As for the post-death collegial experience, I did once have a conversation with my Grandfather via a medium...asked him how Gramma was doing. He related that she was "in training to be a bigot," so he didn't see much of her any more.
When I read this I thought it was the most depressing thing I had ever read. If souls are being Trained to be bigots then what possible chance do we stand? It is hard enough dealing with it but to know they sent here purposely like that....... then I thought about it.
I do not believe in coincidence. I believe everything happens for a reason. I believe that was posted for a reason.
I remembered a story I had read long ago from another psychic. It was about an alcoholic who was living on the streets. A lawyer chanced upon him one day and helped him get his life straightened around. They became best friends. I can't remember what happened to the alcoholic, he may have eventually died from liver disease. The psychic said that these two souls were friends on the other side and they had agreed to take on these challenges in their lives to help the lawyer overcome something that he had struggled with in all his other lives. Can you imagine accepting the challenge of being an alcoholic so you can help another?
I got so much out of that, that you never really know a persons heart, we have a hard enough time knowing what our own purpose is never mind knowing someone elses purpose. We shouldn't ever judge because we never have the whole story and may never be able to get it in this life.
This country is falling apart at the seams. Everyone is fighting with everyone else, even some that are on the same side. Sarah was asked to leave a restaurant yesterday because they didn't want to serve her because she works for Trump. I am wondering if maybe the Trump supporters are the lawyers and we are the alcoholics. (I know that doesn't sound right but you know what I mean lol) Maybe we are the ones that are supposed to help them and help them see (if we don't kill the first) The only reason one would "study" to be a bigot on the other side would be to help someone somehow. there is always a reason and a purpose to everything.
This is a topic the living have speculated on for millenia, at least. Hell has become a very unpopular concept among 'new age' folks, probably reacting to the heavy handed preaching of evangelicals. It is also comforting (and convenient) to imagine that no such horrors exist. This seems odd when we look at the world around us. Take an unblinking look at very tangible events in Myanmar, Sudan, Yemen or lots of other places, apply a very modest amount of extrapolation, and hell suddenly seems quite plausible. A few resources for the curious:
George Ritchie's classic NDE account, Return from Tomorrow, contains a brief but compelling vision of hell. Ritchie was a devout Christian, but his visionary experience lies well outside Christian orthodoxy.
The Tibetan Buddhist tradition offers up lurid descriptions of hell, which will be just as off putting for some as the Christian version, but one especially fascinating phenomenon is the 'Delog', persons who die and then return to their bodies to give their accounts of the afterlife journey. This goes well beyond western NDE's; delogs are usually dead for several days, sometimes as long as a week. You may be dismissive of these stories, but they are well documented in Tibetan society. This does not just belong to the past but has continued to occur quite recently. A number of books discuss this, but one with especially rich and detailed delog accounts is Peaceful Death, Joyful Rebirth by Tulku Thondup.
A somewhat similar contemporary western account, colored by Tibetan Buddhism, may be found in Samuel Bercholz's book A Guided Tour of Hell, illustrated by Pema Namdrol Thaye. Bercholz is the founder of Shambhala Publications, which has grown into an important spirituality/self help publisher. Some years ago he temporarily died after heart surgery, and during the period spent outside his body, received exactly what the title states. It is a extraordinary and courageous work, which I am sure only saw the light of day because of Bercholz's stature at the imprint he founded. Give it a look.
Finally, please understand that Buddhism teaches that hell is ultimately an illusion, created by the mind. Of course, this world is exactly the same, so illusions can be quite compelling and persistent.
Brandy, it's possible that R1's gramma has already been reborn to a family, culture, situation … that is informing her perception and "her" life task will involve learning about that perception. I know I've struggled to sort through perceptions that are bigoted in one way or another in my lifetime. Regardless of the mythos or perspectives we use to understand our journeys, our human minds and emotions are limited, primitive … brain imaging technology can show areas of activation, overactivation, and inactivation in our prefrontal cortex and amygdala. Yet, here we are sharing other kinds of knowing and contemplating the lives of our souls. When we don't or can't control the narrative of our lives, it does seem that something magical, healing, loving, and extraordinary is more real than the "reality" of what we often try so desperately to control through bigotry and other modes of seeing. For example, regardless of the confirmation bias we see on Fox news, among Evangelicals, among diehard Trump supporters … surely, there are lessons there … for everyone. Historically, this may be a time that different groups of people lose their moral authority. We watch Sessions reading Biblical scripture that is supposed to legitimize child abuse. There are some that buy it and others who see the power of its harm, and that's a powerful lesson.
MizMargo, why do you ask when you already know the answers?
And don't tell me you don't. You do, you simply want it confirmed or denied by other people. But that would just be words. What kind of words would count as a definite confirmation or denial? If you are honest with yourself, probably nothing would do. You probably are familiar already with every perspective on death that is commonly talked about, and none of them have satisfied you, which is why you keep asking.
Then, what you are looking for isn't words. Ask yourself: what is it that you are looking for?
Wow, I have no idea where that came from, but I was, in fact, sincerely asking people who I felt might know more than I've learned from watching psychic mediums and my own intuition. I'm not even sure of the tone of your post, Maria. So, I'll assume it's friendly and not condescending.
I actually came back here to post and ask for any reading material recommendations on this subject -- from people who take me seriously and sincerely, of course, and who would like to respond. Thanks in advance
mizmargo
I have no recommendations because I read and studied everything I could get my hands on. Reincarnation, psychics, mediums, religion, etc. Some were good, some were bad, some stuck with me and some didn't. It took me about 40 years to believe what I believe and another 5 to know that I was right but it is a continuous journey and my right might not be someone elses right. You can ask but only you can provide your own answers.
It is the wise man that continues to search for answers while it is the fool that thinks he has found them. Anonymous
Miz Margo, maybe Maria D. White sensed the strength of your intuition. My reading about the lives of souls has always taken me back to reread what philosophers, writers, and poets have been writing about for eons. Have you read any Plato? Maria's comment and those of others (like Paul's suggestion of nonlinear time) led me to pull out my 40 year old copy of Plato's Phaedrus. In his second speech, Socrates is talking about what leads "men" to madness and along the way drops some major ideas about the immortality of souls and the nature of knowledge: that all knowledge is self-knowledge and obtaining it is a matter of reasoning. To Socrates, reasoning is the process of "remembering … what our soul once saw as it made its journey with a god, looking down upon what we now assert to be real and gazing upwards at what is Reality itself." So, obtaining true knowledge is a process of recollecting what our soul already knows to be true. Elsewhere, Plato explains that this is why we all share a similar idea of Oneness, Truth, Beauty, Justice, Equality … the forms of the Good … because we remember them from our lives as souls in our journeys with "a god." Elaine G., reading through the link you shared by Pete, made me think about the Catholic idea of purgatory in a new way. Thanks!
- I believe Trump is the reincarnation of President Jorge Ubico Castaneda, the authoritarian ruler of Central America. He ruled Guatemala and was referred to as Central Americans Napoleon.
I saw Trump In meditation back in July 2016 carrying Mussolini's famous symbol of fascism, a Roman fasces. I didn’t know what the thing was that he was carrying until I looked it up. Then I noticed the resemblance between the two men, both physically and mentally. He just needs time and permissiveness to go full blown. His recent tweet to Maxine waters has that menacing tone of inciting violence against those who would actively harass his team.