It's been awhile: Comments on popular topics

Well, I haven't posted anything of substance for awhile. I wondered what I would talk about. So, I read some of the topics going on now in this forum, and thought I would comment. Thousands of hours of spiritual practices and initiation later, my point of view has changed a bit since our last discussion.

Soul Mates:
This is a concept which basically means that two people are "meant to be." They harmonize each other, they are spiritually destined for one another, they complete one another, etc.

Based on what all of my study, and teaching from the masters, they have come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as soul mates.

Why?

The Soul is neither male nor female. It is entirely male, and entirely female, and entirely neither one. It is supreme, formless, limitless. There is no gender imposed upon the soul, nor is any specific soul limited to a particular union forever. Soul Mates is entirely an ego creation to comfort and tell you how wonderful and special this relationship is, by comparing it to other other non-soul mate pairings.

Fate, Freewill, Choice, Destiny:

From the perspective of Supreme Consciousness, or God, everything is presently perfect. It doesn't judge anything as good or bad, it is all just experience. Everyone is presently enlightened and as One. Everything is perfect and as it should be, always.

If someone dies, is killed, is tortured, there is compassion for that person, because at the human level, they believe what is happening to them is dramatic. As the majority of us are only aware of our human levels, we are traumatized by the events of our lives. But as God, we cannot be hurt. The soul cannot be lost, it cannot be hurt, or destroyed. It is all experience. It is the human consciousness that determines that something is good or bad. From the highest point of view, it is all karma that we have. karma is not punishment, it is flow, in the same way when you speak, the word is narrow, it thickens, and narrows again, so too our actions. When we think, feel, or do something, there is a flow. When what we put out is not harmonious with the designs of our highest nature, we experience messages in our life, inviting us to become more aware.

For example, Todd is a jerk. He's always a jerk. So, he experiences the discomfort of being a jerk. So the universe communicates to him by making him aware of people he'd like to interact with. Todd stops being a jerk, but he still cannot interact with who he wants. Why? Not because of his actions. He stopped being a jerk, why then is he hindered? He only stopped being a jerk because he did not appreciate the lack of love he felt from others, so he decided to be kind. But he did not actually learn from the experience, he didn't observe it. In a way, he hid from the experience of his need to be a jerk, so the Universe continued to give him troubles.

As humans, when we feel pain, we go away from it. When we have an argument, we either fight, or run. When we're not comfortable with something, we may become quiet, close ourselves off, go away, act in an unnatural manner. These are genetics, they are natural things that helped our ancestors survive. But as we have grown, we have moved beyond these things. So, as a Soul, we must become aware of these things. By paying attention to a situation until it becomes consciousness, we eventually overcome the need for more lessons in that area.

For example, I believed that a girl I cared about had sex with someone close to me. This hurt me a lot, I was jealous, I felt a great deal of anger and pain. There was a sense of betrayal. It bothered me a lot. So I observed it. I observed it until I realized that ok, I felt rejected because she found love elsewhere, and guilty because I did not share my feelings with her. I felt shame in my hesitation, and fear because of the implications. I felt like a victim, yet I persecuted myself with images of all that could be happening in bed between them. I wanted to control the situation, yet in life there is really no control, and I have no rights to restrict love. See all the emotions and ego pattern that I had that simply wanted to restrict how love manifested? I wanted to hinder an expression of love. I could have prevented this, simply by existing in truth, and communicating to both properly as to how I felt about her from the beginning.

So what does this all have to do with fate and freewill?

When we do things that aren't harmonious with the design of the universe, we have two choices. Either learn from it, or not. If we don't learn from it, why we made the behavior, why it happened like this, what's the root of it, then we will never be beyond the need of this lesson, so time and time again, we may find ourselves in bad relationships, or increasingly unpleasant situations, because we chose not to learn the lesson. The sooner, and more fuller we learn each lesson, the faster we evolve. This is the choice, how quickly will we evolve? HOw much work are we willing to go through?

This flows into the next question.

How do we evolve the fastest?

You can meditate for decades, chant tens of thousands of mantras, act like a good person, work with the complete attitude of devotion and love, develop discipline, focus on your third eye.

These all get you somewhere, but, the fastest way to evolve is by observation.

Take a situation, some recent guilt or argument, refresh it in your mind. Then, feel the emotion of it, how it makes you feel. Accept the emotion without judging yourself or the parties involved. Keeping feeling it purely until the emotion goes away and it is just consciousness. Then, work on figuring out what mental patterns you had that created this emotional response. This is how you learn the most, and purify whole streams of karma, by learning the lessons, and existing consciously, until the lesson is learned.

Accept it FULLY. This can be hard, intensely painful. But for those who have courage, evolution is your reward.

To be continued:

What is enlightenment, and how do you know if you have reached it?

Total rip off of that wonderful thread going on:

Well, start by understanding where enlightenment is most talked about. In the East, the Hindu texts, the Vedas, The Sutras, etc.

First, what is enlightenment? It's useless to explain, and impossible to imagine as I have not achieved it. Luckily, I have sat at the feet of some who have.

First of all, if you are enlightened, you don't have superpowers. The Buddha himself wasn't just enlightened, he was Accomplished, which is the step beyond enlightenment. He said that people should not confuse supernatural abilities with spiritual attainment. All "powers" can be developed with sufficient discipline when applied to the development of "Siddhis" or "powers". He encountered a man walking across a river, on water. The Buddha said "You must be powerful, how long did it take you to to develop this?" The man proudly says "25 years!" The Buddha says "You can cross the river for two rupies, and you could have spent those 25 years developing Compassion." then he smiled and walked off.

There are stages of enlightenment, they have been broken down in many ways. Here is the easiest to understand way I have seen.

Animal/Zombie: 95% of people are here. They are not seeking spiritual evolution. There are mostly ruled by the animal and human genetic code, hence the title. They are not to be looked down upon, they are our friends and family. They are just not as evolved spiritually. Simply having a religion, and attending some rituals does not make you a seeker, it makes you one who adheres to a system.

Seeker: A person who actively seeks spiritual evolution, and does processes to help them evolve. They are more motivated by evolution that human structures.

Awakened: You have stopped believing the dream. The Buddha did not say that everything is an illusion. He said everything that you perceive is an illusion. There is a difference. If you are awakened, you don't buy into the drama of life. When something big and bad happens, it doesn't bother you at all, you just go right to working to figure out the lessons. You are in a state of bliss 51% of the time.

Enlightened: You have achieved Satchitananda. Which means, you have experienced that you are both the creator of everything, and are created. You have experienced first hand the oneness of all, and see through the "code of the matrix" to the true nature of things. You have experienced even more intense, and prolonged periods of bliss. You may at this point when you die, choose to never return, or you can stay, and be reborn again and again in order to help mankind. If you return, you have to work your way back to enlightenment.

Nirvana/Accomplished/Realized: These are the heavy hitters. Beyond enlightened, these beings are tremendously evolved, and often exhibit the more dramatic supernatural feats, but this is not required. The Buddha could only fill people with compassion who were in his presence, and awaken people who were currently in his gaze, when he looked away,t hey were in their previous state. But people who are accomplished, often don't have to worry about anything, unless they choose to allow nature to impact them.

Avatar: Like the Krishna and Jesus types. Miracles without running out of energy, they are completely supernatural beings, who are only as effected by nature as they choose to be.

So, these are the stages, and the signs. If you have not had profound experiences of awakening and enlightening, you haven't reached them.

Indigo children:
This is all new age stuff, developed in the last few decades. There have always been people who have exhibited symptoms of Indigos. They just didn't have a name. the reason for these symptoms has usually to do with previous spiritual experience in other lifetimes. I think some people were well meaning, and tried to understand why some people were more evolved than others, particularly at a young age. Then the idea spread and took various directions, eventually splintering off into other titles. But I assure you, people aren't "chosen." People with higher levels of evolution are born every generation. There is no reason to create stories about them to elevate them in importance. We are all special enough, unique.

Comparison:

Everyone is always asking, what's the best this, what's superior, who's right, what's right. It's understandable, in school we are taught there is right and wrong to everything.

For our ancestors, it was right to pray to Zeus, or Odin, or Osiris. It was appropriate for them, and their stages of development. They imagined huge Gods, exactly like them, only magnified in every way. That was the closest thing to God they could imagine. For them to try to take on the beliefs of some of today's systems, it wouldn't have meaning for them.

For them, our systems are not appropriate, for us, their are not. This continues to evolve, generation after generation, as systems of government become more fitting for the general consciousness of the inhabitants. Religious beliefs become more fitting for the times. Structures always become appropriate to the general level of consciousness of the masses.

Neither our system, nor our ancestors was right or wrong.

As for each person, you are not superior to anyone. Mother Teresa was not superior to Hitler. She was more evolved than he, she helped while he hurt. But suffering, from the point of view of the soul is simply experience. The tremendous cruelty shown by Hitler, and the loving Kindness of the Mother were all experiences, which both payed and reaped Karma. All beings are unique, yet as one. There is no comparison, for we are all children of equal standing, completely united in communion with all the manifest and un-manifest. We are only out of touch with this sacred communion.

There is no comparison.

Thank you for my little commentary, it's been awhile since I've spoken here on ATS. I hope you'ved enjoyed.

S & F. It is good to see the kind of writing which is calm & measured rather than the "you're wrong, I'm right" kind of debacle.

reply to post by postmeme


Thank you. I'm glad that you enjoyed it. Any other ideas for things you'd like to see some comments on?

What happens to the soul of a person who kills themselves?

The person who kills themselves does their best not to "Be". Which is what our nature is. Pure present existence, not focused on past or future, but simply being as. They don't want to exist, the suffering that their human feels is far too great for them. After they kill themselves, they will find some rest, and then some construct of an afterlife.

What determines the construct? Personal beliefs, karmic debt, last thoughts when they died. They may experience some scenario where they have the opportunity to evolve before the next lifetime.

Bottom line it's a case by case basis. But the fact is every time, when a person kills themselves, they don't want to exist as, they don't want to learn their lessons, and what they experience in the future will be events that will eventually lead them to learning these lessons. Whenever they develop the courage or the insight to just do it and finally learn the lesson, then it's done.

So they may get out of learning the lessons in this body, but they will have to learn them in some circumstance at another time, eventually. Killing yourself only delays spiritual evolution.


Letting Go vs. Feeling:

In our lives, we have many things that we hold on to. Personal items that have value to us, relationships, fond memories, even ideas about ourselves.

The common therapy treatment for one who has been raped or tormented is to eventually talk them into "letting go." What is meant by this is to put it in the past so that it no longer holds power over you in the future. If you no longer focus on it, it's no longer a big deal.

What this does is, while relieving suffering, it prevents spiritual growth. Instead of sitting there, accepting what happened as real, and then bravely facing all of the pain inside until they become consciousness, they hide from it. What is really needed is to observe the situation at both emotional and ego levels until it all is dissolved into consciousness, and experience, where it is no longer judged as good or bad.

We develop so many attachments. We love our friends and family, so we hold them close, but we do not own them, we do not control them. We have no say in their lives. If they want to leave, they will do so. If they are killed, they are gone. They can be taken away, and they change as people. So they are not ours. We have a relationship, but they are not property. When circumstances change between ourselves and the object of attachment, we may feel pain. We can suck it up and put the past behind us, so we no longer feel the sense of loss, or we can observe until the actual lessons of the attachment are gained.

Always choose consciousness over ignoring, denying, or pushing away.

Abortions:

A soul often will not manifest into a body if it is going to be aborted, so all that is done is the tearing of flesh that has sometimes shown some the potential for life. If a soul does inhabit a child that will be aborted, it is simply to attain the experience of the abortion. There is no drama, it's all perfect. No judgment.

Thoughts create reality:
The question was raised when confronted by those who say that we create our own reality.

"Ok well if that's so, then why is it that I can put a blue table in the middle of a room full of people and tell them all that it's a yellow table, yet they'll all still unanimously see a blue table? Isn't that obvious proof of an objective reality? Or an objective existence of material objects at least? " by WWu777

This is a good question. The problem with New Age imagination on the subject is they develop an intellectualized idea of a philosophy, without the actual experience from which the philosophy originated.

Before I answer let me explain it this way. If you go to the desert, and tell people about snow, who have never experienced it, it's not real to them. You can say it's like white cotton that falls from the sky, and when you touch it it's cold, and it turns into water. Then you can pile it up and make things with it.

They haven't experienced it, so they have some incorrect imagination of what it is. Until they actually see snow and experience it, it's not real for them. They do not conceive of the Truth of what snow really is, all they have is fantasy about it.

New Age people have the philosophy, which then gets polluted by more speculation and fantasy. They usually never reach any point of experience with it.

So now for your answer. There is a thing in the middle of the room. It has the appearance that it is what is commonly agreed to as being blue. It is real. But, it is neither blue, nor a table.

If you bring children in to the room, and they dive under the table, it is not a table it is a shelter. If you chop it up, it is not possibly kindling if it is made of wood.

If the properties can change, it does not exist. What is real about the table is that it is made up of matter. As everyone exists at the same level of consciousness, they all get the experience of this is a blue table. If you chop the table up, it is not a table, if you burn it, it is not a table, if you stand on it, sit on it, it is not a table.

The fact that we identify it as a table is impermanent. That aspect of it can go away. Check on it in 200 years, and it very likely is not identifiable as what was once a table. Yet, it very likely remains as matter, unless it was broken down to the point of energy, which makes up matter.

This world is all real. But what we perceive of it is illusion. We label and limit what it really is. People all agree that it is a blue table, because they are taught, ok this is blue, this is table. But at the level of consciousness, it's matter. But we can't communicate like that, so we just call it a table that's blue. Some may look at it and see it's potential to be a shelter, or a chair, or a podium, or firewood. These things are all as correct as calling it a table. That's what is objective. To you it may certainly be a table. But that is limiting what it is, for the matter you are staring at will not always be as a table, just as you will not always be as you are now.

Matter exists, but the perception, and what we imagine of it does not. IF we are all taught and believe that a dog is a tree, we will always say tree when that creature is referenced. But calling it a tree doesn't tell you it can be a friend, a foe, etc. Labels are not reality, they are tools. This is the difference.

To conclude that last comment:

If you and I are both in the room, and you see a blue table, and I see it as matter, who is right? We both are. If you see a blue table, and I see a shelter, we are both right. If you see a shelter and I see a stage, we are both right.

Everyone agrees that it is a blue table, because they are all conditioned that ok, things like this are called tables, shades of color like this are called blue, so every one will say, AH! It's a blue table! It fits the properties of what we call a blue table!

But yet to simply refer to it as a blue table would be to limit it's possible functions to that of a table. This is a part of what is true behind what they say.

Secondly, about how reality is created, the mind fabricates scenarios based on data it has been programmed with. A skinny model can be made to believe she is fat, a healthy person can be convinced he is sick, and then show violent symptoms. When information is accepted by the mind as Truth, it limits it.

The soul creates experiences for us constantly to have the opportunity to learn from. Everything we have experienced, we have created. Why then can we not create riches and fame? Because, we try to will things with our mind. It is impossible, the mind cannot create, the soul creates, and if you cannot consciously and at will exist as the soul, then you cannot tap into those creative forces very consciously.

We create all experiences, we are all destined to realize our supreme enlightenment and divinity, but the choice is in how fast we will, how much will we become conscious of, and how quickly are we willing to dissolve our human structures and ego patterns.

A man says he wants money. Ask him why he says he wants to buy a house. So he doesn't want money, he wants a house.Ask him why he wants the house, he says so he can raise a family. So it's not the money nor the house he wants but a family. Why does he want family? So he can experience love! This is what he truly wants. Then if he could exist as the Self, he could then create Love, and if it is appropriate for him to experience love in that way then money may come, the the house, then the family. Or it might come in some other manner.

Get to the root of what you really want, and manifest that.