How can we get a concrete understanding of the afterlife?

I think the saying that the earthly things speak of the heavenly things seems reasonable - things are in a particular way over here because they are in a particular way over there. Or in other words the human being is a heavenly thing that's taken an earthly form. Isn't this then true of everything else so why should there even be a difference between the heavenly and earthly things? Perhaps only in the sense that some earthly things aren't as they appear to be? But what can the individual use to understand the true heavenly things, his purpose here and what's coming after this presence?

[Native spirit]

You are in the spirit world what you are here only difference being you have no body


Namaste

[Peaseblossom]

I agree with both, adding:

It will be exactly as we think it will be.

[Miss Hepburn]

One thing I would change in it being exactly as we think is:
From what I have heard ---the love and forgiveness is quite a surprise to many!!!

[AnotherBob]

This is the afterlife. Now & then are not two. It is simply a matter of interpretation on perception, or angle of vision. There is only Source in either case. Certainly, earthly existence typically involves a seemingly individual physical body, but that body is composed of elements that are themselves composed of elements, and if you continue to trace it back to its presumed origin you cannot find anything substantial or concrete, hence Buddhists designate both self and phenomena as "empty" of any enduring qualities or attributes. Its intrinsic transiency might be considered evidence of its inherent unreality.

Sometimes we take physical bodies, sometimes not. It can be compared to changing clothes. We are not the clothes, but there are times when it serves our ongoing expansion to wear certain outfits. The bodies are outfits -- physical, etheric, mental, causal. They all have the same essential quality of emptiness.

We are the energy behind the appearances. The afterlife is empty until our energy superimposes itself on it, hence we have various stories of energetic interactions on more subtle levels of consciousness, which we interpret as "the afterlife". There is only one life, one consciousness, manifesting as everyone and everything.

The One looks like Many, due to our immature level of vision, but as that vision expands, our many-ness reveals itself as a singularity. Hence, the truly awakened proclaim: "There is only God, and you are That."

__/\__

[Charles Lockwood]

Life is a continuum, so the afterlife is a slight misnomer. This earth life is an after life of what preceded it, through the process of reincarnation. All the evidence and personal testimony reveals that we have a body in the spirit world (our afterlife), so I am unclear what Native Spirit's evidence is that we have no body in the afterlife.

[hazada guess]

You are spirit in the Afterlife, so you can be or go wherever you want to.We are unit's of Consciousness.
Our thought patterns exist outside of our spiritual body.(Depending on the vibration you are in at the time).

[kris]

I think we can get an understanding of the afterlife when we experience it. Then again, we are experiencing this life now without a whole lot of understanding of it. Same might be true in the afterlife, or in other words, we may not have much understanding of the afterlife when we experience it.

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by kris

I think we can get an understanding of the afterlife when we experience it.
Then again, we are experiencing this life now without a whole lot of understanding of it.

Hysterical!!!!!

[aiken]

The afterlife or life after death is a purported existence in which the essential part of an individual's stream of consciousness or identity continues to exist after the death of their physical body.