Death

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Sharkstooth

What if......

The light that people who have touched death see, is the lights of a hospital delivery room as you are being born.
The reason babies are crying is because of the life, loves, etc that they just lost.
They cannot talk while they remember and gradually lose their memories, and by the time we can talk, memories are gone...cept for once in a while....and those are called Deja vu.

Not necessarily my beliefs, merely a ‘what if’

Interesting take...plausible?

[Mr Quatro]

Come on man! Don't you people believe in ghost busters?

[Rockstar]

Originally Posted by Sharkstooth

What if......

The light that people who have touched death see, is the lights of a hospital delivery room as you are being born.
The reason babies are crying is because of the life, loves, etc that they just lost.
They cannot talk while they remember and gradually lose their memories, and by the time we can talk, memories are gone...cept for once in a while....and those are called Deja vu.

Not necessarily my beliefs, merely a ‘what if’

Many of those who have claimed to experince the so called 'NDE' have recognized family members greeting them. Others, like Vienna, experienced a void before going further.


Its all a mystery man, just one big mystery. ' shrooms might help

[Sharkstooth]

Hey Sailor!!

I come in every so often...just making sure...
I’ve been great, how bout you?
Good to see your smilin’ face!

[Skybird]

Near-Death-Experiences are not for no reason called not Death-Experiences, but merely Near-Death-Experiences.

There now is a huge empirical observation database of , or literature on, NDEs, what they look like in different cultures. There is a general pattern: the experiences of levitating over one's own body, travelling through a tunnel, sometimes the tunnel already being of light, or a light waiting at the end of the tunnel. There is a culture-specific component: people in india tend to see visualizations of religious gods and symbols common in India, Westerners tend to see visualizations of Jesus and have associations with Western cultural elements. That is the main pattern. This main pattern does not point at anything beyond culture-specific contexts, or general physical conditions of being near to death, although they include sometimes perplexing events like beign able to quote days later what people have said in another room since one levitating alter ego was flying into the other oomand overheard that conversation, and witnesses in reality later indeed confirm it. The levitating phenomenon in itself attracts great interest, of course. The quality of the soothign effect of the light does as well. But both may be two very different things, maybe. The levitation thing may hint at unknown skills the human mind is capable of (there are rumours ab out Lamas in Tibet who were able to walk through solid walls, now compare that with views of modern nuclear and quantum physics: empty space and all that...), the soothing light may be comptrabale to the tranqulization effect that blocks the recognition of pain in the brain in case of beign seriously injured in case of a shockingly quick happening accident.

That any of that, incuding the light at the end of the tunnel, is an objective description of the state of being dead, is pure, unneeded speculation. We know however, that dying is a process, and its true stadiums and duration is not fully understood in mdedicine, the alteraiton of the death criterion in the pasdt deacdes is not owed to insight into death, but progresses made in tranbsplantaiton medicine that demanded people whose organs are to be taken are not as dead anymore as they before were allowed to be in order to call them "dead" indeed. Last years however showed medicine that dying may be more complex than we have once thought in Western tradition (remember I brought this arument already in the tghread about organs donating ? , remember also that other cultures and traditions often do not share the former simplified modern Western view on death ) The Bardo Thödol however describes, if I recall it correctly (I am not certain anymore) 49 phases of dying, phases of passing through death. Shamans sometimes see death as a voyage.

My guts feeling tells me that in the West we see it quite wrong, simplified, and subordinated to the needs and demands of modern medicine. But that is just my believing. I will not base a serious argument on that belief.

Lets keep speculation and observation separate. And I say that as somebody who has had strange, NDE-like experiences twice himself, during meditation. Yes, it was reassuring, yes it was not unpleasant, yes it was extraordinary. Still I forbid myself to take them beyond the point where one indeed is fully "dead". What have they done for me? A soothing on my fear of life as well as my fear of dying, else it is the same life with its same problems that waited for me once I was done with those experiences, and them were done with me. A gain for me, yes, but nothing that shakes the Earth or changed everything right down to the fundaments. Observation is this, speculation is that. Two different things. Keep it separate. Quite some researchers would argue for example that the body may have its neural and chemical tricks to make the in principle terrifying expoerience of dying a more relaxed one. I know pro-NDE-speakers have some arguments, some cases that contradict this medical view (yes, I mentioned that - indirectly at last - as well in that organ-donation thread). Again: observation, speculation. We do not know for sure. Believing is not knowing.

I think being sober and as rational as possible when thinking on all this, is like a lifeline. Its easy to get lost in all those dwelling fantasies and tempting, colourful images. Be Vulcan!

[Rockstar]

6

Originally Posted by Skybird

Be Vulcan!

Im more of the emotional Captain Kirk type.

[mapuc]

Your replies are very interesting to read.

Markus

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Sharkstooth

Hey Sailor!!

I come in every so often...just making sure...
I’ve been great, how bout you?
Good to see your smilin’ face!

Survivin'. Playing music, building models, playing SH3 and now WOFF (WW1 aeroplanes), talking about death. You know, pretty much the same as always.

[Sharkstooth]

Seems youre doing well....

Playing SH3, hmmmm ...they have an app for ipad? rarely ever fire up my pc anymore and when i do, have no games nor art programs on it.... boring!!

[Sailor Steve]

Don't know. PC is the only computer I use, for work, games, writing, video, everything.

[Mr Quatro]

Originally Posted by Sharkstooth

Seems youre doing well....

Playing SH3, hmmmm ...they have an app for ipad? rarely ever fire up my pc anymore and when i do, have no games nor art programs on it.... boring!!

I think Sharky left one of these under my bed the last time she was here

[em2nought]

Originally Posted by vienna

I am not suicidal myself, but I can appreciate the desire to avoid boredom and incapacity. Myself, I have the position that there are still a lot of people I haven't pissed off yet, so I feel I still have a calling...

So, we do share some common ground. LOL

[Sean C]

Originally Posted by Mr Quatro

Religion also has different forms of rewards and promises such as the Muslims for being a martyr and receiving 72 virgins or a Buddha lover or a Hindu lover and believing in reincarnation.

I don't know about Hinduism, but the Buddha's teachings on reincarnation were just a metaphor for our ever changing emotional states. We are constantly being "reborn" into different "realms" (anger, greed, ignorance, jealousy, self-indulgence, etc.) This is why we suffer.


The word "nirvana" literally means "cooling" - and in this context it means "a cooling of the fires of emotion". So, to achieve nirvana means to remain in a state of peace and end the cycle of "rebirth" into other emotional states. The Buddha even said that most people will achieve a fleeting form of nirvana at various times during their life. The hard part is to stay there.


I don't write this to be "preachy" about Buddhism ... but as a Buddhist I felt compelled to clarify.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

When I was 21 some circumstances in my life caused me to contemplate suicide. When I say "contemplate" I don't mean I planned on doing it, but that I thought about it long and hard, considering all the possibilities and likelihoods from every angle I could think of. My conclusion then was that there were still possibilities I hadn't thought of - tomorrow I might find my dream job, my dream girl, or any number of other good things that might be waiting around the corner.

I have had this same experience.

Originally Posted by Rockstar

There's going to come a time when the light of neighboring galaxies will dip below the horizon never to be seen from earth again. All our descendants will have is our writings which described a once grand and expansive universe filled with energy, movement and light.

Considering the amount of time which has already passed how much information have we missed or will never know firsthand? The way I see it from Beresheit to the Epic of Gilgamesh to the teachings of Buddha I think all draw their material from a common source. They simply diverge in the retelling. Its all the information we have from time past. I tend see a certain degree of truth in all of them.

My greatest wish is that, after I die, whatever is left of me will transcend space and time and be able to move through both at will. I long to see the events of the past as they really were, such as the building of the pyramids and what is responsible for so many stories of a "great flood", etc. Of course, just like everyone else, I know nothing about what will actually happen when I die. But I believe that as long as I try as hard as I can to be kind to every other living being and to take care of this world for future generations - then I have nothing to worry about.


I hope, as others have expressed and as anyone would, that my physical death is as painless as possible. But in the times that I have suffered in the past, I have taken refuge in the thought that nothing is permanent. No matter what my situation is at any given time - "this too, shall pass". All I have to do is hang in there until things change. And they will always change. What happens next is a mystery - and I find that exciting.

[Sharkstooth]

Originally Posted by Mr Quatro

I think Sharky left one of these under my bed the last time she was here

Ha.....I know exactly where every single one of my heels are....they’re like my children!
How exactly do I know you Mr. Quatro?

[Mork_417]

When it comes to thinking about death, i don't really think about it that much these days compared to when i was a young boy. However, my thoughts/fears were never in regard to myself, but rather i had a fear of others getting hurt or passing away. Might have something to do with my upbringing, not sure.

As i'm sure with some of you, i've had a some close calls, two of which I was sure the game was over. None of them involved fear, but rather thoughts of how to get out of the current predicament. Then waking up, immediately taking assessment of the outcome, and analyzing what i might could have done to avoid it.

Religion does nothing for me, and while i enjoy the thought of an after life, or a soul for story & entertainment purposes, i don't believe in either of them.

As for my fear for others, as i grew older i came to terms that i can't prevent bad things from happening when i'm not there. If it's within my sphere of influence i do the best i can, and that's all i can do.

One of my favorite quotes regarding death is from an anime...
"Man always thinks about the past before he dies, as if he were frantically searching for proof that he truly lived." - Jet Black (Cowboy Bebop)