š»Life After Death!
You might already know what happens when someone dies, their heart stops working, they lose consciousness, and within a couple of hours all the organs stop functioning, and then they just lie down below the sand to rest in peace or worse burned and turns to ashes. Isnāt it?
Wellā¦ Yes, and Noā¦ different peopleā¦ let me put it this way, people from different āschools of thoughtā look at death differently and present their opinions about what happens after someone dies, and in this newsletter, weāll try to find out if the death of the physical body really the end. Okay, only theoretically, no practical, please!
Letās first start with what a major portion of scientists/doctors vouches for.
You are Gone šØ
They define death as a permanent, irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism, which means... we couldnāt do anything, take it, and do anything you like with the body, we are out of this!
As the existence of the soul is not verifiable, they don't believe in it. And they are steady on their theory that it is REALLY the end.
But of course, there are many scientists that are researching re-carnation and trying to prove that IT IS A THING through past life regression and by studying near-death experiences.
But to prove it scientifically, the evidence should be unambiguous and inadmissible, there should be a one-to-one correspondence between person A, which left the body and person B that reincarnated, and the soul should be mapped back! That would be unambiguous proof.
But can we observe the soul? Can we measure the soul? Unfortunately, we do not! Thatās why it is not āscientificā evidence. That is how science works! A million people can make claims about it but those are just not scientifically provable. Those claims are not replicable in a controlled environment. You cannot photograph it. You cannot video graph it. You cannot measure it.
So even though there are so many cases of past life regression that seem extraordinarily convincing, we cannot prove them scientifically. Science has a very limited scope, there are so many things that science cannot explain. 95% of the universe is dark, we were able to identify 5% of that, that also very imperfectly. It is just outside the realm of science as it couldnāt be proven, nor disproven.
Now scientists couldnāt give content for this newsletter, letās now move on to religions.
So in most of the prevalent religions there is a concept of the soul, but what they do with it after the death of the body are poles apart ā¬ ļøā”ļø
Take Everything with You šø
There were many beliefs in Egypt that if you bury material wealth with the body, it goes with the soul for the afterlife, but then when they discovered that everything is there as it is inside the pyramids š.
I donāt even want to imagine how they managed up there.
PERMANENT Stay @ Heaven or Hell š©
The people who follow Islam believe in the existence of the soul and the afterlife. Believes if you follow the words of Allah, you will go to Jannat or heaven else to hell and stay there forever. On the day of your death (also called The Judgement Day), two angels will comeā¦ you know whatā¦ I donāt want to ruin it, you can watch the video in the footnote explaining the process.
But the crucks is, if you did the things according to the will of Allah, and you are practising Islam, you will be sent to heaven else youāll be sent to hell and youāll stay there FOREVER!
Merge in the Void šŖ£
Then there are religions (like Buddhism or Advait) that say that you merge with the void or universe or oneness or god when you die. They give an analogy of a clay pot, that our body is like a clay pot, and the life force is the air inside the pot. Now dying for them means that the clay pot breaks and the air inside the pot submerge into the air outside or in the case of us, the life force merges into the nothingness. It is also somewhat similar to scientific theory. That when you die, you become non-existent.
But then there is a story where Gautam Buddha remembered his past life when he get enlightenment. š¤·āāļø
Youāll be Judged šØāāļø
People who follow Sikhism also believe in the soul, the afterlife and reincarnation. They believe that after the death of the body the soul is taken to a court and whether the soul merges within god or came back on earth, depends upon their karma.
The theory is when you die, you have to travel for a long to reach the court of ādharma rajā, and it is a very difficult journey, you will be constantly beaten up, and have to see a lot and to make the journey easy, there will be a trade with your good deeds and protection to rare humans would be the āNaam Simranā they did while they were alive.
In Sikhi, hell is not permanent, after serving the punishment in hell, youāll be sent back.
At the Dharmaraj court, youāre not allowed to speak anything, and all your accounts would be open in front of you and youāll be judged based on that.
What oneās be judged upon?
The actions you took while you were alive;
The words you spoke to others; and
Your thoughts
And according to your karma, you would be sent to either heaven or hell. And after spending the allocated time there, you come back with the goal to be perfect in that lifetime and try to merge back inside god, which happens if you practice ānam Simran'.
Aspire for Service š
Vaishnavism is similar to Sikhism in most aspects (technically it is the other way around as Vaishnavism came first), they believe in the existence of the soul, and reincarnation, and according to the karma that a person accumulated through his life, he serves the time in Swarg (Heaven) or Nark (Hell). And the journey to that is also very difficult and it is also explained in great detail. And after spending time there the soul gets a new body, a species according to their remaining karma (left even after exhausting it in Swarg or Nark), could be human again, an animal, a fish or even a tree!
And there are also the concepts of multiple āSwargā and multiple āNarkā. So this earth is in the center and the planets above it are heavenly planets or āSwargā (it also included planets where demigods reside) and multiple planets that are below the earth are āNarkā. So after all the calculations of karma (through actions, words and thoughts), he gets the planet accordingly.
And this cycle continues till they have anything left in their karma account, which also includes good karma, which means even if you have good karma left, you have to come back again. And there are many ways to exhaust karma, even ways to go beyond karma, but the most prominent way is by chanting the names of the lord. And what's the end of it? In the end, if you please the lord with your service in your lifetime, at the time of death, āVishnu dutsā come instead of āYam dutsā to take you with them to the lord's abode, where you could basically have interaction with him and directly serve him and be part of his Leela for rest of your life.
So death according to them is just transferring the soul to heaven or hell and then back to another body or back to Godhead. They do not believe that the soul can merge into the supreme but will go back to Lord to serve.