All of the above, plus the negation of those, plus other stuff that hasn't even been spoken of here...or can be. For reference material, consult the holy books of every religion on Earth, plus the writings of great thinkers and philosophers out of every civilization in history...

And then you will just have scratched the surface.

That out of which all observable manifestations arise cannot properly be spoken of as "dead" since it is itself the source of both life and death, which would not exist as concepts in someone's mind had they not arisen out of the unmanifest in the first place.

That which was there before either life or death is what life and death are now merely secondary reflections of.

And nothing we say here matters....or it all does. Take your pick, according to your free will to believe anything you care to...quite a burden to have to bear! It would be so much easier to just have some "leader" tell you what to believe, wouldn't it? That explains why most people make such good followers and conformists.

- LH