it depends on where you live, too).  the gay men that i've met were sweethearts!  talkative and cheerful!  this one guy i worked with was just a total sunbeam. [8D]  always laughing, and always helping people.  he devoted so much of his time toward helping people and keeping busy with creative activities.  his attitude and his kindness puts many "good christians" to shame.  of course, christians i've talked to said that good deeds will not save him, he will still burn in hell because homosexuality is a sin.  but he did things out of the pure desire to do so, not to try to "save his soul"... that wasn't even on his mind.  it makes me so angry when people say that gays will burn in hell... don't they realize love is love?  why should god condemn love in any form?  i thought that's what "He" is all about!

yes, i know, i'm sick of hearing allanon/np's preaching, too.  but what difference will this one topic make, anyway?  if everyone's too sick of dealing with him, well, no one's going to answer his challenge and will just ignore the topic.  and like i said, if he starts getting obnoxious again, the topic can be locked up.  heh heh, and since his membership is "under review", he might be getting thrown out soon (i don't want to see that happen, allanon/np, but you just can't seem to behave yourself! []), we might as well let him have his last posts before he goes.  

Narrow path, you really need to chill on the preaching and bible-thumping... you're getting nowhere except possibly kicked out.  i thought you were finally learning to use a different approach, and that's what your taking on a new name seemed to be about to me... that you were starting over and trying to make a new image and approach to this whole thing.  people are more likely to listen to you if show that you listen to them, and try to understand them, too.  if you can show that you can respect other people's beliefs and opinions, then they are more likely to respect yours.  you seem to be making an effort here and there, but it seems like you lose control.  please try to behave yourself before you're permanently booted. []

i hafta agree... i thought the one that got locked would be kinda interesting, and he stated in it that there would be no argument... just a report of the results.  why lock that one, when he's got worse ones out there that aren't locked (especially one that has reached such an incredible level of absurd longness and lots and lots of arguing)?  might as well lock all his topics then.  even if people don't take his "test", they might still have other interesting jesus AP experiences to talk about, which i'd like to hear.  c'mon, give the topic a chance, and if he starts getting too psycho-preachy, you can lock it again! []  i think allanon/NP has been trying to learn, but he, uh, has relapses or something.  kinda dr.jekyll/mr.hyde type thing. []

i am far from being christian (in fact, i've pretty much hated christianity for a long time), and as annoying as allanon/narrow path can get, the locking of his topic does kind of upset me.  i thought it would be interesting for people to go ahead and take allanon's challenge, and see what the results would be.  not only would it be interesting, but maybe the report of various experiences with jesus or whatever on the astral might actually help narrow path in realizing some things... maybe he can compare them with his own experiences, and perhaps it will help bring them into perspective.  a few members here have mentioned that they have met up with jesus on the astral, before narrow path brought this up, and i thought it would be interesting to hear those experiences.  if you don't want him to preach anymore, than why not just ban him (which for some reason, though he can be pretty obnoxious, i would not approve of this action, either), not lock topics that he pops up.  he even stated that there's

quote:no need for debate here or conflict.  Just the end result of the projection and the challenge.

sure, it's hard to believe that he could make it through this topic without bible-thumping, but he deserves the chance to try to discuss things objectively.  i mean, he's already littering all the other topics with his preaching, what difference will it make to have this topic?  it'll still be more interesting than all those zillions of idiotic topics filling up the forum from that fool xvirus.  

are you afraid that he'll succeed in converting people if those who take up his challenge have profound jesus experiences?  and then we'll have a whole bunch of allanons running around? []

i say let him have his topic and see how it goes.  if he starts failing miserably in his non-preaching efforts, then you can lock it again.  i mean, jeez, why lock this one when he's already started other ones that are preachy or insulting of other religions right off the bat?  this one is an exploratory one, an effort to "gather data" (to continue with the borg analogy []).

quote:Why must there be hassles like this? It's bringin' me down, man. I just want o float around 'n' stuff.

LOL!  my sentiments exactly, chupacabra.  i have to admit, i'm still afraid of the dark months after i had this one experience with these six small, dark figures standing around me.[:O]  they didn't do anything but stare at me, but i was paralyzed, and terrified, and it scared the hell out of me.  i had a decent little nighttime OBE a month after that, but i'm still pretty chicken. [:I] i wanna do more OBE's, but at the same time i'm still dealing with some fear issues.  i don't wanna meet up with creepy creatures!  i just want to explore all the wonders out there.  but i know i'm gonna have to deal w/it sooner or later. [xx(]  alas.

*SIGH* allanon, uh, narrow path, for a while it seemed you had improved and were starting to sound more like a human being again, and were trying to understand our thinking... but now it seems you're going right back to your robotic bible quoting again and ramming stuff down our throats.  we're right back at, "resistance is futile; you will be assimilated."  

if you'll notice, beth has not been saying that god has been trying to deceive or hide his truths in a code.  she has been saying that the human beings who believed in it were trying to protect their religion from being destroyed, and thus encoded the messages from god themselves by using allegory and metaphor(i am understanding this correctly, right?).  why is it so hard to think of the bible as containing god's word, but written by humans?  did the bible just simply fall down from the sky, all written up by various authors?  why is it not just all one continuous piece, with the signature, "sincerely, your ever-loving GOD" at the end of the book?  why would god act like all these people wrote these various versions of the same stories, if supposedly he wrote it?  beth is not saying that god's word is not in there, it is simply just protected from harm, and that it is really even more amazing than what you are getting at surface value from the stories.  if it was a case of simply looking too deeply for something that really isn't there, like trying to come up with a deep meaning for the rhyme, "jack and jill went up the hill" then i would think there would be a lot of "misses" along with the "hits";  things that just don't seem to fit or make sense.  but what she seems to be finding so far is that there's a lot of "coincidences" in meanings and symbolism, a lot of things fitting so nicely together, that it can't be merely just coincidence.  perhaps there really is something deeper going on there.  hope this makes any kind of sense. [:I]

interesting, tyler... seems we've been thinking about the same things lately...first karma, and now this.  i was wanting to make a post about soulmates, but i wasn't sure how to go about wording it.  

so anyway, how do we know when someone is our soulmate, and when we're just being silly and making a big deal out of someone who isn't really our soulmate?  how do you know when it's just wishful thinking, and when it's the real thing?  
is it possible to know who your soulmate is, without even knowing much about them?  like, is it possible to "just know" by something they've said, or done, or something like that?  or is it always something that just kind of develops?  i guess basically what i'm asking is:  what does it feel like when you've met your soulmate?  is it just kind of like "wham!"  or a soft, warm mushy spot in your heart?  heh heh, hope these questions don't seem too silly.  [:I]

sigh.... there are also plenty of people who have given themselves to christ and found only despair.  it depends on the person, what is the right spiritual path for them.  everyone has their own individual needs.  this truth seeker did not find it in "eastern way of life", but there are many who have found what they are looking for in it.  allanon, why don't you go ahead and join beth's discussion on bible interpretation instead of heckling people of other religions?  it's fascinating, and maybe you'll learn something that you need for yourself.  []

beth, don't be discouraged!  i find this all fascinating, but i have not been making any comments, just reading & letting it sink in.  and i'm not sure what to say at this time, i don't have any real questions yet.  i'll have questions the more in depth this goes, if it goes any further... i hope others will soon make their own statements about all this.  i've never really read the bible or anything, so i don't really have much i can comment on... i'm a total ignoramus!  but to see that maybe the bible has much more deeper meanings and messages is totally intriguing, because so far my opinion of the book was that it causes nothing but trouble. [] [}:)]
if you have other things you'd like to share, don't hesitate!!! []

beth, i appreciate what you are doing here, and find this quite fascinating.  i think that what you are doing is important... there has to be someone who will explore the various possibilities of the bible.  even if a lot of people do not like this approach, well, the fact of the matter is, all the people who have been taking the bible literally still disagree on the what it all means.  this is just yet another way of looking at the bible.  there are so many people bickering over what this and that means, and they are taking it all literally, so what makes this approach any more invalid?  and perhaps some people who find out about your work and these new possibilities and meanings of the bible stories will find that it helps them out spiritually more than ever before!  those who felt they weren't really getting much out of the bible before will be able to see it with new eyes.  right now this idea is something people are afraid of, but soon the idea will sink in a little better with some.  for a long time i always kinda looked down on the bible, but now i think that if there are perhaps deeper aspects and meanings to it, it becomes more interesting.  anyway, i'm babbling.  thanks for sharing your info with us, and i hope maybe some people will decide to try to get more in depth about it and have a good discussion! [8D]

i understand what you're saying, soulfire... my questions that you quoted above were aimed at the "traditional" or usual view of karma that people tend to preach.  your version makes sense.  

i'm attempting to write out an example story and my thoughts on karma, but it's kinda hard to do without sounding like a jackass, heh heh [:I].  it's so hard to write it in a way that makes sense!

now i'm confused... i thought that many people believe that when you die, you go one of the astral planes; where exactly you go depending on your personal beliefs, etc. and i've heard people comment that they can visit deceased loved ones on the astral. i've read that people who believe in heaven & jesus will go to an area on the astral that "caters" to your beliefs until you are ready to move on to a higher plane.  people who were not part of any belief system usually skip that part and go to meet their spirit guides, and take astral "classes".  my friend's brother did not believe in any particular religion, and so i figure he might be at an astral college or something.  and i've read that OBE's prepare us for what we will experience when we die... that dying is just a permanent OBE.  so where do we go when we die?  and what are you saying happened here?  that my friend did not actually speak with his brother, that his mind did some kind of wish fulfillment?  

jc84, i'm not saying that the guy's brother went straight to heaven, either, but supposedly there are astral locations that people say are kind of "permanent fixtures", actual locations that many people visit and report seeing the same thing, they all have the same descriptions of the places.  so i was wondering if he was at a particular point in the astral plane.

hephaestus, where do you believe we go when we die?

hhmmm... well i know that if you stare at any color for a while, you will get the after-image (i think that's what it's called) burnt into your vision for a while, and the after-image is always the opposite color of the color you looked at.  orange is the opposite color of blue, so you were seeing the after-image of blue.  i've been practicing seeing auras, but i'm never really sure if what i'm seeing is correct, but just make sure you avoid staring directly at the object... from what i've read, you have to stare off to the side of the object (you should be seeing the aura from your peripheral view... not the corner of your eye, though, just off to the side of your direct vision).  but i'm really no expert, and so i'm not sure if people see different colors from the same thing or not.  i hope this helps!    and welcome to the forum!

i agree, traveler.  it's like people around the world are letting each other borrow & burn/tape each other's cd's.  not only that, but you could also head to your local library and check out albums and burn/tape them (which i also do that... in fact, i always check the library first before i try downloading... it's easier to just borrow & burn instead of download for hours), and again, if i like the album tremendously, i will eventually buy it.  copying albums is something people have been doing for a long time, and file-sharing is yet another way of doing this... haha, a tremendous way.  

traveler, don't think that everything on the file-sharing programs is nothing but today's crap radio music.  you can discover artists that you've never heard of (and never will hear of because of the music/media industry's control over everything we see & hear) or download old music that you like.  i don't even bother downloading popular new music, because i can just go to the library for that, or borrow off of someone who likes that junk.  i use file-sharing for finding awesome music that has been hidden underneath the floating layer of music scum.  there are so many innovative, genius, creative artists out there who are getting absolutely no attention or credit (some famous music "artists" get their ideas off of lesser known ones).  and through my "pirating" of their music, they've made a sale off of me if i really love an album and go buy it, and i go to their concerts when they come to town, buy their t-shirts, stickers and other things because i'm such a huge fan!  [] [8D]

soulfire, yes your explanation does make sense, and i like your theory, too.  it seems it would explain some things (at least, if you are referring only to karma in the present life, and not extended through several lives), like why good people could sometimes get "punished" with bad things... sometimes i get so tired of hearing "well, it's probably bad karma from another life" or something like that.  this is one of the problems i have with karma... that supposedly what bad karma we get in one life could get carried over into our next life or whatever, and whatever bad things happen to us right now (in this life) is the result of bad things we did in another life.  
i mean, when we are reincarnated, we don't remember anything about our past lives.  sure, we can go back and look at them through meditation or astral projection or whatever, but not everyone knows that they can do this or how they can do this, and so must deal with this life as it is laid before them.  so when bad karma hits us in this life, and it's because of something we did in a past life, we don't even know what we're being punished for, or what lesson we're supposed to learn out of it!  so then, how will we be sure we're learning the lesson correctly?  i'll try to think up a good example to illustrate what i'm thinking... right now i can't think of anything... it's getting too late... yawn[|)]

whoah, those are the craziest optical illusions i've ever seen!  o_O
i've noticed that i can halt or slow down the movement briefly by unfocusing my eyes.  that is just to weird!!!

[there are so many wonderful bands out there, and none of them get any exposure, because they are drown out by all the britney spears & cookie-cutter bands that keep coming out.]

one thing people don't think about is that file-sharing is a way for people to discover new music... it's like a radio where YOU control what you hear.  and it's like people all around the world letting each other borrow each other's cd's.  there are so many wonderful bands out there, and none of them get any exposure, because they are drown out by all the britney spears & cookie-cutter bands that keep coming out.  the music industry kills all artistic, experimental, innovative music and promotes only the "factory-made" rehashes of the same old stuff, whatever is the newest lame music fad.  the music industry is no longer about quality and innovative new music... it is about making money off of mediocre music, what my brother and i called "twinkies"... factory made, hollow, replicated, emotionless fluff!!!  napster and kazaa were excellent ways for me to discover new bands because i know i'll never have a chance to hear them any other way... not on the radio, not on mtv, not anywhere.  so through file-sharing, i can decide what I want to hear.... the music industry (and it really is an "industry" now) shoves it's mediocre, pure crap down our throat, and it controls almost all the radio stations, making sure that they play over and over and over again the same old stuff and never play anything that is unique and artistic.  

file-sharing programs help increase the fan-base of many obscure bands, who are struggling to have their music heard.  in fact, i've seen a bunch of bands try to promote their stuff on the file-sharing programs, by either disguising their songs with the names of well-known bands, or naming the files with their own band's name and naming their better-known influences in it, so that it will come up in people's searches.  

also, there's a lot of excellent music that is out-of-print... completely unobtainable, and if you have the luck of finding one of the out-of-print albums, you can expect to pay sh*tloads of money for it... all excellent music should be able to be heard by everyone(and once an album's out-of-print, it's not like the artist will be making that money off the album... it's whoever has the good fortune of owning the album!)  if it weren't for the file-sharing programs, i would never, ever, have had the chance to hear so much excellent music!!!!  

i don't believe that file-sharing has really decreased sales... a lot of people (including myself) have said that when they download albums and stuff, if they really love the music, they will go out and buy it... they want the cover art, the high quality sound, the beautiful shiny new disc.  mp3's are not the highest quality sound you can get... a lot of sound quality is lost when converted to mp3 and wav files are too huge to download... one song can take hours, depending on your modem (even a fast modem).  if the music's not so hot, then well, it stays as an mp3 on my computer.  i can tell you, though, that everytime i found some awesome mind-blowing music on kazaa/napster, i just HAD to go and buy it.  i wanted to make sure i was hearing this great stuff at the highest quality i could get.    mp3's can really suck.  not only do you lose quality, but sometimes the files are messed up and make weird noises.  and spending hours everyday, many times frustratedly searching for stuff, watching your downloads sit there, or time out, or get cut off, or whatever can drive your temper through the roof!  easier to just buy the album once you've heard most of it and know you like it.  if weren't for the file-sharing programs i would never have heard so many wonderful artists (and that's right... i wouldn't have gone out and bought the album!  a bunch of artists made some money off of me thanks to napster and kazaa!).  

those morons in the music industry don't seem to realize that maybe people are getting sick and tired of the lame stuff they keep promoting.  i think the main reason their sales are going down is because most of the music on the radio and mtv nowadays just sucks... it all sounds the same, and the bands and bimbo pop stars only care about their image (which is all amazingly the same.. you either have the "i'm a dark & evil, scary blood-drenched punk-rocker from hell, with my goatee and tattoos, who wants to be just like marilyn manson" or the "please please please look at me, i'm a teenage prostitute with my clownishly thick makeup, and my body clad in the skimpiest stuff possible, and my hair is blonde (or if it isn't now, it will be, so it will increase my record sales even more) so you know you really want me and will buy my records because i look good even though my music isn't so good"... and i'm sure you can think of more cartoonish music stereotypes... those are a couple of the top ones).  music is no longer about music... it's about image and people buy the image!!!

[:I][:I]heh heh, sorry about the long rant... i feel quite strongly about where mainstream music is going nowadays![:I][:I]

anyway, there HAS to be a way to where this can be worked out.  []  i know file-sharing is not exactly.. uh... a good thing, but there's some concepts to it that i think are very valuable.  especially since it saves me from wasting money on an album with one good song on it... heh heh j/k [][}:)][}:)][}:)]

i'm not really sure what the vibrations feel like, really, because the few times i've really had anything happen, i didn't feel anything at all, i just found myself in the OBE state.  there have been a few times that i've felt strange before falling asleep, and the sources were different.  a couple of times, it felt like my feet were kinda wiggly/squiggly, and they felt like they were being pulled off of the bed, and the feeling started spreading up my legs and to the rest of my body and it felt like my body started to get pulled along w/my feet.  another time, i had my hands resting on my chest, and they started to feel real wiggly (i really don't know how to describe the feeling... it's like my body feels like it's waving or swaying in a breeze or something), and the feeling started to spread up my arms to the rest of my body.  all of those times i tried to stopped the "vibrations" (i'm assuming that's what they were), because i just wanted to go to sleep because i had to work the next day, and uh... heh heh... i have to admit i was kinda afraid to OBE in the dark (i'm almost through working my way out of those fear issues, though).[:I] [8D]

that could be true... but why does breathing too slow have to feel like suffocating?  i've had a couple of times where i reached that state and it just felt like i wasn't getting enough air, and it felt like i couldn't get my lungs to expand all the way.  it was hard not to worry that i was gonna die.  when i'm in a normal state and breathing real slow, it feels fine... i feel like i'm getting enough oxygen.  but in that state, it feels like i'm breathing my last breaths.

heh heh, yeah "piper at the gates of dawn" was back when they had that crazy creative guy, Sid Barrett... he was a big influence on them for a while until they booted him out (i guess he was just too heavy of an acid user and became unreliable or something... can't remember the whole story).  his solo stuff tends to have that same fairy tale/medieval/nonsensical theme.  a lot of it's acoustic and has that medieval bard sound, in a way (at least in my opinion).  if you haven't heard him, make sure to check him out.  it's not quite the same as his pink floyd days, but still good.

wow! [:O]  it sounds like you've been playing too much resident evil!!!  (and other zombie video games... they're all pretty much the same)

ooo, yes, i like much of what i've heard of tangerine dream... i especially love the firestarter soundtrack (the song "crystal voice" is sooo beautiful)!  they've got so many albums, though, that i really don't know what to listen to.  what is/are their best album?  i'd like to be able to go straight to the good stuff, instead of buying every single album or something... don't have that much money!  []