After I Am Done Self-actualizing, And An Old Man, This Is My Plan.

[AstralProjection]

Hi everyone. I like that this seems to be a good forum for talking about all kinds of outside of the box things. Not very many popular spiritual forums can you talk about psychedelics and spirituality at the same time. So I hope you's are open enough for this topic.

A little about myself first. I've been on the brink of death in the past from a health condition that almost killed me. At that time I use to use a wheelchair and a cane to get around for about 7 years. Luckily the doctors found two medications to help me get better and I am in college now. But I learned something very valuable during that time. See I had a ton of time to research all kinds of things. I learned about self help, visualization, affirmations, psychedelics, religions, astral projection, cold fusion/LENR, meditation, kundalini, NDE's, seasteading and all kinds of stuff that has given me a big picture understanding of the world even before I learned about Leo. Though Leo has helped me deepen my understanding.

So during my sick days there was a period for about a month in which I became very ill mentally. I eventually went to a hospital and got better and never had those mental problems again. But I learned something very important at that time and soon after with a little internet searching. Which is that at the end of my life I don't want to be at the mercy of doctors unable to help myself to the bathroom, and being force-feed. BTW many hospices will force-feed even if their advance directive says otherwise.

So I plan on living my life to my fullest and self actualize, then at the end when all I have is degrading left, I will painlessly take my life. I will not talk method unless that is moderator approved, but yeah I urge all of my friends to consider how you want to exit life. Because In many ways the people play Russian Roulette with their dignity. They say "I hope I die a painless death." This is wishful thinking as most people never have a painless death. If you die in your sleep is was because your organs where shutting down. Nothing painless about that.

Anyway I don't take my life or death for granted any longer. It's a privilege to me to be alive and well today. But at the end of the day when my time is up I know that there is no need to play with my dignity and I will say good bye to all my loved ones and write a beautiful letter and then exit my life peacefully just how I wanted it. 

And as I like to say. "My life, my death, my choice, because we should be able to control our lives, as much as our deaths." I encourage you to not live by today's barbaric practices and embrace dignity at your death. Until then I will be with you all on the journey to self actualization. 

Edited March 10, 2017 by AstralProjection

[Extreme Z7]

Quite profound. . . quite profound.

[Echoes]

@AstralProjection Alan Watts ones mentioned the idea of "Institutes for creative dying" Where your death is celebrated and you can choose the circumstances. You can pick Institute where it's done with Psychedelics, shamanic ceremonies, champaign partys or whatever. "Let's go out with a Bang!"

[AstralProjection]

Just now, Echoes said:

@AstralProjection Alan Watts ones mentioned the idea of "Institutes for creative dying" Where your death is celebrated and you can choose the circumstances. You can pick Institute where it's done with Psychedelics, shamanic ceremonies, champaign partys or whatever. "Let's go out with a Bang!"

@Echoes Shoot you just reminded me and yeah I am also going to quite possibly take a mild psychedelic dose and then exit life peacefuly at the end. And yes I've heard of Alan Watts taking his life with an injection of LSD while he had cancer. But I didn't know about these "institutes," are these places just a theory of Alan Watts or do they actually exist? Thanks.

 

22 minutes ago, Extreme Z7 said:

Quite profound. . . quite profound.

Thanks @Extreme Z7for the positive feedback. My family wasn't too keen on it at first. They are starting to warm to the idea though. It's not something that people change their minds to overnight in many cases.

[Bebop]

@AstralProjection Check out Bj Miller, he's doing work on helping people die. He has a project called the Zen hospice project which is an alternative to dying in a hospital, and focuses on celebrating life and helping people transition through death peacefully. I believe he is also doing work with using psychedelics for his patients, last I checked they were in the process of making them legal for use in medical care.

 

Edited March 10, 2017 by Bebop

[AstralProjection]

Seems like BJ Miller does good work. I know there are other options out there. But the problem is trying to plan enough that doctors, hospices, and hospitals will follow through with what is being requested. They don't always follow through with advance directives. Their job is to keep you alive no matter how much suffering someone is under. All they do it just give more morphine or sedative which isn't nearly enough to stop the pain. 

There is Sallekhana OR Santhara OR Prayopavesa in Hinduism. This is where someone at the end of their life they fast and starve themselves to death. I think even this is a better option than being drugged up and forcefeed at the end of life. 

If you took all the self help and spiritual talk that people use throughout their whole life and all it would take is being in a hospice for one year at the end of life for all that psychological work to be thrown into the garbage can. It's a smack in the face of even a baseline level of dignity. When the brain breaks down all bets are off.

I appreciate the link, but at the end of the day I don't want to risk it, doctors can only do so much in comforting people. I got a glimpse of what it's like for the brain to be in total break down and I never ever want to experience that in my life. So I choose to not risk it. Everyone has their own path and I respect those that choose anything other than the standard cookie cutter treatment at the end of life.  Thanks for chiming in Bebop.

[Prabhaker]

40 minutes ago, AstralProjection said:

There is Sallekhana OR Santhara OR Prayopavesa in Hinduism. This is where someone at the end of their life they fast and starve themselves to death. I think even this is a better option than being drugged up and forcefeed at the end of life. 

Sallekhana OR Santhara OR Prayopavesa is not in Hinduism, it is in Jainism. Jainism is the most ascetic religion in the world. Jaina monks torture themselves so much that one wonders if they are insane. The idea of committing santhara, suicide, by not eating or drinking, is nothing but a very long process of self-torture. 

Your life here should be the days of meditation, love, compassion, friendliness, playfulness, laughter; and if you can do that, you will be rewarded by a conscious death. You cannot manage to die consciously without a long, meditative, conscious life. Only a conscious life is rewarded with conscious death — it is a reward, but only to the conscious man.

[Key Elements]

Wow, interesting post.

2 hours ago, Prabhaker said:

Your life here should be the days of meditation, love, compassion, friendliness, playfulness, laughter; and if you can do that, you will be rewarded by a conscious death. You cannot manage to die consciously without a long, meditative, conscious life. Only a conscious life is rewarded with conscious death — it is a reward, but only to the conscious man.

This part is interesting too.

I still wonder what happens afterwards. Now, I heard that there are stages - "8 stages of heaven and 8 stages of hell." And, of course, the no-self.  And, I know we have souls.

Yes, we might as well live life to the fullest. 

@Prabhaker Do you recommend any books on this?

I think you're going to say Osho.  But, you know, I think we just try our best and meditate. We all have different missions in life. Go within and found out.

(I just wish everyone could go to heaven. I heard different things. One is, no-self is the best, and heaven is to enjoy. If you go to heaven, it's very hard to be no-self because the purpose of the angel is to enjoy. There are no egos there. The ego is non-existant, unlike earth - the ego is a fiction.)

Edited March 11, 2017 by Key Elements

[Prabhaker]

55 minutes ago, Key Elements said:

I still wonder what happens afterwards. Now, I heard that there are stages - "8 stages of heaven and 8 stages of hell." And, of course, the no-self.  And, I know we have souls.

Yes, we might as well live life to the fullest. 

@Prabhaker Do you recommend any books on this?

It will be easier if we understand few about the interval between the giving up of one body and the taking of another. 

First, the fact is that the experiences of that interval are like dreams. Whenever one experiences something, at that moment the experience is that of a real happening. But when one recalls it in memory, it becomes like a dream; it is dreamlike because there is no use of the senses. Your feeling and your conviction that a happening is real come through your senses and your body.

After the giving up of one body and before the taking of another we do not have senses. The body itself is not there, so whatever you might experience in that state is like a dream, as if you are seeing a dream. When we see dreams, we do not doubt their reality. This is very interesting. After some time we come to doubt its reality, but we never doubt it while in the dream. The dream seems real. That which is real sometimes causes us to doubt whether what is seen is real or not, but in a dream such a doubt is never created. Why? Because a dream will not tolerate the slightest doubt; otherwise it will immediately break.

Just similar to this condition is the interval between two bodies. Whatever happens during that period seems absolutely real – so real that we can never know such a reality with our eyes and senses. The heavenly damsels they encounter are so real to them – real such as no woman seen through our senses can ever be. That is also why there is no end to the miseries of spirits. Their miseries befall them so realistically, such as they never do in real life.

So what we call heaven and hell are just deep dream lives. The intensity of the fire burning in hell can never be found in real life, though it is a very inconsistent fire. In scriptures, there are descriptions of the fires of hell, into which you are thrown without being burned. But one is never aware of this inconsistency – that if you were thrown into an intense fire you would not be able to withstand the heat; yet you are not in any way being burned. This inconsistency, that ”I am being burned in the fire,” that the fire is terrible, that the burning is unbearable and yet ”I am not burned at all,” is realized only after one is out of this dreamlike experience.

In the interval between two births, there are two types of souls. One type is of evil souls. For them it is difficult to find a womb for another birth. The other type consists of good souls. For such souls also it is difficult to find suitable wombs for taking another birth.

Between these two are the majority of souls in which there is no fundamental difference, but only a difference of character, personality and mental make-up. They are born immediately.

During that interval, there is no clear awareness of the duration of time. Because of this, Christianity has said that there is hell forever. This is said on the basis of the memory of those who have seen a very long dream. It was such a long dream that when they returned they had no memory of any relationship between this body and the previous one. That is why they said that hell is eternal and it is very difficult to get out of it. Good souls see happy dreams and evil souls see unhappy dreams. Only because of their dreams are they feeling unhappy and miserable.

Heaven and hell are also memories of a dream period. Descriptions can be given. It is only on such descriptions that concepts of heaven and hell have been evolved by all religions. The descriptions are different not because the places are different, but because the mental states of the individuals recalling the experiences are different. Therefore, when Christianity describes heaven, it will be different from what Hinduism will describe, because descriptions depend on different states of consciousness. 

Actually, every person will bring back a different story. It is more or less like when we all sleep in the same room and then get up and describe our dreams. We have slept in the same room; we are at the same place, but our dreams will be different. Everything depends upon the person.

from Osho book - Dimensions beyond the known (pg 62-63) google it , you can download it in pdf format.

other books are

Bardo Thodol Book by Karma Lingpa

Tibetan Book Of The Dead by ROBERT THURMAN

[Key Elements]

@Prabhaker Thanks for the recommendations. This topic is deep/profound. I actually met someone who had witnesses to his outer body experience. He died in the hospital and saw all his family members. After he awoke, given a second chance, he told each of the family members what they were doing when he was dead. The family members were all shocked. Long story.

[AstralProjection]

@Prabhaker No amount of meditation will help you if you get Alzheimer’s Disease, or Parkinson’s Disease or any one of the other numerous serious mental illnesses that affect the mind during old age and dying.

Second of all thanks for pointing out that Sallekhana and Santhara and Prayopavesa is from Jainism no Hinduism. But I still disagree about it being an option for just crazy Jains, I still think that this is a better option for many people. Even Compassion & Choices is the nation’s oldest, largest and most active nonprofit working to improve care and expand options for the end of life advocates death by starvation because of the lack of options. There are things that can be done to make this a much more natural and less painful process. It doesn't have to be undertaken by a Jain.

I still remember hearing about my brother's friends mom got cancer and didn't say anything then about a month later she went to the hospital and was convulsing uncontrollably until her last breath when she died a few days later. in another story I remember this young lady that had cancer of the intestines and she was so sick she was vomiting up fecal matter. She died soon after. Sorry to mention these such graphic things, but like I said you play Russian Roulette with your dignity if you don't take full control of the end of your life. I hope you do have a peaceful death meditating until the end but you must remember there are very real possibilities of it going terribly wrong. So don't kid yourself, the body doesn't break down as nicely as we would like it to. 

Sorry I am just all too aware of the hell that can open in a mind that is breaking down. And trust me all the things that you hold dear can be taken away mentally. All those safeguards and filters that prevent you from even having the most basic sense of sanity can be gone. And your dignity raped. Mine certainly was. I have to use strong langue to help convey the possibilities otherwise you will never get it until it's too late perhaps. Hope it helps you though.

[Prabhaker]

7 minutes ago, AstralProjection said:

No amount of meditation will help you if you get Alzheimer’s Disease, or Parkinson’s Disease or any one of the other numerous serious mental illnesses that affect the mind during old age and dying.

Can you describe what do you mean by term 'meditation' ? 

[AstralProjection]

Just now, Prabhaker said:

Can you describe what do you mean by term 'meditation' ? 

Focusing on consciousness and awareness.

[AstralProjection]

No other movie explains my position best than this one here. It's about an old lady that lived her life to the fullest but in the end she wanted to take her life after all she saw was degrading left. She eventually did exit her life on her own terms before the end of the movie.

http://www.cultureunplugged.com/documentary/watch-online/festival/play/4749/Mademoiselle-and-the-Doctor

Edited March 12, 2017 by AstralProjection

[Prabhaker]

1 minute ago, AstralProjection said:

Focusing on consciousness and awareness.

Focusing is an effort. Meditation is rest, absolute rest, a full stop to all activity – physical, mental, emotional. When you are in such a deep rest that nothing stirs in you, when all action as such ceases – as if you are fast asleep yet awake – you come to know who you are. Suddenly the window opens. It cannot be opened by effort because effort creates tension – and tension is the cause of our whole misery. Hence this is something very fundamental to be understood that meditation is not effort.

It is not concentration, just the contrary, it is relaxation. When you are utterly relaxed, for the first time you start feeling your reality; you come face to face with your being. When you are engaged in activity you are so occupied that you cannot see yourself. Activity creates much smoke around you, it raises much dust around you; hence all activity has to be dropped, at least for a few hours per day.

The key word is rest, relaxation. Never go against rest and relaxation. Arrange your life in such a way, drop all futile activity because ninety per cent is futile; it is just for killing time and remaining occupied. Do only the essential and devote your energies more and more to the inner journey. Then that miracle happens when you can remain at rest and in action together, simultaneously.

3 minutes ago, AstralProjection said:

No other movie explains my position best than this one here. It's about an old lady that lived her life to the fullest but in the end she wanted to take her life after all she saw was degrading left.

Don't resist process of dying, gather courage to accept every thing happening inside the body and mind, in total acceptance and relaxation meditation happens, you cannot do it.

[AstralProjection]

@Prabhaker You can play semantics if you like with the definition of meditation, but I think your smart enough to know that things can go terribly wrong during the dying process.

I'll leave it at that. I am not here to keep arguing. I use to debate things unto the death, but I've learned there is more important things than winning an argument. I think you understand my point, take it or leave it. Or even come back to this topic after you thought about it. If you ever have second thoughts just google the peaceful pill handbook. And I hope your meditation plan works out for you. William Buhlman is a famous astral projector that advocates kind of what your talking about. Which is using consciousness at death as a launchpad to go very deep to the light realms during the dying process. He's also a famous astral projector. He touches on this topic in the video bellow. 

William Buhlman on OBEs at Monroe Institute Professional Seminar 2014

https://youtu.be/ZlZNmwCD1pA

[Prabhaker]

7 minutes ago, AstralProjection said:

You can play semantics if you like with the definition of meditation, but I think your smart enough to know that things can go terribly wrong during the dying process.

If you are not ready to experiment , how will you know what I am talking about?

Meditation, as such, needs no technique at all. But techniques are needed to remove the obstacles in the way of meditation. So it has to be understood very clearly: meditation itself needs no techniques, it is a simple understanding, an alertness, an awareness in a relaxed state. Neither alertness is a technique nor is awareness in a relaxed state a technique. But on the way to being alert, there are so many obstacles. 

I know if you have not lived meditatively, it becomes very difficult to die meditatively. Your mind will create a thousand and one difficulties.

[AstralProjection]

13 hours ago, Prabhaker said:

I know if you have not lived meditatively, it becomes very difficult to die meditatively. Your mind will create a thousand and one difficulties.

I agree with you there, but it would take 5K to 10K hours meditating to master just calming the mind. This is called Samatha. Then at least another 5K hours of vipassana to get rid of your inner demons. These numbers come from an advanced Buddhist named B Alan Wallace that has trained with the Dalai Lama. So your talking a good 20,000 hours to master this enough that you could conceivably have a peaceful death even in the midst of a mental illness and even then I am skeptical how effective that would be depending on what kind of mental illness it is.

1 hour ago, brovakhiin said:

It's a nice post but I have to ask, do you not think that the result of such a life of actualization will be a moving away from such self obsession?

I don't quite understand what your saying. Do you mean that self actualization is a self obsession? I don't agree with this notion.

[Prabhaker]

8 hours ago, AstralProjection said:

 I am skeptical how effective that would be depending on what kind of mental illness it is.

Mind is a disease. This is a basic truth the East has discovered. The West says mind can become ill, can be healthy. Western psychology depends on this: the mind can be healthy or ill. But the East says mind as such is the disease, it cannot be healthy. No psychiatry will help; at the most you can make it normally ill.

So there are two types of illness with mind: normally ill - that means you have the same illness as others around you; or abnormally ill - that means you are something unique. Your disease is not ordinary - exceptional. Your disease is individual, not of the crowd; that's the only difference.

Normally ill or abnormally ill, but mind cannot be healthy. The East says the very nature of mind is such that it will remain unhealthy. The mystics in the East have never bothered too much about the mind; they have only developed methods to bypass the mind. Those methods are the techniques of meditation – they are just to bypass the mind. Once you have bypassed the mind, once you can have a bird’s-eye view of your own mind, things start settling.

[Alex K]

@AstralProjection I was ready to exit few years ago. I guess there is no such thing as dignity, it is a human concept. Reality is harsh and not giving a damn about anything. I am to become just like reality so that human concepts would not bother me. Anything that comes just comes than.