In Life We Know Not Death In Death We Know Not Life

[rhinefire]

I saw a quote similar to the thread title and it got me to thinking about the afterlife concept in a whole new way. First, I am not a firm believer in an after life but that is not my point here. This is not a religious issue. My new idea of it is it is a total separation from everything experienced in our lives. There is no trace of what was rather, only what is in death. Separate the concept of heaven or hell or any other thing you have been exposed to and focus on a phenomenon of newness. In an instant everything is new with no trace of your past life. You don't even know what your past life was. You are in a new dimension of some kind. No body, no mind or emotion like you had in life before. Suddenly you are a new entity of some kind and somewhere but that is where my imagination won't let me go further but I have never thought about it in this fashion and I think it is pretty nice.....hopefully.

 

[Fisher]

I saw a quote similar to the thread title and it got me to thinking about the afterlife concept in a whole new way. First, I am not a firm believer in an after life but that is not my point here. This is not a religious issue. My new idea of it is it is a total separation from everything experienced in our lives. There is no trace of what was rather, only what is in death. Separate the concept of heaven or hell or any other thing you have been exposed to and focus on a phenomenon of newness. In an instant everything is new with no trace of your past life. You don't even know what your past life was. You are in a new dimension of some kind. No body, no mind or emotion like you had in life before. Suddenly you are a new entity of some kind and somewhere but that is where my imagination won't let me go further but I have never thought about it in this fashion and I think it is pretty nice.....hopefully.

I would not want to live an emotionless life. It would be a perpetual vegetative existence.

 

[Mach]

Life is always pretty freaky when you stop to analyze. Every aspect of it, from the sounds we make and call language, physics, existence, all of it. Nuts.
Best not to go too far down that road IMO, go in, get educated, and leave...before it consumes you

Easter philosophy with it's yin/yang captures it as best as it can be captured. That is to say, not at all. If you catch my meaning, or not.

So Eastern philosophy addresses your lack of imagination specifically with a well known concept, meditation. And presumably getting to the point where you do experience that understanding they term Enlightenment. I'm being really general here, that's my impression of the underlying thread that ties all those concepts. That you're really part of the entire universe and that sense of self is an illusion. Doing that while being a self, is hard..we're wired to survive, not to ponder the universe in a visceral sense. Some say a shortcut is sensory depravation (like a tank), some may add in shrooms (Unfortunately I know nothing of this but I'm sure there is plenty of personal accounts out there.)
Some just good old fashioned meditation and focusing on not-self for years on end apparently Just don't think about stopping your heart with your mind, those folks never seem to last very long.
Maybe contrast that to western styled philosophy. Western sees to basically accept all that stuff, but continues to approach it as the self being in charge. It's kind of strange, like we're so ballsy "Americanos" that we kicked out the English Monarchs, and we do **** the way we want. THat goes for philosophy too, universe get the **** in line....enlightenment? We call enlightenment REASON and SCIENCE. Not in feeling the universe as a whole...good lord, who has time for that?
I never see that as hopeful personally, but then I do practice mental avoidance of issues that I know enough about to know I don't need to deeply ponder them any longer. In that sense, western styled philosophy seems to be a concerted effort to philosophically avoid the void...

If you can make sense of any of that, you're well on your way!

 

[rhinefire]

To me the point of the quote I tried to remember was death is void of all previous things therefore there is nothing and I mean nothing in life we can do that carries over in to death. Death maybe a total but if it is not and since we cannot experience it when we are alive it is a totally separate entity. Despite many claiming to talk to the dead there has never been a connection. I hope with all of my being life somehow does not transfer any of its characteristics in to death. I take this quote as death is new life not a modification of the previous one!!
There is nothing we do as live people to help us in to death despite all the gurus and preachers claiming to the contrary.