Do you believe there is a master design to our lives or do you believe its all just a roll of the dice?

You work your butt off all your life, doing what is expected of you. To be a good person, take care of family and home, take on other peoples problems trying to help. But when its all said and done, you get the bad end of the deal. I just dont mean once in a while, I mean all the time. The harder you try to do right and do the right things, the more screwed up it becomes. So, what you believe?

whatever will be,will be.i do not worry about that which i have no control over.I don't try to hard to help others,there is assisiting and getting involved,its down to luck and coincidence,bad luck and mis-timing.Roll the dice...the odds are your win sooner or later...but you lose a few too.Life is a gamble.

You see.. life is like a game. It has rules. So you can't just break the rules all the time because life is not a game.

Life Is A Minestrone ( served up with parmesan cheese ) according to 10cc

I beleive...you should have a bit of a look around here....

https://www.dalailama.com/

and here....

http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/

Helps you understand things cricket.

I basically understand how life works, what I cant undestand is why our son went before us.Why our grand daughter went before us. I always thought there was a " PLAN " for all of our lives. i am beginning to believe there is no master plan, just intersecting crap on the way thru life.I would read in here where people would say , the bible is just storys, or things to that nature. I thought oh ya'll have it so wrong. Well , the jokes on me huh. The only thing is , I dont find the joke so funny.

I don't know if what I am going to say will make any sense, but i will try. Have you noticed that you can feel the presense of a loved one with you even when they are not here. I mean like when your partner or a family member is away in another place. You have, sort of an awareness of there existance, a part of your mind, just knows they are there. You can sort of feel it. You cant see them, you can't talk to them, but you know they are there all the same.

Ill show you what I mean cricket. Think of a family member that is close to you, that is currently elsewhere from where you are. You may not know precisly what they are doing, but, if you stop for a second, you can feel them can't you. Ok, now can you do that same thing with my sister? You can't feel her presence can you. There is no bond, no mental link nor awarness to connect you. But you can feel your loved ones caan't you.

I was pretty close to my dad, we fought from time to time when I was a kid, but there was never any doubt about how we felt. We were very similar in many ways. When he died, i was pretty wrecked for a while. I had lost friends over the years, distant family members, but dad was the first person really close to me that I lost. For a long while I didn't really know how to handle it, what to do, what to think, when is it OK to be happy again, but most of all, I just missed him. In an effort to try and understandd death I bought a book by the Dalai Lama. It helped heaps. I was sitting at home quite sometime later, and something happened and without thinking, and out of habbit, i thought, i'll ask dad. Obviously a few seconds later I realised what I had done, and felt pretty bad. But then I thought about it, and I realised something. I could still feel dads presence. I don't mean in a ghostly way, and I dont mean i can feel his presence in the things I do. I can feel his presence in the same way I did when he lived just up the road. I am not sure what you beleive, and i am not even asking you. But I beleive in the cycle of death annd rebirth. I just feel that somewhere now, in the world is a little baby that is my dad. I feel that somewhere their is a family that will be blessed to have the wonderful spirit that made dad who he was living in one of there kids. I feel happy that dad, who in his later years suffered with man aches, failing eyes and many other things, will get to be a kid again. I can imagine him playing with his toys, and watching spongebob on TV, and all the great joys of life he will get to feel again. His first kiss, his first child He gets to do it all again. Thats a fantastic thought, imagine getting to start again. I know he will have no memory of me. But, all the same, I can feel him somewhere. I can feel his presence any time I put my attention to it. I am not suggesting you go and become a buddhist, but i wonder if you just enetertain the possibility of the truth of rebirth, maybe you can feel the presence here on earth of your lost loved ones, the same as I can feel dads. You know, I beleive this so much, that sometimes, when I see a baby, i look into its eyes to see if it is my dad. I wonder if one day, I will see dad staring back at me

This post has been edited by Dundee: Sep 20 2008, 07:10 AM

i ask myself this alot

This post has been edited by Mandelasdiscple: Sep 20 2008, 04:54 PM

Thank you Dundee, that is a wonderrful thought isnt it. Rightnow I just can't see any thing postive. You live your life hoping and praying your child will grow to be a healty, wonderful person. We aren't supppose to out live our children. I have had to bury three of my children . I just can't seem to find any thing postive any more in life.
I go to pick up the phone, knowing that for 4 yrs I took care of my mama till her last breath, but I still pick up that phone to call her. Thats when the reality hits .No one is going to answer on the other end. I can't call my son to tell him about any thing. People tell me, it will all get better in time. I can't believe that. I can't see how a pain this deep will ever dimimish . Nothing seems real anymore, just going thru the motions. I am really trying to get back to living but the path to that seems so dark.And so very, very lonely.

I can't imagine what it would be like to lose a child, my kids are everythint to me. Can I ask you, and if you don't want to answer thats Ok i wont ask again. Do you beleive in life after death? Reencarnation?

I believe we do go on to something more then just laying in a hole in the ground. I believe our souls travel to another plane of existence. I also believe there are many planes we have to go thru to get to the ultimate goal. Our reward if you will for no better way to say it. I feel we have lessons to learn and each plane is a learning experience. Another chance to get it right?I don't believe we come back to this world. We get one shot at each plane and then move on to what ever is next in store for us.

Losing a child is the most unbearable experience a parent can endure, Iknow for myself, with eac child I lost a part of my soul went with them. Its like being eating alive inside and no way to make it stop.

This post has been edited by cricket: Sep 21 2008, 06:57 AM

Ok thanks cricket

I still know God exists. People say he has a sense of humor.

Sorry about my last statement. I didn't know you lost your child and grandchild. Wish I could give you a hug right now. I worry about my children when they're in a car. I worry about them out on the schoolgrounds. I sometimes want to get up and make sure they are breathing ok.

The scientist in me finds it hard to lean one way or the other. Not enough data available to make a critical judgment, I presume lol. And that is why I cannot but feel respect for people who believe and for those who don’t believe either.
The woman in me knows that ‘God’ (or whatever you wish to call him/her/it ), resides in our heart. ‘God’ is not a human being. He/she/it is the strength of life it/her/him-self, its/his/her essence, a pure conscience without alteration. Electricity is a powerful force. Many of us, however, can’t have access to it. It can be produced if and only if we follow certain laws. This force is lifeless. To make use of it, you’ve got to know its laws. In the same way, to find this lifeful force we call ‘God’, you’ve got know and follow her/his/its laws. And these laws are in ourselves, in our heart. Nosce te ipsum. ‘Know yourself’. That’s what the loss of my loved ones some years ago have taught me. That, and also... That life does not end ‘after’ death.
Sorry if I was an annoyance, but I wished to share this.

A beautiful thought, Dundee, isn’t it? I can’t help but thinking that way too. As I have said previously, the loss I suffered some years ago has taught me many things. I didn’t kill myself. More often than not, I asked myself why. And the answer, I think, lies in my encounter with ancient Egyptian religion. I found back my peace of mind in the way they saw things. Death is not the end, but always the beginning of a new existence. Life and death are but the same ‘continuum’. Life and death do not exist, only this ‘continuum’ does.

Like any beleif, I so often have my doubts, I question what i beleive, but for me, the buddhist pespective just seems to make sense. And now, it is interesting I am reading 22s book recomendation, The Holographic universe, and it is amazing how many of the ideas presented scientifically, mirror in some respects what a buddhist beleives. I just wish I was not part of the machine, so i could devote more time and thought to it all. But, thoughts don't pay the bills so here I am working my butt off

This post has been edited by Dundee: Sep 22 2008, 05:32 AM

This book is really great. So great is it, that I have taken it with me in Egypt to read it one more time. Don’t tell 22 this (), but it is true... As you said, it corroborates so many things, it is simply amazing.