Do you believe in Life after Death.
- Thread starter Castiel
- Start date
substantiate them yes i agree. Not sure its possible to make it beyond reasonable doubt though...
Well its a logical materialist stance yes. What do you mean by "unbounded condition?" I dont think its the case that IF you are not in the materialist camp THEN you must be in the crazy nutjob camp....and because that camp is essentially an unbounded proposition (ie unanswerable then one should be in the scientific materialist camp)
I think that ^^ way of putting it is entirely discriminatory against the side which believes there is enough evidence or something else which has convinced them of the truth of the experience.
Logical insofar as IF the path leads to X brain reaction equals a testable and consistent NDE reaction. What if experiments are done and in many cases its zero brain reaction and yet the experiences happen...do you continue to say "lets wait and see because the instruments we have dont measure to the micro-minute level of brain activity"
At what point do you say...as a scientist: "hrmm ok something is definately happening but the brain isnt causing it"
Do you ever reach that conclusion? Thats the problem with truth - what if it presents a view which is not in accordance with scientific orthodoxy? That is, it undermines centures of thought and perception on how the world is and the role of science.
We know enough about the brain to bring about unconsciousness with fairly regular certainty and consistency. In the Pam Reynolds example i quoted.....she had earplugs in during the operation and yet she was able to report exactly on the conversation between the doctors. It was confirmed that because of the earplugs she would not have been able to hear that.
Certain worldviews are so entrenched (because its been successful in a way) that any new evidence that would normally force a radically different worldview generally doesnt happen it is assimilated into the dominant worldview. i.e. scientific materialism. And the new evidence is relegated to mere "hallucination" or "illusion". Notice the denigrating status these words have. (see dictionary - compare and contrast with Truth, Real)
Blind from birth or blind from X age ?
If its the former....then i surely dont need to answer
Blind from birth or blind from X age ?
If its the former....then i surely dont need to answer
She was blind from birth... And again, so what!? She didn't describe anything she 'saw'? Only things she heard or could otherwise imagine...
Now if she's said, there were six people the room, four men, two women, all in the same colour outfits, except one... Now that would be impressive... But 'there was a ring on my finger' hardly proves sight does it
OCUK is the most unadventurous forum I have found on the Internet when it comes to spirituality. Mind you, for people like me it's a red rag to a bull and one of the reasons why the debates here get so intense. I think a lot of people here are ridiculously closed-minded naysayers who love trying to appear clever whilst doing the opposite, and they think I'm a mentalist who lives in a fantasy world made up of baseless remarks and hope. It won't ever change.
cool whats your science degree in? Neuro-chemistry?
Dont think im aware of evidence that says that DMT (produced by the brain) will cause an NDE specific experience. Could you point to the papers which say this so i can have a read? Also do these studies document the times of when the DMT is released in conjunction with the patient having the NDE experience e.g. see the Pam Reynolds NDE example. As i think you are saying that the NDE is found to coincide with when DMT is released in the brain and that ties it up nicely accounting for the NDE experience.
Cant really say "we dont know enough about brain" ie not enough evidence and then on the other hand say "there is hard evidence in favour of science over other explanations". Its open to speculation
Pharmacology BSc Hons supplemented by Physiology, Biochemistry and Molecular Genetis.
There isn't direct evidence relating NDE and DMT release due to the fact that no one is trying to nearly kill someone to measure their DMT levels. However there is evidence to show that at death, the pineal gland has a final burst of DMT before the person dies (these were noted by elevated levels of DMT in the blood at the time of death, carried out on terminal patients).
So there isn't research showing a link between NDE and DMT, but there is evidence to show a link between death and DMT. It's not hard to make the jump and suggest that someone who dies and is then brought back would experience the same DMT release as someone who isn't brought back.
The problem is that these experiments/observations were made back in the 70s, right before anything hallucinogenic was banned including DMT (despite it being a naturally produced chemical in the human body...).
The only approved studies carried out since then (that I'm aware of) were by Dr Straussman. They were thorough and well thought out, however some people would argue that we would need other groups to reproduce his results, something I doubt will happen due to the tight restrictions around human testing and DMT itself these days.
There is definitely evidence to suggest a perfectly natural reason behind NDEs, which are often seen as religious experiences too. Beyond that it also goes some way to explaining 'alien abduction' visions/experiences as many DMT users have described seeing/feeling the presence of beings.
There is some speculation which touches on the possibility of DMT allowing us to cross over into close dimensions, but I'll leave that to the (even more) open minded person
The dividing line between natural and supernatural is continually shifting in favour of the former. Every time a phenomenon is observed under test conditions or explained in a scientific context people claim it as purely natural.
The nature of the phenomenon has not changed. We've merely moved it from one arbitrary category to another.
The nature of the phenomenon has not changed. We've merely moved it from one arbitrary category to another.
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It's shifting in favour of a way for humans to contort things so they can understand them. It doesn't mean that supernatural phenomena do not exist or that we do not exist beyond death. Humans love to be able to define and understand things because when they can understand and define something they feel they have control over it and can manipulate it. You cannot control spirituality and the existence of your own soul's traversing from state to state, which is why, under current thinking, most people have no hope of connecting to the reality of the concept of the afterlife.
As a meat eating vegetarian i fully support them.
It's a serious point. Most orthodox (deliberate small 'o', including Roman Catholic, Protestant, Reformed, Orthdox and Anglican etc) Christians wouldn't recognise an Atheist Christian as 'Christian' any more than they would recognise a Jehovah's Witness or Mormon as 'Christian'.
It all depends on your definition. The Nicene Creed is generally regarded by most Christians (historically at least) as a defining statement of Christian belief. That starts "We believe in one God...".
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I do, and I have.
My problem is that "what if" can be applied to literally anything, the next step is then to say "ok prove it", which is where all attempts at explanation fail, as there is none as, going by what I currently know, it is highly unlikely the human consciousness survives once its physical support systems have stopped working, they are one and the same as far as I can currently tell.
Indeed, but attempts to disprove it also fail, so how can anyone (not you personally) make such a certainty statement that anyone who is open to the possibility is deluded or stupid or closed minded, as many have done.
Is that no the close-minded approach rather than mine, where while I do not necessarily believe in any one explanation, I am open to discussion on how the individual feels (that includes the naysayers) about their own mortality.
Soldato
- Joined
- 4 Apr 2003
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Ocuk is one of the most grounded forums with a very broad spectrum of intelligent mature members able to enter into rational debates and not just accept completely unsubstantiated theories without a balance of evidence. The naysayers are far from close-minded, rather they stand firm in what they do, or do not believe and there is nothing wrong with that.
Not at all, but it is the only "spiritual" sort of belief that is attractive to me. And why wouldn't it be attractive? Everyone fears their own mortality and life after death is a marvellous alternative to that.
Just wishful thinking, in the end. It relies a mechanism for an afterlife (which there is no evidence for) on us having a soul (which there is no evidence for), on the soul surviving the death of the body (which there is no evidence for) and so on...
Just wishful thinking, in the end. It relies a mechanism for an afterlife (which there is no evidence for) on us having a soul (which there is no evidence for), on the soul surviving the death of the body (which there is no evidence for) and so on...
Then why don't the world governments/united nations/people get together and remove those that are in harms way, and settle them in a safer zone, and don't tell me it's not possible because it is. The rulers of this system could do something about it.
Man of Honour
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- Stoke on Trent
Have you realised that during my impressionable period between 72 & 76 (14 to 18) that I had the largest collection of UFO and Supernatural books that you would have seen.
I also believed in God at that time too and was the Chairman of the Young Peoples Fellowship.
As the years rolled by I became to realise after zero evidence that it was all bull.
I want to believe but I've never seen anything to convince me.
Even now at 52 I watch dozens of UFO/Alien/Supernatural programmes because I still have a very active interest but so far it is all nonsense.
Here is my directory of the latest programmes to get through which is probably more than Magick -
So before you try and judge me and accuse me of being close minded first realise how I try hard to believe with zero results.
In another thread somebody posts a film of dust and claims they are UFOs flying around like boy racers - give me a break.
I've gone way past that impressionable open minded age and I want hard evidence.
NOTE: I honestly didn't set out to write this much, and it's a bit of a wall of text. Sorry. Feel free to skip unless you're genuinely interested in this topic and want to know what I have to say. "TLDR" might be very GD but isn't much to do with the topic at hand. I happen to have a great personal interest in this topic, so naturally have a lot to talk about. I've barely scraped the surface here so please forgive any slight non-sequitur or seemingly contradictory statements. I've tried to give as shallow an over-view as possible.
Someone once said "I don't have a belief in God, I have an acceptance of god [deliberate lower case]". That's pretty much my take on things, the 'afterlife' included. I think you're actually very much along the right lines when you refer to it being more of a natural phenomena than a supernatural event.
I don't particularly wish to go into great detail on here, but I've experienced enough to formulate my own beliefs through my life events so far. My current understanding (which is always open to change and 'evolution') is that we are - for want of a better word - multidimensional beings. By that I mean that the physical body and mind (which is a product of interaction between the body and the physical world) are separate to the deeper-seated and more permanent 'spirit' or 'soul'.
I would classify the 'gross' consciousness as something existing as an interface between this physical body and the world around us, and this is the thing that dies at the time of physical death. I do believe, however, that each entity/person/soul/whatever has a permanent (but not fixed) spirit, or soul, which from our perspective 'survives' death.
I use a lot of quotes and slashes because I think essentially at the moment mankind as a whole looks at things rather two-dimensionally and from a very limited perspective. It's like asking a frog born into a well what the ocean looks like... As such using mere words and hypothesising on a forum can never really get at the crux of the matter.
My main platform is that mankind has, unfortunately, greatly confused what you could call 'true spirituality' with religion. They are not the same thing, and in my opinion religion can actually interfere with the former; though not always of course. Being less religious and more spiritual never does any harm, in fact personally I would say I have no religion, but I definitely strive to be a spiritual person.
I don't really like elaborating on forums, but essentially my views in a nutshell are along the following lines:
* We each (spiritually not physically) stem from the same Source. You can call it universal consciousness, the cosmos, 'God', the Great Spirit, dharmakaya, whatever. It's pretty much the type of thing Jung used to talk about. This is where the misconception arose about "God created Man in his own image". In his SPIRITUAL image, not his physical one. God is not a man, or an individual, and he doesn't sit around in a place called Heaven. God is a living, all-pervading thing manifested in each one of us as that spark of life often called Mind, Soul, Spirit etc. God is also love, light and all things associated with goodness. We are essentially all kin to each other, all a part of 'God' and you could say (superficially) that we are all thoughts in the mind of 'God'. God is not a physical being, has no 'physical' existence and as such is more a concept than a person.
* We are spirits having a human experience, not humans who have spiritual experiences. People take 'spirits' and the like to be some supernatural sci-fi airy-fairy nonsense, but in fact I would assert that quite on the contrary it is not only natural, but a fact of live we've come to overlook. Castiel talked about science leading us away from spirituality and I think to a degree that's correct. Not that there is anything wrong with science, quite the contrary, but rather in future I think that science will become more adept at measuring the things we currently refer to as 'supernatural'. As such a homogeneity will arise between science and 'religion' (spirituality) as we come to see them as sides of a coin and two ways of looking at things.
* The physical world we see and experience with our conscious mind is a creation of our own ultimate mind. From our limited human perspective it appears that the world happens to us, and that we just experience it (or suffer it) as if we were corks floating about an ocean. However, I would assert that in fact the world is a concept, or creation of, our own consciousness and that, to coin a phrase, "that which is thought, or mentally imagined, is manifested as physical actuality". Unfortunately it doesn't work on a very gross level (you can't imagine yourself a Euromillions win!) but it's essentially true. This physical experience is ultimately illusory, transitory and very much dream-like. The appearance of an independent 'self' or 'I' is illusory. Quantum theories now abound on this very issue.
* During physical life, our experience becomes very single-pointed (limited) and we tend to see ourselves as individuals, amongst a sea of other individuals, with a short finite lifespan. Conversely, I believe that we are all manifestations of the same source, nobody is truly individual except at the very grossest level, and that we exist in several 'dimensions' simultaneously. I see our physical mind as a TV set, receiving our consciousness (soul/spirit) from a separate dimension/multiverse. Amalgamating this with the 'interface' between the body its external environment creates an illusion of 'self' which is in fact the grosser physical 'mind' that dies at physical death. The true personality experienced internally to each physical being exists independently and continues (with all memory and experiences intact) after physical death of the individual body/unit.
* Meditation, prayer, introspection and so on are all useful tools. None is particularly superior to another but all provide valuable 'grounding' to our spiritual self and the 'source' (godhead, God, Buddha-nature, dharmakaya, cosmic consciousness). Losing touch with our spiritual side doesn't necessarily provide very evident 'symptoms' but by maintaining a spiritual 'life' as well as a physical one, we strengthen our experience, transform our minds and ultimately progress along the path and gain more valuable insight.
You can live a purely physical life, ignoring the spiritual, and that doesn't necessarily have to be a problem. We all grow at our own rate. I do believe in multiple lives, not necessarily in the reincarnation sense but that explanation will suffice. The only harm from denying our spiritual nature comes when we allow it to grow into malice, hatred and other such negative emotions. "Physical life is all there is, screw everyone I'm building gas chambers and I will rule the world for my own benefit!!1!". You don't need to be religious to be spiritual, and you don't even need to be spiritually aware to live a good life... however that can't alter the fact that you HAVE an ultimate spiritual nature, and eventually you will have to confront that fact and build upon it.
* There is no religion except service. Whilst religious ritual can be helpful in many ways, we shouldn't make it the primary focus - rather use it as the tool that it is. Confusing religion as the goal rather than the tool has caused untold harm and horror, and is contrary to all that is good. Provided we do 'good', serve others with no regard for self, and try to do no harm as we accumulate experience and progress ourselves spiritually, no more could be asked of you. Anything much beyond that is a mechanism of control dreamed up by 'religious' figures.
If there is no afterlife, no 'God', no so-called supernatural and no karma etc, why live a moral life? Why serve others? Why do 'good'? Surely it's better to be scientific and Darwinian to the end; fall out of your mother's womb, use her resources to fight your way to the top of the world and slay anybody who stands in your way? Is it only fear that there are others stronger than you that stops you descending into this kind of society? Are rules, law, justice and 'morality' all a shield to prevent the even stronger from slaying YOU? Or is it that we are inherently good, there is more to life than this physical 'dream' experience would suggest, and that our very basic tenet is service to others, the progression of our 'soul' and ultimate reunification with the godhead?
* The only heaven and hell exist in your own mind. I use mind here in the ultimate sense - the emotional, spiritual and immortal mind that never dies with the physical body. Once the physical self falls away, we find ourself existing in another dimension/plane/realm/whatever. Each dimension exists in the same space as the others, merely at a different vibration. The faster the vibration, the 'higher' and 'purer' the existence. Your own emotional state, your level of development and your actions will determine the nature of our "after death" existence. The more 'advanced' you are spiritually the higher the vibration of your "soul" and the higher and purer your plane (dimension) of existence.
There is no judge but yourself, and the "spirit world" or "afterlife" exists here and now congruent with our own physical world. We just can't usually experience, see or measure it. The best way to explain it, I think, is to imagine a pyramid that is dense and heavy at the bottom and progressively becomes lighter and more etheric towards the top. If you lived a very material life, can't conceive of the spiritual and so on, you'll migrate to a very earth-like existence after death and in many ways the 'new' existence or afterlife will be as solid as this one.
More experienced souls, or those who have progressed greatly in one life, will naturally be much less materialistic and will be able to conceive of (and be comfortable in) a much less material existence - or even a formless existence as part of a communal "spirit group". We are essentially sparks from the consciousness of that which we call 'God', experiencing the world(s) ultimately to return to our source and amalgamate our experiences into it. We will retain our ability to form independent thought and mind, but are essentially a cog in a much larger machine. The "spirit world" is just another dimension, as real as this one, and the people are just as alive and just as normal as you are. They just exist on a different vibration after 'physical death'
* Essentially, we are co-creators with God rather than his (its) subjects. We just tend to forget that while incarnate in this life. Such forgetting is inherent in the limitation of the physical form, as the physical mind simply can't process such things. This is where meditation and "reconnection" to our "higher self" come into play as it frees us from this single-pointed physical-only perspective, albeit temporarily.
I know that I haven't explained myself very well. An old Zen master once said you can't write an essay about how a banana tastes - you just have to shove it in the other guy's mouth... He was right. Our experiences make us unique, but ultimately contribute to the whole. We all have our own path, and our own place on the ultimate path of progression, and it's not my place, nor yours or anyone else's, to 'convert', convince or try to push beliefs on another. Science is as valid a method as any, but we must remember that heart transplants would have been 'supernatural' 200 years ago, too...
No doubt most people reading this won't "get" what I'm saying at all. Fair play. I don't ask you to believe, heck I don't even care. As I said you have your own path and you can believe what you like. Just afford me the same courtesy. That's all I ask.
EDIT: I should also add that I think we are living a physical life for a reason. For that alone, it can be just as bad to spend too much time spiritually as too little. Or to put it another way, it's as dangerous to spend too much time with your head in the clouds, as it is to spend too much time with your head up your own arse. We have a physical life to lead, so don't spend it all meditating in a cave or with 24/7 lofty 'ideals' and 'mind states'. I just 'know' that you can't die for the life of you, and once you embrace the fact that you are actually an eternal being and part of a much larger picture, you tend to find that you can live this life with much less fear, much more enjoyment and much more gusto than before. It should be paradoxical, as you'd think that the belief you only have 'one go' would lead to this result. However, I tend to find the opposite.
Someone once said "I don't have a belief in God, I have an acceptance of god [deliberate lower case]". That's pretty much my take on things, the 'afterlife' included. I think you're actually very much along the right lines when you refer to it being more of a natural phenomena than a supernatural event.
I don't particularly wish to go into great detail on here, but I've experienced enough to formulate my own beliefs through my life events so far. My current understanding (which is always open to change and 'evolution') is that we are - for want of a better word - multidimensional beings. By that I mean that the physical body and mind (which is a product of interaction between the body and the physical world) are separate to the deeper-seated and more permanent 'spirit' or 'soul'.
I would classify the 'gross' consciousness as something existing as an interface between this physical body and the world around us, and this is the thing that dies at the time of physical death. I do believe, however, that each entity/person/soul/whatever has a permanent (but not fixed) spirit, or soul, which from our perspective 'survives' death.
I use a lot of quotes and slashes because I think essentially at the moment mankind as a whole looks at things rather two-dimensionally and from a very limited perspective. It's like asking a frog born into a well what the ocean looks like... As such using mere words and hypothesising on a forum can never really get at the crux of the matter.
My main platform is that mankind has, unfortunately, greatly confused what you could call 'true spirituality' with religion. They are not the same thing, and in my opinion religion can actually interfere with the former; though not always of course. Being less religious and more spiritual never does any harm, in fact personally I would say I have no religion, but I definitely strive to be a spiritual person.
I don't really like elaborating on forums, but essentially my views in a nutshell are along the following lines:
* We each (spiritually not physically) stem from the same Source. You can call it universal consciousness, the cosmos, 'God', the Great Spirit, dharmakaya, whatever. It's pretty much the type of thing Jung used to talk about. This is where the misconception arose about "God created Man in his own image". In his SPIRITUAL image, not his physical one. God is not a man, or an individual, and he doesn't sit around in a place called Heaven. God is a living, all-pervading thing manifested in each one of us as that spark of life often called Mind, Soul, Spirit etc. God is also love, light and all things associated with goodness. We are essentially all kin to each other, all a part of 'God' and you could say (superficially) that we are all thoughts in the mind of 'God'. God is not a physical being, has no 'physical' existence and as such is more a concept than a person.
* We are spirits having a human experience, not humans who have spiritual experiences. People take 'spirits' and the like to be some supernatural sci-fi airy-fairy nonsense, but in fact I would assert that quite on the contrary it is not only natural, but a fact of live we've come to overlook. Castiel talked about science leading us away from spirituality and I think to a degree that's correct. Not that there is anything wrong with science, quite the contrary, but rather in future I think that science will become more adept at measuring the things we currently refer to as 'supernatural'. As such a homogeneity will arise between science and 'religion' (spirituality) as we come to see them as sides of a coin and two ways of looking at things.
* The physical world we see and experience with our conscious mind is a creation of our own ultimate mind. From our limited human perspective it appears that the world happens to us, and that we just experience it (or suffer it) as if we were corks floating about an ocean. However, I would assert that in fact the world is a concept, or creation of, our own consciousness and that, to coin a phrase, "that which is thought, or mentally imagined, is manifested as physical actuality". Unfortunately it doesn't work on a very gross level (you can't imagine yourself a Euromillions win!) but it's essentially true. This physical experience is ultimately illusory, transitory and very much dream-like. The appearance of an independent 'self' or 'I' is illusory. Quantum theories now abound on this very issue.
* During physical life, our experience becomes very single-pointed (limited) and we tend to see ourselves as individuals, amongst a sea of other individuals, with a short finite lifespan. Conversely, I believe that we are all manifestations of the same source, nobody is truly individual except at the very grossest level, and that we exist in several 'dimensions' simultaneously. I see our physical mind as a TV set, receiving our consciousness (soul/spirit) from a separate dimension/multiverse. Amalgamating this with the 'interface' between the body its external environment creates an illusion of 'self' which is in fact the grosser physical 'mind' that dies at physical death. The true personality experienced internally to each physical being exists independently and continues (with all memory and experiences intact) after physical death of the individual body/unit.
* Meditation, prayer, introspection and so on are all useful tools. None is particularly superior to another but all provide valuable 'grounding' to our spiritual self and the 'source' (godhead, God, Buddha-nature, dharmakaya, cosmic consciousness). Losing touch with our spiritual side doesn't necessarily provide very evident 'symptoms' but by maintaining a spiritual 'life' as well as a physical one, we strengthen our experience, transform our minds and ultimately progress along the path and gain more valuable insight.
You can live a purely physical life, ignoring the spiritual, and that doesn't necessarily have to be a problem. We all grow at our own rate. I do believe in multiple lives, not necessarily in the reincarnation sense but that explanation will suffice. The only harm from denying our spiritual nature comes when we allow it to grow into malice, hatred and other such negative emotions. "Physical life is all there is, screw everyone I'm building gas chambers and I will rule the world for my own benefit!!1!". You don't need to be religious to be spiritual, and you don't even need to be spiritually aware to live a good life... however that can't alter the fact that you HAVE an ultimate spiritual nature, and eventually you will have to confront that fact and build upon it.
* There is no religion except service. Whilst religious ritual can be helpful in many ways, we shouldn't make it the primary focus - rather use it as the tool that it is. Confusing religion as the goal rather than the tool has caused untold harm and horror, and is contrary to all that is good. Provided we do 'good', serve others with no regard for self, and try to do no harm as we accumulate experience and progress ourselves spiritually, no more could be asked of you. Anything much beyond that is a mechanism of control dreamed up by 'religious' figures.
If there is no afterlife, no 'God', no so-called supernatural and no karma etc, why live a moral life? Why serve others? Why do 'good'? Surely it's better to be scientific and Darwinian to the end; fall out of your mother's womb, use her resources to fight your way to the top of the world and slay anybody who stands in your way? Is it only fear that there are others stronger than you that stops you descending into this kind of society? Are rules, law, justice and 'morality' all a shield to prevent the even stronger from slaying YOU? Or is it that we are inherently good, there is more to life than this physical 'dream' experience would suggest, and that our very basic tenet is service to others, the progression of our 'soul' and ultimate reunification with the godhead?
* The only heaven and hell exist in your own mind. I use mind here in the ultimate sense - the emotional, spiritual and immortal mind that never dies with the physical body. Once the physical self falls away, we find ourself existing in another dimension/plane/realm/whatever. Each dimension exists in the same space as the others, merely at a different vibration. The faster the vibration, the 'higher' and 'purer' the existence. Your own emotional state, your level of development and your actions will determine the nature of our "after death" existence. The more 'advanced' you are spiritually the higher the vibration of your "soul" and the higher and purer your plane (dimension) of existence.
There is no judge but yourself, and the "spirit world" or "afterlife" exists here and now congruent with our own physical world. We just can't usually experience, see or measure it. The best way to explain it, I think, is to imagine a pyramid that is dense and heavy at the bottom and progressively becomes lighter and more etheric towards the top. If you lived a very material life, can't conceive of the spiritual and so on, you'll migrate to a very earth-like existence after death and in many ways the 'new' existence or afterlife will be as solid as this one.
More experienced souls, or those who have progressed greatly in one life, will naturally be much less materialistic and will be able to conceive of (and be comfortable in) a much less material existence - or even a formless existence as part of a communal "spirit group". We are essentially sparks from the consciousness of that which we call 'God', experiencing the world(s) ultimately to return to our source and amalgamate our experiences into it. We will retain our ability to form independent thought and mind, but are essentially a cog in a much larger machine. The "spirit world" is just another dimension, as real as this one, and the people are just as alive and just as normal as you are. They just exist on a different vibration after 'physical death'
* Essentially, we are co-creators with God rather than his (its) subjects. We just tend to forget that while incarnate in this life. Such forgetting is inherent in the limitation of the physical form, as the physical mind simply can't process such things. This is where meditation and "reconnection" to our "higher self" come into play as it frees us from this single-pointed physical-only perspective, albeit temporarily.
I know that I haven't explained myself very well. An old Zen master once said you can't write an essay about how a banana tastes - you just have to shove it in the other guy's mouth... He was right.
Our experiences make us unique, but ultimately contribute to the whole. We all have our own path, and our own place on the ultimate path of progression, and it's not my place, nor yours or anyone else's, to 'convert', convince or try to push beliefs on another. Science is as valid a method as any, but we must remember that heart transplants would have been 'supernatural' 200 years ago, too... No doubt most people reading this won't "get" what I'm saying at all. Fair play. I don't ask you to believe, heck I don't even care. As I said you have your own path and you can believe what you like. Just afford me the same courtesy. That's all I ask.
EDIT: I should also add that I think we are living a physical life for a reason. For that alone, it can be just as bad to spend too much time spiritually as too little. Or to put it another way, it's as dangerous to spend too much time with your head in the clouds, as it is to spend too much time with your head up your own arse. We have a physical life to lead, so don't spend it all meditating in a cave or with 24/7 lofty 'ideals' and 'mind states'. I just 'know' that you can't die for the life of you, and once you embrace the fact that you are actually an eternal being and part of a much larger picture, you tend to find that you can live this life with much less fear, much more enjoyment and much more gusto than before. It should be paradoxical, as you'd think that the belief you only have 'one go' would lead to this result. However, I tend to find the opposite.
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