The BIGGEST SHOCK of my life, after I'm dead will be a non-entity! I am willing to take my just rewards (desserts?) here on earth (creating my own heaven or hell) and gamble that when I die..... I'll be DEAD, CAPUT, NADA, ZILCH, MELO. My body, which made a lot of noise when alive, will not be of any more use to me and can be utilized in any way modern medicine and science wishes to its fullest extent (ie. organ donations, transplants, medical student anatomy dissections, etc.) My soul... which I believe to be the essence of my being will live on in the memories of survivors for a few years .... not always favourably I'm sure but hopefully with some joy. My genes will survive in my offspring, of which I have two. The molecules of my being will be recycled into nature, hopefully to be incorporated into another living entity in the future, of which I will have no knowledge. NO ONE HAS EVER COME BACK but many believe that there is more, a belief that is fueled by stories that have been made up and embellished over the centuries. Our knowledge of our mortality has necessitated the need to believe in an afterlife which through the ages has taken up huge resources and entire life times to prepare for (eg. the pyramids with all the sacrificial paraphernalia including armies of servants!).
There is a resurgence of belief in an after life with TV shows (Medium) and programs (Revelations) putting ancient myths into believable visions. Books have been dedicated to explaining the hierarchy of angels in heaven! This is aimed at the public who are hungering for some meaning to our earthly existence. The power of the audiovisual medium can create believable footage (The Passion of the Christ) of mythical biblical stories (interesting analysis in 'The Pagan Christ' by Tom Harpur) which totally miss out on the actual message that the early Christian writers of the Bible were trying to tell us. Some of those teachings, common to all the major religions, have been put into readable texts for individual spiritual (human, not divine) development eg. 'Essential Spirituality' by Roger Walsh and 'The Power of Now' by Eckhart Tolle, to name just two. These are more essential readings from modern man than the ambigious, outdated, paranoid messages in the 'Good Books'. Your eloquent tribute to Dr. Helekar makes me proud to be a member of his tribe, even if he wants to disassociate from me after this post ;-) Kevin Saldanha Mississauga, Canada. ps. As for your reply with SUGGESTIONS FOR THE FUTURE OF INDIA... the booms in the automotive and tourism industries would be the heralding sound of imminent collapse of a basically agrarian society barrelling towards industrial annihilation. It is amazing how differently we view the situation and the solutions. We will not be here to hear the booms but maybe our children and definitely our grandchildren will if we don't do something about it now. Kevin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Date: Thu, 19 May 2005 09:07:50 -0700 (PDT) > From: Mario Goveia <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Finally, I suggest everyone relax and not get too > carried away by their beliefs. All these mysteries > will soon be cleared up the minute we die, when we > religious types will discover whether we placed our > faith unwisely and wasted plenty of time and money in > return for some temporal peace of mind, or whether the > atheists are in for the shock of their lives and > discover to their dismay that TIME did not begin with > the BIG BANG.
