No One Knows What Happens After Death. And That’s Good

Last Updated on June 15, 2024 by The Unbounded Thinker

‘What happens after death? Will we enter the eternal nothingness that frees us of sense-perception, emotional turmoil, worry and rumination, and the enslavement of our bodies? Will we return to the flesh again for another cycle of life on Earth? Or will we enter another world for better or worse? No one knows for sure. But what we do know is that mortality is upon us.’ – Enzelganger, Stoicism for Inner Peace

No one knows what happens after death. What everybody surely knows is that our bodies decompose. But no one knows what happens to the individual consciousness (us) after death.

Many indigenous societies claim to know what happens after death. Some societies believe we’ll turn into animals and others believe we’ll be absorbed into Infinite Intelligence. Most believe bad people will be punished, and good people will live a happy life after death. The different beliefs about life after death show that all indigenous societies do not know what actually happens after death.

Most of us believe Near-Death Experience (NDE) accounts provide accurate information about life after death. Although these accounts have common elements, they are highly different. Some people see a large endless land, others see an endless sea, and others go through a tunnel. Some see deceased relatives, others see demons, and others see a white staircase leading to a golden gate.

People from different religions also have different NDE accounts. Christians claim to meet Jesus while Muslims claim to meet Prophet Muhammad.

Thus, NDEs do not provide accurate information about life after death. They only show us that the mind creates afterlife worlds based on our belief systems.

We must admit that we do not know what happens after death. Maybe death is like sleep or maybe there is neither punishment nor reward after death. Maybe there is heaven and hell.

Instead of admitting that we know nothing about the afterlife, we develop theories about what happens after death to console ourselves when our loved ones die. These theories make us believe that our deceased loved ones still exist and we will meet them when we die.

None of us knows and has experienced what happens after death, and this is good because it makes life interesting. Once we admit that our intelligence is limited and we cannot understand life after death, we’ll realize that this reality is the only reality we truly know. We’ll then commit to living life to the fullest because we’ll realize that this might be the last time we are experiencing life as physical entities.

Realizing that death might be the end of our memories, personality, beliefs, ideas, or what we call the soul, will encourage us to treasure every moment and show love to our friends and relatives because this might be our last time with them.

Maybe we cry when our loved ones die because we intuitively know that we might never see them again.

Death is a mystery. And it’s good we do not know what happens when we die. Most of us could have committed suicide if we certainly knew that life after death is a life of endless peace and joy. This knowledge could have encouraged us to focus on the afterlife instead of physical reality. Therefore, not knowing what happens after death allows us to focus on this life and get the most out of it.

Don’t waste your time trying to know what happens after death because you will only know when you die. Or maybe you might not even know because everything about you might also die when you die.