Death
We've all thought about it. We think about it on a weekly basis, and the slightest thought close to reality about it sends chills down our spine. Death is the ultimate truth. But what does it mean for something to be the ultimate truth? How can we say so? Has anyone seen it? Yes, but not anyone who's alive. What lies beyond? Does anything lie beyond?
This, is Death. The ultimate mystery (for now at least).
If you're a socially active or an average internet surfer, you might have heard or seen people talking about near-death experiences, or NDEs, wherein, the victims see their own bodies undergoing operations (mostly) while they seem to be in the form of an unidentified ether, or soul. When pumped back into consciousness, these people elaborate each and every thing that had been performed or was committed during the time when they were 'physically' unconscious. But, if that is the case, how many kinds of selves are there truly? If a person undergoing an NDE is physically gone but still feels conscious, is there another dimension to our perception of consciousness? Well, we simply do not know. And it is okay for something to remain unknown, yet.
But what is death, really? I mean yeah death is obviously, well, death, but what does it mean though? Does a physical or medical definition completely encompass this worldly mystery? Well, I can give you opinions. Some well thought-out opinions and I believe that the answer for me is, no. And I do not see a big revelation towards this question of mortality for a long time. It's been centuries since the beginning of the scientific revolution and we've achieved tasks that are truly angelic and unbelievable. But very less, almost close to anything has been known about death and the mystery of mortality. And I believe this will be the case for the upcoming decades, because of the sole reason that we really do not know where or how to begin searching for death. What do we do? Do we medically examine the brain (the main blob of our body) while someone leaves this world? It doesn't help because after a while the brain just shuts down. We have no idea how to 'hold on' to someone's consciousness. A big reason being that we cannot imagine how to go about doing something like that. Einstein's imagination about moving at the speed of light made him discover the theory of relativity. Newton's imagination about the moving of planets and heavenly bodies gave us the first development towards the field of gravitational mechanics. But how do we even go about death?
By the time, can we just think about it? Is death all there is after our life or is it like a portal to another consciousness? We cannot most definitely say yes or no, because the world is weird enough to say anything particular without any evidences. But everything is open to speculation, to some extent at least. Being someone who has had an NDE myself, it changed my perception towards life and made me realize that there literally is a lot more than we think there is. Also lo and behold, I am a science student so I know my limits, but it's not wrong to have a perception like that. As science is all about being open to new ideas and notions and if there is something that the scientific history has taught us, it is that never dismantle any ideas that first seem wrong because chances are, they might end up being the very descriptions of reality. But, anyways, it is still only a perception and not a theory.
Whatever the answer may be, it is not certain that we will unlock the mysteries of the afterlife. But the only option is to remain optimistic (and realistic) and work our way through the dark. We will see the light.