Humor and Heaven

Humor is so interesting, because it can reveal deep things about our beliefs and the energies we're living beneath the polite surface of our civilization. Most theories of humor consider the taboo-breaking factor, that jokes pry themselves into our anxieties and relieve the tensions by various kinds of guilty wish-fulfillment. For example it can be clear that cruel jokes appeal to people who have judgments and want to punish someone, while sex jokes appeal to people who have been considering more sex and in more ways than they've been told is allowed.

Many jokes hinge their power upon punning. Puns can startle and delight us by safely highlighting the multiple meanings that we must ordinarily ignore to stay sane and productive, while in fact the unspoken interconnections of language impact us constantly and provide pathways to altered states. People of madness or genius alike will tend to show hyper-associative thinking which is rich in puns, neologisms, and other wordplay. Advancements in language are often made by such individuals, for whom words are tools and toys of the mind. Lewis Carroll for example coined the term "portmanteau" to mean words that combine in both sound and meaning, such as smoke + fog to make smog. A portmanteau is an old-fashioned double sided suitcase, so all the baggage of two words is being packed into one! Carroll was of course a master of the portmanteau and beyond, as seen in his unforgettably evocative and arguably insane poem Jabberwocky:

'Twas brillig and the slithy toves,
did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were borogoves,
and the mome raths outgrabe.

The portmanteaus here are so stretched that our minds reach for meanings that we cannot fully grasp, and so the alternate reality is both familiar and terribly alien. Something was brilliant and maybe fragile, slithering and slimy, but God help us after that! In fact, Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice in Through the Looking-Glass (1871) that "slithy" means "lithe and slimy" and "mimsy" is "flimsy and miserable".

I certainly loved puns and Jabberwocky in college as did many of my peers, and it would seem to me that language mash-ups fascinate the young adult mind which is struggling to break the old generation's hold on their thinking. As I've gotten older, I still like puns but not for punning's sake. I tend to favor absurd humor that exposes the conflicted biases of normal society and suggests entirely different ways of being.

For examples, I turn to the few jokes that I've been able to memorize. An unusual quality of jokes is that they can be hard for most of us to recite, we just remember the experience of surprise and laughter that we hoped to share. "I guess you had to be there!" Our embarrassment to put ourselves on the spot probably attests to the taboo-busting work that jokes accomplish, because our brains are normally excluding their outsider perspectives and thus resist easy memorization. So which jokes do stick with us almost certainly reveal the personal areas in which we are yearning to break free of old dogmas and reality conventions. Both of my following favorites are by Emo Philips, a bizarre idiot-savant kind of character who borders madness and genius with child-like perspectives informed by references to classic moral and philosophical problems:

"I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this."

"When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me."

A part of me can't stop laughing at these! So the biases of the intellect and religion that are denying me pleasures of my whole body and getting what I ask for in life are of top importance to me. At the expense of political correctness, I'll admit to another zinger by Emo that I've been unable to forget or not find awfully funny. It too suggests a whole side of life that has been denied my knowing, with a sudden exposure of prejudice by punning that brings me satisfactions of both pain and delight:

"I'm from Downers Grove, Illinois. We had a blackout there the other day, but fortunately the police made him get back into his car before he got too far."

Yes, I was from a small rural white town, where basically just one token black family lived and was respected, so long as they contributed to positive stereotypes such as working hard in jobs of less authority and excelling at sports for the hometeam. But when the young man dated a white woman and they were clearly in love, the town became embarassingly split, with some families (not mine) suddenly showing raw hatred and fear. Fortunately my mother was a school teacher who pushed international culture awareness on her own children as well as her students, and I grew up fundamentally craving diversity as essential to divine inspiration and human wisdom.

Recently a joke came to me in a daily email humor list; there are many worth signing up for, because you never know by what synchronicities humor will augment your day's consciousness. This joke is a bit longer and simply revels in the kind of alternate idiot-savant thinking that I can celebrate, at least until the deeper cultural problem is considered. Note that I changed the nationality and gender of the person to be unimportant, since I have no humor interest in stereotyping some human beings as smarter than others. Technically, English doesn't have good gender neutral replacements for the singular third-person pronouns he and she, but I use they and them for this purpose regularly, and I expect it will become part of the language in the future.

A simple person died and went to heaven. When they got to the pearly gate Saint Peter told them that new rules were in effect due to the advances in education on earth. In order to gain admittance a prospective heavenly soul must answer three questions:

1. Name two days of the week that begin with "T".

2. How many seconds are in a year?

3. What is God's first name?

The person thought for a few minutes and answered...

1. The two days of the week that begin with "T" are Today and Tomorrow.

2. There are 12 seconds in a year.

3. God has two first names, and they are Andy and Howard."

Saint Peter said, "OK, I'll buy the Today and Tomorrow, even though it's not the answer I expected, so your answer is correct.

But how did you get 12 seconds in a year, and why did you ever think that God's first name was either Andy or Howard?"

The person replied, "Well, January 2nd, February 2nd,March 2nd, etc...."

"OK, I give," said Saint Peter, "but what about the God's first name stuff?"

The person said, "Well, from the song....Andy walks with me, Andy talks with me, Andy tells me I am his own..., and the prayer...Our Father, who art in heaven, Howard be thy name...."

Saint Peter let them in without another word.

Great stuff! And then the deeper anxiety that the joke wedges into bubbled to the surface in me. Oh God, I had a dream recently in which I saw a group of people that I was deeply drawn to be with, but when I went to join them I became so overcome with inadequacies that I had to run away in shame before I could even see their reaction to me. I awoke so upset and crying, that I had to do a meditation and visualize a different ending, in which I reached for someone's hand despite all my fears of rejection, and they grasped it and smiled at me. I have felt an opening to more love from that experience ever since.

The idea that one must pass a qualification to enter heaven is old indeed, and has been esoterically verified by those who see gatekeepers to hold standards of behavior for different spiritual planes. But where we belong in our hearts is where we must feel wanted, or else we suffer torments of a divided soul and temptations to judge others in defense, which will only make matters worse. The fox and the grapes: oh I didn't want to be there anyway! But the pain of deprivations continue, despite what the mind can rationalize.

Then I laughed, because the following resolution of the joke came to me, from some spiritual guidance that showed heaven's own brand of real humor and love. Enjoy! :)

An honest person died and went to heaven. When they got to the pearly gate Saint Peter told them that new rules were in effect due to the advances in education on earth. In order to gain admittance a prospective heavenly soul must answer three questions:

1. Name two days of the week that begin with "T".

2. How many seconds are in a year?

3. What is God's first name?

The person thought for a few minutes and answered...

1. The two days of the week that begin with "T" are Tuesday and Thursday.

2. I might be able to calculate the number of seconds if you give me paper and pencil, but I don't know off the top of my head.

3. I'm sorry, I don't know what God's first name is.

The person started to turn away in despair, but Saint Peter stopped them with tears in his eyes.

"Thank you so much, you're absolutely correct in all of your answers! We never expected you to know anything to want to return to God, that's been a human quality that we've had to contend with up here as you people advance in your civilization. In heaven, you can learn anything you want after you let in how much we love you just for being, and especially how much we celebrate when you come to us for a place to belong. I only had to ask questions because you expected me to, and the only answer I'm not allowed to accept is a false one made to impress, because then the real you isn't really here."

The person had a hard time absorbing this, but tried, and still had to ask.

"So, what is God's first name?"

Saint Peter laughed. "Potentially that's the easiest question of all! How many days start with T depends on your language, of course. How many seconds are in a year depends on the difference between your calendar and the true solar year, which is hard even for astronomers to measure and can change over time. But God, well God has many names, and your favorite one someday will be your own."

The person might have backed away in some shame of doubts at this, but such a light of heavenly friends came out to greet them that they were enfolded in love and escorted Home.

** with special thanks and blessing to Richardis, through the ages and stages you've always known how to make me laugh ***

Three Paths of Love

From recent guidance and inspiration comes the following meetup description for my cosmic discussions group, for details see www.CosmicDocent.com

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The Three Paths of Love: Sacrifice, Healing, and Endless Joy
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
7:00 PM to 9:00 PM
Cambridge Swedenborg Chapel
50 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA

As I've learned to clear my karma with the ascension energies of 2012 and beyond, I've come to see clearly how there are three paths of love that people follow in life. All human beings seek to love and be loved, as a protecting and promoting of our deepest values which begin in the spirit and reach for the soul. What has to be explained in the world is how varied are people's experiences of love. Anything is possible, from misery in persecution, alienation, and lonliness, through public success with private ups and downs that weary us over time, to the most blessed and refreshing of lifelong growth in all the kinds of relationships possible, from work to family, from friendships to spiritual ecstasies including of course with the self.

Everyone deserves love, because all people deserve a chance to be free and happy. The true universe always forgives and celebrates; God never judges or punishes however much our human societies may. We are told over and over that we create our own realities, but what does that really mean? It means that we each hold a mixture of beliefs that filter our views on life, so some possibilities seem much more real and closer to us than others. Some beliefs are small, like which TV show can make me happiest, others more consequential, like will I ever be totally free, happy and safe in this world. We do ourselves the greatest favors when we seek out beliefs about potential itself, for understandings that explain not only where we are, but where we have been and where we can be going. I find that the Three Paths is such a belief, by explaining how it is that all people look for love, but some people are recognizing and allowing much more love into their lives than others.

The three paths are progressive, and so lead into the next. The Path of Sacrifice is about holding many beliefs of opposition, so that you always have to be making either-or choices in life. Good things have to be sacrificed to save other good things, you can't have it all. In sincere defense of themselves or their tribe, people can allow terrible things to happen to someone, thinking that there is no alternative. On the path of sacrifice, people are deep down good, but evil is allowed to arise, and people can be corrupted and lost. The path of sacrifice is a hard one indeed, and we all have known it too long.

At some point on the Path of Sacrifice, a person hits rock bottom and says that's it, enough is enough. I'm tired of sacrificing myself for others in some situations, and sacrificing others for me the rest of the time. I'm going to have to insist on people taking more responsibility for themselves, while I stop trying to rescue or be rescued. I'm going to hold compassion and care to do what I reasonably can, but I'm going to take care of myself first and foremost without hurting anyone else or letting people hurt me. And that's going to be a good thing by golly, I will not hold onto guilt or depression for who I am, because if everyone did more of this then the world would surely be a much better place. I'm going to stop judging others, and I refuse to accept judgments on me.

Attitudes like these reveal when we have shifted to the Path of Healing, which is characterized by a kind of sacrifice still, but the helpful kind, of letting go bad ideas for good, useless context for useful. Limiting either-or beliefs are converted to liberating empowerment for all, personal not absolute values are weighed, all things have their season. Karma is revisited for the last time, old wounds are getting cleaned out. Many spiritual people are on the path of healing and have been for a very long time. There are many tears to be shed, buried pain to be surfaced and faced, and much letting go to be mastered.

It's like being in bed convalescing, feeling sick but a little better each day, dreaming of running free again but not sure when that will be possible. It's not easy, and can be quite the emotional roller coaster, as yet one more issue comes up in our way just when we think we have it made. Many short-term opportunities and relationships are explored, as people find cause to rejoice and hope, then release more heartbreak as they grow out of as yet another "contract" or agreement to exchange a service that won't be needed forever. Sadly, some people think that the bittersweet easy-come-easy-go life is as good as it gets, as they uphold their spiritual gains and deny a deeper sense of human frustration and deprivation to be never quite as deeply successful or securely happy as they can fantasize.

Fortunately, the Path of Healing is not forever, although again a shift of beliefs is required to move on when we are ready. At some point, enough of our inner world has been healed, so that our self-love is stable and confident to keep us feeling centered and loved in every situation, self-guaranteed. What happens then is nothing short of a miracle, one that I am still discovering. New kinds of relationships start to arrive, ones that we have never seen before. A level of Spirit and the community of souls is always rock-solid there for us, increasingly manifesting with growth opportunities that never end, assignments that are open and flexible, unlimited connections that are not just temporary. Karma becomes dharma, the flow of the universe. Relationships develop that we always grow more into and never out of, and why not? At this point we have mastered the art of always being there for ourselves, so of course now there can be friends and beloveds who are always there for us too.

Welcome to the Path of Endless Joy! It is something you know in your heart is possible. It is the pearl of great price, it is the rock upon which the house of the soul is built. We will thus discuss our glimpses and steps to go from here to there, as there is where we are all destined to.

The meeting will be from 7 pm until 9 pm. RSVP requested. Please update your RSVP if you are unable to attend, to allow others to attend. Payment is $10 to help rent the space, and can be made in person. Anyone who cannot afford this is encouraged to attend anyway and should contact Carl beforehand.

For directions and other information about location please visit the http://www.swedenborgchapel.com Cambridge Swedenborg Chapel website. If you're driving in be sure to pack tightly into the little lot on the side which can fit about 8 cars, otherwise expect to look for parking such as down Kirkland to the left and away from Harvard, at the next big cross street with Beacon there are some meters.

Letting go...

Someone posted on facebook that Joseph Campbell said "We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us."

My spontaneous comment was:

I would say it's not so much about letting go what we want, as letting go the idea that we aren't already on our way to getting it. It's the insistent disappointment and fear that we won't ever have what we want that blocks us from working with what we have now to fully reach it. It's like if there are 10 steps to getting what we want, and the universe says yes here is step 1, we're refusing to take that step if we don't see the connection and just say no, I should already be done by now. The universe is saying it's fine, the future you has it, feel it, become. A part of you is there and that's how you desire it, the rest of you is here and moving closer to conscious experience, so let's close the gap with another lesson. The only reason "letting go" ever works is if that helps us get into the moment to receive love and take the next steps naturally, until the universe says surprise, you made it! Letting go doesn't work and causes more pain if a person hears it as saying give up, stop desiring. Desire is always needed to manifest anything.

... I will admit to feeling reactive on this, obviously there are things I'm working on. I'm trying to find the right co-creative balance with the universe, since I believe all that happens comes from partnership. People who say I surrender, God's will be done, miss the point that God is waiting for us to decide what we want to try. Such people will get samples of possibilities based on other people deciding for them, and probably have a compromised life. Likewise, people who say I want whatever I say right now miss the other point, that there is balance and cooperation for deeper lessons of self-discovery. Even though the universe says yes to every choice, there are steps it gives to transform us there. And thank goodness for that, because those steps give us time to evaluate, to refine or adjust our choices as we learn deeper things about ourselves, our values, and real destined talents. Ultimately, the universe wants and needs us to be authentically joyfully contributing from our souls, that's why it has some input on the life that is "waiting for us".

Horatio Algernon

Ok, I'm going to try for a meme pun: "Yes, it was just another Horatio Algernon story, a sad tale of rags to riches to rags again." There, I said it, maybe now it will spread and leave me alone! :)

references: Horatio Alger is the American myth of rags to riches, that if one can make it by hard work then everyone should and can. Flowers for Algernon is the award-winning story of a retarded janitor named Charlie who is given an experimental operation to make him a genius; this was first tested on a mouse named Algernon. It works, and Charlie becomes superhuman, and miserable to finally understand all the unnecessary injustice in the world, starting from the teasing he used to get for being retarded which he once mistook for popularity. Then the process reverses, and Charlie is doubly miserable to become retarded again with only a confused memory that he was once more than he is now.

Publisher's didn't want the story at first, they all told the author to change it for a Horatio Alger ending where Charlie stays a genius, solves the world's problems, makes friends with everyone, marries the girl of his dreams and lives happily ever after - but the author refused, and now the book is a modern classic. I see it as a tragic parable of human spiritual progress. When you wake up to your soul you gain a genius that realizes the world didn't have to be this way, but you cannot change it alone, though you may well fantasize for a while. You must learn to mourn so deeply and profoundly that you finally find a way to rejoin the normal world with an abnormal half-remembered higher perspective and vision, fated to spend the rest of your life trying to make a difference against all the odds of an unenlightened system. The spiritual awakening is a one-way door: you can never forget, and yet still you must go back to the way you were. This is a serious thing that changes your life forever, kind of like taking the red pill or the blue pill as seen in the Matrix movie. That is why the spiritual experience cannot be pushed on people before they are ready, they will refuse and misunderstand your best of intentions from deeper defenses than they can comprehend.

To combine the Algernon parable with the American success myth of Horatio Alger, well, call me or my muse perverse, but maybe that's what America is really about, as we lead the New Age not to mention the economic cycles of boom and bust. We Americans thought (many still do) that we were going to raise the world's standard of living in our superior never-ending technologically driven prosperity, but instead by our ideals we have raised a tragic awareness of paradise lost that is bittersweet. I fundamentally believe and experience that the diversity and tolerance of this country - imperfect yes, but much greater and deeper than most other places on Earth - creates conditions for enlightment that are our true greatest asset. People come here to be free, to realize the American dream, and the soul is reborn in ways that no one could have foreseen.

God bless America, God bless the whole Earth, and God help an awakening humanity.

Noismism

... and now a little humor to lighten the Weltschmerz ...


No • Ism • Ism

A noismist believes that the world is comprised only of free agent individuals who are fully transparent to everyone but themselves. There are no movements, no schools, no ideologies. No groups, no isms, no families, no histories, no karmas. All of that stuff is totally fascinating and meaningful, and in the final analysis irrelevant. Just a bunch of invented and shared justifications for what a person really wants to do with you right now, and still you wouldn’t have guessed, it didn’t follow. If you approach people in this light, you won’t get fooled again. They’re just looking to behave as they’ve been wanting to, by building up the courage of a context and pretext in which to act with impunity. Direct sensing of intentions is the goal of the noismist.

“Excuse me, are you looking for someone to grow with and love? Are you looking for someone to blame and punish? Come on, you can admit it to me, if not to yourself. I won’t judge, I won’t tell. It’s just that I can’t believe anything you’ve said about yourself, because it fails to explain you. I’ve met people who have been through everything that you have, and they didn’t act like you at all. This is just the way you are, doing what you want, isn’t it? Sure it is, and if you don’t like it then change, but don’t shoot the messenger. Hey, stop that! Okay, I’m outta here!”

Public noismists tend to be short-lived. How many people are privately noismist remains unknown.

Our Home

I'm so excited to have been pointed to a great recent movie called "Astral City: A Spiritual Journey" by a new friend! Wow!! How did I miss this one??

From 2001 to 2009 I played a deconstructivist movie reviewer at the MysticalMovieGuide.com, until I burned out on sifting through the entertainment cliches to uphold a few shards of spiritual truth. Since then I've shifted to research and writing for my own classes and book, so I'm behind on the cultural news.

Only last month I finally saw the remarkable US film "The Adjustment Bureau", released in early 2011. An exciting big-budget fantasy that showcases many spiritual truths from a visionary first-time writer/director, this was extremely atypical for Hollywood and clearly sponsored by holy spirit. It's a romantic thriller about a couple confronting God and the angelic realm to establish their free will right to be together in love, regardless the karmic impact for a system that would keep them apart to serve social order. Right on, karma busters! That made me cry, and reminded me of what a great movie can do.

Now "Astral City" takes me to a whole new level, by moving into territory that is 100% spiritual, otherworldly, and true! Based on the best-selling book "Nosso Lar" (Portugeuse for Our Home), this is the autobiography of a spirit, dictated through a famous Brazilian medium.

"Astral City: A Spiritual Journey" is the movie your soul has been waiting for! Biggest Brazilian production ever made, released there fall 2010, finally into the US just in time for 2012. So why isn't everyone talking about it? This is the true story of a spirit working his way up the astral plane, as told by the deceased doctor Andre Luis channeled through the late great spiritualist writer Chico Xavier. Xavier is an absolute phenom in Brazil, little known in the US or Europe, who wrote over 400 books, many extremely popular, and donated all the proceeds to charity because he could take no credit, all came from the spiritual world.

In this great film adaptation of Xavier's most popular book, you will see the heaveny city Our Home on the astral mountain top from which Andre Luis learned the real meaning of life, and many other moving powerful scenes. Things start a little pedagogical and melodramatic in purgatory, but great understated emotional expressions from fine actors really help open up the viewer to the beautiful special effects that soon follow. It's funny how literally accurate religion can be, what with people pointing to the sky for heaven. The energetic fields of the earth do extend upward, and most human spirits work their way toward utopian communities which are on the top of the astral plane in the upper atmosphere. The astral plane, as you may know from the term's popularization by Theosophy, is the energy of emotions and also an actual nonphysical place.

Here's the film's trailer at the internet movie database where you can read more about the production. You can then buy the dvd or stream the whole movie on amazon for a fee, and find related videos on youtube.

So after seeing the film and crowing about it on facebook to friends, naturally the next step was to buy the book. Now this gets interesting - I check out the comments, which are not many and mostly from spiritualists, as might be expected. One however is a suffering Catholic who questions the views of karma espoused by the film. I agree, that was one issue I had too. Technically, I would regard the view of the afterlife seen in the film as a mid-level evolutionary step in which a lot of spirits feel ties to families on Earth and eagerly reincarnate to be with them regardless of personal costs. It's a popular path and there's nothing wrong with it, unless you're ready for something else. Andre Luis himself suggests one alternative, since he didn't reincarnate, he stayed longer in the astral to refine his understandings and dictate his story directly to Xavier on the Earth.

Below is my reply to the comment and discussion thread which is linked. I have no right or need to reproduce other people's text, as I think my points speak for themselves. I've clearly got my own little theme going on with karmic liberation for 2012, so this is just another facet I've sincerely displayed, worth preserving here.

Thanks for reading, and all the best to you on your own journey to freedom and joy! I'm reminded of a message I got from Archangel Michael to help me release some old issues: "Go to the level at which you are healed."

From Amazon comment Thread for book "Nosso Lar"

Your post, in reply to an earlier post on Aug 5, 2012 2:05:38 PM PDT
Carl J. Schroeder says:

I was drawn to the movie Astral City, then to the book it was based on Nosso Lar, then to your comment on the book here on Amazon, then to the discussion that followed, and then as far as your last revealing reply here. May I add my perspective?

I'm not a spiritist, I'm a little of many things, and I agree with you on the unfairness and damage that is possible under karma. I too have suffered from similar karmic connections, I know where you are coming from.

Karma is a choice! It is the old system, it is not the only way. Jesus was coming from a new way, that is why he took on humanity's pain in one last great karmic act and died that we might live. "Let the dead bury the dead, come, follow me." I believe the world changed when he rose from the grave.

Karma is an unmerited loyalty to soul family, and it can work because people must purify themselves to handle their cruel relatives. Known or unknown, our psychic connections impact us tremendously, and can force us to grow, especially as we react from what they mirror inside of us.

But there will always be free will, and at some point you have to let go with a totality of forgiveness that respects each person's own power and potential, in order to honor your own path upward. Perhaps this is the "tough love" that people must learn.

How long will I let another person's choices destroy me? I am done, I am going to where I belong. I wish to follow the flow of the universe, and so I must give up on the karma and enter the dharma. If I still have lessons to learn, they can be taught lovingly, I don't have to suffer any loyalties to the cruel and ignorant anymore.

I thought it was a great scene in the movie when Andre was being rescued from the Umbral. The self-damning said "no, not him! don't save him!", but when the healing guide reached out a hand to them they all recoiled, not wanting to be saved themselves. So the guide gave up and turned and took Andre to the heavenly city. That sums up the end of karma to me, you offer, they don't accept, but you accept, you are done. Whether or not spiritists continue to learn in karmic systems is their choice, but it is not the only way, and the seeds of leaving karma are in their acknowledgment of everyone makes their own choices for how to live.

You sound like you have a lot of healing to do. Get it if you want! I would recommend trying various alternative healers and ask them to clear your energetic connections to people and spirits who aren't good for you, find whatever works. Focus on you, take care of yourself proudly, do it for God if you cannot for yourself. God is counting on you to be the steward of your precious true self, to reach your potential to serve naturally from your joyful uniqueness, authority questioning and all, and not as a spiritual worker in a system for points. You seem sensitive to any duty that isn't sensitive to you; you've probably been enslaved and abused by karmic ties.

Let go whatever guilt or ideas you have that keep you exposed to suffering in a karmic system. Be that best person you can be, because that is the real you, and that is your ticket to freedom. You have no obligations to grow in a way that doesn't suit you. There are many options for returning to a state of grace health and joy in this vast universe, there is not just one church or Nosso Lar.

ps - I want to add personally in a way that isn't the main point but shares human context. I wasn't raised catholic, but discovered a past life as a catholic medieval mystic nun in 1998. Some thought it was ego because she was famous, but I was in touch with a very deep life-transformation. I immediately felt a great love of the karmic system, and wanted to reunite with all the souls I'd been with then and in other lifetimes. The historical records helped me recognize resonances when they showed up in answer to prayer.

I did it! It took me 14 years but I found a huge soul family reincarnated from then and other past lives as well. A fascinating, magical, deeply spiritual journey for me! And guess what, it was not a lovefest, it was mess of people and issues, all over the place. I could've kept working and suffering with them for the rest of my life, but I got it! That was enough.

I'm done with karma, it forces you to purify and learn about your origins until you're ready to go to a new place. Now I don't care about karma anymore, I could be meeting you for the hundredth lifetime or the first. Here now what are we doing, that's what matters, all else is forgiven. No clinging, no ties, only love that gives and lets go and receives in the present. If we're good to stay together we will, as an ongoing commitment to good energy.

This karma-free loyalty to the spiritual self gives a life that is both merit based, ie. do your good works, and soul based, ie. you deserve just for being. Nobody does good or looks good to get anything, they are what they are now already. Nobody gets fooled or stuck on past loyalties or future potentials, it's all your choices now. Karma is an endless prison, it never releases anyone, but everyone holds their own key to just leave when they're ready.

Here's a site of a friend who researches past lives, soul families, and karma extensively. Walter Semkiw works with Kevin Ryerson and together I've found they back a lot of my experiences in this area, so check it out if you like: www.iisis.net

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The discussion at amazon has continued, so again I'll just preserve my replies here which contain my views, and for full context you can visit that thread at Amazon comment Thread for book "Nosso Lar"

Your post, in reply to an earlier post on Aug 7, 2012 7:01:45 PM PDT
Carl J. Schroeder says:

I realized a karma-related question for Steve or any of the spiritists in this thread who know more about the theology of Nosso Lar. Is there a door to rebirth from the Umbral purgatory, those hellish lower astral planes? I mean, the movie depicted the process of reincarnation as involving a long responsible planning process with top guides of the heavenly cities at the top of the astral, involving years of preparation and waiting to be granted permission. At that rate, people wouldn't get reborn very quickly, and would be mature and have wonderful life intentions. So where are all the messed up people down here coming from, especially the disturbed and the cruel who make karmic ties such a hell for so many? That looks to me like personalities straight out of the Umbral, not the refined graduates of the highest astral cities. Perhaps this is covered in the book or other works by Andre and Chico?

(Steve basically replied that the Umbral is a purgatory-like passing through zone for spirits that you get stuck in as long as you have ego problems, so there's no way you could reincarnate from there, next stop is higher realms. If there are a lot of badly behaving people coming onto Earth, they'd be incarnating from other dimensions and planets, not Earth's Umbral, and they'd be coming here after making an "I'll behave" promise to God like everyone who gets permission to incarnate.)

Your post, in reply to an earlier post on Aug 28, 2012 1:14:50 PM PDT
Carl J. Schroeder says:

Hey Steve, a belated thanks to you for your detailed excellent reply. I basically agree with all that you say, but believe in extensions on the material too. For one thing, I believe that lifetimes are much more overlapping and parallel than the long steady spiritual growth sequence can suggest. This is a common problem I find in systems that teach reincarnation, they can't imagine people reincarnating all over the place/time as they do. I think (I know) there are some other me's in the world right now, and that I've had more overlapping lifetimes than a sequence provides. I simply see that a soul sends out as many lifetimes as it wants or needs, and we can become soul-like in relating to as many of them as another "me" as we can handle. Especially in the speeded-up modern times we're in, there's no way a soul wants to miss out on all the experiences by having only 1 or 2 lifetimes a century.

The consequence for karma is that a person who did bad things in their lifetime can certainly be working it out in the umbral purgatory after dying. But at the same time they have other selves back in the world already/still, doing related bad deeds in psychic connection. So in a way, they're already reincarnated straight from the umbral. This accounts for a lot of people who react like they're in a hellish place no matter how good their life is, because another part of themselves is concurrently in the umbral. This creates problems for the hope of sequential reformation. Any lifetime that does reform itself only becomes a good influence to others that can be ignored by the others as they choose. It's very interactive and simultaneous, which doesn't really invalidate the sequential spiritual self-improvement model, but makes it more subtle and complex and ultimately more powerful. A tipping point of many lifetimes waking up and reforming together becomes possible!

Because of this multiplicity going on, I don't see the need for a lot of extraterrestrial souls getting born here to account for so many new people, good or bad, although a certain number of ET incarnations are certainly happening. Many come from more evolved worlds to raise the vibration with great people. If we're allowing a lot of bad apples onto Earth from less-evolved places, well, we can just stop tolerating that, individually and collectively. I was once shown in meditation that a number of Nazis were incarnated from a planet of such homogeneity that they freaked out at Earth's diversity and thought genocide was a naturally good thing, and they were still rather unrepentent about it. Such spirits do not need to be here.

The other limitation I see with the linear reincarnation model is the assumption that spirits are always refining and progressing, getting permission to come back to Earth only when they have significantly matured and promise to not make the same mistakes again. At that rate, even allowing for some backsliding, wouldn't Earth have become a much better place long ago? Steve Pinkerton's fascinating new book "Angels of our better nature" does present inspiring evidence that humanity has become steadily more civilized and peaceful over the centuries, so that's the good news. But most people don't believe it because humanity's progress has been relatively slow, so the linear maturing model seems overly optimistic, unable to account for real history.

The difference I believe comes from the simpler fact that we create our own reality down here as well as up there, and so many people allow for and even depend on the presence of incarnated evil. So promises to behave don't matter, when the fact is there are roles being demanded and slots to fill, and reincarnated reformed spirits backslide easily by popular demand. What will really clean things up on Earth is not so much that we attain heights of maturity when we're in heavenly higher realms, but when we stop covertly (but rather obviously) relying on evil in our thinking and entertainment down here. All kinds of hidden agendas to be powerless, to blame, to manipulate, to punish, and to get pleasure from pain, bring out the worst in everyone, creating a race to the bottom.

Raising consciousness "down here" is what will bring out the potentials that everyone has developed to varying degrees "up there". I think spirits like Andre who increasingly opt to not rush to reincarnate but rather transmit their higher view through channels on Earth are evidencing that simple fact. They know that belief systems need to change to bring out the best that everyone already has developed in spirit but which gets shouted-down once they're incarnated, regardless of how many promises to behave better get made from the spirit side.

Whaddya think? And let me know your email if you want to continue offline, but hopefully everyone has enjoyed this discussion, including our fine Catholic friend who started this thread.

all the best,
Carl


Your post, in reply to an earlier post on Aug 29, 2012 3:27:43 PM PDT
Carl J. Schroeder says:

Interesting replies, thanks Steve and Peter!

To Steve I would say, hmm, did I touch a nerve? Suddenly you sound more sure and judgmental than before. I get that you're saying I'm absolutely wrong and misled, but I'm not as clear on the why. As I said in my post, I don't see why the potential of more concurrency in lifetimes invalidates the idea of spiritual evolution, only that it makes it more dynamic and invests the spirit of each lifetime with more, not less, responsibility for their actions. We can then relate to clusters of our soul's lifetimes in whatever sequences make sense for our growth, so linear reincarnating and cause-effect karma are a subset of the total possibilities.

Just because someone is dead doesn't mean they know everything, just that hopefully they have a better afterlife perspective on their own experiences. So if a lot of spirits teach reincarnation and karma a certain way, they can be perfectly correct for their path, and still not exclude the possibility of other ways to achieve the same ultimate goals of spiritual evolution toward the divine state. I don't feel like a fool who is rushing in where angels fear to tread. There are a number of respected channeled entities from very high levels who teach exactly what I'm saying, including Lazaris and Ahtun Re. I didn't just make it up, I simply developed my own perspectives and opinions which ended up agreeing with them.

To Peter I would say thank you for the candor and humility of more possible explanations. I agree that a concurrency of archetypal choices can account for a lot of connections between individuals who are not the same soul. Kindred souls, soulmates, twin flames, all kinds of great relationships are possible. I've had some short-term difficulties distinguishing myself from the past lives of my very closest spirit guides, but ultimately they diverged while my past lives kept converging with me. It's perfectly healthy to not know until you know. So while I sometimes erred on the side of believing in a reincarnation connection, other people can err on the side of disbelieving. Here's a link to a page where the man who has been identified by friends of mine as the reincarnation of William James agrees that the matches between James' circle and his circle are uncanny (souls travel in groups), but he's not ready to believe in reincarnation. Jungian style synchronistic archetypal resonance he calls it: http://www.mishlove.com/WilliamJames/matches.htm

And Peter, your ongoing crusade against karma makes me smile. As I've said before I agree that karma has its limits of benefit, but you seem so hurt that I wonder if you aren't especially chafing at the way certain schools teach karma. There are different ways it gets explained, some more free-will crushing than others. I do believe there exist group karmas, family karmas, nation karmas, etc, and these could be particularly stifling while amorphously difficult to shake. I wonder if some of these have you feeling trapped beyond the karmas with individuals, which is what I've focussed on releasing and found perfectly liberating for all levels of guilt and abuse. I used to get my panties in a twist over the inter-Abrahamic religious conflicts for example, but that has lifted as I let go of the people in my life that probably embodied those conflicts for me in lifetimes back. It's always helpful to get a face on things, I find love and its lack to be specific not general problems.

all bests,
Carl


Your post, in reply to an earlier post on Sep 4, 2012 3:57:19 PM PDT
Carl J. Schroeder says:
Hi Steve,

Thanks for your candid reply, I see you are more playful than I thought at first. I appreciate that.

I also think you're an amazing scholar with great scholarly strengths. I'm not so much a scholar, I'm into my own direct experiences, and I just cross paths with stuff and decide what it means to me then.

Multiple-me's makes perfect sense to me. Time is simultaneous, different configurations of my soul make for different incarnations and personalities, and they're all alive affecting each other. I know that even people who believe in reincarnation have a hard time with this. Perhaps I'm comfortable because I came to reincarnation from my own route of dialoguing with my sub-personalities, the different aspects of myself, and then discovering oh, these people in my soul have their entire own lives and realities in other times and spaces from me, we're all very real, this is awesome! So some of the other me's are what people call past lives, some are parallel lives, some are my own developmental stages in this life (inner child for example).

Since you bring up the importance of clear definitions, I would point out the elephant in the room which is the term karma itself. It's a ridiculously overused word, and it's obvious to me that everyone has their own set of working definitions, mostly amorphous. All this talk of debt and rewards doesn't make sense to me for example. We have free will, we create our own reality, and there's no one handing out gold stars or demerits. I see karma as just the developing of a shared experience with someone that isn't complete or concluded for growth. It still doesn't mean that we owe anyone or they owe us, because they can go complete that experience with someone else and so can we at any time. Pay it forward, for example.

I think one of the worst implications I hear in talk of karma is that we absolutely have to do our growth with certain individuals. That is in my mind very damaging and contrary to free will. If I have a shared incomplete growth process from 1000 years ago with someone that I want to get back to someday, they have every choice and right to have gone in different directions from me. They can be completely out of sync and inappropriate for me to finish my growth lesson when I get around to wanting and needing that lesson. So I need to be flexible and let the universe bring me someone with a matching unfinished lesson who is in sync with me now, not then.

Just because I started a lesson with someone doesn't mean I have to wait for them to decide to be nice and productive with me. It would be like if you come back to class the next day and find out your lab partner has quit school, and your teacher says sorry, you'll just have to wait to see if they ever decide to return, we can't possibly assign you another lab partner, nor could they ever get anyone else but you to finish their degree. What? I'd find another school if that happened, ha!

I know that my attitude is not popular, and you're welcome to denounce it as taking shortcuts and breaking the system and incurring more karma than ever. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there's a way to deny responsibility, to avoid the people we've interacted with. The universe will bring to us first those with whom we've had prior dealings, and that is the basis of karma. We won't get past them until we learn to accept and not judge them for who they are. And that must include allowing them to be uncooperative and unwilling to complete a lesson with us, to let them go and find someone else more suitable for our spiritual development.

I can say from my own experience that growth is growth, and love is love. No way I'm staying with some unloving personality just because of some shared karmic history. That's like spiritual incest, to have to marry within a family of spiritual origins, it's not even healthy on so many levels! Free will changes everything, free will means the universe can and must recombine as needed for love, not dogma. We're always free to ask the universe for someone truly compatible for what we want to accomplish, and that's how we learn to really to enjoy our life and place in creation!

best wishes,
Carl


As Steve continued to disagree with my views on karma as optional (sorry to burst my bubble), I realized this was a test of exactly my point. I could feel my old personality that would hold onto a disagreement, as if to lose an opportunity to be right and heard was a moment of cosmic importance. It is, but not the way I was imagining! I think of all those times that Hildegard had to be right, and if a person didn't agree she would say God is on my side, you can be wrong and there will be suffering from this, you'll see. And yes there was suffering, including her own. People think they have to make a final stand, but the universe illustrates the letting go principle exactly - people who hold onto disagreements go on to find other people to disagree with, and people who let go disagreements go on to find other people to enjoy more agreement with. Either way, there are more fish in the sea, and no one has stay anywhere they don't want to.

Like it or not, by their choices for energies, people represent energies, and by our choices for energies, we meet some kinds of people and not others. Fortunately we can hold theoretical ideals that we can talk about and hopefully guide ourselves toward, but day to day we live energetic choices that we must walk from and within. Change your ideals if you feel hopeless, and then change your daily choices if your life is not ideal. Love or conflict, that is your ideal and daily choice. How much love do you want in your life?


Your post, in reply to an earlier post on Sep 5, 2012 3:23:31 AM PDT
Carl J. Schroeder says:

Hey Steve, no bubbles bursting here, lol! We've had our respectful interaction, we're both pursuing our values in full sincerity, all is well in my opinion. If this is a karmic reunion we've had, then I consider it fulfilled, and you're welcome to too, or not, that is your choice. If you worry about me then you'll be in your bubble, if I worry about you then I'll be in my bubble, we each create our own reality and we have neither need nor ability to change each other's opinions or choices. I've got other things to do and other people to interact with, you do too I'm sure.

happy trails!
Carl

a sad lesson in real energy

My country is abuzz over the inconceivable horror of the batman movie massacre of early Friday morning, when a heavily armed but previously mild-mannered intelligent university student burst into the midnight showing of the final installment of the ulta-violent Dark Knight trilogy in Aurora Colorado and translated movie screen mayhem into bloody killing reality. The young man turned sociopath wore body armour purchased on the internet, carried legally acquired assault weapons, and patterned a sudden merciless rampage after the so-called entertainment of the famous Joker character from the previous installment of the best-selling franchise. Police have reported that the killer dyed his hair red, called himself the Joker, used a shotgun like the Joker, and burst into the theatre with smoke bombs and a barrage of ammunition in the Joker’s style. The attack began in parallel with film scene explosions, so the audience first thought it was all in the movie, and then guessed it was a publicity stunt for more sensation since the midnight showing was a much-anticipated nation-wide industry event. 70 people were shot in a total war zone descent into hell, 12 dead within minutes, and security was increased at continued showings of the film around the country as people feared for the safety of their children still looking forward to the movie’s violence at their local Cineplex. Out of respect for the dead, Hollywood would delay announcement of box office receipts, expected to fall short of predictions after the tragedy but still break records. The big-money movie features many horrors including a similar shooting massacre of innocent audience at a sports arena, and is rated PG-13, which is supposed to mean no one under 13 is allowed to get in. I have yet to see any reports that question why victims under that age were among the real massacre’s dead, the youngest being 6.

The Joker was such a sickening character of the second Dark Knight film that the actor playing him, Heath Ledger, became increasingly disturbed and died on an overdose of medications prescribed to calm him from the experience. This was reminiscent of other Hollywood abuses like when it got 15 year old actress Judy Garland hooked on drugs to push her through the shooting schedule of The Wizard of Oz, which led to the lifelong addiction that eventually killed her. But only praise was heard for Ledger’s talent and performance, and to this day movie fans are glad to have at least had Ledger’s career end on such a “brilliant” note as to have brought a remorseless psychotic killer to unforgettable life. This Joker character is easily recognizable in toy store aisles, since the licensing of the mass murderer is highly profitable for children to play with alongside Batman, who is himself no longer the funny posing hero of the 1960’s era TV shows that I grew up with in which bumbling silly villains get easily defeated to depict however clumsily that goodness will prevail. Batman was reinvented for a new jaded generation as just another alienated dangerous vigilante hiding in a costume and armed to the teeth with deadly technology.

Flush with more cash than any charity to feed starving children could ever dream for, Hollywood cranks out the ever grander spectacles of extreme entertainment soaked in blood, featuring inhuman torture and mass explosive murdering, in hopes of still finding thrills and shocks for sensation-numbed audiences hungry for their next escape from reality. Millions consume this stuff obsessively, praising the craft of violence as art and bringing their whole families, never suspecting that the barrage of disturbing thoughts and feelings could ever effect anyone beyond the exit of the theatre or after the TV is turned off.

How, why, could people be so willfully blind? Energy is real! There is no reality-proof steel door separating physical experience from internal imagination, objective manifestation from personal sensation. Your thoughts and feelings are your open portal to an outside world, so where in the world have you been going? Multimedia is especially potent, so when you play a video game or watch a TV show or movie of someone getting killed, you are actually connecting psychically to someone getting killed somewhere. Yes! This is not theoretical, this is what gives reality a real feeling, this is how the universe works. If you’re wise to this, you can make use of upsetting scenes as you contemplate them to find your own aware healing response, to both become more human and help someone somewhere in space and time, which of course the mind transcends easily. Maybe the suffering one will turn out to be you in your own past life, maybe they’re a person you will love if you ever get to meet them, or maybe you will never know who it is at your current level of consciousness. At any rate, thank God you can care and make a difference from your human beingness! This is how intention makes all the difference, so reports and depictions of violence can become a channel you tune into with compassion to make the world a better place. Thus violence in stories cannot be simply outlawed, since that would just be looking the other way from truth. Puritans closed the Globe theatre of Shakespeare in 17th century England around the same time they were migrating to New England to begin exterminating Native Americans, so some of the best plays to make us think and feel more human have long been sanctimoniously opposed by those who turn around and do their worse cruelties elsewhere.

Guns and films don’t kill people, people kill people, so of course easy access to guns and violent ideas encourage people to kill! The senseless unaware enjoyment of violent sensations can and must be addressed in the population with basic startling education. It’s too easy for Hollywood to defend itself as just giving people what they want; why aren’t the actors and writes caring about themselves enough to eulogize Heath Ledger for what really killed him, an evil energy that was employed to sell a movie? Murder is deadly serious in any form, and the talking picture industry is hyper-real when it comes to what it can push your brain to think and feel, thus affecting your body and by its extension your world. The more you pretend a killing in your senses isn’t happening somewhere, the closer killing comes. For the victims of one stupid thrill-ride in Aurora Colorado, inhuman cruelty stepped right off the silver screen to scar and take their lives forever in a new ground zero. The lesson can’t get more obvious: sensational energy is where reality begins! As with many horror franchises, the Joker character is no joke; its creators were inspired by a specific murderous non-human entity who is eager to injure as many humans as it can before people realize the fire they are playing with when they package violence for diversionary pleasure. All you have to do is open your heart a little to question how anyone can enjoy images of terror and pain, and all you have to do is dismiss your own humanity to think every feeling is as fun to feel as any other, the bigger the better. There are a lot of mislabeled poisons around today, but their effects are obvious to people have the courage to get with reality.

Science already reports with increasing mystification that there isn’t a clear disconnect between what you imagine and what will happen physically. It’s been long known that your body will react to what you visualize in your head the same ways as if it were happening outside, so that thinking about a threat can increase your adrenalin and heart rate, alter your brain chemistry, change your entire biology, and push you to react with increasing defensive impulsivity. Still, people prefer to say your internal state is just a thrill effect, nothing really lasting will come of it, and the world doesn’t care. But now it’s known that if you imagine exercising, your muscles will actually grow. How’s that for physical? It just goes on from there. Endless studies show that anything you can do to foster your internal peace, master your own mental states, and meditatively reduce stress will make you happier, healthier, smarter, more loved, more successful, and live a longer life. Who can really doubt that an entire sequence of impacts must exist from our thoughts and feelings to the events in our lives, except of course a society that doesn’t want responsibility for all the destructive moods it promotes as harmless fun for young and old. God help us if we cared, we might have to start looking at why we enjoy such things as violence and fantasies that injure people, real and imagined, and become compelled by our own humanity to change whole industries, economies, and lifestyles! Of course, how can we expect to make the world a better safer place without the deepest reviews of our values.

The occasional individual who loses all self-control to go on a killing spree is deranged and responsible for horrors most people hold themselves back from ever acting out, of course. The news reports all jump to reassure us of that simple fact. But millions of people imagine and enjoy the effects in their body of violence every day, as either done to others or themselves. Energy is real, and too many psycho-killers turn out to be frighteningly normal however lonely people until the day they snapped, because they were canaries in a coalmine that’s been long smoking and on fire. This is your life you are in charge of defending now, don’t wait for Hollywood to take care of you and those you love! Regard what you say and think as seriously as what you do, and stop patronizing the vendors of violence as entertainment. Teach yourself and your children to consider the human beings behind all those scenes of mayhem, whether staged for a film or reported in the news. You can’t imagine how much good you can do to say no to the sickness of current imagination, but you will see a better world.

I'm so so sorry for the innocent victims of Friday. Just before hearing the news, I was drawn that morning to listen to Tracey Grammer's classic song "Hey Ho". It always makes me cry, but I sobbed uncontrollably for so long I knew that something must have happened.