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After Life

But not all will rejoice in God's gift of forgiveness, and that choice will be judgment, the self-inflicted source of their sorrow and pain. Moreover, Orthodoxy includes a prevalent tradition of apokatastasis , or the restoration of all things in the end. This has been taught most notably by Origen , but also many other Church fathers and Saints, including Gregory of Nyssa. The Second Council of Constantinople CE affirmed the orthodoxy of Gregory of Nyssa while simultaneously condemning Origen's brand of universalism because it taught the restoration back to our pre-existent state, which Orthodoxy doesn't teach.

Kallistos Ware explains, "It is heretical to say that all must be saved, for this is to deny free will; but, it is legitimate to hope that all may be saved," [44] as insisting on torment without end also denies free will. It is revealed as the scene of an extensive missionary effort by righteous spirits in paradise to redeem those still in darkness—a spirit prison or "hell" where the spirits of the dead remain until judgment.

It is divided into two parts: Spirit Prison and Paradise. They believe that Christ visited spirit prison 1 Peter 3: This is similar to the Harrowing of Hell doctrine of some mainstream Christian faiths. After the resurrection, spirits are assigned "permanently" to three degrees of heavenly glory, determined by how they lived — Celestial, Terrestrial, and Telestial. The Celestial Kingdom is believed to be a place where we can live eternally with our families.

Progression does not end once one has entered the Celestial Kingdom, but it extends eternally. To inherit this gift, we must receive the ordinances of salvation, keep the commandments, and repent of our sins. Jehovah's Witnesses occasionally use terms such as "afterlife" [47] to refer to any hope for the dead, but they understand Ecclesiastes 9: However, they believe that after Armageddon there will be a bodily resurrection of "both righteous and unrighteous" dead but not the "wicked".

Survivors of Armageddon and those who are resurrected are then to gradually restore earth to a paradise. The Seventh-day Adventist Church, teaches that the first death, or death brought about by living on a planet with sinful conditions sickness, old age, accident, etc. Like Jehovah's Witnesses, Adventists use key phrases from the Bible, such as "For the living know that they shall die: Adventists also point to the fact that the wage of sin is death and God alone is immortal.

Adventists believe God will grant eternal life to the redeemed who are resurrected at Jesus' second coming. Until then, all those who have died are "asleep". When Jesus the Christ, who is the Word and the Bread of Life, comes a second time, the righteous will be raised incorruptible and will be taken in the clouds to meet their Lord.

The righteous will live in heaven for a thousand years the millennium where they will sit with God in judgment over the unredeemed and the fallen angels. During the time the redeemed are in heaven, the Earth will be devoid of human and animal inhabitation. Only the fallen angels will be left alive. The second resurrection is of the unrighteous, when Jesus brings the New Jerusalem down from heaven to relocate to Earth.

Jesus will call to life all those who are unrighteous. Satan and his angels will convince the unrighteous to surround the city, but hell fire and brimstone will fall from heaven and consume them, thus cleansing Earth of all sin. The universe will be then free from sin forever. This is called the second death. On the new earth God will provide an eternal home for all the redeemed and a perfect environment for everlasting life, where Eden will be restored.

The great controversy will be ended and sin will be no more. God will reign in perfect harmony forever. The Islamic belief in the afterlife as stated in the Quran is descriptive. Their level of comfort while in the grave according to some commentators depends wholly on their level of iman or faith in the one almighty creator or supreme being God or Allah. In order for one to achieve proper, firm and healthy iman one must practice righteous deeds or else his level of iman chokes and shrinks and eventually can wither away if one does not practice Islam long enough, hence the depth of practicing Islam is good deeds.

One may also acquire tasbih and recite the names of Allah in such manner as Subahann Allah or " Glory be to Allah" over and over again to acquire good deeds. In the Quran, God gives warning about grievous punishment to those who do not believe in the afterlife Akhirah , [52] and admonishes mankind that Hell is prepared for those who deny the meeting with him. Islam teaches that the purpose of Man's entire creation is to worship Allah alone, which includes being kind to other human beings and life including bugs, and to trees, by not oppressing them.

Islam teaches that the life we live on Earth is nothing but a test for us and to determine each individual's ultimate abode, be it punishment or Jannat in the afterlife, which is eternal and everlasting. Jannah and Jahannam both have different levels. Jannah has eight gates and seven levels. The higher the level the better it is and the happier you are. Jahannam possess 7 deep terrible layers.

After.Life

The lower the layer the worse it is. Individuals will arrive at both everlasting homes during Judgment Day , which commences after the Angel Israfil blows the trumpet the second time. Islam teaches the continued existence of the soul and a transformed physical existence after death. Muslims believe there will be a day of judgment when all humans will be divided between the eternal destinations of Paradise and Hell.

In the 20th century, discussions about the afterlife address the interconnection between human action and divine judgment, the need for moral rectitude, and the eternal consequences of human action in this life and world. A central doctrine of the Quran is the Last Day, on which the world will be destroyed and Allah will raise all people and jinn from the dead to be judged.

Until the Day of Judgment, deceased souls remain in their graves awaiting the resurrection. However, they begin to feel immediately a taste of their destiny to come. Those bound for hell will suffer in their graves, while those bound for heaven will be in peace until that time. The resurrection that will take place on the Last Day is physical, and is explained by suggesting that God will re-create the decayed body On the Last Day, resurrected humans and jinn will be judged by Allah according to their deeds. One's eternal destination depends on balance of good to bad deeds in life.

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They are either granted admission to Paradise, where they will enjoy spiritual and physical pleasures forever, or condemned to Hell to suffer spiritual and physical torment for eternity. The day of judgment is described as passing over Hell on a narrow bridge as thin as human hair and sharper than a razor in order to enter Paradise.

Those who fall, weighted by their bad deeds, will remain in Hell forever. Ahmadi believe that the afterlife is not material but of a spiritual nature. According to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad , the founder of Ahmadiyya religion, the soul will give birth to another rarer entity and will resemble the life on this earth in the sense that this entity will bear a similar relationship to the soul as the soul bears relationship with the human existence on earth. On earth, if a person leads a righteous life and submits to the will of God, his or her tastes become attuned to enjoying spiritual pleasures as opposed to carnal desires.

With this, an "embryonic soul" begins to take shape. Different tastes are said to be born which a person given to carnal passions finds no enjoyment. For example, sacrifice of one's own rights over that of others becomes enjoyable, or that forgiveness becomes second nature. In such a state a person finds contentment and peace at heart and at this stage, according to Ahmadiyya beliefs, it can be said that a soul within the soul has begun to take shape.

The Sufi scholar Ibn 'Arabi defined Barzakh as the intermediate realm or "isthmus. Without it, there would be no contact between the two and both would cease to exist. He described it as simple and luminous, like the world of spirits, but also able to take on many different forms just like the world of corporeal bodies can.

In broader terms Barzakh, "is anything that separates two things". It has been called the dream world in which the dreamer is in both life and death. She'ol , in the Hebrew Bible , is a place of darkness to which all the dead go, both the righteous and the unrighteous, regardless of the moral choices made in life, a place of stillness and darkness cut off from life and from God. The inhabitants of Sheol are the "shades" rephaim , entities without personality or strength. While the Hebrew Bible appears to describe Sheol as the permanent place of the dead, in the Second Temple period roughly BC—70 AD a more diverse set of ideas developed.

In some texts, Sheol is considered to be the home of both the righteous and the wicked, separated into respective compartments; in others, it was considered a place of punishment, meant for the wicked dead alone. This is reflected in the New Testament where Hades is both the underworld of the dead and the personification of the evil it represents. The Talmud offers a number of thoughts relating to the afterlife. After death, the soul is brought for judgment.

Those who have led pristine lives enter immediately into the Olam Haba or world to come. Most do not enter the world to come immediately, but now experience a period of review of their earthly actions and they are made aware of what they have done wrong. Some view this period as being a "re-schooling", with the soul gaining wisdom as one's errors are reviewed. Others view this period to include spiritual discomfort for past wrongs. At the end of this period, not longer than one year, the soul then takes its place in the world to come.

Although discomforts are made part of certain Jewish conceptions of the afterlife, the concept of "eternal damnation ", so prevalent in other religions, is not a tenet of the Jewish afterlife. According to the Talmud, extinction of the soul is reserved for a far smaller group of malicious and evil leaders, either whose very evil deeds go way beyond norms, or who lead large groups of people to utmost evil.

Maimonides describes the Olam Haba in spiritual terms, relegating the prophesied physical resurrection to the status of a future miracle, unrelated to the afterlife or the Messianic era. According to Maimonides, an afterlife continues for the soul of every human being, a soul now separated from the body in which it was "housed" during its earthly existence. The Zohar describes Gehenna not as a place of punishment for the wicked but as a place of spiritual purification for souls. Although there is no reference to reincarnation in the Talmud or any prior writings, [64] according to rabbis such as Avraham Arieh Trugman, reincarnation is recognized as being part and parcel of Jewish tradition.

Trugman explains that it is through oral tradition that the meanings of the Torah, its commandments and stories, are known and understood. The classic work of Jewish mysticism, [65] the Zohar, is quoted liberally in all Jewish learning; in the Zohar the idea of reincarnation is mentioned repeatedly. Trugman states that in the last five centuries the concept of reincarnation, which until then had been a much hidden tradition within Judaism, was given open exposure.

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Shraga Simmons commented that within the Bible itself, the idea [of reincarnation] is intimated in Deut. Yirmiyahu Ullman wrote that reincarnation is an "ancient, mainstream belief in Judaism". The Zohar makes frequent and lengthy references to reincarnation. Onkelos , a righteous convert and authoritative commentator of the same period, explained the verse, "Let Reuben live and not die Torah scholar, commentator and kabbalist, Nachmanides Ramban — , attributed Job's suffering to reincarnation, as hinted in Job's saying "God does all these things twice or three times with a man, to bring back his soul from the pit to Reincarnation, called gilgul , became popular in folk belief , and is found in much Yiddish literature among Ashkenazi Jews.

Among a few kabbalists, it was posited that some human souls could end up being reincarnated into non-human bodies. These ideas were found in a number of Kabbalistic works from the 13th century, and also among many mystics in the late 16th century. Martin Buber 's early collection of stories of the Baal Shem Tov 's life includes several that refer to people reincarnating in successive lives. Saadia Gaon, in Emunoth ve-Deoth Hebrew: While rebutting reincarnation, Saadia Gaon further states that Jews who hold to reincarnation have adopted non-Jewish beliefs.

By no means do all Jews today believe in reincarnation, but belief in reincarnation is not uncommon among many Jews, including Orthodox. Wexelman, Zalman Schachter, [69] and many others. Reincarnation is cited by authoritative biblical commentators, including Ramban Nachmanides , Menachem Recanti and Rabbenu Bachya. Among the many volumes of Yitzchak Luria, most of which come down from the pen of his primary disciple, Chaim Vital, are insights explaining issues related to reincarnation. Rabbi Naftali Silberberg of The Rohr Jewish Learning Institute notes that "Many ideas that originate in other religions and belief systems have been popularized in the media and are taken for granted by unassuming Jews.

Buddhists maintain that rebirth takes place without an unchanging self or soul passing from one form to another. For example, if a person has committed harmful actions of body, speech and mind based on greed, hatred and delusion, rebirth in a lower realm, i. On the other hand, where a person has performed skillful actions based on generosity, loving-kindness metta , compassion and wisdom, rebirth in a happy realm, i. Yet the mechanism of rebirth with kamma is not deterministic. It depends on various levels of kamma. The most important moment that determines where a person is reborn into is the last thought moment.

At that moment, heavy kamma would ripen if there were performed, if not then near death kamma, if not then habitual kamma, finally if none of the above happened, then residual kamma from previous actions can ripen. According to Theravada Buddhism, there are 31 realms of existence that one can be reborn into. Pure Land Buddhism of Mahayana believes in a special place apart from the 31 planes of existence called Pure Land.

LIFE AFTER DEATH: Shock account of AFTERLIFE by man declared dead for six minutes

It is believed that each Buddha has their own pure land, created out of their merits for the sake of sentient beings who recall them mindfully to be able to be reborn in their pure land and train to become a Buddha there. Thus the main practice of pure land Buddhism is to chant a Buddha's name. In Tibetan Buddhism the Tibetan Book of the Dead explains the intermediate state of humans between death and reincarnation. The deceased will find the bright light of wisdom, which shows a straightforward path to move upward and leave the cycle of reincarnation.

There are various reasons why the deceased do not follow that light. Some had no briefing about the intermediate state in the former life. Others only used to follow their basic instincts like animals. And some have fear, which results from foul deeds in the former life or from insistent haughtiness. In the intermediate state the awareness is very flexible, so it is important to be virtuous, adopt a positive attitude, and avoid negative ideas. Ideas which are rising from subconsciousness can cause extreme tempers and cowing visions.

In this situation they have to understand, that these manifestations are just reflections of the inner thoughts. No one can really hurt them, because they have no more material body. The deceased get help from different Buddhas who show them the path to the bright light. The ones who do not follow the path after all will get hints for a better reincarnation. They have to release the things and beings on which or whom they still hang from the life before.

It is recommended to choose a family where the parents trust in the Dharma and to reincarnate with the will to care for the welfare of all beings. There are 10 life states of any life: Hell, hunger, anger, animality, rapture, humanity, learning, realization, bodhisatva and buddhahood. The life dies in which life condition it reborn in the same life condition. The Upanishads describe reincarnation punarjanma see also: The Bhagavad Gita , an important Hindu script, talks extensively about the afterlife.

Here, Krishna says that just as a man discards his old clothes and wears new ones; similarly the soul discards the old body and takes on a new one. In Hinduism, the belief is that the body is nothing but a shell, the soul inside is immutable and indestructible and takes on different lives in a cycle of birth and death. The end of this cycle is called mukti Sanskrit: The Garuda Purana deals solely with what happens to a person after death. The God of Death Yama sends his representatives to collect the soul from a person's body whenever he is due for death and they take the soul to Yama.

According to the Garuda Purana, a soul after leaving the body travels through a very long and dark tunnel towards the South. This is why an oil lamp is lit and kept beside the head of the corpse, to light the dark tunnel and allow the soul to travel comfortably. The soul, called atman leaves the body and reincarnates itself according to the deeds or karma performed by one in last birth. Rebirth would be in form of animals or other lower creatures if one performed bad karmas and in human form in a good family with joyous lifetime if the person was good in last birth.

In between the two births a human is also required to either face punishments for bad karmas in " naraka " or hell or enjoy for the good karmas in swarga or heaven for good deeds. Whenever his or her punishments or rewards are over he or she is sent back to earth, also known as Mrutyulok or human world. Atma moves with Parmatma or the greatest soul. Soul is believed to be indestructible. None of the five elements can harm or influence it. Hinduism through Garuda Purana also describes in detail various types of narkas or Hells where a person after death is punished for his bad karmas and dealt with accordingly.

Hindus also believe in karma. Karma is the accumulated sums of one's good or bad deeds. Satkarma means good deeds, vikarma means bad deeds. According to Hinduism the basic concept of karma is 'As you sow, you shall reap'. So, if a person has lived a good life, they will be rewarded in the afterlife. Similarly their sum of bad deeds will be mirrored in their next life. Good karma brings good rewards and bad karmas lead to bad results. There is no judgment here. People accumulate karma through their actions and even thoughts.

In Bhagavad Gita when Arjuna hesitates to kill his kith and kin the lord reprimands him saying thus "Do you believe that you are the doer of the action. You are merely an instrument in MY hands. Do you believe that the people in front of you are living? Dear Arjuna, they are already dead. As a kshatriya warrior it is your duty to protect your people and land. If you fail to do your duty, then you are not adhering to dharmic principles. Jainism also believes in the after life. They believe that the soul takes on a body form based on previous karmas or actions performed by that soul through eternity.

Jains believe the soul is eternal and that the freedom from the cycle of reincarnation is the means to attain eternal bliss. Sikhism may have a belief in the afterlife. They believe that the soul belongs to the spiritual universe which has its origins in God. However it's been a matter of great debate amongst the Sikhs about Sikhism's belief in afterlife.


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Many believe that Sikhism endorses the afterlife and the concept of reward and punishment as there are verses given in Guru Granth Sahib , but a large number of Sikhs believe otherwise and treat those verses as metaphorical or poetic. Also it has been noted by many scholars that the Guru Granth Sahib includes poetic renditions from multiple saints and religious traditions like that of Kabir , Farid and Ramananda.

The essential doctrine is to experience the divine through simple living, meditation and contemplation while being alive. Sikhism also has the belief of being in union with God while living. Accounts of afterlife are considered to be aimed at the popular prevailing views of the time so as to provide a referential framework without necessarily establishing a belief in the afterlife. Thus while it is also acknowledged that living the life of a householder is above the metaphysical truth, Sikhism can be considered agnostic to the question of an afterlife.

Some scholars also interpret the mention of reincarnation to be naturalistic akin to the biogeochemical cycles. But if one analyses the Sikh Scriptures carefully, one may find that on many occasions the afterlife and the existence of heaven and hell are mentioned in Guru Granth Sahib and in Dasam granth , so from that it can be concluded that Sikhism does believe in the existence of heaven and hell; however, heaven and hell are created to temporarily reward and punish, and one will then take birth again until one merges in God.

According to the Sikh scriptures, the human form is the closet form to God and the best opportunity for a human being to attain salvation and merge back with God. Sikh Gurus said that nothing dies, nothing is born, everything is ever present, and it just changes forms. Like standing in front of a wardrobe, you pick up a dress and wear it and then you discard it.

You wear another one. Thus, in the view of Sikhism, your soul is never born and never dies. Your soul is a part of God and hence lives forever. Traditional African religions are diverse in their beliefs in an afterlife. Hunter-gatherer societies such as the Hadza have no particular belief in an afterlife, and the death of an individual is a straightforward end to their existence. What is reincarnated are some of the dominant characteristics of the ancestor and not his soul.

For each soul remains distinct and each birth represents a new soul. The Mende believe that people die twice: However, some Mende also believe that after people are created by God they live ten consecutive lives, each in progressively descending worlds. It is common for families to participate in ceremonies for children at a shrine, yet have a Buddhist funeral at the time of death. This yomi very closely resembles the Greek Hades ; however, later myths include notions of resurrection and even Elysium -like descriptions such as in the legend of Okuninushi and Susanoo.

Shinto tends to hold negative views on death and corpses as a source of pollution called kegare. However, death is also viewed as a path towards apotheosis in Shintoism as can be evidenced by how legendary individuals become enshrined after death. Perhaps the most famous would be Emperor Ojin who was enshrined as Hachiman the God of War after his death.

Some Unitarian Universalists believe in universalism: Most Unitarian Universalists believe that heaven and hell are symbolic places of consciousness and the faith is largely focused on the worldly life rather than any possible afterlife. According to Edgar Cayce , the afterlife consisted of nine realms equated with the nine planets of astrology. The first, symbolized by Saturn, was a level for the purification of the souls. The second, Mercury's realm, gives us the ability to consider problems as a whole. The third of the nine soul realms is ruled by Earth and is associated with the Earthly pleasures.

The fourth realm is where we find out about love and is ruled by Venus. The fifth realm is where we meet our limitations and is ruled by Mars. The sixth realm is ruled by Neptune, and is where we begin to use our creative powers and free ourselves from the material world. The seventh realm is symbolized by Jupiter, which strengthens the soul's ability to depict situations, to analyze people and places, things, and conditions.

The eighth afterlife realm is ruled by Uranus and develops psychic ability. The ninth afterlife realm is symbolized by Pluto, the astrological realm of the unconscious. This afterlife realm is a transient place where souls can choose to travel to other realms or other solar systems, it is the souls liberation into eternity, and is the realm that opens the doorway from our solar system into the cosmos. Mainstream Spiritualists postulate a series of seven realms that are not unlike Edgar Cayce's nine realms ruled by the planets. As it evolves, the soul moves higher and higher until it reaches the ultimate realm of spiritual oneness.

The first realm, equated with hell, is the place where troubled souls spend a long time before they are compelled to move up to the next level. The second realm, where most souls move directly, is thought of as an intermediate transition between the lower planes of life and hell and the higher perfect realms of the universe. The third level is for those who have worked with their karmic inheritance. The fourth level is that from which evolved souls teach and direct those on Earth. The fifth level is where the soul leaves human consciousness behind.

At the sixth plane, the soul is finally aligned with the cosmic consciousness and has no sense of separateness or individuality. Finally, the seventh level, the goal of each soul, is where the soul transcends its own sense of "soulfulness" and reunites with the World Soul and the universe. The Wiccan afterlife is most commonly described as The Summerland. Here, souls rest, recuperate from life, and reflect on the experiences they had during their lives. After a period of rest, the souls are reincarnated, and the memory of their previous lives is erased. Many Wiccans see The Summerland as a place to reflect on their life actions.

It is not a place of reward, but rather the end of a life journey at an end point of incarnations. Zoroastrianism states that the urvan , the disembodied spirit, lingers on earth for three days before departing downward to the kingdom of the dead that is ruled by Yima. For the three days that it rests on Earth, righteous souls sit at the head of their body, chanting the Ustavaiti Gathas with joy, while a wicked person sits at the feet of the corpse, wails and recites the Yasna.

Zoroastrianism states that for the righteous souls, a beautiful maiden, which is the personification of the soul's good thoughts, words and deeds, appears. For a wicked person, a very old, ugly, naked hag appears. Yima is believed to have been the first king on earth to rule, as well as the first man to die.

Inside of Yima's realm, the spirits live a shadowy existence, and are dependent on their own descendants which are still living on Earth. Their descendants are to satisfy their hunger and clothe them, through rituals done on earth. Rituals which are done on the first three days are vital and important, as they protect the soul from evil powers and give it strength to reach the underworld.

After three days, the soul crosses Chinvat bridge which is the Final Judgment of the soul. Rashnu and Sraosha are present at the final judgment. The list is expanded sometimes, and include Vahman and Ormazd. Rashnu is the yazata who holds the scales of justice. If the good deeds of the person outweigh the bad, the soul is worthy of paradise. If the bad deeds outweigh the good, the bridge narrows down to the width of a blade-edge, and a horrid hag pulls the soul in her arms, and takes it down to hell with her. Misvan Gatu is the "place of the mixed ones" where the souls lead a gray existence, lacking both joy and sorrow.

The Society for Psychical Research was founded in with the express intention of investigating phenomena relating to Spiritualism and the afterlife. Its members continue to conduct scientific research on the paranormal to this day. Some of the earliest attempts to apply scientific methods to the study of phenomena relating to an afterlife were conducted by this organization. Its earliest members included noted scientists like William Crookes , and philosophers such as Henry Sidgwick and William James.

Parapsychological investigation of the afterlife includes the study of haunting , apparitions of the deceased, instrumental trans-communication, electronic voice phenomena , and mediumship. A study conducted in by physician Duncan MacDougall sought to measure the weight lost by a human when the soul "departed the body" upon death. Although MacDougall's results varied considerably from "21 grams", for some people this figure has become synonymous with the measure of a soul's mass.

Among the many volumes of Yitzchak Luria, most of which come down from the pen of his primary disciple, Chaim Vital, are insights explaining issues related to reincarnation. Rabbi Naftali Silberberg of The Rohr Jewish Learning Institute notes that "Many ideas that originate in other religions and belief systems have been popularized in the media and are taken for granted by unassuming Jews.

Buddhists maintain that rebirth takes place without an unchanging self or soul passing from one form to another. For example, if a person has committed harmful actions of body, speech and mind based on greed, hatred and delusion, rebirth in a lower realm, i. On the other hand, where a person has performed skillful actions based on generosity, loving-kindness metta , compassion and wisdom, rebirth in a happy realm, i.

Yet the mechanism of rebirth with kamma is not deterministic. It depends on various levels of kamma. The most important moment that determines where a person is reborn into is the last thought moment.


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At that moment, heavy kamma would ripen if there were performed, if not then near death kamma, if not then habitual kamma, finally if none of the above happened, then residual kamma from previous actions can ripen. According to Theravada Buddhism, there are 31 realms of existence that one can be reborn into. Pure Land Buddhism of Mahayana believes in a special place apart from the 31 planes of existence called Pure Land.

It is believed that each Buddha has their own pure land, created out of their merits for the sake of sentient beings who recall them mindfully to be able to be reborn in their pure land and train to become a Buddha there. Thus the main practice of pure land Buddhism is to chant a Buddha's name. In Tibetan Buddhism the Tibetan Book of the Dead explains the intermediate state of humans between death and reincarnation.

The deceased will find the bright light of wisdom, which shows a straightforward path to move upward and leave the cycle of reincarnation. There are various reasons why the deceased do not follow that light. Some had no briefing about the intermediate state in the former life. Others only used to follow their basic instincts like animals. And some have fear, which results from foul deeds in the former life or from insistent haughtiness. In the intermediate state the awareness is very flexible, so it is important to be virtuous, adopt a positive attitude, and avoid negative ideas.

Ideas which are rising from subconsciousness can cause extreme tempers and cowing visions. In this situation they have to understand, that these manifestations are just reflections of the inner thoughts. No one can really hurt them, because they have no more material body.

The deceased get help from different Buddhas who show them the path to the bright light. The ones who do not follow the path after all will get hints for a better reincarnation. They have to release the things and beings on which or whom they still hang from the life before. It is recommended to choose a family where the parents trust in the Dharma and to reincarnate with the will to care for the welfare of all beings.

There are 10 life states of any life: Hell, hunger, anger, animality, rapture, humanity, learning, realization, bodhisatva and buddhahood. The life dies in which life condition it reborn in the same life condition. The Upanishads describe reincarnation punarjanma see also: The Bhagavad Gita , an important Hindu script, talks extensively about the afterlife. Here, Krishna says that just as a man discards his old clothes and wears new ones; similarly the soul discards the old body and takes on a new one. In Hinduism, the belief is that the body is nothing but a shell, the soul inside is immutable and indestructible and takes on different lives in a cycle of birth and death.

The end of this cycle is called mukti Sanskrit: The Garuda Purana deals solely with what happens to a person after death. The God of Death Yama sends his representatives to collect the soul from a person's body whenever he is due for death and they take the soul to Yama. According to the Garuda Purana, a soul after leaving the body travels through a very long and dark tunnel towards the South. This is why an oil lamp is lit and kept beside the head of the corpse, to light the dark tunnel and allow the soul to travel comfortably.

The soul, called atman leaves the body and reincarnates itself according to the deeds or karma performed by one in last birth. Rebirth would be in form of animals or other lower creatures if one performed bad karmas and in human form in a good family with joyous lifetime if the person was good in last birth. In between the two births a human is also required to either face punishments for bad karmas in " naraka " or hell or enjoy for the good karmas in swarga or heaven for good deeds.

Whenever his or her punishments or rewards are over he or she is sent back to earth, also known as Mrutyulok or human world. Atma moves with Parmatma or the greatest soul. Soul is believed to be indestructible. None of the five elements can harm or influence it. Hinduism through Garuda Purana also describes in detail various types of narkas or Hells where a person after death is punished for his bad karmas and dealt with accordingly.

Hindus also believe in karma. Karma is the accumulated sums of one's good or bad deeds. Satkarma means good deeds, vikarma means bad deeds. According to Hinduism the basic concept of karma is 'As you sow, you shall reap'. So, if a person has lived a good life, they will be rewarded in the afterlife. Similarly their sum of bad deeds will be mirrored in their next life.

Good karma brings good rewards and bad karmas lead to bad results. There is no judgment here. People accumulate karma through their actions and even thoughts. In Bhagavad Gita when Arjuna hesitates to kill his kith and kin the lord reprimands him saying thus "Do you believe that you are the doer of the action. You are merely an instrument in MY hands. Do you believe that the people in front of you are living? Dear Arjuna, they are already dead. As a kshatriya warrior it is your duty to protect your people and land. If you fail to do your duty, then you are not adhering to dharmic principles.

Jainism also believes in the after life. They believe that the soul takes on a body form based on previous karmas or actions performed by that soul through eternity. Jains believe the soul is eternal and that the freedom from the cycle of reincarnation is the means to attain eternal bliss. Sikhism may have a belief in the afterlife. They believe that the soul belongs to the spiritual universe which has its origins in God. However it's been a matter of great debate amongst the Sikhs about Sikhism's belief in afterlife.

Many believe that Sikhism endorses the afterlife and the concept of reward and punishment as there are verses given in Guru Granth Sahib , but a large number of Sikhs believe otherwise and treat those verses as metaphorical or poetic. Also it has been noted by many scholars that the Guru Granth Sahib includes poetic renditions from multiple saints and religious traditions like that of Kabir , Farid and Ramananda.

The essential doctrine is to experience the divine through simple living, meditation and contemplation while being alive. Sikhism also has the belief of being in union with God while living. Accounts of afterlife are considered to be aimed at the popular prevailing views of the time so as to provide a referential framework without necessarily establishing a belief in the afterlife. Thus while it is also acknowledged that living the life of a householder is above the metaphysical truth, Sikhism can be considered agnostic to the question of an afterlife.

Some scholars also interpret the mention of reincarnation to be naturalistic akin to the biogeochemical cycles. But if one analyses the Sikh Scriptures carefully, one may find that on many occasions the afterlife and the existence of heaven and hell are mentioned in Guru Granth Sahib and in Dasam granth , so from that it can be concluded that Sikhism does believe in the existence of heaven and hell; however, heaven and hell are created to temporarily reward and punish, and one will then take birth again until one merges in God.

According to the Sikh scriptures, the human form is the closet form to God and the best opportunity for a human being to attain salvation and merge back with God. Sikh Gurus said that nothing dies, nothing is born, everything is ever present, and it just changes forms.

Like standing in front of a wardrobe, you pick up a dress and wear it and then you discard it. You wear another one. Thus, in the view of Sikhism, your soul is never born and never dies. Your soul is a part of God and hence lives forever. Traditional African religions are diverse in their beliefs in an afterlife.

Hunter-gatherer societies such as the Hadza have no particular belief in an afterlife, and the death of an individual is a straightforward end to their existence. What is reincarnated are some of the dominant characteristics of the ancestor and not his soul. For each soul remains distinct and each birth represents a new soul.

The Mende believe that people die twice: However, some Mende also believe that after people are created by God they live ten consecutive lives, each in progressively descending worlds. It is common for families to participate in ceremonies for children at a shrine, yet have a Buddhist funeral at the time of death. This yomi very closely resembles the Greek Hades ; however, later myths include notions of resurrection and even Elysium -like descriptions such as in the legend of Okuninushi and Susanoo.

Shinto tends to hold negative views on death and corpses as a source of pollution called kegare. However, death is also viewed as a path towards apotheosis in Shintoism as can be evidenced by how legendary individuals become enshrined after death. Perhaps the most famous would be Emperor Ojin who was enshrined as Hachiman the God of War after his death. Some Unitarian Universalists believe in universalism: Most Unitarian Universalists believe that heaven and hell are symbolic places of consciousness and the faith is largely focused on the worldly life rather than any possible afterlife.

According to Edgar Cayce , the afterlife consisted of nine realms equated with the nine planets of astrology. The first, symbolized by Saturn, was a level for the purification of the souls. The second, Mercury's realm, gives us the ability to consider problems as a whole. The third of the nine soul realms is ruled by Earth and is associated with the Earthly pleasures. The fourth realm is where we find out about love and is ruled by Venus. The fifth realm is where we meet our limitations and is ruled by Mars.

The sixth realm is ruled by Neptune, and is where we begin to use our creative powers and free ourselves from the material world. The seventh realm is symbolized by Jupiter, which strengthens the soul's ability to depict situations, to analyze people and places, things, and conditions. The eighth afterlife realm is ruled by Uranus and develops psychic ability. The ninth afterlife realm is symbolized by Pluto, the astrological realm of the unconscious.

This afterlife realm is a transient place where souls can choose to travel to other realms or other solar systems, it is the souls liberation into eternity, and is the realm that opens the doorway from our solar system into the cosmos. Mainstream Spiritualists postulate a series of seven realms that are not unlike Edgar Cayce's nine realms ruled by the planets.

As it evolves, the soul moves higher and higher until it reaches the ultimate realm of spiritual oneness. The first realm, equated with hell, is the place where troubled souls spend a long time before they are compelled to move up to the next level. The second realm, where most souls move directly, is thought of as an intermediate transition between the lower planes of life and hell and the higher perfect realms of the universe. The third level is for those who have worked with their karmic inheritance.

The fourth level is that from which evolved souls teach and direct those on Earth. The fifth level is where the soul leaves human consciousness behind. At the sixth plane, the soul is finally aligned with the cosmic consciousness and has no sense of separateness or individuality. Finally, the seventh level, the goal of each soul, is where the soul transcends its own sense of "soulfulness" and reunites with the World Soul and the universe. The Wiccan afterlife is most commonly described as The Summerland. Here, souls rest, recuperate from life, and reflect on the experiences they had during their lives.

After a period of rest, the souls are reincarnated, and the memory of their previous lives is erased. Many Wiccans see The Summerland as a place to reflect on their life actions. It is not a place of reward, but rather the end of a life journey at an end point of incarnations.

Zoroastrianism states that the urvan , the disembodied spirit, lingers on earth for three days before departing downward to the kingdom of the dead that is ruled by Yima. For the three days that it rests on Earth, righteous souls sit at the head of their body, chanting the Ustavaiti Gathas with joy, while a wicked person sits at the feet of the corpse, wails and recites the Yasna. Zoroastrianism states that for the righteous souls, a beautiful maiden, which is the personification of the soul's good thoughts, words and deeds, appears.

For a wicked person, a very old, ugly, naked hag appears. Yima is believed to have been the first king on earth to rule, as well as the first man to die. Inside of Yima's realm, the spirits live a shadowy existence, and are dependent on their own descendants which are still living on Earth. Their descendants are to satisfy their hunger and clothe them, through rituals done on earth. Rituals which are done on the first three days are vital and important, as they protect the soul from evil powers and give it strength to reach the underworld.

After three days, the soul crosses Chinvat bridge which is the Final Judgment of the soul. Rashnu and Sraosha are present at the final judgment. The list is expanded sometimes, and include Vahman and Ormazd. Rashnu is the yazata who holds the scales of justice. If the good deeds of the person outweigh the bad, the soul is worthy of paradise. If the bad deeds outweigh the good, the bridge narrows down to the width of a blade-edge, and a horrid hag pulls the soul in her arms, and takes it down to hell with her. Misvan Gatu is the "place of the mixed ones" where the souls lead a gray existence, lacking both joy and sorrow.

The Society for Psychical Research was founded in with the express intention of investigating phenomena relating to Spiritualism and the afterlife. Its members continue to conduct scientific research on the paranormal to this day. Some of the earliest attempts to apply scientific methods to the study of phenomena relating to an afterlife were conducted by this organization. Its earliest members included noted scientists like William Crookes , and philosophers such as Henry Sidgwick and William James. Parapsychological investigation of the afterlife includes the study of haunting , apparitions of the deceased, instrumental trans-communication, electronic voice phenomena , and mediumship.

A study conducted in by physician Duncan MacDougall sought to measure the weight lost by a human when the soul "departed the body" upon death. Although MacDougall's results varied considerably from "21 grams", for some people this figure has become synonymous with the measure of a soul's mass. His results have never been reproduced, and are generally regarded either as meaningless or considered to have had little if any scientific merit.

Frank Tipler has argued that physics can explain immortality, though such arguments are not falsifiable and thus do not qualify, in Karl Popper 's views, as science. After 25 years of parapsychological research, Susan Blackmore came to the conclusion that there is no empirical evidence for an afterlife. There is still the position, based on the philosophical question of personal identity , termed open individualism , and in some ways similar to the old belief of monopsychism , that concludes that individual existence is illusory, and our consciousness continues existing after death in other conscious beings.

Certain problems arise with the idea of a particular person continuing after death. Peter van Inwagen , in his argument regarding resurrection, notes that the materialist must have some sort of physical continuity. If the replica had all the same experiences, traits, and physical appearances of the first person, we would all attribute the same identity to the second, according to Hick. In the panentheistic model of process philosophy and theology the writers Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne rejected that the universe was made of substance , instead reality is composed of living experiences occasions of experience.

According to Hartshorne people do not experience subjective or personal immortality in the afterlife, but they do have objective immortality because their experiences live on forever in God , who contains all that was. However other process philosophers such as David Ray Griffin have written that people may have subjective experience after death. Psychological proposals for the origin of a belief in an afterlife include cognitive disposition, cultural learning, and as an intuitive religious idea. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For other uses, see Afterlife disambiguation.

For other uses, see After death disambiguation , Life after death disambiguation , and Hereafter disambiguation. Ethical egoism Euthyphro dilemma Logical positivism Religious language Verificationism eschatological Problem of evil Theodicy Augustinian Irenaean Best of all possible worlds Inconsistent triad Natural evil. Criticism of religion Ethics in religion Exegesis Faith and rationality History of religions Political science of religion Religion and science Religious philosophy Theology. This section needs additional citations for verification.

Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. July Learn how and when to remove this template message. Christian eschatology , Heaven in Christianity , Christian views on hell , and Intermediate state. This section relies too much on references to primary sources.

Please improve this section by adding secondary or tertiary sources. Islamic view of death , Barzakh , and Akhirah. November Learn how and when to remove this template message. This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. December Learn how and when to remove this template message. Near-death studies and Near death experience. McClelland , pp. Laumakis , pp. State University of New York Press. Quinn, A Companion to Philosophy of Religion.

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Buddhists believe in karma and rebirth, and yet they deny the existence of permanent souls. Shrimad Rajchandra Mission Dharampur. Retrieved 21 January What happens after death? Death and Afterlife in African Religions". Perspectives of World Religions. The entire process of death and burial is simple, without elaborate rituals and beliefs in an afterlife. The social and spiritual existence of the person ends with the burial of the corpse. The belief in the ancestors remains a strong and active spiritual and moral force in the daily lives of the Yombe; the ancestors are thought to intervene in the affairs of the living The afterlife is this world.

The following morning a small ritual was held, and Nathaniel was officially announced to the world not only as Denju but as N'zri Denju—Grandfather Denju—an honorific that came to be used even by Nathaniel's closest playing companions. In Badham, Paul; Badham, Linda. Death and Immortality in the Religions of the World. Retrieved 23 June The process of being born, dying, and moving to a lower level of earth continues through ten lives.

The ancestors are of people, whereas God is external to creation. They are of this world and close to the living. The Yombe believe that the afterlife of the ancestors lies in this world and that they are a spiritual and moral force within it. Death represents a transition from corporeal to incorporeal life in the religious heritage of Africa and the incorporeal life is taken to be as real as the corporeal.

University Press of America. Retrieved 25 June The A to Z of Unitarian Universalism. Searching for Spiritual Unity Can There Be Common Ground? The Complete Guide to Otherworldly Experience. Is there an afterlife. A comprehensive overview of the evidence. Retrieved 6 August Spook — Science Tackles the Afterlife. Belief in the Age of Science. The Metaphysical Foundations for Global Ethics. State University of New York, p.

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