I’m not rejecting David’s ideas about our reality being planned and perfect like some people feel it is in NDE’s , or LOA, or the idea of co-creation, from ignorance about them or a lack of exploration of them. I’m rejecting them because I used to follow these ideas and they ruined my life. They take the meaning out of life and turn it into a lesson, turn it into a trivial thing. This can cause us to ignore or put on the back burner what is most important in life, our experiences and the experiences of those around us.
Here is what I know in the aftermath of my following them and now not following them—We are here and this is the only life we get for now that we know of. That means if you don’t take life seriously and pay attention to the people that matter you aren’t going to get a second chance...
Hi Pamela.
First of all, wow! Being an activist for Yemen puts you in the deep end of the ocean. Clearly, you're wrestling with some of big issues -- and, it appears, discovered one of life's biggest secrets: that you actually have to get involved, and really connect with people in need, to make a difference.
You write:
"I'm rejecting [ideas promoted by NDEs that we create our own realities] because I used to follow these ideas and they ruined my life. They take the meaning out of life and turn it into a lesson, turn it into a trivial thing. This can cause us to ignore or put on the back burner what is most important in life, our experiences and the experiences of those around us."
There is, unfortunately, a lot of misunderstanding around this topic. There are also many near-death experiencers who misunderstand this topic too and get into serious trouble because of that lack of understanding.
As I have repeatedly said, the topics we are discussing are complicated, nuanced, deep. You really have to wade in and spend some serious time trying to understand and embody them. Many of us also have a lot of personal development to do before these ideas make sense and can be effectively applied in our lives. And I include myself in this. This is not The Matrix where we simply drive up, plug ourselves into a cosmic computer (or read a few books), and then we can expertly fly the helicopter of life. No, the process for most of us is slow, confusing, frustrating, and brutal. We learn something. Try it. Fall on our faces. And then try again. And again. And again. Until we get it right and can move on to the next impossible-to-apply idea.
As I've said before, as far as I can see there are two basic poles in life: heaven and earth, east and west, being and becoming, female and male, yin and yang. We all tend to gravitate to one side or the other.
If we tend to be doing people, we are drawn to earthy, practical things. Forget all this talk of God, other realities, mystical beings, unseen forces. We're impatient. We like science and insist on solutions that actually work in the real world: math that makes planes fly, engineering that builds bridges, hard science that cleans dirty air and lakes, physical interventions that actually stops wars and feeds people.
If we tend to be more being people, we are drawn to spiritual, intellectual things. Otherworldly ideas set our hearts and souls on fire. If this impulse is really strong in us, we're not fans of science, or of fixing and healing this world. We tend to think the whole mess is an illusion and we want out. So we meditate. And pray. We spend a lot of time detached and disengaged from the hard realities of life. We're the person who sees the homeless person, thinks they have created their own reality, says a prayer, and drives on by.
There is truth in both of these perspectives. But birds don't fly with only one wing. They need both. I think we need two wings too.
Near-death experiences, as a whole, do not promote airy-fairy, crystal-coated magic wands. They do not suggest, as New Age positive thinking movements like The Secret do, that if you just think more positively, make ourselves a manifestation bulletin board, and fire off a few emotion-filled affirmations that the red sports car we want will magically appear in our driveway. Nor do they suggest that our personal problems, or collective problems (wars, genocide, sex trafficking, environmental destruction, species extinction, etc.) will be magically solved overnight. What they offer are life-changing, front-row seats that show us how our thoughts and behaviors create our personal and collective realities, which, in turn, reveals how to make them better. NDErs are often shown, for example, not only why they chose (and helped create) the suffering situations they encountered, but why their parents did, too. And their parent's parents. They often experience these creations from multiple perspectives -- from their perspective, from the perspective of the person they are in relationship with, from the perspective of higher forces who are tracking everything across time and space (and beyond time and space), even from the perspectives of future generations.
This is valuable information. It's valuable because it not only helps us see and understand how realities in general are created, but also because it helps us see how we create the realities we experience -- and how to change them for the better.
We can blow this off if we want to, but if we do, we limit our ability to effectively deal with the multi-faceted natures of whatever situations we are dealing with. We're not only dealing with the obvious cause and effect realities of this world. We are also dealing with the cause and effect realities of all kinds of unseen forces. It's good to know that -- and find concrete ways to work with these powerful, invisible forces.
Ditto for thinking love, light, and feel-good spiritual ideas will do all the work for us. If fail to put these forces to work in the real world in practical ways, their effectiveness is also limited, as you have learned.