Many people say old-age and death are natural… that these are the birth-death cycle of nature in action.
Perhaps this outlook comes from people thinking there are no alternatives to death.
People with a positive outlook on life will be inclined to think the set-up they see in the world around them must somehow be “right”, so it’s natural they will have a philosophy that death is natural and a “part of life”. I certainly thought this myself before I came across the idea of physical immortality.
Once people believe death is natural, they will look for all sorts of things that could be good about it. Why wouldn’t they! Like death means going to be with God, experiencing peace and love, experiencing great mystery, going to a “better place” and experiencing more than “just this life”. And it’s wrong to be “too wrapped up in this material world” anyway.
There are whole established spiritual traditions that teach it’s a worthy thing to feel good about our bodies dying, allowing us to go to a “better place” (or whatever).
Alternatives
The information has been around for some time now that the birth-death cycle is not natural—death is something mankind has chosen up to now and can un-choose. And that the things people think dying will achieve are really most easily achieved in life.
The thing is, we are already “with God” now, in our bodies. Thinking we aren’t comes from feeling separate from the creative source and other people, as most of us have felt at some time (or quite often). This is something we can heal, and I’d suggest, from what I’ve read, we can heal this pattern faster and better when we are alive than when we are dead (between lives).
I’d also suggest to anyone who thinks we go to be with God when we die, that God is the life force flowing through us (among other things), and when we die we are actually trying to shut out God.
Could longing for “a better place” be a case of “the grass is greener on the other side of the fence”, combined with a feeling of powerlessness that learning about the Law of Attraction could cure? And why exactly is “this material world”—God’s creation—so bad?
Our purpose
Maybe it is our purpose to bring our spirit fully into matter. And in the process become fully self-realized physical human beings. Perhaps we humans are God’s way of expressing in the physical realm, and we cannot do what we are meant to do until we have mastered this physical existance, by which I mean getting our lives really working… love, health, happiness, prosperity, relationships, creativity… and overcoming death.
Who knows what we might get up to after that! We may have shiny, light-filled bodies, we may be able to travel faster than the speed of light. But no doubt our consciousness will be so expanded compared to how it is now it is hardly worth trying to guess what may be in store. Also, thinking about these things too much takes us out of present time, and it’s by following our intuitive impulses in the present moment that we make the steps towards becoming self-realized.
Our friends
Just a thought about the plants and animals…
I personally have no particular opinion about what is going on with their life-cycles—maybe they are reflecting our consciousness back to us… maybe they simply share our consciousness and will transform when we transform… maybe they have their own story.
It would be great if you leave a comment in the comments section below. Cheers!
photo of lotus by tanakawho
photo of lorikeet by aussiegall
I think that the amount of time we spend in these physical bodies is indeed something that we can control, and that a large part of aging is simply us believing that we are SUPPOSED to age.
At the same time, I think it’s possible that when we go to the next stage, it will just be our chance to release all of the things that we learned while in our “human” bodies so that the greater consciousness can learn from it.
What happens after that might very well be up to us to decide when we get there! 🙂
Aaron – Today is that Days last blog post..Why your Success Systems are not Working
I don’t believe that when we die we are going to a better place or joining God. I believe that when we die we just perish, cease to exist.
Still, I accept death as part of life, and take comfort in the fact that I am living a very full and happy life.
Vereds last blog post..The Blurry Line Between Online and Real-Life Relationships
If God is “with us” at all times, than death just becomes a continuation of that relationship. Too many people waste time searching for a relationship with God (or a higher power) and it’s always there for the asking.
Barbara Swaffords last blog post..You’re Only As Good As Your Current Post
@Aaron – thanks for your thoughtful comment! – in my opinion we have a choice about these things, and I agree… we will be deciding on the matters of the next level when we get there!
@Vered – I was so pleased when I saw your comment when I got up in the early hours – our time – because I couldn’t sleep. I think love and connection are SO much more important than any philosophical viewpoint.
@Barbara – Yes I think so – on both counts. (I might say here that I don’t think there’s anything wrong with death – it’s just that it’s a waste) Great to see you – thanks for adding to the discussion!
I like how you say that theres not really anything to wrong with death, just that its a waste. Its like throwing away a bag of apples that has gone bad. Sure the world will spin on with them in the garbage but it would have been nice to see them used to their full potential.
Alot of people, like the first comment points out, think we HAVE TO age. What about the option that maybe we can take away that damage that accumulates with aging so we stay alive indefinitely? Where is the thinking outside the box? Aging isnt a narrow, we die, sort of picture. As with everything there are options and dynamics.
Anyways, SENS is one expedition going on outside that box. Its for the repair and reversal of aging so we live indefinently. They have a conference at UCLA on June 28 and 29 I beleive. Parts of the conference are free.
For anybody who may not know, there is a whole community of us, life extension minded people, at imminst.org Please do come chat.
Robin, Have you heard of “The Celestine Prophecy”? The author explains that the Incas at Macchu Picchu (Peru) were able to raise their vibrations to a point where they simply disappeared. I think maybe that’s the alternative.
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When we die we are shutting out God, now that’s deep. I never thought it like this until you pointed it out. You’ve jarred my understanding of death and its relation to God. I’m going to really think about this one. I still however think that death is a part of life and that there’s beyond death.
Chriss last blog post..Haaaaarvard
I think death is the opposite of life. Like on is the opposite of off. If death means life somewhere else, are you really dead. If you turn the light off, is it really still on somewhere?
I like Vered’s definition: Death means cease to exist. It seems so simple.
I don’t think it’s natural, why would we be created to live, suffer and die? Interesting question for sure.
Naturals last blog post..Too Successful For A Mate
@Eric – great to hear from you – I like your apple analogy. And i agree – we have options, in my opinion.
@Marelisa – the books I have read talk of us eventually being able to dematerialize and re-materialize – and all sorts of other things. As I said in the post, I don’t think it’s too healthy to over-focus on that sort of thing (I haven’t read The Celestine Prophecy – maybe I should! – thanks). Thanks for your contribution!
@Chris – I’ve just got these ideas out of all sorts of books I’ve read, and workshops I’ve been to. I’m glad you think it’s worth thinking about… I do! Have fun being sillyphophical at Haaaaarvard!
@Natural – In ‘The Starseed Transmissions’ it talks a lot about opposites – that we constantly switch in and out of form – and so on (eg between what can be named and what can’t be named). I’m glad you think these questions are interesting – great to hear from you!
An interesting post & debate! One wonders how the ‘segmentation’ of life would change if our existence could be dramatically extended. Would childhood and teenhood last for decades? We shouldn’t say that these are ‘natural’ stages: Childhood used to be a brutally short interlude and ‘the teen years’ had to be invented as society and life expectancies changed and lengthened respectively. Our very understanding of human maturation, in other words, might be revised – it’s not a just case of ‘more of the same, and better’!
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Dear robin, well now I get curious. How you many centuries have you wandered through this world? Did you travel to america by sail-ship. How many languages have you learnt, and how did you cope with the perpetual repetitions. Nothing really changes only the appearance.
How many times have you wept while you suffered the loss of beloved ones?
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@cloudsters – thanks for your comment – it’s interesting to think of the different possibilities, isn’t it!
@rainer – I don’t quite know what to say! (do you mean French verbs? – he he) Your writing is beautiful, as always.
Hello Robin,
A good friend of mine ran up on this page. My friend told me that I would enjoy hearing what you had to say. My friend has not disappointed me at all. As a matter of fact it made my heart rejoice. The spirit in me, moved as I understood what you were saying. I want to give you a HIGH FIVE in the spirit.
I commend you on your research and looking for a life of reality rather than fantasy. Real is real. If it is not real, it is not. I am not going to go through the whole foundation with you, because I can feel your spirit. But just to tell a little history and destiny. History lets us know that God made Adam. Through Adam I must add Eve as well. Through Adam and Eve came Cain, they opened up the door for death. From that point on we have been dying.
It was pre-destinate that a man was going to come forth and open the door back up to life. I call this man Jesus Christ. God sent his only begotten son. I, William call him the God of Israel, who I serve with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength. The God of Israel is my all and all. The God of Israel has let me see eternally. WE CAN LIVE!. WE MUST BE TAUGHT HOW TO LIVE. We cannot live without, the Lord God of Israel.
The gift of God is eternal life.
You can look at several blogs I’ve posted on myspace. Look under the name William and you will see a palm tree with water for a picture. You can also reach me at thegodofisrael AT bellsouth DOT net any time you want to reach me. I look forward to hearing from you. I welcome any of your questions or comments from you or your readers. I hope that you will take some time to visit myspace, and if you feel comfortable enough you can subscribe to my blogs even become a friend!
I know one day I shall meet you, and you shall meet me. If you stay on this pathway to life, because I am saying I AM GOING TO LIVE FOREVER.
Peace & Love to you, in the God of Israel
William
Hi there William! I hope you don’t mind that I have shortened your comment, to make it easier to read.
The Bible is so full of references to eternal life it is ridiculous – in my view our human egos have interpreted “eternal life” as meaning some sort of non-physical after-life state, as a way of avoiding becoming self-realised.
I like your “The gift of God is eternal life.” – it about says it all!
Cheers – and thanks so much for your thoughtful comment – Robin
Hello again Robin,
I appreciate your comment, and helping me with important information such as spamming and advice on giving a direct link to myspace. Maybe you do not feel like you are a chosen vessel but you are a vessel to me. Living waters, which are living words, are coming out of you. This is the reason I say you are a chosen vessel. I like to say if I can help you in any kind of way Robin, please let me know. You and I are on the same mission. Let us keep going. Let us never get tired of living.
I also teach people about the keys to eternal life. This was something I didn’t mention in the previous comment. If you and I work together, maybe we can help people see and understand that they can live. It is time out for dying. Let us live my sister, and teach others how to do the same. Thank you.
Here is my website link…. http://www.myspace.com/the_god_of_israel
If you would like you can send me an email or give me your direct link to this site and I can send people to your site as well.
Thank you,
William
The way I used to be, I would have been all for this. Now that my dear dogs have died, I’m looking forward to seeing them when I die.
Dots last blog post..Oops, Sorry
Hi there Dot – When my cat died (1993), I felt like a huge chunk of me had been torn out – I imagined seeing her again for a long time. I have only had one person close to me die, and I think in terms of seeing him again when he reincarnates and we all get over this silly death business and can be together.
As for animals, I think we project our love and so on onto them – the love we feel for them is really inside us (well, it’s the same for people, but anyway…) Today, I’m grateful my Cilla (my cat) brought that love out of me, but I don’t find myself yearning for her as an individual – I see her more as the collective pussy-cat spirit. She was so soft.
Been a long time since I read such unmitigated nonsense! Are you people for real? Just because you are scared of dying doesn’t mean you won’t. Get over it, grow up and stop being such wusses! Ever thought what would happen if death wasn’t part of life? Piles of plants, shoulder high animals, no recycling of nutrients so no new life. The whole idea is insane. Oh, but humans are special, made in the image of ‘god’ and can live forever, crap. You all WILL die no matter what ramblings you indulge in about choosing. Let’s see you in ten, twenty years from now, older and hopefully wiser.
We are an evolved life-form just like all others. We are mammals like all other mammals, we die and our physical substance is recycled by nature – the cycle of life – and we join back into the stream of life’s nutrients courtesy of the microbes worms and insects. There is no afterlife, no god, no living forever, and no reassurance for those who are scared at that. Get used to it, live with it, stop dreaming about living forever and get on with living now. Just imagine if you can where all the people would go if they lived forever; would they continue to have babies? We are already crowded on this planet’s liveable spaces, will we all live in boxes stacked a mile high?
And who would want to live forever when the world is being trashed so thoroughly that my grandchildren are unlikely to live as long as me, and I have real fears of what they will face in the near future.
Faeries, angels? – I stopped believing in childish nonsense when I grew up.
You don’t like my blog, Peter?
Just to address a few of the issues you have raised:
– Maybe people choose death because they are afraid of living, and being afraid of dying is not the issue.
– There’s plenty of room in the universe for our bodies and by-products.
– Believing we aren’t going to die brings us into living in the present, rather than “dreaming about living forever”.
– If you think the world is “trashed” you might want to change your outlook – everything we “see” is a reflection of our consciousness, you know.
Robin, I am definitely going to have to contemplate this for awhile. On the one hand, I am totally with you on the ‘we are already ‘with God’ now’ part, and am not into traditions that put everything off to an afterlife (plus historically the idea of an afterlife has often been used to control people in this one, so it’s a double-negative for me…) But to me, thinking we have to stay in the same physical body doesn’t seem freeing or desirable at all…I understand you are talking about an evolution of mind/body/spirit, so not necessarily the exact body I am in right now, but to me, knowing the deepest truth, knowing myself as God (or whatever, ‘God’ isn’t usually the word I use personally), doesn’t require being in a body or leaving it…being in a body is just one way of experiencing existence…as I said, I will think more on this and continue to read your posts and get more familiar with these ideas….Thought-provoking for sure~
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Hi Lisa – thanks for your comment! I don’t use the word God myself, either (funny how I keep using it on this blog – it’s easier than continually saying “the universe” or whatever). And that’s a good point about the way the idea of the afterlife has been used. I hope you find investigating these ideas useful!
Robin, I was just researching a Tibetan Buddhist lineage for an article and came across something that made me think of your blog, so thought I would post it here (I posted it on Akemi’s blog too, since she has some related themes also.) This is an excerpt from the article on Dzogchen (one Tibetan lineage) on Wikipedia, it is about one possible result of ‘advanced practice’, the bracketed additions are mine:
“When an advanced practitioner successfully completes practices of Longde or Menngagde [certain meditative and yoga practices], he or she realizes the Body of Light also known as rainbow body. When such an individual dies, from the point of view of an external observer, the following happens: the corpse does not start to decompose, but starts to shrink until it disappears. Usually fingernails, toenails and hair are left behind.
Some exceptional practitioners such as Padmasambhava and Vimalamitra are held to have realized the Great Transferrence (Wylie ‘pho ba chen po, pronounced Phowa Chenpo). This is an advanced Phowa practice. The individual does not die at all, but his or her physical body gradually disappears for an external observer [leaving the light body.]”
Maybe this has already been discussed in some of the other readings you have done on physical immortality, but it was new to me.
Lisa (mommymystic)s last blog post..Raising Freethinkers: A Practical Guide for Parenting Beyond Belief – Book Review
As per Hindu Scriptures this physical body is simply a wrapper worn around a souls journey of life for a particular period. As we change the shirt once it get old and start to wear a new one, our soul, which is eternal leaves this body (shirt) and starts to wear a new shirt (another birth). And also there is a term called siranjeevi (eternal beings) which is applied to Lord Hanuman (monkey god) shri vibeeshana (younger brother of srilanks chieftain Ravana) who all have acquired a permanent body (of vibrations).
Peace to all the Human Family! We don’t want to live forever–its just like saying I want to stay in the kindergarten forever and not advance on to the High School and then on to Harvard and the other phases of this splendid and wonderful journey! The best is yet to come! Stay positive and have love–true love and decency for one another–not weak love but that kind of love that enables us to realize all the possibilities here and beyond. I am proud to be alive in the present time and among the most excellent of the humans who want to reach the highest and most excellent of their human possibilities. Peace, Abdullah ibn Yasin
Hi I just found you ,and am very pleased to find others that believe like me.The Bible has given me this belief,and to think that death was the teaching of Jesus is wrong,Jesus taught life,life eternal,life everlasting,over and over in the scriptures it teaches we are to live forever.Thank you for helping to awaken us to this truth.Andy
Hey, your post is pretty old, hope you see this comment and write me back at my email adress. I found this blog today as I googled what’s been on my heart and mind lately. I went through some absolutely horrendous times recently. Every terrible thing imaginable happened to me. At the end of it all I even lost my job and my company still hasn’t paid me severance pay. It’s been over a year now. I hurt my back quite badly, and literally every muscle and joint in my body was in pain. Doctors were no help, they only prescribed anti inflamatories.
I finally threw my hands up in the air one day and let out a lot of four letter words both at god, and my situation. Then he spoke to me. Not in a voice, but by flashing a verse into my mind. It was Joshua talking to the people as they entered the promised land. Joshua urged the people to choose life. And then I had an epiphany. God hadnt let me die. I was in agonizing pain but I couldn’t die. Much the same as what people in hell will experience. So I chose to live. I chose at that moment to live.
I took my health into my own hands. I got in touch with my pain, and slowly started my journey back. Most days i didn’t want to do anyrhing. First I just found one thing that I could do to improve my health. I started eating nutritious food. After I had almost mastered that I found something else. Stretching. Then breathing. But by bit looking for lifestyle changes I could implent that would be permanent. And along the way I found and had to face all my demons (negative thinking, anger, irritability, lazyness, sloppy posture, the list is long. )
I went in with the attitude that I would get back to my happiest memories and health that I could recall. It’s been 6 months now and my feet and legs are awesome. My back is almost done too. I’m grateful to be alive. Just plain funny silly loving joy cheerful. I love to say hi to strangers and look into their eyes and heart. Flooding them with my joy. I can’t help but think that if I steer my body and health like a captain manning a ship I ought to live forever. I ought to be living in such a way that glorifies god, and is sustainable, not only for 50 more years but for eternity. It’s much too early to tell If I will live forever.
I know that thought seems ludicrous, but it shouldn’t. Noah lived over 300 years. What you think he looked like at that age? I be willing to bet you five hundred bucks he only looked 30 years old. But his eyes probly looked pretty twinkly with a freaking ton of gods joy pouring out. If you listen to your body (actually aches and pains are another form of god speaking to you do listen to Him) then you simply repent of the negative attitude that caused the pain (spiritual component) and then find the medicine or herbal remedy to cure the ailment (physical component) all sickness has a spiritual and physical component.
If you’re willing to do whatever it takes, you can find your cure. The cure for two people with the same illness or sickness won’t always be the same. That’s where science and medicine falls short. Science is great at treating the physical component of illness but fails to give god credit so the results are short lived. And the result is always the same. Death.
As someone who was suicidal and in agonizing pain without sympathy from anyone in the world I can attest this is true. I came back from death. And there is no way I ever want to go back there. It was awful. I had my taste, like the new testament says. Now I not only live my life honestly because I hate death, but more importantly because joy feels so much better than pain.
My anger and arrogance was my spiritual food before and it tasted great but it led to a body filled with pain. I could talk about this csubject forever. But I’ll leave off here. May god, who is great, all powerful, mighty, and terrible to stand before, bless you, and make upright , in all your doings, and thoughts. May his name be holy forever, I ask these things in the name of Jesus, my great lord, amen.