Hello Shoshana,

I'm glad you have many questions. Talking over what comes to mind is how we expand our selves, and that's how we grow spiritually. With each question and the thoughts that follow, we become more and more higher beings.

This is your first question: What about all animals, insects, and the dinosaurs? They are living creatures, too, so what happens to them?

Everything that exists or ever existed comes from the same sentient source, what most people would call God, but some would call the Intelligent Designer or Higher Power. We have a tendency to focus on ourselves, the human beings, and wonder why it was even necessary to have the rest of the universe if we aren't getting something out of it. And so a beautiful flower blooms high in the Rocky Mountains where no human ever goes; it expands, basks in the sun a few weeks, and dies. No human ever saw it. But it wasn't wasted. It's part of the universe.

The universe is so vast we'll never understand its depths. It has more than 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars and is expanding at 1.8 times the speed of light. At the same time, as we look into the atom, we see smaller and smaller particles, it doesn't look like we'll get to the smallest—there's always a smaller one. Time extends infinitely back in history and infinitely forward in the future.

Now our lives are 70 to 100 years, perhaps, and we'll never see into the atom or to the ends of the universe. That means all the rest of the universe out there, inside the atom, in the past, and in the future, is lost on us. But it isn't really. It's all the scenery that is here as we live out our play. It makes us full of wonder. The most important thing is how each of us is growing spiritually within that vast universe. The animals, insects, and dinosaurs are sentient beings, but just scenery for our play.

As to pets in the afterlife, we give them life through our love. Everything we love will be with us in the afterlife. We know that from people who have been there. Dinosaurs weren't loved, and they didn't have spiritual maturity, so they may not continue. But if a dinosaur was a consciousness that today is maturing either on earth or in some other plane, then it will continue. We just don't know.

You asked,
If we communicate by thought, can we sing.

Oh yes. In the afterlife are great, huge choruses of people. The afterlife is just like this life. Look around you. You see a room, furniture, windows. It will be just like that in the afterlife. You actually will have all the things you personally love and need that are familiar to you. You'll be on a plane with others who have similar needs and interests.

You break into a chorus of "My Way" as Frank Sinatra sang it. You'll do that in the afterlife just as you would in this life. You'll be a real person just as you are now. If you feel a need to hear the sounds come out of your mouth, they'll come. If you can learn to sing by thought, you'll do that.

The difference is that in the afterlife, everything negative is gone. There are no mosquitoes, blazing hot days, disease, scrapes and bumps, or any of the other negative things we have on the earthly plane.

In the afterlife, though, everything is more beautiful and spectacular than we can imagine or understand. With the music and singing, the atmosphere and buildings change colors to match the singing. It's a magnificent place those in the afterlife have great difficulty describing to us, but they all reassure us that it's a wonderful place.

You asked,
What do we do all day?

People have preoccupations, just as we have occupations on Earth. But there is no money. Everything is done out of love and servanthood. People often are able to do what they couldn't while on earth. Someone who wanted to be a pianist learns to play the piano and gives concerts. Many people do service work for those who cross over, helping them adjust. Some are teachers for the children growing up on the other side. Everyone has a preoccupation that is of service to others and done out of love.

You asked,
What about evolution? Before man even existed?

There are several answers to that. The most obvious is that creating a universe isn't the same for the Higher Power as it would be for a man. As people, we would think the Higher Power would wave a wand and the universe would just pop into existence. That's the way a human being would do it. But for an ageless God, taking 4.5 billion years since the creation of the solar system to come down to a group of people sitting at their computers communicating is just the same as taking 60 seconds and waving a magic wand.

Another answer is that we know the source of everything. That's part of the physical realm as it's been created. If I see you in a room, I know you entered it at some time. You didn't just pop into it. The same is true of the universe. We know as we look out into the universe that we can see further and further out, so there are stars further and further out. We know as we look into the atom we can see deeper and deeper. So we are all the way down to strings that are a billion times smaller than a subatomic particle. And looking into the past, we can see a singularity (single point of the material realm) 13.7 billion years ago that exploded and slowly evolved into what we see today. It went through single-celled creatures, invertebrates, water-bound vertebrates, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, all in an orderly progression. We can see where it all came from, just as I know you had to enter a room.

But whether all of that existed before we saw it or surmised it isn't known. We just know that we have somewhere from which everything came when we look to see where it came from. Whether the 13.7 billion years went from day to day, sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset, we just don't know. We can't tell. We know that it looks like it did, that's all.

All of the questions about the physical realm mustn't get in your way of understanding that what's important in the physical realm is your spiritual development. Everything is just scenery for that. We know that from the teachings of great people like Buddha and Jesus. We know that from the messages from those in the afterlife. And we know that from our own commonsense.

Focus on your spirit, not understanding the physical realm. You will never understand the physical realm. Here's why I say that. At no time in history has our understanding of the physical realm been stable. We just don't know it at all. In the first century, Ptolemy felt the heavenly bodies rotated on glass spheres. Well, we found out that wasn't true when the Great Comet of 1587 blazed across the sky. There were no spheres. Newton put an end to all that by showing how gravity held the heavenly bodies together.

But then Einstein came along in the early twentieth century and stood Newton's universe on its ear with findings that led to quantum mechanics.

Then Edwin Hubble came along in 1929 to show that the universe is expanding at a tremendous rate in a way Einstein missed.

Our understanding of the universe has never been stable. It never will. We'll always be understanding more. In the meantime, though, the Higher Power, the sages, and those in the afterlife keep telling us not to focus on this realm that we don't fully understand. Our mission in life is to love, be loved, and help all sentient beings awaken to the knowledge that we're spiritual beings having a physical experience, and that what's important is what happens in our day-to-day life with each other. That's all that matters.

You wrote,
Regarding TRV, it's difficult for me to hold too much meaning in a process that people are using for investing and gambling.

Well, people make money from everything humankind discovers. You wouldn't stop going to physicians because they charge money, or psychologists because they aren't volunteering their time to help people heal emotionally out of the goodness of their heart. Everyone who has a talent in the material realm uses that talent to serve others and in return receives some compensation. That's just the material realm.

Love and peace, Craig