Many Mansions
Jun. 16th, 2019 08:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloAfterlife: I don't like the word.
An afterword is a brief statement tacked onto the end of a more substantial piece of writing.
An afterthought is a subsidiary or qualifying thought.
An afternoon is when you pull your hat down over your eyes and go to sleep
An afterglow is pretty but fading.
And the word afterlife has something of the same vibe, something of the same colouring.
I use it because there's no alternative but I think it's frightfully misleading...
Actually there's just Life. It's behind and ahead and around. The bit we think of as life- our life in the body- is just one part of the whole. While we're in the body we can't see the rest of Life too well- because we've chosen to enter a section that's partially closed off- (but there are glimpses to be had all the same.) Birth is the way in, death is the way out- and that's all they are. Death is no more to be feared than birth. Every transition is from Life to Life. You go through a door and go through a door and go through a door...
An afterword is a brief statement tacked onto the end of a more substantial piece of writing.
An afterthought is a subsidiary or qualifying thought.
An afternoon is when you pull your hat down over your eyes and go to sleep
An afterglow is pretty but fading.
And the word afterlife has something of the same vibe, something of the same colouring.
I use it because there's no alternative but I think it's frightfully misleading...
Actually there's just Life. It's behind and ahead and around. The bit we think of as life- our life in the body- is just one part of the whole. While we're in the body we can't see the rest of Life too well- because we've chosen to enter a section that's partially closed off- (but there are glimpses to be had all the same.) Birth is the way in, death is the way out- and that's all they are. Death is no more to be feared than birth. Every transition is from Life to Life. You go through a door and go through a door and go through a door...
no subject
Date: 2019-06-16 10:01 am (UTC)Having left one life and entered another, death holds no fears for me- it's just the next stage. :o)
no subject
Date: 2019-06-16 10:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-06-16 10:14 pm (UTC)I believe it was Caesar who described death as being just brief intervals in a long life, ie a quick rest before the next incarnation. I think that's much better than "afterlife" --- which implies only one life and only one interval after that life is over.
no subject
Date: 2019-06-17 08:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-06-18 12:48 am (UTC)