Messages

Concerning changing the future, has anyone tried or even heard of lucid precognitive dreaming? This would be the only practical way to go for us I should think to get any real results.

Time in my dreams is sometimes all mixed up like in a Dickens novel where all sorts of technologies that never existed at one time exist in the novel parallel. It is just sort of an awareness of events. Time is some sort of mental trick to separate events that exist in separate spaces. Our awareness categorizes them together timewise but later that all gets blurred into one thing, memory. Could you dream being a kid 20 years or so ago(depending on your age) with an internet connection for instance? Eventually maybe when internet gets so ingrained into your brain that you can't imagine being without it.

Upstream,

I am just guessing of course but maybe DNA ranscendence means ability to do shape changing stuff.

Surgeline,

no link on quick and easy belief reprogramming, sorry.

I noticed that this belief structure changing is pretty glacial in speed personally and comes in bits and pieces until everything falls together and I get a new paradigm in my heads which allows new radical ideas like  OBEs to be accepted in terms of this radical new paradigm. this has a lot to do with the societal changes around us which depend on where the stars are so to speak.

The astrological changes are a sort of program to wring us out through lots of changes so it is actually impossible to always stay in the same thought paradigm anyway. In the 90s Uranus and Neptune went through aquarius together. They stand for social changes on the whole planet and aquarius for communication. We see that now we are talking through a new medium which went mass market in the 90s , the internet and that mobile phones became a mass market thing then too.

Belief changing is really not up to us, it's cultural. I mean who could have thought we would have ben talking about OBEs over internet seriously say ten/fifteen years ago? Maybe some people pick up on the moods of the times quicker than others or even cause them(like Rob Bruce?). Some people might ignore such changes and remain stuck in the past. If OBEs are real then more people will do it and more people will believee and then it will be in all the newspapers and cheap talk shows and slowly you will believe it even if you are the worst skeptic for example. If it is not real or simple for most people then it will stay subculture or disappear.

I have also had a bit of a slump lately in intensity and frequency of lucid dreams. This morning however I experienced somewhat of a mind split. I had recently not been doing much energy work as I sort of overdid it before but this morning I could not sleep so I purposely worked up a lot of energy in my whole energy body. I then concentrated and relaxed myself completely and started with letting lots of random visual images go across my visual field until it turned into a dream where I was still aware. I could feel my whole body as the energy tingles around the whole thing but I was also conscious inside the dream separately but I could not manage to get into my body to "jump out" into OBE as I had read suggested in another thread. I think that for the projection and control of lucid dreams and OBEs a lot of active energy is really critical. There is a lot of talk about not being able to control OBE or get into it and what is the most critical factor. Obviously energy is a critical factor to project(like a movie projector having to be plugged in before it will work). Additionally I was more hungry for the experience today and angry at myself for not making any progress. This makes for an ideal combination to get any real results. The more I leave it all up to chance("if I happen to be aware in a dream then maybe I will get lucid and then maybe I can OBE" type of attitude) the less experiences I think will have in the end.

Regarding dream recall, for example I remember a whole dream and review it in my head then when I turn over too quickly to write it down, it is gone. This of course is not very nice. I think sudden jerky movements change brain waves and should be avoided before writing down/downloading a dream properly. A common technique in meditation is when you get into a certain state of mind(brain waves) to carry this state of mind into your daily life by moving very slowly as you get up from the meditation and getting used to moving normally without losing this state of mind in your normal daily activities.

I was quite interested in this argument from the start as I began reading about this whole topic before I got into Rob Bruce and got a lot of information from the writings of following man http://www.geocities.com/ddegraci/ . He had an incredible amount of astral experiences(which he describes in his free internet book DO OBE) but was more of the opinion that the terms astral projection, OBE and lucid dreaming were all connected historically to certain groups(respectively occultist fron 19th century, parasychologists from 60s-70s and modrn psychologists) but all describe the same basic phenomenon. In DO OBE(1994) he takes an occultist viewpoint describing astral planes and such. Afterwards he got his Ph. D in Neurophysiology or similar and did lots of research into dreaming and the mind and now he thinks it can all be explained by the internal workings of the mind. In one of his 4 lectures(PTALK) written after DO OBE he suggests a convergence between occultist view and scientific view is possible due to the nature of quantum mechanics. For exampe if 11 dimensions exists we can see 4 dimensions in physical and the other 7 are the astral planes ( physicists speculate they are just "folded up" somehow). Obviously the argument about being in or out of the body is absurd as everything is produced by consciousness and just an illusion ultimately. I am of the opinion that there can ultimately be no contradiction between our understanding of physics and that of occult reality. These are just different explanations of the same phenomenon. Einstein said "God does not play dice". Of course he was wrong in the end. Not even the greatest genius can always see everything. There can obviously be no true separation between physical and astral/spiritual realms ultimately so that understanding the quantum mechanical connection over our consciousness is important. Even though we argue now over semantics( basically two men see a tree and both invent a different word for it then argue about it forever) as to what it is to be in  some other realm of consciousness in terms of physical explanation or occult explanation be assured God/Turth is all encompassing and can take in both views in a much more comprehensive theoretical framework which eliminates any contradictions so that everyone actually is right.  We just do not yet have this framework as we are at a much too primitive level of development.

Phong, Thelou, Boats,

I am glad to hear that what I am doing is in the right direction and that others have started the same way. I suddenly started remembering my dreams end of March then started a dream journal and now I remember 3 or 4 dreams per night and sometimes go lucid. I notice that my skills have improved in the astral/dream realms. I just learned to go through walls backwards last week and experienced astral wind for example in a  lucid dream. Flying came earlier and consciously visualising objects. Someday I hope to AP from waking state but I think my current experiences are critical to enable that or at least to make it of any use when it does occur.

Birm,

I read it before but I just reread it and here is the corresponnding quote:

"Apart from other living projectors, many of the characters encountered during astral projections do not appear to be real; although some are what could be called native inhabitants of astral realms. Also, as I mentioned earlier, most of the characters encountered during lucid dreams do not appear to be real. Many seem to be something like created shells, whose sole purpose is to form a temporary part of the scenery.

It is possible to have sex with a created or unreal character, although the genital contact sensations resulting from this type of sexual encounter are greatly reduced; seemingly more distant than sex with other projectors. The sensations of sex, in this case, appear to be provided by the subconscious mind of the projector/dreamer; probably based on memories of past real-life sexual encounters. The erotic mental imagery and sexual sensations are, however, just as real to the physical/etheric body and energetic feedback will still occur, albeit less strongly and in a kind of solo sexual energy feedback loop.

In my experience, other people encountered during real-time OBE's are usually other living projectors. However, this does not hold true once a projector shifts out of the real-time zone and into the lower astral; which will often happen unnoticed. There is one main way to tell real projectors and sentient astral beings from unreal created characters. Real and unreal beings behave and react quite differently to interference, including sexual advances. An unreal character will simply stand there and let anything be done to them, be it sex or murder. They will not resist or complain in the slightest, no matter what is done to them. However, real astral beings and other projectors, even unaware sleep projectors, will be found to object, resist, fight, verbally abuse and even attack interfering projectors; although they will usually just leave the area. "
UNQUOTE


I think I need a lot more experience in these areas to be able to sort out what is really going on and only afterwards can I say what sort of being I was dealing with or maybe just with my subconscious wishes.

SOME POETRY AND POP MUSIC ON RESISTING DEATH AND SUICIDE

DYLAN THOMAS:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.





Queen - Don't Try Suicide

A one, two, three, four, one... Yeah... OK

Don't do it, don't you try it baby
Don't do that, don't, don't, don't
Don't do that, You got a good thing going now
Don't do it, don't do it... Don't

Don't try suicide, nobody's worth it
Don't try suicide, Nobody cares
Don't try suicide, you're just gonna hate it
Don't try suicide, nobody gives a damn

So you think it's the easy way out?
Think you're gonna slash your wrists... this time
Baby when you do it all you do is get on my tits
Don't do that, try, try, try, baby
Don't do that, you got a good thing going now
Don't do it don't do it... Don't

Don't try suicide, nobody's worth it
Don't try suicide, nobody cares
Don't try suicide, you're just gonna hate it
Don't try suicide, nobody gives a damn

You need help, look at yourself you need help
You need life, So don't hang yourself
It's ok, ok, ok, ok
You just can't be a prick teaser all of the time
A little bit attention, you got it
Need some affection, you got it
Suicide, suicide, suicide, bid
Suicide, suicide, suicide, bid... Suicide

Don't do it don't do it don't do it babe (yeah)
Don't do it don't do it don't, do it... Yeah
Don't put your neck on the line
Don't drown on me babe, blow your brains out
Don't do that (yeah)
Don't do that, you got a good thing going baby
Don't do it (no) don't do it (no) don't

Don't try suicide, Nobody's worth it
Don't try suicide, Nobody cares
Don't try suicide, You're just gonna hate it
Don't try suicide
Nobody gives, nobody cares, Nobody gives a damn



I like Dylan Thomas better personally although it is not about suicide. Obviously even old people do not want to give up life quietly. My father is 80 and has this attitude. The Queen song is clear, who cares if you do kill yourself? It is not going to help at all or get any sympathy which is what most of us are looking for to get us out of our depressions, a life saver being thrown to us. My depressions were never that deep but only through a disciplined spiritual life have I obtained real joy and purpose in life. The struggle to obtain greater spiritual heights  is what makes the whole thing worthwhile, learning to really love yourself and others.

[QUOTE:There are things you should be aware of:- While having astral sex dont try to feel your physical body. That way the projection will suddenly end and you wake in the real world. - While having astral sex try to feel the environment, the smell, the sounds and the feel of your partners body. Dont try to visualize anything, let your astral body create the environment for you. Trust your astral body, you will have the sex of your life!!!- If you come, dont panic. Your physical body may or may not have come. If you panic you will suddenly awake in your bed.- Dont rush. Let it be slowly. It always takes longer... I always feel high pressure around my whole body as i come. Wait for that pressure... It is a very different feeling from the real sex believe me. So just let it go with the flow...- Sometimes a second partner appears suddenly but it is always a bad idea to change your partner. You will break your concentration by doing that...- The smell of your partner is very important. Try to smell! It is a great feeling...- You will feel exhausted after coming in your Astral body. But you will be suprised that when you wake up, your physical body will be refreshed. And full of energy.- Dont try to have control over the experience. All you have to do is trying to feel the environment as much as you can. This is very important or you will wake in your bed...END QUOTE]

Birm,
Of course sex and love and morals can`t be taken apart very easily and I am as lusty as the next fellow so I liked how you gave good advice about just being there and experiencing astral sex. this is good advice which I am really just learning myself even in my marriage in the physical world. Obviously practicing this in the astral plane can only deepen my consciousness of reality and my love life even more.

QUOTE:
There are things you should be aware of:
- While having astral sex dont try to feel your physical body. That way the projection will suddenly end and you wake in the real world.

- While having astral sex try to feel the environment, the smell, the sounds and the feel of your partners body. Dont try to visualize anything, let your astral body create the environment for you. Trust your astral body, you will have the sex of your life!!!

- If you come, dont panic. Your physical body may or may not have come. If you panic you will suddenly awake in your bed.

- Dont rush. Let it be slowly. It always takes longer... I always feel high pressure around my whole body as i come. Wait for that pressure... It is a very different feeling from the real sex believe me. So just let it go with the flow...

- Sometimes a second partner appears suddenly but it is always a bad idea to change your partner. You will break your concentration by doing that...

- The smell of your partner is very important. Try to smell! It is a great feeling...

- You will feel exhausted after coming in your Astral body. But you will be suprised that when you wake up, your physical body will be refreshed. And full of energy.

- Dont try to have control over the experience. All you have to do is trying to feel the environment as much as you can. This is very important or you will wake in your bed...

END QUOTE
AS I am just getting used to manipulating environment and being lucid in dream/astral environment  I recognize how important learning to manipulate control/feel all of the various senses is while lucid in dreams and that this is always a stepping stone to a higher level of awareness and control over the astral environment, which in turn helps us have better control/self confidence over the phyiscal/ordinary waking state.

I have been working a lot on remebering my dreams and on the sexual as well as power/violence stuff. I find a greater ability to attack and kill(not in lucid dream yet thank God)  and also to  engage in sexual activity through my dream recall and lucid dreaming.

Last night I had a couple of sexual dreams. One was quite straightforward/porno satisfying simple instincts and the one I had later in the night was much more subtle where I was helping a woman find something and slowly we came physically closer in our search and it became "uncomfortable" then finally looked each other in the eyes before I woke up.

I am interested as to what I would have done in either dream if I had managed to become Lucid. It all depends on mood of the moment I suppose.

If the other person with whom we have contact (let us say another person dreaming too) this will have some karmic effect on them? I mean for example if I cheat on my wife in my dreams with real women but as they do not remember it as only I am lucid are there still moral consequences? Are not dreams still a sort of reality? This is not being jugemental or moralistic as karma is like physics. action and reaction is inevitable. Maybe this is how people subconsciously try out future partners in dreams before they acutally get involved with anyone in particular.

I have been doing a lot of work on dream recall the last 2 months and getting slowly more lucid dreams or half lucid dreams occasionally with lots of strange sensations and confusing turns for example where I am in a dream in a dream trying to visualize or control things as if I were really awake and doing a lucidity/OBE technique.

After a while I stopped trying too hard to get lucid and relaxed and it just sort of comes of itself.

I hope this will be your experience as well.

The more you remember your dreams the easier it gets to become lucid and the more time in the lucid state the easier it gets to manipulate the environment(flight/going through solid objects, etc.) I am just hoping to be able to get beyond simple mechanical control to going somewhere special on purpose or seeing someone I know or checking out the past or future or maybe an astral plane or the universe.

I have been on the forum for a month or so.

I have been doing yoga asanas and meditation for 9 years. Kriya yoga, kundalini type yoga for 4-5 years, Tai Chi for 2 years and have had a great interest in all sorts of astrology for 4 years. I am interested in all eastern religions and any other spiritualist themes or philosophies, self help, development type stuff, esoteric themes. I am currently doing lucid dreaming techniques from Tibet and using Holosync Brain Wave generator for meditation daily.

Basically I am not trying to help or develop anyone except myself and am pretty much a loner excepting my family and work environment and of course the internet. I ride a bike to work and eat more or less carbo free and do not use drugs or alcohol. I live in Germany with wife and 2 little kids doing import/export work.

I am Pisces and therefore a natural for this type of spiritualist environment here. The health freak mentality and boring office job I blame on my 3 planets in Virgo and my dream interests on my moon/Jupiter conjunction.

I have been reading a brochure that came with my Holosync meditation CDs the other day and he describes us as being an open energy system that assimilates new information/energy and goes to a higher state of existence continually as we learn and reorganize(according to  Ilya Prigogine's nobel prize winning theory on open systems). For example we are not really ultimately physical as all our cells change every seven years. We must therefore be pure consciousness as nothing else exists in a living being consistently over the entire lifecycle. We are each individually an open living and constantly changing system.

Basically when we mistake our physical body for our true self that is the easiest and dumbest mistake. After that level we mistake our feelings and attitudes for our true self. this is the next mistake. Somehow we have to get past all that and find who we really are. This is somes state of Nirvana, a witness of everything where everything stops and it is just light. Of course to enjoy this level we have to get around all our mind games which are illusions based on perceptions based on the functions of the physical body( thought and visual, auditory, touch, feeling illusions).

If you get to this level of the game you have won the grand prize and get to play God in the next round of universal incarnation which happens every zig trillionen years or so.[8D]

I, just like everybody else has been all caught up in the hype and anxiety regarding the post 11th Sept. problems in the last few years. So last year I read a good history book on islam from its roots up until the 1970s as well as a book on Ghenghis Khan invasions and one on the history of the Ottoman empire and also a history of the Jews in Europe. I found that knowing history gives me a great deal of distance from the nightly news broadcasts and the editorials in the magazines or actually from the personal opinions of friends and family. When you see the whole current problem in perspective of the historical changes you will not be too interested in hating or blaming anyone but will be able to make sensible decisions and to take the whole thing philosophically. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust" idea.

Since the end of the bipolar cold war the world has changed and a new world picture is being sought by many. The socialist ideal of justice was sort of very religious and supported the poor 3rd worlders against the capitalist exploitation at least nominally(hundreds of years of western colonial exploitation- also of the Arabs). In the new post cold war age capitalism is the only game in town. An alternative world view has been put forth by Al Quaeda. I have even read he is being looked upon as the "Mahdi"- something like a late days messiah for Islam(if anyone remembers the Dune novels or movies) Someone had to take center stage. The Americans have been dominant now for some time and are now even more dominant. Mostly the rich saudis are the terrorists with their copy cats in allother islamic countries. The Saudis see their own government as corrupt and the westerners as allowing this due to all that oil money. Twin devils.

The cold war ended with the democratization of Eastern Europe and the turn to capitalism of all communist countries as well as the democratization of most former dictatorships in the world. It seems that the American government sees the endgame in the middle Eastern countries similarly. The last enemy of the west is seen in the totalitarianism that masquerades under the ideological guise of Shia and Wahabi religion(Iran and Saudi Arabia) but actually are simply power hungry clerics and Princes. It is obvious that the neo colonial corporate exploitation of the West in the 3rd world is being slowly resisted by rejection of new WTO talks by 3rd world countries. The Bush government and the EU are not interested in a level playing field but in the best terms they can get against the 3rd world. The Islam against the west current supposed battle is just a distraction for a few decades at most. It is really a matter of a level playing field for the whole world in material and demoocratic terms. Until similar standards of living and freedoms exist generally everywhere on earth there will be always good reasons to start up some sort of conflict.  

"Wir sind das Volk"-"we are the people" yelled the east germans in the streets before tearing down the Berlin wall. i think the saudis and Iranians might like to do the same thing if they could, but similarly the disillusuionment with democracy that followed due to extreme poverty and chaos in Eastern Europe gives rise to concern. People have to get used to new ways. Freedom is hard to live with. Just look at the current chaos unfolding in Irak. How will that turn out?

Great Outdoors,

I remember someone asked here in the thread something similar to " why do people lose their faith sometimes and then regain it".  I tried to answer that with my story and examples given as just being different phases of consciousness which are just as important and real and that personal development is the only way to see what we believe personally.

I think hanging on to one technique when it just stops working for you (at least after like months or a year of total spiritual stagnation) is a bad thing. "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds"(emerson or thoreaus). I mean - you get in a rut. It becomes too linear and uncreative and boring. Once you try something else you see that actually the two techniques are similar but the other group just sees it from another angle. After awhile you mix lots of things like an artist or musician who develop their own style. I think we all do that. I read Autobiography of a Yogi and Yogananda had several influential Gurus before he settled down with Sri Yukteswar and agfterwards he did it also somewhat differently from his Guru. Every person has really individual needs and problems and we have to hope we stumble across the right "medicine "for our problem, like findng the right marriage partner, a very tricky business indeed.

Sure I got headaches. I had to stop the specific sort of Kundalini Pranayama prescribed in Kria Yoga having done over 100,00 times in a couple of years. My body got used to it but even a few weeks ago as I thought I could try it again for a few days it really screwed me up(pains in arms and whole left side). For example I had to reduce yoga asanas from 5-6 times a week down to 3 times a week as it stimulates energy body too much with my heavy back bends. So I started doing Tai Chi on my off days from Yoga (Tuesday, Thursday) as I thought I did not get enough exercise and Tai Chi is not so energy body intensive. On the weekends I do not do any energy body work or sport and even take naps to recover my energy body and my muscles.  Since I could not do sitting meditation without developing too much energy in the run of the week I was disappointed generally about my development. However I thought it is easier to pick it up again soemetime later than to  relearn the splits or complicated Tai chi moves. In other words it was a tradeoff decision on what sort of energy work I kept on doing as i had to give up something.

Doing The jholosync CDs seemed like the simple way of getting back into medtiation. I did that 2 weeks in a row every day and had to take a whole week off to recover my energy body from overload even though I did not necessarily do that in a strict meditation position. Being in Delta seems to really stimulate energy body. So I do that only twice a week now. their 12 year program could last 40 years for me at that rate but who cares I have to so something until I am 80 and it seems to work well enough.

I tried out RBs NEW and discoverd that my energy had been really centered in my trunk and always went straight up to my head and did not spread out over my whole energy body before this. Now it uses my whole body much more efficiently, dissipating or increasing towards my limbs instead of blocking in my trunk and head and burning up in my hips or back or shoulders. This is all very practical. If you have done any yoga you know that props are important to get where you want in extreme positions. Basically anything goes. I used to stick a towel under the refrigerator and slowly pull myself towards it with my legs split until I came down to the ground with my face completely to the ground(sideways splits). I mean if you get religion about a particular religion you are making a mistake. Basically it is all technique to get by our actual limitations of our body and to see reality( a spiritual Guru like Jesus or Babaji is of course always cool for inspiration).

I remember reading about the now dead physicist Richard Feynman who in high school just irreverently found out his own ways (which were much better than in the textbooks) to solve physcis problems and later simplified a lot of standard work in physics calculations, coming from a sort of engineering background. He saw that most of the students saw quantum physics and relativity in awe as a religion practically speaking and were afraid to touch it and put their own imprint on it. this hinders progress and understanding was his idea.

If we in a very real way are God(like part of some hologram) then we should not be afraid of making our own routine based on what works best for us individually. If you join a group and go every week to their medtitatation sessions and on your own read the ideas of completely different religious groups your friends at the meditation group will not necessarily be too open to your "alternative" techniques and philosophies. This seems to be the main hurdle. It is social. That is whay I probably just learn from internet and books anymore.

Wow am I ever learning a lot here!

I read a German lanquage study of the spread of Christianity through Irish monks across Europe in the early middle ages a couple of years ago.

I am proud of my own Irish heritage(yankee with Irish passport) and sad about the disappearance of the old culture at the hands of Julius Caesar and then the Catholic church and later the English but well we are adaptable.

I have studied lots of world religions and their techniques and philosophy and am generally interested in my own roots as we all are here obviously. Maybe if I were a druid in a previous life and could have a hypnotic regression I could catch enough of the feel of it to make some sense of what was going on back then. Of course I am only partly joking as the arguments and distortions from a couple thousand years of history seem to make it hard to see what was really happening. Maybe our celticness(of the diaspora at least) has just been reduced to "kiss me I'm Irish" buttons on St. Pats day in America. Otherwise obviously Celtic authors and artists and scientists have been very important and there are maybe 100 million celtic descendants alive in the world and perhaps French really is just a mixed language as said above. A dying culture/people? No way!

Lots of good info on the following:

http://www.rickross.com/groups/scientology.html
http://www.xenu.net/archive/leaflet/

I never realized this was so insane.

Living in Germany the people and government are really paranoid due to their political past about anything that smells of mind control sects here and the scientologists have gotten lots of negative press discouraging anyone from getting involved in them.

The press here criticizes that the Americans give scientologist tax exempt/religion status although according to accounts from ex members they practically enslave people mentally and literally  and take all their money to get from one level of teaching to another. From what I understand they believe in aliens or similar. Lots of sects are bad but this one is supposed to be more extreme and have some crazy world domination plan by putting their people everywhere in governments and big business and buying up property and stuff worldwide. Is this all paranoid garbage?

Any ex scientologists know what they really believe? I think it is now sect of choice for rich hollywood types(MichaelJackson,etc).

I read the book Living from the Heart(also in Geman and spanish available) at the following site which gives direct sufi meditation instructions. It is very effective in stimulating energy body. Author is Puran Bair.

http://www.appliedmeditation.org/Living_from_the_Heart/living_from_the_heart.shtml

I have gone through several religious and agnostic/atheistic phases in my life. I was raised catholic(just a nice boring ritual when you gow up in it actually) in Alaska and at 11 years of age I got interested in a pentecostal church around the corner as we were friends with the kids from the preacher's family. I learned to sing, read my bible, etc. but got disuillusioned after several years that I could not feel this sort of "happiness" all the time which  i had initially felt and I made too many rules for myself of sin and saw too much hypocrisy, etc. I started going then to a catholic youth group and a catholic charismatic group which is sort of a cross between pentecostals and catholics which sort of fitted me. After I got into high school basically I became agnostic and learned science, humanism and modern skepticism as my religion. At about 21 I decided through a sort of revelation in one moment looking up at the empty summer sky that I was alone and that there was nothing else in the universe but myself. I then took the attitude that the god concept was simply a santa claus lie for adults invented by authorities to keep us happy(religion is the opium of the masses).This feeling of beautiful emptiness was hard to maintain, a very rarefied type of feeling(nirvana,etc.) so that I came back down to earth and had to deal with people and feelings again. So I doubted this sort of purist atheism which leaves no room for anything at all, just emptiness.

This experience however finally opened my heart to new ideas on reality generally speaking. At about 25 I moved to England for a year(my mother is English)and later to Germany. I experimented in England with various meditation courses and a bit of martial arts. The meditation had some short term mind altering effects which were convincing but I could not maintain the intensity of the first experience and dropped it.

At 30 I got my current job and had so much stress in the first months that I thought I would go crazy and decided to start again with some yoga and simple form of mantra meditation. This increased my inner peace and the yoga made me much more peaceful on the physical level. I read "Autobiogaraphy of a Yogi" a few years later on a return trip to Alaska and got all excited about what I had read. Miracles like in the Bible but that anyone could acheive through a specific training and a whole new cosmology was portrayed. I learned the breathing techniques to awaken the energy and after a couple of years had slowly awakened kundalini and could feel this throughout my body.

I had to stop with my energy raising practices after a couple of years as it was getting to be too much for me(headaches and such). 2 years ago I learned Tai Chi to round off my experiences with the body. Only last summer did I again get over the fact that I had had to stop doing my breathing and meditation work which I felt of as a sort of personal and moral failure to my kriya yoga group and teacher. I started learning all sorts of new things like Sufi meditation, Feng Shui, Indian and Chinese Astrology until I found something that would be able to get me out of my rut. I found this finally in Holosync meditation CDs in September which seemed to have a positive effect and have given me a real boost. In March I felt incredibly happy suddenly and could not say why(long term holosync effect likely) and then I started always remembering my dreams and discovered lucid dreaming sites and RBs site on internet. I have had several lucid dreams in the last several weeks and find an intensified stability and happiness throgh the increased stability of my energy body(NEW and Chakra stimulation during the night) in connection with the higher contact with my subconscious(dream analysis/lucidity in dreams).

To say I believe in God would be too simple and a lie. My conscious mind is just the tip of the iceberg and does not know much beyond the logic of what it sees and remains at heart a logical skeptical modern atheist/agnostic. The subconscious is more part of my emotional / energy body (I feel therefore I am). The experiences I gain with my energy body through my myriad spiritual practices(increased feelings of happiness and love for others and self control in all situations) are very, very real and my conscious mind accepts this as being true inasmuch as it can see/feel the results. Everyone wants to be happy. God as a distant theory was never any good to me, regardless of religion/ dogma. I just switch/add techniques when I do not feel a deepening spirituality through what I am currently into. The more happier I am closer I presume I am to this "god" whatever that may be.

Ramana Maharshi was asked by a muslim if god could take on form or was formless and he asked the muslim inreturn if he himself had form although in reality he was only a spirit, thereby answering his question. The argument about atheism / agnosticism is really one of asking is there more to it than the pure physical before our eyes. Einstein and quantum mechanics already answered this question from the scientific standpoint.

Rama Krisha questioned one of his new disciples if he believed in God with or without form, and he replied that he was atheist/agnostic being still undecided, which honest answer Ramakrishna admired. In Eastern religions the existence of physical deities can be accepted or rejected dependent on individual belief.Ramana Maharshi was obviously saying it could be both ways.

Ramakrishna is an interesting example. He achieved the samadhi state of pure nothingness for 6 months then had to come down and lived in an extremely intense world of feelings afterwards saying he lived between the pure nothingness of the highest samadhi and the normal world of feelings represnted by his brow chakra.  His samadhi teacher did not believe in the personified god but only in the abstract reality and did not accept experiencing life through feelings but was taught otherwise by a miracle he observed of the goddess Kali who chose to appear to him to prove God could indeed take on form in the beauty of nature and feelings, the ever changing feminine shakti and not just the masculine Shiva form of abstract logic.  

Western Christian dogma imposed by Constantine under his simplistic ideas which rejected gnostic thinking popular at the time in Coptic and other chrisitan churches(the development of the individual godlikeness similar to indian ideas) in favor of a literal interpretation of Jesus as God to be worshipped as intermediary in a ritualist manner helped cement the Roman empire under one religion and was very practical and Roman and had probably little to do with Chrisitanity as practiced in most cases back then. This historical break has caused the problems "we" as christians experience in our experience of God as being separate from ourselves somewhere abstract like santa claus or an old man on a throne. True religion is in us and god is different for everyone depending on their own very personal experience.

Galactic

Does he distinguish between OBE, Astral projection and Lucid dreaming or consider them all different topics?

I read some free downloads on Lucid dreaming and some tibetan type books from the library. It seems to be a really good way to deepen spirituality and get in touch with yourself, for me anyway. I have had several such dreams and am getting more into it all the time.

I do not seem to be able to force it however by noticing and making a reality check where I just say suddenly "oh this is a dream" and start doing funny things. I have had a sort of internal dialogue subliminally telling me it was a dream and also just started floating then flying so it was obvious to me. It would be nicher to be able to control the whole thing more and lucid dream daily but I guess that will take years of hard practice.

I started remebering my dreams about a month ago every night(who knows why) and started writing them down after a week or so and have been doing it ever since. I think if I do not try to hard but just relax it works better. This is probably true for the whole day. If I am relaxed and do some breathing work/energy work/meditation in bed or before going ot bed it goes better. I was all uptight the last couple of days and had to practically force memories or lost dreams altogether. If you are sort of relaxed and dreamy in the day with light daydreams and a lot of imagination/visuals in your head then it should carry over into your dream time. For example I even remebered some really old dream over the weekend that I had forgotten a long time ago but was vivid back then and stuck in conscious memory. this  is because I sort of got into a dream mood(or mode).

I do those holosync meditation CDs and they always send e-mail newsletters talking about getting over negative things in the subconscious to acheive whatever you want in life- like the power of positive thinking- but they use positive subliminals on their CDs when you are in deep delta meditation state. This should really stick and get you into where you really believe in yourself and can finally get over all that self doubt and acheive whatever you set your mind on. I am about to make those subliminals by telephoning them onto a tape and they have some pretty cool ideas for this that sound super positive:

example:

I am a success. I can be, do and have everything I want. I see each day as a new and positive adventure. I love my work. I have unlimited personal power and I always use it for the good of all. I can do anything I put my mind to.

This or  similar affirmations will be recorded in my voice subliminally behind the meditation sound track. I can imagine this sort of thing could help in reprogramming people with a negative self image. I mean like all my bad experiences and habits are just subliminals/mantras running deep in the subconscious possibly from previous lives or whatever.

I read that before the 4th birthday kids are always in Delta waves so you can't remember much of what happens before then as you only go into delta waves in a deep trance or in deep sleep. Between 4 and 7 years old you stay at theta waves which is dream state or light trance. Just think if my mother always called me an idiot and failure at 2 years old it would be damned hard to overcome that as it would be forgotten in deep subconscious and etched in stone there so that it would become reality.

So reprogramming needs really deep and serious work. It does not really matter what one does externally. This is just showing what you have changed internally.  

Oh yeah, by the way, as a kid I wanted to be a writer(3rd grade) and then a nuclear physicist(4th grade) and later at 13 or so for a while a priest. I think my spiritual hobbies and intellectual hobbies are sort of fulfilling all those dreams in a way and they are even expanding my horizons from year to year.

This discussion made me think of middle ages torture and the grand inquisition. I went then to www.Gutenberg.org and read again Dostoyevsky's "The Grand Inquisitor" from Brothers Karamazov. The reasoning is purely materialistic and cynical in that the church in the pasasge and by extension whoever is in power has the right for the good of the masses to do what they want as people want to be told what to do and can't handle freedom.

The old man in the piece blames Jesus face to face for giving people freedom they could not handle and then leaving them to their own devices. We are getting enormous amounts of new freedoms nowadays through science(Nukes, bioweapons) so that we are very often glad to have someone, namely the authorities, take away such sticky decisions from us as who should die and who should live or be tortured.

The working of a representative democracy is a delicate balance, especially in war time emergencies as after Sept. 11(Or as in the torture instance in 24 due to a nuclear attack). Usually to beat an enemy you must become more and more like him to know how he thinks and feels, unfortunately. We can only hope that the current general situation that actually gave rise to such a poll will not destroy our humanity and freedoms anymore than Mccarthyism did due to the cold war.

I am glad scientists are finally bridging the gap ovber to spirituality instead of continuing as full bodded atheist/agnostics with a cold hard impersonal universe out there.

This book is based on theory of course. As I am reading Astral Dynamics(Akashic records and Astral planes part) and RB says he only is telling it like it is. I would wonder how this new book compares with RBs description of the Universe from his own personal experience or with experience of other astral travellers.

I just consider where Einstein got his ideas. He just imagined himself riding on a beam of light and then deducted relativity from his "Astral experience". Obviously he got his ideas from when he was out of body and direct memories or shadow memories were saved in the abstract into his brain in the form of general and specific relativity theories which he had to somehow explain in abstract mathematics.