Afterlife (Endings)

by BBella , Sunday, February 03, 2013, 07:19 (4310 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: If it's not the soul that thinks our thoughts, and that broadens, changes, refines them moment by moment, what is it? Not my body, unless my brain IS my soul.-I think of the soul as the witness to or the observer of experiences, a gatherer of memories thru experiences so to speak. Like when I dream, neither my thoughts (thoughts of who I am in this life) nor my body in this life, is involved or present within my dreams (rarely is it actually my body and thoughts I am dreaming of). Yet I am observing or witnessing -gathering memories - of my dreaming mind/thoughts and body experiences in my dream. So what part of me is present in both my current life and in my dream life? Only the observer or witness aspect of my consciousness is the same in my current life as in my dream life. So I would like to think that when I move back into my life of the IBT I will have evolved thru the experiences I have experienced here. ->BBELLA: It's not the body of dhw that will be present in the IBT, it will be the conscious/witness/observer of dhw's life that will be present in the IBT. [...] The you that has observed and stored the memory of your life here is who will be leaving the body at death. Then you will journey thru the experience of re-membering your previous IBT life along with your new memories of the life of dhw stored in your memory bank, which could be recalled just like any memory. It would be the same or similar as you remembering the character you created's life, or me remembering a dream that I woke up from.->dhw: But... I am NOT the character I created, and you are NOT the other person you became in a dream -I gave these examples (the character you created and the person I am in my dreams) as a way to express how I would like to see the soul and the IBT. Of course, the character is not you, altho you created it, and my dreams aren't me, altho I created them. The lives we live here I would like to think of them as lives we consciously chose to fully experience (before we came here) and will one day, when we pass from this life, carry all of our new experiences we have gained, with us when we awaken into our new life - wherever that will be. -One thing we can both agree on, if we did awaken into another life, it won't be a continuation of this life since we will no longer be in the body we lived this life in and won't be here in this earthly plane of existence. Not to say, if we have it like we want it, we could recreate our body and a similar version of our life surroundings if we liked it so well...altho, given the choice, not seeing either of us choosing the same body. Maybe a newer, younger looking version? lol But in order to recreate the life here, we would have to bring everyone with us all at the same time. And we know that's not the way it works. But who's to say our friends and family will not all join us eventually anyway? Those we want around forever that is. ->BBELLA: ...You have only one soul. Whether it be the eternal soul that entered your body at birth and animated it into a life called dhw for which you have lived thru till you decide to leave the body of dhw and continue on your journey, or whether it be the only soul lived here as dhw. There is only one.->dhw: I think that sums up the problem I have here. Yes, if there is such a thing as a soul, there is only one, and I equate it with "my" identity, which IS current. It has to be the "me" that resides within my body and thinks dhw's thoughts. Not my arms, legs, or ... crucially ... my brain, but the ever learning (though alas all too frequently forgetting!), subtly changing "me" that gives orders to my brain. -I'm not seeing a real difference between us at this juncture. I am in agreement with what you say above as this is what the soul does. We cannot think a thought, have an identity or gives orders to the brain/body without the soul giving us life. ->dhw: You go on to say: "The soul is what animates the body and gives it life - consciousness and subconsciousness, and the soul is what leaves the body when it's time to move on." That I understand perfectly. The difference between us is that I see it as my current (and maybe future) ever-developing self, whereas your version makes it into an unchanging observer that is simply occupying my body now (and has occupied other people's), and eventually will move on, with "me" as just a memory.-In the paragraph above I see no difference in what we are both saying that a soul is, other than this maybe: My version of the soul already had existence before it entered the body and yours began when it entered the body. I, as you, think of the soul as ever learning by memories gained thru experience. I do see the soul changing and evolving, not like a body changes, but I do see it evolving in the sense of gaining memories thru experience.