Living all our lives at once

[Quintessence]

Thank you.

Could the similar "physical effects" not be down to "memory" though?

Technically it's not just "memory" but energy.
"Time" outside of the third dimension...imagine it like a circle. Imagine all of your lives is one huge circle, not a straight line going from 1300s to 1600s, whatever. Just a circle.
You can draw more lines to connect from one point of a circle to another point, than a straight line. When you have a straight line (linear time) you are drawing the same line over and over again.

When we have a past life memory that parallels with a current one it is not just physical memory, it is also emotional. Your strong emotions leave imprints on this cycle/circle of yours. Even the energy itself has a cyclical movement. Over and over in circles.
I had a very negative self-image of myself during WWII because I was underweight, my friends were dying, I was unhealthy, etc. All of that cyclical emotional energy carried over to my present incarnation. I say carried over but technically all it did was just stay in the Now. The Now that was WWII. The Now that is my current life, occuring simultaneously. The thing is WWII is just occuring in another dimension. It's occuring in this one too, but because of our limited perception, I perceived it has happening in what we call the Past.

My mother could not understand why I was depressed. Neither could I at the time. Whatever.
We all know energy is not created or destroyed. It only RECREATES itself. And it is our choice to recreate the energy of our cycles. Particularly all the negative energy, and turn it into something beautiful. Like choosing to have a better self-image of ourselves. Choosing to *allow* healing. Choosing to fully connect with our Consciousness.

And what is it that could determine which past life (or lives) are affecting our present one?

Energy, negative or positive. The passion behind the energy, its level of intensity.

 

[tanguerra]

I know what you mean exactly Quintessence. I get that too.

For instance, I went through a period of being deeply, suicidally depressed a few years ago even though there was really nothing much the matter with me and life was sort of OK and everything. I later realised it had been around the age I 'ended it all' in my most recent life.

When I get these funny simultaneous moments which I have had over the years I am more or less the same age as myself. I have remet various people I have known in other lives at around the same age and so on.

I totally understand your take on time, but it is hard for some people to dig it.

 

[Charles Stuart]

Well, it's tough for ME to "dig it"... But ok, I'm now able to "fit it in" and consider it as a possibility... :thumbsup:

 

[tanguerra]

Cool bananas Charles. :cool

 

[Quintessence]

I later realised it had been around the age I 'ended it all' in my most recent life.

Same here. I can totally relate to that. :thumbsup:

 

[tanguerra]

Yes, once I figured that out I felt a whole lot better on a number of levels.

Funny also, not long after I worked all that out I met the man whose untimely death (he was a pilot, shot down in WWII) was partly what had so upset me that life! It wasn't the only thing, but one of the last straws. Now we are friends.

The universe works in mysterious ways. :laugh:

 

[Goldenage]

here is a thought





Hi everybody Excuse me if I join in. When I first experienced (in this life) the nature of events that flowed from conscious acts of physical (military) violence in relation to what I had seen myself do as a swords & sandals actor I was absolutely appalled - devastated more properly. I had put a whole city to the sword and fire - everyone - as an act of military expediency - the example would ensure "no trouble behind our lines", or so I reasoned at the time (& I have even visited the remains of what I take to be that city in this life). But anyway, as I actually proceeded with that decision my current-life self melded with that seemingly far-off being and all the world was "now only". In that life my exploring presence caused this military leader to brush his face with his/my hand & then I knew him so very well. Instantly he "started" and looked to the side at the people he was about to annihilate. My horror at his intent touched him briefly and he paused, but did not desist in his commitment. None-the-less, he did not proceed as the same man - the city today is not entirely destroyed (I visited that ruined city before this recollection occurred [time-wise, this life], spooky, because I thought then that the person effecting such destruction must have been entirely the victim of some sort of brutal insanity).


Now, later, I spent a great deal of time thinking about this event and it occurred to me that yes indeed such adjustment in attitude vis-a-vis a past error in the act of its implementation could work to change the manifest world surrounding one. Having identified "critical points" intervention could indeed be effective by a genuine penitent, particularly with the support of one or two (a few) "helpers" - a "focus group" in short.


So, consider it for a moment, if intervention was effective in inducing change, how could it ever be detected? It would be as though nothing had happened - the way things always had been and so forth - few, if any (except the protagonist) would "know" of the change since there would be nothing to compare it to.


So I thought about it a bit more and it came as a flash of disjointed lightening, in a burst of "far recall" I realized that all of life and physicality was of the nature of a dream, that furthermore it was pointless to change the dream-elements just because it was possible but rather the very insight to this effect was the answer. To pass this light of understanding to those that might happen to be in a position to "listen" was all that mattered for in that resulting light the universe of ignorance would thus dissolve of its own accord, simple really. No need to get up on the cross or to perform any other unlikelihoods whatsoever. If the world and the mind arise as one the whole assemblage dissolves when residence is achieved within that which supports this rising and setting.....one's true Self. :cool :thumbsup:

 

[tanguerra]

Yes, very much so. As I have discussed elsewhere I have had a few 'transactions' with other iterations of myself, across the centuries. I don't know how common this experience is, but I would have to guess others must have experienced it too. Perhaps they don't interpret it as a past life experience, or a 'rent in the fabric of time' or something as I would.

So, consider it for a moment, if intervention was effective in inducing change, how could it ever be detected? It would be as though nothing had happened - the way things always had been and so forth - few, if any (except the protagonist) would "know" of the change since there would be nothing to compare it to.

It seems easy enough to me. Because time is multidimensional, not linear. There is no change. There is no detecting. There is no comparing. It just is what it is and always has been. It is we who surf amongst its waves in wiggly lines.

I spent a great deal of time thinking about this event and it occurred to me that yes indeed such adjustment in attitude vis-a-vis a past error in the act of its implementation could work to change the manifest world surrounding one. Having identified "critical points" intervention could indeed be effective by a genuine penitent...

Some people talk about being guided and advised in moments of trouble by angels, spirit guides, higher beings and so on. These various putative beings are usually minutely interested in the affairs of the individual involved. Could they be experiencing a similar 'rent in the fabric of time'/past life foldbacks but they interpret it differently? If at some future time you became very adept (who knows how far 'into the future'?) at this past life thing and could 'go back' and fix up past mistakes, would you try? Would you be a human or a divine being of some sort? Maybe a bit of both? Food for thought.


The second time I had a conversation with my "Native American self" (it has happened a total of four times over the past 10 years or so) he had already begun to think of me as 'Spirit Woman'. I assured him I was nothing to do with any spirits and was as human as he was. But it was difficult for him to integrate the experience into his framework at the time, governed as he was, of course, by his traditional beliefs, culture and so on. Later, we both got a bit more used to it.

No need to get up on the cross or to perform any other unlikelihoods whatsoever. If the world and the mind arise as one the whole assemblage dissolves when residence is achieved within that which supports this rising and setting.....one's true Self.

If it's all an illusion, best to make it a wonderful one? Eh?


:cool

 

[Karoliina]

So, consider it for a moment, if intervention was effective in inducing change, how could it ever be detected? It would be as though nothing had happened - the way things always had been and so forth - few, if any (except the protagonist) would "know" of the change since there would be nothing to compare it to.

I believe there is an infinite amount of parallel universes, and they all have their own "truth" - the way things really happened. So if you changed something in the "past", it would just create another parallel and things would be different there.


Personally I'm not very interested in the concept - at least for the moment. I think it's very mind-bending, and I don't see it very important, as in affecting my life a great deal, so I haven't yet bothered to really look into it. : angel Yet I still believe it's there and happening.


Karoliina

 

[Goldenage]

Higher Self


A twinge of conscience, something told me, a contact with spirit woman, angels, spirit guides, and so forth.... the language is replete with such phrases. Is this mere accident? Coincidence?

These various putative beings are usually minutely interested in the affairs of the individual involved.

The "personal God"...., rents in time, parallel universes, all time is now!


Surely all these tags belong to the same phenomenon? No? There is One Self Alone & you (we?) are it. There defiantly is the phenomenon known as spiritual development, of increasing self-knowledge and so forth. These terms simply refer to progressive steps (& realized capacities) in attainment. The actuality of this is ultimate personal "Enlightenment", the insight of fusion, as individual merges with the one in direct comprehension of this fact and it is likewise covered by a myriad of terms (the thousand names of God).


There aint no-one but us chickens in this coop! (talking to ourselves so to speak)

If it's all an illusion, best to make it a wonderful one? Eh?

Ah! But there is the rub! The insight is one thing and practice is another hence in Buddhism the great split between Hinayana & Mahayna (the way the Buddha taught initially and as proposed to later). In the latter tradition, The Bodhisattva is one that having attained such insight, instead of vanishing therein, returns to the world of name & form in order to free those still bound in ignorance & why? Because of ultimate compassion (see the Heart Sutra) and besides which, the whole being an illusion, it will take "no time at all". :butbut:


Of course most branches of Buddhism emphatically reject the notion of self but this is essentially the "ego-self" the limited personal identity arising upon birth and to which the term "death" eventually applies. All ignorance is rooted in this phenomenon (so it is said).

 

[Charles Stuart]

Hi Tanguerra,

Some people talk about being guided and advised in moments of trouble by angels, spirit guides, higher beings and so on. These various putative beings are usually minutely interested in the affairs of the individual involved.

Sorry, but again I couldn't disagree more... From my experience, they are involved in all of our collective spiritual development far more than most of us know or believe. More often than we can imagine they are influencing our thoughts and our actions. The purpose is our collective spiritual growth...

 

[Charles Stuart]

Hi again, Tanguerra,

The second time I had a conversation with my "Native American self" (it has happened a total of four times over the past 10 years or so) he had already begun to think of me as 'Spirit Woman'.

Please don't take this personally, for it most certainly is not, it is just that I am truly curious to know: how exactly is it that you experience such things? Is it spontaneous? Through meditation or dreams? OBEs?

 

[tanguerra]

Hi Charles,


I think I have described these incidents elsewhere at different times, but I will put down a summary here. It is usually fairly spontaneous. It seems as though we 'both' have to be in either a receptive or relaxed sort of state at the same 'time'.


The first time I was actually in the process of quitting smoking, and was feeling a bit 'weird' so went outside to sit quietly by myself. After a few minutes of sitting quietly, sulking and feeling sorry for myself about how difficult it is to quit smoking I had a 'vision'. It's hard to describe, and I did not see anything with my 'real' eyes, but it was like having an internal thought conversation with myself, but it was not 'me' now, it was another me 'then', and I could 'see' or remember seeing, or something - what he was seeing, knew what he was up to, why he was there etc. My previous self was very scornful of my present self's weak and self-pitying attitude. He had been sitting in the snow, waiting for someone to come out of a tee-pee so he could shoot him (with a bow and arrow) for several days and was 'tripping out' a bit what with the cold and the hunger and all. We compared notes on which situation was the more difficult and whether I should be such a 'sook' about a simple enough matter as giving up smoking and what was he doing anyway sitting in the snow for the purposes of taking someone's life, and was that supposed to be a 'good' thing even if it was his 'duty', and so forth and so on. That experience lasted 5-10 minutes or so before somebody came outside to talk to me and I 'lost the connection'.


Another time 'he' actually contacted 'me'. I don't really remember what I was doing - nothing much probably, maybe reading in the back garden or something. He was sitting in counsel on an important matter (a difficult problem with a neighbouring group needing to be resolved - it was connected with the assassination situation above and an ongoing feud which was not really being healed by this vendetta situation). He had deliberately invoked the advice of 'spirit woman' on this important matter. I got an image of him sitting in a circle with a group of other men in a smoke filled tent. Suddenly, I just became aware of 'him' trying to get my attention, so I put down my book, closed my eyes and focussed. I counseled, as usual, that they should find a peaceful solution as violence would only ultimately lead to more violence... simple enough advice really!


The next time I was lying in bed, practising a simple deep breathing technique for the purposes of relaxation as I was having trouble sleeping, when it 'just happened'. He was sitting quietly by a fire at the 'time', out on his own camping, 'on patrol', or hunting or just getting away from his wife, or all of the above. I could almost 'see' what he was seeing, as he sat by the fire, putting small twigs in now and again, as you do when you sit by the fire and 'think deeply'. We had a long 'discussion' and realised that some of the important people from 'his' life are also in 'my' life, including his shrew wife (my sister) and his little daughter who had died (my friend X). We gave each other relationship advice. I told him to call his wife's bluff as most of her huffing and puffing is a big act! He told me to be patient with X and take the best possible care of him. We 'both' delighted at the memory of his little daughter, her lightness and general joie de vivre, and also her fragility, so like X in so many ways. He kept advising me to be softer, gentler and more 'feminine' (like a good woman should) and I was advising him to stand up to his wife in general and not let her bully him, but also to be a bit less gruff and more sympathetic because her outward unpleasantness was masking a very unhappy inside (knowing my sister as well as I do).


The fourth was when we had the very long conversation about our day to day lives. He was very curious about the future, and I was curious about his life. Again I was lying in bed just doing a deep breathing exercise when we just kind of 'mind melded'. He was lying in his sleeping skins out camping again I think. That experience lasted at least an hour until both of us 'agreed' that although it was very fascinating we needed to get some sleep!


Ah! So, it must have happened five times altogether if you count the three way convo I had while brushing my teeth. You would have to call that one 'spontaneous' for sure.


Now, if I was someone other than me, I probably would interpret this experience as some kind of 'spirit guide' thing, an overactive imagination or possibly some kind of benign psychosis. Me being me, I am much more inclined to believe that this is all 'me' just in different time periods, or iterations, or something, sharing information and insights just as I have described.


Why this particular guy/iteration? I don't really know, except I think it is partly because he is just a bit more insightful than some of my other iterations, and he has the time, the quiet spaces and the inclination to investigate these experiences just as I do now.

 

[tanguerra]

Surely all these tags belong to the same phenomenon? No? There is One Self Alone & you (we?) are it. There defiantly is the phenomenon known as spiritual development, of increasing self-knowledge and so forth. These terms simply refer to progressive steps (& realized capacities) in attainment.

Yes, that is the way I see it, more or less. I think we get better at everything with practice as we 'go along'; including learning the value of compassion, the benefits of patience and the amusement of increasingly complex spiritual philosophising. :laugh:

 

[Charles Stuart]

Hi Tanguerra,


Thank you for your detailed account. I try to keep up with the forum as much as possible but "time" prevents me from reading all the posts. Often I wish I weren't restricted by it and could do all things at once.


I know that I have two spiritual guides who present themselves as indians. I also know that I lived a previous life as an Amerindian.


I also had an experience in a dream in which I was looking into the eyes of one of my former selves, and he/I was looking back at me as if I was some kind of ghost, and he/I was trying to make out who or what I could be. But I was I and he was he. I had no feelings of "oneness".


Indeed the mysteries are greater than we can conceive. Simultaneous lives and simultaneous time are concepts that I just simply cannot fit into my own understanding, and despite your account and that of others, which of course I am not doubting in any way, they are concepts that simply go against any of my own means of understanding the process, seeing as I believe in sequential and successive lives, which make explaining the karmic process and the spiritual evolutionary process by far more coherent. There is also the problem that, if our past lives are occurring simultaneously to our present lives, this implies that our future lives are set in stone as well. All these reasons are what lead me to believe that simultaneousness is not possible, but who am I to say for sure...

 

[Goldenage]

set in the stone of our understanding


Hi Charles,


yes that is right but set in the stone of our understanding, the directives of our spiritual comprehension. It is not that no change is possible, quite the contrary & it happens as the result of extension of our spiritual development. In the example I cite above, for instance, I was not one with the swords & sandals guy but I did recognize some dominant aspects of my personal self that he was expressing. My horror of what he was about to do changed him as my horror of what I was doing through him, changed me and my current life "forever".


I felt that I could become one with his whole consciousness but what would be the point? He was, I then understood, already in me, even if in a repressed & heretofore previously unrecognized state. Besides which, I was already in a state once removed from him (as an observer) so direct union would be to "be him" & for what? I had already passed that state.


One has to rise above all one's lives to obtain any sort of taste of unity. In the process of that ascension much has to change and concurrently, for many aspects of one's "avatars" so to speak. In that process "all is change", nothing remains as it was prior thereto. The swords & sandals item swerved from his previously avowed intent to leave "no stone upon another" as an act of his own free will [promoted by a pang of conscience]. The higher-self in action, one might say, although of course, the higher self never "does" anything being quite beyond the world of name & form as discussion on this thread has made clear.

 

[tanguerra]

There is also the problem that, if our past lives are occurring simultaneously to our present lives, this implies that our future lives are set in stone as well. All these reasons are what lead me to believe that simultaneousness is not possible, but who am I to say for sure...

Yes, Charles. Believe me. I fully understand your dilemma.


It's 'mind boggling' isn't it? It goes against everything we have been taught in our modern, western up-to-date education. This linear "set in stone" thinking is built upon centuries of intellectual tradition, going back to the original (brilliant) Chaldean mathematicians who gave us our Arabic numerals and of course the pure genius of the mathematical concept '0' (believed to be 'magic' in its day by the way), to Aristotle, Pythagorus, [some Mathematicians whose names escape me], Gallileo, The Enlightenment (you remember that?), Newton, you get the idea. .


But, bear with me, and try to forget about all that 'logic' for a moment, and think outside the 'square'. I will paint you a picture. I find it helps me to explain it better that way too. Although my father (who I absolutely adored) was a mathematician, but I never took to it myself (much to his chagrin).


It becomes easier when you don't see your trajectory through time as one long skinny line. You have seen the time-lines in history text books when you were a child - with the apes, leading to Neanderthal man and so forth and so on. Imagine that is not what you are doing. Neither are you, necessarily, a traveller on a long, straight, rocky (set in stone) road.


Personally, (sometimes) I tend to imagine my (other) 'self' (Me) swimming through another experience of 'time' which is much more like water or air or a rainbow or clouds or radio waves or something (there aren't any words for it in English). I'm a Pisces though - so aquatic, polymorphic, fluid metaphors come more easily to me.


Even so ... Let's go back to the rocky road of linear time. Roads are very useful things and I have nothing against them. They serve a lot of very practical purposes. Let's make it an Ancient Roman road, if you like (it's more fun that way!)


Imagine you are on a journey. Why? Don't know. Perhaps you are a merchant? A gypsy? A thief? A pregnant woman? A monk? An AWOL soldier? A king? Whatever (doesn't matter). You kneel down and put your ear to the stones and if you listen very carefully you hear/feel a faint, distant but unmistakable vibration of something coming towards you from the 'north' or 'south' your past or your future? Is it an army on the march, or a single rider traveling at great speed? How far away? How long until they reach you? What should you do in the meantime? What decision will you make? Should you hide, or run or go about your business? Would that depend on what you had been 'up to' up until this moment? Would that depend on your virtue, honesty, skill or courage? No matter what you decided to do, to stay on the road or get off, does the road move? Does the road react in any way to your exploits?


Even a long , skinny road has other dimensions for those who pay attention. Food for thought.

 

[tanguerra]

...People still 'inside' the Matrix were unable to perceive the illusion, to them, it was 'real'. If you live your whole life unable to wake from a dream, how can you tell whether or not it's a dream? Only after taking the red pill and being unplugged from the Matrix, and looking at it from the outside were they able to see that it was the best.videogame.ever. And once back inside, they were able to break or bend the rules, because to them it was not 'real.'
Are we like the people still plugged into the Matrix? Is this world that has been pulled over our eyes? And if it is, does it really matter which world is the real world?


Except to philosophers, of course.


Phoenix

I'm going to bump this thread. I miss these long and interesting discussions and I miss Phoenix (and Goldenage and Charles and everyone). But nostalgia aside, newer members might find this an interesting discusson to ponder over the weekend.


Happy Friday.

 

[Tinkerman]

Great idea Tanguerra, I too miss many of those old members... Charles, Moondansyr, Chansa, Aillish, Tiltjlp, and all the others... We've had some wonderful discussions over the years. I hope new members will take the time to read these and comment. I think I'll look back for a few of my favorites...


Tman

 

[Goldenage]

The key is:


Robin at 6/04/2013 10:10 p.m.


OK, I will bite. The road is there (here), not there. The host (or single rider ) is approaching or it’s a landslide or whatever. The sense of living all, many, a few or one only of our infinitely expressed lives (at once) is dominant or it is not. All of these individualist "understandings" are possible, any sense thereof may be achieved (realized) at any instant.


All of these aspects of comprehension take place inside the "hall of mirrors" that is the "personal self". The personal self is not just the focus of attention that one develops inside one's current expression of "life in the world" and nor is one's current (seemingly dominant) experience of "this life" a firm foundation from which it is impossible to exit without stepping through death's door (so to speak).


It is much more complicated than that. But, if one feels bound into a once-only self-state (characterized by the thought "I was borne on such and such a date at such and such place) then surely one is locked in the depths of the matrix and not being able to see a way out one must remain there.


The whole point of life is that it is something, an experience, that one grants oneself as an opportunity to wake up . To be free and that is all there is to it. For the locked-in-self there are many ways to execute awakening and once this is convincingly done the whole logical mess of dreams within dreams that constitutes the past-life realm evaporates as one realizes that one has spun the whole structure out of "nothing at all" exactly in the same manner as do dreams arise in the mind of the individual sleeper. OMG


That is what we all are doing (at least most of us) exactly at this moment,"spinning a dream" which we happen to think is "real".


But, really, as soon one life (dream) apart from that of the current "pinch me" comprehension emerges, then there is only ONE observer conscious of the pair. That observer (for ease of reference) IS the Higher Self . If that aspect of the Higher Self pauses to ask "who or what am I that thus span space and time?" then the indelible Identity of the creating principle is assumed by the questioner. It cannot be otherwise. cover face


This Creator has many names the "Creator with attributes" being one thereofsaywhat. And one is thereby informed of one's own context. This is Self-Realization, the recollection of who and what one really is. All apparent "lives" then "drop-away", vanish entirely, and one must then decide what is next on the agenda other than compulsive "rebirth".

 

[Goldenage]

stripped of posts


Hmm, I see I have a very low post-number compared with other contributors on this thread who are way ahead of me. I seems as though I was stripped of many postings upon adoption of the "new" format or switching servers or some such. Anyhow, those with high postings would still have been way over my head by this stage short-change or no short change cover face. Congratulations everyone on your persistence. Eleven years since I first posted.... How time FLIES typing

 

[tanguerra]

Hey Goldenage. Long time no see.

 

[tanguerra]

...All apparent "lives" then "drop-away", vanish entirely, and one must then decide what is next on the agenda other than compulsive "rebirth".

I'm still having fun with it. I still look at it all as a bit of a game (old as I am). No doubt I still have a lot to learn/experiece and I'm not 'there yet'. I don't see rebirth as 'compulsive' though. I just see it as 'what happens'. Please explain what you mean by this Robin.


I'm not really a very 'dour' person by nature (although I have my moments, obviously). But I'm still up for a few more adventures - good, bad, happy, sad... whatever. Bring it on. I still want more. But I have an adventurous and inquisitive nature.


In this life I recall when I had my first roller coaster ride (aged about 6), I 'chucked a fit' and had to go on it again and again and again about four or five times until I could do it without screaming. My mother and sisters had had enough the first time round. Lucky me, my father was a very indulgent and playful man (when he was in the mood) and round and round and round we went until I was over it. I don't think I ever saw him laugh so much again as we did that day on that silly ride.


Happy memories are like diamonds ... It's good to feel joy.

 

[helz_belz]

Fascinating thread! It ties in with a few thing I have been pondering lately, will post them after reading through it all. It looks like a many-cups-of-tea-and-a-sit-down-to-fully-grasp-it-properly thread! :laugh:


Talking of nostalgia, this takes me back 6 years to when I was a lowly lurker, reading the forum in between writing university essays. Ah, good times

 

[Goldenage]

Greetings: what I was "up to"


Hi Tanguerra,


yes, I started to interact on this site back in 2002 when I entered into it in order to unburden myself of a bunch of then "unsettling" insights. After chatting away some I started to write a book which I finally self-published on Lulu. I called it "The Journey to Enlightenment" (by John R E Harger). That was the story of how I "fell into" my insights concerning past lives. Well anyway that book contained a great deal of my input to the childpastlives site. It told about "what" and "how" but I was not really satisfied because it had no over-arching perspective, so to speak. Anyhow anyone interested can search it out on the Lulu (publisher) website or on the "Smashwords" ebook website. There it is under J. Robin E. Harger.


Thereafter I started on something "grander" but it took a dreadfully long time to write. Years in fact, I would work on it till I could not stand it, leave it alone till I forgot it and then res-erect it and work on it some more. However, after numerous splitting head-aches it is finished now and it contains a more complete answer to the question you raise in your second post to me (immediatly above). This (second) book is called "Attainment as it is" and you can (if you wish) download it directly as a fully active indexed PDF from here:


Attainment as it IS. I will self-publish it with Xlibris - I have paid them their fee already and am now just tinkering with a synopsis to define (in English) all the terms I had to invent for a full description of what I am on about.


That said I will also have a crack at answering you directly (next post).

 

[Goldenage]

falling away


The term self (personal self or ego self) is good for one life and in particular the reference-life, the one in which we will all eat breakfast and for argument's sake this may be referred to as the (momentarily) active instance. In the case where two or more lives are recalled I prefer to call the resulting array of identities, each sharing distinctive common or overlapping attributes, the "extended-self". The extended self is simply an aggregate of recalled instances (lives) each of which is separated by time which is not realized as an aspect of direct experience. In the main these separate instances constitute an ego-function the elements of which are, at first, not recognized as exactly identical except momentarily when an intense focus draws one into another .


In the case where intense focus is placed on the active self as being here and now only as the essence of what one truly IS and then, at the least, one only instance of the otherwise extended self is likewise drawn into that focus, it is possible to raise the question "who or what am I that thus spans space and time?". If this focus is maintained exclusively the self-instances (the extended self) will fall to a lower-level of consciousness at exactly the same time as the questioner perceives its dominance. At the limit both (all) instances of the extended self shatter as the emergent principal realizes that it alone is responsible for their appearance from the first. This emergent consciousness is the Higher Self. It is beyond time. As its true extant is realized, a sense of bliss develops.


Once the Higher Self presents as the control or focus of consciousness it is again possible for this Identity to question its origin as: "Where-from bliss?", "Where-from creative identity?" In so doing the array of lives represented by the extended self falls away and "does not exist anymore". The questioning entity is thus plunged into the profound of creation lying beyond itself as an identity.

 

[Goldenage]

rebirth


Contrary to what many think, rebirth is of two forms only and it does not just happen. By that I mean one does not just drift into rebirth.


The first form of rebirth is activated (on auto-pilot) by regret at the very instance of death, when one passes-out from the physical body induced by whatever means. Briefly said regret is the driver turned around into "I must do better". Examine any life clearly to the end and you will find that this is so. One does not come back to "have fun" though fun might be on the menu (but not always is this even the case). Otherwise viewed rebirth is thus "obligate" and repeated passage through samsara is potentially as extended as is time itself.


The second form is the result of deliberate choice "I will" or "I intend". Avatars expose themselves in this manner, but see the post above. One has to get at least to that stage before choice is "on the menu".


There is a third option which is to simply continue on into the profound but if embraced as an option just because it is an option, then eventually rebirth will result basically because of boredom. Back to square one.


A forth option is also said to be available but execution thereof is limited to the degree of attainment achieved by the Buddha and other transcendental figures of limitless light. We are not generally given to know the result of that option for it is not simply the creation of other universes equivalent to or even of a higher order than is this one. It is a conundrum.

 

[tanguerra]

This is an interesting older thread that newer members may like to read or share their thoughts on.

 

[Goldenage]

Yes - why not


Yes, I had forgotten this post, really but for newcomers just start on the life of the present. Why did I come here? What am I doing? What am I supposed to be doing? Who am I anyway?


Stick with it and the whole "incredible" story will make itself known, maybe not immediately that is for sure but inevitably with persistence.


Why, really, am I doing (this, that & the other) (in this very life) why? All such questions help to erode the shell of the personal self (whose survival depends on deflecting such questions). Stick with it - day and night - the questions I mean, stick with the questiond till that wretched personality of the moment cracks just a bit then "leap into that vacant territory" Really, head straight into "freefall".....a115.gif


Robin