I would like to post something that would have really seemed odd to me when I was 40 or 45 and younger. But the odd things happen in life and slowly I began to wonder.

Is there any rational for thinking about there being a totally accepting love being out there and in regular life there is just the rare occassion that allows you to access and feel it?

Ditto art. There are the rare artists, both art art and musicians, I know of who talk about their creations not being their's, but are just out there and they are able to access them and put them on paper or into sound. Like they had antennae for those things.

Ditto techie stuff, which is more my bailiwick. Once upon a time when there were very few educated people, there were the individuals that moved the world forward. Now that society has created widespread education and a world much more open to the contributions of many, sometimes it almost seems to me that things are out there and when the time is correct the idea pops up with several people.

Any thoughts?

I have the "gift" in the healing arts, otherwise very weak ESP.

Carl Jung explains it best to me, as best as translated Carl can.

What they are describing is inspired events. Where they are more concerned about getting down physically before loosing it.

Have you ever typed something where it flowed out your fingers as if bypassing your consciousness and find the piece written, pretty good. As in "inspired".

This is my favorite text on the subject as is succinct enough as not to be accused of wordiness by this dyslexic.

http://www.amazon.com/Tao-Psychology-Sy ... 0062500813

This book was recommended to me by a Bishop I met on three occasions. Eastern philosophy is a turn off for me so that I overcame "Tao" to recommend this book counts too.

Moi

I do believe in ghosts.

I have always loved artists and how they can put there thoughts on canvas or sit before a piano and bring beauty to everyone.If you were to find me on a Saturday night you would find me at the art studio meeting folks and learning from the artists and enjoying classical music what gifts these people have and give to us who can only enjoy.

This is an extremely interesting thread. I do not have time right now to do anything more than scratch the surface of what these things mean to me.

Years ago, I reached the point of knowing that I am absolutely loved. I am not speaking about religion here, but of my place in creation - in this wondrous universe we inhabit. There is a well known quote that says "not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine." Perhaps the same can be said about this love.

When I was a child, there was much less light pollution than today. Even from the yard of my home in an eastern seaboard major metro area, on clear moonless nights I could gaze into what I now know is just a small part of the Sagittarius arm of our galactic home, the Milky Way. I remember clear, cold winter nights when I could view our neighboring galaxy, Andromeda, with my unaided eye.

Our limited knowledge of the universe has grown a lot since I was a child. I now understand that a black hole likely powers the center of our galaxy. We have identified strange planets around other stars. Our bodies are made of star dust, the heavy element by-products of super novas that exploded in the vicinity of the solar system as the earth developed.

All of these things, and many others, inspire me. I wonder if other sentient beings in the universe perceive reality in ways that are startlingly different from our own view.

I was introduced to Carl Jung's idea of a 'collective unconscious' about 30 years ago. Over time, this has come to make more sense to me.

In my best moments as a musician playing the piano and organ, I feel very connected to something beyond myself. It is at these times that original musical ideas come to me. Ideas that I someday hope to have the time and knowledge to elaborate on in my own compositions.

Danya (imported) wrote: Mon May 09, 2011 9:23 pm Years ago, I reached the point of knowing that I am absolutely loved. I am not speaking about religion here, but of my place in creation -

In my best moments as a musician playing the piano and organ, I feel very connected to something beyond myself. It is at these times that original musical ideas come to me.

These are the kinds of things that have happened to me. Not often. Once or twice for each. A love that was just totally accepting and absolutely different from anything I have felt for any other human being. I came home from my daughter being born and sat down and wrote a story on being an expat where all the bits and pieces of experience just flowed into a coherent story. Those times were odd enough to make me wonder if there wasn't something else, some other level, in our existence that I was totally ignorant of.

Arab Nights (imported) wrote: Mon May 09, 2011 7:01 am seems to me that things are out there and when the time is correct the idea pops up with several people.

Any thoughts?

Yes, it seems like that to me. I accept the possibility that there is some kind of extra-corporeal communication from an external intelligence. Maybe it's what happens in dreams. Hence to sleep on a problem is usually a helpful way to a solution.

I have never felt that reassuring universal love that some mention. When I was seeking it I got the message "You've been dealt your hand in this world. Get on with your life and do the best you can with it." It was purely a feeling which I've had to translate into words. Well, I'm still trying to do the best I can with my life.

Danya (imported) wrote: Mon May 09, 2011 9:23 pm Years ago, I reached the point of knowing that I am absolutely loved. I am not speaking about religion here, but of my place in creation - in this wondrous universe we inhabit. There is a well known quote that says "not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine." Perhaps the same can be said about this love...

Our limited knowledge of the universe has grown a lot since I was a child. I now understand that a black hole likely powers the center of our galaxy. We have identified strange planets around other stars. Our bodies are made of star dust, the heavy element by-products of super novas that exploded in the vicinity of the solar system as the earth developed...

Not only is our Universe stranger than we can imagine, more and more scientists are coming to believe that our Universe is only one in a Multiverse, one bubble in an infinite foam of Universes. That the Multiverse exists provides one explanation for Quantum Mechanics. String Theory, which attempts to reconcile quantum mechanics and general relativity, also suggests a Multiverse. Cosmic Inflation, which explains the Universe as we see it, almost requires a Multiverse, other Universes that exist alongside ours or exist, stretching to Infinity, beyond our cosmological horizon.

If there is a Multiverse comprised of infinite Universes, there there are infinite copies of each of us in those Universes, an infinite number exactly like us and an infinite number a little different or a lot different from us. Perhaps, on a quantum level, we connect to those of us that exist in those Universes. If the Multiverse is an explanation for quantum mechanics, we do connect to them on a quantum level.

Multiverse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse)

Also, if you think about it, if our Universe popped into existence 13.7 billion years ago as a result of the Big Bang, it had to come from somewhere, and if one Universe popped into existence, why couldn't more?

We definitely do not perceive reality as it is. Both general relativity and quantum mechanics are proof of that. It could be that it's all an illusion, a holograph. Zen spiritual awakening is awakening from our illusion of reality.

Kortpeel (imported) wrote: Tue May 10, 2011 10:00 am I have never felt that reassuring universal love that some mention. When I was seeking it I got the message "You've been dealt your hand in this world. Get on with your life and do the best you can with it." It was purely a feeling which I've had to translate into words. Well, I'm still trying to do the best I can with my life.

I cannot answer for Danya, but for me both times were like Candid Camera - when you least expect it. And the last thing I was doing at those two moments was seeking the feeling or the message. Everytime I have actively sought, I usually get either a busy signal or something like Kortpeel mentions. That to me is the pisser about those kind of things. You cannot set up an experimment because you have no control when it happens. A person can hardly go thru life completely wired for such a thing - although my wife does threaten to install one of those Brazilian GPS/penile strain gage remote monitors.

This is a big overwhelming subject.

Is it a quest for love that goes beyond the human or is it a consciousness of the universe? This is the quest of swamis and Zen practitioners, to experience this directly and not through the rational mind as in maths, physics or metaphysics.

I for one have only once in this life time ever experienced anything close to this, which I must mentioned happened far from any religious context.

In my twenty’s I was walking down a snow covered mountain after a hard day’s enjoyable skiing, with my skies over one shoulder. Then from nowhere a rising feeling of well being and elation came up through my body and out the top of my head, that I was almost overwhelmed! I felt as though I was not touching the ground! I was seeing visually the life energy rise up out of the ground, go up through the trunks of the trees and spill out their leaves. It was similar to seeing an electrical flow except you could not be electrocuted by this force. I was then and there one with the trees and the earth, Lesley was indistinguishable from the environment in which the body of Lesley moved.

Later when reflecting on the experience, it seemed like I was observing the orgone that Wilhelm Reich describes. I have never had an experience like that every again even though I have spent countless hours outdoors. The experience was quite visceral with the thinking mind in suspension.

Slammer, if the big bang was the start of an expanding bubble remember that bubbles burst!