What happens to us after we Die ?
From times immemorial, this question challenged the greatest speculative minds world over, consumed their imagination and time, and still continues to do that, yet no definitive answer could be given except reasonable guesses that satisfy people depending upon their philosophical leanings. Here philosophy is used in the widest sense of its origin, that is, which encompasses all fields of knowledge. It is interesting to note that some of the great advances made in the fields of mathematics, astrology, and engineering by some civilizations were prompted by their belief in after-life.
We can see interesting parallels in the thought process of the oriental and occidentals about what constitutes this material world. Starting with Thales of Miletus (624 to 547BC) (who said "that since earth floats on water, all things must come from water") philosophers tried to explain multitude of phenomena (manifestations of matter) in a rational way than by super-natural means. Thus oriental and the western philosophers came to the conclusion that matter is made of five elements, the earth, air, water, fire and light...the only difference being that all of them did not come to the same conclusion same time.
There was a scientific temper built up conscientiously by different schools…starting from Socrates in the west on one side and the ‘Guruparampara (or Teacher-student tradition)’ from pre-historic times in the east on the other. It was a system of conjecture, observation, synthesis and application of both deductive and inductive logic to start with. There was a wild spirit that underlined their eagerness to understand the physical world by the wildest hypotheses sometimes. And we must salute them for their ingenuity at times, because they did contribute to the fundamentals of all sciences without any special tools or implements but just the exercise of their mind. And some of their findings, about the atomic structure of mass however crude it might be, about planets and their movements including the retrogradation, about geometry to cite only a few, were breath taking.
And coming to the point of life after death, they were guided by the necessities surrounding them. As philosophers they were required to guide the contemporary society and naturally they stressed on the moral behaviour in this life. I believe the concepts of Hell and Heaven were their inventions to use them as deterrent and incentive respectively for peoples’ behaviour here. And I would like to stress here that in each school, whether east or west, the teacher-student tradition prospered in such a way the teacher always chose heir-apparent to his school from amongst the students and passed on such selective knowledge to him while all others shared the common. For majority the knowledge transferred was only the behavioural part or the application part and the real theory or the basic tenets of the school were the property of the heir.
Life and death are the most intriguing things even now. The sudden disappearance of action from the body is as confounding as the sudden coming-to-life of certain things is perplexing. Our body is an organic matter and when life ceases decomposes on its own if not attended to. All religious rites that follow were dictated by the constraints of duties of state to its citizens. When the body is cremated or inhumed, it disintegrates into its constituent parts. And the organic matter when decomposes becomes a source of food for other beings and a host to other micro organisms. That is how we reincarnate… disseminating into more organisms, becoming food to some, becoming a source to make food for some others. The remains of the body… like bones and ash get spread, mingled with the surroundings, react chemically to form more chemical compounds that enrich this earth either as on ore, or a fertilizer or manure for immediate /future use. If perchance a chemical reaction produces Hydrogen as a by-product from the remains, we may even go to stellar spaces. Thus in my opinion we take different shapes after we die. Not as one unit of mass as we are now, but as different parts of several living and non-living things. We should not forget the saying of our Rishis that ‘Param-Brahma’ (the supreme creator) encompasses the whole world. For me that is the ultimate truth. When you don’t believe in after life it is imperative that you believe in the duty to mankind to make life worth living for all.
