What is the afterlife like?

[Busby]

Originally Posted by bobjob

Forgive me but I also went back to what he wrote. He 'said' "Mind lies above everything. Those things we call religion, spirits or souls are determined by mind both individual and in the mass. All those levels we call realities have their source in the universe's mind."

What I read there is muddled thinking or potentially - I'll concede - muddled presentation.
For example religion is indeed a product of the human mind - individual and in the mass as suggested - but (quote) "spirits or souls" are not. In the following sentence he suggested those items have their source in the universe's mind. They don't - as I pointed out.

No I would not disagree BUT if you - or indeed I - were to say that I would say it's important to explain why you/I say that.
Without context a point can be as difficult to respond to as having too many points packed into a single posting.

Busby has not responded to my points, I note.

Bobjob, you are right, I have not responded. But seeing that others are seemingly more affected than I am it would be better if I said a few words.

I'm fully aware that my views on the thing we call life have strayed far from the accepted path. This is because I have in my life experienced some very remarkable moments. Moments which bear, each in itself, an insight into a 'world' which denies all explanation. The words I use are the words which describe to me how it all seems to be - based initially on one enormous 'insight' or 'mystical experience' when I was 20 years old. The words I use nowadays are those I find get nearest to what I want to say.


I'm stating my case as an old man in the knowledge that each of us has a validity in his or her point of view. All such normal conditions of awareness all carry the reflection of what we delicately call the truth. Any attempt to use words to illustrate something undefinable is doomed. These 'insights' are the most valuable things we have - but it seems as if we don't all have them or realise that we have them.

You yourself see the truth in spiritualism - something which isn't foreign to me having communicated with my then just dead father and later with great joy with my wife a few weeks after she died. The scope of the mind whether human or collective lies outside our comprehension - the only way to even get close to whatever is the truth is to constantly ask questions and that is what I do.

I'm an avid reader of all threads in SF and find the various pictures painted almost overwhelming.

[bobjob]

Originally Posted by Busby

Bobjob, you are right, I have not responded. But seeing that others are seemingly more affected than I am it would be better if I said a few words.

I'm glad you've now re-joined this conversation. I'm not persuaded, though, that others are so much "affected" as wanting to add their ideas to the conversation.

I'm fully aware that my views on the thing we call life have strayed far from the accepted path.

which accepted path?

This is because I have in my life experienced some very remarkable moments. Moments which bear, each in itself, an insight into a 'world' which denies all explanation. The words I use are the words which describe to me how it all seems to be - based initially on one enormous 'insight' or 'mystical experience' when I was 20 years old. The words I use nowadays are those I find get nearest to what I want to say.

I accept totally why you 'speak' as you do. By contrast my 'awakening' arrived initially some 36 years ago but after that my insight grew progressively, continuing - I very much hope - into the present day.

I'm stating my case as an old man in the knowledge that each of us has a validity in his or her point of view.

agreed

All such normal conditions of awareness all carry the reflection of what we delicately call the truth.

I resist any such notion as 'the truth'. What's true is what's true - the truth if one wishes - and our grasp of the many true aspects of life here and life hereafter are what define what we understand.

Any attempt to use words to illustrate something undefinable is doomed.

agreed totally - We must do what we can, though, and I try to make words my slaves and not my master, even though it's a constant struggle.

These 'insights' are the most valuable things we have - but it seems as if we don't all have them or realise that we have them.

agreed again

You yourself see the truth in spiritualism

I've already addressed the issue of 'the truth' and Modern Spiritualism offers its own presentation of elements of it. I always say that the teachings of Spiritualism underpin what I understand. I call myself a Spiritualist because that's how I see myself BUT I also always say I'm not ONLY a Spiritualist.

- something which isn't foreign to me having communicated with my then just dead father and later with great joy with my wife a few weeks after she died.

I'm so glad to hear you speaking that way. Spiritualism declares we survive corporeal death and provides evidence of that via communication through mediumship. Some are hugely privileged to experience communication directly with their 'lost' loved ones. I've had neither yet I am certain - it's not a belief as some would have it. My path was different; that's often been the way of my life.

The scope of the mind whether human or collective lies outside our comprehension - the only way to even get close to whatever is the truth is to constantly ask questions and that is what I do.

And asking questions, posing challenges - as you may have surmised - is my way also.

I'm an avid reader of all threads in SF and find the various pictures painted almost overwhelming.

I've been a contributor on SF since shortly after Matt launched the site but as I am not knowledgeable about - or indeed interested in many categories represented here - unlike yourself I do not read all the threads here.

Originally Posted by AbodhiSky

the afterlife will be better than life on earth

Don't look toward death to discover the Truth, it is not there.

In other words what exists in the 'after life' is all that exists, right now we're part of it and have the same access to it as we will ever have. Death is not a requirement or a ticket. There's biblical proof of this in 2 kings 2 when Elijah an ordinary human was witnessed entering heaven without dieing.

We were never separate from heaven, we just created our own temporary delusional selves. It's so strange understanding this.. like people look at the afterlife as this strange unknown thing but you'll only have what you take with you the afterlife is just like life is now but without a physical body. Your choice to enter heaven is the same now as it will be after death there is no difference as even when you're dead you won't be able to see what you're currently blind to. Heaven isn't forced on anyone, it just waits.

It's such an important concept that religions seem to always fall short on. When you realize this is what Jesus was trying to teach things should become a lot clearer. To experience, not just believe. To follow him now, not later.. not 'meh, I'll do it after I die.'

[bobjob]

Originally Posted by PureEvil760

Don't look toward death to discover the Truth, it is not there.

Other than in folk's heads there is no such thing as "the truth".

In other words what exists in the 'after life' is all that exists, right now we're part of it and have the same access to it as we will ever have.

This is where your understanding gets shaky.

Death is not a requirement or a ticket. There's biblical proof of this in 2 kings 2 when Elijah an ordinary human was witnessed entering heaven without dieing.

oh dear

We were never separate from heaven,

correct

...we just created our own temporary delusional selves.

incorrect

It's so strange understanding this..

You don't.

like people look at the afterlife as this strange unknown thing but you'll only have what you take with you the afterlife is just like life is now but without a physical body.

More misunderstanding

Your choice to enter heaven is the same now as it will be after death there is no difference as even when you're dead you won't be able to see what you're currently blind to. Heaven isn't forced on anyone, it just waits.

Heaven - or whatever word you choose - is an automatic transition. A choice is not needed. I guess this is as close as our perspectives get....

It's such an important concept that religions seem to always fall short on. When you realize this is what Jesus was trying to teach things should become a lot clearer. To experience, not just believe. To follow him now, not later.. not 'meh, I'll do it after I die.'

Jesus was one more, admittedly important, messenger but he never intended others to follow HIM other than for the help in understanding he could provide at that time.

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by PureEvil760

Don't look toward death to discover the Truth, it is not there.

In other words what exists in the 'after life' is all that exists, right now we're part of it and have the same access to it as we will ever have. Death is not a requirement or a ticket. There's biblical proof of this in 2 kings 2 when Elijah an ordinary human was witnessed entering heaven without dying.

We were never separate from heaven, we just created our own temporary delusional selves. It's so strange understanding this.. like people look at the afterlife as this strange unknown thing but you'll only have what you take with you the afterlife is just like life is now but without a physical body. Your choice to enter heaven is the same now as it will be after death there is no difference as even when you're dead you won't be able to see what you're currently blind to. Heaven isn't forced on anyone, it just waits.

It's such an important concept that religions seem to always fall short on. When you realize this is what Jesus was trying to teach things should become a lot clearer. To experience, not just believe. To follow him now, not later.. not 'meh, I'll do it after I die.'

Good post.

Don't be mad, I corrected your spelling. 'dying'

I suspect varied and amazing.
Just like before death, varied and amazing.

[Busby]

You ask bobjob in number 43 'which 'accepted path'.

I mean that path trodden, called, in general, religion. A path discernable mainly through the insistence of believing in good and bad and splitting the world into goodies and baddies. The further insistence of being obedient and submissive to an unknown and indescribable but somehow perceived supernatural being. These processes, originally started by - in the world we know as the one we are in - Adam and Eve, have since taken on and caused untold suffering and pain all in the name of cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, friends and foe and so forth. All of this fighting in the hope of gaining quick and honoured entrance to some sort of paradise. That's what I meant.

For me personally the fact that I (and you and everyone else - and in fact everything else) is alive, in a condition or state we call consciousness is the most amazing thing. This is something that very few of us appreciate it seems. Whereby it is the starting point of all there is.

In reality the sheer fact of being alive is absolutely weird. It just cannot be.
We accept this existence in such a way that it can only be that it (our existence) was at some time a foregone conclusion. Watch say an elephant being born. After a short period of time it's on its feet already searching for its mother's milk. We can relate this to the path of evolution but the mere acceptance on our part that life, whether human of elephant is 'normal', is a small hint at what wonders lie beyond and under the surface of normality.
This is for me a constant puzzle - I have said before on SFs that the amazing fact of being alive should be at least mentioned in all schools at least once a day.

Maybe this isn't on topic but it is again part of this day, Christmas day, and I'd like to spread the thought of the impossibility of being 'alive' wider afield.

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by ImthatIm

I suspect varied and amazing.
Just like before death, varied and amazing.

Ha, best answer ever.

[bobjob]

Originally Posted by Busby

You ask bobjob in number 43 'which 'accepted path'.

I mean that path trodden, called, in general, religion. A path discernable mainly through the insistence of believing in good and bad and splitting the world into goodies and baddies. The further insistence of being obedient and submissive to an unknown and indescribable but somehow perceived supernatural being. These processes, originally started by - in the world we know as the one we are in - Adam and Eve, have since taken on and caused untold suffering and pain all in the name of cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, friends and foe and so forth. All of this fighting in the hope of gaining quick and honoured entrance to some sort of paradise. That's what I meant.

OK - the mainstream religious one..... I find all of them somewhat lacking.

For me personally the fact that I (and you and everyone else - and in fact everything else) is alive, in a condition or state we call consciousness is the most amazing thing. This is something that very few of us appreciate it seems. Whereby it is the starting point of all there is.

That's something I find completely normal - shows how perceptions vary.

In reality the sheer fact of being alive is absolutely weird. It just cannot be.
We accept this existence in such a way that it can only be that it (our existence) was at some time a foregone conclusion.

I see that we planned our incarnate and our latest incarnations were the logical outcome. Not all succeed of course, but all are planned.

Watch say an elephant being born. After a short period of time it's on its feet already searching for its mother's milk. We can relate this to the path of evolution but the mere acceptance on our part that life, whether human of elephant is 'normal', is a small hint at what wonders lie beyond and under the surface of normality.
This is for me a constant puzzle - I have said before on SFs that the amazing fact of being alive should be at least mentioned in all schools at least once a day.

It would be nice to see schools looking at life, at death and life beyond death in religious studies but I ain't hopeful. But I'd sooner there was no school indoctrination at all rather than poor religious tuition.

Maybe this isn't on topic but it is again part of this day, Christmas day, and I'd like to spread the thought of the impossibility of being 'alive' wider afield.

I think it's pretty much on-topic.

Originally Posted by bobjob

Heaven - or whatever word you choose - is an automatic transition. A choice is not needed.

Everything I say is somewhat correct, so I usually ignore people picking things apart as that's what they do to everything.

But I must warn you this is a critically incorrect belief which will cause suffering. Returning to the Truth is not an automated process, it requires our own free-will. You may get help after death but death isn't required. If death was required, no living prophet or psychic would exist. Our physical world would be 100% purely and technically atheist. Because all spiritual ability comes from our connection to it.