Is There a Life After This One?
I have been asked many times…
“When I die, will I be reunited with my loved ones”.
To begin to answer that question,
one must embark on the deep contemplation of ‘Self inquiry’.
The rest of this article will help shed some light on that subject.
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All theologies, spiritual traditions and religions believe in some sort of
‘after this life’ expectation.
Originally when most reasonable traditions were first established,
there is a common theme that being of service to others and
integrating morals and virtues in this life will have a positive effect on whatever comes next…
and thus,
they all have some sort of version of the intermediate stage between this life
and whatever comes next.
With all due respect for my Catholic school catechism training,
with its roots that started just over 2000 years ago,
and Judaism that is just over 3000 years old…
The non-broken lineage of Tibetan Bon traditions are over 18,000 years old…
(yes, much older than Tibet)
They have had a lot of time to ponder such things as ‘Bardo‘
the intermediate time between this life and whatever comes next.
In my humble opinion,
this doesn’t mean they can really know for certain
the ineffable nature of what really happens after our body dies.
They can really only know what happens right up to the point of death.
This quote from Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche –
Describes what the Tibetans refer to as the Bardo:
“We enter the Bardo, the intermediate state after death,
just as we enter the dream state after falling asleep.
If our experience of our normal dreams lacks clarity
and is of confused emotional states and habitual reactivity,
we will have trained ourselves to experience the processes of death in the same way.
We will be driven into further karmic bondage
by reacting dualistically to the visions
in the intermediate state,
and our future rebirth will be determined by
whatever karmic tendencies we have cultivated in life.
This is “lacking awareness in the Bardo.”
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Many spiritual traditions include practices that help one to become lucid while sleeping.
This will solve that problem of not being able to be lucid
during that intermediate state right after our body flat lines.
Also,
While being lucid during sleep, we can modify our dreams in an active way,
so instead of having annoying or frightful dreams,
we can have fun experiences in our dreams.
The Tibetan Dzogchen masters use this lucid sleeping to perform their various
meditation practices for a much deeper experience than is normally possible
during normal waking states.
In the Advaita Vedanta traditions from India, they call this practice ‘Yoga Nidra’…
Nidra means sleep, and Yoga generally means
the practice to unite the mind, body, and spirit.
Modern psychology uses a form of Yoga Nidra referred to as Integrated Restoration
to help fix those that are broken from PTSD, anxieties and stress.
Also,
this form of guidance has been proven as a way for a person
to learn subjects while they are sleeping.
In life there are two certainties… Death & Taxes.
Each year we do our best to prepare for taxes…
but so few of us do anything to prepare for the other certainty of life.
We fear death, almost as much as we fear taxes, yet,
most of us just ignore that certainty right up to our last breath.
Those that are evolved enough
to have pulled their head from thine arse and see the world in
a less narcissistic self-centered power ego driven perspective,
will often take the Path of unconditional love,
integrating morals and virtue into flow of life.
To Love all, Serve all and CREATE NO SORROW.
Keep in mind that the old fashion version of “virtue”
of killing others that pray to the same “god” differently than you,
should by now, be considered way outdated and certainly NOT a virtue…
yet,
it still continues to this day 🙁
Common sense only refers to the world view of the time it’s considered.
For those that have a curiosity for ‘the meaning of life’
and tend to flow with unconditional love, joy, compassion, and equanimity,
will naturally be inspired to take up some sort of a Spiritual Path
which includes a well thought out philosophic perspective,
a balanced psychological outlook,
contemplation of one’s True Divine Self or Self Realization,
a deep meditation practice which includes physical Yoga asanas,
breath and prana life force control and practices that help to
obtain a ‘one pointed’ mental focus of concentration.
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Psychologically balanced folks find it compelling to meditate periodically,
while very psychologically Unbalanced personalities with PTSD, anxieties,
and multiple personality issues are often prescribed meditation as a tool for
healing, recovery, and general wellbeing.
So,
either way, meditation is a useful tool.
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The more focused and deep the mediation… the simpler the objective is…
The objective is abiding in our True Nature, Rigpa… ‘Pure Awareness’.
There are many meditations to help get started…
like counting breaths, visualizing the prana ‘chi’ life force flowing through the chakras… Connecting with one’s Inner Stillness, Silence, and the feeling of boundless spaciousness…
but ultimately,
there is only ‘Rigpa’, Pure Awareness of our True Nature… “I am”
that brings a warmth that feels like
being cradled in the arms of the spiritual Mother of our True Nature.
Generally speaking,
the more often we allow ourselves
to abide in the non-distracting Awareness of our True Being
during meditation and the lucid dream state…
the easier and more natural it will be to
lucidly cross over from this life to whatever comes next.
Preparing for the certainty of Bardo,
is as natural as striving for a psychologically balanced perspective on life.
Simply by flowing with
unconditional love, joy, compassion, and equanimity during our days,
will naturally keep the ’cause and effect’ of karmic reactions
from building up and showing up in one’s dreams.
When one can maintain a lucid sense of awareness in dreams,
a lucid sense of awareness will be realized in Bardo,
and the whole experience will indeed be a Blessed Journey.
~
Perhaps even more important and useful than practicing Lucid Dreaming…
Dedicating yourself to the deep end of a meditation practice
that opens the doors to the higher states of human consciousness.
Something very inspiring occurs when one can calm the mind enough
to enter these higher states of consciousness…
Pursued to it’s ‘Fruition’,
‘we’ are Awakened to a Wisdom of our True Nature
and experience the True perspective of “reality”…
‘We’ realize by experience that all there is, is…
Awareness… Pure consciousness.
This perspective does not change after our bodies die.
How that feels…
that experience of exactly what that’s like is…
Ineffable.
Words could never explain it…
only the experience of being Enlightened
can offer the re-assuring feeling that…
Ultimately…
Everything is Always Already Alright.
But ‘who’ is it, that will go on to ‘whatever comes next’?
According to the Anatta perspective, in which the Buddhist doctrine outlines
that there is in humans,
no permanent, underlying substance that can be called the soul
or an individual being that goes on to personally live other lifetimes.
All the ‘non-dual’ spiritual traditions consider it a major part of one’s
Dharma, or spiritual Path in the contemplation of our True Self.
It is universally agreed that our Ultimate True Self
that goes one after this life and was already alright before this life…
is not our bodies.
So,
‘We’ are not our hearts…
that part of our body just symbolically represents compassion.
‘We’ are not our brains… that’s just part of our body.
‘We’ are not our minds nor the endless streams of thoughts…
‘We’ are not our egos –
However most people mistake themselves to be their egos.
So,
Even if there really was a life to be experienced after this one…
Whoever it is that experiences that life
will not be recognized as who we once thought we were.
The Hindu perspective of Atman or Atta
in which they state that we do have an evolving soul…
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Enlightenment is Awakened by Self-knowledge, Self-Realization…
In ether philosophy…
there is something about ‘us’ that is eternal,
yet
‘who’ or what part of ‘us’, is it that goes on…
This will remain ineffable
until one can achieve the highest states of consciousness
that reveals the True Nature of our being as
inseparable from all that ‘Is’.
‘God’ is often referred to in part as … ‘all that Is’.
In this state of consciousness,
the mysteries of ‘God’ is revealed.
Those traditions that objectify ‘God’ as being a separate entity outside of ourselves
dramatically limits the depth of what really is an unlimited concept.
This concept of Divinity is ineffable,
words can never be used to come close to it’s True meaning.
Only from the experience of the highest states of human consciousness
can these Wisdoms be known…
And even then,
They will remain ineffable…
Even the Enlightened ones can not speak or write exactly what ‘God’ is.
At best, all the Enlightened Sages can only point towards us towards the ‘Absolute’…
Like spokes on the wheel of Wisdoms…
Each Enlightened Insights point us in the direction one must practice
to reach a point on their Path that Awakens them to such Divinity.
At this state, one achieves the perspective of full ‘non-duality’…
The old self we thought we once were is no longer…
Only the inseparable non-dual connection with all that is… remains.
The goals of the ‘non-dual’ traditions are
to become liberated from the pain and suffering
caused by the ignorance of our True Nature,
whether it can be considered to be an individual soul
or a unified consciousness that is Pure Awareness.
In both of those spiritual perspectives…
Even if it were possible to meet up with our new or old ‘self’,
we wouldn’t even recognize our new or old ‘selves’.
In this current life,
most of us tend to mis-identify ourselves to be our egos…
“We” are the ones that easily get angry at the outcomes that don’t go our way.
“We” are the ones that have judgmental opinions…
“We” are our egotistical opinions.
“We” are old, young, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, Irish…
“We” are anything that separates us from everything else.
Ego identifying and ‘mythic literal’ religions are just the opposite of
the ultimate goal of Spirituality…
To be at One with it All.
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In the perspectives of the non-dual traditions,
our goal is to Transcend the mistaken identity of our ego based ‘self’.
“Becoming at One with it All”
is a common goal of most unified consciousness spiritual traditions…
This is the ultimate objective to join with or to
return to, the collective consciousness.
To be ‘at One with it All’
is a pure non-dual experience that has no room for our egos.
~
Modern Christian scholars suggest a ‘life after death’
in which ‘one’ has options of ‘new Heavens’ and ‘new earths’
with a new “Heavenly Body”…
to suggest that our soul does indeed go on.
Although the most common traditional Christian perspective expects our soul
to simply sleep for eons until the day of resurrection, the day of final judgment,
then basically spending eternity burning in hell or ‘at the feet of the Lord’.
Which seems odd coming from a ‘God’ that is projected to be ‘pro-life’.
The other oddity is those of authority state that you will get a “Heavenly Body”…
that’s just like the good old body you had when you died… :-O
E-Gadz… sounds like an afterlife of zombies.
Also stated with conviction and has unwavering belief is…
When we die, our soul will be stopped at the “pearly gates”.
There, Saint Peter checks to see if your name is on “the List” :-O
If not, it’s a burning hell for countless eons.
This is yet another tragedy that has caused irreparable psychological damage
to countess mis “believers”.
Man’s projection of the
“Gateway to Heaven”, “Heavenly Bodies” and Heavenly Hierarchies…
Claiming that this information comes straight from the “hand of ‘God’”.
But rather,
These are all just projections from the imagination of men 1000’s of years ago.
If such perspectives are not transcended into a more practical modern world view…
They will then forever be considered archaic and irrelevant.
Which is a terrible tragedy since these are still the most popular religions of our times…
They have the opportunity to be a guiding light
for many beings to find their center with Divinity.
Each Being born into this life has an inherent desire to connect with this life
and the ‘timeless wonder of it all’…
Everyone at some point ponders these profound philosophies of life and feels
“there must be more to life than I am experiencing normally.”
Yet in so many ways, most of us are being fooled into false hope
spiritually detoured and derailed with dead-end with misinformation
that just keeps us from ever personally experiencing the Absolute Truths.
Thus,
most of us are experiencing the inherent pain & suffering
that is caused by such spiritual ignorance.
But at the rate of modern young people leaving or simply not buying into
religions that demand one to take myths as the literal truth…
There won’t be much left of those religions in the future
and many beings that could have been guided to Spirit
and the liberation of their pain & suffering would not be possible.
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All theologies seem to have their own projections of such things as
individual souls, no souls and whatever shall be in the afterlife…
When these traditions were originated, they were in common with similar forms of
morals and virtues, attaining a selflessness that is spontaneously in service of others.
The most popular traditional religions rely on blind faith
in a non-direct method of worship based on the ancient myths, magic and miracles
that were created by those early founders that were attempting to resonate with
the archaic sensibilities and world view of millennia ago.
Other non-religious based Spiritual Traditions found in
Hinduism, Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism, Zen, Tao, Tibetan Bon, Sufi and Dzogchen…
Outline doctrines that form a more direct approach to basically achieving similar goals integrating morals and virtues with psychologically balanced rational perspectives,
which naturally brings about the liberation of our pain & suffering.
You don’t have to wait countless eons to feel this Bliss,
you can experience this in the ever-present moments of this here & now.
So,
Be Here Now!
At the core of these Spiritual Traditions,
it is essential that one begins a Spiritual Path, one’s Dharma or Sadhana
based upon the morals and virtues of
Unconditional Love, Joy, Peace, passion, compassion and Equanimity…
which includes a well thought out philosophic perspective,
a balanced psychological outlook,
contemplation of one’s True Divine Self or Self Realization,
physical Hatha Yoga asanas,
a deep meditation practice which includes
breath and prana life force control along with practices
that help to obtain a ‘one pointed’ mental focus of concentration.
This is essential to help one find their ‘center’… the “I am”, True Nature
their Buddha Nature, Christ Consciousness or in Hindu, their True Self.
This forms a direct approach to abiding in
the Pure Awareness of our True Nature of Being.
Connecting to the Ground of our Being
is essential to our well-being in this life…
And
in the intermediate period of Bardo between this life…
and whatever comes next.
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Spiritually inspired and Personally Connected fun Hawaiian Style Maui Island weddings
Part of my service of Spirit is to post quotes from Enlightened Saints and Sages of an ever widening web of Wisdoms, pointing out how all spiritual traditions at their core contemplative levels are speaking of the same ineffable concepts.
Knowing that we are all inspired towards a Deeper connection with the same ‘One’, we all will eventually humble our egos and looking for ways to build bridges towards world harmony.https://www.facebook.com/mauimarryingman/ offering ‘bite sized chunks of Inspiration.’
The most effect ‘Path’ one can take is from various
Non-Theological Common Sense Spiritual philosophies and Life Practices.