Life After Death is a popular topic with varying opinions
about its possibility. But what about life before death? What characterizes
life? The answer to this question heavily influences our opinion about the
possibility of life after death. And in fact, it decisively influences our
definition of death too.
If life is just about pumping of the heart and activity
of the brain, then absence of these two can be called death. But life is more
than the functioning of an electro-chemical mechanical system; life is about
consciousness – about thinking, feeling, desiring. Life is about the ability to
perceive. Consciousness is what differentiates a man from a machine, a live
human from a dead one.
No characteristic of matter (atoms, molecules, electrons,
etc.) suggests that it can be the source of consciousness or the seat of
perception. What, or who is it, that perceives or is conscious? For example, a
periscope helps me see beyond a high wall, but I can see not because of the
periscope, but because I have eyes that can see. The periscope is merely the
medium through which the light rays are reaching my eyes. Similarly, the eyes
of my body are merely the arrangements of atoms that allow light to pass
through. I see what I see, not because of the atomic arrangement of my eyes,
but because I have the ability to perceive and make sense of the incoming
light.
That I is the soul. I can see, hear, feel, think, will,
etc. only because I (the soul) have these abilities. These perceptive abilities
that characterize consciousness are the inherent qualities of the soul. Since
matter does not have these abilities, we understand that the soul is unlike
matter. The soul is non-material, it is spiritual.
The soul does not depend on matter for its fundamental
abilities of perception. In fact, its fundamental abilities to perceive are
conditioned by the nature and state of the body that it occupies. For example,
going back to the periscope example, how well I can see beyond the high wall
depends on how clean the lens of the periscope is. Even if my eyesight is
perfect, a dirty lens will hamper my perception. Thus, to define life in terms
of a pumping heart and an active brain is like defining eyesight in terms of
the condition of the periscope. Just like my fundamental ability to see is not
dependent on the periscope, the soul does not depend on the body for any of its
fundamental abilities.
Since the soul, characterized by consciousness, does not
depend on anything that makes up the body while it’s in the body, we understand
that the soul does not need the body for its existence. The body is merely a
lump of matter; it is always dead. Life is when a soul occupies a body and
animates it; death is when the soul moves on to leave behind a dead lump of
matter – the body.
Life exists not because of a functioning body, but
despite being in an inherently dead body. If life exists even before death, it
definitely can exist after death.
