Messages

Good point! It's the old "What came first, the chicken or the egg" dilemma!

To which we finally have an answer(!) :

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2196880,00.html

Bottom line... faith!

The Bible tells us that we need to have faith in order to please God. I tend to follow this doctrine because it has proved itself to be true in my own life. The more faith I put in God, the more evidence is given to me that he is real!

It seems too simple really. We as humans have to dissect everything and figure how it all works. Life after death is one area that will never be fully understood until after we complete the journey.

In the mean time, we can continue with our OBE's and have fun banging heads with our consciousness.

To perhaps play devils advocate. If one believes we create our reality, then putting increasing unquestioning faith in the belief of a God would surely see the creation of such a God from that belief (or create a structure which behaves in a way we conceptualise such a God to behave), rather than that belief finding a pre-existing God?
By this I mean, over time the belief would create a 'God' which behaves in a way our belief percieves it too - which inturn would reinforce such a belief. Which would mirror your own experience of more faith == more evidence. We find what we seek irregardless of its truth.
So how do we know if the subject of our faith is created by us or has a reality independent of us (individually)?

Ps Sorry if this is moving off topic. It's something I've often wondered is all .

The Machiavelli personality test has a range of 0-100
Your Machiavelli score is: 49
You are a low Mach, you reject Machiavelli's opinions.

If every single emotion was illusion then in the afterlife you would feel them no more. I heard that the higher planes and the afterlife were filled with peace, love and contentment, if I'm not mistaken they are emotions.

This was the point of my question . Regardless of emotions being illusions or not, perhaps the afterlife is filled with the 'good' emotions simply because they are 'good'. Perhaps we haven't moved past the belief systems of emotions in our explorations, so we still maintain this idea of love and goodness permeating everything. But, if we moved passed the human perspective areas, things would be different (such as experiencing emotions we have no human-perception of).

Something we should consider is that firstly, the views we have of the afterlife and spiritual planes are pretty much human-centric. Humans are an absolutely minute part of the totality of creation. What if all the explorers and spiritual gurus have simply been exploring the spiritual planes closest to our own (human) perspective? What of those other countless races and sentient forms in and outside of the physical (and possible countless other physical universes)? Each of these would have their own astral locales, heavens, hells and philosophies of creation.

oh my goodness i'm so sorry I don't know what i was thinking typing that post how could I of bin so stupid. your absolutely right and what was previously said is correct also. I don't know how i got so confused with myself. I am practically laughing at how stupid I am...

very well said by the way and thank you for arguing whatever point i thought i had and thank you for the quick reply also.  :S

Hey loppoppy,

Some advice I would give to anyone looking for meaning is to find your own meaning . If there is any ultimate truth, I don't think anyone has found it yet. All that is out there is a lot of opinions and beliefs.
Listen to other ideas, but ultimately, keep an open mind and choose what you want to believe based upon your own experience .

if the whole concept of good and evil is just perspective and the emotions we experience through our life just illusions...I fail to see a point to life at all. Everything we do in our lifetime is pointless if all it creates are perceptions and illusions. Well thats just how I would feel if i believed that.

I really don't think there is any point to life other than what we give it.
If you follow a more spiritual perspective, then in such circumstances the point of life would be experience. Every combination of every event experienced in every conceivable way. The universe exploring itself etc.

Hey Quark,

I've experienced similar:


http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=22068&start=8

http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=21949&start=2

I've taken them to be a sleep paralysis / hypnogogic experience.

Oh, well it came up wikipedia, not imdb.. sorry.

Sorry, I should have been more clear . There was a film based on this event which is quite corny but I grew up with it, which was what my post was refering too (and the link).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_experiment

I enjoyed the film

I didn't read this link, sorry.  wikipedia.. what is that?  isn't that the place that you can just add your two cents worth?  I really don't trust that.  I trust what I saw with my own eyes.

Ok, I'll leave it be, I suppose I deserve the razzing..

I wasn't razzing. I was referring to this:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087910/

I have a feeling this could turn out to be a very lengthy discussion that will never have a satisfying end for either side.  So, I'll say I absolutely see things as good or bad.  I think it's that simple.  

But however, I do believe we have to have both, or no one would learn any kind of moral lesson... uh oh, I just brought up morals.. oh geez.. that's gonna add a day or two of discussion..

Lol, I agree it could turn into a discussion with no ultimate answer (just a lot of aching fingers ). I guess one way of looking at it is, on the largest scale, death is but a belief system in this physical locale – we see it so seriously because we cannot see outside this 'box' of biological programming. For example, what truly is death to an eternal being? As mentioned in other posts, all emotions and such states are ultimately illusions. Things just 'are'. Everything just 'is'. To quote the beatles (hehe):

There's nothing you can do that can't be done.
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game
It's easy.
There's nothing you can make that can't be made.
No one you can save that can't be saved.
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be in time
It's easy.
<snip>

There's nothing you can know that isn't known.
Nothing you can see that isn't shown.
Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be.
It's easy.
<snip>

According to the laws of attraction.   Bush was elected because everyone couldn't stop hating him.. hehe.  Think about it.  Why do you think everyone was dismayed that he won and by such close margins.  It wasn't ballet stuffing and all that conspiracy business.  It was all of the people whom hated him, that couldn't stop sending out thoughts about him.  Stop thinking about the things you don't want, or you are going to bring them right to you.  

.

Are these the sleeping pills?

yes

How would I know that I have REM in a waking state?

You'd see strange things and/or distorted stuff .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_experiment

I enjoyed the film

Are these the sleeping pills? If so, there is the possibility if you keep yourself awake you will have some REM in a waking state (certain pills can make you have extreme REM - to the extent you cannot distinguish between hallucination and reality).

So you don't think that Jeffery Dahmer represented evil?

Maybe it's just me, but for a year or so, I've been seeing  a definite line being drawn between, good and evil.  Maybe we should say, good and bad.. evil sounds so...evil.  

Ok. An example of this can be seen in early societies where ritual sacrifice and cabalism were the norm. Such things were not evil to those societies, yet to our own they are.
All that's changed is our perception of the acts.
An act is an act, nothing more, we interpret and classify it.

Is killing an animal wrong?
Is killing a human wrong?

Asking people such questions would never generate a uniform response. Are some of the possible replies more 'right' than others? Who has the authority to state which is right/wrong, good/evil ?
People usually reply to such things with statements such as one inherently knows good from bad. Yet they don't address to what extent that is a cultural phenomenon.

Perhaps something more relevant to modern times is that one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter. It's all relative to individual perception (which in most cases is driven by the moral climate of their current society).

I guess people like the good/evil absolutes as it simplifies everything, rather than having to work within a framework of infinite shades of grey.

Oh brother.. So you are seriously saying that Bush represents evil more than Dahmer? I wish people would just get over the whole hate Bush thing. It's so old and mostly made up propaganda from the media, but whatever, you keep on hating. I'm sure this will help fix the problems in the world.

Hehe, this is a case in point . Some people do honestly believe bush is the personification of evil, just as some see him as Gods hand.

I pretty much agree with kai wren. Everything is relative to the observer. Just look at human history, the scale of what is considered evil at any point is generally dictated by the morals of that given time and society,

Things just 'are'. It's us who give them meaning.

I haven't tried William Buhlman's brainwave music, but I have extensively used hemi-sync and binaural beat technology. My experience of this is it can act as an aid along with other practices, but in my own experience, this stuff cannot generate OBEs in and of themselves.

I think this is simply an excitement response, and most people will have experienced something like this when starting out - I know I did.
Its something which should pass with time and experience.

Pain and stress are not caused by outside things, but our own perspective and feelings of the outside things.

Oh, I know this . To use a quote:

It is as if a man is hit by one arrow, and then by a second arrow; he feels the pain of two arrows. So it is with the untrained layman; when touched by a painful bodily feeling, he experiences two kinds of feeling, a bodily one and a mental one. But the well-trained disciple, when touched by a painful bodily feeling, weeps not. He feels only one kind of feeling: a bodily one, not a mental one. It is as if a man is hit by one arrow, but not by a second arrow; he feels the pain of one arrow only. So it is with the well-trained disciple; when touched by a painful bodily feeling, he feels but one feeling, bodily pain only.

But in the physical plane, it seems that the source of the pain could be 'external' to ourselves, but we have the choice of how we respond to it internally.

This also works with good emotions. And just like it's not good to sulk and feel self pity, it can be easy to be overly-happy and excited about things. That's when people can become materialistic and selfish, only caring about their own happiness.

Our emotions aren't "us", but part of our concepts attached to perception. I don't think it's good to suppress any emotions, but understand what actually causes them and change that. It is possible.

I agree with the above too. I guess my point was that it is not as simple as acknowledging pain and hurt are internally generated, they don't go away with such a realisation. Also, if someone has no concepts of such things, if caught in a world of pain (in the physical or astral), the fact that it might be an illusion would bring them no comfort.
I personally think that ultimately there is no 'good' or 'bad', just personal interpretation of (indifferent) events based upon currently held belief systems. Although it does seem that the brain is wired to create discomfort (pain) under certain conditions.

If the source is all consciousness, then wouldn't you returning to the source imply that you have just achieved the highest state of consciousness, and thus not cease to exist, you'd just be consciousness itself?

The individual which is you (ego), would be gone. That is the equivalent of oblivion. Without individual awareness to reflect on your condition and state, there is nothing (to the individual). Consciousness might survive on the greatest scale, but perhaps it is as Castaneda said, that we are simply food for the Eagle. Monroe's experience seemed to indirectly reflect this; his experience of the aperture and people gaining their parts as gifts for whatever lay beyond the aperture, was remarkably similar to Castaneda idea of us bloating ourselves with experience and knowledge to be devoured by the source.

Also, the idea of "living forever", this slogan is attached to time-space terms, in the afterlife there is so such thing as pain and stress, these are all human biological feelings.

I like the idea of there being no pain and stress, but this doesn't explain negs, demons, hells, karma etc. People might say the negative emotions experienced from the aforementioned are illusion, but if illusion causes the same pain and distress as their real counterparts, that doesn't help much . I wonder why only the negative things are considered illusion and not the good things too – although I would bet because the good things 'feel' better .

funny you should mention that because my dad also is under the impression that he is being stopped i don't know about it but i do think that it is definitely possible for you to be blocked.
What if someone was able to stand over you as you astrally projected and just pushed you back into your body every time you tried.
Do you think that is possible?

This all depends on your perspective of AP - which I guess boils it down to belief once more.
I see AP as moving onces focus from the physical to a non-physical location, and RTZ (OBE) as moving ones focus from the physical to an area which closely resembles the physical (close proximity?).
So in my view it would be impossible to push someone back into body as they never actually leave. But your views might vary .

An interesting story I heard regarded one of the residential programs at the Monroe institute. A woman found that each time she projected, she found herself in a black place and couldn't do anything or go anywhere. Increasing frustration with this caused her to investigate what was causing it.
It turned out a couple of the men on the course would place this woman in their ECD (energy conversion box – a technique used prior to projection to remove distractive thoughts/influences, so one could focus entirely on the attempt) so they wouldn't be thinking about her in a distractive manner.
On discovering this, the men stopped putting her into their ECDs and she could supposedly project as normal.
Whether this story is true or not, I really don't know. I tried looking for the source of it with no luck (I read it years ago). So while it seems entities might not be able to block our projections, perhaps its possible they could influence them?

My experience to date though has suggested personal belief is paramount, and others can only influence you through your own beliefs.

I like it - thanks for sharing.

We have some talent on these boards!  Anyone else out there care to bring their words out of the woodwork and share?  

Sarah

Thanks   . I've always equated OBE with writing/music/drawing (I used to admin a site dedicated to art inspired by this kind of stuff - but it sadly closed down a year or so back   ), and agree that we need more words etc.

Supposedly it is possible to have your soul broken down and not be remade thereby you are wiped from existence. But still a new soul would be made in replacement to the obliterated one.

sketchy idea there...
i think non-existence is the highest state of being. the goal of life.
this whole game is about breaking down ones individual soul.

I agree with you to the extent that I cannot see a difference between 'returning to the source' which is usually the ultimate goal of most peoples spiritual philosophies, and oblivion of self.
If i'm honest the idea of obivion is at least as scary as the idea of living for eternity.

[pity this busy monster, manunkind]

I'm curious as to others favourite poems or verses from poetry?

The following has to be near the top of my favorites:

pity this busy monster, manunkind

pity this busy monster, manunkind,

not. Progress is a comfortable disease:
your victim (death and life safely beyond)

plays with the bigness of his littleness
--- electrons deify one razorblade
into a mountainrange; lenses extend
unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish
returns on its unself.
                         A world of made
is not a world of born --- pity poor flesh

and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this
fine specimen of hypermagical

ultraomnipotence. We doctors know

a hopeless case if --- listen: there's a hell
of a good universe next door; let's go

      -- E. E. Cummings

Is life but chance?
Is mind but brain?
The soul but shadow
Formed hopes dream?
Or maybe more
Man's latent gift
Man's hopes and fears intermixed.
Is all one
If one is all?
Does one have reason,
Purpose for all?
With realisation paid and brought,
Enlightened peace,
Comes peace with all.

To touch the infinite
With one's soul,
To fathom a universe
As yet untold.




This was written a while ago (years), but shows I haven't always been a total sceptic .