Thanks, everyone for responding to the question “What do you think will happen to "you" after you die?”.
This is not the first time I posted this question. However, the responses were quite comprehensive this time.
Have you noticed that this question is meaningless without the definition of “you”, or “I am”.
In responding to the post, most of you have adopted what you have understood by “I am” as per your belief system.
Basically, there are two models of “I am” among the people.
One is that it is a single package (body and mind) that disintegrates into elements and unrecoverable energy at the end. This is quite compatible with our day-to-day observations of matter and energy.
The second model is the assumption of having an entity that can survive after the physical body disintegrates. This entity is referred to by various terms such as soul, ãtman, mind-body etc. As I made a rough estimation, about 90% of the world population that believes in a religion or philosophy adopts this model.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Now before stepping into the next phase of the discussion, let me look at the origin of religions, philosophies and spiritual concepts (henceforth all these are referred to as religion).
As I conducted a rigorous survey in this regard, I found that almost every religion has emerged to counter social issues of the time frame. There are many thousands of religions that have emerged on earth but only a few have survived in the long run.
What is the secret behind these few religions that are surviving for a long period?
Religions that helped rulers and clergy for governing the society, with modifications with time, could last long.
For societal control, after-life became a key factor from the beginning of civilization. People tolerated even social injustice & inequality hoping to have a better life after death. Similarly, they were scared to violate the religious rules and regulations for fear of afterlife punishment.
In a society where people are not psychologically developed to realize the way of life and control the emotions that will help the well-being of the society, essentially need directives of living, to stabilize the civilization. The existence of the entity “I am” after death, is essential to keep the civilization stable in such a human collection.
My estimation is that the human race needs at least 3000 more years to attain the spiritual status where they can realize how to live a good life (for the stability of the civilization) without believing the concept of crime & punishment decided by an unknown power.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
In the above backdrop, in simple terms, “Human beings need a religion until they realize that a religion is not needed for a livable world”.
One can easily understand now that the first model of “I am” is extremely dangerous unless the human race is well-developed in their intellectual capacity that they realize the right & wrong for the safe existence of the civilization at a given time frame.
Interestingly, out of the existing main religions at present, only Buddhism states the nonexistence of “I am” after death. I read/listened to many sources on Patichcha Samuppada, the essence of Buddhism, and found no place where it is mentioned about life after death. It is all about the suffering of a lifetime.
However, maybe at a later stage, perhaps during the time of King Ashoka, the wise people have understood the danger of this reality and introduced the “mind” or “thoughts” as the trans-migratory entity that continues from birth to birth, thus, the danger of the truth was evaded.
