What Lies Ahead

[Josiah]

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?

An interesting speculation. I imagine some form of the genus homo will survive the climate change and the nuclear wars and I dare say they will have a less inflated sense of who they are.

 

[Uncontrolable]

What do yo believe? Is there a life after this one? Is there anything to Reincarnation. Or when we die, is that the end? This is something people our age think about from time to time. Of course I don't know. I do think it's a great waste of resources if this life is all there is. Care to comment?

I do not believe in death because I have had a spiritual experience involving God. There are many people who believe that Heaven is a place where all of our family and friends are waiting for us. Books have been written about it. Movies have been made about it. There is a poem by Robert Frost called: "Trial By Existence". It describes how we make a contract with God before coming to Earth. We drink from the river of forgetfulness and come here to fulfill our contract. This is the reason we have free will. We cannot remember out past. God, our family, or angels help us along while we are here. I have had more help that some others because the life I chose was more difficult than some others. Who knows for sure? But God is with me always.

 

[Uncontrolable]

I'm not sure, but I lean to thinking that this is it. I've been with several close relatives when they passed and I felt that they may have been still there with me, knowing my sorrow. I'm open minded, and have welcome them to visit me in any way possible, and that has never happened. Maybe if I had an experience, I would be more sure, right now I don't know. Nobody has ever come back from the dead, and some that claim to are not always believable, IMO. I think as we get older, a lot of us think about things like this, reincarnation, past lives, it's nice to think there may be something more after this life on earth.

There is a couple of movies about people who died and came back. There is a movie, based on a true story, about a 4 year old who died on the surgery table. He told about his meeting with Jesus and the angels. He met his deceased sister that his mother had not told him about. I think is was a late misscarraige. He met his grandfather who he had not met. This was just a 4 year old. In any case, he related his visit with Jesus to his father. Due to the element of detail his son was passing along his father finally believed him. This man was a pastor and his son's story started a fire storm of interest. I cannot remember the movie's name, but the family's last name is Burpo. If you put that name into Google his story should come up.

 

[Uncontrolable]

Here's what I think happens: When we die, the energy/spirit/soul (whatever you want to call the life that is 'us') separates from this body that we use to experience life, the world and relationships. We return to a 'pre-physical life' dimension where we rejoin our group whom we've moved through many lifetimes with. We may first experience floating up from our now dead body and seem to generally have less a feeling of loss and more a kind of curious interest in the things that are going on around our body.

The next thing apparently that happens is that you will feel a sensation of being pulled away from that scene and while some folks have described moving through a tunnel of sorts, other's seem to be more focused on being drawn towards a spot of light in the distance that also feels infinitely kind and gentle and loving and that feeling gets stronger the closer we get to it. It's been described as a consuming feeling of love that filled up every cell of that persons being and you will feel safer and more complete than you've ever felt in your life. You will feel like you've 'returned Home'.

Those who are 'old souls' go through the de-coupling from life relatively quickly and without a lot of assistance, but for those who are at the beginning of their 'experiences', help and comfort can come in the form of meeting family or friends who've gone before or guides whose sole purpose is to smooth the way as we adjust to our new state of being.

The 'place' we go to is designed also to soothe and ease the transition. What you expect is what you get in large part. For the Christian believer, his initial impression may well be 'pearly gates', etc., and to the atheist who loves the great outdoors, he may find himself being met by family in a beautiful mountain meadow. (Picture that great Robin Williams movie, 'What Dreams May Come'). People in other cultures experience a place that meets up with their expectations based on the kinds of experiences they have had in their lives. And as we adjust and begin to re-know who we are and where we are, those ideas may shift and change and melt away and our awareness begins to match up to a cosmological, inexplicably lovely state of place and being that most of those folks find difficult if not impossible to really explain.


There we go through a sort of de-briefing where we get to examine our own lives, the things we did, how we grew, the effect on others. But the whole experience has the feel of watching a movie, rather than causing a personal sense of condemnation or embarrassment. We examine it to see where we went wrong, how we could do better, all with a view to becoming a better and more loving person over time. And there are other 'people' there, who long ago went through their own life experiences and ultimately graduated to beings who guide those of us who are still spending time in this dimension and they act as teachers or guides. We spend however long is necessary, discussing, sharing, talking and understanding all of that past life stuff as well as the next step.

Then there comes a time when we've talked enough and become reenergized enough to make our next decision on how we can continue this evolution of spirit in a new life. No one stays because the whole purpose of life is to experience life and to know ourselves in every possible way, and a single transition through life will never give you all that you need to know, so we choose to do it yet again....and again.


What really turns me on about all of this and tells me it's not hoo-doo and craziness is the fact that certain elements of quantum physics support these ideas! And more phycists are beginning to question whether or not this material, physical world isn't some form of virtual reality or a sort of holographic reality or a form of matrix (as in the movie). And not only does it offer a science supported possibility/probability, but for those who are of a religious nature, the concept also embraces their ideas ideas except with a few adjustments. I like to think of the big religions as 'thumbnails' of what is really out there and what's really going on. You know, where you look at that little tiny box with all it's shapes and splotches of colour.......and then when you click on it and the Big Picture opens up and it's waaaaaay more than that thumbnail can convey!

Seriously, if you have an open mind and are willing to admit that there is no more evidence for any of the other theories than for this one, and then can see how there may(probably is) scientific processes that actually do support what I've come to accept, it's hard not to get excited by it. Because what this means is you don't have to be afraid to die and the people you've loved, you'll be with again!

Anyway, enough of that...time to get back to making dinner.....so mundane in the face of cosmological loveliness!

I love your description and believe it. I stopped believing in death because God made himself/herself available to me. Before that I could not have said I had a real belief in God. But, after it, it became impossible for me to believe in death. Yes, our bodies stop functioning because they wear out. There are many people still trying to locate the place in the body where the physical and the spirit/soul connect. Some believe there is a spiritual DNA. Why not?

So many people fear death and grieve for family who they believe they will never see again. I am looking forward to death. I have a medical background. People get into late stages of a disease, they may have a lot of pain, usually Dr.s are good at limiting pain. Some people want their pain. When you die your heart stops, you stop breathing. After a very short time, a moment, you lose consciousness. at this point you cannot usually feel pain. Some people who have died and returned might be able to verify this. I do not fear the pain of death because I have been unconscious before.

 

[Camper6]

I'm not sure, but I lean to thinking that this is it. I've been with several close relatives when they passed and I felt that they may have been still there with me, knowing my sorrow. I'm open minded, and have welcome them to visit me in any way possible, and that has never happened. Maybe if I had an experience, I would be more sure, right now I don't know. Nobody has ever come back from the dead, and some that claim to are not always believable, IMO. I think as we get older, a lot of us think about things like this, reincarnation, past lives, it's nice to think there may be something more after this life on earth.

I'm with you. We pass our genes on to the next generation and that's about it.

There have been mornings when I wake up and don't remember dreaming or anything else and I think to myself. I could have died and not even known it.

 

[Jackie22]

I don't know the answer nor does anyone else.

 

[Knight]

A tie then? No one solved the mystery of life and no one solved the mystery of death.

I'm glad I was born without a mental or physical handicap, life as I have experienced it has been good. Is there something else going to happen when my life ends? As I pointed out no one solved the mystery of death.

When someone that has died comes back in the flesh to explain, that will end speculation won't it?

Meanwhile those that fear what might happen when they die and are comforted by blind faith, I would never try to dissuade them. I don't fear death I just hope when it happens I'll die a peaceful death in my sleep.