I watched a movie yesterday about life after death. The ideas portrayed in the movie were complex and not part of my story, but it made me contemplate something about life after death that I think is important.
I believe that the experience of birth isn’t a pleasant one. We always focus on the mother going through the pain of childbirth, but the baby goes through being in a safe comfortable environment, pushed through a tunnel that squeezes the baby, and into a new environment that is strange, cold, and uncomfortable. I know we all want to believe that childbirth isn’t traumatic for the baby, but I think it might be, and we just don’t remember it consciously. However, in our unconscious, I believe we do remember and more so we know that if birth is to say the least uncomfortable if not painful, then death will be that way as well.
I feel like it is something we all know deep inside and yet it’s something none of us want to talk about or admit. Instead, we want to comfort ourselves with stories of an afterlife. We want to believe that when we die, we go to Heaven or Hell. We want to believe that when we die, we are reincarnated, and we get to live again. The movie that I watched yesterday suggested the novel idea that when we die, we get to live in an alternate reality, and we have a chance to relive our life over and over again until we get it right and we live this life infinitely.
To me, all these feel like the fairy tales of old that parents tell their children to comfort them. My truth is that death like birth is painful. Every time a change in the state of being takes place it is painful. Instead of fighting against this truth, denying it, or trying to wish it away, I believe that I should just accept it. When I die, I will be leaving behind everything I own, everything I know, and my own physical body, including my own body and my sense of self. Losing all of those things all at once will be painful.
However, I live a life of faith. I believe that God is with me. He has always been with me, He is with me now, and He will always be with me. I believe that as long as I invited God to be in my presence that no matter what happens, He will give me what I need to endure anything, even death. I don’t know what happens when I die, but I have a feeling that whatever I was before I was born, I will return to that same state of being. And I don’t exactly mean return.
Here’s the idea: I think God created a life force and from that life force comes every living thing. When someone is born, they still belong to that life force just in a different state of being. When someone dies, they still belong to that life force just in a different state of being. Human beings perceive these states of alive and dead. It’s a duality. However, if God sees me at all times, then He sees me throughout my entire state of being. If there is reincarnation, He sees all my lives all at once. If there really is a Heaven, then He would see my existence on Earth and all my days in Heaven or Hell as well. God sees me before my birth and after my death. He sees all of me. We perceive life and death, but when God created us He didn’t.
Look to the allegories in the Bible for proof. When God created Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Man was essentially immortal. It wasn’t until Adam and Eve ate of the tree of knowledge that they became self-aware and mortal. What does that mean though? There were animals in the Garden of Eden. Nothing changed their state of being. Animals live and die. Could it mean that once we became self-aware that we became aware of mortality? Did we start to see death in a different way?
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. We all are what we are. I hate the idea that I could be stuck in an infinite loop living life over and over again. I hate the idea that when I die, someone is going to nit pick everything I ever did or didn’t do and either reward or punish me. Yet, I love the idea that when my state of being changes again, I will go back to being a part of what I already am. That thought is comforting to me, even if death is painful.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
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