A short discourse on eternal life: Part I.

The goal of the religious and spiritual quest is often described as immortality or eternal life. Humanity has always excoriated (This means “to wear down” by the way) under the limitations of mortality and death, and people have found in religion and spirituality the means to transcend the death which seems to prohibit or at least dilute the possibilities of human existence. Yet every person has an eternal spirit as his or her birthright as well as a sense of eternity in his/her heart, as it is said somewhere, "It is beautiful how God has done everything at the right time. He has put a sense of eternity in people's minds. Yet, mortals still can't grasp what God is doing from the beginning to the end of time".

Everyone will continue eternally in some form of existence after the end of this brief physical life on earth. The question of eternal life, therefore, does not mean eternal existence per se, but rather what form it will take, and whether death will remain a barrier to human fulfillment. This is exactly where men have speculated over the years: Some think that everything ends at the grave, other think it will be OK for everyone after this life, still other think what you do in the present life will determine your eternal state, and so on.

We find that the scriptures of many religions give two meanings to the terms "life" and "death." There is the physical meaning of life: existence in this physical realm, and there is the spiritual meaning of life: the state of blessedness which is enduring from life to life and hence transcends death. There is the physical death: the dropping of the body which is an event in the journey of every soul, there is the spiritual death: the condition of distance from God, ignorance, or wishful disobedience to the laws and principles of God; and there is eternal death, an actual indefinite and painfully regretful hellish state of existence in the hereafter.

Hence, when the question of salvation (of the soul) is at issue, the outcomes called "eternal life", "Life in Heaven" and "immortality" are often jargons to describe the condition of blessedness. This condition is present already in the physical life of the person who realizes Truth and lives in ...

(To be continued)