"Mirin Dajo was invited to Switzerland to have his abilities formally studied under laboratory conditions.
"In front of a group of doctors and journalists, Dajo had his assistant stab him through with the steel rapier and as always he did not bleed or even flinch.
"He then calmly walked upstairs with doctors to take his X-ray which undeniably proved that no trickery was involved and he was indeed impaled.
Some people's brain cells may see motherhood as being 'unconditional love and forgiveness'.
Other people may see motherhood as being 'disappointment and ridicule'.
Candace Pert, former chief of brain biochemistry at the National Institute of Mental Health, suggests that mind is present throughout the body and that emotions are the links between matter and mind.
(Dr. Joseph M. Carver PhD, Emotional Memory Management: Positive Control Over Your Memory.)
If we are constantly bombarding our cells with the same negative attitudes, emotions, and beliefs, our biochemistry adapts by creating more receptor sites for those particular brain chemicals which cause our problems.
"People often become physically/chemically addicted and dependent on various negative states of being such as depression, victimization, frustration, or jealousy.
"Over time we crave more of the peptides (certain brain chemicals) we're addicted to and create repetitive dramas in our lives in order to receive our next dose."
"Living with positive, life-affirming, non-limiting thoughts/emotions/beliefs leads to physical health, wellness, and even miraculous supernormal abilities."
"To save her trapped son, Angela Cavallo lifted a 1964 Chevrolet and held it up for five minutes while neighbors arrived, reset a jack, and rescued her unconscious boy.
"Similarly, a construction worker lifted a 3,000-pound helicopter that had crashed into a drainage ditch, trapping his buddy under water.
"In this feat captured on video, the man held the aircraft aloft while others pulled his friend from beneath the wreckage." Spontaneous Evolution / The Biology of Belief
According to some research at Princeton University
We can mentally influence - and are influenced by - the thoughts of others.
We can mentally influence biological processes in bodies other than our own.
We can mentally influence the functioning of non-biological systems.
Now, if we are going to be angels in Nirvana, or Heaven or Paradise, we may have to dump our personalities.
Paradoxically, it may be that if we give up our supposed 'free will', we can then follow the will of 'God' (or go with the flow, tune into the Tao, realise that we are part of 'God') and live happily ever after.
The Buddhists would say that our sense of being a separate 'self' is an illusion.
We should practise non-attachment to lots of things.
"All the delightful things of the world - sweet sounds, lovely forms, all the pleasant tastes and touches and thoughts - these are all agreed to bring happiness if they are not grasped and possessed.
But if you regard them merely as pleasures for your own use and satisfaction and do not see them as passing wonders, they will bring suffering.
"Living beings resist the zero state so they can experience enjoyment out of what is essentially nothingness."
Being an angel in Heaven, Paradise or Nirvana does not mean that one is without compassion.
Some Buddhists see an enlightened being as one whose changing self is highly developed.[16]
One with "great self" has a mind which is not at the mercy of outside stimuli or its own moods, but is imbued with self-control, and self-contained.[17]
The mind of such a one is without boundaries, not limited by attachment or "I-identification."[18]
One can transform one's self from an "insignificant self" into a "great self" through practices such as mindfulness.[19]
The suttas portray one disciple who has developed his mind through loving-kindness saying: "Formerly this mind of mine was limited, but now my mind is immeasurable."[19]
With "nirvana-after-death", paranirvana, the last remains of physical life vanish, and no further rebirth takes place.
With nirvāṇa the consciousness is released, and the mind becomes aware in a way that is totally unconstrained by anything in the conditioned world.
... A HuffPost/YouGov poll shows that 45% of Americans believe in ghosts, or that the spirits of dead people can come back in certain places and situations.
Alfred Russel Wallace
"Alfred Russel Wallace announced that natural selection alone was not sufficient to account for human evolution.
"As a spiritualist, he believed that humans have non-material spirits - implying supernatural involvement - but he had scientific reasons as well.
"Our brains, he claimed, are over-engineered: through the people he met on his travels, he recognized that even the ‘savage’ in his mud hut has the potential to play Chopin études on the piano, despite the fact that he will never even see a piano.
"How could natural selection, which Wallace appreciated only responds to immediate needs, produce apparently useless traits like these?
"The solution to this question was, for Wallace, some kind of ... non-material guiding force."
Anita told her family that during her NDE, she had been greeted by her deceased father and deceased best friend, who had told her that it was not her time to die.
Moorjani said she had a strong reluctance to return to her suffering and dying physical body, but was encouraged to return by her father and best friend who told her that she needed to return and to "live her life fearlessly".
Within weeks of her NDE, Anita was cancer free.
"Anita explains how she can still return to the state she experienced during her NDE:
"It’s actually the opposite of focusing or choosing … it’s almost like a release, like a letting go, like a surrender … so there is no goal or anything … it’s like any sense of wanting to attain anything has to be released.
"This is the dichotomy: even the desire to attain that state has to be released, so it’s literally a state of total release and total surrender, so there is no attachment to anything physical, any outcome or even the physical body …
"Once I do that … it feels as though I have access to the infinity, to the higher, to the unlimited, to the potential, to the ambiguity.
"The minute you put limitations on it, ANY kind of limitation, even the limitation of ‘this is the state I want’, you are limiting the possibility. It really means opening yourself up to absolutely anything … with NO expectations, and you become available to everything, absolutely everything." Anita Moorjani – NDE | NDE Stories
Eckhart Tolle suggests that you can observe reincarnation in yourself many times during the day when you identify with a thought.
The moment you associate your identity with the thought, you have forgotten your essential nature as consciousness and have incarnated into a thought form.
Eckhart writes: "The way of the cross is the old way to enlightenment.... Enlightenment consciously chosen means to relinquish your attachment to past and future... How much more time do you think you will need before you are able to say, 'I will create no more pain, no more suffering?"'
Mark 1:14-15 - Jesus said "You must change your hearts and minds and believe the good news."
7:18-23 - Jesus said: "whatever comes out of a man, that is what makes a man 'common' or unclean.
"For it is from inside, from men's hearts and minds, that evil thoughts arise - lust, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, arrogance and folly!
"All these evil things come from inside a man and make him unclean!"
.
1:21-24 - A man in the grip of 'an evil spirit' appeared in the synagogue shouting out.
1:25 - But Jesus cut him short and spoke sharply, "Hold your tongue and get out of him!"
1:26-27 - At this the evil spirit convulsed the man, let out a loud scream and left him.
1:29-31 - Jesus went to the house of Simon and Andrew, accompanied by James and John.
Simon's mother-in-law was in bed with a high fever, and they lost no time in telling Jesus about her.
He went up to her, took her hand and helped her to her feet.
The fever left her, and she began to see to their needs.
...
1:32-34 - Late that evening, after sunset, they kept bringing to him all who were sick or troubled by evil spirits.
The whole population of the town gathered round the doorway. And he healed great numbers of people who were suffering from various forms of disease.
1:39 - He continued expelling evil spirits throughout the whole of Galilee.
...
1:40 - A leper came to Jesus, knelt in front of him and appealed to him, "If you want to, you can make me clean."
1:41 - Jesus was filled with pity for him, and stretched out his hand and placed it on the leper, saying, "Of course I want to - be clean!"
1:42-44 - At once the leprosy left him and he was quite clean.
2:1-5 - He re-entered Capernaum some days later, a rumour spread that he was in somebody's house.
A group of people arrived to see him, bringing with them a paralytic whom four of them were carrying.
And when they found it was impossible to get near him because of the crowd, they removed the tiles from the roof over Jesus' head and let down the paralytic's bed through the opening.
And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the man on the bed, "My son, your sins are forgiven."
2:6-7 - But some of the scribes were sitting there silently asking themselves, "Why does this man talk such blasphemy? Who can possibly forgive sins but God?"
2:8-11 - Jesus realised instantly what they were thinking, and said to them, "why must you argue like this in your minds? Which do you suppose is easier - to say to a paralysed man, 'Your sins are forgiven', or 'Get up, pick up your bed and walk?"
Jesus spoke to the paralytic - "Get up, pick up your bed and go home."
2:12 - At once the man sprang to his feet, picked up his bed and walked off in full view of them all.
2:13 - Then Jesus went out again by the lake-side and the whole crowd came to him, and he continued to teach them.
.... Hans Wilhelmidentifies the need to atone for some karmic wrong in a past life, and the need to experience love and attention as possible reasons for physical and mental shortcomings in this life.
2:14 - As Jesus went on his way, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at his desk in the tax office and he said to him, "Follow me!"
2:15-16 - Levi got up and followed him. Later, when Jesus was sitting at dinner in Levi's house, a large number of tax-collectors and disreputable folk came in and joined him and his disciples. For there were many such people among his followers.
When the scribes and Pharisees saw him eating in the company of tax-collectors and outsiders, they remarked to his disciples, "Why does he eat with tax-collectors and sinners?"
2:17 - When Jesus heard this, he said to them, "It is not the fit and flourishing who need the doctor, but those who are ill."
3:1-3 - On another occasion when he went into the synagogue, there was a man there whose hand was shrivelled, and they were watching Jesus closely to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath day, so that they might bring a charge against him.
3:5-6 - Jesus said to the man, "Stretch out your hand!" And he stretched it out, and the hand was restored as sound as the other one.
...
4:13-20 - Jesus said: "The seed sown among the rocks represents those who hear the message without hesitation and accept it joyfully. But they have no real roots and do not last - when trouble or persecution arises because of the message, they give up their faith at once.
"Then there are the seeds which were sown among thorn-bushes. These are the people who hear the message, but the worries of this world and the false glamour of riches and all sorts of other ambitions creep in and choke the life out of what they have heard, and it produces no crop in their lives.
"As for the seed sown on good soil, this means the men who hear the message and accept it and do produce a crop - thirty, sixty, even a hundred times as much as they received."
4:30-32 - Then he continued, "What can we say the kingdom of God is like? It is like a tiny grain of mustard-seed which, when it is sown, is smaller than any seed that is ever sown. But after it is sown in the earth, it grows up and becomes bigger than any other plant. It shoots out great branches so that birds can come and nest in its shelter."
4:36-38 - Jesus was with his disciples on a boat on a lake. Then came a violent squall of wind which drove the waves aboard the boat until it was almost swamped.
Jesus was in the stern asleep on the cushion. They awoke him with the words, "Master, don't you care that we're drowning?"
4:39 - And he woke up, rebuked the wind, and said to the waves, "Hush now! Be still!" The wind dropped and everything was very still.
...
5:1-7 - As Jesus was getting out of the boat, a man in the grip of an evil spirit rushed to meet him from among the tombs where he was living.
It was no longer possible for any human being to restrain him even with a chain.
All through the night as well as in the day-time he screamed among the tombs and on the hill-side, and cut himself with stones.
Now, as soon as he saw Jesus in the distance, he ran and knelt before him, yelling at the top of his voice, "What have you got to do with me, Jesus? For God's sake, don't torture me!"
5:8 - For Jesus had already said, "Come out of this man, you evil spirit!"
5:9 - Then he asked him, "What is your name?" "My name is legion," he replied, "for there are many of us."
5:10 - Then he begged and prayed him not to send "them" out of the country.
5:11-12 - A large herd of pigs was grazing there on the hill-side, and the evil spirits implored him, "Send us over to the pigs and we'll get into them!"
5:13-19 - So Jesus allowed them to do this, and they came out of the man.
Then the people came to see what had happened. As they approached Jesus, they saw the man who had been devil-possessed sitting there properly clothed and perfectly sane.
...
5:24-28 - There was a woman who had a haemorrhage for twelve years and who had gone through a great deal at the hands of many doctors (or physicians), spending all her money in the process.
This woman had heard about Jesus and came up behind him under cover of the crowd, and touched his cloak, "For if I can only touch his clothes," she said, "I shall be all right."
5:29-30 - The haemorrhage stopped immediately.
...
5:35 - While he was still speaking, messengers arrived from the synagogue president's house, saying, "Your daughter is dead - there is no need to bother the master any further."
5:36 - But when Jesus heard this, he said, "Now don't be afraid, just go on believing!"
5:37-39 - Then he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and John, James's brother. They arrived at the president's house and Jesus noticed the hubbub and all the weeping and wailing, and as he went in, he said to the people in the house, "Why are you making such a noise with your crying? The child is not dead; she is fast asleep."
5:40-41 - They greeted this with a scornful laugh. But Jesus turned them all out, and taking only the father and mother and his own companions with him, went into the room where the child was. Then he took the little girl's hand and said to her in Aramaic, "Little girl, I tell you to get up!"
5:42-43 - At once she jumped to her feet and walked around the room, for she was twelve years old. This sight sent the others nearly out their minds with joy. But Jesus gave them strict instructions not to let anyone know what had happened - and ordered food to be given to the little girl.
...
6:1-4 - Then he left that district and came into his own native town followed by his disciples.
6:5-6a - And he could do nothing miraculous there apart from laying his hands on a few sick people and healing them; their lack of faith astonished him.
6:6b-11 - He summoned the twelve, and began to send them out in twos.
6:12-13 - So they went out and preached that men should change their whole outlook.
They expelled many evil spirits and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.
Jesus miraculously fed five thousand people and walked on water.
If the Kingdom of Heaven is within you, it would be a good idea to tune into it.
If you can move mountains, you can do all sorts of things.
The Canadian neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield talked about the mind apparently being able to "project a memory or a dream upon the screen of consciousness."
Wilder Penfield concluded that the mind is a thing separate from the brain, and it does not rely on the brain to function.
In the 1950's, the researcher Stanisilav Grof had a female patient who suddenly became convinced she had assumed the identity of a female of a species of prehistoric reptile.
Grof encountered examples of patients regressing and identifying with virtually every species on the evolutionary tree.
He found that such experiences frequently contained obscure zoological details which turned out to be accurate.
Grof suggested that our mind may be connected not only to every other mind that exists or has existed, but to every atom, organism, and region in space and time.
In his book Gifts of Unknown Things, biologist Lyall Watson describes his encounter with an Indonesian shaman woman who, by performing a ritual dance, was able to make an entire grove of trees completely vanish.
Watson relates that as he and another onlooker continued to watch the woman, she caused the trees to reappear, then click off again and on again several times in succession.
"When the material body dies, the learned tendencies of the subtle body survive as nonlocal memory, and will reincarnate in another physical body in the future.
"In between death and rebirth, we survive as a “soul”, a reservoir of accumulated character aspects or propensities that Easterners describe using the Sanskrit words karma and sanskara."[1]