An interesting conversation, I’m enjoying it.
Like Typoz, I tend to warm to the idea and I too am not really that bothered about the details.
Typoz, I’ve no preconceived ideas, this is not a rhetorical type question. Who or what did you direct your prayers to, if anyone or anything?
(2021-09-06, 12:24 PM)Stan Woolley Wrote: [ -> ]An interesting conversation, I’m enjoying it.
Like Typoz, I tend to warm to the idea and I too am not really that bothered about the details.
Typoz, I’ve no preconceived ideas, this is not a rhetorical type question. Who or what did you direct your prayers to, if anyone or anything?
That last part is a very good question.
I had, like most people of my age at that time in my part of the world, an acquaintance with Christianity. In fact for a few years I went to a C of E school, where the religion was perhaps presented more strongly than in some other schools. However, I always had difficulty with it, there were so many problems of logic, at least in the explanations we were given, that it was not something to be taken seriously. By the time I was 18, I was pretty much a materialist, where even telepathy or any psi phenomena were completely ruled out.
So when I was in need, out of sheer desperation, I began very honestly with an admission that I didn't know if there was any God or not. That was part of the prayer. I'm probably of the mind that whatever it is, we all approach in our own way, and that is right and proper because there is no pretence, it done with sincerity for each of us.
I'll add that I had already changed my mind on materialism by that time, through a number of personal experiences of telepathy, synchronicity, OOBEs and dreams.
Hi Typoz
Thank you for sharing your personal experience - much appreciated.
The first thing I would say is that I'd hesitate to challenge anyone's personal experience. What it means is difficult for me to know and it's your experience in any case. Things may be exactly as you believe them to be.
I suppose from my own perspective, lots of people have convincing personal experiences (myself included) and many of the elements are complementary and many seemingly contradictory. I think if it works for you and you're not scaring the horses or hurting other people then it's as good a model as anything else. Especially if it helps give meaning to life for you. The trick is to be able to surrender it if a better explanation emerges and to try to avoid forcing new discoveries to fit if that makes sense? I don't think anyone living (and from my reading, not many dead) has anywhere near a full picture of what life is really about and what the future holds in the very long term.
On fairness; it seems plain to me that life as we experience isn't fair really. What happens seems to be a combination of luck, personal decisions sometimes taken with no idea of the consequences, and the intervention of other people (list not exhaustive). Recognising that this is the case would be a profoundly depressing thought for most people I should think. If they considered it at all.
It's the same with death perhaps in some ways. I was sitting in the garden thinking.. ten, twenty or thirty years from now, someone else will own the house and garden. Probably no one alive then will even remember me. That could be a very depressing thought if I dwelt on it, or hadn't thought about it enough lol.
(2021-09-06, 02:11 PM)Obiwan Wrote: [ -> ]Hi Typoz
Thank you for sharing your personal experience - much appreciated.
The first thing I would say is that I'd hesitate to challenge anyone's personal experience. What it means is difficult for me to know and it's your experience in any case. Things may be exactly as you believe them to be.
I suppose from my own perspective, lots of people have convincing personal experiences (myself included) and many of the elements are complementary and many seemingly contradictory. I think if it works for you and you're not scaring the horses or hurting other people then it's as good a model as anything else. Especially if helps give meaning to life for you. The trick is to be able to surrender it if a better explanation emerges and to try to avoid forcing new discoveries fit if that makes sense? I don't think anyone living (and from my reading, not many dead) has anywhere near a full picture of what life is really about and what the future holds in the very long term.
On fairness; it seems plain to me that life as we experience isn't fair really. What happens seems to be a combination of luck, personal decisions sometimes taken with no idea of the consequences, and the intervention of other people (list not exhaustive). Recognising that this is the case would be a profoundly depressing thought for most people I should think. If they considered it at all.
It's the same with death perhaps in some ways. I was sitting in the garden thinking.. ten, twenty or thirty years from now, someone else will own the house and garden. Probably no one alive then will even remember me. That could be a very depressing thought if I dwelt on it, or hadn't thought about it enough lol.
Glad you appreciated it, at least to the extent that it was comprehensible. There was much, much more, but a lot of it seems just too personal to be open about. I discussed these things more thoroughly with my close friends at the time (decades ago) and that did serve a purpose, trying to get some sort of perspective.
As far as fairness, I don't think
everything can be considered 'fair', there are terrible things which happen and we should not blame the victims for their own misfortune. But that gets into a much larger question. When I mentioned fairness in that previous post, it was really a matter of accepting myself, warts and all. Acceptance, at least at that time, was very much a part of the route out of it all. But it was just me facing myself, not me facing an intruder or something external.
As for luck, well I used to argue with my parents about that, I used to strongly believe and state that we make our own luck. My parents just considered things to be random. I still think that our thoughts have a creative power and can influence things in the world, not so as to win the lottery, but in more everyday ways, such as engineering an unplanned meeting with someone who may be beneficial to our life - or we to theirs.
(2021-09-06, 07:53 AM)Typoz Wrote: [ -> ]Thanks for your reply, that is interesting. I thought perhaps you were rejecting reincarnation completely - or should I say, I thought you were tending or inclined in that direction. You've clarified that, I see you have some openness towards it.
Myself. Lots of blank spaces where I simply don't know anything, and prefer to leave open as areas of possibilities. Where I'm more specific, I'm pretty sure that reincarnation does happen, and that it isn't explainable by super-psi or data provided from spirits and so on.
Perhaps one area where I have most difficulty in communicating is the sort of visceral feelings of what it means to be an individual. When I think of reincarnation, I'm much less concerned with facts and figures, such as place-names or dates or recognising a particular building or location, or facts of any kind. Those are the sorts of things which are used in attempts at verification of past lives, but always seem somehow superficial to me. When I think of reincarnation, it is something deep inside, the 'this is me' sort of feeling, that is the part which I think of as surviving and re-arriving in a fresh body. Even with no obvious recall of any kind, the 'this is me' feeling persists. That is my view.
I tend to be sceptical of bold pronouncements, sometimes I hear people say "I'm sure this is my first life" or "I know I'm an old soul", I take both with a pinch of salt. Of course one should show respect towards other people and not be dismissive, but my feeling is, we within this life have a kind of amnesia or blockage so even the very obvious things may elude us, and so speculation is put forward as certainty. I guess on lots of things I'm more comfortable with uncertainty.
I was going to write a whole lot on how I arrived at my views, but as I ran through it in my mind, it was starting to look more like a book than a forum post, so I'll skip that for now. 
Hi Typoz,
I distinctly remember being around 5/6/7 years old and thinking specfically this:
That I couldn't wait to grow up and that I was upset that I had to "go through all this again", in relation to attending school.
It seemed like a voice that appeared in my head that wasn't mine (though I can't 100% say for sure since memories can be distorted), but it just felt like I'd done all of 'this before'.
And all my life, I definitely felt like I was an old soul, I never fit in with others when I was younger, I always had the one best friend who I was very close with and the people I were best friends with, most had some form of autism! I don't quite know what to make of that! Now I'm able to relate to nearly everyone.
But more recently I've also came to think that in some ways, I am still quite immature, and this has been reflected in some of the decisions in my life or experiences that I've had from the actions I've taken. You could say that in the context of reincarnation, that might be exactly why I've came back, so to speak. So now I don't know what to think anymore lol!
So overall, who knows what that all really means, but it is interesting that at a young age, I had a strong opinion and view on it. It probably wasn't an overt knowledge, but more a subtle 'knowing' deep down.
Strange.
(2021-09-06, 02:44 PM)Typoz Wrote: [ -> ]Glad you appreciated it, at least to the extent that it was comprehensible. There was much, much more, but a lot of it seems just too personal to be open about. I discussed these things more thoroughly with my close friends at the time (decades ago) and that did serve a purpose, trying to get some sort of perspective.
As far as fairness, I don't think everything can be considered 'fair', there are terrible things which happen and we should not blame the victims for their own misfortune. But that gets into a much larger question. When I mentioned fairness in that previous post, it was really a matter of accepting myself, warts and all. Acceptance, at least at that time, was very much a part of the route out of it all. But it was just me facing myself, not me facing an intruder or something external.
As for luck, well I used to argue with my parents about that, I used to strongly believe and state that we make our own luck. My parents just considered things to be random. I still think that our thoughts have a creative power and can influence things in the world, not so as to win the lottery, but in more everyday ways, such as engineering an unplanned meeting with someone who may be beneficial to our life - or we to theirs.
I agree with you that our thoughts have a significant influence on our material and spiritual life often without our even realising it. To the extent we can influence if not exactly make our own luck? - maybe. The type of occurrence you mention are a very curious phenomenon. I find Rupert Sheldrake’s idea of biomorphic fields very interesting and sometime wonder if there is some additional sort of human Wi-Fi connecting us to people who we know or with whom we have some sort of connection.
In my experience, not that it’s typical necessarily, self-acceptance in the sense that “I am what I am”, a work in progress took quite a long while to achieve and isn’t always something I can always maintain lol.
(2021-09-06, 02:11 PM)Obiwan Wrote: [ -> ]The first thing I would say is that I'd hesitate to challenge anyone's personal experience. What it means is difficult for me to know and it's your experience in any case. Things may be exactly as you believe them to be.
Just a brief comment on this part.
In the past I presented a much fuller account of my experiences, face-to-face with various people, individually and in small groups, very much with the intention of inviting criticism and challenges. Of course the people I spoke to were friends, some very close, others recent acquaintances, and they did treat me gently, rather than the rather brutal battles which take place on modern social media. (I was just reading how a tennis player was expecting as a matter of routine, to receive death threats after losing a match. Even if not taken literally, it can be tough out there.)
Most of the responses were more of curiosity. There was some criticism of the weakness of some of the things (physical artefacts) which I put forward as evidence. For the most part I don't think I convinced people, they left it open-ended. One of my closest friends, who I trusted to be more critical and honest, certainly at the time was mostly on board and reassured me that I was not losing my sanity. He also helped me to keep things in perspective and get a sense of balance.
All that was a very long time ago, and nowadays I don't try to convince anyone, it doesn't matter that much.
Die Nahtoderfahrung von Herrn Armin Bützberger (Eng. subtitles) - YouTube
This isn't strictly a veridical NDE/OBE but it is an exceptional account for several reasons. He doesn't mention this, but the protocol in this (incredibly) risky operation to repair his aorta, involves his body temperature being reduced down to around 15-18 degrees C and his head actually packed in ice. He is effectively dead during the operation, but the surgeons don't tell them that. He shouldn't be aware of anything, it's the same protocol more or less as the Pam Reynolds case.
Secondly, I can't remember ever hearing an account in which the experiencer (believes he has) acquired information about the surgeons past life, in this case that of a butcher, which has endowed the surgeon (in this life) with useful capabilities, one might say in jest
Thirdly, his earlier attempted suicide when he was a young man ties in nicely with this operation and also gives us insight into why we shouldn't attempt it.
That's a good one Tim, Mr Bützberger's experience is interesting. Though I'm not sure the surgeon would necessarily be pleased to hear that not only is he a great surgeon, he used to be a pretty good butcher too!