Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
Page 2
Are there prebirth agreements between certain people, and if so, do they have a specific purpose?
In my experiences, yes. As for what that purpose might be, the specifics depend on what the agreement is and why they made it. The one thing that seems to be common to most all of the ones I'm aware of is a desire to help each other become better able to express and experience Pure Unconditional Love.
In Betty Edie's book she says there is no such thing as reincarnation. Have you read it and do you know what she means?
I haven't read her book, and don't know what she means. We all bring our beliefs and expectations with us into our experiences. If we keep asking the question and looking for the answer, we get closer to the truth. If at any point along my path, someone stops me and asks me for the truth about reincarnation, all I can do is answer from what I know to be the truth so far.
Is reincarnation imposed on us?
If you mean imposed on us from a source outside of ourselves, I'd answer no. But that doesn't mean we might not impose it on ourselves out of some belief in the need to do so. It's your freewill choice to do whatever you believe you should do, and to live with, and learn from, the consequences.
Is reincarnation necessary?
I guess I must have thought so before I was born this time. The reasons for reincarnating seem to be as varied as those of us who do it. The physical world is such a mix of so many different ways of living, thinking, believing, and behaving, it presents many opportunities to exercise our free will. We are free to choose between any of the paths we see or to make up our own. We're free to follow these paths as far as they go to learn where they lead. We're free to learn to choose wisely or not. We're free to choose consciously or unconsciously, to learn the results of our choices consciously or unconsciously. Sometimes the only way to change what happens to us and where we exist in the Afterlife is to live another life on earth and take another crack at it.
Is there a way to avoid reincarnation, like living a perfect life like Jesus?
I'm not sure why anyone would want to avoid reincarnation, unless it's the free meals and housing in the Afterlife. Seriously, as I see it, I chose to live this lifetime because it was the best choice I knew how to make when I made the decision. I made it because I wanted to learn more about experiencing and expressing Pure Unconditional Love, and a lifetime on earth presented the best opportunity.
Can you give me your definition of consciousness in the physical world compared to consciousness in the nonphysical world? How do these concepts get translated into mystical religions?
Answering your question is a little like comparing light at the red end of the spectrum to light at the blue end of the spectrum. It's all the same stuff, just looks a little different, depending on which part of you is perceiving it. How I interpret my perception seems to correlate with how much of the spectrum I know exists. If I've limited my perception to seeing only red light, and don't know or believe other colors exist, seeing yellow, green or blue is out of the range of my perception of the whole of consciousness.
If, by some quirk of fate, I accidentally see yellow light, nothing in my awareness bag of tricks can explain how this is possible. With no knowledge of the full spectrum of consciousness beyond the narrow band of my perception, seeing yellow light is impossible, yet it happened. Seeing yellow light becomes a mystical experience. The dictionary defines mystical as: "...a reality not apparent to the intelligence or senses; a reality based on subjective experience; something unintelligible or cryptic." If I do something that allows me to explore more of the light spectrum, I discover it's just the nature of light that it contains other colors. If others explore and agree with my subjective experience, we learn other colors were always present in the light. We say we just weren't able to perceive them. Once we can use our intelligence and newly developed senses which allow us to perceive a greater portion of the whole of consciousness, it's no longer a mystical experience. Our agreed-upon subjective reality becomes a part of what's normal.
In the interim between accidental, occasional mystical experience and common knowledge, there's no end to the number of possible explanations born of an attempt to understand. In my opinion, that's how mystical religions get started. Each will, no doubt, contain a bit of truth. After all, each was originally based on an attempt to understand a mystical experience that really happened.
Is there a way to tell which mystical religion is closest to the truth?
Strictly my opinion; what I'd look for is the one that can satisfactorily explain the largest number of mystical experiences, to the greatest number of people who are not members of that religion. The explanations would have to be coherent and totally internally consistent. It would never need to discard anyone's mystical experience to maintain its coherence or internal consistency.
Why do people get lost and need rescuing after exiting from physical world existence? Is the Afterlife run by the Department of Motor Vehicles, or the I.R.S? Do people really just fall through the cracks routinely, finishing their lifetime and then wander around lost with nobody paying any attention to them? Why is that? Is it part of the training, designed to the system for some reason? Is the system stressed with too many participants, and not enough support staff?
Lots of good questions! So many it would take a book to answer them all! First, let me say that not everyone gets lost. Such "lost people" are the subject of many of my stories, because finding and retrieving them was the vehicle of my learning to explore the Afterlife.
People seem to get lost because they make freewill choices to believe things which lead to wandering around lost in the Afterlife when they die. Suppose you’re absolutely convinced the grocery store is east of your present location but it’s actually west. As long as you continue to hold to your belief, you’ll drive a long ways east wondering why you can’t find it.
A helpful person seeing your predicament might come along and try to explain why you can’t find the grocery store. As long as you continue to disregard the possibility that anything other then your belief is correct, you’ll keep driving east. To the Helper who keeps showing up in your path, trying to suggest you turn around and drive west, you’ll be another person who fell through the crack. Another person wandering lost in the Afterlife.
In my experience, the Afterlife abounds with Helpers trying to reach people lost and wandering. They take every opportunity to help those who’re are lost in making new choices that will lead them out of their situation. Sometimes the lost folks' choices make perception of the Helpers impossible. In such cases, it is the lost person’s not paying attention to the "support staff" that keeps them lost and wandering.
Often it’s the training received by the lost person prior to death that’s responsible. If they’ve been trained to believe Satan’s minions are waiting to drag them to Hell, guess what a Helper looks like to them?
As to the system being stressed with too many participants and not enough support staff, I’d say I agree with that. Not that there aren’t enough nonphysical Helpers on the "staff" though, those people have some interesting tricks that allows them to increase the apparent number at will. The problem seems to be too few physical world support staff.
To begin with, training to give people a better understanding of Afterlife existence would immediately reduce the number who do get lost after death. Secondly, more physically alive people who understood how to be Helpers to those wandering lost would more quickly reduce the number lost or stuck. We who are physically alive have an advantage over nonphysical Helpers when it comes to first contact with people stuck in Focus 23. It’s far easier for them to see and hear us, far easier for us to move their focus of attention.
Are there choices in the Afterlife? Who determines the choices?
Yes, there are choices in the Afterlife. We determine the choices for ourselves based on our awareness of their existence. My retrieval experiences really drove home the understanding that I must be aware of a choice's existence to be free to make it.
Does God judge us after this life?
A tricky one to answer from my perspective. It's my understanding that the conscious awareness each of us use and identify as ourselves is really loaned to us by the Consciousness that created everything there is. That everything that is, is really consciousness loaned by the Creator to that thing that is. So, from my peculiar perspective, the answer to your question is, yes. But, in my experience, that judgement in the Afterlife comes in the form of me judging myself and my actions. I, as a portion of The Consciousness, judge myself based on my beliefs and understanding of what is right and wrong.
Based on my experience, there are only two rules by which to judge myself. Will my future action move me toward greater ability to experience and express Pure Unconditional Love? Will my future action lead me to convert more of the Unknown to Known?
Do we forget about our present lives when we die?
The beliefs we take on during our physical lives effect our lives in the Afterlife. If we believe we forget everything, that can appear to happen. But, in the final analysis, everything we have ever experienced is stored in memory. It is always available to us. There is a place in the Afterlife called The Life Review Center. In that place, there are Helpers who will assist us in remembering anything from any lifetime we've experienced. We can also remember on our own.
Can we find out what other people think after we die?
Yes, my exploration of the Afterlife suggests that communication There is far more open than it appears to be Here. Here we believe we can "hide" what we think and feel. As we realize communication at any particular level is possible, we become aware of such communication. In This life, we can be aware of what other people think. In the Afterlife, this seems to be far easier. The way I think of it, we are each an awareness "on loan" from, and directly connected to the Creator. Through our connection to the Creator, we are connected to every other thing in all of creation. Awareness of what other people "think" is just a matter of finding that "other" person within the Creator and becoming aware of what "it" is thinking.
Can we influence any events subsequent to our death?
I assume you mean events in the physical world. Thoughts, feelings, experience during dreams of those living in the physical world can be influenced. Under certain conditions, physical things can be influenced also.
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