If you understand love
you know that if anything in life is worth living for, it is for people to
love, really and truly love, people. Yet if death is the end, what use is it to
love anyone? If death is indeed the end of your existence, then love and hate
and you and I and life are all transient puffs of smoke in an ultimately
inanimate eternity. Even love will succumb to death, making its apparent beauty
no more lasting than a winter's snow.
We really do not know,
and will not know, what lies in store for us beyond the grave until the
inevitable moment of death arrives. If life and love end at the grave we will
never know the answer for we will no longer exist, and thus the question will
die with us. Of course, as we have said, such an end would be the ultimate in
painlessness, for it would take with it all the sad and glad and in between
experiences of your lifetime. If you no longer are, you no longer are, period.
The void that follows death without a life after death is a complete and total
void. There would be no one to experience joy, there
would be no one to experience pain.
We have said there is
absolutely no way we can prove life continues beyond the grave, but we have
also said there is absolutely no way we can prove it does not. If there was
nothing really positive and good about life, the question of existence after
death would be an academic one. Yet that seems not to be the case. We have said
love is the very best one human being can give another human being. We have
said that love is the most positive of human experiences. It is the deepest,
most profound, of human relationships. It is the giving of all you have to give
to someone else.
If it is possible that
we continue to exist after death, then should we not live for the possibility
that life and love will continue after death? Those who complete their search
and understand love, understand that if love does not
end at death, then love is worth living for in this life and the next. It seems
intuitively clear that since you may continue to exist after death, you should
live with the hope that love has meaning and is worth living for in this life,
and with the hope that after physical death you will live forever in a world
filled with never ending love.
What connection then does life on earth have with life after
death? What does love on earth have to do with life after death? What can we
say about the nature of life after death? We have once again returned to that
murky area where intellect, insight, and intuition blend with belief and faith.
We simply cannot know
what life after death may or may not be like. Yet, as we have already noted,
the "feeling" persists that life beyond the grave should possess the
positive aspects of life in this world. If the most positive aspect of life is
love, then a life after death that is filled with love seems to be worth
believing in. If we continue to exist after death, we may indeed find ourselves
in a "world" where people love people. If love is worth living for,
and if the only realistic alternative is nihilistic death, then it seems that
you, and I, and everyone else, should love each other and live for the
possibility that we will continue to exist after death in an existence filled
with love. Yet choosing love because the alternative is a meaningless death is
not a good enough reason. Love must be chosen by those who in their heart,
mind, and soul truly want to love, or their choice will be a shallow one that
will not last. Those who choose to love must do so because they want to love.
We have said that
since your existence may not end at death, you should live for the possibility
you will continue to exist after your physical death, and in anticipation of
continued existence you should do the best you can while you are alive. We have
said that if you understand love you know you should love people. We noted that
since it is always your choice to love or not, you should always choose love.
We have said that life after death may offer eternal love for those who choose
to love each other while on earth. We have said that since each of us must die
sooner or later, it is totally right to love on earth and enter a forever of
never-ending love, even if choosing love brings immediate physical death, and
it is totally wrong not to love, even if not loving prolongs earthly life and
pleasures.
Can we accept a random
existence after death that has no guidance, might there be more? If we are to
accept that human beings may continue to exist after the death of their bodies
we need to consider what, if any, external force or presence may
"guide" or "control" such existence. We are way past the
limits of human comprehension, at the point where belief must turn into faith.
The more modern science has discovered, the more it seems that some form of
"logical", perhaps "rational", process occurs in nature,
replacing random events with "planned" sequences far too complex to
be explained by the interaction of mechanistic forces. Such "logical"
progression of nature may be the result of some incredible computer like
property whereby nature is equipped with some sort of "artificial
intelligence", perhaps so, perhaps not. Yet we have already concluded that
the odds that such an “artificial intelligence” might be created at random appear
to be as close to zero as can possibly be imagined. Perhaps the universe is not
"controlled" or "guided" by some deterministic process.
Perhaps the universe is "controlled" or "guided” by someone.