What happens if we die?

[3bob]

"if you die" there is only "ease" so to speak at the Spirit level where you do not die being that Spirit does not die.

[C T]

When the body dies we don't know what realm our awareness will enter. So in that sense it is a journey to somewhere new and unknown, what happens then is pretty much up for debate as far as I can see, every expert has a different opinion. Why is the theory of soul contracts and meeting Celestial Masters any less likely than going into purgatory or a Bardo realm or something similar?

 

My perception of life isn't as fatalistic as everything is already predetermined by the previous moments, I see and perceive a force of creativity and freedom at play which isn't bound by the past. 

The journey so romantically spoken of is non-existent. Its all just a play created in the mind. There is no benefit speculating on the future. 

 

If you are a practitioner of some significance, the bardo of death will not be any different from that of life... all a dream. If grasping and clinging is present at that point of departure into the moment after the last breath, then the subtle consciousness will seek rebirth. This can be verified now while living - simply direct your mind to something and boost it with some motivational intent, and see what happens. Why would those last moments pre-death be different? Its not so difficult to imagine, in a general sense, the frame of mind of those who are about to depart - look at the faces of those who die a natural death compared to those who die prematurely or violently - completely different. 

 

Understanding how each moment evolves and causes the next moment is not about falling under the weight of determinism - its about awareness of certain laws which can be tapped and utilised to extract the best possible outcome with the potential thats there. 

[C T]

Don't know if I subscribe to Lth's view.  I'm a wait and see kinda guy.  But the theory that after death your spirit is confused and its a critical time period for sorting out where you go next is certainly big in Tibet, which has very sophisticated system.  Its also true in a totally different belief system like Orthodox Judaism, where the thought is the soul sticks around for a bit, and needs a little soothing.

 

If there's a self aware soul (contradiction?), its as likely as anything else. 

What some call the soul or spirit, others might call subtle consciousness, but these are all terms, and valid ones too imo. In Tibet it is said the subtle consciousness does stick around for a period after death, and the time in the intermediate bardo generally lasts up to 49 days. 

[3bob]

one with compassion may desire to remain in some form and or reincarnate to help others until the end of this great cosmic cycle...for the "dream" is not absolutely real (depending on certain interpretations)  but it real enough and exists to an "x" degree to be worked on and with,  BESIDES, samsara is nirvana when properly understood...

Edited April 10, 2015 by 3bob

[Songtsan]

When I almost died last November, I was lying on the floor in my apartment and then nothing.....and then suddenly I wake up in the ER....no memory of anything....they said I stopped breathing and was having seizures....but I have no memory of any of that....I don't know - who can really say what it is all about?

 

The only real answer is to die and see what happens (or not see if that's the case).

 

I oftentimes think that if Buddha/Jesus/etc. could come back, then they probably would have, just to prove that all that stuff they said was real....as far as as I know, they never did....methinks that it is very likely that this life is all it. When its done its done....

[C T]

The prophets and the sages come back? From where? Where did they go? Evidently their consciousnesses is still very much present. They take form, albeit subtly, in millions of mindstreams, dont they? 

Edited April 10, 2015 by C T

[C T]

 

 BESIDES, samsara is nirvana when properly understood...

Not understood, but lived. The act of conducting one's life determines samsara or nirvana. 

[Jetsun]

The journey so romantically spoken of is non-existent. Its all just a play created in the mind. There is no benefit speculating on the future. 

 

It's non-existent and yet it exists, are you non-existent now as you read this? Many masters reappear in this world many years after their death, where were they and what were they doing in that time? I see plenty of indication that there is a possibility that we can move on to other realms upon leaving this one.

 

Whether there is benefit or not in speculating I don't know, the main problem will be if we become too sure about what we think is going to happen, discussion could help undermine such rigitity. 

[3bob]

Not understood, but lived. The act of conducting one's life determines samsara or nirvana. 

 

"nonsense", understanding is obviously not disconnected from acts of conducting one's life... 

Edited April 10, 2015 by 3bob

[Perceiver]

Sometimes, in these topics, I see people who believe that there's no deeper purpose to life or reality. That life just is, and that's all there is to it. Like waves coming and going on a beach.

 

But if that's true then why do things generally move to higher complexity?

[Lth]

What some call the soul or spirit, others might call subtle consciousness, but these are all terms, and valid ones too imo. In Tibet it is said the subtle consciousness does stick around for a period after death, and the time in the intermediate bardo generally lasts up to 49 days. 

 

did you ever have a proper out of body experience? can you leave as consciousness at will?

 

have you ever participated in another person's dream?

 

when/if your consciousness was out of body, did other people see you as a "ghostly" figure? could they sense you? them being at a waking state, and you not ?

 

i see your religion is budhism, i would be interested to know what are the appropriate definitions for such phenomena, in budhist terms? since that should be familiar to you

 

saying that everything is really just a mind creation is being an escapist in my point of view. sure, in the whole aspect of things, you could say everything is not real, physicality is not real, its just a mind program being played out. but what good does that bring in perceiving the nature of reality, when you ignore everything that does not fit to your preconceived definition, or someone elses definition for that matter, no matter how important that person was who left those interpretations of the definitions

 

seems like blind faith to me,

 

and it works wonders to reinforce the limited mind's protective mechanisms, as usual

[Perceiver]

 In Dao, the source of existance is non-existance. So probably, we will cease to exist if we die.

 

How can something not exist?

 

You can't name anything that doesn't exist. If you named it, it would exist - at some level.

 

Physical nonexistence is possible yes. But metaphysical non-existence is not.

 

Saying that something doesn't exist metaphysically is self-contradictory, as your consciousness of it is an existence.

 

At the metaphysical level, everything exists, and non-existence makes no sense. It can not be.

 

Dats what I think, at least .

Edited April 10, 2015 by Perceiver

[Perceiver]

If we will simply no longer exist, what's the point of our being created, out of nothing, and returning to nothing. That's like pooping and then eating your own poop.

 

You opened one of my favorite topics here. And no, it's not poop, but the purpose of reality.

 

First of all, you're supposing that there actually is a purpose to our existence. That's a big if. I agree that it's an important if, and one we can and should philosophize about. But it's still an if.

 

Let's say there's some cosmic intelligent force manifesting it all. Does it have a purpose? If it exists, I think it has to have a purpose. Actually, I believe it's an logical consequential necessity.

 

Why?

 

Well, if there was no purpose, then why would it create and manifest? Creating and manifesting is to do something. Absolute pointlessness cannot exist as there in any action, as well as non-action, is a choice.

 

You chose to do that. You chose to not do anything. You chose to do absolute randomness. Whatever you do, there are an infinite number of things you could have done but chose not to do. If something exists, it does or non-does, and both of these are acts of "doing". They are "something", and not "something else".

 

So if the grand cosmic intelligence exists then I believe it must have a purpose. But I also believe the purpose will be so inherent to it that it may be completely oblivious to its existence, and then it's up to its manifestations to rediscover and refine the purpose to an infinite complexity.

 

Kaboom.

[3bob]

How can something not exist?

 

You can't name anything that doesn't exist. If you named it, it would exist - at some level.

 

Physical nonexistence is possible yes. But metaphysical non-existence is not.

 

Saying that something doesn't exist metaphysically is self-contradictory, as your consciousness of it is an existence.

 

At the metaphysical level, everything exists, and non-existence makes no sense. It can not be.

 

Dats what I think, at least .

 

you may be interested in part of a commentary on Isa upanishad along these lines...

 

"Consciousness cannot be in some place because to be conscious that consciousness is in this 'some place', it has also to be somewhere else – where it now appears not to be. Therefore, consciousness cannot deny that it exists in another place as well, somewhere else, because such denial is impossible unless it is already present there at the spot which is being denied. Therefore, the nature of consciousness is universal. This is the nature of the Ultimate Reality. This is what we call God. This is what we call Ishvara. Therefore, the pervasion of this Supreme Consciousness, which is the Absolute Reality, is not pervasion – something entering into something else – in the ordinary sense of the term. It is the One Thing being all things. In a great mantra of the Rig Veda we are told: ekam sad vipra bahudha vadanti (R.V. 1.164.46). "The one Being – poets, sages, and masters call It by different names" such as Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni, and so on. Therefore, this world of perception, this universe of variety, is a perceptional presentation and not actually a modification, because eternal things cannot modify themselves. If eternity modifies itself, it becomes a temporal something. That which is above time cannot become something in time.

This is the tough doctrine of creation, hard to understand, which will never enter the brain of a person; and even if it enters, it will not stay there for a long time. So, be cautious about this. The great sage of the Upanishad, therefore, tells us: "Whatever is apparently moving or not moving – yat kim ca jagatyam jagat tat sarvam – all that is Ishvara." You must be able to convince yourself as to the way in which God, Ishvara – the Ultimate Being – can be everywhere and also be everything. From this consideration it follows that God is not merely everywhere, He is also everything. "Knowing this, be happy without the sense of possessiveness in regard to any object," is the second half of this mantra: tena tyaktena bhunjitha, ma gridhah kasyasvid dhanam."  By Swami Krishnananda

[Perceiver]

I oftentimes think that if Buddha/Jesus/etc. could come back, then they probably would have, just to prove that all that stuff they said was real....as far as as I know, they never did....methinks that it is very likely that this life is all it. When its done its done....

 

Yes, and I used to think that if I had a time-machine I would go back and stop world war II. And I would also stop the First World War and I would stop the horrible violence in the dark ages. In fact, I would go all the way back and prevent the dinosaurs from dying.

 

And then I realized that you just can't change the world, and that some level of evil is always necessary for higher and more complex manifestations to arise.

 

The world will change when it's ready to, and all you can do in the time given to you is to make your contribution and be happy for it.

 

Perhaps the spiritual masters knew that, and that's why they didn't come back. Or perhaps reality knows that, and that's why it prevents them from coming back.

 

In any case, I don't hope you feel patronized by the way in which I wrote this. That was certainly not my intention, but you just hit a button with me as I used to have the exact same thoughts.

[Marblehead]

I'd say what is more important than memories of "previous lifes" or "deaths" is realization of lasting and quintessential reality which is not bound by such passages.

WoW!  That's pretty heavy for this fellow.

[C T]

"nonsense", understanding is obviously not disconnected from acts of conducting one's life... 

understanding music, writing music, and listening to music are also all connected, but each is a uniquely different activity. 

[C T]

It's non-existent and yet it exists, are you non-existent now as you read this? Many masters reappear in this world many years after their death, where were they and what were they doing in that time? I see plenty of indication that there is a possibility that we can move on to other realms upon leaving this one.

 

Whether there is benefit or not in speculating I don't know, the main problem will be if we become too sure about what we think is going to happen, discussion could help undermine such rigitity. 

I dont recall saying you dont exist. I said the journey which so many love to ponder and mull over is non-existent. Its just a fantasy, an indulgence to pacify an otherwise dull mind. 

 

Show me one master that reappeared physically, identical to his previous incarnation. Habits and tendencies are reborn, not the physical form itself. Children pick up habits and tendencies from the influences of their parents (primarily) and carry these and pass some on, and so on and so forth. Just an example of how rebirth occurs on one level, among others. When a person dies, some of his or her traits are inherited by others - that in itself is the transference of consciousness from one realm to another. 

[C T]

When any two components or more come together, a new phenomenon emerges - nails and wood become a table; water and leaves become tea; fear, devotion, and a saviour become God. These end products does not have an existence independent of its parts. (Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche)

[3bob]

CT, Stating various truisms per your beliefs and or your beliefs about what and who you are quoting only apply to same..(just like when the rest of us bring up stuff that may or may not be like yours)  so I suggest getting off your high horse when it comes to conducting yourself in the general forum.

[Jetsun]

I dont recall saying you dont exist. I said the journey which so many love to ponder and mull over is non-existent. Its just a fantasy, an indulgence to pacify an otherwise dull mind. 

 

That's one way of looking at it. To me that verges too much towards nihilism for my liking.

 

Show me one master that reappeared physically, identical to his previous incarnation. Habits and tendencies are reborn, not the physical form itself. Children pick up habits and tendencies from the influences of their parents (primarily) and carry these and pass some on, and so on and so forth. Just an example of how rebirth occurs on one level, among others. When a person dies, some of his or her traits are inherited by others - that in itself is the transference of consciousness from one realm to another. 

 

I am not talking about physical rebirth rather the continuation of consciousness in the subtle realms after death. There are all sorts of accounts of people receiving teachings from other subtle realms, some historical Tibetan Buddhist masters received their entire training in the dream realm. I myself have had experiences meditating on masters who have physically died a long time ago. 

 

You are focusing on what causes rebirth of the ego, but did the Buddha simply vanish and dissolve into nothing when he became enlightened and the process of graspng and aversion fell away? no there was an aware being who continued on existing even when the cause of rebirth of a seperate ego was extinguished

Edited April 10, 2015 by Jetsun

[C T]

CT, Stating various truisms per your beliefs and or your beliefs about what and who you are quoting only apply to same..(just like when the rest of us bring up stuff that may or may not be like yours)  so I suggest getting off your high horse when it comes to conducting yourself in the general forum.

I was merely appealing to logical deductions. Its got nothing to do with beliefs, therefore you're way off the mark with your suggestion. You appear to be seeing a horse where there is none, which is ok, cos lots of people have a tendency to follow their habitual reactions. 

[Marblehead]

This has become interesting for me because I am seeing CT talk about reality a lot more than he normally does.

 

Yeah, we gotta' leave those horses alone.

 

His post #43 was very much along the lines of my thinking.

[voidisyinyang]

http://www.formosahuasca.com/index.php

 

Be careful what you ask for but yes there are ways to get a taste of what it will be like.

 

Trust me - you're glad to come back to life.

 

When I say life - I mean the left-brain ego dominance.

 

To say that dreams are just part of the mind is not true - some dreams are precognitive and so this is, actually, our spirit making contact with our soul.

 

If a dream can come true in great detail 3 years later as it did for me - I not only wrote it down in my journal but said I thought it would come true - so that has to mean that our current waking state is also a type of dream.

 

In fact if you do have a dream of the future - it is more vivid with stronger sense perceptions than our current waking state.

 

What does that tell you? In fact if you do the qigong training intensely then your sense of perception is much greater - smell - you can smell cancer, just like a dog can be trained to smell cancer. The qigong masters can smell over the phone.

 

So - from studying the NDE experiences - people definitely have much stronger perceptions when they die.

 

So it would seem our spirit tied to our body actually deadens our senses despite the left-brain ego as dominant when tied to our body.

 

To leave our body is also to go through a spacetime vortex - again we can access our future.

 

So if time is malleable like that - the future and past are still events of our individual spirit.

 

Yet what enables our individual spirit to perceive things in time is an impersonal eternal process of energy creation.

 

It is said that you can't "see" God - and in the Emptiness it is said there are no perceptions of senses - only the sense of being remains. A kind of deep blissful being.

 

And so yes deep sleep is very much like this - only an awake consciousness of the deep sleep state remains.

 

So being passed out and waking up confused as to how long you were passed out or why you passed out - what happened - this indicates a lack of internal qi energy that guides the spirit energy.

 

For example if you leave your body for astral travel before your qi energy in your lower tan tien is built up enough - what happens is there is a spacetime vortex that spins around you, causing great dizziness.

 

I know because I had this happen to me - but it was only after years of studying that I found the Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality book explaining this - the solution is to store up more qi energy in the lower tan tien.

 

So it is the qi energy that enables self-awareness after death.

 

I would say that otherwise we go through a lot of confusion at first before we realize we are dead - as this is described in NDES.

 

Since our perceptions will be much greater - also we have a life review since all our perceptions are stored subconsciously and holographically.  So when we meditate deeply it activates this qi energy for self-awareness as a mini-life review. But if we have a big heart awakening then we can get a full life review - it is a vision that unfolds before us but our life is not played out chronologically, rather events happening years apart are connected as the deeper meaning of how the later event resolved an energy blockage from the former....

 

And so if the above link is considered as enabling a post-death type experience with that deep heart awakening - what happens is that anything you experience as an external perception is always-already a projection of your spirit, your astral body's internal blockage getting resolved. As soon as you make that connection between the difference of external and the internal meaning - the two collapse into their eternal holographic substrate of the astral realm - the impersonal energy that is eternal created from the process of complementary opposites.

 

So for example when a qigong master sends a dead person's spirit back to the Emptiness - it would appear to be like as described in the end of the Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality book - the spirit is basically sucked in and transformed via the Emptiness spacetime vortex of the qigong master and then in turn the qigong master is taking that transformed energy and turning it into a healing yin spirit that is sent out of the top of the head.

 

It would then seem that our individualized spirits can be recycled like that via the spacetime vortex that can not be seen but is the impersonal energy creation process itself. When we have visions of the future - that is our own personal recycling of our present perceptions - recycled and cleansed into the Emptiness via an astral realm of stronger perceptions - a higher dimension so to speak. And so when the future then "happens" and it is just a repeat of what we already experienced - thereby enabling us to be emotionally prepared for it - then our spirit is not damaged by the experience and we remain in the blissful being state that is eternally creating new energy.

 

It's a kind of black hole that is turned into a white hole - via a spacetime vortex - that is what precognitive visions are as astral spirit travel.

 

It's stated that the first Enlightenment experience of the Tai Chi which is our immortal spirit before birth and after death - coming out of this creates a state of confusion.

 

In fact before that experience you already obtain spiritual powers and if they are used - then you lose the harmonious resonance with the Emptiness and so you fall back into worldliness - into the mundane reality of normal 3-D materialistic spacetime.

 

But if a person is lucky enough to have the experience again then it may last longer and stabilize until the third eye is finally fully open.

 

That enables a very fast healing time for spacetime travel - so that past blockages can be healed by traveling into the future essentially and bringing that information back into the present to transform the present. Or alternatively a spirit can travel into the past and travel before the blockage happened and then actually prevent the blockage from happening in the past, thereby changing what would be the future - that is changing what is now the present.

 

The qigong masters do this all the time and so already have achieved a type of immortality that means literally putting their lives on the line everyday.

 

But what enables them to do is the impersonal formless awareness as the Emptiness which itself is the eternal process of energy creation and so it is the real immortality that we all are a part of already.

 

You can get a taste of this at death when it causes a huge opening of your heart energy as the spirit source and so just as with deep bliss from sleep - at death even more love as deep bliss is experienced - more so than at any point while alive. And so we as spirits realize that we weren't actually that alive when in our physical bodies. Of course if a person dies with very strong negative emotions - this can cause confusion and hold the spirit to earth to be reincarnated much sooner.

 

the tibetan monks would feel the dead body of a person to see which part of it got cold last and that indicates where the spirit left the body based on where the qi was most strongly focused in the body. If the pineal gland had not been opened up based on a strong heart-love connection then the spirit may not leave via that emotion of eternal heart love. Or if a person was not very religious - the real intentions of a person are this electromagnetic energy that originates from the heart as the "yuan chi" or prenatal qi energy and originally was unified with the heart's spirit energy.

 

I would say if a person's yuan qi is strong enough then even if their spirit leaves their body the yuan qi is going to pull the spirit back. And this connection will be conveyed by other spirits encountered as happens in NDEs - or by the Emptiness itself as the message of the Sadguru - Jesus, God, insert spiritual master here.

 

But when we die for real then our individual spirits before reincarnating first get recycled back through an impersonal soul energy state - and this is why we don't remember the previous incarnations - unless of course we first build up our qi energy so that it can also be unified with this impersonal energy state via the heart, which originally was unified with the impersonal energy state in all of us - the spacetime vortex itself.

 

 

ghost pollution is a very real issue and the qigong masters are constantly sending ghosts back to the Emptiness - to heal the ghosts - and so they get sent into a brighter light which means a spirit energy that has that stronger qi energy unified with it, as is the case with the qigong masters. But then if the ghost is not confused and attached to their lower emotions - sometimes the qigong master is enacting with other spiritual masters called down to help do the healings - spiritual masters who also have strong qi energy and so remain self-aware after death.

 

It is kind of like with our dreams - often they are confusing and we don't control our dreams - but other times the dreams are wild and yet we understand them in real time - and then we can become lucid of the dreams we were are somewhat awake while dreaming, directing what happens in the dream. But then when we have a dream of the future - also we can dreams that physically change reality. This is detailed in a book called Transcendent Dreaming - and the person would wake up with those physical transformations intact, brought back with their astral body with such strong qi energy that it transforms their matter.

 

So we can see how that is what the qigong masters do when they heal us - and so it is actually easier to heal a person when they are asleep since their left-brain ego doesn't get in the way and more so - even their spirit could leave their body so that it is easier for the qigong master to focus on healing the body. For example a qigong master shared how when he healed this dog that was about to die - the dog would leave its body so it was easier for the body to get healed. Since the dog didn't have left-brain dominant ego it was easier to interact with the shamanic visionary realm. You can - the qigong master shared - how one client was healed of strong brain damage - although they were barely cognizant with left-brain awareness the person being healed could actually see the angelic spirits that had been called down to help in the healing - while the supposedly normal adults in the room were not able to see the angelic spirits. And so a person seemingly brain damaged actually was able to be more spiritually aware once their body's qi energy was activated to harmonize with the spirit energy.

 

We can leave our body on different levels - leaving the body via the yin chi energy is just our spirit energy using qi energy to transform the lower emotions of the people around us. So that when the qi is unified with the spirit then there is a small spacetime vortex that reveals the impersonal holographic truth of eternal energy creation - what we perceive as external "other" people around us or live forms actually manifests internally as yin chi energy emotional blockages and then when we transform those blockages internally in our bodies - we have at the same time, like a mutual orgasm, also transformed the other person's internal emotional blockages. And so just with yin chi energy there is already a type of post-death reality experienced with stronger perceptions from the third eye-heart connection.

 

There are stories of yogis who at death leave their body but then go into the body of a younger person - essentially possessing the person or adding to their spirits. At the same time when the qigong masters do healing they send out a personalized yin shen spirit which then heals the person. And so in that way the qigong masters are holographically - astrally - within the people they have healed.

 

From that experience we realize that people and life grows from the inside out - and so since physical death is actually an external event - what happens internally with the qi and spirit energy can be a very different matter. For example it's possible for a person's spirit to go out of the anus at death - why? Because their qi energy was not strong enough to focus the spirit out of the heart through the pineal gland.  But I think for most people who work to be decent human beings - who are sincere about the real religious teachings of forgiveness and kindness and compassion - and so then when the spirit leaves the body the focus is on the eternal unification with the qi energy which is the secret source of the physical heart - the unified spirit-qi energy. We can not visualize eternity but we can listen to it. It is heard as a loud OHM sound emanating out of the heart-universe.

Edited April 10, 2015 by Innersoundqigong

[C T]

That's one way of looking at it. To me that verges too much towards nihilism for my liking.

 

 

I am not talking about physical rebirth rather the continuation of consciousness in the subtle realms after death. There are all sorts of accounts of people receiving teachings from other subtle realms, some historical Tibetan Buddhist masters received their entire training in the dream realm. I myself have had experiences meditating on masters who have physically died a long time ago. 

 

You are focusing on what causes rebirth of the ego, but did the Buddha simply vanish and dissolve into nothing when he became enlightened and the process of graspng and aversion fell away? no there was an aware being who continued on existing even when the cause of rebirth of a seperate ego was extinguished

Actually the focus is specifically on causes, you are right. I am a big fan of causes, not so much on results. As long as we remain vigilant of the causes, the results will take care of themselves. 

 

Buddha asserted that after enlightenment, he became a Tathagatha. Its an interesting description He chose. You might like to dig around and look deeper into this term. Based on that, yes, it can be said that the Buddha as self vanished after enlightenment. In essence, we (humans) are all tathagathas - but due to ingrained habits, we seldom recognise it. Since its not recognised, even when it manifests clearly within, usually in glimpses, we have no knowledge its actually that (mind of enlightenment). Since this knowledge is absent, it remains difficult to establish what state is the real thing and what is not. Therefore the basic step is to have that knowledge, and then to train in the stability of allowing that knowledge to suffuse the whole of one's being. This is a life-time's worth of practice, but if it can be maintained consistently (creating cause upon cause upon cause), then that itself is nirvana. If not maintained, then the result is obvious.