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Is there life after death?
First we need to make sure we understand what we mean by 'life' and ‘death’?
Presumably the ‘life’ that we are referring to is the one we are experiencing at the moment – our physical life. We can’t be talking about our life and death in a spiritual framework because our spirit is eternal. There is no life and death at Home – just calm peaceful evaluation of our physical lives and eternal existence. So let’s assume we are referring to the lives that we are experiencing now. The only problem with that is that these lives are an illusion. Reality is at Home. Our lives here are our version of Coronation Street or if we are having a really bad time – Eastenders! We have chosen the character that we are going to play (we will come back to the script writer later), we have read our script and how we fit into that story. We have met the spirits that are playing our parents, our spouse and our children if we have them, we have also met the people who hurt us, either physically or emotionally, and all the other spirits who will enter the story and play their part in helping us to evolve. This is what ‘life’ is here.
So if that is what life is, what is death?
Presumably by death we mean the death of our bodies – you know the body you are always complaining about. The one that is too fat, too thin, has the wrong shape, is always ill, can’t run quick enough, isn’t muscled enough etc etc.! The body that we care so much about that we abuse it by filling it up with chemicals, alcohol, drugs, tobacco, processed food, insecticides, pesticides too much food, too little food, - do I need to go on?! This is the body that we are suddenly so attached to, that we love so much that we can’t bear to let it go!
When we ‘die’ it is our body that dies. It dies because we have reached the end of our part in the story. But our spirit doesn’t die because it can’t. All that happens is that the silver chord that attaches our spirit to this body is cut and we go Home. We have been written out of this bit because the scriptwriter has taken our character as far as he/she can go. It is also time for us to go ‘Home’ and prepare for our next starring role and like all actors we need a good rest in between. After all, we have given our all and put everything we can into this performance. We have really believed in the part we have chosen. So now its time for a rest to cleanse ourselves of all the negativity that we have picked up here and to reflect on how well we played our part, what we learned and perhaps how we could have done better. Then when we are fully rested we get to come back, (aren’t we lucky!) and do it all again but this time with a different part, different scripts, different storylines etc.
Ok this is a bit of a simplification but if we think of our lives in this respect it helps us to change our perceptions. By changing our perceptions we can change how we see things and this in turn will help us to react to situations in a different way. If you know that the person who is always winding you up is doing it with your (spiritual) consent, and that you have already agreed that they will do this, you can react differently. The way we react to people is often conditioned by how they react to us. If they are angry and shouting at you it is very difficult to remain calm and reasoned. But if you can remain calm the outcome may be different. (We are not saying it definitely will be different but it might be!).
Are our lives predetermined?
So if everything we have just said is true does this mean our lives are totally predetermined? This is actually a very important question because if everything we do is predetermined then it would mean that we are not responsible for anything we do. Sorry but it doesn’t work like that. We have free choice. We have been given gifts and how we use those gifts is up to us. We can choose whether we use the gifts we have for good or for bad. For instance – we are very impatient – we both like things done immediately. But rather than be impatient with people or things – for instance: standing in front of the microwave and complaining that it takes too long!! Or being snappy and bad tempered with people – we can use our impatience in a positive way. We can use it to help change things for the good. If our impatience is channelled in a way that is for the good then we am using our free will to turn a seemingly negative emotion (a gift) we have been given in a positive way.
Let’s take a more serious example: hate is an extremely negative emotion and can be harmful to the person it is aimed at but more importantly it is even more harmful to the person who is feeling it. If you spend your life hating someone who you perceive has caused you some injustice whose life are you wasting? While you are wasting all that energy the person you hate is probably getting on with their lives totally unaware of how you feel. So who is being hurt by your hate? However, you can turn that hate into something positive. Rather than hating individuals, who have your spiritual agreement for their actions anyway, hate injustice, hate prejudice, hate poverty, hate violence, and hate war. Use your ‘hate’ in a positive way then it becomes a positive force for good. You can do this with all the gifts you have been given. Just think about it and you will find you can turn any of the apparently negative emotions we mentioned earlier into positive emotions and this is the reason they are called gifts.
So although the gifts you have are predetermined the way you use them is up to you. That is your free choice. And yes there is something in the world that can be called evil. If you believe that there is good in the world you have to accept that there must also be evil. How else would you know what good was? What would you use to measure ‘good’ against? We are back to ‘hot’ and ‘cold’, ‘light’ and ‘dark’ again. You cannot physically see ‘good’ but you don’t doubt its existence so why would you doubt the existence of ‘evil’. If anything ‘evil’ is probably easier to see than good. It can be seen in the way we treat each other, in the way we treat those who do not have access to equal power, in the way we treat children, women, and the elderly, in the way we treat those who do not have the same views, beliefs, lifestyles etc and it can be seen most of all in the way we treat our world.
This brings us to the next question which is, quite simply - Does God Exist?