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We may never find out the exact point in mans evolution that sparked off the
need to believe in an after life. I believe that two forces came into play at
the same time. The first was changes in our mating habits away from the dominant
male with multiply females to the pairing for life between a single male and
female. This I believe was possible because our consciousness had reached a
stage where it could over come brute strength. The pairing of mates for life
would have introduced family units within the tribal family. Second was the
emotions that came with these families, one of which was to have a major
influence on our lives and still does. This emotion was the love that comes with
a close relationship. The animal acceptance of death was lost and replaced with
grief. What was accepted without question now brought pain instead and it is my
belief that it was this pain that was the cause behind the search for an
afterlife. If there were an afterlife then our love ones would not be forever
lost.
There is no doubting mans need for an afterlife but, does one exists or is it a product of mans imagination. This question is not easily answered. There are a few things that need clarifying first. What is life and what evidence do we have that it exists? What is death and can it also be proven to exist? At what level do we test for evidence? How does one define life and death? Life ,To exist,? Death ,To cease to exist,? If existence is to denote life then all things that exist have life. If ceasing to exist denotes death then all things that no longer exist are dead. When one checks for death should we look for it in a collective state or a singular one? Does death require that all parts of a life form cease to exist, or is it when an object ceases to function in its normal way. An example of what I am referring to can be found by the study of the life of a butterfly. We have several stages during the life cycle of a butterfly namely egg, caterpillar, pupa and butterfly. Can we say that at each stage there is a death first the egg followed by the caterpillar, pupa and finally the butterfly? At each stage something that contained life ceases to do so and soon after it ceases to exist itself. This point could be argued over, when all I want to establish is that a dead shell cannot be taken as a sure sign that death has occurred. Another point to keep in mind is that the eggs were once part of a butterfly so even when we claim death, part of that butterfly still survives therefore it has not ceased to exist.
A cell has life but is that life shared when it divides or is the life duplicated also. Is man a collection of living organisms whose collective lives are what we consider to be the life within man? A sobering thought maybe, but what of life itself? Do we really know what life is or do we know of its existence only by the effect it causes? When a body ceases to function due to whatever reason can we be certain that life has ceased also? Does this not depend on whether life is a cause or an effect? Is life the reason for existence or the result of existence? One thing we can be sure of, the body is not life but contains life within. That is up until some of its major components fails and it is unable to function. The body then goes through a process of decay, which returns it once again to Mother Nature ready to begin the process over again. Nothing wasted, nothing lost and the only thing that has ceased to exist is our image of the collective state of these components. They have always been a collection of parts working together for the good of all. We perceive them as one because they are as one with each other. A weak analogy that can help explain my reasoning could be a car. Complete it is a car and we view it as a singular item namely a car. The car however is a collection of parts designed to work together. Life is the controlling factor in a car and we also have the driver. There comes a time when the car no longer functions so it is taken to the scrap yard where it is broken down to its component parts to be reused. The driver remains unchanged and simply seeks a replacement car.
Copyright Spiritual Journey 2007