If you could choose your own Afterlife.

[emmapimms]

Hello my name is Emma and i'm a student at the University of Hull studying Drama and Theatre.
I'm doing a project and writing a script based around the topic of The Afterlife and I was wondering if some of you would like to answer a few questions to help me with my research.
I have always been very curious about death and the afterlife and yes i am not afraid to admit I am scared of death, not so much dying but what happens once we have deceased. I refuse to believe we die and there is nothing afterwards, there HAS to be something afterwards. Now as I'm sure most of the people on this forum will know there are a lot of different types of 'Afterlives' and by afterlife i mean heaven, reincarnation, ghosts, uptopia and all other afterlives religious or not, or even your own personal afterlife. so here are my questions which i hope you can answer.

Are you afraid of death? if so why? and if not why?
What, in your own opinion, is important about having an afterlife?
If you could choose your own afterlife, which path would you choose and why?

I really do hope you can answer my questions.
Many thanks
Emma

[Billyjean]

Hi Emma

My answers to your questions:

1) I am not afraid of death, but am afraid of having a painful death. I'm not afraid of death, because if there is nothing afterwards, then I'm not going to know, and if there is, which I suspect there is, then I'm going on to having a great time.

2) to me, an afterlife is important, so as to make sense of the life I'm having now. Also in order to answer all my questions on life.

3) I don't quite understand what you mean by which afterlife I would choose. To me, there is only one afterlife we all go to when we die, or for a better word, pass over. There are different levels according to our spiritual progress. Reincarnation, to me, is not another afterlife, but a choice we make if we wish to come back to the earth plane.

[Eli]

I guess I'll also answer your questions.

1) I am very afraid of death. I don't rule out the possibility of an afterlife, but sadly, I do not rule out the possibility of eternal oblivion afterwards either. When I think of life after death as everything described on the forum, I feel comforted. When I think of life after death as nothingness, I get scared, depressed, and feel helpless.

2) The most important thing to me about an afterlife is reconnecting with people. Not just your family, but friends and people who were part of your life as well. I also, according to other threads, wouldn't mind meeting my soulmate

3) In terms of path, if the after life did exist, I would make sure I would never have death anxiety on the earthly plane again, what a horrible feeling!

[emmapimms]

Hi Emma

My answers to your questions:

1) I am not afraid of death, but am afraid of having a painful death. I'm not afraid of death, because if there is nothing afterwards, then I'm not going to know, and if there is, which I suspect there is, then I'm going on to having a great time.

2) to me, an afterlife is important, so as to make sense of the life I'm having now. Also in order to answer all my questions on life.

3) I don't quite understand what you mean by which afterlife I would choose. To me, there is only one afterlife we all go to when we die, or for a better word, pass over. There are different levels according to our spiritual progress. Reincarnation, to me, is not another afterlife, but a choice we make if we wish to come back to the earth plane.

Hi billyjean, thank you for answering my questions. I suppose what i mean by choosing an afterlife, you could choose if you either wanted to go to some sort of heaven, or if you wanted to be reincarnated or you wanted to spend the rest of you deceased days in your own utopia. If someone were to genuinely come to you and say what would you want to do, where would you want to go after you have passed on. In today's world, we have lots of different religions with different ideas of the 'afterlife', of course atheists they might believe their is no afterlife, but if they were given the chance to decide what would happen to their soul afterwards.

[Birki]

Hello my name is Emma and i'm a student at the University of Hull studying Drama and Theatre.
I'm doing a project and writing a script based around the topic of The Afterlife and I was wondering if some of you would like to answer a few questions to help me with my research.
I have always been very curious about death and the afterlife and yes i am not afraid to admit I am scared of death, not so much dying but what happens once we have deceased. I refuse to believe we die and there is nothing afterwards, there HAS to be something afterwards. Now as I'm sure most of the people on this forum will know there are a lot of different types of 'Afterlives' and by afterlife i mean heaven, reincarnation, ghosts, uptopia and all other afterlives religious or not, or even your own personal afterlife. so here are my questions which i hope you can answer.

Are you afraid of death? if so why? and if not why?
What, in your own opinion, is important about having an afterlife?
If you could choose your own afterlife, which path would you choose and why?

I really do hope you can answer my questions.
Many thanks
Emma

Hi Emma,

I am glad you found your way to the Afterlifeforums.com website. I hope you are doing some additional research in addition to polling members here. There is a great resource guide found on The Fun of Dying website at http://www.funofdying.com/resources/study-guides/. I find your questions interesting because you are asking for people's opinions rather than what the facts are. You may be surprised to learn that there is indeed evidence for the afterlife and people's opinions generally don't matter. It has been said that there are no athiests in the afterlife, and what is meant by that is not that athiests don't make it to the afterlife - they do - but that once they get there they realize they were wrong about so many things.

I'll take a stab at your questions:

Are you afraid of death? if so why? and if not why?
Absolutely not. Our bodies die, but we don't die. We are eternal beings and will just move on to the next phase of life.

What, in your own opinion, is important about having an afterlife?
Nothing in particular. The afterlife is not the end-all be-all (that would be God/Mind). The afterlife is a nice place to go between lives on earth to reconnect with loved ones/our soul group and rest and relax for another round. Many people will also do important work in the afterlife and this can be a path to spiritual growth. For example, some people will help rescue lost souls, some people will teach, etc.

If you could choose your own afterlife, which path would you choose and why?
I wouldn't choose my own afterlife because it could be what is called a "hollow heaven", a place where someone might go if they have very specific beliefs about what to expect in the afterlife. A hollow heaven would be a place that one would need to be rescued from because it is not the real heaven (afterlife). I know in my current state as a human being on earth I cannot fully imagine what will await me in the afterlife. I have read some about what it might be like (I recommend Life in the World Unseen) but the fact is when we get there anything we want is just a thought away. So I'm not too worried about what it will be like right now, I know if will be a great place and a great experience.

[Birki]

Hi billyjean, thank you for answering my questions. I suppose what i mean by choosing an afterlife, you could choose if you either wanted to go to some sort of heaven, or if you wanted to be reincarnated or you wanted to spend the rest of you deceased days in your own utopia. If someone were to genuinely come to you and say what would you want to do, where would you want to go after you have passed on. In today's world, we have lots of different religions with different ideas of the 'afterlife', of course atheists they might believe their is no afterlife, but if they were given the chance to decide what would happen to their soul afterwards.

Emma, one thing that may not be obvious is that religions are completely manmade and the information most provide about the afterlife is completely wrong. Religion does not equal God, and religion does not equal spirituality, and so many people get that confused. I agree with Billyjean that there is only one afterlife, but it is so vast that different people can perceive it in different ways (there are also different levels of the afterlife as well). People can choose to reincarnate or not. It's just a fact (but if someone doesn't want to reincarnate they aren't forced to 99.99% of the time.)

[Carol and Mikey]

Are you afraid of death? if so why? and if not why?
What, in your own opinion, is important about having an afterlife?
If you could choose your own afterlife, which path would you choose and why?

I really do hope you can answer my questions.
Many thanks
Emma

Emma (Welcome to the forums!),

1. I am not afraid of death because based on my personal experiences after the sudden passing of my son Mikey, I know without any doubt that we do live on after being here on this earth.
2. Knowing there is an Afterlife gives this life purpose and meaning as to why I am here. It makes me want to do the best I can. Knowing I will be reunited with loved ones brings hope and peace to this journey when I need it most.
3. I would choose Heaven (if I am understanding you correctly) for my Afterlife. I want to be with the many people I love so much... and have a 70's party with Disco and great music to dance too!!!! I want to surrounded by that loving feeling!

Carol

[BruceAdama]

Are you afraid of death? if so why? and if not why?
What, in your own opinion, is important about having an afterlife?
If you could choose your own afterlife, which path would you choose and why?

Emma,

First off, welcome to the forum... and thanks for posting this thread! I will try to answer your question the best I can from my own POV.

To start with, as has been stated by others, I am not at all afraid of death itself. I AM, however, afraid of a painful death... that is not something I want. I want to die peacefully while I'm asleep. If it gets to the point in my life where it becomes obvious that that would not be a possibility, then I will end things on my own terms. I simply do not want to experience pain or physical discomfort of any sort when I die. My absolute worst fear of all is death by drowning... that is the absolute worst way to go, IMO, and I will do everything possible to prevent that. I cannot emphasize enough how I do not want to experience ANY pain whatsoever, when the time comes, no matter if it lasts but mere seconds. So, either God will grant me a peaceful death in my sleep, or we'll switch to my rules.

IMO, there's nothing important about an afterlife in and of itself. The only obvious benefit I can see to it, as that nobody can get sick, feel emotional or physical pain, or "die" ever again within an afterlife. I'm not one of those people who believes we have any lesson to learn here, or anything like that, nor do I care if we do. However, if I were to pick one thing that is the absolute most important thing for me personally in any prospective afterlife, it would be the retention of absolute, unrestrained, free will. The freedom to think and do whatever I want, without any interference from God. This means that I retain TOTAL control over my "life", and if God wants me to come back and reincarnate, and I don't want to, then I can tell him to suck it, and keep on enjoying my immortal afterlife. Free will and personal control is supremely important to me personally, and I don't want anything to take that away.

As for what type of afterlife I'd want... that's a hard one. I wouldn't want to be a ghost, since I enjoy having a tangible and physical body, yet I WOULD love to be immortal, but not unless I can fully enjoy the physical world around me. The ONLY way I would ever even consider coming back here via reincarnation, is if I get to pick everything about my next life, down to the most minute detail... I want to pick my life, my body, where I will live, the house I will own, even the car I will drive and the name I'll have... I want total and absolute control over my next life, so that it's what I want, and not anyone else. Unless I can have that, then I will never willingly return here. I'm not interested in worshiping a God for all eternity, so I'd opt out of any afterlife like that, but a utopia might sound cool. If anything else, I'd want an afterlife where I can feel "physical", and recreate the pleasures I had on Earth... I'd want to be able to create the house I want, the car I want, and anything else physical that I desire... food, drink, even sex... I want to be able to enjoy sex in the afterlife, regardless of if it is needed or not. As much as I may dislike my own life at times, I admit willingly that I am in love with the physical universe... I enjoy having a tangible body. I enjoy driving in my car. I enjoy eating tasty food, and drinking beverages. I enjoy intimacy. I enjoy verbal communication. I love small things, like the smell of a fireplace on a cold winter night after a fresh rain, or walking through Midtown Manhattan during the Holidays, and experiencing the range of vivid colors and smells... the smells of fresh rain, honey-roasting peanuts from the food carts, the smells from the vehicles, the way the lights of the city dance upon the wet ground, reflecting from small pools in the street... just small things... I want to be able to keep my tangible and physical universe. I personally believe that our physical realm is perfect in its very imperfection.

[BruceAdama]

I want to be with the many people I love so much... and have a 70's party with Disco and great music to dance too!!!! I want to surrounded by that loving feeling!

I'd LOVE to attend a heavenly concert with the Bee Gees or ABBA.

[Roberta Grimes]

...
Are you afraid of death? if so why? and if not why?
What, in your own opinion, is important about having an afterlife?
If you could choose your own afterlife, which path would you choose and why?

I really do hope you can answer my questions.
Many thanks
Emma

Welcome, dear Emma! To answer your questions just from my perspective:

1) I am not afraid of death - indeed, like many others here, I look forward to it. I have spent decades studying nearly 200 years of abundant and consistent afterlife evidence, and by now I am confident that I know enough about what happens at and after death that it no longer holds any terrors for me. Indeed, I have come to feel that a fear of death is the core problem that humankind faces because death is the base fear from which all other fears spring, and fear seems to be the root of all human conflicts. So while we still fear death, humankind will have to live with strife; but once we learn how to remove the fear of death, we will have perpetual peace! At least, that's my theory. It seems to be worth trying ;-)!

2) The afterlife evidence strongly suggests that what some call the afterlife is in fact our real life. We are eternal beings - we never began, and we never will end. This brief sojourn on earth every once in awhile gives us a chance to advance spiritually in ways that are much more difficult when we are in that real life that some call the afterlife, so we come here now and then much as children go to school - each lifetime is a school day, perhaps.

3) The afterlife evidence gives us a detailed view of what the actual afterlife realities are, so it is hard for me to imagine anything else. Nor could I conceive of anything more perfect! As our beloved Birki says above, if we fix our minds too tightly on an imagined heaven, we will be drawn to a "hollow heaven" that looks like what we imagined but is in fact a pure illusion - an afterlife detour, if you will. It is best to try to die with an open (and joyful) mind, knowing that what comes next is going to be far beyond our best imagining!

I love the idea of your writing a script about the afterlife, dear Emma. I hope you will share it with us here! But your questions suggest that not much is known about the genuine afterlife, so we are left to our imaginings. In fact, there is so much afterlife evidence (which is still being ignored by mainstream science) that no speculation is necessary. Everything from where we go at death through reincarnation, ghosts, and all else spiritual is by now well supported and all tied together by one consistent body of evidence. And religious beliefs are nothing more than that - just personal suppositions. They have little to do with what is true! The afterlife is even more real than the reality that you see around you now, dear Emma! And the more you come to understand that, the more joyously blissful your life will be ;-).