Questions On Afterlife?

Dear One,

"What happens 'to me' after death?" 

"Is there an afterlife?" 

"Do we reincarnate?" 

"Is death the final destination or is there more to it?"

These poignant questions have eluded man and his understanding for centuries. When he loses his most loved ones, a subtle chord snaps in his heart, pushing him further to think of afterlife and what happens thereafter.

So what does happen after death anyway?

Hindu philosophers and yogis have pondered long and deep about the mysteries of life and death, and have concluded that the soul has to undergo any of the following three, depending on your karma -

- Reborn as one of the 84 lakh species

- Go to hell, suffer for your misdeeds, and be reborn again

- Go to heaven and attain Moksha or Salvation

Religion, primarily view life after death as a punishment or a reward, making their followers cringe in fear or want in expectation. Religion, then becomes a ruthless dictator of dreams or nightmares.

For the modern Hindu, hell and heaven are plain hogwash and senseless dogma. But if you care to go a bit deeper into it's esoteric philosophy, it sheds a new light on what modern scientists are beginning to discover. Recent scientific studies have convinced modern physicists of parallel universes and co-existence of multiple realities, in the same space and time dimensions. It is although a matter of much debate and counter-arguments, nevertheless modern science is opening up to the fact of afterlife, that ancient Indian scientist-philosophers had already researched and documented in their various masterly treatises.

At a much deeper level of understanding, Hindu scriptures do not conclude with the description of just one hell and one heaven. They believe in multiple heavens or worlds of light and hells or worlds of darkness, stretching across the vast spaces of the manifest universe. According to Hindu cosmology, creation is an endless phenomenon and as mysterious as the the mystery of the Divinity itself. It says, the universe consists of multiple worlds, layers and planes of existence, some known and many unknown, some within the field of awareness and sensory knowledge and some much beyond. These worlds are inhabited and controlled by different powers, beings, objects, energies, deities and mysterious events. 

It is very interesting that today's scientists are also talking about similar concepts in a more scientific and organized way trying to explain the mysteries of life and death. This is very much akin to the vision of a  spectacular kind, which the ancient Indian seers saw, that does not preclude the possibility of either evolution or theories of quantum physics, mathematical  or particle basis of the origin of the universe or relativity. 

In Hinduism, we also encounter another argument concerning the possibilities of life after death. According to this, the body is made up of 5 elements, known as pancha mahabhutas. These are earth, fire, air, water and ether or space. After the death of a person, elements of the gross body merges into the the gross elements of the earth, which are basically earth, fire, air and water, while the subtle elements such as mind, intellect, and consciousness go to the ethereal worlds along with the soul. After exhausting karma in each of these planes and shedding the respective bodies there, the soul returns again to earth with a few memories of the individual soul to undergo further evolution. 

On the individual plane, Hindu scriptures identify the heaven and hell in the precincts of the human body also. The heaven is the pleasure principle in our consciousness and it's created by the movement of the senses. Hell is the pain principle, created by evil thoughts and desires and the suffering we undergo due to our misdeeds. Beyond these two, are the world of dreams, the world of deep sleep and the transcendental world of bliss.

Thus we can see Hindu cosmology offers a very complex structure of the universe, in which heaven and hell are just two worlds, which are not necessarily the only places to which human beings go after death. Heavenly existence is not permanent, so also the existence in hell. It is the individual karma which is the ultimate deciding factor. And it is through karma a person moves in the labyrinth of worlds, till he or she is permanently released  into the highest state of existence - Nirvana, Moksha or Deliverance. 

Peace in oneself. Peace in the world.