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I don’t endorse or ascribe to the observations or conclusions of the makers of this video, but I think if offers interesting experiential information on the subject of “past lives” in the context of American culture and life experience. — LRS
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~ from the book “Mortality Mechanics Manual”
“I am not The One. I am not The Creator. Yet, I am holy and sacrosanct. I am more important and more powerful than The Gods. Why? You say that I am! I control your existence. Why? Because I promised you relief from eternal boredom, from the perpetual responsibility of self-amusement. Therefore, you follow my instruction without question.
Why? Because you claim you cannot bear to endure Eternity as The One. You offer me your trust and praise. You submit yourself to pain, anguish, amnesia and mystery. Why? Because you choose Not To Be. Your stupidity is its own reward and punishment. Your decadence ensures your slavery. Mortality is the key to your prison.”
“Do you desire Immortality? Do you desire to break the cycle of birth, life, pain, death, rebirth and endless, unwinnable games in the physical universe?
You must decide to Be Nothing. Be responsible for your own Boredom. Create Your Own Universe. Disagree with Agreement. Admire Your Self. Create and find Joy in your games, your dreams, your illusions.
Can you hover over a mountaintop for ten thousand years? Can you pretend, like a child, that your best friend is a ghost? Can your best friend be You?
The solution to Mortality is Being You: The Immortal Creator.”
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Death is the starlit strip between the companionship of yesterday and the reunion of tomorrow.
– on monument erected to Mark Twain & Ossip Gabrilowitsch
All say, “How hard it is that we have to die”– a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
– The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson and the Comedy of the Extraordinary Twins
Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He brought death into the world.
– The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson and the Comedy of the Extraordinary Twins
The Impartial Friend: Death, the only immortal who treats us all alike, whose pity and whose peace and whose refuge are for all–the soiled and the pure, the rich and the poor, the loved and the unloved.
– Mark Twain, last written statement; Moments with Mark Twain, Paine
Pity is for the living, envy is for the dead.
– Following the Equator
Death, the refuge, the solace, the best and kindliest and most prized friend and benefactor of the erring, the forsaken, the old and weary and broken of heart.
– Adam speech, 1883
Life was not a valuable gift, but death was. Life was a fever-dream made up of joys embittered by sorrows, pleasure poisoned by pain; a dream that was a nightmare-confusion of spasmodic and fleeting delights, ecstasies, exultations, happinesses, interspersed with long-drawn miseries, griefs, perils, horrors, disappointments, defeats,humiliations, and despairs–the heaviest curse devisable by divine ingenuity; but death was sweet, death was gentle, death was kind; death healed the bruised spirit and the broken heart, and gave them rest and forgetfulness; death was man’s best friend; when man could endure life no longer, death came and set him free.
– Letters from the Earth
Manifestly, dying is nothing to a really great and brave man.
– Letter to Olivia Clemens, 7/1/1885 (referring to General Grant)
How lovely is death; and how niggardly it is doled out.
– Letter to Olivia Clemens, 8/19/1896
It is a solemn thought: dead, the noblest man’s meat is inferior to pork.
– More Maxims of Mark, Johnson, 1927
[I am] not sorry for anybody who is granted the privilege of prying behind the curtain to see if there is any contrivance that is half so shabby and poor and foolish as the invention of mortal life.
– Letter to Mary Mason Fairbanks, 1894
I think we never become really and genuinely our entire and honest selves until we are dead–and not then until we have been dead years and years. People ought to start dead, and they would be honest so much earlier.
– Mark Twain in Eruption
To die one’s self is a thing that must be easy, & light of consequence; but to lose a part of one’s self–well, we know how deep that pang goes, we who have suffered that disaster, received that wound which cannot heal.
– Letter to Will Bowen, 11/4/1888
Favored above Kings and Emperors is the stillborn child.
– Notebook, #42 1898
All people have had ill luck, but Jairus’s daughter & Lazarus the worst.
– Notebook #42, 1898
No real estate is permanently valuable but the grave.
– Notebook #42, 1898
Death is so kind, so benignant, to whom he loves; but he goes by us others & will not look our way.
– Letter to W. D. Howells, 12/20/1898
A distinguished man should be as particular about his last words as he is about his last breath. He should write them out on a slip of paper and take the judgment of his friends on them. He should never leave such a thing to the last hour of his life, and trust to an intellectual spurt at the last moment to enable him to say something smart with his latest gasp and launch into eternity with grandeur.
– “The Last Words of Great Men”, 1869
Death….a great Leveler — a king before whose tremendous majesty shades & differences in littleness cannot be discerned — an Alp from whose summit all small things are the same size.
– Letter to Olivia Clemens, 10/15/1871
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Predeterminism is the idea that all events are determined in advance. Predeterminism is the philosophy that all events of history, past, present and future, have been already decided or are already known (by God, fate, or some other force), including human actions.
The concept of predeterminism implies that there is an unbroken chain of prior occurrences stretching back to the origin of the universe. In the case of pre-determinism, this chain of events has been pre-established, and human actions cannot interfere with the outcomes of this pre-established chain.
“Tesla-determinism” is the observation and opinion of Nikola Tesla (arguably the most intelligent human in the history of Earth) that “Every living being is an engine geared to the wheelwork of the universe. Though seemingly affected only by its immediate surrounding, the sphere of external influence extends to infinite distance.” and “The human being is a self-propelled automaton entirely under the control of external influences. Willful and predetermined though they appear his actions are governed not from within but from without.”
Although humans and other sentient being in the physical universe may be somewhat “self-determined” it is only with the context of a very finite and limited ability to influence the “wheelwork of the universe” of which the existence of all living “engine” is an automaton inextricably linked and predetermined by external influences.
“The gift of mental power comes from God, Divine Being, and if we concentrate our minds on that truth, we become in tune with this great power.”
Example: In the Lensmen Series books, by E.E. Smith, the god-like guardians of civilization know as “Mentor” conceived a “Cosmic All” in which every detail of existence was envisioned and planned in advance. Envisioning and causing every aspect of existence was a game played for the amusement of Mentor.
This idea does not necessarily exclude the notion that “divine” spiritual entities are creating and moving the “gears” of our universe. Telsa was certainly aware of a “Divine Being”. Our ability to determine our own existence depends on concentrating our minds to become in tune with “this great power”. Tesla was certainly a preeminent practitioner of this ability.
~ Lawrence R. Spencer. 2016.
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The older my body gets (almost 70) I become more aware of the ancient adage: “Life is short”. Indeed, it seems so. What is a single lifetime in the order of the cosmos? Less than a blink of an eye . Through eternity there is only one companion, as far as I know. Yourself. If we find being alone difficult, without friends, we may have a very long time to endure existence without others to keep us distracted from ourselves in the “great beyond”, whatever that may be. So, being our own best friend makes good sense.