I would like to move the chat forward, but not be lengthy about it right now. Admittedly, the following rambles a bit:
1) Learning is a continuing process. If you are talking about technology, I can say from experience that being just a few years removed from the electronics industry put me so far behind that I felt I would have to start all over just to get back into it. That was 1976. I got out in 1973, went to work for HP until 1974. From 1974 on I did a complete shift out of the career path I was on and into Scn. After 6 years of Naval training and real experience I went from super-tech to dummy of not even remembering which way current flowed in a circuit.
Our experiences are quite similar. I wrote computer programs in FORTRAN for several aerospace companies from 1962 to late 1971. I was at IBM from 1966 until I quit to join the Sea Org in late 1971. Also, similarly, though I worked in computers for 9 years, today I am not very computer literate - have trouble posting photos on the internet, downloading music, etc.
From my present perspective, the key issue with getting into new things or even moving from one lifetime to another, if that philosophy floats your boat, is a matter or orientation vs. disorientation and the time taken to get back oriented after a disorientation.
MEST is key to orientation since the physical universe is where we have placed our attention. It is the meeting place and playing field for many beings. A loss of MEST is disorienting. Again, this loss is referring to one's life possessions and contacts as well as a between lives experience.
I believe this to be true as well. LRH talked about this at length in one of his early tapes. It seems that when one returns to the neighborhood where he grew up or a city where he believes he lived a past life, he starts to reorient almost immediately.
2) In my experience, I have retained little except myself in making the transition. I seem to recall that there are Bible references to the affect that a being doesn't get into Heaven carrying baggage. I suspect that the last thing to go is Free Will. I can't say for certain as I have refused to give up mine.But I have been to the point where I have freely given up about all else.
I have the perception that data bits of life knowledge get lost rather easily. The LRH pontification about beings fixing star ship engines, holding various posts, and different stuff "because they have done it before" is a bunch of hooey. If a being can orient to the task at hand a lot can be accomplished fast, but there comes a point where he will still have to RTFM (Read The F'ing Manual).
You make a great point with your "a bunch of hooey" comment!" Today's Sea Org still enforces this erroneous principle. Do you see droves of non hatted S.O. members miraculously doing jobs remembered from a past life? No, you instead see droves of people on the RPF being blamed for not being able to do something they were never trained for.
Close to me would be goals, purposes, objectives, family, special friends, mentors... That's about it. An awareness of these I carry with me when the physical universe has shrunk to less than an iota. All else drops away. Ya. Been there, done that with certainty. It's just a different orientation.
I spent several years hammering away on an electric guitar before I went into the Navy. I got out of boot camp, went home on leave, and couldn't remember a damn thing about it. Had some knowledge but the muscle memory was gone. Such was the reorientation of 9 weeks with Uncle Sam's people.
My opinion, and that's pretty much all I write about, is that the Grades have been so popular because they deal with social skills and experience. This is what a being needs to bone up on when they return. If you forget why you came back through the disorientation-reorientation experience, then you might need a refresher on goals and purposes, too.
3) Do we really have to relearn everything all over again? No. But you do have to RTFM once you arrive. The technologies have moved forward since you were gone. And you have to orient to the new cultures and contacts that you now face. If you can do that fast and on the fly it will appear to the bystanders that you are one special dude (or dudette). Heck, you might even start a new religion if that suits your goals and purposes.
Nice post, Ted
One thing on this point Lakey has raised that we need to bear in mind, and that is, this lifetime we are living is likely like nothing we experienced or lived before.
I say this in the context of how we entered this lifetime as compared to how we'll likely exit it and enter the next one.
Just based on our $cn experience and and its lessons, we'll make that transition quite differently than we have done before . . . add to that all of the wisdoms we have been exposed to due to the educational and experiential facilities our civilization has made available to us in the last 100 years, and we'll also make the transition differently than in the past.
Thus, I say, I wouldn't stick with the notion that how it was or has been will be how it will be
In an earlier post on ESMB, on the thread to do with Ascensions if I remember correctly, I wrote of how, in 1963, I went through a death sequence and on to selecting my next body/family for my human existence.
What I was able to do in that event was directly the result of lessons learned in this lifetime . . . it was an event and series of actions I performed that were not as they had been in any of my former lifetimes of death sequences.
What I did was purely based on my experiential certainty that I am a spiritual Being who is immortal and who has power of choice. At this point I will also state that what I did when "out" was quite different in the context of awareness and capacity to act than what I was aware of or apparently capable of when "in."
It appears that when/because I was out and thus "desperately" moved to exercise my volition, powers and abilities, I did and achieved things that heretofore had been unfamiliar to me though known they should be possible. And it appears it was this knowledge of the possible or of what should be that enabled me to move to implement them.
In any event, on that occasion, I continued to operate with full awareness not only of self but of my acquired knowledge, memories, lifetime skills and abilities . . . all was intact and available to me.
I do have some decent recall of some past lives, though not necessarily of the knowledge or precise skills learned therein . . . example: I'd have to re-learn celestial navigation, though I expect it might come back very easily.
One thing I do know is that I have retained connection to my loved ones and primary influencers down through time, and I have routinely reconnected with them as appropriate where possible in successive lives.
So, I write the above to point out that "this time" will be different to the "times before" . . . that is, for those folks interested in these things and willing to learn and know about them . . . the others will simply soldier on in their oblivious way
Ted does make the very key point that your passage will very much be determined by your basic dreams, aspirations, goals and purposes
Soooo, a good plan will be for you each to know and appreciate with some degree of good certainty what yours are
But, hopefully, dear friends, this will not be an experience we'll have to deal with any time too soon . . . . I personally think I've got a good many years left with this rig to go yet. And I suspect that is the case for you other guys who're still young at heart and full of goodness toward your fellows. (But I do recommend staying away from bad medicine!)
R
Thanks for replying Roger! Your first comment about this life being different due to our experience with Scientology is very true to me as well. I know that I learned more in this life than any other life here on Earth. I have to give Hubbard the credit for that. Despite all the negatives and faults we discuss relating to Hubbard, for some of us he provided the tools to change the direction in which we were headed. I am one such person.
[] I was going nowhere before encountering Hubbard. There was nothing in society which could have salvaged me other than Scientology.
All that I really needed to clean up my act as a human being was given on the first 2 course, HAS (The Communications Course) and HQS, a course which taught the rudimentary principles of Scn. After doing those courses, I still had my "case" or collection of aberrations but I got enough from those two course to be able to succeed at a job, find a girlfriend, get married, start a family and be successful as a human being.
[A person's collected aberrations can be sorted out with the communication formula. Too much of one thing, not enough of another leads to poor communication or mis-communication. I am still working on my Expanded Grade 0, and I have no expectations for that excepting my own high standards for myself.]
The biggest gains were learning and drilling the communications formula [Then apply it to the areas of life that you would like to improve.] , learning about as-ising things by duplicating and making a perfect copy, and how to do Touch Assists.
BTW, I well remember reading the story you wrote about your out of body experience described when you were writing about Ascensions. It was a magnificent story and was very inspiring! [Yes, it is. I passed it on to my sister-in-law. She really enjoyed it. There is no telling how far the story has now traveled.]
What you and Ted both say about the part one's dreams, aspirations and goals play in what recall one will experience when he/she returns is very helpful. [I can only say that to leave this place you have to strip naked. Try it some time, see what's left. 'Taint much.]
My attention is on two skills which I would like to hang onto. One has to do with composing music. [This is a communication skill. Great music is inspired music." But inspiration is also a communication skill, isn't it? Willing to receive from whatever source or cause point.]I was pretty good at it in the 18th century and have no ability to speak of now. I would like to recapture that skill. Also, there is the matter of relationships with women. In this life, I was born knowing nothing and eventually picked up some knowledge on the subject. [I suspect that if any of us were born knowing something beyond the broadest general concepts, like purpose or mission,--not even expressed in words yet--that we would never be born. What you see as a disadvantage I am seeing as a clean-slate sort of opportunity.] The knowledge I learned was paid for dearly, often learning either by being rejected or faliling to be bold, promote myself and act agressively. I want to carry forward the knowledge I learned without having to reset back at square one. That's fine, but what if you were a master at the keyboards in 1786, waking up in 2011 having to master keyboards with synth, computer connections, etc. Sorry Lakey, but you are going to have to roll with the flow or be stuck in 1786 or thereabouts.]
I wish you and all of us who are getting on in years, a very lengthy and healthy remainder of lfe. It seems to me that more has been discovered in recent decades about the steps one needs to take to insure a long and healthy life then in past eras.
You and I are within 3 years in age and I remember that when I was growing up in the 50's and 60's, the age of 60 was considered old and 65 was very old. By 70, most people were bent over and walking with a cane. Society's sciences have moved everything down by 15 to 20 years. Some people at 60 are still in their "middle aged" period and have fully active and vital bodies. As they say, 60 is now the new 50.
Lakey
As for the thing about women, you might be setting an impossible goal for yourself.
Here's the hat: Don't complicate it: KISS:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7ZUibOUX28
But then the entire Camelot film with Vanessa Redgrave.
I've always loved that one.
My fav was "If ever I would leave you". I sing it to my cats before I get on any plane....with tears in my eyes.
As for the thing about women, you might be setting an impossible goal for yourself.
Here's the hat: Don't complicate it: KISS:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7ZUibOUX28
I'll not be ignoring my good friends, but tomorrow, for five days, I'll be on a course to do with trading "the markets." So my attendance to ESMB will be lacking
But for now . . . . Lakey, I'm sure you still "compose"-- I do . . . . but I've forgotten how to write music in the way it's done here
In fact I love to compose. I'm always trotting out new and wonderful stuff about the house . . . it's all in humming or whistling form though . . . what I need is some sort of clever partner who can write it down for others to read and play
R
