Eye witness accounts of the spirit world

[dawg]

According to teachings laid down by the Buddha, things do not unfold as cut and dried and straightforward as you have put forth here. Such views could lead to over-simplification and eventual stagnation, resulting in a deluded state of mind. Not saying here that you are... its obvious you have been taught well by your master, but sometimes we (as in anyone of us - no matter how realized we want to think we are) have a tendency to fixate on certain matters and then it could happen that these 'keys of realization', instead of opening the door to ever-wider emancipation, gets jammed in the keyhole of ignorance. In order to prevent this, its good to keep check of the unsurpassed teachings of the Buddha from time to time.

 

This particular sutta highlights what has been said above: http://www.vipassana.com/canon/majjhima/mn136.php

 

Hope it can shed some light on the discussion in general.

 

Sarva Mangalam!

 

Hello CowToa,

 

Thanks for the comment and the link,

 

Regarding the "quote" in your comment... I should have pointed out that I was talking about creating new karma, and karma in general... But that any old karma from this life or past lives that is still active, can pop up at any time... good point...

 

I will start putting a "disclaimer" on some of my comments.

 

Metta,

[三江源]

.

Edited March 30, 2015 by 三江源

[suninmyeyes]

Good therad.

Interesting to read your accounts on spirit world dawg.

I have some expirience too ,one time I got so very scared when i heard-enterd some lower realms .And was panicking not wanting to ever percive anything but physical world.

The fear is gone ,but got a different sort of problem as compesation for being scared.haha

 

Here is an interesting story relating to the spirit world..

One aquaintance of mine related a story (this is woman a owner of very succesful buissnes who didnt have a spiritual background and didnt have a clue about anything of similar nature)of how suddenly whenever shed started to relax at home she would see all the faces and beings everywhere where she lives..

This was so bad, day in day out that she thought she was going to die.She was perplexed.

So after some months in the evening she dressed in all new nightdress before sleep for days making sure the house is spotless in case something happens to her.So as to prevent any gossip as she has a daughter.

Finally one night in her visions came a clear adress (written)situated in her city(she is Japonese).Imeddiatly she took a taxi there at night and found her spiritual teacher living there .

He thaught her some things and this alliavated her agony.Now she is on spiritual path for many years.

[3bob]

Hi Dawg,

 

This is the single best description of buddhist attitudes to the human body I've ever read here. Thanks for that! Honesty is the gateway drug to the truth.

 

Needless to say that as a taoist practitioner I understand the physical and the non-physical as two sides of the same coin (tao-in-stillness and tao-in motion, the unmanifest and the manifest), and do not believe that removing one side of the coin, the physical side, is either possible, necessary, desirable, or realistic. To a taoist, "being and nonbeing create each other" (Laozi), "to and fro goes the Way" (I Ching), "the pattern of tao is motion and the pattern of this motion is return" (Yuandao), so separating one part (being) from the other (nonbeing) is considered a mental experiment with no de facto counterpart in reality. Of course there's sects of taoism that historically cross-polinated with buddhism that might be somewhat skewed in the direction of accepting this mental exercise as actual experimental data, but the ones closer to original taoist thought don't maintain the theory and therefore do not derive their practices from it. To them, the physical body, whether human, animal, plant, planetary, or stellar is never loathsome and disgusting. It is actually magnificent. Their theory and practice are therefore aimed at unlocking and unblocking its potential rather than discarding it. Immortality in physicality (as a choice, not as an error of judgment or morality) being understood as one of these potentials -- we call it the Triple Treasure of Perfection, Nondecay, Immortality. (Of course there's a whole bunch of other desingations for other "triple treasures," taoists like the number three, the number of creation that gives rise, at the next step, to the whole world of magnificent manifestations.)

 

By the way, there's influential sects of buddhism (particularly Tibetan, e.g. Dzogchen) that are way closer to taoism in their view of the physical body than to Theravada buddhism. So it's a spectrum of sorts... and looks like you and me are at the farthermost opposite ends of this spectrum. Let's keep that in mind for future reference -- I mean, I'm not here to convert you, and you're not here to convert me -- if we remember that, we'll get along fine!

 

hmm... regardless of the form of Buddhism the words of the Buddha as handed down speak of the great possibilities that a huamn being has!! (that obviously have bodies) Thus I don't buy into certain generalizations or only one aspect or one bit of information along these lines.

 

Om

[3bob]

********************************************************************************

 

Hello Dmattwads,

 

Thanks for your comment.

 

You have a physical body, and you have a spirit body... the earth also has a physical body, and a spirit body... the "human realm" and the "animal realm" occupy the physical body of the earth... The "earth deva realm" (higher than the human realm and the lowest "heavenly realm", and the home of nature spirits) and the "ghost realm" occupy the spirit body of the earth... these four realms inter-penetrate and are superimposed on one another, and form one interactive unit... This is the world of shamanism.

 

Humans and animals can see and manipulate the physical world... earth devas and ghosts can see the physical world but cannot manipulate it... some ghosts like to hang around the human realm so they can suck vicarious pleasure from human emotions, some ghosts live in groups in "ghost villages" and even "ghost cities"... The earth devas have a higher level of spiritual development than humans, so they shun contact with humans, and inhabit places that are not inhabited by humans... The earth devas are on a higher spiritul level than humans, so they look down on humans in the same way that humans look down on animals...

 

Humans because they are physical, can destroy a part of the physical world... and as a consequence they destroy the spirit body of what they have physically destroyed... The ghosts don't seem to really care, they just want to reincarnate and be a human again... and the earth devas being spirit beings cannot effectively physically attack humans to stop them, especially considering the scale of the human assult on the physical world... even if the earth devas launched a spirit attack on humans and created problems for humans, humans would not even be aware that the problems were related to their destruction of the natural (physical) world... so the earth devas who just want to live in peace, retreat from and shun areas inhabited by humans.

 

Dawg,

Where did you get this stuff, a lot of it is off?

[Taomeow]

hmm... regardless of the form of Buddhism the words of the Buddha as handed down speak of the great possibilities that a huamn being has!! (that obviously have bodies) Thus I don't buy into certain generalizations or only one aspect or one bit of information along these lines.

 

Om

 

No hmm, 3bob, we actually agree! I was making exactly this point -- that buddhism, as well as taoism for that matter, is a spectrum... and a spectrum is colorful, not black-and-white. One end of it, the one the farthest removed from my own views -- i.e. that outer extreme of buddhist sects where the physical body is seen, as dawg put it, as loathsome and disgusting -- is also very far removed from the authentic/original taoist views rooted in shamanism that went before. Whereas the other end, where taoism was combined with buddhism into taoist sects that have features of both -- as in Celestial Teachers sect, e.g. -- they may come much closer to each other. By the same token, at that other part of the spectrum, some influential buddhist schools have retained a lot of the shamanic roots of the modalities that went before them, e.g. in Tibet, where Dzogchen retains strong links with Bon, a shamanic culture that went before the buddhist conquest. In India and Pakistan, you see the same spectrum -- some Indian sects of buddhism are blatantly magical-shamanic-psychedelic in their practices, some Pakistani buddhism has strong Islamic overtones, which in their turn are resonantly shamanic on the other end of their own spectrum... It's all ganying, things resonate into each other... and the real thing is indestructible, that's why it will transcend the spectrum end to end and endlessly beyond.

[Mokona]

Dawg,

 

Please describe a meditation or set of meditations to reach one-pointedness, so I can start putting in effort!

[goonis38]

Dawg,

Where did you get this stuff, a lot of it is off?

 

I think this post is awesome, and I have been to the spirit world talked to people. And fallen Angels, and higher beings.

And I think you have great insight and am so happy you have come to our sight, we are so blessed to have you you....

Thanks for all the information

Melanie

[dawg]

ah, well.. thankyou anyway for showing me something I wasnt looking for and am glad to have found.

 

Were you looking to find out about the spirit world, Dawg, or did it come and find you?

 

Ime nature wants to communicate and draws one in to do so, so to Mokona, I'd say be receptive and still and open hearted and all manner of forms will introduce themselves.

 

Hello Cat,

 

Thanks for your comment.

 

In answer to tour question, "Were you looking to find out about the spirit world, Dawg, or did it come and find you?"

 

I first started going to the spirit world in "Lucid Dreams"... I would start dreaming, and realize I was asleep and dreaming, and I would then ignore my dream and walk away out of my dream, and find myself in the spirit world...

 

Sometimes if I didn't want to go to the spirit world, and didn't like the dream, I would just lie down in my dream and go back to sleep...

 

When I started meditating at least six hours a day at the Buddhist monastery, I reached one pointed-ness... and then I spent days and weeks at a time when I could see and walk off into the spirit world whenever I closed my eyes, no matter where I was... I could close my eyes in a dentist waiting room, a busy super market, riding in a car, standing on a busy street, and be in the spirit world... at night I could get in the bed close my eyes and walk off in the spirit world.. in the morning I would open my eyes and be in the physical world, then close my eyes and be in the spirit world, then open my eyes and be in the physical world, then close my eyes and be in the spirit world, etc...

 

I am very grateful that I have seen so much of the spirit world and talked to spirits, because now to me, the spirit world is a very real and familiar place... Seeing it has removed all doubt from my mind, and given me a clarity of purpose that I didn't have before... I have no fear of death, because I know I can't die, even if I wanted to... And my only concern now is trying to reach enlightenment, or the highest heavenly realm that I can... I have also learned to love and appreciate our tacky old earth, warts and all, and to develop compassion for all my fellow earthlings (except mosquitoes, the ants in my kitchen, and cockroaches... I haven't managed that yet).

 

Metta,

[dawg]

[manitou]

This is slightly off topic, but Taomeow alluded to 'Tao in stillness and Tao in motion'. Has anyone else observed how very aligned with quantum physics this phenomena is? Quantum physics has measured that matter, when reduced to the smallest component (that we're capable of) has the property of both a particle and a wave. This is a phenomena that has science baffled at this point, how matter can have both properties. A particle, if you think about it, merely takes up space. A wave (of probabilty, in this case) would appear to utilize time to get from point A to point B. It would appear that as creatures living in a physical world of matter, we are sitting at the crossroads of time and space. Somehow time and space are jerked around with in the lucid dreaming previously described in this thread; I too share the ability to travel but it doesn't sound like my lucid dreams have evolved to the point of others in this thread.

To achieve enlightenment, the left and right brain seem to want to comverge. Maybe this somehow translates into the quantum physicality of 'action and non-action of the Tao' Perhaps the left brain is the 'do-er', the right brain is the 'be-er'. The left brain is all structure, all intentional knowledge, all action. The right brain is the creator side, the perceiver of things hidden, the navel contemplator. I'm just guessing at this stuff, all I have to offer is my own self realization.

The Do-Nothing of the Tao is the effect of enlightened thinking; thinking where all structure has been removed; perhaps all paths lead to enlightenment when followed to their terminus, the room where 'all paths meet'. Don Juan Mateus took years to get The Power of Silence across to Carlos Castaneda (same thing as Do-Nothing). Maybe mature Christians utilize the same concept with the 'Peace that passeth all understanding', although in the bible belt part of the country I live in, the Christian thinking is anything but enlightened or mature.

It surely seems like all paths, including science, are walking up the same hill on different sides and are about to converge at the top. What an incredibly exciting time we get to live in...

[三江源]

.

Edited March 30, 2015 by 三江源

[C T]

'Tao in stillness and Tao in motion'.

In stillness, let there be stillness.

For stillness to be, motion has to be.

In motion, let there be motion.

For motion to be, stillness has to be.

 

In stillness, there is also motion.

In motion, there is also stillness.

 

Beyond stillness and motion, nothing comes and goes. There is no birth and no death.

 

 

 

Beyond even stillness and motion... purification of all dualistic notions and perceptions leading to complete transcendence.

 

Its not that difficult. When you are still, be with the stillness, and when in motion, be one with that. Discomfort arises often as a direct result of the mind following conflicting desires - when one is still, the desire to move arises, and vice versa. We tend to fight against these thoughts, because we have all these ideas about what is right and wrong, which then create the causes for agitation and anxiety to stir inside. This stirring will subtly bring about grosser distractions, and before we realize what is happening, we lose the presence.

 

I am not saying that we ought to give up the knowledge of right and wrong. What needs giving up is the temptation to constantly analyze and compartmentalize our views of what right and wrong is, and then set out to do one while/by trying to eradicate or suppress the other.

 

Thru the right meditative practices, one can learn to remain with whatever arises, without affirmation nor negation of any sort. This is the beginning of equanimous being - no acceptance nor rejection, and no non-acceptance nor non-rejection. Totally free of any resting view. To be free, there cannot be any acceptance or rejection - when one is confused, one daringly becomes utterly and willingly one with the confusion. Dont fight it - feel it fully. When there is clarity, immerse totally with this clarity as it appears - submerge yourself fully into it, touch it, feel it, let it overwhelm you unreservedly. Why? Because there will come a time when we realize how fleeting both are, how illusory, how impermanent - both mental states never lasts too long. And then hopefully one day we get so tired and give up chasing after one and have no energy to avert the other. To do this, to give up, requires much courage, the back-against-the-wall, no retreat, no surrender kind of courage. Then conflict will have no room to raise its head. By its own power, it will shrink. When there is no conflict, there is no need for enlightenment. Every aspect of what we call life merges and diverges at the same instance... you have come home.

 

 

Trungpa Rinpoche alluded to this kind of warrior-like attitude when he said:

"Creating a false kind of hope is one of the most prominent features of spiritual materialism... there are so many promises involved. So much hope is painted in your heart. This is playing on your basic weakness. It creates further confusion with regard to pain: In trying to deny and forget the pain, you get involved in looking for alternatives, anything to replace that pain. And that itself is another pain. This is what we have put ourselves thru, and will continue to do so, until we understand deep enough that the basic requirement for treading the spiritual path is (to embrace) hopelessness."

 

Edited October 21, 2010 by CowTao

[3bob]

I think this post is awesome, and I have been to the spirit world talked to people. And fallen Angels, and higher beings.

And I think you have great insight and am so happy you have come to our sight, we are so blessed to have you you....

Thanks for all the information

Melanie

 

Mel,

Then why copy my comment on his post as an aside, when you could have just recopied the same post that I did and then give your opinion to Dwag straight away on its content...

 

It is not impossible to say something like, "Bob I don't agree with your comment or pov" or just ignore me which I think would more spiritual of you compared to bouncing stuff off of other people to convey such disagreement.

 

Bob

 

Om

[3bob]

Edited October 21, 2010 by 3bob

[Maddie]

[dwai]

[dawg]

[Maddie]

Is this pretty much Zazen?

[Taomeow]

Beyond even stillness and motion... purification of all dualistic notions and perceptions leading to complete transcendence.

 

This, however, doesn't follow from the taoist paradigm. Tao-in-stillness is nondualistic. Dualism is the driving engine of locomotion at step two ("tao gives birth to two"), but motion starts already at step one ("tao gives birth to one") -- that's the Fibonacci sequence, the natural progression from oneness to duality and thence to trinity and thence to the "ten thousand things": 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, and so on. Notice the first two numbers in the sequence -- both "ones?" The only thing that differentiates 1 from 1 is its position in relation to the neighboring manifest or unmanifest phenomenon: the first 1 has 0 (nonbeing, transcendence, emptiness, stillness) to its immediate left, the second 1 has 2 (duality, yin-yang, being, manifestation, motion) to its immediate right. 0 is the taoist symbol of wuji. Beyond wuji, which is also known as tao-in-stillness, there's no "beyond" -- there's no "transcendence" of this level, it contains all possible levels, all potentials for all manifestations, while itself being "empty." Where do you go beyond 0? Either nowhere (remain in stillness) or everywhere (move). That's how it works in the taoist system. I don't know of a mathematical way to disprove it -- nor a spiritual one.

 

So between tao-in-stillness and tao-in-motion, pretty much everything is covered, all being and all nonbeing. And the crucial spritual idea (far as I'm concerned) to derive from the fact is this:

 

tao in stillness is not the goal, it is just where the vibration goes when it goes to the left ("to and fro goes the way") -- and its opposite, tao in motion, is where the vibration goes to the right. Man-made left-brain paradigms gravitate toward the 0, woman-made right-brain paradigms, toward yin-yang interplay, by virtue of the natural pull of their proximity. The Way is isomorphic -- goes both ways. You don't get stuck in stillness or in motion, and cultivation toward "transcendence" is going to be a shocking surprise to the transcending party when tao transcends its transcendence and returns, as is its natural property, its "main virtue." Returns to non-transcendence! No way around it! except toward transcendence, where it won't get stuck, however... Beautiful, don't you think?..

[dawg]

ha, yes , it came easily and fluently to you. Thankyou for answering, dawg. About the "I know I cant die"... what is it of you that does not die? Is it possible to say?

 

Hello Cat,

 

The reason I believe in reincarnation as a fact is because... I can remember the time I spent in my mother's womb, I was in samadhi the whole time, and I knew that I was "waiting to be born"... I knew that my "family" would "love" me... I knew my family was "financially secure", and that I would not suffer from "want"...As a baby in the womb, how could I know that I was "waiting to be born"... How could I know what "love", or "family" were... How could I know what "financial security", or "want" were... Unless I had lived before... I remember when my mother went into labor, and I knew that the time had come for me to be born... I remember squeezing through the birth canal, and coming out of my mother's body, into the bright light of the delivery room... When they cut my umbilical cord... The doctor holding me up by the feet and slapping me on my butt, to make me gasp for air and start breathing (first dukka... welcome to the hard cruel world)... I remember the doctor handing me to the nurse, who plopped me into a basin of water and gave me a sponge bath to clean me up (after being in the womb, the water seemed like ice water... second dukka)... Then they wrapped me up and put me in an incubator, because I was a premature baby... I remember then being taken into my mothers room to nurse for the first time, and as soon as I saw her I knew she was my mother... Then they put me in front of the big glass window of the hospital nursery, and "my family" came to "look at me"... I recognized my father when I saw him, and my older siblings, and knew they were my family... I have a continuous memory all the way back to the time in my mothers womb, where I had the consciousness of an adult male... And when I go to the spirit world, I "am" that same adult male... But I am not able to remember my past lives...

 

When I was born, I was like a man with amnesia, who could not remember his past... except that I had a new baby body, a new name, a new family, and had to learn everything all over again from scratch... And I hate to think how many countless times I must have been through this...

 

I hope this answers your question.

 

Metta

[Maddie]

I've never heard of anyone remembering being in the womb or a new baby before. I wonder why it is that we do not remember past lives?

[三江源]

.

Edited December 3, 2014 by 三江源

[Maddie]

as far as our soul goes from a taoist point of view we have two parts of our soul. The Hun and the Po. The hun reisde in the liver and are the part of us that continues to exist after the death of the body. The Po reside in the lungs and disolve when the body dies. The Po relate to more of our animal instincts, and constitute mainly the reactions you see in a new baby which is almost all Po. The Hun reside in the eyes in the day and the liver at night, and when we sleep fly away as we dream. Of course the shen our spirit also accompanies us after death, but it operates at a different level.

 

Hun

http://www.fivespirits.com/hun.php

 

Po

http://www.fivespirits.com/po.php

Edited October 21, 2010 by dmattwads

[宁]

Dawg,

 

would you mind telling me what is there exactly that you see in the spirit world?

 

Thanks!

 

L1