-

[anagogy]

Yes, I was equating distortion with illusion and I believe you're right to claim it is a mistake in this context. I did not realize that such an understanding can be misleading when interpreting the Law of One.

Free will is still a hard pill for me to swallow however.

That free will is a distortion of something real, that is has elements of truth, is in my mind akin to saying that it is a half truth, thus misleading.

I find it harder to speak the same of love, so I am still inclined to think that the first distortion is absurd in ways the second is not.

I think your mirror analogy is self defeating for the reason that; I'd say free will itself is the distortion of the mirror. Without the distortion, I think it'd be obvious that none of us are free.

I'll say one way I see free will as workable, is "true simultaneity" as Ra puts it; that all conscious beings are doing exactly what they want to do. Which for me is difficult to accept when I am not only neck deep in illusion but also may well be a part of it.

Ah, well, that is probably as far as I'm going to get you to come with it.

It appears we are at a philosophical impasse at this point, if you're dead set on free will being some sort of illusion.

I'll content myself with the fact that you found the second 'distortion' more difficult to dismiss as sheer illusion.

And while your perspective comes across as cynical, pessimistic, and depressing to me, I can appreciate that your life experiences are drastically different than my own, and of course the universe looks different to you, albeit darker.

I personally see the 'distortions' as simply the 'ripples' in the image being reflected in the water. Thus, the image itself is pure. Freedom. Love. Light. The distortion is that these seem like separate concepts in our universe. In the true image they are perfectly synthesized. They are simply the Spirit, Mind, and Body of the one infinite creator.

But again, i'm inclined to take a more optimistic stance on the perfection of infinity. To do otherwise, seems a disservice to something we ascribe the label of 'infinite' from my vantage point. But you wouldn't be the first, and certainly won't be the last. I can only hope time will show you another facet of this shimmering diamond we call existence.

Take care. Be well. May the light of Derek's invincible diamond shine through you.  

[earth_spirit]

-----

[Coordinate_Apotheosis]

What do you think happens when someone who believes in existence after death, commits suicide with the intent of ending his own existence? Even if it is impossible, what are the potential consequences of pursuing this endeavor to the bitter end, so to speak? To be clear, I am not merely talking about physical death, but rather, total destruction of the self where re-incarnation or continued existence at any level is impossible.

Hey E_S, your questions are always mirroring mine lol

What do I think happens when someone who believes in existence after death kills their self with intent to end their consciousness?
I think they continue the usual end of life experiences of being indoctrinated back to the ways of the afterlife through 'healing' so as not to perceive as a human anymore so as to continue what they were doing before they incarnated.

I think the closest you'll get to an official answer is in a Michael Newton book where he describes an interviewee describing how they understand what happens to certain 'problematic souls'.  The answers were two different one's:
They either have parts of themselves reintegrated back (in an undescribed manner) and new parts provided back to them (like literally changing the concentration or PPM ((parts per million)) of the unique bits of energy) that make up the consciousness and soul body.  Or basically it sounded like they were being directly bit by bit rehabilitated with new parts.  Sort of like exchanging out a part of the human brain to change who the human being is.

The other answer was that they would 'go somewhere else' of which the person commented along the lines of 'I don't know where they go though'.

Which might be answered by a later segment in one of his books where another interviewee describes 'brownish-greenish large areas' in the afterlife where 'dark souls' exist, which might be an analogue to negative time/space or 'Hell'.

But if I were a spirit guide and one of my students came back from an incarnation with intent to not exist anymore, I'd do everything in my power to try and figure out what went wrong and how to fix it because frankly the problem to me would exist more so in their perceptions.
The problem there is if their perceptions are valid, then I'd suggest a radically different set of experiences for the time being to give them time to heal from such a traumatic array of experiences.

Sort of like saying, if the roller coaster is too intense for you, try a different ride that works out better for you.

At least...That's what I hope my guides would say to me if I ever suicided with such an intention.  You know, after my obligatory still-human-conscious tour of the universe in death, because I promised myself I'd do that before my soul memories returned/before my yellow ray identity deactivates fully.

What is stopping us from destroying ourselves? If the answer is love, then why is continued pursuit of illusions, such as the continued existence of ourselves, loved; but a rejection of all illusions, all that is NOT, isn't loved? Aren't both options possible and legitimate, and if not, why is self-destruction impossible or illegitimate?

(^Now that I think about it, perhaps the answer lies in the fact that, according to LOO; Will is the first distortion, and love second. Perhaps it follows that Love is characteristically inapplicable in a scenario where the first distortion it depends on is denied.)

Well for one, energy is impossible to destroy, so the only real way to destroy one's self is to apply a force strong enough to scatter our energetic pieces across the cosmic landscape so-to-speak, and even then, we'd probably just 'fade' back to what we were back when we were in a state like that, and honestly that could be said to be seen as a loss in that all the time spent getting to your present point is undone as you're returned to an earlier state, that's all speculation though.

I think you should remember that the Second Primal Distortion is not the 'Original Thought' (Unconditional Love), but rather the explanation of the simulacrum of that Unconditional Love in meta/physical form, hence why it's a 'Primal Distortion'.  Similar to Free Will who's analogous equivalent would probably be the OIC's self awareness, and Light being the OIC's thoughts given form.

The Distortions are to me, illusions or simulacra or shadows of the real portions they are designed after, and something that is 'un/real' as such since they stem from something real and are manifest as illusions and constructs modeled after their real counterparts.

Further if you subscribe to the Law of One's views, nothing is not LOVED, so much as seen as further or lesser distorted formations of pure experiences.  If you mean those which are lesser are not loved as much, it might be ironic but it's arguably a paradox that the further something distorts from it's true form, the closer it becomes to that true form through it's own self's changes.  Like saying you can make a droplet of water out of an ocean and an ocean out of a droplet of water.  Whichever stemmed first, both end up being inextricably intertwined with each other, because they are each other, and arguable, create each other.

Such as the OIC's Original Thought being that which is said to be it's spawn, 'Original'ly that Thought was the 'first thought', and it was Unconditional Love, from there the motions persisted until Distortions began.  Those distortions are models based on the different infinite (Undistorted) parts of the OIC now identified as 'finite' (Distorted), but this Original Thought is also the alpha and omega in that all distortions are based off of it (that being that the Original Thought IS the OIC somehow) and that eventually through cycles all things coalesce back to that Original Thought so that it may be refined and amended and continue once more, akin to an endless cycle of Creator is Self Creating, which is why semantically it could be said that the Creator doesn't so much as Create as it experiences and identifies it's self.

So basically let's imagine a rock.  That rock has an infinite form that it is inextricably attached to, but the rock exists as it self as a rock.  So the link is there but not known, and so that can infer that the undistorted rock exists because of the distorted version of it's self, since without the rock's existence, it wouldn't be a rock.  It needs it's finite form to have it's infinite form be known, even if just through shadows and illusions, being known is the beginning to further discovering things about it.

We didn't figure out that we need plants for oxygen by not knowing what a plant is.

So, self destruction while possible, would be self defeating as it'd come and go as quickly as it spawned, and further total self destruction might be paradoxically an equivalent to total self creation, like clearing a picture of all the lines and shapes and shades to start anew.  Only in this instance, the picture is alive and other pictures connect with it to make a (the) 'Big Picture'.  And what good is that big picture if a portion of it is missing like a puzzle missing a piece?  Sort of like an eye sore, so all the other pictures do their best to keep each other from self destructing.  It's not illegitimate, or wrong, just 'desired very little' and so doesn't happen too often as the options available when all the pictures work together usually provide a solution better than erasure.

Some exceptions most likely apply, such as Souls that have committed either repeated serious offenses in their incarnations (one soul murdering people in their life screwing up the lessons for other souls in the process, or a soul committing serial murder where it was not planned in doing so at all) (I say that last part because soldiers kill, sometimes a lot obviously, the context there is different, a serial killer has no duty to be killing for any name, rhyme, or reason except one they create for themselves).
The serial killer concept also has an exception as some people are born straight psychopaths preincarnationally and thus murder's they perform may actually be planned out.

It's a big creation and there is a lot of 'EXCEPTIONS'.

Assuming self-destruction is in fact a possibility, who exactly makes the call in the case of a being who is intent on destroying itself? Is it the being itself, or is it the so-called "Creator"? Does "the Creator" simply override the self-destructive nature of the suicidal entity through whatever means so that it may continue to experience itself through it? Is it essentially a might makes right scenario?

(^Or perhaps this is a case where the concept of "the Creator" is misleading, nothing is ever "being created" but rather there is simply an infinite timeless existence.)

Probably the Creator it's self is ultimately the final choice maker since we're all that such being with unique individualities.  I mean, even the word Individual is made up of 'In, Divide, Dual' as a sort of synchronicity as to our deeper existences.

Perhaps some self destruction is desired by the creator, and so only those individual who can properly handle such can experience it, and further for those who do 'completely and totally destroy the self', they'd probably just be returned to the deeper source of their existence, as energy cannot be destroyed, only disseminated and created.  (which actually alone would be a sort of proof towards infinity, the inability to destroy but only grow does imply an infinite presence in potential and directly implies an eternal presence).

'The Creator' is a semantic word used to most accurately in human language describe the highest part of the existential Creation.  Especially since humans lack terminology to describe eternal entities beyond such descriptors as 'divine', Creator is the next best term to a being which may have spawned everything in human understanding.  Beyond human understanding, the word Identifier may be just as appropriate as Creator, and perhaps even OIC could stand for the One Infinite Creator or the Original Identifying Creation.  Similar as to how the Original Thought is semantically equated to Unconditional Love, but it is clearly much more than just that, it could be called outside of human understanding as a Pure Self Identified and Known Beingness.

Be careful not to let the human terminology further disrupt the concepts they already distort.  Your comprehension supersedes words just as thoughts and feelings can describe things words cannot.

Following on the above, if we as individuated conscious beings, can not do this on our own accord; then doesn't that mean we, ultimately, lack free will, yet can't help but deceive ourselves into believing that we have free will, because it is necessarily empowering for inherently delusional beings such as ourselves?


...In any case I'd be interested in hearing your inputs.

PS: Source material would be appreciated.

Thank you

OHHH, this one people not like my answer to.

Free Will both is an is not real.  On one hand for human's specifically, we lack free will to deny our urges indefinitely such as breathing, eating, drinking sleeping, using the bathroom, and such.  On the other hand, we have enough free will to struggle with our own urges, to hold our breath, fast, dehydrate, deprive ourselves of sleep, holding it in, and such.

So already Free Will is in question, there's even a scientific study done, here's another, and actually an even older one.  There's also one I can't seem to find the exact study on that found that the brain makes a choice 7 seconds before the person is consciously aware of having made such a choice.

In terms of Determinism, this is often extrapolated (in my opinion by pessimistic jerks) that free will is an illusion of the brain made to pretty much make us feel more safe and secure with ourselves.

I always took it as our unconscious self is very much a part of our decision making process and regardless of being unconscious is still our self and thus an agent of personal free will decision making even if we aren't 'aware' of it.  I mean, during those 7 seconds could the unconscious just be transferring it's decision to the consciousness?  How is that proof against free will, it's YOUR brain, making YOUR decision, that sounds like someone has the ability to provide free will to start with.

On top of that there's discussion of the 'veto' where bodily movements occur without conscious effort but conscious effort can negate the movement (like stopping yourself from mistakenly touching a hot stove), I find that this is an erroneous attempt to try and deny the unconscious aspects of the self as belonging to the self.  Arguably, does it take conscious effort to move a limb?  No, so why would it be a part in determining if we have free will or not when we have the free will to tell the unconscious automatic portions of self 'no, don't move this there' and that unconscious part relents and obeys?

I find that science is skewed towards saying free will isn't real based on corrupt influences and biased judgments of objective information provided.  Even Libet in his 1985 study said that he didn't see his study, which some seemed to use to disprove free will at the time, as a proof for or against free will.

So this ultimately comes down to a philosophical conundrum, is that which isn't aware still capable of the freedom to enact it's will?

We look at the Ra Material and see there is a discussion of things before and after physical creation, we see that there was first several distortions of a primal nature formulated to begin the further formulations of further distortions to further manifest physical reality.  The Source Primal Distortion is The Law of One, or the ability to distort the infinite self to understand it as many as one and one as many.  Then the very first Primal Distortion so-called made and named is the Primal Distortion of Free Will, which from a Law of One standpoint infers that all things are capable of Free Will, including a rock and an amoeba and a molecule.  This implies awareness of some sort and intelligence.  From there that one Primal Distortion gave all other potential distortions the ability to pick and choose their own being, no wonder the Second Primal Distortion mimics the Original Thought now that it has the ability to do so.

So then the real conundrum becomes, how did the Primal Distortion of Free Will, a distortion of a portion of the OIC, come to be if it wasn't identified prior to it's being formulated?

I guess in Infinity, paradoxes can exist without a problem, the issue of the chicken or the egg becomes a game, which came first, does it matter?  Regardless of which was first, they create each other so both came first and after each other.  Sort of like the Egg was made by the Chicken, but the Chicken made by the Egg, did they have the Free Will to do this?

I doubt it if you've ever met an egg or a chicken, but something somewhere chose for them, and gave them free will, to be, to hatch, to grow, to reproduce then die, or to be without production, and to become food.

Free Will is not individualistic, it is collective, so when an individual 'goes against the grain', you have an instance of free will initiated attempts at culling free will.
The irony becomes ever more present with manipulations as free will attempts to subjugate its self.

As if to say Free Will is all that there is deep down/high up in existence, that this free will is shared, and unusual in that it can be individualized and collected.  A group effort all indulging in the free will ability to, say, make a garden, is as valid as the individual effort to grow a garden.

The attempt to explain away Free Will is a ploy by Free Will to call attention to it's self, the more it denies it's self the more prevalent it becomes.

Because for Free Will to have become a Primal Distortion in the first place, it too needs to be aware enough of it's self to be, just like the OIC.

Further and interestingly so, the 'microcosm of the Law of One' is Consciousness, which might mean that the macrocosm belongs to pure Will, whether or not it's free is arguable too as, if the entirety of Free Will is a stemmed construct from a Godly figure that affects all it is part of, does that mean collective and individual free will is superseded to the highest free will?  This seems to be the case in regards to Ra's mention of the Quarantine around our planet, an encroaching vessel is hailed 'in the name of the creator' and they cannot deny that hail's demand to leave.

So Free Will can be superseded by the Higher Self's decisions, but that higher entity generally will have the maturity, respect, and evolutionary traits to not interfere with it's lower selves free choices unless it is absolutely necessary for a better outcome and even then, may not interfere even then as per the respects of it's own free will even if in another place/time/evolution.

So, I would say that the reason suicide rates are going up across the world is that there is a sort of struggle that plays between the conscious and unconscious aspects of an incarnated entity's present existence.  On one hand the higher self, and maybe even spirit guides (if you believe everything provided in Michael Newton's books on reincarnation) can nudge and affect the free will choices one might make, but overall the individual still HAS 'SOME' free will, enough to live their life out of their own accord.

And since we all belong to each other, is there really any sort of free will that isn't shared?  Is it not the collective intention, which is produced by an entity's free will, what adds to the power of a group?

So...Arguably, we do have free will, but don't have free will.  We have our own version of free will which is respected (usually), and then we have a collective free will, then there's the divine free will that empowers us all across our various iterations in creation.

Imagine how a rock must feel.  They aren't all destroying themselves.  Sometimes we must learn to enjoy where we are, even if it's at the bottom of a lake or under a pile of rubble, or hanging by a mere millimeter from falling off a cliff.

FURTHER, have you ever seen those natural rock formations where they seem to sit on top of each other perfectly??  You think that's coincidence?  Maybe those rocks decided a long time ago that they'd end up that way.

Who knows?

We sure don't