Heroes Not Zombies

Where do we go when we die?

There’s a question we don’t get an answer to until we get there, I suspect. But I have a couple of ideas nonetheless.

If you subscribe to a formal religion you’ll have some teachings which suggest (or maybe even insist on) a particular answer. I don’t subscribe to any formal religions.

If you are a materialist you might think only of the body, and it’s pretty clear that after death the body is broken down into separate parts. It no longer exists, at least, not as a unitary body. Perhaps you can think of all the atoms dispersing, to be gathered later with others to create new forms of life. After all, atoms don’t go away. We are made of star stuff, atoms from exploding stars millions of years ago. Most of those atoms remain here, on Earth.

That’s not enough for me. I’m not a materialist. If we reduce a human being to mere matter we lose the human being.

Life flows through us, until it doesn’t. Despite a life’s work as a doctor, it still amazes me that in one moment someone is alive and with you, and in the next, they’re gone.

Individuals are all unique to me. No two people ever share identical bodies, hearts, minds, souls. No two people ever share the exact same set of relationships and experiences. No two people have the same story.

That’s where I get whatever level of answer I have to my question. We continue in the hearts and memories of others. We continue in our creations which live longer than we do. We continue in the stories told, first by those who knew us, then, later, by those who knew them, down the generations.

Ultimately I see us each as a wave on the ocean, our individual expression of consciousness appearing briefly on the surface, before returning into the greater ocean, the greater consciousness, the all-that-is-greater-than-us.

Reabsorbed into the World Soul, the Divine.