It is an unfortunate fact of life that in any area of incomplete or frontier knowledge there has to be so much folklore and fantasy that it gets very difficult for the honest truth seeker to set fact apart from fiction. Even one of the best spiritual movements I have known make it very hard to allow further advances in scientific knowledge and observation by strongly advising its members not to reveal or share their meditation experiences or even state whether or not they have any experiences to begin with. In most religions there is always some way of life or routine, etc. to follow along with the faithful observance of a powerful belief system that one must not deviate from ever and never question. Knowing how easily truth can be distorted by one's beliefs, prejudices, etc. how then is one to ever find the real truth? Another tendency among religious groups is their overwhelming reliance on faith, dogma and old, worn-out material written centuries ago. There is nothing wrong with all the ancient values and traditions, such as the 10 Commandments, of course. They are beautiful and sorely needed by all to help everyone lead a happy, wholesome and harmonious life. There is, however, a strong complacency among most people to just want to accept things as they are and not do a thing to further develop, improve, and advance or transform the old knowledge with newly discovered and contemporary truths. It is as if the human mind has an overwhelming tendency to become frozen solid instead of flowing freely forward into exciting new discoveries and frontiers of ever greater contact with God (everlasting love, joy and beauty). Did the 15th Century German astronomer, Johannes Kepler discover the principles of modern optics entirely through blind belief and total acceptance of old dogma? Did Galileo Galilei discover the moons of Jupiter through faith in God alone? It is true that he needed his faith to gave him the enthusiasm and courage to discover such things as the moons of Jupiter in the face of serious threats from the Inquisition. But without the unbiased and objective scientifically guided research for truth, and enthusiasm for ever new knowledge, there would never have been any forward advances, no progress, and certainly no ascent of man to higher levels of living. Do you know that there is a whole universe lurking behind closed eyes to be discovered, charted and mapped? The scientist who would attempt to chart these timeless (causeless) dimensions needs to be a special breed of human being indeed. First off, any limiting religious, materialistic or atheistic prejudice needs to be completely removed. How can one look for something if there is an overwhelming prejudice about what there is to be found and/or whether or not there is something there to discover in the first place? Faith that there is something worth looking for is indeed needed, but never the kind of complacent, static acceptance of some ancient and worn-out dogma, but rather the healthy, open-minded faith that there is definitely something there worth the trouble to explore in the first place, and most importantly, that there could be faster, much more efficient ways to get there! Real growth comes through expansion of knowledge of one's true nature as a child of the Creation, God or of the great Father/Mother Oneness. Is one just to get lost in the quagmire of yet another belief system or to gain greater oneness (freedom) with the ultimate Truth? I personally feel there is definitely life after death. After all, I have experienced it at least a couple of times! Then it may be safe for me to believe in a heaven of some sort, but not to become a religious fanatic who takes for granted that everything written in this scripture or in that scripture about heaven is 100% reliable truth. Our brains and minds need to be more flexible, more inquiring and more sensitive to what is omitted so that more can be contributed, added to and improved upon as more and more vital observations come in. Where would most of these observations come from? Near-death experiences, from contemporary yogis deep in meditation, from highly skilled and reliable astral projectionists and from spiritual mediums who are accurate, reputable and verifiable. Whatever is not scientifically reliable should be thrown out, and all that which is proof positive should be made the new knowledge, forever subject to further improvement along the way. We should be trying to create a picture of the inner universe, that naturally starts out blurred and confusing, and full of contradictions. In time, this huge picture is to become more and more clear, concise and detailed, rather like how the robots on Mars bring in ever more focused, clear and detailed images of that awesome extraterrestrial wilderness. Scientists are doing well there, but still have a long way to go in exploring, mapping and correctly analyzing the inner realms because of their overwhelming tendency to dismiss such notions as fictional or as old religious nonsense. Such prejudices can be fatal to further human advance in a most desperately needed field of study. Another thing, there are so many people who say that heaven cannot be found through objective scientific analysis. The function of the left brain is to analyze and figure things out through the five physical senses, thus making this form of objective analysis impossible as far as exploration of one's inner soul is concerned. Only through direct experience in this area is there any hope of obtaining reliable and objective knowledge! One may never be able to objectively "map" the true nature of the soul, but that is still a very poor excuse for science to just give up and stop here. On the contrary, it should take up the challenge and at least attempt to map the way to heaven in researching safe means of suspending metabolism so that if enough people could safely go back and forth between the physical and spiritual worlds, it would become much easier to find out so much more about these mysterious states of consciousness that seem so radically different from life in the physical body. Once it is routine to do this type of exploration, I am sure knowledge of this previously unknown field could expand exponentially. No longer would one have to depend on out-dated religious ideas and sketchy concepts. There would be no more second guessing what happens to the soul after one dies. What could be found? It is highly likely that amazing new forms of communication, unlimited travel and incredible knowledge can be obtained along with powerful states of intense joy, love and profound well-being while unraveling the deepest mysteries of life. All the gold, silver and diamonds in the universe may have very little meaning in comparison to what can be discovered deep inside the ethereal universes of one's true Self or Soul. |
