There's something not clicking with me on this.

In reply to Shortbuff on another thread, you mentioned this about contacting Monroe:


In this thread you wrote:


And finally, in the Raleigh meeting earlier this year, you mentioned that shortly after death the memories of your recent life fade away and you forget them.

How did the contact Monroe go, since his life as Monroe would have faded away from memory? I get the impression that it would be difficult for you to contact Monroe now, maybe because a lot of time has passed? Maybe because you might be getting a representation of Monroe from the historical database and not the "active" Monroe?

Finally, if we do forget the details of our lives shortly after death, it seems kind of bittersweet because the consciousness goes on but it forgets the little me, so in essence the little me won't exist anymore after this experience packet is done. Is this correct or a little-picture way at looking at things?

Josh,

Tom has not posted on this thread in about 2 weeks and with what he has going on, may not have time for a while. What you ask has effectively been answered along in the thread and elsewhere. Do you wish to find the answer by looking around and reviewing or would you like to hear my answer? It is my job to step in for Tom when necessary but what is your preference? You just need some internal sorting out of who each of us really is as we exist as one entity experiencing multiple threads of consciousness. The you as you normally think of yourself being one of those threads of consciousness which will end as you remain as continuous within another thread of consciousness. And basically, I have already stated the answer.

Ted

JoshM:

I can tell that the quotes you posted are taken out from the context of a bigger picture, you should read again the whole thread you took them from to understand what they really mean... do not forget that all the answer given here are analogies made up in an effort to explain that which we can not see for ourselves... they are only tools, like little windows that help us see the truth and not the truth themselves... a window is just wood and glass... you need to see through it.

This might help a little: If you think back about your life 20 years ago, if you are like most people, a lot of the details will be fuzzy and you will recall the times, at first, at least, only in the most general terms. You can go into a trance, of course, and fish up all sorts of stuff from the time .... but most of it will have little relevance to what is going on today. Most of it, on its own, will not be particularly memorable. And even more, to best recall a memory, you have to be in the same state of consciousness, with the same belief systems etc etc, in which it was first produced. But yes, it's all 'still there'. As written else where ... most of human life has been bleak, cold, dark, hungry, and in less than ideal health, and nearly all besieged with heavy, asphyxiating belief systems packaging them up into tight, cramped, unpleasant packages.

As for Bob Monroe .... well, I would guess that most of 'who he is' and what he 'does' and what he is about these days would simply beyond the human form of modeling to even begin to try to describe. There will be no post card: "Hi! Just loving it here on the third sub-plane of the cosmic devachan, 2 realities to the west .... the restaurants are lovely, and you wouldn't believe the beaches! Wish you were here, Hugs, RAM". It is clumsier than not to describe even local, nearby NPMR .

-Montana

-Montana

I am very sympathetic with your question, JoshM!

And there seems to be not only this dream like quality your former life becomes for you. In addition there is another thing, that I still need some time to digest.
Before really digging into the metaphysical stuff, I was more of an agnostic. There might be a god, there might be not. You might survive death or your personality might end with death and the end of your body might be the end of your consciousness for good.

So I was actually kind of relieved to find out, that your consciousness survives the death of your physical body.

Then I heard Tom talking about what happens after you die in his lecture in Malaga, Spain, several weeks ago.
In a nutshell (and please forgive me any distortion as the result of abbreviating his words) he said, that after you die, you will be put in some kind of waiting scenario where you stand around for example in a queue. In that setting you have time to deal with the shock of your physical death and be given a moment of settling in your new environment.

And then at some point you get settled in, accept the idea of the end of your life as you knew it and get bored. And at this point you get offered the opportunity for further growth by entering another lifetime. And of course whatever the entropy of your consciousness is at that point, this entropy will be the starting point in your new life. So if you had already achieved a very low entropy, you will of course have to go through the regular growth phase from infant to adult, but for example be able to reach certain insights a lot earlier than other entities with a higher entropy.

So far so good. But then I asked Tom, what that meant specifically for my current personality at the time of making that decision to enter a new life.

Obviously being reborn into a new Baby's body with a completely different DNA (and thus different inherited personality traits) and then growing up in a completely different environment will create an entirely new personality. In addition this new person will usually also have forgotten everything about my life. So basically my former personality is extinct.

Yes, it's still there in the database and yes, this is all still part of my IUOC monitoring my lifetime and the new lifetime. And Tom also tried to soften it by again pointing out the survival of the state of my entropy as the new starting point for the new life. But in the end he agreed, that entering the new life is kind of the end of the individual personality at that point.

Wow. That was something to digest and to be honest I am still struggling with fully accepting it.

Tronar

_________________
Always expect the unexpected...

There is a concept to add to what you already have put down here as your understanding so far and that is that data representing you which is saved when you die and your consciousness goes on in the file folder that contains you (as I look at it sometimes) can be accessed by anyone you leave 'here' that might want to experience you again. I suppose the new you could also access it which would be your past life regression then. It's data that can be accessed. I think it is important our loved ones are able to grasp that. Does this make it any sweeter?
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

....................hmm.

............You know, there was, back in the 20th century, two big opposing arguments theorizing about the generation of human personality. One group argued that it was genetic, the other argued that it was environmental. In hind sight, the argument seems absurd: if human personality exists at all, it does so as the the thin film that is the interface between those two dynamics. (Human personality could easily be thought to exist only as an abstraction, a set of interlinked models .... give this some thought: How many components of your current personality would have to be changed before you would think of yourself as a different person? ... and when you have answered that question, ask yourself this one: "If I am growing or evolving as a spirit, what or how many components must change such that I experience my presence in my self to be operatively different?"

My personal experience is that "personality" is very much like clothing: It not only needs regular laundering and ironing, but it ultimately wears out, one outgrows it, or one tires of the 'style', or even, times change and the style would be insupportable in the available matrices: Neither the personalities of George Washington nor Ben Franklin would fare well today, but the intent (or 'spirit', if you like) that assembled those personalities would probably do just fine, even given the rampant lunacy of most of this modern world.

Try to answer the question for yourself: "What is personality?" What is it made of? Are there identifiable components that can be isolated?

Go ahead: map that out and then post your process and your answers here.

I might be wrong; If I am, I would sure like to know it! :-)

Montana

I have a huge answer but Marley says 'walk me.' :)
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

It can be a little unsettling, to realize that the "little me" personality begins to fade shortly after the death. But I have come to understand that it is the EGO that places so much importance on itself. The EGO reinforces FEAR, and fear reinforces EGO. Fear of death, is really just the fear of "death of the ego". (it is a kind of SELF defense mechanism) resulting from the illusion of separateness.

The EGO will resist any and ALL attempts at usurping its control and all attempts at reducing the levels that we identify with it. Ego and fear arise from the illusion of separateness. And becoming aware of the underlying unity of all things is the beginning of the end of ego and fear.

But the ego is very much a product of this PMR "experience packet", Developed as a result of a combination of individual environment, culture, learned behavior, intent, choices, interactions, and QOC. While the overall entropy levels and QOC are the only part of "you" that carries over from "experience packet" to "packet", the ego (an expression of personality that is PMR-based) drops away.

I like to remember that this EGO, this personality, is not the REAL me. No more than the hundreds of other experience packet-EGOs were the real me. There may be some common features, re-emerging from lifetime to lifetime, such as artistic or musical tendancies. But the more successful we are at dropping our identification with the EGO, overcomming fear and the illusion of separateness, understanding the underlying UNITY of ALL things, the more we will resemble our TRUE self.

There is, after all, only one consciousness and we are all IT. Every where we look we see "IT". There is nothing that is not "IT". Everything, everywhere, all the time, within this "virtual" world inside the mind of AUM.

Alan Watts used to say that it was as if GOD was playing peekaboo with himself

_________________
LOVE is the answer

peace
patrick

Ehn~

The alternative, (remaining the same 'personality', and, of all kinds, a human one! for eternity), is not so lusterous, when you think about it.

Personally, I'd rather die and go to hell, and would bring a crow-bar to force the gate in case they were particular about the qualifications of their clientele.

There are lots of prizes to be won doing the human gig, but on the whole, it is much like sploshing around in a cess-pool.


-Montana



.

@Bette: Yes, I am aware of what you wrote. That's exactly what I meant with "Yes, it's still there in the database and yes, this is all still part of my IUOC monitoring my lifetime and the new lifetime."
But this is pure data without the free will included making it a living consciousness. And yes, anyone could experience me again by accessing this data. But it would be like playing a movie or like interacting with a computer generated me in a Holodeck, because this experience would NOT include my free will making any of the decisions in the interaction but at best the TBC having my file-data act according to its own probability calculations.


@Montana: yes, I am contemplating this dicussion about what creates personality, the environment or the genes, also every now and then. I was interested in "twin research" long before I discovered metaphysics as a serious thing. It was interesting to see, how many things twins had in common, even if they were separated at birth and then thrown into completely different circumstance (for example one into a nice and loving family and the other making a "career" in a series of orphanages). Some of the results make you really wonder down to the names of their partners and dogs (I am not kidding).

I was always in favor of a 50:50 perspective. DNA forms your personality as well as what you experience during growing up. Now I am looking at it more from a 33:33:33 viewpoint. DNA has it's influence, the soul (FWAU, state of entropy, you name it) entering the baby and then of course the environment and experiences. I am not fixed on the percentages though.

The point you are making about at which point is my personality not my personality anymore is a really good one. Thanks for this thought-provoking impulse. I'll probably be contemplating that one for some time.

Spontaneously I'd answer, that my personality is my personality as long as I recognize it as myself. As my sum of experiences, decisions, thoughts, viewpoints, attitudes etc. The moment I am thinking "hey, that's not me doing this" is probably when I would start to see it differently. But we all probably had moments like this. Where we were wondering about our own behavior or thoughts. And still came to accept this as part of ourselves. And we all go to sleep every night, where our consciousness kind of gets switched off every time. And when the next morning comes, we are kind of booted anew and still feel ok with that. And who knows if we would even notice if some part of our memories/wiring/programming/personality had been amended during our unconscious period. Without permanent conscious continuity feeling like ourselves might just be another illusion, since we couldn't experience the moment of change.

And I agree. Watching more than one vampire movie I also pondered the idea of being immortal. And I came to the conclusion that I would NOT want to live as a (the same) human being forever. I guess after a thousand years on earth you probably feel like you have seen it all and get tired beyond imagination.

Still I was looking forward of the potential opportunities after death. I liked for example the notion of taking my place in the soul-cluster (according to Bob Monroe's and Bruce Moen's reports) and then watch the new personality making it's life on earth and kind of watching it "from above" while having the possibility to pursue my own things at the same time (beginning with actively helping the new "me", or helping out in some of the centers at the park at Focus 27 or still be able to interact with loved ones (for example to joke around about our many mistakes during our time on earth together) or doing something totally different that I have yet no clue of). And then maybe some day, when all the accumulated personalities have done their job and it is time to "wink out", I'd become a part of a bigger consciousness and might consciously (meaning experiencing the process) merge with all the other parts of my soul-cluster and leave this NPMR as a new whole, a sum bigger than its parts.
(I guess Tom will be shaking his head over all of those belief-traps, should he read this thread anytime soon.)

I really liked that idea. Now learning that at the moment of me agreeing to enter a new lifetime my current personality is kind of put to sleep for good is not quite as appealing to me.


And yes, Patrick, I also agree with you that it is probably my EGO speaking here.
Currently it feels less like fear or anything, but more like a little sadness about a lost opportunity. I just think I had enjoyed roaming around NPMR a lot. :-)

And I mean, after spending a lifetime fighting my EGO and maybe finally coming to the point near the end of my life, where my EGO is not playing a big role anymore. Don't you think it would be a waste, if the EGO then just "drops away" anyway as you put it. :-)
I mean what did I battle it for all the time, if it dissolves afterwards anyway? ;-)

There is definitely solace in the fact, that all separation is an illusion in the first place and it all comes down to AUM running the show. And if that is the way it is supposed to be, my personal preferences won't make much of a difference anyway and I will have to accept it, like it or not.

It's just that this new perspective has a profoundly different feeling for me regarding the afterlife, than what I had read before about it.

Intellectually I have probably completely understood the idea of AUM being all that is (or IT as you called it). I've definitely heard and read it many times now. :-) But I don't think it has fully sunk in yet in all levels of my being.

Tronar

_________________
Always expect the unexpected...

Actually I hadn't wrote anything yet since I had to walk the dog...I still haven't written anything of the huge answer I have and I haven't read all you just wrote because you may have been mistaken about thinking I had wrote something new...
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

Tronar: Now learning that at the moment of me agreeing to enter a new lifetime my current personality is kind of put to sleep for good is not quite as appealing to me.

mmmmmmmmmmm ... I don't think that it is quite like that either.

The point I was trying to make is that all the elements of which we understand personality to exist are interchangeable, at least in theory, and also somewhat in fact.... just like clothes. The "who's doing the selecting of the outfits" is the real self, and this continues, in my understanding.

A lot of people have had the experience of moving to a totally different locale, taking up a new career, etc etc, and these events change, to some degree, the personality... a new accent is acquired, new habits, different clothes, different content of consciousness, etc etc. After a few years, the person will be quite different. He may recall, even with some regret, his older now-gone self, at the same time realizing that he couldn't very well fit into that old life anymore. At bottom, regret for the past is the comfort of the familiar in disguise, and the self that lived only a year ago is in many ways already dead and gone.

Once again, Tom explicitly says to not believe him, but to go and find out for yourself. You may come to his same set of answers, and then again you may very well not. It is possible that the universe is so grandly laid out that it can be modeled in an infinite number of seemingly mutually exclusive ways, each asserting that they are the absolute truth, and all might in fact be correct for the persons that subscribe to them. This is already experientially true in the belief system territories, but it may be true beyond that as well. (That is a profoundly radical thing to say, I know; It is strictly my own notion, I don't believe I have seen anything like it in print.... but sheesh, I've read so many things, I always worry about cryptonesia creeping in.)

Taking the position that one can have models that seem like truth but may not be (as opposed to insisting that one is in possession of 'The Truth') makes it much easier to be open-minded and so become aware of fresh things of which one had no clue about before. It also makes the experience of life shinier with a sense of the mystical if one takes the position that he may not know so much after all. If one takes a position that he DOES know the absolute truth, the world feels a lot more solid and real and everything is much more 'cut and dried', with the seeming comfort of predictability. I guess it would be fair to say that it comes down to a personal style-choice which way a person swings with things once he is aware of the choice. I can't blame someone that chooses the latter style, especially in this ding-bat world. The relative sense of security can be a medicine.

-Montana

This is my take.

We live in VR, and everyone here is a virtual representation of the certain IUOC for an educational and growing purposes. According to a given rule set, our IUOC, when she/he/it ready, creates a virtual personality/mask or FWAU, and this FWAU/mask enters the virtual game/kindergarten here. We have to remember, that there is no separation, and there is no division between IUOC and its FWAUs/masks. All IUOC's qualities and knowledge gained before this lifecycle are available to FWAU, but it takes time to raise FWAU's awareness to its previous level. Growing up is not a guaranty prerequisite at all, and it means, that it is 50:50 chance both ways, up or down entropy level, since each FWAU has its free will. Communication goes both ways, and all FWAU's gains and failures would be reflected in IUOC's quality of consciousness.

After FWAU/mask's lifecycle is over, and a dead body has been left behind, a virtual personality/mask is back to NPMR, and then a recuperation process starts. But it was no separation, and we as IOUC never left NMPR to begin with, so, it could be said, that this IOUC has exhausted its need in this particular FWAU/mask, and this FWAU/mask can go into a storage area, or a history data base. In this life here, when we have to move on, we have to part with some beliefs, attachments, and as the time goes by, the new things take over old ones. What was so much important to us 20 years ago, now is a memory, and most of the time, this is a vague memory. The lesson has been learned, and a new one is coming. We could always reach to our old memories though. Something like that happens with us in NPMR.

FWAU comes back to NPMR, and its function is over. It becomes dissolve into IUOC. It has never existed independently in a first place. It is going in a storage or history database. IUOC creates another FWAU to continue learning and growing. Old FWAUs could be found in the history database.

It takes a while to accept, that this dear me is only one little speck, a tiny dot in the database. After you accept it, it doesn't have to bother you at all. You are more, than just this speck. You are consciousness, and a whole system is supporting you.

Our body is virtual, and DNA is virtual. It belongs to PMR, and when body dies, is stays with it here. DNA is a part of this rule set. DNA could be representation of some characteristics, but it reflects consciousness, since we are consciousness. It is like your cloth, which reflects your taste, but it is not you.

Lena

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

I cannot think at the moment how to search and find this. Tom has written about this before. As best that I can see at the moment to put this is that if you are a relatively young IUOC as in still changing pretty rapidly, you will get special treatment as described say in Michael Newton's book about people under hypnotic regression talking about their returns with welcomes by friends and guides and some kind of gradual transition to ease the transition.

'Older' IUOCs who have been around the track very many times will have settled into a point where you here can be counted on to have developed much into the same being that you feel yourself to be here and now, i.e. not that different from your continuing persona as your NPMR IUOC. At that point, you are pretty much yourself both places. Same basic personality and concept of self. You are not making so much radical changes to yourself as 'polishing' your being. Then your return as I remember Tom describing it is more like coming home on Friday from a long hard week at the office, settling down into your easy chair and taking an hour or so to think over what you have learned that is new as to insights from this totally engrossing historical/biographical novel that you have just read. When you get up from your favorite chair and this period of introspection, you take up your usual occupations. You are integrated back that readily. No muss, no fuss, no feeling of loss of yourself as you have suffered no such loss.

You are not likely here thinking the thoughts that bring you to the MBT BB, although it is possible, because you are a relatively new IUOC and thus likely to represent a personality that is not already well developed within your IUOC. Nor are you likely devolving and losing the battle against entropy. You individuals specifically that are engaging in this specific conversation show no signs of not representing such mature personalities, at least to me. When you merge with yourself as you are on a continuing basis, you are likely to feel right at home, in my opinion. Your concept of who 'I' am fully intact.

If you are such a new soul/IUOC that you are undergoing relatively rapid development and change, then what you do and learn and develop here, specifically in what you learn and how you change as a result of your exposure to MBT is likely to have a major effect upon your self as you are on a continuing basis. Also as Tom pointed out, successful personality designs are things of value that took some time to develop and thus to be re used and continued to be developed and polished, not abandoned casually.

Ted