The hearsay part?

Hmm...well, I can't really understand on an intimate level how other people might experience a particular event.. I can only hear their story and interpret (to the best of my ability) how I would experience it. This means that I can't depend on other people's experiences to figure out big truth. BUT, right now with my lack of experience....that's the only information I have to work with. But I'm working on that, Bette ;) I promise.

Homesar,

Everyone of them, JK, Tolle, Tom, Lao Tzu, ... have different levels of 'knowledge' and probably different levels of realization of the Big Truth, according to some subjective/objective factors.

I'm not saying that JK, Tom or anyone have the 'real truth' and the others don't.
What I'm saying is that what they are saying, are basically the same thing, but with different style. Tom is most comprehensive of them all, for me. And he wrote a model of reality. There is no TBC, no IUOCs no Big Cheese in literal sense of the word (As far as I understood this), it's an metaphor so you can understand it to some extent, and so that Tom can express himself, because what we really are talking about are stuff that we can't even imagine or comprehend in other way.. then vaguely through models and metaphors, and fully only through direct experience. You want videos and evidence, there is no such things. There's only experience, and that experience is unsharable.

JK or Tolle don't do such stuff, and that's why no one can understand them really. We fill in the blanks and interpret. My understanding of Eastern philosophies and freelancers like JK, grew significantly after I read MBT. In fact, understanding of everything grew significantly after I read MBT - and all these people here, probably have the same experience.

So I recommend to you, that you go and read MBT first, because you're missing some fundamental concepts and paradigms that you're trying to discuss here.

Just to clarify, as of right now, I've read MBT.

homesar,

have you read JK's biography? This is his biography written by Mary Lutyens http://www.scribd.com/doc/11499372/Mary ... ishnamurti

His words about an individual can be interpreted as we are one, or One, and the division is an illusion, i.e. the division is created and a part of this living, human life on this planet. He had never mentioned, as far as I remember, virtual reality, but it was not part of his terminology. JK's concern was to help people become aware of who they are here. He had rejected reincarnation, in my understanding, because he was rejecting all old terminology, as well, as he was rejecting church, any separation between people, religious, national, racial, etc.

His views are very much similar to what Tom has written here viewtopic.php?f=18&t=3696

Lena

_________________
'Real knowledge is to know the extent of ones ignorance.' Confucius.

Homesar,

Maybe this would help.

What kind of evidence would you find compelling?

I know you said the tapes Tom talks about with Bob Monroe would be convincing. I'd find that interesting but I know tapes can be edited, faked, scripted etc., so that would always leave me with a bit of doubt. And if you're going to listen to what the debunkers say, you'd still be full of doubts. What they'd tell you is that Tom is only letting you hear the footage that supports what he is saying. They'd say that there were probably dozens of sessions that were "misses" that you never hear.

Doubt can be a very powerful thing and taken to extremes. There are very sincere people who doubt the moon landing and the holocaust. I watched the moon landing on TV back in '69. I had a neighbors from Eastern Europe who lived through WWII and talked about concentration camps. So do I really have any proof of anything? Well, from an ultra skeptical point of view I probably don't. But on a day to day basis, I'm satisfied with thinking the moon landing and the holocaust occurred.

I guess I have two levels of "doubt". The top level of doubt is pretty much identical to what yours is, but it's also not all that useful because anything can doubted. Then there's my working level of doubt. That level accepts that my dad, very much still an individual, did interact with me after he died on two different occasions. I accept that my experiences really happened. Just like I accept that during his life my dad was just a regular guy and not a secret agent or something. But from that top level of doubt, I guess he could have been a secret agent.

You may need to develop a working level of doubt to really start to get anywhere, because that top level of doubt can shoot absolutely anything down. You couldn't function if you let that top level of doubt run your day to day life here.
If I was to put numbers on it, I'd say my top level of doubt is a 10, but my working level of doubt is more like a 7 or 8.
There are lots of things I hear that are 4's and 5's to me. They may be true, but I don't find them compelling enough to affect my working view of the world.

Jeanne

That's good as "working on it" is what we do to get anywhere. I actually misinterpreted the hearsay as "herasay", twice. Never mind.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

Hi Homesar,

Personal verification of data when undergoing an OOBE would probably settle this for you, although even then, these results will always be subject to scepticism (your own and that of others). I personally am not sure to what degree your own scepticism may be holding you back from having a verifiable OOBE. Although maintaining open-minded scepticism is important, you have to be careful to ensure that your scepticism is not negatively affecting your ability to perceive and interact beyond your PMR environment. Were it me, I would relax all views, doubts and expectations - clearing the mind of these so as to make room for the experience to simply 'be'. Then it becomes a matter of discipline, persistence and letting go.

In 2008 and 2009 I set out with absolute determination to intentionally leave my body in search of verifiable truth. Beyond a few randomly triggered highly paranormal experiences (including randomly 'falling' into another realm of existence inhabited by purple translucent humanoids after a heavy day's work) I had never experienced a consciously controlled foray into NPMR. Two major things held me back. The biggest was fear. Not just the fear of being outside of my body, but the fear of how this experience would radically alter my world view. Searching for fears is essential, as you can then disable them - very liberating in general. Fears very helpfully reveal themselves in social situations and dreams, some are big and easy to find and some are extremely subtle. PMR and NPMR experiences are always showing me the fears that are affecting my ability to lower my entropy and act in a truly loving manner. Although I am making progress in all areas, just when you think you are a truly loving being, another event will hold up mirrors to a new set of even more subtle fears that you hadn't perceived before. It is a long and beautiful progress - but that's a digression. The other thing that may have been holding me back was the strength of my body's own desires for pleasures of the flesh. During this time I became ascetic (this was for a limited time) so strongly did I want the OOBE experience. I meditated, bought a number of books (including MBT and Robert Bruce's Astral Dynamics and Mastering Astral Projection) and spent most of my life at that time in a highly meditative state. Within a very short while I was flailing about like a mad person in NPMR with very little control over my actions and emotions. You realise quickly the importance of getting your emotions/mentality right before leaving the body when in NPMR. Manoeuvring is tricky, as can be staying 'out there' once waking consciousness is achieved. I never really mastered myself consciously within any NPMR environments - as I believe I still have much inner working to do - however what I experienced provided sufficient personal truth for me to stay on the path towards becoming love and continuing to learn. I am currently undergoing the NPMR Ego/Fear testing that TOm mentions and that many other folks on this forum are experiencing too.

In terms of practical tips for achieving OOBE, becoming more familiar with your body's more subtle energies can help raise your conscious perception. Chi Gong, Tai Chi and Yoga are wonderful ways to condition your body and consciousness for extra body awareness, and many find that the OOBE state is a natural next step from these exercises.

Affirmations provide a wonderful anchor for intent, and intent when planning for an OOBE is very important. A good example is (after clearing the mind of thought) stating: As consciousness, I am able to leave this body, travel to other dimensions of reality, meet and interact with other forms of consciousness and return. I choose to experience new levels of reality now. When repeated often enough, the effect is not that unlike a TM mantra - helping induce a meditative state, and creating the right intent.

Your determination has already set you on the path towards your truth - whatever that may be!

Orange

I feel like I need to make a post which better describes exactly what position I'm in, where I'm coming from, and what I'm looking for. I've percieved as confrontational and...for lack of better words...too skeptical.

My background is heavy in the sciences. I have a BA in Biology and have worked in laboratories for several years (and am currently working in a lab). So I'm very familiar with the scientific method and with the various mental tricks that you can play on yourself to distort reality to fit what you want to be true. I also come from a somewhat heavy zen background. After tiring of the nihilistic outlook that being purely objective and scientific almost inevitably gives you...I turned to zen.

Now, the zen belief as I see it (and as it's been clarified to me by MANY MANY MANY heavy zen practitioners and apparently "enlightened" people) is this: We are the universe. We are that. This basically means that we are simply pure awareness. We are aware of everything everywhere....we're omnipotent and completely and utterly one with everything. In fact, I wouldn't say we are one WITH everything. It'd be more accurate to say that we ARE EVERYTHING. We just are. There is no individuality. Individuality is an illusion caused by the brain and the brain's memory. Memory gives us the illusion that there is a past and by extention that we have an individual past. In fact, when we remember something...it is simply a sensation of the brain. We are awareness being aware of the brain giving the sensation of a memory. (I hope that makes sense) Our subjective experience is just a byproduct of the brain's natural tendency to build it's sensory input into a story. We are not that story...we are the pure awareness...the ONE that experiences that story. In fact, we (or I...the SELF) experience every story of every person everywhere at all times. However, we believe that we are a separate subjective person because the memories of two different brains don't interconnect...and it's that memory which is the only thing which gives us the sense of separateness. When the body dies...that memory is gone. And that's that. The only semblance of individuality (which didn't exist to begin with) is gone.

I'm not gonna lie...that scares the **** out of me. I'll re-explain that if necessary. The zen belief is kind of a tricky thing to wrap your head around.

Now, I struggled with accepting this idea for a long time. It wasn't hard for me to logically make sense of it....but it is a tough pill to swallow.

So then, after dealing with this idea for a long time...I find Tom Campbell. Tom says that we are more than our bodies...and our individuality goes on after the death of this body. The general idea of what zen was saying was still true, but that memory and individuality was based on something besides a piece of meat which was going to rot away in a few years. What an awesome idea! And even better, unlike the majority of people who claim this idea, Tom didn't seem like a complete loony! He seemed like a sane, sensible, and intelligent guy. If HE could believe this, then there must be something to it, I thought.

So I read the trilogy, I signed up for the forum, and I start trying to meditate and get these OOB states.

Now, let me say that I agree with a lot of what Tom says. The things he says about love being the most important thing, about our purpose being lowering our entropy (which I interpret to mean moving through life and constantly increasing our choices of what we want to do), and I just agree with a lot of his general assumptions.

However, I cannot, despite all of my searching, find any evidence of our individuality going beyond our brain. Up to that point, I can agree with Tom. But I find no reason to believe that our individuality extends beyond our brain. In other words, I think that Tom and some of the zen beliefs match up perfectly. The only difference is that in Zen (and I'm using zen generically) the individual unit of consciousness is the physical body. It doesn't extend beyond that


I want to see evidence of successful remote viewing. A recorded instance of somebody going out of body and viewing something that they just simply could NOT have seen otherwise. I've heard of cases such as Uri Geller and Ingo Swann with the Stargate project. At first, I was convinced! But, later I took a look at a criticism of their work. Apparently they were stretching their statistics. For instance, to study remote viewing the researchers would have Uri identify 10 targets on 10 different occasions. Now, the researchers declared an 70% or so accuracy. But here's the problem. They ended up throwing out most of their data. The first 9 runs (meaning, the first 90 targets) were almost completely incorrect (the statistical breakdown is on Wikipedia somewhere, I think). However, the final run they had 7 hits and 3 misses. After throwing out the first 90 targets, they were left with ~70% success ratio. Now, this sounds fantastic! But they're not telling us about how they threw out most of their data. Also, if you'll check out some James Randi videos, he pretty rigorously debunks Uri Geller (by showing through video evidence how he cheated on several occasions during his "remote viewing." This is just one example of many.

I want to see evidence like Tom reported when he and Dennis went out of their bodies and recorded their experiences, then compared them. I want to see the comparison. If it shows something that cannot be accounted for by chance, then I'll be appeased. I want to hear personal anecdotes that portray something that could not have been made up. I don't want to hear about coincidences. I want to hear about how you went out of body, saw your friend in another state wearing red shorts, and then called them up and asked them what color shorts they were wearing, "OH! I'm wearing RED shorts!" Tada! You have just convinced me!

I don't think this is too much to ask.

I'm not trying to be confrontational. A lot of this MBT stuff resonates with me. But the big aspect, the meat of the story...is the survival after death. That's what I really want to see.

I'd be interested in hearing some of Tom's anecdotes. Some of the subjective experiences with objective results that helped convinced him this stuff is real. Though, I think he's avoiding the topic because I'm coming off as a bit confrontational and stubborn =)



Looking back on this post...it's not as well written as I would have liked it to been. But I just got home from work and I'm tired...

Hi Homesar,
This might be of some interest to you:
http://www.towardthelight.org/neardeath ... icles.html

Homesar,

Thanks for that explanation of where you are coming from.

If I understand what you are saying, you want to see evidence that your individuality is not dependent on your current physical brain/body. In other words, if "you" can get out of your brain/body and still be "you" (and have proof that it really happened), then you'll have evidence that your individuality does not depend on your current brain/body being alive.

Am I sort of the right track?


Jeanne

Jeanne

Pretty much, yep.

Now, I understand that remote viewing doesn't 100% point towards individuality existing beyond the body (afterall, there could be some sort of telepathy going on.)

However, if I can see with my own eyes, or if not that at least hear somebody's story about how they experienced something without their physical senses being involved...then at least I'll have a little more hope of there being something besides the brain being me.

Jeanne212 that should be enough you would think. homesar, would that be enough?

Try this Zammit! http://www.victorzammit.com/
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

Oh...don't get me started on Victor Zammit

Homesar,

Ok, I doubt there is any real proof here, but I found this interesting. My 13 year old daughter has spontaneous out of body experiences. She says she started having them around 6 or so. I asked her what she thought was happening when it first happened. She said at first she thought it was a dream, but then realized it was too real to be a dream. She never even mentioned this to me until she was around 12.

This doesn't happen that often and she doesn't seem have any control over it.

The funny thing is, this is all just second nature to her. She just accepts that her "soul" or "spirit" and her body are separate. She'll try to answer my questions, but it doesn't really interest her that much at all. It's as matter of fact to her as logging onto Facebook.

Typically, this happens at night, in her bedroom. When she "pops out" so to speak, she can see her sleeping body, she can watch what's on television (she alway leaves it on) and in order to "get back in" she touches her physical body. She reports a kind of tunnel thing when she comes out.

She has reported falling asleep in class, and suddenly finding herself out of her body.

Also, last winter, she fell asleep while riding in my husband's van. They were traveling down the interstate, and she ended up outside her body on the outside of the van, kind of traveling next to it.

She reports being more disconcerted about the experience when she "pops out" somewhere other than in her own room.

I believe she is telling the truth, but it's her experience, not mine. I don't think she could talk as intelligently about OBE's if she didn't actually have the experience. It's not like she has shown any interest in them or would have researched enough to be able to "fake me out". I can see no reason why she would be pulling an elaborate hoax on me. She just seems genuine and rather uninterested in the whole thing. (I will admit she is smart though. She is in "gifted" classes at school, although not a brainiac in any way. It's all boy's, cell phones, girly gossip, facebook, and socializing for her. I did find it odd that she could identify the entire alphabet, not by rote, but in any order when she was 2. She says she learned it by watching TV.)

If we accept that she's telling the truth, here's what I find interesting. As a little kid, she first thought it was a dream, after all that's what she would have been familiar with. So, she initially related it to something familiar, but then started realizing that it was, in fact, different. Her term being, "more real". This seems to me to be a very credible discription on her part.

Also, she always seems to find herself outside her body in the same location in which she fell asleep. If she were dreaming, or having some experience "inside her brain" while sleeping, why would she always experience her "real" environment when she "pops out" of her body.

If this is not "real",then her brain is making this all up while she is actually sound asleep with her eyes closed. Why would her brain consistently "make up" an environment that matches her "real" environment?

If it is a sort of dream she's having about being in her bedroom watching TV at night, why does always see her body sleeping on the bed? Why not just have a dream about being awake watching TV? I never have dreams in which I seem to be outside my body in the dream.

As far as I know, she's the only person I know who actually has OBE's.


Jeanne

Sounds pretty cool, Jeanne.

The one issue I have is we can't be certain she's not just imagining her surroundings according to her previous memories and auditory input. You say she watches tv OOB..it's possible she's just putting images to the sounds she hears during her sleep. I've done this myself.

Has she ever seen something outside of the house that she later verified that she wouldn't have known otherwise?


Like I said, it sounds cool and I'm not brushing it off (I'm glad you told me about it! You should have told me this before the cat story!). But...well, you know how skeptical I am of these things. The sensation of location within your body can change around during things like sleep paralysis. We have to consider every option and rule everything out until the best explanation is that she's going OOB.