WillSpirit!

The last post, about grief, went up both here and on my other blog, GuidePosts to Happiness at Psych Central. Over there, it prompted comments by readers with strong faith in an afterlife. Since it doesn’t seem appropriate to post a purely metaphysical piece on a mental health website, I’ll speculate here about our fate after the failure of our mortal coils. The astute reader will also notice that today is Easter, an appropriate time to talk about life after death.

This is touchy ground, because religious ideas figure strongly in people’s feelings about what happens at death. I have no desire to offend anyone’s beliefs. In fact, as I’ve said before, it seems clear to me that every spiritual and philosophical tradition offers a glimpse of ultimate truth. On the other hand, none can legitimately claim total and complete knowledge. What I try to do, therefore, is piece together a coherent whole from the many fragmentary views provided by the sages and saints throughout the ages, using my own meditative and spiritual experiences as guides.

As I pointed out last time, most if not all religions believe in some sort of soul that survives death. Either this deeper self is believed to exit the material plane for residence in a more ethereal realm (such as heaven), or else it is thought to reincarnate in a new body. Ghostly persistence in the present world is usually seen as problematic, and many societies employ elaborate rituals to ensure that ancestral spirits move into their proper home rather than lingering among the living in disembodied form. But even here there are variations, with some cultures believing the ancestors remain near and available.

I don’t claim much knowledge about comparative religion, but even this minimal sketch of views about postmortem existence shows three very different putative fates of the soul: heaven (or hell), reincarnation, and persistence among the living. A skeptic would point to these apparently contradictory beliefs to argue the position that death is simply the end of consciousness. Conflicting pictures of the afterlife confirm, for the skeptic, that mythologies of life after death are delusional and wrong.

But I see it differently. When I encounter such seemingly irreconcilable ideas, each embraced by one or more ancient and inspired traditions, I try to imagine what sort of universe would accommodate all of them. How could spirits simultaneously move into an ethereal field of existence, populate the next generation of humanity, and remain nearby to guide the living?

One possibility is that consciousness is more like a turbulent fluid than a collection of discrete, particulate souls. In this view I embody not a solid soul named Will, but a temporary aggregate of conscious fluid that has built a persistent (but not permanent) identity. After death, a little bit of this fluidic eddy named Will enters the next human born, a little drifts into contact with the greater sea of awareness, and a little remains nearby to be close to those held dear. This view would be consistent with what we see in biological life: a robust mixing and flowing of matter, energy, and information. Little remains discrete and isolated for long.

This picture even allows the skeptic to claim a degree of truth: if my spirit separates into parts and intermingles with other soul-eddies upon death, then gradually I will cease to exist as a fixed identity. The deconstruction may happen slowly, but over time, as more generations pass, Will can be expected to dissipate. This seems sensible to me. Although time may be meaningless in the ethereal realm, it has meaning here. I believe it unlikely that Will as a defined entity should last for billions of years. Gradually my awareness will spread, intermingle, reform with others, and change. The ‘stuff’ of my body separates and recycles, so why not the ‘stuff’ of my soul? On Earth as it is in Heaven, and in Heaven as it is on Earth.

We could speculate further, and imagine that the soul-aggregate has some influence over which path is taken. A person with strong familial ties among the living might, at first, remain largely concentrated on earth. A soul with more loved ones departed might direct most of its flow toward the ethereal gathering place. A soul excited about life, and displeased with its ending, might focus mostly on rebirth. Who knows?

Certainly, I’m not claiming knowledge. I simply start with the premise that most spiritual and philosophical traditions possess part of the truth. I then look for a way to embrace the most fundamental tenets of the various disciplines. I add in the reasonable speculation that since decomposition, mixing, and regrowth are the rule in earthly nature, they may reflect a deeper principle within creation: if life is cosmopolitan in this way, then maybe the afterlife is, too. Putting all this together with my varied, brief glimpses of directly revealed insight leads to the picture I paint above.

How could this comfort the bereaved spouse, or child, or parent? The loved one remains near, but also moves on to enjoy life again. Simultaneously, the departed resides in a state of timeless awareness, waiting for joyous reunion when death greets the other member of the relationship. What could be more desirable than to have it all? And what could be more reasonable than to expect that as eons pass, the self dissolves, reforms, and mixes with others. Sure, it’s an assault on our sense of identity. But by giving up our small sense of ‘Me,’ we gain intimate participation in the great ‘We.’

This being Easter, we might ask: What could this say about Jesus? Perhaps Christ died and entered the same separating, mixing, and reforming ground as the rest of us. But maybe his powerful light of awareness, in the context of abiding faith by countless Christians, kept his spirit from dissipating, so that he remains available to those who need him. At the same time, part of his energy may be spreading like a powerful surge of love through the greater sea of awareness. Perhaps he has even been reborn, time and again as this sage or that saint throughout history. Perhaps other great spirits have also persisted longer than more ordinary ones.

Does this sound like blasphemy? I hope not. My aim is to honor and respect the views that have come to us from so many sources over so many centuries. I write these things not to build an argument, but because they feel like they may be at least partly true. I can’t stamp any of this with empirical authority. I only describe what makes sense to my mind, my heart, and my soul.

I could write much more about this topic, but this post is already overlong. Even so, in closing I want to touch on the fact that the comments on the other site took the position that because there must be an afterlife, there is no reason for grief. Although I have no argument with the idea of conscious persistence after death, I find it unrealistic to think this can rescue us completely from the pain of bereavement. We can certainly avoid being destroyed by loss, but sadness at the death of a loved one is venerably human. Hopefully we will see those important to us again, but in the meantime, they have died. We mourn during the period of darkness, and rejoice when light reappears. Such is the nature of human life, and the message of this day. Happy Easter.