This Life and the Next

wil said:
and so?
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Well, do you agree?

Can Will describe the most hellacious states of existence or hellacious experiences?

Would such hellacious states of existence be an illusion or fake?

I am saying you said "I don't know if reincarnation, or rebirth, or if heaven or hell exist." [I presume you are referring to those places as defined in classic World scriptures], but I am reminding everyone that we know about places and experiences that are close enough to be defined as Hell.
 
Bhaktajan II said:
It brought to mind something I do NOT know much about:
"samskaras" ---impressions of a past life.
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I'm not that well versed in Samskaras myself. Just what I've picked up along the way speaking with Pandits and other Hindu holy men in Fiji. The consensus there is that what I had experienced was indeed that of a past life. Some have cited this as the reason I felt compelled to come to Fiji in the first place. Unfinished business as it were.
 
Do you know about the story of the "Four Sights" that made Prince Sidney retire and become famous as the Buddha?
wil said:
If we don't know if there is a hell, or heaven, what is the comparison to anything similar here for?
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I guess there is a point I want to get at.

Since we don't know of an after life ---especially, we don't know of an after life to strive for,
as ie, a recluse monk that proclaims that this life is meant to attain yogic perfections.

Folks are after sense-gratification 24/7...we seek pleasure always...

So I am calling attention here to "Witnessing suffering"

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The King tried to shield his son from the more distressing features of the world. Consequently, the Prince Sidney spent his life with the confines of the palace and its grounds, absorbed in pleasure.

But dissatisfaction grew to the extent that one day Prince Sidney asked his charioteer to take him on an excursion outside of the palace. On the first visit he encountered an old man. On the next excursion he encountered a sick man. On his third excursion, he encountered a corpse being carried to cremation. Such sights brought home to him the prevalence of suffering in the world and that he too was subject to old age, sickness and death - that no-one, not even a king's son, could escape these three. What hope was there, what point in living, if this was the destiny of all? On his fourth* excursion, however, he encountered a holy man or sadhu, apparently content and at peace with the world. Perhaps, there was a way out of what seemed like the inevitability of suffering after all!

After observing these four sights, Prince Sidney returned to the palace, where a performance of dancing girls was arranged for him. Throughout the performance, the prince kept on thinking about the sights. In the early hours of morning, he finally looked about him and saw the dancers asleep and in disarray. The sight of this drastic change strengthened his resolve to leave in search of an end to the suffering of beings.

These sights gave Prince Sidney hope that he too might be released from the sufferings arising from being repeatedly reborn,[3] and he resolved to follow the ascetic's example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_sights


[*In Buddhism these are referred to as 'the four sights' or 'four signs'.]
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Suffering occurs at a rate of a trillion mega-watts at all times!

Therefore a lesson could be learnt...a lesson that is eternally taught to all for free.
 
wil said:
In a way...but zero is unique....something is opposite nothing...
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Perhaps infinity is opposite zero? Everything is opposite nothing? But 'everything' isn't the same mathematical meaning as 'anything'?

Which can be easily demonstrated iou $100 but only pay you $5. Lol
 
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Bhaktajan II said:
The opposite of zero is "One".
[Though, the One can be divided into finite pieces]


It's the structure of binary-language code.
...
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This is just dot/dash terminology. You could use red/green. Zero is not used here in its sense as 'nothing'? Zero isn't open or shut: there's just no door, or even the concept of a door, or anything at all?

It's before the-big-bang, lol?
 
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Namaste Jesus said:
You already know this story and I think I may have mentioned it before of the forum some years back, but as it ties in nicely with the actual topic of the thread, I think it bears repeating here.

My wife is from the Fiji Islands and after we were married we had to make a trip to the US Embassy in Suva in order to secure her Visa. My brother-in-law went with us, but neither had ever been to that part of Suva before and I had never been to Fiji at all. So no one knew exactly where the Embassy was. Somehow though, I led us directly to it. In fact, I seemed to know where everything was there.

Now, prior to this, starting in my late teens, I use to have this reoccurring dream about being killed in WWI. There I'd be in this muddy trench with a jammed rifle just as a stalk hand grenade lands right beside me. BOOM! and I'd wake up. Oddly enough, the dreams stopped after I got married. Then, several years latter I stumbled across an article stating that a small battalion of men from the Fiji Islands composed of Europeans, Native Fijians and Indo-Fijians had taken part in one of the earliest battles of WWI. Apparently, nearly all were killed in a grenade attack. The interesting part is, that battalion was trained in Suva; on the site that was later used to house the US Embassy!

Coincidence? Maybe, but it sure does make you wonder.
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Thanks for trying to steer this thread back on topic mate. I've always loved that story. I mean, what else could possess a person to travel halfway 'round the world and marry into a culture they know nothing about, other than having once lived it? It's one of the reasons I started re-thinking my stance on reincarnation.:cool:

Anyone else care to share their thoughts/stories on reincarnation?
 
In Christianity it absolutely makes sense to me. If one believes in a love your neighbor, forgive seventy times seven, who is your neighbor G!d....sure seems to me they wouldn't expect you to get all this right in one trip...
 
I once was closing up a healing shop, gonna head to a lecture on past lives ...said nothing about it when a couple's child said "mom, remember when you, dad and I were in that war". Long discussion ensued about when the child was a doctor, the dad was the nurse, and mom was the wounded soldier....I was late to the past lives discussion...because I was in one.
 
I've often felt like earth was a place to grow up...and the rules to get out if this class were the same as my parents...you can't have any more toys till you learn to take care of the ones you've got.

And in this incarnation we've been provided a vehicle to get around in and interact (our bodies), friends to play with (all living creatures), and a big blue ball (our planet) and this classroom is about learning to care for.those three....

We don't get to start in the next lesson until we learn this one....no telling how many lives I've been held here in 3rd grade!
 
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wil said:
I've often felt like earth was a place to grow up...and the rules to get out if this class were the same as my parents...you can't have any more toys till you learn to take care of the ones you've got.

And in this incarnation we've been provided a vehicle to get around in and interact (our bodies), friends to play with (all living creatures), and a big blue ball (our planet) and this classroom is about learning to care for.those three....

We don't get to start in the next lesson until we learn this one....no telling how many lives I've been held here in 3rd grade!
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Nice!

I think the problem may be the perception of heaven, earth, etc. That we keep coming back to earth until we can enter heaven/nirvana? All or nothing. Duality.

I like to think of this earth (natural) dimension (which includes the whole universe that we can perceive) -- as just one room/classroom in an infinite house/school (of spirit).

My Father's house has many mansions.

If when we die we pass out through the door beyond the walls of time that define the limit of our magnificently wonderful -- but very cruel -- room of nature into unknown timeless halls of spirit -- why should we have to keep returning to this exact planet/dimension?
 
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Perhaps sometimes a soul might wish to return here, to complete some sort of unfinished business? Or to fulfill some task? But it may not be the norm? Who knows
 
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RJM Corbet said:
Perhaps sometimes a soul might wish to return here, to complete some sort of unfinished business? Or to fulfill some task? But it may not be the norm? Who knows
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According to one of the local Soothsayers in Fiji that was the case with my mom. Supposedly, right after her passing, my mom's spirit somehow attached itself to mine and ended up accompanying my wife and I to Fiji. Apparently, she liked it so much that she asked to return there for one more lifetime in the flesh.

So here's what happened. Shortly after returning home from the trip in question, my wife and I learned that one of her nieces was pregnant. Six months after the baby was born we received the 1st photos in the mail. You could have knocked me over with a feather. The resemblance to one taken of my mother at that age is uncanny. Right down to the tight earlobes and one eye smaller than the other. Then the way she looked at my wife and I when we finally saw her in person 3 years later. Like she knew us or something. My wife's niece noticed it too, saying she had never reacted to anyone like that before. So my wife and I told her about my mom's baby photo. That's when the local Soothsayer got involved and told us what had happened.

I have no idea if what he says is true or not, but reading Aussies' story in the OP gives me chills.
 
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Namaste Jesus said:
According to one of the local Soothsayers in Fiji that was the case with my mom. Supposedly, right after her passing, my mom's spirit somehow attached itself to mine and ended up accompanying my wife and I to Fiji. Apparently, she liked it so much that she asked to return there for one more lifetime in the flesh.

So here's what happened. Shortly after returning home from the trip in question, my wife and I learned that one of her nieces was pregnant. Six months after the baby was born we received the 1st photos in the mail. You could have knocked me over with a feather. The resemblance to one taken of my mother at that age is uncanny. Right down to the tight earlobes and one eye smaller than the other. Then the way she looked at my wife and I when we finally saw her in person 3 years later. Like she knew us or something. My wife's niece noticed it too, saying she had never reacted to anyone like that before. So my wife and I told her about my mom's baby photo. That's when the local Soothsayer got involved and told us what had happened.

I have no idea if what he says is true or not, but reading Aussies' story in the OP gives me chills.
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I've no doubt.

Which leads on to the next consideration: how often is the memory of a past life, really the memory of another soul which has 'attached'? You're open minded about it, many people aren't. It's a whole other discussion?
 
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RJM Corbet said:
Which leads on to the next consideration: how often is the memory of a past life, really the memory of another soul which has 'attached'?
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That's a thought and what about those who emerge from transplant surgery with memories from the organ donor or folks waking after having been in a coma with a foreign accent? I've read where the body itself is capable of storing certain memories and that brain injuries can alter speech patterns, but I'm not so sure that's all there is to it.
 
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RJM Corbet said:
Zero is not used here in its sense as 'nothing'?
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I don't get what you might be saying (Question Mark)

You state what is not being address--- then add a Question Mark--- and then omit your assertion of what it is (in your opinion).

I don't get.

Are you aware the historic (secular) use of the concept of zero?

Wiki says:
The first known English use of zero was in 1598.
The ancient Greeks had no symbol for zero (μηδέν), and did not use a digit placeholder for it.[17] They seemed unsure about the status of zero as a number. They asked themselves, "How can nothing be something?", leading to philosophical and, by the medieval period, religious arguments about the nature and existence of zero and the vacuum.

Transmission to Europe
The Hindu–Arabic numeral system (base 10) reached Europe in the 11th century, via the Iberian Peninsula through Spanish Muslims, the Moors, together with knowledge ofastronomy and instruments like the astrolabe, first imported by Gerbert of Aurillac. For this reason, the numerals came to be known in Europe as "Arabic numerals". The Italian mathematician Fibonacci or Leonardo of Pisa was instrumental in bringing the system into European mathematics in 1202, stating:

After my father's appointment by his homeland as state official in the customs house of Bugia for the Pisan merchants who thronged to it, he took charge; and in view of its future usefulness and convenience, had me in my boyhood come to him and there wanted me to devote myself to and be instructed in the study of calculation for some days. There, following my introduction, as a consequence of marvelous instruction in the art, to the nine digits of the Hindus, the knowledge of the art very much appealed to me before all others, and for it I realized that all its aspects were studied in Egypt, Syria, Greece, Sicily, and Provence, with their varying methods; and at these places thereafter, while on business. I pursued my study in depth and learned the give-and-take of disputation. But all this even, and the algorism, as well as the art of Pythagoras, I considered as almost a mistake in respect to the method of the Hindus (Modus Indorum). Therefore, embracing more stringently that method of the Hindus, and taking stricter pains in its study, while adding certain things from my own understanding and inserting also certain things from the niceties of Euclid's geometric art. I have striven to compose this book in its entirety as understandably as I could, dividing it into fifteen chapters. Almost everything which I have introduced I have displayed with exact proof, in order that those further seeking this knowledge, with its pre-eminent method, might be instructed, and further, in order that the Latin people might not be discovered to be without it, as they have been up to now. If I have perchance omitted anything more or less proper or necessary, I beg indulgence, since there is no one who is blameless and utterly provident in all things. The nine Indian figures are: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. With these nine figures, and with the sign 0 ... any number may be written.[42][43]

Here Leonardo of Pisa uses the phrase "sign 0", indicating it is like a sign to do operations like addition or multiplication. From the 13th century, manuals on calculation (adding, multiplying, extracting roots, etc.) became common in Europe where they were called algorismus after the Persian mathematician al-Khwārizmī. The most popular was written byJohannes de Sacrobosco, about 1235 and was one of the earliest scientific books to be printed in 1488. Until the late 15th century, Hindu–Arabic numerals seem to have predominated among mathematicians, while merchants preferred to use the Roman numerals. In the 16th century, they became commonly used in Europe.
 
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