Does belief in the afterlife have a downside?

[knightofalbion]

Originally Posted by miss_vanora

I believe that killing yourself or purposely letting yourself die if it's not your time to go then you'll just reincarnate immediately so you can finish off what you were supposed to do/learn in this life.

I don't see a downside to believing in the afterlife and I'm quite looking forward to it, but not until it's my time to go.

Maybe not immediately, but yes, an excellent post. Wise words.

'When the fruit is ripe, it will fall' - and not before.

[knightofalbion]

Originally Posted by Native spirit

You should live in the now as psychoslice has said, but the spirit world is a wonderful place to be, as a medium we have to be careful what we say, so as not to make ppl ,want to go there before their time, because it doesnt solve anything, spirit will tell you the greatest gift you can give them is to live, then they can enjoy it with you,
Namaste

Yes, people who promote knowledge of life after death, which is a fine and admirable thing to do, need to counterbalance that knowledge by explaining why we are here in this earth life (i.e. to learn and advance the soul) and that suicide is wrong.

[alamode]

I think that the only time I would be capable of feeling like there was no purpose of living and stop trying is if and when I don't have any more relationships with anyone in this life (like, no friends, no family, no pets, etc. --which I hope that never ever happens) but if its where I was all alone and there was no one else, then maybe I'd not try as hard to live. I wouldn't commit suicide, but then I just wouldn't "care" as much to live.

[theophilus]

Originally Posted by Geomagman

If there is a huge reward waiting for you when you die...well shy not?

Your thoughts?

If you believe in afterlife then you must also believe in God. How your belief in an afterlife would reflect your behavior would depend on what you believe about how God wants you to live.

I am a Christian so I believe there is an afterlife and I will be rewarded for whatever good I have done while on this life. I am looking forward to the afterlife but I won't do anything to get there soonser. God has given every saved person work that he wants him to accomplish. If I do anything to cut my life short it wll keep me from doing all that God wants me to do and that will affect the size of the reward I receive.

But a belief in an afterlife can have an adverse affect on how you act in relation to others. There are terrorists who are willing to carry out suicidal attacks on others because they believe that they will be rewarded in the afterlife for their actions.

Originally Posted by psychoslice

That's what I always say also, what a world if we all could live for NOW, and not some dream of a future life

That would be awesome, to create every moment, to live every NOW, not the past, not the future... Even I sometimes forget to do that...

There's a saying in India; "When you get on a bus make sure the driver is a Christian, because if he's a Hindu, he won't care about hurtling the bus over a cliff because it's he'll just be sitting in the back of the bus the next time!"

Actually understanding the simple fact that we don't die - that we are eternal, is a healthful revelation. You can erase a major fear in a life. But the more profound study is to examine what people say about healing and healers - and the process of how healing is done through energy and helping those healers or doctors who are doing their task of healing the sick.

I've personally witnessed people curing themselves while under deep hypnosis and accessing a past life - one was a woman with severe aquaphobia <snip> and the other was a man with a kidney ailment he'd spent thousands of dollars to fix, and was able to heal it during his past life session where he remember someone stabbing him there. And I mean cure, as I was having dinner with this man's doctor two weeks after his session and the Doctor said "Did he call you? I just got his panels back?" And I said "what do you mean?" and the Doc said "when he came to me he was in renal failure - I was going to put him on dialysis - and whatever happened in your session made it so his panels came back normal."

My point is that we treat illness with two modalities - people's genetics and then their sociological factors (predisposition to illness,or environmental factors) and what's missing in medicine is this third factor, which is equally important - the spirit of the individual. Is there some factor that can be examined under hypnosis? A past life trauma? And if so can it be helped or removed?

One example was a woman I filmed recently, a skeptic, who had a tumor on her bladder and didn't believe in past life regression or life between life therapy, but thought if she could access her subconscious it might help with her upcoming operation. And when she got to the point where she was addressing her spirit guide she asked "what about this tumor?" And the spirit guide said "It's just physical, go to the doctor and get it removed." And her follow up question was "is there anything the hypnotherapist can do to help me with this problem?" And the spirit guide said "Why, is he a surgeon? No, just get it taken care of."

I thought that was pretty funny - we have a tendency to put the evils of modern medicine (funny, I don't feel that way traveling in foreign countries where health care is free), but it's not about convincing the doctor that there are other factors involved, it's about seeking out information that can be helpful in the healing process.

People have asked me - "so if there's no punishment in the afterlife, why wouldn't someone just check out early?" The punishment is self inflicted - because you've screwed up everyone else's elaborately laid out plans for selfish reasons. You won't be punished, but it will be a long time before you can return to learn the lessons that you signed up to learn. It's a deep issue and deserves a deeper discussion of it at a later moment. Right now, bed calls.

Edited by SF Staff