Death is not the End

For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

Kahlil Gibran

Death is something that we all experience at some point– the death of others and eventually our own. When a loved one dies, we experience the loss of that life in connection with our own. Besides sadness, there are often unresolved feelings and emotions that we must work through, and each experience of how we grieve is personal and varies according to the relationship we had with the deceased.

One of the biggest issues we tend to grapple with is the belief that death is the end, and while it is true that it is the end for this particular relationship and personality right now, many people believe that it is not over forever.

In many cultures throughout the world, the doctrine of reincarnation teaches that the soul does not die but is reborn into another body after a period of rest. In this way, the soul is ever evolving and growing, learning and progressing. Followers of this line of thought believe that we will meet up again with those whom we have interacted with in previous lives, picking up where we left off in our learning (kind of like at school, after a break) and we continue to do so until we have learned the lesson we’ve chosen to work on before moving on to another.

There are others who believe you only have one chance at life, so if you didn’t do it right the first time, you are doomed and there is no hope of ever making up for it. That’s a grim thought. While I understand that this line of belief is used as a deterrent for bad or immoral behavior, at the same time, it seems harsh and brings to mind the question, “What is the purpose of life?” It seems to me that with this way of thinking, to be other than perfect is to be a complete and utter failure and the punishment is forever, or that there is just absolutely nothing after this brief flicker of life in the grand scheme of things, again leaving us with the question, “What was the point?”

While no one really knows for sure what happens after someone dies, I personally believe that life and death are a natural cycle – two sides of the same coin, so to speak. The ideology of reincarnation is more comforting and tends to make sense, and better answers the questions posed earlier: the purpose of life is to learn, grow, and become better each time around.

End? No, the journey doesn’t end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it.

JRR Tolkien