Thinking about death

[Ben Iscatus]

Thanks for your understanding and experience of this, Ash. Interesting! I confess my sympathies still lie with the imperfect and ignorant who are suffering (probably because I too am imperfect and ignorant)! It's really a matter of perspective. I do believe we gain insights from our everyday lives by paying attention to what is as much as by seeking what might be.

[tjssailor]

Are you saying that the way "consciousness uses life forms", for example, is part of your own human experience?

Obviously. I am a point of view of consciousness associated with a specific body. To deal with extreme fear of death I had to understand death through the experiences of consciousness appearing as other human life forms. The understanding I came to was that death is an experience of light, love and peace. A return to ones true nature.

What do you understand death to be for you and your loved ones?

tjssailor, when you say: "I am a point of view of consciousness associated with a specific body", what makes you call this statement an experience of yours? When did it happen? How would you describe the experience?

Now if you say that it's an understanding, that you have decided to accept and believe in, because it suits your preferences and brings you some benefits, then it would be clearer to me.

I understand death as the moment when the individual closes the books of a material life, and initiates a new cycle of ideal existence, hopefully capitalizing on the experiences gained through the physical sheath. It's the death of one's physical expression, but also the birth, or reemergence, of the self to a less dispersed existence, within the community of being one belongs to.

I appreciate your comment but realize I was too imprecise. I meant to ask what you believe you and yours will experience at death.
That is my focus. If someone were to come to me expressing a fear of death I think the best service I could be would be to explain what the experience would be like based on the data of human experience. Whether they accept or reject of course would be up to them.

[tjssailor]

Ashvin, in fairness, you asked whether I had any thoughts directly relating to this thread. My thoughts on death are that it is nothing to fear. However, I think that dying slowly and painfully is fearful and would be a disgrace if the Thinker-of-Reality were metacognitive and moral.

As reported in NDEs it's hard to judge what consciousness is experiencing in a death situation. The body could be going through all kinds of horrible things but at some point the then disassociated consciousness is better than perfectly fine.

[Ben Iscatus]

tjs said: "As reported in NDEs it's hard to judge what consciousness is experiencing in a death situation. The body could be going through all kinds of horrible things but at some point the then disassociated consciousness is better than perfectly fine."

That's a pleasant hope. However, I was not actually referring to the immediate onset of death, but the months and even years of painful decline that many people experience.

[AshvinP]

Ashvin, in fairness, you asked whether I had any thoughts directly relating to this thread. My thoughts on death are that it is nothing to fear. However, I think that dying slowly and painfully is fearful and would be a disgrace if the Thinker-of-Reality were metacognitive and moral.

As reported in NDEs it's hard to judge what consciousness is experiencing in a death situation. The body could be going through all kinds of horrible things but at some point the then disassociated consciousness is better than perfectly fine.

TJS, I wonder if you have any thoughts on the following?

The most amazing thing is that all these [NDE] accounts still get credibility even though they are short-lived and customized to cultural and personal expectations and preferences, and sensory-like concepts. The question we need to ask is whether what people who undergo NDEs stumble upon because they were drinking in the hot tub, or whatever, can be systematically trained for. If people can loosen from the physical body, experience higher worlds, then come back into the body and report on their experiences, can this also be done in a more rigorous and objective (and safe) way, without surrendering our "I" consciousness to various beings involved in our soul and bodily life? That is the question. It could only be prejudice that takes stock in the subjective accounts and channeled messages but completely ignores the free and systematic investigation of supersensible realities, or puts them on equal footing without any further consideration. That's like putting the testimony of the sleepwalker on equal footing with the security guard who keeps watch at night.

[lorenzop]

I was listening to a podcast yesterday, topics included early Greeks, early Christianity, Christianity as a continuation of Paganism, likely use of psychedelic's in early Greek and early Christianity, Christianity as the Mystery of Mysteries, and one interesting quote from early Christianity that came up was:

"If you die before you die, then you won't die when you die."

This is inscribed in St. Paul's monastery in Greece.

This has been the approach I've been suggesting - instead of learning of past and future lives, and instead of learning how to traverse underworlds.

[AshvinP]

I was listening to a podcast yesterday, topics included early Greeks, early Christianity, Christianity as a continuation of Paganism, likely use of psychedelic's in early Greek and early Christianity, Christianity as the Mystery of Mysteries, and one interesting quote from early Christianity that came up was:

"If you die before you die, then you won't die when you die."

This is inscribed in St. Paul's monastery in Greece.

This has been the approach I've been suggesting - instead of learning of past and future lives, and instead of learning how to traverse underworlds.

This is the approach of modern initiation that we have been speaking about, which is a continuation of the ancient mysteries but at the level of lucid thought, i.e. at the level of activity that we feel creatively responsible for directing. What happens when we die? The subtle bodies separate from the physical body and we thereby awaken to higher holistic experiences that were previously veiled by our fragmented, brain-bound sensory cognition. These higher experiences are always present, providing the meaningful context for our current 'now' state, only veiled by our sensory concepts-perceptions. Through modern initiation, we loosen the bodies while we are still alive - we "die before we die". This is the process by which the physical-sensory world will be gradually spiritualized from the inside-out for ages to come, beginning with our thought-forms and cultural environment and extending all the way to our physical body and its corresponding environment. We gradually immortalize our consciousness across all its levels of existence - then when we 'die', we retain continuity of consciousness and it is experienced as a simple metamorphosis from one state of being to another, like undressing layers of clothing. The early Christians (especially St. Paul) were relatively aware of these profound mysteries that are gradually being unveiled and universalized through the continually unfolding Christ events.

By the way, I recently had a chance to visit some of the ancient monasteries in Greece. They are beautiful! (no pictures allowed inside)

And Merry Christmas to all!

[tjssailor]

Ashvin, in fairness, you asked whether I had any thoughts directly relating to this thread. My thoughts on death are that it is nothing to fear. However, I think that dying slowly and painfully is fearful and would be a disgrace if the Thinker-of-Reality were metacognitive and moral.

As reported in NDEs it's hard to judge what consciousness is experiencing in a death situation. The body could be going through all kinds of horrible things but at some point the then disassociated consciousness is better than perfectly fine.

TJS, I wonder if you have any thoughts on the following?

The most amazing thing is that all these [NDE] accounts still get credibility even though they are short-lived and customized to cultural and personal expectations and preferences, and sensory-like concepts. The question we need to ask is whether what people who undergo NDEs stumble upon because they were drinking in the hot tub, or whatever, can be systematically trained for. If people can loosen from the physical body, experience higher worlds, then come back into the body and report on their experiences, can this also be done in a more rigorous and objective (and safe) way, without surrendering our "I" consciousness to various beings involved in our soul and bodily life? That is the question. It could only be prejudice that takes stock in the subjective accounts and channeled messages but completely ignores the free and systematic investigation of supersensible realities, or puts them on equal footing without any further consideration. That's like putting the testimony of the sleepwalker on equal footing with the security guard who keeps watch at night.

Even a quick perusal of NDEs reveals core components that are fairly universal. Love, light, meeting relatives, having to return. Certainly there are individualized components but then we should ask who's doing the customization? M&L. I understand that there are other ways to access altered states of consciousness, meditation, drugs, sound etc. They may be more systematic and perhaps rigorous, but objective? I've got nothing against those. What's funny is that some people question the NDEs relevance to death even if a body has been in the morgue for three days. I think I'd pay some attention to the person who's body has been crushed in a car accident and gone through fifty operations when it comes to that subject. Should we assume that the persons experience who is rigorously practicing while drinking in the hot tub is more valid?

[lorenzop]

This is the approach of modern initiation that we have been speaking about, which is a continuation of the ancient mysteries but at the level of lucid thought, i.e. at the level of activity that we feel creatively responsible for directing. What happens when we die? The subtle bodies separate from the physical body and we thereby awaken to higher holistic experiences that were previously veiled by our fragmented, brain-bound sensory cognition. These higher experiences are always present, providing the meaningful context for our current 'now' state, only veiled by our sensory concepts-perceptions. Through modern initiation, we loosen the bodies while we are still alive - we "die before we die". This is the process by which the physical-sensory world will be gradually spiritualized from the inside-out for ages to come, beginning with our thought-forms and cultural environment and extending all the way to our physical body and its corresponding environment. We gradually immortalize our consciousness across all its levels of existence - then when we 'die', we retain continuity of consciousness and it is experienced as a simple metamorphosis from one state of being to another, like undressing layers of clothing. The early Christians (especially St. Paul) were relatively aware of these profound mysteries that are gradually being unveiled and universalized through the continually unfolding Christ events.

By the way, I recently had a chance to visit some of the ancient monasteries in Greece. They are beautiful! (no pictures allowed inside)

I thought you might respond in this fashion . . . ) Merry Christmas

I bet it was a magnificent trip to Greece.

[Federica]

Thinking about death, I find that good thoughts to meditate upon with the intention of entering more consciosuly in the flow of living thinking are:

- "I have died before"
- "I have been clairvoyant before"
- "I have been embodied before, in physical bodies whose appearance, voice, deeds, I wouldn't be able to recognize"
- "I might have owned a sword..."


...been there, done that, on and off, around our Earth's bodies