Sunmaster

Yes, the truth in a direct manner. And yes, the human body is a great tool for truth finding, if you know how to use it. When you start to listen within, any kind of concept is a barrier, be it spiritual or materialistic. Concepts are mental constructs. When you listen within however, the goal is to shake off such concepts, like onion skins. And then you work yourself inwards, towards the heart of it, peeling off layers as you go. Just ask yourself: Who am I? Are you the body? Are you the mind? Your feelings and emotions? Your memories? Your name? Layer after discarded layer, you become lighter, more free, more yourself. So you continue as far as you can go. The onion skins closest to the heart are the most stubborn. They've been there for a long time. They were put there when we were very young. But once those have been peeled off too, what is left?? Who were you before you were given a name? You could call it "the heart of the onion", or "Divine Onion" or "The Onioness" or many other cool names. I wouldn't say that they are beyond our senses at all. It depends on which senses you're talking about. The internal senses are very adequate to know the inner world. That's their job. And it's not distant at all. How far are you from you? No need to take on a complete belief system. The only thing you need is a healthy curiosity to find out if there is more to you than what you've been told. What is there to believe? Nothing. Believing is replaced by knowing. What do you have to lose? We are made of 3 fundamental parts (or onion layers): body, mind and spirit. Leaving any one of them out would only increase the doubt, because you would be trying to hide something... to yourself. And that won't work to your advantage.

I let that run through my mind... I think that's an excellent question that we should all ask ourselves. It's human nature to add items to whatever framework we are working with. How much of what is in that framework comes from your own experience and how much derives from other sources? What are the conditions for those other sources to be accepted in your framework? For me, there must be a degree of trust, and trust has to be earned. I think it's safe to say that we all have some beliefs that are based on info from the outside. People usually don't go to verify the math behind gravitational attraction. They trust that the source has done its homework and that the results are valid. The same goes for more metaphysical data. Take Paramhansa Yogananda for example. Throughout his life he was consistent between what he said and what he did. No students abuse, no sexual misconduct, no amassing of luxury goods or power. All he ever did was to point out the divine within each of us and give practical tools on how to reconnect with it. What he said about the divine matched my own experience, but went a lot further than that. Given that condition (info consistent with my framework) and trust in the source (judged by actions rather than words), the info that goes beyond my personal experience was adopted safely in the framework as well. The biggest problem I see, is that some may not have the discerning tools to evaluate whether a source is reliable or not. They go by overall consensus. "Most people say it's like that, so it's probably true". Info gets added to the framework unchecked. And this is exactly what my main point has been in the past years on this forum. From the very beginning I pointed out that true knowledge comes from the inside. You can read a million self-help books or holy books and it won't change you much. Yet, one instant of deep insight can change everything. Practice is the key to reconnect with your inner world. Practice strengthens and expands the framework. Practice is the fuel that powers the BS detector. Practice is transformative. Practice is the key to go from believing to knowing. Practice is the Antivirus in the USB drive.

YES! That's exactly what it is. You described it very well, in fact better than I did. ???? I will give your warning some thought. ????

I will answer this one because it's about my personal experience. I had that one major experience which was responsible for changing everything. For several months afterwards I was ecstatic and "blissed out". But I was also <deleted> off, because I wanted to know why nobody had ever told me about this. How come this wasn't taught at school? How come nobody even knows about it? The world would be so much better if this were common knowledge and practiced daily. I can describe the experience like this.... By surrendering to what wanted to rise up (kundalini), I offered my ego to be obliterated. That construction we call our identity, fell in one big swoop and allowed the kundalini to rise unobstructed through my whole body. Once it reached my head, there was an explosion of light and I had a clarity about myself and the workings of the world that I never even suspected were possible at all. It was like when you have a USB drive with a lot of junk on it. The kundalini formatted that drive and this allowed it to be filled with a lot more useful and truthful data. Now you're right when you doubt that the things I mentioned in the previous post all came from that one experience. They didn't. The experience created a new framework. One which must include everything (the good, the bad, the ugly, science, religion, spirituality and everything in between). If even one aspect of reality doesn't fit this "theory of everything", then that means the theory is not complete. Notice how this is usually the other way around, "This idea doesn't fit my belief system, therefore it must be false." So then, this framework was created on the ruins of the old one. From here on, I did my own research, reading everything I could get my hands on. The money I spent on books! No internet at that time. Everything I learned found its place in this new framework. To answer your question: Yes, a lot of data was downloaded to my "USB drive". This data alone dispensed with the need to believe once and for all. I don't endorse any one single belief system in particular, but try to find the gems of truth in all of them. That's why I can easily jump from talking about scientific consciousness research to meditation, or from physics to mysticism, and I see no contradictions whatsoever. Wow, that was a long one. Tippaporn must have infected me with his writing style virus. Yes, I blame him.

These are a lot of good questions and you're right to ask them. I could try to answer them, but the problem is it won't make much of a difference to you. For you, they will be empty words because you don't have a reference point to validate them. The first step is asking them. The next step is listening. Not necessarily to what I or others have to say about them, but to what comes from your inside. That way the answers will have their own validity. But to do that effectively, you need to learn to trust those inner hints. Jesus supposedly said "the kingdom of heaven is inside of you". This just means that your inner world is the gateway to this higher state of consciousness. All the answers lie within. Know thyself and you'll know God. See how everything points in the same direction?

You see it as a contradiction, but it's not. Life is full of seemingly unfair situations, children with cancer being one, but also the rich and powerful who get away with things that poor people can't, the sh!t that happens to you despite your best efforts, "it's always the best of us who die young", diseases that befall nice people and so on. But contradictions are only such when you look at them from the perspective where they were created. If you look at them from a higher perspective, you would be able to integrate them in a wider framework. In the case above, this would mean a situation where the idea of a benevolent higher power AND sick children can coexist at the same time and are not mutually exclusive. How is that possible? The higher perspective tells me that life is a dream-like scenario. Buddhists call it samsara (illusion), Shakespeare called it a stage, where we are the actors. What do we do on this dreamlike stage? We slip into a body (play a role) to act out certain scenarios, from which we are supposed to learn something. Through us and our experiences, God can experience itself. What could a sick child learn from cancer? Maybe compassion for other suffering creatures. Maybe they agreed to this scenario to teach those around them about compassion. Maybe something else... The point is that each and everyone of us agreed to be here. Nothing happens by chance. There are no victims of circumstances. This life is just a blink of an eye for the eternal soul, and from the perspective of the soul, even the hardest life will appear like a fleeting dream. The way I see it, there's no contradiction.

TBL and I agree on many things, but this is still one point where we completely disagree. He believes that the Godhead created the universe and everything in it and then left evolution to its own device. God is not interested in the affairs of mankind and doesn't care what you do with your life. My belief is that we are part of this super-consciousness that some call God and that we have a direct access line to this consciousness. Such a consciousness is aware of everything within it. I also believe that one of the fundamental aspects of reality, the driving force of the universe or "God attribute" is love and that the universe is benevolent. These 2 core beliefs create 2 very different scenarios: With the first one, you set yourself apart from the Godhead. "God created me and the world, but now it's off somewhere doing its thing and doesn't care or know about me". This creates a tension, a dissonance, loneliness, separation. The second one allows you to feel connected to the Godhead in a direct, personal and loving relationship. "I have nothing to fear because I know that every path ultimately leads to the One. "God" is alive within me and I'm alive within it, and we are ultimately one and the same thing."

>>>repost<<< I imagine a rotating disc, the "disc of creation". As we know, the edges of the disc will rotate much faster than the center. The closer we get to the center, the lower the speed. Imagining the center being close to infinite (say 1×10−a gazillion), makes time at that point close to zero (timeless/NOW). I also imagine there to be a slope, with the highest point in the center. That way, the center has a 360 degree view of the whole disc at all times. The closer you get to the edge, the less of the disc is visible to the observer. An observer on the edge of the disc will experience time very differently from an observer on other points of the disc, closer to the center. For the observer on the edge, time seems to be linear, with a past, a present and a future, but for the observer closer to the center, those 3 points are observable and coexist all at the same time. This model explains the paradox Tippaporn was talking about. Time exists, is relative to the distance from the center, becomes less binding the closer we get to the center, and ceases to exist at the center. So, where is God in this model? "God" is the center of the "disc of creation", all seeing, all knowing, timeless. But God is also the disc itself. There is nothing in creation that is not God.

@Elad https://nowdictation.com/q/Time/

Yes, I read a book about him a long time ago. Good stuff.

That's ok. Nobody is perfect. ????

That's correct. Drugs as in "entheogenic substances" or "consciousness expanding plants" can help, but there is absolutely no guarantee that they will actually release the kundalini. In whichever way she is released, the essence of the K remains the same.

Yes, it's true that not everyone experiences it the way I did. I could have gone into panic mode and had a bad trip, but I surrendered to it and had the most amazing time of my life. This was a one time thing for me though. Not that I didn't want it, but it has a mind of its own...or "her" own as she's female energy. I don't believe in those who claim they can "activate the kundalini in 5 easy and fast steps". That's marketing BS to sell books or workshops. The negative effects are mostly due to the unwillingness of people to let go. For a full k awakening the "death" of the ego is a must. That is the scariest part of the experience. If you can't let go of the ego, you will block and fight the k from fully rising. That in turn creates a very frightening scenario...the fear of dying. But let's put it into perspective. Negative experiences can happen, but are quite rare. K doesn't create them. We create them by resisting its flow. The positive experiences far outweigh the negative ones and to that I can attest personally.

Aren't we all getting a bit lost in unimportant details here? I offered my personal story (about the kundalini awakening, see Tummo Shaktipat below) to the materialists to see if they could come up with any kind of material explanation. But apart from Woof999's reply, nothing. What happened to me could happen to anyone of you at any time. How would you react to it? Would you still stick to science? You've been asking for practical examples and evidence. Here it is. Are you just going to pretend not to see it? Quick summary: As an atheist, I had no knowledge of or even interest in spirituality. Even spiritual individuals rarely ever hear about the kundalini. So, zero chance to have fed my brain with any kind of subconscious suggestions. Yet there I was, fully blown away by that experience of cosmic unity, deep love and knowledge. No idea what just happened but so so deeply grateful and blessed that it did. AFTERWARDS, I learned what it was and that it had a name (kundalini) and amazingly, the stories from other people's experiences coincided with mine to a degree that categorically excludes mere coincidence. How, in scientific terms, is that possible? If the science is strong in you, young materialists, then you must surely be able to come up with a valid theory.

They are mere amateurs compared to you. ????

No no please. Stay. I'll reply properly once I recover from this laughing fit.

Hold on. So you're telling me that after all your temper tantrums, you actually believe that channeling is real? You're just pulling my leg, right? Right?

@Elad Have you thought about the questions I asked?

I doubt he meant you.. ????

Come on @save the frogs, don't let me hanging. This is going to be good.

Well, world domination of course, across all possible dimensions. What else?

And how exactly are you qualified to judge me on my view of spirituality. Prey tell. I'm all ears.

No such thing. All of us here value science, but we don't believe science has the answers to our questions. We have said this many times already. The boxing match only starts when people (like you) insist that science is the only judge of what is real and what is not.

Really now? ???? What were they channeling exactly?

Thank you for this honest and personal post. Much appreciated. You're right...we are not that dissimilar.