Afterlife - Is it a Destination or Another Beginning?

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What is afterlife...? It is by definition the life after death. In religious aspects some believe there is an afterlife while others do not. Scientifically it is yet to be discovered.
As a true follower of Buddhism, personally I think there is an afterlife. After death, we are born again, as another living being, a new life. We call it the ' Reincarnation'. According to Buddhism, as far as we proceed to collect 'karma', we go through this on and on.

There are many concepts of afterlife in different cultures and religions. Ancient Egyptians, Indian Hindus, and many others believed in this, that death is not just an ending. I am going to explain what I think.

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All the living beings that are capable of thinking have an astral body (which is our mind) apart from their physical body. This astral body is connected with the physical body via brain. Our mind is kind of an energy that drives our body. Apart from all the chemical energy we receive from feeding, we need this energy to keep up living. Some refer to this as the aura. Death is the termination of the physical body. It can be caused by physical damages most of the time. When there is no capacity in the physical body to hold our mind, it moves to another location with capacity. This is the birth of another. Mind travelling, astral projection and many other topics come with this. I'm not going to dicuss that.

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As we all know, scientists have been trying to create life for so many years. They are not yet succeeded. I think it's because they cannot insert this mind energy into their creation of a physical body. Nature does this while we are in our mothers' womb. Within first 3 months of pregnancy, the fetus receives this naturally. We have heard that these 3 months are the most important during pregnancy. It's because it's the stage where the fetus is most vulnerable. It is yet to be stabilised. When it receives this energy, it thrives. As I think, the fetus cannot move forward without this energy. That's why we hear many fetus deaths. That's because no energy of an astral body is received.

Astral body aka soul can retain some of memories in the previous life. That is experimented and researched by many. This can be just some memories or can be skills. There are stories of some children that have impeccable skills that cannot be explained by their experiences received during this lifetime. But these are rare.

I haven't yet figured out how an astral body select a physical body to occupy. But in buddhism we learn that it happens according to the energy gathered from all merits or the sins a soul has gained through out the previous lives. It says that good deeds/merits may give you a chance to be born in a good place while sins work otherwise. ( this can be an oversimplification, but I'll say it like that because this is another topic to be discussed separately). Personally I do not completely believe that in that manner. But I accept it up to some level. I believe that for everything we do, there are consequences for sure. There are concepts on the existence of heaven and hell. Everything is relative. You can live wherever you are now as it is heaven or hell. It depends on how you make it. Your actions are the reality that matters.

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These are my thoughts on afterlife. Anyone can learn 'abhidhamma', where Lord Buddha have explained how our minds work. I hope to learn further, not only to seek refuge after death but to improve the quality of living during this lifetime. I suggest all of you to act better in life, help others and yourself too. Don't miss chances to do a selfless good deed now and then. We don't know how these energies really work but we can be the better versions of ourselves for there is no harm being good.

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HAVE A NICE DAY..!