Life After Life

©2013 by LeeZard

It’s true; you reach a certain age and you do start to contemplate mortality. Not that I’m obsessing (although LeeZard does have the obsessive gene); I just haven’t reached that stage yet.

But, I had a dream last night and, while it didn’t get me on the mortality train, it did open discussion on a subject I rarely even consider. Are you ready? I am talking about life after life (as I prefer to call it - so much more positive).

The dream was about my late, wonderful pal Brando-the Wonder-Dog (http://leezardonlife.blogspot.com/2011/11/2011-by-lee-somerstein-brando-wonder.html?zx=cc93a7f38b29e815). Even more than two-years after I had to put him down, Brando is often in my conscious thoughts. And, he has appeared in a dream or two but not like last night.

In my dream, I was on a crowded beach with lots of family and friends (currently dead and/or alive). I was off toward the water with a ball to throw into the ocean for my two dogs, Trooper (alive and well today) and the late, great Brando. For most of the dream I threw the ball into the water and Brando, way over at the other end of the beach, took off like he always did as if he were shot from a cannon.

While he never actually brought the ball back to me, another one always appeared in my hand and we would repeat the process. Finally, at the end of the dream, Brando is walking at my side as we approach my large group of family and friends spread across many beach blankets. While I don’t remember exactly what I say to the group it immediately becomes apparent that none of them see Brando; only I can see him. That’s when I woke up.

I’m sure Freud, Jung, et al would have a field day with this but I’ve never been one for dream analysis. I subscribe to what is called The Absence of (Dream) Theory. According to Psychology Today, the Absence of Theory contends that:

“Dreams are the random firings of a brain that doesn't happen to be conscious at that time. The mind is still ‘functioning’ insofar as it's producing images, but there's no conscious sense behind the film. Perhaps it's only consciousness itself that wants to see some deep meaning in our brains at all times.”

At first waking - without thinking intellectually about the dream - I felt a surge of sadness for my lost buddy, my eyes filling with tears. After explaining the dream to Wende, however, her take on it had me thinking quite differently.

She said, “I think Brando was visiting you, checking in to see that you were ok.” In a way, that made perfect sense; that was Brando’s full-time job when he was alive, to keep a constant, caring and protective eye on me. That is the way of German Shepherds.

As I am apt to do, I quipped, “When I die, I want to go to doggie heaven.” As she is apt to do, Wende ignored my quip and went on to remind me of an old Rod Serling Twilight Zone episode in which an old man is walking slowly along an isolated country road with his dog at his side.

Suddenly and angel appears before him and tells him it is his time to go to heaven. Upon reaching the Gates of Heaven, though, he is stopped and told his dog is not allowed in. Resolutely, the man turns and walks away, unwilling to leave his faithful friend.

The Twilight Zone twist was that the angel was really the devil in disguise, trying to lure him into hell. How could anyplace be heaven without dogs?

“That’s fine,” I said to Wende, “assuming you actually believe there is a heaven.”

Without hesitation she replied, “I do. I think you go to a place where all your people (and pets) are and you get to be with them forever.”

I’m not ready, however, to make that leap of faith. In fact, getting back to my opening paragraph, I’ve only recently thought of my mortality and only once or twice about any possibility of an afterlife.

I guess once you realize you are indeed mortal you start to explore the idea -nay, the hope - that maybe there is something beyond life after all. I’ve reached that point in my life.

Dante's Divine Comedy by Giovanni di Paolo (1403-1482)

Here’s my theory (or is it my hope?). Firstly, I do not accept the traditional Judeo-Christian concepts of Heaven (and Hell). In each of us is that “life form” or energy. Some call it our soul. And I believe this is so for the higher animal species as well.  Whatever you want to call it, I don’t believe when the human “carbon-based unit” ceases to function that the life force dies as well. I can’t tell you what happens next but, I am certainly not alone.

Elisabeth Kubler Ross, in her seminal book On Death and Dying, says:

“Death is simply a shedding of the physical body like the butterfly shedding its cocoon.  It is a transition to a higher state of consciousness where you continue to perceive, to understand, to laugh, and to be able to grow.”

My views are closer to those of the Hindu and Buddhist faiths. According to Chapter Two, Verse Twenty of the Hindu Bhagavad Gita:

“The soul never takes birth and never dies at any time nor does it come into being again when the body is created. The soul is birthless, eternal, imperishable and timeless and is never terminated when the body is terminated.”

And, from Buddhanet.net:

“Most religions believe that the core of the person, the real person, is the soul, a non-material and eternal entity that survives in the afterlife. Buddhism on the other hand says that the person is made up of thoughts, feelings and perceptions interacting with the body in a dynamic and constantly changing way. At death this stream of mental energy is re-established in a new body. Thus Buddhism is able to explain the continuity of the individual without recourse to the belief in an "eternal soul", an idea that contradicts the universal truth of impermanence. The circumstance into which one is reborn is conditioned by the sum total of the karma created in the previous life.”

What do YOU think? Is there something else out there or does it just end?