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Ahh, but see, if you hadn't have been brainwashed, you wouldn't have known what brainwashing looks like. Therefore, it was only a matter of time before you fell into the trap anyway. Now that you've had the experience, you can be wary of it and you can avoid it from ever happening again... hopefully  

Hi Donal

I will keep you and your family in my thoughts. I don't know if I'll be able to do anything... but I'll see.

[edit]

Well yeah, God is the whole... The One. And everyone, and everything is a part of the whole. We, in particular, are said to be made in His image because we have the potential to commune with Him... to ascend to His level... or at least to ascend to a comparable level.

[a]

The philosophical conundrum that I'm facing at the moment has to do with spatial volume and *physical* matter. I am not experientially familiar with the internal worlds of the astral and higher planes but I would assume that physical matter would have the same spatial laws as higher dimensions (ie. astral, mental ect.). It would put my concern to rest if the problem only pertains to the physical plane of the 3 spatial dimensions and physical matter.

However the problem I have lies in the relatable argument of whether the universe is finite or not in terms of space. Imagine you have an unlimited amount of measuring tape. Could it be placed at the start of the universe and be stretched to the end of the universe to measure the diameter (assuming the universe is spherical)? I'm sure this could be verified in the astral and would appreciate others opinions on this.

The argument for this case asserts that in *the beginning*, or dawn of time, the universe was condensed down to an infinitesimal portion of matter the size of a pea. Shortly after the big bang the universe theoretically expanded and has continued to expand to the present day.

The case against this declares that the universe has no spatial limits and is infinite in every sense of the word. This theory at once seems more appealing and comforting to some because it means that the universe will not eventually contract back into nothingness. Although for some it would be quite ridiculous to conceive that all matter was condensed down to such a minute mass in the first place.

The problem with the spatially limited universe theory is the notion of implausible spatial confines.
Let's say that the universe is spatially limited. In due course the question comes to mind: "what is beyond the universe"? Or "what is the universe expanding into?" Next we can say that it is expanding into another universe. But then, someone will surely ask: "where is that other universe expanding into?" And so the questions become redundant as the result materializes as theoretically infinite exponentially expanding universes.

The problem with the spatially unlimited universe theory lies in Zeno's paradox. If we state that the spatial volume of the universe is infinitely large, therefore it must be infinitely small too. However a philosophical problem arises with this notion. Zeno's paradox states that from observational reality the notion of matter being infinitely small is unsustainable. Quoting from the site, a runner for example who must run a 100m race must face 1x100m. Or we can express this mathematically as 2x50m, or 4x25m ect. However if matter is infinitely small then we can continue making the number of meters that we are multiplying smaller. If this pattern continues it is evident that the runner will never reach his destination.

If there is an absolute smallest particle (such as an atom) that is no further reducible then obviously there are an increasing number of *atoms* in the universe as it expands. This is true in my opinion because as the universe is expanding now but matter is not being "stretched" as such, rather new matter is materializing. This would explicate the problem of all existing matter being condensed down to the size of a pea as the additional matter would simply no longer exist. This theory is quite lose as its straight off the top of my head but I'm sure its got some potential for investigation into the nature of the spatial expansion of matter within the universe.
Ultimately I don't find it feasible that the universe is self-sustaining and will one day collapse into nothingness. That would go both against philosophical principles and spiritual laws.


Please comment
Alex

Hi Alex

Well, when you say "universe" you could be talking about 2 things. Are you just talking about the physical universe? In that case, you're separating it from the rest of the, what you might call "multiverse". If you're just talking about the physical universe, I believe it must be finite. That's just the nature of physical reality. However, the physical universe extends beyond the physical- and we know that because of the dual particle/wave nature of the atom. So really, cutting the physical universe off from the rest of the multverse is just a product of your (our) limited perceptions.

But see, both things (finite and infinite) must be true because without one, the other loses its meaning. Ultimate reality is infinite because it goes beyond space and time. Ultimate reality, however "needs" material reality to even be defined. The indefinable "needs" things that can be defined. Or think of it this way: unlimited possibilities (the infinite) NEEDS possibilities (the finite) in order to be realized, in order to be relevant.

Now, space and time are inseparable, and the physical universe is bound by them both. So, if you were go back far enough in time, there would be a "time" when there was no time, and therefore no space.. This is just the nature of a physical creation- 1st it exists as potential, then it is born, lives, and then dies. Ultimate reality, however is not bound by these limitations. It is beyond life and death, and is therefore eternal. Any physical universe, because it is born, must die. How are we to even know how many universes have come and gone, and what "number" universe we are in now? I think people have a tendency to think that this is universe #1, but for all we know, it could be the billionth. Or to put it even better, it could be our billionth experience of a universe.

Before all physical creation, there was, what you might call, pure potentiality. But potential needs realization. That realization is the physical universe... started with the big bang. Or maybe we should say, started with a big bang.

When you ask about weather the universe is finite or infinite, that is the inquiry of a dualistic mind. Because the dualistic mind thinks it must be one or the other. Thinking that they are both goes beyond the nature of the mind. But that's the thing... ultimate reality goes beyond the mind. Since the human mind is bound by the limitations of physical reality, man can never know,  perceive, or understand ultimate reality... not until he has transcended the physical.

Hello:

In a word, yes, I can absolutely confirm that people do choose their physical parents (and a whole load more besides).

Yours,
Frank

Hi Frank

Would you mind elaborating on this a bit? I also believe that we choose our situation in life prior to birth. I'm just curious as to how you've confirmed it.

NOSTIC

You've just changed your Avatar to Lord of the Rings.... Just today when I gave my girlfriend the Trilogy as a christmass pressent!!!
What the hell???
This might be a sign  

LOL, what a cool coincidence. I got the box set trilogy a few weeks ago myself. I always change my avatar. I usually get bored with them fairly quickly. Funny thing is I don't even post here that often... but I do lurk around every day.

And I'm glad you gained  something from the passage that I posted.
Osho IMO is the best, most insightful spiritual teacher that I've ever read. He explains things in such a simple way, but at the same time, he's soo deep. The man will hurt you with his wisdom! LOL!  

These are the words of Osho from the book "The Book of Secrets".


IT SEEMS VERY DIFFICULT TO LOVE SOMEONE FOR TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY. WHY DOES IT HAPPEN SO? SHOULD LOVE BE A CONTINUOUS PROCESS? AND AT WHICH STAGE DOES LOVE BECOME DEVOTION?

Love is not an act; it is not something that you do. If you do it, it is not love. No doing is involved in love; it is a state of being, not an act. No one can do anything continuously for twenty-four hours. If you are doing love, then of course you cannot do it for twenty-four hours. With any act you will get tired; with any act you get bored. And then, after any act, you have to relax. So if you are doing love, you will have to relax into hate, because you can relax only into the opposite.

That is why our love is always mixed with hatred. You love this moment, and the next moment you hate the same person. The same person becomes the object of both love and hate; that is the conflict of lovers. Because your love is an act, that is why there is this misery.

So the first thing to be understood is that love is not an act; you cannot do it. You can be in love, but you cannot "do" love. Doing is absurd. But other things are also implied. It is not an effort because if it were an effort you would get tired. It is a state of mind.

And do not think in terms of relationship, think in terms of states of mind. If you are in love, this is a state of mind. This state of mind may be focused on one person or it may be unfocused - on the whole. When it is focused on one person, it is known as love. When it becomes unfocused, it becomes prayer. Then you are just in love - not with someone, but just in love, as you are breathing.

If breathing were an effort you would get tired of it, and you would have to relax and then you would die. If it were an effort, then at some time you might forget to do it and then you would die. Love is just like breathing: it is a higher plane of breathing. If you do not breathe, your body will die. If you are not in love, your spirit cannot be born.

So take love as a breathing of the soul. When you are in love your soul becomes vital, alive, just like it is breathing. But think in this way. If I say to you, "Only breathe when you are near me and do not breathe anywhere else," then you will die. And the next time you will be near me you will be just dead and you will not even be able to breathe near me.

That has happened with love. We possess -- the love object is possessed and the lover says, "Don't love anybody else. Only love me." Then the love is atrophied and then the lover cannot love, it becomes impossible. It doesn't mean that you have to love everyone, but you have to be in a loving state of mind. It is just like breathing: even if your enemy is there you will breathe.

That is the meaning of Jesus' saying, "Love your enemy." It has been a problem for Christianity, how to understand this saying, "Love your enemy." It seems contradictory. But if loving is not an act, if it is just a state of mind, then there is no question of enemy or friend. You are in love.

Look at it from the other side. There are persons who are continuously in hate, and whenever they try to show love they have to make much effort. Their love is an effort because their continuous state of mind is hate. That is why effort is needed. There are persons who are continuously sad; then their laughter is an effort. They have to fight against themselves. Then their laughter becomes a painted laughter - just false, imposed, put together, not coming from deep within but just arranged, no spontaneity in it but just artificial.

There are persons who are continuously in anger - not angry at something or someone, just angry. Then love becomes an effort. On the other hand, if love is your state of mind, anger will be an effort. You can do it, but you cannot be angry. Then you will have to create it artificially; it will be false.

If a Buddha tries to be angry, much effort will be needed, and then too it will be false. And only those who do not know him can be deceived. Those who know him, they know that that anger is false, just painted, created. It is not coming from within; that is impossible. A Buddha, a Jesus, cannot hate. Then effort is needed. If they want to show hatred, then they will have to do it.

But you do not need any effort to be hateful; you need effort to be loving. Change the state of mind. How to change the state of mind? How to be loving? And it is not a question of time, of how to be loving twenty-four hours a day. This is absurd -- this question is absurd.

It is not a question of time. If you can be loving in a single moment that is enough, because you never have two moments together. Only one moment is given. When one is lost, a second is given. You have only one moment always with you. If you know how to be loving in one single moment, you know the secret. You need not think about twenty-four hours, or of the whole life.

Only a single moment of love and you know how to fill a moment with love. Then the second moment will be given to you, and you can fill that second moment also with love. So remember, it is not a question of time. There is a question only of a single moment, and a single moment is not part of time. A single moment is not a process; a single moment is just now.

Once you know how to enter a single moment with love, you have entered eternity: time is no more. A Buddha lives in the now; you live in time. Time means thinking of the past, thinking of the future. And while you are thinking of the past and of the future, the present is lost.

You are engaged with the future and the past, and the present is being lost - and the present is the only existence. The past is no more and the future has yet to be: they both are not, they are non-existential. This very moment, this single atomic moment, is the only existence - here and now. If you know to be loving, you know the secret. And you will never be given two moments together, so you need not bother about time.

A single moment is always - and it is always in the shape of now. Remember, there are not really two types of "nows." This single moment is the same; it doesn't differ in any way from the moment that has gone before it, and it doesn't differ in any way from the moment that is going to follow it.

This atomic now is always the same. That is why Eckhart says, "It is not that time passes. Time remains the same. Rather, we go on passing." Pure time remains the same; we go on passing. So do not think about twenty-four hours, and then you need not think of the present moment.

One thing more. Thinking needs time; living doesn't need time. You cannot think in this very moment. In this very moment, if you want to be you will have to cease thinking, because thinking is basically concerned with either the past or the future. Of what can you think in the present? The moment you think, it has become the past.

A flower is there -- you say this is a beautiful flower. This saying is now no more in the present; it has become the past. When you come to grasp something in thinking, it has become the past. In the present you can be, but you cannot think. You can be with the flower, but you cannot think about it. Thinking needs time.

So in another way, thinking is time. If you do not think, there is no time. That is why in meditation you feel a timelessness. That is why in love you feel a timelessness. Love is not thinking, it is a cessation of thought. You are! When you are with your beloved, you are not thinking about love, you are not thinking about the beloved. You are not thinking at all. And if you are thinking, then you are not with your beloved, you are somewhere else. Thinking means absence from the now... you are not there.

That is why those who are too much obsessed with thinking cannot love, because even when they are there, even if they reach to the original divine source, even if they meet God, they will go on thinking about him and they will miss him completely. You can go on thinking about and about and about, but it is never the fact.

A moment of love is a timeless moment. Then there is no question of thinking how to love twenty-four hours. You never think about how to live twenty-four hours, how to be alive twenty-four hours. Either you are alive or you are not. So the basic thing to be understood is not time, but now - how to be here and now in a state of love.

Why is there hate? When you feel hatred, go to the cause of it. Only then can love flower. When do you feel hatred? When you feel that your existence, your life, is in danger, when you feel that your existence can be annihilated, suddenly hate surges in you. When you feel that you can be destroyed, you start destroying others. That is a safety measure. It is just a part of you that is struggling for survival. Whenever you feel that your existence is in danger, you are filled with hatred.

So unless you come to feel that your existence cannot be in danger, that it is impossible to annihilate you, you cannot be filled with love. A Jesus can be in love because he knows something which is deathless. You cannot be in love because you know only that which belongs to death. And every moment death is there; every moment you are afraid. How can you love when you are afraid? Love cannot exist with fear. And fear is there, so you can only create a make-believe that you love.

And again, your love is really nothing but a safety measure. You love so that you will not fear. Whenever you believe that you are in love, you are less afraid. For the moment you can forget death. An illusion is created in which you can feel that you are accepted by the existence; you are not denied, rejected. That is why there is so much need of love and of being loved.

Whenever you are being loved by someone, you create around you an illusion that you are needed by the existence - at least by someone. You are needed by someone, so you are not just futile. You are not just accidental -- you are needed somewhere. Without you the existence will miss something. That gives you a feeling of well-being. You feel a purpose, a destiny, a meaning, a worthiness.

When you are not loved by anyone you feel rejected, you feel denied, you feel meaningless. Then you feel there is no purpose, no destiny. If no one loves you and you die, there will be no feeling of your absence, it will not be felt that you are no more. No one will feel that you were, and now you are no more.

Love gives you the feeling of being needed. That is why in love one becomes or feels less afraid. Whenever love is not there you become more fearful, and in fear, as a protection, you become hateful. Hate is a protection. You are afraid of being destroyed; you become destructive.

In love, you feel that you are accepted, welcome -- not an uninvited guest, but rather that you are invited, welcome, waited for, received, that the existence is happy that you are. The one who loves you becomes the representative of the whole existence. But this love is basically fear-based. You are protecting against fear, against death, against the inhuman indifference of existence.

Really, existence is indifferent - at least on the surface. The sun, the sea, the stars, the earth, they are totally indifferent to you; no one is worried about you. And it is apparently clear that you are not needed. Without you everything will be as good as it is with you; nothing will be lost. Look at the existence superficially: no one, nothing, cares about you. They may not even be aware of you. The stars are not aware of you; even the earth which you call Mother is not aware of you. And when you die, the earth will not be sad. Nothing will have changed; things will be as they are and as they always have been. With you or without you, there is no difference.

You feel you are just an accident. You were not needed; uninvited you have come... just a chance product. This creates fear. This is what Kierkegaard calls "anguish." There is a subtle continuous fear -- you are not needed.

When someone loves you, you feel that a different dimension has come into existence. Now at least one person will be there who will weep, who will feel sorry, who will be sad. There will be tears; you will be needed. At least there will be one person who will always feel your absence if you are not. At least for one you have gained a destiny, a purpose.

That is why there is so much need of love. And if you are not loved, you are uprooted. But this love is not the love I am talking about. This is a relationship and a mutual creation of illusion - a mutual illusion: "I need you, you need me. I give you this illusion that without you my purpose, my meaning, my life will be lost; you give me this illusion that without me everything will be lost. So we both are helping each other to be in an illusion. We are creating one separate, private existence in which we become meaningful, in which the whole indifference of this vast space is forgotten."

Two lovers live in each other; they have created a private world. That is why love needs so much privacy. If you are not in privacy, the world goes on impinging upon you. It goes on telling you that whatsoever you are doing is just a dream, and this is a mutual illusion. Love needs privacy because then the whole world is forgotten. Only two lovers exist, and the indifference, the total indifference of existence, is forgotten. You feel loved, welcomed. Without you nothing will be the same. At least in this private world nothing will be the same without you.Life is meaningful.

I am not talking about this love. This is really illusory. It is a cultivated illusion, and man is so weak that he cannot live without this illusion. Those who can, they live without this illusion. A Buddha can live without this illusion, and then he will not create it.

When it becomes possible to live illusion-lessly - to live without illusion -- a second, a different dimension of love comes into being. It is not that one person needs you. It is coming to understand, to realize that you are not different from this existence which looks so indifferent. You are part of it, organically one with it. And if a tree is flowering, it is not separate from you. You have flowered in the tree and the tree has become conscious in you.

The sea and the sand and the stars, they are one with you. You are not an island, you are organically one with this universe. The whole universe is within you and the whole of you is in this universe. Unless you come to know it and feel it and realize it, you will not get that love which is a state of mind.

If you come to realize this, you will not need to create a private illusion that someone loves you. Then there is meaning, and if no one loves you, no meaning is lost. Then you are not afraid at all because even death will not annihilate you. It may annihilate the form, it may annihilate the body, but it cannot annihilate you because you are the existence.

This is what happens in meditation. This is for what meditation is meant. In it you become a part, an opening. You come to feel, "Existence and I are one." Then you are welcomed, and there is no fear and there is no death. Then love flows from you. Then love is not an effort -- you cannot do anything except love. Then it is like breathing. Deep inside you breathe love; in and out you breathe love.

This love grows into devotion. Then ultimately you will even forget, it just as you forget your breathing. When do you remember your breathing? Have you observed? You remember only when something is wrong. When you feel any difficulty, then you know that you have been breathing; otherwise there is no need even to be aware of it. And if you are aware of your breathing, that shows that something is wrong with your breathing process. There is no need of being aware of the breathing process. Silently it goes on.

So when you are aware of your love, the love that is a state of mind, it means that something is still wrong. By and by even that awareness is lost. You simply breathe love in and out. You have forgotten everything, even that you love. Then it has become devotion. That is the ultimate peak, the ultimate possibility -- you may call it anything.

Love can become devotion only when this awareness is lost, forgotten. It doesn't mean that you have become unconscious, it only means that the process has become so silent that there is no noise around it. You are not unconscious of it, but you are not conscious of it either. It has become so natural. It is there, but it does not create any disturbance inside; it has become so harmonious.

So remember, when I am talking about love, I am not talking about your love. But if you try to understand your love, it will become a step toward growing into a different kind of love. So I am not against your love. I am simply stating the fact that if your love is fear-based, it is just ordinary, animal love. And no derogation, no condemnation is implied; it is simply a fact.

Man is afraid. He needs someone who gives him the feeling that he is welcomed, he need not be afraid. At least with one person you need not be filled with fear. This is good as far as it goes, but this is not what Buddha or Jesus called love. They called love a state of mind, not a relationship. So go beyond relationship, and by and by just be loving. First you will not be capable of it unless you move into meditation. Unless you come to know the deathless within, unless you come to know a deep unity between the inner and the outer, unless you feel that you are existence, it will be difficult.

[Why do you think you are not enlightened]

I have a simple but important thing to say:

Why do you think you are not enlightened

Interesting question... an innocent question as well.
To put it simply, I still live a life that's in conflict. I'm still pushed and pulled and manipulated by the constantly shifting forces of this world. I still experience suffering. I'm still not certain who I am exactly, where I came from, what or who sustains me, why I exist, why I exist on EARTH, what's the meaning of it all (if there is any meaning) etc etc. Oh I've read lots of books and lots of information on the internet... but all that stuff is just hearsay. Sure I want to believe it, but I'm very well aware of how much I don't know... or maybe I don't even know the depth of that.
Until the time comes when I know God on such a personal level that I can consciously feel his presence, I can't say that I'm even remotely "enlightened". But I suppose when I actually do get there, it wont feel like enlightenment so much as it will feel like... just what is... a new version of "normal".

OK this real scaring me... I don't want to die as a kid. I'm only 13 and your saying that a 3rd world war is going to come and destroy us all? This is scaring me in a serious way. I don't want want myself or anyone else to die in this world.....

Welcome to Earth m'lad- the land of the crazy people. I hope you do enjoy your stay.

But seriously though, if (when?) we're faced with WW3, I think the best prepared will be those who've learned how to go beyond the physical. Everything has its positive aspects. Let this be motivation to be diligent with your energy work. Personally, I think 1 hour daily should be a minimum.

Here are some portions of reviews at Amazon. Out of the 6 on the 1st page, 2 were very positive.


1
I didn't finish this book, because it introduced nothing new. The only thing it "proved" was that the Midevil Christian God is illogical...but didn't we already know that? It presupposes, quite fatally, that logic and rationality are to be prized by God, theist, and atheist alike, and that only that which is logical is worthwhile. Nothing could be further from the truth.

DeistMan is, of course, completely wrong, and completely misses the very contradictions he lampoons. "The onus (as it has always been) falls on the theist to prove God exists." What? How can one prove something which, as it has already been explained, cannot be proven? It is the ability of agnostics to wrap themselves around this concept, and the hypocritical inability of atheists to do the same (if indeed "Atheists have to prove and disprove nothing"...why does this book exist?) that causes so much argument.

Theists have something to prove that cannot be proven. Thereby writing books disproving that which has not (and will never be) proven is moot. Proof needs a receptor, but the only proof of God is apparently in first experience. It's a little like arguing with people who have seen a unicorn.


2
I've been an atheist since the late 1980s, and after innumerable debates with theists, I can say only one thing about "God"; there's nothing to it besides wishful thinking!

Well, I can say a lot more about it than that, and The Impossibility of God provides new ideas that I hadn't yet become acquainted with.

I tended to think of myself as what you might call a "weak atheist" or a person who simply lacks belief in God. I was a born again Christian years ago, and after less than two years, I realized that my faith had slipped away. One of the reasons I could no longer believe was my reading both contradictions and false prophecies in the New Testament. Now years later, I realize that these difficulties were and are insurmountable, and that not only does God not exist, he cannot conceivably exist as explained in The Impossibility of God, and therefore strong atheism-the denial that there is a God-carries the day.


3
It would seem a bit of a stretch to "prove" the impossibility of God, since proving a negative has long been considered impossible. And it would seem to be quite a task to prove that God does not exist given that the presumably easier task of proving the positive that God does exist has never been done--at least not done well enough to convince most philosophers.

To my mind what the authors come close to proving (in the most painstaking fashion) is that the usual definitions of God are inadequate, thereby allowing one to derive contradictions from those definitions, contradictions that prove that God, defined in such and such a way, cannot exist. For example (and several of the contributors use variations on this theme), God cannot be all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-benevolent since there exists the palpable presence of evil in the world. Actually the editors break this down more finely and throw out three categories of "disproofs" which might be called, (1) the argument to disproof from definition; (2) the argument to disproof from evil; and (3) the argument to disproof from doctrine. In the latter, what is demonstrated is that a particular formulation of God is inconsistent with a particular religious doctrine, demonstrating that THAT God cannot exist.

The astute reader will note that all three categories rest on demonstrating a disconnect between definitions. What the various authors are trying to do is NOT to prove that God does not exist, rather that it is impossible to define God in such a way that contradictions do not arise. As the editors point out in their introduction, the real task here is to show that God is a logical impossibility, and therefore, like a square circle, cannot exist.

Ilithmar
You raise a very good question. Is the main purpose of our existence to "enjoy"......or ? I guess you may have said that in a rhetorical way but lets for a minute ask that question. What is our purpose in life. Is it to feel without understanding is it to experience without learning and is it to enjoy without growing?

My own way of seeing this is that in youth we are mostly wrapped up in in the experiences but later in life or shall we call it maturity we start to ask more in depth questions and become more interested in what makes the world and people tick so to speak. As we do this we become increasingly more concerned with truth. If people tell truth we can add their experiences to our pool of knowledge and circumstantial experiences to explain different issues. However if people lie it messes up this pool of knowledge if you will, with falsehoods, making it even harder to determine the true nature and reason for various questions we may have.

In a way it seems unimportant that Carlos lied but to many of us it is disheartening as we now have to throw out his entire testimony as unreliable. As in a court if a witness perjures himself he is deemed false and expelled from presenting his case, his books now have to join the ranks of fiction. Although they makes up interesting reading, and no doubt contains insights and truths to some unknown extend, they cannot be trusted and have to be dismissed as we look else where for a reliable source, may that be in our own life or in the lives and experiences of others.

This is why so many of us have very little interest and patience with his claims and this is why so many respond with such gusto. I hope you understand my point though we may not agree on the conclusions I have made.

Regards Little P

Hi LittlePenguin

I totally understand your point and see where you are coming from.
But also consider, it's been our history to believe that we know certain things, until such a time comes that we gain some new information and come to realize that, in reality, we either had it all wrong, or that we only had a piece of the puzzle. And this is often not because someone lied to us, but because we've gained some new understanding. This is why it's of the utmost importance to have direct experience with the kinds of things we talk about on this board. I think the point some were trying to make was, there is so much information out there that we absolutely THINK we know is true. But are they really true? Or do we believe they are true only because of our limited understanding? Do we ever really know?
Some people here seem to be of the mind-set, well you never really know if any of this stuff is really true (until you have direct experience), so as long as I've gained something from it, weather it was true or not, I don't really have any concerns. And that's respectable IMO.

So are you saying that you don't think levitation is possible? Or is that an incorrect assumption?
Also, how long have you yourself been practicing yoga?

Great read Rastus! Thanks 4 posting!
Weather it's to be believed or not, it certainly did move me- particularly towards the end.

I don't know what to make of these predictions either. In one of my yahoo groups, my friend used to post things like this all the time. They really start to lose their impact when you read them over and over and nothing seems to happen. However, I am STILL open and receptive to all possabilities... skeptical... but still open. Perhaps there are many many things that have come to pass that I was just not perceptive enough to notice. I DO know that the energy I work with gets stronger by the day. It's amazing to me though that I can have so much energy coursing through me, and STILL not have a MAJOR spiritual breakthrough. The energy I experience now on a daily basis, if I were to have experienced it just a year ago, surely I would have died a painful death.

Anyway, I say all this to say, I'll keep my mind open to what may happen tomorrow.

Why is it that so many people are more interested in terminology than answers?

There are archives in the Astral but not the so called AR

you are talking about the astral city of Falias

C'mon guys! The questioner just wants to know about a place on the Astral where information is stored. Does it really matter what name they give it??

"There's no such thing as Akashic records where all information is stored but there IS an (insert name here) where all information is stored."

Sheesh. . . reminds me of a heated argument I once saw where one guy fanatically refused to accept the existence of the Real Time Zone (where APers can 'see' the physical plane) but was convinced of the existence of the Etheric Plane (where APers can 'see' the physical plane). . .

I agree. I think what the AR will look like is based on you and your particular personality. The astral is, when compared to the physical, of course, much more susceptible to the effects of our own minds. It's important not to get too caught-up in names. I think time is better spent thinking about what it is that you want to accomplish. If that is your focus, your mind will lead you to that [place]- whatever the name may be.

Go back to the part about Self.  A common phrase is the 'Divine Within', or the Christ Conciousness Within (Christ is a title, not a specific entity in this context).  Am I saying you are God?  Yes and No.  How about a piece of God?

I used to be like you, and now I'm not.  Don't be unwilling to embrace what happens to you.  Ask yourself this;  What evidence whould it take to change your thinking?  And, why do you think this way?  Search within yourself for your answers.  The feeling is common, and the reasons vary, but a common theme is feeling lonely.  Being in the flesh is much lonlier than being in the Spirit, you connection with the source is subtler.

I agree with this.

I'd also like to add, the great thing about yoga is that it's a scientific process. You do certain exercises or experiments, and you get certain clear results. Your results are your proof. Before you experience God/Self Realization, you do not have any direct knowledge of God or the Divine. All of your beliefs are therefore just assumptions.
When all of your efforts in yoga have culminated, proof is no longer needed, because now, you just know.
The personal energy that you speak of is you key to gaining greater understanding. You have to start somewhere. When that personal energy grows, so will your awareness. Keep working and see how far your awareness expands.
NEW is not very far removed from yoga, reiki etc. If it fits you best, just stick with that.

 I have a question and any who knows please post as soon as possible. I have been doing the NEW system for about a year and a half now and only now I have reached the part where I stimulate my major energy chakras and I found that they work well but...there appears to be some kind of problem although I have NO prof that is energy related. The problem is that I can't breath well, I take air in my lungs at maximum and I don't feel as it was enough, it's like I breath but not sufficiently. I read in Astral Dynamics that developing the solar plexus chakra might cause insufficient breathing but I think that it was referring to the moment when energy passes through the s.p chakra.
P.S. I went to doctors and all that but they didn't find anything wrong with my lungs or heart or anything, I'm as healthy as it gets but still.....
....so I thought this might be energy related and thought I ask, any opinions?

Thanks in advance!

OMG Night Mist, this is just what I was experiencing last year. I thought I was suffocating. I was convinced that either I was going to suffocate or that I was going to have a heart attack. I was also having lower back pains and felt an uncomfortable pressure in my chest. And the way my heart would beat sometimes, I thought it was going to come out of my chest. I too went to the hospital, and the doctor found nothing wrong. I was even a little mad at him, because, NOW what was I supposed to do. Just like you describe, it felt like I just couldn't fill my lungs up with enough air. This was before I ever even knew about Robert Bruce or NEW. I believe now it was the initial stages of kundalini.

I believe this shift in breathing has something to do with moving to higher levels of consciousness. I've read a lot of things in the past that talk about how our bodies are changing in order to accommodate this new energy that is appearing.

I have found actually that it's nothing to be afraid of. It's just something to get used to. I also find that if I don't fight it, and just take deep, easy breaths, it helps with my energy work.

I believe this breathing issue has something to do with the oxygen in the blood. There is a certain yoga called kriya. The goal of this yoga is to saturate the body with prana (or universal life force), so that your consciousness no longer has the burden of focusing so much of its attention on the ceaseless demands of the body. Basically, so that it will be able to operate on its own, so to speak, leaving you to explore higher levels of consciousness. Now, your breath is your most direct connection with this life force. When you breath air in, you breath in prana. So, to saturate your body with prana, is to saturate your body with oxygen. I think this is where the breathing problem comes in. When your body takes on that extra life-force, you no longer need as much oxygen as before. You no longer need to draw as much life-force from the outside world, because more of it is already within you. Seems to me like it's something akin to a rareification process. Like you're now being "weened" off of the more dense energy that you were used to.

I find that the more deeply I breathe and the more relaxed I am with the shift in breathing, the more the life-force becomes concentrated in my spine. In yoga, of course, the importance of the spine is greatly emphasized. The flow of energy from my tail-bone to my forehead gets stronger by the day. And everyday the pressure around my 3rd eye (and my head in general) gets stronger. But as time goes by, I'm also able to tolerate greater pressures, forces, energies etc. So it doesn't become overwhelming. I'm wondering when my head will finally explode and I can experience, what they call Self or God Realization.  

Hope this helped.

Warning: This subject must be approached with great care and respect. This is a long term goal, a lifetimes work. Raising kundalini is a dangerous thing to do. And the less prepared and developed a person is, the more dangerous it becomes. Madness and or death can result, as can a variety of serious physical and mental disorders, if one who is unprepared does this. As said, master wake induced OBE first, as this is not only a more achievable goal, but it also helps prepare one for higher levels of energy body activation and kundalini.

       

I once (or twice) read that if it is your goal to achieve God/Self realization, you should be prepared to die. Such an achievement really is a death. Kundalini raising can be dangerous, but only if you haven't prepared your body and mind. I think the warning is for those who are doing it as a novelty.

Nostic, I'd like to support you here but I'll stop if you keep up with the sappy chiding talk, it's tinkling me off.

Leo, did he actually call you a Nazi or like Hitler? If so I can't really find it, he just mentions him in a list of people.

Well damn, I surly wouldn't want to lose your suupport... so I'll stop.
I was just trying to draw attention to how irrational he is being. I actually have a hard time believing he is serious. So I'm thinking, is he just playing a game? So I decided to play a game along with him. I was also trying to show that this "argument" we were having is nothing to take too seriously. I find it funny that the person who starts a thread about achieving enlightenment, is so ferociously, and obviously attached to his ego... unless of course, he really is just playing a game.

Nostic, I'd like to support you here but I'll stop if you keep up with the sappy chiding talk, it's tinkling me off.

Leo, did he actually call you a Nazi or like Hitler? If so I can't really find it, he just mentions him in a list of people.

Well damn, I surly wouldn't want to lose your suupport... so I'll stop.
I was just trying to draw attention to how irrational he is being. I actually have a hard time believing he is serious. So I'm thinking, is he just playing a game? So I decided to play a game along with him. I was also trying to show that this "argument" we were having is nothing to take too seriously. I find it funny that the person who starts a thread about achieving enlightenment, is so ferociously, and obviously attached to his ego.

[For example, Hitler had charisma in spades.]

Leo, you're confusing me a bit here. Are you saying that every group of people who think that their "leader" or "master" is enlightened are correct in their assumption? I'm assuming you can't really think that that is the case.
For example, Hitler had charisma in spades. I've seen shows on the History Channel, where people who lived in Germany at the time had it in their minds that Hitler was their Father, and therefore everything he said MUST be true, MUST be right, and MUST be for their own good. He was literally like a deity for those people.

so hitler is an example of charismatic leader who wasn't enlightened
nothing more, nothing else

you aren't enlightened, you experienced enlightment, if you can maintain the vision it's good, but nevertheless you are slipping back, of course with whole new concepts, that's why we have enlightment and ultimate/final enlightment, what is meant by final enlightment is adjusting the body to mind, becoming "ascended master" through DNA manipulation (and much more, can't bother to write) made by mind ("higher mind" and higher beings), because body cannot process so much information, and brain would just blow all the fuses
ultimate enlightment = ascension
or maybe find topic A kundalini tale on these forums for more clarification

jouni summed up what i meant (thx;)), i'll add few things
it is easier to correct mistakes when you see them, if you go live in the hut where nothing disturbs you, you can't really correct what you maybe even haven't experienced
but people do that and succed in experiencing enlightment
that (and few personal things) leads me to believe that enlightment doesn't  have much to do with correcting/restraining oneself, but rather analysis of interactions that leads to revelation, seeing that we are indeed one
and analysis is the key, rational minds tool asking questions that lead beyond it
of course there are some requirements, trained mind, ability to look beyond mind etc etc, but not all you can think of

enlightment is a shift of perception, nothing more, nothing else, then it leads to change
maintaing the shift is different matter, i remember a story about 2 hermits, meditating and achieving enlightment, one visits the other, they drink some tea and suddenly wild boar charges nearby, one the hermits jumps nervously, and the other smiles and says
- i see it is still with you
then, as he goes away, the jumping hermit takes paint and writes buddha's name on the stone the other hermit was sitting on
as he comes back, he hesistates to sit on the stone
- i see it is still with you, too - he replies :D:D

if you work on correcting oneself, you will achieve it
if you work on enlightment, you can also achieve it, also seeing bigger picture breaks the foundation for many "faults", and you can work on correcting yourself from the bigger picture

the choice is yours (you can choose correction first, but then you will die before you reach enlightment (not neccassarily, but usually))

what i fear (a figure of speach ) is that you will polarize my post, it is not meant to be taken literally, use your soul to read it

Nostic:
i love the one when master always rises the pointing finger, and when one of his students mimics him, he cuts off his finger, and when he runs around bleeding, he calls him, and raises his (the boys !!!) finger, and the boy achieves enlightment
brilliant

I agree that the logical or rational mind can certainly lead to enlightenment. Logic is like the bridge. Most people, however, think that being more logical is the goal. But logic always crumbles within itself. If one insists on holding on to it, it just leads you in circles, because it's based on the opposites of duality.
Logic, if you pay close enough attention, always leads you to the illogical... or what we'd normally think of as illogical.
I also agree that restraining oneself is probably a slower path. All parts of yourself are valid, they all mean something, and they all lead back to a source. Investigation of their origins, I would think is a quicker path.

Leo, if he at all equated you with Hitler it wasn't in any way I could see from that one post. Let it go, and read his points, he has some good ones. Besides, you responded to him the first time, why not the second when he's explaining that he wasn't calling you that?

Thanks bro!

Dear Nostic,

You accuse somebody of being Adolf Hitler and then expect them to pay any further attention to you!

What on earth for?  We already know what to expect from you.

Cheap shots.

Off to law school with you.  If you are to have no scruples, then you might as well make good money with it.

I LOVE YOU TOO LEO!!!!! LOTS OF HUGS, AND WISHING YOU THE HAPPIEST OF HOLIDAYS!!!!!      

Dear Nostic,

Both extreme Good and extreme Evil can be charismatic.  Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin -- they were all Charismatic.  But the World is full of Polarities.  Simply because one can point to a Strong Evil does not mean that ONLY Evil can be Strong.

A good intellectual model of what I am talking about can be found in Ancient Zorastrianism of which Sufism and Parseeism are the modern day heirs.  The World is a Battleground between the forces of Light and Darkness, Good and Evil, Hitler and those who are NOT Hitler (by the way it was a very cheap shot to to attack me by arbitrarily siding me with Hitler -- it shows you to be ethically careless and intellectually lazy... perhaps you should be a lawyer if you are so willing to say simply anything to win an argument.)

LOL, siding you with Hitler. Is that what you got from my post? If from my post, you thought that I was siding you with Hitler, that says a lot more about you than it does me. Funny how you just focused on that part of my post, took it WAY out of context, and ignored everything else I wrote, then call ME "intellectually lazy". You do know what it means when 2 people are having an "argument" (I didn't know that's what we were engaged in sorry), and one person resorts to calling the other names, don't you? It means you don't have 2 legs to stand on. How could I be even remotely relating YOU to Hitler? You should be so lucky. Do you have hordes of people blindly following you, thinking you are their savior, their father, their God? Do you have 2 people?
I'll leave it at that.