Hello everyone
I haven't posted on here before, but i'd like to introduce myself briefly. My mum passed away 2 yrs ago this November, fortunately for me, I had been looking into the research carried out on the continuity of consciousness after the death of the physical body for many years prior to my mum's passing, so, although my thoughts on it rested purely on an intellectual level, I have now come to accept the evidence in favour of this subject since mum passed, not just from the recorded evidence but from my own experiences since mum passed away.
I would encourage everyone to do their own research into this phenomena, there is ample data out there for your own perusal. In a nutshell, the evidence suggests that we are not our physical bodies, rather, we inhabit them, our consciousness is not dependant on the physical body although it experiences a very limited awareness while it inhabits the body, hence at the event we call 'death' it is merely a transition, from the material level to what the ancients called the spiritual level, dont misunderstand me, I am not referring to a religious explanation, I am not religious in the slightest, religion and spirituality are not necessarily the same thing, the 'spiritual level' I am referring to is a level of 'being' that most of us are ignorant of simply because we have only experienced and been taught about the material world.
The evidence for continuity is suggesting that none of us have "lost" our loved ones, they have simply made a transition from the material level of being, but as we are not AWARE of their present level of being, we interpret OUR experience of THEIR transition as 'the end' of them.
Lets bare in mind that although our consciousness was extremely limited when we existed within the womb of our mother's, we were still 'living' beings, feeding, experiencing warmth, security and 'life', the fact is; we were NOT aware of the world beyond the womb, yet that world surrounded us, it was only at our birth did we experience an evolution from the womb to the world we now inhabit and experience and no doubt take for granted, likewise, think about this fact of reality if you find it difficult to comprehend another realm of life, that most probably surrounds this level of being that you are experiencing now. Dont write anything off simply because you cannot at this time comprehend another level of being, I have no doubt that the loved ones we PERCIEVE as gone are anything but, it is my contention that they have merely made the transition to the next level, they have vacated the physical body as we all vacated the womb in order to continue progressing, it is our limited consciousness that interprets the process we call 'death' as an end of being, we fail to see beyond it therefore we PRESUME it is an end!
Make no mistake, before we learned to sail the oceans, we mistakenly interpreted the horizon as the edge of the world, we genuinely thought there was nothing beyond it, our 'perceptions' are limited and mis-leading, dont assume you have lost your loved ones simply because you witnessed their physical bodies cease to function, dare to accept that they NEVER were their bodies anymore than we were the womb, we occupied it for a time to prepare us for this world, is it too rediculous to think that your loved ones have now progressed to the world beyond YOUR horizon?
With love
Paul 

Well its been 5 days and not one person has responded, I think I'll bid you all farewell and close my membership, wishing you all well.
Paul

At this stage of my grief of the loss of my son, I am not sure what I believe. I will do a google search for "continuity of consciousness". is there another term for it? I have not seen any evidence that my son still exists. Some have told me that he was such a remarkable person while here, imagine how god is using him now. I can't say I believe that much either. All I know is he's gone.
--Michael