cosmic consciousness calling - please answer! … by JDBourdon

      What’s the perfect analogy for this strange mission we’ve undertaken in this dimension? For me, it’s the idea that we are travelers to a faraway dimension… and the home plane of existence is always, always try to reach us.

     NDErs relate that in the dimension whence we come that we are so connected that communication is telepathic and immediate. Our senses are one: we hear flowers, see music, etc. Existence is timeless; we exist for eternity. All is as it should be; all makes sense. That is the natural order of things.

     So we come to Earth… and are plunged into a world where our senses are limited by the machines (bodies) we use. Instead of an environment of love and connectedness, we are plunged into a world of individual isolation and competition for survival. We suffer pain, feel fear, have no idea what life is about or whether there’s a purpose to it, have an almost life-long awareness of our mortality, and a guarantee of certain death…. with no balm to fend off these realities.

     One NDEr described the situation thusly: "We are born into this dimension in darkness, into a dream, sound asleep and with amnesia."

     We look for sense in this mad world and find none. The Materialist Paradigm, at its extreme, says this is all there is – and what proof is there to the contrary? Good people suffer, horrible and unexpected things happen. That’s undeniable.

     Religion says we’ll be rewarded (or more likely, punished) in an afterlife – but that’s a thin reed on which to base a life here. And when the message of practicing love and non-violence runs into harsh reality… well, that’s where the religious paradigm collapses. It doesn’t stand up.

     Religion’s answer as to why goodness isn’t always rewarded or wrong-doing isn’t always punished becomes the rather pitiful "only God knows."  Not much relief in that!  I’m reminded of singer/songwriter Exene Cervanka’s lyrics: "the meek shall inherit the earth/ but by then it won’t be worth much."

     Suppose we jettisoned the materialist/religionist paradigm that the events of our life are what’s important… and instead adopted the NDE Paradigm concept that all that matters is how/why we react to events, that literally every thing and every moment in life is an opportunity for growth?

     When I looked back on the irritations of my life, I could see repeated patterns. Different places, events and people, but re-occurring elements. Certain situations would set me off, until I was a Pavlovian rat. The mere sense that these situations were approaching would be upsetting.

     I felt I was being plagued by these events, these people. If there was a God, it was certainly one who was either punishing me, or who didn’t care about me, or anyone else, for that matter. If I was good, why didn’t good things happen to me? (If good events did happen, of course, well, that was what I was due.) The situations controlled my reactions.

     What was really happening all this time?

     I was being given opportunities for growth. "God" was knocking at my door, unwilling to quit trying to reach me. A situation had caused me anguish 500 times? Those were 500 opportunities for me to grow. And another 500 were waiting, if needed.

     What happened when I realized the reality of these events – that they were opportunities for growth? One, I changed my behavior. I asked, "How can I grow from this experience? What can I get out of this?"

     And the results were amazing. Because as I responded appropriately to distressing moments – understanding them for the first time in my life – I began to overcome them. Certainly not all at once, but I saw progress in the fact that irritations that might upset me for an entire day - ruin an entire day, actually - might instead tick me off for only a few minutes.  I began wrestling these challenges to the ground.  And that was genuine progress! And mighty good-feeling progress at that!

     When I finally saw situations for what they were, and knew that my mission was to improve myself, that’s what I concentrated on – the event wasn’t important, I was. I made decisions based on my welfare – my welfare being defined as living in alignment with cosmic consciousness. Coming from a genuine understanding of what a moment meant resulted in a much better reactions than, "Why me?" and all the doubts, fears and guilt that accompany that delusion.

     And eventually some challenges weren’t even that – I had vanquished them. Some of these patterns even ceased to occur, because my changed behavior headed them off before they occurred. It didn’t make sense for me to let myself be dragged around by events. When I did get angry, it became obvious that I was not applying cosmic understanding. It was so much more appealing and rewarding to have a measure of control.

     If you measure your progress in life by the events that happen, you’re being dragged by the nose by those events. And try as we might, we don’t control what happens to us – period.

     It is a difficult learning process – after all, you’ve led your entire life guided by a false paradigm. That isn’t reversed overnight, and completely overcome – probably not ever. But the mission is about growth and progress, and the mission is the journey, not the destination.

     It is incredibly empowering – and life-altering - to live by the understanding that all that really matters is our personal reaction to events.

     You wouldn't ask - to take a painful example - "Why did a common drunk drive into my mother’s car and end her life?" In the NDE Paradigm, the answer to that question is, simply enough, "to provide you with an opportunity/challenge to summon love, understanding, and compassion." And if you’d been killed by that drunk instead, your mother’s opportunity/challenge would be the same. The event itself – in terms of god, the cosmos, the meaning of life – is irrelevant.

     It isn’t easy, of course. The pain is real and genuine; it can’t be side-stepped. Nor can the immediate shock and anger at a senseless act be vanquished immediately – certainly not for most people. But what do you do with it? Hate "god"? Hate the drunk? For how long? There are people who spend their lives entombed in that anger. And to what end? The greatest triumphs come from finding grace, rising above that adversity.

     Cosmic consciousness is always trying to reach us. It won’t quit. And even in this faraway, challenging dimension, it can be realized, and its omniscient power applied.