Solipsism, anyone?
Seriously though. For each of us (and I can only be sure about MYSELF here, to say it is the same for you is an act of FAITH) there is only ONE conscious entity - yourself. Everyone else is part of the "environment", the "3-D movie" you see about you... just like the computer in front of you, or a rock, or a river.
SUBJECTIVELY, I am all that there is, in effect. The existence and lives of OTHER PEOPLE, I can only INFER via the input of my 5 physical senses. ALL I can be certain of is the existence of a SINGLE point of consciousness ("I", myself) and as for the reality of "objective consciousnesses" (i.e., other people) I have to rely on data filtered through MY OWN consciousness... in other words, I have to rely on FAITH, if even only to a small degree!
All of this has some very strong pro-postmortem survival implications...
1. All I can really be certain of, is my own consciousness.
2. There is SOMETHING (call it "1" in binary parlance) and NOTHING (call it "0".)
3. NOTHING cannot exist, so long as SOMETHING exists. They are mutually exclusive concepts!
OK....
You cannot have a "forever" of nothingness. Total oblivion would be infinitely SHORT, not infinitely long. Those who attempt to imagine oblivion usually envision themselves floating in some black void. BUT EVEN A BLACK VOID IS A "SOMETHING", NOT A NOTHING!
Therefore, given infinite (non-linear, that is) time, and especially if there are infinite universes constantly being born, living, and dying... the "you" (that is, the single, SUBJECTIVE point of consciousness, the "I" point) will experience a "repetition of conscious experience" following an INFINITELY SHORT (to yourself, that is) interval (although objectively, it might have been a trillion years. But "objectiveness" is something which can only be experienced subjectively!)
Now, note that there is no inference here of any continuity between one "consciousness experience" and the next. It would be similar to reincarnation in effect, but not in principle.
And that, I think, is why "existence" is likely to be effectively "eternal."
So, as you can see... even scientific materialism allows for an "afterlife" of sorts. In fact, it makes it almost inevitable, unless our universe is some kind of finite, one-time-only special CREATION of some "god-mind." (Such thinking is what turned me on to afterlife study in the first place... the BIG question is, why am I Me? But that's for another post.)
Any feedback here?

B-man

But all this then leads us to the next question...whats the point of it all? Where does it all lead too? Does it pointlessly just keep going round in circles, more training, more gods getting even higher and higher, the whole thing getting bigger and bigger. Why do all this learning? Whats to come out of growing even bigger?

And say we complete all this and it only grows so much, this higher self has all its probes come home, its learnt everything, what does it do then? Just sit there going ok I know everything to itself?

I know this is simple, I am not as complex as much as you guys in the way of being interlectual, lol i don't even know if thats spelt right! But hopefully your get my view.

Ryan

Of course you're all that exists.

I - You - We understood that years ago, didn't They?

The miracle is that we can still believe in so many ways to do it!

d

Ditto what Dave wrote.

I dunno Spooky-

When I think and feel, there's only one of me. I don't need to be divided. However, at times I change my mind, talk to myself - hmmm - maybe there is another Me lurking in here somewhere :-|   but I have no problem organizing all my "inner selves" into a single Me, and then realizing that Me in the big Oneness, providing that I have time to get into that deep a meditation.

Solipcism doesn't have to imply idealism, nor vice versa. What it mostly seems to threaten is personal pride and being puffed up with our own importance. Fortunately, since you are God, you don't need to be concerned with that thought. Me neither.
d

A quick question, Matthew...
*******************************
How does one get from the god-spark inside, to the impulse to lose selfishness, self-centered intentions, materialism, hatred, and other ego oriented maladies?  By letting go of ego, perhaps.  By feeling the unity in meditation? 
*******************************
And in the end, after you'd accomplished all that...
and had NO selfish desires whatsoever...
What would be left for you to enjoy?
You'd be a sort of servant-droid, a blissed-out
worker bee/stooge.
Finding out that you're "God" would be a better
long-term result, I'd say. (Imagine finding out that
you, Matthew as "God", still had your "I" identity but also the memories of everyone else that ever lived when you'd finished out all your incarnations several eons hence. For this is the scenario I speak of when I say I am "God"... and that you are also "God", Matthew, and Spooky, Spitfire, Dick Cheney, Mother Teresa and "everyone else" also...)
But you'd rather believe that your destiny is as a nameless, faceless, blissed-out "cog in the machine?" O.K., no problem there, it's still a free country, right? BUT...
Is that what you want? Good for you. Me, I think I'll take a raincheck.

B-man

As far as I can tell, it's kinda like this, Doc-

I like to have all my inner ideas, concepts, operational extensions and effectors, sensory apparatus and daydreams sort of all coordinated into one thng. Inside of myself this is a kind of inegtrity, a love and respect for all my parts, so that I am not at war with some personality fragment that screams in my ear that I should try flight from a tall building, or drown my kids in th East River, nor with the ghost of some past existence that threatens to run me through a psychic garbage grinder if I don't collect bottle caps and count the cracks on the sidewalk. In fact, last night I was watching the ghostly presences ofl the little microbes inside my sphere of experience as they gnawed away at some internal structure, whether psychic or physical I don't know, but they were all happy about doing their thing, and I was smiling along with them - although I thought perhaps a less potentially destructive approach might be nicer. That is, it's more fun to play win-win games with myself than to have internal nastiness. That way I can, as they, "love myself".

Edgar Cayce tried to express the same idea through the muse that spoke through his unconsciousness, when he said that our destiny is to become co-creaters with God. Co-creation is hardly a "cog in the machine", because it implies that I have the entire machine to myself. At the same time, I am still part of where I came from and whither I must yet go, so I'm also stuck into the big One Machine as a part of that system. To the degree that I become a rebel, I simply am a stray notion perplexing the equanimity of Buddha-Mind, a vagrant idea flitting through the Mind of Brahm, an angel yet unsure of whether I like my job or whether I should go on strike and be called a demon. PUL means that I willing to admit that there is more of me than my physical extended nature, and that I am willing to encompass in my lovingness, all the alternative dimensional structures co-originated with my own, and that extend into bizarre states and natures under other names, like Krishna, Arafat, Nasser, Moses, Jesus, Judas, Bill Gates and so on. In particular, PUL means that I accept as myself all these parts, even though I might not have a good idea of why they're there. Who knows, maybe suicide bombers are like an infected vermiform appendix, an appendage of prior value in prehistoric times, and now a self-limiting infection, rather like a cancer that catches itself.  But I love them too, and I marvel at their heroic intention as they martyr themselves. It's a damn shame that this often involves a schoolbus, or people who are doing their leel best to bring peace. But I also love my children on days that I abhor their behavior.

PUL isn't something you GET, a trick that helps walk on water  (even when it thaws) or that is intended to feed you, make you glow in the dark, or have a bigger and better sexual appendage, like those spam ads suggest. Rather it's something you GIVE, and when giving it is a matter of extending identification of self to become all-encompassing.  In fact, if it isn't all-encompassing, including my noisy neighbors a mile away who shoot at telephone poles on New Years Eve, then it isn't PUL because it is conditonal, limited and contengent upon my prior suppositions, expectations and desires.

So, since you asked the question that the bhakti s[pends his life trying to resolve, my suggestion is that PUL is the means by which we eliminate attachments to prior attitudes, desires, ideas and suchlike, and through which we become universalized so that we actually ARE "co-creators with God".  With the bhakti we are here to learn love because through loving and abandoning the selfish limitations that keep us bottled up inside a handful of traditional beliefs, present day desires, and egocentric daydreams. At the moment that we have the true courage to love, not with limitations, not with the desire to gain something, not with a foresense of personal gain, but rather with an enthusiastic opening of the heart, then we lose everything "personal". What's left? Well, since the personal part is simply a projection that we manipulate with our earthly machinations and intrigues, what's left is the experience of being God, the Universalized Self. This is the Self of Ramana Maharshi, the ineffable nature of  the garralous love of Nisargadatta Maharaj, the bleeding heart of Jesus in which all find solace, and the power that lies behind Tutankhamen's Aten, and that inner brilliance we discover for ourselves when we see a newly rescued soul vanish into the Light.

But that's just one way to look at it. There are as many other ways as there are people to have opinions. The interesting part is that all of them are right.

dave