An advice to dead or dying people, from an unfortunate living spirit

[suicidaldude]

Many people that have had near-death experiences find themselves, at some point, through a complete void, pitch-black nothingness were they report feeling infinitely peaceful.

In many cases, shortly after (please take any notion of space and time with a grain of salt when talking about spirituality), NDErs see a very powerful “light”, at the end of what they call a “tunnel”. They usually describe this light as “pure love”. And they desire to get to this light. We’ll get back to these two important notions later: desire, and love.

At that point, they go through what they describe as a “tunnel” and “travel” to reach that lighted spot. Some of them go back to their bodies after that, others then go on to describe the “spirit world(s)” and were many entities exist, grow and experience (another three important notions).

Of course, the light is frequently associated in predominantly monotheistic cultures with “God” (an aging Caucasian man with a white beard an a kind look, suspected of having jump-started reality out of boredom), and the “world” where the other “entities” reside is equally associated with “heaven” or “paradise”.

Now, let’s get back to this one moment prior to seeing any light in the middle of the void. NDErs have described their feelings while in it, and these are incredibly good feelings. There is just perfection, nothingness, peace, wisdom and pure knowledge. At this point, there is no need for any other feeling. What could be better than peace, than perfection, than void? Void, quantum void, zero-point, nirvana, whatever you want to call it, is not something that can be topped or even matched.

But, suddenly, there is something that is not void, that is not dark and that is not symmetrical: there is a light, there is a spot. And, immediately, there is a desire: the desire to go to this light, which immediately materializes under the form of this tunnel-traveling. And there is love, the love radiated by this light, which in turns increases the desire to be there.

But, one might ask, if the void was perfect and could not be topped, then surely, the light, the love, and the desire must be imperfect? We said earlier that the perfection of the void could not be matched.

So this love is imperfect. It is less than what the NDErs were at before. And yet, they desire to get there. And once there, they associate the place they see with heaven. Isn’t that strange?

I know if I were coming from a place of pure perfection and wisdom, any place, even a place filled with beautiful beings of light (so now there is a need for the concept of “beauty”?) would be considered hell, not heaven.

And what else had the NDErs experienced in this “heaven”? Well, for one thing, they quickly learn, when they arrive there, that beings tend to reincarnate, that they will have to suffer again through physical life, for most of them, at one point or another. They learn about this strange “karma” law that states that they have to pay the price of balancing deeds that, if they hadn’t had to exist, they wouldn’t have done.

They also learn that they have to “grow and learn” in order to become perfect, when only a moment ago they were in a state of perfection.

And the strangest thing is, these NDErs do not seem to be the least bit disappointed.

So on one hand, you have perfection, void, blackness and peace, and it all comes at absolutely no price…

And on the other hand, you have love (a feeling born from imperfection), which, if you desire to experience it, will cost you reincarnation, suffering, constant struggle for growth and learning.

And how did it come to be, this strange feeling of “love”? Well, it started with desire. Your desire to reach this distant light, that you didn’t need in the first place.

So here is my advice. I do not remember being dead before and I am really not sure how it works, but I’ll try anyway: next time you die, if you find yourself in this dark void of perfection, please, PLEASE (for the "love" of … nevermind !) do not desire anything. Melt into the void if you can. And if at one point, you have the misfortune of seeing a loving, beautiful "light" at the end of a tunnel, refrain from going there. Forget desire, forget love. The best thing is to not express anything, but if there indeed is a light, let it understand your refusal of love.

Something along the line of “You are not required. Your existence is not required. Your light and your love can only lead to more suffering and more trauma. You shall disappear”. Don't express any feeling, good or bad, for or toward the light. The more neutral the better.

Who knows, maybe I’ll work and the deceptive light will go away. And then you are inexistent. Enjoy!

Just my 2 cents here.

[JohnR]

Hi,

Your whole thought line and judgment is based on the "void moment" being perfection. What if it isn't. What if the NDE'rs judgment of perfect was clouded. What if the light experience was not just a draw of desire and dualism, but a pull into a deeper state of oneness?

You used a lot of words to really tell us that you yourself are perhaps looking for nothingness, non-existence, a void to disappear into. You are using the handle "Suicidaldude." Is that how you feel? It is usually better to say what you mean.

This life on earth can be very painful. We can become dis-empowered victims of our experiences and responses. It can be black indeed, and nowhere near as comforting as the thought of a pleasant void. If you imagine your life is a coin, what would the flip-side look like? What does that tell you?

Cheers,
John

[suicidaldude]

I already have expressed how I felt personnally in a previous post, and I have nothing to add to it. I was here not trying to judge subjectively, or to reflect on my own experience, but on the contrary, this was more of a philosophical exercise, a reflexion on the meaning of quantum void and perfection, or on the relation between zero and the infinite.

I don't mean to constantly come on this board and complain, rather I wanted to share something.

There are plain FACTS : "evolution" (material, spiritual, biological) require growth. Growth is painful. I'm not the one saying it, major religious and spiritual currents are.

And existence as we understand it requires motion, evolution, instability, dissymmetry. Again, I'm not the one saying it.

This void HAS been related to by the people concerned as "perfection". It is a transition state because people DESIRE that "something" be. In the same way, if you cease to "desire", you can stay in this perfection. That isthe very concept of Nirvana (which means nothingness), and which requires the surrender of every desire, but most importanly the denial of "love", an energy that surely sounds nice, but that in turns forces us into painful existences.

So I'll go against the wave here and venture to say what nobody, be they Christians, Muslims, Jews or New-Agers of all kinds, want to hear: the feeling of "love" IS really what works AGAINST us, for it forces us to be, it strands us appart from the perfect symmetry of nothingness, the only configuration that allows untroubled peace to exist.

People should seek to be rewarded by LESS love, not more. Love is really the "devil" everybody talks about: once you gave your spirit to love, it owns you for all eternity. Same goes for desire.

[JohnR]

Actually I agree with much of what you are saying. The real experience of entering a state of total awareness (call it oneness, or enlightened state or whatever) is one of, no desire. The concept of love doesn't exist in that state. There is only existence, and you are it. Everything all at once. There are no words to aptly describe this. "you'd have to be there" as the saying goes :-)

I haven't read your past posts, so I don't know what you explained then. I was just picking up on something I felt from your words. Perhaps it is because I have been at both extremes in life myself -- disconnected and in pain as well as the state I mention above. It's amazing how powerfully we can move ourselves deeper into the pain you refer to. If a person is fortunate enough to have entered a state of total awareness on occasion, they find that it brings gifts to them, and yet despite the power of this, many, I included, let it go at times, drawn by the power of the emotional illusions we immerse ourselves in.

I believe that understanding, which in a sense is dispassionate, is on a higher level than what we commonly refer to as love. But what are words really? Reality doesn't care how we define and confine it. It is always bigger than our definitions. One has to talk around this subject, yes?

Best,
John

[JohnR]

Okay, I've read some of your other posts. So I see where you are coming from.

I must say that you are highly articulate and expressive for someone that has nothing to go on living for. Where do you find the drive to be so incisive in your thinking, and expressive of your thoughts on existence? If you really had nothing to live for, I doubt you would find it in you to do this. And if you were such an awful person, you wouldn't care two hoots about the nature of life and death. I think you have a great strength that you have difficulty accepting or even admitting. You're not so bad after all :-)

I read that you said you tried meditating and all of that, with no success. I can tell you that is harder (and yet more simple) than most people (even those that profess to have mastered it) know. I used to practice for about 4 hours a day over a 15 year period using Meditation, Tai Chi, and Chi Gung as complimentary ways of moving from the outer to the inner, or from physical to spiritual. What I found is that it takes enormous discipline, but also that discipline is its own reward. There is a way for anyone to find a deeper connection in their life. We are all different in that regard. If you were here with me right now, I bet I could show you a way that works for you. You may not want to take it, but the way would there regardless.

I'm not trying to convince you of anything, as god knows I understand about waking up disappointed that you are still alive. It's just that I know the power of both ends of the spectrum, and I know that there is more to you than you say or that you admit to.

Best,
John

[suicidaldude]

Well, thanks for your latest comment about me being accurate and incisive. It is not a strength that I find, it just is, just like the fact that I live. I am very smart (not that I get any kind of pride from it, I'd rather have been blessed with a big heart than a big brain, but I didn't choose), and I have a very sharp way of expressing myself through language, even more than you'd think (English is not even my mother tongue, to give you an idea...). So I take no pride in these facts, I just accept them.

Back to our subject, I don't pretend to understand the nature of quantum void (or holy spirit, zero point energy, chi or whatever you call it), nor can anybody alive in my opinion. But we can all agree: void could be aware, but it is void. There is a reason why Hinduists and Buddhists call their heaven "Nirvana" ("nothingness"), and this reason is that the only way to be full is to be nothing. Mathematicians proved that long ago through the intinate link between the number 0 and the concept of infinite. Hell, this number was even banned from use in societies that preached a finite "everything".

So we can accept this: Whatever "nothingness" is, it is the ultimate goal of every existing being, and any delay of this, through the illusion of "love", reincarnation, karma, "baby Jeezus and his virgin mama" or anything else, just means more suffering for all of us. I might hurt some people's beliefs or sensitivity by saying this, but both spirituality and science prove it.

[Erin Pavlina]

SuicidalDude, you might be very interested in this blog entry that pertains to the choices we have when we die. Some of what you are talking about was discussed with me:

The After-Death

[JohnR]

The expression nothingness and the void has been bandied around for centuries, but really, that experience is actually one of everything or all-inclusiveness. The only thing that doesn't exist in that state are the boundaries and separations that keep us from true power and understanding.

Don't confuse non-duality and unity with nothingness. Far from nothing or zero, these experiences and states of being include all of existence in that eternal moment.

So instead of this life being a delay to, or interruption of, nothingness, it is really a path to experience the power of existence in finer and finer forms as we learn, through awareness, to let it coalesce.

The only thing worthwhile to gain in existence is gained through living -- albeit painfully sometimes -- not in the absence of it. You're being misled by poor descriptions of what spiritual people supposedly strive for. Don't base life and death decisions on poor definitions and faulty information. Learn experientially, as opposed to intellectually is my advise; then you will see what I mean.

Best,
John

[Dan.Linehan]

I dunno - the idea of disappating doesn't sound so bad to me.

Why would anyone want to grow separately if we are all one anyway?

[Dharma]

Suicidaldude,

Outstanding! Yeah, why go to the light if you're in perfection, nothingness, peace, wisdom and pure knowledge? Cuz I need my denial that I'm used to playing with! Bring me things from the mind, pronto! Bring me concepts, bring me space and time. My consciousness, even sitting at the feet of the infinite, still likes the mind better than the absolute.

The creation of something constricted (a tunnel) while sitting in the infinite should be a cause for concern. I agree, don't go toward that light.

[Dharma]

General comments:

Love is what it is, and at this time in our evolution, a path where love is central isn't going to get anyone out of their sleep, just deeper into it.

Nothingness and the void cannot be ascertained with the mind. It IS something but the mind sees it as nothing. The mind works with forms and it is saying that there is no-thing there to work with. The conclusion is nothing exists in the void or nothingness.

[suicidaldude]

Erin, that was a very interresting blog entry. While you surely didn't have any enthusiasm about melting with the void, you have to realize that many eastern theologies are based on only one hope : reaching this point, reaching Nirvana. I caoont believe this can be too horrible, except for people not ready/willing, or people who like their stand in the illusion of reality. As you guessed, I dont like my stand in this illusion. That being said, I will be wise enough to inform myself as to what I didn't like when I die: was it my life (which case I might decide to move on and experience the different wavelengths), or was it deeper (in which case I could decide to un-exist, as we said in my previous thread)?

Besides, and as JohnR said, Nothing and Everything are the same concept. This is the intimate relationship between zero and infinite that I was talking about earlier. All those who want to really feel "at one with God" have no choice: they have to dissipate.

Dharma, love was created out of desire. Whether love existed before time and space, I don't know, but love is not what "is" in the sense that it is not a preexistent condition: pure void energy is, and this energy does not need feelings. As a matter of facts, this energy in its absolute form is probably not "sentient" as we understand it, and it probably does not need self-awareness either. Why would it? It is not a divinity in the sense that it does not (in its purest form) need express a desire to creation and a love of creation. Yet it pre-exists space, time and consciousness.

That's probably what they mean when they say that God said "I am". Had the energy sit still and not realized its own existence/non-existence, it wouldn't have become a divinity and we wouldn't be paying taxes and getting bones broken...

[JohnR]

Discussions about this subject often end in intellectual debates, but this subject can only be poked or prodded with words. There is a silent knowledge or knowing, based only on profound experience, that is attainable but it can never be attained through intellectual discussion.

So as stimulating to the mind as these discussions are, they pale alongside silent knowledge. There are countless ways to gain this experience. The result is far beyond knowledge, but deep immersion into the power of it. Knowledge of something is not the thing itself. It is just some knowledge about the thing. When we speak of states of being, the knowledge doesn't take us anywhere at all, even if it were as correct as the intellect could muster. Only knowing from experience holds any power.

Just something to ponder maybe,
John

[suicidaldude]

Another quick reflexion about your dream, Erin:

In your entry about suicide, you spent a great deal of words explaining that you cannot escape the game without consequences, that your part in the play cannot simply "fade away" without everything else getting out of balance.

Yet now, you tell us that one can simply "disappear" into void and stop existing. Of course, by doing that, there would be no causality left, no "experience". So a soul commiting suicide (temporarily extracting itself from a specific place) has to pay the price of its actions, yet a spirit choosing to stop existing (removing itself permanently from all interactions in every place conceivable) is not held responsible for anything, that in fact the concept of responsibility disappears, for there is nothing? That is quite contradictory.

How about the other souls and spirits that used to know this one? If someone chooses to kill him/herself, usually, people left behind feel terribly sad. If some spirit chooses to stop "being", what of the spirits left behind? Do they feel sad? I know you don't know, but you might get a dream about it sometimes, so if you do get anything about this, please let me know.

[oberlee]

This may be off the cuff, but knowing suicidaldude's previous entries I have to say that I've been--as I'm sure many others have as well--concerned about his, well, your, state. Just want you to know that I'm glad you're still here, and I'm quite amazed at A) your incite and B) at the fact that this isn't your first language. That's beside the point I suppose. I just think it's really interesting and, well, cool, that you approach you existence and your life, judging from your previous entries, in a very pragmatic way, yet spiritual way. That is, pragmatic in a spiritual way. Anyway, I hope you find the best path for you. Whatever that is.

Don't want to turn you off, but you seem like you're very conscientious of spirituality in light of your emotional--or otherwise--state. Anyway, I'm rooting for you here. I actually did a ctrl+F for you to see if you had posted. I don't have any agenda, but you seem so intelligent and yet so despondent that I wanted to know where you were. Forgive me, if that sounds weird. I hope not!

[Andwan]

Well, suicidaldude, I'm too am a little impress by your statements...Its nice to know that you're still around, and actually, I'm starting to believe that you make pretty good points...The whole void thing, it sounds like the state that you'll one day be in anyway, if you was to ever reach enlightment....Endless nothingness vs. Enlightment...I don't think there's a difference, and judging by steve whole subjective reality thing and erin's entries, I don't think they are sure themselves.....But yes, I suppose that you are right nothingness is probably the best solution for us all in the end anyway....Unless someone can prove otherwise, or give me a reason to believe otherwise.........

[suicidaldude]

Hi, I just happened to be checking this thread again to see if it was going anywhere. Please don't focus on the sentences, rather on the message. Thanks for telling me how smart, articulate, awesome, whatever I am, but please don't do it again, because 1) this has nothing to do with the subject and 2) suicidal people with low self-esteems don't take compliments too kindly.

I've been reading over and over Erin's texts, mostly the part about her consciousness starting to fade away for good, and how everyone had a complete choice in the matter. That was beoynd my biggest hopes that one had the possibility to do this. I finally found exactly what I'll do next time I die. Thanks Erin. I've been thinking about almost nothing but this event for the past few weeks... nothingness, inexistence, finally...

Anyway, to anybody reading, consider this fact twice : Erin talks about "home" for the afterlife (of sorts), but since we all came from the void to start with, what is your true "home"? The "chorus of angels" that would have you exist and live and suffer over and over again? Or the pure nothingness that is perfect peace, total selflessness that does not even require you to be? All I'm saying is don't refuse the inexistence option too soon, at least consider it.

[Andwan]

Its too bad that you feel that way suicidaldude, but anyway...The point that you made about which one is our true home is a question that I've been trying to figure out myself....I tried to ask it once and now I'm asking it again...Is wanting to become part of the void the same as enlightment? Total nothingness, someone please tell me the difference.......

[Megan]

I come from a "suicide family" and have seriously attempted suicide myself.

The reason why I am not suicidal now is that somewhere along the way I adopted the belief that I chose this life so that I might develop certain soul qualities, and that my miserable life wasn't simply foisted off on me unfairly and against my will.

Having adopted this belief, I now lean into the emotional pain and simply experience it. I find that pain is a treasure of information and meaning when unpacked through simply experiencing it.

Actually, it feels like I am going into the Void to experience it. It feels like the Void is what heals and unpacks it at the same time.

The Void is very sweet, and available at all times, not just after you die. Pain is a good path to the Void.

Megan

[Megan]

To come at it from another angle:

The attempt to escape a problem is the problem. See the logic of this. When a man tries to escape, when he moves away from the problem, he divides himself into one man with a problem and another man who will escape the problem.

In reality, there is no such division, so the escape must always fail, as the man sadly experiences. But when seeing that he is the problem itself, that he and his problem are one, he stops trying to escape because he sees there is no other course.

In this state of intelligent acknowledgement of reality, he will not have the problem.
-- Vernon Howard

So, I actually agree with your suggestion to "step off the karma wheel," so to speak, but just want to add that we can start doing that in the Present Moment and don't have to wait until we die.

Whether you agree or disagree with what I'm saying, 'dude, I'd sure appreciate it if you'd just post anything, a single word, to let us know you're still with us. Or PM me. I care.

Megan

[suicidaldude]

Meg, (damn this seems to have become such a common name these days) I did read your last post, and as a matter of fact, I was still reflecting on it and trying to formulate an answer, hence the silence.

Your last entry did in fact help clarify your point, and so I can reply more easily.

While this is all true, the fact is that you still are... you might consider your life a "void" of sorts, and trust me, I know the feeling. You might consider it to be devoid, devoid of anything good, significant, that might make you willing to go on. Things like love, friendship, purpose. Things that so many other people know about and experience, but that are empty shells to people like me, for love, friendship and purposes are movie-concepts to me, foreign and unreachable.

But I'm drifting off the point here. What I meant to say is this : while your life seems to be a "void", you still live it. While your entire being seems to be absolutely empty except for the pain of loneliness, while you seem that the light-vibrations that we are all supposed to be made of seem to have deserted your whole spirit, you still live, you still exist.

And while you are still in the place of emotional and energetic (for lack of a better word) "void", you still have to wake up in the morning, go to work, pay for food, pay your rent, pay your taxes. While you lack any of the good (supposed) components of human life, you still have to struggle for your survival. So you are not in a void. There is still a "you", even though it only seems to be made of pain.

In these circumstances, you wonder why there should even be a "you", what is the point of this unloving and unloved soul, going in circles.

Well, I guess I really went overboard with the weeping "goth-kid" style here. Sorry. But at least I made my point : even when you exist only through pain and depression, you still exist, so there is no void.

And what I want now is not an emotional "limbo", like a fake void that would still have you exist and struggle. I now would love to embrace the grand Void (note the capitalization), the one where you cease to exist, the one where there is no love, granted, but also no pain, no depression, no suffering. This Void is real peace, it is Nirvana, Unexistence, the highest level of Heaven, so to speak. The void you are talking about is none of that, the emotional void of depression is anything but peace and stillness.

So of course, if there is any way to melt in this void, and to stop existing, as Erin put it in her blog entry, I will go for it. No amount of "counceling" or "spiritual guidance" could distract me from such an aim, especially at the prospect of having to live other life like this one, or even worse.

At the end of the day, they'll all get there. But apparently, lost souls get there faster than Saints...

[homeboy]

Hey,
I was just reading through this stuff and just wanted to say a few things. I just wanted to say that everyone thinks about these things from time to time, some longer than others. I do believe that we have choices in the afterlife, one where you can return or one where you can go into the Void and I'm pretty sure there are many many other choices besides these two. I don't believe in the concept that we have to "report" to somebody when we want to do whatever it is we want to do. As such, the contradiction that you mentioned about Erin and her suicide entry with the one about the afterlife may not be a contradiction at all. It is just another choice we can make. Whether or not we want to correct the mistakes after we leave our bodies is up to us. Our choices might change once we are not in "pain" and truly have freedom. Thus it is possible to just 1) dissappear 2) continue to help and THEN dissappear or 3) continue to help and then continue...
BUT that's beside the point that once we enter the Void, what's not to say a piece of you will not return. Parts of you will just split up and combine to form new ether people(?)

BUT alas this is all but speculation. I've come to the point where it makes more sense to have fun now and think about the troubles as they come. Survival is only a part of the game, just have fun.

[suicidaldude]

Of course parts of you (or You, you know how these new-age people love to capitalize every damn word !) are present everywhere once you stop to exist. Everything is made of void, so if you become void, you are technically everything. But you are not "sentient" in the form that we understand, i.e. an individual self-aware "entity" capable of interacting with its surrounding, and considering other things as "not itself", basically, what we call a "spirit". So you can't suffer anymore.

[Andwan]

if someone you know decides to just stop exsisting, how would that make other people who knew that person feel...Personally, when I get to the otherside, and find out that my dead aunt decided to end her exsitence, I would be heartbroken (as far as I know now anyway)....Thats a pretty intense choice, I don't think that it really works like o.k your aunt decided to end her existence, get over it...There has to be more to it than just that...

[homeboy]

There might be more to it but we won't ever know until we get to the other side and do some investigation ourselves or someone tells us, etc. But I suspect that just is. That's it. Your attachment to her was just that but I suppose there can be arrangements where you can continue to have relationships with a particular soul. As for myself, I would like to just travel the world as a "spirit" or ghost or whatever you might want to call it. Limbo seems like a great place to be besides the "go reincarnate" or "join ME VOID" paths.

[JohnR]

S...Dude,

You totally missed Megan's point and I think you prefer it that way.

You are stuck in your ego and in the template that you hold between raw reality and your perception. I think you enjoy using twisted logic to debunk the caring of others; to purposely not SEE what they offer you. What Megan said can lead you to fulfillment.

Reality doesn't give two hoots whether you are comfortable accepting help and advice or not. There is only one moment that holds power and that is now, and there is only one boat sailing on your ocean of existence -- and that is YOUR boat. If you don't want to paddle anymore that's fine, but in that case why carry on this discussion? You clearly have unfinished business in this LIFE.

You know what it is that you are afraid of; that hurts you -- own it, immerse yourself in it, and go down the timeline knowing that there are others that have had the courage to be there before you, and that are there for you now. There is nothing to be gained by jumping ship in the middle of the ocean; you'll only have to catch another.

Existence doesn't care about what you think your thoughts are. It only cares about what you DO, and what you are doing, is carrying on a conversation about the nature of reality. Existence won't put you into the void that you so desire until you have fulfilled what it deems that you value. There is no getting around it; you are here to find your answers.

For what it's worth to you,

John
John Rocheleau Canadian Artist

[suicidaldude]

Anyway, your statements contradict Erin's entry and the very concept of free will. Anyone can choose their opinions, and that's fine. I personally choose to go with Erin's entry, because it makes perfect sense. Why would anyone be forced into existence if they do not desire it anymore, or if it is not pleasant enough to then (or even utterly unpleasant)?

If one desires to get to the void, I can't see one single reason why they couldn't melt into it.

edit: sorry JohnR, I thought you were the annoying guy from last time I posted trying to ruin yet another thread, but it seems I got confused, you're not that person at all.

[JohnR]

I wish you success in your quest. PM me if you feel the need or desire.

:-)
John

[suicidaldude]

Don't worry too much about that, unlike what most people believe, I don't buy into the "self-discovery quest" thing, I think there is no quest at all, we're just going in circles in this little illusion of ours that we call the Universe. And that is exactly my point: taking roller-coaster rides of existence is fine as long as you enjoy it, but when it's not worth it for you anymore, why should you keep doing it?

[Angela]

suicidaldude, is it worth it for you, or not?