So What Really Happens After Death?

I had promised in my previous blog that I will write today on the Biblical perspective on death and after life, in which I strongly believe.

Bible, in the Old Testament (OT), the scripture of the Jews/Israel, continued as the Scripture of the Christians as OT, does not clearly mention much about after life. Psalmist writes about not being left in the grave to rot (Psalm 16:10) and Job talks about seeing his Redeemer alive after death (Job 19: 25-26). There is a hint of resurrection and judgment in the life to come in these, but quite vague.

The main idea is that the dead go to the realm of the dead, called Sheol, a Hebrew word, may be a place deep down in the pit or just go to sleep in their graves, forgotten by everyone, including God (Psalm 88:3-4). When the Hebrew Bible (OT) was translated into Greek, called Septuagint, around 285 BC, during the reign of Ptolomy II Philadelphia, Egypt, the word Sheol was replaced by the Greek word Hades, which meant the underworld.

 It is only by the time of Prophet Daniel a clear idea of the dead coming to life again and facing judgment of God and being assigned specific places, emerges. “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt,” writes Daniel in Daniel 12:2. Daniel lived as an exile in Babylon, during the reign of Kings Nebuchadnezzar, Darius and Cyrus, around 530 BC.

After the return of Jews from exile to Jerusalem, around 538 BC, during the reign of the Persian Emperor, Cyrus the Great, Sheol was seen as a place of darkness below earth, where both the good and the bad souls go after death, but to separate compartments, the bad to torment and punishment and the good to comfort and solace, a sort of temporary abode for the dead.

This idea was reflected by Jesus himself when he narrated the story of the rich man and Lazarus, the beggar, in Luke 16:19-31. In the afterlife, while the rich man was being tormented in a hell-like place, Lazarus was comforted in the bosom of Abraham, both separated by a great gulf.

During Jesus’ time, Pharisees, the most orthodox Jews, believed in resurrection, while the Sadducees, consisting of aristocratic Jews collaborating with the Roman rulers, did not believe in resurrection.

A human being, according to the Hebrew thought, prevailing at the time of Jesus, which has come into Christianity, consisted of three parts, the physical body, the soul or the inner person and the spirit. The physical body is meant mainly for life on earth and once we die, it decays and returns to dust from where man was originally taken during creation.

Genesis 2:7 narrates that “the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.” After the Fall, that happened due to the disobedience of the first couple, Adam and Eve, when God handed over their respective punishments, He told Adam, “For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.” Genesis 3:19.

The soul, or the inner man or the real man, consists all that makes him/her a human being. His/her rational thinking power or the mind which analyses any situation, the will which takes the decision under any situation and the feelings or emotions associated with any and every situation. These make what we are in our daily human life.

This soul of a human being on death is lodged in a temporary abode, either in the hell-like place, if the person was bad and tormented or in a heaven-like place, where good persons go and are comforted. Jesus, while hanging on the cross, called this latter place Paradise, for imminent as his death was, he promised the thief who hung by his side and acknowledged him as Lord, that “…today you will be with Me in Paradise.” Luke 23:43.

The spirit of human beings is the part that communicates with his/her Maker, Creator. This is the spirit given to us during our creation and this is the part that got disconnected during the Fall. We have been asked to “worship God the Father in spirit and truth,” for “God is Spirit.” John 4:23-24.

To understand about the spirit of a human being, think of a car being driven by a driver. Men and women are the physical body with the soul, both being driven by the spirit. It is the spirit of human being that really maneuvers the human personality to make it take a certain course of action or path in life, just like a car is being driven by the driver, who decides where to go. So we say that the human spirit is indomitable.

In accepting Christ as our Lord and Savior, we put our spirits under the control of God’s Spirit, that is, the Holy Spirit, who maneuvers our life to the right path according to the will of God. When our spirits rule, we are usually selfish, determined to go our way and do bring innumerable sufferings to ourselves and others.

On death our spirit returns to its Maker, God. Ecclesiastes 12:7, “and the spirit will return to God, who gave it.” 

Now, back to where we began. On death the body perishes, the soul goes to sleep as it were, but is conscious and is either suffering or comforted, as the case may be, and the spirit returns to God. Then what? For how long these remain so? What happens ultimately?

The death, burial and the resurrection of Jesus on the third day as prophesied by him brought in clarity to a subject shrouded in mystery till then. Jesus Christ rose from the dead, was resurrected by God and appeared to His disciples many times, during a period of 40 days, before He was take to the heavens. Eyewitnesses have written about this in the gospels, and in the historical documents called the Acts of the Apostles. Acts 1:3, 9.

The resurrection of Jesus showed us without doubt that at the end of the age, we all, both good and the bad, saved and unsaved, will be raised from the dead, that is, resurrected to face judgment of God. We will have glorious bodies, not our earthly physical bodies, which have decayed on our death, but will be clothed in a glorious, resurrection body, suitable for life in the spirit realm. I Corinthians 15:44.

Apostle Paul writes in detail about these matters in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 15. The end of the age as we know will be marked by the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, who will come in power and glory. On His return to earth, the dead will rise again and those who believed in Him, but not yet dead, will be transformed in a trice and taken to heaven. Everyone will be transformed and face the judgment of God. 

Judgment scene itself is described in the Book of Revelation, the last book in the Bible, in the New Testament. Revelation 20:11-15. All the dead will stand before God’s throne. Based on the deeds done on earth, recorded in books, God will judge the nations and the individuals.

Those who believed in Christ and the good will go to inherit heaven and live for eternity in glory and in the presence of God and Christ. No further death for them.

Those who denied Christ and the wicked will be cast into hell fire along with the enemies of God, Satan, his followers and death itself, to be tormented for eternity, in the darkness, without the glorious presence of God and Christ. Bible calls this the Second Death. Revelation 20:14.

So is the urgent call by the believers to others to repent and accept Christ as their Savior and inherit eternal life and not face that horrible Second Death. Those who accept this call will find eternal life. This experience is called the 'conversion,' and such persons become 'born again.' 

God help you to find the right path.   

After Death, then what?

This is a question that confronts everyone, whether young or old, rich or poor, male or female, including in today’s parlance, black or white! I might as well add high caste or low caste, Brahmin or Dalit! It is one phenomenon that equalizes every one. In this world of uncertainty, one thing is certain that is, every one of us will, one day or the other, die.  

World religions and philosophies have tried their best to answer this question from ages past, but without great success. Why is it so difficult? Mainly because no one who has gone to the other world or the netherworld has come back to tell us as to what it is or how it is.

Though these days YouTube abounds with videos of people who swear that they have gone to hell and come back to warn us or gone to heaven and described the beauty of it. How far these accounts are reliable, we do not know. One may have to take in these with a liberal pinch of salt!

Then there are people who are declared clinically dead, but are revived after a few minutes. Such people describe their spirits or souls rising above their mortal remains, hovering over their dead bodies and witnessing their relatives crying over their bodies or doctors struggling to revive them. Many such people have felt that they were travelling at tremendous speed through a hole or a tunnel of light, before reentering their bodies and living again to tell the story.

In Hinduism, after death the soul rises up and according to the accumulated karma or deeds it had committed during the previous lives and that life, takes a suitable body and returns to earth and takes its place in the hierarchy of the caste system. The soul or Atman is indestructible and keeps on going in the repeated cycle of life and death, until it exhausts all its bad karma/deeds and attains mukti or liberation from the worldly life and merges with the all pervasive Brahman or God or Paramatman.   

When one does not believe in God or creation by God, an atheist, life is just an accident of evolution and after death there is nothing, nothing at all. This leaves them in a very comfortable state as there is nothing to be elated about enjoying in heaven or worry about burning up in hell. Life just ceases at death; there is nothing more to it.

Buddhism takes on the law of karma and reincarnation from Hinduism, but believes that the cycle of birth and death should be avoided by achieving nirvana, or nothingness. This is also another type of extinction of life. They do not hold that there is an eternal soul.

Muslims believe that after death the souls go to a sleep state and are awakened to face judgment by Allah, who judges the resurrected souls according to their deeds on earth and assigns them either to hell or heaven. Souls after purgation in the purgatory are released into heaven.

Catholic Christians also believe in purgatory, where the souls after death spend some time according to the bad deeds committed by them during their life on earth, and then are released to heaven after judgment.

Among Protestant Christians, the belief is that the souls, after death, leave the earthly ‘tent,’ the body and go either to the paradise, if it is a good soul or hell-type of place, if it is a bad soul. On the judgment day, the souls enter the resurrection bodies prepared for them and Christ will judge the nations and assign good souls to heaven, where they enjoy the company of God and Christ forever and bad souls to hell to be tormented forever.

So which one of these narratives is true? Is there rebirth, life after life, at infinity? Or do we just cease to exist? Or do we languish in a purgatory till we pay off for our bad deeds? Or reach heaven or hell after judgment day, according to our deeds on earth? Soul searching questions!

What I believe is the biblical perspective. To read that you may have to wait till 15^th February, when I post my next blog, but I assure you, you will not be disappointed!

  

St. Teresa of Avila: Oh, What a Life!

Yes, what a life it was! What a glorious life! Incredibly a close walk with the Lord, and the recipient of favors from the Lord to a large measure, which cannot be imagined by anyone living today!

Teresa was born in 1515 AD, at Avila, Spain, born into a noble family. At the age of 21 she ran from home and joined the Incarnation of the Carmelite nuns at Avila, without telling her father who was opposed to it. Once she joined he relented. For three years she suffered from Malaria which left her very sick and during that time she developed mental prayer to Jesus Christ.

Once she was well, she started to practice her prayer life. As she started to get divine visions and visitations, she was scared and upset thinking these may be delusions from the devil and gave up her method of prayer and just lived as a nun under very relaxed conditions of convents of those days. Almost 20 years passed when a priest to whom she confessed exhorted her to continue these prayers, assuring her that these visions are not from the devil but from Christ himself.

Thereafter she started to practice her prayers again and she quickly started to receive divine favors, including visions, interior voices, revelations, ecstasy, rapture and visitations of angels and Christ himself. She was again plagued by doubts whether these are from the Lord or from Satan, who was trying to deceive her! But she never gave up her prayer life this time.

In spite of all these heavenly favors, she felt that she was a wicked person living on earth, worst sinner, and not in the least meriting any such favors from the Lord. What genuine humility! It might have been harsh self-criticism, but shows the caliber of a person of saintly nature.  

St. Teresa, on being coaxed to write about her experiences and her method of prayer writes her autobiography, which I happened to read recently. She also wrote other books like “The Way of Perfection,” “The Interior Castle,” “The Foundations” and “Meditations on the Songs.” Each one I am sure is worthy of reading.

The Ascent of the soul through prayer, according to St. Teresa, is achieved in four stages: Devotion of heart, where mental prayer, contemplating on the passion of Christ is engaged in; next stage is Devotion of Peace, where the will is completely surrendered to God; the third level is Devotion of Union, where the soul becomes absorbed in the goodness of God and is in a state of rapture submerged in the love of God and finally the Devotion of Ecstasy, where the spirit almost leaves the body to commune with God, inducing trance and even levitating.

The Protestant Christians may not even know about the existence of St Teresa, for they shun anything Catholic, because of Reformation literature and tradition. I would consider this attitude as a huge loss. Many of St. Teresa’s experiences, her own Carmelite order considered as induced by Satan and she was emotionally persecuted for the same. But for a few of her confessors and their encouragement to her, we would have lost all these!

Even I used to have doubts whether these could be true! But the Lord had assured St. Teresa that it was all from Him. If it were from the Devil, there would be no peace and quiet produced in the soul. The soul would be in turmoil and agony and be distraught.

More over every experience must be in conformity with the Scripture. Hasn’t Paul the Apostle written about visions and revelations? In the Second Epistle to Corinthians chapter 12, verse 2, he writes like this: ‘I know a man in Christ …who was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know – God knows...this man … was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell.” It is about such favors that St. Teresa writes, having experienced them herself.

Every religion has it mystics, Sufi saints of Islam, great ascetic swamijis of Hinduism (not the 21^st century swamijis discredited with sex and money scandals!) and St. Teresa is the Spanish mystic of the Roman Catholic church, belonging to the order of Carmelite convent.

St. Teresa was a Reformer of Catholic church during the movement of Counter Reformation. Amidst strong opposition, founded 12 Reformed Carmelite Order, St. Joseph’s Carmelite Monastery, all over Spain, where only 13 girls were admitted as nuns and they took vows of absolute poverty, austerity, contemplation, obedience and chastity. The monastery did not have financial provision or endowment, but was only based on faith in the Almighty Provider. Today they exist in almost all parts of the world, known for their piety, quite contemplative life and social work.   

How great it is even to think of such an order, where young people would join just to lead a life of contemplation of Jesus Christ, discarding the great materialistic attraction of the world and to live in self-imposed privation and poverty! Admirable to say the least!

Along with St. John of the Cross, she founded Decalced Carmelite order which could be called as Barefoot Carmelites, a Catholic mendicant order. These are for men and women and are found today all over the world.

St. Teresa died in 1582, and forty years after her death she was canonized and was also awarded the title of Doctor of Prayer for her expositions on the methods and power of prayer.

It is not without effort she became such a great Saint. I think she read almost all available literature on prayer and spiritual discipline and ways of close walk with Jesus Christ, known as mystical theology, written in Spanish or translated into Spanish.

She says in her autobiography, she used to think of Jesus Christ as present within her and it was in that way she prayed. She says she desired nothing neither the world nor anything that is worldly, and nothing seemed to give her pleasure unless it came from Him. Everything else seemed to her a heavy cross.

Her mental prayer was a sort of friendly communication and frequent solitary converse with Him. She sought solitude and quiet where she could concentrate on her Beloved. She used to imagine she was with Christ in his loneliest of times, like in the Garden of Gethsemane and meditate on that, which helped her to understand the severity of human sin and the great price Jesus paid for it.

She further states that all these help to develop within us a love of God entirely devoid of self-interest and that a person stats to desire periods of solitude in order to have such times with Him alone. The soul is not satisfied by the pleasures of the world and has no desire for them, because it has found its joy in God. It is a life lived to please God and not man or the world.

She never ceased from prayer; even when asleep, she writes, she seemed to be praying, for this made her grow in love. The Lord had promised her that He would readily do whatever she asked Him. Of course, she knew that she would never ask Him anything which He would not grant. Hasn’t Jesus said in the Gospel of John, chapter 16, verse 23, “…Very truly I tell you, My Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.”

The Lord Jesus Christ had assured her, St. Teresa writes, that He would never leave her and as a sign of His great love he said, “Now thou art Mine and I am thine.” How great and what a wonderful life! Are we not the Bride of Christ, getting ready for His Wedding Banquet?

Hasn’t the Lord said in the Gospel written by the Apostle John, chapter 15, verse 4, “Abide in Me and I in You?” How wonderful it would be, if we could learn how to abide in Him, as St. Teresa had learnt and have a close walk with Him as Enoch in the Bible had lived! (Genesis 5:24).

God grant us this grace so we could learn to live a life pleasing to the Lord Jesus Christ, as shown by these great souls. 

The All Consuming Love!

Today the sermon in my church was on the ‘more excellent way,’ advocated by Apostle Paul, “love.” It is a beautiful passage on love, taken from The First Epistle written by Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, chapter 13, verses 1 to 13.

It relevant portion goes like this:

“Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails.”

Aha, what a heavenly experience just reading this! But, where do you get a love like this? Where among human beings can you find a love like this? Is it humanly possible for us to love others like this? Perchance we may love our children like this, but what about the others!

Yet, Jesus showed a love like this, in that he sacrificed his life for the good of others; to redeem others, he became a victim of the system. Three more quotes from the Bible and then I am done.

“For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”  John 3:16

“God demonstrates His own love towards us, in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

“In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” 1 John 4:10

So God is capable of loving us like that, unconditional love, self-sacrificing love and love wholly for the good of others, seeking nothing in return.

What about us, the fallen human beings, whose inborn tendency is to hate, fight, take revenge, feel envious, boast, divide, destroy and so on, so forth? How do we learn to love like God, love even strangers and those who hurt us?

Well, He has not let us without help. Christ, as He promised, on his resurrection and return to Father in heaven, sent the Holy Spirit, who is our Counselor, Comforter, Advocate and Helper. He resides in those who believe in Jesus Christ and leads them in the right path. When we pray to God to help us in this matter, that is, to love every one like God, He helps us through the Holy Spirit.

“…the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” Romans 5:5

All that we need to do is to ask God to give us more of this love and He will oblige. Oh, how good it would be, if the whole world is engulfed in love, love for one another! It will become a much better place to live and to be happy. It will become heaven indeed, a heaven on earth!

Should we not try this? Let us…

Is Caste still a factor in Indian Society?

Is caste still playing a crucial part of Indian society? To put it the other way, has caste system as practiced for millennia in India, really disappeared from India? I am afraid not. This is evident from the latest episode in Indian scenario, where a Dalit (Harijan or a person belonging to Scheduled caste [SC]), 26 year old Rohit Vemula, committed suicide on 17^th January 2016, frustrated by the discriminatory policies of the university he was attending.

Rohit was a research scholar, who had obtained admission to the University of Hyderabad, on merit and not under quota of reservation meant for SC. He was a bright and promising scholar. Based on the alleged complaint in August, by the leader of ABVP, a youth wing of Bharatya Janata Party (BJP), the ruling party in the centre, and pursued by a central minister, Dattatreya, who insisted action be taken against him and his friends, five students, including Rohit, were kept under suspension and expelled from hostel, with their scholarships discontinued.

On January 3^rd, the suspended students moved out of the hostel, set up a tent outside the campus and began a relay hunger strike. On 17^th a distraught and discouraged Rohit after leaving a philosophical note, committed suicide by hanging in one of his friend’s rooms. This has flared up country wide agitations by University students in support of the Dalit student, who in his own words ‘was desperate to start a life,’ but frustrated enough to end his life even before it started.

Caste is ingrained deeply in the psyche of Indians, especially the Hindus. It is an ancient prejudice, which started with the Aryans pouring into Northern India around 1500 BC and subjugating the indigenous tribes and communities living there. This story is laid out in vivid narrative in the great epics of India, Mahabharata and Ramayana. It is another factor that BJP is trying now to rewrite history to say that Aryans are the original inhabitants of ancient India.

Dronacharya, whose story is given in Mahabharata, was a Brahmin teacher of advanced military arts, and the guru (teacher) of Arjuna, his favorite student, one of the five Pandava princes. Drona refused to teach Eklavya, a Dalit, who by his own efforts, keeping in front the idol of Drona, learnt the art of archery, good enough to become a rival to Arjuna.

Drona had no qualms in demanding the right thumb of Eklavya, as a ‘guru-dakshina’ (offering to the Guru or teacher), to eliminate a serious competition to Arjuna. Eklavya obeys, loses his thumb and with it his ability to operate the bow. This was taught as an example of how one should not aspire for more than what one’s caste had meted out to a person. 

This is the background of discrimination faced by the Dalits even today, after almost 3500 years, a few millennia. Rig Vedas written during the initial phases of this conquest, around 1500 BC invoke the assistance of Aryan gods to win victory over the indigenous rulers and tribal leaders. Around 800 AD, ‘Brahmanas’ were written which classify the castes, bringing in the indigenous population as the lower most caste subjugated by the Aryan invaders. The Epics act out the permutations and combination of all these forces to show vividly the caste hierarchy formed.

‘Upanishads’ written around 7^th century BC to 5^th and even 3^rd century BC, by renowned sages, lay down the most important precepts of Hindu philosophy. It is here an explanation for the caste system and its justification are given. People with greater sinful deeds, accumulated over many previous births, are born in the lower most castes of the hierarchy and are destined to suffer due to their own past actions.

Manusmriti, prescribing the social code of the Hindu society, gives the four classes/castes of Hindu society and details the duties of each caste. The lowermost caste, Sudra’s only work assigned is to serve all the three upper castes, of Brahmins (priests), Kshatryas (Warriors) and Vaishya (Farmers and traders). These can be read in detail in my book “Values and Influence of Religion in Public Administration,” brought out by Sage publications, 2011, under the chapter ‘Hindu Ethics.’

The Dalits are not even inside the caste system, but are outside the caste, as ‘outcastes’ and are treated as such, as polluting castes, made to eke out their living by removal of the pollutants of the villages, like dead animal and even the excreta of human beings belonging to the upper castes.

This is not an ancient story, but still existing one. Carrying night soil on head load by the Outcastes is still prevalent in many parts of the country. People belonging to the Dalit castes are the ones who still enter manholes to clean it up of the sewage blocks in almost all the municipalities of the country. The girls sold into prostitution, under the guise of being called by the divine, and married to the goddess under the Devadasi system, belong mainly to the lowermost castes and the outcastes. The system continues in many ways, open and subtly in the educational institutions and administrative corridors of power. 

It was the British rule that brought in equality before law for all the castes in India and education and employment opportunities to the lower castes and the outcastes and the tribes. That the British Raj fleeced India and turned it into an impoverished Third world country is another story. Details of this can be read in my book, under ‘Colonial Ethics.’

Equality before law as a Western moral code emerged, interestingly, from the Judeo-Christian ethical system, brought in to India by the British. This was not in existence before that in India under Hinduism, the majority religion of country. Some people, who eulogize Indian civilization as the greatest on earth, do not like such statements as above. For them Indian philosophy and religion are above any other belief system. This is being naive to say the least. Every country and every civilization has its dark patches as well as good patches. None is perfect in this fallen world.

To escape the rigors of the dehumanizing caste system and the karma theory, the depressed classes and the oppressed people took different routes. Dr. Ambedkar, who drafted the Indian Constitution, a Dalit himself and suffered at the hands of his Brahmin colleagues and society, became a Buddhist in 1956, along with 365,000 of his followers.

Many became converted to Christianity in an attempt to regain their lost human dignity. Others chose to remain in the same religion and tried to educate them to come up in life and to escape the indignities of caste system. Rohit, the research scholar was one such person. His dreams tragically ended in death. Yes, he chose to kill himself rather than suffer the system.

Will this curse ever leave India? May be, it will be wiped off only when the general curse on this fallen world is lifted, at the Second Coming of Christ.

We need to wait for that day. 

Answering the Questions…

In my previous blog, I had raised many questions, mostly of existential nature. I felt I cannot go ahead with any other writing, before I answer these questions, at least to the best of my satisfaction. I did answer them in that blog itself, but I don’t think I dealt with them thoroughly. Hence let me do that in this blog, before I go to resurrection and after life and proofs for them. Of course, I am answering from the point of a Christian worldview.  

The first question would be ‘Who am I?’ I would answer this in this manner: ‘I am the most loved creation of God, the Father, who created me in His image, to reflect His glory. His eyes saw me when I was in my mother’s womb and much before I was formed in the recesses of it.’ That makes me the most cherished person, a human being, made lovingly, and made to have a wonderful relationship with my Creator, my heavenly Father.

“Why was I born? What am I doing on earth? What is my purpose on earth?” These three are related questions. The answer, of course, will flow from the first. How do we respond to a loving father or a mother who care for us on earth? Yes, we love them in return and try to make them proud of us by whatever we do. We obey them when we are young and try to fulfill their plans or designs for us.

In the same way, we obey the commandments of God, as it is given in the Bible, and the teachings of Jesus, or even as it is written in the conscience of human beings, and make God our Creator feel proud of us. God boasted about Job to Satan, “Have you noticed my friend Job? There’s no one quite like him – honest and true to his word, totally devoted to God and hating evil?” That is what makes God proud of us, and He even boasts like a proud Father!

That is why we are born, to glorify the Father, our Creator and to bring Him honor and glory by our lives. That is our main purpose. This can be done wherever He has placed us, as a house wife or a career woman or a worker in the mines or an engineer or a Doctor or a minister in the church or a clerk in the government office. In whatever secular position you find yourself in this world, arrived at by your hard work or studies, you can work honestly, with integrity and fear of God that you have to answer Him if you do anything wrong.

The life on earth is like a probationary period, where we learn to live our lives according to the norms prescribed by God, without oppressing others, helping the poor, the marginalized and the suffering persons. In Bible God asks through His prophet, “What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” That is all basically God wants from us. To be just in our actions, be merciful to people who suffer and walk humbly before God, our Creator. No thumping our nose at God saying “This is my life; I will do what I want with it. Who are you to ask?”

Now, if you ask me the question, how do we know what God has prescribed, I can only point to you the Bible, where clearly in black and white God’s commands for a good and faithful life have been written down and given to us. This has been lived in practical terms by Jesus when he was on earth as a model to us. To people who say that in their religion there are no such clear teachings, I would only say that if there is a true God, who cares for us, and how we live in this world of His, He would definitely leave His commands and foot prints on earth. So you have to search and find the true God and then follow His commands.

When the probationary period on earth is over, which is temporary and transitional, then we are ready to go to a better place, the eternal place, where we will live for eternity in the company of God and Jesus Christ, living a life of joy and happiness in the presence of our God, forever. This world is a training ground for us, so we can be found worthy to live in the eternal world.

That is also why running after money, name and fame and material possessions will not really satisfy the human heart. It is made for something better, to live in the company of God, his Creator.

What is the meaning of this life? Meaning in life is given by doing any work, secular or religious, for the glory of the Lord. It has to be hard work, not hardly working or working only when the supervisor watches, but all the time according to our conscience. 

Whether we are managers or workers, officers or clerks, executives or assistants, house wife or the bread winning husband or vice versa (it is possible in the modern days), when we work like this, it will bring enormous satisfaction to life, which we usually call as, “Job satisfaction.”

To rise to the fullest of our potential, we need to become free of false notions of our happiness and satisfaction. True satisfaction lies in finding out what is God’s plan and purpose for us and then stick to it, whatever might be the difficulties.

The important thing is to work as if you are working for the Lord and not for your earthly supervisor. Then to whom does a CEO of a company answer? There is an ultimate Supervisor, God, for everyone. We are all answerable to Him ultimately. That should temper our dealings, in business or in administration or in service, to be honest and hard-working. Doing a useful job, to the full capacity of a person, being truthful to God and his earthly supervisors, will give meaning to one’s life. In addition to giving meaning to my life, it adds significance as well.

Not only that, but the fact that I am so deeply loved by God gives me emotional security, which in turn gives meaning and stability to my life. How do I know God loves me so deeply? Look at what He did. To get us reconciled back to Him, as it was in the Garden of Eden, to get back the lost human race, He incarnated Himself as a human being, in Jesus Christ, who lived his life as an ordinary human being, but as per the commands of God, loving and compassionate, till his enemies in the world put him to death.

Jesus died in our place, as a sacrifice, to pay the penalty of our sins, so that when we accept what Jesus did for us on the cross, and repent and seek his forgiveness, we are forgiven and given the righteousness of Christ, so that we can enter the presence of God, as pure and undefiled beings, and thus are reconciled to God. Is this a small thing for God to do? He paid a huge price just to get us reconciled to Him and to make us fit enough to come to His presence and inherit eternal life after death. Is that not proof enough for His love for us? Do we need anything more?

My main purpose in life is to be a witness to this love of God. To bring the knowledge of His love and the sacrifice that was involved, to all whom I can, so that we could all have the privilege of being reconciled to Him. This saving knowledge of Christ is not to be kept under a lock and key, secretly to be enjoyed only by those who are saved, but to be told from the roof top, so that many will benefit and come to this joy, which alone is permanent in this world.

As I think of Him in my bed when I an awake, and when I think of His love, His mercy and kindness, I am filled with joy that no one can take away from me. As I sing songs, hymns and Psalms during my restful times, I am so filled with His presence and His Spirit raises me up to stand on mountains and to walk on stormy seas. I draw my strength to live this life on the earth from moments like that.

That is my purpose. To become His child, His daughter, His most precious and cherished daughter, so I can sit soaked in His love, and spread His love to others, so that others may also know about Him and His love and enjoy such a beautiful relationship with Him. This gives meaning to my life. 

Who am I?

Who am I? What am I doing here on earth? Why was I born? What is my purpose on earth? What is the meaning of my life? I know I will finally die. Then what happens to me? Is there a soul in me? If so, does it outlive me? Where does it go once my physical body dies and perishes? Is there a life after death? If so where? What is the proof? And what do I do in that life after death?  

Wow, questions and questions! All seem to be existentialist questions, arising from the very fact that I exist. And if I exist there has to be a meaning for that existence. Or is that not necessary? To answer these various questions related to our existence on earth, philosophy and religion have arisen. These two branches of science try and deal with these questions.

I do address philosophy and religion as science because there is a lot of thinking, analysis, presuppositions, hypothesis and conclusions arrived at in these philosophical and religious musings. It need not necessarily be laboratory experiments that qualify a branch of knowledge as science.

Coming back to the questions, death seems to play a decisive factor in these quests for answer. Witnessing old age and sickness leading to death, Siddharth as a young Prince, understood the futility of life. He went on to become a Buddha when he propounded that the cycle of births and deaths can be conquered once we cut off the source of attachment to life, which is desire.

Easier said than done! Desire to get rid of desire itself becomes a desire and a bondage! What do we do then?

India is the land of Hinduism, for 83% of Indian people are Hindus. The basic tenets of Hinduism believe that the material world and the lives as we see are all an illusion and to break the cycle of repeated births and deaths into which souls have descended due to ignorance, is to attain liberation from this world and this life. Once the accumulated good deeds (karma) become more than the bad deeds (karma), the soul is released from the cycle and attains freedom.

The individual soul (atman), which according to Advaita Philosophy of Hinduism, is only an extension of the universal soul (Paramatman), on liberation, merges with the universal soul and lives eternally in that effulgent state. Of course, the soul loses its identity and with it any meaning for its existence. 

  

Till that happens, the soul keeps returning to earth as a life, now as a human being, now as an animal or a lesser being, according to the merits it has earned in all its many births. The whole of caste system in Hindu society is built on this Karma theory.

But how surely do we know about the previous births and the karma accumulated during such births? Who has seen it or where is the proof? Was it only a theory propounded by the Kshatrya (warrior class) princes, who in ancient India, labored to find answers to existential questions on earth and arrived at these conclusions, which became embedded in Hinduism as Upanishads?  

Even if we take karma operating as a mechanical force in lives to determine the birth of a soul in such and such a body, then doesn’t it become a mechanical force just as the evolutionary force, blindly grinding on towards nothing excepting existence? What is the meaning of such an existence? Why do we exist?

Well, an atheist would simply say that all this life is an accident that happened due to some chance by which our planet was formed and life originated, developed from simple to complex organisms. The only drive that keeps the lives going, according to this philosophy, is the desire to exist, reproduce and survive. The fittest survived and flourished. On death one simply ceased to exist. Then what is the meaning of life, nothing at all! 

Death is a great leveler. I just lost my batch-mate to cancer. She struggled, fought and finally succumbed. Being an atheist herself, she was able to accept the inevitable as another aspect of life and go on peacefully having determined in her mind that there is nothing beyond death.

In case there is a life after death, then what? Wouldn’t she have lost something?  

Bible teaches differently. It affirms the material world and all lives as real and good, created by a Creator God. We are created for a purpose. The purpose is to be in close communion with our Creator and reflect His glory and also bring joy to Him. Much like a painter delights in the painting he has painted. God loves His creations, especially human beings, the crown of His creation.

Life just did not evolve in an accidental manner by some fluke and develop into higher living forms like human beings over billions of years by trial and error, either due to evolutionary theory of the survival of the fittest or the karma theory of soul finding its body according to its accumulated merits earned in the previous lives.

Every life has a meaning and a purpose for which it is created by God. The goal of life would be to find that purpose and align with it and live one’s life. When our lives are aligned with the Will and purpose of God, we have an easy and a happy, fulfilling life. It could be any calling in secular life or a life devoted to God and His ministry.

Such a life will give us significance and meaning. It is not a life due to an accident or chance happening. It has a purpose and a goal, giving us significance. It also ensures security. We are not tossed and turned by every wave and wind in the world, or be at the mercy of some mechanical force, but have an anchor, the Creator God, on whom we can depend and who is faithful to those who love Him.

Our body which decays and dies and the soul that leaves the body at death, both will be resurrected to a glorified body with a beautiful soul, after judgment in the next world. Bible categorically says that there is a life after death, a spiritual world and in that life we will be clothed with a glorified body, with resemblance to our earthly bodies.

The proof is the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who appeared to his disciples and followers, more than 150 people, for nearly 40 days after his death and resurrection. The eye-witness statements are recorded in the gospels and in the letters of His disciples, now called Apostles.

That was a foretaste of what is going to happen to us after our own deaths. But the souls will have to wait for the end of the world as we know it, which will end when Jesus Christ comes back once again, this time in power and glory and put an end to evil.

A new heaven and new earth will be formed by God and those who believed Jesus and God would inhabit it and live for eternity in the presence of God and Christ. Individuality will not be lost!

How do we even know that these are not speculations like the ones narrated before? How can we be sure of these? Where is the guarantee that these will happen as it is written in the Bible?

More of this I will deal with in the next blog.