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Iz knjige 'Aktivna strana beskonačnosti', Carlosa Castanede.
Strelice i ljubičaste (tamnije) oznake su moje, a svjetlija podvlačenja olovkom su ostatak nečijeg prijašnjeg čitanja (što baš volim :)) )







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Iz knjige Raymonda Moodyja
'Life after Life'



...
The Review

The initial appearance of the being of light and his probing, non-verbal
questions are the prelude to a moment of startling intensity during which the
being (of light, moja op.) presents to the (dying ,moja op.)person a panoramic review of his life.
It is often obvious that the being can see the individual's whole life displayed and that
he doesn't himself need information. His only intention is to provoke reflection.

This review can only be described in terms of memory, since that is the
closest familiar phenomenon to it, but it has characteristics which set it
apart from any normal type of remembering. First of all, it is extraordinarily
rapid. The memories, when they are described in temporal terms, are said to
follow one another swiftly, in chronological order. Others recall no
awareness of temporal order at all. The remembrance was instantaneous;
everything appeared at once, and they could take it all in with one mental
glance. However it is expressed, all seem in agreement that the experience
was over in an instant of earthly time.
Yet, despite its rapidity, my informants agree that the review, almost always
described as a display of visual imagery, is incredibly vivid and real. In
some cases, the images are reported to be in vibrant color, three-dimensional,
and even moving. And even if they are flickering rapidly by,
each image is perceived and recognized. Even the emotions and feelings
associated with the images may be re-experienced as one is viewing them.
Some of those I interviewed claim that, while they cannot adequately
explain it, everything they had ever done was there in this review-from the
most insignificant to the most meaningful. Others explain that what they saw
were mainly the highlights of their lives. Some have stated to me that even
for a period of time following their experience of the review they could
recall the events of their lives in incredible detail.
Some people characterize this as an educational effort on the part of the
being of light. As they witness the display, the being seems to stress the
importance of two things in life: Learning to love other people and acquiring
knowledge.
...



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Četiri isječka iz knjige The Sorcerer's crossing; A Woman's journey Taishe Abelar;

....
"Now," she said, pulling her chair closer to mine, "let's talk about what we began discussing this morning: the recapitulation." A shiver went through me. I told her that although I had no conception of what she was talking about, I knew it was going to be something monumental and I wasn't sure I was prepared to hear it.
She insisted that I was nervous because some part of me sensed that she was about to disclose perhaps the most important technique of self-renewal. Patiently she explained that the recapitulation is the act of calling back the energy we have already spent in past actions.To recapitulate entails recalling all the people we have met, all the places we have seen, and all the feelings we have had in our entire lives; starting from the present and going back to the earliest memories; then sweeping them clean, one by one, with the sweeping breath.
I listened, intrigued, although I couldn't help feeling that what she said was more than nonsensical to me.Before I could make any comments at all, she firmly took my chin in her hands and instructed me to inhale through the nose as she turned my head to the left, and then exhale as she turned it to the right. Next, I was to turn my head to the left and right in a single movement without breathing. She said that this is a mysterious way of breathing and the key to the recapitulation, because inhaling allows us to pull back energy that we lost; while exhaling permits us to expel foreign, undesirable energy that has accumulated in us through interacting with our fellow men.
"In order to live and interact, we need energy," Clara went on. "Normally, the energy spent in living is gone forever from us."Were it not for the recapitulation, we would never have the chance to renew ourselves. Recapitulating our lives and sweeping our past with the sweeping breath work as a unit. "Recalling everyone I had ever known and everything I had ever felt in my life seemed to me an absurd and impossible task. "That can take forever," I said, hoping that a practical remark might block Clara's unreasonable line of thought.
"It certainly can," she agreed. "But I assure you, Taisha, you have everything to gain by doing it, and nothing to lose."I took a few deep breaths, moving my head from left to right imitating the way she had shown me to breathe in order to placate her, and let her know I had been paying attention. With a wry smile, she warned me that recapitulating is not an arbitrary or capricious exercise.
"When you recapitulate, try to feel some long stretchy fibers that extend out from your midsection,"she explained: "Then align the turning motion of your head with the movement of these elusive fibers. They are the conduits that will bring back the energy that you've left behind. In order to recuperate our strength and unity, we have to release our energy trapped in the world and pull it back to us." She assured me that while recapitulating, we extend those stretchy fibers of energy across space and time to the persons, places and events we are examining. The result is that we can return to every moment of our lives and act as if we were actually there.
This possibility sent shivers through me. Although intellectually I was intrigued by what Clara was saying, I had no intention of returning to my disagreeable past, even if it was only in my mind. If nothing else, I took pride in having escaped an unbearable life situation. I was not about to go back and mentally relive all the moments I had tried so hard to forget. Yet Clara seemed to be so utterly serious and sincere in explaining the recapitulation technique to me, that for a moment, I put my objections aside, and concentrated on what she was saying. I asked her if the order in which one recollects the past matters. She said that the important point is to re-experience the events and feelings in as much detail as possible, and to touch them with the sweeping breath, thereby releasing one's trapped energy. "Is this exercise part of the Buddhist tradition?" I asked. "No, it isn't," she replied solemnly. "This is part of another tradition. Someday, soon, you'll find outwhat that tradition is."
....

...
It took weeks of brain-racking work to compile the list. I hated myself for having let Clara talk me into not including that time in the voucher. During those long days, I worked in absolute solitude and silence. I only saw Clara at breakfast and at dinner, which we ate in the kitchen; but we hardly spoke.She would rebuff all my attempts at cordial conversation, saying that we would talk again when I had finished my list.
When I had completed it, she put down her sewing and immediately accompanied me to the cave. It was four o'clock in the afternoon, and according to Clara, early morning and late afternoon were the most propitious times to begin such a vast undertaking. At the entrance of the cave, she gave me some instructions. "Take the first person on your list", Clara said, "and work your memory to recall everything you experienced with that person from the moment you two met to the last time you interacted. Or, if you prefer, you can work backward, from the last time you had dealings with that person to your first encounter."Armed with the list, I went to the cave every day. At first, recapitulating was painstaking work.I couldn't concentrate because I dreaded dredging up the past. My mind would wander from what I considered to be one traumatic event to the next, or I would simply rest or daydream.
But after a while, I became intrigued with the clarity and detail that my recollections were acquiring.I even began to be more objective about experiences I had always considered to be taboo.Surprisingly, I also felt stronger and more optimistic. Sometimes, as I breathed, it was as if energy were oozing back into my body, causing my muscles to become warm and to bulge.I became so involved in my recapitulation task that I didn't need a whole month to prove its worth.
...


....
"In order for you to understand all this, you have to change," Clara said patiently: "But then, that's precisely why you are here: to change. "And to change means that you will be able to succeed in making the abstract flight, at which time everything will be clear to you." At my desperate urging, she explained that this unimaginable flight was symbolized by moving fromt he right side of the forehead to the left, but what it really meant was bringing the ethereal part of us,the double, into our daily awareness.
"As I've already explained to you," she went on, "the body-mind dualism is a false dichotomy."The real division is between the physical body, which houses the mind, and the ethereal body or the double, which houses our energy. The abstract flight takes place when we bring our double to bear on our daily lives. In other words, the moment our physical body becomes totally conscious of its energetic ethereal counterpart, we have crossed over into the abstract; a completely different realm of awareness."
"If it means I'll have to change first, I seriously doubt I'll ever be able to make that crossing," I said."Everything seems so deeply ingrained in me that I feel I'm set for life." Clara poured some water into my cup. She put down the ceramic pitcher and looked at me squarely. "There is a way to change," she said, "and by now you are up to your ears in it. It's called the recapitulation."
She assured me that a deep and complete recapitulation enables us to be aware of what we want to change by allowing us to see our lives without delusion. It gives us a moment's pause in which we can choose to accept our usual behavior, or to change it by intending it away before it fully entraps us.
"And how do you intend something away?" I asked. "Do you just say, 'Begone, Satan!'?" Clara laughed and took a sip of water. "To change, we need to meet three conditions," she said: "First, we must announce out loud our decision to change so that intent will hear us. Second, we must engage our awareness over a period of time: We can't just start something and giveit up as soon as we become discouraged.Third, we have to view the outcome of our actions with a sense of complete detachment. This means we can't get involved with the idea of succeeding or failing.
"Follow these three steps and you can change any unwanted feelings and desires in you," Clara assured me."I don't know, Clara," I said skeptically. "It sounds so simple the way you put it. "It wasn't that I didn't want to believe her: It was just that I had always been practical; and from a practical point of view, the task of changing my behavior was staggering in spite of her three-fold program.
We finished our meal in complete silence.The only sound in the kitchen was the constant dripping of water as it passed through a limestone filter.That gave me a concrete image of the gradual cleansing process of recapitulating.Suddenly, I had a surge of optimism.Perhaps it was possible to change oneself; to become purified drop by drop, thought by thought, just like the water passing through the filter. Above us, the bright track lights cast eerie shadows on the white tablecloth. Clara put down her chopsticks and began curling her fingers as if she were making shadow pictures on the tablecloth. At any moment I expected her to do a rabbit or a turtle.
"What are you doing?" I asked, breaking the silence."This is a form of communication," she explained, "not with people though, but with that force we call intent." She extended her little and index fingers, then made a circle by touching her thumb to the tips of the two remaining fingers. She told me that this was a signal to trap the attention of that force and to allow it to enter the body through the energy lines that end or originate in the fingertips.
"Energy comes through the index and little finger if they are extended like antennae," she explained,showing me the gesture again. "Then the energy is trapped and held in the circle made by the other three fingers."She said that with this specific hand position we can draw sufficient energy into the body to heal or strengthen it, or to change our moods and habits.
"Let's go to the living room, where we can be more comfortable," Clara said. "I don't know aboutyou, but this bench is beginning to hurt my bottom."Clara stood up and we walked across the dark patio, through the back door and hall of the mainhouse into the living room.
....



....
Clara concluded that my being terrified was a product of the conflict between what I really saw, and what I had already been told was possible and permissible to see.
"I don't think I follow you, Clara," I said.
"Try to imagine yourself as a giant memory warehouse," she su ggested : "In that warehouse, someone other than yourself has stored feelings, ideas, mental dialogues and behavior patterns. Since it is your warehouse, you can go in there and rummage around any time you want and use whatever you find there. The problem is that you have absolutely no say over the inventory, for it was already established before you came into possession of the warehouse. Thus you are drastically limited in your selection of items."
She added that our lives seem to be an uninterrupted time line because in our warehouses the inventory never changes.
She stressed that unless this storehouse is cleared out, there is no way for us to be what we really are.
....