zoofence.com

Here is a link to a thoughtful article about life after death sent to us by a friend of TZF.

The author considers life after death at length from a couple of angles, and concludes that, because the subject is by definition probably impossible to decipher entirely, the best course is to live life in a way that makes “development of your own consciousness as your highest priority”. Good advice.

Early in the article, the author asks “What can we reasonably say does NOT happen after death?” and responds, in part, “First, you can't take it with you. All your physical stuff stays here. Whenever someone dies, we notice that their stuff remains in the physical world. It doesn't suddenly vanish.”

I stumbled over that last part. Here it is again: “Whenever someone dies, we notice that their stuff remains in the physical world. It doesn't suddenly vanish.”

Yes, but isn’t that because we haven’t died, someone else has. And from our perspective, that “someone else” was part of our life, not their life, and so was “their stuff”. Therefore, of course, their stuff remains “in the physical world” – that is, in “my life”. I haven't died.

Here's the question that I think the article's author failed to addess: Are we sure that it necessarily follows that because when “someone else” dies, “their stuff” remains in our experience, when we die our stuff will remain in the experience of others? After all, we do not even really know that there exist any “others” outside of our experience, beyond “my life”, do we?

Think about it. The only proof I have of the existence of everyone and everything in "my life", is in my head, in my experience of it. For all “I” know, when I die, everything disappears; nothing remains anywhere because there is no “thing” and no “where” other than “in my life”.

Or not?

I wonder if there can be such a thing as "life after death" -- if, in fact, there is no such thing as time. "Time" is merely a measure of relationships between objects in space, and ultimately there is (outside of our perception) no such thing as space, or objects in it. "Life after death" could be nothing else than a change in perception, not a change in actual status. And, of course, there is no "stuff" either, so it can neither go with us nor remain.

Borrowing wording from Tim Allen: the universe is not separate from the cosmic sea of energy, the universe is a ripple on the surface, a comparatively small “pattern of excitation” in the midst of an unimaginably vast ocean. Says Bohm, “This excitation pattern is relatively autonomous and gives rise to approximately recurrent, stable and separable projections into a three dimensional explicit order of manifestation.” In other words, our reality. SO: Everything is in reality a manifestation of the cosmic sea of energy, which is not past, present or future, but simply IS. Butterworth offers the same idea as the "recurrent, stable and separable projections" by describing our being as related to the infinite as waves are related to the ocean: God is in us as the ocean is in a wave, and our continuity is not the continuing of a discrete object apart from the oean (God) but is in fact the ocean itself.

I think both Jesus and the Buddha (and all the other Teachers as well) were directing us to abandon the idea of "continuity" in favor of an idea that nothing has stopped or started, but that everything simply IS. "Starting and stopping" are perceptions, and at any moment we could choose to perceive otherwise. This renders the idea of life after death moot. That's what ACIM is telling us when it directs us to affirm that "Above all else I want to see."

That is not to say that transcending perception is easy, or that I have arrived at that point: good grief, no. If I sit on a pin, I still dislike the sensation I fancy I feel. The "world of appearances" thus continues to be "real" for me. But I see the light at the end of the tunnel, albeit the tunnel is still there. And I no longer worry about life after death; too busy now working on altering my own perception to "see" the ocean of which I am a wave.

That should keep me busy for a while...

Namaste
Art

Years ago, I posted this question to the original forum: "What would be, if you "wern't?"

My answer to my own question, was (and still is) nothing...for if I "am not," then, obviously, "nothing" can be (exist) for me, if I "am not," as "not being," I cannot have "awareness," and without "awareness," nothing can exist for me, and if "nothing" exists for me...NOTHING EXISTS! Therefore, I must always BE in order for anything to BE, including YOU!

Art, I liked your post. It is up to your usual high, thought provoking level!

Stefan, I hope you sent your question to Steve!

I'm not following your reasoning here, Ihavesayso. I don't understand how you jump to this conclusion---

if "nothing" exists for me...NOTHING EXISTS!

How can we know what exists when we are not? Nothing existing for me is not the same as nothing existing period. I don't think we can know this, and not being able to prove something exists outside our awareness is not proof that nothing exist. How does it go? The absence of proof is not proof of absence.

jenjulian, this question was my method of determining that Life is a continuum. It is difficult, if not virtually impossible, to imagine yourself as “not being” when you are aware of yourself as an existing, seemingly separate, individual. As an “Awareness,” you observe that when “Others” die, you do not cease to be; therefore, you know that when you die, “Others” do not cease to be either; but, who says that dying is “ceasing to be?” Death is the opposite of birth, not life.

My statement, “What would `be’ if you were not?” requires you to make the assumption that “You” don’t exist...never did, don’t, and never will. As that, that “isn’t,” cannot know that it “isn't,”(much less know that anything else “is,”) if you “were not” (an impossible “condition” because the only thing that “isn’t,” is “is-not-ness”) you would be incapable of knowing you “weren’t,” because there would be no “you” to know that you, or anything else is! Therefore, if you could possibly “not be,” nothing could “be” for you! Let me say it this way...You must be in order for anything to be...You are all there is...There are no others, other than you!

If you break a light bulb, you don’t, by so doing, destroy electricity, or even diminish it. All you have done is deprive electricity of one outlet capable of allowing it to display one function of its nature (light). There are countless numbers of working light bulbs in existence on this earth. One, and only one, electricity, lights them all!

Life is the “electricity” that lights up (animates) human bodies. Life is not something you have, for that implies life is your possession. If that were so, how would you define this “you” that supposedly “owns” life? Life is what you are. The body dies when “Life” decides it is no longer a suitable residence, and departs. Like electricity, life is not destroyed, or diminished, by the body’s disintegration, as life was never an integral part of the body, bodies being only outlets allowing life to function on the physical plane.

And where does “Life” go when it leaves a body? Where does electricity go when it leaves a light bulb? Do either of them go out of existence? Impossible. There is no such place! Electricity continues on its circuit. So does life.

There is only one Life. You are It!

Death is the opposite of birth, not life.

How have I missed this? I think you so correct on this one and wow, what a difference this makes. I also have never heard of the light bulb and electricity example before but it is a great way to look at Life. It kind of fits with thinking of God as a Force.

But, I still don't catch what you're saying. If we don't have awareness then nothing exists. Yes, if awareness is gone, nothing exists anymore for us. But I don't understand how you take this the step further and say, so nothing exists. Are you speaking of us as the ego that isn't true reality or what?
I'm taking cold meds right now, so maybe that is a problem. All the is and isn't's start swimming in my head. I don't know but it is like a bunch of word play to me. I'll read again when I have a clear mind, I guess.

I cannot take credit for being the originator of “Death is the opposite of birth, not life,” J.J. And, I should have followed it with the short statement of fact: “Life has no opposite” as that was part of the quote, when I first read it (don’t ask me where).

Don’t feel badly about “trying to keep track of all the “is’es” and “is not nesses” you may find in discussions of “The Absolute.” Be aware that it is just as easy to become distracted when writing about that subject, as it is when reading about it.

The primary reason you are not following my reasoning that “...nothing `is’ if you `aren’t,’” I think, is that you are taking my use of the word “you” to mean the physical form that you and “others” know as “Jenjulian.” As the one “electricity” lights every bulb, the one “Life” animates every living form and that is what I am referring to as “you” in the statement, “What would be, if you wern’t?”

As it takes all of “electricity” to light one bulb, so does it take all of “Life” to animate one body!

“Whoa,” I hear you saying. “How can this be? If it takes all of “electricity” to light one bulb, how can a bulb half way around the world be shining at the exact same moment mine is?” And “If it takes all of `Life’ to make me function, what’s animating all of the ‘others?’”

Neither electricity nor “Life,” are inert. Light travels around the earth approximately seven times in just one second, tick...tock. At this speed, the human eye is unable to detect between the times it is “here” lighting our bulb, and when it is in the Seychelles Islands (which are located in the Indian Ocean, exactly halfway around the world from California) lighting theirs. Life too, vibrates at such an ultra high speed, it is “everywhere” at once, to us.

If electricity “wasn’t” and had never existed, there would be no light bulbs, nor anything that required electricity to “exist” in order to be operated by it. What would be the point of inventing something unusable? If “Life” “wasn’t” and had never existed, there would be no “You” because “You” are ALL! Therefore, if you are “ALL” and “You” “are not,” nothing is, because there ARE NO "OTHERS!"

This is an impossible condition because if “nothing were,” there would be no place for it “not to be,” nor would there be “anything” to know that it “isn’t!”

Some of what “is” may undergo radical change, but as “...matter can neither be created, or destroyed,” all of what “is” will always “be” in “some way!"

And that includes “You,” because “You” are all that “Is!”

This is great stuff. These are the kinds of issues that the spiritual path is paved with.

If I am understanding correctly, part of, or one aspect of, what we are asking here is the question, Is what I call “my life” all there is to “the world”? Or, to turn jenjulian’s statement into a question, “Is nothing existing for me the same as nothing existing period?”

Every night, as we fall into deep sleep, what happens to “the world”? It’s gone. Completely, absolutely, entirely gone. For all practical purposes, when I fall into deep sleep, “my life” disappears.

To be sure, it resumes the next morning when I awaken.

But here’s the question: Did “my life” continue on its own while “I” slept (that is, was “my deep sleeping” an aspect of “my life” which continued uninterrupted) or did I, on apparent awakening, simply create “my life” from scratch, which included the “history” of having just awakened from sleep?

Sitting here at the computer keyboard writing these words, how do I know that what I call “my life” did not actually start just three seconds ago, and that “my memory” of the preceding decades is simply a fabrication to put “my life” into some kind of context.

Was Hamlet ever born? Did Macbeth have a childhood? We assume so. Why? Because we know them as adults, and so – in our minds – we create the “fact” of their having been born.

Have I just this second created “the fact” of “Stefan” having been born and lived a life which led to this moment at the keyboard?

We have no way of knowing, do we? But do we not – especially as seekers – have to acknowledge that that explanation is every bit as possible as the other, shall we say normal or traditional explanation?

Science tells us that the universe was created umpteem million years ago. Religion tells us it was a few thousand years ago. But what if I created science and religion just a few seconds ago!

That is, what if science and religion (and us) are all simply elements of the "life experience" I just this moment created for "myself-as-Stefan"?

Clearly, the concept "nothing existing for me" depends on the existence of "me", doesn't it? Without "me" who is there even to know whether "there is nothing existing period"?

In a word, all of this consideration is taking place where? In "my life", no? Clearly, what each of us calls "my life" depends for its existence on "the Light", to use ihavesayso's nice metaphor, which is constant. But from the perspective of "me", does "the Light" (the Constant) exist? Where? Do Hamlet and Macbeth know who William Shakespeare is?

I'm not sure I know what all this means, except that once again we come back to the fundamental seeker's question: Who's asking? Is it "me"?

---------------------------------

And now for something totally different, as they used to say on Monty Python (wasn’t it?) - –

ihavesayso posted

I cannot take credit for being the originator of “Death is the opposite of birth, not life,” J.J. And, I should have followed it with the short statement of fact: “Life has no opposite” as that was part of the quote, when I first read it (don’t ask me where).

As it happens, the line appears on the Letters page of The Zoo Fence, as part of a response I wrote to an inquiry eleven years ago way back when TZF was still being published in hard copy. Searching the line on Google comes up with several links, but none that seems to identify the original source definitively. If anyone here knows the original source, please write me or post it here. I dare not say that it originated with me, but normally I try to be pretty good about giving source credit where it is due, and the fact that in the response to the letter I did not, suggests that there was no other source, or at least if there was, I was not aware that there was. All that said, please forgive me, friends, if this chatter sounds like nothing but a bald-faced presentation by egoic-pride. In my defense, please permit me to say that it was the devil, who feasts on my pride, who made me do it.

Anyway, here's the item ---

A letter writer asked TZF: If we are all eternal, as you insist, then how do you explain death?

TZF responded: Quite simply, there is no such thing. Suppose, rather than the question you did send, you had asked, "If we are all fish, how do you explain sandstorms?" Clearly, sandstorms are a menace to some life forms, but of what interest are they to fish? What sandstorms are to fish, death is to an eternal being, and less. Easy to say, of course, but what about all the people, including our loved ones, who die every day? And what about the fact that we ourselves will die in ten, twenty, sixty, or whatever years? The answer to that is, Romeo and Juliet have died thousands, millions, of deaths, and after every one, at the end of the performance, the actors have risen from the stage, and carried on with their lives.

Thus, as we see it, the real question behind your question is, Who dies? Remember, death is the opposite of birth, not of life. Life has no opposite. Therefore, everything that is born, will die. What was never born, will never die. Which are we? Which are you?

The Teachers tell us we were not born, and we cannot die. We can believe them, and live our lives accordingly; or, we can find out for ourselves. Either way, we will eventually realize the Truth. Now, if you should happen to encounter death before then, and find yourself seeming to die, stay alert through the process, and you will notice you haven't!

A quick afterthought –

Nancy and I were talking a few minutes ago about the general subject addressed here, and she reminded me that the ego’s perspective (that is, the perspective of “me”) is a mirror image of what actually IS.

So, whenever the answer to the question "Who’s asking?" which each of us as seekers must always ask ourselves, is “me”, then we had probably better assume that whatever answer “me” comes up with to any question is almost certainly 180 degrees off the mark!

-----

A postscript:

Shortly after posting that, I happened to open ACIM’s Text to a page where I read: “Anything in this world that you believe is good and valuable and worth striving for can hurt you, and will do so not because it has the power to hurt, but just because you have denied it is but an illusion, and made it real.”

Perhps that is what Paul was driving at when he wrote, "Now we see through a glass, darkly, but then, face to face." Our "seeing" is skewed by the context in which it takes place. Science tells us that in the act of "viewing" a molecule through an electon microscope, we substantially change the molecule itself by seeing it. Ergo: there is an interaction inevitably between the seer and the seen ... and it isn't just at the microscopic level. Seeing the molecule also changes us.

Mahayana Buddhism suggests that, to practice Concentration on Nonself, "touch the nature of interbeing in everything you contact." And it tells us that "Mind consciousness continues to observe phenomena after it has been transformed into wisdom, but it observes them in a different way, because mind consciousness is aware of the interbeing nature of all it observes -- seeing the one in the many, all the manifestations of birth and death, coming and going, and so on -- without being caught in ignorance." (from Thich Nhat Hanh).

I understand your question, Stefan, but I can't quite resonate to it: I conceive "continuity" to be an aspect of reality, albeit the "continuity" exists not in the perceived but in the infinite, rather like the 'cello line in the Pachelbel Canon. Inasmuch as I am a wave consisting entirely of ocean, my continuity is in the ocean, and the ocean simply IS; it does not spring into existence "now". I think the oft-repeated doxology of the Mass is true when it describes the "glory of God" in the words, "as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be." In that very fact lies the answer to all the questions about eternal life, reincarnation, pre-existence and eternal hope. "We all come from the goddess, and to her we shall return like a drop of rain flowing to the ocean." The goddess, the ocean, God, the ultimate ground of being, simply IS, and in Her the words "beginning and end" have no content. Mathematics refers to certain data as "functions" of other data, and maybe the term is helpful here: we are "functions" of All That Is. We can define God as "Father/Mother" or as "E=MC2," but either way, we cannot ascribe qualities of "beginning" and "ending" to God. IS simply is.

Ow. I just gave myself a headache.

Namaste
Art

Well, Stefan, I’m not at all surprised I first encountered that quotation in the “Letters to The Zoo Fence” area of its web site. That was one of the first sub-sections of The Zoo Fence that I explored, ever so many years ago, after I found “The Zoo Fence” on the Web (or did it find me?). Further, that you are its author is not surprising either, for you are a wordsmith extraordinary, through whom The Cosmic delights in expressing Its knowledge of Self!

At first, when considering your thought that “...everything ceases to exist when we fall asleep...,” I thought, “Can’t be, because if so, the bed, or whatever surface you were lying upon, would evaporate too, and you would be rudely awakened when you hit the floor, except there wouldn’t be any floor, as that would have “gone” also, as well as the Earth, and the Universe, together with all of its laws.”

At second, it occurred to me, “What would keep your sleeping form intact, allowing it to remain in existence, while all else was “no more?” “Nothing,” came the response from within, “for That which is `Stefaning,’ is also That which is `All Othering,’ Therefore; there is no “Other” than That which is “Stefaning” that can cease to be withiout Stefan ceasing to be also!

Sometime between late October, 2000, and September 2, 2005, there was a very lively thread on the former Zoo Fence Forum, about what if, unknown to us, every manifest form returned to “potential” when not being observed?

I remember stating in that forum, that no matter how fast I turned my swivel chair to view the wall behind me, that separated me from the “outdoors,” I could not catch that wall either dematerializing, or materializing, as it was always “there,” when I swung myself into position to “see” it. I was (and remain) certain that it was always “there,” else I would surely have felt the outdoor air, that would strike my back, if it wasn’t.

Here, I must side with Art, who said that. although he “...understands your question,” Stefan, he “...cannot relate to it.” I agree with Art here, because while appearances can be deceiving, as long as we must contend with conditions as they seem to be in our actuality, even if our actuality is an illusion, it matters not what those conditions may be in reality! The dream is real to the characters in it. If they don’t know the dream’s laws, or if they do know, and flout them, they must reap the consequences!

And now, to return to my original post on this thread, “What would be, if you weren’t?” Here is a thought of Mike Dooley’s (Totally Unique Thoughts http://www.tut.com) at page 142 of “Notes From The Universe,” book one:

“What if there was only you, and the rest of the world was `make believe, ’imagination’? If even the people in your life were drawn there, or faded away, based upon your thoughts.

Would it then be easier for you to grasp the true meaning of limitless? Would you then believe, that you alone make your reality?

Dearest, the rest of the world, is `make believe,’ imagination. And all the people in your life are there, or fade away, based upon your thoughts.

WOW...that was easy.

Tallyho, Limitless.”

Looking closely at the “avatar” I chose to represent how I felt The Cosmic wants to express through me on this forum, I recemtly noticed, that the cord dangling from the hilt of the electric drill, has no plug with which to connect to a power source.

This particular symbol appealed to me, because I pictured my remarks at all times as, “boring into the heart of the matter, piercing through and casting aside, all `fluff’ and immaterialalities,” in other's posts. Now, seeing as my familiar is not connected to The Power Source, does it mean that my posts are to be discarded as meaningless, at best, or falsehoods, at worse?

To answer my own question I must say, “No, because I am NOT my avatar. My responses do not come from an image of a powerless electric drill. They emanate from “That that IS,” as “That that IS” experiences “What it IS” as “ihavesayso!”

To borrow an expression of Stefan's, "How could it be otherwise?"

Okay, I asked: How do I know that I (never mind I who?) did not just this instant create “Stefan”, which phenomenon includes “Stefan’s memory”, so that as Stefan sits here at the keyboard, for all the world it seems to “me” that “I” have been “alive” for decades, when in Fact “Stefan” has been “here” only an instant?

My answer was: I don’t see how I can know with any certainty, because the “I” who would know is the “me” who is (seems to be) an aspect of the question itself. As I suggested, it’s like asking Macbeth “When were you born?”

To this, Hap wrote,

I remember stating in TZF’s former forum that no matter how fast I turned my swivel chair to view the wall behind me, I could not catch that wall either dematerializing or materializing, as it was always “there,” when I swung myself into position to “see” it. I was (and remain) certain that it was always “there”.

I remember (!) when you wrote that. And I remember thinking then that “no matter how fast I turned my swivel chair to view the wall behind me, I could not catch that wall either dematerializing or materializing” didn’t really disarm the question, because when you compare the speed of thought, never mind the speed of light, to “no matter how fast I turned my swivel chair”, you have to agree that the latter comes up slow as a tortoise! At light speed, whole universes could be created in the time it takes to turn a swivel chair … not to mention the time it takes us to recognize, cognize, and otherwise harvest whatever our eyes and ears encounter as we turn our swivel chairs.

Besides, the process of deciding to turn my swivel chair includes the process of determining what I am going to perceive on the other side of the room, doesn’t it? Following Mike Dooley’s premise at the TUT site (for which link, Hap, thanks! You sure do find good sites.) that “thoughts become things”, when we swivel the chair, we presuppose that the wall will be there; but what if before we swiveled the chair, we determined that the wall would not be there? What then?

This raises the question, Is the thought of "me" and "my life" divisible? Is it susceptible to "mix and match" or, in the jargon of the day, "cherry picking"? Maybe the single thought "me" includes everything from "my birth" to "my death", including "there will always be a wall behind a swivel chair". That is, is there a sign on the wall that reads "No alterations allowed"?

But I digress. Art wrote, “I understand your question, but I can't quite resonate to it”.

Now, doesn't that sentence really say “Art understands Stefan’s question, but Art can’t quite resonate to it”? The point here is that, of course “Art” can’t resonate to it. Neither can “Stefan”, any more than Macbeth can. Art and Stefan (and Macbeth) cannot “step outside” the question, which action is necessary in order to answer it. That is, the answer to the question is “outside” the world of the question. A chick still inside its egg cannot relate to what is outside the shell, can it? It doesn’t even know there is “an outside the shell” until it grows the egg tooth and starts pecking!

Maybe that's the best we can do, peck at the shell!

(I love the symbolism in the egg tooth, sometimes called egg beak. It does not grow until the chick inside the shell is ready to come out, it serves only the one purpose: to break or tear the shell, and it falls off when its function is complete, and the chick is free.)

Two quotes following, taken from earlier posts on this thread have prompted me to add my own contribution, and perhaps muddy the picture a bit?:

“Shortly after posting that, I happened to open ACIM’s Text to a page where I read: “Anything in this world that you believe is good and valuable and worth striving for can hurt you, and will do so not because it has the power to hurt, but just because you have denied it is but an illusion, and made it real.”

“What if there was only you, and the rest of the world was `make believe, ’imagination’? If even the people in your life were drawn there, or faded away, based upon your thoughts.

Would it then be easier for you to grasp the true meaning of limitless? Would you then believe, that you alone make your reality?

Dearest, the rest of the world, is `make believe,’ imagination. And all the people in your life are there, or fade away, based upon your thoughts.”

These two points suggest to me that the issue is not so much whether we deny the illusion, or whether the world is or is not an illusion. Instead, so long as we consider our consciousness and mind, which weaves the “illusional world”, or the “real world” for that matter, to be who we are, then no matter what we consider to be an illusion or not, will still “harm us”, or contain us in that mode of limited consciousness which allows us to be harmed. The issue is always who speaks, whose concepts do we consider to be “ours”, the “me” in the concept. And of course, in a conceptual world, which is what the world is to the individual human perceptor, and how the mind translates it, to consider, or to conceive of oneself as such and such, is in itself an obstruction to escaping that very conceptual vise that limits us in the first place.

Limitlessness cannot be embraced by a limited consciousness, no matter how hard it tries. Limited consciousness is what we, as body/minds, conceive ourselves to be. And limited consciousness, by its very necessity, creates concepts by virtue of its limitations, and therefore persistently maintains its limited position. Indeed, that is an alternate description of ego-centric consciousness, because body/mind implies limitation.

There is, to my way of understanding, no way that limited consciousness can safely, and accurately, state that it is God, or that it is the creator of the universe. Indeed, to so state in that position is to be megalomania, or to assert an aggrandizement of ego-centricity. We can, therefore, only infer, from those statements made by “those” who reside in unlimited consciousness, what it might be to also be in that state, but we cannot state it to be so, until we are in that state as well. Of course, “those” who so state, are not in fact “those”, but are instead unobstructed conduits of unlimited consciousness, which, interestingly enough, we, as “separated individuals” persist in limiting to bodies and minds, with names and individual identities.

On second thought, let me put it another way:

To assert that one is the creator, of a real or unreal universe, is to engage in magical thinking, and may, or may not, result in successful transformation of one's world.

To retire from assertions of any kind, to find oneself in a position where the mind no longer persists in assertions, is to actually become one's world, and all other words, by virtue of release of the mind's conceptual activities. The transformation of the world occurs, then, by means of the innate order of the universe, but may transform in directions which we never anticipated, or considered.