Search the Community

I just wanted to know who knows about Tom Campbell's Theory of Everything. For those who know about it what are you thoughts on his theory? I'm curious to know what Leo thinks about it. Tom Campbell is a nuclear physicist that teamed up with Bob Monroe, the author of "Journeys out of the Body" to study consciousness. Through out-of-body experiences performed over many years, he came up with his own theory of consciousness. Put it really simply, he argues that we are living in a virtual reality created by consciousness to allow itself to grow. He pretends that his theory explains everything from reincarnation to quantum physics. If you are interested in learning more about it, this two-hour long video from one of his workshop will give you a good overview of Tom Campbell's theory.

I was stuck on this one for a long time. Yes, ego death is an illusion, since ego never existed in the first place. But in the realm of the phenomenal world (i.e 'reality' as we know it, our sense perceptions) there's a body and a sentience ("I Am"). That body + sentience was birthed, and eventually, it will cease to function and dissolve. That's what most people refer to as physical death, and it's most definitely real in regards to the phenomenal world. Your sense perceptions and sentience will cease at some point. So, yes, the sentient focal point you call "I" will cease to be. The way to confirm this is to examine what happens when you go to sleep. In deep sleep, there is no awareness of being alive, no sentience, no thoughts to confirm your existence. The focal point you call "I" is not the Truth due to its ephemeral nature. How does the transition happen from one state of consciousness to another? Nobody knows, and nobody can know. We don't even know if reincarnation exists; that's just a baseless assumption. How does physical death happen? It just does. Why? Because. At this point, you're probably pretty down in the dumps reading what I just wrote. Fortunately, you're not any of these ephemeral things. Even when the body and the "I Am" dissolves, there is still something there...but it's not a thing at all. That, whatever that is, is Truth. Truth was never born and hence can never die. It's always been. Here's a quote that helped me contemplate Truth: "Imagine that an ultimate Big Bang in reverse, a sort of anti-Big Bang, suddenly blows up all existence. Absolutely everything that could possibly be experienced is gone. Add to that: time has also been blown away, and space is non-existent. So there is really nothing at all left. Has Being ceased to be? Has existence disappeared or diminished in any way? No. Not at all. We confuse being some thing with Being. We confuse experience with what is. Notice that with nothing at all, existence still is. It just isn’t any thing. It doesn’t exist in or as space or time, and so not as process or experience. In other words, is can’t come or go, it can only is." -Peter Ralston Ultimately, even if the sun explodes and everything gets destroyed and nobody is sentient to experience it... Truth still is. It's just not in the form of anything. To acquire a grounded consciousness of that is another story.

Ever since childhood I've been both fascinated and terrified by death. I will not discuss the actual death here but what happens after what we perceive as death. I'm being guided through a whole new dimension as we speak, but it is so difficult to convey, I'll have to chose my words VERY carefully. I used to believe in reincarnation, but right now, there are louder and louder elements that make me believe that we do not "go" and "come back", but somehow all is simultaneous. This right here, is extremely difficult for human mind to understand, simply because part of its nature is to live in time. I believe that what you are accessing @Sarah_Flagg, is another timeline so to speak, where the consciousness that is called upon, is able to revert to this present timeline as the known (departed) person. Damn, this is so hard to put in words that make sense even to me.. Feels like playing a song without knowing the notes, you only know when the melody's not right. Going further, I also feel that we're somehow accompanied by the same "people" that keep changing "costumes" (bodies). and in the same time, all those people have so many facets to them, that in the end, there's not at all more people...but just one changing facet. I'm sorry, I'll stop here because I cannot really express what comes through... Hope this helped somehow tho

So I'm interested in how valid the Buddhist view of Reincarnation is and to a lesser extent, Hinduism's. I just don't see the validity of the teaching is and would like some opinions on it.

I can see what you mean, the reason why we are afraid of death is not because we are afraid of losing our body, but because we are afraid of losing our self image. Enlightenment intellectually is losing the ego, and death is essentially losing the ego(from a thoughty, intellectual perspective) Though Leo gave some good advice above ^ I will just add that Alan Watts agrees with Leo, enlightenment also involves the realization that death as we intellectually see it is impossible, he states that enlightenment apparently shows you that lack of experience cannot happen, and reincarnation exists; another way of saying that lack of experience cannot occur. So according to Alan Watts, and adding to Leo's comments enlightenment is not like death, enlightenment is detaching from the ego, the ego still exists though you are 'detached' and see its true colours, and death is losing the ego in its entirety, you do not see it for what it really is or detach from it. Though anyone's intellectual interpretation of the above is a vivid story compared to the real scenario, I probably don't have to assert this but take caution