Are you afraid of Death?

karma can't possibly be used by other people to control people. the concept of sin can. it's completely different though. all karma means is action that produces some reaction, and to say that nothing you do has any effect on anything is ridiculous. the difference between someone who believes in karma and someone who doesn't is that the person who believes knows that the reactions to their actions are not always immediate, and it's impossible to see where they end, and what exactly they are effecting in your life. if you drop a rock in a lake, you can't deny that it makes a splash, but you can disagree on where the ripples stop. living by the laws of karma, or better, akarma, which is action that is active without "making ripples" in the lake of reactions, is having the ability to guage your own actions and see what you are doing. it's the ability to see the tiniest vibrations on the water and know that they must have been caused by a rock you dropped at some point, even if you were unaware at the time.



i believe in reincarnation, based on our karma. i don't believe we get punished, or rewarded, by coming back in any particular form with any particular qualities. i believe that we become whatever is appropriate for us, according to what we've done in the past as a statement to the universe of who we are, and the choice is ultimately up to us whether we want to suffer or be happy, to be impersonal or to be our highest personality possible. if you can't look at it mystically, you can look at it in the context of quantum physics, where our minds' power harnessed can alter physical phenomena on a conscious and visible level. well, we're always thinking, and we're always doing. so we have to be affecting the world around us.

i'm getting off topic. death. there have just been too many instances where people have said "i'm proving to you that you are more than your body", and nothing could disprove it, except to write it off as some bizarre, out of the ordinary occurance and refuse to believe the information that is out there. there is nothing to prove that reincarnation DOESN'T happen, and so much to show that it does. things really are interconnected, they don't happen randomly, and they are not pointless. so i'm not scared of death. i'm only anxious that i won't come back in a human body, and i won't be able to keep the information and little bit of wisdom i have gained through this life and all the lives before this one, because i might do something awful right before i die... but it doesn't keep me up at night, because i'm trying so hard to learn and be a good person.




WHEW. that was too long. i'm sorry.

 

In a general sense I'm not afraid of death, but on the few occasions I've been confronted with the possibility I've been afraid.


Like when I was mountain climbing and just barely caught myself before tumbling down a precipice to the rocks 200 feet below. During those several seconds I was terrified over the possibility of my demise :leaving:



Hotwater

 

Yeah well, most people would feel some kind of fear as well in a situation like that.

I like your post, but just wandering what prove is there for reincarnation?

 

If you're a conscious being, you exist. Without a consciousness you would have no concept of life, you would simply be matter. The consciousness is what lives in the afterlife, and I see it impossible for our minds to still be working when our bodies are completely dead. The components of our bodies are what govern the mind. Does that decaying skeleton still have an active mind floating around somewhere when his brain and all working organs have diminished? I think the concept of life after death is just made up to help people cope with their fear of death. They have nothing to fear because they have it in their minds that they'll live eternally. I wouldn't fear death if I was sure I would live afterward, and that's the whole thing - it's a contradiction. The afterlife is a continuation of existence post-death. What is the point of death, or life for that matter, if we live forever? In a sense we would be immortal.

The afterlife is not something that physically exists, it's only in the mind. I don't see it possible for me to 'live' in some eternal place when I die because the inventor of that place will be nonexistent.

 

Most people are too stupid to make anything personal out of the concept of "karma" and it is very limited in a religious context.

It is the same concept of "sin" yet with heaven being replaced by a reincarnation on this earth. Ofcourse the choice is up to us, just like we have the choice to sin or not... and the person who has a "good karma", will be reincarnated as something "better" than a person with "bad karma". Everyone strives towards a better reincarnation, therefore everyone strives for good karma, therefore... it's a way of controlling the masses in order to establish order and some level of peace in a society. Ofcourse, it is different today... for the whole notion of "karma" has been westarnised, yet at its basic roots, it still remains "a lack of sin". Do you think that a person that steals, lies, murders, etc would have good karma, or hell even if we don't take "good" and "bad" karma into account... would that person be reincarnated as something more enjoyable than a person who lives a fairly sin-less life?

 

at its basic roots in which religion? its in multiple.

and its not necessarily true that you'd come back as something "lesser". You can have the "karma get you" (though Karma in Buddhism is just the word for the "cause" not the "result") in this life, or whenever. You wouldnt necessarily even realize that its the "punishment". Its not like its saying "go do good things and i'll give you money"... cause karma is supposed to be altruistic acts (the good ones). Its just a cause and effect concept.
And I dont see how getting people to try to be peaceful is a bad thing... and "controlling the masses" definately has a bad connotation.


but again, this all really depends on what religion you are saying started the concept.

 

That's the thing... the goal of the major religions in the world all have same ideals.

 

I never said that controlling the masses is a bad thing

"it's a way of controlling the masses in order to establish order and some level of peace in a society"

I quote a silly man.

 

theres a book written by a hindu (i believe) about that. he thinks that jesus went over to india and from there, the ideals of christianity formed...

major religions tell the same morals, just in different story lines.

 

Nope, it's not like I really enjoy life anyways.

 

Never?

 

98% of us will die someday I mean come on!

 

In a way yes I fear death. Not really sure of the here after. But for the most part I am afraid it will hurt like in the situations where they say someone died but it was so quick they didn't feel a thing I know it is ment to comfort, but how can you be so sure?
I am afraid that I won't go peacefully? Then there is the pain it will cause my family.
Well I guess you could say it scares the F*#$@ out of me to die come to think of it.

 

I would be very afraid of death as a kid , like annoyed daily almost.

But you can choose to be in the 2% left by relayer hahaha. Begins now.

 

haha that 98% thing was from Talladega Nights. God that movie is so funny

 

I don't think I am. Maybe sometimes but a lot of the time I find myself thinking that I wouldn't really mind if I just dropped dead.

 

i never think about it so i guess no. live in the moment, don't worry about what will happen next.

JOn

 

examples of proof of reincarnation... there are accounts of two year olds telling their parents they would find their dead grandpa's old something-or-other in the basement at the other side of town, a horse with a distinct star shape on it's head dying, coming back as a baby horse with the same markings and finding it's former owner, someone dies with a scar from an accident and is reborn as their son's son with a birthmark that matches...

i've (i think) had an experience thinking as one of my past lives. sober, just after i woke up from a totally unrelated dream. i was thinking about my life, and going over problems over my head, what am i going to do today, what did i do yesterday, thinking i'm a man and feeling all the references you have mentally in life, and i suddenly realized who i was now. and all the personality and mental baggage of that person disappeared. believe it or don't, whatever, i just thought i'd share.

so, karma. it's not a good thing, bad thing, reward, punishment kind of concept. at least it's not in krishna consciousness, which is how i know it. every living being thinks it's the best it can be. a rat is happy to be a rat. a tree is happy to be a tree. but every living thing is acting, and every action has a reaction. EVERY little, tiny, teeeeeensy little thing we do. and while we're thinking, "i'm a rat", "i'm a tree", "i'm a human being", and we're acting appropriately, we're collecting "good" and "bad" karma. we're the ones who distinguish between the two, but they are really the same. something that causes a material reaction. so we're thinking, "this is what i am, and this is what i have to do", when really we're not that form. we're bound to change. we're changing constantly, from babies to children to teens to adults and so on until we change form into a baby again. so what we really are is consciousness. we're spirit. when we realize that, we behave as spirit, not as the particular form we're in. we behave as the eternal beings we really are. and so we don't do things that produce material reactions, because all our actions become spiritualized. that's the difference between karma and akarma.

if someone tells you, "if you do not do this, you'll collect bad karma and come back as a spider", first you have to use your own judgment and see what you are actually doing and imagine how it will really affect the world. then you have to accept that possibility may be true, and accept that if you do come back as a spider, you won't even know that's "bad". so if you use your brain a little, it just doesn't make sense that someone could trick you into doing a thing by using karma against you.

we don't HAVE TO keep forgetting our identity with every new birth, and that's where akarma comes in. it's not just neutral, it actually gets rid of the past karma, the reactions that are still being played out. it's saying, "okay, i know i did something, and i know i'm doing something now. so let's just skip the rest of the reactions on their way, because i don't need them anymore. i've learned my lesson". the lesson is that you're not a material form. so you never have to be one again. what exactly that means is up to you to decide, because i think i've been preachy enough .

 

Well, thanks for the explanation It was a bit long, but not preachy.

 

Personally I'm very excited for death and whatever comes after, but I am in no rush - once I have lived my life and it's my time to go I will go peacefully