Discussion Afterlife (and related) general discussion

[ArtVandelay]

The lead commentary in this thread is about consolidating the topic to one thread. I honestly find it annoying.

Lead commentary...do you mean the title? It seems more like a suggestion...I haven't seen any rules that say you can't make new threads on the topic. Anyway, a lot of people here find the frequent threads about afterlife annoying, since it's all pure speculation. Can't please everyone I guess.

 

[Robbyna]

Lead commentary...do you mean the title? It seems more like a suggestion...I haven't seen any rules that say you can't make new threads on the topic. Anyway, a lot of people here find the frequent threads about afterlife annoying, since it's all pure speculation. Can't please everyone I guess.

No you can't please everyone. You're right it is a suggestion. I just think it's such a vast and relevant topic that it's okay to come up over and over again.
Edit:
It wasn't a suggestion. An afterlife related thread I started was deleted because of this preexisting thread. It's a shame because I'm not the only one who enjoys this topic. One massive thread is hard to read and engage with.

 

[BlueRhinestones]

I don't believe in a tangible afterlife, but recently I've been tripping out over the meaning of consciousness... Why am I in control of my body instead of someone else's? What put me here? It was only some 100 years ago since we started to be able to fathom the mechanisms of genetics and inheritance. I wonder what we have yet to discover about consciousness

 

[Kta1994]

If there is an afterlife and you see the people from your past.. committing suicide and meeting others after would suck just as bad as earth can suck.

Exactly the thought of an afterlife scares me because what do you do if you messed up the life before... if you have no love in this life are you doomed in the after life?

Why do they get it worst?.. Seems like taking someone else's life is worst? What do they say about it? That scares me.. as really hope there's no after life.. and if there is.. I hope it can somehow erase pain..

they say its because if you ctb before your "time" has come you have to suffer those years that you shouldve spent alive here

 

[Life+me=error]

I think after experiencing this (for the most part) fucked up life I deserve a long long sleep.

 

[editredit22]

they say its because if you ctb before your "time" has come you have to suffer those years that you shouldve spent alive here

What happens after suffering all those years and what kind of suffering. I hope that's not true for our sake..

 

[Severen]

they say its because if you ctb before your "time" has come you have to suffer those years that you shouldve spent alive here

How can anyone force you to do shit though once you are out of your body? Go back to Earth or I'll kill you or imprison you? Yeah, I don't think so... Maybe I'll go back to Earth but only to be a ghost who trolls people I hate.

 

[Shamana]

In buddhism the karma of suicide is so heavy my buddhist teacher told me that in best case scenario you are born as an animal.

There are also buddhist teachings saying that if you commit suicide you will commit suicide again in hundreds of lives.

 

[Severen]

In buddhism the karma of suicide is so heavy my buddhist teacher told me that in best case scenario you are born as an animal.

There are also buddhist teachings saying that if you commit suicide you will commit suicide again in hundreds of lives.

I don't believe in Buddhism but whatever makes you happy, go for it.

 

[LMFAO FOCKERS]

In buddhism the karma of suicide is so heavy my buddhist teacher told me that in best case scenario you are born as an animal.

There are also buddhist teachings saying that if you commit suicide you will commit suicide again in hundreds of lives.

Well if I'm reborn as an animal I hope it's a ferocious lion. Or a pet gifted to a wonderful loving family.

I'm glad your Buddhist teachings are inspiring for you. Religion is not inspiring nor helpful to me.

 

[Shamana]

Well if I'm reborn as an animal I hope it's a ferocious lion. Or a pet gifted to a wonderful loving family.

I'm glad your Buddhist teachings are inspiring for you. Religion is not inspiring nor helpful to me.

At the current moment believing in buddhism is a curs since i believe suicide just creates more suffering. Ive experienced enough to believe in karma and rebirth.

 

[LogicalConclusion]

I've speculated quietly for a long time that maybe the afterlife is different for each person, like maybe it is shaped on their own individual beliefs. Maybe everyone is "right" in a way, if that makes sense. Idk, sorry, it's hard to explain but I'm happy this thread is here so maybe this helps someone or makes sense to them. Overall, though, I wonder if most of our torment isn't self-inflicted, and it seems like many NDEs relay peaceful experiences where it feels like the weight of the world is off of them. I won't get into what my highest hopes are, but I will say that at the least I hope for Nothing.

 

[ready2gtfo]

I've always been a strong believer in reincarnation. If one day you came into existence in the universe from nothing you almost certainly do so again. I believe that wherever we go when we dream is the same realm we go to in the afterlife until we enter back into this dimension again

 

[Severen]

Religion 100 years ago:
"If you commit suicide you will go to hell"

New Age today:
"If you commit suicide you will be reincarnated into the same difficulties"



------------


It's always the same bullshit. Even the Near-Death Experience are fucking bullshit. People know it but they'd rather just live in their fantasy. It makes me sad to see people fall for the same crap over and over again.

Same old shit. Different packaging. Blah blah blah, if you don't do what we say for no good reason, you will suffer, blah blah blah.

 

[KnightOfEnceladus]

I've speculated quietly for a long time that maybe the afterlife is different for each person, like maybe it is shaped on their own individual beliefs. Maybe everyone is "right" in a way, if that makes sense. Idk, sorry, it's hard to explain but I'm happy this thread is here so maybe this helps someone or makes sense to them. Overall, though, I wonder if most of our torment isn't self-inflicted, and it seems like many NDEs relay peaceful experiences where it feels like the weight of the world is off of them. I won't get into what my highest hopes are, but I will say that at the least I hope for Nothing.

Pretty much this. It seems we do judge ourselves after death, apparently because there are no more illusions and no more comforting layers of physicality between our perception and reality. We see everything we did, to everyone we did it to, and precisely what the knock-on effects of those actions were. We literally give ourselves Hell for it, too.

 

[Lorenz]

I believe once you die you get to repeat your life again and hopefully never make the same mistakes that lead to suicide.I really hope they is something at the end of life because to me living is hell

 

[KnightOfEnceladus]

The success and commonality of past-life regression therapy is one reason I am not a Buddhist or Hindu, @GeorgeJL, because one of the tenets of Buddhism is that human births are very rare. This is what I mean by experience and empirical observation trumping dogma.

Buddhism gets a lot right, far more than any other religion IMO, but some of the things it gets wrong it gets really wrong, and it gets them wrong in ways that permanently damage people and hinder their development across lifetimes.

 

[GeorgeJL]

The success and commonality of past-life regression therapy is one reason I am not a Buddhist or Hindu, @GeorgeJL, because one of the tenets of Buddhism is that human births are very rare. This is what I mean by experience and empirical observation trumping dogma.

Buddhism gets a lot right, far more than any other religion IMO, but some of the things it gets wrong it gets really wrong, and it gets them wrong in ways that permanently damage people and hinder their development across lifetimes.

So you think that reincarnation is actually quite common?

 

[KnightOfEnceladus]

@GeorgeJL, yes, and unfortunately so. I also think it's not something we should do if we can avoid it, and personally plan not to unless forced. I've learned enough, and had enough, and suffered enough.

Years ago I made a promise, after learning about what (supposedly) one may do in the "afterlife," to stay there and do what you might think of as "rescue work," helping earthbound and suffering spirits move up. That fits my personality and values perfectly, and I don't feel there's anything left for me to learn here. If anything, I'll be avoiding the rush by dying now/soon-ish; it feels like a whole lot of horrible things are about to happen in the US and maybe worldwide.

 

[GeorgeJL]

@GeorgeJL, yes, and unfortunately so. I also think it's not something we should do if we can avoid it, and personally plan not to unless forced. I've learned enough, and had enough, and suffered enough.

Years ago I made a promise, after learning about what (supposedly) one may do in the "afterlife," to stay there and do what you might think of as "rescue work," helping earthbound and suffering spirits move up. That fits my personality and values perfectly, and I don't feel there's anything left for me to learn here. If anything, I'll be avoiding the rush by dying now/soon-ish; it feels like a whole lot of horrible things are about to happen in the US and maybe worldwide.

I actually agree with you that reincarnation isn't uncommon. I mean Jesus reincarnated here and he was a highly evolved master. IDK perhaps some souls really do only reincarnate every age or so, IDK. I tend to think that unless you can function with high frequencies in the afterlife that you will be attracted to lower vibrations of earth, and I've heard some are even forced to come back.

I totally disagree that earth is going to be "horrible." Technology and science will save us IMO. Really technology and science is just an extension of truth and that truth comes from source. Scientists and religious people love to separate the two, separate God and science, but I see them as inherently connected. Technology, science, God, spirituality, life, death, OBEs it's all connected in some weird way.

Really all that needs to happen for technology to save humanity is going to be for us to develop super cheap, clean energy. And I'm following some researchers that are close to doing just that. Which is one of the reasons I want to stay alive is that I don't want to miss it. I want to be here to witness the transformation that is about to happen.

 

[KnightOfEnceladus]

@GeorgeJL, you are coming at this from the perspective of someone with a hell of a lot more money, power, and privilege than me. Or my friends, several of whom I've seen die needlessly from poverty and its sequelae.

And no huge revolution like you're so optimistically predicting will happen without things getting a lot worse beforehand, in order to shift or destroy the old system. Yes, technology might "save the human race" eventually, but perhaps not before billions of us die miserably. I can't survive as it is; if one more thing goes wrong my destiny should I fail to catch the bus will include homelessness and commitment in a psych ward as someone with no money and no insurance.

There are much worse things than simply death, and if anything, a peaceful suicide now(-ish) will likely let me exit this world in a better state of mind/spirituality than waiting for all that horrible stuff to happen to me.

 

[GeorgeJL]

@GeorgeJL, you are coming at this from the perspective of someone with a hell of a lot more money, power, and privilege than me. Or my friends, several of whom I've seen die needlessly from poverty and its sequelae.

And no huge revolution like you're so optimistically predicting will happen without things getting a lot worse beforehand, in order to shift or destroy the old system. Yes, technology might "save the human race" eventually, but perhaps not before billions of us die miserably. I can't survive as it is; if one more thing goes wrong my destiny should I fail to catch the bus will include homelessness and commitment in a psych ward as someone with no money and no insurance.

There are much worse things than simply death, and if anything, a peaceful suicide now(-ish) will likely let me exit this world in a better state of mind/spirituality than waiting for all that horrible stuff to happen to me.

Sorry for you loss in life. Perhaps I am quite a bit more privileged than you in some regards but I deal with severe tinnitus and a foot problem that is leaving me only able to work part time if that. I am barely scrapping by financially. If my mom dies or my tinnitus worsens I'll probably have no choice but to CTB. Anyway I am not trying to make this a competition to see who has it worse off. LOL

 

[KnightOfEnceladus]

@GeorgeJL: fair enough. I just want to go into this peacefully and end up, if not immediately then not too long after, in a better place/state. All the religious dogma is poisonous, and really bad for people spiritually even if those who expound on it mean well. Empirical observation and experiment trump dogma 100% of the time, and I wish that other person, Samana or whoever, would pull his head out and acknowledge that...

Also, as weird as this sounds, I have an unmistakable sense that I've overstayed my welcome on this Earth. Not so much being told "go away, you're not welcome here," but this odd, almost unarticulable sense that I've learned all I need to learn and won't benefit from further existence. In fact, it almost seems like events and/or entities above me are conspiring to help me off this mortal coil.

Does that sound completely nuts? Everything feels like some kind of staged play or movie, and it feels like I'm done watching it, played my part, and am about to exit stage left. It's not so much that nothing feels real as that I understand how transient everything actually is and how little most things humans fight and maim and kill for actually matter.

 

[GeorgeJL]

@GeorgeJL: fair enough. I just want to go into this peacefully and end up, if not immediately then not too long after, in a better place/state. All the religious dogma is poisonous, and really bad for people spiritually even if those who expound on it mean well. Empirical observation and experiment trump dogma 100% of the time, and I wish that other person, Samana or whoever, would pull his head out and acknowledge that...

Agreed, spirituality as it's taught by world religions has a lot of hocus pocus. But there are some gems to be found. But the pendulum needs to swing back to science, technology empirical data for the religious out there. Then the pendulum should swing back to spirituality. That is how we find balance. Embracing one extreme then embracing the opposite, and back and forth back and forth as we whittle down what works and what doesn't. As the Bible would call it separating the wheat from the chaff, or purifying the gold. This is how real truth is distilled over the ages.

 

[Severen]

Agreed, spirituality as it's taught by world religions has a lot of hocus pocus. But there are some gems to be found. But the pendulum needs to swing back to science, technology empirical data for the religious out there. Then the pendulum should swing back to spirituality. That is how we find balance. Embracing one extreme then embracing the opposite, and back and forth back and forth as we whittle down what works and what doesn't. As the Bible would call it separating the wheat from the chaff, or purifying the gold. This is how real truth is distilled over the ages.

Every pile of garbage in this world, has some truth in it, if you take the time to sift through it all.

 

[GeorgeJL]

Every pile of garbage in this world, has some truth in it, if you take the time to sift through it all.

LOL that is one way of looking at it.

 

[Shamana]

So you think that reincarnation is actually quite common?

In Hinduism and Buddhism every being is reincarnated. It's not our ego illusion or "personality" that reincarnates. We have a mindstream continium that never ceases and incarnates into different lifeforms according to our karma.

The success and commonality of past-life regression therapy is one reason I am not a Buddhist or Hindu, @GeorgeJL, because one of the tenets of Buddhism is that human births are very rare. This is what I mean by experience and empirical observation trumping dogma.

Buddhism gets a lot right, far more than any other religion IMO, but some of the things it gets wrong it gets really wrong, and it gets them wrong in ways that permanently damage people and hinder their development across lifetimes.

Not everyone who has past life memories necessarily have real memories. It can just be fabrications. That's why there's a ton of women out there who believe they are a reincarnation of Cleopatra etc.

It's easier to continue to reincarnate as a human though when you are one, because you have oppotunity to accumelate merit and wisdom. Once you are in the animal realm fx you are stuck in a dead end.

And when you look at how many millions or billions of animal life forms there are and have been, human life is still very rare.

I tried past-life regression once without any succes. I've only had some powerful experiences in this life and some clues from my clairvoyant that give me a few hunches about what kind of person I may have been in my past life and where I was otherwise it's mostly guesswork, but it's not something I spend a lot of time thinking about. When I'm considering suicide though, I'm quite worried about where I may end up in my next life though.

What does buddhism get really wrong that hinders people's development?

 

[Shamana]

@GeorgeJL: fair enough. I just want to go into this peacefully and end up, if not immediately then not too long after, in a better place/state. All the religious dogma is poisonous, and really bad for people spiritually even if those who expound on it mean well. Empirical observation and experiment trump dogma 100% of the time, and I wish that other person, Samana or whoever, would pull his head out and acknowledge that...

Also, as weird as this sounds, I have an unmistakable sense that I've overstayed my welcome on this Earth. Not so much being told "go away, you're not welcome here," but this odd, almost unarticulable sense that I've learned all I need to learn and won't benefit from further existence. In fact, it almost seems like events and/or entities above me are conspiring to help me off this mortal coil.

Does that sound completely nuts? Everything feels like some kind of staged play or movie, and it feels like I'm done watching it, played my part, and am about to exit stage left. It's not so much that nothing feels real as that I understand how transient everything actually is and how little most things humans fight and maim and kill for actually matter.

A buddhist teacher wrote me this on suicide for Vajrayana practioners.

"
Such people have not been ripened by empowerment and have no obligation to view phenomena as pure.

Karma is not about what is fair and unfair, it is about the results of the intentions we have and the acts we commit on the basis of those intentions.

Taking one's own life is a very huge ignorance, this is why the repercussions are severe, no matter who one is. The extreme aversion required to take one's own life is such a negative karma it can have only negative consequences.

If one is a Buddhist, one is destroying one's precious human birth, so it will be very hard to find such a birth again.

Committing suicide is trading the comparatively minor suffering of the human realm for the intense suffering of the lower realms. In short, it is a bad deal, since one is certain to fall into lower realms by committing suicide.

It is better to suffer in this life and make use of this precious human birth as best as one can-- even small acts of merit have huge benefits. One does not have to be a perfect practitioner to make offerings to the Three Jewels, etc.

So I ask you again, please supplicate your guru and the Triple Gem from the depths of your heart. The benefits of having a precious human birth, the prerequisite to meeting the Dharma, outweigh the temporary despair you feel now. It is not hard to practice Dharma. It is much harder to continue in samsara.

Also, by committing suicide, one abandons sentient beings, because it is certain one will be born in lower realms, where one will have no leisure to help others. Even if one has enough merit to be born a human being, one will again and again meet obstacles to meeting the Dharma.

Right now you have a precious human birth, so please treasure it.

 

[KnightOfEnceladus]

@Shamana: again, my experience and research contradicts some of the Buddhadharma. This is not me being malicious or spoilt or weak-willed, and your own failure to experience past-life regression does not invalidate those cases which do exist. That's, frankly, insultingly solipsistic. And just because there are a lot of obviously false ones (like your example of lots of women thinking they were Cleopatra) does not give the lie to the true ones. You are, for a supposedly practiced and trained Buddhist, immensely prideful at times.

Remember the parable of the novice who stares at the master's hand when the master is pointing at the moon. Remember that "all the dharma are empty." Remember that Buddha himself supposedly said not to believe what offends your reason and your conscience. Well, Shamana, one king hell mountain of a lot of religious dogma that's accreted around Buddhism over the last 2500-odd years offends my reason and my conscience, and I've got the empirical evidence to back that up.

You're also conflating the Hindu concept of reincarnation with what is properly termed rebirth in Buddhism. The entire point of the Buddhist doctrine of anatman or nonself is that, in direct contrast to the Hindu idea that there is a spark of essential being that continues between lives, Buddhism believes that there is no permanent, first-order "self" and it's just the skandhas or aggregates that continue onward. The analogy I've seen is something like lighting a new candle from the flame of an old one about to go out.

Which, incidentally, brings up some other questions, such as:

• "If reincarnation doesn't happen and what happens is instead rebirth as described above, in what sense is it "still you" from one life to another?"
• "Building on that, what's even the point of rebirth into a lower realm as punishment or a higher realm as reward if what's being reborn is not, technically, self-existent or "actually you" any longer?"
• "Karma is a natural law, like gravity or the inverse-square law of electromagnetic radiation. This means it is a description of some underlying aspect of reality, and is grounded in and supervenes on that reality. Where did it come from and what grounds it? What is "enforcing" karma?"

I would never think to compare my knowledge of specific doctrine with yours, but then again, I'd never think to out-wiki Wikipedia with my own brain either. What you know is less important than whether it's true or not.

@GeorgeJL: Edt: thought one of Shamana's posts was one of yours, sorry :/

 

[Shamana]

@Shamana: again, my experience and research contradicts some of the Buddhadharma. This is not me being malicious or spoilt or weak-willed, and your own failure to experience past-life regression does not invalidate those cases which do exist. That's, frankly, insultingly solipsistic. And just because there are a lot of obviously false ones (like your example of lots of women thinking they were Cleopatra) does not give the lie to the true ones. You are, for a supposedly practiced and trained Buddhist, immensely prideful at times.

Remember the parable of the novice who stares at the master's hand when the master is pointing at the moon. Remember that "all the dharma are empty." Remember that Buddha himself supposedly said not to believe what offends your reason and your conscience. Well, Shamana, one king hell mountain of a lot of religious dogma that's accreted around Buddhism over the last 2500-odd years offends my reason and my conscience, and I've got the empirical evidence to back that up.

You're also conflating the Hindu concept of reincarnation with what is properly termed rebirth in Buddhism. The entire point of the Buddhist doctrine of anatman or nonself is that, in direct contrast to the Hindu idea that there is a spark of essential being that continues between lives, Buddhism believes that there is no permanent, first-order "self" and it's just the skandhas or aggregates that continue onward. The analogy I've seen is something like lighting a new candle from the flame of an old one about to go out.

Which, incidentally, brings up some other questions, such as:

• "If reincarnation doesn't happen and what happens is instead rebirth as described above, in what sense is it "still you" from one life to another?"
• "Building on that, what's even the point of rebirth into a lower realm as punishment or a higher realm as reward if what's being reborn is not, technically, self-existent or "actually you" any longer?"
• "Karma is a natural law, like gravity or the inverse-square law of electromagnetic radiation. This means it is a description of some underlying aspect of reality, and is grounded in and supervenes on that reality. Where did it come from and what grounds it? What is "enforcing" karma?"

I would never think to compare my knowledge of specific doctrine with yours, but then again, I'd never think to out-wiki Wikipedia with my own brain either. What you know is less important than whether it's true or not.

@GeorgeJL: Edt: thought one of Shamana's posts was one of yours, sorry :/

Im not dissing people who have past life memories im just saying its difficult to say which ones are real.

Even though the ego is an illusion its same mind behind the pictures who experiences the pleasure and suffering connected to it.

The aggregates and skhandas dont continue but a new skhandas and aggregates are formed at each succesive rebirth and a new ego illusion is formed.

In Mahayana its taught that we all have an egoless soul known as buddhanataure which is the basis for every beings potential for buddhahood.