If you believe something, and somebody else believes something else, then you have differences. "Your belief is wrong and my belief is right." If you look at Knowing your Truth and honoring everyone's sovereign right to their own Truth, you get away from the tit for tat and fighting wars over whose religion is right. One's truth comes through the heart and not the mind, and substantial evidence is not necessary.

how can you really believe in something that dosent have any substantial evidence........?

I second what Sowelu wrote.

My view is that I try not to "believe" in anything.  I aim to look at possibilities and probabilities.

It is difficult sometimes to live with ambiguity - the idea that things could be this way, or that way, or maybe even both ways at the same time.

However, I think that openness allows a fuller perception of reality.

This is also where intuition comes in - what feels correct, what feels incorrect.  Intuition can be wrong of course, but it is another tool.

In so many cases, we will not have the benefit of "substantial evidence".  And even when we do have what we think is substantial evidence - what "everyone knows" to be true - it could end up being incorrect.

I guess I am saying that it is important to trust your own feelings - and at the same time do the research.
------------------

"Search your feelings, Luke.  You know this to be true."
                                                      - Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker

:-)

What are you comfortable with?

sowelu,

beautifully put

I don't look for anything to "believe in", anyway. What's the point? Belief is an investment in a hope against a fear of its opposite, as I see it. When you believe, you live in a false mental construct while keeping the fear alive but repressed.

Well... as a micro reflection of the macro concept I was talking about, I wake from one state into another each day here on planet earth, without conscious intent. But you're right, calling it "awake"... may well be a misnomer.

heh heh... "Do you wake up each day?"

So, how is it? As for me, I'm convinced that I'm in a "coma".  I could give a gazillion examples, but no proof, sorry.

Blessings,
Mon

I think we're fairly close. We agree that energy cannot be created nor destroyed. We agree that micro is a fractal of the macro (partial leaf ... drop of pool). We seem to agree, via the idea that there is no separation, that All is One with various "parts" making up the whole. We agree that form changes and about inbreath and outbreath. The point of difference may be "can an individual consciousness [fractal of god.dess consciousness] lose its individuality?" That's what I pondered again before I posted about the pool ... did these two I mentioned really lose individuality, nevermore for their molecules to touch, nevermore for their individual consciousness to express individually? Could that really happen? And again I came to Yes. And, imho, a darn good thing that is too.

And you wrote: "there is always a bit of unknown yet to be birthed in every now". This includes every level of consciousness. Highest Divine Consciousness is always expanding its Knowing. Human is really no different than divine, just not as expanded in use of consciousness.

Xenopope, with the idea that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, total annihilation (as in destruction of energy) isn't possible, though (to repeat my point) individuation can be terminated before the consciousness has returned to Creator Spirit of its own volition. Can individuation be terminated by one's belief? I'd say yes, because one create's one's reality, so one could create the reality to be un-individuated, whatever that would take. Do you have something more specific in mind?

I also understand that those who believe they cease to exist after death continue to reincarnate until they get the idea that they don't cease. There may be "time" in between incarnations, such as the soul sleep you speak of, but eventually they are born again. When they finally evolve enough when incarnate to open to the idea that they continue whether they're inhabiting the particular body of the moment or not, then they can get out of the sleep-between-incarnations cycle.

Some thoughts, anyway. Thanks for the discussion, all.

Indeed, I do. And I do not use alarm clocks, so that isn't what awakens me. I also wear an eye mask, so it isn't light that awakens me, and last night I wore ear plugs so it wasn't sounds that got me up. And yet I woke up. And believe me, there have been many times where my fervant wish was that I did not wake up here to live another day, as I lay my head down to sleep (Not so much anymore, but there certainly have been times in this life). And yet I do, again and again.

I enjoy "waking up naturally", and I do it every day. And because this question popped in, I realized that I have no idea what wakes me up each day, and yet each day I rise again. It is not self-determined from the level of the experiencer, that much I can tell you. (though we each are far more than that only, in truth)

We tend to associate being awake with using our human mind. And yet how many of us on this path have realized at various times that the limited human mind, even as it glimpses truths, receives its insights and aha's from something else that fuels it. This intangible other thing is what the mind does not know/understand properly. It is a part of the sum total of SELF that the mind has yet to truly know. And it is this that is at the root of the inevitability of the sleeping mind awakening, whether it determines to do so or not, consciously.

If it were true that our minds alone determined our lives, the idea that a sleeping soul could not reawaken might make sense. But it is not just our minds that determine our lives and experiences. And it is this other piece, this rhythmic, cyclic energy-in-motion nature that is key, imo. Some call it the Divine Feminine, the Void, the Pool of All Potential, the Dark Aspect of God, The Abyss. Whatever label, it is the source-blood of life's constant motion. The light is awareness of it, but there is always a bit of unknown yet to be birthed in every now. The small dark circle in the light portion of the Yin/Yang symbol represents this well.

Okay, this is also what I'd had in mind with my last post . . . If an individuation believes it is experiencing annihiliation will it be utterly destroyed? Is this what you're saying does not happen or is not possible?

This reminded me of where I heard that people who believe they cease to exist when they die, will go into some 'soul-sleep' in the planet's outer perimiter until they realize the truth, or for all of eternity, whichever comes first . . . But my question would be - If they are asleep, then how would they realize the truth?

When someone has explored an idea within and come to truly know from that place, such depth and richness of expression results, as you've revealed here. Just wonderful. Thanks! (((Hugs)))

~Sowelu

The drop isn't lost, but it is changed in form.

Macro to micro, the drop wasn't separated, it was experiencing life as an individual pool because a drop has the essence of the whole pool but is still identified as a drop, not a pool, to distinguish the individual from the whole.

I am All That Is. I am an individual. I have the consciousness to know that. Some individuals will never again have the consciousness to know that.