Death

[InbetweenDreams]

[MENTION=20933]LJay[/MENTION] It is a bit of a conundrum...If there's nothing after life and there's no kind of existence afterwards then what is the point in life if you're only to die and nothing be left, other than what you leave behind?

If we're here to learn something then it would make sense that kind of plane of existence exists after life...not suggesting what kind of existence that may be but otherwise we're just fancy arrangements of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen that slowly breakdown. Really makes you wonder....

That being said there is a great degree of complexity in life, even "simple" lifeforms are pretty complex then think about things like the human brain.

I feel more inclined to think that there's something to all this, but trying to make sense of it all...well I figure someone could spend their life trying to figure it out.

[meridannight]

If there's nothing after life and there's no kind of existence afterwards then what is the point in life if you're only to die and nothing be left, other than what you leave behind?

what's the point of life when it lasts forever? what is the difference in meaning between the one that exists forever and one that is there temporarily?

-- it is the same in both cases. the meaning of life is what you give it. it is not something that comes into being automatically with your birth, or something that is there only when it can go on infinitely. it is what you do with your life and how you feel about it that ultimately reflects its ''meaning''. in other words, it is you who has to give meaning to your life yourself. you can live forever and feel life is meaningless just like you can when you don't live forever. time doesn't constrain meaning.

[himself]

I have always, to some extent, felt like there is something very wrong with my body, especially in recent years. I've never gone to the doctor, out of fear and guilt. The thought of being dead doesn't scare me but the thought of the process of dying is scary. The thought of family members being dead is also nowhere near as worrying as the thought of them dying. I say family members, I really mean mi madre, the aul doll. Of course, I really hope she doesn't become dead any time soon, so I'm not saying the thought of her no longer being here isn't unpleasant, but the thought of her getting sick and then dying over a period of time is more distressing.

It's hard to control other people's lifestyles. Watching someone make poor choices and become increasingly unwell must feel like being in a car with a really bad driver - other than trying to reason with them, all you can do is sit there and worry.

If we're talking about ourselves, I'd say the best thing to do is make sure we've been as careful as possible with our own bodies. Or even appreciate that some enjoyable things do come at a cost for our bodies. I feel a bit guilty about not exercising but, if that causes my health to decline, I'll remind myself that I had a lot of fun not exercising.

[InbetweenDreams]

what's the point of life when it lasts forever? what is the difference in meaning between the one that exists forever and one that is there temporarily?

-- it is the same in both cases. the meaning of life is what you give it. it is not something that comes into being automatically with your birth, or something that is there only when it can go on infinitely. it is what you do with your life and how you feel about it that ultimately reflects its ''meaning''. in other words, it is you who has to give meaning to your life yourself. you can live forever and feel life is meaningless just like you can when you don't live forever. time doesn't constrain meaning.

The thing is you can't give life meaning if you're dead, assuming that all there is just life and after that the lights go out and the show is over. That's that I'm stuck on, regardless of what I think about life or anything for that matter. If death mean it is the ultimate end what is there to gain from living in the first place? I feel like there has to be some reason that life is occurring on this blue bubble.

That being said, I do understand what you're getting at and I think both of our points do intersect...well somewhere lol

If I could live forever...hmm well the problem is dealing with what infinity is... Let say, what if I could live for 1,000 years, would I? I'm inclined to say yes. I mean I don't want to end up like Cassandra...



That would just be creepy...

I have always, to some extent, felt like there is something very wrong with my body, especially in recent years. I've never gone to the doctor, out of fear and guilt. The thought of being dead doesn't scare me but the thought of the process of dying is scary. The thought of family members being dead is also nowhere near as worrying as the thought of them dying. I say family members, I really mean mi madre, the aul doll. Of course, I really hope she doesn't become dead any time soon, so I'm not saying the thought of her no longer being here isn't unpleasant, but the thought of her getting sick and then dying over a period of time is more distressing.

It's hard to control other people's lifestyles. Watching someone make poor choices and become increasingly unwell must feel like being in a car with a really bad driver - other than trying to reason with them, all you can do is sit there and worry.

If we're talking about ourselves, I'd say the best thing to do is make sure we've been as careful as possible with our own bodies. Or even appreciate that some enjoyable things do come at a cost for our bodies. I feel a bit guilty about not exercising but, if that causes my health to decline, I'll remind myself that I had a lot of fun not exercising.

The "thought" of the process of dying is what I find troubling...it is scary. To realize you have an expiration date isn't exactly uplifting....but it is a reminder that we all need to get out an smell the roses, I think that's a saying... The question is what should be on the bucket list? What should I be doing with all my time?

I know what you mean about not feeling right, like something is going wrong with your body but there's no symptom or anything the doctors can see. For me, well, kind of a long story, so I will condense it down. I used to smoke cigarettes and pot....had a fair weather friend who had the coined K2, or spice crap, long before I knew much about it and how stupid I was for ever trying that crap....I might be lucky to be alive. Well I started not feeling well, chest pains and shortness of breath and so on, the episodes would come and go. Well driving home one day over the mountain I started feeling ill again, same symptoms except they gradually got worse. I got home, sat down and everything just exploded, hands and feet went numb, cold sweat... I thought I was dying right there... Well I was actually having a panic attack, a pretty potent one too. I went to the ER and I sort of had a moment and realized the nature of mortality. Took me about a week to completely quit smoking cigarettes but I have done very well to get to where I'm at but I feel like all the years of smoking so on has left its nasty mark on me and I don't think there's anyway to completely undo the damage. Definitely a wise choice to quit as I have healed tremendously well in the 2 years since I quit. I feel better and I'm generally speaking happier.

Exercise... well that's the thing most people don't enjoy it because they don't make it fun. I mean running on a treadmill fucking blows donkey balls... not fun. Has to be something you enjoy...some people legitimately do enjoy running, some people enjoy swimming, biking... biking is my thing...not all to good at it but doesn't mean I can't enjoy it. Same with you. Even if it is just walking a trail, you're getting out in nature and it's not overly exerting and is something that is good for you.

One other thing I use a lot. If I knew I was going to live to be 85 no matter what but depending on what I did I could live the 85 years being healthy and able to do the things I wanted or I could not make healthy choices and be stuck in a nursing home pooping on myself for the last 10 years... Can't say for sure either will happen no matter what but if there is a chance that I can stay healthy for the long haul then I feel the extra work is worth it... The only things worse than exercise and death imo is suffering.

[meridannight]

The thing is you can't give life meaning if you're dead,

but you are not dead right now! you wouldn't have been in a position to create meaning if you had stayed dead, were never born (in which case there, also, would never have been any you, in fact, to feel the lack of capacity to have meaning). but you were born, you are alive, and thus it is directly within your capacity to give meaning to your life.

[MikeW]

...Of course there's the grand ol question, is there anything after death? Or does your existence/consciousnesses simply end? Not really trying to get all religious here, because I'm not a religious person.

So the question is how to cope with death? How do you accept it for what it is and...embrace it? I know sooner, but hopefully later it will happen.

....I think it is a the realization that things are passing by faster than we realize. That we aren't alive as long as we think.

Says you're 20, so assuming you live to be 80, that's 20% of your life... possibly more...or less.

Me, it is almost like I would want to live forever, which clearly not possible but to think about not existing is impossible to fully grasp and well I find it troubling. Kind of scary if you ask me.

I'm finding it more important to experience things...I feel like by doing things, new things, exciting things validates my existence... Should it? I mean if all we get is 75...85 years and then poof might as well not sit on my ass wishing I had done something.

To me it is very important that we human beings ponder these questions. At root they are philosophical questions. Keep in mind that the philosophies we study in school are the dried up bones of something once living: Ideas that were lived by those minds who entertained them.

Everything I have to say about this comes from two primary sources: My own experiences and what I've been able to understand about those experiences from a wide range of reading and direct study in the areas of mysticism, esotericism, religion, philosophy and consciousness studies over the years of my life.

What I "believe" is what is true FOR ME. It is not put forward as something other's *should* believe. I don't need my reality reinforced by the beliefs of others. In fact my experience has been that whenever I put forward my "beliefs" (what is true as I understand it, limited as I admit it is) I'm almost universally met with incomprehension. As a matter of fact, this happened just this past Monday while meeting (in person) for the first time with a young man who was at one time a member of GaySpeak.

Oddly enough, it was after that meeting that I considered coming to this forum to start a thread much like this one. I simply hadn't yet gotten around to it. SO... there is a bit of synchronicity in this act of writing for me.

I'll also say at this point, I've not yet read all the other posts in this thread....

The experiences I'm referring to are altered states of consciousness, mystical "revelations" that appeared to me fairly readily as a child, boy and teenager. These most often occurred while I was in natural settings. Being born and raised on a farm and, then, later living next to the Atlantic ocean in Florida, played an important part in these experiences. In my young adulthood... 18 to 30... these experiences were augmented by my experimentation with psychedelic drugs. Most notably LSD, DMT, and Psilocybin. Later still, as a more mature adult, they were influenced by my meditation practice and other practices I choose to leave unnamed.

Consciousness is universal and it is fractal. It exists beyond the confines of three dimensional space plus the forth dimension of time. It simultaneously exists in a "fifth" dimension that is, perhaps, best referred to as Eternity. "Eternity" understood not as an infinite duration of "time" but, rather, as beyond any duration whatever. Moreover consciousness exists independent of the frame of any specific subjective entity.

We experience ourselves as unique identities, and there is truth in that experience, but it is not the ultimate or absolute truth. We are, to use a metaphor, like waves that rise up from this infinite ocean of being/awareness, and are then subsumed within it. In fact this "return" to the fundamental source is something we do daily while in deepest sleep. We remember nothing of it, and this is parallel with our having no knowledge of "before" or "after" death. Our experience of being a MikeW or an [MENTION=23180]axle2152[/MENTION] are actually a state of "dreaming"... where the undifferentiated infinite and eternal foundation of all becomes experienced as "self" and "other". We are, in essence, universal consciousness experiencing itself from every conceivable angle.

The experience of "passing time"... is at base a kind of "illusion." We have no proper words to express precisely what I mean, which is why I put these in quotes. The ancients knew far more about this than we do... a deep study of all the ancient traditions... even those that are the foundations of Western philosophy (such as Parmenides and Empedocles. Cf: "Reality" by Peter Kingsly) reveal that the ancients knew far more about these truths than we do. What I'm speaking of, in fact, is the core of philosophical Hinduism.

From this perspective, anything that has the formal properties of existence CAN NOT *not* exist. From a subjective, temporal frame, yes, of course, there is that which was prior to IT and then there is the passing away of that specific IT. But that is a relative perspective, a perspective that lies within the 3/4 dimension frame of space-time.

From the POV of the Absolute and Infinite, nothing that iS can ever NOT BE. Your life, such as you experience it right this very moment IS ETERNAL. One might as well say (and I have said it on many occasions) that "you are already dead; this is what is like." The problem with such a statement is that it puts it in the context of "time" ("already")... when what I'm attempting to suggest is something closer to what William Blake had in mind when he wrote:

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”

This is very close to what I mean by my "experiences". I "saw" even as a child, that the experiences of "passing time" are subjective. Time does not only NOT PASS, it doesn't even exist... all subjective experiential evidence to the contrary.

If one understands this correctly, one understands that "death" is merely one point in an arch of infinite experience... just as birth itself is. [Edit to add: One might think of one's "life" as a circle, the point of "death" and the point of "birth" not opposite but identical.) All along the curvature of one's existence, each moment does three things: It *seems* to come into being; it *seems* to pass away; and yet INFACT exists (so to say) "perpetually", "infinitely". The way I have said it, which no one seems to "get", is that once anything has the existential formality of BEING, it cannot NOT be. It is.

Further, all this underscores the true meaning of such concepts as "karma". What pain and suffering I cause you can NEER be erased; worse, that pain and suffering was caused by myself to myself precisely because, at the most fundamental level, we are ALL ONE THING.

From this POV, we are all "already" dead. WORSE... this "death" that we inhabit as "life" is a barren world precisely because we lack the vision of a Blake who also wrote:

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.”

This is the death of the soul that all great philosophies and religions strive to correct: To bring about a New Man, one capable of perceiving what IS.. and knowing fully that WE as entities are CO-CREATORS of this universal experience of Being.

Fear nothing. Least of all death. Embrace life ... and the love which underlies it and makes it possible ... for there-in lies your true home. Infinite and Eternal.

[Confuzzled4]

We are fantastically stupid creatures that occasionally produce things that amaze ourselves, but I don't think anyone will ever have the wisdom or foresight about what life is or has in store through its course and beyond. I'm naturally a depressed person, but thinking about it in such detail only leads me to more misery. All I want to do is help others and to enjoy my time here. I have had few of those moments lately, but I think it's time that I do and you should too.

[InbetweenDreams]

I guess you could say we're part of the universe looking at itself in the mirror, except we don't really know what we are... I mean we can study ourselves and can give meaning to it...

But I can be Jack Nicholson and ask, "Who are you?"



No I didn't ask you for your name or contact information... Who are you?

No no no, those are hobbies and interests, I just simply want to know who you are....

[Cridders88]

What I am about to say on death isn't meant to sound depressive at all (yes, I have battled depression and anxiety for many years but I don't think this view stems from this), but my view on death is "so be it". I will enjoy my time here as best as my mind and wellbeing allows, but I am not scared of dying at all. My time will come, and it doesn't worry me that it could be as soon as 10 minutes (who knows?). So be it, it doesn't bother me.

[InbetweenDreams]

[MENTION=20947]MikeW[/MENTION] Time just in itself is an interesting topic for discussion. I wouldn't say that time doesn't exist but it is subjective as far as how we observe it... We can't really say that time occurs at a given speed but we can measure it and use it as a tool but we don't really know much about it other than we experience it going one direction.

I think we also get consciousness mixed up with theory of mind. Like if I sit my cat Rosco in front of a mirror, he doesn't pay any attention to it, however some other animals like dolphins, elephants (maybe a few others) do recognize that it is themselves that they are looking at. Kind of makes you wonder about the cat...I mean it would seem that there is a consciousness there, my cat has a personality and shows affection, aggression, wants to play, knows where the food is and so on.

I think when one talks about philosophy and spirituality we want to think in more concrete terms like it has to be this or that way because the other thing doesn't make any sense. If you were a square, it would be hard to imagine something being a circle. Just like someone who is color blind, they don't know what red is and it is unlikely to describe the color to them. We are also stuck in our own minds, I cannot experience thing as you would experience the, even the color red even though we both agree that the color is indeed red.

I don't think it will be easy for me to get past the worries about death, the fear of the unknown. Definitely embrace life and learning to be more loving are good ways to live.