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Even imagining making this decision is not easy. Immersion in such
an instinctually anxiety-laden area is extremely unpleasant. It is tempting to
stop because the anxiety would most likely cease if you did.
The decision process is also difficult. Not only must you
come up with correct predictions based on good information, but you must
weight your responses and combine them to come up with the best course of
action.
In the case of one of the above items, there is no
information available at all, and, as discussed previously, it is the most important question! This is
the one asking you about your image of the afterlife.
The reasons that what happens after you leave life is so
central to everything you do have been discussed previously in
1: General ideas...:Making decisions without enough information. I do
not mean to minimize the problems of making a decision when the consequences
of one alternative cannot be discovered by the usual processes of observation
and analysis. But the fact is, we can all be forced into the unknown by an
intolerable situation. Also, if history is any guide, someday we may learn
something about the afterlife.
So, why not avoid the decision altogether?
Waiting around until you must do something can be like
being chased to the edge of a cliff by a hungry lion, or being forced to a
window on the upper floor of a building that is on fire. You are weak and
under pressure to act, you have little or no information about what will
happen if you jump, and you may not make the best choice.
Of course, in the case of leaving life, you have no
information about what will happen if you “jump” into the afterlife. This
didn’t stop explorers like Captain Cook who sailed off not knowing whether or
not they would fall off the edge of the earth. But, they would have had time
to put their relationships and affairs in order, and to plan as best they
could.
If you do not plan ahead, you risk creating unnecessary
suffering in yourself and others. You risk finding yourself pressured by your
present pain on the one hand and the unknown risk of the afterlife on the
other.
At that time, you may be:
... in a hurry, in a
weakened state and unable to focus on anything except yourself and your pain
or mortality. You will not be able to summon the energy gather and process the
necessary information, and assert yourself so that others carry out your
wishes.
You will, therefore, be
dependent on others to decide things for you.
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