The Higher Self and transcendent experience, including OBEs

[TraineeHuman]

Posted by Highwhistler (here)
I gave a good test-drive to all techniques and their belief systems that came my way. I especially liked the open psychic spaces of Buddhist meditation, but found the male monks and their followers to be spiritually robotic in 3D space and not very much fun to be around. I still love their safron robes and all that ... but felt most of them to be lacking in true joy, expansive inner freedom, and without any assimilation of the energies, insights and mind-styles that are native to children and women. Still, when people ask me what type of spiritual thing I do, I often reply: "It's like Buddhism ... but with a hell of a lot more fun."

I've seen not only Buddhist monks who were, say, very ascetic and consequently not much fun, but many people, some of them also female, who've come from different traditions or systems or combinations of traditions etc. If they were Buddhists, surely they were contradicting the Buddha's middle way, which as we know says moderation in absolutely all things -- and there are strongish hints in that about the need for coming back to groundedness and practicality and true balance with the Whole, and all its parts, right now.

Another behavior which I'd consider misguided is to become a hermit, or semi-hermit, even maybe a homeless person, for a significant period. I've seen this happen with quite a few advanced "spiritual practitioners" or extremely aware people. Such people reach a point where they clearly see that interactively living in the everyday world and society requires them to tolerate and implicitly support various idiotic things. But total withdrawal certainly isn't what I see as true detachment. If you're detached enough it shouldn't really affect your cool whether actually you're in garbage and insanity or not. There are various shades of withdrawal, too. They can be useful for a certain period, for reasons analogous to how a baby plant can grow in a hothouse with a better chance of its survival. But it can be very tempting for a person to remain withdrawn. That can affect their confidence at doing certain things "in the world".

One of the difficulties with asceticism is that it can repress the inner child, put heavy weights on it. It so happens I used to have a Hitchhiker who had been a fourth century Chinese Ch'an Buddhist head monk. Everybody seems to have at least one Hitchhiker living right in their heart or the center of their personality. There's no point arguing or pretending that isn't real -- even if it's subtle. That Buddhist monk made it tough for me for a while to retrieve my inner child and some of the carefree aspects of my sense of playfulness. These are essential, though, because without them you're deprived of much of the pleasure of human-to-human communication. That monk was rather ascetic in various ways. It's quite a subtle skill just to become accurately and precisely aware of who a Hitchhiker inside you is. It also takes great detachment to remove such a Hitchhiker from yourself, or someone else. You can partly work out who the most dominant Hitchhiker deep inside you is by looking at feedback from other people. What do they see in you that you don't really see as "you"? That identity you're somewhat blind to, and that's maybe most of the time part of your shadow, that's what we're looking for.

Actually, my own research suggests that maybe over 50% of Hitchhikers are actually a person's own personalities from relatively recent past lifetimes.

That Chinese monk identity didn't know or understand that in our society it's necessary for a spiritually aware individual to save money or assets, particularly for their retirement. In fourth century Chinese culture, for a spiritually aware individual to have done so would have been hugely shameful and crooked. Because this monk identity was just the mental body, the personality, of a monk who had died in the fourth century and not the monk himself (not his HM), it had no capacity to fundamentally change the knowledge it had. It was frozen in time. To make matters worse, it was one of my past-life personalities, and therefore believed itself to be at least as expert regarding me, and what's good for me, as myself. Let me explain that as far as I know this is my first physical incarnation on this planet, But because I was such a newbie when I volunteered to come here, I adopted some "downloads" of others' past-life memories to serve as if they had been my own.

I got rid of the monk personality at ten a.m. one morning. I felt so tired I immediately had to sleep, and didn't wake up till six p.m. I had tickets for a theater performance that evening, went to that and returned home and slept till after mid-day the following day. That was how drained of energy my body and nervous system felt. Such tiredness isn't unusual, except in degree, after we successfully and suddenly release a major identity we've had which wasn't really us.

Some of you may have seen the astral or mental bodies of people who died centuries ago, and separated from. These bodies will often make themselves look just like their owner did. The mental body lives on for centuries before it even begins to decay. It contains quite a lot of life-energy for all that time, and a small amount of what we could call small "c" consciousness of a rather robotic variety.

That Chinese monk identity managed to retain at least some cords to my emotional, mental and physical bodies even after the separation. For that reason, I've done my best to avoid monk-like behavior. I don't want to invite him back in. This is a big deal. On the other hand, all the evidence available to me suggests that lengthy periods of many hours of meditation are quite necessary for one's continuing higher spiritual evolution. I usually only meditate for ten or fifeteen minutes per day, and usually that does bring a Silence deep enough to extend through the day. But at some point soon I need to put attention on how I've by now decided to have certain working values that are greatly different from that monk's in certain areas. And I've been inspired by your story, Teka, to take up meditation for an hour or more per day again, hopefully a little longer on weekends maybe.

Finally, I imagine that what you've said about some Buddhist males lacking a true heart connection would, in my terms, partly amount to or have connections with the following. The initial stage of the HM's descent normally involves its entry into the mid-head and throat chakras. But it's quite a further step before permanent descent into the heart center. That brings a great sense of direct intimacy with all other people and beings.

[Joy_P]

TH,

Have you ever met a personality who was originally created by a novelist? Someone in the astral told me they had been created as a character in a novel and they continued to exist afterwards. I wasn't sure if this was possible or not. Have you ever experienced this?

[TraineeHuman]

Joy, I understand the way most professional playwrights and novelists work is that they live as hermits or semi-hermits and create their characters in their heads. They do so in such detail that they imbue their characters with considerable life-force of their own. I understand many of them then get their characters to talk to them telepathically or "in their head", and in this way they write their material. It's also not uncommon for a professional fiction writer to seem obsessed or "possessed" by their characters.

There are certainly plenty of thought-and-emotion forms or entities in the astral that have been created by a living person or a group of such people. I avoid engaging with such entities at all if possible. So I'm not aware if any I've come across was a fiction writer's creation, though the astral is so full of entities I've certainly come across entities. They have much less life-force and awareness than a being.

Think of how when you go to to see a movie, sometimes you can get so engrossed in it maybe you forget it isn't reality until the movie ends and the lights come on.

[TraineeHuman]

Posted by Highwhistler (here)

For example: when you are walking on a path through the forest and loving it, your dominant awareness is focused "outside" to the beautiful trees, the path, the incredible smells of the woods, the twittering of the birds and so on. But when you are day dreaming or when you are having a dream while sleeping, your dominant awareness it totally focused in the inner worlds. You are not aware of the external worlds. And so you can see that your dominant awareness easily goes from the external physical world ... to the inside worlds of dreams and imagination. This movement of your dominant presence, from outside to inside, is absolutely effortless. It is an essential part of our basic everyday human nature.

But its also totally natural for your awareness and Presence to be in 2 places, simultaneously. For instance: all of us have been on a long boring road trip, and many times during the trip our awareness drifts off into wonderful daydreams, imaginative inner movies, memories of the past or plans for the future. Have you ever been so lost in your inner thoughts while driving ... that when you suddenly return to full awareness that you are driving on the highway ... you realize that you don't have a single memory of driving for the last couple miles? Yet ... you stayed safe on the road, passed cars, you were aware of other vehicles in front and behind, you might even of noticed some of the ecosystems beside the highway.

What actually happened in this situation is that your dominant awareness was indeed focused in the inner worlds of your day dreams ... but you intuitively had the street smarts to leave enough of your awareness out in the physical body-mind-eyes-and-ears, so that you could safely navigate the physical world, pass cars, go around curves, look behind, look forward and all that. You see: your awareness was actually in both locations simultaneously -- that's how you pulled it off. It is so natural and ordinary, that we aren't even aware that it's happening.

Now just imagine, this same process and natural ability of awareness has been happening throughout our lives, in all areas of our lives. Not only do we have parts of our awareness tuned-into the outside world and the inside worlds simultaneously ... we can also have multiple parts of our awareness outside our physical body at the same time, and all parts are functioning with consciousness ... aware of their surroundings ... and it's so absolutely easy and natural that most people don't have a clue that its happening.

For instance: most of the time we are not aware of our heart beating, or that we are breathing ... but those processes are happening quietly and simultaneously in the background of our awareness while we are going about our daily lives. Similarly: the ability of our Presence to send parts of its awareness to other locations, and all function quietly behind the scenes, doing their jobs with the greatest of ease ... well ... that's just an absolute normal, natural, common, and "no big deal" type of thing that we do. Most people are not aware of it, but it is happening all the same.

I consider the example of what happens when we're driving -- or breathing -- is extremely revealing about the nature of awareness generally. I certainly agree that when a person is driving they are primarily using their intuition or HM, even though in the interests of safety they also retain a sufficient degree of awareness of what's going on at a detailed physical level. And yes, the intuition, which keeps the driving on "automatic", is the dominant focus there much of the time. The problem as I see it is that for many people driving is one of the few situations where they ever make their intuition primary or dominant in a prolonged way. The fact that they don't do so in most other situations (in my view) is the whole problem, in a way. In this thread I've described that problem as the result of at least two factors. One is that most people live superficially instead of from an inner position. The second is that even if they learn to go deeper and therefore come from and be centered in what is inner, they don't stably bring higher level level realities, and in particular their Higher Mind, down into where they are and where they live in the physical, or they don't permanently hold them there. One of the obstacles causing the second difficulty is that most people haven't transformed the ego sufficiently and reduced its power to influence them negatively.

Unfortunately it's not enough just to tell people to use their intuition, or whatever you want to call it, in all situations, or to notice that it's already operating but they don't realize it is. For yourself and me and various individuals, it no doubt is always working. So it's very easy for us to look at what's happening for ourselves and say: "Oh look, it's so simple. Obviously the intuition is operating all the time and we have that Higher level switched on all the time, in addition to a more everyday level." While I appreciate the clarity and beauty of your post, and indeed all your posts, Teka, what I was trying to ask you about your journey was its beginning. You seem to be describing what's there at the destination, but what I think most members are concerned with is what's at or near the beginning, or only a relatively little way after the beginning, or certainly more what's closer to the beginning than to the destination.

[Kalamos]

..........

[Highwhistler]

Posted by TraineeHuman (here)
...
Unfortunately it's not enough just to tell people to use their intuition, or whatever you want to call it, in all situations, or to notice that it's already operating but they don't realize it is.
...

I believe that you might be suggesting that I'm telling people what to do, or not telling them enough about what to do -- as suggested in your quote above.

But I never said that. Nor have my messages ever meant to transmit the message contained in your words, above.

My messages are simply and purely translations of my own, direct, first-hand experiences into words. Hence, I believe that you may of misunderstood my central intention that is at the foundation of the words, stories and meaning of my posts.

I am not telling people to do anything. I'm not telling any reader how they should do something, or how they should think about this or that, or even for them to use their natural abilities to a lesser or greater degree. I do not tell people how they should perceive themselves, or the right way to understand the Universe they are part of ... and I welcome them to not even believe anything that I share. I've never said "use their intuition, or whatever you want to call it, in all situations."

I'm definitely not a teacher or a guide for anyone.

I am no different than anyone and everyone. I'm the average person. We are on the same level -- living here and now in this magnificent intersection of awareness, worlds and dimensions, that I fondly call the "Multiverse." Essentially, we are the same. Basically, I am another you.

All that I do in my messages is share my direct first-hand experiences as best I can, and explain my points of view. That is all I'm doing and nothing more.

Please note that I most often say in each message, something like this: "You are more than welcome to have experiences and understandings that are 180-degrees different than mine. Whatever your experiences and points of view are -- they are equal to mine, they are as valid as mine ... and so thank you! I bow to you for sharing your spiritual life with us. Please know that I'm only talking from my first-hand experiences ... that is: whenever I use the words 'you' or 'we', they are only used as figures of speech to make my messages flow more poetically. We all know that I'm only talking about my experiences ... and I welcome everyone to have their own experiences, their own knowledge and their own wisdom. And, more than likely, your truths will be in a range that is a little different than mine ... or totally different than mine! ... and again: please know that I feel that your messages and truths are absolutely equal to mine."

Thank you for saying that my posts have clarity and are beautifully written.

And, I wholeheartedly welcome your observation and opinion that my messages are, as you say: "Unfortunately it's not enough." Thank you for that review.
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OK, let's turn this around. Please allow me to look at you and make suggestions. Here are my honest, heart-felt opinion, reviews, requests and suggestions for YOUR messages:
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Your messages are whole and complete.

I would not add, edit or change a single word.

They are clear, insightful and also entertaining.

Thank you for generously sharing your experiences, time, energies with us, in the ways that you have chosen to do so.

Great job TraineeHuman! I encourage you to feel confident about your experiences, perceptions, understandings, your messages -- and please keep them coming! I really appreciate your unique Presence, here on Project Avalon.

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Posted by TraineeHuman (here)
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What I was trying to ask you about your journey was its beginning. You seem to be describing what's there at the destination, but what I think most members are concerned with is what's at or near the beginning, or only a relatively little way after the beginning, or certainly more what's closer to the beginning than to the destination.
...

{NOTE: All the blue bold phrases in the paragraphs below are links. Click them if you want to learn more.}

I thought the request about "your journey in its beginning" was answered in this post from 5 days ago.

If you would like more information ... a more complete spiritual bio ... you can have it. My message from 5 days ago was a brief summary, of course.

In an expanded bio I may tell you the details about my journey in the US Air Force and getting kicked out for being a pacifist and troublemaker (example of spiritual courage). Building fortunes and families ... and losing them ... only to have new fortunes and families rise into my life, again (experiencing how all things in this world are temporary). I could tell you that during the first 18 years of my life, I was a hunter, fisherman, fur trapper and I killed thousands of animals ... and now I've been a vegetarian for over 40 years, a vegan for the last 2 decades (changing my life-style, thoughts, words and deeds to be more peaceful ... as compared to my earlier life).

I would mention the outstanding quality of my home-grown food that allows my mind and heart to be at peace. I might share my mystic poetry and soul stories, which may help some readers see deeper into my own spiritual journey ... and my sense that we truly are creating beauty together.

If I were to write a longer spiritual bio, I would probably share about being into water-fasting (one time for 30 days straight -- only consuming water & air for a month) which is spiritually illuminating. And during the 7 years that I owned a wholesale fresh juice manufacturing company, twice I "juice fasted" for 6 months straight, and 9 months straight another time (consuming no solid foods what-so-ever -- only fresh juices, which created by far the healthiest years of my entire life), and which certainly were spiritually uplifting things for me to do.

Finally, in the expanded bio I would mention how just living a normal life as I have, being thoughtful and meditating daily for 40 years ... is a form of self-psychotherapy that transformed my ego, the understanding of the so-called "shadow" aspects of Self, as well as generates empathy and the tone of equality with all beings, all ecosystems, all civilizations in the vast Multiverse of my experiences.

You can have those stories if you really want them. Just let me know ...

[TraineeHuman]

Posted by Highwhistler (here)

I am not telling people to do anything. I'm not telling any reader how they should do something, or how they should think about this or that, or even for them to use their natural abilities to a lesser or greater degree. I do not tell people how they should perceive themselves, or the right way to understand the Universe they are part of ... and I welcome them to not even believe anything that I share. I've never said "use their intuition, or whatever you want to call it, in all situations."

I'm definitely not a teacher or a guide for anyone.

I am no different than anyone and everyone. I'm the average person. We are on the same level -- living here and now in this magnificent intersection of awareness, worlds and dimensions, that I fondly call the "Multiverse." Essentially, we are the same. Basically, I am another you.

All that I do in my messages is share my direct first-hand experiences as best I can, and explain my points of view. That is all I'm doing and nothing more.

Please note that I most often say in each message, something like this: "You are more than welcome to have experiences and understandings that are 180-degrees different than mine. Whatever your experiences and points of view are -- they are equal to mine, they are as valid as mine ... and so thank you! I bow to you for sharing your spiritual life with us. Please know that I'm only talking from my first-hand experiences ... that is: whenever I use the words 'you' or 'we', they are only used as figures of speech to make my messages flow more poetically. We all know that I'm only talking about my experiences ... and I welcome everyone to have their own experiences, their own knowledge and their own wisdom. And, more than likely, your truths will be in a range that is a little different than mine ... or totally different than mine! ... and again: please know that I feel that your messages and truths are absolutely equal to mine."

Yes, we all have our individual take on things. And yes, that's wonderful. Equally, though, by posting in a Forum such as this we're automatically having some level of influence on others -- even if the influence might be to prompt them to avoid you or disagree with you. Yes, it's totally up to the reader to decide for themselves whether or not a post could be partly or wholly "right" or "interesting" or "prompting enquiry" or whatever. But I'd point out we're still in a sense seeking to influence, in that we're in effect saying: "Try putting on the special type of glasses that come with this post." It may be largely irrelevant whether the poster is claiming to be "right" or "giving good advice" or whatever. And equally so if the poster makes the major kind of disclaimer as you like to do, that it's all strictly your own point of view only.

With all that understood, though, I'm not going to be at all inhibited about asserting things like: "In our Western culture and society most people don't overall live anywhere near inwardly enough, in the sense of being very aware of what's inner to them rather than only the superficial, exterior things." I've actually said something like that a number of times in this thread already. And added something like: "True, deep peace and ease only comes in the inner depths, initially. It's the only place in you that has the endurance never to give up, and never to be overcome by external distractions or discouragements." I don't stop to consider whether that's "teaching", or just stating what appears to be an extremely important fact. Because the truth -- our best shot at it -- should be shared. Even if it could be expressed better or more accurately, as long as it's pointing in the general direction of something important, that's enough for me.

You talk of how the reader simply needs to subtly shift their point of view, and they'll appreciate what you're saying. Well, points of view come from one of the formless worlds. They're quite subtle and light and can seem almost like nothing, on their own. But to truly shift one's point of view -- or to fully understand all its implications -- means to realize the new point of view physically, emotionally, mentally, to embody it, to live it. And that's a huge change. It's not just a matter of considering a new point of view, but of physically manifesting it in the flesh, significantly changing your life.

I thought the request about "your journey in its beginning" was answered in this post from 5 days ago.

If you would like more information ... a more complete spiritual bio ... you can have it. My message from 5 days ago was a brief summary, of course.

In an expanded bio I may tell you the details about my journey in the US Air Force and getting kicked out for being a pacifist and troublemaker (example of spiritual courage). Building fortunes and families ... and losing them ... only to have new fortunes and families rise into my life, again (experiencing how all things in this world are temporary). I could tell you that during the first 18 years of my life, I was a hunter, fisherman, fur trapper and I killed thousands of animals ... and now I've been a vegetarian for over 40 years, a vegan for the last 2 decades (changing my life-style, thoughts, words and deeds to be more peaceful ... as compared to my earlier life).

I would mention the outstanding quality of my home-grown food that allows my mind and heart to be at peace. I might share my mystic poetry and soul stories, which may help some readers see deeper into my own spiritual journey ... and my sense that we truly are creating beauty together.

If I were to write a longer spiritual bio, I would probably share about being into water-fasting (one time for 30 days straight -- only consuming water & air for a month) which is spiritually illuminating. And during the 7 years that I owned a wholesale fresh juice manufacturing company, twice I "juice fasted" for 6 months straight, and 9 months straight another time (consuming no solid foods what-so-ever -- only fresh juices, which created by far the healthiest years of my entire life), and which certainly were spiritually uplifting things for me to do.

Finally, in the expanded bio I would mention how just living a normal life as I have, being thoughtful and meditating daily for 40 years ... is a form of self-psychotherapy that transformed my ego, the understanding of the so-called "shadow" aspects of Self, as well as generates empathy and the tone of equality with all beings, all ecosystems, all civilizations in the vast Multiverse of my experiences.

You can have those stories if you really want them. Just let me know ...

The specific details of your personal history are of course largely irrelevant, when it's all said and done. All that is important is your essence. Still, I'm sure some of us will greatly enjoy reading your kindly provided soul stories and mystic poems, and they'll help us appreciate your essence in a slightly different way.

In my life, the pursuit of the evolution of consciousness, and all that implies, has for decades been something I've always pursued as if my life depended on it. And it did, and does. I guess the only details that are important are things like that. In the past I've gone through ever so long periods of failure or apparent lack of tangible results, in the work of evolutionary self-development, for so long and in so many shades of ways. Like some sort of long-distance runner. So I believe it does help members to know that you went on, say, a juice fast, consuming nothing but fresh juice (and water?) for nine full months. Or that you've meditated three whole hours every day for forty years. And still managed to create and run your own thriving businesses, raised some kids, often successfully pursued a number of different careers/professions, and so on. Need I say anything about what kind of endurance and passion and dedication it must have taken to keep meditating for three full hours every day through all that? Yes, I do consider there's some kind of "lesson" here: that to achieve even the beginnings of spiritual liberation requires utterly total commitment such as this. As one of the characters says in Through the Looking Glass -- or was that Alice in Wonderland? -- : first you have to eat all your spinach, and only then can you have the dessert. That's been in quite a few ways the story of my own life and my own spiritual journey. More recently there's been an abundance of dessert. It can happen, folks.

[Highwhistler]

Posted by TraineeHuman (here)

With all that understood, though, I'm not going to be at all inhibited about asserting things like ...

Excellent! Thank you. You're doing a great job. Remember in my review of your messages I said something like:

"I would not add, edit or change a single word of yours ... and I encourage you to feel confident about your experiences, perceptions, understandings, your messages -- please keep them coming!"

Posted by TraineeHuman (here)

You talk of how the reader simply needs to subtly shift their point of view, and they'll appreciate what you're saying.

Again, just to be clear: I don't talk about how the reader needs to do anything.

I don't give advice to anyone.

I'm only sharing my first-hand experiences and points of view.

The pace, direction, the twist and turns of a reader's spiritual evolution is none of my business.

Besides, I trust that their soul-essence is infinitely more wise and knowledgeable than me in offering guidance to the aspects of themselves here in the so-called "physical world."

[TraineeHuman]

Do we or can we see ourselves -- or begin to see ourselves -- as a hologram of Source or the Divine Mind, as Teka says? I could provide a lengthy argument that would look at what really is spiritual evolution and how could it even be possible; and from that argument I'd conclude that we must all be eternal, infinite Beings who at their core had and have infinite self-knowledge but suddenly decided to go on the ultimate trip. That trip was into the darkness of dwelling partly in unconsciousness, in fact mostly in unconsciousness at first -- at first (before reaching the human level of consciousness and life) even without a clear notion of individuality. The ultimate and the longest possible roller coaster ride -- except that mostly it just keeps going up, and it no doubt usually takes millenia or even much longer before it's finished.

That argument I could provide would partly be based on the idea that how could we develop into something higher without already having the spark and the reality of something higher buried somewhere deep inside us. The only alternative would be that something higher keeps in effect donating part of itself to us, to pull us upwards and transform everything we are. In this post I won't go into the details of why that alternative couldn't be possible. Rather, I'd prefer to challenge the reader to experience Source, ideally, or at least something infinite or more resembling the cosmic -- which would mean the HM. Can you experience at least a glimpse, or an undeniable hint, that somehow there really is an entire universe inside of little old you, as Teka suggests? You can do this through astral projection if you manage to begin to be aware of who it is that is ultimately doing the projecting. Or you can do it by meditating an hour or more per day for probably a few months, or maybe longer if necessary. Preferably you'll continue doing that anyway, of course.

And so we see that Source, the infinite true "I" behind and beyond the "I", expresses itself in an individual existence -- yours. You are a part of the hologram of Source. Absolutely all your consciousness of the universe or anything that is exists within your individual consciousness,or currently seems to. (By the way, that point is part of the argument that refutes the alternative I mentioned above.) That's why your individual consciousness (if you can see all that's there) is a smaller copy of the entire whole -- of Source itself. Source is both personal -- in the sense of taking on individual existences -- and impersonal, at the same time. That's how holograms work.

And neither the whole Multiverse nor all the individual consciousnesses seem to be all there is. Source, being present in and sustaining and containing both, is beyond even that, it seems. Maybe in some sense it's like the projector that creates the hologram.

[jounai]

What we call the "physical mind" and the "higher mind" are the same thing reflecting itself as different aspects. The physical mind is an idea crystallized as a person or a presence, most humans experiencing the idea of a person. The higher mind can be seen as the foundation energy or material which everything exist in, including the physical mind matrix. However the physical mind and the higher mind is the same thing, the same being, which means that when the being experience one thing on a physical level that will be reflected on the higher mind's level. As below so above.
The funny thing is that every human being is both the physical mind and the higher mind at once which may seem strange as the higher mind is everything. This means that everything contains other everythings. Eh, okay that sound strange.

Anyone which to reflect on the ideas I shared here? Haha, I don't know if it is appropriate to take this further...what do you think?

[Highwhistler]

Posted by jounai (here)
What we call the "physical mind" and the "higher mind" are the same thing reflecting itself as different aspects. The physical mind is an idea crystallized as a person or a presence, most humans experiencing the idea of a person. The higher mind can be seen as the foundation energy or material which everything exist in, including the physical mind matrix. However the physical mind and the higher mind is the same thing, the same being, which means that when the being experience one thing on a physical level that will be reflected on the higher mind's level. As below so above.
The funny thing is that every human being is both the physical mind and the higher mind at once which may seem strange as the higher mind is everything. This means that everything contains other everythings. Eh, okay that sound strange.

Anyone which to reflect on the ideas I shared here? Haha, I don't know if it is appropriate to take this further...what do you think?

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Thank you, Jounsi, for bringing that up.

I call what you are talking about:

Simultaneous Multiple Realities

For instance:

.

You are singular
and you are a collective
simultaneously

You exist
and you do not exist
simultaneously

You are real
and you are imagined
simultaneously

You are
and you are not
simultaneously

You talk out loud
and there is silence underneath the sound
simultaneously

You are physical
and non-physical
simultaneously

You are here,
and you are there
simultaneously

A courageous hero to some cultures
is a cowardly terrorist to other cultures
simultaneously

Your mind thinks these things to be impossible
but your Presence knows them to be true
simultaneously

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These symbolic representations above reflect the understanding of Simultaneous Multiple Realities that are known to be the status quo, ordinary, normal, no big deal, natural & true to the most central part of you -- your center-most identity -- the soul-essence Presence reading this message.

[TraineeHuman]

For any of those who are presently still working on learning to astral project more easily, or at all, I'd like to quote two pages from a book called The Astral Codex that's available as a free download from the site www.belsebuub.com
While I don't agree with maybe 10% of the contents, the book does go into what I would consider some useful details. The extract is taken pretty much at random:

"...Once you relax, concentrate on the exercise without paying attention to the sensations that are happening. When your body felt like it was sideways even though you were lying on your back, your astral body had already split. This was your astral body moving, although other parts of the astral body can also move separately from the physical body. Next time, slowly get up from bed, and then you can find yourself in the astral plane. You were not doing anything wrong— you were very close. As far as dietary precautions go, the main thing is not to eat a heavy meal before you sleep or try to astral project.

Sometimes, when trying the exercise, I start feeling a heaviness and I start feeling as if I am being tilted in a circular motion and feel dizzy. I can carry on, but I have never got beyond this and I never feel as if I have fallen asleep. Am I doing the exercise correctly?

If you feel as though you are being tilted and are moving in a circular motion and this is quite noticeable, you can try slowly getting up from the bed to see if you are in the astral world, because you may just catch the moment after you have split. But if you are not quite there, it’s important to concentrate on the exercise you’re doing— the focusing of the mind will bring about the split.

Can you concentrate on breathing for astral projection? Because sometimes breathing blocks the feeling of the heart beating.

Yes, you can use concentration on the breath to astral project with; many people have had success with it, but don’t mix the two (concentration on the breath and concentration on the heart). If you’re concentrating on the heart, forget about the breathing— let it go on normally and just stay with the heart. You can also concentrate on the breathing alone as an exercise, but remember to stick to it. Don’t switch between it and the heart or anything else, or you may spoil the exercise.

I tried relaxing my body. The heartbeat was there and I could feel my heartbeat even shake the bed in rhythm, but when I tried to project there was nothing. Are we asleep when this happens or are we in that in-between stage of sleep and awake?

You’re getting close, but if you’re not relaxed enough, you won’t be able to sleep, while sleep is needed for projection (watch you don’t get emotionally involved either, with tension for example). Make sure you carry out the relaxation exercise firstly. Then concentrate on the heartbeat, but relax into it. Try also to visualize the heart a bit more when you do it. You may find that other exercises like mantras help you to relax more into the projection, until you learn more about how it works. Don’t give up on the heartbeat though, because with a bit more practice you could get somewhere with it. It can take a lot of patience and persistence to get it right. When you felt your heartbeat shake the bed in rhythm you were in the in-between stage of sleep and wakefulness , when the splitting of the astral and physical bodies takes place, but as soon as a projection happens, the physical body is asleep."

Belsebuub. The Astral Codex: Out-of-Body Experiences and Lucid Dreaming for Spiritual Knowledge (Kindle Locations 1040-1053). Mystical Life Publications Ltd.

[TraineeHuman]

jounai has evidently reached the point where the Higher Mind has descended quite fully into the physical. No doubt Teka will have done that as well. At such a point, the HM and the ordinary physical mind will be operating in tandem very harmoniously all the time, or almost all the time. When I say "in tandem", that means the physical mind will largely be operating as the faithful servant of the HM. Let me elaborate a little.

The HM doesn't live in a world of polarities. At least, that is, it doesn't see or experience polarities "in black-or-white (and preferably no shades of grey)", at all. It literally sees the world, the Universe, quite differently. Let's take a number of examples of issues: say, death, individuality (versus Oneness), evil, suffering, and rejection/loneliness. How does the HM "de-negativize" these? How does it eliminate the jarring antagonism towards the opposite polarity that polarity implies?

Regarding death, I wonder is it even necessary for me to point out that death, at various levels and degrees, is quite inseparable form the essence and the process of life? Like breathing in and breathing out. And that our physical death is (normally) simply a rebirth into a new life, on a higher, more pleasant and powerful plane? Our physical death is just one more changeover in the eternity of our immortal journey.

Regarding loneliness, I would say that loneliness is nothing but a fiction we get conditioned into giving teeth to. The HM enables you to begin to be aware of Oneness as a "tangible" reality. There you see the fact that you are certainly never alone in the universe. If you can truly have the entire Universe, why settle for or be in need of anything less?

The "knowledge of good and evil" the book of Genesis was talking about is no doubt the HM's knowledge. Never mind about eating apples, or pomegranates. The HM's knowledge provides us with at least the beginnings of the fruit of Source, of the Divine or universal or timeless, and of that which is certainly not in a fallen state.

To the HM and all that's Higher still, all opposites, including that between good and evil and that of suffering versus happiness, are reconciled or, rather, transcended. All the dark aspects -- pain, evil, death, limitation, and so on -- are seen ultimately as paper tigers. That's because the HM integrates them into a bigger picture. One in which they're needed, in certain ways and contexts, in worlds such as the physical. I realize this sounds like gigantic optimism and idealism. "To dream the impossible dream," supposedly -- but it's "impossible" for the physical mind to understand. Meanwhile the experience of all mystics is that the deeper, truer reality is indeed very, very "optimistic".

That doesn't mean, of course, that we should drop out and live as hermits. Because we find ourselves in this world of duality, of polarities, we effectively have an obligation -- unless we're somehow very stingy -- to share some of the HM's opposites-resolving light wherever possible.

Strictly speaking, the Divine Mind doesn't reconcile opposites, by the way. rather, it transforms them into something harmonious. Something that totally wipes out all the conflict that made them be opposites.

And while we're on the subject of mind and polarities, consider the following. A big problem, for those who haven't integrated properly with the HM as yet, is: what to do with reason/intellect, or so-called rationality? For instance, consider how the most basic so-called law of, and underlying, reason is the law of consistency. Unfortunately, reality often -- very, very often -- behaves inconsistently. In an attempt to cope with that fact and still claim to keep to rationality, scientists and others talk of probabilities. They claim there still appears to be consistency among different possibilities of things. But I would point out, for instance, that the whole idea of mere probability contradicts that of strict consistency. And the only true consistency is strict consistency, is it not?

Similarly, the other of the very most basic laws and foundations of reason is the principle of (non-) contradiction. But let's take, say, the apparent contradiction between individuality and universality. According to reason, with any two opposites like this it's strictly either or, but never both. Well, I would say, on the contrary, that with individuality and universality it's "both and". It so happens that two opposites don't somehow usually cancel each other out if they're both present. Rather, they're a little like mirror images of each other -- just reversals of each other. Very alike, in certain ways. The opposites of, say, black and white don't wipe each other out. Taken together, they illustrate shading, and also contrast, and depth. For instance, a black and white (and grey) photo shows both of these opposites. And the opposition between black and white is what makes the photo interesting and useful and accurate.

What to do with reason, then? Reason is what distinguishes humans from the animals, and seems to promise so much. Truth. Exposure of errors. Ideals. The physical mind is not useless. The only trouble is, it wants to be Source. And yet it clearly sees this can never be. It dreams of eliminating unsatisfied desire -- through "totally" satisfying it, "this time". It marshalls all the senses and the body to defy death, even to defy and indeed avoid physical pain wherever possible. But the physical mind -- by itself, without the HM such as the way jounai has it -- is very short-sighted. It can never see beyond the immediate facts to the deeper potential that's yet to be fully realized. It has no imagination, at all. And it is incessantly jumping from one extreme to yet another, never finding balance.

Can you transcend death, and suffering? Can you find the Universe, the All, in the individual? Can you master your limitations sufficiently to see the clear horizon that comes into view when you put them all aside? Gaia is patiently waiting, and ever laboring, to give birth to that.

[TraineeHuman]

In any OB experience -- by which I mean to include meditation and any experience of any higher plane -- we can take one of two (well, more than two) attitudes. We can either attempt to consider what we're experiencing as some (higher) kind of "matter", or as "energy". Basically this is to view reality as being like or as the world of blind "forces" that Newton's classical physics saw reality as being made of.

There's another way -- well, among several others -- to view what you experience. This is to see everything as being ultimately yourself, even if you don't clearly see how the real inner you is pulling all the strings. That's how the HM sees everything that people would describe as "the world out there". Once you've fully activated your HM, you'll begin to see this at times. Instinctively you'll know it, but all your conditioning will continue to work hard to keep you from consciously seeing it most of the time. It may well take, say, twenty or thirty years of meditation before you completely break through that.

Interestingly, quantum physicists discovered long ago that it was absolutely necessary for them not to think about, or have conscious wishes or feelings about, a quantum physics experiment, while that experiment was going on. Why? Because they found that this affected the results of the experiment itself. They had experimentally proved that you are actually part of the world "out there". Not that many of them would be willing to be quite that honest -- except for most of the greatest physicists, who made all the discoveries, that is. Plus Tom Campbell, for instance.

What if the real, true you is infinite and indivisible and in all things? What if that true, deeper "I" is simply playing with all the surface things we see, in the most exhilirating shell game in the Multiverse? What if the Multiverse is made not out of atoms, but of the incredible joy of being alive, of being conscious -- of one's Self?

[TraineeHuman]

What kinds of worlds are there beyond the mental levels? Early in this thread I've said that these are where I prefer to visit, whenever I can. I'd like to say just a little more about what they're like. I also mentioned that one doesn't use any kind of higher "body" to go there. As Teka says, one is simply there in an instant. This post may also hopefully shed a little more light for people regarding what "quantum" phenomena are really about.

In the worlds of Source, one of the things that stood out for me was (and still stands out) that what I -- and everyone else -- is, in essence, is absolutely nothing like an object in any way -- or anything like what philosophers call a "substance" -- which until the twentieth century was what Western thought (including all the nineteenth century Western esoteric schools, such as everything Mark Passio talks about, and so on) and Western philosophy had assumed at step one that everything real was an instance of. My problem has always been, how to begin to describe this deeper, truer reality to anyone else? Even to myself? How do you negate what others -- in the West, that is -- uncritically assume to be the most basic concept of all, and explain that it's ultimately an unreal and inadequate concept? How do you explain that it's just a concept, and the ground under their feet won't collapse if they let go of it? The following is very much just a partial attempt.

I'd like to invite you to throw away all your suppositions about what pure mathematics is or is like. Instead, please let me describe some things about it. I do happen to be very, very well informed in this area. For instance, I used to personally know two internationally eminent Chairmen of Mathematics departments who both liked to talk about how pure mathematics is in essence a fine art and not a science at all. Yes, I appreciate that statistics and the application of quantitative approaches are usually dehumanizing and are used for things like workforce rationalization, and worse. But I would argue that many such things are a perversion of Nature and of the true essence of mathematics. The essence of mathematics is qualitative, not quantitative. Let me explain a little.

But please, if possible, put aside your preconceptions first, just while you're reading this post. Please read it and try to absorb its own logic and point of view. Later, feel free to go back to whatever else. Not that anything at all that I'm saying isn't generally known as the truth, either to professional philosophers or else (and that's only a few things I'll say) to mystics.

Pure mathematics is simply the intellectual investigation of that which is the most universal. You may think it starts from and with the counting numbers: one, two, three, and so on. (By the way, pure mathematicians continue that sequence to infinity. It's the simplest, the "smallest" kind of infinity, to any pure mathematician.) Well, pure mathematics isn't exactly about the counting numbers. If you read about the foundations of mathematics, you'll find it's ultimately about what are known as relations, or (formless) variables representing them, and also about functions. A relation is simply any connection, between one or more items with one or more (usually, other) items. It doesn't include the items themselves, though. A function is just a many-to-one connection, i.e. it's just one special kind of relation. So, pure mathematics treats these (sometimes, in fact usually, formless, or, if you like, indefinite, indeterminate) gossamer "webs" as the (only) ultimate reality. And it so happens that this closely corresponds to what many mystics experience as the ultimate reality -- pure connectedness, without anything else. Pure mathematics isn't primarily interested in the properties of constants at all, and regards the whole idea of constants as a derivative one -- if you like, as implicitly unreal in an ultimate sense.

Also, I'd like to explain that in the world of professional philosophy, since around the early 1970s it's become accepted that what's known as "comparative philosophy" is one of the four or so varieties of contemporary philosophy that's more sophisticated and advanced than any of the philosophical schools or worldviews that went before, in the West. "Comparative" philosophy is that branch of philosophy that seeks to understand and discuss ancient Chinese and ancient Indian philosophy. It's well understood and appreciated by philosophers that the "level" of the best of the philosophizing and conceptualizing in those ancient philosophies was generally at least the equal of anything in contemporary Western philosophy. They are therefore clearly much more sophisticated -- to any professional philosopher -- than, say, the eighteenth century philosophy of Leibniz.

Leibniz's philosophy was the philosophical system of "monads". It's true that Leibniz was the Head of the German Masons and also probably the leading philosopher and mathematician of his day. However, as far as I've seen so far, perhaps the most philosophically sophisticated thing in Hylozoics is the theory of monads, apparently taken almost unchanged from Leibniz. Similarly, Alice Bailey (or was it Alice in collaboration with Blavatsky?) incorporated much of Leibniz's theory of monads into theosophy -- as if it were "the truth". But it was only Leibniz's philosophy, and as I say, by the later twentieth century we had things in philosophy that were incomparably, well, better than that. Professional philosophers agree these would ultimately win any argument with a proponent of Leibniz's philosophy.

I've mentioned that to try to make it clearer that the best of ancient Indian philosophy was superior to any of the various nineteenth century esoteric systems. Ancient Indian philosophy went through centuries of extremely sophisticated and insightful agonizing over what is the true relationship between "subject" and "object". Their conclusion: what's ultimately real is the relation between subject and object, but neither any subject nor any object. It follows that a person won't be truly spiritually enlightened, or certainly not have achieved spiritual liberation, unless they can let go of seeing themselves as either a "subject" or an "object". Back to pure relation again.

One last side note. Another thing which had become clear in the world of philosophy last century is that language is never neutral or passive. This means that your choice of language, or of your conceptual framework, has a big effect on what you're actually able to "see". It's a little like the way the South and Central American Indians weren't initially able to see the Spanish galleons. This makes things harder for mystics, because to others they may seem to speak a different language. And by the way, it's no accident that quantum physics is in many ways based on "probabilities" -- for which, I suggest, read infinities -- that only the language of mathematics makes it possible for us to see as being present.

[TraineeHuman]

You can see why the notion of "object" or "substance" doesn't work as the cornerstone of reality, or as the most basic concept of all, by considering arguments such as the following. This follows on from my previous post.

Let's say you have a sock (or it could be anything else -- say, a yacht) and you keep sewing patches on it to cover up holes. Let's say eventually there are so many patches that none of the original material is left. Is it still the same sock? If it's now a different sock, at what point did it become a different one? And what if you somehow managed to gather all the material from the original sock and quite imperfectly re-created the sock out of that material? And what about, for instance, various other borderline situations: at what point of alteration or transformation does the sock stop being a sock? By looking at questions like these, philosophers have worked out that the very concept of "object" or "substance" is inadequate to describe reality fully. Hence not all of reality can be an object, or a substance.

And so, for example, I don't ultimately see a "body" as something more than a mirage. That puts a whole different slant on how I see astral bodies and mental bodies. And then beyond those, I've talked of being "bodiless" -- but that doesn't involve ceasing to be real. On the contrary, it involves existing in closer connection with Source.

[TraineeHuman]

In general, in my own experience and observation, a person's inner spiritual progress doesn't depend on their circumstances, their parents, their occupation, their gender, their ethnicity, their socioeconomic category, their theoretical knowledge/understanding of metaphysical things (well, not hugely on that), or whatever. It does depend greatly on how the individual responds to or views all these external things. Call it attitude. Call it perception or point(s) of view -- as in: "What you (choose to) see -- or what you're most able to see -- is what you get."

One of the key ingredients in success at this is inwardly staying "cool", at ease, unperturbed at a deeper level. It takes a strong commitment, a quiet but truly firm determination or intention. Determination from the individual that they will somehow remain in that still place, the still point of their turning world, regardless of what crops up -- disaster, failure, illness, death, wealth.

All this is fully relevant, I believe and have found, to achieving success in astral travel or meditation or being in one's intuition -- it's fully relevant to any of these. Such inner stillness can go through many bumps on an external level, for a very long time indeed. For instance, I once went through five years or so where I made the mistake of often going deadpan in social situations whenever someone was being (what I considered to be) too negative. I did that because I was of course staying with a more detached, inwardly calm level of reality. This was during the period when I would go astral traveling, then mental traveling, each night, and also several years after that time. I had a spiritual "teacher" -- mostly at nonverbal or energetic/mental/intuitive levels of skill and communication, that is. (He wasn't really a teacher because I would only take advice from anyone rather than unquestioningly accept what they said.) This person kept suggesting I need to play the game of "being willing to be a bit of a bastard", in situations where others were engaging ion bastardry towards myself. I should mention that over here in Australian culture, particularly back then, the word "bastard" probably had milder connotations than in other countries' cultures. The "teacher" used to emphasize that it was simply a matter of showing the other that I was willing, rather than actually carrying out any negative behavior to (detachedly) play them at their current level. I guess this did eventually help me to learn how to retain my inner cool without needing to deadpan others any longer. I simply learned to play their game with detachment, without letting myself be shocked or provoked into reacting to the negativity. But it took a few years at least before I got that anything near finetuned. In a sense, you no longer get sucked "outwards" into getting lost in the superficial reality -- without losing your vulnerability of caring about others. It's also important to consciously feel and see more and more that's false as not being a part of who you truly are.

Another example, among many, of a trap I fell into was the following. It took me around 30 plus years before I realized I was in it. because I was in touch with something higher, I naturally tended to smile a lot, genuine smiles. But when someone saw me smile, they would often jump to the conclusion that I was generous and very tolerant. Unfortunately, this led some individuals to conclude that they could defraud me, misrepresent me, steal from me, or do various kinds of exploitative things, and that I would be too tolerant and forgiving to assert my rights. They were wrong about the latter point, but that didn't stop quite a number from trying, and sometimes being successful. I developed at least one sub-personality in early childhood that attempted to counter this, and the deadpanning was just one extension of this, but all that still wasn't enough. After thirty or forty years or more, I eventually took grip of the issue and, for example, learnt how to put on a slight frown in various situations, such as negotiations.

In astral travel, let's say you have truly learnt to persist in staying inwardly "cool" as described earlier above. Then if you should find yourself encountering some negative or deceptive being or entity, you'll have taken away their power to play you for a victim in any way, at all.

In that inner peace, there is room for higher feelings, higher thoughts, and especially (higher) intuitions to come and flourish, to co-habit with the peace. The peace brings greater truth, greater insights into your thoughts and feelings and actions. You can also say that inner peace is consciousness itself -- at least, the consciousness of and from the HM. It's like an endless spring out of which waters of life keep bubbling. Even if you believe you don't have the HM stable in you, if you can first commit to holding the stillness inside, then whenever you're doing that, you have it. The rest will come with time, with your active practice. Of course it may take several years or more to perfect.

[TraineeHuman]

Why is the inner silence so crucial? And how does it lead to further things? In this post I'd like to say a little more regarding these questions. Firstly, that silence, or Stillness, is the very foundation of all the dimensions higher than the mental. It's their very "air", so to speak, or the "Matter" -- dare I say "spirit" -- out of which they arise.

The inner silence doesn't mean, for example, that we stop using thoughts altogether. However, the thoughts which come out of our inner silence are always much deeper. The knowledge that comes out of it is much truer knowledge. I guess I should also emphasize that how deep our inner silence is is a matter of degree, that may take many years to reach its ultimate depth. Never mind. The same principles still apply, pretty much, though less strongly at first. Those deeper thoughts are the way they are because they come from dimensions higher than the mental. They come down into the mental plane (or they wouldn't exist as thoughts). But they have the capacity to turn into real, living activities or creations or forms of life, and helpful and useful, and true to the situation they come into, and solving the problems there. Because they have come down from a higher level;, they have greater power. They're not superficial.

More important always than the all the thoughts is the Stillness, the inner peace. This needs to eventually become so strong that it even in some way breaks into and takes over the surface, such as in all your conversations with others. The best way to develop the strength, the intensity of that inner peace seems to be meditation and a very strong intention, mostly. But once you get that peace to be deep enough, all forms of psychotherapy become less relevant, or maybe even quite irrelevant. At least in the sense, that is, that there is no longer any need to look for your negative points! Nor is there any need to fear any negative entities or archontic beings or supposedly negative ETs in the astral or mental realms. You get an embarrassment of riches, and overflow of positivity that leaves you with far less time to be bothered by negativity or triviality. We have seen intimations of this theme quite a lot in most of Teka's posts. Once the inner peace is really strong, nothing can really get to you any more, dare I say.

Another thing that happens is that as we grow stronger and stronger in peace, we usually don't recognize just how much stronger we've actually grown. It may be more apparent to people around us. We tend to wrongly suppose we're still the same old us, and we'll cling to old habits like old clothes until eventually a habit or two falls apart because it can't cling to the new us any more.

That inner peace gradually takes possession of you. The more it does, the more you'll become able to receive from above. And there is so much to receive. Creativity,including practical creativity, where without consciously trying so much, you become an influence for changes for the good at your workplace and in your family and among your friends. Not just creativity, but joy, even bliss. Now you find joy in everything, under every stone, in every corner; and this joy involves a permanent freedom from restlessness, from discontent. For the first time, you find true equilibrium. This means the ability to not react in any situation, but to remain unmoved and treat all situations equally. The inner peace is also a fertile soil or source of true knowledge of an intuitive kind -- seeing the inside of all things and beings. It is also a wellspring of extraordinary inner energy, of a dynamic inner strength that nothing can stop. It's like if you try to pull a cork floating in water down: the instant you let go of it, it pops straight back up to the top again.


All this takes time to develop. It happens degree by degree. You can't rush it or fast-track it. You can't be over-eager. You have to remain steady, staying with and bearing more and more peace.

[TraineeHuman]

If time is an illusion, how could we be so wrong about something we seem to experience? If time -- as we think we know it --is purely an illusion then what else is? How much more of what we take as reality could be pure 100% absolute illusion? I'm speaking of the time of the physicists.That's also the time we're conditioned to take as "rock solid" reality. That is indeed an illusion. We know this to be a fact. All philosophers and many physicists, for example, are today aware that this is absolutely a fact.

No physicist has ever been able to tell anyone what time actually is -- in the false sense of time that I'm speaking of so far . Relativity theory, for example, proved that the illusory time -- if you take it as real -- runs at different rates, and is at least slightly intertwined with space. It depends on you -- even an object -- because it depends on the speed you're moving at. It's not completely independent of you after all.

I've mentioned a few times that in all the dimensions beyond the mental we experience being "beyond time" in the sense of time we're used to. But the only true time is the eternal (ever changing and unfolding) Now. So, really what we experience in those dimensions is the same as what we're really actually experiencing even in the physical world when we're not OB. The trouble is, while we're in the physical we usually only see a tiny slice of the total Now. We need -- at least while we're learning -- to withdraw from all the physical distractions -- all our physical senses -- to see more than just one tiny slice of the Now.

[TraineeHuman]

How do deeper levels of reality differ from the physical reality, you may wonder. One aspect is that in certain higher dimensions one only experiences (or is) the general instead of the specific. I don't mean the concept of something more general, but the actuality of it.

The physical world, and our confinement to a body and our having to contend with all the details that entails, is part of Source's plan. The physical is like the finger of God. It's something that's necessary for us to be able to emerge, to flower and expand. As I see it, we can only become free of having to reincarnate in the physical if we can come to see the general as being continually present in the specific details of our life in the physical. Only while we're down here immersed in the particularity, the details, can we see both the details and the general (such as the Oneness that actively holds everything together), see them at the same time and see them interacting. As Wordsworth put it: "to see a world in a grain of sand". This is the promise of Life. It's what all living things in the physical world are ultimately striving towards. And only by deeply seeing how both the Oneness and the limitations are totally intertwined with each other can we attain freedom from reincarnation -- if we'll even want that, at that stage.

It seems as if Life itself is constantly battling against the inertia and the entropy of the physical world, and ultimately losing that battle to our physical death. When someone activates their Higher Mind, their true consciousness, the gap initially seems even greater. But as we progress in consciousness we eventually come to see that that battle, that defeat is only an illusory one. Actually we aren't some kind of remote outpost of Life because we are here in the one of the densest locations/conditions in the universe. We're at the cutting edge of many things. Somehow we're transforming the world of physical matter into something that very, very very slowly will turn into a part of Source. Once that happens, this will presumably be the most exciting place/condition of all. It will combine the general and even the universal with the specific in the most exhilarating and powerful way, with everything somehow transformed into pure Spirit.