Death - An end, A beginning, A passage, or what?

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What is Death for you?

  • The end of one life, but another awaits (reincarnation)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • I don't really think about this stuff but I like answering polls.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    17
  • Poll closed .
George Takei posted one of Leonard Nimoy's last tweets and I thought it fits in with the theme of the thread.

"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP"

(LLAP = "Life Long And Prosper", the classic Vulcan saying from Star Trek)
 
How do I feel about my death ? ------count it all joy -----Joy comes from what you know to be true -----what is true in my world is the Bible ---God's word -----The Bible describes the place where His Children go in great detail and it sounds wonderful to me ------Everyone talks about aliens --when we are the aliens here on earth ---we are away from our real home and when we pass on we go back to our real home if according to scripture we follow protocol which is in God's word ----the Bible ------Fear comes from what we don't know or believe ----so fear is far from me as far as death goes -----Sadness is present when a loved one in my family dies 2 fold when I know that they have not accepted salvation ----Sad of the loss and sad for where they will reside but-- the ones who have accepted Christ that pass on I feel sad at the loss here but joy for them in where they are residing ---knowing they are with their Creator living in a place of Bliss -----
 
It's interesting how we think of death and sometimes fear it, yet prior to being born we didn't exist either. I think of non existence and envision that, to not be in this world anymore and why 100 years from now, why it even mattered that I was put on this earth in the first place. Yes our families will remember but in three generations we are reduced to distant memories and 5 generations forward how much would anyone remember? Are we like butterflies, flapping our wings and causing a ripple that possibly affects the future? Are we anymore special than an ant's existence in that way? I remember reading about solipsism and that it suggests that our own existence is the only thing that is real or that can be known. Everyone else is just an illusion. I've toyed with the idea that there is nothing after death, but then one can't help but acknowledge that throughout the ages, every generation tends to have an innate sense of some form of an afterlife and the idea of a spiritual realm that begins on earth and continues after death. Are we acutely aware of being on a continuous journey which some work to ignore and others embrace? Or are the ones who embrace this spirituality the fools?

All in all, I have a hope, that we do continue. My trust is in God, who has placed a brilliant universe before me that beckons my imagination to envision more than what I know.
 
George Takei posted one of Leonard Nimoy's last tweets and I thought it fits in with the theme of the thread.

"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP"

(LLAP = "Life Long And Prosper", the classic Vulcan saying from Star Trek)
And as one who has went before him once said, "Nanu nanu" RIP Leonard!
 
Are we like butterflies, flapping our wings and causing a ripple that possibly affects the future?

This call to my mind the soldiers and other "minor" (minor only in the minds of older generations of academic historians) players in the Civil War whose letters and papers seemed to be largely ignored by history until Ken Burns' documentary on the Civil War. I don't think they or others thought they would affect how future generations saw that conflict. They just wanted their families and friends to know what they experienced. In the end, though, they did have an impact on the future. That ripple may be small but it can have an effect.
 
Okay . What I believe Mendalla is that upon death, the spirits of the righteous go to be with Jesus, while their bodies remain on Earth. Further, I believe that when Jesus returns, he will bring the spirits of the righteous with him and reunite them with their bodies to live with him on the new Earth he will create.
They are going to need one hell of a body shop and an unlimited supply of bondo to make those bodies look good again. I could use some and I'm not even dead yet.
 
They are going to need one hell of a body shop and an unlimited supply of bondo to make those bodies look good again. I could use some and I'm not even dead yet.
I wouldn't mind some myself. The thing with me chansen, as I'm sure you know by now, :) :) I believe that Jesus exists, and I believe that he is all-powerful. Naturally then, I believe he will not have a problem with the resurrection process.
 
I picked "None of the above quite fits. I say more in a post."

Viewing life from the "other" side, from the viewpoint of the eternal energy that we undoubtely are, death is just a necessary aspect of biological life. But being--being energy--is forever.

Ultimately, we are creative energy. And energy is forever. Death is a necessary aspect of our temporary existence in a biological form, as necessary as eating and sleeping or any other biological function.
 
I've often thought of death by comparing it to the "mini death" we experience nightly, as Paul describes it in Corinthians when he said "I die daily."

Could it be that our individual lives are but a day in the life of the Soul? Which would imply that the Soul dies thousands of times, over and over again, with each new incarnation.

We are, as physical expressions of the Soul, the higher intuitive mind aspect of our being, caught up in a wheel within a wheel of incarnations.

As above, so below.
 
The Tibetan said:
People are apt to forget that every night, in the hours of sleep, we die to the physical plane and are alive and functioning elsewhere. They forget that they have already achieved facility in leaving the physical body; because they cannot as yet bring back into the physical brain consciousness the recollection of that passing out, and of the subsequent interval of active living, they fail to relate death and sleep. Death, after all, is only a longer interval in the life of physical plane functioning; one has only "gone abroad" for a longer period. But the process of daily sleep, and the process of occasional dying are identical, with the one difference that in sleep the magnetic thread or current of energy along which the life force streams, is preserved intact, and constitutes the path of return to the body. In death, this life thread is broken or snapped. When this has happened, the conscious entity cannot return to the dense physical body, and that body, lacking the principle of coherence, then disintegrates.
- from the book: A Treatise on White Magic
Ecclesiastes 12:6 said:
Remember him (the Creator) before the silver cord is severed, and the golden bowl is broken; before the pitcher is shattered at the spring, and the wheel broken at the well

I quoted the above, from the Old Testament, because according to the esoteric wisdom there are two streams of energy that connect the Soul to it's form. The stream that connects to the head, resulting in physical consciousness, is temporarily detached when we sleep or lose consciousness. The stream attached to heart, the life stream, however, remains attached during sleep. Once this life stream, the "silver cord", is severed, then we physically die.
 
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Death, biblically speaking, is a very nuanced idea.

At the core, in the division between those described as living and those described as dead, the key element appears to be the presence of God more so than evidence of a pulse. "Let the dead bury the dead" leaps to mind.

Theonly time death rightly becomes a concern is in the moments death occupies. Right here, right now, death is far enough away from me that it is of no concern at all. In the next coming moment it may eclipse all other concerns. I'll deal with it then.
 
Could death have profound understanding as we are commanded to bury our dead (adepts)? Some ancient authorities didn't like wise Hebrews ... so they created dead juice ... and the word was redacted so you couldn't understand ... alas the patriarchs of the church stated also that common folks shouldn't know this stuff ... too far out ... like intellect doesn't live here ... or have you noted?

Is this domain naïve or justly stupid? Just observe and make a judgement ... enough to make a thinking person wish to go ...

I'm waiting for the vocation ... a call?
 
Which brings me to my actual answer: "We cannot be certain until we get there".

Here I disagree with you, because basically I think that answer is little more than a promotion of agnosticism as "the only real way" - which is little better than absolute belief in anything as the only way.

I believe we can be "certain" - even if we don't "know" or can't "prove." For me, there's a lot of mystery about death. None of that alters my certainty that death is not the absolute end of life. I am certain that life continues. I am content to leave it to God - about whose existence I am also certain, although my knowledge of God is incomplete - to sort out exactly what me life will look like after my death.

As to my feelings about my own death - ambivalent I would say. I laid in a hospital bed a few years ago suffering from atrial fibrillation which they were having trouble getting under control. It could cause a heart attack or stroke if we don't get your heart back into a normal rhythm, they said. Strange feeling. No fear. More of an appreciation of this life, I would say. Death doesn't frighten me, although - like most I would say - I wonder sometimes what the process will be like. Uncomfortable? Painful? Peaceful?
 
How do I feel about my death ? ------count it all joy -----Joy comes from what you know to be true -----what is true in my world is the Bible ---God's word -----The Bible describes the place where His Children go in great detail and it sounds wonderful to me ------Everyone talks about aliens --when we are the aliens here on earth ---we are away from our real home and when we pass on we go back to our real home if according to scripture we follow protocol which is in God's word ----the Bible ------Fear comes from what we don't know or believe ----so fear is far from me as far as death goes -----Sadness is present when a loved one in my family dies 2 fold when I know that they have not accepted salvation ----Sad of the loss and sad for where they will reside but-- the ones who have accepted Christ that pass on I feel sad at the loss here but joy for them in where they are residing ---knowing they are with their Creator living in a place of Bliss -----
Well I am glad I don't carry that burden of belief. To me believing a loved one who hasn't accepted Christ will be in an eternity of torment when they die is unfathomable. Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs and if it works for you then that is that. As long as you are certain where you are going I guess that I all that matters.
 
Since Einstein we have known, with scientific certainty, that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, and that everything in the universe consists of energy. I feel and think that energy is the spiritual as well as the physical substance of the universe, a singularity capable of transcendence. This singularity has transcended its state and transformed its forms many times while remaining the energetic singularity of the source. (Energy can't be pluralized; there is only one energy!)

"Transcendence" means that energy transcended itself while remaining what it was. With every transcendental step, energy carried its previous state or form forward into the next stage: development trough envelopment: transcend and include, transcend and include, transcend and include, etc., ad infinitum. Thus, we still are the eternal energetic singularity of our source. In fact, this is what we ultimately and eternally are. The eternal energetic singularity is our ultimate source and our ultimate self. All of its transcendental stages, states, and forms are more or less temporary.

Thus, when we look at the death of the individual human organism from the viewpoint of the eternal singularity, then this death is just one of the countless changes that eternal energy undergoes while remaining an eternal singularity. When the life of a human individual is contemplated from the detached viewpoint of eternal energy, then it is a mere temporary and very brief flicker.

We often are in awe of our source. But, if the source were capable of awe, then it would be in awe of us, its most accomplished creation. When the source evolved us, it became capable of awe, and thus is in awe of us, its most perfect creation--so far. But the source is not saddened by the death of one of its most accomplished, biological forms. From the viewpoint of our ultimate self, life and death are one.


The lamps are different,
But the light is the same:
One matter, one energy, one light, one light mind,
Endlessly emanating all things.


-Rumi


Out, out, brief candle!
Life is but a shadow, a poor player, who who struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.


-HAMLET, Shakespeare


But life can also be an epic, told by an inspired poet, signifying everything: the immortal spirit. It is up to us!

If we are eternal energy, if eternal energy really is ultimate self, then we ought to be able to experience ourselves as such. We are! From my mystical viewpoint, experiencing ourselves as the eternal energy that we ultimately are is mystical experience. This is what we should strive for! And, once we have experienced IT, death will lose its sting.
 
Does everything start from nothing?

Is death nothing?

Is that an alternate end? Altruism?
Yes. Yes, and I don't what you mean by altruism.

As far as we're concerned, we as individuals, with birth dates and inevitable death dates, will not exist after our deaths. The time and place you and I were born into will never return.

If this individuality, this personality of the physical, emotional and mental worlds, is what we associate our whole being to, then death is truly the end.

If, however, we see this personal self as but an effect of an unseen cause, and identify with the cause more than the effect, then death takes on a whole new meaning. Much like changing out of a suit of clothes that is worn out and of no more use to us.
 
"a sucking chest wound is nature's way of saying slow down"
-- robin williams

death. seems to me to be:

a process towards cessation of responsibility and accountability

the process through which one enters another reality

an economic term regarding the process of when a taxpayer becomes a permanent non-tax-payer

the process through which someone becomes a story

the cessation & breaking down of the collection of complex semi-autonomous & autonomous self-reflexive patterns some of which are self-aware into a much simpler form -- the copies of these patterns within other people's minds (which are the person, just a lower resolution copy) exist for as long as those people exist

a necessary ritual that all human beings partake of

a necessary part of the socioeconomics of life

a source for pattern-recognition & time binding (like 'hymns', 'funerals', 'ceremonies')

the process by which a person's wavefunction decoheres back into the undefined universal wave function

the process by which a person is decompiled and sent to the great Batch File in the Sky

an observation at a certain point in space-time, when outside of space-time, the person is alive in the past

the process by which a lifeform finally achieves equilibrium with its environment

the process by which access is gained to the Celestial Green Room where all take off their masks and grok with fullness at the why and then get to come back, this time, as some(thing) else

the process by which one gives totally selflessly to nature

a great source for emo

the process by which failed experiments are removed from the Grand Experiment

life's greatest gift

life's greatest curse

a person's greatest philosophical decision

a completely natural part of reality's universal 'reduce, reuse, recycle' program

the punch line
 
...the process by which a person is decompiled and sent to the great Batch File in the Sky??

I would say it's more real time than batch.
 
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