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V-heart and Zen_world: let's recognize that to a newbie (or even a not-so-newbie) it can take time and dedication to achieve the states you describe. Years. Maybe for Zen_world it's easier, because he clearly has some natural psychic gifts. Mrs. V-heart needs to know that it can take years of a daily meditation discipline to get to the stage you guys are at, and therefore it takes patience. However, your testimonies are encouraging. Hopefully they'll give her inspiration.
This is exactly it. She is just lacking the direct experiencing which illumines the subtler forms of self reference. We only forget from life to life due to the fact that we habitually identify with the 5 sense apparatus manifest in gross form as the physical body. Those with previous cultivation do not have these problems and are often born with immediate past life recall. Then there are those like the Dalai Lama who can remember many lives, though he sometimes say's he does not. He's spoken before that he does. He even remembered where he placed his previous incarnations teeth which no one but him knew.
Many people remember many lives. It is a gift of meditation. It also might be termed a curse of meditation. Nobody this side of hell would sign up to go retching in the corner from the smell anytime they passed by pork cooking in this lifetime because they remembered the smell and the screaming of people burning to death in a war in the last lifetime. I've lived with that every day of my life since I was born. Meditation allows one to handle it (with equanimity?) It's only a form... only a form... only a form.... Those poor people I helped all day were honoring and blessing me by insisting I must share a bite of their little supper of pork sausage at the end of the day... but I had barely managed to grab the doorknob, fall outside, and land dry retching against the side of the house after very nearly passing out in their tiny kitchen from only just the smell of their pork cooking bringing back the memory of the smell and the screaming from the war many years before I was born. Perhaps the Dalai Lama can manage such things with equanimity.... it's just a form like any other form and all forms are illusion after all... but others of us sometimes stagger and struggle not to pass out on the floor and wretch from the memory of what we witnessed in lives past and cannot forget.
And so if your dear wife sees death and meaninglessness... and you feel that she needs to be be more serious about practice... Please also remember that all people must grow in awareness in their own way and in their own time, without desire, fear, or pressure, and without more than they can handle at any one time.
There are very many people at this time on earth who died in former lives in the meaningless destruction of industrialized global war... especially as children... and they all have very good reasons for their present thoughts, practices, and lack of practices in life and for not remembering any of it. Who would ever sign up to remember that hell? Nobody would, except those of us who died in front of our terrified children who survived... and who could not bear the thought that they might live the rest of their lives in terrible desolation and hatred that would destroy them far beyond the power of any bomb to destroy anything.
@aura You say that past life recall is a gift/curse of meditation and in the same breath say that you have experienced what sound like painful visions for your whole life. I say that the real gift of meditation is a drawing of the mind into the present moment and relief from visions that are unrelated to what is before the mind in anything other than an imagined sense.
@aura You say that past life recall is a gift/curse of meditation and in the same breath say that you have experienced what sound like painful visions for your whole life. I say that the real gift of meditation is a drawing of the mind into the present moment and relief from visions that are unrelated to what is before the mind in anything other than an imagined sense.
The gift of meditation is the processing, releasing, and healing of karmic issues that stand in the way of the direct observation, experience, and consciousness of the ever presence of nirvana beyond this mundane world. The "curse" of meditation reflects only unreadiness, reluctance, weariness, or wariness to look up from the mundane hamster wheel world of death and taxes and deal with those greater karmic issues.
@aura. Here's the thing. If, in your view, meditation will release and heal karmic issues, then you need to get down to it because it sounds like you are suffering badly. Cooking meat is not burning humans unless it is burning humans. I'm no expert, thats for sure, but it sounds like PTSD to me. Regardless of the cause of it, you should not have to suffer like that. Greater karmic issues only exist in the mundane view. Because I have glimpsed emptiness, I am not afraid of them.
You have no former life memory of the smell of burning humans with which to compare the smell of your cooking pork as you evaluate its delectability in this life. You need not be concerned that I am suffering, as I am not suffering in the least and do not regard the delectability of pork as any pressing issue in life. I am recounting my experience for the consideration and discussion of M. and Mme. Vajraheart.
How significant are we in this universe? We can only try our best to achieve great things in this lifetime, but we can only do that by doing something for others and not through our ego. We should try to feel that this is actually our chance to make things different, rather than feel that we are only subject to impermanence.
We should try to feel that this is actually our chance to make things different, rather than feel that we are only subject to impermanence.
Oh yes, the chance to make things different! the great growth, the great gift of life, of creation, that makes living worthwhile!
People look around and see so much destruction on earth and they feel so powerless and despairing, and they lose hope. Many turn to drugs and other addictions that give them a false feeling of power and of hope while robbing them of life, strength, and health. They shrug...what is the use of building a sand castle when the tide will come in at the end of the day and all will be destroyed?
They always watch with bemusement to see me dragging my implements of destruction (of creation!) down to the hard wet sand the morning tide left behind... good god, what a lunatic, all she needs is a g.d. backhoe to bury herself with... By 10:00 the kids all come by "Whatcha' doin'?" By noon it's "How do you do that?" By !:00 they're an army of "Can we help? We wanna play too!" By 2:00 it's "Hey Dad, come see what I did!" The watchful mothers talking together across the beach already know. Catching Dad's attention (and better yet, praise!) is the big prize... By 3:00 there's entire families taking photos of themselves posing in front of the thing By 4:00 the creators are long gone and the climbers arrive to climb the thing and assert their dominance over the doomed kingdom of sand as the tide begins to lap its edges By 5:00 the destroyers and the tide erode the creation By 6:00 the hand-in-hand lovers, and the lone dreamers walking the beach start arriving... to contemplate the ruins.... and sigh...and dream. By 8:00 it's all ocean as though it had never been at all
Sandcastles are a good lesson on the business cycle. Sandcastles are a good lesson on life and impermanence. Sandcastles are...life... and I have built a great many sandcastles.
the thought of heaven sounds great and if only we could stay children forever bc i seemed to be more enlightened then compared to now, whatever happened, i do not know:P
What is the difference between then and now? They all come to the beach at the end of the day and walk the sand pondering that very same question, you know....
Very young children see very much more than adults do because their hearts are wide open. The vision of the 2 eyes is processed in the brain, but the vision of the 3rd eye is processed in the heart. What happened to you, (what happens to everybody!), is that their hearts get wounded...and where they got wounded, they shut down in order not to feel the pain, and so the heart is not wide open anymore, and so that vision becomes blocked. Very young children routinely see the presence of the dead out of their bodies and enlightened beings on the other side/bardo/heaven and the colors of energy around people up until their hearts become sufficiently wounded and blocked to block that vision of the 3rd eye. That is what happens to everybody, and it is why you observe that you seemed to be more enlightened as a child.
If you have any Christian background, you will notice that the rabbi Jesus of Nazareth clearly specified to his followers the need to become "as children" and that it was only the "pure/clear/open/unblocked" of heart who would ever "see the kingdom of god."
Meditation helps to clear those old karmic wounds from the heart and re-open that heart. It is why and how it works to open the vision of the 3rd eye.
Robot, this isn't something anyone can convince you of, all we can do is share experiences and perspectives. It's a highly individual thing, whether or not to believe in Life after Life, as one book title puts it. I enjoy hearing about others' experiences, like Aura's. I find talk of these things intriguing and inspiring. I completely understand, however, those who want to stick to the observable, the logical, the scientific. (I used to be one of those people myself, and still am in some respects.) There's room for everyone and their rich variety of views on the path of life.
I completely understand, however, those who want to stick to the observable, the logical, the scientific. (I used to be one of those people myself, and still am in some respects.) There's room for everyone and their rich variety of views on the path of life.
Yes indeed, and the interaction of all is the greatest of blessings that tills the soil for the new growth of all. It was, after all, the logical and scientific who informed Tesla that the AC motor was and would always be an absolute impossibility according to science and all the physical laws of the universe... and so he had to build one, and in so doing, changed the world.
A fellow Tesla fan! I wonder--does Tesla fandom coincide with belief in NDE's and the paranormal?
Tesla fandom coincides with having worked in a physics lab; you won't find anybody who has ever worked in a physics lab anywhere on earth who isn't a Tesla fan. The NDE coincided with severe physical traumatic injury and blood loss. 7 or 8 physicians witnessed my case and took the rest of the day off to compare notes, and go drinking at the bar across the street from the hospital. Somebody wrote it up for the medical journal, as I recall. Don't ever make the medical journal at a big teaching hospital, they'll put you on the tour of student rounds. As for the paranormal? I met Tart; I wasn't impressed. I've met a couple of Watt's original student "shamans"; I wasn't impressed. I don't believe in the paranormal. I believe in physics. There is just a heck of a lot more to physics than most people realize.
Comments
It also might be termed a curse of meditation.
Nobody this side of hell would sign up to go retching in the corner from the smell anytime they passed by pork cooking in this lifetime because they remembered the smell and the screaming of people burning to death in a war in the last lifetime. I've lived with that every day of my life since I was born.
Meditation allows one to handle it (with equanimity?)
It's only a form... only a form... only a form....
Those poor people I helped all day were honoring and blessing me by insisting I must share a bite of their little supper of pork sausage at the end of the day...
but I had barely managed to grab the doorknob, fall outside, and land dry retching against the side of the house after very nearly passing out in their tiny kitchen from only just the smell of their pork cooking bringing back the memory of the smell and the screaming from the war many years before I was born.
Perhaps the Dalai Lama can manage such things with equanimity.... it's just a form like any other form and all forms are illusion after all...
but others of us sometimes stagger and struggle not to pass out on the floor and wretch from the memory of what we witnessed in lives past and cannot forget.
And so if your dear wife sees death and meaninglessness...
and you feel that she needs to be be more serious about practice...
Please also remember that all people must grow in awareness in their own way and in their own time, without desire, fear, or pressure, and without more than they can handle at any one time.
There are very many people at this time on earth who died in former lives in the meaningless destruction of industrialized global war...
especially as children...
and they all have very good reasons for their present thoughts, practices, and lack of practices in life and for not remembering any of it.
Who would ever sign up to remember that hell? Nobody would, except those of us who died in front of our terrified children who survived...
and who could not bear the thought that they might live the rest of their lives in terrible desolation and hatred that would destroy them far beyond the power of any bomb to destroy anything.
Certainty is nirvana.
The "curse" of meditation reflects only unreadiness, reluctance, weariness, or wariness to look up from the mundane hamster wheel world of death and taxes and deal with those greater karmic issues.
the great growth, the great gift of life, of creation, that makes living worthwhile!
People look around and see so much destruction on earth and they feel so powerless and despairing, and they lose hope.
Many turn to drugs and other addictions that give them a false feeling of power and of hope while robbing them of life, strength, and health.
They shrug...what is the use of building a sand castle when the tide will come in at the end of the day and all will be destroyed?
They always watch with bemusement to see me dragging my implements of destruction (of creation!) down to the hard wet sand the morning tide left behind... good god, what a lunatic, all she needs is a g.d. backhoe to bury herself with...
By 10:00 the kids all come by "Whatcha' doin'?"
By noon it's "How do you do that?"
By !:00 they're an army of "Can we help? We wanna play too!"
By 2:00 it's "Hey Dad, come see what I did!" The watchful mothers talking together across the beach already know. Catching Dad's attention (and better yet, praise!) is the big prize...
By 3:00 there's entire families taking photos of themselves posing in front of the thing
By 4:00 the creators are long gone and the climbers arrive to climb the thing and assert their dominance over the doomed kingdom of sand as the tide begins to lap its edges
By 5:00 the destroyers and the tide erode the creation
By 6:00 the hand-in-hand lovers, and the lone dreamers walking the beach start arriving... to contemplate the ruins.... and sigh...and dream.
By 8:00 it's all ocean as though it had never been at all
Sandcastles are a good lesson on the business cycle.
Sandcastles are a good lesson on life and impermanence.
Sandcastles are...life...
and I have built a great many sandcastles.
They all come to the beach at the end of the day and walk the sand pondering that very same question, you know....
Very young children see very much more than adults do because their hearts are wide open. The vision of the 2 eyes is processed in the brain, but the vision of the 3rd eye is processed in the heart. What happened to you, (what happens to everybody!), is that their hearts get wounded...and where they got wounded, they shut down in order not to feel the pain, and so the heart is not wide open anymore, and so that vision becomes blocked.
Very young children routinely see the presence of the dead out of their bodies and enlightened beings on the other side/bardo/heaven and the colors of energy around people up until their hearts become sufficiently wounded and blocked to block that vision of the 3rd eye. That is what happens to everybody, and it is why you observe that you seemed to be more enlightened as a child.
If you have any Christian background, you will notice that the rabbi Jesus of Nazareth clearly specified to his followers the need to become "as children" and that it was only the "pure/clear/open/unblocked" of heart who would ever "see the kingdom of god."
Meditation helps to clear those old karmic wounds from the heart and re-open that heart. It is why and how it works to open the vision of the 3rd eye.
It was, after all, the logical and scientific who informed Tesla that the AC motor was and would always be an absolute impossibility according to science and all the physical laws of the universe...
and so he had to build one, and in so doing, changed the world.
The NDE coincided with severe physical traumatic injury and blood loss. 7 or 8 physicians witnessed my case and took the rest of the day off to compare notes, and go drinking at the bar across the street from the hospital. Somebody wrote it up for the medical journal, as I recall. Don't ever make the medical journal at a big teaching hospital, they'll put you on the tour of student rounds.
As for the paranormal? I met Tart; I wasn't impressed. I've met a couple of Watt's original student "shamans"; I wasn't impressed. I don't believe in the paranormal. I believe in physics. There is just a heck of a lot more to physics than most people realize.