My current perspective on Reality - an experiential report

You are right. English is not my first language.

I have explained my position and presented some evidence for it in this thread:
http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threads/cr...lism.3140/

Okay but do you have some specific evidence that points to your position of the following, which is a quote from Michael Prescott? Even if you just provide one point, so we can start from there. 

EDIT - Or even if you would just talk about why you feel that is true? If English might be a problem.

[font='“Trebuchet MS”', sans-serif]If we are all fated to merge into an anonymous collective mass, then there is nothing to strive for, to hope to attain or to hope to avoid - nothing to value or disvalue. Then we're faced with the depressing and (almost literally) dispiriting conclusion that nothing means anything, and there are no values.[/font]

I understand the fear there, and I can understand the point of view BTW. But I don't know if I agree because my 'inner knowing' suggests a more positive conclusion than what Michael Prescott says. You never know though. I could be wrong and it could  be a trap of some kind (if that is what you are inferring). That's why I personally continue to keep an open mind, for as long as there is no definitive evidence. 

You might be aware of the work of Wes Penre? He talks about similar themes...

http://wespenre.com

My perspective on the oneness concept is that it is not some future possibility. Rather it is simply a description of what we already are - now. There is nothing to fear, since it isn't a destination to go to, but where we are right now.

I'm sceptical of people like you, who threaten others with oneness.

You should be sceptical - I'm very sceptical of myself too!!

As has kindly been expressed by Typoz and Diverdown, this is just my direct experience, not a theory or intellectual position which should be believed by others without question. Whilst it is an undeniable "reality" to me, I have great doubts to what extent this is in any way an accurate representation of "reality" out there. Is the microcosm (of my conscious experience) a true reflection of the macrocosm? I believe it may be, but I am completely unable to prove it!

I completely hear and appreciate your position, it is understandable. Whilst the support you provide for your perspective I don't personally find convincing & can, imo, easily fit it within the "one consciousness dividing itself infinitely" experience, I am not inclined to debate the point. If there is one thing that my experience has taught me is that all perspectives & opinions are valid, from some perspective.

The most important response to your perspective, I feel, Typoz has already made, and I don't think I can better it, it was also my response to your comments:

Typoz: "My perspective on the oneness concept is that it is not some future possibility. Rather it is simply a description of what we already are - now. There is nothing to fear, since it isn't a destination to go to, but where we are right now.".

To Describe the oneness I describe as some sort of "mush" is, imo, to only have an intellectual grasp of it, not experiential imo? Oneness doesn't deny any aspect of reality (such as the sense of individuality), but rather contains it.

Peace all!!

Manjit

Okay but do you have some specific evidence that points to your position of the following, which is a quote from Michael Prescott? Even if you just provide one point, so we can start from there. 

You might be aware of the work of Wes Penre? He talks about similar themes...

http://wespenre.com

Some people like Sylvia Browne talk about giving up one's individuality etc. 

Evidence gained from psychical research suggests that consciousness survives death. Discarnate spirits can communicate through mediums, some children remember their past lives and sometimes people can see apparitions of the dead etc. People who experience oneness during NDE return to their bodies and thus retain their individuality. All this evidence negates the view that we are fated to merge into some larger being (but it doesn't negate manjit's interpretation of his experience, which he clarified in his latest message).

NDErs who talk about oneness always (in the cases I have read) say that their individuality was retained.

http://www.nderf.org/Experiences/1willia..._7340.html

William H: "This is why I say we are individual spheres of communion within the Universal Sphere of Communion. Because when we come into contact there, all that we know and all that we are passes uninhibited between us in a natural and open communion of shared being."

[/url]
[url=https://iands.org/research/publications/vital-signs/67-vs25no1petro.html?showall=&start=6]https://iands.org/research/publications/vital-signs/67-vs25no1petro.html?showall=&start=6

Andy Petro: "I was aware that I was being "absorbed" into the Light, became One with the Light. But, at the same time never lost my "Andy-ness"!"

Discarnate Frederic Myers communicated through a medium this message:

"You still exist as an individual."

The Afterlife Revealed by Michael Tymn, page 119.

I have never heard of Wes Penre.

[Laird]

A while ago (so I don't remember it very well!) I read a book by Dr Shakuntala Modi entitled "Memories of God and Creation". Dr Modi is a board-certified American psychiatrist (I looked her up at the time - validated) who discovered via hypnotic regression that some people can, under hypnosis, remember all the way back to the - supposed - very beginning of Creation.

From what I recall, so far as Dr Modi's accounts are consistent - which is debatable - and so far as I am paraphrasing accurately, her patients described God emerging out of the void from musical tones, into a sort of orb, within which individual orbs - personalities - formed. These orbs-within-the-orb-of-God were at the same time individual personalities as well as "one with God". They at once knew what every other individual-orb, as well as the overarching God orb, was thinking, as well as having their own thoughts.

This is the best that I have come towards reconciling the opposing positions of "How awful would it be to have my personality eradicated and dissolved into the Borg" and "How amazing it would be to be One With God".

Of course, I would recommend interested readers to read Dr Modi's book, because I might not have accurately represented it, and because the reader might decide upon reading it that it's duplicitous nonsense - but anyhow, that's my contribution to this discussion. :-)

..
From what I recall, so far as Dr Modi's accounts are consistent - which is debatable - and so far as I am paraphrasing accurately, her patients described God emerging out of the void from musical tones...

Hi Laird, hope you're well! 

Thank you so much for this link! Whilst I am a bit sceptical about accounts of reality based on "hypnosis", I found this excerpt fascinating enough to look further into it, cheers.

The bit about "God" emerging out of musical tones.....a very familiar theme to me which I've had a long-standing interest in.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Some people like Sylvia Browne talk about giving up one's individuality etc. 

Evidence gained from psychical research suggests that consciousness survives death. Discarnate spirits can communicate through mediums, some children remember their past lives and sometimes people can see apparitions of the dead etc. People who experience oneness during NDE return to their bodies and thus retain their individuality. All this evidence negates the view that we are fated to merge into some larger being (but it doesn't negate manjit's interpretation of his experience, which he clarified in his latest message).

NDErs who talk about oneness always (in the cases I have read) say that their individuality was retained.

http://www.nderf.org/Experiences/1willia..._7340.html

[/url]
[url=https://iands.org/research/publications/vital-signs/67-vs25no1petro.html?showall=&start=6]https://iands.org/research/publications/vital-signs/67-vs25no1petro.html?showall=&start=6

Discarnate Frederic Myers communicated through a medium this message:
The Afterlife Revealed by Michael Tymn, page 119.

I have never heard of Wes Penre.

Thanks for the clarification Raimo 

Yeah, Wes Penre was an interesting read for me a few years back. Not sure I agree with him anymore though. 

One of his main points is that the feelings of 'oneness' and actually reincarnating back onto the earth, is a big trap, designed by ET for their own gain. I remember him mentioning that at the time of death, when ones sees the light, instead you can go off in a different direction, and pass through the quarantine that surrounds our solar system to explore the universe.

The Seth books also deal with this question of oneness and individuality. One of the books is entitled "Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul" wherein it is explained that the individual soul is indeed eternally valid while being part of the ultimate gestalt which is referred to as All That Is. 

There is, however, a distinction between the personality: that which we carry through a single lifetime and the soul: that which is the entity containing all the reincarnational personalities of a soul. 

Personally, I have problems with the commonly accepted concept of reincarnation. Firstly, we are told (by Seth and others) that linear time is an illusion and that all reincarnational lives are lived simultaneously. That may be the reality but we seem to experience time in a linear fashion so we live, die, spend some time in the afterlife and then reincarnate. So the question in my mind, to which I have never really found an answer, is what happens to the self I am now when I reincarnate? Being absorbed into a super-soul seems conceptually much the same as being absorbed into the "One".

There are hints in all that material that this is not how it works, however. That the larger soul is able to fragment itself and create new fragments for each new lifetime on Earth. These will retain the shared history of the larger soul but live a life with a newly created personality, not the reborn personality of the previous incarnation. Thus, after death, each individual continues its development along with (and within) the larger gestalt soul it is a part of.

When it comes to which is the most appropriate model of how reincarnation works, I'd be the first to admit that I have no idea. There are a whole lot of theories and ideas out there, some of them may be right, some may be wrong, and possibly apparently conflicting ideas may each be correct in their own way. There is too much haziness when it comes to the theory.

But I content myself with knowing that it happens, and first used reincarnation as a way to understand myself, and then later used myself as a way to understand reincarnation. That gives a case study with a sample size of one. However I do have the advantage of being able to directly observe myself, whereas trying to study others is something where one can probably only scratch the surface, without fully grasping the significance.

So how do I see things? Well, in one respect the body may be like a suit of clothes, but perhaps more than just clothes, if one considers something like a spacesuit for exploring outside the Earth's atmosphere, or a wetsuit for exploring underwater, the characteristics of each is very different, and thus one will act and respond differently in each case. But the suit is not the real person. What is real? Well, emotions, feelings, attitudes and beliefs, ways of being. This is so hard to explain. How does one infer these things about some 'other' person, that is the supposed past life? I think I have a clear idea, but maybe I have tied my hands too much here, as I always decline to give identifying details.

One thing I would say, even in a single lifetime a person plays many roles, how one behaves in a particular professional capacity may be entirely different to the way one behaved/behaves before or after taking that role. A person isn't easy to categorise, even within a single lifetime, there may be so many changes. What is it that remains constant throughout? That is probably as near as one can get to expressing these ideas.

One thing I would say, even in a single lifetime a person plays many roles, how one behaves in a particular professional capacity may be entirely different to the way one behaved/behaves before or after taking that role. A person isn't easy to categorise, even within a single lifetime, there may be so many changes. What is it that remains constant throughout? That is probably as near as one can get to expressing these ideas.

I don't give much weight to regression techniques - far too much room for the imagination to take over - but I've been for a couple of sessions and have been given information about my supposedly previous incarnations. If they are to be taken seriously then I have, according to one therapist, spent many lifetimes as a soldier and many more as a man than a woman. According to another, I have been drawn to the clergy and, in particular, I've been a rabbi through several lifetimes an a catholic monk in others.

All I can say is that my present personality is so far removed from either the military or the clergy that I must be breaking the mould this time around (or the regression practitioners have been somewhat wide of the mark). I should add that they tried hypnosis but nobody has ever been able to hypnotise me (I wish it were otherwise - I'd like to experience that). So my regression was more of a deep meditation with me describing pictures that came to mind.