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Every single moment of your life, every step that you take, you are given opportunities to choose, to decide, to create yourself and create your life. And since death is simply a transition from one state to another, even upon the death of your body, are you afforded yet more opportunities to choose. So I wish to address a question that has been popping up on my radar quite a bit of late. There seems to be some confusion about this. What do I do after I die? Do I go into the light or do I not? And if I don’t go into the light, where do I go? There is a perspective that the light it leads you back to the karmic wheel of reincarnation. And this is not a groundless area of concern! As I understand it, one of the disciplines Tibetan Buddhists attend to those who are in the process of dying. Really, what this is about is offering the dying some detailed instruction and reminder of what to do - and what not to do - after leaving this mortal form. The Tibetans believe that one can make poor choices after dying. Choices that result in undesirable experiences. They believe one can get lost or stuck. I don't disagree. I don't find the situation to be terribly troubling though, as I know there is always help. But that said, in response to my becoming aware of this question, I have sought some answers. And I'd like to share with you what I have found in this regard so that you might check this with your own truth and decide for yourself. So here is what happens when your body dies: Firstly, you will find that you are still alive. You will find that you still have a body, very like the one that died, except that it is not dense like your old body. It’s an energy pattern that you are still holding onto. For most of us there will be a moment of adjustment and then, as you let go of this world and accept your transitioning, the human world will begin to fade away until you find yourself standing in a calm stillness. It will become dark and peaceful. And then you will be offered a rescue. A salvation. A light will shine down upon you from above. If you step into the light, you will feel the tug of love and healing. A balm for your soul. You will hear heavenly music and it will invite you upwards into its embrace. Now, allow me to say that there is nothing wrong with accepting this offer. But every choice in spirit space is deeply symbolic. And this choice is no different. Choosing to go up into this beam of light that shines from above is a choice to seek what is true, divine and holy both outside of yourself and above yourself. It is a dualistic choice. And what will come from such a choice will be dualistic experiences. And if that is what you want, then that’s perfectly fine. You can go to heaven that way, meet your savior and whatever else lies in that direction for you. And then, when you have rested in heaven and healed your wounds, you will come to the awareness that you want to return again to incarnation and do more work on your soul's growth. That’s what happens when we remain in duality consciousness. The second option, the choice not to go into the light but remain instead in the darkness is not a great option. This darkness is not an unpleasant place. It’s just a non-place. A place of perfect external stillness. Those who find themselves there, find their minds beginning to create experiences for them. If you have ever experienced the sensory deprivation of a flotation chamber you’ll know how this works. When there is nothing for your mind to busy itself with, it begins to create. It’s a bit like dreaming. And that is exactly what happens to you if you remain in the darkness. You are actually in the astral realms. You see all kinds of dreamscapes. You encounter all kinds of phantasms. You meet other dreaming souls. It can, in its own way, be both fun and interesting. But then too, if you have many unresolved fears you might experience this to be quite hellish. When an undisciplined mind begins to play upon itself it can produce some very unpleasant experiences. So, unless you know what you are doing, I wouldn’t recommend choosing to remain in the darkness. So where DO you go if you are busy transcending duality consciousness? The answer here is to look to the source of your own truth. Look to the same place from which you connect with the divine, eternal indwelling spirit. Look to the same place from which love comes. I refer, of course, to your own heart. Look to the place where you feel your heart to be. Look inwards for the light of oneness that shines from the center of your being. Now, this is not some clever trick that you can use to circumvent your own growth. Those who are still of duality consciousness will probably not believe a word of what I am saying. But even if they did, they would not see this light within. I remember when I was still very much of duality consciousness. I remember that there was nothing in my heart. It was too blocked for me to feel anything there. It was with my first awakening to unity consciousness that my inner most Heart Chakra opened. So there is no trick here. If you are of unity consciousness, you will probably look to your own heart anyway. This message from me is just a kind of gentle and loving reminder to do so. If you are of duality consciousness you will probably look up to the light to be rescued. And that will be right for you too. But if you are ready and if you do look within you will find the most radiant, most pure blazing light shining from your own center and you will be able to move towards this light. And then into the light. And as you do so, you will see, sense and know many magnificent things. You will know, for example, that this life of yours has all been your creation. You will know that this person you have been has been your creation. You will know, finally, that you are the creator of all that you have experienced. Answers will arrive in the same instant as questions arrive. You will know. And then from this place of pure, still being, you will be able to choose where next you will go and what next you will do. And this will be the most perfect, divine, right choice for you. Greg

Do you want honesty or philosophy? I prefer honesty, which is that nobody knows what happens after death. Eastern philosophies favor reincarnation and ultimate reintegration, but that is just another belief. The only reliable truth is directly realized, and being free from conceptualization, there are no beliefs associated with it. Ultimate reality simply is, and life/death is the story we tell ourselves. Near death experiences are about as close as you will get to understanding relative reality, and they suggest temporal continuity, in some form. I find "Return from Tomorrow" by George Ritchie to be more credible than most, and also love this:

The only theory about reincarnation that I read and it seemed possible to me is that no one really reincarnates since we are all basically the same, what happens is that a being that exists is basically a form or an energetic pattern that delimits the being, nothingness ,what it is, or whatever you want to call it. when that pattern disappears in some way it remains in the general memory (if such a thing exists) and, with the tendency of existence to evolve, that pattern reappears, to continue evolving. this is as believable or incredible as anything else, but it sounds logical to me. It is not that you are going to reincarnate, since you are basically the existence, it is that your ego, or the energetic pattern , which has been evolving for a long time, will continue to do so. so here we are working for the evolution of ourselves

I just look at it as karmic lessons they need to learn. If they end up in prison it's probably for a reason. I take the reincarnation approach to looking at a lot of these things though, one reason I'm not so hell bent on trying to save everyone from everything. Hardship exists for a reason. Hardship is a learning tool. I've heard it said that communist governments are so bad because they prevent spiritual growth, because they take away incentive for people to make mistakes and learn from them, by having their hand held from cradle to grave by a government that over-regulates their lives. My goal in this life is to undo as much karma (past life or otherwise) as possible via forgiveness and radical acceptance, summarized neatly on such sites as "cfenlightenment.org" As for pedophiles I firmly believe it's wired into some men's DNA (and women's) to be attracted to minors right down to the age of puberty. If you ever research the subject you'll know that 12 year old girls are perfectly capable of bringing a child to term, and we used to marry at age 15-16 in the US back in the 1800's, and for most of our evolution, right around puberty. It's only cultural mores that make it unacceptable now. All the past empires... Romans, Egyptions, Aztecs, Vikings, etc... it was 25 year old men marrying 12-15 year old girls. Sometimes the men were much older. Boys were taken off to learn combat at age 7-8. I believe in the rule "When in Rome" so I think it's a mistake to exercise these urges, nonetheless I'm lead to believe by the study of evolution and past cultures that these attractions exist in many individuals. Also just talking to women... the stories of the crushes they had when they were really young... That said it's best to not partake in any activity that will add more negative karma that will have to be undone in future lives... and is it worth prison time for sexual urges? Certainly not.

Then what makes you anything but a reincarnation of Shiva? Your belief surrounding it. I had to accept that I was an incarnation of this being and then surrender my entire Being to the guidance of this being while encompassed in crown chakra bliss (I prefer Holy Spirit as a term for this, but it’s not very active here) to experience my deepest awakening. I gave the most intense form of Bhakti in that moment.

Table . Miss Piggy's school Ethereal lover Vxs . The state of Zen . Finishing goals. The joy of finishing . Consolidation . Reincarnation of an Ancient Roman Woman . Hypnotica . Positive self affirmations Creating a positive space The Brain . A peaceful sweet secure home . Being grateful for life . Take away negativity . Robots - develop a robot character Character Rory . Dash of lemon - learn to criticize .set of female characters . Those were the days . Nature is always going to look after you . Moon and mother earth . Self talk . Biochemical feedback . Developing a healthy ego . Personal power . Old Hindi songs . Old vintage Classic Bollywood . Behemoth . Aaaak(ancient soul journal) . Mangancean city . The Eggs . Aferadeis . Patumba Machiavellian behavior . Morning routines Evening routines . Developing a support network . Developing supportive characters Developing supportive community Developing supportive relationships The village tribal girl character... Her name is Zulba

I'm the reincarnation of an ancient Roman. Yes Roman life was difficult.

There are different orders of reality and yes, subtle-body is the inner transmigrating "apparent" body if you will, according to Vedanta. From one order of reality every thing is all consciousness, end of story, we can all hang up our spiritual hats, boom...done! But, from another order of reality we have the "apparent" world with people, animals, maybe an afterlife and reincarnation! ? ...and all of it, no matter how you think it sounds is nothing but consciousness really, as it is made of consciousness, within and permeated by consciousness, but Vedanta picks it all apart for discrimination purposes. I was pointing you to the correct terminology, according to Advaita Vedanta. If you want to explore it, so be it, if not, that's fine too.

You're already in a non-physical plane, this is no more solid that your last night dream, except now you believe everything around you is made of something you call matter and that is definitely not made up by your mind, but it is. God is everything you experience right now, and no individual self is experiencing anything, the individual self is an experience too. There is no ego that can die, it's a figment of your imagination, an experience you create out of thin air right now, something you imagine as God. So there is no contradiction really, those people just recall what they imagined (as God) after "death", which is just more experience. What Leo says is that to merge with God you have to see through the fiction of "death" and see that you're not a human being, that it's just an experience inside you (God). So in a sense, the death of the body, is the same as the death of the self (what you think is you), cause when you lose the body, you lose the object of identification you used to be attached, and if you believe in reincarnation, that you have an individual soul, then you can go on and imagine there is a you in an another body or animal or whatever. Basically, if you want to understand this intuitively, just start to think that everything you experience, whether it is a dream, "real" life or the "hallucinations" of a psychedelic, that they are all happening inside an infinite mind, capable of imagining whatever it want, even that it's a human being extremely limited in what he can do, in a vast world with other people. It's all imagined by you (as God). Just be careful as to say that then nothing is real, that will just add unnecessary suffering and depression, that's just a human projection, cause you can't say that something is real or unreal, cause there need something to be real (materially speaking) for that distinction to be even possible. There isn't, nothing is material, materiality is a thing you imagine too. Same thing with aloneness, you can't be alone if there never was something else than you, that's another human projection. /!\ Don' t harm the body, you don't need to "die" to realize what's true /!\

Only if you believe in those things. Reincarnation is not understood by most Buddhists. Reincarnation is not a specific individual soul reincarnating, it's God incarnating in an another experience, which there is an infinite number of. And by that it also means you right now as God identifying again (reincarnating) every moment with Machiavelli. That's a materialistic view you have on reincarnation, there is no individual soul to reincarnate in anything, because those only exist if you believe in them. So yes it's important, as long as you hold it as important. Do you want those ideas to be important ? Seems like limiting your capacity to be happy and fully yourself in your life from my point of view.

@The0Self But reincarnation is proved to be true. There are some documented cases of people across the world where people can remember their past lifes on earth. Some claim that they were born on other planets light years far from us. The whole notion of atma triggers duality . As soon as soul/atman exist then it implies it exist separate from body and is located somewhere in body. Otherwise what is that leaves the body during death of physical body? If soul exist then it means that whole notion of our body is Mind or consciousness is wrong. And we cant have influence on our body. As body and soul are different.

Sure, there is no reincarnation. Absolutely. But there also aren't people... If there is an apparent experience of people as real, don't overlook the possibility of an apparent experience of reincarnation as real.

@Dodo Their has been a debate going on for a long time. Buddhist believe there is no individualized self, even though many posit that there is reincarnation. They offer no explanation as to what is being reincarnated. Vedanta believes that the self is not what you think it is but there is an individualized self called the Atman. What happens to the Atman when we die is debated within Vedanta. Whats your view on reincarnation then? What is being reincarnated again and again if there is no soul? I still is not satisfied with explanation of soul. I can see everybody is giving different answers like they are clueless. If soul is inside the body than its changes the whole meaning of " OUR WHOLE BODY IS MIND/ CONSCIOUSNESS " thing. That means soul is different from consciousness. Why are people able to retain experience of their own personality after dying during their NDE if ego dissolves after death. Leo teaches that ego dissolves at the time of death. But NDEr's say something different. They say they have their memories intact and their individuality and ego. Which is contradiction to teachings of LEO. How could it be possible ego is surviving after death?

@Mh1781 Consider the possibility that this journey is training you to become GOD, to create your own universe, and due to the difficulties faced at various degrees by 7 billion people, that that is why reincarnation is for, for those who need more training. Food for thought.

No that's a subjective term used to define something in the apparent physical world. Reincarnation on the other hand is actually made impossible by this. If there is no separated little chunk of consciousness that you have ownership over, there is nothing to reincarnate or return to the "whole". What is there to reincarnate? It's not even overthinking or a trick question. Literally WHAT reincarnates? There's nothing to reincarnate. Reincarnation requires there is some aspect special to you to work.

@Tim R Right, so ideas like reincarnation must be false? If there are no individual pockets of consciousness belonging to us (foam on a tide, bubbles in a stream, etc), there is no special me-consciousness to come back. It is only one gigantic "mind" brimming with infinite thoughts. What then do you suppose is death like? As you said we sense there is division by illusion. There does exist an "experience of me". What is it like for the characters in a dream when the dream ends? What is it like for us when we end? Many deep altered states allow the person's brain function to remain online (which is how a person can store a memory of the experience)... We won't experience going back to the source because it is already whole and undivided... The relative experience of it sounds as though it might be like the Atheist proposition.

This is a common misconception. It is actually possible to become so conscious that reincarnation itself is seen to be imaginary. So you transcend even reincarnation. So it very much is possible to understand such things. It's not belief or speculation. You can realize it directly.

I don't think reincarnation should have a place in nondual teachings. To have knowledge of whether or not such a thing happens someone has to go beyond the point of no return... And then they can't come back and tell anyone what happens... I've always felt that karma is a way nondual religions have found to inject Western ideas of good and bad etc onto nonduality. It is total speculation. I feel sure both forms of death would be equivalent... Upon death none of self remains at ALLLLL. And also in mystical states, there is no such thing anymore... What happens when you remove everything "monk" about a monk and everything "Hitler" about "Hitler"? What is left is indistinguishable. It is pure consciousness. How a person gets "there" to me does not seem like it would or even could matter. Conversely, to abandon your life is ignoring relative experience. There is a good reason people actually buy and watch movies. Everyone knows they are actors etc. it does not stop us from enjoying them and getting lost in them as though they were real. So why not life? This is a movie for us to enjoy, but in first person view.

i dont think that reincarnation is even matters , suicide is just not a conscious thing, it is animalistic fueled by anger and fear

Reincarnation only makes sense if you believe the story surrounding it. For example in Buddhism, there is no self or soul that gets reborn; its only karma that binds your habitual tendencies that gets passed down life after life. You now, is not the you of the past because there is no soul, but the you of now has the inherited karma of the phenomena of you of the past. If you believe this, I do, then reincarnation makes sense. If you don't have the background knowledgr of karma, it's workings, and it's part in reincarnation then the theory unravels. That's why people are so confused about the process of reincarnation, they don't have the complete theory and rules encompassing the phenomena, only a part here and a part there so they come to conclusions like no it's not real it's just a mind construct or other.

Well, since any exclusive positive claim is necessarily false, I cannot say reincarnation is real. It's like anything else: it may appear to happen. The Law of One / Ra Material (quite legit channeled work) provides some info on the technicalities of reincarnation (and metaphysics in general). If you haven't checked it out, I highly recommend it: https://www.lawofone.info/sessions.php Aaron Abke has an amazing series on the Ra Material if you're new to it. Very highly recommend it: Relative is absolute. The absolute appears as the relative.

I think god realization happens when you push your awareness upwards high enough through self-inquiry. That's what psychedelics do. They unleash lots of energy from the body reservoirs temporarely and that blows their awareness upwards because energy and awareness go together. Like a lightbulp, more voltage you put in brighter it shines. Psychedelics are like overcloking your system 100x temporarely. This doesn't mean you dissolved your ego. You only created huge distance between ego and awareness. That gives you a god realization. What vippasana does is a bit different. They are not focused on creating the distance between ego and awareness. They are interested in dissolving ego. That's why they focus on the body because the location of the ego is in throughout the entire body-system. To fully obliterate the ego, every particle in the body has to become pure energy, no solidity can be left. Their logic is that the less ego you have the higher your vibration and awareness will naturally be because ego is what pulls the awareness down into a shape. So at a certain point when you reach full no-ego state it should be the peak of awareness a human being is capable of because there's nothing pulling him down except the physical body that has its own tax on consciousness. Vippasana and ego dissolution is a longer path with interesting cessation stages. Distancing yourself from ego is a another way and can be done in many ways like psychedelics or self inquiry for example but it doesn't dissolve the ego so much so you still have to go through the process of dissolution anyways to become free from suffering and end the reincarnation cycles. To reach a permenant state of awareness or a primordial sense of being one has to push his energies beyond a certain point of intensity and that's it. That comes with the evolution of soul/energy body. Either you do it with self-inquiry or vipassana, both ways you are bound to reach a point where when you sit your entire body vibrates with energy, then you reach an effortless acid state of permenant present moment awareness. Psychedelics give you a glimpse of this intense energy but it has a cost of draining the soul/energy body. Psychedelics can be used occasionally to open up certain possibilities and channels in human consciousness but overusing them will result in backwards growth. Ideally you want to cultivate energy into a higher and higher states with spiritual practices not drain it by recklessly abusing substances. Even if you do self-inquiry or vipassana in about 1-2years of daily practice a person would start feeling subtle energy vibrating in the body usually in the belly. This energy then intensifies and spreads across the body with practice. Depends on how intense your vibration is, that intense your awareness and evolution is. Interesting topic. I don't know how much truth there is in what I wrote. But these are nice thoughts for pondering I think Nice to see a legend here ? @Being Frank Yang

What happens when you die? This is a question that I'm sure we've all pondered since learning about death from a young age. To a religious fundamentalist, life is a test to determine if you go to heaven or hell. To a skeptic, when our brain stops working we go to oblivion forever. For those who are more spiritual, reincarnation is a viable explanation. I give a few examples of past life and near death experiences, as well as The Tibetan Book of the Dead to find out what happens when we die.

Your understanding of death will deepen as your consciousness deepens. At first you will start to open up to reincarnation and stuff like that. But if you become ridiculously conscious you will realize that even reincarnation and past lives is imaginary stuff.

That would seem to be a different level of abstraction. Reincarnation is relatively more actual (alterations not accessible by individual imagination) than that. Of course there are no past lives, ultimately. Reincarnation merely seems to happen. It's a dream (to consider it ultimate reality).