What happens after you die?

[David Maes]

If no one was there to witness "The Big Bang", did it happen? Or is that a question we're not supposed to ask?

Eveer hear of a conversion experience? A spiritual awakening? I thought not.
The proof is in the pudding.
Condemnation prior to investigation is the Height of Ignorance.

Maybe some people should have that tatooed to their forehead lest they forget?

namaste`
d.

You're right; maybe we will ever get an answer to the question "does god exist". The truth is I don't know that.

Concerning the Big Bang, I don't really know whether there really was a Big Bang or not.

Concerning everything else, I leave that to your own judgement.

[austintorn@aol.com]

We die "little deaths" all the time. Our atoms change, some memories go and some new ones reappear, although I realized that the core of memories defines us as us. It's just that we are hardly the same person now as when we were much younger.

We had "death" before birth, too, and now there is life after birth.

If we had amnesia and began learning the world anew, then one might say that the previous person was "dead" and it is our new life that counts, not even missing the old one.

And, while the "big death" is much more than any of these "little deaths", it is that our atoms go on to reside in a new person eventually. It's not like there is any continuity of memory, but more like any narrative will do.

As for really knowing, that is the TOE, meaning that we know that we can't know. This is a relief and so then we can go about our life with the ultimate freedom to be (within our form).

[David Maes]

As for really knowing, that is the TOE, meaning that we know that we can't know.

We can never know absolutely that we will never know it.

The chance that we will ever know it is rather small.

But if we would ever know it, then we would never know it absolutely.

Questions like "Does God exist?", "What happens after we die?", are absolute questions. But because of the fact that science doesn't offer absolute certainty, it is rather logical that there is now way that science can have the answer to those questions.

And because of the fact that science doesn't offer absolute certainty, even the answer science would have, would never be absolute either.

Thanks Austin, I think I'm starting to understand it better now.

[G_burnett]

I don't agree, we can never know that absolutely.

What you mean is, if we would ever know it, then we would never know it absolutely.

Questions like "Does God exist?", "What happens after we die?", are absolute questions. But because of the fact that science doesn't offer absolute certainty, it is rather logical that there is now way that science can have the answer to those questions.

And because of the fact that science doesn't offer absolute certainty, the possible answer science would have, would never be absolute either.

Thanks Austin, I think I'm starting to understand it better now.

Hi david

"Science can offer absolute certainy to the questions: if the define of God or death is made to the reality and not the imagination... profound as this is and with out vanity, the truth becomes clear with ponder..."

~regards g.

[austintorn@aol.com]

**** Now and Zen ****

Everything that is part of us—our cells, tissues, organs and organ systems—has come about over billions of years because it proved successful in the great survival stakes during our perilous descent with modification.

The brain, being no exception, evolved, in part, to allow a creature to learn from what happens in its life, to retain key elements that could influence future actions.

We are geared for self-preservation. We will do anything to avoid facing the possibility that who we are now cannot continue. We are mainly the cause that we are interested in. The self is preoccupied with staying alive, which is why we are still around today. It is kind of a prime biological function to be afraid of death, and so the self, as thus contrived, is able to fully play its crucial survival role.

We want to equip our brain with a soul that offers us an escape when the brain dies since the self can hardly ever come to terms with its own extinction.

From a subjective standpoint, we are all born equal and undifferentiated (before that ‘we’ were dead), but as mature selves we make a distinction between the individual and the surroundings. Still, the brain keeps changing throughout life, in a pattern of the shifting flux of its neurons. We gain and lose memories and feelings, essentially creating a new person over and over again. The self is thus not so rock solid as it seems. These moment-to-moment changes differ from death only in degree. In essence, they are identical, although at opposite ends of the spectrum. So, we are not static things. Other neural networks will come to be in other, future people, albeit with an “amnesia” of what went on before in the brains of previous others

Why should we be happy about this? We never can be, because the ‘I’ cannot operate outside of its own boundaries. The only viable alternative is to think of a way in which it is possible to ever continue on.

What will it be like to be a part of someone else after we die, with our own particular narrative of life cast aside and forgotten?

This is the ‘zen’ of now and then.


I will still be overjoyed if I continue beyond death. (My self/brain told me to say that.)

[chazzysaw]

Perhaps, Chazzysaw, we are already one with all that is. Perhaps our energy is already in its original form. I like to think so anyway. I believe our experience is continuous. Our experience didn't begin with birth, we just choose to lay past memory aside in order to acquire even greater experience during this moment of life. And after death, our resting light (our original form) will continue to acquire experience forever.

Wick

Yes I agree, we are already one with all there is. There is no separation just different forms.

[melanie]

only when the phantom transcends the illusory mind of separation and goes beyond it's state of form to reach formlessness /awareness

s/he will realize that s/he has never been born and has never died and that all there is is arising oneness.

oneness being both form and formless simultaneously

however some will never see this and will continue to live in the dream of separation one of fear for most

the ones that transcend the illusion do not live in any more fear

either way there is no-one to care anyway so just enjoy the illusion i say

thankyou and goodbye for now

[Mikal]

**** Now and Zen ****

Everything that is part of us—our cells, tissues, organs and organ systems—has come about over billions of years because it proved successful in the great survival stakes during our perilous descent with modification.

The brain, being no exception, evolved, in part, to allow a creature to learn from what happens in its life, to retain key elements that could influence future actions.

We are geared for self-preservation. We will do anything to avoid facing the possibility that who we are now cannot continue. We are mainly the cause that we are interested in. The self is preoccupied with staying alive, which is why we are still around today. It is kind of a prime biological function to be afraid of death, and so the self, as thus contrived, is able to fully play its crucial survival role.

We want to equip our brain with a soul that offers us an escape when the brain dies since the self can hardly ever come to terms with its own extinction.

From a subjective standpoint, we are all born equal and undifferentiated (before that ‘we’ were dead), but as mature selves we make a distinction between the individual and the surroundings. Still, the brain keeps changing throughout life, in a pattern of the shifting flux of its neurons. We gain and lose memories and feelings, essentially creating a new person over and over again. The self is thus not so rock solid as it seems. These moment-to-moment changes differ from death only in degree. In essence, they are identical, although at opposite ends of the spectrum. So, we are not static things. Other neural networks will come to be in other, future people, albeit with an “amnesia” of what went on before in the brains of previous others

Why should we be happy about this? We never can be, because the ‘I’ cannot operate outside of its own boundaries. The only viable alternative is to think of a way in which it is possible to ever continue on.

What will it be like to be a part of someone else after we die, with our own particular narrative of life cast aside and forgotten?

This is the ‘zen’ of now and then.


I will still be overjoyed if I continue beyond death. (My self/brain told me to say that.)

Prepare to be overjoyed!!!!!


Mikal

[melanie]

only when the phantom transcends the illusory mind of separation and goes beyond it's state of form to reach formlessness /awareness

s/he will realize that s/he has never been born and has never died and that all there is is arising oneness.

oneness being both form and formless simultaneously

however some will never see this and will continue to live in the dream of separation one of fear for most

the ones that transcend the illusion do not live in any more fear

either way there is no-one to care anyway so just enjoy the illusion i say

What is THIS that drives the apparent endless energy life dance of oneness?

THAT is unanswerable and is beyond the conceptual ''thinking mind '' the thought processing department being non-locatable.

And yet paradoxically HERENOW

Is is inconceivable for human mind to grasp the origin of the conception .......yet IT is very much conceived and plain to SEE.

HERENOW where is has always been and can be NOWHERE else.

Appearing live and kicking one without a second.

Echoing throughout eternity.

[melanie]

Austin:
We want to equip our brain with a soul that offers us an escape when the brain dies since the self can hardly ever come to terms with its own extinction.

Austin i find your posts confusing as you probably do mine?

Extinction of what exactly ??

The soul is the senses...do the senses become extinct and to ''whom'' does this extinction occur ?

For example..

I have witnessed the leaves of a tree fall away after the end of their cycle.
New fresh leaves come through, these might not be identical in shape or color, but it is the same repeated cycle principle going on here nonetheless.

The one that is sensing the tree, and then say yes that is a tree with leaves coming and going from it,
is not separate from the actual tree.
It is appearing in your perception of it.
It's not outside of you.
The tree is appearing within that which is sensing it.
Not separate from.

So what is it that actually dies ?

Austin:

Why should we be happy about this? We never can be, because the ‘I’ cannot operate outside of its own boundaries.

There are no boundaries.

Another example would be the horizon, the horizon cannot be approached .....for one very good reason.

The only viable alternative is to think of a way in which it is possible to ever continue on.

I'll give you an example of the assumed separate ''thinking mechanism''

Thinking that a separate ( I ) can continue on is like trying to cling to the air while you are falling from a height and hoping that it will save you.

There is no separate ( I )

For example a man and a woman decided to have a child.

Is it them that says right ok, out of this one ejaculation of billions of sperm,
we'll have that one there, that one looks nice, it's a girl, and we've always wanted a girl,
oh and it's going to be a genius too so yes lets have that one.

No it's not them, because everything happens spontaneously all by itself.

'You' only 'think' 'you' are making reality, when in fact raw reality is making 'you' via the senses.

The dreamed cannot dream ....they ARE the dream.