Do we ‘wink out’ when this physical life ends, can we earn immortality — or are we already immortal?
By Jim Hatton
The prospect of eternal life is a very attractive one. Especially when it is combined with the idea of living in a peaceful, blissful state with endless beauty and all the material items one could want.
As Morgan Freeman pointed out in his television series “The Story of God” on National Geographic, many of the great traditions have used the offer of eternal life as a tool to draw people into the tradition and assure us that a heavenly state will be achieved if one acts in certain ways and professes certain beliefs.
Freeman also demonstrated the idea that someone or something keeping track of the actions and deeds in our lives helps to control us into conforming to a pre-subscribed group of ideas and beliefs. I call this the “Great Scoreboard in the Sky.” It is a common belief both in and out of religion, especially in Western society.
In doing spiritual counseling, I find that the greatest fear that many have is the fear of death. That fear of death is not so much the fear of eternal punishment as it is the fear of nonexistence. In other words, many fear that after this physical life is over we “go blank” or ‘wink out.” There is nothing left of us; we go unconscious forever.
I recently attended a celebration of life service. During the service the following passage was read:
And now, dear brothers and sisters, we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like people who have not hope. For since we believe that that Jesus died and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with him the believers who have died. — Christian Testament: Thessalonians 4:13-14 NLT
As I listened to those words being read, I had the thought that in order to have the prospect of eternal life, we must assume that we are not eternal already. The common fear I spoke of earlier of “winking out” must weigh heavily and consistently on many people’s consciousness.
But what if we didn’t have to worry about doing the right things, and believing in the “right way” to obtain eternal life? What if we already knew that after we are done with this “space suit” body our awareness, soul, consciousness or whatever we want to call it, is, in fact, eternal?
In the tradition of the Kabbalah, we humans are all emanations of the divine. That is, the qualities, likeness and presence of the divine are part of our inherent nature.
Earnest Holmes writes:
“Man is born of eternal day, not because he wills or wishes it, not because he labors or strives toward it, not because he earns it as a reward, but simply because the Spirit has breathed life into him. And the Spirit which has breathed this life into him has breathed Its own Life and cannot unbreathe It or take It away.” — “You Will Live Forever,” Holmes Star Publishing, 2012
The idea of eternal life is not that we live in our current physical bodies forever, although ancient texts allude to living 800 years or more. Our current bodies are a specially designed “space suit” in which to enable us to experience the physical world. Although closely tied and connected, our bodies are not us. We will eventually discard this magnificent vehicle to move on to greater and greater expression, much like a lizard outgrows and sheds its skin as it grows in stature.
If we can accept and embody what we truly are, which is pure consciousness, that we do not have to do anything to obtain immortality, and that we are already immortal, we can set aside all fears and live with a deeper inner peace.
Jim Hatton is an author, apiritual teacher and speaker. He makes his home in the Rogue Valley, Southern Oregon. Contact him at [email protected].
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