What Happens When You Die?

[godnotgod]

Yeah!....indeed!

I don't believe the last breath destroys the spirit.

But the spirit confined in darkness won't last long.

Confinement is possible.
Are you not contained...even now?

Only the illusion of containment exists, created by unfounded fears.

You may as well attempt to capture the wind in a box.

 

[Thief]

Only the illusion of containment exists, created by unfounded fears.

You may as well attempt to capture the wind in a box.

Nope....
You are indeed contained.
You cannot support your wordplay as stated above.

Then chain that binds you to your body is not yours to break.
You will awaken tomorrow in the same container.

Death would be the breaking.
The opportunity to stand up.

The grave could prove to be another container.
Dust can be held in a box.

So I believe.

 

[atanu]

So like unto Edgar Cayce.....you can leave your flesh at will?

And the bond you have to that particular lump of meat you call your body...
can be broken....and mended....without anyone else knwoing of it?

What you say above however does not mean that the spirit has become small and individualized.

 

[Thief]

What you say above however does not mean that the spirit has become small and individualized.

You don't feel small under the starry, starry night?

Top of the life form are you?
No chance of Something greater than you?

No chance of an Almighty?

No One in charge.

 

[atanu]

You don't feel small under the starry, starry night?.

Yes. I feel. Because there is wrong identification with the body.

 

[Thief]

Yes. I feel. Because there is wrong identification with the body.

Wrong to feel? as if you wish not to?

 

[atanu]

Wrong to feel? as if you wish not to?

Why should one cling to the notion that "I am this body", when the illusion is no more.

"I" is subtle. Body is gross. The "I", as per scripture and as per my understanding and experience, does not arise from body but is conditioned by contact with the body. When the contact is known to be pain, why should one cling? Let the association last as long as the momentum takes it. But the awareness of "I" is distinct from the inert body.

 

[godnotgod]

Nope....
You are indeed contained.
You cannot support your wordplay as stated above.

The finite cannot contain the infinite. It is the opposite that is true, though the infinite does not impose itself upon the finite in the sense that it is a constraining agent; to the contrary, it is the finite self that is the cause of its own discomfort; it's own metaphysical anxiety. It creates anxiety where none is called for.

Then chain that binds you to your body is not yours to break.
You will awaken tomorrow in the same container.

There is no such 'chain' that binds you, nor any such chain to break, other than the chain that is your own mind; nor is there anyone who can break nor not-break any chain. You are living in an imaginary cage with the door wide open. The only thing that entraps you are your own unfounded fears and delusions. Your fear of the self coming to an end; that 'Thief' will cease to exist, or if he does exist, may do so as dust terrified to death in total darkness in some forgotten, unmarked grave. You want to perpetuate the illusion of the self forever; to be someone; to be stroked, adulated, adored, praised, remembered, respected. But 'Thief' cannot come to an end, because he is an illusion. It is the illusion of self that must come to an end, so that your true nature can come into play. Only when that occurs will you lose your fear of death, because you will then realize that you cannot die, and you cannot die because you were never born to begin with. 'Thief' is just a concoction of your society and your biology. Your true nature has never been contained in that concoction; only the concoction thinks it is so. You are not your body; you are not your history. Your are free, but fail to see it because you allow your fears to rule your mind, rather than the Truth.

Death would be the breaking.
The opportunity to stand up.

Maybe you can learn to sit and listen instead, now, before your death.

The grave could prove to be another container.
Dust can be held in a box.

Then simply lose your attachment to such dust. Then you will be free. Stop making it so complicated and difficult.

So I believe.[/quote]

 

[Thief]

The finite cannot contain the infinite. It is the opposite that is true, though the infinite does not impose itself upon the finite in the sense that it is a constraining agent; to the contrary, it is the finite self that is the cause of its own discomfort; it's own metaphysical anxiety. It creates anxiety where none is called for.



There is no such 'chain' that binds you, nor any such chain to break, other than the chain that is your own mind; nor is there anyone who can break nor not-break any chain. You are living in an imaginary cage with the door wide open. The only thing that entraps you are your own unfounded fears and delusions. Your fear of the self coming to an end; that 'Thief' will cease to exist, or if he does exist, may do so as dust terrified to death in total darkness in some forgotten, unmarked grave. You want to perpetuate the illusion of the self forever; to be someone; to be stroked, adulated, adored, praised, remembered, respected. But 'Thief' cannot come to an end, because he is an illusion. It is the illusion of self that must come to an end, so that your true nature can come into play. Only when that occurs will you lose your fear of death, because you will then realize that you cannot die, and you cannot die because you were never born to begin with. 'Thief' is just a concoction of your society and your biology. Your true nature has never been contained in that concoction; only the concoction thinks it is so. You are not your body; you are not your history. Your are free, but fail to see it because you allow your fears to rule your mind, rather than the Truth.



Maybe you can learn to sit and listen instead, now, before your death.



Then simply lose your attachment to such dust. Then you will be free. Stop making it so complicated and difficult.

So I believe.

[/quote]

Apparently your reading skills taint your response.

There is indeed a bond between your flesh and 'you'.
You will indeed awaken tomorrow in that sack of meat.

When you fail to awaken....
Your relatives and friends will gather.
Into the box you will go.
Into the ground you will go.

Unless of course the chain is broken...in the hour of your last breath.

I believe the bond is broken in that hour.
'I'....the Thief....will stand.

 

[godnotgod]

Apparently your reading skills taint your response.

There is indeed a bond between your flesh and 'you'.
You will indeed awaken tomorrow in that sack of meat.

Apparently your reading skills taint your response.

Excuse me, but a bond is not 'chains'.

We are indeed bonded to flesh, so much so in fact, that the spirit became flesh. Your problem is that you still see them as two, when, in fact, they are one and the same. The form that the spirit is currently manifesting is temporal, just as the wave form which the sea manifests is temporal. Just as the wave form is made of the same substance as the sea, you too are made of the same substance as the Source from which you originally emerged and are now emerging, as living flesh, as we speak. When you 'die', your flesh form is broken down and transformed by other living things, such as macrophages and other bacteria, just as the ocean wave form dissolves back into the sea. Nothing is lost. Nothing dies.

You can no more escape the flesh any more than the eye can see itself. Stop grasping, and just allow the Self to settle upon itself.

You insult the divine nature that 'breathed' its life into your form by thinking yourself as 'chained', and desiring to escape. You are not living your life in joy, enjoying the Gifts of the Incarnation. As the Buddhist master said:

"You have one eye on the path and one eye on the goal, instead of both eyes on the path".

You are preoccupied with what you are going to 'get' as Reward in the so-called 'afterlife', like a child intent on what he is going to get for Christmas, and not paying attention to the reality right under your very nose.

If you are not here, now, you won't be there, then, and if you cannot be here, now, you may as well spend eternity in some forgotten grave as terrified dust. As TS Elliot said:
"I should have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the floors of silent seas"

 

[atanu]

Why should one cling to the notion that "I am this body", when the illusion is no more.

"I" is subtle. Body is gross. The "I", as per scripture and as per my understanding and experience, does not arise from body but is conditioned by contact with the body. When the contact is known to be pain, why should one cling? Let the association last as long as the momentum takes it. But the awareness of "I" is distinct from the inert body.

And I need to say that the awareness of "I" , I am talking about, is not same as awareness of "I am this body" and the full "I" has no sense of a separate self.

 

[Thief]

Apparently your reading skills taint your response.

Excuse me, but a bond is not 'chains'.

We are indeed bonded to flesh, so much so in fact, that the spirit became flesh. Your problem is that you still see them as two, when, in fact, they are one and the same. The form that the spirit is currently manifesting is temporal, just as the wave form which the sea manifests is temporal. Just as the wave form is made of the same substance as the sea, you too are made of the same substance as the Source from which you originally emerged and are now emerging, as living flesh, as we speak. When you 'die', your flesh form is broken down and transformed by other living things, such as macrophages and other bacteria, just as the ocean wave form dissolves back into the sea. Nothing is lost. Nothing dies.

You can no more escape the flesh any more than the eye can see itself. Stop grasping, and just allow the Self to settle upon itself.

You insult the divine nature that 'breathed' its life into your form by thinking yourself as 'chained', and desiring to escape. You are not living your life in joy, enjoying the Gifts of the Incarnation. As the Buddhist master said:

"You have one eye on the path and one eye on the goal, instead of both eyes on the path".

You are preoccupied with what you are going to 'get' as Reward in the so-called 'afterlife', like a child intent on what he is going to get for Christmas, and not paying attention to the reality right under your very nose.

If you are not here, now, you won't be there, then, and if you cannot be here, now, you may as well spend eternity in some forgotten grave as terrified dust. As TS Elliot said:
"I should have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the floors of silent seas"

Quoting poets won't help you.

If your eye offends you gouge it out.

I believe God is spirit.
We are here to become spirit.

Your word will have us to be dust.
Fine for you.

I will carry on.

 

[godnotgod]

Quoting poets won't help you.

If your eye offends you gouge it out.

I believe God is spirit.
We are here to become spirit.

Your word will have us to be dust.
Fine for you.

I will carry on.

That is your problem: you are always 'becoming' but never quite arrive, and that is because you are an ego dragging around a has-been; a dead corpse that was, but never really is.

If you were truly spiritual, you would not be concerned with 'becoming' anything; you would realize that all things are already complete; that there is no seeker that 'returns', or 'carries on', simply because you are already there. But you want to go to a place called the 'afterlife' that is defined by the dead past, not by the living Present. To say "I am" is to know that everything is already complete in THIS eternal Present Moment, and not in some fantasy pie in the sky notion in some vague and distant future after death.


"I am ever reluctant to admit that I am dead, my only
recourse is to work and struggle to give this "has/been" a
semblance of life to make it continue, move, get somewhere.
But because it is dead, and has all the fixity and permanence
of an unchangeable fact, this "I" can only go on being what
it was. Like a machine, it can only repeat itself ad nauseam,
however fast it may be run.

Thus when the dead man talks, he gives us the facts; he tells
all and says nothing. But when the living man talks, he gives
us poetry and myth. That is to say, he gives us a word from the
unconscious not from the psychoanalytical garbage^can, but
from the living world which is not to be remembered, of which
no trace can be found in history, in the record of facts, because
it is not yet dead. The world of myth is past, is "once upon a
time*', in a symbolic sense only in the sense that it is behind us,
not as time past is behind us, but as the brain which cannot
be seen is behind the eyes which see, as behind memory is that
which remembers and cannot be remembered. Thus poetry
and myth are accounts of the real world which is, as distinct
from the dead world which was, and therefore will be. The
form of myth is magical and wonderful because the real world
is magical and wonderful in the sense that we cannot pin it
down, that we do not understand it because it under/stands us."

Alan Watts

 

[ArtieE]

Quoting poets won't help you.

If your eye offends you gouge it out.

I believe God is spirit.
We are here to become spirit.

Your word will have us to be dust.
Fine for you.

I will carry on.

You are a collection of atoms and molecules which in their present configuration is called "you". Before you became "you" these atoms and molecules were part of different configurations and after you stop being "you" these atoms and molecules will be part of other configurations. At which point in time does the collection of atoms and molecules configured as "you" become "spirit"? Remember that all processes in your body are continuous and that atoms and molecules constantly join and leave the configuration of atoms and molecules known as "you".

 

[Thief]

You are a collection of atoms and molecules which in their present configuration is called "you". Before you became "you" these atoms and molecules were part of different configurations and after you stop being "you" these atoms and molecules will be part of other configurations. At which point in time does the collection of atoms and molecules configured as "you" become "spirit"? Remember that all processes in your body are continuous and that atoms and molecules constantly join and leave the configuration of atoms and molecules known as "you".

And someday the spirit I am will leave the chemistry.

 

[ArtieE]

And someday the spirit I am will leave the chemistry.

At which point in time did this "spirit" join the chemistry? Or how and when did the chemistry produce this "spirit"?

 

[godnotgod]

You are a collection of atoms and molecules which in their present configuration is called "you". Before you became "you" these atoms and molecules were part of different configurations and after you stop being "you" these atoms and molecules will be part of other configurations. At which point in time does the collection of atoms and molecules configured as "you" become "spirit"? Remember that all processes in your body are continuous and that atoms and molecules constantly join and leave the configuration of atoms and molecules known as "you".

It is the ocean that waves, not the other way around.

 

[atanu]

You are a collection of atoms and molecules which in their present configuration is called "you".------".

This your view or view of atoms and molecules over which you have no control, since, by your own words, you do not exist.

Or, if you admit of some sort of self that can have a considered opinion, then how is your opinion correct, since the opinion is a product of unconscious dance of atoms and molecules?

 

[godnotgod]

At which point in time did this "spirit" join the chemistry? Or how and when did the chemistry produce this "spirit"?

There never was a time when they were ever separate.

 

[ArtieE]

It is the ocean that waves, not the other way around.

My original post was: "You are a collection of atoms and molecules which in their present configuration is called "you". Before you became "you" these atoms and molecules were part of different configurations and after you stop being "you" these atoms and molecules will be part of other configurations. At which point in time does the collection of atoms and molecules configured as "you" become "spirit"? Remember that all processes in your body are continuous and that atoms and molecules constantly join and leave the configuration of atoms and molecules known as "you"."

At which point in time does the collections of atoms and molecules configured as "you" become "spirit"? Please no "ocean" and "wave" stuff. Just answer the question.