Back From The Dead After Three Days

Posted on August 24, 2017 by rick_ranum

There was this Russian scientist who was killed by the KGB and came back to life after three days of experience’s.

He said of life after being dead three days and having amazing experiences:
“Anyone who has had such an experience of God, who has felt such a profound sense of connection with reality, knows that there is only one truly significant work to do in life, and that is love; to love nature, to love people, to love animals, to love creation itself, just because it is. To serve God’s creation with a warm and loving hand of generosity and compassion – that is the only meaningful existence.”

He was part of a documentary that spoke to several people with near death experiences. Here is the link.

My Musings on Ideals

Posted on January 11, 2017 by rick_ranum

My tattered 11 x 17″ ideals page

I have often thought of ideals as a means to determine what choice to make when presented more than one choice. However, recent events have made it clear to me that though sometimes that is effective sometimes it isn’t. I am having to make a choice amongst alternatives and as I read my ideals I realize there isn’t any one alternative inherently better than the other. So how to make a choice?

Perhaps the answer lies in imagining which direction allows the greater expression of your ideals. A means of understanding this better would be to imagine two polarities. One polarity is the mob nature of crime syndicates versus the nature of working at a flower shop. If your ideal is love, then the flower shop is a much better choice than the mob.

So, I am looking at my spiritual, mental, and physical ideals and asking myself, which choice allows the greater expression of my ideals. Maybe this is how it’s supposed to work when the alternatives are relatively equal. Maybe it is like planting in the most nurturing soil, which will allow for the healthiest plant?

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I’ve got Buddha on my mind

Posted on March 4, 2016 by rick_ranum

Buddha:

You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

The mind is everything. What you think you become.

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.

Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.

Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.

Loss

Posted on March 3, 2016 by rick_ranum

I was expecting to see a woman this week. Her sister had passed recently. I was expecting her call.

Yesterday two people called to say she had taken her life late Monday. We were to meet this week sometime when she would be in Olympia. We had talked for half an hour last Wednesday and life was difficult for her. Her bond with her sister was very strong. She had cared for her sister as her sister moved through last stages of cancer. Her loss was compounded by having to get back into the flow of commerce, find a job, make some money.

Most people who knew her considered her grief normal. I too felt she was grieving and would naturally emerge from that grief. Everyone will have a moment of wondering what if? What if I had called, or what if I had noticed, or what if I had reached out. This is normal and it is normal because the future is unknown. Consciousness is busily holding thoughts and feelings, busily creating the future moment by moment.

All souls are eternal, and lifetimes are but a blink of an eye in eternity. Lessons not worked through will be worked through later. It is a universe of eventually, eventually we grow into greater harmony. It is ultimately a cooperative universe.

She is close and she and I are going to collaborate on a creation that commemorates her life.If you wish to communicate with her, find quiet space, think of her,watch, listen, feel, she is close.

My sense is that she is now looking at the options she had that she didn’t see in her grief. She made a choice. Choice is that which makes us truly divine. With our ultimate return to oneness with the source, her choice is of no real importance in the scope of eternity. Still, now we process our loss and grief alone and together. Such are the effects of some transitions in life.

Blessings,

Rick