Reincarnation

[synergy777]

http://www.reincarnation.ws/


REINCARNATION

Reincarnation is the belief that the soul is reborn repeatedly. When one body wears out, it is cast off like a garment and soon another one is put on. You will find a thorough discussion of reincarnation in the Bible, the Jewish Kabbalah and early Christianity in the book The Mystic Christ.

Reincarnation Statistics

Reincarnation is also referred to as the transmigration of the soul or rebirth. 20% of the world's religious population are either Hindu or Buddhist with both religions believing in reincarnation. Further, according to a recent Fox News poll, 25% of Americans believe in reincarnation. When we look at findings that span European convictions from 1968 - 1990, we see a steady increase in the acceptance of reincarnation. In 1968 23% of people in France believed in reincarnation; in 1990 that figure had risen to 28%. In Britain it rose during the same period from 18% to 30%; in the Netherlands from 10% to 18%.

Reincarnation is Intuitive - Cyclic

It is obvious to us that everything in nature moves in cycles. We have the cycle of the seasons complete with birth, growth, fruition and death - spring, summer, fall and winter. There is the daily cycle of day and night. The planets cycle about the sun and the sun revolves around the center of the Milky Way galaxy. We see cycles in the process of our own daily lives - what goes around comes around. The Vedas (Hindu scriptures) tell us that the universe is born from a violent explosion, expands and then contracts, all of this taking trillions of years and then the process is repeated ad infinitum. These cycles are referred to as God breathing - and, oh yes, there is the cycle of our own breathing and the beating of our heart. In a recent Discover magazine, such a cycling of the universe from Big Bang to death and then another Big Bang rebirth was proposed as the occurrence of one parallel universe bumping into another with the cycle continuing without end. We can see that reincarnation appeals to old fashioned common sense.

We are Not the Body

Reincarnation is easier to grasp if we understand that we are not our bodies. However, the mind is in the habit of thinking the reverse. Thus it is difficult for us to imagine departing with one body and then assuming another because we blindly and habitually have come to identify ourselves with the body - this body - the one we see in the mirror everyday. It is correct to say, "My body." This reveals that the body is distinct from the owner. In fact, our true nature is pure awareness. We cannot be the observer (awareness) of an object (the body) and also be that object. In the equation of our own personal existence, we are that which is aware. Our true nature is awareness itself. In the English language the closest term to describe this is I AM (Exodus 3:13-14). In Sanskrit it is Sat-Chit-Ananda or Being-Awareness-Bliss. Our soul is fashioned from I AM and not from our body. In Genesis 1:27 we are told that we are made in God's image which is to say we are beings of spirit and not flesh (in John 4:24 we are told that God is a spirit).

We have discovered from Quantum Physics, that matter depends on an observer (awareness) for its existence and not visa versa. So awareness does not arise from the body or brain. Our bodies arise as manifestations in the field of our own primal awareness. The body and brain filter the experiences which appear on the movie screen of our pure awareness.

The School of Life

The soul is evolving. Each soul is most likely without beginning just as it has no end. Souls have evolved from beginningless time. Going back we see we have been animals, plants, one celled organisms and beyond. Most of us have been humans many times. We gain experience and grow as we traverse our incarnations. Each life is a day in God's school room.

What are We Learning?

We are learning to be as God is. To be perfect even as God is perfect (Mat. 5:48). When one has become the perfection that God is, no further births and deaths are necessary. We graduate. The exception would be to continue to incarnate for the well being of those still studying in the schoolroom of earth. These souls are called Bodhisattvas in Sanskrit. Jesus, Buddha and Krishna were such souls. They were already perfect in God but came here out of compassion as teachers.

It is our desires that fuel our rounds of births and deaths. Our desires continue through death and demand another body to act as the instrument for the fulfillment of our desires. Thus spiritual wisdom is often referred to as the end of desires. Then we abide in God, in the peace that is beyond understanding.

The Buddha's Four-Fold Truths are:

1. Life in this world is suffering (mental and emotional suffering; separation and isolation; fear and anxiety)

2. Desire is the cause of suffering

3. Ending desires brings an end to suffering

4. The Eightfold Path brings and end to desires


http://www.jesus-christ.ws/

JESUS, BUDDHA & KRISHNA ARE ONE!

There is one Christ or Logos or Atman which has appeared as all of God's incarnations.

Seeing unity in diversity The Mystic Christ: www.devipress.com
explore the book The Mystic Christ.

The following is excerpted and condensed from the book The Mystic Christ (click the link to explore this profound and engaging book).

Jesus never said he was the only way. In John 14:6 we read, ”I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me.” In the original Greek version of this scripture, the word for “comes” is erchetai and it is very present tense meaning it does not apply to all people for all time. This verse applied only to those people Jesus was talking to at that time. In the Aramaic Bible, Jesus’ own language, the word for “I” in this scripture is ena-ena or I-I. The meaning is not the same as ena which is an individual “I.” Ena-ena is a cosmic “I” or I AM THAT I AM (Ex. 3:13 -14). In another scripture, Jesus tells us that we make a mistake if we think he is good, “Why do you call me good?” ‘Jesus answered.’ “No one is good - except God alone.” (Luke 18:19). And again: “By myself I can do nothing.” (John 5:30). The way to reconcile “I am the way...” And “Don’t call me good...” is to understand that it is the I AM (ena-ena) that is talking in John 14:6. The I AM is bigger than Jesus in the same way that all the water on this earth is more than any individual lake. By analogy, Jesus, Buddha and Krishna are lakes filled with the one living I AM. In another scripture, Jesus clearly says the only requirement for attaining eternal life is loving God and loving our neighbor: “On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he asked, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ ‘What is written in the Law?’ he replied. ‘How do you read it?’ He answered: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ‘You have answered correctly,’ Jesus replied. ‘Do this and you will live.’” (Luke 10:25-28).

If believing in Jesus were necessary to attain eternal life, Jesus would have been guilty of lying to the temple official in this scripture. Not a single time did Jesus ever warn us about other religions. Rather, he said, “And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not: for he that is not against us is for us.” (Luke 9:49-50). A Buddhist that is not against Jesus is for Jesus.

Krishna comments on his own incarnation:

When goodness grows weak, when evil increases, I make myself a body. In every age I come back to deliver the holy, to destroy the sin of the sinner; to establish righteousness. Bhagavad Gita

And Buddha said:

You are my children, I am your father; through me you have been released from your sufferings. I myself having reached the other shore, help others to cross the stream; I myself having attained salvation, am a savior of others; being comforted, I comfort others and lead them to the place of refuge. My thoughts are always in the truth. For lo! my self has become the truth. Whosoever comprehends the truth will see the Blessed One.

GOD IS WITHIN YOU

Ponder that Moses did not know how to tell the Israelites who had given him the Ten Commandments. “And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.”(Exodus 3:13-14). This is curious. Why not tell the Israelites Yahweh (Jehovah) had sent him? All of the Israelites knew that name.

Moses was experiencing God in a way he knew they would not easily understand. He was experiencing God as the one Self of all beings; as pure awareness, the basis of all existence, the ground of all being - the I AM. The I AM is within us all. The I AM that is in you is the same I AM that is in me and everyone else. At the center of our being we are all connected. This is why Jesus tells us the kingdom of God is within us: “And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:20-21).

Some have attempted to dilute this scripture by saying that Jesus meant he himself was among them. However, this is easily dismissed because he also says the kingdom of God does not come with observation and Jesus was certainly observable. Also, the Master says the kingdom is not “here” or “there” and Jesus could be regarded as being either here or there. The I AM is not observable because it is not a “thing” rather it is pure awareness. It is not “here” or “there” because it is all-pervading and that includes “within us.” The concept of looking within to find God also tallies with Buddhist and Hindu scriptures. If the Old Testament says God is I AM, what does the New Testament say? “God is love.” (1 John 4:8, 4:16 ). Like the I AM, love also comes from within us. Love is another name for I AM.

We can only experience love for God or our neighbor as something that comes from within us. Thus, the kingdom of God is within us. And what are Jesus’ two commandments? “One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:35-40).

GRACE AND HARDWORK

To think that salvation can be had by simply mouthing the words, “I believe in Jesus” is nothing but pure laziness. First of all, Jesus said that we must regain our childlike innocence or we are absolutely not going to heaven: “And he said: ‘I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’” (Matthew 18:3).

How about these: “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46). And: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” (Matthew 7:21-23).

If Jesus’ crucifixion atoned for our sins for all time then why did he give us so much instruction? Why did he give us his two commandments? Salvation means roll up our shirtsleeves and get to work. God will not hand out His grace if we make no effort to become innocent of mind and loving at heart.

LOVE AND THE EGO

The mantra of the ego is, “Its all about me.” The footprint of the ego is “My way is the only way.” The ego, by nature, will adopt any belief as an identity. Then it is fearful when faced with other beliefs. It feels threatened. There is no love in the ego and the path to God is love - not a belief. The ego must always imagine that it is the center of the universe. Thus, “My way is the only way” comes into being and, by extension, everything with which the ego is associated.

An ego-centered Christian says “Jesus is the only way” and an ego-centered Muslim says, “Islam is the only way.” The translation of both statements is, “My way or the highway.” The ego is the opposite of love.

The ego is me... me... me... and love is you... you... you... The ego is motivated by, “What’s in it for me?” Love asks, “How may I serve you?” The ego is Satan in us. Love is God in us. The ego is the sense of separation from God and others. Love is a feeling of unity with God and others. The ego is “I” and “mine.” Love does not seek to possess but only to give. Where there is ego there can be no love and where there is selfless love, there can be no ego. Think of any negative emotion - jealousy, hatred, greed, anger - all of them are the fruit of the ego whose roots are “I” and “mine.” Therefore, love is the most potent destroyer of the ego.

Jesus says loving our neighbor and loving God are the keys to salvation. Innocence is the fertile soil in which love takes root. That brings us to these questions: “Do I love God with all my heart and mind? Do I love my neighbor as my own self?” - as Jesus commanded? If the answer is no, then we are not going to heaven. If no, then we must begin the quest for this love to which Jesus directs us. Yet we will attend church for years of Sundays and not hear one sermon about love much less any advice as to how to practice this kind of love. Christian books and tapes are more numerous than the stars in the sky but few are concerned with love and how to attain it. This is astonishing because this is the central teaching of Jesus! Love is the very path to salvation! Sadly, we don’t recognize love or the need for it because we ourselves have no love. We have long since forgotten what pure selfless love is or what it feels like.

THE MYSTIC CHRIST

For a more detailed discussion of these important concepts and much more such as reincarnation in the Bible, you are invited to order the book The Mystic Christ: www.devipress.com.

[snoopsnuffleopagus]

Cordial Felicitations!, Synergy777:

Some Beautiful Thoughts & Philosophies presented in above Posts. Some 'Actual Truths'.

Conjecture of the Doctrine of Re-Incarnation as inclusive of the Book of Yahweh(Bible) would be erroneous. There is no Re-Incarnation in the Book of Yahweh. One is Born, One Dies.

There are Twoo Ressurections. Separated by 1,000 years Earth Time.

Kind Regards: Snoopsnuffleopagus

[synergy777]

http://www.crystalinks.com/reincarnation.html

http://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/reincar/re-imo.htm

http://www.adishakti.org/_/reincarnation_in_early_christianity.htm

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/origen06.html

http://www.comparativereligion.com/reincarnation3.html

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/jsuebersax/origen1.htm

[joy division]

For me i find the thought of reincarnation to this world is more depressing than the death its self.

What is the point of reincarnation, to experience all the same shit over and over again? for me this is a type of hell its self.

[albie]

I have dreams that seem like memories, of other lives. They don't feel like dreams they feel too real and affect too much.

[synergy777]

how is it hell, its a man made hell only.

is nature not beautiful, is not your partner, family, friends, pets, life full of wonder. the sun can't shine everyday, happiness/sadness are complimentry, everything is perfect if we view it objectively/longeterm/spiritually.

the senses, bio-chemical reactions cause the pain. ego-gives us attachment/needs, the "me " ethos of modern life/people. emotions arise from mental mis-perceptions.

look at today we have reached the peak of the ego, look at the fundamental block of life, relationships/family, how many people are truly selfless in love, or are they in relationships for self gratification/worship/control, what can he/she do for me?

this is why chicks make me laugh, they say they are spiritual ones, how many chicks do what they do for the dough, enough. people get pissed, but i call it as it is.

lets put it this way, the products, the systems, are all geared towards this aspect, ego/5 sense/sensual fulfillment, we have reached the peak of the ego.

the next level is beyond ego, as in spiritual intelligence, mastery of our brain, higher mental functions, to become cultured. to become learned, spiritual and compassionate etc. to become whole/balanced/yin-yang as individuals, only then can we unite, and connect. looking for controlled adulation/relationships, buying products/definition by aquisition-consumption, amassing wealth, as long term solutions is futile.

all this is fun i agree, its good for a short while, but its not real. it doesn't answer the deeper questions, it makes life easier, papers over the cracks. they are short term fixes not long term solutions.

[synergy777]

albie tell us more bro.

[serpentoffire]

I think, for my experience, that reincarnation is the way for ancient spirits of Nephilims to continue to persist on the earth inside human bodies.

Reincarnation is manifested through visions of past life owned by the spirits that are possessing your body. One or more spirits can share the same body in superimposition of your soul, because they can live in different energy frequencies using your body like a battery.

Oriental practices are very dangerous because if you are not enough prepared and purified these open the spiritual door to evil entities that lay you about their real nature.

[thetonic]

how is it hell, its a man made hell only.

is nature not beautiful, is not your partner, family, friends, pets, life full of wonder. the sun can't shine everyday, happiness/sadness are complimentry, everything is perfect if we view it objectively/longeterm/spiritually.

the senses, bio-chemical reactions cause the pain. ego-gives us attachment/needs, the "me " ethos of modern life/people. emotions arise from mental mis-perceptions.

look at today we have reached the peak of the ego, look at the fundamental block of life, relationships/family, how many people are truly selfless in love, or are they in relationships for self gratification/worship/control, what can he/she do for me?

this is why chicks make me laugh, they say they are spiritual ones, how many chicks do what they do for the dough, enough. people get pissed, but i call it as it is.

lets put it this way, the products, the systems, are all geared towards this aspect, ego/5 sense/sensual fulfillment, we have reached the peak of the ego.

the next level is beyond ego, as in spiritual intelligence, mastery of our brain, higher mental functions, to become cultured. to become learned, spiritual and compassionate etc. to become whole/balanced/yin-yang as individuals, only then can we unite, and connect. looking for controlled adulation/relationships, buying products/definition by aquisition-consumption, amassing wealth, as long term solutions is futile.

all this is fun i agree, its good for a short while, but its not real. it doesn't answer the deeper questions, it makes life easier, papers over the cracks. they are short term fixes not long term solutions.

Ahh yes .. The Buddha says that life on earth is hell and you will not break from it , until you break from reincarnation...

You cannot escape the duality of Heaven and Hell on this 3D plane that we exist right now... You cannot have an idea of Hell unless you have an idea of Heaven.. The Yin and The Yang.. You cannot escape these on earth.. There will always be "good" and always "bad"... I wish everyone would chill out and smoke a joint, but that wont happen because there will always be bad people... It is up to us to ascend ourselves if we wish to do away with the idea of heaven and hell...

[cheesedanish]

It's comforting to know that we reincarnate and can live on after this life.

Do you have any recollection of your past lives?

[thetonic]

It's comforting to know that we reincarnate and can live on after this life.

Do you have any recollection of your past lives?

Yes , i believe i have even had the same lover, in past lives

[serpentoffire]

It's comforting to know that we reincarnate and can live on after this life.

Do you have any recollection of your past lives?

http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/swa0070l.jpg

http://geo.freeblog.hu/files/Rollie-Reincarnation.gif

[synergy777]

this is a misinterpretation of what buddha said, in fact there is a whole lot of misintepretation of eastern philosophy by westerners. tell you what actually look at it like the "authors/adherents look at it", don't mistranslate it. why such a reverence for nature if it is hell? why promote love, compassion if it is hell? why feel pain, if everything is illusion? the truth is simple, don't try to complicate things.

he said the ego/self, thats the mental/materialistic/sensual(senses) is the cause of suffering. the modern day philosophy of this, is the nihilistic one, as in this life is everything. this is one of the causes suffering, the other being actions based on self, eg wanting power, wealth, envy, hate.

this is whats the biggest difference between east & west. spiritual/emotional versus rational/coldness. its this fundamental difference of perception, outlook of life. although the amount of westerners developing a spiritual outlook is gaining pace, which is great, as the members of this forum prove.

since the greeks gave you the foundation eg modern materialistic thought, scientific rationale. this view of life has kept europe in spiritual ignorance. although ancient europeans from nordics, celts had this spiritual view.

man, the elite, fallen are why this planet is hell, we made it this way, we destroyed it, we are to be held responsible and hence we must fix it for us and future generations.

[gold]

http://www.reincarnation.ws/


REINCARNATION

Reincarnation is the belief that the soul is reborn repeatedly. When one body wears out, it is cast off like a garment and soon another one is put on. You will find a thorough discussion of reincarnation in the Bible, the Jewish Kabbalah and early Christianity in the book The Mystic Christ.

Reincarnation Statistics

Reincarnation is also referred to as the transmigration of the soul or rebirth. 20% of the world's religious population are either Hindu or Buddhist with both religions believing in reincarnation. Further, according to a recent Fox News poll, 25% of Americans believe in reincarnation. When we look at findings that span European convictions from 1968 - 1990, we see a steady increase in the acceptance of reincarnation. In 1968 23% of people in France believed in reincarnation; in 1990 that figure had risen to 28%. In Britain it rose during the same period from 18% to 30%; in the Netherlands from 10% to 18%.

Reincarnation is Intuitive - Cyclic

It is obvious to us that everything in nature moves in cycles. We have the cycle of the seasons complete with birth, growth, fruition and death - spring, summer, fall and winter. There is the daily cycle of day and night. The planets cycle about the sun and the sun revolves around the center of the Milky Way galaxy. We see cycles in the process of our own daily lives - what goes around comes around. The Vedas (Hindu scriptures) tell us that the universe is born from a violent explosion, expands and then contracts, all of this taking trillions of years and then the process is repeated ad infinitum. These cycles are referred to as God breathing - and, oh yes, there is the cycle of our own breathing and the beating of our heart. In a recent Discover magazine, such a cycling of the universe from Big Bang to death and then another Big Bang rebirth was proposed as the occurrence of one parallel universe bumping into another with the cycle continuing without end. We can see that reincarnation appeals to old fashioned common sense.

We are Not the Body

Reincarnation is easier to grasp if we understand that we are not our bodies. However, the mind is in the habit of thinking the reverse. Thus it is difficult for us to imagine departing with one body and then assuming another because we blindly and habitually have come to identify ourselves with the body - this body - the one we see in the mirror everyday. It is correct to say, "My body." This reveals that the body is distinct from the owner. In fact, our true nature is pure awareness. We cannot be the observer (awareness) of an object (the body) and also be that object. In the equation of our own personal existence, we are that which is aware. Our true nature is awareness itself. In the English language the closest term to describe this is I AM (Exodus 3:13-14). In Sanskrit it is Sat-Chit-Ananda or Being-Awareness-Bliss. Our soul is fashioned from I AM and not from our body. In Genesis 1:27 we are told that we are made in God's image which is to say we are beings of spirit and not flesh (in John 4:24 we are told that God is a spirit).

We have discovered from Quantum Physics, that matter depends on an observer (awareness) for its existence and not visa versa. So awareness does not arise from the body or brain. Our bodies arise as manifestations in the field of our own primal awareness. The body and brain filter the experiences which appear on the movie screen of our pure awareness.

The School of Life

The soul is evolving. Each soul is most likely without beginning just as it has no end. Souls have evolved from beginningless time. Going back we see we have been animals, plants, one celled organisms and beyond. Most of us have been humans many times. We gain experience and grow as we traverse our incarnations. Each life is a day in God's school room.

What are We Learning?

We are learning to be as God is. To be perfect even as God is perfect (Mat. 5:48). When one has become the perfection that God is, no further births and deaths are necessary. We graduate. The exception would be to continue to incarnate for the well being of those still studying in the schoolroom of earth. These souls are called Bodhisattvas in Sanskrit. Jesus, Buddha and Krishna were such souls. They were already perfect in God but came here out of compassion as teachers.

It is our desires that fuel our rounds of births and deaths. Our desires continue through death and demand another body to act as the instrument for the fulfillment of our desires. Thus spiritual wisdom is often referred to as the end of desires. Then we abide in God, in the peace that is beyond understanding.

The Buddha's Four-Fold Truths are:

1. Life in this world is suffering (mental and emotional suffering; separation and isolation; fear and anxiety)

2. Desire is the cause of suffering

3. Ending desires brings an end to suffering

4. The Eightfold Path brings and end to desires


http://www.jesus-christ.ws/

JESUS, BUDDHA & KRISHNA ARE ONE!

There is one Christ or Logos or Atman which has appeared as all of God's incarnations.

Seeing unity in diversity The Mystic Christ: www.devipress.com
explore the book The Mystic Christ.

The following is excerpted and condensed from the book The Mystic Christ (click the link to explore this profound and engaging book).

Jesus never said he was the only way. In John 14:6 we read, ”I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me.” In the original Greek version of this scripture, the word for “comes” is erchetai and it is very present tense meaning it does not apply to all people for all time. This verse applied only to those people Jesus was talking to at that time. In the Aramaic Bible, Jesus’ own language, the word for “I” in this scripture is ena-ena or I-I. The meaning is not the same as ena which is an individual “I.” Ena-ena is a cosmic “I” or I AM THAT I AM (Ex. 3:13 -14). In another scripture, Jesus tells us that we make a mistake if we think he is good, “Why do you call me good?” ‘Jesus answered.’ “No one is good - except God alone.” (Luke 18:19). And again: “By myself I can do nothing.” (John 5:30). The way to reconcile “I am the way...” And “Don’t call me good...” is to understand that it is the I AM (ena-ena) that is talking in John 14:6. The I AM is bigger than Jesus in the same way that all the water on this earth is more than any individual lake. By analogy, Jesus, Buddha and Krishna are lakes filled with the one living I AM. In another scripture, Jesus clearly says the only requirement for attaining eternal life is loving God and loving our neighbor: “On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he asked, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ ‘What is written in the Law?’ he replied. ‘How do you read it?’ He answered: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ‘You have answered correctly,’ Jesus replied. ‘Do this and you will live.’” (Luke 10:25-28).

If believing in Jesus were necessary to attain eternal life, Jesus would have been guilty of lying to the temple official in this scripture. Not a single time did Jesus ever warn us about other religions. Rather, he said, “And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not: for he that is not against us is for us.” (Luke 9:49-50). A Buddhist that is not against Jesus is for Jesus.

Krishna comments on his own incarnation:

When goodness grows weak, when evil increases, I make myself a body. In every age I come back to deliver the holy, to destroy the sin of the sinner; to establish righteousness. Bhagavad Gita

And Buddha said:

You are my children, I am your father; through me you have been released from your sufferings. I myself having reached the other shore, help others to cross the stream; I myself having attained salvation, am a savior of others; being comforted, I comfort others and lead them to the place of refuge. My thoughts are always in the truth. For lo! my self has become the truth. Whosoever comprehends the truth will see the Blessed One.

GOD IS WITHIN YOU

Ponder that Moses did not know how to tell the Israelites who had given him the Ten Commandments. “And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.”(Exodus 3:13-14). This is curious. Why not tell the Israelites Yahweh (Jehovah) had sent him? All of the Israelites knew that name.

Moses was experiencing God in a way he knew they would not easily understand. He was experiencing God as the one Self of all beings; as pure awareness, the basis of all existence, the ground of all being - the I AM. The I AM is within us all. The I AM that is in you is the same I AM that is in me and everyone else. At the center of our being we are all connected. This is why Jesus tells us the kingdom of God is within us: “And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:20-21).

Some have attempted to dilute this scripture by saying that Jesus meant he himself was among them. However, this is easily dismissed because he also says the kingdom of God does not come with observation and Jesus was certainly observable. Also, the Master says the kingdom is not “here” or “there” and Jesus could be regarded as being either here or there. The I AM is not observable because it is not a “thing” rather it is pure awareness. It is not “here” or “there” because it is all-pervading and that includes “within us.” The concept of looking within to find God also tallies with Buddhist and Hindu scriptures. If the Old Testament says God is I AM, what does the New Testament say? “God is love.” (1 John 4:8, 4:16 ). Like the I AM, love also comes from within us. Love is another name for I AM.

We can only experience love for God or our neighbor as something that comes from within us. Thus, the kingdom of God is within us. And what are Jesus’ two commandments? “One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:35-40).

GRACE AND HARDWORK

To think that salvation can be had by simply mouthing the words, “I believe in Jesus” is nothing but pure laziness. First of all, Jesus said that we must regain our childlike innocence or we are absolutely not going to heaven: “And he said: ‘I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’” (Matthew 18:3).

How about these: “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46). And: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” (Matthew 7:21-23).

If Jesus’ crucifixion atoned for our sins for all time then why did he give us so much instruction? Why did he give us his two commandments? Salvation means roll up our shirtsleeves and get to work. God will not hand out His grace if we make no effort to become innocent of mind and loving at heart.

LOVE AND THE EGO

The mantra of the ego is, “Its all about me.” The footprint of the ego is “My way is the only way.” The ego, by nature, will adopt any belief as an identity. Then it is fearful when faced with other beliefs. It feels threatened. There is no love in the ego and the path to God is love - not a belief. The ego must always imagine that it is the center of the universe. Thus, “My way is the only way” comes into being and, by extension, everything with which the ego is associated.

An ego-centered Christian says “Jesus is the only way” and an ego-centered Muslim says, “Islam is the only way.” The translation of both statements is, “My way or the highway.” The ego is the opposite of love.

The ego is me... me... me... and love is you... you... you... The ego is motivated by, “What’s in it for me?” Love asks, “How may I serve you?” The ego is Satan in us. Love is God in us. The ego is the sense of separation from God and others. Love is a feeling of unity with God and others. The ego is “I” and “mine.” Love does not seek to possess but only to give. Where there is ego there can be no love and where there is selfless love, there can be no ego. Think of any negative emotion - jealousy, hatred, greed, anger - all of them are the fruit of the ego whose roots are “I” and “mine.” Therefore, love is the most potent destroyer of the ego.

Jesus says loving our neighbor and loving God are the keys to salvation. Innocence is the fertile soil in which love takes root. That brings us to these questions: “Do I love God with all my heart and mind? Do I love my neighbor as my own self?” - as Jesus commanded? If the answer is no, then we are not going to heaven. If no, then we must begin the quest for this love to which Jesus directs us. Yet we will attend church for years of Sundays and not hear one sermon about love much less any advice as to how to practice this kind of love. Christian books and tapes are more numerous than the stars in the sky but few are concerned with love and how to attain it. This is astonishing because this is the central teaching of Jesus! Love is the very path to salvation! Sadly, we don’t recognize love or the need for it because we ourselves have no love. We have long since forgotten what pure selfless love is or what it feels like.

THE MYSTIC CHRIST

For a more detailed discussion of these important concepts and much more such as reincarnation in the Bible, you are invited to order the book The Mystic Christ: www.devipress.com.

Have you ever thought about the fact, that maybe, only maybe, that we die every day without really knowing it. Maybe! only maybe, we may PASSOVER without Knowing, to parallel dimensions.
For example; Say you went through an amber light? How do you you Know it was hit or miss, and how do you know you are dead or alive??:confused:
It has happened! Weird!!!!!!!!

John Lennon (Imagine) Am I a dreamer?

[karma19]

This is all very fascinating. Thank you for posting it.
I have just lost a friend and wonder if she will come back.

[gold]

This is all very fascinating. Thank you for posting it.
I have just lost a friend and wonder if she will come back.

If you die tomorrow! how will you know, you've died? and your not still in a time zone of last year when your friend was here?? Time has no boundary's;

[edit]

karma-kama=reincarnation ?
oh.. http://amerisoftinc.com/wwwboard/messages/255.html
adultswim.com/video (http://www.adultswim.com/video/?section=Comedy&collectionID=8a25c3920f05f16b010f069371f52339)
uh-oh
9

[thetonic]

this is a misinterpretation of what buddha said, in fact there is a whole lot of misintepretation of eastern philosophy by westerners. tell you what actually look at it like the "authors/adherents look at it", don't mistranslate it. why such a reverence for nature if it is hell? why promote love, compassion if it is hell? why feel pain, if everything is illusion? the truth is simple, don't try to complicate things.

he said the ego/self, thats the mental/materialistic/sensual(senses) is the cause of suffering. the modern day philosophy of this, is the nihilistic one, as in this life is everything. this is one of the causes suffering, the other being actions based on self, eg wanting power, wealth, envy, hate.

this is whats the biggest difference between east & west. spiritual/emotional versus rational/coldness. its this fundamental difference of perception, outlook of life. although the amount of westerners developing a spiritual outlook is gaining pace, which is great, as the members of this forum prove.

since the greeks gave you the foundation eg modern materialistic thought, scientific rationale. this view of life has kept europe in spiritual ignorance. although ancient europeans from nordics, celts had this spiritual view.

man, the elite, fallen are why this planet is hell, we made it this way, we destroyed it, we are to be held responsible and hence we must fix it for us and future generations.

Synergy you are right in terms of peoples interpretation of Hell.. It all depends on what YOU see as hell.. Buddah did not see hell the way fundamental christians view hell, or even the way you or i view hell for that matter, Life on earth is precious and sacred, because it is hell, does not even mean that it is a bad thing, hell is a learning experience to Buddah, not a place , like here on earth, or down below ground, or another dimension, it is an idea , nothing more..

Also , you cannot "fix" hell

[narcolepticwatchman]

Make of this what you will......

YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

:D

[clint web]

For me i find the thought of reincarnation to this world is more depressing than the death its self.

What is the point of reincarnation, to experience all the same shit over and over again? for me this is a type of hell its self.

Exactly.

There's a very good chance that next time you come back, you will be a beggar child in India or very poor in Africa. Horrible thought.

Don't wish for this, you might get another life.

[gold]

Exactly.

There's a very good chance that next time you come back, you will be a beggar child in India or very poor in Africa. Horrible thought.

Don't wish for this, you might get another life.

You should watch the film 'Ground Hog Day' It's good!

[clint web]

Ground Hog Day - yeah seen it, I love it.

[gold]

Ground Hog Day - yeah seen it, I love it.

Yeh! But what if this is happening to us now, every time we die and reincarnate? How much can we take? or rather the soul before we wake up and realise?

[thetonic]

Yeh! But what if this is happening to us now, every time we die and reincarnate? How much can we take? or rather the soul before we wake up and realise?

as many times AS it takes!

[edit]

misinterpretations... and miscalculations...


2008 is really 2012 RSS (http://www.godlikeproductions.com/bbs/message.php?messageid=447532&mpage=2&showdate=10/8/07&forum=1)
Anonymous Coward
User ID: 309658
10/8/2007 1:40 PM 2008 is really 2012
Quote

every year someone posts a thread that the coming year is really 2012, and that "they" miscalculated the mayan calender. So, i thought we'd go ahead and get it over with this year once again:

"uhh hi everyone, 2008 is really 2012 because they miscalculated"


examples of previous posts:

"uhh hi everyone, 2007 is really 2012 because they miscalculated"

"uhh hi everyone, 2006 is really 2012 because they miscalculated"

"uhh hi everyone, 2005 is really 2012 because they miscalculated"

"uhh hi everyone, 2004 is really 2012 because they miscalculated"

"uhh hi everyone, 2003 is really 2012 because they miscalculated"

[thetonic]

and yah... people need to stop thinking they will ascend, just because they are being positive on 2012...what utter crap

[catfood]

The accounts of children remembering a past life in extraordinary detail have been well documented, but of cores the scientific community don’t even revue the possibility so we rely hear of it.
Hear is a well documented accent.
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=5446829186009592812&q=the+boy+who+lived&total=808&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

[gold]

as many times AS it takes!

That could be for eternity until we all decide we've had enough of this repetition of our lives, and when will be that moment of recognition be? It is a different time segregation for each and every one of us; A video recorder wears it's tape out and say's 'TIME' But the info will never be lost.........

[mahabaratara]

For me i find the thought of reincarnation to this world is more depressing than the death its self.

What is the point of reincarnation, to experience all the same shit over and over again? for me this is a type of hell its self.

The point is to get sick of it and return home....

[edit]

The accounts of children remembering past a life in extraordinary detail have been well documented, but of cores the scientific community don’t even revue the possibility so we rely hear of it.
Hear is a well documented accent.
eg. http://www.saibaba.uwaterloo.ca/Young%20Sathya%20Sai.jpgSai Baba... with now maybe The Highest Spiritual (http://www.saibaba.uwaterloo.ca/Sri_Sathya_Sai_Baba.html) Knowledge_http://barrypittard.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/sai-baba-on-pure-gold-chariot-sept-1997.jpg
God and service to man

[serpentoffire]

http://barrypittard.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/sai-baba-on-pure-gold-chariot-sept-1997.jpg

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHH !!!!!
The devil made man :mad:

[rossus]

http://www.exbaba.com/

http://home.hetnet.nl/~ex-baba/foto's/baba.jpg

[gold]

The point is to get sick of it and return home....

I am sick of it! I desire to go home........Never want, or that is what you get for eternity! Eternity aims to please!

[edit]

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHH !!!!!
The devil made man :mad:Welll... Who isn't then?
Do You know and can You see anyone who is not in some-or-other way reincarnated here on this Plan-ET ?
Are you different?

[clint web]

Here's a thought, lets assume that reincarnation takes place. What would happen if there was a massive meteor hit and wiped out humanity? What would happen to our souls?

[thetonic]

I am sick of it! I desire to go home........Never want, or that is what you get for eternity! Eternity aims to please!

I think we are all sick of it, people here at least... next step is to stop fighting, the longer we fight this, the longer it exists, pure evil can only be fought with pure love...

I currently remain trapped in my evil ways.. Maybe next time..:)

[serpentoffire]

http://saibabaexposed.blogspot.com/2006/06/sai-baba-antichrist-superstar.html06/06/06
"For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect—if that were possible." - Matthew 24.24 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2024:24&version=31)

According to Tal Brooke in his book 'Avatar Of Night' (formerly titled 'Lord Of The Air'), this is the random verse he selected with his fingertip as his Bible fell open to a random page when he was reading on a Puttaparthi hilltop. Great technique I must say, and it is one that I have used regularly in my own scriptural study over the years to obtain my "thought for the day". It is also a popular methof amongst many Christian friends of mine. For Brooke, this verse served as an ominous portent of things to come. A chain of events was set in motion where Brooke slowly realised that Sai Baba was a fraud, left his association and went on to become a dedicated Christian.

The idea of Sai Baba being an antichrist (even the Antichrist) has been one that has been considered by devotees and sceptics alike. It was also a concept that I flirted with as a teenager although, in my view, Sai Baba was actually the Messiah-figure who had advented to slaughter the Antichrist in a grand and destructive Armageddon battle. That is, if you follow the Bible to it's conclusion.

Is that a strange idea? Compared to the thoughts and speculations about Sai Baba from fellow devotess in those days, my own views were veritable PhD. theses! I've heard the nuttiest ideas from devotees, truly and utterly nutty. One thing that sticks out in my mind right now is how a devotee once told me how she revered her dog as her guru. Another thing is how they justified keeping Sai Baba's pictures or books in the toilet, as well as singing bhajans while naked in the bath.

Alas, I digress. Keeping in mind that Sai Baba's devotees are fond of quoting passages in Revelations 19 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=73&chapter=19&version=31) as evidence of Sai Baba's incarnation, it's funny how they fall silent after reading Verse 16. As I'm a great believer in viewing things in the proper context, I couldn't help noticing references in Verses 19 and 21 relating how the "beast" makes war against the rider on the white horse. To find out who this dirty beast was, I had to skip back a few chapters (to Chapter 13 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=73&chapter=13&version=31)) to find out all about the Antichrist with the infamous '666' mark. What can I say? Contextually, what does the beastly Antichrist have to do with Sai Baba? Sai devotees appear to be divided on this issue; if it is all figurative then what does it mean? If it is real, then who or what is the Antichrist?

As an interesting anecdote, Howard Murphet relates the story of John Worldie in his book, 'Sai Baba Avatar'. Worldie had apparently snapped a few photos of Sai Baba on the day of Mahashivaratri and was struck to discover a photographic aberration on one of them after subsequent development. While Worldie and Murphet were both of the opinion that this was a miraculous display of Sai Baba's 'third eye', Worldie appears to have later changed (http://home.hetnet.nl/%7Eex-baba/engels/witnesses/johnworldie.html) his opinion and that it was a clear '666' mark. Apparently there were only three copies of that photo (one was gifted to Murphet) and so it is unlikely that we will able to see this picture and verify it for ourselves.

Regardless of Sai Baba's identity as the Antichrist or not, Matthew 24.24 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2024:24&version=31) sure appears to confirm that genuine followers of Christ will not be bewildered by any fancy display of miracles. With this definition I think we can safely conclude that Sai Baba is not the genuine article, given that a large majority of his followers are constantly amazed about reported miracles attributed to him as well as quoting stories of the same to support their claims of his divinity.

[catfood]

Look at this mans research.
http://www.near-death.com/experiences/reincarnation01.html

[thetonic]

Also , i am not saying that i go out and do "evil" or what people consider "evil" but i am supporting this so called "evil " in reality, by simply sitting here , using this computer, or driving to a protest using gasoline... I am contributing to this false reality and aiding in its creation..

That is the real paradox

THe one that few on here would like to face...

[rossus]

i don't believe the reincarnation stuff.
it doesn't make sense to me, but it's possible.

http://www.theshoulderofmuttoninn.co.uk/images/dancingbaby.gif

don't focus too much on the unnecessary questions. ;)

[gold]

Here's a thought, lets assume that reincarnation takes place. What would happen if there was a massive meteor hit and wiped out humanity? What would happen to our souls?

I think it would be like the M25:D:D
No serious, I think we all go back to the resource to be evaluated, for the next planet:eek: or rather the next episode;

[thetonic]

I think it would be like the M25:D:D
No serious, I think we all go back to the resource to be evaluated, for the next planet:eek: or rather the next episode;

I think that meteors hit, because they're supposed to..

[thetonic]

i don't believe the reincarnation stuff.
it doesn't make sense to me, but it's possible.

http://www.theshoulderofmuttoninn.co.uk/images/dancingbaby.gif

don't focus too much on the unnecessary questions. ;)

If i had my way , i wouldnt focus on anything but breathing...

[gold]

I think that meteors hit, because they're supposed to..

So you are a destiny child! That's good!

[serpentoffire]

Welll... Who isn't then?
Do You know and can You see anyone who is not in some-or-other way reincarnated here on this Plan-ET ?
Are you different?

I'm not a reincarnation, I can assure you. I'm born with my physical body and I'll leave from this earth at the end of my life. And you?

[thetonic]

So you are a destiny child! That's good!

You can choose to deny that such a thing as destiny exists.. thats fine... even things that happen at random, are in fact "destined";)

[gold]

I'm not a reincarnation, I can assure you. I'm born with my physical body and I'll leave from this earth at the end of my life. And you?

But without your rotting corpse!

[gold]

You can choose to deny that such a thing as destiny exists.. thats fine... even things that happen at random, are in fact "destined";)

I for one don't deny destiny! in fact I live by it!

[serpentoffire]

But without your rotting corpse!

When I said 'I'm born' I'm talking about my soul. The body is only a chemical robot, a ship to navigate in this sea of humanity.

[gold]

When I said 'I'm born' I'm talking about my soul. The body is only a chemical robot, a ship to navigate in this sea of humanity.

Your soul is old and ancient, it is you that is knew, to report back when you die, your body is already ship wrecked. You are here as a whistle blower:

[edit]

I'm not a reincarnation, I can assure you. I'm born with my physical body and I'll leave from this earth at the end of my life. And you?Aussi
BLOKE ?
MEme
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a2/The_Selfish_Gene3.jpg/180px-The_Selfish_Gene3.jpg
Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene first introduced the meme concept.
Meme
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A meme, (IPA: /mi:m/) as defined within memetic theory, comprises a theoretical unit of cultural information, the building block of cultural evolution or diffusion that propagates from one mind to another analogously to the way in which a gene propagates from one organism to another as a unit of genetic information and of biological evolution.[1] Multiple memes may propagate as cooperative groups called memeplexes (meme complexes).

Biologist and evolutionary theorist Richard Dawkins coined the term meme in 1976.[2] He gave as examples tunes, catch-phrases, beliefs, clothing fashions, ways of making pots, and the technology of building arches.

Meme theorists contend that memes evolve by natural selection similarly to Darwinian biological evolution through the processes of variation, mutation, competition, and inheritance influencing an organism's reproductive success. So with memes, some ideas will propagate less successfully and become extinct, while others will survive, spread, and, for better or for worse, mutate. "Memeticists argue that the memes most beneficial to their hosts will not necessarily survive; rather, those memes that replicate the most effectively spread best, which allows for the possibility that successful memes may prove detrimental to their hosts."[3]

A short story written in 1876 by Mark Twain, A Literary Nightmare, describes his encounter with a jingle so "catchy" that it plays over and over in his mind until he finally sings it out loud and infects others (also known as an earworm).

Origins and concepts

Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene first introduced the meme concept.

Richard Dawkins coined the term meme, which first came into popular use with the publication of his book The Selfish Gene in 1976. Dawkins based the word on a shortening of the Greek "mimeme" (something imitated), making it sound similar to "gene". The concept received relatively little attention until the late 1980s,[citation needed] when several academics took it up, notably the American philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett, who promoted the idea firstly in his book on the philosophy of mind, Consciousness Explained (1991), and then in Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995). Robert Anton Wilson also discussed the concept in his writings.[citation needed]
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/23/PICT01171_crop.jpg/80px-PICT01171_crop.jpg
Dawkins used the term to refer to any cultural entity (such as a song, an idea or a religion) that an observer might consider a replicator. He hypothesised that people could view many cultural entities as replicators, generally replicating through exposure to humans, who have evolved as efficient (though not perfect) copiers of information and behaviour. Memes do not always get copied perfectly, and might indeed become refined, combined or otherwise modified with other ideas, resulting in new memes. These memes may themselves prove more (or less) efficient replicators than their predecessors, thus providing a framework for an hypothesis of cultural evolution, analogous to the theory of biological evolution based on genes.

Considerable controversy surrounds the word meme and its associated field, memetics, is not accepted as an academic discipline. In part this arises because a number of possible (though not mutually exclusive) interpretations of the nature of the concept have arisen:

The least controversial claim suggests that memes provide a useful philosophical perspective with which to examine cultural evolution. Proponents of this view argue that considering cultural developments from a meme's eye view — as if memes, or the people who carry them, acted to maximise their own replication and survival — can lead to useful insights and yield valuable predictions into how culture develops over time. Dawkins himself seems to have favoured this approach.[citation needed]

Other theorists, such as Francis Heylighen, have focused on the need to provide an empirical grounding for memetics in order for people to regard it as a real and useful scientific discipline.[citation needed] Given the nebulous (and in many cases subjective) nature of many memes, providing such an empirical grounding has to date proved challenging.[citation needed] However, a recent study by Mikael Sandberg, further elaborates the memetic approach to empirical studies of innovation diffusion in organisations. [4]
A third approach, exemplified by Dennett and by Susan Blackmore in her book The Meme Machine (1999), seeks to place memes at the centre of a radical and counter-intuitive naturalistic theory of mind and of personal identity. Evan Louis Sheehan uses the hierarchical model of cortical architecture proposed by Jeff Hawkins to develop such a memetic theory of mind in his book The Mocking Memes: A Basis for Automated Intelligence.

[edit] Etymology
Historically, the notion of a unit of social evolution, and a similar term (from Greek mneme, meaning "memory"), first appeared in 1904 in a work by the German evolutionary biologist Richard Semon titled Die Mnemischen Empfindungen in ihren Beziehungen zu den Originalempfindungen (loosely translated as "Memory-feelings in relation to original feelings"). According to the OED, the word mneme appears in English in 1921 in L. Simon's translation of Semon's book: The Mneme.

According to Dawkins, who coined the word "meme" without knowing about mnemes, meme represents a shortened form of mimeme (from Greek mimos, "mimic"). Dawkins said he wanted "a monosyllable word that sounds a bit like gene".[5]


[edit] Dawkins' genetic analogy
Richard Dawkins introduced the term after writing that evolution depended not on the particular chemical basis of genetics, but only on the existence of a self-replicating unit of transmission — in the case of biological evolution, the gene. For Dawkins, the meme exemplifies another self-replicating unit, and most importantly, one which he thought might prove useful in explaining human behavior and cultural evolution.

This analogy suggests that the definition of a meme should refer to the physical structure, or abstract code representing that structure, representing a real idea as observed in situ. Genes do not depend upon their transfer for their current existence; they may need a definite, although not necessarily unique physical structure. Similarly, a book, play, song, or computer file might replicate a meme.[citation needed]William H. Calvin offers the concept of a Darwinian process in the generation of conscious thought, based on his theory of resonant electrochemistry in the neocortex.[citation needed]

Dawkins himself, in a speech on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the publication of The Selfish Gene, described his motivation for postulating memes: he portrayed the idea not so much as an attempt at creating an account for cultural complexity, but rather as seeking something with which the selfish-genetic mechanism would still work with unreliable replicators:

Next question might be, does the information have to be molecular at all? Memes. This is not something that I’ve ever wanted to push as a theory of human culture, but I originally proposed it as a kind of… almost an anti-gene, to make the point that Darwinism requires accurate replicators with phenotypic power, but they don’t necessarily have to be genes. What if they were computer viruses? They hadn’t been invented when I wrote The Selfish Gene so I went straight for memes, units of cultural inheritance.

– Richard Dawkins [6]


[edit] Memes as discrete units
Though Dawkins defined the meme as "a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation", memeticists in general promote varying definitions of the concept of the meme. The lack of a consistent, rigorous and precise understanding of what typically makes up one unit of cultural transmission remains a problem in debates about memetics.

Although memeticists speak of memes as discrete units, this need not imply that thoughts somehow become quantized or that "atomic" ideas exist which one cannot break down into smaller pieces. The meme as a unit simply provides a convenient way of discussing "a piece of thought copied from person to person", regardless of whether that thought contains others inside it, or forms part of a larger meme. A meme could consist of a single word, or a meme could consist of the entire speech in which that word was first uttered. The "word itself" meme will most likely survive many more generations (after transmission alone or in other sentences) than the "speech in its entirety" meme will survive (due to errors of memory, abridged versions, etc.)[original research?]

This forms an analogy to the idea of a gene as a self-replicating set of code. The gene in this definition does not consist of a set number of nucleotides, but simply a collection of nucleotides (possibly in many different locations on the DNA) that replicate together and code for some set of behaviors or body parts.

In 1981 biologists Charles J. Lumsden and Edward Osborne Wilson published a theory of gene/culture co-evolution in the book Genes, Mind, and Culture: The Coevolutionary Process. They argued that the fundamental biological units of culture must correspond to neuronal networks that function as nodes of semantic memory. Wilson later adopted the term meme as the best existing name for the fundamental unit of cultural inheritance and elaborated upon the fundamental role of memes in unifying the natural and social sciences in his book Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge.


[edit] Memeplexes
Much of the study of memes focuses on groups of memes called memeplexes (also known as meme complexes or as memecomplexes) — such as religious, cultural, or political doctrines and systems. Memeplexes contain mutually supportive memes that together become more evolutionarily successful. These memeplexes may also play a part in the acceptance of new memes which, if they fit with a memeplex, can "piggyback" on that success. Memeplexes of religion provide a commonly-cited example.[citation needed] In the case of Christianity, the theory suggests, the Christian memeplex evolved from Jewish religious teachings to form, among others, the Catholic church.[7] Following the schism between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, and later splits giving rise to various Protestant churches, various people have added and deleted individual memes, resulting in the formation of completely different memeplexes (religions/sects) within the basic umbrella of Christianity,[8] as well as within (for example) the Catholic,[9] Orthodox,[10] and Protestant traditions.[11] (Without some concept of cultural evolution, one might have to postulate repeated and contradictory divine/demonic revelations in order to account for the historical record of religions and for the existence of denominations.)


[edit] Transmission
Life forms transmit information vertically[citation needed] (from generation to generation) via replication of genes. Memes can also transmit information vertically by replication.[citation needed] Some life forms can spread from their host horizontally, within groups of contemporaries. Memes also spread from hosts in such a manner. They may also lie dormant for long periods of time: Copernicus re-discovered the ancient heliocentric views of Aristarchus, but Aristarchian memes survive.[citation needed] One can view memeplexes as assisting the survival and transmission of memes in a symbiotic relationship.[citation needed]

Memes spread by the behaviors that they generate in their hosts. For example, the fashion-value that "less is more" spreads through the behavior of people dressing down in understated clothes and acting superior. This behavior then has the effect of showing others a real-life example of this fashion-value, thereby conveying to them the fashion statement that "less is more".[citation needed] Verbal transmission can supplement or replace this imitative method.

Those interested in tracking how memes spread through culture may use memetrackers, websites that allow one to see how people receive, use, and spread new information on the Web. Cameron Marlowe's Blogdex project pioneered research on this topic.


[edit] Memetics
Main article: Memetics
Memetics, the study of memes, remains a controversial field among many scientists and skeptics. Memetics originated when Richard Dawkins reduced the process of biological genetic evolution to its most fundamental unit: the replicator (or gene). Dawkins, in a search for parallels and other things that he might classify as replicators, suggested that the information and ideas in brains — culture, for example — could function as replicators as well. Computer software may represent another form of replicator with which evolution may eventually build grand things, whether socially as in the open source movement, or through the use of evolutionary algorithms.

Memetics offers maximum explanatory value in cases where one cannot demonstrate the truth of the contents of the meme.[citation needed] For example, one can readily show that washing hands helps to prevent illness, so the best explanation for the widespread popularity of this practice is that "it works", though memetics still helps explain the rate of spread, and details such as why the practice of washing hands before surgery took so long to catch on. Memetics, however, excels in explaining the spread of certain value-judgements ("chastity is important"), preferences ("pork is repulsive"), superstitions ("black cats bring bad luck") and other scientifically unverifiable beliefs ("'X' is the one true God"); since one cannot easily account for any of these phenomena by conventional scientific methods. Calling someone's ideas/beliefs/action a "meme", therefore, does not constitute an insult, but dismissing it as "just a meme" does. Calling a belief a meme does not constitute an insult in that most people who believe in memes regard all beliefs as memes anyway.[citation needed]


[edit] Memetic methodology
Memetics often takes concepts from the theory of evolution (especially population genetics) and applies them to human culture. Memetics also uses mathematical models to try to explain many very controversial subjects such as religion and political systems. Principal criticisms of memetics include the claim that memetics ignores established advances in the fields (such as sociology, cognitive psychology, social psychology, etc.) most relevant to the claims and methodologies of memetics.

Memeticists generate much memetic terminology by prepending 'mem(e)-' to an existing, usually biological, term or by putting 'mem(e)' in place of 'gen(e)' in various terms. Examples include: meme pool, memotype, memetic engineer, meme-complex.


[edit] Some concepts of memetics
The term memetic association refers to the idea that memes herd. For example, a meme for blue jeans includes memes for trouser-flies, riveted clothing, blue dye, cotton clothing, belt-loops and double-sewn seams. In this way, groups of memes can operate symbiotically (to use a biological analogy) in the sense that they act for their mutual benefit/survival.[citation needed]

The phrase memetic drift (formed by analogy to genetic drift) refers to the process of a meme changing as it replicates between one person to another. Memetic drift increases when meme transmission occurs with variations. Very few memes show strong memetic inertia (the characteristic of a meme to manifest in the same way and to have the same impact regardless of who receives or transmits the meme). Memetic inertia increases when the meme transfers along with mnemonic devices, such as a rhyme, to preserve the memory of the meme prior to its transmission.[citation needed] See Telephone (game) for one example of memetic drift.[original research?]


[edit] Doubts about memetics
A basic difficulty in the study of memes involves the frequent lack of clarity as to what divides one meme from another. Whether this matters may remain a matter of taste.[original research?]

In much the same way that the selfish gene concept offers a way of understanding and reasoning about aspects of biological evolution, the meme concept can conceivably assist in the better understanding of some otherwise puzzling aspects of human culture (and learned behaviors of other animals as well).[original research?] However, if one cannot test for "better" empirically, the question will remain whether or not the meme concept counts as a valid scientific theory. Memetics thus remains a science in its infancy[citation needed], a protoscience to proponents, or a pseudoscience to detractors.

Another objection to the study of the evolution of memes in genetic terms (although not to the existence of memes) involves the fact that the cumulative evolution of genes depends on biological selection pressures being neither too great nor too small in relation to mutation rates. There seems no reason to think that the same balance will exist in the selection pressures on memes.[12]


[edit] Applications of memetics

[edit] Memetic accounts of religion
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Memetics regards religion itself as memetic, and Richard Dawkins has often discussed religion.

Some fundamentalist evangelical religious movements act predominantly to swell the reach of their faith-meme.[citation needed] These movements devote a large amount of time to evangelical activity.

Many of the world's most successful religions demonstrate memetic modification over time — the theologies of the 21st century differ to a greater or lesser extent from the theologies of previous centuries.[13] Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Mormonism (and their descendants) have all developed through variation, modification and memetic recombination from a shared monotheistic meme: Zoroastrianism appears to have functioned as an important and widely-shared religious ancestor (see Lawrence Mills, Our Own Religion in Ancient Persia, Chicago, 1913), contributing through Judaism to Christianity, Islam and their many derivative religions.[14]

The Religious Right in the United States of America attaches conservative political views to Christian religious evangelism ("meme piggybacking"[original research?]), and fundamentalist Christianity has associated a particular set of politico-social ideas/memeplexes with a separate set of religious ideas/memeplexes that have "replicated" very effectively for many centuries.[citation needed] For other examples of piggybacking involving religious memes, note the conversion-histories of the Hungarians and of Kievan Rus': adoption of Catholicism and Orthodoxy respectively entailed perceived cultural, political and diplomatic benefits and adherence to perceived mainstream civilization.[15]

In Western countries, universities evolved from medieval religious institutions devoted to learning. Of the nine colonial colleges in the British colonies of North America, eight had affiliations with religious institutions. Many US colleges separated themselves from their seminaries, because the First Amendment to the United States Constitution prevents federal funding of religious organizations. One can think of American academia as an offshoot religion that eliminated less adaptive memes (beliefs in the supernatural) in response to a selective pressure (funding restrictions).[Who said this?]

A tendency exists in memetics to disparage religious memes[citation needed], beginning at least as early as Dawkins's openly-expressed atheism. Dawkins in The God Delusion (2006) calls all religious memes "mind viruses". Author Neal Stephenson speculates that traditional religions act as mental immune systems to suppress new (and potentially harmful) memes.[16] Some compare this process to a scenario where the action of a virus (here a religion or a "bundle" of religious memes) proves ineffective and maladaptive if it kills its host(s), or to where the presence of less-harmful bacteria on the skin prevent infection by more-harmful organisms[Who said this?]. For example, popular Christianity forbids both murder and suicide, and its precise definitions of heresy ensure that properly-educated Christians have difficulty in accepting new religions or new viewpoints which advocate such actions.[Who said this?]

Susan Blackmore has made a case that the study of Zen meditation in itself comprises a process of meme "pruning", i.e., a means to remove experiential clichés that reduce the value of life. This has not exempted Zen itself from serving as a source of highly mobile memes, such as "the sound of one hand clapping" koan or exclaiming "mu".

Daniel Dennett used the idea of religion as a meme (or as a set of memes) as a basis for much of his analysis of religion in his book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon.

Personal and intangible experiences which might seem "above" memes may rather have subconscious roots in memes absorbed during a lifetime, as depth psychology might suggest.


[edit] Memetic accounts of science
The scientific method offers a body of social and experimental techniques which, given certain preconditions — a free press for the circulation of information, a large number of people prepared to see the universe as a mechanism subject to general regularities which humans can observe, describe and model through repeatable experiments and/or observations — acts highly virulently, spreading quickly through an educated population as journals circulate and blogs proliferate. By demonstrating its success at making predictions, science as a practice can make itself more attractive to potential converts.[Who said this?] Whether or not experimenters can necessarily verify them, ideas and attitudes — those which scientists tend to hold or those which feel aesthetically pleasing in combination with scientific discoveries — can propagate themselves in societies where science has a high status by the process of meme piggybacking.[original research?]

Furthermore, one can view the scientific method as a successful meta-memetical means of selecting those memeplexes best suited for explaining observable physical processes, through its mechanism (parallel to the evolutionary algorithm used in computer science) of providing standardized methods for creating and evaluating competing populations of solutions to a given problem.[Who said this?]


[edit] Memetic explanations of racism
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When regarded as non-conscious replicators (much like viruses), individual memes generally lack moral goodness or badness.[citation needed] However, the behaviors that memes generate in individuals and groups can have moral implications. History furnishes many examples of the moral implications of racist/ethnic/class memes when they interact with politics, such as the Rwandan Genocide of 1994.[original research?] Racism provides an example of a common meme: an ideology that has come to separate people, causing the deaths of some targets or practitioners (the latter due to backlash) and threatening the lives of those who do not conform with racist norms.[original research?] Once introduced into a culture, memes evolve (note antisemitism as a form of xenophobia) and spread through society, sometimes becoming both harmful and attractive so that they spread like a virus.(Ref.: 1994 G. Burchett[citation needed])

In Cultural Software: A Theory of Ideology,[17] Jack Balkin argued that memetic processes can explain many of the most familiar features of ideological thought. His theory of "cultural software" maintained that memes form narratives, networks of cultural associations, metaphoric and metonymic models, and a variety of different mental structures. Some of these structures can help generate racist and anti-Semitic beliefs, by making this kind of belief spread fast and wide.[citation needed] Conversely, some memes can have moral implications that most observers might deem positive, such as the meme of anti-racism, which tends/aims to generate behaviors of tolerance.[original research?]


[edit] Memetic accounts of personality
Memeticists often define an individual's mind as a "playground for memes" or as an "ecology of memes", where the different memes that have colonized that mind at different times interact with each other. For example, when a mind successfully infected by the memeplex for religion X becomes exposed to the memeplex for religion Y, memeplex X may repulse memeplex Y: X can block Y from infecting the mind (for instance through use of such memetic components as the meme that "all other religions apart from X are evil").[original research?]

In a person’s history, language provides the first and most important memetic infection.[citation needed] Indeed, memeticians generally regard language as a memetically-evolved phenomenon. For example, even at the level of animals, many species have evolved particular cries to convey different meanings, such as "danger", "hungry", "aroused", "go away" or "come here". Experiments can verify the memetic nature of the cries of these species, showing for example that the cries do not arise when humans raise the animals concerned: they do not generate the cries by instinct, but learn them from other animals. Human language, as a memetically-evolved tool, can serve not only to communicate concepts between humans, but also to combine low-abstraction concepts into higher-abstraction ones. This combination/abstraction process, seen memetically, constitutes creative breeding of memes, where the interaction of several memes results in the birth of a new, combined meme. For example, the mind of Richard Dawkins saw the creative breeding of its memes for "replicator", "culture", and "mind", and this breeding gave birth to the new meme of "meme".[original research?]

After humans become infected with the memeplex for language — generally during babyhood — they get infected with a series of higher-abstraction memes, and especially values-memes.[citation needed] Depending on the education received by the person, the lessons drawn from experience, and the surrounding cultural materials (tales, songs, books, etc), a certain ecology and history of meme-infection and interaction builds up within that person’s mind. Memes generate behaviors in their host — either spoken or acted behaviors. Because each person has an individual memetic infection and interaction history, there emerge singular behavior patterns. We conventionally refer to what memeticists regard as meme-generated patterns of behavior as a person's personality.[original research?]


[edit] Memetic engineering
Main article: Memetic engineering
Memetic engineering consists of the process of developing memes, through meme-splicing and memetic synthesis, with the intent of altering the behavior of others. It consists of the process of creating and developing theories or ideologies based on an analytical study of societies, their ways of thinking and the evolution of the minds that comprise them. Attempts at Artificial Meme-Phrase Creation have not met with noted success, though apocryphal stories tell of the putative origins of these sorts of memes.[18]

Sometimes people modify and fabricate memes consciously, even intentionally (think the self-image of advertising agencies, for example — though some argue that the intention comes from the memes).[Who said this?] This would help to explain how rapidly, extensively and usefully memetic evolution has functioned in and for culture.[original research?] People apply many ever-evolving meme-based systems of analysis and error-correction to all information flowing in and out.[citation needed] Just as genetic material has developed gene-based error-correction models, memetic systems have "found" it advantageous to associate with meme-based error-correction models.[citation needed]

However, attempting to popularize a fabricated meme or an unproven theory often results in a backlash against said meme: the originators of a meme may appear to have a hidden agenda, as in the case of intelligent design.[19] Meme-intense societies may generally deride — then forget — such fabricated memes or theories.[original research?]


[edit] Memetic evolution
Evolution requires not only inheritance and natural selection but also variation, and memes also exhibit this property. Ideas may undergo changes in transmission which accumulate over time. Generations of hosts pass on these changes in the phenotype (the information in brains or in retention systems).[citation needed] In other words, unlike genetic evolution, memetic evolution can show both Darwinian and Lamarckian traits. For example, folk tales and myths often become embellished in the retelling to make them more memorable or more appropriate and therefore more impressed listeners have a greater likelihood of retelling them, complete with accumulating embellishments that may serve to modify human behavior.[original research?] More modern examples appear in the various urban legends and hoaxes — such as the Goodtimes virus warning — that circulate on the Internet.

Dawkins observed that cultures can evolve in much the same way that populations of organisms evolve. Various ideas pass from one generation to the next; such ideas may either enhance or detract from the survival of the people who obtain those ideas, or influence the survival of the ideas themselves. This process can affect which of those ideas will survive for passing on to future generations. For example, a certain culture may have unique designs and methods of tool-making that another culture may not have; therefore, the culture with the more effective methods may prosper more than the other culture, ceteris paribus. This leads to a higher proportion of the overall population adopting the more effective methods as time passes. Each tool-design thus acts somewhat similarly to a biological gene in that some populations have it and others do not, and the meme's function directly affects the presence of the design in future generations. Similarly, like the biological evolutionary process, cultures can retain memes that once served a purpose during one epoch or era as vestigial memes — note the survival of astrology. Such evolutionary misdirection resembles (debatably) the survival of the vermiform appendix, or of wisdom teeth in humans.


[edit] Propagation of memes
Memes have as an important characteristic their propagation through imitation, a concept introduced by the French sociologist Gabriel Tarde.[1] Imitation involves copying the observed behaviour of another individual. Typically imitators copy behaviour from observing other humans, but they may also copy from an inanimate source, such as from a book or from a musical score. Imitation may depend on brains sufficiently powerful to assess the key aspects of the imitated behavior (what to copy and why) as well as its potential benefits.[citation needed]

Researchers have observed memetic copying in just a few species on Earth, including hominids, dolphins[20] and birds (which learn how to sing by imitating their parents[21] ).

When imitation first evolved in the animal ancestors of humans, it proved itself a valuable skill for learning, which increased an individual's ability to reproduce genetically.[original research?] Some have speculated that sexual selection of the best imitators further drove a genetic increase in the ability of brains to imitate well.[Who said this?]

Memetics suggests that memes have the potential for a much more lasting effect than genes: humans continue to quote prophets, popes and teachers who had no known lineal blood-descendants. Most organisms pass their genes on to their offspring sexually, but with every generation the genetic contribution of a given ancestor halves — so that a person only has a quarter of their grandfather's personal genes. Susan Blackmore has evaluated the legacy of Socrates. Since the 5th century BC, Socrates' genes have become thoroughly diluted (dispersed); however, his memes still have a profound effect on modern thought and on contemporary philosophical discourse.[verification needed]

In modern times, the advent of the Internet — and more specifically of email — has provided memes with a high-fidelity propagation medium that enables highly prolific memes to propagate quickly. For example, chain emails furnish a significant instance: in-depth studies have examined their evolution and mutation based on their differential survival rate.[original research?] Paper-based chain letters, predecessors to this meme-distribution net, have also attracted study,[22] but they have a lower propagation-rate due to the higher copying effort, and a higher mutation-rate may have occurred due to manual transcription or degraded photocopying, thus potentially reducing their lifespan. It seems plausible that the first email chain letters started when recipients transcribed paper-based chain-letters to email[Who said this?], suggesting that memes can move from one propagation medium to another (more efficient) one.[original research?]


[edit] Evolutionary influences on memes
If one accepts the memetic description, it still remains to single out which memes have good potential for spreading. One can make an analogy with biology.[Who said this?] To be able to say something about the spread of a gene in birds that affect their wings ornithologists need to know about both population genetics and aerodynamics. Similarly, memeticists need to complement the description of memes with a description of what makes a meme easily absorbable by people other than the original carrier.

Only the number of extant copies (and where those copies reside) determine the measurable success of a gene or of a meme. A strong (but not complete) correlation exists between genes that do well and genes that have a positive effect on the organism which contains those genes. And if we can restrict attention to memes normally interpreted as statements of fact, then a correlation emerges between those memes that do well and those that reflect reality.[citation needed] However, some genes and memes do survive which owe their success to other factors. Similarly, a correlation exists between successful memes of a technological/economic nature and those that help the economy (such as slavery and free markets (each in their day), for instance).

A gene's success in a body may stem from its attempt to bypass the normal sexual lottery by making itself present in more than 50% of zygotes in an organism.[citation needed] Some genes find other ways of having themselves transmitted between cells. Hence multiple factors influence the evolution of genes — not just the success of the species as a whole. Similarly the evolutionary pressures on memes include much more than just truth and economic success. Evolutionary pressures may include the following:

Experience: If a meme does not correlate with an individual's experience, then that individual has a reduced likelihood of remembering that meme.
Pleasure/Pain: If a meme results in more pleasure or less pain for its host then the host will have a greater likelihood of remembering it.
Fear/Bribery: If a meme constitutes a threat then people may become frightened into believing it. Similarly, if a meme promises some future benefit then people may incline to believe it. The memes "if you do X you will burn in hell" and "do Y and you will go to heaven" provide examples. Memes which pass on the fear of a threat, of the likelihood or effectiveness of a threat, that "something will happen if you do such and such a thing", have a high likelihood of success, and may therefore replicate and remain in the meme-pool. They may assist in this way in the survival of a thought, a theme or a philosophy within a community.
Censorship: If an organisation destroys any retention-systems containing a particular meme or otherwise controls the usage of that meme, then that meme may suffer a selective disadvantage.
Economics: If people or organisations with economic influence exhibit a particular meme, then the meme has a greater likelihood of benefiting from a greater audience. If a meme tends to increase the riches of an individual holding it, then that meme may spread because of imitation. Such memes might include "Hard work is good" and "Put number one first".
Distinction: If the meme enables hearers to recognize and respect tellers (as leaders, intelligent people, insightful, etc.), then the meme has a greater chance of spreading. The erstwhile receivers will want to become themselves tellers of the same meme (or of an evolved/mutated version). Thus élite knowledge can provide a promotion to élite status.
Memes, like genes, do not purposely do or want anything — they either get replicated or not. Some meme systems have negative effects on the host or on their host society (revenge killings, for example), but humans generally have a symbiotic relationship with these abstract entities.[Who said this?]

Memes do not mutate in an exclusively passive way. The brain inhabited by a meme system can carry out a sort of active modification of a meme. One could draw an analogy with a cell's error-correction systems, but they clearly function quite differently.[Who said this?] People create and modify memes almost continuously.[citation needed] One can modify, manipulate, and create meme systems in thought, for instance through internal dialogue.[Who said this?] As soon as one opens one's mouth and says something (or does something) that one has not copied (but that others can copy), one has unleashed a novel meme.[original research?] Thus, one could conclude[Who said this?] that we all perform the role of a memetic engineer to some degree (even if not consciously).[citation needed]

This seems especially evident in modern society[original research?], more notably in the scientific and philosophical realms and in the entertainment industry.[Who said this?] It has become standard practice for scientists and philosophers alike to assemble memetic systems and to question their philosophical and empirical integrity. On perceiving a flaw, one may seek theoretical (mathematical/thought experiments/logic/analysis) or empirical (experimental/observational) resolution. This happens in large part due to the influence of some of the more "modern" philosophers of the past. Over the last few hundred (or thousand) years, a "philosophy" or paradigm has evolved and developed which benefits the societies in which many embrace it.[citation needed] That philosophy includes the ethical, moral, and scientific obligation to take nothing for granted and always to question any new information one perceives. People following this tradition have transformed the memetic base of modern science and philosophy. These people include Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Albert Einstein, Karl Marx, Benjamin Franklin and Karl Popper.[verification needed] Science accepts nothing as true unless empirical evidence and observation suggests such "truth" strongly and consistently. This entire procedure adheres to a meme-system that has evolved to the point of rejecting almost any absolute truth-claim.[citation needed] This meme-system now includes such novel analytical paradigms as the scientific method and Dewey's Decision-Making model (among many other meme-based systems) to help distinguish useful (or truthful) meme-systems from "bad" ones.

Francis Heylighen of the Center Leo Apostel for Interdisciplinary Studies has postulated what he calls "memetic selection criteria". These criteria opened the way to a specialized field of applied memetics to find out if these selection criteria could stand the test of quantitative analyses.

Cultural materialism holds that the evolutionary pressures of economy and ecology explain many aspects of human culture.[Who said this?] For example, the food taboos sometimes enshrined in religions - like the concepts of sacred cows, kosher and halal - would have prospered because they allowed the believing population to (say) live more hygienically and thus survive longer than non-believers in environments possibly more hostile to survival.[citation needed] A migration or a change of the economic infrastructure could render the taboo neutral or even adverse.[Who said this?]


[edit] Meme-resistance
Karl Popper advocated memetic caution in the strongest possible terms: "The survival value of intelligence is that it allows us to extinct a bad idea, before the idea extincts us."[citation needed]

Resistance to violent and destructive courses of action has formed a common meme that can guide human cultural and cognitive evolution away from disastrous paths[Who said this?] — for instance the U.S. and USSR stockpiled but did not use nuclear weapons in the Cold War period.[original research?] Some cultures can consider ignorance a virtue — in particular, ignorance of certain temptations that the culture believes would prove disastrous if pursued by many individuals.[Who said this?]

The Internet, perhaps the ultimate meme-vector to date[Who said this?], seems to host both sides of this debate[original research?]. Opposition to use of the Internet can stem from any number of memes: from ethics to intent to ability to resist hacking or pornography.[Who said this?]

The Principia Cybernetica project maintains a lexicon of memetics concepts, comprising a list of different types of memes. It also refers to an essay by Jaron Lanier, The ideology of cybernetic totalist intellectuals, which criticises "meme totalists" who assert memes over bodies.


[edit] Memetic virus exchange
One controversial application of this "selfish meme" parallel results in the idea that certain collections of memes can act as "memetic viruses": collections of ideas that behave in the manner of independent life-forms which continue to get passed on — even at the expense of their hosts — simply because of their success at getting passed on.[Who said this?] Some observers have suggested that evangelical religions and cults behave in this way; so by including the act of passing on their beliefs as a moral virtue, other beliefs of the religion also get passed along — even if they do not provide particular direct benefits to the believer.[citation needed]

Others maintain that the wide prevalence of human adoption of religious ideas provides evidence to suggest that such ideas offer some ecological, sexual, ethical or moral value; otherwise memetic evolution would long ago have selected against such ideas.[Who said this?] For example, some religions urge peace and co-operation among their followers ("Thou shalt not murder") which may possibly tend to promote the biological survival of the social groups that carry these memes. However, the idea of group selection stands on shaky ground (to say the least) in the field of genetics. Accordingly, some consider the idea of selection of ideas beneficial to the group exclusively as unlikely.[original research?] [citation needed]

Dawkins notes that one can distinguish a biological virus from its host's normal genetic material by the fact that it can propagate alone, without the propagation of the entire genetic corpus of the host — or half of it, in the case of diploid sexual reproduction; thus, a virus can "sabotage" the host's other genes. This applies to memes in the sense that a meme that requires the success of its hosts has a greater likelihood of favouring the interests of these hosts than does a meme capable of succeeding even if each host quickly dies.[citation needed] For example, the commonplace meme which encourages people to wash their hands after they use the toilet or before handling food, and which reminds others to do the same, does not appear harmful. In contrast, a meme telling people to quit their jobs, abandon their families, and run around spreading the meme seems quite virulent.[Who said this?][citation needed]


[edit] Reproductive isolation in meme "speciation"
In traditional population genetics the normal genetic variation, genetic selection, and genetic drift do not lead to the formation of a new species without some form of "reproductive isolation". Thus in order to split a single species into two species, the two subpopulations of the original species must ultimately lose their ability to interbreed, which would normally maintain their heterogeneity. However, once separated, natural selection and/or mere genetic drift acting on the normal genetic variation in the two subspecies will eventually change enough characteristics of the two subgroups to preclude them interbreeding, which (by a common definition of what constitutes a species) means that they will comprise two different species. [citation needed] Examples of reproductive isolation include geographical isolation, where a suddenly-appearing mountain range or river separates two subgroups; temporal isolation (isolation by time), where one subgroup becomes entirely diurnal in its habits while the other becomes entirely nocturnal; or even just "behavioral" isolation, as seen in wolves and domestic dogs: they could interbreed, biologically speaking, but normally they do not.[citation needed]

A similar phenomenon can occur with memes.[citation needed] Normally, the population of individuals having a meme in their consciousness contains sufficient internal variation and mixes enough to keep a given meme relatively intact (although it covers a wide range of variations).[verification needed] Should that population become split, however, without sufficient contact for the two different subgroups of variations of the meme to equilibrate, eventually each group will evolve its own version of that meme, each version differing sufficiently from that of the other group to appear as a distinct entity.[citation needed]

The Kellerman meme provides an example of this occurring on the Internet.[original research?] A search of the web and/or Usenet for the word 'Kellerman' will turn up many citations, describing at great length the behavior of a "Dr. Arthur Kellerman", who, with the willing assistance of the Centers for Disease Control and the public-health lobby, purportedly fabricated studies in order to implicate firearms (and by extension their owners) as a menace to public safety, for the purposes of statist control of the population. The authors of these pages and postings describe purported machinations, "junk science", a subsequent recantation by Dr. "Kellerman", and the use of his work by proponents of gun control.[citation needed]. Compare the work of the differently spelled scientist Arthur Kellermann.

The original meme of Kellermann and his work on gun-related violent injury has generated a new meme ("Dr. Kellerman is an evil lying gun-grabbing enemy of freedom") by the classic genetic phenomenon of a deletion mutation.[citation needed] The sub-population involved had strongly negative attitudes towards Kellermann's work as well as a lack of firsthand familiarity with his studies and career.[citation needed] Because of the "reproductive isolation" caused by the total non-intersection of the results of searches for "Kellerman" and "Kellermann", the Kellerman-meme drifted even further in the direction of negativity, unchecked by facts related to the real Kellermann.[citation needed] As this group encounters new individuals of similar general outlook, they introduce new recruits to the "Kellerman" lore only, and go on to produce their own websites and postings furthering the rapid progress of this meme.[citation needed]

(This phenomenon also demonstrates two other features of memes — the "meme-complex" (memeplex) as a set of mutually-assisting "co-memes" which have co-evolved a symbiotic relationship, and the "Villain vs. Victim" infection strategy.)


[edit] Criticism of memetics

We need a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. 'Mimeme' comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like 'gene'. I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme to meme. If it is any consolation, it could alternatively be thought of as being related to 'memory', or to the French word même. It should be pronounced to rhyme with 'cream'.

– Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989 ISBN 0-19-217773-7 page 192

[serpentoffire]

Your soul is old and ancient, it is you that is knew, to report back when you die, your body is already ship wrecked. You are here as a whistle blower:

I don't have this feeling. I don't have past life.

What is the meaning of old and ancient words in a multiverse?

This is a nonsense:

Time and space are illusions.
Old and new are illusions.

[gold]

Aussi
BLOKE ?
MEme
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a2/The_Selfish_Gene3.jpg/180px-The_Selfish_Gene3.jpg
Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene first introduced the meme concept.
Meme
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is just to much to read , SIMPLICITY IS THE BEST MOTO FOR HUMANITYS SURVIVAL! Red tape and jargon is for the reptilian clan! And lets face it, even they don't have a clue what their muppets are saying on behalf of them, half the time:D:D

[mahabaratara]

I don't have this feeling. I don't have past life.

What is the meaning of old and ancient words in a multiverse?

This is a nonsense:

Time and space are illusions.
Old and new are illusions.


You still experience 3d whether or not you accept it...

[gold]

I don't have this feeling. I don't have past life.

What is the meaning of old and ancient words in a multiverse?

This is a nonsense:

Time and space are illusions.
Old and new are illusions.

OK! No Qualms!

[serpentoffire]

You still experience 3d whether or not you accept it...

Time it's only a human perception. I experienced that time doesn't exist because I can know what it is going on in my near or far future.

OK, now I preview that I'll go to sleep.
Good night friends.

[edit]

Here's a thought, lets assume that reincarnation takes place. What would happen if there was a massive meteor hit and wiped out humanity? What would happen to our souls?
I think it would be like the M25:D:D
No serious, I think we all go back to the resource to be evaluated, for the next planet:eek: or rather the next episode;
m25 (http://paginas.terra.com.br/arte/astrophotography3/clusters/m25.html)

[gold]

Well goodnight serpentffire, sleep well! but your right, time does not exist, it is one linear experience divided into sections for us to experience.

[thetonic]

Aussi
BLOKE ?
MEme
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a2/The_Selfish_Gene3.jpg/180px-The_Selfish_Gene3.jpg
Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene first introduced the meme concept.
Meme
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Edit.. You are extremely cryptic for someone so well read... A paradox in itself...

[synergy777]

if you love your brothers and sisters (humanity), would you not keep coming back until suffering was stopped until all people could live just for one lifetime, a good life, for one lifetime to really live.

to live happy, with peace, inner harmony, unity and liberty. to enjoy a truly equal and fulfilling life. to be one with nature, to have a soulmate to have a family. these things you take for granted, and hence you miss the whole point of life. to have a partner, kids, family, etc is the highest, best thing in life.

to call this place hell, to get sick of it, is only the weakness/lack of spirit in you, not this world. to not take this blessing of life and cherish it, to help others, is you not making the best of a wonderful opportunity. escape is no solution, you may leave suffering but others do not. if you have a partner, family etc, and you leave suffering/life, do you not care how they live after you are gone, is it all about self ?

[rossus]

if you love your brothers and sisters (humanity), would you not keep coming back until suffering was stopped until all people could live just for one lifetime, a good life, for one lifetime to really live.
the boddhisatva theory, the buddha theory...
they're all beautiful stories but how do you know it's true?

there's many people that claim they remember their past lives,
but there's also people that are in touch with aliens that say they will come save the planet soon.

what we see and hear is not always what is real, let's call it first hand illusion.
then there's all these stories with mysterious sources... about gods, reincarnation, boddhisatvas, buddhas, etc.
how can we know that's true if even our own sources betray us?

i don't know anything except love.


sometimes i also try to comprehend the infinite,
and my mind creates suspicions based on own experiences, other's experiences & logic.
this can be fun sometimes. but i'll never believe a suspicion... belief is often a dangerous trap.

[thetonic]

the boddhisatva theory, the buddha theory...
they're all beautiful stories but how do you know it's true?

there's many people that claim they remember their past lives,
but there's also people that are in touch with aliens that say they will come save the planet soon.

what we see and hear is not always what is real, let's call it first hand illusion.
then there's all these stories with mysterious sources... about gods, reincarnation, boddhisatvas, buddhas, etc.
how can we know that's true if even our own sources betray us?

i don't know anything except love.

for the things i don't know but might have suspicion about.
i try to keep my mind open but skeptic as well.

being skeptic has nothing to do with love, dont kid yourselve..

[rossus]

being skeptic has nothing to do with love, dont kid yourselve..
explain yourself mister

[astraltraveller]

to me reincarnation back to this planet now seems like a pointless process if we cannot comr back here to exsorsize our free will in line with what we need to do to perfect ourselves as peace loving empathic caring non materialistic beings . so i think it is up to us to clear the way for future generations to do just that and for ourselves if we reincarnate again .

i dont know what anyone will make of this link but i like the info and its up to the reader to make of it what they will .

http://www.illuminati-news.com/teenage-jesus.htm

[gold]

m25 (http://paginas.terra.com.br/arte/astrophotography3/clusters/m25.html)

How about M TWENTY FIVE?

[oceanwave]

Have you ever thought about the fact, that maybe, only maybe, that we die every day without really knowing it. Maybe! only maybe, we may PASSOVER without Knowing, to parallel dimensions.
For example; Say you went through an amber light? How do you you Know it was hit or miss, and how do you know you are dead or alive??:confused:
It has happened! Weird!!!!!!!!

John Lennon (Imagine) Am I a dreamer?

excellent thinking...

...i like it...

instant karma - john lennon

[gold]

excellent thinking...

...i like it...

instant karma - john lennon

Thanks oceanwave!

[eternal_spirit]

I think it would be like the M25:D:D
No serious, I think we all go back to the resource to be evaluated, for the next planet:eek: or rather the next episode;

...............

:D I'll have to wait till I get there to know if I'm coming back again. It's mystery! I was someone else before I was me, that someone else was me,
when me is gone I'll be someone else who is still me!

[gold]

...............

:D I'll have to wait till I get there to know if I'm coming back again. It's mystery! I was someone else before I was me, that someone else was me,
when me is gone I'll be someone else who is still me!

Nice one! But there is one question I always ask myself; If I've been here before, how can I find traces of my past selves or future selves come to that having been here, did I leave any trails or clues for myself to find me? or is it de ja vue's or dreams that can help us find ourselves?:confused::confused:

[asentinel]

Nice one! But there is one question I always ask myself; If I've been here before, how can I find traces of my past selves or future selves come to that having been here, did I leave any trails or clues for myself to find me? or is it de ja vue's or dreams that can help us find ourselves?:confused::confused:

Love the topic. It is fascinating. We all have our opinions and various fragments of memories or impressions. "Gold", I have a little mental file of connections which I will share, but as for certainty?, well until we go and find out, then it is too late to share the knowledge! Damn! Is this what makes it such an intoxicating topic?? The ultimate mystery.

Did you watch the video, little boy from Scotland, and the Research posted by the Dr. earlier. My description is vague because was trying to take it all in quickly. Well apparently I freaked my mother when I was small, she only told me about one incident when I was 3Yrs old when I said clearly, "I have to go to Scotland!" I am sure there were other things but as my parents were quite conservative and super controlling they tried to suppress all non-sanctioned information. She told me though that she thought I was going to be a still-birth as I did not move while in the womb. I am wondering if the soul can attach quite late in some cases, "a reluctant starter, as it were". When I went to school and learned the system of writing, my teacher said "you have done this before". (re the story of the memes?) I postulate that we might come through with memories of both our lineage, inherited from both family lines, and also some memory encoded from a life or lives or collection/soul memory, gained from a strong connection to a previous life.

I seemed to have a peculiar understanding from an early age that I had a choice whether to be a boy or girl, and was almost on some expedition to evaluate how the culture was in this strange new life. I felt like a traveller. An interloper. You see even language has come easy, and words tumble out freely at times. Sometimes I have to go to the dictionary and look it up to see that the nuance is so "spot on" to what I wanted to express. I remember speaking to a teacher once and she was telling me, "you speak in complete sentences, only, that is unusual". I was unaware anyone else was different. My mother used to listen to the radio and one day when I was maybe 3 or 4, I realised I could understand what they were saying, and it was some political speech, (not that they make sense!! I just understood the words and meaning).

I did have a strange aversion to, yet fascination with sharp objects like knives/swords. I love speed, movement and flying, driving fast. I have a connection to living in colder climates than I was born into. Love open fires. At one moment I can remember thinking, "why was I left in this outpost of a place". I liked all period clothing, sometimes very formal, and long swishing of garments around my ankles. I love beautiful fabrics. I love hats. I have a liking for walking sticks, grand umbrellas with carved handles. I love very ornate goblets and furniture. The furniture can be very heavy solid wood or metal with intricate carvings or details. The first time I picked up an calligraphy ink pen, I was in love with it, and using anything else feels primitive, like a stick. I have had a body reaction to sound of harpsicord. Music is a very stong switch. The sound of choir voices singing with or without music. I was once in a church in Belguim with some friends at Easter, and tears came rolling down my cheeks with the emotion of the experience. Cobble stone streets, stone houses. Candles. I once had a flat mate play a movie soundtrack of a period french movie, a single drum beat as a character was being sent for execution, I had a full-on panic attack and could hardly breathe. I have gone shopping and eg. picked up a necklace which I could not put down, it was a modern version of rosary beads, long strand of amber glass beads strung together with metal links, and the sound and feeling I got from holding it and knocking the beads together was familiar. I like clothing of both sexes, as in, traditional pieces belonging to both. My wardrobe has been more like a costume department.

I am sure my parents had information which I told them very early, but they would never say much. This frustrates me, however, as you can see, there is plenty to work with anyway. Once when I was having a massage treatment, I had a feeling of re-experiencing a death, felt like I left my body through my "face", as there was an injury around the rib cage/chest area. I have had a large mole removed from middle of my back, behind the heart. (re. the article about bringing through body marks on previous wounds)

Do not send men in white coats, just yet!

Oh yes I forgot, I was once booked onto an old pearling boat for a tourist trip, friend booked it unknown to me, and nearly everybody but me was seasick, and we were in very heavy seas, weather turned unexpectedly, quite dangerous. I was feeling so comfortable, I freaked myself out about it.

I went to Israel, Jerusalem etc. on a brief trip just to see the usual tourist spots. From the moment I got off the boat and onto our bus, I felt so heavy in my chest and whole body and I just wanted to cry. I felt the sadness and misery in the soil it seemed.

I am sure there at least a few movie scripts in there. Hope I didn't bore you.

[vienna]

The biggest conundrum I've had with the reincarnation theory is - why can't the spirit develop without the means of a body? - since we lose awareness once we incarnate (or lose awareness as we combine with mass and the material universe at a lower vibrational rate from the higher vibrational rate of the spirit) - if we have this full awareness in spirit form why can't we progress without the need for picking up a body?

to answer that I found this small paragraph in Manly P. Hall's THE SECRET TEACHINGS OF ALL AGES in 'THE SUN IN ALCHEMICAL SYMBOLOGY' chapter;

"When the alchemists stated that every animate and inanimate thing in the universe contained the seeds of gold, they meant that even the grains of sand possessed a spiritual nature, for gold was the spirit of allthings. Concerning these seeds of spiritual gold the following Rosicrucian axiom is significant: "A seed is useless and impotent unless it is put in its appropriate matrix. Franz Hartmann comments on this axiom with these illuminating words:"A soul cannot develop and progress without an appropriate body,because it is the physical body that furnishes the material for its development.""

[edit]

This axiom i finds as a very significant one: "A seedis useless and impotent unless it is put in its appropriate matrix."

tks
:)

[edit]

Reincarnation... as --- men of my counsel

[albie]

albie tell us more bro.

I was a sort of cowboy in a space station that floated on the sea. A big letter x shape to it. I recall being left behind by my family. Some sort of evacuation.

Then a dream about being one of those drummer boys that they send into war. I recall dying near a big craggy castle on a dark craggy hill top.
I think it was in Scotland. I don't know what side I was on.

Another dream about a pair of brightly decorated boots like what some Indian tribes wear. Maybe somewhere snowy.

Another about Robin Hood. Weird this one. He gets his head flattened into a spike (by a car?) and is buried in a bubble to later awaken.

I seperate these dreams from normal dreams because they stir up so much emotion.

Funnily, I found out later that Robin Hood is directly linked
to my area. In one of the stories Little John says he's from Holderness. Which is part of Hull and used to be a village on the outskirts. In the dream was an old mill that stands in Beverley, just north of Hull. The Beverley Minster was a place of sanctuary for criminals, and nobody could arrest them if they were in a certain distance.

But obvioulsy being albie I constantly debunk my own nonsense!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[albie]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/humber/content/images/2007/02/05/bev_westwood_470x353.jpg

Here's the mill in my dream. It was also the shape of Robins head after the crash.

Utter nonsense of course.

Probably.

[synergy777]

cool stuff albie. dreams are confusing, i think they come from stuff we read about, think about. i am not sure of the validity/accuracy of dreams. it could be the ego at play aswell.

as for robin hood, cool, i always liked old robin.stealing from the rich to give
to the poor.

also i'm thinking of leaving this stuff, give this one last week and thats it. off to pastures new, new opportunities, need to get this stuff out of my life and back into making dough/money. have great new opportunity/venture taking off next week, so i gotta focus on that. its been great, but its a hiding to nothing, imho.

i have learnt many things, i have also learnt that the source/most high is quite an absract/distant entity, and really only helps those who he/she chooses, so i gotta do what i have to do for me and my family. the new job requires lots of work/hours but the money is astronomical, so i haven't the time/energy for this anymore.

[joy division]

The point is to get sick of it and return home....

Bit of a stupid point though in it not?

Why would you need to do that?

If there is a overall creator, god if you will and he has decided on this well i think he is an arse.

[gold]

Love the topic. It is fascinating. We all have our opinions and various fragments of memories or impressions. "Gold", I have a little mental file of connections which I will share, but as for certainty?, well until we go and find out, then it is too late to share the knowledge! Damn! Is this what makes it such an intoxicating topic?? The ultimate mystery.

Did you watch the video, little boy from Scotland, and the Research posted by the Dr. earlier. My description is vague because was trying to take it all in quickly. Well apparently I freaked my mother when I was small, she only told me about one incident when I was 3Yrs old when I said clearly, "I have to go to Scotland!" I am sure there were other things but as my parents were quite conservative and super controlling they tried to suppress all non-sanctioned information. She told me though that she thought I was going to be a still-birth as I did not move while in the womb. I am wondering if the soul can attach quite late in some cases, "a reluctant starter, as it were". When I went to school and learned the system of writing, my teacher said "you have done this before". (re the story of the memes?) I postulate that we might come through with memories of both our lineage, inherited from both family lines, and also some memory encoded from a life or lives or collection/soul memory, gained from a strong connection to a previous life.

I seemed to have a peculiar understanding from an early age that I had a choice whether to be a boy or girl, and was almost on some expedition to evaluate how the culture was in this strange new life. I felt like a traveller. An interloper. You see even language has come easy, and words tumble out freely at times. Sometimes I have to go to the dictionary and look it up to see that the nuance is so "spot on" to what I wanted to express. I remember speaking to a teacher once and she was telling me, "you speak in complete sentences, only, that is unusual". I was unaware anyone else was different. My mother used to listen to the radio and one day when I was maybe 3 or 4, I realised I could understand what they were saying, and it was some political speech, (not that they make sense!! I just understood the words and meaning).

I did have a strange aversion to, yet fascination with sharp objects like knives/swords. I love speed, movement and flying, driving fast. I have a connection to living in colder climates than I was born into. Love open fires. At one moment I can remember thinking, "why was I left in this outpost of a place". I liked all period clothing, sometimes very formal, and long swishing of garments around my ankles. I love beautiful fabrics. I love hats. I have a liking for walking sticks, grand umbrellas with carved handles. I love very ornate goblets and furniture. The furniture can be very heavy solid wood or metal with intricate carvings or details. The first time I picked up an calligraphy ink pen, I was in love with it, and using anything else feels primitive, like a stick. I have had a body reaction to sound of harpsicord. Music is a very stong switch. The sound of choir voices singing with or without music. I was once in a church in Belguim with some friends at Easter, and tears came rolling down my cheeks with the emotion of the experience. Cobble stone streets, stone houses. Candles. I once had a flat mate play a movie soundtrack of a period french movie, a single drum beat as a character was being sent for execution, I had a full-on panic attack and could hardly breathe. I have gone shopping and eg. picked up a necklace which I could not put down, it was a modern version of rosary beads, long strand of amber glass beads strung together with metal links, and the sound and feeling I got from holding it and knocking the beads together was familiar. I like clothing of both sexes, as in, traditional pieces belonging to both. My wardrobe has been more like a costume department.

I am sure my parents had information which I told them very early, but they would never say much. This frustrates me, however, as you can see, there is plenty to work with anyway. Once when I was having a massage treatment, I had a feeling of re-experiencing a death, felt like I left my body through my "face", as there was an injury around the rib cage/chest area. I have had a large mole removed from middle of my back, behind the heart. (re. the article about bringing through body marks on previous wounds)

Do not send men in white coats, just yet!

Oh yes I forgot, I was once booked onto an old pearling boat for a tourist trip, friend booked it unknown to me, and nearly everybody but me was seasick, and we were in very heavy seas, weather turned unexpectedly, quite dangerous. I was feeling so comfortable, I freaked myself out about it.

I went to Israel, Jerusalem etc. on a brief trip just to see the usual tourist spots. From the moment I got off the boat and onto our bus, I felt so heavy in my chest and whole body and I just wanted to cry. I felt the sadness and misery in the soil it seemed.

I am sure there at least a few movie scripts in there. Hope I didn't bore you.

Interesting sentinel; I've just read it, I'm thinking about this!:)

[joy division]

And to the moderators pleas stop people pasting and copying long boring and space taking articles, can they just put a link if anyone wishes to read it.

Coug Cough EDIT.

[whitenight639]

And to the moderators pleas stop people pasting and copying long boring and space taking articles, can they just put a link if anyone wishes to read it.

Coug Cough EDIT.

you dont have to read it, we all free to post long articles if we want, they may be of interest to some, would be fascist to deny people of this right!

[joy division]

you dont have to read it, we all free to post long articles if we want, they may be of interest to some, would be fascist to deny people of this right!

I said put the links.

Why the stupid gangster dick avatar.

tut tut

[gold]

I said put the links.

Why the stupid gangster dick avatar.

tut tut

It's a lot better than the Invisible Man!

[joy division]

It's a lot better than the Invisible Man!

in your opinion

[gold]

in your opinion

Which I'm entitled to;

[clint web]

And to the moderators pleas stop people pasting and copying long boring and space taking articles, can they just put a link if anyone wishes to read it.

Oh yes, I agree wholeheartedly. A link is perfectly adequate.

[strider]

Oh yes, I agree wholeheartedly. A link is perfectly adequate.

My God, I'm agreeing with clint web.. what is the world coming to :D

Yes, these huge posts are insanely tedious, and insulting to be fair.

I tried to read this one but just couldn't get through it. I'll find my own links, and avoid this poster me thinks..

[whitenight639]

My God, I'm agreeing with clint web.. what is the world coming to :D

Yes, these huge posts are insanely tedious, and insulting to be fair.

I tried to read this one but just couldn't get through it. I'll find my own links, and avoid this poster me thinks..

i agree that long posts can be irritating and i dont read many that are long, but i like to be able to read/ see everything on the forum without having to go to other sites thru various links, its what makes this forum a great resource.

[strider]

i agree that long posts can be irritating and i dont read many that are long, but i like to be able to read/ see everything on the forum without having to go to other sites thru various links, its what makes this forum a great resource.

True mate.. But then you get to see the whole site that they are copied and pasted from..

Trust me, I visit loads of sites and could take over from synergy777 on the copy and paste king front..

But still, he's doing a good job and I'm sure there are people who are reading it. I'm not slanting synergy, just immensely long posts..:rolleyes:

[whitenight639]

True mate.. But then you get to see the whole site that they are copied and pasted from..

Trust me, I visit loads of sites and could take over from synergy777 on the copy and paste king front..

But still, he's doing a good job and I'm sure there are people who are reading it. I'm not slanting synergy, just immensely long posts..:rolleyes:

yer, i suppose it depens how interested you are in that particular subject, i can read pages and pages on free energy etc but cant spend that long on the what happened to maddie etc

[strider]

yer, i suppose it depens how interested you are in that particular subject, i can read pages and pages on free energy etc but cant spend that long on the what happened to maddie etc

Good point.. I'll butt out :D

[clint web]

My God, I'm agreeing with clint web.. what is the world coming to :D

:D It's a funny old world.

[snoopsnuffleopagus]

Cordial Felicitations! Synergy777:

Just stoppin by to say: Fare Thee Well!

It has been both an Honour & Pleasure to make your acquaintance.

Your Postings, though sometimes controversial, were always interesting.

Even though I may not agree with conclusions presented, I welcome fresh Perspectives.

You have been very generous.

Thank You & Bon Chance!, Kind Regards: Snoopsnuffleopagus

Addendum: Syn; Two Things.

I was amongst the Esoteric some years ago in the South of France,(Carcasson)

I was informed of many things: "The Beach of the Immortals"

And "Le Catedral DeLa Gaetan" A Spanish Guitar Piece never written down, taught by 'Transmission' Teacher to Student. It is said within the Music is the "Matematical Equation for Infinity".

Things to Ponder.

[gold]

Any body got anything to say about reincarnation? I was enjoying this thread!

[asentinel]

The biggest conundrum I've had with the reincarnation theory is - why can't the spirit develop without the means of a body? - since we lose awareness once we incarnate (or lose awareness as we combine with mass and the material universe at a lower vibrational rate from the higher vibrational rate of the spirit) - if we have this full awareness in spirit form why can't we progress without the need for picking up a body?

to answer that I found this small paragraph in Manly P. Hall's THE SECRET TEACHINGS OF ALL AGES in 'THE SUN IN ALCHEMICAL SYMBOLOGY' chapter;

"When the alchemists stated that every animate and inanimate thing in the universe contained the seeds of gold, they meant that even the grains of sand possessed a spiritual nature, for gold was the spirit of allthings. Concerning these seeds of spiritual gold the following Rosicrucian axiom is significant: "A seed is useless and impotent unless it is put in its appropriate matrix. Franz Hartmann comments on this axiom with these illuminating words:"A soul cannot develop and progress without an appropriate body,because it is the physical body that furnishes the material for its development.""

Yes, these are all elegant and beautiful words. Trying to get the point of the journey is not easy! Would any of us still be here if we have the definitive answers? We can only pose more questions than we have answers for. Perhaps the matrix is an intricate maze/labyrnth, with ever more levels/layers on top of each other. Our problems may all have arisen by getting in/falling in, initially? We may just be trying to untie knots of chequered experience so that we can hop out? Are these dreams/fragments of memories really ours, or vibratory dross picked up. Each of us must decide what we want to take from what we can reason and research for ourselves. Sometimes it is helpful to see what theories others are playing with?

Cheers, that's all I got this time!

[asentinel]

Any body got anything to say about reincarnation? I was enjoying this thread!

~they no like!!~

Thankyou for reading.

Cheers!

[hagbard_celine]

Ken Dodd once said he didn't believe in reincarnation because he couldn't bear the thought of coming back as a tin of milk! :D:D

[edit]

I said put the links.


Your DNA is Changing! (Part I)
BUMP (http://www.godlikeproductions.com/bbs/message.php?messageid=448316&mpage=1&showdate=10/10/07&forum=1)
Your DNA is Changing! (Part I)


ok , bump for this article and bump for david wilcock he is a really amazing guy , excellent info that he brings up in his site !

Pin this for the sake of evolution !




[link to www.divinecosmos.com (http://www.divinecosmos.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=360&Itemid=70)]

[bigus_dickus]

Your DNA is Changing! (Part I)
BUMP (http://www.godlikeproductions.com/bbs/message.php?messageid=448316&mpage=1&showdate=10/10/07&forum=1)

http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa164/illmas50/2h5tdvk1.gif

[gold]

~they no like!!~

Thankyou for reading.

Cheers!

They no like:( Well asentinel, I have thought about what you Quoted (The stuff that some can't be bothered to read) but try to join the dots to your insights and feelings about everything, maybe this is giving you the clues to find out who you are. I say this because, I have this strange feeling that we are able to converse with our selves in the past and the future that we have lived or about to live. I know this may sound strange, but I feel we can change our future and our past by communication with our selves?? Now my heads spinning, because this is something you can not explain by writing:confused:

[astraltraveller]

reincarnating as a dog or cat might not be so bad if you have a good owner who dresses you in clothes with pockets , then you could carry around a tin of mr dog in your pocket with choccy treats or that cat food that has pasta tuna and sweetcorn wich probably has less e numbers than our food and you wouldnt have to go to work and could lick your own privates .

[catfood]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article2194682.ece

[serpentoffire]

http://positivesharing.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/bureaucrat.jpg

[gold]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article2194682.ece

:D:D I'm in stitches reading this. So before long we will have to ask Gordon Brown's permission to reincarnate. Do they have that much control over the next life? If they have, I wonder if they'll be waiting for their taxes before we can either reincarnate or go to heaven:D:D If so I'm taking it all with me to be on the safe side:D

[serpentoffire]

:D:D I'm in stitches reading this. So before long we will have to ask Gordon Brown's permission to reincarnate. Do they have that much control over the next life? If they have, I wonder if they'll be waiting for their taxes before we can either reincarnate or go to heaven:D:D If so I'm taking it all with me to be on the safe side:D

Uhmm...pay for reincarnation.....nice idea....$$$$$$$$

http://european-convention.eu.int/images/Gallery/CONV2.jpg

[edit]

Dawn Mission Status: Spacecraft Tests Ion Engine (http://www.physorg.com/news111247254.html)



Sara-Ka-El
Re: Question. Is Destiny the... (http://www.godlikeproductions.com/bbs/message.php?page=116&showdate=10/11/07&messageid=424119&mpage=1)


Come Ye, Let Us Walk in the Light of the Law.

And I saw the Holy City,
And the brothers were streaming to it.
And the city had no need of the sun,
Neither of the moon to shine on it:
For the glory of God did lighten it.

And I saw the pure river of the Water of Life,
Clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God.
And in the middle of the river stood the Tree of Life,
Which bore fourteen kinds of fruits,
And yielded her fruit to those who would eat of it,
And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

And there shall be no night there;
And they need no candle, neither light of the sun,
For the Lord gives them light:
And they shall reign for ever and ever.

I have reached the inner vision
And through thy spirit in me
I have heard thy wondrous secret.
Through thy mystic insight
Thou hast caused a spring of knowledge
To well up within me,
A fountain of power pouring forth living waters;
A flood of love and all embracing wisdom
Like the splendour of eternal light.



The End.

[edit]

Anyone else here tired of working and paying bills ?
* <----star of destiny (http://www.godlikeproductions.com/bbs/message.php?messageid=448731&mpage=1&showdate=10/11/07&forum=1)

[edit]

Re-In-Car-Nation____http://i12.ebayimg.com/04/i/04/5d/26/fe_11.JPG
___http://www.energy.state.md.us/images/photos/hydrogen3_small.jpg
http://www.robinsonmotorsports.com/images/srf_img2.jpg

http://gazz.221616.com/img_u/album/42AB37D669821CC92E3385FB3F89D4C7/7271_200.gif

[edit]

http://www.respectvoormensenwerk.nl/Re-spect-logo-500x833.jpg

[edit]

[QUOTE]http://www.re-bound.nl/Images/LogoKlein%20Re-Bound.jpg[QUOTE]

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http://mediaprovider.kennisnet.nl/MediaProvider/img/79071.jpeg

[lydia78]

http://positivesharing.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/bureaucrat.jpg

LOL...so true of what they want to impose on us.