death

ferny

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Strange phenomena, I'm not scared of it. I've always been petrified of death. I've got very few childhood memories but I do remember running down the stairs during the night and leaping onto my mums lap in tears because I was so scared. I don't think I've been scared knowing that one day it will happen, but not knowing what will really happen. And there is imagining all the things which will take place when you finally go. All the things you'll miss out on.
Anyhoo, for some reason I'm not bothered by it at the moment which has really shocked me and leads me onto this question. What do you think will happen when you die? Will you go to some type of paradise, some form of hell, will you come back as something else or do you think this is it and you'll just vanish from existence?
 
I'd like to think that I'd go to that special place of paradise... but the rationalist in me says that's not gonna happen. To me, people don't have the seperate 'soul' from the body that would be saved and sent wherever.
I think that we are what we are. That being just a bunch of electrical signals flashing around in our head. Sort of like a lightbulb. when the electricity is pumping there's light (or life) being emitted. But when the power goes off qnd there's no more light - we don't wonder "Where did the light go?" (hehe we're actually pretty used to that where I come from because the power company always fogerts about northern australia - apparently we aren't good enough to have electricity. But that's another story)
What I mean is that we're no different to the light bulb in my views. Sometimes we can hook up a generator (pacemaker, or difibriliser sp?).
I think that the religious ideas of heaven and hell and reincarnation are mainly meant for those people that you leave behind. I know it's much more comforting to know that your loved one is in heaven rather than just in a hole in the ground.
I hope I haven't offended anyone here, they're just my points of view.
 
hmm I'd like to be sure that we will all meet in a very special place.. beautiful, warm paradise with everything we need (and cameras of course :) )
 
well once we die in this life, we will die in the matrix as well...

nevermind

md
 
Meysha said:
To me, people don't have the seperate 'soul' from the body that would be saved and sent wherever.
I think that we are what we are. That being just a bunch of electrical signals flashing around in our head. Sort of like a lightbulb. when the electricity is pumping there's light (or life) being emitted. But when the power goes off qnd there's no more light - we don't wonder "Where did the light go?" (hehe we're actually pretty used to that where I come from because the power company always fogerts about northern australia - apparently we aren't good enough to have electricity. But that's another story)
What I mean is that we're no different to the light bulb in my views. Sometimes we can hook up a generator (pacemaker, or difibriliser sp?).
Not offended, and I hope you're not offended by my reply, not meant that way. But I have a unique view as a health care professional and as a research scientist. I could not disagree more with "we are just the sum of our parts," from two different viewpoints.

As a health care professional, I have been present for countless deaths, and most times there is no difference physiologically in someone in the instant before death, and the instant after death. Meaning something major has changed, but everything physically remains the same.... There is definitely something unmeasurable, some type of "life force," that makes the difference. My fiance is a pediatric critical care nurse as well, and agrees.

As a research scientist I have noticed this as well. You can assemble all the parts of the system, put them together, and they don't work. The research I have been a part of deals with taking a single human cell, sealing a infinitely small needle with an electrode in it to the side of a cell, and monitoring the electrical activity inside the cell. We have characterized several voltage gated channels that are signalled by receptors by adding a stimulus compound to the fluid around the cell and watching the voltage spike as the gates open. We have worked mostly with vanilloids--like capsaicin (the "hot" in peppers) and n-oleolethanolamine, (the substance that gives you a "buzz" in chocolate,) but I digress. What I'm trying to say is, on a cellular level, there is again, something different (obviously the cell is dead) before and after the instant of death, while all other parameters remain the same.

What I'm saying essentially is this. There absolutely is some intangible force present or absent that makes you dead or alive, that is seperate and independent of other parameters of the body.

The deeper I poke into science, the more evident it becomes to me that there is some sort of higher intelligence engineering this existance. There is too much order, too much well planned designed to be simply random. Because as you know the world, left to it's own devices tends to chaos and randomness; things simply move from high concentration to low concentration, high energy to low energy. These are scientific facts. There is some creative force at work.

Wow, I wrote a book. I hope someone has the patience to read the whole thing.

Regards,
 
I read it all. Re-read the bit about your experiment about 5 times infact, and I still don't know what you're doing there but it sounds really really interesting!

From what I could understand - there definately is something lacking or different as you said, but I just don't know if that thing is a spirit/soul or something else.

Well science can't prove a negative, he he he so I've got the easy seat for now. I'll just have to wait until someone does prove that that special something exists.
 
"Listen, listen down, down into that sound. What is it? A current of air...vibrating vocal cords...your own eardrums....something running in your head? It's all of these, but go still deeper. This sound is YOU vibrating. And who are you? Don't give me your name address and occupation. You know that's just a mask; a front, a big act. Who puts it on? Your body? Heh, what an act THAT is. And who puts that on? Your father and mother? Did they put you on?

Come off it.

You know very well who you are, but you won't admit it. Deep there in the middle middle of your heart you know it. You've always been around, and always will be. And the "you" in you is the same as the "you" in me. You're not some sort of tourist just visiting in this world for a short time. You belong here, like the apple on the tree. And as the apple is the energy of the tree, you (yes YOU) are the energy of the world.

You don't know who you are do you?

You can't really get at yourself, just as the teeth can't bite themselves and the fingertip can't touch itself. And that's because YOU, the far-in you, is what we call Brahman. The self of the universe. The which than which there is no whicher. The heart and foundation of all that's going on.

You think you're going to die someday. Yes. That's because every now and then, you have to go OFF so that you can know you're ON. You can't have an up without a down, a back without a front, or a light day without a dark night.
The whole thing is pulse.

So what are you doing Brahman?

You're playing on and off with yourself, hide and seek with yourself. You're just passing eternal time with adventure. You forget who you are REALLY. Every now and then, you make like you're just a John Doe, or a Mary Smith, or a butterfly, or a worm, or a star. And that you're lost in the middle of a big big outside world that isn't you, that you don't understand, and that you don't control. Of course! There has to be something else, something OTHER, to bring out the feeling that you are you. And so that you can feel REALLY you, that outside world has to feel really strange, different, weird.

You old trickster.

Deep down in, you know the whole bit. Therefore what you want is a surprise. So you have let things get out of control. You have to feel lost and lonely to know you as you. And you play the thing out by inventing lusts and loves, fears and terrors, gnawing anxieties, and screaming mimi's.

Also you can imagine, "It's not really me, it's IT that runs the show!" But our secret is, as we say, "Taht fa mahsi." YOU are it. YOU are running the show, by not letting your right hand know what your left is doing. By making like there's a whopping great split between what you do and what happens to you. And this is what we call "maya", the great illusion. And "lila", the play, the big act.

And you don't play your game with such simple elements as on and off or black and white or life and death. To seem as real as real can be, this world that you are playing must be so complicated that you can't figure it out. Especially if you're using figures to figure it.

So, between black and white there is the whole range of colors. Between thunder and silence, the whole scale of tones. And between something and nothing...between a smashing fist on the face and trying to touch air, there are all the textures of feeling; burning, throbbing, pushing, hugging, fondling, tickling, kissing, brushing, and light wind on the skin.

Your world is all these elements, of light and sound, of taste, smell, and touch...woven together in many dimensions on the fabulous loom of your brain. YOUR brain; the most complicated thing in the world, which you yourself grew, without even thinking about it.

You have always been around. For you, I, the self is simply what there is and all that there is. All of us are raised from one center, tits on one sow, sounds on one flute. Forever and ever. But it doesn't get monotonous, boring, because we keep forgetting it. We keep the ON's on by putting OFF's between them.

How big is it? And how long is off, and how long on?

Don't take these figures literally, for their purpose is just to give an idea of vastness.

We say that man, human life, is a dance that lasts for 4,320,000 years. And of course there are all sorts of other dances going on at the same time in their own rhythms. Star dances, rock dances, fish dances, insect dances, plant dances, and strange animal scenes like crocodiles dances, elephant dances...

The human dance runs for 4,320,000 years. A span of time that we call a "kalpa". Before it begins and after it ends, there is always another kalpa, or "off" period of rest, during which the self is simply the self, and doesn't pretend to be this "me" or that "you". We call this rest period the "praliah". Peace, uninvolvement, pure bliss."

--Alan Watts from "Om"

To listen to the above with music, click the following:

http://www.djspiral.com/mixes/werd/om.MP3
 
Hi folks, haven't been around for awhile and here after all this time I wade into this!
I certainly understand people's belief in the afterlife. I had always had some sort of belief or another myself. As I've gotten older I find myself not believing there is something past the big event. As a health care provider I too have witnessed death happening but I haven't gotten the same thing from it that Robert has.
In the end I have to concur with Hertz!
 
I don't have the knowledge or experience of you Robert but I have experienced death. Not human though and it has been a mixture of quiet euthanasia and death throws which looked very painful. When it all stops there does seem to be a change. Something feels different. But is that me trying to make sense of it all or is there really something there? Obviously what you've seen on the cellular level is a lot more sciencey than I'll ever see.

I think I'll go along with Vicky. Life is sort of like a battery. Raw materials are put together in a factory (mummy), after some fiddling a fully charged battery comes out (child) and after a while the energy goes and then it conks out and has to be thrown away (death). I won't go into the "who built designed and built the factory" thing. That's for another day.
 

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