Taboo

[poliphilo]

I don't think it's death that's the taboo subject in our society- because, God only knows, our media are as full of images of mortality as an 18th century graveyard. No, it's not death we don't want to discuss, it's what comes after, that undiscovered country etc etc. The not very good movie I watched yesterday afternoon is predicated on society's reluctance to deal with it. Our heroine- played by Cecile de France- is told (because she's a well-known public face) that her publishers will take any book she cares to throw at them. She pitches a biography of Francois Mitterand. They say, "Great, here's a huge advance." So she goes away and thinks about it and decides she's not that interested in Mitterand after all and instead turns in the first couple of chapters of a book about her Near Death Experience. Her publishers squirm.

I was thinking, that's a bit exaggerated, but then I thought, no, actually, it's not. We don't talk about the afterlife. We're embarrassed by it.. The odd newspaper article- more likely to be published in the Mail than the Guardian- draws comments about "sky fairies" and all that fundamentalist rot from semi-literate Dawkinsians- and one realises why people who have something to say on the subject are reluctant to put themselves in the spotlight. Mention angels or spirit guides in any public arena and expect the cabbage stalks to fly.  My readers on LJ are too polite to shout at me but I notice that I never get any comments if I post about- say- the spiritualist books I've been reading. I used to have conversations here about God and the afterlife with dear jackiejj but since she went off to explore the undiscovered country for herself there's been next to nothing.

I refuse to believe people are simply not interested, because, really, what subject could be more relevant or urgent? We're all going to die and we're all either going to wink out like a candle flame or find out that, hey, actually...

Comments

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

I myself have no problem discussing either the dying process or speculation on the aftermath. With 4 suicide attempts and a near drowning in my life, I've obviously thought quite a lot about the processes in any event.

And I still miss Jackie as well.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

So, do you have a view about what comes next? Did your brushes with death afford you any glimpses?

Jackie was very special.

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

I nearly drowned when I was 11 years old and to be honest, I remember that after the first initial shock of "oh my, I don't think I'm going to make it", I felt a great warmth coming over me and I still remember the golden light of the sun coming down through the lake water, but then a guy got me by my hair and pulled me out, but I remember feeling rather sorry he had done so.

The suicide attempts, well, they were all part of bi-polar II and at the time, they seemed like a good idea just to make the pain stop, you know?

No tunnels with light at the end, no relatives hanging about, but no fear either and I don't have any now. I was alone with both my mother and father when they died - my mother, just before she became unconscious for the last time, looked beyond me and her face lit up and she said "Mommy", so I presume she felt her mother was there. My dad kind of slipped away while I held his hand over about an hour, so no revelations there, but I do know that while he was still able, he all of a sudden started thinking about God and such. He asked me what I thought and after I told him, he asked me if I could ask the neighbour across the street (Methodist) to come and have a chat and he seemed a lot easier in his mind after that. My thoughts, by the way, are more in line with the whole re-birth of the soul thing.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

My personal experience is limited. It comes down to a few dreams- which seem to have transpired in a more real than real environment- and recent experiences with my father who I feel is waiting around for my mother to join him.

But I have read a great deal. I think this world is at the cutting edge of the universe- a place we come to in order to have experiences that we cannot have in a less material environment. Eventually I think we'll move away altogether but only after completing a round of incarnations. For the time being we hang out between lives in a spiritual sphere- or spheres (they're probably graded according to spiritual maturity)- where we reflect on the past life and further our education.

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

Well if there is one thing I am certain about, we're all going to be in for a big surprise!

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

As one who needed surgery that took long enough to be a potential killer (as it was back then- 10+ hours) I had to think a lot about death at one time.

I find it an intriguing topic, I have to admit, but that's probably the historian in me.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

So have you a view as to what happens next?

Obviously most people in the past believed is some sort of afterlife or other.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

It's a fact that energy doesn't cease to exist.

I'd quite like to come back as a tree! :o)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I believe trees have a kind of consciousness- very different from ours, though...

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Much slower!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

They must perceive us as busy, little, short lived things- as a higher form of insect, in fact.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

I love spiritual things! But like you, I feel like there's no talking about it anymore. There's so much condescension in modern society toward people who believe.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

And the condescension mostly comes from people who have never seriously considered the issues, but have just absorbed the mindset prevalent in their society.

[chochiyo-sama.livejournal.com]

I don't think we wink out like a candle. 🙂

I am not sure what does happen but I know it is something.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm sure of it.

Sure, that is, that this world is only one of many in which we have our existence.

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

I believe death is the end - dust to dust, and we are gone - and to me that thought is a great comfort. Hard to explain why; though Hardy captures something of it in A Drizzling Easter Morning:

And he is risen? Well, be it so...
And still the pensive lands complain,
And dead men wait as long ago,
As if, much doubting, they would know
What they are ransomed from, before
They pass again their sheltering door.

I stand amid them in the rain,
While blusters vex the yew and vane:
And on the road the weary wain
Plods forward, laden heavily;
And toilers with their aches are fain
For endless rest - though risen is he.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I can see the appeal of Hardy's view of things; eternal sleep is good- but, in my humble submission, immortality is better.

Ah well, we shall find out- or not as the case may be.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Another vote here for life before death, but not afterwards.

I'm afraid that I've read too much about the brain and consciousness to be able to believe that there is a disembodied essence that can continue on somehow.

However, if there should, somehow, be an afterlife, then the traditional Christian God had better not be involved or he'll get a piece of my mind about the awful job he did when he created humans.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you put any store by NDEs and the like- but there's growing evidence that consciousness survives the shutting down of the brain.

The Christian vision of the afterlife is pretty crude, but I don't think it's wholly fallacious. Mind you, I long since gave up believing in Old Nobodaddy.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

It's the winking out for me, I think.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Fair enough.

But I don't think there's ever been a time- except perhaps for a few months when I was trying to scour myself clean of Christianity- when I haven't believed in Life After Death.

[w. lotus (from livejournal.com)]

I'm not embarrassed by the afterlife. I don't see the point in talking deeply about something that probably doesn't exist. But I don't want to get in the way of someone else talking about it, if that makes them feel better. So I leave that conversation for people who find meaning in it.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You see I've always wanted to know whether it exists or not, and so....

[w. lotus (from livejournal.com)]

I used to think it did. Now I am mostly convinced it doesn't. The idea of permanent non-existence and being forgotten from the historical record after a generation or two upsets me deeply. But living with that upset feels more authentic to me than the stories I was told of what "heaven" would be like ever did.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The thing about heaven is we don't have the ability to imagine it- it's like trying to picture an extra dimension or a set of colours that don't exist on earth- and so we fall back on the most magnificent imagery at our disposal- and build up a picture of a city made of precious stones inhabited by harp-playing winged angels- and of course it falls short and disappoints. We're mistaking the symbols for the thing itself.

I don't mind being forgotten. The earthly self is just a mask- a temporary identity- adopted by a real self which is eternal and has lived many many different lives.

[w. lotus (from livejournal.com)]

I find the idea of a real self that has lived many lives I don't remember just as disturbing as being forgotten. For starters, we don't know "the earthly self is just a mask". That is what we tell ourselves in our attempts to explain the unexplainable. But if that is true that means I am bearing the burdens and paying for the crimes of a self I don't remember, of acts I don't even remember. That is not fair in the least. If hell is a real thing, that is hell.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Why do you think you're being punished? That's a very legalistic view of karma. The way I see it we choose our lives- bearing in mind everything we've already done- with a view to expanding our experience. We might choose a hard life- not as punishment exactly- not unless we're masochists- but because we want to set ourselves a challenge.

From the viewpoint of an eternally existing soul- which has lived and will live hundreds of lives- it would be no big deal to take on a really tough life every now and then.

[w. lotus (from livejournal.com)]

When I look at all of the hurtful, harmful, limiting things that have happened to me and are outside of my power to control or even influence, the only conclusion I can come to is punishment.

If I had a choice, I would have chosen a life where I don't have to worry about money, my partner's health, my parents' health, or finding ways to make meaningful a life that is radically more limited than my aspirations have always been. If I lived past lives, I would think my aspirations come from what I know I am capable of doing. To be dumped into an existence that can't come anywhere close to that is not something I would ever choose and can only be a punishment.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I can imagine choosing a tough life for the same sort of reasons that people do gratuitously difficult things like walking across Antarctica.

Surely difficulty can be a spur to achievement? I mean, if you start off with everything there's much less reason to push for anything.

Of course I know almost nothing about your life- but I've visited your website- and you're a very good photographer.
I don't know what your aspirations are, but I think of you as a person who has achieved things...

[w. lotus (from livejournal.com)]

I am not one to do gratuitously difficult things either. :-) Though I suppose some of what I have achieved is difficult, but the difficulty was worth it, because the process and/or end goal was meaningful for me. I suppose someone who believes, as you do, that we choose in a past life what kind of life we will have now would say that is what you mean by choosing a tough life.

I have achieved things, and thank you for your compliment on my photography. But there are many other things I had wanted to achieve/experience that were outside of the limits of my resources and connections. If I had had the opportunity to choose my life, I would have chosen a life with far more resources, both material and emotional, than the environment I was born into. Those limitations made certain aspects of my life unnecessarily difficult.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Restrictions are what life on earth is all about. For example, and maybe this is a silly example, we can't fly without using machinery. That restriction applies to us all, but everyone of us is born with a particular and different set of restrictions. Even the Queen of England suffers them. In fact, for all her wealth and privilege, she is very tightly restricted. Can you imagine what it must be like never to be able to go anywhere incognito or do the shopping like a normal person or not have everyone you meet defer to you? All our lives are limited by genes and gender and race and class and nationality and place and time.

I think the point of the exercise- leaving the spirit world where anything is possible and coming to the material world where all things are difficult and many are impossible- is to thoroughly explore the possibilities to a limited field of action, to make the most of it and- if we're particularly pushy or creative- transcend it. Every life is unique and every life is worth living. Dealing with limitations builds character.

And if a particular life turns out to be disappointing- well, we get to have another go. And another. And another.

[w. lotus (from livejournal.com)]

I have found my character is far less salty the fewer limitations I must deal with. :-D