Heaven, hell, Elysium- where would you like to go?

_Z_

_Z_

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Heaven, hell, Elysium- where would you like to go?:)

Lets imagine that we had the choice of where we wanted to go after death!

Where would you like to go & why?

If you could make up a place and it simply came into being – what would it be?



Last night I was thinking hmm, a world of pubs and massive gardens with as many babes as one could wish for – keep me happy for some time! But I was drunk :p and would soon grow tired of it, but hey what if we could have a multi-realmed eternity/Elysium, with every variety & even a nirvana ‘space’ for chillin out!


freedom is comparative! if you give everyone freedom would that be heaven or hell? or would heaven be your freedom?

Any ideas people?



Z
 
My Religious Studies teacher used to say that Hell was just eternal life without ever meeting God face to face. If that's true then I would like to go there.

I would like to spend eternity in some trancendent, spiritual realm, but if there is a god, I don't like him and I dont want to talk to him. Unfortunately I think if there is a god in the monotheistic religions' style, hell would be a far more unpleasant place.

I suppose the ideal place to go for me would be back to earth for another go around to try to reach enlightenment.
 
Awaiting the fifth. hi.

You don’t like god? I have felt like that before but then that was because I didn’t have the understanding I do now – easy to say I know & perhaps can be seen as a cop out.

Anyways hell is for fallen angels, but that could be interpreted as beings that don’t wish the follow gods way. A Satanist I met once said “who wants to dance around in the buttercups giving each other big wet kisses on the bottom” :p which I thought was funny and saw what he meant. Perhaps eternity is a place where we can do what we want, and hell is just the lower end – so to say – but what of all the regions in between [if there are boundaries at all!?], they are where most of us would perhaps feel at home.

As for coming back here, well if I do then I to will hate god as this world sucks big time! But the ancient Egyptian idea of Elysium sounds cool, kinda like earth without death, diseases and general unpleasantries that occur down here.

Enlightenment; is perhaps relative, what one would consider it to be, another would not. Personally nirvana whilst being peaceful etc. would also take away most of the things & people I care about – I like to fall in love and meet new interesting people etc. just imagine if eternity holds all of histories greats - would you not want to meet them?



Z
 
If G-d is the very embodiment of love, I surely want to be there. I believe I have felt G-d's presence at various times in my life, when I've been up, and when I've been down. It comes to me like an insurance that G-d is there and cares for me and the circumstances of my life. I have seen the power of prayer work, not just in some intervening fashion, which has happened at times, but also in the change of attitudes and desires of my own life that has caused me to be more caring for others and closer to the ideal tha G-d wants me to be. Sometimes people who I have had conflict with I've prayed for and seen subtle changes in their attitude as well.

My idea of heaven is that these qualities and ideals will carry over to the next life and enable us to learn to love each other as we fully realize G-d's love for us. Having said that, I think that all the physical and emotional experiences in life that we carry over will continue to see growth expontentally as we are freed from the physical limitation of our dying bodies. In the spiritual realm, our senses will be greatly enhanced. We will see colors we've never seen before. Music that is indescribable. Warmth and love we have never experienced before. I would even venture to believe that we would experience something greater than even the best physical orgasm we've had in this life. :D

On the other hand, if we have an evil, hateful, malicoius heart in this life, that does not know the love of G-d, this will also carry over and become the hell to that person. Not that I think that G-d is in the business of sending people to hell, but that a lack of G-d's love will produce an adverse experience to those people who's selfish egos have overtaken them. And that the evil they have harbored in this life will be magnified in the next. But let me be clear, however, that the love of G-d does not require a belief in G-d. if you can't believe in G-d, for whatever reason, yet you have a heart for people and desire to help and love people unselfishly, I think that will carry over as well in the next life. You will have demonstrated the love of the G-d that you don't believe in, at least in my perspective.

They say you can't take it with you, but I think in a manner of speaking you can. :)
 
Dondi, hi.

Another colour other than the seven we have, how impossible to imagine is that! Yes I see where you are going with the enhancements, I would expect things like making love would loose there crass quality and rise to a higher emotive level. After some time it may be so that such a union is formed - both personal and universal – that we shall not need to make love. Having said this, I rather like the interaction of meeting new people and falling in love, if one was already there then eventually everything would grow dull. Perhaps there is always [I hope] some element of duality that there is always the new!

I see what you mean about magnification of evil, as above with love it would become its own extreme. Funny how Egyptian statues of gods are straight faced, neither happy nor sad just balanced [perhaps a little smiley] in accordance to the feather of maat [mahat – spiritual balance].





Z
 
I want to go to a reality entirely unlike this one, in a pleasant way, but not pleasant as perceived through the sense as we know them, because that would be like this one, and certainly nothing imaginable either, because all of our imagining uses the vocabulary of our experiences, and this would have to go beyond all of that, wayyyyy beyond.

Dauer
 
Sapon,

Would nirvana [if that’s what you meant by nowhere] not also become boring? That is if you were of such a nature that you could perceive or sense the quality of boredom. But from an external perspective it seams somewhat dull. Eternity, from what I could see is not a place where one is continually reborn! Just a place of contentment and a certain unity. Having said this, it is ‘logical’ that all ‘colour’ [manifestation] should eventually evaporate thence one becomes as the true spirit – free - [Druidry] or enters nirvana.



Dauer, hello!

Complete difference! Hmm how refreshing that would be – nice idea - my mind is on fire with that one. :)

now try discribing such a place? fun eh! :p


Z
 
_Z_ said:
Another colour other than the seven we have, how impossible to imagine is that!
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My idea about music, colors, and sex has to do with the limits of human perception. This body we have has limitations, and we are bound to it as long as we are alive. Once we are free of it, there are endless possibilities. As dogs can hear pitches too high for the human ear to hear, so too will our ability to hear a wider range and depth of sounds.
 
I like living, so I wouldn't mind being incarnated again. This world has a suffering, but at least it's an interesting place, and I've found lots of joy here too, so I if I return here, I won't be entirely disappointed.

I'd prefer someplace that is closer to my vision of a world that "fits" me, though. Someplace with more deep forests, someplace where we get to do more co-creation and physical reality isn't quite so immutable. Someplace I'd be able to be more of who I am in spirit- more wild, more free. Not necessarily less responsibility, just different responsibility. My soul longs to wander in the mountains and tend to nature, but this world unfortunately demands an awful lot of time spent on things like grocery shopping, commuting to work, and such. I often long for a place more filled with the magic of experiencing life, in which people are more vibrant and less concerned with themselves... and in which there is a deep resonance of all with the Divine. Not necessarily a perfect world, or an easy world... but a very beautiful one. One in which we all could wander through the woods freely, dance in the starlight, care for one another without hatred and ignorance and violence, create myths around the fire, speak with deep kinship to animals and trees, create art in all we do and live as one with the Song of Creation. Not an unchanging world, or a world without work, or even a world without pain. But a world of freedom and beauty and passion. I guess I long for a place I could be more of myself and belong more with others, without the constant grief I feel at what we do to our earth and each other here and now.

I guess that'd be my "heaven." I have never wanted streets paved in gold, or mansions, or anything like that. I wouldn't mind such a place not being eternal, and I don't mind my own mortality. I like the excitement of having a timeline, though I wish it were quite a bit longer to allow me to experience more of this life, this world, the people around me. But I don't mind death, and if I'm right about myself, I'll just be reborn somewhere/time else anyway.

Nirvana always sounded peaceful, but not very exciting. I think, at least for now, I'd prefer just going 'round and 'round some more. I have far more I want to experience in this lifetime than I can possibly cram in.

As for the popular conceptions of heaven and hell- I don't buy into either one. I think the idea of paridisical or horrific realities is separate from the idea of union with or separation from the Divine. I have moments of heaven on earth, if heaven is union with the Divine/God. I do think that when I am freed from my bodily limitations, I'll be able to experience even further a union with God, but then my idea of God is not very anthropomorphic. I see heaven and hell more as states of being or consciousness- how much we bring ourselves into a union with the Divine, and our lives into a harmonic resonance with the flow of ultimate reality. It's difficult to describe, but hopefully you all catch my drift. Heaven and hell, in my opinion, are something we choose and co-create with the Divine in ourselves and our world. It's up to us how much we create heaven or hell on earth, and how much we create it in our hearts and souls. I don't think this changes after our death. We are then freed from our bodies, either to be in spirit/energy only for a while (or perhaps for some, forever) or to be put back into a new physical form, but what paths our souls choose to follow is still our own choice.
 
Thank you for your beautiful description Path of One :)

I've always imagined the afterlife as like 'coming home'. And also I've imagined it to be like any particularly strong emotion of love, life, excitement, joy etc that I have had in this life, just multiplied in volume and constancy.

I've been thinking a lot about the existence of paradox, in particular with relation to religious imagery. We use the most commonly understandable, natural, 'raw' materials and spaces - the simplicity of the natural elements - water, rock, light, forest, mountain, river... - to best describe and experience the Incomprehensible, Inexpressible, God/ Enlightement/ Meaning-of-Life.

So I imaging the afterlife to be somehow similar - experiencing something we cannot currently understand or imagine, while also experiencing familiarity with sensations we have experienced in this life.

While I imagine unification with the One/ the Us/ God/ the Divine, I imagine that I will still be individually 'me' (paradox of One and Many). Kind of like when you are growing up and you imagine somehow that you will be a completely different person at 20 or 30 or 60, and then you get to that age and you realise that you are still very much 'you', rather than being this 'other' you had imagined (I had this experience anyway...).

I imagine the same thing with the afterlife - we imagine that we will be different, or unified, or 'other', which in some ways we are, but maybe I will feel just as much 'me' then as I do now?
 
At_the_Wellspring said:
While I imagine unification with the One/ the Us/ God/ the Divine, I imagine that I will still be individually 'me' (paradox of One and Many). Kind of like when you are growing up and you imagine somehow that you will be a completely different person at 20 or 30 or 60, and then you get to that age and you realise that you are still very much 'you', rather than being this 'other' you had imagined (I had this experience anyway...).

I imagine the same thing with the afterlife - we imagine that we will be different, or unified, or 'other', which in some ways we are, but maybe I will feel just as much 'me' then as I do now?
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Lovely- that is how I see it as well. The best I can describe union with the Divine/God is that if the Divine is a great Song, a Symphony... I am one instrument with my own melody to play. In uniting with the Divine, I both become one with It and All else, and yet I'm still me. In fact, I'm more "me" than the "me" I currently know- because all my baggage goes away and I'm just the core essence of what I was created to be.
 
Hi Kim/p o 1.

Reborn here again! Well if you love life and see positives in adversity, then its ok I suppose. But I agree more with your vision of an Elysium like place [nice description btw]. I feel that the ‘underworld’ is a place where our lesser attributes can be dealt with; it is not a permanent place it is there to transform, much like [same as] the Buddhist ‘intermediate’ realms. Maybe after this period of transformation we go either back to earth – if not advanced enough, or to eternity, thus Elysium would be full of people who have the relative nature to its state! Imo, the soul [as the Sahu] is the body we ‘take on’ there, much as we obtain an earthly body in this world.

Nice post!



At the wellspring. Hello!



I've always imagined the afterlife as like 'coming home'.
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I think much the same, sometimes I long to be there and I have always felt ‘not quite right here’ sometimes almost like I tripped over fell down an abyss and thought ‘oh shag I am on earth!’ :p I agree with your paradox & know exactly what you mean about age.

I feel that in eternity one can utilise ‘the source’ and create paradise as we wish – to a degree, thus there would always be new realms and individual paradises that people make. I am sure Elysium is fine on its own but the ancient Egyptians saw it as different to Romans Greeks Celts etc, so I am sure it changes relative to history yet also remains as it is. Hence I see it as realms, I would love to visit ancient temples as they were built to look like [hence they built them in the first place!] & peoples, not to mention all the interesting people from throughout history!



Z
 
I like the analogy of the song/ orchestra, p o 1.

Hi Z!

You talk about utlising 'the source' to create a paradise we wish. I do think that each individual's experience of the afterlife will be personal and individual, I guess I've thought of that individual experience being more because of what is 'internal' (i.e. my own soul, my yearnings, my thoughts, my experience of life) rather than utlising something exterior to myself. I guess its just a question of where we consider this 'source' to be. I guess I'm saying for me, because I see the 'source' as so connected to my own soul, I imagine the 'creation' of a paradise to come from within, if that makes sense.

Did anyone see the movie with Robin Williams about the afterlife? Can't remember the title.

It was kind of saying that the afterlife springs from our own thoughts and perception. So while Robin William's character was in a bright, beautiful place, his wife who had died earlier was in a cold, grey, lonely place. It had to do with her perception or thought somehow, though I can't remember the details.

Has anyone read the 'Conversations with God' series by Neale Donald Walsch?

I found some of the ideas pretty interesting and enlightening, including the process of thought-to-reality. It suggested that in our current human form, that process is slowed down by physicality and time, but that our thoughts nevertheless have an impact on what occurs in reality (mind-body connection). It then suggests that after death, because we are no longer restricted by the slowness of physicality, this process happens more immediately - when we think something it becomes reality at that instant.

Interesting.
 
ATW

We only have to imagine what people from different religions and cultures will expect to see in heaven as to know of its diversity – unless we are all wrong lol.

The source is imo, something within and without, it’s an integral part of divine centre, and hence cannot be used for evil. Paradise as created form within makes perfect sense, yet one can say paradise from without and be equally correct! For us as individuals it is a perspective thing, yet ‘it’ itself is universal, thus the paradox is not within it but us. I know from experience that one can draw things out of the void/ultimate reality/divine centre in a small degree, perhaps greater if done in groups like a religious idea. I feel this is why we are not shown too much as we could change too much also. Now this is a little controversial [to say the least], but god is the being beyond infinite, who has absolute mastery of ‘the source’ [this term I use to envelope the idea of the philosophers stone], yet we have spirit and hence are part of this & god’s creation. Thus in order to have a certain dominion over ourselves [self determination and freedom etc.] & because we are of spirit, then one may utilise this aspect of our nature, when free of our bodies – obviously one cannot transform gods creation [cannot make manifest things on earth, when in bodily form], & god can override anything one does, however powerful fools think they are.



I agree about the immediacy of eternity, it is also never changing in some ways [or at least seemingly], interesting stuff about physical slowdown! Do you have a link for ‘conversations with god’?



Z :)





 
At_the_Wellspring said:
Did anyone see the movie with Robin Williams about the afterlife? Can't remember the title.
Click to expand...

What Dreams May Come

Great movie.

And some very interesting thoughts...
 
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