On the Hereafter

================================================================= =============== On the Hereafter All rights reserved This article is a self-contained section to the Epilogue of my book titled The Mystery of Mind Copyrighted and published in the United States ================================================================= =============== Ever since the days of Plato, western religious opinion has always been that personal immortality pertains only to the rational parts of the soul. The biological and emotional parts should be allowed to let go with the body. The reason behind this move is not difficult to seek. For one thing, a personal soul without desires and emotions is more likely to be peaceful. For another, nothing but its more divine-like of aspects should be allowed to persist into eternity. But the truth of the matter is that in the more sophisticated of religious deliberations, personal immorality with memory has in fact never been thought of as a desirable commodity. Some, such as the more philosophical of Buddhist schools have always held a more radical point of view. It is that if eventual freedom from all sufferings is to be achieved, to let go of the biological and the emotional is not sufficient. Memory and the identity of self that it entails should also be transcended. The reason is that for as long as memory and self-identity persist, personal ambition would continue to lurk. What that nurtures again would be psychological torment. Thus, if all suffering is really to be overcome, all personal interests and concerns (and thus memories) should also be put to rest. To be able to do that, according to Buddhist thought, is to enter the state of torment-less bliss called nirvana. This is a state of being free not only from the burden old memory, but of any sense of self. It should thus be seen that contrary to popular understanding, nirvana is not a personal kind of place. What that implies is that those who enter would not know who they were. Such a state of being, if I may say so, is quite analogous to the situation of Adam and Eve before they ate the fruit of the