What Lies Ahead

Thanks Debby, I've often thought about our spirit separating from our bodies, although I haven't seen any physical signs of that when someone near me has died. Do you think there's a point shortly after death, that the spirit decides not to go yet because they're needed on earth? That the person may either start breathing again, or just linger in a frustrated manner in the spirit world?
 

drifter said:
I suppose it's difficult for me to grasp the idea this conscienceness, knowing as we do, this life we hold dear, is merely an accident of nature and will and does suddenly end and that's all there is. I suppose I've always been a little slow.
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You are just fine, I have all day moments when none of this makes any sense. PS I do not drink like the song says

 
SeaBreeze said:
Thanks Debby, I've often thought about our spirit separating from our bodies, although I haven't seen any physical signs of that when someone near me has died. Do you think there's a point shortly after death, that the spirit decides not to go yet because they're needed on earth? That the person may either start breathing again, or just linger in a frustrated manner in the spirit world?
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I may be a product of too much Catholic school education, but here goes : I don't believe in a hereafter. It would be a comfort if there were a heaven filled with delights, but I think it's just a myth.

I don't think spirit is a separate entity from the body. I believe it's a part of our brains and we call it "Spirit" because we're not sophisticated enough to fully understand it. But I think when our brains die our so called spirits die right along with them. I think the whole afterlife thing offers people comfort because life isn't fair and it would be too awful to think this life is all there is and if you get a lousy life then tough luck cause there ain't no heaven.

I DO believe that a person can be hovering between life and death and the "spirit" unwilling to die, keeps us alive. This happened to me which is why I can say this.
 

chic said:
I may be a product of too much Catholic school education, but here goes : I don't believe in a hereafter. It would be a comfort if there were a heaven filled with delights, but I think it's just a myth.

I don't think spirit is a separate entity from the body. I believe it's a part of our brains and we call it "Spirit" because we're not sophisticated enough to fully understand it. But I think when our brains die our so called spirits die right along with them. I think the whole afterlife thing offers people comfort because life isn't fair and it would be too awful to think this life is all there is and if you get a lousy life then tough luck cause there ain't no heaven.

I DO believe that a person can be hovering between life and death and the "spirit" unwilling to die, keeps us alive. This happened to me which is why I can say this.
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So have you ever done any reading on any of these possibilities or are you just going by residual effects of a Catholic upbringing that has caused you to turn away from it?

NDE's suggest that life doesn't end, it continues and death is merely a change to another form of life. If you don't think 'spirit' is separate from the body how can it be unwilling to do anything separate from the processes that are happening to the body? I think what you are describing is more the result of energy impulses that haven't powered down or are in 'neutral', but that that is different from the 'consciousness' that moves and motivates our emotions and actions. Even scientists don't really understand where consciousness comes from and from my reading, many of them don't even think it originates in the brain so much as the brain is like a radio that transmits a signal from 'somewhere else' via the brain and resulting in our actions, thoughts and perceptions.
I think the following link also suggests that and also starts out by saying that the general scientific community don't know where consciousness comes from. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-russell/brain-consciousness_b_873595.html?


Again, and I always hearken back to the reading that I've done by experiencers and researchers who've actually spent years looking at all of this and the various ramifications, whatever happened to you is at it's most basic, the result of your own expectations. Christian people who've died and been revived come back talking of meeting Jesus. Athiests who go through that experience come back talking of meeting guides or loved ones who previously died. I've read of some folks who believe the Christian teachings but believing themselves to be out of God's favour come back to tell of encountering a 'hell' experience although apparently those are much more rare accounts and often morph into a more typical, joyous result. I also read a description of an Indian woman's experience which spoke of encountering an un-sympathetic beaurocratic individual who summarily told her to go back because they didn't want her yet. And yet in all of these instances there appeared to be numerous markers that their experience was a variation of the near death experience but with differences that can only be explained by their cultural experiences.

And not everyone who has a close call with death comes back remembering any kind of experience though I would imagine that really doesn't prove anything. They say we all dream, but not everyone remembers their dreams. My mom for example would swear that she doesn't dream at all. http://psychology.about.com/od/statesofconsciousness/tp/facts-about-dreams.htm

From the following link: http://iands.org/about-ndes/key-nde-facts.html?start=1
Prevalence of NDEs


  • Surveys taken in the US[SUP]13[/SUP], Australia[SUP]14[/SUP] and Germany[SUP]15[/SUP] suggest that 4 to 15 % of the population have had NDEs.
  • Every day in the U.S., 774 NDEs occur, according to the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF).[SUP]16[/SUP]
  • Of more than 800 near-death experiencers (NDErs) reporting to IANDS, 25% believed they were clinically dead at the time of their NDE.[SUP]17[/SUP]
  • A large study conducted in the Netherlands showed that 18% of people who suffered a cardiac arrest and were clinically dead had later reported an NDE.[SUP]18[/SUP]
 
pchrise, I remember that song from when I was a little girl and I still love it. How often have I been moved to repeat that chorus? Love it! Thanks for sharing it!
 
SeaBreeze said:
Thanks Debby, I've often thought about our spirit separating from our bodies, although I haven't seen any physical signs of that when someone near me has died. Do you think there's a point shortly after death, that the spirit decides not to go yet because they're needed on earth? That the person may either start breathing again, or just linger in a frustrated manner in the spirit world?
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Regarding your last question about lingering in a frustrated manner, I can't say that I've read any real accounts on that score. Maybe it could occur when someone dies suddenly, unexpectedly and/or violently and in those initial moments are seriously confused as to what has happened to them. Maybe a residual energy that stays....I wouldn't really want to guess but that's a real good point to study out I think. See what the expert consensus is on that kind of thing.

It seems that more often the reports tell of being pulled away or drawn to the light or towards a feeling of beckoning love. And my impression is that those instances where someone stops breathing for long enough for 'brain death' to occur and then start up again, it's after a connection with some being in that other place who sometimes asks if they want to return or the person is told that it isn't their time yet.

I'm still open to further understanding on this issue but until I have an experience with 'almost dying' or actually dying and finding out for myself, after reading all the things I've read on the subject, I'm of the mind that we do continue on, we are reunited with loved ones and a greater organizing consciousness and we don't just stop. Look at it this way, there isn't any real proof is there that any of that is wrong!

Having known one man who is absolutely credible and not given to flights of fantasy or drunkenness or drug use, who told me about his out of body experience and how it was as real as you and I are, and knowing that the majority of these NDE's have out of body experiences as a starting point, I'm totally open to this as a probability. We just don't understand all of it and it's a new understanding that the majority of scientists so far, are not open to even considering. But then again, once upon a time, scientists would have argued that the sun revolved around the earth and the earth was flat. Science is an evolving study and I think it just hasn't gotten that far yet.

If you really think this is remotely interesting, take a look at the books of Robert A. Monroe. He started having spontaneous out of body (OBE) experiences in his late fifties I think. The marvellous thing is that he made a point of chronicling all of his 'journey's', his initial health concerns (brain tumour-no, going crazy-no), his numerous experiences and wrote them down in three fascinating books. The first one where you would have to start was called Journeys Out of the Body.
 
A fascinating topic!
But no mention of memories.
Could they be the most durable of all: Our thoughts, experiences, spirit, tightly locked up in memories, some even lasting for thousands of years and remembered on stone tablets, scriptures, books, by story telling.
(The Australian Aborigines have preserved some of their ancient culture by story telling).
Maybe this is one of the few ways we continue to live on (Hereafter).
 
I have one small 'memory', a fragment really, that has been with me all my life. I see in my mind a young, slender, brown girl walking on the beach, wearing nothing but a white skirt. She is walking away from me, I can see her black hair shining in the sun, and the water sparkles, soft and blue to her left. Somehow, I know we are in Egypt, and she is content with her life. What does it mean? Memories of a past life? I do not know, but I have always been drawn to the art, clothing, culture of the East.
 
Death is the final adventure. We will all discover the truth at that point. Until then, it is all conjecture. I hope, Josiah, that you would not mock beliefs other than your own? Surely, there is room for us all?
 
Josiah, I am surprised, and a little saddened at your response. By all means think I am mistaken in my beliefs, but to reduce them to fairy tale status, and me to me to a child state, is contemptuous, I repeat I am surprised.
 
Josiah said:
Well if wishing will make it so, I'm sure you'll all make it to you own personal nirvana.
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I don't think there is no any one 'authority' on this subject - its all based on individual personal experience - anyone who wants to mock and discount can go ahead, if that's what it takes to feel safe and secure.
 
My father used to say religion is like a crutch if you need it, it is good but don't force your crutch me. Like they say the body is the exactly the same one second before death than one second after except [Elvis has left the building]. What is [Elvis] that little spark of energy that makes all things work. I only hope that my spark of energy is part of a great flow of power some where out there.
 
I was hoping someone of you or more might offer some brilliant insight to my immediate future. Maybe you did and I don't wish to accept or did not recognize anything I could accept. Perhaps we are not all so knowing but speculate the way we hope our future will be. Maybe we continue to live on by what we do and are remembered by, our works or the art we leave. Many have lived before us. Are we, the recent race of humanity, the all knowing, blessed with some critical brain structure that we can say with certainty, this foolish creature, Nature, charged both with the creation and destruction of living things on a lonely planet in a universe that appears to go on forever? Some has said it is an awful waste of space and smarts. Personally, I will go back to one of my favorite books on the subject, written for children but with a theme adults can appreciate. Many of you may have read it. It is of course "The Fall of Freddie the Leaf," by Leo Buscaglia. My grip is weakening but I will wrap my elbow around a large limb of mother tree and hold on until some frosty day with the North wind howling around me, my hands numb from the cold, in the winter of my life, lose my grip and time for me will be no more. Finite. Thanks for your thoughts on the subject.
 
In reply, Shalimar to your comments, consider for a moment life in 12th century Europe. Superstition prevaded every aspect of life. For every event there was one or more supernatural explanations. Here we are in the 21st century and the supernatural still plays a significant role in day to day life, but not nearly as much. The reason is that starting in the renaissance skeptical thinking and the scientific method have done a remarkable job of explaining how the physical world works. Not every question has been answered and where ignorance remains, the supernatural still holds sway. Science progresses by carefully studying empirical evidence. Supernatural beliefs come about because these are the explanations people want to be true. When I see someone professing one of these warm fuzzy wish fulfillment beliefs I tend to dismiss it. The way we got from the 12th century to the 21st was because more and more people put their trust in science and I want to do what I can to encourage this trend. It is for this reason that I question beliefs that strike me as originating from what people want and not from the most recent conclusions of the scientific method. It is true that everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, but this is not the same as saying everyone's belief is equally valid. IMO beliefs based on established scientific evidence are more valid than beliefs originating from other sources.
 
I too appreciate the scientific method and the progress that it has produced. However, I am unwilling to allow science to have the last word on everything. The disciplines of philosophy and religion cover territory that science cannot.

I've just finished reading a book titled "The Good Life" and it looks at what makes a life worth living. In all faiths there is some variation of what Christians refer to as the Golden Rule, and it is about how we relate to others. In my opinion, if we make the Golden Rule the foundation of our lives then death holds no terror because we have experienced "life in all its fullness" and when it is over we are content. Life in all its fullness encompasses the good and the bad of human experience.

I've always been a sceptic. I used to say that I would believe in ghosts when I encountered one face to face and had a conversation. Regarding life after death, I'm not terribly worried about whether there is anything to it. If there is something of our soul/spirit/personality etc that survives physical death then there is an adventure yet to come and I have no fear of it, just as I didn't fear my birth. If there is nothing at all then once again, why fear?

All that aside, being humans we love to speculate and use our imaginations to construct images of an afterlife. I lean towards an existence that is nonlinear with respect to time and non corporeal. i.e. not subject to the laws of physics and independent of time and space. This idea appeals to me because I like the idea of being able to instantly travel anywhere in this or other universes. However, I don't expect that this idea is anything more than a reverie. I got the idea from Deep Space 9, based on the wormhole aliens.
 
Great point of views everyone. I ponder about this more than I would like, can't seem to stop thinking about it every now and then. I lean towards ColeSlaw point of view.
 
What we should also remember is...... the dinosaurs were the masters of this planet for a lot longer than we have yet been here [by miles.]What will come after us, and will they have such an inflated view of their own species as we do?
 

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