I watched the 3 videos, and using his terms I embraced dissolution in principle a few decades ago, and proceeded to unravel my 'self' as carefully as I could, so I recognise his story as mine to a large extent.

I didn't know though that dissolution can be blissful, I can't quite believe that in this moment cos I've never heard that before, I am open to the possibility that blissful dissolution is possible but I would need to learn a lot more about people's experience and outcome to acknowledge it. I flat out don't understand how no dissolution could lead to an end stage.

Of uncomfortable dissolution though I am a master, and I followed it through to 'emptiness' where I felt empty for a year or so, if I had talked to a Buddhist s/he might have restructured my perspective to find joy in emptiness, maybe, it's not something I understand, the joy of Buddhist emptiness.

So many things to still learn about and understand. I might start a thread on Buddhist emptiness versus feeling empty, I'd like to hear more from Buddhists about it.

Really interesting.

Shinzen went with the Virgin of Guadalupe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WtPrOE1JSk

And subconsciously I went with the White Horse. The most immaculate and pure principle.

Wonder if we are talking about the same thing happening?

This is an extremely Christian perspective and I apologise for that, but I wondered after reading your post whether the better notion might be that the soul does indeed seek the appropriate level that it attunes to via karma, but Heaven is not available except via accepting the need for Jesus' spirit in our hearts.

This is actually what he claimed, and my personal experience is that a lot of things opened up in a good way once I recognised that I was not capable of initiating 'light' on my own.

But just to mention, I was determined to get to enlightenment on my own, and before 'dissolution' and emptiness in the void I would have had a very negative idea of people who needed a crutch like Christianity. It is only since the moment I acknowledged I couldn't create light on my own that the words recorded in the bible have come more alive for me.

Things like heaven and hell and other human ideas I am open to examining though, it's too easy to swallow a religion lock stock and barrel, whereas as you say so much is just made up ideas.

Again I'll watch your link ASAP, I'd like to hear more about your white horse image and the occasion you went with it though.

edit: watched the link, I think it must be natural to posit the deity archetype we are most familiar with, I would like to examine whether choosing Jesus as deity has merit above and beyond choosing a cultural archetype, is there any spiritual outcome that would make such a choice intrinsically better?

A very long and convoluted story that is …..
I think so too, but beyond that it could, me thinks, also be the deity one was connected to in past life, if one has got strong memories of it - so a bit like ‘unfinished business’.

Besides, what is the difference, if any, between a deity and an entity?
Are deity archetypes also entities? Divine entities.

I feel/felt a bit more “entityish” about my ‘white horse’, (at that time) even though it is more like an energetic function and a cultural mythological symbol.
But Jesus is also a cultural archetype of Middle Eastern origin – no?
To the Arabs he was a Prophet, to the Christians he is the ‘Savior’ (no?), to me he represents a true ‘Spiritual Warrior’ serving People and the ‘Source’ and his death on the cross represents courage of surrender to ‘God’ and resurrection - and by that he serves as an example for us, and as such, is there really any better archetype?

The Cross though is one of those universal archetypes found in almost all cultures, even prior to Christianity: “patterns and images that derive from the collective unconscious and are the psychic counterpart of instinct” - as Jung put it.
https://i0.wp.com/www.warriormindcoa...amans_drum.jpg
As such the cross to me represents the point where the horizontal and vertical paths meet, which is our life situation and an ascent on the vertical – ‘the spiritual path’. When we ascend on the vertical – our view of the horizontal changes.


But after the ‘ego-death’ and its 'resurrection' – what archetype follows now as your personal divine entity?

I think that in the Eastern systems, it is described that when we die our soul leaves through different openings.
In the Buddha’s teachings the different kinds of rebirth follow depending which door our 'mind' leaves the body and in the best scenario, our consciousness should leave through the crown of our head.
Some Taoists point to the third eye as the best.
In the Shamanic – it perhaps is the Causal Chakra area.

I think it could be a bit similar with ‘ego-death’ – which gate or opening (or alternatively, which chakra) was activated when we surrendered, had a blackout and were brought back to mind-body consciousness ‘rearranged’ and this might determine the deity visions and the ‘nature’ of the deity we got. Lower gates might be quite hellish.

I don’t know, so I am just ‘sketching’ here.

If something is more than an archetype then it must be an entity, it must be an identifiable being. Jesus as archetype is a very different proposition to Jesus as an entity, and the difference is in a way my earlier question. Is Jesus an archetype or a distinct entity with powers. Same with your white horse, the Hindu and Buddhists deities etc. This is an interesting question in itself, though in the end any opinion we might come to remains just that, there is no way (yet) to measure entities.


My new archetype is 'the Father', the One that Jesus himself deferred to. Not because Jesus did, but because I feel a direct relationship between me and Him.


Interesting point. I surrendered in my heart chakra.

django
"My new archetype is 'the Father', the One that Jesus himself deferred to. Not because Jesus did, but because I feel a direct relationship between me and Him.
I surrendered in my heart chakra".

:smile:

Who would go first to hell , if there was such thing, the pope or the atheist ?

Good point, Popery isn't a guarantee of anything :smile:

The one who says, “I have come to know him,” and yet doesn’t keep his commands, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 1 John 1:6

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ Matthew 7:21-23

' In the Buddha’s teachings the different kinds of rebirth follow depending which door our 'mind' leaves the body and in the best scenario, our consciousness should leave through the crown of our head. '

Can you point me to that teaching please, it's something I have never come across.