The Higher Self and transcendent experience, including OBEs

[TraineeHuman]

Posted by teradactyl (here)
i ... see what you are saying about "understand her and yourself sufficiently that you wouldn’t have a problem about seeing her"; however, i suppose you would agree that malicious and insulting energy (vampire energy) is something to avoid if possible. im not quite apt to clear her energy, i would seriously say that she is surrounded(hitchhiker) by negative energy. she is very venomous, where as her words can be sweet, but they sting. and from a distance, she is vicious. i find that distance is necessary for me at this time.
on another note, i feel like she does lighten up around my daughter. but thats it.

Yes, some people can be quite toxic, quite often. I’ve noticed that probably 50% of the people I’ve known who were seriously engaged in true spiritual evolvement had a family member who was psychotic. Both my father and later my step-father were psychotic, but I never worked that out in either of their cases until after they were dead. I believe I’ve resolved all the issues with them by now. However, after he died when I was sixteen, my father hung around as an earthbound spirit, waiting furiously for decades until I would die – at seventy, according to him – so that he could get his “revenge” on me for I’m not sure what. Eventually, about ten years ago, after considerable help he realized he was the one with the toxic problem, and he left.

There was also my brother, who was three-and-a-half years older than me. He wasn’t psychotic, but he was very competitive and jealous from when I was age four. Imagine the combined effect of the three primary examples of maleness that I had in my childhood conditioning. The result was that my ability to understand males – such as who was really friendly and who wasn’t – was rather skewed for many years. I feel I’m pretty much over that problem of understanding other males by now. Only because the universe/Source, with the HS’s help, keeps setting up employment situations and other situations and friendships where whatever needs more work tends to get plenty of opportunity to be further developed.

That’s not all. This is unusual, but probably my worst egoic aberrations occurred not in childhood but as a result of my marrying my (now ex-) wife in my early thirties. She was a very poor choice of partner, and it turned out she was psychotic as well. The only reason I can find for having chosen her was that I subconsciously wanted to learn more about disharmony, and how to use disharmony to become stronger – which, it so happens, was probably my primary purpose behind being born here in this lifetime. No doubt another reason was that I hadn’t had enough variety in partners to tell who would make a great partner. In retrospect, I’d had at least a few partners who were extraordinary, caring, sensitive, intelligent women. Anyway, I don’t know whether even now, decades later, I’ve fully repaired the damage from having been married to such a woman for a few years.

In my twenties and thirties there were times when I could have sworn my parents were the devil. Quite often, in those years, it seemed like communicating with them served no worthwhile purpose, except that my HS continually insisted it was a good thing. This brings me to the whole subject of egocentricity and seeing beyond it.

Egocentricity may be a long word, but it sums up the essence of the ego in the spiritual sense of “ego”. A huge lesson the HS needs to teach us somehow, in some lifetime, is that its still small “voice” may be in total conflict with everything we suppose to be reasonable for us and in our interests. Here our parents are often invaluable to the HS. Learning to somehow mildly tolerate our parents when our parents become intolerable – let me suggest that’s a huge breakthrough, a huge lesson. It’s the type of lesson we have to “pass” in, or else how will we ever get to the vastness and the omni-inclusiveness of the HS?

Once a very experienced management efficiency expert explained to me how in his experience what makes large corporations inefficient or corrupt, when they are, is always egocentricity. I don’t believe he was wrong. The person who hasn't overcome egocentricity lives in a one-eyed universe. They may perhaps believe, to give one example, that we are all ruled over by those ever so nasty archontic parasites.

Over time we grow more and more emotionally mature and stable. If needed, we drag our parents along with us to some degree, while they are maturing further themselves to some degree at least. Life is about learning to be more well-rounded, to handle anything and anyone. If that was easy to do, the adventure wouldn’t have nearly as much challenge to it and wouldn’t be as valuable in the long run. These days, in my seventh decade, I find it’s like the universe is “talking” to me in a broad sort of way all the time. Each situation it brings up fits into the whole of my life and is a necessary part of the whole. Each little area of life experience is needed, and I no longer shun it.

If I had a “witch” of a mother and I shunned her too strongly in my heart, that would mean the universe would have to arrange further poison apples from someone else. You can avoid Mum physically somewhat, but don’t lock her out of your heart or your thoughts. Let me assure you she lives inside your heart, no matter what you do. After her death she – at least, a copy of her --will live on in there too. By that stage, you’ll probably have learnt to feel the love, and all the other nonsense that ever happened will seem trivial, or eventually it will. Life is strange.

May I absolutely reassure you, though, that every inch, every dot of contact you have with the Water of Life, the HS, adds a whole huge, other level to everything. And it all comes back to you beneficially in the very long run, if not sooner.

[soleil]

Posted by TraineeHuman (here)
Egocentricity may be a long word, but it sums up the essence of the ego in the spiritual sense of “ego”. A huge lesson the HS needs to teach us somehow, in some lifetime, is that its still small “voice” may be in total conflict with everything we suppose to be reasonable for us and in our interests. Here our parents are often invaluable to the HS. Learning to somehow mildly tolerate our parents when our parents become intolerable – let me suggest that’s a huge breakthrough, a huge lesson. It’s the type of lesson we have to “pass” in, or else how will we ever get to the vastness and the omni-inclusiveness of the HS?

Once a very experienced management efficiency expert explained to me how in his experience what makes large corporations inefficient or corrupt, when they are, is always egocentricity. I don’t believe he was wrong. The person who hasn't overcome egocentricity lives in a one-eyed universe. They may perhaps believe, to give one example, that we are all ruled over by those ever so nasty archontic parasites.

If I had a “witch” of a mother and I shunned her too strongly in my heart, that would mean the universe would have to arrange further poison apples from someone else. You can avoid Mum physically somewhat, but don’t lock her out of your heart or your thoughts. Let me assure you she lives inside your heart, no matter what you do. After her death she – at least, a copy of her --will live on in there too. By that stage, you’ll probably have learnt to feel the love, and all the other nonsense that ever happened will seem trivial, or eventually it will. Life is strange.

May I absolutely reassure you, though, that every inch, every dot of contact you have with the Water of Life, the HS, adds a whole huge, other level to everything. And it all comes back to you beneficially in the very long run, if not sooner.

i know, my HS pushes me to still be amicable. recently, i haven't heard from my mom in the past 2 wks; she did her little manipulation technique a couple weekends ago, and then stopped talking (via text/email...) to me completely since i didnt 'bite' on her little drama (...i wont go into it).

so yesterday out of the blue, she sends me an email FWD on nice information about coconut oil, so i replied saying yes that its a good thing, good for her for reading and being into that kind of thing. but let me just say, the "nice little reply to say good for her" email, is totally HS. cuz i know my ego, and my ego never would'a done it. so i'm hoping to help her somehow. only my HS can tell me how to help her, free will is the option. nice or not nice. i want to be nice. even to her.



i have also started meditating to my HS/tarot masters (as per the book i prev mentioned on channeling the akashic records via the tarot) and asking for just a daily guidance starting with most importance.

and within the only 2 spreads that i have done for myself so far - they not only made sense to me intuitively but were/are rude awakenings from HS/'soul conciousness' (as per rozalia). {sorry i havent scanned it yet, its a big book and i'd have to either bring it to scan at work}
......the tarot masters / HS is loud and clear. one card recommendation was a clear indication on needed changes in myself. currently i know i've been quite impatient at home; and its reflecting on my parenting style (impatience when giving time outs) has been clashing with the attitude/temperament of my daughter who's "terrible two's going on three's". i need to stop being impatient, and stop thinking 3 yrs olds are logical in their wise age - which i probably learnt from my own mother, she is hands offish and very impatient always was and is. i did not know any other way.
but i have to make a positive and loving change in this one aspect. just calling it like it is (on myself).

TH i understand you may say tarot is (in not so many or not the same exact words) a "waste of time", but i enjoy both meditating for myself while also checking out other methods of divination. i promise to the group that this will not be a crutch for me for communicating with my HS.


thanks for reading.


TH would you mind helping me decipher the "worm" dream? or was i spot on? thank you in advance!

[TraineeHuman]

Posted by teradactyl (here)
i have ... started meditating to my HS/tarot masters (as per the book i prev mentioned on channeling the akashic records via the tarot) and asking for just a daily guidance starting with most importance.

and within the only 2 spreads that i have done for myself so far - they not only made sense to me intuitively but were/are rude awakenings from HS/'soul conciousness' (as per rozalia). {sorry i havent scanned it yet, its a big book and i'd have to either bring it to scan at work}
......the tarot masters / HS is loud and clear. one card recommendation was a clear indication on needed changes in myself. currently i know i've been quite impatient at home; and its reflecting on my parenting style (impatience when giving time outs) has been clashing with the attitude/temperament of my daughter who's "terrible two's going on three's". i need to stop being impatient, and stop thinking 3 yrs olds are logical in their wise age - which i probably learnt from my own mother, she is hands offish and very impatient always was and is. i did not know any other way.
but i have to make a positive and loving change in this one aspect. just calling it like it is (on myself).

TH i understand you may say tarot is (in not so many or not the same exact words) a "waste of time", but i enjoy both meditating for myself while also checking out other methods of divination. i promise to the group that this will not be a crutch for me for communicating with my HS.

No, I don’t disapprove of anyone learning to read tarot cards as another way to develop one’s connection with one’s HS. In ancient times, as far as I’m aware, it was at least as common to have “schools” or monasteries and so on that speifically taught various psychic development skills along with meditation. Learning to have OBEs is one form of this, and reading tarot, even if it’s for yourself only, is another. The tarot has powerfully evocative images which, as you're already very aware, can considerably assist the self-enquiry process.

The only thing I’d perhaps question is whether your readings for yourself are completely accurate at first. If I were you, at first I probably wouldn’t take them as gospel, but as having some very helpful insights for you to look at that are probably accurate to a certain degree. Nothing to apologise about in any way, though.

TH would you help me decipher the "worm" dream? or was i spot on? thank you in advance!

I'll be happy to. As I've mentioned, sometimes my work and other commitments can bring several days' delay.

[TraineeHuman]

Posted by teradactyl (here)
i had a dream the other night. to be short, i was looking in a mirror, and i was looking through my hair, and saw tips of worms sticking out a bit, like their tail as though they were burrowing into soil. i started pulling them out one at a time, and there were 3 total (garden looking worms) that successfully were pulled out of my scalp by myself. they were on different locations on my head. sort of like a triangle if i could remember any shape at all. maybe theres no shape, but they were on the top of my head where you can see through your hair a bit/hairline(s), not on the sides of my head.

In the lower 4D worlds, the Gaia energies and other Earth-related energies mostly look like large worms, in my limited experience. The earthworms we experience in the physical world are smaller, and the closest physical creatures that are that size are snakes and eels. I understand most indigenous peoples see the Earth-energies, and often the energies of Nature in general, as snake-like. We have had Freed Fox’s description in post # 656 of his extraordinary and life-changing encounter with the beauty and power and positivity of such energies.

The only interpretation I can find so far for the worms in your dream, teradactyl, is that they represent energies of physicality, such as to do with economic survival, or maybe with being a mother, or being a daughter, or possibly with sexuality, or gender, among others. No doubt for you it’s only one or two specific things in that broad area – which would also include just about any form of materialism, for example, though probably not in your case.

Still, the dream is described in quite general terms. I believe the dream is saying that certain issues to do with the ego and physicality – represented by worms – are sometimes strong enough to invade the space where spirituality – the HS – should be in charge. Usually, those “worms” are found below or beyond the base chakra of the body.

I’m glad you brought this dream up because I consider it’s a good example of what the following general question might mean in a particular case (see most of the posts between # 154 and # 162):

If all matter is in reality just a denser expression of the Great Spirit / Source, and if Source is ultimately what everything in the universe is made of, how do we reconcile with this the many concerns we go through of dealing with “matter” in our everyday lives?

Actually, I was planning to raise that very question about a week ago, and have been wondering how to put it with a practical example. Joe (seeker1972)’s recent post # 858 helped in this regard too. (Part of the answer to the above question is that we won’t see that everything is a form of Source until we’re stable in our HS.)

The HS takes, if you like, all perspectives at once. In order to do so, though, what it needs to do is something that seems like shunning, or being intolerant of, physicality – sexuality, money, food, possessions, etc. The truth is, the HS doesn’t shun or demonize these at all, but it does downplay their significance. It does so purely to make room for a world full of more than the things physicality, of physical pleasure and physical pain. The HS is about having “both and”. Both the physical body and its personality, and also, equally, everything that lies quite beyond these. To give an example, tantric sexuality spiritualizes sex. This means that one still experiences the joys of physical and etheric sex, but a spiritualization of these as well. Tantric sex, if carried out correctly, is a totally valid form of meditation. That’s only one example. But while I’m on the subject, I would say (as also perhaps might Joe) the Tantric way is the only one that’s truly the HS’s way – but you have to truly find the HS first.

There’s more I’d like to bring up regarding the HS’s perspective, and how does it reconcile with everything else. Two more observations for now. In Awake’s most recently described dream, notice how his HS had no compunction about playing a genuine villain – in a dream, though, not in reality. I considered that was a great example of how ready the HS is to embrace and make use of one’s dark side, within a dream. It wouldn’t do the same in real life, but only because it’s always committed to causing minimal harm.

Finally, can you imagine the deepest life-force, or, better, the Great Spirit, as something that has no interest in any supposed quarrel between the positive and negative principles of the one, same, (apparently) unknowable Reality? (It will have no interest because any such quarrel is quite fictitious, quite unreal.)

[TraineeHuman]

Please do keep posting your dreams and any other comments you have. The reason I’m asking you this is that I know all sorts of people who read this thread manage to visit me briefly OB, and then many of your dreams or comments – most of the time -- bring a practical, real example of the next thing I’m planning to talk about. As you can appreciate, the very topic of what’s in the formless worlds and beyond is pretty abstract, so your feedback is usually very useful even if you may feel it’s a little off-topic.

First, I’d like to explain what takes the place of time as we know it in the worlds that are beyond time as we know it. In the physical world, change and time are virtually interchangeable. But we can also take two objects or people or whatever, A and B. We can use our imagination to see A change into B. That’s an example of change that happens in our imagination rather than in physical time. So: the answer is, in the higher worlds they still have change even though they don’t have time as we know it; and there change takes the place of what we think of as time.

I’ve already said that the HS is the same thing as (the lowest level of) consciousness, and that’s quite true. Today I’d like to start calling the HS “the Higher Mind”. It’s still the same thing as consciousness. But anything that’s “mind” is that which knows and perceives and understands things, and also wills or initiates or responds to or with things. And the Higher Mind does all those things.

How it differs from the ordinary mind is that the ordinary mind separates and analyzes, while the Higher Mind integrates, brings everything together. Any time you are being genuinely creative, or genuinely loving or accepting, you are using your Higher Mind, because you are taking away separation and combining together what had before been separate.

At this point I feel obliged to go into a lengthy digression on the topic of individuality. You’ll appreciate that the Higher Mind’s whole movement and point of view is to integrate individuality into a collective consciousness that harmoniously pools together everything that was in any of the individuals involved. For this reason, all the Indian gurus, such as Ramana Maharshi and Sri Nattaraj (did I spell that right?) and the rest all say that individuality is something that ultimately almost disappears, once you go high enough. I guess I need to explain why they’re wrong. I won’t go into details of the history of Indian philosophy, although all the Indian Gurus were philosophers and psychologists very much embedded in their tradition.

I guess I can mention that for many years I used to have the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus as one of my guides. Aristotle, Plato and Socrates all freely acknowledged that Heraclitus’ philosophical insights were greater and superior to theirs. Unfortunately, though, Western culture at that point couldn’t understand Heraclitus’ philosophy (“You cannot enter the same river twice”), and so much of the foundations of Western society comes from Aristotle, plus some Platonic stuff via Christianity. I strongly suspect Heraclitus was a reincarnation of Lao Tzu, or maybe of Chuang Tzu, the two founders of Taoism. He may also have reincarnated as the person who was the author of Kabbalah. Today we have quantum physics, which uses ideas which are effectively straight out of Heraclitus, and out of Higher Mind. But then quantum physics tries to analyse and measure everything, which contaminates it all with too much of the (lower) mind. Wittgenstein, who was probably the most influential twentieth century philosopher, in his later period used ideas similar to those of Heraclitus. I’ve already recommended Gary Zukav’s book The Dancing Wu-Li Masters as the best popular explanation of quantum physics. The second best I think is The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra. Both books draw heavily on Taoism (or, equivalently, ideas similar to those of Heraclitus). Many of the founders of quantum theory were familiar with Kabbalah, which is a less complete formulation of similar ideas.

Heraclitus would sometimes appear as one of my guides at the psychic development circle I attended for close to a year, where the lady in charge used to use her own skills to take the whole group astral travelling every week. She didn't know what to make of him at first. The energy field he brought into the astral was bigger and stronger than most of the beings she was familiar with as "Buddhas", i.e. divine beings, or beings from the higher of the divine worlds. And yet Heraclitus didn't look the same as what she was used to with "Buddhas". Initially she would say: "Well, he's not quite a Buddha, though he uses a bigger energy field than most Buddhas." After some time, she was eventually willing to concede that he must be at least the equivalent of a usual "Buddha". Later she asked me to leave the group after I came along with several "Buddhas" as guides whose combined energy fields were so large -- probably 30 meters or more in every direction -- that they were larger than her house.

Aristotle and Plato based their philosophies on the notion that whatever was real was something like whatever we use a noun to describe. But this is flat out false, once you get out of the physical world and the lower astral. Some languages – such as Tibetan, Eskimo, many Polynesian languages and some American Indian and other indigenous languages – have no nouns, at all. In such a language, “the cat sat on the mat” would become a little like: “There is cattish sitting matwise pastly.” Well, not quite, because in this sentence we still have a noun, namely “sitting”. But I hope you get the basic point. The truth is, who you are is much, much more like a verb than like a noun. If you can continue even further into that direction, you’ll go further into the truth again. But I won’t try to take your imagination there today.

The point is that, as the Buddha himself tried to explain, the whole notion that what you are is in any way noun-like (or similar) is an illusion, it’s simply wrong. Indian scholars didn’t understand what he was talking about, and I understand exactly why. His reincarnation, J.Krishnamurti, tried to do the same at a lecture where a substantial number of members of the Philosophy departments of Cambridge and Oxford Universities were present, and even they couldn’t get it. I hope I’ve somehow managed to explain it, at least partially or somewhat, in terms you can follow. Because of this fact that you are in no way noun-like, the integrative pull of the Higher Mind does remove the individuality of all noun-like beings, so to speak. But it doesn’t touch your individuality in any other than superficial ways. I guess you’ll have to trust me on that last point. I believe I’ve gotten technical and abstract enough already.

[Finefeather]

Hi TH
Great Post...#865...thanks brother...

Well is that not just a coincidence or what?
Yesterday I sat down and started a post where I started to introduce the Higher Mind as the HS and decided to hold it back because I was not sure how you were intending to continue with your thread, and did not want to initiate something without knowing where you were going with this. As I mentioned, in a previous post somewhere, I am more familiar with our constitution with different terms and it is always difficult for me to post because I often do not feel I am telling the correct story...and so resort to more standard terms which most have become comfortable with.
I will continue to write my post and will offer it in a day or so...just a tad busy during the days now...should be freer from Tuesday.
Love to all
Ray

[greybeard]

Acts happen deeds are done but there is no doer thereof.

There is no noun no persona-- only something happening.
Everything is assuming its own potential.
There is nothing causing anything----yet the action occurs.
Yet everything comes from no-thing
Tell that to that, which identifies with and claims authorship of the act--- (ego)
Consciousness pretending to be a noun--an individual.

You can not have One (without a second) and an individual

chris

[Eram]

Hi everyone,

I have been away for a while, from this thread and from avalon in general (mostly).
Busy with work, but also busy with an investigation to clearing the dark side or shadow side of ourselves and how to do it properly.

In post 634 I told about a lucid dream that I had to which TH responded with a suggestion that I maybe had fear of my own dark side (post 637)and I felt it was worth it to search into this until I got a clear answer to that.

I reread the 'interview with Paul levy' thread were Th talks about facing and or embracing the dark side and started of to investigate myself in regard to this subject.

In short, it comes down to this.
In all these years, I have deluded myself (partially at least) to believe that I was actually doing a good job in facing my dark side, but as it now appears.... I was merely facing it from an intellectual side and not from the feelings/emotional side.
In other words: I was always on the lookout to see what where my motives for doing things and be honest about it (at least to myself), but I have been very evasive to face my feelings and emotions about things that happened in my life, even in small events and as I now understand... in here lies the true key in embracing once dark side. Facing the feelings and work through them.

I can imagine that many people feel that what I discovered is nothing new, but to me it is life changing.
I have been so hard suppressing my feelings for so long now that it had become second nature and I was not any longer aware of it for most of the times.

The trick is now to reverse it all and that is what kept me in the jungle for the past weeks mostly.

Lots of disturbing dreams during this time too.
several in which I was aware of a person that was hunting me down and I tried to escape. It was always in a building and in the end, I had to find a key to be able to unlock the door that I wanted to use to get out of the house (which I managed to do in all the dreams). Then outside.. the person found me anyway and attacked me. In the last moments of the dream, I surrendered to whatever it was that he was going to do and then I woke up.

Well, any way... I think I am finding the key to it all. It gets me confused still, at times, but sometimes, I just know how to find the switch to let my feelings and emotions be present, where I can truly feel them, and experience them. It's a choice really (of course ).
It's a process and I am still learning, but I am confident that from now on, things will go forward with this.

It's not all news to me, but I have never seen it all so clear, and I have certainly never before (at least since childhood) been able to make the conscious choice to switch from 'not feeling' to allow feeling and that, to me, is a miracle happening

That's it in small nutshell.

ps: I also gained a lot of new insight in the dark side and how it operates in life in general. So beautiful to begin to see this with a birds eye view.

[lookbeyond]

Dear Eram, good for you, i am not able to post links, but remember romans thread on emotional clearing (Lester Levenson) and there is also turiyas thread where Chris Thomas s simple emotional clearing technique is discussed- of course you may have your own method, take care, lb

[TraineeHuman]

Posted by Eram (here)
Hi everyone,

I have been ... busy with an investigation to clearing the dark side or shadow side of ourselves and how to do it properly.

Well, any way... I think I am finding the key to it all. It gets me confused still, at times, but sometimes, I just know how to find the switch to let my feelings and emotions be present, where I can truly feel them, and experience them. It's a choice really (of course ).
It's a process and I am still learning, but I am confident that from now on, things will go forward with this.

It's not all news to me, but I have never seen it all so clear, and I have certainly never before (at least since childhood) been able to make the conscious choice to switch from 'not feeling' to allow feeling and that, to me, is a miracle happening

Being out of touch with one’s true feelings is, I believe, a problem that most alternative people who are seriously doing things like meditating or astral traveling suffer from – and they don’t even know it! It’s such a deep-reaching problem, there’s no easy way to get back in touch. It’s such a long, slow process to do that, for anyone. The true feelings reach all the way into the depths of the subconscious, and of the dark side. I know it’s some achievement that you’ve identified that problem yourself and are even certain now that you’ve solved it. If you don’t do a thing further, you’ve still come a very long way.

I’m not sure if anyone ever fully resolves their dark side. Most of the feedback I’ve ever had, in so many years, regarding my own growth has really been feedback that showed me where I hadn’t faced my dark side at all yet, when I could have sworn I had done so in that area. Getting the idea of integrating and resolving the dark side is easy. But to do it in practice? The ego has wormed its way into every little twist and turn, every unseen corner. The ego has taken charge of layer after layer within layer, even into the fourth and fifth dimensions, for that matter. At every layer it wears a different mask. You have to learn to be ruthlessly honest with yourself about yourself, or you’ll never get out of the forest.

[lookbeyond]

Hi TH, do you think its necessary to expose and resolve our dark side before we can fully reintegrate with our Higher mind or can we just do the best we can using tools that make sense to us?

Thanks lookbeyond

[TraineeHuman]

It’s certainly possible to become free of most forms of unhappiness, excluding only things like physical pain – and it’s even possible to do special kinds of exercises to master that too and get rid of that too.

I would say that the ego, or the dark side, is more like a heavy weight that we need to make considerably lighter or else it will interfere with whatever nobler things we attempt to engage in.

I’m a little sceptical about various kinds of perfectionism that can creep in so easily because words are cheap. For one thing, we’re talking about living a truly spiritual life while we’re in a world that’s ever so imperfect and limited. Nothing we do in that world is going to ever be “perfect” simply because of our current location.

There’s another problem to do with perfectionism. (Well, there are a few, but here’s a second one for now.) Some people like to talk about, say, “the total (perfect) unity of The Oneness”. But if such a thing even exists as utterly total oneness, which some – don’t ask me why -- believe Source to necessarily be, there’s a big problem that we could never know for certain that this exists. It’s a bit like physicists talking about “a perfect vacuum” when such a thing has never been produced, only it’s more presumptuous than that.

As far as I know, Higher Mind isn’t perfect, Source isn’t perfect, and perfection (in many senses of that word) is an impossible concept that doesn’t exist in reality.

[greybeard]

Yogananda said "The darkness comes from the same place as the light"
Chris

[soleil]

i REALLY like the fact that upon graduating in a way, the transition to 'the higher mind' makes a lot of sense to me now, than HS. when a while back HS was appropriate still.

recently, i suppose, (last thursday/friday -im not sure)....i had a nice dream where i was driving in the city/country in an suv with a sunroof as it was a sunny day. i remember being in precise control of the vehicle/steering wheel. and seeing everything on the road, sides of the roads, and comfort of knowing where i was going. i was just getting there, while feeling of being in the moment.
....thats about all i recall from that one. this is probably a nice sign/dream.

eram, awesome post. i want to ask if you have read 'be here now' by ram dass? i think you might like it, right now.http://www.scribd.com/doc/6531720/Ram-Dassbe-Here-Now

chris, i wrote that whole post of yours in my little book of notes. i loved it.

last night, {dream} i was busy planting my fruit and vegetable seeds all night. as i've been working on improving my green thumb; by day.

{edit}

Posted by TraineeHuman (here)
The point is that, as the Buddha himself tried to explain, the whole notion that what you are is in any way noun-like (or similar) is an illusion, it’s simply wrong. Indian scholars didn’t understand what he was talking about, and I understand exactly why. His reincarnation, J.Krishnamurti, tried to do the same at a lecture where a substantial number of members of the Philosophy departments of Cambridge and Oxford Universities were present, and even they couldn’t get it. I hope I’ve somehow managed to explain it, at least partially or somewhat, in terms you can follow. Because of this fact that you are in no way noun-like, the integrative pull of the Higher Mind does remove the individuality of all noun-like beings, so to speak. But it doesn’t touch your individuality in any other than superficial ways. I guess you’ll have to trust me on that last point. I believe I’ve gotten technical and abstract enough already.

awakeinadream had asked me via PM to share bits and pieces of my personal self tarot readings.

based on doing a few personal tarot readings, ive gotten a glimpse of what i'd call my 'karmic' personality. i do not think it is 'me' per se as in ME my personality from my higher mind.

i believe these pieces of me are some parts of me that i need to transcend. intuitively speaking. i suppose this is important, because i believe there is my personality(quirks maybe?); and then there is my dark side(karma?) to either balance/accept as part of me or break/let go/appreciate; and of course the light side (of karma too, but not going to go into this aspect right now)...

my karma to work on in...
-this life/my past life: not expressing emotion(im working on it), and importance of study. i need to improve my reading. (LOL as i am a notorious skimmer)
- from my future life, and also this life: not paying attention to detail
- past life also current life: i tended to be lazy
- current life: an importance of sharing my light with the world, via as above so below. embodying the light on earth/3d to show how the light can be brought to earth and lived. i suppose i'm a 'how to' article on earth for the eyes and energy of those around me.

so far my higher mind is being gentle by showing me the obvious.
i'll let you all know what i experience some more breakthroughs.

[AwakeInADream]

Last week I had a brief OBE experience when I woke up in the morning which quickly turned into the clearest lucid dream I've ever had. Perhaps I wasn't disciplined enough to 'keep it real' and go out travelling in the physical, but no matter. At first I was looking at my hands in front of my face and thinking 'No, I can't be out of body, these hands are just too real, too solid', so I put my hands back down to my sides, and as I did I noticed that my hands re-entered my physical hands, and I see the blue smokey etheric being stretched around them. It was very clear to see, but also fuzzy and scribbled around the edges, so that they didn't take the exact shape of my physical hands. At the time my critical thinking mind was still switched on (and remained the same throughout), so I was still fully myself. Having seen the etheric body for the first time so clearly I thought 'If only I could leave my body only slightly whilst still fully awake, then I would be clairvoyant'.

Next I go into a lucid dream, more fully conscious than I've ever been, and I think to myself how I might be able to use this dream-state to my full advantage. I decide that next time I'm going to do some kind of Shamanic 'journey' from within the dreamscape in order to learn more about my self, but that I would have to prepare my self in advance. I was able to talk to some of the beings there about looking for a job and about my relationship with my son. In the case of my son I may have done a little bit of a 'journey' there, because I entered a tunnel that took me from the mainland UK and brought me and my son out in Ireland (where some of my ancestors come from). I got the feeling that this may have had past life elements to it because we were both a bit older and also there was an old man there that may have been my Dad but I didn't recognize him as being from my current lifetime.

So anyway, after all that I ended up fulfilling one of my life long ambitions in using the dreamscape. Just for fun I manifested a grand piano right in front of me. I'm pretty amazed that I had the focus and concentration to achieve this and I'm stood there thinking how beautiful she would sound. So just when I'm about to test this piano out (guess what), I woke up.LOL.

I really feel that I've entered the next level in these dreams now, in terms not only of being able to control them for prolonged periods, but also in the fact that I am my true self in them, with my own mind.

TH Does the fact that my thinking mind stays present within my dreams without disturbing them suggest that I am operating therein out of my higher mind?
It does seem to give me more power with which to create...

[TraineeHuman]

Posted by lookbeyond (here)
do you think its necessary to expose and resolve our dark side before we can fully reintegrate with our Higher mind or can we just do the best we can using tools that make sense to us

One example of “flying high” while carrying too much ego would be certain creative individuals. I understand a large number of the most successful writers became alcoholics, for example, and some of the most famous painters also. In at least some of those cases I understand that the creative individual found coming back down into the ordinary, physical world so painful in contrast to their world of creativity, that they dulled their consciousness with alcohol. That pain would all have come from their ego. The more they dulled it, the heavier their ego would have become, and the pain would have increased, in a vicious circle.

Another example would be the myth of romantic love. Unfortunately, the ego distorts the higher-dimensional beauty of love into attachment, and then attachment leads to “heartbreak”, and before that stage it leads to an inability to regain the original beautiful love, which got created before the ego got its hands on it.

[TraineeHuman]

Posted by AwakeInADream (here)
Does the fact that my thinking mind stays present within my dreams without disturbing them suggest that I am operating therein out of my higher mind?
It does seem to give me more power with which to create...

As I've said before, I consider that most of the dreams everyone has involve the Higher Mind in its dimensions, plus communications from it into the upper fifth dimension, the last level where things have a definite form. Those communications are normally pictures, "movies", or symbols, but all of them, being 5D, are conceptual. The communications are from Higher Mind, not in it.

It certainly sounds, though, that you've taken charge of your "thinking mind", and therefore made it available for the Higher Mind to use for its "own" ends.

[soleil]

i had a dream i was hanging out with myself. (this might not be allowed topic) but i handed myself a rather nice looking spliff. if this is me and my dark side, i'm cool with that.

[mab777]

today (for me) this affirmation is so simple, correct and complete.

Posted by greybeard (here)
Yogananda said "The darkness comes from the same place as the light"
Chris

thank's

[TraineeHuman]

Posted by greybeard (here)
Yogananda said "The darkness comes from the same place as the light"

That statement is indeed true in several senses, and on several levels.

But one can only know for certain that it’s true at an ultimate level if one has full-on been at one with Source.

Equally, someone who has been at one with Source may have seen clearly and for certain that all darkness is ultimately an illusion. Yes, darkness is an illusion, for those with eyes to see.

The trouble is, suffering is experienced until one has reached that realization fully. That suffering – in fact, all suffering – is what happens through taking the illusion of darkness for reality.

Unfortunately, I’m not interested in exploring a discussion about life with Source at this point – which is what this inevitably leads to. Not when people are just getting their feet wet somewhat in approaching just the Higher Mind rather than Source.