Craig Hamilton-Parker - What To Do When You Are Dead: Living Better in the Afterlife

THERE IS ANOTHER SHORE BEYOND the horizon of physical life. It is not a great unknown, as it has been visited by many spiritual travelers from our world. On their return, they have related strange stories that fill us with awe, much as did the tales of explorers when they first traveled the seas to Australia or the Americas. Some have journeyed to this place during sleep, while critically ill, or under hypnosis. Others have traveled there during meditation or a mediumistic trance, or by using techniques that enable the soul to travel outside the physical body.

Believers in this other shore usually live better lives. Even if some do not profess it philosophically, they may still have the feeling that that shore exists. A voice deep within tells them it is the truth. A person who believes in or, even better, has actually experienced the afterlife has a completely different outlook on this life to that of the materialist. Knowledge of a next world brings with it a strong sense of personal responsibility and morality. A person who knows theres an afterlife realizes that the immortal human spirit is here for a greater purpose than just accumulating possessions, status, fame, or power. In contrast, those with no belief in an afterlife tend to create a society fixated on short-term results, without much thought for the consequences of their actions. To the believer in an afterlife, it is apparent that life is an opportunity to grow by enhancing the souls capacity to give and receive love. Life gives us the chance to change ourselves and to understand the purpose of existence. Those who acknowledge the world of the spirit are more likely to take personal responsibility for their lives and live to a higher moral standard than those who dont.

Could it be that the problems of our time are a result of our forgetting the knowledge of the afterlife? Would we still have the urge to accumulate earthly things or to strip the worlds resources for short-term profits if we knew for certain that we would pass this way again? Supposing we knew, as fact, that every action we take will affect our future and come back to us like a cosmic boomerang. Would we then be so keen to cause others pain or plot for selfish gain?

What a utopia we could enjoy if the majority of people here and now recognized that we are only the temporary custodians of this world. Even our human bodies are made from the dust of stars that burned out millennia ago. Dust to dust to dust. No, the transitory things of the world cannot give long-term support. They will all pass away, even the giant sequoia and the deepest ocean. But the things of the material world are as nothing compared to the everlasting spirit. Its pristine light is our true reality.

Many people live out their lives avoiding the dark thoughts of death. It is simply too frightening to contemplate. Death shatters everything. Up to the very last moment, most people refuse to face death. When my father, for example, was diagnosed as terminally ill with bone cancer, nobody in the family would even mention the word death to him. My father steadfastly refused to accept that he would soon die and fought a tragic battle to the end. It brought to my mind the words of the poet Dylan Thomas: Do not go gentle into that good night, / Old age should burn and rave at close of day; / Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

If we lose someone close to us, it brings thoughts of our own mortality. When our parents die, we know that were in the next wave, said a friend my age. It brings home the fact that death comes to us all. Nonetheless, if we examine our innermost feelings, we may admit to an innate knowing that there is something else after death. A voice, a whisper, somewhere deep inside, says, Dont worry about death. Everything will be all right.

I am fortunate in that I know that little inner voice is right. I have amassed too much evidence to believe otherwise.