This thread allowed me to refine my thoughts on the soul, which was inspired through both psilocybin and LSD use, reflecting upon religious teachings and common beliefs.

"ping" wrote
> If you believe in life after death then that means that you have
> already died right.. Which means that you are infact not you but
> another dead person... If this is true then it would mean that
> either we are all dead, we never die or we die regularly..... If
> we die regularly then how can you call it dieing? Dieing is is
> the end to life.. But if we carry on then we are not dead... So
> this must mean that no matter what we are always alive... It seems
> that if there is life after death, or just a rest during life then
> we are going to live forever... But how long is that? and when did
> we begin?... Or even...Did we begin? Or have we always been here?
> .... And here, Where is here? Where are we? where are you? Where
> am I? are we in the same place?

You are confused between the mortal -- your flesh -- and the spiritual -- your soul.

Your soul is eons old... timeless. It is both a single collective soul, as well as an individual entity. Something like how Christianity considers "the holy spirit" and "God" to be one and the same.

Your soul always exists in the "afterlife". It's always there in much the same way our body is always here while we are dreaming of being away in far off lands in our sleep.

Only your mortal body dies. Your soul/spirit is eternal, and throughout eternity you will be connected to numerous, perhaps nearly countless mortal lifeforms.

According to most organized religions, there is some organization to this, generally implying that your karma as a mortal plays a role in the past, present and future mortal connections your spirit is associated with.

It is almost purely speculative what rules, regulations and laws govern the spiritual world... if any.

As for your questions:

1. we are going to live forever... But how long is that?

Forever means for all eternity, which implies that this never ends. More likely is some sort of cycle of beginning, end and rebirth back to the beginning of the cycle. The cycle length would probably be a hundred billion years or so.

2. and when did we begin?... Or even...Did we begin? Or have we always been here?

Again, hard to say. It's more likely we've always been here... that the universe and the "big bang" is just part of a cycle, maybe even part of a larger system of universes. We can only speculate.

3. And here, Where is here? Where are we? where are you? Where am I? are we in the same place?

Here... the spiritual world... the spiritual plane... "heaven"... its probably one of those impossibly small extra dimensions in quantum physics... but it matters not. The non-material world is not accessable by material means. You can't jump into a starship and fly there.

Is it the same place? This is something speculated upon greatly by organized religions. When people speak of heaven and hell, are they really separate places? Are they the same? Christians and Buddists would give a different answer to that. What about animal spirits?

I'd expect the more enlightened view of this would be that yes... it's all the same place, and we're all connected there.