Life after Death

So to these questions of, “what happens to us after we die, or what is it like after we do? Is it the end or is there more?” The birth of these questions and the answer we came up with in response to these questions in the initial days was basically what we now have come to call “religion”.

The theory began with the assumption of a world beyond. A world that was associated with an entity called God. There were realities other than ours, dimensions beyond ours. We now call them “supernatural” since they’re not of our own natural world. But how did these thought processes come about exactly? Let’s take a look at that.

Death has always been universal. It has also been, I would assume, quite confusing. How is it that this person talking and walking right next to us, is now unable to carry forward with any kind of function? What happened to them?

To early humans, we have to understand that the knowledge base, the information available about any of this was very limited. Now we have an extensive array of machines that help us - to an extent - precisely identify what is happening within our bodies, and trained professionals who can give us an approximation as to what exactly is going on in our bodies, what’s happening with what we may call our “life-force”. But back then, what might be the signals, when someone stops communicating or when someone may stop being able to elicit any kind of response to any kind of stimuli? What might be the first sign that we may all identify first? Breath.

Breath. It’s something that’s within us. And yet not of us. Separate from our physical bodies, and yet what seems to be the cause of our life. So this person, who was with us, is no longer breathing. They’re no longer with us. And hence the idea of a “spirit” was born. (from the Latin spiritus meaning breath or to blow). Spirits were what made the physical body live. They left the physical body when the body could no longer sustain life, i.e., only the physical body died. But where did these spirits go?

To the world beyond. That’s what the answer was.

A lot of animals mourn the dead, but only humans seem to have been burying the dead for as long as we can see. For ages, we have not only buried our dead but we have carefully planned and ensured that we carry out these processes that we call funerals.

We can derive an understanding of the beliefs ancient humans held regarding these by looking at how they conducted these funerals. And from it, we come to see the above.

With a deeper look into these practices, we’ll turn toward symbolism and their importance in the next one.

Ciao for now!