will i still be'me' in the afterlife??
 

This is the big crux, is individuality and personality retained? The loved ones who have gone ahead, will they be recognisable when we make our own journey?? If we regain knowledge of former lives, you wonder if this will in effect obliterate the individuality that we recognise in our lives here?

I have heard of what happens re: reincarnation etc....but I have to say I don't personally know that yet

But what I do know and am happy to pass on is that yes, individuality and personality is retained on the otherside. Loved ones are very much themselves, and one would have no difficulty recognising them....yet thay also have some added quality....so yes there are some changes. From my own experience, those changes are graceful and lovely.

What happens beyond that I do not know for certain. I can only tell you what I do definitely know.

Mind you, I can't get interested in reincarnation, and most likely won't be interested in it when I pass either....for quite some time at least! And by then I shall understand more about it no doubt.

I think it is individual and depends on many different factors. For this reason was ancient mysteries and there are many different teachings, like spiritual alchemy, some paths of yogis and others.

Let me ask you a question:

As a little baby, were you worried to loose this identity and to become something else ?
As a little child, were you worried to loose this identity and to become an teenager ?
As a Teenager, were you worried to loose this identity and to become an Adult ?

If you look at all this, as a coat, why are you worried to loose the whatever you call me, when there is something that never changed ?

In every question it was YOU which never changed. Only the coat was exchanged.

This explanation puts things in a straight foward way to think about this subject. .....I like it!

Whenever this subject comes up what author-philosopher Robert Heinlein wrote about it always comes to mind.

He once said that " there is no scientific evidence of life after death. ...but there's no evidence against it either.....soon enough we'll all know"

I'm not one that needs scientific proof of what I believe will happen to me after I die. I know (for me) what I know.

You are not even the idea you have of yourself now, so why worry about who you will be later?

We do indeed see ourselves in a peculiar light - one that is blemished by the illusion that maya relentlessly seems to place upon our awareness. What we often forget is that the "God force" that has created us, as entities within the realms of Creation - that is to say (in abridgment): the Force that has "emptied" us out onto the planes of reality - is a singular, originating "intelligence". There is nothing outside of it. There is nothing to add to it, for it is entirely composed of It's own "infinite" nature.

However, for the sake of expression; for the sake to "experience" IT-SELF as NOT-SELF (an intelligent decision predating mortal sentience), It chose to place into motion a universe of matter and time, and to "sprinkle" this realm with a diversity of sentient creatures whose soul purpose is to reveal aspects about this Infinite Self as if it were a child opening its first Christmas presents. The purpose is plain, simple and straight forward: If you were an Infinite and Absolute (all inclusive) entity, in order to "be surprised" and to know joy and wonder in a perpetual sense - although you exist in a kairotic field of awareness - you must transform yourself - (in one meaning of the word: "forget" yourself for a "duration") - you must produce a realm of maya, and then, move about within it, as if you were a diversity of various sentient expressions.

This whole process has to occur aperiodically in the temporal realms, be reorganized as various "passionate" sensations in the astral/emotional realm, so it can be synthesized in the mental/manasic, then integrated within the Buddhic/Intuitional realm, so the lower spirit can associate "itself/not-self" with the (always infinite) "IT-SELF" all over again - as if for the first time, so as to perpetuate the universal motions of being.

To me, I have to say; "of course we appear as not even the idea we have of our self - 'now' -" because we see our somatic selves in the now, and not our psychic selves. We were designed this way. We tend to forget how important the journey is, because we are constantly focusing solely on the destination (or the place where we currently are). In other words, we tend to associate entirely with our "will/life force/desire to retain an ego" .

Our initial reaction to reality is that we are separations from the rest of it. We don't relate to an ever present "other" that we are forever bonded to anyway. If we perceive ourselves as "something different", then we are not going to have "...even an idea you have of yourself now...".

Thus, the earthly journey begins...

So, "would I still be me in the afterlife?" ... I would have to say that "being me" means that I would, but only after gathering unto myself all of the aspects of the universe that will suit the definition of what being me is.

Dear Metal68

In the Spirit´s Book from Allan Kardec questions 149 to 152 can answer you:

Free download at:
www.ssbaltimore.org/PDF/Spirits.pdf

The Soul After Death
149. What becomes of the soul at the moment of death?'
"It becomes again a spirit; that is to say, it returns into the world of spirits, which it had quitted for a short time."
150. Does the soul, after death, preserve its individuality?'
"Yes, it never loses its individuality. What would the soul be if it did not preserve it?"
- How does the soul preserve the consciousness of its individuality, since it no longer has its material body?'
"It still has a fluid peculiar to itself, which it draws from the atmosphere of its planet, and which represents the appearance of its last incarnation-its perispirit."
- Does the soul take nothing of this life away with it?
"Nothing but the remembrance of that life and the desire to go to a better world. This remembrance is full of sweetness or of bitterness according to the use it has made of the earthly life it has quitted. The more advanced is the degree of its purification, the more clearly does it perceive the futility of all that it has left behind it upon the earth."
151. What is to be thought of the opinion that the soul after death returns to the universal whole?
"Does not the mass of spirits, considered in its totality, constitute a whole? Does it not constitute a world? When you are in an assembly you form an integral part of that assembly, and yet you still retain your individuality."
152. What proof can we have of the individuality of the soul after death?
"Is not this proof furnished by the communications which you obtain ? If you were not blind, you would see; if you were not deal you would hear; for you are often spoken to by a voice which reveals to you the existence of a being exterior to yourself."
Those who think that the soul returns after death into the universal whole are in error if they imagine that It loses its Individuality, like a drop of water that falls Into the ocean they are right If they mean by the universal whole the totality of Incorporeal beings, of which each soul or spirit Is an element.
If souls were blended together Into a mass, they would possess only the qualities common to the totality of the mass there would be nothing to distinguish them from one another, and they would have no special, intellectual, or moral qualities of their own. But the communications we obtain from spirits give abundant evidence of the possession by each spirit of the consciousness of the me, and of a distinct will, personal to itself; the infinite diversity of characteristics of all kinds presented by them Is at once the consequence and the evidence of their distinctive personal individuality. If, after death, there were nothing but what is called the "Great Whole," absorbing all individualities, this whole Would be uniform in its characteristics and, in that case, all the communications received from the invisible world would be identical. But as among the denizens of that other world we meet with some who are good and some who are bad, some who are learned and some who are ignorant, some who are happy and some who are unhappy, and as they present us with every shade of character, some being frivolous and other. serious, etc., it is evident that they are different individualities, perfectly distinct from one another. This individuality becomes still more evident when they are able to prove their identity by unmistakable tokens, by personal details relating to their terrestrial life, and susceptible of being verified; and it cannot be a matter of doubt when they manifest themselves to our sight under the form of apparitions. The individuality of the soul has been taught theoretically as an article of faith; Spiritism renders it patent, as an evident, and, so to say, a material fact.

Good reading!

Dear Metal68

In the Spirit´s Book from Allan Kardec questions 149 to 152 can answer you:

Free download at:
www.ssbaltimore.org/PDF/Spirits.pdf

The Soul After Death
149. What becomes of the soul at the moment of death?'
"It becomes again a spirit; that is to say, it returns into the world of spirits, which it had quitted for a short time."
150. Does the soul, after death, preserve its individuality?'
"Yes, it never loses its individuality. What would the soul be if it did not preserve it?"
- How does the soul preserve the consciousness of its individuality, since it no longer has its material body?'
"It still has a fluid peculiar to itself, which it draws from the atmosphere of its planet, and which represents the appearance of its last incarnation-its perispirit."
- Does the soul take nothing of this life away with it?
"Nothing but the remembrance of that life and the desire to go to a better world. This remembrance is full of sweetness or of bitterness according to the use it has made of the earthly life it has quitted. The more advanced is the degree of its purification, the more clearly does it perceive the futility of all that it has left behind it upon the earth."
151. What is to be thought of the opinion that the soul after death returns to the universal whole?
"Does not the mass of spirits, considered in its totality, constitute a whole? Does it not constitute a world? When you are in an assembly you form an integral part of that assembly, and yet you still retain your individuality."
152. What proof can we have of the individuality of the soul after death?
"Is not this proof furnished by the communications which you obtain ? If you were not blind, you would see; if you were not deal you would hear; for you are often spoken to by a voice which reveals to you the existence of a being exterior to yourself."
Those who think that the soul returns after death into the universal whole are in error if they imagine that It loses its Individuality, like a drop of water that falls Into the ocean they are right If they mean by the universal whole the totality of Incorporeal beings, of which each soul or spirit Is an element.
If souls were blended together Into a mass, they would possess only the qualities common to the totality of the mass there would be nothing to distinguish them from one another, and they would have no special, intellectual, or moral qualities of their own. But the communications we obtain from spirits give abundant evidence of the possession by each spirit of the consciousness of the me, and of a distinct will, personal to itself; the infinite diversity of characteristics of all kinds presented by them Is at once the consequence and the evidence of their distinctive personal individuality. If, after death, there were nothing but what is called the "Great Whole," absorbing all individualities, this whole Would be uniform in its characteristics and, in that case, all the communications received from the invisible world would be identical. But as among the denizens of that other world we meet with some who are good and some who are bad, some who are learned and some who are ignorant, some who are happy and some who are unhappy, and as they present us with every shade of character, some being frivolous and other. serious, etc., it is evident that they are different individualities, perfectly distinct from one another. This individuality becomes still more evident when they are able to prove their identity by unmistakable tokens, by personal details relating to their terrestrial life, and susceptible of being verified; and it cannot be a matter of doubt when they manifest themselves to our sight under the form of apparitions. The individuality of the soul has been taught theoretically as an article of faith; Spiritism renders it patent, as an evident, and, so to say, a material fact.

Good reading!