Why the desire to be immortal?
- Thread starter water
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We have evolved to want to stay alive- the ones who didn't, didn't- so it is inherent for us to want to go on. i don't think it's immortality we want because we can't imagine that, just to stay alive for as long as we can imagine, which is longer than we will stay alive. the exception comes with fatal illnesses. According to people who work with terminally ill people they nearly all accept and even welcome death eventually.
How far do suicides think of themselves as dying or perhaps destroying everything else as well as- or instead of- themselves?
How far do suicides think of themselves as dying or perhaps destroying everything else as well as- or instead of- themselves?
water said:
From my researches, it is a particularly patriarchal dream. The idea that one can gain everlasting life and escape desease, decay, death, and the 'messiness' of life
you can see this dream both West ANd East, in differnt forms, but fundamentally the desire is to escape birth and death
so why? it is an infantile male thang. though it has to be admitted women--indoctrinated in religious beliefgs along patriarchal lines-- are also affected.
Underlying the desire is a deep dissatisfaction and di-ease with life and living. Joseph Campbess pinpoints a transition this general dissatisfaction happened to 'The Great Reversal' where by Egyptian poetry went dramtically from celebration of life to despair, and the wanting to escape. He cites warfare and rapine etc as a cause of this transition
this makes sense. If you aren't happy somewhere, you wanna go don't you? simple. so IF the world is made to be a misery to live in, it's easy to see people -in despair-dreaming of a 'promised land'. somewhere where ther's peace, and no death etc.
But dreaming for it dont make it true.
The sad loop is this. that precisely because the main mindset believes this (and not with Science it has changed to utter 'menainglessness!), it has no joy at all in living, and this Earth. so it creates hellish life for many. and that creates despair also
all one can do is see right through this game and try and encourage others to explore it so as to create a better place to live
The idea of everlasting ness is un-natrual. it is stasis. and the belief hasn't been thought through, which is why it's absurd
i am not saying there might not be some kind of atemporal experience post physical death. many earth religious pagans believed this. but it was a resting place before rebirth, not everlasting 'heaven' or 'hell'
People don't want to be immortal. That is the misconception.
People want to be satisfied with themselves before they die. For some, it is believed it will take eternity for this full satisfaction to be manifest, and hence the dream for immortality.
If one were satisfied, one would not search for the elixir.
People want to be satisfied with themselves before they die. For some, it is believed it will take eternity for this full satisfaction to be manifest, and hence the dream for immortality.
If one were satisfied, one would not search for the elixir.
everneo said:
yes. good. am trying to drum it into your unconsciousneses. that it is THe patriarchy, the 'rule of the fathers' who fear, demonoze, and dismiss the feminine--which they have always equated with Nature. What does Nature do? it changes! if it sayyed the same it'd be a patriarchal nightmare of everlasating nessness
now how manys that now? 223, 224. still counting?
water said:
The only reason that I wish to be immortal is because I know and love God. I have experienced His love and His power, and He has given me some understanding as to His law and His creation. If it were not for Him...knowing Him like I do...I would definitely not wish to be immortal...I would have wished to cease to exist a long time ago.
Love,
Lori
There are two deaths...one of the flesh...one of the spirit...which one are we talking about? I suppose it depends upon what you know about God or about the spiritual realm as a whole. The death of the flesh means a transition to a dimension in which there is no time. The death of the spirit means to cease to exist.
§outh§tar said:
'immortality'--the idea of it, didn't begin with patriarchal mythic interpreatin of it, read this please:
"The umbilical cord/snakes were symbols of the rebirth to be expected from Glaukos' snake juice....In the days of the old month-year the Goddess herself was a snake. When she took human form the snake became her 'attribute'; it was the 'symbol of wisdom'...The snake among the Greeks was full of mana, was intensely sacred...because he is himself a life-daimon, a spirit of generation, even of immortality. But-and this is alliimportant-it is immortality of quite a peculiar kind...the daimon genus, the spirit, the genius of the race, hestands...for the personal renewal of life through death...birth back again. A belief in reincarnation is characteristic of totemic peoples." (Shamanism and the drug Propaganda: Patriarchy and the Drug War, by Dan Russell)
So. we could see two camps--both stemming from the patriarchal mindset. the lieralist religionists who believe in immorality which sheds the physical reality and lives in the spirit. And the mechanistic science people who believe that when they die that is the end of awareness (an individual sens of being aware as they are NOW in physical reality)
what i have just quoted is communicating something prfoundly different than those two polar extremes. Rather that awareness re-awareneses. that awareness is more than 'you' what you think you are. it is a dynamic regenerating process which INcludes physical reality. for spirit and matter-energy are not divided in its insights about reality
water said:
Some may want that kuz they don't like the idea of their very existence just abruptly ending.
§outh§tar said:
Could anyone ever really be satisfied with life?
Woody said:
For all we know, we probably did have a choice to be born, and into which life. Maybe we just don't remember it.
Besides, the topic isn't the afterlife. It's immortality.
Yorda said:
true. when we are in deep sleep--called delta sleep cause of the slow vibrational brain-wave patterns--i prefer bodymind vibrations---we are kinda oblivious. for example, even in dream states we can have heavy dreams, right?
so, you desire the deep oblivion where we apparently dont suffer. same with anesthetic. same as what the habitual heroin user craves. Oblivion.
But, the REALITy is you are NOT nothing NOW, you are something. THAt we know, agreed?The other--the dram of all-the-time nothingness is an IDEA. alright, we know it when we are in deep sleep from -not experience as such cause we dont know it, if you get me-but from the known about rythms of sleep. You agree that that state ALTERNATES with other forms of experience, like dreams, and waking up reality? so, it is change isn't it. THAt we DO know, right?
so why then do you suppose from that what we know a state of all the TIME nothing ness? surely that is just a dream?