Reflections on Life, Death and Afterlife

Life is the spiritual presence of a spark of light called soul or spirit in a given physical body or form. That spiritual presence is the life-force that animates the form. Death is the permanent absence of a soul from a given physical form at the time of transition from one dimension to another, leaving behind a body or form. The afterlife is the state of a bodiless soul or spirit without a physical form having been in a physical existence. These three states of existence (or non existence in the case of death ) are intertwined in many ways but in particular, by the spirit of God in a physical existence.

Life or soul’s presence in physical forms appears throughout the seven kingdoms from the human to the mineral and plant kingdom and from the angelic to the insect kingdom and the remaining kingdoms in between. To the mortals, life is a gift of God (The Creator of their physical bodies and worlds) but to the mystics life is but a prison where the soul is led or made to believe that everything is all right. And so, life is full of many pleasing, delicious and sensual pleasures. But also, this life is full of things that cause souls pain, sadness, misery and suffering. In brief, life is a dual nature or state of being; good or bad, positive or negative, joyful or “sadful.” In this world there is no soul in life that ever lives an entire life-time in joy without its opposite. Life’s experience is such that when you are happy today, the next day or moment you may be very unhappy. There is no guarantee that life can be one hundred percent happiness or joy. Everything in life is said to be temporary or ephemeral in nature; life is an impermanent state since everything in life is in a state of flux.

Yet the mystics of all ages teach that there is an esoteric purpose to life; especially a human life. This, rather strange purpose of a human birth ironically is known and grasped by few of human beings living today in this world. The majority of people know that the purpose of life is a good education, a good paying job, millions of dollars or a big bank account, a nice car and beautiful house; a spouse and children. In addition to these, they add : a good name and fame, power, celebrity, merry-making and a long life spanning at least to seventy or one hundred years. Wow!

But the Great Divine Mystic Guardians or Masters of Divine Wisdom- those Savior-Lords, Redeemers and Living Saints have since time immemorial taught that of all those pursuits or things, none is the true purpose of a human birth. They inform us a human life is availed to those souls that have evolved adequately for the great boon of ultimate perfection. This perfection is known as enlightenment or illumination which is but a reference to the Divine. It means the attainment of divine union with the Supreme Being, Sseggulumanda (Pronounced: Say-goo-loo-man-dah). Its other name is God-Realization or God-Consciousness. We are given life or time in physical bodies just so that we may use the chemicals, tools, and equipment in these bodies to evolve and attain perfect enlightenment . Like all Great Mystics, Lord Jesus the Christ taught this same ageless truth when he uttered the words, “Be ye perfect as my Father in heaven is perfect.” He only chose to use different words to express or teach the same old truth that the purpose of a human birth is the attainment of perfection. This perfection concerns itself not only with the attainment of high grades in our material sciences, technology, humanities or the arts, if you will but the perfection in the divine science achievable only by merging into divine union with the Origin of all souls.

The contemporary African Perfect Born-Saint, HIG Bambi Baambi Baabuwee admonished us:

Let your every day deeds be of perfection. Perfection is your true nature but you forgot it. Awaken now and start doing good because God is Good. If you do good you will become perfect. You will be good like God because you are God only that you do not know this truth.

This Divine Origin of all souls is also the true home of all souls and all souls must sooner or later return to this Origin. This origin has been given so many different names. Some of these names describe what people think or know their Origin to be or ITS qualities, virtues or attributes. Other names are ascribed to IT to express ITS powers and authority. Common to the mystics in whatever language or culture they come into life are such names as The Supreme Lord, Sseggulumanda, Supreme Being, Ssebaloka, Almighty Lord, Ggulula-Misinga, Sat Purusha, Rubambansi, Tendo, Radha Soami (Lord of the Souls), Chukwu, Onyankopong, Mwenyezi-Mungu and many others. Some of the most common names used to express the creative power of this Divine Origin include among others the following: Zeus, Nyame, Chineke, Creator, Katonda, Nzambe, Dieu and many others.

We come here into this world in search of the way to regain that perfection. The way to do so is hidden within the very physical bodies we are wearing here in this world. In other words, our Divine Heavenly Supreme Lord and Father concealed within the human body, the only passageway treading which enables us to arrive at our True Origin which is the Supreme Being ITSELF.

The trick is in finding that inner passageway that leads whoever finds it back home. Hence Jesus taught this to his disciples when he said that The kingdom of heaven is within you - meaning, inside of our bodies.

Now comes that which many earth dwellers dread most; Death ! Death is an illusion. It does not exist as a state of any long duration. It is just the severing of a silver cord that connects our soul to the body. After this silver cord is cut, death is done. The cutting of that cord leads the soul to an experience where it cannot return or re-enter that physical body. For quite some time, this experience is so frightening to the soul especially if, by the time of severing the cord, the soul had not learned much of the true purpose of a human life. If the soul did not encounter and submit to a contemporary Divine Guardian or Soul-Liberator for divine spiritual instruction and training, the individual is in a mess or trouble at death .

It takes most souls many hours, even days before they realize for sure that death (the silver cord is broken) has occurred. At first, many souls try as much as possible to re-enter their bodies only to find it is impossible; the connecting link or silver cord is severed.

When in the presence of a Divine Spiritual Guardian who knows the intricate nature of life and has the divine power and authority, such souls that linger on around the bodies they have vacated can be recalled and reconnected to their bodies. When this happens, people call it resurrection of the dead. In actual fact it just a matter of finding the soul in transition and reconnect its silver cord to the body. Some people think that resurrecting a dead person is the most profound miracle but the Great Guardian Mystic Saints inform us that any one who has, during his or her inner spiritual travels attained the level of Mamyantuka-Pulaaya (The Third Spiritual Plane) can resurrect the dead.

One of the vital works of the mystics is to teach us how to vacate the physical body and return into it at will. The devotee or spiritual aspirant that learns this scientific practice of mysticism, the projection of the Soul out of the body and then soul-travel through the inner heavenly worlds, quickly finds that death simply means a forced exit or vacation from the body. When one learns how it is done, one does not have to experience death the same way mortals do. This is why since time immemorial, all Perfect Mystic Saints and Savior-Lords have taught that the kingdom of heaven is gained by dying daily. In other words the practical experience of dying while living eliminates the horror and fear of death.

With regard to afterlife, I will focus on the three different groups of souls or people and what experience they encounter after death:

1. Those who, during life encountered a contemporary Divine Spiritual Guardian and obtained initiation instructions from Him or Her. If these individuals practiced the initiation instructions well, they encounter no problems at and after death. The major reason being that they have practiced death while living many times. In other words, they have learned to vacate their bodies at will any time any where. It no longer is a mystery like it is to the majority of people. Secondly, they enjoy the indomitable and invincible protection and guidance at inner levels and dimensions, of their Divine Spiritual Guardian or Soul-Liberator. For this reason they do not even have to experience the ordeal of meeting the heavenly Judge or the Karmic Board which serves as the heavenly Judge. Their business is taken care of by the Living Mystic Saint and Soul-Liberator who imparted the initiation instructions to them.

2. Those who had the rare opportunity of meeting a contemporary Living Saint or Soul-Liberator who initiated them into the Path of Liberation but never bothered to practice. Such initiates are given five other life-times within which they must practice and attain perfection or true salvation, liberation or emancipa-tion. Such emancipation is but a reference to the freedom from the vicious cycle of births and deaths.

3. Those who never bothered to know or learn the purpose of a human birth. These individuals find a lot of troubles and hard experiences after death. They know not where they go or what to do. They are like a frightened bird in the hands of its captor or like a village boy who has never been to any town or city and then all of a sudden dropped in the center of New York, alone, unaware of con-artists and robbers as well as city rules and regulations. These individuals are taken before the Karmic Board or the heavenly Judge who looks at their Books of Life or Karmic Files and decides what needs to be done with them. Usually one of two things may happen depending upon their individual record of thoughts, words, desires and deeds: hell or heavenly rest. Many go to hell where they encounter untold misery, pain and suffering. Others go to different heavenly homes or hotels if you will where they enjoy different things according to the measure of their thoughts, words, desires and deeds they committed while in earth-life. Dependent upon these, individuals spend different periods of time in their specific heavens. After those periods they are sent back into the world to start all over again until they will one day recognize a contemporary Divine Beings who will initiate them onto the Path of the Saints. When this happens to any soul, the living ones call it birth. However, to most of the souls, the best description is not just birth but re-embodiment or re-incarnation.

Reflecting on life, death and afterlife, offers each one of us a moment of silence. There is a need to stop and think and rethink what it is that we need out of life. Hell exists in this world where we are and millions of souls that are born here are sent in earthly hells. Just look at the hospitals and see how much suffering is there. Visit the prisons and look at what kind of hell these people experience. Check our roads and see how many people experience hell from accidents in our cities; from police brutality, unfair judicial system, rape, domestic violence, murder at different levels. Look at how much hell our brothers and sisters in Iraq are experiencing at the mercy of suicide bombers who do not value human life and how many live in constant fear of being bombed by American Apache helicopters. Even those who live in the Green Zone in Baghdad live in hell. How many of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are experiencing hell today? Think of those is Sudan’s Darfur and imagine what a hell they live in. What best word that describes death by starvation, thirst or a slow painful death than hell and see how many worldwide are in hell?

All over the world millions of people live in hell on earth; and so, our reflection of hell should be focused more on the conditions of our earth so that we may all come together to change this hell and transform it into heaven. For, there are many souls in this world also who live in heaven on earth. I have seen dogs and cats that experience heaven on earth; they enjoy a good rich life much more than many millions of human souls who are living in hell on earth, especially in the so-called third world countries but also, every day I see people in developed countries living in hell. Many jobless and homeless in developed nations live in hell. Visit hospital in developed and un-developed countries, they all live in hell.

This earth no doubt has all the resources we need to transform this world into a heavenly body and stop wishing to go elsewhere to a heaven in the far off sky or firmament. It is but our greed and selfishness that still keeps millions of people in earth-hells. Of course one may argue that those who live in hell on earth or else where, do so because of their own negative or evil thoughts, words, desires and deeds. But we still have a moral obligation to transform earth conditions from being hellish to heavenly.

The law of cause and effect functions in such a way that those who live in heaven on earth today will experience hell on earth next lifetime time unless if they learned the moral lesson of stewardship and more so, that of doing good and avoid the spilling of blood, killing others through murder, wars and conflicts or any other means that destroy life on earth. In other words if one does not take care to do good while living, one may forfeit a good life in the next incarnation. What we do in this life may determine whether we live in hell next time round on earth.

There is the inscrutable law of Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Hence, what goes around comes around is not only a mere slogan but an operative Law of Nature and Creation.