Post No. 253 - Random thoughts

While I have been busy with family matters of late (owing to a "family bereavement" - a death in the family), I have still had a few ideas for posts. I'm not in a position to develop these fully, at this stage, but I'll post a few quick thoughts.
Firstly, spontaneous human combustion (SHC). Several decades ago, when I was starting my serious training on this, I was told that some cases of SHC were due to people either accidentally or deliberately raising the kundalini when they were not spiritually ready: hence, their chakras were, in a sense, "blocked" - unable to transmit the powerful energies of a truly raised kundalini (many people think they have raised the kundalini, when in truth all they have done is stimulate a certain amount of chakric energy), and the blockage led to the energy going elsewhere, rather than up the channels it is meant to, and a consequence could be SHC.
"Fortunately" for most people who raise the kundalini before they are ready, they simply have mental health problems ... As you evolve spiritually, your chakras become more efficient (which many people describe as "opening": they are ALWAYS open, or active, to some extent - if they weren't, you would have major problems; "opening" and "closing" really means sensitising and desensitising), and thus are able to cope with the energies of the kundalini - which will raise of its own accord when you are ready.
Next, an analogy for thinking of your life: compare it to the structure of a building.
Let's begin by considering laying one plank of wood across another, and then nailing the two of them together. If you now try to slide the top plank across and off the bottom plank, the nail resists this shear force quite well: the metal of the nail resists the force. If you try to lever the top plank off the bottom, the nail will resist this also and, so long as the moment exerted is not too strong, the two pieces of timber will stay together. However, if the force applied (either way) is strong enough, it will cause the timber to deform slightly (technically, the weaker timber has "yielded"): over time, this eventually leads to the nail becoming loose, and thus less useful. Approaches to ensure the joint lasts include designing it with a factor of safety, redundancy (multiple nails), possibly glue (new glues are better in terms of having a long enough life - buildings such as houses are generally supposed to last at least 50 to 75 years in Australia, and until recently this wasn't possible with glues that were available), providing a brace to convert the moment to an axial load in the strut, using a material which was not as different in strength as the nail to the timber (such as wooden pegs - some people build houses without any nails), or making a gradual transition (a bit like using an arch instead of a post and beam construction).
In terms of your life, you may use, say ... meditation to help cope with life's stresses. If, however, the performance of this is something which is rigidly separated from other aspects of your life, it may eventually become a point of contention with others who are close to you. maybe a better way of having meditation in your life is to make the transition from normal life to meditation less abrupt - spend time, for example, emphasising how much you love those close to you before you go off to meditate, and focus on them when you come out of meditation.
Or ... if you exercise, maybe encourage your partner(s) to either also exercise or do something that they wish to that you don't have an interest in while you do that. Maybe you can include meditative aspects at work (e.g., a "30 second holiday" - close your eyes, relax and contemplate something pleasant at the start of your coffee break) or have something on your desk (if you work at a desk!) which reminds you of spiritual matters (without upsetting your colleagues).
These are the best analogies I can come up with at the moment on this. Now, life stages.
I've posted on this previously [1], by the way.
I've always been different to what society said I should be. I was never into parties, and as a teenager I didn't feel a desperate need to be in a relationship. Later in life, however, the desire to be in a relationship grew (although my interest in parties was so fleeting it was over almost before it began - as was my interest in drinking [why do so many Aussies think they haven't had a good time unless they've been so drunk or drug affected they can't remember what happened, or are drug affected afterwards? Possibly the fear of being rejected, so they take something to lower their inhibitions and hope the results of being obnoxious or "not themselves" will somehow attract someone to them ... ), but that didn't happen until I had resolved my major personal issues AND I had actually given up expecting a relationship.
As a teenager, many tend to think it must all happen now, or one's life will be tragically ruined for forever - you know, the tragic (hand across forehead as one swoons) "no-one will EVER love me 'cos no-one had sex with my in Grade Nine". It's not true - and it's easy to know that as one grows, but the truth still remains that it is not true. (I have to admit to being impatient to get out and start living my own life as a teenager. ... I'm also glad that I no longer choose to spend significant amounts of each day attending to physical appearance [make up etc] - there's too much of greater importance to do :) ... I also think people PLAN to make housework harder than it needs to be: for instance, keep everyuthing [e.g., fridges, washing machines] off the floor by around 150mm and then you (a) can get things out from underneath it, and (b) you don't have to waste massive amounts of energy doing a big production just to clear that part of the floor occasionally)
The same error (and it IS an error) can happen in spiritual matters.
We are basically an eternal soul: what does it matter if we have to wait a couple of decades while children grow and leave home before pursuing our spiritual interests, for example? Maybe they will have to wait until we retire. That delay may well be frustrating, but really, there is time - there is eternity. (The exceptions would be things such as if one had to complete a task at a particular stage of evolution of the planet one was on.) Levels of manifestation. I've recently read, as I've mentioned, Alexandra David-Neel's book "Magic & Mystery in Tibet" (Souvenir Press, ISBN 9 78025 637924). In this, an episode is described where two monks are watching a flag flutter in a wind, and debate which is moving - the flag, or the wind? The answer is neither: the mind moves. Now, that is true, but it requires some explanation for the everyday person to understand it.
First off, there are lots of levels of reality - the physical, the etheric, several astral levels, the mental level, the soul, etc, etc, etc. Most people talk of seven levels, but there are more. What we generally conceive of as mind is associated with the function of the physical brain. In an esoteric sense, it is probably part of the astral body's activity. There is a higher, personal level which is described as the "mental" level, which is a level of reality where, in effect, one lives in and explores/experiences certain concepts (Alice Bailey's work is good to read an understand on this topic). Above that is the level of our Overself, or Atman - our "soul", in a sense, which is where our parallels and ourself become united. This is the level that most Buddhists mean when they refer to "mind".
Now, the physical reality we exist in has been created: generally this is considered to be by the souls incarnated on it, but I suspect it may actually be at a level higher than that, higher than our individual Overselves. It is at either that level, or at least the level of our Overself, that the mind moves, and thereby creates the "illusion" of a flag moving in the wind. (This is also an interesting topic in terms of "miracles": when someone does something which most Westerners would consider miraculous, such as ... levitating, is it an application of unknown laws, as David-Neel and Lobsang Rampa say Tibetans think, or is it one soul deciding "to hell with it, I'm going to break the agreed manifestation of reality and do something different. ... I'm inclined towards the former, but I still wonder about it ... :) )
Now, in reading David-Neel's book, I was struck by how the Tibetan gurus teaching their disciples were very often what I would consider tricksters. For instance, one exercise involves withdrawing from the world, and then concentrating on a certain set of exercises to acheive a (to a Westerner) miraculous manifestation. This does not result in the desired spiritual result for the disciple, though, so - for those who persist - the exercise is repeated, several times, until the disciple has a break through comprehension on the nature of reality. I'm currently planning a post on this book which may go into this a bit more, but my initial thoughts include that these gurus are working along the lines of Loki or the shamanistic power animal coyote (who is one of my power animals :) ).
On that book, it was good to read a description of how a withdrawal or spiritual retreat is not a time for bludging or taking things easy, one will be flat doing various exercises - breathing, meditation, rituals, etc.
That reminds me of my last point: not using breathing. I think I have posted on this previously, in the context of Rampa's alternate nostril breathing exercise, where I found a visualisation to use in lieu of this. I generally use breathing to increase the power of the visualisation. That's all well and good, but when I no longer have a physical body, I won't be able to breathe in the same way - I can still absorb positive energy, and then direct it as per my visualisation, but I won't have the physical trigger. So I have recently started occasionally doing my chakra exercises without connecting them to my breathing (which I should mention is something I am only able to do effectively because of many years of doing these with breathing) to help me when I eventually pass over.
Anyway, that will have to do for now. Time to go back and starting supporting my partner through the wonderful set of revealed problems we call " a death in the family" (I so prefer our family-of-choice, or friends ... although it can be nice when family members are also part of our family-of-choice).
Love, light, hugs and blessings
Gnwmythr
(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear")
Notes:

1. See here, for instance (although I have a better post somewhere ...)

This post's photo is yet to be posted.
Tags: kundalini, spontaneous human combustion, analogy, life, contemplation, review, reflection, planes of existence, Lobsang Rampa, David-Neel, guru, teaching, visualisation, breathing,
First published: Sunnudagr, 17th April, 2011
Last edited: Wednesday 20th April, 2011

Post No. 251 - On why I have been ruined for death ...

To be clear, I am NOT claiming any sort of immortality. No, the reason I chose this title is to show the change in values which occurs as one works with spirit rescue or some form of psychism (e.g., "proof of survival" mediumship [1], or astral travel) which improves awareness of "survival after death". In my case, I have been doing rescue since the early 1980s, and have had some form of psychic sensitivity for most of my life.

With the deaths of people who were close to me before the 80s (e.g. the wife of someone I crewed for when young, who was like a "mum-away-from-home" when we travelled, or another woman who was like a "universal mother" to most of us kids in the sailing club), I went through the commonplace feelings of loss and the process of grieving. By the time my (adoptive) Mother passed, a few years ago, however, I had considerably developed my ability to interact with the dying process, and with those who were earthbound or in the process of passing over - partly through my interest in the writings of Lobsang Rampa [2], partly through my general "New Age" study, reading and activities, but largely through the study and practical work I did at ASPECTS [3] .

As my Mother was dying in a hospice (the staff there were brilliant, by the way), unlike the rest of my family I could see and acknowledge those drawing round Mum, such as her father (who we called Pop). After she had passed (ironically, after waiting by her side for days, this happened while I was away for a couple of hours), when I looked at her body I saw but an empty shell. I knew she could be in contact if she wished (someone else I knew and was close to passed in the early 90s, and she would drop in from time to time - or do things like ask me to check on her daughter [which I eventually stopped doing as the daughter and I grew apart] or her husband).

I now find it impossible to grieve the way other people do - the wailing (physical or metaphorical), the lamentations, and so forth. I KNOW that I can still be in touch with someone I am close to - provided they wish to stay in contact, of course. People change in response to major life events, and one of those changes is the mini-enlightenment which comes after passing and going through the post-death debriefing (seeing the Akashic Record of one's life, and so forth - see Rampa's "Three Lives" for descriptions of this): part of those changes may be realising that the relationships formed during the past life were temporary, and that one has more important relationships/tasks ... or they may simply not like what they see of the living's true character :)

Of course, at the time of my mother's passing I felt I had to more or less "make a show" of being as upset as expected to be - and I willingly did so, as I knew it would help my family members. That is not to say I didn't have any grief -I would miss the physical hugs etc [4], but the depth of my grief was moderated by my experience.

I am currently doing what could be considered a form of "sitting Shiva" with my partner (although it could equally be considered being supportive), whose mother passed away just after we had been away on a trip (hence the gap in posts) - it is, obviously, not a complete adherence to this tradition, but it does bring to mind some of the differing cultural attitudes to death (which my partner and I have talked about).

For instance, the Tibetan "Book of the Dead" [5], sometimes called the "Bardo Thodol", is largely based on guiding the spirit of the dead person through the Bardo until they are safely in a womb - which is part of the Buddhist concept of rebirth, as opposed to the concept of reincarnation, where one generally has a certain amount of time in the astral between incarnations and a more personal stream of consciousness passes to the next life [6]. In this book, what I have re-read so far suggests that the perceptions may be somewhat culturally derived: I don't think a Westerner would experience the same visions etc, so reading the Bardo Thodol would probably be of limited value to a Westerner who had just died. Tibetan traditions include, if one can afford it, having a lama (or some less expensive person!) read the Bardo Thodol over a period of several days, to guide the soul safely through to their next rebirth. Being captured by demons is one of the concerns relating to this time, which has a few parallels to the concept of being earthbound (although being earthbound does not come with the Tibetan tradition of being able to bribe the demon or buy the soul's freedom ... ).

It is interesting to compare the emphasis on personal effort in the Bardo Thodol with the possibly greater role of rituals, spells and deities in the "Egyptian Book of the Dead" (unfortunately, my copy of that is still in storage, so I can't comment too much here). My recollection is that the Egyptians didn't believe in reincarnation (hence the effort to make sure that those in the Afterlife were going to be happy - and, in the case of the Pharoahs, to make the necessary approaches to Deities to keep things good back on Earth ...).

It is also interesting to compare and contrast the two "Books of the Dead", Rampa's writings, Alexandra David-Neel's writings, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross' books on grief [7], and my own experiences.

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr
(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear")

Notes:

1. See also here.
2. I am actually getting quite a bit from the Yahoogoup "The Rampa Path" at the moment - not that I agree with every post, or would seek to be buddies in real life with some of the people, but the discussion is largely focused on Rampa's writings, and some good comments are made.
3. Study and practical work I thought quite hard at the time,but it is interesting to compare that with the treatment meted out to disciples by Tibetan gurus - see, for instance, Alexandra David-Neel's book "Magic & Mystery in Tibet" (my copy was published by Souvenir Press, ISBN 9 78025 637924).
4. The grief for someone who is physically intimate, such as a lover, would be more intense because of the loss of physical sensations - which cannot be made up for unless you can astral travel consciously, in which case you can choose to experience astral sex and astral hugs.
   
   "Grief" can take some less conventional avenues as well: I used to know some women who were taking legal action against a relative who had abused them. Their alleged abuser died before the matter could come to court, and as a result they were left without resolution in the physical world. I'm aware that there would be a resolution in the astral, but the lack of such in this physical world means everyone will eventually arrive in a far more damaged state ...
   
5. My version is the Evens-Wentz version (Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-500223-7 - I am looking forward to reading the psychological commentary by Jung), which credits the translation to Lama Dawa-Samdup, who may be the same person mentioned by David-Neel (who was, accoding to David-Neel, extremely hard on his disciples).
6. Interesting to read of the Norse having a reference to reincarnation - see here.
7. One of the big shortcomings in what has been written by most people I have read is that it focuses on the personal, whereas my experience is that the dynamics of families and groups is a MAJOR part of the death experience - for both the living and the dead.

This post's photo is yet to be posted.

Tags: death, earthbound, rescue, family, about me, abuse, Lobsang Rampa, David-Neel, Tibet, Egypt, group dynamics,

First published: Manadagr, 11th April, 2011

Last edited: Monday, 11th April, 2011