This first posting of mine here in this forum is going to be a little different than other forums where I have posted in the past. First, let me say that those forums were political ones, philosophy or having to do with art. I have never posted on this type of forum before with such a theme to it.

Now, what gave rise to my posting here was something that was in my thoughts this evening and as I was pondering them the idea came over me quite rapidly to put my thoughts to words and have others read them and see what they would have to offer in response. Of course, the thoughts were about life and what happens in the afterlife. But this wasn't just about pondering the afterlife in general, these thoughts were very central to my feelings about life and due to that they had a weight and urgency that pondering things at 'arm's length' doesn't have. In a way, there was an emotional component to them.

Here is what I experienced with these thoughts and you will see by the end of my account what the questions are that maybe some of you can illuminate on for myself and possibly others:

This evening (Sunday), like many other evenings and days, I started to think about where I am in life. And like those other times in this type of pondering a question that I ask myself is why if my mind and my feelings have an idea of what would have made a good life then why has that life not happened? Of course, a question like that will set many of you on different paths of interpretation and some instant replies might be along the lines of, 'why don't you make the life you want'; 'maybe what you think your life should be is not necessarily what your journey here is about'; 'it's your Karma'; 'no one's life is what they would really like it to be'; and so on with obviously many variations all having to do in one way or the other with the individual's reality as is externally and what they feel internally.

Without going into too many details let me say that my life from when I was a teenager to the present (I am now in my 50's) has been a rough ride. As I reflect on it I can say that there have only been moments here and there where I could say that I felt some 'inspiration' about something or another. I really can't use the word, 'happiness'; it's a very complicated word in my vocabulary.

That 'roughness' has shown itself in matters of health, in matters of finances and in matters of social relationships. The latter one is not because I'm a problem socially, if anything those who know me consider me a well-adjusted person and fairly easy to get along with. But for example, because of the issues in health and finances it has affected the social aspect in that in many respects I feel very much on the outside of any real engagement with society. At the present I can only count having one best friend whom I've known for over 40 years and who happens to live in another state, and maybe one or two people who are acquaintances whom I have a conversation with now and then. With regard to the financial picture I'm paycheck to paycheck. With regard to health I don't even have insurance that would help medical aspects and the like. And as for a female companion? Nothing, in my 20's through 40's there were 'somethings', but nowadays, nothing.

Basically with regard to all of this I've come to see it from a detached point of view. I say 'detached' because in some ways there has to be a measure of emotional distance from it so as not to go into a complete funk about it. I am old enough to know that one has to play the cards dealt them and that come hell or high water you have to maintain some sort of balance so you don't burn or drown. But maintenance of this type, especially when it's long term, does not necessarily make for a sparkling outlook on life. And as one gets older it's not like in youth when there were more summers ahead and new faces and places were  'givens'. The maintenance takes on some complex qualities and assessments no more a simple matter of yes or no. In short, I sometimes feel - and I certainly know I'm not alone in this - that I'm only marking time, that living is something being done of out habit than anything spontaneous and serendipitous.

Now, what does this have to do with the afterlife? Well, here's where it gets tricky for me - and no doubt others.

Despite all that I have related in the above, there has always been a spiritual sense about my life. I really can't define it with specifics; I'm not particularly an advocate of any religious or related disciplines. All I know is that there is "something" that has run tandem with all that I have experienced. I can't show you a picture of it or have a sound recording of it, it's intangible yet there. One of the things that "something" brings up for me is the afterlife.

I think of myself as a realist and that in large part due to the no-nonsense-realism I've experienced in my own life. That realism to me is very much "life" and what it has accorded to my being is the sense that this life that I'm living right now is only a one-time experience, it has a genuineness that cannot be duplicated anymore than a river can be made to move in the exact same manner through a particular area. Or as another saying goes, you can't step in the same river twice. It is that very genuineness that becomes problematic when I think about all that I felt should have been my proper course through this life yet it wasn't.

To further illustrate this so it doesn't seem solely like a plaint of regret, I have often felt that the true "me" was somehow thrown into this particular life, into these particular circumstances that in most respects have been contrary to anything that would facilitate an accurate expression of who I feel myself to truly be. It's akin to saying that my senses are 'South Pacific' yet for some reason they've found themselves in the 'Arctic Circle'. Yes, some will say that it's a "test" of some sort but I then ask myself if a whole life should be expended on only a "test". What if saying it's a test is no more than a convenient way of buffering the tragic incongruity of it all? It wouldn't be the first time that humankind has created some "reason" in order to buffer the impact of the obvious.

For all I know, this very life right now is akin to an experiential paradise. Think of the evolution of single-celled organisms and how long it took them to reach this stage of 'humanship'. Certainly in terms of evolutionary struggle this is a hard-earned paradise compared to how they started. And here I am, and instead of enjoying where we've come to, I find myself in less than optimal conditions and on the fading end of this quite possibly only-once experience.

Enter now the afterlife. . .

I have often wondered if the afterlife will or can ever be capable of compensating for what has not happened in this life. When pondering the afterlife - and pondering it as soberly as possible - there is no guarantee that such a life will be anything even remotely resembling what I am experiencing now in terms of physicality, environment, consciousness and so on. Some will say that it's even better than what I have experienced, but again apart from the say-so there is no guarantee.  Will the afterlife give me the opportunity to travel to those places that I wanted to but couldn't? Will the afterlife let me love and receive love from those whom I wanted to in this life but it did not happen? Will the afterlife give me the health and wealth that eluded me here?

Perhaps I shouldn't even regard the afterlife as a compensation, maybe it's just the order of things and I am subject to it as so many others - possibly in infinite numbers - are. Maybe the mechanism that facilitates the afterlife is unimaginably impersonal, to it I may be nothing more than another drop in a vast cosmic sea, another grain in a dune. It's romantic in a cosmic sense, but closer to home it's disconcerting, to say the least.

Again, I know that the afterlife like so many other topics for discussion can be discussed with a sense of detachment and wonder, but there has to be something that the afterlife addresses in the deepest part of our individual beings. There is a biblical saying about "restoring your rightful robes", it certainly sounds wonderful but I can't help wonder why they went missing in the first place.

Even though my own life has not been the best, I still see life as something wonderful, special, yet also something that could very well depart forever. No, I'm not being gloomy about it, it's just another of the many possibilities in a place with so many uncertainties.

Needless to say, there are many avenues with this issue. I am sure many of you have your own perceptions to share. Please remember that what I have shared here with you is not something that has caused me to consider suicide or to abandon my life with many of the things out there that one can use to do so. I keep it steady, keep walking and talking, and yes, stop to smell the flowers now and then. But there is a personal sadness I feel at times and sometimes the idea of an afterlife seems like something to look forward to yet it doesn't seem to do much to assuage what I will leave behind.

Psychological? Karmic? Divine edict? Cosmic indifference? Well, personally I hope the afterlife at least provides for some easier breathing and sighs.

I thank you for reading this and will be interested in replies whether one or many.

Thank You

Desert

Greetings and warm welcome Desert.

I really resonate with your post and my life has followed a similar path. Difficulties strife and suffering seem to have no meaning to those who are going through these trials. But looking back on my somewhat protracted life of 67 years in a troubled country South Africa , together with having to overcome appalling health problems amongst many others I can say I am more wise loving stronger than I would have been without these difficulties of life.

Like you, I have had only one real friend in my long life and often say in jest that I can count all my friends on one finger

I will dialogue with you privately if you resonate with this response

Regards

alan.

Hi Desert. Heart felt indeed. That sounds much like my own trajectory too, although I'd early career success mixed with a sense that I wasn't headed where the heart and intuition wanted me to be. Then a long drawn out illness (chronic fatigue caused by low thyroid and mercury from teeth, then more serious stuff) and now the struggle to get back into life again at 52 with financial and social baggage piled on top.

It's surprising how quickly so called friends disappear when you no longer are a 'success', or are moving in the right circles. Surprising too how many seem to have some sort of resistance to being around illness - I'd supposedly close friends who never once visited in over a year of hospitals, but who popped up again once I got out. There have been a few too who with my immediate family were supportive all the way through.

You get through it on your own though, no one can live it for you. But as time goes on you learn that so much of what our culture teaches us about life is crap.

We can never know for sure, but my personal take on my path is that my problems flowed from an unwillingness to follow my own heart in life - that it was necessary to awaken me given my hook, line and sinker swallowing of parental and other conditioning to be a conventional 'success'. I was striving to be something to satisfy other people's demands, and there was a hole where my heart was.

Perhaps much like yourself there was always this heart vibe that ran in parallel with what I took to be my real life. My guidance or natural wisdom so to speak. But I never had the vocabulary or the perspective to respond to it.

I developed an urge to read voraciously on matters spiritual when I got ill in my 30s and found my way into Buddhist thought which for me provided such a practical framework within which to make sense of stuff.

Buddhism is not about belief but practical realities and experience. Which has been my saving grace so to speak - it gave me the tools to make sense of myself and where i found myself. And the tools I needed to work with my rather intense and out of control mind, and to develop a rather more realistic view of my situation. (I was beating up on myself for being a failure, and fearful of the reality)

With time this has led into direct experience and quite fundamental changes to myself. I'm not the same person any more. Interestingly enough it seems to have led to resolution of most of my health problems too.

Despite attending a group to meditate I've never been able to attach formally though, as I've not found a teacher to work with and those groups I've encountered have been far too unreal to my mind - playing with the ideas but only in an intellectual and observance sense without waking up or truly being changed.

This may be the magic of misfortune  - it makes it all so very real for those of us that have been there. Our seeking takes on an urgency and a groundedness that's not possible for most.

For what it's worth the Buddhist view on all of this is that our striving after wealth, comfort or whatever is a recipe for suffering. That we in a sense need to get with the flow, with what is -  that when we get into this space it turns out in the big picture to be very much what we needed to awaken.

Not to mention that most of the suffering turns out to have been mind made, that a wholly different and much more benign view of our situation is both possible and a heck of a lot truer. There's a sense too that by doing this we transcend the karma that's driving it, and in fact open the way to more fortunate circumstances. (karma is you could say an accumulated tendency built from egotistical behaviours past lives)

I'd not want to sound trite, but perhaps you actually have reached the happy position of starting to consciously open - to seek answers, and to connect with life. These times of opening always have a rawness, a sadness and a sense of groundlessness about them. Inevitably I suppose since they amount to recognition that strongly held beliefs don't hold water.

But there's beauty and joy in there too.

The fact that you are here says a lot....

I thank each of you for your gracious welcome and insights.

Over the time of my participation here I will answer each of your replies - and whatever may be forthcoming - with the honesty and respect they deserve. Let me note that due to the "work-week" I am usually freer to devote time to these replies and other endeavors on the weekends.

For the moment, some quick thoughts:

Alysia,

Ah, if I could pin down any question that would certainly make for a meticulous-looking pincushion, wouldn't it? Perhaps one of those that looks like a little tomato, the fabric would be untouched, smooth, and only one pin piercing it. What would Sherlock Holmes deduce from such an object in the case of a missing person who owned it? 

Yes, there is no single question or perhaps we could add that if there is a single question and its complement of a single answer that it is as vast as the universe and any attempts on our part in deciphering like that of comets in their rounds.

Yes, I guess it is a catharsis of sorts. When I wrote it I didn't edit it - as most writers will do - from an intellectual point. Those reserves of deep feelings and emotions do not particularly care for editing and I think most of us would agree on that in our negotiations with them.

I look forward to replying on your observations of the afterlife.

_________________

Alan,

Your brief reply certainly has enough substance and I'm sure at some point up the road we could correspond on whatever may warrant such; may I add that the same goes for the other members of this forum. For the present my inclination is an open one in the sense of the dialogue between the individuals here and a resonance that we can all bask in. Nevertheless, I thank you for such a gracious invite only on the strength of one post.

_________________

blink,

Yes, it is not difficult to believe that there is something that awaits us "different from all the rest" and that it can be the authenticity we have sought. I guess for myself and as evidenced by what I wrote the "difference" posits many things and not all of them agreeable especially from "this side" of the equation.

In a way it reminds me of those times when I've woken up from a very lucid dream or what some would term an out of body experience. After the fascination derived from it I wondered if somehow the transition between life and the afterlife is similar. Will I just "awake" somewhere else and with the onrush of that see my experience here fade away as easily as a dream? It is fascinating to say the least but also complex in its implications and certainly demands a rigorous workout with our current experiential values.

Am I amenable to such a value change? Well, if any of the beautiful places that I have "visited" are an indication then I certainly look forward to it.

One that comes to mind is a place by the seashore. But the feeling was that this particular seashore was many light years away from earthly ones. I sat at a table and felt serene in the sunlight and atmosphere of gentle winds around me, the ocean glistening and spanning away into the distance. It felt very real. Yes, I definitely would like to visit that place again and stay there for a while.

There is more to this particular experience but I will leave it for later and for topics related to such.

_________________

vajra,

Your reply is something that I would like to address with more completeness than is possible at the moment. But for now let me say that you may very well be right about the rawness, sadness and groundlessness that precedes an "opening". Perhaps we could switch it around and say it's the storm before the calm. I have experienced a few of these storms and while they led to earthly openings one can only imagine what the earthly storm will lead to.

Yes, I believe there is beauty and joy and of orders that defy the imagination. I also think about the saying that eternity is longer than it would take a silk cloth to wear away the Himalayas. It's certainly overpowering to think of a satisfaction on those orders of scale.

_________________

Nanner

As I was posting this I noticed your new post. I thank you for your welcome and will reply later on tonight if time permits. Alas, the errands of the day beckon me. Though I did catch a glimpse of something about "sockin it to me". Sounds provocative. 

_________________

A note for all: I chose the "Desert" name but apart from its implications on the surface it was chosen because I have lived nearly 40 years in the Southwestern part of the U.S. The desert is a place that I can easily call my spiritual home and has provided for some of those moments of wonder and yes, joy, in my life. Just thought I'd mention that for the record.

Thank You

Desert

Desert wrote on Jan 21^st, 2008 at 3:44pm:


Well, I kinda figured since you mentioned you`re in your 50`s that you can handel a hard time, correct me if I am mistaken! / Now THAT was provocative Desert / !   I hope that you are a good spirit, matter of fact, I know you are.   Yes, you have met the little lady whom with her comment has tickled you out of your snail cage of agony.  I`ll let Alysia and the rest of the fine ladys and gents here in this board back me up as we all spark your imagination, back up your your intuition and remind you of who you have always been and always will be!

Hugs,
Nanner

LaffingRain wrote on Jan 22^nd, 2008 at 12:17am:


Absolutely! 

In order to not unduly extend this thread I thought it best to answer some of the members with threads particular to their responses responses.

In a moment I will post the first one, "Pure, unconditional ...?" for Laffing Rain, aka Alysia.

Desert

HI Desert- Welcome -
So you're looking to go from Desert to Dessert? Hopefully Nanner will loosen up with the buttered popcorn.

I notice that you started off with a "why" thought, followed by a "because" thought, and then some discussion. So, in response it sems useful to suggest a "how" idea.

Bruce Moen's books describe an adventure into the borderlands where we are halfway out of this world, and halfway into the next. Some people get stuck in this process, usually because they fear something, or less often because they desire something or some state of being. Bruce is involved with geting them "un-stuck".

My personal job is as a regression oriented therapist where I'm involved with other ways for spirits to get stuck and bothersome. (My tag was an advertisement for my web site, but I've stopped trying to sell stuff, so now its an anachronism.) When I discovered that Bruce was doing this work, I felt that I had found a kindred soul. Further, what Bruce tells us is essentially equivalent to what I've discovered independently through other means, and what has been validated by other researchers in other areas. The details vary substantially, but the core is identical. On that basis I highly recommend that you read what Bruce has written, and then give it a try.

I can think of dozens of seemingly good reasons to never actually DO any spiritual self-development work. My favorite excuse was always that I was too lazy. The next best was that I'm too busy - work is a great place to hide from reality. But a few minutes to read an interesting book, and a few more to actually try out the ideas actually pays off. Bruce also has a "How To" book with CDs that can assist. My impression is that this offers you a path through which to discover the answers that you are seeking.

I can think of few places better suited to meditation than the desert - especially in the spring moments when the yucca blooms and the world is reborn. Enjoy!

dave