The hour of our death

[*\Conan/*]

K T, are you familar with the Jesus Sutras?
This is taken from chapter 2, the fourth Sutra;
" 4)When it is time for life to end the Winds depart from the body. A person's heart and mind are not their own, but are created by the Winds. The Winds departure is a time of distress, but nobody can see them because they have no color, not red or green or any other. The Winds of life are invisible. The path is unknown."

Early Taoism along the silk road had some wonderful correlations and studies relating Christian beliefs and re-incarnation. I would urge you to read these when given a chance. Very deep thoughts and writings.
My personal opinion on this matter is that my "Winds" will return to whom they belong, to whom I belong. Just my opinion

[K T Ong]

To Conan:

No, I am not familiar with the Jesus Sutras. Never heard of them before, in fact. If you don't mind me saying it, they honestly sound a bit to me like some kind of... New Age fabrication... Where can I find them, anyway? Somewhere on the net, perhaps?

My final conviction regarding death is that in a fundamental sense we can never die because we were never born. Perceive your own being as ONE with that of the Universe. Then what birth or death can there be to speak of? Change, yes, but birth and death -- that's a slightly different matter.

Let me explain. Think of the ocean. It gives rise to waves, ripples, foam, spray, etc. The foam, ripple etc may think of itself as having arisen at a certain point in time and being eventually 'doomed' to turn back into nothingness. But if it (the foam, ripple etc) can identify itself with the ocean, then it will realise it is actually beyond the clutches of death, because the ocean, with which it is ONE, was always there and will always be there.

Likewise, the Universe gives rise to stars, planets, animals, people etc. We may think of each of these as having a distinct, separate existence in its own right, which will be terminated at a certain point in time. I maintain this is an erroneous picture. They are all continuous with the Cosmos -- just as the wave, ripple etc is continuous with the ocean -- and there is ultimately just a single continuous cosmic process which knows neither beginning nor end. Thus being one with the Cosmos, I am just as eternal.

Uhhhh... Am I making sense? [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 02-28-2002: Message edited by: K T Ong ]

[*\Conan/*]

Good morning K T, or is that evening for you [img]smile.gif[/img]
You make perfect sense to me. You have a very good desriptive writing syle and I wish I could be better in this area somedays!

In 1907, explorers discovered a vast treasure trove of anceint scrolls, silk paintings, and artifacts dating from the 5th to the 11th centuries A.D. in a long-sealed cave in a remote region of China. Among them, written in Chinese, were scrolls that recounted a history of Jesus' life and teachings in beautiful Taoist concepts and imagery that were unknown in the West. These writings told a story of Christianity that was by turns unique and disturbing, hopeful and uplifting. The best way to describe them is collectively, with a term they used themselves: The Jesus Sutras.
Comparable in significance to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Gathered, deciphered, and interpreted by a team of expert linguists and scholars, these sacred texts present an inspiring use of Jesus' teachings and life within Eastern practices and meditations-and provide an extraordinary window into an intriguing, profoundly gentler, more spiritual Chritianity than existed in Europe or Asia at the time, or indeed, even today.
The Taoist Christians who wrote the Jesus Sutras reconized equality of the sexs, preached against slavery, and practiced non-violence twards all forms of life. In particular, this tradition offered its followers a more hopeful vision of life on earth and after death than the dominant Eastern religions, teaching that Jesus had broken the wheel of karma and its consequent punishing, endless reincarnations.
The Stone Sutra is in the hall of the Forest of Stone Steles Museum, Xian.

[Talthyr Malkaviel]

Well, if that is the case, I still believe in death being the end, although you say, because everything can relate back to the universe, I believe that the universe can stop existing, what methods do we have to prove that it will carry on forever?

[K T Ong]

To Conan:

Glad that I've made sense to you. [img]smile.gif[/img] I remain skeptical of the authenticity of this 'Jesus Sutras' thing -- though I keep an open mind. Let's put it this way, something of this nature would have created significant repercussions in the academic world, and scholars of Chinese thought would certainly have responded by discussing it in their articles etc. But I don't remember coming across any such thing. Also, differences between the ideas and concepts used by two different cultures -- in this case the Jewish and Chinese peoples -- can be very great and difficult to bridge. It is a well-known fact that the idea of a single all-powerful God, such as was acceped by the Semitic religions, never became popular in China. Even Buddhism, intellectually much closer to the Chinese mind than most other religions, had to be assimilated slowly over centuries of difficult scholarship involving the translation of Sanskrit key concepts into Chinese. So this 'Jesus Sutras' thing just strikes me as... too incredible... My suspicion is that it's a fabrication... (BTW, 'sutra' is a Sanskrit word, not Chinese.)

To Talthyr Malkaviel:

Suit yourself. (Me shrugs shoulders. ) I don't think I've ever obliged anyone to buy my beliefs. I'm just sharing them, that's all. Take them or leave them.

Let's put it this way, in science nothing has ever been known to cease to exist utterly. Something merely becomes something else, that's all. Ask any physicist. To be sure, some scientists claim that even empty space itself is in a sense chock full of matter/energy (so it's in fact not all that empty after all) -- an insight which physicist Fritjof Capra, incidentally, claims to have been first arrived at by the Sung Confucian philosopher Chang Tsai (1020 ~ 1077).

If the Universe -- meaning here by 'Universe' simply 'everything' -- were to 'cease to exist', this 'ceasing to exist' would merely amount to everything undergoing a change into something else. Except that, since by definition the term 'Universe' is supposed to signify everything that exists -- including that 'something else' -- the Universe wouldn't have ceased to exist after all.

And before I close, more than a few scientists have shared my convictions on the eternity of one's being by virtue of one's unity with the Universe (not that I'm appealing to authority). If it should merit your interest, you might like to read the thoughts and writings of Erwin Schrodinger, David Bohm, Fritjof Capra, and others.

[Neb]

If nothing physical can ever cease to exist, how about things such as consciousness? If we assume that the same rule applies to consciousness then you'll never truly die, the form in which your consciousness exists will merely change.

That would mean either reincarnation(Being conscious as a new creature.) or some sort of "afterlife"(Being conscious as an angel, devil, immortal soul, whatever.).

Hmmmm.... A point in favour of the existence of a soul, if souls weren't parts of bodies and keeping them alive, then any dead body could be sown back up and have an electrical surge passed through it to revive it(Like Frankenstein.), but since this does not appear to be the case, then there must be some other component to "life" and "consciousness" besides that which is physical.

(Sorry if I rambled and/or made no sense whatsoever.)

[*\Conan/*]

Near the end of the nineteeth century, on the extreme north-west frontier of China, a Taoist priest living a few miles outside the oasis town of Dunhuang broke into a room cut into the rocks of a remote mountain range. Dunghuang was once a great town on the ancient Silk Road, which streched from the capital of China to Antioch. The town reached the height of its prosperity during the Tang Dynasty, but had long since fallen into obscurity. The room the priest had discovered was a secret library, bricked in with a material that indicated the cave had been sealed around 1005. As he removed the bricks and rubble from the entrance, the priest could see stacks upon stacks of scrolls inside, a vast treasure trove of thousands of books, paintings, and artifacts dating from the 5th to the 11th centuries.
Most of the scrolls were Buddhist, Confucian, and Taoist-the great faiths of ancient China. But carefully stored alongside these works were scrolls from a faith that few knew had existed in China at that time. These scrolls spoke of "the Visitor", of "the Jade-Faced one", of "the One Sacred Spirit". They told of how the world began and recorded stories told by Jesus the Messiah that were unknown in the West.
The word "Sutra" is commonly used in Buddhism for a sacred text. It derives from the Sanskrit word for thread and connotes the idea that a thread of sacred teaching or wisdom is contained iwhtin the sacred book.
The Jesus Sutras bring together the beliefs of the Eastern world of Buddhism and Taoism with those ot the Western Judeo-Christian world. Although some people today see these two worlds as seperate and irreconciaably different, even as implacably opposed to each other, the Jesus Sutras show that these two world cultures can-and-did come together to create an astonishing, accesible, vibrant practice of Taoist Christianity within the context of Confucian China some fourteen hundred years ago.
The fragile remains of the Jesus Sutras that have survived are scattered around the world from Paris to Japan. Written on parchment paper, they are scrolls, although at times refered to as books. Some are complete, others de3cayed or torn. Yet there are sufficient remains for us to build a clear picture of the ideas, beliefs, and imagery in the writings, preaching, and worship of the TaoistChristians in China. The Jesus Sutras reveal an understanding of Christ and the human nature that is dramatically different from the standard versions of Christianity. Even though they provide rich a rich spiritual and cultural vision of Jesus' teachings in a Taoist context, theyhave been a source of embarrasement to Western Christians.
In or around 1625, workmen digging a grave in the country-side about 50 miles from Xian in Shaanxi Province found a huge stone stele-a carved stone slab-burried deep in the earth. Weighing 2 tons, its front was carved with 19 hundred Chinese characters. More than 70 Syrac names of clergy with Chinese phoneticism were on the stones side. The inscriptions told of a new religion in China. Dating from the Tang Dynasty and in fact dated 781, the text recounted the major events and teachings of an otherwise tottally unknown mission of the early Church in China, which had arrived in 635. The stele stands 12 ft. high, 3.5 ft. wide, and is about a foot thick, mounted on a huge carved tortoise. The top of the Stone Sutra shows the cross rising from a lotus. Stylized Western flowers rise on both sides and the top holds a flaming pearl. the clouds represent yin and the flamming pearl yang. Christianity was skillfully set within the funamental spiritual images of ancient China.

[ 03-01-2002: Message edited by: *\Conan/* ]

[Nanaki3]

I think we die and whether we were good in life or bad decide whether we go to heaven or not.

quote:

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Originally posted by Roxi:
Personally, I don't find this a silly question. I think it shows one is searching, and that can only be good, as I see it.

I don't know the answer to that question either. I can only hope that there is more than just a physical existence, otherwise life seems to be without purpose.

MagiK, your answer intrigues me. Especially the last sentence. Aren't you looking at just the physical aspect? What about what occupies the physical body? The spirit. I don't think I'm just a 'physical' body. There's the part that's 'me'.

But if that part I call 'me' was to come back... and maybe I have done this already?? ..... would I be believed if I knew it for a fact and said so? Highly doubtful, because I think most people need to see it physically since that's the level they mostly operate from.

I wish I knew more, but I'm only searching here too. [img]smile.gif[/img]

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Personally I think it is silly to search for something you can't know till it happens...just my opinion. Faith is believing without proof, and there can be no proof about what happens after death...untill science proves me wrong on that account any way [img]smile.gif[/img]

SOme people in this thread posited that maybe religion developed due to mans fear of death....I can't say how anyone else feels, but death itself is not a very scarey thing for me. Ive even had a few days where It would have been a welcome if permanent diversion. In reality I don't fear death, I do fear pain..prolonged intense pain..I hate pain, I also fear leaving my kids in a situation where they need me.....and I fear letting others down, but death...isnt all that scarey for me, so if religion develops from a fear of death...I don't think I would have any faith....but I do so I don't think that is the case.