When I die, does my soul cease to exist?
Is there something (or even anything) eternal about me?
I have spent my life searching for something spiritual to cling to. I want definitions, and facts, not faith and superstitions.
My spiritual searchings have taken me many places. Some of my searching have lead to the following:
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In Buddhist Dhamma, there is the concept of "Anicca".
Everything Always Changes.
Does this include reality, and facts? I think it does. Just like a river's atoms and molecules changes from one moment to the next. The river this moment, is not the same river in the next moment. Reality a minute ago, is not the same as reality now. Anicca
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Things I consider factual, and correct, seem to change. My reality, is just my perception. As perceptions change, reality seems to change.
The winner of a war, is the one to write the history books. Their version becomes the truth. Their version becomes fact. They decide what actions were moral and ethical.
Was the Hiroshima bomb moral? If Japan had won WW2, I am sure that the atom bomb makers and the decision to use it would be considered a crime against humanity.
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I was a vegetarian for 17 years. I did not believe that killing anything was necessary, even for food. Then one day, a friend and I were walking in the Okavango Delta. We were walking from Xaxaba to Maun. It would take us about 24 hours. It was a stupid thing to do. There were many ways to die there. I realized that about half the animals we saw would eat us, if given a chance, and the other half, we could eat. That put us right in the middle of natures food chain. That is where man naturally belongs.
My opinions, and my perception of reality changed.
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Maybe each individual atom has a tiny "soul". Many atoms together, and
each living thing has a distinct collective "soul". Is my soul simply the
collection of a zillion tiny atomic souls? When I die is my "soul"
simply divided into a billion small parts and each becomes part of
another "soul"?
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I like to think that millions of years ago a star exploded in another galaxy, and the atoms from the star were scattered throughout the universe. Some of those atoms hit a big rock in space. That rock then crashed into earth. Most of it burned up into the atmosphere, and some tiny parts hit the ground. My mothers garden got hit with a tiny bit of meteorite. The food she grew had some minerals from this space rock. The air she breathed had some atoms from the far away star that had exploded. Then I was born.
The atoms in my body are from all reaches of the universe.
When I die, my body will become dirt, and plants will grow from it. My atoms will become part of a horse, or bird, or a tree. In a few billion years our sun will explode, and turn the earth into space dust. The atoms that my body borrowed for a short time will now become part of another galaxy, star, planet, or maybe even eventually another life form.
From Stardust to Stardust.
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