What happens when you die?

[Eohippus]

I wanted to chat w/ Lincoln, too, but the last time I checked there was a 6000-year-long wait. After I die, i’m never going to stand on line again!

[MissBHaven]

*Originally posted by Eohippus *
**

*Originally posted by plnnr *
**I happen to believe that the part of each of us that makes us human (call it whatever you want) will continue to exist. My “humaness” will get to meet all the other “humanesses” that have come before - I’ll be able to sit down with Abraham Lincoln and swap tall tales, I’ll be able to meet my grandfather who I never knew, I’ll be able to travel throughout time and visit all of the episodes of history that are of interest to me. I’ll be able to know the answer to all of life’s great mysteries. That’s my idea of “heaven.” **

e

For eternity??!! Maybe the first couple of hundred years it’d be interesting, but IMHO “heaven” would get pretty boring after your grandfather recounts his best anecdotes for the trillionth time, wouldn’t it? **

So, since this isn’t a debate but only a sharing of opinions what do you think happens after you die?

[plnnr]

I didn’t say that you were chained together. In my heaven (your actual heaven may vary) you can talk to, do, go, see, experience whatever you desire, for as long as you desire. If, after I’ve met my grandfather, he isn’t someone I’d want to experience eternity with I can go to the next adventure and come back at some future time (even though time is really irrelevant - why worry about what time it is or how long you’ve been doing something when you’ve got eternity?).

[Eohippus]

*Originally posted by MissBHaven *
**So, since this isn’t a debate but only a sharing of opinions what do you think happens after you die? **

I already said, earlier in the thread: worm food. Besides that, nuthin’. Why should I think anything else happens?

[TheNerd]

When I die, everything stops. Including you.

At least, it might as well.

[Eohippus]

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by plnnr *
…why worry about what time it is or how long you’ve been doing something when you’ve got eternity?)./QUOTE]

Pin,
My point is, anything for eternity would be boring, except for eternal surprises. Except for the time limit, that’s what we’ve got here on Earth: you never know what’s around the corner. So, I’ll just deal w/ the surprises here on Earth, and hope my death comes as a TOTAL surprise, suddenly, unexpectedly, swiftly, mercifully.

[tourbot]

Yes, worm food and all that. But I like the way Walt Whitman said it best.
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

[Eohippus]

*Originally posted by tourbot *
**Yes, worm food and all that. But I like the way Walt Whitman said it best.
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

**

Tourbot,
I looked, but it wasn’t Whitman. It was brown, smelly and squishy, but it wasn’t Whitman.

[egkelly]

When the brain stops working, and consciousness slips away, you cease to 'exist". Later, as your constituent atomes rearrange themselves, you become part of the biosphere (“dust to dust”, etc.).Then, perhaps millenia later, perhaps milions of years hence, living matter will form which is an exact duplicate of you-and you will live again! The intervening period? Nobody knows-and even jesus 9the one human who actually experience death and came back) never left us his words on the experience!

[Pismonque]

I think it would be interesting if the afterlife were like the one in the Albert Brooks movie Defending Your Life. It was all about personal evolution determining your next state in the reincarnation cycle–except in this version, everyone was funny.

Whatever it turns out to be, I’m not sure I’ll get to find out any time soon. Unless things change, when my number comes up, I really don’t think I’m going to have time to die.

[GuanoLad]

*Originally posted by MissBHaven *
**I was looking for your beliefs on what happens to your consciousness or “soul” after you die. What do you believe, expect or hope for? **

I believe that nothing happens. When you die, it ends. It all goes black, the pain stops, and then there’s nothing more.

I have few expectations as I am open to the possibility that I may be wrong in my beliefs, but haven’t a clue as to who, out of all the possibles proposed, is correct.

I hope I get to be a ghost for a hundred years or so, watch the world evolve around me and get to have some fun too. And then I go to a wonderful paradise of beauty, pleasure, and complete satisfaction and happiness. But as that doesn’t fit with the logic I have amassed thus far, it’s only a small hope.

[Lux_Fiat]

Nothing. Your bubble pops; the universe continues to boil.

[gelid]

Someone else is born.

[IMATION]

*Originally posted by Slithy Tove *
**Consciously, things get similar to how you knew them to be before you were alive. Not much mystery there.
**

I agree with this… I often try and picture myself, as a soul before i was born… i come up with emptyness… a black hole ?!?

Although that is before you have made your impression on the earth and all of existance…

I believe your soul is a permanent thing, and can be reborn into new born things… that is why you are able to see cats and dogs, other animals also , with peronalities you can safely match to your friends, or people you know…

Some cats scratch, could be a bitch as a human (catwoman lol)

Some cats love attention and affection, could be a loveable and loving person…

Surely, we should find out when our time comes, but will our memory erase with our decaying bodies? Is our lifes memories taken to the grave… ?

Rest In Peace,
IMATION

[ageless6]

Ah, why worry about it? Although I tend to go with OLDSCRATCH’s opinion (and the rest of the worm feeders) MIGHTY MAXX might have a point if he (the name has a male feel to it) would concede that heaven and HELL were both to be found on this mortal coil. But then I’m an agnostic fence-sitter.
I always considered myself a semi-pro Observer. The hard part of this one is that I very much doubt that you get to observe any confirmation one way or the other.
La,la, la…

[SkeptiJess]

This. Click on This Is Your Death – I couldn’t get a direct link. Pay special interest to the “witness box” at the bottom. That’s the important part.

[delphica]

What I would like to happen when I die is to go to some sort of cosmic library, where you can read all the books that were lost to the ages, and all the books that your favorite author didn’t write, but could have written. And if you like, you can read books for the first time … when you pick up The Three Musketeers you forget that you read it before, so you are just on the edge of your seat wondering how it all turns out.

Also, your pets are there. Even though I was being a little flippant about the library, I do firmly believe that animals share whatever is in store for humans.

[Silly_Rabbit]

“Death is the reward of living. You have spent your time in the physical world, with its negativity, heaviness, and loneliness. Now comes the good part: You can return home to the true existence, and be welcomed back into the direct and ever present grace of God.” -Sylvia Browne

[oldscratch]

You know, my response wasn’t very interesting. I’m gonna put forth my parents beliefs, which I was raised with, and don’t espoecially share, though I kinda wish I did sometimes. Cause it’s actually cool

They can be found at The book of the dead

Lower spirits are those beings without physical forms whose sanskaras remain to be wiped out. They cannot progress after death until their unfinished sanskaras are worked out. As a consequence, they wander about on the lower Astral plane. For this reason, they are a source of harassment to living people.

Suppose a man is destined to have a life span of forty years, but he commits suicide when he is thirty. Consequently, for the remaining ten year period of unexpressed sanskaras, his spirit inhabits the lower planes, and at times is seen by some people as a spirit or ghost. To hold seances or to talk with the dead is no great thing, because such spirits are always among us on this living plane.

…

Believe me, Jamshed is not dead. His body has died. Everyone thinks he is dead, but I say he has taken birth. The joy expressed by people at the birth of a child should be expressed when a person breathes his last, instead of all the show of sorrow, grief and sympathy. This is sheer ignorance, and those who understand the secret of birth and death feel sorry at this hypocritical pretense

…

Death is common to all, and it is a necessary step forward toward real life - eternal infinite existence. The soul merely changes into a new abode; thus dying is nothing more than changing your coat. Jamshed has changed it after experiencing life in it on this plane. It is like an actor who plays different parts in different dramas, or changes costumes in the same play behind the curtain, and then reappears on stage in a different garb; or it can be compared with sleep.

…

Die such a death that you will not have to die again. Die, all of you, in the real sense of the word, so you may live ever after. The stopping of breath and the absence of pulse are not real dying. It is no use letting your earthly body die; all your desires and longings should die. That is, seek out the death of maya first and become sanskara-less. Then alone you will have died the real death and have been born into eternity.

…

The mind must die, not the body. The body may die a thousand deaths; the atma (soul) is there, alive; it never dies. Even when body and mind both are dead in the Realisation state, the atma is there living forever.

…

There are four main conditions of existence after the final severance with the Gross body:

1. Upwards

2. Immediate reincarnation

3. Heaven or hell

4. Downwards

5. Upwards: Only the spiritually advanced beings go upwards, that is, beyond and above the lunar sphere. There they stay until such time as they can reincarnate upon earth, since Perfection can only be realised in the Gross human form. During the interim, however, such advanced beings can and do utilise the bodies of earth beings to work out a certain kind of sanskaras.

6. Immediate reincarnation: Those whose good and bad sanskaras almost balance each other, but are not exactly equal - because if they were, such souls would at once attain to God-realisation - reincarnate immediately on earth in human form.

3a. Heaven: The person who has accumulated a large portion of good sanskaras, and few bad ones, experiences through the Subtle body the state called paradise or heaven. Here the capacity for enjoyment is increased tenfold, and the sensitivity to suffering as the result of the few bad sanskaras is proportionally diminished. In other words, in this condition there is practically no suffering at all, but only enjoyment, until all the good sanskaras are spent. However, the impressions of these sanskaras remain, and ultimately impel the soul to take another body on earth.

3b. Hell: One who has contracted many bad sanskaras during his earth life experiences after death the state called hell, wherein the susceptibility to suffering is increased tenfold, and the capacity for enjoyment is proportionately diminished. In the hell state there is only suffering, until all those sanskaras which induced this state are exhausted. The impressions remaining compel the soul to rebirth in a human body.

4. Downwards: Those who have acquired extremely bad sanskaras, resulting from deeds like murder for lust or greed, after death go downwards into the region of animal spirits, to await a suitable Gross form for earth life.

…

The condition of one who arrives at death through suicide requires special explanation. Such a one goes neither upwards nor downwards, neither does he immediately reincarnate, nor pass into heaven or hell. Such spirits remain suspended closer to the earth plane, inasmuch as no entry is possible for them in any of the aforementioned states. Their condition is pitiable in the extreme, because they too feel the pull of their sanskaras, but unlike those on earth, they have no Gross body in which to fulfill their desires. These are the ones which in common parlance we call ghosts or disembodied spirits. It is these spirits whom mediums sometimes contact, and they prove a souce of harm as well as good. Sometimes such a spirit tries to possess a human body with which it feels an affinity due to similarity of sanskaras.