I feel I need to believe in life after death - but struggling to and it is bringing me down :(

[nikki1978]

The first 11 years of my life I was a Christian - this was mainly down to the fact that I wanted to go to Sunday School with my best friend so my parents started going to church. I was confirmed at 11 and then stopped going as I entered the teenage years and was only really interested in my friends and going out.

After this I always described myself as agnostic as I was sure there was something but not certain exactly what.

Then I married by husband who over the years has become more and more atheist - he probably was when we married as his family are very religious and I think he liked to rebel against them to be honest. He always says to me that when you die that is it.

Over the past 9 years I have suffered from anxiety which is mainly based on the fear of death as my anxiety is mainly about my health and dying. I have worked with a therapist on this and felt much better last year to the point I stopped seeing her. Then I started feeling bad again last year - triggered partly by the 'End of the World' threads that were prevalent on here and partly by the fact that winter brings me down.

But the death thing keeps cropping up in my mind. I am 33 this year and time is going so fast. Even if I live to be 90-something like my grandparents have it is still not very long. I hate the fact that my time with my beautiful family is so limited. I am terrified of one day going to sleep and never seeing any of them again.

Nowadays it almost seems the done thing to believe in nothing but this life. That once the brain stops everything that we were is gone. It terrifies me and although I know I should just enjoy the time I have it feels soured by this knowledge. I feel surrounded by people in life and in the media who scoff at religion and think that people who believe in the afterlife are naive. This cynicism has rubbed off on me I admit but I hate that it has. If religion is rubbish I would rather be a fool than feel so hopeless. But how can I go back when I know what is apparently 'The Truth'.

I saw a new book the other day which is about the human brain and why we see things that aren't really there - i.e. ghosts etc. Science seems to want to ram it down everyones throats - "don't bother hoping that you might go on after you die, you won't and here is the proof!"

The lack of hope is just bringing me down tbh. I feel really low about it :(

Can anyone understand where I am coming from or am I just mad?

Bump

I understand. Gotta give dd a bath but will post when I can.

Hi nikki. I am sorry this is bringing you down so much.

I'm somewhat biased, being a follower of Christ, but recognise what you are saying about needing a hope. This line you used stood out to me:

'If religion is rubbish I would rather be a fool than feel so hopeless. But how can I go back when I know what is apparently 'The Truth'.'

It brought to mind a verse from the bible which says something similar, that the message of hope seems like foolishness to those who don't believe. I know I often look a fool for believing this stuff, but just like you said, being a fool with hope is better than being 'right' and having none. You say how can you go back when you know what is apparently the truth, which seems to me to insinuate you're not really very sure at all, and I get the impression you feel somewhat under pressure from those around you who are sceptical of any type of belief, so would feel awkward exploring such.

Being who I am I would always suggest you follow the path that you want to, that seems to be pulling you, and if you feel you need to explore the possibility of hope, then you need to start that journey. Always be open with dh that you are thinking about it, and hopefully he will support you because he loves you. Would you ever consider the possibility of trying out one of the courses some churches offer to look at these issues? Some are Alpha, Emmaus, Start and Christianity Explored. Of course, I'm coming from a christian perspective, and you must pursue where you feel led to pursue, but this is the hope I have found and it blows me away every day.

I hope you can find a path which brings you some peace from all your anxiety, and would be more than happy to chat with you about anything to do with it. :)

I was brought up a catholic but rejected all religious belief when I left school, deeming it in my teenage wisdom to be irrational. Despite my scientific education I have now returned to the church in middle age because in this naughty world I NEED the hope which I've found only religion can provide. My faith is feeble but persists - like the cliched flickering candle.

I find the deafening chorus of the new atheistic orthodoxy tedious. I'll plough my furrow and they may do likewise.

I'd recommend 'The Godseeker's Guide' by dear Rabbi Lionel Blue - borrow it from the library before it's closed down!

Great thread -I'm looking forward to reading the replies, I have exactly the same thoughts some days. On more positive days I try to remember the Buddhist approach that life is all about change - and how we have to embrace it not fight it. (Apologies to any Buddhists if I've got this wrong!)

I will check out Lionel Blue's book - he's always worth reading not just for his wit but his honest straightforward approach.

WW

Thanks everyone, I will check out the book suggested.

Bumping thread :-)

Nikki I can absolutely relate to the things you have described. I also want to say this with love - It really doesn't matter if there is an afterlife or not - you are here on earth living your life right now. Now is all we ever have.

Sorry if this sounds a bit harsh, I truly mean this with love. I have always been afraid of death ever since I can remember, even when I was younger I became obsessed with it. I was not raised in any religion, nor am I particularly religious now - I'm not, but I am spiritual. I think that whatever resonates with you is your truth. Whatever you know to be true in your heart, cos you feel it, is true for you. How can it be any other way?

Having faith of something gives us a bit of hope, a bit of meaning. I am very sensitive to energies in the air, feelings, emotions you name it, I seem to get hit with it. I didn't quite understand as I was growing up that this is what was happening to me, until I learned reiki and started reading books on angels and all of that kind of stuff.

My father passed away last year and now I know without any threads of doubt whatsoever, that there is 'life after death', or that the soul/essence/lifeforce whatever still exists. I can't prove my experiences to anyone, but even if you told me it is all in my mind, I'd have to say 'yeah, maybe, but it is totally real to me'.

Interesting thing too is that time has really been speeding up in my own reality too. There is a lot of spiritual authors speaking about the earth moving into the 4th dimension in 2012 - and not the end of the world as some believe. My time has been moving Ffr too quickly for my liking. Since I believe in and talk to angels, I asked them to slow down my perception of time passing. It worked. I know how unconventional and crazy etc this might all sound, but it worked for me.

Regarding science, it doesn't satisfy all of my questions. A lot of science is theory. A lot of everything is theory, it doesn't mean something doesn't exist just because it can't be proven or explained or measured. I believe there is a lot we don't understand yet, but it's on the way to being discovered.

At this point in my life I will also be 33 this year, and from what I have experienced, I am trying to make the most out of every day, while I am still here to experience it. :)

Bump

Go to a demonstration in the spiritual Church, it may make you feel better.

take care

Sorry meant Spiritualist not spiritual 9which is most of them now isn't it)

i have this too

i was a staunch atheist until recently. My friend died and i couldn't understand where she had gone... long story short, i got myself into such a tizzy that i had an 'episode' which I'm still recovering from

I've done a bit of thinking over the past few months and it might help you.

the tendency for some people to be completely rational and only want to understand the material is a fairly recent thing which came about because of the church being overly superstitious and ruling peoples lives ... which is fair enough. i think though that it went too far the other way not leaving any room for personal spirituality which is important

when you think that there is an afterlife does it calm you down and help you live?

if it does, like it did with me, i would say listen to that... why would we have evolved to fear death (some not all) if spirituality was not the antidote to that fear ...surely we would have evolved to be completely fine with it, no?

try not to get bogged down with the general view of what 'educated rational' people believe and find your own path... it will be hard especially if your husband is not on the same page but remember that so many people are and you're certainly not alone

take care of yourself

Nicki - maybe you should go back to the therapist if that helped before. What sort was it? It sounds like cognative behavioral therapy (CBT) would be helpful for you to control 'bad thoughts' and avoid spiraling into negative thoughts and fears. I hope you find a way through.

I would also suggest reading some books about past life regression, which have case histories in them.

Once I had experienced a past life, and death, I could never be scared about death (or the end of the world) ever agin

I do understand though - good advice given by other posters, and your fears will pass.

You do not have to believe in god to believe in life after death (I certainly don't).

I am going to share my beliefs, (which are based on ancient belief systems, so you are welcome to dismiss them). People who have an extreme fear of death tend to be those who don?t truly understand what it is. The common religious explanation is so final that I shudder to think that there are people who truly think there is a burning pit of fire waiting for them on the other side.

I would like to think that ?low? feeling you are experiencing is your intuition rebelling against what is clearly an erroneous conclusion. Like trying to fit a triangle through a circle.
For what it?s worth, here is my take on death:

We have a physical body and a spiritual (soul which Carl Jung has written about quite extensively). When the physical one dies, the soul does not because it is infinite and immortal. Will you lose contact with your family? No you will not. Your DNA (which contains all your memories) will continue to live on inside them, as has been theorised in this article.

Believe it or not, Lion King (yes the Disney animation) is an excellent learning tool for explaining death.

Young Simba: And we'll always be together, right?

Mufasa: Simba, let me tell you something my father told me. Look at the stars. The great kings of the past are up there, watching over us.

Young Simba: Really?

Mufasa: Yes. So whenever you feel alone, just remember that those kings will always be there to guide you. And so will I.

As a matter of fact, the song "They Live in You" eludes to this "truth.". Remember that A.Crowley (who was not an "evil" man. Did you know that Barbara Bush is his daughter?) stated that every man and woman is a star.

I will make another important point about life and death. Life is infinite (circle of life) and knows no end therefore, death is another form of existence, allowing one to change from a physical being to a spiritual one.

Mufasa: Simba . . .

Simba: Father?

Mufasa: Simba, you have forgotten me.

Simba: No. How could I?

Mufasa: You have forgotten who you are, and so have forgotten me. Look inside yourself, Simba. You are more than what you have become. You must take your place in the Circle of Life.

Moving on, what I love about Buddhism is its clear teachings on death. See this link for further information. This paragraph in particular is of interest;

?the departed then encounters various apparitions, the "peaceful" and "wrathful" deities, that are actually personifications of human feelings and that, to successfully achieve nirvana, the deceased must encounter unflinchingly?

sums up what I think was the original Christian meaning of ?heaven? and ?hell?. Heaven was meant to be all those moments on Earth that resulted in peace, love and joy. While hell were those moments where you caused pain to others.

Through these personifications of human feelings, you get to re-live the pain/joy you caused other people;

Were you a child abuser? You get to enjoy the pain, fear, torment that you caused. Racist? Well, how about you experience what it felt like to oppress another based on their skin colour. Did you kill someone? Now you get to experience what it felt like to be at someone?s mercy; to die alone, or however else the person died.

As for the so called ?demons? in hell. These are the life forms formed by our thoughts. Some people are irredeemably evil that their thoughts actually took on a form (the Law of Physics state that energy cannot be destroyed, but is transformed into something else. Emotions are "energy in motion"), and this is what the Christian bible called ?demons?.

I was once in your position, and it took a long time to get to a place where I am not afraid of death (people who are spiritually developed enough can actually consciously choose when and how to die. This is the point I am working towards). The key starting point is to find out what your purpose in life is, and from there, everything else will fall into place.

Don?t be dissuaded by people calling you ?mad? for looking into alternative religions. I hope this helps you somewhat, and if it doesn't, well hopefully you got a laugh out of it.

PS ? Yes, there is a ?being? without which there would be no life. Without understanding yourself however, you have no chance of understanding it. Put it this way, if you understand the properties that underlie a single drop of sea-water, you will also understand those of the vast ocean it came from.

You should check out Brian Weiss, a psychiatrist who has written books on reincarnation.

Sorry, no edit button on here!

Here's the website:

www.brianweiss.com/

Nicki: you wrote, "But how can I go back when I know what is apparently 'The Truth'."
The word 'apparently' shows you are not convinced that there is 'nothing' after death - you are an agnostic not an atheist?

With childhood experience of religion it is natural that you should feel drawn back to religion.

I too have always had a great fear of death - nightmares as a child and adult facing the reality of it. I have a very shaky faith, returned to in my 30s because of having children but now I love going to Church regularly because I know there are some people in the congregation and the priest and deacon on the altar who do have a strong faith. I find that immensely comforting. For me that is like being blind but having somebody sighted to describe the landscape to you and keep you on the right path.

It gives me some hope for the future, but much more than that it helps to give me peace and contentment for the present and I am able to enjoy what life I do have.

I hope your husband will be supportive. Find a priest/vicar/minister and church you like or whatever path/religion you wish, but do try something. It can really help.

I came to this topic to start an almost identical thread. I too am really struggling at the moment with a fear of death, not existing, losing and leaving loved ones behind etc. I'm at the end of my first pregnancy too and it really is spoiling what should be a happy time. In many ways I'm a very logical person so life after death seems like it's just too good to be true. The alternative makes me sick with worry though and I'd love to believe there is something - I suppose it's equally as odd for us to be on the earth and life be as weird and wonderful as it is without anything greater at the helm. I'm just so confused and I'm finding it more and more difficult to get enjoyment out of anything as the worry just won't leave me. Sorry for the rambling message...

Suburbanslob,

You might find it helpful to read Carl Jung's work on death. Here is an excerpt from "On Life After Death"

"Equally important to me were the dream-experiences I had before my mother's death. News of her death came to me while I was staying in the Tessin. I was deeply shaken, for it had come with unexpected suddenness. The night before her death I had a frightening dream. I was in a dense, gloomy forest; fantastic, gigantic boulders lay about among huge jungle-like trees. It was a heroic, primeval landscape. Suddenly I heard a piercing whistle that seemed to resound through the whole universe. My knees shook. Then there were crashings in the underbrush, and a gigantic wolfhound with a fearful, gaping maw burst forth. At the sight of it, the blood froze in my veins. It tore past me, and I suddenly knew: the Wild Huntsman had commanded it to carry away a human soul. I awoke in deadly terror, and the next morning I received the news of my mother's passing.

Seldom has a dream so shaken me, for upon superficial consideration it seemed to say that the devil had fetched her. But to be accurate the dream said that it was the Wild Huntsman, the "Grünhult," or Wearer of the Green Hat, who hunted with his wolves that night?it was the season of Föhn storms in January. It was Wotan, the god of my Alemannic forefathers, who had gathered my mother to her ancestors?negatively to the "wild horde," but positively to the "sälig lüt ," the blessed folk.

It was the Christian missionaries who made Wotan into a devil. In himself he is an important god?a Mercury or Hermes, as the Romans correctly realized, a nature spirit who returned to life again in the Merlin of the Grail legend and became, as the spiritus Mercurialis, the sought-after arcanum of the alchemists. Thus the dream says that the soul of my mother was taken into that greater territory of the self which lies beyond the segment of Christian morality, taken into that wholeness of nature and spirit in which conflicts and contradictions are resolved.

I went home immediately, and while I rode in the night train I had a feeling of
great grief, but in my heart of hearts I could not be mournful, and this for a
strange reason: during the entire journey I continually heard dance music,
laughter, and jollity, as though a wedding were being celebrated. This contrasted violently with the devastating impression the dream had made on
me. Here was gay dance music, cheerful laughter, and it was impossible to yield entirely to my sorrow. Again and again it was on the point of overwhelming me, but the next moment I would find myself once more engulfed by the merry melodies. One side of me had a feeling of warmth and joy, and the other of terror and grief; I was thrown back and forth between these contrasting emotions.

This paradox can be explained if we suppose that at one moment death was
being represented from the point of view of the ego, and at the next from that of the psyche. In the first case it appeared as a catastrophe; that is how it so often strikes us, as if wicked and pitiless powers had put an end to a human life. And so it is?death is indeed a fearful piece of brutality; there is no sense pretending otherwise. It is brutal not only as a physical event, but far more so psychically: a human being is torn away from us, and what remains is the icy stillness of death. There no longer exists any hope of a relationship, for all the bridges have been smashed at one blow. Those who deserve a long life are cut off in the prime of their years, and good-for-nothings live to a ripe old age. This is a cruel reality which we have no right to sidestep. The actual experience of the cruelty and wantonness of death can so embitter us that we conclude there is no merciful God, no justice, and no kindness.

From another point of view, however, death appears as a joyful event. In the light of eternity, it is a wedding, a mysterium coniunctionis. The soul attains, as it were, its missing half, it achieves wholeness. On Greek sarcophagi the joyous element was represented by dancing girls, on Etruscan tombs by banquets. When the pious Cabbalist Rabbi Simon ben Jochai came to die, his friends said that he was celebrating his wedding. To this day it is the custom in many regions to hold a picnic on the graves on All Souls' Day. Such customs express the feeling that death is really a festive occasion.

                  <strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong>

There is no end after death; the soul continues to grow and evolve. Indeed Carl Jung writes:

"I dreamed once that I was paying a visit to a friend who had died about two
weeks before. In life, this friend had never espoused anything but a conventional view of the world, and had remained stuck in this unreflecting attitude. In the dream his home was on a hill similar to the Tullinger hill near
Basel. The walls of an old castle surrounded a square consisting of a small
church and a few smaller buildings. It reminded me of the square in front of the castle of Rapperswil. It was autumn. The leaves of the ancient trees had turned gold, and the whole scene was transfigured by gentle sunlight. My friend sat at a table with his daughter, who had studied psychology in Zurich. I knew that she was telling him about psychology. He was so fascinated by what she was saying that he greeted me only with a casual wave of the hand, as though to intimate:"Don't disturb me." The greeting was at the same time a dismissal.

The dream told me that now, in a manner which of course remains incomprehensible to me, he was required to grasp the reality of his psychic existence, which he had never been capable of doing during his life."

Hope this helps.

Thanks for taking the time to post that Lady - how interesting. What are your personal thoughts?

Personally, I have no fear when it comes to death because it is not the end, but the beginning of another life. Sure, it physically hurts to know that one day I won?t be around my family, but on the other hand, it is comforting to know that spiritually, I will always be around them and looking after them.

Interestingly, coming to terms with death is a requirement of most ?pagan paths?!. To wit, part of one of the rituals in Freemason involves the "initiate" spending time in a coffin to learn this very lesson.

What I am slightly anxious about is ?Purgatory" (my thoughts are already stated above) while it is merely a state of consciousness where one is forced to account for one's life, it does not sound like a pleasant experience. Bruce Parry who presents the TV series 'Tribe' once took a hallucogenic called Iboga/Ibogaine which stimulated in his mind what 'Purgatory' is, and he experienced (in the literal sense) the pain he has caused and is causing to others in his lifetime.

An excellent book that gives an excellent account of life after death is "Dion Fortune - Through the Gates of Death". I like how she draws upon different religious rituals to illustrate a point. For example, she explains the purpose of the Catholic mass of the dead in ?helping? the dead.

How are you feeling today? still anxious?

I know how you feel, especially when it seems like everyone wants to tell you that you're stupid or crazy for believing in "something else." But I do, and I'm neither of those things.

I think that God and the afterlife are so big we can't possibly see them, if you know what I mean. Like a bit of the stuff inside my cells arguing that I don't exist, or a flatworm knowing the Earth is round. We're too small :)

I think that our spirits are...energy, for lack of a better word, and you can't get rid of energy.

I need to hope too, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. What a stodgy, dreary world without it!

Even though I am a committed Christian I too had a fear of death until someone recommended the mystic Lorna Byrne & her book Angels in my Hair. When I read it I had an inner feeling of peace & went to see her last year when she wrote her second book. Since then I have had dreams of people I know who are shortly to pass away, which although scary means I am able to visit them & say goodbye. I hope you find some peace.