Is there Life after Death?

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Is there Life after Death?
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A Psychological Approach Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
grief cycle
1926 - 2004
1926 - 2004
1924-2004
http//changingminds.org/disciplines/change_manage
ment/kubler_ross/kubler_ross.htm
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Stage 1 Shock

• The first reaction on hearing the bad news is one
  of classic shock. This initially may appear as if
  there is no reaction at all to the news. The
  person may nod and accept the news without
  appearing to be troubled by it. Inside, they have
  frozen out the news that has not really taken
  hold yet. To get the news through, they may need
  to be told several times.
• This is followed by a more external shock, where
  there may be physical reactions such as paling of
  the skin, shortness of breath and physical
  freezing.

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Stage 2 Denial

• After the initial shock has worn off, the next
  stage is usually one of classic denial, where
  they pretend that the news has not been given.
  They effectively close their eyes to any evidence
  and pretend that nothing has happened.
• Typically, they will continue their life as if
  nothing has happened. In the workplace, they will
  carry on doing their job even if that job is no
  longer required.
• A classic behavior here is a 'flight into
  health', where previously-perceived problems are
  suddenly seen as having miraculously fixed
  themselves.

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Stage 3 Anger

• The next step after denial is a sudden swing into
  anger, which often occurs in an explosion of
  emotion, where the bottled-up feelings of the
  previous stages are expulsed in a huge outpouring
  of grief. Whoever is in the way is likely to be
  blamed.

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Stage 4 Bargaining

• After the fires of anger have been blow out, the
  next stage is a desperate round of bargaining,
  seeking ways to avoid having the bad thing
  happen. Bargaining is thus a vain expression of
  hope that the bad news is reversible.

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Stage 5 Despair

• After denial, anger and bargaining, the
  inevitability of the news eventually (and not
  before time) sinks in and the person reluctantly
  accepts that it is going to happen. From the
  animation of anger and bargaining, they slump
  into a slough of despond. In this deep
  depression, they see only a horrible end with
  nothing beyond it. In turning in towards
  themselves, they turn away from any solution and
  any help that others can give them.

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Stage 6Testing

• Even in the pit of depressive despair, reality
  eventually starts to bite and the person realizes
  that they cannot stay in that deep, dark hole
  forever. They thus start looking for realistic
  things that they can do. These may be taken on as
  'experiments' to see if doing these things help
  the situation in any way. As this activity starts
  to work, at least in some ways, it is found to be
  preferred to the depression and so the person
  crawls out of that dark hole.

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Stage 7 Acceptance

• The final stage is back to one of stability,
  where the person is ready and actively involved
  in moving on to the next phase of their lives, no
  matter how short. The terminally ill person will
  be putting their life in order, sorting out wills
  and helping others to accept the inevitability
  that then now have countenanced and faced.

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• The Six States of the Bardo
• 1. Rang bzhin or Natural bardo our waking
  living state is the time of life to death
• 2.    Bsam gtan or meditation bardo
  concentration   Provides opportunity for the
  given being to cultivate meditative equipoise,
  allowing them to achieve stability in the
  generation and perfection stages of meditation.
  This deepens the awareness of the ultimate nature
  of mind and prepares the meditator for the
  Chikhai  or death bardo.
• 3      Rmi lam bardo path of dreams bardo -
  from the moment of falling asleep to awake.
  Gives the person the ability to realize the
  similarity between the illusory nature of dreams
  and reality. The practice of dream yoga, enables
  the practitioner learns to maintain the ultimate
  nature of mind and phenomena during sleep and
  dreaming.

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• 4      Chikhai bardo bardo at the time of
  death is entered at the time when the process of
  dying surely begins, ends with the onset of the
  onset of the Dharmata or Reality bardo. This
  points to the gradual disillusion of the five
  elements and cumulates with the inner radience of
  the ground, also known as visions of clear light.
  A natural arising of inner radiance happens
  immediately after the being stops respiration,
  which is considered an opportune time to realize
  the Buddha-body of Reality.
• 5  Chosnyid bardo bardo of experiencing
  reality.  It arises after the Chikhai or death
  bardo and ends before the Sridpai or life
  bardo.
• Based on the practices during ones lifetime the
  opportunity to recognize the natural purity and
  natural transformative qualities of the ultimate
  nature of mind occurs in the form of
  luminosities, rays, sounds, and meditational
  deities, noted by visions of various Buddha forms
  

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• 6        Sridpai or life bardo  This is
  the bardo of rebirth
• This state is entered after the Chosnyid bardo
  when the consciousness takes the form of a mental
  body which has been conditioned based on the
  individuals past actions.
• 1.      Here the individual begins to experience
  the surroundings where they died and experiential
  states which are powered by the individuals past
  actions (karmically impelled hallucinations).
• 2. If liberation from cyclic existence does not
  come at this state, then it comes to an end at
  the moment of conception, where the individual is
  reborn.
•  3. As consciousness has heightened qualities at
  this level, there is potential to reach
  liberation, or achieve a more favorable state of
  rebirth during this state.      
• Thus the six bardos are the classification of the
  6 types of consciousnesses, where each state
  forms an intermediate state between other states
  of consciousness.

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The Ancient Greeks on the Afterlife

• "I have a firm hope that there is something in
  store for those who have died, and, as we have
  been told for many years, something much better
  for the good than for the wicked." - Socrates in
  Phaedo

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Socrates in the Phaedo

• The coldness was spreading about as far as his
  waist when Socrates uncovered his face, for he
  had covered it up, and said they were his last
  words Crito, we ought to offer a cock to
  Asclepius. See to it, and don't forget. 4
• With these final words, Socrates requested his
  friends to sacrifice a cock to Asclepius, the
  Greek god of healing, for his recovery to health.
  Symbolically, his request showed that he was
  thankful to escape the tomb of the human body and
  leave the cavern of human earthly existence to
  enter a blissful life with the good gods. 

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• Socrates (from The Republic) report of a man
  returned to life
• as he was lying on the funeral pile, he
  returned to life and told them what he had seen
  in the other world. He said that when his soul
  left the body he went on a journey with a great
  company, and that they came to a mysterious place
  at which there were two openings in the earth
  they were near together, and over against them
  were two other openings in the heaven above. In
  the intermediate space there were judges seated,
  who commanded the just, after they had given
  judgment on them and had bound their sentences in
  front of them, to ascend by the heavenly way on
  the right hand and in like manner the unjust
  were bidden by them to descend by the lower way
  on the left hand these also bore the symbols of
  their deeds, but fastened on their backs. He drew
  near, and they told him that he was to be the
  messenger who would carry the report of the other
  world to men, and they bade him hear and see all
  that was to be heard and seen in that place. Then
  he beheld and saw on one side the souls departing
  at either opening of heaven and earth when
  sentence had been given on them and at the two
  other openings other souls, some ascending out of
  the earth dusty and worn with travel, some
  descending out of heaven clean and bright. And
  arriving ever and anon they seemed to have come
  from a long journey, and they went forth with
  gladness into the meadow, where they encamped as
  at a festival and those who knew one another
  embraced and conversed, the souls which came from
  earth curiously enquiring about the things above,
  and the souls which came from heaven about the
  things beneath. And they told one another of what
  had happened by the way, those from below weeping
  and sorrowing at the remembrance of the things
  which they had endured and seen in their journey
  beneath the earth (now the journey lasted a
  thousand years), while those from above were
  describing heavenly delights and visions of
  inconceivable beauty.

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• the soul, when choosing a new life, must of
  necessity become different. But there was every
  other quality, and the all mingled with one
  another, and also with elements of wealth and
  poverty, and disease and health and there were
  mean states also. And here, my dear Glaucon, is
  the supreme peril of our human state and
  therefore the utmost care should be taken. Let
  each one of us leave every other kind of
  knowledge and seek and follow one thing only, if
  peradventure he may be able to learn and may find
  some one who will make him able to learn and
  discern between good and evil, and so to choose
  always and everywhere the better life as he has
  opportunity. A man must take with him into the
  world below an adamantine faith in truth and
  right, that there too he may be undazzled by the
  desire of wealth or the other allurements of
  evil, lest, coming upon tyrannies and similar
  villainies, he do irremediable wrongs to others
  and suffer yet worse himself but let him know
  how to choose the mean and avoid the extremes on
  either side, as far as possible, not only in this
  life but in all that which is to come. For this
  is the way of happiness.

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• All the souls had now chosen their lives, and
  they went in the order of their choice to
  Lachesis, who sent with them the genius whom they
  had severally chosen, to be the guardian of their
  lives and the fulfiller of the choice this
  genius led the souls first to Clotho, and drew
  them within the revolution of the spindle
  impelled by her hand, thus ratifying the destiny
  of each and then, when they were fastened to
  this, carried them to Atropos, who spun the
  threads and made them irreversible, whence
  without turning round they passed beneath the
  throne of Necessity and when they had all
  passed, they marched on in a scorching heat to
  the plain of Forgetfulness, which was a barren
  waste destitute of trees and verdure and then
  towards evening they encamped by the river of
  Unmindfulness, whose water no vessel can hold of
  this they were all obliged to drink a certain
  quantity, and those who were not saved by wisdom
  drank more than was necessary and each one as he
  drank forgot all things

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• . Now after they had gone to rest, about the
  middle of the night there was a thunderstorm and
  earthquake, and then in an instant they were
  driven upwards in all manner of ways to their
  birth, like stars shooting. He himself was
  hindered from drinking the water. But in what
  manner or by what means he returned to the body
  he could not say only, in the morning, awaking
  suddenly, he found himself lying on the pyre.
  And thus, Glaucon, the tale has been saved and
  has not perished, and will save us if we are
  obedient to the word spoken and we shall pass
  safely over the river of Forgetfulness and our
  soul will not be defiled. Wherefore my counsel is
  that we hold fast ever to the heavenly way and
  follow after justice and virtue always,
  considering that the soul is immortal and able to
  endure every sort of good and every sort of evil.
  Thus shall we live dear to one another and to the
  gods, both while remaining here and when, like
  conquerors in the games who go round to gather
  gifts, we receive our reward. And it shall be
  well with us both in this life and in the
  pilgrimage of a thousand years which we have been
  describing.

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Parable of the Mustard SeedBuddha and
Acceptance of Death

• Kisa Gotami had an only son, and he died. In her
  grief she carried the dead child to all her
  neighbors, asking them for medicine, and the
  people said "She has lost her senses. The boy is
  dead. At length Kisa Gotami met a man who replied
  to her request "I cannot give thee medicine for
  thy child, but I know a physician who can." The
  girl said "Pray tell me, sir who is it?" And
  the man replied "Go to Sakyamuni, the Buddha."
  Kisa Gotami repaired to the Buddha and cried
  "Lord and Master, give me the medicine that will
  cure my boy." The Buddha answered "I want a
  handful of mustard-seed." And when the girl in
  her joy promised to procure it, the Buddha added
  "The mustard-seed must be taken from a house
  where no one has lost a child, husband, parent,
  or friend." Poor Kisa Gotami now went from house
  to house, and the people pitied her and said
  "Here is mustard-seed take it!" But when she
  asked Did a son or daughter, a father or mother,
  die in your family?" They answered her "Alas the
  living are few, but the dead are many. Do not
  remind us of our deepest grief." And there was no
  house but some beloved one had died in it.

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Soren Kierkegaard the Existentialist Courage to
be in the face of non-being.

• From The Sickness unto Death
• despair is conceived as the sickness, not as the
  cure. So dialectical is despair. So also in the
  Christian terminology death is the expression for
  the greatest spiritual wretchedness, and yet the
  cure is simply to die, to "die from." Only the
  Christian knows what is meant by the sickness
  unto death. He acquires as a Christian a courage
  which the natural man does not know -- this
  courage he acquires by learning fear for the
  still more dreadful. Such is the way a man always
  acquires courage when one fears a greater
  danger, it is as though the other did not exist.
  But the dreadful thing the Christian learned to
  know is "the sickness unto death." If on the
  contrary the self does not become itself, it is
  in despair, whether it knows it or not. However,
  a self, every instant it exists, is in process of
  becoming, for the self potentially does not
  actually exist, it is only that which it is to
  become. In so far as the self does not become
  itself, it is not its own self but not to be
  ones own self is despair.

1813-1855
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Alfred North Whitehead the soul is part of
the universal process

• As a first approximation we have conceived life
  as implying absolute, individual self-enjoyment
  of a process of appropriation. The data
  appropriated are provided by the antecedent
  functioning of the universe. Thus the occasion of
  experience is absolute in respect to its
  immediate self-enjoyment.

1861-1947
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E. O. Wilson Sociobiology and Life after Death

• The only common ground that between religion
  and science I see is the one that was approached
  by Darwin himself. Religious belief itself is an
  adaptation that has evolved because we're
  hard-wired to form tribalistic religions.
  Religion is intensely tribalistic. A devout
  Christian or Muslim doesn't say one religion is
  as good as another. It gives them faith in the
  particular group to which they belong and that
  set of beliefs and moral views. Oh yes, I grew up
  fundamentalist.
• I grew up as a Southern Baptist with strict
  adherence to the Bible, which I read as a
  youngster. As a child, I was warned by counselors
  and routine religious training that the truth was
  in the Bible. Redemption was only in Christ and
  the world is full of Satanic force. Satan himself
  perhaps -- but certainly his agents, witting and
  unwitting -- would try to make me drop my belief.
  I had that instilled in me. You have to
  understand how powerful the religious drive is --
  the instinct which I consider tribalist but
  probably necessary -- in most societies for
  continuing day-to-day business.

Born 1929
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Wilson on Heaven and Hell

• Would I be happy if I discovered that I could go
  to heaven forever? And the answer is no. Consider
  this argument. Think about what is forever. And
  think about the fact that the human mind, the
  entire human being, is built to last a certain
  period of time. Our programmed hormonal systems,
  the way we learn, the way we settle upon beliefs,
  and the way we love are all temporary. Because we
  go through a life's cycle. Now, if we were to be
  plucked out at the age of 12 or 56 or whenever,
  and taken up and told, now you will continue your
  existence as you are. We're not going to blot out
  your memories. We're not going to diminish your
  desires. You will exist in a state of bliss --
  whatever that is -- forever. And those who didn't
  make it are going to be consigned to darkness or
  hell. Now think, a trillion times a trillion
  years. Enough time for universes like this one to
  be born, explode, form countless star systems and
  planets, then fade away to entropy. You will sit
  there watching this happen millions and millions
  of times and that will just be the beginning of
  the eternity that you've been consigned to bliss
  in this existence.
• This heaven would be your hell.
• Yes. If we were able to evolve into something
  else, then maybe not. But we are not something
  else.