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What Happens When You Die?

Desert Snake

Veteran Member
Seriously?? You can't say on the one hand that people have an idea of 'heaven and hell' only in their heads while simultaneously claiming a panentheistic version of a deity.
It's contradictory
 

ThePainefulTruth

Romantic-Cynic
He is saying that he does not exist as an individual skin-encapsulated ego apart from the world; that his Identity as 'Deepak Chopra' is not real. The only 'real' is the universal Unborn Deathless consciousness speaking through him.

Then we are just the manifestations of the "universal Unborn Deathless consciousness" talking to Itself. But what do I know, I don't exist. I guess It just slapped Itself in the face through me....or something. :rolleyes:
 

horizon_mj1

Well-Known Member
Well godnotgod, I can not only see why you chose this user name, but can understand your view as well, and will venomously argue against this. I am not you or anyone else. My energies and thoughts as well as my body are mine and are only combined with those in whom I choose to share them with. If all "energies" or "existence" were as you stated, there would be no structure in the Universe, let alone the world. Nothing would ever change either for all would be bland and mundane from the repetitiveness and disorganization created from the non-defined lives and minds. Like it or not you, me, or any other Human are not Truly dominate; all life on this plant depends on other life on this planet in order to survive; this does not make us the same only having the same goals. I am quite aware of the "like-minded God" created from the disillusionment of Humans self righteous pride in thinking they are all there is and needs to be; but this concept is so far from the Truth that it is nearly hysterically funny.:sarcastic
 

Thief

Rogue Theologian
All this time, you have not been paying attention:

We don't have the same perspective because you are immersed in Identification, in which you firmly believe the "I" to be real, when it is fiction, and so you see reality through a distorted lens.

When reality is seen through universal, rather than personal consciousness, it is then that we DO have the same perspective. Why should reality differ from one to another? The saltiness of the sea is the same everywhere.

Now show me where the division between you and I occurs.

Almost any post in this thread.
Your perspective is not mine.
 

godnotgod

Thou art That
Almost any post in this thread.
Your perspective is not mine.

So what? The very fact that we are in communication is proof that we are interlinked, via consciousness, one to the other, whether we are in agreement or not.

There is only consciousness; 'yours' and 'mine' is an illusion.
 

godnotgod

Thou art That
Then we are just the manifestations of the "universal Unborn Deathless consciousness" talking to Itself.

Yes. We are universal, deathless, and unborn by default. That is our true nature. Isn't that a great thing?

But what do I know, I don't exist. I guess It just slapped Itself in the face through me....or something. :rolleyes:

You are the Absolute pretending to be an individual ego called "XXX" apart from other individual egos, who are also the universe pretending to be some concocted, fictional identity.

It's the cosmic game of Hide and Seek the Absolute loves to play; to hide from itself so thoroughly that it forgets who and what it really is.

So, no. As "XXX", you are fiction and do not actually exist from the point of view of Higher Consciousness.

But there is something that sees and knows. What is that something?
 
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godnotgod

Thou art That
I am not you or anyone else. My energies and thoughts as well as my body are mine and are only combined with those in whom I choose to share them with.

Every single ocean wave is somewhat different than any other ocean wave, but all of them are manifestations of the boundless sea from which they each emerge, and to which they each return. Though they seem 'unique' on the surface, underneath, all waves are made of the same substance as the sea itself: WATER.

You are looking at the surface characteristics from one human to another and saying: "I am unique and separate", when, in fact, we all share the same humanity. In fact, we are all of the same substance as the universe itself, and, as we all know, the 'uni-verse' could not be what it is were it not singular and seamless, One.

You may like to think you are in control, but in reality, life is pretty much spontaneous with unexpected events that come our way daily. In fact, the most intimate thoughts are not really yours, but belong to the universe. Luckily, you are 100% part and parcel of the universe.

When you say your energies and thoughts are 'mine', where is the "I" that is the possessor and controller of such energies and thoughts. And since "I" is actually thought of as the composite of such energies and thoughts, that is to say, "I am my thoughts; I am my energies", then it appears that there are two of you: the "I" that is in control of them, and the "I" that is them. Which are you? Oh, yes...and then there is the other "I" that is in observation of the first two, and so on, ad infinitum.
 
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godnotgod

Thou art That
Seriously?? You can't say on the one hand that people have an idea of 'heaven and hell' only in their heads while simultaneously claiming a panentheistic version of a deity.
It's contradictory

Heaven and Hell are dualistic concepts. The Absolute is non-dual.

Tell me: how is it that you can maintain an idea of a Heaven? How is it that you can maintain a concept of Hell?
 
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godnotgod

Thou art That
Well godnotgod, I can not only see why you chose this user name, but can understand your view as well, and will venomously argue against this.

Of course you will! The ego will play every trick in the book in order to survive, fighting tooth and nail to preserve itself forever in some idylic heaven. The last thing the ego wants is to die, to not-exist. Why, that would be terrible! No more adulation from others; no more gratification and pride. Not to exist is a fate worse than death itself!

As TS Elliot puts it:


"I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas"
 

Penumbra

Veteran Member
Premium Member
When you die, you're asked one question.

"What is the sound of one hand clapping?"

If you answer, "The falling tree makes no sound."
Then Jesus gives you a fist bump for your accuracy,
and you go to Amitabha's Pure Land
where you meet Krishna
and live happily ever after.
 

Desert Snake

Veteran Member
When you die, you're asked one question.

"What is the sound of one hand clapping?"

If you answer, "The falling tree makes no sound."
Then Jesus gives you a fist bump for your accuracy,
and you go to Amitabha's Pure Land
where you meet Krishna
and live happily ever after.

Lol good one, though why wouldn't the falling tree make a sound :confused: jk
 

godnotgod

Thou art That
Seriously?? You can't say on the one hand that people have an idea of 'heaven and hell' only in their heads while simultaneously claiming a panentheistic version of a deity.
It's contradictory

I don't see any contradiction. Why can't people be in such psychological states while a panentheistic deity is the case at the same time?
 

Desert Snake

Veteran Member
I don't see any contradiction. Why can't people be in such psychological states while a panentheistic deity is the case at the same time?

"psychological states", am I missing something here? Do you mean the 'concept' of hell and heaven are 'psychological states' or what...?
 

ThePainefulTruth

Romantic-Cynic
Nothing. It's simply that to maintain a concept of the one, you must include its opposite. They are dual, being two aspects of the same reality.

Yes, yin and yang being part of the One whole, the One whole Truth, the One whole God. There is both universal and individual Truth, and, depending on the aspect of Truth, they can be discreet or combined-- from objective knowledge, through justice and love, to subjective beauty.

Why can't people be in such psychological states while a panentheistic deity is the case at the same time?

Well, a deistic deity. We are nothing without our free will, and that won't exist if God, whatever His/Her/Its form, intervenes.
 

godnotgod

Thou art That
"psychological states", am I missing something here? Do you mean the 'concept' of hell and heaven are 'psychological states' or what...?

I mean that we conceive of heaven and hell as real places existing in another realm, treating our belief as fact. In reality, though, those same hells and heavens are actually states of mind we create for ourselves.

We experience relative temporal joy and relative temporal suffering while alive. For various reasons, we then extrapolate the ideas of Absolute Joy and Absolute Suffering onto some imaginary after-death time and place.

But the nature of that which is the Absolute is beyond all duality. That is why it can be called The Absolute.
 
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godnotgod

Thou art That
Yes, yin and yang being part of the One whole, the One whole Truth, the One whole God. There is both universal and individual Truth, and, depending on the aspect of Truth, they can be discreet or combined-- from objective knowledge, through justice and love, to subjective beauty.

OK, but overall, everything still remains One. Any separation is purely conceptual.

Well, a deistic deity. We are nothing without our free will, and that won't exist if God, whatever His/Her/Its form, intervenes.

Intervening deity or not, everything is interconnected as One. You cannot define a non-intervening deity without reference to that which it is not intervening in.

Is it not because of our so-called 'free will' that we can create concepts of heaven and hell? In fact, is not the idea of a self that has 'free will' purely illusory? That we create the false idea that we are a separate ego acting upon the world?

I am suggesting that God, heaven, hell, and self, are all concocted of whole cloth.
 
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