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God
March 2009 
Is Enlightenment the final Death? Life after Oneness?
Posted on Sep 14th, 2008
by 
Daniel: Devotee and Mystic
Daniel: Devotee and Mystic
I have noticed there is a certain negativity attached to life by many. I way of thinking that individuality is something bad, like a punishment of some sort. Statements such as we are born sinful, or life is suffering.
There is an idea out there that individuality is some impermanent illusion, one that isn't real, a dream. The solution to this is to wake up, or so they say.
I dissagree totally with the Hindu teaching that life is a lila, some divine play, a dream that God is having, implying that God is asleep. Where will these masters that die after their "enlightenment" go when they die? Will they merge with the whole, or cease to be individuals? Imagine the selfishness of such a thing. To learn so many things, only to voluntarily die/merge into the one? What would be the point of going from being the one, to being an individual only to just go right back where you came from?
Beyond that, why and how did individuality occur in the first place? I remember reading in the Bible a certain person who questioned Jesus concerning resurection? He asked Jesus which wife someone would have when they arise? Jesus said that you don't take wives at that point.
I also have read about the Buddhist idea of entering Nirvana after the need to reincarnate is no longer there. The question in my mind is how would someone know that there is an afterlife unless you still exist as an invidual once there? It's like me saying after I die I will no longer exist. And I know this because I didn't exist for a time and came back to existence. That wouldn't be knowledge at all, there is no way to to have an experience of non-existence because you wouldn't remember anything.
It seems clear to me that heaven and nirvana are one and the same. I would also say that you will have a body there, but a deathless one, that doesn't suffer.
I believe it to be most logical to believe that there is a God who caused your individuality to be, and that this individuality is eternal in one form or another.
There is an idea out there that individuality is some impermanent illusion, one that isn't real, a dream. The solution to this is to wake up, or so they say.
I dissagree totally with the Hindu teaching that life is a lila, some divine play, a dream that God is having, implying that God is asleep. Where will these masters that die after their "enlightenment" go when they die? Will they merge with the whole, or cease to be individuals? Imagine the selfishness of such a thing. To learn so many things, only to voluntarily die/merge into the one? What would be the point of going from being the one, to being an individual only to just go right back where you came from?
Beyond that, why and how did individuality occur in the first place? I remember reading in the Bible a certain person who questioned Jesus concerning resurection? He asked Jesus which wife someone would have when they arise? Jesus said that you don't take wives at that point.
I also have read about the Buddhist idea of entering Nirvana after the need to reincarnate is no longer there. The question in my mind is how would someone know that there is an afterlife unless you still exist as an invidual once there? It's like me saying after I die I will no longer exist. And I know this because I didn't exist for a time and came back to existence. That wouldn't be knowledge at all, there is no way to to have an experience of non-existence because you wouldn't remember anything.
It seems clear to me that heaven and nirvana are one and the same. I would also say that you will have a body there, but a deathless one, that doesn't suffer.
I believe it to be most logical to believe that there is a God who caused your individuality to be, and that this individuality is eternal in one form or another.
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