Are cosmic collisions common? (3)

Are cosmic cataclysms common?
“… The myth and folklore of as many as fifty different cultures around the planet tell of similar global devastations, during which humanity went through a trial by fire and flood.”
“… a cosmic chain of events began 41,000 years ago and culminated in a major global catastrophe 28,000 years later. We refer to that culmination period of 13,000 years ago as simply the ‘Event.’”

“ SUMMARY OF THE MAIN EVENT
41,000 years ago a supernova exploded close to Earth
• The burst of radiation caused widespread extinctions in Australia and Southeast Asia
• Much of the human race perished in and near Southeast Asia
• Human genetic mutations led to larger brain size, fostering art, music, and a burst of creativity
• Being shielded from the explosion, the other continents were affected very little
• For about six months, the supernova was bright enough to be a second sun or moon
34,000 years ago the first shock wave of the supernova buffeted the Earth
• Radiation increased and small ions and particles bombarded Earth
• There also were increased comet and asteroid impacts
16,000 years ago the second shock wave of the supernova arrived
• As with first shock wave, radiation increased and small ions and particles bombarded Earth
• As well, there were increased comet and asteroid impacts
13,000 years ago multiple impacts of comet-like objects hit the Northern Hemisphere”

“WHAT THE EVIDENCE SHOWS
• Many radioactive isotopes support a three-phase event at 41,000 years ago, 34,000 years ago, and 13,000 years ago
• The three phases were (1) radiation (2) an initial shock wave and (3) a debris wave
• Gulf of California cores show a beryllium peak at 41,000 and 34,000 years ago
• The gulf cores also record a major pulse of meltwater around 13,000 years ago
• The same core indicates that the supernova caused the Earth’s magnetic field to flip briefly
• In ice cores, the supernova isotopes beryllium, chlorine, and aluminium all peak at 41,000 years ago
• The timing of all three events is consistent with what we know about supernova remnants

Comment: These are extracts from Firestone, West, and Warwick-Smith’ s The cycle of cosmic catastrophes : Flood, fire, and famine in the history of civilisation.
The authors then examined how supernova radiation has affected our genes and blood type.

 

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The wonder of past-life memories

I was born into a Hindu family living among Muslim Malays. Is there significance in the environs of my birth? I believe so. I found the Malays an incredibly tolerant people, especially with their rulers under the boot of colonial British; and with a great influx of fellow Asians from China, India, and Ceylon onto their land. I felt at peace with Islam as demonstrated by our host-people. I was then not aware of my intuited link with Islam in my past life.

It was decades later, when I began to read about religion (and religions), and when the prejudice and discrimination of White Australia began to impact upon my life chances (but without conscious emotional effect), that I was strangely drawn to the red sands of Central Asia.

Islamic architecture entranced me. Their designs and colours seemed familiar. Indeed, when I was drawing up designs for my stained-glass hobby, I found myself sketching designs which, only much later, I discovered reflected the designs of mosques in Central Asia. I found this incredible.

So, this was where I had been a warrior. My clairvoyant friend, in one of her spontaneous visions, saw me on a black stallion, wearing a long white cloak, and carrying a scimitar (which she described as a long sword.)

So, I was re-born into a Hindu family but living in a Muslim environment. There was thus some continuity in my passage through Earthly lives.

What of the Afterlife?

First, what is the Afterlife? It is an assumed locale for the departing souls (spirits) from Earth. It may be the Heaven mentioned in certain religious documents. It would certainly not be the hell(s) imagined by those who seek to induce better moral behaviour on Earth by frightening their religious followers.

My first clairvoyant surprised me by saying of what he referred to as the ‘Other Side’, “It is not that different from here; and you will not meet God.” As a metaphysical Hindu believing in the reality of the reincarnation process (for the existence of which there is plenty of evidence), I view the Afterlife as an R & R Depot or a Way Station. It would give me a break from the hell of Earthly lives – like walking on a bed of hot coals to get to a grassy patch; and then repeating the process again and again.

Were one to be lucky to have a broadly programmed path of a personal destiny (as I am able to claim), then one may seek to learn (and understand), while in the Afterlife, the significance of human life on Earth, of Man’s place in the Cosmos, and what the Cosmos might be all about. I have been promised that I can continue my learning in the Afterlife. I do like that.

I must admit to having been pre-occupied in recent years (with Death patiently awaiting) with thoughts such as : where is this Afterlife located?; insubstantial entities will not need an environment of substance; I do not want to be involved with other spirits in the way this happens on Earth; and how will I be able to acquire the learning I seek?; and so on.

Then, I had a strange dream recently. I was in a physical environment of my liking (the details do not matter here) in what I felt is the Afterlife. I heard human voices in the distance, but no one came into view. Peace prevailed. As in my present reclusive life. This life was imposed upon me, but it is acceptable as consistent with the guidance offered by Hinduism. Hinduism recommends that, once one has completed one’s commitments to family and society, one could withdraw from society to live a life of contemplation and meditation.

For example, a cave in the Himalayan mountains had been the meditation home for 3 years of the yogi who had come down to Malaya to guide my widowed mother and I about our respective futures. Years later, when I detected a coherent pattern in my life, I wondered whether he had been sent to us. I remember that he was clearly at peace, and apparently unaffected by the cold of the mountain.

In my more comfortable retirement ‘cave’ I too have achieved peace (after a turbulent life). While the dogs do bark (and snap), this caravan will move on, ignoring those who foolishly insist that only their beliefs mist prevail. Certainty is, in my experience, not a human condition.

The message I received through my dream about the Afterlife is that spirits create their own environment in the Afterlife; and that any contact with other spirits can only be on a mutually-agreed basis. My spirit guide may have been responsible for this message. Strangely, I read about a similar perception at about that time. This coincides with scientist Rupert Sheldrake’s concept of ‘morphic resonance’ – “a process that involves action at a distance in both space and time.”

For ex ample, discovery by one person can be followed by comparable or similar discoveries by others, without any contact between them. I instance the way birds began to open the tops of milk bottles all over the world near-simultaneously.

I know from my real experiences that the Afterlife is nearby (therefore in an interacting dimension), and that it is the residence of spirits such as my uncle and those he referred to as ‘higher beings.’ I look forward to an interesting sojourn.

How do souls retain mind and memories?

This question arises from my real experience when I began to investigate e.s.p. (extra-sensory perception), otherwise known as psychic phenomena. My initial exposure to a clairvoyant, and his extra-ordinary and quite inexplicable skills, involved the manifestation of my favourite uncle’s spirit.

Incredibly, my uncle communicated psychically with the clairvoyant, obviously heard a comment I had made to the clairvoyant (by responding to it), and displayed his memory of a relevant segment of his recent Earthly life, and referred to his knowledge of the tragedy I had experienced long after his demise.

It was obvious that this insubstantial entity, while thus lacking a brain, ears and eyes, had retained – more than 4 decades after the cremation of his body – his Earthly mind and its memories; and was able to offer advice to me about my spiritual advancement (implying an awareness of my potential future).

How could a spirit, presumably residing in what I refer to as the Afterlife, also retain capabilities normally associated with an efficiently operating human on Earth – to hear, think, speak (mentally in his situation), and probably see as well? Here is evidence that, at death, the soul of a human being continues as a spirit in another dimension, retaining both mind (with its memories) and sense-and-brain related facilities. Unthinkable!

As for our physical organs of sense – the known 5 – what is seen, heard, tasted, touched and smelt – need to be processed and stored in the brain. The mind, clearly associated with the brain, may not be resident in the brain. Indeed, I use my mind to search the brain for recorded memories.

Yet, the brain can also project information even before I begin the search. I have had this experience doing crossword puzzles. Sometimes, my brain also projects relevant information before I ask my mind to go search. Here I am proposing that my ego (my personality) is indeed separate from my mind; the latter being a facility.

Thus, does memory, associated with the brain as a storage facility, also exist outside the brain? How else could the soul of a human being take both mind and the memories contained therein into the Afterlife? (Denying the existence of souls, the Afterlife, and the capabilities of spirits is not now an option for me. Experienced reality cannot be denied by closing one’s mind.)

In this or any other context, I do not accept the concept of an Akashic Record which registers every action of every human being on Earth. What would be the objective of such a massive record of inconsequence? Confusingly, I lost the memory of quite a few faces through my heart attack. A few years later, progressively this memory was recovered.

Did changes take place in my brain enabling recovery of memory? Or, was relevant memory reinstated from outside my brain? Is this not a relevant question? While the recall of memory reportedly involves the whole brain, the impetus of such a memory search would have to be the mind. In my case, it was a conscious search for memory.

Food for thought?

(Refer my previous post “Where resides the soul?”)

Where resides my soul?

As a metaphysical Hindu (that is, one beyond rituals), I accept that the Cosmic Creator (not necessarily a physical entity), as both transcendent and immanent, may have a presence in all that is created. A fragmentary essence of this Creator could thus be within me. I have read that this presence is located in a walnut-sized space within my heart.

Is this presence my soul, the real me, that traveller through time, through repeated re-births? That cannot be. That is because each soul is said to be polished (improved morally or spiritually) through the reincarnation process, and then returned to be boundless Ocean of Consciousness (or Aether) from which it is said to have risen. A fragment or essence of the Creator will surely not need to be polished.

Rather, its role may be to remind me that, in times of travail, I need only look within me for succour and spiritual (and mental) peace. The lessons of Destiny – both personal and communal – do need to be accepted with equanimity.

My soul is clearly a unique insubstantial entity, the essential me, carrying the compound lessons acquired through a series of past lives. Does it remain a passive record keeper, uninvolved in the normal turbulence of life? Or, does it, in its own interest, influence me by allowing me intimations (on occasions) of my immediate past life?

I have become somewhat sensitised to this influence through: some instinctive responses to events; visions of a past life through auto-hypnosis; information offered by a psychic healer whose Spirit Healer can apparently read my past life traumas; and my ‘casual’ clairvoyant who saw me as I apparently appeared in my immediate past life. I await, with hope, further illumination.

Developing my ‘third-eye’ vision may enable me to become more intuitive about such matters. I doubt, however, whether the embodied I will ever know what the essential I (my soul) is doing.

What I would like to know is whether my soul resides in my body, or whether it surrounds me as an ethereal (or cloud) entity (like the Internet). When I die, will my soul gather my mind and its memories on its way, because they too exist in a ‘cloud’ around my brain?

Could I now explain how I recovered the memory which I had lost when I had a heart attack? Perhaps my memory exists at 2 levels; at a operational level, which can be damaged, and at a holistic ethereal level beyond bodily weakness.

Fascinating! Pity that I will be denied an answer. As my soul takes off to the Afterlife, it will not (I guess) be concerned by such Earth-based ruminations. The caravan must (and will) move on!

(Note: While I cannot prove the existence of a Cosmic Creator and the ways this all-pervasive, ever-existing essence may influence human existence, no sceptic can disprove such a belief. As for the reality of souls and the reincarnation process about which I have written, my experiences and reliable research findings over decades being real, cannot be denied.
Doctrinal religion does not offer needed illumination. Regrettably, some scholars cannot step out from their religion-imbued castles.)

Reality may be non-material

I prefer the material realm of the universe we occupy to be a projection of an ethereal realm. The latter realm is effectively unknown. It is also an inexplicable dimension of existence. Yet, reality also seems to me to be more ethereal than material. Why do I say that?

Because almost everything in the material realm is subject to change. Newton’s Second Law of Thermodynamics, of entropy, goes even further. Nothing of substance seems to be durable. While the material realm also cannot explain the ethereal realm, the latter may contain the templates (see Plato’s ‘real’) for transient materiality.

When Heraclitus (a Greek philosopher of yore) quoted a typically unrecognised Hindu thinker of centuries before him, saying “All is fire,” he was referring to the firmament which surrounds us. All my life, I have been enchanted by the apparently infinite number of balls of fire which we see as stars.

Recently, my mind’s-eye developed this scenario. The invisible ‘smoke’ from these fires could represent an integrated ‘mesh,’ the ephemeral realm of the Universe; and the ‘ashes’ and other disgorgements from each sun which fall upon their respective planets (such as Earth) could represent the material from which life forms eventually oozed or erupted. Does this vision make possible sense?

Then, there is the material realm of which we are part; that is, we are substantially matter. We are part of the 4% of the totality of matter estimated to exist in the Universe to be visible.

What of invisible matter? Two-thirds is said to be dark matter; one third is apparently dark energy. Was the latter transmuted from dark matter, or vice versa? However, since we cannot see either, could they actually exist? Of course they can, since bees and some animals are apparently able to use certain alternative strands of the electromagnetic spectrum to go about their business.

As well, there was my first clairvoyant who could see, and describe accurately, the spirit of my uncle who had manifested himself to him. That is, invisible cosmic matter may become visible under appropriate conditions; and invisible energy may be identifiable through its material impacts.

In the event, what is the point of all the fuss we make about the minuscule amount of visible matter in the Universe, including our human material selves? Are we not a lot more than our material bodies? The essence of each human being is of far more significance than the outer shell. Should we not be investigating non-visible matter and energy in their role in shaping humanity, in order to understand our place in the ephemeral realm?

Ultimate reality seems to be beyond the visible, tangible, cupidity and crudity of much of Earthly human existence.

The trauma of birth and its aftermath

Does any human being ever remember the stress of birth? During my boyhood, whenever I had a severe headache, believed to have been caused by glare, I would feel a strong pressure on both temples. Although I never spoke of this experience, I suspected that somehow I was recalling my passage through a birth canal. I soon grew out of those discomforting episodes.

What a terrible shock it must be for a baby to be pushed out of its comfort zone into the terrible glare of light, and the horrifying sounds of voices, and then being handled. Only after being swaddled and held against the mother could the baby retrieve the mother’s comforting heartbeat and soothing voice. In modern times, the baby is then swathed and placed amongst other babies, some of whom would be giving voice to their discomfort, their need to be held, and (possibly) a terrible hunger.

The world must be a horrible place to enter, and in such a terrifying manner. How long does it take a baby to become adjusted to the new surroundings? How aware is the baby, broadly, of the pattern of movement of the surrounding space? Is it their frequent and extended sleep which enables the baby to adjust to the new environment, but subconsciously?

Does the soul of the baby have a role to play in this early phase of Earthly existence? Would there be any past-life memories (however vague and fleeting) awaiting exposure? Could a baby display any ongoing anger, possibly because of the manner of its death in its immediate past life?

Would a baby, in the stage of infancy, be aware of any skills or abilities carried forward from the previous life; and which would blossom any time after about age 3? I refer to the high skills displayed by a few little children which do not evidently have a genetic source. Such skills are: playing musical instruments, gymnastic ability, mathematical calculations, and such like, at a level requiring an extended period of development, and displayed after years of Earthly life.

Then, there are those little children who remember accurately their immediate past lives, some even before age 3. The displays of such high skills and reliable memories have been well documented. This is an undeniable facet of our reality.

So, how complex could a baby be? Is the recovery of past skills and memories akin to a flower re-opening (at daybreak)? That is, could any flower of scarce skills be closed down (to a bud) at Earthly death in one life, to be re-opened in the next?

Does such recovery of skills (physical and mental) and memories require, where this is warranted, up to 3 years of development of the infant’s brain? Strangely, most (if not all) adults cannot remember any experience in their lives before about age 3.

I wonder – what are babies and infants doing as they observe and observe – even as they give us great joy, juxtaposed with sleepless nights and some (or much) worry? Indeed, they are a great and wonderful mystery, with each birth a miracle.

Insights into reality

Ever an investigator of knowledge, preferably of understanding, the Seeker, in his retirement, began to investigate extra-sensory phenomena (e.s.p). In his youth, he had read of Prof. Rhine’s work in this field at Duke University.

Having read a recently published tome bringing together the latest perceptions on e.s.p, the Seeker consulted a visiting European clairvoyant, just to see what happened. To his surprise, without even looking at him, she described accurately his family and their tense relationships, then mentioned his very private thought about re-emigrating, and finally advised that his marriage was over. This was news to him, but proven correct.

Such accuracy was impressive, as his previous exposure to clairvoyants, astrologers and ‘fortune tellers’ in an Asian environment had merely increased his inborn scepticism. There had been many amateurs or charlatans around. Yet, he had seen faith-healing and the discovery of lost objects, mainly valuable jewellery.

He then consulted an English clairvoyant, again out of curiosity. To his considerable surprise, on arrival, he was told ‘I have the spirit of your uncle with us. Will you accept him?’ Initially at a loss for words (and thought), he said, ‘I have 3 uncles. Please describe him.’ To his delight, it was clearly his senior uncle, the second-most important man in his life (after his father). His acceptance of the spirit (whom he could not see nor communicate with) enabled a silent dialogue between the clairvoyant and the spirit; he remained tongue-tied, only responding to questions by the clairvoyant.

The introductory statement by the spirit was that “higher beings” had sent him because he was the one the client was “most likely to accept.” The Seeker’s sceptical mind was presumably well known to the spirit world. The consultation ended in a three-way exchange, wherein the spirit displayed his knowledge of what had happened to his nephew after his own death. The spirit then faded away, having left his nephew with some sound suggestions for his future.

This experience left the nephew in a philosophical quandary. The spirit world had never been part of his framework of reference for anything. Ultimately, he realised that he had been exposed to a very significant event. He could not reject it just because it did not fit into any generally acceptable frame of knowledge, beliefs and values. He has since acted on the suggestions received.

The Seeker then consulted another kind of clairvoyant, a spiritual healer, again out of curiosity. An Australian, she offered her client’s past-life experiences as an explanation of certain physical pains of his, which he had not mentioned to anyone.

When he rejected her comments, saying that any of his past-life experiences must surely be available only to him, her reply was that her own spirit guide is a Healer, who is able to read all of the Seeker’s past lives. Strangely, soon after, the Seeker’s pains disappeared.
And, like the English clairvoyant, this Australian healer displayed an ability to sense the presence of the souls or spirits of the Seeker’s dead children. He found this quite disconcerting. How does one deny these events and their significance, or their implications about the reality of human existence?

Then, there is the ‘casual clairvoyant’ who, in a non-consultative contact, could claim to see either a past or the future of the Seeker. She once described the physical appearance of the Seeker’s spirit guide, while conveying his complaint that the Seeker had not been listening to him!

As the historical Lin Yu Tang, a Chinese philosopher of renown, might have said to his imagined porcine pet, ‘Where now, old sow?’

For a rational sceptical person to find, after a lifetime lived to the full, that the spirit world exists, is a great surprise. When the events experienced cannot be denied because of the accuracy of the information made available, and also because the Seeker of knowledge exposed to the events is told that the spirit world is playing a significant role in his life, what is he to do?

 

Observing babies with joy

Every baby, at birth, is a miracle. Fully formed, ready to go – but not quite! Baby birds sit in their nests and squawk – perhaps only when they sight mum returning with food. These nesters will eventually fly away from their perch. Ground-hugging baby birds, like the plover, will practice flapping their flight-wings while standing on the ground. I once watched with interest a young plover falling onto its back repeatedly while flapping its wings. Eventually, it flew.

Baby animals, immediately after birth, get on to their feet with some effort. When they get their joints in synchrony, they move around, but close to mum. I once saw (on tv) a baby elephant walk over confidently to observe more closely a few birds fossicking on the ground. Soon, however, its mama wandered over and gathered her baby back.

What is fascinating to observe is a young animal make friends with a young one of another species. There are so many such examples. A giraffe and a sheep do, however, seem a strange friendship. I once saw (on tv) 3 different young animals moving together as companions. I also saw (on the internet) 3 cheetahs approached by a tiny baby deer while they were resting. It then nuzzled up to one of the big cats. Eventually, the cheetahs got up and walked away!

I have always felt, perhaps quite unfairly, that animals are better ‘people’ than human beings. Surely, it is only hunger which leads carnivores to attack other animals. Since hunger may be the prevailing condition, carnivores may create an incorrect impression as perennial hunters. Apart from some power-seeking or mischief-making, is co-operation not the modus operandi for the rest of the animal kingdom?

Human babies seem to be the only exception in the kingdom of fauna as needing a lot of time to become motile. They do remain on their backs for a long time. What are they thinking as they observe all? When placed on their bellies, after a few weeks they will lift their head to check out their surroundings. This seems to be the first action intimating purpose.

A little later, when lying on their backs, they will suddenly sit up straight but without any use of their limbs. We adults can’t do that, unless we have developed our core abdominal muscles through exercise. How do babies suddenly display muscle strength?

When my baby daughter was only a few weeks old, I sat her up with cushions on 3 sides, next to a window, in order to take photos of her. She was calm while listening to me. Then, in walked my wife, whose voice and words conveyed so much love. The baby became very excited, and tried to move towards her mother, with such joy on her face.

It was an incredible experience – especially for a product of a ‘stiff upper lip’ Asian culture. In that culture, after a babyhood of being cuddled and spoilt, there was thereafter neither words nor touch to demonstrate the close family bond. The compensation is that the extended family is always there, and could be relied upon.

Through that early bonding, each of our babies grew up into adulthood with confidence; so I believe.

Is Consciousness the explanation?

Consciousness is something we are all aware of. That is, I am aware that I am conscious. But, I do not understand it. Yet, we need Consciousness in order to be mobile and motile; and to use the limited number of senses we possess. Awareness, reciprocally, seems to be an essential manifestation of Consciousness.

Is it possible to be aware when one is unconscious; or asleep? Is it Consciousness which enables thought? Or feelings? What of the subconscious? Is there such a facility? If it does exist, then a level of Consciousness exists of which we are not aware. Then, how do we know about what is happening at the subconscious level? Is there a transmission of thought from the subconscious to the conscious?

There has to be such a transmission. When my seer, B, advised me to ‘listen’ to my subconscious in order to receive messages from my Spirit Guide, such messages need to surface in my conscious mind. When I wake up in the middle of the night with a new thought, I could assume that my Guide was responsible. Since I have a speculative, roving mind, poking into all corners of existence, which new thoughts can be attributed to my Guide? And which reflect the thought-miner striking a potentially valuable lode of insight?

Moving to intuition, third-eye perceptions, clairvoyance, clairaudience, reading the future, and remembering a past life, would these facilities not involve riding a wave of Consciousness across time, as well as space? The quaint concept of space-time is an irrelevancy here.

Would not communication with spirits from the impossible-to-deny Afterlife also involve surfing a cloud-land of Consciousness? Would not the visual manifestation of spirits also require such a medium of transportation from the Afterlife? Of course, the Afterlife is most probably ‘here’ in a dimension which crosses our dimension of Earthly existence.
In this context, looking to the desert religions (or perhaps all religions) for guidance would seem to be futile. The focus of religion is elsewhere.

‘Horses for courses’ is a useful adage. For the relatively recent (in historical terms) discovery of the terra nullius of human experiences traversing over-lapping realms of the ephemeral and the material, new means of communication – in the form of concepts and relationships established in the human mind – are needed.

Following the principle reflected in Occam’s Razor, that the simplest explanation is best, the concept of an all-embracing, infusive, ever-existing, pervasive aether may be a useful starting point. The aether is now being researched, in spite of the Michelson-Morley experiment of yore, by a significant number of scientists willing to transcend the prevailing explanatory paradigms.

In human terms (or in terms of transient beings) Consciousness qualifies as that ever-existing, all-embracing, and all-penetrating essence. Whether matter represents a projection from the bound-less ocean of Consciousness, and from which arose the ephemeral, the insubstantial; or whether the ‘real’ of the ephemeral arising from Consciousness is reflected, as appropriate, in the material is an irrelevancy for now. The relationship between the material and ephemeral realms may be an enriching bilateral process.

Were Consciousness to be a functionally neutral cloud-like enabler of links, especially of communication, between whatever exists, in any form (of substance or otherwise), it would intransitively present what seems to be obvious to sensitive humans – that everything in existence is connected to everything else. Both the paranormal and the normal in human existence would then be explicable.

Is it Consciousness which enables the pathways of mutual understanding, through gossamer connections, between sentient beings – including spirits from the Afterlife?