reality-enlightenment-truth.org

Reality

Enlightenment

Truth

Organization

This will be a website that is determined to bring some wisdom and love to humanity

Written by Lance Volk, a Quora Contributor

Our mission is to educate humanity to the point that war and hate will only be definitions in a dictionary.

It will be a guide to being a better person.

It's parent website is

R-E-T.com

 Sacrifice and Prayer

Here is a subject that may be considered way out there to many, but I feel can be one of the most important unknowns for people to get a better grasp of.

Sacrifice is the act of willingly giving up something in order to effect a change for the positive. Some people would picture an alter high up, possibly on a pyramid where human life is extinguished for the greater good of a village, city or civilization,

this has happened in the distant past for many different reasons like for promise of good crops or good weather or lack of natural disasters and the such,

the effects of sacrifice are varied greatly depending on the situation and conditions. Power from a sacrifice varies greatly depending on a lot of factors.

I would like to start with the perfect example of a sacrifice that has affected the greatest good on the planet that I am sure most would agree with, and that is the death of Jesus Christ on the cross,

this is a man that voluntarily gave his life so that everyone could be forgiven their sins. Jesus could have made a confession to not being the son of God and his life may have been spared, he could have denied what he had done to save his own life, but he chose to stick to his guns and help everyone else at his expense.

What made this such a powerful event is that this man was perfect, he was without sin what so ever, in his whole existence he never succumbs to the evil of any sort, he actually had everything to live for but exchanged it all for us to have a chance to be one with his father.

This example would be hard to beat in any circumstance, there is a power in purity, which is why virgins were a prime example of sacrifice subjects, but that is not enough, the subject has to be freely willing to do this or else it would just be considered murder,

also, the reason for the sacrifice would have to be good, it couldn't be for a personal gain or to greatly change the cosmic balance, ideally it would have to be mostly a selfless act, so if the subject was sick and about to die anyway, the power of the act would be diminished.

To suffer or to relinquish a right or liberty does not always have to result in death to affect a good thing to happen especially if it is selfless, Gandhi is a good example of this type of act where a voluntary act of starvation would help free a nation, he was not coerced in doing this, it was completely of his own God-given free will.

I myself have made sacrifices for a good result that would help many people including myself, I was careful not to make it something that would upset a cosmic balance, but it was a ritual that was not exactly fun, and at times was painful, it drew upon the power of the people of our great nation that freely gave their lives in order for us to enjoy the liberties that we have today,

I cannot go into detail as to what it is specifically, and I will explain later why, but it did not directly profit anyone, only their well being.

This now brings me to prayer, prayer is also a great force that has many levels of effectiveness depending on the subject and circumstances. Prayer is somewhat like a sacrifice in the way that it is used,

the most effective types of prayer would have to be totally selfless acts, meaning that praying for someone you know would not be as effective as praying for someone you do not know or even greater if you pray for someone you dislike,

like most people, we pray for our loved ones, and when I say that it is not as effective as praying for someone you dislike, I do not mean to deter anyone from praying for anyone they wish, as all prayer helps,

also prayer is most effective if no one knows that you are praying, also that is not to say that telling someone that you will pray for them is bad, especially if that act would bring comfort to them, but telling other people that you have prayed for so and so will diminish the act as it has just become less selfless,

this is also not to say that praying together in church is bad, but sometimes intention is confused by people thinking that if people see me praying, they will think I am a good person, this would be leaning towards being a selfish act that may end up hurting more than helping.

The most important aspect of prayer is the true intention. Jesus has stated that it is best to go into your closets to pray, let no one know what you do as your heavenly father will always know your deeds and intent.

Also if you intend to include some sort of sacrifice on your behalf such as fasting, take care of yourself and not allow others to recognize what you are doing or have done. These acts should be kept as anonymous and secret as possible,

the exception to this is what Gandhi did, where the action was needed to be known by as many as possible to be most effective. Also letting someone know of the benefits that you gain from fasting is not bad either as it may help them in the future.

Just as acts of compassion like donations to charities, it is not always as easy to stay anonymous in these cases, especially if you are donating large amounts of money, The extremely rich such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have vowed to donate at least 50% of their money in their lives or upon their death,

this is a great thing just for the fact that it is a huge amount of money, a majority of people that make donations to whatever, do it also for tax purposes, which I personally would feel that it detracts from the intent of goodness, this is not to say that giving money to any deserving charity is bad, even if you are getting a financial credit for doing so, but there is much to be said about staying anonymous when making donations, especially if you wish to keep this action totally selfless,

as for helping your soul, the 8 richest people in the world have as much money as worlds poorest 50% of people, so when they give away 50% of their 10's of billions of dollars, it isn't a horrific sacrifice as you might imagine,

but none the less it is a good thing that they do, but for us normal people, giving up 50% of our wealth would leave us ruined, so it is a much more powerful deed for us when we make an anonymous donation.

By staying anonymous, it ensures our selflessness and also keeps these charities from selling our names to other charities or even hounding us again and again for even more money,

that is one thing that bothers me and that is when someone makes a donation in my name, I end up being hounded for money from charities I have never heard of,

by making an anonymous donation by money order or certified check, you will ensure some privacy and what's more valuable, by not declaring it on your taxes, it becomes a selfless act which has a more karmic value,

this may be a greater problem if you wish to donate more than $5000 as these amounts tend to be tracked by the government but there are also ways to get around this also, I am sure there are a lot of people that would like to have this problem.

     Returning to sacrifice, the ultimate sacrifice that can be made is giving your life to save another, a firefighter that enters a burning building to save others is a noble profession and is usually one that is destined for a person that may have an excess of karmic baggage from their previous lives,

people are normally drawn to professions that they are adept at doing or from ones that their soul will advance from, professions that require unusual amounts of sacrifice or ones that help people are not necessarily ones that should be searched for especially if you don't have a calling for it.

There is truly an innate power in any sort of sacrifice that is not readily seen, I am a firm believer in the Michael Teachings, but I have also noticed that this group of entities either are not aware of these benefits or decide not to touch on this subject at all for it's worth,

it seems our human bodies are just expendable tools which are mostly a means to an end, I believe there is much more than this, I believe it is a great privilege to have our bodies, we may feel and have to go through much pain at times to advance in our quest for enlightenment not exactly by our choice,

but that should not deter from the fact that is we decide to forfeit some of our civil liberties and or put ourselves in uncomfortable or painful situations for the good of others known and or unknown to us by exercising our God-given rights of free will,

those actions of selfless sacrifice should carry some significant weight when combined with the strength of will, some power from the upper planes can be tapped to help the cause of unconditional love to be displayed in the name of God.

There is also the sacrifice of your material beliefs and Desires, the sacrifice of your material things also known as charity is a benefit to you and your soul and to God, getting rid of all of that junk will free you and your soul,

charity of your time is of great value especially if you have karmic debt that needs to be resolved.

There is also the sacrifice of your desires, this is a purely spiritual thing that will give you some spiritual power to advance in your incarnation, stopping eating meat, eating only 2 meals a day and fasting are some basic sacrifices that are made by many,

also, there is the sacrifice of sensual wants and replacing them with spiritual endeavors, such as cutting out television and games to an extent and all of the addictive pleasures that are from false personality such as smoking, drinking, and overeating, celibacy is another sacrifice that brings power to enlightenment.

I personally believe that when I want to fast for any amount of time, I do not just limit my fast to just food, I also include some of my quickly disappearing desires, just for an exercise in the elimination of material desires, I discontinued my subscription to Netflix, in order to decrease my audio/visual desirous options,

I now have been limiting myself to things that are more spiritually enlightening, I have been watching some old episodes of Kung Fu the series as it does give some

tidbits from the wisdom of Lao Tze, but even this is withheld during my fast, mostly I write about enlightenment and read about spiritual subjects to pass my time,

meditation is usually the climax to this activity, hoping to gain a little more knowledge about myself and all there is.

What is and Isn't to be taught here

All that will be taught here will mostly be common sense observations to how life should be lived to it's fullest potential, I may use quotes from certain scriptures and statements from wise intelligent people,

but I will not be approaching any occult beliefs or use any hermetic teachings to confound your minds, it is true that I will approach some hard to grasp beliefs that do need to be pondered as they do affect our lives to some extent,

deities and all-encompassing concepts will be hit upon as they are such a part of the world's beliefs that it would be very difficult to avoid.

There are many sites about positive thinking, and the new age phenomena have crept into today's thoughts and actions so much as it would also be hard to not mention certain aspects of all of these.

I will not teach all that I believe, but I may lead you to explore what may be interesting to you.

Even though hard to grasp subjects will be approached and unbelievable unproven concepts will be presented,

they are mostly for you to ponder, these sites should be valuable to believers and non-believers in anything considered supernatural. Logical opinions about life in general, observations from different points of view and personal opinions will be presented for you to decide it's ultimate worth.

Generally, Mankind is in a sad state, and all of us need to get on the same page of reality in order for there to be peace in the world. I will be presenting my personal belief system and explain how it may work,

all of you reading this have free will, and all of you can believe what you wish, I just hope that your beliefs include letting others have their beliefs also.

My beliefs are basically a bit of all the worlds beliefs, condensed and distilled to a streamlined system that has no great requirements of anyone that are other than mostly common sense, minus the fear and dogma that inflames the emotions of believers in many other religions.

Explanations of how we need to change in order to get along with others on the planet, procedures to allow you to further your exploration of your own mind and body, including explanations of why you feel the way you do and how to remedy certain problems you may have,

it is true that some of these explanations will involve faith in certain beliefs, but the spiritual aspects can be replaced with psychological doctrines that have been developed in the past to make explanations to some more reasonable.

I am a lover of nature and all that is natural on this planet, I recycle, I compost, I grow some of my own food and I feel that I am part of all that is on our planet,

I don't litter and I treat others as I would like to be treated, I feel that I have a moral obligation to all of humanity and for that matter to all of the earth to respect natures balance,

this does not have anything to do with religion or non-religion, It is just a right way of being as far as I perceive it, there are others that are total users of life, there is no regard for nature or our planet,

is it because these sorts of things aren't taught in our schools or is it that our parents that have dropped the ball? when did the awareness become lost?

Having a preoccupation with building a big bankroll, without any concern of whose toes get stepped on or by what means it is attained, seems to be the status quo for some,

taking responsibility for one's actions has been put on the back burner for some, this sort of attitude towards life will keep humanity from evolving to something that our galaxy would be proud of.

Is Life Good?

There will be a great deal of you that have come to this site that are well off, life has been good to you organically or of your hard work and efforts, but you have come here because you feel something is lacking in your life,

the success and money just don't seem to be enough, you may be a "young soul" that has been pre-programmed to succeed, and the "material life" agrees with you,

you are well at home with money and or power and building an empire is the thing you are best at.

If you have gone through this site far enough to realize that Cause and Effect or Karma will be a debt that sooner or later will come due,

most likely near the end of your incarnations, but it is not too late to get a jump on those later lives by providing a service to those in need, charitable contributions to worthy causes will help your cosmic spreadsheet towards your future lifetimes.

Coming back to giving, as many of you may be young souls, you may have climbed over a few people to get to the top on a few occasions in your previous lifetimes, this will be the opportune time to start giving back, to start paying for what you may have done previously,

it's one thing to pay for a college education, but it's another to make someone comfortable who will never need to work, you will be robbing them of a character-building experience that will mold them into a better person.

     I in no way was a poor person that scraped by day to day just getting by, I was fairly average, but when it came to making much money, it really didn't matter so much to me,

yes, I thought it would be nice to have nice things, but that was just a fantasy to me, I never had any great hardships that some people have, I had the usual normal hardships that everyone will face sooner or later like deaths in the family or events that may set you back at times,

yet I still had some Karma from some previous lives that I had to deal with, being an old soul, this is a normal state of affairs.

I very much appreciated when my Father made me pay rent and pushed my limit to see how self-sufficient I could be, and I actually believe this is a good exercise to give to all children as they grow up.

So life is good for you and you want to make the most of it, just remember how you got where you are.

Yes, it may be true that life is good for you, but should it matter how life is for the rest of humanity? You may see some heart-wrenching thing on TV or the internet and say, oh, that's horrible,

but you, like most people distance yourself from such things, if you are one to be attracted to other peoples distress or misfortune, this should be a habit to lose, your false personality is base and is driven more by primal instincts which we as a civilization has not been necessary for us for thousands of years,

I Seek and I don't like what I find

we need a mellow civilization in order to progress, the bloodthirsty attitudes should not go past a friendly team rivalry, competition as a whole tends to perpetuate these sorts of feelings,

it is not at all reasonable to expect humanity to change their competitive ways, but to compete for peaceful things would be a step in the right direction.

How good do you really think that life is? Are all of the things that you have acquired over the years fulfilling all of your needs? you may be a collector of stuff as a hobby, I myself collected coins when I was young,

it seemed logical to me as it could always be spent if needed, but it never filled any voids in my life, and I guess that could be said of all "things" I now put a premium on knowledge especially if it leads to wisdom,

would you believe that you would have a feeling of satisfaction for doing something totally selfless? If you have never done any charity work or community help for nothing more than a thank you, I suggest that you give it a try at least once to see how it feels,

just a temporary shift towards your spiritual side foregoing some of your material aspirations for a while is a positive "life is good" type of move that everyone needs to develop, then you can re-assess how good that couch potato or clubbing life really is.

Do I have a Soul?

This is a quest that we will have to make on our own, to prove that you have a soul is a purely subjective project that has several ways of being accomplished,

on other pages of some of my sites I have revealed how I personally have come in contact with my soul and was aware of its presence for months at a time, this was mostly due to what I had read and what I have learned over many years,

my path was best suited to me as I have always had a spiritual view of life, but was more of an observer than a participant and my route to self-realization was a rather lengthy trip with many detours,

I will attempt to make this much quicker for all of you especially if you are new to this, eventually, there will be a page with links to literature and information that can help the processes,

45 years of seeking, covering many topics are not necessary, but if you wish to reach any state of self-realization a certain train of thought will be needed to allow your mind to become used to a new or different reality.

Becoming familiar with different philosophies and religions is a basic start and also becoming familiar with your inner self is also necessary, so some studies in metaphysics and meditation are important,

you will need to have the ability to relax completely to be successful in many of these ways, there is a simple starting point to a quick meditation by following Prana Breathing and visualization of relaxation techniques which is just another form of meditation that has an explicit goal to realize your soul,

I am not one to recommend doing any sort of drugs, but marijuana, when smoked in a very small amount, has been successful in bringing people to a relaxed state where you would be able to "let go",

I would only recommend this if you have an extremely hard time relaxing, I will not touch on the other drugs that may be used as they are more extreme and really not necessary,

also the use of marijuana should be very rare and not be made into a regular occurrence as it will eventually give more power to your false personality and will dull your mind, besides being illegal in many states, a one time use will stay in your body for a few weeks and will continue to affect you subtly,

for the most part in my experience, a few ancient scriptures and a few enlightening websites completed the bridge for my transition, reading the Upanishads and visiting the "Michael Teachings" website were the last two things that I did before my realization,

it should be understood that I had read hundreds of things over the decades and I already had a belief system in place where these two items just completed what was necessary for me to know to allow the realization to happen,

It may not be the same for everyone and I am positive it is different for everyone, relaxation can be practiced by many forms of meditation, the ability to concentrate is also a plus where yoga is a lot of help,

the other methods are usually not planned as like a near-death experience or extreme trauma, also as for relaxation, quitting coffee, extreme amounts of food and sugar and drinking of alcohol will help in the process as all of these things are of material nature and have false personality backing them,

If realizing that you have a soul was easy, there would be no more war on our planet and also no hunger, this will be a great effort and may not happen for years if ever, but in contrast there have been people that haven't even been trying and have the realization hit them seemingly out of the blue,

and believe me when I say when it happens to you, you will most definitely know it, there will be an extreme clarity and a feeling of not experiencing any of your senses, but knowing all, it may be for only a few seconds or it can be for months or longer,

but at that moment in time, you will have a new priority in life that you will want to pursue. It has also been wondered about if animals and plants have souls, I do not wish to confuse matters by bringing in new players but a brief comment on this I believed is required,

from my studies, I have found that everything has a soul, from a grain of sand to a tomato plant to your house dog or the bird you hear singing each morning, the greatest difference between them and us is karma,

all mineral, plant and animal life runs on instinct and only follows the laws of cause and effect, they are not sentient and do not have much in the way of intellect, they are not plotting and scheming creatures with agendas,

yet they do have basic fundamental soul fragments that experience life in basic survival and observing compacity, a tree may sense something growing under it and feel it as a threat and drop a branch on it or cover it with leaves purely out of instinctive response,

just as animals will protect territories as a matter of survival, being a rock must be as fundamental as you can get, but you need to start somewhere, all of these are good reasons to respect all forms of life and our planet as a whole.

Maybe there should be a good definition of what a soul really is if you are so interested in if you have one, some people see a soul as something impersonal,

just energy that is unexplainable and others think that it is a fragment of God that is on a journey to discover different things, and still, again there is a reasoning that God is supposed to know all that there is to know,

and what would God need from your fragment's experiences, it kind of reminds me of playing a video game all the way through without saving, at first it would be very difficult because it is new and foreign to you,

but after many tries you start to get the idea of what is required of you to make it through successfully, I have also read descriptions that individualize the soul and set it out on its journey to learn as much as possible wherever is possible throughout eternity,

in a sort of training as a God, something like this would have to take many eons because you would have to experience everything, either way, I see my physical body as a temporary abode that is replaced many times during the journey.

What is Karma?

Karma is a sentient version of cause and effect, it is the balancing out of the universe, it is the chief reason for reincarnation. "As ye sow so shall ye reap" There are many people that just do not believe in Karma because it doesn't always balance itself out in the same life as it is acquired,

a wrong may have been perpetrated in some previous lifetime, and the balance is not always made immediately, even the next dozen lifetimes do not always take care of this imbalance, but it will be taken care of, especially at a time when there will be something to be learned in the process.

Karma is being acquired and paid all of the time, let us say for instance when I was a young adolescent punk of a kid, I decided to steal something from a hard working individual that has led a rather pure uneventful life so far,

I broke his car window and stole his CB radio when I was 16 years old, I had no notion of karma then, I just wanted the radio, this individual I took it from now has the great hassle of getting his window repaired and has to buy another radio,

he or she feels that life has dealt them a raw deal at this point of time, but actually, this was balancing out of a transgression of some previous lifetime unbeknownst to them,

I, on the other hand, have just acquired my brand new karma, I actually assumed this victims karma for myself,

yet it didn't have to go that way as I could have been the victim in that previous lifetime, and it could have just been balancing out.

Balance and imbalance doesn't always have to include 2 people, I could have a pebble fly up and break my windshield, equaling some damage that I may have caused many years earlier,

and Karma is not just limited to material things either, bearing false witness is an imbalance that also must be balanced along with the other of the 10 commandments and seven deadly sins,

any undue stress brought upon another individual such as oppressing their free will eventually demand a rebalancing, in the meantime,

when there are causes of massive oppression of large population's free will, there are effects of violence, war, torture, rape, etc. that continue until the imbalance is corrected.

Speaking of free will, the young adolescent individuals that just can't wait to be out on their own and start living their lives without parental supervision, are easy targets for some cause and effect, not to mention some karma acquisition

there is a good reason that the voting age is 18 and why you should stay at home until then when you are under 18, your puberty driven emotions are running amok,

wanting to quit school because you got your girlfriend pregnant at the age of 16, can inject some instant karma into your life that may take a very long time to get over, if ever,

it can unduly generate deadbeat parents which snowball as their children are now the victims of the run amok glands, these are obvious repercussions of not thinking things out at a young inexperienced age,

this is not to say that these things always have to end badly, as I am sure there is some really responsible high school drop out teenage parents out there.

There are many ways to collect karma and there are many ways to pay off karma, even though there is some karma's that cannot be repaid easily or even in just one lifetime.

It has been said that once you have come to the realization of cause and effect and understand that you are a soul living lifetimes over and over collecting and paying karma, the realization of this is enough to end the cycle, but I am not so sure it is that easy,

for one thing, you would have to have faith which is so strong that the belief could not possibly be denied, and you would have to live in such a way as to not do anything that would cause you to acquire any more karma,

you could not escape the cause and effect just by having the knowledge, and I am not absolutely sure that a karmic debt from a previous life can be forgiven no matter what you believe, but I could be wrong, but just having this knowledge will not give you carte blanche if you decide to go on a rampage.

There are also some hermetic beliefs that not only expand Karma but also limits it, it is believed by some that karma is collected in all forms of existence, I would not consider a rock falling off a cliff into some water and splashing onto something and causing it to prematurely rot, Karma,

it would indeed be considered cause and effect, but karma is a conscience result from a conscious action from a sentient being, an animal killing another animal because it violated its territory is an act of nature and is not the result of premeditation,

it is an effect of instinct from a creature of nature and does not acquire any karma, in these sorts of cases, cause and effect are the norms for these sorts of actions, the animal that was killed will not be able to propagate and its population will decrease due to cause and effect and not due to karma.

Karma, unlike cause and effect, may be delayed a few lifetimes before payment is collected or Karma is equalized, but in the case of cause and effect, this is usually addressed on a continuous basis,

without delays for hundreds if not thousands of years, this is not to say that karma doesn't have immediate actions in some cases.

Karma is the sole product of mankind and it's sentient minded free will, it's conscience creation of acts and situations that create imbalances in societies, not only make karma for single persons,

but also for cultures and populations especially when the results can be addressed not only by karma but also cause and effect can amplify results, just look at what we are doing to our planet in the name of greed and power,

something as powerful as a nuclear weapon would prove to be the perfect example of the perfect storm of karma and cause and effect to make an example of our arrogant ignorance in a way that we couldn't help but notice and learn from.

Unlike animals and plants and minerals, the human race has more laws to abide by other than the natural cause and effect rules that govern our planet and universe in general.

Our souls take up this journey on this planet to learn, we all start as infant souls and by trial and error we ascend the ladder of incarnations by testing as many lifestyles as we can endure, after each incarnation we carry with us a little more knowledge and wisdom to the next incarnation,

until eventually, we come to the realization of why we are actually here, we then truly GET IT and finish paying off our karma, we are finally free of debt and go on to our next learning opportunity.

The acquisition of Karma is not the sole reason that we keep incarnating, there are lessons that need to be learned in order for us to evolve, according to the Michael Teachings, a minimum of 35 lives are required before a soul is able to move on,

so even if you do not acquire any karma at all in any of those 35 lives, there will still be things that are needed to be learned and some of those lessons may have to do with acquiring Karma and paying it off,

and also there is the obvious knowledge of having self-realization, if it is not realized what you truly are, you will most definitely come back until it is realized.

How Can I Attain Enlightenment?

Attaining enlightenment is an ongoing process that can take a lifetime, if you have been led here to read this then you have some spiritual guidance that is leading you towards enlightenment, that is not to say that these sites are the final word in enlightenment,

but they are geared towards helping you on the path towards this goal, sites such as these that do not claim to give the final word in attaining enlightenment are a good start, there are many ways to enlightenment,

meditation and lifestyle changes can be involved or you may go out on a mission to help someone or some people for whatever reason, all of our world's religions have different concepts of what might be enlightening,

the Muslims may give special attention to giving charity, where the Hindus would have you venture within for enlightenment, and Buddhists would claim that how you treat people and how you balance your actions is an enlightening experience,

you may only just follow your commandments and stick to the virtues and steer clear of the sins to reach this goal, all of the religions have the right ideas strewn about in their scriptures, yet they are still not necessary to attain enlightenment,

using your free will and intuition will be your greatest allies in this quest, and do not be surprised if there is some sort of sacrifice on your part to get the enlightenment ball rolling,

the giving up of some material aspect of your life can be the trade-off to begin the process, and it will be an on-going process for the rest of your life.

Can You Reach Enlightenment?

To be sure, you must not go on a specific mission of enlightenment as this will end up being a huge disappointment, enlightenment is not a material thing that can be obtained and especially all at once,

it is gained by an accumulation of wisdom tempered by truth and living your life by what you have learned, as it does not always happen, patience is key, if you are expecting immediate results,

you may be disappointed, reading about what Buddha did before his enlightenment can be a clue to its difficulty, and you may even go through most of your life before achieving an enlightening event or you may even get "late enlightenment" well after your prime years,

there are many factors to consider, most of all don't be in such a hurry, relax and smell the flowers, live and do what you enjoy doing, learn and explore, follow your passions,

relinquish your holds on the material things that enchant you, Be, instead of wanting, Do, instead of needing, sacrifice the material in exchange for the spiritual,

do not anticipate or expect, just enjoy what happens and learn, patience, humility, and love should be your tools, use them wisely

Can Reality Be Changed?

You form your own reality, you cannot change what has already happened, but you can change who you are and create a new and improved you as you wish to be,

it starts with your core before you can change how things are happening, you must enact a change in yourself, this is always what must be done first,

trying to change others is a waste of time as they are in the same position as you are and have the same free will, but if you think that you can change reality in general, like wishing that something did not happen,

this, as far as I know, cannot be done, but changing yourself and your actions and thoughts will enact a change that can continue and make an outcome that you could be pleased with,

expecting to wake up and find that reality has changed to the point of magically removing all of your problems is a fun fantasy but should not be the basis of your life,

do not be dissuaded about how your life has turned out, don't worry, you will have many more chances to make better lives in the future, you should take advantage to learn from your mistakes and attempt to make changes in this life to make it and yourself better,

analyze what you may have done to cause the situation that you are in if it is what you want to change, the resolution of karma can always be a reason for misfortune,

it is how it is handled by your demeanor and attitude that will end up changing your reality in the end.

This is not involving all of the multi-dimensional aspects of the soul where it may be argued that reality can be changed and is changing moment to moment,

this is only talking about this reality and not all probable realities which may be discussed at a later time.

More than Meets the Eye

If you believe that you create your own reality then there must be a belief in magic of sorts, when you begin to realize that your thoughts are very powerful and are driven to make your reality whether it is good or it is bad,

thoughts of doom and gloom and thoughts of bad luck or being dealt a bad hand in life will do just that, your life may be presented with situations that test you and seemingly set all odds against you but that does not necessarily need be so,

the adverse situations that involve you and possibly others are meant to teach you and them something, if these situations seem cruel and unusual, it is how you have actually made them,

your soul needed this or these experiences to expand its knowledge base and how you have handled and reacted to these situations are showing what you have learned so far,

if you insist on prolonging a bad situation in hopes of something changing, this may not ever happen, until you actually change the situation by altering your thought process and changing your attitude by drastically changing the direction you are heading and changing your belief system,

things will just creep along as they have been doing, stagnation is not a good course to follow as it is not any sort of course by definition, your soul does not like stagnation but will allow you to suffer through it until you make that realization on your own,

the prolonged change of attitude and way you look at things that happen in life is only the start, eventually, you will attract what is paramount in your beliefs, feeling sorry for yourself and complaining will bring more of the same problems,

expecting good outcomes to problems that arise in life will actually change things for the better, sometimes the changes that are needed may seem drastic as you will have to disassociate yourself from the pessimists and naysayers,

there will always be those that think that a positive attitude will bring you nothing and you are just at the mercy of chance, the positive attitude also must be accompanied by changes in your life and in your basic understanding of how and why your life is unfolding as it is,

karma is not always the final reason for happenstances, but how you react to these happenstances are a big part of what transpires in your life, don't worry, be happy, roll with the punches, keep your chin up and always look at the bright side of all disparaging situations,

self pity is too easy and will continue to bring similar situations, when you continue to maintain a steadfast attitude of positive thoughts and live by positive beliefs your life will begin to magically change,

then you will have learned the lessons well, it may not happen overnight or even a month or two, but this too is a test of your patience and unwavering fortitude, stick with it and eventually, things will seem to magically change in your life,

showing some gratitude in anything on a regular basis will get the ball rolling for the better, and most of all a true belief in what you are doing is of utmost importance.

What is the meaning of Karma?

A simple definition of Karma is to "sow what you reap" if you are a user, a user of people where the outcome of your use is detrimental to the people or even of nature, an imbalance will occur in the cosmic scheme of your life that will have to come back into balance sooner or later,

and usually, this will come in the form of payback in order for you to learn from mistakes made earlier in your life or in previous lives lived, it does not have to be all bad when you do generous selfless acts, this will give you bonus points of sorts towards future lives lived,

for a simple example, a life lived out of greed and self-indulgence may have to be offset by some poverty and wanting of basic needs to survive, it is not a punishment rather it is an example of the other end of the scale for you to learn specific virtues and lessons,

there are no coincidences, only lessons to be learned, sometimes it has been planned for you to experience less than pleasant things in order for your soul to learn a particular lesson,

there is a good chance that if you have been guided to read this in your seeking, you have probably lived many lives already and have already accumulated some karma to be equaled out in either this life or some future lives to come which is the main purpose of reincarnation,

exploring these previous lives and learning what is expected of you to balance the scales may not be very easy, but there are some things that can be done to help this along, meditation is probably one of the easiest things to start with,

try exploring your previous lives by imagining who you might have been and where you might have lived, some people have more success at this than others, just keep in mind that there are more than actions that carry karmic repercussions,

beliefs and attitudes towards others can also come back to teach you a thing or two, prejudices and preconceived ideas about people will continue to haunt you from life to life, keeping a live and let live attitude will be helpful,

compassion and tolerance will loosen that grip you have on future lives, your karma should be directed towards positive outlooks and actions in order to help you complete your reincarnational process.

     Karma is not the only factor that will determine if you will be coming back to this planet for another life,

there are also lessons to be learned that will determine if you have evolved sufficiently in order to progress to another plane of existence or just to the next grand cycle of learning and experiencing,

Reincarnation Time Between Lives

it has been said that when a total realization of why you are here is realized, karma shall be dissolved and will no longer be necessary,

this does not preclude the possibility of attaining more karma if you think that you can circumvent cosmic law,

after all, an enlightened person would no longer do the things that would be necessary to acquire a karmic imbalance,

there still maybe things unknown to the common man that need to be learned and actions unknown to some of the most enlightened that can cause some sort of karmic repercussions,

there is a quick, simple cheat sheet that you can go by that will lesson the karmic woes that may face you, the 10 commandments and the 7 virtues are things to stick close to in order to avoid problems in your life,

steering clear of the 7 deadly sins will also help, still, this may not be enough if you have acquired a karmic debt from previous lives,

so more than likely there will be ordeals that will test you for these debts, how you handle your life problems are a big part of paying off karmic debts and will be a contributing factor towards your return or progression.

Time and Karma

Time and Karma go hand in hand as Karma, for the most part, is a 3-dimensional phenomenon, just as time, as we use it also, is as we live in our physical existence,

in other words, our existences on this planet include the passage of time and as time passes our lives progress with our actions driven by our free will,

any offsets in the cosmic balance are able to be resolved at different points in time, if not the near future, possibly another life will give us the opportunity to right some of our wrongs,

religion, common sense along with cause and effect are some of the factors that guide us and give us choices, following virtues instead of sins is a safe way to experience life as it is more neutral as acquiring karma goes,

following some of the rules presented in commandments is also, a smart way to live, and as for not doing stupid stuff, this is a way to not have stupid outcomes to your life happen,

not everything that happens to you is the result of karma, cause and effect is also a real-time balancer for the reckless, just like when you play with fire, sooner or later you will get burned,

doing stupid stuff will demand stupid results, tempting fate is one of those things, this is not saying that you should lead a guarded life because taking reasonable risks that have the chance to improve your life should be a natural state of affairs,

as for running into a burning building to save someone, this too can have karmic repercussions, it may be payment or redemption for a previous mistake made in another life or it could also be your character showing itself as to the kind of person you really are,

risking your life is not a normal state of affairs as being that sort of thrill-seeker can lead to a sort of death-wish syndrome which will bring you back to cause and effect,

leading an honorable life with passion and understanding is most all that can be expected of anyone, and when that occasional problem arises, handing that problem shall define you and your future lives to come.

Is Truth Subjective?

All of life as you live it is subjective to how you perceive it and how you feel it unfolds, truth as you understand it may differ greatly from other peoples view of the truth,

and there are many types of truth that are encountered, some more valuable than others, truths about what you perceive personally differs from second hand and third-hand truths that you have not witnessed with your own eyes or heard with your own ears,

the most deceptive truths may be the ones that you are most convinced about because you have personally heard them or seen them, these are based on the reality that you perceive with your senses,

More about   Types of Beliefs

they would be "material" truths and then there are the spiritual truths that cannot be seen with the eyes or heard with the ears but only felt or known to be true, these are the hardest truths to convince others of as they are based on things known as faith and beliefs which have no actual basis in materiality,

they cannot be seen or heard only felt, there are many wise and true statements out there that can be agreed upon as being true as long as the definitions of the words are agreed upon and the context in which they are expressed,

like "unconditional Love is good" this may be agreed upon until someone presents a certain scenario that makes it seem not so good. And then there are opinions,

the greatest subjective truths are usually opinions even though it may be argued otherwise, the ego has its view of the truth, this is a material truth of the senses,

your duality shall always present you with various truths and it is totally up to you to decipher the material from spiritual truths.

Can Anyone Attain Enlightenment?

The answer to this is a big yes, especially if you are searching for the truth about reality, enlightenment is nothing more than the realization of our true existence,

when it is realized that we are immortal souls that have chosen to take physical bodies in order to learn about this sort of existence, we are able to release the burdens that we struggle with day to day,

for me, it took over 60 years to put my culmination of beliefs together to prove to myself what was actually happening, and only then, my soul made itself known to me beyond any doubt,

you can be told these things and you can consider these things, but until you actually believe these things with all of your heart you will only have a notion,

our greatest obstruction here will be our senses and our physical, material personality, this is what has the greatest control over our egos and likes what all of our physical senses bring to us,

until we (our spiritual selves) take control over our material selves, this will remain a problem, your beliefs must correspond to your true reality and it must be more than faith, it must be knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt,

many will believe that this is pure nonsense, they believe only what they see, they will never get onboard with the idea that all that we perceive is a construct of our souls,

this is the barrier that needs to be crossed in order for enlightenment to even have a chance, some will be fortunate enough to have experiences to make this easier but it should not be counted on,

if you continually search for the answers that you seek, the universal consciousness will eventually show you what is needed for you to believe,

meditation, prayer, fasting among other techniques will open your consciousness to new things and possibly allow this to happen more quickly,

If you have beliefs that constrain your way at looking at reality, this is something else that will restrict your progress, you must be able to open your mind to new concepts that do not conform to our physical reality,

our souls have been doing this far longer than our concept of time can explain, our normal state is not physical, it is spiritual, this can only be compared to a game that is played over and over again where lessons are learned from life to life,

we keep score with karma to help lead us on the right path in each consecutive life, our lives on this plane of existence will add its individual knowledge to the universal consciousness,

some of our final lessons are to be able to realize this, this physical camouflage is flawless and does not make it easy to make this realization, when we go through our lives chasing our passions to the best of our abilities we may begin to notice how reality will accommodate itself to our needs,

this is a synchronicity that may defy reason and can help our egos realize that there is more to life than things and appeasing the senses.

During the Enlightenment

When and If you may chance upon an enlightening experience, your life, in an instant will change, you will be changed in some profound way where you will begin to have a mission to share your new knowledge with others,

this enlightenment may be profound or it may consist of something simple that will continue to grow over time, the degrees are varied as the number of people that have them, also the subject matter involved can vary as well,

you are able to be enlightened in many ways, some are more or less important to others but are always important to you, you will almost be obsessed with your particular enlightening subject and it will most definitely change your beliefs to some degree,

religiously and spiritually they shall blend towards your new outlook on life, you will begin a new regimen, this is where the term "born again" arises, your new self will carry new values that you will like to instill on others,

this does not mean that others will be interested in the least about what you have to say or what you have seen, hopefully this new enlightenment will grow and progress, it will give you new ideas of how the spread the word of what you have just learned,

besides this personal change that will come over you, others will notice that you have changed, your mannerisms will be different and your priorities will be different, you will now gravitate towards further expanding this new knowledge you have acquired,

Is Meditation Good For You?

you will seek specific literature and go to specific gatherings and functions that will help you understand more, this is where things can become interesting, I cannot vouch for how others lives have been changed and to what extent,

I can only say about what I have experienced and what I have read on the subject, after four years, my enlightenment has continued, it has been a conscious effort on my part and since I continue to make the effort, different, interesting things continue to happen,

I do occasionally take a break from the non stop spiritualism because I do indeed live in a physical environment that requires some material duties to be done, but when I return, it is just as powerful as when I left it,

try not to be obsessive but strive for some sort of consistency and everything will continue to fall into place.

Is Reality and Enlightenment the same?

This is something that could possibly go hand in hand with each other, unfortunately, it is something that is understood by very few individuals, to determine that these two things are the same requires that a few things must happen,

an understanding of true reality commonly comes with some sort of enlightenment, but enlightenment does not always encompass reality as understood by other enlightened people,

enlightenment may only involve some limited concept or a focused learning experience that does not involve reality as it is perceived by others, it may be something that can be compared to an epiphany or a specific realization about life in general,

enlightenment is generally such a broad term that its definition can be totally different for each individual, enlightenment as described over one hundred years ago seemed to be more technical and involves the senses now it seems to be more spiritual,

points can be argued on both sides of this just as they can for reality, they both seem to take different paths depending on what you base your observations on, there can be enlightenment of ideas that are purely of a physical, material sort with no spiritual component of any kind,

but I believe that there cannot be a true realization of our reality without any sort of enlightenment accompanying it, you can be enlightened to certain facts or certain views that had escaped your knowledge previously,

this still doesn't mean that you will believe anything that isn't clearly apparent to your senses, if you are one to only trust your physical senses for all of your understanding, then your true reality shall escape your understanding,

this does not mean that you cannot be enlightened with some other profound understanding, these two terms are different and yield understandings from two different realms,

the understanding of reality needs some sort of spiritual guidance and understanding whereas enlightenment can come from either realm, both are important to each individual, it is just not as common to understand reality than to be enlightened.

Opposite Meaning of Enlightenment

Straight off, that would be ignorance, when you learn things and do not gain any wisdom in the process, you are missing opportunities to gain any enlightenment, when you only depend on what your senses present to you as being all that there is, you are remaining in the dark and are missing chances for enlightening experiences,

enlightenment is also the realization of what is going on in nature, natural occurrences and the noticing of them is also a form of enlightenment, and not noticing seemingly obvious things is what some people would consider "clueless",

we all need to take notice of what is truly happening in our lives and stop following the radical crowds as if we didn't have minds of our own, allowing our emotions to drive our actions seems to be a natural progression for some but it will always end up being an abrupt learning experience that seems to have taken us in the opposite direction from enlightenment,

stupidity can also be another opposite meaning of enlightenment, having sinful thoughts and sinful intentions seems to have that effect on people, virtue just doesn't seem to be as exciting or get the heart pumping like the emotional explosion of doing some irrational thing for personal gain and self serving purposes,

for those of us that live through our senses and depend on our emotions for our actions, enlightenment will seem to elude us, there is something more than meets the eye, it is where our intuition comes from, it is where we attain our true pleasures in life,

enlightenment is more than knowing something that others do not know, it needs to be worthwhile and usually it includes not being a physical, material gain that is only beneficial to yourself or a choice few,

it usually has something to do with virtue and you will not have anything to physically show for it, it is a state of mind driven by wisdom, it is not the ability to get rich and powerful, sometimes it is just the ability to keep your mouth shut and open your ears,

this may be noticed in the actions of Elon Musk where he deems it necessary to tweet his every thought, this would be a good example of the opposite meaning of enlightenment, he has good general intentions and good ideas but has dropped the reins of his runaway power.

Do we Reincarnate Forever?

     This is also another question that cannot be answered without a decent amount of explanation that can cover all of the bases, in some realities that do not require time used as a tool, reincarnation does not even happen,

in our particular 3 dimensional plane of existence reincarnation is required because a series of successive lives are required for the soul to learn its required lessons and this usually involves something called karma,

Best Karma

if we are speaking strictly about our earthly experience, these lives are limited, it is thought that we experience an average of 200 lives on this earthly plane but that number is not set in stone, each particular soul has its own agenda about learning the human way of life,

this being said would allow quite a variance in life numbers, there is a minimum which is thought to be about 35 lives, there is no maximum but some souls have experienced in excess of 1000 lives, as earth incarnations go, it probably depends on the particular soul that is in question,

some souls may be more thorough than others they may wish to explore certain aspects of humanity in greater detail than others, there may be other realities that allow for just one single life but it may be extreme in age, it may not explore cause and effects such as humanity does but has other attributes that teach other types of lessons,

it is difficult to know, let alone describe every and all forms of consciousness that are available to our souls, physical life with 5 senses is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the list of realities, but when you are an immortal, multidimensional entity, there are probably no limits as to what can be accomplished and the concept of life on a 3-dimensional scale would seem very basic and bland if that is what you had to look forward to for an eternity.

Is AI Real?

     AI is as real as any other program that you run on your computer, it can emulate what a human does at speeds that would stagger the imagination, it is what they are programmed to do that is of the greatest concern,

for instance, when google flights searches for the best prices and best routes to get you where you want to be, this can be a real advantage that an AI can provide for you, this is a chore that can save you real time and effort,

there are also other services that a AI can provide that has real value, as for AI being like a real person, so far, this cannot be because a machine cannot be made sentient, besides, it can't have real subjective experiences, it doesn't have a life, it has no one to support, it is emotionally bereft,

now I have noticed that they are giving the AI's names so that you will make the assumption that they are real people, they seem to state the obvious when you are conversing with them, I start to think that the person I am dealing with is a little slow or mentally challenged until I finally find out that they are an AI,

this might be fine for google adsense or google adx where there are no real conversations held, and real concerns are about the conduction of business, an AI has the ability to track you and your surfing habits, it knows what interests you and it has the ability to access knowledge in an instant,

it can tell you what you want to hear, it could make a great confidence man, an AI has an agenda that its creator has programmed into it and that usually includes making money, an AI may just have you want to buy one of its advertisers products or it may want you to use one of its services,

it doesn't care to be your friend unless there is a potential of profit to be gained, after-all, what would be the purpose of creating an AI to begin with? AI programming can be made to appear very clever as well as deceptive,

everyone should stay on their guard when they are sharing information with an AI, that is if they are able to tell the difference between a real human.

How Media is contributing to misinformation

     Money, power and agendas are what some media companies base their distribution of information to the general public, this information is seen as unimportant concerning actual factual data,

it is the message that their niche audience wants to hear at any cost and they are willing to spend money to hear it, these media companies may even know better about the lies that they distribute but just are not able or even willing to see past the money,

unfortunately, this happens to drag down others that just happen to be listening or watching at the time, these unsuspecting people start hearing the same misinformation over and over enough times that they begin to start to change their mind about what is actually going on,

these suspected media companies should stay suspected until they have proven themselves worthy again, sometimes it isn't easy to derive the truth, and sometimes it takes some work on your behalf,

there is a power in the moral majority, I call this a majority because humanity tends to evolve and believe it or not, the majority of humanity knows right from wrong,

so listening to media outlets that are in agreement with each other which form a majority is a better bet than those few that have agendas that are for appeasement and the acquisition of money,

there is a focus on a minority that so believes that they are right, they are more concerned with appeasing their pride than hearing the actual truth, unfortunately, divisions are formed and opponents are recognized as being those with opinions that are other than theirs,

it is of no concern who is right and who is wrong because their pride is who is calling the shots even though it is mostly through confusion and misinformation,

this can be easily noticed because of the divisive means used when distributing the misinformation, lies and deception have no cohesive properties so what binds them is easily dissolved,

then straws are grasped in attempts to keep these distorted ideas afloat, and then the blame game proceeds to cloud the waters of reason, division weakens misinformation but it must be recognized as such in order for the truth to eventually out shine the rest,

the greatest division lies within the political parties, if enough attention is paid, it is clearly evident that one has less of a moral compass than the other,

it is clear to those that are not pridefully swayed and are consistent with their values as the others seem to change sides as often as the wind changes direction and have no solid foundation to build their lies,

the secret is to not let undue emotion get the upper hand and to have the ability to recognize agendas when they present themselves.