When I was growing up in the church I knew what happened after this life ended. If you were a good mormon who was married in the temple, kept the word of wisdom, wore your magic underwear, and paid all your tithing you'd go to the celestial kingdom. If you were a so-so mormon, who sometimes didn't go to church and watched rated R movies, you'd go to the telestial kingdom. Or you could go to the terestial kingdom, which was still part of heaven, but like the shitty part. Of course there was also the outer darkness, for apostates and atheists to suffer for eternity.

After I left the church that all seemed so bizarre to me. It actually surprises me that I used to believe that; and that people still do. Where is the evidence?

The truth is, no one can tell you what happens after death.

Sometimes it bothers me not knowing what happens when we die, or even if something will happen at all. Maybe its just nothingness after that. And the thought of there being nothing is almost too much for me to comprehend. It makes me feel kind of empty. Should I believe my conscious mind will continue on after I'm dead just because it makes me feel better? Or should I just accept that nothingness is a likely possibility and deal with it?

I think it's perfectly okay to say, "I don't know." I happen to believe in an afterlife, and it gives me comfort. OTOH if there is nothing, I'll never know about it. Either way, I think that we are meant to focus on *this* life, and whatever happens next, happens.

Interestingly Summer I was just saying to hubby today that I now feel it's okay, and feel happy saying " I don't know"

I think it's likely that there is reincarnation in some shape or form. There is just too much circumstantial evidence (mainly, innumerable NDEs) against us going out like lightbulbs when we die. Whether we keep our "person" (ego) or whether it's illusory/insignificant anyway I'm not sure. Most likely some amount of personality is shed, if not all of it. Whether we are all part of the same intelligence (different aspects of it), or more individual entities, either way there is likely a good deal of "firmware" in our biological brains that during our lifetimes we are a mixture of the biological entity's "program" and who we really are.

Of course, there are countless people who say this is hogwash and that "everything can be explained scientifically". But personally I've seen/experienced enough so that if I had to bet between "this life is all there is" or that we're really spiritual entities, I place my bets on the latter.

And if I'm wrong, when we die, we won't know it anyway so it doesn't matter. :)

Good reading on the topic:
Michael Newton - Journey of Souls
Michael Newton - Destiny of Souls
Eben Alexander - Proof of Heaven
Bill & Judy Guggenheim - Hello From Heaven!
Eckhart Tolle - The Power of Now
Eckhart Tolle - A New Earth

Even Yoda said: »Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.» :)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2014 02:54AM by Facing Tao.

I personally hope that I have evolved enough that I do not have to reincarnate into this hell.

Earth could have been a lovely place to live but it's so corrupted that I do not want to come here again.

Shortly before my grandmother died, she was comatose or at least unreachable/not responding. Nevertheless, people by her bedside heard her mutter through her teeth: "I won't be coming back here again!" :]

Not me, I'm going to be hotter than I've ever been and then I'm going to get around.

I believe in an after life. I argued with my kindergarten pals about it. I was sure that you contined to think when you were dead. It didnt matter that your body was buried because you left that body and were able to go anywhere in the universe. And you would be surrounded and connected to all who were dead and with god. I dreamed of being in space and seeing stars and universes as a child and then again in my thirties and early forties. Have not dreamed of this for the last ten years.

I nearly died as an infant and I think I had a nde that manifested itself in my dreams. As a child I would tell my older sister when I would meet people that I knew in past lives. It all seemed perfectly normal to me. However my mother once told me shortly before she died that I was a weird child. She gave no examples but I lived in my head a lot of the times.

Secret handshakes will NOT be required.

People who imagine living forever probably haven't really thought about how long that is. Take the longest time you can imagine and multiply it by infinity. Then multiply THAT times infinity, and so on. Eventually we'd be begging to not exist just to end the boredom.

On the other hand, if I cease to exist when I die, I won't exist to be upset that I no longer exist. I cease to exist every night. My self, my consciousness, my identity turns off between dreams. I'm not there. And I'm not observing that I'm not there. No big deal.

Infinity time-wise is likely not a problem for two reasons. First, the concept of "time" is a limitation of this form. And second, whether we are all apsects of the one intelligence, or more individual fragments of it, the countless lifetimes and other evolutionary experiences are likely very joyful regardless of how we feel in an individual lifetime. I think it's very good advice to consider life a "play", or "drama" of sorts, and not take it too seriously - to "not mind too much what happens" (that was Krishnamurti's secret :).

That's assuming a lot of things not in evidence.

Suppose so.. but it's not something that can likely ever be empirically proven. From that perspective only atheism would be appropriate. Yet many of us hold such beliefs, and likely are not going to give them up in the absense of scientific evidence ("the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence" :).

I see the concept of "eternity" not as being endless amounts of time, but being out of the realm of time altogether.

Nothing we can do about the outcome either way. Like Summer said (above), either we will go on or we won't. (My inclination is to believe sentience is just too complex and fascinating for it to just fade to black, but what do I know.)

Those who pretend to know either way are, I think, doing just that: pretending. Those who declare smugly either way (life goes on, or we just decompose) either know a lot more than I think they do, or they are pretending to. I don't think anyone knows.

Nowadays I live for THIS life. I try to make others happy by doing good things for them, and I try to BE happy. I recommend it.

you get a mansion.

and you get back everything you have ever lost including car keys.

I'm not sure this is something where you choose what to believe. You eventually find you believe something in that regard.

I believe dieing is like taking a nap. A really long nap. I'm good with that. I like naps.

Personally, I find living forever and ever much scarier than ending at death.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2014 12:07PM by The Oncoming Storm - bc.

I dunno. So....my personal philosophy is to have as many enlightening, sensual, and varied experiences as possible because if there is life of any kind after death, I like to believe that we take all our precious wisdom with us when our essence survives to live on another plane. I don't want to start over from scratch. I don't want to have to claw my way out of another cult. I want having been a Mormon to be a lesson learned for eternity if there is one.

The only part of the Mormon church that still appeals to me is "eternal progression." I was so excited to think that we would constantly learn and explore forever. It was hard to let go, and I wanted it to be true, but I had to say the truth finally: "I don't know."


On the other hand, most likely its "lights out." And then we really won't know. :)

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=721839721160164&set=a.711235222220614.1073741833.369582069719266&type=1&theater

trepass and you'll figure it out ;-)

Whatever happens, you can be sure it will be NOTHING like ANYTHING that ANYONE that says they KNOW what happens because they have been given DIVINE guidance on the subject...

And that was okay, right? :)

No more beach.

Damn. I like the beach.

There's beach. Remember "Contact" (the movie)?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2014 01:18PM by Facing Tao.

A text I had saved long time ago:

--

Question: What happens when we die?

It's like all your life you hear about Thailand, or Africa, or Paris, or Big Sur. So, after so many movies and books and the words and emotions of others while describing that place, and post cards and letters and imaginings and expectations that it will be this way or that, you finally go. And so, you get off of the plane and you can't believe it's actually, finally happening to you, you just never really thought it would, and finally you're here, and it's so different from anything you ever expected. It's all so very new and different! Who could have known it would be like this?

Death is like that. Life is like that also.

I had an uncle that used to say "You go to a parking garage in Buffalo, New York". It wasn't until my teens that I realized his explanation was just as plausible as any other. At this point, now that we know we are merely computers made out of meat, I've accepted that I will cease to exist.

Who knows. Maybe we are just babies and this is a growing period for our sole's. from here we go to a different realm and have different experience's. Maybe we are just an highly advance video game from 10 million years in the future, we just haven't advanced to the knowledge to create such a game in our present state of growth within the game.

butterfly's start out as caterpillars and then transform into something amazing & beautifully different, then move on to a whole new outlook & survival technics in it's continuation of life. Maybe we do something similar in that our sole moves on to something better, different.

I washed my mother pass away with illness. It was devastating to see. then horrified to see her lowered into the ground, My mother, a woman / person with such a sweet sole and a wonderful person and mother / grandmother. In my Christian upbringing, it was comforting to believe that such a sweet sole would continue on in some positive state of life. Would hate to think that such beauty just fades to nothing.

You get washed off and a new pair of jeans, and are dropped off in Reno.

I never did know. I was told that I knew....but I didn't.
Nobody does. Some may say they do. They may live a certain way with certain rules that someone else made up in order to get money from them, but they don't know. They never did.