What Lives On?

November 2, 2015

Are you afraid to die?

If your answer is “No”, I would like to send my sincerest admiration for you. It takes a lot of courage and compassion to overcome the fear of being deceased.

I am,though, scared to death whenever there is thought that might be some days, I and my family, my loved ones are gone from this world, and disappear from what I know of.

And I sense many of us feel that way as well. There are scientific researches on how to prolong the human life span. And in some wild science fiction theories, we assume there would be a breakthrough in technology that helps resurrect the decayed cells so that a human body can once again come back to the youthfulness.

I believe the reason we are terrified of dying because we perceive that our consciousness will be gone as my body deceased. For successful people, the fear might even be bigger, because what they have built is an empire, a legacy might be too big for others than themselves to handle. We are clinging on life because we see nothing in the death.

In Asian mythology, there is a concept of “reincarnation”. For that we believe after passing away from this life, we will travel into the land of no self. In this land, there is a trial hold by a jury panel to investigate the magnitude of our sins in the last life. If the result is an acquittal, they will send us to a portal where we will be handed a holy water bowl to forget our last life and reincarnate into the next life. A new life, a cleanse slate.

No one knows for sure but many people believe in it. To be honest, I do not agree with the idea of reincarnation at some point. The initial idea of it was to encourage people to live a fully good life. However, some people are too attached to the idea of there will be a clean start in the next life no matter how they mess this life up. And so often from what I read and heard, people commit suicides because they have suffered enough and the only way to escape from all the pains and sorrows is to end this life, and hope there is a better one ahead.

Unfortunately, unlike video games, life does not work that way. There is no reset button in life that magically turns everything to ground zero. The only remains from the suicidal acts might be the restless pains for the remaining loved ones.

What I believe, though, we cannot reincarnate into a new body but some how we can continue our life through the consciousness we have passed on. Through our constant actions, we might influence the life of other people around us and even influence to change ourselves. In other words, we have reincarnated our consciousness through our actions into the life of others and even our life. By influencing their lives, we already give a new life to form.

And don’t think that our actions might be too small to have any effects on anyone life. You may not imagine the magnitude of a humble act of kindness affects on others. For example, just by going to the gym and exercising frequently, we create a routine to keep our body in great shape and also have the endurance strength to cope with illnesses and diseases. Or an simple act of kindness to strangers is a perfect example for your children to catch on and learn to be a better human being. We make influences and change lives everyday by our most simplest acts.

We cannot be immortal and there is not yet a technology breakthrough that can help us achieve longevity in life. But we know how to pass our consciousness, our ideas, our beliefs to affect our life and others through our actions. The better our actions are, the greater we achieve in life.

Our body might pass away. But our mind lives on.

That is our legacy.

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