“I often feel less 'attached' to situations, and more of an observer. i wonder if that is similar to your train of thought, James.”

If I had a dollar for ever time that I’ve said, “I feel more like an observer in this life than a participant”, I’d be a millionaire.

Here is a thought, we all know we only use a small portion of the brain, could the rest of it be the library you speak of Abra? It would explain why we have it.

As for Knowing people before we ever meet them? Happens quite more frequently than some people want to admit if you ask me. I like to think those that Seem familiar Are familiar. Most of the people I have met in this fashion have made a significant contribution to the path I travel. So in that case I like to consider these people my Soul Family. They seem to be of like mind and philosophy, and they tend to be quite a bit more honest with themselves than ordinary people.

Knowing that there is definately a different plane of existance makes these ideas more believable. Having a Near death experience made it easier to believe there is another place that we go to after here. The ethereal feeling is what really made me start to believe there is another place.

One of these days if I'm lucky I'll find the end of my religious search until that time I hope to keep an open mind to posts like this one.



G

Soul Family...a term I use also, though not lightly.

The Familiars....those that you 'know'...that are as much 'you', as you are...those whose words are yours, and speak them as you write them, speak them yourself...the synchronicity..

Yes, Gryphyn...I hear you.

Re Abra wrote:

"So many when we’re in the form of a lower animal we aren’t even really aware of our own existence so much. Maybe instead the actual experience is more like being an observer of life rather than a participant.

My cat sure seems to be enjoying his existence I can tell you that much. He just lays around taking everything in without a care in the world. "

So maybe being an animal is a "soul vacation"- you know, "go greyhound and leave the driving to them"?

Harry wrote..

'We don't need to know all the answers right now. Just accept it and the knowledge will come when it's needed.'

I couldn't agree more!!!

“One of these days if I'm lucky I'll find the end of my religious search until that time I hope to keep an open mind to posts like this one.”

I seriously consider my religious search to be over. I’ve actually considered it to be over since I was in my mid 30’s thanks to my guru/mentor Alan Watts. I never met the man in person, nor have I seen him on TV, but I’m pretty sure that I read all 25 of his books! I probably should order the DVD’s from his TV shows and check out the man who enlightened me to the way of the Zen.

I highly recommend his books.

I was just reading his biography and it just now occurred to me that he died in his sleep at 58.

I’m 58.

I may be closer to meeting my maker than I realize. But it’s not a problem. I’ve been prepared for that moment my entire life. There is nothing left undone.

You can read about the man here if you like:

http://www.alanwatts.com/aw_story.html

By the way, I’m not pushing eastern mysticism. I’m just sharing my own personal history and the fact that the writings of Alan Watt’s had a profound influence on my spiritual enlightenment. Everyone must find their own path. His purpose in life was to be a writer. My purpose in life was to be a reader.

By the way, on the audio and animations page you can download free mp3s of Alan Watts lectures if you’re interested.

Just for the record, I’m in no way affiliated with the site. I’m just sharing with you the author who helped me find my spiritual destiny.

So many shared experiences. We are all more alike than we are different. Take away the opinions we have formed, those things that our experiences have led to our bias and what we share is more than first appearances and first meetings might portray.

Abra, like many here, view the ability to have an open mind as a virtue and as thing to strive for.

He also brings up the 'fly on the wall' concept, which I'm sure many can identify with. I have had moments that I call flashes, because I suddenly feel surrounded by a wall of light. In those moments, I was part of a situation or even, and at some point I suddenly flashed and saw the goings on as a whole picture, as if I was no longer a participant, but only a sight seer.

Gryphyn stated this:
"Here is a thought, we all know we only use a small portion of the brain, could the rest of it be the library you speak of Abra? It would explain why we have it."

So if we combine the 'flash' experience and Gryphyns' brain storage possibility, could not some people, like Edgar Cacey, have found a way to access, through a flash that portion of the brain that might serve as a library.

So, with an open mind - Edgar Cacey believed that in his trance state he was able to access, what he called, the book of life. I have always believed that this was his way to identify with the whole of consciousness he came into contact with when viewing this information. Being a very religious man, I would imagine his 'experiences'with Christianity, led him to define what he viewed in trance, in accordance with his experience. Hence he would view the book of life, or sometimes he called it the book of knowledge in religious terms.

There are literally thousands of case studies, in which he 'viewed' from a distance a person and was able to determine their ailments and not only suggest cures but also how to make them, where to find the ingredients, and how to use the finished product, and preventative measure for the future. From these cases, has come a wealth of home remedies and many are considered alternative treatments, today, by much of the medical profession.

So with an open mind, having, in this post, substantiated the likeness of our own expereinces, how can any simpy pass Cacey off as a total fake and quackster?

There are many whose ideas and beliefs we can't understand or even relate to, but it never hurts, in the quest for knowledge and understanding, to try to keep an open mind.

Cacey could be a perfect example of being able to tap into the library, however I am sure there are more that are able to tap that portion than are even realized.

What some call Deja Vu I like to call Deja View. My reasoning is easy, each time we see or feel we have done this before could be reliving what we planned to happen from the library earlier stated.

What would happen if these small instances of a second or two became waking minutes of Deja View. Could you imagine what it would be like to be able to react and possibly change a fleeting moment of Deja View?

Are these moments or minutes or even hours of Deja View the tapping of the brains ability to acess a different plane of knowledge?


If my religious/spiritual searh was to end I think I would become stagnant in my thinking, by constantly searching for more knowledge I feel as though there is more than meets the eye.



G

"If my religious/spiritual searh was to end I think I would become stagnant in my thinking, by constantly searching for more knowledge I feel as though there is more than meets the eye."

Just because a person is happy with their spirituality doesn't mean they have all the answers to everything. On the contrary they may have simply accepted that it's not possible to know all the answers.

That's certainly where I'm at. I'm not worried about trying to get any closer to "god". I don't believe that I can get any closer to god in my human form than I already am.

However, that doesn’t mean that I’m not still interested in other mysteries of life. I’m constantly studying physics and math for example. But not for the purpose of finding any surrealistic answers. It’s just fun to toy with the puzzles. I don’t beleive everyone requires that kind of intellectual stimulation though. For example, some people may be very content with creating art, such as paintings, music, writing fictional novels.

Creating new things is every bit as rewarding as discovering unknown things.

As I said earlier, Alan Watts really brought to my attention the futility of trying to find the answer to spirituality. It’s not knowable in this lifetime. So to focus on it too much is really a waste of energy that could be better spent focusing on more productive things.

I personally don’t believe that my purpose in life is to “grow in spirit” anyway. Although, this may be other people’s purpose. My path actually led me back to where I was when I was a child. I now live my life with the innocence of a child. I was born enlightened and just didn’t know it. Well, actually I did, but I got side-tracked by lies put forth by well-established, and well-meaning, but totally bogus religions.

Once I got back on my original track I felt that I had found my spiritual answer. There was no longer any need to investigate it further. However, that hardly made my life become stagnant. On the contrary, it freed me up to get on with other things! My life is anything but stagnant.

I know what you mean by being on track. It seems I was able to get back on track these last few years with my writing and enjoying the life I have. As for searching for spirituality? I tend to believe that I grow daily in this aspect of my life. I feel to be spiritual is to be at peace with one self and the surroundings I am in.

Like many of us here the religious dogma's have been cast by the wayside, I feel I gain more insight to the question of spirituality in some of the thinking shared here than I ever do in most other areas I frequent.

My use of the word stagnant was not meant to imply what it did and for that I apoligize.

I wonder how close can we really get to that almighty god? I often think that to try to become closer to oneself has a far greater satisfaction and as a result of this satisfaction attained I feel better about the world around me. There are plenty of mysteries in this world to be searched out and worrying about how close I am to the almighty seems to be a waste of what little time I have on this place we call earth.


I am curious though, Don't we grow in spirituality each time we seek out the mysteries of life? I like to think its the questions we ask that makes a difference and finding the answers the grail of the quest.



G

There IS only one way. Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto God except by me." Matthew 7:13-14 says: Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Hebrews 9:27 - And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:

"Mr. Right"-

Re: you wrote "There IS only one way"

If you truly believe that there is only one way, and that those of us (myself included) who do not share your belief are going to the Christian Hell, and you are further instructed by your religion to love your fellow human beings as brothers and sisters then I totally understand your desire to try to convince us to share your belief.

Because under the aforementioned conditions you would be doing a good thing by "saving" the "unbelievers". But do you actually think making such a strong blanket statement in an adversarial manner would help accomplish this goal?

Is that being a "good Christian"? Doesn't seem very useful to me but I wish you well...

"How do I know that when I die here I will not be born somewhere else?"

Lin Lei

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"Life terminates in a sleep
that is followed
by a new awakening"

Chuang Tzu

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Just some thoughts from sages... my own words tend to spawn more words at times... and my posts become longer than necessary and more complex than I intended...

Peace.

One path that leads to a single-ended progression of souls attached to physical bodies (not so very different from the one-way path of time progression we seem to experience, but that's another problem) is the idea of soul as an emergent property. Many studiers of artificial intelligence maintain that intelligence is an emergent property of sufficiently complex systems. Why not then human intelligence, self-awareness, and soul?

Of course, even if the soul is an emergent property of some sort of system it need not preclude "infection" of an appropriate substrate with some pre-existing soul. This reopens the idea of a double-ended soul experience for any particular substrate/body. Ray Kurzweil in "The Singularity is Near" gives an easily imagined mechanism for this for folks of today in his prophecy of cyborgs in the relatively near future. If his idea persuades one of the feasibility of intelligent machines and machine/human hybrids then anyone who has copied a CD can easily imagine cloning one's soul. These souls being to diverge immediately.

hey, dont get me wrong. Im not saying ANYBODY is wrong. im just quoting what the Jesus Himself said. and a few other scriptures that back it all up. I'm not gonna try to "convince" u to convert to anything. the choice to live a live devoted for God is totally up to you. i cant make that for u. the way i see it, is that if you want to convert someone, or see someone converted, telling them isnt going to convince anything....if you believe that something is the truth, then you have to live it. the Bible talks about how we'll know a true believer by the fruits of their spirit. if they're living right like the Bible tells us to, then ppl are going to know there's something different and be like: "There's something different about them. They're always happy even during struggles, their marriage isnt doing so well, but yet they're happy as can be. They've got this, this and this goin on, but that doesnt seem to phase em..I wanna know what they have, cause I gotta get ahold of it."