What of the Afterlife?

First, what is the Afterlife? It is an assumed locale for the departing souls (spirits) from Earth. It may be the Heaven mentioned in certain religious documents. It would certainly not be the hell(s) imagined by those who seek to induce better moral behaviour on Earth by frightening their religious followers.

My first clairvoyant surprised me by saying of what he referred to as the ‘Other Side’, “It is not that different from here; and you will not meet God.” As a metaphysical Hindu believing in the reality of the reincarnation process (for the existence of which there is plenty of evidence), I view the Afterlife as an R & R Depot or a Way Station. It would give me a break from the hell of Earthly lives – like walking on a bed of hot coals to get to a grassy patch; and then repeating the process again and again.

Were one to be lucky to have a broadly programmed path of a personal destiny (as I am able to claim), then one may seek to learn (and understand), while in the Afterlife, the significance of human life on Earth, of Man’s place in the Cosmos, and what the Cosmos might be all about. I have been promised that I can continue my learning in the Afterlife. I do like that.

I must admit to having been pre-occupied in recent years (with Death patiently awaiting) with thoughts such as : where is this Afterlife located?; insubstantial entities will not need an environment of substance; I do not want to be involved with other spirits in the way this happens on Earth; and how will I be able to acquire the learning I seek?; and so on.

Then, I had a strange dream recently. I was in a physical environment of my liking (the details do not matter here) in what I felt is the Afterlife. I heard human voices in the distance, but no one came into view. Peace prevailed. As in my present reclusive life. This life was imposed upon me, but it is acceptable as consistent with the guidance offered by Hinduism. Hinduism recommends that, once one has completed one’s commitments to family and society, one could withdraw from society to live a life of contemplation and meditation.

For example, a cave in the Himalayan mountains had been the meditation home for 3 years of the yogi who had come down to Malaya to guide my widowed mother and I about our respective futures. Years later, when I detected a coherent pattern in my life, I wondered whether he had been sent to us. I remember that he was clearly at peace, and apparently unaffected by the cold of the mountain.

In my more comfortable retirement ‘cave’ I too have achieved peace (after a turbulent life). While the dogs do bark (and snap), this caravan will move on, ignoring those who foolishly insist that only their beliefs mist prevail. Certainty is, in my experience, not a human condition.

The message I received through my dream about the Afterlife is that spirits create their own environment in the Afterlife; and that any contact with other spirits can only be on a mutually-agreed basis. My spirit guide may have been responsible for this message. Strangely, I read about a similar perception at about that time. This coincides with scientist Rupert Sheldrake’s concept of ‘morphic resonance’ – “a process that involves action at a distance in both space and time.”

For ex ample, discovery by one person can be followed by comparable or similar discoveries by others, without any contact between them. I instance the way birds began to open the tops of milk bottles all over the world near-simultaneously.

I know from my real experiences that the Afterlife is nearby (therefore in an interacting dimension), and that it is the residence of spirits such as my uncle and those he referred to as ‘higher beings.’ I look forward to an interesting sojourn.

How do souls retain mind and memories?

This question arises from my real experience when I began to investigate e.s.p. (extra-sensory perception), otherwise known as psychic phenomena. My initial exposure to a clairvoyant, and his extra-ordinary and quite inexplicable skills, involved the manifestation of my favourite uncle’s spirit.

Incredibly, my uncle communicated psychically with the clairvoyant, obviously heard a comment I had made to the clairvoyant (by responding to it), and displayed his memory of a relevant segment of his recent Earthly life, and referred to his knowledge of the tragedy I had experienced long after his demise.

It was obvious that this insubstantial entity, while thus lacking a brain, ears and eyes, had retained – more than 4 decades after the cremation of his body – his Earthly mind and its memories; and was able to offer advice to me about my spiritual advancement (implying an awareness of my potential future).

How could a spirit, presumably residing in what I refer to as the Afterlife, also retain capabilities normally associated with an efficiently operating human on Earth – to hear, think, speak (mentally in his situation), and probably see as well? Here is evidence that, at death, the soul of a human being continues as a spirit in another dimension, retaining both mind (with its memories) and sense-and-brain related facilities. Unthinkable!

As for our physical organs of sense – the known 5 – what is seen, heard, tasted, touched and smelt – need to be processed and stored in the brain. The mind, clearly associated with the brain, may not be resident in the brain. Indeed, I use my mind to search the brain for recorded memories.

Yet, the brain can also project information even before I begin the search. I have had this experience doing crossword puzzles. Sometimes, my brain also projects relevant information before I ask my mind to go search. Here I am proposing that my ego (my personality) is indeed separate from my mind; the latter being a facility.

Thus, does memory, associated with the brain as a storage facility, also exist outside the brain? How else could the soul of a human being take both mind and the memories contained therein into the Afterlife? (Denying the existence of souls, the Afterlife, and the capabilities of spirits is not now an option for me. Experienced reality cannot be denied by closing one’s mind.)

In this or any other context, I do not accept the concept of an Akashic Record which registers every action of every human being on Earth. What would be the objective of such a massive record of inconsequence? Confusingly, I lost the memory of quite a few faces through my heart attack. A few years later, progressively this memory was recovered.

Did changes take place in my brain enabling recovery of memory? Or, was relevant memory reinstated from outside my brain? Is this not a relevant question? While the recall of memory reportedly involves the whole brain, the impetus of such a memory search would have to be the mind. In my case, it was a conscious search for memory.

Food for thought?

(Refer my previous post “Where resides the soul?”)

Where resides my soul?

As a metaphysical Hindu (that is, one beyond rituals), I accept that the Cosmic Creator (not necessarily a physical entity), as both transcendent and immanent, may have a presence in all that is created. A fragmentary essence of this Creator could thus be within me. I have read that this presence is located in a walnut-sized space within my heart.

Is this presence my soul, the real me, that traveller through time, through repeated re-births? That cannot be. That is because each soul is said to be polished (improved morally or spiritually) through the reincarnation process, and then returned to be boundless Ocean of Consciousness (or Aether) from which it is said to have risen. A fragment or essence of the Creator will surely not need to be polished.

Rather, its role may be to remind me that, in times of travail, I need only look within me for succour and spiritual (and mental) peace. The lessons of Destiny – both personal and communal – do need to be accepted with equanimity.

My soul is clearly a unique insubstantial entity, the essential me, carrying the compound lessons acquired through a series of past lives. Does it remain a passive record keeper, uninvolved in the normal turbulence of life? Or, does it, in its own interest, influence me by allowing me intimations (on occasions) of my immediate past life?

I have become somewhat sensitised to this influence through: some instinctive responses to events; visions of a past life through auto-hypnosis; information offered by a psychic healer whose Spirit Healer can apparently read my past life traumas; and my ‘casual’ clairvoyant who saw me as I apparently appeared in my immediate past life. I await, with hope, further illumination.

Developing my ‘third-eye’ vision may enable me to become more intuitive about such matters. I doubt, however, whether the embodied I will ever know what the essential I (my soul) is doing.

What I would like to know is whether my soul resides in my body, or whether it surrounds me as an ethereal (or cloud) entity (like the Internet). When I die, will my soul gather my mind and its memories on its way, because they too exist in a ‘cloud’ around my brain?

Could I now explain how I recovered the memory which I had lost when I had a heart attack? Perhaps my memory exists at 2 levels; at a operational level, which can be damaged, and at a holistic ethereal level beyond bodily weakness.

Fascinating! Pity that I will be denied an answer. As my soul takes off to the Afterlife, it will not (I guess) be concerned by such Earth-based ruminations. The caravan must (and will) move on!

(Note: While I cannot prove the existence of a Cosmic Creator and the ways this all-pervasive, ever-existing essence may influence human existence, no sceptic can disprove such a belief. As for the reality of souls and the reincarnation process about which I have written, my experiences and reliable research findings over decades being real, cannot be denied.
Doctrinal religion does not offer needed illumination. Regrettably, some scholars cannot step out from their religion-imbued castles.)

Is Consciousness the explanation?

Consciousness is something we are all aware of. That is, I am aware that I am conscious. But, I do not understand it. Yet, we need Consciousness in order to be mobile and motile; and to use the limited number of senses we possess. Awareness, reciprocally, seems to be an essential manifestation of Consciousness.

Is it possible to be aware when one is unconscious; or asleep? Is it Consciousness which enables thought? Or feelings? What of the subconscious? Is there such a facility? If it does exist, then a level of Consciousness exists of which we are not aware. Then, how do we know about what is happening at the subconscious level? Is there a transmission of thought from the subconscious to the conscious?

There has to be such a transmission. When my seer, B, advised me to ‘listen’ to my subconscious in order to receive messages from my Spirit Guide, such messages need to surface in my conscious mind. When I wake up in the middle of the night with a new thought, I could assume that my Guide was responsible. Since I have a speculative, roving mind, poking into all corners of existence, which new thoughts can be attributed to my Guide? And which reflect the thought-miner striking a potentially valuable lode of insight?

Moving to intuition, third-eye perceptions, clairvoyance, clairaudience, reading the future, and remembering a past life, would these facilities not involve riding a wave of Consciousness across time, as well as space? The quaint concept of space-time is an irrelevancy here.

Would not communication with spirits from the impossible-to-deny Afterlife also involve surfing a cloud-land of Consciousness? Would not the visual manifestation of spirits also require such a medium of transportation from the Afterlife? Of course, the Afterlife is most probably ‘here’ in a dimension which crosses our dimension of Earthly existence.
In this context, looking to the desert religions (or perhaps all religions) for guidance would seem to be futile. The focus of religion is elsewhere.

‘Horses for courses’ is a useful adage. For the relatively recent (in historical terms) discovery of the terra nullius of human experiences traversing over-lapping realms of the ephemeral and the material, new means of communication – in the form of concepts and relationships established in the human mind – are needed.

Following the principle reflected in Occam’s Razor, that the simplest explanation is best, the concept of an all-embracing, infusive, ever-existing, pervasive aether may be a useful starting point. The aether is now being researched, in spite of the Michelson-Morley experiment of yore, by a significant number of scientists willing to transcend the prevailing explanatory paradigms.

In human terms (or in terms of transient beings) Consciousness qualifies as that ever-existing, all-embracing, and all-penetrating essence. Whether matter represents a projection from the bound-less ocean of Consciousness, and from which arose the ephemeral, the insubstantial; or whether the ‘real’ of the ephemeral arising from Consciousness is reflected, as appropriate, in the material is an irrelevancy for now. The relationship between the material and ephemeral realms may be an enriching bilateral process.

Were Consciousness to be a functionally neutral cloud-like enabler of links, especially of communication, between whatever exists, in any form (of substance or otherwise), it would intransitively present what seems to be obvious to sensitive humans – that everything in existence is connected to everything else. Both the paranormal and the normal in human existence would then be explicable.

Is it Consciousness which enables the pathways of mutual understanding, through gossamer connections, between sentient beings – including spirits from the Afterlife?

Intimations about the Afterlife

I had a dream recently. I woke up at the conclusion of the dream, wondering whether it followed my recent speculations about the Afterlife. As a metaphysical Hindu, through some in-depth reading and careful analysis, I accept the probability of the existence of my soul, the reincarnation process, and a re-charging domain I conceive as the Afterlife.

The concept of an Afterlife is very challenging. Would insubstantial soul-entities, the spirits of former Earthlings, need a home of substance? But then I cannot conceive of an insubstantial place where a goodly number of soul-entities could sojourn. However, I realise that at age 89 I can expect to have my curiosity satisfied very soon.

Since I had been advised by a casual clairvoyant (or seer) to listen to my subconscious for messages from my Spirit Guide, I wonder if my dream was more than wishful thinking. Living in a flat country whose highest mountain is a mere pimple, whose rivers do not seem to flow like those in New Zealand, and whose dry terrain does not attract much rain (except for sudden troubling downpours occasionally), my subconscious may be seeking to compensate for this deprivation by Nature.

In my dream, I was on a lush mountain top, with a raging river below on one side and a cliff on the other – which allowed me to see the distant sea and a rocky shore. It was raining, but I do not remember getting wet. I heard voices, yet neither saw nor met anyone. It was as if we were all avoiding one another. In the morning, I again remembered this compensatory dream. After all, had I not been born and bred in a lush tropical terrain? Had I not enjoyed the years I had lived there?

Then, much to my great surprise, during my sleep a few nights later, I had a thought flitting through my mind. Intuitively, I felt that spirits created their own personal environments in the Afterlife. Was that message from my Spirit Guide? As a recluse of many years, I am attracted to this possibility.

Indubitably, the conceptual vista of my soul as a time-traveller, traversing countries and cultures through the occupation of a long series of human bodies, and living (with all its pains and pleasures), and learning while necessarily adapting to a new home, and ultimately returning to The Source morally purified is spiritually satisfying. As ever, it is the journey (in spite of great suffering on the way) which matters, not the arrival Home.

Evidence of life after Earthly death

My personal evidence is as follows. After reading a large compendium providing an up-to-date summary of findings in the paranormal realm, I went to consult a clairvoyant. He had been recommended to me. I wanted to ask him (hereafter referred as C) how he went about his business.

At the doorway to his consulting room, C greeted me thus: “I have the spirit of your uncle with me. Will you accept him?” I was totally flummoxed. Since I had 3 uncles, and C could see the spirit, I had him describe the spirit. His description covered height, skin colour, clothing, and footwear.

Since he was obviously my no. 1 uncle, the oldest in his family, I naturally accepted him. He had also been the second-most important man in my life (after my father). But, as I could not see him, and as he communicated silently with C, I had to rely upon C to know what Uncle said.

I was told that Uncle had been sent by ‘higher beings’ to advise me, as he was “the one I was most likely to accept.” What Uncle said to C indicated that he knew what happened to my life after his death; he even described the cabin bag that I had brought to Australia from Singapore. He referred to his sister, my mother, in a tone of reminiscence; and advised me about my spiritual progress. Near the end of an hour-long session, he responded to a comment that I had made to C. That meant that he could hear what I had said. Since he could see C, I assumed that he could see me too.

It is undeniable that Uncle had retained his mind and his memories after his death; that he could communicate with C; that he see and hear me; that he could process my message and respond to it as if he had a brain as well; and that he could project himself in and out of the material realm at will.

An insubstantial entity had displayed his ability to relate to the realm of substance from which he had departed, using organs of vision, hearing, thought, and memory – which are Earthly facilities. How? All these organs had been cremated with the rest of his body years before.

What is significant is that C provided a comparable service to many others, including 2 of my friends. They confirmed to me that their experiences with the spirit realm through C‘s skills were comparable to mine.

To the professional intransigent sceptic I say this. It is pure folly to proclaim that something is not, or cannot be, without being able to deny real experiences of fellow-humans in a substantive manner. Think about those who claim that God is not, but without being able to prove that assertion.

C is clearly able to contact the spirit realm. He has told me that he obtains advice from the spirit realm through his own Spirit Guide before certain consultations. I suspect that, although he had no previous contact with me, he had sought advice about me. For that I am grateful.

I now have evidence that life on Earth and in what I refer to as the Afterlife has meaning. My Hindu religio-cultural inheritance in this life, suggestive of a continuity of Earthly life through many incarnations, should sustain me through alternative cultural milieus through time.

Following that consultation, I began to write about what Uncle had suggested – “to seek to contribute to building a bridge from where you came to where you are”; to wit, migrant integration into the nation of choice. My books are available as inexpensive ebooks at amazon.com (USA), and its international affiliates (Canada, UK, Australia, France and Germany).

Since that life-changing experience through meeting Uncle, I have had certain other exposures to spirits. I believe these to be spiritually uplifting.

Past-life regressions

Unlike the spontaneous, volunteered claims by very young children (usually aged between 3 and about 6) about an immediate past life, regressions under hypnosis by adults to past lives – especially multiple past lives – cannot be as easily accepted as credible; they  cannot be investigated by interrogating anyone alive for confirmation.

My personal concern is of cryptomnesia (false memory). That could be triggered by the subject’s imagination and nature. In all investigations of the paranormal, some corruption by a parent, or a certain extent of subconscious recall by adults of what had been read or heard of – and interpreted through imagination – could be expected. The human mind is extensible and thereby fallible.

The great debunker Ian Wilson (refer his ‘After Death Experience’), in asking “Is a genuine ‘past life’ coming through?” when examining past-life regressions under hypnosis, begins with the Bridey Murphy case. Lacking verifiable historical information, that case was left in limbo (so to speak). However, good ‘deep trance’ subjects have reported regressions to past lives over the years. Wilson accepts that “there is not the slightest evidence for deliberate, conscious fraud on the part of either hypnotist or the subject hypnotised.”

Yet, “… many of these run-of-the-mill regressions can show signs of the subject fantasizing, or drawing on present twentieth-century knowledge, rather than knowledge of the period appropriate to his or her ‘past life.’” As well, while ‘suggestion’ by the hypnotist can, in fairness, be ruled out, subjects may be influenced by any ‘expectations’ expressed by a hypnotist; for ex ample, that there is no ‘no rest between one life and another.’

Credibly, Ian Wilson asks “… why we retain in our minds material that we cannot get access to without the aid of a hypnotist? … ‘we’, whatever ‘we’ might be, are something of rather more permanence than our physical bodies?” This is an encouraging conclusion by one who seems to have difficulty acknowledging the existence of human souls.

Hans TenDam (refer ‘Exploring Reincarnation’) makes a sound distinction between adult recollection and past-life regression under hypnosis. “Full regression, originally a hypnotic state, brings back memories, but more intense, more like reliving than remembering … we experience the situation just as it happened at that time.” That makes the reported regressed life more credible. Since “Hypnosis is a psychotic shift in consciousness, not a loss of will” (TenDam), the hypnotist needs to be trustworthy.

Hypnosis is subject to certain fears: that the subject is open to suggestion; losing control; given instructions contrary to one’s beliefs; or psychologically damaging; but all are without foundation. Stage hypnosis can, of course, be based on ridicule; but in fun.

Strangely, hypnosis can ease or solve psychosomatic complaints. Physical trauma in a past life can apparently manifest itself in the present body. Two friends and I can attest to seers removing specific pains. In my case, the seer/healer called upon her Spirit Healer to identify a couple of my past live traumas. When I challenged her by pointing out that my past lives are surely private (within my soul memory, possibly), she said that her Healer had access to them. What could I say?

After her healing, my pains disappeared, for ever. And I had not told anyone about them. What could I then say? And I had consulted the healer only in an investigative capacity; to learn about psychic healing. My friends had comparable experiences.

TenDam concludes from his survey thus: “Apparently our soul registers every experience, conscious as well as unconscious. It stores all of our sensory impressions, all our beliefs and thoughts, all our semi-conscious and subconscious reactions.”

I am not sure that I want to delve too deeply into my past lives. Yet, the most recent one intrigues me. And I have intimations of aspects of that life, and where on the globe that occurred. I find that fascinating.

As well, I have clear evidence of life after death.

 

Is reincarnation not real?

Many sceptics claim that there is no reliable evidence for the reincarnation process. However, there are many real experiences which say otherwise. One strand comes from reliable professional research on volunteered (that is, spontaneously uttered) past-life memories of very young children – usually aged between 3 and 5 (up to 7). Then there are my experiences; these I am unable to deny, although I tend to be a sceptic by nature. (I am not gullible.)

As well, there are tribal beliefs in every continent which accept the reincarnation process in one form or another. Most of the major Western religions also seem implicitly to accept the possibility of reincarnation (refer the New Testament); whereas the Eastern (Asian) religions accept reincarnation. The oldest version – in Hinduism – is based on the soul going through many Earthly lives on a path of moral purification.

The scientific method (based on the null hypothesis), has no role to play in this matter. How could it be applied? Any institutional religion based on authority and rigid control can have little credibility on this issue. I have read that, against the prevailing background of many cultures in the world holding a belief of some sort in reincarnation, the early Christian Church decided that control of the lives of its followers necessitated the rejection of reincarnation.

Indeed, reincarnation, with its cause-and-effect trajectory, can, according to Colin Wilson (a renowned writer on paranormal phenomena), be seen as reflecting free will. During each life, through free will, one could shape one’s future life. Otherwise, the reincarnation process is meaningless; that is, without purpose or direction. Unlike the early Church’s intention to interpret God’s Will, human free will may be less dependent on the Will of God or spirits.

Colin Wilson also refers to Hans TenDam’s book ‘Exploring Reincarnation’ as the great definite work on reincarnation. “ … he has written, not as a believer, but as a detached observer …” The back cover of the book (1990) states “Unlike some writers in the field, Hans TenDam examines, freely and frankly, the range of explanations of past-life recall – the many different hypotheses about body and soul. None fits the evidence, he concludes, as well as reincarnation.”

The most persuasive of the evidence for the reality of reincarnation comes from the extended and substantial work of Dr. Ian Stevenson. According to the great debunker Ian Wilson (refer ‘The After-Death Experience’), “Dr. Stevenson’s reports … are prodigiously detailed and, as such, undeniably represent the most authoritative and scientific approach supportive of belief in reincarnation available in any language.”

Not surprisingly, some of the professional debunkers did embark upon some strange means of studying the issue. One approach was to weigh a body before and after death to see if the alleged soul had weight! I am reminded of those scientists who measured the skulls and weighed the brains of Australia’s Aborigines: was that to see if they were fauna?

There will also be researchers who, being human and thereby holding religious views, cannot accept explanations arising from studies which challenge that religious position.

Here is what TenDam has to say in his extraordinary book.
“So a great many people belief in reincarnation. Why? The majority undoubtedly because they have been brought up to believe in it. But in the final analysis, belief is based on experiences, reflections, and arguments that convince people of its plausibility.”

“People having apparent memories of their own past lives is an area of experience like any other. We need neither doubt that these experiences are what they profess to be, nor believe that they are beyond sober analysis and criticism. I can easily accept past-life recall, because I have had such experiences myself, and have hundreds of times observed other people having them, but I don’t take them for gospel.”

I too have had intimations of an immediate past life, supported by a spontaneous vision by a seer; yet, I am far from convinced. But I have no doubt that life continues after Earthly death; the spirit realm provided the evidence.

Life after Earthly death?

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.

Why are the desert religions aggressive?

All the major religions in the world have the same God, the one and only Universal Creator of all that is. Creation may have occurred all at once or through an evolutionary path. The Creator God may be unknowable, except through a deep meditative process; or knowable, perhaps through revelation. Asking what was there before Creation, or about the origin of God, are meaningless questions. (Ask the cat which looks behind a free-standing mirror for that other cat.)

Most of us need a saviour offering succour, primarily in terms of survival in our normally harsh environments. Others may have lesser needs, but which can loom large in their lives, depending on how insecure or greedy they are. Wants may be greater than need.

A significantly powerful personal need, but which can (in an exaggerated state) threaten the very existence of other humans who are also believers in God, is the need to believe that one is on the only path to God; or that one’s path to the Celestial Abode of the Heavenly Father is the more efficient one. This Abode may offer angels, or dancing girls, or advanced spirits, or ever-lasting peace. (Or perhaps a wondrous mansion filled with gee-gaws of great value, and serviced by valets galore.)

How does such a strange need of exclusivity or superiority arise? Surely through the priesthoods. Why would priesthoods need to compete with one another? The exercise of power, or a collective ego-gratification?

Religious belief systems arose in widely dispersed regions of the world over a long period of time. Each could not have known about other belief systems unless traders from afar displayed their foreign faiths. See what happened when Hindu and (later) Buddhist traders influenced the cultures of South East Asia and the islands of the adjoining archipelago now known as the Indonesian. So many individuals there have names and even facial features which reflect this cultural infusion.

Of course, marauding armies would also have imposed a new religion here and there. Or, a ruler, by accepting a new religion, had all his people follow him.

Priesthoods would also tend to protect their reign when they control the path to eternity. As evidenced in Egypt, when Aten replaced Amon temporarily, it was allegedly the prevailing priesthood which recovered the status quo. Was this also the earliest evidence of a closed trade union?

But then, why did Christianity, which offers a loving universal god in place of a fearsome desert god, set out (through colonialism) to convert peaceful followers of the forest religions of Asia? What drove Islam, the successor to Christianity, to use the cutting edge of weaponry to convert all and sundry? Do not these religions have a record of destroying the followers of other faiths, and sects of their own religions, here and there? In my experience, these are the only 2 religions whose followers talk a great deal about their faith, whereas the others simply live their religion.

It is surely undeniable that the 3 major desert religions have been, and are, the predominant warring nations of the globe. Humans will, of course, attack one another for material gain. Our simian genetic heritage is probably responsible. But what gain is there in collecting souls? Why not take the coveted materials, and leave beliefs alone? More efficient control of the ‘other,’ using priests?

In any event, the diversity of beliefs reflects merely the diversity in approaches to the Divine. The paths do vary, thanks to differences in man-made theology and dogma – all arbitrary, and replaceable. On what basis would a priesthood claim superiority or priority?

Would not the wanton destruction of fellow-humans and their societies in the name of one’s religion affect one’s chances of finding peace in the Hereafter? Or, do the guilty deny the existence of a meaningful Afterlife?

Why not live in faith on Earth, and allow others to live with their respective faiths too? In the Afterlife (Hereafter or Heaven) all souls will surely be equal as non-entities!