The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment

Lora
I must admit it is a little difficult to relate to your experience because I'm agnostic about whether individuals have souls. I do feel that the universe has a consciousness of which we are all part of - perhaps the universe has a soul. But the truth is I have no clue. I want to find out these spiritual things on my own, but I inevitably just wind up catching on to things I read or hear from other people... Are the answers really within?
Vahan

[IsleWalker]

Originally Posted by slaga

Lora
I must admit it is a little difficult to relate to your experience because I'm agnostic about whether individuals have souls. I do feel that the universe has a consciousness of which we are all part of - perhaps the universe has a soul. But the truth is I have no clue. I want to find out these spiritual things on my own, but I inevitably just wind up catching on to things I read or hear from other people... Are the answers really within?
Vahan

Yes, Vahan, I really think they are. All that is required is just the opening to the possibilities that things may not be the way we were taught. Then little-by-little you will have experiences. You'll doubt them and you'll have another until even you will be convinced.

And even then, you won't be able to convince anyone else because these are your own experiences, unique to you. So, for instance, you may not hear the sound current or see things before you go to sleep, but you may have some other canny sense of things or experience in nature or ...who knows? I am always blown away by the differences in people. Someone on this forum will come up with this totally unique experience--even ones that others are skeptical of--but it is their way of experiencing.

So you don't have to believe or to have these experiences. But just keep your (spiritual) eyes and ears open. "There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than is dreamt of in your philosophy." Willy said it best!

Lora

I do not deny that you and others have spiritual experiences. I am open to the possibility of having such experiences myself, but it seems as though it should have happened already - I've been open minded for a long time. Perhaps these types of experiences are just not in the cards for me, and that would be fine too, as everyone's path is different.

[IsleWalker]

Slaga--

Yeah, I was open minded about the ideas too but I was at least 50 before there was anything I could believe. For me it didn't start until, after watching many of these medium shows like John Edward, I wanted to know if it was true I had a real Master Guide. I did this guided meditation to discover your guides. Mainly it was calming and destressing one area of your body at a time, visualizing walking through different colors--ROY G BIV-style and then you close your eyes and ask who your guides are, what are their names, what responsibilities they have--whatever you want to ask.

Then you have to write down everything, even if you think you are making it up. And I did think I was making it up or seeing what I wanted to see because I saw very clearly this indigenous or Native American guy --long gray hair, bound in the front to keep it out of his eyes, older man, bare somewhat sunken chest, some sort of pack or carrying leather thing on his back.

I was sure I had picked him up from a commercial (?the Indian with the tear?) or somewhere else. I wracked my brain trying to think where I had seen him before. I even drove 45 minutes up the our Airport in the Sky because they had a tile display of "Previous Island Inhabitants". I thought for sure that's where I had seen him. Nope.

So I let it go and one day this memory from maybe 7 years before came through clear as day. My daughter was then 7 and Earl (my significant other) and she were playing with a Ouija Board (yes, I know--not wise). They supposedly contacted this guy who said his name was Malupe and he had been around for 90 years. I was doing dishes or something, not really paying attention to them.

But I realized that I got this very, very distinct picture of this guy for the first time then. Those kind of visions--or lucid dreams or OBEs--are like hyper-real, so that you can remember each detail years and years later.

So that was the guy I saw again. Gradually, over time, I began to test if this was the guy. I would ask questions like, "If that's you, drop a leaf off in front of me." Or--If I should do this or that, let me see a wood pecker or red-tailed hawk. And something would come through.

But I had to test and re-test and reconfirm. It must have been 100s of times. I was even sick of myself for asking so much, but I wanted to be sure. I am sure now. I sense the personality of this entity. I even got a reading recently from Evaah where she described his personality so precisely, accurately--that I was really moved. And another reading that Saggi gave me, she described a close connection to my guide, and then she said, "He surrounds you with a cloudy pinkish energy to encourage you to recognize the love in yourself." I was at home at around 11:00 am and in the middle of the livingroom I suddenly got really, really emotional, teary. I thought "What the heck is this from?"

About a half hour later I got the reading by email. I looked at the time she had created it--10:30. So little things like that have served as outside confirmations of things I've experienced internally.

I'm not trying to convert you. If you haven't experienced things, you haven't. It doesn't necessarily mean you won't. A lot of kids 19, 20 years old are out here on the forums already sure of who they are, what they are and what they believe. It took me 60 years. But it is what it is, and there is a reason for that too.

Thanks for the open mind, Slaga. I do sense that you are staying open in your questions, and that you are listening to your own council too--which are both great things to do. They are rare to find together.

Thanks for the convo.

Lora

P.S. For the record, I "identified" four guides at that time. I didn't get any further confirmation that the other three were right--so part of it, I could have been making up/or wanting to see.

I have bookmarked this to add to my reading list - thank you!

[IsleWalker]

Originally Posted by Carwen*Angel

I have bookmarked this to add to my reading list - thank you!

Come back and post what you thought of it when you're done. I'd be interested to know if others got much out of it.

Lora