The Spirit Realm - The Physical Realm

[Fant0men]

I'm far from perfect, and far from enlightened. Even if I somehow one day become enlightened, I would never want to call myself that, as it's narcissistic and doesn't help anyone.

Everything is perfect. Even when it's shitty. I agree.

I agree, but I look at it like, knowing that I know nothing about enlightenment but catching glimpses here and there makes me enlightened as compared to my past self. And maybe that's the key, keep trying to gain and learn. I KNOW I'll never have all the info t say I'm truly anything... That's why I never say either , or in any argument. I like how scientists put things in "Likely" or "not likely" terms.

But you strive for enlightenment, picking up things on the way, you are on the path. The only one you can compare knowledge too is your past self... You can't look at someone lie Gandhi or Socrates and their levels... Only if you are a better self than before... That's the God journey

Narcissists like OP ate locked in a narrow-minded, arrogant/ignorant HELL because there is no room for learning. They believe there is nothing more to learn since they know... But like enlightenment, with knowledge, it's only when you get a little of either you realize how much you really DON'T know.

OP is in a war with himself, the war is being fought with himself. He's hoping it comes to us and is trying to go make that happen... An attempt at evil demon possession so to speak. There is hope for everyone, but as long as he considers himself superior, and puts himself in a different category, he'll be impossible to reach

---

Also, the evil can be gods asshole, or it could be anything that we don't like about ourselves that we negatively focus on.. Or nose, weight, penis size... Etc. I believe we are made in God's image, so any part of yourself you don't like can fir that bill. It's accepting what you don't like as yourself when you can alleviate your pain...metaphorically speaking of course

I've been on the spiritual path for a while. There was a time when I too believed myself to know things with certainty, and it looked to me as if there was nothing left to learn. How wrong I was! Since then I have learned more than I had up to that point.

I think what everyone needs is a good ass-kicking from life to get humbled. Narcissists never really get that, and if they ever do, they learn nothing from it. There's always more to learn, and the (hero's) journey never ends. It's not about being the best or about being superior. That's the opposite of enlightenment. I know that much.

It's about being better than you were yesterday, and how could anyone get better if they believe they're already perfect?

Maybe there are milestones, and that's what makes people believe they're enlightened. But how can anyone truly be enlightened? That would mean having seen and understood everything, this universe, all possible universes and realities. That amount of information doesn't fit inside a human brain, though I don't believe memory is really stored there anyway. Point being, it's simply too much information for any single individual.

I think memory is like a download, you download the information you need from the cloud as needed. The cloud being the Akashic records, or "store consciousness" as it's called in Buddhism. We have access to all knowledge that humanity has ever learned, but one needs to be in a state of receptivity. One needs to be open-minded to have access to all that information, hence no interference from the ego, or at least very little interference that can garble up the signal.

Being fearful, worried, sad, angry or hateful I have done a lot in life. I know that garbles up the signal for sure. That's how I know QiikSand's signal is completely messed up, and whatever information he's receiving is highly distorted. Even if we download information from the Akashic records, it still gets interpreted through our ego, and we don't really receive the information as is, but it's filtered through our own beliefs and concepts.

[waregim]

@FO
You post hearkens to one of the most beautiful and consistent philosphies ever devised by the mind of man. The 'Perennial Philosopy' of Huxley, the Oriental Wisdom of Ouspensky, the astounding spirituality of Edgar Cayce, and the synthesis of Buddhism and Hinduism with the Western ethos.
But I would like to cordially present an antipodal perspective that may come off as abrasive, but is intended with respect for persons, albeit with a gloves off approach to ideas. Argue the point, not the man.
I am coming from the perspective of the Spirituality of the West.

In virtually all primitive societies there is a sense of the noumenal. Forces beyond cognition that controlled the environment around them. First perceived as spirits, and then as gods. And amongst them there would some who may have appeared a bit strange, but through birth or diet, could speak to the unseen, or often - and this was crucial - foretell the weather. These hypersentive individuals became the first holymen, priests, and shamans.
Today they are called by other names.

When the Aryan tribes came into the Indus Valley and the Vedic Age began and the Mahabharata was started we have an energetic and vital culture quite similar to the those of the Homeric Age in the Mediterranean. Agni was the chief deity, alot like Zeus. They proceeded to create a magnificent civilization, and their uppper classes were freed from labor and had time to think and study the world around them at around the time of Democritus. They discovered mathematics, and the mind numbing infinity of numbers. Over the course of centuries the religion of Vedas morphed into Vedanta, under the guidance of 'wise men' like Shankara and others.
Since the Bronze Age, their 'holy men', the saddhus were also making advances and sharing knowledge and discoveries about the spiritual world. They had discovered hallucinogens, so anyone could with enough effort and forbearance become a saddhu, provided they did not go hopelessly mad. A career risk.

But they also discovered in their spiritual trances a state that went beyond the gods themselves. A state devoid of worry, grief, concern, even thought and consciousness of self. Since it was beyond words or conceptualization they described it as unification with the Cosmos. Brahman. The Godhead.
It is known in the modern world as the Catatonic State.

Since this was the ultimate reality, by the logic of the syllogism it had to mean that the world and nature, with its brutality, disease and suffering was *NOT* real. Maya.
This is known in the modern world as nihilism.

The Indic people were faced with a dreadful dilemma. Think of it. Why bother with anything if all was illusion?
The solution was the Bhagavad Gita. Dharma, duty, took precedence - and gave meaning. But not for long. Vedanta sapped the civilization of the energy it needed when it was needed and it collapsed during our Dark Ages.

Sometime around the fourth century BC a prince named Siddharta was born, and pampered throughout his early teens. But when he got old enough to travel into the countryside and witness the pain and suffering of the common folk he was shocked out of his Hindu roots, which dictated that all pain and suffering was the result of karma. So Buddha renounced his religion, his dharma, and his gods, took up the life of a sadhu. And replaaced Brahman with Nirvana. There were no gods, and the cosmos was also Maya.
Virtue was anything and everything that led to the extinction of the ego. The perfect saint would feel no pain as he had essentially learned to turn off his brain. And shut out the world.
In japan a certain Buddhist order began the practice of literally mummifying themselvs, until the practice was made illegal.
There is no real word for it in the modern world, as nihilism implies some form of activity, even if hedonistic.

It is difficult to elaborate these ideas in anything less than a book. But as you prbably have never seen the East presented in such a light, I proffer these ideas only for simple consideration, and to undserstand why a juxtaposing viewpoint could be useful.

I would propose that a Western Spirituality be based on an ethic of Vitalism. That Nature and the Cosmos are indeed *real* and that the 'spritual' world is epiphenomenal to it. Thought did not create matter. That is magical thinking. But that matter, after billions of years may well have evolved into biological forms that possibly may interact in ways not yet discovered.
We know that the bulk of the mass of the universe is unseen 'dark matter'. That does not mean that biological processes cannot interact with it. It is said that enzymatic processes proceed at greater rates than can be accounted for by modern physics and chemistry, for example.

Remember that the Greeks and the Vedas state that the universe and the gods came from Chaos, sometimes interpreted as the Void. This is exactly the premise of modern physics. Cosmogenesis as Theogenesis. Makes sense to me...

If we build upon such a basis of thought we can indeed have a strong ethos, and a world with actual *meaning*. Look to the Epic of Gilgamesh, where the hero after a long and bloody struggle and utter existential defeat:
Looked at the walls of his city
Awed at the heights his people had attained
And for a moment, just a moment
All that lay before him passed from view.

The West is going to need to transform itself, and it needs powerful new and *vital* percepts and motivations as its political power wanes in this century. Russia in its panic returned to Byzantine Orthodoxy, and there are even some who want the monarchy to return! A bit extreme, agreed. But somehow understandable with the (aneristic) chaos about to besiege us.

As far as metaphysics:
What I do know is that Kirlian Photography was shown to be a fraud, that psychics are not, reincarnation debunked, that ghosthunters are deluded (and yes I have been on a few 'ghost hunts' where spirits were seen and heard by 'investigators', but alas not by me!).
The one last hope is the replication of an experiment from a century ago where dying patients were placed on a sensitive scale and lost *one ounce* of weight at the moment of expiration. Its *roughly* the weight ratio of an electron to a proton.

In fairness the Western mind has taken Eastern ideas and interpreted them in much healthier ways than their origins would
suggest. And even in the native cultures, the more dismal aspects are normally ignored. The Viet Cong were Buddhists after all, and even the monks did not regard politics as 'Maya'. And the Indians do not really think that becoming a beggar is the highest goal in life.

One last word about the Dalai Lama.
He has been on a massive coverup as to the nature of the monastic traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, which at the cultural nature of its core, is to put it mildly: Homicidal.
But personally from what I hear from an acquaintance who studied with him: A remarkably likeable person.

@LZA
http://www.famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets...oems/15276
https://www.best-poems.net/john_masefiel...range.html
I hope you like these.
I wish they are so.

[Fant0men]

@FO
You post hearkens to one of the most beautiful and consistent philosphies ever devised by the mind of man. The 'Perennial Philosopy' of Huxley, the Oriental Wisdom of Ouspensky, the astounding spirituality of Edgar Cayce, and the synthesis of Buddhism and Hinduism with the Western ethos.
But I would like to cordially present an antipodal perspective that may come off as abrasive, but is intended with respect for persons, albeit with a gloves off approach to ideas. Argue the point, not the man.
I am coming from the perspective of the Spirituality of the West.

In virtually all primitive societies there is a sense of the noumenal. Forces beyond cognition that controlled the environment around them. First perceived as spirits, and then as gods. And amongst them there would some who may have appeared a bit strange, but through birth or diet, could speak to the unseen, or often - and this was crucial - foretell the weather. These hypersentive individuals became the first holymen, priests, and shamans.
Today they are called by other names.

When the Aryan tribes came into the Indus Valley and the Vedic Age began and the Mahabharata was started we have an energetic and vital culture quite similar to the those of the Homeric Age in the Mediterranean. Agni was the chief deity, alot like Zeus. They proceeded to create a magnificent civilization, and their uppper classes were freed from labor and had time to think and study the world around them at around the time of Democritus. They discovered mathematics, and the mind numbing infinity of numbers. Over the course of centuries the religion of Vedas morphed into Vedanta, under the guidance of 'wise men' like Shankara and others.
Since the Bronze Age, their 'holy men', the saddhus were also making advances and sharing knowledge and discoveries about the spiritual world. They had discovered hallucinogens, so anyone could with enough effort and forbearance become a saddhu, provided they did not go hopelessly mad. A career risk.

But they also discovered in their spiritual trances a state that went beyond the gods themselves. A state devoid of worry, grief, concern, even thought and consciousness of self. Since it was beyond words or conceptualization they described it as unification with the Cosmos. Brahman. The Godhead.
It is known in the modern world as the Catatonic State.

Since this was the ultimate reality, by the logic of the syllogism it had to mean that the world and nature, with its brutality, disease and suffering was *NOT* real. Maya.
This is known in the modern world as nihilism.

The Indic people were faced with a dreadful dilemma. Think of it. Why bother with anything if all was illusion?
The solution was the Bhagavad Gita. Dharma, duty, took precedence - and gave meaning. But not for long. Vedanta sapped the civilization of the energy it needed when it was needed and it collapsed during our Dark Ages. 

Sometime around the fourth century BC a prince named Siddharta was born, and pampered throughout his early teens. But when he got old enough to travel into the countryside and witness the pain and suffering of the common folk he was shocked out of his Hindu roots, which dictated that all pain and suffering was the result of karma. So Buddha renounced his religion, his dharma, and his gods,  took up the life of a sadhu. And replaaced Brahman with Nirvana. There were no gods, and the cosmos was also Maya.
Virtue was anything and everything that led to the extinction of the ego. The perfect saint would feel no pain as he had essentially learned to turn off his brain. And shut out the world.
In japan a certain Buddhist order began the practice of literally mummifying themselvs, until the practice was made illegal.
There is no real word for it in the modern world, as nihilism implies some form of activity, even if hedonistic.

It is difficult to elaborate these ideas in anything less than a book. But as you prbably have never seen the East presented in such a light, I proffer these ideas only for simple consideration, and to undserstand why a juxtaposing viewpoint could be useful.

I would propose that a Western Spirituality be based on an ethic of Vitalism. That Nature and the Cosmos are indeed *real* and that the 'spritual' world is epiphenomenal to it. Thought did not create matter. That is magical thinking. But that matter, after billions of years may well have evolved into biological forms that possibly may interact in ways not yet discovered.
We know that the bulk of the mass of the universe is unseen 'dark matter'. That does not mean that biological processes cannot interact with it. It is said that enzymatic processes proceed at greater rates than can be accounted for by modern physics and chemistry, for example.

Remember that the Greeks and the Vedas state that the universe and the gods came from Chaos, sometimes interpreted as the Void. This is exactly the premise of modern physics. Cosmogenesis as Theogenesis. Makes sense to me...

If we build upon such a basis of thought we can indeed have a strong ethos, and a world with actual *meaning*. Look to the Epic of Gilgamesh, where the hero after a long and bloody struggle and utter existential defeat:
Looked at the walls of his city
Awed at the heights his people had attained
And for a moment, just a moment
All that lay before him passed from view.

The West is going to need to transform itself, and it needs powerful new and *vital* percepts and motivations as its political power wanes in this century. Russia in its panic returned to Byzantine Orthodoxy, and there are even some who want the monarchy to return! A bit extreme, agreed. But somehow understandable with the (aneristic) chaos about to besiege us. 

As far as metaphysics:
What I do know is that Kirlian Photography was shown to be a fraud, that psychics are not, reincarnation debunked, that ghosthunters are deluded (and yes I have been on a few 'ghost hunts' where spirits were seen and heard by 'investigators', but alas not by me!).
The one last hope is the replication of an experiment from a century ago where dying patients were placed on a sensitive scale and lost *one ounce* of weight at the moment of expiration.  Its *roughly* the weight ratio of an electron to a proton.

In fairness the Western mind has taken Eastern ideas and interpreted them in much healthier ways than their origins would
suggest. And even in the native cultures, the more dismal aspects are normally ignored. The Viet Cong were Buddhists after all, and even the monks did not regard politics as 'Maya'. And the Indians do not really think that becoming a beggar is the highest goal in life.

One last word about the Dalai Lama.
He has been on a massive coverup as to the nature of the monastic traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, which at the cultural nature of its core, is to put it mildly: Homicidal.
But personally from what I hear from an acquaintance who studied with him: A remarkably likeable person.

@LZA
http://www.famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets...oems/15276
https://www.best-poems.net/john_masefiel...range.html
I hope you like these.
I wish they are so.

@waregim
Thanks for you post. I read it in full. It made me do some quick research about scandals in Tibetan Buddhism. I found this:

https://www.thenakedmonk.com/2012/09/30/...is-a-cult/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl...WhIivvmMnk

I used to be a strict materialist, believing that cause and effect is the ultimate law, and hence the Universe is deterministic and there's no free will. I don't subscribe to that view anymore, partly because it's depressing, it doesn't quite make logical sense to me anymore, and I've had some paranormal experiences in life that are definite proof to me that there's more going on here than just matter. However, I still believe in cause and effect, and I do believe that the physical world is completely ruled by causality, but that the cause can be material or come from consciousness, which is a higher level of abstraction and hence takes precedence over physicality.

The scientific consensus these days seems to be that consciousness is an epi-phenomenon of matter, that at some point of sufficient complexity in the physical organism it just magically arises. This does not make sense to me, as I don't believe consciousness would arise if it wasn't inherent in creation to begin with. I think consciousness goes all the way down, and that even atoms (and subatomic particles too) have a limited degree of consciousness. I like the idea that occurs in hylozoism, that we are all monads that have gone through countless reincarnations to get to where we are today. That we all started out very simply, probably as a subatomic particle, and then gradually made our way up the evolutionary tree, going from minerals, to plants, then to animals and finally humans.

Speaking of a paranormal experience I had as a child... Me and my family were playing with a home-made Ouija board. We used a big paper, where we had drawn out the alphabet, numbers 0-9, "yes", "no", "home" and "good-bye". We kept a lit candle and held a drinking glass over it as we asked our questions to "the spirit world". Do note, we weren't hardcore believers and we played around with this out of curiosity. Once the question has been asked, the glass is put upside down on "home", and all participants put their finger lightly on the top of the glass. During one of these sessions, the glass started moving too fast for us to keep up, we all let go of it, and it kept moving. It moved in about 3-4 large circles, and we all just watched in awe. I know what I saw, but I've talked about this with one of my brothers who's now very into science (I am too), and he doesn't really want to acknowledge this experience we had because it doesn't fit his scientific paradigm.

However, it's my understanding that one needs to stay honest even when the puzzle pieces don't fit. You can't deny what you experienced, especially not an experience like that which was clear as day and impossible to fake.

I don't claim to know who or what we were communicating with through that Ouija board, but I do remember it answered our questions intelligently and with correct grammar and spelling. Sometimes it would give sarcastic and funny answers, but it did answer most, if not all, of our questions. I hope to find out one day what actually gets through when people have successful Ouija sessions.

I've tried playing with Ouija boards since, and gotten no results, so it's pretty rare that you get this thing to work, which is probably why most people dismiss it as being totally fake.

I've had other strange experiences like that, and my mum's apartment has been periodically haunted, with kitchen cabinets opening and closing on their own at night, and things like that. I've also seen UFOs on many occasions. It's these experiences that I must take into account when forming my world view. I can't deny that I had them, or I would be lying to myself.

I think one of the major reasons why many people seem to not have any experiences like that, is that they're not even open to the possibility, and by the law of synchronicity they will only experience what they expect in life. Even if they do have these kinds of experiences, they deny them as they don't fit their world view and confronting it all would be too frightening.

[Faride]

Your reasoning is pretty serious. I myself have never thought so deeply about it. I believe that our reality is divided into several layers. We see only the real part, but we can communicate with other realities through extrasensory perception or through signs. I myself use numerology as on this snip!. It's an easy way to ask the universe for the right path. Sometimes it really helps me. I believe that the souls of relatives are connected and our deceased can visit us in their dreams. We can say that my faith is at the everyday level, without metaphysics.

Spud17 edited Jul 20, 2020 15:29 pm this post because: Unnecessary link removed.