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How To Choose An Afterlife?

@Xanatic* reminds me of a close shave with death that a relation of mine had.

During resuscitation in hospital she felt herself shooting along what looked like a Tube line with branch lines and stations on either side, which represented all her past and future lives.
She had to choose her current life to get off at or, well, she didn't know but it wouldn't go well.
 
escargot said:
My extended family hold a belief that one does indeed make one's own afterlife.
When a much-loved family member died young, he was pictured by the relations enjoying an endless holiday on a white sandy beach with palm trees and a rustic-looking bar...

Suddenly the blue sky would become overcast, the sea grey and the air a little chillier with a stiff sea-breeze.
A string of donkeys would amble past, followed by Granddad with his trousers rolled up and a knotted hankie on his head, carrying two ice creams. He'd hold one out to his grandchild and they'd laugh and wander off together along Blackpool sands.

Whoever thought up this little yarn was a genius. It was a comfort when we lost two beloved people in a short time and some of us could hardly function.
But it was still a yarn. :wink2:
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Of all possible after lives I pray that not one of them involves being anywhere near Blackpool (shudder). :hahazebs:
 
Robbrent said:
:bump: It's an old topic but a good one (I was searching for something else and this came up)

I have come to believe that the first place we go after we depart is pretty much designed by us, if you think you are going to hell that's where you will go, or bucolic pastures with golden cities and choirs or even quaint little cottages with roses growing around the doorway this accounts for the so many different versions you read about, you believe in Valhalla that's where you will end up. For a time at least (or time may not exist) and then you will move up to rejoin the comic consciousness

Of course I also believe that some are reincarnated, it does look like those that are reincarnated have had their life cut short (normally by some violent means)

Just some ponderings on what's next
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I have pondered about this. I have known 3 people who conducted themselves in such a manner that they appear to have been here before despite their relative young age. All three set the lives of at least one other on a different better track (one beneficiary was me). This despite the fact that all of them had relatively difficult lives themselves. All three died some 40 years or so before what should have been their allotted time. Makes me wonder whether they were told "You can have another go if you want but it won't be easy and you've got a task to perform as well".
 
PeteS said:
I have pondered about this. I have known 3 people who conducted themselves in such a manner that they appear to have been here before despite their relative young age. All three set the lives of at least one other on a different better track (one beneficiary was me). This despite the fact that all of them had relatively difficult lives themselves. All three died some 40 years or so before what should have been their allotted time. Makes me wonder whether they were told "You can have another go if you want but it won't be easy and you've got a task to perform as well".
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Where I live, if a very young child shows wisdom or shrewdness an adult might nod and remark 'He/she's been'ere before!' :nods:
 
PeteS said:
Of all possible after lives I pray that not one of them involves being anywhere near Blackpool (shudder). :hahazebs:
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Someone who was learning to read palms once asked to practice on me, to which of course I happily agreed.

She said she saw me on holiday, possibly in Egypt. Ooo, lovely, I said, I've always wanted to go there!

Well, she said, I see donkeys and sand, so it could be Blackpool.
 
charliebrown said:
This is one of those topics where one is swimming in water with lots of sharks to bite.

First, I am sure some people look at death according to their personal or religious beliefs.

But death is a mystery.

Death strips us of all are human emotions like pride or the opposite humble and makes us all equal.

I personally would like to think there is something after death, and seeing unexplained paranormal over my life time gives me hope there is something after death.

Can one control the afterlife, I don’t know ?
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I think control is the wrong word, it's all based on your beliefs, if you believe you are going to hell there you will go, belief is a strange thing and sometimes our beliefs are held deep in out sub conscious

I was struck by reading a few NDE's where they for want of a better word were just stuck in nothingness not unpleasant but just nothingness and I wondered at the time is that because that is actually what they believed?
 
charliebrown said:
To complicate the picture many people believe that after they die, they come back as something else or another person.
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My parents had a joke that whoever died first would come back as a seagull and crap on the other.

When Dad had to go away for a few weeks for work, Mother took us kids for a day at the seaside and was of course immediately splattered.
She was convinced Dad had carked it!
 
Xanatic* said:
The chinese afterlife seems particularly dull. Just a big heavenly bureacracy with heavenly judges and civil servants. I shall try to avoid dying in China.
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Yep, the after life better be some what interesting. I refuse to sit about on a cloud with a stupid harp and a funny hat ad infinitum.
 
Related 2023 book: http://baruss.ca/books.htm
His 2021 book was very good and got a 5 star review in FT.
I'll follow on with this when I'm finished reading Paul Beard's 'Living On' that, based on messages sent back, appears to be saying that we just carry on growing/evolving in a different 'place'.
 
Robbrent said:
I wondered at the time is that because that is actually what they believed?
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There is a Philosophy that states that with our thoughts, we create our world, or, we are not what we think we are, but, what we think, we are.

If we do fashion our existence with what is stated above, then do we also create our afterlives...and if we do, are there a lot of people who are creating their own afterlife of Hell, here on Earth while living..?

I'm thinking of those who believe that unless we follow the commandments to a 'T', we go straight to hell and spend an eternity in lakes of fire and brimstone.
 
flannel said:
Related 2023 book: http://baruss.ca/books.htm
His 2021 book was very good and got a 5 star review in FT.
I'll follow on with this when I'm finished reading Paul Beard's 'Living On' that, based on messages sent back, appears to be saying that we just carry on growing/evolving in a different 'place'.
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That makes so much sense to me Flannel.
 
Mungoman said:
There is a Philosophy that states that with our thoughts, we create our world, or, we are not what we think we are, but, what we think, we are.

If we do fashion our existence with what is stated above, then do we also create our afterlives...and if we do, are there a lot of people who are creating their own afterlife of Hell, here on Earth while living..?

I'm thinking of those who believe that unless we follow the commandments to a 'T', we go straight to hell and spend an eternity in lakes of fire and brimstone.
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You remind me that in town last week there was a group of those Hellfire preachers. One was sermonising loudly about the imminent danger of damnation while several others attempted to give out leaflets to passers-by.

It all looked very American to me, the sort of process that might work once in a blue moon on a former lifelong churchgoer.
They had Bob 'ope 'ere. :chuckle:

It occurred to me that they all believe it, though. :thought:
 
As mentioned elsewhere on this forum, my afterlife will contain -
A well stocked personal library, with room for more books.
A well stocked bookshop.
A cinema (showing Hammer Horror movies, Troll 2, all the Deathstalker movies, the six good Star Trek movies, Ed woods non-pervy movies, etc...)
Delicious food.
The ability to haunt whomever I please.
 
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Tigerhawk said:
As mentioned elsewhere on this thread, my afterlife will contain -
A well stocked personal library, with room for more books.
A well stocked bookshop.
A cinema (showing Hammer Horror movies, Troll 2, all the Deathstalker movies, the six good Star Trek movies, Ed woods non-pervy movies, etc...)
Delicious food.
The ability to haunt whomever I please.
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Surprisingly similar to my own afterlife, although science fiction will feature more prominently.
 
escargot said:
FTFY.

WHAT an honour. :curt:
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voyagelalune1.gif
 
Xanatic* said:
The chinese afterlife seems particularly dull. Just a big heavenly bureacracy with heavenly judges and civil servants. I shall try to avoid dying in China.
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It isn't, unless you consider "real" life as dull. In the land of the dead (the "Yellow Springs"), people keep living ordinary "lives". It's not all bureaucrats and judges. People can tend to their business, purchase needed utilities (using "paper money" burnt by the living for this specific purpose), get married (even with living people), or just have fun haunting the living. They can prey on them as well, if they're really pissed off or ill tempered.

On the other hand, it is true that most living people aimed at becoming minor gods : either "ancestors", either "heavenly" or "underworld" officials, because that was the prestigious career path in Ancient China. Therefore, most people naturally expected to get this kind of "promotion" when dying. Hence the custom of dressing the dead with mandarinal / official uniforms (by the way that's why the Chinese vampire, or "Jiangshi", is almost always dressed as a bureaucrat. It's not because of the fear of taxes ... It's because this is how the dead were buried : with a mandarinal robe and cap).

Besides, most of the lowest ranking gods of the Chinese pantheon were former humans. Let's take Zhongkui, for instance, or the "Door Gods" : they were all warriors rewarded for their bravery with an official post as exorcist deities in a "ghost versus ghost" tactic. You hire a benevolent, though agressive ghost to fight off other unruly spirits, as a way to protect society and maintain the necessary frontier between the Yin world and the Yang world.

At a higher level, the current "god of war", Guan Yu, is also a former general from the Three Kingdoms' era (3rd century). So you have some room for promotion when you die ... although most people supposedly remain basic family gods ("ancestors") or local "earth gods" (aka "tudi" : the god in charge of a specific place. You can become the god in charge of a field, a village, a mountain or whatever place ...).

If you find this boring, you can alternatively enjoy the numerous "hells" imported from the buddhist cosmology : the eight hot and eight icy hells, and a variety of torture places who will fulfill the expectations of the hardest masochist (see the Tiger Balm gardens for some illustrations, or the movie "Big Trouble in Little China" for a western rendition of a Chinese hell).

And then, at the other end of the spectrum, you have the various paradises, "grottoes" (dong) or islands of the immortals ("xianren", often translated as "fairies" in English).

As a matter of fact, part (if not all) of the Chinese immortals are actually "dead" (ok, I admit that a "dead immortal" is not an intuitive concept ... So sorry for bringing that up). Taoist texts classify the "immortals" within 3 groups : ghostly, earthly (human), and celestial (see for example, the "Zhonglu Chuandao Ji ; 鍾呂傳道集" [a taoist alchemy treaty] for more details on this classification). Of these three classes, the lowest is composed of "ghost immortals", in other words : people who died after cultivating special techniques. These, although able to endure for a very very long time as ghosts still belong to the underworld. If my memory is correct, the two upper classes could also be considered as no "living beings" as the process of becoming an immortal involves giving birth to a "new self" (the immortal embryo), which becomes the new vehicle of your consciouness. In Chinese tales, lots of immortals "shed their bodies" as one would leave his old clothes. Many got buried as corpses, only for their corpse to miraculously disappear afterwards, often being replaced by a symbolic object : a cane, a sword, a gourd, or an old shoe ... Those who "ascend" in plain daylight riding a dragon or a crane remain a tiny minority.

In any case, unlike the gods, the taoist immortals are somewhat "self-made" men. Even if some do play an official role (often at a very high, "cosmic" level), most reside in their own paradises, living carefree lives in edenic surroundings. Some are even depicted as heavy alcohol drinkers.

Conclusion : the Chinese "afterlife" is certainly not any duller than the Western one. It has lots and lots of variations !
 
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I have always liked the sound of it.

(And the Egyptian...like normal life but with Ushabi to do the boring stuff for you).
 
Some sources relative to my former development, about "ghost immortals" in Chinese culture. For those who are interested, you'll find below an excerpt from an awkward personal translation of the aforementioned Zhonglu Chuandao Ji, chapter 1 :

Lu Dongbin (a famous immortal) asked : "When a man dies he becomes a ghost. When he follows the Way, he becomes an immortal. By which means do immortals ascend to heaven ?"

Zhongli Quan (his master) answered : "There is not only one kind of immortals. People who are pure YIN and deprived of YANG are ghosts. Those who are pure YANG and deprived of YIN are immortals. Those who are mixed YIN and YANG are human. Only humans are able to become either ghosts or immortals. If one fails to cultivate oneself while young, and lets emotions and troubles take over, he will fall ill, ultimately die and become a ghost. On the contrary, if one cultivates oneself, he can reach "sainthood" [not to be understood the Western way] and become an immortal. There are five classes of immortals and three methods to attain it. (...)

The five classes of immortals are : ghostly immortals, human immortals, earthly immortals, spiritual / divine immortals, and celestial immortals. Although different, they are all immortals (仙). Ghostly immortals do not leave (or stray away from) the ghosts (the ghostly realms). Human immortals do not leave humans. Earthly immortals do not leave the Earth. Spiritual immortals do not leave the gods. And celestial immortals do not leave the heavens. (...)

Ghostly immortals are the lowest category of immortals. They were freed within the YIN. Their appearance isn't luminous. They do not keep any family ties and do not have any official position within the three mountains. Although they do not reincarnate any longer, they cannot go to the mystical islands of Peng and Ying (Penglai & Yingzhou, legendary abode of the immortals). In the end, they have no place to come back to. They are stuck a short distance away from the embryo (they cannot reincarnate ?) and thus must reside where they stand (e.g they can never progress to a higher stage). (...)

Among those who cultivate, some rush without having awakened to the Way, seeking swift results. Their physical shape is like wood and their heart like cold ashes. Their spirit understands the preservation of the internal and their will is focused on resisting to dispersion. Through concentration, they expel (out of their body) their YIN spirit, and produce the pure ghost of their LING (something akin to the an immortal soul - please note that the Chinese believe we have several "souls". The LING would be the "godly" one). They are not pure YANG immortals. As their attention is focused, their LING of a YIN nature never disperses (e.g their will to endure allows them to endure). That's why they are called immortals, but they are actually ghosts. Therefore they're called ghostly immortals. Today, as ever, to see that ascetics strive and waste their merits to reach this so-called achievement is really pityful !"

I spare you the description of the other classes. Let's just say that "human immortals" develop techniques to preserve their bodies. They thus can live longer but are not really immortal. The same is true for the "earthly immortal". Thanks to internal alchemy, they can live much longer than ordinary humans but do not transcend the world. People believe they do not die because nobody lives long enough to see them perish. "Spiritual immortals" are earthly immortals who kept working hard on producing an immortal embryo. They refine their essence to become pure YANG, and when they get to this stage, "forget their shape" (they either leave or dissolve their body, which could be seen as a kind of "death") in order to escape the ordinary world and reach the "three mountains" (=paradises). "Celestial immortals" are those who achieve complete enlightenment. They have no interest in the islands of Penglai and Yingzhou (fairy lands) and are invited to join the divine realms, where they can exert divine roles up to the highest spheres.
 
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John Hamer uploaded this a few hours ago.
Been following his lectures for a few years now. Always well-researched and corrects his errors, few though they are. Recommended lectures on all things western historeligiousophical.

ETA
This lecture tracks the development of afterlife theologies and beliefs in the Abrahamic faiths.
 
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The thing about these 'ere afterlifes is - how long do they go on for? I mean we get a few years on this ball of dirt in an obscure corner of the universe and then what? An eternity of: playing harps, lolling about on clouds or whatever. Seems a bit disproportionate. Or if we get sent back for another go or to try and get it right, how long does that go on for?

The universe will end sometime, will afterlifes continue after the end of the universe? Even if we are all part of some interconnected thing that we call life that will finish when the universe ends.

So what is after the afterlife? Is there an after- afterlife? If so what's that like? Do dead souls become dark energy/matter only interacting with our universe via gravity?*

It only seems to work if whatever it is that we call life - and it is very difficult to define - is independent of the matter of the universe and if the perception of time in the afterlife is very different from our perception of it here. Otherwise unless it is unthinkably wonderful it may start to get a bit boring. Douglas Adams' Marvin may be right "The first million years were the worst."



*I mistyped this as gravy - makes about as much sense. I refer the room to Tony Hancock: "At least me Mum's gravy moved about a bit."
 
Apparently, you either pick one you like, or you have one thrust onto you, or you choose not to bother with one. And then you simply live like you believe it.

Personally, I don't think it matters in the slightest. Matter inhabited by consciousness that measures existence exclusively by time manages to endure through adversity and then it stops. Deus ex machina. There is a sudden drop in existential inertia at death that rapidly dwindles away to stillness. The leftover material vehicle decays and yet remains material, possibly eventually to become part of some future existential experience in the realm of time once again, but more likely to be forever dust.

Enjoy it while you can. Day and night.
 
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