It is now almost 6 years since my wonderful son, Neil, committed suicide at the age of 20.  I'm still here, much to my surprise.

I can now look back and see what helped me.

I was distraught that Neil was so unhappy, I found this site on his computer and emailed for some comfort. Bruce replied and his comforting words saw me through the early days.

Then I received some counselling ( actually, he came to see my husband but he (my husband) wouldn't have anything to do with the counsellor so I talked to him instead)

He said ' do you think you will see Neil again?'
I replied 'I don't know'

He said ' do you know you are going to die?'
I replied 'yes'

'Well then,' he said 'you can't loose. Either you will see him again or you won't, either way the pain will stop. You can live your life knowing that the pain will stop'

This gave me a wonderful feeling of release, any pain is bearable if you know there is an end to it, and that is how I have lived since I lost Neil. I can do anything I like really as I'm just marking time, so I have made the conscious decision to try and make the world better, the sort of place where Neil might have decided to stay.

I have spent a lot of time raising money for a children's hospice and I am never in too much of a hurry to listen to people.

Bruce helped me and now I hope this will help other people who need comfort after loosing someone they love more than themselves.

Remember 'Nothing lasts forever' not even pain!

Hope this helps someone

Sorry for your lost Mostyn. Good to hear you're doing better.  Because of experiences I've had I feel quite certain you'll find that life doesn't end after death.

Thanks for posting this Mostyn.  My Mom said something similar to this before she died from cancer.  She said "either way, this (suffering) will end at some point" and I try to keep that in mind as I live my life.  Life is temporary.

Sorry for the loss of your dear son Mostyn. My dad died very suddenly from a heart attack but ive learned so much about the afterlife that i know i will be with him again when its my time to go to the world of spirit . I had councelling and it helped me to. God bless juditha

Thanks for sharing this. Your counsellor had a good perspective, one that I'll remember when I finish school to become one myself.

You will see him again. I'm sure he's seen you again already. We never lose or break our connection to someone, whether they move to Outer Mongolia or the Afterlife. Doesn't matter. Love is that connection. It's no mere abstraction or just an emotion but something that is very real and powerful.

Rob

The human body is in a continuous state of not lasting forever. The cells are always being replaced.  

So, therefore what part of us knows this? , and why or how do we retain the consciousness and its awareness?

Do we hold a form to maintain this biological balance? Is it retained from within or from the outside?

We must collect what we know from some store which can either replace itself or is able to obtain what it needs from somewhere that isn’t concerned or does not need to maintain itself.

Nothing lasts forever is incorrect. For if it is true then what is typing this post?

For if nothing did last forever it would not be able to create the universe. See, if nothing preceded the creation of our universe then the statement is false.

So this universe either existed after something or your statement is incorrect.

Oblivion has to be impossibility. Otherwise you would not exist now. Since you do exist now you must accept the other side of the coin which is that you will exist forever. Even if you experience Oblivion/Nothing, the universe must have been created from it so you must be created from it. Time is irrelevant as oblivion is timeless so therefore logically you will either exist forever or simply re-exist.

Either way you will exist forever due to the fact that to re-exist is to be forever.  

No play on words, just logical fact.  

wrote on Mar 30^th, 2006 at 11:07am:

The human body is in a continuous state of not lasting forever. The cells are always being replaced.   So, therefore what part of us knows this? , and why or how do we retain the consciousness and its awareness? Do we hold a form to maintain this biological balance? Is it retained from within or from the outside? We must collect what we know from some store which can either replace itself or is able to obtain what it needs from somewhere that isn’t concerned or does not need to maintain itself. Nothing lasts forever is incorrect. For if it is true then what is typing this post? For if nothing did last forever it would not be able to create the universe. See, if nothing preceded the creation of our universe then the statement is false. So this universe either existed after something or your statement is incorrect. Oblivion has to be impossibility. Otherwise you would not exist now. Since you do exist now you must accept the other side of the coin which is that you will exist forever. Even if you experience Oblivion/Nothing, the universe must have been created from it so you must be created from it. Time is irrelevant as oblivion is timeless so therefore logically you will either exist forever or simply re-exist. Either way you will exist forever due to the fact that to re-exist is to be forever.   No play on words, just logical fact.

In otherowrds matt, its a win win situation
:o

Well, I was thinking about it while driving home from work Yesterday. I would really like some discussion on this.

If you occur once equals 1 and oblivion is 0 then the sequence would look like this :-


000000000100000000000000000

But if oblivion is infinite then at some point that '1' has to occur again.

See, if it is infinite( and I think that’s the hardest part to grasp) then that 1 will appear again once it has occurred once.

So even the materialist thinkers will have to concede that if our Universe is collapsing  then an incalculable number will appear until eventually the same conditions occur which creates a universe which led to your birth.

So if oblivion mathematically tends to infinity then you must tend to infinity if you have existed once.

So what does this mean?

1) Oblivion is not infinite which means nothing does not last forever

2) Oblivion is infinite and once you have existed once you are infinite

3) This physical reality is an illusion.

I cannot see how this can be incorrect logically.

Thanks to the OP for opening my eyes to this.

Mostyn may you be blessed with even more love and guided to help people with your love.

Mostyn,
when I'm confronted with terrible things I get angry and frustrated. But then, I think it doesn't last forever. That makes it easier, it makes the bad things smaller, episodic. Thanks! It sounds so simple but is one of the basics.

mattb1000,
when in time, nothing lasts forever as it is simply because nothing stays the same. There is this personal history thing: On the one hand you're not the child you were once, on the other hand you are the same person. This "person" here is the pure subjectivity, the "I" which perceives but without content, the pure function maybe, but here is the border to no-time. What stays the same is not in time. In the afterlife maybe time is not time and space not space as it is here. Or take the physicists theory of Big Bang, they say time and space began with it. What is it like without time?
And, sorry but to achieve  logical and/or mathematical conclusions you have to make precise assumptions and definitions. Mathematically it isn't decidable whether there is an infinite oblivion or infinite non-oblivion or something in between.

Spooky

Spooky I see what you mean but the phrase can have two meanings.

Nothing lasts forever - Nothing can remain in a permanent state indefinitely

Nothing lasts forever - Oblivion can last for eternity.

The first I agree with. The second cannot be true due to the creation of our universe and/or reality.

Mathetmatically though, If we have a graph with the x-axis being time and the y-axis ranging from 0 to 1 with 1 being your existance.

A gradual curve would build over time from 0 to 1 starting from either the moment of your conception or the creation of the universe. the the curve would sharply drop at the point of your death.

So if the x-axis tends to infnity, would that not mean that the 1 (your creation) will occur again?

Hi mattb1000,
yes, haha, didn't notice the second meaning! My turn on this is: We cannot be shure if what we perceive is the truth or reality or if there are those ones at all BUT we do now for sure that there is at least something, so to say, there is existence, so the nothing/oblivion cannot last forever. It's an old question whether there is a beginning (then something jumps into existence out of nothing) or if there is no beginning (then something is there which never had begun to exist, eternity), Aristotle reported this problem and pondered whether this or that. Of course, there will be no answer to it that would be convincing for everybody, because we touch time, space, eternity and those things we can't figure out with our limited view.
Regarding your mathematical approach/question I say "no". We just don't have a function (unless one creates one, mathematicans can do everything, but don't ask how it correlates with physics) coming from observation/physics which says that if there is an existence for a period of time then there must be another one when time progresses infinitely. This rule must come from a source outside pure mathematics to have any meaning (not only playing with mathematical concepts). Another thing is, the y-axis, is it a continuum or digital? If continouus, there were degrees of existence, such as "little existing", "very much existing"; sounds strange! Or digital, then there is just existance or non existance; sounds more reasonable, if the term "existence" includes all the different kinds we are aware of (like existence as a baby, as a boy, as a man etc.).

Happy thinking,
Spooky