New Post on the Alternate Blog

Hey, folks - -
Just a note: I've added a new post, "The Crisis Around Us and the Helpers Along the Way" on the new blog. Please take a look at it?
Thanks, Two Crows.

AtI

Imagine a universe that is breathtakingly beautiful.
Imagine a universe that is so complex that the human mind cannot begin to comprehend it.
Imagine a universe that is so simple that it and everything in it is composed entirely of vibrating strings.
Imagine a universe that is surrounded by a Void so all-encompassing, so all-pervasive that no-thing, not even space or time exists.
Imagine that the universe is expanding INTO that Void and, by so doing, is bringing into being all that is wondrous, amazing and beautiful in the universe within what had once been the Void.
Imagine an infinite number of universes—similar to ours and not so.

Then, know this:
Whatever you can comprehend, whatever you can understand, whatever you can imagine about this universe and all those others, the All that Is has imagined more.

Just a note about the blog's setup:
Some months ago, I arranged things here so it reads from front to back - with the simpler concepts on top and the deeper stuff further in. So you'll find that the blog reads more like a book than most do.

I'm not posting much new material at the moment [I just ordered some new books so maybe I'll be inspired once they arrive and get delved into - we'll see]. If/when I do, I usually post the new stuff on top and leave it there for a week or so then place it where it seems, to me, to fit into the overall narrative.

So if you read the blog from top to bottom it should make sense - at least I hope it does. :)
Two Crows

It happened AGAIN!

Blogger booted me off. Again.
At least that got me off the dime and I've finally finished transferring everything I want to keep over to WordPress.
So - again - here's the link:
http://twocrows1023.wordpress.com/
Please drop by.
Hopefully, that site will be more stable and you can continue without further interruption.

The Seven Planes of Existence

What follows is my interpretation of what I’ve read from several sources—chief among them being The Michael teachings [see the sidebar for several books in the series.]

The Tao or All that Is has divided itself into layers of existence. According to Michael, Cayce, Seth and others, there are 7 Planes:
The Ordinal Planes
1] The Physical Plane
On the Physical Plane we experience separateness in all its variety. We descend into the belief system that we are separate from one another, from animals, from rocks, from plants, from the table where I’m typing this, even from the All that Is itself.

Before we come to the planet for the first time, we spend time and energy checking out several planets. We can cohabit within several species of plants and animals—even rocks and mineral formations.
In fact, one reason for the widespread beliefs among virtually all primitive peoples regarding sprites, elves, ogres, leprechauns, fairies, totems, furies, various gods, etc. etc. etc. is a recognition, at a deep level, of the presence of these pre-infant souls investigating the planet. These new souls also help the planet rejuvenate itself and recover from problems brought about by the beings already inhabiting it.

Just about now, however, new souls are looking elsewhere for planets to move onto.
About the time a planet moves into the Mature Soul Level, most new souls lose interest in it. It’s not much fun playing catch-up when almost everyone on the planet is well ahead of you. It’s also no fun at all to get left holding the bag when the planet has been pretty well screwed up before you even got here. Someone is going to have to undertake a massive cleanup if the planet is going to survive—and the infants don’t see why they should have to do the cleanup if they didn’t participate in the mess-up. And, who can blame them?
The good news [for the planet] is that this will accelerate the growth of the population as the average soul age increases more rapidly as newer souls don't continue arriving. This means that the souls that are here will become more and more willing to accept responsibility for things like the environment generally, global warming, pollution, etc.
And here’s the bad news: since those very young souls aren’t here checking us out and, meanwhile, helping with rejuvenation and recovery behind the scenes, that leaves the rest of us on our own when it comes to cleaning up the place. Ruh-roh.

Anyhow, we’re here, we’re all pretty familiar with the physical plane already.
So, I’ll move on.

2] The Astral Plane
We go to the Lower Astral Plane every night when we’re dreaming. There we can confer with our Spirit Guides—friends we left behind when we entered this lifetime. We can also meet friends who are on-planet and are engaged in dreams of their own. All of these folks help us make sense of any knotty problems we’re currently dealing with in our lives in progress. And, of course, we return the favor to those who are currently earth-bound like us.
Those of us who learn how to travel out of our bodies also land on the Lower Astral Plane.

After we die, we return to the Lower Astral and hang out with friends. We assess our most previous life along with numerous earlier lives examining patterns we’ve developed and deciding if we want to continue down those paths or reassess and choose other, possibly more productive, methods of progress.
Those of us who are more developed might take on a job of some sort—helping younger souls reorient to the life between incarnations, say. Or working with those souls who are in something I’ve heard called The Intensive Care Unit. This is an area reserved for folks who have committed acts that are deeply evil. They need ‘time’ to recognize what they’ve done, assess their actions, comprehend the fact that they’re going to have to go through karmic reckonings, etc. Though I haven’t read that this is so, I would imagine that these folks might fall into despair and need help to get through it. After all, you can’t commit suicide after you’re dead. You have to face up to your actions. So, older souls work to help them do that.
I’m sure there are other jobs I’ve not heard of that souls engage in, as well.

After we’ve cycled off the planet we move on to the Mid-astral Plane. Here we hang out again waiting for the last souls of our Entity [a loose grouping of souls who split off from the All that Is at about the same ‘time’ (sorry about the references to time, here, but I don’t know how else to talk about this stuff. Please bear with me.)]

Our Essence Twin is probably cycling off at about the same ‘time’ and, soon after we both arrive at the Mid-astral, we fuse our two souls together. We don’t lose our separate egos yet, we’re each aware of our selves—but we’re also fully aware of our Twin’s being and of its experiences on the planet and on the astral plane during the time we’ve been separated.
When all the souls from the Entity arrive, we move to the Higher Astral Plane and continue fusing. Again we don’t lose our selves, but we do become aware of all the experiences of these entities.
At about this time, we’ve fused with about 1000 souls [what Michael calls ‘fragments’].
Then we move on to the next Plane.

3] The Causal Plane
Here we teach souls on the Astral Plane and, as mentioned in the post on Off World Soul Ages, at some point we send a representative back to the planet we left behind. There, the representative soul teaches what it has learned. It may lead a nation out of bondage as Mohandas Gandhi did—or it may act as a neighborhood organizer—or it may work to enable a group of people to assert its rights.
During a transition period like the planet is traversing now, many Causal Plane representatives come back to prepare the way for the Infinite Soul.
But, every Causal Entity sends at least one representative to its previous planet. So there are at least a few present on the planet at any given time.

Unlike the Infinite Soul manifestation, this Transcendental Soul isn’t self-aware. It doesn’t know that it is different from the other souls on the planet. It lives its entire life within the body, doesn’t perform miracles [other than those similar to the ones Gandhi was able to pull off when he convinced Hindus and Muslims to work together for their common good. Even those, though, were a major struggle—depending as they did on the good will of human beings.]

The Causal Plane is the level Michael is at now. It is at this point that we begin letting go of our egos.
In all the books, Michael is referred to as ‘they’. This is because they haven’t yet shed their egos enough to begin to think of themselves as a singular being. I find it simpler, here, to refer to Michael as ‘it’—but that’s a matter of my preference and isn’t the norm in any of the books I’ve read.

At the Higher Causal, we connect with one other entity [an entity generally consists of about 1000 souls or fragments] and begin the process of fusing. Often this is an entity with which we share a lot of Essence Twins. As this fusion begins becoming complete, we start moving toward the Mental Plane.

Michael apparently hasn't begun this process yet. First, as I said above, it hasn't yet begun thinking of itself in the singular. Also, I've read that Michael consists of about 1000 fragments. So it hasn't yet begun fusing with its twin entity.

The Neutral Plane
4] The Akashic Record
It is at the Causal Plane that we first begin to interact with the Akashic Record. Maybe that’s why teachers like Gandhi, Seth and Michael teach from the Causal—after they have made contact with the knowledge it contains.

We don’t exist on this level. Instead it is essentially a library that contains all the information in the universe. It neutrally observes all that has gone on within the universe from its inception to its completion. When the universe has completed its course and is ready to spin off a baby universe, it gives a copy of this record to the new universe.
This may not apply this time though. Michael says we’ve decided not to play the physical game again—at least for the time being. But, maybe the Akashic Record will still be needed for whatever the next game will be. Who knows?

Scholars [see the posts on the soul’s Roles] dump their accumulated knowledge into the Record when they cycle off their respective planets. Other souls or entities may do this as well if they’ve a mind to, I don’t know.

The Cardinal Planes
5] The Mental Plane
On the Mental Plane you have direct intellectual contact with the All that Is. You keep on combining with other essences and entities. At this level you grasp, at an intellectual level, the infinite universe and the All.
Lao Tsu taught from the Mental Plane of Existence.

6] The Messianic Plane
On the Messianic Plane you experience agape [complete, total love for all beings]. At this level you comprehend the oneness of all and recognize that love for the other is, in fact, love for oneself. You have direct emotional contact with the All that Is and grasp, at an emotional level, the Infinite.
You continue blending until you have enfolded about 100,000 souls.
The Christ Soul taught from the Messianic Plane of Existence.

7] The Buddhaic Plane

At the lower levels of the Buddhaic Plane, you merge with all other Essences, Entities and Cadres of sentient beings. As you rise higher you join with non-sentient beings—animals, plants, minerals, planets, suns, the space between all the matter in the universe. Here, you comprehend at the instinctive level, the infinity of the All that Is and, in the final levels, you combine with the total consciousness of the All that Is and your journey is complete.
The Buddha Soul taught from the Buddhaic Plane of Existence.

You may remain within the All that Is for as long as you wish [although here, again, language fails as you are no longer ‘you’ but are one with the Infinite]. At any time, any fragment may splinter off and begin a new journey. Or, any fragment may choose to remain within the Whole and never leave again.
If a fragment does choose to cast itself off and make the circle again it will, almost without exception, choose a new Role, a different male/female energy, a different frequency, a new Essence Twin, go to a different planet from the last time [or choose not to take the physical route and remain separate from the universe], and on and on. In this way, we continuously bring back a wide variety of experiences adding breadth and depth to the Whole.

Michael says that, on average, the souls on this planet are experiencing their third walk-about.
xxx
The entire universe, according to Michael, is based on the number 7. It also says that the number 3 is a significant number. That is why, so says Michael, people empower those two numbers. We instinctively know that they are important.
I’ve begun to wonder, lately, if this has anything to do with the discovery, by Einstein, of 11 dimensions in the universe. 7 + 4 [3 spatial + time] = 11.
Just wondering along.

Ideas of the Mind

Back in the 1960’s, Bill Vaughn, a humorist with the Kansas City Star, published a collection of the pieces he had written for the paper over the years. The first essay was simply one of his compiled pieces. The second was entitled: ‘On Second Thought: An Introduction.’

All this is to say that I think I missed a spot. So, without further adieu—The Genesis Story—or, if you prefer, The Big Bang from the Spiritual Perspective:

This came from the Seth Material. If memory serves, the book is, ‘Seth Speaks.’
The All that Is is, so far as it knows, the only one of its kind. It continues to hunt around to see if it can locate any others but, so far, hasn’t found any [I sometimes speculate about that and wonder if it is a lonely existence.]

Before the advent of other beings [of which we are one form] the All that Is, being alone, began to dream. By their nature, the dreams of the All that Is began to move toward conscious existence. Over time the dreams began to become aware that they were actually simply dreams and began to clamor to exist in their own rights. The All that Is had to find a way to let go of its creations or go mad. The fate of any future existence hung in the balance as the All that Is grappled with this dilemma. If it had failed it might have created a universe that had no laws— that was, by its very nature, Chaos.

It succeeded, however, and a Big Bang occurred on the metaphysical level which was manifested on the physical level, as well [and who knows how many other levels?] In that instant every particle, every wave, every bit of energy—in short—every bit of string in the universe was created. In fact, the 11 physical dimensions and the 7 levels of the All that Is also sprang into existence.

According to Michael, our particular physical universe is in its 3rd incarnation at this point and the strings [which might coincide with what Michael calls the 'fragments' (in other words, us, the 'All' in the All that Is)] within it don’t plan to go for number 4. Maybe previous incarnations did result in Big Crunches followed by Big Bangs numbers 2 and 3, I don't know.
This may account for the fact that the quantum physicists claim that there are stars within this universe that are older than the universe itself. And, maybe, that’s why they say the Big Crunch won’t happen [this time around] but what I call the Big Drift will be the fate of this universe.
Again, according to Michael there are whole other adventures out there waiting to be discovered and we've decided to stop playing with the physical—at least for the time being.
**sigh** There I go using language loosely again. But how do you talk about this stuff without using words like 'time', anyway?
xxx
So, what's your take on all of this? What are your thoughts on Seth's explanation of the Big Beginning?

The All in All that Is

4/23/08
God is sitting in Heaven when a scientist says to Him, "Lord, we don't need you anymore. Science has finally figured out a way to create life out of nothing. In other words, we can now do what you did 'in the beginning.'"
"Oh, is that so? Tell me..." replies God.

"Well, " says the scientist, "we can take dirt and form it into the likeness of You and breathe life into it, thus creating man."

"Well, that's interesting. Show Me. "

So the scientist bends down to the earth and starts to mold the soil.

"Oh no, no, no. . ." interrupts God. "Get your own dirt. . . ."
xxx
Down through history, we humans have been very Human-centric.
Every culture from primitive times even until the present has perceived itself as central to the Universe and, somehow, more favored in the eyes of its Deity[ies] than all other cultures.
This is evidenced by the fact that those cultures we’ve been able to check on, at least, had a word that meant, ‘People’ and the same word meant their own personal tribe. Many, if not all, of those same tribes had another word that meant ‘Other’ and, almost universally, that word translated as something akin to ‘Barbarian’ or ‘Savage.’
Well into recorded history, it was a criminal offense in some cultures to suggest that humans weren’t the center of everything.

Little by little, however, science has shown us that that is, in fact, not the case. It turns out that we live on a small rock circling a nondescript sun in one arm of a not especially distinguished galaxy.
Our only claim to fame is that we are at the center of the Universe. But, since the universe is expanding in all directions at once, even that’s not special—every point in the universe is the center.
Heck, it even seems as if there’re an infinity of universes, fergoshsakes!

Even today, though, read most natural history books—watch almost any nature program on T.V.—and you will still find allusions to the idea that humans are at the top of the heap among all the species on the planet. It is assumed that that is our rightful place.

Now, enter the story of the All that Is that dreamed us into existence. It’s tempting, when we envision the dreaming All that Is whose dreams are becoming self-aware, to assume that ‘self-aware’ means what we think of when we apply it to ourselves. It doesn’t.
As the story above illustrates—the All that Is dreamed dirt into existence at the same nano-second that it dreamed us. Not only dirt. Hydrogen, too. And helium. And protein. And DNA. And bacteria. And termites. And dogs and cats and fish and birds and . . . . but you get my point.
Of course, we can argue, those things didn’t exist in that first nano-second. But, then, neither did we. At least not in the sense of fully-fashioned-entities-made-in-the-image-of-God. The potential was there but the ‘finished product’ had yet to emerge. Or, more accurately, our bodies didn’t exist then. We [along with every other particle and wave and string] in the universe were there all along waiting for the universe to settle into a level that could support life/reality as we know it. In fact, we were helping that to happen. Not only the human-potential was helping the potential-that-was-the-universe during its plasma phase right on down to this nano-second [and beyond] every possible creation was there right alongside us helping to create the NOW.
I have to admit, I like this story better than the Six Day Story, myself. But that’s just me. Other people’s reality is the one about Six Days—literally. And their reality is every bit as valid as mine.
After all—What do we know, for sure, anyway?

It’s About Time—

As I said in the 1st post, the quantum physicists and astronomers tell us that the void outside the universe is so complete it doesn’t even contain space/time. This is a concept that I simply cannot wrap my mind around—so I have to just take their word for it. [We’re going to be running into a lot of those as this blog progresses, I imagine.]

Closer to home, there’s another instance when time ceases to exist:
According to Einstein, the faster we move in space, the slower time goes. So, it would seem to follow that the slower we move in space, the faster time speeds up, right?
So, what would happen if we could literally step off the planet and stop moving altogether? If Einstein is right, I would guess, all time would flash by in an instant.
According to Seth [see below], that is precisely what is happening: All space/time is occurring simultaneously—it has simply been slowed down so we perceive the universe as if time exists within it and events seem to follow each other in orderly progression.
xxx
The metaphysical teachings that I’ve studied in the most depth [The Michael Teachings and The Seth Material] tell us that the Astral Plane [aka Heaven] exists all around us—we simply can’t, as a rule, perceive it.
If they explain WHY this is so, I haven’t found that explanation in any of the books I’ve read yet—and I freely admit there’s lots and lots of stuff out there that I haven’t gotten around to—with more being written all the time.
So, here’s my latest theory:
Maybe the Astral Plane [and the 5 other planes beyond it] not being a physical plane, doesn't move in space. If that is the case, we could be sitting in the same chair occupied by Aunt Tillie, who came by for a visit this afternoon, and we would have no way of knowing it because Aunt Tillie is outside of time as we perceive it.

My theory doesn’t explain why, as Seth has implied and as has been outlined in yet another book [Life After Life by Raymond Moody], people who have died can see and hear us. They have even told Moody of feeling frustrated when they couldn’t comfort their loved ones or explain to the medical personnel that there was no need to keep trying to revive their bodies—they were doing just fine, thankyouverymuch.
Moody, who interviewed people who had had near-death experiences, gave the clearest account of this of any source I’ve read. The folks he spoke with hadn’t crossed completely over to the Astral yet [or they wouldn’t have come back.]
Maybe having one foot in each camp, so to speak, makes such perception easier for them. I don’t know.
xxx
Interestingly, I had already had the beginnings of the idea in my head for this post before I got word that my mom was dying—the morning of the day the phone call came, as a matter of fact.
I might just shrug that off as coincidence if my cousin hadn’t told me, later, that my mom’s sister had been saying all week that she was sure that, ‘Something is the matter with Rie [my mom].’
And that gets me to wondering: Was she telling us she was packing her bags for the trip? And maybe already getting a glimpse of what lay ahead?
xxx
All that said—
What do you all think? What ideas do you have about Heaven or the Astral or whatever you choose to call it? And, what thoughts do you have about time and space, while you’re at it?