The short and best answer is: It beats the hell out of me. I’m not dead yet. That said, let’s take a gander at some of the beliefs out there. You can then pick from the lot, because in the end, it doesn’t matter. You will only know if you’re right when your dead.
- Once you’re dead, you’re dead.
This belief is held by many in the science community and atheists.
- When you die your soul stays in the grave until some event occurs whereupon you will rise, hopefully without whatever problems took you out in the first place. After you arise, you are judged.
This belief we see in Judaism, Christianity, Some native American Tribes.
- When you die, your spirit wanders eternally.
We see this ancient belief among African tribes and some American Indian people.
- When you die, you stay in the grave until some event occurs and then you rise often to be judged by a god.
This belief is held in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
- When you die you are either immediately reincarnated into a newborn baby or sometimes hang around as a spirit until you decide where to be born and into what body that will advance you best toward enlightenment.
Buddhists and Hindu belief structures are found here, but you can also find some Christians, Jewish, and Native Americans with these beliefs.
- When you die, the only part of you that was real in the first place survives. That would consist of an immortal consciousness expressed in terms of an avatar living in a synthesized world. This model reduces birth, life, and death as data. According to Tom Campbell in his book “My Big TOE” life is like a computer game (TOE stands for theory of everything) (1)(2). You and I reside in a made-up reality with rule sets. We are avatars controlled by a conscious self (the player). That consciousness is a small piece of a universal consciousness that makes up all potentialities. When the avatar dies, a new one, or maybe more than one is created and the game goes on.
We see this thinking in Buddhist teaching and with theoretical physicists.
When we’re very young, the idea of death as it pertains to us, rarely crosses our minds. Death happens to elderly family member, pets, and maybe even a few friends. However, as we age, we become increasingly aware of our own mortality. Though there are no definitive answers, we do have clues as to what could happen to us after we die and that there is more to our reality than we think.
Since I’m older than dirt, what happens when I launch from this life has become one of my interests. So far these are the clues I’ve discovered.
Memories, of previous lives occasionally are recalled by young children. (3) Sometimes folks have experiences that can’t yet be explained. (4) (5) There is way more to reality than physics can explain. (6) (7)
To date, I fall into the Tom Campbell camp because it makes the most sense to me. I read “My Big Toe” and found no flaws in his logic. The concepts he presents not only explain the world of our 5 senses, but they also explain the apparent anomalies we experience.
Now it’s time to get living life to its fullest because 10 minutes from now we might die. We don’t plan on it, but it could happen.
(1) Campbell, Thomas. My Big Toe: Awakening – Discovery – Inner Workings: a Trilogy Unifying Philosophy, Physics, and Metaphysics. Lightning Strike Books, 2015
(2) pantherapie. “Thomas Campbell – It Is a Virtual Reality.” YouTube, YouTube, 14 Sept. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWWRFA8v6aE.
(3) “Children Who Report Memories of Previous Lives.” Division of Perceptual Studies, 5 Mar. 2021, med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studies/our-research/children-who-report-memories-of-previous-lives/.
(4) Hayasaki, Erika. Identical Twins Hint at How Environments Change Gene Expression. The Atlantic, May 15, 2018. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/05/twin-epigenetics/560189/
(5) Venkatasubramanian, Ganesan et al. Investigating paranormal phenomena: Functional brain imaging of telepathy. Int J Yoga. 2008 Jul-Dec: 66-71 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3144613/
(6) Virdee, T. S. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2015.0259
(7) Hansson, Johan. International Journal of Modern Physics and Applications, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2015, pp. 12-16. https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:979253/FULLTEXT01.pdf
