Is There Life After Death?

[Radical]

Well... is there? I know Steve and Erin have said that we are not our physical body, and that we are really our consciousness. So when we die what happens to our consciousness?

Does it travel to another dimension - the astral plane for example? If it does then what will it do there?

Do our memories of the physical world stay with us?

Do we have the option to reincarnate?

Also, what exactly is our consciousness? What does it look like? Does it have memories etc?

[Jill]

Erin's got this one covered already:
Erin Pavlina’s Blog » Blog Archive » What Happens When You Die?

[Radical]

Originally Posted by Jill

Erin's got this one covered already:
Erin Pavlina’s Blog » Blog Archive » What Happens When You Die?

A nice theory - it beats non-existence anyday!

I hope it's true, although I'm abit skeptical of course.

[Steve Pavlina]

Sure there's life after death. Just ask any dead person.

One thing that really freaked me out was when I saw a dead person standing next to a woman at a conference and was able to physically describe him in detail to her, tell her stuff about him that I couldn't possibly know, and relay a message from him. I wrote about that in this blog entry (under the Colette Baron-Reid section):
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...do-it-seminar/

Maybe it was "only" telepathy, but then why would my mind go through the elaborate projection of conjuring an accurate image of a dead person, especially when I'm more likely to accept direct telepathy?

Ultimately what convinced me wasn't my experiences though. It was the decision to test both beliefs firsthand to see which appeared more accurate. It was only by comparing the two that I could make an informed choice. This just isn't the type of decision you can make from the outside looking in.

In any event I don't like to hold fixed beliefs in any area, so I live in such a way that whether there is or isn't an afterlife doesn't make such a big difference. Either way I can still do my best to contribute while I'm here.

From what I've seen I imagine death just floats you back to one of the astral planes... or if you're really attached you could linger in the earth plane, but that's not really healthy.

One of the problems with getting those answers is that dead people don't suddenly become enlightened. Most are just as confused as they were on earth. They have a different perspective, but they still don't understand the nature of the universe. Asking a dead person to explain death is like asking a human being to explain life. Everyone gives a different answer, since there's no instruction manual on either side.

[Adam]

I love your skepticism, Radical... It's much more open than any skepticism I've seen before.

Well, since everybody has their own variation on what will happen when they die, I might as well put my input in. I'm not saying that this must be true, only that out of the options that I've looked at, this is the one which fits closest to my beliefs.

First, there are two main choices... there is either life after death, or there is no life after death. Since believing in an afterlife will not affect my death much if there is, in fact, no afterlife, and not believing in an afterlife could potentially have major traumatic effects on me if there is, indeed, an afterlife, it is safest to assume that there is an afterlife and act accordingly. It isn't a matter of skepticism and following all of the evidence no matter what. I'm just hedging my bets.

Since there is an afterlife, or I am at least living as though there is one, I have to decide on a model to believe in so that I can act accordingly. In order to keep from offending people who have come to different conclusions than I have, I'll leave out the 'why' of my decision... It is deeply personal, both to myself and to other people, and a huge part of my belief system is to allow others to make choices for themselves. To sum up my beliefs as simply as possible, we exist as ego-based creatures in order to experience things from a singular point of view. This means that I can not believe in evil as a tangible thing any more than I can believe that my shadow is tangible... From an individual perspective, it exists, and it is as real as anything else that I can observe. From a purely objective perspective, though, it doesn't exist, and is in fact the state of something not existing, and we can't, objectively, say that something not existing is actually something.

Without evil, there can be no sin. This doesn't mean that choices do not have consequence, which seems extremely evident... It means that evil is only a way to perceive and describe things which cause us suffering, just like a shadow is a way to perceive and describe a lack of light. Choices still lead to consequences, and poor choices lead to suffering, so there is still plenty of motivation, both fear based and love based, to do good in the world without the need to add extra fear with the concept of sin.

All of this has lead to a very glorious vision of both life and the afterlife. Experience is what you make of it, and life can be just as good as any eternal paradise, and can only add to its glory. Is the paradise that I'm picturing eternal? Only for those who choose to make it eternal. I would imagine that most people would rather come back and continue to experience life from different perspectives, to continue to learn and grow. Nothing that happens here can damage our spiritual bodies, so there is no fear in being incarnated. If we wrong someone, they will have the perspective to accept that neither of us were living consciously, and with such a highly conscious perspective, anger and fear would be unnecessary.

Anyways, I feel that I'm rambling now...

[Athena]

what a fun question!


Adam: Pascal's wager for the afterlife?


Steve: how come then, people who have had near-death experiences CAN better explain life and death? from some near-death stories, apparently we get to talk to God a little bit and ask him what has been going on.. and then at least get some better perspective of life/death.

if not through death, how would we attain enlightenment? do we have to become monks and meditate for years? I think enlightenment is a big step beyond simply 'raising our vibration'. (or what about those people like David Hawkins or Ekhart Tolle, who became suddenly enlightened after some chance events..? can we click into enlightenment like that too?)


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does anyone have any ideas about how karma (if it exists) plays out in the afterlife? does it give us more barigaining power to choose our next life? how much choice do we have in creating our next life?




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btw-- I really LOVE how Erin and Steve can put things from the spiritual realm into plain and simple language. It is so much more accessible and easier to try to understand some things from their writing!!!

[Trina]

Isn't "life after death" an oxymoron?

[fourthdan]

Trina, i think you're referring to what Dawson said in one of dawsons' creek episodes (am i a true pop culture philosopher or what? )

"it shouldn't be life and death. Life isn't the opposite of death. The opposite of death is birth. Life... has no opposite"

I think in this thread it just got an opposite: after-life.

@steve:
I've not proof-read all the things you've written about astral projections yet, so I'm not sure if you've answered this already somewhere. But do your astral projections serve as any sort of evidence for or against the Hindu beliefs of the soul being peices of the supreme soul - floating around and transiting between physical and astral bodies in cycles of births and deaths?

[dorothy hanna]

I've had some good experiences with my older sister who died. I was grieving heavily, at the loss of her, as I had been looking forward to spending another 40 years of happy times, laughing and talking with her, as we were so fond of doing.
I had one of her favorite CD's, Andre Bochelli, and I was playing it, and I suddenly heard her voice saying repeatedly, "Play number 8." (I think was the number). I put it on number 8, and listened. It was beautiful, but not in English, so I took the paper that had the English translation of the song, and it was, My Soul Departs Into The Universe.

So, Yes, Virginia. There is life, after the experience of death. Just as birth is a part of life's experience, so is death.

[Radical]

Here's a question:

Erin said in her theory that after we die we have the choice to reincarnate. Do we get the choice to reincarnate as animals? Or can we only experience the physical realm from a human's perspective?

[escapee]

I know that the ultimate goal of buddhism is to avoid reincarnation by achieving the state of enligtenment (Buddha) or whatever you wanna call it.

I really dont know how true is this but i'll keep an open mind .

[dorothy hanna]

Only the fleshly physical body dies. It says right in the Bible. We are changed, in the wink of an eye. We take off what is corruptable, and we take on that which is incorruptable. We have a spiritual body.

[Andrew Brunelle]

Life is, in essence, a culmination of experiences, witnessed firsthand through a first-person perspective. It is not the "real" you, but rather a vehicle through which you can interact with the world. I cannot distinctly say what happens when our "vehicles," or physical bodies die, but I do believe there is some sort of life after death, although I do not know its nature, but I'm sure, as Steve said, most dead people do not know either. So to confirm that you do not really die, but just the medium through which you convey your thoughts and actions dies. So, to think in this way will ultimately, hopefully, for you, erase most fear about everything. To know that even death is not the end of your life, to fully and totally accept this, but not blindly, to compleely believe it through a deep resonation with your conscious mind and logical perspective. I would always wonder why people would cry at others' funerals if they believed they were going to a better place. I used to look at the hollow "shell" in which they used to inhabit and think, "They're somewhere peaceful now, somewhere better..." And I still feel like I am not my physical body, but much, much more. So, it's more of a knowing than believing, and this will hopefully alleviate your fear of death or wondering about death. I could be wrong, but if I am, there is no way I wouuld ever know. I'd be gone. But I really cannot fathom this actually happening, but that's just me.

[Markus74]

As far as I know nobody has come back from the Dead. So it's kinda hard to know ...

[Steve Pavlina]

NDEs can give people a new perspective on the afterlife. People often do become more enlightened from the experience, but that doesn't always last.

However, actual death isn't the same as an NDE, since you don't have the chance to continue where you left off.

People who have NDEs return knowing they can make positive changes. After an NDE one's priorities can change dramatically. But after a real death, it's too late. That often leads people to fear judgment, thinking they no longer have the chance to right some of their perceived wrongs.

[Markus74]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

NDEs can give people a new perspective on the afterlife.

How? If they haven't seen the actual afterlife? Since they were not really dead. Or did I misunderstand you?

People from NDE tend to see what they like to see, and what they're used to. Religious people tend to see their religious figures, other people tend to see family members, etc.

And the 'light' could just be the brain running amok.

But I'm curious as to what will really happen when we die. I hope there'll be an explanation ...

[escapee]

I really doubt the consciousness perceived during NDE is within the mind .


About the Continuity of Our Consciousness

So we have to conclude that NDE in our study,1 as well as in the American2 and the British study,3 was experienced during a transient functional loss of all functions of the cortex and of the brainstem. How could a clear consciousness outside one’s body be experienced at the moment that the brain no longer functions during a period of clinical death, with a flat EEG? Such a brain would be roughly analogous to a computer with its power source unplugged and its circuits detached. It couldn’t hallucinate; it couldn’t do anything at all.

Personal Accounts of near death experience

Cathy (my girlfriend) has had an NDE after being brought in to the first-aid room of a hospital in Holland. I don't know if it is essential to mention that she had tried to commit suicide (pills). She was unconscience when she was found at home and was brought to the hospital like that.

She remembers to have seen her body lying in the first-aid room, viewed from a high corner near the ceiling; the medical staff was working hard on her 'body', details from this were precisely given by her afterwards without ever having seen the room before or later. She felt quite neutral, even when she heard a doctor or nurse say: 'Oh, there she goes again'.

I really wish you would not use my last name if you print this in your column. I have not shared this experience publicly in fact I am a little hesitant on sharing with you, the few I have told in the past say I was hallucinating or was delsuional at the time. I guess that is why I have kept it inside me for so many many years. Just in the past decade or so have I read and heard more and more people sharing there NDE with the public and revealing very personal details in books. I guess that is what prompted me to share this with you now!

Well, like I said it was l973 and I was in the hospital with a high fever I had lost massive amounts of blood and had bad bad cramping of the stomach due to a miscarriage. I remember being in the emergency room and then they admitted me to a private room. When I was there and the doctor was examining me my heart stopped, my fever was off the themometer, and he called in more doctors and nurses.

I distincly remember starting to feel my body leaving my body and floating up to the top of the room as I looked down there were five doctors 3 nurses IV's being put in both arms and a heart machine trying to bring me back! I just looked down on them and it felt so good to be up there that it was really quite beautiful and I really didn't care to go back. The next thing I recall was floating way up to a place in a bright illuminous light that I have never seen in this world words could not describe the warmth, love , and peaceful feeling that was in this light. I was 17 then and I saw a huge 3 dimensional screen come up bigger then any movie screen I had ever seen in life! I just stood there watching my whole entire life pass before my eyes on this screen everyone in whom I ever was encountered with in my 17 years of life was on this screen every emotion and feeling was also played too!I could not move a muscle in my body yet as my spirit body was moving back into my physical body I kept saying no no don't do this to me let me go don't save me I was really hoping they wouldn't bring me back! I learned one thing when I was there I will always remember I guess it was my lesson or something I never really understood, but I do believe whole heartedly that the message was really simple about life but yet everyone in this world has a hard time trying to live there life that way for some reason I have seen in the decades I have lived since then.
The message was to love each and everyone and judge no one or nothing! just that simple! I have touched many peoples lives over the years and I hope to continue too with this message I hope I have touched yours.
Sincerely Love and Light!!!

[escapee]

Could our brain be compared to the TV set, which receives electromagnetic waves and transforms them into image and sound, as well as to the TV camera, which transforms image and sound into electromagnetic waves?

The informational fields of our consciousness and of our memories, both evolving during our lifetime by our experiences and by the informational input from our sense organs, are present around us,and become available to our waking consciousness only through our functioning brain (and other cells of our body) in the shape of electromagnetic fields. As soon as the function of the brain has been lost, as in clinical death or brain death, memories and consciousness do still exist, but the receptivity is lost, the connection is interrupted.

[dorothy hanna]

Hi escapee,
You experienced, what you experienced. It's yours, and no one can diminish it.
They can say what they will, but they were not where you were, nor did they experienced what you did.
Just remember. You are the one that knows. They are left to either believe, which makes them a believer, or they can remain in their disbelief. The choice is theirs.
Their choice has no affect on your experience, and what you now know.

OWN IT!

The messege is simple, and sweet. Keep on doing what you're doing. Touching peoples lives.

Be patient with the rest of us. We'll eventually see what you saw, and experience it as well. Then we too, will know.

I believe you.

[Erin Pavlina]

Obviously I believe in life after death.

If I tune in to a deceased person's energy and get detailed information about their cause of death, name of their childhood pet, where they hid their will, etc. where is that information coming from if not from them?

Telepathy with my client? Nope, because I can tell them something they didn't know.

Picking up on residual memory in the air? Probably not. But maybe. I won't rule that out.

Collective unconscious?

[Markus74]

Erin: Can you get that info from living people as well?

Because if you could tell me things about my past that you just couldn't have known, then I would be truly impressed.

[Trina]

Originally Posted by dorothy hanna

Only the fleshly physical body dies. It says right in the Bible. We are changed, in the wink of an eye. We take off what is corruptable, and we take on that which is incorruptable. We have a spiritual body.

And what if you don't believe in the bible? Your proof means nothing to someone who doesn't believe.

[Markus74]

The Bible is just an ancient book written by archaic people. Some in it is wise, some in it is dumb.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by Markus74

As far as I know nobody has come back from the Dead. So it's kinda hard to know ...

You have come back from the dead. You've probably done it many, many times already.

Ahhhh, I'm wasting my time explaining this to you.

[Markus74]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

You have come back from the dead. You've probably done it many, many times already.

Ahhhh, I'm wasting my time explaining this to you.

You've wanted to waste your time, therefore you manifested me!!!

[Erin Pavlina]

Originally Posted by Markus74

Erin: Can you get that info from living people as well?

Because if you could tell me things about my past that you just couldn't have known, then I would be truly impressed.

When I do readings for people I often get information about them that I couldn't possibly have known. A few examples:

I knew the sitter had just spent $60,000 to buy a piece of land he was planning to build a cottage on.

I knew a guy was having unprotected sex with his girlfriend and also that he was cheating on her.

I knew a woman was going through a divorce because her husband was abusive and also had been cheating on her. All this woman did was tell me "hello" and the information came to me in a flash.

I knew a woman's father in law was on death's door as soon as she sat down in front of me.

I knew a woman was being stalked by an ex boyfriend and that the ex boyfriend knew where she had recently moved because he'd run into her sister in a store (even she didn't know that last part, verified it with her sister and emailed me back!)

Sometimes I get the information from deceased relatives who can see this stuff going on and sometimes the guides tell me.

I don't always get super detailed info like that, but I'd say during all of my readings I pick up on something pretty detailed like that.

[Greg]

Hey Erin,

What do you usually need from the person to get a reading - do you use a personal item of theirs, just listen to their voice or need nothing at all.

Is it possible to do a reading with just a forum post?

or do you usually need more information first?

Just curious because this stuff just blows my mind.

Apologies if this has been answered elsewhere.

[julien]

I believe death is the end of everything, and our "soul" is nothing more than some extraneous neuronic connections. Animals have got fewer of them, therefore they concentrate only on basic needs. However, human beings enjoy the luxury to focus on some non-essential concepts. That's it for me, nothing more. This does not say that life is not enjoyable: actually, this says that every day that passes must be fully enjoyed, because eventually my friend, there's nothing out there.

[Erin Pavlina]

HI Greg,

Right now I need to either see a photo, hear a voice or be with the person in-person. Email is definitely my weakest connection of the three but with a photo I can connect. In fact, in the photos I can sometimes sense the deceased relatives who are around them, so in those cases, a photo is superior to voice contact.

[Dharma]

Originally Posted by Markus74

How? If they haven't seen the actual afterlife? Since they were not really dead. Or did I misunderstand you?

People from NDE tend to see what they like to see, and what they're used to. Religious people tend to see their religious figures, other people tend to see family members, etc.

Markus, I usually don't read your comments fully because you tend to ask questions and then argue with the answers for 100 posts. But, this time you've hit on something I did not consider. Hmmmm.

Originally Posted by Markus74

But I'm curious as to what will really happen when we die. I hope there'll be an explanation ...

Now, if I tell you are you going to argue with me?