Bruce -

I came across this clip on YouTube with Sadhguru, an Indian mystic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2tL4pgY-b8.

I found his answer perplexing a bit and a bit at odds with my understanding of the afterlife. In particular, he refers to losing your "discriminatory mind" and acting solely on "tendencies" as a spirit. It is very scary to think how we pass is so critical to the state in the afterlife. If I die in fear (say being executed by the Taliban, to be extreme) -- then am I destined for a state of paranoia in the afterlife??

Raj,

While it is true that initially we are ourselves in the afterlife, the circumstances of how we pass over matter less than what our inner self is like.  So, if a person dies in fear from an assassin, that fear represented a specific threat.  After shedding the body, most near-death experiences (NDEs) suggest an incredible calm and often a peacefulness.  If someone did create fear after they passed over, it would likely be only for an appropriate and hopefully short time.  Howard Storm had such an experience, (and wrote of it) but then experienced beings of light and joy after being "saved."

We all will have free will as we do when alive.  No one is consigned to a hell by external arbitrary forces.  People tend to shed their outer layers of ego, and eventually follow their true loves.  This may be what Sadhguru was speaking of.  See, initially, we cross over with all of our human defenses of the ego we created on earth.  But the ego isn't our true self; our spirit/soul is.  The ego was the outer trappings or face that we presented to the world to survive and defend ourselves with.  This is what Emanuel Swedenborg called our "outer" correspondences or nature. 

In spirit, there is no need for this outer nature, just as there is no room for deceit.  So when we die, after a time, our outer nature drops off, and our inner nature seeks others of a similar mind and heart. 

To me this does not mean that we lose all discriminatory or rational abilities.  Far from it.  In Nanci Danison's NDE, she reports having enhanced knowledge and insight.  However, she realized that her earthly personality "Nanci" was more like a character in a play, and that when she died, the character's role was over, but she- the soul or inner Nanci was still there. 

I don't believe any one guru has all the answers.  Follow your own gut, seek out the knowledge and your own answers will come in time.

Matthew

Hi Raj,

  I would very much echo what Recoverer said earlier.  It can become very limiting to assume that a particular teacher is infallible, and come to the position of not questioning said teacher at all.  I'm not saying that this is necessarily the case with you and this teacher, but in case it is i wrote the following.

   If you give them that much of your power, then their mistakes and limited beliefs, will more easily and automatically become your own. 

   I've received a number of messages from both within and without to date, indicating that i have the probable potential while in this body to awaken to full Oneness/Love Consciousness. 

   Meanwhile, in not yet having that more perfect attunement, i make perceptual errors and mistakes plenty--occasionally big ones.  I'm far from being infallible.

   My understanding is that it's rather hard and rare for humans to develop that more perfect and constant attunement to pure, universal, unconditional, Love Consciousness while still in the body.   Yet many teachers claim they have fully reached that or what they call enlightenment.   It is good to question this in general, and to see if their actions live up to that.

   Even if i can live up to that potential at some point, i will not be about talking about elaborate belief systems, but more about exampling what is true and correct, and explaining and giving the tools to reach same oneself because i do think we all have that inherent potential.

   In the future as it progresses, it will become easier and easier for people to fully awaken and attune to that very expanded state of consciousness while connected to a body, because the more individuals who do attune to it, the easier it becomes for the rest of us because of the collective, connective nature of consciousness. 

   If it wasn't for a teacher who completed same a couple of thousand years ago, i doubt i would be able in this lifetime to complete same.  He prepared and helped blazed a way for others.  He made it easier for others to do same.