Why not? Yet, there are those who say, with great certitude, that at death the body and everything associated with it – such as the mind and its memories – come to an end. Of course, they have no basis for that claim. How could they know?
Then, some church-attending friends told me that they do not accept that they have a soul, and which represents the core or essence of their existence. Indeed, in spite of their Bible offering eternal bliss in Heaven (by being with Christ), these genuinely good people do not know where they will go after death. A couple have said that an ‘essence’ of what they are may remain – possibly in the memories of their loved ones.
Those who have indicated that they fear death belong to a church which has threatened a location named hell for non-compliance with its teachings. Interestingly, it is decades since I heard reference by that Church to babies born in, or conceived in, sin; or to that location named ‘limbo.’
Yet, there are others whose religious beliefs offer – not damnation or bliss – but a continuity of existence after Earthly death; and which allows re-birth. The Western version of this belief – which I think of as ‘New Age’ – offers ‘guides’ in a location generally known as the Afterlife who – with or without any judgement about one’s past – either set a pathway for the next life or assist in choosing a pathway (always on Earth).
I have also been told of a faith whose members may move to another planet after life on Earth. Whether this offers a richer life than available after death through one of the ‘desert’ religions is not clear to me. This latter religion seems to offer pleasant surroundings and a pleasurable life.
The principal proponent of a sequence of re-births is Hinduism. Unlike some Western psychotherapists and ‘New Agers’ who refer to life between lives as something known, and who offer descriptions of the Afterlife as an abode (with some such abodes offering scope for self-assessment), Hinduism’s Afterlife offers (as told to me by a Western spiritualist) an opportunity to continue with my learning.
This may overlap another Western perspective of the Afterlife. Here one can purportedly have access to the ‘Akashic Record.’ This record allegedly covers every action ever taken on Earth by humans. Would this Record enable self-tuning of one’s next path on Earth?
So, we go nowhere after Earthly death. Or, we can, or do, go somewhere. That somewhere may offer pain or pleasure; or nothing specific. If ‘somewhere’ is a neutral place, the dead may choose their next life on Earth; or be guided to such a choice; or acquire learning; or just have a rest (slumber?) while waiting to commence the next life. For this process to be meaningful, through the principle of cause-and-effect, the next life would have, implicitly and autonomously, been shaped by one’s past lives (especially the most recent one), would it not?
How credible are those who provide descriptions of the Afterlife in both physical and sociological terms? As well, are modern-day descriptions more accurate than those going back 2,000 years or more? How would any of these writers know? If through revelation, how could one separate this from hallucinations or imagination?
The veil around Earthly life seems impenetrable.
RAJA ARASA RATNAM 