~ Essay on the subject: “afterlife” (and the CAKE-walk theory ) ~

The choice is not simple… a) face the mortal fact that death is the end of our individual existence… forever… done deal… or b) indulge some (fantasy) ideas about post-mortal/afterlife (new-life) experiences to come… It is a difficult choice: to be realistic and purely logical and scientific in graciously accepting the death of the body as the ultimate end to our identity and our (perceptions of) self-awareness … or, on the other hand, to project fantastical (unrealistic) expectations onto our individual (extended) story-lines… to image that, after death, we might end up in heaven… to rejoin our families and friends… or that we might end up in a fiery, eternal inferno for our sins… or that we might be reincarnated into this world in any number of forms… the door to fantasy-land is wide open… come on in.

The choice is to stay real and go peacefully into the night… or resist the immutable facts in favor of some preferred projections of so-many eternal possibilities.

So I have to ask myself these questions… am I a fatalist, convinced of my eventual forever-death, or am I a misguided dreamer… preferring the unlikely and improbable (impossible?) premise that there is no final ending… and that individual immortality is assured in the due-course of things?

It quickly rolls around to the prime question… “is God real?” One might be tempted to imply that the existence of God is a requirement of the “eternal-life” proposition… contending (if eternal-life in any form could, somehow, be proven) that God/HIMSELF purposefully and with “conscious” intent, singularly provides (is?) the vector, or the mechanism/medium for the trans-migration of (extra-dimensional(?)/perpetual) life energy into the afterlife. Therefore God must be a fact. Oops… there are flaws in that supposition. Just because the science is not there (yet?) to support it (eternal life) as a fact, does not mean that it necessarily takes more than mere science to facilitate a condition of universal-eternal mortality.

I don’t like (accept) the idea that mortal death is the ultimate and final end to the universal-life experience… even in light of it’s immutability… I prefer to opt out from accepting the facts, as they seem to be. I prefer the absolute and un-abashed fantasy: that I will live/exist (consciously?) (in one form or another)… forever... which amounts to a selfish and scientifically un-founded declaration, I know… but I am not willing to (can’t actually?) accept that the universe will spin on forever without my being there to experience it… in one form or another (or that the universe has an end at all, for that matter).
I trust that the (extra dimensional?) science (that we have yet to learn?/may never know) is incorporate… to insure our safe passages across… into our future incarnations…

It is curious to note that people who profess a believe in God… will always say they believe in eternal-life. Many will say that heaven and hell are the only options… some say just heaven… some say there’s a purgatory… some say we are reincarnated, and with karmic dues and debts to be settled in subsequent lives and bodies… (Zen Buddhism, etc). But, virtually all who believe in (or experience) God believe: His very existence is part and parcel of the promise of eternal self-re-cognition… weather we are incarnated or simply re-incorporated (in a self-aware spirit-form (angel?) …back into the cosmos.

But, it is not true that you have to believe in God to imagine/fantasize that MERE SCIENCE alone might (co-)author life-eternal… as a function of cosmic balance. The Hindu religions, for instance, profess to believe that once we get it right, here on earth… we can then move on and not HAVE to be reborn into a body in the world… then becoming one with the universe… for eternity…

But, couldn’t it be true though, that God may be real (for what he has obviously authored, otherwise, etc.) and, that in the end, the promise of eternal life is the big hoax… ? God authored the universe (nature/science) and put it in motion… but does he play politics with mortality… and eternity?

As a professed follower of Christ… I have made a conscious choice to accept the FANTASY promise of eternal life (as opposed to the fact of the lack of proof of the existence of a afterlife at all)… for He said, “THIS is the way to eternal life… and THIS is how to get into heaven (paraphrased).” The Christ, Jesus, was a mortal man… science tells me this. In spite of the wisdom of The Christ founded in him… the man, Jesus, had no ideas about how mere science might get us into heaven (or hell)… he had (and offers us) faith, only… (in the guise of special knowledge?) to get him/us past the empty void of mortal death,… and into the promised/fantasyland of heaven (or other). It is in His (the) promise of eternal life that all inspiration is founded.

The insistence that we should enjoy additional life (lives) after we die is so incessant in our minds that we even entertain imaginative extraneous vectors for the passing-over into the afterlife… in the form of zombies and vampires, for example… the un-dead and the half-dead. And now… according to contemporary science fiction (as well as emerging science) we are now facing a future where the immortality vector du jour is a computer processing chip… or electro-plasma synapse processors… a melding of mind and machine that promises a godless (soulless?/bodiless?) immortality for all. (Dracula will have to wait)…
If zombies and vampires are your choice for potential after-life vectors… I would suggest, while you’re out there in fantasyland anyway, why don’t you quest for a more congenial solution to the eternal-death dilemma.

Supposing that we were born with the absolute knowledge that the end (physical death) IS indeed THE END… that is hardly an inspiring thought… Would such a world-realized suffer for the lack of a possibility of eternal life, and the fact of the loss of inspiration unto limitless dreams… or dreams with endless possibilities… and isn’t that what our selfish claims to the province of eternal life is entirely all about?

So given that there is much disagreement on exactly the fantasy vector of choice, I have endeavored to conceived my own thoughtful (but convenient?) theory on how life after death might somehow be a scientifically viable, supposition, after all… with or without God’s purposeful consent or instruction… but having some residual faith that He will guide (inspire) us… what ever our destiny…

Adhering, then, to the spirit of life-on-going/life-eternal, I have concocted one far-out fantasy about how the afterlife could (maybe?) work in accordance with the natural science of the universe.
I call it the “Cake-Walk Theory".
The theory allows that there are many (available) realities running parallel throughout co-existing multiple universes, virtually on top of one another (over lapping). For the sake of clarity… imagine that you are on a train… your perceived life moving forward along the rails... but there is an infinite number of tracks running side by side… into the linear future. At any moment, each of us has to ability to employ the rail switch (the miracle-shift) (instant-karma, etc.) and instantly, seamlessly jump to/a concurrent and (nearly) congruent track… thus changing our perceived reality and our associated destiny … through time. We literally choose our separate realities as we go… One unsettling aspect though… this model requires that our personal subjective reality must be totally disconnected from the subjective realities of “others”… we are truly alone, according to the law of specialized universes. And the entire universe(s) is a single phantasmal figment of our God-like (cosmic/spontaneously-creative) MIND.

And finally, Cake-Walk Theory (Cognition-Actuated Kinetic Exchange) (yeah, corny, I know…) employs an integrated telescoping time scale… (still working on this aspect) that “reflects/echos” a converse value in the shape of an endless kinetic energy loop… that perpetually returns the MIND back to it’s source in re-creation (rebirth… in heaven or hell or something in-between… as is your exclusive (karmic) choice… based on your active (actualizing) karmic/kinetic energy exchange; Ala the phantasmal rebirth of my/your Cake-Walk mechanism dynamically imposes repeated similar, consecutive, carnal experiences. In effect we live the same life over and over… until we consciously activate (actualize) the alternative-reality track switch (free will) along the way. By way of the telescopic-time aspect… no one ever actually dies, in terms of personal experiences… due to phased soul-migration/identification (back through time by way of kinetic re-cognition (soul-memory). Think of it like this: The body dies… but our soul-memory has reserved a path back to our birth… where we literally start all over again… but memories (in this science) can not be saved from the future… and so we must be babies and relearn the world anew… (but whose complaining?).

Okay, so I know my little theory here is totally self-serving and pre-concluded to suit my personal preferences of how I WISH things might be… but compared to the other popular fantasies, I think its as good as any. It doesn’t disagree with the God-as-creator premise… it supports the unlikely reincarnation premise… it allows that we will indeed see our families, friends and loved ones again… and it incorporates the idea that WE are in control our destiny; to be reborn in a heavenly world or a hellish world… or some in-between state of purgatory, based on (instant/actualized) karmic dynamics (kinetic energy exchanges, etc.) I know it’s a bit technical… my grand plan for immortality… but at least I won’t have to go blood-sucking and sneaking around for midnight snacks in my next life.

Many have experienced a sense that “I have been here and done this before” … Even so… I will resist claiming the common “deja vu” experience as being proof of any “we-have-all-been-here-before” theories. Then again… who can say.

Have a happy Cake-Walk into your next incarnation… see you in a neighboring universe… (in no rush though!).