But I’m off on a tangeant here. My point was that some of us, those who wish to “ascend” while on this planet realize that there is great fun and freedom to be had if you awaken WITHIN the system instead of only after leaving it completely. Like Neo, in a way. He first had to realize he was inside of a Matrix, leave it, and then return to it WITH the consciousness that the world was an illusion. Only then did he have control OVER the matrix, and the ability to “alter the code” and do miraculous things. Perhaps the spirit world is like the real world (Zion) in the Matrix series. Just another realm of danger and of limitation……a constant struggle to merely exist. In which case, the only way our spirits are every TRULY free…the only way we can take advantage of our vast potential, is by being here….in this world. . .inside the matrix…and trying desperately to awaken ~while we’re sleeping~ so we can have control over our dream.

If I eliminate the notion of “spirit” from my philosophy of life, and accept I am an animal with a brief life but lots of fancy ideas, my “spirit” (as a metaphor) can still experience its epiphanies, I can still be grateful to God (as a metaphoric notion)

In my own life spirit and God have to have deeper realities than being mere metaphors or thoughts. My narrow world view sometimes sees buddhism as being mainly interested in pointing out the mind is filled with illusions. It doesn’t seem to care that there is indeed an actual spirit world and spiritual beings that are more than just a heap of pieces.

I am interested where would evil originate in the diagram? The green being of physical existence seems so happy!

Incarnating, we parachute into an animal lineage that goes back millions of years, as our individual DNA shows. According to your surmise, we import, into this single specimen, a single spirit with its own heritage. The result is a conscious human being, with the implication that there is no life without this injection of spirit at some point within gestation or birthing.

I don’t want this to sound as though I am on one side or another, because I’m not. But, after spending nearly half my life – 30 years – actively accepting the idea that “The point of spiritual practice. . . [is] to climb backwards up out of the chain of projection and incarnation which we have gotten ourselves into, and back to the pure experience of the spiritual entities that we are all along” I’m absolutely certain that this is not what we’re here for. Or at least not in the way that we, through spiritual practice, think it’s all about.

If I eliminate the notion of “spirit” from my philosophy of life, and accept I am an animal with a brief life but lots of fancy ideas, my “spirit” (as a metaphor) can still experience its epiphanies, I can still be grateful to God (as a metaphoric notion), and speak about the purpose of this life which is given to me to fulfil, even though I don’t acknowledge any giver, and any meaning to self-fulfilment other than being true to the peculiar quirks of my individual existence. So I take these speculations with a pinch of salt.

If I might add, the media which we have been projecting our physical selves onto have been fleshing out. Originally, it was television, but that is gradually being phased out in favor of the web, which is also going through its own expansion (”Web 2.0″, which includes blogs, wikis, Flickr and Youtube) and has much more room for expansion and expression. Whatever is going to come next will offer even more, and the spiritual plane will be made a bit more shallow.

That said, you have just nailed everything that I have been thinking for months prior to coming across your blog last week. Awesome blog you have.

Now I know that I wasn’t just talking out of depression when I wrote this.