Chapter 99 Eternal Life.
Today, try and stare right into the centre of the sun; do it for just a few seconds before you blind your eyes. Ponder the magic that keeps it flaring forever, at millions of degrees centigrade. Consider the billions of stars in the universe, many bigger, brighter and farther than this sun. Scientists estimate that the span of the universe observable from a telescope alone is approximately 2 billion light years or 19 trillion kilometres! I am lost for words.
Contemplate the immense and immeasurable power o f our Creator… Think, how much you would gain or lose, to adore or ignore such a supreme and omnipotent Being… We must be out of our minds to turn our backs to Him, as we often did.
Only an infinitely powerful and just Being can master such a vast and limitless universe. He is too far beyond human description or imagination. He is more than life and more than death. With such boundless mastery, I am sure God has a grand plan for all of us. All things conceivable and inconceivable are possible with Him. If you were in his shoes, wouldnt you plan a super celebration and a perfect heaven for your children after their rough and tough time on earth? He would not will anything less than felicity and infinity. In such a gigantic universe, It is highly unlikely that He would allow humans to just age, wither and die with no afterlife. Hence, we believe in eternal life.
It is a fact of science that our universe consists of matter and energy which cannot be destroyed but are converted from one form to another. Note how water or metal can turn from solid state to liquid and gaseous states! Likewise our bodies will change from physical to spiritual soul-like states, which cannot be effaced, but will live on forever. This I know in the privacy of my soul and through my personal experience.
My parents died 4 years ago within 48 hours of each other. Obviously, they wanted companionship in the after-life. Since then, my wife and I have had several dreams of them, which were greetings and messages from the other world. We have never doubted my parents spiritual aliveness. I know that they still exist and they live perpetually. I never had a shadow of a doubt about the truth of life after death.
As we realise the shortness of our stay on earth, we tend to appreciate life. Meanwhile a view of a life beyond this helps us to face calmly our greatest threat death. We take this as a passage to something bigger, a transition in the whole universal process. We are assured of our immortality. We draw strength from this certainty. As we free ourselves from the fear of death we release our energy in celebrating life.
We all long for immortality; our instinct tells us it is there. In the first chapter, I stated that God wants us to discover and love Him out of our own initiative and freewill. All our efforts, to find a way out of our worldly trials and troubles, and to reach a flawless finale to our existence will never be pleasant and meaningful, until we turn lovingly and adoringly towards our Creator.
Robert Schuller noted in his great book The Be-Happy Attitudes, that happiness is "the beautiful belief that this life, no matter how difficult it may be, is not your final destination. Lets pause to smell the flowers and savour the passing hours, while we fill ourselves with virtues and grace for that eternal life.
Thousands of short-death and near death experiences (NDE) reported around the world has given us a preview of life after death. These NDE were recounted by people who died clinically but revived later. Amazingly, they all had similar encounters: Seeing their bodies below as they floated weightlessly, going through a tunnel at great speed into the presence of deceased relatives, and a supreme Being of Light that radiated immense love and joy. Most were reluctant to return, but came back with a changed outlook that placed the greatest importance on love and knowledge, instead of status and materialism. Suicidal NDEs, on the other hand, reported frightful spells in a hell-like setting.
Medical experts found it hard to disclaim NDEs as hallucinations due to the authentic accounts given, aided by the following facts: Generally there were little or no electrical activity in the dead or dying brain to support hallucination. Subjects could recall words spoken by people at the hospital where they died. They met deceased relatives before they had information of their death. They could "fly and recognise another relative elsewhere, whose whereabouts were later verified. Candidates also included innocent children who were too young to fabricated such vivid, technical details of their life-saving operations in the hospitals. Dr Raymond Moody, K. Ring, J. Randles & P. Hough, and many others have published interesting books on their findings. Please read them.
Death experiences established the importance of loving and giving to others. Those who suffer, make peace and enrich others will be rewarded; those who plunder and murder, rob and rape will be punished. Even without this preexperience of death, the concept of reward and retribution makes complete sense. There is so much unfairness and wrongdoing in the world that there must be a compensating and levelling system in this perfect cosmic system; besides, we all have the God-given conscience to refrain from evil. We can feel it, and we know we should not steal or kill and that we should earn our place in eternal life.
Indeed, all we need and all that God wants in His endless universe are love and knowledge. Love between His children, and knowledge and admiration of His fascinating cosmos. Before we reach the eternal life beyond, the quest for knowledge and the growth of our intellect are great adventures and discoveries on this planet. There is a lot after this life; there is a lot in this one too!
My concluding words are: Prepare for eternal life, you are going to spend much time there, in eternity. The exciting thought is that: After death we will be reunited with everybody again, especially with our loved ones. Heaven will be a place of sheer beauty, complete bliss, total content, endless comfort, and everlasting love.
"Live as if everything you do will eventually be known." - Hugh Prather.
"I love you, my brother, whoever you are - whether you worship in your church, kneel in your temper, or pray in your mosque. You and I are all children of one faith, ... of one supreme being…" - Gibran
"For Life is Eternal, Love is immortal, Death is only a horizon and a horizon is nothing but the limit of our earthly vision." - Helen Rice.