We came from a mystery and will return to it

Christians… believe in the resurrection of the Body, but the majority do not believe in a rapture. Why? Because biblical support is weak and the idea didn’t become popular until the 1830’s when John Nelson Darby invented the idea by interpreting one verse in First Thessalonians (4:17) and another verse in Revelation (11:11). One hundred and fifty years later, Hal Lindsey renewed interest in Rapture in his book The Late Great Planet Earth.

Matthew 24:40 is frequently used to defend the rapture. “Two men will be in the field,” said Jesus, “one will be taken and the other left.” Most theologians, however, do not accept the Rapture as a valid theological concept because Jesus was relating the destruction of Jerusalem to the destruction of mankind by the Great Flood where those carried away (taken) were those drowned in the Flood and those spared (left) were Noah’s family.

Moslems… do not believe in the rapture but most do believe in resurrection. Why? Because the Quran (56:60) says Allah is able to raise the Body physically and spiritually. Death is the separation of Body and Soul. Resurrection is their reunification. [Quran, 81:7]

Jews… believe the dead will be raised when the Messiah comes to gather the children of Israel from the four corners of the earth and return them to the promised land. In Judaism, the return is to Jerusalem, not to heaven. Why? Because the prophets (Ezekiel 37:21, for example) said the elect are the chosen people of Israel, not the Christians. Despite this apparent conflict about where Jews and Christians will go during the resurrection, Thomas Lancaster, editor of Messiah Magazine, claims, “The disciples of Yeshua will be transported with the exiles of Israel to the holy city of Jerusalem for a grand celebration.”

Despite these different beliefs about Rapture and Resurrection, they both suggest the possibility that God (Jehovah, Yeshua, Jesus or Allah) will unite our Soul and Body so we can enjoy the same bodily existence in the after life that we have in this life. Why? Because…

● Your Soul is not complete without being united to a Body.
● You, your I-Self, is contained in your Soul, not in your Body.
● Your Self survives the death and decomposition of your physical Body.

If your Soul does exist, resurrection is achieved when God (Jehovah/Jesus/Allah) returns your Soul to a new Body. You live again in a physical way. Some Christians claim God creates an exact replica (DNA clone) of your Body. Others claim God raises up your dead, decomposed Body, not a new, cloned Body. Either way, your Saved Self enjoys heaven, and your Sinner Self suffers hell. If a Soul does not exist, is a technological resurrection possible by storing and preserving the information in your brain, then transferring the information to a new brain?

Buddhists… teach rebirth rather than reincarnation. Reincarnation implies that when you die, your Self will come back in another life. To incarnate is to inhabit a physical form. It implies an enduring mental self that passes from Body to Body. But Buddhists don’t believe in a permanent, unchanging Self that moves from life to life (reincarnation) or even moment to moment (rebirth). For Buddhists, rebirth is a transitional Self that changes (reborn) from moment to moment, milestone to milestone. The Self is like a long wave of dominoes moving from one domino to the next… child, teenager, adult, senior citizen.

For Buddhists, Karma is not a long Naughty-and-Nice list you inherit from life to life. For Buddhists, Karma is simply the causes and conditions that comprise your changing self in the here and now — your genes, experiences, knowledge, consciousness, physical Body, habits, preferences, and relationships.

So, in Buddhism there is no self that is separate from the Body to be reincarnated. Some Buddhist teachers, however, insist that believing in reincarnation is necessary because without fear of Karmic repercussions in future lives, they will not be motivated to be ethical in this life. Some Buddhists counter with the argument that if you worry about what happens in the next life you will live this life for all the wrong reasons.

Another aspect of our fear of death is that in the afterlife we might not retain our Self, the “I” of our consciousness. Whatever Cosmic or Divine laws rule our existence in this and the next life, if there is one, are things we can’t control. We might find more comfort in our last conscious moments by focusing on the possibility that our consciousness is too unique and therefore valuable to be lost in a sea of cosmic, collective consciousness. Bodies are a dime a dozen. Souls are not. Why else would the Cosmos have evolved, or would a Creator have chosen to join our bodies and Souls in an afterlife?

Hindus… teach reincarnation, the idea that your Soul or Self is separate from your Body and enters a new Body in your next life the way someone puts on new clothes. Together, your Soul and your Body make You a unique, one-of-a-kind Person. Once again, that implies the Soul is not complete without a Body. That your Body and brain are merely containers to carry your Soul from this world to the next. The God of Karma creates a new, material Body/brain container and transports your Karmic Self into that consciousness.

But how do you improve your Karma if you don’t know who you are or what you did wrong? Hypnotic regression? Hallucinatory drugs? Does your Karma retain your Self? Will you recognize your Self in your new Body? Seems like you’d know who you are/were since your Karma is a result of your Self, which must survive the death of the Body and brain.

To survive physical death, however, this something must not only be non-physical but also capable of storing the seeds of previously committed moral acts (karma) that will ripen in future lifetimes. But how can an immaterial mind ever connect with and inhabit a material brain? How does it connect to a neuron or a neuron connect to it?

My Conclusion… is that we came from a mystery and will return to it. Will my consciousness exist in some state beyond this life? I don’t know. What I do know is that I am conscious of being alive now — living fully, loving well and prepared to let go when the end comes.

Steve Pavlina encouraged that approach when he wrote, “Work on your consciousness now. If this life is all there is, yours will be better by increasing your awareness and sensitivity to it. If consciousness survives death, your next life will be better for the same reason.”

If you have a religious outlook on life and death, you might think heaven is a place where your lost future has been saved for another day. Even with a secular view of life and death, who wouldn’t hope there are other worlds to sing in? So, when I’m taking my last breath, I will tell my family and friends, “I wasn’t so afraid of dying that I failed to live. And now that I am dying, I embrace the possibility that another life waits for me beyond the grave.”

Doctor Seuss probably wouldn’t endorse my interpretation of his Beyond Z poem, but it makes me think the mystery of life after death is outside the box of conventional thinking — beyond the alphabet that ends in Z.

In the places I go there are things that I see
That I never could spell if I stayed this side of Z.
I’m telling you this cause you’re one of my friends.
My alphabet starts where your alphabet ends.

Life After Death was originally published in Pitfall on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.