The Truth About Life after Death

It is likely that spheres of consciousness are, just like electrons and quarks, continually being recycled, joining first one aggregate body and then another. We are somehow stuck to our brains like an oxygen atom stuck to two hydrogen atoms. But it is likely that such centers enter and leave the brain at times other than birth and death. The idea that the conscious self enters into the body at some time shortly after conception and then persists in that body until death is just an aspect of the illusion produced by identifying ourselves as the Person. We are not the Person, we are not even Atman (in the sense of a sphere of pure consciousness inhabiting the body from birth until death), and are likely no longer Brahman (although it is possible that we were once conjoined in an aggregate of consciousnesses that may have somehow "designed" the world, implemented that design, and are now walking through our "art gallery").

As we have seen, through replacement of atoms, the body we inhabit today is a totally different body from that of a decade age and the spheres of consciousness that inhabit it (including ourselves) are likely themselves different as well. There is no Person in the sense of a continuing aggregation of matter or a continuing self. The Person is likely to be, as Blackmore and Dennett insist, a story we tell ourselves. However, it is a useful story, just like the story of my car or my kitchen table. It helps credit card companies to obtain payments for purchases we made the preceding month and guides our interactions with former classmates at a high school reunion. But in an absolute sense, the Person is only a cognitive construct, a very vivid hallucination. We may be eternal (or least outlast the Energizer Bunny), but "we" (the People) have only a momentary time in the sun and may only be cognitive constructs, much like the ever-changing body of water that is now called the Mississippi River.

We cling to our present form of existence thinking that there is no other, but when you stop to think about the matter, human bodies, with their ills, needs and subjugation into mindless repetitive jobs, may not be the best places in the universe to inhabit. In fact, they may be "mini-Hells," aberrations in Great Cosmic Scheme. But we may not inhabit such Hells (or such Heavens as there might be) for as long as we think. The best thing for us to do is likely to take the poet Robert Frost's advice and momentarily stop the "horses" we are currently riding to enjoy the beauty of the falling snow. As Frost suggests, there may be miles to go (although perhaps not so many as one might think) before we sleep (and enter yet another dream).

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