Do we ever stop living?

[cyberius]

Does consciousness ever really come to an end? Do we really ever escape the reality we are granted by the universe?

You are a set of events coming together in an amazingly abstract way. While your "end" might seem like the end it's probably not. Your death is the beginning of a period you just won't experience, but you will be born again in due time. Is it so crazy to think that in an infinite amount of time the stars won't align just like this one more time and your consciousness won't exist just once more?

What does everybody else here feel about this?

DimebagJohny found a really deep quote that describes this very well

"The real you is not a puppet which life pushes around. The real deep-down you is the whole universe. So then, when you die, you're not going to have to put up with everlasting non-existence, because that's not an experience. A lot of people are afraid that when they die, they're going to be locked up in a dark room forever, and sort of undergo that. But one of the most interesting things in the world is - this is a yoga, this is a way of realization - try and imagine what it will be like to go to sleep and never wake up. Think about that! Children think about it. It's one of the great wonders of life. What will it be like to go to sleep and never wake up? And if you think long enough about that, something will happen to you. You will find out, among other things, that it will pose the next question to you. What was it like to wake up after having never gone to sleep? That was when you were born. You see, you can't have an experience of nothing; nature abhors a vacuum. So after you're dead, the only thing that can happen is the same experience, or the same sort of experience as when you were born. In other words, we all know very well that after people die, other people are born. And they're all you, only you can only experience it one at a time..." - Alan Watts

 

[JessFR]

Like I said on a recent thread here, we know that almost everything we consider to be us, our mind, if not everything. Is contained in our physical brains. And those definitely die and cease function. So, by extension, for us to continue living in any form, there must either be a portion of our mind only linked too but not directly contained in the brain (which is a theory I toss around). Or it must be transferred or recreated at another time (another idea I play with).

Personally while I don't think we live again anytime soon after we die. At some time and place I suspect we live again in some form.

 

[Cosmic Trigger]

I really don't know but if life is always going to include seeing so much suffering I really hope I never exist in any form again. If this is as good as it gets then it's a crap creation imo. If I have to guess I think there is nothing once you die.

 

[spacejunk]

I agree with jess. I think death is the "end", personally.
Being wormfood is part of the cycle of life.

 

[swilow]

You are a set of events coming together in an amazingly abstract way. While your "end" might seem like the end it's probably not. Your death is the beginning of a period you just won't experience, but you will be born again in due time. Is it so crazy to think that in an infinite amount of time the stars won't align just like this one more time and your consciousness won't exist just once more?

In infinite time, this would have to occurr. But, if time is infinite, it means that this is likely a recurrence of a previous existence and yet nobody I especially believe has memories of their previous life. For all intents and purposes, it is always tabula rasa from birth. If we have been reformed through inifinite shufflings of matter it doesn't appear to make a difference.

I don't especially want to live my life again, to be honest, which is one reason I feel aversion for the idea. I feel like death will be a release. I think its eternal oblivion, and I have no real problem with that.

edit bit: fuck, there are a lot of death threads being born in this forum recently.

 

[JessFR]

Indeed, provided a cyclical universe or maybe a multiverse, it is a certainty that we will live our exact lives over again,as well as every other permutation of our lives. And virtually endless permutations of other peoples lives but with out consciesness.

 

[GaryGlisten]

A Dr. Ian Stevenson did a very extensive study on thousands of cases of children who could remember who they were in their previous incarnation. In many cases that had birthmarks which corresponded directly to the wounds which killed them. Many of them could identify people who were still living as the people who they previously knew. This pdf file comprises a small selection of his original study which covered 30 or so volumes. Very interesting reading.

Ian Stevenson. Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect. pdf
https://www.mediafire.com/?o6ogl6oj5sxt4uz

 

[Foreigner]

The personality and bodymind (that is, the ego which is tied to physicality) dies for good so for all intents and purposes, those who want death to be a real end are going to get their wish. Because spirit is so seamlessly tied to this body and personality, they behave as one thing and are thus inseparable, even from an ideological standpoint. We could spend hours arguing about where spirit ends and where organic-brain begins, but due to our perceptual confines and material limits we can't know -- by design. But we can surmise that the part of us that has suffered in a linear way will be put to rest because the immaterial spirit does not experience that kind of suffering. It only experiences trials, expiations, and the rewards of its progressions.

What is for sure is that even the physical body and the personality to some degree are an outcropping of the spirit. We know this because children are born with faculties that their parents and recent ancestors don't possess, as well as drives and personalities that cannot be merely explained as a product of random convergence. Some children even express memories of past lives which are verifiable (lots of stories, just use Google). What that tells us is that part of us dies for good, but not all of us... but because right now we are ONE being with inseparable components whose beginnings and ends can't be distinguished, we don't know what our awareness post-death is going to be like. We can only guess. But in all probability there is a continuation.

Right now we are in a state of forgetting, and we have a body-oriented ego and personality added to the mix. What will it be like to enter into that state of expanded remembering, without a personality/ego layered over it? Could that be called the "true self", then?

I think that, when we quiet the mind and enter into spacious consciousness, as the Witness, and learn to live from true virtue, we are in closer conscious contact with the true faculties and outpourings of our spirits than when we follow egoic distractions, fears and desires. In that sense, it is possible to know the true essence of our spirit before we even die, and perhaps, even on an egoic level, learn to collaborate with it. I imagine that upon death the death of a personality that worked in complete opposite to its guiding spirit, the spirit component would experience great confusion and lack of clarity about its post-death identity; but perhaps the liberation of a spirit from a body whose personality worked in tandem with it might have less of an identity crisis because there was no preceding disharmony.

Either way, surely whichever aspects of us are a product of this corporeal body won't be able to survive death beyond a memory contained in the spirit, because the material cannot transition into the non-material. So in that sense, part of us dies forever, and part of us lives forever. It's both.

 

[swilow]

If we are all reincarnated why do so few of us remember?

Either way, surely whichever aspects of us are a product of this corporeal body won't be able to survive death beyond a memory contained in the spirit, because the material cannot transition into the non-material.

I'm not sure I follow. What is a "memory contained in the spirit" if not for something material existing within the non-material?

 

[cyberius]

I feel like you guys romanticize this. Consciousness is a physical (albeit abstract) structure created by sensory organs. When there is input being accepted you are alive, and when the input stops you're not alive. Your existence is only occurring when structure x receives data from structure y. If say the universe goes on and on forever is it misguided to assume that SOMEHOW the process of structure x receiving data from structure y won't happen exactly the same way?

You'd immediately skip to your birth after death I imagine, because your awareness and reality only occur under specific but reproducible circumstances! You wouldn't make any choices differently either because the only you you're ever going to truly be is the one you are now, if you made any choices differently the whole entire universe would have to have ran different variables which would globally affect everything interanally and externally essentially making a new arc of YOU which you would not be aware of.

 

[cyberius]

If we are all reincarnated why do so few of us remember?



I'm not sure I follow. What is a "memory contained in the spirit" if not for something material existing within the non-material?

Awareness is finite. When you're born you are aware of your consciousness but when you die that awareness ceases and time goes on as it did infinitely until the process starts over. The same life will play again like a movie because one day the process will start again.

 

[DimeBagJohnny]

"The real you is not a puppet which life pushes around. The real deep-down you is the whole universe. So then, when you die, you're not going to have to put up with everlasting non-existence, because that's not an experience. A lot of people are afraid that when they die, they're going to be locked up in a dark room forever, and sort of undergo that. But one of the most interesting things in the world is - this is a yoga, this is a way of realization - try and imagine what it will be like to go to sleep and never wake up. Think about that! Children think about it. It's one of the great wonders of life. What will it be like to go to sleep and never wake up? And if you think long enough about that, something will happen to you. You will find out, among other things, that it will pose the next question to you. What was it like to wake up after having never gone to sleep? That was when you were born. You see, you can't have an experience of nothing; nature abhors a vacuum. So after you're dead, the only thing that can happen is the same experience, or the same sort of experience as when you were born. In other words, we all know very well that after people die, other people are born. And they're all you, only you can only experience it one at a time..." - Alan Watts

Alan Watts makes so much sense to me...

 

[cyberius]

Alan Watts makes so much sense to me...

What a beautiful way of putting it.

 

[Foreigner]

If we are all reincarnated why do so few of us remember?

We talked about this in the other thread, I don't feel like writing it out again. Being in the material envelope is why most of us don't remember. Those who do remember have been permitted to.

I'm not sure I follow. What is a "memory contained in the spirit" if not for something material existing within the non-material?

Memory is organic and non-organic. We need it for the ego to survive, but in the end it's detangled from the body, which in turns allow memories of pre-life to come back.

 

[No one]

Everything is alloted a certain amount of time. When the sands of the hour glass run out, it's over.

 

[Nixiam]

We talked about this in the other thread, I don't feel like writing it out again. Being in the material envelope is why most of us don't remember. Those who do remember have been permitted to.



Memory is organic and non-organic. We need it for the ego to survive, but in the end it's detangled from the body, which in turns allow memories of pre-life to come back.

It's an interesting concept.

Do you remember?

 

[Foreigner]

It's an interesting concept.

Do you remember?

Here and there... but it's impossible to say that it's not just my mind generating it. What I consider to be more evidenced based on the natural skills and inclinations I have in this life.

I admit freely to everyone here that maybe 100% of what I feel is right could be some kind of mass delusion and maybe I'm full of shit. So if I seem certain just keep in mind that I'm still in the workshop like everyone else.

But it feels right... and I have done a huge amount of inner work on this. And there has just been too much that has happened for me to doubt it anymore.

 

[Nixiam]

I completely understand. While I don't think that I remember anything per se, I find it odd that I feel as if I have done this all before. Don't want to get too in depth, and I truly am not fond of reincarnation hypothesis or anything, but I cannot prove or disprove it.

Thank you for responding btw, I think all we can do really is inner work. Nothing irrational about any of the conclusions you come to.

 

[DimeBagJohnny]

What a beautiful way of putting it.

If you haven't, I HIGHLY recommend you listen to some of Alan Watt's lectures... they're all over Youtube. Out of Mind is an amazing set of lectures, changed my thinking in very positive ways. He describes eastern philosophy in a way that westerners can understand... and he's damn good at it. Some people think he tells a little too much, things you need to find out on your own and are not told to you by gurus/masters.

 

[LandsUnknown]

I think there is an afterlife, but I think it's far more complex than simply saying "heaven" or "hell". I think there are thousands, millions, and even infinite possibilities of what the "afterlife" would be for each individual. However, I think that it is real, and I even would go as far as to say that certain individuals and certain states of consciousness could experience various shifts in the dimensional planes that are seen to be able to witness and even make contact with those that have already passed on. I also think that some of those that are deceased do not even know they are deceased. They simply live life in a slightly different permutation/dimension from ours, and they have no idea that they died in a past one. In fact, I would go as far as to say that we all likely are in fact deceased in some fashion from a different existence. As others said, I believe it does go in a cycle but rather than like the life we have now, there are infinite dimensions and realities that one can live in. In a sense, this system of existence is likely so complex that there isn't even such a thing as "alive" or "dead", only "alive" or "dead" to our plane of existence. However, everything one does will affect what type of dimension one is "reborn" into after death. Therefore, those that are angry, commit suicide, or harm others in some fashion I believe are likely to end up in a lower dimensional plane with more fear, anger, and sadness in it than others.

I actually have a small bit of anecdotal evidence for my beliefs. There were ghosts on a street in a town where I used to grow up, and once I actually saw them and picked up on their presences by simply feeling their energy. Most of them appeared to have no idea they actually were deceased! Other people in the town that witnessed these ghosts seemed to say the same thing. However, sometimes one has insight of their "other lives" and/or the fact that they are deceased due to the dimensional plane they end up in after death. There is a ghost in my house that I have witnessed. He seems quite aware of the fact that he is deceased (according to our definition of the term). He appears to be aware of my presence fully, and I am aware of his. I understand that my experiences may not be believed by all, and that is okay. In fact, I am imagining that most people will likely remain skeptical of my claims, and I have told very few people about them.

However, I personally have had quite a number of paranormal experiences with ghosts (and possibly other entities that I am unsure what they even are myself and may be simply largely unknown to those in our realm), and I believe that I have a certain proclivity to contacting with spirits and ghosts. I would not say that I am a medium or ghost whisperer, but I feel that there is something about me as a person that draws out these experiences. Also, none of these experiences have been in any way drug induced.