The Hereafter
How much energy is invested in chasing concepts of the Holy Grail of The Hereafter? Or avoiding it and it’s reckoning? How many folks dream of a better place somewhere in the distance of both time and space and anxiously pursue it? Or resist a future nightmare vision with all their might? Are they running on a treadmill in a tremendous hurry to get nowhere beyond where they started?
Two of the greatest philosophers of all time would appear to advise that this perhaps may be the case.
Consider first Jesus (Yeshua) and then Lao-tzu (Laozi).
The disciples asked Yeshua:
“Tell us, what will be our end?”
Yeshua answered:
What do you know of the beginning, so that you now seek the end?
Where the beginning is, the end will also be.
Blessed are those who abide in the beginning,
for they will know the end and will not taste death.
- Logion 18 The Gospel of Thomas (Jean-Yves LeLoup)
- - -
Empty your mind of all thoughts.
Let your heart be at peace.
Watch the turmoil of beings,
but contemplate their return.
Each separate being
returns to the common source.
Returning to the source is serenity.
If you don’t realize the source,
you stumble in confusion and sorrow.
When you realize where you come from,
you naturally become tolerant,
disinterested, amused,
kindhearted as a grandmother,
dignified as a king.
Immersed in the wonder of the Tao,
you can deal with whatever life brings you,
and when death comes, you are ready.
- Lao-tzu, Tao Te Ching (Stephen Mitchell)