The Spirit Of Spirituality: What Happens After Death?

This is one of the articles in a book I have written on spirituality. The book is available on Amazon.com.

-----------------------------------------------------------

I have covered in earlier articles as to what death is and what causes death. I will now take a wild leap and based on my limited understanding of what I have read and grasped, try to discuss what happens after death. This is a fascinating question across ages. There have always been stories in all cultures about the fate of an individual after death. Some talk of Eternal Heaven or Eternal Hell after death. Some talk of either nirvana or return to another life after death. Some secularists challenge that there is anything after death. They contend that with death, it all ends.

Let us look at this question from different angles, for most of which my reference points are the Upanishad’s concepts.

We have three typical states of existence in our day to day life. We have a waking state, a dream state and a deep sleep state. There is also a fourth state called the Turiya state. But let us keep it in the background for now.

After a typical hard day’s work having been exposed to a variety of situations, we lapse into a dream state. Can any of us be certain of the type of dream we will get? We obviously cannot be certain. But from experience we know that our dreams are not totally disjointed from our day to day experiences. By this I mean, I will not dream that I am a lion attacking a deer or that I am a woman doing a dance. Even though I am dreaming, the boundaries of my dream state that I cannot dream that I am non-human or that I am not a male. Considering the type of job I do, is it ever likely that I will dream that I am on a NASA rocket to the Mars planet? Very unlikely! The point I am trying to make is that, though dreams are unrealistic, they appear to have boundaries around them. Similarly whether a dream is bad or good would typically depend on the situational experience during my awakened state. If I have never been exposed to something called alcohol, it does not appear likely at all that I will ever have a dream about a bar. If I am always in thoughts or actions of murder, robbery etc, then it is very unlikely that in my dream, I will be going to a temple and doing a ceremony.

Let us now use the above concept to life after death. The life is equivalent to our day time awakened state activities. During a life time we do a variety of activities and are influenced by each of these to different extents. Now when we die, similar to a dream, I am subjected to an extrapolation of the various activities and experiences in my life. Just as a dream can be good or bad, life after death can be Heaven or Hell. Now, the question is who experiences heaven and hell once I am dead. It surely is not this physical body. The entity that will experience the heaven or hell is the individual “ego”. Please note that many may say that the soul experiences these. The soul is the same as Brahman and cannot experience heaven or hell. It is only the individual ego that experiences heaven and hell.

Before we break into wild fear thinking of the hell that awaits most of us for the deeds we have done in this world, let us again go back to the dream concept. Many of us have nightmares. But do they last forever? Thankfully no! Similarly I may be dreaming of my date with the lovely Miss Universe. How long will this last. Sadly, not for long! In exactly the same way, the individual ego experiences heaven and hell not for eternity, but for a clearly defined period depending on the quantum of the good or bad tasks performed during the state of life. So let’s take heart. Even though many of us have sinned all through our lives, hell will not last forever!

Before I worry thinking of the type of hell awaiting me, let me see if there is a way to avoid heaven or hell. I mentioned above that good or bad tasks lead to heaven or hell respectively. But then what is good or bad? Does good mean being buried daily among spiritual books and spend all life on charity? Does bad mean plundering and sitting in gambling dens all life? None of these define either good or bad. They are good or bad only from a society’s moral rules, but mean nothing from a spiritual perspective. Spiritually speaking, the only good act is to realize that I am Supreme and anything that I do other than the above act of Realization, is a bad act. So long as I identify with the ego and its body/mind/intellect components, any act I do will be attached to the ego and will have its consequences once the body dies. But for a person who is not identified with the ego, but with the pure Brahman, any act is done dispassionately and hence there is no consequence of heaven or hell for such an entity.

Now a question arises. If Heaven and Hell are not permanent, what happens when the stay in Heaven unfortunately ends or the stay in Hell thankfully ends?. Let us once again go back to our sleep illustration. Do we have only one dream when we sleep? We have a series of dreams ranging from neutral, good or bad dreams. Typically a dream state is followed by a deep sleep state after which we again wake up to our normal existence.

Similarly, after a physical death, the individual “jiva” or “ego” or “identity” undergoes a series of experiences which may be termed Heavenly, Hellish or neutral. Once this phase is over, the Jiva experiences a phase of bliss if it is lucky and has done the type of actions which give bliss. Again, similar to dreams, some of us have disturbed sleeps and wake up frightened out of a bad dream or smiling out of a good dream without a deep sleep phase. Equivalently, in such situations, the Jiva is suddenly thrown out of its experience of Heaven or Hell and is ready for another existence just as we wake up and are ready for another day.

Now, what sort of existence the Jiva takes again is dependent on the type of unfulfilled desires. If the desires are of the physical objects, then the Jiva takes birth in the physical world also called as the physical astral plane. If the type of desires is purely emotional, the Jiva does not need another physical body. It just needs a mental sheath (Manomaya kosha) so that it can experience the emotional desires. If the type of desires is purely intellectual, the Jiva does not need another physical body or a emotional sheath. It just needs an intellectual sheath (Jnanamaya kosha) so that it can experience the intellectual desires. So a Jiva goes through multiple cycles of birth and death till it finally realizes that it has to shed its ego or individuality and realize it is Brahman. Once a Jiva realizes it is Brahman, there is no more birth or death for it.

A common heard theme in Hindu literature is that whatever my last thought before death is where I will go after death. This is the most common reason that children were given names of Gods or Goddesses. The hope was that at the time of death, out of love and attachment, the thought would be about the child and consequently it would be God’s name and so hopefully after death, one would be with the Gods. Can we be certain of what our last thought will be? Again, this is impossible. Can we trace the trajectory of current thoughts and predict what could be the last thought before death? Let us assume a busy finance executive walking on the street of New York. Assuming he is confronted with death, would his last thought be about God/Brahman or would it be about money/stocks/stock exchange? So though scriptures say that the last thought leads an individual to a life after death, since the last thought itself is a culmination of various thoughts and actions throughout life, it seems logical that our journey after this life is totally guided by actions/thoughts throughout life.

When my father was on his death bed, for some reason he always used to say, “a ray of peace has descended from heaven on me.” He, being a philosophical person for a significant part of his life, hopefully would have had philosophical thoughts as he breathed his last and maybe is reborn as a philosopher somewhere. I was pleasantly surprised at my own reaction recently. As part of my medical exam, I went through a painful procedure. The doctor had not prepared me for this and suddenly did it. I was shouting in pain and then I realized, I was shouting, “Oh God, Oh God”. So hopefully if I follow on my current spiritual practice, when my end comes, hopefully my last thought will be something similar.

As readers may be aware, 3 of my books on spirituality are available on Amazon.com.

I invite readers of my blog to try any of the books and give me feedback so that I can make changes in the next edition.

1. My Humble Understanding Of Spirituality

My Humble Understanding Of Spirituality