Do we really survive death?, page 3

Coupla things. First a question, then a story. My question goes along these lines. Why am I me? Why am I not someone else? Who decided that I would be me (and I don't mean my parents)? Seriously!!! We all have self-awareness, but to be aware of the self, there must first be self. Where did that come from? The answer that our bodies are a shell, and that our spirits are contained in them would seem to answer that question no? Or perhaps the nature of our being is multi-dimensional, and therefore we can't quite understand it? Doesn't that seem like an obvious question though?

I have a little story about this. I was listening to Art Bell one time, and was blown away by a story this lady called in about. She had some sort of accident (it has been a while, so some of the details escape me, sorry) and was mortally injured. Anyway, she described the whole scenario of death that we have all heard before. The bright light, and the loving and warm place with unimaginable light. That was pretty fascinating, but she went a bit further. She was talking about how the loving and warm place she was in, was sorta like a room (I am paraphrasing because she described it a LOT better). She said that she was able to leave that room and return to it whenever she wanted, so she left. She saw some other rooms, the first of which was one that most of us would describe as hell. Hot, and a bunch of people torturing other people, etc etc. It looked like hell. She saw another room where there were people walking in a straight line (and doing something else too, but I don't rememebr what). These people just walked for eternity, and that was all they did. There was one other example she gave as well that I forgot, but her general impression of the place was the everyone, without exception had a choice of where they could be. So why wasn't everyone in the warm happy place she was in at first? She said that they didn't know that they could. They didn't know they didn't have to be there! She said that their after-life reality was a reflection of how they percieved their life. Her point was that in a sense we choose our afterlife by how we live our life. There are people who go around and live in a hell of their own making, and don't take steps to change their life. In fact they make decisions that make their life worse. They never quite learn that they have the ability to make their life what they want it to be, through action, and perception. Her account, whether true or false was rather powerful to me personally. If you don't like the life you have built for yourself (which has happened to me) change it, or change the way you perceive it. Your afterlife may depend on it!

Originally posted by MarkosOrrealus
When you die. You die. Your dead and you don't know your dead. You just cease to exist. You are forever sleeping. That's it. Game over. I think its easier for people to believe that there is more to this pitiful little existence but there isn't. It is what it is and no more.

If there was a heaven then where were we before we were here and before that? And if that's so then how come we need to be here? I mean why not just let us exist in the seamy other world? I just don't get why you cant just see it for what it is and that's dead.
Cheers!!

Mark