If you have never suffered, you won’t need to read this page.
The Buddha said that all life is suffering, but that doesn’t mean the process must be a daily occurrence, though
in the end, it’s your choice. Each religion has its own terminology, but the Hindu term “maya” is as good
as any other for me. The translation is “illusion.”
Most of us rely upon our five senses to tell us what reality is. When we are young, few of us can conceptualize
a Sixth Sense, so we rely on the basic five, sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch. All you need do, however, is pay attention
in your high school science classes, and it becomes abundantly clear that our ability to tune into sound vibrations is very
limited; there are hyper sounds and hypo sounds, either above or below our capacity to detect. Likewise with sight, we are
subject to the capacity of our eyes’ abilities. Unaided, we cannot see beyond the horizon and nor into the earth with
eyes alone. Though we can see into the Milky Way and outer space, we cannot focus on very much of it, and our eyes are not
tuned to the light of the most distant galaxies.
Some things register with our olfactory nerves and others do not. Smell perception can also be confused, especially if other
odors enter our environment. Taste, as a means of perception, has it limitations. An object cannot be tasted unless it is
placed in our mouth. How can we taste far-off objects? How can we taste emotions, or how can we gain taste perception from
ideas? What, for instance, is the taste of the color green? Again, we can only gain touch sensations from having the object
before us, within reach.
And most people are
satisfied with this set of illuminations; we seem content with what we can do, though it seldom occurs to us how limited we
are. And our limitations do not prevent us from making judgments about our world and the people in it. Our conclusions may
be hopelessly flawed, but we bumble our way through life’s circumstances. We castigate acquaintances who do not see,
hear, taste, smell, or receive touch sense impressions as we do. On a good day we recognize our limitations, but seldom do
we make that concession to people who are unlike us, or “different.”
Afterworld.info is my blog of experiences that came to me only because I suffered various hurts, didn’t
like them, and attempted to gain new understanding of the truths of our world. Only when you or I hurt do we say to ourselves,
“Wow! I don’t want to go through this again! What can I do to avoid such an experience?”
I’ve discovered that truth is a never-ending pursuit. No matter what understandings we achieve, there are still more-sophisticated
revelations to be gained.
I believe that a Sixth
Sense is the birthright of each person, but we must claim its existence; we must be willing to develop and expand it, just
as we would our muscles
The Sixth Sense is very subtle, certainly not as powerful as viewing a gorgeous sunset
or smelling chlorine or running one’s hand over gritty sandpaper. Our physical body has quite a bit of sensitivity in
the normal five senses; we’ve been working on those since conception. The Sixth Sense has also been there, but is remains
in its infantile state if we won’t or can’t exercise it. Call it extra-sensory, if you will, its potential for
expanding our enjoyment of life is probably without limit.
The Sixth Sense seems to operate most powerfully from
the brain’s right (imaginative) hemisphere, though I believe it has roots in every cell of the body. It is more a dimension
of our being than a faculty that can be found in the physical body. Some think it filters its inputs through the pineal gland
(which, strangely, is shaped much like our physical eyes) or “third eye.” Maybe that is why insights seem to come
from our brain, why inspirations appear to arise in our head. My own experience with this dimension of self lead me to marvel
at how very subtle is its “still small voice.” One can hear a word or name or smell a scent vaguely, yet know
that the odor didn’t arise in our nose. Thus, there are psychic sounds, smells, tastes and tactile sensations. One can
feel a chill on the spine, though the room is very warm. In this manner, we encounter ghosts or discarnates, but then tend
to “write it off” as imagination. There can be distinct visual images that arise from non-physical stimuli, but
these can also appear on an “inner screen,” where I get most of my own visualizations.
Some folks
think that “being psychic” means that one is an accomplished telepath or prophet. But there are many psychic gifts.
The psyche is not limited to the physical brain and spinal cord, but seems to be positioned in our body cells too. The average
person never recognizes that dreams are the most common form of psychic ability. Theoretically, our cells should send out
an alarm when our diet isn’t adequate. But how many people are tuned in to those very quiet notifications? Edgar Cayce
said that “psychic is of the soul.” I remember the nuns telling me that everyone has a soul, but we can’t
see or feel it. So, a child in early religious instruction is justified in disbelieving such concepts. The real truth is that
we don’t have a soul, but instead are souls. And we wear a physical body as a living shroud, a mass of cells,
bones, nerves and blood vessels that are designed to assist in maximizing the soul’s efforts to re-connect us to the
source of all energy and knowledge, so that we eventually can reach a level of no longer needing physical bodies or structures
in which to live.
Ghost study leads most people to recognize that Life continues (along with consciousness) into
that region called death. There is only a transformation at death—a passing, but our real identity continues after the
body dies. At death we remain who we were, neither more sinful nor more holy. Death doesn’t cure anything. And that
eternal consciousness continues (even if it is subdued or masked) through future lifetimes. Any of that memory can be retrieved
if the talent for doing so is pursued. But, that pursuit requires self-discipline, a quality sorely lacking in western societies
where things have become our gods. Why settle for subtle insights when one can ride an ornamental vehicle with a lot of flash?
So, our Sixth Sense is seldom developed much at birth (though there are notable exceptions in history). If you
want to develop psychic ability (and there are many variations in this gift) then you must be willing to work at knowing your
soul self. In a permissive society, that isn’t easy to do. It seems that only in caring for our spiritual or eternal
self do we begin to manifest qualities or talents that, in our youth, we never suspected of existing.
