The post that got me banned from the whole Buddhist group

[nightscanner59]

Last edited Mon Sep 10, 2012, 12:29 PM - Edit history (1)

I've never been convinced by any christian or other "superlative being" religion. Matter of fact I thought after death it would just be "nothing". But after an out of body experience I had 25 years ago now...
I do believe in an afterlife. There is a part of us all that continues on after this body cannot contain our spirit anymore.
I always thought I'd found the Buddhist religion most compatible with my set of beliefs. It didn't include a lot of supernatural crap I just find hard to have blind faith in.
I had an extraordinary experience in about 1987 that was super-disturbing. I'm sure many will write off the following story as a hallucination. But after I saw a woman I'd spiritually inhabited for a short time while my spirit was lost, I can never again be convinced of that. Anyone who cares to read this can take it however they want, believe it or not. I'm sure it's a stretch for anyone who hasn't had an out of body experience.
I shared the following story on a buddhist group blog in answer to a DU'ers question about my beliefs, I got banned the next day:

How to explain extra corporeal perceptions? Example from today, several nights of sleeping on your question.
Sometime after 3 p.m. today, thoughts of my mother emerged in short discussion about her in general, with a colleague. I was at work. At an approximation of the same time, my cell phone, plugged into a socket in my apartment 4 miles away from work received voice mail message from her, no specific question from her, just "hello haven't heard from you in a while, call me." I got that message about 6 p.m. when coming home from work. Simply coincidental? These things only can bring up wondering, more questions than answers. I seem to have uncanny numbers of coincidences like these.
Absence of corporeal thought processes are in nature, extremely disorienting. Allow me to explain what happened to me nearly 25 years ago that has caused me to seek answers to this ever since:
To the best of my ability to put this into sets of words:
I walked into the bathroom after dinner in my apartment in San Francisco. After that, it gets blurry, but: Then I felt tired, and went to bed, or so it seemed. But the door to my bedroom was closed. There was something about I couldn't turn the knob. Then I couldn't seem to get warm, I couldn't seem to pull the blankets. I had no arms and legs to do so. It was evening. Time seemed to stand still. I seemed... to be... the bed. In retrospect only, I think I was "lost" there for several hours. I was just kind of "there". I lacked any perception other than just kind of disoriented. I just kind of went into my bed, but not corporeally.

My freaked-out roommate at the time, after I returned from the hospital, said I was having seizures on the bathroom floor and he dialed 911. I remember none of this.

Somehow.... (more questions than answers), sort of, instinctively I moved toward where my body was transported... but this is only a "recollective" assumption. I seemed to... expand beyond the bed, beyond the bedroom, there were bricks, glass. Like I "became" them. What seemed like suddenly I was laying on wooden floor, somewhere and I was panting. I was covered in fur and had paws. I looked up to a woman sitting in a chair, reading a book. She was like an image from an old black and white television set. Just as suddenly, I was reading the book, and looked over at the dog laying on the floor. But somehow this was all "wrong"... (more questions than answers!) Something, "just felt wrong, but I did feel the chair below me, the warm air brown floor, red and yellow "heat" to my left, the brownish red dog facing me, looking at me, lying on the floor. I was, for a few short seconds, a largish woman sitting, putting the book in my lap and looking at the dog, who was looking back at me.
Then I (best word I can put to this) "expanded" again. There was a fire, or a yellow, glowing heater there, and I "experienced" it. Just energy, wild bouncing yellow energy all around.
No time seemed to pass except when I was the dog, then the woman. Not more than a few seconds. Then the heat, or fire. Then darkness, light, and a feeling of expansion at incredible speed. I think I was expanding even beyond the whole sphere of the earth, and sort of a "bounce" back.
I awoke in my own body again. I was tied to a gurney at San Francisco General Emergency room surrounded by staffers there. Soft padding all around, and people. Someone was disconnecting electrodes from my head and calling the doctor. I asked where I was, disoriented. I didn't even know for a few minutes, who I was. I looked down. I was catheterized and monitor leads were all over my chest. My chest hurt, badly. The other staffers there walked away. "Beep, Beep, Beep..." I was afraid of it. I called over someone, and asked what time it was. She said it was about 6 a.m. -- but somehow, this didn't seem unusual or difficult to understand. Only later I realized I had taken some kind of time jump. She gave me, apparently a sedative through my I.V. line. I awoke again later, but I don't know what time. My significant other (Stephen) was there asking me what the hell happened. I couldn't explain.
After discharge, I went to Stephen's place. I moved in with him after returning to my apartment. My roommate at the time looked at me wide-eyed and said I'd scared him to death. I answered him: "No, I died" I don't know how, but I at that point, I knew that.
He asked me to move out.
So, I moved in with Stephen. But the same day, I took my meds, and got a case of wry neck. I couldn't understand that something was wrong till Stephen came home from work and talked me into going back to the hospital. While there, after some kind of shot that alleviated my neck spasm, I inquired the doctor to please explain what happened to me a few days earlier. He came back with a puzzled look on his face. He said I had a cardiac arrest during some kind of seizure. But something was wrong. Some labs were totally normal that I think he expected should have been "off". There was some sugar detected in my urine which he said raised concern for diabetes, so he drew blood, took urine again. Now, totally normal. All previous tests, except sugar in urine and some cardiac enzyme were now normal. They also had done a tox screen on previous visit. No drug detected. He recommended I get an MRI of my brain to look for lesions. It was some time after, but I did have one. Normal.
I wrote it all off... I must have just had hallucinations.
UNTIL
A few months later: I went to Safeway after work. I found myself behind a woman in line who seemed very, very familiar in a way I could not explain. Then she turned and glanced at me. I suddenly felt totally flushed, sick. It was the very woman I'd seen through the eyes of her dog, then became. I uttered: "Oh my god, it was real."
I left the shopping cart right there. I walked home, feeling like I was in a dream. No one seemed real, at all. Even Stephen greeted me in the hallway of the apartment and looked at me: "You look like you've just seen a ghost".
"I did". and I went to bed.
That was, to the best of my recollection, 1987. Stephen died a few months later from complications of AIDS. I am healthy, except for chronic injuries I sustained from being mugged in December 2009. But that is a totally different story.
The Loma Prieta earthquake shook our apartment immensely nearly two years later. I was with a new and different lover, Eldon. He died in 2001.
I have relived this experience thousands of times, and it always just brings up more questions than answers. I'm still sorting it out.

But if anyone is interested, I'll share what I learned from this experience.

I'd like to hear from others who've had a mysterious confirmation of a clairvoyant experience that cannot be explained away otherwise, and I'll share more on this. This was confirmed for me beyond any doubt.

[maha]

1. What was the diagnosis?

The experiences you describe easily could be caused by neurological problems. Both neuroscience and Buddhism, in various ways, teach that the way we see, hear, and experience the phenomena around us is being created by our senses, brains, and nervous systems -- the colors, forms, sounds, smells, etc., are not intrinsic to the things around us, but are the way the phenomena around us are interpreted by our nervous systems. And if our neurons misfire, it throws off what we experience. Here's a great video in which a neuroscientist explains what she experienced while having a stroke, and it's pretty amazing.

Buddhist practice teaches us to perceive reality beyond the world being created by our senses, and it doesn't sound as if you are ready for that. I suggest getting a through neurological work-up.

[nightscanner59]

2. Exactly why the doc's, all of them were baffled by this one. I've

Thank you for the suggestion, but I've seen many of the best neurologists many times since, had the whole workup time and again. After giving up on two of them, seeking that perhaps valuable second opinion and others since with each time I've become concerned this could happen again. How many times can I say, normal, normal, normal and normal?
I'm no longer ashamed to have anyone categorize this as you have. Precisely why I kept this to myself for many years. Best speculation I had a seizure, a bad one or series of them that couldn't be stopped. Certainly plenty of these experiences can be explained much like this kind of seminar...Maha. I've heard this kind of lecture and many, many others in 25 years of studying neuroscientific explanations of this kind of experience, partially as adjunct to my career as well, attempting to explain what happened to me that night.
Once this presenter has effectively been dead but alive, misplaced yet simultaneously aware of a makeup other than one's own body then realizes the confirmation that she wasn't where she thought... Whoops. Nothing in her or any neuro arsenal of logic can explain this, it is far beyond our capability to do so. I cannot default to "god" as many might try to attribute this to as well, it simply happened as best I can explain.
What motivates speakers such as this one? I have a schizophrenic brother as well. If only it were that easy for me. Sorry. No. All I can give you is what happened, whether you believe it or not is your choice. I really only know one thing for sure from this:
I no longer fear death as I did, leaving all platitudes behind.
There are none there until visitation with other beings or spirit spreading out into the energy fields around us when the body cannot sustain our spirit anymore. The bed, the bricks, every "thing" does contain this energy. I only retain the essence of both creatures I inhabited for such a short time, could not bring their "thoughts" with me.
Uncanny, I know and only I can truly know what happened to me that months later. It's the only thing that convinced me the experience I described was real, not confabulation of my seeking an explanation. I buried this but have been disturbed by it for 25 years now. Allow me to correct your tense here, allowing for person:

Buddhist practice teaches us to perceive reality beyond the world being created by our senses, and it doesn't sound as if I was ready for that.

I am now. I no longer fear death as I did. Constructs such as heaven, hell, nirvana have melted away. Only end of suffering awaits until new suffering gets embodied for me. I will not recall, but only retain the essence of the lessons of this life once there.

[tama]

3. Questions never cease

so perhaps time is spun from questions? "You" are as you experience yourself - be it a thought, a human body, an electromagnetic field, a bed, a fridge, a house - what ever you can and cannot express in words. Incorporating also how others (you perceive as others) perceive you. You are free to create and tell all the narratives you need to explain how you experience and you are free to lose all identities including that of "you".

And nice to know you and thank you for sharing your story. The really baffling question for me is why and how your story got you banned from Buddhism -group?

[nightscanner59]

4. possibility but maybe this is a far reach

I am of 20 percent native american blood, (BTW...sported the "bad blood" by my grandparents on moms side... puritanical german/swiss roots.) My religious beliefs (although I wince to call it that) more along the line of what my dad's side grandparent taught me, who was half Creek. Respect for the land and such, hence my reprehension for the Koch's outfit... but I regress again...
I studied Buddhism in high skool, read all related books, Siddhartha and so on. I moved on into the Koran from there.
Like I stated, my beliefs just tend to align with those of basic Buddhism but I certainly am not a master of that religion by any long shot nor would I claim to be.
I can only tell you what I experienced in post was real, but only I can, it's just a memory trapped in a moment when I encountered the woman (I'd been for a fleeting moment) in the grocery store, truly life altering from then on. It wasn't just a "recalled memory". I moved though the dog, to her, to some sort of "heat"... (fireplace? electric heater?) once then disembodied I could no longer see, feel, hear, taste, smell or cogitate. ONlY "experience", essence, instinct, a feeling of
"being a point in space that could expand infinitely or shrink the same... sort of... instinctually. Not "on demand" as we think of in our human skull.
Let me illustrate another example of this sort of thing I'd like shared here if anyone's interested:
Probably 1980 or 81 I got the call my maternal grandfather had died. I was awoken that morning by the phone call that was my mother telling me this news. But in the dream I was awoken from, I was sitting at the side of his old rocker, and he was speaking to me in perfect german. I know only enough german to barely get me to the train station and post office. But I was rattling german off to him like a native tounge... and thanks to mom calling didn't write it down, cant recall the words said.
Coincidence? I think not.
Pleasant Valley hospital circa 1984 or 1985. Pt dies on gurney, cardiac arrest. All surrounding nurses, myself, the doc and the respiratory tech witness a man getting up from his body, walking into the blue sky and clouds that appeared on the other side of the room as his body died. It was right after I whispered in his ear to him to "get up. get up and go on...." after 20 or so minutes of CPR.
I've got a couple dozen of these experiences in working my field the last 25 years, and there are surely others who have had similar. Share here.
Like I've said here before, much as I'm just working through the details of this out loud here because I'm no longer embarrassed by it, but my own religion is more in line with atheism with some old native american Creek/Cherokee and Western Navajo (my uncle married into) philosophy mixed in, if some Buddhists think of Buddha as a "god", they might find my belief system objectionable.
But that's just conjecture.

[nightscanner59]

5. also,, but just an add note...

questions are also spun from time. The more time has passed, the questions about that night have multiplied exponentially.

[tama]

6. I've also

looked into Greek, Buddhist, Gnostic Christian etc. philosophies deeply and extensively and found that what is closest to my heart are my own indigenous roots. Which are not unlike of those of Native Americans and I have enjoyed new connections and links between our peoples and experiences. I've also enjoyed what some may consider "fringe" or "kook" science and others "up to date" or "so far most advanced" theoretical frame. And I've had my share of "strange" experiences. I have no need to doubt your experiences.

The question that keeps arising, are you looking for some explanatory frame or consistent world view to explain and interpret your experiences? Or where does the need to speak about them publicly come from?

[GliderGuider]

7. tama, have you poked into Seth Lloyd's work?

I just found out about him (!) and I'm thinking of buying "Computing the Universe". It looks fascinating, especially given my own comp sci background and love of extreme abstraction

[tama]

8. No

but thanks for the tip.

[MAD Dave]

9. Your experience is amazing.

As a Baha'i, I believe that the soul and the body are separate but equally important entities. I also believe that there are times when the soul is not constrained within the body. From my limited persespective, while your physical body was in crisis, your spiritual soul was free to travel/drift/exist on its own. You were lucky enough to remember it.

My wife had an out-of-body experience as a child. She drowned in a pool and watched her brother and other kids swimming all the while keeping her eye on her lifeless body. She even saw the rescuer coming to save her, from above.


I am genuinely envious!

[Yooperman]

10. Greetings Nightscanner59...:-)

Thank you for sharing your experiences.

This is what I have learned.

We all are non-physical beings of light energy. Our Soul chooses to experience this low vibration physical dimension. We choose to live out many lives with many other beings and have goals in each physical life to learn specific lessons that help us grow and evolve as spiritual beings.

All matter is actually consciousness. Small packets of conscious energy form this dimension.

In my opinion, during your seizure, your spirit was no longer confined to your body. During this time you actually returned to the dimension we come from. There time does not exist as we perceive it here. With that... you very well could have been able to connect with "the bed" ... or a "wall" and understand the reality of it in away that we can not while conscious in the human form. For thousands of years humans have used drugs to leave this dimension and speak with non-physical beings or enter animals and see through their bodies. The way you describe becoming the object... sounds very Native American to me. Although I am sure Shamans from around the world would be the same. That all things have a "spirit".

There is a book called "Countdown to Coherence" by Hazel Courtney. Truly fascinating book that gets into this topic a bit more than I can effectively explain.

Your Soul is constantly connected with you and will try to communicate to it's lower self in this dimension throughout your life. Dreams are one way....and it appears that yours has used dreams several times throughout your life to get a message to you. Just remember not all dreams are messages.. some are just that dreams. But the impactful ones can be.... when you wake up and are in awe of what you just experienced. My Father came to me the day after his funeral in my dream. I KNOW he did... I walked into the kitchen to see him sitting at the table and I said "What are you doing here?" Knowing he was dead. He walked over to me and gave me a bear hug and whispered in my ear that he was very proud of me. This happens way more often than people realize as most people don't share these type of feelings for fear of ridicule.

My ex-wife once had her best friend come to her while we were driving back home from a distant city. "Susan is here! Susan died!" my wife said. "She came to say everything is ok and that she Loved her and just wanted to thank me for being her best friend". I looked at my wife and said "I guess we will find out when we get home.".... When we got home my sister in law was waiting for us. As soon as we entered the kitchen my wife looked at her and said.."Susan died didn't she?" SIL "Yes... how did you know?" You see Susan had died the day before. She lived in a distant state and although they had been best of friends growing up as kids... they both had their own lives and families to raise and only spoke with each other once or twice a year.


So I concur with you... we don't have to worry about what happens when we pass from this dimension to the next... we do it over many times learning, growing.... evolving. Trying to get everything we can out of the experiences of living as a human on planet Earth. Then we analyze the experiences with our guides and masters.... and make a choice to come back or move on to other places and experiences.

In closing... I have read countless books. They find me. Throughout my life my passion to learn the truth has brought me the exact book for the exact need of the time. Three books top the list.... life changing for me ... "The Mustard Seed" by Osho.. I read this in my twenties... he was Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh at the time. Profound is the only word I can say. I physically was shaking while reading it. It dismantled every belief I had been indoctrinated with growing up. "Many Lives Many Masters" Brian L. Weiss. He has written several books since..but this was his first and it was truly groundbreaking information for me. However, all are very very well done and fascinating. Lastly... the latest one to find me "Your Soul's Gift" by Robert Schwartz. Ties together many of the loose ends I had from my years of researching.

I wouldn't get to concerned to what exactly happened during your episode. Just know you learned something very special from it and it changed your life. That is why we come here.

Peace be with you on your Journey.

YM

[Dont call me Shirley]

11. Harmonic Convergence. A time of quickening of vibrational energies

Spontaneous awakenings.

[heaven05]

12. THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS

we do not understand about our existence as humans on a small "blue marble" in a very vast universe. We have made, as humans, great strides in understanding our physical body and how it works, hence our longer life span than our ancestors in preceding times. We are gaining knowledge of our neurological process that is helping us understand things like strokes, Alzheimers, neuropathy and such maladies of the brain and nervous system, yet we still are in the "why is this happening" stage? When it comes to our 'spriritual' nature we know only that it might be there. All other ideas of our spiritual nature are merely theories put forth by religious people either well meaning or with a control the people agenda. Those latter types are, I feel, are responsible for your being banned from the Buddhist group. Your experiences are unexplainable, yet I believe real and for people to be afraid of them only shows their fear. I am glad to read of your experiences because too many people here on this planet NEVER think of how much we don't know or care to know. I believe part of the purpose we are allowed existence on this reasoning plain is to search out that 'truth' without using greed, avarice and control that religionists use to thwart that individual search. Buddhism, without the controlling people is a perfect vehicle, I believe to search ourselves and our physical spiritual existence, hence monks walking alone contemplating our place in the cosmos, at least this is my search as a believer in the Southern School or Theravada buddhism of Thailand.

I was introduced to buddhism in 1969 while in Thailand on R&R from Vietnam(a short poignant, I think, experience in itself). I was in Pataya away from the town/resort and walking alone in the hills above Pataya contemplating my existence. Vietnam had really started me wondering about the creator of this mess called human existence. I was stationed in a small base camp in the delta. I was stationed with Thais who were there as allied forces to the american effort at stopping the so called Domino Theory of the geopolitical thinking of the time from becoming a reality in that part of the world. It was bullshit to cover many other agendas of our country as well as trying out our force of arms in a S.E. Asia jungle warfare scenario. But back to religion/buddhism.

Buddhism, as founded by Gotama the Buddha, had reached it's 2500th year in 1957-8 according to some. It's no surprise that many in Europe and America took a renewed interest in searching for the Truth after the catastrophic calamity called WW2.

If you are interested in my journey since 1969....we can converse. Yours is a very interesting revelation on spiritual matters.

[nightscanner59]

13. Yes I'm interested as time permits

I was in my college days then. The experience didn't make that semester very easy, once recuperating from that experience. I don't get much time to reflect on it anymore, but strangely, the experience eased my fear of death. I feel I got a "preview" of what to expect.
There is definite wisdom in the phrase "go to the light".
If one is ready, and it is time, the light will accept you and reincarnate your spirit.
I'd love to have time to read more about Buddha. What little I know I gleaned from reading Siddhartha as a youth. Other explorations of most any religion have left me perplexed with complex structures. I'm also more comfortable as a homosexual person with Buddhism's peaceful edicts superceding those of judging other's sexuality. Conversely, Christian "ministers" who propose concentration camp style death sentences for those of my persuasion scare the hell out of me.
Albeit my extracorporeal experience was short in time, the rich, profound effect it had on my beliefs exceeded all religious study and time I've ever spent.

[McCamy Taylor]

14. How did this get you banned from the Buddhist group?

Anyone who has studied quantum physics understands that "stuff" is not "stuff" it is just a probability field. I have experienced a large number of what I call "cake walk" events in my life--I call them this because they allow me to win more than a statistically probable number of cakewalks as well as other things that involve a gut sensation that a certain choice or number will be very positive in about half a second. Does not work in roulette because they make that wheel spin too long, almost as if they know that some people can do this. Works very well when choosing which MTG or Pokemon Card packs to buy. I have also had prophetic dreams--always involving my cats so I think the cats send the dreams.

The cake walk thing runs in the family. I think there might be a survival mechanism related to the hypersensitivity of migraines that allows people to glimpse around or between the probability fields of "stuff"--i.e. see time as nonlinear. Not enough to make one lose touch with "reality", just enough to give you a better chance at making better decisions.

Trying to explain this stuff to an astrophysicist with a PhD was next to impossible. However if you read Einstein, he got it.