The Departed

Awkward question, but does anybody ever wonder what happens after death? I'm not a strong believer in religion unfortunately, I kinda lost faith throughout my years. A good friend of mine passed away recently, and I'm not sad because I do believe in after life, but what do you guys think it's like?

p.s. don't meant to sound emotional, It was just on my mind and I'm a really happy person, but I felt I wanted to ask you guys your opinion.

Man, sorry to hear about your friend. I personally believe that there is an afterlife, too, but I also believe that there really isn't a way to know for sure what it's like as long as you are here among the living. I'm fine with not knowing ... we spend our entire lives trying to figure as much out as we can about this place and why we're here that I think that it's humbling and reassuring to know that no matter how much we learn, there will always be a surprise at the end.

I think not being able to tell what comes after this actually helps with everything that you chose to do now. All we can really plan on is doing the best we can with what we've got, facing every challenge that we get head on because we really don't know what is going to become of our efforts. I dunno. Pretty cheesy, but overall, that's how I feel.

That's really a good way to put it, thanks pure. Today I was hanging out with a buddy of mine and it was raining and five minutes later the entire city was clear with a halo of clouds surrounding the city, this sounds cheesy also, but it was reassuring.

Theres a pretty cool book called 'Life After Death' by Deepak Chopra. He kind of explains his theories through the Buddhist view of what happens after you die.

Although I'm not Buddhist, after reading the book, what they believe makes a lot of sense in the scientific way too.

The Law of Conservation states that the total energy in a closed system remains constant. The form of energy may change from potential to kenetic to thermal energy but it always remains constant. For example, energy is stored in a match as potential energy. Upon striking, the match ignites converting the stored potential energy to light energy, and heat energy.

Now Imagine the universe as a closed system. Sounds ridiculous because its so big but in theory, it is one. All energy in this system must then remain constant. Each living thing has a life energy. The brain fire electrical signals to operate. When any living thing dies, for the most part, it's body will look exactly like it did while it was alive yet something obviously has changed. No longer are electrical signals fired off in the brain. This life energy either transformed into something else, or moved on to a different part of the system.

The big question for humans has always been, "where do we go after we die?" Do we just go 10 feet under? Do we go to Heaven or Hell? Do we come back as a bug through reincarnation?

Chopra's explanation is that our experiences after we die, are totally controlled by our beliefs. The soul or this life energy has the power to say where it is headed after death. Therefore a devout Christian who lived their life according to God will then obviously ascend to heaven, and only see what he/she considers good Christians there. Thus proving that his religion was correct. At the same time immediately after car bombing an American convoy, a muslim in the middle east is greeted with 72 virgins thus proving his religion to be correct.

Spiritual truth is all relative and to each believer his/hers is correct.

The concept of Heaven is also an interesting one, as inherently if something is perfect, it is therefore imperfect. All innovation, is driven by the desire to make things better. If a soul has nothing to strive for, then what is the point of existing? In Buddhism, the ultimate goal is to become one with the universe. They believe in reincarnation as seasoning for the soul. Each and every experience you have in this life was put there to provide forward progress for your soul to the ultimate goal of spiritual enlightenment.

Thats how Buddhists explain why crappy things sometimes happen to good people. It's what the soul needed at exactly that time.

So I don't know if I'll ever find out what really happens after I die. If my mind is responsible for creating my experiences then there really isn't one absolute truth. There are billions of absolute truths one for every person in this world. So who can say who is more "right" than the other?

that would be real nice, i watched a movie similar to that scenario with Robin Williams and Cuba Gooden Jr.

I think when I die I'm going to walk into a bright area with a smile on my face, with the peace we've all been looking for.