After Death

[WinterTraditions]

Re: After Death

The believe that the 'end' is based on our beliefs. People who believe in Heaven and Hell will be judged to go to either of those places in the Abrahamic Subrealm. Those that believe in Summerland will go to Summerland. Those who believe they will go back to the Earth/Universe as energy, will do so. Those who believe there is nothing after death, will cease.

I myself am broken between a mixture of Heaven and Summerland. The place will be of my own thoughtform, so I will be able to manipulate it freely. Create people, create homes and all sorts of things. Then, when I grow bored of the world, I will be able to reincarnate into a body to expand my wisdom. Once full wisdom is achieved, I will ascend to be part of the divine energy of the Whole Universe.

[nbdy]

Re: After Death

We are energy beings and the energy continues. My heart stopped at age 11. It was not the first time I had been out of my body, but it was certainly the most memorable. I have not been able to take materialism very seriously; I mean, of course it is 'real,' but it's just one piece of the pie, more of an effect than a cause. imo, of course.

Sphoenix, the thing I am not certain about is whether self-awareness remains only so long as we choose to remain in time. I suspect that this identity, like materiality itself, is just a piece of the pie. It is a great mystery to me why things work this way. It seems like a lot of trouble, the cycles of doing and undoing. I asked an older adept what the point was and there was no answer to be found -- she said the universe breaths in and out, but had nary a guess as to the reason.

[SPhoenix]

Re: After Death

We are energy beings and the energy continues. My heart stopped at age 11. It was not the first time I had been out of my body, but it was certainly the most memorable. I have not been able to take materialism very seriously; I mean, of course it is 'real,' but it's just one piece of the pie, more of an effect than a cause. imo, of course.

Sphoenix, the thing I am not certain about is whether self-awareness remains only so long as we choose to remain in time. I suspect that this identity, like materiality itself, is just a piece of the pie. It is a great mystery to me why things work this way. It seems like a lot of trouble, the cycles of doing and undoing. I asked an older adept what the point was and there was no answer to be found -- she said the universe breaths in and out, but had nary a guess as to the reason.

If you like, I could tell you about my "conversations with 'God'". I was given answers, but most people don't really want them. And I was told (without asking) why I saw things truly. Because I was a child and I held no beliefs or assumptions yet. So I could be given the truth and would not reject it. I was even told that I'd believe something different for a long time because adults would convince me. That part, I didn't believe... but that was how it went, lol.

The reason why people reject the answers is because they show humans to be way too important and wonderful in the great scheme of this universe... and there's only one thing people hate more than being told they're worthless; that's being told they are magnificent and central to something immense.

[Shahaku]

Re: After Death

I don't know what to believe, accept that I absolutely cannot believe and/or accept the idea that there is nothing afterward. I strongly believe there is a spiritual aspect to us and all of life and that something will continue on in some way and some form.

[volcaniclastic]

Re: After Death

See, I firmly believe there is nothing. When I was reading Phoenix's story about the afterlife, it is my personal opinion that she simply hallucinated due to a lack of oxygen, and that her brain made things up (because our brains are wonderful things). But the fact that I believe that, or the fact that I believe some of the things asked or said on this forum are the thoughts of crazy people isn't really what's important.

It's what you believe.

Phoenix (for example) lives her life a better person for believing she had this experience. It may have really happened, and it may have been chemical misfires inside her brain. But to believe something to be true, and to be a better person for it, that's really what's important.

Which is why we all have differing opinions on dying, and on what comes next. I don't believe there is anything, because I haven't seen scientific proof of there being anything, and because I don't feel it betters me in any way to think there is something after.

Just my two cents.

(Besides, this world is so wonderful, who cares what comes next? )

[SPhoenix]

Re: After Death

Well, I'll disagree with it being chemical misfires in the brain. There was no brain activity, and the conversation I heard down the hall and around the corner and past multiple doors happened after there was no brain activity. The conversation I overheard was confirmed as the true conversation that took place.

I have yet to hear anyone explain how that could have happened. There's no way my physical ears overheard it, even if there had still been brain activity (which there was not).

Still waiting for the scientific explanation for hearing what my ears couldn't, while I was brain dead.

I've heard it dismissed many times as an hallucination, but it's not possible to hallucinate without brain activity (according to science).

I don't know if it has made me live a better life or not. But it has kept me alive. I tried to be an atheist at one point and believe there is nothing after. But I couldn't find anyone who could explain hallucinating something that happened too far away to see or hear, nor who can explain hallucinating without brain activity. Also, it depressed me beyond words and I became suicidal.

This world is not wonderful for everyone. Some of us experience such horrific things that even hell seems preferable. Without visits to "home", I would not have retained my sanity, and I would have tried many more times to kill myself.

I was not afraid of oblivion (which seems a strange fear to me--it's not like you're AWARE that you no longer exist, lol). I was afraid that this world was IT. A world in which I had been so horrifically abused that most people can't even bear to hear the truth of it couldn't be all there is.

I tried to deny what I had experienced because at the time, I could not reconcile what I had experienced with the being of pure Love that I had encountered. How could love allow what had been done to me? All of the typical questions. And even though I knew the answers, I couldn't accept them for various reasons at that time. Having the answers doesn't always equal acceptance of them. And for me, that was especially true.

This world is wonderful for some, and that is awesome! But for others, it is a horrific and terrifying place. Some die long before they ever get to see that 'wonderful' side. It would be unthinkable to me that "this is it" for them, as much as I couldn't accept it as "this is it" for me.

[Ophidia]

Re: After Death

As someone who has died & returned (I was struck by a car when I was 11) ... my afterlife experiences were as bleak and colorless as my during-life experiences. But, to each their own, lol. At least when I was dead I had peace and hope that my ordeal would finally end. When the ER docs brought me back it destroyed me. At least I know that my own grim afterlife might give way to a different life. Not necessarily better, or any closer to full enlightenment and return to the Source, but different, novel in some way.

Or it might not. I won't know until I get back there. That is at least a constant.

[SPhoenix]

Re: After Death

I get that. That was one of the things I was told, as I very briefly touched upon in a previous post. Most people bring their ideas and beliefs with them for the first period of their "afterlife" and for a time, you'll experience what you expected to (consciously or subconsciously). The only reason I didn't have this period was because I was so young and because due to other issues, I hadn't yet formed any beliefs. It's extremely difficult for people who have already been exposed to any sorts of beliefs to have a (for lack of a better word, because it's a highly inaccurate word from a spiritual standpoint, but an adequate one for the english language) "pure" experience.

When I had a later experience, I met Jesus. Who, by the way, told me that "he" appeared that way because [at that time in my life] I would never have accepted it had It appeared in any other way. So the later experience was, you might say, 'tainted' by experience/ beliefs/ ideas. The initial experiences entered a void, where the others were filtered by other factors.

So yes, I can see how someone with a bleak view of life would experience a bleak afterlife. Most who are blank enough to have (again, for lack of a better word) "pure" experiences don't remember them. I am cursed with a too-perfect memory. I remember things from earlier than age 2.

[monsno_leedra]

Re: After Death

Myself I can't say whether I died or was killed. I was not quite two when I was given penicillin and that was the end. Can't say what happened as I only have echoes of what occurred at the time like wisps of some dream from it that come crashing through at really odd times. At times making me question my very sanity when those echoes come crashing back in or my guides / totems play them before me. Especially strange when I mention things that occurred or I recall and I get strange looks from people who were there that day and wonder how I can remember any of it.

I do think we have the choice of what our spirit shall do upon death of the physical body. We can choose to remain behind or even become trapped due to death claiming us but not realizing we are dead. I do think we can incarnate into another life experience if we desire and perhaps even have periods of recall of previous lives of prior incarnations. It's like I was in my teens and was walking home late one evening when I encountered a gentleman who walked a bit with me and suggested I change my course that night. Two things became apparent later, I was directed away from a wreck that I would have been killed in for certain. Secondly, I would find a picture years later of the man who walked with me in a family album only to discover he was my mother's uncle and died the day I was born. So some 17 years after his death he walked next to me in the dark of the night and caused a change in my life.

Was it a ghost? If it was it was the most physical ghost I would ever encounter. Unlike any of the other ghost, apparitions, specters or such I would encountered through out the 50+ years I have been alive. Some who where but echoes upon a place others who seemed aware of their presence and I was the ghostly form before them. Sort of like Resurrection Mary of Chicago who makes her journey home over and over only to be prevented from actually arriving yet able to converse with any number of people who have stopped and given her a ride home. Even going so far as occasionally to leave physical evidence behind of her presence in their cars.

We're do we go once we drop our earthly garb? That I do not know for sure though I have memories of a place where my family waited with me to be born into this current lifetime. A place that was like an open field upon the side of a mountain with chirping birds, flowing water, a soft blowing breeze and a scent of honey suckle upon the wind. Of going to sleep as I lay down in the field to awaken in the hospital where I was born and a faint echo of voices way off in the distance. That and a sense that I elected to come back with a purpose. Unfortunately over the years loosing that sense of why and what I had hoped to accomplish as this life path has unfolded beneath my feet and before me.

[iflewoverthecuckoosnest]

Re: After Death

I get that. That was one of the things I was told, as I very briefly touched upon in a previous post. Most people bring their ideas and beliefs with them for the first period of their "afterlife" and for a time, you'll experience what you expected to (consciously or subconsciously). The only reason I didn't have this period was because I was so young and because due to other issues, I hadn't yet formed any beliefs. It's extremely difficult for people who have already been exposed to any sorts of beliefs to have a (for lack of a better word, because it's a highly inaccurate word from a spiritual standpoint, but an adequate one for the english language) "pure" experience.

When I had a later experience, I met Jesus. Who, by the way, told me that "he" appeared that way because [at that time in my life] I would never have accepted it had It appeared in any other way. So the later experience was, you might say, 'tainted' by experience/ beliefs/ ideas. The initial experiences entered a void, where the others were filtered by other factors.

So yes, I can see how someone with a bleak view of life would experience a bleak afterlife. Most who are blank enough to have (again, for lack of a better word) "pure" experiences don't remember them. I am cursed with a too-perfect memory. I remember things from earlier than age 2.

That's all quite interesting. Thank you for telling us about your after death memories. If I am being perfectly honest, I am still not entirely convinced that there is an afterlife, but I fully accept that there may be one, and your story gives me a lot of food for thought.

[Lilium of the Valley]

Re: After Death

thanks for all the great replies...really fascinated by the after death stories...it definitely made me look more into the direction that "perhaps there is a life, after life"...

[StormBringer]

Re: After Death

Well, I am not much for long words but.. Theres something out there. I know this with a small degree of certainty. I've been dead 3 times. (twice by drowning, once by electrocution.) I've 'restarted' each time and I got to say.. Theres both great and terrible things out there. Some day I should write a, possibly silly, book on it. Either way, death, life seem to have similarities to each other, and great great differences.

[Doc_Holliday]

Re: After Death

I believe you go to the afterlife you're selected god(ess) figure controls, or whatever pantheon you believe in. So for me, Asgard, to be with the Aesir.

For you who do not believe in anything, I'm not sure where you'd go in my belief system, curious thought that is.

[Wednesday]

Re: After Death

I think, from the lore:

We exist always on earth as our hugr, which is tied to something physical like our bones or ashes. Hugr is something like spirit or animus. Men will generally 'live' in the mountains or in their grave mounds while women become female guardian spirits of the family known as disir. We join our ancestors, our loved ones, even or not-so-loved ones.

Edit: we don't join gods because the gods are alive and of the earth, not the otherworld. In fact, Odin often calls the dead to give him the answers he doesn't have.

[dgirl1986]

Re: After Death

I think we are reincarnated until we have earnt the right to progress to a higher plane.