In your particular Spiritual, Religious, or Philosophical beliefs, what constitutes life after death?

because of quantum physics i know conscious awareness is a property of the universe. Our human consciouness manifests itself thru our minds\brains via quantum computations. After death i assume that part of our existance dies but im not sure what happens afterward. Only the dead know and frankly...they aint talking. I look at it like this...my body is the vehicle my brain is the tool and i am neither.Oh yeah im atheist too.

In Hinduism there are many a philosophies which speak on re-birth, the karma cycle and so forth. But Hinduism is not a religion however hard the fanatics may try to prove so. It has always welcomed opposite views and sometimes have given them equal importance.

In answer to your question, i'll like to present forward the Charvaka Philosophy which comes from an atheistic school of thought. I have pasted refrences for you to read through. But to sum it up, Charvakas denied philosophical claims that could not be verified through direct experience. Which would mean re-birth or salvation or any such existence of soul after death.

In their argument they say that there are only four elements: air, fire, water, and earth. When these elements combine to form a body, consciousness is produced in the body, just as betel, areca, and lime chewed together have an exhilarating property and acquire a red color, though these properties are not present in the separate substances. Therefore no consciousness is separate from the body.

And hence forth, once the body perishes then there is nothing.

While life remains, let a man live happily,

let him feed on butter though he runs in debt;

When once the body becomes ashes,

how can it ever return again?

This is SUCH a difficult question to answer. So much of it is unknown and probably unknowable anyway.

The teachings that are written down, in all the religions that I have looked at, are but simple stories compared with the truths that lie behind them.

All I can do is to tell you about my own understanding.

"Death is just a shift in your perceptual field." (I think that was said by Dr Rollin Becker, but I'm not absolutely sure.) He meant that we become aware of different layers of reality after we die.

After a while, we are then reborn into an appropriate life, given our past performance. (Karma and all that.) What happens in the meantime? Dunno. Sorry, that would be pure speculation on my part

Are there heavens and hells? Yes. I believe there are - but they are temporary. Hells are places where we have no other option but to 'suffer out' our karmic debt. Once we've done so, we're free again. Heavens are places where - "the living is easy". Places of rest and recuperation before we once again enter the hurly-burly of normal lives.

Is there an end to this cycle of death and rebirth? So we are told. It is possible to reach a level where we have no more karmic debt to pay, no more ties holding us to existence. When that happens, true freedom is possible and we can vanish into the utter brightness which is our original Source.

(I'm a Zen Buddhist, but these are my own words, not those of the Buddha nor any dogma.

Think of it this way: What do you remember from before you were born? That is exactly how "after death" will feel like.

Heaven and hell are religious concepts and there is no evidence that either one exist.

What happens after here is what happened before here!

I have no "belief system" I just live a happy life and try to bring happiness around me. I do not believe in any of the thousands of gods mankind came up with.

I cannot really elaborate any further! :) All I can say is this: Live a good life, do good things to the people surrounding you and chances are that they will want to do good things to you.

Religion- Christianity

I believe that heaven is much different from what I previously believed when I were younger. I think heaven is personal. It's happiness and peace but eternal and never ending.

And hell, I think is personal as well. I think there is suffering and sadness and that is eternal and never ending as well.

Because of my views I see them both as being easily experienced in lesser magnitudes here on earth in the living. And in the afterlife there are places that are filled with joy and peace and ease and then there are other places.

I don't know who goes to heaven or hell. There are times when I hope others go to heaven for all the good they do and times when i say "how could they do that they will probably go to hell." But i really don't know, I believe that is not for me to determine. But i believe these places exist

A view:

That which is given human conscious energy to persists for human consciousness.

It is impossible to choose one theme in absolute preference to the others. They are all available and they can all be validated to the extent that anything can be validated. It just depends where the inner journey goes to. They all arise from the same source.

Energy persists on many levels to many degrees of subtlety, and forms and myths and concepts and metaphors arise in energy. The history and future potential is accessible on and off.

It is too interwoven to say it should be or must be this way or that way. One crosses over into another. Just another doorway. Nothing is ever lost.

Life persists at the root of all these things and reaches back out into more physical energy and forms within and across time .

It all lives. We choose what we give life to, through our views, consciousness, thoughts, emotions, behaviours, and the more subtle self that lies beneath these things.

Reality is not bounded and limited. It is relative with an absolute inexplicable root.

The wisdom is not in holding on two one competing theme over another. It is in understanding that these approach and hide the truth. The differentiation is that what separates is transient, not wanted, trapped/trapping darkness, and what integrates and opens to the light is. It is this light that is eternal life. The rest are living themes that arise from this and point the way back.

It's about the mind being open rather than closed really, letting go of how the mind can trap and limit.

When the light shines through it comes back to earth and spreads out. And there are no limits to what it will illuminate.

In a sense we are not really going anywhere, because it is the same light that essence of everything. It's kind of like being in a career and making ourselves redundant so we come move on to better things.

Metaphorically it could be "back to the stars", because the stars shine the light back. That could be heaven or reincarnation or or it happens through life in what we sew in it to be passed on, whatever to some lesser or a combination of these to some lesser or greater degree. I don't really mind. Question of whether fit for purpose and each theme can be interpreted different ways to make it either fit or unfit and give energy to things that are either fit or unfit. Stepping stones through myths that open to the light and then trap the light, that leads to peeling back myths to untrap the light.

If we manage to get it and drop all the myths, the light comes through.

If we understand life and death, we just choose full life and everything lives. We don't really need to know any more. We just let the boundaries break and the trapped darkness fade out and the light shine through as if everything else that could be thought of as self or own nature is just a tool, a conductor for the light. (Another way to put it, max intangible value is life after all degrees and kinds and cycles of death and birth. To let negatives die and positives live, so the positives grow and live forever and the negatives die and fade out. Not really fussy about which way that's approached.)

I am an individual spiritualist and consider myself as an agno-myst,

I personally believe in reincarnation

and consider it as an essential step in the process of the evolution of the soul

to know the ultimate existential truth.

I think, after the death

the physical body of the being mixes back with the natural elements,

while the energy of consciousness of the being or the soul

migrates to upper realms of the universal existence

as per the level of the consciousness

that the being has achieved through the deeds performed in the physical realm during that life.

As per the eastern thinking

the universe has seven main levels or realms of consciousness,

beginning from the lowest or the physical realm

these are the ethereal realm, astral realm, mental realm, spiritual realm, cosmic realm

and the highest realm as the realm of the absolute consciousness

or moksha or nirvana.

The soul of a being

who has worked consciously, righteously and truthfully

during the life time definitely migrates to higher levels of consciousness,

whereas the soul of the being

who has worked ignorantly and with unawareness

remains static or in lower realms.

I believe, heaven is nothing but residing in the higher realms of universal existence

and hell is nothing but residing in the lower realms of existence.

The soul of the being then descends to the physical realm again

to acquire a new physical body

as and when it finds suitable circumstances and conditions

for the purpose of it's further evolution by working in the physical realm.

This cycle of birth and death continues

unless and until the being achieves or evolute to the highest realm

or the realm of the absolute consciousness

and liberate even from the individual self

by merging with the ultimate existential truth of the absolute consciousness.

I think, there are some other points and aspects that can be discussed separately.

Have you ever been in a marathon Monopoly game, all your friends sitting around on the floor; it just goes on and on and on, until you're praying to go bankrupt so you can go into the kitchen and make a cup of tea.

Finally it is your chance, you're released, and you gleefully get up and escape, even though the game is still quite real and going on in the other room, you feel a sense of relief.

Death is like this. The game goes on, everyone focused on it, while you are in the cool kitchen of God's love, bathing in a new reality.

You are the same person, nothing has changed except the little tin sports car that was your token is now back in the box.

I don't believe in a physical heaven, or physical hell. I don't believe that "good" people will spend eternity with god, and "bad" people will spend eternity in hell. I do believe in reincarnation, I have always been fascinated by it since I was about 12, now I believe that it really does occur. I really do not know what I believe about what the afterlife will actually be like...what kind of form we might have, I think we will probably just be formless (our souls) and unite with our source. As you can tell I don't have a definite answer, life after death is a mystery to me. But I think it will be a positive experience, not a negative one (i.e. people will not be judged, or cursed).

What about you? What are your views? :)

I have no belief system, but this looks like fun!

What is life after death to you in your belief system?

~When flowers sprout because my body has been recycled into the Earth.

What are heaven & hell, or do you even believe they exist?

~Heaven and hell are states of mind, only accessible on the physical plane in which we also exist.

If you do, who goes where & why?

~People who are truly content with their lives live in heaven on Earth. People who are not content live in their own personal hell on Earth.

If you don't believe in Heaven or Hell, what happens after here?

~Nothing happens after Earth. If you've ever read His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, you pretty much know what I think about an afterlife. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. When we die, we return to the earth and our bodies are recycled to make room for more life.

I'm an Atheist, but I am also somewhat spiritual in ways that are too long to explain online. :)

How can we know unless we remember? And remembering does nothing for those who do not remember so the knowledge cannot be passed on.

Here is my cosmology according to my own experience; Birth and death are opposites but Life has no opposite. Life Is, as God Is. God is the Life we live but the life we live is not God. As we are made in God's Image so we are co-creators and we create our own realities/experiences with the Life God breaths into us. In that living we either give our attention to the creation or to the Creator. In the one state we experience the Creation and its laws and in the other state we experience the Creator and the power of the Creator which is behind those laws but not bound by them.

Mankind can experience the darkest most painful and frightening states of being that are void of hope and love and peace. What else is Hell but the experience of a lie? If in God we find Peace and Love and Joy and Harmony and Assurance then without God we will know the lack of these states of Being. Deny the Truth and you get the lie. And in experiencing that lie you do not change the Truth one iota. It remains untouched and perfect, awaiting recognition and acceptance.

I believe that Jesus taught the same truths that Sri Ramakrishna taught and Yogananda and every Master has taught. God Is. All else is apparent. The Kingdom of Heaven is found within where God abides forever awaiting our recognition and Love. The Creation has one purpose; to express the Glory and Joy and Wonder of What Is. We participate in that Joy or we attempt to create our own version of It. Until we are united with Reality we fall short of pulling it off. And we suffer as a result.

But the suffering was not intended. We chose that route because we have the free choice to do so.

Namaste'