It is likely that I don't fit in here. I'm going to delete the bookmark.
Inedible I think you are in the perfect place to advance your spiritual growth. “A divine hand guides the hungry to food in the wilderness, and those with a strong desire for liberation will find it.”
There is also the quote “like attracts like,” that if you are noble, wise, and just, you will be drawn to communities that share those traits.
I believe you have attained streamwinning, which is spectacular as it means you now have only a finite amount of returns before you achieve liberation. The one ☝️ theme I notice from your posts, and I don’t want to upset you, is ill will (a fetter, meaning it hasn’t been attenuated as it would be if you were a once-returner), complemented by incredulity that it is possible to have specific knowledge about spiritual topics.
As humans we are trapped in an agnostic state; Who has knowledge about the post-death state? From this place we go to the conventional priesthoods or the so-called “devout.” This would be the equivalent of speaking to a mainline Buddhist teacher. The issue is putting on robes does not give you insight into these matters; rather, a lifetime of spiritual practice - and in my opinion navigating the spiritual crisis - do.
There are a couple areas here; one is the idea of “esoteric knowledge,” that you can acquire certain knowledge about some topics in the spiritual domain. The other is, as Bob Monroe said, “knowing” the truth that we continue in the post-death state. This requires direct experience of OOBEs.
Recall from the suttas the Buddha’s descriptions of the heavenly realms, and the cosmology that he taught to his disciples. There is one sutta in particular that I recall, I believe it’s called the Nanda sutta, where Siddhartha’s nephew was infatuated with a beautiful girl in town, but Siddhartha showed him via an OOBE or through simply recounting his own spiritual travels, that the sexual bliss of the gods makes the beautiful girl in town look like a cauterized monkey. From this you can infer “it’s reasonable to forsake one life for the pleasure of the afterlife.”
The main counsel I would give you is you must embrace the crisis that comes when you reach this stage of spiritual growth. It is a time of turmoil and re-assessment. But when you get to the other side you arrive in the “illuminated life,” where you feel with certainly that the spiritual is real.
