Embracing the End of Life: A Journey into Dying and Awakening

19 Comments on "Embracing the End of Life: A Journey into Dying and Awakening"

makati1 on Sat, 21st Jan 2017 8:59 pm 



Hmm… sudden heart attack and there is time to “experience an expanded self”. LMAO

I wonder what she was on when she had this “experience”?

BTW: I never watch the vids tied to articles as they are either fake (staged/manipulated/edited) or not relevant. Someone is ALWAYS pushing their point of view as ‘fact’ with no real reference for backup.

Welcome to the world of Bernays. ^_^

joe on Sat, 21st Jan 2017 10:52 pm 



Not sure what this has to do with oil….

makati1 on Sat, 21st Jan 2017 11:01 pm 



Joe, nothing has to do with oil anymore. It has to do with distraction and red herrings to keep the sheeple from waking up. It is a time of false hope, techie dreams and more propaganda. Might as well sit back and enjoy the show.

Survivalist on Sat, 21st Jan 2017 11:02 pm 



I’ve watched plenty of folks die and none seem to fucking keen about it. I’m pretty sure this lady has no clue about what she’s talking about. Baby boomers are cashing in their chips these days so stay tuned for lots of end of life marketing. It’s a big market demographic.

Sissyfuss on Sat, 21st Jan 2017 11:22 pm 



It’s another way of saying to use your personal death as an advisor. Helps to cut through the bs. Also someone should expand her self by telling her her wrinkle cream is failing her.

makati1 on Sun, 22nd Jan 2017 12:12 am 



Sissy, she looks like she has her finger in a light socket and the juice is on. LOL

Cloggie on Sun, 22nd Jan 2017 3:05 am 



This video (which I didn’t watch) probably fits in the collapse mode of thinking, prevalent on this forum. Yes, we are all going to die, but there will be an awakening after it. Or something.

She looks sympathetic and a little as if she has been standing on the beach promenade of The Hague, looking towards the horizon behind which Britain is said to be situated and from where the prevailing winds come from.

Kathy C on Sun, 22nd Jan 2017 5:36 am 



Near Death Experiences are now explained. In the article at the link below Scientific American covers some
http://tinyurl.com/h8w36t8

One is that when the brain is deprived of oxygen it creates chemicals that have effects similar to ketamine. Ketamine can produce hallucinations very like near death experiences.
http://tinyurl.com/jbdhpx2

Belief in an afterlife is one of our refuges from our fear of death. Belief this all has meaning is perhaps the last refuge. For some the “afterlife” is a sort of mind meld with the great universal consciousness. If you don’t keep your individuality, what difference does it make if some part of your “soul” goes somewhere?

I like to sleep, especially dreamless sleep. I often do not want to wake up. So what is so bad about becoming dead. We were all dead for billions of years before our parents had unprotected sex. Anyone remember being bothered by that?

Instead of all the mumbo jumbo I find thinking about the peacefulness of dreamless sleep, the time when I was unborn, the blessed non pain of being under anesthesia.

“Death is the easiest of all things after it, and the hardest of all things before it.”
Abu Bakr

Kathy C on Sun, 22nd Jan 2017 5:41 am 



Its unfortunate that our self awareness means we know we will die. Does any other species know that eventually they will die? They avoid death of course, but that avoidance can be seen in worms as well as apes. It is our programming to avoid death along with our knowledge that ultimately we cannot that IMO is the cause of many of our problems.

This Onion satirical video sums up the burden of having this knowledge by suggesting we teach gorillas to know that they will die.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJkWS4t4l0k

makati1 on Sun, 22nd Jan 2017 6:16 am 



Kathy, it seems we are blessed and cursed with ‘intelligence’. I do not fear death because it means that in a blink of an eye, or, at most a minute or two, and then nothing. Zip. Zero. Nada.

Like a bulb that burns out, nothing but minerals to return to the earth. Knowing I do not have to worry about a heaven or hell after, means that I can concentrate on enjoying my one life with a freedom no religious believer can ever have.

I will be recycled and maybe the next few million or billion years, I will just be dirt. No reincarnation as anything alive, nothing. And that is the way it should be.

Cloggie on Sun, 22nd Jan 2017 6:21 am 



Every living creature has a strong awareness that it can end up in the belly of a larger creature at any minute from now. In this sense non-human animals are more aware of death than overfed human animals, comfortably residing at the pinnacle of the food chain.

Humans get a lease on life for ca. 80 years and are loaded with motivation like a gun with ammo. For most women this means having children, for most men it means having some occupation to support the consequences of youthful passions.

Afterlife is real, namely your children and theirs.

Your personal afterlife doesn’t exist: you come into existence after the merger of seed and egg and you vanish when your heart stops pumping and your body disintegrates and becomes food for the worms.

If reincarnation had any meaning (moving of a supposedly “immortal soul” from one body to another), I should have memories to earlier forms of life, but I don’t, so it is a meaningless concept, unless somebody can come up with a method to link my current existence to an earlier individual life form of whatever species in the past.

Nevertheless, self-awareness and awareness of history is real. It is possible to reflect over the process of life and evolution.

For that reason I have some sympathy for the idea of the universe being an eternal Oscillating Self, a perpetual state of becoming God. And when the universe has realized a state of full self-realization, it is time for “God” to go to rest (self-destruct) and the life process will start all over again.

The Eternal Adam.

Or Nietzsche’s “Ewige Wiederkehr” (Eternal Recurrence).

The world as the Eternal Indestructible Self, but in varying degrees of self-awareness, from plankton to Uebermensch… and back.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atman

Space Odyssey, monkey scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmX7K8noikE

Space Odyssey, Uebermensch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3oHmVhviO8

onlooker on Sun, 22nd Jan 2017 6:55 am 



I find the subjects we discuss and our own mortality to be woven inextricably. We are talking about events that could cause the death of millions and even billions. So obviously each one of us can be another of the fatalities. I am at peace with whatever destiny awaits me. I do not believe in childish notions of Heaven and Hell, I do believe in an afterlife and some sense of karma and reincarnation. In the end all of us here are here because we are confronting a likely near to medium term doomerish scenario that either we personally will experience or our progeny or humans in general. I commend everyone for not putting your heads in the sand even though we may not agree on many of the particulars.

Davy on Sun, 22nd Jan 2017 8:02 am 



If you are here on a doomer site then death is part of the discussion. What do you think is behind peak oil and the depletion of a vital foundational commodity, happy ending? I have had more than a few near death experiences and I can tell you they shaped my life. I am not proud of them and some where my own doing. I don’t believe in an afterlife for my ego. I am not going to meet grandpa somewhere. That said there is more to it. If you are existentially separated and unable to connect then you are not going to feel this. I see unity in life and a timelessness. In this respect there is more but not in the human constructions of our mind.

Near death has humbled me and shown me how fragile life is. Eventually as I got older and my life slowed down so did the near death experiences. Now it is just death in old age that is near and there is no escaping that. There was a time when I explored the limits of life physically and mentally. I now look back on that period with unease. If I could have lived then with what I know now what a difference. I would not have done the many things I did that is for sure. I can remember feeling a certain near panic when I first started flying. I had gotten lost in a small plane and caught in a thunderstorm. I didn’t think I would make it. I didn’t panic and I used my head and barely got out of that one alive. I learn something about myself that day.

Death is something important in shaping life. It is the denial of death that leads to so much neuroses. Accepting death gives life but don’t think for a moment you can transcend death this way. You can only live with death as an uneasy neighbor. I am a mystic these days with an eclectic set of understandings from several different spiritual approaches to life. I am not recommending this on you it is just where I ended up. As I have gotten older my idealism and spiritual zeal has waned but also grown and matured. I no longer search for it as I once did as a “trip”. I now know I will not find “it” and it is that realization that is a finding of “it”. I am getting older and with that aging I am losing my physical and mental capacities. Any enlightenment I may have had or have will deteriorate until nothing is left of me but dust. One day I may forget who I am. That is the worst thing about old age. I have my kids and my farm. I am now giving myself to my kids and trying to leave something in the farm. That too will come to dust.

penury on Sun, 22nd Jan 2017 11:17 am 



We humans sometimes forget that our purpose on this planet is the same as all life forms. We are born, reproduce, and die, mission accomplished. Everything else is just the trimmings.

Kathy C on Sun, 22nd Jan 2017 3:06 pm 



Penury, yep although I wouldn’t say “purpose” or “mission” as that implies a “purposer”, I would say that once replication began a cycle of born, reproduce, die which goes on until something stop all replication. But it sounds better the way you say it 🙂

Kathy C on Sun, 22nd Jan 2017 3:25 pm 



Davy, I can’t prove that your experiences aren’t real. They certainly are real to you. I just doubt they represent anything other than your grey matter providing experiences totally from within your own brain. Our brains certainly have the capacity to do that. Dreams for instance (unless you think dreams come from outside). Various brain injuries cause people to perceive the world differently. Chemicals can do the same thing.
A very interesting read on how our brain can “go wrong” is Phantoms in the Brain by V Rammachandran. When these things go wrong, the people involved think they are absolutely right even though everyone else knows they are wrong. One type of brain injury convinces a person that his parents are impostors who look just like his parents. Rammachandran explains exactly why he thinks this persons particular brain injury had that outcome Etc.
I wonder sometimes just how much we can trust our brains. I wonder sometimes if in fact the idea that we are individuals who can act as we choose is just a program our brains feed us ” D Wegner writes of “The Illusion of Conscious Will”. Antonio Damasio writes of “The Feeling of What Happens”. I find such studies into consciousness fascinating. But my favorite investigation into consciousness, what is it, why do we have it, is science fiction “Blindsight” by Peter Watts, free on the creative commons. The book is a mind trip for sure 🙂

http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm

I have only had one experience that is similar to other peoples out of body experiences I have read about. It helped me get OK about the death of a friend. I evaluated it afterwords and determined to my satisfaction that is was a semi awake dream that my brain gave me. Thanks brain that helped. But I don’t believe it represented anything outside of me.

But at this point people might as well believe whatever gives them comfort as we are going to need it. I am comforted by dust to dust. I like dirt and feel comforted to think of becoming worm food – until its too hot for worms to survive. Nothingness seems absolutely wonderful.

:The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.”
– – – – Vladimir Nabokov

Davy on Sun, 22nd Jan 2017 6:03 pm 



Kathy, I don’t think you understand what I said in my comment. The near death experiences I had were being alive but coming very close to losing life. I have had no experiences where I was brain dead and came back having had amazing experiences. My experiences were more like “MF that was close”.

Kathy C on Sun, 22nd Jan 2017 8:00 pm 



Davy, no, I didn’t think you had that many brain dead experiences. A lot of people have experiences that are triggered by various events of a stressful nature that doesn’t come close to a physical death experience. Some just have them out of the blue, some while meditating or hiking, and of course when taking drugs. I assumed you meant something like that.

Since I can’t get inside your head, I can’t experience your experience. So real or not, it is your word and not helpful to me at all. While we usually can share a sunrise with someone and agree on its beauty because we see the same thing, we cannot share something that is initiated totally within someone else’s brain and not available to the senses of others. Since these reported experiences, visions, dreams etc are all over the place in terms of reported content I have little basis for judging them.

If they mean something to you, good. I can’t say they are real or not real. But I don’t believe they originate from anywhere other than the brain of the person who experiences them. Just my opinion. So other people’s reported experiences of this type don’t have any impact on me.

pointer on Mon, 23rd Jan 2017 6:55 am 



Lind-Kyle is pointing to the way out of the predicament created by small minds and their fictional stories. Either you understand this now, or you don’t. You all will some day.