Afterlife - Where do we go?

[Mystic-als]

Hi all,

I wanted to post this here as an open question to Indigenous Religions and Mythologies. I believe that we don't "go" anywhere special and that our "energy" or spirit live always. This then choses to inhabit a new host (baby) and the cycle is repeated.

What does your belief say about where you go after death?

 

[Phil Lawton]

What does your belief say about where you go after death?

My people's scriptures say that we go first to Chepstow (there's a community hall in Mounton Drive) and then to a great wilderness, where lost souls wander for an eternity with no hope or light.

It's called Walsall.

 

[Seraphiel]

I totally agree with you Mystic-alls. Energy never dies.

 

[TurtleGirl]

Even though many of my spiritual beliefs come from Cherokee traditions, I really identify with the Lakota view on "afterlife."

During life you can walk the Black Road of imbalance. When you cross you are reborn in another body to learn the life lessons you missed in your previous life to become more balanced.

To live a balanced life is to walk the Red Road. One who has successfully walked the Red Road in life crosses and their spirit joins Creator, or Wakan Tanka, to become a part of everything with Wakan Tanka.

Ehanamani (Dr. A.C. Ross) explains it really well in Mitakuye Oyasin. The book gets a little weird as it goes along, but the explainations of the Lakota traditions and spirituality in the beginning and the comparisons to other major world relgions is very good.

 

[painted wolf]

I also lean tword the Lakota view, spititually.
From a more "scientific view" I like Carl Sagan's take on an afterlife.

I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides. [Carl Sagan, 1996 in his article In the Valley of the Shadow Parade Magazine Also, Billions and Billions p. 215]

When I die, regardless of what happins next, I am content to know that everything I am right now will go on. Even if it is just as atoms in the Earth or in the animals that feed on my body.

wa:do

 

[djackson]

Has anyone seen the documentary "What the bleep do we know". It is a collection of scientists, theologians, and metaphysicists that comment on new discoveries of particle physics and unified field theory that leans towards the idea that we are all gods of our own universe, our thoughts affecting all in it positively or negatively. So following that, perhaps when we die, the universe just restarts and we choose or create a new one. Perhaps all that we are is just a interactive recording being played out by a higher consciousness that is us, interacting with other consciousness'/souls that we choose to be in our universe. I guess this also follows reincarnation, and karmic beliefs.

 

[Willamena]

The way I understand it, it's not so much a "where" as a "what". A return to proper being. (Not my personal belief ...yet.)

 

[.lava]

Hi all,

I wanted to post this here as an open question to Indigenous Religions and Mythologies. I believe that we don't "go" anywhere special and that our "energy" or spirit live always. This then choses to inhabit a new host (baby) and the cycle is repeated.

What does your belief say about where you go after death?

it was said there are dimensions. one of them is called Berzah. that's where people usually go when they are asleep. in their dreams if they are not in physical world they are in Berzah. Berzah is not physical place. that would be the same place where dead peoples not-physical bodies go and wait until the end of the world. therefor they would be like they're having dreams. Islamic records say they would feel like they slept for a night after waiting for thousands of years in Berzah.

ps: we can see our relatives that passed away in our dreams. that means we were in Berzah. if you're in physical world in your dream and if you look in the mirror you could not see your reflection. cos body you're using wouldnot be physical and other people wouldnot be able to see you and even walk through you.

 

[Aupmanyav]

During life you can walk the Black Road of imbalance. When you cross you are reborn in another body to learn the life lessons you missed in your previous life to become more balanced.

To live a balanced life is to walk the Red Road. One who has successfully walked the Red Road in life crosses and their spirit joins Creator, or Wakan Tanka, to become a part of everything with Wakan Tanka.

This is exactly the same as the Hindu view, of course, we do not have the black road and the red road. The anthromorphic hindu Gods are Vishnu and Shiva, Brahman is their abstract representation. We say we merge with Brahman, which is the substrate which forms all seen in the universe. Rebirth in different bodies is for spiritual progression.

Modern Hinduism is an indigenous religions formed with merging of two streams, the Vedic Aryans of Central Asia and the indigenous philosophies of India.

 

[TurtleGirl]

That's very cool! I didn't know that. Thank you so much for sharing! I love seeing those parts of faith that are shared between cultures, when beliefs align such as this. It just strengthens my spiritual belief that we are all related.

 

[Aupmanyav]

When I die, regardless of what happins next, I am content to know that everything I am right now will go on. Even if it is just as atoms in the Earth or in the animals that feed on my body.
wa:do

Carl Segan is a sage. What happens to us is interesting. We come from millions of things and go into milllions of things. We are indestrustible, sort of eternal. We (or what constitutes us) has been around for 14 billion years and would be around for many more billions of years.

djackson, what you wrote is Buddhism. I have differences with that. My universe goes on uninterrupted. No universal consciousness, no karma.

 

[St Giordano Bruno]

I do not think there is any one absolute answer but the one I find the most plausible is a form of reincarnation without memories of past lives and more out of anthropic bias and necessity than any other religious interpretation or any religious belief.

I am inclined to think that all your memories of this life are confined to one's mortal brain and once one dies not only are all your memories of this life obliterated but any concept of ever been born at all in the first place obliterated, which makes me stop and think as to why I managed to be born in the first place and why it did not find myself emerging within the brain case of someone else? So I came up with a theory. We assume the brain is a product of genetic information, which is why it tends to stick to the same genetic template such as the frontal lobe, occipital lobe and hippocampus etc being genetically programmed to grow in their respective positions.

So I have a theory that once we die we just become one with this genetic template of the brain such as being one with all foetal brains until one is selected for you just out of chaotic randomness then you are so tightly that one brain you have the illusion that that is all there is of you until that organism dies. I feel this theory is kind of elegant because it seems to get over the conundrum of why we managed to get born at all in the first place, or the generation problem. It is just that matter achieved a critical level of complexity that consciousness emerged purely just out of anthropic necessity than design, divine or otherwise.

One thing our life and consciousness gives is a perception of time which we take so much for granted as though 13.7 billion years of time past between the BIg Bang and your birth your were totally oblivious to so let’s assume that we stayed dead permanently after end of our life then that would mean that there would be no perception of time so even an infinite number of years would go by un-noticed, which is IMHO highly paradoxical, because I cannot see how it could be possible to go beyond eternity, but shouldn't eternity never end? So maybe we only exist because the laws of nature necessarily permits conditions where we necessarily exist and it is only through conditions no matter how improbable they may seem to us that we can discuss such questions.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

I believe that we don't "go" anywhere special and that our "energy" or spirit live always. This then choses to inhabit a new host (baby) and the cycle is repeated.

It is my understanding that the 'I' /personal ego is a temporary entity that comes into being when the soul/spirit incarnates, and ultimately ceases to exist when the spirit leaves the body at death of the temporary host (human body). Each new incarnation results in a new persona, though of course the incarnating spirit soul contains the integrated sum total of all ego experiences garnered from all previous incarnations.

Where and what happens to a spirit soul that has not yet been fully 'born of the spirit' (angelic being) is beyond the capability of the time/space 3D human mind to know, but it is said that reincarnations continue until a spirit/light body has been perfected. As to what awaits those spirit souls that have evolved into spirit beings (angels), again because the spirit world is beyond 3D Time/Space reality, it can't be conveyed to the human mind except as mental conceptualizations which are only meant to represent spiritual reality, but are not IT in reality.

 

[St Giordano Bruno]

I can provide no concrete evidence for an afterlife but I can argue it logically, especially reincarnation or Nietzsche’s eternal return and I am not sure which is the most plausible if any.

I can argue it logically that the laws of nature at any given point of time after our death and at any given point of time after our birth are both identical, which is interesting because if you stand by the premise that any future existence after any given point of time after our death is impossible because the laws of nature forbid should also apply to any given point of time before our birth. Both laws of nature being both identical should make our current existence impossible. It would be as though our current existence is a paradox.

But if you argue that any future existence as a supernatural spirit being such as an angel at any given point of time after out death are impossible because the laws of nature forbid it the same laws should apply to any given point of time before your birth. That should not violate your current existence because you are obviously not a supernatural angel.

 

[Runewolf1973]

Hi all,

I wanted to post this here as an open question to Indigenous Religions and Mythologies. I believe that we don't "go" anywhere special and that our "energy" or spirit live always. This then choses to inhabit a new host (baby) and the cycle is repeated.

What does your belief say about where you go after death?

My belief is the same as yours. I believe that all there is is basically just energy/matter. I believe that what we call "life" is just another transformation/change that energy makes. In actuality, there is no separate mysterious thing that is "life" that is separate from what is energy/matter. "Life" is just a term we use to classify certain forms that that energy takes. If there is in actuality no "life", then there is no such thing as "death", only energy changing form. That to me IS reincarnation. That's how I see it anyways.

 

[St Giordano Bruno]

My belief is the same as yours. I believe that all there is is basically just energy/matter. I believe that what we call "life" is just another transformation/change that energy makes. In actuality, there is no separate mysterious thing that is "life" that is separate from what is energy/matter. "Life" is just a term we use to classify certain forms that that energy takes. If there is in actuality no "life", then there is no such thing as "death", only energy changing form. That to me IS reincarnation. That's how I see it anyways.

I beg to elaborate a bit more, matter an energy would not be enough because you could have the right amount of matter and energy but the universe could be purely chaotic. I think we need something more; we need "information processing" and that matter and energy would need to be configured properly for living things to reproduce and brains to think.

 

[Runewolf1973]

I beg to elaborate a bit more, matter an energy would not be enough because you could have the right amount of matter and energy but the universe could be purely chaotic. I think we need something more; we need "information processing" and that matter and energy would need to be configured properly for living things to reproduce and brains to think.

I should elaborate more on what it is I believe....

I believe that "information processing" is an integral part of all matter/energy. I believe that all energy changes form, has an action/reaction, cause and effect because it is in a way conscious...aware. I believe that our own "consciousness" is simply the result of the numerous interactions, actions and reactions of that same energy in our brains and bodies. After all, what is consciousness really? The ability to act and react to things around us...the ability to do work and cause change. That is what energy does as far as I understand it, but perhaps there are different levels of interactions, different types of consciousness. As an animist, I see everything that exists as conscious and animate. To me there is no such thing as "inanimate". People generally look at consciousness/life as something mysterious or some "phenomena", but I don't think it is mysterious at all. It simply is what it is, part of the energy/matter of this Universe. To be direct, I would say that yes, I agree with you. I do however, think this Universe is basically ruled by chaos...it all started with a Big Bang....and it may also end with one. I see nothing wrong with a Universe dominated by chaos. It is only our limited human perceptions that make us think it is something "bad".

 

[Midnight Pete]

Is the destination more important than the journey?

 

[St Giordano Bruno]

Is the destination more important than the journey?

My life's journey is full of plenty of interesting destinations; for instance I love hiking through the Australian bush and even if my destination is some spectacular waterfall sometimes I come across some very interesting subjects to photograph such as a rare wildflower or insect which may be more fulfilling and more memorable than that waterfall. I don't think we should make our lives miserable for some improbable reward in the afterlife, not feel guilty about living our life to the full for fear of some punishment in the afterlife.

 

[Midnight Pete]

My life's journey is full of plenty of interesting destinations; for instance I love hiking through the Australian bush and even if my destination is some spectacular waterfall sometimes I come across some very interesting subjects to photograph such as a rare wildflower or insect which may be more fulfilling and more memorable than that waterfall. I don't think we should make our lives miserable for some improbable reward in the afterlife, not feel guilty about living our life to the full for fear of some punishment in the afterlife.

If you worry about the afterlife too much, your experience of life will suffer. Life is a gift. We are alive for a reason.