Personal Immortality - or Not . . .
Over the years I've increasingly come to feel that my own nature is integral to all being or nature – that I'm part and parcel to the whole process of life or being itself.
You might say that just because I happen to be Paul Martin doesn’t mean that I have to identify exclusively or even primarily with Paul Martin. This leaves me with little concern over the idea of personal immortality.
At the same time, I continue to understand why so many people care deeply about this idea. In life as we know it, it doesn't get any better than being with loved ones.
This brings to mind the western concept of heaven – kind of like a family reunion – and the eastern concept of nirvana, where we finally come not to personal or individual immortality but a universal consciousness.
What are your thoughts and feelings about all this?
Notes
The Axe – Sorry about that - to the couple of people who commented on that last post about the tree. Long story short is that I’ve, uh, chopped it down...
As Time Allows – I’m no longer able to reply to every comment and email I receive. Disease progression with more bedridden time means having to focus on getting posts done. But I read everything I get, and at times take direction from comments and emails for upcoming posts. So please keep them coming and I’ll reply as time allows.
Hmm…
I’m running into kind of a Catch-22. I’d been thinking of blogging material that might make for a book and just finished writing the first piece that seems to work well. However…
I find that it takes a lot more time to write a bit of book, so to speak, than a self-contained blog post. So my original idea of blogging a book and getting feedback as I go may not be so great – I’m now noticing my traffic falling off pretty sharply because more writing time means I’m taking longer between posts and getting around less to other blogs.
In other words, I still haven't figured out exactly how I'm going to work with my increased time limitations.
You might say that just because I happen to be Paul Martin doesn’t mean that I have to identify exclusively or even primarily with Paul Martin. This leaves me with little concern over the idea of personal immortality.
At the same time, I continue to understand why so many people care deeply about this idea. In life as we know it, it doesn't get any better than being with loved ones.
This brings to mind the western concept of heaven – kind of like a family reunion – and the eastern concept of nirvana, where we finally come not to personal or individual immortality but a universal consciousness.
What are your thoughts and feelings about all this?
Notes
The Axe – Sorry about that - to the couple of people who commented on that last post about the tree. Long story short is that I’ve, uh, chopped it down...
As Time Allows – I’m no longer able to reply to every comment and email I receive. Disease progression with more bedridden time means having to focus on getting posts done. But I read everything I get, and at times take direction from comments and emails for upcoming posts. So please keep them coming and I’ll reply as time allows.
Hmm…
I’m running into kind of a Catch-22. I’d been thinking of blogging material that might make for a book and just finished writing the first piece that seems to work well. However…
I find that it takes a lot more time to write a bit of book, so to speak, than a self-contained blog post. So my original idea of blogging a book and getting feedback as I go may not be so great – I’m now noticing my traffic falling off pretty sharply because more writing time means I’m taking longer between posts and getting around less to other blogs.
In other words, I still haven't figured out exactly how I'm going to work with my increased time limitations.
Posted by Paul at 11:22 AM Permalink
16 Comments:
First re: the blogging conundrum, this is a tough one, and I am always struggling with it to a certain extent also, with trying to balance family concerns. But my experience when I have taken breaks from commenting on other blogs, or even from blogging entirely, is that when I get back online in full, all the traffic comes back pretty quickly. So if you need some time to just focus on the book, and cut back on commenting, it may temporarily decrease your traffic, but when/if you take breaks from the book and comment more again, the traffic will all come back.
Also posting just once a week has its benefits. All the same people visit, just once a week instead of 2-3 times, in my experience. As you know, I only post once a week or so, and this is partly why. I don't think the number of people that will read you will fall, they just won't come as often, but isn't it really about the people rather than hits?
Anyway, just some thoughts on that...
As for personal immortality, I really think of enlightenment as being a giving up on personal immortality, as accepting a complete release and surrender into the vastness, without focus on retaining any personal self. This is why I liked the end of your book so much, because you went there, and so many spiritual writers do not. I do think spirituality in mass culture has become very focused on personal gain, in a subtle way, and that this is basically an egoic desire, and many of the ideas about an afterlife etc. are projections of this. Not that I think myself beyond all this, but I do find the beauty in the idea of giving up on personal immortality all together....
An interesting topic. Today I was talking to a friend about death, and since learning a new concept around it (that it's more of a release than an ending), I've often said I look forward to passing. I think that mortifies some people, but honestly, the idea of death is perhaps scarier than its reality. There's only one way to find out, though, I suppose.
"I hate the idea that those that I love will cease to be, in all their individuality."
What do all of you nirvana-ites (so to speak) make of this?
One thing about loved ones dying: it sure does make us all really sad...
My parents and her mother passed away around the same time. Later, my friend and I exchanged stories of experiences both of us had during that first month or so after their passing. Now these experiences did not involve our hearing voices or seeing visions of our loved ones nothing so glamorous as that. Rather, it was as if our parents had nudged us, maybe through thought transference, so that we made certain choices that caused us to come in contact with something that was especially meaningful to our parents or to our relationship with them. In one instance for me, it involved a particular song that my parents taught me to sing when I was a toddler.
Of course, it could have been just coincidence and to some of your readers here, it surely must sound like silliness. But my friend and I both feel that our parents were attempting to contact us through these experiences to let us know that they still existed and that they loved us.
I have talked to other people who have had similar experiences after a loved one passed away.
Yes, Paul, we are sad when we lose a loved one and I must admit that when my parents died, I was for a while especially sensitive to things that symbolized them and symbolized the afterlife.
if i have to live with memories to be able to live the reminder of my life, it would be hard too.
i don't quite like life obviously.
if that's the way to heaven, if i had a choice, then i would probably choose not to come into being. then i wouldn't know pain either i guess, or hell or eternal joy.
ok, i will have to bribe st peter quite a bit now.
May you have a weekend of ease.
I just realized this is much like the accounts we often hear of near-death experiences... one looks on at ones own body-death without concern, with a certain lack of self-identification.
Perhaps that's because the body is just a coat we don for this lifetime.
Anyhow, (as Ernest Becker points out) I need a really good myth about death. It needs to not strain my credulity, it needs to explain what sort of life has meaning, and it needs to help me deal with the bizarre notion that I will cease to be. And honestly, when it comes to those things, I think the myth of personal immortality isn't a bad one. Too bad I can't take it on face value.
If anyone comes across a better myth, let me know. =)
Do you we die, fearful, regretful, hateful or do we die with arms wide open, having loved life, and lived fearlessly
Most people if they would listen to their innner self they would know this to be true
In the face of what my mother and all the other spiritualists called "proof" (a favourite word of theirs), did I believe in immortality? Not exactly - I was all too aware that spiritualists were considered cranks by most of the population. I was fascinated but sceptical.
And now? I live for this life, not any future one.
"No problem..."
vs.
"It deeply concerns me."
That seems to be the gist of this thread, which is pretty interesting so I think next post will be about this...
But I think the assumption that if you wonder about what happens after death, that means you are not paying attention to and enjoying life to the full now, is erroneous. What stops you from doing both?
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