tag:longblacknight.com,2005:/blogs/thoughts?p=2Thoughts2024-03-23T22:11:18-07:00Long Black Night of Brilliancefalsetag:longblacknight.com,2005:Post/73715852024-03-23T22:11:18-07:002024-03-23T22:13:12-07:00No Fear<p style="text-align:justify;"><span>From Vincent Tolman’s </span><a class="no-pjax" href="https://www.amazon.com/Light-After-Death-Journey-experience-ebook/dp/B0BF1B6RVB/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1MQTIM3P1WHRK&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.5K18J2pH1-fBIEdAH5X-ULvehGylF47Grr2lhYWecJm4Te-mLl-xGHVtJihT7cWoMUri9OSykKS90QL88Ovmdk3pPu4oHPghjBQAZEJgPMCmm5Rb6pxfwGJ72IXg8PXmdzqBC7llXrNHSNH8xnYsz5Qv7lYlUh30tG9GnSDNncXs3DTP6hc7IaoApBFgYVgvL3jy2QXEH-7khnRQG9r0b6Y4jGS0L42O-adA7pU4ZR4.U2EfzJrIwGzm626lS3FSG5TBd4yBVaPZycpz6_GC_UE&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+light+after+death+vincent+todd+tolman+book&qid=1710950769&sprefix=the+light+after+death%2Caps%2C240&sr=8-1" target="_blank"><i><span><strong>The Light After Death</strong></span></i></a><span>:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><i><span> “Do You Believe in Magic?” Drake Asked.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><i><span> “What, like waving wands and saying speels?”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><i><span> He smiles. “No. That’s all storytelling. I’m talking about the essence of the word, its core meaning: having an extraordinary power to influence things in a way that defies mortal explanation.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><i><span> “Not really.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><i><span> “Then you don’t believe in miracles?”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><i><span> “Oh, yes. I do. But those aren’t magic. Are they?”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><i><span> “Not in the fantasy storytelling way, no. But there is a power that you can tap into that can seem like magic. Because you have a spark of divinity in you, you can use that spark to exercise the power of creation. In fact, you have that power available in the physical world. On Earth, can you create an entire building?”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><i><span> “No. All I’ve ever done is framing and finishing work. I don’t know anything about making a whole building.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><i><span> “You could if you really wanted to. … “Think about it. You can find an engineer or an architect and have them draft the detailed plans, right?”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><i><span> “Yes.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><i><span> “And then you could hire a general contractor. That person would oversee other people doing the construction until the building was finished.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><i><span> “But I didn’t actually build it.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><i><span> “Are you sure? You may not have made it materialize out of thin air, or even have pounded a single nail. But would that building exist if you did not first envision it? Or if you didn’t start the process that led to its completion?”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><i><span> “I guess not.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><i><span> “Making things in the physical world takes physical material and physical labor, but before any of that, it begins with a thought—a vision—and a desire to create something. Your thoughts are the first step in creation.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><i><span> “But that doesn’t seem like magic. It’s more like work.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><i><span> “Who said magic doesn’t require work?”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><hr><p style="text-align:justify;"><span>Listen to this woman’s experience regarding the power of thought—especially the power to </span><i><span><strong>overcome</strong> negative thought</span></i><span>. Do you have negative thoughts you’d like to overcome? When you harbor negative thought, it’s like filling your body and mind with a psycho-spiritual acid. It destroys. </span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span><o:p></o:p></span></p><a class="no-pjax" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcx7kliqzlI&t=25m" target="_blank"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/48784/6eb7a73e9c94cc8acb04dfcd9eeb66f4dbf401b7/original/image.png" class="size_l justify_center border_" height="352" width="523" /></a><p style="text-align:justify;"> </p><p style="text-align:justify;"><a class="no-pjax" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcx7kliqzlI&t=25m" target="_blank" data-link-type="url"><span><strong>Video starts at 25:00</strong></span></a><span> and runs for 12 minutes. Spoiler alert! You don’t “block” negative thoughts. You replace them with higher thought—positive thought. Crowded out of your mind, they leave.</span></p>Long Black Night of Brilliancetag:longblacknight.com,2005:Post/72491312023-07-28T19:25:57-07:002023-10-16T07:48:16-07:00A Message From The Angels<p style="text-align:justify;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/48784/88b9c9d2d0081f5270972c86d67f111af6c3b344/original/girl-running.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_xl justify_center border_" /><span style="color:hsl(0,0%,30%);"><span>We live in spacetime, a void of utter darkness punctuated by specs of radiation and mass…sojourning deep within this long black night.</span></span><o:p></o:p></p><p><span style="color:hsl(0,0%,30%);"><span>We live in utter brilliance, light beyond dazzling, so bright, so white it is a brilliance beyond a trillion suns…</span></span><o:p></o:p></p><p style="text-align:center;"> </p><p style="text-align:center;"><span style="color:hsl(0,0%,30%);"><i><span>Yet You Can Look Directly Into It With No Pain Or Trouble At All</span></i></span><o:p></o:p></p><p> </p><p><span style="color:hsl(0,0%,30%);"><span>Make no mistake…</span></span></p><p style="text-align:center;"><span style="color:hsl(0,0%,30%);"><i><span><strong>The Brilliance Within This Long Black Night Will Soon Be Manifest To All </strong></span></i></span><o:p></o:p></p><p style="text-align:right;"><span style="color:hsl(0,0%,30%);"><span>The brilliance is almost here.</span></span></p><p style="text-align:right;"> </p><p><a class="no-pjax" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EluiAGiLy0s" target="_blank" data-link-type="url"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/48784/995491003b466af0b4a65f96cf06c7b4d517432d/original/she-see-it.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_m justify_center border_" /></a></p><p style="text-align:center;"><a class="no-pjax" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EluiAGiLy0s" target="_blank" data-link-type="url"><span style="color:#105be0;"><i><span><strong>She Sees It Clearly</strong></span></i></span></a></p>Long Black Night of Brilliancetag:longblacknight.com,2005:Post/72248952023-06-11T17:22:51-07:002023-06-11T17:24:56-07:00Headset Theory<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/48784/f6807fc9e4859fa53c130fdecc0b0be724a93f70/original/light-brain.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><p style="text-align:center;"><a class="no-pjax" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWHYThrfRYU" target="_blank" data-link-type="url" contents="Headset Theory" data-cke-saved-href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWHYThrfRYU"><span class="text-huge"><span><strong>Headset Theory</strong></span></span></a></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span>On the 18<sup>th</sup> of January of this year I attended a Zoom event off the beaten path. Not a happy birthday, but rather a happy death-day. Yes! In all seriousness. And joy.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span>But what’s joyous about death?!</span></p><p><span> Well, what’s joyous about moving on from a baby’s bottle?</span></p><p><span> What’s joyous about graduation?</span></p><p><span> What’s joyous about seeing your children marry and start families?</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span>What’s joyous about looking back at ourselves and exclaiming, in embarrassed laughter,</span></p><p style="text-align:center;"><i><span><strong>How foolish! How childish!</strong></span></i></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span>I guess it’s two parts of pain for one part gain, because while there’s a lot there to make us blush, it’s monumental that at some point we gain the ability to actually bite, chew, and digest meat.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span>So CongracHiLashunZ! But now it’s time to move on. To where? I don’t understand even </span><i><span>this </span></i><span>place, other than to know that spacetime is doomed. And while that might sound funny, it </span><i><span>is</span></i><span>, but it is also true. How can I best explain?…Hmmmm…. You see, it’s like this.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"> </p><p style="text-align:center;"><a class="no-pjax" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWHYThrfRYU" target="_blank" data-link-type="url" contents="We’re Making It Up" data-cke-saved-href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWHYThrfRYU"><span class="text-big"><strong>We’re Making It Up</strong></span></a></p><p style="text-align:justify;"> </p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span>Although you will rarely hear it in the fossilized halls of academia, it behooves us to conceive our own conceptions, think our own thoughts, and to simply </span><i><span>know</span></i><span> that we exist. And that wouldn’t be the case were we inanimate chunks of matter.</span></p><p style="text-align:center;"><i><span><strong>But We Do Know It</strong></span></i></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span>We are </span><i><span>not </span></i><span>matter existing in spacetime. We are spirits </span><i><span>projecting </span></i><span>spacetime. Consciousness is </span><i><span>projecting </span></i><span>the manifold. Not the other way around. The “hard” question of AI is not, “</span><i><span>How does a machine become conscious?”</span></i><span> but rather,</span></p><p style="text-align:center;"> </p><p style="text-align:center;"><i><span><strong>How Does Consciousness Invent—From Whole Cloth—This Experience of Being Alive?</strong></span></i></p><p style="text-align:center;"><i><span>(along with the attendant tables & chairs and forks & spoons)</span></i></p><p style="text-align:justify;"> </p><div style="border-bottom:1.5pt solid windowtext;padding:0in 0in 1.0pt;">
<p style="text-align:justify;"><span>You can </span><a class="no-pjax" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWHYThrfRYU" target="_blank" data-link-type="url" contents="listen to Dr. Hoffman" data-cke-saved-href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWHYThrfRYU"><span><strong>listen to Dr. Hoffman</strong></span></a><span> from UCI tell you about it. Only eight minutes. Worth a listen. Worth a think. Because the world is undergoing a Great Awakening, and it is ideas like this—new perspectives that, </span><i><span>alas!</span></i><span>, acknowledge the nose on our face—that underpin this revolutionary inversion of our existence from fetid and habitual mortality to unending grace.</span></p>
<p style="text-align:justify;"> </p>
</div>Long Black Night of Brilliancetag:longblacknight.com,2005:Post/65086452020-12-27T11:49:44-08:002020-12-27T11:59:20-08:00A Truly Blessed Christmas<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/48784/863d38852a2a602f5ee7ff768adcca9e56c35d62/original/jesus-candles.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsImxhcmdlIl1d.jpg" class="size_xl justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">I don’t know…It seems that people are doing Christmas a little brighter and bigger this year. And why? </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Well, I have my thoughts, but they’ve been formed through so many years of rules and exceptions and expectations and expectations broken, that I don’t really trust them. But here they are. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><span class="font_large"><strong>Spirit is Rising</strong></span></em></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Yeah. That’s it. Ok, it’s only one thought. That’s the sum total of what I’m talking about. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Of course, the devil is in the details. And this thing has its details. But I’ll spare you and get right to it. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>You have to think for yourself. </strong></em></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">That’s the crux of it. Tie your faith to something eternal and then think for yourself. Which involves listening to others and to “experts.” But it doesn’t involve idolizing them. </p>
<p>Listen, did you know that if you were sitting around a large table holding, oh, 15 people… </p>
<p> …and they were admiring a painting on the wall, and they, one by one, gave comments on the beauty of its rich red colour… </p>
<p> …and then your turn came; then did you know the odds are very high you will also gush over the artwork’s rich red colour? </p>
<p>Even though there is not one speck of red on it. It is an ugly greenish-yellow colour, and decidedly not beautiful? </p>
<p>It’s a classic experiment that I clearly remember reading about in Psych 101. </p>
<p><span class="font_large"><em><strong> Perception is not reality. </strong></em></span></p>
<p><span class="font_large"><em><strong> The map is not the territory. </strong></em></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">You <em>really are</em> Plato’s cave-dweller watching shadows cast on the rocks. And they aren’t reality. One thing is for sure… </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong><em><span class="font_large">Nothing is for sure…especially Science and the Conventional Wisdom </span></em></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">So, when you are told things that are prima facie inconsistent, false, hypocritical, or otherwise tainted, you should immediately recall… </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a contents="Watch AwakenWithJP...Solid Gold! " data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O9ltm_Gml0" target="_blank"><span style="color:#2980b9;"><strong><em>Watch AwakenWithJP...Solid Gold! </em></strong></span></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large">...<strong>You</strong>, in alignment with God’s will, are in charge of your life. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large"><strong>Not the Schools </strong></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large"><strong>Not People in Black Robes </strong></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large"><strong>Not Medical Experts </strong></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large"><strong>Not the Police </strong></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large"><strong>Not the Government </strong></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Your God-given liberty is free. It’s not given to you by your leaders. It’s not even guaranteed by the Constitution. It’s given by God. And like every innate capability of the soul, it must be exercised and defended. Or it will be taken away. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">But not by nincompoops and zealous busy bodies telling you that “wearing is caring” while hypocritically violating not only their own unsound and palpably self-contradictory restrictions, but also their oaths to first and foremost encourage and guard liberty… </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large"><em><strong>Not By Those Guys</strong></em></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">And not by soulless ghouls debauching the halls of government—the vote riggers, legalistic sophists, and greed-stained agents who publicly flaunt their contempt for decent people and their hatred of all things good… </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large"><em><strong>Not By Them Either </strong></em></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The only one who will take away your freedom is <strong><em>you</em></strong>. By complying. By being indifferent. By not thinking for yourself. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Our Beloved President Trump, for whom we should all each day be praying, has endured four years of the most brazen, aggressive, and transparently baseless campaign of vilification this country has ever seen. Voices quite openly state intentions to blacklist, hunt down, and refuse treatment to supporters. We are watching the demons we have allowed to infect our schools, our corporations, our churches, and our body politic, begin to feast. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">But I am heartened by this man’s fierce faith to never, ever, ever, ever give up. And to choose faith over fear. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">They win only when we accept loss. God has shown there is an infinite well of energy at our disposal. The lights of Christmas remind us that this portal from heaven to earth is really always open for the asking. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><span class="font_large"><strong>Take some time to celebrate Christmas. </strong></span></em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><span class="font_large"><strong>Turn off the electronic noise. Turn off that ugliness. </strong></span></em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><span class="font_large"><strong>Sing some carols together. </strong></span></em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><span class="font_large"><strong>Play a game as a family. </strong></span></em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><span class="font_large"><strong>Make the now the best moment it can be. </strong></span></em></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Yes, Christmas is a little brighter and bigger this year. You can even feel it in the gusty electric winds, heralding something pretty big. Earth shattering, even. You can see it in the lights. Each day it becomes ever more clear that </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>God is on the Move </strong></em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>Spirit is Rising </strong></em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>Reflect on that, and it Will Happen</strong></em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_xl"><em><strong>Merry Christmas</strong></em></span></p>Long Black Night of Brilliancetag:longblacknight.com,2005:Post/64204552020-08-29T20:54:30-07:002020-08-29T20:54:30-07:00Freedom or Enslavement<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/48784/885cf0261f7c6006fd389e6e0d8a2b694953cbf7/original/Original-Pic-Back.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsImxhcmdlIl1d.jpg" class="size_xl justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">We are living in epic times. Darkness’ strength is that it darkens and deludes. By delusion, it makes itself appear more ferocious and unstoppable than it is. But this, too, is its Achilles' heel. It is only an illusion, and has no protection from Light. Light, as in knowing that it is an illusion. It has no defense once its stealth is broken. It collapses like a popped balloon. That is our strength. That is the key! It is simply the meditation<strong>...</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large"><strong>On Earth as it is in Heaven </strong></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">I kid you not. Simple affirmation, meditation, repetition, and praying these mystical words will make it true. This is the power behind all chanting, whether it be Buddhist, Gregorian, or Vedic. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large"><strong>Because it Works! </strong></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">And all you have to do is work it. This means you can stop pouring your life down the drain of worry and useless activity. It means salvation is entirely within your hands. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>Jesus the Christ Teaches It </strong></em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>Gautama Buddha Teaches It </strong></em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>Lord Krishna Teaches It </strong></em></p>
<p>But you don’t have to assign a religion to it. You just have to ask yourself, </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><span class="font_large"><strong>How do I know that I exist and therefore am loved? </strong></span></em></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">When you can answer that, then you will see that everything is entirely possible, and that peace and happiness are available for the asking. Simply meditate on the words… </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large"><strong>On Earth as it is in Heaven </strong></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><span class="font_large"><strong>And just like that…It Works </strong></span></em></p>
<hr><p style="text-align: center;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/48784/8b3351ef74f3e5902a0a995eca7fbd63e8ae829a/original/freedom.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsImxhcmdlIl1d.jpg" class="size_xl justify_center border_" /><span class="font_xl"><strong>Some Things Need to be Said </strong></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Every once in a while people need to be reminded to quit deceiving themselves and to open their eyes. The epic events happening around us are real. There are real, violent lootings happening in many major cities across America, spearheaded by the Marxist/Communist sausage rolled around Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and the Democrat party. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The general unrest, however, is global in scale. That is because this is not a left-vs-right struggle (although it is). it is a Spiritual struggle. As it always has been since the beginning of time. We have laid before us a fairly obvious choice between two quite distinct futures. One, a path of increasing tribalism, sniping, and outright murder and mayhem masquerading as justice. The other, the possibility of the brotherhood of man America was always supposed to exemplify, based on a reliance and trust in God.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">I used to review books for a publishing company during graduate school, and they were the philosophical, metaphysical, and religious variety. Some of these were prophesy and mysticism, both ancient and modern. Some investigated Afterlife Experiences. Others were lessons or investigations into a variety of scripture and cultural epic, whether Christian, Vedic, Buddhist, or Hopi Indian. That was a decade before the dawn of the 21st century. They all foretold what we are now seeing. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">But nothing happens until it happens, and prophesy is not intended to be inescapable. It is critical to recite the mantra in the article above—often and with meaning and intent. We are told ... </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. </strong></em></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">And though taken from the Bible, it does not belong to any group, creed, sect, following, or religion. It is for all who seek it. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Please pray for and keep in mind President Trump and his family. And though he has been subject to a withering four years of intense and foul hatred, they aren't really after him. They are after you. He's just in the way. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Even in ordinary times it is prudent to prepare oneself with extra food, water, and some means of defense. An epically historical election is about to transpire. With built-in epically historical fraud. And the Democrat party announcing beforehand that it will not concede. These times are not ordinary by any means. It would be prudent to prepare.</p>Long Black Night of Brilliancetag:longblacknight.com,2005:Post/62963902020-04-27T16:26:48-07:002020-04-27T16:33:34-07:00A New Angel Among Us<p style="text-align: justify;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/48784/cf22cc40ef3b1f63059d40865fc9d4dd03760484/original/newangel.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsImxhcmdlIl1d.jpg" class="size_xl justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Take a look around you. Have a listen. I think a lot of what you’ll hear is fear. It seems to be coming from all corners these days. Whether it’s a virus, or a shooting, or the sexual dysphoria in which the schools baste our children. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>All for the empty promise of safety, when you think about it. </strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Safety from economic failure, safety from being unliked, safety from being offended. At such a high price, too! And what do you receive from it? Mr. Franklin spoke truthfully when he said, </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong><em>Those who compromise their liberty in return for the promise of safety shall receive and deserve neither.</em></strong> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Is any of this sinking in during the lockdown? Is any of the greed and avarice of the elitist core of banksters, techno-tyrants, and hateful <em>“Do as I say and not as I do”</em> Toleratti coming through? We’re just too comfortably numb. Can’t take our minds off the big game, free goodies, and <em>The Kardashians</em> just long enough to bleat out recognition that we are sheep led to the slaughter. </p>
<p>My website is, at its core, an investigation into the simple truth that </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large"><em><strong>We are not humans having a conscious experience. </strong></em></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large"><em><strong>We are spirits having a human experience. </strong></em></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Yes, all the conundrums fall away when that is recognized. When we turn down the fear, tune out our rulers' voice and tune in our Master's Voice, the Gordian Knot slips and falls open upon the ground. It's magic, and you know how to do it. Because all the problems, we made for ourselves. And all the anger, we made for ourselves. And all the pain, we made for ourselves. At that very moment we recognize what we reconnect with the Divine, the bad dream just sort of folds camp and disappears. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong><span class="font_xl"><a contents="Listen to Ben’s Story" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=8&v=hBgI8W5xf4A&feature=emb_logo" target="_blank">Listen to Ben’s Story</a> </span></strong></em></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><a contents="The Near Death Experience" data-link-label="Afterlife Experiences" data-link-type="page" href="/afterlife-experiences" target="_blank">The Near Death Experience</a> is about as close as you can get to the core of the reactor without being the core of the reactor. <em><strong>But we are the core.</strong></em> We’ve been told this in so many different ways. Whether is be through the Vedic scriptures, the Bhagavad-Gita, the Jewish Torah, the teachings of Gautama Buddha, the New Testament of Jesus the Christ, or the Book of the Hopi. They teach the same truth. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large"><strong>Yes they do. </strong></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">But you have to dive deep to see this. Really deep. Guess what? Many of us have! And they bring back good news! </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">It’s not just good…It’s Great. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">But it’s hard to explain. Ineffable is the word that is constantly used. And sometimes nightmarishly hellish. Yes…<em>that’s</em> for real. But always for the purpose of pointing the soul back to the Ineffable. The Bible calls it Love. God is Love. And if Jesus ever said that He was God, then He meant that He was Love. And that only through Love will we return to our rightful kingdom. Interestingly, a large percentage of NDEs are returned with the message, </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large"><strong><em>“Tell them to Love one another." </em></strong></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">I think Jesus had something really big there. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Take a good look around you, how far we have fallen because we have forgotten whence we came. Yup. It’s that simple. Remember it. Honor it. And the vileness simply withers and falls away. And you get to see clearly. More clearly than you ever have before. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_xl"><em><strong><a contents="Listen to Ben’s Story" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=8&v=hBgI8W5xf4A&feature=emb_logo" target="_blank">Listen to Ben’s Story</a> </strong></em></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Listen to what he saw one day at school. Listen to his question at the end. It’s rhetorical. But it might get you thinking. Ben passed away about a week after he made this video. So he knows the answer. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong><em>So please watch. <a contents="And please read" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.nderf.org/Experiences/1ben_b_nde.html" target="_blank">And please read</a>. </em></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">You could see something that just might change your life. I hope it does. Yours and everybody’s. </p>
<p>Jp </p>
<p>www.LongBlackNight.com </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">P.S. I put a lot of effort into these newsletters. I think they bring an extremely important point of view not often heard, but more and more coming out into the open. And, as with all things, it's very difficult to catch people's attention. I hope you find the content interesting. If you do, please share on social media or via email or word of mouth with a friend or relative. Thank you. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">P.P.S. Have you ever had an experience that made you think outside the conventional wisdom and reconsider what this "reality" really is? Have you ever witnessed something that defied logic and earthly rationality? To which there could only be an explanation involving higher powers? </p>
<p>I am compiling such experiences, including some of my own. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a contents="Please Share Your Story" data-link-label="Share Your Story" data-link-type="page" href="/share-your-story" target="_blank"><span class="font_xl"><strong><em>Please Share Your Story</em></strong></span></a></p>Long Black Night of Brilliancetag:longblacknight.com,2005:Post/62860672020-04-17T20:21:19-07:002020-04-17T20:25:39-07:00Awakenings From the Light<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/48784/06a7f500ed125ef0da45947dad3df68950721eac/original/awakenings3.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsImxhcmdlIl1d.jpg" class="size_xl justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">This time I’m bringing you the afterlife experience of Nancy Rynes. Why? Because I want to. I feel called to do it. Maybe someone out there needs it. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a contents="Watch the Afterlife Experience of Nancy Rynes" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VM9wcYvnCc" target="_blank"><span class="font_large"><em><strong>Watch the Afterlife Experience of Nancy Rynes</strong></em></span></a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">You know, in looking back over my newsletters I’m really impressed with the quality I bring you! I wish more read it because I’m trying to bring a message. And it’s 100% true and real. And it’s 100% beautiful and will save your soul. Why wouldn't you care about your soul? Because if your not bowing to God, then your bowing to the clergy administering the state religion -- the “experts” that tell you just how long you'll stay locked up and to whom you'll pray when it's all over. That never ends well. Read a thing called history. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">I met and spoke with Nancy Rynes at the 2016<a contents=" IANDS" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://iands.org/" target="_blank"> IANDS</a> (International Association for Near Death Studies) conference in Florida. I felt like I already knew her because this stuff is like my back yard. It’s what I’ve thought about and dwelt upon my entire life. Didn’t say much, didn’t “interview” her. But I could feel her inner warmth. You learn things when you’re up there. And you come back utterly changed. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">In her book, <a contents="Awakenings from the Light" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1508453748?tag=duckduckgo-ffab-20&linkCode=osi&th=1&psc=1" target="_blank"><em>Awakenings from the Light</em></a>, she gives the details around her bicycle accident that led her to the operating table that led her to heaven. For four and ½ minutes she died on that table, but time doesn’t exist up there. To her it felt like forever. That’s often the description given. In that 4 ½ minutes of forever, beings of light—Yes! Beings of Light!—welcomed her. But they had a message for her. And this message came in what Nancy later wrote out as “awakenings” they spoke and showed to her to bring back to us. For example, did you know you are supposed to love your life? Weird, huh?! Did you also know you are supposed to quiet your soul to listen to Spirit? That Spirit talks when you listen? That Spirit actually tells you what you should do in order to fix everything? You have to listen. That’s called prayer. Yeah, prayer is listening as much as it is talking. You know what? If you want to get the other awakenings, you can buy the book. You have to show you’re interested, otherwise God sort of says, <em>“Ok, my cute little fool. I’ll just go in the other room while you screw up everything. It’s called free will. I hope you come around. Soon. It’s a limited time offer."</em> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large"><strong><em>Our World is Entering into a Transformative Change</em></strong></span> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Don't pretend you don't see it. I have had so many messages from Spirit over the last, oh…30 years. And they are coming fast and loose now. Look at what is happening in the world right before your eyes! Hey Sherlock, there’s more to it than just a virus. But you have eyes. You have ears. You have a brain. Use them. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large"><strong>Wake Up!</strong></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">I’d like to thank my sister for giving me her “story of the supernatural.” Please <a contents="send me your story of the supernatural" data-link-label="Share Your Story" data-link-type="page" href="/share-your-story" target="_blank">send me your story of the supernatural</a>--any occurrence in your life that you see as being beyond a purely materialistic matter-and-energy explanation. I’m compiling them. <a contents="You can read about one of mine here." data-link-label="Share Your Story" data-link-type="page" href="/share-your-story" target="_blank">You can read about one of mine here.</a> You may or may not think much of it, but it sure made an impression on me. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a contents="Please Share Yours as Well " data-link-label="Share Your Story" data-link-type="page" href="/share-your-story" target="_blank"><span class="font_large"><strong><em>Please Share Yours as Well </em></strong></span></a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Anyhoo…I wish I could reach more people with this newsletter. I’m thinking of opening a YouTube channel. It’s not clear what I would say or do. I wish more people were interested in what’s really important, rather than the gibberish being spewed forth masquerading as wisdom. But our world no longer knows wisdom. It knows the Fed, the CIA, the WHO, the CDC, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN and all those "experts" that get it wrong so often, over and over. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large"><em><strong>Our World is Entering into a Transformative Change </strong></em></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>People really, really, really should wake up. People really, really, <em>really</em> should wake up. </strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Please share this newsletter with a friend. Or an enemy. I don’t care. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Idiotbox, or just, <em>“Hey, friend...let me tell yah the story of a guy named God…”</em> Whatevs. It’s a message worth sharing. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large"><strong>So What Are You Waiting For?</strong></span></p>Long Black Night of Brilliancetag:longblacknight.com,2005:Post/62805942020-04-12T18:16:12-07:002020-04-12T18:19:28-07:00Do They Know...<p style="text-align: center;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/48784/b0754480b1436610af63970ccf4065227660bf9a/original/0411202313.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><strong><span class="font_xl">...It's Easter </span></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong><span class="font_large">...a celebration of freedom and rising from our mortal state. </span></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>And why wouldn't anyone want this? </strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Regardless, it will happen. It is <em>not</em> religion and so does not depend on one’s religion. It is science, but it is not matter-bound. It was demonstrated by Jesus the Christ. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">But that’s not the Good News. Let me restate that. That <em>is</em> the Good News. But here’s the <em><strong>Great News! </strong></em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong><span class="font_large">So Shall We All </span></strong></em></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Don’t be so quick to dismiss what you cannot see and touch. You may, in fact, be looking through the eyeglass in reverse. This is not only for “Christians.” This is not only for “theists.” </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">But, alas, this is not for everyone. The gift is free, but receiving the gift costs...belief. Yes…It’s that simple. That which we hold to be irrevocably and eternally true is where we eventually “go.” If you believe in Truth, believe in Justice, believe in Love—which is merely another name for God—then you go to Truth, Justice, and God. If you do not, then you do not. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">But you don’t soul-sleep. I’m talking to you, Mr. Atheist, Mr. Scientist, Mr. Cold Steel and Logic. I’ll show you right here, right now, that cannot be the case. I’m a mathematician, so buckle up. </p>
<p><strong>Proof From Magically Coming Alive </strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><em>You were dead forever…and then you came to life! So, you are being quite presumptuous in positing that once you die you just “disappear.” A fair-minded scientist would agree that, hmmmm, it certainly could be the case that we go on. A fair-minded scientist with a smidgen of curiosity would recognize his position isn't very tenable.</em> <strong>Q.E.D.</strong> </p>
<p><strong>Proof From Recognizing You Are Alive</strong> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Gee, let me see here…Am I alive? Yeah, try asking yourself that question. If you answer “No,” keep going back until you get the right answer. Now, since you recognize you are, in fact, alive, then you immediately recognize that this You inside of you cannot be due to the matter of which you are made. No, it really can’t. Keep going back until you get that answer correct. Ta DAAA!! What the heck is that *spark* inside that is ALIVE? Uhhh…Hello! That’s MAGIC. You had better retract your position.</em> <strong>Q.E.D. </strong></p>
<p><strong>Proof From People Who’ve Been There, Done That </strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Since the dawn of time people have experienced Afterlife Experiences, where they travel out of their bodies, usually because of some grave injury or fright, and go to a place that can be described as heaven. There, they learn tremendous things and converse with God, Jesus, angels, and other “light beings.” Their lives are often changed dramatically when they return. They now know a truth that is so simple, yet so difficult for others to hear. They bring back a joyous message. But you’ve been told it so many times, you should know it by now. No! Not by me! The universe has told you these things many times already. Listen. </em><strong>Q.E.D.</strong> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">If you have been paying attention, you can see this is not religion. It is logical, though. So you have no excuse. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><span class="font_large"><strong>If You Are Alive, Pray, and Pray Often. It is as necessary as drinking water. </strong></span></em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><span class="font_large"><strong>If You Have Children, Teach Them to Pray. </strong></span></em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Jesus really doesn’t like it when adults mess up kids. Don’t tick Him off. </strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">And take some time—regardless of your religion, beliefs, or non-beliefs—to consider this spring day. Consider why Easter is celebrated at the opening of the earth's fecundity. Consider it as the Song of the Lord, reminding us we do not die. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">My family will celebrate tomorrow by filling the eggs in the picture with something fun and hiding them around the house for the kids. I think we have some real eggs we can color, too. And then we'll sing some worship songs together on YouTube. The paper Easter Lily is a school project my daughter made. Putting it into a vase of golden bullets was my son's contribution. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">I hope you can find time today to rest and not worry. Just shut your eyes for a minute and reflect on the fact that you’re alive. How does that happen? But when you begin to realize the implications, then you begin to understand that the truth is before your own eyes and has never been hidden. Then you will appreciate and believe in the life, the joy, and the eternal bliss that is the promise of Easter. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large"><em><strong>He is Risen. So Shall We All.</strong></em></span></p>Long Black Night of Brilliancetag:longblacknight.com,2005:Post/62581922020-03-22T09:24:33-07:002020-03-22T10:26:57-07:00Just Around the Corner...<p>The battle between Good and Evil is real. This realm was delivered unto the Prince of Darkness to try to fool humanity. What would we choose? But that decision has already been made. We are the light that must send the darkness scurrying. We can be that light, and God intends for us to be that light; and because God intends for it, it will happen. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large"><em><span style="color:#2980b9;"><strong>Don’t doubt yourself. </strong></span></em></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color:#2980b9;"><strong>If you perceive it, then it exists! It’s like that old saw, the first thing you guess on a test question is statistically the correct choice. Don’t double-think it. </strong></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/48784/b48020afdece99439a92750d68c0e3e500cb726d/original/waves-copy.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" />Satan isn’t allowed to touch you—the<em> real</em> you. Not the simulated matrix in which you pretend to live out a human life. But he is allowed to spook you. To introduce doubt. To fiddle with your <em>faddle</em> and make you do the injustice to yourself. </p>
<p><strong><a contents="Watch this man’s story" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi3e16JY6UM&t=233s" target="_blank">Watch this man’s story</a></strong>. It is absolute gold (but not for children). </p>
<p><strong><a contents="Read his book" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.amazon.com/My-Descent-Into-Death-Second/dp/0385513763/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=howard+storm&qid=1584894650&s=books&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Read his book</a></strong>. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Howard Storm died in 1985...And then came back to tell us what he experienced on the other side! </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">His near death experience is one of the most intense and prolonged ever recorded. And he was told—and shown—that we are on the cusp of a rebirth. We can see the change happening now. So instead of moping and sobbing, why not rejoice that you are now part of the rebirth? Why not make it happen? Don’t trust your fear. Trust your…<em>trust</em>. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">In the renewed world he was shown, less than 200 years away, we will be at peace and will deal with each other with open honesty. We will live and let live. Our powers of healing, of traveling, of sustaining will be at a level as near to mortal perfection as possible. Growing vegetables will be as simple as focusing one's life’s force—qui—on the plants desired to be brought into maturity within hours! We will still become depressed at times and will still say our goodbyes, but it will be with a welcoming acceptance that God's promise will be fulfilled.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">So you don’t believe it? Or you neither believe nor disbelieve? Well, doesn't matter. Pull yourself away from the bullchip of<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/48784/c80b059ec23d0cf226077f0c8b5997f607f9d33d/original/secrets2.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_right border_" /> life and spend quality time to <a contents="watch the video" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi3e16JY6UM&t=233s" target="_blank">watch the video</a>. If you’re a total knobhead it will turn you into a smoother and more likable knobhead. If you’re already a smooth knobhead, it will turn you into a more agreeable bobble-head. If you’re already a bobble-head, it will get you to quit shaking your head and focus on what’s real. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font_large"><span style="color:#2980b9;"><strong>Listen to the man himself. </strong></span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color:#2980b9;"><em>It’s easy. If you want to make it a fight between you and God…God wins. It’s that basic notion of compound growth. You share love with two people, maybe a smile, maybe just a portion of patience… and it makes an impression on them that lasts their entire lives. Then they share love with two other people, and so on and so on. That kind of growth is unstoppable in the long run. God wins. </em></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">So don't be so estupido! Life will be awesome in 200 years! Set your clocks. If you really want to believe in your immortality, you only need to stop pretending not to recognize the 60 gazillion ton universe standing in the room next to you inside your head. You are consciously alive, and you became alive after you had already been "dead" forever. Tell me how that works.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color:#2980b9;"><strong><span class="font_large"><a contents="Watch the video" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi3e16JY6UM&t=233s" target="_blank">Watch the video</a>. </span></strong></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color:#2980b9;"><strong><a contents="Read the book" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.amazon.com/My-Descent-Into-Death-Second/dp/0385513763/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=howard+storm&qid=1584894650&s=books&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Read the book</a>. </strong></span></p>
<p><span style="color:#2980b9;"><strong><em>Unleashing this knowledge on the world begins the final battle.</em></strong></span> And…yeah…We’re starting it.</p>Long Black Night of Brilliancetag:longblacknight.com,2005:Post/57663812019-05-24T00:05:25-07:002023-05-26T08:49:32-07:00A Teacher's Lesson<p>A friend and I used to joke back when we worked in the UCI Cancer Biosimulation Lab that statistical methodology in research papers was so often misapplied that it made an old joke appear legitimate in comparison. You know… </p><p><i>There’s a guy named Jim, who’s a good worker, and a guy named Joe, who’s not. A naïve reading of statistical correlation recommends that the simple solution to improve efficiency is to have Joe change his name to Jim. Duh! </i></p><p>We can become rather confused about which the road and which the map, and then myopic in substituting the symbol for the reality. So how do we tell “the real thing?” </p><p style="text-align:justify;">I read recently a thougtful teacher’s consideration of the question, </p><p style="text-align:justify;"> </p><p style="text-align:center;">“How do we know we are true Christians?” </p><p> </p><p><strong>And, the answer, of course, is that we know we are being true to the image of God by our love for each other.</strong> That was Lord Jesus’ highest commandment, after all. </p><p>It helped me personally, as I began investigating afterlife experiences, to learn that often experiencers are urged (by God, by Jesus, or simply beings of light) to “…love them.” There’s something very real about this. And what is real is that there is a fundamental energy field – call it what you wish – of which all things are transient incarnations that eventually return to Source. St. Paul describes this field in <a class="no-pjax" href="https://www.biblestudytools.com/1-corinthians/13.html" target="_blank" data-link-type="url" contents="1 Corinthians as “Love.”">1 Corinthians as “Love.”</a> </p><p>So that all makes sense to me, and I’m grateful for the principal’s reminder. It has become more apparent to me that Spirit does answer some prayers decisively and in one’s favor. Please work on saying some yourself and teaching your children the same. It could be the most critical lesson of our entire existence – not just the part we spend here.</p>Long Black Night of Brilliancetag:longblacknight.com,2005:Post/57663802019-05-24T00:03:50-07:002019-05-24T00:03:50-07:00Wistful Reflection<p style="text-align: justify;">I recently visited a fellow musician’s website to listen to his work and offer words of encouragement. I was greeted by an uncomplimentary depiction of a man whom I invest with a great deal of my trust and for whose well-being I earnestly pray: President Trump. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;">So was the unflattering depiction edgy? Risque? </p>
<p style="text-align: center;">No. Just a turn off. Don’t much feel like visiting the artist again. </p>
<p>What can I say? </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">It’s not cool to keep bashing a class of people for their beliefs, hopes, and fears. It’s not cool for a major political party within the American government to foment discord, distrust, jealousy, and anger. It leads to the scapegoating of an entire class, upon whom the rest of society is encouraged to vent its frustrations. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>It leads to war. </strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">In exactly the same way it led to the war begun by the Nazi Regime of Germany. You know, it’s instructive to see how the people of the Weimar Republic saw the inhumanity around them, yet increasingly accepted it as normal and even salutary. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">But we enjoy our bread and circuses, Mmmmm. Maybe because it’s our last meal if people do not wake themselves up from their soporific stupor. We're losing everything due to our indolence. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Lord Guatama told us, “If there were a serpent in your home, you would not sleep, you would not rest, you would not cease searching until you found the serpent and drove it out lest it bite and kill you.” </p>
<p style="text-align: center;">And what of a serpent that kills the soul? </p>
<p style="text-align: center;">Far worse, I should think. </p>
<p>Is it obvious why atheism is the law of the land, taught in schools and enforced in the public and corporate square? Because if people discovered they were spirit and not mere machine, then the chains would drop clean off. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;">Bad for business. </p>
<p>But really, when I look at the man in the mirror I hear a million voices say </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em>Evil triumphs when good people do nothing. </em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em>Evil triumphs when good people do nothing. </em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em>Evil triumphs when good people do nothing. </em></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Ok, it may not be much, but I’m trying to waken people. I’m trying to awaken people. I’m trying to do something. I'm trying to awaken people. </p>
<p> We didn’t use to be like this. </p>
<p> We didn’t used to live in fear like this. </p>
<p> We didn’t used to live in anger like this. </p>
<p>Not like this. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">We used to have belief in something higher in a place where true mercy and justice would be dispensed once and for all. Call it God, call it the Afterlife, call it Truth, call it Love, call it Krishna, call it Jesus. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;">Evil triumphs when good people do nothing to stop it... </p>
<p style="text-align: center;">When the ones praying for darkness pray more often and fervently than the ones praying for light... </p>
<p style="text-align: center;">When the ones who could stop it expend no energy to become aware. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;">When the "good people" lose faith and therefore simply watch instead of offering even a whispered wish that could awaken the sleeper. </p>
<p>It’s not that hard, but it does take effort.</p>Long Black Night of Brilliancetag:longblacknight.com,2005:Post/56484272019-02-18T06:55:32-08:002020-11-13T23:56:09-08:00When the Bough Breaks<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/48784/494308e33f9dd4686fb283cf077b1e28d91d4a48/original/bough-of-flowers.png/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsImxhcmdlIl1d.png" class="size_xl justify_center border_" /></p>
<p><span style="color:#4e5f70;"><strong>Did</strong> <strong>you know that</strong></span> </p>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color:#4e5f70;"><span class="font_large"><strong>Mythology is Simply Truth Disguised as Fiction? </strong></span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Yes, when I was in high school, a teacher taught me that poetry is simply prose rich in meaning and imagery. In the same way, mythology is truth disguised as fiction. You have to be flexible with interpretation. Logic can bend yet remain true. Images, names, and people are not required to be “factual” in order to be true. It’s difficult to know just where reality ends and imagination begins. And in fact, many great modern minds believe we are in a “matrix” – a simulation of sorts. Near Death Experiences show that this is, indeed, the case. Reality is built so that time and age blur the edges so you’re never sure where one begins and the other ends. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Many people have had a glimpse of what lies beyond, and it is entirely beyond description. In what are known as Near Death Experiences (NDEs) people have consistently recounted the following: </p>
<ul> <li style="text-align: justify;">A sense of timelessness – that time ceases to have meaning </li> <li style="text-align: justify;">A sense of vastly sharpened 360 degree vision, despite sometimes having no body and existing as a “ball” of energy. </li> <li style="text-align: justify;">An immediacy of communication, where thought forms manifest with crystal clarity and no possibility of misunderstanding. </li> <li style="text-align: justify;">Intensely loving experiences and communication with “Beings of Light,” including angels, other risen people, Jesus, and God. </li> <li style="text-align: justify;">A deep sense of belonging and of peace and of “coming home” from which one does not wish to depart, but is either forced to or is convinced of. </li> <li style="text-align: justify;">The unshakable conviction, upon returning, that what one experiences is real—more real than ordinary reality, which compares as a dream. </li> <li style="text-align: justify;">The consistently repeated and emphasized message that our entire purpose is to love—God, the world, our lives, and one another. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Some are given only the briefest of glimpse, yet their lives are changed. Others are given the “grand tour” of the universe wherein all things are explained right down to the meaning of life (expressed simply as “To love”). They are not allowed to bring back their knowledge because it would make it impossible for them to live. And they are told they must return because they have not finished “their mission.” </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large"><strong><a contents="Jesus Speaks With an Attempted Suicide" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.nderf.org/Experiences/1ashli_ndes.html" target="_blank">Jesus Speaks With an Attempted Suicide</a></strong></span> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Some experiences go the opposite direction, but it seems that these experiences are used to save souls by showing them “The Ghost of Christmas Future.” </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large"><a contents="God Intervene’s to Save Addict From Hell After Overdose" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOhOynR9Jxg" target="_blank"><strong>God Intervene’s to Save Addict From Hell After Overdose</strong></a></span> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">When Jesus says, “You are healed. Your faith has saved you. Go in Peace,” He’s not saying that you’ve passed a test and should grab a piece of candy on the way out. He means precisely that—Faith Saves. And heals. And works miracles. Because we are of a Spiritual Fundament, temporarily masquerading in the third dimension-plus-time as matter. Matter does not cause life, thought, feelings, I-Am-Ness…It simply dances with it…for a short while.</p>Long Black Night of Brilliancetag:longblacknight.com,2005:Post/54308512018-09-16T11:41:46-07:002018-09-16T12:14:55-07:00Not a Dream<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/48784/fe9ba1b983606dccedf45c0ec04303f5edeeb0d2/original/pursuit-of-happiness-by-aquasixio.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Although my website is nominally a “music” website, there is something deeper that comes with it—some source from which the music arises and is inspired by and to which the music gives voice. I don’t mean talent, practice, or compositional prowess. I’m referring to a far deeper well. The one whose waters rise up and out of your eyes lending the conscious “I Am” to your flesh. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">It’s a curious circumstance that there are those who, in full and undeniable sight of their own “Am-ness” nonetheless cling to the fantasy that this arises from the countless neuronal impulses zipping through their brains and bodies—that the “illusion” of being alive is just that: an illusion arising from a system of lifeless matter that performs this sleight of hand through sheer complexity. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">As a mathematician and scientist, I know firsthand that breaking through to a new level of understanding comes about when ancient and fossilized prejudices are shattered. But before they can be shattered they must be recognized, and this is a far reach for the vast lot of humanity. Things that were whispered to us in childhood, “truths” that just seem obvious, and conceptions that are just that—<em>maps</em> of reality rather than reality, itself—these are the Potemkin villas of a comfortably numb life. And the human heart, its heroic demonstrations of mercy and compassion notwithstanding, is a hard, hard substance addicted to both comfort and numbness. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">When prejudices <em>are</em> recognized and then questioned—when deep and subconscious beliefs that form the very core of our existence are exhumed for honest examination, then too is the façade of reality made visible. It’s like returning to a child’s ride at Disneyland as an adult and marveling how in our childhood innocence we had so easily believed the props and lights a mere meter below to be grand, twinkling cities and magical lands far beneath the sea of stars in which we flew. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The nature of our true existence and what follows this mortal coil is a deep and ineradicable quest of the human spirit. Despite the fact that no one will dare mention it at work. Despite the fact we are bullied by political correctness into “keeping it to ourselves.” Despite the fact that the surest way to lose all credibility and face with friends and acquaintances is to talk about anything deeper than the latest iDrug. Somewhere in that hard, hard heart still pulses our supple and vibrant true nature. After the working hour in the failing light when we are alone, our inner Buddha peaks cautiously out and whispers the eternal question. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">If I may offer one extremely pivotal key to this mystery—one vantage that can flip the entirety on its head and thereby utterly transform understanding—it is this: Do <em>not</em> ask how matter (the brain) can give rise to consciousness (the inner <em>feeling</em> of being alive). Ask instead how consciousness can give rise to matter. Do <em>not</em> ask how material causes can produce perceptual effects, for the question is backwards. We live in an electromagnetic <em>field of energy that masquerades as matter</em>. Our physical brain does not produce thought and feeling, but rather is a transducer of <em>a priori</em> thought and feeling into physical manifestation. This is much as it is in the case of radio. A radio <em>does not produce</em> the shows and songs one hears; it <em>transduces</em> them from the wave-filled ether which they already inhabit along with thousands of other wave-packeted energies. Likewise, the events witnessed in the material realm do not create the motivations that drive them or the satisfactions that follow. Quite the opposite, as is easily verified by a moment’s reflection. Cities are built, airplanes fly, and trains run as a result of the thought that first expressed a desire they do so. <em>Thought creates reality.</em> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Expressed more generally: Spirit is primary. Matter is spiritual condensate. This is thoroughly in contradiction to the core prejudice that nearly all of us absorb into our psyches very early in life. It flies in the face of the atheistic materialism modern foolishness is founded upon. But this foundation is crumbling and will soon entirely collapse. Despite the censoring by our technological overlords, Google, Facebook, Apple, et al., there are signs that more and more of humanity is awakening. It is doubtful that this can be stopped in spite of the awesome and enormous mass of authoritarian tyranny committed to snuffing and then burying it. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">I don’t put this forward as a matter of faith. As a mathematician and scientist I am interested in truly understanding and knowing at the deepest levels—not inventing doctrine. I want evidence, and the evidence is abundant, first and foremost in one’s own experience: <em>You exist</em>, not as a blob of skeletally supported goo, but <em>as a felt consciousness</em>. There is <em>something alive</em> inside your body that is <em>not your body</em>. Elementary and obvious…and altogether ignored by most. You say you don’t believe in life after the body’s passing, yet you are a statistical experiment that has yielded a 100% confirmation rate to that very proposition. You think that you live briefly, suffer much, then die—forever?! Yet you were already dead before you were born—forever! And still you just popped up one day and here you are! One experiment, one success. That’s a 100% confirmation rate. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">But maybe such evidence appears as mere semantic sleight of hand. It is too close to reach out and grasp, much as with the fisherman catching minnows while standing atop a whale. Other evidence abounds. How could it not, as truth expresses itself holographically in every corner of existence. Numerous people have experienced the realm beyond this and have retained not only the knowledge of their “near death experience” (NDE) but also its <em>felt reality</em>. For many years—decades—afterwards! It is an experience that defies the “use by” date of most memories and remains fresh to the point of bringing tears to the eyes of those who recount them. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The depth of NDEs varies, but certain elements occur often across the spectrum. Feelings of absolute peace, separation from the body, and communication with other beings are common. A life review in which not only are events seen but also <em>felt</em> from multiple perspectives simultaneously happens often. Sometimes the choice of whether to return to earthly life or to remain is offered, along with a depiction of what would likely happen in both cases. Most people return to this life as changed beings for the better. Sometimes psychical gifts are imparted, and they are not always welcome. One near death experiencer gained the ability to hear people’s internal conversations. She found it most unpleasant, as many people entertain anxious and depressing thoughts. Would you like to be flooded with such conversation on a daily basis? A belief in God or in some spiritual existence often replaces prior staunch atheism or strengthens and reshapes belief. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">But, jp, <em>how do you know that these aren’t anything other than illusions and hallucinations?</em> After all, drugs can produce grand effects and cause people to hallucinate that they are talking to the Christ or even God. And this is an excellent question. People like physicist, <strong><a contents="Neil deGrasse" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5qEBC7ZzVQ" style="" target="_blank">Neil deGrasse</a></strong>, and researcher, <strong><a contents="Susan Blackmore" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo39jZJJFXE" style="" target="_blank">Susan Blackmore</a></strong>, offer the explanation that these experiencers never actually die. Instead, their brains release endorphins, which accounts for the peaceful feeling, and the light-sensitive cells of the retina shut down from edges first, accounting for the oft-reported tunnel of light. “And where do many of these NDEs occur?” asks Mr. deGrasse. “In a hospital while lying down on an operating table. And what is usually above an operating table shining down upon them? A bright light!” And thus the mystery is explained, or at least we may be confident that these opening shots are the beginnings of a complete understanding through further plausible reasons that apparently no one else had the mental acuity to make. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">But the devil is in the details. Upon further handling, the veneer of plausibility is easily scratched and ruined by facts that are extremely difficult to package in the made-to-order story of the old paradigm. Like the case of <strong><a contents="Pam Reynolds" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNbdUEqDB-k" style="" target="_blank">Pam Reynolds</a></strong>. She had an operation for a brain aneurism in which her <em>heart was stopped and the blood was drained from her body.</em> Earbuds delivering <em>loud</em> periodic 100+ dB bursts of sound (to verify brain non-response) were inserted into her ears and taped over. Pam proceeded to have one of the most profound NDEs recorded in which she saw and heard many details about the operation and later <em>accurately</em> recounted them. She described the tools used and the conversation between the doctor and nurses. And no, she had not seen the tools beforehand or seen them out of the corner of her eye at some point. They were covered until she was all the way under and were covered again before she was awakened. Throughout the surgery she had <em>no blood in her brain</em> and indicated <em>no neural response</em> to the mechanisms that checked for this, yet she heard and saw everything. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Or the case of <strong><a contents="George Rodonaia" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8j2g-IsBPQ" style="" target="_blank">George Rodonaia</a></strong> who was killed by the KGB (or so they thought). <em>He was dead enough to be sent to the morgue</em>, where he remained for one day before awakening right as his autopsy was beginning. His was a deep and intense experience in which he traveled throughout the hospital and communicated with a baby who would not stop crying due to a broken arm. No one knew this, and yet, after George awakened, he told them and they, indeed, verified and cured the baby’s broken arm. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Or the case of <strong><a contents="Anita Moorjani" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://anitamoorjani.com/" style="" target="_blank">Anita Moorjani</a></strong> who fell into a coma after a 4-year struggle with cancer. In that coma <em>she witnessed her brother board a plane from India</em> to come pay his last respects. She <em>saw her family gathered</em> in a completely separate room of the hospital, mourning her imminent passing. But she didn’t pass! She awakened and proceeded to completely heal in the fantastically short time of two-three weeks. Her doctors were absolutely amazed, yet they could find no trace of the cancer and even cut her therapy short. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">How do you explain such things by saying it was the bright hospital lights or endorphins flooding the brain? You can’t! For people who don’t want to believe or even consider, they will always simply discount everything. “No, it never happened. It’s just made up. If it were real, everyone would know about it.” Really?! So if the world were really round instead of flat, people would know? Why didn’t they? And if leeches were just medicinal quackery, everyone would know? Then why didn’t they? And if the earth weren’t really the center of our solar system, let alone galaxy, then everyone would know? Why didn’t they?! The real quackery is the conventional wisdom handed down by the fossilized institutions of medicine and health, like the FDA, CDC, and AMA, we elevate to demigod status. People are easy to fool because people want everything to be easy, to be free, to require no thought, to be neatly packaged and predigested so they never have to learn how to graduate from infant’s pabulum. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">If you are interested in this topic—and you <em>should</em> be—then below are some good references. You can also watch <strong><a contents="my favorite NDE cases here" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://longblacknight.com/afterlife-experiences" style="" target="_blank">my favorite NDE cases here</a></strong>. You’re not going to be in this realm forever. However, you are going to be somewhere forever. Shouldn’t you have some interest in where that’s going to be, considering forever is a really long time? </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="font_large"><strong>NDE Resources</strong> </span></p>
<ul> <li style="text-align: justify;">
<strong><a contents="Life After Life, by Dr. Raymond Moody (1975)" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.amazon.com/Life-After-Bestselling-Investigation-Experiences/dp/006242890X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1537116984&sr=8-1&keywords=life+after+life+moody&dpID=516%252B1q215QL&preST=_SY344_BO1,204,203,200_QL70_&dpSrc=srch" style="" target="_blank">Life After Life, by Dr. Raymond Moody (1975)</a></strong> – Raymond Moody is the “father” of the modern Near Death Experience movement, and his pioneering work transformed the world, revolutionizing the way we think about death and what lies beyond. It is the groundbreaking study of one hundred people who experienced “clinical death” and were revived, and who tell, in their own words, what lies beyond death. </li> <li style="text-align: justify;">
<strong><a contents="Life After Life Institute" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://lifeafterlife.com/" style="" target="_blank">Life After Life Institute</a></strong> </li> <li style="text-align: justify;">
<strong><a contents="AfterLife Experiences" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://longblacknight.com/afterlife-experiences" style="" target="_blank">AfterLife Experiences</a></strong> – Watch videos of experiencers detailing their unforgettable experiences that have taken some to the heights of heaven and others to the depths of hell. Hear what they have learned and witness how their lives have been permanently changed. At some point it becomes inescapable that there is something very real going on here that cannot be brushed aside with conventional explanations. </li> <li style="text-align: justify;">
<strong><a contents="Demystifying the Out of Body Experience, by Luis Minero" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.amazon.com/Demystifying-Out-Body-Experience-Exploration/dp/0738730793/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1537117586&sr=8-1&keywords=demystifying+the+out+of+body+experience+luis+minero&dpID=51Bb9DuTh8L&preST=_SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch" style="" target="_blank">Demystifying the Out of Body Experience, by Luis Minero</a></strong> – This book is a cogent, lucid explication of conscientiology (the study of consciousness) and extraphysical dimensions, styled with a substantial moral tone. Luis Minero is gifted with clarity, and this features in his many books, interviews, and videos (easily found on YouTube). Exercises and guidance are provided in achieving lucid dreams and out of body experiences. </li> <li style="text-align: justify;">
<a contents="Awakenings From the Light, by Nancy Rynes" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.amazon.com/Awakenings-Light-Lessons-Death-Experience-ebook/dp/B010MBT4QC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1537118428&sr=8-1&keywords=awakenings+from+the+light" style="" target="_blank"><strong>Awakenings From the Light, by Nancy Rynes</strong></a> – Nancy Rynes is hit on her bicycle one day by a truck, thus precipitating a years’ long journey of healing punctuated in the early days by one of the more profound NDEs ever recorded. Her life has never been the same and you will find real guidance in this book. </li> <li style="text-align: justify;">
<strong><a contents="nderf.org" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://nderf.org/" style="" target="_blank">nderf.org</a></strong> – Near Death Experience Research Foundation. Here you can read hundreds of experiences submitted since 2003 from around the world. Or you can submit your own. As I said, there’s lots and lots of research on NDEs going on these days, and interest is only increasing. </li> <li style="text-align: justify;">
<strong><a contents="iands.org" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.iands.org/" style="" target="_blank">iands.org</a></strong> – Yup…Lots and lots of research, articles, conferences, and the whole nine yards</li>
</ul>Long Black Night of Brilliancetag:longblacknight.com,2005:Post/53471162018-07-15T08:35:28-07:002018-07-16T07:06:12-07:00We Wrestle Not Flesh<p style="text-align: justify;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/48784/d23a425b1ec75e3909883b92181fc78bc90fd2ec/original/field-v2.jpg/!!/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsImxhcmdlIl1d.jpg" class="size_xl justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Recently, I have had the opportunity to talk about, or at least mention, Near Death Experiences to various people I’ve met—often in the context of a recent loved one’s passing. Many people “have faith,” and their religion teaches that there is an afterlife, but I find that having more immediate knowledge lends an advantage. And that immediate knowledge is brought to us by people who have been to the other side and returned, i.e., those who have “died,” typically under some trauma like a heart attack or electrocution, or under great stress where death is thought to be imminent, as in the case when some have fallen from great heights, yet survived. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">NDEs sometime last for only a few moments, sometimes for minutes, and, in at least once case, for more than a day. Not that time is recognized like this by the experiencer, for it is consistently reported that “time ceases to exist” or “becomes meaningless” when in that realm. In fact, things are so different in that realm and leave such a powerful impression that the life of the experiencer is often changed, and changed for the better. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">200,000 Americans report experiencing NDEs each year, and over 4,000 world-wide accounts have been submitted to the <a contents="Near-Death Experience Research Foundation" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.nderf.org/Archives/NDERF_NDEs.html" target="_blank">Near-Death Experience Research Foundation</a>. (Read some of these!) When you consider the remarkable similarities of the experience despite widely varying religious and cultural background, that’s quite a few jam packed stadia of people that, nearly to the man, woman, and child, swear the experience was more real and more meaningful by far than the current reality. Quite a few experiencers cry for weeks or even months afterwards, pining for their personal loss of nirvana, upset over having to have come back. On this side of eternity, friends, family, and associates often, with some embarrassment, attribute the experience to hallucinations or delusions brought about by a reaction to anesthesia or the ever spinning imaginations of the hypoxic brain. The lesson is quickly learned to not say too much, lest a <a contents="Flatlander" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.amazon.com/Flatland-Romance-Dimensions-Edwin-Abbott/dp/1508474184?SubscriptionId=AKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q&tag=duckduckgo-ffab-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1508474184" target="_blank">Flatlander</a> be accused of believing in third-dimensional beings. Spouses (Spice?) withdraw, ministers dismiss, and neighbors gossip. It’s not the kind of thing people want to admit. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Which I find fantastically strange. I, myself, have experienced similar disapproval when I mention the topic to people (which I only do when the speaking context admits a possibility). It’s bizarre that, given most people maintain at least some remnant of religious belief that we continue on in much improved bodies in a much improved world. If so many people already believe, then why wouldn’t they want to hear the science and empirical data behind it? It’s mostly good news, for Goodness’ sake. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Yet people sport a stubborn streak. We have big brains, and for precisely that reason there’s a lot of momentum in that organ keeping us focused today on what we focused on yesterday, and guaranteeing that the morrow brings us the same prejudices we’ve reinforced today. For all the talk of “thinking outside the box,” laziness wins the day. We believe what we’ve been told, we mumble what we’ve memorized, and we know well enough not to let the mask slip in front of our peers. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">But for the experiencer of an NDE, the mask must slip. It must be taken off entirely, for the traveler has seen things he cannot now forget, and he knows things he cannot express. Dr. Raymond Moody’s seminal <a contents="Life After Life" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.amazon.com/Life-After-Bestselling-Investigation-Experiences/dp/006242890X?SubscriptionId=AKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q&tag=duckduckgo-ffab-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=006242890X" target="_blank"><em>Life After Life</em></a> lists common characteristics of NDEs, among them being </p>
<ul> <li style="text-align: justify;">an out-of-body experience often with super-heightened “360 degree” awareness; </li> <li style="text-align: justify;">feelings of great peace and well-being, of finally coming home; </li> <li style="text-align: justify;">sensing or actually meeting other loving beings variously described as angels, guides, holy figures like Jesus, and even God Himself, in the guise of the wise and bearded old man, from whom is obtained great knowledge and insight; </li> <li style="text-align: justify;">a life review presented in a “living filmstrip” of the actual reality of the memory, warts and all. This is experienced from everyone’s point of view simultaneously. All the happiness and pain we’ve caused in others is now ours to experience. </li> <li style="text-align: justify;">a return to life with a deeply changed perspective, energized appetite for life, and utter loss of fear of death. Some even return with clairvoyant and psychic gifts that, as often as not, become burdens rather than liberation. </li> <li style="text-align: justify;">a profound sadness and sense of isolation having to live in this world while knowing there is a much more real home where we belong </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;">This is not to say there are no bad experiences, for there are plenty involving hell and damnation. Reports of these are of a changed life after having experienced a most dark and deep fear, and then utter gratitude for being "returned to sender" for one more chance. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">I have collected my <a contents="favorite recounts here" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.longblacknight.com/afterlife-experiences" target="_blank">favorite recounts here</a>. There is a science to these experiences that points to a much higher dimensional reality than the one in which we are temporarily imprisoned. Not the science of hypoxia and delusion, for each one of these experiencers will attest that the world he visited is exceedingly more real than this “dream” we now play act. All signs point to an eternal existence whose one and only foundational element is unqualified Love, and made real entirely through belief. In fact, belief is the key determinant of everything, including in the temporal world. “As you believe, so shall you become,” is the law of the land…<em>all</em> the land. We inherit what we have maintained faith in. If that is good, we inherit God (no accident the words are similar); if that is bad, then it was our choice. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">So, again, I’m surprised by people’s shyness regarding the topic. The flock instinct demands allegiance to the conventional wisdom. Things that are obviously true are, like the water in which the fish blithely swim, too obvious to perceive. But there is a sea change coming in which the poles will shift and human thought will permanently change…for the better. Keep your eyes and ears open, because you will hear increasingly more about near death experiences. Listen carefully, as they hold a most welcome key to your joy and freedom.</p>
<p>jp</p>
<p>July 2018</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">P.S. The beautifully peaceful scene above is original artwork by Andy Peng, a friend's son. It is like a dream I had, rich in soft yet vibrant colors, as if the world were made out of colored cotton. I think it's possible...</p>Long Black Night of Brilliancetag:longblacknight.com,2005:Post/48531762017-09-16T08:15:43-07:002022-04-16T03:04:37-07:00On the Afterlife<p style="text-align: center;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/48784/30e1462300a4459e3d3f292faf69de955e69f6ae/large/afterlife1.jpg?1505582648" class="size_xl justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color:#3498db;"><span class="font_xl"><em><strong>On the Afterlife </strong></em></span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">I make no apology for it. I study Near Death Experiences, or NDEs. I find them— as Mr. Spock would say—fascinating, and urgently credible in what they are telling us. I urge you to pay heed as well. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">It isn’t religion, it isn’t illusion, it isn’t superstition. It’s neither up nor down nor anywhere in particular, but everywhere all the same. People actually experience death and return to tell about it. And there are wondrous similarities amongst their experiences so as to strongly point to some utterly mindblowing simple liberating truths. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Some choose to reject the obvious, often under the guise of “science,” and go on pouting like brats angry with their parents. It’s just as obvious that there is more to life than matter. There is also spirit. Indeed, there may only be Spirit. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Here…it’s easy to see in this video of Richard Dawkins titled <strong><a contents="Sex, Death, and the Meaning of Life" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2rnFy0iMNE&list=PLwYIGNqofApTyV4BkuNmJ_MHGQQn4Xh0T" target="_blank"><em>Sex, Death, and the Meaning of Life</em></a> </strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="color:#3498db;"><span class="font_large"><strong>My, But Materialistic Atheism Looks Delicious </strong></span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Richard Dawkins is a world-renowned evolutionary biologist who propounds the idea that evolution, and therefore life, is driven by the gene’s desire to replicate. Sort of a general purpose explanation of life in coldly mechanical terms. In cosmological physics Steven Hawking proffers a similar idea that gravity explains everything. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Unsurprisingly, many modern scientists and philosophers conclude there is no Spirit. It’s all material. Everything can be accounted for by matter and energy. Dawkins, himself, is militantly atheistic. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a contents="Watch Richard Dawkins in Sex, Death, and the Meaning of Life" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2rnFy0iMNE&list=PLwYIGNqofApTyV4BkuNmJ_MHGQQn4Xh0T" target="_blank"><span style="color:#3498db;"><em><strong>Watch Richard Dawkins in </strong></em><strong>Sex, Death, and the Meaning of Life</strong></span></a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><a contents="" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2rnFy0iMNE&list=PLwYIGNqofApTyV4BkuNmJ_MHGQQn4Xh0T" target="_blank"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/48784/ffbdfab4a489ee630527a466ebb4c07b1ea66711/medium/sex-death-and-meaning-of-life.jpg?1505584365" class="size_m justify_center border_" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">If genes with a lust for replication explain the evolutionary trajectory, and if primordial gravitons account for the satisfaction you feel at having eaten a hamburger for breakfast last night, then, well…yeah…they’re kinda right. Matter explains everything. There is no Spirit. There is no Big Boss, no Cosmological Carpenter, no Big Dude, no God. You just one day *pop* into existence, then one day *pop* back out forever. And the “you” that you feel while alive is just your imagination… Right? </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color:#3498db;"><strong><span class="font_large">Uhh, Houston…We Have a Problem</span></strong></span> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Hold the phones, Jones…Back it up, Jack! There’s a problem with that—a really BIG one. Matter doesn’t feel anything, so why does the matter making up my body—more particularly, my brain—make me feel things? More centrally, why do I feel anything at all if I’m just a machine? What is it about the stuff I’m made of that endows me with a sense of “me-ness” that the metal and plastic of a car doesn’t? </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">You can think all day long about that and you won’t come up with an answer. Because no matter how you arrange lifeless matter—elements 1 through 152—you can’t make it feel things—especially that it’s alive! It’s a non-sequeter. It’s a non-starter. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font_large"><span style="color:#3498db;"><strong>Puzzle Me This… </strong></span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The materialistic explanation of everything says that when you die you just evaporate and are heard from no more. So you’re going to die once and stay dead forever, right? That’s odd, because before you were born you already were dead forever…Yet here you are. And if it happened once, dontchathink it could happen again? And if it could happen again, maybe it happens a lot. Maybe the real “me” doesn’t die but just continues on and on and on and on …. Do you really think that even all the smartest minds in the world hooked up in series know enough to rule out the possibility? </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color:#3498db;"><span class="font_large"><em><strong>Yes, Virginia, There is a Heaven </strong></em></span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">And it’s not only possible, it’s pretty likely. It’s the one hypothesis that explains why we all carry about within us this deep quest for home. A home that, by the way, numerous, numerous, <em>numerous</em> people have gone on to visit and then returned to continue their ordinary lives among us. Yet they are utterly transformed by the experience. It is known as a “near death experience,” or “NDE,” and it not infrequently happens on operating tables, in car accidents, and in situations where the intensity is enough to knock you out of your socks. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">NDEs cast deep doubt on a strictly materialistic explanation of our universe and our lives. Instead, they—nearly to the case—point to a spiritual existence far greater and far more real than what we dimly perceive in this present form. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Most NDErs report a wonderful sense of peace and love, and an overwhelming sense of returning home. Almost all report an out of body experience where they sometimes exist as “pure energy” with extremely enhanced vision and hearing and mental comprehension. <em>Extremely</em> enhanced. There’s super surrealistically beautiful light a thousand times brighter than the sun that fills everything but doesn’t hurt at all to look directly into. Often they encounter and speak with deceased relatives who look in their prime, but also discover that they “know” all these people in heaven—intimately like immediate family. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Upon returning to their earthly lives, bodily trauma and cancer and disease is not infrequently healed from catastrophic states to “like new” in miraculously short time. Fear of death vanishes. Sometimes psychic phenomena manifest from the individual—bulbs and computers blowing out, reading of minds, foreknowledge of events. Very often previous doubt or atheistic bent is washed away by a deep sense of knowing. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The materialist perspective claims this is an illusion of the dying, hypoxic brain (just like you, yourself are). Yet confirmation of veridical out of body perception thoroughly disproves this. There are volumes of cases of distant seeing, hearing, and knowing that have been corroborated by empirical evidence. In short, you have to twist the argument into a pretzel involving dying brain tissue giving rise to an entirely coherent, conscious, hyper-real experience with eyes taped closed, ears plugged, fully anesthetized with blood halted and drained. Yeah, you can follow that logic over Donner Pass, but it’s not for me. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">NDEs provide a rich mine of information regarding the afterlife and our spiritual nature. The following are two interesting ones I picked out to share. You can find them and many others on my <a contents="Afterlife Stories" data-link-label="Afterlife Stories" data-link-type="page" href="/afterlife-stories" target="_blank"><strong><em>Afterlife Stories</em></strong></a> page. </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a contents="Nancy Rynes NDE - Atheist goes to Heaven" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VM9wcYvnCc" target="_blank"><em><span class="font_large"><strong>Nancy Rynes NDE - Atheist goes to Heaven</strong></span></em></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a contents="Yolaine Stout -&nbsp;A Suicidal Near-Death Experience and What it Taught Me About Life" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMfjM6TrkV8" target="_blank"><span class="font_large"><strong><em>Yolaine Stout - A Suicidal Near-Death Experience and What it Taught Me About Life</em></strong></span></a></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font_large"><span style="color:#3498db;"><strong>Deeper Than a Worm</strong></span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">There’s this hilarious scene in Dawkin’s video—hilarious to me—where he’s talking to some poindexter perfesser of similar washed out, pruned soul persuasion, and sez, <em>“Well of course, we’d have to ‘feel’ ourselves like that in order to be an efficient machine.”</em> That’s his ‘splanation of why we are under the illusion we “feel” ourselves alive. Because the machine needs it to function! </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Can I get a Big <span style="color:#3498db;"><span class="font_large"><em>DUH!! </em></span></span></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">This has been Richard Dawkins... over and out. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Ok, so like, if you’re still with me and you’ve read to the end you can number yourself among a small human minority that can honestly tell its children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren that , </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><span style="color:#3498db;"><strong>Yes…I’ve Thought Deeper Than the Level of a Worm About My Life </strong></span></em></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<hr><p style="text-align: center;"><em><span class="font_xl"><span style="color:#3498db;"><strong>On Trump </strong></span></span></em></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">I make no apology for it. I support Donald Trump. Not for the man, but for the ideas and principles he is fighting to restore to America and, since I’m a big-hearted guy, to the world. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Populism is popular, and there is an uprising afoot. We are not fighting flesh but demonic principalities. And Spirit’s angels are amongst us on our side. Soul-dead creatures seize financial, political, cultural, and marshal reigns of power while the foolish masses (there’s a reason “assses” is the biggest part of that word) get drunk on bread crumbs and circuses. In our case, smart phones. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">But there’s an uprising afoot, and it ain’t just Donald Trump, baby. It’s you, me, and the deep blue sea, and the boom’s gonna drop pretty soon and pretty loud. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">So yeah, I support being neat, polite, demure, not boastful, kind, generous, strong, empathetic and rational and moral. And I oppose all the things that are easily distinguishable as pure evil and rot and hopelessness coming from a generation’s mind that has been stupefacted by its gluttony. The shutting down of free speech by violence. The locking and forcing of one’s conscience. These are things I oppose and will fight. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">If you have a brain like me, and more importantly, a conscience and a moral compass and an open heart and mind, please check out the following sites. A stable, strong, safe, encouraging environment for you, your children, theirs, and beyond—everywhere!—depends, believe it or not, on YOU.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font_large"><strong><a contents="Trump 4 All TV" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.trump4alltv.com/subscribe/" target="_blank">Trump 4 All TV</a> <a contents="West Valley Republicans" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.westvalleyrepublicanclub.net/" target="_blank">West Valley Republicans</a></strong></span></p>Long Black Night of Brilliancetag:longblacknight.com,2005:Post/44670902016-11-14T20:49:01-08:002021-01-24T01:09:43-08:00Beautiful Dreamer<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/48784/1027a8d2d8a8e11d0df600999f99a4d434919c37/large/lion-sleeping.jpg?1479274123" class="size_xl justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">We were put here to dream a beautiful dream. We knew we would again awaken. But such things are easily forgotten, and sweetly poisoned fragrance numbs the mind, the heart, the soul to sleep. Sweetly scented flowers ease the struggle to remember or believe. Still the evidence is inside our eye. We are dreaming…We are being dreamed. We belong to somewhere else. We know that intuitively.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/48784/4c89ac535a4f4bc9ff92d4dab26afeb7724fe1f4/medium/chld-to-mom.jpg?1479185121" class="size_m justify_right border_" />Spirit is on the move in many mighty ways! Something is happening. It is seldom that a Christ comes into the world. It is seldom that a Buddha appears. But indeed they come. You can hear their arrival in the deep political, social, and cosmic rumblings now shaking our world. The harbingers, both dark and light, resound. And just as our very selves and everything around us are carnal shadows cast by the Light of Absolute Purity, the Christ also is moved by compassion and arises from the very center of that Light to appear in the world of suffering. The Buddha is moved out of love to return to awaken the dreamer. Be awake! Be expecting! What incarnation of pure being is now preparing to manifest before our eyes to turn us from the precipice back to clear and clean simplicity and attraction?</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><br><a contents="Listen to Beautiful Dreamer" data-link-label="Beautiful Dreamer" data-link-type="page" href="/beautiful-dreamer" target="_blank"><em><strong>Listen to Beautiful Dreamer</strong></em></a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><br>Awakening to our spiritual root is the key to our salvation. It is the only way a world of peace and happiness can exist. Indifference to God is contempt of God. Nothing can survive in a spiritual desert. But in a spiritual <em>dessert</em> even the dead are raised back to life. And while our physical world cannot be perfect, it can and will be GOOD. This is the design God has intended, and Spirit gets what Spirit wants. And in our good world we will find that there is much more beauty, in strange and unexpected forms, than our previously slumbering minds could have envisioned. If that is true for this realm, what then must be true for the heavenly realms? </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">We were put here to dream a beautiful dream. We will one day reawaken. The Christ reminds us. The Buddha reminds us. The prophets remind us. The sun and moon and oceans and skies, in obedience to God, have it writ large: <br><br><br><em><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/48784/07210eb192e8a82775d95713f4d832063a69f664/original/moon-flyer.jpg?1479185299" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></em></p>Long Black Night of Brilliancetag:longblacknight.com,2005:Post/43391042016-08-23T21:15:42-07:002017-01-13T16:17:40-08:00Fearless<p><span class="font_large"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/48784/d0f19bde69971d3a3bc4d5a741457070d5d0d4f0/large/starrpoppe8.jpg?1471809541" class="size_xl justify_center border_" /><br><strong>What is an NDE?</strong></span><strong> </strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">As some of you know I recently went to a conference in Orlando on Near Death Experiences (NDEs). These are experiences by people usually under extreme stress resulting from bodily injury, a medical emergency or condition such as cardiac arrest or coma, or just an overwhelming situation. Many people have heard of occurrences, for example, where a person “dies” during an operation and views the scene from above. Things are seen and heard that later prove to be remarkably veridical (congruent with reality), and cannot be easily explained by traditional, materialistic understanding. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Although the experiences are never the same from one to another and across cultures, times, and religions, the following themes are recurrent: </p>
<ul> <li>Feelings of utter peace, bliss, acceptance, and love, absent all pain, irritation, and worry </li> <li>Feelings of hyperreality. Seeing, hearing, and feeling better than ever </li> <li>Feelings of having returned to one’s true home </li> <li>A beautifully inviting, consciously loving, mega-intense light brighter than 1,000 suns</li> <li>Other persons, beings, religious figures, deceased relatives, and angels </li> <li>A life review played in an ampitheatre or through physical revisitation </li> <li>A sudden remembrance that Love was why we came, and that this was home </li> <li>Upon returning, permanently heightened psychic and extranormal awareness </li> <li>Life transformation, from mild to magnificent </li>
</ul>
<p>And perhaps the most common theme is the complete loss of fear of death. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large">One Becomes Fearless </span></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/48784/6a487c443c5d81c9f9688ed5e332cb7ed7d9584f/medium/flowers-chalky.jpg?1471828707" class="size_m justify_left border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">One understands that this life is extremely brief, to be enjoyed fully in the moment, in the now, despite the attendant sorrows of physical existence through which we must struggle. There seems to be an indelible peace that the experiencer brings back that completely changes one's outlook for quite the better.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">To be sure, some experiences are the darkest of hells, places that experiencers come back to testify on, places that they would never wish on even their foulest enemy. Although literal descriptions vary, often being of fire and stench, the underlying theme is the heartbrokenness of knowing one has forever spurned Love and now exists in an infinite negative feedback loop of misery with like-minded souls. And these souls, would they just look up and call out to Spirit, would be free. Yet they won't. They are completely absorbed in their misery and in sharing their misery. Yet even those who have seen, felt, touched, and smelled these abominable depths often come back dramatically changed for the better with a renewed love of life, and with words of warning to those who have turned their back on Spirit. </p>
<p>I have collected <a contents="some of my favorite NDEs here" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.longblacknight.com/the-mirror" target="_blank">some of my favorite NDEs here</a> for you to view.<br><br><strong><span class="font_large">IANDS </span></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Although NDEs have occurred throughout history and throughout cultures and religions, we are now witnessing an increased tempo of reports. Dr. Raymond Moody is considered the father of the modern NDE movement, having exploded the phenomenon into social consciousness with his 1975 groundbreaking classic, <a contents="Life After Life" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.amazon.com/Life-After-Bestselling-Investigation-Experiences/dp/006242890X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1472277954&sr=8-1&keywords=life+after+life+moody" target="_blank"><em>Life After Life</em></a>. Whereas before, near death experiencers tended not to report their experience for fear of ostracism and social estrangement, more and more they are coming forward. In 1978, the <a contents="International Association for Near Death Studies (IANDS)" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://iands.org/about/about-iands27/history.html" target="_blank">I</a><a contents="nternational Association for Near Death Studies (IANDS)" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://iands.org/about/about-iands27/history.html" target="_blank">nternational Association for Near Death Studies (IANDS)</a> was founded to meet the needs of researchers in the burgeoning field. Today it enjoys membership in every continent except Antarctica. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">So I did a little travelin’ to beautiful Orlando, FL to “meld with members of my species” at the IANDS 2016 Conference. As one six-time experiencer rejoiced, “It was a big lovefest!” I agree. Listened to, met, and talked to some pretty cool people, like <a contents="Nancy Rynes" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://nancyrynes.com/" target="_blank">Nancy Rynes</a> and <a contents="Anita Moorjani" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.anitamoorjani.com/" target="_blank">Anita Moorjani</a>. Really warm hearts in these women. Very approachable. They are spreading God’s Message. (It's a real simple one, oft repeated, somewhat trying to understand, extremely difficult to put into practice: Love God, love this world, love yourself, and love your neighbor like yourself. There's really only one word you need to memorize in this.<br><br>At the conference there were physicians, nurses, physicists, hospice caregivers, patients, philosophers, cognitive scientists, biologists, anthropologists, musicians, and just plain ol’ seekers of truth sharing the joy. I got to know four of them in particular. In a word…fascinating. (Thank you, Mr. Spock) <br><br>K had experienced something remarkable during a motorcycle accident that never happened. It changed his whole outlook on the nature of time. It also completely reprioritized his life, and he and his wife have just come to an understanding and acceptance how wonderfully different things will be from now on. <br><br>A is a friendly and joyful guy, who has a deeply touching story about a life’s love whom he discovered to be otherworldly. The right words heard one evening triggered recognition of an echo from the past. Suddenly he knew! <br><br><a contents="Robert" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://robertkopecky.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Robert</a> is a quiet and meditative man…very young at heart and full of the warmth of Jesus and the Buddha…true bodhisattvas this world has been graced with knowing. It takes time, but the seeker eventually finds Peace. <br> <br>And the lovely <a contents="Southern Belle, Tamara" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.southernbellemedium.com/" target="_blank">Southern Belle, Tamara</a>, whose picture gathered my attention. Nothing brilliantly different than others’, but nonetheless subtly engaging. An interesting story<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/48784/4fce1a78c72a6bab36c65e045bdf166f5652a8e3/medium/flowers-glowing.jpg?1471828726" class="size_m justify_right border_" /> of hide and go seek transpired, which we did both win as the seeker and the hider (although such things are prearranged). Interesting options before me now lie. I must confess, seeking—some call it praying, but I’ve cursed as much as prayed, if not more—seeking eventually finds. <em>Knock knock and the door shall be opened,</em> does appear to actually work, although in my opinion the hinges are kind of squeaky and difficult to open. Someone should fix that. <br> <br>Tamara is an evidential medium with abilities to access Spirit in positive, healing ways. She sees and hears what most cannot and brings this evidence to the seeker in ways that give comfort and guidance. There are many in your soul group giving you aid daily. Some call them guardian angels. Some are family. Regardless, they are otherworldy. You may not know all of them, but they know all of you. There is renewal in the assurance that those who have passed and those who remain are separated by but a thin veil.<br><br>And that veil is thinning even now, on a global scale. Something unique in the history of the world is occurring. People's agitation and desperation is completely evident in the political and social scene. Even the weather agrees. They are looking for something that assures them the foulness we have willingly put and allowed to be put in our world and our lives is only temporary...an illusion. Yes, something incredible is about to be unleashed. Is it good or bad? <em>It depends on what you want.</em><br> <br>And then there was <a contents="Laurin Bellg" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.laurinbellg.com/" target="_blank">Laurin Bellg</a>, the doctor who heals not only the body but also the spirit; <a contents="Alan Hugenot" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://afterlife.pro/" target="_blank">Alan Hugenot</a>, the no nonsense, animated physicist who explains that modern physics requires a pre-existing Observer to collapse the wave function potential into the birth of our universe (the big bang); <a contents="Anita Moorjani" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.amazon.com/Dying-Be-Me-Journey-Healing/dp/1401937535/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1472449512&sr=1-1&keywords=dying+to+be+me%2C+moorjani" target="_blank">Anita Moorjani</a>, the cancer survivor who discovered “God isn’t a being…God is a <em>state</em> of being”; and so many brilliant others. Pretty much all revealing the same singularly fundamental revelation that God is Love, and we are here to enjoy our lives, to live fearlessly, to understand, help, comfort, and heal one another. It is our mission, as Howard Storm explains, to show Love as did Lord Jesus and to show Compassion as did Prince Siddhartha.<br> </p>
<p><span class="font_large"><strong>Science, Religion, and Truth </strong></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">You have to be willing to reposition fundamental “certainties” in order to arrive at the truth; even then, you haven’t arrived. The more you think you know, the more you profess, the more you believe…the more points of control you are bound by. These become an anchor. If you are seeking absolute truth in science, in religion, in yoga, in any person or endeavor namable by the tongue, you will be disappointed. These are a means to truth, shadows and breath of the Divine, but not the Absolute. Nothing man can name, think, or create is the Absolute. It is beyond all of these.<br><br>So instead of asking what is true and what is false, ask yourself <em>how do you know anything at all</em>? The answer is that you are conscious. Expressed more eloquently, <em>I Am</em>. You may attempt to ‘splain it in terms of neuronal response, electrochemical inversion, circuits of potential gradient igniting a meat-matrix called the brain into the “emergent” and <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/48784/2ea94f90ce8d2553b1242ef7f4fb313780f4cbc1/medium/night-red-sky.jpg?1472280102" class="size_m justify_left border_" />illusory phenomenon of being self-aware, <em>i.e.</em>, conscious. But you’re going in circles and haven’t 'splained anything. Science doesn't discover causes. Cause is a human preference—prejudice even. It is often <em>first </em>assumed without the slightest introspection; then, when science demonstrates correlation, a premature and unexamined conclusion is accepted. Correlation is not causation; causation is nothing more than the preference for left- or right-handedness. <br> <br>Hello? Are you alive or not? <br> <br>Yes, you are. You need absolutely NOTHING to know that. No intense logical analysis, no ritualistic chantings or blessings, no scientist in a white frock. <br> <br>Acknowledging this is the fundamental act of Loving God and Loving all Creation, because acknowledging this is the fundamental act of loving yourself--self<em>less</em>ly. Knowing you are <em>alive</em> and not merely biologically functioning means you recognize that you are free of the prison of time. And all the greedy, graspy, lustful, spiteful, nasty behavior fades, replaced by care, concern, empathy, and <em>enjoyment</em> of the imperfections of science, religion, and each other. <br> <br>Since you <em>know </em>that, you also <em>know </em>that any assertion by "science" to the contrary is false. It doesn't mean science is wrong. It means one's assumptions underlying that science are. Niels Bohr, one of the pioneers of atomic structure and quantum electrodynamics, came to appreciate this in a well-known quote: <em>The opposite of a fact is a falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth. </em><br><br>So, may we lay to rest the vacuous assertion <em>Science and religion are in contradiction</em>? You simply need to be aware of your assumptions--keenly so. This is profoundly difficult and seldom accomplished, because your assumptions virtually define who you are. And if you think it's difficult to <em>recognize</em> a foundational assumption, you can believe that it is just as difficult to change it. It takes a willingness to reposition—even reverse—fundamental "certainties." They aren’t that solid anyways if you look closely. So let’s look at one closely<strong>. . . </strong><br> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>The Arrow of Cause and Effect </strong></em></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><br>Whether we can yet explain NDEs, consciousness, and other spiritual phenomena is irrelevant to the first hand experiential knowledge of their truth. Let me rephrase that. Do you really think that when “experts” declare they understand how the illusion of consciousness is produced by organic matter (your brain), that you will cease to believe in <em>your existence</em>? Isn’t that a little radical? Isn’t it more reasonable to recognize that temporospatial correlation does not imply causation? That the arrow of presumed cause-and-effect might be pointing in the wrong direction? Besides, the literature is so full of accounts of veridical out-of-body experience that cannot be explained except by the obvious: <em><a contents="We are not human beings" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/p/pierreteil160888.html" target="_blank">We are not human beings</a><a contents="We are not human beings having a spiritual experience" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/p/pierreteil160888.html" target="_blank"> having a spiritual experience</a>. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. </em>It’s way more of a straight and short line than the materialistic pretzel-twisting route of supposing superhuman performance of mere human sensory apparatus while in the OR sedated, without a pulse, and flatlined.<br><br>So the problem isn’t with science. Science, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and computers are God's gifts, and the Cheese would not give you anything less than Utterly Beautiful. The problem is with the <u>assumption</u> that <em>matter causes the illusion of consciousness</em>. Well, I’m not one to know anything for sure, so that is possible. But it’s also pretty laughable. If there is nothing to start with except totally inert and lifeless matter, how does putting that together—in as complicated way as you please—ever turn into <em>you, the experience</em>? See, it’s laughable. <br> <br>So turn the arrow of cause and effect around: <em><a contents="Consciousness—Spirit—causes the illusion of matter" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.amazon.com/Lightness-Being-Ether-Unification-Forces/dp/0465018955/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1472454979&sr=8-1&keywords=frank+wilczek+lightness+of+being" target="_blank">Consciousness—Spirit—causes the illusion of matter</a>.</em> Absolutely nothing stopping you from making <em>that</em> assumption Maybe the brain doesn’t <em>cause</em> consciousness; maybe instead, consciousness—Spirit—just <em>Is</em>, and the brain transduces its energy and motion into physical energy and motion. And now it falls into place and makes sense. Occam’s razor draws blood. Put another way,,,<br> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large"><strong>It’s ALL about Belief. </strong></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> <br>Peace Out, <br>jp</p>Long Black Night of Brilliancetag:longblacknight.com,2005:Post/40433932016-02-15T19:40:27-08:002020-11-09T21:18:44-08:00What is Love?<p style="text-align: justify;">The notion struck me that loving is more the art of navigating the absurdities and contradictions within our realm. Learning to accept opposites and complements and impossibilities as fully and deservedly as the rest. Despite that it’s not comfortable, not satisfying, not pure...despite that it leaves an itch. Accepting bodies that often break; jobs that fall short of fulfillment; paths chosen that seem full of wrongs done unto us. And accepting these wrongs as just the splinters of others’ imperfectly searching light. <br> <br>Goodness is its own antagonist. Sweetness is its own bitterness. Purity is its own annihilation. Because they imply there is something not good, not sweet, something impure. Considering the awesome beauty of the earth and the universe, made of nothing more than dirt and elemental debris, one must admit that dark, imperfect, impure, even threatening things are as entirely a manifestation of the Divine as is a crystal of pure frozen water. <br> <br>Love must be big enough to include itself as well as hatred in order to be Love. <br> <br>Yes, loving is more the art of accepting the absurdity that the question of meaning sits like a perfectly balanced planet atop the point of a pin. Knowing that it must fall, but seeing that it never does. And in the meantime living as if it were all true.</p>Long Black Night of Brilliancetag:longblacknight.com,2005:Post/39680402015-12-27T18:44:05-08:002015-12-27T20:39:37-08:00Let There Be Light<p>Christmas is about Light, about Light, about Light. Let Light not just shine but be the complete foundation of space-time and earth-sky and material-spirit, and everything else. It is the celebration of the Eternal Golden Cord, the Christ, who unites irrevocably the physical and bounded with the ethreal and ever-present. </p>
<p>And I’m quite interested in that Light, because certain desires for understanding have and are becoming realized. I pushed them long and far enough to where they are beginning, methinks, to bear fruit. </p>
<p>Just to cue you, things do happen…incredible things…Mythological figures do really exist, I double dare you!! Yes, it’s all happening right under our noses: magic here, fairy dust there, angels and demons in spiritual conflict there that often transects the physical. </p>
<p>And the crowning touch is this guy who claims to be from another dimension (so to speak) all lovey dovey and one with the Big Piece o’ Peace, Joy, Nirvana, Bliss, yet who risks his neck to whisper into my ear that, “It’s an illusion. Give it all up. The absolutely only thing you need to do is Love Me, Each Other, and Life, the Universe, and Everything.” And then underscores it with perhaps the epic love story of this sheaf of the multiverse. </p>
<p>In brief: God and Jesus, being One, assented to and blessed the mission to produce a projection of the Light, or Spirit, into the physical dimension. Mathematically, it’s a collapsing via the projection operator, producing an isomorphism of God within the physical realm. So this Jesus Dude, being One with the Light, just comes and does it big time! Very odd, this man. Very unusual. Seems to possess other-worldy powers. Glows a bit. Did a get-well trick that really made my jaw drop. Even…raised someone they say was dead...back to fresh and clean as a whistle. And alive. </p>
<p>The main show all the stunts were about: Love. Have some empathy. Have some pity. To the ones you like. To the ones you like to like. And to the ones you hate to like. It’s not that they don’t deserve it…they do. We all do. Just keep in mind they need and are going to continue to need tons and tons of daily mercy, just like you. </p>
<p>Pure mysticism, but wait, there’s more. He walked the walk, He did something that separates the boys from the men, the big-mouth talkers from the blood and guts walkers. When you really believe something down to its core, you then have the power to do something extraordinary. Something that transcends mortality. You have the power to show everybody how illusory and empty this physical existence is, and how it is impossible for one to ever die and therefore how everyone is utterly, astoundingly, frighteningly FREE!! </p>
<p>And that was exactly what Jesus did. He showed everybody just how powerless all this garbage was against the eternal. I’ll show you what I mean. And then he ordered up a cross and crucifixion special. To go. </p>
<p>That’s serious business. Kinda makes you think it’s possible He knew what He was doing. I’ve been in positions where saying the wrong thing could be costly. And even though the wrong thing was the right thing to say, I still found it hard to say the wrong thing. The contrast is staggering. </p>
<p>And a lot of people take Him seriously. A couple thousand years and billions of people later, it seems to be a conflagration. But I’ve noticed that, despite how revolutionary and mindblowingly great it is, too many people are embarrassed to talk about it. Too many people are embarrassed to be the light and messenger that they should be. </p>
<p>And here’s where you need to step out of your shell. Jesus said I expect you to do all these things I’ve done and better! (John 14:12). So begin by saying, “Merry Christmas” to the store clerk, your coworker, the gas attendant, your spouse. Say it when school is in session and when school is out. Leave it on your out of office assistant. Start embarrassing yourself and others by talking about God in public and how you are really a spirit inhabiting a body and can float outside of it at will (as soon as you learn how to). </p>
<p>Yes, Christmas is about Light, about Light, about Light. It’s about how we actually are light, or spirit, or holy ether, or something like that, just like the guy on the mission said and showed us. And we’re supposed to shine. </p>
<p>It’s not metaphorical. “Somebody” really came “down here,” kicked some heini, and, mission complete, returned to base. Look, are you so naïve as to be unaware that some of those beings you see driving on the freeway alongside you aren’t completely physical? You don’t really think there aren’t any spirits, do you? Well, maybe you do, but I wonder if you’re game enough to unwind your beliefs one at a time to see if you can spot the contradiction. You’re not going to spot it, because there is none. If you’re honest with yourself, then at this point it gets spooky, cause you realize that, by gum, you really have no evidence or cause to disbelieve such nonsense. It’s almost as if you can choose which you want, and it will be magically self-consistent. </p>
<p>Congrats! You’ve got it! You get to choose your world. It’s a lot easier than it looks. You want peace, light, joy, belonging, togetherness, complete unity, and love? You’ve got it. You just have to let go of everything. <br><br><a contents="Here's the real Christmas message." data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyySDV78yOU" target="_blank">Here's the real Christmas message.</a> Watch from 5:00 through 7:10. Reports are a comin' in. Hallucination? Sure, just like feeling well. Dude, it's an eternal party! So what if it's an hallucination!!<br><br>I really hope you and me and a whole lot more people get it, day by day. And spread it, day by day. It’s mind blowing down to its core. You’re going to see it for reals sometime, somewhere down that road a ways. Have no doubt about that. No doubt at all. In the meantime, live it! </p>
<p>Merry Christmas, Friends! </p>
<p>Happy Birthday, Jesus! </p>
<p>You’re a Magical Baby, </p>
<p> An Awakened Child, and </p>
<p> An Awesome Friend.</p>Long Black Night of Brilliancetag:longblacknight.com,2005:Post/38461092015-09-08T06:35:15-07:002019-04-15T22:35:57-07:00Who Am I?<p>Written by Dipesh Bhattara</p>
<hr><div style="text-align: justify;">I would like to start by dividing the subject into two parts for simplicity:<br><br>The Internal Me<br>The External Me<br> <br>Let me start with the difficult part: the internal me. Recently, l have been exposed to some ancient eastern philosophy. It seems to both pique my curiosity and to deepen my confusion. It has helped me in my path to understand who I really am. And today I am going to leverage that philosophy to speak about who I think I am. The philosophy is quite deep, and I will do my best to present a drop from this vast ocean.<br> <br>In ancient India, it was widely believed that life is a made up of a series of experiences. These experiences are the building blocks of our life; just as bricks are of a wall. The strength of a wall depends upon the quality and texture of the bricks that comprise it. Similarly, the types of experiences we have in life determine the nature of our life. But am I just the sum of my experiences? Am I nothing else?<br> <br>One could raise the question whether I am the body that I have. Let’s take the example of my hand touching a hot object. Who is feeling the heat from the object? Is it my hand, itself, or is it I feeling the heat <em>through</em> my hand? If my hand were to be separated from my body would it still be able to feel the heat? If the answer is "no" then I must be different from my hand. If I am different from my hand, then I must also be different from my body? Then who am I?<br> <br>Am I the mind which feels the happiness, sadness, sorrow and all my other emotions? Is my mind, alone, capable of experiencing the world of emotions without “my” being present? When I see a sad event somewhere, what is it that experiences the event? Is it my mind, or do I experience it <em>through</em> my mind? If I experience the sadness through my mind, then I must be different from my mind. Then who am I?<br> <br>Am I the intellect that I have? The intellect that we humans have is much more advanced and developed than that of any animal. I sometimes compare Einstein’s intellect to the Hubble telescope. Both can search and find scientific objects and phenomena hidden deep in our universe. But Einstein is still Einstein when he is not using his intellect. If Einstein is not his intellect, then he must be different from his intellect. Similarly, I must be different from mine. Then who am I?<br> <br>I am not my body, not my mind, nor my intellect. The body, the mind, and the intellect are only the instruments that I have to interact with the external world. These things are tangential to the experience of "I-ness." The question, "Who am I?" is not so easily answered, because what I am is something much deeper and bigger that the rational mind cannot easily comprehend. My search is on...<br> <br>Now the easy part: the external me.<br><br>For ease of communication and identification you may call me Dipesh Bhattarai, Dipesh, or even just “D” for short. I like nature, outdoors, hiking, and horse riding. Spirituality and philosophy are subjects that interest me. I am the father of a young boy. <br> <br>I hope you now know a little bit more about who I really am? Do you know who you are? <br><br><br>Reference: <a contents="Self-Unfoldment by Swami Chinmayananda" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.amazon.com/Self-Unfoldment-Self-Discovery-Series-Swami-Chinmayananda/dp/1880687046" target="_blank"><em>Self-Unfoldment </em>by <em>Swami Chinmayananda</em></a><br> </div>Long Black Night of Brilliancetag:longblacknight.com,2005:Post/37750852015-07-12T14:07:12-07:002015-09-23T21:21:11-07:00The Chains We Forge<div style="text-align: justify;">This is where I become scientific. The Vedic literature such as the Srimad Bhagavatam and Bhagavad Gita are science. Pantanjali understood this in his treatment of Yoga. Sorry, Virginia, yoga is <em>not </em>a type of exercise. Sri Krishna is the voice of God explaining to Arjun how to know God <em>now</em>, not later. Because there is a science to faith and to belief. You have to really <em>believe</em>, and that is something that takes practice. There is a<em> science </em>to learning it.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">There is very little separation between now and eternity. There is little separation between dreams and waking hours. They are both the flesh of delusion and at the same time conduits of the Eternal Spirit. In order to see this, you do have to want to see it. If you cling to matter and facts and the facts of the matter as your saviour, <em>they will not make you see it</em>.<br> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br><span style="color:#40E0D0;"><em><strong>You have to choose to see it.</strong></em></span><br><br> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">Seriously, you didn't know that?! You didn't know that you choose Life or Death; Peace or Torment; Love or Emptiness? You thought the facts would present themselves and you'd scratch your chin, taste the rarefied ether of your academic excellence, weigh the evidence and come to a conclusion?! No. Oh no. You've got it all backwards, I'm afraid. Facts and matter are like lumber and building materials. You can make <em>whatever you want with them</em>. Some of it is beautiful; some is pure waste and garbage. Sorry, your kitchen table will not tell you the meaning of life. It will discuss it with you, but it won't tell you.<br><br> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><strong><span class="font_large"><a data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsyWGPoMiMI" target="_blank"><span style="color:#00FFFF;">Watch The Chains We Forge</span></a></span></strong></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br><br>Ahhh, let's see now...the hypoxic brain in the throes of its electrocutive demise integrated with the subtleties of subconscious and unconscious perception creates the mother of all hallucinations, right? Well, <em>hallelujah for hallucinations</em>, don’tcha think!! And are the chemical reactions in your cranium hallucinating yourself alive?...Or are you alive and just dreaming the hallucination that chemical reactions are taking place in your brain?<br><br>How 'bout this:<br> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color:#40E0D0;"><strong><em>Why not ask the hallucination going on deep inside whether it's real or not?</em></strong></span><br> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br>It will tell you. If it's a trick, it's a pretty damned good one. And my guess is that you're not going to be able to untrick it. So listen to this story about the other side. You’re going there pretty soon, so why not become familiar now? This dense and dark and dull world that you think you will remain in forever is just a pot of poisoned honey filled with dead and dying insects. Don't be one of them. So, here…try something that will change your life. You’re going to love it. It’s the greatest thing since breath. One caveat…<em>you’re doing to have to die.</em><br> <br>Let me know how it goes.</div>Long Black Night of Brilliancetag:longblacknight.com,2005:Post/37750652015-07-12T13:37:42-07:002015-10-12T19:19:21-07:00Where You're Going<span class="font_regular">I’ve spent a lifetime asking the question, “What is this and why is it such a piece?”<br> </span>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="font_regular">Which reminds me of something that is inextricably bound up in everything else, in particular, this. In high school we had a Spanish teacher from Columbia. Very nice and good man, may God bless him. He had that slidy, slippery, Mark of Zoro accent. The kind that makes “people” sound like “pipple,” “sheep” sound like “ship,” and “sheet” sound like…well, you get it. One time he was in front of the class and instructed us thus:</span></div><span class="font_regular"> <br><em>Ok…Class…Tonight I want you to go home and take out a piece of sheet of paper…</em><br> </span>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="font_regular">Except he used that cool accent. Roger Mah, the class pervert, was the first to pick up on it and trumpet, “Oh, we’re supposed to take out a piece of **** tonight and turn it in! Ha ha ha HAAAAWWW.” And it was damned funny.</span></div><span class="font_regular"> </span>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="font_regular">So you see my point. It’s everywhere! The question isn’t just academic: What is this, and why is it such a piece? B</span><span class="font_regular">eing the mathematician, my question never went away, but has stayed with me all my life. You see, faith is great, but people have that all wrong. Faith isn’t <strong><em>childish</em></strong> belief. It is <strong><em>childlike</em></strong> belief.</span>
</div><span class="font_regular"> <br>It’s childish to run across a freeway hoping that you won’t be hit. That isn’t faith.<br> <br>But being on the whole ignorant that it is the narrow bandwidth of your space-bound senses through which you expect the entirety of the earth, sky, and heavens to squeeze through...<br> <br> ... and that your eyes react to photons that cannot, themselves, be seen,<br> <br> ... and that your brain <strong><em>reconstructs</em> </strong>reality from sensory vibrations from which you <em><strong>infer</strong></em> a source out of whole cloth,<br> <br> ... and that you just don’t know what you don’t know<br> <br> ... but it is God’s intention that you <em><strong>do</strong></em> know that you know that you know...<br> </span>
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color:#00FFFF;"><span class="font_regular"><span class="font_large">You step out the door.</span></span></span></div><span class="font_regular"> </span>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="font_regular">And largely survive, not because you’re so great and have got it all right, but because you’re so trusting, so innocent, so childlike. That’s faith. And that is what will save you. Fairytales, Myths, and Legends have the ability to become real when we need them to be real.</span></div><span class="font_regular"> <br>Wait for it.</span>Long Black Night of Brilliancetag:longblacknight.com,2005:Post/37119202015-05-23T17:40:17-07:002015-09-23T21:17:19-07:00Mature Audiences Only<span class="font_regular"><span style="color:#8B4513;">Some of you will be excited. Some of you will be interested. Some of you will be frightened. Some of you will laugh. Some will cry. Some will wonder.</span> <span style="color:#8B4513;"> </span></span>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="font_regular"><span style="color:#8B4513;">We think we know things…who we are, what this planet is…this place. We think we understand cause and effect...that tables are hard and pillows are soft, and they never dream. We think neurons, receptors, and proteins explain why we hurt…why we laugh…why we cry.</span></span></div><span class="font_regular"><span style="color:#8B4513;"> </span></span>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="font_regular"><span style="color:#8B4513;">Of course we don’t. And we know that. We know beyond the slightest shadow of a doubt that something’s not right. It doesn’t matter how many flavors and colors of quarks, strings, and branes we discover. M-Theory isn’t the answer. And we know that. Even as we print, publish, and price the massive tomes of our collective knowledge, we know that they are empty.</span></span></div><span class="font_regular"><span style="color:#8B4513;"> </span></span>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="font_regular"><span style="color:#8B4513;">It doesn’t matter what we say…it only matters what we know. And we know that. Pretend all you want.</span></span></div><span class="font_regular"><span style="color:#8B4513;"> </span></span>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="font_regular"><span style="color:#8B4513;">The Ptolemaic system arranged the universe quite neatly, with us at the center, stars engraved in the firmament, and spheres within spheres rotating frictionlessly. We knew that. But now we know better. We think we do. But we really don’t.</span></span></div><span class="font_regular"><span style="color:#8B4513;"> </span></span>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="font_regular"><span style="color:#8B4513;">You see, there’s a Ghost in the machine. Pretend all you want it isn’t true. It is true.</span></span></div><span class="font_regular"><span style="color:#8B4513;"> </span></span>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="font_regular"><span style="color:#8B4513;">People do rise from the dead. It should be obvious. And when they do, they say the things that strike fear into men’s hard hearts. But don’t cover them. Don’t cover your ears this time. Listen…</span></span></div><span class="font_regular"><span style="color:#8B4513;"> </span></span>
<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_regular"><strong><em><a data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nzz-nG5pjFg" target="_blank"><span style="color:#FF0000;">A Story That Will Inspire You</span></a></em></strong></span></div><span class="font_regular"> <span style="color:#8B4513;"> </span></span>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="font_regular"><span style="color:#8B4513;">Ok, I know. You can’t be fooled. You’re too smart for that. Just go to work tomorrow, business as usual. Forget everything you’ve heard. Why not? You already have. That’s why you’re bothered. Because you know there’s something you’ve forgotten. You know it.</span></span></div><span class="font_regular"><span style="color:#8B4513;"> </span></span>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="font_regular"><span style="color:#8B4513;">Try staying on the surface. At first you’ll think you can do it. Then you might get a little scared. Then you’ll struggle and get it back for a moment and think you can do it still. And then this happens…</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_regular"><em><strong><span style="color:#FF0000;"> </span><a data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2NLEYHjG1g" target="_blank"><span style="color:#FF0000;">I Died When I Was Fifteen Years Old </span></a></strong></em></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br><span class="font_regular"><span style="color:#8B4513;">Wait, there’s just one more message. It’s a bit distressing, so be prepared. Don’t read it if you think it will bother you. Here it is, in the words of those who have died. . .</span></span>
</div><span class="font_regular"><span style="color:#8B4513;"> </span></span>
<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_regular"><em>“Death…to me…Death is a wonderful experience.</em><br><em>I have lost the fear of death, and would tell a person that death is just another experience which everyone would enjoy…rather than be scared of.”</em><br> <br>. . .<br> <br><em>“If I were in a road accident, I’d be quite happy to stay where I was. My children have all grown up. I’ve got no problems, no difficulties, certainly no fear of death. It’s almost now as if I’d actually welcome it.”</em><br> <br>. . .<br> <br><em>“Death is an illusion. I think death is a really nasty, bad lie. I don’t see any truth in the word, ‘death,’ at all.”</em><br> </span></div><span class="font_regular"><span style="color:#8B4513;"> <br>Are you frightened?<br> </span></span>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="font_regular"><span style="color:#8B4513;">Maybe not. Maybe you get it. Yes, that’s it…you’re starting to remember. It only hurts for a moment, and then you remember. Here…you spoke these words before you came. Read them, and try to remember …</span></span></div><span class="font_regular"><span style="color:#8B4513;"> </span></span>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="font_regular"><em>There is no reason to fear death. You cannot die. The body dies. You lay down the body. The spirit goes on. You simply cannot die. And so you have so much to look forward to……We are in a great place of transition on the earth. We are rising into a whole new dimension. We are really ascending our spiritual bodies on earth, and it’s no accident you are living now, no matter how hard your life may be. You are on earth. You have a purpose. We are here to co-create heaven on earth. We are here to share and heal each other into the light.</em></span></div>Long Black Night of Brilliance