The big question..

I've heard this question all through my life, and I have asked it many times. I have recieved answers from a complete religious perspective, and I have also recieved answers from a non-religous perspective. The question is "What happens to us after we die?"

When you answer, I want you to think about how your physical body is not you. So if your visualization of you going to heaven lets say, it isn't your actual body going there, but the 'essence' of you. I view the human body as a shell just as we drive in a car. You are in the car, but the car isn't 'you'. The car may be damaged, just as you may damage your body, but your 'essence' isn't effected by anything physical. Although, I believe there are exceptions.

Another thing to focus on when you answer is that, know you have no previous memory of any life, so how could we continue? Were we just born and we are all in a state of mind that we think we have a 'soul'. Are we not just a working body?

 

Check my posts in the thread: http://www.hipforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=290025


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Alright, I read them all. I still have a numerous amount of questions that will be spread out. First off, I'm not too knowledgable on anything to do with karma, but everything has a begining and an end. I could see how you would think it doesn't and say that everything just is, but it isn't. Someday, this Earth will not be here. Wether something happens here or if somehow the Earth makes it to the end of the Sun's life. Everything on Earth will cease to exist. Since this is so, do you believe in multiple places for the souls to occupy? Also, do see a governing force over ruling everything? A "God"?

 

EVERYTHING has a beginning and an end?

even infinity?

 

I was actually just pondering "Beginning and end". I realize what I stated in my previous post is false (at least according to my beliefs). I realize that time does not exist. Everything... is.

 

Already in place?

It's just a matter of discovering it a piece at a time.

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My own death as i remember it was an ego death, but perhaps a temporary physical death also. I'm not sure because i lost awareness of my body for those moments... yes it's selfless, you've stopped judging and naming because you've risen above peoples personalitys, egos, deeds and words. You've seen that nobody is who they think they are and they're all innocent and blameless in forgetting. Letting go of ego is to let go of separation and form and in so doing, return to a spiritual state beyond earthly personality, lower thinking and beyond emotion into a 'witness state' of pure conciousness and awareness.I was fearful and it felt like dying and it took a huge ammount of love and trust.. and indeed courage to admit to myself and potentially everyone that i wasn't anything, that i wasn't real ... and who i thought they were wasn't real either. Everyone was holy and my beloved sister or brother. This was the real me. This state is love, but not an emotion like we thing of love but an awareness and oneness. Love is oneness and not judging and naming and separating. It is awareness.

Perhaps i'd agree that 'death' only lasts moments because it did for me before realising i had to return and start a new, better life ... of oneness and happiness and peace. I would take up my self abused and 'knackered but repairable' body again and look after it because it was my precious temple in this world. I would make it new again. Did i? ... No ... somehow i just couldn't believe it and negative ego and thought returned, but twelve years on i feel like i've come full circle to a place where i can honour my life and the lives of others and act from a higher will.
I'd like to add that although my ego had been dissolving, snowball fashion for a year and a half, and that great awareness and love was already growing in me in the couple of months prior to the experience, that last leap of faith required the use of Ecstacy for me, to get me into a state where i was ready to 'DO IT'. That moment i'd (in hindsight) been waiting my whole life for had finally come and everything converged in that moment. Somehow in my higher will i needed to be shown, before it was too late, what was really there, so i could live in love without fear. Drugs like that 'can' help you realease blocks in your psyche and 'can' heighten your conciousness and awareness and bring your presence to the moment... very healing in this sense and the way i was using the E (as a psychological healing agent) Somehow in the state i was already in, and considering my needs and my commitment it was deemed ok for this to happen. It was grace.
But if i had not returned to my body and died in a very physical sense? Would i have lost the memory of my previous life? Would i have had a 'concious blackout' (kind of , 'bang on the head' ..amnesia type thing), perhaps a trip into the void before reagaining some faint conciousness in the small form of a baby? Like having a little sleep?

.......?

 

sounds like my salvia trip.

 

First off, ex.... I don't understand your post.

Now, liquidlight. Just yesterday, I believe I was enlightened and blessed with and answer than I had never seen before. It was staring me right in the face, but I had never noticed it. How you ask, did I lose my memory in my previous life? No..... NO YOU DIDNT! People's image of their sould or 'essence' is that of a human with the limitation of the human abilities. Our minds when we are born are so undeveloped that we can't remember our birth. We are trapped in this body, and this body hinders our senses to remember anything.

I believe this to be the truth. I did not read it, but was blessed with it.

 

I think the musical group Blood Sweat and Tears said it best when they sang;
I say there ain’t no Heaven
and I pray there ain’t no hell
but I’ll never know by living
only my dying will tell

The only problem with that is that it seems to be a one way street. Once you walk though that door you’re kind of stuck with what you get, Heaven or Hell or maybe you just cease exist. I think I’ll wait a while for the definitive answer to that question!

So the real Big Question is what to do with the life you have right now.

 

I find it interesting that you said:

In light of the fact that i used Ecstacy to make that 'leap of faith' and experience myself as the 'essense' of who i was, i would agree that having let go of form, .. of my body, ... the Ecstasy was no longer a factor affecting my conciousness for those moments. I had gone beyond it. And in the preceding days and also right before and in that moment i 'knew' that nothing physical could harm 'ME'. Yes, physical things could harm my body, but couldn't harm me, because i had been identifying with my spirit.

Did i ask that? Your right i didn't lose memory of my previous life after the experience. It was all there just as it was before.
It's got me thinking though ... What is memory and where does memory reside? In the body or conciousness? I have read that the body has it's own separate intelligence that it uses to function and breath ect ... it's own autonomic intelligence. Some bodyworkers would say that memories are stored in our body tissues and that deep work releases deep memories.
- While i was in that state ... memories were not a factor, ..i didn't have any. But on 'coming down' or out of that state i regained awareness of my body, personality, memory and ego. So is memory connected to the body or ego somehow?

 

Thats not a bad observation for one so young, but careful of thinking yourself enlightened. Ego will gladly take you by the hand as easily as a glimpse of the truth will. Its going to be a while before you can tell them apart.

Your soul wears bodies just like you wear a shirt. It keeps it on until it wears out and then aqquires another to continue with. Your soul is not from this world, so it is not subject to any of the physical laws here like your body is.

The mind is your onboard computer for the body. It takes care of bodily functions and processes information from the senses. The ego, your personal idea of who you think you are, is the interface between your inner world and the outside. In most people, they cannot see any further than the ego. That identity makes people selfish because of the inability to see beyond it.

The ego is a wonderful tool, but its also the main cause of trouble. It likes stimulation and interaction with the world. It likes it so much, it pushes your true nature (the soul) away from the control panel and hogs it all for itself.

Reincarnation happens because of this addiction to sensation. When you can regain your senses from the total control that the ego has over it, the ego knows the jig is up and will then sit in the co-pilot's seat where it belongs.

At that point, you can start cleaning up the mess it's made of your world. When you've paid off those karmic debts, the door you entered this world swings open, you're free to go. The cycle is broken.



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... and ain't that the truth! I have only in the last few months began learning mutch more about ego despite being aware of it for years. It's just that after doing some good reading about it i am now mutch more aware of it than i was before. I am noticing that i am mutch more often being aware of my thoughts as they arise and questioning them (sometimes laughing at them). But in any case ego seems to be ever present and always undermining the truth.
I have thought of the ego as a necessary 'interface' before ... we need it to experience duality but like xexon says,... it thinks it's the first pilot and is hogging the controls. The real first pilot shakes his head is gently and lovingly whispering in the guy's ear trying to talk him out of this madness so he'll get back in the second pilot assistants seat and stick to the contract of employment.
So i think ego is there, as a fact of creation and duality to serve but not take over. It surely doesn't want to die and fears annihilation but will do so under the right circumstances. Eventually that 2nd pilot, after a few near dear death rolls and plummets (scaring everyone onboard to hell i might add) will realise he's not the clever guy he thought he was and realise what a genius the 1st pilot is and hand back the controls.

Heh, i did enjoy that analogy

 

I've got a question. Once that door is open, do you necessarily HAVE to go. Or do some people choose to stay behind for the sake of everyone else?
Are those the enlightened people throughout the ages that have helped everyone else out so much?

 

Well, science says that memory is stored in your brain. Specific areas are designed for memory. In my opinion, I don't think your spirit thinks of time as existing. I think on Earth we make up 'time'. So our souls are always living in present and thinking in present and the need for memory ceases.

 

No, you don't. But once your normal lifespan is spent, you have to reincarnate for a new body if you wish to continue. There are exceptions, but generally, this is the way of things.

Yes. The idea of the virgin birth is actually representative of such people. They return by their own choice rather than being obligated by karmic debt.


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I understand completely what you are saying xenon. I read the post over and realized it was quite conceited. Sorry, but at the time when I came to the realization, I was just overwhelmed by the possibility that I found one answer to the infinite number of questions I have on life. Also, I see that you have quite a bit of faith in karma and many of its apects. Why is this?

 

The Hindus are the closest to the mechanics of how things actually work down here. Karma is a centerpiece of their system. As is reincarnation.

I follow no religion, but I use their points to make my own. If MY words appear conceited, its because they're from me rather than from a book. Many have difficulty with this because religion has convinced them that only in the distant past have there been people like me.

You're doing fine by asking the questions that you do.



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I totally agree with that. The same goes for me. I don't disregard any religion, nor do I believe in the full version of it. I guess it all depends on perspective. To each his own, eh?

I'll be posting some more questions tomorrow , I need rest for now.

 

What makes you think that?

It seems to me that you just have your own religion. It's not organized, but you believe you hold the truth in your hand just as much as pat robertson does.

People like you are all over the place, I think. People that present whimsical gibberish as truth with enough confidence to make people believe you know what you are talking about. No offense or anything, but I don't think that there is any reason to believe what you do.




My answer to the initial question:
You die. Your body decomposes, you lose consciousness, you lose unconsciousness, you no longer have anything. I think it is most likely that whatever energy you have within you simply diffuses to your environment as time goes by. I don't think your consciousness, your soul, your "essence," or whatever else you want to call it, exists after you die.

I am willing to accept the possibility that I am wrong, that reincarnation happens, that heaven exists, or something like that. I am more willing to think that there is some print we may leave behind, in some type of medium that we cannot sense, but that is still merely speculation.