Individuality in the afterlife
 

Hi guys,

I was wondering whether one's soul retains any kind of "individuality" after death. I would like to get an answer from someone who actually had a near death experience.
All of those who come back to life say that they "felt one with god". Does this in any way mean that our individuality is just a temporary expression of the whole? i.e. it's not really part of the whole but rather the whole itself. And in that case, wouldn't that be a little depressing? To know that after all nothing really matters and you are just a vehicle for God to explore and express itself? Many who had a near death experience also say that they did retain individuality but as a drop of water in the ocean. I'm a little confused. If we don't retain individuality, does that mean that our soul vanishes into the whole?

If we have always existed as spiritual beings, as many near death experiencers say, have we always existed as God or have we always existed as spiritual beings who form a collective consciousness, which is God, individually?

Would be grateful to have some interesting insights and, again, to get an answer from someone who has actually experienced an NDE first-hand.

Thank you

Hi, Plaxx...welcome to the forum...!

I had a NDE coming up on 11 years ago. What I experienced was a sense that whatever came to me seems to have come from within. Overall I felt a part of greater consciousness not separate from me, yet at the same time definitely retained a perception of being an individual...the individuality really not much a different feeling than in this life.

The drop of water in the ocean is an excellent analogy. Maybe not necessarily a vehicle for God, but perhaps a gift, or. simply the way consciousness works when free of the ego.

Depressing? No, not at all....it's much like the feeling you get when conversing with someone and you discover their opinions are exactly like yours...or perhaps the 'oneness' one can feel with their most cherished loved one.

Individuality in the afterlife
 

Hi Plaxx,

As to the part of your narrative concerning the "after-life", please consider that there is no "after life"....exactly like there is no "after-you" when you have walked through one door into another room. You are yet YOU...being YOU in another room.

Here's a taste of the depth of knowledge you can expect to see within the 1st reference, entitled "An Ascension Handbook" (see page 112) that explains why:

"....because Spirit is not limited by time or space, it is not only around "you", as are the lower fields, this aspect of you is "everywhere". It empowers your other fields and expresses through them. You are not, therefore, just your personality, or outer ego-awareness. You are much, much more. Part Two looks at how you can claim this larger identity and wake up to who you really are".

In the 2nd reference, please also consider the testimony of one who describes EXACTLY the very experience of returning from the "other room" in this description of Paramahansa Yogananda's reunion with his resurrected guru, Sri Yukteswar, who had returned to Earth, for a brief interlude with his former disciple, from a higher vibratory sphere called Hiranyaloka. Here's an excerpt from the source below:

"O Master", Yogananda said, "I was grieving so deeply about your death!" "Ah, wherein did I die? Isn't there some contradiction?" said Sri Yukteswar, eyes twinkling with love and amusement. Sri Yukteswar goes on to say to his former disciple, "You were only dreaming on earth; on that earth you saw my dream-body. Later you buried that dream-image. Now my finer fleshly body--which you behold and are even now embracing rather closely!--is resurrected on another finer dream-planet of God. Someday that finer dream-body and finer dream-planet will pass away; they too are not forever. All dream-bubbles must eventually burst at a final wakeful touch. Differentiate, my son Yogananda, between dreams and Reality!"

How evocative of Jesus' resurrection, life, and message. Can you not hear echoes of a similar conversation with His disciples upon reuniting with them following His ascension? How evocative of everything others have recorded of our higher-seeing Brothers and Sisters. This excerpt ALONE should hint that you are, as an immortal, omnipresent Spiritual Being, certainly more than you have been taught, and infinitely more than you may have thought. "I and the Father are One"....is just as true of you as it is of all your Brothers and Sisters....HOWEVER they appear, WHEREVER their birthplace is on the Earth, or WHATEVER they call themselves or you. THAT is the part you won't hear from those who've sought to keep access to the Truth about ourselves limited to ONLY a self-approved “credo” of beliefs espoused in some religion's scripture, filled with sanctioned interpretations about it.

This is what is so important to me about this wonderful forum of seekers who share our journeys together. That we are learning to differentiate between the dreams we call our mortal earthly lives and the eternal Reality we thought we'd left behind.

Hope these help answer your questions: "have we always existed as God or have we always existed as spiritual beings who form a collective consciousness, which is God, individually?"

Reference: https://www.scribd.com/doc/92652386/...Serapis#scribd An Ascension Handbook

Reference: https://www.crystalclarity.com/yogananda/chap43.php The Resurrection of Sri Yukteswar

Thank you very much for your reply.
I do understand what you have said but from the perspective of someone who has never had an NDE it's difficult to understand how one can actually retain any kind of individuality within the "oneness" everyone talks about.
I have the issue that when we'll become one with God "once again" we will lose everything, not just our individuality, but also our individual will to decide whether we want to experience material life once again.
I have no problem in vibrating at the same frequency as the univeral energy. What I do fear, is the impossibility to be somehow separate.

BEING ATONE WITH GOD, MEANS THAT YOU, AS AN INDIVIDUAL IDENTITY, HAS REACHED A POINT IN YOUR LIFE THAT HAS YOU %100 TOTALY "LIVING IN HARMONY WITH GODS WAY OF LOVE"
AND BEING ABLE TO GAIN ENTRY INTO GODS MANY SALUBRIOUS MANSIONS WITHIN THE HOLY KINGDOM.

AND YOU WILL DEFINITELY RETAIN THE SAME IDENTITY AND INDIVIDUALITY THAT YOU HAVE ALWAYS HAD. AND YOU STILL HAVE THE FREEDOMS OF CHOICE TO DO WHATEVER AND OR GO WHERE EVER, YOU SO CHOOSE, WITH WHOEVER, WITHIN ANY PART OF THE UNIVERSE....

AND "WHATEVER" YOU CHOOSE TO DO, AND "WHERE EVER" YOU CHOOSE TO DO IT, WITHIN THE ONE AND ONLY UNIVERSE....YOU WILL ALWAYS BE IN A TOTAL STATE OF "HARMONY WITH GODS LOVING WAY OF BEING.

A "LOVING GOD" DID NOT CREATE A BEING SUCH AS OURSELVES, FOR 'GOD' ITSELF TO LIVE LIFE THROUGH US...NOR TO TAKE OUR IDENTITY, FREE WILL AND INDIVIDUALITY AWAY FROM US.....DOING SO WOULD BE..."GOD"...GOING AGAINST..."GODS OWN LAWS OF LOVE".

AND ONCE YOU HAVE TASTED THE LIFE WITHOUT THE FLESH, YOU WILL NEVER HAVE THE DESIRE FOR THE TASTE OF IT EVER AGAIN.

AND YOU WILL HAVE, WITHIN THE REALMS OF LIFE WITHOUT THE FLESH, EVERTHING NESSESARY TO CONTINUE YOUR LIFE ON, WHILST STILL LEARNING OF ALL THINGS OF A "LOVING MORALITY"...AND NO NEED TO RE EXPERIENCE A LIFE IN THE FESHLY FORM EVER AGAIN.

Regards Neil.

Also, something that is not clear to me is whether wh have always existed as spiritual beings. If that is the case, and we are in fact a "fragment of God", it necessarily means that God is limited and not infinite. If we are many individuals that have always existed all together where does God's finity start?What do you think?

Neil: AND ONCE YOU HAVE TASTED THE LIFE WITHOUT THE FLESH, YOU WILL NEVER HAVE THE DESIRE FOR THE TASTE OF IT EVER AGAIN. Yep, I kinda experienced that during my NDE...I SO didn't want to come back to this existence when I realized I had to.

I'm still confused as to why incarnation into this existence happens. It really didn't make sense to me that consciousness survives "death" before my NDE...but after it caused me to know that it does. Is the reason lessons (I kinda suspect the "spirit knows")...is it a necessary symbiotic relationship...is it a hobby or pass-time of that other place...are they like dreams are to this existence in that other place? I sure don't know. All I know is I experienced that that place is the reality of existence, and this place is not.

Plaxx, I think the questioning comes because of trying to define...figure out...what "God" is. I still don't accept the idea of there being a "God", not in the sense of the God of Abraham or any other God I've heard of...a "superior" entity that one day out of boredom or loneliness just decided to create the universe and life...that's a human concept and a result of the ego. I kinda think consciousness (without the ego) simply is. The core of it is likely "God" (for lack of a better word if we must try to define it). I've wondered if consciousness simply developed when the big bang happened...and has happened (and will happen) countless times (lol...that would mean many "Gods"...but...still...one consciousness...???)
In a nutshell, I'm not sure why there is consciousness or what it is...or if there's some "divine reason" for it. I only know (of course personally and not provable by any present scientific means) because of my NDE that it indeed exists.

And regardless of what God and consciousness are, do you believe, based on your experience, that our individual consciosuness (soul?) will go on forever, regardless of which forms it might take or of where ti might reside (spirit world)? Or do you rather think that it will come to an "end" one day?

I think it is impossible to reason about infinite and eternal. Also, in the context of those concepts, is it conceivable to have "rays", by that meaning "have beginning, but no end"? The God concept means: "I can reason only to a limit, what's beyond I'll call God".

I could not imagine that we would end at some point, after having developed so incredibly much, in our soul development...all of the knowledge and memories that we would have amassed within our being/consciousness.
It doesn't seem right for all of that, of which we would have become, to be extinguished at some point in the future.

It has been said to me that if we were on a "divine love path" in our lives (instead of a natural love path) then at some point in our development as divine beings, we can merge with our soulmate as a complete whole new kind of entity...and life can follow a whole new exiting existence.

I am led to believe that when a person reaches a state of being of atonement with god..."full divinity"....life realy excels from that point on.....I refer to atonement as still being an individual with free will, to do and travel wherever and whenever you please...BUT...." separate from god, but like unto god in his very essence".

LIVING A LIFE AS A FULLY DEVELOPED BEING...IN GODS VERY ESSENCE...AND STILL BEING AN INDIVIDUAL. ...IN HIS MOST MASSIVE HOLY KINGDOM....I AM LED TO BELIEVE IS A VERY EXUBERANT LIFE STYLE.

Regards neil.