Today’s topic comes from a listener in Alabama. He happens to be a retired United Methodist minister with a doctoral degree, so you know these questions are well thought out. He emailed me a response to my talk entitled "Living in the Mind of God." He has five basic questions. Here are the questions he asks:
-- What happens to "me" after physical death?
-- What about the resurrection of the physical body, or even a spiritual body?
-- Is there no afterlife, no spiritual "me" to re-unite with my love ones and friends, and living for eternity in heavenly bliss?
-- Within the Mind of God, do we as individual personalities just disappear? Are we no more than just a memory in the Mind of God, if even that?
-- What is the point of awakening"" or "realization" or "salvation" if this is all a dream taking place in the Mind of God? Does it change anything? Isn't the "person" still just a thought form in the Mind of God? Is it like one of my dream characters saying, "this isn't real, it's just a dream", but it doesn't matter and nothing changes? And then I wake up from my dream and that "character" is gone and all there is is just a memory in my mind, if even that.
Well that is a lot to deal with! I will do my best to answer them.
What Happens after Death – A Nondual Explanation
Today’s topic comes from a listener in Alabama. He happens to be a retired United Methodist minister with a doctoral degree, so you know these questions are well thought out. He emailed me a response to my talk entitled "Living in the Mind of God." He has five basic questions. Here are the questions he asks:
-- What happens to "me" after physical death?
-- What about the resurrection of the physical body, or even a spiritual body?
-- Is there no afterlife, no spiritual "me" to re-unite with my love ones and friends, and living for eternity in heavenly bliss?
-- Within the Mind of God, do we as individual personalities just disappear? Are we no more than just a memory in the Mind of God, if even that?
-- What is the point of awakening"" or "realization" or "salvation" if this is all a dream taking place in the Mind of God? Does it change anything? Isn't the "person" still just a thought form in the Mind of God? Is it like one of my dream characters saying, "this isn't real, it's just a dream", but it doesn't matter and nothing changes? And then I wake up from my dream and that "character" is gone and all there is is just a memory in my mind, if even that.
Well that is a lot to deal with! I will do my best to answer them. Christian nonduality approaches the question of afterlife differently than traditional Christianity. Traditional Christianity posits the continued existence of a personal individual self, often referred to as a soul, which survives the death of the body and exists forever as an individual in some form.
In popular Christianity the personal soul is thought to depart the body at death and go to heaven or hell, either immediately or after judgment day when the fate of the soul is decided. Think of those cartoons about Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates deciding who gets admitted and who does not. Some forms of Christianity speak of going to heaven or hell immediately and then there is a later development – a resurrection or judgement - that changes the nature of one’s eternal existence somehow.
There are all sorts of variations on this theme. Different Christian theologies have developed different eschatologies when it comes to the exact order of judgement and heaven and hell and how they relate to events on earth and the Second Coming of Christ and all that.
Then there is the idea of resurrection of the body. There are differences of opinion in that also. Is it a physical body as many scripture texts seem to indicate or is it a spiritual body as the apostle Paul seems to say? When does that resurrection happen?
On top of that we have accounts of Near Death Experiences. A lot of books have been written by Christians and others that relate experiences that people have after death. Physicians and children and everybody else have died and gone to heaven and lived to tell about it. They take to the lecture circuit with a book to sell. Mostly these are heaven experiences but some speak of hell experiences. These accounts have convinced a lot of people that we survive death as individual personal spiritual entities.
Then there is the belief in reincarnation. There are a lot of books and stories written by those who say they can remember previous lives and have the evidence to prove it. There are also mediums who talk of ghosts and spirits and who will connect you to deceased loved ones, and they also have a book to sell. So there are a lot of people out there who believe that we continue to exist after death as spiritual entities.
What do I think? Well to be completely honest, I don’t know. I do not think anyone else really knows either. I have never physically died, so I do not have firsthand experience of what happens after death. Furthermore no one else living today has really died either. There is a reason why they are called Near Death Experiences. They came near death. Their hearts stopped beating for a few minutes and they were resuscitated. That is not the same as being dead.
I think all Near Death experiences can be explained physiologically as experiences caused by the brain as it is dying and reviving. People really have these experiences. I believe their testimony, although every once in a while someone admits they made it all up to get attention and money. But most are genuine. I just don’t think they say anything about what happens after more than a few minutes after death.
I would say the same sort of thing about the memories of past lives. There are psychological and scientific explanations for these without having to resort to the belief that we survive our bodies and are reborn in another body. You could say I am a skeptic when it comes to anecdotal evidence of people surviving death.
So what do I think? I wish that those stories of being reunited with loved ones in heaven and living happily ever after in a celestial paradise were true. But I think they are wishful thinking. They are the ego wanting to live forever. But if I die and find it is true then I will be fine with that. But I don’t think I will be surprised.
As I have said many times, the personal individual self is just a temporary phenomenon. It does not survive the death of the body. It can’t. The psyche is a product of the brain, which is a part of the body. The psyche dies when the brain dies. The individual self exists only as long as the individual body exists. Even the biblical writers knew this, which is why they came up with the idea of the resurrection of the body. They knew that for the person to exist it had to have a body.
So will that happen after death? Maybe there will be a resurrection of the body – either a physical body or a spiritual body. Maybe those biblical passages that talk about resurrection are to be taken literally. I don’t know. If that is the case then I will be the first to shout “Hallelujah” on resurrection day when I rise to meet the Lord in the air. But I don’t think that resurrection is to be taken literally.
My experience is that I am not the personal individual self. The individual psyche is an expression of what I am but I am more than that. I am the Life that is incarnated in all beings, including human beings. That is the meaning of reincarnation. My true nature is much more than this one short-lived human existence. I was before this human body was.
As Jesus said, “Before Abraham was born, I am.” That is true not just of Jesus but all of us. I was before this body was born and I will be after this body dies. Like Jesus we are the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I believe in eternal life not as an article of faith but because I know eternal life now. I know I am. I know that what I truly am cannot die. The same with you.
What happens when we die? The individual human consciousness comes to an end. No more “me.” But the universal eternal consciousness that is expressed as me, the consciousness we call God, continues. I think that everyone who believes in God would agree with that statement - that God continues after we die. The difference is that I am saying that we are one with this divine consciousness. This Consciousness is the nature of the universe. This Consciousness continues. In that sense we continue, because this is who we really are. The good news is that this divine consciousness can be known now. When I die I expect that this divine consciousness that I know will continue, although my individual personal consciousness will end.
So is there no personal existence after death? I would say that all personal existences now are part of God, including my personal existence and yours. Jesus is the model for this. Christians say Jesus lives now. That is what the resurrection of Jesus means. Jesus lives. In the same way we live also. We live in Christ. That is what Jesus said. “Because I live, you will live also.”
We live in Christ as the Eternal One who was and is Jesus. The historical Jesus is the Eternal Christ. In the same way our historical existence is one with the eternal Christ. Our awareness is the awareness of the Living Christ. In this sense our true nature is eternal.
All lives that have ever been lived are not lost and forgotten. They are not erased as if they never existed. They are part of eternity because they are eternity. They are expressions of God. They are creations of the Mind of God, and that mind of God is eternal. The universe is the consciousness of God. Our human consciousness is the consciousness of God. Our memories are the memories of God. When we die we are one with God and everything we ever were is one with God eternally.
I expect that when I die I will be united with loved ones in a way much more profound than living forever as spiritual entities in a gated heavenly theme park or being in an endless worship service. We will be one with each other completely as Jesus and God are one, because that is the Reality now. That is the Communion of Saints. That is the Kingdom of Heaven. We are always united with loved ones because we are already one. There is only one. That is what nondual means. All that has ever been is one. All human and animal lives that have ever lived are one Life in God. We are one. That is eternal life.