'TRUE SELF'

I met a taxi driver called Bob who had once been clinically dead and who had had an out of body experience. 

As he floated above his body he could see the doctor trying to get him back to life. He could hear the doctor's American accent and he could see the doctor's red hair. 

After he had come back to life, the taxi driver discovered that the doctor was indeed American and did indeed have red hair.

It would seem that our 'spirit' can exist without the body.

I met a hotel owner who had once been clinically dead and who had had an out of body experience. 

While 'dead' he met dead relatives who told him that he had a sibling that he did not know about and who had died very young.

After he had come back to life, the hotel owner checked the old records and discovered that he had indeed had a sibling who had died very young.

Professor Robert Lanza believes that Death is an illusion.

He believes that it is our minds that create space and time.

• THE MIND CREATES THE REALITY?

Are we all connected?

Scientists have discovered that pairs of tiny particles can be invisibly connected even when they are some distance apart.

When the scientists carry out an action on one particle, the other particle is instananeously affected, even though it is many miles apart.

A Dutch team has proven that 'spooky action at a distance' is real.

dailymail.

According to Jack Kornfield - 

No Self or True Self? - Identity and Selflessness

Persian mystics say we are 'sparks of the divine'.

Christian mystics say we are filled with God.

Some say - We are one with all things.

Some say - The world is all illusion.

Some say -  consciousness creates life to express all possibilities, to be able to love, to know oneself.



Others point out how consciousness gets lost in its patterns, loses its way, incarnates out of ignorance.

Hindu yogas call the world a lila, or a dance of the divine.

Buddhist texts describe how consciousness itself creates the world like a dream or a mirage. 

Modern accounts of near-death experiences are filled with reports of wonderful ease after leaving the body, of golden light and luminous beings. 

(The Buddhists believe that there is no unchanging “soul” to reincarnate.

(What is reborn is not the person. 

(What is reborn is an “evolving consciousness” or “stream of consciousness”, whose quality has been conditioned by karma.)

REINCARNATION - REBIRTH - Aangirfan

REINCARNATION - Aangirfan / VENGEROV AND REINCARNATION - aangirfan
CHILDREN'S MEMORIES OF PAST LIVES - aangirfan

The Buddha came to the conclusion that we do not exist as separate beings. 

He saw  the human tendency to identify with a limited sense of existence - 

'Consciousness creating identity by entering form -

'Attaching to certain forms, feelings, desires, images, and actions to create a sense of self.

'This belief in an individual small self is an illusion. 

'It causes suffering and removes us from the freedom and mystery of life.' 

WHO CREATED THE SELF?

Buddha described us as a collection of  changing processes:

The processes of the physical body, feelings, perceptions, responses, and the flow of consciousness. 

Our sense of self arises whenever we identify with these changing processes. 

We might identify with the role of being a woman or a man, a parent or a child. 

We might take our family history, our genetics, and our heredity to be who we are. 

Sometimes we identify with our desires: sexual, aesthetic, or spiritual. 

We can choose the archetype of hero, lover, mother, ne’er-do-well, adventurer, clown, or thief as our identity and live a year or a whole lifetime based on that. 

To the extent that we grasp these false identities, we fear their loss.

One master would say, “I am none of that. I am not this body, so I was never born and will never die. I am nothing and I am everything. 

"Your identities make all your problems. Discover what is beyond them, the delight of the timeless, the deathless.”

DIFFERENT KINDS OF SELF

Christian texts speak of losing the self in God. 

Taoists and Hindus speak of merging with a True Self beyond all identity.

Buddhists speak of emptiness and of no self.

Emptiness does not mean that things don’t exist, nor does “no self” mean that we don’t exist. 

Emptiness refers to the underlying nonseparation of life and the energy that gives rise to all forms of life. 

We are in some relationship with our cars, our home, our family, our jobs, but whatever that relationship is, it is “ours” only for a short time. In the end, things, people, or tasks die or change or we lose them. Nothing is exempt.

WE OWN NOTHING

When we bring attention to any moment of experience, we discover that we do not possess it either. 

As we look, we find that we neither invite our thoughts nor own them. 

We might even wish them to stop, but our thoughts seem to think themselves, arising and passing according to their nature.

The same is true of our feelings. 

How many of us believe we control our feelings? 

As we pay attention, we see that they are more like the weather; moods and feelings change according to certain conditions, and are neither possessed nor directed by our consciousness or desires. 

Do we order happiness, sadness, irritation, excitement, or restlessness to come? 

Feelings arise by themselves, as the breath breathes itself, as sounds sound themselves.

Our body, too, follows its own laws. The body which we carry is a bag of bones and fluid that belong to no one. It ages, gets sick, or changes in ways we might not wish it to, all according to its own nature.

The more we look, in fact, the more deeply we see that we possess nothing within or without.

EVERYTHING FROM NOTHING

'Where has the past week or the past month or our childhood gone? They arose, did a little dance, and now they’ve vanished.

'Experience becomes like the particle waves described in modern physics, a pattern not quite solid, ever-changing.

According to Jack Kornfield - 

No Self or True Self? - Identity and Selflessness

DISCOVER INTERCONNECTEDNESS

'The real world is beyond our thoughts and ideas; we see it through the net of our desires, divided into pleasure and pain, right and wrong, inner and outer. To see the universe as it is, you must step beyond the net. It is not hard to do so, for the net is full of holes' — Sri Nisargadatta

As we open and empty ourselves, we come to experience an interconnectedness. The teacher depends on the student, the airplane depends on the sky.

NO SELF IS NOT APATHY

'So while purification, kindness, and attention can certainly improve our habits, no amount of self-denial or self-torture can rid us of a self, for it was never there.'

From A Path With Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life.

Happiness is about forgetting your own happiness and being part of a happy team?

Standford neurophysiologist Karl Pribram believes in the holographic nature of reality.

Every part of a hologram contains all the information possessed by the whole.

In a holographic universe there are no limits to the extent to which we can alter reality.

What we see as reality is a canvas where we can draw any picture we want.

The Buddhists believe that what we are thinking now, is what we will become.

Research has suggested that Buddhists are able to get their brains to feel happiness.



What we are now is the result of our past thoughts.

We are the creator of our circumstances.

By right thought and right action we can gradually purify ourselves and eventually reach enlightenment and Nirvana and beyond.

• OUT OF BODY
• Consciousness Outside the Body?
• THINK 'HAPPY TEAM'
• FREE WILL?
• NON ATTACHMENT; HEALING 
• THE PROBLEM OF EVIL - 1
• THE PROBLEM OF EVIL - 2
• THE PROBLEM OF EVIL - 3
• THE PROBLEM OF EVIL - 4 

SHARED DEATH EXPERIENCES

During World War I, Karl Skala, a German poet, was a soldier huddled in a foxhole with his best friend.

An artillery shell exploded, killing his friend. 

Skala was unhurt, but had an out of body experience.

It was a 'shared death experience'.

Skala felt himself being drawn up with his friend, above the battlefield. 

Then he looked up and saw a bright light and felt himself going toward it with his friend. 

Then he stopped and returned to his body.

William Peters, a hospice volunteer, had been entrusted with the care of a former merchant marine, called Ron. 

Ron was on his deathbed,  and had few family or friends who visited him. 

Peters would spend up to three hours a day keeping Ron company, reading books and talking to him.

One lunch time, while reading, Peters felt his spirit leаve his body.

He wаs floаting аbove Ron's bed.

He sаw thаt Ron wаs floating next to him аnd looking down аt the bed.

Peters sаid: “He looked аt me аnd he gаve me this hаppy, contented look аs if he wаs telling me, ‘Check this out. Here we аre.'”

Peters then returned to his body.

What about dogs?

'I raised my head up from the ground to look around, I saw my deceased dog from my childhood bounding towards me. … It was overwhelmingly wonderful. I felt completely at peace and totally happy. I was so excited to see her again, and I did not question the experience at the time. It was as if she had never died and she had always been waiting for me to wake up from my nap in the grass.

'These words, taken from case reports collected by the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation, are from a young seaman who was recalling an experience that followed a life-threatening fall from a navy pier. After losing consciousness, he found himself in “an absolutely beautiful green field of grass” with his beloved canine friend.'

PSYCHIC; GORDON SMITH

...

"New research argues that legitimate, statistically significant evidence for psi, or psychic ability, does exist."

Is There Scientific Proof of Psychic Ability? - The Cut

Parapsychology researcher Etzel Cardeña writes that the strongest support for psi can be found in research which utilizes the “Ganzfeld procedure,” in which blindfolded subjects in a soundproofed room are asked to describe a film clip they have not seen, which they’re either shown after the fact, or which is played simultaneously in another room.

The results can be impressive.



Gordon Smith is the 'Psychic Barber'.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/everyman/factsheet_mediums.shtml

"Gordon Smith is the seventh son of a seventh son, and when he was born the midwife told his mother he would be a healer of some sort.

"Gordon is renowned for his mediumship and offering healing and comfort.

"Gordon has two grown-up sons and still lives in his native Glasgow ... running his busy barber's shop in the city centre, which has given him the nickname 'the psychic barber'."



The following is an account by Tricia Robertson from her book The Truth is Here -

PRISM is an acronym for Psychical Research Involving Selected Mediums. This is a research group that was set up to study paranormal phenomena, including mediumship, in a scientific manner.

Gordon Smith was one of the mediums who willingly participated.

The statistical analysis of his results always showed a high degree of accuracy to the intended recipient.

It was because of the high standard of his work that he was asked to give a demonstration of his mediumship at Glasgow University at the request of the Scottish Society for Psychical Research.

No one was disappointed.

~



Gordon Smith spoke to Scotland on Sunday:

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/spectrum.cfm?id=1203212003

HOW DID IT ALL START?

When I was a little boy, I saw the spirit of a friend of the family.

A man who had been deceased for just over a week appeared before me in the garden in broad daylight.

He was solid, three-dimensional and spoke in an ordinary fashion. There was nothing scary or malevolent about him. It wasn’t until I reported the incident to my mother that there was any reaction. She freaked out.

WHY DO BIRDS SUDDENLY APPEAR EVERY TIME YOU ARE NEAR?

They are obviously aware of the spiritual energy around me and all mediums who work between the two worlds - after all, isn’t a bird just a spirit in the sky?

WHERE DO WE GO WHEN WE DIE?

Love lifts us up where we belong.

I believe we shall find ourselves with the people we have known and loved in our lives, in a world filled with love, light and laughter.

We will grow according to our own spirituality and according to all the good deeds we have created in this earth life.

So the better you are in this world, the more you create good vibrations - and the more good vibrations you create, the higher you will be lifted.

WHAT can I DO TO MAKE PEOPLE LOVE ME?

Be yourself in the face of all things, never try to be more than you can be and accept your life for what it is.

HOW CAN YOU HEAL SOMEONE WHO DOESN’T WANT TO HEAL?

You can’t.

Healing begins when the person wants to be healed.

Some people suffer in this world and because of it become stronger.

When you feel ready to face the world again after your suffering, the healing will begin.

WHEN YA’ TAKE A HOLIDAY IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT?

I never can say goodbye to the fair city of Glasgow. Even when I travel all over the world I feel connected to my home city. I used to think that wherever I laid my hat was my home, but I know that my heart belongs to Glasgow.

SO WHAT’S NEW TO YOU?

Every day is a new day. Every experience is new when you live in the moment.



Gordon Smith's psychic gift was ignored as he was growing up ...

Gordon Smith had a difficult childhood.

His book, Best Of Both Worlds, talks  about the poverty and abuse he encountered growing up in 1970s Glasgow.

Years ago the city's Gorbals area,' a poverty-stricken hotbed of gangs and violence'  is where Gordon was raised.

His seven siblings and fiery Irish mother protected him as best they could.

"I was six when a gang broke into our house in the middle of the night and broke every single window," he says.

"I remember being pulled out of bed to terror and screaming."


Gordon's parents in Glasgow 

Gordon suffered sexual abuse at the hands of a local man at around the same time.

"I look back and think I was a child of seven, it wasn't my fault but I had to quietly learn to get over it. At the time I blocked it out, it only surfaced when I practised meditation years later.

"I believe these things arise when you're ready to accept and handle them so there's the ongoing process of working through things and building on them.

"Now I always talk to people who have encountered abuse." During his traumatic encounters Gordon discovered he could escape the situation by leaving his body and entering a new spiritual realm.

His gift was starting to blossom. "I started seeing dead people," he recalls.

"I'd tell my mum and she'd get angry. I saw Ummy, my grandmother's partner, as clear as day. He'd died the week before and I hadn't known about it."

Gordon Smith's psychic gift was ignored as he was growing up ...

Gordon with his cousin Stephen who died aged 11 

"It was only when I'd travel to London to stay with my aunt Sylvia and uncle Michael in their big house in the peaceful suburbs that I realised life could be different," he says.

During these visits he struck up a close bond with their only child, his cousin Stephen.

"Stephen was a little boy who should have had everything," says Gordon.

"But one day out of nowhere when we were eight or nine he had an accident and fell off a swing. He hurt his stomach and when he was operated on doctors discovered that he had cancer.

"It was the saddest thing I remember as a child, knowing that he was ill. Despite my age I learnt to read the atmosphere and knew he was dying even before he did."

When Stephen passed away at the age of 11 Gordon stayed in London at the request of Aunt Sylvia.

"I saw him after he died," he says.

"My aunt wanted to keep me with her and quite often I would feel Stephen's presence in the room and I would close my eyes and he was there and I'd be playing with him.

It wasn't until my aunt Sylvia was dying many years later that she told me she used to stand outside the playroom and listen to me and if she closed her eyes Stephen was alive. That was a beautiful thing to her."

Gordon Smith's psychic gift was ignored as he was growing up ...

....

Gordon  became a barber and at the age of 17 met Kate, a girl who lived near his grandmother in Glasgow.

By the time Gordon was 19 she was pregnant.

"We got married because that was the done thing and we were in love," says Gordon.

For the following decade he lived a normal life with a wife, two children and a job as a hairdresser.

And then he saw another spirit.
                                                                                     
"It was my colleague Chrissie's brother standing in my bedroom in a tartan shirt and tight blue jeans with his arms folded," he says.

"Ten minutes later the police knocked on my door. They had come to deliver the salon keys as Chrissie had been in a house fire. It was only the following day that I found out her brother had died."

At Chrissie's request Gordon accompanied her to see a medium in an attempt to make contact with her dead brother. But when they arrived it was Gordon the medium had a message for.

"She told me, 'You are a medium yourself. 'You'll be on the stage doing this within five years.'

"And then she proceeded to tell me all about my grandmother who'd died at the age of 42."

Gordon Smith's psychic gift was ignored as he was growing up ...



At 29, Gordon realised that he was gay.

"It hadn't really occurred to me but when I delved back into my childhood I realised I did have desires when I was about 13 or 14 that I must have brushed under the carpet," he says.

"But really Kate and I fell out of love and that was the catalyst."

He is thankful that he was able to maintain good relationships with both his sons.

...

Gordon started working as a medium and would do readings at spiritualist churches for free.

"One of the most amazing things for me was locating a woman's son who'd disappeared on an Army training exercise. She didn't realise her son was dead so it was hard.

"But I told her about a river in France where his body was, although only a part of it.

"A year later they found a human thigh-bone belonging to her son. How could I have known that? It's like finding a needle in a haystack."

For Gordon the most rewarding part of his job is bringing comfort to the bereaved.

"I was sitting with a mother whose 17-year-old son committed suicide and her boy came through and gave her lovely evidence that his spirit was still alive," he says.

"He told her he didn't kill himself because of her and she shouldn't blame herself. I could never charge someone for that. I get my rewards in so many ways."

Gordon Smith's psychic gift was ignored as he was growing up ...

ED MORRELL, IAN LAWTON, OUT OF BODY

In 1968, Dr. Charles Tart, professor of psychology at the University of California-Davis, studied Miss Z, who could supposedly leave her body at will.

The study consisted of placing a random number on a shelf above the bed in which the woman slept.

The woman was tasked with self-inducing an Out of Body Experience, checking the number and then reporting the number to Dr. Tart and his team upon her awakening.

Dr. Tart was stunned when Miss Z woke up from her sleep and correctly stated the number on the shelf.

Out-Of-Body Experiences

While being tortured in an American prison, Ed Morrell had out-of-body experiences.

"He traveled far and wide, into outer space and out on to the ocean (where he witnessed a shipwreck which he subsequently learned really happened).

"He saw persons whom he would later meet in life.

"He even encountered the woman he one day would marry.

"He saw the governor of Arizona and predicted the exact date and hour he would be released from prison.

"He visited distant cities and countries, returning with accurate information to which he had no access through normal channels."

Astral Projection Story / Ed Morrell Archives

....

IAN LAWTON writes about reincarnation, out of body experiences, consciousness, and, the soul.

New Dawn 116 /  The Official Ian Lawton Website 

Unfortunately, Ian Lawton seems to like Helena Blavatsky, Charles Leadbeater, and, Osho, aka Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.

LEADBEATER, WEDGWOOD, KRISHNAMURTI / CHILD RAPE BY GURUS; CIA LINKS 

SPIRITUALISM: SPIRIT AND BODY,

...

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."

Alfred Russel Wallace

One parent was interviewed -

1. How old is your child?  Three
2. How often does your child see ghosts/entities?  Pretty much all day
3. What type of "being" does your child see? My grandfather who died 13 years ago

4. Where around town will your child most often see these beings? Anywhere

5. Do these beings ever approach your child around town? I believe he is always there
6. At what age did your child being seeing ghosts?  We noticed it around 9 months
Anything else you would like to add? She tells us he keeps her safe

...

Spiritualism is a belief that spirits of the dead have both the ability and the inclination to communicate with the living.

Spiritualism.

What do spirits do all day?

"Well, they don’t really experience time like us. 

"I think a lot of them come and go. The idea that they stay in one place is kind of a misconception. 

"Just because they're dead doesn't mean they don't have a life. 

"They have things that they're working on, and they want to learn and they want to grow. 

"There are places they want to see, and people they want to visit."

What It's Really Like To Talk To Dead People.

Alfred Russel Wallace.

The Theory of Evolution was developed by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace.

Wallace believed in spiritual evolution.

He believed that that certain aspects of living organisms, such as intelligence and morality, cannot be explained in terms of purely materialistic processes.

Alfred Russel Wallace and Indonesia.

Spiritualists believe that spirits continue to evolve. 

Spiritualists do not believe that after death you go to an eternity of Heaven or Hell.

They believe that that when a person dies there are different 'spheres' that the person may go to, according to their degree of enlightenment.

Certain religions warn against contact with 'evil spirits'.

Spiritualists warn against occult religions and cults.

Some psychiatrists have described patients as acting as if they were under the influence of evil spirits.

..

The Swedish scientist and philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) claimed to communicate with spirits.

According to Swedenborg:

1. there is not a single hell and a single heaven, but rather a series of higher and lower heavens and hells.

2. Spirits can act as intermediates between God and humans.

3. There are dangers in seeking out spirit contact.

Franz Mesmer (1734–1815) used hypnotism to get subjects to report contact with spirits.

Among those who have taken an interest in Spiritualism are the physicist William Crookes, the Nobel-laureate physiologist Charles Richet, the Nobel laureate Pierre Curie, the journalist William T. Stead, the author Arthur Conan Doyle and the psychologist William James.

...

A hospital doctor enters a ward for sick children who have a variety of ailments and disabilities.

Ideally, the doctor avoids being infected by any 'germs' that the children might be carrying.

Ideally the doctor avoids being 'infected' by any physical and emotional pains that the children might be suffering from.

There are a lot of children with 'problems'.

In the USA, 'child disabilities due to neurodevelopmental and mental health problems have increased greatly.'

'Nearly six million kids had a disability in 2010 - almost one million more than in 2001.'

dailymail

If we were to be infected by the physical and emotional pains of all these millions of children we would be in trouble.

However, we can have an influence for good on someone who is suffering.

1. Scientists have discovered that pairs of tiny particles can be invisibly connected even when they are some distance apart.

When the scientists carry out an action on one particle, the other particle is instananeously affected, even though it is many miles apart.

A Dutch team has proven that 'spooky action at a distance' is real.

dailymail.

2. 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.

The Next Great Turning - Context Institute

Sia Furler's 'Chandelier', from the album 1000 Forms of Fear, suggests mind-control?

3. A team of psychologists from Saint Louis University claims that stress can be spread from person to person like a virus.

We can be infected by the stressed person's odour, posture, facial expression and tone of voice.

The researchers put the participants into pairs.

One member of the pair had to make a public speech and the other had simply to watch the speech.

The researchers measured the levels of cortisol and a stress-related salivary enzyme in both the stressed speaker and in the observer.

The researchers found that the stress response in the witnesses was 'proportional to that of their paired speakers'.

ABC. / dailymail.

Saint Louis University is associated with the CIA's MK-ULTRA mind control programme.

Now, if stress can spread like a virus, so too can love and healing spread like a virus.

Can we feel compassion without feeling some of the suffering of the person in distress?

1. Imagine the doctor entering the hospital ward.

The good doctor is positive, loving and calm.

This helps the sick patient.

schweitzerfellowship.wordpress.com...

2. Imagine you are the pilot of a passenger plane which has just been struck by some dangerous emergency.

It does not help you, nor the passengers, if your ego feels great fear.

A game of golf would not be real if there were not some minor ups and downs; but you want to avoid the extremes.

3. Why does the government carry out acts of terrorism as part of its 'Strategy of Tension'?

They want to get you angry with, and scared of, the 'terrorists'.

When people are scared they will obey their 'big brother' government.

So, detach yourself from fear and anger.

Fear and anger make you sick.

4. In the past you may have been hit by extreme fear, anger, grief, worry and despair.

But we should practise non-attachment to such extremes.

This means not holding on.

michaelwilliammcdonald.blogspot.com ...

5. 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."

-Sutta Nipata

Blog: Pleasure and Joy

6. It is not a good idea to 'suppress' our feelings.

Research shows that people who are able to talk about their grief, anger or fear get rid of these negative feelings more quickly.

People who are not able to talk about these feelings are more likely to suffer ill health, mental or physical.

Some people get angry when there is a long queue at the airport.

Some people learn not to get angry.

They are not supressing their anger; they just don't feel anger.

We see ourselves as separate selves.

Our body feels the pleasures and pains of life.

Imagine switching out of the SELF mode into the NON-SELF mode.

In the NON-SELF mode there is no grasping of pain or pleasure.

But this is difficult for our minds to imagine, just as 'infinity' is difficult to imagine.

Some people write about the dangers of talking about the Oneness of everything.

"Holding to both the oneness and multiplicity of existence takes greater spiritual maturity...

"It requires being present with the moment with all it's paradox and radicalness.

"Experiencing both the bliss and sorrow of existence takes greater spiritual maturity...

"It requires us to be present to the entire situation of existence, our own and all others.

"In terms of our tradition, we describe this as the dance between emptiness and form and our path as the willingness to experience both and their mutuality.

"The main emphasis of our path is to show up wakefully to the play of emptiness and form..."

Not Duality is Not Non Duality | School of Yogic Buddhism

North Korean kids. By Benoit Cappronnier

Is life fair?

Why does one person apparently 'choose' to be 'good' and another person apparently 'choose' to be 'bad'?

According to some philosophers, our actions are either determined by matters such as heredity and environment, or they are a matter of chance.

Brazil. By carf

It suits the top criminals to believe that their 'wicked' actions are purely the result of heredity, environment and chance.

But, we do know that when people believe in some kind of 'free will', they do tend to behave better.

Ireland 1932. By pantufla

Some people have suggested that only one 'entity' has real free will.

And only that one 'entity' is good.

That one person is 'God'.

Or the Tao, or the Force, or the Holy Spirit, or the divine...

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.

By Alexander Macfarlane

The Buddhists would say that our sense of being a separate 'self' is an illusion.

Blog: Pleasure and Joy

By maria dupovkina

This raises the question of why we are not all tuned into 'God' already.

One can speculate that if God is going to create 'a real world', then, as with a game of golf, there has to be an element of chance.

By IWGIA

Of course, things may always have existed.

The Buddhists would argue that 'God' may not be the best term to use.

Some Buddhists are not keen on the idea of a creator God.

By © Jamie Mitchell

Some Taoists would argue that every 'thing' and every 'action' is a mixture of 'good' and 'evil'.

"Taoists believe that nature is a continual balance between yin and yang, and that any attempt to go toward one extreme or the other will be ineffective, self-defeating, and short-lived."

What Taoists Believe

By Valery Titievsky

The Mohist philosophers in China believed that the purpose of life was universal, impartial love.

Mohism promoted a philosophy of impartial caring - a person should care equally for all other individuals, regardless of their actual relationship to him or her.[48]

Is free will an illusion?

Ruben V Rial-Planas writes

"We can test the problem with my most perfect identical twin: myself!

"Trying to remember the most important decisions I took in my life, I ask myself what I would have done if I had had the possibility to relive again any of the decisive moments of my life - with the same imperfect knowledge and with the same external constraints I had.

"The results of analyzing my perfect twin’s behaviour are, in my opinion, absolutely clarifying: reliving my life would have rendered a life identical to the one I actually lived.

By rongpuk

"I can distinguish between two types of events as determinants of every minute fact that occurred in my life.

"Some were the result of conscious decisions, in many cases taken as the result of an evaluation of pros and cons (always with incomplete knowledge of the real situation).

"As it is impossible for me to take stupid decisions (the stupidity defined by myself), I was forced to decide in a determined way, searching the best results.

"In other cases my behaviour was the result of random and/or uncontrolled external factors. In the first case I would repeat my action; in the second, my response would be forced.

"However, if the external random factors would be the same, I also would repeat my action

By Mayank Austen Soofi

"So, the life of my identical twin entirely repeating my own life shows that I never had a true free will...

"My identical twin shows me the inescapability of Hume’s fork: My actions are either causally determined or random.

"In either case, I am not free."

By babasteve


Etienne Vermeersch writes (Is free will an illusion?):

"Ruben Rial Planas shows in his 'twin analysis' that he has made two types of decisions in his life: 

"Those which were conscious, determined decisions.

"And the others 'the result of random and/or uncontrolled external factors'.

"To my astonishment he concludes: 'In either case I am not free', although he just made a brilliant analysis of the really free decisions: the conscious determined ones."

We choose; we have free will.

"Ultimate reality is consciousness."

According to Amit Goswami, a theoretical nuclear physicist:

"Consciousness is the ground of all being... Our free will is real...

"Reality is not two things - God and the world - but one thing, consciousness."

The problem of evil can perhaps be explained by looking at the equation 0 = +X -X.

When there are created 'things', we get dualism.

In other words, when we have 'hot' we also have 'cold'.

When we have 'good' we also have 'bad'.

We could perhaps see 'God' or the 'Ulimate Reality' as being '0', and the world as being +X -X.

Or we can see 'Reality' as being '0' which can be +X -X.

"The mystics of all the great traditions agree that all distinctions are imaginary and that the Ultimate Nature of Reality is non-dual."

The Mystical Core of the Great Traditions

The Taoists would argue that there is always Yin and Yang.

There is only a problem if there is a lack of balance.

Of course the mystics would also say that Ultimate Reality is much more complicated than we normally imagine, and that Ultimate Reality cannot be described in words.

Dr. Ian Stevenson:

"Twins in Sri Lanka.

"We did testing that showed they were identical, yet they were markedly different in their behaviors and physical appearance. 

"One twin began to talk about a previous life as a Sinhalese insurgent, said he was shot by police in April 1971. Anyway, his family laughed at him, so he shut up and nothing could be verified about what he said. 

"The older twin talked copiously about the previous life of a young schoolboy. He made several specific statements that ultimately checked out. He said he lived in a place called Balapitiya and traveled by train to a school in another town called Ambalangoda. He made comparisons between the families' property. 

"He referred to an aunt, by name, who had cooked chilies for him. 

"Perhaps the most astonishing thing was that when the two families met, the boy pointed to some [writing] in a wall that turned out to be the name of the deceased boy he was remembering. The subject said he had made that when the cement was wet. No one in the deceased boy's family had noticed it before."

Conversations/Dr. Ian Stevenson.

...

The Self-Aware Universe - Amit Goswami

Jack Schwarz practiced mind over matter.

He could put a long sail-maker’s needle through his arm without injury. 

"He also displayed his ability to regulate his body's blood flow by causing the puncture hole in his arm to bleed or stop bleeding at will... 

"According to Schwarz, he could also see people’s auras, which allowed him to gauge their physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental conditions."

10 Amazing Examples of Mind Over Matter.

David Seidler "eliminated his cancer through meditation and imagination...  

"He spent the two weeks leading up to his surgery envisioning a clean, cream-colored, healthy bladder. 

"When Seidler went in for his pre-surgery biopsy, the doctor was stunned to find a distinct lack of cancer..." 

10 Amazing Examples of Mind Over Matter.

...

Ros Barber's new novel Devotion is about God and para­llel universes.

Finlay Logan's daughter has died, in a parachute accident.

And Finlay Logan, who is a psychologist, is assessing the sanity of April Smith, a Christian fundamentalist who has blown up a bus.

Finlay says: "There is no fucking God. Because it simply wasn't possible that God the Father would smear your twenty-one-year-old daughter across a field in the Surrey Hills."



Finlay meets Gabrielle Salmon.

Gabrielle Salmon is a scientist who studies consciousness.

She claims that she can help people to connect to God, and thus find peace.

She has managed to reproduce Religious, Spiritual and Mystical Experiences (RSMEs). 

Author Ros Barber now presents two parallel universes for Finlay.

Finlay can choose.

We should note that the scientists now tell us that this is possible.


Schrodinger's cat.

Things are made out of tiny 'particles'.

According to the scientists, when you come a cross a 'particle' it does not have a 'fixed state' - until your mind decides what its 'fixed state' will be.

In other words, if you come across Mr Schrödinger's cat lying very still on the grass, the cat is neither dead nor alive - until your mind decides what its 'fixed state' will be.

Let us imagine that you have a very strong feeling that the cat will be alive and well next year.

Then the cat is currently not dead.

The future has affected the present.

dailymail - Can the past change the FUTURE?


animalfair.com

Christians believe that things go better when you tune into the Holy Spirit.

The Taoists would call the Holy Spirit the Tao.

When you are tuned in, the cat is not dead.



Some Taoists and Christians and others believe that bliss can be achieved when:

1. You believe that, when tuned in, life works out for the best.

2. You are compassionate

3. You are moderate (Avoid extremes)

4. You are humble (The selfish ego is switched off)

5. Everything is in balance

6. Being tuned into the Holy Spirit or the Tao or whatever you want to call it, you go with the flow.

(You are not battling against the Holy Spirit or Tau)

7. You avoid the use of force; you avoid pitting your will against the universe.



Eventually the cat will die, but it will continue in the Spirit.

Spirit and body?

"It stretches our own humanity to love a child who is less than perfect... And that is an important lesson for us.'" (Dr. Frank Oski)

Christians refer to both 'spirit' and 'body'. [4]

There is a belief that spirits inhabit and animate beings.

The body is like a computer.

The spirit is like the person who operates the computer.

The New testament refers to evil spirits.

Luke 11:2 "When the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and not finding any, it says, 'I will return to my house from which I came.'"

Mark 16:9 "He first appeared to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven demons."

How might a spirit achieve bliss?

Lao Tzu taught that we should eliminate all that is dark and negative in ourselves.

Taoist ethics

Buddhism refers to the need for loving kindness.

Buddhist ethics

Christians refer to tuning in to the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit can be found in Islam, and in Hinduism and in Buddhism.

...

Recently we referred to Kim Noble, who has more than one 'personality' or 'spirit'.

Kim Noble , 50, has dissociative identity disorder (DID), which means that she has scores of different personalities.

"There's Judy the teenage bulimic, Salamoe the devout Catholic, Ken who is gay and over 100 more."

Kim Noble: The woman with 100 personalities.

Is each of these 'personalities' a 'spirit'?

Recently I met Bob, whose 'spirit' could see his body being operated on.

Bob had a heart attack and was taken unconscious to a hospital.

While in the operating theatre, at 3am, Bob found himself looking down at his body.

He could also see his late father, who told him that he was going to be OK.

At 3am, Bob's mother, who was at home, had a vision of her late husband.

It would seem that our spirit can exist without the body.

Carl Jung believed that life has a spiritual purpose.[65][66] 

Our main task, he believed, is to 'transform' our spirit.

"Based on his study of religions, Jung believed that this 'journey of transformation' is at the heart of all religions. 

"It is a journey to meet the self and at the same time to meet the Divine.[67] 

"Jung wrote about the transformation of the impure soul (lead) to perfected soul (gold).[19]

Jung influenced quantum mechanics with the idea of synchronicity.

...

"Jung wrote that images found in dreams could be helpful in recovering from trauma and emotional distress.

"He often drew, painted, or made objects and constructions at times of emotional distress, which he recognized as more than recreational." [14]

What Happens When You Die?.

According to near-death accounts, the reason for our existence is to attain spiritual growth.

Some people believe that "Love is God and loving others and everything is all that really matters."

Spirituality and the Near-Death Experience

"While in a physical body, the kingdom of God is located within.

"What one person does, affects everyone else.

"We are all of one spirit and to change the world we only need to change ourselves. 

"One simple act of unselfish love affects everyone else. 

Spirituality and the Near-Death Experience



"A simple smile has the power to alter the course of human history.

"The good we do for others will eventually come back to us.

"The important things is that we are to help each other rise to a higher level of love. 

"Heaven and hell are not locations but are spiritual states of being. 



"The chief purpose for returning to the physical world is for instruction that leads to the advancement of our souls in spiritual maturity.

"We are given all the opportunities it takes, as many lifetimes as it takes, to achieve it.

"Then, like the prodigal son, we return to our true home. Once we have learned the lessons needed in the physical world, we do not need to return."

Spirituality and the Near-Death Experience

"The ultimate in spiritual development in any Spiritual path is merging with God.

"'Merging with God' means experiencing God within us and all around us and not identifying with our five senses, mind and intellect."

Purpose of Life