I have been reading William Buhlman’s, “Adventures in the Afterlife.” Over the last few days some questions have arisen, but I failed to come here to write anything, so that clarity I had is now gone. Still I will attempt to convey the things that are troubling me.
When I was a Christian and learned about Heaven, it didn’t really enthrall me. I float on a cloud and play the harp? That’s what the cartoons of my youth seemed to say. When I grew older, it was the whole, “mansions in Heaven” thing. We were taught that the wealthiest down here, who live in mansions down here, might find themselves in less desirable circumstances up there. That those with the biggest and best places in Heaven would be those who served God the best down here.
As I grew older this always troubled me. What the hell is the point of my suffering down here on earth just to earn a nice place to live in Heaven? What matters, right here, right now, is my experience on earth! Why would I want to be poor, or live under a bridge, or go through hellish circumstances, just to demonstrate my faith in God, just to have this nicer place in Heaven? Whatever I would get in Heaven doesn’t matter at all down here!
It also contributed, to my mind, to how the human race treats the earth. If nothing on earth matters, as I was taught as a Christian, if this is not our real home, why should we care for it? It seemed the Christians I was around, including my own family, were ignoring what the book of Genesis teaches.
One other thing that bothered me… What if I want to have an amazing life while on the earth? What if I want to be rich? What I had been taught seemed to be training Christians not to pursue success or wealth. By the standards of which I was raised, the Amish people would have palaces in Heaven! As I write this I smile, because it seems to silly. Assuming you still retain your personality, who you are, minus your physical form in Heaven, if you’re Amish the last place you will ever want to live is in a palace!
I’ve never met any Amish people, I hope to someday, maybe learn some things about woodworking from them. But I imagine their idea of Heaven are big, open fields and the freedom to work or not if they wish, the burden of survival has been removed. The hard edge of the physical world is gone. I don’t know that the Amish generally ever dream of relaxing or taking it easy. But maybe for them Heaven is a place where it is finally OK for them to put their feet up, if they want to.
I like Bhulman’s idea of the afterlife, to a certain point. You go basically where you want to go. What I don’t like is this idea that you might end up stuck in another co-created reality not much different from the one you were in while on earth. I don’t want to live in any more co-created realities! I am sick and fucking tired of an existence defined by others long before I got here. I want to define my own reality! My ideal reality? One where I am finally free. Where I can go where I want and do what I want.
The first thing I want to do after leaving this world is go back, in some super-realistic, can’t tell it’s not real, simulation. I want to go through my entire life, and make a few different choices, then see the most likely reality that would have resulted from that. I want the ultimate learning experience from my mistakes, and I want to do all the things I did not do and now regret not doing. And I want those in this review to be exactly as they were at those times in my life, and as they would be after I have chosen differently. I want their realistic response.
I won’t go into details here, because many of you would think I am sick in the head. But there is this sort of desire for revenge driving me. I feel like I missed out on a lot in my life not only because of my choices, but also because of what others decided, and I will relish the opportunity to force them to do my bidding, to do as I wish. I will get to experience what they denied me, and decide afterwards, as I explore the consequences of my actions, if it was worth it. I want to spend a LOT of time here, until I have exhausted every outcome I wanted to pursue. I have played the “good guy” and the “nice guy” my entire life, and to be honest, I am fucking sick of it!
Once I have finished with my life simulation review, I will begin to explore. I will spend far longer doing that. I will visit everywhere and everywhen of interest to me, and this may take me a long time. But as I will be existing outside of time, presumably, that doesn’t matter. Either during my explorations, or after them, I will visit a “thought responsive” reality, like Monroe encountered, where you can create things instantly. Just play around there and create things. After that if there is some sort of agenda I’m supposed to be doing, I will get on that. When I choose, when I am ready, if I choose.
I won’t subject myself to anyone or anything’s rules in the afterlife. I am done with that. I will live freely, on my own terms, and divorce myself from all co-created bullshit, including ideas of karma or sin. Those preaching these gospels will be welcome to shove them where the sun don’t shine! I am going wild, and I will enjoy my wildness until I am satisfied. I will rebel against my own soul if I have to, and its attendant guides, whom I refer to now as, “the council.”
And this brings me to the point of this post… If the ideal, as it were, for a soul, is to merge back into oneness with God, to release the need for form and all the other stuff that puts things between us and God, my question is simple. Why the hell did we leave in the first place? If form is irrelevant, why have little fragments of God come down and manifest into physical form like you and I? If there is nothing in the physical world, it’s experiences, the things we learn, that we really, ultimately need, if we are just going to eventually go through a process of shucking it all off, why did we come here in the first place? If God was happy just being his, her, it or themselves, why did God ever feel the need to have a physical experience in the first place?
It is very similar to how I was raised to believe that Heaven is a perfect place. Fine. If it was perfect, how did Lucifer ever become unhappy there? Later, after I had renounced my faith, I came to realize that perfection is stagnation, because there is no growth. I have written about this before. I think, whatever our beliefs, the afterlife, assuming there even is one, will not be as we have collectively defined it. At the same time, it will likely be whatever you expect it to be when you get there. But I don’t think it’s about going to some perfect place, whether you define that as Heaven or merging into oneness with God. That makes no sense at all.
For me it makes far more sense that Heaven or Hell exists right here on earth, inside your choices and their consequences. Also everyone’s definition of these will be personal and subjective. For me, living as the Amish do would be absolute hell. For the Amish, it may very well be heaven. For some being homeless is heaven, but for me it would be hell. I think we would be well served to consider carefully our choices, because once made they set us on a path, and there is likely no going back. So bless the poor and the wealthy, aspire to go whatever direction you wish, and respect the path others walk, even if it is one you would not choose to walk yourself.
I do think the physical experience is a school, and the main goal here is to learn. And school can be fun or it can be a prison – the choice is ours, based on our responses to whatever presents itself in our lives. I think we should care for our classroom, like you see Japanese students doing in a lot of anime. I like that idea, that we keep the classroom neat and tidy. I think we should care for the earth and all its creatures, human or otherwise, and not assuming that anything or anyone is more or less valuable that anyone or anything else. I think we should be careful about the reality we are co-creating for the others who come after us, including our children. What exactly are we leaving them?
If there is any aspect of this world you do not agree with, bless it, lift it up and bring it into the light. Don’t fight against it, because you will make it stronger. Don’t deny or ignore it, because it will thrive in the darkness. Accept it, accept your part in co-creating it, bless it, raise it up, bring it into the light, and by doing so, you will no longer contribute your energy to it, which is how it has been perpetuating itself all this time. We need to disengage with the things that we are not in agreement with. Only by doing that can we create something better. There is absolutely no reason that physical life itself can’t be a sort of heaven, if we work together to make it so, and release all things that have kept it from being that way so far.
I still don’t know what I am here, and perhaps you don’t either. But dwelling on that is a waste of time and energy. We’re here, you and I, and we may as well make the best of it, for ourselves and anyone following our footsteps in the future.
Bliss Writer 