Is That All There Is?
If it is true that
your existence ends with physical death, does that mean that your life is
meaningless? As we have said, the answer is probably (but not “certainly”) yes.
Therefore, is it true that your life has no meaning? The answer is a qualified
no. If we are somehow more than our physical bodies, if we can exist beyond and
apart from those bodies, then perhaps each of us survives physical death and
continues to exist, in some manner and form, beyond the grave. If you are, or
you become through living, a unique individual who possesses the ability to
engage in rational thought and exercise freedom of choice transcending
biological processes of determinism, perhaps you have an existence beyond your
physical mind and body, perhaps not.
Since the dawn of
recorded history people have thought and written about existence beyond
physical death. Some have suggested that extra sensory perception,
premonitions, unexplained knowledge of past events, along with other similar
and possibly real phenomena, are part of the world beyond death, perhaps so,
perhaps not. Perhaps the unique being which each of us is,
the present existence that makes your choices and your life yours alone, exists
now and after your death in a realm beyond the physical, perhaps not. Perhaps
that which you are survives like energy in a dimension coexistent with the
physical world but beyond the constraints of space, motion, and time, perhaps
not. Perhaps each of us continues to exist in a manner and fashion infinitely
beyond our ability to imagine, let alone comprehend, perhaps not.
A great number of
people have spent vast amounts of time and effort studying all manner of
phenomena outside everyday experiences. Many, most, or even all
"inexplicable" events may be explained by future generations of
scientists. The most amazing phenomena are not the dramatic events often
attributed to the "supernatural", events which could as easily as not
be emotional illusions or the consequence of known or
unknown physical laws. What are amazing to me are simple occurrences that defy
probability. We have all experienced, and therefore witnessed, baffling events
that leave one with a feeling that their explanation may lie outside the realm
of natural science. For example, most of us have thought about someone we have
not seen for years, only to bump into them a few minutes later. Even more
amazing are instances that may occur when we are facing major events in our
lives, when we are in some way confronted by someone or something that leads us
toward a “better” choice. When faced with such occurrences, I have often found
myself with an “intuitive” feeling that they are in some non-physical sense
“planned”, perhaps so, perhaps not.
I have paid a great
deal of attention to the kind of occurrences that are classified by scientists
as "amazing coincidences". While most can be accepted as
coincidental, some appear to be one in a million events that happen with such
regularity that the odds against them being merely coincidental are incredibly
large. It is impossible for me, in good conscience, to dismiss them as being
nothing more than random events. Many appear to be “objective” phenomena, well
suited to empirical study, that statistically support the conclusion that they
are not the result of chance.
I have little
difficulty accepting that there are events that are in fact controlled by
forces beyond our present knowledge. Indeed, I am convinced that there is a
non-physical explanation for many events. If they are true phenomena, and not
products of the mind, their very existence strongly suggests that there is a
world which is quite real lying somewhere beyond normal human perception. A
brief glance at, a fleeting contact with, what may be the world beyond the one
in which we live gives a shocking reality to what we academically speculate
about, or even faithfully believe in.
Though we may profess
to believe in that which we cannot see, we may also find ourselves surprised
when our beliefs appear to be true. Possible contact with a world beyond human
perception gives us a startling realization that we may be eternally subject to
forces absolutely beyond our control, and leaves us with a chilling or hopeful
feeling (depending on your view of your prospects if eternity exists) that death
will not be a simple, restful, eternal sleep. None-the-less,
a belief that we may have glimpsed the world beyond, no matter how convincing
at the moment, is diluted over time. The human mind's natural
presumption is against out of the ordinary observations that, by definition,
provide infrequent reinforcement of beliefs.
Of course, it may be
true that "supernatural" events, though perhaps of great significance
to the living, are nothing more than manifestations of physical and biological
processes beyond our present ability to explain, similar to early
civilization's attempts to explain through myths the phenomenon's of fire and
lightening. If so they have no significance at all to the question of our
existence after physical death. Yet it may be that they are images created by
the overlapping of the current world and a world you will find yourself in
after death.
There is no present
answer to the questions posed by what many perceive to be “metaphysical”
events. Our discussion deals with what the meaning and purpose of life is. As
we continue you will see that whether or not anyone has in fact witnessed
supernatural phenomena originating from a world beyond the grave, though a
question which peaks curiosity, is not an essential, or perhaps even an important,
one. You will see that we don't need to look for metaphysical events in our
lives to understand what life is all about. The significance of such events is
beyond the scope of these notes and is simply not necessary to our discussion.
We will see that even
if no one ever has had, or ever will have, any contact in this world with a
world beyond the grave, it would not mean that such a world does not exist. We
will explore in detail the possibility that we may continue to exist after
death. At this point we ask that you keep an open mind about life after death.
For now, please accept the possibility, however remote you may feel it is, that in some manner and fashion we continue to exist
after our physical death.