On the Hereafter
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=============== 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
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===============
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