Sensible people plan their future, predict their retirement age and take out life insurance. But how many look a little further into the future and are really concerned about the fate that awaits them after death?
Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology, says,
“The decisive question for man is: Is he related to something infinite or not? That is the telling question of his life.
Only if we know that the thing which truly matters is the infinite can we avoid fixing our interests upon futilities and upon all kinds of goals that are not of fundamental importance.
Thus we demand that the world grant us recognition for qualities that we regard as personal possessions: our talent or our beauty. The more a man lays stress on false possessions, and the less sensitivity he has for what is essential, the less satisfying his life is. He feels limited because he has limited aims, and the result is envy and jealousy.
If we understand and feel that here in this life, we already have a link with the infinite, desires and attitudes change.
In the final analysis, we count for something only because of the essentials we embody, and if we do not embody that, life is wasted. In our relationship with other men, too, the crucial question is whether an element of boundlessness is expressed in the relationship.”
– From “Memories, Dreams, Reflections,” page 327, a partially autobiographical book by Swiss psychologist Carl Jung and an associate, Aniela Jaffé. First published in 1962 in German, English translation 1963, Pantheon Books.
Some categorically claim that everything ends when we die. Others believe that we cannot know anything about what happens after death. There are also enough of those who believe that the best way to secure a place in heaven is to go to church regularly.
The fact is that an objective understanding of what life after death looks like is not only possible but represents something absolutely indispensable in order to understand oneself and one’s inner nature.
The spiritual world is, however, not only the dimension where we are destined to spend eternity. Even if we are not aware of it, we live in a permanent relationship with the spiritual world. We ought to understand how it affects us in order to be better able to master life and its challenges.
The world-famous mystic Lorna Byrne has this to add,
“We have become a very materialistic society, and so frequently we look at death and ask, ‘Is this it? I rot away, and there is nothing more?’ I assure you there is more — much more. […] it is proven to everyone when they die. Some people feel that then it’s too late – if they have to wait to die to see the proof. People are given proofs while they are alive, but sometimes they have to look or listen very hard to recognize them.”
– From “Angels in My Hair,” page 174, an autobiographical book published in 2008 by Random House, written by Lorna Byrne, Irish mystic, spiritual teacher, and author of international bestsellers, about her communication with spiritual beings like angels, souls, and God. (New York: Random House, 2008), 174.
