Hassidic spiritual leader Rabbi Simcha Bunem of Pershycha once noted that “Every person should have two pockets. In one pocket, there should be a note that says, ‘for you the world was created.’ In the other pocket, there should be a note that asserts, ‘you are dust and ashes.’” These two quotes capture the interplay of perpetual perishing and everlasting life in human experience. Eben Alexander’s Map of the World attempts to describe the spiritual adventure, based on his understanding of near death experiences and a vision of multiple dimensions of the universe, leading to the possibility of many lifetimes.
Alexander rightly describes near death experiences as providing a type of proof that cannot be fully encompassed by the materialistic, sense oriented approach to scientific proof. Scientific research provides us with an important avenue of knowing the universe and human life, yet it is incomplete and cannot address the reality of mystical experiences. Mystical experiences, such as near death experiences, provide evidence, from an intuitive, ambient, transpersonal perspective, of deeper and higher experiences and realities that correspond with them just as “real” as the evidence supplied by sensory experiences.
As a Christian, I take seriously both the omnipresence and personality of God and the reality of other dimensions of life. The omnipresence of God insures that this world is real and not an illusion. God is as present here on earth as God is present in any other dimension. When Jesus prayed, “on earth as it is in heaven,” his prayer was ethical, spiritual, and metaphysical. First, Jesus’ prayer implied that God’s vision interpenetrates and moves through this world. We are “in heaven” now, but seldom recognize it because of self-interest binds us to individuality and separation. Heaven and earth are filled with God’s glory, as the prophet Isaiah discovers during his mystical experience at the Jerusalem Temple. Second, the statement “in heaven” suggests that we can experience God in transforming ways here and now, because God is the Spirit or Breath, the energy that guides and animates all things. Third, ethically speaking, our vocation is to live heavenly lives now, that is, to embody the highest ethical values of love, beauty, and justice, corresponding to God’s vision for the world in this earthly life.
We are dust, but we are everlasting, heavenly dust. The energy of this lifetime does not end at death, nor does our series of experiences and personal identity end at death. By our spiritual and ethical commitments and actions, we are shaping our own and others’ postmortem journeys. In bringing beauty or ugliness, joy or pain, to others’ experiences, we are contributing to their long-term identity, going beyond the grave. If personal identity means anything at all, it involves embracing our current life’s adventure as a springboard to post-mortem experiences. We become more personal in the afterlife, growing in new, creative, imaginative, and relational ways. While Alexander does not address the issue of ethics and the afterlife, a holistic vision of life suggests that the quality of this and other-worldly behaviors are interdependent. We can be both heavenly mind and earthly good.
This world is a dynamic realm of novelty and growth, and so is the future beyond the grave. God lures us forward in this world, guiding, empowering, and enlightening us in the context of our personal freedom and creativity and the gifts and limitations of our environment. In the heavenly realm – and I am not certain that we have multiple lifetimes, as Alexander suggests, but rather a continuing evolution in relationship with God and others – I believe that we continue to grow, making choices, and interacting with others. If there is any significant difference between this lifetime and the heavenly realm, it is the affirmative nature of the afterlife. We still have freedom as to the speed or nature of our growth, but the environment is supportive rather than ambiguous. We are on a journey toward wholeness and stature and so is everyone else. Accordingly, while some afterlife decisions may appear to be at cross purposes with others’ decisions, given our various personal adventures, our growing selves are transparent to God’s vision such that our intentionality is Godward and creative, rather than alienating and destructive. If there are “Hitler’s” in the afterlife, they are Hitler’s in the process of creative transformation, of seeking wholeness and forgiveness in relationship to those they’ve harmed. In fact, our spiritual evolution may involve overcoming the alienation we experienced with others in this lifetime on a “higher” spiritual plane.
Ironically, in light of the Christian image of resurrection, we may be more rather than less embodied in the afterlife, if, by embodiment, we mean holistic, interdependent, experiences of connection with one another. As everlasting and heavenly dust, our calling is to be in heaven right now, that is, to approximate the heavenly journey in ordinary life, by opening to divine guidance, the higher selves of those around us, and seeing and creating beauty in our life’s situation. Our calling is to immerse ourselves in the world of the flesh, knowing that this world of the flesh is divinely inspired and part of a greater spiritual journey in companionship with God and all creation.
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