What do you believe you can take with you?

[Titanic]

Right, like how often we think about each of our 8 great-grandparents and the marks they left on society.

Well if they made a big impact on history I would suppose I would think about them from time too time.

 

[StarryNightshade]

Well if they made a big impact on history I would suppose I would think about them from time too time.

But how many in the world will make a big enough impact on history?

 

[BSM1]

I've always told my kids you are born with everything that's owed to you and when you die you take everything that' s yours.

Having said that I believe that when you pass you will stand before a celestial committee. The committee will ask you one question, "Did you learn anything?" Your answer is the only thing you take with you.

 

[Titanic]

But how many in the world will make a big enough impact on history?

I don't know, hopefully me at least...

 

[Penumbra]

I think that's the best guess. Nothing. Not even karma. As Sagan might say, we were born of star stuff and we might eventually return to star stuff.

That's what I think is the best guess.

If I would have speculated, based on your views of mysticism and enlightenment, I would have likely assumed that maybe you believed in some form of afterlife like becoming oneness or something of that nature, rather than oblivion.

 

[Penumbra]

My definition is a kind of monist-dualist look at it (dvaitadvaita). The Jiva is not the same as God, but it is made of the same essence. The Jiva can be seen as an expansion of God, kind of like rays coming from the sun. It's immortal and deathless, the Self.

Besides being immortal and deathless, what other attributes does it have in your view?

 

[Penumbra]

Good question! I'll have a go at answering. Please bear in mind though that I'm largely agnostic about an afterlife and prone to changing my mind on a regular basis.


-Body? No
-Race? No
-Gender? No
-Wealth? No
-Personality? Not much
-Memories? Not much
-Relationships? Possibly, probably not though
-Virtue? I don't like that word, too subjective. I'll say no.
-Knowledge? Possibly more than we currently have. More likely less or none.
-Wisdom? As above.
-Individuality? About the same as now. That is to say, less than we think.
-Consciousness? Kind of, without a brain I think we'd perceive things very differently.
-Something else? A shadowy half-existence assuming we don't simply disappear or become something else.
-Nothing? Not quite

My idea of the afterlife is closest to the Greek idea of the Underworld (minus Tartarus and Elysium). I see it as a shadowy, misty place where the dead exist in a sleep-like state. Just as with deep sleep you're not conscious, but it's certainly not nothing either.
I also believe that the dead can be roused from this sleep for various reasons and that when roused they would be somewhat akin to how they were in life, but not quite. Still a shadowy being with more of a connection to death and the dead than with life and the living.

It's hard to put exactly into words, but that's kind of the point. It's ethereal, indistinct and, for want of a better word, dark.

Not gonna lie, that sounds really depressing. Sounds to me like it would be preferable for a person to enter oblivion then to exist forever in sort of a not-quite-alive, not-quite-dead state of being.

Do you look at it negatively like that, or is your description of an afterlife appealing to you?

 

[Penumbra]

I've always told my kids you are born with everything that's owed to you and when you die you take everything that' s yours.

Having said that I believe that when you pass you will stand before a celestial committee. The committee will ask you one question, "Did you learn anything?" Your answer is the only thing you take with you.

In order to answer that question, wouldn't you also need memories, personality, and individuality?

 

[FranklinMichaelV.3]

I don't think you take anything, I mean what did you bring in?

-Body? (Took 9 months for it to come into being, so I guess you can take that?
-Race? I didn't know I was black until I came to America.
-Gender? Determined by society just like race. There's more than Male and Female
-Wealth? Didn't come with it, was born into or earned it for some.
-Personality? Took years to develop
-Memories? Had to make them
-Relationships? My mother loved me before I knew her I suppose (but she had to know me first)
-Virtue? I'm still trying to get that now.
-Knowledge? I'm still seeking.
-Wisdom? As above.
-Individuality? Determined by society.
-Consciousness? When did I gain it, I don't remember...so maybe I don't actually have it...
-Something else? shrug
-Nothing? Probably

I came into this world knowing nothing and I had to learn it. As I die, I feel like it's the reverse. All that I knew leaves. Until the first lesson as a human that I had learn (fear of death), itself leaves.

 

[Erebus]

Not gonna lie, that sounds really depressing. Sounds to me like it would be preferable for a person to enter oblivion then to exist forever in sort of a not-quite-alive, not-quite-dead state of being.

Do you look at it negatively like that, or is your description of an afterlife appealing to you?

I guess I do look at it negatively really. I don't know whether oblivion would be preferable, maybe it would be. However, as with oblivion I'm not sure you'd particularly mind the state you were in.

It's all the more reason to make the most out of life though

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Nothing. Same as caterpillars, monkeys, dogs and daffodils.

 

[BSM1]

In order to answer that question, wouldn't you also need memories, personality, and individuality?

I assumed by the question that to take anything with you would have to retain some type of consciousness.

 

[LuisDantas]

Death is oblivion far as I can tell.

What I hope for is not "taking" something with me, but rather leaving something worthwhile before I am gone.

 

[vtunie]

I shall find out for a fact once I die.

Until then, I hope, and have faith, that it will be some form of love and wisdom -- tempered with responsibility for what I have done and caused to be done.

That is, I'd like to take with me exactly that which some hope to leave behind. Why? For balance. It obviously does get behind, and it would be monstrously unfair if some part of it were not taken away in spirit.

 

[DawudTalut]

I've heard people say that money or material possessions aren't all that important because you can't take them with you when you die.

The question here is, what do you believe you can take with you to the afterlife? Some people believe that they'll basically get their bodies and personalities back in a resurrected paradise. Others believe personality persists but not the body. Others believe personality doesn't persist but individual pure consciousness does. Some believe that not even individuality remains, and that you merge back into the ocean of conscious existence. And of course, there are people that believe that death means oblivion, that consciousness is an emergent property of physical matter and that upon destruction of that physical matter, consciousness is dispersed and no longer existent.

What do you believe? What do you have now, that you believe that you'll have, or that will matter, in the afterlife?

-Body?
-Race?
-Gender?
-Wealth?
-Personality?
-Memories?
-Relationships?
-Virtue?
-Knowledge?
-Wisdom?
-Individuality?
-Consciousness?
-Something else?
-Nothing?

Peace be on you.
Faith and deeds. Relations and relatives will be remembered.

https://www.alislam.org/library/links/00000146.html

 

[Gnostic Seeker]

The psyche/soul-mind is what continues on.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

To me, death is simply a transformation and you go to a different dimension. I think you're much the same, really. You have your memories, personality and relationship ties. You're still an individual and you're still you. One of my uncles died a few years ago and, after, he visited me in a dream in the form of a talking skeleton who was driving me around. That's just like him to do that. It fits his sense of humor.

I don't believe in this stuff that says we cease to exist or are absorbed into some larger entity. My learning and my experiences don't bear that out. We're individual spiritual beings and we remain so for eternity.

 

[outhouse]

Holy necromancers

 

[walkthetalk]

Records of good and evil acts will be going for the day of judgement. Nothing else...

I've heard people say that money or material possessions aren't all that important because you can't take them with you when you die.

The question here is, what do you believe you can take with you to the afterlife? Some people believe that they'll basically get their bodies and personalities back in a resurrected paradise. Others believe personality persists but not the body. Others believe personality doesn't persist but individual pure consciousness does. Some believe that not even individuality remains, and that you merge back into the ocean of conscious existence. And of course, there are people that believe that death means oblivion, that consciousness is an emergent property of physical matter and that upon destruction of that physical matter, consciousness is dispersed and no longer existent.

What do you believe? What do you have now, that you believe that you'll have, or that will matter, in the afterlife?

-Body?
-Race?
-Gender?
-Wealth?
-Personality?
-Memories?
-Relationships?
-Virtue?
-Knowledge?
-Wisdom?
-Individuality?
-Consciousness?
-Something else?
-Nothing?

 

[psychoslice]

To my way of thinking, when you die you take nothing with you, the only real you was consciousness, but it was there all the time, and it was there before you were born, it has gone nowhere.