As mere mortals, I'm not sure any of us can say with any certainty what takes place after the heart stops beating, beyond the obvious physical decay of the body, that is.
Knowing what happens beyond the grave and
believing per the faith you grew up with are two different things entirely. There are some things our limited minds but can grasp the surface of, and this may be one of them. But as I ponder the immortal question, "What happens after death," I do find myself favoring the concept of reincarnation over the first two options, which appear to be:
1. Materialism: You're born kicking and screaming into this cold, cruel world, your mind and body animated only by your physiology. Soul, spirit, metaphysics, theology and the like never enter into your miserable equation. Your intelligence and unique personality die with you. When you're gone, you're gone. You had your chance. Curtains close, lights off, game over. You are now fodder for maggots and a host of other revolting fauna, nothing more.
2. Western Theology: When you were born, God created a brand new soul for you, but you're only allowed to use it for one short, miserable lifetime. If you're really bad during this lifetime, your soul gets to burn for all eternity in hell with Satan and other troublemakers. Of course, if you tell God you're sorry right before you croak you might get to go to heaven, no matter how bad you were all those other years. No harm, no foul - right? Oh, but if you were one of the millions upon millions of unfortunate souls born into material bondage before salvation became available to the masses, you're sh*t out of luck. Sorry.
And then there's:
3. Reincarnation: God is too busy to churn out brand new souls every time some bald, screaming lump of clay claws it's hideous mass from the woman it just spent the last nine months of it's parasitic existence torturing. We are all a part of God, and are (hopefully) progressing toward a state of improvement and ultimate perfection, though some faster than others:). One minuscule lifetime on this planet is hardly enough time to learn the lessons we must in order to reach a state of spiritual dynamism, and so we come back for periodic descents into the physical (hell), till at last we are freed from the spiral dance of rebirth and finally reunited with God.
The first two theories rub the Enlightened Misanthrope the wrong way. The materialist cannot explain how matter animates consciousness, or how in the heck mind can be destroyed at death. Science has established our bodies are in a constant state of flux - the cells renewing approximately once every seven years, so in essence, you are an entirely new person every seven years - and yet mind stays intact and remembers everything, well, most everything. Think of those close encounters you've had with death and your life flashing before you, every last second remembered in minute detail. If the materialist were to follow this line of scientific reasoning, then it follows consciousness must also renew every seven years, thereby rendering the individual with no memory of that time span. But to do so would expose the fallacy of materialism, and so the Atheist and his ilk simply ignores the argument. How convenient. That being the case, I choose to conveniently ignore the materialist's narrowly focused thinking in favor of philosophies more
natural. Imagine, if you will, the possibility that the Christ incarnated as the Nazarene actually held the principles of rebirth to be true. There are actually references in the Bible that elude to this, and to the possibility Jesus the Christ was head of the holy order of Essenes, a Jewish mystical sect who embraced the tenants of vegetarianism and, among other things, reincarnation. And their roots can be traced back to 5th century BC Pythagoreans, whose namesake, appropriately enough, is thought to have reincarnated as the Nazarene himself. Doesn't anyone find it curious that Easter (Christ's rebirth) also coincides with Spring equinox? Yes, the pagan origins of the sacred holiday might come as a shock to the uninformed, but that is fodder for another topic.
But back to Spring, this time of year we are again reminded that the iris bulb which was covered in snow all winter isn't dead, but merely biding its time until it can grace the earth with it's sublime beauty for yet another season, another cycle of rebirth. Are we to believe the natural laws that govern all of nature's glory do not apply to mankind? To do so is nothing less than labeling man an unnatural creature. I no more believe the soul dies at death than the earth dies at winter. No, I suspect we will return again, again, and again, whether we like it or not. As a squirrel, perhaps? Why not? Well, there
is that little issue of the Group Spirit which governs animals species, making the idea of transmigration a bit hard to swallow. And still, I've observed a dog or two I could have sworn were human, and vice versa. You've no doubt experienced it too: the canine who's just so dog-gone human it makes you scratch your head in bewilderment. Some would call such soul travel retrogression, but for much of mankind, I call it an improvement.
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