Is the After-life a Logical Concept.. ?

[Accelerator]

Life - Its Potentials.. Are they limited.. or not.. ?

Is the after-life really a logical concept.. ?


Some ponderings….

If everything.. we see all around us.. can come out of nothing..

Then why shouldn't something.. even more remarkable.. arise out of all that already exists.. ?

Could another level of a living phenomena.. arise out of this existing material universe.. ?

An evolution of a new stage of life.. that is immaterial.. without any physical substance whatsoever. A form of life that has thought forms as its substance.. instead of atoms.. ?

Is that possible.. ?

That the universe.. and the life within it.. comes out of nothing.. is unbelievable.

Even impossible.. we might say.

So what is possible.. really.. ?

Why shouldn't another.. higher.. metaphysical level.. arise.. to serve as a platform.. on which consciousness could continue to exist.. after physical death.. in order to sustain the evolution of life.. and to take it even further.. ?

A purely mental environment… constructed out of our memories.

Meaning.. all our memories.. throughout the entire history of the human race. Maybe even memories of animals.. and possibly.. plants too. Or even memories of life on other planets.

That would provide a lot of material to create yet another level of existence out of.. wouldn't it..?

And the energy of construction.. would be imaginary.. meaning this would be a purely mental construct.. just as dreams are.

We know that organic life reproduces itself continually as a species..

So why shouldn't life be able to reproduce itself.. as a purely mental image.. by drawing on its memories.. and thereby sustaining itself even further a field.. ?

What's stopping it.. ?

Maybe only our own lack of imagination.. and will.


Consider this then..

This already happens to us.. in our dreams.

We know consciousness continually switches between.. the material world.. that we sense outside us.. the immaterial environment… that we experience within..

Such as.. thoughts.. feelings.. and dreams.. etc.

It seems.. what should be taken into consideration.. is that.. our consciousness has a polarity.. and both poles are very real.. and both have meaning.. and purpose.

Maybe dreams are just the first stirrings of our mental world.. as it struggles to be born inside us.. so that we might be free to cast off our physical garment.. and take on our real nature.. which is god-like.. compared to what we are now.


What is it that the symbol of the Sphinx represents.. with the head of a god.. and the body of a lion (the king of the beasts).. ?

Could this be who we are.. really then.. both human (the king of the beasts) - and god.. potentially.. in our minds (or spirits).. ?

Is this the Sphinx's mysterious secret.. ?


Our inner world then.. is possibly.. preparing us for such a metaphysical transition.. to a purely mental condition.. that we could take on.. when our body dies.

It would seem.. that in all probability.. the physical is only our temporary state.. and just as the caterpillar becomes a butterfly.. we will also undergo a dramatic metamorphosis.. given time.

Is that the purpose of our life.. ?

Taking these points – alone - into consideration... wouldn't a continuation of life.. seem more logical.. than not.. ?

When we observe all the variations of life on this planet.. and the seemingly hostile conditions that life can thrive under.. like extreme temperatures of hot and cold.. hibernation.. deep sea life forms that never see light.. etc.

We might well ask ourselves..

Have we discovered - ALL - of life's mysteries.. and potentials.. ?

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"That which the dream shows is the shadow of such wisdom as exists in man, even if during his waking state he may know nothing about it...

We do not know it because we are fooling away our time with outward and perishing things, and are asleep in regard to that which is real within ourself."

Philipus Aureolus Paracelsus

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[CS Thompson]

Your words remind me of a theory that I read once, suggesting that the origin of religion was that people who had died still appeared in dreams. I don't know about attempting to assign a probability to an idea like that, but I personally see dreams as a gateway to the mythic realm.

[alchemistra]

In response to this, I think that an after-life is more logical than not. I feel compelled to point out, that historically it is evident that the ancients believed in an afterlife of some sort. Most probably because the possibilities for such always resided in the mythic realm that CS has spoken of in this forum. It would be something that the ancients had access to as well as ourselves.
However, the modern world has come to rely on scientific evidence to supply a basis of rational belief on matters of essentially non-rational experience. But, guess what? They're getting closer and closer to doing just that everyday. We are coming to realize, through modern science, that consciousness is briefly housed in the material realm, but does not reside there. This is an area where new thought in quantum physics overlaps with metaphysics. Upon investigating the Higgs field, something stuck with me that got me thinking about just where the consciousness is when housed in the material. Bottom line...it's just not. It never is. Just like the photons (light) that are not captured by the Higgs field, so our consciousness remains around but distinct from our physical bodies.
A clear distinction can be made between the brain's capacity to direct the fives senses, hearing, sight, taste , touch, and smell and the brain's thinking, analyzing, rationalizing, etc. and that 'something else', pure awareness. This pure awareness is the light energy, it is above, around, and in the proximity of the material, but never part of it. Awareness has been directed to the material, and it can be undirected as well. The ability of the material to capture and hold the awareness or consciousness can be seen from myths like the story of Narcissus, who falls in love with his image in a glassy pool of water. The myths that have applicability to the nature of consciouness in this way are too numerous to even name. The ancients knew this, and it's why they took such particular care to record or verbally transmit the wisdom through the mythic realm where it could be naturally apprehended. Timeless embodiment and transmission of truth. There is much more truth to be garnered from the mythic realm, and from science.
You know, some say, God is an Artist, some say, God is a Scientist, I say, How about if God is both. Oh, do I love a paradox!

[Accelerator]

I've just been finding out whether people dream while in a coma or not...

This is interesting...

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"ARDS survivors very frequently mention vivid dreams that occur during the period of coma. Some of us describe them as terrifying, some as awesome, some as a revelation. Some of us have dreams that are just entertainment, and some dreams fit all of these descriptions. The common thread is that they are extremely vivid, lucid, and more powerful that any dream in our past, in some cases more powerful than reality. When I was recovering from my coma, I was awestruck by the experience of the dreams. Unfortunately, I couldn't verbalize or write about them, since I was still on the ventilator and my hands were paralyzed. My concern was that I would soon forget the stories of the dreams, much as you do your everyday dreams. Little did I know that I had nothing to worry about, that the experience of the dreams would remain as vivid today as they were when I awoke."


"This rational explanation did little to lessen the impact of the dreams on my psyche, they still were the strongest mental impression that I have of the past two years. Despite their power, I have trouble putting them down on paper. This is partly because the dreams were an unconscious phenomena, difficult if not impossible to describe using narrative. That is, I don't know if an experience that conveyed terror was seen, felt, smelled, or heard- I just know that I was terrified in a certain dream situation. The other part of the dreams that is difficult to describe is the sheer wonderment of them. I still find it hard to believe that my mind is capable of creating these realistic dreams so filled with subtle and complex plots and yet at the same time so fantasy laden."

Coma is about as close as we come to death..

This is truly fascinating material....

The full article can be found here..
http://www.ards.org/journalsstories/stories/mikepauldream.html

[alchemistra]

Yes, coma is very close to death. I believe 'coma' is a state in which the consciousness is purposefully directed to other than the physical. Why? Read the neurologist's statement below. There is 'abnormal pathology' in the true comatose state, but not in the sleep state or the vegetative state. Therefore, it would appear that the consciousness withdraws and moves to the intermediate (spiritual) realm, the physical body having been found an unsuitable location for it.

Dr. Cranford, assistant chief of neurology at the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota and faculty associate, defines coma as a "sleep-like state of unarousability due to abnormal pathology." Sleep is a normal state of unconsciousness, while coma is an abnormal state of unconsciousness. Clinically this is distinguished from the "vegetative state" by the patient's wakefulness (in the vegetative state), but unawareness, as compared to the coma.

These clinical divisions between the states of consciousness are extremely important when classifying OBE's, dreams, visual and auditory phenomena based on the description of experiences.

The ARDS coma article reminds me of the experience of what the Tibetans call the Chonyid bardo. It is one of the higher levels of the bardo experience (transitional phase between physical existence and spiritual existence) where all types of phenomena may occur, including visual and auditory experience. The higher wisdom of the Dzogchen teachings (Bardo Thodol-The Great Liberation through Hearing in the Intermediate State) are transmitted to enable the practitioner to recognize this very important state of consciousness.

The auditory and visual phenomena seen in true comatose patients corresponds closely to the the auditory and visual phenomena characteristic of the Chonyid bardo, a state experienced after death, when the consciousness has left the body and moves to the spiritual realm.

[CS Thompson]

Re: your Narcissus example, I'm reading Plotinus just now, and he uses the same example in essentially the same way.
I tend to think of the afterlife as a long dream in the mythic realm.

[CS Thompson]

In Irish folklore, coma victims were said to be in the Sidhe or otherworld realm, and if they recovered they were frequently pressed for details of the experience. I think your interpretation here may well be accurate.

[alchemistra]

Oh, I love Plotinus! Yes, one must allow the myths to sink into the consciousness, meditation on them helps alot too. With the myths, you can always resolve the paradox! haha

How interesting your statement regarding the Sidhe of Irish folklore. Sounds almost like siddha, one having magical powers in the Buddhist tradition, and siddhi, the magical power.

[CS Thompson]

The etymology of the Irish word is a pun- "Daoine Sidhe" (folk of the hill) because the otherworld was accessed through fairy hills, and "Daoine Sith" (people of peace), which is a euphemism to avoid fairy anger, like calling them "good fellows" or "fair folk."
Both phrases are pronounced "doonya shee."

[Zetetic0void]

Actually, an equally valid question (that has yet to be "explained logically") is below:


"Is this current life 'I' experience a Logical Concept"



(or basically, can I explain this life I experience using a system of symbols to represent it)


I put 'I' in '' marks but truelly all of those words in the sentence (as symbols within a "system of representing alleged segments of Reality") could also put within little marks to indicate they are symbols of how our way of interpretting Reality breaks up Reality into what we say (ie, what we arbitrarily define because it appears obvious to our relative view of Reality) are actual absolute objects, events and things.

Even the word "life" implies an arbitrarily defined segment of 'time' between two allegedly defined marks. But who can concretely define the precise instant of "becoming a new human" (people even argue over this for legal and 'ethical' reasons) and the precise instant of "ending as a human" (and as you are dying as an experience, perhaps your experienced version of time expands and it seems to take you a million years). It's the same problem as exactly defining without any doubt where the mountain stops being a mountains and the valley starts... it is impossible and so we invent a rule saying so. It's like defining where the border is between two nations. Ok, so to what degree of accuracy do we go? Do we agree to judge this border to the scale separating one tree as being within nation A's territory and not within nation B's territory or must we define this border as one pebble being within nation A and one within nation B? It's all arbitrary.


So from the point of view of a human seeing someone 'die', we can invent little boxes to divide Reality into what we think is what's going on. But what we think is going on is relative to our way of seeing Reality which is biased by our biology and our culture.

Who's to say there is a concrete barrier between so-called "life" and "after-life". Isn't it just a little box we invent and put what we define as 'living' into and what we call 'death' into. When the 'you' you think is 'you' (haha, what I visualize as the crest of the wave on the water that looks around itself and thinks it is obviously a separate object but does not look down and see it blends into the next wave without any absolute boundary) dies, what you experience may be known to some level by peoples' observation after near-death experience, coma, trances, deep meditation, entheogenic plants/mushrooms, yogic practices but I imagine to experience past a certain vague degree requires actually dying.

In my visualization of this, I imagine experience as a supposed unique entity in the Universe melts away and the experience opens up and disappears like the supposed boundary between waves disappears the closer you get to the water and away from the crest (the crest being the symbol of 'unique individual') . The level passes even the totally alien and unknown realm of what it "feels like to be within the plant level of life (a concept us mobile animals with certain localized sensory organs can't relate to at all - we define everything from a biased point of view based on out biological characteristics). Then vaguelly like in a mist without any borders or objects , the 'you' disappears and is just the vast ocean of water without forms. My conception of this would strangely make even time a useless concept. Waves or forms with varying degree of experiencing Reality from the points of view of being separate entities arise and fall.

I can't explain or fathom what "not feeling like a localized entity from one point of view in space and time" would be like because "my" only experience of Reality has been biased from this particular form (or as this crest on the ocean).


I have read about many "mystics", people using meditation, entheogenic plants/mushrooms, yogic practices and other ways of actually experiencing non-separateness from Reality (eg what I see as what was meant by the phrase 'I and the Father are One' from one cultural way of symbolizing it ) but I have not actually felt this fully (although through the yogic and meditative practice of painting, I experience something but not nearly what I would call a dissolution of feeling like a separate object "inside" the Universe.



Anyway, the question of "Is the After-life a Logical Concept" is full of assumptions (like any sentence ) based on language that if you even really think about the question, it breaks apart as just related to how humans view Reality and so any answer is sprouting out of that level of assumptions


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I wonder if the acorn were able to contemplate such things rationally (ie, putting it's "experience of Reality" into symbolic words in an attempt to 'explain' a version of Reality) would it wonder about what would happen when it "died" as an acorn. Perhaps the sensory recollection of the transition from acorn to oak tree is lost due to the process of transformation. Some ideas within the theoretical "acorn community" may exist (at least in this fantasy hehe) describing a future where some of them become 'enlightened' and sprout into massive trees containing endless pathways of branches and twigs with thousands of leaves on their ends flowing in the breeze. To the majority of acorns encased in their little shells unable to see light or even know what 'light', 'leaves' or a 'breeze' is (most of them being buried under old leaves, within tall grass or partly within soil), these stories must be told in symbols that they can understand. Humans use words like angels, demons, devas, "God", Jesus, spirit, nirvana in their attmpts to describe what can't be described - I wonder what terms acorns wouldd invent to try to describe their view of ending up as thjeir envisioned oak tree which they don't fully understand as acorns.


I just watched a couple documentaries on the 'Tibetan Book of the Dead' and also one about ideas that Egyptian religious practices contained ideas of reincarnation. The Egyptian one was interesting in that various symbols (even the snake symbol on the forehead at the tops of many human-appearing sarcophagi) were said to represent what might be called the 'third eye' or 'brow chakra' from other cultures. (and this idea of chakras going up the spinal column of humans with the pineal gland at the top make me think of the Caduceus of Hermes with the entwined snakes going up the staff with the wings at the top.)


In looking into all of these things, I also heard about the 'pineal gland' (named after the pine cone due to some resemblance) which is a very small gland within the brain and ideas suggest this is what is represented (or perhaps, it's effects are represented instead of the actual object) by such ideas as the 'third eye' or 'brow chakra' or the snake symbol at that point in Egyptian imagery.


Some research into the 'pineal gland' suggests it is responsible for creating a chemical called DMT (Dimethyltryptamine) which is also present as the main ingredient in certain powerful so-called "hallucigenic" plants. The effects of this DMT can be brought forth in situations such as these


1... deliberate intake of DMT-containing substance (eg, as done within certain shamanic cultures for spiritual purposes)
2... during times of great stress or even injury.
3... due to specific types of yogic or meditative/breathing activities
4... due to near death experience
5... during the last stages of death



One interesting side-note is the large ancient sculpture of the 'pine cone' (Court of the Pigna - Court of the Pine ) at the Vatican.


http://touritaly.org/tours/vaticanmuseum/Vatican06.htm


I have read some people suggesting this is symbolic of the pineal gland. I don't know much about this in detail so it's something to investigate. Perhaps this represents a somewhat hidden symbolism of knowledge about the pineal gland within even Christianity.


Along with details from people who have had comas or near-death experiences, purposeful research where people were given DMT resulted in many people having what they would call profound 'religious or spiritual experience' (for want of a better term). There isn't a lot of this reseach due to a very strongly enforced cultural taboo against these substances.



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In the end, I think mythology , religions, meditation, yogic practices, 'philosophy (etc) can reveal clues showing what is going on (at least as far as human language can actually discuss) during the process of death.


I kind of think of the closer and closer point to death as being like a black hole or even trying to discover what was going on at the moments right after the so-called 'Big Bang' . The nearer you get to theoretical absolute zero point (ie, zero time of the 'Big Bang', the centre of a Black Hole, or at theoretical precise "death"), the less is known. As far as scientific or theoretical and mathematical modelling of the moments after the 'Big Bang' I envision that a mathematical precision to even calculate models would expand to millions of decimal places then billions , and googel places of accurcy to the right of the decimal point to even be roughly accurate. I envision that to mathematically calculate and model at the precise 'zero time' of the Big Bang would require an infinite number of decimal places to the right of the decimal point to model this.


I see this as similar to actually understanding or modelling the innermost 'zero point' of death. To be able to describe that instance that has no width of time would require an infinate number of books.


Meanwhile, whilst book number 100 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 has been finished, you would have entered and left a huge assortment of "lives" haha.



I suppose this post is just a lot of text describing the indescribable. But it's somehow fun to do so even though you'll never get to 'point zero' (you may pass by that point for exactly 'zero seconds' of time when leaving this life into the next haha).


"Is the After-life a Logical Concept?"

"Is the Before-life a logical concept?

"Was there a previous incarnation of the Universe (or localized bubble which is the known Universe) before the 'Big Bang' (assuming that is a reasonable model at least for this localized sub-Universe bubble within a more vast Universe of bubbles)?

Will there be a new Universe after this one dies?

[alchemistra]

I think DMT (dimethyltryptamine) is just there to make the transition from a purely physical and material existence to that big "Other". Why else would it kick in at times like these?

1... deliberate intake of DMT-containing substance (eg, as done within certain shamanic cultures for spiritual purposes)
2... during times of great stress or even injury.
3... due to specific types of yogic or meditative/breathing activities
4... due to near death experience
5... during the last stages of death

Some have attributed death bed visions to DMT, the difference I think is death bed visions are often reported with complete and utter clarity (see Elizabeth Kubler-Ross), even by children. DMT appears to function in reducing stress in the death or near death situation. It may function differently when consumed as opposed to when it is secreted naturally. The chemistry here fascinates me. Many of the natural entheogens have a structure similar to or are pro-drugs (precursors) to DMT. Psilocybin, for example is a direct pro-drug. Upon exposure to stomach acid, it gets converted into DMT.

As for the afterlife, something tells me that a creature that believes itself to be immortal...must be. Life after Life has got to be the biggest cosmic orgasm ever, however it takes place. Wishful thinking? Maybe, but when everything about our individual experience comes together in a certain way, I think it becomes less of a belief (or wish) and more like a knowing, a certainty, that life will go on, be it in the form of other experiences of any kind. It's like the question...what were you doing before you were born?

[Zetetic0void]

"what were you doing before you were born?"
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It's strange that this is also a great mystery but nobody seems to think about that one much. Maybe because it's already happened there is no anxiety about it like with the future. Even so, that is just as much an unknown as 'what happens after this particular life'.


For a while I was playing with the idea of reincarnation but I didn't feel anything one did in this lifeb would have an effect on your next incarnation. I thought the idea of 'karma' as some Universal scoreboard which decided your fate in the next life to sound more of like a social pressure to keep people in line in society (sort of like 'hell' would make people behave haha).

Now after looking more into the Tibetan ideas, the idea of the so-called "soul" after death clinging onto a new lifeform based on obsessions or still-present desires of that "soul" sounds at least more plausible to me. So if you die still mentally clinging to your wealth, as you go through the stages of death, your clinging to the idea of wealth might drag you onto a new life which centres around that in some way.

So theoretically, if in your life you have managed to become detached from clinging to temporary manifestations (money, family, titles, status), then you could avoid becoming integrated as a new lifeform in this particular realm.


I'm not saying I believe that fully but I'm wondering if there is something to it. I'm still investigating.

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It's interesting that I've heard that in the forming fetus, the pineal gland forms around the 49th day. The Tibetan Buddhists also feel that this length of time is how long it takes for the soul to "re-attach" onto a new life-formation (body). I wonder if there is some relation between these two things.