Spirituality,
Religion, Nature
Death and The “Beyond”
The question is: is
there something beyond the earthly existence? What is that “beyond?” That is
the point at which our human reason fails thoroughly and is powerless, because
the “beyond”—God’s “world”—is far away from our comprehension; it is
essentially different from the physical world.
God is nothing of
what we know, except that he is; but even his mode of existing is essentially
different from what we understand as existent; we are unable to have a clear
idea about how God is; we have only
analogies based in our experience of what existence means, and this experience
that we have is essentially different from what God’s existence is.
We may thus
understand how limited, even false, our ideas about God are, since the concept
that we have about existence is unavoidably tied and associated with time and
space, and that is precisely what God is
not; as there is no time nor space for God, our concept of existing is far
apart from what God’s existence is: it is what God is not.
Every time that we
try to make God understandable we deviate and withdraw from what God is. The
opposite way is the correct way: to see him as the Incomprehensible. All we can
say of God is, in one sense, meaningless, because any idea that we have or any
word that we use, is limited, and infinitely different from what God really is.
In order to have a
less inadequate concept of God—since we are unable to have an adequate
concept—we must remove from the concept of God everything that has limitation,
because any limitation is a defect, something that is missing; and God is by
definition the One who lacks nothing, in whom nothing is missed, the Unlimited:
God is All-That-Is.
Afterlife. Is there an afterlife? We do not have proof that there
is, but we do not have proof that there is not either. So, the center position
is that it is possible.
However, there is
something else that we have for certain: that the idea or conception that God
has in his mind, or intelligence, or wisdom, of each one of us, will subsist
after death, unchangeable; and that we’ll be—speaking temporally—as we have
been in his mind, forever. This is the great thing: something of me will
remain, forever. Only God’s idea of our human being will subsist, and this will
be forever.
A New Consciousness. We know nothing about that beyond. Gospel words regarding
the afterlife are metaphorical, because there are no words to say how it might
be. John Paul II called the beyond a “status,” that is—in my view— a change of
status in the being; [1]
it is to be in a way which is essentially different from our existing, here.
And, although we know
nothing about the beyond, there are also some uncontestable facts:
·
the body that I have will be corrupted;
·
my whole human nature as it is now will not be any more;
·
my bodily and temporal living status will end;
·
the Jairo who is today won’t be any more;
·
the current consciousness that I have of my
existence and my ego will end, to give place to the awareness of a new
consciousness in the mind of God: it is an awareness of being that we are not
able to have now.
Death is an end; this
human, bodily and rational thinking of today, will finish its existence; a
total end will come to our human nature. At that point, everything that we have
been temporally will end, and won’t be any more.
All that is temporal
and contingent will cease; and the being “there” is not as the being here. Our individuality “there,” is essentially
different from our individuality here; our consciousness there is not as our
consciousness here. It is a total change; in fact, it is a new “creation,” as
if we would have a new identity; rather, it is no other than the very eternal
idea of us in the mind of God which perpetuates its existence.
It is, in fact, as if
we’d have had from the beginning—speaking temporally—“two” existences, “two”
identities: one temporal and limited, and another one eternal and
comprehensive; and that is what the ideas of God—analogically speaking—have
been, or are, forever.
And, as we won’t have
“there” the same kind of consciousness as we have here, we do not have
recollection of that consciousness “before” creation in the mind of God,
because our temporal consciousness is unable to perceive that eternal
consciousness in the mind of God. We, as ideas of God, have been eternal, not
temporal.
Our eternal identity
is something that we cannot say, or
explain, because human, temporal words cannot say or explain the infinite.
The New “Creation”. When we came to exist in time from the eternal Creator-Begetter,
we came in a limited form; that form of existence is essentially temporal and will
end; the “beyond” on the other hand is the opposite.
Everything that I am now will
end; it won’t be any more. The idea of God that he has of me, and that has ever
existed, will “continue” existing in his mind. And, if God “was” as wise and
powerful as to design the universe, and to give us the temporal and successive
existence that we have now, he is also wise enough and powerful enough as to
give us new existences and lives—temporal or eternal—as many as he wants. We
don’t know.
Our selfishness doesn’t
want that our humanity ceases existing, and thus it creates an eternal life of
fantasy after death, a kind of “continuation” or extension of this temporal
life; a successive and unending life which would last forever and would be
intolerable. This won’t happen; by entropy our human life will end,
irremediably; all we are now will come to an end, and only our ego in God—his
ideas of each of us—will subsist. He is powerful enough as to make these ideas
to exist in as many forms as possible. This is what we do not know; only guess
or imagine.
The Final End. Death is the time of truth. It is the hour when, what I
say in my prayers, comes to be an absolute reality and fact. This is what I
pray:
Lord,
you are the only one who counts; the rest are trifles.
The
only thing that counts at the end is your glory, not us. The only thing that
counts is that you are!
My God! You are all for me; your glory
is my gladness and happiness. That you be is my gladness and happiness.
What I have prayed is
done: I’ll not be; the ego that I am now will cease existing. God will be!
Nothing of this human being will last, but God will be: God may be all in all; God may be all in me, in God’s idea of me (1 Cor. 15:28); he will be—speaking
temporally—the only one to be as “before” creation.
The Greatest Gift: to Live Forever. Oh eternal Generator
of all ideas that exist in the universe! How could I not praise and thank your
infinite Wisdom that let me understand this marvelous fact of existing forever,
unchangeably, in your mind, under your constant knowing and willing, doing and
giving! This is marvelous: to see what you have begotten in the whole creation,
and in this humble existence: Fecit mihi magna qui potens est! “The Mighty One has done
great things for me” (Luc. 1:49).
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HTM NATURE / BEYOND 04-15-11