Believing an afterlife

[blazeofglory]

In point of fact we have values in life, and that is why we forget death and keep on living scaling the pyramid of time, unthinking that at death everything evaporates. Does everything meet with death at the end of the day? But there are points that give us enough clues that life does not end up with death, and it is a journey, and death is like a nighttime and the morning comes afresh and refreshes us to start off.

Whether or not we believe in God, the type mythologies subscribe or the one we are told about or we do not know whether or not there is heaven or hell. These things may be imaginaries and nothing turns up real. But to say death ends everything is a wrong notion and the journey continues. In fact even if we do not believe in an afterlife at least we can believe that we will be at one with the universe. And the universe is a big soul, manifested or un-manifested

[backline]

I believe there is matter and there is energy.
The nature of what that energy constitutes that we call "life," and what happens to that energy at the end of our present life has been the subject of much speculation by many since the dawn of consciousness.

Does consciousness as we experience it constitute an energy that can continue after the brain ceases its natural processes?

Many have tried to explain their view of this question. Some are far-fetched meta-physical treatises. Some are biological explainations.

I am not even sure that my question is properly posed for the debate of what many would wish to offer.

There has been much speculation about the nature of time and perception as well.

To some an "afterlife" may seem nothing more than the expected downloading of the biological brain when deprived of oxygen at death.

I have heard others speculate that since we exist in a space-time continuum that is expressed in terms of an electromagnetic spectrum involving a range of frequencies that physical matter operates within, they say that at death we simply change phase and slip into the universe next door: like an episode of Star Trek where crewmembers found themselves operating at a different frequency from their shipmates.

Many ancient texts explain an afterlife in terms of their own tradition and belief system.

In the Judeo-Christian tradition that I have spent some time interfacing with the subject of an afterlife has seemingly changed from the Old Testament to the New Testament, but explained as a progressive flowering of a whole from a bud it makes sense along certain lines.

I try to keep in mind that many of these texts are maps of the territory, symbolically speaking. The final "reality" is being awaited by all creation, standing -as it were- on tip toes.

[NikolaiI]

In point of fact we have values in life, and that is why we forget death and keep on living scaling the pyramid of time, unthinking that at death everything evaporates. Does everything meet with death at the end of the day? But there are points that give us enough clues that life does not end up with death, and it is a journey, and death is like a nighttime and the morning comes afresh and refreshes us to start off.

Whether or not we believe in God, the type mythologies subscribe or the one we are told about or we do not know whether or not there is heaven or hell. These things may be imaginaries and nothing turns up real. But to say death ends everything is a wrong notion and the journey continues. In fact even if we do not believe in an afterlife at least we can believe that we will be at one with the universe. And the universe is a big soul, manifested or un-manifested

I think a verse from Bhagavad-Gita would be helpful here. "All beings are unmanifest in their beginning, manifest in their interim state, and unmanifest in their end." The clear extrapolation from this is that our natural state is unborn, unmanifest. What we were, and what we will be, is unmanifest and eternal.

Now what is life after death? Well, there are many who believe we are eternal or infinite. Even Nietzsche with his Eternal Return could only be interpreated as believing in the eternal. Actually Nietzsche's Eternal Return I believe is right on the money. It's pretty advanced, but if one studies enough one could get it. Whitman is also great for this.

I had a really interesting conversation about this with my father recently. I was telling him that since we were set forms, basically, we were eternal, because what occurs once must occur again and again. My father said that he thought all that happens happens only once. So it's an interesting discussion. Thank you for posting this, friend.

[planet earth]

The presence of and after life is a fact. Being ignorant about is does not mean it is not there. It is true and real like everything Allah told us about is true and real. It is true that we do not know what we were before, or we don't remember and we do not know how will we be like later. It is true we lived and evolved nine months in out mom's wombs but we don't even remeber how life inside was there. We can forget how it was like but we cannot deny that it happened. We did stay nine months in our mom's wombs, all of us did and all of us will.

Similarly the after life, I know descriptively how it will look like, but I cannot live the feeling. I am so sure that some characteristics will change, about us. embroy's swim, and don't need oxygen, we need oxygen and do not live in water any more. in the other life, we will not be injured, no blood will come out us. we will have not age, we will be 31 all of the time. everything will be totally different. Allah says "He created us in Phases". So I guess every phase has its end, excet the next phase after not death, after resurrection. This is our final eternal phase. When those who have believed without seeing will be given the ability to see what they believed in without seeing.

The Holy Quran says:

And (remember) when thy Lord brought forth from the Children of Adam, from their reins, their seed, and made them testify of themselves, (saying): Am I not your Lord? They said: Yea, verily. We testify. (That was) lest ye should say at the Day of Resurrection: Lo! of this we were unaware; 7:172

[blazeofglory]

Occupying oursleves with an idea bequeathed by some else we become conditioned or hardwired to the set of ideas someone invented we can not arrive at truth. We jump to conclusions without investigation and such ideas lead to confusion and at times to perilious happenings. Fundamentalists or fanatics were of such ideas.

Let us be open to free thinking. God or at least the idea or word was birthed after man's arrival. Having said so I do not mean there is nothing that is beyond our comprehension and maybe there is a storehouse or source of energies. But what we call by names are not necessarily realities.

[skasian]

In our life in earth, we are constantly drived by a motive, a purpose, a task that needs fullfilling with a meaning. It can be the simplist task of washing the dishes, a task that is required to cleanse the material we eat from therefore minimise the possiblity of affliction caused by bacteria. Our daily life is driven by countless purpose and it makes up the central purpose and meaning of our lives. This central purpose is preparing us for an afterlife, as our afterlife depends on how we lived in earth.
So it is clear because in our lives we are faced by infinite tasks of purpose, our lives must mean it is also a task of purpose, a purpose that is required to be fullfilled in afterlife.