Where People Go After they die??

nowheretorun,, thank you for saying sacredness! I feel the same way...there is something sacred about everything in our life.
Sometimes it's more apparent that other times, but I sincerely believe in the steadfast beauty of it.

"a seed of light in any object or thought we fall into..."
powerful.
it reminded me of the lyric of one of Leonard Cohen's songs;
"there is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in..." So, so easy to say and so, so hard to believe when you are flying down the abyss. I think one of the advantages of being older is I almost always remember that things do get better; perhaps not in the way we expect but many times way better than we thought possible.
One of the reasons I try and give a fair chance.

I loved your avenging gods! Honestly? With what most of us have been through in this realm--what hurt would they inflict on us that we have not already experienced? If anything, I think we could have a great time wreaking havoc on their poisoned minds.

Ya know what? Just about the time I think I know alot--yeah, ego showing--along comes a ten year old kid that teaches me a wild and wonderful new way of thinking.
Old dogs like to learn new tricks...

How sad that we sometimes ignore the lessons brought to us by others--they aren't the spitting image of us so we ignore them. We forget to look for the commonalities of human beings doing the best they can...
race/gender/sexual orientation/whatever can stop us cold and we never receive the gift meant for us.

Cap

cool topic Cap!

dont really know how much more i might have to add.. i love spirituality so much cause so much has been written on the topic... stuff that is over 10,000 years old is still use-able... spiritual alchemy is one of my main interests.. recently ive come upon a group that lifts me up to new heights even tho i had thought i'd heard it all... never too old to learn new tricks ..the web is an excellent source for alternative thought... of course we want to be careful when we explore, some caves have predators within..

my usual approach to non traditional beliefs are by the numbers... several followers doesnt always mean that its the right one for me... and because it has saved several doesnt mean its the way i choose... i try to keep in mind that there are several roads to the market..

i like to hold the spirituality against a few standard measurements before i fall for its glimmer and shine..

i want to know what is wanted from me by this movement.. often its causes are social and if thats the case i try to shield myself from the confusion of too many cooks in the kitchen.. a quiet place works for me, where my thoughts are allowed and validated.. if i am unable to ask questions and recieve kind replies, then i might keep looking..

i try to keep in mind that not all lessons in life are comfortable, but we can choose an attitude that is less painful..

listening and learning about others beliefs in a supportive and loving atmosphere is one way we can connect in kindness and healing spirit..

ego is really an issue for me with others.. i dont want to be force fed someone elses truths.. i walk in my shoes and i know the turf best for me..

if i make a mistake, the healing spirit of the High Above does not exclude me from trying again...

love is what makes it all work for me and i know when someone is jiving me about something, even tho i may not always say so..

my faith and belief systems work for me and thats more than i can say for the days of my past when i wandered achingly in search of answers about my spirit and the meaning of this life, running into bullying spiritualists and religous people caused me some problems but i have kept going..... others attempts to enlighten me kept me searching for the truth..

feeling that i had a purpose and a reason is what makes this all make sense to me.. otherwise, i see little value in this experience..

we are able to connect in healthy ways.. that ive seen in the spirit of the people here at PC... we all matter, we all make a difference... we all just might mean a little more in this world than we seem willing to accept....

let your ego build around the knowledge that you matter and you are making a difference in the lives of suffering people.. its something that wont go out of style for awhile... let yourself be humbled in the strength of the weakened, be your own strength and build strength in the faith of good spiritedness with those others who are capable.. there is no spirit like the spirit of humans determined to survive...

best always Capp and all !

More great posts, ntr and Capp...I don't know where to begin responding, especially because I'm a bit short on time, so I'll just throw out some thoughts.

Capp, you asked me if I felt relief after the story I told you. To tell you the truth, I didn't feel so much relief as resigned to my fate. But it was odd...even before I reached the 2nd closed Internet cafe, which really marked the end of my journey that night, I had a feeling the place would be closed. I already had that feeling that events were conspiring against me (or rather for me, I suppose) that night.

You know what's even stranger? Sometimes, when I'm in a dark mood, I think that I inadvertently avoided death that day. Like in those Final Destination movies, where the characters cheat death, only to have it catch up on them. And then I think it will catch up to me. But I try to avoid such dark thoughts as much as I can. I just try to look at the incident from all angles, I suppose.

Sorry if my response wasn't more uplifting. I am grateful to have made it through that night, and if there was someone or something looking out for me, and really thought I deserved a second chance, than I appreciate the opportunity, and I think I've done as much as I can to make the most of it. There, that sounds a bit better.

ntr, if you're into ancient philosophies, you might want to check out Neoplatonism, if you haven't already. It's a philosophy that many Christians actually held in the early days of that religion. Basically the idea was that there was a "centre" of the universe which was all good, and essentially God, and then concentric circles around this centre representing successively lesser beings. So we humans would be on one of the outer circles. What's interesting is that they thought we could "break through" into the inner circles through meditation. They also didn't fit evil into their thinking, believing that evil was merely a "lack" of good. Hmm...

Sometimes I do feel as if there is some grand good vs. evil battle going on out there, but that we totally misinterpret it. We think that fighting wars is the way to beat evil, when really it's the little choices we make each day that shape who we are and our place in this battle...ntr posted similar stuff about this earlier. So many people live only for money and possessions, yet think they are "good" because they live in the right part of the world, or are a citizen of the right country, or whatever. We sure have things backwards these days a lot of the time.

hi there digdug...

thanks for the tip on Neoplatonism... mostly ive been working with mandalas lately... its a long and adventuresome story that i'll need to write about sometime.. basically the mandalas give me healing that ive been incapable of finding any other way, but it follows the sacred geometry of the pre-modern philosophies and relates to a center of the universe prototype... here's a link to a past thread here at PC with a little more info:

http://forums.psychcentral.com/showt...highlight=jung

to each his own i spose but if you get a chance, google it sometime..

i think your recount of the night you went in search of something not so good for yourself has very significant spiritual value, especially for you! its these seemingly random situations that turn out for good that we should pay more attention to i think... i do believe in a grand design and there is no doubt in my mind that it affects us all each day..

as far as one group or another having advantages, it may be true.. we are often the beneficiary of our social limitations and boundaries... its very damaging to our inner soul if we are disallowed freedom of spiritual expression.. rejection does massive damage to the inner spirit... through understanding we can open up inner worlds that may be quite helpful and yet to be discovered..

thought provoking to say the least!
I am learning...thank you!

I've come down with the cold from hell so I'll be thinking of these things with almost full attention...

I'll need to double check this statement, but it was said that in Aramaic, the language of Jesus, there was no word for sin...the closest to it was unripe...meaning that a person would mature and during that time evolve into a "ripe version" of a spiritual being.

interesting, interesting! if ya gotta have a cold, what a grand way to spend the quiet time without the distractions and noise of the surrounding world.
I'm laughing at myself right now for being grateful for this cold!

Cap

ntr...thanks for the tip about mandalas. Definitely something I'll check out, as I've herad good things about them before. Gotta get running to class, though .

Capp, sorry to hear your sick. To keep in the spiritual vibe of the thread, though, I find sickness can be hugely transformative. The most important decision of my academic career came after I was recovering from a nasty illness (a real bad one...may have even been Norwalk virus). And it was just because I was looking at the river that ran by campus, and was in an altered frame of mind. Hard to explain.

lol, seems like everything has meaning when we think about it. Anyway, enjoy your spiritual musings while you recover.

Lol...please don't be offended because I laughed!
I did so because I've started wandering into that transformation already...cold meds are great for lowering the defenses of my mind and gracing me with spiritual challenges.
I'd forgotten that some of these meds can (*cough* cough*)
alter your level of consciousness.
aka, I'm having some sweet but short hallucinations. I don't necessarily trust the beginning of them, but I am willing to walk the opened path...

Some have been insanely vivid, others are invitations to drop some of my old baggage and joy-jump into New-To-Me, but rock solid practices that I want to discover/learn...

Cough syrup here I come

Cap

enjoy a safe journey Cap!

((capp))) if you are having hallucinations form cough meds ....thats not a good thing
You have to be very careful with any kind of meds ...only used as dirrected for your own self care
hope you feel better
muffy

First, Muffy, thank you for your concern...

I offer my apology for using the word hallucination so loosely.
Being sick with the cold and taking the cough syrup has "laid me up," but only as far as being tired and somewhat miserable.
Sleep/napping/resting, for most people, is physically and mentally healing--obvious statement.
The forced rest and the miseries of the cold will allow me the time to let my mind wander. Not necessarily to great heights or nasty lows, just places/thoughts that I would most likely think of as being weird or the type of thing I'll put off...

Example..and I'm sorry that I cannot give the details of the documentary or the channel. I was awake but not as alert as I try to be...in this case, I would have liked to be more alert because of the subject matter. Later on I'm going to search for its rerun.
The docu was called "Taboo." This part of it concerned how most of the western world, and other cultures, looked at gender identification.
In some cultures, up to five "genders" are recognized and accepted--or tolerated without violence. Listening to the translation of their stories was actually a beautiful lesson.
There was an amount of questioning on their part as to why they had been chosen to be one of the genders, but it was mostly acceptance and self-love was obvious.

So very different from here in the deep South! I don't know what the reaction would be in your part of the world, and it would be interesting if anyone can share without being hateful.

I try to stay off the Highway of The Intolerant.
Highway is a play on words, of course.
Jmo, but many people invest so much energy in examining the physical appearance of someone! "If it's different from me in any way, then it must be bad.." ever hear that from a pompous butt?
Much of the inner glory and sacredness of people are never seen by those of prejudice/closed minds.
Fear? Distaste? A basket of two thousand pieces of dirty linens has more worth than hatred of another human being.
Usual disclaimer of JMO

Cap

Dear Capp
sorry for taking it wrong..I tend to read things as they are written.
I hope you feel better.......i meant no harm
muffy

((muffy))
oh goodness, no apology is necessary from you--it was from me, though. I sometimes tend to be loose in my expressions...
Thank you so much for your concern. It means a lot to me.

Cap

((ty))) ((capp)))

hi Capp, Muffy, All..

this is a good quote i like from you Cap:

'and it would be interesting if anyone can share without being hateful.'

i dont believe anyone means any harm on this thread .. when we talk on matters close to heart, misunderstandings can and do happen and its really important to find ways to work out understandings as much as possible, whenever possible..

i dont see the hate and intolerance being completely a religious/spirituality concern exclusively, but instead, its a people problem and it s easily remedied if kind people would learn a few simple assertion skills... for me, it was learning the difference between assertion and aggression...

when we feel a need to defend sometimes we might feel distrurbed enough to over defend and then that is interpreted as an attack on others..

we can take a breath and think a minute about all the possible meanings of any statement.. its the nature of words to have more than one meaning and it isnt really helping when we dont give ourselves the time to think thoughts through completely and in the most healthy way, or the way which allows us maximum growth as a human species...

i have faith that we can rise above the bullying and intolerance..

No matter if you believe in heaven or hell you must understand that we are all made of energy, therefore, that spirit/soul/force has to go some where after the physical body dies.

Watch the movie POWDER and you will understand the ENERGY part.

thanks nwtr!
you express yourself beautifully and I'm so glad you are direct in your statements.

I made that statement in bold because there are times when hidden prejudice rears its ugly head, and the conversation can turn hateful...
It's not that anyone intends to be that way; more that they aren't aware of it and it's usually a shocker to them!

thank you for being you,
Cap

Rhapsody, thank you for sharing this--I agree with you.
I haven't seen Powder, but I will find a copy soon.

Cap

thanks Cap, i wanted to hit the easy 'thanks!' button, but it didnt say... thanks for being you too! Have a great and safe one always!