Discussions about Death

[annalexandria]

I would like to think that there is something more that comes after this brief period of time we are given on earth. It makes me especially sad when I think of the young people, some even children, whom I have known who have died. Unfortunately I have a very strong sense that the time we are given here is all that we get, so I aim to make the most of it.

My only consolation is that all matter is in fact eternal, so as my mom used to say, we may not go to heaven, but we will all return to the cosmos that we came from. She liked the idea that she was essentially star dust.

[JDinNC]

I've been married to my husband close to 40 years....during this time we have never talked about religion or God. He has commented many times when hearing about children getting sick and/ or dying, stating if God is so loving and caring why would he do this to his children.

Since I have been diagnose with cancer....I have seen him ask his friends to pray for me and will forward prayers sent to him. I have no ideal what his thoughts are now regarding God but it just prove no matter what we believe or don't believe, we still turn for help to a greater source. Though I'm sure when I die, he'll be angry again.

[teacher49]

Always a thought-provoking discussion. I was raised in a very strict Christian home.......went to parochial schools and college. It is still there though I have lapsed in my adult life and am much more inclusive of all religions and even no formal religion. My ideal religion is one of All Souls. I've enjoyed too many good books, historical novels, mythology, etc. to think that one religion has the right answer to existence but I know that in the hour of my death I will revert to my familiar religious beliefs.

Just wanted to share my wacky dream from a while back.......when I was really ill. It gave me a hint of my changing beliefs.

I was really ill and looking up I saw a flock of fliers.....they were human souls and I intuitively knew they had just died and were moving on. They waved me to joint them so I joined them. We ended up in a large very nice gathering place, a lobby full of souls......definitely a transitional place. Everyone was watching large screens to bid on what form they would like to come back as.........the choices were flying by and you had to bid. Everyone was waiting for the good ones......I didn't want to wait so I bid and got the first one I saw........to come back as a puppy.

Hope this doesn't offend anyone.....but it was comforting to me.

[andy21]

Most important thing in life is to realize what "I" means.
Is "I" this present body or is it the soul.
The goal of all religions is to realize that "I" is for the indestructible soul and not for transient body.
All the suffering is for perishable body(including mind) and not for the cosmic soul.
For a common person, It's not easy to differentiate between one's physical body and one's spiritual soul, only few divine meditators can achieve that.
But everyone has the ability to start thinking in this direction.

So it's a powerful feeling when facing a disease like Cancer that someone can say:
I don't have cancer, never had, never will be, with the divine realization that soul is just pure energy and is part of Universal God Consiousness.
Yes, my present human body has cancer which I will fight till end to save as it has been a good vehicle for me.

In case I am not able to save my body, I will still survive, disease free and join the Universal Cosmic Consiousness and look for another vehicle suitable to my energy/frequency/vibrations profile.

Souls change diseased human bodies as Human bodies change worn out clothes.

I will never die, though my present human form will evolve into another form. This thought can have a powerful soothing effect on all minds.

Some say Soul weighs 21 grams: (though I am not entirely convinced)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_MacDougall_(doctor)

[KWT]

That sounds good Andy

[lohidoc]

I have thought much on these matters, especially of course as my own time is coming near. I do not believe there will be any kind of continued, sentient life after death. Once the body dies, once the last synapse stops firing I think it will all end. I just don't see that it can be any different.

I may be wrong, and hope that I am, especially if the afterlife involves lesbian vampires. But I just don't see it.

The afterlife, whatever its form, is a human concoction, based on fear of death, and our own arrogance believing we are all unique and special.

I do believe that at the point of death, with all the biochemical changes and hypoxia there will be hallucinations, vivid images, dreams, which, if you read accounts of near death experiences, can be quite beautiful. I'm looking forward to that.

But after that, eternal void. Difficult to visualize, difficult to imagine a state of complete nothingness. The closest I can compare it to is my general anaesthetic, when I had my bowel resection. I remember absolutely nothing about that. No sense of time passing, no physical or mental sensation, nothing. And that wasn't too bad. I did not suffer, no sense of regret, or wishing I was in a different circumstances, just nothing. there is a lot of comfort in that.

What I have noticed, as my condition deteriorates and my time draws near, I have very vivid dreams. The medication perhaps, or a degree of nighttime hypoxia. But they are wonderful dreams, usually involving my childhood and adolescence. It draws me back into those memories and it is very pleasant. I like to think it represents a gradual slide into where I came from, who I was and am becoming again. A portend perhaps of where I am going.

Dogs go to heaven.

[Voxx66]

A few notes: I believe time is in may ways, an illusion. This complicates things. And I shudder at the possibility of Nietzsche's nightmare: the Eternal Recurrence. He feared that the Universe is a process that repeats itself eternally and everything we have done and been will occur again and again. This disturbed him (and now me ha) greatly. As for my hopes, I think I will quote a crazy musician instead of a better known philosopher: "When this is over, I want to sleep."

[Cb75]

Thank you so much for the very interesting replays. I'm really happy that this has become an open and non judgmental discussion. I don't have much to add at this point, as I am trying to sort out my beliefs. However, the stories and different perspectives are very thought provoking. I do have a little story to tell somewhat related...

I read a book about ten years ago, one of those for the beach type of paperbacks. It was about a group of people who lived in the same apartment building. The narrator was unknown until the end of the book. The narrator ended up being the soul of a child that was then born to one of the couples in the building. It was based on the theory that the soul or spirt chooses who to be born to based on circumstance and what the goal of that soul is to accomplish in the physical world. It was a touching story and an interesting theory that I forgot about until yesterday. I was hanging out with my three year old when she walked up to me on the couch and said "Mommy, do you remember when I was in the sky and you were waiting for me to choose you?". I said, "Sorry?", and she repeated it. I tried to ask her more questions and all she said was that "you were waiting". I can't say this was something more than the chatter of a three year old, but its interesting....

cb

[SMR]

I am both intrigued and moved by this discussion. I wonder on this often. I used to believe in the nothing theory, but since my own DH has passed, I've been unable to continue in that belief. Perhaps, and likely, it is just a way of soothing my grief, but there have been so many coincidences. I realize full well that I'm looking for ANY connection, so I'm prone to seeing something in what may well be nothing, but... I think there is SOMETHING... Just working on sorting out or forming my ideas on all this.

Thank you all so much for your insight and perspectives. It has been helpful and comforting to me tonight.

[sjring]

This is also a subject I have been trying to reconcile over the past year or so. My wife is a devout Roman Catholic, I was raised Jewish but have basically been non-practicing outside of family weddings and funerals although I do consider myself to be spiritual in my own way.

I used to believe in the switch off theory...there is nothing after death. I've questioned that lately.

By way of background, my paternal grandfather passed at age 59 (before I was born) of heart disease. My father passed at age 60 also of heart disease. My maternal grandfather passed at age 85 also of heart disease, and my maternal grandmother passed this past summer, just 5-weeks short of her 101st birthday, also technically of heart failure. Needless to say, I was hoping my mother's side of the family had added a little chlorine to the family gene pool. So my CC diagnosis just after my grandmother's passing was a complete shock. Enough that my wife and I used some of the inheritance we received from my grandmother to pre-needs our own funerals. Apparently my wife didn't like my initial suggestion of stuffing me in a hefty bag and leaving me on the curb on trash day. I do believe that I will not be in my body after death and that what happens with the body is really for the benefit of those that remain behind.

While I'm not sure I believe in mediums, I've been watching Theresa Caputo on TLC, and I have to wonder. She seems to be spot on. The analytical me wants to see more evidence but I know I'm not going to get that. So let's say I'm not willing to say there isn't some form of existence after the present one without a reasonable doubt.

Is there a God? Again, I don't know. I do know that my best friend's father had Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer. He was at the graveside funeral of a relative who had also had pancreatic cancer. While walking back to the car, he threw a pulmonary embolism and dropped dead right there at the cemetery. If there is a God, He or She must have some sense of humor at that.

I do know that I'm not ready to give up on life yet. I know this disease will eventually kill me. Or like my friend's father, I can throw a PE and switch off. Then I guess we can call it heart disease and preserve family history. But I have no idea the date, time or method of my death. God, if He exists...I hope doesn't favor one religion over another. I don't like the catholic version of purgatory. I don't believe in hell...at least not in the fire and brimstone sense...I suspect if you have been a cruel individual in life, there is a cosmic karma of sense, but I'm not overly worried that I fall into that category. It will be another journey when I get to it. I just hope the journey isn't on a roller coaster...I hate those things.

One final thought. There is an old story, I forget where I heard it, but WC Fields was on his death bed, close to the end. A friend came to visit him and found WC reading the bible. When he saw the friend, he very carefully bookmarked where he was in the bible, closed it and placed it on the bedside table. The friend asked him if now, near the end, he had found and accepted God? WC replied (and if you can read this in WC's voice you should), "No, no. I was just looking for loopholes."

[chixter]

A few notes: I believe time is in may ways, an illusion. This complicates things. And I shudder at the possibility of Nietzsche's nightmare: the Eternal Recurrence. He feared that the Universe is a process that repeats itself eternally and everything we have done and been will occur again and again. This disturbed him (and now me ha) greatly. As for my hopes, I think I will quote a crazy musician instead of a better known philosopher: "When this is over, I want to sleep."

Add me to the list of those greatly disturbed by the concept of Eternal Recurrence..{{shudders}}

[DBF]

I'm of the "flick of the switch" theory and do not really think there is an afterlife. I may be wrong, of course. I'm more concerned with what will happen to my children, my husband, and my aging parents after I'm gone.

However, that doesn't mean I don't want to hear the theories of others. I'm up in Maine now visiting family, and I saw an ad for this "Death Cafe":

http://deathcafe.com/deathcafe/991/

I'm planning to attend.

[SMR]

I've heard of death cafés and I imagine it will be pretty interesting to attend. If you feel like reporting back to the group, I'm sure many if us would be interested in how that goes.

[dianetavegia]

Crying over Bev's post. Spot on!

What I think about God is that he sees each of us in exactly this way. I believe he grieves with each of us, and that we are not alone in our suffering. I believe that he hears all of our prayers, but for whatever reason, a reason we do not have the capacity to understand, our will is not always his will. I firmly believe though that his will is for our perfect peace, and that at the end of the day, when our time has come, we will somehow be able to see how it all made sense, how our suffering was both temporal and temporary. How there is no grief and no death that Heaven cannot heal.

I watched Death and the Civil War 3 times last year because I was fascinated with how death was viewed during the 1800's! Even very young people talked about their death daily and planned how they would die, what they would be wearing in their last hours, where they would lie (bed, chaise lounge, living room, bedroom in a frilly gown), if music would be playing, if mourners would be brought in. The whole idea of death during that period was to have a 'good death'. The idea that anyone would think about death without the negative connotations we do today just was amazing to me.

I talked with my 82 year old mother about this. She'd seen the show before me. She felt that because people died so very young during that time and many had children die, infants die, women die in childbirth that it was a 'given' and not some taboo subject but a fact of life.

We were researching our family tree and couldn't find anything on the death of a great grandmother. I finally tracked down a mention of a group of Wards who were buried in a cemetery but the markers (metal) had worn away enough that they had not been documented. We contacted the city and found the date and location of her death. Another person on Ancestry mentioned they'd contacted the grandson of the owner of the mortuary during that time and he was able to give more info. Finally, a lady at the library found a newspaper clipping where one of the family had written a poem that spoke of my Great Grandmother Emma V. Fletcher Ward and they sent us a copy.

I don't want to suffer or have my family see me suffer. That's a sight you cannot undo. I worked in the 1970's in a hospital lab. A man by the name of Fred Fuckes had lymphoma and was dying. He was early 30's and had a wife and a number of small children. I remember how his abdomen moved like in the Alien movies and can still hear his screams of pain. One night I prayed that he would die during the night (he was a Christian man and he and his wife were screaming out to God for him to be taken so the pain would stop) and the next morning I was sent again to take blood from this poor man. His bed was empty and he was gone. 42 years and I still remember this stranger's last days.

I am not afraid of death because I know my savior lives, but I am terrified of dying an ugly death.

[andy21]

Soul is the subtlest form of matter. A solid can be seen and touched and molded. A liquid can be seen and touched. Gas form cannot be touched with hand and some gases cannot be seen. Like Oxygen in air. Still everyone agrees that there is Oxygen in air. Gravitational pull cannot be seen, just felt.
These are descriptions of matter going from crude form to subtle form.

Soul provides the Consciousness in human body. When soul leaves a body, the body is no longer alive even though it can have functioning parts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness

Soul is in a very subtle form so it cannot be seen, touched etc. However, it can be experienced using power of mind that comes from Meditation or service.
Mind is usually clouded with thoughts and is unable to see the soul. Like a foggy mirror where you cannot see your face. But once mind is calm, it has the ability to feel and see soul which is a magnificient site and life changing event in one's life. It's because soul is a glimpse of God.
God is nothing but supreme consciousness i.e. Sum of all Consciousness in the Universe. God is neither He, nor She, nor It. You can think of a beach with lots of sand. Each sand particle is a soul but the total beach has infinite individual sand particles and is the supreme consciousness.
People like Mother Teresa not only see their own soul but they also see souls in other human beings. Since each human being has a unit part of what God has, each human being is God and hence people like Mother Teresa provide service to them as if providing service to God.