He's 'Looking Down on You'

I hope my father isn't looking down on me either!! He was a rotten bully, but outsiders thought the sun shone out of his bottom!! However, there are more things in heaven and earth that we know nothing about. 💫

antiquatedanne

My very down to earth, no-nonsense friend has seen a ghost in her house as did the people who lived there previously.
Our friends didn't know when they bought it.

We too have a ghost but we just say hello, as we know who it is. In some ways its a comfort to us all. 😌

Ilovedogs22

We too have a ghost but we just say hello, as we know who it is. In some ways its a comfort to us all. 😌

This one is apparently a comfort.

Jane43

No I don’t believe it. My father and I were very close, sadly he died when I was 22, but I remember him saying if there is a way of contacting you after I’ve gone I will, he never has. My father-in-law died when my husband was 25, he was very close to my sister-in-law who is five years older than my husband and she has gone to psychics over the years who have told her what I think is nonsense about him sending her messages through flowers but if it gives her some comfort that’s fine.

My parents were rock solid RC but I think Dad insisted on being buried RC because he was terrified of the unknown. Mum had a more simplistic view about religious ceremonies. She, literally, believed that the the entire human race would be "raised up on the last day but will happen to anybody who's been cremated?"

I tried to get through to her that I don't believe it works that way but I DID NOT tell her that I don't think there is an after-life.

No way!

Anyhow, I spent the first few weeks after they both died walking round the house wondering if there was an "after-life" but that soon wore off.

The journalist, the late Ludovic Kennedy, wrote at length about his opinions on a possible "after-life" and one sentence summed it all up for me.

"Make the most of this life. It's all there is".

Neuroscientists wrote a book about proof of heaven which makes interesting reading whether you believe in the afterlife. I’m not sure the dead sit about and watch us but the book does raise some fresh questions

Sorry his name was Eben Alexander

I don't see it as our dead relatives watching over our every move. As others said it's more of a comforting presence, a feeling that someone cares.

That was strange about the music MissA but comforting,

I have often wondered where this idea came from, and when it started.

As a historian of religion I have not been able to find any evidence in any religious tradition for the idea that the dead "looking down on us" exists in any religion practised today, or in the past.

I know that my maternal great-grandfather, a Lutheran pastor, had consoled his eldest daughter, my grandmother, who was five when her beloved mother died by saying she could look down on her dear daughters, but I honestly thought, and so, I believe as an adult did my grandmother, that he had made it up to console a grief-stricken child.

As a teenager, I heard a mother tell a small child that the family dog, which had recently died was now a star in the sky that they could look at after dark. At the time, I thought, how sweet, but that the child would be bitterly disappointed one day when someone said "What nonsense!" I hope no-one ever did.

I do hope my dear mother, who died in 2002 has not been able to see EVERYTHING DH and I did in and out of bed since the day she died!

In a similar vein, a friend of mine discovered that her mum had left lots of new hankies - the old fashioned kind - folded in a drawer when going through her stuff after she died.
My friend never threw them out but kept every one and would take one with her every time she and her DH went on holiday abroad, she said that her mum had always wanted to travel but never did due to expense and ill health, so when they left their hotel room or holiday rental they would leave a hankie in a drawer or cupboard. She said it felt like a part of her mum had been there with her.
Some might find that strange but I think when you really miss someone little rituals like this can be extremely comforting.

MissAdventure

What do the spirits of the dead people do when they're not looking down on us, though?

I'd need an explanation that would at least partly made sense.

That can't be all they do!

You can have your choice of various beliefs, not actually mentioned in the bible or other relgious texts: they praise God, enjoy eternal peace and light, rest in peace (which strikes me personally as a rather boring way of spending eternity) can chose or be drafted into another life on earth (not sure I want that either), and I have no doubt there are other possiblities too.

I hope whatever they do is more exciting that just looking down on us which sounds like a celestial equivalent to squinting through the net curtains or over the garden hedge to gossip about the neighbours.

I don't believe my parents are looking down at me. They didn't take much interest when they were here! I am not supersitious but the day before I went into hospital to remove a growth near my heart/lungs I went for a short walk that I walk along every day. The ground was plastered with white feathers. My sensible head said some bird has come to a bad end but for some reason it perked me up. All went well but I've never seen a feather there since.

Perhaps they're all in a room with CCTV trained on us?

I want to say I don’t believe in afterlife- but terrified of saying it, in case I am wrong !
Stupid or what !!

Most of what we know about comes through our 5 senses. (Some people claim to have 6.) But it is wrong to think that what we don't know about, doesn't exist. Bats have a sense we have never experienced, echolocation. Birds use some 'magnetic' sense to navigate during migration. In the 18th century, no-one knew about the planet Neptune, does that mean it didn't exist until we gave it permision by discovering i? When we die, we lose control of our body, and therefore our senses, and so, should we survive in another form, we would be unable to communicate in a way that humans can experience. Just because we can't 'experience' the Dead, does not mean they do not still exst. I am with the folk who say 'energy cannot be created or destroyed'.

In response to Alliras comment, we do know who our ghost is. It's our lovely son who sometimes make a sort of shadowy appearance, we just say hello Tim. 😊

They certainly are with us. When this physical meat suit dies our soul goes back home. When we are ‘home’ we are soul/spirit/energy and pure love and communicate by thought.
We can come back here on earth as often as we want to to learn/experience more.
We have soul contracts too for the Earth plane.
When we think about our earth friends/family who have ‘gone back home’ they are with us instantly. They also aren’t disappointed with us, they are pure loving energy again and want the very best for us.
On the theme of robins/feathers, if you are indoors and a feather floats down from above you and lands on you that’s clearly a sign from your loved ones or angels (unless you have a dove on your ceiling) that they’re with you.
When I was away in a hotel I was watching a robin flit about outside and then it stopped, looked directly at me for 5-10 seconds and I said out loud to my husband ‘oh I wonder who died’. A couple of hours later my cousin messaged to say my uncle had died earlier that morning. I have had lots of actual spirit encounters over the years so I have no doubt that they are with us (and that we are spirit in a meat suit) and we’ll meet them again when it’s our time to go back home.

Allira

antiquatedanne

My very down to earth, no-nonsense friend has seen a ghost in her house as did the people who lived there previously.
Our friends didn't know when they bought it.

Wow! I'd love to know more. I too had a ghostly experience which I've written about elsewhere & so did my mum who was everso common sense and strong minded so I know the afterlife exists. I don't think it is literally true necessarily, but it is true in some way we can't understand. when I left my abusive ex so many co-incidences happened to help me I'm sure I had celestial help.
This world is very good at finding out things scientifically, but has yet to find things that don't respond to science

GrandmaKT

The current thread on the use of the word 'passing' (for died) has made me think of a term I hear a lot.
So many times I hear people say "I know my dad/mum will be looking down on me and they will be so proud" etc..
Honest question, does anyone actually believe this? If so, do you believe that relatives who have died are watching you all the time, or at key moments only? I always wonder!

This is one of my pet hates - how do people know that s/he isn't 'looking up'? I don't believe, but if you do, that's fine - as long as you acknowledge that your relative might have gone down, not up..! 😄

Cabbie21

I don’t know how my DH would feel if he is watching me. i have had to get rid of so much of his stuff, things he loved, things he hoarded, things he wouldn’t get rid of ‘ just in case’.

Same here! In fact I have a recurring dream that he didn’t die, it was all a mistake at the hospital, and he comes home and says. “What the F&&k have you done with all my stuff?”

I don’t think anyone is looking down on me but if ever something happens and the outcome would have been negative but I chose a different route which ended well I always say my guardian angel was looking out for me.

For a whole year after he died I felt my husband's presence in the house very strongly.He would make himself known by doing familiar things, the television would suddenly come on at News time,( he never missed watching the news), also I go to bed and find the bedside radio switched on, as he would go to sleep listening to it, and I would find the radiator switched on in an empty room.I had two very strong vivid dreams when I saw him as clear as day walking around outside something else he loved to do.
He has been dead nearly five years now and all these things have ceased.I like to think it is a sign that he is firmly settled, wherever he is.

Pigeons, magpies and gulls all have white feathers

I belive its a comfort saying when folk don't know what else to say but I don't believe it at all. I would rather folk just sit with me in the moment and don't say anything, it's what I remember most when I was in the turmoil of complicated grief, the other things just annoyed me.....