is reincarnation just another illusion to help us deal with nothingness?

[RedEmbers]

Originally Posted by Johnathanrs

Let me clarify, RedEmbers what is the soul to you?

I don't know!

I'm beginning to edge away from the concept of a soul and lean more towards the idea of an individual conciousness energy.

'Soul'... Suddenly feels like an outdated word to me for some reason.

[RedEmbers]

[quote=shoni7510

But to somebody who is not afraid of death but love their family and friends would find the idea of reincarnation scary because they won't have the same identity and similar set of friends and [/QUOTE]


This struck a cord with me.

[wolfgaze]

Originally Posted by RedEmbers

My other thought was that the fear of 'nothingness' is actually the driver of us trying to create some kind of immortality in our current physical world but in order to do so we are required to explore and learn much about conciousness... and memory

As someone who previously belived in an afterlife - human immortality wasn't something I took particularly seriously or particularly desired...given my current curiousity for science and awareness of my mortality its something I've started to give much more thought to.

"Immortality is here and now, and is not a speculative something beyond the grave. It is a lucid state of consciousness in which the sensations of the body, the varying and unrestful states of mind, and the circumstances and events of life are seen to be of a fleeting and therefore of an illusory character. Immortality does not belong to time, and will never be found in time; it belongs to Eternity; and just as time is here and now, so is Eternity here and now, and a man may find that Eternity and establish in it, if he will overcome the self that derives its life from the unsatisfying and perishable things of time." ~ James Allen

[Melahin]

Originally Posted by RedEmbers

Even 'nothingness'... whatever it actually is (lol) serves some kind of purpose... empty space is not nothingness... we just currently have a difficult time percieving whats in that empty space... and what purpose that stuff serves.

I currently describes incarnation like this, that the world is filled with voids created by desires. When our true being resonate with a void it is drawn into it thus filling it with consciousness; this consciousness we then call the subconsciousness is our drive in life, the very thing we with excitement have come to explore. The void is an empty space craving to be (ful)filled. Haha

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by wolfgaze

Well I don't perceive the bolded to be the case because the notion of reincarnation would actually be threatening to the egoic mind (or you could say the egoic identity)...
Why?
Because the egoic mind is a product of the physical body/brain and one's egoic identity is rooted in the perception of existing solely as a 'physical self' as well as the influence of the Earthly conditioning and experiences that unfold during this individual lifetime.
Therefore the notion of physically 'dying' and returning as someone else with a different body
and essentially a different identity
would be quite threatening to one's current identity if that sense of self is rooted in the egoic mind.

This, I believe, is why many individuals are opposed to the concept of reincarnation - because the thought of experiencing another human lifetime and/or having experienced prior human lifetimes challenges their (current)
reference points for who they are (their identity or 'sense of self').
It calls those reference points into question.

Now if you want to entertain the notion that there is 'nothing' after death - that will simultaneously raise the question of why anything exists to begin with.
What force or intelligence or energy is responsible for everything that is perceived to exist - ?
What is the purpose of all this? What happens to the energy that animates the physical body once that physical vessel can no longer support it?
Where does it go? These are rhetorical questions of course (no response required).
I'm just trying to illustrate that such a notion or line-of-thinking absolutely begs further questions and contemplation.
There's no sense of closure from simply thinking "You die and then there's nothing"...

I must say, this was quite an impressive post.

[CrystalKitty777]

“All the things that truly matter, beauty, love, creativity, joy and inner peace arise from beyond the mind.” --Eckhart Tolle

[jim78]

Originally Posted by Johnathanrs

Sure hope not. If energy is consciousness then that means that consciousness does die and is no different then OP's dissertation. I mean, the sun is one of the purest forms of energy around, worshiped in the past as a god, holder of most mysteries in today's science, and even speculated within the physics community as being a possible real 5th dimension entity due to its ability to actually warp and influence all things around it.

What happens to suns over time? If were not working off of the base that energy is energy and consciousness is consciousness then what does it say for concepts such as sentience. I am pretty sure that A.I. programs can mimic lower forms of intelligence, (is intelligence consciousness? ) yet still needs energy to work off of, or what we call electricity. I guess when a thunderstorm happens, it is really zeus making love to gaia right? Those aren't lightning bolts, they are babies and really we are experiencing a love fest in the air. I so knew it..

Anyways, it also would mean that things that if there are truly concepts such as lower entity life forms and such and they can steal your energy, then in essence they are eating you and seeing how they can hypothetically do this, what part is you at that point?

I mean if they can take half of you, assuming they just take half right, and half of you remains, then which version is you? It's the ship of theses all over again!

I could go on, but you get the point.

But energy doesnt die jonathan, it simply transforms. Besides you talking three dimensionally, whats eternal exists outside of that. Quantum mechanics may hold the key.

[RedEmbers]

I've wrapped my head around the eternity of the particles of stuff which makes me... me(well kind of).

I get that dna is encoded with its own instructions and genetic memory.

Now... here is where I am stuck. I never was really bothered by death - mortality and dying...
But I do feel kind of jibbed though that there is a whole array of "memory" or experience which I cannot access during this concious life.

Being curious and learning about all this cool stuff in life will become rather pointless when my physical body dies and I can no longer access the memory of it all... if my particles break down to create some green goo in a pond... will that goo have some sort of memory of everything it has learnt up until now?

I think that I have become fixated on this memory thing now

[wolfgaze]

Originally Posted by RedEmbers

Now... here is where I am stuck. I never was really bothered by death - mortality and dying...
But I do feel kind of jibbed though that there is a whole array of "memory" or experience which I cannot access during this concious life.

Being curious and learning about all this cool stuff in life will become rather pointless when my physical body dies and I can no longer access the memory of it all... if my particles break down to create some green goo in a pond... will that goo have some sort of memory of everything it has learnt up until now?

I think that I have become fixated on this memory thing now

RedEmbers you might find yourself intrigued by the content in the book The Holographic Universe (Michael Talbot), if you haven't already read it before...

Just a suggestion...



~WOLF

[CrystalKitty777]

The reason why people cling to their memories and identities is because their egos fear death [and that's also why many people fear death so much].

All the things that truly matter - beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace - arise from beyond the mind.
You cannot find yourself in the past or future. The only place where you can find yourself is in the Now.
I am not my thoughts, emotions, sense perceptions, and experiences. I am not the content of my life. I am Life. I am the space in which all things happen. I am consciousness.
[various quotations from Echkart Tolle; I highly recommend his books.]