human essence

Hi Stephanie
Could you ask the question like this……?
Who are we without our story?

It’s something which interests me greatly. I feel that we are all much alike without our stories, and that is the bond of humanity that we share.

Steph-
This is probably my favorite questions to think about and meditate on. And i have found alot of believable answers to me at least in the “Tibetan book of the dead”. I strongly advise reading it if you like this subject as much as I. a basic summary of it is that after death your soul leaves your body, and only those souls that have realized that they have died will continue through a journey to nirvana, where as those that have not realized they have died re-live their life (when you die you re-live your life in a flash) and afterwords continue a 49 day journey in which the soul goes through trial and eventually finds a new vessel where it can repeat its process. There is ALOT more to this but this is the basic. The book also takes a flip and says that this is the temporary life we must live through that connect life and death and not the after life as we call it.

This place of an afterlife free of “shallow conceptions” can be lived today in the here and now. A heaven on earth, so to speak. I cannot show you how, it can not be expressed through words. You must see what’s in front of your own eyes and experience the state of being “purity of obscurity” Realize that what you are searching for IS.

As for if souls can see one another. Yes, but it is rare for someone else to see your soul when you yourself can not see your own. Yesterday I was suffering very deeply but I pushed aside my feelings and I practiced an hour of massage on a classmate. Afterwards we were talking about how strange transference’s of feelings and experiences can happen on a massage table. She hesitantly admitted to me that the moment I touched her she felt like “a knife had stabbed her heart.” She had felt a glimpse of my soul that day. Take it for what you will.

I think about this topic often while daydreaming. I believe in something deeper in all of us. I think it’s very possible to touch another’s soul, but sometimes it can be rare to have a level of complete understanding between both souls to comprehend and allow it. Both souls have to be open-minded and allow it to happen persay. You won’t be able to reach out to someone who doesn’t believe in such things or think that they shouldn’t happen. A lot of people block themselves from it unfortunately. I think that this is what love does to all of us. Love connects our souls on a deeper level than just touching the surface.

I do believe in an afterlife, but I also believe that you are going to go where you think you are going. You create your own afterlife. Believing in something gives it power and allows it to become. Life is all about learning. That’s my personal “Why are we here?” answer. We are here to learn and become a “higher existence” (I had to make the pun :))

I also believe you make your life the way you want it. You can change things to make your life better, no matter what anyone else says. You have the power to make a heaven on earth for yourself and for others. You have to be able to see the beauty in everything around you and the beauty in every living thing to really make a happy life for yourself. You may live like a king but you aren’t going to enjoy it or appreciate it without seeing beauty and love in all life.

The ‘Tibetan Book of the Dead’ is not “authored” in the normal sense. It’s like asking, “Who wrote the Old Testament ? It’s a collection of writings.
The concept of reliving your life again post mortem is not unique to Eastern thinking. The Greeks believed each person has a ‘Daemon’ (It’s where we get the modern ‘Demon’ from – Christianity “demonised” the Greek idea.) A Daemon is best understood as a kind of Guardian Angel, with one vital difference, your Daemon is another aspect of you – not a separate supernatural entity. At times of great stress or danger the Daemon is believed to guide or warn us. We’ve all heard stories of such things. In the west these tales are viewed as stories of ‘Angelic’ intervention. The idea of Daemons is attractive because it does not necessitate belief in a personal God and all that entails. The Daemon neatly fits in with ideas of the unconscious. We know that a high proportion of brain activity is not readily available to us in our every day lives. It seems quite feasible that our ‘Other Self’ could manifest as a disembodied voice warning us of danger, the sub conscious having access to resources above and beyond our conscious every day self. At the end of our lives it appears that our Daemon appears to us and prepares us for a kind of “Life Review.” This, as reported by people who have undergone near death experiences, is a real time review of our life. The Daemon seems to act as a guide/teacher. When the moment of death approaches inhibitory neuro-chemicals are released which slow down the persons perception of time. The nearer the moment of death the slower their perception of time becomes. Finally, they become locked in an eternal last moment as their life is re-run, examining what they did and seeing what lessons have been learnt from it. How can we know this ? Well, as stated earlier, there are reports of NDE’s (near death experiences). Also, regarding the brain being slowed down, we have reports of this from people with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. People who suffer from this have reported experiencing a subjective slowing down or freezing of life when they have an attack. One woman, who was having tea with a friend in a coffee shop said, “I felt/heard a popping noise. Then I noticed that everything was frozen ! It was like watching a film which had stopped. Afterwards I found this state lasted for about a minute. But, to me it seemed a week passed as I watched the tea frozen in mid air above the cup !” This type of experience is not understood by neurologists, but it is acknowledged as real.
So, “What does all this mean ?” If we have a Daemon and they are with us all our lives, and at the end they revue our life with us, surely this suggests an afterlife; or at the very least reincarnation ? Who knows ? One thing I can guarantee though is that all I’ve told you is real, has been reported by numerous individuals, and seems to be evidence for something. What that something is I don’t know; maybe I’ll ask my Daemon ! What do you think ?