The Astral Pulse

i had a deep realization recently that i would like to share. the post may be long but please read it. i find it pretty amazing.
First i will make this statement: Everything exists. nothing can be excluded, there isn't anything that cannot exist, simply because everything exists. Simple logic. Get it?
OK now, some people, well most it seems believe in a god that exists outside of our reality. A being that created everything.
So tell me, how can something exist outside of everything? if something exists weather inside, outside or whatever side of everything, its still part of everything. it would be like having ten marbles and then placing all ten in a jar, and then saying "all ten marbles in this jar represent everything that exists, but there is still one on the outside of the jar." that would be ridiculous, it just doesn't make sense.
OK, so it is impossible for anything to exist outside of everything. So if god exists, he has to exist within everything and since he would exists within everything he would also be subject to the law of nature (cause and effect). I'll explain this law. Everything that exists, exists because of previous causes.
Lets say a wooden chair, what is this cause if this chair? we can say a tree, the tree caused the chair. so what caused the tree? sun, rain, seed, earth. so all those causes caused the tree which caused the chair which causes comfort when i sit on it,which causes a scuff on the floor and on and on. we can also go back further and ask what caused the sun, the rain, the earth, the seed and keep going and going for infinity it will never end. you will just keep going with the causes until it connected all of existence. everything is connected by this law. so, if god exists within everything, and nothing can exist without a cause, then god is subject to the law of cause and effect. so god would have to have a cause in order to exist. just like everything else. and you see how everything is connected through this law. everything is the cause of everything. what it comes down to is that i exist because everything else exist and everything exist because i exist. same with you, same with a rock a tree and god. god is no different than a rock. there is no god entity that created everything, instead the only thing you can say god is, is everything. every object, thought and action is like a brick holding together an infinite wall. the wall being god, every brick a part of god.
Wait! there is more.
Going back to the wooden chair. So there is this chair that was made from a tree, this tree no longer exists in the forest.
But it still does exist, only in the form of a chair. When the chair breaks down and decomposes, the chair no longer exist in the form of a chair but in the form of whatever a decomposing chair turns into. so the tree never stops existing, only changes forms. same with the chair, it will always exist. see even before the chair existed it existed within the tree. before the tree grew it existed in the form of a seed, the chair existed in the seed also. and remember how everything is connected through cause and effect? i am the cause of the chair, just like the tree is, just not in such a direct way. but this means that i exist in the chair and the chair exists within me.
everything is connected, we all exist within each other. there is no separation. separation is an illusion created by the ego. we have the false idea that we are separate beings. there is no separate anything. all objects, life, thoughts, words, actions, everything is the same. i dint want to say all is one, i think that is incorrect, it seems that if there is one, then there can be two. i think all is nothing is more fitting or all is infinity, which ever you like. there is no difference.

While your logical pursuit of atheism is great, it has some flaws. First off, I don't know anything that claims God exists outside of everything, because in the case of any that people talk about, he/she has somehow interacted with our form of reality in some way, otherwise we wouldn't know about it now would we? All 'god' is supposed to do is exist in a higher form of reality outside of ours.

Also, I'm wondering where you get your 'everything exists' logic. I'm sure I could make something up, and the only place it would exit would be as a thought in my mind, not as a real existing thing in physical actuality. I'm assuming that's how you're measuring reality or the god argument wouldn't work too well.

hello tyciol.

QuoteFirst off, I don't know anything that claims God exists outside of everything, because in the case of any that people talk about, he/she has somehow interacted with our form of reality in some way, otherwise we wouldn't know about it now would we? All 'god' is supposed to do is exist in a higher form of reality outside of ours.

Your last statement is what I'm talking about. there is no outside ours. no outside anything. how can there be an outside ours? or inside?

QuoteAlso, I'm wondering where you get your 'everything exists' logic. I'm sure I could make something up, and the only place it would exit would be as a thought in my mind, not as a real existing thing in physical actuality. I'm assuming that's how you're measuring reality or the god argument wouldn't work too well.

OK lets say in all of reality only one planet existed, and that was it, nothing more. the phrase "everything exists" would still be true. because one planet is all that exists. so you see purple and pink spotted monkeys do not necessarily have to exist (although its possible that they could) in order for everything to exist.
when i talk of everything existing i do not exclude thought and actions, they cannot be excluded from the law of cause and effect. tell me how the god argument wouldn't work well, now that you know that i am including thoughts and actions as being part of existence. all I'm trying to do is show the dependent nature of reality. things cannot exist of there own accord. everything depends on everything else in order to exist.  there is no separation, that is just illusion. no difference between a tree and a chair, the moon and the ocean. there isn't any one thing.

Well, you seem to be on the right track.
But you didn't define your terms, so everyone here would interpret your logic as he pleases.... no use you see.
You should define these terms precisely and solidify them - god, existence, ego, everything, separation and other key words, before you even start.

god- in this argument I'm talking of the idea of a god that exist as its own separate entity that created everything and watches over.

existence- everything, objects,thoughts,actions,space. everything

ego- the Inness we feel as humans. idea of the self being its own separate thing.

everything- same as existence

separation- the idea that we are separate beings. everything being separate from everything.

hope this helps.

But what about idea of christian God as a thoughtform, only claiming to be all powerful?

BoscosFriend,

When you say god exists separate from our reality, do you mean from this superverse or our reality, as in the reality we share?

I agree that god does not exist separate from the superverse - all that there is - everything. However, god can exist in a higher 'reality' just like ultraviolet can live in a higher reality from infrared, yet both coexist in the same space.

Like this, god can exist in a reality that is higher than ours, yet is a part of the same superverse. However, you are quite right, something cannot exist outside everything. Yet, god can exist as a part of everything, but in a different reality.

Now, why should god know every thought, action? If God is the highest reality and all realities are present within his reality, then he can see all the realities because of his dimensional vantage.

To explain this, in 3D space we can only perceive 3 dimensions. If we were in 4D space we would perceive the 4th extra dimension as well as the 3 dimensions of space. In 5D space, we would perceive the 4th and 5th extra dimensions as well as the 3 dimensions of space. And so on.

Therefore if god exists as the final dimension, then he can percieve his dimension and all dimensions below it. What is a single moment for god is all of eternity for the lower dimensions. This is why they say god knows all, see's all.

BoscosFriend,

You're talking about concepts I've been thinking about for awhile. I agree that what you refer to as God cannot exist outside of "everything," but it wouldn't have to. It is unquestionable that "everything" swims in a universal sea of energy. Chakras and auras are just two examples of the visibility of this energy. My point of debate is whether that energy is "God," or whether it is simply another component of "everything." I just made a post on another thread that sort of relates to this.

You can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God through the use of your example, but if God does exist, he/she/it will be right here in the middle of us, not outside "everything."

Of course, that brings up another little conundrum -- once we have imagined as big an "everything" as possible, what caused that to come into being? Are we just one small bit of a really huge "everything" that we can't even begin to imagine? That brings up my favorite example: to an earthworm, for instance, does outer space exist? Do they perceive our solar system even, or other galaxies?

Man, it would be lovely to have some real answers!  :?

God is a construct. ;)

Some good ideas and some decent discussion on this topic going on. I'll be starting a topic of my own soon that will address some of the issues above, such as God,  Ego, Constructs, and the connectedness of the universe.  I'll likely call it "God Vs. Human belief".  Perhaps the one power that even a God can't contend with is human belief.  The power of our imagination, our creativity, seems to be the closest thing to a "spark of the divine" that we have.

Creativity is something that we admire, cherish, and build upon as a species. Anytime we see seagulls using rocks to smash open clam shells or monkeys using sticks as primitive tools, we're both inspired and overwhelmed with joy at the "cuteness" of it all.  It makes us truly connect and feel at home on our planet to see that we're not the only animal that can be so creative and cunning. And we also see how positive and beautiful creativity can be coupled with pure intention IE: The seagull simply wanting to eat thus using the rock.

Scientists in laboratories have studied people using electronic equipment and have been able to artificially induce a feeling of "spiritual awakening" in subjects using electrodes to stimulate the right temporal lobe of the brain. They've also found that this section of the brain is responsible for creativity and artistic ability.
At a superficial glance this may seem to indicate that all spiritual phenomenon is simply a biological function and has no spiritual merit. On the contrary, it is unknown to scientists just how or why people will have spiritual intuitions and flashes of premonition that saves and changes lives-  all they know is that using equipment they've found the part of the brain that seems to respond to psychic phenomenon. Well done.

In closing I just wanted to respond to the last post suggesting that God is a construct.  I believe many people have constructed many faces and many ideas to label the creative force of the universe/and all of it's dimensions (ones we are not aware of while in the physical plane), however, just because people have such a hard life filled with insecurity that the only stability they can find is to lean towards dichotomy of "right and wrong"  "black and white" thinking,  then so be it. If they need to perceive their inspiration as being "all things good" then let them. That's just their present state of awareness and it isn't the most effective way to live a life free of neurosis, however it IS simply the stage that they are at naturally and in time we all grow to be less neurotic.


God bless. For what it's worth to you.

Quote from: BoscosFriendi had a deep realization recently that i would like to share. the post may be long but please read it. i find it pretty amazing.
First i will make this statement: Everything exists. nothing can be excluded, there isn't anything that cannot exist, simply because everything exists. Simple logic. Get it?
OK now, some people, well most it seems believe in a god that exists outside of our reality. A being that created everything.
So tell me, how can something exist outside of everything? if something exists weather inside, outside or whatever side of everything, its still part of everything. it would be like having ten marbles and then placing all ten in a jar, and then saying "all ten marbles in this jar represent everything that exists, but there is still one on the outside of the jar." that would be ridiculous, it just doesn't make sense.
OK, so it is impossible for anything to exist outside of everything. So if god exists, he has to exist within everything and since he would exists within everything he would also be subject to the law of nature (cause and effect). I'll explain this law. Everything that exists, exists because of previous causes.
Lets say a wooden chair, what is this cause if this chair? we can say a tree, the tree caused the chair. so what caused the tree? sun, rain, seed, earth. so all those causes caused the tree which caused the chair which causes comfort when i sit on it,which causes a scuff on the floor and on and on. we can also go back further and ask what caused the sun, the rain, the earth, the seed and keep going and going for infinity it will never end. you will just keep going with the causes until it connected all of existence. everything is connected by this law. so, if god exists within everything, and nothing can exist without a cause, then god is subject to the law of cause and effect. so god would have to have a cause in order to exist. just like everything else. and you see how everything is connected through this law. everything is the cause of everything. what it comes down to is that i exist because everything else exist and everything exist because i exist. same with you, same with a rock a tree and god. god is no different than a rock. there is no god entity that created everything, instead the only thing you can say god is, is everything. every object, thought and action is like a brick holding together an infinite wall. the wall being god, every brick a part of god.
Wait! there is more.
Going back to the wooden chair. So there is this chair that was made from a tree, this tree no longer exists in the forest.
But it still does exist, only in the form of a chair. When the chair breaks down and decomposes, the chair no longer exist in the form of a chair but in the form of whatever a decomposing chair turns into. so the tree never stops existing, only changes forms. same with the chair, it will always exist. see even before the chair existed it existed within the tree. before the tree grew it existed in the form of a seed, the chair existed in the seed also. and remember how everything is connected through cause and effect? i am the cause of the chair, just like the tree is, just not in such a direct way. but this means that i exist in the chair and the chair exists within me.
everything is connected, we all exist within each other. there is no separation. separation is an illusion created by the ego. we have the false idea that we are separate beings. there is no separate anything. all objects, life, thoughts, words, actions, everything is the same. i dint want to say all is one, i think that is incorrect, it seems that if there is one, then there can be two. i think all is nothing is more fitting or all is infinity, which ever you like. there is no difference.

Yes we all exist within each other.. But when it comes to that god does not exist i can not agree.. The thing is that it is not outside everything it is on the other planes (etc astral planes) Its just like when you have a wooden board and place a Glass board on top of it the Glass board will be transparent (like the astral and other planes) further more i do not believe that god is a person its alot more like in star wars "the force"
And we are a part of the force just like the force is a part of us...
So in a way we are all the sons and doughters of god (the force)
(I believe that's where people mistake Jesus he was the son of god just like we are all the sons and doughters of god "the force")
P.S no i am not a christian or take more part of any organized religion... well if any i guess I'm a Muslim but i don't pray to much.. )
What i like to call my self is Alchemist :)

QuoteYes we all exist within each other.. But when it comes to that god does not exist i can not agree.. The thing is that it is not outside everything it is on the other planes (etc astral planes) Its just like when you have a wooden board and place a Glass board on top of it the Glass board will be transparent (like the astral and other planes) further more i do not believe that god is a person its alto more like in star wars "the force"
And we are a part of the force just like the force is a part of us...

when i say god does not exist i mean an idol form of god. like a separate existing entity that created all. even if some godly being in another plane created our existence it still wouldn't make any difference. we all exist within each other, which you agree with, so that being which created our existence exists within us and we exist within it. he just becomes another cause in the chain reaction, no different than a grain of sand or a thought.
to me the only thing that can be called god is the connecting web of depend ant existence. but i would rather not call it god because the term is too misleading. we can call it lagalabooboo, it doesn't make any difference anyway. its all just words.

BoscosFriend, I do understand what you are saying. It is widely held among spiritualists that we are god. However, as much as that it is true at the most profound level of reality, at our observer-dependent reality level, it is not true. So 'god' does indeed reside out of our domain of reality.

The Hindu's addressed this problem in identifying god, by calling him the supreme personality. When they say become one with all, it really means transform your personality to the highest state.

I have always wondered, that once you merge with the one, wouldn't it be logical, that you no longer have any individuality?

QuoteBoscosFriend, I do understand what you are saying. It is widely held among spiritualists that we are god. However, as much as that it is true at the most profound level of reality, at our observer-dependent reality level, it is not true. So 'god' does indeed reside out of our domain of reality.

The Hindu's addressed this problem in identifying god, by calling him the supreme personality. When they say become one with all, it really means transform your personality to the highest state.

are you saying that when we transform our personality to the highest state we become one with all, but because of our current level of reality we are separate from all?
if this is what you are saying then i somewhat agree.  it isn't that our ignorance keeps us separate from all, its our ignorance that creates the illusion of being separate from all. the truth is we were never separate.

Quotegreatoutdoors:I agree that what you refer to as God cannot exist outside of "everything," but it wouldn't have to. It is unquestionable that "everything" swims in a universal sea of energy. Chakras and auras are just two examples of the visibility of this energy. My point of debate is whether that energy is "God," or whether it is simply another component of "everything." I just made a post on another thread that sort of relates to this.

hmmm, i dint know i ha vent seen auras. but i would regard it as just another component of everything, because everything is a component of everything. another link in the chain. but at the same time i guess you could call it god. i would have to think more on this. what is your opinion on it? i would be interested in your view.

QuoteYou can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God through the use of your example, but if God does exist, he/she/it will be right here in the middle of us, not outside "everything

I'm attempting to disprove the existence of an idol form of god. a single separate existing entity that created all.

QuoteOf course, that brings up another little conundrum -- once we have imagined as big an "everything" as possible, what caused that to come into being?

OK, so we imagined as big as possible. so now we wonder what caused that to come into being. this is confusing so bare with me.  OK, that which caused this to come into being is no different than this. since this is now in existence it becomes part of that and that apart of this. so really there is no this and that. actually i dont see the importance in knowing the exact causes of things. it would just be knowledge in the brain. maybe there is one original cause and maybe not. either way i doubt we would ever know, i don't think its all that important to know either. i kind think of it is like a circle.you cant find the beginning or end.

Quote from: Nuvo22

In closing I just wanted to respond to the last post suggesting that God is a construct.  I believe many people have constructed many faces and many ideas to label the creative force of the universe/and all of it's dimensions (ones we are not aware of while in the physical plane), however, just because people have such a hard life filled with insecurity that the only stability they can find is to lean towards dichotomy of "right and wrong"  "black and white" thinking,  then so be it. If they need to perceive their inspiration as being "all things good" then let them. That's just their present state of awareness and it isn't the most effective way to live a life free of neurosis, however it IS simply the stage that they are at naturally and in time we all grow to be less neurotic.


God bless. For what it's worth to you.

I definitely agree with you. While some of us seem to have the ability to more or less fend for ourselves, some people have just seen to much and they need God in their lives. Im not suggesting that its wrong, Im simply stating the fact. When people ask me if I believe in God, I say yes. When people ask me if I believe in Allah, I say yes. This is not because Im an idiot its because these things DO exist in the form on constructs created by humans out of need. Like many an APer has confirmed, there are belief constructs for those that hold these beliefs. So God did not create us, we created HIM, and that does not make him "fake" in any sense of the word.

QuoteSo God did not create us, we created HIM, and that does not make him "fake" in any sense of the word.

Don't you just love philosophy! The greatest proof of god, is ontological, that is that your thought of god(what you call creation) is the proof of the existence of god. Remember, even before you existed as Ben, the thought of god had existed.

Bcosfriends proposition that god cannot exist outside of everything based on the logic that something cannot exist out of everything is in my opinion, logical. Yet, it also applies equally to you.

How could we create the concept of god, if the concept of god was not a part of everything? There were studies done on this and researchers found that god was a natural innate concept.

We can regress further into time, to the primal man, and explain how did he conceptualize god, or more importantly, language, morals, ethics, beliefs. In fact, this question can be expanded to encompass all thought. What is the source of all thought and all consciousness?

If consciousness is a part of everything, than it is only logical to say everything is conscious. That is what is universal consciousness and that is what is god.

There was never a creation. There was never a dissolution. This is the most fundamental laws of physics - energy cannot be created nor destroyed, just passed on from one form to the other.

So, you were not created and nor did you create anything. You just passed on from one form to the other. As you develop spiritually, your lower energetic thoughts are passing onto higher energetic thoughts. However, that is a paradox right? As it assumes you are creating higher thoughts from lower thoughts. So, where you are you getting the energy to create higher thoughts from?

I say, it is only logical that you can only get something out of nothing, if there is something in nothing. You can only project, if there is something to project to. Your astral consciousness exist independently of your physical body. It is only logical that there is an absolute consciousness. An absolute level of reality.

If you are a physical at a lower consciousness and an angel at a higher consciousness. What are you at absolute consciousness? How do you define yourself at absolute consciousness. These definitions by humans have been called god. Again, you can only define, if there is something to define.

QuoteHow could we create the concept of god, if the concept of god was not a part of everything? There were studies done on this and researchers found that god was a natural innate concept.

IMO(and imo is probably the single most important word of this reply) god would have to be an innate concept. Your reasoning is a bit off my friend. First, we can "create" concepts of anything. I can sit down and create a concept that could change someones life. But consider this:

Man is the first animal to have the level of self-awareness and consciousness that we have. And nothing is a greater example of this than the awareness that we will die someday. Now, if you knew you were going to die, what would YOU think would happen after you passed? I think this is a question that has been asked millenia after millenia. And it still is being asked. Well, one can reason that you just die, you cease to exist. But i dont think this sat well with early man. The concept that you can just cease to exist might not even enter your mind. Just like we cannot comprehend say, what lies outside our universe, man could not comprehend what happened after we died.

So now comes the concept of the "afterlife". But this too puzzled early man, what would you DO when you die? Just walk around earth as a ghost? No, you went to heaven and sat in eternity in glorious euphoria at the right hand of "GOD". But did everyone go to heaven? If so, why not just run around raping women and killing people at leisure? Hell, why not kill yourself?

Well, early man knew this had to stop. So next came the concept of GOOD AND BAD. HEAVEN AND HELL. Different religions obviously have different names, but for the most part, excluding eastern religions(eastern folk always HAVE been smarter) the concept of heaven and hell plays a part in all religions.

QuoteWhat is the source of all thought and all consciousness?

Are you telling me GOD is the source of my thought and consciousness? What about that whole free will thing?

QuoteSo, you were not created and nor did you create anything. You just passed on from one form to the other. As you develop spiritually, your lower energetic thoughts are passing onto higher energetic thoughts. However, that is a paradox right? As it assumes you are creating higher thoughts from lower thoughts. So, where you are you getting the energy to create higher thoughts from?

Im sorry, I dont understand the whole concept of lower and higher energetic thoughts. Could you explain?

Quoteour astral consciousness exist independently of your physical body. It is only logical that there is an absolute consciousness. An absolute level of reality.

You are also wrong here. Your astral consciousness is not independent at all, everything is intertwined. Thats the whole concept of phasing, and is proof enough that this statement is true.

QuoteIf you are a physical at a lower consciousness and an angel at a higher consciousness. What are you at absolute consciousness? How do you define yourself at absolute consciousness. These definitions by humans have been called god. Again, you can only define, if there is something to define

There is nothing to define.

This is however a great argument and for that i thank you ;)

There is but one thing to save us now... Unification....

I realize that now, with all of the questions on these boards... that I must answer all of humankind's questions on the issue of the divine...

Sorry for being spontaneous... but Unification is our final evolution, guys... our final step... once we wake up and take that journey... Then we'll get what the hell is going on...

For all of you... I hope you will reach the same understanding as I have thru these last few years... You may not think I'm right, but I know what it is everyone is seeking...

Answers... and results....

I hope one day I can deliver that to the entire world...

Good Luck With That.

As I said, isn't philosophy just great. A constant clash of ideaologies. Arguments, counter-arguments and counter-counter arguments. The truth about all philosophical discourse - you can never arrive at an objective truth. However, it stimulates the mind and galvanizes it into thinking laterally, and it is very important that we learn to analyse our ideas and test them constantly. It is my beleif that the truth will stand against all scrutiny and verify itself. Oh, and there is a truth.  You can test mine. I can test yours:

QuoteMan is the first animal to have the level of self-awareness and consciousness that we have. And nothing is a greater example of this than the awareness that we will die someday. Now, if you knew you were going to die, what would YOU think would happen after you passed? I think this is a question that has been asked millenia after millenia. And it still is being asked. Well, one can reason that you just die, you cease to exist. But i dont think this sat well with early man. The concept that you can just cease to exist might not even enter your mind. Just like we cannot comprehend say, what lies outside our universe, man could not comprehend what happened after we died.

Necessity is the mother of all invention they say. I can surmise what you are saying here as one of the popular atheist arguments, that god is a mental safety mechanism. I once was an advocate of this philosophy. However, upon analysis of this philosophy, I found some logical errors. If this was true, then how can atheists exist at all? If this is such an important aspect of our mental mark-up as the first primal human, then why are millions apparently immune to this?

I think it underlines a very important point. That is why a belief in god is not a necessity for survival.  Thus, the contention that god is a human construct to explain death or to give a purpose to life does not hold against reason.

Again, it is more important to consider the source of all language, belief and thought, rather just a belief in god. How did any of this arise? What is the underlying phenomena behind consciousness and can it be explained in physical terms? As soon as we begin to consider metaphysical origins of consciousnes, the 'hypothesis' of god becomes even more favorable.

QuoteAre you telling me GOD is the source of my thought and consciousness? What about that whole free will thing?

In philosophy, there are two types of freedom outlined; Positive freedom and negative freedom. Positive freedom is absolute freedom. Negative freedom is freedom within certain parameters. In any of the dualistic realities there is only negative freedom. That is you have freedom of will to act, but you don't have freedom in choosing the course your action takes. The action you take is based on even more parameters; your ego, your conditioning, your environment. So, there really is no absolute free will in dualistic realities. You have as much free will as the course a river takes before meeting with it's source again.

So, what I am saying the source of your thought and consciousness is a part of the universe. Everything is the source of something. If god is understood to be everything, then he is the source of your thoughts and consciusness. Just like the source of a river is the ocean. There is a source to your consciousness, isn't there, if you cannot accept god, then surely you can accept it is the universe?

Does it necessarily negate the existence of something, if it is a part of everything?

QuoteIm sorry, I dont understand the whole concept of lower and higher energetic thoughts. Could you explain?

I am presupposing an understanding of the vibrational spectrum of consciousness. That is the physical self, subtle(astral) self, higher self etc. The astral self is a higher energetic consciousness than the physical self. The thoughts of love are higher than the thoughts of hate and fear.

QuoteYou are also wrong here. Your astral consciousness is not independent at all, everything is intertwined. Thats the whole concept of phasing, and is proof enough that this statement is true.

Where was I 'wrong' last time? It is funny you say everything is interwined. Isn't that what I am saying about god? I could say we are interwined as well, but that does not mean I am not independent of you. You can only project to your astral self, if the astral self existed in the first place. You do not create an astral self everytime you project in the astral realm. Your astral self is always there. All you do is become conscious of it. Robert Bruce explained this quite well as the mind split effect in his book. Similarily, your higher self exists as a separate personality too. Nothing is being created.

In the dualistic worlds, everything exists independent of each other. There is one level of reality of non-dualism. That is at an absolute level of reality or consciousness. This is when you're truly interwined. This is God. Correct me if I'm wrong, but do you believe in astral realms?

QuoteThere is nothing to define.

Yes there is. If there a physical self, astral selfs, higher self, each higher in the vibrational spectrum of consciousness. Then there should be an end of this spectrum too? Just like at an absolute level of reality there is only one cause. You said everything existed interwined. The source of consciousness is that interwined/entangled state. It is only logical that everything has a primodial source. As soon as we understand consciousness to be subset from the physical, then we discover the source of the consciousness. The source must have consciousness, for consciousness to exist at all. Something does not come from nothing.

I cant argue with someone who switches there stance every post :X

Hi Ben,

I probably did 'change my stance' although I am not aware of what I changed.  Such as is the nature of philosophical discourse. Subconscious internal dialog can sometimes manifest in your writing. However, to the best of my knowledge, I was arguing for the 'hypothesis' of god from the beginning and the source of consciousness and thought. I don't see that I have deviated from that stance.

However, I am open to error on my part. Please, do point out the inconsistency. However, it is bad debate practice, to make personal statements that you do not substantiate. It comes under ad-hominem fallacies. As soon as a debate is initiated, let it run it's course. Although, many times debates are clashes of ideologies and values, this should be done in a mature and intelligent manner. As both parties are debating not to uphold their positions, but to arrive at a common truth and/or understanding.

data, i think i got you and uniforce sort of mixed up. My bad. Anyway, il try to keep this going, im having a good time and realize that this is only the spirit of debate and i mean no offense to anyone :)

Quote from: dataNecessity is the mother of all invention they say. I can surmise what you are saying here as one of the popular atheist arguments, that god is a mental safety mechanism. I once was an advocate of this philosophy. However, upon analysis of this philosophy, I found some logical errors. If this was true, then how can atheists exist at all? If this is such an important aspect of our mental mark-up as the first primal human, then why are millions apparently immune to this?

I never said he was a necessity.(At least i dont think so, if i did I must have been thinking off). God is simply a way man explained what he did not know. And now that we know more and more, less people believe in God. Its as simple as that.

QuoteI think it underlines a very important point. That is why a belief in god is not a necessity for survival.  Thus, the contention that god is a human construct to explain death or to give a purpose to life does not hold against reason.

Like I said, there is no necessity. Its what you choose to believe.

QuoteAgain, it is more important to consider the source of all language, belief and thought, rather just a belief in god. How did any of this arise? What is the underlying phenomena behind consciousness and can it be explained in physical terms? As soon as we begin to consider metaphysical origins of consciousnes, the 'hypothesis' of god becomes even more favorable.

When man realized he could manipulate his vocal chords to the degree of attaching meaning to them, language was invented. I think i saw Frank say something like he was talking to a being from a different physical reality or maybe a different planet or something while he was in the astral. The being told him that us humans were unique in that most other "intelligent beings" use telapathy. Belief and thought IMO are effects of evolution.

QuoteIn philosophy, there are two types of freedom outlined; Positive freedom and negative freedom. Positive freedom is absolute freedom. Negative freedom is freedom within certain parameters. In any of the dualistic realities there is only negative freedom. That is you have freedom of will to act, but you don't have freedom in choosing the course your action takes. The action you take is based on even more parameters; your ego, your conditioning, your environment. So, there really is no absolute free will in dualistic realities. You have as much free will as the course a river takes before meeting with it's source again.

So, what I am saying the source of your thought and consciousness is a part of the universe. Everything is the source of something. If god is understood to be everything, then he is the source of your thoughts and consciusness. Just like the source of a river is the ocean. There is a source to your consciousness, isn't there, if you cannot accept god, then surely you can accept it is the universe?

Ah, reminds me of an Aquinas argument :)

Why is it that thought must come from another being? Is it not possible that thought comes from within ourselves? That we have the power to think in abstract thoughts and decide the best possible outcome? That is an interesting argument however.

QuoteDoes it necessarily negate the existence of something, if it is a part of everything?

The only part your missing is the part of everything. Like a builder that builds a house and then leaves it to another family to reside in, God could have merely built us without any of himself in us. Saying that he is in everything is a circular argument.

QuoteI am presupposing an understanding of the vibrational spectrum of consciousness. That is the physical self, subtle(astral) self, higher self etc. The astral self is a higher energetic consciousness than the physical self. The thoughts of love are higher than the thoughts of hate and fear.

How can thoughts be higher than another? How can thoughts have direction at all? If by higher you mean morally correct, then I would answer with what is morally correct? Is it morally correct to kill? Is it morally correct to kill in the name of God? In the name of anything?

QuoteWhere was I 'wrong' last time? It is funny you say everything is interwined. Isn't that what I am saying about god?

You are, but the difference lies in the reality. There is no way to prove that God is in everything, but there is a way to prove that all reality is intertwined. Simply close your eyes and imagine your favorite place. Right then and there part of your consciousness was outside of your body, however small the percentage.

[quoteI could say we are interwined as well, but that does not mean I am not independent of you. You can only project to your astral self, if the astral self existed in the first place. You do not create an astral self everytime you project in the astral realm. Your astral self is always there. All you do is become conscious of it. Robert Bruce explained this quite well as the mind split effect in his book. Similarily, your higher self exists as a separate personality too. Nothing is being created.[/quote]

Actually, it is my belief that you DO create a copy of your astral self every time you project. The difference between my view and your view here is that i believe what you call your "astral self", I call consciousness. Therefore, all we do when we OBE is create a "copy" of your body and shift your consciousness, the only reason we create the copy in the first place is out of habit. You are used to having a body. You have had one your whole life.

QuoteIn the dualistic worlds, everything exists independent of each other. There is one level of reality of non-dualism. That is at an absolute level of reality or consciousness. This is when you're truly interwined. This is God. Correct me if I'm wrong, but do you believe in astral realms?

Then I must believe in non-dualism. I belive in astral realms, I also believe that all astral realms are intertwined and that all we need to do when we project is shift our awareness. when you are focused on a task at hand, you are 100% aware of the physical. When you are daydreaming, you might have, oh, 80-85% awareness of physical, your awareness is spread into the astral. All we do when we project is focus 100% on whatever "level"(or Focus Level, in phasing model terms) you wish to focus on.

Quote

QuoteThere is nothing to define.

Yes there is. If there a physical self, astral selfs, higher self, each higher in the vibrational spectrum of consciousness. Then there should be an end of this spectrum too? Just like at an absolute level of reality there is only one cause. You said everything existed interwined. The source of consciousness is that interwined/entangled state. It is only logical that everything has a primodial source. As soon as we understand consciousness to be subset from the physical, then we discover the source of the consciousness. The source must have consciousness, for consciousness to exist at all. Something does not come from nothing.

There is only 1 self. How you choose to experience yourself depends on your level of awareness. The source of consciousness is simply what could be called Focus Level 2, where we can think in abstract thoughts and choose what action to bring into place.

QuoteI probably did 'change my stance' although I am not aware of what I changed. Such as is the nature of philosophical discourse. Subconscious internal dialog can sometimes manifest in your writing. However, to the best of my knowledge, I was arguing for the 'hypothesis' of god from the beginning and the source of consciousness and thought. I don't see that I have deviated from that stance.

I was speaking of when you said "Your astral consciousness exist independently of your physical body" and then said "The source of consciousness is that interwined/entangled state"

But i suppose i can let it go. And I definitely would agree with this statement: "As both parties are debating not to uphold their positions, but to arrive at a common truth and/or understanding."

Cheers,

Ben

Quotedata, i think i got you and uniforce sort of mixed up. My bad. Anyway, il try to keep this going, im having a good time and realize that this is only the spirit of debate and i mean no offense to anyone

That's alright :)

QuoteI never said he was a necessity.(At least i dont think so, if i did I must have been thinking off). God is simply a way man explained what he did not know. And now that we know more and more, less people believe in God. Its as simple as that.

Again, necessity. For us to invent the concept of god to fill a vacuum(Again, once I was an advocate of this argument) However, the same logical errors are present as I illuminated above. If God is a necessity or a device of ignorance, then how can so many be immune to it?

You say because people are more knowledgeable today. I beg to differ. The subject of god is a metaphysical and consciousness one and consciousness still eludes scientists, let alone the masses, who remain oblivious to the most simplest truth of self. What has changed is the social ethos. That is people have become more materialist and hedonistic. It is not an advancement in knowledge as such, rather a shift in our values, for the worse actually. Even still, the belief in god is still universal and transcends cast, creed, sect, gender, nationality,  intellectual denomination. As we have agreed the belief in god is innate.

QuoteWhen man realized he could manipulate his vocal chords to the degree of attaching meaning to them, language was invented. I think i saw Frank say something like he was talking to a being from a different physical reality or maybe a different planet or something while he was in the astral. The being told him that us humans were unique in that most other "intelligent beings" use telapathy. Belief and thought IMO are effects of evolution.

Again, however, there is something missing. That is the drive for man to attach meaning. Why does he attach meaning? This ability to communicate by sound, through modulation of vocal chords, is not unique to man. It is present within the 'lower' animals too. How is he inspired to do that? Again, this can be extended to everything to beliefs, to arts, to science and philosophy. What drive man to do any of this?

Naturally, whenever we discuss the nature of consciousness, language and mental abstraction, imagination, we will always be lead to the same question. What is the source of this inspiration. Is man creating something from nothing, or is he simply connecting to something and recreating it?  As is always the nature of such discussion it will always cause one to explore the laws of causality. Exploring this subject leads to enlightenment. The Zen Buddhists knew this that is why they gave spiritual seekers koans(conundrums)

Evolution is not an answer. It's as supernatural as the belief in god, and in my opinion, illogical. To really sum up evolution, it is like a blind person with amnesia, thrown in the middle of nowhere, thousands of miles from his home, and then somehow finding his way back to his home. Just like imagination is innate to the human being. Order and complexity is innate to the universe. Again, there is a causality(the relationship between cause and effect) that causes chaos to become order. For chaos to become order, there would need to be an intelligence to assemble the order, otherwise, we are left with an illogicality of something coming out of nothing.

We know intelligence is a phenomena of this universe, thus it is only logical, to say  that intelligence is a part of the universe and is an inherent property of nature.

This is the real reason why god is such a universal belief. It makes sense.

QuoteWhy is it that thought must come from another being? Is it not possible that thought comes from within ourselves? That we have the power to think in abstract thoughts and decide the best possible outcome? That is an interesting argument however

If thought came from within ourselves, and I am not sure how you define "self" but presume you were defining self as the human brain. Then presume that consciousness/thought was a para-physical phenomena. Then, it begs to question, how can the physical and limited human brain, produce the unlimited. I think this is perhaps one of the strongest argument for the existence of consciousness as a disembodied phenomena.

If you define the self, as your 'soul' Then what exactly is the soul? Does the soul exist beyond your body or does your body create the soul?

QuoteThe only part your missing is the part of everything. Like a builder that builds a house and then leaves it to another family to reside in, God could have merely built us without any of himself in us. Saying that he is in everything is a circular argument.

You're assuming that something was built.

QuoteHow can thoughts be higher than another? How can thoughts have direction at all? If by higher you mean morally correct, then I would answer with what is morally correct? Is it morally correct to kill? Is it morally correct to kill in the name of God? In the name of anything?

No, I am not talking about morally correct. Rather I am drawing upon experience of others in the astrals with different astral planes and astral beings. And how love and compassion are possessed by the higher beings. However, this is based on here say, and is a fragile argument, unless you can relate to the experiences or exercise faith in others here who report this. I can say this however, what makes you feel good - love or fear?

QuoteYou are, but the difference lies in the reality. There is no way to prove that God is in everything, but there is a way to prove that all reality is intertwined. Simply close your eyes and imagine your favorite place. Right then and there part of your consciousness was outside of your body, however small the percentage.

There is a way to prove that the universe is everything. Perhaps, your definition of god is different from mine. As for your proof, I will play the devil's advocate here, how do you know your consciousness was there. You could have just as easily imagined it.

A much better proof of the existence of the universe as an absolute, is a logical one, that is that is all things in the universe are effects, then there is a primordial cause. If there are parts of something, then there must be a whole too from where the parts came from. Another effective proof, is scientific theories of super strings and GUT(grand unified theory) these phenomena are very subtle. An extremely compelling proof is the existence of the phenomena of quantum entanglement.

QuoteActually, it is my belief that you DO create a copy of your astral self every time you project. The difference between my view and your view here is that i believe what you call your "astral self", I call consciousness. Therefore, all we do when we OBE is create a "copy" of your body and shift your consciousness, the only reason we create the copy in the first place is out of habit. You are used to having a body. You have had one your whole life.

I do not share this belief, because it seems illogical to me. It calls on the same fallacy of nothing creating something. This is what I meant by lower energetic consciousness creating higher energetic consciousness. You are not creating an astral self, in my humble opinion. You are connecting to your astral self. This is what Yoga is, yoga means to link or connect. You can only do that because your astral self exists in the astral plane and always has. You are simply shifting awareness to a higher level of consciousness and thus shifting your reality. At the higher levels of reality you have a greater field of vision, the parts begin to form smaller wholes, and at the highest, you have highest field of vision, this is when all is whole. This is when you and I are no longer independent of each other. But one with each other. This is when you are absolute consciousness. That is the source. That is the god that I know.

Similarly, it is my thought, that you exist multidimensionally and universally. There is no past, present or future. You are leading all your lives at once. You see the god I believe in, is a supreme soul(the whole) that has split into souls, and the souls have split into minds(egos)  Just like you can split into the astral. It's not you having an astral experience; it's your astral having a physical experience. And it is your higher self having an astral experience and god having all the experiences.

Such is the nature of consciousness. God experiences through us.

QuoteThen I must believe in non-dualism. I believe in astral realms, I also believe that all astral realms are intertwined and that all we need to do when we project is shift our awareness. when you are focused on a task at hand, you are 100% aware of the physical. When you are daydreaming, you might have, oh, 80-85% awareness of physical, your awareness is spread into the astral. All we do when we project is focus 100% on whatever "level"(or Focus Level, in phasing model terms) you wish to focus on.

I too believe in non-dualism, except with a rationalist twist. I believe duality and non duality co-exist in the same universe and separated by levels of dualistic realities. I am separate from you in dualistic reality, but one with you in non dualistic reality. In non dualistic reality, you don't exist as entangled/intertwined either, you exist as one. The state of entanglement is also a dualistic reality.

You should be very careful when you say we are all intertwined or one. Someone, could quite easily challenge you on that and falsify you. What you really should be saying we are all intertwined on a more profound level of reality. I see so many spiritual people make this mistake. It undermines their credibility.

QuoteThere is only 1 self. How you choose to experience yourself depends on your level of awareness. The source of consciousness is simply what could be called Focus Level 2, where we can think in abstract thoughts and choose what action to bring into place.

Yes, I agree, there is only one self. However, I am not sure your definition of self is the same as mine. I think your definition of self is an individual soul. This calls on the arguments of how parts can exist without a whole and how were the parts created. While my definition of self is as as unified whole. I have a very Buddhist interpretation of the an all pervading life force, that I call god. However, I differ from the Buddhist beliefs and gravitate towards Hindu beliefs, in saying that this life force is a personal force of supreme consciousness, with whom I can forge a personal relationship with. Just like I can forge a relationship with my inner child. I am a part of this whole and also one with this whole, but I have yet to realize the whole.

Now the Indian philosophical systems are highly developed, and these debate we are engaged in right now, have already occurred amongst the Indian philosophers thousands of years ago. They were no strangers to astral realms either. In the end they all agreed on an absolute reality and consciousness, called god. It was not because of a need to replace a vacuum, it was because after exhausting every other possibility, they were left with only one truth - god. Similarly the modern yogis like Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who devised the famous TM technique, offer the same truth of an absolute consciousness, which when attained, the yogi becomes one with the source.

Now, for me there was never a need to have god in my life. I was a hardcore atheist. It just so happened, after opening my mind and truly sitting down and thinking about this universe logically and coherently  and experiencing a sense of interconnectedness though higher thoughts and feelings of love and wisdom, I too like all of the yogi masters, was left with the same truth: God. In many ways god can also be objectively verified through a collection of subjective experiences.

Quotewas speaking of when you said "Your astral consciousness exist independently of your physical body" and then said "The source of consciousness is that interwined/entangled state

Yeah, there is no contradiction here. As I resolve the dualities with the non duality by introducing the concept of realities. In the reality that we share, I am independent of you, simply because I am not you. In the physical reality you are not interconnected. The physical reality is a lot like the Newtonian universe. Everything is separate and modeled as a particle. There is no action at a distance.

The universe is a very bizarre dichotomy of existence. Everything exists with nothing. Have you ever wondered, why there is an existence in the first place? What if there wasn't an existence? Why is it that everthing just is. This question has always perplexed me and given me a headache. But, the simple answer is, everythying and nothing exist at the same time. Everyone is right. You are right that there is no god. The Buddhists are right that there is a life force. The Hindu's are right that there is a supreme consciousness. Each of you are creating your own reality. Your reality is as real as any other reality. The whole universe is an imagination. There is nothing and there is everything all at the same time. As I said - bizarre. There is no right or wrong. There are just infinite realities.

Data:

Not wanting to appear picky, but how can "god" be objectively verified via a collection of subjective experiences. This is a contradiction in terms, surely?

Yours,
Frank

Quote from: FrankData:

Not wanting to appear picky, but how can "god" be objectively verified via a collection of subjective experiences. This is a contradiction in terms, surely?

Yours,
Frank

Well, when we say something has been objectively verified, we usually mean it has been peer reviewed and ascertained to be true. As is the nature of scientific experiments, the experiments are not objectively verified, but subjectively experienced by the experimenter. When the experiment is repeated by peers, the weight of the subjective experiences, becomes an objective truth.

In the early Newtonian model of the universe, it was thought that all objects can be modeled as particles and it's motion and path predicted by the forces acting on it. However, in recent quantum universe, it has been shown that the path of a particle cannot be predicted and how the experimenter can affect results(this is going more into parapsychology)
So, none of these experiences, were truly objective. They were subjective.

Yet, a collection of these subjective experiences, forms an objective and shared truth. I guess we could define an objective truth as a truth can be observed by more than one person. The experience of god, experienced by so many, such as the Yogis, thus can in some way be shown as as an objective proof of god.

"when we say something has been objectively verified, we usually mean it has been peer reviewed"

Err, no we don't. When we say something has been objectively verified this is something more than a mere peer review. A peer review is merely a peer review. Objective verification is something else. From your response I gather you are confusing the ordinary construct of viewpoint with the scientific construct of verification.

Thanks, but I would rather not live than live in a world where objective truths were defined as truths merely on the strength the event in question had been observed by more than one person. I think this is why I chose this particular timeframe. Personally, despite all it's flaws, I still prefer the modern-day "double blind" scientific test to the witch-hunts of the Dark Ages. :)

When you say "yogis" providing some kind of proof of "god" I take it you are referring to some mystical belief construct? In which case, is this just not yet another example of the blind leading the blind?

Yours,
Frank

You can scientifically test religion... there are experiments you can do at home...

But since none pf you will listen to me or read my research, then I guess you'll just have to learn everything the hard way...

Cheers...

Ah, we are getting deeper! I love it ;D

QuoteAgain, necessity. For us to invent the concept of god to fill a vacuum(Again, once I was an advocate of this argument) However, the same logical errors are present as I illuminated above. If God is a necessity or a device of ignorance, then how can so many be immune to it?

Because the concept of "God" is learned, not there when you are born. Religion is passed down from generation from generation. So, when one learns about God, only he can know for sure wether or not he believes.

QuoteYou say because people are more knowledgeable today. I beg to differ. The subject of god is a metaphysical and consciousness one and consciousness still eludes scientists, let alone the masses, who remain oblivious to the most simplest truth of self. What has changed is the social ethos. That is people have become more materialist and hedonistic. It is not an advancement in knowledge as such, rather a shift in our values, for the worse actually. Even still, the belief in god is still universal and transcends cast, creed, sect, gender, nationality,  intellectual denomination. As we have agreed the belief in god is innate.

I do not believe god is innate. I believe the choice to believe is innate. If we took 10 babys, and they grew up with no religous affiliation of any kind, they would naturally think about the possibility of God. It is a very easy concept, and If i had never known about religion or if i grew up in a forest, I could still believe in God. Its all what you choose to believe.

QuoteAgain, however, there is something missing. That is the drive for man to attach meaning. Why does he attach meaning? This ability to communicate by sound, through modulation of vocal chords, is not unique to man. It is present within the 'lower' animals too. How is he inspired to do that? Again, this can be extended to everything to beliefs, to arts, to science and philosophy. What drive man to do any of this?

I think the fact that other mammels leans more towards the evolutionary theory, myself. If your out in a hunting party, you could attach certain sounds to direct your men. I really dont see how hard that is to grasp, Im sure you can google "evolution of language" or something into google, if you wanted.

QuoteNaturally, whenever we discuss the nature of consciousness, language and mental abstraction, imagination, we will always be lead to the same question. What is the source of this inspiration. Is man creating something from nothing, or is he simply connecting to something and recreating it?  As is always the nature of such discussion it will always cause one to explore the laws of causality. Exploring this subject leads to enlightenment. The Zen Buddhists knew this that is why they gave spiritual seekers koans(conundrums)

One could argue that all the blueprints of any concept that could ever exist are in what the phasing model calls "Focus 4". It is there where I believe the "communication between atoms" takes place, as its sort of a big consciousness-network. So we draw the concept in our minds within the astral, and our brain interprets this into our body, and we put down what we created on paper. I really dont feel like writing alot, so here is some Frank for you:
The simple fact is, that the physical is what is known as a source/manifest system. The source of all individual actions in consciousness, in terms of the Phasing model, is Focus 2. The manifest actions come about within Focus 1. It gets a little more complex with group actions as Focus 3 starts coming into play to an extent and the ultimate source, or the blueprints of all actions in consciousness within our system is Focus 4. But that is all quite complex, and people don't need to understand it all before they can make a start.

So to begin, people who were attempting to align their thinking to the Phasing model of consciousness, if they would simply think of individual actions (for now) and think of the source as being Focus 2, and the actions of which are manifest within Focus 1.

The Void can be thought of as a blank sheet of paper. Instead of writing or drawing on it, you superimpose your thoughts on it. The Void has no prejudices at all, it has no real "life of its own" so to speak. So whatever thoughts you superimpose on it will become manifest in the moment. Thinking about it, a modern-day term is long overdue. We can't keep calling it the Void and 3D Blackness, as these terms fall way short, IMO. Plus, my pet term of "Wishing Well" is just way too girlie. So we need a nice macho name for it, LOL.

Anyhow, the best way of perceiving the images presented is to create some kind of video screen. Doing this creates an overall element of being in control; as you can "stand back" from it all, and watch events being played on a screen rather than being immersed in them. If events come about that you don't like, then it becomes a simple matter of "switching channels" on your "remote".

Unfortunately, in the past, people did not have this kind of handy visualisation example, as there were no tellys, of course. So they ended up being immersed in all kinds of superstitious mumbo-jumbo. Once you get embroiled, it is extremely difficult to extricate yourself from the circumstances of it.

Note: a number of times I have experimented with allowing circumstances to get very out of control by generating lots of fear, for example. That was actually quite a difficult thing for me to do as I kept laughing. But once I got myself being chased by a few giant tigers that seemed to do the trick, lol. It is surprising, actually, how you can readily get yourself "caught" in circumstances where you appear "trapped" and you can't get out of it!

Give it a go yourself, just for the experience, and you'll see what I mean. But I would stress to anyone else reading this, you need to be fully comfortable in your own mind before playing around in this way, as it can be very unsettling *if* you are not entirely confident about what you are doing. But I do suggest people practice letting circumstances get "out of control" so it gives them an idea of where all the talk of devils and demons came from, lol.

But, as I say, the very best way of protecting yourself from becoming immersed in the circumstances is to bring them up "on screen" as it were.

All we are basically doing here is having a highly controlled "lucid dream" where absolutely every element of our dreamscape is under our control. The Void is part of F2oC, in a manner of speaking, and this is also the area of consciousness where most people do their dreaming. You can think of an ordinary dream as the action of entering the Void, if you like, but with no real degree of conscious control. This is where people are just wandering about and releasing a huge mix of thoughts and feelings and it's all becoming manifest all around them, moment by moment, as they do so.

Once you start getting an understanding of the Void, great chunks of knowledge starts falling into place and you begin realising how our system is constructed. Well, that is what happened with me.

The Void can be thought of as raw consciousness if you like. You will no-doubt have heard me talk about "actions in consciousness". Well, what we perceive as "Void" is, in fact, raw consciousness, for want of a better term. Or you might think of it as the ultimate Base Material from which everything is ultimately constructed.

Void has many uses. For example, it holds all manner of individual and group constructs. One of the most popular actions it performs is that of memory, particularly what we call our short-term memory. When we want to remember something we are merely impressing those thoughts within a personal section of Void. You can also "travel" within areas of the void you have set aside for individual use, for example. All your core belief constructs are held there. You can also manifest the objective actions of belief constructs such as "astral travel". Or whatever else takes your fancy: fighting with devils and demons, slaying dragons, and all manner of stuff. You can chat to "god" or to the "devil" or to any construct you happen to subscribe to. There are no limits. If you want to bring these constructs into objective reality you can. As I say, there are no ultimate limits. The only "limits" are the ones we place on ourselves for the purposes of our experience.

One handy metaphor I use for how Void is set up, is it's like a computer and computer memory. Some of the memory is taken up by the actual system, which goes to ultimately objectively displaying information on a screen (this is your physical life). Then you have a spare section of memory that can be used for ad-hoc tasks (this is what we perceive as Void). Then, say, you had a top-section of memory that was connected to everyone else's top-section of memory that formed a part of memory that was common to all. In this top section was held all manner of group constructs, or group actions in consciousness. The details of all these actions are available to you, and you can choose which of them to "bring into" your personal area for ultimate manifestation on the screen, i.e. into your physical reality.

The memory part taken up by the system, so to speak, are your personal areas where you hold all manner of information about actions in consciousness pertaining to your own self; the workings of your own physical body, your beliefs, your memory, your personality traits, habits, likes and dislikes, and so on. All these private actions-in-consciousness are held in a "used" or "reserved" section of Void that pertains to you as a physical individual, and this used area opens out into an unused area, or consciousness "workspace" if you like.

In its entirety, that is all Focus 2 of consciousness.

The personal, unused area opens out into a group area. When religious types, particularly new-age religious subscribers talk about all of us "being one". Essentially, they are talking about our group connection that "begins" at Focus 3 of consciousness. We are not "all one" as we retain our individuality throughout. But we are not as disconnected as it would appear in our physical lives either. Again, I think of it in computer terms. If I connect my computer to the Internet, I still retain the individuality of my machine! Even though I can now "dip into" the areas of group computer memory that have been made available for that purpose. In doing so, I may choose to download certain information and store it in an area of memory on my machine for private use.

We human beings are remarkably similar. Both you and I are individuals, but we are connected to a variety of group constructs that have been made available for our group use. Ultimately, we can choose to "download" this information and bring it into our physical manifestation or not. With most people, however, and that includes you and I, this process is largely automatic as it is highly influenced by peer-group behaviour, together with other social factors.

Changing your future reality, then, is all a question of generating new probable actions, rather than continuing with existing actions or subscribing to other group actions. In a sense, you begin to "pave your own way" by creating your own probable actions within your blank workspace. Which is the place mystics call the Void.

Note: any action generated within F2oC that has not been manifest into F1oC is known as a probable action.

Then you allow these probable actions to bleed into your physical life. Which sounds real easy in theory, but in practice you are battling against all the deeply held, long-standing belief constructs that you already hold in your individual "system" areas. These beliefs are highly influencing of your perception. The intransigent nature of these actions unfortunately tends to override anything you try and put in their place. But once you know about how the system works, together with what factors influence what, you can then form a kind of "action plan" that allows you to make gradual inroads into yourself.

The Void continues on and forms the Transition Area. This is where we "go to" when we die, or rather, permanently disengage physical focus. This is the area mystics generally call the Afterlife. All it is, is a section of Void we have reserved for our particular use of engaging transition back into subjective reality. This, in terms of the Phasing Model, is Focus 3. And the subjective reality we eventually "go back" to is Focus 4.

And that completes the model of our system.

As I have said before, these Focuses are NOT places! They are focuses of attention. We already "occupy" these areas. They are of our own mind, so to speak. They are not, in any way, separate from ourselves. They ARE ourselves, but in a wider sense. It's just that there are parts of ourselves that we "occupy" as a singular construct and there are parts of ourselves that we occupy as a group construct. So when you find yourself within the 3D Blackness, you are not at some separate place. You are still within your own mind. All that has changed is your focus of attention.

Okay, well, that's a summary as brief as I can make it. Problem is the subject of reality creation and the interaction between F2 and F1 of consciousness is a complex topic. In other words, it's not something you can readily explain within the boundaries of a post to a thread. But I hope I've given you a good overview of the process so you can have a "play".

QuoteEvolution is not an answer. It's as supernatural as the belief in god, and in my opinion, illogical. To really sum up evolution, it is like a blind person with amnesia, thrown in the middle of nowhere, thousands of miles from his home, and then somehow finding his way back to his home.

I would say its more like a blind person with amnesia, thrown in the middle of nowhere, thousands of miles from his home, and then having to develop new skills to survive.

QuoteJust like imagination is innate to the human being. Order and complexity is innate to the universe. Again, there is a causality(the relationship between cause and effect) that causes chaos to become order. For chaos to become order, there would need to be an intelligence to assemble the order, otherwise, we are left with an illogicality of something coming out of nothing.

We know intelligence is a phenomena of this universe, thus it is only logical, to say  that intelligence is a part of the universe and is an inherent property of nature.

This is the real reason why god is such a universal belief. It makes sense.

Im sorry, im not too versed in such a philosophical use of words, but il try to decipher it ;) I guess what your trying to say is that God is the assembler of the chaos? What would you say if i told you that it is US who assembles the chaos?

QuoteIf thought came from within ourselves, and I am not sure how you define "self" but presume you were defining self as the human brain. Then presume that consciousness/thought was a para-physical phenomena. Then, it begs to question, how can the physical and limited human brain, produce the unlimited. I think this is perhaps one of the strongest argument for the existence of consciousness as a disembodied phenomena.

If you define the self, as your 'soul' Then what exactly is the soul? Does the soul exist beyond your body or does your body create the soul?

I define self as consciousness. Your body is an aspect if yourself. The brain is just what I use to interpret my reality. The brain does not produce anything. It is your consciousness that produces thought, and sends it to your brain. It is not disembodied, it is as much a part of you as your body.

QuoteYou're assuming that something was built.

Surely you dont believe in infinity? Something was built, the mere fact that we are here shows it.

QuoteNo, I am not talking about morally correct. Rather I am drawing upon experience of others in the astrals with different astral planes and astral beings. And how love and compassion are possessed by the higher beings. However, this is based on here say, and is a fragile argument, unless you can relate to the experiences or exercise faith in others here who report this. I can say this however, what makes you feel good - love or fear?

It might be true that the higher beings of the astral consciousness possess these things, but it does not mean that they are necesserily "Good" or "Bad" Those things are a human created ideas.

QuoteThere is a way to prove that the universe is everything. Perhaps, your definition of god is different from mine. As for your proof, I will play the devil's advocate here, how do you know your consciousness was there. You could have just as easily imagined it.

That is exactly what I am saying. You created that picture in a different focus of awareness. This is a huge section of the astral reserved just for you, and it is where we dream. All your brain did was interpret the image,  hence imagination.

QuoteA much better proof of the existence of the universe as an absolute, is a logical one, that is that is all things in the universe are effects, then there is a primordial cause. If there are parts of something, then there must be a whole too from where the parts came from. Another effective proof, is scientific theories of super strings and GUT(grand unified theory) these phenomena are very subtle. An extremely compelling proof is the existence of the phenomena of quantum entanglement.

Our physical universe is just 1 aspect of our reality. The primordial cause was US. WE created this physical universe, and we are all connected on a different focus of awereness. That is where you get the phenomenon that 2 atoms can react to each other instantly, no matter the distance.

We tend to think of things in time. But what is time? A measurement of change. It is a physical phenomena and is no part of any differnent level of awareness. We like to say "well who STARTED the big bang?" Il say "It was us!" Then youll say "Then who started US?" And il say "We never were started."

QuoteI do not share this belief, because it seems illogical to me. It calls on the same fallacy of nothing creating something. This is what I meant by lower energetic consciousness creating higher energetic consciousness. You are not creating an astral self, in my humble opinion. You are connecting to your astral self.

You are getting so close ;) You dont "connect" to anything. You simply become more AWARE of other areas you arent normally aware of.

QuoteThis is what Yoga is, yoga means to link or connect. You can only do that because your astral self exists in the astral plane and always has. You are simply shifting awareness to a higher level of consciousness and thus shifting your reality.

Again, there is no linking or connecting. The whole concept of "linking" or "connecting" connotates that there are 2 different aspects.("Link" from your physical body to your Astral) There is only 1, and ll you are doing is becoming more AWARE of other aspects. You are totally correct when you say your are simply shifting awareness. But you dont "link" anything. You are contradicting yourself ;D

QuoteAt the higher levels of reality you have a greater field of vision, the parts begin to form smaller wholes, and at the highest, you have highest field of vision, this is when all is whole. This is when you and I are no longer independent of each other. But one with each other. This is when you are absolute consciousness. That is the source. That is the god that I know.

You keep using words like "Higher" and "Link" which connotate direction. It is not "higher" at all, but intertwined. All you have to do, just like you said, is shift your awareness. See Franks Phasing - What is it and how can I do it thread. And we are NEVER independent of each other, we could talk telepathically right now if we both had developed the ability.

QuoteSimilarly, it is my thought, that you exist multidimensionally and universally. There is no past, present or future. You are leading all your lives at once. You see the god I believe in, is a supreme soul(the whole) that has split into souls, and the souls have split into minds(egos)  Just like you can split into the astral. It's not you having an astral experience; it's your astral having a physical experience. And it is your higher self having an astral experience and god having all the experiences.

Haha, what would the use of living multiple lives at once be if you are not aware of them all? Why dont we simply do one after another so we can remember what we learned with ALL of them, lol. You are getting something with the existing multidimensionally part. I share that belief, but to live md.'ly, we need to be AWARE of these seperate dimensions, otherwise, whats the point? These dimensions are what the phasing model calls "Focus Levels"[/quote]

QuoteSuch is the nature of consciousness. God experiences through us.

In order to have an experiance, it must be created. If god has already created these experiances why would he want to experiance them again? This is why i hate getting into these arguments, they are so circular, lol.

QuoteI too believe in non-dualism, except with a rationalist twist. I believe duality and non duality co-exist in the same universe and separated by levels of dualistic realities. I am separate from you in dualistic reality, but one with you in non dualistic reality. In non dualistic reality, you don't exist as entangled/intertwined either, you exist as one. The state of entanglement is also a dualistic reality.

Agreed, our beliefs are pretty similar. But i call your dualistic reality physical and your non dualistic reality focus 4. There is also 2, where we dream and for the most part OBE to, and 3, where "dead" people reside along with heaven, hell, allah, etc.. etc..

QuoteYou should be very careful when you say we are all intertwined or one. Someone, could quite easily challenge you on that and falsify you. What you really should be saying we are all intertwined on a more profound level of reality. I see so many spiritual people make this mistake. It undermines their credibility.

We ARE all connected on a more profound level. But we are aware of this level as well, however small of an awareness this is. And for people "falsifying me" haha, im not too worried about that. People can believe whatever they want. Im not looking for credibility, we all arrive at the same place anyhow.

QuoteYes, I agree, there is only one self. However, I am not sure your definition of self is the same as mine. I think your definition of self is an individual soul. This calls on the arguments of how parts can exist without a whole and how were the parts created. While my definition of self is as as unified whole. I have a very Buddhist interpretation of the an all pervading life force, that I call god. However, I differ from the Buddhist beliefs and gravitate towards Hindu beliefs, in saying that this life force is a personal force of supreme consciousness, with whom I can forge a personal relationship with. Just like I can forge a relationship with my inner child. I am a part of this whole and also one with this whole, but I have yet to realize the whole.

The "Force of supreme consciousness" is indeed an aspect of yourself, but you have to realize that your consciousness created him, he did not create you.

QuoteNow the Indian philosophical systems are highly developed, and these debate we are engaged in right now, have already occurred amongst the Indian philosophers thousands of years ago. They were no strangers to astral realms either. In the end they all agreed on an absolute reality and consciousness, called god. It was not because of a need to replace a vacuum, it was because after exhausting every other possibility, they were left with only one truth - god. Similarly the modern yogis like Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who devised the famous TM technique, offer the same truth of an absolute consciousness, which when attained, the yogi becomes one with the source.

You have to realize that these indian philosophers were merely interpreting what they experienced into terms and ideas they could comprehend at the time. If they were alive today I have a feeling that they would have very different beliefs. You also have to realize that most of there "astral experiances" were within F2oC, where there thoughts guided what they saw, not the other way around. Any "teachers" and "guides" they could have learned from were possibly aspects of themselves telling there consciousness "what it wanted to hear" so to say. So it is perfectly logical to come to an agreement on what happened when it was YOU that created it.

QuoteNow, for me there was never a need to have god in my life. I was a hardcore atheist. It just so happened, after opening my mind and truly sitting down and thinking about this universe logically and coherently  and experiencing a sense of interconnectedness though higher thoughts and feelings of love and wisdom, I too like all of the yogi masters, was left with the same truth: God. In many ways god can also be objectively verified through a collection of subjective experiences.

Quotewas speaking of when you said "Your astral consciousness exist independently of your physical body" and then said "The source of consciousness is that interwined/entangled state

Yeah, there is no contradiction here. As I resolve the dualities with the non duality by introducing the concept of realities. In the reality that we share, I am independent of you, simply because I am not you. In the physical reality you are not interconnected. The physical reality is a lot like the Newtonian universe. Everything is separate and modeled as a particle. There is no action at a distance.

The universe is a very bizarre dichotomy of existence. Everything exists with nothing. Have you ever wondered, why there is an existence in the first place? What if there wasn't an existence? Why is it that everthing just is. This question has always perplexed me and given me a headache. But, the simple answer is, everythying and nothing exist at the same time. Everyone is right. You are right that there is no god. The Buddhists are right that there is a life force. The Hindu's are right that there is a supreme consciousness. Each of you are creating your own reality. Your reality is as real as any other reality. The whole universe is an imagination. There is nothing and there is everything all at the same time. As I said - bizarre. There is no right or wrong. There are just infinite realities.

I regret to say that I am not very skilled at getting my thoughts down on paper but I do think that you are on the right path. We are all creating our own reality, not some "God". The universe is but a part of a whole, an aspect that we chose to create for some reason or another. I would suggest you go read up on the Franks phasing model. I read Monroes books and thats what started my whole path down this road. The phasing model is one that answers so many questions, but creates many more. And i hope to investigate these once I can just get out of my body, hehe.

wow, thats a long reply ;D

Cheers,

Ben

Quote from: data

Quote from: FrankData:

Not wanting to appear picky, but how can "god" be objectively verified via a collection of subjective experiences. This is a contradiction in terms, surely?

Yours,
Frank

Well, when we say something has been objectively verified, we usually mean it has been peer reviewed and ascertained to be true. As is the nature of scientific experiments, the experiments are not objectively verified, but subjectively experienced by the experimenter. When the experiment is repeated by peers, the weight of the subjective experiences, becomes an objective truth.

In the early Newtonian model of the universe, it was thought that all objects can be modeled as particles and it's motion and path predicted by the forces acting on it. However, in recent quantum universe, it has been shown that the path of a particle cannot be predicted and how the experimenter can affect results(this is going more into parapsychology)
So, none of these experiences, were truly objective. They were subjective.

Yet, a collection of these subjective experiences, forms an objective and shared truth. I guess we could define an objective truth as a truth can be observed by more than one person. The experience of god, experienced by so many, such as the Yogis, thus can in some way be shown as as an objective proof of god.

If all is indeed subjective, then an objective truth would be impossible. If 20,000 people rolled a dice 3 times and it landed on a flat surface every time, would it be considered objective truth that the dice could never land on one of its edges? Well guess what, it can ;)

Total objective truth is impossible.

And Frank is right, what the yogis could have called "God" could merely have been there own creation of what they believe "God" to be. How would you answer say, a Catholic Saint who experianced a different God? Its so simple, i dont understand how most people dont look at the phasing model and say "duh!"

Quote from: Frank"when we say something has been objectively verified, we usually mean it has been peer reviewed"

QuoteErr, no we don't. When we say something has been objectively verified this is something more than a mere peer review. A peer review is merely a peer review. Objective verification is something else. From your response I gather you are confusing the ordinary construct of viewpoint with the scientific construct of verification.

As as the case with all scientific theories and experimentation, none of them are absolute objective truths, they are all beliefs, and only true till further observations have been made. This is why all scientific studies today are subject to peer review. Which really means, how many of the authority figures agree. This is why para-psychological studies into supernatural phenomena, such as astral projection, have not been approved by mainstream scientists.  Even though significant empirical evidence has been yielded.

As reality is entirely subjective. All experiences are subjective. When we share experiences, we arrive at an objective experience. What this really means is that the truth can be shared. This is what objective truths are called. This is how the definition works.

QuoteThanks, but I would rather not live than live in a world where objective truths were defined as truths merely on the strength the event in question had been observed by more than one person.

No offense, but too bad. As is the nature of the world, 'truth' is almost always based on shared truths. As is with social psychology, and I am sure you've heard the saying 'If you tell a lie often enough, it becomes a truth' that is what most social truths are based on . You will always have to exercise faith in whether what you experience or learn is true or not. It is a useful and tricky skill to acquire.

QuoteWhen you say "yogis" providing some kind of proof of "god" I take it you are referring to some mystical belief construct? In which case, is this just not yet another example of the blind leading the blind?

Well, you are telling us of astral realms and other beings. To many, you are equally as blind. However, you share an objective truth with the yogis, that is of astral worlds, astral projection. If they're blind, then it follows, you are blind too.

Sometimes, we have to exercise faith in what some are telling us. Now, with all due respect to you, I exercise more faith in the yogis than I do in you. That is because the yogic system is a highly developed system that has endured since ancient times, and is based on scientific and logical principles. Almost 95% of current new-age belief is entirely based on the ancient yogic systems.

Now, if you are a proponent of this system, as you are because of your claims of astral worlds, kundalini energy, chakras, and phasing(etc) then you really cannot call the yogis blind, without contradicing yourself. As I was saying to Ben, there is nothing new under the sun in science. What is considered 'modern' quantum physics today, was being discussed amongst philosophers thousands of years ago. One such example is of Schrodinger and Heisenberg's debate over the nature of the particle and wave duality occurring in known history more than a Milena ago. So, as I said, it is a very proven and developed system.

Further more, there are many seemingly credible people who report what the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi described as the states of consciousness and his techniques have been investigated by scientists. One of those states were absolute consciousness. This is what monists like myself, know to be god.

This remind me of a class that I took in university 3 years ago. The course was Science and Religion and it was really interesting since they were bringing many different approaches between science and religion; the two extremes were scientific materialism and biblical literalism. The law of nature kind of approach is related to the Western principle that everything can be explain objectively ''outside'' of men; everything is there and we have to discover ''the laws'' with the help of science. This means that this ''law of nature'' is responsible for who we are and scientist will relate this to DNA, chemical reactions etc... This law of nature thing was closely associated with the ''enlightenment'' period of ''reason''. It is this extremist perspective that brought what is scientific materialism today. But it is a foolish thing to try to explain everything ''objectively''; humans are being the subjective observer of what they are trying to explain.....

Many today are not using a black and white approach and this is the reason why we can observe the scientific field taking many cultural and religious metaphors in their hypothesis  and religions uses science to help them also. Anyway, the mistake is that many still uses this black and white perspective; science have done it with their paranoia for objectivity and other people have transformed some metaphors into dogmatic literalism....

Take care,

Yes, this is becoming very deep and it is certainly very interesting. What is very interesting, I have found, that we have found a commonality in our beliefs. In fact, our beliefs of self and the universe are nearly the same, only our interpretations are differing and some of the semantics. This why it is very important any debate is allowed to follow it's natural course, as it always leads to some understanding and growth in our ideas.

QuoteBecause the concept of "God" is learned, not there when you are born. Religion is passed down from generation from generation. So, when one learns about God, only he can know for sure wether or not he believes.

This still does not address the cause of a belief in god.

Quotedo not believe god is innate. I believe the choice to believe is innate. If we took 10 babys, and they grew up with no religous affiliation of any kind, they would naturally think about the possibility of God. It is a very easy concept, and If i had never known about religion or if i grew up in a forest, I could still believe in God. Its all what you choose to believe

Again, why do we choose to believe in god? What is the cause?

QuoteI think the fact that other mammels leans more towards the evolutionary theory, myself. If your out in a hunting party, you could attach certain sounds to direct your men. I really dont see how hard that is to grasp, Im sure you can google "evolution of language" or something into google, if you wanted.

Why would mammals do that? Where does the spark of intelligence come from? Let's consider more complex behavior, such as empathy and altruism. Why do we do that?

I guess the greatest proof of being born with innate knowledge is the demonstrable act of a new born animal/human knowing to suckle on their mothers nipple to drink milk. Consider, two twins  born from the same mother womb, yet are also very different from each other and have different interests. Why?

What this shows that imagination, knowledge and inspiration are independent of conditioning, physical limitations and environmental stimulus. It shows quite effectively that imagination/inspiration/creativity has a para-physical source. This would explain why there are beliefs, languages and feeling of empathy. It is not the physical that creates consciousness, it is consciousness that creates the physical. Consciousness is the source.

QuoteOne could argue that all the blueprints of any concept that could ever exist are in what the phasing model calls "Focus 4". It is there where I believe the "communication between atoms" takes place, as its sort of a big consciousness-network. So we draw the concept in our minds within the astral, and our brain interprets this into our body, and we put down what we created on paper. I really dont feel like writing alot, so here is some Frank for you

Well, I am saying pretty the same to you. However, I am not going to go into this Focus business(lol) for me that just clouds something very simple. As you said correctly, it is the brain that interprets the phenomena of the mind. However, your mind is not singular, there are many subtle energetic minds, before the physical mind. Again, absolute mind(highest mind) is the source of all thought.

QuoteI would say its more like a blind person with amnesia, thrown in the middle of nowhere, thousands of miles from his home, and then having to develop new skills to survive.

I think you are missing the point. What I am saying, that the theory of evolution by random chance of chaos forming into a complex order, is a lot like a blind person with Amnesia making his way to his home. In other words it's a fallacy. The fact that it is already inherent within nature to create order, supposes an intelligence/awareness of nature. In other words the man isn't blind and is being lead to his home by unconscious direction. The man is simply the emergent property of aggregating constituent particles. It thus must be true that unconscious direction is also a part of particles.

QuoteWhat would you say if i told you that it is US who assembles the chaos?

I would say who assembled us?

QuoteI define self as consciousness. Your body is an aspect if yourself. The brain is just what I use to interpret my reality. The brain does not produce anything. It is your consciousness that produces thought, and sends it to your brain. It is not disembodied, it is as much a part of you as your body.

What is it, when it does not have a body? You body is impermanent.

QuoteSurely you dont believe in infinity? Something was built, the mere fact that we are here shows it.

No, it doesn't show that anything was built. All it shows is that we are here. This could be a dream for all we know

QuoteIt might be true that the higher beings of the astral consciousness possess these things, but it does not mean that they are necesserily "Good" or "Bad" Those things are a human created ideas.

Then, does it not follow, that love is higher than fear?  You have not answered my question. Do you want love or fear?

QuoteThat is exactly what I am saying. You created that picture in a different focus of awareness. This is a huge section of the astral reserved just for you, and it is where we dream. All your brain did was interpret the image, hence imagination.

You offered proof for the intertwined/entangled state as being able to imagine a location. However, this could easily just be your imagination. Suppose you were a skeptic, would you accept this proof?

QuoteOur physical universe is just 1 aspect of our reality. The primordial cause was US. WE created this physical universe, and we are all connected on a different focus of awereness. That is where you get the phenomenon that 2 atoms can react to each other instantly, no matter the distance.

We tend to think of things in time. But what is time? A measurement of change. It is a physical phenomena and is no part of any differnent level of awareness. We like to say "well who STARTED the big bang?" Il say "It was us!" Then youll say "Then who started US?" And il say "We never were started."

What is your definition of 'US' ?

QuoteYou are getting so close You dont "connect" to anything. You simply become more AWARE of other areas you arent normally aware of.

We are saying exactly the same thing, it is only the semantics of "connecting" that makes you think it is different. I will show you it means exactly the same thing. In fact yoga is called remembrance. That is remembering your higher personalities.

QuoteAgain, there is no linking or connecting. The whole concept of "linking" or "connecting" connotates that there are 2 different aspects.("Link" from your physical body to your Astral) There is only 1, and ll you are doing is becoming more AWARE of other aspects. You are totally correct when you say your are simply shifting awareness. But you dont "link" anything. You are contradicting yourself ;D

No, I am definitely not contradicting myself. What I am doing is giving you a reality check. You continue to say we exist as one and that all we are doing are simply shifting awareness. No you don't. That is not your reality. At this very moment in time you are the physical dualistic self. You exist as a separate part. You are subject to the laws of physics. If you want a dramatic demonstration of this, then jump of a cliff and see if you can fly.

If you did that is could have lead to the death of your physical self. Yet your astral self still exists. Your physical self doesn't. Now we have it demonstrated that Your astral self  IS separate from your physical self. As it does not need a physical to exist. Nor does your astral self exist in your physical self. Your physical cannot support your astral self. Simply because your astral self exists in a higher vibratory state.

When, you the physical self become aware of your astral self or higher self, you are connecting to them, but simultaneously your physical self retains it's awareness. This is because your physical exists independent of the astral. This is why retaining memories of the astral is difficult(what Bruce calls shadow memories) as your physical did not experience them. This is also why you have no recollection of what your astral self was doing the moment before. Bruce likens this to taking over your astral body.

To further explain this. I refer you to a story in Hindu epic Ramayana. When Rama was a young adult in school, his teacher teaches him about the egos, the different kinds of minds and the chakras. To demonstrate this to Rama, both Rama and the teacher project outside of their body and their astrals bodies hover just above the class overseeing it. Now, here is what is interesting. The physical self of Rama and teacher were wide awake and interacting as normal. Then the astral self of the teacher turns to Rama's astral self and says(rather disdainfully) "Look at that man(his physical self) He thinks he is a teacher. He think he knows everything. He is an ego" clearly differentiating the physical self from the astral self.

All your egos are separate from each other. Each has it's own personality. Each is unique.

QuoteHaha, what would the use of living multiple lives at once be if you are not aware of them all? Why dont we simply do one after another so we can remember what we learned with ALL of them, lol. You are getting something with the existing multidimensionally part. I share that belief, but to live md.'ly, we need to be AWARE of these seperate dimensions, otherwise, whats the point? These dimensions are what the phasing model calls "Focus Levels"

The same use that having an astral self and not being aware of it serves. That is to have experiences and to live our other possibilities. To be everywhere at once. Everytime you make a choice between two A and B, if you chose A, then in another universe you chose B. This the principles behind quantum theory, all events are  probabilities, and all probabilities exist super-positioned in the non manifest state. Now, suppose after choosing A, you imagined what it would have been like to choose B, the possibility you imagine, will simply be your consciousness splitting to the universe in which you chose B.

What is the purpose of this all. So you can have an imagination and through your imagination and dreams you live out other possibilities. It is so you can have a fully multidimensional existence.

QuoteIn order to have an experiance, it must be created. If god has already created these experiances why would he want to experiance them again? This is why i hate getting into these arguments, they are so circular, lol.

No, God has not already created these experiences. God is experiencing his infinite creation and the infinite possibilities through the infinite souls. In other words the entire universe is the imagination of god. And we are his imaginings. Just like we imagine and create from those imaginations. God imagines us and creates through his imagination. We are a microcosm of god. As you said, there is only one self. Well, there's your god.

QuoteThe "Force of supreme consciousness" is indeed an aspect of yourself, but you have to realize that your consciousness created him, he did not create you.

Again, when did I say there was a creation?

QuoteYou have to realize that these indian philosophers were merely interpreting what they experienced into terms and ideas they could comprehend at the time. If they were alive today I have a feeling that they would have very different beliefs. You also have to realize that most of there "astral experiances" were within F2oC, where there thoughts guided what they saw, not the other way around. Any "teachers" and "guides" they could have learned from were possibly aspects of themselves telling there consciousness "what it wanted to hear" so to say. So it is perfectly logical to come to an agreement on what happened when it was YOU that created it.

This is an argument from ignorance and you are making an blind assumption that Indian philosophers had lesser understanding than meta-physicians or philosophers today. Have you actually read Indian philosophy? Finally, it really beats me, on how would you know what kind of astral experiences they were having.

I have read Indian philosophy. As I was telling Frank, I can personally vouch for how sophisticated and highly developed it is. It is easily the most advanced philosophical system in the world today.Hence, why it my favorite. You do know more than 95% of the new-age belief system and theosophy is based on Indian philosophy. Everything from auras, chakras, kundalini, yoga(hahta, kriya, raja) meditation, prana, tantra, psychic abilities, mantras, crystals, astrology, sacred geometry, yantras, alchemy, astral/mental/emotional planes, karamic law.

In fact a lot of quantum physics and relativity is based on Indian philosophy.As I was saying Indian philosophical systems are based on very precise system of science and logic and highly developed and sophisticated, especially in the nature of space, time, mind and soul and ethics. A lot of intellectuals, especially scientists, gravitate towards Indian philosophy, such as Erwin Schrodinger, Nicole Tesla.

I recommend you read some of the philosophical texts from India. You will see what I am saying. If you are serious about meditation then do yoga. Patanjali's Yoga sutras(available free online) are the most complete system on meditation and the nature of mind, body and soul. The Upanishads are very rich philosophical texts. The Bhagvad Gita is a spiritual classic. These systems are unlike modern new-age spiritual systems. They are exact sciences and meant for serious intellectuals.  The Indian consciousness sciences are highly developed. In modern times we have not even begun to explore consciousness in as much depth as the Indians did.

Here is some further background on Indian philosophy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_philosophy

An excerpt: Indian philosophy is perhaps the most comparable to Western philosophy. For instance, the ancient Nyaya  school of Hindu philosophy explores logic  as some modern Analytic philosophers do; similarly the school of Carvaka was openly atheistical and empirical/

QuoteThis still does not address the cause of a belief in god.

Sorry, I thought i had established that. When you learn about the whole concept of God, you either believe or you dont. As for how the concept came about, it ws merely man trying to interpret what he saw in terms he could understand.

QuoteAgain, why do we choose to believe in god? What is the cause?

Some choose to believe because its all they know, some are forced. Some choose of there own accord because they want to believe in heaven. Why do you believe in God?

QuoteWhy would mammals do that? Where does the spark of intelligence come from? Let's consider more complex behavior, such as empathy and altruism. Why do we do that?

The "spark of intelligence" could be a simple mutation of dna that found its way into the gene pool. as for the behavior you mentioned, we are able to think in abstract thoughts, meaning, we can think about what it would be like to be in a poor mans shoes, and we cn come to the conclusion that it would be a very bad time. So we put some money in his cup.

QuoteI guess the greatest proof of being born with innate knowledge is the demonstrable act of a new born animal/human knowing to suckle on their mothers nipple to drink milk. Consider, two twins  born from the same mother womb, yet are also very different from each other and have different interests. Why?

They have different experiances. Beliefs are shaped, LARGELY from your experiances. If one twin goes through a car crash and almost dies, sees God, or whatever, he is DEF. going to have a different set of belief constructs than his twin brother.

QuoteWhat this shows that imagination, knowledge and inspiration are independent of conditioning, physical limitations and environmental stimulus. It shows quite effectively that imagination/inspiration/creativity has a para-physical source. This would explain why there are beliefs, languages and feeling of empathy. It is not the physical that creates consciousness, it is consciousness that creates the physical. Consciousness is the source.

You are correct. The physical is nothing but an "end result". It is what you choose to "download" into the physical from Focus 2 (your imagination) that shapes what you do.

QuoteWell, I am saying pretty the same to you. However, I am not going to go into this Focus business(lol) for me that just clouds something very simple. As you said correctly, it is the brain that interprets the phenomena of the mind. However, your mind is not singular, there are many subtle energetic minds, before the physical mind. Again, absolute mind(highest mind) is the source of all thought.

Au contraire, imo the focus model makes everything SO SIMPLE.

QuoteI think you are missing the point. What I am saying, that the theory of evolution by random chance of chaos forming into a complex order, is a lot like a blind person with Amnesia making his way to his home. In other words it's a fallacy. The fact that it is already inherent within nature to create order, supposes an intelligence/awareness of nature. In other words the man isn't blind and is being lead to his home by unconscious direction. The man is simply the emergent property of aggregating constituent particles. It thus must be true that unconscious direction is also a part of particles.

There is random chance in everything we do. So why does it being in nature have to be any different? And i dont subscribe to the whole chaos/order construct. All that happens in evolution is 1 thing is born with a certain aspect that makes it better than others, and the trait is passed down. Our mind creates the order. Its a building block progress: our consciousness was not created in a day.

QuoteI would say who assembled us?

Assembled connotates time. Time is a physical construct. We were never assembled. Our human brains cant really comprehend this, but lets just say that time, like all physical constructs, doesnt really have any place in other Focuses of Consciousness. Everything is, and isnt at the same instant. We humans think much too linear. "Beginnings" and "Ends" are all physical veils we have created.

QuoteWhat is it, when it does not have a body? You body is impermanent.

Correct, we are only here for a short amount of time. Otherwise, you are but a point of consciousness. Like time, matter and space are physical constructs we choose to create for our own experiance. We lose all this when we go to F4oC.

QuoteNo, it doesn't show that anything was built. All it shows is that we are here. This could be a dream for all we know

Even if it were a dream, whos dream would it be? The dream had to be constructed somehow. When you dream at night, all you are doing is tuning into your subconsious and letting it reign free.

QuoteThen, does it not follow, that love is higher than fear?  You have not answered my question. Do you want love or fear?

Want is again, a physical construct. Higher is a physical construct. Love is different from fear. But this does not mean "Good" or "Bad". These things are in the eye of the beholder.

QuoteYou offered proof for the intertwined/entangled state as being able to imagine a location. However, this could easily just be your imagination. Suppose you were a skeptic, would you accept this proof?

Your imagination IS a different Focus of Consciousness. What do you think you do when you imagine? I think the reason you dont accept it as proof is you dont understand the terms. Frank:
So to begin, people who were attempting to align their thinking to the Phasing model of consciousness, if they would simply think of individual actions (for now) and think of the source as being Focus 2, and the actions of which are manifest within Focus 1.

The Void can be thought of as a blank sheet of paper. Instead of writing or drawing on it, you superimpose your thoughts on it. The Void has no prejudices at all, it has no real "life of its own" so to speak. So whatever thoughts you superimpose on it will become manifest in the moment. Thinking about it, a modern-day term is long overdue. We can't keep calling it the Void and 3D Blackness, as these terms fall way short, IMO. Plus, my pet term of "Wishing Well" is just way too girlie. So we need a nice macho name for it, LOL.


So all your imagination is, is your brain interpreting the thoughts that you imposed onto your personal section of F2oC.

QuoteWhat is your definition of 'US' ?

Every "Point of consciousness", some call them "Souls".

QuoteNo, I am definitely not contradicting myself. What I am doing is giving you a reality check. You continue to say we exist as one and that all we are doing are simply shifting awareness. No you don't. That is not your reality. At this very moment in time you are the physical dualistic self. You exist as a separate part. You are subject to the laws of physics. If you want a dramatic demonstration of this, then jump of a cliff and see if you can fly.

If you did that is could have lead to the death of your physical self. Yet your astral self still exists. Your physical self doesn't. Now we have it demonstrated that Your astral self  IS separate from your physical self. As it does not need a physical to exist. Nor does your astral self exist in your physical self. Your physical cannot support your astral self. Simply because your astral self exists in a higher vibratory state.

I never said we exist as one. All iam saying is we are connected through group constructs that we all choose to subscribe to(On a physical level). Gravity, to use your example. Everyone on earth subscribes to the construct of "gravity". it is so embedded in our brains that it is almost impossible to really do away with it. But some very experianced monks have done this. Its levitation, homes.

When we die, we only lose one aspect of ourselves. But there is nothing seperate. In fact, seperate is another construct that you could choose to subscribe to. When we die, all that happens is we shed our physical bodies. "At this very moment in time you are the physical dualistic self. You exist as a separate part." Then how is it that I am able to imagine? How is it that people can have clairvoyence or telekinesis? ALl they are doing is focusing on another aspect of them self.

QuoteWhen, you the physical self become aware of your astral self or higher self, you are connecting to them, but simultaneously your physical self retains it's awareness. This is because your physical exists independent of the astral. This is why retaining memories of the astral is difficult(what Bruce calls shadow memories) as your physical did not experience them. This is also why you have no recollection of what your astral self was doing the moment before. Bruce likens this to taking over your astral body.

Retaining memories is hard because you are not using your own brain. It is only a copy of your physical brain that you created because you subscribed to the traditional OBE method. You should try phasing, its really simple and it involves no seperation. In fact, the mere fact that we can phase proves, for me, that there is no seperation. You see, OBEs have been around for what, 50, 60 years? Well, mystics and shamans have been doing phasing for THOUSANDS of years.

QuoteTo further explain this. I refer you to a story in Hindu epic Ramayana. When Rama was a young adult in school, his teacher teaches him about the egos, the different kinds of minds and the chakras. To demonstrate this to Rama, both Rama and the teacher project outside of their body and their astrals bodies hover just above the class overseeing it. Now, here is what is interesting. The physical self of Rama and teacher were wide awake and interacting as normal. Then the astral self of the teacher turns to Rama's astral self and says(rather disdainfully) "Look at that man(his physical self) He thinks he is a teacher. He think he knows everything. He is an ego" clearly differentiating the physical self from the astral self.

The ego is merely a projection of yourself. It is not seperate at all. Also, I tend to not take any astral traveling done by people in the past too seriously. Most of them entered F2 and saw what they created, or what they wanted to see.

QuoteAll your egos are separate from each other. Each has it's own personality. Each is unique.

They are seperate, but that doesnt mean that they are seperate from you. They are merely constructs we create to objectualize our emotions.

QuoteThe same use that having an astral self and not being aware of it serves. That is to have experiences and to live our other possibilities. To be everywhere at once. Everytime you make a choice between two A and B, if you chose A, then in another universe you chose B. This the principles behind quantum theory, all events are  probabilities, and all probabilities exist super-positioned in the non manifest state. Now, suppose after choosing A, you imagined what it would have been like to choose B, the possibility you imagine, will simply be your consciousness splitting to the universe in which you chose B.

I cant say I  believe in the multiple universe theory, and the "If it can happen, it must." way of thinking. I do like to keep an open mind becuase  honestly, thats way too complex for me.  However, you say we are not aware of our astral self. I dont know about you, but I am aware of the astral 24 hours a day. Like i said, whenever you use your imagination you are aware of the "astral".

QuoteNo, God has not already created these experiences. God is experiencing his infinite creation and the infinite possibilities through the infinite souls. In other words the entire universe is the imagination of god. And we are his imaginings. Just like we imagine and create from those imaginations. God imagines us and creates through his imagination. We are a microcosm of god. As you said, there is only one self. Well, there's your god.

The mere fact that we can experience something means that God must have planned it out.

QuoteAgain, when did I say there was a creation?

So your saying you were born with the beliefs you subscribe to now and they havent changed? ;)

QuoteThis is an argument from ignorance and you are making an blind assumption that Indian philosophers had lesser understanding than meta-physicians or philosophers today. Have you actually read Indian philosophy? Finally, it really beats me, on how would you know what kind of astral experiences they were having.

I have read Indian philosophy. As I was telling Frank, I can personally vouch for how sophisticated and highly developed it is. It is easily the most advanced philosophical system in the world today.Hence, why it my favorite. You do know more than 95% of the new-age belief system and theosophy is based on Indian philosophy. Everything from auras, chakras, kundalini, yoga(hahta, kriya, raja) meditation, prana, tantra, psychic abilities, mantras, crystals, astrology, sacred geometry, yantras, alchemy, astral/mental/emotional planes, karamic law.

Meta-physicians? Philosophers? No, I am saying they didnt know what an atom was. They didnt know the speed of light. They couldnt even IMAGINE an atom bomb. All those things that you listed are merely constructs that you can choose to use yourself. We cannot change the system, all we can do is accept it. And I dont claim to know what kind of "astral experiences" they were having. Like i said earlier, they could have merely been Beliefs that manifested themselves in F2oC. So I dont take them too seriously.

That is not too say they were wrong. They could in fact be close to the truth. "You do know more than 95% of the new-age belief system and theosophy is based on Indian philosophy" But they are just that, belief systems. I choose not to subscribe to any of it, but merely accept them and move on.

QuoteIn fact a lot of quantum physics and relativity is based on Indian philosophy.As I was saying Indian philosophical systems are based on very precise system of science and logic and highly developed and sophisticated, especially in the nature of space, time, mind and soul and ethics. A lot of intellectuals, especially scientists, gravitate towards Indian philosophy, such as Erwin Schrodinger, Nicole Tesla.

I recommend you read some of the philosophical texts from India. You will see what I am saying. If you are serious about meditation then do yoga. Patanjali's Yoga sutras(available free online) are the most complete system on meditation and the nature of mind, body and soul. The Upanishads are very rich philosophical texts. The Bhagvad Gita is a spiritual classic. These systems are unlike modern new-age spiritual systems. They are exact sciences and meant for serious intellectuals.  The Indian consciousness sciences are highly developed. In modern times we have not even begun to explore consciousness in as much depth as the Indians did.

"especially in the nature of space, time, mind and soul and ethics." saying this is just telling me that they are using physical concepts to explain physical phenomena. Once again the blind leading the blind. No offense, but if they are so "highly-developed" then they should be able to realize the very nature of there own belief constructs, which may or may not be the case.

Ben, there seems to be a lot of inconsistencies in your thought. Please do clarify:

QuoteSorry, I thought i had established that. When you learn about the whole concept of God, you either believe or you dont.

Earlier you said: It is a very easy concept, and If i had never known about religion or if i grew up in a forest, I could still believe in God.

So do you learn the concept of god or create the concept of god?

QuoteThe "spark of intelligence" could be a simple mutation of dna that found its way into the gene pool. as for the behavior you mentioned, we are able to think in abstract thoughts, meaning, we can think about what it would be like to be in a poor mans shoes, and we cn come to the conclusion that it would be a very bad time. So we put some money in his cup.

Later you say: You are correct. The physical is nothing but an "end result". It is what you choose to "download" into the physical from Focus 2 (your imagination) that shapes what you do.

So does consciousness precede the physical or does the physical precede the consciousness? Further, are you arguing for the theory of evolution or the theory of eternal souls?

QuoteAssembled connotates time. Time is a physical construct. We were never assembled. Our human brains cant really comprehend this, but lets just say that time, like all physical constructs, doesnt really have any place in other Focuses of Consciousness. Everything is, and isnt at the same instant. We humans think much too linear. "Beginnings" and "Ends" are all physical veils we have created.

Earlier you said: Surely you don't believe in infinity? Something was built, the mere fact that we are here shows it.

So were we 'built' or not built?

QuoteI never said we exist as one.

You said we were intertwined. Then you said there was only one self. You have actually not said what this absolute self is. Please elaborate for me.

Please do clarify the above. As it will make it more comprehensive for me. Now, to proceed with the rest of your points:

QuoteAgain, man trying to interpret what he saw in terms of that he can understand.

This really is the argument that god is a device of ignorance again. I already covered it earlier, refering to the universality of the belief in god.  I will pose the same question to you: why is God still a universal belief even in the age of nanotechnology and transcends all socio-political and intellectual groups.

The argument of ignorance or need does not stand against the facts. God is a universal and timeless belief and pervades all of humanity.  This is a fact.

QuoteWhy do you believe in God?

Why don't you believe in God?

QuoteAu contraire, imo the focus model makes everything SO SIMPLE.

I don't think it has personally, for you as well. As you seem to have become dependent on the terminology and have not understood the concepts, which are otherwise quite simple. As I am telling you exactly the same, except different semantics. In fact the belief of having many egos is a very old eastern belief.

QuoteThere is random chance in everything we do. So why does it being in nature have to be any different? And i dont subscribe to the whole chaos/order construct. All that happens in evolution is 1 thing is born with a certain aspect that makes it better than others, and the trait is passed down. Our mind creates the order. Its a building block progress: our consciousness was not created in a day.

Quote

Umm, didn't you say that consciousness creates the physical and consciousness has always been?  Therefore, there would not be a random chance. It seems you are trying to hold onto the beliefs of
scientific evolution and spirituality at the same time, not realizing they are contradictory. It would be wise for you to choose which you want.

Now, I believe in evolution, but not the scientific theory of evolution, which is a function of random chance. Nothing is chance, my friend. Absolutely nothing is chance. Everything is consciousness.

QuoteEven if it were a dream, whos dream would it be?

Anyones. We would not be able to know, because we would exist within their imagination, and be confined to it.

QuoteWant is again, a physical construct. Higher is a physical construct. Love is different from fear. But this does not mean "Good" or "Bad". These things are in the eye of the beholder.

This actually sounds silly to me. How do you observe reality, without differentiating? How do you progress without having values, morals, ethics? How do you advance without having wants/desires? How do you qualify anything without making distinctions like higher and lower.

It sounds good on paper: We are one; We are intertwined; I am free of desire; I am ego-less; I am a spiritual being; However, it is delusional. You are an ego. A physical being.  You have wants/desires. This is you. Accept yourself for who you are in this reality

QuoteYou see beauty is in the eye of the beholder

If that were true, would there be beauty pageants and consistent winners. Psychological studies have shown that attraction is based on symmetry's

You still have not answered my question: Do you want love or fear?

In fact let's reframe this question. Do you want to go to heaven or hell?

Answer the questions my friend, don't equivocate.

QuoteI think the reason you dont accept it as proof is you dont understand the terms. Frank

No, I don't accept it as proof, because it's entirely your subjective experience and I have no way of verifying it. And I do not beleive blindly in anything. Further, there are betters proofs than this.

QuoteGravity, to use your example. Everyone on earth subscribes to the construct of "gravity". it is so embedded in our brains that it is almost impossible to really do away with it. But some very experianced monks have done this. Its levitation, homes.

Well then you could always demonstrate to me by jumping of a cliff or high rise building with the belief that gravity is just a construct of your mind. I will be sure to read it in the paper for either "the man who could fly" or "the man who thought he could fly and jumped to his death"

By the way, why a faith in monks now? I thought they did not understand anything, remember? It 's just their interpretations, right?

QuoteWhen we die, we only lose one aspect of ourselves. But there is nothing seperate. In fact, seperate is another construct that you could choose to subscribe to

Umm, if you lose your physical, doesn't that mean it's separate from you? You can't lose something, if it's not separate from you.

QuoteYou see, OBEs have been around for what, 50, 60 years? Well, mystics and shamans have been doing phasing for THOUSANDS of years.

Did I not say that earlier?

QuoteMeta-physicians? Philosophers? No, I am saying they didnt know what an atom was. They didnt know the speed of light. They couldnt even IMAGINE an atom bomb. All those things that you listed are merely constructs that you can choose to use yourself.

Now, I now you have not read Indian philosophy. How can you make such conclusions on Indian philosophy, without even reading it. That is very ignorant. Just a very simple search on the web is all it takes to educate yourself. In fact, it's obvious you did not even read the links I posted.

QuoteNo, I am saying they didnt know what an atom was

The Vaisheshika  system, which was founded by the sage Kanada postulates an atomic pluralism. In terms of this school of thought, all objects in the physical universe are reducible to a certain number of atoms: (Source: Wikipedia)

Vaisheshika ("noting characteristics")
One of the Six Schools of traditional Hindu philosophy, and a school whose special concern was the elucidation of physics and metaphysics. The Vaisheshika analysis of the categories for the universe was later combined with the stress on reasoning in another of the Six Schools, the Nyayas, to form the Nyaya-Vaisheshika school, sometimes called the Naiyayikas. The Vaisheshika school was atomistic--that is, they believed that all things were made up of a few basic constituent things--and this atomism was the root of the school's metaphysics. Philosophically speaking, the Vaisheshikas were realists--that is, they thought that the world was made up of many different things, and that these things actually existed as perceived, except in cases of perceptual error. They believed that all things were composed of nine fundamental substances--the five elements, space, time, mind, and selves, and that whatever exists was both knowable and nameable. The Vaisheshikas subscribed to the causal model known as asatkaryavada, which posited that when a thing was created, it was a whole new aggregate, completely different from its constituent parts. This causal model tends to multiply the number of things in the universe, since each act of creation brings a new thing into being. It also admits that human efforts and actions are one of the causes influencing these affects, making it theoretically possible to act in a way that brings final liberation of the soul (moksha).
According to the Vaisheshika analysis, the objects of experience can be divided into six categories: substances, qualities, activity, universals, particulars, and inherence (samavaya); some later Vaisheshikas add a seventh category, absences. The first three categories can be perceived, while the others must be inferred, but the concept of inherence is central to their system of thought. Inherence is the subtle glue connecting all the elements of the universe: wholes and their parts, substances and their qualities, motions and the things that move, general properties with their particular instances, and most importantly, pleasure and pain to the self. The philosophical problems with inherence--particularly the notion that it was one single principle, and not a collection of things--caused them great difficulty, and were ultimately responsible for the rise of Navyanyaya school, which attempted to explain these relationships in a more sophisticated way. For further information, see Karl H. Potter and Sijiban Bhattacharyya, Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies: Nyaya-Vaisesika from Gangesa to Raghunath Siromani <1992>, and Radhakrishnan and Moore, A Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy <1957>. (Source: http://www2.carthage.edu/~lochtefe/vaisheshika.html)

More on the Vaisheshika school of philosophy:  http://vaisheshika.biography.ms/

The Vaisheshika not only deals with atomism, but also chemical theory, states of matter and subatomic particle interactions. It also deals with light and mechanics.

QuoteThey did not know what the speed of light was

Actually nobody knew what the speed of light was. Even in Newton's time the speed of light was thought to be infinite. However, Indian philosophers/scientists had an exact figure for the speed of light. It is not known which methods they used to arrive at it however.

We survey early Indian ideas on the speed of light and the size of the universe. A context is provided for Sayana's statement (14th century)that the speed is 2,202 yojanas per half nimesha (186,000 miles per second!). It is shown how this statement may have emerged from early Puranic notions regarding the size of the universe. Although this value can only be considered to be an amazing coincidence, the Puranic cosmology at the basis of this assertion illuminates many ancient ideas of space and time. (Source: http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?id=oai:arXiv.org:physics/9804020)

QuoteThey couldnt even IMAGINE an atom bomb.

As soon as you said that, I recalled a passage in the Mahabharata:

Protap Chandra Roy's translation(1889)

...a single projectile Charged with all the power of the Universe. An incandescent column of smoke and flame As bright as ten thousand Suns Rose in all its splendor... ...it was an unknown weapon, An iron thunderbolt, A gigantic messenger of death, Which reduced to ashes The Entiure race of the Vrishnis and thr Andhakas. ...the corpses were so burned As to be unrecognizable. Their hair and nails fell out; Pottery broke without apparent cause, And the birds turned white. After a few hours All foodstuffs were infected... ...To escape from this fire The soldiers threw themselves in streams To wash themselves and their equipment...

Now, whether this is a description of an ancient nuclear holocaust is another topic all together. However it is suffice to say they could imagine atomc bombs. In fact they could imagine more than that. You need to read the Hindu epics. There are references to everything from human cloning, space travel to artificial intelligence

As I was saying, the Indian philosophical system was highly developed and sophisticated. It's a proven and timeless system.

QuoteThat is not too say they were wrong. They could in fact be close to the truth. "You do know more than 95% of the new-age belief system and theosophy is based on Indian philosophy" But they are just that, belief systems. I choose not to subscribe to any of it, but merely accept them and move on.

Hmm, you don't subscribe to any of it, yet here you are telling me about astral realms, astral beings, intertwined states, and superhuman powers. I am sure that includes Kundalini and Chakras too. All of which are part of the new-age belief system.

QuoteAnd I dont claim to know what kind of "astral experiences" they were having. Like i said earlier, they could have merely been Beliefs that manifested themselves in F2oC. So I dont take them too seriously.

Why are their astral experiences thought manifestation, and Frank, Bruce, Monroe and other modern astral projectors, real? The account I gave to you involved the interaction of two astral bodies in the real time zone. Either it's a lie it ever happened, or it really happened.

With all due respect to Frank, Bruce and others, they are doing an excellent job in bringing the subject of astral projection and the energy bodies to the masses, but they certainly cannot take credit for the knowledge. This is a very old knowledge system. It has been known for thousands of years and complete treatises have been written on them by ancient yogis. There are complete and exact sciences on metaphysics. To, simply deny them, simply because they are ancient, to even go as far as denying every ancient mystics experience, is ignorance in it's extreme.

Do you believe Robert Bruce is having a real astral experience? Because everything he has said about the astral planes is identical to the what the yogis have said, even the symbols Bruce uses to represent each plane, is the same.

Further, I was meaning to ask you for a while. What is your opinion about Bruce comment that the astral realms are so perfect and beautiful, that only an intelligence could have designed them?

As I said go and read the Bhagvad Gita, Upanishads and Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. You will have a much better understanding of spirituality. As you are learning from the masters themselves.  Frank, Bruce nor I, are a substitute for them. As good as Frank's focus business is for beginners or people with a casual interest. If you are serious about metaphysics, spirituality, bioenergetic circuits, meditation, psychic abilities, enlightenment, space, time, mind and soul, causality and astral dynamics and to know how you relate to the universe and want to study in them in great depth then you need to study the yogic texts. Many of the great scientists, philosophers and intellectuals have.  However, I only recommend this, if you have a serious academic interest or are serious about 'enlightenment'

The Yoga Sutras in particular explain everything about minds, egos, distractions, imagination, intelligence, memory, faculities and gives solution to common problems in meditation.

I am giving you links again, and this time please do read them:

Patanjali's Yoga Sutras: http://www.dailyreadings.com/ys1-2.htm
Bhagavad Gita: http://directory.google.com/Top/Society/Religion_and_Spirituality/Hinduism/Religious_Texts/Bhagavad_Gita/

Alternatively, you could buy the more better translations from Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0876120311/qid=1113804245/br=1-8/ref=br_lf_b_8//103-9905725-2148625?v=glance&s=books&n=12508
God Talks with Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita (Paperback)
by Paramahansa Yogananda

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The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali : Commentary on the Raja Yoga Sutras by Sri Swami Satchidananda (Paperback)
by Sri S. Satchidananda </exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=books&field-author=Sri%20S.%20Satchidananda/103-9905725-2148625>

I believe that everything that happens in our life, happens for a reason. If you are getting this information from a stranger, it is because you need
to see this information to progress. However, you don't give me the impression you are progressing. It sounds like you are living in another reality. A reality that does not belong to you. A reality that you have not attained. A reality you have not earned. Rather than living in the moment of now; the physical. You need to accept yourself for who you are this moment. You are not an astral. You are Ben, you live in US, you are a human being in a part of the changing tides of time and you are different from everyone else.

You asked me how is it if you are physical, that you can still have an imagination. This is where the word connecting comes in. You are physical, but also connected to your other subtle self every moment. Think of water cascading down from the summit of a mountain to the ground below. The ground is receiving the water because it is connected to the mountain top, but it is also lower than the mountain top. Your physical self is lower than your higher self. However you are connected to your higher self. Your imagination is constantly receiving information from the higher self. Because your higher self is higher, he has a greater field of vision in every sense. Again, think of it as being on top of a mountain and on the ground at the same. At the top you have a greater field of vision.

This is why the distinction of higher and lower is important. The higher beings have greater knowledge and understanding of the universe and are free of karma and space and time.  They are also sometimes called the angels, sanat kumaras, ascended masters. Than lower beings(you and I) have limited knowledge, understanding, exist within the frame of space and time and are part of the wheel of karma/desire.

This is all very simple to grasp. You don't even need all this focus business to understand this. It can be explained in simple non-technical language. And by the way, isn't phasing, a technical physical construct? You are full of contradictions.

Quote from: dataBen, there seems to be a lot of inconsistencies in your thought. Please do clarify:

Earlier you said: It is a very easy concept, and If i had never known about religion or if i grew up in a forest, I could still believe in God.

So do you learn the concept of god or create the concept of god?

Which ever one comes first. I suppose if i had the intelligence to ponder such issues when i am 6 years old i might create the concept. But for the most part kids learn about God through there parents, they dont think about things like that. If your asking about how the whole concept came about, some guy thought it up and the word spread.

QuoteLater you say: You are correct. The physical is nothing but an "end result". It is what you choose to "download" into the physical from Focus 2 (your imagination) that shapes what you do.

So does consciousness precede the physical or does the physical precede the consciousness? Further, are you arguing for the theory of evolution or the theory of eternal souls?

The consciousness preceds the physical, naturally. You were around before the universe was created. I am arguing for the theory of both. I dont claim to know how we get into our body, or at what point humans started to have consciousness. Maybe everything in the whole physical realm has consiousness? These are the questions i plan to seek out once i can get out of my body :)

QuoteEarlier you said: Surely you don't believe in infinity? Something was built, the mere fact that we are here shows it.

So were we 'built' or not built?

Infinity is a human construct created to show a mathematical number, that is infinity. "No time" does not mean infinity. It means all and nothing at once. Yes its a difficult concept for us to concieve, but nonetheless, so was the world being round a couple hundred years ago. What i am saying is we built ourselves, and choose to experience this aspect of ourself for whatever reason.

QuoteYou said we were intertwined. Then you said there was only one self. You have actually not said what this absolute self is. Please elaborate for me.

Please do clarify the above. As it will make it more comprehensive for me. Now, to proceed with the rest of your points:

WE are not intertwined. The different focuses of consciousness are intertwined. I.E. your "physical body" and your "astral body" are one. But both of these things are merely constructs that we choose to subscribe too. I, of course, subscribe to the physical body construct, or else I wouldnt be here, hehe. When we are here on earth, heck when we are anywhere in our physical universe(and maybe beyond?) we are participating in Focus 1 of consciousness, and thats what takes up most of our awareness, counting out dreams, daydreaming, etc. Me and you, as "souls" are not intertwined. On a certain focus level(F4oC) we can be "connected" like one computer may be connected to another on a network. Hope that clears that up. ;)

QuoteThis really is the argument that god is a device of ignorance again. I already covered it earlier, refering to the universality of the belief in god.  I will pose the same question to you: why is God still a universal belief even in the age of nanotechnology and transcends all socio-political and intellectual groups.

The argument of ignorance or need does not stand against the facts. God is a universal and timeless belief and pervades all of humanity.  This is a fact.

Are you implying that everyone believes in God? If that were the case then your argument would be settled, but as i do NOT believe in "God" you are wrong. If you mean that all across the world every religion has a form of God, you are wrong. Most of the early religions used the same constructs as the 4-focus model, merely different words. Read this:

In the past, I have read a number of religious-release-spiritual works. I once went through a phase of reading the bible, for example, and spent ages trying to make out where these writers were coming from. What I was attempting to do is step in their shoes, and go back to the times when they were writing these works, to try as best I could to view life from their perspective. Then I would compare what they were writing about, to my own hands-on experiences, in order to try and find parallels in our respective work.

I was amazed at how, when you compare what you might call the core-teachings, these people were really quite knowledgeable as regards non-physical reality. Though a lot of misunderstanding arises directly due to distortions caused through their faulty interpretations. Well, to be fair, people such as myself, today, view it as faulty interpretation. But at the time, to them, they obviously would not have seen it that way.

I guess that's how it all started: ordinary people, viewing non-physical reality, and writing about it. But: with a very much more limited perspective (overall) compared to the more forward-thinkers of today. Problem is, people latched onto this early work and made "religions" out of it. And here we all are, a couple of thousand years down the line, trying to unravel the mess.

So i guess what im saying about the early indian philosophers that you hold in such high regards is what frank said. They merely had a much more limited perspective.

QuoteWhy don't you believe in God?

Why dont you believe in santa?

QuoteI don't think it has personally, for you as well. As you seem to have become dependent on the terminology and have not understood the concepts, which are otherwise quite simple. As I am telling you exactly the same, except different semantics. In fact the belief of having many egos is a very old eastern belief.

the only difference between our thoughts are the constructs that you use to "seperate" your different levels of awareness. You create a seperation between mind and body that could easily be torn down.

QuoteUmm, didn't you say that consciousness creates the physical and consciousness has always been?  Therefore, there would not be a random chance. It seems you are trying to hold onto the beliefs of
scientific evolution and spirituality at the same time, not realizing they are contradictory. It would be wise for you to choose which you want.

consciousness isnt all-knowing. And again, this could be before our consciousness even entered the physical body of the human construct. Before consciousness, humans could have been primal semi-apes, using the tools theyd been givin by evolution. Ever heard of the missing link? Ever wondered why humans evolved so fast compared to other animals? Perhaps it was us entering our physical constructs? We do not need to be in a human body to create it. Again, I dont claim to be well versed and I supposed my if my views are contradicting themselves I will have alot of research to do. I only know the facts.

QuoteAnyones. We would not be able to know, because we would exist within their imagination, and be confined to it.

The fact that we possess consciousness is the fact that we cannot be someones dreams. When you dream of someone, you arent actually calling upon them, it is simply your thoughts projecting the objective image of that person into your dream. These beings cannot and do not possess concsiousness.

QuoteThis actually sounds silly to me. How do you observe reality, without differentiating? How do you progress without having values, morals, ethics? How do you advance without having wants/desires? How do you qualify anything without making distinctions like higher and lower.

The way humans have always done it: abstract thought. I know that if i kill someone they wouldnt like it. So i dont. I know that paying someone to have sex to me is only hurting there development spirtually and as a person. So i can say that it is wrong, IMO.

QuoteIt sounds good on paper: We are one; We are intertwined; I am free of desire; I am ego-less; I am a spiritual being; However, it is delusional. You are an ego. A physical being.  You have wants/desires. This is you. Accept yourself for who you are in this reality

Ha, i wish i were free of desire and ego-less. As a part of the human species i have these things just as much as you do. We all do. its what makes us human. :)

QuoteIf that were true, would there be beauty pageants and consistent winners. Psychological studies have shown that attraction is based on symmetry's

When did i say anything about beauty? Beauty is a physical trait, and i guess you could say has a certain objectivity, and as such as a human of course i can tell between beauty and ugly. Good and Bad, are but concepts. What would you say about a society that uses human sacrifices? are those "Bad?"

QuoteYou still have not answered my question: Do you want love or fear?

In fact let's reframe this question. Do you want to go to heaven or hell?

Answer the questions my friend, don't equivocate.

Well, if i had to choose, i would pick in order, love, heaven. But what does that prove? That i can choose? Yeah, i know that. I am confused =(

QuoteNo, I don't accept it as proof, because it's entirely your subjective experience and I have no way of verifying it. And I do not beleive blindly in anything. Further, there are betters proofs than this.

Then experiance it for yourself. IMO to hold any belief, truly, one must experience it. That is why there is of course, doubt in my mind, about every model of reality. Be it christian, buddhist, or the phasing model, etc. But i do know that when i lack the experience i can choose between what makes the most sense and what doesnt. And for now, this definitely makes the most sense of all the religions, and philosophies ive studied.

However, if the time comes that i phase to the astral and learn that this isnt how it goes, i will have no trouble re-aligning my beliefs.

What experience do you have with your particular belief system? Why does it hold more merit over mine? What experiences have you had that caused you to believe what you believe? Or are you like me, simply adapting whatever one seems to make the most sense?

QuoteWell then you could always demonstrate to me by jumping of a cliff or high rise building with the belief that gravity is just a construct of your mind. I will be sure to read it in the paper for either "the man who could fly" or "the man who thought he could fly and jumped to his death"

By the way, why a faith in monks now? I thought they did not understand anything, remember? It 's just their interpretations, right?

I am sure there have been many who have learned the truth. But you did not read any of there teachings in the books you read. Simply saying "I dont trust monks" is a silly thing to say.

And i would advise you not to follow through with your cliff plan, you would indeed die a horrible death. Like i said, this idea has been ingrained in your head since the moment you were born, and the mere fact that everyone else on the planet accepts the same belief is only going to reinforce it. im sure it takes ALOT of meditation and scouring your beliefs and what you have been conditioned to believe before you can even imagine of doing any sort of that stuff.

QuoteUmm, if you lose your physical, doesn't that mean it's separate from you? You can't lose something, if it's not separate from you.

Is an oranges skin seperate from an orange even though you may peel it off? They are of course different ASPECTS of you, so in that sense the word seperate may be used, but seperate in the sense of an astral body and a physical body, no they are not.

QuoteNow, I now you have not read Indian philosophy. How can you make such conclusions on Indian philosophy, without even reading it. That is very ignorant. Just a very simple search on the web is all it takes to educate yourself. In fact, it's obvious you did not even read the links I posted.

The Vaisheshika  system, which was founded by the sage Kanada postulates an atomic pluralism. In terms of this school of thought, all objects in the physical universe are reducible to a certain number of atoms: (Source: Wikipedia)

Vaisheshika ("noting characteristics")
One of the Six Schools of traditional Hindu philosophy, and a school whose special concern was the elucidation of physics and metaphysics. The Vaisheshika analysis of the categories for the universe was later combined with the stress on reasoning in another of the Six Schools, the Nyayas, to form the Nyaya-Vaisheshika school, sometimes called the Naiyayikas. The Vaisheshika school was atomistic--that is, they believed that all things were made up of a few basic constituent things--and this atomism was the root of the school's metaphysics. Philosophically speaking, the Vaisheshikas were realists--that is, they thought that the world was made up of many different things, and that these things actually existed as perceived, except in cases of perceptual error. They believed that all things were composed of nine fundamental substances--the five elements, space, time, mind, and selves, and that whatever exists was both knowable and nameable. The Vaisheshikas subscribed to the causal model known as asatkaryavada, which posited that when a thing was created, it was a whole new aggregate, completely different from its constituent parts. This causal model tends to multiply the number of things in the universe, since each act of creation brings a new thing into being. It also admits that human efforts and actions are one of the causes influencing these affects, making it theoretically possible to act in a way that brings final liberation of the soul (moksha).
According to the Vaisheshika analysis, the objects of experience can be divided into six categories: substances, qualities, activity, universals, particulars, and inherence (samavaya); some later Vaisheshikas add a seventh category, absences. The first three categories can be perceived, while the others must be inferred, but the concept of inherence is central to their system of thought. Inherence is the subtle glue connecting all the elements of the universe: wholes and their parts, substances and their qualities, motions and the things that move, general properties with their particular instances, and most importantly, pleasure and pain to the self. The philosophical problems with inherence--particularly the notion that it was one single principle, and not a collection of things--caused them great difficulty, and were ultimately responsible for the rise of Navyanyaya school, which attempted to explain these relationships in a more sophisticated way. For further information, see Karl H. Potter and Sijiban Bhattacharyya, Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies: Nyaya-Vaisesika from Gangesa to Raghunath Siromani <1992>, and Radhakrishnan and Moore, A Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy <1957>. (Source: http://www2.carthage.edu/~lochtefe/vaisheshika.html)

More on the Vaisheshika school of philosophy:  http://vaisheshika.biography.ms/

The Vaisheshika not only deals with atomism, but also chemical theory, states of matter and subatomic particle interactions. It also deals with light and mechanics.

http://www.phy6.org/stargaze/Ls7adisc.htm

If you are telling me that history as we know it is wrong and indian philosophers discoevere the atom hundreds of years before we did, then i take back the statement about the atom.

If they did indeed discover the atom, it lends credence to my thought that modern science is just today starting to re-discover things that we already knew in the past. However, you can see even from what you posted that the Vaisheshikans used terms that they could understand(space, time, mind, and selves) to describe the atom. So would it not follow that they used terms they could understand(all the philisophical essence, substance etc.) to describe other things?

QuoteActually nobody knew what the speed of light was. Even in Newton's time the speed of light was thought to be infinite. However, Indian philosophers/scientists had an exact figure for the speed of light. It is not known which methods they used to arrive at it however.

Splendid, lends more credence to my thought.

QuoteAs soon as you said that, I recalled a passage in the Mahabharata:

Protap Chandra Roy's translation(1889)

...a single projectile Charged with all the power of the Universe. An incandescent column of smoke and flame As bright as ten thousand Suns Rose in all its splendor... ...it was an unknown weapon, An iron thunderbolt, A gigantic messenger of death, Which reduced to ashes The Entiure race of the Vrishnis and thr Andhakas. ...the corpses were so burned As to be unrecognizable. Their hair and nails fell out; Pottery broke without apparent cause, And the birds turned white. After a few hours All foodstuffs were infected... ...To escape from this fire The soldiers threw themselves in streams To wash themselves and their equipment...

Now, whether this is a description of an ancient nuclear holocaust is another topic all together. However it is suffice to say they could imagine atomc bombs. In fact they could imagine more than that. You need to read the Hindu epics. There are references to everything from human cloning, space travel to artificial intelligence

It doesnt matter wether or not they could imagine its effects.  Anyone can imagine a "projectile" smashing into the ground and eradicating everything. I would say it would be weird if they didnt imagine it. They werent stupid. But could they tell my how a piece of plutionium becomes a bomb? Hell, could they describe the properties of plutonium?

I think ive realized that alot of it has to do with misinterpretation. Alot of it went down through history and left us with all sorts of weird beliefs and mumbo-jumbo. I think you are using age-old terms to describe the same thing i am, but with a few misenterpretations. It is natural that these arise because the mere act of writing this creates interpretations. That is why one would even reply! If you could interpret my post the way i meant for it to be interpreted then you would immediately understand, the same way if i were to read your post i would be able to immediately understand what you are saying.

Now, imagine if what i  typed was shown to another person, and they had to retype the whole thing for another person, based on the concepts they got out of it. Now, imagine this happens a million times. This is what happens with religion. With every construct as a matter of fact. its all in the interpretation.

QuoteHmm, you don't subscribe to any of it, yet here you are telling me about astral realms, astral beings, intertwined states, and superhuman powers. I am sure that includes Kundalini and Chakras too. All of which are part of the new-age belief system.

Iam merely telling you what makes the most sense to me. The sooner you realize that you create your own reality the sooner you realize that everything you do, ever single act, is simply an interpretation of one thing or another.

QuoteWhy are their astral experiences thought manifestation, and Frank, Bruce, Monroe and other modern astral projectors, real? The account I gave to you involved the interaction of two astral bodies in the real time zone. Either it's a lie it ever happened, or it really happened.

How do you know it was the real time zone? They simply could have been interacting in F3oC, in a group construct. Theres simply no way to know, and with that wide of a margin of error, i choose not to believe.

QuoteWith all due respect to Frank, Bruce and others, they are doing an excellent job in bringing the subject of astral projection and the energy bodies to the masses, but they certainly cannot take credit for the knowledge. This is a very old knowledge system. It has been known for thousands of years and complete treatises have been written on them by ancient yogis. There are complete and exact sciences on metaphysics. To, simply deny them, simply because they are ancient, to even go as far as denying every ancient mystics experience, is ignorance in it's extreme.

I dont believe they take credit. All they are doing is "updating" what we know, with less error of interpretation, IMO. And as for denying mystic experiences, its irrelevent. Frank could look at an ancient indian philosophers experience and tell you wether or not it was withing F2oC, because they have experienced the teachings of others and can tell you if what the ancient says fits into the "real" view. They only deny the ones they know are BS. i deny every experience because i dont know wether or not what they say fits into the "grand scheme".

QuoteDo you believe Robert Bruce is having a real astral experience? Because everything he has said about the astral planes is identical to the what the yogis have said, even the symbols Bruce uses to represent each plane, is the same.

I dont know anything about robert bruce, havnt read any of his books so i dont believe i can comment on that.

QuoteFurther, I was meaning to ask you for a while. What is your opinion about Bruce comment that the astral realms are so perfect and beautiful, that only an intelligence could have designed them?

I do believe an intelligence created them. We created them.

QuoteAs I said go and read the Bhagvad Gita, Upanishads and Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. You will have a much better understanding of spirituality. As you are learning from the masters themselves.  Frank, Bruce nor I, are a substitute for them. As good as Frank's focus business is for beginners or people with a casual interest. If you are serious about metaphysics, spirituality, bioenergetic circuits, meditation, psychic abilities, enlightenment, space, time, mind and soul, causality and astral dynamics and to know how you relate to the universe and want to study in them in great depth then you need to study the yogic texts. Many of the great scientists, philosophers and intellectuals have.  However, I only recommend this, if you have a serious academic interest or are serious about 'enlightenment'

It follows that as humanity evolves, its understanding of the earth and the non-physical evolve. Do you agree? If so then i would take the teachings of someone in the here and now over the teachings of someone who lived in the past who didnt know that there was a continent across the ocean.

QuoteThe Yoga Sutras in particular explain everything about minds, egos, distractions, imagination, intelligence, memory, faculities and gives solution to common problems in meditation.

Where did they learn this information?

QuoteI believe that everything that happens in our life, happens for a reason. If you are getting this information from a stranger, it is because you need
to see this information to progress. However, you don't give me the impression you are progressing. It sounds like you are living in another reality. A reality that does not belong to you. A reality that you have not attained. A reality you have not earned. Rather than living in the moment of now; the physical. You need to accept yourself for who you are this moment. You are not an astral. You are Ben, you live in US, you are a human being in a part of the changing tides of time and you are different from everyone else.

It is impossible to not live in this reality. Of course I accept who I am. Are you telling me i should accept your reality because it makes more sense to you? Sorry, il go with what makes the most sense to me.

QuoteYou asked me how is it if you are physical, that you can still have an imagination. This is where the word connecting comes in. You are physical, but also connected to your other subtle self every moment. Think of water cascading down from the summit of a mountain to the ground below. The ground is receiving the water because it is connected to the mountain top, but it is also lower than the mountain top. Your physical self is lower than your higher self. However you are connected to your higher self. Your imagination is constantly receiving information from the higher self. Because your higher self is higher, he has a greater field of vision in every sense. Again, think of it as being on top of a mountain and on the ground at the same. At the top you have a greater field of vision.

How are you connected? A rope? hehe. How you can use purely physical terms like lower and higher to describe the non physical astounds me. But we do tend to think linearely and if this fits your belief system then so be it.

QuoteThis is why the distinction of higher and lower is important. The higher beings have greater knowledge and understanding of the universe and are free of karma and space and time.  They are also sometimes called the angels, sanat kumaras, ascended masters. Than lower beings(you and I) have limited knowledge, understanding, exist within the frame of space and time and are part of the wheel of karma/desire.

This is all very simple to grasp. You don't even need all this focus business to understand this. It can be explained in simple non-technical language. And by the way, isn't phasing, a technical physical construct? You are full of contradictions.

Phasing is indeed a construct. Everything we participate in is a construct. How am i contradicting myself?

Now my turn to ask you some questions :)

1. If we have a higher being, where does he/she/it reside? In another dimension? And if so, how are thes dimensions connected?

2. How is it that you think physical terms like higher, lower, connect, etc, have any weight in the non-physical.

Anyway thats all i can think of, im tired :P

Here are some quotes of a living , breathing human who has experienced all of this and i believe would not lie to help. If you can get me a physical person who has experienced your beliefs word for word I will give you a cake.

Consider this post free, recomended reading.

QuoteRegarding your "higher self" you cannot get any closer than you already are. The key is to realise that. Your higher self is that which is left after all the mental junk is cleared away. When I say mental junk, I mean all the ego-driven concepts; ideas, preoccupations, and such like. Allow all that to sink back and what is left is your higher self.

Getting closer to "god" now that I'm not sure about, i.e. in the sense of whether you are religious or not. To my mind the concept of "god" started out as a good idea, but then people got seriously carried away. Smile

In my non-physical travels, I observe there is no such thing as religion in the higher realms. Well, not religion as we know it. People still have concepts which they believe in. But the bases upon which their ideas are formed are radically different.

In these places people just are. In the sense they have gone beyond religion. So I suppose religion, or at least the early basic religious teachings, maybe did serve as a means of progress. But, as I say, all that has long gone. Well, apart from little pockets of goodness here and there.

Interesting:

Quote
The following article is copyright the person named below. I found it an interesting read and the author makes some very good observations about the attitude of scientists in general towards the obe/nde phenomenon.


"On Materialism as Science Dogma"
by Neal Grossman, Dept. of Philosophy, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago
(to appear in Journal of Near Death Studies as "Who's Afraid of Life After Death?")

(The following essay focuses on the Near Death Experience (NDE) as evidence that science has -- to its detriment -- become a dogmatic belief system wedded to reductionist materialism rather than being a neutral, objective method for investigating reality of any sort. One could effectively substitute the three letters "UFO" for "NDE." The advantage of dealing with NDE is that there is no doubt whatsoever as to the existence of the phenomeon; the interpretation, of course, being another matter.)

When researchers ask the question "how can the Near Death Experience be explained", they tend to make the usual assumption that an acceptable explanation will be in terms of concepts -- biological, neurological, psychological -- with which they are already familiar. The NDE would then be explained, for example, if it could be shown what brain state, which drugs, or what beliefs on the part of the experiencer, correlates with the NDE. Those who have concluded that the NDE cannot be explained mean that it cannot, or has not yet, been correlated with any physical or psychological condition of the experiencer.

I wish to suggest that this approach to explaining the NDE is fundamentally misguided. To my knowledge, no one who has had a NDE feels any need for an explanation in the reductionist sense that researchers are seeking. For the experiencer, the NDE does not need to be explained because it is exactly what it purports to be, which, at a minimum, is the direct experience of consciousness -- or minds, or selves, or personal identity -- existing independently of the physical body. It is only with respect to our deeply entrenched materialist paradigm that the NDE needs to be explained, or more accurately, explained away. In this paper I will take the position that materialism has been shown to be empirically false; and hence, what does need to be explained is the academic establishment's collective refusal to examine the evidence and to see it for what it is. The academic establishment is in the same position today as were the cardinals who refused to look through Galileo's telescope. Why is this the case?

Before addressing this question, it is probably incumbent on to me to say a few words about the kind and strength of evidence which refutes materialism. Cook, Greyson, and Stevenson [1] "describe three features of NDE's -- enhanced mentation, the experience of seeing the physical body from a different position in space, and paranormal perception -- which (they) believe might provide convergent evidence supporting the survival hypothesis."[2] They then go on to describe 14 cases which satisfy these criteria. From an epistemological perspective, the third criterion, paranormal perception, is the most important. The materialist can, in principle, give no account of how a person acquires veridical information about events remote from his or her body. Consider, for example, the kind of case where the NDEer accurately reports the conversation occurring in the waiting room while his body is unconscious in the operating room. There is no way for the relevant information, conveyed in sound waves or light waves, to travel from the waiting room, through corridors and up elevators, to reach the sense organs of the unconscious person. Yet the person wakes from the operation with the information. This kind of case -- and there are lots of them -- shows quite straight-forwardly that there are non-physical ways in which the mind can acquire information. Hence materialism is false.

Perhaps the "smoking gun" case is the one described by Michael Sabom in his recent book.[3] In this case, the patient had her NDE while her body temperature was lowered to 60 degrees, and all the blood was drained from her body. "Her electroencephalogram was silent, her brain-stem response was absent, and no blood flowed through her brain."[4] A brain in this state cannot create any kind of experience. Yet the patient experienced a profound NDE. Those materialists who believe that consciousness is secreted by the brain, or that the brain is necessary for conscious experience to exist, cannot possibly explain, in their own terms, cases such as this. An impartial observer would have to conclude that not all experience is produced by the brain and that therefore, the falsity of materialism has been empirically demonstrated. Thus, what needs to be explained is the abysmal failure of the academic establishment to examine this evidence and to embrace the conclusion: materialism is false, and consciousness can and does exist independently of the body.

Moreover, the evidence against materialism comes not only from the NDE, but from other areas of research as well. Both mediumship, which has been extensively investigated since the time of William James, and Stevenson-type cases of children who have verified true memories of past lives, offer an abundance evidence against materialism. The best epistemological analysis of the evidence is given by Robert Almeder. After a lengthy and detailed discussion of Stevenson-type cases, he twits Stevenson for concluding only that "it is rational to believe in reincarnation, given the evidence."[5] The proper conclusion, according to Almeder, should be "it is irrational not to believe in reincarnation, given the evidence."[6] I agree with Almeder.

Our collective irrationality with respect to the wealth of evidence against materialism manifests in two ways: (i) by ignoring the evidence and (ii) by insisting on overly stringent standard of evidence, which, if adopted, would render any empirical science impossible. The refusal of academics to examine the evidence against materialism is not new. Writing one hundred years ago, William James complains

I invite eight of my scientific colleagues to come to my house at their own time, and sit with a medium for whom the evidence already published in our proceedings had been most noteworthy. Although it means at worst the waste of an hour for each, five of them decline the adventure. I then beg the 'Commission' connected with the chair of a certain learned psychologist in a neighboring university to examine the same medium, whom Mr. Hodgson and I offer at our own expense to send and leave with them. They also have to be excused from any such entanglement. I advise another psychological friend to look into this case, but he replies that it is useless, for if he should get such results as I report, he would simply believe himself hallucinated....This friend of mine writes ex cathedra on the subject of psychical research, declaring (I need hardly add) that there is nothing in it; ...and one of the five colleagues who declined my invitation is widely quoted as an effective critic of our evidence. So runs the world away! [7]

More recently, Michael Grosso reports a similar experience in attempting to get colleagues to read anything on the evidence for life after death.
The type of person I have in mind will come up with weak, if not irrational, excuses for not reading the book I place in his hand. In one case, the argument ran: "It's only words on paper; no reason to take any of it seriously." Another academic said he didn't have the time. "You mean you can't find a few hours to read a book that might change your basic outlook on life and death?" I asked.

How strange that these intelligent people should be not merely indifferent but resistant to the data. It's as if there were a conspiracy against this information, a need to make it harmless, irrelevant, or nonexistent.

One of my earliest encounters with this kind of academic irrationality occurred over twenty years ago. I was devouring everything on the Near Death Experience I could get my hands on, and eager to share what I was discovering with colleagues. It was unbelievable to me how dismissive they were of the evidence. "Drug induced hallucinations", "last gasp of a dying brain", "people see what they want to see" were some of the more commonly used phrases. One conversation in particular caused me to more clearly see the fundamental irrationality of academics with respect to evidence against materialism. I asked:

"What about people who accurately report the details of their operation?"
"Oh", came the reply, "they probably just subconsciously heard the conversation in the operating room, and their brain subconsciously transposed the audio information into a visual format".

"Well", I responded, 'what about cases where people report veridical perception of events remote from their body?"

"Oh, that's just a coincidence or a lucky guess."

Exasperated, I ask, "What will it take, short of having a Near Death Experience yourself, to convince you that it's real?"

Very non-chalantly, without batting an eye, the response was "even if I were to have a Near Death Experience myself, I would conclude that I was hallucinating, rather than believe that my mind can exist independently of my brain." He went on to add that Dualism (the philosophical thesis which asserts that mind and matter are independent substances, neither of which can be reduced to the other) is a false theory and that there cannot be evidence for something that's false.

This was a momentous experience for me, because here was an educated, intelligent man telling me that he will not give up materialism, no matter what. Even the evidence of his own experience would not cause him to give up materialism. I realized two things in that moment. First, this experience cured me of any impulse to argue these things with recalcitrant colleagues; it is pointless to argue with someone who tells me that his mind is already made up, and nothing I can say will change it. Second, this experience taught me that it is important to distinguish between (a) materialism as an empirical hypothesis about the nature of the world, which is amenable to evidence one way or the other (this is the hallmark of a scientific hypothesis -- that evidence is relevant for its truth or falsity) and (b) materialism as an ideology, or paradigm, about how things "must" be, which is impervious to evidence (this is the hallmark of an unscientific hypothesis -- that evidence is not relevant for its truth). My colleague believed in materialism not as a scientific hypothesis which, qua scientific hypothesis might be false, but rather as dogma and ideology which "must" be true, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. For him, materialism is the fundamental paradigm in terms of which everything else is explained, but which is not itself open to doubt. I shall coin the term "fundamaterialist" to refer to those who believe that materialism is a necessary truth, not amenable to empirical evidence.

With respect to (a) materialism held as an empirical hypothesis about the world, the evidence against it is overwhelming. With respect to (b) materialism held as an ideology, evidence against it is logically impossible. A complicating factor is that the fundamaterialist typically holds the metabelief that his belief in materialism is not ideological, but empirical. That is, he misclassifies himself under (a), while his behavior clearly falls under (b). The debunker and skeptic believes that he is being "scientific" in ignoring and rejecting the evidence against materialism. He claims that the evidence is weak, that it is not compelling, that it can be easily explained away by the materialist paradigm. But when asked what kind of evidence it would take to convince him that materialism is empirically false, he is, like my colleague, usually at a loss for what to say. If he's not familiar with the data, he'll come up with a criterion of evidence which in fact has already been met. When it is pointed out to him that there exist many well-documented cases which satisfy his proposed criterion, he will simply make his criterion more stringent, and at some point he crosses the line between the reasonable demand for scientific evidence and the unreasonable (and unscientific) demand for logical proof.

This is not a minor point. Fundamaterialism is so deeply ingrained in the academic establishment that most researchers on the NDE fall prey to it. For, after presenting case after case which would satisfy any reasonable standard of empirical evidence against materialism, even sympathetic researchers almost always deem it necessary to add the disclaimer that their research does not prove that there is life after death. But no scientific hypothesis is ever proven in this sense. Theorems in logic and mathematics can be proved. In science, hypotheses are not proved; rather, empirical evidence renders a given hypothesis more or less probable. There is no such thing as logical, or mathematical certainty in science. The fundamaterialists are correct in that the hypothesis that consciousness exists independently of the body cannot be proven with mathematical certainty. But neither can any other scientific hypothesis, because empirical science deals with evidence, not proof. Evidence never "proves" a hypothesis, it just makes it more probable. And, when evidence for a given hypothesis accumulates to a certain degree, we accept the hypothesis as true. But "true" in this scientific sense never means "proven"; it means very very probable. In science there is always the possibility that a given hypothesis may turn out to be false. The fundamaterialist will not accept the hypothesis of an afterlife until it is "proven" beyond a logical possibility of being false. That is, he is using a concept of proof which belongs in logic and mathematics, not in science. And NDE researchers are playing the fundamaterialist's game when they utter caveats that their research does not prove the hypothesis of an afterlife. What researches should say, in my opinion, is simply that they have amassed sufficient evidence to render the hypothesis of an afterlife very probable, and the hypothesis of materialism very improbable.

In the above paragraphs, I have been using the terms "science" and "scientific" in its epistemological sense. Science is a methodological process of discovering truths about reality. Insofar as science is an objective process of discovery, it is, and must be, metaphysically neutral. Insofar as science is not metaphysically neutral, but instead weds itself to a particular metaphysical theory, such as materialism, it cannot be an objective process for discovery. There is much confusion on this point, because many people equate science with materialist metaphysics, and phenomena which fall outside the scope of such metaphysics, and hence cannot be explained in physical terms, are called "unscientific". This is a most unfortunate usage of the term. For if souls and spirits are in fact a part of reality, and science is conceived epistemologically as a systematic investigation of reality, then there is no reason why science cannot devise appropriate methods to investigate souls and spirits. But if science is defined in terms of materialist metaphysics, then, if souls and spirits are real, science, thus defined, will not be able to deal with them. But this would be, not because souls and spirits are unreal, but rather because this definition of science (in terms of materialist metaphysics) has semantically excluded nonphysical realities from it scope.

Peter Fenwick uses the term "science" in this metaphysical sense when he writes

So far we've taken a largely scientific, and therefore a rather limited view of the NDE. We've been looking at mechanism, and almost everything we have said has been based on the assumption that the NDE takes place in or is constructed by the brain. We've confined "mind" to the brain because, scientifically, we have no other option. When the brain dies, the mind dies; the scientific view does not allow for the possibility of a soul, or for any form of personal survival after death.

It is only by looking at some non-scientific views that we might find a wider explanation of the NDE....[9]

If the term "materialistic" is substituted for "scientific", then the above passage is an accurate statement with which I have no quarrel. The last sentence becomes "it is only by looking at non-materialistic views that we might find a wider explanation of the NDE...." And this is absolutely correct. Materialism is a woefully inadequate framework in terms of which to understand the NDE. And, I wish to insist, it is science itself, understood epistemologically as a metaphysically neutral method of inquiry, which has discovered the limitations of materialism. After all, the primary researchers in the field are not philosophers or theologians, but well-trained scientists and physicians, who, using standard scientific methodology, have been forced by their data to conclude that materialism cannot be the whole truth.

I stress this semantic point about how the word "scientific" should be used in part because the term carries a lot of emotional weight. To be labeled "unscientific" is sufficient for having one's work or one's self dismissed and ignored by the academic establishment. And I think this is part of the reason academics are in fact dismissive of the research on the NDE. The reasoning goes something like this: to be scientific is good; to be unscientific is bad. Science = materialism. To believe in souls and spirits, or even to talk about souls and spirits, is to talk about and/or believe in something which is not materialistic. Therefore it is unscientific, which is bad, and hence we shouldn't waste any time on it. I believe that most of my colleagues think like this. The false premise, upon which the argument hangs, is the equating of science with materialism, an equation so deeply ingrained that it is difficult to root out. But I think even the most die-hard materialist ought to grant the following hypothetical: if souls, etc. are real, that is if non-material objects exist, then it should be possible to study them, to acquire data about them, to construct generalizations and theories about them, etc., which is to say, it should be possible to study them scientifically. Hence science ought to be construed as a method of inquiry only, not as a metaphysical theory which stipulates by definition what there is, and what can or cannot exist.

I wish to turn my attention now to the discipline of philosophy. It would seem that, of all the disciplines, philosophy ought to be most interested in, and meticulously study, all the research on the NDE. After all, isn't philosophy supposed to be concerned with questions of ultimate meaning, of the purpose of life, of the relation between mind and body, of God? NDE research has data which are directly relevant to all of these questions. So how is it possible that philosophy has collectively managed to ignore and even ridicule this research? To those outside of academic philosophy, it may come as a surprise to learn the great majority of academic philosophers are atheists and materialists. While, as I have argued above, they incorrectly use science to support their materialism, they systematically ignore the findings of science [10] which refute their materialism. Since their materialism is not empirically based, I call it fundamaterialism, to make explicit comparison with fundamentalism in religion. Fundamentalism connotes an attitude of certainty towards one's core belief. Just as the fundamentalist Christian is absolutely certain that the world was created in the manner described by the Bible (fossil evidence notwithstanding [11]), so also the fundamaterialist is absolutely certain that there exists nothing that is not made up of matter (NDE and other evidence notwithstanding). In fact, and this is the crucial point, their respective beliefs have nothing to do with evidence. As my fundamaterialist colleague put it, "there can't be evidence for something that's false."

And, more surprisingly, even those philosophers who are not materialists (and their number, I think, is growing) refuse to look at the data. One would think that a Cartesian Dualist, or a Platonist, would eagerly devour the wealth of data which strongly support their point of view. I would like to share a few more personal experiences which highlight some of the attitudes involved. In the late seventies, when the early research on the NDE was just being published, I was involved in team-teaching a course with one of the campus chaplains. Excitedly, I shared what I was learning about the NDE with the chaplain, thinking that he would welcome empirical data which, at the very least, constituted strong prima-facia evidence for much of what he believed in -- soul, afterlife, ultimate responsibility for one's actions, Higher Power, etc. To my astonishment, he was just as dismissive of the evidence as was my fundamaterialist colleague. When I questioned him about why he was so resistant to the data, he said, in effect, that his belief in God, afterlife, etc. is based on faith, and if these things were decidable empirically, there would be no room left for faith, which for him, was the foundation of his religious convictions.

I knew then that the NDE was between a rock and a hard place, as far as being taken seriously by the two disciplines, philosophy and theology, which should be the most interested in it. On the one hand, fundamaterialist philosophers believe in the truth of materialism a priori; empirical evidence is not relevant to them, and they are committed to ignoring and/or debunking anything that looks like evidence. On the other hand, theologians and other intellectuals who do believe in an afterlife, tend to base their belief on faith, which they feel would be seriously undermined if empirical evidence were relevant to their beliefs. Moreover, once theology and religion open the door to empirical evidence, then the possibility arises that the evidence may contradict some aspects of what was believed solely on the basis of faith. Indeed, this has already happened. The evidence from the NDE, for example, suggests that God is not vengeful, does not judge us or condemn us, and is not angry at us for our "sins"; there is judgment, to be sure, but the reports appear to be in agreement that all judgment comes from within the individual, not from the Being of Light. It seems, in fact, that all God is capable of giving us is unconditional love. Well, the concept of an all-loving non-judgmental God contradicts and undermines the teachings of many religions, and it is no wonder that the religious fundamentalists are up in arms about the Near Death Experience.

One more story: a few years ago, a Plato scholar from England gave a colloquia at my university. Afterwards, I found myself sitting next to him at dinner, and he politely asked me what my interests were in philosophy. I replied that I was interested in examining the various kinds of evidence suggestive of an afterlife.[12] He, assuming falsely that my interest was in debunking the paranormal, proceeded to tell us of a recent lecture he had attended in England. The lecturer, he said (with a slight sneer of contemptuous ridicule which only the British have truly perfected) was a certain neuropsychiatrist who talked about the Near Death Experience, and (with heightened tone of ridicule) actually believed that it was real. Even though I am quite used to the limitations of my metaphysically challenged colleagues, his attitude surprised me. In the first place, here was a Plato scholar, who, like the chaplain, was summarily dismissive of even the possibility that there could be evidence that Plato's views, the views of the philosopher about whom he is an "expert", might actually be true. The first recorded NDE is at the end of Book 10 of The Republic, so I would have thought that a Plato scholar would at the very least be curious about it. But even more disturbing to me was his implied reasoning. Whenever I hear that a highly trained scientist has studied some sort of esoteric phenomena, and has come to the conclusion, based on his research, that there is something to it, my curiosity is piqued, and I want to investigate.[13] My reasoning is that, if respectable, well-trained scientists have concluded that there's something to it, then maybe there is something to it, and I proceed to read what they have to say. But my colleague, the Plato scholar, was reasoning quite differently: if a respectable, well-trained neuropsychiatrist has come to the conclusion that there might be life after death, what this shows is, not that there might be any empirical reason to believe in an afterlife, but rather, that even a rigorous training in neuropsychiatry cannot protect an individual from believing in such foolish absurdities as an afterlife. This is the reasoning of a closed mind. With respect to the question of an afterlife, his mind is already made up; like most academic philosophers, he believes a priori that there is no afterlife, and since there can't be evidence for something that doesn't exist, anyone who believes otherwise betrays a mind that has fallen victim to superstition, wishful and fuzzy thinking, irrationality, and so forth.

One conclusion I have come to over the years is that both the atheist and the believer, from the fundamaterialist to the fundamentalist, share something in common. In fact, from an epistemological perspective, what they have in common is much more significant than what they disagree about. What they agree about is this: beliefs pertaining to the possible existence of a transcendent reality -- God, soul, afterlife, etc. -- are based on faith, not fact. If this is true, then there can be no factual evidence which pertains to such beliefs. This metabelief -- that beliefs about a transcendent reality cannot be empirically based -- is so deeply entrenched in our culture that it has the status of a taboo. The taboo is very democratic in that it allows everyone to believe whatever they want to believe about such matters. This allows the fundamaterialist to feel comfortable in her conviction that reason is on her side, that there is no afterlife, and that those who believe otherwise have fallen prey to the forces of irrationality and wishful thinking. But it also allows the fundamentalist to feel comfortable in his conviction that he has God on his side, and that those who believe otherwise have fallen prey to the forces of satan and evil. Thus, although the fundamentalist and the fundamaterialist are on opposite extremes of the spectrum of possible attitudes towards an afterlife, the extreme positions they hold unites them as "strange bedfellows" in their battles against the possibility that there are matters of fact about the afterlife which empirical research might discover. The very suggestion that empirical research might be relevant to beliefs pertaining to a transcendent reality -- that such beliefs are subject to empirical constraint -- runs strongly against this taboo, and is hence very threatening to most elements of our culture.

So, at the very least, there is a failure of curiosity among the academic establishment with respect to a large body of data suggestive of an afterlife. And if I am right, if, to paraphrase Almeder, it is irrational not to believe in a transcendent reality, given the evidence, then academia is permeated by a widespread and recalcitrant irrationality which blinds it to the findings of science. I think there are three inter-related factors, or causes, which converge to generate the resistance with respect to this issue: (a) resistance to paradigm change, (b) intellectual arrogance, and (c) social taboo.

(a) Resistance to paradigm change: Ever since the publication of Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions, the concept of a paradigm has been a familiar, useful, albeit sometimes controversial, tool. The concept of a paradigm helps us considerably in understanding scientific revolutions, when dramatic changes occur involving deep-rooted assumptions about how things are or how things must be. All academics matriculate within the context of a specific discipline which trains its practitioners to think in terms of the currently operating paradigm. Once the operating paradigm has been internalized in the mind of the individual, other, competing paradigms appear wrong and/or foolish. For example, I seem to remember, as a graduate student, spending a pleasant afternoon ridiculing phenomenology, which is a different way of approaching philosophy than the analytic paradigm which is dominant in America. None of us had read any phenomenology, or understood what it was about, yet to us it was meaningless gibberish, foolish French philosophy. Examples, historical and personal, could be multiplied without limit. Indeed professional meetings, both in science and humanities, not infrequently degenerate into mere debunking sessions. It seems there is something very deep in us humans that causes us to dismiss and ridicule any way of thinking which is different from our own. There is a natural resistance to forms of thinking which differs from what was internalized during the educational process.

Academic philosophers matriculate within a paradigm which is largely atheistic, materialistic, and reductionistic. There is no God, only material objects and processes exist, and human experience and behavior is to be explicated mechanically in terms of brain states. Books with the terms "mind" or "consciousness" in their title, for example, tend to have as their primary goal the "reduction" of mental and conscious experience to neurophysiology. To one who has internalized this paradigm, this way of approaching things appears to be right, reasonable, objective, and sensible. The paradigm itself is rarely questioned; it is the very water in which the academic philosopher is swimming, which is why it is so difficult for one who is immersed in the paradigm to see it as a paradigm, rather than as the way things "must be". Someone operating out of a different paradigm appears to be out of touch with reality, irrational, and so forth.

So, one of the forces which cause academics to ignore, dismiss, and ridicule the evidence for an afterlife is the force of the paradigm which the individual academic has internalized. The force of a well-entrenched paradigm has, throughout history, always caused scientists and humanists to actively resist both (i) paradigms, theories and hypotheses which are different from their own, as well as (ii) information which runs counter to the general contours of their own paradigm. Indeed, I think the concept of a paradigm partly explains why philosophers are, as a whole, much more resistant to the concept of an afterlife than are scientists. (It is scientists, not philosophers, who are actively engaged in this research). It is because atheism plays a much more central role in the contemporary philosopher's paradigm than it does in the scientist's. In today's academic climate, a physicist could write a book called ``God and the New Physics'' [14], but not a philosopher.

(b) Intellectual arrogance: In addition to the normal kind of resistance with which any paradigm defends itself against change, the atheist paradigm of academia generally, and Philosophy in particular, feels especially threatened by the findings of paranormal research. This is because intellectuals like to regard themselves as the highest manifestation of intelligence on the planet, if not in the Universe. Embracing an evolutionary model according to which consciousness is correlated with brain development, intellectuals regard the human brain as the highest development of evolutionary forces [15], and an educated human brain as the highest of the high. Intellectuals like to feel that they are riding atop the crest of the wave of Evolution. This intellectual smugness is greatly threatened by paranormal research, especially the NDE, the results of which strongly suggest (I am tempted to say "clearly show" instead of "strongly suggest") that the human intellect is by no means the highest form of intelligence. The Being of Light is Itself often described as infinite intelligence and love; moreover, intermediate between the humans and God there appear to many forms of non-embodied intelligence, greatly superior to our own. And furthermore, NDEers report that they feel themselves to be more alive and intelligent while out of the body than when in the body. NDE research seems to be confirming Plato's view that the body acts as a damper on the soul's native intelligence, weighing it down, so to speak, such that the soul is not able to manifest its full intelligence as long as it is embodied in material form.

All this is deeply unsettling to us academics. When we were younger, we may have been poor at sports, we may have been frequently teased by other children for being "squares" or "nerds". But we were smart, and our whole sense of self-worth got tied up in being smart. We were praised by our teachers for getting A's, and we worked hard to achieve the highest possible academic honors and rewards. It is thus quite natural for us to desire theories which support and justify those qualities which are strongest in us. It is therefore very comforting, although blatantly self-serving, to embrace a paradigm according to which we intellectuals are the most highly evolved beings in the Universe, or at least, on the planet. So to ask us to take seriously current research on the Near Death Experience is to ask us (i) not only to entertain the possibility that the atheist paradigm in terms of which we were raised and educated might be inadequate, (ii) but also that human intelligence, of which we academics are the supreme manifestation, is not only not the highest form of intelligence in Creation, but may very well be among the lowest. No wonder there is so much resistance!

(c) Social and cultural taboo: This is the most serious and powerful source of resistance, because it involves not only the university system, but our whole culture, indeed, our whole way of life. Despite avowals to the contrary, we live in a completely atheistic and irreligious culture. To be sure, most people profess a belief in a Higher Power of some sort, and many people attend religious services regularly, but religion, by which I mean religious values, plays no role in shaping the economic and political forces which structure and control our culture. Let me explain: the primary religious value, common to all of the world's religions, is love. The religions of the world agree that Divine Love is the force which creates and sustains our world, and that our primary purpose while embodied is to grow in our ability to understand and express this love. The world's religions advocate that we practice compassion and forgiveness towards others, that we treat people as ends in themselves, and that we not value material possessions. The "goodlife", according to religion, consists, not in the pursuit of wealth, reputation, or power, but rather, in the pursuit of right relationship with the Divine.

Now, the values of our culture are diametrically opposed to the values of religion. Success in our culture is measured by wealth, reputation, and power; and the desires which are requisite for obtaining this success are greed and ambition. Religious values have been safely shunted off to at most one hour a week on Sunday morning, where they are completely ineffective in mitigating the forces of greed and ambition which drive our culture economically. The primary religious values of love and compassion play no role in shaping the economic and political life of our culture. Politicians and corporations seek only to win fame and fortune for themselves; they do not value kindness, they do not seek to share their wealth, and most importantly, they, like everyone else in our culture, measure their self worth according to their wealth, status, reputation, etc. No one gets rich by being kind to their competitors; no one gains political office by being loving towards their opponents. Religious values may be paid lip service to, but they are inoperative in our culture. Indeed, they are fundamentally incompatible with the values which do, in fact, drive our culture.[16]

The reader can probably already see where I'm going with this. Research on the NDE has yielded the following unambiguous conclusion. NDEers confirm the basic values of the world's religions. The purpose of life, NDEers agree, is Knowledge and Love. Studies on the transformative effect of the NDE show that the cultural values of wealth, status, material possessions, etc., become much less important, and the perennial religious values of love, caring for others, and acquiring knowledge about the divine ascend to greater importance. That is, the studies show that NDEers not only verbally profess the values of Love and Knowledge, but they tend to operate in accordance with these values, if not entirely, then at least more so than before.

As long as religious values are presented as merely religious values, then it is easy for popular culture to ignore them or give them minimal lip-service on Sunday mornings. But if these same religious values are presented as empirically verified scientific facts, then everything changes. If the belief in an afterlife were to be accepted, not on the basis of faith, nor on the basis of speculative theology, but as a well-confirmed scientific hypothesis, then this could not be ignored by our culture. In fact, it would mean the end of our culture in its present form. Consider the following scenario: further research on the NDE confirms in great detail what has already been established, many more cases of verified veridical perceptions while "out of body" are collected and documented, advancing medical technology makes possible many more "smoking gun" cases of the type discussed above, longitudinal studies on NDEers confirm the already observed behavioral changes aligned with their newly acquired (or recently reinforced) spiritual values, and so forth. The studies are replicated in different cultures, with the same results. Eventually, the weight of evidence begins to set in, and scientists are ready to announce to world, if not as fact, then at least as highly confirmed scientific hypotheses:

There is an afterlife.
Our real identity is not our body, but our mind or consciousness.
Although the details of the afterlife are not known, we are reasonably certain that everyone will experience a life-review, in which the individual experiences not only every event and every emotion of his life, but also, the effects his behavior, positive or negative, has had on others. The usual defense mechanisms with which we hide from ourselves our sometimes cruel and less than compassionate behavior towards others seems not to operate during the life review.
The purpose of life is Love and Knowledge -- to learn as much as possible about both this world and the transcendent world, and to grow in our ability to feel kindness and compassion towards all beings.
A consequence of (3) is that it appears to be a great disadvantage to oneself to harm another person, either physically or psychologically, since whatever pain one inflicts on another is experienced as one's own in the life-review.
This scenario is by no means far-fetched. I believe there is already sufficient evidence to present the above propositions as "probable", or "more likely than not", based on the evidence. Further studies will only increase the probability.
When this happens, the fallout will be revolutionary. When these findings are announced by science, it will become impossible for our culture to do business as usual, either economically, or politically, or in the universities. For our universities, as I have written elsewhere [17], are institutions of our culture, and as such, manifest and perpetuate the values of our culture. It would be interesting to speculate what an economy, or a university, which tries to align itself with the above five empirical hypotheses might look like, but that is a project well beyond the scope of this paper. It is sufficient for our present purposes simply to note that acceptance of the findings of NDE researchers would mark the beginning of the end of a culture whose driving forces have been greed and ambition, and which measures success in terms of material possessions, wealth, reputation, social status, etc. The present culture, therefore, has an enormous vested interest in undermining NDE research, which it does through ignoring, debunking, and otherwise marginalizing the research.

More subtly, our culture has created an atmosphere of "taboo", for want of a better name, around any serious discussions of spirituality. This is why we tend to feel uneasy and awkward in discussing these things with colleagues. We can discuss spirituality in the academy as something that other people believe, but not as something for which there could be empirical evidence and which might be empirically true. Even the former is difficult. I remember attending a conference on Spinoza some years ago. A member of the audience wanted to ask the speaker whether he thought Spinoza was a mystic. But the questioner could not bring himself to utter the word "mystic". He stuttered and stammered until someone else asked the question for him. The taboo against spirituality is so strong in academic philosophy, that we feel awkward and embarrassed even to say the word "mystic". And this is why I say that something like a taboo is operating here, something which we have all internalized, and which generates feelings of unease and anxiety whenever spiritually is discussed as something that might be true, rather than merely intellectually, as sociology, history, psychology, or literature.

To avoid these feelings of discomfort and anxiety generated by the taboo, academics try to protect themselves by employing the same strategies that everyone uses to avoid anxiety. The first strategy is denial. By paying no attention to the research, by ignoring it and dismissing it a priori, the academic is spared the uncomfortable feelings which would arise from violating the taboo. The second strategy is to debunk, to explain away, and to otherwise marginalize the research, and sometimes even the researchers themselves.

I believe I have identified several of the major factors which are involved in academia's collective refusal to take seriously the results of research into the paranormal. Those disciplines which would be most affected by this research, such as Philosophy and Psychology, are the most resistant to the data, because the data calls into question their most fundamental presuppositions of what a person is and of what life is all about. There is thus much for academics generally, and philosophers and psychologists especially, to fear in this research.

I would like to close by telling a little story I heard about C.D.Broad. C.D. Broad was a famous British philosopher who wrote in the 40s, 50s, and 60s. He served as president of the British Society for Psychic Research, and was the last philosopher with an international reputation who believed there was something to it. Towards the end of his life he was asked how he would feel if he found himself still present after his body had died. He replied that he would feel more disappointed than surprised. Not surprised, because his investigations led him to conclude that an afterlife was more likely than not.[18] But why disappointed? His reply was disarmingly honest. He said, in effect, that he had had a good life: that he was comfortable materially, and that he enjoyed admiration and respect from students and colleagues. There is no guarantee that his status, reputation, and comfort would carry over intact into the afterlife. The rules by which success is measured in the afterlife might be quite different from the rules according to which success is measured in this life. And indeed, NDE research suggests that Broad's fears were well-founded, that "success" by afterlife standards is measured, not in terms of publications, grants, or reputation, but rather by acts of kindness and compassion to others. Perhaps those whose sense of self-worth arises primarily from their status within academia have, as Broad expressed, something to fear from the findings of NDE research.

Footnotes


"Do Any Near-Death Experiences Provide Evidence for Survival of Human Personality after Death?", Emily Cook, Bruce Greyson and Ian Stevenson, Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol.12, No. 3, p. 377, 1998.
Ibid, p 377
Light and Death; Zondervan Publishing House, 1998, chapter 3
Ibid, p.49
Robert Almeder: Death and Personal Survival
Ibid:
William James: Frederic Myers Service to Psychology, in The Works of William James; Essays in Psychical Research, Harvard, 1986, p.194
Michael Grosso, PhD. Fear of Life after Death in What Survives?, Gary Doore (ed); Tarcher, 1990. (Italics mine)
Peter Fenwick, The Truth in the Light, Berkeley Publishing, 1997, p.249

I think it is time to be quite candid about this; there is a tremendous body of research on the paranormal, accumulated since the time of William James, which should properly be called the "findings of science", because the researchers have been trained scientists who adhered to strict, methodologically scientific rules of evidence. When I say that the findings of science refutes materialism, I am using the term refutes in the standard empirical (not logical or mathematical) sense in which a hypothesis (in this case materialism) is said to be refuted, or falsified, by strong evidence to the contrary.

Fundamentalists are just as inventive in explaining away fossil evidence as fundamaterialists --at least those who bother to look at paranormal research --are at explaining away NDE research. One particularly ingenious fundamentalist explanation is that, when God created the world 5000 plus years ago, He created it with fossils and dinosaur bones in place, to make it look as if the world were older, as a sort of test of our faith. The Creationist then challenges the evolutionary scientist to "prove" that God did not in fact create the world in this way. One does not need to be an astute logician to see that the Creationist's hypothesis is unfalsifiable in principle, hence unscientific, and hence, the evolutionary scientist does not need to show (because it cannot in principle be shown) that God did not Create the world with the fossil evidence in place. The arguments of those fundamaterialists who look at the evidence from paranormal research are just as convoluted, involving unfalsifiable premises, confusing evidence with proof, etc. See Almeder, op. cit., for a more detailed examination of some of the convolutions the fundamaterialist must undergo in order to save his materialism.

As an aside, I must say that it has taken me twenty years to gain the courage to be able to reply simply and honestly to questions pertaining to my interests. The taboo against having any interest in the paranormal except for the purpose of debunking it has persisted in academia since the time of William James; and the punishment for violating this taboo is to be ridiculed and marginalized by colleagues. My fear, which has now left me, of being on the receiving end of such ridicule has kept me silent for many years.
Everyone desires approval from their peers, and I have nothing but admiration for those researchers whose love for truth gave them the courage to publish their findings despite fears of their colleagues' disapproval.
e.g. William James on mediumship, John Mack on UFO's, Brian Weiss and Ian Stevenson on reincarnation, etc.
Paul Davies

Although, it must be noted that intellectuals are not consistent in their application of their own criteria. If species intelligence is to be correlated with brain development, then dolphins and whales must be regarded as the most intelligent life forms on the planet.

I do not mean only the corporate and political culture, but popular culture as well. Consider, for example the value of forgiveness, common to all religions. In what per cent of our movies is the protagonist a hero because he has successfully applied this value and has forgiven his enemies? Compare this with the percentage of movies in which the protagonist is a hero because he successfully applied the opposite value of vengeance and destroyed his enemies.

See my Context & Content in Academia; Parts 1 and 2, as yet unpublished.
C. D. Broad reached this conclusion based on studies of mediums and apparitions. The evidence available today, through NDE research and Stevenson-type cases, is even more compelling

Youll like this one:

Quotet has been suggested that "science" is merely discovering what (as is generally termed "eastern") philosophy has known for years. But people forget that we developed our modern-day sciences to present us with provable repeatable constructs. To me it's kinda like someone making multiple entries in a lottery. They look at the winning numbers, say, 6, 16, 22, 23, 26 and 42. They see their total card and exclaim to their friend, "Hey, I had 6 and 16, oh, and 22 and 23, 26 and 42." But the key thing is, of course, not only do you have to guess 6 winning numbers but you have to guess them all correct, on the one line, on the relevant week.

In other words, it's all very well cherry picking certain aspects from previous belief constructs, saying, hey look, these guys were right on this aspect. But that's like me betting on a hundred spins of a roulette wheel. I won't make money overall. But I'm not going to be wrong every time either. In the same sense it's like the people who continually claim the world is going to end. Yes, it will eventually end one day, and someone will be right. But only in the same way a broken clock tells the right time at least once a day.

Our belief constructs of science were created to provide us with definitive answers. This is why science, in the main, is emphasised over what is typically judged to be spirituality.

People will accept less and less the old explanations given by scientists. Of course they will. For there is nothing knew in that. I remember some body of scientists saying the practical limit for the clock-speed of microprocessors was 250 megahertz! Ha ha ha ha, what a laugh.

Within the body of science as a whole, there is at least the concept of "time moves on", new discoveries are made, and it's out with the old and in with the new. Science has embraced this concept admirably and passed in on to the mainstream. After all, who uses the same mobile phone of 20 years ago? Come to think of it, who uses any technology from 20 years ago? Yet as far as Spiritual and religious understanding is concerned, most people are still in the Dark Ages.

That's the core problem. In the sense that religions have yet to give way to the "new technology". What new technology have we had in religion in 2000 years? Nothing, it's the same old claptrap. But they will move on (or rather move aside) eventually. It's a bit messy in the way it happens but so what. Humankind lives on to create some immense discoveries. That's why I always chuckle when I hear people talking about the end of the world. What nonsense. It's finally the end of people talking about the end of the world, and all other such ridiculousness.

And also this one:

QuoteIn the physical, if I wanted to explain to you about water, for example, I don't need to present you with a model of its properties. Because anyone can just turn on a tap, or go for a swim in a lake, or stand in the rain, or something. But with inner realms of reality you can't just point to an objective example and say there, take a look at that. So to explain what we mean, we have to develop a model that represents the inner, i.e. subjective, reality.

Monroe was the first person, to my knowledge, to realise that the areas of consciousness we project to are not places, as mystics typically (and wrongly) assume. They are focuses of attention. Monroe, therefore, developed a model of consciousness that took account of this. In his work, he noticed that the various focuses of attention had certain individual properties, which were objectively viewable and repeatable. So he labelled these states with an arbitrary series of numbers, in an effort to help other people understand the wider reality.

The Monroe model is really good in many ways, but it still falls short of taking account of the true extent of the wider reality.

For example, the Monroe model is excessively individualistic. This makes it ideal for beginners, but each of us is a focus-personality participating in a simultaneous cycle of manifestation. As opposed to the reincarnational cycle that Monroe appears to support, along with mainstream religious and New Age models. Not that I actually know much about mainstream religion or New Age, but from what I gather they generally support the somewhat incorrect reincarnational model, as opposed to the correct simultaneous model.

So the challenge, then, for anyone like myself, trying to map the inner reality in a more straighforward scientific sense (as opposed to the somewhat convoluted religious and mystical constructs) is how to translate the typology of all-that-is in a true sense, into some kind of model that people can relate to.

The Monroe model is very good. For a first attempt by a lone explorer it was something special, and it is still very applicable today. But it was my frustration with the Monroe model in my attempts to "go beyond" Focus 27 that led me to develop a completely new model that I call the Phasing Model.

The Phasing Model does away with the arbitrary numbers of the Monroe model and labels just the 4 primary focuses of mental attention, within our system as a whole. It can be loosely related to the Monroe model as follows:

Monroe C1 – Phasing Model Focus 1
Monroe Focus's 3;10;12;15 & 21 – Phasing Model Focus 2
Monroe Focus's 23; 24; 25; 26 & 27 – Phasing Model Focus 3
No direct translation with Monroe – Phasing Model Focus 4

Like I say, it was my frustration in trying to go "beyond" F27 of the Monroe model that led me to discover Focus 4 of consciousness. Nothing about this area of consciousness, as far as I can tell, directly relates to anything Monroe published in Far Journeys and Ultimate Journey. So on that basis I am assuming it was not part of his knowledge. Which should not be taken as a criticism, as there was just so darned much of the wider reality that was a part of his knowledge. And I, for one, would never have got as far as I did without having Monroe's work as a launch pad.

From knowledge gained from my being able to "plug into" Focus 4, I've managed to find out facts such as how the 4-Focus model can be related to early religious models. Amazingly, it would appear that all the major religious schools of thought based their thinking on a 4-Focus model of some description. Or what I mean is they held the notion of 4 primary areas in consciousness.

For example, Focus's 1 to 4 can be directly related to the early Christian model of Body; Psyche; Soul; Spirit, respectively. Though I'm not saying that everything they said from then on was necessarily correct, lol. Just that their primary thinking was based on the right lines, at least at some stage in the beginnings of their quest. But it all just developed into the ideological mess we see today.

The idea you always have to hold in mind when adopting any kind of model, is that the words and the models are NOT the actual territory! My Phasing Model, is merely my best attempt yet at presenting a map of the wider reality, or what some people call "all that is". In your explorations, you must hold the idea of the map or model in mind, while simultaneously seeking to "remember" what that model signifies.

Never forget, the map is NOT the territory.

I'm making a particular point of this because I see people fall into this trap all the time with the more mystical models. Which is all very well, I suppose, but I don't want people making that mistake with my own model, as it would defeat the whole purpose of my developing it.

data, i will read your links if you promise to read mine. ;) hopefully we can come to some sort of mutual agreement, if only for the sake of argument. Im not big a fan of agreeing to disagree. ;)

QuoteIf your asking about how the whole concept came about, some guy thought it up and the word spread.

You do realize that the concept of god has been independently created in many cultures and has been around since recorded history. As I was saying it a universal belief. Others, such as myself, independently arrive at the concept through logic and experience.

It is clear that your argument is not standing against reason or the facts. So it would be wise to re-examine your beliefs on the origin of god. As someone who believes in consciousness creating matter. You should have no problem in accepting that the belief in god is not just a physical construct, but has an origin beyond it.

This is what I was trying to underline by showing how you two twins with similar experiences can still be so different. It's because they are different souls.

QuoteThe consciousness preceds the physical, naturally. You were around before the universe was created. I am arguing for the theory of both

As I said earlier, you cannot argue for both, because they contradict each other. If we are around before the universe was created. If we are eternal and have always been. If consciousness is creating the physical. Then it follows there is no random chance. It is all intelligently designed. While the theory of evolution is based on the function of random chance and posits that the physical creates consciousness.

Your beliefs are very confused.

QuoteThese are the questions i plan to seek out once i can get out of my body

So, you have not actually experienced any of this? You continue to say "Frank says" Until
you do not experience what he says, how do you know how accurate his information is.
Now, I am have experienced astral projection either, other than spontaneous OBES, however I am not making any
proclamations of what are in these realms and which are valid or invalid experiences.

QuoteInfinity is a human construct created to show a mathematical number, that is infinity. "No time" does not mean infinity.

No it doesn't. Infinite is an abstract concept for a size or number that cannot be quantified. It also denotes something that has no limits.
Now, it is still open to debate on whether the universe is infinite or finite. Now, you can tell me, are there infinite souls or finite souls?

QuoteWhat i am saying is we built ourselves

That does not even make sense. How can you build yourself?

QuoteWE are not intertwined. The different focuses of consciousness are intertwined. I.E. your "physical body" and your "astral body" are one.

No they are not. I already proved this to you. Your physical body is separate from your astral body. As the astral body separates from
the physical body at the death of it.

QuoteOn a certain focus level(F4oC) we can be "connected" like one computer may be connected to another on a network. Hope that clears that up.

If points of consciousness are interconnected they form a whole of consciousness. This is a basic natural phenomena where aggregating particles create emergent properties. So this absolute consciousness lies beyond what you call (F4oC) and therefore the interconnected state is not an absolute. The unified state is the absolute. The interconnected state is like atoms arranged in a lattice. The unified state is the lattice. Which is a complex aggregate. This is again simple logic. That supreme consciousness is what the yogis and I call god. So, based on your beliefs you actually do believe in the same god that I do.

Maybe this is the realization you need to complete the puzzle that there is a puzzle, so you can begin the puzzle.

QuoteAre you implying that everyone believes in God? If that were the case then your argument would be settled, but as i do NOT believe in "God" you are wrong. If you mean that all across the world every religion has a form of God, you are wrong. Most of the early religions used the same constructs as the 4-focus model, merely different words. Read this:

No, I am saying that god is a universal belief and pervades humanity. I am speaking in terms of humanity. Not in terms of each of the 6 billion people.

QuoteSo i guess what im saying about the early indian philosophers that you hold in such high regards is what frank said. They merely had a much more limited perspective.

Not, another one of the "Frank says" I might as well talk to Frank. I am talking to you, not Frank. I am interested in your opinions. What Frank is saying is his opinion. His opinion is that people in the past had a limited view and he bases this on the bible. He's right. The bible is full of many contradictions and it is based on blind faith, fundamentalism, here say and lacks science, logic and reason. It is also didactic and dogmatic. So I agree with Frank on his opinion on the bible.

However, Frank is generalizing by saying all religions and spiritual texts are the same. It is fairly obvious Frank hasn't read the Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, Zen or Sikh texts then, and if he has, not enough, As Eastern religion is based on spirituality and philosophy. That is open-minded exploration of philosophical and scientific matters. The Hindus religion is based on knowledge, science and logic. The Sikh religion is based on meditation, service and prayer. Buddhism is based on self-transformation.

As I continue to tell you. This knowledge that you call new today is not new at all for the Easterns. It has been perfected over thousands of years. The entire new-age phenomena and resurgence into spirituality is because of the Eastern systems being re-learned in the west and studied largely due to the transfusion of yogis, swamis in the west.  Before then even meditation was a relatively unknown concept. A simple search on the history of the 'new-age' will show that I am right. It's not that they who had a limited view. It's modern people who have a limited view.

QuoteWhy dont you believe in santa?

Because Santa is not a natural concept that one questions when they ponder over the universe and explore causality. Nor is Santa a universal belief.

Quoteconsciousness isnt all-knowing. And again, this could be before our consciousness even entered the physical body of the human construct. Before consciousness, humans could have been primal semi-apes, using the tools theyd been givin by evolution. Ever heard of the missing link? Ever wondered why humans evolved so fast compared to other animals? Perhaps it was us entering our physical constructs? We do not need to be in a human body to create it. Again, I dont claim to be well versed and I supposed my if my views are contradicting themselves I will have alot of research to do. I only know the facts.

Now, you have really lost me.

You said consciousness creates the physical. This is the causality. Now, you are saying the physical built itself by evolution. Then consciousness entered it?
Then you say we entered our physical constructs? I can't even begin to synthesize that. What you need to do is not research, but thinking. The contradictions and inconsistencies in your thoughts are clear enough. You are holding into false information and impressions and this actually has subtle ramifications. Every false idea we harbor is like a stumbling block on our 'path' and we can never progress without removing them through logic, reason and experience.

The semi-apes were not conscious? Animals are not conscious? I disagree. My dog is as conscious as I am. Dolphins are as intelligent as humans(if not more)

QuoteThe fact that we possess consciousness is the fact that we cannot be someones dreams. When you dream of someone, you arent actually calling upon them, it is simply your thoughts projecting the objective image of that person into your dream. These beings cannot and do not possess concsiousness.

Can you imagine another colour beyond the colours that we know? No, you can't. Yet, that does not mean that another colour does not exist.  You can only know what is within your reality. Not what is outside it. If we were a dream or a holographic simulation. We would only know what we have been programmed to know.
This is actually the real nature of the universe. Everything is holographic.

QuoteThe way humans have always done it: abstract thought. I know that if i kill someone they wouldnt like it. So i dont. I know that paying someone to have sex to me is only hurting there development spirtually and as a person. So i can say that it is wrong, IMO.

You cannot explain feelings as abstract thoughts. I could easily say why would we even care if another person dies or not. You say when we visualize ourselves in the same situation, and feel what it would be like, the operative word here is 'ourselves' we are not visualizing them, but ourselves, and thus we do not 'empathize' as we alienate them. We could just as easily then say "This is not me, so I'll move on" and that is what tends to happen.  

Empathy is not abstract thought. Empathy is a feeling. It has a touch. All feelings have a touch. Love liberates you and fear suffocates you. This touch is being felt at a soul level. When you glance over a homeless man on a street, at a soul level, where you are interconnected, you feel his emotions, and that is why you act. Empathy and love are not physical phenomena. They are universal phenomena.

And there you go. You just said it. You made a distinction between right and wrong. Welcome to the real world. Where everything is not relative.

QuoteWell, if i had to choose, i would pick in order, love, heaven. But what does that prove? That i can choose? Yeah, i know that. I am confused =(

It proves that you know what is good for you and what is bad for you. You have made another distinction between good and bad. You are on the right path now.

QuoteWhat experience do you have with your particular belief system? Why does it hold more merit over mine? What experiences have you had that caused you to believe what you believe? Or are you like me, simply adapting whatever one seems to make the most sense?

Belief is a strange animal. People believe for various reasons.

1. They like the belief
2. They like the person who created or follows the belief
3. The belief carries collective weight
4. They are told to believe
5. They are duped into believing
6. It is logical and makes sense
7. They have experienced their belief
8. A belief has been tested

Now for me my beliefs are based on logic and that it makes sense. When I think any belief is proven knowledge I categorize it as fact. Another form of belief is intuitive knowledge. When you receive an intuition and know it to be true you feel it to be true as well. You may feel a surge of energy through your body. You could feel goosebumps or the hair on the back of your neck stand. This can be called a knowing.

QuoteI am sure there have been many who have learned the truth. But you did not read any of there teachings in the books you read. Simply saying "I dont trust monks" is a silly thing to say.

I did not say it. You said it. However, you used the word monk. I used the the word yogi. They are both the same, but again the semantics made you think they were different.  And when you say "But you did not read any of there teachings in the books you read" thank you, and you have not read the literature of the yogi, yet still are making judgments. Yes, it is silly. It is better it comes from your mouth. Than mine.

QuoteIs an oranges skin seperate from an orange even though you may peel it off? They are of course different ASPECTS of you, so in that sense the word seperate may be used, but seperate in the sense of an astral body and a physical body, no they are not.

Yes, an orange skin is separate from an orange, because it can be separated from the orange. The skin of an orange and the orange have a different taste, texture, colour. They are very separate from each other. And yes your physical body is separate from your astral body. They have a different vibration, they are governed by different laws of nature, they have different views, different structure. They are different personalities.

QuoteIf you are telling me that history as we know it is wrong and indian philosophers discoevere the atom hundreds of years before we did, then i take back the statement about the atom.

The Vaiseshika school was first written down as treatise by Kanada in 600-800BC in India. Before then, the idea of atoms was in the Vedas(5000BC) So the theory of atoms is as old as the Hindu religion. So, yes the the "discovery" of the atom was much before it appeared in western science. This does not mean western history is wrong. The western history is the history of the west. The Eastern history is the history of the east. In the west atoms were theorized by the greeks. In eastern history atoms has always been a concept from as old as the Hindu Vedas.

QuoteIf they did indeed discover the atom, it lends credence to my thought that modern science is just today starting to re-discover things that we already knew in the past. However, you can see even from what you posted that the Vaisheshikans used terms that they could understand(space, time, mind, and selves) to describe the atom. So would it not follow that they used terms they could understand(all the philisophical essence, substance etc.) to describe other things?

Of course they used terms that they can understand. How else are they going to communicate their views. How do we communicate anything without using terms...and yes, as I was saying, there is nothing new in understanding of science and logic today. This is very old knowledge.

QuoteIt doesnt matter wether or not they could imagine its effects. Anyone can imagine a "projectile" smashing into the ground and eradicating everything. I would say it would be weird if they didnt imagine it. They werent stupid. But could they tell my how a piece of plutionium becomes a bomb? Hell, could they describe the properties of plutonium?

I thought you said that past interpretations would be limited and they could not even imagine an atomic bomb. Well, it's quite obvious they have imagined it. The description you saw is exactly what an atomic bomb would do from detonation to radioactive fallout and what it would look like. In fact I was reading in the Sanskrit dictionary and I even found a word for atomic weapon.

Now, I cannot say whether they understood plutonium and how a nuclear chain reaction works. As I said this is another argument altogether. And nor is a knowledge of nuclear fission any kind of prerequisite for studying consciousness. Consciousness can be studied by simple observation, perception, and introspection . In western science the approach has been to look from the outside in. While for the yogis and seers of India it's been to look from the inside out.

However, just for interest sake. The concept of atomic energy was not alien to the Hindu Philosophers. They said that atoms were binded by energy(i.e nuclear energy) They also said that both matter and energy are interchangeable. They even go as far as to say that light is a particle and wave and gravity(yes they knew about gravity as well) was an attractive force due to mass.

I don't see how any of the above makes anyone more qualified to discuss consciousness. However, I am just showing you that scientific and logical thought at that time was as advanced as it was today and simply because they are ancient systems, does not mean they are inferior to modern systems. Einstein's theory of relativity is now 100 years old. Yet his theories are still some of the most complex today. Again, consciousness sciences are still very underdeveloped vis-a-vis eastern systems.

QuoteHow do you know it was the real time zone? They simply could have been interacting in F3oC, in a group construct. Theres simply no way to know, and with that wide of a margin of error, i choose not to believe.

When I say real time zone. I mean they were still in the physical. Remember, I told your their astral bodies are hovering above the class overseeing it. Now, it is your choice if you want to believe, however your reason for not believing is questionable. You believe in astral realms and projection. You believe Frank and Monroe are doing it. You believe monks are doing it. So, why don't you believe that Rama and his teacher are doing it. Is it simply because you just don't want to accept that the astral and the physical are separate personalities?

If your astral and physical weren't separate. Your physical would cease to function when you project. It is only functioning because it has it's own consciousness. What you are doing are simply connecting to your astral. This a very simple and logical truth. It beats me why you don't understand it.

Quotedont believe they take credit. All they are doing is "updating" what we know, with less error of interpretation, IMO. And as for denying mystic experiences, its irrelevent. Frank could look at an ancient indian philosophers experience and tell you wether or not it was withing F2oC, because they have experienced the teachings of others and can tell you if what the ancient says fits into the "real" view. They only deny the ones they know are BS. i deny every experience because i dont know wether or not what they say fits into the "grand scheme".

They are not updating. There is nothing to update. What they are doing are simply rediscovering what has been known for thousands of years. Frank is a toddler in the astral. I will quote Bruce where he says the Astral's are so vast that to map them it would be like exploring Earth on foot without any maps. I am sure Frank will tell you that he has not explored the astrals much. I am sure both Frank and Bruce will tell you that they have not explored the highest astrals. So, their opinions, although valuable and definitely more insightful my experiences, pales to insignificance in front of the masters.

The masters have written about highest of astrals. They have them mapped out. They know the astral societies quite well and the beings that preside there. However,  astral projection is anything special to them. Nor is it a goal. All of the Hindu religion is based on these astral planes and beings. They evens state that all celestial bodies such as the sun, moon, planets are actually celestial beings in a higher dimension of reality. Everything is consciousness.  The goal of a yogi is to attain enlightenment.

Again, read the Yoga sutras, Bhagavad Gita, Upanishads and other Hindu texts. You will learn much more about everything, than the proverbial "Frank says"

What you say afterwards almost made me laugh.

QuoteFrank could look at an ancient indian philosophers experience and tell you whether or not it was withing F2oC, because they have experienced the teachings of others and can tell you if what the ancient says fits into the "real" view. They only deny the ones they know are BS. i deny every experience because i dont know wether or not what they say fits into the "grand scheme"

This kind of blind belief in what Frank says closely resembles the blind belief of Christians in the church and bible If the Church/bible says this is right - it's right. If the church/bible says this is wrong - it's wrong. I am not about to take that argument seriously. How on earth would Frank be able to say what experience anyone was having? And considering that Frank does not even know what the higher astrals are like, he is not qualified to make any judgment on others experiences. You are really embarrassing frank. It seems you have a religious belief in him.

Unless of source Frank is an angel and is a regular of angel meetings at F(insert designation) Then you would really be elevating him to divinity :D

You're basically trying to tell me how one person's experience is better than other and I am not taking you very seriously on this.

QuoteI do believe an intelligence created them. We created them.

And who created us? And if you say we just are. Then sorry, but I don't accept it. How can we just be. We are obviously made of something. What is it?

QuoteIt follows that as humanity evolves, its understanding of the earth and the non-physical evolve. Do you agree? If so then i would take the teachings of someone in the here and now over the teachings of someone who lived in the past who didnt know that there was a continent across the ocean.

No it doesn't. The scientific western age just started a few hundred years ago. Till that point it was believed the Earth was flat. The Earth revolved around the sun and the age of the Earth was 5000 years. Quantum theory, cyclic universe and multiple world theory and studies in consciousness is very recent and it is simply based on experiences of people. Meanwhile, the eastern systems are thousands of years old and since thousands of years old quantum theory, cyclic universe, multiple world theory, even basic facts like the Earth is round, is billions of years old, and the universe is a cycle of creation and destruction, the existence of atoms, even the relativity of matter and energy and space and time were known.

QuoteWhere did they learn this information?

How does anyone learn information? Through observation, inference, contemplation and meditation. The science of meditation was the highest science amongst the Indian philosophers. They studied the non-physical subtle bodies, it's physiology and anatomy and how the mind worked.

QuoteIt is impossible to not live in this reality. Of course I accept who I am. Are you telling me i should accept your reality because it makes more sense to you? Sorry, il go with what makes the most sense to me.

I am telling you to accept this physical reality. You don't have any choice anyway.

QuoteHow are you connected? A rope? hehe. How you can use purely physical terms like lower and higher to describe the non physical astounds me. But we do tend to think linearely and if this fits your belief system then so be it.

What other terms am I going to use to explain the non physicals. I can only use the terms that exist in the English language. Again, it is very easier to prove that higher and lower are correctly being used:

Suppose the following arbitrary vibrations:

Physical: 1
Astral: 10
Higher self: 100

To express this. We say the astral is higher than the physical. The higher self is higher than the astral. What astounds me is how you cannot grasp such a basic use of language.

QuoteNow my turn to ask you some questions  

1. If we have a higher being, where does he/she/it reside? In another dimension? And if so, how are thes dimensions connected?

2. How is it that you think physical terms like higher, lower, connect, etc, have any weight in the non-physical.

Anyway thats all i can think of, im tired

1. The Higher self  is your self-actualized self. As there is no space or time. You already exist as your highest developed self. As you have been developing in all your life times at the same moment. Your higher self is infinitely wiser, much more complete than you and free of all desire. It has a distinct personality. You would not recognize that it is you. Technically it is not you.

Now, from this you will be able to better to understand god. You are God in your highest state. Yet, while your higher self is distinct from my higher self, at the higher states they are interconnected and then one. This is why  god knows all and sees all. So you and I are the same. There are absolutely no separations. We are God.

Quote2. How is it that you think physical terms like higher, lower, connect, etc, have any weight in the non-physical.

You seem to think the non-physical are so different from the physical. They are just subtle worlds. In fact 'physical' is physical for them too. Their realities are as tangible as our reality is to us. This is not some fairly tale land where everyone is one or interconnected. You have the wrong idea altogether. The astral is also a dualistic world. The observer creates the reality. You differentiate. You qualify. You separate. I've already shown to you how distinctions like higher and lower are part of astrals.

Secondly, physical constructs are real. And gravity is a real phenomena. Everything is real in the physical. None of this is an illusion. It's about time you to terms with this.

Higher Self is many things to many people. Whatever people choose to believe is their business, of course. But, ultimately, Higher Self is a mystical and/or religious belief construct.

People who adhere to the more traditional mystical models tend to think in terms of "higher" and "lower" in consciousness. Like there are "higher beings" and stuff like that. But in truth, there is no such thing... consciousness is not higher or lower, it just IS. Unfortunately, what people in the main have yet to realise is that if you are going to talk in terms of higher and lower, then we are ALREADY our highest expression of Self. But thousands of years of religious conditioning is not going to go away overnight.

In the past, people have created actions in consciousness, such as "higher self" and "gods" and such like, to the extent where they have become what are known as Group Constructs. These group constructs are lodged within the area of Focus 2 of consciousness, in an individual sense, and en masse within a particular "layer" of Focus 3.

Many of these constructs keep being repeatedly played out both within Focus 1oC and, following disengagement from physical focus, Focus 3oC.

Within F3oC you can view all manner of people engaged in the old heaven/hell constructs. But because people today are now "dying" with different ideas about what is going to happen to them, you can see all manner of other circumstances besides.

When people talk about notions such as "higher self" or "higher beings" what they really mean (although most people don't actually know what they really mean, as they just read about it and subscribed to the belief) are people resident within Focus 4 of consciousness. This is a purely subjective area of consciousness and, if you are not careful, all manner of distortions in energy translation can take place. You'll start seeing angels and gods and stuff, lol. Which is whacky, it's wild and a whole lot of fun. But not something that is meant to be taken literally. They are just distortions in energy translation between the purely subjective and the objective.

Focus 4 of consciousness is the very source of all that exists within our total system. The energetic blueprints or archetypes of all possible actions in consciousness are "stored" there. This is basically why people have misunderstood over the years and thought of an almighty creator that creates every "thing" on the planet. Well, in a sense they are right *if* you hold out a huge allowance for their limited viewpoint, and people's ever-present tendency to objectify every subjective phenomenon they come across.

Every "thing" or action-in-consciousness that we engage on our planet does, in fact, have a particular subjective "source" yes. This is because we are known as a, "source/manifest system". The subjective source of the objective actions pertaining to the creation of any one individual, is Focus 2 of consciousness.

However, the ultimate source, or the actual "blueprints" for all possible actions in consciousness that can possibly be brought about within our physical reality, is Focus 4 of consciousness.

So when people talk of "god" what they really mean is Focus 4oC, which they have objectified as people tend to do (but I guess there is no telling them that, of course!) This area of consciousness is the ultimate source of ALL actions in consciousness within our system. Therefore, your own actions will have their source there as well. Hence the reason why some people subscribe to the idea of a "higher self" as a notion of some kind of "source" pertaining to the person.

Within Focus 4 of consciousness is also where you can find all your "connections" to your other focuses, which will be resident within other physical realities within our system. There are a huge number of other physical realities and you will have many, many other focuses resident within them. This has led many mystics to believe in the idea of your Higher Self being a kind of "collective entity" that somehow encompasses all of your focuses.

Some mystics even take this notion a stage further saying that, at present, i.e. while physical, you are a kind of "fragment" of some kind of "whole". Then, when you die, you kind of become "one" again and "rejoin" this all-encompassing whole entity or Higher Self. This is, of course, a complete load of dingo droppings. But I do, of course, very much understand why these people have come to these kinds of conclusions over the years.

Some more modern-day mystics have even taken this contorted notion yet a stage further. To the extent where, they are claiming that when your "final" incarnation is complete, you "gather together" all the various "fragments" of yourself. Then the whole of you, sort of, comes together within a kind of huge "mothership of beingness" and off you travel to your next adventure. This is, again, just yet more dingo droppings.

What the people who subscribe to these notions all completely fail to take account of, is the rather significant matter of Simultaneous Time that exists within subjective consciousness. To grasp the notion of Simultaneous Time, in your thinking you have to get a good grasp of the idea of Infinity. You see, everything that ever will be, has already been. Because in infinity, everything happens an infinite number of times.

In infinity, notions such as Beginning and End are meaningless. That is why I always chuckle when I hear people talk about consciousness "expanding". All of consciousness is all of consciousness. Consciousness already encompasses all that is. There is nothing consciousness could possibly "expand" into, therefore, that it would not already encompass. We may well consider ourselves to be expanding, but we are expanding within consciousness. Consciousness itself is not expanding. Consciousness is how it has always been, and is how it always will be... infinite.

There are no boundaries or limitations within consciousness. The only limitations that exist are those we place for the purposes of our experience. Which is all very well, no harm in doing that I suppose, but major difficulties arise when people subscribe to beliefs about consciousness (and the way we set up particular areas within our system) that don't actually concur with what really takes place.

whoops, meant to quote there...anyway here is the thread i got it from, which you may find interesting.

http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=157994&highlight=creation#157994

QuoteNot, another one of the "Frank says" I might as well talk to Frank. I am talking to you, not Frank. I am interested in your opinions. What Frank is saying is his opinion. His opinion is that people in the past had a limited view and he bases this on the bible. He's right. The bible is full of many contradictions and it is based on blind faith, fundamentalism, here say and lacks science, logic and reason. It is also didactic and dogmatic. So I agree with Frank on his opinion on the bible.

However, Frank is generalizing by saying all religions and spiritual texts are the same. It is fairly obvious Frank hasn't read the Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, Zen or Sikh texts then, and if he has, not enough, As Eastern religion is based on spirituality and philosophy. That is open-minded exploration of philosophical and scientific matters. The Hindus religion is based on knowledge, science and logic. The Sikh religion is based on meditation, service and prayer. Buddhism is based on self-transformation.

As I continue to tell you. This knowledge that you call new today is not new at all for the Easterns. It has been perfected over thousands of years. The entire new-age phenomena and resurgence into spirituality is because of the Eastern systems being re-learned in the west and studied largely due to the transfusion of yogis, swamis in the west. Before then even meditation was a relatively unknown concept. A simple search on the history of the 'new-age' will show that I am right. It's not that they who had a limited view. It's modern people who have a limited view.

Well i just started studying this whole theory mere days ago and im only telling you the knowledge i have gained so far. So perhaps it would be better if you talked to frank himself, as i really might not have the answers. anyone that claims this should be stoned to death.

QuoteIt is clear that your argument is not standing against reason or the facts. So it would be wise to re-examine your beliefs on the origin of god.  

I completely agree with you. In fact i would call it odd that you do not question your own beliefs.

And as for you saying that gravity is real, it reminds me of a scene from the matrix.

What is real? If you are talking about what you can taste, what you can touch, see, then "real" is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.

Prove to me that gravity is real. Alright you say, and hop off a cliff. All this proves to me is that you believe in gravity. You made yourself fall to your doom.

You say i need to come to terms with the physical, yet if i were "creating my own reality" as you have said, would that not mean that reality IS subjective? And that the mere fact that i can live in my own little word proves that what i have said is true. again, just using some logic here.

QuoteIf points of consciousness are interconnected they form a whole of consciousness. This is a basic natural phenomena where aggregating particles create emergent properties. So this absolute consciousness lies beyond what you call (F4oC) and therefore the interconnected state is not an absolute. The unified state is the absolute. The interconnected state is like atoms arranged in a lattice. The unified state is the lattice. Which is a complex aggregate. This is again simple logic. That supreme consciousness is what the yogis and I call god. So, based on your beliefs you actually do believe in the same god that I do.

I have been saying this whole time that our beliefs are very similar. Only difference is, you went through 100 people to get to your beliefs, leading to much misinterpretation(logically, there is NO WAY to deny this) and i went through 1 with far far far far less mis-interp.

QuoteBecause Santa is not a natural concept that one questions when they ponder over the universe and explore causality. Nor is Santa a universal belief.

Actually, i came to the conclusion last night that santa is a part of everything. This was a natural conclusion that i arrived at after pondering over many things. So naturally, he must be an innate concept, correct? Also, whilst pondering the nature of the universe i came to the conclusion that there is no god. Does that make it a universal belief?

QuoteYou said consciousness creates the physical. This is the causality. Now, you are saying the physical built itself by evolution. Then consciousness entered it?
Then you say we entered our physical constructs? I can't even begin to synthesize that. What you need to do is not research, but thinking. The contradictions and inconsistencies in your thoughts are clear enough. You are holding into false information and impressions and this actually has subtle ramifications. Every false idea we harbor is like a stumbling block on our 'path' and we can never progress without removing them through logic, reason and experience.

The semi-apes were not conscious? Animals are not conscious? I disagree. My dog is as conscious as I am. Dolphins are as intelligent as humans(if not more)

Actually for the most part i was just brainstorming. I dont claim to know the answer and like i said, its something il have to experience for myself before i firmly create any sort of belief.

By the way, define "enlightenment" for me.

QuoteCan you imagine another colour beyond the colours that we know?

Not until you experience another color.

QuoteNo, you can't. Yet, that does not mean that another colour does not exist. You can only know what is within your reality. Not what is outside it. If we were a dream or a holographic simulation. We would only know what we have been programmed to know.
This is actually the real nature of the universe. Everything is holographic.

If we can only know what we have been programmed to know, how can you claim to know more than that?

QuoteYou cannot explain feelings as abstract thoughts. I could easily say why would we even care if another person dies or not. You say when we visualize ourselves in the same situation, and feel what it would be like, the operative word here is 'ourselves' we are not visualizing them, but ourselves, and thus we do not 'empathize' as we alienate them. We could just as easily then say "This is not me, so I'll move on" and that is what tends to happen.

Empathy is not abstract thought. Empathy is a feeling. It has a touch. All feelings have a touch. Love liberates you and fear suffocates you. This touch is being felt at a soul level. When you glance over a homeless man on a street, at a soul level, where you are interconnected, you feel his emotions, and that is why you act. Empathy and love are not physical phenomena. They are universal phenomena.

And there you go. You just said it. You made a distinction between right and wrong. Welcome to the real world. Where everything is not relative.

I found this interesting:

When the traditional works say that love is truth, what they mean is, love is a Truth. Now, when something is defined as a Truth, what they are defining is a particular kind of reality. They are making a specific distinction between what we might call a local, physical-focus reality. Say, for example, a chair. This could be said to be a reality, it exists as a physical truth. But it is not a truth in the wider sense of it being a Truth. This distinction is sometimes made more apparent by capitalising the word Truth, when it is meant in a wider sense.

So a Truth, then, has a reality in a wider sense. In other words, a Truth is a reality that is not limited to any particular realm of existence; but is a reality that is present in all realms of existence. So in every realm of existence, you will find there is the expression or manifestation of love.

Love is a fundamental energy, that permeates all dimensions. However, within our physical dimension, we experience merely one aspect of the reality of this Truth we call love.

Given certain conditions, it is possible to adopt an alternate mental state that will allow us to merge our sense of consciousness with the energy of love. Thus we can allow the feeling of this mergence to become manifest within our objective awareness. The actual sensations we feel as a result of this merging (which are rather nice!) we interpret as a particular range of feelings.

There are many other reams of existence where people consciously merge with the energy of love. While their interpretations of the experience may be different from our own interpretations, the actual energy they interact with is the same... it's just their interpretation that is different.

It is unfortunate (though perfectly understandable) that we then put two and two together, and conclude that love is merely a feeling... because that is how we interpret it. But we fail to recognise the wider reality of love as a Truth. This, of course, is something that basic spiritual teachings have been trying to point out for thousands of years! But, like I say, for some reason people took the basic teachings and made religions out of them, and we are only just now learning how to unravel the mess.

So you are right, empathy is a universal energy that we manifest in different ways. I hope that makes sense :P

QuoteBelief is a strange animal. People believe for various reasons.

1. They like the belief
2. They like the person who created or follows the belief
3. The belief carries collective weight
4. They are told to believe
5. They are duped into believing
6. It is logical and makes sense
7. They have experienced their belief
8. A belief has been tested

Now for me my beliefs are based on logic and that it makes sense. When I think any belief is proven knowledge I categorize it as fact. Another form of belief is intuitive knowledge. When you receive an intuition and know it to be true you feel it to be true as well. You may feel a surge of energy through your body. You could feel goosebumps or the hair on the back of your neck stand. This can be called a knowing.

In my case, I believe only what i experience. I believe if there is a god, he did not intend for us to have to learn of himself. The mere fact that we are not born with the knowledge of(even though we may come to this conclusion ourselves) and belief in God, refutes his existence. This is of course, referring to the classic monotheistic view of God.

QuoteYes, an orange skin is separate from an orange, because it can be separated from the orange. The skin of an orange and the orange have a different taste, texture, colour. They are very separate from each other. And yes your physical body is separate from your astral body. They have a different vibration, they are governed by different laws of nature, they have different views, different structure. They are different personalities.

But it is not seperate. I would question your definition of "seperate" in this case. If we follow your logic of seperate, then every little molecule in this physical universe is seperate. All you are is simply many different atoms working together to form this body. Because you can pull one atom out makes it seperate from you?

QuoteI don't see how any of the above makes anyone more qualified to discuss consciousness. However, I am just showing you that scientific and logical thought at that time was as advanced as it was today and simply because they are ancient systems, does not mean they are inferior to modern systems. Einstein's theory of relativity is now 100 years old. Yet his theories are still some of the most complex today. Again, consciousness sciences are still very underdeveloped vis-a-vis eastern systems.

Einstens theory is still widely accepted because there has not been a more reliable theory to explain what Einstens theory explains. It is human nature to evolve and change beliefs. Someday, someone will create a theory that surpassess Einsteins, or modifies it, or proves it wrong all together. People will study einsteins theory like they study indian texts. ;)

QuoteIf your astral and physical weren't separate. Your physical would cease to function when you project. It is only functioning because it has it's own consciousness. What you are doing are simply connecting to your astral. This a very simple and logical truth. It beats me why you don't understand it.

Umm I would say in your shoes that if the astral and physical werent seperate, then both could STILL function simultaneousley. In which case that is correct, monroes talks about projecting while having conversation, or projecting while eating a meal. If these two aspects were seperate then the aspect you are participating in at the time would involve your full awareness, and the physical would cease any action. Am i missing something?

QuoteThis kind of blind belief in what Frank says closely resembles the blind belief of Christians in the church and bible If the Church/bible says this is right - it's right. If the church/bible says this is wrong - it's wrong. I am not about to take that argument seriously. How on earth would Frank be able to say what experience anyone was having? And considering that Frank does not even know what the higher astrals are like, he is not qualified to make any judgment on others experiences. You are really embarrassing frank. It seems you have a religious belief in him.

Your belief in the yogis closely resembles the blind belief of Christians in the church. ;)

I dont believe in frank, i believe in the model that he came up with. The simple fact that he knows more about this model than i do causes me to quote him so many times. As i said i am still learning and have alot of ground to cover.

How do you know frank does not know what the "higher astrals" are like?  would not be surprised if frank or monroe conversed themselves with some of these yogis that you know of. It seems like you have a religious belief in the yogis. ;D

QuoteAnd who created us? And if you say we just are. Then sorry, but I don't accept it. How can we just be. We are obviously made of something. What is it?

You have to think deeper. No one created us. We just are. And im sorry if you dont accept it, but you just have to think critically. MATTER is a physical concept. There is no such thing as matter in the astral, so how could we be MADE OF IT?

Quote
No it doesn't. The scientific western age just started a few hundred years ago. Till that point it was believed the Earth was flat. The Earth revolved around the sun and the age of the Earth was 5000 years. Quantum theory, cyclic universe and multiple world theory and studies in consciousness is very recent and it is simply based on experiences of people. Meanwhile, the eastern systems are thousands of years old and since thousands of years old quantum theory, cyclic universe, multiple world theory, even basic facts like the Earth is round, is billions of years old, and the universe is a cycle of creation and destruction, the existence of atoms, even the relativity of matter and energy and space and time were known.

I really hate talking about eastern and western philosophies like we are comparing christianity to hinduism. The only thing that matters is the concepts. And in the beginning, we all shared the same concepts. The only difference between the eastern world and western(In MY Opinion) is that the amount of religious mumbo-jumbo that the west has had to endure is far greater than the amount the east has. At least the east held on to there core concepts.

QuoteHow does anyone learn information? Through observation, inference, contemplation and meditation. The science of meditation was the highest science amongst the Indian philosophers. They studied the non-physical subtle bodies, it's physiology and anatomy and how the mind worked. [.quote]

Usually it is a matter of a fath:experience ratio. Some people ratios are different, some people have a 2:95 ratio like me. For instance, you have faith in the indian philosophers that what they learned and meditated on was correct. This requires more faith than i have, so i can have faith that what frank, monroe, adrian and others EXPERIENCED in the astral(the same place most of the yogis did there learning) is correct.

QuoteI am telling you to accept this physical reality. You don't have any choice anyway.

If i dont have the choice then how am i able to not accept this. These 2 sentences are a contradiction. The mere fact that i can choose not to accept physical reality is proof that it is subjective, IMO.(not that i choose that, i find this physical reality to be a GREAT place ;0)

QuoteWhat other terms am I going to use to explain the non physicals. I can only use the terms that exist in the English language. Again, it is very easier to prove that higher and lower are correctly being used:

Dont try to explain them at all. Experience it for yourself. That is what i am in the process of doing right now. Which is why i am reluctent to believe anything i hear, including Monroe, frank, etc, etc's view on reality.

Ben, is this another "Frank says" I will address what "Frank says" when he actually talks to me. Meanwhile, I am talking to you.

You really need to start thinking for yourself, my friend. After reading the thread you posted, I noticed how a lot of what Franks says, you have regurgitated to me. Even his opinion of not qualifying higher or lower.

Why does it even matter what Frank says. Why is this one person's opinion so valuable to you that you keep posting his opinions.

The reason you keep contradicting yourself, is because these are not your beliefs. They are Franks. You're not going to get anywhere if you don't create your own truths. So, please from now on, let it be Ben says.

As of this moment, I hold no beliefs. I have a completely open mind. I only choose to consider what makes sense to me, and that is the phasing model. What about this do you not understand?

I guess what im trying to say is im not stating my own beliefs here at all, iam merely questioning yours. And the fact that you stand firm on them tells me something is very wrong indeed.

If you would like for me to get back to you when i have been able to experience things(not merely "contemplate" or "Logically conclude"), i will surely shoot you a pm when i feel i have a firm set of beliefs, which is definitely not now, and i hope is never, because the moment a man stops questioning his own beliefs is the moment he becomes ignorant. i hope to come to some conclusions however, that I could conclude as being "true" and i would love to get back to you on those points when the time comes.

Who knows, maybe Frank or adrian or major tom will come in here and lay the smack down on your beliefs. But i cannot claim to do that as i cannot claim to have a set of beliefs myself.

Hoping you will analyze your own thoughts,

Ben

Quote from: Ben KAs of this moment, I hold no beliefs. I have a completely open mind. I only choose to consider what makes sense to me, and that is the phasing model. What about this do you not understand?

You have many beliefs. Most of these appear to be the beliefs of Frank. You do realize the phasing model is nothing more than Monroe's model repackaged right. There is very little that seems to be original about it. Further, someone who claims to know the astral experiences of others, I would be very wary of.

Anyway, if this model helps you project into the astral, then it is the right model for you. I personally think it is unnecessary as there is a much more advanced system available that not only deals with technique, but the entire science of consciousness and the subtle worlds. As I said earlier it is for people who have a serious intellectual interest.

However, we not are not discussing the phasing model. We are discussing god, remember. Please do respond to my earlier post.

And the fact that you stand firm on them tells me something is very wrong indeed.

Please, let's keep this civil. I stand firm on my beliefs, because you have not given me reason to change them. However, I have given you every reason to at least re-evaluate yours through structured arguments. I do not claim to know all. Far from it in fact. I know nothing at all. So I am open minded to error in my beliefs. All you have to do is prove it.

I could say the same thing of you. If one of your great yogis were alive today, you would indefeinitely look to him as a source of your answers. So what is the difference with people asking the more experienced members of this board?

QuoteAnyway, if this model helps you project into the astral, then it is the right model for you. I personally think it is unnecessary as there is a much more advanced system available that not only deals with technique, but the entire science of consciousness and the subtle worlds. As I said earlier it is for people who have a serious intellectual interest.

What kind of astral experiences have you had with your "more advanced system"?

QuotePlease, let's keep this civil. I stand firm on my beliefs, because you have not given me reason to change them.

No one can give you reason to change your beliefs. To think so is foolish. Only you can interpret information in a way that causes you to think differently. All the information that you need to change your way of thinking is right here on this message board(The same could be said of, say, the bible), you just refuse to interpret it correctly, which is your problem, not mine.

No, seriously? You have been studying this theory for just a few days and already are convinced about everything Frank says. Have you actually
astrally projected yet?

QuoteProve to me that gravity is real. Alright you say, and hop off a cliff. All this proves to me is that you believe in gravity. You made yourself fall to your doom.

A simple course in Junior school physics would give you sufficient proof.

Gravity is an attractive force that arises due to a mass, due to a gravity well in space-time. It has been demonstrated by Galileo by dropping two bodies of different weight from the leaning tower of pizza, and it was found that the objects fell at constant acceleration and later Newton developed the equations for gravity by his methods of calculus. Later by Einstein and was demonstrated by the gravitational lensing effect/bending of light from stars. It has also been calculated and it has shown to have a constant acceleration and a universal gravitational constant. Gravity is a universal force and has been measured. Without the precise and exact calculations of gravity for calculating the escape velocity of a space shuttle to escape from Earth orbit. All planets remain in their orbit because of the gravitational pull of the sun.

Gmm/r^2

The exact radius and mass of the Earth can be calculated with this equation by either knowing the mass or the radius. The same equation has also been used to calculate the orbital period of the moon based on Earth gravitational pull on the moon. It was shown that a ball dropped on the moon obeyed the same phenomena.

More: http://www.phy6.org/stargaze/Sgravity.htm

Suffice to say gravity is a very real phenomena and nobody of sound mind disputes it. If you still don't believe me. You could try the cliff experiment with all the intention in the world.

QuoteI have been saying this whole time that our beliefs are very similar. Only difference is, you went through 100 people to get to your beliefs, leading to much misinterpretation(logically, there is NO WAY to deny this) and i went through 1 with far far far far less mis-interet

No, I didn't. I got to my beliefs through my own logic and reason. You have got to your beliefs through Frank and "mere days" of study. What you have said is what a Christian might say "I don't look at others belief, only jesus is truth" When we study any information. We need to examine it from several perspectives and read alternative information to gain greater understanding. You have just settled for the first thing that came along and then made it holy. Now that's a construct of your mind.

QuoteActually, i came to the conclusion last night that santa is a part of everything. This was a natural conclusion that i arrived at after pondering over many things. So naturally, he must be an innate concept, correct? Also, whilst pondering the nature of the universe i came to the conclusion that there is no god. Does that make it a universal belief?

A universal belief is one that is timeless and pervades of of humanity. The belief in Santa is a belief that originated in Europe in the victorian times. No other culture has this belief. So, it is not a universal belief.

QuoteIn my case, I believe only what i experience.

It's been "Frank says" up until now. However, stick with "what I experience"

QuoteBut it is not seperate. I would question your definition of "seperate" in this case. If we follow your logic of seperate, then every little molecule in this physical universe is seperate. All you are is simply many different atoms working together to form this body. Because you can pull one atom out makes it seperate from you?

What don't you understand about the skin being separated from the orange. The Orange skin has a different chemical structure than the orange. So your argument about atoms does not hold.

QuoteUmm I would say in your shoes that if the astral and physical werent seperate, then both could STILL function simultaneousley. In which case that is correct, monroes talks about projecting while having conversation, or projecting while eating a meal. If these two aspects were seperate then the aspect you are participating in at the time would involve your full awareness, and the physical would cease any action. Am i missing something?

Yes you are. If the astral and physical weren't separate. Then when you die, you would cease to exist. Now, when you say "aspects" which I am not disputing. You are still saying creating separations, because one aspect is separate from the other. And what you just told me about Monroe's showing how the physical and astral exist at the same time doing different functions. Is exactly what I showed you about the example where Rama and his teacher oversee their class. So now you have Monroe to support that the astral and physical are indeed separate from you and have different personalities.

QuoteYour belief in the yogis closely resembles the blind belief of Christians in the church.

No they don't. Simply because the texts the Yogis wrote exist to this very day and one only has to read them and then compare with what you already know to understand. These are proven systems and they are purely philosophical. In fact, in the Yoga sutras it says clearly that all of the knowledge contained within it should not be believed until one experiences it, because it is blind belief.  Again, if you had read the
links I posted to you, you would know this and not make another baseless comment.

QuoteYou have to think deeper. No one created us. We just are. And im sorry if you dont accept it, but you just have to think critically. MATTER is a physical concept. There is no such thing as matter in the astral, so how could we be MADE OF IT?

The astral is made of astral matter. Everything is made of something friend. Even Bruce in his book explains that the astrals are made of astral matter.

Quotereally hate talking about eastern and western philosophies like we are comparing christianity to hinduism. The only thing that matters is the concepts. And in the beginning, we all shared the same concepts. The only difference between the eastern world and western(In MY Opinion) is that the amount of religious mumbo-jumbo that the west has had to endure is far greater than the amount the east has. At least the east held on to there core concepts.

No there are not many shared concepts. Simply because Christianity is a dogmatic religion(thou shall/thou shan't) and is based on blind faith in the ordained thoughts/words of the bible and controls by fear. While Hinduism and other Eastern systems are based on philosophy, logic and science. They encourage their disciples to ask questions and find their own answers through contemplation, meditation and intellect. This is a fundamental difference.

QuoteIf i dont have the choice then how am i able to not accept this. These 2 sentences are a contradiction. The mere fact that i can choose not to accept physical reality is proof that it is subjective, IMO.(not that i choose that, i find this physical reality to be a GREAT place ;0)

Or it is proof that you are delusional? Simply because you don't accept it. Does not mean you are not part of it. Some people have hallucinations or false images of themselves. It does not mean it is true. If you said you were king kong, does it make it true? Please.

Your a physical. You are Ben. You live in US. If you can't accept this, then there is something seriously wrong with you.

QuoteI could say the same thing of you. If one of your great yogis were alive today, you would indefeinitely look to him as a source of your answers. So what is the difference with people asking the more experienced members of this board?

If Patanjali, Buddha, Krishna or the Maharishis were alive today. I would definitely seek them for their wisdom. However, this does not mean I would support what they say blindly. I take all of the claims of spiritual worlds with a grain of salt. It is only suffice for me to say that they are there, because the vast body of evidence supports this, but I am not going to say what is there without experiencing it myself.

The difference between them and more experienced members of this board, is these are masters, ascended souls, spiritual geniuses.  Role models for every soul. I am sorry, but comparing people on this forum(including myself) to them is like comparing an atom to the vastness of the universe.  Again, one only has to read their works to understand this.

This is not to say do not consult others in life or this forum. Everyone is a potential masters. However, do make a distinction between what the guy on the street tells you, to what Buddha tells you.

QuoteWhat kind of astral experiences have you had with your "more advanced system"?

I think it sounds like I am pushing this system on you to replace Franks, Monroe or whatever system you are using. I am not. I don't really care which system you use. Because if it gets you out of your body, it's good enough.

However, what are the differences in these 'systems' ? Monroe will tell you to close your eyes and start concentrating. Frank, will tell you to close your eyes and start concentrating.

What is new about that? We've been doing this for thousands of years.   So tell me how are any of these systems different. All Monroe and Frank are doing are repackaging this old knowledge, and frankly I don't see what is original about it. Simply giving names to states of awareness(C1 or F4 or F4oc) is not creating a new system. Now, I am under the impression, that most people here like Bruce, Adrian, are not pretending this knowledge is theirs, they are simply getting out to the masses. As I said this is a very good thing to do.

However, you are wrong in thinking they are updating anything. When I read Bruce's Astral Dynamics, I did not see anywhere where he claimed he was updating anything. It sounds like Frank is the only one claiming this(I hope I am wrong about that)  Frank says the astrals are not "places" well he is a lone wolf on that opinion, as the vast body of evidence of astral realms, both ancient and modern, shows these are very real places. Even complete astral civilizations reside there. Bruce said this in his book as well.

The only reason we are having this discussion is because of your extremely ignorant, bigoted and arrogant comments that the yogis, buddhists in the past had an inferior understanding, and all/most of their experiences were just their thought projections. When it is them who we've learnt the system from in the first place. When it is their vocabulary we are using. It is their techniques we are using. It is their categorization of the various planes, auric bodies we are using. The least you can do is appreciate them and credit them. It's a lot like me giving you some wisdom. And then later you using all my wisdom and not acknowledging me. That is called plagiarism. It's a cheap act. Hence, why I am calling it out as such.

If I did the same. Suppose I repackaged Einstein equations and called it X = yz^2. I would be done for theft of the intellectual property of Einstein.

Anyone who has an understanding of the origin of all this knowledge and the new-age phenomena or who has read the Eastern ancient texts, will know that all of the current new-age system is based in Eastern metaphysics and philosophy, and about 95% of that is Hindu spirituality. They did not copyright their texts. In fact they are distributed freely for people to learn. And a lot of western self-declared gurus and masters than pass them off as their own, with slight modifications.  Another area of ancient  Eastern systems that has suffered from this is Ayurveda. There are so many companies in the west trying to copyright ancient ayurvedic herbal remedies. It's is an unethical practice. However, let it be assured, none of these imitations are as good as the original. The originals are complete knowledge systems. The imitations only borrow a few tidbits. It's the difference between learning physics from your  high school teacher or learning physics from Einstein himself.

Now, we are all in this together. This a globalized society. It is not East vs West. So let's just pay a little more respect. As you said earlier you are new to all of this, you have just read one system, and you like it. Fair enough. However, to then say this system is the most superior and advanced system and nobody else understands or everyone else did not even experience anything, without even reading the systems before it, is shameful. It's a lot like you saying to me "they did not even know what atoms are" we now all know how much research you did to make that statement. Have a little shame.

Now, yesterday before I retired to the astral(by dream) I did some research for you on the knowledge of astral and related subjects in Yoga and other Hinduism branches:

QuoteWhen you die, your physical body of 16 elements disintegrates, but the 19 elements of your astral body remain intact. Where, then, are all those souls who have left this earth? They are roaming in the ether. "That is impossible," you say. So let us make a comparison. If a primitive tribesman came here and I told him that music is audible in the ether, he would laugh at me, or perhaps become frightened; but if I then brought a radio and tuned in a station where music was playing, he would no longer be able to deny the truth of my statement. I could simi-larly show you right now that astral beings are roaming in the ether, and you couldn't deny it. The astral world is right here, just behind the gross vibration of the physical cosmos.
If you were to behold the multitude of astral beings in the ether around you at this moment, many of you would be afraid; and some of you would try to seek among them your departed loved ones. If you concentrate deeply at the spiritual eye you can view with inner vision that luminous world in which are living all the souls who have gone on to the astral plane. In human beings the heart acts as a receiving instrument and the spiritual eye as a broadcasting station. Even if you cannot see your lost beloved ones, if you can calmly concentrate your feel-ing on the heart, you can become aware of the reassuring pres-ence of those dear to you who are now in astral form, enjoying their freedom from flesh thralldom.
I see many astral beings who have left the material plane, but they cannot see me. I don't make myself visible to them, but I can behold them if I so desire - /quote]

The Intelligence in Prana Creates the Physical Body
The prana that permeates the physical body is intelligent life force ("lifetrons"). The electricity that illuminates the light bulb does not create the bulb1 but the electricity or life force in the united human sperm and ovum cells guides the embryonic and subsequent development of the entire human body. Manifesting as the aforementioned five life forces of the astral body, it is an intelligent or consciously directed force.
It is unwise to ascribe to yourself permanently any defect of your body. Suppose you have lost an arm in this life, and the thought of that loss becomes so impinged on your consciousness that you think you can never again have the use of that arm. When you are reborn the next time, you bring with you that consciousness of a missing arm; and if that negative thought is strong enough it may inhibit the creative action of the intelligent life force that grows the arms of your new body. You should therefore never identify yourself with the flaws of your physical form. They do not belong to you, for you are the pure, perfect image of God-the soul.
So you see, before you took on this physical form you were a ghost, and when you die you will become a ghost again. We are also ghosts when we sleep, for in sleep we are not aware of ourselves as a physical body at all. Since you are a ghost when you are asleep, and you will be one after death, why be afraid of ghosts? That is what you were and that is what you are going to be. The only difference is that when you enter the astral world at death you cannot create at will a physical body like the one you now have. Only great masters who have attained oneness with the Divine Creator can do so. Spiritually advanced souls can condense the subtle vibrations of the astral vehicle into a tangible body.http://www.psychics.co.uk/saibaba/yogananda.html

Quote
The soul dwells as the inmost body of light and superconscious, or universal mind within a series of nested bodies, each more refined than the next: physical, pranic, astral, mental. In our conscious mind we think and feel ourselves to be a physical body with some intangible spirit within it. Yet, right now our real identity is the soul that is sensing, through its multiple bodies, physical, emotional and mental experience. Recognizing this as reality, we powerfully know that life doesn't end with the death of the biological body. The soul continues to occupy the astral body, a subtle, luminous duplicate of the physical body. This subtle body is made of higher energy astral matter and dwells in a dimension called the astral plane. If the soul body itself is highly evolved, it will occupy the astral/mental bodies on a very refined plane of the astral known as the Devaloka, "the world of light-shining beings." At death, the soul slowly becomes totally aware in its astral/mental bodies, and it predominantly lives through those bodies in the astral dimension.
The soul functions with complete continuity in its astral/mental bodies. It is with these sensitive vehicles that we experience dream or "astral" worlds during sleep every night. The astral world is as solid and beautiful, as varied and comprehensive as the earth dimension--if not much more so. Spiritual growth, psychic development, guidance in matters of governance and commerce, artistic cultivation, inventions and discoveries of medicine, science and technology all continue by astral people who are "in-between" earthly lives. Many of the Vedic hymns entreat the assistance of devas, advanced astral or mental people. Yet, also in the grey, lower regions of this vast, invisible dimension exist astral people whose present pursuits are base, selfish, even sadistic. Where the soul goes in the astral plane at sleep or death is dependent upon his earthly pursuits and the quality of his mind.
Because certain seed karmas can only be resolved in earth consciousness and because the soul's initial realizations of Absolute Reality are only achieved in a physical body, our soul joyously enters another biological body on its journey toward liberation. At the right time, it is reborn into a flesh body that will best fulfill its karmic pattern. In this process, the current astral body--which is a duplicate of the last physical form--is sloughed off as a lifeless shell that in due course disintegrates, and a new astral body develops as the new physical body grows. This entering into another body is called reincarnation, "re-occupying the flesh." In Sanskrit it is punarjanma, "taking birth again and again." During our numerous Earth lives, a remarkable variety of life patterns is experienced. We exist as male and female, often switching back and forth from life to life as the nature becomes more harmonized into a person exhibiting both feminine nurturing and masculine intrepidness. We come to Earth as princesses and presidents, as paupers and pirates, as tribals and scientists, as murderers and healers, as atheists and, ultimately, God-realized sages. We take bodies of every race and live the many religions, faiths and philosophies as the soul gains more knowledge and evolutionary experience.

QuoteUnderstanding the World Of Sleep and Dreams
We have a 24-hour continuity of consciousness, from the so-called waking state into the ethereal realm of dreams
By Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami.
Dreams and the state of sleep have been a mystery and a puzzle to people of all ages throughout time. It's no wonder, since the average person is "asleep" about one third of his life.
But the mind never sleeps--only the physical body experiences this indulgence--and the physical brain perceives and records what passes through the mind, but the astral brain perceives and records...oh-so-much more! Therefore, keeping this in mind, there is a continuity of consciousness twenty-four hours a day, but not all of it is perceived or recorded by the physical brain, either through the day or through the night. This is why it is difficult to remember one's dreams, just as it is difficult to recall the details of one's life and experience, even as short a time as forty-eight hours ago.
In the inner worlds, there is a life not unlike this one, but far more complete, intricate, logical, and much more advanced. Within that world, the astral plane, there are great schools where students gather to learn of a more productive future they can participate in creating when they incarnate. Here they mix and mingle with other souls whose physical bodies are sleeping and whom they will work and cooperate with during their next cycle of birth. The value of sleep for the person on the path is to gain the ability to bypass the lower dream state and soar deeper within to these inner-plane schools. This is done by the repetition of mantras, japa yoga, just before sleep, after relaxing the body through hatha yoga and diaphragmatic breathing.
When japa is well performed and the sincere desire is maintained to transcend the forces of the physical body and enter into the astral schools of learning, the aspirant would have dreamless nights. A deep sleep would prevail. There may be a few seconds of dreaming just before awakening, to which one should not pay any attention, as the astral body quickly reenters the physical.
Sleep is a cleanser for the subconscious mind. By the use of willpower this can be done slowly or quickly. When you sleep, you are cleaning out the subconscious mind and educating it to face the experiences that you must go through as you evolve. This is done automatically, but you can help it by the use of your will.
It is apparent that we dream things that we could not have possibly thought up. Such dreams are a conglomeration of seemingly unrelated happenings that pass through the mind. The unrelated happenings do, however, re-impress the sub-subconscious state, and if remembered, they will in turn impress the subconscious state, and similar happenings will be manifested in our everyday life. To change these impressions, simply tell your subconscious, when you are in the process of remembering a dream, to work out the remaining particles of that experience during sleep rather than recreating it on the physical plane.
A beginner on the path, or even one in the intermediate phase, should endeavor to forget dreams and strengthen the fibers of the mind and psyche through daily sadhana--consistent spiritual disciplines. We especially want to forget bad dreams as quickly as possible, lest by remembering them we impress them in the subconscious and make them manifest in daily life.

QuoteGod encased the human soul successively in three bodies—the idea, or causal, body; the subtle astral body, seat of man's mental and emotional natures; and the gross physical body. On earth a man is equipped with his physical senses. An astral being works with his consciousness and feelings and a body made of lifetrons.(1) A causal-bodied being remains in the blissful realm of ideas.   
quote(s) / poem(s) n° 3976: Paramhansa Yogananda, indiam mystic, Hinduism, Kriya Yoga
(1) Sri Yukteswar used the word prana; I have translated it as lifetrons. The Hindu scriptures refer not only to the anu, "atom," and to the paramanu, "beyond the atom," finer electronic energies; but also to prana, "creative lifetronic force." Atoms and electrons are blind forces; prana is inherently intelligent. The pranic lifetrons in the spermatozoa and ova, for instance, guide the embryonic development according to a karmic design.

QuoteAstral Journey and the Astral Body

You first separate yourself from the body; then you identify yourself with the mind, and then you function on the mental plane, with this fine body just as you do on this physical plane. Through concentration, you rise above the body-consciousness; through meditation, you rise above mind; and finally through Samadhi, you realize your spiritual nature. These are three important exercises of Antaranga Sadhana in the achievements of Kaivalya, the final beautitude.

You can, by mere willing alone, travel to any place you like with the astral body and there materialize by drawing the necessary elements either from Ahankara or the universal storehouse, the ocean of Tanmatras. The process is very, very simple to occultists and Yogis who know the rationale, the detailed technique of the various operations. Thought reading and thought-transference too can be quite easily performed by those who can function with the astral body. Concentrated mental rays can penetrate opaque walls, just as X-rays pass through the opaque body. This is one of the Siddhis (mystical perfections). Siddhis are not the goal of life. Do not entangle yourself in these Siddhis which mar your further spiritual progress. Shun them entirely. Continue your Sadhana and stop not till you reach the goal - http://www.indiadivine.org/mystical-astral-body-journey1.htm

QuoteThough some of our dreams are only the result of thoughts occurring in our own mind, other dreams are astral experiences, of being conscious in our astral body and interacting with others in their astral body. These astral plane actions create karma, just as do our physical plane actions. This is the basis of the Hindu ideal that one would not steal or injure even in a dream. Why? Because such transgressions create negative karma that will come back to you. These are real karmas that may eventually manifest on the physical plane.
However, this can be avoided if you happen to have further dream experiences in which appropriate actions are taken to dissolve the karma. More commonly, though, we can resolve dream or astral-plane karmas in the same way we would physical-world experiences, by performing penance for them in our waking state, while remembering the high standards of virtue and good conduct that should always be maintained, even during sleep. For instance, if in an emotional dream you injured someone intentionally, you could perform a simple penance the next day to atone, such as fasting one meal.
Gurudeva said, "These kinds of dreams—when a person is in his astral body and can feel what he touches, emote to his experiences, think and talk—are not what is known as the dream state. This is an astral experience, similar to the death experience, but the astral body is still connected to the physical body."
Tirukural: "The highest principle is this: never knowingly harm anyone at any time in any way."
Tenth Principle: Incinerate Karma
In the practice of yoga, we can burn up negative seed karmas without ever having to live through them. What we have to do is find the seed and dissolve it in intense inner light. Let's take the analogy of growing alfalfa spouts. You place the seeds in a jar and keep them moist until they sprout. But if you heat the seeds in a frying pan before putting them into the jar, they will no longer sprout. Similarly, karmas exposed to intense inner light are destroyed.
A meditation adept, having pinpointed an unmanifested karmic seed, can either dissolve it in intense light or inwardly live through the reaction of his past action. If his meditation is successful, he will be able to throw out the vibrating experiences or desires which are consuming the mind. In doing this, in traveling past the world of desire, he breaks the wheel of karma which binds him to the specific reaction which must follow every action. That experience will never have to happen on the physical plane, for its vibrating power has already been absorbed in his nerve system. This incineration of karmic seeds can also happen during sleep.
Gurudeva explains it in this way, "It is the held-back force of sanchita karma that the yogi seeks to burn out with his kundalini flame, to disempower it within the karmic reservoir of anandamaya kosa, the soul body."
Tirukural: "As the intense fire of the furnace refines gold to brilliance, so does the burning suffering of austerity purify the soul to resplendence."
Conclusion
No matter how deep our understanding of karma may be, actually applying our understanding of karma to the events in our daily life can still be a challenge. Why is this? Our humanness gets in the way; our ego is challenged and we react to preserve our self image; our emotions are stirred and we respond impulsively, without intellectual reflection; our attitudes are prejudicial against certain religious or ethnic groups and we feel justified in striking out at them, because they are not "our people."
How can such human weaknesses be overcome? It is by perfecting our character, which Gurudeva defined as "the ability to act with care." This is done through mastering Hinduism's Code of Conduct, the ten yamas, restraints, and the ten niyamas, observances. With a strong character in place, the mastery of karma becomes natural to us. Gurudeva mystically summarizes this process as follows:
"Bhakti brings grace, and the sustaining grace melts and blends the karmas in the heart. In the heart chakra karmas are in a molten state. The throat chakra molds the karmas through sadhana, regular religious practices. The third eye chakra sees the karmas past, present and future as a singular oneness. And the crown chakra absorbs, burns clean, enough of the karmas to open the gate, the door of Brahman, revealing the straight path to merging with Siva." - http://www.beliefnet.com/story/122/story_12287_4.html

QuoteThis article is taken from Hinduism Today
Devotion to God and the Gods of Hinduism is known as Bhakti. It is an entire realm of knowledge and practice unto itself, ranging from the childlike wonder of the unknown and the mysterious to the deep reverence which comes with understanding of esoteric interworkings of the three worlds. Hinduism views existence as composed of three worlds. The First World is the physical universe; the Second World is the subtle astral or mental plane of existence in which the devas, angels and spirits live; and the Third World is the spiritual universe of the Mahadevas, "great shining beings," our Hindu Gods. Hinduism is the harmonious working together of these three worlds.
The most prevalent expression of worship for the Hindu comes as devotion to God and the Gods. In the Hindu pantheon there are said to be three hundred and thirty-three million Gods. Hindus believe in one Supreme Being. The plurality of Gods are perceived as divine creations of that one Being. So, Hinduism has one supreme God, but it has an extensive hierarchy of Gods. Many people look at the Gods as mere symbols, representations of forces or mind strata, or as various Personifications generated as a projection o of man's mind onto an impersonal pure Beingness. Many Hindus have been told over and over that the Gods are not really beings, but merely symbols of spiritual matters, and unfortunately many have accepted this erroneous notion about the Gods. In reality, the Mahadevas are individual soul beings, and down through the ages ordinary men and women, great saints and sages, prophets and mystics in all cultures have inwardly seen, heard, and been profoundly influenced by these super conscious inner plane beings. Lord Ganesha is such a being. He can think just as we can think. He can see and understand and make decisions - so vast in their implications and complexity that we could never comprehend them with our human faculties and understanding.-  http://www.hindunet.org/god/ht_article_god1.html

So there you go. All of this knowledge is not new at all. It is not updated. It is the same. It's not the techniques of getting to the astral. It's as simple as concentration. It's the knowledge of the astral and the dynamics of the soul that is important. It is the knowledge of the cosmic/universal intelligence that is important to understand everything of how these planes function. If you speak to a yogi they will tell you that the astral planes are nothing extraordinary or to be hankered after. One person I read once, simply said. "the astrals are not all that, you go there every night"  They are just more subtle worlds and they too are as tangible and 'physical' as others. After them there are mental, emotional and casual worlds. However the goal of a yogi is not any of these world. It is 'moksha' that is merging with the supreme mind. As soon as you attain the universal mind. You are free of karma. You have infinite wisdom.

Next post, I will share with you some of Patanjali's sutras. I got to go now and eat something.

Peace

Data

QuoteNo one can give you reason to change your beliefs. To think so is foolish. Only you can interpret information in a way that causes you to think differently. All the information that you need to change your way of thinking is right here on this message board(The same could be said of, say, the bible), you just refuse to interpret it correctly, which is your problem, not mine.

No you can give me a reason to change me belief. All you need to show is what is wrong with them and prove it through logic. I would take you more seriously, if you actually knew what you were talking about. Your beliefs are a mishmash. You don't understand what you believe in. You don't even know that you have beliefs. Of course you have beliefs.