This story got me thinking about life after death

[Skybird]

As long as in a "spooky" or "prophetic" dream something is not being learned that the dreamer afterwards checks and finds to be or to come true although he could not have known it by "normal" means, I do not read things into dreams. I know that not only own direct experiences, but also just day fantasies and thoughts and things we have been told could find the strangest ways of getting entrance into and being reflected in our dreams.

On the other hand, I was involved a bit in NDE and dealing with dying people myself. I do not rule out such things existing in general, but I am very hesitent in taking something for real and just believe something. There is interesting empirical material being collected on NDEs over the past 40 years or so, some truly monumental, culture-comparing studies with thousands of cases compared.

but in the end, knowing about these things for sure instead of just concluding, assuming or believing, we only will once the time has come for us to leave the stage. we cannot avoid that day, and once i understood that I cannot evade or delay or cheat, i found some signficant ammount of peace - why should I worry about something I cannot change anyway?

I am not an especially courageous man by nature, but most of my courage developed from this acceptance. when during my Sturm und Drang years I was dealing with Tibetan buddhism in a phase of mine, the Lama was so stunned by what he believed he saw in me, and he was also stunned by the pattern of dreams I used to have during those years (always killing some kind of evil beasts and terrible monsters and living happily in some magical forest...) that he declared me an incarnation of the guardian of the lineage and gave me a Buddhist name that translated into something like "powerful, fearless life". Well, that didn't save him from seeing me turning my back on it all some time later, so much for "protecting the lineage". Rituals and religions just are not my thing, and my loyalty I give on rare occasions only since it is precious (but unshakable when I gave it). And why not? This is my life, and I only have this one. I would be a fool to spend it on things that are not worth it for me.

The art of living means to learn how to die, and the art of dying lies in learning to live. both are mutually depending on each other. If there is one thing you could and should learn from the so-called books of the dead, then this: you can only die in a good way when you have mastered the art of living in a good way. And "good" means not material qualities, but means insight and wisdom, and peacefulness. In the end, the only thing we really have by the end of the day, is our own breathing: but no fame, no money, no friends, no wealth, no memorised things and events, all this can - and will be - taken away rom us one day. And finally, by the end of the last of all our days, even breath itself.

I do not pray, never, for I know no authority at which to direct a prayer and also do not believe in magic or witchcraft, but I like this famous one:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

I tend to remind myself of it sometimes, although i fromulate it slightly different, and maybe even not in words anyway. It could almost be from Vulcan philosophy. There is peacefulness to be found in it, and by that: strength.