Posted by Roberta Grimes • October 30, 2021 • 15 Comments
Afterlife Research, Death, Understanding Reality
What’s it all about, Alfie? Is it just for the moment we live?
What’s it all about When you sort it out, Alfie?
Are we meant to take more than we give? Or are we meant to be kind?
And if only fools are kind, Alfie, Then I guess it is wise to be cruel.
And if life belongs only to the strong, Alfie,
What will you lend on an old golden rule?
– Burt Bacharach and Hal David (1921-2012), from “Alfie” (1966)
We talked last week about the fact that we are left by our two most trusted institutions to try to figure out on our own whatever the true about reality might be. You may bristle at my saying that, since science has been so good at improving our lives! We eat better and more reliably, and we live in far more comfort and safety, than did people even a century ago. And we certainly live a whole lot better than people did a few millennia ago! But none of that has changed our essential natures. Insofar as we can determine, humankind is not one whit kinder, nobler, or daily happier than were people who lived long ages before today.
Our final frontier is not outer space. It is the deepest human heart! And despite our endless trying, we never have managed to find a way to actually improve human nature. Although we surely have learned what DOES NOT work.
By now, we have learned that you cannot order, persuade, or inspire people to behave for long in ways that are not consistent with their essential natures. And we really have tried! As people began to live in groups that were bigger than extended families, we could see that without a sense of some sort of biological connection, it was hard to maintain a natural will to cooperate and support one another. So we began to offer behavioral guidance. We made civil laws, established religious rules and bureaucratic regulations, and ever more creatively tried to order our ever-larger societies. But in all the days since our last common ancestor lived two hundred thousand years ago, none of what we ever have tried has turned out to be a way to change people internally! To this day, all of us will steal here and there if we think we won’t be caught. Everyone who is given power will engage in petty cruelties. And our secular and religious leaders by and large come nowhere near close to living up to even their own modest standards! To this day, it is our essential nature to fear and dominate one another. We continue to fight wars, large and small. Humankind has changed in some surface details as eons of human history have passed, but we have not changed in our essential nature since the day when it first occurred to someone that nicking flakes off a rock might make a sharper point.
This is the reason why Jesus came to earth. It was to save us not from God, but from ourselves! Thomas tells me that Jesus came from the highest aspect of the Godhead and actually entered a human body so He could “look through our eyes” and try to understand why we were still choosing to live so miserably. Why were we not using this opportunity of being immersed in the negative atmosphere of materiality to push against that negativity and make the choice for love and spiritual growth? His plan was essentially to figure us out, and then to teach us how to grow spiritually, which was what His endlessly mentioning “the kingdom of God” was all about. Thomas told me all of this a decade ago, when he could see that – just like everyone else – I simply wasn’t getting it.
And when you have this insight, suddenly the whole Gospel message makes so much sense! There has been no Christian scholar who seems to have grasped the enormity of Thomas’s insight, which is why we ought to just recap it quickly. Jesus refers to the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven some eighty times through all four Gospels. Clearly that kingdom is somewhere else, since He talks about bringing it to earth (LK 7:28; MK 14:25); and in fact, it is the highest aspect of the greater reality, which is perfect love. He told us His mission was to bring that level of love to this abased and negativity-filled level of reality (LK 9:27). He even taught us to pray for it, saying, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (MT 6:20). He told us the kingdom of God is “within us” (LK 17:21), and invisibly it will overspread the earth (LK 17:20). And Jesus even told us how to make that happen, by learning to forgive and love perfectly.
In the ten years since Thomas gave me that insight, he has coached me through learning how to live the Gospel teachings. And they really do work! When they are taken seriously and not seen as mere suggestions, the Gospel teachings do indeed have the power to transform us at the level of our deepest hearts.
But still, those teachings aren’t quite enough because they don’t address our fears. Since fear is the essence of negativity, we really have to kill all our fears if we hope to raise our vibrations much at all. I take it as a reasonable observation that every human fear is at its base the fear of death. And Jesus addressed our fear of death. He promised to come back for us when we die (JN 14:2-3), and He assured us that even the thief on the cross next to His was going to make it to heaven (LK 23:43). But the religion that bears His name, and the scientific belief-system that tries to erase Him, both only further gin up our fears. Neither does anything whatsoever to ease our primordial fear of death!
Fortunately, though, leading afterlife scholars have come at last to realize that we know enough now to teach the truth about the afterlife without needing further help from mainstream science. As we share our conclusions, we are finding that there is no longer much uncertainty. Our guidance is sound, and what we have been learning all fits together very well. So there is no need for us to wait any longer to begin to free the world from fear! Our goal will be to make knowledge of what happens at and after death a fundamental part of our cultural heritage. Just as broad swathes of the population are now aware of the Big Bang theory, the Jesus-died-for-our-sins theory, and other scientific and religious theories that eventually are going to turn out to be wrong, it is past time for us to start to educate as many people as possible about the our-minds-are-eternal theory. This is one theory that is actually right!
What is more, this will be the world’s first effective push to transform people internally. This time, it really is going to work! And when enough of us lose our fear of death and achieve that inner transformation, at last the kingdom of God can really begin to overspread the earth!
The reason we are so confident this will work is that we can already see it working. Those in the afterlife-education community who have managed to vanquish their fear of death are already being transformed in ways that are frankly extraordinary! For example:
People whose minds have been transformed this way are essentially living just as our religious and secular laws have always meant us to live. They are optimistic, generous, loving, kindly, peaceful, unselfish, empathetic, and solicitous of the needs of others. You cannot force people to think this way! You only can give the world and yourself the gift of your personal transformation. And when you have done that, your own life will become more glorious than you can imagine. Knowing for certain that your life is eternal, and knowing the science and the truth behind it all, feels like sharing with very few other people what is truly the world’s most glorious secret. It’s a secret that transforms you from the heart, and it makes your whole life a song of joy!
Jesus is more than just a religious figure. Instead, and eternally, He is the world’s ultimate Teacher! He came long ago as the genuine Godhead, seeking to know us well enough to be able eventually to start to transform, and finally to save this desperate world. Even though mainstream scientists remain stuck in their materialist delusions, and even though Christianity still primarily ignores Jesus in favor of its own later dogmas, we realize now that there is no need to delay our sharing of the
truth any longer. It is time for us to begin to do what humankind so desperately needs, which is to help as many people as possible to finally shed their fear of death and begin the internal transformation that, for the past two thousand years, has been the Lord’s eternally perfect gift.
As sure as I believe there’s a heaven above, Alfie, I know there’s something much more!
Something even non-believers can believe in.
I believe in love, Alfie. Without true love we just exist, Alfie!
Until you find the love you’ve missed, You’re nothing, Alfie.
When you walk, let your heart lead the way.
And you’ll find love any day, Alfie, Alfie!
– Burt Bacharach and Hal David (1921-2012), from “Alfie” (1966)
Quote from above: “Our final frontier is not outer space. It is the deepest human heart!”
My dear Mike, do you agree? It does astonish me that so little attention ever is paid to the fact that we make no social progress at all.
Oh yes! I agree! That is why I quoted this line. It is very important.
In fact, we have been so convinced that the heart is just a pump that we have no idea how “deep” this issue really goes!
Really enjoyed reading this thanks Roberta,
Just makes so much sense as to our daily earthly struggles,and the rewards that await us in our heavenly home 🙏
Dear Keiran, I’m so glad this resonates with you! To my mind, all that really is important for all of us is coming to understand the certainty that our minds are eternal and that we are perfectly loved. All the rest really is beside the point!
Dear Roberta, This observation of yours is simple, yet profound,
” We eat better and more reliably, and we live in far more comfort and safety, than did people even a century ago. And we certainly live a whole lot better than people did a few millennia ago! But none of that has changed our essential natures. Insofar as we can determine, humankind is not one whit kinder, nobler, or daily happier than were people who lived long ages before today. ”
Well, what may we think or do to advance our way of life? As you assert, the Gospels, properly interpreted, offer essential guidance. However, conventional Christianity continues to confuse the distinctive roles that Heaven and Earth afford for our eternal existence. So, when Christ told us, as you point out, that He was trying to get us to behave in ways consistent with the love of God that guides our existence when in Heaven, He was not asserting that we would should expect to make Earth life a replica of existence in Heaven–for that would rob Earth life of its purpose in taking us out of Heaven to live the hard life of a material world of hunger, pain, and selfish desires. Try as we might we will not make of Earth any second Heaven — but if magically that happened, then the lack of any difference between Heaven and Earth would leave no reason for Earth to continue to be.
It is enough to realize that Earth life provides a training ground for souls to overcome selfishness and be loving even when it “hurts.” Making Earth into Heaven is a valuable aspiration, but not the real goal for our time here.
And it now appears that our time here is in the process of actually becoming more difficult. The Covid illness, which is only about as bad as the common flu. has been politically used to engender a level of fear that justified lock downs and now a mandate for getting shots of an experimental mRNA that the data shows is killing more people than the Covid itself.
Worse yet, the desire for the state enforcement of mandates has led to development of a system of vaccination passports for control of individual behavior, just as China now keeps track of desired and undesired behaviors and awards credits or penalties enabling total state control of how daily lives may be lived. If this system were implemented, living standards and happiness in life will take a monumental step backwards.
My dear Jack, I think that Jesus actually did mean to tell us that we should be trying to bring the earth’s spiritual vibration to the level of the upper afterlife region. That is exactly what He was saying. We can, and we should. Now, whether He was saying that just to inspire us – you can’t really do this, but it should be your goal! – is another matter. I’m not sure. But that is what He was telling us to try to do!
It’s important that we never overlook the powers of our own minds to affect things. Our minds, free of the love-based atmosphere of the greater reality, are largely responsible for how bad things are here now. It has been a race to the bottom. So the Lord’s efforts to inspire us to aspire toward bringing the level of the kingdom of God here might be seen as a necessary counter-measure, perhaps?
Dear Roberta.
Here’s my shortened suggestions.
First and foremost, Dump ALL Religions….
Jesus provided the path: the path cannot be found out there only within.
The guide or GOD FRAGMENT is within
The Mind MUST be quiet…. and WE must know out thoughts & when they
they start to change.. (our guide’s internal work)
Through our will power and free will we make the unknown or understood
change by our guide (indweller)
As we Willingly change our thoughts and actions in real life; our vibration will rise.. We don’t need or require the corrupted church because WE are already GODS because as we permanently change our thoughts we change our reality of our lives… What we live ” IN” we are surrounded, both within and without, by intelligent universal energy …
Simply practice: Do what you want; however, Harm no one physically, Mentally or emotionally… Lead one’s life in this manner and you will “LOVE” one and all….
Oh my dear Skip, would that we had the power to do any of this on our own!
What to do with religions is a highly troubling question. I still love Christianity – I can’t get past it. Even as I see how horrendous the massive fear and negativity at the core of the religion’s dogmas have been for so many people, I am still on some level that little girl who loved the soothing music and the stained-glass windows and sitting listening to Reverend Turrell while all the other children were downstairs coloring with crayons.
I have come to think that the only thing that we really can do to effect positive change is to teach as many people as positive how to altogether lose their fear of death. People who understand on a deep level that life really is eternal think and live so differently! At any rate, we haven’t yet tried that. Let’s see if it helps….
Roberta, I love your quotes of songs from the 60’s. I have heard ” What’s it all about Alfie” hundreds of times and not once listened to the lyrics. Thanks for making this an ongoing part of your weekly presentations!
My dear David, it’s Thomas who chose that song! I was going with something staid, and then “Alfie” started playing in my mind at almost the 11th hour. So I said “All right,” kind of huffily, and looked at the song. And it corresponded to this post a lot better than had my original idea! So my dear Thomas got his way this time 🙂
Hi Roberta, and happy Halloween. Knowing and living the truth certainly puts a day like this in a different perspective. In fact, living the truth is almost the inverse of how most people live and see the world, like living upside down, with your feet firmly planted in spirit, even as your head engages with the lessons of earth school. One nice thing about that analogy is that the heart is now in a higher position than the head.
Good luck with the roll-out of your new website. I look forward to seeing it.
My dear Scott, I had been planning a blog post on nasties! I was going to do it around Halloween, but now we seem to have breezed right past the holiday. Well, maybe next year.
I enjoy your analogy: with our feet firmly planted in Spirit, we have our head engaged in earth school! Ah, yes. The point of that post about nasties, too, would have been how utterly powerless the bad guys are if we won’t give them mind-space.
I get quite a few questions from people who are fearful. And the Catch-22 of all of this is that your mind is so powerful that if you are actually fearful, you can bring about the very demonish intervention that if you were fearless would be simply impossible! That was what I was going to point out and illustrate. Maybe I should write that post after all.
Dearest Roberta,
Beautiful blog post my dear. I love when you speak of the essence of our existence and what is truly important; cutting through the clamor and confusion of the modern era. And thankfully, you do it in clear and easily accessible language that can reach everyone.
So if we truly begin to love, as the Teacher tells us to love, wouldn’t we want to bring about a better world than the one in which we find ourselves now? Once we know that raising our consciousness to perfect love makes ever greater changes to deep spiritual happiness, wouldn’t we want to share it with others?
Heck yeah, let’s change our inner world and effect change in the external world. We are part and parcel of the Creative Force and we can create a heavenly world right here, as an ‘on-flow’ of the Heaven that this Force created in the higher realms.
Happy then are the parent gardeners, when they see their children delight in planting, nurturing and bringing to fullness fruit laden trees and the flowers of the fields.
❣️🌹🕊
Oh my dear Efrem, I am coming to more completely understand that it is only our own inner world that we can really do anything about, and it is only at the level of each heart that any sort of major change really can happen. The transition from our present world of pain and confusion, dog-eat-dog, with most people selfish and despairing, to the world of gentle mutual love, kindness, and peace that never has existed in history but that everyone persistently dreams of, cannot happen anywhere else but at the level of each human heart!
So each of us must begin it. We must find a way! It happens here and now, or perhaps it never will happen at all.