21 December, 2012 - What To Expect?

[mac]

Thats right Mac, we cant be 100 % sure that we are right....that remind me of a description of a painting I read from Akiane...the girlo who painted the Jesus face:

"Search for Truth"

"Search for Truth" is a painting about humanity's search for the origin, destiny, and meaning of life. It is a story of how we look for the truth and how we treat others as they also try to discover it.

With so many scientific achievements we know so little of where w..................ontinuously.

I believe everyone should have an opportunity to search for truth their own way. Humility, peace, child-like enthusiasm, acceptance, and sincerity is the true infinity engine!

"Thats right Mac, we cant be 100 % sure that we are right...." I don't see it as a matter of us being 100% sure that we're right but rather one of trying to avoid being hopelessly wrong.

I totally agree with you that everyone should have the opportunity to search for truth in their own way but for those who prefer a little guidance over wandering blindly, I try to help.

I've never seen any advantage in re-inventing the wheel.....

[vic smyth]

...leads to a blind ally.

Speaking of blind alleys. There have been many times that I felt that I was following my Inner Guide only to be led down a blind alley. It was only after the frustration of realizing it was a blind alley, feeling betrayed, and backtracking that I came to learn something even from the blind alley. I learn more from my failures than my successes.


With Lovingkindness (metta),
vic

[mac]

Speaking of blind alleys. There have been many times that I felt that I was following my Inner Guide only to be led down a blind alley. It was only after the frustration of realizing it was a blind alley, feeling betrayed, and backtracking that I came to learn something even from the blind alley. I learn more from my failures than my successes.


With Lovingkindness (metta),
vic

I can identify with these sentiments.

There was a time when I felt I needed to open my mind and consider what others were doing, saying, telling me I needed to do. I set aside my natural caution to embrace the guidance my former friends were advocating only to find their philosophy was shot full of holes beneath its glossy surface. Later it all failed for them and I was left emotionally wounded and - as you put it vic - feeling betrayed.

But also like yourself it taught me a great deal and that helps me feel a little more confident when I am trying to help others. Perhaps it's just as you say that we may learn more from failure than success. I'm relieved, though, that I'm not always having to deal with failure just to move forward a little!

[Roberta Grimes]

I accept that as always we have to rely on teachings from others but isn't that always the way? Or it is at least for now and maybe into the foreseeable future.... (is there one?) But teachers can give vastly different accounts so who's to say which one(s) have things right - even if they say the same thing. Fools seldom differ?

Some modern teachers and guides give a wholly different account of the matters we're discussing without this emphasis on illusion or dream. They have explained just how important this physical realm is and also why, and how, it was created. But each to their own and I have no desire to persuade or change how others think - only to offer an alternative perspective. I don't claim I know the truth; only that I'm constantly pursuing it.

In time we may understand a little more and I do accept for you time has less importance than it does for me. But it's hard enough for many to accept survival at all. Portraying life here (or elsewhere) as a dream or an illusion is likely to confuse them greatly. I think it does really matter, Roberta when we can barely conceive what 'mind' is let alone define it. To then portray it as being the only thing that's real - when we can't even agree what 'real' means - leads to a blind ally.

You are right, of course. For many folks, the notion that nothing but Mind is real is going to be enough to make their eyes cross. It will seem both daunting and disappointing. I think we all tend to begin with the end in mind - we seek within a framework of our own design - and I have long had a passionate need to know what is true. I haven't been looking for comfort. I think that most lay folks who casually research the afterlife are trying to find a comforting story to tell themselves in order to ease their fear of death. But that never was me, for some reason. I didn't want to be comforted. I had to know what was true.

We can talk, of course, about the fact that our minds while they are limited by material brains and earthly experiences cannot begin to comprehend a wider truth. And we can talk, too, about the fact that in the greater reality the very concept of truth is different from the way that we perceive truth. We can understand the reality that we return to at death the way a toddler can have a grasp of nuclear physics! But still, with all of that, the more urgently or patiently or in whatever way you conduct your research, and no matter the direction from which you approach it, when you delve deeply enough into the afterlife evidence you always come to the same conclusion. Mind is the only eternal reality. And I don't know how not to say that!

[mac]

At very minimum I think that members following our discussions and debates will see clearly that we take issues very seriously even though we may not reach the selfsame conclusions.

I hope this won't sound sycophantic but there's a spirit of investigation, a preparedness to engage, on this website which I'm not seeing in the several others which once used to be my regular, favorite haunts (no pun!)

All power to Afterlife Forums' elbow!

[BruceAdama]

21 December, 2012 - What To Expect?

I expect to wake up on December 22, 2012 to a new day. If the Earth does end up going ka-blewie I'll be just as happy, but I don't think it will.

[Birki]

At very minimum I think that members following our discussions and debates will see clearly that we take issues very seriously even though we may not reach the selfsame conclusions.

I hope this won't sound sycophantic but there's a spirit of investigation, a preparedness to engage, on this website which I'm not seeing in the several others which once used to be my regular, favorite haunts (no pun!)

All power to Afterlife Forums' elbow!

Very interesting you should post this today. On another board I frequent (completely unrelated to the afterlife) someone posted a poll today asking if people have ever been to a medium and if they believe what they said or not. The results and discussion, I must say, are disheartening. As a follow-up the original poster said she asked the question because she found out about a group reading being held on the eve of the fourth anniversary of her mother's death! I posted that she should go - it is possible her mother even put the idea in her head in the first place! I am sure I am now labeled a weirdo on that site (if I wasn't already!), not that I particularly care.

And to keep on topic, I don't think anything special will happen on December 21!

[Roberta Grimes]

Very interesting you should post this today. On another board I frequent (completely unrelated to the afterlife) someone posted a poll today asking if people have ever been to a medium and if they believe what they said or not. The results and discussion, I must say, are disheartening. As a follow-up the original poster said she asked the question because she found out about a group reading being held on the eve of the fourth anniversary of her mother's death! I posted that she should go - it is possible her mother even put the idea in her head in the first place! I am sure I am now labeled a weirdo on that site (if I wasn't already!), not that I particularly care.

And to keep on topic, I don't think anything special will happen on December 21!

You are right, dear Birki - we are told by the dead that an impulse to see a medium generally comes from a dead loved one who wants to get in touch with us. So, everyone, follow that impulse!

Dear Mac, your talk about this site's spirit of investigation and engagement made my day! I have no time to be part of other forums - I barely manage to make time for this one! - so I don't know what they do. But from the start, we have tried to make afterlifeforums like an eighteenth-century salon, a dress-up party where everyone politely but intensely engages in important discussions. And thanks to you and to the other members here, that is what it has become. Thank you!!

... And, yup, 12/21 will be nothing more than one day closer to Christmas ;-).

[Sapphire]

I am sure I am now labeled a weirdo on that site (if I wasn't already!), not that I particularly care.

If that is so, then those folks aren't quite prepared to consider the possibilities, even though one of them posed a very good (and possibly enlightening) question.

Moreover, if you are indeed a "weirdo", then I am, as well.

[Carol and Mikey]

You are right, of course. For many folks, the notion that nothing but Mind is real is going to be enough to make their eyes cross. It will seem both daunting and disappointing. I think we all tend to begin with the end in mind - we seek within a framework of our own design - and I have long had a passionate need to know what is true. I haven't been looking for comfort. I think that most lay folks who casually research the afterlife are trying to find a comforting story to tell themselves in order to ease their fear of death. But that never was me, for some reason. I didn't want to be comforted. I had to know what was true.

We can talk, of course, about the fact that our minds while they are limited by material brains and earthly experiences cannot begin to comprehend a wider truth. And we can talk, too, about the fact that in the greater reality the very concept of truth is different from the way that we perceive truth. We can understand the reality that we return to at death the way a toddler can have a grasp of nuclear physics! But still, with all of that, the more urgently or patiently or in whatever way you conduct your research, and no matter the direction from which you approach it, when you delve deeply enough into the afterlife evidence you always come to the same conclusion. Mind is the only eternal reality. And I don't know how not to say that!

Roberta and Mac,
Mikey says how about calling life here "a course in action" versus an illusion? Earth is our school for Spiritual Growth and we are taking a "course" here that is constantly in action. Our experiences here are very "real" for our growth. This growth progresses our "minds/ consciousness" = our souls on love . Love is the basis of "All Beings" which is of God = Mind .
Mikey feels what the real "illusion" actually is, is people thinking of "Heaven" as whispy among or above the clouds, it is transparent, with people floating around, etc. But what is real and solid is Heaven and the Unity of God which is Infinite = Mind, or whatever term you choose to use. The bottom line is its all about LOVE of multiple vibrations. Just another perspective . Mikey wonders if this is easier to understand.
Carol and Mikey "in Spirit"