Sonic Youth Gossip - View Single Post - The Last seconds of life and the "afterlife"

atari 2600 · 02.22.2008, 05:41 PM

Many people having near-death experiences report a slowing-down of time perception as reality becomes dream-like.
As I offered before in another thread, I personally believe that sleeping and dreaming are functions of a larger whole of our true beings and that we are preparing for both life and death as we dream. In dreaming, just as in death (and to an extent in orgasm), our waking consciousness is extinguished.

Dostoevsky writes of his dizzying, consciousness-altering experience before the firing squad prior to getting a last-minute reprieve. The experience changed his life in many ways. One thing it did though is that the stress of the event (and his sufferings in the Siberian labor camp too) probably caused his epilepsy.

C.G. Jung wrote an essay of the Catholic mass ritual as a rehearsal for death and the ideation of self-sacrifice of the ego. Now, Jung was not a Catholic, in fact he was a sun-worshipper of a relatively esoteric Egyptian sect if you can believe it, but much of his study is concerned with comparative religion and mythology as much as psychology and philosophy and these very same questions raised in the thread.
He also wrote much on the subject and history of Christianity in general as saw Christ as a symbol for the actualized self that is part of a larger whole.

Before the big bang happened there was no sense of time, but only of what we can describe as eternity. As one's consciouness is extinguished, one may very well dwell there in that thought (as was written previously in the thread) for eternity. Then again, perhaps one's state of matter is transformed in some other way; at any rate, it cannot be denied that we are eventually, as it is said, food for worms.

All religions seek to provide a basis of understanding of life's mysteries and are concerned with death, but some religions are more obsessed with death and the afterlife than others. In Buddhism, for instance, they crafted the science of death we know as The Tibetan Book Of the Dead that espoused one to clear one's mind of fears and desires as they die. The concept, as you may know, being to embrace the clear white light and escape the cycle of birth and death to reach nirvana. (Lynch's Agent Dale Cooper character provided a memorable westernized version of a Buddhist death ceremony on the Twin Peaks television series).

I think the Buddhists have a very interesting idea with the bardo and reincarnation, but I happen to believe personally that existence on this planet is a one-shot deal and that they are merely attributing a physical form (via the doctrine of reincarnation) for a metaphysical reality. They do, however, have a great notion about the importance of one's state of consciousness in the moment of death. And the Buddhist karmic reminder that the life one leads provides a certain threshold upon the moment of death is a grand one. In other more direct words, life is art and one cannot cheat in death.

02.22.2008, 05:41 PM	#29
atari 2600 invito al cielo Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 8,213	Many people having near-death experiences report a slowing-down of time perception as reality becomes dream-like. As I offered before in another thread, I personally believe that sleeping and dreaming are functions of a larger whole of our true beings and that we are preparing for both life and death as we dream. In dreaming, just as in death (and to an extent in orgasm), our waking consciousness is extinguished. Dostoevsky writes of his dizzying, consciousness-altering experience before the firing squad prior to getting a last-minute reprieve. The experience changed his life in many ways. One thing it did though is that the stress of the event (and his sufferings in the Siberian labor camp too) probably caused his epilepsy. C.G. Jung wrote an essay of the Catholic mass ritual as a rehearsal for death and the ideation of self-sacrifice of the ego. Now, Jung was not a Catholic, in fact he was a sun-worshipper of a relatively esoteric Egyptian sect if you can believe it, but much of his study is concerned with comparative religion and mythology as much as psychology and philosophy and these very same questions raised in the thread. He also wrote much on the subject and history of Christianity in general as saw Christ as a symbol for the actualized self that is part of a larger whole. Before the big bang happened there was no sense of time, but only of what we can describe as eternity. As one's consciouness is extinguished, one may very well dwell there in that thought (as was written previously in the thread) for eternity. Then again, perhaps one's state of matter is transformed in some other way; at any rate, it cannot be denied that we are eventually, as it is said, food for worms. All religions seek to provide a basis of understanding of life's mysteries and are concerned with death, but some religions are more obsessed with death and the afterlife than others. In Buddhism, for instance, they crafted the science of death we know as The Tibetan Book Of the Dead that espoused one to clear one's mind of fears and desires as they die. The concept, as you may know, being to embrace the clear white light and escape the cycle of birth and death to reach nirvana. (Lynch's Agent Dale Cooper character provided a memorable westernized version of a Buddhist death ceremony on the Twin Peaks television series). I think the Buddhists have a very interesting idea with the bardo and reincarnation, but I happen to believe personally that existence on this planet is a one-shot deal and that they are merely attributing a physical form (via the doctrine of reincarnation) for a metaphysical reality. They do, however, have a great notion about the importance of one's state of consciousness in the moment of death. And the Buddhist karmic reminder that the life one leads provides a certain threshold upon the moment of death is a grand one. In other more direct words, life is art and one cannot cheat in death.
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