Backpack for Eternity

[Zachary]

Hello Friends,

I wanted to take advantage of this forum and ask you all a question. As I understand my mortal body will die, I feel it's necessary to question what I do in this lifetime, also, what I bring with me to the next stage. I don't know if what I'm bringing to the next stage is enough, so I was hoping you guys could give me some ideas.

-If you were taking a backpack with you , (after death) what would you put in that backpack, and why? I use the word "backpack" to try and paint a picture and give you a human sense of adventure. Keep in mind you can't put anything physical in your backpack. No material whatsoever.

In my backpack I would stuff as much love in it as possible. This is an obvious one, I'm sure to many of you as well. To me, love is universal and all beings use this to eternally exist. As I think and try to comprehend how existing eternally might be, I can't help but think it's a realllly lonnng time, lol. So during that really long time I think I'd want a whole lot of motivation to push me towards perfection. Love is key as it provides infinite amounts of motivation.

Beyond filling that backpack with love I think I would put healing abilities in there too. God exists in my brothers and sisters as far as I know. Being an individual to help my sisters and brothers with their struggles, to me is priceless. What makes it priceless for me is understanding my existence is helping the inner God within. You would get to see beings struggle and be one to approach and use efforts to help progress them. In order to help progress someone struggling it's required of you to think and act selflessly. The most selfless being I could think of is God himself. In the process of helping others you would also be emulating God, thus reaping the benefits. Which to me is well worth it and mutual. As I try to help and heal brothers in this realm of existence I see how difficult it is to be selfless. I could only imagine how difficult it would be with different senses and endowments. This personal level of difficulty, and low-level of understanding the beauty behind healing, to me, is something I would want to bring along, to help myself. Notice how I say helping others helps myself. It's simply mutual. Although the healer would be considered the being delivering the benefits, the healer is also greatly benefitted in growth. If I'm right, there is a lot of beings growing from my existence . I constantly struggle and constantly receive help.

I guess those are my two main things I would bring with me. As I re-read what I just wrote I see how I need to go and strive for what I actually desire to bring with me.

I'm excited to see what you wish to bring with you!

LOVE,
zach

[Welles]

Hi Zach,

Hmmm... I'd take five pounds of Fruits Of The Spirit™ and a couple of liters of The Water Of Life™.

But seriously folks... (rimshot)

My view is that we don't take anything with us. The unique spiritual realities that we have manifested comprise our Souls. They exist in Spirit (Love) and will in fact be the substance of our forms when we finally merge with our Adjustors, those little sparks of God which indwell our hearts to be our guides. At death our personalities have a period of sleep, our Souls are held in trust by our individual Adjustor's and those three elements are reunited during the process of resurrection.

In a way I think you are asking what we do that has Reality persistence. I haven't the foggiest idea of all the varieties of 'Spiritual Fruit' but am pretty sure of one variety. Whenever I do something that nags me with a sense of wrongness I try to resolve the issue. For me that means I have to uncover the cause of my behavior. Inevitably it resides in the unconscious. I may have been reacting to a perceived threat with a defensive pattern. That defense may be learned during my own life but most likely it was inherited from my parents and they from theirs. This can go clear back to our basic animal instincts. Those unconscious motivators lie in the emotions and are extensive. A process of change for me always requires that I go into the Heart and ask for guidance. The problems are always created in response to the 'material' emotional center that resides in the solar plexus.

The resolution of errors does two things. Your insights, being experience driven, yield enlightenment. That's Spiritual Fruit for sure. There is a second aspect to consider. The resolution of error also frees up space in your being for creative actions. Those affect others around you and are not tied to error but progressive goodness. Individually they may be smaller in stature than the Big Fruits of Error Resolution but you can perform so many more of them that they vastly outweigh the original error. I also believe that once we have completed the process of turning Oops into Goodness it makes it easier for everyone who follows and encounters similar issues for Spiritual Fruits are available to others through the Field of Love.


Welles

[Sandy]

Hi Zachary, Hi Welles
This was sort of fun for me...thinking about our spiritual backpacks and on a comical note my first thought was how I often chuckled at what I wanted to bring with me in death from this world. The big "C's"...coffee and chocolate were at the top of my list. and as I looked at Welle's very colourful Fruits of the Spirit and the The Water Of Life™ , had this desire to add a bag of Skittles to the mix as well. But I know candy at least physical candy isn't what we're talking about here, eh?

Love in my book covers it all... love is eternal. One of those things we will never loose, can never get enough of, and can never share it too much. Like the "loaves and the fishes" we can break it into a zillion pieces and share it with every one we know and we will wind up with more in the end then we had in the beginning...

I love Welles' latest addition to the essay forum, "From Sin to Oops." and like the idea of changing the major tool in the toolbox from the hammer of sin to the multi purpose tool of "creating goodness". It reminds me that we don't have to be appalled with ourselves when we fall short of our desired way of being...what is that anyway??? How are we supposed to be??? Is there a "to be or not to be manual" we are all given at birth? I think the Universe enjoys variety...so I'll just pack love as best I know how... now and with each new aspect of love I encounter as I move through the adjuster led times to come...
(Still wouldn't mind sneaking along a little contraband if I could get away with it...A Cadbury Carmellow bar would sure hit the spot no matter what adventures we find ourselves in, eh? )

Sandy

[Zachary]

Loved the responses people. As I re-read my original question I understand I can more logically restate it.

-Assuming your desire is to exist eternally, what actions/experiences do you partake in and desire to partake in during your mortal life? Why do you desire these experiences in your mortal life when you plan to exist eternally?

Welles, I don't understand what you meant by when you said "My view is that we don't take anything with us." If we don't take anything with us, such as collective experiences, then what is the point of a mortal life? I think when you mentioned about those unique spiritual realities that we manifest... that's what I'm talking about. What can I do during my life to manifest more unique spiritual realities....so when I advance to the next stage I'm satisfied? I'm assuming the first question I asked wasn't logical enough for you to see it the way I did. (I'm not too logical, lol) Please re-read and answer that new question I asked. I feel like it makes more sense. I like the way you think, and personally think your level of thinking is higher than mine. Your answer holds plenty of value to me. I originally made that post so I can question my daily activities. That way I can eliminate some pointless activities of mine, thus making it more likely for me to be satisfied of what I chose to do during my mortal life.

Sandy, the more I think about it the more I value the amount of love I bring with me. I think the amount I speak of is really just the level of understanding I have on love. Hmmmm, how can I understand love more???? I guess that's one of the real questions I was looking for, eh?
By the way, the visual I painted myself of you sneaking delicious contraband is hilarious!

[nasra1996]

My first thought was cadbury chocolate too i would stuff all the people that i love into my back pack... !!

Love, intention, gratitude are at the top of my list of items..

Whats a contraband ? maybe an american word.. Google, lol google would be of use in that backpack too




Sarah

[Sandy]

Hi everybody,
Sarah, you wrote:

My first thought was cadbury chocolate too i would stuff all the people that i love into my back pack... !!

I like the addition of taking along the people we love in our backpacks! So it looks like we are going to need the "extra large eternity styled voyagers back packs. Or maybe one of those trailer carts to pull behind us, much like the airport limos pull when they discover you are traveling with everything including the kitchen sink...
Contraband is a word that stands for any prohibited imports or exports. I probably got it in my head from watching too many border security shows in my youth.

Zachary wrote:

-Assuming your desire is to exist eternally, what actions/experiences do you partake in and desire to partake in during your mortal life? Why do you desire these experiences in your mortal life when you plan to exist eternally?

I'll be honest with you, Zachary, I don't often think too far ahead... sort of see what the day brings kind of person. I know that there is value in all kinds of things, lessons to be learned from even unhappy kinds of moments which I truly don't go looking for. I guess I tend to stay away from activities that make me uncomfortable...but kindness, compassion, help, answers and even a reciprocal of this from others can be found, surprisingly, wherever people can be found...or even in a place where our fellow earth creatures inhabit as well. For instance, I have felt great love and joy, compassion and understanding from a website belonging to an elephant sanctuary in Kenya. This is it... http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/ When you view the photos and listen to the description of the individual orphaned elephants you feel a loving energy bigger then mere words or what humans alone can generate...You feel a Love that fuels all things....So, surprisingly, in some of the most mundane or even eye raising places we can find what we are seeking...enlightenment, growth, compassion, kindness patience, understanding, inspiration etc...all bound up within the Love that flows from within us... the love that swirls around us. I think it all hinges on our growing awareness of this Love that is bound up in all things. So seeing everything through the eyes of "Love's lessons" teaches us in immeasurable ways, often in little unnoticeable dollops. Months and months may pass and we suddenly realize some way of being or action that seemed to madden us or cause us some remorse is virtually non existent....and before our chest swells with bravado we realize we have much, much more to do...so with a shrug we put it aside and "just be" once again experiencing what the day and our decisions in life brings us.

Sandy, the more I think about it the more I value the amount of love I bring with me. I think the amount I speak of is really just the level of understanding I have on love. Hmmmm, how can I understand love more???? I guess that's one of the real questions I was looking for, eh?

Do we go looking for Divine Love? Or is it something that finds us? Or is it both?
I think we can accumulate more and more of this Love by spending time with the Source of All Love. (stillness) It is this Love that probably does all the inner work with our permission and participation of course...So a person, all alone on a bare rock in the middle of the ocean for years without any outside experiences with human life but instead finding communion with the Divine can find and acknowledge as much Love potentially as one who interacts daily with his/her fellow human beings. However, it is these interactions where we “practice” the sharing of Love and the inspiration of other's journeys and lessons. It is a classroom beyond compare. In the Isle of Paradise where the embodiment of The First source dwells, there are those Paradise beings who were created perfect in all ways. They are known as Paradise citizens zapped into existence in this fashion. They understand Love's perfection in ways we cannot possibly imagine and they can emulate it as well, born as they are with this innate knowledge. Yet they long to do as we do... to experience Love in the give and take of an imperfect time space universe, to give it away to those in need and to feel it replenished over and over again. There is much value in this. And so, they come into the worlds of time and they give back what they know and get in return what we too are experiencing. In the joy of helping others they too are filling their eternal backpacks... So maybe it isn’t exactly choosing situations and experiences as much as our reactions in every experience that can provide eternal satisfaction in the understanding of Love...and maybe there is no end to what we can learn about Love...don’t know but you have given me much to think about.

Enough from this ole lady...
Love you all,
Sandy
P.S. Almost forgot...just this week I got to see a video of my grandson trying to talk. One of his first words is Google.

[Welles]

-Assuming your desire is to exist eternally, what actions/experiences do you partake in and desire to partake in during your mortal life? Why do you desire these experiences in your mortal life when you plan to exist eternally?

Hi Zachary,

I've had one conscious goal for 44 years; since I first realized that there was a world of spirit about which I knew nothing. It was to learn Love. For the longest time I focussed on opening the Heart. The technique I undertook was simply to learn to quiet the nonstop internal soliloquy (someone called it 'roof brain chatter'). So quiet the mind and open the heart sufficed as my goal for nearly 42 years. I finally learned to do it sometimes and am able to recognize when I fail and why (oops). Lately I've become more intimately in contact with my Adjustor whom I've named Old Sparky. That ability has been dramatically increased in the last few months as I've used Lytske’s The Guiding Light Within ~ Wayshower to Spirituality as a tuning device every morning when I spend an hour or so in Stillness about 3:00AM

Welles, I don't understand what you meant by when you said "My view is that we don't take anything with us."

Sorry that was too cryptic. My perception of who I am is a personality. That is a unique gift of the Creator. My being is comprised of my personality, a Spark of God the Urantia Book frequently calls Thought Adjustors and a Soul, which is the growing body of spiritual reality manifest by my actions which reflect qualities of relative divinity. To me the Soul is also the beginning of my form when I become sufficiently perfected to live in Spirit. These three elements of my being are draped in a sensory shroud called a body.

When I die or am translated to the Morontia estate, the body falls away, I - the personality - has a period of sleep. In short I don't do anything. My Adjustor is the conservator of my Soul and will be responsible for it's return when these three elements that are of eternal potential are resurrected and given a new body of higher vibration and capacities. If that makes sense, that's why I said I don't take anything with me. It was a statement in regard to the literal process of death and resurrection. In a larger sense we take with us the spiritual values made real by our lives that live on in our Souls so my comment was a bit misleading.

What can I do during my life to manifest more unique spiritual realities....so when I advance to the next stage I'm satisfied?

I think Sandy answered this in one word, Love. Of course that one work has infinite manifestations so your rational mind will struggle to give it definition while your Heart will simply recognize it. Everybody's path is different although they are have the common magnet of Paradise drawing them so there are great similarities. For me learning Love was all about how to shift my consciousness from my solar plexus to the Heart. The solar plexus (aka the Guts) is the emotional center. It is an 'energy organ' that directly relates to and is our primary interface with material reality. Our fears and attachments, which are to comforting or familiar elements of reality, reside there. It also walks lockstep but is actually primary to the part of our mind that talks to us all the time. If you pay close attention you'll find that the running dialog in your head is a constant series of self-definition, criticism, desires etc. reacting to the energy patterns of the solar plexus.

I should add when I say our fears reside in the solar plexus they are not only our own fears but echoes our parents fears, parent's parents and all the way back to ooze; in short our animal heritage. That is the great unconscious. Remnants of our collective human defenses are also incorporated into our cultures in many rituals and superstitions. However you don't have to comprehend each and every one to loosen their hold. With practice you can learn to quiet that center. I used aesthetic creation as a means of learning how to do it along with making up lots of meditations all of could be described as 'spacing out'. In order to become a creator you have to use your solar plexus to feel harmonies of color, texture, form and sound or any material attribute. It becomes a center that you use rather one to which you are constantly reacting.

The emotions of the solar plexus are anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise. As you gain moments of inner quiet you learn that your Heart opens. It is a completely different 'energy organ' that feels values. When the Heart is open your mind shifts from one lobe to the other side of the brain and becomes a receptor for comparatively more enlightened thoughts. You recognize that you are given these. They are moments of illumination, realizations, genius and the integration of ideas into wisdom as thought and experience are fused with Spirit. The feelings of the heart are Love, beauty, truth, goodness, hope, delight etc. In creation you choose the quality you wish to express in the Heart and then use the solar plexus as a tool to achieve a material manifestation.

Because of our current state of spiritual development even the best of our actions are infrequently Pure-Hearted. Think of the spectrum of meanings that humans use when they say love. For many is is physical attraction (people, things, ideas) almost exclusively. The underlying message is, "I Want Therefore I Am." Love from the Heart becomes "I Am Therefore I Give." It is simply fact that when you live with an open Heart, Love the energy of the Spirit, that basic energy of the Universe flows through you. You become part of the circuit and can be a resource for others. Every time you are of service to others in the circuit of Love you become greater.

The funny thing is that as you get better at this whole thing of becoming a functioning member of Creation, your opportunities become limited to just one event at a time but your potential becomes increasingly unlimited. That means you end up following a path which is known to God but made real by your willing participation. The answer to your question, "What can I do during my life to manifest more unique spiritual realities...?" you will discover it in every action because of your desire to be increasingly perfect, i.e. operate through Love. That is the best anyone can do.


Welles

PS

P.S. Almost forgot...just this week I got to see a video of my grandson trying to talk. One of his first words is Google.

God help us!

[Zachary]

Thanks for the replies . I have a much more vivid understanding of my existence in general. I have so much to learn... As you all answered my question, I'm hoping it was mutual, because I know I benefitted. I attempted to get whoever takes on the question I asked to see a greater view of themselves as well... hope it worked for you!

I have so many things to contemplate after reading responses. I must say Sandy, I do try to look far ahead and the further I try to see the more I forget what's in front of me. The days I don't try to see and just love are by far my most successful ones. Easier said than done right? I'm starting to realize I have very little balance in my life. Quite frankly it's embarrassing , because I have countless options to learn from. When I think about it, it makes me want to do this . I feel like the person in class that gets the most help from teachers and yields the least results... lol. On the brighter side, I also realize I have plenty of opportunities to become more perfected. And the best part is I notice I have willful brothers and sisters (the fleshy bro's and sisters, and the celestial bro's and sisters) helping me on their own free will. Out of all the different things to do with life, I actually have people willing to help me... this fills me with gratitude, the gratitude that keeps me moving forward. I see why you would want to take this with you Sarah!
I'm glad I questioned you Welles. I easily sensed attempting to receive more information from you was a great idea. You basically broke down everything for me, which is exactly what helped me understand. I now see how you said you take nothing with you.. genius!!!

So when I eliminate all the answers down to one word. Love is the answer... Thank you guys again

LOVE,
zachary

[Sandy]

Hello Zachary,
I can so agree with this one...

The days I don't try to see and just love are by far my most successful ones.

Now I'm hearing the song, "let it Be" in my mind. I too do better if I can let it be and be grateful for what comes...regardless of what that is. Surprising benefits are hidden within every day and sometimes I miss them by looking or stressing about "fuzzy events" on the horizon.

I got a chuckle out of your lament where you posted that you feel like...let's see... how did you phrase it..."
... "the person in class that gets the most help from teachers and yields the least results.".
I'm right there in that seat beside you. Thankfully "the non fleshy friends" (love that! ) of ours have had thousands of years to cultivate patience or we both might be sitting in the principle's office.
Naw...this is the way of it... and you are making astounding progress! No doubt!

So when I eliminate all the answers down to one word. Love is the answer...

It is too isn't it?
Love,
Sandy

[Welles]

So when I eliminate all the answers down to one word. Love is the answer...

Yep. Click Here!


Welles

[Sandy]

I got all tingly when I viewed that...like I do when I am reading an awesome transmit! It's stunning, Welles!

Sandy