When I was young, many of the adults I knew would praise good deeds by saying that those who did them would receive “stars in their crowns.” The basic concept is that, although good deeds may not be rewarded in this life, they would be rewarded in the next. For a very long time now, most cultures have presupposed a life after death that would provide rewards or punishments depending on the way we lived our current life: the wicked will be punished, and the righteous will be rewarded.
The belief is understandable. Very few people are content with the idea that “this” is all there is. Religions and churches were founded on the fear of death, and all have some sense of an afterlife. Those of us raised in the Christian tradition have been taught that we are “saved” by our belief in Jesus. Buddhist beliefs about the afterlife are a bit more complicated, with a state called Nirvana being the “final destination.” The idea of “nothingness” as the “end of the road” is difficult to accept, so most people have created philosophies and religions to give people “something to look forward to.”
My point here is not to argue against an afterlife but more to develop an understanding of what it is and how the process might work. My sense is that the mystics are more correct than the priests. Mysticism, after all, is based on personal insight—mystical experiences—while religions are based on the codified ideas of groups, most of which have vested interests in having followers willing to donate money to the “cause.”
I am among those who has had mystical experiences that have influenced my view. When I was 7 years old, my doberman died. After his death, I could still hear his nails clicking on the bare floor in the hall. My father tried to persuade me that it was “just” an hallucination. In retrospect, I’m not so sure. When I was in my 30s, my mother had a stroke (she had had strokes previously that we failed to recognize as strokes) that eventually led to her death. While she was in that “between state,” she came to me in a dream to say that she was going to die but needed to “stay” awhile to give my father a chance to adjust. That’s exactly what she did. She died at the point my father accepted the fact that she was ready to go.
After that, I got busy with my career and didn’t pay much attention to my own “varieties of religious experience.” I read a lot (and still do), so the subject has never really left my mind for long. When I started working with Debra Basham, the first time I was on her massage table for an introductory session, she said, “You killed me in a previous life.” I instantly had the sense of where and how that happened. I had a similar experience with another friend, a massage therapist, who told me I had killed her in a previous life.She said that we had been friends in that life, both of us male, and I had been married to his sister. He complained about the way I had been treating his sister, and I stabbed him in the chest.
There is, of course, no way to prove or disprove such experiences, but the idea of past lives is both common and old. One thing to note is that awareness of a “past life” doesn’t necessarily mean that the past life was “real.” A lot of what we think and believe about past lives and other aspects of what might be considered our varieties of religious experience may well be metaphorical rather than “real.” The question is what can we learn about ourselves from such “memories,” and how can we use that knowledge to live better lives this time around. Just because a “past life” wasn’t real, doesn’t mean that we can learn from it.
My guess is that, whatever you believe, you will be surprised by what shows up (or not) in your afterlife.
