Dreams and Life Changing Decisions

To be specific in what follows dreams refers to passive nocturnal dreaming, most often in the 4-7AM time frame. I am lucid in these dreams, knowing that I am dreaming, they are then either written by hand down in a journal on waking or typed into a word document.

The theory is that the reincarnating entity or dreamer selects a dreamed for each life in order to evolve, learn and thorough fulfilling a fate work at its destiny. The dreamed is the physical body or apparatus, its personality, weaknesses and abilities. In this context, I the dreamer, chose my parents, their circumstance and this lump of meat. Both my parents had a scientific leaning, it was fairly natural that I became a scientist of sorts. I was perhaps fated to study at a world top ten university, do my Ph.D. at a place with the world’s highest per capital Nobel prize density and later teach at another world top ten university in London, the capital of the UK. I am a trained chemical physicist.

In order to work with the theory above one has to literally follow, to the best of ability, what happens in dreams, even if that goes against “common sense”, plans and ambitions. The dreams may suggest things which you would prefer not to do and things which you do not like. This means that my orientation to life differs from the bulk of humanity. It may not sound too much but in practise it can be radical.  It would be very scary for someone prone to control freakery.

The dreamer tries to guide the dreamed towards the purpose of any given birth. The dreamer senses a destiny and needs to complete the fate for a chosen life. Fate being an integral over all karma.

People can play lip service to fate. They like to imagine that they are in control of their lives and that they direct life, that they can have life on their own terms.

At the moment I am fated to live outside society, physically adjunct. I got a new passport today. It has space for two emergency contacts. I was only able to fill one of them. I am not socially connected and that extent of disconnection is hard for most to comprehend or imagine. Few would believe how very little I use a mobile phone, despite the fact that I am reasonably computer literate.

I have made around six significant life changing decisions based on my interpretation of dream contents. Each one of these set off a sequence of events which were unexpected. I have had dreams which vastly altered my understanding of this current life. In making offerings after some of these dreams I have largely been ignored. A common theme in my dreams is that I will not be believed. I have rationalised this that I am fated not to be believed. It does not particularly bother me. That seems to be how it is.

There is “evidence” in my dreams of 7 or 8 previous incarnations, one of whom is a named historical figure. In most of these lives I have been associated with the “priesthood”. There is no way of proving this, I myself and inclined to believe this explanation. We have a pukka erstwhile ex-scientist believing something which would be for most of my ex-colleagues something of a stretch. It is a strange fate to find myself in this position and I do no know what if anything to do with it.

My interest in dreaming was rekindled by “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho.

For eight years I did a dreaming practice specifically to allow the dreamer, the Soul, to advise thence to take over the steering will of my mundane vehicle, the dreamed. I am a dreamer by predilection and in some arrangements, I am “in” the place of dreams the South. I lived as a child under the light of the Southern Cross. It is not too surprising that my dreaming is vivid and extensive.

Letting go of the steering wheel and handing it to my dreamer, the real me, was not easy.  However, retrospect suggests that the dreamer knew what it was doing because things unfolded. You need to have faith and courage to try this.

At the moment it looks as though there is not much complexity to my remaining fate. But one dream could alter all that dramatically…

It has happened before a sudden turn…

We shall see…

Become a Teacher or a Preacher!

There is a notion that the reincarnating dreamer chooses his or her own parents for birth which provides a cultural context and a genetic make-up. My maternal birth line reached back to the copper mines of Sygun near Beddgelert, the slate mines of Blaenau Ffestiniog and the coal pits of the Rhondda. My paternal grandfather was a docker in Cardiff, helping to shift the coal from the valleys and the steel from the steel works. My parents met at the Guest Keen steel works in Cardiff, a very Welsh story. I have often joked that my physical make up is suited to shifting heavy things in confined spaces, I am genetically qualified to mine a two foot coal seam.

Folklore has it that in valleys where most of the men went down the pit there were only two ways out. You had to become either a teacher or a preacher. There were a lot of teacher exports from Wales who came to educate the English. I belonged to London Welsh rugby club for a while, the exiles, and our pack was made up of Ph.Ds., lawyers and financial traders. Education was a big thing in South Wales. Our pack was very qualified.

It could be argued that solely by mantra I found myself at UCL, The Royal Institution and Imperial College.  In the so-called research golden triangle and at the heart of UK science in the capital city. So, for a while I was indeed a teacher. Though my father was not so impressed his mantra was “those that can do, those that can’t teach”.  Even when I co-founded a laser company, he found it hard to praise and easy to find fault. My family were all extroverts and so often I wished they would shut the F up and I had to flee for quiet time. When you surpass you no longer belong not that I ever really did. The film Educating Rita speaks some truths.

And now it seems I am a tad surplus to requirements, the world has little or no use for me. I will fade away in quiet obscurity on a meagre pension. I have seen and experienced much and there does not seem to be all that much that I want to do. I don’t have a bucket list. I travelled to far flung places as a child. Wherever there was a lead or steel smelter we went, kind of. It makes one difficult to impress. I saw the Sistine chapel at 12 and the Victoria Falls at 11. My childhood taught me impermanence with seven schools across three continents. We also nearly went to Brazil! I had 150,000 air miles by the age of 13 in 1978, when travel was far less common!

I have read quite extensively on various “religious” things, both exoteric and esoteric. I meditated for two decades, daily.

The difficulty is that once I get the gist of how something works. I tend to lose interest. I am not a fan of refinement and repetition. I don’t get hung up on minutiae.

I had some mildly grandiose ideas when a young man, some visions. I am a dreamer after all.

I have a pet theory/hypothesis. Culminating lives do not end with a bang or fireworks. They simply fizzle out. There is no lust for. There is little desire or ambition. One simply pops one’s clogs never to return. One explores and explores until there is not much left which one has any kind of urge for. If I want to find out something about say Myeloma, I can read up on it and assimilate the gist quickly. I know the method and background knowledge helps the understanding.

I am probably not a common phenomenon, given my scientific background and my interest in Buddhism and raja Yogas. This makes me a slightly unusual animal. To me it is no big deal but it stands out as being a bit odd, an anomaly even.

I am probably mostly done. But the universe has a bag of spanners and is fond of the odd curve ball or two. So, who knows? I am sure that I understand the likelihoods moving on but weird shit can and does happen…

If my understanding based on dreams is correct the mantra in the title has been active across lifetimes for me. When I used to talk to university students, I had a fair idea about which ones would go into teaching, I was nearly ~90% accurate.

So maybe I did choose my circumstances of birth after all.

Yes, I think I am probably done now.

How Many Fully Enlightened People Are There?

If you type various versions of this question into Google you see that there are people discussing it on line. I have even seen articles on Buddhism which states that the goal is to achieve nirvāṇa. Buddhism does not have KPIs and personal development planning, nor does your line manager tear you off a strip if you don’t achieve your goals.

I’ll speculate whoever considers nirvāṇa a goal is a long way indeed from said goal. He is in a gaol of Western thinking.

In various school of thought nirvāṇa is when the causal vehicle {Soul or reincarnating Jiva} has been blown off. This means there is no requirement to reincarnate, a strictly human thing. Humans are “bound” to the wheel of rebirth. Someone, some being, who has done that, nirvāṇa, is strictly speaking no longer human. In the context at death the being who has attained nirvāṇa achieves the state of parinirvāṇa at the dissolution of the meaty incarnate form. Thereafter “they” remain formless.

We could get into the gender debate about pronouns. What pronouns do you use for some entity which has no body, no observable physical plane presence? What is the correct pronoun for a fully enlightened Buddha? It?

The problem I have with enlightenment as a concept is that is enlightenment an absolute or a relative term? It might be said that someone got enlightenment, does that mean that they are a fully enlightened Buddha or does it mean that they are little less heavy than before. They have attained a quantum of enlightenment, a bit, one step further up the ladder. They are lighter, less dark and thereby enlightened. To progress one gains enlightenment in a stepwise fashion, realisation by realisation. At nirvāṇa the being is lighter because it no longer has a causal vehicle or personality, notions of self have dissolved. It is enlightened, unburdened.

There is the concept of returning high attainment Bodhisattvas, who on death put off the attainment of parinirvāṇa and come back of their own free will to teach. Because they have no causal vehicle, they create a nirmāṇakāya emanation for such a purpose. If I understand it correctly there may be many of these in the Tulku tradition. Arhats can be seen as selfish because they do not come back. But that is a transference of human personality onto someone who has no self. I have seen it prejudiced that Bodhisattvas are good, and Arhats not so. Human folly, methinks.

In esoteric thinking the end of the causal vehicle comes at the fourth initiation. If one cross references, this is nirvāṇa or blowing off. If I understand it correctly this phenomenon is associated often with physical plane death {but not always}. One gets nirvāṇa and sharpish thereafter parinirvāṇa. In that school of thinking there are a few more stages of development, the other initiations, after doing what Siddartha did in getting planetary nirvāṇa.

One might rephrase the question, “how many fully enlightened beings are there?”

In the esoteric school of thought the fourth degree initiate goes on to take the fifth and become what some call masters. This happens, according to my reading, relatively soon.

I think most people would struggle to envision or envisage a “living” awareness or consciousness in the absence of a physical plane body. So, people invent worlds and dimensions or abodes where they might picture some enveloping form even if that be nebulous. The inventions are inspired by life on earth. Being superstitious people like signs and miracles as circumstantial evidence or proof of nirvāṇa or parinirvāṇa. There must be a rainbow or a comet. If it is a wholly natural part of evolution why would this happen? It is kind of no big deal. There is a desire for sanctity and holiness where they may just be a natural evolutionary process.

The question itself seeks to quantify and scale because people like to compare, to play top trumps.

“My God is better and more real than yours”, being a root of many wars.

Going a step further “are” implies existence or being. Can something exist if there is no form, no measurable lump of meat. If something is formless, is it?

Instead of quantifying we may now rephrase.  “Are there enlightened beings?” “Do they exist?”

“It’s life Jim, but not as we know it!”

Astrobiology and astrochemistry are looking for life in a chemical-biological entity with a physical existence measurable by modern instrumentation. The assumption being that life can only exist in some kind of form, or particularly a corporeal form no matter how small. Science requires a form {and perhaps reproductive urge} as a basic component of life and its definition.

A formless Buddha after paranirvāṇa would not technically be alive according to human definition.

So maybe according to science enlightened beings do not exist.

The answer is therefore zero and not 42….

Which poses the ancillary question does, zero exist or not?

Language – 800 years ago.

The spoken language around here in Brittany would be evolving back then. The founding saints, purportedly mostly Welsh, and from near Llantwit Major in Glamorgan would have spoken Welsh.  There was St Illtud’s “academy”. They moved here around 500 AD as Welsh was changing from the other Brittonic languages such as Cornish or old Cornish Kernewek Koth. In around 500 Welsh would have been more similar to Kernewek.  There was migration from all the west coast of Britain. Cornish resembles Breton well.

There would be residual Latin which was slowly morphing into medieval French. So far, I have found out that there are few texts in rakkrennvrezhoneg or pre-medieval Breton. There are plenty of Welsh texts.

There are old texts from Brittany in Latin. I am guessing that the clergy and those with money were versed in Latin and it was used to “translate” a sort of universal.

So, if I was incarnate around 800 years ago as a “priest” or member of a religious order I would have had to speak Latin and if on crusade medieval French. I would have spoken rakkrennvrezhoneg with the locals

One can see that the shape of word in Medieval French is closer to Breton than modern French

The word order in The Song of Roland is different but I can interpolate some meaning using French and my rusty “O” level Latin.

Looks like I have a new thing to invetsigate on the rainy days.


Quotations from English French and Breton Wikipedia

Medieval Welsh literature is the literature written in the Welsh language during the Middle Ages. This includes material starting from the 5th century AD, when Welsh was in the process of becoming distinct from Common Brittonic and continuing to the works of the 16th century.

The Welsh language became distinct from other dialects of Old British sometime between AD 400 and 700; the earliest surviving literature in Welsh is poetry dating from this period. The poetic tradition represented in the work of Y Cynfeirdd (“The Early Poets”), as they are known, then survives for over a thousand years to the work of the Poets of the Nobility in the 16th century.

The core tradition was praise poetry; and the poet Taliesin was regarded as the first in the line. The other aspect of the tradition was the professionalism of the poets and their reliance on patronage from kings, princes and nobles for their living, similar to the way Irish bards and Norse skalds were patronized for the production of complex, often highly alliterative forms of verse. The fall of the Kingdom of Gwynedd and the loss of Welsh independence in any form in 1282 proved a crisis in the tradition, but one that was eventually overcome. It led to the innovation of the development of the cywydd meter, a looser definition of praise, and a reliance on the nobility for patronage.

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Le moyen breton (krennvrezhoneg en breton moderne) est le nom que l’on donne à la langue brittonique parlé en Bretagne de la fin du XIe siècle à la première partie du XVIIe siècle. On place généralement la date de fin en 1659 lors de la sortie du dictionnaire du père Julien Maunoir. Il a été précédé par le vieux breton et suivi par le breton moderne.

Elle a fourni une littérature, une poésie, mais surtout un théâtre, d’inspiration religieuse.

Chronologie du moyen breton

On distingue plusieurs périodes :

  • 1100 – 1450 : pré moyen breton
  • 1450 – 1600 : moyen breton classique
  • 1600 – 1659 : moyen breton tardif

Caractéristiques du moyen breton

Les emprunts au français deviennent très nombreux. Le français est alors la langue la plus influente de l’Europe et influence également l’anglais. D’une manière étonnante quand un mot breton ressemble à de l’anglais, il provient généralement du moyen français. Ex. : to strive; strivañ : s’efforcer de

  • Le -ff traduit un v nasalisé. Cependant, à la fin du moyen breton le v disparaîtra complètement, à l’exception du dialecte guérandais ou du Goélo (prononcé f),
  • Le son dh est marqué par z (menez, scoaz…),
  • Le son th est transcrit par z, tz ou zz (scuiz, bartz, hennez, harzaff),
  • Le son ts, qui vient la plupart du temps de nom français est transcrit par ç, cc, cz,
  • Le son [oe] évolue en oa (sauf en vannetais-guérandais et Haute-Cornouaille où il reste oe. Il reste oe également au Pays de galles),
  • Le son eu venant des débuts de l’ancien breton.

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krennvrezhoneg

Ar c’hrennvrezhoneg eo ar stumm eus ar brezhoneg a veze komzet ha skrivet etre dibenn an XIvet kantved ha kreiz ar XVIIvet kantved.

Mareadoù ar C’hrennvrezhoneg

  • 1100 – 1450 : rakkrennvrezhoneg
  • 1450 – 1600 : krennvrezhoneg klasel
  • 1600 – 1659 : krennvrezhoneg diwezhat

Ar rakkrennvrezhoneg

Eus ar rakkrennvrezhoneg ne vez anavezet nemet spisc’herioù, anvioù-tud hag anvioù-lec’h.

Ivonet Omnes en deus skrivet ur varzhoneg war marzh an dornskrid e oa o sevel dre eilskrivañ war-dro ar bloavezhioù 1350 ; setu amañ ar varzhoneg hag he reizhiad klotennoù :

An guen heguen am laouenas,

An hegarat an lacat glas,

Mar ham guorant va karantic,

Da vout in nos o he kostic.

Vam garet, nep pret.

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Catholicon, geriadur brezhoneg-galleg-latin Jehan Lagadeuc, skrivet e 1464 ha moullet e 1499

Catholicon eo anv ar geriadur kentañ e brezhoneg, a oa bet skrivet e teir yezh, brezhoneg, galleg ha latin : ennañ e vez kavet an droidigezh c’hallek eus ar gerioù brezhonek kement hag o c’hevatal e latin.

Ar c’hentañ geriadur galleg an hini eo ivez enta ha war an dro ar c’hentañ geriadur teiryezhek er bed.

Savet e voe, pe beurechuet da vihanañ, e 1464 (d’ar 16 a viz Eost hervez) gant Jehan Lagadeuc, person e Plougonven, ha moullet e voe evit ar wech kentañ d’ar 5 a viz Du 1499 e Landreger gant Jehan Calvez (Euzen Roperz e lizherennour). O soñjal e kloareged yaouank Breizh o vont war o studi e oa bet savet an oberenn-mañ evit o skoazellañ da zeskiñ latin evel ma vez diskouezet splann amañ dindan (bet treuzskrivet e brezhoneg a-vremañ) :

    Me, Yann Lagadeg, eus parrez Plougonven, en eskopti Treger, Bachelour war an arzoù hag an dekredoù, goude ma n’on ket dellezek d’en ober, savet am eus al levr bihan-mañ evit talvezout da gloer vihan baour Breizh peotramant d’ar re zo dizesk war al latin.

Anvet e oa bet Catholicon (geriadur hollel), pa ne oa ket bet roet an anv-se gant an oberour, moarvat diwar anv ur geriadur all, ar geriadur latin brudet a oa anvet Catholicon ivez (Summa grammaticalis quae vocatur Catholicon), savet gant an Dominikan Giovanni Balbi (Johannes Januensis de Balbis), eus Genova, hag echuet d’ar 7 a viz Meurzh 1286.

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La Chanson de Roland

Visions or Visual Hallucinations?

If I understand it correctly the phenomena of visions plays a role in many religions. Things can be revealed by beings such as angels. Those prone to visions have been prone contextually to dreaming too.  

My general understanding is that angels are rare and play only a very important pivotal role in the religious context. They do not appear to common or garden people despite what many a new age book suggests. Helping you find the man of your dreams is probably not high on their to do list.

{I am generalising widely}.

Yet seeing something that others do not is classed as a hallucination, which can be a symptom of psychosis. Many of the figures in religious history might be diagnosed as having an episode of psychosis today.  They could be locked up and given anti-psychotic medicine.

In indigenous cultures going on a “Vision Quest” might be seen as a rite of passage. Isolated from the day to day and the tribe an individual seeks a vision of the future and his purpose. Visions can be had in caves, on high mountains. Usually, one has to step away from the mundane noise of life, maybe ease off the food.

I have participated in shamanic drumming and gone on a mini-vision quest. I can also use £250,000 femtosecond pulsed optical parametric amplifiers. It is possible that I am unique in this, there may be others. In non-linear optics world it is probably best not to talk about shamanic vision quests it could have a detrimental impact on promotion and employment prospects. So, many may have kept schtum like me.

It could be argued that I have relatively pure Welsh indigenous blood from the matrilinear line based in deepest darkest Snowdonia. As an indigenous it is not so weird for me to do indigenous things.

Anyway, I have had a number of visions over the years including when I lived in Brixton and was an academic. Needless to say, I told no colleagues nor a GP. This primarily because I always knew that I was having a vision/hallucination and was aware of my physical plane surroundings in day-to-day world at the same time. They did not overly impinge, nor were any of them frightening. If you speak to a medic about this kind of thing you could be opening a Pandora’s box and be exposed to pet theories and the latest pharma sponsored medication.

My working hypothesis concerning many of these visions is that most fall in the category of past-life recall. Some might think me whacko or that I have delusions of grandeur. People can have very closed minds.

Back in the mid seventies I used to travel by airplane from Zambia to school in Gloucestershire. There were six flights a year and by the age of 13, in the 1970s, I had 150,000 air miles. I am guilty about my childhood carbon footprint 😉. On occasion there would be a fuel stop at Malta. Each time I landed there I had a massive déjà-vu. Without knowing why, I knew that I had been there before.

This morning around 6 AM I was not sleeping so I started to do a meditation. For whatever reason, I was having difficulty and I started to have a relaxed enjoyable vision of myself in a cowled cloak and chain mail. The setting of the vision was around 800 years ago. I was aware of the vision and the bedroom. I could hear the wife breathing.

Why this is happening now I don’t know. It did point me back to a vision I had in 2003.

The vision last night may refer to “the knights of Malta”, a term used in Brittany for both Templars and the Hospitaliers, Ordre de Saint-Jean de Jérusalem.

I have had many visions associated with this putative life, a French one.

Nearby there is a hospitalier commanderie whose records do not go back past 1313 when the goods of the Templars were ceded to them.

There was also relatively nearby a Templar commanderie and the relics of a small church. The look of which is not far from one I saw in another vision.


What would you do?

Would you tell your general practice GP doctor?

Would you tell your line manager at work?

Would you imagine yourself off your trolley?

Or would you think that the sanest hypothesis was past life recall?


I am quite looking forward to seeing what may or may not happen over the next day or so…


Belief and Proof

I’ll speculate that many believe things, ideologies and religions for which there in no possibility of proof. Half of the UK “believed” that Brexit was a good idea, many were adamant even though the outcome was unknown. They professed with absolute certainty about something which had not yet happened. Some Americans chant the MAGA mantra. Exactly when was America ever a great and equal place? Bad stuff has always gone on there to some extent.

People will believe whatever it is they want to believe. The strength of belief may vary. The war in Vietnam seemed like a good idea at first. Someone thought agent orange was good.

The church had a vested interest in making people God-fearing. Bums on seats meant coins on collection plates and salaries for clergy. The gold held by the churches and all that chavvy stuff goes against my interpretation of New Testament Christianity which differs from Old Testament Torah. Yet many who name themselves Christian believe in an eye for an eye instead of turning a cheek. I personally cannot envisage any deity in human or anthropomorphic form. {With the exception of Ganesh} I was made to draw God as a white bearded white geezer at the convent school in Zambia.

People born with penises believe that they can be “women” after a few hormones and a change of clothes, a new frock.

Some of the conspiracy theories floating about are to my eyes far-fetched, yet they have their devotees. I do believe that the world is controlled loosely by rich people. The extent to which they conspire is moot. It is all about profit and the best way to get that is by being good at business and ensuring calm by means of pecuniary compliance. There is no need to do weird far-out stuff. 

Yep, some get corrupted by power and this can be expressed by abuse, sexual abuse and coercion. There are a number of ring-like groups that take advantage of those who are corruptible by promise of an easy ticket. Sometimes the cost of association to/with a powerful figure is high. Savile, Epstein, Al-Fayed. There are mini-mes of these scattered through the population, the degree of unpleasantness varies.

Between belief and proof, we might have working hypothesis. In which one tries out a framework or context to see how well it works, what the generality is like. There are “proofs” which are more circumstantial than direct.  There are things which suggest or point at an idea.

I believe in the concept of karma, there is sufficient observable causality for me to trust it as a concept, a working hypothesis. However, the subject is vast. I once did a whole blog exploring karma. The cornerstone of karma is evolution. One needs to learn from mistakes. Evolution and karma are of the same process. There is a cost associated with some actions which “the universe” wants paid. Karma not worked at in a timely fashion and with willing mood accrues karmic debt, much like a bank loan. One learns the effect of a causal action or behaviour. Sometimes people are slow learners.

The coypu no longer trouble our lotuses. Electric shock training with 0.25 Joule pulses at kilovolts works. We have a low electric fence which I installed. Cause and effect. Coypu karma.

I have had sufficient circumstantial evidence via visions and dreaming to believe in reincarnation. There is no way, on this planet, that I could ever prove reincarnation to the satisfaction of my scientific training. I could not put data into a spreadsheet and plot a graph with a fitted equation and a statistical quality of fit metric. I share the belief in reincarnation with millions. I probably believe it more strongly than most.

Karma and reincarnation as concepts are internally consistent. Karma spans lifetimes so that we can evolve. Karma is a teacher of sorts, in my world.  It takes lifetime after lifetime to learn somethings.

Is it significant that I who once was a pukka scientist at a pukka institution can remember three lives as a Buddhist monastic?

Depends upon what you think is significant. To your average common or garden UK football supporter it means nothing.  To someone who is a committed Buddhist it would not be a huge surprise, it might be tad interesting. Why not a scholar scientist and a scholar monk? It is not so different. Both have cerebral elements. To a bunch of scientists, it might be a red flag which needs disproved.

Have you noticed how science has a negation bias?

I’ll speculate that most people have a host of things which they believe which cannot be proven and moreover they do not question their beliefs or the provenance of the source from which they were obtained / picked up. Gossip and tittle tattle being a common currency which can become Gospel or God’s honest truth. “They” know and say an awful lot, do they not?

People can be very adamant about things which they have not checked or researched themselves. There is heavy reliance on hearsay. There are a lot of soap box orators both in real life and on-line. Hearsay has it that the spread of disinformation is huge and increasing.  This is consistent with what I see on Twitter. 

If you watch BBC, Sky, France 24 and Al-Jazeera the reporting on Gaza is very different. The British news is very sanitized and biased. People trust the BBC but it is reporting on a very different “war” to Al-Jazeera. Chalk and cheese. The UK right think the BBC is luvvie-socialist oriented.

People will believe whatever they want to believe. Convenience is a major factor in belief. They will believe what is the most convenient for them to believe. Inconvenient truths are generally not preferred. Coming round to an inconvenient belief takes time and is resisted, exemplified by the three individuals mention previously.  So far nobody has said a great deal about the Princess Diana – Al-Fayed relationship. That narrative is altered by recent news. Did King Charles have her bumped off? Is he still the villain or are there other factors now?

Belief is also mutable…

What you believe today is impermanent…I can’t prove it to you…I can offer it as a working hypothesis which you might see to be applicable.

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How many of your beliefs are convenient?

Why did you prefer them?

Dream Recall as a Metaphor for Past-life Recall.

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Phowa is a tantric practice found in both Hinduism and Buddhism. It may be described as “transference of consciousness at the time of death”, “mind-stream transference”, “the practice of conscious dying”, or “enlightenment without meditation”. In Tibetan Buddhism phowa is one of the Six yogas of Naropa and also appears in many other lineages and systems of teaching.

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Tibetan Vajrayana Bon and Dzogchen inspired Buddhism is highly complex and rooted deep in tradition and lineage. It has an extensive death practice called Phowa in which one transfers consciousness, consciously, at the transition between corporeal and not. Timing is everything. Lamas and priests can enable others with ritual and there are publications like “The Tibetan Book of the Dead”. To an experimentalist like me these could be seen as recipes or syntheses to attempt in my body laboratory. One aspect is to hold a visual of pure white Amitabha Buddha for another being in transition.

A text might stimulate a memory recall of something done before.

It is common parlance to suggest memory from past lives. I’ll speculate that a lot of this is wishful thinking. Anecdotally many claim “famous” named prior incarnations. Ordinary people claim these. I’ll speculate that a non-ordinary or special being will incarnate in an even less ordinary vehicle next time around. There is a bit of dodgy logic with Joe Bloggs claiming Genghis Khan. Evolution is a planetary principle. Most people will have “normal” “humdrum” lives, over and over.

To develop a train of thought.

If the consciousness leaves the body by sudden jolt or force or with the mental incapacity of age it is unlikely to remember the former abode. With jolt comes trauma which might overarch any memory.  To have sufficient control of mind to consciously withdraw requires a considerable degree of realisation and attainment, which is likely to be rare. Such beings able to exit smoothly and under control are more likely to retain memories of previous lives. They are lucid in the act of death, aware of event and conscious therein. They may have practised this across several lifetimes. They practise lucid dying.  So, if they set their intent on remembering a life learning, they do. Just as one learns to remember and recall dreams. Dream recall is a skill which can be developed. Metaphorically life recall may also be a skill which can be honed.

In this train of thought only the more highly skilled and practiced will have any decent recall. It is likely that they may be able to recall many lives. There will be a first time recall of life.

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From Wikipedia

Enumerations of special knowledges

In the Pali Canon, the higher knowledges are often enumerated in a group of six or of three types of knowledge.

The six types of higher knowledges (chalabhiññā) are:

  • “Higher powers” (iddhi-vidhā), such as walking on water and through walls.
  • “Divine ear” (dibba-sota), that is, clairaudience.
  • “Mind-penetrating knowledge” (ceto-pariya-ñāṇa), that is, telepathy.
  • “Remember one’s former abodes” (pubbe-nivāsanussati), causal memory, that is, recalling one’s own past lives.
  • “Divine eye” (dibba-cakkhu), that is, knowing others’ karmic destinations; and,
  • “Extinction of mental intoxicants” (āsavakkhaya), upon which arahantship follows.

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This suggests that past life recall is not a beginner’s skill.

To extend the metaphor just as one learns to remember and recall dreams night after night one starts to recall former abodes. The knowledge from which advises on karmic effort needed. In order to better recall one needs to die lucidly just as one needs to be lucid and aware of the enactment of the dreaming state of consciousness.

Each life is a new dream for the dreamer.

In the logic of reincarnation lucid dream recall is a metaphor for the putative recall of past life memories. It is internally consistent. The degree of lucidity and extent and detail of recall must vary.

If you start to remember your dreams better you might re-member previous lives.

Five Dreams With “Calligraphy” In…

Sanskrit-Senzar- Messenger Dream 26th May 2014

I am standing in a column of light which is shining down on me. It comes from above. As the light shines on me it etches into my skin black tattoos, these form on my arms, my legs, my chest and my back. They are letters, words and phrases in Sanskrit and Senzar. The letters are in a black ink and cover pretty much my entire body much like the Bulletproof Monk. I carry these letters.

Next, I am in a city landscape and everyone is going to a party at city hall. There is a concert on there and people are gathering. There is an ensemble playing, it is like the Academy of Ancient Music and the instruments are all original period pieces. They are up on stage. On the ground floor and in a “box” is Princess Anne.

By this time, I have told people about the tattoos and nobody believes me. There has been some press interest but the men with their 1950’s style newshound flash cameras have lost interest. This is because there is nothing to see. The party continues on undisturbed.

I now find myself in a department store which is old style. I am curled up on the floor near a counter wearing a grey long sleeved shirt. The shop people find me there and nudge me to get up. I get up and as I do so the sleeves of my shirt fall back to reveal a list of tattoos in Sanskrit, Senzar and Chinese. These are now in very vivid royal blue and the calligraphy is exquisite, it is almost moving and definitely alive and vivacious.

The store staff are all bewildered by this and take me to a back office. In the foyer to this back office are two small Tibeto-Chinese figures. They are dressed in ceremonial costumes and approach me. They are dwarves and twins. I show them my forearms and they recognize the Sanskrit and Chinese characters; they guess that the others must be Senzar. The tattoos are now moving like a “stock ticker” scrolling across my arms. The dwarves are awestruck.

Whilst I am waiting for the store staff, I get bored and so leave the store, into a busy “New York” city street. It is raining heavily and my shirt gets wet through. It is clinging to me. I am wandering through the city in the rain with these vivid mobile, deep royal blue tattoos being the only coloured thing in a grey and black and white-grey world.

In the dream I know that I am carrying messages. I am by way of a messenger.

Later people gather around me and I show them my forearms. People now start to believe what I have told them before and all are astounded by the tattoos. I show church leaders and statesman. They are all stunned.

IIn the city the younger people are setting up to go to a house party. It is the usual thing and people are gathering to go to someone’s house. They are all too busy with partying. They do not realize that the “party” is at my house.

I am now on a roof and there is a stack of old billboard type advertisements. There are several of us and we are sorting them. There is one which reads Toltec 7-14 which we find and as we do this one of the phrases in Senzar lights up on my arm. It says “Toltec 7-14 New Book” in Senzar. I know its meaning. I know it is both a date and has the meaning of dreaming symbols {7= guidance and 14 = new knowledge}.

I awake with very strong sensations on and in my forearms and chest. These are very similar to when I had the visions of myself in Buddhist monks robes and tattoos in Sanskrit of inter alia “Om Mane Padme Hum” nearly a decade ago. I can feel the place where the dream tattoos were, particularly on my forearms.

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Megatron – Magic Dream 19-12-22

It was a dark and stormy night I had woken at 4:30 and listened to the storm. At one point I heard a persistent high pitched whine in my left ear only. It lasted more than ten seconds. I must have drifted off to sleep around 7 AM and according to the wife I was kicking about.

The dream is set in Australia. I arrive at a dockland area. There are two vast cranes which are stacked with cars like car transporters. They are lifting these up into the sky. I, slightly nervously, walk under them and into a space below a spacious bridge. There is a gathering of people there sat on the floor. There are mostly young and I understand it to be a science outreach event called the Megatron. Z and Y are there. I sit down outside the gathering proper and listen in.

Z, seated on the floor, is boasting about all the other events they have done including one in the prestigious Sydney docks, they managed to close off some famous street. He is telling the participants that they should count themselves lucky to be here and that all the others are zeros. I get up and walk over to him and clip him on the head. He drops a white glass plate which he is holding and it breaks when it hits the ground. I say that he is setting a very bad example telling the youngsters that other people are zeros. He gets up nervously and I make as if to clip him again. He avoids and I chase him slowly around the listening circle. Every time I feign to clip him, he cowers and avoids. I turn my back on him and walk to the bridge wall. There I pick up my cigarettes, my mobile ‘phone and my fishing rod. I know that he does not understand the true meaning of zero. I walk off and they are all surprised that I am leaving the event.

I walk towards a town centre. As I do this, I smoke a cigarette. I put the packet and my ‘phone in my back right hand pocket. The sensation of smoking in the dream is very realistic. After I finish smoking, I transfer my green fishing rod to my right hand.

As I am walking along the street, I notice a little boutique selling artefacts, these are pieces of tree branch decorated with mother of pearl and other seashells. Some of them function as windmills. They are very shiny and sparkly. A woman who runs the shop notices me looking at the shells and artefacts. I comment that they are highly unusual are very attractive. She says that there are more upstairs and would I like to come in. I put my fishing rod to lean against a wall. I follow her up a very tight spiral staircase carved out of an orange-brown wood. We arrive at a landing and there is a two door thigh high swing gate fashioned out of the same wood. She lifts up the latch and ushers me in. She closes the door behind me.

We go deeper into the building.  A young woman with dark hair arrives. This is my daughter Helen says the older woman. I say hello and she replies.

“Helen is trying to go to the Megatron and has applied. They have asked her to do a montage as an application. Would you look at it for us?”

“Sure”

Helen hands me her montage which is between two cardboard covers of an intense dark brown colour. There are many laves of paper. Her pictures and calligraphy are exquisite. Some of it written in a metallic gold ink, which is gold in colour but not of gold.

I am very impressed with what she has put together. I ask to see the letter outlining the task.

This letter is handwritten on dark purple paper. And sure enough the instructions are there. They look to have been written in two different hands. One by a woman and the last paragraph by a man.

I show this to the woman who at first disagrees and then agrees. The writing again is in a sloping italic “metallic” ink.

As this point a large semi-bald man comes through the wooden gate. He is wearing a brown camel hair coat and is larger than life in his presence. He comes over to me and shakes my hand. He is the father of Helen.

My eye is drawn to a farmyard scene make out of porcelain statues. There are deer, two piglets, a dog and a cow. As soon as he finished shaking my hand the scene animates and comes to life. I know it is magic. Two deer come over to greet the man and I offer them the back of my hand to smell, which they do. The piglets start squealing and running all over the place. They run over my feet. Everybody now has sparkly eyes.

The man asks If Helen’s application is good. I say to her that it is very good but not to tell them about her magic animals. 

The man asks If I will be at the Megatron. I say no and that now I am staying at Alice {Springs}.

He asks if I am going back there tonight.

“Yes.”

“Are you flying?”

“I will get there.”

I wish Helen luck and then go to leave.

The man says to be careful with the gate otherwise the piglets will escape.

I go out through the gate, closing it behind me. I go downstairs, pick up my fishing rod and walk out into the normal city street.

I am aware that this dream pertains to a tarot card.

Dream ends

From Wikipedia:

Megatron is a fictional character and the main antagonist of the Transformers media franchise produced by American toy company Hasbro and Japanese toy company Takara Tomy. Megatron is the cruel and tyrannical leader of the Decepticons, a faction of sentient, war-mongering robotic lifeforms that seeks to conquer their home planet of Cybertron and the rest of the known universe. He serves as the archenemy of Optimus Prime, the leader of the rival Autobot faction. As with all Cybertronians, Megatron has the ability to transform between his robot form and various vehicles or weapons. His alternate modes have ranged from a Walther P38 handgun, a particle-beam weapon, a telescopic laser cannon, and a Cybertronian jet, depending on which continuity he is depicted in.

Megatron’s most consistent origin portrays him as having risen up from being an oppressed worker to a gladiatorial champion who took the legendary name of one of the original Thirteen Primes—Megatronus—as his own. He shortened his name when he became a political revolutionary who attempted to reform Cybertron’s corrupt governing body and called for an end to its decrepit caste system. As the mentor of the young Orion Pax, Megatron preached that freedom of self-determination was the right of all sentient beings. When Megatron grew corrupted by his power, Orion would utilize his teachings against him as Optimus Prime. In most incarnations, Megatron would eventually meet his demise at Optimus’ hands, only to later be resurrected as Galvatron.”

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Magic Fayre Dream 8-1-23

This is an extensive dreaming sequence whereby I woke up and then went back to sleep, re-entering the same dream.

I arrive at a middle size country mansion constructed in red bricks. There is a temporary car park roped of at a distance to the mansion and signage saying “Magic Fayre” pointing along the drive towards the mansion. The gardens are immaculate and it is a fine summer’s day. Many of the people are dressed for an English country garden party. I walk along to the entrance and wait in line.

When it is my turn to enter the gentleman on the door gives me a red plastic circular token with the number 16 printed upon it in raised yellow lettering. He says that I am getting a kind of VIP pass. All the other guests have pale yellow tokens with numbers starting at 200.

I go in and there are various exhibition style booths. At the first one there are two young women. Their stand is called “Modern Witchcraft”. On the stand there are examples of handicrafts and immaculate calligraphy. The two women are dressed in very smart stylish outfits without a trace of goth. They tell me that they are white witches and want to bring witchcraft into the 21st century. They are tired of the skanky image of witches and want to smarten it up. They say that the lost of art of spell calligraphy needs to be reborn and brought up to an impeccable level. I comment that I fully support what they are doing, the image needs to change. They beam with joy.

On the next stand there is a woman with long dark hair selling exotic candles of all shapes and sizes. Several of them are alight and the aroma is spiced and not unpleasant and manufactured like that of Yankee candles. It seems the woman has manged to make candles smell like exotic incense. I take the thumb and forefinger of my right hand and extinguish one candle between them. I am left with a light blue drop of oily liquid on my thumb. The drop is perfectly shaped. The woman claps her hands and says, “bravo”. She asks me to manually pleasure her which I do quietly beneath her table. She is wearing brown bikini bottoms which I push to one side.

I decide that I need to go back outside. There are a few people sat on the large stones which demarcate the drive. I find an empty one and take out an herbal marijuana joint which I spark up. A1 a man arrives and looks surprised to see me doing this. We chat briefly. The organiser of the event wearing a trilby and a beige suit comes over. He says that smoking weed is not allowed. I apologise. He says that I owe him a “sitting” in the basement if I can hack it. I agree to try.

I go back int the building and arrive at some demonstration area. There is a large head in a glass tank. The head is very much alive and the fluid which surrounds it is pulsating. He asks me to sit down on a chair at a distance from him and we tune into each other a little. Then he sends various articles towards me using telekinesis. The idea is that I must catch the objects with my hands. I manage to catch about 80% of the things he sends at me. The ones that I drop are all made of plastic. He notes this and thinks it funny that I cannot feel the plastic, whereas glass, metal and wood are easy for me to “pick up”. He is really happy and a sparkle appears in his one eye which is facing me.

He says to me in a booming telepathic voice, “you need to work with groups.”

I move on to the stairs and down into the basement. There is a well-lit library there with light wooden shelving and several librarians there. I know this library to be a library of white magic. I ask one of the librarians where to go for my “sitting”. She motions me to an armoured door in the corner of the room, in which there is a small glass window. She asks me to please close the door behind me until the “sitting” is over.

I go over to the door open it and walk through. I get my bearings and I am in a whitewashed medieval style cellar. I go back to the door close it and sit cross legged in the middle of the room. It very dark and quiet. The only light comes from the small window in the door. I start to meditate and close my eyes sinking in the darkness. Slowly a glowing rod of light appears. It is about 30cm long and less than 1cm wide. It is slowly alternating from white through pink to red and through pink back to white. I know that I cannot pick it up with my hands. So, I elevate it and bring it within my Anja centre. I absorb it and understand that I now have to radiate it out into the room. I do this for a fair time radiating a pinkish light into the otherwise dark cellar. I am aware that the librarian can see the pulsing glow. When I leave the room, the librarians are smiling I have fulfilled my task.

I come to

Next, I am outside the mansion again it is later towards the end of the afternoon. I am outside with A2 also a man.  We are standing near a rucksack on the floor. He says that he is changing his ways and is going to participate in a practise called Yeshe*-lam. I ask his if him if he knows what Yeshe means. He admits that he does not. I keep quiet. For some reason he is trying to impress me.

We go into the Magic Fayre. Several of the stands are closing up. At the back there is a table with three men in business suits going over some paperwork. I go over to ask them what they are doing. One of them says that they work for Samsung who have sponsored the event. I see that he has some accounts and joke that he should hide them from A2 who is an accountant. He plays as if to hide them. He asks me what I thought of the event. I say that it was well run, meticulously organised and very good. He comments that he is pleased that their investment has worked.

He says that he is going to work with lama Yeshe. I ask him how long he has been working with Tibetan Buddhism and the Bardo teachings. He comments intermittently. He takes one third of the year sabbatical to do this. He cannot work full on for Samsung and do Bardo at the same time, they do not mix well.

We go back outside to the ruck sack. Out of the corner of my eye I see two giant figures, one a mediaeval king {with crown} and the other some kind of knight they are over five metres tall and the same height as a big water tower. The king is fighting with the knight and is trying to kill him with a sword. They fall over knocking the tower to the ground. I motion to A2 to come with me into a stone built folly. Which he does.

Soon a number of larger figures come into the property. They start to fire arrows at us but I can deflect them with my mind.

I come to.

Next, I am outside my flat in North London. I know it is a bit of a mess. I open the door and on the floor in the corner of the room is sat an Indian “guru” in saffron robes and with long flowing grey hair. He smiles. I apologise for the mess. He says that it is of no import.

A2 turns up and says that he is hungry. I say that I have no food but that there are plenty of restaurants, nearby. I reel off the types of restaurant and we decide to go to a fish restaurant nearby. I say to the “guru” we will be back soon.

After we have eaten, I leave A2 at the restaurant and head back to the flat. When I open the door there is another “Indian” man sat on the floor meditating he is dressed in a 1950’s style suite with a black Muslim cap. He feels serene.

I come to.

I do drift back off but I can’t recall accurately what happens.

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*Yeshe (Tibetan: ཡེ་ཤེས་, Wylie: ye-shes, ZYPY: Yêxê) is a Tibetan term meaning wisdom and is analogous to jnana in Sanskrit.

The memory of this was prompted by one of the checkout ladies at the supermarket who has large witchy tattoos. There are quite a few women with tattoos like that around here.

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Tibetan Buddhist Search Committee Dream 29-04-23.

This dream was so out of the blue, unexpected.

The dream starts in the UK in England. I am hosting a personal development course in a country house with a large events room. We are sat in plenary in U-shape around the side of the high ceiling dance hall. It is ornate but now carpeted. A smartly dressed tall woman with a feint American accent and long blonde hair is speaking on a slightly raised wooden dais. She is using a long wooden pointer to point at a presentation she is making, which is running on a white screen.

It is time for a break before the final closing remarks and conference wrap up.

Everyone gets up for refreshments which are served in the antechamber. I walk through this into the back of the house which turns into a smaller building. This is where I have been living in the UK countryside. There is a wooden shed and outbuildings. I am checking on the content of these as we will be moving soon. Someone has started moving the items of furniture. I say to a woman there that she ought to have known better not to disturb my system. There is a symmetry to how I have fitted things in the shed. They only go in one way and must come out the reverse way. The passage to the shed is narrow and there is only one way to do this. I am slightly angry and the people are sheepish.

I return to the conference and it is over. Everyone has left, they are all people from my past in one sense. I have missed my chance to do the summing up and to thank the speaker. They have mostly left in embarrassment. The sense of embarrassment is strong and clear.

The speaker is now playing a video recording of semi-rural Tibet. The camera is running through the streets and I can see a large white and brown temple up on the hill. There are prayer flags and modern Tibetan people together with some more rustic “peasants”. I look at the woman and she has changed into an embroidered gold and red jacket over her novice nun robes. He hair is now short. I ask her about the video she says that it is of her people and that she has been working for them in making my acquaintance.

At this point a small party of people enter the room. They are all dressed in ceremonial Tibetan robes. These are very opulent. The embroidery is yellow, red, magenta, and saffron. It is ornate and slightly garish. There is a scent of incense accompanying them They are headed by a monk/abbot who is old and his right hand man who has jet black hair.  In the entourage there is a western woman with a round yellow-red embroidered cap over her bald head. I recognise her as someone whom I have met in this lifetime. I go up to her and say, “I know you”. She winks, smiles and says that yes, I do and that she had been sent to observe me. Amongst them is a tall athletic Tibetan man who moves with grace, poise and style. I point my finger into his chest. I say to him, “you are warrior and fighter.” He laughs and says yes. We can spar later using traditional Tibetan weapons to see what I remember.

Now into the back of the room furniture is being carried in by hand. I know it to be of a ceremonial nature and his has been carried from afar. My eyes are drawn to a very ornate chest with meticulous cabinet work. It is made in the shape of a Welsh dresser with an upper cupboard. The wood is highly polished, perhaps walnut. The detail of the closures is in gold.  It is a treasure and contained within it are relics. Although not visible to the naked eye, inscribed into the wood in “magic” lettering are some words in Tibetan script. The calligraphy is excellent and the downward strokes of the letters are longer and more artistic than is customary. They have been inscribed with flourish. There is a sense that the intense black calligraphy has been “burned” into the wood over the centuries and that only certain people can see it.

The carpet on the floor of the hall has been rolled back to reveal a parquet dance floor of some considerable sheen. Amongst the entourage I can hear gossiping. “It cannot be him; he is too coarse thickset and muscular.”

I hear this and whip off my shirt to reveal my muscular bare chest. I say that I will cooperate with whatever it is they must do. Take a look if you must. I am now wearing saffron yellow trousers, training pants, that are “elasticated” at the ankles. I start to do a forward splits on the floor to warm up. I say that given I am nearly sixty I am surprised that being that old I can still do that.

One of the woman in the entourage says to me that I am much older than that both in this lifetime and stretching way back. I am nearly 73 she says. I do the mental calculation that I must have been “born” in the early 1950s. She says, “we tried to wake you five years ago”. You have been “asleep” and we have been waiting.

I briefly wake up and then drift off.

I am at an oriental Temple scene with ponds and in an immaculate garden. At first pass I think Chinese and then know Japanese. There are people there with round black ceremonial hats and flowing Japanese robes. I am poured into the pond as very large and bright, shiny goldfish. I swim in the Temple ponds and in the dream, I know that my second Buddhist life was Japanese. These ponds are my home, where I swim.

I the return to the hall in the previous part of the dream and the warrior comes into the room carrying some odd looking Tibetan martial arts weapons. Which I recognise. Some of the monks are now seated and are reciting mantra whilst thumbing through their prayer beads.

I have a very strong visual image of two yellow-hat Tibetan monks in full colour sat on a rock up in the mountains playing their long Tibetan alpine horns. That image and the sound persists even now. I can “hear” the horns inside my mind. They are precursors to a ritual, setting the scene.

 I get up and greet the cat. I take my medication and put the coffee on. I sit down and start typing.

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Two Mysterious Letters Dream 29-8-23.

I had this dream full of portent around 5 AM this morning.

I go into a brightly lit bedroom which is empty. At the far side of the room there is something on the wall. The walls are off white in colour and have a French feel. I can see just below head height, two small envelopes pinned to the wall by a long fine pin with a small black plastic spherical head. The envelopes are old school letter envelopes about the size of my hand. One envelope is mostly behind the other. They are white and of high quality.

On the front envelope is written is a very curly and fine light blue italic ink the words “Happy Families”. I know instantly that this is ironic. The calligraphy is exquisite and I know that these letters contain secrets in the act of being revealed to me. I leave the letters attached to the wall until the time is right.

I instantly have a knowing that my mother was in contact with my ex-wife unbeknownst to me and deliberately behind my back, in secret.

There is a sense of time in that these revelations of two different types will unfold henceforth.

I awake for a loo break and then go back to the dream.

I wonder if they are anything to do with Mrs Taraud {Tarot} from whom we bought the house. I energetically check the bedroom we are currently in and the one which used to be her bedroom. There is no trace of envelope in either room.

I am now outside and in a sandstone wall I can see something red on the wall. I approach and it is two small keys on a keyring with a small plastic tag on a nail in the wall. The tag is about two inches long and one inch wide, it is bright red. The tag has a handwritten piece of white card. The writing is again in a light blue ink, is smudged and cannot be deciphered. I know that the keys are meant for me. They will help me unlock the secrets. I pick up the keys and put my finger through the small key ring and give the keys a twirl. They are light. I put the keys in my pocket.

As I leave that part of the dream, I note the double appearance of the number two and know that it pertains to something now destined to happen.

 A little later I am in a courtyard by an outdoor swimming pool. There is a puppy there of a very luxurious black colour. It comes over to me and bites my right hand in a firm manner which does not hurt. It will not let go. I place the fingers and thumb of my left hand around its jaw pressure point and squeeze. The puppy opens its mouth and lets go. It is having great fun and bounces about in the courtyard.

The dream ends.

Shamballa – White Room – Buddhist Robes Dream 10-09-2024

This dream is at the “border” between dreaming and visualization and comes completely out of the blue. Yesterday morning I was talking with an investment manager of a venture fund whom I knew over thirty years ago at university. From high tech to Buddhism.

In the dream I arrive at the outer courtyard of a massive temple complex. It is situated in a commanding elevated position compared to the settlement in the valley below. To the South glistening in the sun, I can see a snow-covered mountain range. I assume these are Himalaya. I enter the temple complex which I know to be Shamballa. I am taken along a corridor to a room which I have never been to before. The room in contrast to the others is of a dazzling sparkling white and full of sunshine. There is a dais to one side also painted in brilliant white.

I am standing there in my black briefs. I say, “how come I have never seen this room before?” They say that I am now ready for it.

I am being dressed in the magenta and saffron-yellow vestments of a Tibetan style. The sense is that these robes are ceremonial. There are multiple layers, and I can feel the weight of them on my body. I can also feel the places on my forearms where I had the waking visions of “om mane padme hum” tattoos in Sanskrit around twenty years ago. I know somehow that it is winter. There is a sense that I am being prepared.

The chakras in my feet and hands are very energized.

I breakthrough into waking room consciousness and hear the wife breathing in bed next to me.

The Problem of Out of the Box Thinking

Of late I have stopped looking at Twitter because there is an awful lot of stuff about the upcoming American presidential election. It does not speak well of the level of intelligence. It remains a mystery to me why/how such a technologically advanced society can have some very backward thinking, which is adamant and dogmatic.

Because I was “forced” to be right handed my school career got off to a bad start. I was forever being deducted marks for poor hand writing and shite diagrams. I chose not to study biology in six form because I was always losing marks for poor diagrams. I use a bow and arrow left-handed and I set up the food mixer “gammy” according to the wife.

Human beings can hold seemingly contradictory ideas at the same time without it causing them problems. For example, it is OK to bomb Gaza to smithereens killing thousands but to abort a foetus is forbidden / evil.  People believe the standard model of physics and yet still talk of heaven up there and hell down there. The concept of getting virgins as a reward for martyrdom is inconsistent with not having a body or penis when dead. People refer to heaven as a “place” but without physical form Cartesian notions of space are invalid. How would a discarnate consciousness be even aware of space with no eyes, no ears and in the absence of a heartbeat there would be no clock to provide time. Time and space would no longer exist.

Apparently, there is more in the universe which we don’t know than we do.

“In the standard lambda-CDM model of cosmology, the mass–energy content of the universe is 5% ordinary matter, 26.8% dark matter, and 68.2% a form of energy known as dark energy. Thus, dark matter constitutes 85% of the total mass, while dark energy and dark matter constitute 95% of the total mass–energy content.”

Yet people can be very adamant and assertive.

History shows that scientific models evolve and change. We tend to keep the old models and then add exception or special cases until using the old model is like flogging a dead horse. New out of the box ideas are nearly always seen as whacky at the get-go. This can lead to reputational loss and peer group shunning.

The phenomenon of quantum entanglement and its resolution with at distance effects on the other half of an entangled pair was a non sequitur for Einstein. We choose to describe the physics by calling two eigenstates entangled. It works for our purposes and has practical application. There is a part of me which wonders if we are missing something, if there is an underlying physics we are not yet aware of.  Will the people a century from now look back at our naivety? We teach wave particle duality but the electron does not give a toss how we describe things. We forget that our descriptions and models are just that. They are only so good as they are useful yet people are evangelical about them.

Logically there is a physics problem with heaven and hells. Where are they? Are they off planet, in a parallel universe, down the back of a sofa? What exactly goes there? It cannot be corporeal.

People can tend not to ask such questions. They can be seen as heretical.

A fair swathe of humanity believe in some form of “life” after death, which seems illogical from a reductionist point of view. Nobody has every proven life after death; therefore all “scientists” will tend towards atheism and life ends period. Yet there are many scientists of faith.

I personally have circumstantial dream evidence which points at reincarnation. I can say this in public because it no longer can affect my career prospects.

Modern science can be said to apply to the manifest universe. Religion suggests something non-manifest as we know it in the common view of the world. If using our current thinking we don’t know what 95% of the energy-mass of the manifest universe is, how can we be sure what is not manifest?

There is a big hole in our understanding.

In meditation I have opened the Sahasrāra chakra using visualisation and, in a stepwise manner visualized my awareness and consciousness outside my body. I did this by stretching the Sutratma and Antahkarana over a number of months. This was thinking out of the box so to speak. There was very little residual corporeal awareness “there”. According to some theories this is what happens at death. In that tradition this is a death practice.

I can in no way prove that I took my awareness out. I could have been kidding myself. I did also have a visual of looking down at me on the operating table during my colon cancer surgery. If I had to place a bet. Some kind of non-corporeal awareness can exist. I’ll find out for sure, soon enough.

People are allowed to think outside the societal box but they must not stray too far from the accepted reality box. If they think outside accepted paradigm, they risk excommunication. Another human being (priest) can by using a spell (rite) stop them from going to a place which nobody knows where it is and from which no one has come back bearing tales.

Anything truly original and avantgarde is very risky in socio-political terms.

Thinking outside the box close, just a tad outside the box, is allowed.

Trans-paradigmatic thinking is forbidden.