Whether or not we believe in survival of consciousness after death, reincarnation, and karma, it has very serious implications for our behavior.
If consciousness can function independently of the body during one's lifetime, it could be able to do the same after death.
The knowledge of the realm of death makes it possible for the shaman to move freely back and forth and mediate these journeys for other people.
An important consequence of freeing oneself from the fear of death is a radical opening to spirituality of a universal and non-denominational type.
The experiences associated with death were seen as visits to important dimensions of reality that deserved to be experienced, studied, and carefully mapped.
Research challenges the materialistic understanding of death, according to which biological death represents the final end of existence and of all conscious activity.
Death is the ultimate enemy - and I find nothing reproachable in those who rage mightily against the dying of the light.
I put for the general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.
It's always, you know, a pleasant exercise to imagine my own death because then I'm so happy when I can stop.
Food feeds both the body and soul - there are clear reasons to eat a balanced diet, but there are also reasons you cling to your mom's secret chicken noodle soup recipe when you're sick.
The question of whether there exists a supernatural creator, a God, is one of the most important that we have to answer. I think that it is a scientific question. My answer is no.
If there is a God, it's going to be a whole lot bigger and a whole lot more incomprehensible than anything that any theologian of any religion has ever proposed.
I was never much bothered about moral questions like, 'How could there be a good God when there's so much evil in the world?'
I made the contract with God years ago, that no matter what came through, I would say it, but if I ever hurt someone, I would stop.
I think that I've tried many times to get Cuba in my writings, especially Havana, which was once a great and fascinating city.
Some great men owe most of their greatness to the ability of detecting in those they destine for their tools the exact quality of strength that matters for their work.
I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.
I have been lucky enough to travel a lot, meet great people in many lands. I have liked almost everyone I met along the way.
I remember the excitement of finding a great pancake recipe in 'Gourmet.' It felt as if it were mine. And it was Berkeley, of course - everybody cooked together. Cooking is what one did.
What, after all, is the narrative of 'the American Dream?' It was a discourse formulated between the 1880s and the 1920s in the United States during the great waves of migration and expansion and reforms of the Progressive Era.
Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great. Weak men wait for opportunities; strong men make them.
